5 Reasons You Should Be Training with Dumbbells

Dumbbells are one of the most overlooked and under appreciated items of kit in the gym. I’m not sure why - they’re one of the most effective training tools there is. Few items of kit offer anywhere near the same level of versatility in terms of movement and exercise selection. Also, because dumbbells are usually less popular than barbells, you’ve got much more freedom of choice when it comes to using them!

Here’s 5 reasons you should be training with dumbbells…

Better Muscle and Strength Balance

A big shift in strength training circles is towards ‘unilateral’ movements - these are movements that make a single limb work alone, so instead of squatting with a barbell, lots of coaches and personal trainers are instead favouring lunges and split squats. There’s a whole load of reasons for this, but one of the main ones is because it helps to reduce strength imbalances that occur naturally.

We all have a dominant arm and leg, so we bias that one when it comes to lifting, carrying, balancing etc. Over time the dominant side becomes significantly stronger, which can in some cases cause imbalances that affect performance and even increase the chances of injury. By training with dumbbells, research shows that these imbalances can be ironed out and this has a balancing effect on your physique and injury risk.

Training exclusively with barbells can help exaggerate those muscle imbalances because the stronger side naturally takes on the burden of the work. By using dumbbells instead, each side has to do it’s share of the work and therefore imbalances are reduced.

Dumbbells Allow More Natural Movement

Compared to machine weights and barbells, dumbbells offer the user a much more natural movement - whether that’s from the shoulder, elbow or wrist, a dumbbell is a much more manoeuvrable object than the others and allows your limbs to move much more as they please. With so much more control over the weight, dumbbells make for a much better option when it comes to rotational exercises as well - there’s far less inertia with a dumbbell, thus making the exercise safer. Good examples are Russian twists.

If you’ve suffered with injuries or are training following a procedure that limits movements of particular limbs or joints, training with dumbbells may allow you to achieve more natural movement. This movement could mean that you are able to cope with exercise in a pain free manner. If you were training with a barbell for example, this may not always be possible and could hinder progress when returning from injury.

There’s also an argument that by using dumbbells in your rehab, the unilateral exercise forces the injured side to build up strength and flexibility more quickly than it would if you used machines or bars, where the dominant side may be able to take over the majority of the load, reducing the pressure on the site that needs the rehab.

Dumbbells Allow You To Press Heavy When Alone

Most people (especially men) love good chest workout. Even though the bench press is actually a poor test of strength and a limited exercise when it comes to functionality, it’s still a yardstick by which many people measure themselves by. That being said, it’s hard to max out with a barbell if you’re lifting on your own, because you could do without being crushed under a heavy weight that you just couldn’t press for that final rep…

Bench Pressing with dumbbells is the perfect solution to this problem - if you reach muscular failure, you can control the drop down on either side, preventing an embarrassing incident under the bar. It’s also a way that you can truly train to failure without worrying about whether or not you’ll be able to complete the final rep.

Dumbbells Allow For An Enhanced Range of Movement

We know without doubt now that the longer the range of movement, the more effective the resistance training is. There is a lot of credible research that shows how enhancing the range of movement has a statistically significant impact on muscle size and strength, so if muscle building and strength improvements are your goal, you need to be increasing your range of movement during your exercises.

Dumbbells allow for a greater range of movement than barbells because you aren’t limited by the bar across your chest when you press for example, which allows a few degrees of extra movement at the shoulder, which has a knock-on effect on the muscle performing the exercise. This isn’t an opinion either - research analysing the range of motion of different variations of chest pressing exercises showed that dumbbell bench pressing variations has the biggest range of motion - in particular when using a unilateral movement (single arms at a time), which isn’t an option with a barbell or Smith Machine set up.

Dumbbells Make You Stronger!

This is actually a slightly misleading header, but the caveat didn’t look as good in the title!

It’s true though - research shows that when bench pressing, because of the additional stability requirements in the shoulder joint when using dumbbells, they actually enhance the muscle activation of the entire region, even though the relative loads when using the dumbbells are lighter (typically you can lift less weight with dumbbells than you can with a barbell). This has significant impacts on training decisions that you should be making as a coach or for your own training.

There’s more data that shows dumbbell activation of the target muscles in chest exercises is greater when using dumbbells. In this study, dumbbell bench pressing was shown to allow the trainee to perform more high quality reps (which we know improves muscle mass) and also stimulates more muscle tissue during the lifting. Where variety is important, it’s worth stressing that for strength and mass gains, dumbbells may be a better option for chest training than barbells.

Dumbbells - Don’t Overlook Them!

This article hasn’t been written to make you want to stop all other forms of lifting, but it has been written to draw your attention back to one of the most useful but overlooked tools in the gym. Dumbbells are practical, effective, safe and can enhance your workouts and progress more than you appreciate. The reasons listed here are just some of the many reasons why dumbbells should feature heavily in your workouts. Don’t overlook them!

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

Protein - What, Where and Why...

If you’re interested in health and fitness, you’ll be well aware of the attention that protein gets. In the fitness world, protein is almost seen as the king of the macronutrients; the one that you should be striving to consume at all costs. The other macronutrients (carbs and fats being the others) don’t get anywhere near the attention that protein does, but why?

In this article we’re going to look at protein and talk about what it is, where we should be consuming it and why it’s so important…

Protein - the Building Blocks of Life

Protein is essentially chains of molecules called amino acids. There are different kinds of protein made up of varying combinations of different amino acids. This combination is what defines the proteins and how effective they are nutritionally.

The amino acids are also known as the ‘building blocks’ of protein. There are 20 amino acids that are important in human nutrition. Of the 20, 9 are considered ‘essential’ amino acids that we can’t make ourselves within our body, so we have to consume these from our food or supplements.

The Role of Protein in the Body

Protein is responsible for cell repair and growth. Without adequate protein supply, our cells don’t repair and replenish, so wounds wouldn’t heal as quickly, bones wouldn’t re-mineralise, muscle wouldn’t grow properly, connective tissues wouldn’t repair properly etc. A secondary function of protein is energy, so when the body runs out of glycogen (sugar), it turns to fat and protein.

If you’re active, protein consumption takes on an even greater importance. This is because exercise causes ‘damage’ to the body. It causes muscle and connective tissue break down, which requires an additional protein to repair and replenish. It’s during the repair process that the muscle and connective tissues grow back thicker, stronger and with additional strength and contractile capabilities.

The more active you are, the more protein you require in order to make sure your tissues are healing as quickly and effectively as possible.

There is a considerable body of research that shows a high protein intake is also beneficial to health and performance, especially in strength and power athletes, but we could also extrapolate that data out and make a strong assumption that this applies to anyone who is exercising regularly. If you are in regular competition or training, the performance, body composition and injury-reducing benefits of protein are now proven beyond any reasonable doubt, particularly if protein consumption occurs in the post-activity window.

Sources of Protein

There’s a lot of debate about the quality of protein sources, but one thing is certain - animal protein is the most ‘complete’. This mean it contains all of the essential amino acids within the same source.

There’s nothing wrong with non-animal protein sources per se, and you can consume enough protein on a vegetarian or vegan diet, but if you stick to non-animal sources of protein you have to food-combine in order to make sure you consume all of the essential amino acids. Once you’re used to food combining it’s really quite straightforward, but you’ll have to take the time to learn the right foods to combine at the start to ensure you’re consuming adequate amounts of complete protein.

There’s no argument that whilst it’s not impossible to consume enough protein with a vegan diet, it’s certainly much harder than when on a diet containing animal products. You also have to consider the minerals associated with animal products, such as iron - you’ll have to ensure an adequate consumption of these too. That being said, when you consume your protein from vegetable sources, you are typically consuming significantly less fat and cholesterol, which may be a benefit.

It’s a question of doing what is right for you and your requirements.

Protein Density of Foods

Not all protein sources are created equal - some are clearly better than others in terms of density and more importantly, the availability of that protein. There’s little use in having a lot of protein in a food if not much of it is digestible by the body.

The table below gives a broad assessment of the quality and density of protein in commonly-consumed foods…

Basing your protein intake around these foods will make your life easier from a consumption point of view. Of course if you are following a plant-based diet you may have to make allowances when it comes to your own protein sources.

Protein Intake Recommendations

There is a lot of debate around exactly how much protein we should be consuming, with supplement companies repeatedly telling us we need more than we actually do (they sell the stuff, so they have a bit of an agenda!) Some supplement companies will have you believe you should be aiming for 3g of protein per kilo of bodyweight, but research shows that’s an excessive amount.

What the research actually shows us is that there’s a spectrum and for most people, we should be aiming for around for around 1.3-1.8g per kilo of bodyweight. This is based on research for athletic populations, so will be more than appropriate for general exercisers. It doesn't especially matter if this comes from whole foods or supplements, but from an overall health and performance point of view you should always bias towards ‘food-based’ protein rather than supplemental protein. Supplemental protein (protein shakes, bars etc) should be used as a convenient stop-gap, not a go-to.

Protein… Concluded

Protein is the king of the macronutrients in many senses - it’s the one you really don’t want to under-consume because it helps to build us, repair us, fuel us and satiate us. If you’re active, you’ll want to hit around 1.5g of protein per kilo of bodyweight, per day (give or take).

Consume that protein from whole foods, ideally animal-based and save your biggest protein intakes for after training or competition because it’ll help with growth and repair. That’s not to say don’t eat protein at any other point - you should, but save the big hits for after workouts!

Train hard, eat (or drink) your protein and keep your calories in check and you’ll be in great shape and be performing well!

Getting Started with AdMac Fitness

If you’ve decided that we’re the facility for you, contact us on 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!

Simple Winter Supplements with Massive Benefits

A month ago we wrote about immunity - we shared scientifically proven approaches to helping to protect you through the winter. At a time with rising COVID cases and the impending flu season, we’re going to go into a little more detail on the exact supplementation you could take and more importantly, why you should be taking it.

Supplementation should change through the seasons and your actions, so there are supplements that are more important during the winter months, supplements that are ‘magic bullets’ for particular purposes and then staples that could/should be taken all year round.

In this article we’ll take three winter supplements and explain why you should be taking each one.

Vitamin D

For those of us living in northern Europe, vitamin D becomes extremely important during the winter. If you’re unaware of this, here’s why…

Our bodies produce vitamin D when exposed to sunlight. In the winter our ‘photoperiod’ (time which we are exposed to natural light) is shortened, meaning we are far less exposed to sunlight. As a result of this, our vitamin D levels drop considerably and can have a knock on effect on our mental health, our immunity, our bone function and our general wellbeing.

Why Supplement with Vitamin D?

Beyond what we’ve just discussed, vitamin D is particularly difficult to obtain from food sources. There are some foods that are fortified with vitamin D, but generally speaking it’s hard to obtain from sources other than good old sunlight.

Such is the difficulty of obtaining vitamin D through food that some clinicians are even recommending various forms of UV light therapy in the winter to people suffering from chronic low levels of the vitamin.

With the obvious difficulty when it comes to obtaining vitamin D in any other way, we are almost forced down a winter supplementation route. Between the months of October and March, it’s a good idea to be taking vitamin D and beyond that, look to achieve at least some sun exposure whenever possible - just don’t be silly and burn yourself!

Research suggests that Vitamin D3 maintains elevated levels in the body for longer.

CBD

The rise of CBD oils, tinctures and gummies has been dramatic in the last couple of years. There’s a number of reasons for this, but the main one is simple - the research in support of it, combined with he anecdotal evidence of users has backed up the claims that this is a very effective supplement.

The most effective use of CBD currently is in recovery and as a sleep aid, which is why it features here so prominently. We know that sleep dramatically impacts the effectiveness of the immune system, so anything that helps to promote a healthy sleep cycle is worth exploring. What the research shows is that use of CBD oil helps to promote sleep and reduce feelings of anxiety, plus it is well-tolerated by the body.

It’s important to note here that CBD is NOT illegal - it’s the benefits of the hemp plant with the psychoactive ingredients removed, so it doesn’t get you high! It’s a perfectly legal supplement to take.

Why Supplement with CBD?

This is one of those ‘magic bullet’ supplements. I think the best way to approach CBD use is to save it for when you are in need of a particularly restful sleep. In the winter we are exposed to a lot of artificial light which we know impacts sleep quality. It’s also particularly useful in periods of high stress, so it can help to settle a busy mind without the use of drugs.

Rather than use CBD daily, perhaps a better approach would be to use it when it is needed, which of course reduces the cost of the purchase as well.

By promoting better sleep we help immune function as well as literally thousands of other biological processes which are happening in our bodies. Improved sleep leads to better hormonal regulation, better mental health, reduced stress and reduces the chances of obesity.

Multivitamins

The boring old multivitamin has had a lot of bad press over the years, with some people saying they’re pointless. In all honesty, I don’t think for one second they’re a wonder supplement, but what I do think they are is rock-solid nutritional insurance. I don’t even take them for the vitamins really - I take them for the minerals. The vitamins you should be looking to ingest from your diet, taking the multivitamin merely to plug gaps that are left.

Mineral deficiencies can have a large effect on your health, so by taking a supplement that plugs the gaps you reduce the chances of these occurring. Research shows that the benefits of taking a multivitamin far outweigh the negatives, so taking an overall view we can only conclude that they are worth it.

Why Take a Multivitamin?

Despite our best efforts, we’re always likely to leave gaps in our nutritional requirements. The realities of life means that our demands change throughout different periods of time anyway - there are times of higher physiological stress (during intense training for example), or pregnancy, or during stressful periods at work which demand more from you and having a nutritional back up is always beneficial.

Even if you’re not taking a daily multivitamin, every other day would also be helpful just to make sure that even if your diet is off point for a day (or more), you’re at least getting some nutritional benefit from your food activities!

I probably take a multivitamin every other day, unless I’m unwell or working particularly hard in which case I’ll increase it to daily consumption. I’m satisfied that the research shows the benefits outweigh the negatives, so I don’t see any harm in it. A few pence per day is a small price to pay for nutritional insurance!

Winter Supplements - Concluded

When you hear the word ‘supplements’ a lot of people automatically jump straight to protein, creatine and the like. The reality is that supplementation is about health, not vanity. At AdMac Fitness we’re primarily interested in health - a healthy body is more important than anything else!

By taking these supplements for the next few months, you’ll give your body the best chance of staying fit, healthy and well as there’s more pressure on your immune system and mental health than ever before.

By working with us at AdMac Fitness we help you with both your training and your nutrition. Speak to us about how we can help you too.

Getting Started with AdMac Fitness

If you’ve decided that we’re the facility for you, contact us on 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!

Outdoor Training Considerations - How to Train Outside Safely and Effectively

Last week on the blog we announced what our plans were at AdMac Fitness for lockdown 2. We’d be exercising outside to make sure all of our personal training sessions could keep going from our private fitness studio in East London. The uptake has been amazing - we’ve continued to deliver personal training in the outdoors and have successfully moved the gym, so unlike other facilities, we’re still delivering a great service.

In this week’s article we’re going to look at outdoor training considerations. Now many of you are going to be exercising outdoors, you have new points to consider and different challenges to overcome. It’s not as simple as just performing the same workouts outside - you’ve got to make sure you’re warmed up thoroughly, dressed appropriately and have taken into account potential additional safety hazards. We’re entering winter now so we have additional weather considerations that just aren’t a factor indoors.

By following the guidelines in this article you’ll ensure your outdoor training is done safely and effectively.

Training Outdoors - What We Know

The claims made in this article are backed by scientific research. There’s a large body of evidence around performance in the cold, so we need to use the knowledge available to us to not only train safely outside, but also to maximise the effects of the outdoors. By following certain guidelines we use the outdoor training to our advantage and benefit from having our hand forced to outdoor work!

Injury risk Increases in the cold…

When the autumn and winter kicks in and the temperatures drop, we know there’s an increased injury risk. Studies have shown that in colder temperatures it takes less force to cause muscle damage, so you have to really ensure that you are warmed up thoroughly before you start to train, especially if the workout you are doing involves a lot of high impact or explosive movements such as plyometrics.

Re-think your rest periods…

Knowing there’s an increase injury risk in the cold, it will impact exactly how you programme rest periods - in cold weather you don’t want to be standing around for too long in between sets because you’ll cool down much more quickly. Consider instead reducing rest periods or putting in ‘active recovery’ work between sets, where you are still moving your body but at a much lower intensity.

Muscle function is affected by the cold… so programme for it!

Muscle function is also impaired in the cold. Researchers in the USA discovered that in lower temperatures the ability of the body to produce force is impaired. In particular both the maximum force produced and the speed with which the muscles contract are both affected by reduced temperature. In practice what this means is that if you’re training outside in the cold, don’t expect to be able to lift weights quickly or as powerfully as you would in the gym.

But there’s a fat loss benefit…

Calorie expenditure increases dramatically in the cold - so you can use this to your advantage! In cold exposure studies it has been shown that you can burn 10-40% more calories than if you were training at a more ‘normal’ temperature range, so use this to your advantage. If you have a particular fat loss goal or want to use your training to accelerate calorie burn, why not move the session outside and benefit from the extra calorie burn that the cold gives you! It’s an accidental additional fat loss benefit!

Training Outdoors - Making it Safe

Here’s the boring bit, but it's advice we think you should all follow. By taking care of these points you’ll make your outdoor exercise safer, more effective and ultimately, a lot more enjoyable!

Dress appropriately…

It’s all about layers. You don’t want thick, bulky clothes. There’s an excellent range of base layers around now, so go for those. You want flexibility in our outfit, so you can add or remove layers as necessary.

Train in a well-lit area…

In the winter it gets dark early. Having dumbbells, kettlebells, benches etc around can be dangerous if you can’t see them. You don’t want to break an ankle by tripping over kit. That’s not what we mean by no pain, no gain.

NEVER SKIP THE WARM UP!

As we saw earlier, it’s easy to cause tissue damage when you’re cold, so always warm up very thoroughly. If you think you’ve done enough, do a little bit more just to be on the safe side!

Stay hydrated…

In the cold it may take you longer to sweat, but that doesn’t mean you won’t sweat - stay hydrated as you normally would in a training session.

Don’t stand around…

We’ve already mentioned muscle injury risk in the cold, so even on your rest periods keep moving about, don’t let your muscles get cold and tight.

Programme for the environment…

If it’s freezing, remember there’ll be a knock on effect with your muscle function, so don’t expect to be able to PB your deadlift if it’s very cold! Do what you can, but be sensible!

Training Outdoors - Final Thoughts

If you do it properly, training outdoors is excellent and can really give you a physical and psychological boost. If you struggle with your mental health, outdoor exercise is a particularly powerful and effective lift. Studies show training outside reduces perception of difficulty, reduces stress and improves mood. Even if you don’t struggle with your mental health, outdoor exercise provides a fresh series of challenges and can help push your training and fitness on by getting you out of your normal comfort zone and forcing you to adapt to a new stimulus, which is exactly what training is!

Just make sure you follow the advice in this article to do it safely!

If you’d like us to help you continue your training during lockdown, contact us on 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!

Lockdown 2 is Here! But Don't Panic! Here's What to do...

The news all of us in the fitness industry were dreading has been announced - we’re locked down for 4 weeks. It’s kick in the nuts for us as an industry - we’d all worked so hard to make sure gyms were clean, tidy safe for all of those who use them.

Despite a nationwide petition that gained over 500,000 signatures requesting gyms stay open throughout lockdown, the decision was taken by government to close them during the second lockdown.

But worry not, in this article we’re going to update you with what we intend to do for our AdMac Fitness clients during lockdown 2 and also what you can do at home to make sure your exercise doesn’t suffer during the gym closures.

AdMac Fitness Members - Here’s What We’re Doing!

The rules CLEARLY state that seeing your personal trainer outside is fine. As further proof that this is from the government, here’s the evidence… UK Government Guidelines.

So now we have cleared this up, we’re going to tell you what we’re doing at AdMac Fitness to make sure your training continues without interruption…

We’re Heading into the Car Park!

At the business centre we’ve got plenty of outdoor space to set up a temporary gym. We’ll be transporting as much of the kit as we can outside so training will continue in much the same way. We can easily take the kettlebells, dumbbells, TRX and rope etc outside so you’ll be able to enjoy your workouts in much the same way as before - the only difference is this time you’ll be outside (it’s not cold, it’s natural air conditioning!)

We’ve taken this step because we want to continue to deliver the excellent service you’re used to at AdMac Fitness.

There will be access to the car park via a side door, which means no clients will have to go through the building. There’ll no worry about potential transmission of the virus this way. In addition there’s no hold ups as people won’t have to pass each other in corridors in an impossible socially-distanced manner.

We’ve taken every possible care to make sure we can run the sessions as normal and you can continue to enjoy the physical and mental benefits of exercise.

If you Can’t See us in Person…

Go Back to Bodyweight Training

At AdMac Fitness we’re massive fans of bodyweight training. For a long time it was seen as a less effective form of training by some people in the industry, but the more they learn, the more the realise just how useful bodyweight training can be if it is done properly.

In fact, we’ve written about this before - bodyweight training is effective, versatile, safe and super convenient. It can be done anywhere and at any time. It can be scaled easily so suits the beginner or the really advanced.

If you’ve got a local park why not use the climbing frames to do pull ups, dips, split squats, feet elevated push ups etc. You’re largely limited by your creativity rather than opportunity when it comes to bodyweight training. Stick to a fundamental base of squats, push ups, pull ups, lunges, ab work and then add other bits in to supplement it.

Get Out and Run/Walk/Cycle

You can use this time to get out and about - there are no rules saying you can’t go out to exercise. That could be a long walk, a daily run or even a bike ride. Perhaps you use your bike ride for constructive purposes such as riding to work for your daily commute?

It doesn’t have to be particularly high intensity, but if you can be regular with it you’ll maintain a good level of fitness.

If you can find a hill then hill climbs on foot or by bike are great for pushing the intensity up, but if you want to really burn a lot of calories and make huge fitness strides, get your trainers on and do some hill sprints - there are few more effective sprint protocols than hill sprints! They’re fantastic for so many reasons - leg strength, calorie burn, conditioning, speed and power improvements.

Don’t Let Yourself Slide

The biggest issue is the mental one here, not the physical one. You’ll cope so much better mentally if you give your days structure and purpose. Making sure you are abiding by healthy habits is important and if you feel like you’re struggling, reach out to somebody.

When it comes to your health and fitness, remember AdMac Fitness is always here.

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!

Personal Training East London - AdMac Fitness

Lockdown has hit us all in various ways… for some the biggest casualty is physical fitness. For others, it’s mental health. Other people (key workers in particular) have perhaps been overworked during the pandemic.

Whatever the impact has been on you, one of the best ways to recover from the stress and strain is by giving your health a complete reboot, but where do you start? If you’re new to this or are looking for a fresh, expert pair of eyes to help get your health and fitness back on track, we may just have the answer. Don’t waste your time and effort fretting over which workout plan, diet or even exercise craze to follow - trust expert personal trainers in East London to help you reach health and fitness levels like never before!

At AdMac Fitness we have a proven track record of helping people to lose weight, get stronger, improve their general fitness using our innovative methods in our private East London personal training studio.

Why Train With AdMac Fitness?

When it comes to personal trainers in East London there’s a lot of choice, so why should you pick AdMac Fitness as the trainers for you?

Here’s a few good reasons…

We get RESULTS!

AdMac Fitness is well established in our Bow studio. We have a reputation for helping people from all walks of life achieve fitness and weight loss goals that they never thought possible. We do all of this using tried and trusted methods - we don’t expect you to follow fad diets or do anything out of the ordinary in the gym. What we do ask for is your enthusiasm, your willingness to work… oh, and your trust - we ask you to trust our expertise and the process we guide you through, because we know it works…

We’re Covid Secure

Since the start of lockdown we took our responsibility seriously. We used the time when we were closed to deep clean the entire facility. All of our kit was cleaned, we brought in additional cleaning measures such as hand gels, wipes and put together a new cleaning regimen. We also have control over our numbers, so we never end up in a situation where we exceed capacity or are unaware of who is in the building or how many people we have on site at any one time.

These measures remain in place, so we can offer some of the most clean and secure personal training studios in East London.

We CARE About You!

At AdMac Fitness we’re a strong community who want the best for you. We love seeing our members success - we can literally see people grow physically and mentally stronger in front of us. We see so many people come in to the studio as complete fitness beginners and within a few weeks they’re far more confident, much fitter and generally happier people! They make new friends here and in many cases, for the first time in their lives they’ve had an expert guide them to fitness, so they stop making the same mistakes they have in the past!

AdMac Fitness isn’t just a personal training studio in East London, it’s a fitness family that wants you to succeed with your health and fitness! You’re not alone here, you’ve got a team to look after you!

We’re Experts in Fitness

One of the great things about the AdMac Fitness personal training team is the variety. We have different specialist areas and as a result, can cover a whole load of fitness bases. Whether you’re interested in bodyweight exercise, vegan dieting, you’re looking for class-based exercise or you simply want a helping hand, we’ve got you covered. With combined experience of personal training that covers many years, there’s pretty much nothing we haven’t come across during our personal training careers!

This variety is what makes the AdMac Fitness team so strong - we have different experiences and can consult with one another to help you achieve your results in the quickest time frame possible. When you compare this to a single personal trainer who might not have the answers you’re looking for, it shows the value of a team. When you train with AdMac Fitness, you’re getting the experience of 3 personal trainers, not just one!

We’re Beginner Friendly

We all start our fitness journey somewhere, and we at AdMac Fitness know exactly what it is like to start on this path. Our founder, Adam had to battle his way back to fitness following a serious illness. Having been used to being fit and strong, he had to start right from the beginning again when his stay in hospital came to an end. This level of empathy just isn’t around in many personal trainers and it’s part of the reason AdMac Fitness is so appealing to so many people who are new to fitness.

As we mentioned earlier too, we care about you. When you train with us at AdMac Fitness, you’ll learn that we’re a non-judgmental, friendly place. We’re inclusive and encouraging whether you’re just starting off or a seasoned pro.

Come and see why AdMac Fitness is East London’s best personal training studio!

Getting Started with AdMac Fitness

If you’ve decided that we’re the facility for you, contact us on 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!

Tracking Your Data - What's Worth Tracking?

Nowadays so many people wear fitness trackers that they’ve become totally commonplace. Before tech companies starting adding health trackers into watches and phones, heart rate monitors and pedometers were the generally the reserve of researchers and medics. Most people didn’t know what they were tracking, or what they were going to do with the data anyway!

That changed when the companies who make the monitors started to provide data tracking and comparison software into their apps. You then had a visual representation of what your workout and effort looked like and could compare it to previous workouts you’d done. You could also see how the workouts you were doing were impacting your health and fitness overall.

For the first time ever the average Joe had meaningful training data, making using a heart rate monitor worthwhile. The accuracy of these devices has been assessed in the lab and as long as you are buying a good quality brand, they’re going to give you accurate and reliable data.

So with a lot of your physical data immediately available, let’s answer the question ‘What data is worth tracking'?

Heart Rate

Personally speaking, I think this one is really worth tracking. It gives you a live figure of exactly how hard you are working and can inform exercise choice going forward. This is useful for both personal trainers and general exercisers alike - by tracking data during a workout you have an accurate gauge of exactly how hard a workout is, so you can adjust your exercise programming based on facts, not opinion.

We know from research that when you are wearing a heart rate monitor, you are not only more likely to spend time exercising, but you’re also likely to spend more time exercising at higher intensities. In English, this means that wearing a heart rate monitor will subconsciously change your behaviour so you’ll work longer and harder in training.

Worth Tracking? Absolutely…

Calorie Burn

There has been a lot of debate about assessing calorie burn over the years, because gym machines are typically wildly inaccurate when it comes to assessing the calorie burn during a workout. When we assess calorie burn via a heart rate monitor though, we are given a much more accurate figure (as long as the monitor is adjusted for the user’s data). Thanks to the advances in technology we can now account precisely for calorie expenditure in a given workout, day or week.

This information is extremely valuable for anyone who is looking to lose or gain weight because it allows you to adjust your diet with far greater precision. Before accurate energy expenditure data was available to the mass market, dieting was a far more crude and much less precise endeavour.

Worth Tracking? Absolutely…

Time to Recovery

The time to recovery feature of most heart rate monitors is based on the workout intensity. It basically gives you an estimated time period during which you ‘shouldn’t’ be training, in order to allow for sufficient recovery. At best , it’s an inexact science because it doesn’t allow for individual differences in recovery time, nor does it incorporate sleep quality, sauna use, recovery clothing wear and nutritional factors. Recovery is such a variable process that it’s impossible to gauge accurately with such a limited data set.

Whilst recovery is very important to health and performance, you can mostly get a ‘feel’ for how you are doing. If you’re tired, you know you’re tired - you don’t need a watch to tell you so! At best, use it as a guide, but don’t base many training decisions on it.

Worth Tracking? Not really…

Sleep Time and Quality

There’s a lot of opinion around on sleep time and quality, but the data is pretty hard to pin down for accuracy. There’s a lot of reasons for this, but the most important one is because we have different sleep patterns depending on the stage of life we’re at. New parents for example are less likely to achieve great quality sleep on account of waking up multiple times per night with a baby! On the opposite side of that coin, people without children and limited time pressures probably sleep fantastically well!

A heart rate monitor measures sleep quality based on your heart rate and your movements during the night, but this isn’t a particularly accurate measurement. You may be a particularly active sleeper in the sense that you toss and turn, but that needn’t be because you were awake - this can happen in your sleep. I personally have had really good quality, refreshing sleep and then have seen my sleep quality monitor on my watch say I slept badly, so I’d take the info with a pinch of salt. As with the recovery tracker, you’ll know when you’re tired - you won’t need your watch to tell you that!

Worth Tracking? Not really…

Steps

The original form of activity tracker was the pedometer and that is where the 10,000 steps suggestion came from. It has been around as a baseline suggestion of daily activity for around 50 years now and serves an excellent guide for movement - even on days when you haven’t managed to get a workout in, hitting 10,000 steps shows you’s haven’t been completely sedentary. With a 5km run typically clocking in at around 4,000 steps, it shows that in order to hit 10,000 steps in a day you have spent a significant chunk of it on your feet.

The concern over tracking steps is down to how easy it is to manipulate. Washing up, playing a guitar and a whole host of other activities can trick your pedometer into counting steps you didn’t do. There’s even disadvantages in the design, which when tested under lab conditions have shown the step counters to be inaccurate. What this means is that where it can be an accurate gauge of activity, it’s not something to hang your hat on - it’s a rough guide at best.

Worth Tracking? Yes - but don’t make too many decisions based on the data!

Overall Opinion - Are Heart Rate Monitors Worth it?

The answer here is an overwhelming YES! There’s so much value in just the heart rate, calorie burn and overall activity recording alone that you can easily justify the cost. That, plus you’ve got a reliable watch for good measure!

If you’re serious about training and are interested in the quantified self movement, where you measure and monitor your own physical data, they’re excellent. When you add on top of that the app support and the fact that you’ll have a far more detailed training diary (from a physical output point of view) than you could ever record yourself, so they’re certainly worth it. They also give you detailed data that can help you programme exercise and nutrition with far more detail than ever before.

Which Heart Rate Monitor Should I Go For?

Like anything in life there are pro’s and con’s to different models - are you after aesthetics or function? How important is battery life? What’s your budget? Do you need GPS and different sports profiles?

Whilst some people like the variety and accessibility of the Apple Watch and the Samsung version, they’re not brilliant when it comes to training specific functionality and more importantly, accuracy.

If you’re more interested in the accuracy and functionality as a heart rate monitor and training tracker, the two best brands are Polar and Garmin. Of the two, Polar are trusted in labs around the world on account of their accuracy - they’re pretty much market leading in that sense and they have a world-class app called Polar Flow. They have fantastic functionality and a lot of different sports profiles, but some don’t think they look as stylish.

Garmin make stylish watches that have excellent profiles for different sports also, but they can be a little confusing because they measure activity in terms of ‘Garmin calories’ rather than overall. They’re slightly less accurate than Polar and generally more expensive, but they are probably better looking (depending on your opinion of course!)

Go with either brand and you won’t go far wrong. Here’s a couple of the mid-range watches from both…

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!

Worried About Training in a Pandemic? Come to AdMac Fitness...

Given recent government announcements we wanted to reassure our members of the lengths we go to to ensure the health and safety of all members and clients of AdMac Fitness, a private personal training studio in Bow, East London.

In the midst of a global pandemic you’d be forgiven for being worried about training in a gym, but here at AdMac Fitness we’re able to reassure you that you’ll be incredibly safe when training in our facility.

As a whole actually, fitness is very safe. The trade body, UK Active issues guidance to fitness facilities around the country, including best practice for ensuring member safety and keeping transmission rates low. What the data shows is that community transmission is incredibly low, with a rate of 0.34 cases per 100,000 gym visits.

That data is across all fitness facilities, so we can go a step further and explain why by training with us, your chances of catching the Coronavirus in our facility are even smaller…

People Management at the Gym

Unlike public gyms, we have a greater level of control over who comes into the studio. We’re not open to the public, we’re a private, appointment-only facility. To train at AdMac Fitness you’re either coming for a personal training session, one of our group exercise classes or have booked in for a consultation.

Thanks to this system, we know exactly who is in the building at what time. Should we ever come into contact with a case, we can manage it immediately by letting anyone who was in the building know about their potential exposure. With that level of precision we can prevent a problem before it becomes a big deal.

Likewise, we can control the amount of people who are in the studio at any one time. We’ll ensure that we’re never in a position to cause unnecessary risk to our members and staff.

Cleaning is VERY Thorough

As we all know by now, cleanliness and hygiene are two of they key points that will help to prevent the spread of the virus. As a small studio compared to a huge gym, we have control over this - our cleaning is done daily, it is done thoroughly and we can control it ourselves.

As the people who spend the most time in the studio, if we allowed it to become dirty we’d be at the biggest risk of all, so we keep on top of the cleanliness at all times. Alcohol gel, wipes and deep cleans are the order of the day at AdMac Fitness, so be assured that we’re taking our cleaning responsibility VERY seriously!

We constantly stay abreast of the latest guidance and make sure we implement the instructions at the studio to maintain our excellent levels of cleanliness. It’s our aim to make sure you feel safe in the studio at all times.

We’re Professionals…

The AdMac Fitness team aren’t newly-qualified instructors, we’re professional personal trainers with a lot of experience. We’ve been dealing with this virus since the get-go and our systems are in place. They’ve been tried, tested, practiced and are working very well. We’ve got personal as well as professional reasons to keep on top of best practice - we don’t want to pick up Coronavirus either!

We want to protect our business and livelihood, and the best way of doing that is to ensure that our clients safety is paramount, which is why we go over and above to ensure that every single person who comes into the AdMac Fitness studio is aware of the levels we’re going to in order to ensure the safety of us all. Our effort and attention to detail means that we’ve operated perfectly well and haven’t had any cases in the studio.

But Despite it all, You Should Keep Training

We could reassure you about the cleanliness of the facility, the control of numbers who enter the building and all of the other important points about the virus, your health and the risk of transmission, but the key point is this…

Your health and fitness are paramount to you at all times, but never more so than during a pandemic. We have to give ourselves the best possible chance against it and as we shared last week, exercise is a key measure of improving health, fitness and immunity against a whole range of bugs, not just the Coronavirus.

The government themselves have said that obesity is a key risk factor and that we should take steps to ensure we stay a healthy weight. If you are overweight and you are worried that you’re putting yourself at risk, come and talk to the AdMac Fitness team to see how we can help you. Given obesity is an entirely preventable risk factor (age, gender, race etc being factors that you simply can’t change), you can severely improve your resistance to illness by simply dropping some weight.

Getting Started with AdMac Fitness

If you’ve decided that we’re the facility for you, contact us on 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!

Boosting Immunity - How to do it Properly

As we sit on the verge of tighter lockdown restrictions, immunity is back in the focus of us all. Even if you take COVID-19 out of the equation, it’s still a good idea for us all to take steps to improve our level of immunity. With seasonal flu, the common cold and who-knows-how-many other diseases out and about, it’s always worth taking steps to make sure you give yourself at least a fighting chance when it comes to avoiding illness.

So what does science say about boosting immunity naturally?

There’s a lot of nonsense when it comes to common remedies and treatments for illness - hot toddy for a cold, starving a fever, sweating out a virus. The reality is, whilst there might be a tiny semblance of truth to some of these approaches, they’re not effective in the slightest.

Immunity starts inside, with what we feed ourselves and how we treat our exercise, rest and recovery.

What we know is that immunity is an ever-changing picture and that our actions and behaviours need to change throughout the year. We have seasonal illnesses - the question is, do these viruses spread in the winter because of the time of year, or are other factors to blame?

We know that viruses are ever-present and can be caught at any time of the year. We’re always exposed to illness, but we don’t always catch it. There’s a couple of main reasons for this…

1. Our immune system is able to cope with the threat.

2. The viral load is lower.

These two factors can have a huge impact on our likelihood of picking up an illness. The viral load is one in particular that we have more limited control over, so we have to be vigilant.

What’s viral load?

The best way to explain this is using a candle analogy…

Imagine a candle burning. If you move your hand quickly through the flame, you don’t get burned. You can do this over and over again, but you’ll be fine. Your exposure to the heat isn’t enough to cause damage.

Now, imagine you hold your hand a couple of inches above the flame and leave it there for 20 seconds - you’ll cause yourself a horrible burn injury. Same candle, same hand, but the exposure is deeper and longer.

This is what can happen during a pandemic or a seasonal illness. You’ll be exposed to more people with a virus, more often. If you sit next to someone in an office who is infected, your chance of infection is significantly higher than if you pass them in the street - you’ve been exposed to the virus at closer quarters and for a much longer time span.

In order to reduce the impact that viral load has on us, we need to boost our immune system. Here’s how we go about that, backed by science…

Exercise and Immunity

There are almost no physical processes that aren’t improved or enhanced by exercise and immunity one of them. Regular exercise has been shown to promote the activity of a number of immunological processes, making the immune system both more effective and more efficient. There is a word of warning though - too much exercise, for too long has been linked with decreased immunity.

Overtraining is a real thing and one that we should be careful to avoid, because there are serious negative affects when it comes to immunity.

Dietary Advice

There are some obvious points here - make sure you are consuming plenty of fruit and vegetables, drinking lots of water and keeping alcohol consumption low. Nothing mind-blowing here, but it’s sometimes good policy just to remind you of the basics.

On top of this, there is supplementation advice we can offer you. Research shows that vitamin D is important when it comes to immunity, so all of those of us who live in the UK should be supplementing with vitamin D throughout the winter as our sunlight exposure reduces so dramatically. Zinc is also backed by solid supporting evidence when it comes to boosting immune function.

Sleep Well

Sleep is the most restorative process our bodies can go through, so ensuring we achieve around 7 or more hours per night is important. Sleep deprivation has an immediate and profound impact on reducing immunity, making us significantly more susceptible to viral and bacterial infection. During times when viral load is higher, this is one of the key aspects of reduced immunity and one of the reasons why so many of us pick up seasonal bugs.

Follow the usual advice of no caffeine in the 2-3 hours before bed time, sleep in a dark, quiet and cool room, stick to a similar bedtime, try not to drink too much water in the lead up to sleep, to stop you getting up to go to the toilet.

Boosting Immunity, Concluded

Whilst immunity is forefront in our minds during the depths of a global pandemic, the reality is the steps we take to improve our immunity benefit us in lots of ways. These steps are the pillars of good health - eat well, exercise well, sleep well. They also protect us from a huge range of bugs, not just COVID-19 because it’s in the press at the moment.

There’s no 100% certain way of avoiding viral and bacterial infections, but by following these steps and improving your immunity, you’re at least giving yourself a fighting chance. At a time when the world is on extra precautions, it may be time to address your own risk factors.

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!

Improving Sleep for Health, Physique and Performance Upgrades

Imagine a freely-available drug that you could take every night. One that would boost your mood, memory, mental health, recovery, digestive health, cravings, focus, mental clarity, productivity, motivation and energy levels, without ANY side effects and wouldn’t cost you a penny.

Sounds incredible.

It’s called sleep. I do it, you do it, we all do it. If more people upgraded the quality of their sleep the world would be a much happier and healthier place.

Unfortunately we live in a world where we’re contactable 24/7. TV is on demand, we have the internet at our fingertips. We can be entertained all day and all night. We work longer hours, we do more socialising (lockdown aside!) and we have social media videos of people falling over to keep us awake.

Research is showing that sleep quality and duration is declining.

In this article I’m going to show you why high quality sleep is important and how you can go about enhancing your sleep quality, both with supplements and best practices that have been proven to work.

The Case for Sleep

By this point in time, the benefits of sleep are very well known. Even though sleep science is still largely in its infancy (research accelerated from the 1970’s), the speed and quality of the research is impressive. The sample sizes available are huge (we all sleep!), so a lot of good quality data can be accrued quickly.

What we know is that the benefits of sleep are noticed across almost all physiological functions. Previously misunderstood relationships between sleep and seemingly obscure physiological processes are being uncovered and the pathways are being linked. In this study in particular, the authors touch on some of the the (many) known links between sleep and physiology.

A quick list of the known benefits of sleep include…

• Improved memory

• Improved cognition

• Accelerated recovery from exercise and injury

• Enhanced mood and self esteem

• Better digestive control

• Hormonal regulation

• Improved cardiovascular health

• Reduced blood pressure

• Protection from neurodegenerative diseases

• Longer attention span

• Better problem solving capabilities

• Increased muscle mass

This list is tiny compared to what the research knows to be true about sleep, but the point is that sleep is something that with very little effort can have a dramatic impact on our quality of health and ultimately quality of life. By this point, we shouldn’t need any more convincing about the importance of high quality sleep.

Impacts of Poor Sleep on Training and Recovery

When it comes to physical performance, a lack of sleep has a large impact - it has been shown to reduce our endurance, reaction time, power generation and co-ordination. It also has links to increased injury risk, physical and mental stress and perceived exertion. This means if you train tired, you’re going to find it much harder, even when lifting weights you’d usually find relatively easy or running at a pace you can normally maintain without trouble.

There’s also really strong evidence showing that a lack of sleep directly impacts muscle strength, with the evidence suggesting that any less than 7 hours of sleep has a direct impact on muscle strength. Certainly something to bare in mind when it comes to those late nights and early mornings!

Improving Sleep

How do we go about improving sleep? There are both practical and supplemental ways to improve sleep quality that are easy to follow.

Bed Routine

A consistent bed time routine is helpful as it allows a re-set of circadian rhythms. Here’s a few points to adhere to when it comes to bed time routine…

• Reduce your exposure to white light for an hour or so before bed. Ideally this includes phones, computers and TV.

• Keep exercise intensity lower in the night - intense exercise right before bed will affect sleep.

• Make sure the room is cool rather than hot.

• Try to stay consistent with a regular bed time and waking time.

Nutritional Approach

There’s also a nutritional approach to take when it comes to improving sleep….

• If you’re caffeine sensitive, avoid caffeinated drinks or foods such as chocolate for 2 hours before bed.

• Don’t drink too much of any liquid before bed - a full bladder impacts sleep!

• Supplemental ZMA (Zinc and Magnesium) has been shown to help regulate sleep.

• CBD oil is proving to be an effective sleep aid too. It is also showing potential as a stress/anxiety reducing aid, which can also impact sleep.

Improving Sleep - Concluded

What we know to be true is that sleep is so much more than just a rest - it’s the primary resource in recovery. High quality sleep impacts a huge array of physiological and psychological processes and without it, our physical and cognitive performance suffers. We’re likely to suffer hormonal regulation difficulties, a reduction in strength, mood and control over our diet and cravings.

Research shows that around 7-8 hours of sleep per night is the magic figure, where rest and recovery is sufficient. We’ve also discussed ways and means to improve sleep both practically and nutritionally should you require help getting enough high quality shut-eye!

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!

Increasing Strength - How to do it Properly

No matter what your fitness goals are, by improving your strength you’re more likely to hit them. There’s so much more to strength than vanity - in fact being strong doesn’t always mean big muscles, as we’ll discover later in the article. One of the best things you can do for your health, your fitness, your physique and your longevity is to build strength.

In this article we’ll show you how to increase strength properly, and tell you how you can come and work with our personal trainers in Bow, East London to help you build impressive strength!

Strength is a fundamental pillar of health and fitness.

All other things being equal, a strong muscle is more robust than a weak muscle - it’s less likely to get injured, less likely to degenerate, it burns more calories and is helps you to perform physical tasks significantly easier. There’s a knock-on effect from increasing strength too, because as we know from Woolf’s Law, bone strength and density increases under load as well, so it’s not just muscles that benefit.

Connective tissues benefit from strength training too, as long as the training is done carefully with slower, appropriately resisted exercises that allow for gentle loading and adaption in the tissues. In examples of repeated connective tissue injuries, an effective strengthening protocol could be followed to help reduce/remove injuries in the future.

How to Improve Strength - the Overview

There’s a lot of ways to improve strength and a lot of different types of strength, but today we’re going to focus on the main one most of us understand when it comes to strength training - generalised muscular strength, where the body is able to move large loads using muscle power as opposed to momentum or technique advantages.

The two main ways people approach strength training is by tweaking the load and volume. In case you’re unsure as to what these are, this will explain them…

• Load: The weight lifted in an exercise.

• Volume: The amount of lifting a person does. This can be adjusted in terms of reps or sets.

Traditionally it was seen that the only way to increase strength was to lift a very heavy weight with mutiple short sets (high load, low volume) but conflicting research has challenged this thinking over time. As understanding of muscle tissue, the role of muscle mass in strength and the actual understanding of how muscles contract has changes, coaches are now employing a variety of methods in their training schedules for athletes.

Muscle contracts by ‘dragging’ contractile filaments within the muscle across each other. Typically the more contractile filaments there are within a muscle, the stronger we are. The first goal of strength training then is to increase the amount of contractile filaments we have at our disposal. The way to increase these is to add muscle mass, usually with a higher-volume approach.

The actin and myosin are the contractile filaments - to increase strength, we have to increase the amount of them we have.

Here’s how to increase the amount of muscle mass on our frame…

How to Increase Muscle Mass

Where German Volume Training (10 sets of specific exercises) was popular once, searchers have since shown that 4-6 sets of an exercise is more effective for developing strength and mass in a shorter period of time, plus (anecdotally) the recovery time is significantly quicker, meaning you’re likely to feel better through the training programme.

There are nuances to consider here though because muscle tissue differs. We have fast and slow twitch muscle fibres - fast twitch generate a lot of strength and power, but fatigue quickly. Slow twitch don’t generate as much strength and power, but have better endurance capabilities.

When it comes to building muscle, different body parts will adapt to training protocols relative to their muscle tissue type.

What researchers are finding is that there is a sweet spot when it comes to muscle mass gain, suggesting that muscle development follows a dose-response relationship. More volume tends to mean more more muscle, but only up to a point. Typically for lower body, higher volume works better - you’re better off performing lots of high rep sets of squats if you want to build big legs for example, but the same doesn't translate in the upper body, so huge sets of bench press won’t build as big a chest. For upper body, you’ll be better off sticking to the 4-6 sets of 8-12 reps, but still pushing to near failure on each set.

Translating Muscle Mass into Strength

Having a lot of muscle doesn’t automatically make you strong - strength and size are two very different things. As we discussed earlier in the article, we add muscle to increase the amount of contractile filaments we have at our disposal. The trick to turning those into actual functional strength requires training and technique (the technique element comes with executing lifts with good form).

What we know about strength training is that we have to lift heavy. The research on this is clear, with evidence showing the closer to our maximum strengths we train, the greater the improvement of strength we experience.

What is still unclear (in the sense that the overwhelming majority of studies return no statistically significant difference between study groups) is frequency of training. Some argue that twice per week per lift is sufficient, others say that 3-4 sessions per lift is better. What the evidence shows is that there’s no clear consensus, so experiment and do what you need to do.

If you find twice per week works best, go with that. If you find four times per week is best for you, go with that. There are no rules here!

In terms of sets, anywhere from 4-8 seems to be most effective, but the rest periods appear to be important, with 2-4 minutes between sets allowing sufficient recovery to perform your next max-effort set.

Increasing Strength - Conclusion

If you’re brand new to strength training, you should focus on building muscle mass first. Approach this with a volume method at first…

• 4-6 sets of 8-12 reps (to failure) on upper body

• 4-8 sets of 12-20 reps (to failure) on lower body

Once you’ve built significant amounts of muscle to your frame, turn this into usable strength by changing your training up and lift closer to your one rep maximums.

• 2-4 days per week

• 5-10 sets per exercise

• 1-3 reps each set

• 2-4 minutes break between max-effort working sets

Follow this advice and you’ll be a much stronger person, which if done correctly will translate to all kinds of other aspects of your life - your mood, your health, your fitness, your injury susceptibility and your general feelings of wellbeing.

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

Stretching – When and How

Stretching has been widely accepted as an important part of training, but the debate over what kind of stretching, when we should stretch and how we should stretch has been ongoing for years. Stretching has fallen in and out of favour over time, but thanks to a series of studies looking into the physiological and performance effects of stretching we can now start to make effective decisions around good stretching practice.

In this article we are going to look at what the research says about stretching – what it is useful for, when we should do it and how we should be stretching.

A Brief History of Stretching in Sport and Fitness

For decades stretching was done before and after training or an event, but with little direction or purpose. It was an accepted wisdom that it was useful to ‘prevent injury’ and was part of a ‘warm up’. 

As a concept, it was given more attention from the 1980’s onwards when sportsmen and women were more performance focussed.

In the early 90’s, which was the dawn of the modern era of sports science, training methods meant that athletes were becoming bigger, quicker and more powerful, but unfortunately, more injury prone. This wasn’t a huge issue in the endurance world, but in team sports such as football it was a big deal – players were now worth millions, so you wanted them on the pitch, not the physio room!

With muscle injuries on the rise, efforts were made to investigate the cause and research into effective warm ups shed some light on stretching. This information then trickled down into the personal training and general fitness world.

Research Revealed Some Stretching Truths

Originally, stretching occurred as part of the warm up, often before any warming of the muscles had actually taken place. We now know that to be a potentially questionable practice, but a couple of decades back it was seen as a perfectly acceptable part of pre-event warm up.

This may have contributed to more than a few muscle injuries and performance issues over the years. If we take a look at the 2019 study into ‘Acute Effects of Dynamic Stretching on Mechanical Properties Result From both Muscle-Tendon Stretching and Muscle Warm-Up’ we see that dynamic stretching pre-event may counteract muscle warm up effects on account of its performance-reducing effects.

That practice has largely disappeared from high-level athletes warm ups, but some people still do it in the gym - don’t be one of them! We never do it with our clients at AdMac Fitness and neither should you!

When Should We Stretch?

A significant body of research is now pointing to the post-exercise benefits of stretching, rather than the pre-exercise benefits. As the previous study highlights, pre-event stretching may have a disruptive effect on performance, so should be avoided. Instead, pre-workout mobility is improved with cyclic stretching and foam rolling rather than stretching.

Further evidence for post exercise stretching being useful has been noted in this article, charting improvement of Achilles tendon flexibility and reduction of injury risk. It suggests that effective post-exercise stretching can reduce the possibility of injury by improving flexibility and range of movement at a given joint.

Additional stretching knowledge has been developed further with the concept of ‘prehab’ – by introducing exercises and specific stretches, athletes can avoid injury risk and prevent potential injuries. This 2019 study showed a significant reduction in the incidence of injury to baseball players. 

So the conclusion of ‘when’ to stretch can be answered with a resounding ‘after exercise or competition, never before’.

How Should We Stretch?

There has been a series of changes in stretching methods over the years. We’ve gone from static stretching to more dynamic approaches such as ‘cyclic stretching (also known as bouncing), ballistic stretching, where a limb is moved at speed to along the full length of its range of movement and finally, PNF stretching (Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation) where a muscle is stretched to discomfort, then muscle is contracted, released and stretched further.

The research around all of them suggests there is no ‘best’ practice – they all have their benefits. From a performance point of view, PNF stretching is probable viewed as the best, with studies like this showing positive improvements associated with the method, even if the researchers admit they’re not entirely sure as to how the approach works so well!

Concluding Thoughts on Stretching…

What is clear is that the type of stretching you perform is less important than the consistency with which you do it. A regular stretching practice, be it in the form of yoga or a dedicated stretching session is an integral part of avoiding injury and improving tissue health.

Just make sure you stretch a warm muscle – some very light movement before you stretch, just to promote blood flow to the muscles and soft tissues. 

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!

Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness - What the science says...

Anyone who has ever done exercise will have almost certainly experienced the post-exercise muscle pain known as DOMS. If you’re just getting back into training after lockdown, you may well be experiencing DOMS like you haven’t done for a long time!

What we’re going to explore in this article is what the science says about Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness and how we can manage it ourselves.

DOMS - What is it?

The early study and investigation into delayed onset muscle soreness started in the 70’s and 80’s. For a long time there were a number of theories under investigation, ranging from lactic acid build up, enzyme build up, muscle damage and toxin accumulation. What the science has largely settled on is that DOMS is the result of micro-trauma in the muscles caused by exercise, in particular eccentric contraction. The other theories around lactic acid etc have been largely discredited by science.

For those of you unaware, eccentric contraction is when a muscle lengthens as it contracts, rather than shortens. A classic example is in the hamstrings during kettlebell swings.

Two other anecdotal observations around DOMS is a change of stimulus, so for example imagine you typically weight train and instead decide to go for a run, because you’re not used to running you’re likely to suffer from DOMS, even though you may already be physically fit.

Another potential cause of DOMS is the intensity of the exercise. By increasing workout volume and intensity you may well be creating the conditions for muscle soreness. This is especially poignant at the moment because so many of us are ramping our exercise intensity back up post-lockdown, so are potentially more likely to be suffering from DOMS.

Why is DOMS a problem?

This largely depends on your training goals. If you’re an athlete, DOMS can be a big problem because being in pain makes you unable to train at a very high intensity. This can translate into poor performances in competition. Additionally it reduces the amount of force that your muscles are capable of generating and the speed at which they contract, all negatives from a performance standpoint.

The more significant effect of DOMS for the rest of us is the increase in injury risk associated with the problem. We know from research that the condition has an adverse effect on the ability of the muscles and connective tissue to absorb force and impact, which is a huge element of injury prevention, especially in those who run or walk a lot, or play sports even at an amateur level.

Additionally DOMS is known to affect the muscle sequencing and firing patterns, so trying to learn a new physical skill whilst suffering from the problem is not a good idea. If you’re taking up a new sport or physical skill, don’t do it whilst suffering from DOMS because you’ll find learning the skill harder and you’re more likely to pick up an injury in the process.

How can we avoid DOMS?

The obvious thing to do is to avoid spending much time in eccentric contraction, especially when returning to training. Although there’s a school of thought that suggests eccentric contraction is where muscle growth occurs, there’s significant evidence that suggests this isn’t actually true. Placing emphasis on explosive concentric elements of an exercise will be helpful and avoiding any kind of ‘negatives’ in training.

You can still train at a very high intensity and not experience much in the way of DOMS - excellent approaches to this are exercises like prowler pushes, olympic weightlifting, sprinting, boxing, rope work and the like - these tend to not have much in the way of eccentric contraction so you can effectively work as hard as you like and not suffer delayed onset muscle soreness.

You’ll still have to recover appropriately, but the likelihood is you won’t be sore after the workout.

How do we cure DOMS?

The short answer is we don’t, but we can reduce the effects of it! The longer answer is that there are various ways to reduce the effects of the muscle pain that have various levels of success.

Generally speaking the best advice is to take an active role in recovery - massage therapies, warm/cold immersion therapies (sauna/ice baths etc), wearing compression and infrared garments and finally making sure you are well rested with great quality sleep, well nourished with plenty of protein and adequately hydrated.

Should DOMS ever be a goal?

For all the reasons above - DOMS should never be a goal on its own. In the bodybuilding community there is a lot of bro talk where they almost make DOMS out to be a good thing. The only real occasion where a bit of DOMS occurring might not be the worst thing in the world would be the end of a 6-8 week hypertrophy block of training where the volume has been increased week to week and there is a planned rest/de-load week after the block. And even then it shouldn’t be a goal just a bi-product of very well organised hypertrophy training.

Following the advice in this article will see you fighting fit and doing your best to avoid DOMS!

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!

Post Lockdown Weight Loss - How Fast Can I Lose Weight and How Do I stay Motivated?

In this article we’re going to look at the questions ‘how fast can I lose weight and how do I stay motivated?’ We’ll look at the research, the evidence and the practicalities of post-lockdown weight loss.

With gyms opening back up and Personal Training sessions returning to normal levels, people are heading back to fitness after their enforced break. If my social media is anything to go by, a lot of people have found the return hard - they’ve lost fitness, gained weight and are finding the sessions much harder than they used to!

Not only are they finding it physically tough, but it’s also mentally tough to get up and back at it. Motivation to exercise has waned in a lot of people because they’ve gotten used to the easier time on the sofa. The gyms being closed has given them the perfect excuse to not train, so the guilt associated is less severe! The psychological hurdle to jump over is just as hard as the physical one in many ways, so we’re going to cover that too.

We’ve already written about returning to fitness sensibly so in this article, we’re going to cover the other topic people are interested in - how fast can they lose the lockdown weight and how can they stay motivated?

Defining ‘weight’ - It’s not what it seems!

What most people mean when they say they want to lose weight is that they want to lose fat - the two things are different. In fact, you can do a little experiment to prove so…

1. Stand on some scales and see what you weigh

2. Drink a litre of water as quickly as you can

3. Stand back on the scales - see what you weigh now

Chances are you’ll be around 2lbs heavier than you were a couple of minutes earlier. You’re no fatter, you’re just heavier. Use this as an example of how weight and fat are different, and then accept that your fluid levels have a huge impact on weight, so not all weight gain is bad news!

There are certain diets that promise rapid weight loss, but the impressive weight loss numbers you see are just water weight and within a couple of weeks, a more ‘normal’ rate of fat loss occurs.

When measuring weight loss, we’re looking for a long term trend - there may well be day-today fluctuations in weight, there may well be weight gains, but if over the medium to long term the weight is coming down, that’s what we’re hoping for. Generally speaking, acceptable weight loss is around 1-3lbs per week, depending on your time lines and your physiology,

Speed of weight loss

When you’re losing weight, the temptation is to rapidly reduce calories to see early results, which is no bad thing. Seeing early results is an excellent motivating factor, but it’s hard to keep up and you should understand that before embarking on a fast drop approach. The research shows that people who take this approach are often successful in the short term, but through biochemical changes will often see a return of weight gain unless they strictly control their food intake.

The evidence maintains that after a rapid weight loss phase, a slower phase of weight loss of around 1-3lbs per week is optimal over the longer term, giving time to adapt behaviours in a more sustainable way and also reduce the physical impact.

The study then goes on to suggest that ‘maintenance visits’ are useful to ensure that the motivation and behaviours required to lose weight are maintained for the long term. The great thing about hiring a Personal Trainer or joining in with our group classes is that those maintenance visits are happening on a regular basis, so we take care of that one easily!

In the research, the rate of weight loss, the maintenance of the weight loss and the rate of weight regain are all improved by the use of maintenance visits, proving again that they most successful weight loss approaches always involve some sort of check in and accountability.

Weight loss motivation

What the evidence shows is that long term weight loss motivation is maintained when the dieter ‘owns’ the goal - it’s something that they want to achieve and are willing to overcome obstacles and difficulties in the way to make it happen.

By making the goal one that you decide on and want to achieve, your chances of success are far higher. Of course for most people, lockdown weight gain is likely to be fairly limited (5-20lbs) and that is the kind of weight that can be lost in a few weeks, but the reality is it still takes motivation to achieve. There will be times when it’s both physically and mentally tough and those are obstacles that will have to be overcome - with the help of a coach and the internal drive to succeed, it’s possible.

Losing lockdown weight: Concluded

What we’ve learned from the article and the research is the key to ensuring fast and maintained weight loss. These are the key points to make sure you manage it effectively and succeed with your weight loss goal…

1. You can start fast by dropping calories very low, but don’t stay there - use it as a kick start to lose water weight and boost motivation.

2. Use a coach! Maintenance visits help to keep you accountable, keep you on track with actions and behaviours and also help to motivate you.

3. Make sure it’s YOUR goal - not someone else's. Weight loss isn’t always easy, so you’ve got to be willing to tough out the hard times.

4. Maintain a calorie deficit that will see you lose 1-3lbs per week, which research shows is the most sustainable.

5. Train regularly - it helps you create the calorie deficit and boosts your physical and mental health!

With the AdMac Fitness team by your side, you’ll be sure to succeed in your weight loss and fitness goals!

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 Welcomes a New Personal Trainer - Nadine Palmer!

At AdMac Fitness we’re always looking at ways we can expand our services and grow the client offering. With that in mind, we’re delighted to announce that Nadine Palmer has joined us as our brand new Personal Trainer!

Nadine will be working alongside both myself and Giancarlo to deliver excellent Personal Training sessions and fitness coaching. We’ve got a strong vetting process at AdMac Fitness and only work with high quality personal trainers and Nadine is just that.

As a team we’re looking forward to introducing Nadine to everyone and letting our members experience her training style. We’re sure you’re going to love how she works and the fun you’ll have during her sessions! Alongside her excellent fitness knowledge, he also has a brilliant sense of humour and will make personal training sessions fun (as well as tough - don’t forget that bit!)

At AdMac Fitness we’re trying to come out of the lockdown stronger and better than ever before, working as hard as we can to make sure that maintain everything you knew and loved about the gym, as well as expanding what we do.

Bringing Nadine on board gives us an extra dimension to what we offer and we’re sure you’re going to love working with her. When you see Nadine in the gym, make sure you say hi!

Here’s a little more on Nadine (and Giancarlo!)

If you’re interested in working with Nadine, get in touch with the studio here and arrange a consultation.

AdMac Fitness is Back! A Few Updates Around our Guidelines...

After a seemingly never-ending lockdown, life is slowly returning to normal. Whilst we aren’t out of the woods yet, fitness facilities have been given the green light to re-open (which is great news as far as we’re concerned!)

With that in mind we’ve got some news and guidelines about AdMac Fitness and our own opening protocols. We’re doing our best to get things back to a version of normal and whilst some restrictions still apply, we’re doing what we can.

A Few Guidelines and Announcements…

• The studio is open for 1:1 and 2:1 personal training. We can control the spaces and because we’re a fully private facility, we can can control exactly who enters the gym and when. Continue to use your usual booking method for the sessions.

• The Monday evening group class won’t be starting up at the moment because of social distancing guidelines - there are just too many people for the space we have available. As soon as this changes we will let you know and classes will be returning.

• The Saturday morning Bootcamp will resume in mid August, stay tuned for the date. We’ll make an announcement as soon as we can via all of the usual channels.

Our Standards of Cleanliness…

For those members and clients who have concerns, be assured that social distancing can be controlled as we work with small numbers in the studio.

The benefit of being a private facility is that we can control the numbers who can enter the building, so we’ll never have any more than an appropriate number of people in the gym.

Our standards of cleanliness are already excellent, but we can promise you all that cleaning will be increased. We’ll be cleaning the gym and the individual bits of kit multiple times per day. We’ll also provide hand sanitiser, but of course if bringing your own will make you feel more at ease, feel free to bring that too.

Let’s all enjoy a return to fitness and gym use and please remember - we at AdMac Fitness would NEVER do anything to harm your health and safety, so you can turn up to train relaxed and ready to go. We’ve got you covered and are well-prepared to make sure your session and safety have been put front and centre of our minds!

One other thing…

We’ve got a new Personal Trainer too! We’ve had Nadine join the AdMac Fitness team. Keep your eyes peeled for a little more information about here - you may even see her in the gym!

Let AdMac Guide Your Training!

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 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 help you reach your fitness and physique goals, contact us on 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!

Weights, Reps and Sets... When to use High or Low Reps

For years it was believed that you needed to lift heavy weights for muscle and strength, but light weights for endurance and fat loss. There’s an element of truth in that, but like all things fitness there’s a million shades of grey in there too. In this article we’re going to look at weights, sets and reps, discussing what the science tells us about different rep ranges, loads and volumes of resistance training.

As always on the AdMac Fitness we’ll link to studies that tell us what the science shows, giving you the proof that here we share science, not opinion.

Last week we discussed weight training for fat loss, but today we’re going to look in more depth at the nuances of weight training and how you can adjust your lifting to suit your different goals.

Weight Training - The Physiology

At the most basic level, weight training works by breaking muscle tissue down through excess loading. This breakdown of the tissue forces a physiological and hormonal adaption, making the body build more contractile fibres. This makes the muscle stronger and able to cope with more load in future.

To help you visualise what happens, the diagram below shows the physiology of muscle tissue. What weight training does is increase the quantity, size and density of the myofibrils. These are the contractile units that determine the strength of a muscle and its ability to handle load.

It would be wrong to assume that all weight training does is to increase the size and density of the myofibrils. You can adapt weight training methodologies to bring about a different response in the muscle tissue, so all weight training isn’t the same.

What we know from the science is that weight training affects the body differently when we use different weights, sets and rest periods.

Adjusting Weights - What Happens

When the body lifts different levels of load, it creates a change in the outcome for the muscle. It used to be thought that heavier weight increases muscle mass more effectively than lighter weight, but it turns out that that isn’t strictly true.

Whilst heavy weight can be effective for muscle building, light weights have been shows to effectively build muscle too. In fact, some studies show that light weights can be more effective at building muscle. This is because of the volume of training - they typically do more training as the rep ranges are higher, and in lots of cases, more reps leads to more muscle tissue stress and more adaption. Although the muscle growth was higher in the study though, strength didn’t improve as much as in the higher load group.

If you want to improve strength, the loads have to increase. Study after study shows that if strength improvement is the desired outcome, then load becomes more important than volume, especially in trained populations.

In untrained populations there’s evidence that volume is more important than load, but this is possibly due to a neural response rather than a forced adaption at a physiological level. If you’re reading this as someone who has some training experience (more than 1 year), the load is more important than volume when it comes to strength improvement.

Overwhelmingly in trained populations, the evidence shows that strength adaption is forced by lifting progressively heavier weights. If we take a look at this study it shows that pushing heavier weights (up to 90% of 1 rep maximum) at a high intensity showed significantly greater strength gains that moderate or low load weight training. What’s important to note here is that the rest periods were longer in the strength group, allowing them to full recover between sets, meaning they were fresher for each high load set.

So to conclude, light to moderate weight with high repetitions leads to more muscle growth. Heaver weights with fewer reps and longer rests leads to more strength gains.

Adjusting Sets - What Happens

The volume question is important, because it brings into account levels of fatigue and expected outcomes of training. We know from the previous sections that higher volume tends to increase muscle mass, with higher loads increasing strength, but is there an optimal number of sets and reps?

The answer appears to be no, there isn’t an ‘optimal’, but typically speaking higher volumes will show greater improvements in the desired outcome. For clarity, what we mean here isn’t about the load lifted - that should always be specific to the goal, but more the number of sets and reps.

For example, if when training for strength we lift with around a 1-5 rep range, it appears that additional sets will be beneficial. So, rather than do 3 sets of 5, research shows that 5 sets of 5 would likely produce a better result because the volume is higher for the goal. The same goes with muscle building - if you would normally do 4 sets of 10, evidence suggests 5 sets of 10 would be better.

More volume at a given rep range appears to be more effective than lower volume. Whether you increase the volume during a workout (by doing extra sets in the same workout) or you increase the volume across the week (by doing additional workouts) doesn’t seem to matter, what matters is that you just do more.

What’s important though is that you recover.

Recovery from Exercise

There is a limit to the rate of muscle protein synthesis, which means the rate at which your body can physically build muscle tissue. Search shows that in older populations, additional volume is more beneficial than in younger populations, so your training history is something to bear in mind.

Your job isn’t to destroy your body in training, it’s to stimulate it and provide the best conditions in which muscle can be grown. Train hard 3-6 times per week, but recover well too. Where the research shows high volume is effective when it comes to weight training, it also tells us there’s a point at which extra training ceases to become effective. Your job is to listen to your body and when it’s telling you it needs a rest, you give it one!

Let AdMac Help You Weight Train!

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 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 help you lose weight, contact us on 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!

Weight Training for Fat Loss - How and Why it Works

A lot of people wrongly assume that if you want to lose fat, you do cardio, but if you want to build muscle, you lift weights. It’s easy to understand where these assumptions come from, but they’re a little wide of the mark.

In this article we’re going to discuss weight training for fat loss - something our clients here at AdMac Fitness will be well aware of. It’s a fundamental part of our training approach and is one of the major reasons our clients achieve such excellent results.

We’re going to discuss how and why weight training for fat loss works, and why we use it as our go-to approach.

A History of Fat Loss

What we know to be true is that in order to lose fat, we need to create a calorie deficit. By burning more calories than we consume, the body is forced to use up fat stores to satisfy our bodies energy demands. No matter which approach you take, fundamentally they all abide by this core principle.

The reason historically it was believed that ‘cardio’ is better for fat loss than other forms of training is because we know that cardio burns more calories. Sounds logical.

The thing is, it’s not that simple.

Cardio is fantastic at burning calories whilst you’re doing it, and a little while after. These factors are enhanced when we perform HIIT (high intensity interval training), which is the approach we use here at AdMac Fitness. Research has consistently shown that HIIT combined with moderate calorie restriction sustained over a long enough period of time is a very effective way of producing a sustained loss of body fat.

What we also know is that relying on cardio and diet alone isn’t a particularly good long term fat loss strategy, and here’s why…

A combination of calorie restriction and endurance exercise is shown to increase muscle atrophy (muscle loss). This can be slightly offset if the person following a cardio and calorie restriction approach includes a lot of protein in their diet, but even then significant lean body tissue loss occurs. This isn’t what we’re trying to do - we want to preserve our lean body tissue, whilst losing fat.

It’s possible to lose weight by weight training and doing no cardio, but it’s a process that takes longer and it means you have to be tighter on a diet. Many people prefer to eat slightly more but burn more calories in the gym. If you aren’t going to do any cardio, you have to be strict with your calorie intake - without a calorie restriction, fat loss using weight training alone is very difficult.

Weight and fat are different things altogether, because you can be heavy and lean.

Research show that what happens when you combine weight training with a calorie restricted diet, is you effectively prevent all muscle loss yet you maintain the rate of fat loss seen in those who do cardio. This is a huge result, because muscle is both an aesthetically pleasing tissue and a metabolically active one, which means it burns a lot of calories at rest, giving you a little more headroom when it comes to your dieting.

More muscle typically means a high metabolic rate, so you can afford to eat a few more calories in your diet, which is never a bad thing when you’re trying to lose fat!

Is There a Weight Training Strategy That Works Best for Fat Loss?

The short answer is that no, one approach over others is not known to be significantly better, because there are too many variables at play. People work at different intensities, with different weights and selecting different exercises. There are commonalities though, which we’ll discuss in a few moments.

What we can be sure of though is that throughout various studies, the most effective approach to fat loss and general health improvement includes both a resistance training and cardio training element. Ideally the cardio element is high intensity interval training and the resistance training is full body, high intensity. Whether the resistance is provided by bodyweight, dumbbells, barbells, kettlebells etc is basically irrelevant.

Frequency of training appears to be very important as well. Results from this study show that when subjects trained 4 or more times per week, they lost 3 times more fat than those who trained 2-3 times per week.

Here are the key elements of a resistance-based training programme for fat loss….

• It has to be high intensity. The aim is to help create a calorie deficit, so keep rest periods short and weights relatively high.

• Training has to be done 4+ times per week if fat loss is the goal.

• Workouts should be full-body. More muscle trained = more calories burned.

• The workouts should contain a cardio element, ideally HIIT and not low intensity, steady state training.

Weight Training for Fat Loss Conclusions

What we’ve learned is that weight training mixed with a cardio element is better for fat loss than cardio or weight training alone. We’ve learned how to go about the session, what elements we need include and what type of cardio we should go for.

Weight loss is what we specialise in here at AdMac Fitness, so don’t worry - you’re in very capable hands when it comes to your fat loss journey!

Let AdMac Help You Lose Weight!

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 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 help you lose weight, contact us on 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!

Functional Abdominal Training - What Does a Good Ab Workout Look Like?

Regardless of what you’ve read in magazines, seen on TV or heard from a friend, let me (as a qualified and experienced Personal Trainer) tell you something… sit ups aren’t a particularly effective core exercise. In fact, if you want to see your abs, all the sit ups in the world won’t help you. That’s a case of reducing body fat.

But that’s another blog post.

Today, we’re talking about ab workouts. When it comes to magazines, ab workouts are generally poorly-written, not very effective and in a lot of cases, downright dangerous. They can cause back problems and hip problems because they force an over reliance on hip flexors, rather than engaging the target muscles.

In this article I’m going to teach you about ab workouts - how the core works and how to train it properly.

Ab Workout Misinformation

If you read an article about ab workouts, you’ll probably see the same handful of exercises repeated in slightly different orders, with slightly different rep ranges. They won’t differentiate between goals particularly and there won’t be much in the way of regard for muscle balance and back health. They’re mostly written by journalists, not personal trainers with a deeper understanding of training, so they don’t go into proper details about what an ab workout should look like.

To combat the spreading of poor ab workouts, I thought I’d give you a template of what a good ab workout should look like and why. I’m not going to give away all of my secrets (you have to come and train at AdMac Fitness for those), but I’ll steer you in the right direction!

We’re going to talk about how we train the abdominals, what movements we need to focus on and what the science tells us about abdominal training.

The Purposes of a Good Abdominal Workout

It’s important that we cast aside vanity at this point, because although abs are synonymous with health, being lean and looking good, they actually serve a far more important purpose. They provide back and torso stability and they allow the safe and effective movement of the upper and lower body. They contribute to balance, to power transfer and spinal health. So yeah, being able to see your abs is great, but having abs that do the job they’re supposed to do is even better!

A good abdominal workout is more than just exercises to help see the abs though - it trains all of the muscles of the core through various planes of movement, testing them and strengthening them through a variety of movement patterns and loads. The benefits extend far beyond looking good as well…

A strong core will reduce injury risk, improve injury rehab rates, overall strength and power, posture, exercise technique, balance and general health.

Defining the terminology…

We have to define a few of the terms here as well, so to avoid doubt as we progress, I’m going to explain what they mean. These terms will be used throughout the article so it’s best I explain them before we go any further, that way you’ll understand everything we’re discussing as we go….

• Abs - abdominal muscles. Multiple layers of muscle (top layers are known as superficial and the more hidden, internal muscles are known as deep).

• Core - the connected system of muscles on the front and back of the torso, including muscles of the abdominals, lower and mid back, obliques (sides) and hips. The core muscles are also superficial and deep.

• Torso - the mid section of the body, extending from the hips to the neck. Doesn’t include the limbs, neck or head.

The picture below will give you a good idea of what we are talking about when refer to an ab or core workout….

The problem with most ab workouts in magazines is that they focus purely on the rectus abdominis, neglecting the rest of the muscles. This can create back problems and leave you with a core that doesn’t function effectively because it only strengthens one area, not the whole thing.

What does a good ab workout look like?

To be truly effective a core workout has to strengthen all of the muscles in the region across various planes of movement that the core does most of its work in. Essentially, the core is responsible for three main movement functions…

1. Balance - keeping you upright

2. Hinging - folding you in half, then straightening you back out

3. Rotation - allowing your body to twist

So our exercises have to focus on these three movement patterns. We also have to make the muscles work with a variety of weight and rep ranges, meaning that a proper core workout won’t consist of just sit ups - it has to include exercises that involve weight transfer, hinging and rotation in order to be truly effective.

There is also a link between the type of exercise performance and the amount of core engagement. It seems logical to assume that exercises such as planks would activate the core more than back squats for example, but research shows that this isn’t true - squats engage the overall core more than planks.

Designing a Functional Ab Workout

Knowing what we do about abdominal form and function, we have to make sure that the exercises we pick include a balance element, a hinge element and a rotational element. With these in mind, the workout begins to look a lot different to most ‘core’ workouts you’ll see in a magazine.

Here’s a few exercises that will help you build a strong and healthy core, but also will offer crossover benefits to other aspects of your health and fitness. Experiment with them - start light, but increase the weights and reps as you get used to the techniques and the movement patterns….

The Front Squat

By front-loading the weight, your core is forced to work extra hard to maintain an upright posture and balance. This engages the core and the erector spinae, which are the muscles running alongside the spine. Also, it’s one of the best leg exercises you can do, so you kill two birds with one stone!

Barbell Rotations

The barbell rotation forces the core to engage as it rotates, forcing it to strengthen the oblique muscles, the rectus abdominis and the muscles of the lower back. It’s an excellent exercise when done well and translates well to sports requiring rotation.

Kettlebell Side Bends

These are an exercise that engage the superficial and deep muscles of the abdomen, plus they also train the oblique muscles down the sides of the torso. It’s a nice and simple exercise, but it’s also very effective. It’s excellent as a high-rep exercise too.

American Kettlebell Swings

This is a controversial exercise in kettlebell circles, especially amongst purists. They believe the only effective kettlebell swing is the Russian Swing, but a lot of people programme American Swings because they offer more in the way of core engagement. I like them because include lower back, core, balance, hinge and overhead stability elements to a workout. Be careful when you do them, but that’s a rule to follow with any exercise…

Functional Core Training - Concluded

There may be exercises here that you wouldn’t automatically consider with a core workout, but hopefully you’ve learned a little bit more about how the core works and what movements help to build a nice, strong and functional torso. Experiment with them in terms of weights you use, rep ranges, sets etc, but make sure you expand your thinking around exercises and you’ll see the benefits quickly.

These aren’t the only exercises we use for core training at AdMac Fitness, but if you want to know everything you do, you’ll have to come along and train with us!

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!

Post Lockdown Cardio - How we do it at AdMac Fitness

The next article in our returning to training series is about cardio and how we do things here at AdMac Fitness. It follows on from our more generic article on returning to training which can be found here.

One aspect of training that a lot of people are confused about is cardio and how to do it post lockdown. Having reduced their running, cycling and swimming during lockdown, some who rely on longer duration work will be feeling the effects of reduced cardiovascular fitness. If your cardio was gym based with rowers, cross trainers and stair masters etc, you’ll have suffered too.

We’re going to give some pointers about how we’re returning to cardio post lockdown at AdMac Fitness. It’s not a guide on returning to running etc, more a how and why we’re going to re-introduce the cardio element to our programming for our members.

At AdMac Fitness, our approach to cardio doesn’t rely on the long duration, steady-state work that most people associate with cardio exercise. Our clients have all round fitness and physique goals, so we have to approach our cardio training differently. We use a variety of exercises, rep ranges, timed intervals etc to bring about a cardio response. We use ropes, prowlers, weights, kettlebells, intervals and a hole host of other approaches to ensure our clients don’t just look great, they also have the stamina to match!

How We’re Returning to Cardio at AdMac Fitness

We’ve got to balance out the needs of the clients with that fact that they’re likely to be reconditioned.

It’d be stupid of us to go flying straight into the highest intensity work otherwise we’re likely to cause problems. Instead, we’ll be adjusting exercises, rep ranges, weights and work intervals. We’ll stick to our principles of High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT), which allows us to manipulate exercise selection and workloads.

We’ll build our clients back up at an appropriate intensity, starting with lighter loads, shorter work intervals and lower impact exercises. This flexibility means we can adapt workouts to make sure clients safety is put front and centre. If we were relying on running, swimming or cycling alone, we wouldn’t have the ability to tweak workouts so effectively.

For anyone returning to cardio post lockdown you should start with baby steps and build up your intensity as you go.

How we do Cardio at AdMac Fitness

Our cardio approach involves a short burst of high intensity work towards the end of the session. The evidence base in support of HIIT is just too strong to ignore and the positive results are proven time and again across multiple studies.

There’s nothing wrong with going for a long run, it’s just not the most effective way to get our clients into the shape they want to be in. If we were training runners, great - we’d have them running. We’re training people who want a high level of general fitness, a healthy amount of muscle and low body fat. That’s why we do the kind of cardio we do.

More and more, personal trainers and strength coaches are blurring the lines between ‘cardio’ and ‘strength’ training and recent analysis of the research around the topic suggests that most of the benefits of high intensity strength training cross over to both.

The effects of this kind of cardio are both wide-ranging and significant for people across the age ranges. Evidence shows that high intensity resistance exercise is effective for people of all ages and the benefits extend across the physical capabilities.

A lot of people assume that resistance-based HIIT is only safe and effective for young, fit people. However, evidence is showing there are huge fitness benefits for older exercisers using the approach as well. In this particular study, the subjects were older men and they underwent a period of twice weekly training sessions. The effects were monitored across a range of physical capabilities, with the evidence showing that the training benefitted not just their strength and muscle mass, but cardiovascular fitness too.

An AdMac Cardio Blast Example…

Typically we use ‘finishers’ - high intensity ends to a session, designed to burn a lot of calories, raise the heart rate and improve stamina. We use short, high intensity work intervals and the exercises may be a mixture of rope work, slams, sprints, mountain climbers etc. We’ll perform multiple rounds and circuits, bringing about the training effect we’re looking for.

These may be timed for 30 seconds, with a 15 second rest between exercises, for example. This varies depending on the exercises, the goals of the session/client and the state of fitness.

We’re in the results business, first and foremost. Our clients come to us because they want to get fit, improve their health and see the physical and mental benefits of effective exercise. What we do is decide our approaches based on what the evidence suggest. In the case of our cardio, we listen to the science and programme accordingly.

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!