Head For The Hills
I find some irony in the fact that many of these people can yet get out of bed at the crack of dawn, jump in their car on a freezing cold morning and drive down to the flat to use a machine inside a building and stare at a screen for 30 minutes whilst ‘paying their dues’ to their body! And some of these may or may not get upset if their carpark right outside the door is taken for the day! Continue reading
Keep your trainer accountable!
Accountability for the trainer?! Isn’t it their job to nag you about all the little changes you were going to make this week? I reckon it should be a two-way street, and this is one way you can ensure your trainer is keeping their end of the bargain.
I do a fair bit of teaching in the fitness industry both for those currently working as Exercise Professionals as well as those studying to enter the ranks. One of the fundamental principles I hold, and try to instill in my students is this:
Have a sound justification for every exercise you prescribe for your clients that you could defend to anyone.
The reasons for this are; if the exercise is ‘prescribed’ then it should have a clearly defined purpose and secondly; if your client asks ‘why I am doing this’, you have that clearly defined purpose ready at hand.
For my clients reading this, I welcome the questions. In fact I actively encourage them as I have nothing to fear from such interrogations. Many of my clients train concurrently at other fitness centres and see other trainers one-on-one or in classes. The reason I wrote this blog is basically because I’m sick of trying to defend other trainers by finding justifications for exercises that I see as inappropriate, pointlessly arbitrary or just plain stupid. Continue reading
Won’t somebody, anybody, fix me body?!
When it comes to maintaining my car, I have a few skills tucked away in the tool kit- nothing fancy, but I know how to check the oil and water and replenish them; how to put air in the tires and for that matter, how to change a tire; I can change the bulbs and check the fuses. Pretty simple stuff admittedly, but by doing those things among a few others I can increase the chances of my car running well and in turn decrease the likelihood of something expensive going bang. And imagine if I had to call a mechanic every time I needed to refill my wiper fluid? That’d get pricey.
I think the same principle can be applied to our body. My knowledge of how to keep a human body well-maintained far exceeds my automotive abilities and I think this has been a major factor in me avoiding any cumulative injuries for, well as long as I can remember. Continue reading
Learn to Run Part 10: You don’t have to like your medicine….Intervals!
Unlike strength training, I actually quite like speed interval training. I love the hours trundling away on the trails at 10-15km/h but there is something uplifting and freeing about sprinting at maximum speed- perhaps it is a throw-back to early childhood where only two speed settings existed, maximum and stopped.
I therefore don’t find any trouble dedicating myself to a couple of speed sessions per week. But I know many runners do find plenty of trouble! If that is the case it may be worth considering the following points. There is good evidence to suggest that high-intensity training (HIT) will make you a better distance runner; and that perhaps your distaste for intervals is based upon the perspective you apply to the associated feelings. I’ll get to that point later. Continue reading
Redefining Weight Loss Success
Weight loss goals are easily tracked right? Record your current weight, set your ideal (or have it kindly set for you), create a plan, set a time frame then put your plan into action. At the end of your allotted time if you have achieved your weight loss target you have succeeded. If not, that’s a fail. Simple stuff.
On average, overweight or obese individuals set a reduction target of 35% of body weight to achieve an ‘ideal’ body, 25% to reach a satisfactory level and consider a 17% reduction in body weight a failure (Murdy & Ehrman, 2009). For a 100kg person, that means a 17kg weight loss is big FAIL! Most common weight loss interventions do not result in a percentage weight loss that we can be satisfied with. So my recommendation is, don’t bother, it’s a waste of time, give up the fruitless struggle and just learn to be content being overweight. Continue reading
Learn to Run Part 9: You don’t have to like your medicine….Strength Training
I really don’t enjoy strength training. That may seem strange seeing as my office is a gym and functional strength training is my bread and butter. But still, it ain’t my cuppa tea. I’m a pretty busy person, so when I am able to devote an hour or two to physical activity, I love nothing more than hitting the trails somewhere in the Adelaide Hills. I’d do it every day if I could. But I don’t- because I do two to three strength sessions a week- training I don’t really like doing. Strange. Continue reading
Healthy Cells 101
Rehab Exercises? Why should I?!
The following conversation is an example of a common occurrence during initial consultations with new clients in our training studio:
Client: I hurt my shoulder six weeks ago and my physio has got me doing these three elastic band exercises.
Me: Ok, that’s good, so what are those exercises for?
Client: I have no idea.
That’s a problem in my books.
The Art Of Sleeping Well
It’s a strange phenomenon that exists around the very act that is supposed to revitalise us, when simply going to sleep is not enough to cure tiredness – and may in fact leave us feeling worse.
Climbing into bed at 11pm and rolling out at 6am is rarely successful in achieving the optimum balance of sleep quantity and quality. Continue reading
Melatonin: The Victim Of Technology
Internally, production and secretion of melatonin is linked with circadian rhythms, the underlying processes that drive sleepiness and wakefulness. External factors, however, have the capacity to influence melatonin production and it’s association with the internal body clock. Continue reading
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