In this weeks blog, we at PCHC Personal Training Mulgrave will talk about how we can change up our resistance training programs. Often when lifting, we just focus on getting the weight up and down, doing the required sets + reps. However these is more to lifting weights than this, for example we have concentric vs. eccentric vs. isometric phases, the time we spend in those phases, pauses during or after a rep etc. Each of these variables relate to Time Under Tension (TUT) and Tempo Training and all of which can be altered to help get a different desired effect. We at PCHC Personal Training Mulgrave will go into more depth of these concepts, and highlight ways you can be adding it into your training today!

Firstly, what is Time Under Tension (TUT) training? PCHC Personal Training Mulgrave

TUT refers to how long a muscle is under strain during a set. Typically we complete around 8-12 reps in a set, which can last around 15-30s. This time aspect is the time under tension. The concept behind TUT training is the longer we put a muscle under loads of strain, the greater the breakdown of muscle = bigger muscles! Mentioned earlier were those terms CONCENTRIC, ECCENTRIC & ISOMETRIC these are extremely important in time under tension.

Concentric = When the muscle is shortening and contracting (e.g. Push phase in a bench press, up phase in a squat etc.)

Eccentric = Also known as negative phase, when we the muscles are lengthening while producing a force. (e.g Lowering down phase in a bench press, down phase in a squat etc.)

Isometric = Producing muscular force however the joint angle does not change. (e.g. plank, wall sit, glute bridge hold etc.)

Check the images below to help visualise this!

Concentric vs. Eccentric vs. Isometric

Now that we have those terms figured out, we can apply them into our training and really focus on them and how they can help alter this time under tension!

Examples of TUT

 1) 3-0-1-0 – 40s (10 reps)

The numbers above represent the different phases;

• The first number always represents the ECCENTRIC phase,
• The 2^nd is a isometric hold at mid point
• The 3^rd the concentric phase
• The 4^th a isometric hold at the end point.

With this example, we are lowering the weight down for 3s (bench press) then lifting, pushing, pulling etc. the weight up again for 1s. This is a very simple tempo method, really working on our muscles eccentrically. The benefits we get from eccentric exercises are:

• Increased muscle size: Our muscles are strongest eccentrically, therefore they can take greater loads.
• Greater metabolic cost: Boosts our resting metabolic rate.
• Improved muscle control: You can understand how to control your lifts, being body aware.
• Decreased injury rate: Eccentric exercises help improve our bodies connective tissues, which is important for rehab of injuries. For example eccentric focused exercises are great for decreasing re-occurring hamstring strains.

2) 2-0-2-0 (10 reps)

Look above for the breakdown again of what each second represents.

With this example we are matching the concentric & eccentric phases together with no rest periods between each rep. This method of a continuous tempo can help create a great base of strength for your compound lifts (e.g. Deadlift, Bench Press, Chin ups etc.). It is also another simple tempo to follow.

3) 2-1-1-0 (10 reps)

This method works on holding the weight at the midpoint of the exercise, a much more advanced method! The great thing about this form of lifting is that it requires the muscle to be doing the work alone, rather than using momentum. Holding for 1s at the midpoint will prevent us from bouncing the weight back up for the concentric phase. This creates a far greater TUT which is what we want to get those muscles growing!

Tips:

• Avoid locking out your exercises, such as holding the bar at the top during a bench press, or locking our legs out in the leg press. This doesn’t place any stress on our muscles, only our joints! We aren’t gaining anything at this point.
• Focus on form: You’ll find yourself fatiguing faster with these methods, which is awesome! What we want, however when we fatigue, the first thing to go is our form, so make sure you keep this up. Remember coaches are always around to make sure this is good J
• Be prepared for DOMS (Delayed Onset of Muscle Soreness), the longer we complete the eccentric phase the greater the DOMS we get. So don’t be surprised to pull up a lot sorer than usual after your first few sessions of trying these methods!

As always, check out our FaceBook page to find out more about Time Under Tension, tempo training and all things resistance training! See what we can offer you or as always come in and see the team at PCHC Personal Training Mulgrave to book a free consultation and chat about how we can help you with your training today!

The PCHC Team.

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We all love our food and understand its importance for sustaining a healthy lifestyle; we also love (we hope!) exercise and its importance to sustaining a healthy lifestyle. These two aspects, nutrition & exercise, go hand in hand, and are crucial for maintaining optimal health. In this week’s blog, we at PCHC Health Club Clayton will go into more detail on why proper nutrition is important.

Food and Energy – PCHC Health Club Clayton

Food is what gives our body energy, the energy to complete day-to-day tasks, the energy to think, the energy to do absolutely everything. When we exercise we use our muscles, lungs, heart etc. which all require additional energy. Therefore it makes sense for us to be supplying our body with increased energy supplies. Via adequate nutrition we can be energised and get the best out of our workouts and help our body recover!

Here are some key food groups that relate to fuelling/repairing our body for pre/post exercise.

Carbohydrates:PCHC Health Club Clayton

Carbohydrates are our main source of energy, once eaten they are broken down into glucose. An energy source readily available for the body to use, found in foods such as bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, beans etc. An important feature of carbohydrates is that they can be stored within our muscles/liver as a fuel source called glycogen. This fuel source can be used for when our body becomes low in energy, acting like a backup battery for our bodies energy levels! If we don’t have enough carbohydrates in our body, we can have symptoms of fatigue, drowsiness, headaches etc. If we consume too many carbohydrates they can be turned into triglycerides, a type of fat that in high levels can be detrimental to our health!

A table below highlights the amount of carbohydrates in grams you should be consuming per day based on you activity levels.

PCHC  Clayton – Carb Recommendations per kg of body weight

This one is quite easy for pre/post exercise, it is all about providing energy (pre) and then replenishing energy used (post) workout.

Protein: 

Proteins main role is to repair, grow and maintain our bodies tissues, most importantly muscle. It is suggested to consume 0.8g of protein per kg of body weight per day, which is around 50g of protein per day for women, and 60g for men. These are baseline figures, and if you are completing regular weight training this may have to increase. Importantly however, it is not just about the quantity of protein consumed but also the quality! Protein can be broken up into amino acids, which are then split into essential vs. non-essential amino acids. This means that essential amino acids must be included in our diet, as our body is unable to create these amino acids itself. They need to be given to the body in food sources such as; eggs, milk, cheese, tofu, quinoa etc.

We at PCHC Health Club Clayton encourage our members to consume a source of protein after their workout to help facilitate the muscle repair/growth.

Fats:

Often the food group those who exercise fear most, scared consuming fat will be doing the opposite of what they are trying to achieve. However fat is an important food source, as it helps with energy stores. As explained earlier carbohydrates are our main energy source, however after exercising in a workout for a certain amount of time (>30mins) our body switches to using fats as a form of energy.

Having a good amount of fat in our diet is also important to help absorb vitamins and help with the formation of hormones such as growth hormone (GH). This hormone, as it says in the name, helps bone, muscle and other tissues grow by stimulating protein to work and metabolising stored fat for energy.

In terms of amounts, we don’t want fats to exceed 35% of our total energy intake for the day. With saturated fats (chocolate, pastries, butter etc.) making up no more than 11% of our energy intake. We want to include unsaturated fats (nuts, fish, avocado etc.) as our primary source of fat intake.

Staying Hydrated: 

When talking about nutrition it isn’t all about food, being hydrated is just as important as having enough energy. Having adequate hydration before a workout is important, as we lose fluid during a workout, so ensure during the day you are keeping up your fluids! We recommend aiming for 2L of water per day. Further, during exercise our core temperature rises, to combat this, our body initiates the action of sweating, to help cool our body down. This causes a loss of water/salt, therefore we need to be replenishing this post workout.

This was just a brief overview of the role nutrition plays in exercise, and the importance of a balanced diet. As always, if you are interested in nutrition, whether that be to help lose weight, gain muscle or to just know if you are eating the right things! Book in a consultation today with our dietician, and have her assess your current diet and create a plan!

Check out our FaceBook page to find out more about nutrition and what we can offer you or as always come in and see the team at PCHC Clayton today to book a free consultation and chat about how we can help you with your training today!

The PCHC Team.

For more information on our unique personal fitness coaching gym check out

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When people think of resistance training they often associate it with big weights and large muscles. They feel as though doing weights isn’t for them, they don’t want to get too bulky, put on size etc. What many fail to realise is the profound affect consistent resistance training can have to their health and wellbeing for not only the present, but for their future. In this weeks addition of the PCHC Mulgrave Personal Training blog, we will delve into resistance training. Offering 6 reasons why you should be incorporating it into your workout. Also look out below for a sneak peak video of one of many workouts we offer.

What is resistance training? Mulgrave Personal Training 

Before we start talking about benefits, we should outline what it actually is. Resistance training is putting our muscles under an external load (i.e. dumbbell, resistance band, gravity). The external load causes our muscles to contract. By continually doing this via reps & sets; our muscles begin to adapt. They say, “hey I need to be stronger for next time I’m doing that activity”. To get technical, we call this super-compensation, a 3-step process whereby first we put our muscles under an external load or stress during training.  This causes fatigue, and we get a drop off in our performance (e.g. strength). Secondly we have a recovery phase to deal with this drop-off, allowing our body to replenish. Lastly instead of recovering to where our strength levels were before, our body super-compensates and our strength goes up higher. We are now stronger than previously before. This super-compensation example is illustrated down below.

Mulgrave Personal Training Super Compensation

Below are 6 benefits of resistance training and why you should be incorporating it in your next training week!

1. Increase in muscle mass

This is the most commonly known benefit, that as we train with weights, our muscles grow. They grow in size, also known as hypertrophy, whereby muscle cells get bigger and in turn the muscle becomes larger. Secondly more muscle cells begin to be activated, called muscle fibre recruitment. Both of these are important for progressing our training but also for day to day life. As the stronger our muscles are, the more capable we are of completing everyday tasks efficiently.

Mulgrave Personal Training – Weight Lifting to increase muscle mass!

2. Improved Insulin Sensitivity:

Insulin is the hormone that helps take glucose (sugar) up from the bloodstream. When our bodies become resistant to insulin, and is left untreated; it leads to Type 2 Diabetes. Type 2 Diabetes is an ever-growing health epidemic, however resistance training has shown to help combat the disease. As muscles are responsible for 80% of all insulin mediated glucose uptake, the more efficient and sensitive we can make these muscles,  the greater the effect insulin can have on glucose control. There is a lot more detail to how resistance training actually helps specifically in this article (https://nutritionandmetabolism.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12986-017-0173-7)

3. Increased Metabolic Rate

For those worried about putting on weight, you have the benefit of an increased metabolic rate to help with burning those calories. When we have larger muscles, they require more energy to use than smaller muscles. This increases our daily energy expenditure (metabolic rate), which in turn can help facilitate further weight loss. Aerobic training is of course our gold standard for weight loss. However incorporating resistance training 1-2 days per week is the perfect mixture for ideal weight loss.

4. Improvements in mood

A recent study found that resistance training showed significant antidepressant effects on participants. They found that skill/experience in exercise did not have much of an impact on outcomes either. Showing that anyone of any ability can have positive effects on their mood by lifting weights. Of course exercise should never replace a mental health plan created by a Psychiatrist or Doctor. Yet it is nice knowing there are alternatives out there to help reach the same goal.

5. Increase bone density

Resistance training provides a weight-bearing stimulus to our bones, which is important for bone health. As we age we lose more bone than we can replenish, therefore it is important to use exercise as a way to counteract this. Impact exercise (i.e. running, jumping etc.) are important, however resistance training has been shown to be just as important, due to its ability to have a site-specific effect. That being if we do resistance training on for example our hip area. We get improvements in bone health in the hip, rather than a global, total body improvement.

6. Helps with both injury rehabilitation & prevention

For anyone with an injury, or for trying to avoid potential injuries, resistance training is the ideal place to start. By completing resistance training we get the increases in muscle strength, lean body mass, bone mass, tensile strength etc. All of these aid in the rehabilitation of injuries and prevention of them. For example with a hamstring injury, we use resistance training to build the strength back up in the injured site to where it was before and then even stronger again. However it doesn’t stop there as we continue to strengthen it in different ways, such as eccentrically (as the muscle is lengthening) as this has shown to decrease rates of re-injuring a strained/torn hamstring. We work both sides of the coin with resistance training, which is great!

These are just 6 of what are countless benefits of resistance training, we hope we at PCHC Mulgrave Personal Training have given you a reason today to try incorporate this form of training in your training cycle. Look below at a sneak-peak video of one of our workouts, we have hundreds more just like this!

Check out our FaceBook page to find out more about the resistance training we can offer you or as always come in and see the team at PCHC Mulgrave Personal Training today to book a free consultation and chat about how we can help you with your training today!

The PCHC Team.

For more information on our unique personal fitness coaching gym check out

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We all know the feeling; you’ve had a killer workout, felt great afterwards, but the next day you pull up sore, you feel drained and sluggish and this lasts longer than usual, keeping you from returning to the gym. In this situation it wasn’t that you trained too hard, but you most likely didn’t recover correctly! This week’s PCHC Gym Springvale blog aims to give you the information you need to have the best recovery possible, because progress isn’t made just in the gym, but in the recovery!

What’s the first thing you think of when you hear “recovery”? For most it is likely just doing a basic few stretches, going home and resting for the night. But from what we know here at PCHC Gym Springvale, recovery encompasses so much more, it includes, diet, sleep, hydration, flexibility/mobility training etc. For many this can be overwhelming, therefore to keep it simple we will go through the importance of each aspect.

PCHC Gym Springvale Coach Stretching

Areas of Recovery – Gym Springvale

Diet

Recovery nutrition is important, as it helps:

• Refuel & rehydrate our body.
• Boosts adaptation from the training session.
• Promotes muscle repair and growth.

Recovery nutrition is dependant on an individuals type of workout, their goals and body type. Therefore having someone to help tailor your diet to meet your direct needs is perfect, a service our very own dietician Charmaine offers. Come in and see us or give us a call on 0422-808-313 to book an initial appointment with our dietitian at PCHC Gym Springvale.

Sleep

Well-being and sleep go hand in hand, to have a good nights sleep can be just as important as eating well & regular exercise. Sleep helps with:

• Recovering from your daily activities (i.e. workout)
• Boosting your immune system
• Healing damaged cells

Anywhere between 7-9 hours sleep a night is perfect, however with our ever-busy society we are starting to see less and less people get this amount. Some quick tips on how to get better sleep is to:

• Go to bed and wake up on the same time every day, asleep routine throughout the whole week, (week & weekend) helps create good sleep habits.
• Spend time in natural light, this promotes the production of melatonin (hormone that helps with sleep).
• Avoid caffeine/alcohol before sleep.
• Avoid using screens, the light emitted from screens suppresses melatonin.

Sleep is so important that it could have its very own blog dedicated to it (look out for that in the upcoming blogs!).

Flexibility/Mobility

With inadequate recovery we run the risk of overuse or injury, due to our muscles/joints being overloaded with work, yet being unable to recover. Therefore focus should be on keeping the limbs/joints mobile and flexible. For example; when we exercise we want our muscles to be put into their full range of motion (ROM). As training sessions accumulate, certain muscles may become tighter than others, preventing this ROM. If we don’t fix this situation we begin putting extra stress on our body and its muscles/joints, causing this overuse. This can fixed by putting an emphasis on targeted flexibility/mobility sessions, working on getting your joints through their ROM. Luckily for you we offer a specialised class on Saturday mornings for members at PCHC Gym Springvale! Look at the video below for a sneak peak of the the class!

Check out our FaceBook page to find out more about this class or as always come in and see the team at PCHC Gym Springvale today to book a free consultation and chat about how we can help you with your recovery today!

The PCHC Team.

For more information on our unique personal fitness coaching gym check out

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Feel like your gym session is taking too long? Struggling to make time for gym? Tired of running on the treadmill for an hour and feeling no different? Want to change it up with something new, fast and exciting? We atPCHC Mulgrave gym have the stuff just for you!

Workouts that have us quickly in and out of the gym are awesome; to know we can get the same benefits of a workout twice the time is even better! To achieve this, the key is to incorporate elements of HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) and circuit-based training. These methods allow us to work at high levels, burning a heap of energy but all in a shorter amount of time. Its all about the quality of exercise > quantity of exercise.

Mulgrave gym PCHEALTH- High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) Fat burning

What is HIIT? Mulgrave Gym

This training method is essentially brief, all-out work periods (20-30s), separated by active rest periods. These work:rest periods are performed at a ratio, typically 1:1 (equal work to equal rest, e.g. 30s work:30s rest) however variations such as 1:4 or 3:1 can be used, all is dependant on your fitness levels, goals and capabilities. The amount of time in this workout can also vary from just a few minutes to 15+, the key however is that each work period is met with all out, 100% effort followed by a period of rest or active rest (i.e. walking, slow riding, etc.).  HIIT is typically completed through use of cardio equipment, such as a treadmill, bike or rower, however can be completed through circuit based body weight exercises (i.e. star jumps, mountain climbers, basically anything that can have you working at max effort).

Thats enough talking about what it is, we know you want to know “what are the benefits?”

• To start, you burn more calories in a shorter amount of time, 30 mins of HIIT leads to a 25%-30% increase in calories burnt. Less time exercising leads to more calories being burnt? Sign me up!
• More calories burnt = Greater weight loss; it is simple maths that the more calories burnt, the greater effect this will have on weight loss.
• You have a higher metabolic rate for hours post exercise; metabolic rate is the rate at which our body burns calories to ensure we have enough energy to run all its functions. By completing HIIT, this increases greater post exercise when compared to common training methods. This is called the ‘afterburn’ effect, or excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC). Whereby from performing 100% all-out efforts, there becomes an oxygen shortage, and your bodies need for oxygen increases , causing you to burn more calories, the best part being, even when you aren’t even exercising!
• Lastly, it’s fun, changing up your workout for a fast and frantic training day stops that feeling of monotony or groundhog day of doing the same thing over and over.

Below we provide you with a framework for a HIIT workout, use it if you’d like, or come in and see us if you have any questions about the article, the workout below or if you’re interested in implementing HIIT into your weekly PCHC Mulgrave gym workout! Homepage

Example of a workout: (20-30 min duration)

Intervals:

Beginner: 1:1 (30s work:30s rest)

Intermediate: 2:1 (30s work:15s rest)

Advanced: 3:1 (30s work:10s rest)

Dynamic Warm Up:

• Leg swings x 20 each leg
• Arm circles x 20 each arm
• Butt kicks x 30
• High Knees x 30

Training: Complete 3-4 sets of each exercise

1. Jump Squats
2. Star Junps
3. Alternate Lunges
4. Squats
5. Push ups
6. Mountain climbers
7. Burpees

Give it a go, see how you find it, remember you can adjust the difficulty just by extending or shortening your rest time, and vice versa with the work periods!

Lastly, come in and see the team at PCHC Mulgrave gym today to book a free consultation and chat about how HIIT can help you reach your goals today!

The PCHC Team.

For more information on our unique personal fitness coaching gym check out

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