Training Principles - What You Should Know

There are certain training principles that have to be stuck to in order to make your fitness programme successful. Without following these basic guidelines, no amount of hard work will be effective over the long term. The training principles are what we follow at AdMac Fitness.

The training principles are closely linked and become increasingly important the more seriously training is taken. For a large majority, adherence is the first factor that arguably comes ahead of these - the good workout programme you’ll follow is better than the perfect workout programme that you won’t, so go back to these training principles when you’re designing your workout plan.

So without further ado, here are the training principles that you should know in order to make you training programme more effective.

Specificity

The principle of specificity dictates that in order to achieve your goals the type of training and/or exercises you do need to be specific to the desired outcome.

I’ll explain that in English…

If you’re a powerlifter and your main aim is to get stronger, you need to be focussing specifically on strength. There’s little point in you going for a long, slow jog because it contradicts your goals. A slow jog isn’t going to help you get stronger, so it’s a non-specific form of exercise.

Overload

The principle of overload means that any training you do must be enough stimulus to drive changes.

If you’re a runner, that may come in the form of running longer, running faster or running up more hills. If you’re a bodybuilder wanting to build muscle, you’ll have to lift heavier, you’ll have to do more reps and more sets.

The principle of overload means you overload your body to force it into further adaption by making it work harder than it’s usually capable of for a period of time.

Fatigue Management

Physical improvement can only occur if you put a lot of focus into recovery.

When you’re training hard, demanding a lot of yourself and making sacrifices in other areas of life to make progress, you need to look after your energy levels. Giving yourself adequate recovery time to manage your fatigue is really important.

You can look after your recovery in lots of ways - getting enough sleep in and looking after your nutrition are the big two, but other approaches such as active recovery and regular sauna use have been proven to be effective as well.

Programming

Exercise programming is more than just ‘3 sets of 10 bench press’. There are lots of other variables that require the attention of a personal trainer.

At AdMac Fitness we are looking at frequency, intensity, duration, exercise selection and movement patterns during our workouts. If you’re unaware of fitness programming, you may come into a class or a personal training session and wonder if it’s a thrown-together series of random movements, but it’s actually a thought-through and considered series.

Good programming is the difference between clients getting results and clients drifting through their training without making improvements.

Individualisation

The principle of individualisation is really important and it’s one of the reasons we are so successful when it comes to results.

It’s a case of considering a client’s training history, lifestyle, family/work commitments, injuries etc that can inform programming decisions. If you’re brand new to exercise and have a history of injuries, your programming can’t be the same as someone who has 5 years of strength training and conditioning under their belt.

Training Principles: Concluded

This is a simplified view of the training principles, but the article can serve as a good reminder for areas you might need to focus on whilst you’re programming your own exercise.

These principles might also give clues as to why your progress hasn't been what it could be - perhaps you’ve been going about your training with the wrong approach. If you need any help or advice, get in touch with our team at admacfitness@gmail.com.

Failing that, jump in with us…

Jump on my Home Workout Classes

To help the AdMac Fitness members stay on top of their fitness whilst under lockdown, I’m offering two online zoom sessions a week. These are held on Monday’s and Thursday’s, 6.30-7.30pm.

Each class is £5 and free for NHS staff members.

To enrol, send me an email or WhatsApp (click the link and it’ll let you do it) and I’ll send you the meeting number and passcode to access the session.

AdMac Fitness is keeping the world active during this, you can rely on us!

Maintaining Weight Loss in a Lockdown...

I’ve had a few clients say to me “I’m working out more but I’m putting on weight” recently, so I want to address maintaining weight loss in a lockdown in this week’s blog post.

On first glance, this may sound like a strange situation - how can it be possible? Once we dig into the data a little bit more, it begins to make sense.

A typical AdMac Fitness client pre-lockdown was doing 4 x gym sessions a week. If we assume they’re burning around 350 calories per workout, then that’s around 1400 calories a week in the gym alone.

But there’s more to that…

Throw in daily life. They’re hitting around 8k steps a day, which adds an extra 2000 calories burned a week. That brings us to 3400 calories burned from steps and exercise combined.

An excellent weekly calorie burn, combined with healthy eating and good sleep. They’re kicking arse, feeling good, lean and fit. Daily life is easy, they’re getting stronger and fitter all of the time.

Throw in a lockdown and restricted movement…

Now they doing essentially zero walking. Even if they are doing 6 workouts a week from home, they’ll be burning around 2100 calories from steps and walking. They’re down from a usual peak of 3400 calories burned every week.

That’s 1300 calories per week that they’re not burning now. Over time, that’s going to have a larger and larger effect on their fat gain, so it makes sense that despite the fact that they’re working out more, they’re gaining weight. We covered the importance of walking in this blog post previously.

How Do We Lose Weight in a Lockdown?

The principles of weight loss remain the same. Your body doesn’t change because it has been told to stay indoors. We have to address the calories in versus calories out.

I could tell you that all you need to do is reduce your food intake (and it’d be right advice), but life is already tough enough in a lockdown. Instead, I’m going to suggest you increase your calorie burn and there’s a good reason for taking this approach.

Let’s assume that your diet hasn’t changed that much. You should still be eating healthily. Perhaps tighten that up a bit - maybe drop 100 calories per day. You’ll barely notice it.

But that’s not all.

At AdMac Fitness we would encourage you to go down the route of burning more calories due to the positive impact on mental health. Getting out of your four walls will do a huge amount for you both physically and mentally. It will help to get rid of the feelings of claustrophobia and make this whole thing far more bearable.

When it comes to the extra movement to burn calories, unless you are someone who is used to doing a massive volume of training each week, adding in more intense training probably isn’t the answer. It may work for a week or two, but the injury risk and damage to long-term motivation is just too high.

What we suggest is either a very slow steady jog/cycle to burn extra calories or find a way to get the steps up by walking. Perhaps you could combine the walk with calling loved ones/friend or listening to a podcast. To observe social distancing measure you should pick a suitable time to do it - we suggest mornings and evening walks or runs if you can do them (when the streets are quieter).

You have to be safe first. You don’t want to be the fittest person in the hospital.

Jump on my Home Workout Classes

To help the AdMac Fitness members stay on top of their fitness whilst under lockdown, I’m offering two online zoom sessions a week. These are held on Monday’s and Thursday’s, 6.30-7.30pm.

Each class is £5 and free for NHS staff members.

To enrol, send me an email or WhatsApp (click the link and it’ll let you do it) and I’ll send you the meeting number and passcode to access the session.

AdMac Fitness is keeping the world active during this, you can rely on us!

The AdMac Home Fitness Recommended Kit List

Now everyone is having to do more training from home, the home fitness equipment market has gone bananas. Seriously - once the lockdown was announced, suppliers of home gym kit thought Christmas had come early.

Everywhere had sold out of multi gyms, treadmills, exercise bikes, dumbbells, kettlebells, barbells and the like.

Not needed….

The fitness industry had never seen anything like it.

Even the suppliers who typically only sell to the trade had sold out of stock. People were so desperate to get hold of kit that they were buying commercial grade equipment for home, which means there are people all over the country who spent thousands of pounds on exercise kit in a moment of desperation, only to realise they don’t really know how to use it or have anywhere to store it!

Gym owners all over the country will be keeping their eyes peeled for bargain equipment when the lockdown is over!

As I’ve just mentioned, if you don’t know what you’re buying you can waste a lot of money on home fitness equipment that you just don’t really use. Even if you don’t buy commercial grade, you can spend a lot of money on kit that will never be as good as what we have at AdMac Fitness (or your own local gym).

So here’s the official AdMac Home Gym Recommended Kit List…

This list has been put together with a few criteria in mind. Each bit of kit on the list has to tick these boxes…

1. It has to be inexpensive. Not everyone has thousands to blow on an amazing home gym.

2. It can’t take up much space. There’s no point having a huge squat rack if you live in a studio flat!

3. It has to be versatile. Single use kit is too indulgent for a home gym.

So straight away you can start to discount a lot of what people think of when they go for a home gym. A treadmill costs hundreds or thousands of pounds (if you want a decent one), plus it’s massive and it’s only single-use. You can also go for a run outside, so count that out.

Olympic barbells and bumper plates are out. Again, they cost a lot but they take up lots of room, plus if you live in an apartment with neighbours below you, they probably won’t appreciate you dropping heavy deadlifts onto your living room floor.

So what should you buy for a home gym? The reality is you’ll be able to head back into real gyms very soon, so you only need to buy kit that will keep you ticking over for the short term. With that in mind (and the criteria above), here’s what I think you need to put together a decent home set up…

TRX or Suspension Trainer

A TRX (or other suspension trainer) is probably the most versatile and best value bit of kit you can have. They can fit to doors, be hung over goal posts, park equipment or even tree branches. They are light weight as well so can be put in your suitcase for a holiday workouts, or hotel room workouts if you’re travelling for business.

In terms of exercise variety, there’s a huge range of exercises you can perform using a suspension trainer. Just make sure you buy one with a door anchor, which will make the home use much, much easier and safer.

You can use a suspension trainer to do rows, pull ups, bicep curls, ab workouts, lunges, squats, hamstring curls and hundreds of other exercises.

Adjustable Dumbbell Set

I’ll start by saying this - some of the prices for adjustable dumbbell sets are RIDICULOUS at the moment, so bear that in mind. I’ve linked to the kind of thing to look for in the title, but don’t want to suggest you buy any of those in particular. Try not to spend more than £80 if possible - less ideally.

When it comes to adjustable dumbbells, you want to buy the heaviest you can afford because as you get stronger, you’ll outgrow them. You may start off struggling to shoulder press 5kg, but that won’t be forever, so buy them with your strongest exercise in mind.

Dumbbells are great for squats, lunges, floor presses, shoulder presses, curls, lat raises, ab work etc. They’re also really easy to store so are a better addition to a small home gym than a barbell.

Rings

These are ideal for more advanced users in the same way that suspension trainers are - they’re great quality, don’t cost much and are REALLY easy to store. If you’re advanced enough you can use rings to do gymnastic movements and calisthenics, but even if you’re not up to the more advanced bodyweight exercises just yet, you can still use them for rows, pull ups, dips and push ups.

It’s a lot of versatility from a relatively cheap bit of kit. It’s another one that’s easy to transport with you as well, so you can take an exercise option with you when you travel anywhere.

Bands and Glute Loops

These are a couple of super versatile and and really inexpensive bits of kit. They weigh next to nothing (great for travelling with again) and can be used to supplement hundreds of exercises. The bands can be used to make exercises such as push ups and bodyweight squats and more difficult, or they can be used to perform exercises in their own right such as lat raises and face pulls. If you buy the long loops, you can make pull ups easier too, which is great if you have a home pull up bar or something to hang it off.

The glute loop is great for making squats more difficult, as well as making lateral bands walks possible. Glute bridges are made tougher with a glute loop too, so it gives you extra home workout variety.

Home Gym Kit: Concluded

If you’re joining in on the AdMac Zoom Classes (just email me if you want to - you can join from anywhere in the world!) buying some of the kit here can give you a whole load of extra workout variety without breaking the bank!

Just don’t go buying kit you won’t need in a few weeks. These home gym equipment suggestions give you plenty of workout variety at home, keeping you fit and healthy without costing you a fortune or forcing you to move all of your furniture around to accommodate your new gear!

Top 5 Home Workout Mistakes to Avoid (and a bonus tip!)

Thanks to the COVID-19 enforced shutdown, a lot of people are having to workout at home. I’m seeing the same kinds of home workouts all over social media and the same mistakes keep coming up. To help the AdMac Fitness family and readers to make sure they get the most from their home workout, I decided to write this post.

Here are the top 5 home workout mistakes to avoid…

Mistake #1 - Too much HIIT, not enough strength work…

It’s easy to assume that without weights, you can’t really grow much muscle. People equate weight lifted with muscle built. Whilst that’s true to a point, it’s not the only way to build strength and muscle. You can build muscle at home with targeted exercise.

A lot of people fall into the trap of ‘if it’s not hurting, it’s not working’, so fill in their workout time with really high intensity efforts that raise your heart rate and get you sweating a lot. These are great for cardio and calorie burning, but they’re generally terrible for strength building. There’s definitely a time and a place for HIIT work, but don’t fill your workout with burpees and running on the spot - you’ll lose a tonne of strength if you do.

Mistake #2 - Not pushing to failure…

When you sacrifice weight, you have to increase volume. There’s no point in sticking to sets of 10 if sets of 10 aren’t a challenge for you. You have to create overload if you want your muscles to grow - overload can come in the form of volume (do more reps), weight (add more resistance) or intensity (reduce your rest period between sets). All of these will push you to failure.

What counts as failure? That’s the point where you can’t complete the exercises with good enough form. ‘Good enough’ is the important bit - your form doesn’t have to be perfect under fatigue, but it has to be good enough that you’re still hitting the target muscles.

Push to failure on every set of every exercise and you’ll see some strength gains.

Mistake #3 - Too much focus on isolation movements…

There’s a simple rule in muscle building - the more muscle you use, the bigger the muscle gains you make. If you train a lot of muscle in an exercise, you stimulate more muscle and you release more growth hormone. That’s the reason compound exercises such as squats, pull ups, deadlifts, shoulder presses are better for muscle growth than bicep curls, lateral raises, tricep kickbacks etc.

A lot of people are using their resistance bands to perform curls, fly’s, kickbacks etc but that should come AFTER you’ve pre-exhausted your muscles with exercises such as squats, lunges, push ups, pull ups (if you can). Your home workout isn’t likely to consist of a huge range of exercises, but the ones you do have to be a high quality if you want to make it an effective workout.

Mistake #4 - Not using progressive overload…

What progressive overload means is that you’re not making your workouts progressively harder. If you don’t have weights at home, you can’t measure the increase of weight you’re lifting, but you can certainly measure the volume or intensity of your workout by tracking reps, sets and rest periods.

If last week you managed performed 4 sets of 12 of an exercise, see if this week you can push that to 5 sets. If you did 5 sets of 20 last week, see if you can do 5 sets of 22 this time. If you did a plank for 30 seconds last week, see if you can make it 40 this week.

Seek to increase the volume. Likewise, monitor your rest periods. If you were giving yourself a minute off between sets last week, see if you can only rest for 50 seconds this week. Increased intensity is another measure of progression.

Seek to progress every week if you can.

Mistake #5 - You’re not programming with the changes in mind…

If in a normal week you head to the gym 3 times to do a big, heavy workout and then throw in a long walk on one of the other days, you’ll need to up the training frequency at home because the intensity just doesn’t match up if you replace like for like.

If you simply swap your three workouts in the gym for three bodyweight workouts at home, you’ll lose some serious progress. Instead, you’ll need to increase the frequency of your home workouts to compensate. The three gym workouts may need to be swapped for 5 home workouts and the walk can remain. If something is less taxing on the body (home workouts are typically easier than gym workouts) you’ll need to do more of them.

The walk should remain - you always need some outside space. Just make sure it’s within the rules!

Bonus Tip - Get creative!

You may not have weights or a kettlebell, but you can still add weight to your workouts. Fill a rucksack with water bottles, books or tins of food and wear it to do push ups, squats, lunges, the plank.

You don’t need to run far to get a good cardio workout - find a local park and do sprints or shuttle runs (just stay away from people).

Use your furniture to make workouts harder. Use a chair for rear foot elevated split squats, feet raised push ups and step ups. Use your stairs for calf raises - look around, there’ll be workout options you hadn’t considered before!

AdMac Home Workouts and COVID-19...

Hi guys

So we all know what has been going on recently. The world has ground to a standstill, the Coronavirus is devastating lives, economies and causing political turmoil, travel disruption and chaos wherever it goes.

Thankfully, we’ve got an NHS filled with amazing staff who are doing their best to keep this thing at bay.

Those of you who train with us at AdMac Fitness know just how seriously I’ve been taking this - I’m on immunosuppressant drugs myself, so I have to be extra careful when it comes to sanitising the gym. I was buying alcohol gels, gloves and wipes before it was trendy!

The call for gyms to close came on Friday 20th of March. In a swoop, it kind of devastated my business.

As a self-employed guy, there was no immediate announcement of government financial help. I had a few decisions to make to try and keep things ticking over - I’ve got a responsibility to my clients and I’ve got bills to pay! So what would I do?

I saw personal trainers offering online workouts, telling their clients that they could get just as good a workout at home.

I didn’t do that, because I don’t agree with it.

Not that I don’t agree with exercising at home - I’m totally on board with that, I just don’t agree that you can train as well in a house with limited equipment as you could at the gym.

If doing dips off your sofa can replace heavy push presses, or bodyweight squats can replace pushing a prowler then I’d be joining the workout from home PT movement too! Until that point though, I’ll be urging you to keep yourself going but also teach you how you can maintain your fitness and work on your weaknesses.

I’m going to offer an online workout to anyone who wants to join me. It’ll show you the best way of training at home with no kit. It’s not as good as the gym, but it’ll still keep you fit, active and moving in a strong and healthy way. You won’t let your fitness slide, that’s for sure!

AdMac Fitness Online Workouts

To help the AdMac Fitness members stay on top of their fitness whilst under lockdown, I will be offering one or two online zoom sessions a week. These will be held on Monday’s and Thursday’s, 6.30-7.30pm.

Each class is £5 and free for NHS staff members.

To enrol, send me an email or WhatsApp (click the link and it’ll let you do it) and I’ll send you the meeting number and passcode to access the session.

It’ll keep your spirits up, it’ll keep your training going, it’ll raise endorphins and it’s a great way to stay sociable in these difficult times.

Keep your chin up, we’ll be through this soon and will be throwing weights around like we always used to!

AdMac

P.S. I’m loving your juggling and hand stand interaction with me on Instagram! If you want to join in follow here… AdMac Instagram.

P.P.S. This enforced break has given me time to work on my online programme offering in more detail and I’ve decided to make a few changes to it. There’ll be an announcement of the first version of it VERY soon!

Common Mistakes When Tracking Calories

If you want to lose weight, you have to ensure you eat fewer calories than you burn. All diets rely on this energy balance, regardless of the food choices or groups they insist on. So whether you’re eating a Ketogenic diet, a vegan diet, Slimming World, Weight Watchers, Intermittent Fasting or anything in between, what you’re actually doing is restricting your calories which is making you lose weight.

As long as you don’t make some common mistakes when tracking calories, it’s a method that works really well.

When accurately tracked, calorie restriction is a really effective way to lose weight and more importantly, body fat. It forces you to make good choices, restrict your 'high calorie’ choices to smaller quantities and brings about a much more acute awareness of how calorie dense a lot of foods are. It’s a nutritional education tool as much as a weight loss tool.

Tracking calories is arguably the most accurate way of ensuring weight loss, but only if it’s done right (sounds obvious). What some people do is get complacent though, or not understand the nuances of the method. In this article we’re going to look at a few of the common mistakes when tracking calories. These mistakes can make the method completely ineffective, so they’re worth paying attention to. It also may help you discover why you aren’t losing weight, even if you think you’re tracking calories…

You Forget About Liquid Calories

This is a really common one I come across, so I had to put it first. When people are tracking their calories, they’ll often only think about foods they’re eating and not about the liquids they’re drinking. A cup of coffee with 1 sugar and whole milk comes in at anywhere between 50 and 100 calories, depending on the cup size. Forget about 3 of those per day and you’ve underestimated by up to 300 calories.

A can of Coke is 142 calories. If you drink one per day and forgot to add it, you’ve missed out on nearly 1000 calories per week.

The obvious lesson here is…. THE CALORIES IN YOUR DRINKS COUNT! Make sure you add them. It’s more than just food.

You Don’t Consider Accurate Food Amounts

If a recipe says something like ‘add a tablespoon of peanut butter’, you have to drill down into the detail. Look at the picture below for a good example of what I mean - a tablespoon size portion can be different things to different people, so make sure you weigh the amount to know the calories accurately. What you consider to be a portion size may be WAAAAAY overestimating what the manufacturer thinks a portion size should be!

If you’re not considering accurate amounts, you may be dramatically underestimating your calorie intake, which will throw your weight loss plans up in the air. Make sure you know exactly how many calories you are eating if you want to lose weight.

You Can Get Complacent With Portion Sizes

Just like the example above, when somebody has been counting calories for a long time, they can get complacent and think they ‘know what a portion looks like’. This may be right, but even the most experienced eye can get things wrong. If you’re not losing weight, start weighing things again because you’re probably getting your portion sizes (and therefore your calorie intake) wrong, which ruins your chances of losing weight.

You Don’t Think About What the Food is Cooked In

This is another common one. Take roasted vegetables for example. They’re healthy - very healthy in fact, but they may not always be low in calories. When you roast your vegetables, you may have completely forgotten to add the calories of the oil you roasted them in to your calorie tracker.

If when roasting a tray of vegetables you use 3 tablespoons of olive oil (which isn’t actually that much for a large roasting tin), you’ll have added nearly 360 calories to your food. If you don’t record that, you’ll have totally misrepresented your calorie intake for the day.

Common Mistakes When Tracking Calories: Concluded

You have to consider everything that you eat and drink and the best way to do that is to weigh and measure your food accurately. If you aren’t doing so, you’ll potentially ruin your chances of losing weight and won’t know why. If that sounds like you, where you’ve been tracking your calories but not seeing any weight loss, take a look at these tips and see if any of them describe you and your situation!

By the way, this isn’t a new thing - take a look at this study published in 1992 that showed a discrepancy between self-report and actual calorie consumption amongst weight loss participants. It shows we still haven’t learned much!

If you want help with your weight loss, come and see us at AdMac Fitness. We have helped hundreds of people to lose weight with sensible, achievable plans. Maybe you could be our next success story!

At AdMac Fitness we’re not about fads, fashions and short term fixes. We want you to succeed properly over the long term, so with our help and advice you can get your fitness back on track! If you’d like us to help you, contact us on 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!

AdMac Fitness: Arch 457 Robeson St, London E3 4JA

AdMac Fitness South Woodford: Unit 4 Marlborough Business Centre, 96 George Lane, South Woodford, London, E18 1AD

Full Body Workout or the Split Routine - Which is Best?

The full body versus body split routine is a debate that has raged in gyms for decades. The reality is there’s a time and place for both, but there’s one that the vast majority of us should be going for. In this blog post we’re going to look at both types of training, what the science says about each of them and when, why and where to use them properly.

What is a Split Routine?

A body part split routine is one where the body is divided into different sections and trained individually. This can take many forms. A common 4-day split may look something like this…

• Monday: Chest and Triceps

• Tuesday: Back and Biceps

• Thursday: Legs and Abs

• Friday: Shoulders and Arms

There’s also variations on this theme, so you can have a push/pull split, where on a push day you’ll perform exercises that require pushing (shoulder press, bench press) and on a pull day, you’ll perform pulling exercises (deadlifts, pull ups etc).

You may also have an upper/lower split, where you’ll train upper body one day, legs the other.

Essentially, the workouts are grouped into exercises around a theme, whether that be body part or movement.

What is a Full Body Routine?

A full body routine is a workout that doesn’t split the body into certain sections and instead, trains the whole thing in every workout. Typically speaking in a full body workout the variation will be around exercises and movements, but the commonality is that the whole body is trained every time.

Generally speaking, in well-designed full body workouts, the movement patterns won’t be repeated too quickly within a week. A good example can be with leg training - if on Monday the major leg exercise was squats, then on Wednesday it may be lunges. This helps to prevent overuse injuries occurring and provides a different stress to the muscles, bringing about extra growth.

How Did Split Routines Gain Popularity?

Modern day bodybuilding and the birth of the gym culture as we know it came around in the 1970’s, when Arnold Schwarzenegger and Franco Columbo dominated the scene at Golds Gym in California. They were training using body part splits and it became seen as the way to build that kind of physique. What people didn’t realise was…

• These guys were incredibly genetically gifted

• They had been training for years, building muscle mass for a couple of decades

• It was a full-time occupation for them

• They were taking a LOT of steroids!

• Training this way took hours - even their cardio was longer than most people’s entire workout!

Copying a training style used by a multiple Mr Universe when you’re a weekend warrior is like revising for a university exam before you’ve even got your GCSE’s. Wrong approach at the wrong time.

The reality is that Arnold had already built a huge amount of muscle by the time his workouts became public. He was merely refining his physique by that point, not building it. Years of general strength training had built his body - his bodybuilding training was merely getting him stage ready.

What Does the Science Say About Split Routines and Full Body Training?

The science is now absolutely clear on building muscle mass - it’s a volume play. By training more muscle, more often, full body training is a more effective way to improve muscle mass. If you want to add muscle to your frame, you should be basing your training around frequent, full body workouts with a wide variety of movements in order to maximise muscle fibre recruitment.

The thinking with split routines is that you train a body part extra hard, then allow it 6 days to recover and grow before training it again. It sounds sensible in theory, but it ignores one of the principles of training - reversibility. The 6 days without training is long enough for the benefits to reverse themselves.

Think about it like this. If you train 4 days per week using the split mentioned at the top of the article, you’re training a body part once per week. If you train 4 days per week using a full body routine, you’ll have trained the same body parts 4 times in the same week. You’re literally stimulating muscle growth FOUR TIMES more frequently than the popular (but uninformed) bodybuilding approach.

How About Training Intensity?

One of the arguments used by proponents of the split routine approach is that by focussing on one muscle group at a time, they can train it harder and to fatigue more, building more muscle.

Sounds great in theory, but the science doesn’t back it up.

What the science says is that when the signal for muscle to grow has been stimulated, additional stimulation isn’t required. It’s like turning on a light switch - when you’ve pressed the switch and the light is on, you don’t need to keep pressing the switch! It’s not making the room any brighter, no matter how many extra times you press the button.

Is There Ever a Case for Split Routines?

Absolutely. If you’ve built a lot of muscle and are looking to refine your physique, then a split routine can work well. It’s a way to focus on body parts to bring them up to the standards of the rest of your physique. Just don’t rely on it to build your muscle quickly in the first place.

Likewise, if you’ve had an injury and need to pay extra attention to a body part to bring it back to full fitness and function, it can work well again.

It’s not that split routines are bad, it’s just that they’re not as effective as people think.

What Training Split do we Use at AdMac Fitness?

At AdMac Fitness we’re interested in results, so we go with what the science says and use full body training. We squat, we pull, we push, we hinge, we lunge, we carry and a whole host of other things in every session. Train with us and you’ll experience a way of training that delivers fantastic results FAST!

At AdMac Fitness we’re not about fads, fashions and short term fixes. We want you to succeed properly over the long term, so with our help and advice you can get your fitness back on track! If you’d like us to help you, contact us on 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!

AdMac Fitness: Arch 457 Robeson St, London E3 4JA

AdMac Fitness South Woodford: Unit 4 Marlborough Business Centre, 96 George Lane, South Woodford, London, E18 1AD

Don't Let Your Weekend Kill Your Progress!

In all my time as a personal trainer, one thing I’ve seen time and time again is ‘Monday guilt’, where people have been great all week, getting their training done, eating well, staying within calories or getting their fasts in, only to let the whole thing go at the weekend. They then come into the gym on a Monday to work off all the excesses of the weekend.

I’ve also seen people do well all week, have a heavy weekend and then when they weigh themselves on the Monday, not understand why they’ve not lost weight, or even worse - gained it!

There’s an easy explanation as to why this happens…

The second Friday evening comes, work mode is switched OFF (as it should be) and relaxation mode is switched ON.

I’ve got no problem with that at all - we should relax. We deserve to relax.

What we need to be careful of is confusing ‘relaxing’ with ‘stuffing ourselves silly until we can’t breathe’. There’s room for weekend indulgences, but if you want to lose weight or body fat consistently, you’ve got to make sure that the excesses that you have at the weekend are controlled, otherwise you’ll undo all the progress you’ve made through the week.

If you work on a daily 500 calorie deficit, you’re on a 2500 calorie deficit from Monday to Friday. If your Saturday involves 10 pints and a curry, not only will you have wiped out your deficit, you’ll instead have gone into calorie surplus, meaning you’ve effectively wasted 5 days of dieting!

How Do I Enjoy My Weekend Without Killing Progress?

There's a few different ways you can do it. I covered a couple of them in this blog around Christmas time. It essentially comes down to preparation beforehand and giving yourself the excess calories to play with, followed by a period of damage recovery afterwards!

If you know you’ve got a big weekend coming, the earlier you can start your planning, the better. Think of it like this…

1. If you normally hit a 500 calorie deficit, aim for 700 hundred each day in the week before. Instead of being 2500 calories down, you’ll actually be 3500 calories down, giving you extra to play with.

2. Add an extra couple of cardio or HIIT sessions in to your week. If you wear a heart rate monitor, aim for at least 600 calories burned per session. If you add another couple of cardio sessions on top of your normal training, you’ll actually be in a near 5000 calorie deficit.

3. On the day of the binge, get a weight-based HIIT session in. You’ll want to go HARD here, to benefit from EPOC.

By following these steps, you’ve got a better chance of getting over the weekend indulgences without blowing all of your progress.

BUT… Preparation is Only Half the Battle

When the indulgence is over and done with, you’ve still eaten into your calorie deficit and may even have wiped it out. With that in mind, you have to pay back a little bit of a calorie debt to get you back on track.

The morning after a big binge, you don’t really need to focus too much on hard training to burn a load of calories - it’s likely with a load of heavy food and booze on board you’d be willing/able to train properly anyway. Instead, I think you should focus on getting plenty of vitamins and minerals in your body and making yourself feel generally more human. The calorie deficit is to come!

If you can, take a walk or do some light exercise - nothing that pushes you too hard. Just enough to move your body, clear your head and get you back on the right track. Drink plenty of water, maybe have a fruit and veg filled smoothie or even a Greens drink just to fill yourself up with vitamins and minerals. The healthier the food you eat after the binge, the quicker you’ll feel better.

That is the start of the process that’ll make you feel fit, healthy and cleansed again.

Give Your Gut a Rest

One of the most effective ways of getting yourself back to normal is letting your body ‘spring clean’ itself. The quickest way to do this is by fasting. By not eating for 24-72 hours, you allow your gut to clean itself out, feel healthy and restore digestive hormones.

It may sound like torture, but it’s really not. Here’s an account of what happens on a 72 hour fast. You don’t feel as hungry as you’d think, plus you’re still allowed to drink water an black coffee, or a BCAA drink if you want to.

The other benefit of fasting is that you go into a calorie deficit naturally, because you’re simply not eating! It’s actually far easier to diet when you turn your brain into ‘fasting’ mode, because you’re not tempted to make a bad food choice. You aren’t making ANY food choice!

Just don’t fast on a day when you’re training, because it’d be a tough old workout on no food in your system!

Don’t Make it a Habit

The reality is that if you want to lose weight, you’re always going to struggle if your dieting and exercise is undone by 2-3 days and nights of heavy eating and drinking every week. I’d love to be able to tell you that you could eat what you want and lose weight, but I’d be lying to you.

Instead, see a heavy weekend as an occasional thing rather than every week. You could get away with it once a month or so, but if you’re serious about losing weight, you can’t do it every weekend and expect to build a lean and fit body.

For more information on who we are, what we do and how we can help you achieve your health and fitness goals, contact us on… 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!

Our locations are…

AdMac Fitness: Arch 457 Robeson St, London E3 4JA

AdMac Fitness South Woodford: Unit 4 Marlborough Business Centre, 96 George Lane, South Woodford, London, E18 1AD

Jumping off the Tube a Stop Early for a Lean Body...

One of the consistent features of weight loss is being active. Anything you can do to help create a calorie deficit is good for weight loss.

One of the best ways to do this in London is to walk more - in many cases it’s a way of getting some accidental exercise in, reducing stress levels, getting to a destination quicker and arguable the best reason, it’s a way of avoiding the busy tube.

Anyone who has jumped on a rush hour train knows EXACTLY what I mean! Cramped, sweaty, uncomfortable. Even walking in the rain is a better option than that!

Does Walking Burn Many Calories?

Yes - a surprising amount. A 30 minute walk burns around 200 calories - more if it is done at a faster speed or up hills.

If you managed 30 minutes of walking per day, you’re burning an additional 1400 calories per week. Not only that, you’re helping your body to recover from the training you’ve been doing in the week. Being active stimulates blood flow, helps the body to remove waste products and maintains connective tissue health.

Jumping off the tube a stop early really is a way to help you drop body fat and improve your general health and it takes very little in the way of effort. Walking isn’t too difficult - even if the weather is bad you can take a brolly or waterproof coat with you to work! In fact, the streets are likely to be emptier so it’ll make walking a whole load easier!

How to Fit Extra Walking Into Your Day

I’m not going to make this section patronising - but I do want to give you a few simple tips that will get extra steps into your day…

1. If you can, walk to and from work. Not only is it healthier, it’s also a great way to mentally prepare/unwind at the beginning and end of the day.

2. Walk to the shops for your shopping - take a rucksack with you. On the way it’s easy, on the way back you’re carrying a weighted bag with you!

3. Walk to the gym and back - it’s the perfect way of starting your warm up early and adding extra work to your post-workout cool down.

4. Make walking a sociable thing. Go for a walk with friends or your partner. Explore somewhere - go somewhere and do something different!

5. Take walking meetings. Steve Jobs used to do this - apparently he believed being outside and moving improved thinking and creativity. Makes sense - your brain is more stimulated.

6. Get a watch with a step counter - if you have a target you’re more likely to change your behaviours to hit your daily steps goal.

If you even managed to get a couple of these extra walks into your day, you’ll be creating a beneficial habit that will give you all kinds of physical and mental benefits, not to mention burn thousands of extra calories per year.

Weight Loss is a Long Term Project

The reality is you can’t diet for a weekend and reach your goal weight - you make a commitment to the task and follow it through. If we take the approach of ‘marginal gains’ to weight loss, it’s almost always more successful.

Marginal gains is an approach that sees you make small, incremental changes across lots of aspects of a task. What this means is that rather than making aggressive changes in one aspect, you can make more subtle changes across a series of areas. Weight loss is a key one - I’ll show you how in practice…

Say you have a target of staying in a 500 calorie per day deficit, you could do this from diet alone. You could also train extra hard to achieve this (not a great idea).

Another way is you could diet less aggressively, say a 300 calorie deficit and make up the other 200 calories with a daily walk (you’d have to monitor this though, as not all 30 minute walks are the same). If you like your food and struggle with dietary discipline, you have to find other ways to burn the calories and walking could be the idea way.

Is Walking for Weight Loss Possible?

Of course! It’s not a miracle approach, it’s basic maths - you have to burn more calories than you consume. Walking can of course help you achieve this, but you have to keep and eye on your food intake - you’d have to do a LOT of walking and training if your diet reads like the local takeaway menu!

Of course, for any weight loss and training help get in touch with the team at AdMac Fitness here.

AdMac Online Training... COMING SOON!

Today I have an announcement for you - I’m putting together an online training package that means you’ll be able to benefit from the AdMac Fitness methods no matter where you are in the world!

The standard online training offering is really, really poor so I’m going to take much of what I’ve learned, much of what we’ve created here at AdMac Fitness and put it into an online product, meaning you’ll be able to get a flavour at what we do here.

You’ll be able to use the same training methods, engage with diet plans and nutritional support and have me guide you through the process.

If you’ve seen our success stories, you’ll know we’re pretty good at what we do - click on each image to scroll through the gallery of a few successful body transformations…

Having been in the fitness industry for so long, I know what works and what doesn’t. I’ve worked with people from all walks of life, often with huge work, family, relationship and travel commitments. The beauty of this in-person experience means that the programme I’m designing will accommodate for that. Whether you’re busy or have all the time in the world, this programme will work for you.

The package will include a training programme, nutritional support and online access to me for check ins, accountability and additional advice. I’m going to be there to guide you through the process.

As part of the AdMac Fitness family you’ll benefit from a supportive Facebook community, so even if you don’t train in the facility you can still be part of what we’ve created here at the studio. You’ll be helped, motivated, supported and ultimately, successful.

The AdMac Online Personal Training package will be the most thorough, high-quality online package there is. We’ve done the market research, we’ve see what’s missing and we’re going to fill that gap!

We have a habit here of changing lives for the better, so why not see for yourself what AdMac Fitness online personal training can do for you and your health!

If you’re interested, send us a message here… admacfitness@gmail.com.

Mental Toughness is Built, Not Born

When it comes to making serious changes in lifestyle, things are easier said than done. Anyone knows how easily new years resolutions are broken and how many people say they’re going to lose weight, get fit and never manage it. There’s a million and one reasons for this, but one of the main ones is this - people lack the mental toughness to stay disciplined.

The reality is that the only real way to build mental toughness is to do progressively harder things. To build up a bank experiences that prove to you that ‘yes’, you can do something.

Once you have proof that something can be done, it’s amazing how much easier it is the second time around. I’ll give you a famous example - the four minute mile. What people think of as a physical challenge, was actually a mental challenge that was the result of setbacks over the years. The four minutes was the culmination of years of physical training and developing a mental toughness rarely found in others.

Mental Toughness Over 4 Minutes

For years, the four minute mile was an elusive goal. Many people believed that it wasn’t possible, that the human body simply wasn't capable at propelling itself at that speed for so long. Many had tried, but every single one of them had failed. The best athletes in the world at the time had come close, but didn’t quite make it.

Until 6th May, 1954.

Roger Bannister had tried unsuccessfully to break the four minute mile barrier, but today was going to be different.

Weather conditions were awful at the start of the day - windy and rainy. He could have pulled out, but thankfully before the race started conditions made a turn for the better. The wind dropped and the rain stopped.

Under starters orders, the race set off at a solid pace at the Iffley Road Track at Oxford University.

He powered on, helped by the pacemakers and fellow competitors. As the distance covered grew, everyone in the stadium knew it would be close - Bannister had gotten close plenty of times before, but 1/100th of a second over was a failure. It was all or nothing.

As he approached the finish line of the attempt, everyone knew it was going to be so, so tight. The clocked ticked and as he crossed the finish line, there was the inevitable delay to ratify the time, until the stadium announcer confirmed…

3 minutes, 59.4 seconds. A new world record.

Bannister had done it, he’d become the first man to run a mile in under four minutes. He’d achieved what many believed was physically impossible.

The Mental Toughness Aspect

Was Bannister any fitter that day than he was previously? Possibly, but it’s unlikely he’d have been that much fitter. He was an elite athlete, in constant training towards his goal. He’d suffered setbacks plenty of times - in competition and training, he’d tried to run the mile in 4 minutes but failed.

And still he carried on.

Eventually, he achieved his goal. It was a ground-breaking moment, but what interests me most is what happened afterwards….

Since the 4 minute mile was broken, a further 1400 athletes have managed to accomplish it. Within weeks of the achievement, it was broken again by Bannister and the Australian John Landy in the same race - the first time that had ever happened!

Something that was seen as impossible by experts at the time was achieved. Once those floodgates were open, dozens more followed suit within months. They saw it was possible, their psychology changed and they performances changed as a result.

The current record is 3.43.13, held by Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco - nearly SEVENTEEN seconds faster than the original 4 minute mile!

So What’s Your Point?

You can take these lessons and apply them to your own life. Think of a goal you’ve never thought you could achieve - it could be a dream body, it could be running a marathon or something else.

Ask yourself what’s holding you back? Can we at AdMac Fitness help? Get in touch and let’s see if we can help you achieve the fitness and physique goals that have help you back for so long….

+44 7921465108 and admacfitness@gmail.com

How We Train at AdMac Fitness

What does your typical workout look like? A gentle cardio warm up? A jog on the treadmill? A predicable walk around the gym, using the weights machines you like? Finish off with a few ab exercises and (if you remember) a couple of basic stretches?

That’s like most people. Unfortunately, most people don’t really get any results.

Not AdMac Fitness members though. We do things differently to other gyms. We do things to get results.

How we train at AdMac Fitness is based in research, in science, in years of experience. We know what we need to do in order to improve the fitness of our members and get the results they pay us for. If you join us, you’re joining a collective of people who aren’t just wanting to be fitter – they’re working towards it. We’re here to plot the course and set the workouts for the members to work through.

So here’s a little peak behind the curtain at AdMac Fitness, showing you how we train….

 Our Private Personal Training Studio Helps….

First of all, we have the benefit of training people in our private personal training studio in Bow, East London. That means we know what kit we have and how to get the most out of it. In addition to that, we don’t have to wait around for other members to finish using kit. We can use the equipment when we need it.

There’s no wasted space. No unnecessary equipment. If we have it, it’s because we need it and use it. So will you.

Warm Up

Our warm ups aren’t just a few minutes of cardio and straight into the meat of the workout. It’s a thorough ‘movement prep’ sequence, one that warms the muscles, joints and connective tissues. It is designed to wake up the body, improve the range of movement and get the body used to the techniques that it will be performing in the workout itself. 

A proper warm up is the first difference between a basic gym session and a personal training session coached by an experienced personal trainer.

Strength Training

At AdMac Fitness we base our weight training on big, multi-joint exercises known as compound exercises. These are functionally important because they are movements we need to perform in day to day life – squats, pushes, pulls etc. They also train a lot of muscle in one go, so they’re efficient.

Beyond the efficiency of the movements, they’re also versatile. We can manipulate movements, weights, reps, rest periods, sequencing and pairings to dramatically change the outcome of a workout. This is where the skill of a professional personal trainer comes in to elevate a workout far beyond what most people can do in a gym themselves.

Cardio Training

 If you think cardio is spending hours on a treadmill, bike or rower then you misunderstand what cardio is and what it can be. At AdMac Fitness we can offer those things, or instead we can offer a far more functional and versatile version of cardiovascular exercise. 

Ask our members what they do for cardio and they’ll tell you that they use kettlebells, barbells, ropes and balls at high speed, high intensity and for a lot of reps. They’ll raise their heart rate, they’ll sweat, they’ll improve their cardio fitness and they’ll do it in a fun way, without having to stare at a blank wall for ages whilst they do their running.

Stretching

Cooling down after a workout is important – it’s where your recovery starts ahead of the next session. At AdMac Fitness we pride ourselves on making sure that every workout is a great one and that when you leave us after your session, you’ve been thoroughly stretched out and can start your recovery.

We don’t overlook any aspect of fitness, especially recovery. We’re not doing things by halves.

Want to Join Us at AdMac Fitness?

If you’re intreagued by what you’ve read here and fancy trying a new way of training, one that guarantees results, come along and see us at AdMac Fitness. No more sharing equipment with thousand of other members. No more guesswork in your training. No more wasted sessions where you don’t make any progress.

Come down to AdMc Fitness in Bow, East London and start being trained by professional personal trainers. You’ll never look back – it’ll be the best thing you’ve ever done foryour health and fitness.

Contact us here or on 07921465108 and let us help you be the fittest you’ve ever been, using our tried and trusted methods.

More Training or More Sleep?

Decisions, decisions…

Picture the scene. It’s early morning and the alarm goes off. It has woken you from a DEEP sleep. You struggle to open your eyes. When you do, you see it’s dark outside.

The bed is so warm. So comfortable.

And you’re tired.

The kind of tired that makes your eyes sting. You don’t want to be up at this time. You don’t need to be up at this time.

But you promised yourself you’d get up to exercise early, before work.

What do you do? Do you drag your tired, weary body out of bed, or do you fall back to sleep, waking up at a more reasonable time and catching some extra sleep?

It’s a question that people in fitness circles have argued over for years - more training, or more sleep? Which is better?

The reality is it’s impossible to answer with any real accuracy. Tiredness is impossible to quantify - what some people see as exhaustion, others see as a little fatigue. We’re all different.

What we can do though, is give some independent guidance around the question, to help you to decide whether or not you need more training or more sleep. They’re both absolutely vital to health and performance, so it’s not as if one should take precedent all of the time.

Training is important. Really important in fact - it’s one of the foundation stones of great health. What that means is that we have to find time to exercise if we want to achieve true health and fitness. Occasionally, that’ll mean we have to train when we’re tired, but when is it appropriate to train when tired?

To start with, ask yourself two questions…

1. How much training time do you have available?

2. How much training have you done recently?

If you don’t have time to train other than the early morning you’ve promised yourself (but don’t fancy), it will probably have to be a case of get up, get to the gym and get on with it. You may not train your hardest, but at least you’ll have done something.

If you’ve got time later in the day or week, roll over and go back to sleep.

The second question helps to inform your decision too. If you’ve trained hard recently, you’ve managed your sessions, you’ve seen your PT, you’ve attended group classes etc, you could probably do with the extra rest and recovery. You may be so tired because your body is telling you to get some rest!

Next up are the questions around recovery…

1. Have you been sleeping well recently?

2. What has your diet been like?

If you’ve been sleeping well recently and this tiredness is a one-off, you can probably get away with training and catch up with the sleep later on. If you’re persistently tired, you should probably start looking after yourself more and protecting your sleep a little better.

Regarding your diet, if you’ve been eating well, drinking plenty of water and generally looking after yourself, you have probably built up enough in the way of immune system protection to get away with pushing yourself on occasion. If your diet has been poor and you’ve been sleeping badly, address these two problems before you start training hard whilst tired.

Exercise and Sleep are Like Yin and Yang

Over the last few years, the ‘hustle’ mentality has attached a certain kudos to working hard and sticking to a punishing schedule. The problem is with it though is if you work too hard and don’t recover enough, you’re in big trouble. You don’t recover properly from training or work. Your sleep is affected, your immunity is affected, your mental health suffers.

We need balance. Work hard, train hard and recover properly. There’s nothing wrong with being tough on yourself, as long as you reward yourself too.

We have to start attaching more importance to sleep. This article shows how sleep deprived Londoners are. As a personal trainer and somebody who teaches health, this concerns me. We absolutely have to do more to protect our sleep.

Sleep underpins motivation to train, decision making around food, our ability to recover from exercise, our mental health and a whole host of other issues, so forget the whole ‘you can sleep when you’re dead’ rubbish - you HAVE to sleep.

Train hard, recover well. It’s pretty simple isn’t it?

More Training or More Sleep? Final Thoughts…

Training and sleep are of qual importance. You can’t neglect one in favour of the other for too long otherwsise your health will suffer.

There’ll be occasions when you’ll need to drag yourself out of bed to train when you’re tired, but be sensible - don’t try to do too much and make sure you catch up with your sleep as soon as you can.

That being said, don’t make a habit of training when you’re tired. Prioritise your rest and recovery. Make it important to you and your physical and mental health will benefit enormously.

If you need any help and guidance with anything health and fitness related, don’t hesitate to contact us. AdMac fitness is Bow’s best personal training studio, run by people passionate about helping you to achieve your health and fitness goals.

How to Make the Christmas Calories Work FOR You, Not AGAINST You...

When you think of Christmas, there’s a pretty good chance that one of the first things that’ll come into your head is food - lots of it. Pigs in blankets, Christmas dinners, huge desserts, plenty of booze. Whether you like it or not, the Festive period is synonymous with weight gain.

But does that need to be the case?

As your friendly neighbourhood Personal Trainer, I’m bringing good news. The answer is no, it doesn’t have to be like that. You don’t have to gain 10lbs over Christmas if you know what you’re doing. It’s a bit like a holiday - you only gain weight if you let yourself do so!

With a little bit of pre-planning, the excess calories around Christmas time can be used to work for you, not against you.

Let me tell you how…

Essentially, food is fuel. Of course it’s more than that to us, it’s pleasurable, it’s sociable, it can be a comforter and a whole load of other things. Fundamentally though, it’s fuel. It provides our body with the energy to perform all of the essential tasks it needs to in order to keep you alive.

You can make use of this extra fuel by increasing your training - both the volume of it and the intensity. The extra food you’ll have on board is the perfect excuse to try a high volume training plan, or to add in an extra session to your week. Our Group Exercise Classes at AdMac Fitness are the perfect way to put those extra calories to use!

An increase in calories will allow you to work harder and recover quicker than normal, so you’ve got the green light to push harder in your workouts. Join our group exercise classes and we’ll make sure you work harder - bye bye, Christmas food guilt!

Whether you decide to put your extra calories to good use with hard cardio work, high volume strength work or a mixture of the above, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you are consistent. Remember calories in/calories out. If you don’t use the extra energy, you’ll gain weight.

Avoiding Weight Gain When You Can’t Increase Exercise Volume

Not everyone will have the spare time to increase the amount of exercise they do over Christmas, so we have to have another strategy. Worry not - I’ve got two for you!

Generally speaking, at AdMac Fitness I teach two types of dieting, Counting Your Macros (Calorie Counting) and Intermittent Fasting (IF). Both are really effective and I’m going to show you how to use either one in the context of Christmas parties, so you’ll know what you need to do in order to enjoy yourself at parties without suffering unwanted weight gain.

The example…

You’ve got a Christmas party tomorrow evening. It’s a meal out, followed by drinks. You’ve already paid for it, so you don’t want to miss it. You know there’s going to be a lot of calories consumed, but you’ve done so well recently and don’t want to lose your progress now!

Here’s how to avoid the weight gain by using one of the two methods I teach…

Calorie Counting

This approach involves eating a specific number of calories to ensure steady weight gain. It’s more involved than other forms of dieting, but it’s very accurate and some people like the control element of it. It’s usually supported via apps such as My Fitness Pal.

Step 1: Plan ahead. The party is tomorrow evening, so you’ve got time on your hands. Prepare your meals ahead and do it like this. Aim to keep the vast bulk of your calories free for the evening. For example, if you’re allowed 1800, try to have a 300 calorie breakfast, a 400 calorie lunch and save the 1100 for the evening.

Step 2: Exercise - buy the extra calories. If you can, exercise the night before the party AND the day of the party. Aim for higher calorie-burning sessions such as cardio or HIIT workouts. Not only will you burn calories, you’ll elevate your metabolism for a few hours afterwards, meaning you’ll burn more calories post-workout.

Step 3: Choose wisely. The lowest calorie drinks tend to be clear sprits with a diet mixer. Think gin and slimline tonic, or vodka with a diet mixer. You can save literally hundreds of calories drinking these all night.

Step 4: Recover. Get back on plan the following day. Don’t fuel a hangover with KFC or McDonalds. Get up, move your body, eat healthy foods to replenish nutrients.

Intermittent Fasting

This approach involves going for extended periods without eating - usually between 16-18 hours, then you consume calories in a smaller ‘eating window’. Research shows lots of health benefits to fasting including reduced digestive stress, improved hormonal regulation and better appetite control.

Step 1: Plan your eating window. If you know the party starts at 7, make adjustments the day before so you know when you’ll be eating. Some people skip one meal and exercise, others skip two and only eat once per day. Whichever you do, plan your window in line with when you’ll be eating.

Step 2: Exercise. Just like the example before, make sure you raise your metabolism with exercise beforehand - ideally the night before the party and the day of the party. Just don’t go too crazy - fasted training is a lot harder than training when you’re fed!

Step 3: Choose your drinks wisely, as above!

Step 4: If you’re truly fasting, you won’t be ‘allowed’ to eat, so bear that in mind. If you really want to eat the day after the party, opt for very light foods if you can and make sure you drink a lot of fluids throughout the day.

Don’t Try to Fight Christmas

Unless you’ve got the willpower of a monk, you aren’t going to be able to ignore the tempting food and drink all throughout the Christmas period. Nor should you either - it’s a time to be enjoyed!

Just employ these strategies and you’ll be able to join in all of the festive fun and celebrations without gaining a load of weight you’ll struggle to shift afterwards. There’s no need to let all of your hard work go to waste for the sake of a few parties.

Need Some Fitness Help this Yuletide?

At AdMac Fitness we can provide you with an amazing training experience, helping you to go through Christmas without worrying about weight gain. Maybe you’ve always wanted to get fit, or perhaps you don't want to leave your fitness plans to be a New Year cliche.

Get in touch with us on 07921465108 or email at admacfitness@gmail.com. We’ll make this your fittest Christmas ever - you can even carry on with the food! We’ll show you how!

Should I Pay Attention to my Step Count?

How Important is Hitting 10,000 Steps Per Day?

Ever since Dr Yoshiro Hatano invented the pedometer in 1965, how many steps per day you walk has been a measure of your activity level. The question is though, should I pay attention to my step count?

Dr Hatano said that the average person should aim for 10,000 steps per day. Although at the time it wasn’t especially based in science, it’s a recommendation that has stood the test of time – there’s a good chance your smart phone will have a step counter built into it. It’ll give you a daily target of… 10,000 steps!

A little maths will put 10,000 steps into perspective…

According to a study by the Arizona State University, the average adult male stride length is 30 inches and the average female stride length is 26.4. Let’s split the difference and say it’s 28 inches…

28 x 2.54 (centimetres per inch) = 71cm

71 x 10,000 = 711,200 cm

711,200/100 (to give us the figure in metres) = 7.112km

7.1km = 4.4 miles

So we should be aiming for around 4.4 miles of walking per day. Sounds a lot, but let’s do some further maths…

The average walking pace is just over 3 miles per hour, so you’d need to be on your feet and walking for an hour and a half. Of course this doesn’t mean you have to accumulate all of your steps in one go – you could walk to and from work, you could walk on your lunch break, you could even walk when you get in from work.

The point is to not be sedentary throughout your day.

A good workout will also be enough activity to hit your activity target.

Is 10,000 Steps a Magic Number?

No, absolutely not. But what it is, is a number that is sufficiently high enough that you can’t reach just by lounging around all day. You’ve got to be up and about, unless you just tie your step counter to the dog, but then who does that benefit?!

There’s plenty of benefits to being up and about, walking around that don’t have an immediate or obvious effect…. 

·      Being on your feet activates postural muscles that are weakened with prolonged sitting.

·      Movement improves circulation and stimulates blood flow.

·      Activity has been shown to improve focus and concentration.

·      Walking at lunch time reduces afternoon energy slumps.

These are just a few of the benefits of regular walking, not to mention it’s the simplest form of exercise there is. Just get your shoes on and get going. You don’t need to plan much, you don’t need equipment, a warm up or a psychological pep talk to convince yourself you’ve got it in you! It’s just walking…

But What if I Don’t Hit 10,000 Steps?

 Here’s the thing… 10,000 steps isn’t a walking target. It’s an activity target…

 Eh?

Yeah, it’s a measure of activity. The reason it was described as a walking target was because it was a marketing tactic for a pedometer, so it made sense to get people interested in a walking target. 

If you hit say, 7,000 steps but still get a great workout in, you’ll have smashed your activity target. You shouldn’t be sacrificing the quality of a workout just to make sure you manage 10,000 steps. Think about it as active time on your feet.

It’s part of the reason a workout at AdMac fitness is structured the way it is. Unlike most commercial gyms where there’s a lot of seated equipment, that’s not really how we train. We’re up on our feet, we’re squatting, deadlifting, sprinting, pulling and pushing. In the gym, we’re not counting steps, but you can be sure in an AdMac fitness workout you’re 100% guaranteed to hit your activity target, irrespective of steps!

The message is simple – pay attention to your steps, but use it as a measure of your overall activity, not just how much walking you’ve done. If you’re not training that day, make sure you hit 10,000 steps. If you are training that day, don’t worry if you don’t hit the 10,000, just work hard in your session!

If you’d like any more help with your nutrition and fitness, contact us on 07921465108 or email us on admacfitness@gmail.com.

Five Easy Ways to Eat More Vegetables

We all know we should eat more vegetables – you don’t need a degree in nutrition to understand that. Despite that, a lot of us don’t get anywhere near enough vegetables into our diet.

Here’s five easy ways to eat more vegetables. Practical advice that won’t make it seem like a chore to get vegetables into your diet.

Add vegetables to smoothies

Even if you don’t like the taste of vegetables, throwing them in a smoothie is a perfect solution because it completely masks the taste of them. They’ll be easily hidden amongst the other ingredients that you put into the mix.

Vegetables such as carrots, spinach, cucumbers and beetroot can add amazing colour to a smoothie without dominating the flavour of the whole drink. They dramatically boost the nutrient profile, adding all kinds of vitamins, minerals and fibre to the smoothie. It’s a quick and easy way to up your vegetable intake.

You can make your own smoothies in seconds, so there’s no excuse. Pick up a blender and you can make healthy food in literally seconds!

Blender Suggestion!

Buy pre-prepared vegetables

A lot of people like the taste of vegetables, but they can’t face the faff of having to wash them, peel them, chop them, prep them etc. That’s understandable (lazy too, but whatever!)

If you fall into this category then pick up some prepared vegetables. Most supermarkets will sell pre-cut veg, some even sell packets with a mixture of vegetables ready prepared for a dish – you can get a stir fry pack of pre-prepared vegetables, which are washed, chopped and ready to throw into the wok. I’ve also a casserole pack where the veg is ready to add to the pot.

Buy a Salad for Lunch

One of the great things about living here in London is that we are literally surrounded by food and places to eat. You don’t have to travel far in any direction to get yourself some good quality food.

Take advantage of the great cafes and delis around us and pick up a salad from them for your lunch. It’ll be freshly-made, packed with all the veg you want and will taste great. Additionally, you haven’t had to do any of the work on it either so you’ll benefit twice – you’ll eat great food and wouldn’t have to do any of the prep work!

Use a Meal Prep Service

The purpose of this article is to give you easy ways to eat more vegetables. The easiest of all (but the most expensive, admittedly) is to use a meal prep service. Essentially you pick from their menu and they will prepare the food for you, then deliver it to your home.

The benefits are that the meal options are usually really good, they’re portion and calorie controlled and they’re also usually really vegetable heavy, which allows them to maintain volume of food whilst keeping calories low. You can also specifically pick the vegetable-heavy options so you can get more vegetables into your diet.

Identify the ‘Easy’ Vegetable Intakes

If you broaden your horizons on vegetables you’re likely to spot new ideas. Think of it like this – some ready meals will contain 1-2 portions of vegetables. Your standard Heinz baked beans are a vegetable. Lots of pre-prepared soups will count as a portion of vegetables.

If you are a pretty lazy or even time-pressured cook, look for the easy wins such as those. They are ways of adding to your vegetable intake without having to go through the process of preparing and cooking them. If you’re not a big fan of vegetables in their ‘normal’ forms then these easy wins could be perfect for you. 

Five Easy Ways to Eat More Vegetables: Concluded

We could all do with eating more vegetables, but it shouldn’t be the source of a lot of stress. Take these tips and use them in your daily food planning and you’ll be eating more vegetables in no time.

 If you’d like any more help with your nutrition and fitness, contact us on 07921465108 or email us on admacfitness@gmail.com.

Press Ups: An Underrated Exercise

There are certain things in life that are great, but you just take them for granted because they’ve been around for so long that you’ve gotten used to them. Think of a hot shower after a cold day – it’s nice, but you’d be lying if you said you truly appreciated it, simply because it’s ‘normal’ now.

Press ups are a similar thing.

Press ups have been around for so long, are so accessible, so simple to do that we’ve forgotten just how useful they are. Without getting too technical about the nuances of why press ups may be the best chest exercise there is, let me just go through a few of the reasons why I love press ups so much and why they feature in so many of my personal training client programmes….

Press Ups are so versatile….

When you think of a press up, you’ll think of the standard version where you are balanced on your toes at one end, your palms at the other and keeping your back straight, you lower yourself to the floor and push yourself up. That’s a great exercise, but there’s so much more you can do with them. You can elevate your feet to make them harder. You can put your hands on blocks to increase the range of movement at the shoulder. You can add weight to your back to increase the weight you are lifting, you can do a plyometric press up, you can do an Atomic press up with a TRX. You’re limited by your capability, not the variety.

Press Ups are Scalable…

Whether you’re a complete beginner only capable of performing press ups from your knees, or you are a calisthenics pro who can perform press ups with all kinds of levels of difficulty, there is always a benefit to be had.

From a technical point of view they’re a simple movement to learn and the benefits are huge. As an exercise that has quite a low metabolic cost (doesn’t require absolute gut-wrenching effort), they’re suitable for people of all levels of fitness. When you’re more advanced, there’s a range of progressions. When you’re an absolute machine, there’s still ways you can make a push up a worthwhile exercise in your programme. As a personal trainer, it’s a really useful exercise to programme. Our current client leader is a guy called Raf and his best in the studio is 39. Not bad!

Press Ups Require Little/No Equipment…

When I’m expecting personal training clients to do accessory training in their own time, an exercise like a press up can be perfect. If you are the kind of person who trains at home, in the park or a really crowded gym, any exercise that can be performed without the need for a tonne of extra kit is really useful. All you need is a floor (and there’s plenty of that around) and enough space to lie down and you can do all the press ups you want (or I tell you to do!)

Press Ups Are Great for Shoulder Health…

OK, I’m going to get a tiny bit technical here. Your shoulder blades are called your scapular bones. In many chest exercises, the scapular are ‘pinned’ and unable to move properly (think bench press, flyes, incline presses etc). This is fine on occasion, but if all the exercises you do pin the scapular then you could be storing up shoulder trouble down the line. With a press up you allow the scapular to move freely and keep a full range of motion. This can help your shoulders regain the movement they should have and keep them strong, healthy and robust for the long term.

Press Ups can be Paired Easily…

As a personal trainer I’m thinking about movement patterns rather than just ‘exercises’, so by adding press ups to training programmes I’m including an upper body push that doesn’t exhaust the client, allowing me to safely and effectively pair them with another exercise in a superset, or as part of an exercise complex. These serve to burn more calories, illicit a bigger training response and see my personal training clients improve their fitness, build muscle, burn more calories and make general progress much more quickly.

Press Ups Train a lot of Muscles…

Perhaps unfairly, press ups are considered a chest exercise because the main muscles

trained are the pectorals. That’s a bit misleading though, because they are so much more than a standard chest exercise. With a press up you are training the chest, the shoulders, the triceps and the forearms. You are engaging your core muscles to keep your back straight throughout the movement. In addition, the erector spinae muscles keep the back locked further in place and the quadriceps muscles at the front of the thighs keep your legs rigid and prevent collapse. Yes, press ups train the chest, but they also train other muscles too.

Press Ups: Concluded

The humble press up is an exercise that is so simple and easily ignored. Not here at AdMac Fitness – we believe in effective training methods, not fads and gimmicks. We don’t select exercises because they look cool or would make great Instagram content, we select exercises because they make our personal training clients fitter, stronger and healthier.

Why not come down to our private personal training studio in Bow, East London to see how we can help you? Contact us on 07921465108 to book a no obligation consultation.

Whether to use scales

Using the scales as a marker of progress isn’t for everyone. It can be a great tool for some people and we do use it in the studio for a lot of clients. However, if after discussions with a client it seems as though they would get fixated on the scales as the ONLY marker for progress OR if they have experienced stress in the past from using scales then we would chose not to use them. Using them alongside photos, strength markers, food/calorie tracking. daily activity tracking can be really effective if its understood that the scales may stay the same (or sometimes go up) but we are still heading in the right direction based on the other markers.

If you are interested in hearing more about how we can help you with your goals, feel free to call AdMac for a chat on 07921465108.

AdMac Fitness has expanded

We are now a team of three - consisting of AdMac and the fantastic female trainers Marta and Larrie. We are focussed on bringing high quality personal training, putting the clients’ needs first using strength training to help lose body fat, strengthen joints and improve confidence.

If you are at all interested in seeing what we do please contact AdMac on admacfitness@gmail.com to book in a trial session.

We are based opposite Bow Church DLR, 5 minutes walk from Bow Road station.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Where to start with bodyweight strength/skill acquisition.

This is hugely dependent on your level of fitness, how often you train and where this lies in your fitness priorities.

However, if you are interested in learning some bodyweight strength exercises but dont know where to start my advice would be to start on one skill for 2-4 months. I made the mistake of trying to learn too many exercises at the same time and progress was slow with a lot of them.

If you train 4-5 times a week, a good place to start would be to complete 4 sets 3 times a week. (If you train less you could start with just twice a week.) Each week you can add a set on per workout until you are up to 24-30 total sets per week. 

As you get stronger, although you are adding more sets per workout, you'll find each set less taxing and therefore will be able to handle more volume. After 2-4 months, or if you are able to complete the skill, you can decrease the sets to just 'maintain' the strengrh it requires to complete the skill and then use the same philisophy to work on a new skill.