GETTING THE MOST OUT OF YOUR WORKOUTS
HOW TO GET THE MOST OUT OF YOUR WORKOUTS
You may have heard the term “progressive overload”. That’s just a fancy way of saying that when you hit the gym or do a home workout, you want to make it a bit more challenging than the previous workout. In other words, you are out to set a personal best each and every time you hit the gym. The most obvious way is to up the weights. If you have been squatting with 12kg dumbbells for the last few months then it’s time to bump that weight up. When you increase the weight, you will need to reduce the number of reps and then start working your way up again. For example if you were getting out 15 reps, you might find that when you increase the weight you can only push out 8. That’s fine. Each week you can improve a little more. There are other ways to create progressive overload. You can keep the weight the same and do a few more reps. You might even do an extra set. So many people get stuck in a rut doing 3 sets of 10 reps for everything. This makes little sense. Why not try 5 sets of 5 reps or 4 sets of 8 reps. Or you could reduce the amount of rest time between sets. Instead of resting for 2 minutes, start resting for 1 minute. You can try moving the weight at a different speed – fast reps, slow reps, lowering slowly to resist the pull of gravity. These are all ways to increase the intensity of your workout. Don’t think that the only way to make your workout harder is by increasing the weight.
The workout you do from one week to the next should never be identical. You always want to push yourself just a fraction more because this is the only way to challenge your body and keep the results coming in.
Do not get stuck in an exercise rut or a comfort zone. I know that whenever it comes time to give my Mum a new exercise program her response is always “oh no!”. Just as she was getting good at it too!! She hates when I change her exercises. But if you don’t change them, your body won’t change either and you’ll end up frustrated and decide that exercise doesn’t make a difference. The problem is, if you don’t change your workouts and up the intensity, you really are just wasting your time and going through the motions. I remember when I was working my way up with bench press. It was great as I went from 6kg to 7kg to 8kg and 9kg and eventually up to 10kg. The problem was, after the 10kg weight, the dumbbells started going up in increments of 2.5kg. How on earth was I going to jump from 10kg to 12.5kg? The 12.5 looked so big and heavy. There was no way I could lift that. I actually developed a fear of the 12.5kg weight and so I stayed on the 10’s for way too long. I thought there was no way I could lift them and I’d end up dropping them on my head. Eventually I was doing so many reps with the 10kg weights that my workouts were taking far too long to complete and I knew it was time to bite the bullet. When I did finally go to the 12.5 I can remember how pathetic my first attempt was. I think I only got out 4 or 5 reps the first time. The second week I got worse and struggled to get 2 reps out but improvements began to kick in on the third week. As the weeks went by though, I managed to increase my reps up to 12 and then I started playing with the speed – pushing the weight up really fast and lowering it down slowly before finally moving up to a heavier weight.
So my advice to you is that even though you may be really comfortable with the exercises you are doing right now, comfortable tells you that it’s too easy! It’s time to push yourself a little more. You want to be in the middle of a workout, wondering to yourself whether you are even going to make it through to the end of the workout. Yes, there should actually be a slight feeling of anxiety or concern about whether you have the strength and energy to see the workout through. That’s how I approach all my workouts and somehow I do manage to get through.
Oh and as an aside in case you were wondering, in most gyms the dumbbells go up in increments of 1kg from 1kg through to 10kg. After 10kg they go up in increments of 2kg or 2.5kg depending on the brand of weights.
And you thought MSG wasn’t that bad
We all love our treats – me included. No one can deny how good it is to chomp on some salty chips or feel the sensation of rich, sweet chocolate glide down your throat or cool ice cream on a hot day. Maybe soft drink is your thing… or fast food. My weak spots are home baked chocolate chip cookies (as a kid I used to make double quantity – about 60 biscuits and we’d eat them all up in about three days), chocolate and ice cream… mmm yes I am definitely a sweet tooth!
We all know that “junk food” is bad for us right? But have you thought about why it is bad? Is it just the fat and sugar that’s the problem? Actually no… that’s only PART of it. Unfortunately these foods taste good for one simple reason – food scientists have added lots of chemicals to make them taste good so that we consume more of it and boost their profits. I’m sure you have all heard of MSG. It’s in most Chinese food and nearly all Asian style sauces from your local supermarket. Perhaps you know someone that’s allergic to MSG and gets a headache or feels a bit off if they consume it. You probably didn’t think it was that big a deal. But did you know that MSG is in almost all processed food and there is a huge amount of research data proving that this is a very dangerous food additive? Nearly everything in a colourful bag, packet or box contains MSG. MSG has no taste in and of itself, but it enhances the taste of the food so that it is more flavoursome and delicous. MSG also plays with your brain, making the food addictive and setting up cravings. You feel like you can’t live without that food. I can’t tell you how many of my clients say to me on our first meeting “There’s no way I am giving up xxxx (insert name of favourite food)” when we start talking about nutrition. MSG isn’t just in Asian food. It’s in biscuits, cakes, ice cream, sauces, cereals, many dairy products, and a lot of so called “health” products. Though MSG has been declared safe by government authorities, many people are strongly lobbying for this chemical to be banned. The reason is because it messes with your brain. It makes food addictive, it makes you binge, it causes you to use food as an emotional crutch, it makes you fat and it quite possibly even makes you sick – with evidence indicating it could cause cancers, Alzheimer’s and other degenerative disorders of the brain. If scientists want a fast way to fatten up their laboratory rats or mice, guess what they do? They inject them with MSG. Maybe MSG is making you fat too? You won’t spot MSG easily on the food label. It is disguised under a myriad of interesting names – hydrolysed whey, hydrolysed soy protein, yeast extract, even the seemingly harmless “natural flavours” and many, many other names. This is done on purpose so that astute label readers still cannot detect it. If you want to learn more about this, the internet is loaded with articles. I caution you to think about what you are putting in your mouth and what these chemicals might be doing to your body. Artificial sweeteners are equally bad. So too the many preservatives, colors, flavours and other additives. Would you believe that many pet foods contain synthetic preservatives that are actually known to cause harm to your pets and yet these preservatives are still allowed to be used? The debate has raged for 40 years but profit hungry manufacturers still win out. Do you think it is much different with the food we are consuming? So have a look at your kitchen. What kind of “food” are you eating? If you are mostly consuming processed food, you might want to seriously rethink your diet. My diet is pretty clean but I was hanging onto a couple of comfort foods that I felt I just couldn’t possibly give up. When I learnt about MSG, read the food labels of some of the things I was still eating, and saw that they contained MSG under one of it’s alias names, the decision was easy. Strangely enough, I really don’t miss these foods at all. In all truth it took about 10 days and those foods didn’t even tempt me anymore. I’m not going to tell you what to eat, but for your own health and even for the sake of your kids and family, please have a serious think about what you are putting into your mouth. Are you eating real food or are you chowing down on a chemical cocktail full of toxins?
I think that’s enough for you to contemplate for this instalment so I’ll leave it at that.
Don’t make this mistake with your New Years Resolutions
If you’re the kind of person that makes resolutions, my tip for you is to be realistic otherwise you’re setting yourself up for failure and disappointment. Just as you can’t expect to learn fluent Japanese in a day, you can’t expect to change all your eating and exercise habits instantly either. If you were learning a language you would learn a couple of words and gradually build short phrases and then put it all together into sentences. It’s no different with your body. Make small changes and build on them. Instead of trying to eat 10 fruits and veggies on Jan 1, just aim for a moderate and realistic improvement on what you’ve already been doing. Make this a daily habit and then work on another area. If you aren’t exercising at all, then going to the gym 6 days a week is completely unrealistic. Instead aim to go twice a week or to walk twice a week. Once you master this you can add to it. If you aren’t drinking any water then start by replacing one cup of tea or coffee a day with a glass of water.
Make small changes every day and build on them. Do this consistently and you will start seeing positive changes very soon.