Private Gyms in Reading, Pangbourne & Mortimer Mobile Personal Trainer: Reading & Berkshire
It’s that time of year again..The trees are up, the mince pies are out and temptation is all around. We can still enjoy the festivities without picking up some unwanted lb’s along the way.
We’ve got some simple tips to help you stay on top of your health & fitness journey whilst you enjoy the festive period.
We’ve got a simple yet super impressive slow cooker, gammon recipe.
Stick it in the slow cooker in the morning and forget about dinner for the rest of the day, it’s taken care of.
Prep: 30 Minutes
Cook: 6 hours on low
Serves: Depends on Gammon Size
Ingredients:
1 Unsmoked Gammon Joint
500ml Dry Cider
1 Onion (Diced)
Black Peppercorns
Small Handful of Cloves
2 Bay Leaves
2 Garlic Cloves
1 Tbsp Ground Cinnamon
3Tbsp Runny Honey
Instructions:
– Soak the gammon overnight to remove excess salt
– Place Gammon in the Slow Cooker, Poke Holes in the Fat Rind and stick cloves evenly throughout the holes
– Add diced onion, peppercorns and crushed garlic around the joint
– Fill with cider until half of the joint is submerged
– Place bay leaves on top, add lid and cook on low for 6 hours
– 20 mins before serving mix the garlic and cinnamon in a bowl to create your glaze
– drain the gammon, cover in glaze and place in the 0ven at 200C until the glaze starts to caramelise
– Serve With Sides of your choice & Enjoy
It might sound to counter intuitive to train your back if you have back issues.
However, strengthening to the muscle that support your joints is important in protecting you from further injury and can improve your stability and existing conditions. Here we go through a low impact back workout that requires no flexion of the spine, allowing you to target the major muscles of the back from a neutral spine position.
Your reps, sets & weight will be dependant on your training cycle and desired outcome.
– Pull Ups
– Lat Pull Downs
– Low Row
– Reverse Pec Deck
– Face Pulls
– Reverse Cross Overs
Enjoy…
We’ve got a super healthy slow cooker, curry recipe for you that only takes 10 minutes to prepare.
Stick it in the slow cooker in the morning and forget about dinner for the rest of the day, it’s taken care of.
Prep: 10 Minutes
Cook: 6 hours on low
Serves: 2
Ingredients:
2x Chicken Breasts (skinless)
1 Tin of Chopped Tomatoes
1 Vegetable Stock Cube
2 Medium Garlic Cloves
3 tbsp Curry Paste
Half a Red Pepper
Handful of Mushrooms
1 Onion
80g Rice or 2x Naan Breads
Instructions:
– Chop Pepper, Onion & Mushrooms (or veg of your choice) and crush garlic and place in the bottom of the slow cooker (cut fairly chunky to stop cooking too quickly)
– Dice the chicken and place in the cooker
– Add chopped tomatoes and crumble stock cube
– Add Curry Paste & Stir In
– Cook on Low for 6 Hours
– Stir Occasionally Where Possible
– Serve With Rice or Naan & Enjoy
It’s that time of year again, new year, new me etc…We’ve all said it at some point…
We obviously hope that many people are embarking on a journey to a healthier life, we’ve got some tips to help get you started.
Set goals:
Without a target it’s hard to judge our progress and whether it’s working.. We use the analogy ‘would you get in your car and drive off without knowing where you’re going?’.
Your goals can be simple and can come in many forms, such as:
– drop a dress/jean size (or more)
– drop x cm/inches off your waist
– eat at least 5 portions of fruit & veg/day
– only have 1 unhealthy snack/day
– prepare lunch for work every day
– performance based goals, eg. run 5km in a certain time or squat 60kg
Set a realistic timeframe for your goals, you may want to break your long term goals down into smaller, short term goals. Don’t forget to review your goals regularly.
Make a Plan:
You didn’t get to where you are overnight, therefore we can’t expect instant change overnight, especially if we don’t plan how we’re getting there.
You need to start by identifying:
– goals & timeframes
– changes needed eg. join a gym, dedicated time for meal planning & prep, better time/stress management etc
– potential barriers to your success: old habits, belief systems, time, work, family commitments
– how you’ll overcome these barriers
– how you’ll track your progress
– set review points
– what reward awaits you when you are successful
Collect Data:
Data drives success! We take measurements with all of our clients on their 1st session, we then use regular reviews to map their progress and make changes where needed.
Data is only helpful if you respond to what you find.. Use the data to adapt your plan as you go and always question the outcomes and how you got them.
Lets Go!
There’s no time like the present so let’s get after it….REMEMBER: This is a long term lifestyle, it needs to be sustainable and it will take time to tweak…Be kind to yourself!
Happy Health,
Tom’s
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When lifting weights the aim is to overload the muscle and create muscular stress through load and intensity.
Rest pauses are a great way of adding more intensity into your sets within a short space of time.
Rest pauses are nothing new and have been adopted by lifters for years, the philosophy is simple: lift to near/partial failure, rest a few seconds and then squeeze a couple more reps outs.
There are 2 ways to apply rest pauses depending on what you’re training for:
Rest Pause for Hypertrophy (growth):
Perform your normal set for 8-12 sets with a lowering phases of 3 seconds and a lift of 2 seconds..Once you reach the end, rest for 10-15 seconds and then go again. You can repeat this as much as you like but twice is enough. We recommend only using this for one set on each exercise and choosing the compound exercises such as the bench press, row or squat etc
Rest Pause for Strength:
This is a great, condensed way of performing more volume of high load reps in a short period of time.
Pick an exercise and set the weight at 90-95% of 1 rep max. Perform 1 rep, rest for 30 seconds and repeat up to 10 times.
We wouldn’t recommend this as a long term strength strategy but it’s a great way of mixing up traditional strength training approaches.
Happy Health,
Tom’s
It can be difficult sometimes to know if you’re making the healthiest choices. That’s why we’ve put this simple table together to help you:
Working out is only half of your journey to smashing your goals…What you do after your workout is as, if not more important.
We’ve got 5 simple, yet essential tips to help you recover and get the most from your exercise:
Rest:
Post workout the muscles and joints that you have used/targeted will be in a damaged state. Training them before they have recovered increases your risk of injury but also hinders progression as your body hasn’t had time to adapt to the previous workout. We recommend 24-48 hours rest for muscle groups before re-training. A good rule of thumb is ‘if it’s sore, rest it’.
Protein:
We use the analogy ‘a workout is like taking a sledgehammer to your house, you’re breaking down muscle fibres in order to rebuild them. A lack of protein is like employing a bricklayer who has no bricks, to rebuild your house’. Amino Acids (protein) are the building blocks of muscle, you cannot recover & rebuild muscle to be stronger and fitter if you don’t have the nutrients required.
Post resistance training your protein requirements are elevated to 2.2g/kg for roughly 48 hours..eg. if you weigh 100kg you will require 220g/day of complete proteins.
More Info: https://tomsfitness.co.uk/2017/10/22/your-guide-to-protein/
Hydration:
Water & electrolytes play vital roles in many metabolic functions. When we exercise we lose these at an accelerated rate…Therefore it’s essential to consume water throughout a workout as well as after..It is not essential to replace electrolytes unless you are exercising for 4 hours or longer, don’t believe the Lucozade hype!
Sleep:
Sleep is where we heal the fastest, many amazing things happen whilst we sleep including the production of human growth hormone which helps us to repair and build new tissue. Current guidance suggests that we need 7-9 hours/night, we all know where we sit on this scale. There are plenty things you can do to improve your sleep, we will cover this in future posts.
Stretching & Mobility:
Stretching immediately after and during your recovery period will help to reduce tension in the muscles & joints, promoting a faster recovery. This will also increase your flexibility, helping you to perform better and greatly reducing your risk of injury. We have 2 stretch routines below that you can follow:
https://tomsfitness.co.uk/2020/09/24/upper-body-stretch-routine/
https://tomsfitness.co.uk/2019/04/29/hip-mobility-routine/
We hope that you find this helpful.
Happy Health,
Tom’s
The arrival of lockdown #3 just after Christmas, in the depths of winter has the potential to see many of us struggle with both our physical and mental health.
It would be easy to retreat to our sofa with our favourite foods & drinks and wait for this chaos to pass. However it is more important than ever that we look after ourselves to:
With working from home and home schooling many of us are spending all day at home, in front of a screen and by the time we log off the last thing that we want is to exercise…We have some top tips and updates on official guidelines to help you through this lockdown:
The guidelines are clear about what we can & can’t do:
We still have lenty of options….The end is near and spring isn’t far away…
It’s up to you, what position do you want to be in coming out of lockdown?
Happy Health,
Tom’s
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/national-lockdown-stay-at-home#exercising
We’ve uploaded a workout we put together for a friend during lock down.. It’s a 10 minute HIIT blast, dumbells optional
Beginners: 1 rounds
Intermediate: 2 rounds
Advanced 3 rounds
Set up an interval time app on your phone for 6×30 second rounds with no rest, the video explains the rest. Enjoy
Tom's Health & Fitness 