"Get Abs #1" - my advice

Matt Kay recently wrote a blog on the Inspiring Fitness website that highlighted the need to reduce stress to help you achieve the six pack you desire. He highlighted the importance of coping with stressors and gave recommendations on how to deal with stress, like identifying the stressor, avoiding stressors, managing the stress, getting plenty of sleep and exercise, and nutrition and supplementation to help you cope with stress.
I'd like to flesh out these points and give my own advice on how to deal with stress in your life. This will not only help you achieve the flat, waterboard stomach you see in magazines and movies, but also prevent diseases of a stressful lifestyle including cardiovascular disease, Type II diabetes, hypertension, depression, eczema, IBS, insomnia, fatigue and some forms of cancer.
A lot of the content of this blog comes from The Smart Health Guide To Stress, distributed at Nuffield Health sites. I picked my copy up at the Covent Garden site.

What Is Stress?
Getting 'stressed' is defined as feeling pressure exceeding our ability to cope, i.e. events becoming out of our control.
Stress is not necessarily a bad thing. We have evolved to react to stress by releasing hormones which heighten our senses and metabolic rate ('fright or flight' responses). It can help us achieve our goals. Stress is essential. But when it becomes too much or is not coped with, that is when it can become detrimental. Other hormones, like cortisol, are excessively released and that can cause detrimental effects on the body.
Cortisol counteracts the effects of growth hormone (GH) and testosterone (T) in the body. Both GH and T have been shown to be associated with increased fat burning and decreased abdominal fat, whereas cortisol has the opposite effects, increasing fat deposits around the midsection of the body.

How Do You Know When You Are Too Stressed
If you suffer from any of the follow, then it is likely that your stress levels are excessive:

• lack of appetite
• food cravings when under pressure
• indigestion and heart burn
• poor sleep pattern
• irritability with people
• indecisiveness
• loss of sense of humour
• simmering anger
• poor concentration
• feeling unable to cope
• switching to new tasks when the previous one has not been completed
• no interest in activities outside of work

Coping With Stress
There are 3 main ways you can cope with stress, by addressing the following areas

1. Environment
This area is based around changing the circumstances and events in your life that causes you stress. There are several things you can do to change your environment to limit stress.

• identify the stress and, if you can, remove or reduce it
• spend more time doing the things you enjoy
• identify what is preventing you enjoying the things you do
• improve time management - diarise everything and write lists
• only allow yourself to work a certain number of hours
• surround yourself with positive and supportive people - avoid stressful relationships
• take a 5 minute break every hour at work, 55/5 rule.

2. Perception

This is when you create stress for yourself by 'dwelling' on things or assuming things are stressful. There is often at least two ways of looking at something. Try to maintain a positive outlook.
If you suffer from any of the follow, you are likely to see situations as stressful when they may not in reality be so

• Perfectionism
• Desire to please others
• Insecurity
• Fear of failure
• Lack of flexibility
• Negativity
• Need for control
• Unable to ask for help
• Fierely independent

Some self-reflection may help you not to perceive events around you as stressful. Try asking these questions;

• Is what you dealing with really that important?
• Live in the present, not the future. Are things that bad today?
• What is it that I am stressing about? Why? Is it that bad?
• What good may come out of this situation?
• What is one way I could reduce the stress in this situation?
• Who can I talk to about this? Friends, partner, colleagues, boss, spiritual leader, shrink?
• Is there anything positive about this situation? Could I make it more so?
• What other coping strategies could I try?

3. Physical Resistance

There are two components to this area: releasing stress and increasing relaxation.
Releasing Stress

Exercise! Preferably after the stess, i.e. after work. It clear the stress hormones: adrenaline and noradrenaline. But not for too long. Exceeding an hour of medium to high intensity exercise will release more cortisol which will be counter-productive. As Matt Kay recommended, try intervals when doing cardio, or do weights, or punch a bag or pads in spurts.
Increasing Relaxation

Improving your nutrition is a great start to helping you be more relaxed. Try:

• Make sure you have a decent breakfast with wholegrains and protein (oats, egg whites, etc)
• Eat some regular meals throughout the day
• Take a lunch break, do not eat at your desk or 'on the fly'
• Avoid sugars and refined carbohydrates (white pasta, bread, rice, etc)
• Try to avoid caffeine and stimulants
• Eats lots of fruit and vegetables
• Drink lots of water - dehydration of only 3% can increase your sense of effort by 70%.

You could also try the following relaxation strategies

• Meditate or just sit quietly for a few minutes, visualising non-stressful situations
• Listen to music, read enjoyable books and do not watch TV just for the sake of it
• Conduct deep breathing at least once per day
• Enjoy a long bath or shower... with a partner? ;-)

What If You Can Not Avoid Stress?
Nutrition is something that most people can attempt to alter to help them cope with stressors. However there are some supplements that can help you deal with stress and try to regulate your stress hormone (adrenaline. noradrenalin, cortisol) outputs.
Siberian Ginseng
Siberian Ginseng is an adaptogen. An adaptogen is a natural herb product that increases the body's resistance to stress, trauma and fatigue.
Ginseng's name comes from the Chinese jen shen, which means ‘man root’, so-named because some roots have limb-like branches resembling arms and legs.
Nutri-Calm
During stress, your body becomes depleted in Vitamin Bs and c. This supplement contains a mixture of B-complex vitamins and vitamin C, plus camomille and anti-oxidants to calm you down and prevent damage from free-radicals which are produced during stress.
Hops and Valerian Root
Hops and Valerian Root are excellent herbs to help relax you and help you sleep. This supplement can also be taken by those who suffer from any phobias, eg. fear of flying, to help calm them before and during the activity.
Perilla & Cyperus Combination
This is another supplement based on Eastern herbs to help with coping with stress. Perilla is also helpful in the relief and prevention of seasonal allergies and hayfever.

Diet or Exercise for losing body fat? - Inspiring Fitness - www.inspiringfitness.co.uk

Diet or Exercise? - Inspiring Fitness - www.inspiringfitness.co.uk

"Some guys play with their heads. That's okay. You've got to be smart to be number one in any business. But more important, you've got to play with your heart--every fiber of your body. If you're lucky enough to find a guy with a lot of head and a lot of heart, he's never going to come off the field second."- Vince Lombardi

Good fats? Sounds fishy to me! - Inspiring Fitness - www.inspiringfitness.co.uk

My latest blog on Omega-3 fatty acids.
Good fats? Sounds fishy to me! - Inspiring Fitness - www.inspiringfitness.co.uk

A Bridge too big to cross?

I'd like to weigh in with my two cents/pence on the whole Wayne Bridge - John Terry thing.

(For those either living under a rock, who don't follow football/socccer or distracted by Cheryl and Ashley Cole's marrital woes, it recently was undercovered that John Terry slept with Bridge's ex-girlfriend, and mother of his child (same person, not one mother, one girlfriend), when they both played for Chelsea).

I have a respect for Bridge for his decision to withdraw himself from the England squad because he felt that he could not spend large amounts of time in the company of Terry. This was a big decision for Bridge because of, the aforementioned, Cole (who is first choice for England in the left back position) being injured thus Bridge, whom is his understudy (what is it with left backs and their ability to be involved in affairs of the heart or some other appendage!?), being the obvious choice to start the match as well as likely to be first choice left back in the upcoming World Cup, if Cole was not to recover from his fractures leg.

He has potentially handed away his last chance to compete at the highest level, especially when he was likely to get a lot of game time. This shows real character.
There was apparently a lot of pressure on Bridge to put his principles aside and do what is best for his career and professional profile. Yet Bridge chose to be the bigger man.

And he did not bow to pressure to show any respect to Terry during the traditional hand shake before the encounter between Bridge's Manchester City and Terry's Chelsea today.

I have been reliably informed by former coaches at Chelsea FC that Bridge was one of the hardest working players there. One of the only ones to do extra sessions in the gym to try to improve himself. This could be because he was always behind Cole in the pecking order for both England and Chelsea, and he felt he needed to improve himself. But many of a pro footballer would have just gone about their work, knowing that Cole, being a bit of a poster boy for football and hailed as, debatably, the best left back in the world, was very unlikely to be dropped from the team.

Without knowing the man, I assume that Bridge realised his position within English football and worked hard to make himself a better athlete, simply because that is what he is paid to and wanted do. This mental attitude and his ability to stand by his principles in this whole affair (mind the pun) has lifted Bridge even higher in my esteam.

Good on you Wayne Bridge!

Marathon training: Have you forgotten about running economy?

This blog was originally posted on the Inspiring Fitness blog site

The Importance of Resistance Training

If you are running the London Marathon, especially if you are hoping to cover the 42km in the fastest time possible, you’re probably aware that there are three components of running fitness: VO2max, lactate/anaerobic threshold and running economy.
You have been pounding the street and/or treadmill in preparation. You’ve definitely been doing long, slow distance runs, in an attempt to get your legs used to jogging for hours on end. These runs will serve to increase your VO2max (the maximum amount of oxygen that can be transported to and used by the muscle).
You may even have done some interval training or ‘lactate threshold’ conditioning to help allow yourself to run at a higher pace and heart rate throughout the race. These intervals will also serve to increase your maximal capacity.
But what about the third component?

Running Economy
Running economy is how efficient you are at running, that is, the amount of energy required to run a certain pace.
How Do I Improve My Running Economy?
Basically, if every step you take requires less energy or you can travel a greater distance by taking fewer steps, then you will improve your running economy.
But my technique is really good! How else can I conserve energy?
The simply answer is by decreasing the effort required to take each step whilst running, that is decreasing the amount of energy needed to push off the ground.

Decreasing The Effort Required To Propel Your Body
Each step you take, muscles contract to push you forward. Like any muscle contraction, these contractions will be a percentage of your maximal voluntary contraction (MVC). Your MVC is the maximum amount of force a muscle or group of muscles can generate.
100% of your MVC will require 100% of your motor units. A motor unit is a nerve and all the muscle fibers it innervates. Each muscle unit requires a certain amount of energy to contract. If you reduce the percentage of your MVC required to perform a task, you will reduce the amount of energy required to perform that task.

How do I reduce the percentage of my MVC required to run?
You could reduce the amount of force requires to move your body; that would involve reducing your weight (that is why elite marathon runners are so small) but, seems that you are already in training for the marathon, you are probably unlikely to be able to reduce your weight greatly, without it compromising your performance.
What you should do is increase your MVC so that, though the force required to propel your body forward is still the same, the percentage of your MVC is reduced, decreasing the energy required.
How do you increase you’re the amount of force your muscles can generate? Strength training!
Can resistance training help decrease the amount of energy required to complete a running event in any other way?
Yes, it can. I’m glad you asked!
Some of the other ways in which resistance training can decrease energy expenditure, leading to better running economy are:

• Strength training has also been shown to lead to ‘stiffer’ muscles, in this case in the calf. Each time the foot strikes the ground, the calf muscles have to counteract downward momentum through an eccentric/lengthening contraction. Once the force has been absorbed, the muscles propel the leg forward through a concentric/shortening contraction. Stiffer muscles mean that this lengthening contraction is reduced, ideally to no change in muscle length at all. Instead the force is transferred to the Achilles tendon. Tendons are very elastic, that is they absorb force by elongating and return it in the opposite direction when they return to their original length. The return of energy in the tendon conserves the kinetic energy and transfers it in the opposite direction to plantar flex the foot and propels you along your run, meaning you do not need to produce energy to push off the ground with the calf muscles.
• Explosive resistance training and plyometrics (unweighted jumps and bound) have been shown to increase the amount of force that can be imparted in the short amount of time the foot is in contact with the ground during running. This can lead to increases in stride length. Also, proper periodised resistance training has been shown, in a 2008, Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research study, to prevent the loss of stride length at the end of intense endurance running events. Less strides taken during an event means less energy expenditure. to prevent the loss of stride length at the end of intense endurance running events. Less strides taken during an event means less energy expenditure.

  Is there any other resistance training that I can do to improve my running performance?
  Perhaps! A 2009 study concluded that for those with weak core stability, conducting specific training for this area may improve running performance.
  

  Conclusion and Practical Experience
  As you can see, though many recreational runners who attempt marathon know that different modalities of cardiovascular training are required to complete the course in the fastest time possible, resistance training is also important in running performance.
  I recently had a client who had previously completed a marathon in a fairly good time but wanted to improve her running speed. Through a properly periodised resistance programme, we managed to improve her 10km time by a whopping 24%! This proves that resistance training can be a powerful tool to helping you run the race of your life!
  Consult your personal trainer or fitness coach on what resistance exercises to perform to increase your running performance.

  
  

Marathon Training: Have you forgotten about running economy? - Inspiring Fitness - www.inspiringfitness.co.uk

Marathon Training: Have you forgotten about running economy? - Inspiring Fitness - www.inspiringfitness.co.uk