Photo of Houston In home personal trainer Melissa who goes to the gym practically every day in addition to the training she does with her clients, in order to keep a sexy lifted butt with a workout she can only do easily at a fully equipped gym.

One of my links, Deep Fitness, has an article on a sister site, INeedCoffee.com, about "Gyms for Hypochondriacs". This is a great site and I laughed when I read the article because it IS true that gyms bring you in contact with many germs... but so does just plain old LIVING!

I believe that MOST people who work out regularly find that the benefits from exercising and building strength and increasing flexibility, outweigh the risk of occasionally getting a virus from the gym.

I go to the gym and exercise every day, and often go as many as three times a day if there are some great kick boxing or spinning classes going on. Most physicians will say that for the normal adult population, EXERCISING regularly is very beneficial. I am NEVER sick but I have built up my endurance to the prevalent germs.

As a comparison, remember how physicians always prescribed antibiotics for children who were sick...but recently, medical studies are showing that over prescribing antibiotics has made children resistent to those very same antibiotics, and now, sick children have to take stronger and stronger antibiotics to get well...Physicians are wanting to reserve prescription drugs for more severe cases and give the immune system a chance to kick in on its own first.

In simple terms, it is beneficial to allow your body EXPOSURE to normal environmental germs so it can build up a natural immunity to them.
You don't have to WALLOW in germs... but avoiding a gym is not the solution. Instead, take a few simple precautions to help protect yourself from colds and other infections.

1) Wash your hands before and after workouts at the gym..using soap. 2) Use a towel when working out. (this is required at most gyms) and wipe the machine you plan to use before you use it and again after you are finished. 3)Do not go to the gym when you are sick. 4)Hire Melissa at Citiflex.com to be your very own personal trainer, because I bring the gym to YOU and I PROMISE I won't come if I am sick!! =)

Photo of Stephanie, Kick boxing Expert demonstrating a kick.

Editorial about Kick boxing by Melissa of Citiflex.com...

Have you ever wanted to try a workout class and yet you feel that you already have your workouts set and just keep the same routine day after day because similar is comfortable? TRY KICK BOXING for a CHANGE of pace!
When you want to get to "kick it up a notch" (pun intended haha) and get to your health and fitness goals the fastest way possible, it is first helpful to hire a Houston in home personal trainer. BUT the plan does not just stop there. YOU have to keep your exercise and fitness weight loss goals in mind constantly and workout consistently towards them when no one is around to help. Part of this plan is also eating a healthy diet and the other part is adding your own workouts when you can. The Houston workouts do not have to be difficult...in fact they can be the hobbies or exercises you enjoy the most...because the thinnest, healthiest individuals have incorporated activities that they LOVE, into their lives on a daily basis and can maintain a healthy weight.

FOR EXAMPLE, I workout with my Galleria, Spring, Houston and The Woodlands area clients more often than not, however the workouts we do are geared towards THEIR abilities and interests..not mine. Some could argue that the workouts I do with these clients are sufficient for maintaining my shape and fitness. I ENJOY exercise however and plan to do additional workouts that target MY goals such as the kick boxing class three times a week as well as the spinning classes three times a week and YOGA twice a week. These are the exercises I LOVE to do.(I also do weight training and skating on my own regularly too)

What is it about these kick boxing and spinning and yoga classes that is so invigorating? Why do I now love to go when at first I dragged my feet even as a Personal Trainer? I generally used to do all my workouts alone because I never want to stop exercising if my workout pal didn't show up. So " workout classes" were not "my thing" for a while and yet I decided to give one a try, and I chose Houston cardio kickboxing because I wanted to improve my flexibility.(Plus, I reasoned, you have a built-in group of workout partners in any class and you don't even have to know them.)

Well, my first class (kick boxing), I hung out in the back and felt foolish when the choreography was beyond my ability to follow. But I noticed how intense the class was and how focused the instructor was and it energized my efforts. I was determined to try and not give up.(this also is true of spinning classes) I kept on attending the kick boxing classes and noticed that the people who go regularly were getting CUT and FIT. I also noticed two individuals who stayed next to each other in the front of the class,(a muscled guy with a ball cap and a lean, long haired girl), who were extremely fun to watch because their workouts were so high powered and full of their own innovative variations of the original steps.

The rest of the high intensity kick boxing  class, and I absorbed so much intensity from these two during the kick boxing workouts, and would also chat about it afterwards, when we were walking out with our sweat covered towels and bottles of water.Over a period of time, along with the amazing instructor, Stephanie, the two in front have become the unofficial "leaders" of the almost a hundred kick boxing attendees to these classes (we have our own "TAI BO" thing going on). We all love Stephanie and we all love the energy and power we feel when we leave the exercise room...instead of feeling tired we feel incredible and have met new exercise companions. Maria, (I now know her name), has incredible abs... JoAnn and I workout next to each other and still hang out in the back... Liz, a tall leggy blond, is there as much as I am... and other individuals, whose names I have yet to learn, have achieved amazingly high kicks..We all motivate each other.
I commented to the pair in the front the other day, for the first time, about how enjoyable they were to watch, and they said they feed off of each others energy..also they encouraged me to come up to the front..ONE ROW AT A TIME..if I felt too intimidated to come up all the way. What a great group of people!!! I don't see myself becoming an unofficial leader at this point but who knows..I may move up ONE row next time!! =)