September Newsletter 2015

INDOOR LOCKER ROOMS WILL CLOSE TEMPORARILY

imgOur indoor locker room construction project has progressed to the point where we will need to remove the temporary construction barriers and install all new flooring everywhere in the indoor locker rooms. We will also be installing new walls, tiles and fixtures in the shower & toilet areas. As a result, we will have to completely close the indoor locker rooms until the entire project is completed. All members who rent indoor lockers should remove any personal items they’ll need from the locker room before August 31st. And unfortunately we will not be able to open up the locker rooms once they are closed. We won’t charge any locker rental charges until the locker rooms re-open. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience and support. Thank you.
Closure Date: August 31st


IT’S TIME TO EXERCISE … YOUR WILLPOWER

Kelly McGonigal, a Stanford University psychologist and author of The Willpower Instinct, recently shared the results of her extensive research on what we can do to strengthen our willpower.

She points out many people feel exercising their willpower means forcing themselves to do something they don’t want to do. Her research shows when we create these mental conflicts, it actually makes it more difficult to move forward. For example, when we set goals to exercise for negative reasons (guilt, shame, body hatred, fear of health consequences) we may be setting ourselves up to fail. She suggests setting positive goals, rather than suppressing preferences or desires and warns against equating self-control with self-criticism.

McGonigal suggests we create a Willpower Workout and think of ourselves as willpower athletes. She suggests setting an important goal and then choosing one thing that will help reach that goal. For example, if we want to start exercising regularly, we might decide to take one Group Fitness class each Tuesday, instead of watching television at home. Then she suggests we keep doing that one thing until it becomes easier. And we need to think of it as “exercising” our willpower, rather than attending a challenging class. At first exercising willpower may seem difficult – just like it can be difficult when we start exercising our muscles. But the practice of exercising willpower actually gives us more willpower and strengthens our self-control. Ultimately, exercising your willpower instinct, she says, is about devoting attention, time and effort to what matters to us the most.


AQUATICS

imgPOOL LIFEGUARDS WILL GUARD WEEKENDS THROUGH OCTOBER
August 24-28 (Mon. – Fri.): The first week of public school; Lifeguards will be on duty in the afternoons
Labor Day, September 7st: Lifeguards will be on duty all day
Weekends: Lifeguards will be on duty every weekend 1-5pm until the weather cools; usually at the end of October.



imgCONGRATULATIONS 2015 DOLPHIN CLUB SWIMMERS!!!
OVAC’s Dolphin Cub’s swimmers wrapped up their yearly accumulation of miles swum on August 31. They swam a tremendous amount of miles and will be celebrating with their annual Dolphin Club banquet dinner. Each member will also receive a 2015 Dolphin Club t-shirt.
Are you interested in joining the Dolphin Club? All you have to do is log your laps swum in the binders in the OVAC lobby from September 1st 2015 through August 31st 2015. At the end of the year you will receive a FREE t-shirt and enjoy a dinner with other motivated swimmers. START LOGGING!!


imgPRE SWIM TEAM AND SWIM TEAM FALL SESSION STARTS
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9TH

Pre -Swim Team with Coach Meg Mondays and Wednesdays
Manta Rays (age 4-6) 3:45pm-4:15pm (pre-swim team lesson)
Dolphins (age 6-9) 4:15pm-5:00pm (pre-competition swim team)
Cost: $65/mo. or $12 drop-in (nonmembers add $25)
Info: [email protected]
NEED TO WORK UP TO SWIM TEAM??
Meg specializes in stroke development to work up to the swim team prerequisites. Sometimes all it takes is one or two lessons. Contact Meg to set up your private lesson today!


imgOJAI HEAT SWIM TEAM, COME JOIN US!

Practice MWF’s
• A’s: 3:45-5:00
• B’s: 4:00-5:00
(prerequisite required)
More Info: www.ovac.caclubs (aquatics), or [email protected]



imgSWIM LESSONS STILL AVAILABLE

Fall is a great time to take swim lessons, warm weather and a quieter pool. Contact Tara, Meg or Brooke today! Adult lessons are available and encouraged.
Brooke Atkins: [email protected]
Tara Lenehan: [email protected]
Meg McCormick: [email protected]
4- 30 min lessons/ $150 or 1-30 min lesson/ $40


imgDIVING CLASSES AVAILABLE THROUGH FALL!

$40/1- 30 min or $150/4-30 min

Contact: [email protected] Text or Call: 805-294-8247


FITNESS

SHOULD YOU COUNT CALORIES?
-Danielle Williams, Fitness Director
Weight loss is truly a very basic equation. If you eat more calories than you burn, you will gain weight. And the opposite is true too – eat fewer calories than you burn and you will lose weight. The problem is that actually counting calories is not as simply as you may think.

First you are faced with the imprecise nature of calorie counting. Unfortunately the calorie counts on food labels and within food databases online or in a smart phone/tablet app can be off by 25%. The same holds true for table estimates, apps or cardio machine readouts of how many calories you burn when you exercise. Finally by counting calories you are making a choice to ignore your hunger and appetite awareness to instead count calories. In short you are training yourself to ignore your own internal signals. But it is crucial to maintain this inborn signaling system for long term weight loss success. This is why people initially have success losing weight counting calories but get frustrated down the road when it all ends up coming back.

In addition, it is absolutely no fun to weigh, measure, and count all your food. In fact, it is a real pain. But there is an easier way. Instead use hand-size portion estimating:

  • Your palm determines your protein portion size: for men, two palm-sized portions with each meal, for women one.
  • Your fist determines your veggie portion size: for men, 2 fist-sized portions of vegetables with each meal, for women one.
  • Your cupped hand determines your other carbs portion size: for men, 2 cupped-hand sized portions of carbohydrates with most meals, for women one.
  • Your thumb determines your fat portion size: for men, 2 thumb-sized portions of fats with most meals, for women one

No fancy kitchen math or app need and your hands go with you everywhere. Convenient. Also, your hands are generally scaled to your size—the bigger you are, the bigger your hands, the more food you need and the more food you get. And vice versa.

You are now freed up to focus your attention onto your hunger and appetite cues. Want to learn more? Contact me at [email protected] for information on OVAC’s 8 Week Dream Jeans Weight Loss Challenge.
Source: http://www.precisionnutrition.com


TEAM 100 BANQUET THIS MONTH
LET’S ENJOY OUR BEAUTIFUL WEATHER


imgWe have decided to move Team 100 to be a September to September event, rather than January to January this year. Why? We want to be able to reward you with the best possible banquet experience and the weather is much more cooperative in September than in January.

So what does this mean for you? We will look at your workout totals January through September of this year to pro-rate who would be on track for making 100 workouts by January. And going forward we will just track from September to September looking for a total of 100 workouts still. This is a trial run. If it turns out that going September to September is a bad idea, nothing is ever set in stone.

The 2015 Team 100 Banquet will be held on Monday September 28th at 6:00pm. Please sign up at the Front Desk to reserve you spot for this very special event hosted by OVAC in honor of our Team 100. $15 per person.

imgTWO NEW & EXCITING OPTIONS AT OVAC
TACFIT Specialized Metabolic Conditioning Small Group Training
NEXT FOUR WEEK SESSION IS SEPT 14-OCT 11, 2015

TWO CLASSES PER WEEK: $198.50
ONE CLASS PER WEEK: $99.25
DROP IN RATE IS $30/CLASS
(Non-Members add 20% to cost) Sign Up by contacting Nicholas 805-901-2899 or [email protected]

imgTACFIT MONDAY & WEDNESDAYS 7:15-8pm; SATURDAYS 8:30-9:15am:
(TACtical FITness) Training Methods have been named the “Worldʼs Smartest Workout” by Men's Health because, unlike other fitness organizations, every element has been deliberately investigated and implemented as an integrated, holistic system of human optimization. Each exercise, program, tool and course has been meticulously crafted for the highest quality results in the shortest amount of time. TACFIT is a strategically-precise fitness system designed to provide fast recovery from exercise intensity. The fundamental workout system uses 26 workouts, with 4 different levels of challenge, and 6 different protocols of timing. TACFIT helps anyone access their innate fitness potential, by restoring their function in practical movement: the way your body was designed and has evolved to freely move without pain. Instead of the conventional “boot camp” mentality, which emphasizes unnecessarily long aerobic work, TACFIT is safely intense exercise (preceded by target specific warm up exercises and followed by customized compensatory cool-down exercises).

imgTACFIT FOUNDATIONS MONDAY & WEDNESDAYS 9:00-9:45am:

The TACFIT system emphasizes mental and physical recovery for one to perform at their highest level. This is achieved through low impact flow based yoga to "turn off" the muscles we have used in our workouts, or over-use due to the physical manifestation of our lives, and the "turning on" of the opposite muscles groups that may be shutting down. By this the aim is to create a reset and rebalancing of the muscular activation and skeletal alignment. Classes will focus on revitalization of mobility in the joints and learning structural poses to focus on, with strength, control, and elasticity, transition between the poses; or to "flow" into and out of the compensatory movements. All levels of fitness and mobility are welcomed.

Join Nicholas Anderson, OVAC’s newest personal trainer with 20 years of Martial Arts and fitness experience, for the unique Tacfit experience:
“My approach to holistic fitness and wellness comes from my lifelong journey of martial arts, and from the teachings of my coach, Scott B. Sonnon (international director of RMAX International and TACFIT/CST creator). Put simply it is quality of movement which equates to quality of life. We are not stagnant beings. We are sentient, thinking, and moving creatures.

Movement facilitates not only a physical benefit to health but is jointly linked to our conversion of stress and production of our positive feeling hormones, dopamine and serotonin. By this knowledge the cheapest and most effective form of self medication and therapy is quality and purposeful movement.

With these principles in mind I look forward to meeting and discussing how I can help maximize the health and wellness and how we can create a program for you that is holistically evolved to maximize health of mind and body.”

FROM THE TENNIS COURTS

imgTENNIS NEWS
I have to say that I think this summer was one of our best here at OVAC Tennis! Not only did we have great weather for almost every week, but we also had a great group of kids along with the introduction of Cardio Tennis! I think most everyone who attended the class had a great time and we will continuing it throughout the month of September! We also added more clay to the upper courts. On a hot day, don't be afraid to check them out. Hope everyone has a great September!

See Ya on the Courts!
Ryan

imgCRONIES TENNIS
A friendly reminder, our great Cronies group plays every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 7:00 am. They meet on Court 1 & 2 for some fun doubles. If you are a 60+ member looking for some fun, competitive tennis, contact us for more information. (746-5094)

imgJUNIOR & ADULT FALL CLINICS
Future Stars Clinic
Level I Tuesdays at 4:00pm
Level II Thursdays at 4:00pm

Intermediate/Advanced Clinic
Wednesdays at 5:00pm

Tournament Players Clinic

Mondays at 5:00pm and Wednesdays at 4:00pm

Intermediate Adult Clinic

Fridays at 10:00am

FROM THE PILATES STUDIO

LET’S WORK THE POWER HOUSE
Last month the muscles of what makes up your “Power House” or core was described and how strengthening these muscles create the concept of “core stability”. This month common Pilates exercises will be discussed with the purpose to expand the concept of “core stability.

The number one misunderstood exercise in fitness is the “Forward Flexion” (or otherwise known as the Crunch). This exercise is found often in Pilates, boot camp, cross-fit, gym work, mat work, and even Yoga classes. The muscles which are used to perform this exercise are Rectus Abdominus, External Oblique, Internal Oblique, Transversus Abdominus, and Spinal Extensors. The steps of execution of this exercise is:

  1. imgStart position, Lie supine with the knees bent and the feet flat on the mat and hip-width apart. Interlace the fingers behind the head, and tilt the chin slightly down toward the chest.
  2. Exhale. Slowly curl the upper trunk up, so the scapulae lifts off the mat while the back portion of the waistline establishes contact with the mat. Pull in the rib cage, then the belly button, and lift the pelvic floor to deepen the forward curved position of the trunk.
  3. Inhale. Pause
  4. Exhale. Slowly lower the trunk and head to return to the start position.

The key concept to remember is this: Since the abdominals span between the rib cage and pelvis, the exercise entails maximal flexion from the upper back to the beginning of the lower back rather than EXCESSIVE FLEXION OF THE NECK OR HIPS (or think of it as the end of rib cage coming together to the beginning of pelvis bone, not much space), Achieving this evenly desired distribution of curvature of the spine is what protects the spine from pushing the vertebras into a bulging disc situation. Another issue to take note of in executing this exercise is to keep the pelvis in a neutral position instead of creating a slight posterior tilt. This will demand a skilled co-contraction of the Rectus Abdominis, Transversus Adbominis, and the Spinal Extensors, which means more strength building for the core instead of borrowing from other muscle groups.

imgSo you may ask yourself where am I going to use this exercise functionally in life. The number one use of this exercise is in lifting up anything that is lower than your waist line. And yes bending from the knees and lifting from the legs is the first step in proper lifting form, but then the abs continue the lift against gravity. The abs should be contracted on the way down which is a supported “Forward Flexion”. This “Forward Flexion” creates the even distributed curvature of the spine which was mentioned earlier and this unraveling the “Forward Flexion” finishes the lift from the legs. It is all a chain reaction of proper body mechanics. Strengthening the abs is what creates the “core stability” to protect the spine and the power for the lift. Most of the time, this exercise is practiced on the floor to take away gravity so that the body can learn memory and then automatically use this memory in any situation. In the Pilates Studio, this exercise is taught and then expanded on in different positions and with springs to create more load to build more strength. So contact myself Victoria Ott, Julie Fox, or come in the Pilates Studio to try this important basic core exercise in a new and challenging way. And FYI: anytime you reach for your toes with bent or straight Knees or even doing “Padahastasana” (which is a standing forward fold in Yoga), this should be practiced with the same “core stability’ exercise concept (the crunch) to protect the Spine.