Why everyone should train to be strong

Hello everyone.  Rosie here again with your Tuesday offering of advice from Charis, who runs Louca Personal Training.  He's going to give us some advice today about strength training.  When I was taking Charis's guidance last year he got me really into strength training and I loved the Body Pump and Kettlebell classes I was doing at the gym. At the moment I'm trying to do more exercise at home and I recently bought a kettlebell from Sainsbury's and have been doing a kettlebell exercise DVD in the mornings which is really hard but makes me feel ridiculously good.  Here's a little bit of inspiration before we start...

Okay, over to Charis....

How many people do you know that got to the gym on and off for years, and yet still don’t have the physique they have always wanted? They run, they row, they go on the crosstrainer, they do yoga, but still they aren’t happy with their abilities and what the mirror is showing them. They need to build muscle and strength to achieve what they want, but they are reluctant to do so for a variety of reasons, or simply don’t know enough about it. This article aims to clear some of these things up and hopefully help some folks out with their health and fitness goals.

What is strength training?

Strength training is everything we do in order to build stronger bodies. This can be done by using weights (barbells, kettlebells, dumbells etc), resistance bands, other implements (flipping tyres, pushing cars) or with your own bodyweight (calisthenics). If there is an external resistance of some kind, you will get stronger. The bigger external resistance you overcome in the training movements you are doing, the stronger you will get. The beauty of it is that it can be achieved with a multitude of ways and the results are literally life changing for anyone who hasn’t done it before.

For everyone!

Strength training is for absolutely everyone regardless of age, sex, athletic background or existing abilities. It doesn’t matter where you start, you improve from there. Some people are naturally strong, others are not, but without exception everyone can see a positive impact on their health and lives in general from strength training. From the naturally athletic teenager who excels in any sport they try, to the middle aged woman who has a back ache a lot of the time to the mid-20s guy who wants to look good on the beach, strength training methods can benefit everyone.

Women & Strength?

There is a common misconception that if a woman starts lifting weights or training in the same way most men do, they will turn into a hulking behemoth who breathes fire and has a hairy back. The Olympic Games this last summer should set aside some of these fallacies, as the female athletes are in fantastic shape, train with weights the year round and are very obviously feminine. Female Crossfit athletes also train predominantly with weights and Olympic weightlifting movements, yet aren’t muscular hulks.  They are fit, strong, healthy women. 

Good for your health!

Strength training increases your bone density, joint, tendon and ligament strength and improves almost all athletic output. You are less prone to injuries in sports, or even aches and pains in day to day life.  For the majority of people it will increase flexibility and mobility in all the major joints, and improve quality of life overall, just like Ben & Jerry’s.

No more skinnyfat bodies!

“Skinnyfat” is a term used for people that although they have a low bodyweight and are not overweight, do not look in shape and most of the time feel fat or just can’t get rid of stubborn fat in certain areas. These people need to train for strength, build some muscle and change their body composition. If there is no muscle on somebody’s frame, then it doesn’t matter how much weight they lose, they will always look and feel out of shape. 

Burn more fat!

While training to get stronger, muscle is built. This may not be obvious at first, but there will be a body composition change over time. If someone has more muscle tissue, their body burns more fat due to an elevated metabolism. This means that the more muscular you are, the leaner you are. Again this doesn’t mean that you have to have legs the size of tree trunks and no neck – that would take decades of dedicated work to achieve, if that were your goal. If it is not, then have no illusions that this will ever happen. If you do not want to be a bodybuilder, you will not become one overnight. If you want to be strong and in excellent physical condition, then strength training is the best way.

No gym? No problem!

Strength training is versatile and can be done almost anywhere. For those who do not have access to a properly equipped gym, or in some cases simply do not want to train in a commercial gym weight room for any reason (50:1 male:female ratio scores high on this list), you can train at home with something as simple as a kettlebell and a couple of resistance bands. For beginners, this will last quite a while, until they need to increase the external stimulus.

Example plan:

There are plenty of strength training routines and coaches available online to help pin down the specifics to fit into your lifestyle! An example of a simple plan if you have access to just a kettlebell is:

Kettlebell snatch x 5 reps each arm

Kettlebell swings x 10 reps both arms

Kettlebell squats x 15 reps

Repeat that for 5 sets each. For an extra metabolic boost, perform this as a nonstop circuit, taking no more than 2-3 minutes rest between circuits. This simple little circuit will get you stronger in all the major muscle groups and also get you fitter. 

Good luck! Feel free to leave questions in the comments or contact me as below!

Are you someone who wants to make a positive lifestyle change? Or maybe you are an active person who wants guidance to take your results to the next level, or even a competitive athlete wanting to finish on the podium at your next competition? Then contact me at www.loucapersonaltraining.com or Twitter @LoucaPT with any questions you may have! 10% discount for clients through Where Are My Knees, just give it a mention in your query!

A clean and healthy diet | Clean eating

Happy Tuesday! Rosie here.  If you've been following our Sunday Summaries or seen my 2012 Round Up you'll know that I don't follow a specific 'diet' - I just 'eat clean' and make healthy choices.  By doing this, along with regular exercise, I lost a stone in a couple of months at the end of last year.  This was with a lot of help from Charis, who runs 'Louca Personal Training'.  Charis has kindly offered to write some posts for Where Are My Knees and we have some great posts lined up from him about strength training and the importance of goals.  His first post is about a clean and healthy diet.  Over to you Charis...

A lot of people think that getting a healthy, lean and good looking body is something extremely complicated, needing all sorts of expensive equipment, and someone to stand over you and make sure you hit the precise correct angle on your situps. Well, I’m here to tell you it is not – all it takes is some simple discipline and planning. Here are 5 tips to help you stick to a cleaner and healthier diet.

If you can’t find it in nature, don’t have it

A lot of food nowadays goes through various levels of processing to get it to the supermarket shelf. You must be able to recognise it and understand how far it is from its natural form in order to make educated and healthy choices. If something is so far gone from its natural state that you cannot directly relate it to something found in nature, then move on.  You want the absolute basics – vegetables, fruit, meat, poultry, eggs, limited and high quality unprocessed dairy (raw/unpasteurised products only), legumes and beans. Avoid all products with added sugar, sweeteners, all processed foods, most cereal, most bread, most prepared meals (unless you trust the source to use natural ingredients), and the majority of drinks except natural juices, water and green/white tea or variants without sugar or sweeteners (except honey, which is a far better alternative and natural).  Disregard the majority of products that are not 100% what they say on tin. For example peanut butter can be part of a healthy diet; as long as it is 100% natural peanut butter – not 80% peanut butter, 10% sugar and 10% hydrogenated fat.

Fat is your friend, sugar is not

Healthy fats have a myriad of health benefits, from healthier skin, to hormone balancing, to cholesterol control. Also, without good quality dietary fat, your body will not get rid of its own bodyfat. With an influx of carbohydrates and low fat intake, your body will use those as a primary source of energy and store what is not used as bodyfat. “Low fat” products remove the fat, along with all its precious nutrients and benefits, and replace it with sugar or derivatives of sugar. The better option is to have moderate amounts of natural, healthy fats throughout your diet and lower your carbohydrate intake, while completely removing all processed sugar products.

Empty your kitchen before you start

When you decide to clean up your diet, you must get rid of all the other bad foods and drinks you have in your kitchen. If you suddenly change your eating and drinking habits for the better, you will start to crave the things you used to enjoy but ultimately do you nothing but harm. By having these things around the house, it is far too easy to give it to the cravings and ruin your diet before you’ve even started. It takes about 10 days to kick bad food cravings. After that, they will be more sporadic, and you may well be able to have something you really miss and get away with it under the 80/20 rule (below).

Plan/ Cook in advance

In order to enjoy your cleaner diet, you must cook and plan in advance. The best way to help your diet fail is to put yourself in a position where the only option is no food or junk food.  You must prepare as much as possible in advance, and this requires a plan. With my clients I like to organise a weekly meal plan, review it at the weekend, and they can shop and cook accordingly as the week goes on. Without this plan, you are leaving things down to chance, as maybe you are delayed from work and slowly fading away from hunger, you have some errands to run or you just can’t be bothered to go to the effort of preparing and cooking something clean every single day, and would much rather prefer to get a frozen pizza instead to save time and effort. The easiest options are usually the worst, so plan in advance and make preparations. Cook larger portions of food, use leftovers intelligently, and prepare in good time, including healthy snacks – not just main meals.

80/20 rule

So you have stuck to your diet well and you are making good progress but it is your mum’s birthday next Friday. Her sister makes her a big chocolate cake every year, with choux pastries on top, and it is truly a sight to behold and a culinary delight. This is where the 80/20 rule comes in. If you have been eating clean and looking after yourself for 80% of your meals, you can afford to have something not quite so clean the other 20% of the time. I would prefer a 90/10 approach, but 80/20 is a good start and is much easier mentally for someone to agree to and sacrifice any other bad food opportunities that come up. It is like money in the bank. You can keep up with your savings (eating clean) by not spending all your money in the January sales (avoiding bad food), and then one day you can splash out on something you really want (get in great shape). Or, you can keep getting little items you don’t really want (snacking on biscuits, eating badly), and then after a few months you are wondering why your bank balance is really in the red (you’re out of shape).

And here’s a bonus 6^th tip – BE PATIENT. Results are not overnight. It’s the months of focus that count, not the hours. Don’t weigh yourself every day and wonder why you haven’t lost a stone this week yet even though you’ve been really disciplined and gone to the gym twice since you started 4 days ago. Track progress every week or even two weeks, and there should be a pleasing result.

Good luck! Feel free to leave questions in the comments or contact me as below!

Are you someone who wants to make a positive lifestyle change? Or maybe you are an active person who wants guidance to take your results to the next level, or even a competitive athlete wanting to finish on the podium at your next competition? Then contact me at www.loucapersonaltraining.com or Twitter @LoucaPT with any questions you may have! 10% discount for clients through Where Are My Knees, just give it a mention in your query!