How’s your weight now?  Did you manage to lose a few pounds, then lose your discipline and now you are a little heavier than before you started?

Did you get bored of going to the gym after you struggled to motivate yourself, did got confused about which exercises actually worked and did you ever get to see a change in your body shape?

The summer of 2010 has been an exciting learning curve for us.  Not only have we been experimenting with some new ways of working, we have also asked our very loyal clients to participate in a small survey.  Huge thanks go out to those of you who have taken the time to participate and respond.

So, where is all of this leading and why such a claim about ‘getting fit’ with the opening statement?  We shall shortly be launching a new service that combines all of the ‘bits’ that we do best and (so you tell us) that you cannot do on your own.

In the meantime, our free consultation, our personal training service and our sports massage service will continue along the successful lines as normal.

Our Guildford-based personal trainers cover the following areas of Surrey:

Guildford, Weybridge, Walton-on-Thames, Godalming, Haslemere, Cranleigh, Shalford, Bramley, Cobham, Esher, Shere, Surbiton, Kingston-Upon-Thames & all surrounding villages

Operating in Guildford and all surrounding towns and villages, our team at Total Personal Training constantly work with a variety of clients whose training needs are different.  Our job as personal trainers is to understand each person’s limitations and potential and work with them to achieve the best results possible.  We’re realistic, but we’re also optimistic, and we believe what sets us apart from other personal trainers is a nurturing and encouraging approach that respects our clients’ individual comfort zones. We want you to feel good about choosing us.

Why Bother?

Many people have spent years battling with their weight, or haven’t found a form of exercise that suits them (or that they enjoy). Faddish diets and conflicting advice often confuse the matter still further.  Total Personal Training exists to change all that.  People want to see results; they want to feel fitter and they want to lose fat and manage their weight once and for all – and keep it that way. Our Total Personal Training team of weight management and fat loss experts get to the heart of what works for each person. We put together fitness schedules that allow clients to feel great, reshape their bodies and tone up the wobbly bits whilst gaining strength, flexibility, endurance and self-confidence.

What are the services?

The first step is a consultation.  Following a thorough health assessment that includes movement patterns, a unique exercise programme is designed.  Again, the plan for everyone is different and will depend on an individual’s circumstances – whether it be returning to training after an injury or reaching a long-term goal. Whatever the situation, our Total Personal Trainers will find a way of working together that’s motivating, inspiring and enjoyable – and brings about results.  However long clients choose to involve Total Personal Training in their fitness and health goals, the foundations will stay with them for life.

Many people are fearful of exercise and shy away from such activities as this is the easy option. Our Guildford-based Total Personal Training team create a relationship that is built upon trust and encouragement – two vital factors in achieving long-term success!

Well, just before the performance commenced, the lights went out, the microphones went silent and darkness sprung itself upon the audience.  Ah, a powercut minutes before the curtains go up could be described as a slight hitch!!!  After a small delay, a few adjustments and lots of apologies, the show went ahead.  Congratulations were in order to all involved in the running of the show. 

So, how is this linked to personal training in Surrey?  Last week one of our trainers arrived at a client’s house ready for the personal training session (which usually takes place in the garden due to lack of space inside).  Suddenly, the heavens opened and the rain was pouring.  Quick thinking and a little bit of adapting allowed the personal training session to go ahead as scheduled, inside the house with only a small amount of floor space.  Our client had a fantastic ‘functional’ workout using very little equipment that included all of the vital components of exercise, i.e. elevated heart rate, strength training and flexibility.

Many clients often WANT personal training, NEED to work with a personal trainer but EASILY find a way to talk themselves out of how the service could actually work for them.  After all, ‘exercise’ is such a huge subject, how do you know where to start? 

No matter what your circumstances, no matter which hurdles you feel as though you have in front of you (lack of time, lack of money, lack of space, lack of knowledge), our leading training methods can be adapted to suit YOU as an individual.  As we have said time and time again on our blog, one size does not fit all where exercise is concerned.  Your body is unique and should be treated that way.  Health is an incredibly valuable asset to have.

So, back to last night’s show.  The applause at the end of the evening was probably louder than if there had been lights and microphones at the start!  It’s easy to overcome any hurdles when you know how.

Sports Massage is More Than Healing an Injury

Today’s realisation - sports massage is more than healing a muscle injury.  Picture the scene…you are a dedicated tennis player who gets so much enjoyment and physical exercise from competing in a game several times a week.  Suddenly, for no apparent reason, your lower back starts to give you pain when you bend and twist.  The next time you play a game of tennis, any kind of movement from your back including twisting, reaching up with your racket and bending forward to hit the shot once again gives you pain.  Your confidence is shattered and you are very disappointed and worried about why your lower back has suddenly starting to give you pain. 

It will be ok, the pain will go away in a few days…so you take a few days rest.

The following week, your lower back pain is still causing problems so it’s time to seek further advice.  Sports massage is the ideal initial treatment.  Any good sports massage therapist should be able to assess your injury and treat the soft tissue (muscles, tendons, ligaments) around the surrounding area of pain.  Sometimes, where the pain presents itself is NOT where the injury is coming from!!!  The mechanics of the body can be rather complicated.

After a few sports massage treatments your lower back pain starts to ease.  However, you are left feeling nervous about playing again, just in case the pain returns. 

The real value of sports massage therapy is not only the treatment plan but the confidence that it can give you in going forward.  The injury (or sometimes just simple muscle tension) happened for a reason…and the good ole’ saying “prevention is better than a cure” really takes on a meaning.  After your assessment and treatments, your sports massage therapist can prescribe corrective exercises, stretches and strengthening movements.  One of the best ways to prevent future problems is to have ‘maintenance’ sports massage on a regular basis – once a month is a good starting point.

If you are serious about training correctly, playing and competing in sport, sports massage will not only heal an injury, but it can also give you the confidence to REALLY enjoy your sport.

1) Avoid ‘starchy’ foods if eating out at night, i.e. bread, pasta, potatoes, rice – regardless of refined (the white varieties) or wholegrain (the brown varieties) all of these types of carbohydrate will sit quite heavily on your digestive system.

2) Deep fried, battered and even pan-fried – any kind of food that has been ‘fried’ in hot oil is likely to be damaged, unless the menu specifically states the type of cooking oil that has been used in the preparation.  If possible, choose anything cooked in olive oil or oven baked in it’s natural fat (such as saturated fat in meat).*

3) If you have a sweet tooth, try switching to a savoury starter instead.  By the time you get to desert, you’ll be full!  Sugar, in it’s refined form such as cakes, biscuits and ice-cream, is empty calories and will easily be converted into fat.  For more information, read our Banish the Fat Around Your Waistline report.

4) Bubbles!  Go for Prosecco or Champagne instead of wine and avoid drinking whilst eating.

5) Dressings – forget the ketchup, mayonaise or creamed sauce!  Go for the olive oil or lemon varieties (as an example) or go without.  Gravy can also be a bad choice if it tastes quite salty.

6) Last but not least, balance your meal with protein and complex carbohydrates, i.e. meat/fish/pulses with vegetables.  As a rough guide, your plate should be 1/3 protein and 2/3 vegetables.

* Whilst too much saturated fat is excessive for our bodies, we NEED a little saturated fat in our diet to:

- transport vitamins around our bodies (A, D, E, K), provide an energy source, coat our nerve endings…and so the list goes on.

Some of our clients have enjoyed great success by following our meal plans as part of their personal training sessions.  Suzie, to choose just one example, lost inches before her winter holiday.  She shares her gratitude here.

Our team at Total Personal Training are certainly amongst the first to promote exercise, both cardiovascular fitness and strength training.  The pros certainly outweigh the cons when an exercise program is balanced correctly…can you guess the keys words there?  Balanced correctly.

“Aerobic (cardiovascular) fitness is the ability to take in, transport and utilise oxygen at the working muscles.”

The positives of cardiovascular exercise are these:

• Strengthens your heart and respiratory muscles
• Can lower blood pressure in the long-term
• Endorphin release – it WILL make you feel good
• Increased capilliarisation and circulation (you recruit more small blood vessels which allows you to carry more oxygen around the body leading to better circulation)
• Can normalise your insulin level in the blood

However, let’s not forget about the flip side of these very positive benefits:

• In the presence of poor nutrition and stress, the benefits of cardiovascular fitness will be much less
• Increases free-radical damage (your body starts to rust) due to pollutants in the greater amount of oxygen that we take in
• Wear and tear on joints with impact training
• Without reaching ‘overload’ you will NOT gain muscle tissue (achieved only during strength training)
• You can get addicted to the endorphin release and it becomes easy to exercise too much without allowing your body to recover

Some years ago whilst creating our Total Personal Training site, we created a page on Osteoporosis (loss of bone density) and how it presents a real threat to our health.  Statistically, around one in three women has osteoporosis…it can go undiagnosed for years. 

In order to maintain and improve bone density, we must create a ‘pull’ on our muscles where they attach to the bone.  Strength training achieves this. The benefits of cardiovascular exercise are listed above.  Notice that maintaining and increasing bone density is not shown on the list because of the absense of ‘overloading’ our muscles.

All too often we see and hear about people who only include cardiovascular work in their exercise program.  In order to optimise your efforts (for health and certainly performance for anyone competing in an event), it is really important to include BOTH cardiovascular and strength work in your exercise schedule. 

I am writing about this today as it is real life.  A client recently came to us to ask our advice.  She has trained for many years, 6 days-a-week, by running and cycling, one hour at a time.  She considers her diet to be reasonable and has maintained a VERY low body weight.  She has also shyed away from strength training.  Sadly, she has just been diagnosed with losing bone density in parts of her spine and hips and is not allowed to exercise at all for the time being.

Low body weight, lack of muscle tissue (which is very lean and burns more calories in the long-term) and not allowing her body to recover between exercise sessions could have caused this very sad situation.  Physical exercise is so important for our bodies and getting the balance right should be at the top of the priority list!

If you want to improve your fitness or want to know how to get started, here are the 4 easy steps in summary:

Firstly, have your body assessed to ‘iron-out’ any muscle imbalances.  If you exercise on muscles that are tight or even weak, it could put you at the risk of an injury.  This is where you find the true value in personal training – an exercise program that is designed for your very own unique body.  One size does not fit all!

From here you start to build stability, balance and aerobic fitness.  As you start to get ‘fitter’ (there are ways and means to measure this exactly) you then go to toning your muscles and finally build strength.

It is really important with any exercise program that it is changed and adapted frequently otherwise your body gets used to the training and soon stops adapting, i.e. you gain no ‘fitness benefits’ from your efforts.  It is also very easy to get stuck in your comfort zone because it feels easy.  This is what happens to many people who go to the gym and do the same thing over and over again…ever wondered why you see the same people every week or month and their body shapes NEVER change?  

With small changes and the right exercises for your body, the benefits are huge!  Just follow the 4 easy steps.

Step 1 – ‘Posture & Stability’

Is your body in optimal alignment? Good posture and a strong core will allow your limbs to move correctly without the risk of injury.  With any exercise program, this is the platform on which you build.  So, this means that for some people, stretching and basic movement patterns should be the start of an exercise program.

Step 2 -’Endurance Phase’

Through cardiovascular and resistance exercise (high reps/low weight), the next progression in getting the most from your training is building endurance. This means working aerobically to build capillaries (small blood vessels) to carry an increased amount of oxygen around your body. This will then prepare you for building muscle tone, for an increased metabolism and better fat burning!

Step 4 – ‘Strength’

This final stage is all about building strength, training your muscles and working different energy systems in your body. A lot of the time, you will be working anaerobically (without oxygen). To get the most from this type of training, it really is advisable to seek the advice of a qualified fitness professional to ensure that the technique and chosen exercises are right for your body.

Tomorrow, check back here for the summary and how to put all of the above together.

The harder the intensity of exercise, the more fat you will burn due to different energy pathways.

What concerned me even more though, was the fact that female readers of the article were being told to exercise without any additional weight and do lots of repetitions (up to 100!) in order to avoid ‘bulking-up.’  If you can do up to 100 repetitions of a certain exercise, then it will not be very effective!

Here are some physiological facts:

• Males produce the hormone testosterone in varying amounts, some more than others.
• Women produce much less testosterone. 
• In order to build muscle bulk you need large amounts of the muscle-building hormone, testosterone. 

For anyone who wishes to build muscle bulk they need to train extremely hard and heavy, possibly even twice-a-day.  The majority fail to do this, especially females due to physiology.  Your nutrition also has to be optimal.

So girls, despite being told to avoid the weights because you’ll get big, it is very very difficult for females to build muscle bulk.

However, strength training is a very important part of any exercise schedule and whilst it is difficult for females to build muscle bulk, it is still very important to keep muscles strong and toned which in turn will burn more fat in the long-term by keeping the metabolism raised.

As I was finishing for the day, there was a knock on my massage room door.  “Just a little something for you.”  I was handed an envelope on which there was a handwritten sentence:

“My back was bad, but now it’s glad.  Thank you for your work.”

I couldn’t help but smile as such a simple sentence said so much.  The envelope was given to me by a lady who had had four sports massage treatments over the course of the past 10 days.  A job well done!