360 SPECIALIZED TRAINING

MY FEMALE SUCCESS STORY

I have always enjoyed great success with female clients over the years and the secret is fairly simple. The transformations have been incredible and many of the ladies seeking assistance have now become iconic women in the fitness industry and a great inspiration to others! So fingers to Keyboard to deliver an insight into ‘FEMALE TRAINING ‘Off head, uncut and hopefully a benefit to all those ladies looking for CHRIS results:

Consistent Healthy Results Inspired (by) Someone!

Yes, I am a fitness nerd 🙂

I have placed a lot of emphasis on training female clients and if you thought for one second that I am going to put it down to multidirectional resistance training that stimulates the neuromuscular system and promotes a cardiovascular response which assists in weight management, then I guess you haven’t made an overweight, middle-aged and inexperienced exercising female client feel at ease in a mixed class, where other heavenly bodies are half-clothed and mirrors are present. This article isn’t aimed at guys, because there are more serious issues at hand than male athletes engaging in the use of anabolic steroids, not incorporating resistance training into their exercise regimes and having to deal with psychosocial dissatisfaction of appearance.

I think that has scared all the guys off and left me to talk to you girls about topics you would like to be addressed and gain more insight into. Let’s firstly examine why women don’t get involved in regular exercise routines.

Sadly, the skinny appearance of an ectomorph has become the popular choice on the front of magazines and the one depicted the most in the mass media. The ‘ideal physique’ that you are forced to pursue is actually the killer of you even starting a training regime. Slim, with very small adrogenous hips combined with voluptuous breasts, unattainable by most, not only promotes eating disorders and osteoporosis in later life but also brings on Social Physique Anxiety (SPA). This is when you believe that your appearance will fail to make a desirable impression on others in the same environment. You will develop coping strategies to deal with this i.e. training at certain places or times where there is little opportunity to be judged. Crash dieting and stopping your training are more extreme strategies if you are unable to cope with the anxiety. Being around males, in group classes, at the early age of behavioural change (exercise) has also been proved to heighten SPA.

Negative body image is most often related to body-weight and specific areas (waist,hip,thighs) and is even more prevalent in females who are overweight. Your primary goal for training is weight and appearance concerns, as this links with the idea of the perceived ‘beauty’ and thinness. So with an understanding of this I go about my task: making you feel comfortable, working with your body type and developing healthy training and eating habits which will bring about your desired results. This will provide a change in your previously negative emotional, cognitive and behavioural manifestations which will raise your Self Presentational Efficacy (SPE): the confidence about your ability to make a favourable impression on others. So by reducing your SPA and increasing your SPE, I as a trainer have the ability to help you cope at the initial difficult stages so that you can experience the ultimate long term benefits of exercise.

The key to start to appear more attractive and confident is not a small incision and a high powered hoover nor  the current trend of breast augmentation surgery but something that commands power + respect and exudes confidence + high self-esteem. Sit up straight and wait for it, POSTURE!!!

Posture is the beginning and end of all movement, so it is important to sort out at the start of your exercise regime, so that you are loading up good movements, with the least amount of strain on supporting structures, rather than encouraging further imbalances which will place undue stress on your bones, joints, ligaments and muscles. It is necessary to have flexibility, strength and stability around each joint as posture reflects the arrangement of one body part to the next and ideal posture will be reached where the body functions most efficiently!

With your posture in check, let’s look at how you should be training. It is clear that the trend of training has shifted away from the mundane body building approach that was adopted by most gym goers and I am lucky enough to have jumped on the band wagon a long time ago and educated myself in the funky and functional style that is now fast spreading through the fitness industry, to be able to deliver fast, effective results in a safe environment. So if your goal is to get lean and build that sleek and sexy physique that you desire then I have the formula for optimum results without bulking up:

In the evolution of fitness programs, high repetition bodybuilder workouts, 60 minutes of cardio or a yoga class are in the shadows of functional strength, high intensity personal training sessions when it comes to shedding fat and busting out in those bikinis.

Below is a quick article I wrote many years ago, explaining why it is better to train at higher intensity to scorch fat and also a formula to determine your heart rate zones. Enjoy the burn and love your new body:

The Fat Burning Zone

Is training at a lower intensity better for burning fat? There is a degree of intensity at which a greater percentage of fat is being used as the primary source of energy during a workout.

At a lower intensity, the ratio of fat burned to carbohydrate may be 50:50. If you have burned 100 calories during your workout, then you have burnt 50 calories (5.5g) of fat. At a more intense level of training the ratio of 30:70 is more likely, but the calories burnt are 300. This would suggest 90 calories (10g) of fat has been used, therefore giving you a greater total expenditure of fat burned.

This should not discourage you from training at lower intensities, it is simply to debunk the myth of the “fat burning zone.” Working out at lower intensities serves our needs in many instances, for example: active recovery, for people who train short and intense all the time, sedentary people working their way up to greater oxygen consumption and those who are recovering from illness and injury.

Interval Training

We can control fat cell size and number by exercising; if burning fat is the goal, we should work as much as possible in the time available. Interval training is short repeated bouts of intense exercise over a period of time.

Interval training is an effective way to burn lots of calories while conditioning both the cardiovascular and muscle systems. Muscle is the primary organ that oxidizes fat. So it makes sense to increase muscle through weight training. Lean tissue is metabolically more active than fat. Increasing lean tissue, will increase your resting metabolic rate. 500g of muscle burns 30-50 kcal/day. 500g of fat 2 kcal/day. With age causing atrophy of muscle and increased fat gain, it makes sense to reverse the effects of ageing.  Consider this  5kg of fat will burn 20 kcal/day compared to 300-500 kcal if it were muscle, the benefits of combining weights and cardio become obvious.

To wrap up, long, low intensity and short, intense interval workouts should be incorporated into a varied workout program. If your goal is weight-loss, then you need to exercise more and eat less!