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Thursday, 11th April

Moving on with the hip and back problems, there is plenty for you to do when it comes to staying and becoming more active, which is the long term answer to having good back and hip health.

Most back problems in particular are down to too much weight around the trunk area, so you can see how important eating healthily, keeping your weight under control is and staying active are when it comes to living a pain free life.

Non-weight bearing activities are the key, running for instance is your worst choice available although it can have good weight loss results. The downside risks with running with a bad back are monumental, so this is why I firmly DO NOT recommend running if you have any of these problems.

Walking is kinder on the joints, but as I said yesterday, try and make sure your trainers are never more than 6 months old, and you change them regularly. Also, don’t be tempted to wear your OLD trainers either! If you do, even for silly little things like working in the garden, doing little jobs around the hourse, they WILL cause a problem for your back and hips even on these odd occasions. They need to go straight in the bin!

Swimming can be good, but avoid breaststroke, many good physios recommend you avoid this particular stroke because it works against the body’s natural motion, and can put strain on your back and shoulders, and hips for that matter.

Weight training is recommended with only lighter weights and strict form, using benches for support when possible for your back. This will strengthen your back as long as the exercises are sensible, obviously power moves and big heavy lifts would do more harm than good so please avoid. I would try a whole body programme of around 6-8 exercises for 3 sets of 8 repetitions, this would be done twice a week with a three day gap in between.

You can see that there are many options, and staying active is key but the effort must go in on your food too, or you wont get the results you need to relieve the pain for good.

Twitt
Posted on

Wednesday, 10th April

Leighton makes a good point about hip and back problems, and how to handle it and he is in good company.

It is estimated that around 87% of people in their working lives will experience a back problem that will interfere with their work, often causes absences, and sometimes long prolonged absences.

The problem is often treated with painkillers, and in more extreme cases an operation.

Prevention and managing the problem therefore becomes paramount.

I have talked a lot about back and hip problems in the past, so its time to re-address it once again.

First thing to realize that your back is related to your hips, hamstrings and thighs in certain ways, so if you have a problem with one of these, you are likely to get a problem with your back.

Laying on your back used to be the treatment years ago, but doctors encourage movement now.
First step is changing your trainers, wearing trainers more than 6 months will cause problems, even if you don’t run!

Buy running shoes, even for light walking as most of the scientific research goes into these shoes, and offer tremendous support and are good for 500 miles, or 6 months of normal use. Most back, knee and ankle problems can be traced back to poor footwear. Keep your walking to low durations, for example 20-30 minutes maximum.

Buying a swiss ball or fit ball or whatever you want to call it, you know those big balls you sit on? These will become very valuable to you.

Start by sitting on the ball, and trying to balance yourself.

Then when you feel comfortable with that gently walk forward with baby steps for four steps, then walk back, try this for ten times.

Then go on you back, and place your legs over ball, with your hands by your side and head on the floor (you don’t want to strain your neck). Then roll side to side for 10 as far as you can go WITHOUT PAIN. This is entirely therapeutic and will feel as if you are doing a lot of good, freeing the stiffness in your hips and back at the same time.

Do the ball exercises Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 3 lots of each please.

These are easy steps straight away to make your back feel a lot better and a lot stronger. More tomorrow.

Twitt
Posted on

Tuesday, 9th April

Decisions you make right now will affect the rest of your day, sometimes the rest of the week, and usually the rest of your month, some people often make crucial decisions that affect the rest of their lives and other people’s too!

If you want to be faster, stronger, have more endurance, have more energy, look at your best for more of the time, get into clothes that you haven’t got into for 20 years, have more vitality and in general have a much better quality of life, then you have to DECIDE right now to do it, and set in motion a chain of events that will allow you to achieve some or all of those things.

You have to decide right now that making your workout happen tonight is a non-option thing! By that, I mean you should leave no other possibility, no other option but to make your workout, and when you get there, you give it your very best putting other things out of your mind for around 30 minutes, surely you can do that!

If you’re shopping today, take the chance that you may put weight on RIGHT OUT of the equation by shopping well for good food! Simple as that! Nobody is forcing you to put that extra pizza in your basket, nobody is forcing you to put a multi-bag of crisps in your basket, what is all of that alcohol doing in your trolley? Can you really imagine it NOT piling on a load of body fat on to your body? Are those ready meals really going solve anything or make things a lot worse?!!!

Good food, full of nutrients when possible will make a huge difference to you full stop, and your trolley should be full of them!
Decisions you make today, tomorrow and the rest of the week will have a POWERFUL effect on how you look and feel, don’t pretend that’s not true so lets firm up that decision making process and get things right today, and leave no other outcome possible apart from a positive one!!

Twitt
Posted on

Monday, 8th April

The breaking of the very cold weather is already signifying my outside activity programme gathering much more pace.

For those of you who think it’s still too cold to get out there, you would be partly right, but you would be really missing out on some fun workouts, as well as endless health benefits.

Venturing out in this weather is always hard when you are trying to take big gulps of fresh air in. The shock of cold air can affect you more than you thought, and here’s the best way to get around it.

Let’s say you are doing some running outside, and especially the short and sharp stuff. There are a few things to consider.

By running short distances at near maximum speeds, your lungs will demand big things, and this cold air will quickly make you more uncomfortable than you normally are. So let’s say you normally spend 25 minutes outside working out, i would tend to HALVE that time. Chances are that 10-12 minutes will easily be enough in the cold working near to maximum intensity.

I would then finish off the rest of the workout inside, giving your lungs a chance to recover and get through the rest of your workout in a more forgiving atmosphere.

The great news is though that each week, you will be able to train outside for longer as your lungs get used to the cold, leading to full duration workouts outside.

From this week, it should start to get warmer anyway, and this is why you will likely be doing far more workouts outside.

Twitt
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Friday, 5th April

The role of speed and agility should not be limited to the “young and sporty”.

How many of you went to school, took part in sports to some degree, then may have even gone on to play for the school team, maybe a proper club team and maybe for a number of years……………….then everything stops!!!

You may have a couple of years off, sometimes a number of years off, and when you try to get back into exercise, the agility and speed you once had in school for example has disappeared!

You feel stiff as a board and you always put it down to “old age”, even though you may only be in your 30’s or 40’s!!! Hardly old age in my book!!

The great news is that there’s many ways around this but you do have to start slowly.

Getting a more general programme that concentrates on making your core stronger is the way to start, getting your muscles more flexible and allowing them to strengthen. You need to stick at this for a couple of months until your body recognizes that its ready to improve again, and you suddenly start realizing that you are not really “too old” at all, that you can feel better, that your clothes start to feel looser and that you can show improvements in your training, and incremental improvements start becoming a normal way of life for you.

Its at this stage you can think about doing more speed and agility work.

Fast footwork sessions are suddenly an option, backward running can be done, light sprint work is back on the agenda, and a whole host of techniques I love to take people through.

Once you get through this work, automatically you will start to remember the way you were in school or in your sports team, you will be a lot more agile, much faster and literally a big spring in your step!

This is what a much more complete programme is all about, and this is why I so feel that amazing results are always consistently possible.

Twitt