How to prepare for a Military Fitness Test
Six years ago at the age of 18 I applied to join the Royal Navy. I passed the initial exams and interviews but what I was most concerned about was the navy’s basic fitness test. The test consisted of a 1.5m run (to be completed in 13 min 10 sec or less), 20 push-ups and 20 sits-up and a swim test that included a 50 meter swim and treading water for 2 minutes while wearing a set of baggy overalls. I felt that the swim test was not an issue as I was a strong swimmer at that point. However …
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Physically Fit for Life Part 2: Resistance Training
In the last post, I covered the benefits of performing regular moderate intensity activity, specifically walking. As discussed in that post, walking is a form of exercise that helps to improve the first 7 factors on our list highlighting some of the most important benefits that can be attained through exercise. In this post I am going to address another type of exercise, one that can stimulate positive adaptations in the remaining 9 factors for being Physically Fit for Life, namely: Muscle tissue mass Strength, across your entire muscular system Bone mass density and the strength and integrity of your joints, …
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Physically Fit for Life
In the last article posted to this blog, I discussed the current widespread attraction to extremes in the realms of physical fitness and appearance and the potential damage that this can do. If you haven’t read that article you can check it out: Attraction to the Extremes of Physical Fitness. I want to spend this post developing an idea alluded to in the previous post, that of a more sane approach: the goal of being physically fit for life. Lets start out working backwards by defining the results we require of exercise, results that will match our aim of being …
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12 Reasons Fitness Businesses Fail and How to Make Sure Yours Succeeds
Whether you are already a fitness instructor, a personal trainer, gym owner or are just now considering starting a fitness business, you will need to have a clear route to success. Having had just released our newest course, the Master Personal Trainer (MPT) course, which is packed with Business and Marketing content, it feels like the perfect time to write about the 12 common reasons why fitness business fail and provide tips that will help you navigate a safe and successful path to business growth. Let’s get started… 1. There is no need for the service you offer in the market Before you set …
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High Intensity Resistance Training and HRV Observations: A Beginner’s Guide to HRV (part 3)
The first part of “The Beginners Guide to HRV“, covered a general overview of Heart Rate Variability. The second part expanded on that information by exploring the available HRV apps, what they actually measure and how to take your own readings. In this third and final part, I will share with you my experience of using HRV data to track response to High Intensity Resistance Exercise (HIT). We will cover some of the personal observations I have made including, how my HRV typically responds to a HIT workout, unusual responses and warning signs, and whether HRV recovery tracks with muscular …
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Understanding and Using HRV Technology for Exercise: A Beginner’s Guide to HRV (part 2)
In the first part of “The Beginners Guide to HRV“, we looked at a general overview of Heart Rate Variability and how tracking our own HRV has the potential to guide our workouts, specifically high intensity of effort resistance training (HIT) workouts. In the second part, I want to expand on that premise and look at the practicalities of tracking and using HRV data in this context. This is where the rubber meets the road. HRV apps A quick look at Wikipedia reveals that the HRV app market has expanded pretty quickly over the last few years, with …
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HRV: A Beginner’s Guide to Heart Rate Variability (Part 1)
Real world experience and supportive scientific research has shown us that Resistance Training or High Intensity Strength Training, in general is best performed once or twice a week. This frequency appears to be optimal for the vast majority of individuals – there are of course potential outliers and exceptional circumstances. Mastering our biofeedback As a generally suggested frequency, this is probably as good as we are going to get. Of course this suggestion can be tweaked for the better and adapted to each individual, especially if we become masters of listening to our own body and our energy levels and …
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