In this week’s group meeting, we had a special guest, Dr. Ben Bocchicchio. Dr. Ben is the author of 15 Minutes to Fitness: Dr. Bens SMaRT Plan for Diet and Total Health. Dr. Ben is also a member of the National Fitness Hall of Fame and has been in the business for over 50 years. Some folks describe him as the “Godfather of Modern Fitness and Diet.”

Discussion:

• Dr. Ben and Dr. Tro began discussing a study done on HIIT (high-intensity interval training) on elite athletes and it showed that overtraining is easy and can affect glucose tolerance and mitochondrial function decreased at just 90 minutes a week.
• They both recommended doing short HIIT durations focusing on full-body exercises on larger muscles first then to smaller muscles. This taxes the muscles and reduces the risk of injury.
• Dr. Ben likes to focus on putting stress on the muscles to keep joint pain down, while also helping support systems work at high efficiency such as the cardiovascular, respiratory, hormonal, and skeletal systems.
• When it comes to fat loss, Dr. Ben recommends not being sedentary and working out efficiently. 
• When getting started, Dr. Ben suggests doing a full-body exercise focusing on the large muscles down to the smaller, using slow productive movement to support the muscle and load time. Also, make sure if you have any issues to get them corrected so you can use the correct form.
• Bands are great for resistance exercise and help reduce injuries. They offer a variety of resistance from very light to heavy.
• Dr. Ben says you should do other activities in addition to the short duration exercises because being inactive before and after is not very productive.