27 Jan
Blog

6 Reasons To Add Strawberry Rhubarb Dermafoliant To Your Routine

With countless fans, rave reviews and awards, our Strawberry Rhubarb Dermafoliant has earned its status as a skincare staple and gentle exfoliator. Here are six reasons to add this beauty editor, celebrity and makeup artist favorite to your routine.

Strawberry Rhubarb Dermafoliant

1. Beauty Editor, Celebrity & Fan Reviews

Beauty experts agree that our Strawberry Rhubarb Dermafoliant is the key to beautiful skin. Refinery29 Beauty editors call it the perfect choice for keeping skin in tip-top shape between spa visits.

Westworld star Thandiwe Newton swears by it, saying, "All natural and organic, smells divine, and is gentle enough (but really effective) to use morning and night." Celebrity Makeup Artist Pati Dubroff adds Strawberry Rhubarb Dermafoliant to her skincare arsenal and tells NewBeauty it's a must-have for her A-list clients.

Our customers also rave about the Dermafoliant. a customer jenniferShe says: "I love this stuff!!!! I've been using this product for about 9 months. I was turning 50 and realized I needed to start with good skin care… This was recommended to me by a friend. My skin looks amazing!”

2. Made from natural ingredients

With the addition of water, Strawberry Rhubarb Dermafoliant transforms into a creamy paste that sloughs away dead cells and polishes skin's texture, revealing a smooth, flawless-looking complexion.

This popular scrub is enriched with natural ingredients that work together to cleanse and polish the skin. Strawberries with Salicylic Acid gently exfoliate and remove impurities to brighten skin and reduce the appearance of pores. An excellent source of ascorbic acid and vitamins, rhubarb helps minimize the visible signs of aging. Chickpea Flour reduces the appearance of pores, while Lactic Acid and Rice gently slough off dead skin cells to improve skin texture for a rejuvenated appearance.

This formula also contains medicinal peat to deep clean and polish the skin, as well as a Biocomplex, a booster of antioxidants, coenzyme Q10 and alpha lipoic acid to reduce the appearance of wrinkles.

3. Dermascope Aestheticians' Winner Choice Awards 2021

Strawberry Rhubarb Dermafoliant is one of our best-selling products, which is reflected in our awards for this product. In 2021, more than 73,000 licensed estheticians and industry professionals voted our Strawberry Rhubarb Dermafoliant as their "Favorite Scrub".

4. Uses both physical and chemical peels

The Dermafoliant uses both physical and chemical peels to polish your skin. The physical exfoliation is thanks to the addition of oil-absorbing rice powder, which polishes and smoothes the skin's texture. At the same time, the formula also contains lactic and salicylic acids to chemically exfoliate away dead skin cells, revealing flawless-looking skin.

5. Multiple ways to exfoliate

Designed to activate when combined with water, the Strawberry Rhubarb Dermafoliant is what you would call a powder-to-paste scrub. For correct use, put a small amount of dry powder on your hand, add a few drops of water and rub your hands together. As you add water, watch the creamy paste form. You can either use it neat as a paste or mix it with a detergent if you prefer. It depends on you!

6. Naturally scented

This cleansing daily scrub is formulated with the delicious scent of strawberries and rhubarb. In addition, strawberries are an excellent source of vitamin C, flavonoids and ellagic acid, all of which combine to promote a radiant complexion.

Is Strawberry Rhubarb Dermafoliant part of your skincare routine? We'd love to hear what you love about it! Share your thoughts with us in the comments below or join the conversation on social media.

This article was originally written in January 2018.

21 Jul
Blog

4 Reasons to Ditch the App and Begin a Personalized Fitness Plan

If your fitness program isn't personalized, chances are that you might have problems with missing results or, worse, injury.

So you've signed up with the latest cool app that claims to deliver personalized workouts and promise results. You have been following diligently for two months, but are slowly getting bored and skeptical because you are not seeing the results you expected.

Continue reading

20 Jul
Blog

4 Reasons to Ditch the App and Begin a Personalized Fitness Plan

If your fitness program isn't personalized, chances are that you might have problems with missing results or, worse, injury.

So you've signed up with the latest cool app that claims to deliver personalized workouts and promise results. You have been following diligently for two months, but are slowly getting bored and skeptical because you are not seeing the results you expected.

Continue reading

26 Mar
Blog

3 Reasons You Should Add Cycling to Your Fitness Routine

Nobody loves cardio. This is the most tedious part of a fitness routine, and many people skip it altogether. This is because, for the most part, our imagination of cardio spends 30 minutes on a treadmill staring at a wall. An alternative way to incorporate cardio into your fitness routine would be on a bike. Bicycles are useful in many ways and have the advantage of being great calorie burners. However, they have a ton of other fitness benefits that you should know about.

Here are some reasons everyone should add cycling to their fitness routine. We'll also give you some tips on how to do this safely and efficiently.

It's a great form of transportation

The biggest benefit of cycling for fitness is that it gives you the opportunity to do so while getting things done at the same time. You don't have to worry about two hours of cardio a week if you use it to go to work or run errands every morning. You will also find that from time to time you may want to take pleasure drives. That way, you can either burn calories more easily or maintain a healthy weight.

It is fun

Cycling is also a fun way to burn calories. Some people really do it and decide to go on long trips. It's difficult to be an avid cyclist and not be in shape. When it becomes your passion, you no longer have to worry about gaining weight or losing weight.

Cycling is also a great way to get the whole family involved. If you want your kids to get active, get them a bike early on. It becomes part of their lives and you don't have to ask them for some fresh air. This is a great habit that is instilled in a child that they may maintain for the rest of their life.

It's great for recovery

Many people have felt that rest means that there is absolutely nothing you should do during your days off. But that's not correct. Being lethargic means there is less blood circulation and fewer nutrients getting to the areas where it is needed.

Instead, you need to do an active restore. This is the case when you work the areas that need recovery with moderate to light intensity. One study found that people who practiced active rest recovered much faster, and there are few exercises better than cycling for active rest.

The nice thing about cycling is that you can ride at your own pace. If you've worked on your legs the day before, you can take a light drive on a sunny afternoon to get the blood pumping. This will reduce the pain and allow you to work on those areas faster, which will also result in faster gains.

Here's how to add cycling to your routine

There are two ways you can do this. One way is to use your bike as a first or secondary mode of transport and the other is to use it as a fitness machine.

In addition, if you use the bike as a means of transport, we recommend that you obtain a transit pass. So you can either take your bike with you or park it near a subway station. This way you get maximum mobility. Another benefit of this is that you always have a way to return home if you go too far and suddenly feel like you can't walk anymore.

If you are using the bike specifically for fitness purposes, there are also many ways you can achieve this. You can exercise endurance or use the bike for high-intensity interval training. This is when you do short sprints followed by a cool down period. This can be a great way to burn energy both before and after your sessions. This is because this form of exercise has been shown to boost metabolism and calorie consumption after the session is over.

Using HIIT with a bike, especially on the open road, is dangerous. Because of this, you need to learn how to avoid a bicycle accident. If you want to know how to avoid a bike accident and some other safety tips, we recommend you visit Velosurance. They have a great article that explains what are the most common causes of accidents and how to avoid them. They provide tips on how to avoid getting a door, for example, which is one of the most common yet overlooked types of bicycle accidents.

As you can see, there are tons of reasons why adding cycling to your routine is a great idea. Make sure you think about it and try to make it a part of your everyday life.

25 Jan
Blog

Four Unavoidable Reasons to Use an Ultrasonic Scaler

As medicine advances rapidly, new products are being launched. In all fairness, this use of technologically advanced products has revolutionized all periodontal therapy in recent years. One such common method of treatment in the dental industry is known as ultrasonic scaling. In general, scaling is used to maintain patient dental hygiene. Dentists used to use manual procedures for this, but as technology and the ultrasonic scaler have advanced, the procedure has become much more effective and efficient. Most professional dentists in the industry today are aware of the use of ultrasonic scalers because of their numerous benefits. Still, patients are unaware of the process of ultrasound scaling. Generally, during the ultrasonic scaling treatment, the dentists use an ultrasonic scaler to break the hardened tartar on the patient's teeth. The machine is a powered device that, once activated, uses ultrasonic vibration. Depending on the strength of the device, it can oscillate up to 35,000 cycles per second. The hygienist moves the scalar from the coronal to the apical of the tooth to break up the tartar. Later, patients are advised to use a coolant spray to wash off the tartar. There are several advantages to using an ultrasonic scaler in place of other devices. Let's look at the following:

  1. It offers an effective hygiene treatment

Maintaining gum hygiene is critical to long term gum disease prevention. The early stages of these gum disease can be treated at home. However, if the problems multiply, it can cause serious tooth damage and pain for the patient. Hence, the symptoms of gum disease should never be ignored. However, it is advisable to take care of the health of the gums by following a regular hygiene routine. Fortunately, scaling was an effective treatment for preventing gum disease. Dentists use an ultrasonic scaler to clean the surface of the teeth, removing the hardened plaque and tartar and bacteria from the surface of the teeth. Now ultrasonic scalers can be found online these days and ordered instantly to provide the best treatment for patients. The traditional scaling process caused great pain in the patina while the tartar was removed from the tooth. Hence, the dentists have made a smarter choice when purchasing the dental instruments. It enriches the patient's experience.

2. It increases patient comfort

In the healthcare industry, patient comfort and satisfaction are the primary goals of providers. However, scaling is a painful process when doctors use a manual scraper. The screeching was a pain in the air too. However, the ultrasonic scaler allows doctors to increase patient comfort as it uses less sound and causes less pain compared to traditional scaling. However, the instrument must be purchased from a reliable seller to ensure its quality and durability. So one needs to do enough research before buying this dental instrument. Before buying any dental instrument, it is necessary to ask some useful and relevant questions to ensure the quality of the instruments.

3. It can remove the tartar efficiently

Well, the ultrasonic scaler uses a low frequency sound wave to efficiently remove the tartar. There are two main types of ultrasonic scalers available online today. This includes the magnetostrictive model and the piezoelectric model. Both scalers offer efficient hygiene treatment. The magnetostrictive model moves up to 30,000 cycles per second, while the piezoelectric model can move up to a speed of 36,000 cycles per second. When the tip of the device vibrates against the tooth, the tartar is effectively removed. These devices also contain a built-in sprayer that delivers an antibacterial wash under the gums to prevent the germs from spreading. Undoubtedly, this device is much more effective than the traditional manual scraper at removing tartar. The sprayer also helps keep teeth clean during the process. Patients can achieve whiter and stronger teeth once scaling is complete.

4th Reduce hours spent in the chair

In today's world, people live fast lives. Most of them face hectic lifestyles that make it quite difficult to make an appointment to visit the dentist chamber. However, traditional scaling was time consuming and patients spent a lot of time in the chair. Because of this, many people have not visited the dentist's chamber. But it's not the same now. Dentists have reduced the number of hours patients have to sit in the chair with the help of the ultrasound machine. Patients can enjoy their visits to the medical chamber as treatment is carried out quickly and routinely.

28 Oct
Blog

Watch Dogs: Legion Review: The Reasons To Skip It Are Legion

Watch Dogs Legion Review Fly Drone

Watch Dogs: Legion Review: The Reasons To Skip It Is Legion

"As Ubisoft presents its best open world yet, the main gameplay hook falls flat."

  • Fantastic open world

  • Pleasant fight

  • Fun new traversal options

  • Recruitment hook does not work

  • The story is a tonal mess

  • Too easy, even in the most difficult case

  • The PC version crashed frequently

Ubisoft wants its core gameplay hook, the ability to recruit anyone in the open world, which is what makes you want to play Watch Dogs: Legion. Unfortunately, the mechanic's reception is quickly exhausted. The more time I spent with the game, the less impressive it got and the rough edges of the system became clear.

The real reason you stick with Watch Dogs: Legion is because London is incredibly vibrant, one of the best open worlds I've explored in a video game. But buyers watch out. The PC version of the title is littered with issues, so the console is the preferred choice.

That's a story

Watch Dogs: Legion begins attacks on key London landmarks tied to the hacking group DeadSec. This forces the city government to turn control over to a private military company called Albion. As the game progresses, the player will uncover the secret behind Zero Day, the real perpetrators of the bombings and how the vicious factions of London bond with them.

Guard dogs Albion

Watch Dogs has always passed the edges of reality with its surveillance commentary, but Legion delves into the depths by adding a healthy pile of suppressive policing. The final game in the franchise, Watch Dogs 2, was released around the time of the last US presidential election, an event that changed not only my personal politics but the state of the world almost daily. As you know, 2020 was a long year.

I was hoping Legion would find something interesting, but subjects that should be tackled with a scalpel are tackled with a sledgehammer instead. The game has no tact and is never subtle, but insists on getting around hot button issues with the light-hearted nature that made Watch Dogs 2 popular. It doesn't work.

Watch Dogs Legion Mary Kelley

As Bagley, the A.I. Companion who accompanies your employees on missions, jokes, you are forced to take photos of corpses found in the middle of a sports stadium that has been converted into a concentration camp. In one mission, you have to navigate a spider robot through a mansion only to find refugees who are kept as slaves. If anyone asks for release, they will instead be executed in front of the other prisoners.

Yes. It's getting dark. However, the game never acknowledges the dire situations it represents, which has troubled me about the entire state of game history. Legion wants to get serious, but she also wants to be silly and feel relevant. The game cannot solidify these ideas into a reasonable story or even a theme.

A mechanic's recruit misses the mark

Legion lets you go to any London civilian and recruit them as part of DeadSec. The idea initially feels new but cannot justify its existence, and the lack of a main character becomes a problem as the game progresses.

After playing the prologue mission, which starts with a preset agent, there are 15 different randomly generated characters to choose from. They are given their name, profession, a single sentence about their background and the tool or skill they come up with. My choice fell on Marcel, a mechanic with a wrench that dealt additional melee damage.

From the jump you can approach (almost) anyone on the street and recruit them for the cause. I say almost everyone, because around 75% of civilians actually had the “start recruiting” popup over their heads at some point. I'm not sure if this was a bug or if the game only allows you to recruit a certain number of characters at a time. Still, there are enough people that I didn't believe Ubisoft falsely promoted the mechanic.

Watch Dogs Legion recruitment

You can verify recruits by examining the same information that was displayed during the initial recruiting post prologue: name, occupation, background, and skills. Depending on their feelings about DeadSec, you will have to complete a side quest of varying difficulty in order for them to join. As soon as this is the case, you can switch between employees at any time.

The campaign sometimes assigns you to recruit a specific employee for a mission. For example, you need a construction worker to gain undetected access to a construction site. The game also marks the card with recruits who bring more unique skills to the table.

The majority of employees play the same game.

While character swapping is new at first, you'll quickly find that it's too shallow. London's civilians are randomized, but the variety seems limited. I have often met people with the same haircut or beard as the character I played. I even met a recruit who had the same face as Marcel, but with a darker skin tone. The random visual and vocal matches mean characters don't always have meaningful voices.

Worse, the majority of employees play the same game. There are a few exceptions. My spy character had a handful more combat animations than the rest of my crew and the ability to spawn an Aston Martin car with missiles and camouflage. Mostly. However, I could have swapped one of my recruits for another and it wouldn't have made much difference.

My construction worker could call in a cargo drone to climb on top of the city and fly through it, but there were enough of them soaring through the sky as they are. I also gave a belly laugh when a staff member – an elderly woman – performed a flying spin kick to incapacitate a heavily armored Albion guard.

Watch Dogs Legion Team

The more hacking and combat upgrades unlocked for your crew, the smaller the differences between your recruits will become. It's hard to imagine that the game would play any differently if it only had a single protagonist.

I could have swapped any of my recruits for a different one and it wouldn't make any difference.

However, one main character or several protagonists would have served the story much better. We could have connected with them in ways impossible with the casual recruits, and a message beyond "fascism is bad" could have been gleaned from history.

The game tries to anchor you with its supporting characters, including the often amusing A.I. Bagley, however, they're a poor substitute for a consistent main character.

London is the real star

I'm disappointed with Legion's story and the surprisingly thin operational mechanic. Neither is noticeable. However, if all you want to do is jump into a Ubisoft-style sandbox, Watch Dogs: Legion is the company's best accomplishment yet.

Legion's London version is a joy to discover, especially for someone (like me!) Who grew up in England. You can meet other employees you recruited during the exploration and select members of the public will be highlighted if they are in any way related to a recruit. Although by and large I am lukewarm to recruiting someone, I do appreciate that touch.

If you just want to jump into a Ubisoft sandbox, Watch Dogs: Legion is the company's best accomplishment yet.

With ray tracing on, the reflections in puddles or on the side of a double decker bus gave the world a texture I'd never seen in a game. It's dirty, shiny, and cozy at times, depending on which part of the city you are in.

Watch Dogs Legion Multipalyer

The cargo drones that you can use to fly around the city add a new level of verticality to the game and offer new ways to enter a restricted area. This is a welcome addition as entering restricted areas accounts for 90% of Watch Dogs gameplay. That said, using a cargo drone was sometimes like playing the game in easy mode, as the server or other target I needed to access was often on a rooftop.

The game is played by the feeble-minded enemy A.I. The city is littered with Albion drones and guards, and yet I was able to create a lot of chaos without looking out of the fluff. And when they caught me in the act? Ducking around a corner or two quickly turned her awareness display from assault red to confused white, and within 30 seconds the chatter of giving up chase would get through on the radio with little effort on my part.

Hard mode doesn't make them smarter, just more deadly. There's also a permadeath mode in which an employee who dies is gone for good. With all that said, the game never felt challenging.

PC performance is an issue

My ability to enjoy Legion has also been impacted by significant PC performance issues. I tested the game on my new LG CX OLED TV. The game ran in 4K at high settings and activated ray tracing at a desired speed of 60 frames per second (fps). However, it would inevitably crash, be it a few minutes after the game started or half an hour. A Ubisoft representative told me to make sure I had the latest GeForce drivers and check the game's technical requirements.

I actually had the latest drivers installed which I reinstalled for security reasons. While I didn't have the Nvidia RTX 3080 graphics card that asked what settings I wanted to run it at, even the most demanding games I played before Watch Dogs: Legion ran without any problems at even higher settings and higher frame rates. Plus, the problem wasn't a bad average frame rate. I would enjoy a steady 60 fps and then the game would crash and force me to restart.

I eventually reduced the resolution to 1800p which seemed to help, but this is not normal behavior for a game. Worst of all, I ran the game with its patch from day one. A console hotfix will be released on October 30th, while a more robust second patch for Squash performance issues will be released on November 9th. Hopefully this will fix the problem.

Our opinion

Watch Dogs: Legion is Ubisoft's most ambitious entry in the series to date, and while it doesn't disappoint like the first Watch Dogs, it feels aimless. Exploring London is a good time, but the game is never challenging and the story makes very little sense.

Is there a better alternative?

Yes. Watch Dogs 2 is still the best the series has to offer. If you're looking for a newer game, you might be waiting for Assassin's Creed Valhalla to be released about a week after Watch Dogs: Legion launched.

How long it will take?

As with any Ubisoft open world game, you have a lot of side quests to complete. With goals associated with recruiting new members, this is taken one step further. The campaign lasts around 20 hours, but if you stick to the main story.

Should you buy it?

Legion's recruiting hook doesn't produce any results, and performance issues make this a leap for PC gamers.

Editor's recommendations




28 Apr
Blog

5 Reasons Why High-Rep Bodyweight Workouts Are Hurting You

5 reasons why high-rep weight workouts hurt you - fitness, functional fitness, body weight, cortisol, volume, high-intensity workouts, home workouts, high reps, pushups. Lunges, squats, claps, jump squats, reverse plank

While the world of functional fitness has consistently tended to do hundreds of squats, burpees, and lunges in the past six weeks, trainer James Fitzgerald warns that this will do more harm than good. Fitzgerald, winner of the first CrossFit games in 2007 and founder of OPEX Fitness, said:

"They are not functional and cause cortisol dependency. Performance drops during body weight circles, although they look chic on a zoom call with a class, result in poor motion compensation and a depth of 1,000 repetitions," he added.

Although 200 lunges for the time could lead to a "sweaty workout" that many people seem to yearn for, according to Fitzgerald, the five main reasons to avoid programming training such as squats, pushups, lunges and burpees "for the time" are as follows:

  1. You do not achieve sustainable results
  2. They reduce immunity and resilience
  3. They lead to poor movement patterns and compensations
  4. They are not functional
  5. They cause cortisol junkies and poor behavior when exercising

So 200 lunges for the time are up, what's in?

Fitzergald explained that there are safe and effective ways to program body weight training that can make long-term progress. This is possible if you follow the basic principles of programming.

He gave the following as an example of a more effective way to use body weight movements than four laps over time:

  • Max set of gossip pushups. Pause 60 seconds.
  • 20 squats. Pause 60 seconds.
  • 60 seconds back plank. Pause 60 seconds.

Repeat four times.

Why is this a better approach?

Fitzgerald asks you to consider the following principles of body weight training:

The dose response of body weight training

To achieve effective body weight training, you need to understand the “dose response,” that is, the stimulus or outcome of each workout. According to Fitzgerald, these are three things:

  1. Intent: What is the goal of this program and what is the customer working towards?
  2. Modality: What kind of movements does the client do?
  3. The single person: Who am I programming for? What are your individual skills, abilities, limitations, training age?

If you understand who (i.e. person), what (i.e. modality) and why (i.e. intention), you can control the dose response and ultimately the resulting adjustments and results.

The limits of body weight training

Before you put together a body weight program, you also need to understand its limits.

These restrictions mainly concern activities with a closed chain and relative strength, ie strength against body weight, and strength endurance, ie the ability to do repetitions at submaximal loads.

They also have relatively little variability because they have no access to equipment and novel means of performing movement patterns.

As a result, many trainers prescribe many repetitions of very similar types of muscle contractions, which can become a problem for most as poor movement patterns are then repeated for a large number of repetitions.

In addition, body weight training effectively lacks intensity, at least in terms of maximum exertion, since you have no access to external stress. For stronger and fitter customers, this means that endurance efforts are sometimes converted into metabolic efforts that become glycolytic. In other words, they are starting to take advantage of the anaerobic milk system, which is a great way to lower immunity and bring about negative metabolic adjustments as it promotes the use of sugar as a fuel.

Three final tips for an effective design of the body weight program

Once you understand the above, you can start thinking about how to program body weight training effectively.

Fitzgerald recommends programming whole body resistance, which includes upper and lower body movements as well as core movements.

From there he says:

Tip 1: Create a progressive program

As with any effective program, be it a strength or endurance program, a body weight training program should be progressive over time, building up from the previous one every week. Three ways to do this include:

  1. Increase the volume over time and add repetitions for every session and every week.
  2. Increase the speed of contractions over time, from motor control to endurance to dynamic movements
  3. Adjust the pace and increase the eccentric or lowering phase of an exercise

Tip 2: split the days

For most lifestyle athletes, Fitzgerald recommends adhering to a simple exercise program that focuses on durability and alternates between full-body resistance training days and aerobic training days.

Regarding # 3: consider the individual long-term

Just make sure you understand your client's physical abilities, goals, and intentions, and then design workouts that are “within your client's abilities”.

If you would like to learn more from Fitzgerald, you can find out about its various training options at OPEX Fitness.

27 Apr
Blog

5 Reasons Why High-Rep Bodyweight Workouts Are Hurting You

5 reasons why high-rep weight workouts hurt you - fitness, functional fitness, body weight, cortisol, volume, high-intensity workouts, home workouts, high reps, pushups. Lunges, squats, claps, jump squats, reverse plank

While the world of functional fitness has been tending to do hundreds of squats, burpees and lunges over the past six weeks, trainer James Fitzgerald warns that this does more harm than good. Fitzgerald, winner of the first CrossFit games in 2007 and founder of OPEX Fitness, said:

"They are not functional and cause cortisol dependency. Performance drops during body weight circles, although they look chic on a zoom call with a class, result in poor motion compensation and a depth of 1,000 repetitions," he added.

Although 200 lunges for the time could lead to a "sweaty workout" that many people seem to yearn for, according to Fitzgerald, the five main reasons to avoid programming training such as squats, pushups, lunges and burpees "for the time" are as follows:

  1. You do not achieve sustainable results
  2. They reduce immunity and resilience
  3. They lead to poor movement patterns and compensations
  4. They are not functional
  5. They cause cortisol junkies and poor behavior when exercising

So 200 lunges have expired for the time, what's in it?

Fitzergald explained that there are safe and effective ways to program body weight training that can make long-term progress. This is possible if you follow the basic principles of programming.

He gave the following as an example of a more effective way to use body weight movements than four laps over time:

  • Max set of gossip pushups. Pause 60 seconds.
  • 20 squats. Pause 60 seconds.
  • 60 seconds back plank. Pause 60 seconds.

Repeat four times.

Why is this a better approach?

Fitzgerald asks you to consider the following principles of body weight training:

The dose response of body weight training

To achieve effective body weight training, you need to understand the “dose response,” that is, the stimulus or outcome of each workout. According to Fitzgerald, these are three things:

  1. Intent: What is the goal of this program and what is the customer working towards?
  2. Modality: What kind of movements does the client do?
  3. The single person: Who am I programming for? What are your individual skills, abilities, limitations, training age?

If you understand who (i.e. person), what (i.e. modality) and why (i.e. intention), you can control the dose response and ultimately the resulting adjustments and results.

The limits of body weight training

Before you put together a body weight program, you also need to understand its limits.

These restrictions mainly concern activities with a closed chain and relative strength, ie strength against body weight, as well as strength endurance, ie the ability to do repetitions at submaximal loads.

They also have relatively little variability because they have no access to equipment and novel means of performing movement patterns.

As a result, many trainers prescribe many repetitions of very similar types of muscle contractions, which can become a problem for most as poor movement patterns are then repeated for a large number of repetitions.

In addition, body weight training effectively lacks intensity, at least in terms of maximum exertion, since you have no access to external stress. For stronger and fitter customers, this means that endurance efforts are sometimes converted into metabolic efforts that become glycolytic. In other words, they are starting to use the anaerobic milk system, which is a great way to lower immunity and bring about negative metabolic adjustments as it promotes the use of sugar as a fuel.

Three final tips for an effective design of the body weight program

Once you understand the above, you can start thinking about how to program body weight training effectively.

Fitzgerald recommends programming whole body resistance, which includes upper and lower body movements as well as core movements.

From there he says:

Tip 1: Create a progressive program

As with any effective program, be it a strength or endurance program, a body weight training program should be progressive over time, building up from the previous one every week. Three ways to do this include:

  1. Increase the volume over time and add repetitions for every session and every week.
  2. Increase the speed of contractions over time, from motor control to endurance to dynamic movements
  3. Adjust the pace and increase the eccentric or lowering phase of an exercise

Tip 2: split the days

For most lifestyle athletes, Fitzgerald recommends adhering to a simple exercise program that focuses on durability and alternates between full-body resistance training days and aerobic training days.

Regarding # 3: consider the individual long-term

Just make sure you understand your client's physical abilities, goals, and intentions, and then design workouts that are “within your client's abilities”.

If you would like to learn more from Fitzgerald, you can find out about its various training options at OPEX Fitness.

25 Feb
Blog

5 Reasons Why You Deserve The Benefits Of Massage

Let's start with this question: what could be your reason for not getting a massage? Because there are not many if you take into account the health benefits. You may feel guilty about massages. They can be expensive. They are time consuming. They are a luxury that is difficult to justify if you have appointments, meetings, pick-up and drop-off services, and a to-do list that never gets shorter, but only gets longer. All of this can be true, but are massages more than just a pleasure?

You get a back massage next to the water

A pleasure … and a treatment

Massages are indeed good for you. Sure, they make you feel like you're floating out the door with a huge smile on your face when it's over, but massages aren't just a feel-good treatment: they promote health and well-being in a way that has affected mankind for thousands of years Years known. "The therapeutic massage started about 4,500 years ago," he says Brian Goodwin, International trainer for Eminence Organic Skin Care, "And it has expanded to include the discovery of facial lifting massage, lymphatic drainage, reflexology, Swedish style and other techniques."

Health benefits of massage

5 Health benefits of massage

How does the massage make us physically and mentally healthier? Let's count the ways:

1. It strengthens your immune system. Like exposure to nature, massage is a surprising activity that can increase your built-in immunity. According to a study on Cedars-Sinai Medical CenterMassage causes a measurable increase in the body's immune response by increasing the number of white blood cells. The bottom line: Our immune system is stronger and you can fight diseases and diseases more effectively.

2. It appears to reduce inflammation and help you heal. After all, chronic inflammation is at the root of many of our health problems – from sore muscles to serious conditions like arthritis and muscular dystrophy. Massage seems to reduce the production of cytokines, which are the key to inflammation. "The bottom line is that there appears to be a suppression of the inflammatory pathways and an increase in mitochondrial biogenesis," says Dr. Mark A. Tarnopolsky The New York Times,

Woman with neck pain sitting at the desk

3. It relieves anxiety. Studies have shown that massage treatment can reduce the stress hormone cortisol and increase dopamine and serotonin, which are the feel-good neurotransmitters in our body. Boldijarre KoronczayThe President of Eminence Organic Skin Care explains: "Our goal when performing massages is to relieve tension in the whole body."

4. It helps you sleep better and you generally feel more awake. According to The National Institute for HealthA simple massage is all you need to increase serotonin, which will help you get to dreamland. By triggering this important neurotransmitter (also known as a “Happy Chemical” massage, you improve your sleep and relieve depression and your general well-being).

5. And finally, it also has beauty benefits for the skin! The friction alone from Massages help remove dead skin cells and replace them with lively new ones in order to maintain a fresh, radiant complexion. Massage enhances the moisturizing effect of creams, which is so important in winter. It helps drain toxins from your lymphatic system, relax muscles and soft tissues, help blood flow to your skin, nourish and rejuvenate, and boost blood flow for a healthy glow.

This is how you prepare for the maximum benefit of your massage

After you've booked your massage, the next thing you need to do is figure out how to prepare yourself to get the most out of your massage. Here's what you should do to get ready:

Don't stress yourself unnecessarily. Come to your session with enough time.

  • To prepare your skin properly, exfoliate at home beforehand. (Or request a body scrub for your spa treatment.)Eminence Organics Pear & Green Apple Massage Souffle

  • Choose a delicious massage cream for your treatment such as our Pear & Green Apple Massage Souffle – ideal for deep massages and makes the skin hydrated and supple.

  • Or opt for a moisturizing Oil, like our Apricot Body Oil or Stone Crop Body Oil, for a massage that requires additional gliding and reveals a spectacular looking skin.

  • A body wrap like ours Stone Crop Restorative Body Wrap improves the benefits of massage and makes you feel hydrated and rejuvenated from head to toe.

  • Drink plenty of water before and after the massage.

Few things in life can make you as happy and healthy as a good massage. Use our Spa Locator to book a treatment at the closest Eminence Organics Partner Spa. Which luxurious personal care product from Eminence Organics rounds off a relaxing massage treatment for you? Let us know in the comments or share it with us on social media.