The Split Routine... Time to Put it to Bed?

For decades, gym goers have approached muscle building (and general weight training for that matter) with a ‘split routine’ approach. This is where you essentially divide the body into different sections and train each section at a time.

A classic example of a split routine might look like this…

Monday: Chest and triceps

Tuesday: Back and biceps

Thursday: Legs and abs

Friday: Shoulders and arms

The thinking behind this style of training was that you’d train the muscle group so intensely that it would need a week to rest, recover and grow.

It grew in popularity around the 70s onwards, when the golden age of bodybuilders (Arnie, Lou Ferrigno and the like) started to get attention. Their methods became popularised through magazine articles, TV shows, documentaries (anyone seen Pumping Iron?!)

But there was a problem…

Despite the magazine articles showing the guys training, it left out two major pieces of (vital) information about their training regimen…

1. They’d be training for years. What they were doing now wasn’t what got them to that point in the first place.

2. They were taking steroids. It’s no secret that bodybuilders enjoy some ‘chemical assistance’. That helps them to grow muscle faster, train harder and longer, plus recover quicker.

What this means is that although the articles were showing how the guys were training now, it wasn’t advice that was bets suited to your everyday office or factory worker who just wanted to look good on the beach. Despite that, the magazines sold in huge numbers and the split routine approach exploded in popularity - so much so that even today, lots of young people are still using split routines as complete beginners, because that’s what they’ve been told to do by others.

But is it the best approach?

The question can be answered with science…

When it comes to building muscle in people new to training, the frequency of the muscle stimulation is shown to be the most effective approach. In practice what that means is that the more often you train a muscle, the more times to create the physiological environment required for it to grow.

If you’re new to training (have less than 2 years resistance training background) then the research suggests that you need to stimulate all of your muscles frequently, rather than once per week which is the norm with a split routine.

The same study also mentions that when it comes to improving strength, full body training is the way to go. Given strength is fundamental to both fitness and performance, the sensible thing to do is to hit the full body workouts frequently, with the emphasis being on building both muscle and strength. You’d do this by following the summary below, taken from this review of muscle-building research…

‘Foundations for individuals seeking to maximize muscle growth should be hypertrophy-oriented RT consisting of multiple sets (3−6) of six to 12 repetitions with short rest intervals (60 s) and moderate intensity of effort (60−80% 1RM) with subsequent increases in training volume (12–28 sets/muscle/week).’

At AdMac Fitness we train our clients with a full body approach, because that’s what the research tells us to do. If you’re not an AdMac Fitness personal training client reading this, take a look at the way personal trainers are training people, or the way athletes on TV are training people - they’re certainly not doing a ‘back and biceps’ day!

So is it time to put the split routine to bed?

For most people, yes - absolutely.

If you’re a beginner looking to build muscle and strength, yes - you should be focussing your time on full body routines at least until you’ve added a significant amount of muscle to your frame. At that point, you could perhaps to add a little refinement to your physique with some body part split work.

If you’re looking for athletic development, there’s almost no place at all for a split routine in your gym work. As an approach, these isolated body part workouts offer us little in terms of movement quality improvement.

The only time a split routine may be favourable is if you’re already an established exerciser with a mature, muscular physique and you’re looking to add more muscle in particular areas. This refinement is possible by adding additional volume to certain body parts.

Beyond that, it’s full body for the win!

Personal Training in East London…

If you’re confused about how you should go about building the fitness and physique you long for, trust the professionals at AdMac Fitness to help you. They’re a well-qualified group of expert personal trainers, with decades of collective health and fitness experience.

You’ll train in our private personal training studio in Bow, E3. That means fantastic 1-1 service and no waiting for equipment. It’s also perfect for those who feel self conscious because it’s a private studio, used only by AdMac Fitness personal trainers and our clients.

Contact AdMac Fitness on 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!

Avoiding Stagnation in Your Training - the Beauty of Personal Training

There are all kinds of reasons why people will hire a personal trainer - for some it’s accountability. For others it’s a way of outsourcing motivation. There are personal training clients who need to be pushed further than they’re willing to push themselves.

They’re all great reasons to hire a personal trainer, but today we’re going to focus on one of the more forgotten about reasons - having someone mix up your training so you avoid stagnation of the exercise.

Mixing your training is one of the most effective ways to stay motivated. It also helps to keep your fitness progression ongoing and helps to make exercise boredom obsolete. Knowing that every time you go to the personal training studio for your session, you’ll be going through an entirely new challenge is a huge motivator in itself! There’s a new stimulus with every workout and that’s a massive motivator.

In his ‘fitness in 100 words’ post, Greg Glassman (founder of CrossFit) wrote about mixing up the elements of fitness in as many ways as your creativity will allow. In part, that is one of the primary roles of the personal trainer - whilst keeping the ultimate goal in mind (be it weight loss, muscle gain etc), build creative and enjoyable workouts that will help clients stay motivated to exercise for the long term.

Therein lies another benefit of training in a private personal training studio - full access to equipment and space. If you use a commercial gym, it’s really hard to ensure that your workout is done as cleanly as possible. because you might have to wait for equipment, which disrupts your flow.

If you train at home you’re limited to a small amount of equipment (unless of course you’re very lucky!), which stifles the amount of creativity you can put into your workouts. At the AdMac Fitness personal training studio in Bow, East London we have a wide variety of equipment, meaning we can offer hugely varied workouts. If a training session is limited by the equipment available, you’ve got no need to worry - we’re very well equipped!

By mixing up barbell work, kettlebell exercises, dumbbell training, bodyweight exercises, cardio, battle ropes and a range of other bits of kit, your training will never stagnate. It’s part of the reason our personal training clients at AdMac Fitness stay for so long. They come to get fit and they stay for how our methods make them feel for the long term.

One of the other ways AdMac Fitness can help you avoid stagnation in your training is by offering you a chance to join our group exercise sessions at the studio. It means you still get the workout variety, the challenging session and the expert guidance by one of our highly qualified personal trainers, but you can do so in a different format and at a lower price point.

We know how difficult it can be to motivate yourself to exercise. We also know the overwhelming feeling that comes with programming your own workouts, so why not leave it to the professionals? The AdMac Fitness personal trainers inEast London are experts at programming varied, interesting and challenging workouts, designed to help our clients achieve the kind of results they could only dream of before!

If you want your health and fitness journey to be guided by the best personal training team in East London, get in touch with us at AdMac Fitness. We operate from our private personal training studio in Bow, E3. Contact us on 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!

Your Sensible, Evidence Based Guide to Vitamin D

At the time of writing we’re in the middle of the first signs of spring appearing in the UK. We’ve had 4 or 5 consecutive days of sun (if you’re not from here… trust me, that’s a lot for us!). The temperatures have reached the upper teens, sales of bbq food and ice creams have shot up. Pub beer gardens are full. You get the picture - the seasons are changing.

With the warm weather comes that uniquely British phenomena - overdoing the sun exposure. With us being unsure when the next rays of sunshine will appear, we head outside (often for too long without sunscreen) and end up pinker that a stick of Blackpool rock!

But that brings us to a serious point - vitamin D. We know that sun exposure is still the best way to generate vitamin D in the body, but how much is too much? Is there a safe level of sun exposure? With around 50% of the global population suffering from low levels of vitamin D, it’s time we address the science and see what we can be doing to make sure we don’t end up with low levels of vitamin D.

What happens when we lack Vitamin D?

The biggest problem with an insufficiency of vitamin D is bone weakness. It’s a vitamin that helps us to absorb calcium in the body, which is integral to the formation of new bone. That’s not the only issue though - diseases such as cancer, heart disease, Parkinsons disease, diabetes, hypertension and autoimmune diseases are all more prevalent in people with low levels of vitamin D.

There are other symptoms that are less severe such as…

• Fatigue

• Bone pain

• Muscle weakness, muscle aches, or muscle cramps.

• Mood changes

• Reduced immunity

One of the quickest ways to see if your symptoms is to see if your problems disappear when you increase your level of sun exposure or even supplementation of vitamin d. If your mild symptoms clear up with a few sessions of sun exposure or within a couple of weeks of vitamin d supplements being taken, you' were probably just deficient, that’s all.

Can you get enough vitamin D from food?

The unfortunate answer is that no, not really. Even if you eat a richly-varied diet, the overwhelming likelihood is that you won’t be able to meet your vitamin D requirements. By far and away our best source of vitamin D is regular sun exposure, so if you live in a colder climate, in winter it makes sense to supplement daily.

The best food sources of vitamin D are…

• oily fish such as salmon, sardines, pilchards, trout, herring, kippers and eel

• cod liver oil contains a lot of vitamin D, but don’t take this if you are pregnant

• egg yolk, meat, offal and milk contain small amounts but this varies during the seasons

• margarine, some breakfast cereals, infant formula milk and some yoghurts have added vitamin D

Still eat these foods, but be aware that a good vitamin D supplement is beneficial too.

There’s strong evidence that regular vitamin D supplementation works over the long term, so it’s absolutely worth your while taking it. Risks of various diseases are reduced significantly thanks to vitamin D supplementation. If you live in the UK, a daily supplement between October and March is a good idea for maintaining healthy vitamin D levels.

Safe sun exposure - is there such a thing?

Concerns have been raised by some experts that we have become so cautious about sun exposure that we don’t have enough to maintain any notable vitamin D production. With heavy sun blocker being used by many people daily, not to mention actively seeking shade, some people in the UK suffer from chronic reduced vitamin D levels.

The fact is there is such a thing as safe sun exposure. According to NICE (National Institute of Clinical Excellence) guidelines, the key is to avoid prolonged exposure during the peak sun hours. In the UK that’s generally 11.00-15.00. Their work suggests that you can still manufacture sufficient levels of vitamin D outside of these hours with some small skin exposure such as face, forearms and lower legs.

There’s no ‘one size fits all’ advice with sun exposure - people with darker skin will be fine outside for longer. The key is to understand how your body reacts to sun exposure and work around that accordingly. Make sure you don’t expose your skin without sun blocker for a long period of time, and in the early parts of the warmer weather allow your skin to acclimatise by gradually increasing exposure.

The key is to not avoid sun completely - it’s good for you! Just ben sensible as to how you do it and when.

If you want your health and fitness journey to be guided by the best personal training team in East London, get in touch with us at AdMac Fitness. We operate from our private personal training studio in Bow, E3. Contact us on 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!

Let's Talk Life... and Fitness. They're Intertwined, you see...

In this article I’m not going to talk technique, tactics etc. Instead I’m going to take this opportunity to remind you that your health and fitness goals are completely reliant on how you live your life. All of the good intention, the hard work and the effort in the gym will be almost worthless if you spent the rest of your time living in a way that isn’t congruent with your health and fitness goals.

At a certain point, it becomes less about motivation and more about discipline. Motivation only takes you part of the way - it’s discipline that takes you the rest of the way.

Motivation and discipline - what’s the difference?

There’s a misconception in certain populations that fit and lean people are ‘motivated’ all of the time, when the reality is that’s just not true.

There are plenty of times when they’re tired, don’t really fancy the gym, would rather lie on the sofa with a blanket and a tub of biscuits, but they force themselves to get out and exercise, even for a short while. That’s the difference between motivation and discipline. A motivated person will exercise when the mood takes them. A disciplined person will exercise even when they don’t want to, because that’s how they’ll achieve their health and fitness goals.

I know lots of fit and lean people who would much prefer to live on a diet of pizza and cake, but they understand that as happy as they’d be in the moment, the aftermath of not feeling as healthy as they would be is a bigger issue for them. Feeling unhealthy overrides the pleasure they’d get from the food.

By the way, that’s not to say there’s no room for indulgences - there absolutely is, they’re just earned. You want to have a few drinks and a big meal? Go for it - just earn it first!

That understanding of disciple and motivation is the fundamental difference between being fit and healthy, or being unhealthy and feeling like it’s too hard, or nothing ever works. If you simply wait for the motivation to take over you in order for you to live a healthier life, then you may be waiting for the rest of your days. Unless you’re incredibly lucky, most people simply aren’t motivated all of the time… they just do it anyway.

Live in line with your goals

I’ll do some basic maths for you, so you can get a grasp of how important the ‘rest’ of your life is when it comes to your fitness goals.

A week is 168 hours.

Let’s discount time for sleeping - I’ll be generous and say you’re asleep for 56 of those hours (8 per night). That removes 33.3% of your week. (In reality though, most people sleep less than 8 hours per night).

You’re now down to 112 hours.

Say you train 4 hours per week (which is a good amount - lots of people do significantly less), it means there are 108 hours where you’re not training. You’re training for 3.7% of your week. It means there’s 96.3% of your week when you’re NOT actively trying to achieve your fitness goals.

If in that 96.3% of your waking hours you’re overeating, not doing ANY stretching, drinking too much, taking too few steps etc, you’ll be sabotaging your efforts in the gym.

In reality, it’s not too difficult to live in such a way that you’ll help your progress in the gym. The simple things are walk to work/on social engagements - try to hit 10k steps minimum per day. Eat your 5 portions of fruit and vegetables per day. Drink a couple of litres of water daily. Make consciously better food choices - all of these simple behaviours add up.

AdMac Fitness personal training - bridging the gap between motivation and discipline

One of the main reasons people hire the services of a personal trainer is to force accountability on themselves. They’re given a programme, help with how to train, how to eat and how to achieve their fitness goals.

A personal training session is an excellent accountability practice, because it means that even on those days when you don’t feel motivated, you have to turn up anyway because you’ve booked a session. It helps to force discipline on you when you don’t want it.

The good news is in this case, your discipline is the healthy sort! It’ll help you lead a fitter, healthier life in line with your health and fitness goals.

If you want your health and fitness journey to be guided by the best personal training team in East London, get in touch with us at AdMac Fitness. We operate from our private personal training studio in Bow, E3. Contact us on 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!

Meet the Team - Giancarlo Violante, Personal Trainer

In the second instalment of our ‘Meet the Team’ series we have the OG (apart from AdMac himself) of AdMac Fitness, Gian. Learn a little more about him and who he is with our interview here…

How long have you been working at AdMac Fitness? I have been working at AdMac Fitness for over three years! You could say I’m a loyal customer :)

Tell us about your training philosophy… My training philosophy is built on the foundation of achieving optimal athleticism through thorough examination and prescriptive training. This involves strength and conditioning, mobility, flexibility whilst understanding the way you move and how we can create a programme based on how to better yourselves (aesthetically and biomechanically).

Tell us one thing you believe the vast majority of people could do better with regards to their fitness… FORM! I see too many trainers out there teaching form which I like to call ‘null and void’. Form should not be taken lightly. Everyone ties their shoe laces up before they go for a walk correctly, so let’s train and bulletproof our bodies to move freely, correctly and without pain. Bella vita!

If you could encourage more people to change one thing about their food intake, what would it be?: PLANTS! PLANTS! PLANTS! More plants please. They’re packed with phytochemicals nutrients and they have a negative ORP, meaning their ability to reduce oxidation in the body is highly effective! Let’s get cooking!

Tell us one thing about you that may surprise people… I can beatbox quite well! No joke, it all started in shower. The acoustics lends itself a great reverb 👍🏼

Finally, if I work with you, what should I expect? In all seriousness, expect solid training sessions which involve personalised programming and great communication.

My goal isn’t just about aesthetics, but I want you to be moving like an athlete, focusing on being strong and functional! By focusing on this, what happens naturally is a sound body. I’m not all about making my clients sweat, sweat, sweat - I want you to feel like you are making progress, but sessions do need to have good work ethics. Let’s get training!

You can follow Giancarlo on Instagram at Giansjam.

If you’d like to work with Giancarlo, get in touch with us get in touch with us at AdMac Fitness. We operate from our private personal training studio in Bow, E3. Contact us on 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!

Meet the Team - Kiefer Piccio , Personal Trainer

Welcome to the first in our ‘meet the team’ series on the AdMac Fitness blog. It’s your opportunity to get to know your personal trainer a little better. You may learn what makes them tick, how they view fitness and maybe even pick up a few little tips along the way!

So without further ado, here’s Kie…

Name: Kiefer Piccio 

How long have you been working at AdMac Fitness?: Just over a year and counting!

Tell us about your training philosophy:

My training philosophy revolves around two main ideas: 

1. How does one achieve a goal in a smarter, not harder way.

2. Being strong, to be useful.

The aim  is to build a training approach that gives you the most fitness gains in an efficient way. Then, take those gains and use it in the real world. Either for oneself or to help others with it.

Tell us one thing you believe the vast majority of people could do better with regards to their fitness: 

The vast majority of people could do better with focusing on recovery. I find a lot of people focus far too much on the training aspect of a program and  they forget to rest their bodies, where the actual gains start to happen. Remember, in order for results to show, you need to train hard and recover harder.

If you could encourage more people to change one thing about their food intake, what would it be? 

It would be to encourage people to eat just before they're full and not when they're completely full up. Also, I encourage people to drink more water! Water is life - literally!

Tell us one thing about you that may surprise people… 

I was a part of a team that holds a world record in swimming the English Channel for Cancer Research and The Federation of Disability Sport.

Finally, if I work with you, what should I expect? 

Expect to be given realistic ways to progress through your goals and expect sessions to be varied whilst having the right amount of challenge each time.

My training approach involves numerous efficient training methods revolving around compound lifts, specific isolation work and body-weight progressions, which I have experimented and refined from my 20 years of experience in high performance sport.

My clients say I'm quite a 'Hype Man' - and (from my understanding) this means I can be quite a cheerleader when it comes to even the tiniest of improvement that they make! So be prepared to be motivated and 'hyped'!

You can follow Kie on Instagram by clicking here.

If you’d like to work with Kie, get in touch with us get in touch with us at AdMac Fitness. We operate from our private personal training studio in Bow, E3. Contact us on 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!

Training Frequency or Duration - Which is Better?

We’re all busy - that’s just life. Whether it’s working hours, kids, social pressures or the like, most of us probably don’t have the amount of free time we’d like. With a limited time window in which training can be done, one of the questions many people have is “it is better to do one long training sessions, or multiple short ones?”

I’ll shorten the question to ‘training frequency or duration - which is better?’

In this article we’ll look at the evidence to help you to understand which is the best way of training when time windows are compressed and you’re forced to prioritise. We’ll look at what is best to do any why, because there’s always an opportunity to do something…

Training in a squeezed window…

Let’s make an assumption that you have general fitness goals - you want to maintain a decent level of strength and cardio and burn plenty of calories in a session. You don’t have any specialist, extreme goals that will take up a lot of time and individualised, targeted training.

Now, imagine in a given week you have two hours in which you can realistically squeeze in some exercise - what’s the best use of that time?

A single, two hour blasting session? How about 2 x 1 hour sessions? Maybe the best way is three equal sessions?

There’s a way to answer this question and starts with what ‘general fitness’ looks like. I think we can all agree that being ‘generally fit’ means that you have a decent blend of strength and cardio capabilities. You might not have elite levels of either, but you certainly don’t want to be lacking in both. That means you’ll need to dedicate some training time to both. That leads us to higher intensity forms of training - using squeezed windows to work on strength and cardio at the same time.

The research on training frequency when it comes to muscle growth is clear - frequency is better than duration. A 2016 meta-analysis on training research showed that training muscles twice per week was significantly more effective than once. That leads us to a clear conclusion on the resistance training front - full body training sessions more frequently is better.

Moreover, a combined training approach appears to be even more effective than separating strength and cardio training when it comes to the general population. A lot of people will split their training into ‘strength’ days and ‘cardio’ days, keeping a sole focus for the session. A research study from 2019 suggests that this may not be the most effective approach though, and that combining strength and cardio work is better from a general health perspective. The researchers concluded that…

‘data suggest that combination training may be of better value than either aerobic or resistance training alone, as it appeared to have the most beneficial effect on the composite of CVD risk factors.’

This is interesting because it effectively gives the green light for the high intensity strength training that is often seen at bootcamps, circuit classes etc. The other good news is that these classes are often around the 30-45 minute mark, which allows for multiple sessions in the same week.

The benefits of combining exercise protocols

There are both practical and health reasons for combining training approaches, as opposed to keeping cardio and strength training apart. Research from 2020 that studied resistance based HIIT (high intensity interval training) showed there was a genuine benefit to gained from running these approaches concurrently. This is excellent news for anyone who is worried that they won’t achieve the same benefits if they mix the training approaches.

Do shorter workouts compromise results?

The next question to answer is whether shorter workouts mean results are worse? The evidence here again is clear - there’s no doubt that shorter workouts are very effective, as long as the intensity is sufficiently high enough. In fact, in this study the conclusion was that the shorter, high intensity sessions led to greater gains in VO2 max than the more traditional longer-duration steady state cardiovascular training.

Making the most of short time windows…

We know from the research that there’s definite benefit to short, intense workouts. This sets to bed one of the major worries about time restricted windows. So in order to make the most of short time windows in which you can train, here’s what the evidence suggests….

1. Go for frequency over duration. 4 x 30 minute sessions or 3 x 40 minute sessions are better than 1 x 2 hour session.

2. Combine strength and cardio training by adopting a circuit/bootcamp style of training. Research shows this is effective.

3. Work hard! Shorter workouts have to be more intense, so go all-out with effort!

It shows you can still exercise and hit your health and fitness goals even when you are limited with time. Don’t ever let a lack of time be a factor, there’s always a way!

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

Exploring the Different Types of Resistance Training

One of the fantastic things about training at our private personal training studio in East London, is that we can do things our way. If we believe there’s a more effective tool for a job, or a better way of doing things, we can adapt training methods. We’re not bound by equipment, rules or membership limitations, so we can explore different training methods to get the job done.

One such area of training variety is in resistance training. We don’t really ‘do’ the whole weights machines thing, so we can employ a whole raft of different types of resistance training to help our clients get into fantastic shape quickly.

Using a variety of resistance training maintains motivation because there’s always a new challenge around the corner, it keeps interest high, because we can offer lots of workout variety and finally it prevents physical stagnation from our clients because we keep their bodies ‘guessing’ when it comes to fitness - they never adapt to a method, creating lazy movement patterns and the like, dulling the effectiveness.

In this blog post we’re going to look at some of the different types of resistance training we use at AdMac Fitness, our private PT studio in Bow, East London.

Barbell exercises

Let’s start with the obvious one - barbell training. The OG of resistance training and still arguably the best and most versatile resistance training tool there is.

With an almost unlimited number of exercise and potential for ever-increasing weight, a barbell can be a whole workout in itself. You can adjust weights, sets, reps, rest periods and movement pattern to train your whole body. You can perform complexes (multiple exercises combined into a single exercise), super sets (different exercises performed back to back without rest) and everything else in between.

At AdMac Fitness barbell training is a fundamental aspect of our training approach, because it’s just so effective.

Kettlebells!

Kettlebell training can trace its roots as far back as the ancient Mongol armies (apparently). Their popularity took off again in the early 2000’s though when they became popular in Hollywood. To be honest, we don’t really care about that - we just use them because we think they’re awesome.

A kettlebell can be used for all types of resistance training - they can be used in place of dumbbells for lots of exercises, but they’re also excellent for swing movements, carry movements and explosive work. You can very easily perform a whole body circuit workout in 20 minutes with a kettlebell, such is their effectiveness.

There are particular techniques we use with kettlebells that make them slightly different to other resistance training approaches, which gives them unique properties. These include eccentric contract emphasis and unilateral strength improvements.

Bodyweight training… the forgotten one!

So many people forget about bodyweight exercise when it comes to resistance training, because they dismiss it as real training. Take it from us, done correctly, bodyweight training is no joke - it’s a tough workout that can (and does) get people into fantastic shape.

Bodyweight training is really scalable - at one end of the spectrum you have air squats, push ups etc, in the mid range you have pull ups, plyometrics, animal movement patterns etc, then at the top end you have advanced calisthenics. There’s progression for all levels and the results from other an athletic and physique points of view are great.

Limited equipment needed, with a huge physical upside. Bodyweight training is an important aspect of what we do at AdMac Fitness.

TRX and Suspension Training

The suspension trainer really blew up in popularity in the early 2000’s, because it offers HUGE exercise variety in a really convenient way. It has been described in some circles as stability ball training without the stability ball.

We use our suspension trainers with personal training clients of all levels, because they’re excellent, for all kinds of exercises and movements - from warm ups to high intensity circuit training, they’re super effective. It’s also a great way to progress and regress movements. For example, we can help people learn to do pistol squats with a TRX by making them easier, but we can also make core work and push ups much harder by using them.

Dumbbells - the other OG!

For many people, dumbbells are the forgotten about little brother of the barbell. For personal trainers, they’re an excellent way to improve unilateral (both sides) strength, create opportunities to load single sides, they offer unique exercise variety and freedoms of movement that you’d struggle to replicate with a barbell.

In some gyms people tend not to use dumbbells because it’s a kick in the teeth for your ego! For example, you’d think if you could bench press say, 60kg with a barbell you’d be able to bench press 2 x 30kg dumbbells, but that’s nowhere near the truth! In reality you can probably bench a couple of 22.5kg dumbbells! If your lifting is about your ego, you may want to give the dumbbells a swerve!

If (like us at AdMac Fitness), you’re more bothered about results than egos, grab hold of those dumbbells and use them a lot! Your body and health will thank you for it!

Battle ropes

Battle ropes are an excellent tool for upper body conditioning and they’re not especially common in commercial gyms. Being an independent personal training studio though, we’re not bound by such limitations!

We use battle ropes for a variety of reasons - we put them in circuits, we use them for workout finishers, we use them for warm ups. It’s a way to mix things up with upper body training, plus it’s a low-impact way to add huge reps to the arms.

Whilst battle ropes can be used to train more than just the upper body (they can be incorporated into exercises such as burpees, the most value is from using them as an upper body high rep training tool and that’s what we tend to do with them.

Different types of resistance training - concluded

At AdMac Fitness we will mix up all of these different types of resistance training to create interesting, varied and effective workouts. You’ll be constantly challenged and progressing with the help of the AdMac personal training team…

If you want your health and fitness journey to be guided by the best personal training team in East London, get in touch with us at AdMac Fitness. We operate from our private personal training studio in Bow, E3. Contact us on 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!

Five Tips to Help You Track Your Calorie Intake

There are a number of different ways for people to assess their food intake when it comes to weight loss. At AdMac Fitness we use a number of them - we don’t believe in a one size fits all approach. We’ve always found that a personalised approach works best for our members.

We have weight loss clients who will use an intermittent fasting approach, some who will track calories, some who will go low carb etc. Whatever works for you, we’ll support.

In this blog post we’re going to give you five tips to help you track your calorie intake. This is especially useful if you are following a calorie controlled diet approach, or an ‘if it fits your macros’ (IIFYM) approach. This is an approach that has been used successfully for years and arguably provides you with the most accurate calorie intake.

The downside is there’s a lot more work involved because you have to tack everything you eat. These tips are designed to make that process a little easier…

Tip #1 - Download (and use) MyFitnessPal

MyFitnessPal is the most popular calorie tracking app in the world and for good reason. It has a simple user interface, a huge food library, built-in tracking software and the ability to scan a barcode of a food and give you a precise calorie reading. The other thing I like about MyFitnessPal is that it will sync with most activity trackers, so if you track your exercise with a heart rate monitor then your activity calories will automatically be factored in to your daily calorie target. It makes the process so much easier!

Tip #2 - Use digital weighing scales

The most accurate way to ensure you’ve got the calorie content of your foods accurate is to weigh them. Some people may think they can get it right by sight, but to be honest that’s nonsense. Measurements such as a ‘cup’ aren’t great either, so weighing your foods is the best way. You don’t have to spend much money on them either - these weighing scales from amazon are great and cost less than £10!

Keep these on the kitchen counter whilst you are cooking and you’ll quickly and easily get the calorie content of each of your meals accurate every single time.

Tip #3 - Be formulaic!

When you’re new to tracking calories, make the process as easy as possible. One of the best ways you can do this in the early days is by being formulaic with your meals. That means you work out the calories for a meal you eat regularly, then have that frequently. Say for example you know that three weetabix, some milk and a banana is around 350 calories, have that every day. It means there’s less tracking involved, making it easier.

As and when you get more used to using the app and tracking, you can go off-piste and be a bit more adventurous, calculating the calories for more meals that you eat!

Tip #4 - Batch cook and save

The most difficult bit of calorie tracking is figuring out how many calories are in a meal you’ve cooked from scratch. The way you do this is by weighing each ingredient and adding the calories to the calculator as you cook the meal.

One way of reducing the amount of time you do this is by batch cooking and then dividing that up into multiple portions. If you take this approach you only need to calculate the calories once, then divide. Say for example you cook a whole lasagne and you calculate that the total calorie content of the whole thing is 1200 calories, well you’d know that 2 equal portions are 600 calories each. You’d also only have to add the meal to the app once, then just re-use the data time and again.

Tip #5 - Remember to include your liquids!

When people start calorie tracking, one of the things they often forget to include is their liquids. This can add up to hundreds (thousands in the case of alcohol) of calories that aren’t tracked. If you think that a 500ml bottle of Coke is 200 calories, it doesn’t take long for those things to add up.

Be fastidious with your calorie tracking - every food, every drink, every snack - even every supplement if you take high dose fish oils etc. They all add up and they’re all important when it comes to achieving your health and fitness goals. Weight loss is a case of creating a calorie deficit, so you’ll only be able to accurately do this if you know exactly what is coming in!

Tracking calorie intake - final thoughts

Tracking calories doesn’t suit everyone. It’s more work than the other ways, but it is the most accurate way of assessing your calorie intake, which allows you to track your choices precisely. It’s a very successful approach when done properly, so use these tips to help you get it right and watch the weight come off you!

If you want your health and fitness journey to be guided by the best personal training team in East London, get in touch with us at AdMac Fitness. We operate from our private personal training studio in Bow, E3. Contact us on 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!

Stretching and Flexibility - What, Why and How

Flexibility is an ongoing discussion amongst strength coaches and personal trainers. Some are all for it and view it as a vital element of performance, others aren’t as convinced. Physiotherapists share similar contrasting viewpoints.

To clear up the issue once and for all, we’re going to look at the evidence around stretching, flexibility and mobility and draw conclusions from the science, not opinions. We’ll end the article with some recommendations that will help you improve muscle suppleness and injury resistance.

The history of stretching

If we cast our minds back, stretching was something PE teachers and amateur sports coaches used to make us do ahead of a sporting activity. It didn’t matter how cold it was, the ‘warm up’ involved stretching various body parts before engaging in a full-steam-ahead sporting activity!

We now know that this is, well, stupid.

The risk of injury is significantly higher at lower temperatures. What we know from the research is that when the muscle tissue temperature drops, it’s much easier to tear, so for this reason it’s good advice to NEVER stretch a cold muscle. We’ve written about cold weather exercise on the blog in the past, but now we’re back in the winter it’s always good to have a little reminder of what we need to consider.

So whether or not you are going to stretch, just make sure you ONLY ever stretch a warm muscle, never a cold one. The injury risk isn’t worth it and and the immediate benefit isn’t there.

Types of stretching

There are essentially three types of stretching - active, passive and isometric.

Active stretching is where you progressively move the limbs to achieve a stretch. This can be anything from a small ‘bounce’ to a more aggressive, high speed movement known as ballistic stretching.

Whilst there are certain movement pattern benefits to these movements, as a tool designed to improve flexibility in athletes, they don’t get muscle support in the research. The injury risk is higher than other types and the benefits just don’t stack up.

Passive stretching is more commonly known as static stretching, where you stretch the target muscle and stay in that position for a given amount of time, often practiced in yoga. Research suggests passive stretching is an effective tool for improving flexibility, but doubts are raised over its effectiveness for athletes (especially pre-event) given potential reduction in muscle force generation associated with passive stretching.

In English, if you want to be more flexible, it’s absolutely fine - just don’t do it close to a sporting activity because it makes muscles temporarily weaker.

Isometric stretching is a form of stretching that involves tensing of the target muscle whilst it is in a stretched position. The muscle itself doesn’t change length dramatically – the length of the stretch isn’t increased. The effectiveness comes from the fact that whilst contracting in a stretched position, the muscle overrides the ‘stretch reflex’, allowing it to extend beyond its normal range of movement.

This is known as ‘Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation’ or ‘PNF’ stretching. It has been shown to both improve performance and flexibility, so is commonly used in sporting context.

Is stretching worth it?

This is the million dollar question and there’s no right or wrong answer - the best answer comes from the use case. Why are you stretching and what are you looking to achieve?

The evidence is clear that if you want to improve your flexibility (and you probably should - flexibility is a useful thing to have), then stretching is the best way to achieve it. There are other ways (massage, foam rollers, relaxation techniques etc), but they aren’t as targeted and effective at pushing a muscle and connective tissues to end range.

What you have to be careful of is how and when you stretch and the basic advice is this…

1. NEVER stretch a cold muscle. Always warm it up first - whether that’s a hot bath or shower, exercise or a sauna. Just raise the temperature and improve blood flow.

2. If it’s before exercise, use a PNF stretching approach.

3. If you’re not about to train or compete in sport and are literally just doing some flexibility work, static stretching or yoga is very effective. Just make sure you’re warm first.

Whilst there’ll always be experts who love the click-bait, outlandish claims about stretching being useless etc, the evidence simply doesn’t back this up. There’s certainly uses for stretching, you just have to pick the right type and do it at the right time.

Follow the advice in this article and you’ll do just that!

If you want your health and fitness journey to be guided by the best personal training team in East London, get in touch with us at AdMac Fitness. We operate from our private personal training studio in Bow, E3. Contact us on 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

8 Steps to Preventing the Post-Christmas Weight Guilt...

If there’s one thing we know from working in fitness for so long… it’s that every year people will guilty for weight gain over the Christmas and New Year period. We always try to be reassuring, but sometimes those messages aren’t listed to very well.

In an attempt to try to get you to not worry about any weight you’ve gained, we’re going to give you a 8-tip list to help you drop the weight quickly and start feeling back to your best again…

Re-establish a sleep routine

This may seem like an odd one to start with… what does sleep have to do with weight loss? A lot, actually. Way more than you think. A good sleep pattern helps to regulate everything - hunger hormones, recovery from exertion, mood etc. Research shows that good quality sleep helps us to make better choices around food.

It’s easy to fall into weird sleeping patterns at Christmas - naps in front of the TV, late nights, long lie-ins etc. To help get back to normal, try to regulate this as well as you can.

Reduce the salty carbs

Much of the Christmas weight gain we suffer from can be linked to water retention. Two of the biggest culprits when it comes to water retention are salt and starchy carbohydrates. By reducing the intake of salty carbs and replacing them with high fibre foods (fruit and vegetables), you’ll watch the weight drop quickly.

Expect to be going to the toilet a lot as well - that retained water has to go somewhere!

Get moving!

This is an obvious one, but it’s important. At this point, you don’t need to kick the crap out of yourself - simply get moving. Get yourself up, start with some walking, perhaps some light cycling. A basic gym workout. Whatever you need to, but do something. My suggestion is you don’t go nuts from the off - start basic, build up from there.

Think frequency over duration and intensity here. Go for 30-45 minutes every day, rather than a 2 hour beasting then missing 5 days.

Hypermineralise

This is a trick used by athletes in a weight cutting sport - when they’re in the final stages of cutting weight, they need to give their body all the help they can by making sure it is full of vitamins and minerals. The simplest way of doing this is with a simple multivitamin every day.

Add to this plenty of fruit, vegetables and water, a bit of sun exposure (or vitamin D supplementation) and you’ll be well on your way.

Cut out the booze

We like a drink as much as the next person, but if you want to feel better quickly, one of the most important things you can do is get rid of the drink. Alcohol impacts sleep quality, makes you crave junk food, reduces motivation to train and generally doesn’t make you want to do much.

Not to mention the calories… there’s a reason they call it a beer belly!

Get rid of the temptation

Willpower is a limited resource - faced with temptation, it’s a matter of time before you give in to it. Rather than fight against yourself, just remove the temptation. Give away any treats you have left over. Throw stuff in the bin if you can’t find someone to take it from you.

If it’s not there, you can’t eat it. It’s as simple as that!

RELAX!

The final tip we have is to relax - Christmas is a short period of time and life is about balance. Yes, you may have gained a little bit of weight, but who cares? You can get rid of it quickly. Life would be dull if you tracked every calorie for 365 days per year. Every now and then you should be able to relax and enjoy yourself. Just make sure 3 or 4 days of indulgence doesn’t turn into 3 or 4 weeks of it!

Once you’ve committed to your mission again, get your head down and keep grinding!

Seek Help!

If you want your health and fitness journey to be guided by the best personal training team in East London, get in touch with us at AdMac Fitness.

We operate from our private personal training studio in Bow, E3. Contact us on 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We’ve helped literally hundreds of people from all walks of life achieve excellent health and fitness results - we can help you too!

The Timely Winter Immunity Boost... Getting it Right

How to Boost Immunity – Practical Tips and Advice

Let’s be straight - there’s a lot of nonsense written about immunity - usually because people are selling some ‘immune-boosting’ product. At AdMac Fitness we don’t do that - we believe in evidence-based advice and guidance and the blog is no different.

In this article we’re going to address immunity, cutting through the noise to tell you what works. We’ll show you the evidence behind each one of our claims, so you know this isn’t an opinion, it’s a fact backed by scientific research.

Whilst we can’t promise you’ll be immune to everything in the world by following this advice, you’ll certainly be giving your immune system a massive helping hand!

Immunity is an ever-changing picture

We know that immune responses to disease fluctuates depending on a number of factors. These include the viral ‘load’ (frequency and duration of our exposure to infection), the state of our immune system and the time of year. That’s why supplementation, sleep and food choices can and should vary throughout the year.

Whilst there are undoubtedly seasonal variations in illness (for example peak transmissibility of covid and the common cold is at lower temperatures), the reality is we’re exposed to a lot of potentially harmful bacteria and viruses all year round. 

We tend to experience ‘seasons’ of viruses because of some these factors. Take ‘flu season’ for example. In the winter we have closer contact with others through being indoors more, which increases frequency and duration of exposure to bugs. This increased viral load is part of the reason colds and flus can spread quickly and easily in the winter months.

We’re also likely to have lower vitamin D levels during the autumn and winter. This has the effect reducing immune function. There’s also other lifestyle factors over the winter such as Christmas parties, higher stress levels and reduced sleep can also make us more vulnerable generally.

What we should be looking to do is maintain a highly functioning immune system all year round, making us less vulnerable generally. 

Lifestyle factors that weaken our immune function

We look at immunity back to front. Rather than seek to enhance our immune system, we should first look to reduce the factors that weaken it. By giving our bodies a rest and not exposing it to immune-compromising elements, we at least give ourselves a fighting chance against illness

Here are the fundamental aspects of reduced immunity…

Excess Alcohol Consumption

It’s quite an obvious point to make, but research is clear that excess alcohol consumption has a negative effect on immunity and recovery rates from illness. In practical terms this means not only are you more susceptible to illness in the first place, you’re also less likely to recover quickly from the diseases you catch.

It’s important to note also that it’s not just chronic alcohol consumption that affects immunity – binge drinking can do just the same. You may think “it’s only a few parties, it doesn’t matter”, but it’d be wise to dial up other means of protection in the before and after of the parties.

Sleep Deprivation

Again, this one is unlikely to surprise many, but the evidence around sleep deprivation and reduce immunity is simply too powerful to ignore. Chronic sleep deprivation has been shown across multiple studies to have an immediate and significant impact on immunity, making us more susceptible to infection. 

Sleep deprivation can also reduce the effectiveness of vaccines, so there really isn’t a get out here. We have to sleep effectively to have any chance of maintaining a healthy and effective immune system. There’s plenty of reasons why a lack of sleep makes you feel like crap it would seem…

Stress

Your exposure to stressful situations can have a marked effect on your immunity. In this meta-analysis of 30 years of research on the topic, researchers concluded that stress and exposure to stressful situations reduces immunity and disease resistance. There is no doubt that based on the overwhelming body of evidence, long term exposure to stress will reduce immune function.

At a cellular level, all stress looks largely the same. Taking steps to actively reduce stress, whether that is through meditation, time with friends, counselling etc will certainly be helpful.

Dietary Deficiency

Anecdotally there has been a lot of advice around diet and disease for millennia. Thanks to more modern approaches to research, we can be far more specific. Where many people advise a blanket approach to vitamin and mineral supplementation, what research is showing is that Vitamins A and D are particularly useful when it comes to supporting immune function.

A lot of people don’t believe in taking a broad-spectrum multivitamin supplement, but on balance it’s worth it mostly because of the minerals which have been shown to boost immunity. If nothing else it offers a back stop level of insurance nutritionally.

Boosting your immunity - evidence based advice

There is a lot of advice around boosting immunity, much of which is actually fairly robust from a scientific standpoint. There’s also a lot of nonsense, one of the most famous being to drink a ‘hot toddy’ to see off a cold. What we’re going to do here is look at how we can boost immunity with practical tips. 

Exercise

Add this one to the ‘obviously’ column. There are very few physiological processes that aren’t enhanced by exercise. There is a word of caution here though – prolonged exposure to extreme training loads have been tentatively linked to compromised immunity, so whilst exercise is great, manage your training loads and don’t overtrain. 

Don’t rush back after illness, or if you are around people who are (or have been) ill, don’t go hitting the gym super hard.

Dietary Advice

Here you have to follow the obvious advice – plenty of good quality protein, lots of fresh fruit and vegetables, a lot of water and little booze. Nothing mind-blowingly new to report. What is important (and possibly new to you) is that if you live in an area with low winter sun exposure (basically anyone in northern Europe), vitamin D supplementation has been shown to boost immunity.

If you’re able to get away, a bit of winter sun will do you the world of good - both mental and physical.

Sleep More

If you’re not achieving a solid 7 hours most nights, it’s time to address your sleep habits. Reduce exposure to bright light before bed, cut down caffeine consumption, don’t exercise too late and try not to go to bed straight after a large meal. All the obvious tips, but make sure you follow them!

If we know that impacted sleep reduces immunity and makes us unwell, take steps to improve your sleep.

RELAX!

We know stress is a huge factor when it comes to immunity, so incorporate some kind of stress-reduction practice to your life. Whether that’s an exercise, a hobby, a mindfulness practice or even buying a pet, do something to reduce your stress levels. Doing so will keep you healthier.

Reduce Viral Load

This one is a huge step to avoiding illness. Viral load is essentially the amount of exposure you have to a virus – the higher the viral load, the more likely you are to pick up a bug. 

A good analogy is the candle one - you can run your hand through the flame of a candle quickly and not suffer any damage. Hold your hand immediately above the flame for a while and it’s a completely different story. Viral load is a similar thing.

Spread yourselves out in offices, work from home if you can, reduce public transport use, try to walk more. All good tips.

Boosting Immunity – Concluded

Where there’s a lot of nonsense around immunity, by following a few practical and simple tips you can reduce your chances of catching a virus or disease dramatically. At a time when health and disease is at the forefront of our minds, maybe now is the time to start boosting your immune function.

At AdMac Fitness personal training studio in Bow, E3, we operate under strict health and safety protocols. We clean all of our gym equipment daily, we’re respectful of space, we have sanitiser around the gym too.

We do everything we can to keep our personal training clients safe and secure in the gym.

If you want your health and fitness journey to be guided by the best personal training team in East London, get in touch with us at AdMac Fitness. We operate from our private personal training studio in Bow, E3. Contact us on 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

Bored of your leg workout? Mix things up with these 5 leg exercise variations...

Variety is the spice of life as they say… and it’s a way to keep your workouts fun and engaging.

One of the body parts that can be a bit boring when it comes to training is legs - if you don’t mix it up that is. If you’re in a gym with mostly exercise machines (poor you), there’s only so much variation you can add to leg extensions and leg curls before you run out of ideas. Worry not though, we’ve got you covered with exercises that don’t need specialist kit, just things you’l find in 99% of the gyms around.

In this article we’re looking at leg variations. There’s 5 exercises here, complete with a video to show you how each one is performed. There’s a lot of challenge here when these are done right, so give them a go!

Double kettlebell front squats

Front squatting with kettlebells is a much easier grip to manage than with the barbell front squats, but you can achieve a lot of the same benefits from the exercise. It’s a perfect ‘gateway’ into front squatting before you have the necessary mobility to perform the barbell version.

The double kettlebell front squat starts in a version of the rack position, but it doesn’t require huge amount of much mobility across the shoulders and in the lat muscles. The kettlebell front rack allows you to brace the core and tap into the benefits of the exercise without needing to adopt a position you can’t easily reach.

Goblet squat

The goblet squat is a classic front squat pattern without the need to challenge mobility much. I like it as a beginner front squat and feel it challenges the core a lot as well, thanks to the odd-object nature of the weight in front of the body.

Given the movement is performed with a single kettlebell, the weight is light enough for anyone of any ability to perform the movement, allowing them to focus on perfect form before progressing to heavier versions of the front squat pattern.

Suggested volume: 4 sets of 10-12, twice per week. 

Bulgarian Split Squat Jumps

This is a classic way to add variety to the Bulgarian split squat. By adding this plyometric element to the exercise you make it explosive and powerful, adding to the sport-specific nature of it. It means you can add progressions to the exercise without adding too much weight.

This kind of power movement has a place in most training programmes, because developing explosive capacity is important in life, not just sport. The only time it would be a good idea to leave out is in the very early stages of a rehab programme.

Suggested volume: 3 sets of 10-12 per leg, once per week.

Dumbbell Box Step Ups

I love dumbbell box step ups because they’re the epitome of a functional exercise. It’s like walking up huge stairs whilst carrying a heavy load. Not only that, they force each side to work independently, so there’s no way one leg dominates the movement over the other leg.

Alongside the functional element of the lift, it has real sporting benefits, allowing you to jump off both legs, prevent injury and improve your speed. There’s a real core test here as well, so it’s indirect abdominal work - making for a super efficient exercise. Finally, lifting a medium weight for very high reps adds a cardio challenge here. There’s a lot of bang for not much buck.

Suggested volume: 4 sets of 20 per leg, once or twice per week.

Single Leg Deadlift

If you want to humble yourself, perform some medium-heavy single leg deadlifts under smooth control - there’s a good chance they’ll shock you! When executed off one leg with slow, controlled movement, the single leg deadlift is both functionally important (in terms of injury prevention) and physically challenging, so it enhances strength.

Single leg deadlifts are an exercise that is often forgotten because the regular deadlift is seen as a bigger, more glamorous exercise. Whilst that may be the case, the fundamentals such as single leg strength remain important so try adding them into your workouts.

Suggested volume: 3 sets of 10 per leg, twice per week.

Leg Variations - Final Thoughts

It’s important to mix up your training for a number of reasons - to keep it interesting, to keep challenging your body, to learn new skills, to create new neural pathways in the brain etc. Don’t ever allow yourself to get stuck in a training rut, because you’ll very quickly fall out of love with it all.

These are just five of literally hundreds of variations you can put into your leg workouts, so give them a go. Even if you don’t use these exercises, you can use the article as a base of inspiration to look for new body part training ideas. There’s plenty of them out there!

Professional training in East London with AdMac Fitness

If you want your health and fitness journey to be guided by the best personal training team in East London, get in touch with us at AdMac Fitness. We operate from our private personal training studio in Bow, E3. Contact us on 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

Exercise and the Cold - Getting Things Right

Exercising when it’s cold is a funny old beast. On one hand the cold can kill motivation, but on the other cold weather exercise can be an amazing thing to do for your body.

If you’re into outdoor exercise such as running, the cold can be a huge ally. It keeps your temperature lower for longer, which allows you to exercise without suffering from the ill-effects of the warmer weather. There is research that shows a clear link between lower temperatures and longer TTE (time to exhaustion) Cold exposure is also a known calorie burner, so there’s a suggestion it gives you more bang for your fat loss buck. Finally, getting outside in the fresh air when you’re spending extended periods of time indoors, away from the cold can have big mental health boosts.

That being said, exercising in the cold does come with its risks. The purpose of this blog post is to help you exercise in the cold whilst mitigating these risk factors and allowing you to maximise the benefits.

Gloves maybe necessary in the cold!

Cold weather exercise - what are the risks?

There are multiple studies telling us that although there are risks associated with cold weather exercise, providing the right precautions are taken it’s a perfectly safe activity. The important thing is you can’t be complacent with your preparation before outdoor exercise.

By identifying the risks, we can make sure we take precautions to avoid problems…

Problem: Injury risk increases in the cold

The risk of injury dramatically increases during cold weather. Research shows cold muscles require less force to become injured when cold than when warm.

Solution: Spend longer warming up ahead of explosive movements

If your planned session involves lots of dynamic work such as sprints, plyometrics, direction changes etc you need to ensure you go through a long, progressive warm up before you start to do the explosive work. If you haven’t ensured you are fully warmed up, your injury risk is very high.

Problem: Mobility is compromised in the cold, affecting technique

Mobility is impacted significantly by the cold weather. The reduction in blood flow to the soft tissues in the joints means they take longer to get and as such aren’t able to move as freely.

Solution: Be strategic in your session planning

If you know a session will be taken in a particularly cold environment, be sensible with what you do. Something like a stretching workout isn’t a good idea in the cold. Instead stick to workouts that won’t need you to work at end ranges of movement. Running, cycling, circuits etc are ideal.

Problem: Time is limited

If time is limited you have to make strategic decisions on what you’re able to do during your workout. There are certain things you cant compromise on though.

Solution: Go back to first principles

The first principle of exercise is ‘do no harm’. We’ve already established a workout in the cold comes with inherent safety risks, so we can’t skimp on warm up quality. You’re always better off sacrificing the high risk elements of a workout. Don’t rush the warm up and put yourself at a high risk of injury.

Cold weather workout guidelines…

To ensure your cold weather workout is as safe as it can be, follow the following guidelines…

1. Wrap up as warm as you can be. You can always take layers off when you get warm, but starting cold and getting warm is a much riskier approach.

2. Never compromise on your warm up quality. Even if it means sacrificing other elements of the session, never compromise on your warm up. Cold bodies are injured more easily than warm ones.

3. Plan your sessions with the conditions in mind. If you’re outside and it’s particularly cold, leave the dynamic, explosive work for another day. Better to miss a single session than risk injury and miss a whole lot more.

4. Don’t get too complicated. In the cold weather movement is compromised - don’t do anything that involves end-range of movement or high-skill. Stick to basic, hard work in the sessions and save the other stuff for more suitable weather.

5. Don’t be intimidated by the cold, just respect it. As I said at the top of the article, there are definite benefits to outdoor training, you just have to be safe. Respect the conditions, adapt to the conditions, but don’t fear them!

Professional training in East London with AdMac Fitness

If you want your health and fitness journey to be guided by the best personal training team in East London, get in touch with us at AdMac Fitness. We operate from our private personal training studio in Bow, E3. Contact us on 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

Core Strength or Core Stability? What's the Difference?

Two of the buzz phrases used in fitness since the 1990’s are ‘core strength’ and ‘core stability’. The two are used seemingly interchangeably, when there is in fact a big difference between the two.

Unfortunately many people (some personal trainers included) don’t understand the fundamental difference between core strength and core stability. That means they group all core exercises together, thinking that ‘any’ core exercise will cover all of the core training bases, when that’s simply not the case.

A poor core training programme can render a person without the correct physical capabilities, leaving them exposed to a much higher injury risk. Many back injuries and issues can be both prevented or cured with a comprehensive core training programme.

In this article we’re going to discuss the differences between core strength and core stability, giving you exercises to work on both and ensure you have a strong and functional core. This will improve you athletically and make you a stronger, more injury-resistant person.

Whilst I don’t want to make a promise I can’t keep, there’s a good chance you’ll be able to rid yourself of niggling back issues by including some of these exercises into your training too…

Core Strength vs Core Stability

Core strength is no different to any other kind of strength - it’s the ability to produce an amount of force through a given range of movement. For example, that might be your ability to rotate powerfully through the core on a sporting skill such as a tennis stroke or a golf swing.

Core stability is different - that’s the ability to resist unwanted motion that might force the spine out of alignment. For example during a front squat where as the spine is exposed to a load, poor core stability can allow the torso to collapse forward, forcing the lifter to take more of the load on their lower back.

Both are important abilities to have. If you lack core strength, you can’t generate force which doesn’t help you in the gym and with day to day life (lifting and carrying things, playing with your kids, playing sport). If you lack core stability, you expose your back to injuries during simple tasks such as getting in and out of cars, work injuries etc.

If you’ve ever met somebody who ‘put their back out’ doing something mundane such as gardening, picking up their kids etc, they probably lack and kind of core stability and need it improving otherwise these things will keep happening again and again. They’ll then just write themselves off as having a ‘bad back’, when that’s likely not the case - it’ll be a core issue.

If your core training isn’t working on both you core strength and your core stability, it’s not effective. Thousands of crunches are useless if you can’t resist even minor forces.

Working on core strength

Core strength is best trained like any other strength - with progressively more difficult exercises that replicate your needs and the planes of movement you’ll need to work in. For the vast majority of us, we need to work on three movements…

1. Core flexion

2. Core extension

3. Core rotation

Here's an exercise I like for each of them…

The Hollow Body Rock

This is a fundamental exercise in gymnastics. It flexes the core, but doesn’t repeatedly perform the movement so is safe for people with lower back issues. It’s an excellent way to engage the core and maintain a flexed position.

Swiss Ball Roll Out from Plank

I like this exercise because it combines the stability element of the Swiss ball plank with the extension element of the roll out. It’s an excellent, yet challenging exercise. This is an advanced exercise - if it’s too much, work with an ab roller and shorten your range of motion first.

Side Plank Thread the Needle

This exercise combines both side plank stability and rotational strength. It’s a challenging exercise, so only do this if you can hold a side plank. If you can’t hold a side plank, work on that first until you can manage 30 seconds of side plank holds alone.

Working on Core Stability

The Don of all things core is Dr Stuart McGill and his approach includes the ‘Big 3’ - these are core exercises he believes we should all be doing in order to protect out spine and improve core stability. There’s no need to improve on any of these, so here’s a short video explaining them all

1. Curl Ups

2. Side Planks

3. Bird Dog

That’s not where core strength/stability ends…

I couldn’t possibly go into all core exercises in a blog post - literally hundreds of books have been written on the subject, so it’d be silly of me to try to explain them all here.

The exercises I’ve shared here will be a solid core programme for the vast majority of us. These exercises should be complimented with lots of compound exercises such as front squats, kettlebell swing variations, presses, pulls, lunges, farmers walks etc. I’d also suggest you do single-sided work as well, because that is known to help core strength and stability.

Core strength and stability training - concluded

As a minimum, I’d make sure that you’re doing every exercise I’ve shared here every single week. You shouldn’t do them all in a single session (that would be super hard work for your core), but do a couple of them in each session, making sure you’ve done them all across the week.

If you train 4 times per week, maybe do the McGill Big 3 in two of those workouts, then the other exercises in the other two. That way you will have covered all of your core training bases across the week.

If you ever need our help with your core training, the AdMac Fitness team are always on hand!

If you’re in East London and would the AdMac Fitness personal trainers to train 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

Hiding Your Exercise in Plain Sight!

At AdMac Fitness we’re big believers that exercise frequency is more important than exercise duration. You’re better off training in short, regular bursts than long, less frequent workouts. Here’s a practical example as to why…

Say you train for 2 hours, once per week. You’ve accumulated all of your benefits of the training in a short window. Instead, take that same amount of time and divide it over 4 days, with 30 minute workouts on 4 separate occasions.

• You’ve had 4 different endorphin hits, not 1

• You’ve managed 4 separate metabolism spikes, not 1

• You’ve improved circulation 4 times, not 1

• You’ve exercised your cardiovascular system 4 times, not 1

• You’ve engaged muscles 4 times, not 1

• You’ve strengthened connective tissues 4 times, not 1

At this point you might be thinking ‘I don’t have 4 days per week to train’ and that might be true - but there’s subtle ways you can train. You can hide your exercise in amongst other tasks. It’s much easier than you think and doesn’t detract from your productivity or your social life.

Use your commute to exercise

This is the obvious one - if you’ve got to travel to work, do it under your own steam where possible. Now I’m not suggesting you get your bike out to travel 50 miles per day (although good for you if you do), or to cycle whatever the weather, but when the weather is dry, why not either get on your bike, or walk/run?

If you live within 3 miles of work, you could walk it in 30 mins… easily hit your 10k steps target every day, improve your mental health and give yourself a clear separation time between work and home.

It’s a very achievable distance to run as well - a good runner will manage a 3 mile commute in 20-30 minutes, which is an excellent workout. If you were to do that 2-3 times per week with a couple of gym sessions thrown in for good measure, you’d be in fantastic shape!

For a cyclist, a 3 mile bike ride could be completed in around 10 minutes, meaning in certain parts of London it’d be quicker to ride your bike to work than it would be to drive or get the tube!

Make catching up with friends active

It’s easy to fall into a trap of assuming anything social has to include food, booze or a combination of the two! Whilst they’re all great, you could head out for a bike ride together, a long walk, a gym session or even something like roller blading!

Anything active helps and if you can do it with a friend then you can make sure that you are burning calories and staying social at the same time.

We’ve discussed before that walking burns around 75% of the calories that running does, so although it’s easy to dismiss walking as low intensity, the reality is it’s a great hidden calorie burner, plus a great way to stay in touch with friends.

You can even do this with a business meeting - in fact walking meetings are one of the more popular ways of meeting now. There’s thinking that suggests whilst walking we’re more creative, more relaxed and more willing to express opinions, thoughts and viewpoints.

Steve Jobs famously used to complete a lot of his meetings and interviews whilst walking. Maybe you can do it too!

Home workouts

Whilst these may feel a bit retro nowadays, there’s nothing wrong with reserving your stretching to your home. If you don’t need to workout at home a la 2020, we’d suggest you don’t but there’s absolutely a value in doing your stretching and mobility work in your living room.

A full stretching session can be performed within 30 minutes and has significant injury prevention, mobility improvement and relaxation benefits and there’s no need for it to be performed in any particular location or space.

Stretching is both important and incredibly beneficial to your health and fitness, so it’s important to not neglect it. Even a 30 minute dedicated stretching session will have passable mobility and flexibility benefits, so there’s value in doing them.

Exercise efficiency FTW

We’re all busy, but being busy needn’t be an excuse for missing out on exercise - our bodies and health depends on it. By using the tips in this article you may spot a few ways to fit exercise into your daily life, which means you’ll remain active without missing out on other aspects of life.

If you ever need our help though, the AdMac Fitness team are always on hand!

If you’re in East London and would the AdMac Fitness personal trainers to train you, contact us on 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

Protecting Your Shoulders... A User's Guide

Your shoulders are the joint with the widest range of motion in the body. It is able to move 360 degrees in rotation, 180 degrees up and down and can also move front to back and through elevation and depression. It’s able to do this because of a couple of important physiological structures…

1. It’s joint set up - it’s a ball and socket joint

2. It is acted upon by a lot of different muscles, ligaments and tendons

The trade off for a wide range of movement is an inherent lack of joint stability. In order to stabilise the shoulders we have to ensure that the muscles surrounding the joint are strong, well-balanced and are flexible enough to prevent shoulder impingement, which is a common shoulder complaint.

It’s not just lifting - modern life is a problem too!

Modern life sees us spend significant amounts of time in an internally-rotated shoulder position. This is where are shoulders are hunched forward and our pectorals become tight. The upper back isn’t engaged and becomes weaker.

This slouched posture is very common in offices - if you work in an office take a look around. Typing forces us to bring our shoulders around into internal rotation, so there’s a good chance you and a lot of your colleagues will be internally-rotated at the shoulder.

The other issue is driving - when your arms are holding a steering wheel it pulls the shoulders forward. This causes the chest to tighten as well.

As bad as all of this sounds, there’s a counter-balance measure to everything so you don’t need to worry - shoulder problems aren’t a certainty!

How exercise can cause or help the problem…

When the shoulders are internally rotated for an extended period of time, the chest becomes tight and the upper back becomes weak. This ‘pulls’ the shoulders forward and creates something called an ‘impingement’. Shoulder impingement is where the joint capsule is reduced in size, which causes the connective tissues to rub and become inflamed. This is a painful condition but it can be treated with corrective exercise.

If your upper body training plan isn’t balanced, shoulder impingement is very likely. So what do I mean by ‘balanced’?

A balanced upper training programme will see your shoulders work in mostly four different directions…

1. A vertical push (shoulder press for example)

2. A horizontal push (bench press or fly for example)

3. A vertical pull (pull up for example)

4. A horizontal pull (bent over row for example)

There’s additional exercises such as lat raises, then stability elements during exercises such as bicep curls, but largely those four movements will make up the bulk of the training.

If then, there’s too much pushing and not enough pulling, the chest and shoulders become tight, the upper back and rear deltoids become weak and the net result is the shoulders are pulled forward and shoulder impingement is a risk.

So how do we balance pushing and pulling?

It’s not as simple as do the same amount of pulling as you do pushing - because if you spend all day at a computer or driving, you’ve probably got a lot of chest tightness already going on. You’ll need to counterbalance this by doing a lot more pulling (especially horizontal) than pushing.

A good starting point would be 5:1 pulls to pushes. For every bench press or shoulder press rep, you’d do 5 reps of a pull. It could be something like this…

• Bench Press 4 x 8

• Single arm dumbbell row 4 x 10 (per side)

• Bent over row 4 x 10

• Pull ups 5 x 6

• TRX rows 4 x 10

This would have the effect of helping to strengthen the upper back and rear deltoids, which would help to retract the shoulders and open up the joint cavity, reducing the possibility of impingement.

Making the shoulders bullet proof…

The more pulls than pushes advice is a great starting point, but if we want to progress our shoulder strength further, we can do some direct shoulder work. We know from research that shoulder exercises involving external rotation have solid therapeutic benefits, both preventing and curing shoulder pain.

If you suffer from shoulder pain or feel as though your training isn’t well-balanced enough, you could probably do a lot worse than spend a bit of time each week working directly on your shoulder strength.

External rotations, stability exercises, face pulls and thoracic spine mobility drills will all be helpful in preventing potential problems and curing existing problems. Combine that with a lot of chest stretching and you’ll save yourself a lot of money in physio bills!

If you’re in East London and would the AdMac Fitness personal trainers to train you, contact us on 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

What Shoes Should I Wear for a Workout?

The days of wearing the same basic running trainers for every workout are over. As more advanced training methods have become popular, sports manufacturers have adapted and started to make shoes more suitable for the kinds of workouts people are doing nowadays.

When it comes to heavy squats, deadlifts, weightlifting movements and the like, flexible shoes with little rigidity and support just aren’t really suitable. They don’t provide the foot support because they’re too flexible, plus the mid-sole (the cushioned bit) is too soft, so you lose power on the heavy lifts because it compresses. Great for running, not great for heavy lifting.

What should you look for in a pair of workout shoes?

That depends on what kind of training you’re going to be doing, how your mobility is and what your personal preferences are. Each workout has a different requirement, so here’s a few points you should be considering…

Shoes for weightlifting

Weightlifting shoes have a very particular design, quite unique compared to other shoes. They have a perfectly flat sole to maximise ground contact. They have a hard midsole which doesn’t compress under weight, allowing you to lift more.

Weightlifting shoes have a raised heel. This varies from shoe to shoe, ranging from around 10mm to 22mm. This allows you to keep your torso upright during the olympic lifts and it also improves your squat depth and form.

The upper is stiff - usually made from leather or a authentic leather. If it’s made from a breathable fabric, it’ll usually have a thick strap across the foot to keep everything secure and tight.

Shoes for cross training

What do I mean by cross training? I don’t mean CrossFit as such, but something that includes elements of both weightlifting and cardio exercise.

Cross training shoes such as the Reebok Nano’s or the Nike Metcons have grown in popularity over the last decade or so. They combine features of both trainers and weightlifting shoes, making the perfect all-rounder.

Typically these shoes have a flat sole for maximum ground contact, but it’s a more flexible sole than that of a weightlifting shoe. It allows you to run and jump easier. There’s a slightly raised heel, but usually around the 5-10mm range. High enough to help with weightlifting, but low enough to not be a problem for general movement.

The upper is more breathable and flexible and doesn’t contain a lifting strap. They look like a firmer, more supportive trainer and they behave like one. If your workout consists of weight training and cardio, these are the types of shoes to go for.

Shoes for running and classes

If you’re a runner or you’re taking part in classes such as Pilates, Aerobics etc, then normal running style trainers are perfectly suitable.

A running shoe is padded and breathable, so comfort is front and centre of the design thinking. They have a soft mid-sole, which is designed to absorb impact and provide cushioning when running. This is perfect for running, not great for lifting heavy weights.

The soft upper is breathable and flexible, making movement easy. They’re not particularly supportive, but you don’t need a huge amount of support for running and classes. Running trainers have the benefit of being very light too, so they make high impact work such as HIIT classes easier.

The right shoes change the game…

If you have struggled to find the perfect footwear for your workout, hopefully this quick guide will steer you in the right direction. Footwear choice is ultimately personal, but my suggestion is that you look at your training shoes from an equipment point of view, not a fashion one.

Decide the kind of training you’re doing and make footwear choices accordingly. Buy shoes for the task, like you would in another other walk of life. You don’t use a hammer for a job that needs a screw driver would you?

The right footwear improves your workout performance, your fitness and reduces your chances of injury.

If you’re in East London and would the AdMac Fitness personal trainers to train you, contact us on 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

Why Instability Matters in Resistance Training

In almost any other context, instability is a bad thing. When it comes to fitness however, it’s a really useful addition! Throwing some instability into the mix is both useful and functional, helping you to develop real-world strength and joint stability.

By adding an element of instability into your training you improve strength, joint health, muscle engagement and athleticism. You also reduce your chance of injury.

What does instability mean in a fitness context?

When we talk about instability in fitness we mean exercises performed on an unstable base. We know from research that exercises performed with an element of instability can help increase muscle engagement compared to stable-surface training.

Instability can be provided in various forms, using different items of equipment to make the exercises more challenging.

The unstable element of the exercise can be added to the upper or lower body depending on the type of equipment you are using.

Applying instability to a workout

There are various ways you can add instability to your training. Here are a few of the more common ways…

Suspension Trainers

Suspension trainers are an excellent way to add instability to a workout. They are safe and easy to use for upper body, lower body and core exercises. They are light weight, easy to store and can be taken on the road with you, meaning you can train pretty much anywhere with one!

Common instability exercises with a TRX include Atomic Push Ups, Hamstring Curls, Planks. They all add an extra layer of difficulty because you need to engage additional stabiliser muscles to maintain control of the exercise.

Gymnastic Rings

Gymnastic rings are similar to suspension trainers but they’re better used for upper body and abdominal exercises. They are thicker and stronger than the suspension trainers, so are more capable of supporting your entire body weight comfortably.

The most common uses for gymnastic rings in the gym include pull ups, dips, muscle ups, push ups and the plank. If you’re an advanced exerciser you can incorporate more of the gymnastic style movements and exercises into your workout.

Swiss Ball

Swiss balls have been around in gyms for over 30 years - they’re the original instability training tool. They’ve been somewhat superseded by the suspension trainer in recent years, but that’s not to say they’re not useful. The main reason they’ve been seen less is purely down to versatility and practicality - there’s more you can do with a suspension trainer, plus they’re easier to move around.

Swiss balls are commonly used in place of a bench, so they are great for helping to increase core engagement in exercises such as bench press and shoulder press. They’re equally at home with core work for planks and the like.

Bosu Ball

The Bosu ball is basically a half-Swiss ball, with a stable plastic base supporting a half-ball. It is primarily used as a rehab tool, where physio’s and sports therapists use it to rebuild strength and stability in certain joints after injury. The half and half nature of it means you can adjust the way you use it, providing different levels of stability.

It’s most commonly used for ankle, knee and hip stability drills. It’s also regularly used for push ups and core work. It lacks the overall versatility of the others, but for its specific job of lower limb stability training it’s fantastic.

Benefits of Unstable Surface Training

Instability training increases muscle engagement, which helps to improve joint stability and health. By having strong and stable joint they’re more robust and less susceptible to injury.

The unstable surface training helps you to become more athletic too. In sports you won’t always be in a perfect position, so training on an unstable surface helps you with balance, correcting position and adjusting movements in real time.

The final benefit is real-world strength. On lots of weights machines strength is only trained in perfect alignment. For example a chest press movement is always governed by the machine, so you never need to correct your position. With instability training you’ll often need to correct your position mid-lift, which requires extra demands.

Staying safe with Unstable Surface Training

There’s a risk of injury with unstable surface training if you don’t do it right. Work at an appropriate level, so don’t try to do anything ridiculous such as standing on a Swiss ball doing shoulder presses - it might look impressive on YouTube, but there’s a great chance you’ll end up in casualty instead!

Safe approaches require a gradual build up, so start safe with basic exercises and light weights, then build yourself up to more challenging, demanding exercises over time.

If you’re in East London and would the AdMac Fitness personal trainers to train you, contact us on 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

Getting Creative in the Gym - Using Different Types of Resistance

Whether you like CrossFit or not, there’s a lot to learn from fundamental training philosophy of the sport. Greg Glassman, the founder of CrossFit came up with the now famous ‘Fitness in 100 words’ definition. In case you haven’t seen it, here it is…

The bit I’m focussing on today is the penultimate paragraph, in particular the bit that says… ‘mix these elements in as many combinations and patterns as creativity will allow. Routine is the enemy’…

When it comes to resistance training we can end up falling into a trap where we do the same combinations of exercises, rep ranges, weights and sets. Whilst there’s nothing wrong with that in the sense that any exercise is better than no exercise, by not adding variety you’re leaving lots of health, fitness and performance benefits on the table.

In this article we’re going to look at different types of resistance training, their advantages and disadvantages. Hopefully you’ll draw inspiration from it and mix up your training on the back of it.

I’m going to stay away from standard equipment such as barbells, dumbbells and kettlebells because they’re the obvious ways to strength train. Instead I’m going to suggest ways of strength training you may have overlooked.

Different types of resistance

Essentially your body knows four types of stimulus when it comes to resistance training…

1. Load (weight)

2. Volume (amount of reps)

3. Time under tension (how long it spends working against resistance)

4. Force (how much explosive power is used)

What is can’t tell is what type of equipment is used. It can’t tell the difference between a dumbbell, a kettlebell, a barbell, a tyre etc. It just knows the effect of the equipment, so mix things ups and see the benefits.

Here’s a range of new ideas for you to use…

Bodyweight

The ultimate in portable gym equipment - your body goes everywhere you go! Whether it’s simple bodyweight exercises or more advanced gymnastics, calisthenics or plyometrics, there’s a huge range of scope for bodyweight training.

Advantages

• Portable - your body goes everywhere

• Varied - there’s a lot of variety in body weight training

• Safe - there’s not much in the way of damage you can do to yourself

• Perfect for high rep work

• You don’t need much extra kit

Disadvantages

• Limited weight scope - hard to do heavy weight work

Weighted Vest

A forgotten-about method of adding resistance to training is by using a weighted vest. These are ideal because they’re easy to wear, adjustable and you can use them for either strength training or cardio. Whether you wear them for a walk, a run or a gym workout, they make every day exercises that bit tougher.

Advantages

• Easy to use - put it on and get busy

• Portable - can be thrown in the car, stored in a gym locker etc

• Adjustable - if you get an adjustable one you can tweak it for different exercises

• Varied use - you can use it for gym workouts, running, walking and even cycling

• Progressive - you can start with little weight and keep adding

Disadvantages

• Upper weight limit cap - you can’t ad weight forever, it’ll reach a point where there’s no more room to add weight!

• Can be fairly heavy to carry around, so it’s best being stored either at home or in the gym

Suspension Trainer

Since the TRX entered the market over a decade ago, the use of suspension trainers has boomed. Rightly so too - they’re the perfect portable gym, offering a wide range of exercises in a pocket-sized bag. Apart from being cheap, they’re portable and very useful. The perfect travelling gym, allowing you to exercise in parks, hotel rooms etc.

Advantages

• Varied - there’s lots of exercises you can do with a suspension trainer and you can also use it to make standard bodyweight exercises tougher

• Instability training - it can be used in place of a Swiss ball for instability

• Lightweight - it can be carried easily. Even taken on holiday without issue

• Progressive - suitable for complete beginners and experienced trainers alike

• Can offset weight for performing rehab exercises

Disadvantages

• Needs a place to be hung from

Tyres

Tyres are an excellent resistance training tool. They’re challenging, come in a variety of weights, they test grip, technique and muscular strength endurance. They’re also often free - farmers and tyre yards have to pay to dispose of them, so you may often be able to pick them up for nothing because you’re doing them a favour!

Advantages

• Heavy and challenging - they’re nothing like standard weight training equipment so will challenge you in new ways

• Offers excellent grip strength training

• Great crossover into lots of sports - a tyre flip requires power, explosiveness and great conditioning

• Can be used as a platform for exercises such as jumps, set ups, feet-elevated push ups etc

Disadvantages

• You need storage space

• They’re best used if you’ve got at least 5 metres of space to flip them in

Using Different Types of Resistance

Training is best when there’s different types of stimulus and challenges. Hopefully the ideas from this article will inspire you to look beyond your usual routines and rep ranges, offering your body a new approach to deal with!

Your fitness and physique will thank you for it!

If you’re in East London and would the AdMac Fitness personal trainers to train you, contact us on 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you.