10 Top tips for staying fit and healthy over Christmas
With Christmas fast approaching, boundless year-end social events, hangovers, mince pies and mulled wine are soon to become an almost daily occurrence. With so many temptations on your plate, there is without a doubt an overwhelming inclination to throw all your healthy eating habits and fitness routine out the window until the new year. Thankfully, with our top tips, you don't have to! You can still have fun whilst maintaining your health and fitness intact over the festive season.
Fasted vs Fed: Weight Training
Intermittent fasting has been one of the most popular weight loss methods for years now, and for good reason. Not only can it help promote weight loss, some studies suggest that it can also reduce inflammation, promote cellular regeneration, improve insulin sensitivity, and boost brain function. It's clear to see why people love it so much!
I Want to Want to Workout!
Many of us enjoy the results of our fitness routines much more than the actual process. I'm often asked for tips on staying motivated to get to the gym or go for that run. For many of us, especially parents with young children, getting to the gym before work is nearly impossible. Life gets busy during the day and there are a million things that conspire to derail our commitment. Not to mention the pandemic.
How to Get The Most out of Rest Days
For as many times as I've said to clients "don't skip leg day", it is by no means the most important training day. Don't get me wrong, I know all too well the importance of a grueling leg day, but I'd like to offer this advice instead: don't skip rest day!
Carb loading before a big race? Here’s how to do it!
Carbohydrate-loading, also called carb-loading and carbo-loading is a fairly simple and easy-to-follow nutritional strategy to enhance your athletic and sporting performance during endurance events (90 + minutes) by increasing the amount of glycogen (the body’s preferred fuel source) stored in your muscles and liver.
Female Body types: How best to eat, train and supplement for your body type
Understanding your body type can help you to maximize your exercise routine, diet and supplement regime allowing you to set goals that are both realistic and attainable for your body type whether it’s to build muscle, burn fat, or become more flexible and agile. Here’s how.
Life After Sport: Fighting Post-Athlete Depression
Lots of ex-athletes struggle with depression, body image, eating disorders, and missing the reward of winning when they exercise on their own. Whether you were an elite athlete, a professional athlete, a college athlete, a student athlete, or even an Olympic athlete, life after sports can be challenging with a host of mental health issues.
How to build a successful Fitness Instagram account
It’s never been cooler or more financially rewarding to be fit and thanks to social media platforms like Instagram, you too can turn your hobby or profession into a profitable and rewarding business. Here’s how to build a successful fitness Instagram account.
Eat and Train like an Olympian
Ever wondered how Olympians train and eat in order to reach their peak physical performance? With so much pressure riding on each and every athlete taking part to perform at their best, finding the perfect training and diet plan is essential and could be the difference between simply taking part and taking home the Gold medal.
How Sleep Affects Athletic Performance
Sleep is absolutely essential, especially for athletes and high-performing individuals. It allows our bodies and our minds time to recuperate, rebuild and repair from all the stress, stain and damage we cause on them when we're awake.
How To Prevent Joint Pain
Joint health is essential to pretty much every activity we do, from working out and playing sports to all your regular daily activities like carrying the shopping bags, walking, bending over and standing upright. Being physically fit, having a balanced diet, avoiding injuries, and getting plenty of sleep will help you stay healthy and keep your joints healthy too.
Exercises for a Slimmer waist and Stronger Gut Microbiome
While many of us exercise to slim down our waistlines, we may not realize just how beneficial this is for our gut microbiomes. Following exciting new research studies, many people have started to turn their attention away from their waist circumference and are focusing on their gut health instead. Here’s what you need to know!
5 Training Methods to help you break through a weight training plateau
You're eating well, training hard, and giving your body sufficient rest, yet you're stuck in a rut. What gives!? Unfortunately, weight training plateaus happen to us all. Whether you're a beginner, intermediate, or Mr. Olympia, you will no doubt have or will experience at least a few weight training plateaus along the way. Loss in strength, failure to hit rep counts, irritability, lethargy, frustration, lack of motivation, and little to no progress are all telltale signs that you've hit a training plateau.
Do you need a rest day or are you just being Lazy? Signs and symptoms of overtraining
Unless you're a Navy seal preparing for a life or death mission impossible, the expression, “the only workout you regret, is the one you didn't do” is nonsense and doesn't apply to 99.9% of the population. Overtraining can not only be dangerous, but it can also have a negative impact on your day-to-day life. But how do you know when you’re overtraining compared to when you’re just being lazy!?
Cardio Vs Strength Training: Before, After, or Separate Days?
Is there a formula for getting the most benefit from your cardio and strength workouts? That really depends on your fitness goals. Are you bodybuilding? Does your goal lean more towards fat loss? Is it a combination of wanting to build muscle while staying lean? The bottom line is to create a training program that meets your overall fitness objectives while minimizing your risk of injury
Creatine: The Good, The Bad, and The Bulked-up
Creatine is an amino acid that is found mostly in your body's muscles as well as in your brain. Many know the role amino acids play in protein synthesis, but limitations in the ability to transport and/or store creatine can impair metabolism. Increasing the availability of creatine in tissue may enhance cellular metabolism and thereby lessen the severity of injury and/or disease conditions, particularly when oxygen availability is compromised, like during high-intensity exercise.
9 Reasons Why Strength Athletes Need Omega-3s
When you think of "sports nutrition" what comes to mind? Is it Macronutrient split (the division of carbs, protein, and fats)? Or is it the vast variety of Protein supplements, fat burners, and pre and post-workout concoctions? These sports performance-driven supplements quite often cast a shadow over the importance of micronutrients. In reality, these vitamins and minerals are needed for the body to function properly at its most basic level.
Lean Bulking for the Endomorph: More Muscle, Less Fat
If you're an endomorph, like Tom Hardy or Jennifer Lopez, I've got good news and bad news. The bad news is that, in general, you're as likely to gain body fat as you are muscle mass. The good news is that Dr. Sheldon believed that endomorphs have a tendency toward a “viscerotonic” personality: relaxed, comfortable, and extroverted.
How much muscle can you gain in a month?
Whether returning to a training program or just beginning, the first month brings up the age-old question: Can I look like Daniel Craig as James Bond or Alicia Vikander as Tomb Raider in 4 weeks or less? The answer is no, you probably can’t! However, you can add muscle mass and start your journey to the body composition you desire.
The Perfect Post-Workout Nutrition for Recovery
Your post-workout meal is one of the most important factors of muscle growth and recovery, but it's easy to get it wrong. So what (and when) should you eat following a workout? Let's dig in!