http://www.newsday.com/news/health/the-daily-apple-1.4760551/lier-jen-selter-social-media-sensation-lands-in-vanity-fair-talks-fitness-1.7698865
There’s more behind social media fitness sensation Jennifer Selter than just a carefully sculpted figure.
For Selter, 20, of Roslyn, who will be appearing in this month’s
edition of Vanity Fair, the grueling daily workout routine -- and
hundreds of selfies it’s produced -- is all about positively influencing
the lives of others.
“My passion in life is inspiring others,” said Selter, who has risen
to a certain amount of fame through the workout photos and videos she
posts to social media. As of publication, Selter had 3.1 million
followers on Instagram, 962,000 likes on Facebook and 478,200 followers
on Twitter. She also recently signed a marketing contact with The Legacy
Agency Inc.
Selter said the combination of two of her favorite pastimes -- social media and fitness -- turned out to be a powerful tool.
“Every day I get fan mail from people who tell me I’ve helped to push
them to limits they never thought they would reach,” she said. “That’s
how I know this business is for me.”
Selter said appearing in the April issue of Vanity Fair was an honor.
“Being a part of Vanity Fair is a privilege and an honor,” she said.
“As girls, we read fashion magazines for advice and inspiration, and I
can only hope people look at me the way I look at the features in
fashion magazines. It was also very humbling because so many great
people have been featured in Vanity Fair, and I definitely don’t
consider myself up there with Scarlett Johansson."
In the article, writer Alex Beggs also focused on Selter’s ability to inspire others.
“When fans recognize her #seltering -- posing for her iPhone with a
leg raised and buttocks in full focus -- on park benches and subway
stairways, they tell her she’s inspired them to go to the gym that day,”
she wrote.
Selter first took an interest in fitness when she was a senior at
Roslyn High School and secured a job working at the front desk of her
local gym. While juggling what she described as long, frustrating hours,
Selter began to convert her aggravations into positive energy.
“I learned to channel that negative energy into working out and
making myself better,” she said. “I saw amazing results, my body began
to transform.”
She said after she started posting pictures online, her Internet
popularity grew gradually. She was about a year in when she started to
notice other people taking an interest.
“When I started posting pictures of myself, I was looking for
motivation,” she said. “I never thought that I would be the motivation,
but suddenly people were looking up to me. I didn’t plan to promote
myself on social media, it really just happened.”
Selter works out at her NYC home’s private gym, which she said she prefers because it eliminates interruptions.
“I can focus on my routine,” she said. “Once I’m finished working
out, I’m here for all my followers and always down to take a picture.”
When training, Selter directs her focus on exercises involving her
core (abs), glutes and cardio. Selter’s also a big proponent of squats
-- which her fans already know. Her strongly-developed glutes are the
focus of many of her selfies.
“Squats are a girl’s best friend,” she said. “[They] work your core,
your glutes and they keep your legs toned. They especially strengthen
the muscles around our knees. My overall fitness goals are to look tone
and lean, so I‘m not trying to build muscle or gain weight.”
The photos have helped spawn a #belfie trend on social media (when
someone posts pictures of their own backside), as well as #seltering.
“I was never one to use many hashtags but I needed a unique way of
branding myself and something to call my unusual pictures, like climbing
up walls and stuff,” Selter said.
“It felt right since we live in a world almost defined by hashtags.”
Even though she receives fitness tips from professionals and friends, Selter creates her own fitness regimen.
“I like working out and doing my own thing,” she said. “I know what’s
best for my body, and no one can cater a workout to my body except for
me. Knowing your body is one of the most important things when you’re
trying to better it.”
Though much of her life focused on her gym routine, Selter said strength-training is only part of the package.
“It’s 20 percent in the gym and 80 percent in the kitchen,” she said.
“You can’t outrun a bad diet. I eat as clean as I can. I try to avoid
refined sugars and flours, and I incorporate a lot of lean protein, like
grilled chicken. I also eat throughout the day to keep my metabolism
up.”
Selter emphasized two key factors to those looking to shape up: Consistency and hard work.
“Results do not happen overnight,” she said. “Be patient and never
give up. Always remember to push yourself. You'll be surprised at what
your body can achieve once you've set your mind into it.”
Sunday, April 27, 2014
Long Island Olympians talk training, fitness and nutrition
http://www.newsday.com/news/health/the-daily-apple-1.4760551/long-island-olympians-talk-training-fitness-and-nutrition-1.7698773
Sixteen years ago, a vision became clear for Long Island Olympian Matthew Mortensen -- if he was going to succeed in the luge, strength and conditioning was going to become an essential part of his life.
Mortensen, a Huntington Station resident and a sergeant in the United States Army National Guard, entered the U.S. Luge's development program in 1998 -- a preparatory program designed to train young athletes for the luge -- where he learned the proper way to lift weights and exercise, focusing heavily on lifting form and injury prevention. This was Mortensen's first introduction to the weight room.
“Once you become part of the development program, the staff gets you on a workout program as soon as possible to start to train you as a luge athlete,” said Mortensen, 28, of Huntington Station. “There is no heavy lifting going on because you do not want to stunt someone’s growth, but you are made into a very knowledgeable lifter.”
Mortensen is also a member of the Army’s World Class Athlete Program, which provides the support and assistance soldier-athletes need to be successful at both their athletic and military careers.
He was one of three Long Islanders -- along with Aidan Kelly, 19, of West Islip and John Daly, 28, of Smithtown -- competing in the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
In May 2013, Mortensen began an intense training regimen for Sochi, including specific movements such as the bench press, weighted pullups, triceps extensions, Olympic lifts and medicine ball workouts -- all of which are protocol to luge athletes, who focus on upper-body strength. During the first month, Mortensen focused on high-volume -- 3x10 or 4x10 set/rep design -- in order to build a base for the rest of the program.
“The following months after that, the set/reps start to go down to maximize strength and speed output,” said Mortensen, who graduated high school from St. Dominic in Oyster Bay, in 2004. “In this sport you need to not only be strong, you need to be fast.”
Nutrition is also an important part of the regimen, especially during the summer months, said Mortensen, who lives in Lake Placid for about five months of the year but spends the rest of his time on Long Island when not traveling for competitions and training. He said he eats a lot of dark greens, such as spinach; proteins, including tuna, salmon and chicken; and enough carbohydrates to keep him energized.
“During the summer, I try to eat as clean as possible,” he said. “Nutrition during the season doesn’t go out the window, per say, but it becomes a lot harder to eat a certain type of food -- certain foods may be unavailable in certain countries. You are kind of at the mercy of what you’re served.”
Kelly, who started lifting weights at age 14, said he knew he would have to train hard in the weight room to improve his start.
“Because luge is an upper body sport where we pull off two handles to start, most of our lifts include upper back, lower back, tricep- and bicep-pull movements,” said Kelly, who attended West Islip High School before transferring to the National Sports Academy in Lake Placid. “Luge athletes are notorious for having strong backs.”
After a single year of training, Kelly was able to do a pullup with an additional 45 pounds added to his body weight. Now, four years later, the 195-pound Kelly can perform a pullup with an extra 135 pounds.
Kelly competed in this year’s Olympics after recovering from a luge crash in 2011, during the Adirondack Ice Breaker competition in Lake Placid. The crash left him with a compression fracture of his T6 vertebrae and serious concussion.
Kelly said he was out of commission for a month and a half, and that he limited exercises for his upper body during rehabilitation. “I couldn’t put any weight above my shoulders,” he said. “So I ended up doing whatever exercises I could do without pain.”
Kelly said that while a cardio base is important for long-term lifting sessions, it’s not a key focus of his current training.
“We are training to be good at one thing -- pulling off handles as fast as we possibly can,” he said. “We train to be as strong as possible for less than five seconds of work, so being able to run a mile or so is more or less irrelevant.”
For Daly, a skeleton athlete since 2001, meeting with United States Olympic Committee strength and conditioning coordinator, Jason Hartman, was the push he needed to increase his strength.
“I was always serious about the sprinting side of the sport, but what was lacking was my strength,” he said. “[Jason] fine-tuned my speed and made me a lot stronger. A huge part of my training is listening to my body.”
Daly said his strength routine doesn’t involve adding more weight to his exercises, but rather decreasing the weight and focusing on explosive movements. He also places a large emphasis on nutrition to maintain his body weight.
“For me, nutrition has always been a big deal because I would lose too much weight throughout the season,” he said. “So, I try to eat at all the wrong times, basically all the time -- a peanut butter and jelly sandwich right before I head to sleep.”
Looking ahead from Sochi, Mortensen continues to maintain a positive outlook on the importance of fitness and returning to the Olympics.
“I constantly think about making the Olympic team -- as in the future team -- to motivate me in the gym,” he said. “I need to know at the end of the day that if I weren’t to make the team, it wouldn’t have been because of a lack of effort in the weight room.”
Sixteen years ago, a vision became clear for Long Island Olympian Matthew Mortensen -- if he was going to succeed in the luge, strength and conditioning was going to become an essential part of his life.
Mortensen, a Huntington Station resident and a sergeant in the United States Army National Guard, entered the U.S. Luge's development program in 1998 -- a preparatory program designed to train young athletes for the luge -- where he learned the proper way to lift weights and exercise, focusing heavily on lifting form and injury prevention. This was Mortensen's first introduction to the weight room.
“Once you become part of the development program, the staff gets you on a workout program as soon as possible to start to train you as a luge athlete,” said Mortensen, 28, of Huntington Station. “There is no heavy lifting going on because you do not want to stunt someone’s growth, but you are made into a very knowledgeable lifter.”
Mortensen is also a member of the Army’s World Class Athlete Program, which provides the support and assistance soldier-athletes need to be successful at both their athletic and military careers.
He was one of three Long Islanders -- along with Aidan Kelly, 19, of West Islip and John Daly, 28, of Smithtown -- competing in the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
In May 2013, Mortensen began an intense training regimen for Sochi, including specific movements such as the bench press, weighted pullups, triceps extensions, Olympic lifts and medicine ball workouts -- all of which are protocol to luge athletes, who focus on upper-body strength. During the first month, Mortensen focused on high-volume -- 3x10 or 4x10 set/rep design -- in order to build a base for the rest of the program.
“The following months after that, the set/reps start to go down to maximize strength and speed output,” said Mortensen, who graduated high school from St. Dominic in Oyster Bay, in 2004. “In this sport you need to not only be strong, you need to be fast.”
Nutrition is also an important part of the regimen, especially during the summer months, said Mortensen, who lives in Lake Placid for about five months of the year but spends the rest of his time on Long Island when not traveling for competitions and training. He said he eats a lot of dark greens, such as spinach; proteins, including tuna, salmon and chicken; and enough carbohydrates to keep him energized.
“During the summer, I try to eat as clean as possible,” he said. “Nutrition during the season doesn’t go out the window, per say, but it becomes a lot harder to eat a certain type of food -- certain foods may be unavailable in certain countries. You are kind of at the mercy of what you’re served.”
Kelly, who started lifting weights at age 14, said he knew he would have to train hard in the weight room to improve his start.
“Because luge is an upper body sport where we pull off two handles to start, most of our lifts include upper back, lower back, tricep- and bicep-pull movements,” said Kelly, who attended West Islip High School before transferring to the National Sports Academy in Lake Placid. “Luge athletes are notorious for having strong backs.”
After a single year of training, Kelly was able to do a pullup with an additional 45 pounds added to his body weight. Now, four years later, the 195-pound Kelly can perform a pullup with an extra 135 pounds.
Kelly competed in this year’s Olympics after recovering from a luge crash in 2011, during the Adirondack Ice Breaker competition in Lake Placid. The crash left him with a compression fracture of his T6 vertebrae and serious concussion.
Kelly said he was out of commission for a month and a half, and that he limited exercises for his upper body during rehabilitation. “I couldn’t put any weight above my shoulders,” he said. “So I ended up doing whatever exercises I could do without pain.”
Kelly said that while a cardio base is important for long-term lifting sessions, it’s not a key focus of his current training.
“We are training to be good at one thing -- pulling off handles as fast as we possibly can,” he said. “We train to be as strong as possible for less than five seconds of work, so being able to run a mile or so is more or less irrelevant.”
For Daly, a skeleton athlete since 2001, meeting with United States Olympic Committee strength and conditioning coordinator, Jason Hartman, was the push he needed to increase his strength.
“I was always serious about the sprinting side of the sport, but what was lacking was my strength,” he said. “[Jason] fine-tuned my speed and made me a lot stronger. A huge part of my training is listening to my body.”
Daly said his strength routine doesn’t involve adding more weight to his exercises, but rather decreasing the weight and focusing on explosive movements. He also places a large emphasis on nutrition to maintain his body weight.
“For me, nutrition has always been a big deal because I would lose too much weight throughout the season,” he said. “So, I try to eat at all the wrong times, basically all the time -- a peanut butter and jelly sandwich right before I head to sleep.”
Looking ahead from Sochi, Mortensen continues to maintain a positive outlook on the importance of fitness and returning to the Olympics.
“I constantly think about making the Olympic team -- as in the future team -- to motivate me in the gym,” he said. “I need to know at the end of the day that if I weren’t to make the team, it wouldn’t have been because of a lack of effort in the weight room.”
Friday, April 11, 2014
Ashanti talks health, fitness as new album 'Braveheart' is released
http://www.newsday.com/news/health/the-daily-apple-1.4760551/ashanti-talks-health-fitness-as-new-album-braveheart-is-released-1.7571183
When Grammy Award-winning recording artist and Glen Cove native Ashanti Douglas’s 2003 album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, it launched her into the limelight. And just like that, Ashanti became part of the celebrity world where health and fitness are not just well meaning goals, but an essential part of the lifestyle.
To get ready for the beach scenes that dominated the music videos for her second album, Ashanti hired trainer Steven “Pit” Codrington of Queens, who introduced her to the foundation of the fitness principals she still follows today.
“Going into my first album, I was 19 or 20 and my metabolism was amazing,” said Ashanti, now 33, who released her newest album, Braveheart, on March 4.
She said Codrington guided her through a strenuous boxing-based regimen, which they referred to as E-Box. The letter "E" signified the shape made by the workout stations Ashanti would follow. The program’s core movements like jump roping and crunches are still tools she uses today.
“It was hard body training with boxing, medicine balls and weights,” Ashanti said. “We did a lot of heavy jump roping, leg presses and squats … lots of cardio, crunches and pushups. All the reps we did three times.”
Ashanti said the E-Box program was so powerful that she was “doing around 1,000 crunches a day.”
Over the years, Ashanti, who was named as one of Billboard‘s Top Females of the Decade from 2000-10, said the spotlight has continued to motivate her to stay in shape.
“Television puts 10 pounds on you,” she said. “If you weigh 125 pounds, on TV you weigh 135 pounds. If I see myself and I don’t like it, that motivates me.”
Even though she said she doesn’t follow a “strict diet,” Ashanti eliminated red meat, pork and fried foods -- and she does count calories.
“It’s not about what’s filling, it’s about what calories you eat,” she said. “I will not eat fast food, at all. I will starve before I eat fast food. It’s crucial and essential to eat healthy. For me, personally, it starts with what you put into your body.”
For the past two months, Ashanti’s been experimenting with a diet of green juices and healthy salads, created by the juice-cleanse brand Organic Avenue, and while on the road, she focuses on basic principles of healthy eating.
“When people are ordering pizza and pasta, I have to stay strong,” she said. “I try not to eat late. When you’re on the road sometimes it’s 2 or 3 in the morning before you get back. If I know I’m going to eat late, I try to make it a salad or turkey [sandwich] without the bread.”
A track and field star at Glen Cove High School, Ashanti said a healthy lifestyle was always the norm for her growing up, which is something she hopes to pass on to her own family.
“When I have a family and kids, all things considered, I want to have a lot of knowledge and [transfer] that knowledge into my choices [for them],” she said, who will host her new album’s release party tonight at Manhattan’s B.B. King Blues Club & Grill.
And apparently, even celebrities idolize celebrities: “I like who I am. But people like Halle Berry, J.Lo, Tina Turner, Cher -- they look amazing,” Ashanti said. “I hope I’m able to maintain that.”
When Grammy Award-winning recording artist and Glen Cove native Ashanti Douglas’s 2003 album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, it launched her into the limelight. And just like that, Ashanti became part of the celebrity world where health and fitness are not just well meaning goals, but an essential part of the lifestyle.
To get ready for the beach scenes that dominated the music videos for her second album, Ashanti hired trainer Steven “Pit” Codrington of Queens, who introduced her to the foundation of the fitness principals she still follows today.
“Going into my first album, I was 19 or 20 and my metabolism was amazing,” said Ashanti, now 33, who released her newest album, Braveheart, on March 4.
She said Codrington guided her through a strenuous boxing-based regimen, which they referred to as E-Box. The letter "E" signified the shape made by the workout stations Ashanti would follow. The program’s core movements like jump roping and crunches are still tools she uses today.
“It was hard body training with boxing, medicine balls and weights,” Ashanti said. “We did a lot of heavy jump roping, leg presses and squats … lots of cardio, crunches and pushups. All the reps we did three times.”
Ashanti said the E-Box program was so powerful that she was “doing around 1,000 crunches a day.”
Over the years, Ashanti, who was named as one of Billboard‘s Top Females of the Decade from 2000-10, said the spotlight has continued to motivate her to stay in shape.
“Television puts 10 pounds on you,” she said. “If you weigh 125 pounds, on TV you weigh 135 pounds. If I see myself and I don’t like it, that motivates me.”
Even though she said she doesn’t follow a “strict diet,” Ashanti eliminated red meat, pork and fried foods -- and she does count calories.
“It’s not about what’s filling, it’s about what calories you eat,” she said. “I will not eat fast food, at all. I will starve before I eat fast food. It’s crucial and essential to eat healthy. For me, personally, it starts with what you put into your body.”
For the past two months, Ashanti’s been experimenting with a diet of green juices and healthy salads, created by the juice-cleanse brand Organic Avenue, and while on the road, she focuses on basic principles of healthy eating.
“When people are ordering pizza and pasta, I have to stay strong,” she said. “I try not to eat late. When you’re on the road sometimes it’s 2 or 3 in the morning before you get back. If I know I’m going to eat late, I try to make it a salad or turkey [sandwich] without the bread.”
A track and field star at Glen Cove High School, Ashanti said a healthy lifestyle was always the norm for her growing up, which is something she hopes to pass on to her own family.
“When I have a family and kids, all things considered, I want to have a lot of knowledge and [transfer] that knowledge into my choices [for them],” she said, who will host her new album’s release party tonight at Manhattan’s B.B. King Blues Club & Grill.
And apparently, even celebrities idolize celebrities: “I like who I am. But people like Halle Berry, J.Lo, Tina Turner, Cher -- they look amazing,” Ashanti said. “I hope I’m able to maintain that.”
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