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!

Ok, so this may come off a bit harsh. Please hear me, I am not having a go at anybody! It’s just one of those little fitness industry trends that bemuses me at times! Designers and manufacturers of fitness equipment must be laughing at how they can produce and market gadgets and build their campaigns on the knowledge that society loves a ‘quick fix’.

Rant over! Here’s a case for those who live in the hills, or who are drawn to the thought of exercising in the hills but can’t quite muster the motivation!

The cost of time is the same in the hills as it is on the flat! A 30 minute session lasts for exactly the same amount of time regardless of the location…I know, earth-shattering information, right?!

Undulating surfaces are resistance training in disguise. Get up and down a few hills and you might just gain a strength response! At the very least, your metabolic response will outlast the duration of your 30 minute plod at a constant pace.

Hills are the cheapest personal trainer you will ever employ. They do your interval programming for you, free of charge, and it saves everybody time and effort in drawing up work-rest intervals to a lab-determined optimum.

To achieve the same cerebral response to hill training on an ergometer, you must break every OH & S code that exists in a given building! The stimulation that your cerebellum receives through surface variation, changing visual stimulus and the engagement of navigating your route might just make you more creative and productive for the day.

Your body is not confined to the limitations of your equipment. Most treadmills have the incline capacity of a modest 10% grade. In the hills, you could expect upward of 30. Laying aside the increased effort that this poses – which is the primary deterrent in most cases – our bodies are supposed to be mobile and adaptable to many varying degrees of movement planes and angles.

If you confine your movement to the capacity of a mechanical ergometer, you risk losing your capacity to negotiate the real world!

I have said this stuff in person to the people who have expressed distain toward exercising in the hills, so this is not me being an internet tough guy! I thought it was worth encouraging a broader perspective on the benefits on offer through harder modes of exercise! Done well, and it won’t kill you; and if it doesn’t kill you it makes you stronger hey?!

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.

I’ll give you an example. A client came to me concerned that during her ‘Isometrics’ exercise class, she was repeatedly cramping before she could meet the time demands for many of the exercises the instructor set. She asked me why this might be, so I responded with the following:

“To be honest, I don’t do isometrics with my clients so I can’t defend them. The reason I don’t do them is because when a muscle holds an isometric contraction (holding tone and length in a muscle- imagine pausing halfway down during a squat and holding it) blood flow becomes restricted as the muscle is not pumping fresh oxygenated blood in adequately; and because the muscle is working, lactic acid is being produced which is causing the blood pH to drop. This drop in pH (or increased acidity) causes our muscles to burn in pain and this is exaggerated by the lack of blood flow compared to say, a bike interval. Therefore when you are doing isometrics you are actually testing your ability to withstand the pain associated with the decreased blood pH. If that is what your instructor wants to test then there you have it. Secondly, cramping is an innevitable consequence of isometrics, it will happen every time if you hold the contraction long enough. And holding an isometric exercise for two minutes is an arbitrarily set benchmark that means nothing in the real world. Why not 01.54.764 minutes? It would mean just as much. I recommend you ask the instructor that set these exercises, perhaps she has a justification I’m not aware of.”

I hope my client does ask, I’d love to hear her instructors response. My hope is she provides a logically sound justification that my client and I can also learn from. I don’t think that’ll be the case.

When you enter a professional relationship with an trainer you do so in the trust that you will be instructed to exercise safely, appropriately, and intelligently. You owe it to yourself to audit your trainer from time to time. A quality trainer has nothing to fear.

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. 

Do I get muscle tightness and niggles? Of course I do. But I am armed with the knowledge of what to do about them before an injury has manifested. And, I put that knowledge into action. I do see other Health Practitioners; I see a Chiropractor every two-to-three months, a Podiatrist every six months or so, and from time to time a Massage Therapist or  Physio to help reduce tightness to a greater extent than I can manage myself. But every time I see one of these Professionals I leave with a refined direction of what I need to be doing to keep myself rolling.

You can learn to do the same.

Some practical tips you can employ to start learning how to maintain your body are:

• Get a thorough musculoskeletal assessment from someone qualified to do so, for example, a Chiropractor, Exercise Physiologist, Osteopath, Podiatrist or Physiotherapist among others and ask them questions. Why do things appear the way they do? If they can’t provide a plausible explanation I’d seek another Practitioner.
• Ask if there is anything you can do to complement their treatment. This may not always be possible, or may require the purchase of some cheap, simple equipment. What not to do, is lie down, donate your body to your Practitioner and say ‘Fix Me!’ and switch off. Get engaged, it’s your body!
• If you are given some complementary homework exercises, stretches or other techniques devote yourself to them to your Practitioners instructions so you can make a fair evaluation of them. If you are recommended to stretch your hamstrings daily, do so daily before you decide they are full of crap!

I know this doesn’t fit in with the disengaging, disempowering health-care system we have collectively created but I know a huge number of Health Practitioners across a wide selection of Professions that share my philosophy. I’d be more than happy to recommend a few if you drop me a line.

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.

But first, the evidence. It didn’t take too much detective work to uncover plenty of peer-reviewed papers concluding benefits to distance running performance after blocks of HIT training. Denadai et al (2006), Billat et al (2001) and Esfariani et al (2007) collectively found significant improvements in velocity at VO2 max, running economy, time at VO2max, blood lactate post-run, and running performance (1500 to 5000m). This is just a sample of the literature waiting to be found (There is no consensus regarding optimal intensity, interval length or recovery length, but generally the higher the intensity and shorter the recovery, the better).

Now to altering perspective. If you have heard the term HIT training, you probably thought it meant that you feel like you’ve been HIT by a tonne of bricks afterwards. Granted, the sensations we experience during HIT training are not pleasant- they are not supposed to be! These stimuli are telling us we are moving far, far away from the comfort of homeostasis and our brain does not like that, so the language it speaks is pain.

But I find if a runner can understand the nature of those homeostatic-driving pain signals they can push through them just a little bit longer. Let’s look at some common ones:

Legs Burning:

At high intensity levels lactate formation exceeds utilisation causing blood pH to drop. Chemo-receptor nerves in the working muscles detect an increase in blood acidity and communicate this to the central nervous system, which interprets this information as burning pain. When my legs are burning I think to myself, ‘that’s good, that’s the whole point!’

Lungs Screaming:

Breathing rate goes up and up due to an excess of carbon dioxide production from lactate conversion. You are not suffering a lack of oxygen at this point (gas analysis consistently shows oxygen still being expelled even at VO2max, which is the maximal oxygen extraction rate). When you are gasping for air post-interval, stop gasping and focus on your out-breath- blow that excess CO2 out and your breathing should start to settle more quickly.

Sweating like a pig:

At high intensity, your core temperature is gradually increasing. Sweating is our greatest cooling advantage so embrace it and wear it like a badge of honour!

And finally, as a kid you probably sprinted about all day as I did, completely care-free- that’s probably because at that time you hadn’t been told that the associated feelings were bad. Food for thought….

Billat VL, Slawinksi J, Bocquet V, Chassaing P, Demarle A, Koralsztein JP. 2001. Very short (15s-15s) interval-training around the critical velocity allows middle-aged runners to maintain VO2 max for 14 minutes. Int J Sports Med.  Apr;22(3):201-8.

Denadai BS, Ortiz MJ, Greco CC, de Mello MT.2006.Interval training at 95% and 100% of the velocity at VO2 max: effects on aerobic physiological indexes and running performance. Appl Physiol Nutr Metab. Dec;31(6):737-43.

Esfarjani F, Laursen PB. 2007 Manipulating high-intensity interval training: effects on VO2max, the lactate threshold and 3000 m running performance in moderately trained males. J Sci Med Sport.  Feb;10(1):27-35.

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.

Of course that is not my recommendation, rather I’d suggest you look at the following collection of benefits to be had from a mere 10% reduction in body weight. This is basically lifted word-for-word from the textbook ‘Clinical Exercise Physiology’ by Jonathan K. Ehrman (2009).

Blood Pressure:

Decline of 10mmHg in systolic and diastolic blood pressure in hypertensive individuals.

Diabetes:

Decline of up to 50% in fasting glucose in newly diagnosed individuals.

Prediabetes:

>30% reduction in fasting or 2hr insulin.

>30% increase in insulin sensitivity.

40-60% decline in incidence of diabetes.

Lipids:

10% decline in total cholesterol.

15% decline in LDL (bad) cholesterol.

30% decline in triglycerides.

8% increase in HDL (good) cholesterol.

Mortality:

>20% decline in all-cause mortality.

>30% decline in deaths related to diabetes.

>40% decline in deaths related to obesity.

Let me surmise- if you are overweight or obese, or have a loved one who is, losing 10% of body weight will dramatically reduce the likelihood that you/they are going to die as a result of being overweight, and you will probably be able to reduce your reliance on medications (this should always be done in consultation with your doctor!). That does not sound like a failure to me.

So why do I do it? Because strength training makes me a better runner. I know this based on my own anecdotal evidence, but there is good peer-reviewed evidence to back that up also. Maximal strength training has been shown to improve running economy, speed at VO2max, speed at anaerobic threshold, and even slightly improve VO2 max itself in both well-trained and recreational runners (Taipale RS et al, 2010, Guglielmo LG et al, 2008, Mikkola J et al, 2011).

Here is a quick glossary of terms for your reference:

Running Economy: The rate of oxygen consumption (by working muscles) per distance covered (submaximal).

V02 max: The maximal rate of oxygen consumption during exercise, often expressed as mL per kg of body weight per minute (mL/kg/min).

Anaerobic Threshold: The point in which lactic acid accumulates in the blood stream (production outweighs buffering capacity). This is typically termed the ‘burn’ you experience during high intensity exercise.

They are some pretty desirable outcomes for any runner.

Another justification that I believe in for the inclusion of strength training in a runner’s conditioning program is the improvements made to running form, particularly later in runs.

Admittedly this is based largely on my own anecdotal evidence observing my clients and with my own running.

Quantifying ‘good’ running form, and standardising strength training programs across a study group are both laced with subjectivity and contrary to the individual prescription of strength training that I promote- this means gathering high-quality scientific evidence to justify strength training for improving running form is probably a fruitless pursuit.

That being said, I have never trained a runner who does not ‘feel’ they run better after increasing their strength. That can be taken or left.

But the improvements to the aerobic and anaerobic needs of runner’s are there for all to see. Accessing these improvements is each runner’s prerogative to choose. But for what it’s worth, I believe if you run and don’t train to improve strength, you are not as good a runner as you could be.

Int J Sports Med. 2010 Jul;31(7):468-76. Taipale RS, Mikkola J, Nummela A, Vesterinen V, Capostagno B, Walker S, Gitonga D, Kraemer WJ, Häkkinen K. Strength training in endurance runners.

Int J Sports Med. 2009 Jan;30(1):27-32. Guglielmo LG, Greco CC, Denadai BS. Effects of strength training on running economy.

J Sports Sci. 2011 Oct;29(13):1359-71. Mikkola J, Vesterinen V, Taipale R, Capostagno B, Häkkinen K, Nummela A. Effect of resistance training regimens on treadmill running and neuromuscular performance in recreationalendurance runners.

Clinically, measurement and prescription on Active Tissue Quality and Cellular Fluid Balance have proven significant in enhancing individual health. However my experience with some people is that the concepts can be a little hazy. So I hope to clarify a couple of things to do with cellular health.

The cellular readings that we derive from BIA are based on your body’s reactance to the electrical current that is administered. The ‘charge’ of your system is then analysed algorithmically to represent the structural quality and functionality of your cells.

It is important to be clear that this is not diagnostic, but rather indicative of cellular function.

CELL STRUCTURE:

Functional cells are encompassed by a fatty membrane with proteins lodged throughout. When we measure cellular quality, we are looking primarily at the integrity of the cell membrane.

The cell membrane’s honour, with right arm raised, is to Protect, Communicate and Regulate.

The cell membrane provides protection to the internal machinery of the cell and facilitates communication between cells. Cells come with varying degrees of nutrient requirements, depending on where they are located within your body. Cell membrane integrity is highly important in regulating the nutrients that enter and exit the cell.

Dietary fat has a direct effect on cell membrane structure.

When we eat foods containing fat, part of that fat becomes the membrane for our cells.  So when it comes to fat intake, it’s not all bad! However, consideration must be given to the type of fats that we consume.

Unsaturated fats, such as Omega 3, provide the correct shape for a functional cell membrane, and improve the communicative ability of a cell.

Saturated and trans fats have a different molecular shape, and function poorly as part of a membrane unit. Microscopic observations of these fats have noted that the membranes of which they formed were less able to communicate and respond to external signals, making the membrane appear brittle.

Good quality fat = good cellular structure

Protein is another macronutrient with multiple functions. The buzz around protein for the last few years has been it’s effect on satiety, muscle growth and repair.

But it also plays some pivotal roles around cellular communication and regulation, whereby proteins act as access gates across the fatty membrane.

Good quality protein = good cellular communication

So there you have it, the 101 on cells! There is plenty more that can be said on cellular function, but at it’s simplest level the message is this:

Good diet = healthy cells!

Cells are the foundation for all of our bodily and physical functions. If we overlook their maintenance in the pursuit of health and fitness, it’s a long road to success!

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.

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.

Sleep is like exercise. It is highly beneficial to health and cognitive function when done well. Done poorly, and alas it is to one’s detriment. And as with exercise, appropriate planning and execution are paramount to achieving optimal sleep results.

The following is a subset of do’s and dont’s that contribute to the skill of sleeping well:

DO have a consistent schedule for sleep time. This aligns circadian rhythms from one day to the next, meaning internal hormonal transitions (such as melatonin production for sleep preparation) are geared toward your external routine.

DON’T sit for long periods in front of a backlit screen at night. With the continued rise in the use of portable technology, it is well documented that screen light at night suppresses melatonin production.

DIM the lights at least half an hour before bed to trigger an increase in melatonin production. You might like to listen to music or do some non-work related reading, or simply sit and have a quiet chat.

DON’T exercise or eat, ideally within the two hours before bed. Exercise will stimulate wakefulness, and food will require digestion – both of which detract from sleep quality.

DO try some gentle static stretching, this can reduce neuromuscular tension. Stretch in a comfortable position targeting major muscle groups. Hold stretches at an intensity around 65-70% for close to one minute.

DON’T drink too much water in the hour leading up to bed as you may find yourself waking to go to the toilet.

AVOID alcohol in the few hours before bed. Although it can be sedating, it effects the chemical messengers associated with various sleep phases, and is particularly disruptive to the REM phase causing wakefulness or restlessness.

As they say, if you fail to plan then you are planning to fail. With busy lives and technology on tap in both the workplace and at home, this could not be more true of sleep preparation. The art of sleeping well is found in structure and routine, and this begins well before hitting the sack.

It is a skill requiring practise and active pursuit.

If you suffer from fatigue, or simply wake up tired more often than not, assess your attitude to sleep. Is it something that just happens when you drop into bed, or do you prepare your body for a good night’s rest?

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.

Diminishing light is a primary trigger for melatonin production to occur. Primally, human’s are wired to sleep in the dark and wake in the light. But the existence of such ‘normal’ sleep:wake cycles have been challenged and stretched since Edison’s invention.

Artificial light has allowed us to extend ‘daylight’ hours, which appears great for business, socialising and general productivity. The physiological downside is a harsh wake-up call to our system that would otherwise be hormonally preparing for rest and recuperation.

In particular, back-lit gadgets are associated with greater suppression of melatonin than other kinds and colours of artificial light.

The current consensus is that two hours of gadget use or television before bed decreases melatonin by around 20%.

But I’m tired and have no trouble falling asleep as soon as I flick it off…

Here’s the thing. You still produce melatonin. You’re wired to do so at night. So there is no issue with entering the initial stages of sleep. But sleep is a process of phases, all of which need to be completed in sequence to fulfill it’s many duties. So the effect of gadgets on sleep is a bit like this:

Your mechanic services your car, but instead of giving you five litres of oil, she only gives you four.

The oil burns out before it should, and your car grinds and splutters it’s way to the next top up. Over time, your vehicle begins to resemble one that is much older, with traits including:

Increased fuel consumption – high ghrelin levels associated with sleep deprivation leave you craving carbohydrates.

Grinding and grating – pain sensitivity is amplified when sleep quality is poor.

Breaking down – mechanical and cognitive function during the day are compromised with lack of sleep.

Hard to start - excessive priming requirements (caffeine, cold showers etc) are indicative of chronic sleep loss.

But I’m not sleep deprived. I’m in bed for 8 hours a night…

Many people would not consider themselves clinically sleep deprived. However, we must consider sleep quality on top of quantity. Microdisturbances to sleep can occur without awareness, disrupting the sleep process. Waking, restlessness, pain, and physical time in bed are also qualitative factors that impact sleep quality.

If you suffer regularly with tiredness, mood or general unrest, take a look at your activities in the couple of hours before bed. Good hormonal preparation may carry you into long unchartered sleep territory and fulfill the processes of rest and recovery for which it was intended.