Friday's Nutrition Tip 16/04/2010

Food Groups:

This will be hard to do in a short article, but what we need to establish is the main groups and there main function in as simple a way as not to boggle the mind.

The first Group isn't really a food but again I'd like to get across it's importance.

Water:

To put this as basic as I can so as not to take up to much time, drink water or nothing really works properly, we are predominately water based beings, we use it and loose it during the day and it needs to be topped up, there, simple.

Protein:

Found in foods such as Meats, Fish, Nuts, Tofu & Eggs this guy is the builder/repair man, without protein in your diet keeping muscle toned and developed would be nigh on impossible, but its not just muscle this takes care of, hair & nails, skin & organs, every Fiber of your body has a protein cellular make-up, so not to have protein in your diet would be crazy.

Carbohydrates:

Found in foods such as Rice & Grains, Fruit & Veg, Bread & Crackers, so if protein is the builder this would be the fuel to get him there, this is one of the fuel types that keeps your body moving, gives you energy and burns, protein too can be broken down and used as fuel, but the break down of muscle and the like is something you don't want to do, but with carbs you run the risk of eating to much of the fuel giver and then you store it it the form of fat deposits. The other thing about carbs is the quality, carbs can have a high natural (or non natural) sugar level, if you don't need this there and then to fuel the body it is even faster to get stored.

Fats:

Fats get a bad rap, miss understood and abused, fat is like the patsy, the fall guy, "your over weight because you eat to much fat", not always the case, there are different types of fat, and next week I'll go into that a bit more, but fat is a great fuel source as well as carbs, the one you should never eat is Trans Fats or Hydrogenated Fat, but like I said, I'll talk about fat next week.

Just remember your daily food intake needs to be structured and clean then going wrong isn't a problem.

Exercise of the Day Thursday 15/04/2010

The Plank.

This is one of the simplest exercises to do, yet one of the hardest to master, the exercise itself really targets the core in all directions.

Basics of the exercise, Kneel on the floor, reach out and place your forearms on the the deck, lift knees off the ground, bring your bum down until your in a flat horizontal position, hold everything in tight and hold for a period of time.

sounds easy, try to get it up to 1 minute, then do three to four sets of 1 minute at a time, remember, and this is something I have to tell my clients to do, Breathe!!

Chris Nash

Personal Trainer

PT Fitness

Exercise of the Day Wednesday 14/04/2010

Again I'm going to have to do 2 exercises, yesterday was manic for me and the other trainers here at PT Fitness, the sun comes out and everybody starts to think about what their going to ware, then realize the body could do with a little work too, this is all well and good but it got me thinking about exercises that are easy to perform all year round, I looked through what I've worked on here already and most of those, especially the body weight ones, will keep things where they ought to be, but there's nothing wrong with a few more!!

Exercise 1:

Pistol Squats.

These are nasty little fella's, they start off feeling really easy and then POW, they get you.

Stand in front of a bench, or if at home a solid surface that you can sit on at the hight of your knees, raise one leg just off the ground, outwards and straight, extend your arms out straight in front of your chest, to make it harder hold a dumbbell or other weighted object, then sit down on the bench, let your bum touch then straight back up to the start position, the whole time keeping that one leg off the deck and arms extended, repeat 10 or so times on that leg then change.

To perform the exercise to its proper limit do it like the dude in the picture!

Exercise 2:

Pike Shoulder Press.

Again I find myself putting up another hard-core exercise, but these guys really work you, I find them best off a stability ball but they can be done from a bench.

Their very simular to a push-up in many ways, but the set ups a bit harder. Start by kneeling on the bench, lean down and place your hands out like you would for a push-up a little ways from the bench, this is so you don't end up doing a rolly-poley when you go down, pike your body, like an upside down "L", then perform a push-up

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Chris Nash

Personal Trainer

PT Fitness

Weekly Workout Monday 12/04/2010

I literally just did this workout with my first client of the week and thought I have to put this on here, it really got her going and I hope sets her up nicely for the day, and anybody else who wishes to give it a shot.

As normal always warm up accordingly making sure both upper and lower body are in a ready state for training.

The set is 5 rounds of 5 exercises performed for 10 repetitions each, the weight should depend on your ability, but make sure its heavy enough to push you, but not to heavy so you can't complete, so here we go.

10 x Clean & Heave

10 x Push-Up

10 x Body Row

10 x Dead-lift

10 x Dumbbell Bench Press

Get your Ab's engaged for each exercise, make them clean and push them out.

Enjoy the week

Chris Nash

Personal Trainer

PT Fitness