Expert Articles

Training intensity can have a massive effect on your hormonal balance, metabolism, time spent training, overall calorie burning and thus how you look and feel. Cardio seems to be the sticking point for a lot of people, how long should I be training? What should I be doing for my cardio? How hard should I be pushing myself? Etc.

In todays' visual world of Instagram and Facebook, we are inundated with pictures and videos of the fitness elite-often with the hashtag "fitspo" accompanying the posts. And as impressive as these pictures often are, as a way of showcasing the discipline and talent of the athletes pictured, do these pictures that continuously flood our feeds help or hinder the average human to stay healthy, fit and strong?

Protein!

A massive part of why Vision Personal training was created was to help our clients achieve life changing and life- long results.  We do this by working with our clients on what they initially came to us for, for example wanting to lose 10 kilos by 30th June because of Wedding, Reunion, Holiday, Doctors orders etc.  We also pose the question "when you have lost the 10 kilos by 30th June what will that now allow you to do?  Or something like "now that you have lost 10kilos what is something you have always wanted to do but have been too scared, felt unfit, not ready or even contemplated doing?  The answer is normally something along the lines of continuing to change body shape into a place not seen for many years if at all, working towards a new found love such as getting fitter or faster or something to do with getting the body stronger or more flexible.  It is then our role as coaches to help develop the plan, find an event or help find clarity and something measurable that gives us the same emotional kick that we had when we first started.

An open letter to yourself

Fruit and Fructose

One fairly common barrier to clients successully completing 9 week coaching programs is the occurence of injuries. Some injuries are considered minor with just a few days off training required. I have also seen examples of clients with accidents at work with injuries such as sprained ankles or damaged tendons and ligaments. The run of the mill advice is to go and see your physio, however this article will give you a few tips of how to help speed the recovery process up by ways of effective nutrition.

I wanted to talk about is water and how important it is to maintain a healthy body What happens if you go without calcium for a week? You may get white bits on your fingers nails... What happens if you go without water for a week? You drop dead. That's right, DEAD! . That should give you an idea of how important water is for us! So why is water so important? For a few reasons really. The human body typically consists of between 60% and 75% water. In the body, water's responsibilities include removing waste material from the body and moving other nutrients around the body. It also keeps your body temperature correct, for example the loss of water from the body (sweating) is the body's way of keeping you cool. How much water do I need? The average human adult needs AT LEAST 8 glasses of water per day, but a lot more water is recommended. There is no stereotype person. Some people will need less than 8 glasses, some will need more, but on average, you probably need more. It's easy to tell if you are drinking enough water, by the colour of your urine. If it's dark, then you need to increase your water consumption. If it's clear, then you're drinking plenty. Sorry for that, but it's pretty important. Especially for us that are training a lot. When should I drink? All the time! Thirst is your bodies' way of telling you that it needs rehydrating, but you should really not get to the stage when you are thirsty. Drink as often as you can. Also, if you do feel thirsty, drink lots - not just enough to wet the inside of your mouth. You should also drink water before, during and after exercise. You should start drinking more water about 2 hours before you exercise (bearing in mind that your body can only absorb 1 glass of water every 20 minutes) and keep drinking right up until you exercise. Whilst exercising, sip water every few minutes. I drink water between every set. DO NOT wait until the end of your exercise period and then gulp down lots of water as this is not good for you. So in summary just keep drinking all the time, take a water bottle to work and sip away all day, at least 8 glasses a day or 2 litres even more so if we are all exercising, (which we all are)

A Holistic Approach I hear it all the time when clients say that they just want to get started, just want to exercise, my nutrition isn't the problem. It's one of my favourites because that's when you can help the most. Yet it stems even further back than just even nutrition being a focal point to success. The reason why what we do works is because we take the approach that most people don't and that is where holistic comes into its own. So what does holistic mean. Well as quoting from our friend Wikipedia it is this: A holistic view means that we are interested in engaging and developing the whole person. You can think of this as different levels, physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. It's the concept that the human being is multi-dimensional. We have conscious and unconscious aspects, rational and irrational aspects. Now the big question is how does this help us to achieve our goals in a wide range of aspects, well its done very simply. Our success in getting results with weight loss back tracks to the very starting point of a persons behavioural style and working with a client on an emotional level. Next step is education for without that we are blind. The beautiful thing with this is that this doesn't just have to be for weight loss, this can be incorporated into everyday life. The benefits of having this approach on a parenting level, an employee or employer, working in team sports or singular is that you yourself will become a better person. More productive in what you do therefore yield more results. If we just take this approach into every aspect of life then we shall be living the motto of smarter not harder. As they always say the little 1% efforts will make all the difference and the more you do this the easier it becomes. It becomes a way of life and therefore a lifestyle. At the end of the day that's why we are here, that's what we are trying to achieve, a lifestyle change. Don't be the sheep be the shepherd and take control of your own destiny.