EXERCISE EXHASPIRATION

As a trainer, I am amazed (not in a good way) but the fact that some people still do not understand some basic principles about exercise and I get faced with the same stupid questions (there are stupid questions even if presenters try to reassure people that they can ask anything and not look uninformed). With all the health magazines, wellness seminars and exercise education in the world today, women still think that they will get big muscles from lifting small dumbbells and that exercise earns them the right to eat anything they crave. These are the common questions that I have to answer on a daily basis without being allowed to roll my eyes or utter a sarcastic remark.

How long will it take to lose weight/tone/improve my fitness?

The answer depends on the person because some people are lucky enough to be able to see results in a matter of days, while other people struggle for years to see a small change. Some people also have the strict mindset required to stick to a structured, healthy exercise and eating program. I wish I could have a general answer and say that it will take one month, but it is unrealistic to predict something that I, as a trainer, cannot control. Personally, I get slightly skeptic when people see results quickly as they struggle to maintain the goal if they do not make lifestyle changes.

Will I look like a body builder if I do weights?

Men have high testosterone levels that help them to develop muscle. Women have trace amounts of this muscle building hormone and will not become bulky unless they lift very heavy weights, perform fewer repetitions or take male hormones to bulk up. Weight training has the benefits of improving bone density, increasing metabolism and strengthening postural muscles that will have lifelong effects. Big biceps can be left for the guys while we benefit from resistance training. Start worrying about building big muscles after developing chest hair and a deep voice.

Will everybody else be looking at me?

My sarcastic side wants to tell you not to flatter yourself because people who exercise are usually self absorbed and focusing on their own bodies. The reality is that people will look around, but they mainly focus on their own muscles and movement without looking at others unless there is a treadmill fall.

What gear must I wear?

Footwear is the most important. Running requires running shoes, regardless of the distance. Visit a professional sports store to have running style analysed and purchase the proper shoes. While the most expensive shoes are not always necessary, it is important to buy shoes with the proper cushioning and support. Jeans, black bags, padded bras, sandals and casual pants are out and a sports bra is important. If you do not want everybody else looking at you, wear something neutral that covers the wiggle bits. Wearing dark coloured clothing usually hides sweat marks that will stain light clothing.

What supplements must I take?

A healthy eating plan should negate the use of supplements. The only pills that I would recommend for a healthy person is a multivitamin that offers the additional vitamins that we do not get from food. Calcium and magnesium are important for women to manage bone density and prevent osteoporosis.

Personal trainers will have basic nutritional knowledge but our speciality is exercise and we know how to make you sweat. Like any job, we are faced with the same questions daily and we smile and answer them in the best possible way. When your body responds to exercise and you are bitten by the exercise bug, you will want to investigate advanced training methods, healthy eating and challenges. As a trainer, I must remember that everybody begins at the start line to the race to get our bodies in shape.

Slogging to the Silly Season

It’s almost time for the silly season, but before that it seems to be the slump season where everybody is tired from a long year. Every year seems to get longer and more stressful and we are more exhausted with each passing day. Counting down the days until the holidays (unless you have kids to entertain) becomes the only thing to look forward to and exercise time is decreased with the social commitments of the season. The irony is that exercising regularly during the slump season will help fight exhaustion and keep up positive and fit. When we blink again, it will be the silly season.

We all want to enjoy the holidays, but do not want to bring home any extra “baggage” around our bodies. Nobody wants to make New Year’s resolutions to lose the festive weight that could be avoided with sensible eating and drinking habits and an active lifestyle. Overindulgence is the biggest sin of the festive season, but you do not have to turn into Scrooge to enjoy yourself.

Follow a few guidelines to a healthier holiday:

¨      Try everything once. No second helpings, unless it is salad.

¨      Monitor alcohol intake – aside from roadblocks and being arrested for drunken driving, alcohol is fattening and leads to late night snacking. A balanced diet is not a drink in one hand and cocktail snacks in the other hand.

¨      Accept Christmas gifts of chocolates gratefully and give them away for Easter – just do not these gifts to the giver. Make it clear to friends and family that you would prefer gifts of shower gel, candles, socks, books or anything else that will not add kilojoules.

¨      Do not indulge in late night snacks. Try to eat your main meal when it is still light outside.

¨      Take long, brisk walks instead of driving to shops and other places that are within walking distance.

¨      Go sightseeing after a big meal instead of having a nap.

¨      Do stomach crunches while watching DVDs.

¨      Get the family and kids involved in a home exercise routine.

Avoid the slump and be filled with the joy of the festive season instead of being filled with trifle, cocktails and chocolate!

Merry Christmas!

CARDIO CONCERNS

Everybody embarks on a New Year fitness program and jumps into the deep end with an advanced swimming program or a goal to complete a triathlon. While these goals are achievable for athletes or naturally athletic people, it is not necessarily the best exercise regime for an overweight male who has not done any exercise since playing rugby in high school.

Men and women tend to be ambitious when setting goals and forget that they need to start with walking or changing their lifestyle and eating habits instead of registering for the upcoming 10km road run. I have seen it time and time again at popular sporting events – a deconditioned runner (another polite term for an unfit person) will run 21.1km without the proper training and afterwards they will be vomiting at the side of the road, either because they have exerted themselves too much with inadequate training or they have celebrated their achievement too soon without proper water intake or unhealthy dietary choices. Beer is not a healthy carbohydrate and water should be drunk before and after the run to ensure proper hydration. This fact about beer and alcoholic dehydrators (I just made it a verb) shows that people tend to celebrate their achievements too quickly without proper research or planning. Committing to an exercise program should change most aspects of a person’s daily life.

The easiest way to lose weight is to increase the energy output (or decrease energy input), mainly through cardiovascular exercise. This does not mean getting on the treadmill and staying there until the belt is slippery from sweat and the runner is about to fall over. Increasing the heart’s activity throughout the day through practical ways will also increase energy output.  Hide the remote and get off the couch to change channels, walk across the office to speak to a colleague instead of calling and walk to the deli for a healthy lunch instead of ordering to the desk. The old favourite of taking the stairs is also useful, but it may not be practical when wearing stilettos as this could cause terrible injuries and embarrassment and some sick leave. Walk the dog more often or put on your takkies for a walk around a rich neighbourhood to choose your next home.

As a runner who has seen a few injuries, I know how easy it is to get carried away and run further and faster too quickly and this results in injury, pain and weight gain. After a few weeks or months of inactivity it is critical to start slowly and walk longer intervals than running. Apart from sparing the knees and ankles too much shock, it will also encourage proper running technique. Runners should make a New Year’s resolution to try another form of cardiovascular exercise to give the running muscles a rest and expose them to something else. I have recently started cycling and it is so easy compared to running, but I have learnt two important lessons: never tell cyclists how easy their sport is compared to running and never cycle alone.

When setting goals take into account safety aspects that could become rules for other aspects of your life – never exercise alone in dangerous areas, look both ways before crossing a road and do not do anything potentially dangerous in the dark. Do not expect immediate results because being slow and steady will win the race every time and it will still make your heart flutter.

Happy 2012!

Ergonomics

ERGONOMICS

Ten years ago, I heard this word for the first time at university and it became my favourite topic when I wanted to appear intelligent in public as nobody had heard of it.

Corporate companies have all started paying attention to the wellness of workers and now there are ergonomic consultants who focus on posture, office furniture and design. Spending one third of our day in a single space (and often a static position) calls for comfort and care of our bodies.

Ergonomics is the study of people at work.

I’ve recently started working in a communal office. It is the most academic environment with IT specialists who are either on the phone or working on their computers – or doing both (proof that some men can multitask). I’ve always had an active job and cannot sit still for longer than five minutes at a stretch (that is without getting up to stretch or make coffee or go to the loo or find any excuse possible to get away from the desk). After my first month on the job, I developed a backache that caused extreme discomfort leading to restless sleep, slouching and complaining more than usual. My core is strong so the backache manifests between my shoulder blades. The upper cross syndrome has a unique name on my body as the stress balls that hide under my shoulder blades are called “subscap”. They hide and grow and crack while I am in agony. I put my body through exercise, exercise demonstrations and carrying weights daily, but as soon as I sit down my body falls apart.

In my mind, ergonomics extends beyond a comfortable chair, oddly-shaped keyboard and a glare-free monitor. The other senses have an impact on office wellness along with the working environment.

I arrive at lunchtime to be greeted by the smell of every type of fast food imaginable. Even though I’ve just eaten, the smell stimulates my stomach juices and my mouth starts watering, making it difficult to concentrate on anything but the pizza being devoured across the room. Collegues arrive from the post lunch cigarette breaks have the smoke smell attached to their clothes and hair. The stale smells linger in the office mingling with the leftovers causing a nauseating stench that distracts me.

The noise from telephones are distracting for a person like me who has a short concentration span. Trying to listen to the conversations of others, while concentrating on your own work, is extremely difficult. The muffled music being played by earphones distorts and annoys fellow workers who crave silence.

Being an active person, I could get frustrated sitting at my desk and have developed a few distractions to keep the eyes open and the mind stimulated:

• Walk to the shop the long way – take the stairs, do not take short cuts.
• Do not eat at your desk – go to a different location to focus on eating instead of shovelling while looking at the screen. Split your lunch break in two if possible and save some food, thus keeping the metabolic rate higher.
• Pack healthy lunch to save time and avoid empty calories from pies, chocolates and fried foods.
• Suggest team builders such as action cricket or boot camp instead of restaurants, pubs and other sedentary activities.
• Walk to the co-worker instead of mailing, Skyping or calling.
• Go for walks with collegues to experience a change of scenery.
• Turn your entire chair and body when somebody speaks to you and look them in the eye instead of trying to focus on your work as well. That way when you really do not want to talk to somebody, it is evident in your body language.
• Find a focus that will lead to you thinking happy thoughts when work gets too hectic such as a view from a certain place in the office, a photo of your family or a sexy co-worker that provides suitable “eyecandy” without leading to a sexual harassment case.
• Activate your core muscles by pulling your shoulder blades together, pulling bellybutton to spine and sitting taller.

Ergonomically correct posture will not only lead to physical improvements such as better posture but psychological ramifications of a better mood and an improvement on productivity. These changes may not want to make you look forward to going to work if you hate your job, but it will make it easier to cope with stressors.

OFFICE MAIL

Everyone gets enough exercise jumping to conclusions, flying off the handle, running down the boss, knifing friends in the back, dodging responsibility and pushing their luck.

Exercise, eating and other addictions

Too often humans just sit back and wait for somebody else to take action, while we continue with our daily routine and complain about the problem without doing anything about it. This human habit rang true after the talk about steroids that was presented by a reformed addict.

Fitness professionals work in an industry filled with addictions from eating disorders (anorexia to binge eating) to compulsive shoppers (those girls who never wear the same gym gear twice) to supplementary drugs (fat burners to steroids). The biggest addiction is vanity as these people are punishing their bodies to look good and receive praise. They live for the compliments and enjoy the attention they receive when people admire their bodies. We are all envious of the girl with the six pack or the guy with the striations on their muscles that look like road maps, but every body comes at a price. While some of us are addicted to long term exercise and wellness, others are addicted to the quick fix of a fat burner or a finger down the throat.

As personal trainers, we are not equipped to deal with psychological issues, but we can have a strong moral standing about the abuse of drugs and the abuse of food. While we can offer advice about eating plans, supplements, vitamins and minerals we cannot take on the role of dietician, psychologist, councillor or mother. We should have a list of health professionals that we can refer clients to and we should trust these people and not be getting a financial kick back.

We can make a difference by refusing to deal with people who use steroids and stop referring our clients to dieticians who prescribe a pill before wholesome food. I cannot approach the muscle man in the weights area and tell him to stop injecting himself because I will get “dondered  or moered” (the Afrikaans word is so much more descriptive), but I can stop complimenting him on his physique as I will feel better than I am not stroking his ego. Another thing I can do is to educate myself on the effects of certain steroids and supplements and be able to explain the long term dangers to my clients when they enquire about supplementing their diet. These people who are taking the quick fix make the personal trainer’s hard work on clients seem like a long way to a better body.

The illegal personal training in our gyms can stop if we inform our clients about the need to check our qualifications and the rent we pay to be able to use the facility. We can also stop being two faced by not acknowledging this person who is making a mockery of our livelihood. The Tableview gym where I see my clients has a member-trainer-evangelist-hypocrite who irritates all the staff, yet people still speak to this man who has a different training partner every week and he is a different size every month.

Our profession will never be taken seriously if we do not show the world that we are professionals and that we do not believe in cheats, pills, short cuts or illegal substances. We should always endorse a lifetime of healthy eating, consistent exercise and balanced lifestyles and set the example in our own lives. Personal training starts with our bodies and minds and should show the world that we exercise healthy decisions and that we do not believe in cheating.

Women Worriers

Humans have enough problems to worry about without stressing about the things that cannot be changed.

Listen to any older person like a mother-in-law or aunt who constantly comments and complains about the weather. It is always too hot or too cold and they are never comfortable with nature. The only effect of their complaints will be to cause a stormy mood for the listener while the wind continues to blow.

Motivational speakers encourage positive thinking and stress that we should focus on the controllable aspect of our lives that we can improve such as financial status, moods and interactive skills instead of sweating the small stuff.

Being women, we try to control most things on a daily basis, but we need to accept that certain aspects of our lives are slightly more difficult to control than a screaming child or a moody man. Good news to know that certain things are manageable while the five uncontrollable things (listed below) are impossible to change. The new expression on the radio is the best advice: build a bridge and get over it.

1.   WEATHER

If it is meant to rain on your wedding day, the drops will fall from the sky and the best wedding planner cannot limit the damage if you insisted on a garden ceremony. Weather forecasts are as close as we get to control the climate and even the television reports are inaccurate. Murphy plays a sly role in the weather as it usually rains on Easter weekend (most public holidays and weekends when we make plans to be outdoors) or after a carwash. Weather: we like it or not, the elements will not be instructed or tamed for our benefit.

2.   AGEING

Time stands still for nobody and while it is said that true beauty stands the test of time, we will do our best to avoid wrinkles, sagging and gravity as much as possible. New products and procedures try to stop nature’s clock, but only stall the lines for a few years. Most people dread the effects of losing hair, memory and bone density, but ageing is inevitable. We gain experience and wisdom with every facial crease and worrying about getting older just adds to the wrinkles. My granny vainly refuses to wear spectacles as she complains that it makes her look ninety, but does not realise that squinting will make her eye area look a hundred years old. She should be proud of nearly having a century’s life experience, but instead tries to dye her hair and hide her wrinkles that she can hardly see in the mirror because she is not wearing her spectacles.

3.   THE JONES’

The neighbour who has the financial advantage to buy two fancy cars, a collegue who has the idyllic family life and a friend who has the perfect family will always be part of our life. These successful counterparts are there to remind us to strive for a more balanced life, but they do not deserve to be the target of envy or maliciousness because we feel they do not deserve the promotion that life has awarded them. We cannot judge or change the fact that somebody will always be more prosperous. Remember that for every person who is richer than you, there is another who suffers. Use the Jones family as mentors and seek advice to build a better relationship.

4.   REACTIONS

Working with people is a valuable experience and trying to predict the way another person will react to a situation is almost impossible. Regulating our own behaviour is difficult enough without foreseeing how many people will attend your party or buy a product. Moods, comments and reactions make every person unique and this can be best illustrated when the family that we think we know will surprise us.

5.   PARTNERS (ie. men)

They cannot be changed. Training is possible, taming is achievable and acceptance is our only reaction to certain traits in a partner.

Having read this article, stop frowning (lose the wrinkle between your eyes when looking into the sky), smile (increase the laugh lines that indicate a happy life), laugh at our faults and accept that some things cannot be changed as easily as our underwear. Changing our mind about certain things is easier than worrying.

Personal trainer types

One of my colleagues has a fat-phobia and he hates training large clients as he maintains that they are lazy and eat too much. Needless to say, his client base is very mixed, but he tends to attract businessmen and pretty girls. Not an obese person in sight. It sounds like the ideal combination of clients, but what about the ordinary or overweight people?

My weakness is patience – I have very little and tend to roll my eyes often when other people can see my frustration. My resolution for the year is to be more patient and serene and not get upset when a member does not understand how to perform a lunge with a shoulder press in one combination. Testing my weakness, I have landed some clients who are moody, demanding and difficult, but I am going to push through and grow my character. You may wonder where I am going with this confession, but I spent some time thinking about how my client base encompasses mainly women who want to lose weight. Each personal trainer will target certain types of people, whether it is their intention or not.

MODEL MOULDER - There are always the guys who chat to the pretty girls and enjoy toning their young bodies that are not very faulty to begin with. These sessions are much of a spectator sport as other trainers share comments or compliments while trying to wipe away the drool. There is usually much cleavage or cosmetics or both.

PLYO MANIAC – This is the athlete trainer who schedules clients around their training schedules and tend to train triathletes, runners and cyclists. There is much jumping, balance and core work involved in their routines and the clients can manage high repetitions without breaking too much of a sweat.

GAY GROUPIES – Whether it is the “fag hag” that the pretty boys love training with or the gay personal trainer that makes other homosexuals feel comfortable, there is a definite gravitation towards these trainers.

PROBLEM PEOPLE PULLERS – When watching these sessions, sympathetic looks in the trainer’s eyes communicate silently with their colleague who has to endure moaning and bitching from the client. Objections to doing exercises, complaining about instructions and loud panting can be heard by the clients, but the trainer patiently waits for the exercise to be completed. These clients think they are better qualified than the trainer and it is a wonder they have asked for help at all. One unlucky personal trainer seems to attract the difficult clients.

MAKE OVER EXPERT – This trainer tends to find the fattest, unhealthiest client they can source and change their life and waistline within a few months. The success story is great advertising for the trainer and it enriches the client’s life.

CHAT COACH – This is the personal trainer’s other role as psychologist and listener. The stories of the client are long and drawn out and take more than half the session.  After a few sessions, the client wants to know why they are not seeing results. This is when you mention their skinny cheekbones from all the talking.

CORPORATE COACH – The businessperson who does what they are told with little emotion and complaint. They either are the most dedicated clients (as they are determined not to be a failure) or they always cancel because work takes priority.

MOMMY MOVERS – These women tend to share the same trainer as the referrals are high in this group. Just one good result and all the ladies want to look like that one yummy mummy.

GROUPIES – Teaching group training classes exposes the trainer to a whole different aspect of the membership base. This is the place they pick up clients instead of walking the floor.

Identify yourself in these categories and realize that most clients fall into some type of category. This is an internal top secret document that can never be shared with the client.