Resolutions...seriously?

Well it's time to make those annual self-improvement promises again. But research shows that around 80% of people who make New Year's resolutions, fall off the wagon by Valentine’s Day. So how are you going to make a success of it this year?

The key is to take your resolutions seriously. Plan ahead, stay committed and remain focused.

Easier said than done I know, so here are my top tips on how to succeed after the New Year's celebrations and hangovers have faded, reality sets in, and you need to squeeze back into those work clothes again.

1. If you’ve got a long list of failed New Year’s resolutions hidden in your closet, then you need a fresh approach. Don’t pretend you’ll suddenly be a different person this year. If you want something different to happen in 2012, you need to do something different.
2. Honestly accept your current starting point and do a sanity check on what actually needs fixing. Look positively at the things you can change, rather than negatively lingering over the things that make you unhappy or problems you can't resolve.
3. Make changes that will comfortably fit within your current lifestyle. What do you need to do to get results without too much upheaval?
4. Don’t leap blindly forwards with your ambitions. Make a realistic plan that’s sustainable and achievable. Get some advice from friends or professionals to get you on the right track and stay motivated. Why not sign-up for an HA fitness class pass or some personal training sessions?
5. Finally, treating yourself to a new pair of trainers is a good motivational start, but make sure they don't look/smell new for too long!

Click below for some more HA fitness blog articles to help spur you into action for 2012:
 
New Year’s Resolutions…How to make and break them

Pleasure or Pain: What Drives You?

Exercise The Mind As Well As The Body To Revive Your Spirit

We all know that exercise is good for your body, whether that’s losing a few inches or simply feeling healthier, but exercise is also good for the mind. Kate Dorward, HA fitness trainer, shares a few useful facts and tips to help motivate you, achieve results by introducing a few simple changes to your training programme and revive any flagging spirits.

Exercise for the mind:

• A healthy body equals a healthy mind. Taking regular exercise is proven to enhance your mental function. Exercise boosts your circulation, getting more oxygen and glucose (the brain’s only source of energy) direct to your brain.
• Most of us know that exercise releases endorphins, otherwise known as happy hormones.  Amazingly these clever little mood enhancers can lift your spirits for up to 12 hours after exercise – that’s about 11.5 hours longer than the lift a bar of chocolate gives you!
• Research has proven that 20 minutes of exercise can significantly improve your body image. 
• The best times to exercise are at around 10am or 5pm. Not only is this when your body is physically strongest and nicely warmed up, your adrenaline levels are also at their peak therefore making your mind sharp.
• Set yourself some realistic goals e.g. to drop a dress size/ do exercise 3 times a week, and help yourself stick to them by sharing your goals with someone else. It’s a fact that you’re much more likely to succeed than if you keep your aims to yourself.

Exercise for the body:

• Can’t find the time to fit in exercise? You really don’t need an hour for it to count. Exercise is accumulative - 10 mins walk here and 10 mins vigorous gardening there all really add up. Before you know it, you’ll have done your recommended 30 mins per day and not even put on your gym kit.  So next time you walk to the station/park/shops, push yourself to walk super fast for a few mins and you’ll look and feel better in no time.
• Exercise, especially weight bearing exercise like running and toning using weights are really important in helping to prevent osteoporosis later on in life.
• Ladies, if the words ‘weight training’ fill you with dread at the thought of looking muscle bound, fear not! Unlike men, our genetic make-up makes it hard for us to bulk-up. Training with weights should be included in your fitness programme at least twice a week to help build lean muscle – this is crucial in improving your body shape whilst helping increase your metabolism.
• Hate running? Walking is a fantastic way of burning fat and getting your legs and bum into shape.  Get the technique right and you will burn 15-30% more calories per walk. Next time you hit the pavement remember to walk tall, shoulders back and down, tummy pulled in and to really push through  off through your toes to lengthen your stride, get your glutes (bottom muscles) firing and get a speedy pace up.
• Drink!! Water that is... Dehydration is a major cause of over eating, lethargy and poor performance.

Follow these 10 tips, and you'll soon start to not only look but feel happier and healthier!

Kate Dorward

Pleasure or Pain: What Drives You?

Understanding your motivation for getting fit is the first stage in bridging the gap between sitting on a sofa thinking about exercise, and actually going out and doing it.

Identifying the triggers that drive you, and using them as a springboard to getting and staying fit and healthy, is the key to success.  The more you focus on these, the more likely you’ll be able to fire up your enthusiasm for a healthy lifestyle.

So what encourages you more, the carrot egging you on or the stick beating you up?

Running Away From Pain

The stick is something that you want to move away from, you may like to think of it as a form of pain. It could be a health issue you want to stay clear of such as obesity and heart disease, or physiological problems like stress or depression.

The catalyst could be your doctor dropping some strong hints, or a friend or family member suffering from these complaints.

The motivation comes from your fear of the stick and wanting to take action to avoid it at all lengths. If you keep reminding yourself of this potential beating, it can be a really powerful self- motivator.

Try taking measurements or photos of how your body is changing as you get leaner and fitter. Look back at these and remind yourself that you don’t want to go there again!

Pursuing Pleasure

The pursuit of pleasure can also be a very powerful self-motivational tool. This is the carrot, or aspiration. It’s about wanting satisfaction by achieving something significant. For example, running a marathon, racing a PB, losing 2 stone etc.

Setting realistic goals and bite-sized targets is key. It doesn’t have to be a marathon or reaching a specific weight. It could be completing 3 workouts a week, or managing to run up a particular hill.

Visualisation can be a very powerful motivational tool. Picture yourself finishing a race or buying clothes in a smaller size. Imagine how good you’ll feel, and how proud you’ll be of your achievement.

Treat yourself when you achieve a step towards your goal. There’s no law against self-bribery!

Moving Beyond The Carrot & Stick

So what happens when you achieve your goals and the stick becomes a distant memory?

You may find that your motivation starts to diminish, so it’s important to plan ahead to avoid drifting backwards and having to start the whole cycle again.

Set new goals, challenges and targets and keep adding in variety by trying out different things. You may have moved from being in fear of the stick to wanting to pursue the pleasurable goals. Keep it interesting and inspiring and try to maintain the momentum. Look at what you’ve achieved and where you want to go next.

Don’t Stop Me Now!

Believe it or not, at some point you may actually find that you enjoy exercising. This is your ultimate goal, when fitness becomes a way of life and you’ll need less and less to rely on the stick or the carrot to keep you going. You train because that’s what you do and who you are.

Remember, regular exercisers don’t waste time sitting on the sofa weighing up the pros and cons of doing a workout, they just get on with it!

Getting High on Exercise!

We all know that regular exercise is great for toning-up your body, warding-off disease and generally improving your overall health.

But exercise is also a great mood enhancer. It can put a smile on your face when you’re feeling down and boost your energy levels when you’re feeling weary.

But why does this happen? Here are some of the most popular theories which try to explain that exercise high.

The Endorphin Effect

If you go back to our hunter/gatherer days, prolonged physical activity was necessary for our survival. If we didn’t go out chasing animals and rummaging for food, we’d basically starve. It’d therefore make sense if our bodies had a way of reducing pain during the hunt, and somehow make this physical activity more enjoyable.

This is where endorphins come in. They’re chemically similar to morphine, and naturally relieve pain within the body.

Although they’re not fully understood, there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that endorphin levels in the blood rise during exercise (and also during sex… but I’ll let you draw your own conclusions there!). These endorphins appear to not only increase our tolerance of pain, but also give us a sense of pleasure and relaxation.

Getting Satisfaction

Exercise can also give you a great sense of achievement, and this could be part of the high that you experience.

Whether you’ve managed to run to the top of a hill without stopping, or survived your first tough exercise class, you can really feel triumphant and get a buzz from a good workout.

Stress-busting Fitness Fantasies

Exercise can also provide a great distraction from life’s troubles. Whether you’re out on a run or in the gym, there’s absolutely nothing you can do about finishing that report, achieving those sales targets or paying the bills.

It’s also amazing how the answers to your problems can somehow pop into your head during a tough training session. As a result, you’ll often come home feeling not only healthier, but a much happier person too.

For daydreamers like me, exercise can also be a time to allow your mind to wander. You can enter into your own private make-believe world, where you can be whoever you want to be and achieve anything you want to achieve (anyone for the 2012 Olympics?!).

Conclusion – Chase that High!

Regular training can definitely perk you up, relieve stress, and give you a heightened sense of well-being.

Whilst the jury is still out as to exactly what causes this high, it does exist and is definitely a habit that’s worth pursuing.

All it takes is a bit of hard work on your part, and you’ll be rewarded with an energy-boosting, exercise-induced, feel-good factor. Best of all, its free, legal and available on-tap!

Surely it’s not something you should be missing out on?

How Can You Make Running More Fun?

Every runner needs some help to stay motivated from time to time. Here are a few ideas to help keep you on your toes and off the sofa!

1) Run Free

Ditch your schedule, route plan and stopwatch. Head out the door and, once you’re warmed up, literally run like a child. Don’t worry about form, how fast you’re running, where you’re going or how far. Just go for it. Let everything go. Feel the wind in your hair. Enjoy the exhilarating thrill of running fast. It feels good. Feels like you’re flying. Nothing can hold you back…

2) Head for the Hills

Hill training is great for creating “buns of steel”! Not only that but your whole body will get a good workout, including your arms and chest. It’s also enormously beneficial for building strength, endurance and speed.

Try not to approach a hill with a feeling of doom, though. Hills are only hard if you make them hard. Instead, see it as an opportunity to vary your pace and leg stride. Change down a gear and lessen your speed as the gradient increases.  Use your arms to help power you up to the summit.

When you get to the top, allow yourself to revel in that sense of elation. Hurrah you’ve made it! Let the endorphins flow!

Then, liberate your legs and arms as you enjoy some effortless speed on the way back down. This requires a different style and attitude. Relax your whole body, chill out and enjoy the ride!

3) Push the Boundaries

Be progressive. Challenge yourself on your regular run, be it 2 miles or 10. You can do it faster, can’t you?

Time it. Record it. Beat it!!!!!

4) Run to the Beat

Would you go on a long car journey without a radio or music?

Depending on the type of run, music can give you that extra boost when you hit a slump, take your mind off the pain or just put an extra spring in your step.

Invest some time into creating the right playlist for the type of run you’re doing. If you’re going for speedwork, try having a fast beat song, followed by a slower song. Run hard to the fast beat, and then recover listening to something more chilled out.

Make sure you stay safe. Never have headphones on after dark or in unpopulated areas, and be aware of your surroundings.

5) Cool Running Gadgets & Gismos

Although spending your hard-earned cash on the latest running gadget won’t necessarily transform you from a red-faced, wheezing jogger into a finely honed, lean-machine athlete, it can be a good way to help inspire and motivate you.  

Heart rate monitors are great for understanding how hard you’re running, help you track your progress, keep you running at the right intensity and stop you from under or over training.

GPS watches, such as the Garmin, can tell you how fast and how far you’re running including your elevation. They work in a similar way to the Sat Nav in your car. You can even impress your friends and family with how far you’ve run by downloading your routes onto Google Maps!

Similarly, you can use footpods, like those made by Polar, Nike and Suunto. These ingenious gadgets work by monitoring the movement of your foot and transmitting this data back to your watch. You’ll get all the information you need on your running distance, speed, cadence and much more!

Finally…

So now you know that hills don’t have to be horrendous, running like a child and testing yourself can be fun, and music can make your runs rock!  What's more, you no longer need to waste time measuring your routes using a bit of string and a map.  There are plenty of swanky toys on the market that’ll do a much better job, and offer far more entertainment! 

All you need to do now is get out running, and enjoy it!