Tag: health

FitStrong PT, personal training, Strength training, transformation

A Dad Bod Transformation

MoveStrongblog

Hello there, Well it’s me Jamie, a trainer of 25 years and I love to exercise, stay strong and I Love food too. So, yes, I’m human!

However, it was easy to settle into a life of getting older and accepting an expanding waistline and hiding it under my baggy gym shirts.


Starting winter this year I thought it was time to take action and maybe set an example to others as we start to exit our pandemic lives. I studied hard and became a certified Amazing 12 coach, one of only a few in Australia and then I jumped into following the formulated 12-week program of very reasonable exercise and a simple, calculated nutrition plan that still allowed for a chill out eating day ‘every week’.


The Amazing 12 is regarded as the World #1 Total Body Transformation program that has transformed the lives and physiques of 10000+ people over the past 15 years.
The program requires commitment to just three 45 minute training sessions per week, a commitment to making some nutrition changes and a commitment to changing oneself for the better. It’s only 12 weeks!


I currently have a crew of 7 people undertaking the program, due to finish by Christmas.
Early 2022 I will be starting another wave of the Amazing 12.


*** I AM TAKING APPLICATIONS NOW ***


If you want to learn more, head over to www.amazing12brisbane.com.au and get in touch NOW to arrange a chat 😁

Kettlebell Training, movnat, Original Strength, personal training, Strength training, StrongFirst

Why Do we Practice ‘Get Ups’?

MoveStrongblog

Squat, deadlift, push, pull and various body bracing activities might be the meat and potatoes of our programs for strength.

BUT, I also add in the spices so to speak. Practicing various forms or jumping, crawling and getting up from the floor adds spice to our movement vocabulary and prepares us for when we might actually need the skill… it’s also great fun to play with these physical movements!

Falls, trips and accidents happen, whether during sport or day to day life. But did you know that many people just don’t know what to do when falls happen – they don’t know how to get up when injured, how to crawl or carry themselves to safety or to get help.

Practicing these simple movements, moving us from standing to the ground and back up not only make us stronger and fitter, but better prepare us for ‘woopsadaisies’.

Here’s a quick time-lapse practice.

FitStrong PT

Healthy Happy Hips

MoveStrongblog

*** COMING VERY SOON ***

A lot of us struggle with some movements or positions, like squatting down, picking things up, twisting or reaching behind us – I’m sure you can add your own moves here.

My new guided Healthy Happy Hips program addresses these issues and more with simple, clinically supported follow-along videos.

More Details to follow.
Message me for first access to the program.

Cheers,
Jamie

FitStrong PT

Are you future proofing yourself?

MoveStrongblog

Heading to the gym to lift weights, run on a treadmill or cycle on a stationary is all fine and grand – good entertainment while getting your pump on or raising your pulse rate.

But, is it really natural physical development as per our design? If all you care about is burning calories – go for it. But if you’re invested in personal physical development to enhance your life and into the future, it probably isn’t hitting the mark.

What day to day tasks do you struggle at?

I used to struggle with jumping, more specifically the landing. Feet would hurt, knees weren’t sure what was happening and my back wanted to disown me.

Walking in the countryside entails a bit of leaping and what about those days when the heavy rain turns every curb-side into a river? You need to learn how to leap, jump and especially stick the landing.

So, are you future proofing yourself?

Sticking the landing
FitStrong PT

Eye Training!

MoveStrongblog

Most of us happen to live in a very media focused life. Entertainment is served through a screen, we learn and educate via screens and work in front of a screen too. If you have a life mostly void of screen time, I commend you and I’m envious and I’m sure you probably don’t get eye strains much. Limiting range of focus and specialising in short range focus is just not what the eyes are made for. As I often talk about – when you take away a natural element of our being, other parts will suffer. Take away a function of the eyes and the eyes will struggle.

For those who do get eye strains and tired eyes from screen time, yes, time away from the screen should be scheduled but, you could and should take a couple of minutes a few times a week or per day and train your eyes. And you should of course get your eyes tested for general health every year too.

Eye training will not mitigate ageing vision, that’s just part of getting old, deal with it, but you can develop more resilient eyes with the following simple exercises I will share with you.

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FitStrong PT

Be More Erful… the Path to Usefulness

MoveStrongblog

Exercise as a tool to use for personal physical development is fantastic but, is it enough to make an impact on your usefulness in a wider sense?

Here’s my odd question for you; “Are you erful”?

What the hell is erful? Well, I do like to make up words to define ‘things’ which other words don’t quite purvey. In this case, it’s simple the conjoining of er and ful, the suffixes to many (positive) adjectives.

  • Stronger
  • Fitter
  • Faster
  • Powerful
  • Nicer
  • Helpful
  • Friendlier
  • Healthier
  • Playful
  • Useful

Only a few things are important in life. Money, car, mortgage on awesome home, latest iPhone, annual overseas holiday, designer shoes? Nope, I argue these are not vital or important in life if your intentions are wholesome, honest and healthy. No one really cares if you have these. As we get older our family and friends won’t care about what we have. They will be concerned with what we can do for ourselves and others. Can we move well, get dressed, feed and bathe ourselves and do we have good health and friends.

“What is the meaning of life? To be happy and useful.” ~ the Dalai Lama

I love to make use of training, exercise and to practice the physical elements that make up a healthy physical recipe for me and my clients but I am really starting to contemplate how we can follow a better recipe for improved general usefulness. Maybe it’s the current situation where coronavirus is now part of our day-to-day vocabulary. Maybe it’s an increased awareness of the people around us. How are they? Are they struggling in any way? Are they wary of me? Am I contagious? Can I help in some small way? If you’re not sleeping so well right now, it’s possibly because your brain is ticking over these thoughts in your subconscious.

I want to be more useful in general to myself, my family, my community in the ‘now’ and in the future.

How do we do that? I am actually not too sure. What I do know is that it’s a practice that starts with turning up, starting something and learning on the fly with hint of preparation of course.

About a year ago I did start this process with the realisation that strength and mobility training to be just stronger and more mobile was less useful than I first thought in the absence of purpose and context. I wrote about this over a few posts but now I realise that the other stuff beyond the strict, formulaic physical actions must be included.

We need more play, more social interaction of the non-internet type, we need more friendly eye contact and ‘hello, how are you’, we need to offer our help to others more often. It would be great if we could develop more of this whilst continuing to be more physically healthy.

My mid 2020 calendar was filled originally with more social sessions in the great outdoors that included meeting up, doing some strength work, play, balance, climbing, cooking up a BBQ and having a laugh. Hopefully soon I can roll these out so I can dive deeper into being more erful!

Are you already erful or do you want to be more erful? Get in touch if you have a story to share or if you’d like to join us some time.

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FitStrong PT

The Side Bent Sit Get Up

MoveStrongblog

What a mouthful, but it will do until someone comes up with a better name. It does however describe this get up nicely.

Part 4 of the Get Up series looks at the quirky Side Bent Sit Get Up. Whereas the last part looked at the very bilateral / straight up and down Prone Get Up, the Side Bent Sit Get Up builds in rotation, balance and coordination yet, still with a wonderful component of flow and relaxation. I guess that comes with practice though.

This roll differs from the Strength and Prone get up in that it commences with a roll into position to undertake the actual getting up. This adds some momentum and can therefor add this get up into the category of movements that prepare us for fall recovery. If you’re going to lose balance and fall backwards onto your butt, at least know how to get up with flare and style.

Here’s the video.

The best way to learn this style of get up is to practice. In the video I have built in steps to practice to best prepare for the full get up.

Got any feedback? Maybe you’d like me to appraise your Get Up? I’d love to help any way I can.

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FitStrong PT

Does exercising influence the response to stress?

MoveStrongblog

In my last post, ‘Exercise and Stress Response‘ I chatted about how exercise may help us build resilience to coping with stressful situations.

In part 4 today I’ll answer this question:

What have you noticed about exercise and its ability to influence your stress levels and your response to stress?

In short though, we are designed to move every day. Whilst we don’t move like humans of 100 years ago or 1000 years ago, we need to find movement modalities we enjoy to undertake every day. That can be as simple as a daily 15 minute walk, yoga, practicing other generalised movements or playing with the kids.

Moving every day and feeling good go hand in hand.

Why read when you can listen…

Got any thoughts?

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FitStrong PT

Exercise and Stress Response

MoveStrongblog

How does exercise strengthen our ability to respond to stress?

A healthy cardiovascular system will undoubtedly help us prevail over the negative influences and manifestations of stress. An unhealthy body will succumb easily and fail us.

A healthy exercise regime will develop a more resilient body but our minds need a different elixir.

A good practice I reflect on during stressful times are building stronger habits. Stressful thoughts can be overwhelming on our emotions and the dark hole of depression can be incredibly challenging to climb out of without help.

I adopted a system created by Stanford University Behavioural Scientist BJ Fogg, called Tiny Habits. Much like exercising our bodies, Tiny Habits teaches how to develop strong habits with tiny steps. This has been a game changer for me in creating a healthier mental environment around me. As one cheesy example, my phones alarm awakes me every morning with the message – ‘today will be awesome’. It may be a terrible day but I start the day with a positive and healthy mindset.

In addition to habit practice and frequent movement exercise, learning how to breathe better has many benefits to promote the parasympathetic nervous system over the sympathetic nervous system. Stress and all it’s negative family members thrive while we spend time under the influence of the sympathetic nervous systems control.

Nasal breathing and taking breaths into our diaphragm (as apposed to mouth breathing into the chest) should be a norm and a practice when stressed.

Move often – Breathe better – Start the day on a positive note. That’s how I expect my ‘exercise’ to strengthen my ability to respond to stress.

 

Got any feedback? Why not drop me a message.

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FitStrong PT

Get Up!

MoveStrongblog

As a coach, I’ve met plenty of people over the years who either had resistance to getting down to the floor, had previously had a fall and was reluctant to revisit the floor in any capacity or who quite frankly didn’t see any purpose to get to the floor for exercise or other.

There are many reasons to practice and train getting to the floor and back up again. Let’s make a short list.

  1. Improve your every day life and for its eventualities
  2. Prepare you with skills needed for when you have to get to the ground or a fall to the ground
  3. Improve your bodies mobility
  4. Improve your body awareness and coordination
  5. Improve your bodies resilience through increased strength and conditioning
  6. Decrease any fear of the floor
  7. Open opportunities to explore other movements and purposes of getting up and down

 

I’m not going to teach get ups in this post, but I will soon – I promise.

Here’s a glimpse of just 8 styles of ‘get ups’.

 

Got any questions or feedback? Get in touch below.

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