quickfit

We Mean Business

Mon, 04 Apr 2022 19:51:58 GMT

We Mean Business

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t15KjOxJzU4

CNBC

Mon, 04 Apr 2022 19:51:34 GMT

CNBC

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGTEZGzfblE

Watch the Quick Fit exercise program on the Retirement Living channel with Dr. Alexis Abramson

Mon, 04 Apr 2022 19:50:43 GMT

Watch the Quick Fit exercise program on the Retirement Living channel with Dr. Alexis Abramson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d4fSzqUbaw

Watch Rick Bradley on Montgomery Municipal Cable TV Show - We Mean Business

Mon, 04 Apr 2022 19:50:42 GMT

Watch Rick Bradley on Montgomery Municipal Cable TV Show - We Mean Business

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t15KjOxJzU4

Mark Fenton from America’s Walking on PBS reviews the Quick Fit exercise program

Mon, 04 Apr 2022 19:31:43 GMT

Quick Fit 15-Minute Exercise Program

Rick Bradley has developed an innovative 15-minute corporate fitness program called "Quick Fit." You don’t even have to change into workout clothes—just come in, do your thing, and get back to your busy day. Here are the four key components of Rick’s "Quick Fit" routine:

Aerobic activity: 10 minutes.
Bradley’s goal is for you to do 10 minutes of continuous aerobic activity, but what you do is up to you. He finds most people like to walk, often on the treadmill—it’s easy, requires no special training, and it’s a comfortable, familiar activity. But others hop on a stationary bike, stair climber, or elliptical machine, or choose to walk outside or in the hallways. He wants you to start comfortably, but during the activity move up to a brisk walking pace or effort level—enough to cause noticeable breathing, but still allow you to talk.
Abdominal exercise: 50 Half bent-knee sit-ups. 1 minute. Lay on an exercise mat or the floor with your back flat, your knees bent to about a right angle, and your feet flat on the floor. Pull your chin to your chest and keep it there, and extend your arms and hands, with your fingers pointed toward the tops of your knees. Now slowly lift the shoulders off the mat four to six inches, bringing your hands to your knees, and come back down. That’s one; repeat 49 more times.
Strength moves: 3 minutes.
Beginner: Use dumbbells to do these three moves, selecting the weight so that 10 to 15 repetitions of each exercise is fatiguing.
Chest press. Lay with your back flat on the floor and arms extended out to your sides, bent at a right angle at the elbow, forearms pointed toward the ceiling, hands holding dumbbells. Press the weights up toward the ceiling, fully extending arms, then lower. Do 10 to 15.
Curls. Stand with feet shoulder-width apart, arms straight down at your sides, palms facing the body, holding dumbbells. Bend arms at the elbow, keeping upper arm still but raising the weight to the front of the shoulder. While lifting the weight, rotate to the palm of your hand faces up during the curl; slowly lower weight. Do 10 to 15 on each side, alternating.
Shoulder raises. Stand with arms straight down in front of you, palms facing together, holding dumbbells. Keeping elbows slightly bent, raise your arms straight out to your sides, so you look like a large letter “T;” slowly lower weight. Do 10 to 15 repetitions. (Note that you may use substantially less weight for this than for curls or chest press.)
Advanced: Eventually try building up to this 3-minute routine.
Pull-ups. Place hands slightly wider than shoulder width on a pull-up bar, palms facing forward. Pull your chin up to the height of the bar, and lower slowly. 10-15 repetitions.
Dips. Place hands on parallel bars, with arms straight up, supporting your full body weight. Lower until elbows are at a right angle, then press back up. 10-15 repetitions.
Chin-ups. Place hands slightly wider than shoulder width on a pull-up bar, palms facing back. Pull your chin up to the height of the bar, and lower slowly. 10-15 repetitions.
Flexibility: 1 minute.
Side bends. Stand tall, feet shoulder width apart, hands on hips. Then reach up to the sky with the left hand, bend to the right from the waist, bringing the left hand and arm overhead and reaching to the right. Slowly return to start with hands on hips, then bring right hand up and lean and reach to the left. Continue alternating, reaching and leaning to the opposite side with each hand, with the arm fully extended, for 30 seconds.
Sit and reach. Sit upright on the floor with legs straight in front of you. Extend your arms straight, reaching toward your toes, and gently lean forward. You do not have to reach your toes—just stretch to the point that you feel a gentle tension, but no discomfort. Hold for 30 seconds, and then relax. You’re done!

Follow-up article to Dueling Treadmills

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 19:39:07 GMT

CEOs compete to count calories

Roughly a month ago, local fitness guru Rick Bradley told me that two local CEOs had challenged each other to a 30-day fitness competition. They decided to call the duel between Robert Bacon, CEO of John J. Kirlin LLC, and Boland President Jim Boland The B-K Challenge (not to be confused with that other, less than healthy BK).

Both companies had been working with Bradley, a health and fitness consultant and the author of “Quick Fit: The Complete 15-Minute No Sweat Workout,” to check on employees’ health and get them moving.

The idea was simple: Each CEO would be part of a 12-person team of six men and six women challenged to complete the same workout every single day in May. Teams would be awarded up to one point for each member that completed the day’s workout.

After going to the kickoff (and salad-filled) luncheon at Kirlin’s Rockville offices, I was inspired by the commitment and the camaraderie of the event. It was such a good idea, I decided to try myself. How hard could it be to follow Bradley’s simple prescription of 15 minutes of aerobic activity, 15 arm curls, one minute of abs and one minute of stretching?

I made it a week. But I am a believer — and now also an admirer of what these teams achieved.

I’m pleased to report both the Boland and the Kirlin teams fared much, much better than I did. The competition raged on throughout the month and came down to a squeaker. In the end, Kirlin won by a mere two points. They celebrated the sweet taste of success — and cookies — over lunch June 11, this time at Boland’s Gaithersburg headquarters.

Amid the good-natured jibing and laughter that was passed faster than any of the plates of cookies, I realized the competition designed to promote physical health did just as much, if not more, for emotional health. If that’s not what we need in stressful economic times, I don’t know what is.

Dueling treadmills: CEOs challenge each other to a fitness showdown

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 19:35:30 GMT

Dueling treadmills: CEOs challenge each other to a fitness showdown

It’s ab curls at 15 paces for Rob Bacon and Jim Boland.

The respective CEOs of Boland and John J. Kirlin LLC have challenged one another to an intercompany fitness showdown during May, which happens to be National Fitness Month.

Boland and his team headed over to Kirlin’s Rockville offices for an April 27 kick-off luncheon where local fitness guru and author Rick Bradley reviewed the rules of engagement of the first “B-K Challenge.” Each CEO will be part of a 12-person team of six men and six women committed to working out every day in May, as part of the competition led by Bradley. Teams will be awarded up to one point for each member to complete that day’s workouts.

The two companies are tied together not just through working relationships — as a mechanical contractor, Kirlin often partners with Boland, a Gaithersburg-based heating and air conditioning supplier — but through Bradley. Jim Boland and Bradley grew up across the street from one another in Bethesda. Bradley showed an entrepreneurial spirit even then, convincing the 5-year-old Boland to buy his blue bike “for $2 and a movie” when he was 7. The two remained friends over the decades. Boland watched as his friend became a gymnast at the University of Maryland, lead the Occupational Health and Fitness Program at the U.S. Department of Transportation, and eventually become the author of “Quick Fit: The Complete 15-Minute No Sweat Workout.” When Boland was looking for someone to monitor his employees’ health, he turned to Bradley six years ago. Kirlin also jumped on the Bradley bandwagon.

So why the challenge? Both CEOs say they want to help keep their employees healthy and drive down health care costs. And it’s working: Bacon is expecting no increase in his company’s health care premiums this year. Boland reports that his premiums only inched up 1 or 2 percent.

Both CEOs credit Bradley with potentially saving lives on their staffs. As he wanders their offices in his trademark blue golf shirt with his blood pressure machine in tow, he gradually wins the confidence of staff members, even those reluctant to face up to their blood pressure numbers. He’s gotten help for those who need it, and quickly.

Both CEOs have discovered that challenges like this one not only lead to healthier employees, but better relationships. Groups of people, normally focused on computer screens and meetings, are suddenly spending time walking and talking together. Says Bacon: “It makes business and life easier.”

And hey, a little competition never hurts. There should be plenty among this bunch, judging by what Kirland Team Captain Jim Golden said to his competitors: “We’re gonna have you for lunch!”

Let the games begin.

7 minutes of exercise per week can help control diabetes

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 20:41:47 GMT

7 minutes of exercise per week can help control diabetes

LONDON (Reuters) - Rigorous workouts lasting as little as three minutes may help prevent diabetes by helping control blood sugar, British researchers said on Wednesday.

The findings published in the journal BioMed Central Endocrine Disorders suggest that people unable to meet government guidelines calling for moderate to vigorous exercise several hours per week can still benefit from exercise.

“This is such a brief amount of exercise you can do it without breaking a sweat,” said James Timmons, an exercise biologist at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, who led the study.

“You can make just as big as an effect doing this as you can by doing hours and hours of endurance training each week.”

Type 2 diabetes, which affects an estimated 246 million adults worldwide and accounts for 6 percent of all global deaths, is a condition in which the body gradually loses the ability to use insulin properly to convert food to energy.

Very strict diet and vigorous, regular and sustained exercise can reverse type 2 diabetes, but this can be difficult for many people. The condition is closely linked to inactivity.

Timmons and his team showed that just seven minutes of exercise each week helped a group of 16 men in their early twenties control their insulin.

The volunteers, who were relatively out of shape but otherwise healthy, rode an exercise bike four times daily in 30 second spurts two days a week.

After two weeks, the young men had a 23 percent improvement in how effectively their body used insulin to clear glucose, or blood sugar, from the blood stream, Timmons said.

The effect appears to last up to 10 days after the last round of exercise, he added in a telephone interview.

“The simple idea is if you are doing tense muscle contractions during sprints or exercise on a bike you really enhance insulin’s ability to clear glucose out of the bloodstream,” Timmons said.

The findings highlight a way for people who do not have time to work out a few hours each week as recommended to improve their health, he added.

His team did not look for other important benefits to health that come from exercise, such as lowered blood pressure or weight control, but said another study had shown similar benefits to heart function.

But Timmons said getting people to exercise even a little could translate into big savings for health systems that spend hundreds of million of dollars treating diabetes.

Reporting by Michael Kahn; Editing by Maggie Fox

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

quickfit

We Mean Business

We Mean Business

CNBC

CNBC

Watch the Quick Fit exercise program on the Retirement Living channel with Dr. Alexis Abramson

Watch the Quick Fit exercise program on the Retirement Living channel with Dr. Alexis Abramson

Watch Rick Bradley on Montgomery Municipal Cable TV Show - We Mean Business

Watch Rick Bradley on Montgomery Municipal Cable TV Show - We Mean Business

​Mark Fenton from America’s Walking on PBS reviews the Quick Fit exercise program

Quick Fit 15-Minute Exercise Program

Follow-up article to Dueling Treadmills

CEOs compete to count calories

Dueling treadmills: CEOs challenge each other to a fitness showdown

Dueling treadmills: CEOs challenge each other to a fitness showdown

7 minutes of exercise per week can help control diabetes

7 minutes of exercise per week can help control diabetes

Mark Fenton from America’s Walking on PBS reviews the Quick Fit exercise program