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Jennifer on the Optimizing Brains and Bodies Podcast

Jennifer was recently a guest on the Optimizing Brains and Bodies Podcast with Dr. Kristen Allot and Natasha Duarte. The title of the episode is Eye Exercises to Improve Brain Fatigue After Zoom Meetings , also available here as a video so you can see the exercises performed.

It was a light, fun and informative interview dealing with the current trend of Zoom and other web based video conferencing that has become so common this year because of the Covid-19 restrictions.

By |2020-09-14T15:47:29-07:00September 14th, 2020|Uncategorized|Comments Off on Jennifer on the Optimizing Brains and Bodies Podcast

Studio Cleanliness and Precautions

We are taking extra steps to maintain a clean training environment during the current flu, and virus season.

Taiso Fitness is now 10 years old. In a business where the average trainer has 18 months of experience and most small independent fitness studios fail in under three years, we have been serving Tacoma for more than 10 years now.

From the very beginning there have been a few things that set us apart. 1) Bringing a level of training not normally available to the average person. 2) Having really small groups or one-on-one interaction so you don’t get lost in the crowd. 3) And from the very beginning, maintaining a strict standard of cleanliness.

People often remark about the cleanliness of our facility, and how it does NOT smell like a gym.

We would like to thank our members for continuing to contribute to this Culture of Cleanliness by not coming in when sick and sanitizing their hands at the front door.

But with current concerns about the coronavirus (covid 19), we are taking extra steps to ensure the cleanest training environment we are able to.

In addition to our normal cleaning standards which include the use of steam or antibacterial cleaning products, this past weekend every single bar, band, handle, block, mat, etc…. was sanitized.

We will actively encourage people to sanitize their hands when they coming in and to stage all equipment they used on the floor in front of the appropriate rack. All equipment used will be clean before going back on the rack and used by the next class.

For more information on normal class hours or personal training, check here.

For more information on Coronavirus (COVID 19) or related health concerns for Washington State, check here.

Thanks […]

By |2020-03-09T08:53:09-07:00March 9th, 2020|Blog|Comments Off on Studio Cleanliness and Precautions

Movement With A Purpose

Recently a friend remarked that modern fitness practice came from the practice of gymnastics. I don’t know if this is true, and I wasn’t interested enough to attempt anything but cursory research. But it did get me thinking about something similar I had heard in the past. That most sports and fitness across a variety of cultures can be traced back to that cultures style of warfare. In other words, the preparation and practice of human conflict was the driver for the rote repetition of skills necessary for people to fight together. 

For now, let’s assume this statement is accurate and look at the original olympics as practiced from 777BC to at least 393AD. The only sports were military skills; boxing, wrestling, penkration (anything goes fighting, except for biting and eye gouging), running (with and without armor), long jump, javelin, discus, and chariot racing. The olympics as we know them today were reinvented at the end of the 19th century. 

The overall purpose of the movement practice was the defense of the nation. The “games” reflected the skills needed for that defense. In order to do well at the games you needed technical skill practice, as well as attribute training such as strength, endurance, coordination, etc… But there was a unified movement goal far bigger than being a “runner”, or a “weight lifter”, or any other repetitive action we now think of in the world of “fitness.”

Throughout my life I have had a variety of movement practices to enable me to participate in other activities such as rock climbing, parachuting, scuba-diving, hiking, biking, and a variety of martial arts practices. My personal measure of fitness changed based on the activity I was focused on […]

By |2019-05-30T09:33:43-07:00May 30th, 2019|Uncategorized|Comments Off on Movement With A Purpose

Holiday Raffles Between Thanksgiving and Christmas

Season’s Greetings, Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and all that stuff. Taiso loves Christmas. If it was up to Jennifer we would start the Christmas season on July 5th. So to celebrate the season we are doing weekly raffles for clients every Friday between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

So, first things first. How do I enter the raffle?

Great question. Every time you come in and work out you get one entry into the raffle for that week. We will not pick the winner until after everyone has been in on Friday. The winner will be announced on Monday. You don’t need to be present to win.

You also get three additional entries if you bring a guest, or a referral of yours comes in. And as an added bonus we’ll tell the Elf on the Shelf to put in a good word for you with Santa!

Ok, you got me. Now, what do I win?

I’m glad you asked. As we approach New Years, people start thinking about goals and resolutions. So we put together some of our most popular options for helping you get focused and be successful with your goals.

  • Three Personal Training Sessions with Jennifer
  • Six Week Nutrition Counseling
  • One month upgrade to Unlimited Group Classes
  • Body Composition Analysis with James from 5 Ring Systems.

Do I get to pick my prize?

Nope. We took a lead from Santa. If you win the raffle that week, you get to pick a card from under the tree. The cards are sealed, much like the boxes Old Saint Nick drops off, and you don’t know what’s inside till you open it.

But, what if I didn’t get the prize I was hoping for?

This is where we remind you of the whole naughty and […]

By |2017-11-28T07:51:47-08:00November 28th, 2017|Uncategorized|Comments Off on Holiday Raffles Between Thanksgiving and Christmas

So, What Exactly is Z Health | Tacoma Group Fitness & Personal Training

Did you know that no system in the body works in isolation? When you get injured all sorts of things happen in order for you to compensate for that injury. If left un-remediated, those compensations can lead to long-term physical changes and possibly chronic pain.

Taiso Fitness' Jennifer Nerio practicing Z Health

Understanding Z Health

Since 2010, Taiso Fitness has implemented a training protocol called Z Health. Z Health views the body through a neurological lens. Z Health puts you and your nervous system at the center of the training.

Just to simply walk across the room, this requires your eyes, balance, and movement systems all working together to provide information to the brain. As a result, the brain then processes all that information about your body, the environment, and even things like your past experiences and decides what to do next. So you could say, “our brains all work the same … but different.”

Sometimes those past experiences, such as an injury, might lead to changes in the way we move the rest of our lives. Z Health looks for sub-optimal performance and ways to correct it by asking how it relates to the nervous system and how can we improve that.

“Wait, does that mean if I injure body part A, it can effect body part B, and I feel pain in body part C?”

Yep. That is why coaches trained in Z Health pay attention to the whole body, rather than one part at a time.  Z Health has proven to produce staggering advances in performance, and […]

By |2017-11-07T14:09:22-08:00November 7th, 2017|Blog, News|Comments Off on So, What Exactly is Z Health | Tacoma Group Fitness & Personal Training

Associate Induction Hypothesis

The Associate Induction Hypothesis offers a different way to understand cell structure, energetics, and health.

Over the last few years I have realized TWO things about nutrition and cellular biology. First, I don’t know as much as I thought I did. And second, neither does anyone else.

I say this because the generally accepted “theory” of cellular energetics is just that – “theory.” Well, if it is just a theory I wanted to know what some of the other theories might be.

More importantly if our understanding of the most basic human function, the creation of energy at the cell, is incomplete or inaccurate then how does this effect our overall understanding of health, and metabolism.

I wanted to comment on this interview because it lays the foundation for several ideas you will hear in later interviews. Many of the later interviews offer an approach and explanation to many health and metabolism issues I have seen or experienced.

Based on those explanations and the results I have seen, I am willing to consider the further implications of this approach.

In this interview, Danny and Phil discuss the Associate Induction Hypothesis.

Here are some of the main points I got out of the interview.

5:20 Phil describes the dominate view of the Membrane Pump and idea of cell receptors  that only interact with certain chemicals.  This is the mainstream model of the cell based on a phospholipid bi-layer around the cells and the use of mechanical pumps.

It can be a little difficult to follow without some visuals. Here is a series of videos to help from the Kahn Academy. At 11:20 in this video they present the mechanical pump theory.

10:15 Phil introduces the Living Protoplasm perspective. The idea that the cell is […]

By |2017-09-06T15:55:21-07:00January 26th, 2016|Blog, Weight Loss & Metabolism|Comments Off on Associate Induction Hypothesis

Big Changes for the New Year

We have moved to Proctor for the New Year.  

We are starting our New Year  at a new address We are now at 3819 North 27th Street, Tacoma Washington 98407, between Foxfire and the Post Office. A temporary banner sign is up now, until the permanent signs are installed.

In the new space we were able to add 140 square foot of additional green tatami style flooring, but the shape of the space makes it seem even bigger.

Parking for the new space are the spaces 3-10 marked “RESERVED” right in front of our door. Our entrance is at the bottom of the ramp.

Personal Programs AND Group Classes.

In addition to the Defying Gravity Classes on Monday and Wednesday nights at 6:30, keep an eye on the schedule for the traditional Taiso Group Classes to return.

There will be one class on the schedule each night. During that time you will be able to register for either the group class, or your Individual Program.

Weight Loss and Goal Setting.

The old Jeans Challenge weight-loss program and the RESOLUTE Online program have been combined. Now Monday nights at 7pm we will have a “Mind Gym” to help you focus on goals, habits, change and weight loss.

New Years Resolution Support!

To help you get started with your New Years fitness goals we want to help you reinforce the habit of working out. To do this we are offering a 60 day unlimited attendance upgrade to the basic membership. For $60 you get to come in six days a week. Its a great way to combine your personal program and the new group classes!

Eight Week Trial Membership.

If you are new to Taiso we want to give you time to get to know us and figure out if […]

By |2017-09-06T15:55:24-07:00January 3rd, 2016|Blog|Comments Off on Big Changes for the New Year

Beginning Crow

Ready to begin crow? At Taiso Fitness we integrate many forms of training from yoga, gymnastics, and martial arts to TRX, kettlebell, and barbell. The Defying Gravity program is a dynamic body weight based fitness program that progresses like a martial art. As you gain mastery over various yoga, gymnastics, and martial arts inspired movement you earn colored wrist bands similar to martial arts belts. Each band level unlocks a new series of skills.

Crow is a great introduction to hand-balancing. It is a great low-threat way to develop not just the balance for more difficult movements, but also the core strength, shoulder stabilization, and wrist flexibility.

One of the many core strengthening exercises appropriate for this is the TRX tuck. This version has been slightly modified to bring the knees near the elbows to more closely mimic the requirements of crow.

Using down dog and variations including the down dog pushup are good ways to improve shoulder strength and stabilization. In this version we are using the the down dog push up with the feet on a box. This is normally the third variation introduced and may not be appropriate if you are just getting started.

Finally, here is a simple, low-impact wrist flexibility drill. In the video I am working on flexing the wrist. But I am also pressing into the wall to create active resistance which is more beneficial than only doing passive flexibility training.

Taiso Fitness and Nutrition

If you are looking for a shared personal training experience try Taiso Fitness and Nutrition. We are Tacoma’s fitness and nutrition gym for people who want to get out of pain or improve performance, who need immediate, measurable results, and want to make educated decisions to take control of their […]

By |2017-09-06T15:55:25-07:00December 7th, 2015|Blog, Defying Gravity|Comments Off on Beginning Crow

Homo Urbanus 30 Minute Squat

Life in the urban jungle is full of opportunities to rest. We have furniture to sit on in our homes, where we work, in our transportation, and most places we visit. The urban jungle in Western society has so many places to sit that culturally we have forgotten the squat as a resting position.

Look at small children playing and it doesn’t take long to find one in a perfect squat. No one had to coach the child on what the squat was supposed to look like. No one has to tell the child to keep its weight on its heels, where its feet go, or how to protect its knees. Why? Because they have not yet spent years in chairs altering its habits and deconditioning its muscles.

Our lifetime of sitting takes its toll. Most of the clients we meet have some sort of pelvis issues that contribute to knee and low back pain. Lack of squatting isn’t the only culprit here, but it is a significant contributor. We find everyone moves better when they are able to do a deep squat and hold it comfortably.

But if you are like most people we meet, you first have to be able to get into a squat before you can work on holding the squat for any length of time.

When we say a “full range-of-motion squat” we mean being able to squat as deep as a baby with no pain. A nerve glide you can perform to help with this may be practiced by laying on the back, raising the leg as high as possible without bending the knee, moving the leg across your body until the knee is at or past the […]

By |2017-09-06T15:55:26-07:00November 12th, 2015|homo urbanus|Comments Off on Homo Urbanus 30 Minute Squat

Homo Urbanus Out of Breath

Breath for Fitness in the City

Throughout our blog we already have several resources for the importance of better breathing, as well as ways to achieve it.

So, here I will organize some of that material so you can go more in depth if you have not already read those articles.

To perform a good self-analysis for your breathing start with this article, Respiration Weight Loss and Metabolism. It is an excerpt from our RESOLUTE Weight Loss and Metabolism course. In it we touch on what is proper breathing, common issues we see daily, and how to resolve those issues.

Earlier this year we did a 30 Day Breathing Challenge. The challenge was composed of four videos with three exercises each. The purpose of the exercises was to improve posture, diaphragm control, and to help reduce the number of breaths we take each minute.

One of the ways we measured progress was with the length of our controlled pause. This was how long we could go between needing to take a breath.

Here are the links to the series:

30 Day Breathing Challenge Week One

30 Day Breathing Challenge Week Two

30 Day Breathing Challenge Week Three

30 Day Breathing Challenge Week Four

In our studio we ran the challenge for thirty days and it was so successful that we continued to indefinitely as part of our warmups before our workouts. Many participants saw at least a 50 to 100 percent increase in their controlled pause. This reflected their increased respiratory efficiency.

If you are just getting started with the Homo Urbanus article series we encourage you to start from the beginning and keep you eye out for the rest of the series.

Homo Urbanus is on the Hunt

Homo Urbanus Just […]

By |2017-09-06T15:55:27-07:00October 5th, 2015|Blog, breathing, homo urbanus|Comments Off on Homo Urbanus Out of Breath
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