Fitness Reads: Charm any customer? The next fitness craze?

What did the SNEWS team read this week that other industry insiders might find interesting? Read on to find out!

• We’re all in some form of sales in this industry. So check out this Inc. Magazine story that gives tips on how to charm a complete stranger. If they could work for an FBI agent who charmed criminals and spies, surely it could work on our customers (or in our case, sources).

• Performance apparel is offering more features than ever, from cooling technologies to sun protection to odor resistance, but sometimes hefty price tags keep consumers from purchasing the good stuff from your stores. What are they buying, you might wonder? We think these products mentioned in this story — such as Champion apparel from Target and Danskin Now apparel from Walmart — might be on their shopping list.

• Famed rapper Marshall Mathers, aka Eminem, made the world aware that fitness could help recovering addicts when he made his love affair with running public several years ago. Mathers says running helped him kick the drug and alcohol habit and got him fit to boot. Turns out he’s on to something; this story confirms that exercising can help addicts with recovery.

• Yoga is rising in popularity, and you’ve told us that yoga accessories are hot sellers. But are you missing out on customers afraid to practice at home? If so, check out this story about at-home yoga practice myths and help dispel them.

• We saw the Queenax functional fitness gym at IHRSA 2012 in Los Angeles. According to this Sydney Morning Herald story, classes for the product might just be the next big thing. The story features the company and the military man behind it.

• We have awesome sister publications like Climbing and Yoga Journal, so there are a lot of talented yogis in this office. One in particular always has new shots up on Facebook of some contorted pose we couldn’t even dream of doing. Turns out she’s not alone. According to this Yoga Journal blog post, the selfie of epic yoga poses is a trend.

• Exercise isn’t a hobby. Sorry, we’re about to hop on our soapbox, but it really should be part of our daily self-care routine (we’re totally preaching to the choir right now). This Huffington Post story also reports that exercise isn’t a hobby that we can engage in when we’re feeling the urge — rather it’s something we should do daily to help us with our mind-body connection and to feel stronger.

• They say it takes 28 days to make or break a habit. According to this Q&A with Fitness Instructor Tracy Anderson exercise should be a habit, and good habits require focus. Check out the story for more fitness and wellness tips from Anderson.

• So we’re not proud of what we’re about to admit: Several weeks ago there was a tired girl in an apartment, alone with a box of cookies. It didn’t end well. We were quite certain heading to bed that night that the cookies were making their way to our hips, our thighs and our butt. But we woke up the next morning the same size, headed out for our jog and never looked back. Turns out sticking to a regular exercise regimen alters the way our bodies store fat. What we understand from this article is your body becomes more efficient at burning fat and not storing it as quickly as it had prior to becoming an exercise beat. Bless all those marathons we’ve run. Still, the lesson’s been learned: Just say no to cookies, even though our bodies are fat-burning machines.

• We constantly see men at the gym shaking up their protein treats before and after a grueling workout. While we buy into the whole eggs and almonds thing to get in our protein we got to wonder just what is the point of protein? We were aided in our mission for information by this Competitor story about the “skinny” on protein. The story clears up some confusion about protein like people other than bodybuilders need it to recover.

Did you read anything interesting this week? Email it to us because we want to read it, too!