Unfortunately, (you know it’s never good news when a blog post opens with ‘unfortunately’) Diabetes is more prevalent now than ever. A quick survey among our contacts showed that most of us know somebody suffering with the illness. When I talk about diabetes today, I’m really referring to Type 2 Diabetes, which is the lifestyle-related type, and makes up 90% of diabetic cases*. Working in the health and fitness industry, we’re always overjoyed when somebody with Type 2 Diabetes comes to us wanting to make a change. It’s an instance when we know we can use our skills and knowledge to make an overwhelming impact on somebody’s life and health. Going on that journey with them is a privilege, but it’d be better if fewer people were having to take those steps in the first place.

If we look at some stats from a paper published in 2019 looking at Diabetes in the UK, it’s estimated that 7% of the UK population is now living with Diabetes and approximately one million more people are walking around with undiagnosed Type 2 Diabetes. To give some context, in May 2020 the ONS reported 7% of the UK population had been infected with Coronavirus so far. Worryingly, there’s no indication of its incidence slowing down. In fact, DiabetesUK predicts the number of people living with diabetes to rise to 5.5 million by 2030. This is shocking, as people living with Type 2 Diabetes are 50% more likely to die prematurely; Diabetes is the biggest contributor to heart disease and limb amputations, causing 530 heart attacks and 175 amputations per week in the UK alone. In 2019, 13,951 people lost their lives to diabetes in the UK and one in six hospital inpatients are diabetic, costing the health service £10 billion per year (10% of its total budget).

These statistics are saddening and maddening. Medical and scientific research shows that Type 2 Diabetes can be prevented, controlled and even reversed. Many of the deaths reported across 2019 as a result of diabetes could have been avoided simply by providing people with the right knowledge and tools to take charge of their health. So, what does sugar to do our weight, and what can we do about Type 2 Diabetes?

Let’s start by looking at what Type 2 Diabetes actually is. 

Healthy individuals have around one teaspoon of glucose (blood sugar) circulating their bodies. The hormone insulin keeps our glucose levels in check, and makes sure that the sugar we consume is stored safely in our cells, rather than circulating around in our blood. Type 2 Diabetics can’t metabolise blood glucose properly, so more and more glucose builds up in their bodies. In an effort to safely store it, increasing amounts of insulin are produced, but the cells no longer recognise insulin’s signal. We call this insulin resistance, and it causes Type 2 Diabetes.

Let’s move on to what causes this to occur.

In most cases, the answer is simple: excessive food intake, weight gain and lack of movement/exercise are the main contributors. So it should be simple to reverse, right? Well, no, this isn’t the case. Once insulin resistance has occurred, it has knock-on effects on other hormones, including Leptin. Leptin is secreted by our fat cells, and helps to regulate our appetite and weight.

The more fat cells we carry, the more leptin we have telling our body to eat less and move move, helping us to burn off excess energy. As we lose body fat we reduce the amount of leptin, and in doing so signal our body to eat more and move less. If you’ve even been on a successful diet, you’ll have likely witnessed leptin at work and found your appetite increasing over subsequent weeks.

Logically, Leptin should be helping us out if we’re carrying excess weight, but for those with Type 2 Diabetes, this isn’t the case. Type 2 Diabetes and high levels of obesity cause high levels of insulin as the hormone battles to keep blood glucose in check. When insulin levels are raised, they block the signals Leptin is giving off to the area of the brain that controls weight and appetite. Despite having high levels of body fat, the signal to eat less or move more isn’t getting through. Because it’s not receiving the message from Leptin, the brain believes fat stores are low and so adjusts appetite and motivation to exercise in an effort to gain weight. This is a chemical disaster – essentially you now have somebody who is obese and needing to lose weight having the appetite and cravings of an individual who is underweight. It’s crucial that we understand this chemical imbalance when working with individuals with Type 2 Diabetes.

It’s not easy, but all is not lost. There are a few proven strategies that can help to improve and even reverse Type 2 Diabetes.

1. Exercise
When looking to lose weight and improve health exercise is a must, even more so for diabetics. It’s well established that exercise can increase glucose uptake from the blood into muscle tissue to be used as fuel. In fact research has shown a single bout of moderate intensity exercise can increase glucose uptake by at least 40% for 48-72 hours after exercise. That means undertaking 3-4 sessions per week of moderate intensity exercise is hugely beneficial. Indeed, modest exercise (even without weight loss) reduces the morbidity and mortality associated with diabetes. It’s difficult to imagine a more effective therapeutic strategy for reducing insulin resistance, improving blood glucose levels and improving overall health and wellbeing.

2. Sleep
If exercising seems like too much effort and you’re looking for something a little more relaxing then obtaining a good night’s sleep is paramount for both blood sugar management and regulation of appetite. Research groups have found far higher rates of Type 2 Diabetes among individuals that routinely sleep for less than six hours per night. In fact, studies have found sleeping four hours a night over six nights is enough to reduce the your uptake of glucose by 40%. Even partial sleep deprivation across one night increases insulin resistance, and increases blood sugar to pre-diabetic levels. We already know 62% of people with glucose levels in the pre-diabetes range are likely to have poor sleep.

Dr. Eve Van Cauter is a researcher looking at the link between sleep and appetite, and has found that loss of sleep increases circulating levels of endcannabinoids (yes, the same chemical you produce when you smoke marijuana) and a decrease in leptin, resulting in increased appetite and desire to snack. This chemical change increase is one of the reasons why our cravings for carbohydrate-rich foods and sweet/salty snacks increase by 30-40% and caloric intake by any additional 300 calories when sleep is reduced.

Chronic sleep deprivation is now recognised as one of the main factors in the development of Type 2 Diabetes throughout first-world countries. Quality sleep is a must!

3. Diet
Last but by no means least, diet is probably the strongest tool we have in our armoury in the fight against Diabetes. Low calorie diets can reverse and treat Type 2 Diabetes. The Diabetes Remission Clinical Trial (DiRECT) study and researchers at the Universities of Newcastle and Glasgow devised a diet plan consisting of 800 calories per day. They took around 300 patients that have had Diabetes for six years. After one year, 46% of the participants went into Diabetes remission and sustained their recovery without medication compared to only 4% of participants in the control group.

For some people, eating 800 calories a day isn unsustainable. If that’s you, then you could perhaps consider a low carbohydrate diet, as we know diets that promote a lower intake of carbohydrate foods (<90g) help to improve blood glucose, insulin and weight loss compared with traditional eating.

Finally, if you’re not ready to completely overhaul your diet then consider including vinegar shots before meals. There’s a surprising amount of literature investigating their effect on blood sugar. A recent meta-analysis of controlled trials suggests that consuming one to two tablespoons of vinegar shortly before a carbohydrate-containing meal lowers the overall glucose response by an average of 60% and overall insulin response by an average of 130% compared to the same meal without vinegar. Notably, subgroup analysis suggested that both healthy and insulin resistant people observed a significant benefit, although the effect was more pronounced in people with insulin resistance.

When it comes to dietary advice and Type 2 Diabetes it’s important to consider a diet that:

1. Reduces your total caloric intake to help promote weight loss
2. Reduces any refined, processed carbohydrate food sources such as biscuits, cakes, pastries, sugary cereals and fried foods such as chips, donuts etc.
3. Increases carbohydrates from whole grains such as beans, pulses, lentils, potatoes etc.
4. Increases intake of fibre through foods such as fruit, vegetables and smoothie recipes
5. Adds a shot of vinegar before or during any meal that contains a high level of carbohydrates – this is a great strategy to use when any meals you eat are out of your control

In summary, we need to be aware of the prevalence of diabetes as despite advances in health care and medical science the number of people suffering with diabetes is on the rise. Unfortunately, the world we live in today and the foods we eat are all set up to promote an unhealthy life which only increases the risk of developing diabetes. But arming yourself with the knowledge and tools to understand this condition is the first step in tackling it and taking care of your health.

When our members come to us with Diabetes or in a pre-diabetic state, we have a variety of tools that address their nutritional needs, but also work on habits and behaviour change to ensue the changes they need to make aren’t unsustainable or overwhelming. If you need help developing a strategy to tackle your weight or diabetes, please do feel free to reach out. Email Chris here.

*The other 10% of cases are made up of Type 1 (when the pancreas fails to make insulin – 8%), with the remaining 2% made up of gestational diabetes and Type 3 Diabetes.

What is the most important muscle in the body? Your first answer may be to suggest your legs, abdominals or even your tongue, but however great a well-defined six-pack looks, the most important muscle is in fact the heart! It doesn’t just pump blood around our body, but also has a vital role in shuttling hormones and transporting the nutrients consumed from food to our working tissues and muscles.

Like any muscle, if we want it to grow bigger, stronger and more efficient, we need to exercise it, just as we train our legs, abdominals and arms to be stronger.

So, how we do this?

Well, we apply the same theory as we do to other muscles in the body. Take skeletal muscle for example; the load (weight) and number of reps we use can influence how that muscle develops. If you wanted to focus solely on getting a muscle strong, then you would typically train it across a 1-5 repetition bracket, but people looking for bigger muscles would focus on training between 6-12 reps using a variety of exercises.

Our heart (or rather our cardiovascular system) can also be trained in a similar way to elicit specific training outcomes, such as strength, size or stamina. When it comes to the cardiovascular system, we have three different adaptive abilities or “energy systems”. Let’s take a look at them:

1. The Alactic System – great for supplying us with instant bursts of speed and power
2. The Anaerobic System – great for delivering speed and power for a short period of time
3. The Aerobic System – not a great one for expressing power or speed, but will keep you going for hours on end

Unless you’re an athlete, don’t worry too much about developing the alactic system. For everyday life, your focus should be on building up the anaerobic system and even more importantly, the aerobic system as these are the ones that’ll have the greatest impact on your health and fitness goals.

In the same way we use repetition brackets as a guide for individual training responses (i.e. strength, hypertrophy or muscular endurance), our heart also has its very own set of ‘rep ranges’ called ‘zones,’ and each zone helps to develop one of those three energy systems.

So, how do we know which zone we’re working in?

Let’s think about weight training again. We often estimate the load we should lift based on a percentage of your one rep max for that lift. It works just the same with heart rate training.

Heart rate zones are set as a percentage of maximum heart rate, which can be calculated using the formula 220 – age, or for a more accurate measurement, performing the Cooper Test, a 12-minute maximal running test (which is a bit less fun…)

Once a max heart rate has been established the zones can be set and you can confidently exercise for your desired training outcome:

Zone 1 – 0-65% of Max HR
Helps to improve overall health by driving the recovery process in the body

Zone 2 – 66-75% of Max HR
Works on developing your aerobic fitness

Zone 3 – 76-85% Max HR
Helps to increase the amount of time and power you can work aerobically

Zone 4 – 86-95% Max HR
Helps to develop your anaerobic fitness

Zone 5 – 96-100% Max HR
Helps to develop the power you can express anaerobically and the ability to function at max capacity

These five zones provide the structure required to train cardiovascular fitness to its full capacity. Thanks to modern day fitness apps, we have complete access to what our heart is doing while we’re exercising.

Keep an eye out for my next blog – I’ll explain why it’s important to train your heart, and how you can use technology to train your cardiovascular system to achieve a stronger, healthier and happier future.

“I’ve got a gut feeling about this…” is something we say when we expect to feel a certain way, either positive or negative, about a behaviour or event that’s about to happen. Unfortunately, having a “gut feeling” if you suffer from Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) rarely leads to good fortune, and instead is a telltale sign that your gut isn’t happy and one of the following – abdominal pain, cramping and/or diarrhoea – is soon to be expected.

IBS affects up to 20% of the general population (1) and although it’s not life-threatening, it can cause embarrassment, pain and discomfort, resulting in social anxiety and an overall decrease in quality of life. We see the impact of it every day among our members, and work closely with those affected to try and identify triggers and manage and reduce symptoms.

The mechanisms that cause IBS are still unclear and there are a huge number of theories in the medical world. Some scientists believe it’s linked to food poisoning, as one in nine people who experience food poisoning develop IBS in later life (2). Other scientists believe it could be related to stress, dietary allergies and intolerances, genetics, intestinal infections and pathogens, and/or intestinal permeability. As a result of this confusion, if you look for help online at the moment, you’ll find reams of information telling you to:

• avoid certain foods such as gluten, diary and sugar
• avoid foods high in fibre
• avoid food that are low in fibre
• avoid certain fruits and vegetables
• avoid alcohol, fizzy drinks and caffeinated beverages
• eat at the same time each day, avoid skipping meals, eat slowly
• drink more water
• reduce stress

Just looking at this is enough to stress us out! There’s so much conflicting information out there it makes it difficult to know where to start, and what to give up. So, what should you do? And what process do we follow with our members?

Now, it’s important to note that we’re not doctors, but there does seem to be a rather strong (3) suggesting that alterations in our gut microbiome could be a major contributing factor to IBS, and the use of probiotics looks promising in tackling the related symptoms.

In our experience with members, a good place to start is with an elimination diet. These specific diets aim to strip back the most common ‘flare up’ foods with the intention of slowly reintroducing them back in to your diet one at a time. This is a great exercise as it allows you to introduce one food type at a time while monitoring whether or not it causes any symptoms. At the end of this process you should have a good overview of the foods that cause you flare ups and those that your gut’s happy with. Dr, John Berardi has some great information on elimination diets here: https://www.precisionnutrition.com/elimination-diet-infographic

Alongside an elimination diet, studies (4) have found supplements such as oil of peppermint taken daily (300-600mg) appear to reliably and effectively reduce abdominal pain in those suffering from IBS for as long as it is taken.

As mentioned above, the use of probiotics is getting more and more attention in this area. A 2020 meta-analysis (5) looking at 35 random controlled trials involving 3,452 participates found supplementation of a broad spectrum probiotic led to favourable improvements in certain specific IBS-related outcomes, including abdominal pain, bloating and flatulence.

Every case is different, and before supplementing it’s crucial to work with a professional who understands your unique symptoms. While there’s no one way to eliminate IBS, working out the foods that trigger your symptoms and taking steps to manage your symptoms can make life a lot more comfortable.

References

1. PMID 22426087
2. PMID 28069350
3. PMID 28069350
4. PMID 389344
5. PMID 32014597

We’re on the six-week countdown until gyms (hopefully) reopen. So how can you make the most of your time at home? George gives us his top tips for designing a top-quality home training programme.

The main difference between writing a programme for training at the gym and training at home is going to be where you place your focus first. When we train in the gym, we have access to a huge variety of equipment, allowing us to place your goal at the centre of programme design. This isn’t the case when we’re training at home, so rather than thinking about the goal first, we’re going to assess what equipment you have first and then work back from there.

Equipment & Goal

Everyone who undertakes resistance training should be rotating through the different phases of training – strength, hypertrophy and metabolic/conditioning work. Given the lack of kit available to most of us at home (a dumbbell or two, a kettlebell and a resistance band if we’re lucky!) it makes sense to spend this time focusing on a form of training that doesn’t require huge progressions in load, namely metabolic/conditioning work. This will allow you to come back to the gym in a more conditioned state, allowing for faster adaptations, a win-win in my eyes.

So what does this look like? Well, it means:

• Training multiple muscle groups per day (both upper and lower body in the same session)
• A ‘circuit’ of 3-4 exercises
• Higher reps and reduced rest periods – extra fun!

If you need some more info on different training phases, check out this blog post for lots of handy hints.

Reps

Load limitation also means we need to increase the number of reps we perform per exercise. There’s not much benefit to be gained doing six reps with a weight we could use for 15-20. Regardless of the weights you have, we want to be aiming to end the set with about two reps left in the tank. This is sometimes called ‘Reps in Reserve’ (RIR).

A good rep range to aim for would be 12-15 reps per exercise, ending each set with 2RIR. We won’t be looking to achieve muscular failure during this type of session.

Rest Periods

With increased reps comes reduced rest, counterintuitive I know, but that’s the way it is. Resting for 90 seconds after each circuit of 3-4 exercises would be a great start.

Training Frequency

Given the type of training, we should be able to train each muscle group more often, increasing frequency of each group to around three times per week. The individual’s training age will come into play here.

Piecing it together

So, when you’re writing your next at home programme, remember to think about:

• Training multiple muscle groups per day (upper & lower body)
• A circuit of 3-4 exercises
• 12 to 15 reps per exercise
• Rest 90s after each round

I would suggest starting with two different programmes and alternating between them, completing 3 workouts per week. This way you end up completing each one twice every other week.

Examples

Total A

A1 – Dumbbell Goblet Squat                                 x 12 reps

A2 – Dumbbell Overhead Press                           x 12 reps

A3 – Dumbbell Reverse Lunge                              x 10 reps p.s

A4 – Bent Over Banded Row                                x 15 reps

*90s Rest

*Complete 4 rounds

Total B

A1 – Kettlebell Swing                                               x 15 reps

A2 – Single Arm Dumbbell Row                           x 12 reps p.s

A3 – Dumbbell Split Squat                                      x 10 reps p.s

A4 – Dumbbell Floor Press                                    x 15 reps

* 90s Rest

*Complete 4 rounds

Progressing

My preferred methods for progressing metabolic programmes are:

Increasing the number of rounds

Week 1 – 4 rounds

Week 2 – 4 rounds

Week 3 – 5 rounds

Week 4 – 5/6 rounds

Reducing rest periods

Week 1 – 90s

Week 2 – 90s

Week 3 – 75s

Week 4 – 60s

If you need any help designing a programme, feel free to drop me an email here. Alternatively, you can join our online personal training service, which will last as long as lockdown does.

It’s National Coffee Week! Coffee is now the most popular drink world-wide.Every morning around 80% of British households kickstart their day off with an instant caffeine hit, collectively consuming around 95 million cups of coffee per day. Not that we need an excuse for our morning coffee, but there are a fair few benefits of that daily ritual when it comes to your health and your performance in the gym. So, how does caffeine actually work?

Well, caffeine has the ability to block the uptake of a chemical in the brain known as adenosine. Think of adenosine as a ‘sleep agent,’ accumulating and binding to sites on the brain (adenosine receptors) and then causing a slowing down in nerve cell activity. This change in pace make us feel drowsy, mentally fatigued and tired, a perfect cocktail to help us fall asleep. Across the night our brain washes away the accumulated adenosine ready for the next morning, and the process starts all over again.

To a nerve cell caffeine, looks like adenosine, which allows the caffeine to bind to its receptor site – it’s a battle between caffeine and adenosine and caffeine always wins. However, caffeine doesn’t slow down a cell’s activity like adenosine would, but rather speeds it up.

This increase in speed causes increases in communication between nerves, neurones and the four hemispheres of the brain. Our pituitary gland (the thermostat of our hormones) senses this increased activity and thinks some sort of emergency is about to occur, so releases a wave of stress hormones as defence, switching our system into “fight or flight” mode. We now have a heightened state of alertness and mental acuteness. You’re now like Bradley Cooper from the film Limitless when he took NZT-48.

This new state brings about some rather impressive results when it comes to your performance in the gym. Struggling to see improvements in how much you can squat? Caffeine has been shown to improve strength and power in the lower body by up to 7%. In addition, it’s been shown to enhance both our aerobic and endurance capacity, providing a whopping 9% advantage compared to drinking water alone! And it effects don’t just stop there, as caffeine can help improve recovery between workouts, cutting post workout muscle soreness by almost 50%, which means you can could go back the next day and hit it hard.

There’s no doubt that caffeine acts as a truly remarkable ergonomic aid, enhancing strength, stamina and recovery but to see such effects on our performance the general recommendation is to consume between 3-9mg per kilogram of bodyweight. For an average 80 kg male this would equate to between 240 – 720mg, the equivalent of 4-12 Nespresso capsule shots. That’s a lot of coffee, and exactly why using coffee as a source of caffeine before a training session can be problematic.

With coffee you never know exactly how much caffeine you are getting, as factors such as the type of coffee bean and the roasting process can influence the amount of caffeine that ends up in your cup. One study found that the same coffee beverage obtained from the same cafe varied in its caffeine content by as much as 60%.

The second problem is the amount of coffee needed to drink to ensure you hit the appropriate caffeinated threshold. In most cases this would be an average of two large Americanos, which could leave you needing to dash off for frequent trips to the bathroom* during the training session. As a result, caffeinated sources in the form of tablets, gum or gels are generally recommended over coffee itself.

However, this is National Coffee Week and despite coffee not being the most appropriate source of caffeine, it does provide us with a host of additional advantages that pills and gels cannot.

This may come as a surprise to you, but coffee is our main supply of antioxidants. In fact, studies show most people get more antioxidants from drinking coffee than both fruits and vegetables combined! Up to 79% of our dietary antioxidants come from beverages such as coffee, tea and red wine, with a surprisingly low amount coming from food, at just 21%. These antioxidants are very useful at neutralising free radicals and preventing oxidative stress.

You then have the polyphenols which give coffee that characteristic and rich smell. It’s been suggested these polyphenols may help to prevent a number of diseases such as heart disease and cancer, with the majority of findings showing they reduces blood glucose, and possibly lead to a 40% lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

Coffee (and caffeine) can help you harness some truly remarkable gym results, but it’s not without its drawbacks when it comes to sleep quality. That’s a blog for another day, but I cannot stress how important getting a good night of sleep is as nothing quite rivals sleep’s impact on our body and mind. With that in mind, I’d urge you to stop your coffee intake at 11:00am, allowing time for the caffeine work its way through your system, ensuring you’re able to drift off peacefully and get a good night’s rest ready to “wake up and smell the coffee” the following morning.

*Coffee nor caffeine are not a diuretic like most people would make you believe as recent evidence indicates that a moderate daily coffee intake provides similar hydrating qualities to water.

And in case you were wondering, where the name “Americano” came about…

As the name suggests, the drink did originate from America. During the Second World War, American soldiers were served shots of Italian espresso on the front line, only to find it was too strong, so they requested for it to be served with more water – hey presto, the brith of the Americano.

Today is National Fitness Day, and as personal trainers we think that’s a pretty good excuse to celebrate, and more importantly, take a while to think about what fitness means to each of us. “Fitness” means different things to different people. For some, it’s running a sub 7-minute mile, and for others it’s about getting up and down from the floor with ease. It all depends on a person’s age and goals. So, what markers of fitness could you use for goal setting? Well, Becky has a few ideas… some more serious than others!

Let’s start with mobility and agility, key components of any fitness programme. These terms could refer to how flexible somebody is, but there’s more to it than that. Does the body move with ease when changing positions? Can the body sit and stand in a variety of different positions? All the movements we do in our day to day lives, from the day we we’re born, will contribute to how mobile we are. Here are a few ways you can assess yourself here:

1. Can you perform a strict banded overhead squat? This will assess hip, ankle and shoulder mobility.
2. How close can you get your hands and feet while performing an inchworm? This will assess hamstring and hip mobility.
3. Can you get up and down from the floor while using just one hand (or no hands) in less than 5 seconds? This will assess how agile your body is, as well as assessing your mobility.
4. Bonus advanced test: can you perform a pistol squat? Not only will this assess mobility at the knee, hip and ankle joints, but it will also test the strength at these joints.

If you struggle with any of the above, the most effective way to improve your mobility is to strengthen the areas that don’t move with ease and spend more time in positions that challenge you.

Next, let’s look at strength. This is the area most of our members come to us to work on. When you think of a strong person you may think of Eddie Hall lifting cars or Ronda Rousey pinning down her opponents with ease. But strength can be far more subtle than that, it’s simply the capacity to withstand force or pressure. Sadly for us ladies, on average we’re just are not as physically strong as men, however there are plenty of ladies stronger than plenty of men out there. Don’t forget that! Ways to assess your strength could be:

1. Can you perform a technically proficient press up from the floor?

Ladies – Most women cannot perform full floor press ups without training. Any woman who can perform just one is classed as having above average strength for a woman. Trained women should aim for between 1 and 10 floor press ups.

Gents – Men should aim for 5-20 floor press ups.

This will test upper body strength in the pectorals (chest) and triceps (back of the arms). Floor press up strength is also largely dependent on bodyweight. If you struggle with floor press ups, try them at a 0.5-1.5-metre incline. This will reduce the load through the upper body.

2. Can you lift your bodyweight in the form of a barbell deadlift?

Ladies – This is a very tangible target for most women of all ages after 1 to 12 months of training.

Gents – Men should aim for between 1.5 and 2x body weight within 1 to 12 months of training.

These goals will largely depend on your body weight, however, do remember mass moves mass, the heavier you are the more you may be able to lift.

3.  Bonus advanced test – Can you push your car on a flat surface with a driver in the front?

This will largely test lower body strength, particularly in the quadriceps. [Disclaimer – obviously only try this in very quiet streets or car parks…]

Let’s move on again to cardiovascular fitness, the most common form of fitness to assess. You remember the bleep test at school, right? When we think of fitness we tend to think of how long or far a person can continue to work. While there are many ways to assess a person’s cardiovascular fitness in a science lab, for example we can test lactate threshold or VO2 max, these scientific terms aren’t overly helpful for most casual gym-goers who want to assess themselves. Ways to assess cardiovascular fitness could be:

1. How long can you continue to increase and sustain your speed on a bike?

Find a bike (or assault bike if you’re feeling brave) that shows speed in km per hour. Starting at between 18-22 km per hour continue to pedal increasing speed by 1km every minute. Once you can no longer increase your speed and sustain it for one minute its game over. Non-athletes should aim for between 7-12 minutes of work. Bear in mind starting at a lower speed may allow you to work for longer, and readings may be different depending on which bike you choose.

2. Bonus advanced test – Can you beat the London underground from Marylebone to Paddington station using no other form of transport other than your feet?

It’s only 1.3 miles….

No running tests we hear you cry. We find it best to leave running out of the equation when it comes to testing cardiovascular fitness, so there will be no mention of that dreaded bleep test.

Whether you’re a regular gym-goer or not, why not use National Fitness Day to think about what fitness really means for you, and set yourself some goals for the rest of the year? That’s exactly what we’ll be doing. If you need any help setting yours, drop us an email and we’d be happy to help.

Our society today is used to getting everything instantly – if we order a package from Amazon it arrives the same day, and if we want to know something then the answer is just a google away. But when it comes to fat loss, is quickly really the best method, or does slow and steady win the diet race?

We’ve lost count of the number of members who have come to us after trying fad after fad – vowing to start a radical fasting programme, going on a juice diet, or trying to give up alcohol completely when drinking several units per night. They’re looking for a quick fix. Most personal trainers, nutritionists and health professionals warn against these quick fixes, arguing that adopting a slow and steady approach is healthier in the long run and better for long term weight loss; after all, this gives you time to adapt to new habits, making them more likely to last and therefore avoiding a huge rebound in weight gain when you crack under the pressure of an unrealistic nutrition plan.

But in our industry, it’s crucial to keep an eye on the science and research – things constantly evolve. So, what does the research say?

In recent years, several papers have looked at the impact on the rate of weight loss when it comes to regaining weight. A 2013 report in the New England Journal of Medicine went against conventional wisdom, concluding that “the rate of weight regain is the same irrespective of the rate of weight loss.” More recently, a 2019 study looking at weight loss across a year in obese menopausal women found the women who restricted their food intake by 65-75% for the first four months and then 25-35% for the remaining eight months lost 15.3kgs compared to 8.4kgs in those women who restricted their calorie consumption by 25-35% across the year. The severely restricted group were also 2.5-3 times more likely to lose at least 10% of their bodyweight, as well as finding the regime three times easier to stick to.

Sounds like a promising start for an initial period of restriction, however the research also shows us that over half of those who originally lost the weight managed to put it all back on within the first two years, regardless of how quickly they lost it to begin with. This regain in weight has little to do with the rate at which you lose it, but rather the mechanisms behind losing the weight.

This is crucial information for those who are losing weight, and those who are helping them to do it, to understand. Often, it’s not the losing weight that’s the issue, it’s the keeping it off once the job is done. Why is that?

Well, whether you’re trying to lose weight slowly or not, the body begins to fight back in an effort to return back to its initial starting weight. It does this by altering your hunger hormones, decreasing the hormone leptin that is responsible for food intake and energy control, and increasing the hormone ghrelin that helps to regulate hunger and appetite. The levels of these two hormones change as we begin to lose weight and remain altered even after a year. Evidence suggests the change in these hormones can offset the weight we’re trying to lose by increasing our food intake by around 100 kcals per day for every kilogram lost.
Not only do we find our appetite increases as we try to lose weight, but typically, our general day-to-day movement decreases. Non-Activity Exercise Thermogenesis (NEAT) is the number of calories we burn outside of formal exercise. Subconscious movement such as standing, holding your posture, fidgeting, chewing gum, walking to and from the car etc. all require energy – small actions that we rarely think about but in fact can equate in upwards of 1,000+ kcals per day. Sadly, as we begin to lose weight we also begin to (subconsciously) move less, as the body begins to put the brakes on in an effort to conserve calories.
So, as we lose weight, our appetite increases and our general movement decreases. The balance of those calories every day doesn’t need to change much to move us out of a deficit or maintenance, and back into weight gain.

So now we understand the challenge, what lessons should we learn from this?

The most important thing when embarking on any diet is the support network you have around you. If your environment isn’t set up for success, if you haven’t got a team of people cheering you on, supporting you, and helping you overcome the barriers your face then it’s going to be an uphill struggle. Once that’s all set, it’s about working out what kind of fat loss will work for you. Are you a very on or off person who does well with strict rules, has good discipline and likes to see fast change? If so, then starting off with a slightly more restrictive plan may benefit you. If you’re somebody who likes flexibility, who wants to gradually build better habits and still have the odd treat, then taking the slow and steady approach may be better.

But keep in mind that your efforts will have to continue even when you reach your goal weight. In many respects, this is the most important period for consolidation, and you’ll need that support around you to carry on.

If you’re struggling to lose weight or just confused on what you should or shouldn’t be eating, why not check out our nutrition services? Or you can learn more about building a personalised diet here.

Welcome to our new video course on ‘How To Build a Personalised Diet.‘

Whether you’re looking to lose weight, build muscle or improve performance, the next six videos will give you the tools, the knowledge, and the know-how to construct an eating plan of your own that’s built on healthy, enjoyable and sustainable nutrition principles.

In our last blog post we looked at the difference between fitness and conditioning. While most types of exercise will improve our general fitness, we need to be a bit more specific when it comes to conditioning.

If we’re looking at conditioning, there are two main factors we need to consider:
1. Energy output and control
2. Joint mobility and integrity
Let’s look at what these terms mean.
1. Energy control
Sadly, we live in an era when the general philosophy around fitness is often to go harder, faster, further – if you’re crawling out of the gym then you haven’t worked hard enough. Although this may earn you a load of kudos from your trainer or other members of your gym it’s unlikely to translate into medals won after crossing the finish line.
While the idea of being able to go 100% from start to finish sounds heroic, practicality it’s just not possible for the human body to maintain this level of power for an extended period. While there will be times where you’ll have likely pushed yourself to maximum effort continually, operating at this maximum capacity will ultimately lead the body into a state of stress, poor recovery and injury – ironically, decreasing your ability to perform.
Instead, it’s important to know your body’s limits, when to push on the gas and go 100% and when to back off. You need to be able to recognise what your limits are and to have a strategy around recognising when you’re about to exceed them, as this is the only way you’ll be able to manage your energy effectively, giving you the ability to maintain a high level of power output throughout your session.
An effective tool in teaching you energy control is something known as ‘dynamic energy control.’ This tool helps you to become aware of your own energy output, and to consciously control it to avoid fatigue and maximise performance.

There are serval lessons in dynamic energy control, with the cardiac output method being the first:

When you’re able to recognise what your limits are with your own heart rate, and how different levels of exertion and rest cause it to increase and decrease, then you can move on to more complex methods in energy control, such as tempo intervals and alactic-aerobic intervals. These two methods will teach you how to control energy at higher intensities, as well as improving your ability to recover quickly between bouts of work using periods of rest.
Dynamic energy control will help you to recognise the signs of fatigue, and to develop an awareness of what different levels of exertion look and feel like, so you can learn to manage and manipulate it.

2. Joint mobility and integrity
Runners certainly have a good level of fitness, with markers including a low resting heart rate, high Vo2 max and a high anaerobic threshold, and they often know how to manage their energy output through dynamic energy control – that’s one piece of the conditioning puzzle ticked off.
If you’ve recently taken up running then it’s more than likely you’ve experienced pain or even worse an injury in the ankles, knees or hips. If you talk to any runner, they will almost certainly have suffered from medial tibia stress syndrome or “shin splints” – a sharp shooting pain up the inside of the shinbone. Essentially, this is a sign of doing too much, too soon and is a classic indictor of poor conditioning.
A lot of runners – running is just one example here – don’t think about the mechanics behind running, and the amount of force the joints are exposed to as the feet strike the ground. We exert around 2.5 – 3.2 times our bodyweight through each foot when running at moderate speeds [1], with each foot striking the floor at an average of 80-100 times a minute. As an example, if a 60kg person runs for 30 mins, the force the ankle joint is exposed to is equivalent to a 152-192 kilogram baseball bat continually being bashed on the sole of each foot 25,000 times – it’s no wonder there are lots of injuries!
A big part of conditioning is preparing the body for the environment you’re training or competing in. Conditioning methods such as aerobic plyometrics and explosive repeats are great at developing the tissues of the lower body to handle incoming stress by becoming bigger, stronger, and more durable. This develops our joints and tissues around to better handle the stress imposed by the sport or environment.
The same can be said for golfers with the amount of force their elbow joints are expose to or combat fighters and their wrists. Different sports place a different level of stress upon the body and if you’re looking to reach your peak performance then you need to make sure your body is ready to meet the stress your particular sport demands.
So, as a quick recap – are fitness and conditioning the same thing? No…
• Fitness (energy systems, strength, power) = energy production, the potential for performance.

• Conditioning = qualities of fitness + the skill sets that facilitate energy expenditure. Preparing the body for the demands/environment of the sport.  A well-conditioned athlete is able to execute their skills to the best of their ability throughout the competition.
The key to unlocking your true performance is marrying these two, as only then do these two pieces of the performance puzzle come together.
If you’re looking to improve your fitness and conditinng levels then why no sign up to our 30-day Fitness & Conditining Programme – a thirty day programme that develops your conditioning and teaches you the necessary skills to unlock your full potential when it comes to performance.

sources:
Burdett RG. Forces predicted at the ankle during running. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 1982;14(4):308‐316. doi:10.1249/00005768-198204000-00010