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

When fitness coaches talk about conditioning, they often refer to it as a measure of “how fatigued someone becomes over time” or “the ability to keep on going,” and this becomes linked with how “fit” somebody is. Now this isn’t strictly true: fitness and conditioning are two separate pieces of our overall performance.
Confusingly, it’s both possible and very common to have a relatively high level of fitness but poor conditioning. So what’s the difference, and how can you make sure you’re tackling both elements of performance in your training?
Fitness is defined by gauging set markers that allow us to see a potential increase in performance, for example Vo2 max, resting heart rate, anaerobic threshold, or an increase in strength, speed or power etc. Generally speaking, the markers we track for fitness are both measurable and tangible, allowing us to see how much someone can lift or how fast they can run. Fitness markers are all qualities that contribute to the energy output side of performance.

Fitness is the measure of physical qualities that create the potential for performance:

Conditioning on the other hand is a lot less data driven. Conditioning is about our ability to use our fitness qualities to meet the demands of the environment. In effect, it’s the physical and mental skills we must develop to manage our energy effectively to meet the demands of a sport.

Conditioning is the real driver behind our performance, as if wish to utilise all our potential (fitness markers) to drive performance we must also work on developing the skills needed for conditioning – as performance requires both a high-level of fitness and a high level of conditioning.

Conditioning is about our ability to use our fitness qualities to meet the demands of the environment:

A good personal trainer or conditioning coach should be able to develop your fitness and your conditioning to prepare you and your body to perform within the sport or environment you’ve chosen. Most gym-based resistance and cardiovascular training will improve our fitness markers, but conditioning is a different ball game.
Look out for Part 2 when we look at how you can tackle this piece of the puzzle!

p.s. Over the last few months we’ve been working on a brand new online training programme that promises to get you fitter, stronger and overall, better conditioned.

If you feel ready to start moving forwards, then this could well prove beneficial for you – Welcome to our 30-Day Fitness & Conditioning Programme.

Since lockdown began a few weeks ago, a lot of us have seen our weight increase slightly even if we’ve kept our food intake the same. Why is this? Well, apart from those of us who have just been eating and drinking more than usual, we’ve all seen a huge drop in our daily energy expenditure, or NEAT.

Firstly, what the hell is NEAT? NEAT stands for non-exercise activity thermogenesis, which is basically all activity that is non-exercise specific, such as walking while talking on the phone, going up and down the stairs because you forgot to bring something down, or fidgeting while you watch that Netflix box set.

NEAT is a hugely important tool for weight management. It can contribute to up to 15% percent of your daily calorie expenditure, but this varies hugely from person to person. An office worker would typically have very low NEAT, having to sit down all day, while a doctor’s NEAT would be much higher as they are on their feet. Even if the office worker spent an hour in the gym before work, the doctor’s calorie expenditure for the day could end up higher. For some people, NEAT expenditure can be as high as 2000 calories per day! That’s pretty neat…

Most people will have seen a big drop in NEAT since lockdown began, as we’re no longer able to pop to the shops as often, or indeed leave the house as much as we’re used to!

So how can you keep your NEAT up while in self-isolation?

1. Aim for 250 steps per hour

Just three minutes of walking each hour could earn you up to 250 steps. When working from home, try to do this every hour even if it’s to make a cup of tea or grab something from upstairs. It may sound easy but we know how quickly an hour on your laptop can fly by. Set a reminder on your phone to ensure that little bit of movement.

2. Think of ways to get active that don’t include formal exercise

Now we’re all stuck at home it’s the perfect opportunity to get on with all that cleaning and gardening that’s been on the list. A vigorous clean of the house could increase your NEAT sevenfold and lugging all those weeds or your mower around the garden is another way to burn more energy. All movement is good movement, and if another benefit comes from it then even better!

3. Don’t sit still

If you have kids, this probably goes against everything you’ve taught them, but fidgeting contributes to a large amount of our daily energy expenditure. Simply jiggling your foot while you’re watching the television or tapping your fingers while you wait for the kettle to boil can really help your energy expenditure to add up. Interestingly, fidgeting drops considerably in people following a calorie-restricted diet. This drop in NEAT can sometimes be the biggest contributing factor to a weight loss plateau, as the drop in daily calorie expenditure can take a person out of a calorie deficit. So, don’t sit still, get fidgeting!

4. Be less efficient

Usually our lives are so busy and we need to make the most of every minute. But now we’ve been able to slow down a bit, we can start being less efficient around the house – if you have things to take upstairs, take them one at a time for example. It may sound like we’re grasping at straws but making several trips up and down the stairs can use 10x more calories than sitting, and twice as many as walking at 1 mile per hour. It’s all about the little things that add up.

It’s not glamorous, quite frankly it’s rather laborious, but it won’t make you sweat. So, no more excuses, get moving…. but only around your house.

Now, just because Covid-19 is restricting us to our homes it doesn’t have to restrict us in our training. During this pandemic we understand you’re unlikely to have access to a gym or any of the gym equipment you may have been used to. So, we’ve put together a collection of small workouts that can be done from the comfort of your home with limited to no kit – what’s more, they only take around fifteen minutes to complete.

Why not give a few of them a try?

It’s been lovely to see so many people using this lockdown as a time to rekindle their love of running or take it up for the first time. However, with little warning of the lockdown coming, some people may have taken it up as a last resort, with little knowledge of how to get started and how to progress while staying injury free. Here are a few tips to get you started and keep you going over the next few weeks.

1. You do not need to run continuously

Don’t ask too much of yourself – every step counts, whether it’s running, jogging or walking. If you’re new to running, try a 1:2 ratio of running and walking to start, for example 1 minute of running followed by 2 minutes of walking. Once you feel more confident, progress to a 1:1 ratio. As the weeks go on slowly reduce the walk time and increase the run time. It may take a few weeks before you feel confident to run continuously for more than 5 -10 minutes.

2. You don’t need to run everyday

I know the idea of running every day sounds great during that motivated phase when you first take it up, however this simply is not sustainable, nor is it ideal. No matter how strong or fit you may be, your body needs time to recover. Lack of recovery leads to injuries, low motivation and boredom. Keep your body and mind hungry to run by limiting it to 2-4 runs per week.

3. Keep the routes changing

In an ideal world you would run a combination of off road and on road routes. Your ankles are built to need to stabilize, constantly running on road can lead to injuries. Wherever you can, keep the terrain changing. If you are limited for routes, you can also try running your route in reverse to help combat boredom.

4. Keep a steady pace

I know it sounds obvious, but you will find yourself shooting off at the start with pre-run confidence. This may closely be followed by an urge to need to stop after 1-2 minutes. It’s incredibly hard to learn how to pace yourself, even the pros get it wrong. Start super slow, slower than you believe necessary. Let your body warm up to the feeling of running and you’ll find you’ll hit that wall a lot later on, or not at all.

5. Treat yourself to a post run recovery walk 

You will most likely be sore after the first few runs you complete. This is completely normal; however, it can be reduced by simply treating yourself to a 500m-1km walk after your run. Try not to finish your run right on your doorstep, give your body time to cool down while staying on your feet. Keeping the blood flowing while you cool down can have a significant effect on reducing the aches you feel in the hours following your run.

The only way to lose weight (or body fat) is to eat fewer calories than you use each day. Counting your calories and tracking your macronutrients (protein, carbohydrate and fat) is an extremely helpful tool for weight loss, but it’s one that a lot of people don’t get on with it. While there are no quick fixes for dropping weight, there are lots of simple changes you can make every day to limit your calories and avoid using any apps. Here are six of our favourite tips.

1. Reduce your carbohydrate intake

Carbohydrates are our body’s preferred energy source, but with so many of us spending the majority of their time either sitting at a desk or doing low-intensity forms of exercise e.g walking to work, we don’t really require a whole lot of energy from carbohydrates. Reducing our carbohydrates to 1-2 meals a day and increasing the quantity of protein at each meal will usually reduce our daily calorie intake. Not only that, but it will also increase feelings of fullness and reduce cravings (1).

We recommend 25-30% of your calories should come from protein. A good measure is 1-2 palm-size portions of protein three times a day for women, and four for men. When measuring carbohydrates, we recommend 1 cupped hand of carbohydrate 1-2 times a day for women and 2-3 times a day for men.

2. Swap out your morning latte

Lots of us reach for a milky coffee mid-morning and mid-afternoon to help us through the working day. Swapping a regular whole milk latte for a regular almond milk late could save you 107 calories (2). That’s a whole meal of calories saved! Better yet, if you swap your latte for an americano you could save 170 calories. Now I know this could be a big ask for many people, so we suggest cutting that daily latte down to just 3-4 days a week. This simple swap could save you over 1,000 calories a week, which would put you well on your way to any weight loss goal.

3. Reduce your eating window

Fasting to lose weight can be structured in many different ways, with the aim being the same every time – reduce overall calorie consumption. A favourite tactic of mine is to reduce your eating window to only 8 hours a day, allowing 16 hours of fasting – the majority of this will be completed overnight. An example day would be to eat your first meal or snack of the day at 11am, then make sure the last meal or snack you eat is before 7pm. You will then fast (not eat) until 11am the next day. Simply allowing yourself less time to eat often equates to fewer calories consumed. You can adjust the start and finish times to suit you and the times you prefer to eat.

4. Get rid of that breakfast bar

Breakfast bars have become quite a bugbear of mine. They are super tasty and moreish and they have “health” written all over them. Manufacturers have even brought out “high protein” breakfast bars, making them even more tempting to those looking for a healthy nutritious snack. Sadly, since there are no guidelines on the amount of protein required for a brand to advertise their product as high protein, most of these bars fall short of what we would actually consider high protein. Aiming for protein-based snacks usually helps to keep hunger at bay and often keeps calories low. My favourite mid-afternoon snacks are the following; 2-3 baby bell lights, beef jerky, grenade protein bar, protein whey shake, a boiled egg, tuna on a rice cake or a Greek yogurt snack pot. Aim for 1-2 of these snacks a day and ditch the high-carb alternative.

5. Don’t multi-task while you’re eating

It can be so tempting to flop in front of the television with a nice hot meal after work. However, for a lot of people this is the time when we’re at a higher risk of overeating. One study showed that students eating either pizza or macaroni cheese in front of the television (compared to those eating without stimulus) ate 36% more and at a faster rate (3). There will always be times when you want to treat yourself to a sofa dinner and a Netflix binge but aiming to eat the majority of your meals without an extra stimulus may be of huge benefit to you, allowing you to enjoy the meal you’re eating and concentrate on whether you’re feeling full.

6. Prioritise your sleep  

I feel the eye roll of every reader with this one – I know it’s been said a thousand times over. Getting an adequate amount of sleep has many benefits beyond weight loss, but it’s been shown that a rough night’s sleep of 4 hours or less can increase food consumption by 22% (4). For the average person consuming between 1,500-2,000 calories a day that is an increase of between 330-440 a day – equivalent to a whole meal. You may not be able to get the golden 8 hours every night but being strict and sending yourself to bed an hour earlier could have a huge impact on your food choices the following day. If you know you have had a rough night, we suggest writing down everything you eat that day to make yourself more accountable. One study found that keeping a simple food diary could double a person’s weight loss (5).

References:

1. PMID 20847729 ,https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20847729

2. Starbucks nutritional information https://globalassets.starbucks.com/assets/E3DA4F2E01A148DD88D61BC756C5A223.pdf

3. PMID 16822530 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16822530

4. PMID 20357041 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20357041

5. Science Daily https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080708080738.htm

When they first start training a lot of our members ask us why the programme doesn’t change every week. Although constant variety may be more exciting, it also limits our improvement, as we would lack two key elements necessary for progress.

These elements are adaptation and progressive overload, and skill acquisition. Every programme we develop has adaptation in mind. There are lots of different adaptations we can try and achieve with a specific programme depending on the training phase.

1. Neurological phase
   • Goal: strength (lifting the heaviest weight possible for the given rep range)
   • Method: Heavy load, low reps

2. Hypertrophy phase
   • Goal: muscle growth, lifting the greatest cumulative weight throughout that session
   • Method: Sets x reps x weight

3. Metabolic phase
   • Goal: fat loss, completing the most work in a given time frame
   • Method: higher reps, shorter rest

It takes time following a specific programme before these adaptations can occur. In order to achieve them we use a principle called progressive overload. This principle is always used in alignment with the specific goals of each training phase: increasing the heaviest weight used in a set (strength), increasing the total weight lifted (hypertrophy), or increasing workout density (metabolic).

Generally speaking, neurological adaptations take the longest amount of time to occur, metabolic adaptations are the quickest, and hypertrophy sits somewhere in the middle. This is why our metabolic phases are shorter than our strength phases.

If you’re chopping and changing your workout every week or selecting random exercises to perform to keep things ‘interesting’ then you’re missing out on all of those adaptations and making it impossible to measure your progress. We don’t track our members’ workouts so diligently for nothing!

Another key improvement achieved by consistency is skill acquisition. Alongside allowing the body enough time to adapt to what we’re throwing at it, we need to give ourselves time to learn new skills.

We need sufficient practice at movements in order to become proficient at them. Only once you’ve hit a certain skill level will your jumps in weight be from actual strength gain, everything up to this point is generally improvement in proficiency. This causes a ‘lag period’ each time you switch exercise before actual improvements in strength are made. The more experienced you get, the smaller this lag period becomes until it only takes 1-2 sets to ‘find the groove’ again.

Although not much of a pianist myself, if you were learning a new piece, you’d keep practicing that same piece until you’d really nailed it or were at least considerably better than you were. You wouldn’t dabble for 10 minutes, just about pick up the correct notes then move onto another piece – you wouldn’t get any better. Exercise is as much of a skill as learning an instrument is.

So with that in mind, here are our key take home points:

1. We need to ensure that overload is achieved, and subsequently that adaptation is triggered – keeping in movements for longer increases this likelihood
2. Beginners should stick with the same main exercise for longer (possibly as long as 12 weeks), only changing the rep range
3. More advanced individuals can spend longer away from exercises without losing skill proficiency

If you have any questions about structuring a training programme, don’t hesitate to give us a shout! You can email George here.

It’s the time of year when everyone seems to have a cough or a cold, and with more that 200 different common cold viruses you’d be forgiven for thinking that catching one is inevitable. Luckily, there are a lot of different ways to boost your immune system so that you can stay fit and healthy throughout the winter months. We caught up with Nutritional Therapist Laura MacDonald to find out her top tips.

1. Keep your digestive system happy

My number one tip for a healthy immune system is to focus on your gut, which is home to more than 70% of your immune cells. Keeping your gut bacteria happy is key – they thrive on fibre so increasing your fruit and vegetable intake is a great way to support them (and has the added bonus of increasing your overall nutrient intake too).¹ Aim for plenty of variety and colour because just as we have different food preferences, so do different strains of bacteria. Another way to increase fibre is by swapping refined carbohydrates for complex carbohydrates – choose brown pasta and grains over the white varieties which are much lower in fibre and nutrients.

Fermented foods also promote growth of beneficial bacteria in the gut, which then support the immune system. These are foods that contain ‘probiotics’ – live bacteria. Unsweetened, natural live yoghurt, milk or water kefir, kombucha, sauerkraut, kimchi and miso are all examples of fermented foods and most can be found in large supermarkets or your local health food store.²

2. Check your Vitamin D

No blog post about the immune system would be complete without mentioning vitamin D. Deficiency is strongly linked to increased susceptibility to infection.³ Though you can get some vitamin D through diet (oily fish, red meat, liver, egg yolks and fortified products), between September and March it is recommended that we take vitamin D supplements in the UK because we don’t get enough from sunlight. The NHS recommends 10 micrograms daily, but it is impossible to guess each individual’s levels, and since this is such an important vitamin it can be useful to test your levels and supplement more, or less, as required.⁴

3. Protein

Make sure you’re getting sufficient protein from whole, unprocessed sources. Amino acids (the molecules that make up protein) are integral to producing immune cells such as antibodies, cytokines and macrophages and research has shown a link between insufficient protein intake and reduced immune function.⁵ Meat and shellfish are also a good source of zinc, another essential nutrient for the immune system, while plant-based sources are a source of antioxidants which can help protect against inflammation. In contrast, processed protein sources often contain additives and sweeteners which irritate the gut and are detrimental to the health of gut bacteria – remember, a healthy gut supports a healthy immune system.⁶

4. Limit alcohol

Alcohol disrupts gut bacteria, allowing opportunistic and pathogenic bacteria to grow and inhibiting the communication between beneficial bacteria and immune cells. It can also cause inflammation and even has a negativity on the integrity of the gut wall. All of this effects the immune system – remember, the majority of the immune system lives in the gut.⁷ It’s not all doom and gloom though – whilst excessive drinking can have this effect, there is a small amount of evidence to suggest that a small amount of high quality, red wine might actually benefit the gut bacteria due to the polyphenol content. ⁸

It’s very easy to only focus on the health of your immune system when you start to feel it struggling, but by putting these tips into practice on a daily basis you can set yourself up for a much healthier winter.

By Laura MacDonald, Nutritionist

References

1. Holscher, H. (2017). Dietary fibre and prebiotics and the gastrointestinal microbiota. Gut Microbes, 8(2), pp.172-184.
2. Rezac, S., Kok, C., Heermann, M. and Hutkins, R. (2018). Fermented Foods as a Dietary Source of Live Organisms. Frontiers in Microbiology, 9.
3. Aranow, C. (2011). Vitamin D and the Immune System. Journal of Investigative Medicine, 59(6), pp.881-886.
4. NHS. (2020). Vitamins and minerals – Vitamin D. [online] Available at: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vitamins-and-minerals/vitamin-d/ [Accessed 3 Jan. 2020].
5. Li, P., Yin, Y., Li, D., Woo Kim, S. and Wu, G. (2007). Amino acids and immune function. British Journal of Nutrition, 98(2), pp.237-252.
6. Moreno-Pérez, D., Bressa, C., Bailén, M., Hamed-Bousdar, S., Naclerio, F., Carmona, M., Pérez, M., González-Soltero, R., Montalvo-Lominchar, M., Carabaña, C. and Larrosa, M. (2018). Effect of a Protein Supplement on the Gut Microbiota of Endurance Athletes: A Randomized, Controlled, Double-Blind Pilot Study. Nutrients, 10(3), p.337.
7. Sarkar, D., Jung, M. K., & Wang, H. J. (2015). Alcohol and the Immune System. Alcohol Research : Current Reviews, 37(2), 153–155.
8. Nash, V., Ranadheera, C., Georgousopoulou, E., Mellor, D., Panagiotakos, D., McKune, A., Kellett, J. and Naumovski, N. (2018). The effects of grape and red wine polyphenols on gut microbiota – A systematic review. Food Research International, 113, pp.277-287.

It’s about this time all the “New Year, New You” articles and gym adverts start popping up, and we hate them with a vengeance. While this limbo between Christmas and New Year is a great time to think about what you’d like to achieve with your health and fitness, all too often we see people set unrealistic and unachievable goals, determined to be a new and better version of themselves. This inevitably leads to disappointment and abandoning all the good intentions that were set.

The truth is that you don’t need radical change to be a “new you”, in fact, radical change is one of the worst things you can do. Instead you need to look at where you want to be and then work out what the smallest steps are that you can take to get there. In order to achieve lasting change, we need to make changes that can last. Habit is key.

Here are our top tips for creating lasting change this New Year.

1. Work out your barriers

Say you want to drop a bit of fat – what’s holding you back; is it that regular bottle of wine each night? Is it that you’re really good during the week and then binge at the weekends? Is it that you don’t have a regular eating pattern? Say you want to improve your cardiovascular fitness – have you been plodding along the same 5k run every week without varying it or changing the intensity of your runs? Spend a good amount of time thinking about why you’re not seeing the results you want to. If you don’t know why then find somebody who can help you work it out.

2. Address the basics

Okay, so now you know where you’ve been going wrong it’s time to think about the small steps you can take to address these problems. If you snack too much or binge at the weekends, the first thing you need to focus on is building a regular eating pattern. If you’re drinking loads, try and cut down to one drink per night or just drinking at the weekends. If you’ve hit a wall with your training, think about how you can change your training split, intensity or volume to overcome it. In six months, you’ll be amazed at the transformation you’ve made, and you probably won’t even have noticed any sacrifices.

3. Look at the bigger picture

Over the next few weeks these small changes you’ve made will become habit and you’ll hardly notice them anymore. This is the time to take a step back and start to look at the bigger picture. When our clients are looking at fat loss this is the time when we work with them to analyse their daily environment and habits. Can you find 2,000 extra steps each day? Can you carve out an extra hour or so each week to train a bit more or even start exercising for the first time? Start building in these additional habits to ensure your progress doesn’t stall.

4. Tweak the tiny details

Now you’ve got the basics covered and your progress should be pretty speedy but more importantly it’ll be sustainable. We can now start to optimise your daily routine for your goals, looking in more detail about the macronutrients you’re having, getting more particular with the type and frequency of exercise and all the while making sure your life is still completely recognisable to you, without too many sacrifices. It’s so important we don’t jump from step one straight to step four otherwise the changes simply won’t stick in the long term.

We work with all of our clients to ensure their results are enjoyable, sustainable and long-lasting. Whatever your goals this year, focus on habits rather than speed and you’ll be amazed what you can achieve.

The personal training community is a close knit bunch. Recently we meet some personal trainers from London called Evolve Fitness.

Based in Liverpool Street and Blackfriars they focus on group and individual personal training programmes. Their lead trainer and founder, Tim Walker, has also appeared on the odd TV show (most notably Get a Holiday Body: Lose a Stone in 4 Weeks, where he was a fitness mentor to the Antony Costa formerly of the boy band Blue).

They’ve written us four of their top tips for building muscle.

1. Train the largest muscles first, but not always

The general rule of thumb that the big exercises should be done first is a good one. But a couple of times a year, a three or four week period of training the smaller muscles first in isolation is extremely effective. So, on a push session you’d do triceps, then shoulders then lastly chest. You’ll need to reduce your weights, but we’re only talking about a few weeks here.

Then, on a pull workout you might train biceps first, then the upper back and then finish with chin-ups (if you can manage it, it’s a humbling experience!).

2. When training for muscle gain, seek inefficiency

When training solely for muscle gain, try the opposite and make the exercise harder. With our bench press example, you could perform the wide grip press to the upper chest on a five-second lowering tempo.

Same movement pattern, dramatically different exercise.

This is the opposite of training purely for strength. For example, if you’re looking to just get stronger on the bench press, you should place the feet firmly on the ground, retract the shoulders, arch the back and drive the traps into the bench. This gives you a solid, stable base to lift more weight.

3. Vary your exercises more

When seeking to build muscle, choose exercise variations you haven’t used for at least a few months. If you’ve been back squatting, switch to front squats. If you’ve been doing pull-ups (palms facing away from you) switch to chin-ups (palms facing you). You still want to train the key movements, change -upper body push to upper body pull, lower body knee dominant to lower body hip dominant.

You should vary your methods too; when a new client arrives and wants to build muscle one of my first questions is “what have you been doing up until now?”.
Then I do the opposite of whatever they’ve been doing. If they’ve been using a high volume approach I’ll drop the volume and increase the intensity. If they’ve done nothing but full body routines I’ll split things up. If they’ve trained bench press first thing on a Monday every week of their adult life, guess who’s going to be occupying the squat rack on a Monday evening from now on?

If you’re looking at going into a hypertrophy phase, give some of these tips a go!