Is your fitness slacking too? I've got a confession to make.

Is your fitness slacking too? I've got a confession to make.

So I went for a New Year’s Day surf and was hugely disappointed in my own ability to surf and manage in the tricky conditions. You see I've been a full time surfer for around 15 years and have prided myself for being able to go out in pretty much anything the sea around the UK can whip up. Not now though, I struggled and just about survived after a late and slightly boozy night (NYE) with a very early trip to the beach and I left the water after only 30 minutes instead of the usual 2-3 or more hours.

You see we've had baby Nina, now 5 months old, and I'm using this as an excuse for the state of my fitness. It is just an excuse of course, I've had plenty more opportunities to workout than I've actually used and now I've paid the price with what I would say is the worst level of fitness since I was in my mid-teens. A pretty bad example of a PT for certain.

I have used quite a lot of my free time to treat my own physical issues with the Biomechanics Coaching process and massage therapy methods. I do feel so much better now in myself and in my workouts than I have after suffering a chronic low back pain issue for 20 years and having none of the other professionals or methods have any similar level of effect.

So now I've made a good start to correcting my asymmetries, dysfunctions and weakness’ I can build my fitness again to an excellent level with less of the recurring injuries and limitations. Despite this I see no reason to allow my fitness to drop to such a degree. There are many ways to skirt around the issues I had with correctly targeted exercises as I would do with my own PT clients.

So my confession, I let myself slip, didn’t take my own medicine, was a hypocrite at worst and a fraud at best. I’ve got slower, weaker, fatter and everything in between. Over the festive season I hit the booze, the sugar and refined junk and did very little exercise. I’m kind of ok with allowing myself to do that in a no holds barred way for a while but now I’m over it. So I am now like many others at this time of year, for the first time in my adult life I’m going to have to make an effort. Before it was just what I did, how I was, my lifestyle revolved around sport, exercise and eating very well so it was no effort just to maintain a high level of fitness.

I hope I have learnt from this time and experience, I certainly don’t enjoy having such a limiting level of fitness and allowing my health to suffer like this. It takes a situation such as this for the level of importance for a change to be realized and take hold. Out if the two things we know to be most valuable in making such lifestyle changes; importance for, and confidence to be able to, I know that I have both now in high levels so it’s going to happen for me. As a PT I’m excited to find out where other people are at with these as the key motivation to a successful outcome for the struggling client often lays within these:

How important is it that you make a change?

How confident are you that you can make that change?

 Neil ERIKSEN BSc Health & Fitness – Personal Trainer, Biomechanics Coach, Massage Therapist

Do You Have A Work-Life Balance

Does fitness just complicate matters for you? So much so that it’s not something you contemplate doing on a daily basis or do you find that it actually helps you to manage the rest of your life with more efficiency? Time or the lack of it is a common barrier to exercise but what if the time you invest in a regular routine of fresh air and exercise that is “planned, repetitive, structured and purposive” actually paid back more than it cost, surely that would be a winning deal.

In a recent article in the Harvard Business Review on just that topic the authors found that in those who undertook regular physical exercise professionals were able to better manage their work and life balance with less conflict than those who didn't participate in regular exercise. I think the word ‘conflict’ is an incredibly powerful word to use for describing what happens when the natural and peaceful flow of life is disrupted.

We know what happens to the body in real life conflict: stress hormones - cortisol, fight or flight mechanisms – adrenalin, and what happens with these is that homeostasis (the natural balance of simply being) is disrupted. As Shawn Talbott PhD. says in his book ‘The Cortisol Connection – why stress makes you fat and ruins your health and what you can do about it’, “a chronic stress response, such as the one we mount every day when faced with deadlines, money concerns, traffic, family concerns, irritating coworkers and other worries causes an immediate and profound change in a variety of hormones in our bodies”.   

The authors in the HBR article investigated further in order to be able to distinguish the reasons why exercise reduces conflict in work-life balance and their findings are very interesting. They found that a reduction in stress is gained from regular exercise and that this transfers to a more positive attitude and an increase in self-efficacy. In practical terms, people with high self-efficacy are more likely to feel they can take on difficult tasks and do them with less stress involved.

We all know that managing the work-life balance is generally hard and at times down-right impossible. It is at these times that it seems impossible to be able to maintain some semblance of an exercise routine. Perhaps if our perceptions and priorities changed to release some pressure with these sorts of methods before the lid blows then we would find a less health challenging time arises out of conflicting situations, as there will always be conflict.

There are a number of ways in which you can fit more exercise habits into your schedule and having the support of those who require your time is paramount. If it’s your family then being able to manage roles and responsibilities with the help of your relatives will enable you. Supplemental to this many employers are now finding that as they too benefit, having staff more capable in their work roles with less conflict from home is of benefit to the bottom line. Sometimes all it takes for a company to turn around many of its staffing issues is an open mind and leaders who are prepared to steer in the direction of a comprehensive mental and physical health plan.

So go forth and make time to exercise safe in the knowledge that when you do so you are giving to yourself and at the same time giving to those around you. As is always my advice – keep sessions short and snappy and steer clear from the long distance running, it’s just a waste of perfectly good time!

Look great and have confidence: 10 things to look for in posture.

If you're going to start a health and fitness programme in the new year? Get a head start and get your body ready for more activity by balancing your muscles. Doing this will increase your fitness and reduce the chance of increasing tension followed by injury or worsening posture.

10 Postural Things (you can see) That You Should Be Able To Improve

When you have these things they perpetuate a vicious cycle therefore making them worse, even if they are a set abnormality from birth or injury there will be a degree of improvement that is possible from the aquired changes that have taken place.

Do not attempt to hold your posture, it should happen with the natural balance and tension of the muscles. Holding patterns add new issues and can normally be seen in abdominal, back and buttock dimples after a time.

Here are 10 things head to toe with just a brief note on one aspect of dysfunction:

1. Forward jutting head - Adding changes to the cervical spine and neck muscles.
2. Shoulders uneven height - Causing or caused by asymmetry throughout the body
3. Hands excessively to the front of the pelvis - Pulling the upper body forwards
4. Rounded upper back - Weakening the upper back and breathing muscles
5. Belly pooch - Losing tension in the stabilising muscles that support the low back
6. Flat back - Changing the shock absorption and disc health of the low back
7. Excessive curve in the lower back - 6. and changing the health of the spine to pelvis joints
8. Knees knocking/bowing - Wear and injury to knees plus foot, hip and low back issues
9. Flattening/falling arches - Wearing the joints of the feet plus changing knee, hip and back function
10. Big toe diverting towards 2nd toe - Showing mechanical issues with proper foot function and more.

These normally come in noticeable sets but not always.

Where do you start? 

If you have anything that is more exaggerated say in the feet or shoulder you still start by addressing the function at the pelvis as issues commonly ascend or descend from here, then you move up, the spine, shoulders, knees and feet will follow to a point. This is the Biomechanics Coaching approach and is a fundamental change in the usual methods applied by many therapists from various professions. 

Commonly therapists and trainers will address the site of issue without treating the person as a whole. In doing this the root cause is often missed and any other changes that have taken place are not addressed. We are an integrate system and should be treated as such.

So if you're going to want to improve posture in the upper body you will want to know more about the foundations of the upper body first, fix your pelvis and move on up then down finally to the knees and feet.

After that strengthen your body with 'core' exercises to the point where you are strong enough to cope with the task your life throws at you then train your body to be able to complete the tasks your life throws at you and then you'll truly have great posture.

Cool huh.

Keep in touch with my YouTube channel at 'Smile Fitness Exeter' for some cool tests and simple exercises that you can do about the body.

Smile Fitness Website