fitness articles

While you already know that you have to progressively challenge your body with activity if you want to build your fitness, here's a surprise: the actual physiological gains occur during rest and recovery!

Use rest and active recovery along with proper exercise variety, and you will take your workout efforts to new heights and produce greater results than you will if you only concentrate on working out. We're talking quality training here, rather than quantity.

While effort is 50 percent of the training equation, restoration and recovery is the other important half. To see results, you have to work out at a level of effort that challenges your body, whether you're doing cardio, strength or flexibility training.

The process of "hypertrophy" (increasing lean muscle size) is directly related to the "synthesis" (putting together) of cellular material. The word synthesis means that strength training is a positive building process, rather than a negative breaking down process. The bottom line is that you need to work out hard enough to overload your body positively, but not so hard you cause damage.

Positive overloads cause the body to respond with increases in strength, cardiovascular capacity and flexibility. This positive overload, balanced with rest and recovery is the optimal training formula.Rest and recovery, built into your workout programme, will keep your workouts productive and your body healthy.

How much rest?

The amount of rest you have between sets during a strength session should follow these guidelines:

• If you're a beginner, rest about 90 seconds between sets to give your muscles adequate time to recover.
• As you get in better shape, you need less rest - only about 30-60 seconds - or when your muscles feel ready for another set.
• Use "active recovery" to maximise time and avoid over training. For example, gentle stretching exercises between strength exercises will allow you to rest those hard working muscles without requiring total inactivity
• If you follow a chest exercise with, say, a thigh exercise, you typically need less rest than if you do consecutive exercises for the same muscle group, such as two chest exercises back to back
• Take at least one actual day of rest each week. This is important for both mental and physical health. If you feel that you have to do something, try stretching, yoga or an easy activity such as a walk in the park. Your day of rest will rejuvenate you for your next few days of workouts.
• After the first few weeks of training, you can fine-tune the amount of rest you take between sets according to your recovery. If you're using really heavy weights and doing fewer reps in order to bulk up, you can take up to 5 minutes between sets so that your muscles can pump out their greatest effort each time.
• If you're short on time or you like a fast-paced workout, try circuit training: Move quickly from exercise to exercise with little or no rest at all until one round is completed then rest for 1-2 minutes and commence 2nd round. Circuit training does a decent job of building strength, and can also be a good substitute for an aerobic workout.

We are currently experiencing an unprecedented international obsession with thinness and the advertising pitches of diets and weight loss schemes are too often claims based on faulty premises. A major problem is that most people, including athletes, know very little about nutrition and even less about the processes of metabolism, which is the only explanation for why people continue to accept bizarre claims that are totally with out scientific basis. Here are some of the most popular, and often dangerous, fat burning claims and the facts to negate their effectiveness.

Fiction: You will lose fat by severely reducing your carbohydrate intake.

Fact: This practice upsets the body's chemical balance in such a way that fluids are deleted from the muscle. While this gives the illusion of weight loss, fat is not lost, but instead muscle tissue is broken down, and water that makes up much of this tissue is excreted. All of this water weight will eventually be regained. In addition, carbohydrates (potatoes, rice, vegetables, grains, pasta) are the prime source of energy.

Starches are not fattening - fat is fattening!

Fiction: Fasting or liquid diets will induce fat loss.

Fact: Most recently, a fast consisting of only liquid protein (330 calories, twice a day) resulted in the deaths of eighteen people across America. The probable cause was that the bodies were forced to digest muscle proteins to liberate stored blood sugar (glycogen) to feed the brain and compensate for inadequate caloric intake. In a quest to lose some excess weight these poor souls died from cardiac arrest(remember, the heart is a muscle too and is affected by extreme diets).

Fiction: Single category diets will cause fat loss.

Fact: These regimens restrict the dieter to one kind of food such as fruit, vegetables, etc and nothing else. The fact is that no single category off food contains enough nutrients to maintain healthy body tissues.

Reference: 1. Angeline, C et al., 'Carnitine Deficiency of Skeletal Muscle, Report of treated cases', Neurology, 1987. Handout supplied by Network Resource CD May 04.

 

Could beetroot juice be the new energy drink?

It looks as though the Aussie love-affair with the humble beetroot may be able to reap its rewards on the sports field, with a recent UK study showing that beetroot juice may increase stamina and endurance by up to 16 per cent.

Researchers from the University of Exeter found that nitrate in beetroot juice reduced the intake of oxygen by a higher degree than other known methods. Eight male study participants between the ages of 19 and 38 drank half a litre of organic beetroot juice daily, for six days, after which they completed a selection of tests on an exercise bike. The results were measured against the findings of the same tests when conducted using a daily placebo in place of the beetroot juice. After consuming beetroot juice, the participants cycled for an average 92 seconds longer (16 per cent) than they did after drinking the placebo beverage, and also displayed a lower resting blood pressure.

Study author Andy Jones, a professor in the University of Exeter's School of Sport and Health Sciences, said ‘Our study is the first to show that nitrate-rich food can increase exercise endurance. We were amazed by the effects of beetroot juice on oxygen uptake because these effects cannot be achieved by any other known means, including training. I am sure professional and amateur athletes will be interested in the results of this research. I am also keen to explore the relevance of the findings to those people who suffer from poor fitness and may be able to use dietary supplements to help them go about their daily lives' Jones added.

Source: Network Newsletter : University of Exeter

 

Excessive sitting compromises health

A recent Australian study has found that too much sitting down has health repercussions. After conducting a study, University of Queensland researchers came to the conclusion that excessive inactivity has a negative effect on levels of both blood pressure and blood sugar, which in turn can lead to heart attacks, cancer and type 2 diabetes.

The team of researchers, led by Professor Neville Owen from the university's Cancer Prevention Research Centre, studied the amount of time that people spend watching television, and pitted it against data pertaining to their blood glucose and cholesterol levels. The amount of television that people watched was found to be related to blood cholesterol and blood glucose, even after taking into consideration the effect of their physical activity levels and the effect they may have experienced from being overweight or obese. This means that even active people who also spend long periods of time in a sedentary position could suffer health problems as a consequence.

Speaking to the ABC, Owen said ‘Large muscles in the legs and the backside, which are designed to be standing, maintaining posture, moving about in hunter gatherers, when those muscles are just immobilised for long periods of time, it looks like there are mechanisms in the muscle through something called lipoprotein lipase, that seems to push signals up through into the hormones and other systems that control cholesterol in the blood and you end up with what looks like a pretty unhealthy profile, specifically coming out of that flaccid, non-working muscle'.

In an age where an enormous proportion of the workforce spend the majority of their day in a seated position, these findings do not bode well. But, unless we radically and quickly change the way in which most workplaces operate, it seems that the best we can do is be practical and insert small amounts of activity into our working day wherever we can, and to this end Owen recommended have frequent breaks from the desk to take shorts walks.

Source: Network Newsletter : ABC Online

 

During my time as a trainer both clients and peers have asked me what importance the various heart rate readings on their heart rate monitors mean. There are varying types of heart rate readings that may be performed with a heart rate monitor or manually:

RHR or resting heart rate this is your body's heart rate at rest or your pulse taken as soon as you awake in the morning. To achieve an accurate reading take the pulse first thing in the morning counting the beats for ten seconds and multiplying x 6 do this over 5 days and average out for a accurate measurement either at the wrist point or carotid on your neck. Most adults RHR sits between 60-80bpm and normally the under 60bpm people signal an active athlete, however it can also suggest, bradycardia which is a sign of a problem with the heart's electrical system and should be referred back to a GP.

As your fitness levels improve and you make the heart work harder than it does at rest, like any muscle, it will adapt and become stronger. Over time, the heart becomes more efficient and is able to eject a larger amount of blood for every beat. This is known as stroke volume.

MHR is your maximum heart rate zone this can be worked out by subtracting your age from 220, for example a female aged 24 maximum heart rate would be 220-24 = MHR of 196. However as a trainer I have noticed over the years that this is not always accurate as these formulas apply only to adults and the generally accepted error in age-predicted formulas is + - 10-15 beats per minute, which is due to different inherited characteristics and exercise training.

PERR is your post exercise recovery heart rate its about noting the time it takes for the body to return to "normal" after an intense bout of exercise. For example, exercise for a maximum effort for two minutes using a step no higher than 12 inches . One minute after you stop exercising record your post exercise recovery rate, see how well you recover then compare the rate next time you recheck your progress.

HRR is your Heart Rate Reserve the difference between your Maximum Heart Rate and your Resting Heart Rate. If your maximum heart rate is 196 bpm (beats per minute) and your resting heart rate 63 bpm, your heart rate reserve is 196 bpm - 63 bpm = 133 bpm. The greater the difference, the larger your heart rate reserve and the greater your range of potential training heart rate intensities.

THR is a Target heart rate zone is a heart rate range that guides your workout by keeping your intensity level between an upper and lower heart rate limit. There are various target zones that are suggested for an individual to follow that correspond with a specific exercise goal.

Tired of the same old workout?
Looking for a level of fitness that your current exercise routine can't offer?
Are you experiencing nagging injuries that just don't seem to heal?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you are a likely candidate for cross training. Cross training is simply a way of adding variety to your exercise program. You can vary your aerobic routine and incorporate some muscular strength and flexibility training as well. And if you think cross training is new, think again. Athletes have been cross training since the days of the Olympic decathlons and pentathlons of ancient Greece. In the past decade has seen the popularity of the triathlon reach international proportions, introducing the concept of cross training to even the most recreational athletes.

What's the point?
The benefits of cross training are numerous. It reduces the risk of injury because the same muscles, bones and joints are not continuously subjected to the stresses of the same activity. Cross training also adds variety to your workouts, making your routine more interesting and easier to stick with. For the athlete, it provides a break from the rigors and stresses of single-sport training. Cross training will improve your overall fitness over an extended period of time and may ultimately lead to improved performance.

The nuts and bolts of cross training.
Whether you are new to exercise or a competitive athlete, the essentials of cross training are the same. You can choose to vary your routine from workout to workout, or simply add a new component within your existing exercise program. One of the easiest ways to start cross training is to alternate between activities - walking one day, swimming or bicycling the next. Or, you can alternate these activities within a single workout, spending five minutes on a treadmill, five minutes on a stationary cycle, and so on for a total of 20 minutes.

More experienced exercisers might begin an hour-long workout with a 15-minute jog to a nearby pool. After a 20-minute swim and perhaps a few minutes of calisthenics, they can finish off their workout with a 15-minute jog back home and several minutes of flexibility exercises.Get creative with cross training If you're looking to increase your endurance level, try alternating low-level aerobic activities, such as 20 minutes of stationary cycling, with 10 minutes of higher-intensity exercise, such as stair-stepping or jumping rope. Gradually increase the amount of time you spend on the more intense activity.These formulas can be used with just about any type of activity - as long as you enjoy it. Combining a group of aerobic activities into one workout at steady or various intensities is an excellent way to fight the boredom that comes from the same daily workout routine.

All exercise sessions, whether they involve cross training or not, should begin and end with low-level aerobic exercise and stretching to effectively warm up and cool down. And remember, it's always a good idea to check with your trainer about what will best work for YOU and your goals.