So, have you been keeping your New Year’s resolution to exercise more? Unless your resolution was a bit more specific than that, chances of succeeding may be fairly uphill, notes Scott Reilly, owner of Prescriptions for Fitness at 225 King Street.
“Saying I want to lose 60 pounds is way too vague,” he explains. “A goal of I want to lose six pounds in the first month, or I want to be able to run one mile or drop one dress size by February break is more achievable.”
Goals can be broken down to weekly or monthly, Reilly adds. “If you don’t reach a certain goal, write down why you didn’t reach it, put it behind you, and reach the following week’s goal. Don’t dwell on it, don’t beat yourself up, and move on. Always remember: fitness should be fun and achievable. It shouldn’t become a chore or something you hate. Then you will never achieve your goals.”
Equally important is to be careful not to overdo it. If you’re not in shape at the outset, jumping into a boot camp, for example, can be downright dangerous. “Within a week of doing these classes, most people get injured, hurt their back, or neck and end up taking a long period off from exercising,” warns Reilly, adding that for exercise to be most effective, it needs to be tailored to meet an individual’s general health and fitness profile. Indeed, Reilly has long touted Prescriptions for providing “expertise and targeted training.”
“We personalize workouts to meet the high standards of professional, educated individuals in the area,” he continued. “ We also work with kids and teams, so naturally the goals and training for a 17 year old hockey player is going to be very different from a 50 year old man with cardiovascular issues!”
The hour-long sessions combine cardio with circuit training which has been deemed the most efficient way to burn fat optimally. “For maximum results, we encourage clients to get as many ‘reps’ in with each portion of the circuit, with a limited rest, before repeating or moving on to the next part of the circuit. We alternate reps with cardio activities.”
Moving Past Plateaus
A key challenge in successful workouts is plowing past “plateaus.” That’s when you are, say, five to ten pounds short of achieving a goal but can’t seem to get any more mileage out of a workout. “If you give your body new and different challenges,” Scott says, “it will propel you out of your comfort zone so that you can get ever more strong and fit.”
Scott has been training clients in physical fitness since high school when he was captain of the varsity wrestling team at John Jay High School. He went on to eventually manage a string of Gold’s Gyms before opening up Prescriptions for Fitness in Chappaqua, at its first location, 16 years ago. He is married to Lyn Reilly, who sells real estate in Newtown, CT. Their two daughters, Jillian, 9 and Devyn, 5, are both avid dancers.
Many Prescriptions clients have trained there for a decade or longer and avidly attest to positive results. Chappaqua regular Paul Jenkel said he joined Prescriptions after watching his wife Barbara’s health profile literally transform from her workouts there. She had come to Prescriptions following a cancer scare and an osteoporosis diagnosis.
Training two or three times a week with intense cardio and weight bearing exercises reversed her diagnosis. Another client, Chuck Rockefeller, has improved his golf game and overall fitness “tremendously” via a multidisciplinary golf clinic Scott set up at the Sleepy Hollow Country Club. “We are one of the only facilities in Westchester with Titleist Golf Performance Institute certified trainers who will evaluate and design an exercise program tailored specifically to your individual golf game,” explains Scott.
Scott is never surprised by the transformations he witnesses but always proud to be of service. Fitness goals, he says, are “a journey…you want to move forward, not backwards. There’s no easy way to lose weight and keep it off permanently without a commitment to regular exercise and training too, particularly as you hit middle age and those upper baby boom years. When you get in better shape, you feel and think and sleep better and you naturally make better food choices too.” With the holidays behind all of us, training this winter might just be the perfect time to give optimal health a try. For more info, visit www.prescriptionsforfitness.net
–Grace Bennett
