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PERSONAL TRAINING CLIENT TESTIMONIAL – DAKOTA DITCHEVA

Dakota Ditcheva has been coming to us for her strength and conditioning at Soma Fitness since she was an amateur athlete. She came to Soma for our personal training services to improve her athletic ability and sporting performance. Dakota is a tremendous athlete and in the time she has been training with our coaches here at Soma she has picked up an MMA title and landed a contract with the PFL, we have been a massive part of her journey to enter the PFL which is a major organisation in the sport of mixed martial arts!

Have a look what she had to say about her experience with our coaches at Soma Fitness.

Quarantine Personal Training Tips

Our personal trainers have found that adapting programs and using creative measures to progress resistance personal training programs for our clients during this period have proven valuable. 

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.” Charles Darwin

Not being able to go to the gym has forced us to use initiative and be adaptable. The more you’re able to adapt, the more you’re able to thrive.

I’ve enjoyed changing my usual workout routine, adapting a high volume, low intensity approach and getting creative with different exercises and workouts to stay healthy and in shape. I’m going to explain how you can do the same.

When deciding how to periodise a programme (depending on the clients’ goals) two main factors are taken into consideration; volume and intensity.
Volume refers to the amount of sets and reps performed in a workout and intensity refers to the load (weight) used and rest periods in the workout.
Volume and intensity have an inverse relationship. Meaning as one increases the other decreases or vice versa.
For example, if you are bench pressing a heavy weight, say 90% of your 1 rep max, the intensity is high. You can’t perform more than a few reps with this weight because it is so heavy and therefore the volume is low.

As gym equipment isn’t available to most, it is difficult to increase the load used, therefore we must increase volume.

Additionally to this, following the principles of progressive overload, will help to provide new stimuli and force the muscles to ADAPT. Progressive overload is the systematic increase in training frequency, volume and intensity in various combinations. This also helps to avoid the principle of diminishing returns, which suggests monotonous volumes and low frequency of exercise variation can leave an athlete stagnant.

Ways to vary your training:

Increase Reps
Exercise Tempo
Rest Periods
Take exercises to failure
Exercise variation
Uni-lateral exercises

Increase Reps:
As mentioned above, increasing reps increases the overall volume of a workout, essentially meaning we have done more. When looking to vary or increase the difficulty of your sessions, I would recommend to firstly increase the amount of reps you perform, before looking at other ways to change your workout.

Tempo:
Performing exercises at varying tempo’s is a good way of challenging the body and offering new stimuli. Firstly to understand why we vary tempo it is important to understand the different types of muscle contractions.

There are 3 types of muscle contraction:
Concentric phase (upward motion, where the muscle shortens)
Eccentric phase (lowering motion, where the muscle lengthens)
Isometric phase (a pause or hold at any point in the movement, where muscle length doesn’t change)

Manipulating the tempo at different stages of a movement, (for example a slow eccentric lowering of 4 seconds whilst performing a press up) creates time under tension (TUT). The greater a muscle’s TUT, the greater its potential growth stimulus is.

In contrast, more ballistic and explosive exercises (such as a broad jump) that implement the use of a rapid eccentric and concentric phase can potentiate power.

Rest Periods:
Shortening rest periods can be an effective way to increase intensity, however only if you can still perform the required number of reps. For example, if your target is to perform 12 reps of press ups over 4 sets and by the last set you can still comfortably reach 12 reps, then shortening rest periods in between sets can make this more difficult.

Recommended Rest Periods:
Training Goal              Goal Repetitions
Muscular Endurance   30s or less
Hypertrophy                  30-90s
Strength & Power         2-5mins

Taking Exercises to Failure:
This doesn’t mean taking the exercise to failure on the first set, as this will affect our ability to recover for the remaining sets and we won’t be able to perform as many reps overall. We can use what’s known as “reps in reserve” to judge this.

For example, if we are performing an exercise with a target of 12 reps over 4 sets, then the first two sets you might feel you could have completed another 2-3 reps in the set (reps in reserve). Then on the 3rd set you feel you could have only completed one more rep, then ideally we want to reach absolute failure on the last set, where you couldn’t have performed any more reps.

Exercise variation:
This involves changing an exercise for a given muscle group. For example, there are many variations of a squat that challenge the lower body:
Sissy squat
Sumo squat
Squat jumps
Narrow stance squat

It is recommended to vary exercises every 3-5 weeks depending on the individual.

Uni-Lateral Exercises:
Uni lateral exercises are single leg or single arm movements, such as lunges, single leg squats etc. Uni-lateral movements help to maintain a balance of strength between opposing muscle groups and right and left sides of the body, which reduces injury risk.

These are also a great option when performing bodyweight exercises as they are generally more taxing meaning less load needs to be used.

A final note to finish on is that while its not ideal gyms are closed, research has shown that we won’t lose as much “gains” as you may think.

One study has shown that resistance trained individuals (aged between 20-35) that trained 3 days per week, over 16 weeks and then were reduced to 1/9th of that over a 32 week period, retained the strength gained over the 16 weeks (with only a slight reduction at the final time point). And the muscle size gained was also retained.
Bickel, C. S., Cross, J. M., & Bamman, M. M. (2011). Exercise dosing to retain resistance training adaptations in young and older adults. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 43(7), 1177-1187.

We can take from this that maintaining size and strength doesn’t take much so quarantine shouldn’t affect your body composition too greatly!

If you’d like home resistance exercise and workouts ideas, then head over to the Soma Fitness YouTube channel, or contact us to book your FREE consultation with one of our personal trainers. 

 

Personal Trainers Top 60+ Resistance Band Exercises (VIDEO)

Resistance bands are a great tool to increase the difficulty level of any exercise when you have the knowledge of application. Resistance bands are also portable and can be used anywhere, I personally take a bag of resistance bands with me whenever I go on holiday so I can get some physical activity done and really challenged my muscles without the need of weights or a gym .
Another great thing about resistance bands compared to a dumbbell or a barbell is that the resistance increases as you stretch the resistance band this accommodates the tension throughout the whole movement allowing you to maximise the contractile ability off your muscle at the point where if using a dumbbell the tension would drop off.
resistance bands are easy to access and very affordable. I hope you enjoy the video and please if you do like the video please click like on the video and feel free to share with any family or friends.

RESISTANCE BAND EXERCISES

1. Squat
2. Front Squat
3. Band Behind the head squat
4. Zercher Squat
5. RDL – Hips
6. RDL – Hamstrings
7. Single leg RDL 1
8. Single leg RDL 2
9. Single leg RDL 3
10. Good morning
11. Zercher Good mornings
12. Banded Spilt Squats 1
13. Hip hinge with band on hips
14. Bulgarian Split Squats 1
15. Bulgarian Split Squats 2
16. Swings
17. Glute bridge
18. Single Leg Glute Bridge
19. Frog Bridge
20. Lateral walks
21. Resistance band press ups wide grip
22. Close grip press ups
23. Resistance band pec fly
24. Resistance Band Floor Press
25. Floor Press with broom
26. Single Arm External Rotations
27. Double Arm External Rotations
28. Lateral raise
29. 10 o’clock, 2 o’clock Frontal Raise
30. Frontal raise
31. Bent over single arm rear delt fly
32. Shoulder press
33. Single arm shoulder press
34. Punch press
35. Cuban Press
36. Upright row
37. Seated Row
38. Seated single arm row
39. Bent over row
40. Single Arm Pull Down
41. Single Arm Pakulski Row
42. Straight arm Pull down
43. Face Pull
44. Face Pull to Y Press
45. Pull Aparts
46. Supinated Pull Aparts
47. Single arm tricep extension
48. Double arm Tricep extension
49. Double arm bent over Tricep extension
50. Skull Crushers
51. Hammer Curls
52. Bicep Curls
53. Reverse curls
54. Concentration Curls
55. Preacher Curls
56. Pallof Press
57. Saxon Bend
58. Banded Dead Bugs
59. Kneeling abdominal crunch
60. Side Bends
61. Banded Chop
62. Banded Rotation

62 Resistance Band Exercises Video

If you feel like your training has become stagnant since the lockout a number of our clients have been keeping the momentum going by doing one on one virtual personal training sessions using Zoom or FaceTime. If you would like any help in getting an effective training schedule organised, please contact us.

Wishing you all a very happy Easter weekend, Stay strong, stay positive, keep active, and don’t eat too many Easter eggs.

Much Love,

Stelios

CONTACT OUR PERSONAL TRAINERS

HOME PERSONAL TRAINING – MOBILITY AND BREATH WORK

MOBILITY ROUTINE

A daily mobility routine is strongly recommended for anyone who wants to get the most out of their body and performance. We all focus on getting stronger and fitter and mobility often gets neglected. I would suggest going through a mobility routine before every training session that you participate in. You can also do this on days where you do not train as active recovery.

1) Squat to stand 10 reps

2) Hamstring Stretch 10 reps

3) Groiners/mountain position Internal into external rotations 10 per side

4) Groiners/mountain climbers 10 per leg

5) Cat cow 10 reps

6) Shoulder blade retractions 10 reps

7) Pec Stretch 10 reps

8) Lat Stretch into Cobra 10 reps

9) Prone Dynamic Blackburns into handcuffs 10 reps

10) Frog Stretch 10 reps

11) Pigeon Stretch 10 reps per leg

12) Trunk rotations 20 reps

13) Lying Side Thoracic Rotations 10 per side

BREATHING EXERCISE

Sit or lay down in a comfortable position, either on your back, in a chair or on the floor with your legs crossed.

NASAL BREATHS

INHALE for 5 seconds

HOLD the inhale for 5 seconds

EXHALE for 5 seconds

HOLD the exhale for 5 seconds

REPEAT THE PROCESS FOR 5 MINS

You can build up too 10 mins and you can do this (I personally do 8 minutes in the morning and eight minutes in the evening when I jump on my magnetic resonance mat):

– First thing in the morning which helps energise you for the start of your day.

– After a workout which helps get your body into rest and recovery mode and shifts your nervous system from sympathetic into parasympathetic.

– Before bed again shifting your body into rest and recovery mode and getting you into your parasympathetic nervous system.

– When you are feeling stressed and anxious, when we are stressed or anxious our body is in sympathetic fight or flight mode doing some deep breathing and following this breathing protocol helps to shift your body into parasympathetic rest and recovery mode.

Mobility and breathing exercises when done regularly and within a weekly/daily routine, Will carry over on everything you do throughout the day and any physical endeavours that you may participate in. You really feel the benefits when you stop doing the routine for a while you will then realise how much of a positive impact it has on you.

Let me know how you guys get on and if you have any questions please let me know.

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Personal Trainers 13 Tips to stay strong through the Corona pandemic while in isolation

After speaking to several personal training clients and friends I hear that a lot of people are feeling the isolation and are going a bit around the bend.
I have put together a few tips I can really help you through these next few weeks, these are good habits to use within everyday life also.

1) Gratitude – Write down three things you are grateful for each day with pen and paper or on your notes on your phone, or even just in your head.

Here is what I am grateful for today: I’m grateful, that the sun is shining, I am grateful that I get to exercise today and I am well enough to exercise, I’m grateful for the extra time I have to read the pile of books that have been accumulating that before all this I would never have time to read. I could go on all day the are always things that we can be thankful for how ever tough life gets, picking 3 is a piece of cake.

2) Exercise – you have so many options: Go for a run, go for a walk, if you are lucky enough to have training equipment or a gym at home get that training session in, if you don’t have any training equipment at home follow our at home no equipment workouts. Our coaches are offering remote training services where we can train you through Zoom, Face Time or Skype, contact us to book in for a session if you are lacking motivation or need help laying out and organising your routine. Right now, we have a lot of time on our hands so there is absolutely no excuse not to be exercising unless you are unwell.

3) Sun light – Try and get at least 20 minutes of sunlight directly onto your body each day now the days are getting longer are we are no longer having to work inside an office get outside get sun light directly onto your body absorb that vitamin D that your body has been craving all through the winter.

4) Morning Light – Don’t let your phone be the first light your eyes see first thing in the morning now we have time to go outside and allow our eyes to absorb the natural morning sunlight play which does wonders for our circadian rhythm this will help you feel less stressed help balance out your hormones and also help you get a really good night’s sleep.

5) Breathing exercises – During these worrying times it is natural for our body to be in a sympathetic stressed state breathing exercises really help put our body back into Para sympathetic where we can be in a relaxed state of recovery. On Saturday I will be releasing a video with a mobility routine and a breathing exercise routine but if you would like to get on it straight away here is a little template for you: try to inhale through the nose and out through nose when you inhale, inhale as deep into the belly as you can try and inhale for five seconds, at the bottom of the inhale hold for five seconds then exhale for five seconds at the top of the exhale hold for five seconds then inhale again try to repeat this for at least five minutes and build yourself up for 10 minutes. I promise you; you will feel amazing when you add this to your daily routine.

6) Mobility – Do some form of mobility every day when you get into the routine of doing a mobility routine everyday your body will feel loose and amazing it will help with all the resistance training that you do are there any sport related activities that we do like running or cycling etc.

7) Learn something new – Use the spare time to try and advance your skills in a certain area it could be learning a new language, reading a book that you’ve not had time to read, Or even learning about a certain subject that may help you with when you go back to work. If you can’t think of anything, I challenge you to learn following three things: meditation, breathing and mobility. You may ask yourself why I chose these three things the reason is that I know how much of a positive impact it can have on anybody in any situation.

8) Play games – Growing up in the mid-80s and 90s I remember playing a lot of games, get the chess board out, get the family together and play a board game, Try not to spend the whole day in front of a screen as it’s very stressful for the body and is a major disruptor of our circadian rhythms. If you play games is great for the mind it stimulates pathways in the brain, improves creativity and it’s also a lot of fun.

9) Cook recipes with the family and eat together- Get the whole family together and cook together, get the kids involved if you have children eat the food you have made together as a family. this time we have now is very precious make the most of it be together with whoever you live with and get creative. Maybe try out some of our Soma Fitness recipes and send us some pictures.

10) Plan for when all this is over – create an action plan off what do you want to do when all this is over. This could be a fitness related goal, business goal or even a family reunion with family members we have been isolated from. Don’t wait till it’s all over to start planning, plan now and review it as the weeks go by you might add some things or change somethings take 30 minutes each day of alone time to think and reflect about your plan. If you have a fitness goal speak with your coach communicate with each other and start planning so you are ready to rock and roll once all of this is over.

11) Watch a comedy – Laughter is such a powerful medicine, instead of watching intense programs on Netflix put some comedy on and get a good dose of laugher into your routine.

12) Help someone- this doesn’t mean you have to go out and physically help someone unless you’re caring for an elderly relative then yes of course, this could be just picking up the phone and calling someone but you may know is alone at this moment in time or doing a food shop for an elderly neighbour, or connecting with an old friend that you haven’t spoken to in a while.

13) Eat healthy nutritious foods – We have time on our hands to plan prepare most of our meals use this time positively try to eat nutrient dense foods including fruits vegetables and good quality meats. The more nutrients in the body the stronger the body and the stronger the immune system. Don’t use this time to overindulge and drink alcohol in excess this will not positively impact your health or your immune system.

The natural roots are doing a delivery/shipping service for immune support packs:

PLACE YOUR ORDER TODAY

I hope these tips help and if anyone else has got anymore tips or ideas please let me know and send me an email of what you have been doing with your free time and we can post a weekly accumulation what everyone has been doing and bounce ideas of each other.

I pray we can offer you all our personal training services soon.

Wishing you all a great day!

HOME PERSONAL TRAINING – DAY 4 – CORE & CARDIO

CORE & CONDITIONING – Tabata Intervals

WORK20:10REST x 6 sets

A1) DEAD BUGS 20 SECONDS
REST 10 SECONDS

A2) SIDE TO SIDE HOPS 20 SECONDS
REST 10 SECONDS

A3) T-ROTATIONS 20 SECONDS
REST 10 SECONDS

REPEAT X 6 SETS
REST 2 MINS

B1) FROG CRUNCH 20 SECONDS
REST 10 SECONDS

B2) SPRINTERS 20 SECONDS
REST 10 SECONDS

B3) CHOP ROTATIONS 20 SECONDS
REST 10 SECONDS

REPEAT X 6 SETS
REST 2 MINS

C1) SCISSOR SWITCH 20 SECONDS
REST 10 SECONDS

REPEAT X 6 SETS

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HOME PERSONAL TRAINING – DAY 3 – FULL BODY


FULL BODY RESISTANCE TRAINING

A1) Reverse Lunge with knee raise x 15 reps per leg tempo – 4:1:3:2
A2) Slider Pull overs x 10 reps – tempo 2:1:2:1 (progression onto feet)

SETS – 3
REST – 60 seconds

B1) Single Leg RDL x 12 reps per leg- tempo – 3:1:2:1
B2) Close Grip Press Ups – 8-15 reps – 5:2:3:0 (regression onto knees)

SETS – 3
REST – 60 seconds

C1) Swimmers into cobra 12 reps 1:1:1:4
C2) Hamstring slider curls 12 reps 2:1:2:1

SETS – 3
REST – 60 seconds

D) Frog Bridge x 20 reps

SETS – 3
REST – 60 seconds

Additional Information: Tempo guidelines – example 4-1-2-1 – 4 is the eccentric phase of the movement ie lowing the bar to the chest in a chest press you would control it down to the chest for 4 seconds, 1 is the pause at the bottom of the movement 1 second pause, 2 is the concentric portion of the movement pushing the bar away from the chest 2 seconds, 1 is the top portion of the concentric hold it at the top for 1 second.

The full workout video is on our YouTube channel. Subscribe for regular valuable content don’t forget to like the video.

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HOME PERSONAL TRAINING – DAY 2 – CORE & CARDIO

CORE & CONDITIONING – Tabata Intervals

WORK20:10REST x 6 sets

A1) V-UPS 20 SECONDS

REST 10 SECONDS

A2) HIGH KNEE RUN 20 SECONDS

REST 10 SECONDS

A3) RUSSIAN TWIST 20 SECONDS

REST 10 SECONDS

REPEAT X 6 SETS

REST 2 MINS

B1) HALLOW HOLDS 20 SECONDS

REST 10 SECONDS

B2) BURPEES 20 SECONDS

REST 10 SECONDS

B3) SIDE PLANK 20 SECONDS

REST 10 SECONDS

REPEAT X 6 SETS

REST 2 MINS

C1) SIT THROUGHS 20 SECONDS

REST 10 SECONDS

REPEAT X 6 SETS

Don’t forget to like the video and subscribe.

FULL WORKOUT INSTRUCTIONAL VIDEO

HOME PERSONAL TRAINING – DAY 1 – FULL BODY WORKOUT

FULL BODY RESISTANCE TRAINING

A1) Split squats x 10-15 reps – tempo 4:2:4:0
A2) Pike Press Ups 6-15 reps 2:1:2:1 (progression feet elevated)

SETS – 3
REST – 60 seconds

B1) BW Counterbalance Squats 15-20 reps –tempo 5:2:5:0
B2) Y W T s – 10 seconds x 5 reps

SETS – 3
REST – 60 seconds

C1) Wide Grip Press Ups 8-15 reps – tempo 5:2:3:0 (regression from the knees)
C2) Single Leg Glute Bridge 8 reps per leg – tempo 1:1:2:3

SETS – 3
REST – 60 seconds

D) Hamstring March 20 reps

SETS – 3
REST – 60 seconds

Additional Information: Tempo guidelines – example 4-1-2-1 – 4 is the eccentric phase of the movement ie lowing the bar to the chest in a chest press you would control it down to the chest for 4 seconds, 1 is the pause at the bottom of the movement 1 second pause, 2 is the concentric portion of the movement pushing the bar away from the chest 2 seconds, 1 is the top portion of the concentric hold it at the top for 1 second.

The full workout video is on our YouTube channel. Subscribe for regular valuable content:

FULL WORKOUT INSTRUCTIONAL VIDEO

Can increasing your protein intake aid your fat loss goals?

The summer holidays are coming our personal trainers are busy getting our clients in the shape for their summer holidays. In preparation for the shredding those few extra pounds of fat for the desired beach body, for our personal training clients we suggest increasing protein intake and logging how much protein you are ingesting on a daily basis to make sure we are hitting our protein targets for the day. If your numbers are too low, that may be slowing down your fat loss progress and in some situations you may lose muscle mass.

Protein can reduce hunger, increase meal satiety and keep you feeling fuller for longer as protein food sources are slow to digest.

Protein has higher TEF (thermic effect of food) than carbohydrates and fats which means you burn more calories in the processing of the protein.

Increasing your protein intake can assist your fat loss goals via the preservation of your muscle tissue if you are in a calorie deficit, and increase protein synthesis which will in-turn increase your basal metabolic rate.

Protein suggestions :

Grass Fed Organic red meat
Free range Poultry
Game
Fish ideally wild or organic
Free range eggs
Nuts and Seeds
Beans and Legumes

For vegans we recommend combining nuts and seeds with beans and legumes to complete the amino acid profile of the meal you are eating.

For example combining lentils with pumpkin seeds or chickpeas with sunflower seeds will give you all the amino acids.

At Soma a large amount of personal training clients are vegetarian or vegan which makes hitting protein targets a little challenging but with a little attention to detail with total calorie intake and combining foods it is still possible to hit your targets.

Variety :

Try having 3 different protein sources per day

Recommended intake :

1.8 g – 2.5 g per kilo of body weight.

Increasing your protein intake will assist your fat loss goals however sticking within the calorie boundaries and maintaining the energy balance ratio is vital towards your fat loss goals. We ultimately need to burn more calories than we are eating to burn fat.

To book a free consultation with one of our expert coaches contact us at Soma Fitness and we can help you further towards achieving your weight loss and body composition goals with our personal training and nutritional programmes.

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