High Intensity Workout Finishers - a Few Ideas

One of the most effective ways to increase the calorie burn in a session is with a high intensity workout ‘finisher’. These are an exercise or series of exercises performed in a short burst with the emphasis being on maintaining high effort levels. They’re always at the end of a workout because the idea is to work hard enough so there’s not much left in the tank afterwards!

In this article we’re going to look at a few different workout finisher ideas and give you some guidance so you can put them into your own training. Used effectively, they can be transformative for your fitness and physique goals.

We use workout finishers at AdMac Fitness, because we believe they have a double whammy of effectiveness…

1. They increase the overall calorie burn of a session

2. The client ends the session on a high, knowing they’ve given their all

Workout Finisher Guidelines

As a rule of thumb, the finisher should be short but high intensity. If it drags on for too long, you won’t be able to maintain the high intensity required. Also, if it’s lower intensity and longer duration, what you’re basically doing is cardio training and that’s a different thing altogether!

Here’s a few guidelines to make your workout finishers more effective…

1. Make the movements simple to do - as you fatigue your technique will suffer, so don’t do anything that requires complex movement patterns.

2. Keep them short - less than 10 minutes. The goal is high intensity, not long duration.

3. Mix them up between workouts - don’t repeat the same movement patterns over and over.

4. Make them appropriate - don’t throw in high intensity sprints if your client is morbidly obese and struggles to walk.

5. Use resistance training often - don’t rely on pure cardio approaches.

Sample Workout Finishers to Transform Your Fitness Results

Throw these into your workouts and thank me later - they’re a mixture of weight training and cardio workout finishers and they’re all very, very effective.

Burpee Swings into Push Ups

Take a medium to heavy kettlebell (16-20kg women, 20-24kg men) and perform 20 swings followed immediately by 10 push ups. Get to your feet and perform 18 swings and 9 push ups, followed by 16 swings and 8 push ups.

Repeat down to 2 swings and 1 push up.

30:30 Rowing Machine Sprints

Start with a gentle 30 second row, then once you reach the 30 second mark row as fast as you can for 30 seconds. Repeat this for five minutes. This simple pattern can be used across all kinds of equipment or approaches, not just rowing machines - you could do it on a spin bike, air bike, treadmill, ski-erg etc.

Burpees for Time

Pick a number that’s sufficiently challenging and the task is to complete that many burpees in the quickest time possible. Generally speaking, for a fit person 100 burpees will take around 6-8 minutes. Vary the number depending on the fitness of the person training, but most people will shoot for 50 or more.

3:2:1

Pick three different exercises and perform three reps of the first one, two of the second and one of the final exercise. Personally, I like to do air squats, pull ups and push ups because it’s a great all-body workout.

In practice it looks like this… I do 3 air squats, 2 pull ups and 1 push up. I repeat this for a designated amount of rounds or time. I’ll either keep repeating the circuit as many times as I can in 5 or 10 minutes, or I’ll do the 3:2:1 for 20 rounds, which is 120 reps.

Hill Sprints

If you like to train outside, there are few better finishers than the good old hill sprint. All you need to do is find a steep hill, 30-50m long and sprint up it, walking back down. Repeat as many times as you need to!

Tabata

The Tabata protocol is simple - you work at all out intensity for 20 seconds, then rest for 10 seconds. You repeat this for 4 minutes. It’s simple, but brutally effective. You can use this approach with either resistance training exercises (such as squats, push ups, kettlebell swings etc) or cardio exercises.

Rope Slams into Jump Squats

This is a simple two-move all body finisher. Perform 30 seconds of high intensity rope slams. Once the clock hits 30 seconds, drop the rope and immediately perform 30 seconds of jump squats. Repeat for as many rounds as required.

Simple Sprints

Either on a treadmill or a field, sprint as fast as you can until you can’t go any longer. When you reach that point, stop and walk for 20 seconds. Repeat until you physically can’t run any more!

Prowler Circuits

If you have access to a prowler, set a start point and put out 3 cones in a row, 5m, 10m and 15m from the start point. Push the prowler to the 5m cone and back, then the 10m cone and back and finally the 15m cone and back.

Repeat as often as you need.

Circuits

Pick a number of different exercises and perform a micro circuit class - between 30 seconds and a minute per exercise. Don’t rest between exercises, just move straight from one to the next without a break. Keep the intensity high and the finisher short (10 minutes tops).

Programming Workout Finishers

Unless your goal is simply ‘general fitness’, programme your finishers with a goal in mind. That might be to increase calorie burn, to increase explosive strength under fatigue, to do more hip hinge movements (kettlebell swings etc). It’s part of the workout, so use it to the client’s advantage.

You can use your finisher for far more than simply getting someone more tired (although that’s a secondary benefit!)

Always keep your finishers at the end of the workout, because if they’re done properly your client (or yourself) won’t have much energy left to carry on with the session. You’ll also compromise your movement quality for the work coming later!

Keep them simple and effective. The idea is to work hard and complex movements don’t lend themselves brilliantly to high intensity, hard work at high volumes.

Adding finishers into your workouts can transform your fitness and physique. Give one of the suggested workouts here a go and see how you get on - you’ll make a huge difference to your conditioning in a short space of time.

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

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

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

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

Why We're Principles Based, Not Tools Based with our Personal Training

One of the reasons our personal training is so effective here at AdMac Fitness is because we’re principles based, not tools based when it comes to our approach to fitness and personal training. Rather than be married to a single way of exercising, we select a method that is most appropriate to the individual, their goals and their abilities. No two programmes are alike, but no two people are alike.

What this means for the personal training client is that they get to enjoy the process more, because they aren’t forced to train or diet in a way that they just can’t cope with.

There are a lot of personal training studios in London that have an identity, a way of doing things and an inflexible approach. This can be a problem, because if your goals aren’t aligned with their training philosophy, you’ll never make progress towards what you want to achieve.

It’s like the old saying… ‘If the only tool you use is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail’.

At AdMac Fitness in East London, our job is to help you achieve your goals. We do that well, which is why our clients stay with us for years and achieve levels of health and fitness that they never thought was possible…

The Key to Success is Enjoying the Journey

One of the common myths around weight loss is that it’s temporary and that most people put weight back on in time. Whilst some of that is true, it depends on the circumstances and how they’ve gone about losing the weight, plus the support they’ve received along the way.

At AdMac Fitness we support our personal training clients and make them a part of the process. Research shows that this is one of the most important aspects of maintaining one term weight loss. The support and encouragement makes our clients feel comfortable, which is another vital aspect of them staying part of our group and making the long term progress with us.

It’s not just about weight loss though…

When you study exercise adherence, one of the most important factors that jump out is working with clients appropriately. In practice, that means the exercise selection, the frequency of training and the intensity of the work have to suitable. By pushing people to do too much, too soon we’d be more likely to push them away from training, killing motivation and enthusiasm. That’s the opposite of what we try to do.

We celebrate wins with clients, reminding them of how we’ll they’re doing and how far they’ve come…

Training the Person…

In our private personal training studio, we choose methods that suit the person, not methods that we bias towards. In some places, they train everyone the same way and whilst that may work for some, it won’t work for all. Our approach to personal training here in East London is to be as inclusive as possible, so whether you come to us wanting to be strong as an ox, or you simply want to lose a few kilos, we adapt our approach accordingly.

If you check out our AdMac Fitness Instagram you’ll see people of all shapes and sizes performing a wide variety of exercises. There’s no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach here, it’s just not how we do things. It would be a disservice to our personal training clients, who put their faith in us to help them achieve their health and fitness goals.

If you’ve never had personal training before, take the idea of being shouted at right out of your mind. We don’t do that - we’re coaches, not drill sergeants! If you want to be shouted at, join the army! If you want to be encouraged, guided, pushed, helped and empowered, get in touch and see what we can do for you!

What a personal training session looks like at AdMac Fitness

I said earlier that there’s no single approach, but there are similarities in the sessions. We always start with an appropriate warm up and that will depend on what we have going on in the session that day. There may be a cardio element to it, followed by some movement prep work.

Next up we’ll go through the strength/resistance training part of the session. Here the weights and exercise selection will be appropriate to you and your goals. Some may be bodyweight exercises, some may use the TRX, others will be dumbbell, barbell or kettlebell based.

Finally, we may end with a finisher which is a high intensity element - it could be circuit based or cardio based depending on what the personal trainer has in mind. We may also do our core and abdominal work in this part of the session too. A finisher is designed to improve cardio capacity and burn a lot of calories at the end of the session. They’re VERY effective!

Finally, we’ll stretch and cool down. You’ll leave the session feeling great, having achieved something and worked hard, releasing those endorphins you get having gone through a great workout!

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

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

Slow and Steady is More Effective than Fast and Failing...

We live in a world where we want everything immediately… Next day delivery, a whole TV series in one go, super fast broadband and the like. Patience is a virtue that is diminishing fast, which isn’t ideal when it comes to fat loss.

Let me explain how…

If you look at your present state of health and fitness, it will have taken you a lifetime to reach that point. All of your choices and actions, whether good or bad have led you to where you are now. Whether you’re fit, unfit, fat, lean or somewhere in between, you are a result of your actions and your choices.

But reversing it takes a common sense approach. A slow and steady plan that will see you progress at the appropriate rate. The goal is to make sure you enjoy life whilst losing weight and improving your fitness. At AdMac Fitness in East London, we believe that health and fitness should be a part of your life, not dominate the whole thing. As personal trainers, we don’t live like monks and we don’t expect our clients to either - that’s why we build weight loss plans and approaches that allow you to live a real life yet still achieve your health, fitness and fat loss goals!

As appealing as rapid fat loss is, the reality is if you want to drop huge amounts of weight in a very short space of time, you’ve got to make sacrifices that will absolutely destroy your enjoyment of life….

• Zero cheat meals

• Zero booze

• Early nights

• Daily training

• Minimum 8 hours sleep every night

• No caffeine

• Limited salt

• Count every calorie

Is that what you really want? Are you honestly willing to sacrifice all the fun in life for the sake of faster fat loss? Or are you willing to adopt a plan that will work for the long term but still allow you to enjoy a few treats and nights out (when they return) every now and then?

In the fitness world, the slow and steady approach never really appeals to people.

At AdMac Fitness we’ve met people who have done no exercise for 3 years and then suddenly expect to be running 40k every week. We’ve met people wanting to do 4 strength sessions in 5 days after a decade out of the gym. We’ve met people who want to attempt a PB on their deadlift in their first session back after a year.

If that sounds like you, STOP!

Injuries are inevitable in this scenario, and your body hasn’t let you down, common sense has.

The people who want this way of working are either motivated by external factors (competition, prize money, they’re on TV, it’s a medical life or death scenario) or more likely, they simply crash and burn, failing after a couple of weeks when they realise what the reality of that approach looks like,

If you’ve spent the last 3 years gaining 0.5kg a month, and then setting yourself a goal to lose it in 10 weeks you’re either going to have to sacrifice your entire life to achieve it, or you’ll be very disappointed. It took you 156 weeks to gain the weight, it’s going to take a lot longer than 10 weeks to lose it!

Unless I’ve got my wires crossed I’m pretty sure slow and steady works just fine in other areas of life, as these random examples show…

• It takes years of hard work and financial discipline to save up a house deposit

• It takes three years to earn your university degree

• It takes an average of 44 weeks to learn to drive

• It takes an average of 1.5 years to learn Spanish with an hour per day of practice

• It takes 3 years to learn to be an electrician

If you want to achieve something worthwhile, you’ve got to be willing to put the time and effort in over the longer term.

The lesson applied to fitness and fat loss?

Stop rushing out of the gate, full of enthusiasm about your new found mission and expect to lose 3 stone in 2 months. It just isn’t going to happen. The human body isn’t set up to give away fat stores so easily - instead, stay consistent, stay dedicated, stay patient and watch the progress happen. We’re experts at this, let us do our jobs, trust the process and we promise that you’ll achieve fantastic results.

If you can’t train with us but only take one lesson away from this blog post… Make sure it’s if you’re returning to fitness soon, plan a sensible, progressive first month!

Let us help you…

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!

Scale Weight Variables - Could You be Full of S**t?!

One of the key things to address when dealing with weight loss is the difference between ‘weight’ and ‘fat’. As personal trainers, it’s a key lesson we teach all of our fat loss clients, because an obsession with weight leads many people down the wrong roads, focussing on the wrong things.

How much your body weighs has relatively little to do with how fat you are. Standing on a scale and being upset because you’ve gained a pound or two doesn’t really make any sense, because there’s so many factors that can affect your body weight. We’ll discuss these in further detail in the post and hopefully, it’ll help put your mind at ease about unexpected weight gain.

When you appreciate just how complex a machine your body is, you’ll begin to understand just why weight can fluctuate by a few pounds, even when you’ve done everything right. Our focus is on changing your body composition - how much of your body is made of fat tissue, muscle tissue and bone. Weight is a secondary concern.

The Difference Between Weight and Fat

When we eat excess energy (calories), they are stored as fat tissue. If we overeat by a lot, or for a long time, we store more fat so our weight goes up.

Fat isn’t the only element of weight gain though. We can be heavy because of additional muscle mass, because of food we’ve eaten, water we’ve drunk or fluid we’re retaining. In fact, there’s a very simple experiment you can do to prove this…

1. Stand on the scales and take a note of your weight.

2. Drink 1 litre of water as quick as you can (you don’t want to go to the toilet during this time otherwise it ruins the experiment!)

3. Stand back on the scales - you’ll likely be around 2lbs heavier.

There’s a clear difference between weight and fat. You’re not any fatter - you haven’t eaten! You’re just heavier, because of the additional water weight you’re carrying inside your body.

Factors that Affect Scale Weight

Here’s an overview of the factors that can affect your scale weight, so if you stand on the scales and find yourself downhearted because you’ve seen a number you don’t like, take a moment to see if any of these apply to you…

Time of day: You’re almost always lighter first thing in the morning. You haven’t eaten overnight and your body has digested and used all of the food you’ve been consuming. You’ll typically lose between 1 and 4lb overnight.

Stress levels/Inflammation: Stress hormones and inflammation can cause water retention, which increases weight. If you’re injured, unwell or suffering from high stress, don’t be surprised if you’re a little heavier. When inflammation drops, weight is likely to drop too.

Medication: There are certain medications and medical conditions that cause water retention - in some cases this can add well over 10lbs to your weight. There are re-distributions of fat that are possible, there are appetite changes that can happen and also changes in mineral balance that can impact water weight. Common medications that can impact weight gain include corticosteroids, antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs.

The Menstrual Cycle: This can have a dramatic impact on weight gain for some women, although the effects are temporary and vary widely. The subject has been studied widely and the conclusion is that the weight gain is down to fluid retention in the build up to the menstrual flow, which then eases afterwards. If you’re gaining weight without obvious reason (you’re eating well, training well etc), this could well be the reason.

Hydration: As we mentioned with our example earlier, water levels can dramatically impact weight. For clinical examples of how fluid loss can impact weight, in this study professional footballers were shown to lose up to 5lbs in 90 minutes of football in hot countries.

Been to the toilet?!: This sounds crazy, but it’s a huge point to consider. When studied, people with irregular bowel movements can carry over 10lbs of faecal matter in their gut. By addressing this problem with high fibre diet, plenty of liquid and movement, you can clear this out and lose a lot of weight you didn’t know you had!

Fat Loss, Not Weight Loss

Our goal at AdMac Fitness is to educate you about your body, as well as train you. When you understand that fat and weight are different, you start to view weight with less importance and start to consider the additional points around what might be happening.

We also use additional data points to assess your progress, far beyond just weight. We take body far assessments, tape measurements, physical capability measurements and talk to you about how you are feeling. The number on the scales are just one of the factors we’re interested in, and it’s certainly not the most important one!

You can be fit, lean, strong and heavy. Always remember that.

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!

Coaching the Person, Not the Method...

One of the reasons AdMac Fitness is one of the most successful private personal training studios in East London is because of our people-first approach.

At AdMac Fitness, we don’t subscribe to one particular training method, but instead we base our approach on the person. Our job as personal trainers is to help the client to achieve their goals in the most enjoyable way possible, so we work with them, establishing a training approach and diet that factors in their needs, their wants and their goals.

It’s an aim of ours to provide a great training environment for people from all walks of life, with all kinds of different goals. Whether you’re a brand new exerciser, someone looking for a push or a vastly experienced exerciser looking to be pushed to another level, we can provide that environment for you.

When you train with us at AdMac Fitness, you’re not a number, you’re part of a community. A supportive fitness family who help each other, support each other and build each other up. It’s part of the reason we work with clients for a long time - years in many cases. They come for the training but stay because of the community and the atmosphere.

Why we don’t stick to a single training approach…

Personal training by its very nature should be individualised, and we’re all so different. There are plenty of personal trainers out there who train people with one approach, regardless of their goals. We made a conscious decision early on to be different, to not do that and instead build our business based on a people-first approach.

When you first sign up with us, we do a consultation with you. One of our first questions is to ask what you’d to like to achieve - we ask that question because the goals should come from you. It’s not up to us to decide what you’d like to be or do, our job is to make it happen. Too many trainers make the decision for the client, which can often lead to them training all of their clients in the same way. It’s crazy to think a 65 year old grandmother looking to lose a little weight and improve her mobility would be training in exactly the same way as a 23 year old man with muscle-building ambitions.

We put the client first and the results show.

There are fitness studios who stick to a method - there are weightlifting clubs, yoga centres, bodybuilding gyms, Pilates centres etc, but we don’t see training as a one-size-fits all thing. Our personal trainers at AdMac Fitness all have different areas of specialism and interest, so we can pair you with a personal trainer who best aligns with you.

Personal Training transforms attitudes to exercise

One of the most enlightening things a lot of our clients tell us is how much they enjoy exercise with a personal trainer. Whether it’s because they feel less intimidated in our private studio environment, or because they have the peace of mind of knowing they’re doing things correctly, it’s a nice compliment to receive.

Many clients join us as a last resort - they’ve tried everything else, so they give a personal trainer a go as a last roll of the dice. They’ve told themselves that they don’t like exercise or they don’t like the gym, but that’s because they’ve not found an approach that works for them. Thanks to us taking the time to listen, to understand and to learn about our clients, we build exercise programmes for them that not only get results, but also transform their attitude towards exercise and healthy living.

By trusting us with their training, many of them fall in love with exercise and start living a healthier, more fulfilling life. That’s arguably the most rewarding part of our job at AdMac Fitness.

Personal Training during lockdown…

We’re still open for one on one personal training at AdMac Fitness. We have strict safety protocols to protect our members against COVID-19, all of our sessions are delivered outside under a shelter and our equipment is spotlessly clean.

We can promise you’ll receive the best personal training in East London from the AdMac Fitness Personal Training team!

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!

What Do Successful Personal Training Clients Have in Common?

Here at AdMac Fitness we’ve worked with enough personal training clients to have a solid understanding about what makes someone successful in their personal training journey. Over the years we’ve helped hundreds of people lose weight, improve their fitness and reach more of their potential. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say we’ve changed lives, helping people to reach levels of fitness and weight loss that they’d previously thought of as impossible.

As we edge closer to normality, with the nation’s physical and mental health at perhaps it’s lowest, we’ve decided to share our observations on what makes the most successful personal training clients. If you can have adopt these habits yourself, you too will enjoy the success that so many of our clients have had…

Progress Monitoring

Our most successful personal training clients all take part in some kind of progress monitoring. Alongside the monitoring we do in the gym, they’ll also stay on top of their progress at home. That might take a number of different directions - it could be recording their weight, taking progress photographs, keeping their measurements.

There’s also the fitness and nutrition monitoring, whereby they’ll track their calories, steps, activity levels etc. Although this sounds like a lot of work, technology has made it really easy. Apps like MyFitnessPal are available on your phone, and there are lots of watches available that help to keep track of exercise and activity levels.

Short and Long Term Strategy

Whilst it’s great to have a long term goal, it’s important to remember that it’s really difficult to stay motivated for something so far in the future. A way to maintain motivation is to break down your long term goal into many smaller, short term goals. It’s an approach we like to use here at AdMac Fitness and have seen it work consistently and effectively with lots of people.

Rather than focus on the long term goal such as ‘I want to lose 60lbs’, instead bring your focus towards ‘I want to lose 5lbs’. It’s a much closer target and keeps you striving for the next one. Once you’ve achieved that, look towards the next 5lbs, then the next and so on. It’s a key motivator.

Regular Reviews

One of the most important aspects of behaviour change is accountability. At AdMac Fitness all of our personal training clients work with their coach who is a fully qualified personal trainer. It’s the PT’s job to programme the workouts, assess the progress, coach the client through the journey and help them to adapt to the health lifestyle changes. One of the most important aspects of personal training is the review process.

Reviews with your coach is a chance to discuss what is going well, what your are struggling with, how you are coping with the training and the new eating programme. During these reviews your coach can make changes, suggestions and adaptions to your plans, helping to make sure you continue to make progress. The regular check in is a key reason is ensuring progress is maintained.

Strong Relationship with their Coach

This is so important and builds on the previous point. The closer your bond is with your coach, the better the experience will be for both of you. This is why at AdMac Fitness we employ personal trainers with different interests, backgrounds and personality types. We can make sure you get the best fit in terms of your coach.

The client-coach relationship is a special one. The coach will know when to push you, when to lay off. They’ll celebrate your successes, help you through your failures. This is one of the reasons so many of our clients at AdMac Fitness stay with us for years - because they become friends, part of the family and an integral part of the AdMac Fitness experience.

Performance Goals - Not Exclusively Weight Loss

It’s important for people to look beyond weight loss, because whilst it’s important, the truest measure of your health is your performance. Feeling great, not just looking great is fundamental to our ethos. Whilst of course we’ll help anyone lose weight if that’s what they want, we’re particularly interested in making you the fittest, strongest, healthiest version of yourself.

Once you’ve hit your weight loss targets, it’s time to shift focus and turn you into an absolute superstar, whatever that looks like to you. Whether it’s to lift a certain amount, run a certain distance or reach a particular level of health and vitality that’s personal to you, we’re here to help!

Take a look at our gallery to see the successful client transformations we’ve built up over the years - these are just a small few of the literally hundreds of people we’ve helped over the years. Perhaps you could be next?!

AdMac Transformation Gallery

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!

Periodisation - Applying it to Muscle Building

When it comes to fitness writing, we’re often guilty of focussing too much on people who want to lose weight and body fat. It’s an easy trap to fall into, because as personal trainers that is what the majority of people who come to us want help with.

What happens when we get people lean though? Then what?

Usually, the answer is they want to build muscle. In today’s article we’re going to discuss the concept of periodisation and how you can apply it to your training year. You can take the principles of periodisation and use them to structure your workouts, your diet, your travel plans or whatever you’re aiming for!

What is Periodisation?

The principle of periodisation is structuring your training to achieve a particular physical peak at a particular time.

It comes from sports coaching and was first practiced as far back as the 1950’s when Russian physiologist Leo Matveyev compared the training plans of successful and non-successful athletes from the 1952 and 1956 Olympic games. He noticed that athletes whose training plans varied in intensity and outcomes were more successful, so using this data he began to plan annual training cycles that varied in intensity and allowed periods of focus on particular physical capabilities.

Proving successful, the concept was further developed by the Soviets throughout the 60’s and 70’s, where it spread around the world. The method was expanded to include ‘Macro’, ‘Meso’ and ‘Micro’ cycles which varied depending on the sport.

The macro cycle would take up the majority of the programme, with the underlying main physical requirement would be the focus for the course of the year. If we use a distance runner as an example, the macro cycle would be where there’d be a focus on pure stamina building - not particularly intense, but gradually increasing the underlying stamina.

The meso cycle would be a shorter, 2-6 week block where there’d be a focus on a particular overarching goal. Using our runner example, it might be speed endurance - the ability to increase the pace for a sustained duration.

The micro cycle would be much shorter periods of time, perhaps 1-2 weeks where the body would be allowed to recover from the macro and meso cycle work by focussing on a very nuanced aspect of training. In runners, it might be their sprint finish. Not important enough to require huge amounts of training, but a good chance to allow recovery from the longer duration work and switch focus for a while.

Applying Periodisation to the Muscle Building Year

Adding muscle is great, but we have to increase calories to allow the muscle to grow. This is never an exact science so we usually end up with some extra body fat. This is fine for the most part, but applying a periodised approach to muscle building means we can’t focus on pure volume of training all year, because we’ll burn out. Instead, it’s worth picking a time of the year for a reduction in training volume, where the focus switches from muscle gain to weight loss, allowing us to be lean enough to enjoy the hard work we’ve put in!

Look at the example below to see how this might look…

This approach shows you focussing on adding as much muscle as possible in the winter months. You’re not on the beach anyway, so the gain in body fat isn’t a huge issue. You just keep working at a high volume and intensity to force the muscle growth. Your aim isn’t to go too crazy on the weight gain though, because it’ll take longer to diet the weight away in your meso cycle of weight loss.

After three months of intense muscle building, the April/May switch up in training focus will help with motivation and also injury risk. Research shows that it brings about better outcomes in strength training and in part that may be down to managing the longer term training loads and intensity, allowing us to avoid injury and stay fresher for higher workloads throughout the year.

In the summer months, June through August, the focus is to maintain. That includes eating sensibly, training at a level that will maintain fitness and avoid injury. Enjoy your hard work!

Towards the back end of the year, you can relax the diet a little, ramp up the training and add more muscle ahead of next year. There may have been some muscle loss as the intensity dipped throughout the summer, but those meso cycles are important because they allow your body to recover and allow your mind to enjoy a new challenge and a switch in focus for a while, both of which are important for long term motivation.

We’ve written about how to gain strength muscle before, so follow our tips here… Increasing Strength - How to do it Properly.

Applying Periodisation to Muscle Building: Concluded

We wrote this article because we wanted to show you there’s life after fat loss and that your fitness goals can shift with time. When you’re in the midst of a fat loss mission it might feel never ending, but there is a point when you’re lean, so keep going!

It’s also helpful to view your training year as something that evolves and changes throughout. It’s not just about 'training all year with no change in focus’ - it’s good both physiologically and psychologically to mix up your challenges.

Embrace the mindset of multiple targets within the year and see your fitness and nutrition as something you’re in charge of, not at the mercy of!

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!

Exercising Between Personal Training Sessions

When you train with a personal trainer, the highest-quality training sessions of your week will be those done with your PT. That being said, most people will only train with their coach once or twice per week, meanwhile some form of daily movement is best practice if you want to lose weight or maintain an excellent level of general health.

The question a lot of people have is what should they be doing between sessions? How best can they spend their time to make sure their exercise is productive, without detracting from what they’re trying to achieve with their personal trainer?

In this article we’re going to look at the kind of activity you could do in the time between your personal training sessions…

Work on Your Weaknesses or Goals

In a personal training session you typically have an hour or so to work through a session plan and that will take care of the main goals, but that doesn’t mean you wouldn’t benefit from some extra homework. Whether you’re an olympic athlete or just starting out on your fitness journey, you are going to have weaknesses when it comes to your fitness.

For some of us our weakness is flexibility, for others its cardio, some might have a weak core - we’re all different. You can identify your particular weakness and spend time working on it between sessions. If you’re not sure where best to focus your attention, as your personal trainer for their opinion and they can help you determine what you should be doing.

Here’s a list of useful activities you can do in your time between sessions, depending on your weakness…

If your weakness is cardio…

The obvious ones here are running, walking and cycling. All of them are excellent choices, but chat with your trainer about the most effective way to train them.

Following a Hight Intensity Interval Training plan is known to be an incredibly effective way to boost stamina quickly and can easily be done on a bike or running. The truth is that any kind of progressive endurance training will improve your cardio capabilities, but if you want to make quicker, more dramatic improvements then following a good quality HIIT will be the most effective way to go.

You can use sprints, hills, short burst ‘Tabata’ style training for HIIT work. If it isn’t your thing, go with steady state work, but it’ll take you longer!

If your goal is outright weight loss…

If your goal is overall weight loss, high calorie burn is the name of the game. Your PT might not put any kind of leash on you and encourage you to do as much cardio as you like, in order to get those calories burned!

Low intensity, long duration cardio can be a huge help for anyone looking to lose weight. It doesn’t push you too hard and keeps you fresher and with more energy for your personal training sessions, whilst still burning a lot of calories. It’s also a great option for people who are unable to run or ride for whatever reason, plus it’s a great way of burning calories whilst preserving muscle.

When compared, walking burns around 75% of the calories that running does. Of course this won’t help you improve your stamina, but it’ll certainly help with your fat loss efforts!

If your weakness is flexibility…

This is the easiest of all to work on at home, because all you need is room for a mat and a bit of time to stretch!

The reality is that most of us are lacking in flexibility and modern life doesn’t help - we spend a lot of time sat down in front of computers, driving cars, sat on the tube, sat in front of the TV. We never really stretch, so after a while we become stiffer and more injury prone.

Thankfully, we have access to a huge array of online yoga classes that can be done in the comfort of your own home. You can foam roll, or you can even do standard stretching. Whatever you decide, you can do it at home.

To make it a bit more interesting, I’d suggest you follow online yoga classes - they’ll make stretching feel more like exercise.

If your weakness is core strength…

You can do a lot of basic core strengthening work at home - bodyweight exercise, Swiss Ball work and online Pilates classes can be fantastic.

A lot of people suffer from lower back issues that can be effectively treated and relieved with core exercises and Pilates-based movements. So effective is this approach that it is recommended by physiotherapists and repeatedly proves its effectiveness in a lab setting. You may be able to treat your own back issues with a home-based core exercise programme.

Speak to your trainer about exercises they think will be the most effective for you to make sure you can compliment your programming and general health and fitness.

Complimenting your personal training…

The first port of call is with your personal trainer - they will have a plan in mind for your training, so you want to make sure the exercising you’re doing between personal training sessions is complimentary to your overall goal.

If you give yourself an absolute beating whilst away from your personal trainer, then arrive at your session drained, weak and under-recovered you’ll have impacted their work. By having a chat with your PT, you can improve your overall health and fitness rapidly!

Give these ideas a try and you’ll not only help yourself get fitter, you’ll also keep yourself occupied in the lockdown!

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

One Habit at a Time - The Key to Successful Behaviour Change

At AdMac Fitness, when we work with clients our goal is to create consistency around good, positive habits. Having been professional personal trainers for a long time, we’ve learned that the most effective way to help people lose weight and improve their health is with a steady approach, focussing on simple behaviours that collectively bring about amazing results.

The research in the nutrition industry backs up this approach too - we know for a fact that crash diets don’t work in the long run. Our goal is to create fit and healthy people; not someone who looks great for a weekend and then a fortnight later is back with unhealthy habits that will lead to long term weight re-gain!

Our one-step-at-a-time approach helps people to ease into their health improvement journey. Rather than overwhelm people with a huge amount of behaviour changes and instructions, we work on one or two habits at a time.

The habits we introduce are personalised to the client. In some cases we may start them off simply by drinking more water in their day. Others we might set a steps target. In some it’ll be a minimum protein target, or fruit and veg target. A bit like learning to drive - you don’t learn to drive on a motorway on your first driving lesson!

We know from research that the best diets are ones that can be stuck to for the long term. That’s how we work - we pick habits we know that our clients will be able to stick to and use those as a platform for the improvement of other aspects of health.

Psychology of Improvement

Long term health improvement is about progress, not perfection. Real life happens - you’ll have days where you don’t hit all of your health targets, but that’s OK - it needn’t spell disaster for your progress!

If you can stick to doing the right thing 90% of the time, you’ll be able to have the occasional treat and not have to worry. Going back to what we mentioned earlier, the best diets are the ones that can be stuck to for the long term. We can’t all live like monks, avoiding all alcohol and treats!

If you think about the maths of weight loss, you’ll have a more tangible idea of progress, not perfection.

In 1lb of fat there are 4,086 calories. We work this out by multiplying 454 (grams in 1lb) by 9 (calories per gram of fat).

To lose 1-2lbs per week, we try to create a daily calorie deficit of 1000, usually a combination of reducing our daily food intake by 500 calories and increasing our energy expenditure by around 500 calories via exercise. Collectively, this adds up to around 1-2lb per week of weight loss, although this figure can be slightly higher or lower depending on water retention etc.

One Bad Day Isn’t a Disaster!

Some people allow a single bad day on a diet to be an excuse to throw all progress away. You may have even done this yourself, where when on the back of a bad day you think “ah well, the diet is ruined, I may as well eat what I want”. That’s not a great attitude because a bad day is easily corrected. Even if you have a lot to eat and drink, as long as you get back on track the day after you won’t have done much damage to progress.

More maths…

If we were to take a typical man, about 5’10 tall and 13 stone, his BMR (basal metabolic rate) is around 2000 calories per day. That means without moving, just carrying out basic functions his body is burning 2000 calories across a 24 hour period.

If that man was to have a HUGE binge - eating and drinking a lot of food in the day and doing zero movement, he might consume around 6,000 calories. If we take off the 2000 calories of his BMR, we’re down to 4000 calories, or put simply…

1 POUND OF FAT!

Completely giving up on your diet or beating yourself up because of a bad day is crazy, because you’ll have thrown away a lot of good work over a single pound of fat!

You could correct a bad day quickly by getting back into good habits the day after. Perhaps diet a little stricter and train a little harder for the rest of the week and I promise you that you’ll offset the slowing down of your weight loss because of the binge. One bad day isn’t a big deal, just don’t make it a habit!

It’s All About Perspective

Next time you think about throwing away your progress because of a bad day, put it into perspective! A bad day might result in a single pound of fat gain. You can easily correct a bad day. Correcting a bad month is a lot more difficult!

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!

AdMac Fitness Is Still Safely Offering Personal Training During Lockdown!

Unless you’ve been living under a rock recently, you’ll be aware that the UK government has enforced a third lockdown across the country. Whilst this isn’t ideal for us, it doesn’t stop us operating - although commercial fitness facilities have had to close, we can still deliver one to one personal training sessions outside and stay within the rules and regulations.

In case you’re unsure of the rules, here’s the proof - taken directly from the Government website…

This clearly shows that personal training can continue in an outdoor setting, and can be done either one to one, or one-to-more if you’re all from the same household or support bubble. If you live local to Bow or the wider E3 area, you can legally train with us at AdMac Fitness. We’re a private independent personal training studio and can safely and legally operate outside.

How We Do Personal Training Outside

At AdMac Fitness we’re well-practiced with the outdoor personal training. We’ve been operating outside since the summer, so our plans have been well thought through and refined as we’ve learned more about how best to operate.

We’ve considered everything, from the movement of clients in and out of the area to avoid bottlenecks through to how we transport and arrange our kit. You can be assured that a lot of thought has gone into the safest way we can operate.

You won’t come into the building - our personal training clients access the area through the rear gate. This prevents any areas where people can accumulate, thus creating contact points being an issue. It also means that should you come close to someone, it will be outside and exceed the required distances between people.

We move our equipment outside, so we carry our barbells, benches, dumbbells, TRX, bands, kettlebells etc outside. We provide mats, so any exercise where you’ll be on the floor we can ensure that you’ll protected from the cold (and potentially wet) floor! We can offer shelter from the rain thanks to a covered area as well, so there’s an element of protection from the conditions, but just in case…

There’s a large amount of space, so we can promise you we’ll not just reach, but exceed any social distancing requirements. In a nutshell, you’ll be getting the high quality personal training you’ve come to expect from us at AdMac Fitness, but this time it’s outside!

Our standards or hygiene and cleanliness won’t drop either, as we’ll be moving our cleaning products outside too. You’ll be able to relax knowing that the equipment has been disinfected between users, so you’ll have fresh, clean kit for use every single session.

How You Can Help Us…

There’s ways you can help us to make sure that we continue to deliver our excellent personal training sessions as smoothly as and safely as possible…

1. Arrive on time for sessions - not early. If you arrive too early you create a potential congregating of people as you wait for your session. Please arrive on time, not too early!

2. As much as we love our clients, please keep after-session small-talk to a minimum. We can’t risk people staying behind in case it creates more traffic!

3. Wear appropriate clothing! We know cold weather training (we’ve even written about it!), and will adjust sessions to suit the weather, but make sure you dress appropriately. There’ll be a time at the start of the session where you’re not fully warmed up yet, so go for layers so you can adjust!

4. Feel free to bring a hot drink to the session to help keep you warm! A coffee or tea won’t do you any harm and may even psychologically help you!

Remember, This Isn’t Forever!

Of course this isn’t ideal for anyone, but we have to play the hand we’re dealt. We believe that maintaining an excellent level of fitness is one of the most important things you can do to protect you against any virus, so we’re doing our bit to help our clients stay in the best shape possible.

Let’s also not forget the mental health benefits of exercise - for some people working from home, getting out for some personal training may be some of the only human interaction they have all week. By getting outside to exercise we maintain a sense of normality and regularity to life. We benefit our physical and mental health and do our bit to protect ourselves.

It’ll be spring before we know it and life will return back to normal.

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!

The Impact of Food on Sleep Patterns and Quality

We all know how important a healthy diet is. We also know how important good quality sleep is. Despite this, few people link the two. When we think about sleep, we often confuse quantity with quality, thinking that more sleep automatically means better, when actually that’s very far from the truth.

In this article we’re going to explore the link between our diets and the quality of sleep we get.

A longer sleep is often lower quality than a shorter sleep, if you haven’t entered the deeper, most restful and restorative phases of the sleep cycle known as ‘stage 3’ and ‘REM sleep/stage 4 sleep’. It’s during these phases where most of the growth, repair, brain activity and memory consolidation takes place so without enough of the deep sleep, you can wake feeling tired.

Understanding this is important, because it shifts our focus from sleep quantity to sleep quality.

Food and the Impacts on Sleep

To begin with, we have to address how food impact sleep. There’s no ‘magic’ food that if we eat, it sends us to sleep - that’s a myth perpetuated by gossip magazines that also tell you squatting with bean tins in your hands will build a great body. If such a food existed, it would be banned whilst driving or operating heavy machinery!

What actually happens is the reverse - there are food and drink that if we eat, negatively impacts our sleep quality. The first step to using your diet to improve sleep quality is to remove the alcohol, because it has been proven to dramatically impact sleep quality.

In a 2005 study, it was shown that alcohol initially promotes sleep, but overall the quality of the sleep was impacted because of the effect alcohol has on sleep physiology. This research has been further corroborated by subsequent studies reporting the same thing, such as this 2020 study. The conclusion between alcohol and sleep is that some alcohol (1-2 units) isn’t a bad thing before sleeping, but excessive alcohol will have an impact on sleep quality.

Caffeine and Sleep Quality

The most famous legal stimulant we have is caffeine and it is largely attributed to keeping people awake. This is backed up in the research as well. In this study shows that caffeine consumption as far away as 6 hours before bed, a dose of caffeine impacted sleep quality. This lead the researchers to conclude that to be certain caffeine will not impact the quality of your sleep, you should be refraining from caffeine consumption for up to 6 hours before bed.

At this point, it’s important to remember that caffeine isn’t just present in coffee and tea - it’s also present in chocolate and many soft drinks.

Before you start to worry you shouldn’t be drinking coffee, it’s worth remembering that there’s a dose-response relationship here, so whilst it’s a good idea to not drink coffee in the lead up to bed time, you don’t have to give it up altogether! Taking a sensible approach, you’re probably fine not drinking strong coffee in the final 3 hours before bed. If you hit the sack at 11, probably stop drinking coffee at 8 and you should be OK!

Food and Sleep - More Research

There’s a lot of research around the impact of food patterns and sleep cycles. The conclusions they tend to draw are similar - that food quality has the biggest impact, rather than the timings or the nature of meal.

In this review of many nutrition and sleep studies, we see a series of commonalities amongst the results, which can be summarised here…

1. Low quality carbs (sugar, fizzy drinks, processed carbs such as super noodles) soon before bed significantly reduce sleep quality and quantity.

2. Carbohydrate amount can adjust rather than disrupt sleep, depending on the person.

3. High food quality is more important than macronutrient split.

4. Low calorie consumption doesn’t appear to impact sleep.

5. Vitamin and mineral deficiency appears to negatively impact sleep, so a daily multivitamin may be worth taking.

6. Very high protein intake shortly before bed may impact sleep.

The overarching point when it comes to food and sleep is that we’re all different and there’s an element of experimentation that we all have to go through, to find what works for us and what doesn't. Whilst your sleep habits have to be guided by certain principles that stand up to testing, the rest of it is a case of finding out what works for you.

We used to think that certain foods will help you to fall asleep or would promote sleep, but research shows that whilst that may be the case, the evidence in support of it isn’t particularly strong at this point. Certainly not strong enough to recommend certain foods as a sleep aid. There are certain supplements that have been linked to sleep quality, which we’ll go through now.

Sleep and Supplements

Some of the research we looked at earlier discussed the impact that vitamin and mineral deficiency can have on sleep. The minerals zinc and magnesium are known to promote deeper sleep, but your requirements should be met by consuming meat/animal products or taking a good quality multivitamin.

Another known sleep aid is CBD oils, dummies or tinctures. Research has shown that intake helps to promote sleep quality, especially in those who have suffered from anxiety. If you’ve struggled with sleep because of stress, it may be worth exploring the use of CBD before bed.

Sleep Tips - Food and Otherwise

It’s now clear from the research that sleep quality isn’t attributed to one single thing, but instead it’s a number of factors that we need to consider. What we can say with confidence is that in order to enjoy good quality sleep, you should do the following…

1. Don’t drink more than a couple of alcoholic drinks before bed.

2. No caffeine in the 3-6 hours before sleep.

3. Eat a healthy meal, ideally on the smaller side. No simple carbs.

4. Make sure you’ve taken your multivitamins.

5. Avoid screen time before bed.

6. Keep your bedroom cool.

7. Establish a regular bed time.

8. If you’re stressed, take a CBD supplement.

If you do those on a regular basis you should be able to enjoy good quality sleep. Whilst there’s no one single magic bullet, there’s plenty of things you can bring under your control to help you sleep well!

Training With us at AdMac Fitness…

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!

Why the AdMac Fitness Culture Helps Our Members

One of the things we’re most proud of at AdMac Fitness is the culture we’ve created for our members. Whether they come for personal training or (when we’re allowed to), the group exercise classes and bootcamps we run, they know that they’re joining a fun and supportive environment where they’ll be educated, encouraged, coached and supported. A lot of our members join for the results, but they stick around because of our culture.

We’re big believers in the culture creating the right atmosphere in which people can train to their best ability. Whether you’re a brand new, nervous beginner or a seasoned personal training client who has been with us for years, the environment we have here at our private personal training studio in Bow, E3 is one that encourages and supports in equal measure.

The idea of a strong and encouraging culture being an effective place to build a significant and lasting change in health behaviour is one that is backed up in the research. A study reviewing the formation of a new exercise habit showed that enjoyment and frequency of exercise is linked to the social aspect of training - in particular having friends within the club and/or training with a friend.

As a small community fitness studio, you’re a treasured client here - not one of several thousand members who we don’t know! You’ll undoubtedly make friends with other members and when we’re allowed to put our group exercise and bootcamps back on, you’ll be able to train together too!

Culture Breeds Success…

There’s a reason why there are successful organisations - be them clubs, businesses, sports team etc. Cultures are infectious and you become the average of your peers and the people around you. If you train in an environment that motivates you to train hard and supports you when it comes to eating well, it makes the process so much easier. Social research into weight loss shows us that external support is imperative when ti comes to weight loss success. Whether that’s a personal trainer offering the support or a group of peers doesn’t seem to matter - you just need support and encouragement!

You’ll also feel the benefits of a healthier eating approach and that in itself becomes self-fulfilling. You start eating healthier and training properly, which makes you feel better and lose weight. These results motivate you to carry on with the new behaviours, making them long term.

We’ve seen this time and time again, as these results show…

You Learn to Love Exercise!

One of the more common concerns about starting an exercise regime is the fear of hating them gym, but that needn’t be a concern - we have science to back us up to! Studies have proven that exercise becomes more enjoyable the more we do it, which goes some way to explain why regular exercisers find it so addictive!

As professional personal trainers our job is to help you achieve your training goals but in a sensible and appropriate way - if you’re new to exercise without much in the way of a training history then you won’t be expected to complete workouts designed for our advanced members! There’s so much more to personal training than just working you hard - our job is to help you reach your goals, not ruin your life through exercise! It’s why our members join us for the excellent training and the results, but they stay because of the culture and the friends they make here at AdMac Fitness.

We’re Still Training!

Despite the COVID restrictions, we have a socially-distanced outdoor space where we can still offer our excellent personal training. We simply move the gym outside, under cover. We’ve been able to offer a full complement of sessions in perfect safety, so if you’re worried about your ability to train at the moment, please don’t be - we’ve dealt with the restrictions for months so we’re well-practiced at this! Your safety is at the forefront of our minds throughout this.

Training With us at AdMac Fitness…

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!

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!