Meditation – Body Rock Performance

Your Christmas fitness wish list with Karl Henry

Posted on December 9, 2024December 17, 2024 by admin

Between Black Friday and the Toy Show, present buying for Christmas is first and foremost on a lot of people’s minds, and on this week’s Real Health, I thought, why not ask two of Ireland’s leading personal trainers what their wish list for Christmas would be?

John Belton of No. 17 Personal Training and Paul Moran from BodyRock Performance joined me with their recommendations for training-related gifts for friends and family.

There’s a few gadgets and gizmos on their list to aid in your running or gym work but I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by some of their wish list favourites that go beyond just health and fitness.

Go check out this episode of the Real health podcast with Karl Henry, Paul Moran & John Belton where we give you our top 10 fitness gift 🎁 ideas 💡 for this Christmas 🎄https://open.spotify.com/show/34V3reoPjzHBBlr4fS6PVQ

For more episodes and information from the Real Health podcast you can also go to: https://www.independent.ie/podcasts/the-real-health-podcast/

The Real Health podcast with Karl Henry in association with Laya Healthcare.

Listen to the show on the SoundCloud player or subscribe and rate via the following links:

iPhone users can subscribe and listen on Apple Podcasts.

Android users can subscribe and listen on Google Podcasts.

Or listen on SoundCloud

And we’re on Spotify

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To-Do List: SLEEP

Posted on December 9, 2024December 17, 2024 by admin

A common mistake made by people trying to improve their health and fitness is that by placing virtually all of their focus on their training and nutrition plans they actually miss the third and often most crucial element – sleep. In a world that often packs as many hours of activities and tasks into a day as possible, it’s no wonder that sleep is one of the first things people sacrifice. But did you know this sacrifice alone could be the one thing stopping you from reaching your goals? A lack of deep quality sleep plays havoc with our hormones, which can not only decrease our motivation and energy levels but can also increase our chances of gaining weight and make us age faster. If you’re trying to improve your health and fitness, hitting the sack is just as important as hitting the gym.

Our sleep cycles are regulated by our circadian rhythm, which is regulated by light and darkness. When it is light out, our bodies think we should be awake. When it is dark, our bodies want to go to sleep. There are two hormones directly involved in our sleep cycles, the same hormones that play a role in how our weight is gained and distributed – melatonin and cortisol.

Melatonin is our sleep hormone. Made in the brain by the pineal gland, then sent into the bloodstream during darkness, melatonin encourages our peaceful slumber. Melatonin levels hit their peak between 2am – 4am and then gradually ebb so that we can wake up and greet the day.

Cortisol works inversely with melatonin (when cortisol is high, melatonin is low and vice versa). Made in your adrenal glands (above your kidneys), your cortisol levels will be lowest at night when melatonin is doing its job, but will begin to rise early in the morning in order to help get you going when you wake up. Cortisol is also the hormone your body secretes when you get stressed. High stress levels mean high cortisol levels, and high cortisol levels mean (a) bad sleep (b) stored body fat in your belly.

Without a doubt, one of the most important things you can do for your body is sleep, especially if you are pursuing a health and fitness programme – let me elaborate by outlining some of the key benefits:

It stops us over eating. Sufficient sleep helps your body to balance hunger hormones. Ghrelin is a hormone that signals your body to eat more. When you’re sleep deprived your body makes more of this hormone. Leptin is the hormone that tells your body it’s had enough food. Your body makes less leptin when you’re tired. Put the two together, and it’s no wonder sleep deprivation leads to overeating and weight gain.
It prevents excess weight gain. Without adequate sleep our ability to properly use insulin (the fat storage hormone) becomes completely disrupted. When we become more insulin resistant, fats circulate in our blood and pump out more insulin. Excess insulin is eventually stored as fat. A quality sleeping pattern will help keep insulin levels regular and prevent fat storage. You also get stressed when you are tired and stress has a great ability to cause you to store fat (especially around your belly). When you experience stress, your body produces cortisol. Cortisol makes you more likely to store calories as fat no matter how well you are eating. Therefore, a poor sleep routine can result in your body treating a healthy diet like an unhealthy one.
It keeps your brain focused<br />.Your brain functions differently without sleep. Sleep deprivation is a little like being drunk. When you are deprived of sleep you lack the mental clarity to make sound complex decisions, especially with regards to the foods you eat. This usually results in you making poor meal choices and consuming snacks you wouldn’t normally eat. Sufficient sleep also promotes mental and emotional health. These are very important factors when trying to improve food and exercise habits. A positive outlook and state of mind leads to better choices all day long, including exercise and healthy eating.
You get a greater benefit from your workouts. Let’s be honest – sometimes just getting to the gym is an effort, but when you’re tired it’s even harder. What’s worse is the lack of effort you find yourself putting in once you’re there. If you are tired you are not going to be able to give your session 100%. Less than 100% effort means less than 100% reward. Don’t jeopardise your hard work because of a poor sleep pattern.
It helps you recover. For years there has been research completed on the effects of over-training and how often we should exercise each week before it’s considered too much. But, there should also be a focus on under-recovering. Lack of sleep makes it harder for your body to recover from exercise by slowing down the production of growth hormone – your natural source of anti-aging and fat burning that also facilitates recovery. Sleep is when the body powers down so that it can restore, repair, and replenish.

The Body Achieves What The Mind Believes

Posted on December 9, 2024December 17, 2024 by admin

When you are contemplating making lifestyle changes to support your health and fitness goals it is really important to work on your mindset, because your mindset is a key driver of your behaviours, and it is your behaviours that will determine if you succeed or fail. Having the right attitude towards your exercise and nutrition programme will massively help you to stay focussed, to persevere when the going gets tough, and to achieve your desired results. These are some simple techniques that have proven helpful to people seeking to overhaul their behaviours.

Firstly write down your motivation to lose weight/get fit. Keep asking yourself “why?” – why do I want to lose weight? Why do I want to get fit? Why do I want to get strong? It may be that your doctor has given you a warning about your health, it may be that you have a special occasion coming up that you want to look good for, it may be that you want to have the ability to run around and play with your kids without keeling over, it may be that you want to fit back into all your favourite clothes that are no longer fitting you, etc… There can be so many different reasons, but taking the time to really understand your “why” will hugely help you to stay more motivated, more focussed, and more inclined to make and maintain the required changes.
Understand that changing behaviours is not easy, and that the habits we have developed over a lifetime are difficult to ‘break’ or ‘let go’. Habits are meant to be difficult to change – they are formed out of repetitive actions or behaviours that eventually slip into your daily routines without any thought. If you’ve been trying to beat an old habit and haven’t been successful, you may be wondering how long it should really take to kick it for good. A study of 96 people published in The European Journal of Social Psychology found it took on average 66 days to form a habit, such as eating fruit at lunch or running for 15 minutes a day. There are many ways to break a habit but one of the easiest is to replace it with more positive one. For example, if you’re trying to stop sweet cravings after dinner, try drinking a large glass of water and eating a piece of fruit before allowing yourself to give in. You may find that your cravings subside and you didn’t really need that chocolate anyway. Breaking bad habits/developing good habits requires mental strength, so understanding that any new exercise and nutrition programme is going to challenge you mentally as much as physically will ensure you keep a focus on your mind as well as on your body. Forewarned is forearmed…..
Make a list of all the benefits you will experience as you lose weight/get fitter, and keep reminding yourself of those benefits. Stick the list in a visible place, maybe on the fridge door and show it to your family and friends, as they can be a great source of support. This will help you stay positive when things get tough, and will serve as a regular reminder of why you are on the journey you are on.
Think about the changes you want to make and start setting yourself very specific goals. For example ‘I will eat breakfast every morning and bring a healthy packed lunch to work every day’, ‘I will go to the gym after work on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays’. Detail how you will achieve each goal and what pre-planning will be needed (go to supermarket to buy ingredients for breakfast and packed lunches, bring your gym gear to work on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays). If you simply have “I want to lose weight and get fit” as your only goal it will seem intangible, overwhelming and perhaps unattainable. If, however, you take the time to break down that overall goal into smaller, specific, more manageable goals, things won’t seem so impossible and you will become more focussed and optimistic about your likelihood of success – i.e. your mindset will be more positive.
Self-monitoring is essential to the success of behavioural change. Having identified all the specific changes you want to make, keep a record of them. In terms of exercise and nutrition changes, keeping a food and activity diary is a good way to monitor how you are getting on. The simple fact of having to write down what you are doing/not doing will make you more clearly aware of how you are doing, and knowledge is power. Once you know what is/is not working it becomes easier to make changes. The research shows that we are more successful at changing behaviour if we self-monitor.
Understand that relapses are a normal part of change – no matter how hard you try, you won’t be perfect all the time. So rather than feeling that you have failed and give up, look at what you can learn from a ‘bad day’ or ‘bad week’. Be kind to yourself, reflect on what you have already achieved and get back on track.

RTE Article: Sarah McIntyre

Posted on December 9, 2024December 17, 2024 by admin

Magazines are flooded with ‘get your body bikini ready’ features, accounts of juice cleanse detoxes are rampant online and everyone seems to have the answer to shaping up in time for summer.In my experience, the only thing that really works long-term, outside of faddish diets and exercise trends, is good old-fashioned hard work and clean eating. It’s a tough pill to swallow as everyone wants the quick fix, but if you’re dedicated and passionate about getting in shape, it’s worth the slog.I started training at Body Rock Performance in Sandymount, a gym run by personal trainer Paul Moran, last summer in a bid to tone up before a holiday, and I haven’t looked back.The classes, which take place both indoors and outdoors, run for about an hour and consist of targeted interval training concentrating on specific muscles for each exercise. Interval training, which involves alternating periods of high-intensity exercise with rest, has been recognised as the most effective way to increase fitness. It also burns more calories over a short period of time than steady-state cardio and continues to burn calories after your workout.Each class at Body Rock is different, and often concentrates on specific areas – such as dreaded leg days, which consist of a lot of lunges and squats, or arms and abs, which involve a lot of weight exercises.To mix in a bit of cardio, Paul and Stephen sometimes use the dreaded ‘Prowler’, a weighted fitness sled often used in rugby training which will have your legs screaming within seconds. Periods of sprinting are also sometimes interspersed into the class to give an all-round workout that have you feeling fantastic, and more than a little relieved, once it’s over.Although training at Body Rock is far from easy, it is an incredibly effective, and dare I say, fun way to tone up. When I initially started taking the classes, it took just two weeks to see changes, and you can also get your body fat ratio measured at the gym so you can keep on top of your progress. In contrast to a lot of gyms, the atmosphere is fun, inclusive and good-natured, which spurs you on to work hard and see great results. You can also have your diet and nutrition analysed at Body Rock to see where you might be going wrong in that area, which is often the main hurdle people come up against in their bid to lose weight and get in shape. As an added bonus, you can try out your first session at Body Rock for free to see if it’s suited to you. Sarah McIntyre

Email info @brp.ie for more information. You can visit Body Rock’s Facebook page here.www.brp.ie