Welcome to your quick-fire, end of week update with a few bite-sized bullet points covering what we’re learning about and loving in three areas: fitness, nutrition and mindset. One bullet from each trainer, a little nugget of health and fitness gold.
FITNESS: Sore back? Libby thinks you should work on your X-factor
Sore lower backs often stem from movement limitations in the hip, ankle, thoracic spine, or big toe (of all things!). This can sometimes make basic movements like squatting, deadlifting or lunging tricky and/or painful. Although improving movement through every plane of motion is important, experts are now saying that people with chronic (i.e. niggling/ongoing) issues in their backs, or any one of the other body areas above may benefit more from training in and stretching through the transverse plane (rotation/slings) rather than the sagittal (up/down & forward/back) or frontal (lateral) planes. To work on your “X-Factor”, practise exercises that gently load and unload through the “X” pattern running from your right shoulder to left hip and vice-versa. Exercises which hit the mark include 1-arm cable rows, split-stance swings, various ViPR progressions, resistance band exercises, bodyweight rotations, turkish get-ups, accurate running on a low impact surface (basically anything where you’re working with your body’s slings and it’s easier to move freely without niggling your injuries or getting ‘stuck’ by your limitations). The kind of movement variations that work best will vary from person to person depending on individual issues but the good news is, your Agogian instructors are passionate about improving transverse motion and our equipment is just perfect for the job so… keep moving! Just make sure you give us the heads up if you need a little help to nail the right variations for you.
NUTRITION: Is Vee carb loading?
Running session is in full swing and Vee feels she needs to set the ‘carb loading’ record straight. The big question is whether to carb load or not? Many out there hope that running will give them a free ticket to eating tons of high carb foods… but don’t be fooled! Well established scientific research indicates that carbohydrate loading doesn’t improve participants’ performance in any athletic events shorter than a full marathon. BUT, while there’s no point carb loading before a half marathon or the City2Surf, you still need carbohydrates in your diet to be healthy and perform well in your training and running events. Vee’s rules are simple:
1. Stick to complex carbohydrates such as sweet potato, legumes, quinoa, fresh whole-wheat breads, plus vegetables, vegetables and vegetables. Got it?
2. Stay away from refined products like white bread, lollies and energy drinks.
Don’t worry about what you read in magazines as they often publish nutritional recommendations that are created for elite athletes’ diets rather than the general public. And energy gels? Unless you’re running a full marathon you won’t need those either. A healthy balanced diet will always do the trick.
MINDSET: Nic is rediscovering The Little Prince
You can’t go past the classics. Le Petit Prince (‘The Little Prince’) is a novella that deserves to proudly sit on every bookshelf. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s moral allegory and spiritual autobiography is the 4th most translated book in the world – more than 250 languages and dialects! With timeless charm, The Little Prince is a story of a boy who leaves the safety of his own tiny planet to travel the universe, learning the oddities of adult behaviour (don’t pretend you don’t know what we’re talking about!) through an odyssey of extraordinary encounters and adventures. Asteroids, volcanoes, a rose, a fox, an elephant and a boa constrictor – the reader is taken on a colourful expedition that examines creativity and the joy of children’s minds, growth into adulthood, responsibility, ‘busy-ness’, love and magic (at least for Nic).
While this is a book for all ages, it’s a wonderful tonic to awaken the child in all of us ‘grown-ups’. A short read, but an essential read.
Thanks for reading Agogians! Have a wonderful weekend, and we’ll see you in the studio.
