Woodlands Fitness Centre

The Woodlands newsletter: Monday 4th March 2019

Monday 4th March 2019

Hi,

Sometimes your weight loss can plateau. Well, if you're stuck in such a predicament, don't do what most people do: exercise more and eat less. It will just make things worse.

Chances are the culprit is likely water retention. If you don't know how to deal with it properly, it can fuel an emotional firestorm of anger and frustration. Well, I don't want that to happen to you - so I wrote a series of articles.

This subject is explored later in our article: The Minnesota Starvation Experiment.

Sometimes everyone needs accountability and motivation. Personal Trainers are there to motivate you. You are investing money into tailor made exercise workout programs - and you're investing time into doing these tailor made workouts.

A standing appointment or regular group PT sessions will help you to get your butt in gear for a workout. Your personal trainer should provide some accountability - even when you don't have a session, you know your trainer will be asking if you stuck to a diet plan or did your planned workouts. Just knowing that may make it harder to skip your workouts.

Our small class group training sessions are tightly-run training sessions of anything from 1-6 people (yes, not strictly a group if it's just 1 person - but if you want to train then we will train you!) where we use our dedicated group PT studio in a closely coached exercise program that's all about results and hard work.

There are quite a few changes so please feel free to speak to a member of the team to discuss in detail but to help summarise:

* There will now be 43 group sessions per week, including: Condition, Total, Upper, Lower, Core, Circuit and HIIT.

* Introducing new '30m' groups: these 30 minute groups are condensed versions of our normal groups, designed to pack in high intensity exercise to push you to the next level and really make the most of your time here!

* We now have a 5pm Group on every weekday!

* We have added a second Group class to Sunday morning to accommodate the increasing demand

* Groups are now strictly limited to 6 people - not 8 like before! This is to ensure you get a higher quality of coaching and support.

* All of our groups are £7 to non-members. Membership prices start at just £30 per month. No contract options available Message us for details.

* Gym Only direct debit members can upgrade in 3 month blocks for just £41 (works out at just £14 per month). Your direct debit amount will not change.

* We always prefer an informal approach - so we will be maintaining the booking forms in the gym. All bookings can be made in the gym, by phone, e-mail or via social media. How you book in isn't important; we just care that you attend regularly.

Each session will be a proper personal training session.


Group Training membership prices:

Joint/Student:
£30pm for 12 months, £35pm for 3 months and £40pm for 1 month.

Single:
£35pm for 12 months, £40pm for 3 months and £45pm for 1 month.

Here is a list of our group training sessions:

http://www.woodlandsfitnessrowsley.co.uk/group-exercise

Gym Only:

Single: £23pm for 12 months, £25pm for 3 months and £27pm for 1 month.
Joint/Student: £22pm for 12 months, £24pm for 3 months and £26pm for 1 month.

PT prices:

Here are a few examples of our most popular PT packages:

8 x 30 minute PT sessions
£112

4 x 45 minute PT sessions
£80

4 x 60 minute PT sessions
£107

All sessions must be used within 4 weeks. We use time limits with our personal training packages to encourage frequent and consistent training. Packages can be designed to your individual needs. We can adjust the time limits in advance to take into account holidays, business trips, etc.

All of our PT packages include full gym & classes membership.

Opening Hours:

Monday: 7.30am - 9.00pm
Tuesday: 9.00am - 9.00pm
Wednesday: 7.30am - 9.00pm
Thursday: 9.00am - 9.00pm
Friday: 7.30am - 8.00pm
Saturday: 8.00am - 2.00pm
Sunday 8.00am - 2.00pm

We always want to know what you think of the Woodlands Fitness Centre - the gym, prices, personal training, group personal training, and anything else. Please speak to us at the gym, email any feedback and suggestions to the email address at the end of this newsletter.

Thanks,

GW


The Minnesota Starvation Experiment

During World War II, Dr. Ancel Keys led a groundbreaking scientific study wherein 36 men willingly submitted themselves to a semi-starvation diet of about 1,500 calories per day for 6 months and hours of hard labour every day.

This become known as the "Minnesota Starvation Experiment" and its purpose was to learn about the physiology and psychology of starvation, and to work out a proper regimen for helping starved war prisoners back to normal diets and metabolic health.

One of the many interesting findings that came from this study was that weight loss progressed in a nice, linear fashion in the beginning. Men lost about 2 pounds per week, every week. After some time, though, it became erratic and unpredictable.

Body weight would remain stagnant for several weeks followed by overnight "bursts" of large amounts of weight loss (3+ pounds). It's physically impossible to burn several pounds of fat overnight - so how is that possible? Well, the scientists looked into the phenomenon further and found the answer: water retention.

What was happening is the men were steadily losing fat even when their weight wasn't changing because as they lost more fat, they held more water. This only became obvious once the excess water was expelled, which gave the appearance of very rapid weight loss. The calorie deficit did systematically reduce body fat levels, but the reductions in total body weight were often counter-balanced by increases in water retention.

There are some weight loss "gurus" who like to claim that this experiment actually "proves" that calorie-based dieting "doesn't work" because subjects weren't losing weight despite being in a calorie deficit. Losing weight isn't the goal. Losing fat is what you should be aiming for.

Fluctuations in weight normally occur randomly - but scientists found that reliable trigger was a dramatic increase in caloric intake. For instance, a 2,300-calorie meal was served to celebrate the half-way mark of the experiment - and researchers noted that many of the men woke up several times to pee that night and, in the morning, were several pounds lighter than the day before.

If you've ever dieted down to a super-lean level (7% body fat and below for men, 16% and below for women), you've probably experienced something similar after doing a re-feed day. Why is this, though? What's happening physiologically?

The answer has to do with a hormone called cortisol, which your body produces in response to stress. Research shows that a prolonged calorie deficit dramatically raises cortisol levels. This causes quite a few unwanted effects in the body including increased water retention.

And that's exactly what happened to the Minnesota Experiment patients. The combination of little food and lot of physical activity spiked cortisol levels, which spiked water retention. This is why many people who follow starvation diets and do large amounts of exercise tend to struggle the most with water retention as well.

Scientists found that the feast that triggered the weight drop in the experiment's subjects dramatically lowered their cortisol levels, which explains the large expulsions of water. Again, this is why a refeed day will often produce a weight loss drop. This is also why weight loss will often continue during a period of reverse dieting.

If you need any further information or advice, please come and talk to me.


100 reps to ripped

Take off your shirt and stand in front of a mirror. Do you look any different than you did a few months ago? Be honest.

Now check your training log. Have the weights gone up? Can you do more reps with the same amount of weight? Have you beaten your 1rm or 3rm on the key lifts recently or have things kinda stalled out?

If things aren't looking good, you may have hit a plateau. That's okay; it happens to every advanced lifter. To blast through it, you can't just keep doing the same things you've been doing in the gym. It's time to get a running start and juggernaut through that wall.

One of the most intense ways to break a training plateau is by doing 100 rep sets. It's simple. Here's one way to do it with the 50 rep goal:

Select a weight that will allow you to perform 50 solid consecutive repetitions.
Upon completion of the 50th rep, take a 10-15 second rest-pause while breathing deeply.
Continue on by gutting out a few more reps to failure then take another rest-pause of 10-15 seconds.
Continue in this manner until you hit a total of 100 reps.

A goal to shoot for when doing a 100-rep set is to get them completed in 6 subsets or less.

If you use a 1-0-1-0 tempo, you'll need 5 minutes. Time limits are usually a good idea; you won't be able to wander off during your rest periods - so no getting distracted by a text message or an extended trip to the toilet. You're ruled by the clock - which pushes the intensity for the cardiovascular system.

If you're doing them to burn fat, you can do them daily at the end of your workout until you've reached your fat burning goals. Dig deep and smash that plateau!


Chickpea and chorizo casserole

Slow-cooking this Med-style dish releases all the tasty paprika flavours of the chorizo and the toasted pitta side is ready in just minutes

Ingredients:

200g pack Spanish Chorizo Sausage
400g can Chickpeas in Water, drained and rinsed
500g frozen Scratch Cook Mediterranean Veg Mix
400g chopped tomatoes
180g Baby Spinach
3 wholemeal pitta breads, toasted

Method:

Preheat the slow cooker to high if the manufacturer recommends it.

Heat a frying pan to medium, add the chorizo and fry for 4-5 mins or until browned evenly all over. Slice into 2cm chunks and put in the slow cooker.

Add the chickpeas, veg mix, tomatoes and baby spinach to the cooker. Stir to combine, cover with the lid and cook for 1 hr.

Reduce the slow cooker heat to low and continue to cook for 2-4 hrs.

Serve the casserole with the toasted pitta bread.

Enjoy!


Useless Facts

An apple a day keeps the doctor away.

The expression 'to get fired' comes from long ago Clans that wanted to get rid of unwanted people - so they would burn their houses instead of killing them, creating the term 'Got fired'.

An orange a day keeps the postman away.

"I am." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.

If you throw fruit at people, they go away.

Hershey's Kisses are called that because the machine that makes them looks like it's kissing the conveyor belt.

Chris Buckley can strangle you with a cordless phone.



The Woodlands Fitness Centre Ltd
A: Unit 27, Molyneux Business Park, Darley Dale, Derbyshire, DE4 2HJ
T: (01629) 733 123
E: woodlandsfitness@yahoo.co.uk
W: www.woodlandsfitnessrowsley.co.uk