arctic_fit_pt

Christmas is a great time of year, it is to be enjoyed with friends and family! If like many you want to limit the impact of the festive season here are some helpful tips to get you through! 🎄🎄🎄

🎄Balance is Key: Enjoy the festive treats, but in moderation. Aim for a balance between indulgence and healthier choices. Don’t deny yourself those special treats, but don’t let them take over your entire diet either.

🎄Stay Active: Keep moving! With all the gatherings, it might be tricky to stick to your usual workout routine. But even small bursts of activity, like a brisk walk after meals or a quick home workout, can make a big difference.

🎄Plan Ahead: If you know you’ve got a feast coming up, adjust your meals earlier in the day to accommodate. Planning helps prevent overeating and keeps you mindful of your choices.

🎄Mindful Eating: Slow down and savor your food. Pay attention to hunger and fullness cues. It’s easy to get carried away with all the deliciousness, but taking your time can help prevent overeating.

🎄Stay Hydrated: Sometimes thirst masquerades as hunger. Keep a water bottle handy and sip throughout the day. This can help control cravings and keep you feeling full.

🚀 Age is just a number, especially when it comes to staying active! After 40, keeping your body moving isn't just about staying fit; it's about embracing vitality, boosting mood, and living life to the fullest. Find what moves you—be it a walk in the park, a dance class, or lifting weights. Your body will thank you for the energy boost! 💪

It is important now more than ever to become active! Poor day to day habits in nutrition and inactivity, plus increased stress generated by modern society have seen huge rises in the risk of certain diseases across all age groups!

Don’t be another statistic, it’s not just about reps and steps, it’s about reclaiming your power, boosting your mood and rewriting your story!

Office training tips and getting a little sweaty with the team! 🏋🏻‍♀️💪

I dag besøkte vi Sparebanken 1 Nord Norge.
PT Michael dro dem gjennom ei lita treningsøkt med fokus på stive og støle kontormuskler.

Supert med variasjon i arbeidshverdagen! 🤸‍♂️

Om din bedrift har lyst på bedriftstrening så er det bare å ta kontakt. 🤗

It is great to be involved with this and help people stay strong and independent! My group enjoys our sessions as we make it if fun and work with exercises to help them in everyday life. Elvis is the choice of playlist too. 💪

Arnt ble lam etter en bilulykke. Nå hjelper han andre med trening. Hver tirsdag leder pensjonisten Arnt Horsberg et 50-talls eldre på trening på Family Sports Club Harstad. – Vi trener ikke for å bli ung, men for å bli gamle, ler Arnt.

It is great to help people make a change in life. You have to step outside your comfort zone to open up a whole new world of opportunity!

Annonsørinnhold: Slik gikk Marius (37) ned i vekt og bygget muskler samtidig. – Livet er totalt forandret! – Jeg er mektig imponert over den framgangen Marius Vangen har hatt de siste månedene, sier personlig trener Michael Nicholas hos Family Sports Club Harstad.

It is never too late or too early to start something positive! 💪

There is never a perfect time to begin anything, somehow you just have to make the time. ✅✅✅

Put things in place to start today, you are one step closer to changing your life 💥💥💥

It is time to start back full time after an amazing 4 months with my beautiful little girl! In that time she has developed so much, it has been a joy to be there every step of the way, the Norwegian system I salute you. We are so proud of her! She is the motivation to work hard and be positive everyday!

It is now time to help as many people as possible reach their fitness goals and lead a healthy long life!

🏋🏻‍♀️ Core Training 🏋🏻‍♀️

Do you bolt on some ab crunches at the end of a workout? 🤪

There is a lot more too it than trying to get a visable 6 pack! Training the core effectively can lead to improved efficiency of movement, heavier lifting, better balance and even reduce the risk of injury! ✅

It is made up of the groups of trunk and hip muscles that surround the spine, abdominals and hip. 🏋🏻‍♀️

Taking the time to develop all areas of the core will ensure reduced pressure on the spine and improve the efficiency of movement between the upper and lower body. I liken this to building your strength through the body from the inside out! ✅🏋🏻‍♀️

If you perform compound movements within your training plan such as squat and deadlift, you will also be developing your core strength. The muscles have to work hard to stabilise your body through the completion of the movements. Gradual weight progression over time with good technique, will go a long way in developing your core . 🏋🏻‍♀️🏋🏻‍♀️🏋🏻‍♀️

Exercises that will compliment your current training plan -

🏋️ Glute bridge (great as part of a squat warm up also).

🏋️ Bird dog (useful as a low back exercise and as part of full body warm up).

🏋️ Band training - Pallof press variations (see a post I have done previously)

🏋️ Single leg RDL - challenging exercise on leg day that puts a focus on stabilising the core.

🏋️ Farmers walk - stimulates many muscle groups around the stabilisation of the spine.

🏋️ Front squat variations

Certain exercises can be performed at the start of a workout (prior to lifting) as part of a focused warm up (bird dog and glute bridge) 💪.

Developing core strength geared towards improving movement should be the goal, not for the aesthetics of a six pack (that will be a byproduct). 💪

🏋🏻‍♀️ Motivation Monday 🏋🏻‍♀️

We all battle each day with lack of time and tiredness to find the motivation to be active! 👍

Focus on how good it will feel once you have completed the activity - be positive. ✅

Make a decision to be stronger than your excuses! 💪🏋🏻‍♀️

🏋️‍♂️ Fats 🏋️‍♂️

The foods on this list may surprise you.🥑

The truth is a mix of fats are found in most foods, it has been wrongly demonised in the past and here hopefully I can make it a bit clearer. 🙏

A lot of people may think, when you talk about fat in the diet you are referring to a greasy fry up on Saturday morning, pasties or chips cooked in a deep fat fryer. 🍳

Fat has 9 calories per gram so it has the highest energy content compared to carbohydrate and protein. ✅

It is very important for a healthy balanced diet! The fat in the food we eat is a source of essential fatty acids that the body does not produce! They are essential as they allow the body to absorb important vitamins. 🏋🏻‍♀️

There are 2 main types of fat in food - saturated and unsaturated. ✅

Saturated

Depending on your current diet, it could be beneficial to aim to reduce your intake of food and drinks containing saturated fats, as they can raise your cholesterol and increase the risk of heart disease! ❤️

Examples - butter, lard, fatty cuts of meat, sausages, pies, hard cheese, chocolate, biscuits.

Unsaturated

A great way to reduce saturated fat in the diet is to replace with foods containing more unsaturated fat and help lower cholesterol. ✅

Examples - olive oil, rapaseed oil avocados, nuts (almond, Brazil and peanuts). A great source of Omega-3 is oily fish (kippers, salmon, trout, sardines and mackerel), it is important as it is not made by the body, so we need to obtain it from these sources. 🎣 🐠

It is recommended to at eat at least two portions of fish a week (1 being oily fish) to ensure you get your Omega-3. ✅✅✅

If your goal is fat loss remember to consider the calories in your choices. Calorie defecit is the key focus here. 💪

🚶‍♂️N.E.A.T 🚶‍♂️

Non-exercise activity thermogenesis.

It sounds complicated but it is actually very simple. It is the energy you use (calories burned) during all the movement you perform outside of exercise sessions. 🚶

The main examples of this are walking, cleaning, shopping and gardening.
🛍🧑‍🌾🪴🏡🧹🧽

Thinking of ways to increase your N.E.A.T is a particularly great way to compliment a weight loss goal 💪

One of the most impactful ways to increase your energy expenditure is finding ways to increase your daily step count! 🚶‍♂️🚶‍♂️🚶‍♂️🚶‍♂️🚶‍♂️🚶‍♂️🚶‍♂️🚶‍♂️🚶‍♂️🚶‍♂️🚶‍♂️

How can I do this? ✅✅✅

- Walk to work

- Park the car further away from a destination then walk the rest.

- Take the stairs not the lift.

- Feeling stressed? Avoid the fridge and
take a walk.

- Set a daily step count goal- Start with 5000 building towards 10-12000.

You are getting the idea? ….. move more!!! 🚶‍♂️🧹🏌️🪴🏋🏻‍♀️🧽

🏋️‍♂️ Motivation Monday 🏋️‍♂️

When times get tough continue to move forward - keep taking those small steps chasing down your goals, don’t let anyone tell you it’s hopeless!

Imagine what you can achieve being a little bit better each day! 🏋️‍♂️😎👍💪

🏋️‍♂️ Scale weight 🏋️‍♂️

There is more to a weight loss journey than you may think. ✅

There are many different reasons in how weight can fluctuate. As an example, the time of day you weigh, how hydrated you are and for women the stage of the menstrual cycle you are at, can all impact greatly on your weight from day to day. 💪

Obviously when you step on the scales and don’t see progress towards a goal it can be difficult to take and understand. 😳

The reasons could be many but what you must consider is that scale weight is just a part of the bigger picture. ✅

What you don’t consider enough is the added benefits of training well and focusing on your food intake. ❌

The scale does not tell you
- How much better you feel
- The new found energy levels you have
- The body composition changes
- The gained strength you have achieved
- The change in the fit of your clothes
- Improved sleep patterns.

The message here is to look at all the positive things you are doing for yourself! If you keep grinding at something and seek the guidance when needed the results will come! ✅💪🏋️‍♂️

🏋️‍♂️Monday motivation🏋️‍♂️

Quite often we seem to have enough initial motivation to make a start, towards the change we want to see! 💪

It can be after a short period that motivation may start to dwindle and life can get in the way. If you make small changes from day one, there is a good possibility that they will become habits. Creating and engraining these habits will build the foundation to make the next steps seem more possible. ✅

Every individual is different. Start today and make one positive change. Each week build in new changes that become habits you want to keep 👌🏋️‍♂️✅

🍟 Carbs 🍚

No one food or macro group (carbs, protein or fat) makes you gain weight. ❌

Gaining weight is an accumulation of eating more calories than you burn on a daily basis. This replicated day after day, week after week, will lead to increased fat on your body. ✅

Your daily calorie intake (energy) is made up of carbs, protein and fat.

1g Carbs = 4 Kcals
1g Protein = 4 kcals
1g Fat = 9 kcals

The average man burns 2600 kcals and women 1800-2000 kcals per day. This is known as Total daily energy expenditure or TDEE. 📈

If that man eats 3200 kcals everyday for 1 month, he will gain weight. As he would be consuming 600 kcals more than he burns (2600 kcals) on a daily basis. ✅

This brings me to the main point of this post… carbs don’t make you fat, calorie surplus consistently does. 👍

Every diet you see advertised claiming to be the answer to your prayers - the main goal is to create a calorie deficit! ✅

In terms of our average man, this could mean eating 2200 kcals, which leaves him in a 400 kcal deficit in relation to his total daily energy expenditure (TDEE). This would be a very steady and safe way to achieving weight loss🏋️‍♂️

Carbohydrates are very important in a balanced diet, they give us energy to train and fibre to support digestion. ✅

Try tracking your calorie intake for 2 weeks using a calorie counting app (myfitnesspal, Lifesum, Yazio) and a small food weigh scale.

You will learn so much about what you eat. It will allow you to identify the higher calorie meals/foods you consume that may need consideration when sticking to a sustainable calorie goal. There is no need to eat a salad only diet for 3 months, as that is not sustainable long term!! ❌

🏋️Single leg training🏋️

Why? ….Have you ever considered how much time you actually spend on one leg? It’s a lot… when we walk, we are on one leg every step we take!! 🚶‍♂️🚶‍♂️🚶‍♂️

Apply this to running and other movement patterns within sports and you have a great reason to single leg train!!! ✅ 🏃🏃⚽️🏉

1️⃣ It improves proprioception (position and motion sense) - simply put, you improve your balance.

2️⃣ It helps even out any muscular imbalances (isolates a particular limb for added focus). It can result in injury prevention and facilitate rehab.

3️⃣ Improves core stability - the stimulus requires you to stabilise across your body to maintain balance and positioning. (Intensity can be varied by the position of the load).

4️⃣ Sport specific - where needed you can adjust the exercise to mimic the sport of the athlete. For example side lunges can help improve explosiveness when changing direction in a particular sport. It also adds variation reducing the risk of overuse injuries.

Exercise summary options🏋️‍♂️

Beginner -
Bodyweight reverse lunges
Single leg, leg press machine

Intermediate -
Forward lunges with added load
Walking lunges with added load

Advanced -
Bulgarian split squats
Single leg RDL

🏋️ Monday Motivation 🏋️

In the current social media frenzy, unrealistic expectations on how we should look, feel and think cloud our minds from focusing on doing the basics right! ❌

The truth is nobody is perfect and what you sometimes see online is someone trying to sell you the idea of what perfection is (and how you can quickly get it- yawn!). 🤬

Whatever you define perfection to be, just remember that it could be different for someone else! ✅

If you are starting out or trying something new in training don’t be afraid to not be perfect! We all start somewhere and people at elite level are still far from the finished article! 🏋️‍♂️

The fact you are in the gym and working hard is what counts. Yes we can ALL get better at technique but that will come with being coachable and showing up day after day, week after week! ✅🏋️‍♂️

🍟Combat those cravings🍫

It is something we experience on a daily basis but some people are better than others at defeating those intense cravings.

The main tactic to focus on is stopping the cravings occurring in the first place! Which can be addressed by making slight changes to things we do daily. ✅

1️⃣ Eat mindfully - eat enough at meal times, chew your food, focus on eating slowly, get good sources of lean protein.

2️⃣ Drink enough water - min 2 litres a day, try drinking a glass before each meal.

3️⃣ Eat more vegetables (half a plate for main meal) - will have a positive impact on blood sugar (spikes cause the cravings).

4️⃣ Sleep (8 hours) - regulates your hormones that impact appetite.

5️⃣ Manage the foods you crave - It is possible and more sustainable long term to keep them in your diet. Adjust with smaller amounts and within a weekly calorie target. (Maybe don’t buy them for a couple of weeks, then reintroduce in smaller quantities around meal times).

🏋️‍♂️ Monday motivation 🏋🏻‍♀️

The most successful people all have one thing in common … they work harder than the rest! ✅

If you put in the effort, you will not be far away in achieving what you want! 🏋️

Work hard .. the results will come!

🏋️ Busy lives 🏋️

It can seem daunting to get in your desired number of training sessions a week!

The combination of family life, friends, work, house renovations, whatever it may be, can get in the way!! ❌

Over the course of our training life we will get busier periods that require us to be more efficient in our gym time. ✅

I would advise for people weight training up to 3 times a week (which is very normal) to focus on full body workouts. This way you hit all the muscle groups more times in one week. 🏋️

Training full body 2-3 times a week gives you rest days between each session where you can focus on step count to keep active and get your daily energy expenditure up! 🏃‍♂️

Within these full body sessions focus on including the key movement patterns for a strong body.
⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️

🏋️Squat (eg back squat or goblet squat)

🏋️‍♂️Hinge (eg Deadlift, RDL variations)

🏋🏻‍♀️Lunge (eg forward or reverse lunges)

🏋️Pull (eg Lat pulldown, seated row, Pendlay Row)

🏋️‍♂️Push (Barbell bench press, Dumbell incline chest press, push-ups )

This will allow you to get the most out of your limited sessions!

💦 Water 💦

Your body is approx 60% water!

That is correct… forget your highly marketed pre workout for a second and get the basics right! 💦🏋️

It doesn’t need to be explained that getting in enough water in each day will improve your bodily function! 🏋️🚴‍♂️🏌️‍♂️🏃‍♂️

1️⃣ It helps you get the best out of your training performance - being dehydrated will lead to lack of energy and feeling of fatigue.

2️⃣ Brain function - Dehydration will impair how your brain works, stay on top form and supply that grey matter to keep that mind muscle connection firing.

3️⃣ It can help promote weight loss by increasing satiety (feeling full) and boost metabolic rate (helps delivery of nutrients and removal of waste from cells).

4️⃣ Improve the functioning of your digestive system and help prevent constipation.

Drink at least 8 cups a day (2-3 litres) and on days when activity and sweating levels are high increase this even more. 💪

How much do you drink? Get the basics right!! ✅

🏋️ Motivation Monday 🏃‍♂️

Stop waiting and get after it this week! No better time to start or step up the training on your way to feeling great! 💪🏋️

Do it today!!! 🏋️🚴‍♂️🏃‍♂️🏌️‍♂️

🏋️ Progress 🏋️

It was great to catch up with former client Gjøran today where we also had a little review of his current plan. ✅

Considering he had very little training experience when he first visited for a consultation his progress has been great to be a part of. He is very much a gym success story. 🏋️

His initial goal was to lose weight and get stronger. He has dropped from 109kg to 87kg but now sits around 89kg as his focus now is building muscle. His fat % has dropped from 25 to 17 and his muscle mass and lifting numbers are on the rise! 💪

The stats are just the start! His knowledge and confidence in the gym has now gone to new levels. His success has inspired him to apply for a job with us here at Family sports club and he now works at the gym on a part time basis! Training is very much a positive, enjoyable part of his life!! 🏋️

This is why we work as personal trainers - to make an impact on peoples lives!!

Book a consultation - You could be next!!

🚴‍♂️ Is spinning enough? 🏋️

Spinning has had a huge impact in helping people get active. The buzz that you get in working hard as a group to power through the session is hard to beat! ✅

Cardio based exercise is by all means the most accessible too. Hopping on a bike in a spin class is a lot less daunting than walking around and navigating a gym on your own (particularity for beginners). This is where spinning really works, it facilitates people getting involved in a positive active environment. I have helped many clients make that next step into the weights gym where the benefits are endless. 👌👌👌

If fat loss is the goal then nutrition should be the focus, the main aspect to look at is calorie defecit- Energy in through the food you eat vs energy out (daily activity). ✅

Spinning adds to the calories burned in your daily activity, this is the same for lifting weights. They both help to facilitate losing weight if worked in conjunction with a calorie defecit. 🏃‍♂️🏋️🚴‍♂️

Lifting weights differs from traditional cardio and is a great option alongside a fat loss nutrition plan because not only do you burn calories during the workout but you burn more calories in the hours following (it takes energy to repair and build muscle). ✅

This combined with the added benefits of becoming stronger, improving balance and increasing bone density (reducing the risks of osteoporosis), ensures a stronger more active life! 🏋️🏋️🏋️

To sum up - combining spinning and weights in your plan I feel is optimum to your health. If you dislike weights so much then that’s ok, if spinning gives you what you want and you achieve your goals then … spin on! 🚴‍♂️🚴‍♂️🚴‍♂️👍👍👍

The important thing is to be active and consistent and it needs to be something you enjoy! ✅

🏋️ Take that step 🏋️

Reaching your fitness goals is a combination of many small changes (steps) over time. 🏃‍♂️

It could be increasing your daily step count and progressing to reach the top of a local mountain or it could even mean drinking 2 litres of water a day. 💦

These are all steps in a bigger picture of overall health. Imagine a small change every week…. this will lead to great things after 1 year. 🚴‍♂️🏃‍♂️🏋️

Take the step -

🏋️ Calorie Defecit 🏋️

If you are a healthy lifestyle enthusiast you will know this term, but also if you are new to the health and fitness community then you will certainly be coming across this very soon too. 👍

The truth is the only scientifically proven way to lose weight (fat) is by being in a calorie defecit.

Energy in (food) 🍔 🍟 Vs Energy out (Daily energy expenditure) 🏃‍♂️🏋️🏌️‍♂️

Essentially all the fad diets that you come across while scrolling on your phones essentially all attempt to put you in a calorie defecit. But there is no need to cut out food groups or do stupid things to achieve this! Demonising a certain food or food group is counter productive, as for sustainability long term it is much more achievable if you can eat foods you enjoy 🍔.

But… we are all different and the optimum number of calories to be in healthy sustainable calorie defecit is specific to the individual. ✅

Eating a very low 1200 calories for a sustained period of time will result in weight loss in the short term, but it will be setting you up to fail long term. ❌

It can lead to various side effects such as nutrient deficiencies, nausea, dizziness and the obvious one, hunger! It will lead to lack of energy, motivation and a jump back into old habits! Have you done a juice diet and then gone back to how it was a few months later? 🤷‍♂️

It is recommend to sit around a 500kcal defecit per day to be in a safe sustainable state for steady weight loss ✅

As an example the average man will expend approx 2750 kcal per day. If they eat 2250 kcal per day this will facilitate fat loss. No need to eat 1500 calories and feel hungry! 👍

Speak to a personal trainer who can guide you through this journey! We are here to help…not take selfies! 🤳 😘

🏋️ Reaching Goals 🏋️

It is inevitable you will hit bumps in the road on your fitness journey ✅

It is very important you set a path with check points along the way to review and reset 🏋️.

At these check points it is always good to reflect back on your reason for starting the process and then tap yourself on the back for how far you have come 🏃‍♂️🏋️✅

🏋️ Monday motivation 🏋️

One of the first Nike statements I was introduced to as an employee, was phrased by co founder and world class track coach Bill Bowerman! 🏃‍♂️

‘If you have a body you are an athlete’

This is so true and embraces the mindset that we can all take part, enjoy the challenge and make a difference to our health! 🏋️

We all are capable of achieving things we never thought possible, you just have start…..and keep showing up!! 👍

🏋️ No pain no gain! 🏋️

How often have you heard this?

I think the first thing we should clear up is you don’t need to have pain to get results! 👎

It is also important to understand the difference between sharp or acute pain (joint or muscle) and the gradual build up of discomfort/burn you get from pushing hard in a particular activity. 🏋️

Pushing on through the intense sharp pains could be a big mistake, so it is important here to stop and assess, it could save a long term injury! ✅

Understanding the discomfort/burn you feel as a weight training set builds is important to optimise your potential results. This often comes with experience, but sometimes it is necessary to push on and embrace this type of pain. 💪

But… any consistent, sharp pains during training or long term pain in a joint or muscle should be assessed by a professional. ✅

The pain you sometimes get in the next few days following a workout is called DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness), this is due to microscopic tears in the muscle created by pushing a muscle hard. This will clear up with a focus on recovery and most importantly rest.

Rest is just as important as the training element for our bodies to adapt and flourish! 🏋️🏋️🏋️

An intelligently programmed training plan will ensure minimal muscle soreness following a session and limit the risk of injury for the future ✅✅✅