Keith Wood Fitness

It's now official I'm qualified to help people who have long-term conditions. With physical activity, supporting activities, nutrition advice, and lifestyle advice specific to the conditions.

Long-term conditions - arthritis & osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease & high blood pressure, COPD & asthma, mental health conditions, diabetes, dementia, and stroke/MS/Parkinson's Disease.

So I can help people using lifestyle intervention to help manage their common conditions. Which can reduce joint pain, blood pressure, stress, improve breathing. So you can improve overall health, mobility, physiological wellbeing, maintain and or improve independent living as you age.

How to strengthen your heart, bones and brain?

A good piece on resistance training from the guardian. On why we should all be strength training.

So what is resistance training? It is any movement that involves using resistance against your body.

Think bodyweight, dumb bells, kettlebells, resistance bands. It doesn't have to be barbells.

Benefits of strength training:

Reduce blood pressure

Strengthens the heart which can help improve circulation

Improve mood, may help reduce depression

Appears to protect against dementia and cognitive decline

Improves your ability to move around

Increases bone density, ligaments and tendons around your joints

Strengthen your muscle groups

May protect against osteoporosis, and reduces risk of falls and fractures

If your GP offered you a medication with all these mental and physical health benefits. Would you take it?

According to a survey in May 2022 only 7.3% of men and 4.1% of women achieve the recommended strengthening activity. Whereas 67% of UK adults meet the current guidelines of aerobic activity.

Think it's too late to start? You can change your body and your health through strength training at any age. Regardless if you're 20 or 50.

Tell me in the comments if you currently strength train if not, if you would now consider it?

Hey everyone, I need your help!

I am trying hard to make my Personal Training Service something that people really value - and I don't want to fall into the usual fitness industry traps (of which there are many)

So could you tell me - What you think would make a great Personal Trainer, I'd really appreciate it because it will help me focus on what people actually want, rather than assuming

Please drop me a message 🙂

I have 3 personal training slots available for this week that I would like to gift to people who would otherwise be too nervous or uncertain to start their health and fitness journey.

I want nothing in return for these slots, I have the time and would love to use it to help people rather than scrolling on Social Media.

Can you lose weight without exercise?

A question that you may have wondered. If people lose weight by just dieting and not exercising.

Now a lot of people often believe you need to join a gym to lose weight. Where people jump on a cardio machine like a treadmill or go to some group exercise classes.

But the truth is you can 100% lose weight without doing any workouts whatsoever.

So would I recommend it?

Yes and no, what I mean by this is. Your diet should move further up the list of priorities. It should be more important than the gym, and or home workouts. It should really come first because often people focus on the gym and treat diet as an afterthought.

If you care about what you are losing, then you should be doing planned workouts. Ideally, some form of weights or bodyweight training at least 2x per week. To hold on to muscle tone, which you can lose when dieting alone.

Then you can make the process easier by moving often. I am talking about step count here. Firstly, it means you can eat more calories which make sticking to your diet easier.

Secondly, you can increase the number of calories you burn. The more weight you're carrying, the more energy you will be expending when moving around.

If you find this helps give me a 🍌 in the comments.

Why you shouldn't rely on workouts to lose weight

Often the gym, exercise classes or home workouts are the primary focus to get to your weight loss goals.

But unfortunately. Training is a tiny fraction of what you need to get there to improve overall health.

Think of it like this you spend more time outside of a gym or home workout than in it.

So what should you focus on more?

Diet should be the number 1 priority that is often placed after planned exercise. To lower calories is far easier than trying to do it from exercise. Getting the nutrients we need for good health.

The steps you're walking per day/week are often overlooked. It's not looked at as exercise. Because people think they need to get all sweaty and out of breath to get active and lose weight.

Sleep you need to prioritise it more. To rest our body, so we have the energy to move more throughout the day. To control hunger and fullness.

Give me a 💪 in the comments if you found this helpful.

How many sets per exercise in a workout

So when doing exercise in the gym or a home workout. Using weights or some kind of resistance. We perform exercises in sets which is a group of repetitions.

A question I received is, how many sets should I be doing? Is it 3 sets?

Well, this varies on different factors.

You need to look at your exercise history. If you haven't exercised after some time or are completely new to lifting weights. Then you only need the minimum to challenge your body.

Which would be as little as 1 - 2 sets per exercise.

Then gradually increase it over time. When you're ready when it doesn't feel as challenging as your body gets used to it. If you're someone who is more advanced. Then you may need more sets which could be at least 3 up to 6 sets.

But, you need to take the time you plan to exercise into consideration. Do you only have 30 minutes to exercise?

As it will dictate how many sets you can fit into the amount of available time. Most of us don't need to be working out longer than 1 hour.

Then there's looking at the number of times you're doing a movement per session and per week. Where you want to have somewhere around 21 sets total sets, maximum per movement or muscle group per week.

We need to take the right dose with exercise. Too little and won't be effective enough. Too much can be detrimental because of the potential to place too much stress on the body.

If this is helpful give me a 💙 in the comments.

Walk your way to ward off cancer

Walking could be one of the most powerful tools to lower our risk of cancer.

Risks of 13 different types of cancer, lower by getting physically active. Cancers such as breast, bladder, blood, re**al

It could reduce the risk of cancer by as much as 69%. Living an inactive lifestyle can increase the risks of many different cancers.

This is huge the reductions by getting physically active. Simply by walking 45 minutes per day.

So most of us could do with walking more. Many of us could fit in daily.

If you find the idea of 45 minutes of walking a day a lot at the moment. Don't worry, just start at what you can manage. For example, if it's 10 or 20 minutes start there, increase when it feels easy.

Drop a 🚶 if you're ready to take action on walking.

How to make exercise more challenging to make progress?

To get good results from training, we don't want to be doing the same exercises in the same week each session or week.

Because the body adapts. To increase the strength of our muscle groups and bones. We can improve our body's health as we age and shape our body. So we have to increase the demands on our body

There are many ways to skin a cat. But here are a few.

1. Increase the load you're lifting

Often increasing the weight, is the first place people go to increase the difficulty. Which could be adding between 2 to 5kg to the bar you're lifting.

2. Do more repetitions

Lifting the same weight but for more repetitions. Which could be going from 8 repetitions up to 9 repetitions per set.

3. Up the number of sets

You can increase the number of sets for each exercise in a session or specific ones. For example By increasing the number of sets. So if you were doing 2 sets per exercise, you could increase it to 3.

4. Controlling the tempo

It's not uncommon for people to go at 100 miles per hour on an exercise, which enables them to lift heavier weight. Instead, we can play about with the tempo. Slowing the lifting part and or returning the weight back to the starting positions.

5. Perform 1.5 reps

Say the exercise you're doing is a squat. You would lower to the bottom position, move up about halfway. Then lower to the bottom and move back up to standing which would be 1 rep.

6. Pause reps

This is where you pause at some point during an exercise for a desired number of seconds. Which could be in the middle of lifting, returning the weight, or at the bottom of the lowering part.

What method are you going to try?

Top 5 Tips To Burn Body Fat

1. Increase your protein

Add around 3 to 5 portions of high protein foods per day. It helps to keep us full. Many of these foods come from animal products, such as meat, dairy, fish, and eggs. There are also plant-based sources like tofu, tempeh, lentils, etc.

2. Walk at least 6k steps daily

You have heard of 10k steps being the benchmark. But it doesn't have to be that many, especially if you're only getting between 1k - 3k steps per day.

3. Up your fruit and vegetable intake

I'm sure we've all heard of the 5 a day recommendation. Increase it to that amount over time. Because fiber helps our digestion and control our hunger.

4. Strength train 2 - 3 times per week

If you want to focus on losing body fat. Resistance training with bodyweight, resistance bands or weighted equipment. To keep muscle tone. So that we're less likely to lose body fat and hold on to muscle tone or improve body shape.

5. Get 7 - 9 hours of sleep

Making time to get adequate sleep, will keep us well-rested. So that we're energetic, and will be more likely to be active the next day. Our hunger isn't increased and fullness isn't lowered.

How many of these are you doing?

How much to lift to lose weight?

When you're starting resistance training with weighted equipment. People have often asked me how much to lift. Without seeing someone perform an exercise. Finding out how it feels it's difficult to know.

Because there are many considerations.

Exercise experience, for example, if you're new to resistance training. You'll need a different weight compared to if you had several months or years of experience.

You as an individual. Age, s*x, and genetics all play a part in your strength.

How many training sessions each week.

Some things I would suggest to plan are:

What exercises you're going to do. Our strength varies depending on the part of the body getting trained.

How many repetitions, which means how many times we lift and put the weight back down before resting. For example, if you were going to do 8 reps, that would need a heavier weight than say 12 reps.

The tempo or speed you're going to lift. Controlling the movement by slowing the speed down. Rather than going at 100 million per hour. Can make the exercise more challenging, which means you may need to adjust the weight.

Select a weight that will probably be a bit too light rather than one that may be a bit heavy. Because you can see how it feels before moving up.

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Don't be a fair-weather exerciser

I've been doing exercise outside. I'm joining the gym because of the cold, dark, and rainy weather coming in.

This is the very reason it's more important than ever to put time into physical activity outside. Breathing that fresh air in, walking about, exposure to limited sunlight we do get.

Because we'll spend more time indoors.

It's not to say you shouldn't join the gym. As it can be a fantastic tool to improve strength and get your joints moving.

But from a weight loss perspective, it's very difficult to move the same amount in the confines of a gym. Like, increasing step count.

Unless you like the idea of spending a lot of time staring at a wall while on a treadmill.

There are things you can do to work around the winter weather.

1. Go outside before work or during part of your lunch break. When it's lighter.

2. Wear extra layers of clothes, to ensure you're keeping warm.

3. Keep an eye on weather forecasts, to figure out the days and times it's less likely to be wet.

4. If spending 40 - 60 minutes outside doesn't sound appealing. Shorten your walks to 30 minutes or less.

It doesn't have to be exercise outside or the gym. Ideally, you can and should do both.

Follow for more tips if you found this helpful.

Why diets don't work? 🤔

Want to lose weight? So most people go on a diet. But they ultimately don't work... well at least long term anyway.

There are various reasons for this.

Which are things like:

Completely removing specific food groups.

Trying to eat very little, which is hard to maintain.

Eating foods you don't like.

Giving positive and negative labels to certain foods.

Follow the diet until you've lost weight, then reverting to old poor eating habits.

Changing too much in your eating habits all at once.

If diets don't work then what is the alternative?

Be more inclusive when it comes to food rather than excluding, with some flexibility.

Eating foods you like.

Not eating foods you don't enjoy.

Follow 1 or more dietary approaches. Have flexibility that if it stops working to change the approach.

Prioritise getting filling foods in your food intake. Like meats, fish , dairy, fruit and vegetables.

Consider what you're eating throughout the week, including weekends.

How you're eating. For example, are you eating quickly? In front of the TV, while using your phone. Why you're eating. Are you hungry, bored, sad, stressed?

Now losing weight and keeping it off isn't easy. But there are loads of health benefits from maintaining a healthy weight.

Is this helpful? Pop a 💛 in the comments.

Why you don't need to go back on X diet?

I'm not going to go into specific diet names here. But I need to go back on (insert diet) is something I've heard often.

But here are some things to consider.

Why do you need to go back on it?

How will it be different this time?

Why haven't you kept on the diet?

What progress did you make and did you maintain most of it?

Chances are it's not the first time you've went back on the same diet. If you need to go back on a certain diet, has it truly worked?

As surely you would've maintained the outcome you achieved with it.

There can be many reasons for stopping and going back on the same diet. Such as you've invested time into the specific diet.

You couldn't stick to the diet after so many weeks or months. Due to being difficult to follow, because of being overly restrictive.

Reaching your weight loss goal.

Weight loss stopped, causing frustration and losing motivation.

What can you do instead?

Change the dietary approach, to one that isn't too restrictive.

Setting new goals when you've achieved your current goal.

Have an exit strategy. Which can apply to both when you achieve your goal and when progress has stalled. So you know what to do next.

So we're making progress and not regaining the weight back.

If this resonates with you give me a 💛.

Keith Wood Fitness updated their website address.

Why you should aim for fewer workouts?

Many people have good intentions of smashing 5 - 6 workouts per week. When starting exercise because we start off highly motivated.

It's easy to have the mindset of more is better. Because more would give better results, right. But it's not always the case.

For example, back when I started exercise. I started off exercising only 1 day per week, which later on became 2 per week. I know you're thinking that's not much.

True, it isn't really. It's far from ideal or optimal in fact.

Think of it this way I showed up to 1 - 2 workouts every week. Which is around 52 to 104 workouts in a year.

Which is more likely to have an impact on your goals and more importantly your health.

Than planning to do 5 to 6 workouts. Some weeks doing 5, and other times doing 0 exercise sessions.

Why? Because your body is actually training more often over time. As you build a habit up through routine.

Sometimes less is more and what is optimal isn't realistic for many people. Because people have busy lives, hours spent at work. Spending time with loved ones. Doing stuff around the house.

So when you consider starting up exercise. Consider what is realistic based on your available time.

How many times workouts do you do per week? Let me know in the comments.