Tag Archives: Personal Training

Lifting for Mums

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How much does a child weigh? Depends on the child… right? So how much should a mother be able to lift and hold in order to bring the child up? Can you quantify it? Should you? A minor bugbear of mine is the classes you see for women – yes, specifically women, which are based on “toning”. These classes tend to involve small weights… maybe up to about 5kg each. Not only this, but in women specific gyms (so I have been told) the weights tend to get to about 10kg, and not really any higher. Women who want to … Continue reading →

Move Your Body

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The UK government guidelines state we should all be keeping active, regardless of age. That means we should all be doing a minimum of 150 minutes of exercise each week. Now here’s the thing most people don’t appreciate – for that exercise to be of benefit it must get you HOT & SWEATY and OUT OF BREATH. Exercise to stay healthy is meant to challenge you, to put a little stress on your body so it is forced to adapt and get stronger and stay healthy with the ability to cope with your daily life. The INTENSITY of the exercise … Continue reading →

Inevitable decline?!

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Following on from this podcast I listened to recently (a BMJ interview with Scarlett McNally and Muir Gray, orthopedic surgeon and Public Health doctor, on Exercise in Old Age), I thought it might be nice to read the actual document it was based on, and maybe try to summarise it. Everyone can listen to the cast, but not a whole lot of people are going to pay £23 to read a 4 page document…but information access is a topic for another day. So – what did the analysis say? Well – the headline of the whole thing was this: Dramatic … Continue reading →

Muscle VS Fat

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Why do we get hung up on the number on the scales? Is it actually important? It is so easy to fixate on weight (and how much we’d like to lose) when the real issue is how much body fat we are carrying around. Are you confusing weight loss with fat loss? Which do you want to achieve? We’ve grown up using the bathroom scales as a measure of healthiness. It is hard to shift the habit of using such an easy and quantifiable number as a level of fitness, well being and, to a point, personal happiness. But this … Continue reading →

VO2 Max and HR zone testing

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Last week I (Tim) went to get a VO2 max test on a treadmill. It involved running for a certain amount of time – well, technically til I fell off – at ever increasing speeds and inclines. I lasted all of 6 minutes before it all fell apart, which, apparently is about right. Anything over 7 minutes and you probably haven’t started fast enough, and anything under 5 minutes, you’ve probably overestimated your fitness. I quite like the scientific rigmarole of having a face mask and a Heart rate monitor, and lots of stats being pumped out of a computer…. … Continue reading →

Hip rehab – what have I ended up doing?

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As you may or may not know from previous blogs, I’ve been having a bit of a problem with my right hip. The Sacroiliac joint, and the adductors, to be exact. It took me out of running for about 8-10 weeks. I’m slowly getting back to running, as was detailed by my last blog, but the most common response (apart from aren’t you going mad?) has been “so what are you doing to get you back to running”? I thought I would address that here. Looking back on my diary for the last few weeks and months have shown an … Continue reading →