John Olson has a passion for sports and coaching. Earlier in his life, he managed sporting goods stores in Merced, Modesto and San Luis Obispo.

But the best decision the 48-year-old Merced High School principal said he ever made was to go back to school and get his teaching credential. That has led to a 21-year education career and recent recognition as the top secondary school principal in Merced, Mariposa, Madera and Fresno counties.

"I'm thrilled with the award," Olson said. "It was a real honor and is an indication of the success of the school. I look at Merced High School as a beacon of hope. We do incredible things here, and I have a wonderful staff."

Olson comes from a family of educators. His dad, Robert Olson, was a longtime agriculture and science teacher at Livingston High School and his mom is a registered nurse who taught adult courses.

Olson's wife, Irma Ayala-Olson, is principal of Alicia Reyes Elementary School in Merced and his son, Tony, 27, is a flight instructor and helicopter pilot in Long Beach. The Olsons' daughter, Danielle Mahler, 25, is a senior at California State University, Stanislaus, and wants to be a physical therapist.

"My passion is teaching and coaching," Olson said. "Physically it's tough and you can work long hours. I get revived with athletics and extracurricular activities. Merced High School is a wonderful school, and I love it here. It's a great school, it really is."

Olson's love for Merced High impresses Stephanie Cowperthwaite, a campus security liaison.

"He's awesome; he's like a cheerleader for the kids and staff, too," Cowperthwaite said. "He's accessible, easy to talk to and really a nice guy. He knows more kids by name than any principal. He gets really involved with kids and that's really cool. We're really proud of him."

English teacher Michelle Dillon said Olson's leadership style reminds her of retired Merced High principal Tom Scheidt.

"Principal Olson makes us feel we are truly part of the Bear family," Dillon said. "He makes us feel like we matter and are valued. We know he cares about all of us. He exudes Bear pride and tremendous school spirit."

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Merced High's passionate principal awarded

GREEN BAY - John Barnes is taking the next step in his basketball coaching life after joining the Wisconsin-Green Bay women's program Monday.

The Escanaba native spent the past year as an assistant coach at University of Michigan under Kevin Borseth, who last month returned to UWGB as head coach. Barnes will be associate head coach.

Barnes, who pulled to the side of the road to talk while house hunting in Green Bay Monday, said the location and familiarity with Borseth were key factors in his decision to join the Phoenix.

"That was a very important decision compared to other jobs I was offered," said Barnes, who played at Michigan Tech during Borseth's tenure as head women's coach.

"That was a big selling point in coming to Green Bay. I know what he expects of me and he knows what I can do," Barnes said of taking a very attractive position. "There were a lot of people wanting the job."

He also interviewed recently for an assistant's role at Saint Louis University under Lisa Stone, who he worked for in 2010-11 at University of Wisconsin.

"I really liked it and I liked working for her," Barnes said. "They are really pushing to get the program headed in the right direction. Distance was a major factor (in declining the offer)."

He already knew of the UWGB opportunity and liked the idea of living close to his home town and Houghton, where he spent 2003-10 as women's head coach at Michigan Tech. He still owns a home there.

He also interviewed for the head coaching position at University of Northern Kentucky after his stint at Michigan ended. "I thought it went very well. It was a good experience to go through the process," he said.

"I was pretty picky as far as where I was interested in going," said Barnes. "I'm at the point where I want to work with someone I know I have a good relationship with. The area and distance all were factors."

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Barnes is UWGB cage aide

Prep sports Lehis Gladwell sought to retain traditional values.

Lehi

Dick Motta influenced his career choice and Nick Emery and T.J. Haws played against his last team.

Those names help define the coaching life of Lehi High Schools Craig Gladwell, whos retiring this month.

So do his age (65) and number of years (43) in the profession, although he hardly looks old and certainly could keep going.

Gladwell is a coaching marvel. In a way, his longevity tends to obscure his achievements. He holds a place in Utah basketball history, having won four Class 2A state championships at North Sevier in the 1990s. Yet with so few varsity head coaches of high-profile sports staying in the game for anything approaching his tenure, Gladwell is further distinguished.

"I just plugging along, and loving it, right up until now," he said.

This year became the stopping point not because of any driving forces, necessarily, and not accompanied by any regrets. Attending the state tournament in March was enjoyable for him. He didnt find himself longing for one last chance to coach.

Yet amid his satisfaction, hes mildly disillusioned about high school sports. While reflecting in a classroom at Lehi on a recent afternoon, Gladwell acknowledged being happy hes at the end of his career, not the start.

"I dont like the direction its going," he said. "Its all about recruiting. Its all about who can assemble the best talent, and then win. Its high school, education-based athletics. Its not college or pros. That part frustrates me."

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Kragthorpe: Utah prep coach retiring happily, but worried about state of sports

CHANHASSEN, Minn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Life Time Fitness, Inc. (NYSE:LTM - News), the healthy way of life company, today announced that its members lost 48,118 poundsthe equivalent of an 18-wheel tractor semitrailer or 24 tons during the companys Life Time Weight Loss 90-Day Challenge.

More than 2,400 Life Time members participated in the program, which encouraged participants to lose the largest percentage of body weight during three months with the support of exercise and nutrition coaching. The Life Time Weight Loss 90 Day Challenge is a source of inspiration and a catalyst for members to start a comprehensive, time bound, personal challenge that will transform their outlook and behavior about weight management.

Helping our members to take personal responsibility for their health, while providing a fun and educational challenge to help them achieve their goals is what Life Time is all about, said Jeff Zwiefel, executive vice president, Operations. Our 90-Day Challenge uniquely delivered the people, programs, support and motivation necessary to provide members with healthy habits for life.

Among the 2,400 success stories as a part of the 90-Day Challenge are:

During the Challenge, participants received:

For more information on the next 90-Day Challenge, including inspiring stories of personal transformations, visit http://lifetime-weightloss.com/90day.

About Life Time Fitness, Inc. As The Healthy Way of Life Company, Life Time Fitness (NYSE:LTM - News) helps organizations, communities and individuals achieve their total health objectives, athletic aspirations and fitness goals by engaging in their areas of interest or discovering new passions both inside and outside of Life Times distinctive and large sports, professional fitness, family recreation and spa destinations, most of which operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The Companys Healthy Way of Life approach enables customers to achieve this by providing the best programs, people and places of uncompromising quality and value. As of May 7, 2012, the Company operated 105 centers under the LIFE TIME FITNESS and LIFE TIME ATHLETIC(SM) brands in the United States and Canada. Additional information about Life Time centers, programs and services is available at lifetimefitness.com.

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Life Time Fitness Members Lose More Than 48,000 Pounds During the Life Time Weight Loss 90-Day Challenge

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chP200GxNzc

21-05-2012 11:54 Chris Broussard tests the perfect pushup. Is it better than doing regular pushups? Chris seems very confident that he can do 100 pushups, but he was surprised when he could barely do 1! Follow along to see how many perfect pushups he will be able to do by day 5. Subscribe to Everyday Health: For more videos, visit the Everyday Health Channel on YouTube: Check us out: Find us on Facebook: Follow us on Twitter at: We're on Pinterest: ...And Tumblr! About Fitness Guinea Pig: On Fitness Guinea Pig, we enlist people from all walks of life, be it celebrities, comedians, actors, or your average everyday joe, to test today's most popular workouts, weight loss programs and fitness equipment. We'll put them through the rigors of p90x, Zumba, and all of the latest trends in physical fitness. See these fitness guinea pigs in action and hear their results to decide which one is right (or not) for you! Chris Broussard: Chris is a sports analyst for ESPN who mainly covers the NBA. He is also a columnist for ESPN Magazine and ESPN.com. He also makes appearances on ESPN's NBA Fastbreak. In 1990, Chris started his sportswriting career for The Plain Dealer, a newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. He worked there for 4 years until he moved to the Akron Beacon Journal where he started covering the NBA, spending 2 1/2 season with them as the Cleveland Cavaliers beat writer. He ...

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Perfect Pushup Test (Fitness Guinea Pig) - Video

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cs2TXRyUqHM

21-05-2012 13:38 The first block called "we found one close to me" , if you didn't know this is the Swedish House Mafia (who feature throughout this release as Save the World is in also, and we got Antidote it Jam 61!). Check out for details on our classes!

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Bodyjam 60 from Zenity Health and Fitness - Video

On Wednesday, May 30, an estimated 100,000 older adults will participate in local fitness activities throughout the country as part of the 19th annual National Senior Health and Fitness Day(NSHFD), the nation's largest health promotion event for older adults.

Older adults at all levels of physical fitness are encouraged to participate in National Senior Health and Fitness Day. The goal is to make exercise fun, increase awareness of the benefits of a regular exercise program for older adults, and to encourage all older adults to take advantage of health and fitness programs offered in theFlorencecommunity.

The McLeod Health and Fitness Center will host a special event to recognize the senior community on Wednesday, May 30. The event includes fitness walks, low-impact exercises, health screenings and information, and much more. National Senior Health and Fitness Day is open to both members and non-members of the McLeod Health andFitnessCenter.

Below is the McLeod Health & Fitness Center schedule of activities from 8 a.m. until 1 p.m. May 30. (The schedule is subject to change.)

7:30 a.m. Registration Begins

7:45 a.m. - 1 p.m. Cholesterol Screenings

8 a.m. Rail Trail Walk (meet in the H&FC front lobby)

8:15 a.m. Working out H2O Style

8:30 a.m. Fit For Life Senior Fitness

8:45 a.m. Aqua Blast

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National Senior Health and Fitness Day to be held at McLeod Health & Fitness

I'm one of those women who likes reading men's health and fitness magazines. Though they all promise bodies and sex lives that most of us will never have, I'm drawn to the funny, self-deprecating tone, the functional workout tips and the emphasis on sweat, competition and strength training.

Yes, women's magazines have these elements but on a vastly diminished scale. They're fluffier, in part because beauty products and clothes are considered health-related, but also because women are still plagued by the irrational fear of "bulking up." We won't get huge without added testosterone, but some magazines still perpetuate the notion that men should build insanely huge muscles and women need to lose fat.

A recent Muscle & Fitness magazine cover, for example, promised "75 of the Best Muscle Building Exercises." By contrast, Muscle & Fitness Hers, the female counterpart to the bodybuilder mag, featured thinspiration, including "The Skinny on Fat Loss" and "The Best Natural Appetite Suppressants." The majority of advertisements touted fat-burning supplements, stimulants and weight loss products.

Men's Health and Women's Health magazines have plenty of overlapping content. Both recognize that both genders compete in marathons and triathlons, want great abs in 15 minutes and need nutritional guidance. But the editors use considerably different voices to reach their male and female readers.

"For Women's Health, it's a confiding, challenging, sisterly thing equal parts encouragement, sympathy and advice. It comes from a place of 'just us girls,'" said David Zinczenko, editor-in-chief of Men's Health and editorial director of Women's Health.

"Guys tend to be a bit more bracing with their counsel, with a healthy dose of humor plus self-denigration thrown into the mix," Zinczenko added. "First we laugh at ourselves, then we laugh at you, then we deliver the goods straight up, with an expert chaser."

Women's Health also uses a larger typeface than Men's Health. Though it may be simply a design decision, larger fonts can elicit stronger emotional brain responses, according to a study by German researchers.

The direct "male" approach is what I find appealing. Men's workouts are usually cast as a way to build a stronger body. Women's exercises are given cute, superficial names, such as "The Wedding Dress Workout" or "The Bikini Body Booty routine." Rather than sending the message that exercise builds muscle, confidence and improves mental health, the emphasis is on looking good. If your workout goal is to fit into a swimsuit, you're using an unsustainable approach to fitness. But if your goal is to get healthy which means incorporating it as a lifestyle you'll have a body that you want to show off.

Still, some women and magazines are catching on. At Details, where 32 percent of the online readership is female, there's a growing recognition that "the gender boundaries in fitness studios and gyms have been blurred," said Details senior editor Sheila Monaghan, who edits the health, fitness and nutrition section. "Fitness has become this sort of equalizer between the sexes," she said. "Everyone wants the same results."

TAKING CUES FROM THE OPPOSITE SEX

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Column: Health and fitness magazines take different approaches when motivating women and men

Long commutes to work may be hazardous to your health. Longer daily drives are associated with decreased fitness and increased weight, a recent study from Washington University suggests.

While other studies have examined the amount of time spent in the car, this study looked specifically at driving distance, said Christine Hoehner, the study's lead investigator and an assistant professor in the division of public health sciences at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

"It's an important part of people's daily routine and it affects a lot of people," she said. "Unlike TV viewing, which has gotten most of the attention when you think about sedentary behavior, commuting distance, or time you spend commuting in a car, isn't something you can change as easily as just turning off the TV."

Researchers looked at the commuting habits of nearly 4,300 residents in Dallas-Fort Worth and Austin, Texas. They used ArcGIS9 software (a geographic information system, rather than relying on self report) to calculate commuting distances, measuring the shortest route to work. They also compiled information on participants' CRF, body mass index (BMI), and metabolic factors including waist circumference, cholesterol levels and blood pressure.

The study determined that people who drove 10 or more miles to work were more likely to have higher blood pressure, while those with commutes of 15 miles or more were less likely to participate in physical activity and were linked to having a greater waist circumference and a higher BMI.

These outcomes were true even when researchers accounted for physical activity, which suggests that there may be something about the commute itself that leads to poorer health.

"We can hypothesize that if two people are equally active but one person has to commute a further distance than the other, they are perhaps burning fewer calories, so that might be over time, leading to higher weight," she said.

Hoehner pointed out that there may be other mechanisms at play that the study didn't measure, such as longer commutes may equate with getting less sleep, which has also been linked to increased weight gain, or they may be snacking more in the car.

Why the higher blood pressure? "People who commute longer distances might be faced with more daily stress, especially if they're faced with traffic congestion on a daily basis," Hoehner said.

Although these mechanisms - sleep, diet, stress - were not included in the study, Hoehner said it's still important to note that "longer commuting distances is associated with higher weight, lower fitness levels and higher blood pressure and all these are strong predictors of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and some types of cancers."

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Is your commute hurting your health?

SAN DIEGO, May 22, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --CKO Kickboxing, one of the fastest-growing health fitness franchises, will open its first cardio kickboxing gym in California on June 1 at 7094 Miramar Road, Suites 115 and 116 in San Diego, to provide high-quality cross training in a friendly, comfortable home-like setting in the Mira Mesa area.

Grand Opening festivities are in the works for Saturday, June 2 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., according to CKO Kickboxing of San Diego owners Trisha Virga and Joe Virga.

"You can work up a sweat and burn calories without worrying about getting a black eye or breaking a bone with cardio kickboxing," Virga said of the cardio kickboxing gym that will serve residents of San Diego, Mira Mesa, Scripps Ranch and UTC. He and his wife, Trisha, who is certified in pre-natal training, will be the head trainers of CKO Kickboxing in San Diego. "We specialize in making everyday people reach their fitness goals and their full fitness potential through kickboxing."

The Virgas also own and operate a CKO Kickboxing franchise in Brooklyn, N.Y., but have relocated permanently to San Diego.

"We went on vacation to San Diego last December. I said to my wife, 'I want to live here. I would like for my kids to grow up in a place like this,'" he said.

"We're real excited about offering cardio boxing classes in San Diego. We were looking for a location a year ago in Los Angeles and I wasn't feeling it. Then we came to San Diego. I found a real estate broker. We negotiated the lease in an hour. It was unheard of. It usually takes months," he said.

CKO Kickboxing, whose franchisees include many former military members, is offering a 10 percent discount to current and former service personnel as well as police and fire personnel. Students and teachers also receive a 10 percent discount.

To make the gym stand out from competitors, members can work out by themselves at any time the club is open. Most kickboxing gyms are open only for classes or for private instruction, but not for drop-in workouts.

"People lead busy lives. We want to work around their schedules, not the other way around," he said. "We always strive to make CKO like your home, not like a gym."

"My goal is to put together a unique gym, a functional training gym, not just a gym with dumbbells," he added.

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CKO Kickboxing Health Fitness Franchise Continues Rapid Growth with New San Diego Gym Opening on June 1