Author: Amanda Coombe

Injury Rehabilitation

A Fitness Industry Trailblazer

Posted on | by Amanda Coombe
Colin Sept news Many of us can remember the days of leotards, leg warmers, high leg kicks and grape vines, none more so than Colin who has been one of the trailblazers in the Tasmanian Fitness Industry. Colin started teaching aerobic classes back in 1982 and became what was then termed a ‘fitness leader’. He subsequently established the Tasmanian United Fitness Leaders Association in 1987, which later became Fitness Tasmania. Away from the fitness industry Colin had a distinguished career of 38 years at the Australian Taxation Office, during which time he established a fitness centre there. Colin retired from the ATO in 2002, at which point his focus shifted entirely to the fitness industry. During his 35 years in the fitness industry he has presented at FILEX, the largest fitness industry conference in the southern hemisphere and also organized and promoted fitness seminars and workshops in Tasmania. Colin enjoyed competing in aerobics championships and subsequently became the first accredited aerobics coach in Tasmania in 1994, as well as the Director of the Tasmanian Aerobics Championships from 1988 to 1993. In addition to this he was the Tasmanian coordinator for Australian Fitness Network and was Network’s Tasmanian Ambassador. Since 2005 Colin has been a co-owner of Personal Best Fitness, with his primarily role being to ensure that Personal Best maintains its high standard of excellence and meets the clients and staff needs. Colin also enjoys his role as a personal trainer and has been training some of his clients for over a decade and recently had a 14 year anniversary with his first small group “Coot Camp”, Boot camp for old coots! ‘I particularly enjoy working with the 40+ sector as I can relate well to them’. Colin is a firm believer in life long learning and he recently completed the Understanding Dementia Course conducted by the University of Tasmania. He is a Level 2 Strength and Conditioning Coach and a Certified Functional Ageing Specialist. The most rewarding aspect of Colin’s involvement in the fitness industry is the relationships he has developed with his colleagues, clients and the team at Personal Best Fitness. ‘My main focus now is ensuring that Personal Best Fitness continues to lead the way in delivering ‘cutting edge’ personal training and that our members and staff feel valued, recognized and appreciated’. Living by the practice what you preach motto, Colin exercises most days, he is a keen cyclist and has been weight training for some 38 years. One of his long term goals is to always be able to do as many chin-ups as his age! Away from all things fitness, Colin is a devoted father to Sofie and he enjoys reading, a wine or two, the beach and is a fabulous cook of Asian food. He is also one of the most organized people that we know. Colin is a wonderful role model to the broader fitness community and we are so fortunate to have his knowledge and skills to call upon at Personal Best.
Gym Hobart

Walk like a ‘Farmer’

Posted on | by Amanda Coombe
 
Farmer's Carry
Farmer’s Carry
Farmers are some of the strongest, healthiest and most mobile people you’ll find, but it’s not because they spend their days lifting weights in a gym. However, they arelifting heavy things – bags of feed, mechanical equipment, hoses, hay bales, buckets of water, sick animals, you name it – and they’re carrying them from one place to another. Most of the rest of us aren’t occupied carrying heavy things around all day so for us, we need to think outside the square if we want to mimic what the strongest people do. Hence, Farmer’s Walk. Unlike most exercises one does in the gym, there’s almost no technique to be learned in a Farmer’s Walk. You simply pick up a weight or two and start walking with them by your side. While you can use dumbbells for this exercise, kettlebells are almost perfectly designed for the purpose with the handle making them feel very natural to carry. The benefits of picking up and walking with heavy ‘things’ are many, below are a few of the key upsides: They strengthen your grip. And everything else. This has carryover effects to numerous day-to-day tasks like opening jars and carrying shopping, and anything else which requires a tight grasp. Studies have also shown a direct correlation between grip strength and longevity: the stronger your hands, the longer you’re likely to live. It doesn’t stop with the grip though. Your forearms, shoulders, upper back, abdominal muscles, glutes and all of your leg and foot muscles are working overtime to help you move the weight from one end of the room to the other end – and strengthening and stabilising you in the process.   They help correct your posture. When you’re walking with kettlebells in your hands, your body can no longer get away with moving on autopilot; the only way to fight the extra weight pulling you forwards or to the side is to actively engage your postural muscles. Even after you’ve put the weights away, your body remembers what it did to stay upright and starts to do it unconsciously.   They build muscle. In addition to making you stronger, they add some muscle to your frame and tighten everything up. It certainly won’t be ‘bulky’ muscle; it will be a little bit added to your whole body, working with your added strength to make you more resilient. As with all resistance training, this is especially important as you age: the loss of muscle in older age known as sarcopenia is one of the main issues leading to poor health and loss of independence. They improve balance. Every time you take a step when you walk, you’re balancing on one foot, brief as it is. When you add weight to your hands, your balance is being tested more than usual – everything is working harder to stop you falling over. This is especially true when you’re holding a kettlebell with a single hand as you’re not only fighting extra total weight; you’re also working against being pulled over to the side. If you slow the movement down, you’ll find it’s a very intense exercise in controlling your entire balance system.   They boost fat loss and cardiovascular health. Farmer’s Walks have the effect of turning the very natural movement of a short walk into an exercise, which elevates your heart rate and your breathing due to all of the muscles in the body working with every step. A working muscle is also a muscle which is burning energy so you’re really ‘stoking the furnace’ of your metabolism when you add a loaded carry to your program.  They’re easy. And by ‘easy’ I mean they’re simple. They require no learning. You’ve been walking since before you can remember; you’ve probably been picking things up off the ground since even before then; and you’ve been combining the two for your entire life. Combine all of the benefits above and you arrive at a life in which every daily physical task feels easier. Shopping bags, loads of wet washing, gardening equipment and unruly children suddenly become manageable. Well, maybe not the last one. So what are you waiting for? Pick up a couple of kettlebells and get walking!   Written by Tom Flint | Personal Trainer
Gym Hobart yoga

Be Activated

Posted on | by Amanda Coombe

Activation

“What’s in the mind is in the body and what’s in the body is in the mind.”

Have you ever caught yourself suddenly gasping for air or getting out of breath quickly? 
Be Activated
Be Activated 
In a society filled with stressors, we believe we all too often get stuck in a “fight or flight” state, resulting in poor health, such as sickness or injury and fatigue, both physical and mental. We use a system based approach termed ‘Be-Activated’ to help the body fire in the correct sequence. This helps to reduce the highly alert state of living into a more relaxed state, thereby allowing us to handle and overcome our stressors more efficiently and effectively. Be-Activated can help you interrupt these stress evoked patterns and find a state of balance. We can help you identify and more easily manage stress, resulting in increased productivity.   What is Be-Activated? Based on the concepts of muscle activation and sequencing in movement, ‘Be Activated’ is a powerful yet simple hands-on system developed by physiotherapist and kinesiologist, Douglas Heel. Be Activated is the science and art of getting your body to work the way it is meant to, and in doing so allowing it to break free from pain and dysfunction. From here your body can move into higher states of performance on all levels allowing you to not only move, function and feel better but also giving rise to massive shifts in strength, speed and flexibility.   Why have an Activation? Whether you are in pain or want to feel, function and move better, activation will help you get there. Our body’s ability to overcome the stresses and pressures of life can result in reduced movement and exercise, putting us at risk. Through systematic manual therapy, activation techniques are simple to teach and offer unique, powerful tools for control over your own health.   Who would benefit from Activation? Everyone. Whether for athlete performance or stress relief, activation can help you find centre. Postural muscles of the body are all slow twitch muscle fibres as they need to hold up the body for sustained periods of time with minimal movement. Slow twitch muscle fibres are oxygen dependent, which means they require oxygen to operate effectively. If we are not breathing correctly and therefore not getting enough oxygen to the muscles, they cannot function correctly to support our body’s continuous fight against gravity. This means that if we can influence our breathing we can influence our ability to maintain good posture.   How is Activation different from massage? Where massage is looking at muscle tightness, activation is a systematic system designed to prioritise the two necessities for survival; to breath and to move. Without both, we will die. Our body finds ways to meet those priorities and is willing to sacrifice anything in order to do this. That is when we see dysfunction and/or pain.   How often should you be Activated? Everyone is different. The idea of activation is to teach your body new (correct) patterns of movement – essentially creating new habits. You may have significant gain and hold this pattern effortlessly, or you will need more intervention and reminding. This is why we also teach you to activate on yourself, to take control of your own health and maintain the new patterns of movement we have taught the body.   Written by Sofia Tsamassiros – Movement Specialist and Personal Trainer 
Gym Hobart

5 Ways to Reduce Back Pain

Posted on | by Amanda Coombe
Lower back pain can have many different causes and can be a nuisance but it may also be a serious medical issue. If in doubt please consult your doctor before adopting any of the following techniques, particularly if you do not know the cause of your back pain. For back and hip, pain/stiffness, particularly after sitting at a desk or in a car, characterised by feeling stuck in a bent forward position when standing up: Prevention of bad alignment is the key, as sitting with bad posture tends to make joints such as the hips or facet joints to “lock up” and this can start the cycle of lower back pain. For cars, buses and planes have the very back of the heels resting on the floor, this prevents the hips rolling into a position where they get stuck and start to affect the lower back. At work: try and avoid having the knees pointing outwards. Avoid crossing the legs in any way. Practise the 3 steps to perfect posture: 1, Slouch. 2, Be tall. 3, Stay tall and relax the back. Back pain made worse by lying on your back or sleeping: When lying on your back, walk your hips from side to side and drag your legs towards your top half to increase the space beneath your lower back, this will greatly relax the legs and reduce strain on your back Back pain and stiffness that follows after activities such as gardening: Use a foam roller to release the tension accumulated in the back: 1, Lie on your back with the roller in reach. 2, Lift up your butt and slide the roller under your lower back, cross-ways. 3, Tilt your pelvis to lift and then lower your hips, resting your weight on the roller so the shape of the roller encourages your back to gradually bend more comfortably, keep moving though, this is mobilisation, not a stretch. Back pain/fatigue experienced during exercise: Exercises that are based upon the squat movement pattern, including weighted squats, deadlifts, kettlebell swings, wall ball, and so on are sometimes associated with lower back pain and/or fatigue. The muscles of the lower back are actually recruited during these exercises so some fatigue may be a normal part of strengthening the area. As a general guide, 3 sets of a squatting based exercise in which mild pain/fatigue of the lower back muscles is felt during the final set, should be regarded as normal, the discomfort should decrease over a 4-6 week period and should be discussed with a trainer if it seems to be increasing in level or appearing sooner in the workout. If the discomfort is significant during the first set and appears to increase in subsequent sets, I would advise to stop the exercise and discuss an alternative or a solution with a trainer. The causes of pain in the context of the above mentioned exercises can be complex and varied but the lower back is usually; a) a) moving too much to compensate for a restriction elsewhere in the body, such as the hips or ankles or b) becoming stiff in an attempt of the body to restrict movement in order to stabilise excess movement elsewhere in the body. Try alternating your exercise sets with the mobilisation described in the previous section. Sudden sharp or “grabbing” pain experienced randomly when exercising or doing household chores such as vacuuming. These sudden, sharp pains may be due to a number of different issues but are usually the body’s reaction to a perceived instability of some kind. the following 2 techniques both attempt to calm the central nervous system by decompressing the posterior spine and at the same time to create a balance of muscular action between the hip-flexors, the erector spinae, the gluteals, hamstrings and the rectus femoris. Putting your back against a sturdy wall, lower yourself down to the level you’d be if sitting on a dining chair so that your hips are only slightly higher than your knees. Your feet should be under your knees. push with your feet to flatten your lower back against the wall. Hold this position for 30 seconds, then stand up and relax for as long as necessary. The key to the success of this technique is all in the pushing of the back to the wall with the legs. A longer period is good, so long as it does not come at the expense of the pressure against the wall. Repeat as needed. Try this for 2 to 3 minutes to unload your back. Lie flat on your back, lower legs resting and fully supported by a flat, level surface such as a dining chair. Stay in this position for as long as you can. I’ll leave you with something to think about, something which is typically hard to think about when you are actually experiencing back pain but I guess no one ever did say it was supposed to be easy… All of the types of back pain described above are symptoms of other problems. The back pain is not the problem, it is the part of the body complaining about the problem. If I have client doing Kettlebell swings and they complain of back pain, I want to see what their feet are doing, I need to see how their shoulders are moving. If your back hurts when you do a deadlift, I’m interested in what your set-up was, before you did the deadlift. These things are not necessarily complicated to fix but it can be much harder to fix by yourself. Consult a trainer if in doubt. At Personal Best Fitness we have had great success with helping our members reduce and overcome back pain, with simple and effective exercises. Eidolan Erin. Master Personal Trainer personalbestfitness.com.au 6234 5969

The Takeaways on SUGAR

Posted on | by Amanda Coombe

Hidden Sugar comes in many forms

Glucose, Fructose, Sucrose, Ga-lactose, Lactose, Maltose etc, but not all of these different types of sugar effect our health in the same way. There are at least 61 different names for sugar that can be used on the packaging of products to disguise it from the consumer. Solution: limit or avoid packaged foods where possible. Certain types of sugar have been linked to diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, certain types of cancer, insomnia, obesity, metabolic syndrome just to name a few. In the average Western diet added sugar alone accounts for around 450 calories a day, or 1850 kilojoules, and these calories not only come with NO other nutrients but can effect your hormonal balance in a negative way. Your whole body will be thankful for reducing your sugar intake, in particular your liver and digestive system. Low-fat and ‘lite’ foods often have added sugar to enhance the flavour and make the products palatable. Check the label. Shop in the outside of the supermarket and avoid the isles. 80% of their weight-loss success comes from eating the right food. When dietary fat, supplemented by good quality protein and consumed along with abundant vegetables the bodies nutritional requirements are met. This reduces harmful reactions to food, such as see-sawing blood sugar levels. hidden-sugars Follow the 80/20 rule: Make good choices 80% of the time and the occasional slip-up will not be too much cause for concern. Eat like it’s 1934. Go back to the way your grandparents used to eat. Meat and three veg, real butter, the whole egg. At Personal Best Fitness we have had GREAT success in facilitating the weight loss of 100’s of clients due to our simple and effective weight loss guidelines.     Written by Amanda Coombe who is considered a national expert in lifestyle coaching and personal training having 5 times been a finalist in the Australian Personal Trainer of the Year award. She is the founder of Personal Best Fitness, Tasmania’s Fitness Business of the Year and is recognized as a leader in corporate health programs. Her corporate clients include Nyrstar, Tasmanian Collection Services, RACT, Hydro Tasmania, Norske Skog, Parliament House, Tasmanian Audit Office, SEMF and Tasmanian Fire Service.
Gym Hobart

Dealing With Stress

Posted on | by Amanda Coombe
Stress in the 21st century is almost as common as the flu. What is stressful for me may not be stressful for you. So what is stress? For most of us it is when the demands we place upon ourselves or those we allow others to place on us are greater than our ability to cope. Some people thrive on stress and can achieve a great deal when under pressure, but others are totally debilitated by it. The challenge in today’s society is to obtain a stress or arousal level which provides the benefits of good health, satisfaction, general well-being and motivation. Taking time out to relax in our lives from work is just as important as maintaining a regular physical activity program and decreasing caffeine, alcohol and sugar intake. Having a calm and relaxed outlook can make a great difference to how your body reacts to stressful situations and events and to your overall energy levels. When you feel good you are more likely to look after yourself and therefore less likely to suffer anxiety, depression and ill health. In Australia approximately 70% of patients visiting a doctor are suffering from stress-related conditions. Recent evidence suggests that 80% of stress is brought on by how we use our minds. Think about the statement is the glass half full or half empty. We all know people who complain no matter how good the situation is, the ‘knockers’ of the world and others no matter how bad or tough things are always find something positive to say. If you want to stay or become a positive person, you need to minimise your association with the ‘half empty glass’ types of the world and surround yourself with the ‘half full’ people of the world. If the worst case scenario dominates your thoughts it will happen, but if you change your focus to the best case scenario you will start finding good things happening to you. When things don’t go as we want we often sabotage our lives with various behaviours, such as eating too much, drinking more alcohol, working more, decreasing our leisure time and/or retail therapy. Such behaviours tend to leave us worst off. De-stress-headache-remedy If your lifestyle is hectic or unbalanced, then taking time out to relax could mean planning times especially to do this. Sometimes you need to put yourself first and NOT feel guilty about it, close the door and listen to the silence. Doing things that you enjoy can help you feel relaxed and this needs to be prioritised as part of a healthy lifestyle. Some activities that can contribute to a feeling of relaxation include having a bath, walking along the beach, having a massage, playing with your dog, talking to a friend, listening to music, gardening, meditation and yoga. Good time management will also assist with stress management. Plan your week on Sunday night, get up 30 minutes early four mornings a week and you will gain an extra 2 hours to do the things you have been putting off. Leave the office at lunch time and say no when someone asks you to do something that you don’t want to do. Being able to detect the warning signs of stress is an important skill in preventing the build p of tension in your mind. Some warning signs are sleep disturbance, migraines and headaches, aching back and shoulders, heart palpitations, irritability, depression, impulsive behaviour, fatigue and the loss of the joy of living. When dealing with stress it is important to realise you can’t change other people and that the only person you can change is yourself, your attitude and your reaction to stress. Try not to let those things that you can’t change interrupt your life. Be realistic about situations and events and try not to blow things out of proportion. If nothing appears to be working seek professional help. Written by Amanda Coombe who is considered a national expert in lifestyle coaching and personal training having 5 times been a finalist in the Australian Personal Trainer of the Year award. She is the founder of Personal Best Fitness, Tasmania’s Fitness Business of the Year and is recognized as a leader in corporate health programs. Her corporate clients include Nyrstar, Tasmanian Collection Services, RACT, Hydro Tasmania, Norske Skog, Parliament House, Tasmanian Audit Office, SEMF and Tasmanian Fire Service.
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Free Weights Or Machines – Which is Best?

Posted on | by Amanda Coombe
Going to a gym for the first time can be a rather confusing experience. Which equipment? Which machines? How many exercises? The choices are endless. Then there are the free weights – the dumbbells and barbells, squat and bench press racks. You can do the same exercises on both types of equipment. So weights or machines or have both? There are three distinct types of equipment found in most gyms.
  •  Free weights, machines and cables/pulleys.
Free weights are:
  • Barbells, dumbbells, plates, squat rack and bench press.
Machines
  • Feature seats and provide variable resistance.
  • They force you to move along a pre-determined track dictated by the design of the machine.
Cables and pulleys
  • Allow you to change the direction of resistance that is not possible with a barbell or dumbbell.
Some gyms like Personal Best Fitness also have any array of functional exercise equipment such as kettlebells and vipr’s. Machine Benefits & Limitations A great benefit of machines – is that they are harder to use incorrectly. This is because they limit the ways you can push and pull on them. This allows beginners to train correct movement patterns and helps to prevent injury. These benefits can be offset by there being little need to recruit stabilizer muscles when doing the exercise. Stabilizer muscle recruitment is a key to developing functional strength – the ability to use the strength developed through exercise to perform everyday tasks. To develop functional strength you need to do exercises that rely on your body to work as whole unit. Machines eliminate the need to recruit stabilizer muscles and, as a result, are not as effective at developing functional strength as free weights are. Machines have limitations in their adaptability to the height and body shape. Even though most of them have adjustable seats and handles, it is impossible to design a machine that suits every body type. Machines are also not as multi-functional as free weights, and the frame of the machine also doesn’t allow for ideal exercise position for all body types. Recommendations Machines are great for teaching beginners good form and helping them to learn what it feels like to lift correctly. That’s because they generally ensure good technique. They’re also excellent for isolating individual muscles. But, unless you’re a beginner or are rehabbing, don’t build your routine around machines. Where possible, perform free weight versions of functional strength movements rather than the machine version: free weight squats, for example, are better than Smith machine squats. Use cables and pulleys rather than lat pull down or seated row. If you would like some guidance as to which exercises are best for your body, ask us at Personal Best Fitness. Written by Amanda Coombe, who is considered a national expert in lifestyle coaching and personal training having 5 times been a finalist in the Australian Personal Trainer of the Year award. She is the founder of Personal Best Fitness, Tasmania’s Fitness Business of the Year and is recognized as a leader in corporate health programs. Her corporate clients include Nyrstar, Tasmanian Collection Services, RACT, Hydro Tasmania, Norske Skog, Parliament House, Tasmanian Audit Office, SEMF and Tasmanian Fire Service.

Which Exercise Is Best

Posted on | by Amanda Coombe
In the fifteen years of being a personal trainer, one of the most frequent questions that I am asked is what exercise should I do now I’m in my 40’s or 50’s etc ?  In actual fact your chronological age has little to do with what exercise is most appropriate for you. Sure as we age our bodies under ago a number of changes:
  • From age 28 we start to lose our bone density unless we do weight bearing exercise at least 3 times a week.
  • We get a decrease in muscle mass and strength of up to 20%.
  • We lose elasticity in our tendons and ligaments which leads to loss of joint mobility.
  • Our reflexes become slower.
  • Our metabolic rate decreases by 3% every 10 or so years.
  • We get a decrease in lung capacity and our maximum heart rate decreases by between 20 and 30%
So in simple terms we get weaker, fatter, slower and less fit and as we age.  It’s not all doom and gloom.  There are many simple strategies that we can put in place to slow the rate of ageing down and if you think about the unhealthiest and unfitest 60 years old you know and then compare them to the healthiest and fittest 60 year old you know there’s living proof. In your twenties you can almost eat and drink what you like without consequence as long as you are not a total couch potato.  However if you continue this lifestyle during your thirties you will start to see the ‘roof grow over the tool box’ and you will move into the next size of clothing or two and generally feel tired and lacking in energy and think that this is just what happens went you head towards forty.  You will notice that you don’t bound up the stairs and feel exhausted after vacuuming the house or washing the car. If this lifestyle continues into your forties and fifties you will most likely find yourself presenting to your doctor with the warning signs of high blood pressure and cholesterol or pre diabetic and as well as prescribing your with medication they will be suggesting you make some permanent changes to your lifestyle.  And as we know preventative health is far easier than reactive health measures. So what can you do to slow the ageing process down?  For many years we thought that aerobic exercise ‘huff and puff’ was the best form of exercise, recent research demonstrates very clearly that resistance exercise or using weights is far more effective for the following reasons.
  • Using weights that are appropriate for you is three times more effective at controlling your blood sugar levels than ‘puff and huff’ exercise.
  • Using weights 2 to 3 times a week will maintain both your bone density and muscle mass for much longer and then slow the rate of loss.
  • Using weights 3 times as week has the same effect as a low dose of anti-depressants.
There is however still some need to do puff and huff exercise and this is why circuit type exercise ‘kills 2 birds with 1 stone’, because your body receives the benefits for the weights and the puff and puff exercise. The third component that is important to our physical activity program is flexibility.  If you have noticed that putting your shoes on in the morning or getting out of the car is more of a challenge that’s a sign that your need to stretch on a more regular basis.  As we age our hips are the first part of our body to become stiff and hence need the most stretching. Which exercise is best for you will depend mostly on how much you have put in the bank during your 30 and 40’s.  It’s best to talk to a registered and accredited Fitness Professional to determine your needs, so you can progress at your rate and slow the ageing process down and avoid a cocktail of medications during your sixties. Written by Amanda Coombe, Personal Best Fitness,  Amanda is considered a national expert in lifestyle coaching and personal training having 5 times been a finalist in the Australian Personal Trainer of the Year award. She is the founder of Personal Best Fitness, Tasmania’s Fitness Business of the Year and is recognized as a leader in corporate health programs.  Her corporate clients include Nyrstar, Tasmanian Collection Services, RACT, Hydro Tasmania, Norske Skog, Parliament House, Tasmanian Audit Office, SEMF and Tasmanian Fire Service.