Tag Archives: Training

Starting a Fitness Programme

General Lifestyle, Healthy Living, Injury Prevention, , , , , , , , , ,

Spring is here and it will soon be summer. Naturally it’s time to get your body in shape. Whether you’re looking to start a new sport; preparing for a holiday or; a special occasion, the reasons are limitless. However, this blog isn’t about why you should exercise, this blog is about what you should consider before you start exercising.

Here are my top 5 tips to starting your fitness programme:

1. Check your fitness level

You are probably thinking you know how fit you are, but what we want to focus on here is
assessing your progression. This will give you a massive motivational boost, so that you can assess your fitness at an aerobic and muscular level, as well as you flexibility and body composition. Some ideas for recording these are:

• your pulse rate before and after walking or running 1 mile
• how long it takes you to walk or run 1 mile
• how many sit ups, pushups or (the dreaded) burpees you can do at a time
• how far you can reach forwards while sitting with your legs straight in front of you
• your body mass index

2. Design your fitness programme for steady progression

Now before you say “I’m going to exercise every day” stop! Planning your fitness or sports
programme properly is the key to steady progression. Rest days are good and needed in order to help your muscles recuperate, but try to train a minimum of 3 days a week.

Here are some points to consider when designing your programme:

• What are your fitness goals? Make sure your goals are clear and easy to follow. It could
be to lose weight or to prepare for a marathon for example. Making sure you are clear on
what you are doing and what you wan to achieve, will allow you to monitor your progress
and keep you motivated when you see the results.

• Make sure you give yourself rest days. This is to not only prevent injury but allow time
for your muscles to change and adapt to the new you.

• Start easy and improve slowly. If you’re a beginner, start easy and make sure you enjoy
it. More than anything else this will allow you to improve in your own time. If your injured
or have a medical condition, make sure you consult a professional so that they can help
design your programme to improve your range of motion, strength, speed and endurance.

• Build activity into your daily routine. Finding the time to exercise can be a challenge, so
the easiest way is to structure it into your lifestyle, so that there are no excuses. For
example; you may want to exercise early in the morning before you start your day.

• Plan to include different activities. This makes exercising so much fun! You can make it
interesting by going from football to swimming or whatever your passion maybe. By cross
training you also reduce the chances of injuring yourself and can increase your general
fitness a lot quicker rather than sticking to a similar gym or fitness routine.

• Put it on paper. If you can see it, it will help you stick to it.

3. The key is your equipment

Start with your footwear. Make sure they match the demands you’re putting your body through or the terrain your planning to run or move on. For example, if your planning to do sprint training spikes are light and stiff to help propel you across the astroturf, whereas running shoes have more shock absorption for long distances to help absorb the impact under your feet.The correct clothing is also essential for support, protection and flexibility and it helps aid your performance. You might want to consider fitness apps to keep you motivated, to keep in fun and to track your improvement.

4. Get Started

DAMN!!! now you are ready to go. When you start to train keep these tips in mind to aid your performance and the beginning of your lifestyle change.

Start slow and build up gradually: well I guess you know the story of the tortoise vs the hare. Be the tortoise, ALWAYS! Give yourself plenty of time to warm up and cool down. A warm up consists of easy moving and stretching until you feel warm and not puffing. Add some dynamic stretches and prepare your body for the activity. For the cool down make it an easy slowdown from your activity and finish off with either static or assisted stretching.

Make your session suit you: if you can’t fit 30 minutes all in all at once. Then try and fit it in throughout your day so you can start with 10 minutes in the morning, 10 minutes midday and 10 minutes in the evening. Shorter but more frequent sessions have aerobic benefits too.

Mix it up: The gym isn’t the only way to get fit and have fun. Here are some of the ideas I have tried just to keep me inspired and interested and healthy.

  • Circuits
  • Classes
  • Salsa
  • Kitesurfing
  • Wakeboarding
  • Snowboarding
  • Hiking
  • Climbing
  • Basketball
  • Capoeira
  • Ultimate Frisbee
  • Taekwondo
  • Jujitsu
  • Parkour
  • Swimming
  • Mountain biking etc….

Honestly, the options are endless and you can give yourself a challenge to do something different every weekend.
Listen to your body: If you feel pain, shortness of breath, dizzy or nausea, take a break, there is no hurry to getting fitter and you might be pushing yourself to hard.
You’re human: if you’re not feeling well, then you are allowed to take a day or two off. Trust me it takes more than a week to lose all the fitness you’ve gained
Don’t forget to maintain yourself: the occasional yoga, pilates, massage or sauna session will keep your muscles happy and you’ll be able to get better, easier and quicker if you maintain your body in peak condition using these tips.

5. Monitor your progress

Now you have the baseline for your programme, it’s time to check how much you’ve improved. If you check every month and exercise a minimum of 3 days a week you will gradually see yourself getting better and better. In addition, you can see if you need to add more time or more days to continue to improve. Or, you may be happy to find that your current way of training is meeting your fitness goals. On the other hand, if you feel like you are losing motivation, change your goals, try a new activity, take a friend, or change your fitness classes. When you start to exercise it an amazing decision and you are welcoming a happier and healthier you into your life. It doesn’t have to be overwhelming all consuming. Start small and pace yourself and in time you will wonder how you ever lived without it.

5 Myths About Sports Therapy Busted

Sports Therapy, , , , ,

Where there is science, there is myth

With everything, whether its personal training, nuclear fusion or even running style there is always conflicting information out there. Or rather, differences of opinion between professionals in all fields, regardless of title or education. Sport therapy is no different.

So I wanted to take a look at some of the myths, consider why the misconception might be there and then review available research to see if we can come with a better understanding. The areas we’ll take a look at are:

1. ICE
2. Pain killers
3. Training styles
4. No pain, no gain
5. Stretching

1. Ice

Ice, or cryotherapy to give it its posh technical name, is one part of a broader initial treatment when you first get injured known as RICE:

R – Rest
I – Ice
C – Compress (which has now been replaced by Support)
E – Elevate

So, why ice?

The reason given by some professional practitioners and textbooks is: It reduces pain and inflammation, which, in turn, reduces and improves healing time. The science behind this is that pain reduces when nerve receptors lose sensitivity, which occurs when the temperature reaches below -40 degrees Celsius. In the area of the body that gets cold, the arteries go through what’s known as vasoconstriction, or in other words they get smaller. This is meant to slow the circulation, and has therefore the additional effect of reducing inflammation.

What’s the catch?

Despite its widespread use, that are a number of experiments that have been done that have shown that Ice actually has no effect on the recovery time.

2. Pain Killers

To a certain number of people, pain killers are the first port of call before undergoing sports massage or injury treatment.

However, I don’t believe this is the correct route to go down for sports treatment. In any treatment, there needs to be correct feedback throughout the entire treatment. If painkillers are in the system, then that feedback will be altered and the initial goal of the treatment will not be achieved.

There’s another problem. The sports therapist’s aim is to reach a sufficient depth within a patient’s pain threshold in order to realign muscle tissue and assist the inflammation system. But, with incorrect feedback, this may be by-passed, resulting in too much pressure being applied. Instead of assisting, you are in danger of restarting the inflammation system. If there is bruising, then the body goes back to its original state once the bruising has healed. If the treatment continues, then the sports therapist will inadvertently achieve the title of “Brutus the destroyer,” or the treatment cannot be carried out.

3. Old School Vs New School training styles

Having been in the fitness for 8 years, I have encountered two radically different schools of thought that have entered the arena. Let’s call them “old school” and “new school” training styles.

It’s worth bearing in mind because it means that there is conflicting information in both and meeting the Fitness professionals from the Old world of training and Other fitness professionals from the New world style i feel i need to point out these purist point of views.

Examples

Let’s take some examples of the same techniques to illustrate the difference between them.

First of all, consider the lunge. According to the new school theorists, your knee should not be allowed to go in front of your toes. On the other hand, if you are of the old school persuasion, then your knee must be in front of your toes. Or, another example, the bench press. Old school proponents would insist that you lock out your arms at the top. New school, however, is exactly the opposite, advising that you leave your elbows soft and not locked out at all at the top.

The science behind the theories

So what gives? First of all, old school theorists believe that it is beneficial to reach the end range of motions which you know you can hold with strength. It means, or so the theory goes, you are less likely to become injured because your body can handle fatigue better and this especially comes in handy for competitive situations.

New school theorists, however, believe that this will wear away at ligaments and joints and will make you more, not less, susceptible to injury and your range of motion will suffer as a result in later life.

Who’s right and who’s wrong?

As with so many things in life, there is no easy right or wrong answer. The advice from this, on the other hand, I believe, is simple. It’s about the motive. Every movement or exercise combined with how you do it, why you do it and for how long you do it has to be based on your reason for doing it. In other words, your goal determines your training style. No one move is superior to another – it’s just how you do it, and why. This is the same for fixed versus free weights and body weight: all have a reason for using it but it’s up to you (or your coach or instructor) as to why.

4. No pain, no gain means back to pain

Being a sports therapist, this is always the first question that I get asked by people that are considering their first treatment. It’s often connected to a bad experience, or a friend telling them that they need to withstand pain, or a passage of right or whatever. A good sports therapist is not “Brutus the destroyer”.

The right touch approach

As I mentioned, the pressure that’s applied is dependent on the feedback that the therapist receives. The therapist’s aim is to relax conflicting muscle tissue by applying exactly the right pressure to the area to break down the haphazard formed healing tissue in the area.

If the therapist applies too much force then the muscle will incorrectly contract in an attempt to protect itself. There won’t be the intended physical release and the therapist might hear from the client,”it’s too much”. But the same can happen the other way round – if there’s not enough pressure, then there is no difference in the muscle tissue. I call this “the right touch” approach, and depending on the individual and level of discomfort, as a general rule, the treatment gets easier over time and the release tends to last longer.

5. Stretching in training

Well, now here’s a complicated subject. It reminds me of my early days, when I was experimenting with it at university. The methods, theories and developments of stretches are manifold. One of the debates is around the notion and use of static stretching versus dynamic stretching. As explained in an article on Competitor.com: Dynamic stretches involve a repetitive and challenging motion, pushing the body part further with each repeat; while static stretching is a sustained, less challenging stretch, that is held.

Do the right stretches at the right time

Some of the problems seen with static stretches before training include inhibiting the effectiveness of the muscle during training. Conversely, dynamic stretches will help warm up your body, and help prepare you physically and mentally for what awaits you. This will also help you in your injury prevention and, unlike static stretching, won’t inhibit your strength.

So next time you exercise, why not try some dynamic stretches before you exercise and some static stretches afterwards. As I mentioned in my previous blog, all too often, people skip stretching altogether. People always tend to do the minimum amount of static stretching, if any, after their training session. The only benefit for me is a selfish one: I get paid more this way.

Have fun with your training and let me know your experiences.

Further reading

Bruckner, P. & Khan, K. (2008) Clinical Sports Medicine [3rd ed], Sydney: McGraw Hill

Bird, S. Black, N. Newton, P (1998) Sports Injuries Causes, Diagnosis, Treatment and Prevention, Tottenham Court Road: Stanley Thrones

Sources for this article