Forget Credit, You're the One who Should be Crunching this Summer!

Summer holidays are a time to relax and take a break from life's stresses. However, you're also likely to be treating yourself to a few extra deserts, drinks and ice creams, so it's important to try and fit in a bit of activity too. Whether it's doing a few crunches in your hotel room, or swimming a few lengths in the pool, every little bit counts. Here's some more ideas to help you keep in shape.

Release your Inner Child

If you’re on holiday with children, invent challenges that get everybody moving around. Make up ball games, races and time trials (who can build the biggest sun-castle in 1 minute?). Not only entertaining, these games are great for burning calories and improving agility and co-ordination.

The local playground can also be a hidden workout zone for you. Pushing your kids on the swings will work your upper body, especially your shoulders and tricep muscles. If no-ones watching (and it looks sturdy enough!), see how many chin-ups you can do on the climbing frame.

Waves Were Surely Designed to be Surfed or Jumped!

Battling with the sea’s natural resistance, your body will be challenged in ways that a gym session won’t come close to. Half an hour of aquatic fooling around will burn loads of calories and strengthen both your leg and core muscles.

Why not take the plunge and try out some of the local watersports? Not only great fun, it’ll work muscles you didn’t know you had, especially in your core area.

If you you’ve got the use of a pool, don’t just lie around on the sun-lounger, swimming is a great all round exercise that uses every major muscle group.  Challenge yourself to see how many lengths can you do in 30 minutes. Then try and beat it the following day.

Become the Holiday Gopher

Burn a few extra calories by carrying the luggage, getting the drinks from the bar (even if it isn’t your round), heading off for ice creams and running back before they melt!

Beach Bum Basics

Walking and running on sand is great for toning the legs and bum. A sandy and slightly unstable surface will  improve the strength in your ankles and calf muscles. Your core will also have to work extra hard too. Just build it up slowly, so that you don’t get injured.

I hope you have a lovely summer, and don’t forget to pack the trainers!

Heather
www.hafitnes.com


Posted by Heather Waghorn.

Less Bounce: Sports Bra Discount!

I seem to spend most of my time in a sports bra, and consider myself a bit of an expert on these implements of bust control! I've been a customer of Less Bounce for quite a few years and I love their bra selection and friendly and efficient service.

I'm now delighted to announce, that as an HA fitness client, you're entitled to a 10% discount off everything you purchase from Less Bounce! Simply enter the code 1016 into the Coupon Code box and your discount will be calculated.


Happy bounce free training!

Heather

Posted by Heather Waghorn.

Motivational Mottos to Spur You into Action

Some of them are my own creation, some I’ve just heard and have stuck in my mind, and others come from books and the internet. All of them make me smile and give me inspiration in different ways.

1)    The smug feeling you get after a workout is far better than the guilty feeling you get if you've given exercise the cold-shoulder. 

2)    “Running is a big question mark that’s there each and every day. It asks you, 'Are you going to be a wimp or are you going to be strong today'. ” Peter Maher, Canadian elite marathon runner

3)    Exercise is like mouthwash. If you can feel the burn, it's working!

4)    “Apart from the survival advantage when escaping a sinking ship in a cold ocean, being too fat has nothing but downsides.” Mike Stroud, Survival of the Fittest

5)    “Think of it like sex or a tax rebate. A little is always better than nothing. If all you have is 17 minutes to fit in a run, then run for 17 minutes.”  Runner’s World.

6)    Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows that it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows that it must out run the slowest gazelle or it will starve. It doesn't matter whether you are a lion or gazelle. When the sun comes up you had better be running!

7)    Conditions are never just right. People who put off doing things until all factors are favourable, achieve nothing.

8)    Sweat cleanses from the inside. It comes from places a shower will never reach!

9)    Force yourself outside the door, once your out, that’s the hardest bit of the workout over and done with.

10)    The more “buts”, the bigger the BUTT!

So that's the motivational bit, now get out there and train!

Posted by Heather Waghorn.

Inspirational Reads

Following a hockey injury to my knee, my running has unfortunately had to take a back seat recently. For inspiration, motivation and distraction, I’ve since turned to perusing other people’s physical triumphs and tribulations.

So for the next time your training takes a nosedive, these are a couple of my favourite inspirational reads to spur you on.

One of my most thumbed books is Survival of the Fittest by Mike Stroud. Interlinking stories of his adrenaline-charged adventures, with informative sections on human physiology, Dr Stroud convinces you that we are all capable of great physical achievements.

He takes you adventure racing across 300 miles of American back-country with a 72 year old great-grandmother, hauling sledges across Antarctica with Sir Ranulph Fiennes, and battling sand, wind and blisters on the Marathon des Sables.  Along the way you learn a great deal about what the body can do in extreme conditions, and why we are all evolutionary designed to be physically pushed a lot further than you'd expect. 

Another well-read non-fictional book on my shelf is Life and Limb by Jamie Andrew.  After a gripping account of an Alpine climbing accident that turns him into a quadruple amputee, you’re then taken on a hugely emotional journey where he struggles to overcome his disabilities, returns to climbing and runs a marathon.  It puts the rest of us to shame!


Posted by Heather Waghorn.

What’s the Point of Sports Drinks & Gels?: Part 2

Re-fueling on the Run

There’s a variety of sports drinks, gels and bars on the market to provide you with a quick carbohydrate hit whilst on the run. All are designed to boost your energy levels and prevent you from resorting to using fat as a major fuel supply during endurance events.

Research suggests that you should consume between 30-60 grams of carbohydrate per hour (depending on your size and exercise intensity) when exercising. It's worth noting that this is the maximum amount that your body can deal with, so consuming more than this will not make you run faster or further!

As it takes at least 30 minutes for the carbohydrate to be absorbed into the bloodstream, it’s important to start consuming it before you start feeling tired.

Drink & Be Merry!

Sports drinks are a great way to replenish spent energy and also re-hydrate your drained body.

Most big city marathons have drinks like Lucozade Sport at regular intervals. However many people find that they can’t tolerate the taste or suffer from stomach cramps after drinking it. It's worth experimenting on training runs first!

You can buy other brands, such as the Science in Sport PSP22, which are easier to stomach. However carrying a couple of litres of liquid around 26.2 miles can be a bit cumbersome!

Get Gelled Up!

A logistically easier option is to carry energy gels, which can be tucked into shorts, belts and pockets etc.

They are essentially concentrated drinks of about 100 calories each, and they come in range of flavours and textures.  It's important to take on some water (usually around 200ml) with the gels to help them get absorbed into your bloodstream.

Beans, Bars & Bananas

Some people carry jelly beans, bars and bananas and munch on them whilst running. These can all be good sources of quick-release energy if you eat a little and often. They also need to be consumed with plenty of water to help them be absorbed.

What Else Should You Know?

You ideally need to strike a balance between carbohydrate availability, performance and minimizing digestive distress. Practice is the best way to do this. 10 miles into your marathon is neither the time nor the place to discover that a particular sports drink gives you diarrhea!

A word of warning, if you're training for less than an hour, you should not be using sports gels or drinks. You only need to be taking on water to avoid dehydration.

Finally, the amount of glycogen stored in your muscles before you set off will have a huge impact on your performance. To boost your glycogen levels, you should eat plenty of carbohydrates in the days before, and morning of your marathon. This will mean that you will be able to run for longer and harder before you have to rely too much on your fat stores (see Part 1) for fuel.

www.hafitness.com

Posted by Heather Waghorn.

What’s the Point of Sports Drinks & Gels?: Part 1

Fueling the Grueling Marathon Miles

You see plenty of weary runners guzzling sports drinks, like Lucazade Sport, on events such as the London Marathon without really knowing what it’s doing to their body and how much they should be knocking back at each mile.

But to understand why and when you should consume sports drinks & gels, it’s first helpful to know a bit about the way your body uses fuel for exercise, and why you get tired on a long run.

Muscle Power

When you start exercising, your main supply of fuel is the glycogen that's stored in your muscles and liver. But this is in limited supply. The harder you work, the faster it’ll run out.

As you tick off the miles during a marathon, your body starts to burn proportionally less glycogen and instead turns to blood sugar and body fat for energy.

Fuel for Thought

However, your brain relies on blood sugar to function properly, and it simply can’t let this supply run out. So as levels drop, your body increasingly switches over to fat as a preferred fuel source.

Unfortunately fat, in comparison to blood sugar and glycogen, takes much longer to be converted into energy. The more your body relies on fat as an energy source, the slower and harder things become.

On top of that, converting fat into fuel requires considerably more oxygen, so you’ll also become increasingly out of breath too!

From relative comfort into pure torture!

After about 2-3 hours, you may develop temporary hypoglycemia. At this point, your body has a depletion of muscle and liver glycogen stores together with low blood sugar levels.

Runners call it “hitting the wall” whilst cyclists refer to it as “bonking”. Symptoms include light-headedness, heavy legs, severe tiredness, and you generally feel like you’re giving a 16 stone man a piggyback!

Read "What’s the Point of Sports Drinks & Gels?: Part 2" to find out how you can make things easier!

www.hafitness.com

Posted by Heather Waghorn.

Train Like an Ancient Persian Warrior!

Have you got the balls?

Some bounce, some have handles and some have ropes attached to them. Modern medicine balls now come in an amazing array of sizes, colours and weights.

However, the original prototypes (produced some 3000 years ago) were not so attractive. Made out of animal bladders and stuffed with sand, they’re thought to have been used in training by Persian warriors, Hippocrates, and ancient Chinese martial arts masters, to name but a few. 

So why are they called medicine balls?

Moving forward into the 19th century, ball training became a popular workout feature in the gymnasiums. At this time, the words “health” and “medicine” were synonymous, and the term “medicine ball” is believed to originate from this period.

More recently, hi-tech gadgets and complex machines have taken over in our gyms. However, the humble medicine ball is now making a come back, as the benefits of functional training are seen as being increasingly important.

Time to take your medicine

Medicine ball training is really adaptable and can be used for beginners, weekend warriors and endurance athletes alike.

Using a few differently weighted balls, you can beef-up circuit training sessions and traditional exercises to create tough, stamina-building workouts. It's a really efficient way to develop your speed, strength, balance, and endurance.

They're also perfect for beginners and are a fun tool for those wanting just to get into shape and vary their workouts.  Medicine ball training uses your muscles in a similar way to when you're lifting objects in everyday life (eg children, shopping etc) so it is much more practical than using dumbbells.

Medicine balls can also be a really efficient form of sports specific training. With a bit of imagination, they can be used to simulate and help improve golf and tennis swings, swimming strokes, and football and basketball techniques. Runners can also train with the ball to push their core rotational muscles.

You can work your whole body or just target specific areas, and they're an ideal tool for improving your core power and stability. Practically everything you do with a medicine ball will work your core muscles to some extent. So whether you're lifting, throwing, squatting, crunching, pressing, or twisting with them, your abs should be fired-up too!

Ball practice

Start-off with some lightweight balls and keep the movements slow whilst you focus on your technique.  After a few training sessions, you can speed up the actions, but remember to maintain good control at all times.

Make sure you get proper instruction on technique as even lightweight medicine balls can cause injury.

So whether you're a beginner, seasoned exerciser needing some inspiration or training for the Tough Guy event, it's time you added some balls to your workouts!

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Posted by Heather Waghorn.

My gymslip days are long gone!

Going against my better judgement, I decided last month that I'd take up hockey again, despite not playing since I was 16. Although I started off rusty, forgotten skills slowly started to come back to me and my confidence grew. Then, about 10 minutes from the end I went in for a tackle.

It didn’t quite go to plan. My lower leg darted to the right whilst the rest of my body swung left causing a twist and a loud cracking noise from my knee. Aarhh!

It just goes to show that whilst you can be fit at one sport like running, doing something completely different with lots of lateral movements, can be disasterous. So next time you think about going skiing, playing football or doing a sport that you wouldn't normally do, think again and try to prepare for it as much as possible in advance.


Although I'm back on my feet again now, it’s I've certainly learnt my lesson. Basically, unless you’re It just goes to show that whilst you can be relatively fit at one sport like running, doing something completely different can have quite disastrous consequences. This time of year you see so many people hobbling around on crutches coming back from ski holidays. As you get older this becomes more and more important.


My body just wasn’t

So the next time you’re thinking about skiing, taking up a new sport like hockey or football, or just doing an activity that you don’t normally do, start off gradually, and try to prepare for it in advance as much as possible. Doing exercises that simulate the moves you’ll be making is a good idea.

Posted by Heather Waghorn.

Getting into shape for the slopes

To get the most out of your ski trip, you should get your body into shape well before you hit the slopes. Ski-specific fitness training will help you to ski harder, faster, and injury-free. You'll also have more energy to party in the evening!

Feel the burn!

You should focus on exercises that simulate the moves you'll be making on the slopes. For example, start to build-up your "crouch endurance" by getting into your ski tuck position and holding it for several minutes.

Work your thighs by holding a squat position with your back flat against a wall. Build up the time you can endure in this position and/or hold weights in your hands to increase the intensity. Once you've mastered this, try lifting one heel up at at time, putting more weight on the other leg (similar to turning on the slopes).

Try placing a skipping rope on the floor and jump sideways over it with your feet fairly close together (as if you had skis on). Start with several sets of 30 to 40 seconds and gradually add time on to increase your endurance. Up the intensity by doing this in a crouch position!

Endurance and stamina

A great way to work the whole body whilst also increasing your stamina and endurance for skiing is circuit training. The three key areas to focus on are cardiovascular fitness, lower body strength training and core stability.

Perform 1 minute of each of the following exercises, then rest and move onto the next one. Each week, reduce your rest period until you just have enough time to sip some water in between exercises. Building up your endurance in this way will help you to recover quicker in between challenging ski runs.

Always warm-up before you start, and finish with a cool down and stretches.

Cardiovascular fitness

  • Jogging on the spot, skipping, step-ups, jumping jacks, squat thrusts etc

Muscular strength and power

  • Squats (include some challenging variations such as one-legged squats, plié squats, narrow squats, half squats, squat calf raises, squat kicks etc.)
  • Lunges (include some challenging variations such as skater lunges, lunges with knee lifts, lunges with back leg raised, walking lunges, half lunges etc).
  • Calf-raises. Try doing these on a step and/or on one leg.

Increase the intensity of any of the above by holding dumbbells.

Core strength, agility and balance

  • Crunches, reverse curls and back extensions to target your core muscles
  • Holding the plank position to increase your core stability. Try different variations on this including plank walking, reverse planks, side planks etc.
  • Exercises using stability balls, medicine balls and wobble boards to develop your balance and agility

Improving your overall fitness

Aerobic endurance activities such as running, cycling and hill walking should also be included into your fitness plan. As with all of the above, you should try to increase the intensity and duration of these activities over the weeks leading up to your trip.

If this has whetted your appetite and you fancy some ski-specific training, please give me a call on 07941 851 778 or email heather@hafitness.com. We can arrange to meet up for one-to-one sessions, partner training, or small group classes. Why not get your friends together for a pre-ski workout?

http://www.hafitness.com


Posted by Heather Waghorn.

Deflating that spare tyre!

How to get rid of that bulging waistline

Performing hundreds of sit-ups maybe great for developing a six-pack, however most of us need to concentrate on reducing that not-so-attractive layer of fat top first.

It’s not just about the way you look that’s important. If you tend to store fat around your middle you have a greater risk of developing conditions such as heart disease and diabetes.

Just how big is too big?

The British Heart Foundation says that you have a greater risk to your health if your waistline is larger than 94cm (37”) for men or 80cm (32”) for women.

You need to measure around the bit that is mid-way between your hip bone and the bottom of your ribs (don't cheat by holding your tummy in, let everything hang out!)

How to loose a pound of fat

The best way to get your waistline back is by eating a healthy, low fat diet plus lots of regular exercise.  Basically you need to burn off more than you put in.

To quantify this, one pound of stored body fat equals 3500 calories.

Put another way, if you create a 3500 calorie deficit in a week through diet, exercise or a combination of both, you will lose one pound. That might sound a lot, but over a week, it amounts to just 500 calories a day.

The best way to do this is to increase your activity levels so that you are burning an extra 250 calories, and decrease your food intake so that you are consuming 250 calories less a day.

How to burn 250 calories

This will depend on your age, sex, weight and metabolism, as well as how intensely you exercise, but here are a few examples of what it takes to burn around 250 calories:

  • A 10 stone person running moderately hard for 20 minutes
  • A 12 stone person moderately cycling for 30 minutes
  • A 14 stone person walking fast for 35 minutes (not necessarily all in one go).

It's often difficult to fit in structured exercise into a busy lifestyle especially if you work long hours and have a family. Here's a few things you can do to help to knock off a few calories each week:

  • Take the stairs rather than the lift (up as well as down!)
  • Walk or cycle to work or the station
  • Walk to a sandwich shop at lunchtime that’s further away than your regular one
  • Stand on the bus/train instead of sitting down
  • When you get home from work, play with your kids on the floor rather than slumping in a chair
  • Go out for a bike ride, football in the park or kite flying with your kids at weekends

How to consume 250 calories less a day

The following are easy things to cut out of your diet that are around 250 calories each (some are a hell of a lot more!):

  • High calorie breakfasts: 1 Danish pastry, 1 muffin (American-style), 2 small croissants or 1 Starbucks Grande latte made with whole milk
  • Meals extras: Half a naan bread, 1 small potion of chips, 1 large dollop of mayonnaise or a large spring roll
  • Snacks and puddings: 1 piece of cake, 1 chocolate bar, 2 small portions of cheese, 1 portion of ice cream
  • Alcohol: 1.5 pints of lager or 1.5 large glasses (250 ml) of wine

Every little bit helps!

If this all sounds too much, just think that doing more than you are doing now is a step in the right direction.

 
http://www.hafitness.com

Posted by Heather Waghorn.

How I kicked started my new year

Getting back into healthy living after a week of Christmas indulgences can be quite a challenge, even for me.

By the 5th January, few things had been crossed off my New Year's resolution list, and my running was going nowhere fast. Feeling a bit deflated, I entered a 10 mile race, totally on a whim, for the following day in Tadworth.

I hadn't exactly trained for it, so decided to run for "fun" rather than a particular time. I just took in the scenery and enjoyed the race (although a couple of sadistic hills were a bit more than I'd bargained for!).

It's got me back into enjoying running again, consequentially kick starting my healthy eating habits and a few of my other resolutions are now falling into place too.

I've learnt two things from this. Firstly, races are a good way to get some millage done, and you don't have to always run them hard.

Secondly, putting yourself under too much pressure to achieve something can actually have the opposite effect, and dull your enthusiasm rather than inspiring and driving you. Schedules and targets are great for keeping you on the right track, but sometimes it's good to just screw them up and do something different. By taking the pressure off, you can take more pleasure in what you are doing, and are therefore more likely to go out and do it again.

Finally, exercise doesn't always have to be in a structured, pre-planned format. Try thinking of something different to do like ice skating, kite flying, horse riding, indoor climbing, cycling, or just offer to take the neighbour's dog for a walk.

Here's a few ideas to get you started:

Kite (plus lots of other fun stuff!) shop: www.londonbeachstore.co.uk
Somerset House Ice ring: http://www.somersethouse.org.uk/
Rollerblading lessons: http://www.citiskate.co.uk/Group_skating_lessons_in_london.htm
Horse riding lessons: http://www.kingstonridingcentre.com/riding.html
Indoor climbing: http://www.castle-climbing.co.uk/
Runners World event listings:  http://www.runnersworld.co.uk/defaultevents.asp?sp=&v=2

http://www.hafitness.com

Posted by Heather Waghorn.