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Cardiovascular health is a result of the strength of your heart, not it’s endurance ability. If you wanted to strengthen your leg muscles you would need to work them near your maximum whilst keeping fatigue as low as possible. The heart is no different, it is a muscle too. Endurance work can and does indeed provide work for your heart but after the initial weeks it no longer strengthens your heart, it merely wears it out.

A stronger heart is capable of pumping more blood in one stroke and thus has to beat less to circulate the same amount of blood. A stronger heart can also handle higher blood pressure experienced during exertion in the gym or on the toilet (where many people die each year of heart attacks due to increased blood pressure through straining - grim I know but true).

How does this translate to exercise; work up to near you maximum heart rate for a few minutes (3-10) and then let your heart rate return to normal, cool off and go home. How often, debatable but I would recommend 2-4 times per week. I have a healthy heart as shown by annual scans and I never workout that hard more than 3 times per week.

So if you don’t want to die on the toilet because all you ever did was endurance work then get working harder, not longer. Stay at high levels of intensity and get a strong heart.

Book in today and start undoing the endurance damage you have done! 07742 952 208

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The frequency of exercise is debated often.

How often you train is largely dependant on why you are training and how you train.

If you train for health and to look good naked like most people then 3 days per week is just fine, 2 could do it too. How long? Thirty minutes, if you can’t get it done in that time, you’re doing something wrong.

Here is something I wrote for the path to strength (tone) and size;

Frequency is HUGELY important, the more frequent the tension (exercise) the better for strength/growth. Daily exposure to high tensions for long periods is best for hypertrophy and short periods best for tone and strength, but fatigue must be kept low to allow for daily training (recovery must occur and if 85-95% RM used then fatigue is only ever 5-15% inroad max and can be recovered from by most, in a day.) Think of lifting weights/exercising as creating a false gravity for your body. The longer you spend in that heightened gravity the bigger and stronger you have to become. Frequency is key, so fatigue must be handled and minimised.

Feel this false gravity applied correctly to benefit you by booking in for your free consultation 07742 952 208

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People who take classes find that they see results for a while at the start of their class career but after a month or so find results slowing dramatically. Two reasons;

1) When they started, the class was near enough to their maximum strength levels that they kept inroad fatigue low compared to now so the recovery rate was quicker.

2) Because it was initially near their maximum strength levels they spent more time under a higher tension that was nearer to their maximum.

Now the body has become stronger the class represents a lower percentage of their maximal strength ability (perhaps 80% at the start and now only 50-60%) so by the end of each class when they have pushed to the limit and are fatigued, their inroads/fatigue sit as deep as 40-50%, this takes a lot longer to recover from than a 20% inroad fatigue but they still keep attending classes 3-5 days a week which doesn’t allow enough time for the fatigue to be recovered from so they stay in a constantly fatigued state; stress hormones raise, body fat may rise and they lose interest. (Recovery from fatigue varies by individual fibre make up, the faster twitch dominant you are the longer your recovery can take so fatigue should be kept as low as possible for frequent training). Come and find out if you are fast twitch dominant - 07742 952 208

If they wanted continued progress they should have in fact made the classes harder so they were nearer the maximum strength efforts again as they were in the beginning (thus inroad/fatigue would lower but higher tensions would be experienced for longer periods of time again) or moved from classes to strength training or sprint training where maximal efforts with minimal fatigue can be achieved regularly.

Book in for your free consultation today and experience the benefits of working hard, not long. 07742 952 208!

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I have been with you for years, not weeks or months. I’m in love for what I get in return. I did not have a go one day and run off because I knew it was going to be hard.

I don’t just call for a quick fix, on a whim, every now and again. I have to be there consistently, month after month to fully appreciate what you give in return.

Your comfort is always there for me, it is the constant in my life, shares lessons and builds confidence, makes me feel better about my self, about my abilities, my body and strength of mind. You keep me healthy, strong and vibrant.

There is a unspoken agreement that if I put in what I expect out then you will gladly provide all I need and vice versa

For the best results we work as a team. Quick fixes are fleeting at best unless we stay together, a partnership, a unit that gives each other feedback, that share a mutual goal that benefits both.

If I lose respect, if I fail to see how great you are or lose perspective I am reminded of your beauty, not always straight away, but perhaps when I see someone else feeling what I felt with when we were a team.

When I think that I just want a break, when I need to get away, when life just seems too much to allow us to be together I tell myself that I am a shell of a person without you; weaker, slower and somehow, just less.

If I push you too hard for too long, you show me, in ways I don’t always see, that we need space from each other to fully understand and reach our full potential, you are wiser then I.

One thing I know for sure is that I am with you forever, in some way. I will always need you, exercise, for without you I just don’t work properly.

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Exercise is not a short term bootie call, a relationship that is shallow, short lived an ultimately useless. It is a union, a commitment to long term prosperity and happiness. You need to alter your life to allow for the needs of your body, we evolved with hard physical activity and that is the ONLY way it can function optimally.

Love exercise, accept it and don’t be afraid, it won’t let you down so long as you treat it with respect and effort.

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I was speaking to a lovely young lady the other day about her exercise habits and lack of continued results.

She was frustrated that she spent so much time in the gym and her results seem non existent these days. It should be noted at this point that she had a body that any women would be proud of and most men would drool over. The point being is that she hadn’t seen results in a long time, she seemed to be simply maintaining the condition of her body.

After hearing how often she was in the gym it was obvious to me that she was spending way too much time working out at lower intensities - classes nearly every day.

I suggested that she is in a biologically stressed state - too much exercise has the opposite effect of the desired one. A stress hormone called cortisol has likely built up in response to the sheer volume of exercise she was performing. More is not always better when it comes to amount of exercise. Sure for a short period of time an increase in the amount you do can work wonders, but long term it just makes you stressed.

Stress leads to a state of fat storage and lethargy, let your body recover, relax and de-stress.

Without a control on your diet you will see lesser results. Eat smart.

I also advised her that she needed to increase the intensity at which she works whilst reducing the overall stress of the workout.

Her legs were a point of contention, I thought they were great, she didn’t. I told her to add heavy deadlifts and squats to her programme for a lower body she wanted.

Heavy weights for a low total amount of work; 5-10 total heavy reps 1-3 days per week. Not time consuming but very hard work.

The stronger a muscle, the tighter or more “toned” it becomes.

Work harder, less and smarter. Book in and start now, you can be more toned and look sexier than ever before with less time in the gym too! 07742 952 208

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When it comes to food and fat loss, it is simple….. and complicated :)

I am very helpful I know.

Nutritionists would have you believe that calories are all equal in terms of weight management. They say if you consume more than you burn then you’ll gain weight and vice versa. Perhaps. Well yes and no.

Why?

Some foods of equal energy content do different things during digestion.

Carbohydrates are easy to digest, they don’t use up much energy to assimilate into the body.

Proteins are tougher to break down and cost the body more energy to do anything with.

400 calories from carbs is not the same as 400 calories from proteins. (The following numbers are for example only) 400 calories ingested from protein may use 100 calories to digest and assimilate into the body leaving you with a net calorie intake of 300. Take in 400 calories of carbs and it may take as little as 20 calories to digest leaving you with a net calorie intake of 380.

Calories are not equal once they are inside the body.

I am not saying carbs are bad, I am just saying that if you want to lose body fat then carbs should be the first thing you pay attention to, not only for how easily they are used but they also leave you hungry shortly after which leads you to eat more AND they have an annoying tendency to spike insulin levels, without which fat storage is not possible.

Keep you total calorie intake low, eat less than you do now if you have excess fat, never eat until you are full, never skip breakfast, don’t be scared of fat and monitor carbohydrate intake. Drink water as your main beverage.

Mix that advice with a tough but short workout programme and you have a recipe for a lovely looking body!

FREE CONSULTATION for YOU - book in today 07742 952 208

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Below is a nice article illustrating how important effort is when exercising.

Lifting with effort - Clarence Bass site

In short - it doesn’t really matter if you lift heavy or light (so long as it is anaerobic) results will be similar so long as the effort put in is maximal!

I like to think that when you learn to put high levels of effort into an exercise programme it shows through in all aspects of your life, after all - how you do one thing is how you do everything.

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What ever you current level of physical health or ability, know this;

You are awesome;

If you have even considered Epsom Personal Training or exercise of any kind, to improve yourself, then that makes you pretty awesome; I salute your desire.

Knowing you need to change, having the will and drive to even look into the options available is awesome. I am here to help keep that momentum alive and help you achieve your targets.

Enhance the Christmas buzzing feeling and start on a path to a different you, an energised, strong and more confident you.

Get your FREE consultation, have a look around, ask some questions and take action, do it, you will feel better and see an awesome you blossom through.

07742 952 208

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Adding to my post the other day about core work, please see this authors correct article on “core” training;

Mark Rippetoe - Core Stability

A better explanation as to why stability balls and other circus acts are about as useful as a chocolate teapot.

Come and learn how a barbell can make you faster, stronger, better as a person and give you harder body.

FREE consultation 07742 952 208

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There is a magic formula for success in health and fitness.

The secret lies within you, not a fancy programme or diet.

If you decide that you want to change and identify why it is you really want to change deep down and then nurtutre that thought, that driving mechanism, whatever it may be, you can achieve your goals.

Shoot for the stars and enjoy the journey.

Specify your driving force and book in for a free consultation to find out how to reach your stars - 07742 952 208

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