Los Angeles Personal Trainer

Hi Lalo -

Of course, the secret to "visible abs" is low body fat, but can certain exercises, or too many of certain exercises, actually be detrimental to the appearance of the midsection? If so, what exercises should be avoided, and what exercises can strengthen the core without adding bulk?

Thanks, Lalo. Kudos to you and your team, and keep up the good work!

~ Lorraine

________________________________________________________________

Hi Lorraine,

I wouldn’t worry about the exercises you do for you abs, worry about the times you don’t do your exercises . I can’t think of an exercise that would be detrimental for the appearance of your abs. The only thing that comes to mind is when doing abs, concentrate on low weights and high reps instead of heavy weight and low reps and don’t use any equipment. Also, focus on your abs and good posture while doing the exercises.

Take care!

Lalo Fuentes, CSCS
Personal Trainer & Lifestyle Coach
Los Angeles, California

If you have a job like mine, or are training twice a day and have to take several showers a day, you'll like this deodorant. Why? because applying regular deodorant a few times a day could cause your armpits to get very irritated.
So for the past few weeks I've been trying the original Crystal deodorant and I'm giving it a double thumbs up.

The Crystal deodorant is all natural and uses 100% pure mineral salts to form a natural barrier against odor-causing bacteria. It's fragrance-free, hypoallergenic, contains no aluminum chlorohydrate, and won't stain your clothes, leave marks or residues. Best of all, Crystal Body Deodorant is NOT tested on animals, is safe for the environment and Recommended by Cancer Treatment Centers Nationwide.

Good to know: it takes two to three days for your body to adjust, or maybe I wasn't applying enough? lol

Lalo Fuentes
Personal Trainer, Los Angeles

You won't believe how many people have asked me about these Italian shoes. The last person who made me write down the name of these shoes was Joey Fatone, who recommended I wrote about it on my blog so the next time I get asked...I will just direct them here. Good idea Joey!

The Five Finger shoes by Vibram are the latest thing for any type of sport you wish you could do barefoot. The first time I saw these shoes was at a Kettlebell workshop with Pavel. Some guy was wearing these so I asked him about them. He told me he goes on long distance runs with them and that he was very happy with the fit and performance. So as soon as I got home I started doing my research on them and finally bought them.

My feedback on them:

These are shoes that will make your toes strong, and since you use your toes for balance, you'll see improvement in your balance by using them.

The bottom of your feet gets stronger and your calf muscles get a workout just by walking around on these. You'll know what I mean the next day.

It helps you with your running posture. As I will write on a future blog. When you run, you're suppose to use the middle of your feet first and then pull back and up firing your hamstrings. It is Not heel toe like a lot of people think, specially if you are sprinting. Wanna try running heel toe on these shoes..? go ahead..These shoes will soon put you on the right position ;-) I make my running athletes wear these if I need to fix their posture.

If you want to buy them, I wouldn't recommend ordering them online, try them at the store. I have a few of these and every now and then I find one fitting slightly different than the previous pair...could be just me.

When you first wear them, do it only for 2 hours and slowing progress. You need to get use to them but soon after, they will feel very comfortable.

I would not run with these on a treadmill until you have test them well on a track or outdoors.

At the beginning, it was a bit uncomfortable but soon after I started to get use to them. Now I wear them anywhere, even on the boat when I go scuba diving, or while doing windsurf or kitesurfing, while going hiking,or just training people. They have great grip.

CONS:
it takes a little time getting use to them.
This is the first shoe you'll have to wash often.

The ones I'm wearing on the cover of LaloFitness are the Sprint.
Let me know how they work for you!

Ps. I will recommend you do your research, people will ask about them...many times.

Lalo Fuentes
Private Trainer, Chef & Lifestyle Coach
Los Angeles, California

I was talking with my friend Roger over the weekend. Since he likes to run marathons, I mentioned him the GPS watch by Garmin I blogged about days ago as a good training tool. He liked the idea but, like they say...everybody has their own ways of doing things. He told me he uses MapMyRun.com to measure the distance of his runs.

MapMyRun.com is a website where you can plot your running routes, check for distance, elevation, speed and even save your runs and share it with friends. He logged in and showed me all his marathons, latest runs and such.

Check it out and decide which options fits you best. No more driving around measuring distances, that's for sure!

Lalo Fuentes
Personal Trainer, Los Angeles

"Give me a second..waiting for satellite signal"

Ok! here it is, the Forerunner 405 by Garmin. This watch will monitor your time, distance, pace, calories and heart rate. Each run is stored in memory so you can see how you've improved.

You can use this GPS watch whenever you go for a run, swim, or bike so it's perfect for people training for triathlons.

I don't know about you, but I think this is the coolest, most functional watch a Fit body could have.

Going for a 10-mile Kitesurfing ride..LATER!

Lalo Fuentes
Personal Trainer, Los Angeles