The clock is ticking and spring break is rapidly approaching. 

For some people, this can be the end of Lenten obligations or the first benchmark of a fitness commitment before summer break.

To continue the theme from the last column, I will continue to answer questions.

The first question comes from a female patron at the gym who asked me why she feels that her workout is giving her square shoulders.  Well, in her description of her workout, I was able to pinpoint the problem in her workout directly. If you are a girl (unless you want target shoulder muscles), stop doing wide gripped exercises. 

Basically, anytime you do shoulder raises or press to the sides or a cable pull down (lateral) with your elbows to your sides, it develops your body to widen.  Doing this occasionally is not going to do any major results in a day, but if you keep doing these types of wide-placed workouts, your frame will square up.

This next question: “How much should I eat?” is a little out of my expertise, but I will guide you to the right area for the answer.  I am a physical trainer, not a nutritionist.  These studies are in the same area, but are two completely different games.

You can work out really hard and expect results, but if you are not meeting your objective in the middle, with good nutrition as well, you are running yourself into a results barrier.

Go to freedieting.com/tools and select the calorie intake calculator.  Plug in your variables such as age, weight and height – be honest with yourself when you are asked how much you workout or you will not get the right answers.

The first result is how many calories you need to maintain your weight while the next two are deficits of the first result.  You can achieve your calorie deficit by eating that much less, working out to burn that much more, or what I recommend, you can do a little of both to reach the full deficit. This is usually around 500-600 less intake from your caloric maintenance outcome.

This should get you in the right direction as far as reaching those goals.  Again, I am a trainer, not a nutritionist so all I can recommend is that if it looks good and wholesome, you might as well eat it.  Eat until you’re not hungry, not until you are full. I will continue to take questions and comments in person or through email at [email protected] for all of your burning questions when it comes to fitness.  I will answer them for everyone and as always, I will not put your name.