Gaelan and I went to Los Angeles this weekend and had an amazing time!  We celebrated her 28th birthday at the Getty Villa and with an elegant steak dinner at BOA Steakhouse, and laughed until we split our ribs, at Donald Trump, the Kardashian mom and David Spade… who we sat near by.  They were hilarious and weird, the scene is out of some kind of freaky LA text book.  We hung with Gaelan’s sweet friend’s who just moved to Santa Monica and we all partied together at the Bazaar at the SLS and Chateau Marmont…  We crashed at our media mogul’s Malibu beach house and surfed off the front deck of the house!!   We had dinner on the second night at the Inn at Seventh Ray. It was something out of a dream, a most unique experience in an old hippie commune town.  Finally, we had lunch with my new business partner Ricki Lake and friends at Shutters on the beach.  A long walk down the Santa Monica pier and we drove back to Cardiff with out hitting traffic, Phew.  Happy to be home in our mellow little surf town.  Life is good!  Happy Birthday Gaelan!!!  Love you!

To all of our Lovely Lady Members,

We are planning a fabulous ladies night out…just for you! We have partnered up with some AWESOME businesses in the area to showcase some of the hottest trends in food, fashion, beauty and health. Mark it down on your calendar..Saturday, October 2nd, 6p-10p.

Just out of curiosity…what do you think is the most important detail in planning a Ladies Night Out? The food? The cocktails? The music? Share your thoughts below!

Man, am I excited. Jason and I have cooked up the coolest new fitness business model. The fuse is lit and things are set to explode!! We’ve put it all on the line to get to this point! It’s so much fun engaging in our program and developing new tools to help people who want to help themselves get BETTER. It’s not even really work for us, just a passion, 24-7. Right now we have a sweet “one-stop-shop” private coaching facility on the beach in San Diego and people LOVE IT! But what everyone doesn’t see, is our plans to scale this unique physical training, therapy and nutrition system to multiple facilities with the support of an incredible website, which represents a total advancement of what people know of “online-fitness”. We are developing the ultimate motivational and educational fitness site/app which will empower the members and staff of our company and position EZIA firmly at the front of the pack for the next (and possibly biggest yet) wave of the ever changing fitness/wellness industry. Our development partners represent a team of the most acomplished professionals in the website/design/wellness fields. Stay tuned for something extrodinary. Oh, call me a crazy dreamer with my head in the clouds…. I dare you .

One of the most common questions I am asked when boasting about EZIA Human Performance is:  “So what kind of machines do you have?”
Quite often my answer is countered by ruffled brows and pursed lips of puzzlement.
Well, how can you be such an amazing facility without a leg press or a hamstring curl?

Firstly, I would like to state that I am not 100% anti-machine.
Machines have a time and place in the realm of fitness, (primarily bodybuilding), but here at EZIA, we specialize in Human Performance.

Performance: the action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function

It is true that humans are born with varying abilities of movement, but, generally, we are a species that bend and twist and jump and reach and squat and pull and press. Functional exercise addresses those movements and combinations of movement that are produced everyday.  As Karel Bobath, a neurophysiologist, has plainly stated,

the body knows nothing of muscles, only of movement.

Let us look at one of the most popular machines used in the gym environment: the leg press.
In a typical leg press machine, an individual would load the machine with weight plates, step into and lower their body into a fixed bench, then press X amount of pounds against gravity.

Breaking this down:

1.) Once you sit your body down, you have shut off your postural muscles. Your postural muscles are ESSENTIAL to proper movement and injury prevention. To both our detriment and survival, the body will adapt to a weak infrastructure by recruiting ‘large’ muscles to compensate for the ‘smaller’ stabilizing muscles. But we don’t want that! Unfortunately, machines encourage that!
2.) How often are you sitting and pushing weight away from you? In real life, we are typically moving our own body over a fixed surface. Whether walking, running, skipping, lunging, squatting, etc., our muscles are acting in three ways: isometrically (stabilizing), concentrically( causing movement), and eccentrically(reducing movement). When sitting in the leg press, your postural muscles are pretty much shut off while focusing on the concentric portion of muscle contraction.  So, the leg press, as with many other machines, encourages unnatural movement and use of the body.

3.) Once again, our bodies know of movements not muscles.  Movements allow us to play sports, keep up with our kids, run on the beach, walk to our car and get in and out of it, push shopping carts around the store.  Machines isolate muscles.  You can have the choice:  just get by with some moderately strong muscles or  you can choose to activate your potential! The National Strength and Conditioning Association has published extensive research on the comparison of fixed machine use vs. free weight resistance exercise. Studies have shown that fixed machines may have increased strength by 58% and balance by 49%, but the use of free weight resistance training has yielded a whopping 196% increase in strength and 245% increase in balance! So how do you want to train!? Honestly, I  am more impressed by the ability to maneuver INTO a machine more than actual use of it!

Imagine the scenario: A mom is carrying her sleeping child in her arms to her vehicle. Woops! She drops her keys.  Chances are, she will shift the child over to one side of her hip, squat down and lean over as she reaches for the keys with one arm. Generally speaking, which exercise would have been more beneficial to her in terms of performing that seemingly ordinary task? Pressing  X  amount of pounds with her legs  against gravity or, let’s say, a squat  or a lunge with a bicep curl? That is just an example. Are you a surfer? A rock climber? A soccer player? How is machinery serving your athletic performance?

When you walk into our facility, you won’t find rows of powder coated machinery. You will find:
Stability Balls
Cable Machines
Squat Rack
Balance Boards
Pull Up bars
Kettlebells
Dumbbells
Lots of smiling faces!
And two DOORS. Doors  that lead to the outside world. Your fitness isn’t merely manufactured within a building. Your fitness is cultivated in YOU. Whether you are in a gym or out in the water or at a park.
Whether you are a mom who wants to keep up with your toddler on the playground or an elite athlete looking to maximize your performance, (or both) EZIA Human Performance is the concept for you!

I find it SO EXCITING what the body can do and I hope you take the time to find out what yours can do!

Skip the shiny machines and:

Feel free to contact me for your complimentary consultation today!

Sources

Chek, Paul. Movement that Matters. San Diego, CA, C.H.E.K. Institute, 2000.

“performance.” New Oxford American Dictionary. 2009. Apple Inc.

Spennewyn, Keith C. (2008) Strength Outcomes in Fixed Versus Free-Form Resistance Equipment. Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, doi: 10.1519/JSC.0b013e31815ef5e7.

ALOHA, and welcome to Robin’s corner, home of Health facts and snacks.  I will be bringing you the ultimate nutrition tips, recipes, and affirmations regularly to fulfill and inspire whatever mood you may be in.

TODAYS RECIPE:  ROBIN’S BIRD SEED

Ingredients: sprouted buckwheat (kasha), spelt oats, sprouted wheat berries, raw almonds, raw pepita seeds, sprouted sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, flax seeds, hemp seeds, chia seeds, bee pollen, nutritional yeast flakes, sundried pomegranate seeds, goji berries, robin’s heart & chi!!!

All the ingredients are available in the bulk at Jimbo’s.  I usually buy a half pound of each of the first 10 ingredients and 1 cup each of the rest and make a big batch and store in the freezer in individual air tight glass jars (since the nuts & seeds are sprouted they tend to mold fast).  Sprouting is necessary to cut the phytates which helps for more optimal absorption as well as cutting the fat content.  Sprouting means soaking them for 24 hours in water in the refrigerator.  Place the first 10 nuts and seeds to be sprouted in a big bowl adding twice as much water than the seeds and place in the refrigerator uncovered for 24 hours. The next day the nuts and seeds will have soaked up all the water.   Rinse in a colander and grind in a food processor (but not all the way to make butter).  It is more like a seed mixture to sprinkle on yogurt, granola, salads, in smoothies ,etc.  Add 1 cup bee pollen, 1 cup nutritional yeast flakes, 1 cup pomegranate seeds, 1 cup goji berries and mix all together.  This is an awesome protein source.  Let me know what you think and better yet if you want some ask me and I will gladly make it for you!  ENJOY