South Woodford Personal Trainer - Adam MacAllister of AdMac Fitness

If you’re looking for a personal trainer in South Woodford, your search just got a whole load easier. Adam MacAllister, owner of AdMac Fitness, one of East London’s premier personal training businesses has just expanded into a new South Woodford PT studio.

AdMac fitness has established itself as one of the go-to names in East London personal training. The business has been built steadily since 2015, growing from Adam alone to a full time team of 5 personal trainers working out of their studio in Bow, E3.

The move to open a new personal training studio in South Woodford came about during the summer, when a unit in Marlborough Business Centre on George Lane became available. With the Bow Personal Training studio operating at capacity, the decision to open up a new fitness studio in South Woodford was an easy one.

Rather than just do a rinse and repeat of the Bow PT studio, Adam decided to really place the emphasis on the personal element of personal training, opening a single-person unit. The idea is the client can train in an environment they’re absolutely comfortable in, and their only focus is on themselves and their training. No distractions, no worrying about other people watching… just pure focus on working hard and getting their job done.

Results driven personal training in South Woodford

Boasting a fully equipped personal training studio, the AdMac Fitness South Woodford centre is perfect for anyone who really wants to focus their attention on maximising their fitness.

Too often in a workout, people are easily distracted by their phones, by the TV, by watching fellow gym goers. It means much of their time in the gym is wasted, because their attention is elsewhere and time that could be spent training, is spent unproductively.

That’s not the case here!

The studio is purposely minimalist, with all of the attention on helping the client get the results they want to. Each session with your personal trainer is a chance to move yourself closer to your goals.

With hundreds of dramatic transformations achieved over the years, when you train at AdMac Fitness South Woodford, you know you’re in the best hands. There’s a lot of personal trainers who will promise the earth and when it comes to delivery, they’re out of their depth. They lack the experience of dealing with different clients, programming excellent, efficient workouts and making the fitness journey an enjoyable one.

A library of transformations from Adam’s personal training career shows he delivers results…

Booking your South Woodford Personal Training sessions

At AdMac Fitness South Woodford we have personal trainers available with different specialities, so we can offer the ideal personal trainer to help you achieve your goals.

The private personal training studio is based at…

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

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

Focussed Training, Focussed Results at AdMac Fitness South Woodford

Life is full of distractions… social media, emails, text messages, phone calls and the like. It’s rare in the modern world that we actually get any time to focus on anything. There’s research that shows technology makes us very distracted, so focussing attention on anything during a training session sounds like a big challenge!

In a world where so many things are pulling your attention in different directions, how can you focus on a particular task? Having a phone beeping, push notifications robbing you of your focus, other people talking to you etc eats into your attention.

That’s where the latest private personal training studio in South Woodford is perfect for fitness training when you have a busy brain.

AdMac Fitness has expanded from its original personal training studio in Bow, to a new private fitness studio in South Woodford. It’s a new concept in personal training, and one that the AdMac Fitness team believe is perfect for the needs of the modern day client.

AdMac Fitness South Woodford is a private personal training studio where the attention is purely on the client. It’s a single-person studio, designed to be a distraction-free space where you can work hard and focus purely on the task at hand.

Just you and your personal trainer, working hard at making you fitter, stronger and healthier each session.

Adam MacAllister is one of east London’s best personal trainers. With almost a decade in the fitness industry (having been a PE teacher beforehand), he has helped hundreds of clients achieve their health and fitness goals.

He started his personal training business (AdMac Fitness) in Bow, E3. From humble beginnings, AdMac Fitness now employs 5 full time personal trainers. They have grown thanks to expert guidance, unrivalled personal service, effective and inspiring workouts and a huge catalogue of success stories.

Where many personal training businesses closed down during the pandemic, a combination of online and outdoor sessions saw AdMac Fitness actually grow, cementing their reputation as market leaders.

Never one to rest on his laurels, Adam decided to open in South Woodford to offer something different. A truly in-person, focussed experience. A workout dedicated to you and your goals. Building the body you want, one workout at a time.

The AdMac Fitness studio is the epitome of personal training. No having to queue for equipment. Your choice of music. No need to hurry up to suit other gym users. No need to feel self conscious. You can have the very definition of a private personal training session at AdMac Fitness South Woodford.

At AdMac Fitness South Woodford we have personal trainers available with different specialities, so we can offer the ideal personal trainer to help you achieve your goals.

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

Three Stretches You Need to be Doing

One of the most neglected aspects of fitness is flexibility. It’s often seen as the poor relation of the other, more ‘important’ and less boring work done in the gym.

We get it. It’s far more fun and interesting to lift weights, to sprint, to swing kettlebells etc. The stuff that makes you feel like you’re doing your body some good. There’s also the time consuming element of it - when you’ve trained hard, you want to get on with your day… not sit there pulling your limbs in different directions!

Sometimes though, you do what you NEED to do, not what you WANT to do!

Stretching has been shown to improve the range of movement in muscles and joints. This is fundamental to helping protect against injury and movement quality issues. It also helps to improve your training - flexible muscles and joints allow you to exercise with great technique, making your training more effective.

So it’s not just a boring inconvenience - it’s a very important element of maintaining your health and fitness, and reducing your injury risk!

Advancing your stretching

It should be a given that you’re doing your basic post-workout stretching. The usual sites such as quads, hamstrings, calf muscles, upper back etc. These are what we’d call your ‘maintenance’ stretches - the day to day movements to keep you flexible.

They’re not really the ‘problem’ sites though. Those are areas that don’t really suffer much in the way of prolonged stillness, resulting in shortened muscles and stiffer joints.

That title belongs to the shoulders, the chest and the hips. Our sedentary lives have been shown to cause us a myriad of problems, but the one we’re interested in is the musculoskeletal pain. The prolonged sitting we do at work, behind a desk, at the wheel, in front of the TV contributes to muscle tightness, which can manifest into joint pain.

The common sites for these are the hip flexors (causing lower back pain), the chest (causing neck pain) and the lats (causing shoulder pain).

In the next section we’re going to show you three very simple stretches to help you prevent these tight spots, reducing your joint pain and helping you to prevent further injury. You’ll also be able to improve your training technique because you’ll have freer movement of the limbs.

Hip flexor stretch

The hip flexors run up the front of the thighs, over the hips and into the lower trunk. They’re responsible for helping lift the legs up, so when we’re sat for long periods, they’re engaged a lot. If they’re not stretched properly, they become tight.

Here’s a hip flexor stretch - do it 4-5 times per week, for 60 seconds per side. It’ll really help you!

The Passive Hang

This is a great stretch for opening up the shoulders, stretching the back, elongating the spine and the elbows. It’s super simple, helps to improve grip strength and has a deep and long lasting stretching effect across the upper body. All you need to do is passively hang - take hold of a bar, relax and dangle. Take all tension out of your back.

Do it 5 days per week, 30-60 seconds per time.

The dumbbell fly stretch

Internal rotation of the shoulders (when the shoulders are pulled together in front of you) is really common. Sat using a computer, driving or eating, you’re in internal rotation. Over time this can cause shoulder impingement, so it’s a good idea to open up your chest. The best way I know is with a dumbbell fly stretch. Hold the dumbbells out to the side for as long as you need to, with your chest at full stretch.

Do this every time you’re at the gym, for a minimum of 60 seconds.

Three stretches you need to be doing… Final thoughts

These stretches will take up literally a few minutes of your week, but the trade off is huge. There’s a good chance that if you’ve been struggling with back, chest or shoulder injuries that muscle tightness and imbalances might be the cause.

Add these stretches into your week and you may even find that your injuries clear themselves up fairly quickly.

Personal Training with AdMac Fitness in Bow and South Woodford

The AdMac Fitness personal training studios are in Bow, E3 and South Woodford, E18.

We have personal trainers with a range of specialities, so we can offer the ideal personal trainer to help you achieve your goals.

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

Alcohol and Weight Loss... What's the Deal?

One of the most common questions we’re asked as personal trainers is ‘can we still drink alcohol whilst trying to lose weight?’

In this article we’re going to answer the question, but we’re also going to give plenty of context to the answer, explaining what alcohol does in the body and what the impact of drinking is likely to be when it comes to your weight loss attempts.

Our aim isn’t to be either a killjoy or an advocate for full-on boozing… it’s merely to give you the facts so you can make your own decision around whether you drink or not, and how much drinking you do whilst trying to drop some weight and improve your fitness.

Alcohol and calories…

The first place to start when it comes to anything to do with weight loss is calories, because the success of any diet lives or dies on how well you manage your energy balance. If you manage to consume fewer calories than you need, you’ll successfully lose weight.

Alcohol contains 7 calories per gram. For context, here’s what the three macronutrients contain per gram…

• Protein - 4 calories

• Carbs - 4 calories

• Fat - 9 calories

That means that alcohol is nearly as calorific as fat, and more calorific than carbohydrates and protein. There’s a reason that it’s known as a beer belly eh?!

Here’s a table taken from the NHS website, detailing the calorie information of several common drinks. It’s a rough guideline (different brands contain different amounts of calories), but it serves well as a rough outline of what different drinks contain, and likens them to a foodstuff…

So what this means is that it doesn’t take much in the way of drinking to really de-rail a weight loss plan. If you were to head out to the pub for a night out, if you had 5 pints of beer you’d have consumed in the ballpark of 1200 calories!

A bottle of wine will add around 600 calories to your daily consumption.

These calories have to be factored in to your overall calorie intake if you are on a weight loss program. So it’s not to say you can’t drink and lose weight, but you have to make sacrifices elsewhere in your diet if you want to keep your calories within your target for the week.

Alcohol and hunger

The elephant in the room when it comes to alcohol and weight loss is the impact drinking has on food intake. Anyone who has ever had a few drinks knows how tempting a burger/curry/kebab etc is afterwards… and that kicks your diet an even harder kick in the nuts!

Research shows that even moderate alcohol intake clouds decision making and makes us eat more. If you are having to restrict calories, making your decision making ore difficult is going to harm your diet. In this study from 2015, researchers found that even a small amount of alcohol consumed made participants increase their calorie intake by 11%.

There’s an undoubted link between alcohol and hunger, but the true mechanisms behind it are as yet not fully understood. Researchers believe it’s down to the effects of alcohol on the hypothalamus, and others believe there’s a hormone element to it as well. Either way, it exists anecdotally, as any food place by a pub will be able to tell you!

If you factor these calories in, no problem. If you don’t, you’ll certainly hinder your progress!

How to plan alcohol intake on a diet

It’s absolutely possible to lose weight whilst drinking. You just have to plan it. Here’s how you do this effectively…

Adjust your calories throughout the week…

Say for example you’re allowed 2000 calories per day, but you know you’re going to a party at the weekend, you can reduce them throughout the week. If you drop through the week to 1800, you can save an additional 1200 calories for your night out.

On the day of the drinking, work out…

As well as reducing the calorie intake throughout the week, keep your calorie burn high. On the day you’re actually going out for a drink, burn some additional calories. A good cardio session or HIIT session is the perfect way to do this.

Consume the lower calorie alcohol choices…

Looking at the list above, you can see the difference in calorie intakes between drinks. If you look at a double gin for example, it’s less than half the calories of the pint of beer. Even adding a diet mixer, you’d still keep the calories low. This is a way to enjoy a night out without the additional calories.

Don’t continue the boozing for too long!

Once you’ve had your night out, get yourself back into making good choices straight away. You’d factored in the calories so you haven’t ruined your diet. Get back to the good choices and you’re fine. Don’t think you’ve ruined everything - that only happens if you don’t get back to good choices soon.

Alcohol and Weight Loss... Final Thoughts

The answer to the question ‘can I drink and still lose weight’ is ‘yes, if you plan it properly’.

Weight loss is ultimately a question of calories in versus calories out, and whilst alcohol is high in calories, you can factor these into an overall diet plan. Just make sure you follow the advice in the list - drop your calories throughout the week, train hard on the day and drink lower calorie drinks on the night.

Get back on the horse the day later!

If you need help with your weight loss, AdMac Fitness personal trainers are here to help!

The AdMac Fitness personal training studio is in Bow, E3. We have personal trainers with a range of specialities, so we can offer the ideal personal trainer to help you achieve your goals. For more information on who we are, what we do and how we can help you achieve your health and fitness goals, contact us on… 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!

South Woodford Personal Training

The South Woodford Personal Training scene has just had an upgrade in the form of AdMac Fitness. Opened in summer 2022, the new branch of AdMac Fitness brings the same quality of personal training, fitness expertise and attention to detail… with a twist!

The AdMac Fitness in South Woodford is a single-person unit, meaning your personal training is truly the most private form of personal training available. The unit is designed for single person training, meaning you’ll never have to wait for equipment, you can make the environment your own and you can be truly comfortable in the surroundings.

It’s the ultimate in personal training.

The benefits of a single person training studio

There are lots of reasons why somebody would enjoy training on their own, with just a personal trainer for company.

If you’re anxious about training in front of others for example, a private personal training studio is perfect - it’s the most judgement-free zone there is. You won’t feel self conscious, because there’s literally nobody for you to feel judged by. Your personal trainer is the only person you’d be sharing the space with.

There’s an element of personalisation to the space as well. You could pick your own music, so you’d be training to whatever you want to, not what the gym decides! Although this may seem like a minor detail, these touches add up and it makes the space feel like a comfortable training environment.

If you’re training in an environment that you feel happy and comfortable in, you’re going to be willing to train harder. You’re going to want to train more often. You’ll get better results, you’ll develop a training habit and you’ll actually enjoy the process. This will make for a more successful fitness journey and a generally happier person!

This is part of what makes the AdMac Fitness experience such an enriching one.

What we can help with…

Given we’ve been in business for almost a decade, we’ve worked with people from all walks of life with a wide variety of health and fitness goals. There’s almost certainly nothing we haven’t seen before. In general though, here’s the kind of things we help our members achieve…

• Weight loss

• Muscle building

• Strength improvement

• Lifestyle transformation

• Nutrition planning

• Cardio improvement

• General wellness

This isn’t an exhaustive list - there are plenty of other aspects of health and fitness we can help with, so if there’s something you have in mind, get in touch. We have a team of personal trainers each with their own specialist area, so we’ll certainly be able to find the right fit for you.

How to book my South Woodford Personal Training sessions with AdMac Fitness

If you’ve decided that you want to start personal training with AdMac Fitness, or you want more information on who we are, what we do and how we can help you achieve your health and fitness goals, contact us on… 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!

Personal Training in Bow, E3

If you’re looking for a personal trainer in Bow, E3, take a look at AdMac Fitness.

The team of personal trainers in our private personal training studio have been delivering outstanding results for a wide variety of clients over the last 8 years.

We’ve worked with all kinds of people in that time. People who are trying a personal trainer as a ‘last resort’. People who are at the very beginning of their fitness journey. People who are looking for the help to lose that stubborn last few pounds.

And that’s the beauty of hiring a personal trainer - they help people with their fitness goals for a living! Our personal trainers have a wide range of specialities and approaches to training, so whatever your fitness goals, we’ll be able to pair you with the perfect personal trainer for you.

All personal training businesses say this, but we really are different.

AdMac Fitness isn’t just a place where people go for personal training. Our approach is client-centred, so they are very quickly made to feel at home. Our personal training studio in Bow is private, so you aren’t in a large gym, surrounded by people who want to use the same equipment.

We pride ourselves on the relationships we build with our clients, so they start coming for the expert personal training… they stay because of the culture and community we build…

AdMac Fitness combines fun with RESULTS!

The reality is that a personal training business in Bow, where there’s a lot of competition would only be successful if it delivers results to its clients. AdMac Fitness personal trainers does just this. We have a proven track record of helping our personal training clients achieve all kinds of fitness goals, including all of the most common reasons people would hire a personal trainer…

• Weight loss

• Muscle building

• Cardio improvement

• General health and fitness improvement

• Dietary advice

• Strength increase

Having been in business for 8 years (at the time of writing) and having helped so many people for so long, any chance of these results being a fluke are long gone! Our personal trainers consistently deliver excellent results for a wide range of clients with a variety of health and fitness goals…

Where to find AdMac Personal Training in Bow

The AdMac Fitness personal training studio is located at the following address…

153-159 Bow Rd, London, E3 2SE

Schedule
Our opening hours are
Mon - Fri, 6 am-7pm / Sat, 10 am-1pm

If you’d like to hear more about personal training in Bow, or you’d like to come and meet us and see the private personal training facilities where we operate from, please don’t hesitate to get in touch using the following methods…

Phone: 07921465108

Email: admacfitness@gmail.com

We look forward to hearing from you, then helping you on your way to excellent health and fitness. You’re in the best hands around with the AdMac Fitness personal trainers.

The best personal trainers in Bow!

AdMac Fitness is Expanding - Personal Training in South Woodford!

Throughout the summer there was something bubbling at AdMac Fitness, and now we’re able to share the good news with you…

AdMac Fitness is expanding into South Woodford, with a brand new personal training studio!

The opportunity to take on another space was presented to Adam, and having reached the natural point where the AdMac Fitness brand needed to grow, he decided to take it on as a single-person training studio. It’s designed to accommodate one personal training client at a time, giving them the opportunity to be trained in absolute privacy.

It’s a slightly different proposition to the AdMac Fitness HQ, which is a multi-person space that we can use for one to one personal training and group work.

The new South Woodford personal training studio is designed to be a space where personal training clients can experience unrivalled one on one attention - the kind of service that AdMac Fitness has become renowned for. The levels of professionalism that have been delivered day in, day out since we started in 2015 have allowed us to get to this position.

We didn’t want to dilute what makes AdMac Fitness so special by opening another version of the same thing, so instead opted for a purely personal training approach.

Personal Training in South Woodford

Anyone who walks through the door at the AdMac Fitness in South Woodford will enjoy an incredible level of service and an approach to fitness that has helped the business grow so successfully over the years.

Our experience, attention to detail and technical expertise have allowed us to help literally thousands of people improve their health, their fitness and lose weight. These techniques and ways of working have been developed and refined over the years, meaning we can help anyone, from any walk of life achieve their fitness and health ambitions.

With a talented team of personal trainers, we’ll always make sure you’re well looked after.

Booking your South Woodford Personal Trainer

If you’ve been looking for a personal trainer in South Woodford, look no further than AdMac Fitness. You’ll be training on your own in a specially-dedicated personal training space. No crowded gym, your own music choice, nobody to make you feel intimidated - just you and your personal trainer.

You’ll be trained by some of the best personal trainers in London, with a lot of experience in ensuring you achieve your health and fitness goals.

Whilst personal training businesses come and go, when you become an AdMac Fitness client you are joining a business that has slowly and steadily built up a fantastic reputation built on excellent service. You may join us as a client, but you’ll soon become a friend. We’re not like other personal trainers, we’re a company built on excellence, dedication, and the relationships we share with our clients.

Where to find AdMac Fitness South Woodford

Here’s the address for AdMac Fitness South Woodford…

UNIT 4

MARLBOROUGH BUSINESS CENTRE

96 GEORGE LANE

SOUTH WOODFORD

LONDON

E18 1AD

How to book your personal training session at AdMac Fitness South Woodford

If you’d like to book your South Woodford personal training sessions, or for more information on who we are, what we do and how we can help you achieve your health and fitness goals, contact us on… 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!

Is There Still a Place for Steady State Cardio?

Over the last couple of decades or so, fitness has been revolutionised. Driven by research from the labs, the way personal trainers program exercise has changed beyond measure. In the 1990’s an exercise program was usually a mix of steady state cardio with some resistance machines thrown in. The emphasis was on making the machines more technological than effective.

Modern day programming looks nothing like that.

A personal trainer now is likely to program a wide variety of exercises, movements and rep ranges. You’ll be using barbells, dumbbells, kettlebells, battle ropes, bodyweight work etc, and achieving far better results in less time. Cardio is incorporated as part of the weight training workout, or as a high intensity interval element of the session.

This is a benefit of research. We can get much of the benefit in a lot less of the time.

So why did cardio change?

The one area that has changed more than others over the years is how we approach cardiovascular exercise. From the birth of the commercial gym, right the way through to the last few years, ‘cardio’ was seen as a staple. It was reflected in gym design - most gyms had row upon row of treadmills, cross trainers, exercise bikes etc.

A typical program would see people doing cardio for 20-30 minutes every single session. It was seen as the only way to lose weight and improve stamina, so that’s why it featured so heavily in most programs. It was a throwback from the jogging revolution of the 1970s, and research hadn’t caught up.

The tide started to turn in the early 2000’s, when people such as Charles Poliquin advocated against using cardiovascular exercise in order to increase fat loss. He argued (backed up by research), that you could lose fat more effectively by controlling your calorie intake and increasing you strength training.

This school of thought took hold, and by the mid-late 2000’s, many people in the fitness industry were advocating against cardio completely, arguing that all it did was shed muscle and wasn’t even that effective against fat. The pendulum had swung completely the other way, going from ‘do lots of cardio every session’ to ‘don’t bother with cardio at all’.

It found a middle ground in from around 2010 onwards.

The explosion of ‘conditioning’

By the 2010’s, CrossFit was really beginning to explode. The fitness world had been (and would remain so for a while) suspicious of this thing called CrossFit. It seemed to combine awful weightlifting technique with vomit-inducing cardio. One thing was certain though - it was revolutionary. Never before had people combined seemingly opposing approaches to fitness within a workout.

As the approach became more refined, a more appropriate version of cardio, ‘conditioning’ grew. It combined the heart rate and stamina benefits of cardio, with resistance training elements. It seemed to be palatable to both sides - the cardio bunnies and the lifters.

The results were impressive too. Shortly afterwards, the research endorsed it as an effective approach to cardio, calorie burn and fat loss.

The reality is that conditioning is the best approach we have for the general fitness enthusiast. It’s versatile, it ticks lots of boxes in terms of cardio improvement, strength improvement, muscle maintenance and exercise variety (therefore adherence). It has a low injury risk and can be done in almost any space, using as much or as little equipment as you need.

So is there a still a place for steady state cardio?

Absolutely there is!

There’s millions of people who enjoy cardio, whether that’s going for a 20-30 minute jog, or an easy bike ride. Bodybuilders the world over still use very low intensity cardio to help with their fat loss approach - there’s almost zero injury risk, the cost to the body in terms of effort is low, but the calorie burn is surprisingly high. When studied, a brisk walk burns around 80% of the calories of an equivalent distance jog, but at a fraction of the effort.

There are all kinds of benefits of cardiovascular exercise, such as…

• Improved insulin sensitivity

• Reduced blood pressure

• Better control of anxiety and stress

• Greater cardiovascular efficiency

• Enhanced circulation

• Improved sleep

• Healthier, stronger heart

• Reduced depression

These are a fraction of the potential benefits. The point remains the same - if you want to enjoy your steady state cardio, go right ahead! Do what you like, because the exercise you’ll stick to is better than the one you won’t!

The AdMac Fitness team approve!

The AdMac Fitness personal training studio is in Bow, E3. We have personal trainers with a range of specialities, so we can offer the ideal personal trainer to help you achieve your goals. For more information on who we are, what we do and how we can help you achieve your health and fitness goals, contact us on… 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!

5 Ways to Make Leg Day More Beneficial

Training your legs is super important. Whilst the oldest cliche in weight training is missing leg day, you can’t deny that strong legs have a knock-on effect all over the body.

Legs are the base on which the rest of your body is built. When you perform exercises such as squats, lunges, stiff leg deadlifts etc you don’t just benefit your legs - you’ll train your back and core as well. You’ll be improving your joint stability and your injury resistance. Your athleticism will improve, not to mention your overall musculature.

When you weight train you stimulate the release of human growth hormone. When HGH release is stimulated, it benefits the whole body. Given the legs are the biggest of all the muscle groups, training them stimulates the largest release of human growth hormone.

In short, train your legs and EVERYTHING benefits!

Now we’ve established that leg training is important, let’s look at ways we can make it even more beneficial to you as a lifter. All of these approaches are evidence-based and should feature in your leg workouts…

Include Single leg Movements

One of the quickest and most effective ways of building overall strength is by ironing out any strength imbalances between sides. I like to do this with single-sided, or unilateral movements.

There’s not just a strength imbalance issue at play here - there’s a sporting element. We know that bilateral deficits exist (where one side is weaker than the other), which can impact sporting performance - jumping off one leg, accelerating when running or even changing direction is worse when you have a weaker side.

Ironing out these with split squats etc is very helpful in a sporting and injury resistance sense.

Improve Range of Movement

When you work through a full range of movement, you improve the strength of the muscles and the health of a joint. Unfortunately most people can’t manage to do that with squats and lunges, so they need help with it.

Weightlifting shoes are a massive help, because they raise the heels, making it easier to achieve greater squat depth. This means you increase the time under tension of the muscles, which improves their strength and capacity to lift (it removes any ‘sticking points’ in a lift).

Another way is to add a squat wedge. These have exploded in popularity over the last few years, and rightly so - they’re an excellent way of helping lifters to increase their range of movement and therefore strength on squats, lunges and split squats.

Include lateral movements

In the gym, most people perform leg exercises in one direction. The knees will move forwards and backwards, but rarely side to side. Whilst this is great from a squat and lunge strength perspective, it does little good for athletes who require side to side/lateral movements of their knees and legs as a whole.

If you participate in a sport that includes change of direction (which is most sports), you need to training your legs in a side-to-side manner as well. Research shows that lateral knee stability is improved by exercises that do this.

Follow the advice in this video to help you include these exercises into your training…

Mix up rep ranges

True fitness and strength will include a broad range of rep requirements in training. If you’ve spent your entire lifting life working in the same narrow rep range (usually 3 sets of 10), then you’ll only be good at that.

One way to mix things up and really improve the effectiveness of your leg training is to switch up the type of leg training you do. Adding high repetition sets (20+) to your workouts, as well as high weight, low rep sets (1-5 reps) will help to make you strong across a wide range. You’ll be strong and have great lower body endurance, which makes you truly versatile and will help build a lot of muscle.

Include power movements

People mix up power and strength, when they’re actually two very different things. You can be strong but not powerful, and powerful but not strong. Here’s a simple explanation…

Power is your ability to move a mass (weight, ball, yourself etc) at speed. Examples include throwing, jumping, weightlifting.

Strength is your ability to move a heavy mass, regardless of the speed. Examples being heavy squats, deadlifts, presses etc.

In most sports, power is more useful than strength. You build power by lifting lighter weights at high speed, but with an effort on large muscle groups. Think plyometrics, olympic weightlifting etc. Of course you need to have some level of strength in order to generate power, but by biasing power training, you’ll develop more useful sporting abilities and be generally ‘life fitter’.

5 Ways to Make Leg Day More Beneficial - Concluded

Leg day should be an integral part of your weekly training. Even if you’re only interested in aesthetics, leg training is important (as we discussed earlier).

By adopting these five lessons into your leg training, you’ll make it more useful, beneficial and effective.

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!

How to Get Your Warm Up Right

Warming up before exercise has been the subject of all kinds of change across the decades.

In the personal training world there are all kinds of different voices making suggestions… some people are saying that stretching is important. Other people say not so. Some say you should stretch, but only at certain times.

The good news is that there’s a lot of very credible research out there in the fitness space, so we can look at how the scientific community views warm ups and take advice on how best to prepare the body for exercise. Fundamentally that’s all a warm up is - a prep phase for what is about to come.

The evolution of warm ups…

If you cast your mind back to school PE lessons (well, if your teacher was anything like mine), a warm up would consist of standing by the side of a freezing cold pitch, perform a few stretches and then away you go - you’re playing!

It was amazing that there were fewer injuries - I think the only reason the injury rates were relatively low is because kids are basically made of elastic, so the injury frequency is a lot lower generally.

As time went on, it became more understood that you needed to ‘warm up’ the body properly, which is where the introduction of low intensity cardio came in. Gentle jogging, cross trainer use, rowing machines before a workout - they became increasingly important, for good reason.

In sporting circles, pre-event cardio became a feature too. Rather than standing by the side of a pitch stretching, you’d see players performing running drills and getting warm that way.

The stretching issue…

Stretching is another aspect of warm ups that have evolved significantly over the last few decades.

For many years there was one type of stretching - static stretching, where you bent into a stretch position and held it for a given period of time, usually anywhere between 10 and 30 seconds. As research into the area grew, it became apparent that static stretching wasn’t a great idea before exercise, simply because it doesn't really reduce injury risk.

As the research around stretching grew, we had improved recommendations. The type of stretching suggested now moved from static stretching to dynamic stretching - a type of stretching where you progressively elongate the muscles and work through a more functional range of movement. The results from the labs were consistently positive in terms of the improvement of range of movement and reduction in muscle stiffness.

When to stretch? The debate…

The general trend of the science shows that the best time for stretching is after a muscle is warm - this can be achieved actively (cardio/movement) or passively (sauna, warm bath/shower etc). We know this because blood flow increases flexibility and range of movement, but also it reduces the injury risk significantly.

Research shows us that when muscles are cold (which can happen outside in winter sports), the risk of injury is increased significantly. To reduce the risk, spend time making sure your muscles are warm before you do any kind of stretching. Whether you’re a runner, a football, rugby, hockey, golf player or any other outdoor sport, never stretch until you’ve done a warm up.

Some people don’t like to stretch at all, citing research that claims there’s a detrimental impact on muscle performance post stretching.

The counter argument to this claim is that muscle stiffness can have a much more severe detrimental effect on performance that any minor loss of power or strength post-stretching. The research does note that the loss in muscle function is very small, so it’s unlikely to make a big change to amateur sporting ability.

Movement based warm up…

If you’re warming up for a sporting event, there’s some credible research showing that you will benefit from a movement based warm up. This is one that gradually warms the body by the usual principles, but then adds in specific movement and technique drills.

This kind of warm up is effective because it doesn’t just warm the body - it practices movements and techniques, which has the effect of stimulating the neural system and warming that up too. It’s not just a case of warming the body, it’s also a practical way of warming up the movement patterns and specific timings ahead of the activity being undertaken.

So what’s the best warm up advice? The bottom line…

Based on what we have discussed here, a warm up should be based on what you’re about to do. A specific warm up is far more effective than a general warm up when you’ve got an activity to undertake. There are some commonalities, which are…

1. A gentle cardio element. This warms the body, most specifically the muscles and connective tissues that are about to be used. Always do this first.

2. Dynamic stretching. This is superior to static stretching, because it helps to reduce stiffness of a muscle and increase range of movement.

3. Movement specific warm ups. If you are taking part in a specific activity, such as throwing or jumping, warm up for this in particular. Take the time to work your body through specific drills to get it ready.

If you are in a gym, stages 1 and 2 here are applicable, then with number 3 you can adapt. You can perform a warm up set at the start of each exercise with an empty bar or light pair of dumbbells. It has the same effect - it practices a movement pattern, but at the same time it does so at low risk because of the light weight.

The AdMac Fitness personal training studio is in Bow, E3. We have personal trainers with a range of specialities, so we can offer the ideal personal trainer to help you achieve your goals. For more information on who we are, what we do and how we can help you achieve your health and fitness goals, contact us on… 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!

Workout Finishers to Add Intensity to Your Training

Anyone who has had personal training with us at AdMac Fitness will know how we like to throw in a high intensity workout finisher into our sessions sometimes. It’s a way of maximising calorie burn and intensity of a session. It’s also a great way to challenge your fitness - being able to perform well under fatigue is a true test of your physical capabilities.

Workout finishers can be made up of all kinds of exercises and approaches, but the one constant they have is that they’re high intensity. They can be made up of traditional cardio exercise, resistance exercises or a combination of them both.

Here’s a few workout finisher ideas to add to your training…

Air Bike Finisher: 30-20-10 Watt Marker

This is a fantastic workout based around a mixture of time and power output, which is measured using the Wattage counter on the Air Bike screen.

You start with a 2 minute warm up; this is gentle, the idea is to get your legs and arms moving and your blood flowing.

On the 2 minute mark, the workout starts.

Ride for…

• 30 seconds maintaining 150-250 Watts (this is recovery pace)

• 20 seconds maintaining 300+ Watts (this is moderate-fast pace)

• 10 seconds flat out – aim for 700+ Watts (women) and 900+ Watts (men)

Continue for as many rounds as you need to!

Barbell Complexes

Set a barbell up with a light/medium weight - something you could manage about 20 deadlifts with. Perform the following complex…

• 1 Deadlift, 1 Power Clean, 1 Push Press

• Rest for 10 seconds and then perform…

• 2 Deadlifts, 2 Power Cleans, 2 Push Presses

• Rest for 15 seconds and then perform…

• 3 Deadlifts, 3 Power Cleans, 3 Push Presses

Keep going until you can’t complete the next circuit. It’s an all-body circuit that will burn a lot of calories and train a lot of muscle in three simple moves. If you don’t know the exercises, give them a quick search on YouTube.

Treadmill Hill Run

This is a great finisher, because it uses one item of kit and is a really simple way to train.

Set the treadmill at 5KPH and at 0% incline. Every 30 seconds increase the speed and incline by 0.5KPH and 0.5% incline.

Keep doing this until you can’t keep going any longer.

At this point either take 2 minutes rest and start again, or finish your workout.

Thrusters to Finish

Thrusters are an excellent finisher exercise because they leave no muscle untrained, they don’t need a heavy weight and they’re great to do when fatigued because the technique is relatively easy to pick up. This combo means that you can keep going until you’ve got nothing left in the tank!

You can either set a rep target (I’d suggest 100) or a time target (I’d suggest 5-10 minutes).

You keep performing reps with as few breaks as possible until your end point is reached.

Rowing Machine or Ski Erg Sprints

This one is particularly nasty… but the good news is it will torch fat, is simple to set up and will improve your cardio capabilities no end!

Set the rower or ski erg to 100m sprints, with a 20 second recovery.

Row or ski as fast as you can for the 100m - it will take you between 20 and 25 seconds per set.

Watch the rest timer count down for 20 seconds…

Repeat as many times as you can. Once your 100m sprints take longer than 30 seconds, it’s time to call the workout off!

These finishers are simple to set up, but tough to execute. The idea is that you give each and every one your all, so you leave the workout having maxed out your capabilities. When you perform finishers properly, they help elevate your fitness and calorie burn to a whole other level!

The AdMac Fitness personal training studio is in Bow, E3. We have personal trainers with a range of specialities, so we can offer the ideal personal trainer to help you achieve your goals. For more information on who we are, what we do and how we can help you achieve your health and fitness goals, contact us on… 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!

Changing Seasons... Change Your Approach to Healthy Living?

As much as we hate to admit it, the summer is drawing to a close. The nights are drawing in, the mornings are that bit darker and there’s a slight nip in the air. The seasons are changing, so does that mean we have to change our approach to healthy living?

There’s definite value in adapting how you approach healthy living as the year progresses. As a base you should be switching your foods around if you want to maximise vitamin and mineral density, as well as taste. You can tweak your supplements as well in order to reflect the changing needs of your body.

Your exercise and sleep patterns can be switched up to maximise results and minimise risk.

As we head into the autumn, here’s some of the simple yet very effective lifestyle tweaks you can make to ensure great health…

Tip 1 - Start Supplementing Vitamin D Again

I’m assuming if you’re reading this you live in the UK. If that’s the case, as the sun fades away, our vitamin D levels go with them! This is a bit of an issue, because it’s such an important aspect of our overall health. Research suggests vitamin D has protective effects against cancer, heart disease, fractures and falls, autoimmune diseases, influenza, type-2 diabetes, and depression.

In the summer months (April-September), frequent sun exposure and natural light helps us to keep our vitamin D levels topped up naturally. In the colder, darker winter months however the sun isn’t strong enough to provide us with sufficient vitamin D.

To combat this, a daily vitamin D supplement is a good idea.

Tip 2 - Allow Yourself More Sleep

We are ‘photosensitive’ beings… in English this means we are affected by light. This is all kinds of light - natural light, artificial ‘blue’ light from screens, candle light etc. They can impact all kinds of things. Our mood is a good example - ‘yellow’ light from candles for example is relaxing, whereas ‘blue’ light from screens and ‘white’ light from fluorescent bulbs can impact our ability to sleep.

In general though, your body will require more sleep in the darker months than in the lighter summer months. This has been proven via research on seasonal changes in sleep cycles, so make allowances for the extra sleep. Turn off screens earlier, light candles and get to bed 30 minutes earlier than normal.

Tip 3 - Maximise Outdoor Time

This might sound counter intuitive given the world is getting colder and darker, but it’s still important to maximise time outside. Even if you live in a city, look for green spaces if possible. Even if it’s not, there are benefits to being outside and walking. You want to hit a minimum of 10k steps per day and that’s always best done outdoors - run an errand or two on the way and make your walk useful!

Being outdoors has been linked with calmer moods, reduced anxiety and improved general mental health. It’s also a great excuse to get away from a laptop and breathe in some fresh air. Don’t worry about the cold, just wrap up!

Tip 4 - Change Your Diet

Food is seasonal, and when you’re in tune with this there are all kinds of benefits you may not be aware of, ranging from health boosting to money saving. We’ve lost a lot of this knowledge though because we can import foods all year round, so we lose sight of the seasons.

We’re about to enter the root vegetable season. This means foods such as carrots, turnips, broccoli, onions, squashes, potatoes, parsnips etc are about to become much bigger, tastier and cheaper (who doesn’t love a bargain?!) . They’re also going to be more nutritious, so everyone wins!

Fruit wise, it’s time for apples, pears and berries.

Get rid of the salads and replace them with soups and stews.

Tip 5 - Boost Immunity

We all know how important great immune function is, so now is the time to build your immune system ahead of the winter colds and flu season. When it comes to immunity, we know that it’s just as important to stop reducing your immune capacity with late nights, excessive alcohol etc.

The basic immunity tips include all of the normal good advice… a healthy diet, plenty of sleep, take plenty of exercise and supplementing properly. Alongside the vitamin D, it’s a good idea to take a multivitamin and a cod liver oil every day.

Changing Seasons... Change Your Approach to Healthy Living? Concluded

There are without doubt differing requirements from summer to winter, but they don’t need to be dramatic or wholesale. A simple evolution in what you do will be sufficient, assuming you practice generally healthy behaviours generally!

Just take the advice here and make the necessary changes. You’ll maintain excellent health throughout the year, avoiding the winter cold and flu season and feeling great throughout the colder months.

Let AdMac Fitness help you with your fitness journey…

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!

Unconventional Abdominal Training - Working Your Abs Without Realising It

There’s a lot of nonsense written around abdominal training. You can tell that just by looking around any gym, or doing a quick google search of ‘abdominal training’. Unfortunately lots of personal trainers are no better, spouting the same nonsense without any real understanding.

The abdominals, or more importantly the core, are responsible for strength, stability, force generation, balance and rotation.

What this means is that if you perform exercises that challenge these abilities, you’ll be training the core without realising it. There’s a couple of benefits to this…

1. It makes your workout more efficient - the whole thing is done more quickly because you reduce the number of exercises you’ll be performing

2. You’ll provide a new challenge to your abdominals - they’ll lack the movement efficiency because they wouldn’t have trained these movements much, so it’ll be a real challenge

In this article I’m going to share a few of my favourite exercises that unconventionally train the abdominals. There won’t be a crunch in sight. They won’t be easy, but they’ll be effective - I can promise you that much!

Single limb exercises…

These are fantastic because they include multiple stabilising elements to them. Your core is forced to engage in order to keep your spine in a strong position. This engagement also helps to prevent your torso from rotating. Finally, there’s a balance element. Single limb training means you’ve got to balance your body on a smaller base of support, which forces the core to deeply engage.

Here’s a couple of single limb exercises that I like to use in my training. They have the added advantage of training the core too.

Rear Foot Elevated Split Squat

Standing Landmine Press

Overhead exercises

These are exercises when the weight is pushed or pulled overhead. This has the effect of making the abdominals switch on to keep the spine strong and stable as it supports a weight at height. The spine will have a tendency to flick into lordosis (arched lower back, with hips pushed forward) when heavy weights go overhead. A strong core helps to prevent this.

Switching the abs on with overhead exercises doesn’t just help the technique, it reduces the chance of injury, making these exercises significantly safer.

American Kettlebell Swing

Push Press

Squatting patterns

A lot of people don’t realise that squatting actually engages the abdominal muscles. What happens when you squat (especially front squat) is that your body has to generate spinal stiffness using the core muscles in order to maintain great technique.

When you pick up a heavy load, your body has to maintain its balance in three ways - front to back, side to side and up and down. All of this needs core engagement, making squatting patterns a great way of exercising your core without you realising it.

Front Squats

Pistol Squats

Unconventional Abdominal Training

All of these exercises are ways to challenge your core. They may not even be obvious at first - for example in the pistol squat, a lot of people fail because they lack the core strength to support their body weight.

If you’re squatting well over bodyweight with a barbell, but failing on a pistol it’s almost certainly because of a core issue. That may be your core isn’t strong enough to balance you through the movement, or it’s not keeping your spine in correct alignment.

By adding these exercises into your training regime you’ll be giving your core new challenges to deal with. This will improve both your athleticism and your overall fitness, busting you out of stagnant movement patterns you’ve grown too used to over time.

If you need any help building that bullet proof core, get in touch with the best personal training team in east London, based at AdMac Fitness…

The AdMac Fitness personal training studio is in Bow, E3. We have personal trainers with a range of specialities, so we can offer the ideal personal trainer to help you achieve your goals. For more information on who we are, what we do and how we can help you achieve your health and fitness goals, contact us on… 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!

Switch Up Your Kettlebell Training With These Exercises

Kettlebells are awesome. Used correctly, they’re a seriously amazing training tool. They can offer a huge array of training variety, they are easy to carry and store, they can be used to train all of the muscles in the body and they’re available in a wide range of weights, so there’s a kettlebell for every need.

In terms of the technical aspects of what makes them so good, you can point to a couple of major plus points over other common resistance training tools…

1. They’re fantastic for training the posterior chain eccentrically (meaning the muscles contract when they lengthen).

2. The vast majority of kettlebell exercises (beyond swing and squat variations) are unilateral, meaning they train each side individually.

To many people, that may not mean a great deal. To a personal trainer though, those points are huge. Our muscles contract in a number of different ways. Enabling eccentric contraction across a lot of muscle is a big advantage and kettlebell swings do this better than most exercises.

The second point, the unilateral one is something that is only really shared between kettlebells and dumbbells.

Most barbell exercises and weight training machines use both sides of the body at the same time. Kettlebells and dumbbells (depending on the exercise) force each side to work independently. This means that the stronger side can’t dominate a movement, doing more of the work and leaving the weaker side to stay weaker.

Kettlebell exercises for you to try…

The chances are if you do already use kettlebells, you’re probably performing swings. You might be doing squats as well. The purpose of this article is to inspire you to switch things up a little bit. Here’s 5 exercises that you may not have done before, but will add an extra dimension to your kettlebell workouts…

Double Kettlebell Alternating Hang Clean

The double kettlebell hang clean is a great way of generating power through the upper back. It also distributes the load across two sides, so it’s truly unilateral. It’s a strong hinge movement and helps to train the back, core and shoulders effectively.

Single Arm Kettlebell Thruster

Thrusters are a great exercise at the bets of times. Add in the single arm element of it and you take the challenge in a whole other direction. By loading one side of the body you force the core to work harder to keep the torso upright and stabilise the spine. It’s a classic all-body movement.

Single Leg Romanian Deadlift

These are the perfect combination of being functional, challenging and really helpful when it comes to improving knee, hip and back stability. It helps to train the quads and glutes, as well as the lower back. They’re humbling as well, so start with a light weight!

Kettlebell Bulgarian Split Squat

This is an amazing leg exercise - one of the best of them all in my opinion. There’s a few reasons for this, but ultimately it comes down to the unilateral element of the exercise, forcing each side to work independently. It also encourages/allows a greater range of movement at the knee, so can generate extra squat depth over traditional squats.

Single Arm Kettlebell Swings

I’ve no doubt if you’re using kettlebells in your training, you’re probably using them for kettlebell swings. This variation is a less commonly used one, but it’s a great way to exaggerate the eccentric loading nature of the swings. It forces each side to work independently and allows you more volume per side that the traditional swing. It’s a great exercise and uses essentially the same technique, just with additional core engagement thanks to the anti-rotation element required.

Switch Up Your Kettlebell Training With These Exercises

Hopefully you’ve learned a few things here and generated a few new ideas for your kettlebell training going forward. We can get stuck in a dogma with exercise, so every now and then a fresh perspective, a few new ideas and a different approach can work wonders for us.

Add these kettlebell exercises into your routine and see how you get on.

The AdMac Fitness personal training studio is in Bow, E3. We have personal trainers with a range of specialities, so we can offer the ideal personal trainer to help you achieve your goals. For more information on who we are, what we do and how we can help you achieve your health and fitness goals, contact us on… 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!

Can You Build Muscle with High Repetition Weight Training?

In fitness, there are some myths that just seem to stick. Even when evidence to the contrary emerges, there’s always a delay between the truth emerging and people changing their training habits. One of the tried and tested ‘truths’ we’re going to explore to day is the need to train heavy in order to gain muscle.

Is it true, or is it time we updated our thinking on the matter?

For decades the thinking has been that in order to grow muscle, you really should be lifting medium-heavy weights in an 8-12 rep range. Whilst there’s plenty of research supporting this approach, one question we can ask is ‘is it the only way, or can you build muscle with high repetition weight training?’

That’s what we’re about to explore in this blog post…

Muscle is a varied tissue…

A quick physiology lesson…

Not all muscle tissue is the same. In a given muscle, there’s a mixture of different fibre types, each with their own unique properties. Without going into serious detail, you can largely divide these into type 1 muscle fibres, and type 2 muscle fibres.

Type 1 fibres are commonly known as ‘slow twitch’ fibres. They take longer to fatigue, but their capacity to generate force and increase in size is limited. People who have great endurance are usually type 1 dominant in the sense that type 1 fibres make up more of their muscle mass. They’re less likely to be big, strong and powerful, but they’d run a 10k race without trying!

Type 2 fibres are spilt into several different types (but that’s not especially important here). They’re known as ‘fast twitch’ fibres. These are the opposite of slow twitch fibres. They have a greater capacity for growth, force generation and strength, but they fatigue quickly. Fast twitch dominant people excel in strength and power events, but would find a 10k race a challenge.

Training the different muscle fibre types…

Just as they have different capacities, the different fibre types respond well to different types of training. Given most of us aren’t at the extremes of fibre type distribution (like we see in the above examples), we would respond better to a varied type of training.

Bolt may be 80% fast twitch fibre, Kipchoge the same for slow twitch fibres. The rest of us will be much closer to 50% each (with some variation of course).

If we solely focus on one type of training, we leave behind the other fibres. That’s exactly what we’re doing though if we train within the same rep range all of the time. We don’t give much opportunity for the fibres we’re neglecting to maximise their capacity for growth. Imagine the possibility for improvement if we make the other 50% of our muscle work as it should!

What does the research show about high rep training and muscle growth?

There has been a few research studies around the effectiveness of lighter weight, higher repetition weight training for muscle growth (hypertrophy). The results have been clear - it works!

One of the pre eminent researchers in the space is Brad Schoenfeld and his research team identified in a 2015 study that lower weight, higher rep training approach helped to increase muscle growth. It also had the secondary benefit of improving muscle endurance. Whilst the research clearly stated that in order to maximise strength you have to lift heavy, when it comes to muscle growth, there’s certainly a place for higher rep work.

This isn’t the only study to conclude these results either…

A 2017 meta analysis of the data around low load training for hypertrophy concluded that muscle hypertrophy can be equally achieved across a spectrum of loading ranges.

Finally (because we’re at risk of labouring the point too much), research as recently as 2021 has analysed significant amounts of data and previous studies and has concluded yet again that… the compelling body of literature indicates that similar whole muscle growth (i.e., muscle thickness, CSA) can be achieved across a wide spectrum of loading ranges ≥ ~30% 1RM. These findings are independent of age and training status.

The point being, the science is showing us that yes, you can build muscle with lighter weights and previous assumptions that you couldn’t, are wrong.

Tips to maximise muscle growth with lighter weights

A few tips to getting the most from your lighter weight hypertrophy training…

• Stick with full body workouts - stimulate more muscle with each session. Forget split routines here and go the whole hog! Whole body every time.

• Train to failure - if you’re going to build muscle with lighter weights, you’ve got to go to failure. No half measures. This is especially important when it comes to isolation exercises.

• Use compound movements - these are the big, multi-joint movements. Think squats, bench press, deadlifts, rows, overhead presses etc.

• Train frequently - lighter weights will mean less recovery. Shoot for 4-6 workouts per week, making sure you follow all of the advice above.

Using lighter weights to build muscle in an excellent way to shake up your training. It also helps to give your body a break, it aids with connective tissue strength and health and gives you a new challenge to focus on!

It could be just the change your training needed…

The AdMac Fitness personal training studio is in Bow, E3. We have personal trainers with a range of specialities, so we can offer the ideal personal trainer to help you achieve your goals. For more information on who we are, what we do and how we can help you achieve your health and fitness goals, contact us on… 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!

Fasting - There's More to it than Weight Loss

When you think of fasting, the immediate benefit that springs to mind is the weight loss effect. You hear stories of people losing significants amount of weight by simply not eating (makes sense), but weight loss is actually only a small part of the benefits.

Fasting is a powerful tool for helping you to look and feel better. It can be diagnostic in nature, it helps your body to ‘take a break’ and when done for long enough, it stimulates a process called ‘autophagy’, which is your body’s way of doing a spring clean of itself.

In this article we’ll look at the research around fasting and look at a diarised account of what happens during a fast.

Defining Fasting

Before we go any further, let’s first of all define a fast. In this case we’re referring to fasting being abstaining from anything other than water and black coffee for a given period of time.

The reason this is important to define is because thanks to people like Dr Michael Mosely and his 5:2 diet, some people think of a fast as merely a day of eating less. This isn’t a fast in any sense of the word - it’s just a day of severely restricted eating.

The benefits we’re looking for from fasting come from a complete abstention from food.

Autophagy… What and Why

The body can be viewed in some ways as a complex manufacturing plant. It is taking in raw materials (food) and turning them into products (new cells, energy, waste products). As the factory is is working, some of the machines (cells) get worn out and damaged.

Autophagy is a process whereby the body cleans these cells out. For a definition, look no further than this from Medical News Today…

Autophagy is a vital process in which the body’s cells ‘clean out’ any unnecessary or damaged components.

It comes from Greek and the word translates as ‘self eating’. Evidence shows that the body not only removes these damaged and dead cells, but it also uses the useful parts to recycle into new cells. This is the first major benefit of fasting - the removal of dead tissues and the regeneration of new cells.

The research proves without any doubt that fasting is a very effective way to trigger the process of autophagy in the body.

Fasting reduces inflammation

There has long been a suggestion that fasting reduces inflammatory markers in the blood and can help to reduce general inflammation in the body. Previous much of these benefits were either anecdotal (felt by the individual, but not proven in a lab), or based on rodent models.

We now have research that shows a pathway linking fasting and reduced inflammation. Researchers have found that fasting inhibits sources of inflammation in the body, meaning there are profound effects on the recovery from injuries and illness. It also suggests that some diseases may be prevented in the first place, thanks to a lack of inflammatory trigger.

Using fasting to help treat and prevent cancer

Cancer is a tricky subject to cover, but there are so many different types of cancer, each with their own nuances and treatment plans.

What we do know is that certain types of cancer seem to respond to fasting as part of an overall treatment approach. That’s not to suggest that fasting is a treatment on its own by the way, but there is definite positive research linking fasting and effective cancer treatment.

There’s a suggestion that fasting may be an effective preventative measure against cancer, with some people suggesting lack of glucose provided by no food coupled with the autophagy triggered by fasting could be an effective preventative strategy. It’s important to note though that research into this is in it’s infancy and whilst it’s showing promise as an approach, it shouldn’t be taken as a given that it works.

Weight loss…

Now on to the one that most people think is the reason you should fast - the weight loss. Yes, fasting does help you to lose weight, and it does so for an obvious reason. Weight loss is simply a matter of calories in versus calories out. When you’re fasting, it’s easy to lose weight because you aren’t eating.

What we know is that fasting is an approach that can help weight loss in a couple of other ways…

1. It helps to modify behaviours. It teaches people that hunger is transient, so they don’t feel the need to eat every time they get a hunger pang.

2. The black and white nature of it means it helps people deal with food choices. When you’re fasting, there’s no food choice to make, so you can’t make a bad one!

3. Fasting helps to reduce hunger hormones, so people who fast tend to feel less hungry anyway. It helps overweight people control their appetite more effectively.

Whilst there are plenty of other dietary approaches that are effective for weight loss, it appears that fasting offers some interesting benefits that may help it be more successful for some people than other approaches.

What happens when you fast?

This depends on how long you fast for. Some people think they’d ‘starve’, but the reality is all of our bodies are perfectly equipped to deal with a fast. It’s harder psychologically than it is physically.

Hunger is transient though. It comes and goes, so whilst you think you’d get progressively more hungry as the fast goes on, the reality is nothing like that. You will experience periods of hunger that last around 10 minutes, but then they’d go and you’ll be fine again!

Once you go beyond 24 hours, you start to notice other benefits such as alertness, reduced aches and pains (as the inflammation dies down) and weight loss as your body gets rid of water and fat stores.

For a detailed account of what a three day fast feels like, read this here. It details what happened, what to expect and what the results were.

Let AdMac Fitness help you with your fitness journey…

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!

Cardio - What's the Current Thinking?

Those of us who are old enough to remember exercise in the early 2000’s will know that ‘cardio’ went through a bit of a decline. Like most things, fitness goes through phases and fashions - some approaches become the ‘in’ thing, and others fall out of popularity.

It was cardio’s turn to suffer in the early 2000’s, when coaches like Charles Poliquin suggested that cardio wasn’t a great tool for fat loss.

Consequently, amongst a certain generation of exercisers cardio fell out of fashion. Instead, people used stricter dieting coupled with intense weight training to get themselves in shape. It was an approach that worked (and continues to, because physiology doesn’t change), but was the criticism aimed at cardio fair?

In this article we’ll look at cardio, define the different types and see what the value is in each approach. You’ll be able to decide what’s best for you.

Why was cardio shunned in the first place?

Amongst a certain subset of people who trained (mostly young men), cardio gained a reputation for shedding muscle. The more cardio you did, the more muscle you lost was the thinking. There was also an assertion that muscle was a really ‘metabolically active’ tissue, meaning it burned a lot of calories even at rest. The theory was that if you got rid of muscle, you’d reduce your body’s ability to burn fat.

Ultimately, if fat loss is your aim then it’s a case of calories in versus calories out. If you want to lose fat, simply eat fewer calories than your body needs. It’ll make up for its shortfall by using up your fat reserves.

You don’t need to do cardio to lose fat. But then assumes that the only reason to do cardio is fat loss, which is utter nonsense.

Benefits of Cardio

Once people understood there was more to cardio than just losing weight, it began to increase in popularity again. The evidence began to prove that it didn’t shed muscle in the way people thought it would, so that worry eased.

The positive impact on heart health, brain function, blood pressure, hormonal profile, sleep, calorie burn, bone density, connective tissue health etc associated with cardiovascular exercise became even more clear. When these benefits of cardiovascular exercise were proven beyond all doubt, the voices of the naysayers quietened.

Cardio started to gain popularity again, only this time with a twist.

Cardio in it’s Current State

Fast forward a couple of decades and cardio is back on the menu, only this time the menu is much bigger!

To explain what I mean, I’ll run you through a few of the more common types of cardio, their unique points and how they are best used. This isn’t an exhaustive list, but it’ll certainly help you learn more about the different types of cardio exercise…

Steady State

This is what most people think of as cardio. This is where you pick a particular exercise (running, swimming, cycling, rowing etc) and perform it for a given period of time at a relatively low intensity. This is the one the gym bro’s turned their backs on. It might not be the most interesting or varied approach, but there’s a lot of benefit to it.

It’s a simple way to exercise, it burns a lot of calories, improves cardiovascular health markers and a version of it can be done anywhere.

High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)

HIIT is an approach that has really exploded in popularity over the last 15 years or so. It’s set periods of very high intensity training mixed with periods of low intensity work. This can take any form - running, cycling, rowing etc. You can vary the length of the work and rest intervals for different purposes, but they tend to be set for a workout. They also have to be very high intensity. That’s where the benefit comes in - the overreaching of your capabilities.

The calorie burn is very high and the workouts are typically very short on account of the intensity. Your cardiovascular fitness will improve very quickly with the approach. It’s fantastic when you don’t have much time either.

Interval/Fartlek Training

This is another form of interval training, but the difference here is that the intervals are less ‘prescriptive’ - they can be more fluid, so you can mix in periods of super high intensity with super low intensity and something in between. Think of a run where you’ll jog for 5 minutes, sprint for 3 seconds, walk for 2 minutes, then sprint for 20 seconds, job for 3 minutes etc. The point is to mix it up as you see fit.

This approach also burns a lot of calories, is a great way of keeping interest and motivation high and it improves cardiovascular health markers. Additionally it’s really beginner friendly because it can be mixed up to suit abilities and fitness levels.

Metabolic Conditioning (MetCon)

This is the new kid on the cardio block, which has been born out of the CrossFit explosion. Met con workouts are usually done with resistance training (occasionally with cardio mixed in) at a high intensity. You’ll typically lift light to medium weights, perform lots of reps and keep your heart rate and intensity high throughout the session. The plan is that it will burn a lot of calories whilst training muscle, meaning you’ll benefit from weight training and cardiovascular improvements.

Metcons are great for when you don’t have much training time available but want a tough workout. They’re not as effective as pure cardio for improving the cardiovascular system, but the overall health benefits are likely better.

Cardio - final thoughts

There’s no doubt at all that cardio has its place in a general fitness regime. Whichever approach you take from the above, your health and fitness will benefit, so you can’t really go wrong. Just make sure you add some into your workouts - it’s too beneficial to neglect!

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!

Glute Training - there's More to it than Building a Booty

Glute training exploded in popularity about 10 years ago… around about the same time that Instagram took off and fitness influencers became more popular. Before then, outside of the strength and condoning world, nobody really bothered with glute exercises. You’d never see people doing hip thrusts etc.

Now even in commercial gyms you’ll see people performing various glute exercises. There’s programmes written about growing your glutes and equipment providers have started to produce machines specifically to train your glutes!

The thing is, there’s so much more than building a booty to glute work. Strong glutes help you athletically, they help to prevent injury and they are a genuinely functional muscle to strengthen. They help to generate power, strengthen the lower back and serve as a powerful junction between upper and lower body.

If glute day is going to become a thing, we want you to do it properly. Here’s 5 glute exercises that you need to be doing if you want to build a strong set of cheeks…

Single leg deadlifts

The single leg deadlift is a really humbling exercise. It’s the kind of thing that you look at, think ‘ah, that’ll be easy enough’ and then try with a decent weight. Your standing leg will wobble like you’re stood on jelly. Your glute will scream at you and the whole thing will look like a disaster.

It’s an exercise you really want to persevere with though, making sure you get good at it. It’s an excellent glute strengthener, it trains the lower back effectively, helps with knee stability and engages the core.

Shoot for 4 sets of 10 per leg. Start with a light weight - you’ll quickly learn why if you go too heavy!

Hip thrusts

These are probably the most famous of all glute exercises. They’re a pretty simple set up, don’t take much in the way of technique to learn and are very effective. They allow a lot of weight to be lifted by the glutes as well, so they’re excellent for strengthening the muscles.

You can set these up with most kinds of barbell, use a pad for comfort if you need to, and adjust the height of your feet and back support to increase or decrease the range of movement with the exercise.

Aim for 5 sets of 8 here.

Split squats

The split squat is often neglected in favour of other forms of squats - usually barbell back squats. The beauty of the split squat is that it is a unilateral exercise, forcing both sides to work independently. It means that the stronger side doesn’t dominate the movement like it can with a barbell.

The other benefit is the range of movement is bigger. The greater depth you hit with the split squat really engages the glutes, forcing them to work extra hard. This help you iron out strength imbalances and improves lower limb joint health.

Aim for 4 sets of 10 per side.

Step Ups

Step ups are a super functional exercise - anyone who has had to walk up several flights of stairs, or climbed a big hill knows how hard walking up something steep can be! Step ups are this movement and then some! Being a unilateral exercise they iron out strength imbalances, plus they’re known to be one of the best glute exercises there is.

They are easy to adjust - you can lift heavier or lighter weights, and you can increase or decrease the height of the step you’re using to do the step ups. They work well either with a fixed number of repetitions, or for a given time period.

Aim for 4 sets of 20 per leg.

Lateral band walks

These are a great exercise for prehab (preventing injuries rather than fixing them), but they are equally as useful as part of a glute training plan. They’re simple to do, don’t require you to learn much technique or need much equipment. Ideally you’ll have a little space to walk in, but if not it works well going to side to side.

You can adapt the strength of the band relative to the exercise intensity - this means you can use a tighter, thicker band if you want to go harder. Likewise you can go for longer if you want the muscles to do more work.

Aim for 3 sets of 60 seconds in both directions.

Glute training - final thoughts

You don’t need to over-complicate your glute workouts to get the most from them. In fact, a handful of simple movements that are executed well is perfectly suitable. There’s an opportunity to build a powerful, strong and impressive peach just by using these 5 exercises and working hard each time.

If you’re wanting any additional guidance, our expert team of personal trainers at AdMac Fitness are on hand.

Are you interested in working with AdMac Fitness? Read on…

The AdMac Fitness personal training studio is in Bow, E3. We have personal trainers with a range of specialities, so we can offer the ideal personal trainer to help you achieve your goals. For more information on who we are, what we do and how we can help you achieve your health and fitness goals, contact us on… 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!

How to Speed Up Your Post-Exercise Recovery

When you’re new to training, or you’re training particularly hard, you can end up stiff and sore for a few days after. It’s the same if you’ve followed a particularly tough training programme for a while - you’ll likely accumulate fatigue and need some rest.

So the advice in this post is how to speed up your post-exercise recovery (without the need for any expensive treatments or supplements). The advice contained within this article is practical, achievable and doesn’t require you to do anything extraordinary!

Follow these tips and you’ll be recovered in no time at all…

Get plenty of food in…

The research around your post-exercise food requirements is really clear. It says you need carbohydrates and protein. Nothing out of the ordinary here.

The confusion lies within how much and when this food should be taken. The reality is that the science is a little sketchy and there’s no clear answer. The evidence for an ‘anabolic window of opportunity’ appears to be slim at best.

Instead, the suggestion of protein and carbohydrate consumed after workout will help to speed the recovery of glycogen (your body’s sugar stores) and start the rebuilding and repair of tissues damaged in the workout. In terms of how much protein you should be eating, the general advice is that a figure of around 1g per pound/2g per kilo of bodyweight is perfect.

Sleep as much as you need to…

Notice here how the advice is to sleep as much as you need to? That’s on purpose.

We know from research that there’s no such thing as the perfect amount of sleep and that you can’t make a blanket guideline that will suit everyone. The suggestion is to aim for 7-10 hours of sleep, but in their 2021 narrative review, sleep researchers suggested that post exercise sleep should be advised as following…

‘An individualised approach that should consider the athlete’s perceived sleep needs.’

With this in mind, there’s no need to worry about a certain sleep target. Your body will tell you how much sleep you need - as long as you don’t feel tired, assume you’re getting enough sleep. Whether that’s 7, 8, or even 12 hours - if you’re asleep, you obviously needed it!

Stick to a solid sleep routine - no phones in bed, aim for a similar bed time each night, avoid excess caffeine or alcohol before bed etc. All of the usual suspects required for a good night’s sleep.

Drink plenty of water

A big asset when it comes to keeping yourself healthy is making sure you’re sufficiently hydrated. There are no hard and fast rules for hydration - a good guideline is to make sure you drink enough water to keep your urine clear.

Hydration isn’t just about making sure you’re not thirsty - over 60% of your body is water, so making sure you’ve got enough of it is important. You don’t need to overdo it, otherwise you’ll spend half of your day running to the toilet. Shoot for a minimum of 2 litres - that’s a solid baseline for most people.

Fizzy drinks and caffeinated drinks aren’t as good - they’re dehydrating, so replacing water with coffee/tea/cola etc isn’t OK. You can get away with sports drinks and diluted fruit juices etc, but avoid getting by on strong coffee, thinking you’re doing your body a favour!

Use a sauna

What was once seen as a quirky Scandinavian thing has now been proven to be an incredible health tool. The research around saunas has moved from ‘do they actually work?’ right through to ‘how do they benefit human performance?’

What we know is that the answer is a clear ‘yes’. Saunas have a positive impact on a number of health biomarkers, including recovery, cardiovascular health and even low level detoxification (some surface-level toxins can be excreted via sweat in the sauna).

The performance and recovery from exercise element is fascinating. In runners, research showed that sauna bathing increased the time to exhaustion by a huge 32%! The scientists believe that this is down to an increase in blood volume created by the sauna use.

In more recovery-focussed piece of research, pre-activity sauna use was shown to improve the effects of DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness), increasing range of movement and reducing pain ahead of the next session. This shows that pre-exercise sauna use will be helpful for post-exercise recovery.

Finally, the hormonal response to sauna use is increased growth hormone production, which is important because it helps the muscles, bones and connective tissues recover from high intensity exercise and the damage that it creates.

Enjoy expert level coaching…

One of the simplest ways to make sure you’re able to recover from exercise is to do an appropriate level of it in the first place! By hiring an AdMac Fitness personal trainer you’ll have your workouts planned for you, meaning you’ll be working at an appropriate level of intensity.

Not only will you have access to the best personal trainers in east London, you’ll also be training in a private studio and will enjoy fantastic results.

We have personal trainers with a range of specialities, so we can offer the ideal personal trainer to help you achieve your goals.

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

Meet the AdMac Fitness Personal Trainers: Nancy

The most effective type of personal training is when the relationship between coach and client is strong. At AdMac Fitness we really value the closeness of the relationships between the team and the clients. To help you get to know the team a little better, we’re running an occasional series of interviews with the team, so you can learn a little more about us all!

Up next is Nancy, one of the more recent recruits to the AdMac Fitness team!

So, Nancy, introduce yourself!

My name is Nancy and I’m a personal trainer here at Admac fitness.

How long have you been interested in fitness?

My passion for fitness began 5 years ago when I started weightlifting. Before then, I went to the gym but wasn’t training for a specific goal and found myself not making any real progress. When I started using weights, I started to feel and see real changes.

What is your favourite type of exercise?

I love the traditional power lifts - in particular the squat and deadlift.

What makes you unique as a personal trainer?

I’m particularly interested in the details of a client’s diet. I and enjoy coaching people into seeing food as fuel and I encourage people to get creative with their veggies. I also have a few great recipes up my sleeve!

What do you enjoy most about personal training?

I love seeing the client journey. It’s often challenging to start with, but the stronger and more agile someone is, the easier life gets and the more empowered you’ll feel.

Finally, what can clients expect from you?

Whether your goal is to build muscle, lose fat or improve your fitness, we can work together to achieve your goals enjoyably! Fitness should be enjoyable, not something you dread.

To book personal training sessions with Nancy in our private personal training studio, contact us on 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!