gym

Getting Back To The Gym!

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Getting Back To The Gym

Gyms are open! Time to get back in! I was on a roll before, time to pick it up again! All this walking and jogging over lockdown has kept me in shape so I'll be fine!


Just Be Careful

Easy there Tiger, just be careful. Whether it has been 4 months or 13 months since you last stepped through the gym doors, if you've been spending each day walking or jogging to stay in shape then your body will have adapted to that and away from what it was able to do before. You may feel like you'll be able to get back to your previous level of bench press quickly but if you've not done much upper body work in that time, you will have lost a bit of what you had.


Keep On Walking!

There is also no need to stop what you have been doing as well. Don’t lose those gains made by just stopping. Whilst there may be time constraints that could limit how much you are able to devote to some of these activities, if your body has become adapted to 60 minutes of steady lower limb work, it may not have the capacity to comfortably allow compressing that into 30 minutes of higher intensity work. It may require some reorganisation in your day but much of this good work you have been doing can be continued.


Return Steadily

This is not to say don't go back to the gym. There has been a lot of sensible advice around taking things steadily on your return which is worth heeding. It is better to feel a little frustrated that you could have done a little more whilst building your work back up during your first 3 or 4 sessions back than to go back too hard too soon and injure yourself meaning more significant change to your gym program.

And Enjoy It!

As always the key thing is to enjoy your exercise time. Any type of change within an exercise program carries an element of risk, the size of that risk is consistent with the size and volume of change within that program. There is no need to fear that change so long as it is steady and progressive rather than a great leap in one direction or other.


Have fun!


If you have any persistent niggles, aches or pains don't soldier on in silence making them worse. Get in touch with us if you need us.

Words by Paul Martin.




Getting Back To Exercise In The New Year

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Getting Back To Exercise In The New Year

Noticed the number of gym adverts increase recently? Noticed a bit of an upturn in attendance at the gym in the past couple of weeks? A combination of the New Year's Resolution market and December excesses mean this is peak gym membership season. So what are we trying to work against?

Christmas Calories

Some sources estimate that during Christmas Lunch, an 'average' person may consume up to 5,200 calories through starter main course, dessert and drinks. These figures were sourced from a supplements firm, so there is a vested interest here, however the same article suggests this would take jogging 52 miles (i.e. 2 marathons) to burn it all off. Whilst this may not be everyone's preferred option to address the balance, come early January, with the December splurge behind us, it is a good time to start a new regime so that next Christmas we are ready for it!

However the initial push to get the ball rolling can end up with disillusionment, pain and injury or frustration at a lack of progress and subsequent withdrawal from the process. Here are a few easy steps to try to stay on target so that the monthly membership costs aren't going to waste:

Pace yourself

Don't try to burn 5200 calories in one go. It won't work (unless you are going to row the Atlantic in which case that's about a daily energy requirement and a little extreme). Ease into it, consistency is most important and in the early stages you may be better coming out of the gym or finishing your exercise thinking you could have done more. Build it up over a few weeks until you can hit it harder when your body will be better conditioned to the work.

You are where you are

Remember when you used to go to the gym twice a week 6 years ago? Regularly bench pressing 90kg, squatting 60kg and managing an hour on the treadmill? Easy there tiger, that was a little while back. If you are returning to the scene of previous triumphs, take those weights and reps right down. You will get much more getting your technique right on a light weight that you can increase over a few sessions than by jumping back in where you were. You might get away with it for a couple of sessions but your body's powers of recovery will take some honing as well.

Recovery is important

If it's been a while, build up from a couple of sessions per week. Most gains are made when the body is recovering and in the early stages there may be a lot to recover from. If every session feels like torture, give yourself a chance - do your exercise, but drop the weight or reps a little. Focus on technique or something different to what you might normally do. Preparation (warm up, the right food and hydration levels for you, making sure you are doing the best session for you) is important, but recovery (light refuelling, stretching, resting afterwards) is just as vital.

Enjoy it!

It is supposed to be fun! Exercise doesn't have to be about slamming away on the treadmill almost doubled over with exhaustion in a gym full of seemingly uberfit obsessives wondering how on earth Mo Farah does it.

It can be a cycle to the station, restarting some team sport, going for a longer walk with some friends, anything that gets your heart rate up for a prolonged period of time. It is often easier to exercise with someone as you are both doing the same thing and if you aren't feeling it one day, there is the perception you are letting someone else down if you pull out of what you were going to do together. Stick with it, long term it will be worth it!

Forming a habit

Our NoviceRunnerNik has written a blog post about forming a gym habit with some helpful tips which can be applied to other exercise too.

Injured?

If you do pick up an injury, get expert advice - call us for an appointment on 02030 12 12 22. Don’t give up on your hard earned fitness. Read our what to do if you get injured blog post for ways to keep up your morale and keep moving.

Words by Paul Martin.

Are you a Gym Newbie? How to form a gym habit and enjoy it

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Are you a Gym Newbie? How to form a gym habit and enjoy it

Thinking about making ‘going to the gym’ a new year’s resolution (again!)? Are you a bit of a gym newbie? Our NoviceRunnerNik was too this time last year but now she’s a committed gym goer. Here’s her story on how to form a gym habit and enjoy it.

Januaries are good months for gym owners

The owner of my gym told me last week that my gym’s February to December monthly membership income is typically half that of January’s. Lots of people sign up in the new year, the gym gets busy and then so many fade away. So if you’re going to decide to go the gym, how can you turn it into a long term habit, particularly if you’ve never really been a gym-goer?

I too was a gym newbie

Until November 2018 I could count the number of times I’d been in a gym on two fingers. The first time was definitely not in this century. So I nervously approached my local gym for a chat about how it works and what I could do there. I was keen to complement my running training (my first love) by doing some things that didn’t involve running. I’d signed up for a tough 32 mile ultramarathon in August this year and as I’m a bit prone to overtraining injuries, training in not running (or cross training as it’s apparently called) seemed like a good idea. I liked the look of lifting weights. So I signed up for a month of membership and a personal training session (in for a penny, in for a pound) and turned up the next week for my induction and first ever personal training session.

No one is watching you, they’re all watching themselves

I couldn’t really articulate why I was nervous about going to the gym. I think I was worried about looking like someone who didn’t know what they were doing. I think that somewhere inside of me, the old 14 stone, size 18 couch potato that I was until seven years ago, still lurks, wondering what on earth someone like me was doing in a gym.

The first thing I learned is that, just like real life, gym members come in all shapes, sizes, ages and fitness levels. The members at my gym range from older teenagers, through Junior Powerlifters competing at national level, to 70 something retirees (with impressive deadlifts!), each with their own reasons for training at the gym.

The second thing I learned was no one is watching you. They’re all watching themselves. And no one cares what you’re wearing, what you’re doing, how you’re doing it. That’s not to say they don’t care about you – all the gym goers I have met are lovely, friendly, chatty, polite and helpful.

Making the most of your gym sessions

I realised that I needed to make the most of each gym session, to make it worthwhile taking the time out to go three times a week. So to stop me aimlessly using the machines with no real idea of what helps, I asked my new personal trainer for a training plan to work to, in particular to help improve my core and arm strength. I have, like most runners, stronger legs and weedy arms – a t-rex body shape! He gave me a two week, push day (arms), leg day and pull day (arms), plan.

And then I just needed to learn the lingo: the different types of sets, tempos, names of the equipment and exercises and how to do them. I started recording what I was achieving for each exercise, weights and reps wise, in a spreadsheet on my phone as I trained so that I knew where to start the next time I was doing that day. It’s highly motivating when you smash your PBs each week when you first begin!

Personal training and diaries

I decided to have a personal training session once a week for a few months, partly to ensure I was doing it right and partly as he pushes me so much more than I push myself on my own. I changed the days I trained with him so that we went through all of the exercise sessions. I’ve also started doing 30 mins on the static bike or 5k on the rowing machine after each session, to make it even more worthwhile going. This is also great ‘brain occupation’ training for long distance running!

I put all my gym sessions in my diary so that they are appointments I will attend and I avoid booking anything else that clashes with them. This means I have no excuses to not go to the gym and the gym has become part of my daily routine. I also discovered my next door neighbour was toying with joining the gym to increase her strength which would make caring for her very frail husband slightly easier, so I encouraged her to start and now we encourage each other to turn up and train at the same time. We usually have a good chat on the crosstrainers as we warm up!

Learning to enjoy the gym

And after a few weeks, once I’d learnt the ropes and chatted to a few people, I started to look forward to, and enjoy, going to the gym, which amazed me! I even began to feel sad when my gym session was over.

Smashing gym PBs is a great feeling but it does happen less and less as you get stronger. I did have one leg training day a few months ago where I smashed every single PB on every single set. Whilst it left me wondering for a while why I’d not upped my weights much more previously, the fact that I could barely walk the next morning made me reconsider!

Benefits of gym training

I’ve experienced some great side effects from my gym training. I started smashing my running PBs without increasing my volume of running training, including parkrun times and I knocked 16 minutes off my first ever half marathon time when I ran the same half again this year. My knees in particular are less cranky when I run and I’m generally experiencing fewer niggles. I feel stronger when I run and I recover more quickly from big exertion running such as a 19.5 mile run around North Wales which included the summit of Snowdon, managing to leap out of bed the next day when I expected to be hobbling.

The 32 mile ultra in August, although hard and quite tiring, went like a dream. Recovery was quick. Thank you gym work!

My top 10 tips for forming a gym habit – make it hard to make excuses not to go

1. Find a gym that suits you and what you want to do – that its opening hours suit you, it’s easy to get to and park at, it has the equipment or classes you want. Ask friends or the internet for recommendations. Try several if the first one doesn’t work for you.

2. Pay automatically for monthly membership: if your chosen gym is for you, put your monthly membership payment on a standing order or direct debit. Then it gets paid without you having to think about it and you might feel you should go to the gym to make use of it.

3. Book your gym sessions in your diary, just like any other appointment and treat it as such. Be realistic about how many sessions a week you can manage.

4. Go to the gym at a time that works for you: if you prefer it when it’s quiet, find out when is off peak attendance time. Lunchtimes are usually, but not always, quieter in my gym.

5. Make the most of your gym sessions, part 1: have a training program written specifically for you, tailored to your goals and your likes, by a personal trainer, or find something that works online. Record your stats each session using Google docs on your phone or in a notebook so that you can see your improvement.

6. Make the most of your gym sessions, part 2: treat yourself to a personal training session every so often. You’ll learn a lot and will be pushed to work harder.

7. Vary your training regularly to keep you interested in going. If you only use the machines, try some free weights or some functional strength work like tyre flips, battle ropes, kettle bells. Change your program every few months.

8. Warm up, cool down and stretch to reduce the chance of injury. If you don’t know how to, ask a personal trainer at the gym.

9. Train with someone else for some accountability: you don’t need to actually train with them but if you agree that you’ll see them at the gym at a certain time and day, you’re more likely to turn up.

10. Remember that gym goers are all shapes, sizes, ages and fitness levels and everyone is watching themselves. Don’t be afraid to ask anyone for help or advice. You belong too.

Most importantly: when you start, or start back if you’re a seasoned gym-goer, at the gym in the new year, take it easy. Don’t leap in where you left off in the summer or start off with the really big weights as they look the part. Ease yourself in gently, up your weights gradually, move with control and reduce your risk of injury. Much as we love to see you, we’d prefer you didn’t hurt yourself in the first week of the new year!

If you do pick up an injury or would just like some advice about getting (back) to the gym, please call us on 02030 12 12 22 to book an appointment.

Words by NoviceRunnerNik AKA Nik Bathe.

Back To Gym

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Back To Gym

Summer holidays done and dusted? Check. Good food, good drink, good volumes? Check. Not quite managed the level of fitness work you’d hoped to fit in? Check. Looking at getting back in the gym to create some space for December? Check.

Ease your way back in there! As with any significant break in training routine, there will be a level of deconditioning and picking up exactly where you left off might not be the most comfortable approach to getting back into the swing of things. It is better to come out of the first two to three sessions feeling like you could have done more or that previously reactive areas or muscles don’t feel fully worked on than charging back in full pace and hurting yourself, leading to a longer period out.

Regardless of whether your workouts are class based, load based or volume based, take it down a notch or two for the first few sessions back. Spend this time during your workouts getting a feel for what is working well and what might need a bit of attention to get back up to full speed. E.g if some muscle groups are perhaps not responding as well as they might have done pre-break, what might you need to do to get them back to pre-holiday levels and how might that affect the rest of your workouts.

Once you have ironed these little creases out, pick it up again over the next two to three sessions and you’re back in the game!

Happy holidays!

Words by Paul Martin.