Specific aims of training

If your training aim is to defvelop muscular strength, endurance or muscle mass, select exercises that cause the greatest stimulation of the targeted muscle fibres> this means that you should use mostly compound/multi joint exercises. Compound exercises utilise one or larger muscle area, the exercise involves the movement of more than one joint. The main advantage of using this type of training is because it trains more than one muscle at a time.

Example of compound exercises include Bench presses, squats, lunges and deadlifts

if the training aim is to develop certain muscle groups, then isolation exercises should be used. isolation exercises utilise smaller muscle areas, one usually smaller muscle group , and one joint action. they are useful for achieving symmetry between muscle groups and re-balancing strength between opposing muscle groups. used for injury re-habilitation.

Example of isolation exercises include peck flys, Leg extensions, barbell bicep curls.

The right choices when Eating out

Chooseing healthier foods when eating out can be one of the most difficult things to do. it is easy to be tempted by the convenience of high fat fast foods.

You need to practice making a few minor revisions to the types of food you order and how they are prepared.

• choose dishes that are not fried or cooked in fat
• Choose boiled potatoes (ideally with the skins on) rather than fries
• Choose meals that have wholegrain foods or fresh vegitables included
• Always select wholemeal bread
• Avoid rich and creamy sauces
• order any dressings to be brought seperatly so that you can decide how much
• Avoid creamy deserts and cheeses
• Avoid the tempting pre-meal nibbles
• Don't feel that you have to have a pudding

Sandwhiches can make for a healthy, low fat meal when prepared on wholegrain buns smeared with a little mayo. go for the sliced ham or chicken breast versus the processed meat fillings then load it up with lettuce, onions, tomatoes, peppers and mustard.

Food labels

The most important job for a food label is to tell you what is in the food, when and where it was made and what has been added to it. This is vital information especially when purchacing packaged sandwhiches and ready made food from supermarkets.

Just because a food is savery doesn't mean that it doesnt contain sugar. many ready meals and tinned foods contain high levels of sugar which will be indicated on the food label.

So how do you read food labels?

• Calories per serving - Energy 245kj/58kcal
• Sugars per serving - Carbohydrate 7.2g of which sugars 6.5g
• Total fat per serving- Fat 1.2g of which saturates 0.2g
• Salt per serving- sodium 0.1g

try to choose foods that have the lowest amount of sugars when compared to carbohydrates. in the example above the sugars contribute 90% of the carbohydrate energy.

Hi, my name is Elliott Ryan and im an advanced personal trainer in northampton. Health, Fitness and wellbeing is a massive subject area and i will try and cover different subjects over time.

There are a lot of myths out there that are both put in the media and on the web. This miss information can sometimes have quick results but be detrimental to your health or even have the reverse desired results.

In my 6 years experience as a personal trainer i have come across a lot of miss-conceptions, the most common is the typical, "i want to tone my stomach and have a six pack, i do 100 sit ups but still see no improvements". The reason for this is that everyone has a six pack however, there is a layer of fat covering the muscles and this stops then from showing through. by doing all these crunches, this just pushes the layer of fat forward, so what we really need to do is reduce body fat. looking at both your nutrition and exercise plans can help you achieve this goal. A reduction of fat to 30% of your total calorie intake per day and to cut out as much saturated fats as possible. lowering alcohol intake is also a must to achieve your goal, the recommended daily allowance for males is 4 units per day and 3 units for females.

please feel free to email me on ell_ryan@hotmail.co.uk for more advise.