Returning to Training After Lockdown - How to do it Sensibly

Following on from our nutrition series, we’re now going into a training series. This is the first article and it’s about returning to training after lockdown and how to do it sensibly…

After more than three months of lockdown, the return to the gym is getting closer. Getting back to gym training is going to be a big adjustment. If you train in a commercial gym, make your peace now with the fact that it’s going to be busy, equipment will be hard to come by and you’ll probably have to wait around for the kit you want to use!

Then there’s the physical aspect…

Even if you’ve been exercising regularly throughout lockdown, you’ll have done well to have maintained the intensity and the loads that you would normally be lifting in the gym. That means the reality of how you’ll feel when you start training again will be a bit of a shock!

This isn’t just a ‘Christmas break’ or a ‘holiday break’ from the gym - it’s probably closer to FOUR MONTHS! You won’t be back to square one, but the likelihood is that you’ll certainly feel like it!

How to Return to Training

At AdMac Fitness we’re int he business on making you fitter and stronger - not injuring you. That means we do things the right way, at the right time and with the right intensity. As professional personal trainers, we know how important that is - we don’t want our members to be injured most of the time. It’s not good for us or them!

Here’s our advice…

You’ve got to take your time when it comes to getting back into training. By taking your time I don’t mean going slow and not pushing yourself, but you certainly shouldn’t be trying to lift what you used to lift before lockdown. Thanks to a principle of training known as ‘reversibility’, your body will have lost strength, you’ll have lost muscle tissue, your connective tissues (ligaments and tendons) will have stiffened slightly and your physical capabilities will have dropped.

The rate of muscle and strength loss is individualised, but it would have happened. Bear that in mind when you start loading a bar up with weight you were lifting before lockdown! Understand that you’re FAR better off easing back in, giving your body some time to adapt and then pushing on from there.

The good news is, it won’t stay like that forever. Your body will bounce back relatively quickly.

In the same way that muscle atrophies (breaks down), the process of resistance training creates hypertrophy (muscle growth). There are different mechanisms by which this occurs, but essentially progressive resistance is fundamental to tissue change and adaption.

We know from research in the area that resistance training benefits not just the muscles, but the connective tissues (in particular the tendons) too. Despite this, we have to exercise with caution around load when we return to training. I’ll explain why in the next section….

Load and Volume in Training

As we’ve discussed before, load and volume are completely different things. The load is the weight you lift - the volume is how much you lift.

The reason this is particularly important when you return to training is because your body tissues adapt at different rates. Muscle tissue has an excellent blood supply, an elastic tissue type and a number of highly-responsive contractile units. Adaptions can occur very quickly (within days), whereas ligaments and tendons have a poor blood supply and take longer to adapt.

Research shows that tendons in particular will take weeks/months rather than days to adapt to load, so the best advice you can follow in the first couple of months is to lift light-medium weights, but increase the volume. This will help to build a lot of muscle tissue, will improve strength and will give the connective tissues the time they need to adapt to lifting heavy loads again.

To use a building analogy, lifting heavy loads with tissues that aren’t designed for it is like building a sky scraper on jelly - it’s going to come crashing down!

As tempted as you are to lift heavy right from the start, be sensible - you don’t want to be the fittest person in the physio room.

After 6 weeks or so, you’ll be able to lift heavy again. You’ll be back to where you were in no time, but you have to be patient, be safe and do things the right way. There’s only one person who loses out if you overdo it and that’s you. You’ve already had your training adapted for a few months - a few more weeks won’t hurt! Follow the advice in the article and make your return to training a safe and effective one.

Let AdMac Guide You Back to Fitness

As professional personal trainers, it’s our job to help you exercise safely and effectively. We also work out of our private studio in Bow, East London. We can operate in a safe, socially-distanced way and assure you that our standards of hygiene and cleanliness are second to none.

If you want to let us guide you back to full fitness in the best way possible, contact us on 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!

Diets of the Nations with the Longest Life Expectancy - What We Can Learn...

In the final instalment of our nutrition blog series, we’re going to assess the commonalities of the diets of the longest living nations and see what we can learn from them.

It is well established now that our nutrition is a key aspect of overall health and is a major risk factor when it comes to heart disease, cancers and metabolic diseases such as diabetes. It stands to reason then that diets are key driver of health outcome measures.

Regional diets have been lauded for some time, with the ‘Mediterranean Diet’ held in high esteem by many. Since the last 90’s attention has turned to Japan and the far eastern diets. When you compare the two (Mediterranean and Far Eastern) diets, there appears to be a clear winner in terms of life expectancy.

According to Worldometers.info, four of the top five nations in terms of longevity are in the far east…

When 80% of the longest living people in the world are from a particular corner of the globe, there must be a commonality there. Whether this is genetics, culture, cuisine etc isn’t immediately clear, so you have to investigate it further - are people from the far east less likely to suffer the ill-effects of poor nutritional choices, ruling out their diet as a key reason for longevity?

The answer is no, they’re just as likely to suffer from poor choices as westerners. Research conducted in 2008 compared American and Japanese people and concluded that the risk of obesity, diabetes and related co-morbidities is the same between the two races.

Further evidence that there is no genetic resistance to lifestyle diseases that naturally occur with the Asian population can be found in this research from the OECD, showing that although the Japanese have made excellent strides in reducing Cardiovascular disease, there are high incidences of end stage kidney disease and circulatory diseases (such as high blood pressure) with their figure suggesting they have a 39% higher than average mortality rate from such disorders.

Now we know that Japanese people aren’t ‘immune’ to the effects of poor lifestyle choices, we can investigate further the nature of their diets and what we can learn from them.

Far Eastern Diets

The commonalities between the far eastern diets are clear - even across the various different cuisines, there are some very obvious similarities between the make up of dishes, the cooking processes, seasonings and the variety of fruit, vegetable and protein sources used.

Here are some of the major commonalities in far eastern cuisine…

Lower calorie cooking methods

Across the major cuisines in the region, there is a lot of steaming, boiling and simmering. Other foods such as fish and vegetables are eaten raw or very lightly cooked. It’s known that heavy cooking and high temperatures can reduce nutrient density of foods, so where possible switching to a healthier cooking method will have significant advantages.

Seasonality and Variety

The variety of ingredients across the regional cuisines is enormous. Seasonal vegetables, a huge variety of seafoods, seaweeds, meats, mushrooms, rice, tubers, legumes, fruit, spices, seasonings and fermented foods are eaten by those in the far east. Eating a wide variety of nutrient-dense, lightly-cooked foods in season is said to improve gut flora and that is known to improve various overall health markets.

Portion Size

The interesting point with far eastern cuisine is that dishes tend to be much smaller than we’re conditioned to eat in the west and meals are often started with a soup or broth, which helps to fill the stomach and reduce the need for larger portions. This is followed with a mixed meal of carbohydrates, fibre and protein.

‘Clean’ Carbohydrates

Rice is the dominant carbohydrate in far eastern cuisine, which is important because it is filling yet easily digestible. It’s less associated with allergies than many grain-based alternatives, is largely unprocessed and has a good nutrient profile. It’s also easy to cook in a healthy way, with steaming, boiling and simmering all used.

Seasonings

In the far east the seasonings are much lower in calories than those we have in the west. Common seasonings include soy sauce, spices, miso, sake, rice wine vinegar, mirin, wasabi, pickling and sauces made with fermented foods. These are significantly lower in calories than the oil-based dressings, sauces and gravies we use in the west.

Snacking

Most of the cultures in the far east don’t have the same snacking habits that we have in the west. Compared to western diets, this will save hundreds of calories per day, which is a lot of saved weight.

What can we Learn from Far Eastern Diets?

There’s an awful lot that we can learn from the food cultures of the far east. Whilst I’m not suggesting that everyone should start living off sushi and tofu, there are lessons to be learned. By adopting a few of the principles for 80-90% of the time, you can enjoy a few drinks and meals out with friends guilt-free!

Here’s the main takeaways (pun intended!)…

1. Cook differently - instead of frying or roasting something, perhaps pick foods that could be boiled, steamed or flash fried. The calories saved over the course of a year will be huge.

2. Eat a varied, seasonal diet - challenge yourself to try new things, to mix your foods up and experiment with new flavours. Also shop seasonally - food in season has higher vitamin and mineral density, plus it tastes better.

3. Get a grip on portion sizes - sounds so obvious, but so many of us get it wrong. Eat as much as you need to eat. Some practitioners say eat until you’re 80% full. That will help!

4. Cut the snacks down - another obvious one, but snacks are almost always highly-processed, abundant in sugar, fat and salt and rarely offer much in the way of a vitamin and mineral profile.

Far Eastern Diets - Final Thoughts

Given we know that people from the far east don’t have some magical physical make up that protects them from lifestyle diseases, we can attribute their low rates of obesity and cardiovascular disease to their diet and lifestyle. By copying the principles of their diets, we can make ourselves healthier and leaner in the process.

If you’d like some help using these principles to improve your health, contact us on 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!

Other blogs in our nutrition series…

All About Intermittent Fasting for Weight Loss…

The Ketogenic Diet - What, Why and How…

Vegan Eating - The Good, The Bad and The Realities…

An Overview of the Paleo Diet - What You Need to Know…

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

An Overview of the Paleo Diet - What You Need to Know

The fourth instalment of our nutrition blog series sees us talking about the Paleo or ‘Paleolithic’ diet. It’s a diet that grew in popularity through the early 2000’s, reaching a peak around 2012 or so. It was synonymous with CrossFit in the early days and that spun out into a wider ‘ancestral health’ movement.

It’s still popular and when done right is a very effective diet, so in the article we’ll delve a little deeper into the Paleo diet, what it is, why it’s popular, who should follow it and what the research says…

What is the Paleo Diet?

The paleo diet is an umbrella term for an eating approach that removes all processed foods. Essentially the rules are you follow a diet that the paleolithic man would have eaten. He wouldn't have access to much in the way of grains, starches (rice and potatoes), processed sugars, legumes and pasteurised dairy, so these are all out.

Typically that leaves you with meat, fish, eggs, berries and seasonal fruit and vegetables, healthy fats and raw dairy. From a drinks point of view, you’d be left with water and perhaps coconut and nut milks - caffeine, alcohol and sugary drinks would all be out.

Food quality is important too, so on the paleo diet you should stick to organic fruit and vegetables, grass fed meat, line caught fish and free range eggs. The idea is to align your eating with as natural an approach as possible. Eating unprocessed foods, in season and with little in the way of additional sauces beyond stock made from bones and vegetables is the paleo diet in a nutshell.

Paleo can be confusing…

A lot of people wrongly assume that paleo automatically means ‘low carb’, when in fact you can still eat a lot of carbs on the paleo diet.

The term paleo is more in reference to the kinds of foods you eat, not the macro split itself. In a food quality sense, it has more to do with veganism than a lot of other diets in that there are a lot of foods that are off limits because of their origin. Followers of the paleo diet aren’t just about eating as much meat as possible - it’s about eating well-raised, high welfare, grass fed meat because it has a better nutrient profile.

It’s actually possible to be a vegetarian on the paleo diet, with your protein coming from eggs, nuts, seeds and clever combining of vegetables to ensure you get a complete amino acid profile in your diet. It’s not as easy, but it’s certainly possible.

Why follow a paleo diet?

Proponents of the diet suggest that because you’ll be eating a more natural diet your body will respond accordingly, reducing inflammation, boosting immunity, reducing risk factors of cancer, cardiovascular disease, neural degeneration and the like. It stands to reason that if your diet is full of nutrient dense foods and you’re no longer consuming unhealthy, high sugar foods then you’ll be healthier.

A lot of the claims are evidence-backed too. In this 2009 study the Paleo diet was shown to improve markers of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. A study published in 2012 suggests that a paleo diet may improve digestive hormone profiles, helping to regulate hunger and appetite more effectively and control obesity in some patients.

When it comes to weight loss, no one diet is particularly better than any other - it’s a calories in versus calories out equation, but what paleo does have in its favour is it’s a diet that promotes an all-round version of health and is naturally low in the kind of foods that make you gain weight. Paleo won’t make you lose weight faster than another diet, but it may make you healthier than others.

If you are from a family with significant numbers of sufferers of diabetes, cancers, heart diseases and neurodegenerative diseases, I’d seriously consider following something like the paleo diet. Even if you’re not 100% strict, using it as a template and reducing dairy, grain and sugar intake probably wouldn’t be a bad idea.

Why is paleo so popular?

The paleo diet is popular because it’s one of the more enjoyable ways to eat and it helps you to get off sugar more easily, because it’s simply not an option. It’s almost like following an abstinence-based recovery from drugs!

A lot of early followers of the diet used this as a challenge - they did the 30 days of ‘clean’ eating, which meant for 30 days they essentially followed a paleo diet, removing all sugars, booze, coffee, tea, grains etc. A lot of people lost a lot of weight, felt great and carried on with it forever. The 28 and 30 day challenges are still popular on social media because they’re short enough to be doable, but long enough for most people to see some fantastic results.

On the paleo diet you’re not counting calories or weighing out foods - you’re eating good quality food and avoiding certain food groups. There’s also the feel-good boost of removing junk food. You’ll feel great pretty quickly when you’re not drinking alcohol and caffeine, eating processed sugars, grains and dairy. The immediate feel good is motivating for many and they’re likely to stick to it afterwards.

Who shouldn’t follow paleo?

The reality is that paleo isn’t for everyone. Some people can tolerate carbs very well and therefore there’s no need to avoid them. Additionally there’s people who are fine with dairy, can control their sugar cravings and don’t struggle with inflammation. If that’s you, carry on as you are - there’s no need to change what you’re doing! If you’re fit, lean and doing well with what you’re currently eating, stick with it!

Is paleo for you?

What the research shows is that there are benefits to the paleo diet. It may not be the answer to every nutrition question, but there’s no doubting that a diet high in vitamins, minerals, fibre, protein and good fats, whilst low in sugar, allergens, alcohol and caffeine is a good starting point.

Even if you’re not strict paleo to the letter (that’s when it’s restrictive - eating out can be a massive problem!), it’s a good starting point for a diet.

If you’d like some help following the paleo diet, contact us on 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!

Other blogs in our nutrition series…

All About Intermittent Fasting for Weight Loss…

The Ketogenic Diet - What, Why and How…

Vegan Eating - The Good, The Bad and The Realities…

Vegan Eating - The Good, The Bad and the Realities

Next up in our nutrition series is the vegan diet. It’s an approach that has grown in popularity over the last decade or so, going from a niche nutritional practice to a mainstream diet. In the last five years the number of vegans has quadrupled, with over 600,000 people in the UK now claiming to be full time vegan.

Few diets spark moral and ethical furore in the way that the vegan diet does, with supporters and opponents of the diet clashing in person, in the media and online. In this article we’re going to dig a little deeper into the diet, its effects on health and performance and finally, whether or not you should follow it.

What is the vegan diet?

The vegan diet is a diet containing no animal products in any form - even ethically raised and sourced. It differs from a ‘plant based’ diet in the sense that it removes animal products in their entirety, whereas plant based diets allow non-meat animal products such as eggs, cheese, milk and in some cases animal fats. In many ways it’s an ethical choice as much as nutritional one, but not all vegans are following the approach for moral reasons.

Is the vegan diet healthy?

This is a matter of huge debate and interest in nutritional circles, mostly because the evidence is non-conclusive in the sense that it depends on so many factors - the person eating it, their health status and their nutritional deficiencies. There are both positive and negative links to health outcomes regarding vegan diets, but unfortunately statistics and research are often twisted to back up a previously-held agenda.

The general consensus is that eating a largely plant based diet is a good thing. However, avoiding all animal products isn’t generally recommended for health because of the sheer diversity of vitamins, minerals and protein quality found in meat and fish.

A lot of people report feeling fantastic on a vegan diet, but in many cases this feeling is a relatively short-lived experience. The reason they feel better is because by being vegan they won’t be eating a lot of junk food and are likely to be eating far more fruit and vegetables. This factor alone is going to make you feel better - if you’ve gone from a diet of takeaway curries and fish and chips most nights to eating vegetables and drinking water, of course you’re going to feel better.

Despite the nutrient density of vegetables however, people following a plant-based or vegan diet are more likely to suffer from nutritional deficiencies because they are excluding food groups containing important complete amino acid profiles and associated minerals such as collagen. These can be supplemented, but it’s far more difficult when following a vegan diet.

What isn’t in doubt is that a diet high in fruit and vegetables is a good thing, given these foods are the most nutrient dense of all.

Veganism and exercise

Despite the low calorie element of a vegan diet, studies have shown that it’s easy for vegans to achieve adequate calorie intake to exercise well. What is of greater concern to an athlete is the amount of protein in the diet and in many vegans, protein intake and absorption has been shown to be significantly lower than recommended, which certainly will impact on recovery and subsequent muscle building.

Most studies suggest no clear differences in the physical performance in healthy young subjects, when they are ensuring adequate intake of all macro and micro nutrients within their diet. In fact, some studies even suggest that for endurance sports vegans seem to post higher VO2 max scores.

The effects of a vegan diet seem to impact various age brackets in different ways. There is evidence to suggest that in older populations, a vegan diet is less effective when it comes to maintaining and building muscle mass. This is particularly noteworthy, because maintenance of muscle mass as we age is a key factor in longevity, therefore it would suggest that in older populations a vegan diet is rather a bad idea.

When it comes to sporting performance the vegan documentary ‘What the Health’ has been heavily criticised for misleading the public, claiming certain athletes were vegan at the time of their sporting success, which has since been disproven. Examples include Arnold Schwarzenegger, Novak Djokovic and Lewis Hamilton. The reality is that at the top level of sports, there are very few vegans.

What is important is that you don’t look at a few examples and extrapolate too much meaning from them. For example, using a handful of successful vegan athletes as justification for going vegan yourself is nonsensical - it’s like taking up smoking because you heard of a smoker who lived to 100.

Should you go vegan? Final thoughts…

The first question to ask yourself here is what would be the reasons for going vegan?

If it’s because you think you’d be healthier, chances are that’s not the case. You’re more likely to be nutrient deficient if you follow a vegan diet than an omnivorous one. You can always eat more fruit and vegetables alongside your meat and fish if you were worried about your fibre/vitamin intake.

If your reasons are because you don’t want to eat animal products, that’s a whole different ball game. If they’re your reasons, go ahead. Just be aware that you’re likely to be making yourself less healthy, you’re going to be missing out on some vital minerals and amino acids unless you supplement well, it’s likely to cost you a lot more money and finally, your eating will be a lot more restricted and difficult.

Generally speaking, veganism isn’t a great idea for many. It’s certainly more difficult to get right and be healthy with, it’s far more restrictive and there are simpler diets to follow.

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

The Ketogenic Diet - What, Why and How?

In the second instalment on our nutrition series where we look at a few of the popular diets at the moment, we’re going to take a look at the Ketogenic Diet. You may have heard of it referred to as ‘Keto’. What' we’re doing in this article is looking at what it is, why you’d do it and how you’d go about it.

In the series we’re staying away from opinion and sticking to facts. We’re not promoting one diet over another, we’re just giving you the lowdown on each.

What is the Ketogenic Diet?

The Ketogenic diet is a high fat, low protein and almost zero carbohydrate diet that is designed to force the body to switch from using sugar (glucose) as its primary energy source and instead use ketones.

The diet achieves this by feeding the body no carbohydrates, forcing it into a state called ‘ketosis’ once all of the available sugars have been used by the body. Ketosis refers to a state in which the body breaks down fats and uses them for energy, giving off ketones in the process.

The ketogenic diet was originally designed in the 1920’s as a treatment protocol of epilepsy. It remains to be an effective treatment for the condition, but its use is limited because it’s really quite difficult to follow compared to standard medication.

Recent research into nutrition has highlighted benefits of fasting, low carbohydrates and ketosis, bringing the diet back into the spotlight for a number of reasons.

The Importance of Monitoring on the Ketogenic Diet

In order for the Ketogenic diet to be strictly followed (and therefore useful in its purest sense), you have to reach and remain in a state of ketosis. You check this by testing your urine regularly for ketone bodies.

You’ll need to stay within a range of 0.5-3.0 mmol/L to be in nutritional ketosis. If you are below this level, you’re not in ketosis - your body is still burning glucose. If you go too far above this level you risk tipping into a state called ‘Ketoacidosis’, where the levels of ketones in the body become too high, poisoning the body.

It’s important to understand this before you embark on a ketogenic diet. If you’re aware of the need to monitor and are happy to do so, you’ll make the diet far more successful.

Isn’t Keto Just Atkins?

In the late 90’s and early 2000’s the Atkins diet became the most famous diet in the world - its low carb message swept the world but there’s a big difference between low carb and ketogenic diets.

On a low carb diet you’re still allowed to eat carbohydrates, just not many. Most low carb diets will have you eating below 100g of carbs per day, with some going as low as sub 50g. The rest of your energy comes from a lot of protein and fat, which is why people on Atkins were famously eating steak, bacon and eggs all day!

On the ketogenic diet, you’re essentially banned from eating carbohydrates if you want it to be successful - you’ll possibly be able to get away with around 20g per day, but that varies from person to person.

You also have to dramatically reduce your protein, so only around 20% of your total daily calories will come from protein sources. This is because of a biological process called ‘gluconeogenesis’, whereby your body produces carbohydrates form protein.

A lot of people think by going on the ketogenic diet they’ll live on steak and eggs all day, when the reality is completely different.

What Can I Eat on a Ketogenic Diet?

Your diet will be around 80% fat and 20% protein, so will be made up things such as omelettes with a lot of butter, or really fatty cuts of meat with cheese. Oily sea food will play a bit part too because it fits a ketogenic diet profile.

You’ll also have the option of a few very limited plants to eat. Avocado with its high fat content is acceptable, as is broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, various forms of lettuce, nuts and seeds. It’s important to avoid the high carbs plants, so no wheat products, potatoes, carrots, parsnips, squash, pumpkins, fruit etc. They’re all far too high in sugars and will knock you out of ketosis quickly.

There has been a growing market for ketogenic diet snacks and now a lot of companies are providing both sweet and savoury snacks that allow you to stay in ketosis. Whether or not they all taste good is another matter entirely, but it certainly helps you to add a bit of variety into your diet!

Does the Ketogenic Diet Work? Concluding Thoughts…

It does work, but it only works in the same sense that any other diet works - it feeds your body fewer calories than it needs.

The best use for the ketogenic diet may lie in a medical field, because there are medical reasons why you could or should consider a ketogenic diet. Some early research suggests it can help people undergoing cancer treatment, but of course consult your specialist before taking matters into your own hands. There are also people who struggle to metabolise carbs effectively such as diabetics who may benefit from a ketogenic diet. Again though, talk to your doctor first.

When it comes to weight loss, there are arguably more successful approaches, as backed up by research. There are certainly diets that are easier to follow - ones that don’t involve counting carbs, avoiding every possible carb-based temptation and testing your urine daily for ketone levels!

The ketogenic diet does work, but it’s VERY strict, very hard work and is likely to be difficult for the vast majority of people to follow. For most people, there’s a simpler diet that’d be easier to follow.

If you’d like some help using the ketogenic diet for weight loss, contact us on 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!

All About Intermittent Fasting for Weight Loss...

Over the next few weeks we’re going to do a mini nutrition series on the AdMac Fitness blog, where we’ll be taking a look at a few of the more popular diets approaches, breaking them down, discussing the good, the bad and the ugly about them. We’re taking opinions out of this and are giving you the facts, backed up by what the science says.

We’re approaching these from a weight loss perspective primarily.

The first blog in the series is about Intermittent Fasting - an approach that has gained in popularity over the last decade. Intermittent fasting continues to be popular and is the subject of a lot of research, discussion and books.

What is Intermittent Fasting?

Simply put, intermittent fasting is a dietary approach where overall calorie intake is reduced by undergoing periods of fasting.

The fasting period can be adjusted to suit the requirements and preferences of the dieter, but typically most people will fast for 16-24 hours at a time. During the fasting window they’ll only be allowed to consume water (if following the fast strictly), but other people allow black coffee or BCAA drinks as well.

Essentially there are two schools of thought on Intermittent Fasting approaches. Some people who follow intermittent fasting will eat every day in an ‘eating window’, which will last from 1-8 hours. Other people will fast for 24 hours, then eat ‘normally’ for the rest of the week. There’s no right or wrong way of doing this - the choices are largely down to personal preference.

Does Intermittent Fasting Work for Weight Loss?

The short answer to this question is yes, it does.

The longer answer is that yes, it does, but only if you eat normally when you’re back into your eating window.

Intermittent Fasting works the same as any other diet, by restricting your calorie intake. In this case, it does it by reducing the amount of times that you eat. If you skip meals, but simply over-indulge when you’re allowed to eat again then you’ll still gain weight. The important thing with intermittent fasting is to treat the eating window normally - keep your portion sizes appropriate and still eat healthily.

Yes, it may allow you a little extra dietary flexibility, but it certainly isn’t a green light to eat a load of junk.

Does Intermittent Fasting Help in Other Ways?

Pre-clinical studies are showing remarkable health benefits across the board when it comes to fasting. In research by Cabo and Mattson, fasting protocols have been shown to be beneficial to patients suffering with a wide range of clinical issues including caners, age-related neurodegenerative diseases, cardiovascular diseases etc. Whilst it’s too soon to claim fasting is a miracle approach, it does back up earlier research around autophagy.

Another interesting observation from the research shows that there are psychological benefits to do with fasting. Research shows in the early stages of fasting people can become irritable and angry, but once this first wave passes (usually after an hour) then the fasters become much calmer and able to control emotions around food more effectively. Other research shows that in lots of cases, people following a fasting protocol experienced ‘positive affective experiences of increased sense of achievement, reward, pride, and control’.

For me this last line is important, because I’ve seen a lot of dieters fail because they lack control when it comes to food. If by using an intermittent fasting approach for weight loss they could regain a sense of portion control it could lead to them feeling empowered and more able to resist cravings and urges to make poor choices around food.

The black and white nature of fasting - you’re either eating or you’re not, can be easier to deal with for some people than the need to make lower calorie choices when faced with a more appealing (yet higher calorie) option.

Should we all be Intermittent Fasting?

No, not really. It’s important when we talk about training and nutrition to not put everybody in the same boat - we all metabolise food differently and we all have different requirements from our diet. It’s also important to say that although there’s a lot of positives around the research with intermittent fasting, it’s not a magic approach that will guarantee weight loss - it still needs discipline to work effectively.

What the research does show us is that it’s possibly an effective way for people to regain control over their emotions with food, and it’s also a simple way to control calories - IF you don’t over-indulge when you’re allowed to eat again.

Furthermore, there is positive research around digestive stress and improvements in biomarkers concerning a wide range of health and disease issues. If you are suffering with diabetes, COPD, heart disease etc then this may well be worth looking into with more depth to make a decision as to whether or not this approach will work for you.

Intermittent Fasting for Health and Weight Loss - Concluding Thoughts

It’d be wrong of us to suggest that intermittent fasting is the golden ticket to health and weight loss on it’s own, but it certainly is an approach that has helped millions of people around the world lose weight, improve their health and regain a sense of control over their lives.

Speaking from a strictly weight loss perspective, it’s no better or worse than standard calorie reduction, but it might be far more suitable for people who lack control around food. In that case, it may prove to be far more effective than relying on yourself to make lower-calorie decisions.

The important point to take away is that if intermittent fasting works for you, keep doing it. If you’ve unsuccessfully tried other approaches and they haven’t worked, maybe give it a try to see if it helps you to lose some weight and improve your health.

If you’d like some help using intermittent fasting for weight loss, contact us on 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!

Sleep - The Biggest Performance Booster There Is?

The most overlooked aspect of health and fitness is recovery. Most people know that they should be training regularly and eating well, but very few people would give rest and recovery the same amount of respect as the other two.

The truth is, proper recovery is every bit as important as the others if you want to make serious health and fitness progress. Sleep is regenerative - it’s during our sleep that our bodies rest and recover. Tissues are repaired and re-modelled. Sleep is when neural connections are made to improve muscle function, co-ordination and balance.

Sleep and Physique Improvement

During sleep our endocrine (hormonal system) works its magic. It balances hormone levels, regulates appetite (have you ever noticed that when you’re tired, you want to eat more - especially sugar?), increases human growth hormone production, reduces stress hormone secretion and helps to regulate digestion. Research on sleep disturbance has even said…

Sleep disturbances and, particularly, deprivation are associated with an increased risk of obesity, diabetes and insulin insensitivity

The evidence literally says if you don’t sleep enough, you are at a higher risk of obesity and diabetes. There’s more than that though - a lack of sleep can have a negative effect on muscle strength as well.

In a study on the relationship between sleep and muscle strength in young men and women, there was a marked reduction in the muscle strength of the male students who had slept for less than 6 hours when compared to those who had slept 7+ hours.

What the evidence is showing is that whilst a lot of people take pride in their work ethic and not getting much sleep, they’re doing themselves no good physically, or even mentally. When it comes to brain function, sleep is a huge factor - in this comprehensive review of sleep and cognitive performance studies, researchers noticed that sleep deprivation has a negative effect on all types of memory, recall, special and reaction tasks. There was not a single cognitive function that was improved by sleep deprivation.

The effects also spill over into motivation and mental health, so a fundamental aspect of self-care needs to be making sure you have enough good quality sleep. The crossover benefits of good sleep are literally life-changing and far too numerous to list here.

How do we Improve Sleep?

This is the million dollar question and the good news is, a lot of the answers are common sense. Here’s an overview of the current guidance…

1. Get comfortable. If your mattress is uncomfortable, get a new one. It isn’t a luxury, it’s an investment. You spend more time time bed than you do almost anywhere else, so make it a good one!

2. Sleep in a DARK room. Research shows that the darker a room is, the better the sleep. Turn your phone face down so it doesn’t light up with alerts. Cover clocks that emit light. Buy blackout blinds - juts make the room dark.

3. Avoid stimulants before bed. This is obvious.

4. Reduce screen time before bed - eliminate it in bed. If you’re staring at a phone or TV in bed, you’re going to reduce sleep quality. Read a book instead.

5. Use a sleep hypnosis podcast. These are a pretty new thing in the mass market, but research is suggesting hypnotic suggestion can be effective.

6. Supplement. There is good research around the use of CBD oil as a sleep aid. ZMA (zinc and magnesium) supplements have also been linked to sleep quality.

Follow these bits of advice and you’re likely to have a great night sleep, which will cross over into other aspects of your life. Your physical and mental performance, your physique, your appetite, your stress levels and your mental health are all likely to improve on the back of these improvements to your sleep quality.

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!

DOMS - What, Why and How Do We Get Rid of Them?

You know that post-exercise muscle pain you get? The one that makes you feel as though you’ve been battered with a baseball bat? The one that make getting off the toilet an actual mission? It’s called DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness). In this article we’re going to look at DOMS, what it is, why you get it and how you can ease it.

There has been a lot of debate over DOMS in Sports Science circles - for many years its origins were unknown. Some scientists argue that we still don’t know the exact source of them, but we do know fair amount. We know for example that DOMS is likely to be a series of micro-tears in the muscle tissue that occur during training.

These micro-tears are tiny wounds that occur at a cellular level when we break down the muscle tissue during exercise. As they repair themselves, they form scar tissue. Movement of the muscles during this repair process is agitating the scar tissue, causing the pain.

It only occurs after exercise rather than during it, hence the ‘Delayed Onset’ Muscle Soreness.

Why do we get DOMS?

The main answer is above - we get it via muscle tissue breakdown during exercise. When we disrupt the repair process, it causes soreness. But that’s not the whole picture.

DOMS occurs through a chance of stimulus, not just workout intensity. For example, say you are really ‘gym fit’, which means your body is used to lifting heavy weights, pushing prowlers, doing pull ups etc regularly and then you go out for a 10km run, expect to get pretty serious DOMS.

It’s not that you weren’t fit before, it’s because you’ve changed your stimulus. Your body can deal with the weights and prowlers because it’s used to it. Make it do something it’s not used to, in this case running, and it’ll suffer as a result!

The good news is that your body is adaptable, so whatever you expose your body to regularly, it gets used to. That’s why you don’t exist in a permanent state of soreness every time you go to the gym.

There are other ways we can create DOMS, even if we are doing things we’re used to. What we have to do is create a change in stimulus again. One of the most common ways we can do this is via a technique called ‘negatives’.

In a given lift, say bench press, there are two phases - the ‘positive’ or ‘concentric’ phase (pushing the bar away from you) and the ‘negative’ or ‘eccentric’ phase (returning the bar to your chest). If you slow down your negative phase to a count of 5 seconds, you’ll prolong the eccentric muscle contraction and create more ‘damage’ than normal. This will likely result in more acute DOMS.

DOMS is NOT Indicative of a Good Workout

One of the things that needs to be cleared up is that DOMS is not a sign of a good workout. OK, it’s sometimes strangely nice to feel soreness after a workout, but don’t confuse how sore you are with how hard you’ve trained - that’s not a good measuring stick.

You can create DOMS simply by doing something your body isn’t used to, or by doing a lot of really slow, eccentric training. If that’s not in line with your training goals though, it’s a waste of time. All you’d be is sore and stiff - no closer to hitting your goals.

How do you get rid of DOMS?

There’s good news and bad news here! Let’s start with the bad news…

You can’t get rid of DOMS, it just doesn't work like that. Your body needs time to repair itself and any movement during that time will be a bit sore. It’s rarely anything more than a bit uncomfortable, despite what people may say. Nobody ever died from DOMS!

The good news is that there are things you can do to ease the discomfort and speed up the healing process. Here’s a few of them…

1. Consume protein straight after a workout. Research shows that post-exercise protein consumption helps to speed up recovery and reduce DOMS.

2. Sauna use helps. Again, research has shown that exposure to heat post exercise can help to ease the feelings of DOMS. If you can’t get to a sauna, a hot bath will have a similar effect.

3. There are recovery clothing lines that evidence shows can improve recovery. These are scientifically proven, not some marketing nonsense.

4. Sleep! One of the key aspects of recovery is sleep. If you train hard, don’t try to get by on 5 hours of sleep per night. Shoot for 7-10.

5. Drink plenty of water. Drinking water has a massive knock-on effect for overall physiology. Muscle tissue is around 65-70% water, so stay hydrated and it’ll keep muscle tissue healthy.

As sore as you are with DOMS, it’s still a good idea to keep moving. It’s not a reason to stop exercising, so make sure you remain active throughout. Even if you need to adapt what you’re doing, don’t use DOMS as a reason to skip exercising. You want to stay as active as you can throughout (and follow our tips!)

One final thing…

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!

If you’re looking for personal training in East London, get in touch!

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

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.