My view on diets and a few simple guidelines to lose some unwanted pounds...

Am I a big fan of low fat, high protein, high fat or you name it diets??! Not really! I have not got a degree in nutrition, however I have taken several nutrition modules at University and I have always been interested in training, food, recovery strategies and how it all works together to optimise sports performance. Today I wanted to post a little blog about diet and nutrition for the general poublic. The reason why it is important to emphasize that it is for the general public and not for serious athletes  is because this can and will be very different depending on what sport you do and the goals you have. However I wanted to explain a few guidelines and try to make you understand a bit more how it works in a simple way.

I have several people asking me about food and nutrition advice on a daily basis. As you have probably gathered already I am not a big fan of strict diets when people are after long term weight loss. The reason why I have this view is I because I have seen time after time that most people can’t keep their regimes up over a long period of time and a lot of the time people end up putting on more weight than before they started. I believe that everyone can stay away from certain types of food and “treats” for a certain period, but I don’t think you should cut out something you like completely! This does of course not mean that you should eat crisps, chocolate, chips and coke every day, but you should still have a day now and then that you treat yourself. As long as you eat healthy on a daily basis, you can afford to treat yourself from time to time.

I don’t think that you need to count calories and become too obsessed about what you eat, I think it is more important to understand how it works with calories expenditure and intake. It is actually fairly “simple” if you want to lose weight and you don't need to be a math geni to figure it out (Trust me I am not!) We all need food to function on a daily basis even if we don’t do anything; this is called your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR). Your BMR will vary depending on your age, sex, weight and height so this is different for everyone. You can easily calculate this on various calculators online to find out how much YOU need if you don’t do any exercise or activities. Bear in mind that you willl need more than this when you are active and do normal everyday actvities. If you exercise on top of this 3-4 days a week you will need even more on these days.

What I am trying to get across here is that:

It is about the amount of calories you take in and the amount of calories you burn that determines if you lose or gain weight

If you take in more calories than you burn, your body will go in “pluss” and this will be stored in your body. The same is the case if you burn calories than you take it, your body will go in minus hence you will lose weight when this happens over a period of time. This will vary from day to day which is why you can’t really see any difference on the scales until after weeks and months of being in plus or minus.

This was not meant to be very overcomplicated although it may seem like it, but the main message to get across is that you have to be patient if you want to lose weight (or put on weight). It is about changing your lifestyle and making healthy choices in your daily life and still has treats now and then.

Simplified you have 3 options if you want to lose weight:

1. You can start spending more than you use, which means moving and exercise more!
2. You can start eating less (healthier) and not exercise
3. Or you can of course do them both together, exercise/move more and at the same time make some changes to you diet which means that you don't necessarily eat a lot less, you just make some adjustment to make sure you eat healtier without starving yourself

I definetely know which one I would go for..

Who knows what his diet consisted of when he was at his peak!!!

Today I am focusing on the nutrition part of it and by doing small changes to your lifestyle this can and will make a massive difference to the result you get. There is no point in training like Arnold (Schwarzenegger) if you feed your body shi*t. Your body needs proper fuel to function well, just like your car. There are so many debates going on between nutrition specialist on how much you should eat of the various macronutrients (Carbohydates, Fat and Protein), but I think that it is very individual what people need depending on goals and needs, but I belive that having a diet that consists of a combination of the 3s (plus vitamins and minerals) will get you far.

Here are a few suggestions for you in order to make some healthy changes to your diet:
 

Add some fruits to your cereals to make it more interesting

1. Always eat breakfast

2. Eat several smaller meals during the day rather than two massive one

• Have a snack (example fruit) between meals in order to avoid your blood sugar getting to low as it is easy to eat “anything” you come across then


An apple a day keeps the doctor away

3. 5 A DAY- Try to eat fruit or vegetables during the day and include it in your main meals too



4. Chose a smaller plate as this is an easy way to reduce your portion size if you need to

5. Eat slow! Chew your food properly as it takes a while for your body to realise it is full!

6. Don’t eat a huge meal late at night if you are going to bed straight after

7. Cut down the sugar drinks and alcohol! Drinks are empty calories which is easy to "forget"

8. Drink plenty of water - 2 - 3 litre per day

If you stay active and exercise you will be surprised how much food and treats you can have and still maintain your weight! As I have always been a big fan of doing sports and training I will give you some simple tips in order to move more even if you don’t have access to a gym in the next blog post....

Until then, stay active and enjoy the rest of your weekend:)

VIDEO - Front Plank on swiss ball and Front Plank with side steps

Hi everyone,

I know it has been a while since my last update, but today I have been able to post a little demonstration of a good core exercise on the swiss ball and also the normal front plank with some side steps. Those of you who know me know that I think it is really important to add in some good core exercises as part of anyone's program and my view on this still hasn't changed. I have previously described several basic core exercises like the plank in different variations with pictures, but today I will let you have a look at a little film clip so you can see what I mean.

Front Plank on Swissball

• On this exercise you start in a plank position with your elbows on the ball and feet on the floor
• Make sure you embrace your core and that you keep like a straight line from top to bottom
• The small movements I do are done on purpose to challenge the core even more
• You can always start off by just holding this position and as you want to progress it you can start moving the ball around with your elbows, rememebr to do this controlled though!
• Start off by moving from 30 – 45 seconds, then rest on the floor for 45-60 seconds between your sets, and repeat 3 sets

Here we go :

Front Plank with Sidesteps

•  Start with your toes, elbows and forearms on the mat
•  Your toes should be placed shoulder width apart and your elbows shoulder be placed under your shoulder
•  Make sure your abdominals are pulled in and that your hips are parallel to the floor throughout the exercise
• When you are ready start taking a small step with your right toes towards the right side, step back into the middle and step out to the left side with your left toes
• Make sure you keep your hips stable and don’t let them rock from side to side while moving your legs
•  Keep moving from 30 – 45 seconds, then rest on the floor for 45 – 60 seconds between your sets, and repeat 3 sets

It may look easy, but give it a try and let me know what you think:)

Good luck :)

Some of my basic training principles

Today I decided to share a few of my basic training priciples. Over the last few years I have work alongside some really good strength and conditioning coaches (Brendan Chaplin is one of them!), which has defientely help me open my eyes and realise that some of the training you see in the "standard" health club or fitness centre is a completely waste of time. I will now list up what I consider to be good training/diet principles and give you a simple reason why I think that. Here we go:

1. Add in interval training as part of your cardiovascular training (CV)
• Because you will burn a lot more calories than if you go for a steady pace

• You will improve your fitness and constantly challenge your system

• It doesn’t have to last for hours – in fact a 20 minutes interval session can be more than enough to see improvement!

• It is more interesting than strolling along for hours

• An example of a good intervall session the Tabata interval - check it out on a previous blog post
2. Always make sure you can do quite a few reps with body weight exercises, before you start adding on resistance 

• No point in doing a poor bench press at 80 kg, if you can’t do press ups with good technique first!
• There are so many good exercises that you can do with your body weight, and in most cases they are functional and will make you use several big muscle groups and joint at the same time

Press ups are great!!

3. Choose multi joint exercises prior to single joint exercises (this is linked with my 2nd point)

• With this I mean to do exercises that uses several muscles and joint at the same time, rather than just isolating in a single curl exercise

• Focus on what type of exercises it is, rather than a separate muscle

• You can of course choose single joint as an assistant exercise, but overall I prefer to choose “bigger” exercise


Andy demonstating the deadlift

4. Choose free weight exercises before resistance machines if you know what you are doing!
• The amount of exercise you can do with dumbbells and barbells is endless!

• Free weight challenges your balance a lot more which is great!

• Free weights is more functional and you will see better results

• Always make sure you get help and advice from someone who is qualified in the field


The front squat is another good exercise!

5. Don’t forget to train your core!

• You may not realise, but if you do exercises like dead lifts and squats you are constantly working your core!

• Forget about the standard abdominal curl exercise – start of with static hold plank exercises – there are loads of progressions to these exercises, but start of with the basics

• A strong core will help you prevent lower back injuries and it is good for your posture

• Core exercises are not just for girls!! I have come across strong, and I mean very strong men who can’t hold their body up in a plank position for 5 seconds!! Core is for everyone- however if you do suffer from hypotension (high blood pressure) make sure you consult your doctor first as a static exercise will increase your blood pressure


"Straight arm arm situp" is tough, but very good - no painful abcurl here!

6. Variation is key for motivation and effort

• I know it is easy to get stuck into the same routine week in and week out, but try to vary your exercises and always look for progressions if you feel like you are stuck and are not getting anywhere (ask for help)

7. Always look for solutions rather than limitations

• Don’t let an injury affect you and get you down, find other ways to train than what you normally do until you are better

8. Be aware that muscles weigh more than fat if you are wanting to loose weight

• Look at how your clothes fit, rather than weighing yourself day in and day out (unless you do a sport where you need to be a certain weight class– MMA)

9. Always eat breakfast

• Breakfast is the most important meal of the day and it will stop you from snacking early morning

• Breakfast kick starts your body after a night sleep so it is important to get your body started early
• Food with high fiber content will make you feel fuller for longer, for example porridge

10. Women should always do resistance training alongside CV if wanting to “tone up and loose weight”

• Please understand that the stronger you are the more calories you will burn whilst resting!

Last but not least….
11. Look at training as something you do to be healthy and make sure you enjoy it!

• Training can be tough at times, but think about how great you feel after!

Good luck everyone:)

Mr. Lenny Henry

Hi everyone

The last few have been quite busy, which is why I have not updated the blog recently. However I thought it was about time to give you a little update now. A couple of weeks ago I got a request from The Society of Sports Therapy to massage the comedian Lenny Henry as he is on a UK tour at the moment. To be honest I didn’t really know much about who Lenny Henry was, but after a bit of research I realized that he is a very famous comedian here in the UK (I blame that I am not from the UK that I hadn’t heard of him, but I am not sure if that’s a good excuse as both of my parents had heard of him and knew straight away who he was).

At first I got asked massage him at St Davis’ Hall in Cardiff on the 11th of April, but only a couple of days later I got asked to go to Bristol as well on Sunday the 3rd of April (two days ago) to massage him before his show there. So on Sunday just gone I drove to Bristol with destination Bristol Hippodrome. The Hippodrome is a big theater in the middle of Bristol City Centre so it was not easy to miss it. I arrived early (like usual!) and was ready to start work at 6pm.

Lenny was a very nice guy and after the massage I had to ask him for a cheeky photo to make sure I could put it up on the blog. And Mr. Henry wasn’t hard to ask, he was more than happy for me to take a photo of us together. I like to meet new people so I thank the Society of Sports Therapy for giving my this opportunity! I will be massaging him again next Monday when he comes to Cardiff.

Are your gluteus muscles tight??

Then get stretching!! You may think that therapists in general are very glad in advising people to stretch, stretch and stretch even more, but there is a reason why we do it. Tight muscles can for example restrict your range of movement and cause muscle strains unnecessarily which is not something you want if you are an athlete or do any type of exercise or sport.

Today I wanted to show a few good stretches for your gluteus muscles, in particular for your gluteus minimus, medius and your piriformis muscle. If you suffer from sciatic pain, which can be caused by the sciatic nerve getting pinched, there is an even bigger reason to stretch these muscle groups. The sciatic muscle runs through your piriformis muscle so for a lot of people a tight piriformis muscle can aggravate the sciatic symptoms in the buttocks and sometimes down the leg.

However everyone can benefits from gluteus stretching, but it is up to you if you want to stretch or not, so I will at least show you how you can do it. I have arranged them according to how “difficult” I think they are. Starting with the “easiest” ones first.

Sitting gluteus stretch:

• Sit upright on the floor, cross your left leg over the other

• Place the left hand behind your left side and grab hold of the left leg with your right hand and pull this to the right

• Make sure you sit with a straight upright posture and feel the stretch on the outside of your left bottom

Laying gluteus stretch

• Start by laying on your back on the floor

• Bend both knees, cross right leg on top of the left leg (the right foot should rest on top of the left knee)

• Grab your left leg behind your thigh with both hands and pull it towards you until you can feel a stretch on the outside of your right bottom

• When you are done with one leg, cross the other leg over and repeat

Standing gluteus stretch over a table/bench



As you can see I just stretch instead of watching tv!!:)

• Start by standing in front of a table or bench which is about hip height

• Place your left knee at 45° on top of the table

• Step backward with your right leg and bend the right knee slightly

• From this position lean forward from your hips and place your hand in front of you
• Lean forward even more to increase the stretch

• Feel the stretch on the outside of your left gluteus

Laying gluteus stretch on the front (you need to be quite flexible to be able to get into this position!!!)

• Start off by placing your left leg at 45° in front of you

• Use your arms to move yourself into the position outlined above (difficult to explain this one)

• Lean over until you can feel a comfortable stretch on the outside of the left gluteus

So now you can all  get stretching that gluteus between and after sessions!

And just to show you all that I have now invested in a foam roller = torture roller to keep myself busy. You can use the foam roller to all sort of exercises including press ups.

However make sure you push the foam roller down cause if you don't you may end up like this!

Good luck!

Millenium Magic Weekend in Cardiff

This weekend I met up with my previous colleagues and all the rugby referees I used to work with prior to moving to Cardiff. On Friday I met up with a few of them for a nice Italian meal, a quiet start before the next two busy days of work ahead. On Saturday there were 4 matches in total, which meant that this was the busiest day. There were 3 of us working together which meant we were able to do one referee or touch judge each before and after every game. Since the matches started every 2 hours we ended up spending most of our time in the changing rooms working, but we still managed to watch a bit of the some of the matches in between. We also had a big tv in the changing rooms so we could watch a bit of the matches whilst working, even though this was with about 5 seconds delay from live play so we would always hear when a try was scored before we could see it on the tv :) The last match finished around 8.45 so by the time we were finished treating the last group of referees and were able to leave the stadium it was nearly 10 pm. We went for a quick noodle meal in Wagamama with some of the other referees before I headed back to get some sleep before the next day.

  

On Sunday there were only 3 matches which meant it was a bit easier then the day before. We finished around 6 pm and I was home on the sofa for around 7.30 which was lovely! It was a really good weekend of hard work, and it was great to meet everyone again. There were loads of laughter and banter as usual which is always a bonus when working at an event like this!

Here you can see the stadium from the outside, the capacity is about 70 000 so it is a big stadium! They put the roof on both days so although the stadium was far from full the atmosphere was pretty good!

 

 

Achilles Injury and Pain

Since moving to Cardiff in November I have started working with Athletics. A lot of these athletes train from 10 - 14 sessions a week which means that a lot of strain is being put through their bodies on a regular basis. If you are a runner you need to run quite a few miles per week in order to get the results you need, and everyone knows that running puts a lot of force and strain through the legs in particular. Tight and sore hamstrings, gluteus, quadriceps and calves muscles are a common complaint for a lot of runners, which is not surprisingly considering all the miles they need to handle and deal with. Tight calves is present in a lot of people with Achilles problems which is what I wanted to talk about today:

The Achillies tendon is a common injury site for a lot of runners. Most people know where the Achilles tendon is as it is easily identified just above the heel bone. Underneath you can see a picture of the Achilles tendon. The Achilles tendon is attached onto heel bone and runs up to the biggest muscle group in the back of the calves; the Gastrocnemius. So the Achilles tendon is a continuation of the calf muscles allows us to transfer power from the calf muscles to our ankle and foot. The Achilles tendon is active in pretty much any movement we do and it is for a reason it is the strongest single tendon in our body.



This is taken from Dr. Harry Gouvas MD, PhD - The Acillies Tendon is the yellow part on the picture

Several injuries can happen to the A. Tendon whith the most severe one being complete rupture of the tendon. I have not personally come across that injury, but I know several athletes (fotballers) who have sustained that injuries and I have seen videos of it happening and it is not a pretty sight! Anyway today I would focus more on overuse problems such as Tendinitis/Tendinosis or Tendinopathy! First I would like to specify in simple terms the difference between the two/three commonly used terms:

Tendinitis: Means that there is inflammation present!

Tendinosis: Means degeneration without inflammation!

Tendinopathy: This is just a general term which doesn’t specify the type of injury

With any overuse injury it is the accumulation of smaller tears and wear down of the tissue that causes problems. In a lot of the tendon “diagnosis” there is a discussion whether there actually inflammation present, hence why a lot of people keep mixing the terms. In a lot of cases there may not be any signs of inflammation present (swelling, redness), but the athlete can still have a degeneration of the tendon which causes pain.

The annoying and sometimes very frustrating thing about tendon injuries in general is that they have poor blood supply which means they can take a long time to heal. There are several things that can be done in terms of conservative treatment such as ultrasound, sports massage to calves, friction massage to the tendon and probably one of the most important things to start is eccentric calf loading rehabilitation program. Eccentric loading means a lengthening of the calf muscles and tendon and I have also attached some pictures underneath to show you what eccentric loading is in practise. A 12- week program of eccentric calf loading 3x 12 repetitions 7 days a week can be a starting point for this type of training. I have added some references towards the end of this post if you want more explanation. 

Lower down with the painful leg (This is Andy Syke's calves and you can check out his blog here: andysykesonline.blogspot.com)



Push of with the opposite leg (this just shows the starting position)

Although there are some (although maybe not a lot) research and promising results on this type of training, it is definitely worth a try! Remember with any injury; seek professional help and advice prior to starting any treatment or intervention!

Hope you found it useful! Have a good weekend everyone!
References:

1. J.D Rees, A.M Wilson and R.L Wolman, Current concepts in the management of tendon disorders, Rheumatology 2006

2. E. M Roos, M Engstrom, A Lagerquist and B Soderberg, Clinical improvement after 6 weeks of eccentric exercise in patients with mid-portion Achilles tendinopathy- a randomized trial with 1-year follow-up, Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sport 2004

3. M Fahlstrom, P Jonsson, R Lorentzen and H Alfredson, Chronic Achilles tendon pain treated with eccentric calf-muscle training, Knee Surg Sports Traumatol Arthrosc 2003

Celtic Cup 2011

This weekend I was lucky to be selected to be a part of the Welsh team to provide sports massage to the Welsh athletes at the Celtic Cup at NIAC (National Indoor Athletic Centre). On Saturday I went to Park Inn Hotel in Cardiff where I met the athletes and staff for the first time. We had a nice meeting about the day ahead and went for some dinner afterwards. It was nice to meet everyone and I looked forward to getting started on Sunday.

On Sunday I went to NIAC for 10 am. I work alongside another masseur called Jonny Lodowski. The English team’s physiotherapist and the Scottish team’s soft tissue therapist were also based next to where we were so it was an interesting day where I got to speak to some knowledgeable people. Since I was part of the Welsh team this weekend that meant it was a lot quieter for us compared to the previous events I have done recently, but I still managed to help a few athletes. It was still a good experience where I got to meet a lot of nice people.

Of course I need to say that the Welsh team won the first overall title at senior level  which was great! Well done everyone! You can read more about the cup here:

http://www.welshathletics.org/news--media/news/track--field/wales-triumph-in-celtic-cup-sizzler.aspx

And here is a nice picture of the team including staff

In summary I think I can say Good Job (with american accent) which was a phrase that was heard often during the day on Sunday:)

Welsh Indoor Athletics Championship

This weekend has been a busy one. On Saturday I performed sports massage at the Welsh Open Senior Indoor Championship and today I was at the Welsh Open U-20 and Closed U-17, U-15 and U-13 Championship. As I was the therapist providing pre and post event massage it certainly kept me busy enough, I massaged 25 ahtletes in total in two days which I think is pretty good going. I did enjoy it as I met a lot of lovely athletes. The guy in the picture underneath is from Edinburg and I think he felt like I was a bit horrible to his legs yesterday,but he came back again today for another massage after he won the gold medal so he was really pleased. Well done!



I look like a kid in comparison:)

 Over the last few weeks I have started working with some of the UWIC athletes during the week and today a lot of them were competing in various events. Some really good results, so it looks like the training they are putting in are starting to pay off, well done everyone! As this is now the third event I have done since I moved here I have been lucky to get picked for the Celtic Cup next Sunday which is an international event where UWIC, England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland will be competing. I will be one of the masseurs for the Welsh team, so that should be a really good experience. Looking forward to it!

  

Possibly putting on a brace face for the camera? :)



What happened to the smile here? :)

I think I will put my feet up now, have a cup of tea and watch some tv. Lovely!

Enjoy the rest of the weekend everyone!

Bristol Rovers- Testing Day

I have now started my internship with Bristol Rovers Academy players (9-16 year olds). Before Christmas we had a meeting with the other sports science staff where we decided how to organise a test day for the 15 and 16 year old players. We were lucky to have several  member or staff and interns available to help out which meant that we were able to run all the tests we wanted on one day (within 2.5 hours to be precise). Time is always a big concern in most clubs as you don’t want to take up to much of the players training time, hence why we decided to try and get it all done in one day.

Why do we test players?

Because it helps us identify physical abilities and areas of improvement. It is also a good way of setting goals and targets for players.

Fotball is a complex game with several physiological requirements. The requirents will depend on the player's position, but in general fotballers need to have a combination of aerobic/anaerobic endurance, speed, agility, balance, coordination, strength and power. After you have choosen the tests you want to use, you need to organise the tests in the "right" or most logical order. This means that you always do the non fatigue tests such as anthropmetry (height and weight) first and finish with the most fatiguing tests such as for example the Bleep Test. The main reason  for doing this is to avoid fatigue to optimise each test result.

We did the following tests:

• We started with non fatigue tests first such as height, weight and flexibility tests

• We then did a functional movement screen consisting of overhead squat, back squat, single leg squat, and   80cm hop on one leg that (We filmed all these movements)

• We then did 10 and 30 metre sprints (walk in start with time gates)

• The next was countermovement jumps and squat jumps on a forceplate

• We then did a pro agility test through time gates

• Before we finished off with the lovely Bleep Test (Believe me I have suffered through this test numerous times when playing football and handball and know it can be a killer, so well done boys!)

Considering this was quite a lot to get through with two squads in the time we had available I think it was a really good experience. I have been involved with this kind of testing before, but not with this many players at the same time. It was really interesting and I found it useful as we had to be very structured as we didn't have many seconds to waste. Looking forward to get started with the coaching and get to know the players now.

Have a good weekend everyone!