Newtown Gym welcomes our newest Personal Trainer - Mark Avraham.

Mark has been exercising for the last 15 years and has a particular passion for strength & conditioning with a focus on good form and technique. Mark believes that less weight performed well can mean more results. It's better sometimes to lift with technique rather than ego!

His other philosophy in training is 'Less talky, More Lifty!

Contact him directly to discuss his services in full : 0406 496 460

Why you should care about Functional Training....

If you’re anything like me- when people have talked about functional training you will have smiled sagely and tried to look intelligent whilst secretly wondering what the hell they were talking about.

Functional training is directly linked to functional movement : It’s really very straight forward and very sensible. Functional training has its roots in rehabilitation. It was designed to enable people to return to their everyday tasks and lives, so this would vary from person to person. You would not train a bricklayer the same way you would train a mother of three small children. Each has functional movements that are specific to their day to day lives and their strength and conditioning must be tailored accordingly.

Functional training in the gym environment is designed to give people the capacity to walk distances without puffing, run for a bus, lift their shopping and develop balance skills

Many injuries and instabilities come from an unbalanced body and poor balance skills. In other words, you get clumsy and trip over. I can personally attest to this one- I fell over in a pair of high heels last year and broke my foot, (admittedly, I was admiring my reflection at the time). As it’s turned out one of my calf muscles is weaker than the other and this is what caused me to lose my balance. If I’d been doing some functional training this would have been apparent before I did the break and I could have addressed the issue.

Most importantly, functional fitness workouts are FUN. Essentially you increase strength, aerobic conditioning, flexibility and develop balance skills all in a way that is fun, individually challenging and motivating. In short- you get to play when you do functional fitness workouts.

Author: Felicity Neale

#functional movement

#functional fitness workouts

#functional training

Strength training – Are you trying to build muscle and getting no-where?

               As Felicity explains, it’s not what you do, it’s how you do it!

Technique- do not let your ego dictate how much you lift. Striving to get a personal best is one thing, but just paying attention to the numbers and no attention to form is a recipe for disaster. That’s an injury that WILL happen.

Whenever you are training for strength and conditioning, always try to understand what is that you’re trying to achieve by a particular movement. Your body is a system of levers.  The job of a muscle is to make the angle of a joint smaller – ie. pull two bones together. Therefore the object of an exercise on the weights floor is not so much to do with moving the dumbbell or barbell as it is about closing that gap between the bones.

See in the illustration below how the angle of the elbow joint lessens in a bicep curl- the forearm bones and the upper arm bones are pulled together by the muscle.

The upper arm remains static and the forearm moves to complete the action.

Too many people think strength training is all about moving the weight and forget that it is about contracting the muscle. This leads to the mindset of getting the weigh from point A to point B any way they can and using every muscle possible and momentum to assist. These are the people who are prone to injury and never seem to change their body shape. This is just one of our articles on strength and conditioning – stay tuned for more

www.thenewtowngym.com

By Felicity Neale

#strengthtraining   #shelifts   #musclebuilding   #GirlswhoTrain  #buildmusle #strengthandconditioning

DID YOU KNOW? ......STRESS CAN MAKE YOU FAT!


Here's Felicity Neale our resident PT expert and writer (from our partner gym 'Bayswater 247 Fitness'

Not only do you tend to comfort eat when you’re stressed- a very quick way to pile on kilos -  but your body also releases a hormone called cortisol.
Cortisol is released by the adrenal glands as part of the fight or flight response.
Chronically elevated cortisol can lower immune function, increase weight, blood pressure and cholesterol. It can also interfere with immune function, learning and memory.
When your body is in a constant fight or flight state cortisol remains in the blood and begins to do damage.
Exercise provides an outlet for anger which in turn will release cortisol.
Thirty minutes three times a week will pay huge dividends in lowering your cortisol levels. This, in conjunction with burning additional calories, (units of energy or stored fat), increasing lung capacity, lowering blood pressure is a sure fire recipe for an enhanced quality of life.

Why spend the rest of your life, stressed, depressed and overweight?

                 

IMG 4628

How to have good posture – in the office or at your place of study

Good posture tips

By Felicity Neale

Are you seated all day? Probably at the office or studying. Whichever is true for you, it’s easy to forget how we are seated and how that can affect us daily and further down the track. Good seated posture is as important as our standing posture. 

In fact, we spend a lot of our waking hours at work and many of us are desk bound. Make your environment conducive to postural health. This way, you’re doing your part to sleep better at night and not wake up foggy, cramped and in pain. Of course any chronic sleep disorder or pain should be treated by a recognised and fully trained medical practitioner .
For good seated posture: make sure your eyes are level with the top third of the computer screen. This minimises the tendency to push your neck forward and tilt your chin up which does terrible things to your posture and alignment. It can trap nerves in your neck and restrict blood flow to the brain. This can cause headaches and brain fog.  It also looks really awful.
Back straight, chin tucked under, so your ears, shoulders and hip are aligned. Shoulders should be  down and back.
Elbows close to your sides and a slightly greater than 90 degree angle when you’re using the mouse or keyboard. This will stop you raising one shoulder and putting your neck out of alignment by curving it to one side.
More good posture tips .....Mouse and keyboard should be at the same level. Subtle shifts in shoulder height can occur if you are moving your hand up and down between keyboard and mouse. I see a lot of people who complain about a pain behind the right shoulder blade. I often find adjusting their chair height, hence the relationship of their shoulder and neck fixes the problem.
Check out our pics... I’m sure you can see which one is the correct seated posture!
Keep checking on this blog for more tips on how to have good posture and  coming soon:  read how one of our members transformed her life of panadol popping and constant headaches to a pain free existence

To get a FREE OFFICE or HOME STUDY posture check email us : justin.green@newtowngym.com.auand felicity.neale@bayswater247fitness.com.au

Or get free posture check with us at Newtown Gym or Bayswater 247 Fitness.
Contact us or download a free pass on our websites:
www.newtowngym.com.au
http://bayswater247fitness.com.au/

ROLL LIKE A BALL - PILATES MOVE GREAT FOR CORE STRENGTH

Here Sandra, our Saturday Pilates teacher explains the 'roll like a ball' pilates
move - great for spinal mobility and core strength