SNEWS best fitness reads from around the web

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

• We recently chatted with Denver, Colo.-based Personal Trainer Vince Trujillo about common mistakes people make when starting a New Year’s resolution exercise plan. He said that people want to undo all their years of inactivity in a single week. Easing into a program is key, according to this Star Press story. That ensures your customers won’t get bored, tired or hurt and makes it more likely they will achieve their goals.

• According to this All Things D story, more than 220 companies were touting wearable tracking devices at last week’s Consumer Electronics Show, several of which we included in our wrap-up. While the category hasn’t become an every-day item for consumers, manufacturers are attempting to make wearable fitness trackers smarter and more interactive. This must be a category that’s about to blow up!

• It’s something many of us have noticed over the years: When we go to the doctor, they don’t really ask us how much we exercise or other daily activities, rather they skip ahead to prescribing pharmaceuticals. That might be a practice of the past as this U.S. News report shows that medical charts could soon include a patient’s exercise minutes.

• But judging from this Metro story, not all doctors are simply about prescriptions and instead address the root cause of some of our health woes. This story features Dr. Andre Giannakopoulos, a New York-area based doctor who specializes in obesity and weight loss.

• We all know January is a big month for the fitness industry, but according to this New Age story, it’s a close second after March, which is actually the busiest season for gyms. That comes from figures from IHRSA, the article said. March is the busiest, experts say, because people are looking to shed extra weight ahead of swimsuit season and summer vacations.

• The mind of a teenager is a mysterious thing. We’ve read countless articles that suggest exercise helps the mental, physical and spiritual health of adults, but turns out it has all those effects and more for teenagers. This NPR story talks about how teens who participate in organized sports

• It’s Friday and who doesn’t want to see crazy pictures of ridiculous fitness fads fro the past? We know you do, so that’s why we included this Daily Mail story that depicts ads of fitness products from year’s past, including the golden nugget sauna exercise suit and the Twist and Tone, which apparently you can use with your business apparel.

• Now that it’s a new year, we have a whole fresh set of fitness trends to look forward to, but judging from the forecast we recently read in this News Magazine Network story, the trends aren’t too much different than they were in 2012. There is still going to be a focus on body weight training, fighting childhood obesity and fitness professionals using more data to advise their clients. Plus, the article said, small group personal training is going to be popular, meaning three-on-one instead of one-on-one personal training time.

• Speaking of 2013 fitness trends, find out what MSNBC thinks are the “wackiest trends” of the year so far, including indoor surfing and belly dancing. We always enjoy watching perfect TV people looking goofy on air, and this video did not disappoint.

• Wow, they don’t mess around in trying to solve the obesity crisis in London. According to this Time article, obese Londoners could lose their welfare benefits if they don’t complete a doctor-prescribed exercise regimen. Check out the story and tell us what your thoughts are.

Have you read anything interesting you’d like to share with us? Send a link to the story to us and we’ll check it out.

–Compiled by Ana Trujillo