Strength Training! What is it?

Looking at the heading, that should be 'DUH.......!!!! Training for strength...'

                        

Exactly!

That includes, getting your muscles, mind and body energy systems to have more than enough to handle the pressure of their role. Also there are different types of strength that have to be trained. And for each person depending on their work and lifestyle each strength pattern required is different. Strength is a very broad topic but the end result is the same...............to get stronger and perform better in WHATEVER you have to do.

So why are most people not doing it?

1) Some people think its not important.

2) Some think its only for those who go to a gym.

3) Some think that its not for them because they haven't collapsed (yet!!) in a heap and so they are strong.

4) Some just don't know better.

The list goes on and on.

The truth is strength training is vital for everyone according to their occupation and everyday needs. There are different sorts of strength that can be trained for. The one is which is most appropriate to you. Usually over here is where a personal trainer of a fitness consultant can come in and help. Strength training for an athlete is very different to that of a Corporate employee or a home maker. However strength training is necessary for all of them. Let me explain.

A corporate employee has a day of mostly being in front of a computer, meetings to attend, handle appointments, deal with stress of clients and maybe a boss breathing their neck. The strength training they need to handle that is different as compared to a homemaker who runs around with the kids, sees to home chores and yet has enough strength to handle that. They both need strength. The training however will be different.

Are you feeling low on energy? Weak and drained out at the end of the day? Go on.....get up...... find a good and knowledgeable personal trainer or fitness consultant, get on a program and start training. Time for you to get stronger....

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Cut The Wire!!

Yesterday was Sunday. My day was relatively good. Got a few ideas for a business in the morning, wonderful lunch at a relatives place, came home and slept for a while. Went on to my computer to just check a few things and before I knew it I was working and researching hard! I kept saying to myself...'I'll just finish this....' and an hour and a half had gone by. My mind was racing with thoughts and ideas, strategies and plans........and I was getting confused and tired. Finally, I had to force myself up and shut down my system and get away from it.

See, I had made a decision earlier on that unless necessary I will not work on Sunday and spend it with family. The point is I didn't have to work. There was no life threatening situation. There was a lot of good food at home. My wife was waiting for me because I told her I would be spending the evening with her. I just got DRAGGED into it. I'm sure we have all been there. Want everything done now. A little more, a little better, instantly done all now!!! This is after working the whole week. Do days feel like that sometimes? We think we can't take a break when we actually can? Its vital to our health. Just unplug. There are so many things to enjoy. You for one need to get your thoughts focused and your mind clear to work better. Its ok to switch off. The world does not revolve around me- I'm not the belly button of the earth. As a matter of fact because I am responsible for something important, I have to be at my best and rest is a factor.

Did you know on the sports field there are few seconds of rest and the athletes have to learn how to capitalise on it? A fast break, a dash of speed, a power up, a sprint and the body has to rest after that burst of power and energy. When training in the gym there are breaks of anything from 15 seconds upto 5 minutes. In the office, the coffee and lunch break are important to take your mind of work and settle down and focus again. Try it and see what it does for your productivity. Cant take a 10 minute break at that time? Dont. Get up walk around for a minute, close your eyes, take a few deep breaths and come back again.

I never put on my system after that yesterday. I sat in the cool breeze on my terrace. My head cleared out. My wife and I had a wonderful evening just talking with each other. I slept and got up early this morning.......Fully charged ready to face the day!!

Do you need to destress? Ideas to take a break in the middle of a busy day? You can contact me here.

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Nutrition Made Simple - Part III

The final part of this basic nutrition series we are going to take a look at micro-nutrients and water.

Micro-nutrients:

Micro-nutrients are needed by the body in very small amounts nevertheless essential. Any lack or excess can cause an improper functioning of related systems in the body. Micro nutrients have two categories:

1) Vitamins - There are two types again here and they are water soluble and fat soluble.

2) Minerals

No, I'm not talking about unnecessary tablets and pills here. As mentioned earlier, these are necessary for the effective working of the body. They can be got from normal food sources especially fruits and veges and of course in some traces meats, dairy products and grains. They also interact with each other and help in the proper synthesis of macro-nutrients, nervous system function, hormonal functions. etc.

Water:

The human body is over 70% water which shows its vital to survival. Proper intake of water per day is necessary per day for proper functioning of the body. At least 3-4 liters should be taken in each day. Just the right balance of enough water helps in relieving a lot of problems like headaches, constipation, tiredness, cramps. 

Supplementation:

Supplementation is the insurance policy to make sure you are getting the right amounts of nutrients for the   body. This is necessary because of food quality being affected because of modern farming practices, processed foods, overcooking or sometimes the quality of the source itself is in question. You want to make sure you have all your bases covered.

Summary:

A proper mix of all these macro and micro nutrients is what adds up to a balanced diet. A word about balanced diet - what is a balanced diet for one individual might not be a balanced diet for another. Eat well, drink the necessary amount of water and supplement your diet as you need to. Remember nutrition is a vital key to having a healthy and fit lifestyle.

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Nutrition Made Simple - Part II

In part 1 we took a look at the definition of nutrition and a few reasons on why the right nutrition is so important.

In this post we are going to look at Macro-nutrients.

Macro-nutrients are the biggest contributors to the maximum energy needs and requirements of the body.

They are 1) Proteins 2) Carbohydrates and 3) Fats

1) Proteins: They are the building blocks of the body and are essential for growth, recovery energy, fat loss, muscle gain, enzymes and many other functions in the body. They also play an important part for all physiological systems of the body. Proteins are made of amino acids which are also known as building blocks of life. 13 are non-essential (which are made by the body) and 9 are essential (cant be made by the body but available only through diet). Proteins can be used as a source of energy but it is not the most efficient source.

2) Carbohydrates: These are the preferred energy source of the body. They are converted to glucose for the body to work effectively. There are three varieties of carbs:

a) Simple (glucose, fructose, galactose, sucrose, lactose, maltose)

b) Complex (starch)

c) Dietary fiber (soluble, insoluble)

3) Fats: The biggest criminal of the macro-nutrient family...........or is it? Fats are the other excellent source of energy for the body and also helps to efficiently absorb fat soluble vitamins. It can be stored in the body if in excess. Fats are an energy source and gives shape and structure to the body. It is also vital for proper hormonal growth and function. There are different types of fats but the two major categories are

a) Saturated

b) Un-Saturated

There is a lot more to be said about each of these topics but its just meant to give a simple overview. In the next post we are going to take a look at Micro-nutrients and water.

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Nutrition Made Simple - Part I

Would you fill your car's petrol tank with water? Well, you could - though I don't recommend it- you won't be going anywhere.

That's the way it is with the food you eat and nutrition. Nutrition is one word that is quickly turning into a buzzword, however also very misunderstood with a lot of definitions and scientific jargon. 

By now you know I like to keep things simple so my definition is: 

'Taking in the right nutrients in right quantities your entire body needs to have sufficient energy to work at its best.'

Why is the right nutrition so important?

1) Optimal Energy to Perform - The human body is the best engineered piece of machinery in the universe. Different systems have to work in sync every second to keep it running. However what happens to machinery that does not get the right fuel or energy source? It starts to break down, wear and tear comes in quicker. Give it the right fuel or energy source and you have a well equipped piece of machinery, running at its best and producing the needed results.

2) Keeps you healthy - Nutrition plays a huge role in warding off lifestyle related diseases. It keeps your systems healthy and has the immune system running at maximum.

3) Fat Loss - Fat Loss is hugely related to nutrition. Yes exercise is important but nothing spectacular is going to happen if your nutrition is not right. You cant start to lose fat unless you are eating the right stuff at the right times.

There are definitely more reasons. According to me these three are the most wanted and vital ones. In the next few posts we will be working with a further understanding of what nutrients are needed and what they do.

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Are You Fit?

Overall Fitness is not determined by the fact of you going to a gym or lift heavy weights or wear the latest fashion which attempts to show body shape. There are different parameters when we look into overall fitness. It also does take a whole lot of honesty to take a hard look at oneself and say if they are fit or not. 

This doesn't mean you need to win the CrossFit challenge. However in reality for your day there are basic important fitness parameters that you can measure your self by. If an individual has a good development of all of these it shows overall fitness. The requirements can vary from person to person.   

    

The Basic Parameters:

1) Strength - Strength is undoubtedly the most important aspect of fitness. The others cannot be managed unless there is a basic strength level from which to be built on.

2) Endurance / Cardio Vascular performance - What good is it if you can lift or move a lot of weight but get tired walking up a flight of stairs? Endurance is important and is largely dependent on how much oxygen the lungs can pump into the muscle

3) Balance - This is the ability to hold the body's position steadily.

4) Flexibility - Ability to achieve extended Range of motion

These parameters also explain why someone can lift a 100 kg weight but not do a 12- minute run. It explains why some can bend over and touch their toes others cant.

However, all these aspects can be improved by consistent training. By consistent, I mean daily training or a structured program that fits into your daily schedule - eg, strength train 3 times a week for 20 minutes and the days in between spend 10 minutes working on Endurance, balance, flexibility. It does not have to be a fight for time.

Decide which parameters you need to work on, set a goal, get a program in place and then start working on it.

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A Trainer, What Does He Do??

A Fitness Trainer is a person who educates people about the importance of fitness and trains them in the performance of safe and appropriate exercises to effectively lead them to achieving optimal health. The trainer is essentially a coach and a guide in the realm of health and fitness. A fitness trainer could be self employed or work out of a gym, fitness center, health care center, hospitals, rehab centers or private studios.

A fitness trainer should know:

• Exercise Programming
• Exercise Physiology
• Anatomy and Biomechanics of the human body
• Fitness assessments and tests
• Nutrition and Weight Management
• First Aid and Basic orthopaedics
• Program Administration
• Basic Human Behaviour and Motivation
• Special Population needs (Senior citizens, children, people with lifestyle related conditions)

Fitness trainers can either train clients personally (Personal Trainers), Open their own studios, conduct group training sessions, consult on lifestyle management, coach for strength and conditioning.

Of course choosing the right trainer is also important. The most important factor is the drive to help people stay healthy and fit and not just make a quick buck. Usually a certification helps but its more about a trainer's commitment to a person and doing their best for the person to reach their goals. Also practical knowledge of basic first aid is a must. Just doing a course and getting a certification in some cases might not be enough. Anyone can sit through a certification course or workshop but the practical application of that knowledge is what is essential. After all its a persons life and health at stake. 

Fitness Trainers are the first line of defense against lifestyle related diseases and staying in optimal health. They are preventive medicine advisors and are definitely an asset- It is better to prevent ending up in hospital and paying health bills when you could have just invested in preventing health issues. They can save you through wading through tons of information and losing your way to your goals. You can reach your goals effectively and in a shorter period of time. They are also the solution to avoiding high costs of fitness center fees and false promises. They are definitely an investment of lifestyle improvement to consider.

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Fat Loss Made Simple

Just so you know right at the start - Knowing what to do to lose fat is simple. It might not be easy but the procedure is simple and no I'm not talking about a quick fix either. So lets start at some of the most common problems and then we can look at the solution.

Problems

 'It's easy to lose fat, its keeping it off that's the problem!'

1) Confusion

Body weight is not the same as body fat. Body fat makes up a part of body weight. The more fat you have the more unhealthy it is and is an indicator for more lifestyle related disease. The weighing scale is not necessarily your best friend when you are on a diet because you would not know exactly what weight you are losing - is it lean muscle or is it fat? 2 things that I use to measure my progress is a body composition monitor and a mirror. Its amazing how truthful the mirror can be and that's why sometimes it takes guts and honesty to look into the mirror and take a long hard look at your self. So now we know when we talk of losing weight we actually mean losing fat.

2) Not knowing what to do.

People have tried diets, exercises or maybe even honestly wanted to go on a diet and exercise but just not known how to work their schedule for it to make time. If you are looking at a realistic view of how long and a program of exercise and nutrition to fit your schedule. I would say invest in a good fitness trainer (read my article'What does a fitness trainer do?'). The reason being you might start to lose fat but you can also quickly yo-yo back to being fat and worse still come back with fat content than when you first started.

Solution

Here is the fat loss process

1) Clean up your eating - The number one step is watch what you eat and how much you eat. You are not a Garbage bin. Stop cramming yourself with so much food - especially processed foods! Not only are you adding unnecessary calories they are calories that have no nutritional value whatsoever. We call stuff like that trash. As much as possible stick to meats, eggs, vegetables, fruits, nuts - anything natural. Once the nutrient value goes up you will be eating lesser but be a lot more satisfied. You hit two birds with one stone - You are full as well as you  have good nutrients in your system. Remember GIGO (Garbage in Garbage out)

2) Exercise - The best exercise protocol that works is Weight training along with conditioning (otherwise known as 'cardio'). Weight training keeps up or puts on lean muscle mass. The more lean muscle you have the higher metabolism to burn fat off and keep it off. Conditioning helps with burning off existing fat that has already been stored in the body.

3) Rest and relaxation- You need to get proper rest. That includes a proper amount of sleep everyday and just taking a break from stressful situations. If you are over-stressed or overworked the biochemistry of the body turns negative and releases chemicals that actually assist fat gain.

4) Supplementation - Supplements are the insurance policy to cover something in your diet that could be missing for various reasons. Do not take supplements as a quick fix. It doesn't work that way. If you do take it that way you are going to have serious trouble in reaching your goals. Take the right supplements. Usually a multivitamin and fish oil work pretty well.  

There you have it. Fat Loss at its basic. Go ahead and get started........

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Supplements!

If there is one thing I have noticed over my years in the fitness industry and Iron game, supplements seem to be a rage. It seems that nearly everyone wants the latest pills or powders or drinks to make them lose weight, build muscle or gain strength quickly. In a majority of situations it looks like drug pushers made legal!

So let's start clarifying certain things.

Firstly, Supplements are exactly that- supplements. It is not meant to replace your daily foods.  It is meant to act as an insurance to it. Which means, if something is missing in your diet, then the supplements come to your aid. Also, everyone requires different levels of supplements. A protein requirement for an athlete is going to be very different to a everyday health conscious individual. Even in athletes that ratio will vary depending on their sport, meal plans and diet. 

You do not need all of the supplements all of the time! There are some supplements you do need daily and we will take a look at those reasons later, but there is simply no need to keep slugging down powders and pills. 

Did you know that the basic forms of supplements are most commonly found in nature? Most - if not all supplements come from herbs, seeds or dairy byproducts. Lets take for example - Caffeine. Most people enjoy a nice cup of tea or coffee. So you sip it down and you just supplemented at a very basic level. 

Supplements are meant to be natural concentrates. Not chemically synthesized and poisoned waste products.Your body is an ingenious piece of creation not a trash can or dumping ground. With most supplements you might as well get on to full blown drugs or jump into a toxic pool! At least that way its not a slow death. My point is do a lot of research and know what you are taking before picking up a supplement.  Read your labels and ingredients carefully. If you don't know ask a professional trainer or a nutritionist to help you.

Real supplements are not medicines. However they can assist medicines and in some cases also do better than the medicines prescribed. Sometimes all that is needed by the body is a boost of a natural ingredient in its natural form for it to start the immune system back on. The body will respond quickly to what is natural the way it was meant to be taken.

Why do you need supplements?

Supplements are basically concentrated substances of what is required. These are my reasons for need of supplementation:

1) Lack of nutrients in soil and food sources- Today's food quality is not what it was a few decades ago. Pollution in various forms, soil erosions, pesticides, GMO's (Genetically modified organisms), food processing etc have contributed to large damages in the food we eat today and draining it of precious vital nutrients.

2) Daily Requirements: The RDA or Recommended Dietary Allowance is the minimum amount of nutrients a person needs to live healthy. In most cases just to get that much of food to meet the RDA would be ridiculous. For eg. We need 30 mg of Iron in the body. That is equivalent to 15 cups of oatmeal! 

2) Jump start the body's recovery from deficiency levels: Sometimes the damage of all the years in our diet and exposure to pollution whether knowingly or unknowingly has left our bodies severely lagging behind with a specific nutrient or ability to recover quickly from an ailment. At this point supplements are needed to jump start the body's recovery process. 

3) Insurance policy - Just in case there is a lack of some vitamin, mineral or fiber from a naturally healthy diet, supplements will give you an insurance. Example- If you don't get vegetables in your diet on a particular day, you can definitely substitute with a multivitamin-multimineral and fiber.

4) Lifestyle - There are plenty of topics under this. Smoking, drinking, unhealthy eating habits, fast food, junk food,  8 hour desk jobs. Antioxidants, vitamins, energy boosters etc are needed. 

My personal belief is that the needs of increased supplementation has come about as a result of the gap in our foods. This is caused because of food adulteration by excessive, processing, contamination, GMO's etc. We do need supplements but we also have to know WHAT and WHY we are taking in to our bodies. Real supplements are definitely friends in our environments of today. However, if not taken correctly it can definitely be a terrible enemy or a killer.

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Warm Ups and Cool Downs

In most training or workout programs the warm up and cool down phases are very important. The issues I have noticed is that people just jump in right away into hard exercise and just end with hard exercise. This is not healthy especially for someone who has not been training regularly. The warm-up and cool down phase takes about 10 minutes each on a maximum. These don't have to be long but it should be done right.

The Warm-up phase:

Depending on the workout or training a warm-up should be done. A good warm-up should will be from about to 5- 10 minutes. It is important to just get the heart rate up to take the demand of the strength training but not to be over done. I remember once I made the mistake of working at full intensity in 10 minutes and that burned me out that my energy level reduced considerably and I wasn't able to lift effectively at the main workout. Warm-ups are usually aimed at

1) Raising heart rate

2) Preventing injury

3) Getting the muscles and connective tissue warm and ready for lifting.

4) Increased blood flow and thus oxygen.

A good warm-up should have you breaking into a sweat in 5 minutes. The best ones you can do are rope jumping, jumping jacks, split jumps, squat thrusts, shadow boxing. The remaining 5 minutes you spend on a combination of mobility and stretching exercises.

The Cool- down phase

The Cool down helps the heart rate reduce steadily after an intense strength training routine. This can be light back off sets with weights, low impact cardio followed by stretching. This also helps get rid of lactic acid and starts the recovery process. Also it prevents blood pooling in the muscles and starts a proper circulation going again.

Once again 5 - 10 minutes is all it takes to cool down. The focus should be on bringing down the heart rate and returning the body to a more relaxed state.

Introduce these into your training regime as they are important to your heart and blood circulation. Also it prevents injury and enhances recovery.

Train hard, Train smart.

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