When you think of an exercise, any exercise. What’s the first to come to mind? Star jumps? Most people would say push-ups, and of course push-up can be one of the most effective exercise you’ll ever do…. If you do them right!
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Training
Some people will tell you that how well you perform on marathon race day will depend largely on the weather and other environmental factors that may affect your time. While these do of course matter they are not the be all and end all, indeed the majority of your race day success will come down to your advance preparation.
An effective workout is individual to you; your wants, your needs, your experience and your general health and fitness on day one. Use these top tips to create a workout that is enjoyable, effective and personal to you.
June is always a big month for both myself and for clients. This weekend (18/6/16) I’ll be taking part in the Rat Race- The Wall which is running for its fifth year. Athletes taking part cover sixty-nine miles in one day overall. On the 26th June I’ll also be taking part in the local Merchant Taylors Triathlon Event. What both of these fun yet incredibly challenging events have in common is that they are both endurance events.
You only get one first marathon and it is almost always a steep learning curve, regardless of how much you've trained for the event. In fact, whether you have run a marathon before or not these tips could help you make the most of your experience and it never hurts to remind yourself of the basics.
What is endurance? Endurance is being able to do something for a period of time, usually an extended period and yet still be able to recover in a reasonable time. Just one example of an endurance event could be long distance running. Naturally your endurance level is seen to go hand in hand with your health level, mostly because being able to endure physical activity at a certain level for extended periods is associated with having good heart health, or cardiovascular health and fitness.
Generally speaking the less healthy and fit you are the longer it will take your body to recover, particularly after exercise. While a sweeping statement such as this does not necessarily fit everyone's specific recovery rates it tends to be the general way of things. With this in mind it makes sense for people to improve their fitness levels in order to recover quicker (and better). Some believe that a break from working out is best for optimal recovery which is not always correct. I find that recovery is often an after-thought for many in training as it gets in the way of whatever training timetable they have in place and goals they have in mind.
How long you are able to sustain an activity at a suitable level (while being able to recover from it fairly easily) is what is referred to as your endurance level. Endurance levels are built up via those dedicated to training (particularly maintaining a higher level of cardiovascular fitness) and those with overall optimum health and well-being levels. What trainers like me are seeing however are individuals working in the wrong way to build that endurance, often running the risk of causing real damage to themselves. There are better ways!
It is common knowledge that eating the right foods and exercising the right way are both key to losing weight, toning up and overall enhancing your health. What if I could tell you there was another trick that would help you boost your fat burning processes? It doesn't cost you money, it isn't a fad an what's more it works..... cold therapy! Cold therapy (applying ice or cold) isn't as grueling as it might sound and there are a number of benefits.
While the UK is at best unseasonably warm right now there's every reason to expect the temperatures to start dropping soon. For many that's when the running routine tends to go out of the window. If you're determined to keep going but need some tips keep on reading: Change Your Tracking. Many of us runners track our distances over the course of a week.
For many years the traditional sit-up or crunch has been high on people's lists as the go-to exercises for defined abs, particularly in media. Trainers however have also long-since been trying to change this popular opinion as not only are these exercises not necessarily as helpful as you'd believe they may also be harmful. Surely personal trainers are wrong on this? After all crunches and sit ups have been popular since the forties? Keep reading and make up your own mind.
If you were to run a survey which asks people which part of them they would most like to see toned or reduce the chances are the majority would point to their stomach. Men and women alike are looking for a more defined abs look and to reduce or eliminate that belly fat. Many people believe that in order to burn that fat off and work on defining their abs you need to be doing crunches, sit ups and similar stomach focused exercises.
HIIT training seems to be the fairly commonly-used and certainly the more popular training technique of many these days however rather than it being another fitness fad HIIT offers a wealth of benefits. High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) is as the name suggests working to a high intensity, however there is some confusion on how to define high intensity. Rather than giving it a specific value it is important to remember that what is high intensity for one person may not be for another.
There is a huge amount of advice and guidance out there, all of which promises fast results. There are also a lot of assumptions when it comes to health and fitness and these are often myth-based or just plain wrong which results in people who wish to be healthier missing out. It might be that some people are not seeing results because they aren't working out effectively.
When it comes to putting together a training regime it is important to consider what your end goals are. If you are looking to lose weight, slim down and tone you’ll need one routine and if you are looking to bulk up and build muscle I’ll put together and support you with a different personalised training routine...
There are many reasons to make bodyweight workouts part of your fitness regime. Research suggests high-output, bodyweight-based exercises such as plyometrics yield awesome fitness gains in very short workout durations.
3 Different Types of Exercise Workouts to Build Good Muscle Tone: The Burpee, The Turkish Get Up, and Isometrics. Burpees are actually a combination of 3 movements - push up, squat and jump. For a great description visit the site Fitness and Power. I've added some tips to make them more challenging. If you want a six-pack try the Turkish Get Up and Isometrics as described below.
Why is Circuit Fitness Training so physically beneficial?First, lets start out by literally defining circuit fitness training: “Circuit fitness training is a form of body conditioning or resistance training using high-intensity aerobics. It targets strength building and muscular endurance. An exercise ‘circuit’ is one completion of all prescribed exercises in the program. When one circuit is complete, one begins the first exercise again for the next circuit. Traditionally, the time between exercises in circuit training is short, often with rapid movement to the next exercise.” Sounds simple enough, right? It really is just that simple.
Don't Risk Injury when Training for Endurance. There are countless studies that show doing short intense circuit style workouts using full-body functional exercises is far more effective than doing long duration cardiovascular activity. What can you do to keep the injuries and burnout at bay?
There is something challenging about doing endurance activities that many people are attracted to.
If you were to run a survey which asks people which part of them they would most like to see toned or reduce the chances are the majority would point to their stomach. Men and women alike are looking for a more defined abs look and to reduce or eliminate that belly fat.