Some exercisers do too much, too fast

All you need is some trash and some inspiration, says Amen Iseghohi, a fitness entrepreneur in the Los Angeles area whose clients work out on auto tires instead of machines and dumbbells.

As a boy, he worked on his grandmother’s farm, played sports and ran. His grandmother taught him that smart people don’t focus on what they don’t have, they succeed by using whatever they have on hand.

And so recycled tires are the basis of Amenzone Fitness, Iseghohi’s chain of studios.

The first studio opened last year in Manhattan Beach, Calif. There aren’t any mirrors or elaborate machines. But there are plenty of tires and slogans written on the exposed brick walls.

Leaders share an inspiring saying at the end of the high-intensity workouts, in which clients use tires as weights, steps and obstacles.

Asked what he thinks the biggest mistake newcomers to fitness make, he said, “They need to remember why they started when it gets challenging. There are going to be hard times.”

Now that he has income from his fitness stores, he can buy any gear he wants. If he could have just one piece of equipment, what would it be?

“Tires,” he said.

BALANCE FLOW AND FORCE

Hollywood-based trainer Lacey Stone - tall, blond, fit and smiling - agrees that too many newcomers aren’t prepared to struggle. “They want results immediately and lack patience,” she says.

“I’ve just started to take yoga, and I’m strong, and I’m terrible at it,” she says.

While her “terrible” might not be a beginner’s terrible, she says she hopes that by playing to her weaknesses she will inspire the people who are good at yoga to try Spinning. “Yoga is about flow, and I’m about force,” she says. “To be balanced, you need both.”

Actually, she says, three aspects of life have to be in balance: professional, personal and physical. “If one of those is out of whack, you’re unhappy. And that’s really why you came to see me. We can work out forever and you’ll still eat the cupcakes because your boyfriend’s cheating on you.”

If she could buy any piece of equipment in the world, what would it be? Nothing, she says. The best tool is “your body’s own weight.”KEEP MOVING

Americans are over-exercising and underactive, says diet writer Harley Pasternak. And we’re getting mixed signals about fitness and health. “The more that science tells us that shorter, simple workouts and lower-intensity daily activity are the best way for us to get healthy and stay healthy, the more we are bombarded by fitness programs and diets that delineate the exact opposite,” he says.

“It’s hard enough to go from being sedentary to being active, but asking people to hoist a barbell over their heads, hoist boat anchors and hip-hop dance till they throw up is the exact opposite of what we need to be doing.”

People should be active all day, Pasternak says. Park a few blocks from the destination. Skip the escalator. Take walks.

Beginners make the mistake of doing “too much too fast too soon. And the lack of a plan. You need a strategy that is safe and effective.”

He says he does 15 minutes of cardiovascular endurance and 30 minutes of weights each day, and he walks as much as possible. His latest book, The Body Reset Diet, includes a 15-day “anticleanse” with a daily regimen of three meals, two snacks, 10,000 steps or five miles, and brief amounts of resistance work.

But he warns: “Ten thousand steps is not enough to make up for a bad diet. The 10 healthiest countries all take more steps than we do. And they don’t know what a ThighMaster is.”