SNEWS best fitness reads from around the web

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

• That damn scale could be your enemy or your best friend — it all depends on what you’ve been eating (and which workouts you’ve been or not been doing). According to this Kansas City Star story, it should not even be a part of your life, at least not if you are focusing on fat loss. Fat loss and weight loss are not the same thing. Instead of a rinky-dink scale, get yourselves a pair of “thermometer jeans” (i.e. skinny jeans) to measure how you’re doing.

• Testing gear keeps us busy as bees and active as ever, and this must explain why we at SNEWS are so darn smart. This brief from the Atlantic, brought to us by Yahoo! News, said exercise makes people smarter. Basic exercise like riding a bike or weight training keeps you sharp.

• Sometimes fitness equipment, and effective fitness habits, can seem like rocket science, but retailers can help your customers by showing them informative stories like this one in the North Jersey Record, which discusses ways to utilize the right muscles at the right time for a killer workout.

• CrossFit is blowing up. Everyone from elite athletes to first-time exercisers are reaping the physical benefits of the intense program that encompasses a wide range of exercises. This OregonLive.com story dives deeper into CrossFit’s origins and popularity.

• Unlike with alcohol, food can’t be given up when it starts to become a problem, but this Skwigg blog post gives you some insight about eating what you love, and loving what you eat. It’s a review of the Michelle May book by that title and goes over the basics of the book, from determining whether you’re really hungry before you binge to nutritional guidelines.

• Next Saturday in Flint, Mich., parents and children will come together and show one another fitness is fun at Crim Fitness Foundation’s free P.A.C.E.S. Day (Parents and Children Exercising Together), according to this MichiganLive.com story. Maybe this is a good place for our Michigan retailers to scope out potential new customers, in a totally noncreepy way

• While Flint has yet to have its day, Bainbridge, Ohio had it’s day of fun and fitness on April 15 at Kenston High School, according to this Cleveland.com story. The day, called Play Blue in Motion, featured 1996 U.S. Olympic gold medalist Dominique Moceanu. Looks like a few communities are helping to groom your future customers!

• Obviously total body fitness matters, but why exactly? Columnist Jackie Write explains it in this Ski-Hi Daily News story. She gives three examples of clients whose total body fitness has deteriorated and ways trainers can approach recouping it.

• OK, SNEWS has learned its lesson after reading this Independent Mail article: No more doing Rosetta Stone sessions on the elliptical. Apparently, in order to reap the benefits of exercise, we need to start increasing the intensity of our workout rather than increasing the intensity of our language learning.

• SNEWS has brought you multiple stories that talk about all the health dangers exercise helps keep away and this Associated Press article further confirms exercise’s healing traits. Turns out doctors are recommending people whose cancer is in remission exercise and eat right to keep it from returning.

Have you read anything interesting you’d like to share with us? Maybe we’ll include it next week’s column with a little shout out to whoever sent it to us. Send a link to the story with the subject line “SNEWS Reads” to be considered.

–Compiled by Ana Trujillo