by Keith Tucker | Jul 6, 2018 | Food, Health and Fitness Fundamentals
Top 3 Ways To Drink More Water This Summer.
Its been a hot couple of weeks and love it or hate it the heat set to continue for another couple! We all know that we need to drink a lot more water (me included) but with our busy days, it’s hard to remember to pick up a pint of water let alone 7! And in the summer months we usually require more. In this post I will help you with top 3 ways to drink more water this summer.
Why Drink Water?
Drinking water is the most important thing that our bodies need to survive and provides a tonne of benefits.
- Flushes out all the toxins from your body in the form of sweat and urination.
- Helps promote clear skin, again by flushing out rubbish from your body.
- Helps to promote weight loss by increasing your metabolism, helps to reduce hunger and helps you to eat less if you drink a glass 30 minutes before a meal.
- Increases energy and reduces fatigue. Feeling tired whilst sitting at your desk all day? Drink a glass of water, it definetly helps me get through the rest of the day.
- Boost your immune system. Drinking plenty of water helps you to
stay healthy, you are less likely to suffer colds and flu, it helps to fight against cancer, heart attacks and other health aliments.
- Helps with with digestion. Water helps keeps bowl movements regular, it is important in helping digest food and stops constipation.
- Got a headache? Drink some water, chances are you are dehydrated and will soon feel much better once you have had a couple of glasses.
How Can You Get More Water in This Summer?
So as you can see water is super important to have in our diets, but for most difficult to drink because of time,
forgetfulness and for some, dislike of the taste. Here are three reasons I use to help me get my 2 litres.
- Buy yourself a water bottle or simply refill an empty waterbottle. I find I drink more if I have a bottle next to me that I can refill. It’s best to have a 2 litre bottle and aim to finish the bottle by the end of the day. If you aren’t use to drink that amount, start slow and increase the amount you drink each day.
- If you aren’t a fan of the taste of water, try adding some lemon to add flavour. You can even create some flavoured water using fruits and spices. I make a jug full in the morning and keep in the fridge to drink throughout the day.
- Set some kind of reminder to help you drink more throughout the day. Set and alarm to go off in set intervals or place red dots around your desk or workplace, everytime you see a red dot, drink some water.
Well I hope my top 3 ways to drink more water this summer, helps you stay hydrated.
Keith
by Keith Tucker | Jul 3, 2018 | Exercise For Optimum Health, Weight Loss and Performance, Health and Fitness Fundamentals
How To Deadlift
Today we’ll talk to you about the deadlift. Why the deadlift? Well the deadlift is how we pick everything up safely. It keeps our back nice and straight and it means that we’re not compromised.
So let’s look at the deadlift technique. I put my toes under the bar, sink my hips back, drop down, grab the bar. Although we use lots of different grips, today we’re just going to go overhand. Keep your shoulder blades retracted and then push through your heels bringing your hips to the bar. On the way back down, I go to the hips first, then I go to the knees. If I bend the knees first, I just take my kneecaps off with the bar, so I get my knees out of the way, I come down making sure my back isn’t hunched.
I have a mirror here in front of me, so it’s good to get some feedback. I’ve been watching myself in the mirrormaking sure everything’s in place.
So toes under the bar, come down as you can see, I’ve lifted the bar up. We find most people don’t have the flexibility initially to get down to the lower position and they compromise in tucking their bum under or curving their back and being in a far from ideal position. So we start with our clients with a little bit of raise and as they get more flexible or stronger, we move them down one riser at a time.
Start with a bar that you know that you can lift and then you can add weight to that as you get confident with the technique and as your body gets stronger. So that’s the deadlift. This is where we start our clients off with their weight training to ensure they can lift stuff off the ground safely.
Keith
by Keith Tucker | Jun 26, 2018 | Exercise For Optimum Health, Weight Loss and Performance, Health and Fitness Fundamentals
Is Swimming Enough To Stay Fit?
Is swimming enough to stay fit? There is a yes and a no answer to this question, that i get asked regulary. “I swim or I am thinking about swimming, is that going to be okay in helping me to stay fit”?
The answer is, initially yes. Just getting in a pool if you’re not a swimmer and swimming up and down just getting yourself use to the water, is going to keep you fit and help you be strong, you might drop some weight as well.
The issue being is that people often just carry on doing the same thing of just swimming up and down and there are two problems with this.
- The first one is that, quite quickly they get a bit bored. They hit their 40 laps or whatever they can do in the 40 minute time frame they have given themselves. There often isn’t enough time to expand their training any further. Alot of people get use to that and see no further weight loss or fitness change.
- Secondly, is that the body gets use it and therefore stops changing. Swimming is like anything else, you need to be challenging your body. So doing high intensity interval training (HIIT). Jump into the pool, swim really hard and then relax, swim really hard then do an easy length and continue going hard then easy, hard then easy.
Changing that up will mean that swimming will keep you strong, keep you fit and help you lose weight. But continuing to do length after length, and the body will get use it quite quickly and therefore your swim session won’t be enough to stay fit.
Keith
by Keith Tucker | Jun 19, 2018 | Exercise For Optimum Health, Weight Loss and Performance, Health and Fitness Fundamentals
Should I Have Muscle Soreness After Training
I have been training people for quite a long time, it’s best not to admit how long ;-). But one of the things people regularly ask me as they start training is, ‘should i have muscle soreness after my training sessions’?
Now obviously that depends on what you do. If you’re going for a walk then the answer is no, not really, unless you’re walking alot futher than you’d otherwise be use to.
When should I have muscle soreness after training
But if you’re introducing weight training and you’d like to see results from you’re weight training, wether you want to lose weight or tone up or gain muscle. the answer is yes.
After training you should be stiff and sore. Its called DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness). We’ll talk more about DOMS in a separate video.
DOMS should last between three and five days, so DOMS normally passes in three days, a particulary severe case is five days and its probably you lifted a little bit to heavy. If it continues for more than that, then definietly speak to your trainer and find out if you’ve pulled or strained something.
So yes, you should be stiff and sore after training.
Keith
by Keith Tucker | Jun 11, 2018 | Exercise For Optimum Health, Weight Loss and Performance
What Is The Least Amount Of Training I Can Get Away With
A question I regularly get asked is, ‘What is the least amount I can get away with in terms of exercise’? ‘How can I just do as little training as possible and still get some results?’ So I can maybe lose a little bit of fat, or so I can train my heart and lungs so that I’m a bit fitter and can climb stairs and not feel too out of breath?
The line that’s going around at the moment is that 30 minuites, three times a week is a good amount of time. But you can actually get away with 10 miniutes! So you can do 10 minutes of exercise three to fives times a week BUT it’s got to be intense!
How to achieve it 
You have to work really hard, pushing yourself as much as you can. Get on a spin bike or find a nice hill, or if you can run then run. You can even do a nice quick HIIT training routine. Do a warm up into it then go as hard as you can for 10 minutes, cool down and call it a day.
So 10 minutes is the least amount time you can spend training, as long as you are going as hard as you can without hurting yourself, three to five times a week.
That’s the least amount of time you can getaway with.
Keith
by Keith Tucker | May 23, 2018 | Exercise For Optimum Health, Weight Loss and Performance
So, what are the best training methods?
Well that depends on what you’re training for! Or what is that we are trying to achieve. If we pick up a magazine for running or cycling you’ll find endurance training programmes, or a body building magazine for strength training. There are plenty of magazines and newspapers that talk about weight loss, but there is also training for longevity or lifestyle.
We all choose to start training for many different reasons, what’s yours?
Is it about weight loss, muscle gain, do you want to be stronger? Do you simply want to have the energy you need to run around with your kids or grand kids?
There are so many different types of training methods out there, which one do you choose? Which one will get you the results that you want, in the time that you want?
There are many different types of training protcols available depending on what it is you want to achieve. From Weight Training, HIIT, Running, Swimming , Yoga and Pilates. They all give different results and vary in the amount time it takes to achieve your results. Lets take a look at what gives you fast and effective results.
Many people ask me, what is the best training protocol? Usually they are talking about weightloss, so lets look at that. When we are starting out and we are wanting to make the body lose a little bit more weight or tone up. HIIT is often the best way to go about dropping a bit of body fat, HIIT stands for High Intensity Interval Training. Lots of magazines are talking about it, other trainers are talking about it.
HIIT – High Intensity Interval Training for weightloss
This type of training method burns a lot of calories in a short amount of time, so you get a big bang for your buck. The downside is, longterm it can be stressful for your body and could lead to injuries, so you want to mix it in with other types of training styles. But if you want fast results its HIIT training. So you work really hard then you rest and recover, work really hard then rest and recover. Make sure you warm up thoroughly and cool down well.
So if you want the biggest bang for your buck its HIIT training, High Intensity Interval Training. Its a hard strong training protocol that burns fat form your body and helps you tone up. That’s what we’re looking for, often when people ask me, what is the best training method?
Keith
