Merry Christmas and a Happy New year!

It’s that time of year again where everyone is winding down their fitness regime and enjoying indulging without feeling guilty! This is the time to really appreciate all the hard work you have put in whilst munching on cake, sweets and anything else whilst washing it down with the finest beer!

However, I know that in some people’s conscience even when doing well all year round, they feel guilty when indulging at this time of year. But don’t worry! I am literally sitting down, writing this whilst drinking a straffe hendrik beer from Bruges! It won’t harm you at all and that’s me saying it, a person who literally eats healthy and delicious meals all year round and trains twice a day on most weeks! So give up this conscience and enjoy it while it lasts because you still have the whole year ahead to train!

‘But drinking and eating junk means that you’re losing muscle’ Yeah if I had a pound for every time I heard that I’d be on the forbes list! You do not some how miraculously lose all of your muscle and look like humpty dumpty after eating and drinking for a few days! Fortunately the body doesn’t work like that and if that was the case then every time you had a cheat meal you would be going backwards and never achieve a better body. Sorry guys and girls – doesn’t happen like that. It’s all about having a balance, that 80/20 rule where 20% you can eat and drink what you want and this time of year is the best to embrace that (except for birthdays) and maybe a cheeky holiday every now and then….

Thanks to muscle being a very metabolic tissue, the more you have the more calories they need to eat and therefore your body composition even with junk foods won’t change that much! Now I’m not saying that you need not to exercise throughout this time – yeah why not you can work out too but do it because you want to not need to! Also even if you do exercise, don’t neglect the beers and foods which you have been looking forward to all year. The exercise part for me this time of year is important yes but that’s because I simply want to do it and I enjoy it to keep active but that doesn’t mean I am not going to have a beer …. or 5! Once this time of year is over then you head back to your routine and be disciplined again, at least psychologically you have fed your need and you won’t crave it through the year then.

But whatever you guys want to do this time of year, please enjoy yourselves and make the most of it as time doesn’t wait around! Whatever it is all of you are doing, enjoy it, take up any opportunity which comes your way, take all the free drinks people offer, eat as much as you can, if there’s mistletoe .. crack on !

This time of year is to enjoy everything and enjoy with everyone around you too! I also want to thank everybody who took the time out to read my blog. I am very passionate about this industry and try to share as much as I can on here without making it too boring (I hope)! I also want to thank everyone who has been on my facebook page, twitter and instagram pages and have liked and shared my comments/videos etc. It means a lot that you guys are supporting me and I do sincerely hope you can support me and one another in the following year too! This blog is for anybody and everybody from all walks of life so please feel free to join in and read a few articles if you have spare time. Also please feel free to leave any comments and suggestions and I will do my best to take every comment and suggestion on board and act on it!

Anyway enough of me now – go enjoy your new years with friends and family and hope you all had a great Christmas!

Once again …

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

 

😀

Myth Buster – Rest is key .. but for how long?

As humans we all need to rest! No we don’t get our power from solar energy although that does contribute but at the end of the day, we need sleep that thing we do at night where we lie there and not be active. It is amazingly boring but surprisingly good for you! Now I hate sleep, I think it’s a waste of time and if it were up to me I’d be up all night writing these strange (but hopefully informative) blogs! However, even I know that rest is key….

Rest is extremely important for muscle and tissue recovery especially after a heavy workout or if you are going through a phase of injury. Rest is very much a part of an exercise programme and for you to benefit and get the maximum gains from your goals then you need to do this resting business! Rest is also a key factor in brain activity and cognitive function and helps rejuvenate your mind and body. We need to be rested to function optimally…but for how long?

Ever heard of too much is also too bad?? Resting too much can also have reversible affects on your mind and body. If you take too much time out of exercising then your body goes through a catabolic phase where it will start breaking muscle down for energy and as muscle is a very much active tissue it needs a stimulus to keep it interested in looking good. It’s like trying to get a lady friend – you need to get out and do stuff rather than sitting at home gaming on minecraft! It’s the same with muscles, they need that excitatory stimulus which is activity to keep them going and building. Now if your rest periods are way too long then you will not be subjecting them to anything fun and they will eventually deteriorate. Not only that, your joints and tissues will suffer too as calcium will not bind as easily to bones as before causing weaker bones. Now for the most of us fitness freaks we hate rest and won’t want to do it for that long anyway but I know that lots of people get caught up in things and they rest for too long and this then eventually causes them to rest for longer and longer and then they slowly cannot be bothered to exercise. This very much implies to people who are suffering from an injury! When you succumb to an injury you have to rest but people take this ‘resting’ phase for granted and take advantage of it. Sooner than later they have rested far too long and they have in fact not improved on their injury and caused more issues! See told you this resting business is a pain!

Now remember that rest is essential but it’s about how much somebody needs. You need to be disciplined and need to listen to your body. If you’ve done a massive leg session and cannot feel your backside for 2 days after then naturally you’re not going to be doing weighted lunges and so you rest! However, you can still work on some other body part and then go back to lower body once you’ve recovered. The same applies to an injured area; yea sure at first you need to have bed rest depending on the severity but after some time if you feel that you can start moving your limbs then please do it! This doesn’t mean that you go to a cross fit session and have a work out but to do at least something at a low intensity to maintain and condition your joints and tissues. Lots of athletes over compensate meaning that they rest for the allocated time they need and then rest a bit more just to allow 100% recovery of muscles prior to their next session. This works out just fine for both your psychology and physiology as you are prepared for your work out. But don’t take advantage of this by resting far too long as this will just lead to time wastage and disorganisation of a training programme!

Rest is a vital component for all of us but we cannot take advantage of it! We need to be disciplined, need to listen to our bodies and stay organised to keep us on track. Without these co factors, our ability to calibrate rest times will be a tough challenge and this will consequently lead to diminishing health. So if you are sitting (resting) whilst reading this, I want you to think about how much rest you have actually had and think if it’s enough or too much and then .. do something about it!

Myth Buster – Crunches for core

Maybe it’s the wrong time of year to talk about this kind of stuff but I’m going to run my mouth now for a good few minutes.

Now lots of you out there must think that doing crunches all the time is the best way of improving your core. I mean obviously, if your stomach is hurting after a million crunches then naturally you must think ‘yay I’m getting those abs of steel!’

I can tell you now that if you didn’t do all those crunches everyday you can still achieve a strong core! Your core is your foundation and doesn’t matter what shape you’re pulling whether sober or not your core will be working to stabilise body movements! This just means that your core is working in a multi directional way rather than constantly in a ‘bending’ manner as you would do in a crunch situation. Always carrying out flexion based exercises such as crunches can actually cause more damage than good as you are putting a lot of stress on to your spinal ligaments and eventually they will lose their elasticity and become a lot less efficient in their work. Basically what I’m saying is that if you annoy your tissues they’re going on strike – bye bye spine!

Like I said before your core is a multi directional system and it only makes sense that if you challenge it in different ways you will benefit a lot more. By carrying out big compound moves such as squats and press ups you will be stabilising and improving core strength and endurance. You’d be surprised that how much your foundation is functioning when carrying out press ups! Not only that, but by doing compound exercises you are working many other joint systems in tandem which all relate back to core stability. Lots of fitness experts strongly believe that your core stability ranges not only from your abs but to your upper and lower extremities. These peripherally active stabilisers all help your foundation and in turn your central foundation helps peripheral stabilisers. To put all this in 1 sentence – Your joints help each other to stabilise and carry out optimum functional movement. That would have been much easier to type!

So if you guys and girls are wondering now what kind of exercises you can do for improving the core then here are some:

1.Boxing or a form of martial arts
2. Compound exercises such as deadlifts, squats, chin ups, press ups,
3. Power based exercises such as clean and press, snatches, Kettle bell swings
4. Dynamic bodyweight movements such as hand walks, bear crawls, spider walks, burpees
5. Single leg exercises such as single leg deadlift, single leg shoulder press, and single leg jump squat

Now there is no excuse to try some of those exercises listed above out. Who knows you might enjoy some of these and progress on to more challenging exercises. Now don’t these exercises sound more interesting than doing lots of crunches again and again and again! Keep the workouts different and vary the exercises to keep tricking your body and you will find it a lot more beneficial.

All this talk about core and exercises is fun and interesting especially when you actually try them out but remember if you do suffer from chronic back pain with or without leg pain then you should adhere to an appropriate programme given by a trainer qualified in this area. Yeah don’t be going on and swinging kettle bells left right and centre if you do have back pain. Don’t worry you’ll get there after an appropriate programme. Like I said before having a strong core can be brought about with a variety of exercises but the most important part is to achieve this without any excess pain or discomfort!