Denial!

• It can’t be morning already … can it?
• I wish my body clock alarm had an off switch!
• I’m pretty sure this is my rest day!
• I wish I hadn’t agreed to lead the early morning pack run today!
• When I entered the marathon I really only wanted the holiday part of the trip!

Anger!

• Dammit! Why did I let myself sign up for the early start of the Spartan Race in mid winter!
• Who on earth decides that THIS hour is the hour to workout!
• What a boringly stupid sport! No wonder it’s not popular.
• It’s freakin freezing outside and I’m snug in my bed, no way am I going out for a run!
• No way. Sorry. Don’t really want to.

Bargaining

• I’ll just do a big day in the yard today to make up for missing my run this morning.
• I’ll have a bit of a sleep in and do my shorter run this morning and do my longer one tomorrow.
• I know rest is an integral part of endurance training, so if I rest more now I should be more refreshed for tomorrows run.
• I promise to hit the gym harder on my strength days if I let myself sleep in a bit more on those days.
• I start cross training more first thing tomorrow if I can just sleep another hour … or 2!

Depression

• Why do I even train at all?
• I’m feeling a lot more tired. Not sure if I’ll want to run another marathon with this lack of motivation.
• What makes me think I can go that far for that long?
• I’m not an athlete any more … this idea was just wrong.
• I should just stick to sunbathing at the beach, I’m not having much luck with this endurance stuff. 

Acceptance

• Ahhh just stop over thinking it! Get your lazy ass out of bed and put those runners on.
• I can’t go back to sleep again so I may as well get my run out of the way now.
• I really do want to be able to cross the finish line to celebrate my achievement.
• Just do it now … you know you’ll feel better for doing so.
• If all this effort was easy, everyone would be doing it, so lets get cracking.

So there you have it. My 5 Inner Demons I have to deal with in the name of early morning workouts, and my pursuit of fitness. If I can overcome these, then you should also be able to overcome them and reach your personal fitness goals. Happy training and happy de-demonising!

So what makes us fleet from one thing to another as children? Is it our short attention span due to our young but developing minds? Is it our inquisitiveness to explore our new surrounds and learn, touch, smell and taste things around us?

I believe it is the start of the mental process that will link a thought, feeling or taste and determine in our later life what motivates us. Our young minds are looking for things that stimulate our minds and so we continually cause grief/heart-ache for our parents as we touch, smell and shove into our mouths various “things” that get our attention (stimulate). We then react and store the outcome for future reference – although our parents reaction to us doing so confuses us when they react with panic when they see us shoving dirt or a stone into our mouth!

So motivation is not a “thing” you can just grab! It’s a process – a mental process that links a thought, feeling or taste, which provides an inner drive to behave or act in a certain manner. It’s the difference between waking up before dawn to pound the pavement or lift weights and lazing around the house all day!

As we age we tend to find it harder to get motivated. Why is this? Well motivation isn’t about developing or “importing” a mind-set, but rather a matter of activating an inner process that is already present – it’s just presently dormant! Locating it, mobilising it and removing the barriers blocking it’s activation is the key.

So what’s the key to getting motivated? Motivation comes from two sources – internal and external. External motivation comes from events that offer some form of reward, i.e. a medal or financial reward. Internal motivation comes from an interest, stimulation or enjoyment derived from doing something.

People with the best motivational outcomes tend to be both internally and externally motivated. Those who are only externally motivated tend to experience a down turn if they do not perform to expectations. Internally motivated people tend not to have the drive to become winners/champions as the lack of internal rewards can lead to quitting or seriously questioning their involvement.

So if you are having trouble staying motivated to maintain your fitness regime then you may need to look at what’s motivating you or what’s not motivating you. To help, try this process.

• write down your ideas of what you think motivates you.
• study them and drop off the ones you believe have little or no real motivation for you.
• with what you have left see if you can group them into internal and external motives.
• the outcome will either see you are balanced or not.
• if out of balance look for what will get you balanced and driven.

If you are having trouble mobilising your motivation try these 5 key steps.

1. Understand motivation
2. Undertake self-assessment
3. Set realistic and achievable goals (long and short term)
4. Be willing to explore your limits while recognising your limitations
5. Put these steps together to take control of your life and your fitness regime

Change – Challenge – Achieve. “There are really only three types of people: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who ask, what happened?” Ann Landers. Get your motivation up and running so that you become the one who makes things happen.

My fortune or misfortune of not requiring a morning alarm meant I never got to suffer from “snooze button syndrome!”

During our life’s journey most of us tend to look for AND find excuses for avoiding things that are supposedly good for us – such as a fitness regime. Why do we do that? Why do we continue to eat unhealthy foods? Why do we need to be dragged to the gym? And what’s the idea behind that darn snooze button?! I believe it’s accountability or lack of.

So how do you instil accountability into your life? Simple, find friends who like to do things you do and make “play dates” with them. Think outside the circle as there are so many things you can do to get and stay fit and healthy. You can make it social and fun, or build a “community” of fitness friends. You will then need to lead your community which will really make you accountable.

So how can you create accountability?

• Get your friends to meet you for your workout – chat on a bike ride, play a game of tennis, go kayaking, but make sure you add some intensity!
• Hire a virtual coach/trainer as technology is making this easier and very available.
• Sign up for an event, a walk, run, cycle, swim or obstacle course run – commit!
• If your business has a corporate wellness program, then sign up to it.
• Make sure you do mostly what you like, but test yourself every now and then by doing something that takes you out of your comfort zone and pushes you beyond your comfort limits!

So there you have it. It’s time to commit to being accountable (if you are not already) to getting a fitness regime up and going – the choice is ultimately yours as I cannot force you, BUT, choose wisely!

So what is target heart rate? Target heart rate is the heart rate used to determine the desired intensity of an activity. This will differ depending on the goal of your workout/activity. You can calculate your target heart rate using a percentage of your heart rate  max (HRmax) which can be predicted by subtracting your age from 220 or you can measure it while exercising using a heart rate monitor while you performa max exercise test.

One of the problems with the 220-age equation is that it makes no allowances for individual differences in resting heart rate. By incorporating the heart rate reserve into the equation, in theory a more accurate training zone can be determined. Heart rate reserve (HRR) is the difference between your HRmax and your RHR (resting heart rate).

The Karvonen formula uses the heart rate reserve (HRR) to calculate training zones based on both maximum AND resting heart rate (RHR). Here is the formula:

220 – age = HRmax

HRmax – RHR = HRR

(HRR x training %) + RHR = Target Heart Rate

So in my case if I wanted to training at 80% effort my target heart rate is:

220 – 55 = 165

165 – 44 = 124

(124 x .8) + 44 = 143bpm

Since your resting heart rate (RHR) will decrease as your cardiovascular fitness improves and HRmax can decrease with age, you will need to periodically recalculate your target heart rate as you become fitter (or more sedentary) and as you get older. Age predicted HRmax may be off by more than 10 to 15 beats per minute since all people of the same age do not have the same HRmax. As a result of this, it is more accurate to directly determine HRmax with a maximum exercise test. Use HRmax, but don’t forget to consider subjective factors such as how you feel.

If your workout goal is to increase aerobic endurance, target heart rate should be 65 to 80% of HRmax (about 55 – 70% of HRR). During interval training, which focuses on increasing cardiovascular performance, target heart rate should be greater than 80% of HRmax (70% of HRR).

So if you are someone who likes to workout in a particular heart rate range I trust this helps you determine where you should be in regards your heart rate and workout intensity. Happy training.

]]> http://www.multipeakfitness.com.au/target-heart-rate/feed/ 0 http://www.multipeakfitness.com.au/3-reasons-your-fitness-regime-will-fail/ http://www.multipeakfitness.com.au/3-reasons-your-fitness-regime-will-fail/#respond Mon, 08 Jun 2015 23:42:10 +0000 http://www.multipeakfitness.com.au/?p=2187 Getting into the habit of having a regular fitness regime for life is a hard slog and many fail to keep their fitness regime going. But it’s only a hard slog because you make it so and here are my 3 reasons why I believe you make it a hard slog and fail to maintain your fitness regime for life.

1. You’re doing it for all the wrong reasons! e.g. New Years resolution, wedding, overweight, health reasons and the list can go on. Your fitness is a personal thing and it’s for you alone and you have to be selfish in looking after it – you have to make it an ADDICTION – an addiction for life!
2. You try to do too much too soon! Before you can run you must learn to walk, before you walk you must learn to crawl. You have to Keep It Simple Stupid (the KISS rule). Set big goals but then set small goals in order for you to achieve success – little steps at a time!
3. Your pride stops you from asking for help! All the most successful people in this world have had someone help them to achieve their success. Fitness is no different, having someone help you will make your journey to a lifetime of fitness so much easier. Help can be as simple as someone just being there and giving you encouragement.

So if you are struggling with your fitness regime make sure you’re not doing any of the above. If you’re struggling with starting then I trust the reasons above help you start more confidently and succeed. Get addicted to fitness and it will become second nature for you. The best way to get addicted is to make sure that you take up activities that give you enormous delight both during the activity and on completion – you have to love doing what you’re doing. Have fun finding your addiction and cheers to your success. Happy training for life.

My belief is that my clients do not need dietary supplements unless they have a documented vitamin deficiency or they do not eat a balanced nutritional food intake.. Using supplements as an alternative to a sound nutritional intake can lead to serious deficits in the consumption of other nutrients (Report by Benardot et al. 2001). It is always healthier to acquire vitamins and minerals from food than to obtain them from a pill. However, serious vitamin deficiencies do occur in a small proportion of the population (Benardot et al. 2001), and supplements are useful for making sudden improvements in vitamin status.

What about supplements for losing fat or building muscle? A great question. Supplements for losing fat or building muscle are rapidly becoming popular. Claims that “fat-burning” supplements will decrease body fat by increasing either mobilization or oxidation of free fatty acids (FFAs) are faulty at best. Untrained individuals have a greater ability to mobilize FFAs than they do to oxidize them. Therefore, supplements that increase FFA mobilization are not of any value for untrained people. For supplements to directly enhance FFA oxidation, the insulin response to the carbohydrates in those supplements would need to be eliminated (since insulin inhibits fat oxidation), and this is unlikely to happen (Report by Coyle 1995). Exercise alone increases the muscles’ capacity to oxidize FFAs.

For those who eat a balanced nutritional intake, there is no evidence that muscle-building supplements, including protein powders and amino acids, build muscle mass (Clarkson 1998; Eichner et al. 1999). The few supplements whose muscle-building potential is supported by research (e.g., creatine) are effective mostly in elite athletes who have undergone many years of training (Eichner et al. 1999).

So if you are thinking about taking supplements get checked out by your doctor/physician to determine if you are in fact deficient in vitamins, and if you are look into the food sources that will help you rather than just rely on supplements. Best advice – eat well and eat healthy, food is your friend, not your enemy.

In our youth we were saved by the fact that our muscles and tendons strengthened quickly, our bones were pliable yet strong, and recovery from intense exercise was easy. We weren’t worried about overuse, injury and punishing activities.

In our thirties small changes in our physiology can be seen. Recovery times lengthen, muscle soreness from a great gym session takes 2-3 days to get over, hangovers are worse and chronic aches and pains are more likely to occur from repetitive activities or from training too intensely.

Pride starts to become an integral part of our lives in our thirties. We are unable to physically perform as easily as we did in our teens and twenties – it’s a tough pill to swallow. Regardless we still try to push ourselves as if we were still in our twenties – I know, as I’m guilty of that exact rashness!

Those of us in our forties and beyond have a massive dose of reality to face up to – yet I still go out and hammer my body!! Physiologically my muscle fibres are developing flaws, my tendons less vascularised and so more brittle, and metabolism is slowing down. I sometimes yearn to train with the intensity and frequency I had in my twenties, but more often my body says it’s a bad idea. Injuries would abound and in my case they have! My recovery is definitely much slower, but once recovered it’s back into it again.

So over time I have learnt to step back and look more objectively at what I am trying to achieve with my workouts/training. Hopefully this will save me a lot of money and hardship and so I would like to help you do the same. My tips to do this are: pay attention to your age and how your current workouts compare to those of the past. Listen to your body and adjust your goals based on your age. If necessary, seek advice from a seasoned professional. Swallow your pride! But if you’re still in your twenties make the most of what you can before you reach 30+.

One final thing, don’t stop exercising. Long-term exercise is vital for healthy living and longevity. Just realise that we all change as we age, and that wonderful craft that is your body should have a soft landing into old age rather than a crash landing!

Many personal trainers think that performing strength training before cardiovascular exercise will augment the amount of fat used during the cardio workout because the strength training will deplete the muscles’ store of carbohydrates (glycogen). However, strength training is not likely to deplete glycogen stores, because a lot of the workout time is spent resting between sets and exercises. Even if the strength workout were long and intense enough to accomplish this task, exercising in a glycogen-depleted state has many negative consequences, including an increase in acidic compounds produced in response to low carbohydrate levels, low blood insulin, hypoglycaemia, increased amino acid (protein) metabolism, increased blood and muscle ammonia and a strong perception of fatigue.

Currently, no research shows that strength training immediately before a cardio workout increases the amount of fat used during the cardio workout, or vice versa. Most likely, the intensity of the activity, not the mode of exercise, determines the “fuel”—either fat, carbohydrate or protein—that is used. However, if clients strength train first, it is possible that muscle fatigue incurred from the strength training could cause them to decrease the intensity of their subsequent cardio workout, thus leading them to expend fewer calories over the workout as a whole.

If the primary goal is to increase aerobic endurance or lose weight, then the client should perform cardiovascular exercise first. If the primary goal is to increase muscular strength, then the client should perform strength training first. Basically, in order to get the most out of the workout, the client should perform the most important type of exercise when he or she is not fatigued. Because many clients want to lose weight and increase muscular strength, alternating the order of the workout during different cycles of training is one way to satisfy both goals. I myself incorporate weight training with my running by having 2 days set aside just for weights. I have managed to build my lean muscle mass (but not hugely to affect my running), increased my muscular strength and maintain a good balance so that my running is not affected in a negative way. I feel more balanced.

So you see it comes down to what your client’s goal is, or in the case of someone who trains them self, knowing exactly what you want and if were unsure of which way to train, then I trust this now shines a light on which way you should go. Happy training.

1. Genetics
2. Gender
3. Training intensity

Genetics is mostly manifested as muscle fibre type – people with predominantly fast twitch fibres manage to build bigger muscles more easily than people with slow twitch fibres.

In relation to gender, males will build much larger muscles than females because males have greater amounts of testosterone and other sex hormones, that influence protein metabolism. Hence why females experience less muscle hypertrophy with strength improvement than males do. That leaves training intensity as the only factor you can control when looking for hypertrophy.

So how does hypertrophy come about? Well it occurs as a result of an increase in the number of contractile proteins (actin and myosin), produced by the body in response to training. This increase results in an increase in the size of muscle fibres.

If your training goal is hypertrophy, the load lifted should be at least 80% of your one-repetition maximum (1RM) – this is a general guideline. If you’re not interested in developing larger muscles then keep the load to less than 80% of your 1RM. Keep in mind that hypertrophy can be stimulated any time your training intensity is high enough to overload the muscle. Someone who is unfit and never lifted weights before could cause slight hypertrophy to occur when only lifting 60% of 1RM, especially if they are predisposed to hypertrophy because of having a large proportion of fast-twitch fibres.

So be very definite about your training goal(s), especially if your main aim is hypertrophy. Intensity of training will always be the one aspect of your training that will yield you results. Happy training.

Fitness professionals however, can apply some principles when designing a clients program. Exercises that incorporate many muscle groups (compound exercises) and are weight bearing, use more calories per minute and are therefore better suited for fat loss than non-weight bearing activities/exercises that do not use many muscles.

It is often assumed that low-intensity exercise is best for “burning” fat. I see it often when out running – people casually walking along with little or no intensity at all (I see people walking faster in the malls!). Despite the pace/intensity of the activity/exercise, at a very low intensity fat does account for most of the energy expenditure. At a moderate intensity, fat accounts for only 50% of the energy used!

One has to keep in mind that the number of calories used per minute is greater at moderate to high intensity than at a low intensity than at a low intensity. Hence the total number of ‘fat calories’ expended during a high intensity workout of the same duration of a low intensity workout is greater.

The rate of energy expenditure rather than simply the percentage of energy expenditure derived from fat is important in determining the exercise intensity that will use the most fat.

Endurance trained individuals rely less on carbohydrates and more on fat as a fuel source during submaximal exercise. Hence the more aerobically trained you become the more fat you will use during subsequent exercise sessions.

You’ll be surprised how little fat you have to use during exercise in order to decrease body fat percentage. Much of your fat from adipose tissue is lost in the hours following your workout. During your workout you primarily use intramuscular fat.

Again the amount of ‘fat’ lost after a workout depends (in part) on the exercise intensity during the workout. Hence the rate of fat oxidation will be higher after a high-intensity workout than a low-intensity workout. You can perform at a greater intensity if the workout is broken up with rest periods, hence interval training is a great way to perform at a high-intensity and help decrease body fat percentage.

Both strength training and endurance exercise have shown to decrease body fat percentage. However aerobic exercise “appears” to have a greater impact on fat loss than does strength training. A combination of endurance and strength training results in more fat loss than either exercise regime alone, possibly because when one performs both activities one spends more time exercising. This gels well with the saying – “variety is the spice of life.”

I practice exactly that – a combination of strength and endurance training, and my body is reaping the rewards. So go out and start mixing up your exercising and achieving better results! Happy exercising.