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ULTRA-FIT MAGAZINE
NO NONSENSE PLANS FOR FAST RESULTS
OLYMPIC SPECIAL Vol.18 No.6 £3.70
THE SUMMER ISSUE
THE
SUMMER ISSUE
VOLUME EIGHTEEN NUMBER SIX
■ Beach-ready in 30 minutes ■ Be a stronger swimmer ■ Power Plate full body tone up ■ Stay Stress-Free
■ Nathan Douglas ■ Jo Pavey ■ Nicola Sanders ■ Track Cycling
HEART HEALTH Tucker for your ticker p36
BRITAIN’S FITTEST COUPLE How they did it
LOSE POUNDS... Burn more fat every session p72
SOCCER WORKOUT New ways to get fit
www.ultra-fitmagazine.com
TRIATHLON DIET ATTITUDE Get the habit Achieve your goals PILATES 50 plus fitness
Become an instant event nutrition expert www.ultra-fitmagazine.com ISSN 0957-0624 0 6
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THE ATHLETE’S KITCHEN
2008 Sports Nutrition News from
ACSM For cutting edge sports nutrition information, the annual meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine is the place to be! Nancy Clark filed this report from the conference floor covering everything from why chocolate milk is naughty but nice to how long soccer players need to recover from a game.
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Eating an energy bar just 15 minutes before you exercise is as effective as eating it an hour before. Grabbing fuel as you rush to your workout is a good idea that gets put to use.
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Natural sports snacks, like a granola bar or banana, offer a variety of sugars. But engineered foods might offer just one type of sugar. Because different sugars use different transporters to get into muscle cells, eating a variety of sugars enhances energy availability. In a 62 mile (100 km) time trial, cyclists who consumed two sugars (glucose + fructose) completed the course in 204 minutes; those who had just glucose took a additional 16 minutes. The bottom line: eat a variety of foods with
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MIND
Get the
Habit By Midgie Thompson
Do you ever start something, then stop, then start again? Do you ever struggle to keep going when you just started? Do you ever waiver about sticking to your plan? If yes, then you are like many others ‌ they start new habits and struggle to maintain them. Regardless of what new habit you want to develop, be that going to the gym, exercising regularly, eating well or maintaining a healthy lifestyle, it can be challenging and it does take some effort. Yet, it can be done! Midgie Thompson shows you how you can more easily get into the habit by exploring what might be stopping you and what you can do to stay on track.
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What might be stopping you? Even with the best of intentions, we get side-tracked and stop having the focus when developing a new habit. There are many reasons why you might not be sticking to your plan. One of them may be that you do not have a clear focus as to where you are going. Effective goals setting with a welldefined plan will help. Additionally, the reasons why you are doing what you are doing might not provide a strong enough incentive to keep on going. Clarifying your motivational drivers that pull you towards your outcome will help. Another reason might be that you have not made the new habit a high enough priority. Making it a priority and making time where you can focus on it will help. So, let’s explore each of these reasons.
Planning makes perfect Many of us know we want to start new habits, such as going to the gym and exercising regularly, yet have not actually clarified the specific outcome we want to achieve. You specify the outcome through effective goal setting.
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STRESS BUSTERS
Things don’t have to be prefect What is it about humans that we think we can achieve the impossible: do a colossal mountain of work every day, every bit of it a masterpiece with no mistakes, never misjudging anything? In short, create perfection.
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T C E F R PE ey a Abb s s y l By A
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WOMEN’S FITNESS
30 minute TOTAL BODY TONER Photography: Neil Francombe/Ultra-Fit Images
No longer getting the results you desire? Too much ‘you’ but not enough time? Personal trainer Caroline Sandry has a speedy circuit to help you fast forward your way to a better body… Perhaps you have been exercising for a while, but are no longer seeing positive changes. Or maybe you have a good level of fitness, but are going through a busy period and do not have the time to get to the gym. There are times when you need to up the intensity and find new challenges, and so we have devised a time effective circuit that can be performed at home, and all you need is a step/stair or low bench and some dumbbells. Back to basics As readers of Ultra Fit, I am sure you already have a good knowledge of exercise and you understand about goals and programmes; but sometimes even the most dedicated exercisers get stuck in an exercise rut, and find their fitness and toning can plateau. Perhaps you have reached a point where you are comfortable with your routine and you regularly clock up your 10 miles of running each week, plus a quick weights session at the gym, but you are finding that your body is no longer responding in the same way and your shape and tone is not improving. Many new clients that approach me for personal training are already fit and have a good routine, but have found their weight loss has slowed or stopped, or they have found that they still have that excess stomach fat, or wobbly arms that they hate in spite of their continued efforts. One of the principles of fitness that should always be considered is ‘overload’ In order to elicit continued gains in CV fitness or muscle size , strength and endurance, the body must be subjected to greater stress than it is accustomed to. This can be achieved by manipulating one of the variables of your routine – including
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Volume (sets & reps) Speed Muscle action Rest interval Training frequency Plane of motion Exercise order Exercise selection Duration of session As this is aimed for those of you that are short on time, this routine varies planes of motion and muscle action. It is then down to you to change the exercise order, and for example increase your speed or decrease your rest intervals. This circuit is not for beginners, however is very adaptable. Begin with no weights (where there is an option) and progress to
light dumbbells – e.g. 2kg before working up to 4 or 5 kg dumbbells. Also, to add intensity, and to increase the cardio challenge, add in a 45 – 90 second skip session between each exercise with a short recovery. If you are already fit, and want to shape up quickly for an event, or the beach, then add in the skipping plus star jumps, squat thrusts and or running on the spot to really up the intensity. The exercises are all compound – they work more than one joint at a time, and some of them are working knee, hip, elbow and shoulder joint in one move, so take your time to get familiar with the movement and concentrate on form and technique. To begin with, perform one set of 10 – 12 reps of each exercise, and as you become fitter repeat the circuit 2 to 3 times. If you do choose to add in some CV work (skipping, jumping etc) then there may be additional benefits - as interval training boosts your post exercise calorie burn (EPOC) - so you will continue to burn more calories after your session than if you had completed a lower intensity session – so get that skipping rope out!
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WOMEN’S FITNESS
Step Ups ■ Stand in front of a step, feet hip width and parallel. ■ Step up with right foot as you drive your left knee up in front of you ■ Place the left foot back to the step, and step the right foot back to briefly touch the floor as in position 1
■ Repeat 10 – 15 on each leg. ■ To advance, hold light dumbbells in front of you with palms facing inwards and elbows bent, and ‘punch’ forward as you step up. Do not lock the arm.
Plank ■ Kneel with your back to your step, hands under your shoulders and shoulders away from your ears ■ Place one toe at a time up onto the step and draw your abdominals in tight as you lift your knees up, so that your body forms a straight line – like a plank! Your full bodyweight is supported on your hands and toes. ■ Keep your spine in a neutral position, your belly button drawn up and in and hold the position for 10 – 20 seconds. ■ To advance, lift one foot from the floor, maintaining neutral and keeping the hips straight and level.
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FIT MOVES
innovations
OLYMPIC Our footwear and performance clothing guru Andy Barber reports on the latest performance enhancing kit and caboodle athletes will be using in Beijing and how and why you too can make it work in training and competition.
Watching the Olympic athletes compete in their finals it is easy to think that they live in a very different world to the rest of us. In some ways that is very true as they prepare and train in purpose built, carefully selected facilities with the best in athlete support while the rest of us try to fit training at the gym around the demands of work, family and other commitments. Whether on a bike, in the pool, on a track or participating in one of the many other events that make up an Olympic Games the kit the athletes will be wearing will be the best available. Some athletes will be wearing highly personalised ‘make-ups’ but other kit you will see in action is available in the high street, and the Beijing Olympics have led to the development of technologies that each of us can make the most of the next time we head out training. The team clothing The clothing athletes wear at the Games is their national kit.
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The brands spend a long time developing this in association with the federations across a range of sports. There are 16 Olympic Committees and 214 federations who will be lining up in Beijing wearing adidas apparel. Berthold Krabbe head of the adidas research team
Inset: Haile Gebrselassie in ClimaCool jacket. Above: Jeremy Wariner in Powerweb.
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SHOE TEST
Shoes to enhance your
By Andy Barber
Bill Bowerman is reported to have said the secret of running faster is… to run faster. Bowerman was a great distance coach whose methods still have an influence today. While his statement was certainly tongue in cheek he also spent hours doing all that he could to help his athletes at Oregon run faster. That meant refining his training techniques and experimenting with energy drinks. He also spent hours in a room under the stadium working out how to make shoes to help his athletes run faster. This even led to the creation of Nike with one of his former protégés. The truth of the matter remains the same. Running faster is mostly about training properly. But proper equipment will give you a helping hand and enable you to get the most from your fitness. As running shoes have developed it is now possible to get a pair of regular training shoes which weigh less than they would have done in the past. There are now quite protective training shoes that weigh less than 350g and closer to 300g. But how light should you go? If you are looking to do some serious speed work or race then a pair of lighter shoes would certainly be an advantage. Bowerman once estimated that one ounce saved off your shoes was equivalent to 12 taken off your torso (due to the range of movements your feet go through). But if you reduce too much weight from your shoes and this leads to discomfort or injury you are going slower, not faster! That means that if you suffer any niggles or soreness when training in regular shoes you are
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best sticking to your normal shoes for faster work. You will benefit from the protection more than you would benefit
progress. We have hand picked a selection of shoes which can enhance your speed, but also give varying
Bowerman once estimated that one ounce saved off your shoes was equivalent to 12 taken off your torso from less weight on your feet. However if you are competently handling the distances you are looking to run fast over and having no adverse reactions to your speed work it is probably time to
degrees of protection. So wherever you are on the spectrum there should be something for you if you are looking to give your speed training or road racing a bit of extra zap!
Training shoes, lightweights and racers are all designed either for neutral runners or over-pronators. You should check whether you are best suited to a support shoe or a neutral one. When running most people land on the outside of their heels with their foot then rolling to be flat to the ground. This rolling movement is called pronation. Too much pronation is called over-pronation and this means you are creating potentially harmful rotational forces that can have an effect not only in your ankles or knees but also in other parts of your body. If you are forefoot striking, as is more likely to happen at faster speeds, this overpronation is likely to be less but you can still have forefoot pronation. ‘Support shoes’ reduce over-pronation. To check whether you need these or neutral shoes take a pair of your running shoes and stand them on a level surface. Now look at them from directly behind the heel and note what the upper does – does it lean slightly inwards, is it still correctly shaped, or is it leaning outwards. If your shoes are leaning inwards you need support shoes. You should also check whether your shoes were support shoes (usually these have a grey ‘post’ or support structure along the inner side of the midsole of each shoe). If they were support shoes and there is no lean it implies your shoes have done their job. If you have not had any injury problems it is best to stay with this type of shoe. If there is no inward lean or an outward lean you should buy neutral shoes.
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SHOE TEST
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PEAK FITNESS
Resting Metabolic Rate Does lifting weights to increase muscle mass boost your resting metabolic rate enabling you to burn more calories even at rest? Dr. Jason R. Karp, Ph.D. on this and why increasing the intensity of your workouts is crucial in winning the battle of the bulge. 72
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