Hydrotherapy is one of the most effective and therapeutic ways to exercise and rehabilitate from an injury in a cool and relaxing atmosphere.

The water’s buoyancy decreases the load which passes through weight-bearing joints by up to 90%, allowing for more activities and movement with less stress and bearing on the joints.

Exercising in water can be just as intense as an on-land workout, without the physical impact on our bodies.

Bringing your workout or rehab session into the pool has an array of health and therapeutic benefits. These include:

Improving muscular strength, stability and balance. 

The resistance of the water challenges your body’s strength and stability through a natural, constant resistance. Studies have shown significant gains in strength, flexibly and agility after 12 weeks of regular aquatic exercises. 

Relief from pain, swelling and muscle tension.

The warmth and support of the water helps to stimulate blood circulation, reduce muscle...

Incredible smells, from the Plumeria in Lakes Park, Fort Myers, Florida, on May 1, 2023. Photo Courtesy of Charly Caldwell II.

For those of us with busy and active lifestyles, it can be a real challenge to keep the body sufficiently fueled day after day.

Between work, working out and the rest of life, we can end up eating on the run more than we would like to.

Cue food preparation.

You’ve probably heard or read that you increase your chances of eating poorly if you are caught out without food and that advance meal prepping is absolutely the answer.

But not everyone wants to spend their Sunday afternoons chopping onions, weighing out chicken and adding just enough cheese to keep the food calculator happy.

For many, especially those who have only recently embarked on a training program, food prepping can be a source of stress.

Even the most hardcore food preppers would be pushed to admit they could do it forever.

Life eventually gets in the way.

Finding balance in our choices is...

Summer 2023 is coming up fast - Lakes Park, Fort Myers, Florida. Photo Courtesy of Charly Caldwell II.

With schools letting out in a few weeks and the official start to summer not too far away, summer vacation trips are in full planning mode!

However, remember while you are planning, that we are creatures of habit and as such we rely on the force of habit to support our healthful lifestyles.

Our routines get us to the gym each morning, help us choose low-fat nutritious meals and enable us to effectively cope with stress. Anything that disrupts our routines, such as:

• travel,
• vacations and
• holidays

can send our habits into a tailspin.

Instead of abandoning your hard-earned fitness gains, why not plan to take advantage of the change in routine to reaffirm your commitment to yourself and a healthy lifestyle?

PLAN AHEAD — 

It’s not enough to say “I’ll try to exercise” or I’ll try to health healthfully”.

Everyone KNOWS what they should do,...

Create time to walk, hike, run or bike, each day, outside.  Here's Friday, April 14's trail in Lakes Park, Fort Myers, Florida.  Photo Courtesy of Charly Caldwell II.

Is there ever enough time in a single day?

Like the U2 song from 1987, “ Race Against Time,” each day is a constant effort to get as much done in 24 hours and still find time for sleep.

When we become overburdened, our health and well-being get pushed to the back burner.

The trick isn’t needing more time, but rather being able to get the most out of time you do have without burning yourself out so you can maintain your health and well-being.

First, create a to-do list.

If something needs to get done, write it down.

The stress of carrying chores around in your head will only keep you awake at night and there is a good probability that you will forget them while focusing on other tasks.

Keeping a notebook handy is a great way to track and prioritize tasks so they get done, leaving more time...

A beautiful day for a early Spring Run in Lakes Park, Fort Myers!  Photo Courtesy of Charly Caldwell II.

You hit the ground running.

Literally.

Running five times a week.

You’re feeling good and setting new personal bests along the way.

Then it happens …

After a few weeks, you start to notice that little niggle has developed into an ache in your shin, or a stabbing pain in your knee or burning at the back of your heel.

It’s upsetting, even common, but it can be fixed.

When diagnosing this pain, it’s important to acknowledging that you aren’t in pain because you’re running, it’s how you are running.  

When starting any new activity, you should gradually ease into it. Every structure within your body has a specific capacity to resist stress and load.

When too much stress is applied without enough time for your body to adapt, pain will occur. As running is essentially repeating the same movement over and...

A beautiful early March sunset in Lakes Park, Fort Myers, Florida. Photo Courtesy of Charly Caldwell II

It’s 5 a.m. and your alarm goes off. You immediately begin the battle of whether to get up and exercise or not.

You know you’ll feel better if you do, but why?

This is your brain on exercise.

The reason that we feel so good when we exercise and get our blood pumping and our muscles firing is that it makes our brain feel good.

Essentially, building muscles and conditioning the heart and lungs are bi-products or side effects from exercise as there is a biological relationship between the body, the brain, and the mind.

It can be said that a key point of exercise is to build and condition the brain.

The relationship between food, physical activity, and learning is hardwired into the brain’s circuitry and therefore to keep our brains at peak performance, our bodies need to work hard.

Fitness: What to do when your workout stops working

The reason physical activity is...

A gorgeous February day on Naples Beach in Southwest Florida - Feb 19, 2023. Photo Courtesy of Charly Caldwell II.

With almost 2 months of the new year gone, how are you doing with your big year goals?

For many, weight loss was at the forefront of our minds and you may or may not be feeling successful.

Although weight loss is a great goal, it is an outcome-based goal which relies on behavioral change.

As important as it to maintain a healthy weight, it is also important for us to incorporate non-scale goals which can help modify our behavior.

Ultimately, these will help to support the intended long-term outcome of weight loss.

With that in mind, try incorporating non-scale goals to help reach your ultimate outcome.

Hydration — 

Water is an important nutrient that every cell in our body requires to function optimally.

Through daily natural physiological processes like breathing, digestion, sweating, we lose water that must be replaced. Studies show that an increase in...

A beautiful Florida winter early evening run in Lakes Park, Fort Myers, Florida. Photo Courtesy of Charly Caldwell II.

There are so many misconceptions surrounding exercise and the best ways to lose fat.

Some you may know and some may be new.

Let’s debunk these myths once and for all...

Myth #1 — You can spot reduce fat from certain body parts.

Spot reducing fat from your stomach or thighs, for example, is impossible. The concept of targeted fat loss or spot reduction is false.

The best way to explain this is to understand that the only thing exercises target are muscles, not the fat that is covering those muscles. 

The only way to lose fat in a specific area is to lose overall body fat.

Myth #2 — Doing loads of cardio is the best way to lose fat.

If your goal is fat loss, doing cardio for hours a day isn’t the best way to achieve it.

Yes, cardio workouts will help increase your calorie deficit but the most effective way to burn fat, increase your...

Enjoy a fast-paced walk, stopping to do some Calisthenics (or body weight) training in a park!  A great well rounded exercise. Photo courtesy of Charly Caldwell II.

With so many of us hunkered down and working from, it can be challenging to find a workout to fit your space and fit your needs.

Not to worry.

You already own the most versatile and potentially challenging piece of equipment available today...

Your body. 

If you’re not sold, think ‘Cirque Du Soleil’ meets ‘American Ninja Warrior’?

The unique combination of strength, stability, and control required to perform such acts is unlike anything else.

Visually, it’s one of the most eye-catching feats of strength possible, but being able to suspend yourself in mid-air is much more than just showing off your strength.

Training the body without the use of external resistance equipment, such as free weights, dumbbells or cables, is known as calisthenics. It’s been...