Tag Archives: work out

Exercise of the Month – The Sit Up

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Doing sit-ups is a quick way to get stronger abdominal muscles. However, they must be done properly to avoid any injury to your spine and the neck and head muscles. In addition, sit-ups are about using the abdominal region, therefore, you need to really make sure that you are not compensating by using other parts of your body to perform sit-ups as this decreases the effectiveness of the exercise and may cause injury to your body.

It’s not as harsh as it sounds – always focus on the abs and you are most of the way there!!

Sit upSit up

How to do sit-ups correctly!

Step 1: have your knees bent and the balls of your feet and heels placed flat on the ground.

Step 2: Place your hands on opposing shoulders, so that your arms are crossed over your chest, alternatively place your fingers on your temples with elbows out. This allows you a central rising point.

Step 3: Tighten your abdominal muscles by gently drawing in your belly button to your spine.

Step 4: Keeping your heels on the ground and your toes flat to the ground, slowly and gently lift your head first, chin off your chest, followed by your shoulder blades. Focus your eyes on your bent knees, all the while gently contracting the abdominal muscles. Pull up from the floor until you are at a 90 degree angle, or when the elbows are on, or past, the knees.

Step 5: Hold the position for a second. Slowly bring the torso back to the floor but try to keep it slightly elevated off the ground. This means not to place your back flat to the ground but to keep a slight, yet relaxed, arch.

Sit up

Tips:
If you’re having a hard time keeping the balls of your feet or heels on the ground, try asking a friend to hold them down.

You can also find a heavy object (such as a sofa or chair) and tucking your feet under it. This will give you support when attempting to bring yourself up.

If you’d like any advice on how to include the ‘exercise of the month’ into your workout routine just ask a member of the Club CHF fitness team.

Caroline Riddall, Personal Trainer, Caversham Health & Fitness

Anytime membership only £21 per month*
Commit to get fit in 2012! Sign up for an ‘Anytime’ gym membership at Caversham Health & Fitness and your first 3 months are half price.

Call us on 0118 948 4849 to get started.

Exercise of the Month – The Pull Up

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So you think you’re strong?
As well as a clear test of relative upper body strength, the Pull Up is the undisputed heavyweight champion of upper back builders! Every armed forces test and training facility uses the pull up as a staple indicator to the recruits’ and prospects’ strength levels for a good reason.

Gymnasts use pull ups to help maintain and build the strength in their upper body to aid them in performing spectacular bar manoeuvres and fighters use them to help control their opponent and prevent injury while they’re being push and pulled about at different angles.

So how many should I do?
Whether you’re looking to build muscle, strength or endurance, the load can be manipulated by adding weight or assisting yourself with a band or partner to decrease the load. Treat them as any other exercise, with reps ranging 3-5 for strength, 6-12 for strength/hypertrophy and 12+ for endurance.

To put things into perspective, the Royal Marine PRMC Test requires candidates to do 1 full pull up and the Navy SEALS require potential recruits to do a minimum of 8 full pull ups.

So how do I do them?

  • Grasp a pull up bar with an overhand grip, hands shoulder width apart.
  • Allow your body to ‘dead-hang’ from the bar, then shrug downwards with your shoulders to engage the scapular stabilizers and pull your upper back muscles into a downwards V.
  • Pulling your elbows down in towards your body, pull your bodyweight upwards, ensuring that the chin is higher than the bar.
  • Slowly lower the body and repeat.

If you’d like any advice on how to include the ‘exercise of the month’ into your workout routine just ask a member of the Club CHF fitness team.

Andy Knight, Personal Trainer, Caversham Health & Fitness

Join Caversham Health & Fitness today and enjoy FREE membership until 2012!
For more information call us on 0118 948 4849

Nordic Walking

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Nordic WalkingWhether your goal is to become more active, improve your fitness levels, lose weight, overcome a medical condition, train for a specific sport or challenge or you simply enjoy the great outdoors, Nordic Walking can provide it all!

Nordic walking is a great way to gently encourage full body movement whilst the poles help to reduce pressure on the knees and joints and help propel the walker along. It can also help to significantly improve the condition of your muscles, heart and lungs. It will boost your energy levels and help you to ward off medical conditions such as; Heart Disease and Strokes, High blood pressure, Stress and Anxiety to name a few.

By using the poles you use more muscles which significantly increases the amount of calories burned without making you feel you are pushing yourself too hard.

Nordic Walking uses most of the major muscles in the body and therefore helps to keep them in good condition. This gives you the added benefit of improved posture and a more toned physique too, it is particularly good for the upper body; especially the upper arms and the core.

You can not beat the feeling of being outside in the fresh air; it clears away the cobwebs and leaves you feeling refreshed and invigorated. So long as it is not pouring with rain or heavy snow we will be heading out every Tuesday at 9:30am.

I love Nordic Walking and so do my regular ‘Nordic Walkers’ so put on your jumper and come and join us.

Caroline Riddall, Fitness Manager, Caversham Health & Fitness

Nordic Walking Testimonial
“Having done a small amount of walking with poles in the past I was intrigued to find out how Nordic Walking would differ. Firstly Caroline introduced me to poles, teaching me how to hold them correctly, and how to swing my arms to build momentum when walking. After a short practice I quickly picked up the technique. Initially I was apprehensive about joining the class as I worried I might not be able to keep up with the pace, but I needn’t have been concerned as the pace was comfortable for everyone in the class. Half way through the walk we stopped to do some resistance exercises with the poles and by the end of the walk I could really feel the benefits to my upper arms. Nordic Walking really boosted my spirits and put me in a great frame of mind for the day!”
- Catherine

Early Bird Classes

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Do you lack energy and motivation during your working day? CHF fitness instructor Caroline has just the answer for you…

Exercise at 6:15 in the morning…..really????

If like me you are not a morning person and the thought of getting out of bed at silly o’clock to exercise fills you with dread, read on to uncover why I am now actually an advocate of early morning activity!

For most people the idea of exercising first thing in the morning is not something you would happily chose, however studies have shown that exercise significantly increases mental acuity! This is  a benefit that lasts four to ten hours after your workout ends; therefore exercising in the a.m. means you get to harness that brainpower, instead of wasting it while you’re snoozing.

We all know that after a workout you feel energised and full of oomph so why not make the most of that feeling first thing in the morning?! Leave that sluggish start to the day behind you and reap the benefits of increased energy levels during the day.

Invariably people work harder when in a class; you get caught up in the atmosphere and feed off other people’s energy, so effectively you are getting more from your workout.

Exercising first thing in the morning is the most foolproof way to ensure that other things don’t overtake your fitness commitment, particularly if you have a hectic work or family life. It’s so easy to get home at the end of a long day and wimp out of getting yourself down to the gym, especially if you’re tired or faced with the tasks of making dinner, helping with homework etc.

Make the decision to join in one of our ‘Early Bird’ classes and end your working day knowing that you can get home and stay there and not face that internal battle of ‘shall I go to the gym or shall I stay right here and relax?’

Early Bird Classes at CHF
Monday – 06.30 to 07.15 – Early Bird Spin
Tuesday – 06.15 to 07.00 – Early Bird Spin
Wednesday – 06.15 to 07.00 – Early Bird Killer Circuits
Thursday – 06.15 to 07.15 – Early Bird Pump
Friday – 06.15 to 07.00 – Early Bird Box Fit

Exercise of the Month – Press Up

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Why do press ups?
The press up isn’t just a chest, shoulders and triceps exercise, it’s a whole lot more. It’s quite possibly one of the most undervalued exercises that you’re ever likely to come across. Literally every muscle in your body, from your toes to your upper back is activated to stabilise your whole body. In principle, the press up is a simple movement; lie on the floor and push yourself up off it! In practise, there are so many variations that make it the most diverse upper body exercise that you’re ever likely to encounter. Whether you’re looking to build muscle mass, increase posture, improve endurance, core strength or just looking for a party trick (Nothing impresses a crowd more than doing press ups with a friend on your back!), there’s a press up variation for you.


So how do you do them?
As above, there are hundreds of press up variations (Ask a member of the gym team for information), but I’ll start with explaining how to do basic, bread and butter press ups:

  • Start the movement by getting into a prone position with your hands underneath your shoulders, legs straight, bracing the abs and squeezing the glutes as if you’re trying to crush an apple between your buttocks.
  • Under control, breathe in, lower your chest to the floor and squeeze the upper back muscles as you go down.
  • Pause briefly and push the floor away from you, breathing out as you push.
  • Reset back to the first step and repeat.

If you’d like any advice on how to include the ‘exercise of the month’ into your workout routine just ask a member of the Club CHF fitness team.

Don’t forget to check out our fantastic offers on personal training with our in-house personal trainers. ‘Fast Track Your Fitness’  – 1 hour sessions from as little as £20!

Junior Pilates Classes

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From the beginning of September Pilates instructor Julie will be introducing a Junior Pilates class to Club CHF for 11 – 16 year olds. Pilates classes for teens are becoming increasingly popular as teens are more aware than ever before about keeping fit and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Pilates can help increase strength and flexibility in core muscles and teach young people how the body works and feels, helping to build confidence and body awareness.

Junior Pilates is a great way to maintain over all fitness into adulthood by helping to improve:

Posture

Pilates helps to improve posture and strengthen surrounding muscles. Correct posture will reduce the likelihood of suffering in later life from problems in the back, knees, and neck and shoulders.

Co ordination & Breathing

Pilates focuses on the breathing, helping to keep the core muscles pulled in when performing the exercises. Focused breathing will make you more bodily aware so the movements are fluid and controlled and whilst some movements can be difficult a strong centre helps to perform the exercises correctly.

With practice this internal focus becomes second nature and can be applied in every day life not just in the class situation. The class can help to relax participants giving way to the overall sense of well-being regular sessions bring about.

Core Strength

The internal effort used to engage the core muscles of the pelvis, abdominal and back is used to create the flat stomach, defined waist and to aid correct posture.

Junior Pilates starts from 6th September for 11-16 year olds.

Tuesday evenings 5pm to 6pm – £7.50 per person

To book a place please call us 0118 948 48 49

Beach Ready Summer Circuits

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Summer CircuitsFor some, summer conjures up thoughts hot sticky days and lazy warm summer evenings, relaxing times with lots of happiness and laughter. With summer 2011 just around the corner, I’m sure there are lots of you getting excited about planning your beach holiday, purchasing your new summer wardrobe and buying some fabulous new beachwear!

Yet for others, the thought of summer brings on nothing but stress and the whole “showing that little bit of extra flesh” can be quite daunting. I believe the main trigger for this is linked to how we view ourselves, internally and externally. How confident are we with the way we look? But, most importantly, it could just simply be that you just don’t feel “beach ready” and this is where I can help.

Every Saturday morning, throughout the summer months, I’ll be at Caversham Health and Fitness teaching a “Beach Ready Summer Circuits” class. This is a class specifically designed to get your body beach ready. The most important way to achieve this beach ready body is by changing your workout routine, this will prevent that weight loss plateau we all suffer from. Beach Ready Summer Circuits is one hour long and designed to help you reach your goals and target those problem areas. But, I’m a great believer in making my classes entertaining, hard work yet fun, as well as being a support for you to understand your needs and your own personal goals.

Circuit training is a total body workout that involves performing a series of different exercises for a set amount of time. With a mixture of both strength, and cardiovascular exercises, you can realise the benefits from both types of training.

The benefits of circuit training are:

  • Adapted to all fitness levels
  • Total overall body sculpting
  • Faster metabolism – resulting in more calories burned each day
  • Increased muscular strength
  • Increased cardiovascular fitness levels
  • Time efficient
  • Very sociable
  • Brilliant fun with lots of smiles, entertainment and laughter

Adding cardiovascular exercises between strength training, rather than resting, increases lean body mass (less fat = more lean muscle) which in turn creates a higher resting metabolism. This means that more calories are burned each day.

With the quick pace of the class, the constantly changing exercises, and a stress placed on the body, which is totally unique to circuit training, this is like no other training programme.

It is really important to remember that a circuits class can be personalised to your fitness levels. Whether you are a beginner or an athlete, it is adaptable on all levels.

For circuit class times see the CHF studio timetable

I hope to see you in the class soon.

Natalie Dance
CHF Instructor

Lunch Fit Zumba with Sophia

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Zumba is the latest fitness trend sweeping the nation. It fuses hypnotic Latin rhythms, music and easy to follow dance moves to create a dynamic dance fitness programme that will blow you away!

So with two fabulous new Zumba instructors at CHF I thought it was about time I gave the ‘Lunch Fit’ class a go! I popped in before the class got underway to meet bubbly Zumba instructor, Sophia, to find out a little bit about her and the class.

SophiaSophia what is your background in dance or fitness?
I’m actually a performing actress, and qualified from The Arts Education School London. I’ve preformed in some well known West End shows such as; Fame, Footloose, and in Richard Bean’s play, ‘England People Very Nice’ at The National Theatre.
I’ve recently choreographed a Christmas production of Glee at Reading Town Hall, and I also teach a weekly kids dance class.

..So how did you get into teaching Zumba?
I attended a Zumba class, and knew it’d be something I’d like to teach – as it was so much fun. My instructor at the time was very helpful and prompted me in the right direction for the training course.

How long have you been teaching Zumba?
I’ve been teaching Zumba since the end of January. I qualified from my Zumba training course in October last year. I wanted to be fully prepared for when I started teaching classes and have put lots of preparation into the choreography.

What are the benefits of Zumba?
Zumba works every single bit of the body from head to toe, even muscles you didn’t even realise you had will be worked!!! It is a full body workout cardio and toning. The tracks are sometimes designed to work specific areas at one time and others are there to work everything. The benefits are the same as any exercise or sport, getting the heart rate pumping and the body moving at an intense rate, strengthens the muscles and bones.

Why should you come to a Zumba class?
People should come to Zumba because like all other fitness regimes it’s fantastic for your physical health, the level of exercise in a Zumba class is so high and you can burn up to 1000 calories and tone up all at the same time. The beauty of Zumba is that as well as benefiting you physically, emotionally it uplifts you and you will always leave feeling liberated. It works your brain as far as co-ordination and picking up steps is concerned but the music and party atmosphere is fantastic for simply lifting your spirits and opening your mind and soul to music and dance from all over the world.

What’s your favorite Zumba dance / move?
I love every part of music and moves when it comes to Zumba they are all so different and all so beautifully created it will be difficult to choose just one. But if I really had too it would have to be a good Reggaeton or African beat. You can’t beat a good strong drum sound when you’re working out!

Thank you Sophia!
—–

I loved Sophia’s Zumba class and would definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to have fun at the same time as getting an extremely good workout! Sophia was an excellent teacher, and really got the class motivated. I’ve been to Zumba classes in the past and found some of the dances and steps hard to follow, but I found Sophia’s easy to pick up. She broke down harder steps and dances, making it easy for people of all abilities to follow – everyone picked them up quickly!

Sophia was right, it really uplifted me; it’s just what you need to get rid of that mid-day tiredness slump! I highly recommend Zumba Lunch Fit to anyone who wants to give their afternoon at work a little boost!

See the Studio Timetable on the CHF website for more Zumba class times. Also check out the other 30 minute Lunch Fit workouts, designed to fit into busy lives.

For a limited period CHF is offering a free crèche to anyone who uses the Lunch Fit classes. Enjoy your workout while we take care of your kids!

Catherine, CHF Marketing

5 Tips to make this your best Summer ever!

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So the skies are clearer, the weather is warmer, and you’re thinking about cracking out your swimsuit, and this isn’t always a pleasant experience, and with the World Cup and Wimbledon it’s often easier to watch other people exercising than taking the plunge yourself.

Don’t forget that up until June 30th you can work towards getting yourself Beach Fit with Caversham Health and Fitness with our special programme -  and at CHF we’re committed to helping you maintain a healthier, more active lifestyle through out the year, and so here we’ve compiled 5 top tips that could reinvigorate your training and the rest of your summer!

5 Tips to make this your best Summer ever!

1.    Use compound movements – that is those that  work several muscle groups at once,  the more muscles you work the more calories you’ll burn. It also means that you can work more in less time – so you still have time to fit in a gym session and get back to watch the World Cup.

Use these big, muscle-building exercises to really torch those calories:
Chest:  Press Ups, Bench Press, Dips
Back:  Deadlifts, High Pulls, Chin Ups ( if you’re not quite ready to face the chin up bar just yet then you could use the Incline Pull instead)
Legs:  Squats, Lunges, Step Ups

2.    Select the right weight – most gym goers programs would be a great deal more beneficial if they selected the right weight. That is one that on the last few repetitions it’s getting progressively harder to maintain that perfect form Frazer, Vee, Mel or Rob demonstrated in your ‘Start to Train’.  If you get to the end of your set number of repetitions and you could have done more than you need to take that weight up again next set.

3.    Up the intensity, lessen the duration – most of us are time poor, leading busy lives and sometimes it can be hard to figure out how you can find that hour to make it to the gym. Here’s the good news – you don’t have to! Only got 40 minutes? Fine. Only got 30? That’s okay. 20 all you can manage. Come on in. 15? Now you’re pushing it! Whatever time you have –use it. But use it effectively. If you’re only doing half of your program, double the intensity. Something is always better than nothing and you’ll always feel better afterwards.

4.    Do things you enjoy – every piece of state of the art kit at Caversham Health and Fitness has the ability to help you achieve what you joined here to accomplish. Some you’ll like, some you won’t.  Just because someone in a fitness magazine lost two stone by running doesn’t mean you have to slave away on the running belt if you it doesn’t motivate you. Your body doesn’t really care how you move – as long as you move. Don’t like working out in the gym? Take part in classes. There is no right or wrong way to get healthy – just the right one for you. Let us help you find it and away you go!

5.    Follow the 80/20 rule – you don’t have to suddenly become hermit once you embark on your healthier lifestyle.  ‘Everything in moderation, including moderation’ somebody said whose name escapes me. For 80% of the time stick to your gym plan, make those healthier food choices, get the amount of sleep you know you need to function properly but 20% of the time let yourself off of the hook now and again to reap the rewards of all your hard work and effort.  That could mean having one day a week when you eat what you want, having that pudding at the restaurant. You’ve earned it. Then back to that 80%, don’t let that one day become a bad week or a bad month. Celebrate!

18 Exercises

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Compound exercises are multi-joint movements that work several muscles or muscle groups at one time.

For healthy athletes who are trying to get the most out of a training program, compound exercises are generally preferred and recommended. There are many reasons to use compound exercises during your workout, including the following:

Using more muscle groups. . .

  • means more calories burned during exercise.
  • simulates real-world exercises and activities.
  • allows you to get a full body workout faster.
  • improves coordination, reaction time and balance.
  • improves joint stability and improves muscle balance across a joint.
  • decreases the risk of injury during sports.
  • keeps your heart rate up and provides cardiovascular benefits.
  • allows you to exercise longer with less muscle fatigue.
  • allows you to lift heavier loads and build more strength.

The exercises…

Lower body compound:

  • back squat
  • front squat
  • split squat
  • alternate lunge
  • step up
  • Olympic dead lift
  • Romanian dead lift (hips higher than Olympic dead lift)
  • Stiff legged dead lift

Upper body compound:

  • Close grip barbell bent over row
  • Wide grip barbell bent over row
  • Dumbbell single arm row
  • Chin up (pronated grip)
  • Pull up (supinated grip)
  • Barbell bench press
  • Overhead dumbbell press

Core:

  • Plank
  • Side plank
  • Deadbug