Interval Training

If you have found that you wouldnt find a 30 minute jog/walk as challenging its time to step it up. Interval training involves cycling exercise pace/intensity to create a high/low wave effect on your heart beat. To fully understand how it works you must understand the RPE scale (Rate of Percieved Exertion). The RPE scale is an imaginary scale where you describe exercise hardness from 1 -10. Imagine 1 as being very easy (light walk), and 10 being the sprint for your life. You would not able to maintain a level of around 8 or above for a long period of time. 

This describes example 2 in the graph. Start off at least 5 minutes normal pace to warm up, about 5/6 RPE ( This is aerobic exercise, as your muscles have time to take in oxygen and exchange for carbon dioxide). Then for cycles of 1 minute out of every 4 minutes increase the pace rapidly to around 9 (you should only be able to maintain this pace around 1 minute!). In this phaze your body can no longer supply adequate oxygen to your muscles to complete full contractions (your breathing is at full lung capacity, you cant take more air in!), so you go “anaerobic”, and you start to feel the burn as lactic acid is a by-product of this energy process.

After 1 min (you should be very tired) of 9 RPE, drop back to your normal pace. This is called your “active recovery” phaze, as your body can supply oxygen to your muscles, flushing out the lactic acid. Repeating this process will create an aerobicwave effect, that is good for training the heart to work at high and low contraction, which is great for burning calories and improving cardio-vascular health and lung capacity.

Exercise Outside Studio Sessions

I have drawn up an easy to understand graph to show recommended exercise on days outside your Personal Training sessions. There are 3 variations to suit whether you train once, twice or 3 times a week. Four exercise sessions per week is recommended to maximise results, while allowing enough time to properly recover. Those well into a training cycle, experienced, or not on a low carb diet may be able to train a fifth time (if they can!). All the sessions in the week are seperated as much as possible to allow for recovery. I would not recommend more than 4 days of resistance training (weight training), so the optional fifth day is for cardio only (your resistance training days outside the studio should already be discussed with us). A typical cardio program would consist of up to a half hour of jogging, light running or speed walking dpending on fitness levels. Please come to me for recommendations for what you may be able to do.

Break Through Plateaus….. German Volume Training!!!

If you’ve found your weight training has’nt progressed recently, you may have hit a training plateau, where your body has adapted to a certain training method. This may affect your bodys ability to hypertrophy (build muscle) as you’ve become too efficient at what you’re doing.

GVT was developed in The 70’s by olympic lifting coaches (thus the name). They found that 10 really is the magic number, so the idea is to lift 10 sets of 10 reps, with 90 seconds between each set. Each rep must be in perfect form and without assistance. You should start with roughly 60% of your 1REP Max.

Done correctly with the right weight you should find that you may get 4-6 sets of 10 complete, but then maybe 9,8,8,7,6 in your last sets. So every session you stay on the weight until you achieve 10 sets of 10 reps!

Follow the link for more indepth information on BodyBuilding.com

www.bodybuilding.com/fun/luis13.htm

My training principle

Theres one word I use when training clients, and thats intensity. In the hour session you’re with me, I’ll try and get adequately warmed up, then straight into either high weight or high rep training. Keep the breaks short and strict to ensure that you get the most effort in in that hour. If you’re looking for results, you need to be trained outside your comfort zone every session, and thats what will get you the results. If you’re training with me, and following my nutritional advice properly, I have the utmost faith you’ll achieve your goals!

Who uses kettlebells?

Here are just some of the people who have used or do use kettlebells:

US Navy Seal Special Ops, Russian Spetnaz Special Forces, SAS

Sylvester Stallone, Katherine Hiegly, Penelope Cruz, Jennifer Lopez, Kim Cattrall, Chris Pontius, Lance Armstrong,  Bruce Lee used them on his lats, Kim Bassinger, Matthew McConaughey.. to name a few

You’re up next!

Kettlebell Training – Burn 1200 calories per hour!!

We always use kettlebells in our sessions. It just makes sense. Nothing burns more calories in a gym setting than kettle-bell training. Kettlebell training is said to burn up to 1200 calories per hour!! Just try achieving that on a treadmill. Not only does KB training raise metabolism, but it also builds lean muscle and increases functional strength (great for rugby/sports). See what the American College of Exercise wrote below..

Ace Fitness – Jan 2010

Welcome to the Yourfitness Personal Training blog!!!

Hello, this is the first post on our brand new blog, created to provide you with information on fitness and training, and as a resource for you to ask any questions you may have. Maybe you just want our opinion on something? Well please feel free to ask. It will give us something to do between clients!! ;)