Happy Monday People
How was your weekend?
Krystie, Milly and I had a pretty chilled weekend. I got a chance to catch up on some reading, writing and other bits and bobs. And I also headed out for a bike ride on Sunday, what a glorious sunny day it was. Krystie and I also downloaded the ‘Lightbox’ app as we thought it was time that we caught up on the 5th season of Suits (yes Suits is Krystie’s favourite…I think its because she has a little thing for Mr Specter 😉
Before I get into today’s newsletter I wanted to get some feedback from you..Yes you!
Is there anything in particular you would like me to write about. Is there anything you struggle with, in regards to training, nutrition, mind-set or whatever else. Is there anything you would like to learn more about?
Please flick me a quick email and let us know your interest and how we can help you.
Okay, back to the newsletter. In today’s post I want to share with you training mistakes that I still see women making.
To say women are making mistakes does sound a little negative. Truth be told these are not mistakes made by ignorance. These are mistakes that women are fed by the multi-billion dollar weight loss industry that is far more interested in selling you the latest pill, powders, potions, gadgets and fitness trends that simply don’t work. These so called effortless weight loss miracles are often backed up by an under qualified but genetically gifted celebrity that has been paid an absurd amount of money to endorse these products.
Mistake 1 – Doing the wrong type of training for your goal.
When a women decides it’s time to lose some weight and get in shape she will often go for the cardio machines. Go into any big box gym and you will see the x-trainers, treadmills and bikes all commandeered by women. Now don’t get me wrong there is nothing wrong with doing cardio especially if you’re training for an endurance event like running a marathon BUT if your goal is fat loss or ”getting into shape” then you would be far better off doing some resistance training. Resistance training will improve posture, bone density and add lean muscle tissue which is metabolically expensive meaning – more calories burned.
The picture above is of Rachel Cosgrove. The pic on the left is her training for an ironman (running) 13 hours a week. On the right she is training less than 3 hours a week using heavy resistance training and kettlebells.
Rachel Cosgrove has a great book – The female body breakthrough
Training mistake 2 – Not lifting enough weight.
This is a follow on from mistake 1. Okay you read somewhere that you should be doing resistance training ”great” BUT you fear getting big and muscley so you lift the little pink dumbbells. If you can lift a weight more than 20 times then you’re doing cardio not resistance training! Women simply don’t have the testosterone to get big and bulky. If you see a women who lifts heavy weights and is big and bulky it’s usually down to two reasons
1 – She is on steroids
2 – She eats too much of the wrong types of food. Her muscle is covered in a thick layer of fat giving the appearance of bulk
If your goal is fat loss then 8-12 reps is a good starting place. However I would also encourage women to start looking at some more strength protocols of 3-5 reps which can also be fantastic for fat loss as well as strength.
Training mistake 3 – The abdominal and tricep obsession
Here is the deal, everyone has a sixpack. If you can’t see it, it’s not because you haven’t done enough sit ups. It’s because your abs are covered in a layer of fat. The same goes for your triceps. No amount of tricep kickbacks will give you jarms (that’s Jennifer Aniston arms)
If you want toned arms then…
Step 1 – get your nutrition right.
Step 2 – resistance training focusing on big compound lifts like squats, deadlifts, lunges, pushups and pullups.
Step 3 – do some interval training.
Step 4 – rinse and repeat.
Training mistake 4 – The love of balls 🙂
Swiss balls, bosu balls, medicine balls. Before I get into it I want to say that there is nothing wrong with doing some training using these swiss, bosu, medicine balls, it’s just that there is a point of diminishing return. Let’s take the bosu. The purpose of using the bosu is to create instability therefore your body has to look for more stability in order to have control over the given movement. Nothing wrong with that. The problem comes from excessive use or poor exercise selection. The goal of resistance training is to get stronger, increase lean muscle tissue etc. Let’s take the squat, squatting on a bosu decreases the capacity to lift heavier weights and therefore decreases the capacity to strengthen major muscle groups. It also has very little functional carryover. That is unless you’re training to be in the circus.
This is clearly a bad idea.
Training mistake 5 – Using Vibrational plates
I have seen Vibrational plates advertised quite a bit lately. News flash – most infomercial products aren’t always what they’re cracked up to be.
The idea of vibrational machines work on involuntary muscle contractions. Essentially you sit there and vibrate and your muscles do the work for you. The reality is these micro-contractions are so small that any benefit you get will be minimal.
So here is what you can do. You can pay 3 installments of our special low price offer of $297 or you could save all your money and more by simply switching off your heating in winter.
These involuntary muscle contractions you get on the vibration plate are the same as when you are shivering.
More effective and cheaper than vibration plates.
So there you have it 5 training mistakes you might be making and how you can fix them.
What’s next?
Need some help? We got your back
If you’re serious about getting into shape and live in Hawkes Bay then we have the program for you. See how we can help you by visiting our website www.personal-trainers.co.nz for more information 🙂
That’s all for today
Stay Healthy
Paul ”outside shivering in the cold trying to burn some calories” & Krystie ”inside with Harvey Specter 😉 Miller
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