WHY YOUR BRAIN BECOMES MORE FLEXIBLE AFTER WORKING OUT

- In this study, participants performed 30mins of moderate cycling

- The moderate intensity represented about 60% of your maximum effort

- Immediately following the workout the motor cortex has less gamma-aminobutyric acid, or GABA, a neurotransmitter that inhibits activity in the brain

- This is similar mechanism for how aerobic exercise promotes neuroplasticity, or the brain's ability to reshape itself

- What this process might do is enhance early acquisition and consolidation skills leading to improved motor memory and performance

- This means that a workout could prime strike victims fr more effective physical therapy allowing them to recoordinate their limbs because memory isn't just mental, but physical

How can you take advantage of this?

Glad you asked!

If you have a big day at work planned then if you train in the morning then make that session of a moderate intensity and duration to prepare your mind and body for what you have to do later, rather then hitting the high intensity class that leave son the floor for 30mins, making you late for work and breaking your day before it even starts.

Luck is also on your side as I have opened up 8 spots for 30mins sessions starting from next week so get in contact with me if you'l like a good dose of neuroplasticity!

WHAT CARBS SHOULD YOU PERSONALLY EAT?

Important Fact - Carbs are NOT the enemy, calories are.

That being said, different types of carbs you consume can have different effects on you personally so it's worth taking notes of what effects they are if you'd like to optimise your energy levels at specific times.

A nice by-product of that is tat choosing the right carbs for you can also decrease overeating and this weight loss as well.

Win x 2.

While 1 person may pile on weight eating rice, another can barely maintain weight with it - and the same for almost any food you can think up.

Culturally, some populations have eaten specific foods for their entire existence and have biologically progressed to be able to handle these types of foods over thousands of years.

Introduce them to newer food/carb types that their bodies aren't great at processing and the story can be very different.

Finding out your blood sugar response to various carb sources can help you greatly in determining what exactly happens when you eat.

Food is highly addictive and we are biased towards foods thus we can rationalise with ourselves on what foods are good for us or not, but a blood sugar tester gives you the absolute truth.

If you register a high blood sugar reading then you might hit the dreaded carb coma where you wanna take a nap but you'll also feel hungry again pretty soon after which will break whatever weight loss or maintenance aspirations you have right in it's tracks.

There are no good carbs or bad carbs - it all depends on the person eating them and we're not sure yet why this is but there's a feeling it's got a lot to do with our individual genetics  and how they work with our gut bacteria.

Blood sugar levels are measured in millimoles of glucose per litre (mmol/l) and our levels fluctuate throughout the day, with a normal reading being between 4.4 - 6.4 mmol/l.

If you go the tester route (a quick online search found them for $40 at Chemist Warehouse) then eat different carb sources each morning for breakfast and see how they test.

You can have a drink with breakfast as well but keep it the same each morning you test so there''s no interference with the carb food source.

If you go without the tester then simply note how you feel in the 20 - 60mins after that meal in regards to energy and satiety and also note how long after it you start to feel hungry again and then analyse the results of each carb source where you'll find some maintain satiety right up until lunchtime while others barely make it through your commute to work.

Also be aware that energy levels and blood sugar readings may not match up perfectly where something might provide you with long lasting energy but it also spikes a high blood sugar level and doesn't fill you up for very long.

As we all pile into chocolate this weekend (I have a giant bunny in the fridge from my son as we speak), give this a little trial and see what you find yourself doing.

TRAINING THE FEMALE ATHLETE PART 4/4

BODY COMPOSITION

We all have different body shapes, which leads to different body fat storage patterns but females take this to a different level than men.


Body Composition is critical to elite performance but is too often overlooked at the local/amateur level but you’ll see the players with better body composition will generally be the fittest and most injury resilient players.


Here some points on getting that elite body for sport, specific to women:

• Blood sugar imbalances can increase testosterone which can make it impossible to lose fat

• Adrenal and gut dysfunction will affect blood sugar levels

• The rate of fat or weight loss for females will be slower than men simply because women have less overall mass so it’s easier to lose 10kgs off 100kgs then 5kgs of 50kgs.

• Females tend to lose body fat from top to bottom

• Women have less vascularisation in the lower body as less blood vessels + lower fat stores = harder to mobilize fatty acids

• Females need more training volume and thus energy expenditure because of higher relative body fat levels to lose fat

• Women can’t restrict calories as much as men as they still need a minimum amount of calories so again women need to look at energy expenditure for the most part.

• Respond better to low carb nutritional strategies then men which is great for keeping insulin and blood sugar levels down, but women can also be more sensitive to low carb as their body's are programmed to maintain body fat for reproduction.

These aren’t knocks but rather points to consider when developing a training program for the female athlete.

TRAINING THE FEMALE ATHLETE PART 3/4

PSYCHOLOGY


As a personal trainer I have trained females for over 10 years and I probably like to train dedicated females the best as their potential for improvement and growth is off the scale!


Over my years of personal training, this is what I have found and see if any of these ring a bell:

- Females require more intensity with their training because as alluded to earlier they are already blessed with pretty good natural endurance

- Females love, love, love positive enforcement

- Women athletes require a lot of stability based work at the “core” to learn how to safely control the high forces that go their bodies during footy training and games

- Females almost always underestimate their strength and where it can get to

- Females might not do much free weight training simply because they just might not know how to

- Women athletes will tend to not increase training load until instructed to do so

- Females often train “too fast” so will need rest periods reinforced constantly

- More is not better, better is better

- Females don’t sweat as much

- Females will be more successful with multiple rep personal bests rather single rep (do 3 rep max over 1 rep max)

TRAINING THE FEMALE ATHLETE PART 2/4

BUILT FOR ENDURANCE


Females, although not as strong in a relative sense compared to men, do have something up on blokes and that’s endurance. 

Women have a far higher percentage of slow twitch muscle fibres which provides them with far greater relative endurance then men.


Female advantages leading to greater relative endurance includes:

• They have a higher % of bodyfat meaning they can power their cells for longer from reserves without the need for replenishment, enabling them to go harder for longer before blowing up

• Because their power output is lower compared to males it means they don’t hit glycolytic pathways (hit the wall) as easy or as often as men. This also means they can burn more fat for fuel during activity and they can also prolong the time it takes to hit your anaerobic threshold (hit the wall again)

• Females will recover far better from high intensity exercise then men again because extremely high power outputs cannot be reached in most cases, so recover occurs quicker

• Female muscles can contain as much force as men but because their muscle mass is far lower, the actual output is lower

• Females can perform more reps of a given % of load then men so where a bloke might get 5 reps at 85% of max load, females might get 7 – 8 reps

• The one disadvantage that females have is that up to 80% of females can have clinical anemia which means you have less iron and thus oxygen in your blood, which can affect mood and energy output.