Category: Videos

Gym Hobart

Create More Movement Options

Posted on | by Amanda Coombe

In my previous article , I wrote about the importance of exercise and exercise variability on mental health. I’m going to expand on this topic in regards to what is happening in the brain and the tissue and how that can be incorporated into exercise.

Regular physical activity plays a crucial role in health maintenance and disease prevention. However there is an increasing occurrence of excessive exercise among certain population groups, which have adverse effects on both physical and mental health. I want to set a framework to help you find balance and question your perspective about what exercise is for you and how you approach it.

I believe, all too often in our society we approach exercise as something we have to do often because we want to lose weight or use it as a mechanism to keep on top of our mental health. Both of these reasons are perfectly valid and effective forms to achieve such outcomes, however I want to prompt you to think about why it is you exercise and whether what you are doing is enjoyable.

In my previous article I wrote about the Default Mode Network (DNM) and how it is active when a person is focused internally, e.g. Ruminating, and is less active when focused on attention-demanding tasks. Previously I wrote that a hyperactive DMN is associated with mental health issues such as obsessive behaviour, anxiety and depression. I explained how a hyperactive DMN results in less neural patterning, meaning we continue to strengthen the same neural networks, therefore have the same thought processes, increasing our anxious thoughts.

When relating this to exercise, one of my favourite sayings is ‘create more movement options’. What does this mean? Simple.

Move more, move different and move more often .

It doesn’t matter HOW you move, as long as you are spending time doing different exercises, reaching in different planes of motion and getting your heart rate UP and DOWN in different increments regularly. Any exercise is good exercise, however if relating this to our brain activity, we want to be able to keep exercise enjoyable and variable in order to thrive rather than survive in everyday life.

Having spent a lot of time working with cyclists, I always think they’re the quintessential example of what we’re talking about here. Cyclists are by nature pretty obsessive people! They often have what we term ‘type-A’ personalities, i.e. they’re ambitious, rigidly organised and status conscious. They’re your classic ‘high achievers’. Cyclists spend a lot of time in the same position, often a lot of time in a similar heart rate zone and, are quite often in high achieving occupations.

Which comes first, the obsessive behaviour or the rigid exercise routine? It’s a chicken or egg situation. Someone with a type-A personality is likely to be more attracted to endurance sports, e.g. cycling, running etc, because being driven in this sport is what allows them to excel at it, however too much of this type of activity, ie. low neural patterning, will also result in a hyperactive DMN.

  There is nothing ‘wrong’ with cycling itself (I spend a lot of time riding bikes myself), however for people who spend a lot of time doing one thing, even sitting at a desk, should consider creating more movement patterns.   

This is where at Personal Best Fitness we see the benefit of implementing tools such as ViPRs in your exercise routine. ViPRs bridge the gap between movement and strength. By shifting weight, rather than lifting it against gravity, engaging your muscles with variable stimuli. They allow us to adapt to new movement patterns by stretching and loading as you move, resulting in a lean, long and strong system.

 

“Any exercise is good exercise, as long as what you are doing resembles what you ‘think’ you are doing.”

 

Written by Senior personal trainer, Sofia Tsamassiros  

 

Reference list:

Personal Training

Taking the ‘fad’ out of weight loss!

Posted on | by Amanda Coombe
IMG_2393 If you google fad diets you will likely come up with a never-ending list: 2019 Best and Worst Fad Diets for Weight Loss and underneath that is a list of the 5 most common forms of fad diets. Many of us want to lose weight and we want to have lost it yesterday! Rather than going down the fad diet pathway, why not look at working on sustainable, healthy life long changes.    

Research suggests that fad diets fall into five general groups:

  1. Food – specific diets, which encourage eating large amounts of a single food, such as the cabbage soup diet.
  2. Low-Carb diets, such as the Atkins diet, which first became popular in the 1970’s.
  3. High fibre, low – calorie diets, which often prescribe double the amount of recommended dietary fibre.
  4. Liquid diets, such as SlimFast meal replacements drinks.
Fad diets are generally restrictive, and are characterized by the promise of fast weight loss or great physical health, and which are not grounded in sound research.  They ‘seduce’ those that are willing to ‘try anything’ to lose weight at the expense of their own health. The problem with fad diets is that they don’t address, in any way, the lifestyle circumstances that cause the weight gain initially. In fact, fad diets can be detrimental to your health and increase the risk of heart disease and develop a ‘Yo Yo’ effect on your weight.  Imagine your body going up and over speed humps all day.  Eventually, your body would lose its ‘spring’, as the shock absorbers in your car would, and you wouldn’t be able to continue. You may become sick, lose motivation and or just give up as many do.

Consider the following:

  • Start by removing the word ‘diet’ from your vocabulary. When the time is right for you avoid saying ‘you are on a diet’, but rather you are improving your health by making better choices.
  • Slow down with the time frame you give yourself to lose the weight you have gained. Weight creeps on gradually, you may not always notice it straight away, but it’s that one morning when you wake up and think how did that get there.  Weight is generally gained over a long period of time, so make a realistic goal with your personal trainer about how you can shred it safely and keep it off.  Small goals often achieve big results.
  • Understand how your body reacts to the food you eat. Ask a personal trainer to explain this to you.  Understanding the ‘why’ may help when you are about to make that not so good choice.
  • Forget about what other people are doing to lose weight. Concentrate on your own lifestyle, your own situation and set realistic goals accordingly.
  • Have less time sitting in front of the TV and introduce a sustainable exercise regime. Talk with a personal trainer about a weekly plan.  About how many times you should exercise, what program you should do on what day and how these best fit with your personal training session.
In essence, avoiding fad diets and becoming more aware of your own lifestyle and not comparing it to others, becoming aware of what you are eating and when you are eating it are two key steps in becoming a fitter, healthier person who can function at their best. Fran Sullivan Master Personal Trainer