Self-monitoring

Self-monitoring is a behaviour change tool that can be used for almost any aspect of your life. A classic example is the progress grid Benjamin Franklin used to track his goals. He would track his progress towards each of his goals and would be able to see where he was falling short, and where he was succeeding. This same idea can be used towards fitness goals. Self-monitoring your fitness goals essentially translates into tracking what you want to change. If you are a competitive athlete and want to improve your lateral jump, then you may want to track your lateral jump distance on a weekly basis. If you are looking to lose weight, then you may track your weight on a weekly basis. If you are trying to eat healthy, you may want to track your food intake every other day. The important part about self-monitoring is regular tracking and reviewing.

Tracking your body weight is an important measure when weight loss is your goal. However, weight will naturally fluctuate day to day, so it can occasionally be a mental detriment when weight is not changing as desired. The best recommendation is to weigh yourself once a week around the same time and record it, ideally in a graph. The graph will let you see the weight change over time in a more visual manner. Focus on the long term trend, not the day-to day changes. Since weight is naturally changing, tracking weight alone is not an ideal measure of improved health. Couple it with food/calorie intake and/or workout tracking.

If healthier eating habits are your goal, a common method to view your progress is to track your food or caloric intake. Keeping record of your meals can become a burden and will often lead to stopping tracking altogether. A less cumbersome way to track food and calories is to choose three days a week. Ideally pick two weekdays and one weekend to fully capture your weekly eating habits. Compare your weekly intake to your goals, making note of where you succeed and what needs improvement.

Keeping up with your workouts is a very motivating way to see progress and encourage physical activity. Workout tracking can be done in many ways, such as counting visits to the gym, amount of weight lifted, or timing your runs. Make sure the metrics you pick are inline with your goals. If you are just starting out, then set a weekly goal for gym visits and track those. If you are training for a marathon, track your run times. When tracking workouts, do some research, set realistic goals and work with your trainer. Setting goals that are too advanced for your current physical activity level can be disheartening and unhelpful in reaching your goals.

No matter what you are tracking, figuring out the proper tool for self-monitoring is an important step. The classic pen and paper is still a great option, but with smartphones readily available, there are many self-monitoring apps that can be used. I personally use MyFitness Pal for calorie tracking, another good option is Lose It. Both apps offer simple workout tracking as well. For more advanced workout tracking, JeFit or Fitocracy both are good options. There are many more trackers out there for free, so find out which ones will provide the measures you are looking to track.

The success of self monitoring relies on constant tracking to the extent that it becomes a  habit. That being said, if you miss tracking a day or don’t meet your goal for that day, don’t beat yourself up about it. If a day gets missed, simply make a note of why you missed that day. This can be valuable information to help you change your routine, if necessary. For example, if you have a major project at work that is causing you to work late and then become too exhausted to workout in the evenings, making note of those days will show you the pattern you might have otherwise missed. You can then use this information to change up your routine and perhaps workout in the mornings, or put more emphasis on weekend workouts. Self-monitoring is about seeing your habits and taking steps to change them in order to reach your goals.

References

www.acefitness.org/prosourcearticle/5920/coaching-behavior-change-why-self-monitoring

http://creationbasedhealth.com/key-fitness-tip-self-monitoring/

http://www.ideafit.com/fitness-library/the-science-of-self-monitoring

Calories and Macronutrients

Calories and macronutrients play an important part of any fitness goal, as they are required to fuel your body and nourish your muscles. So what are they? Which ones and how much should you be eating? I’ll start off going over what calories and macronutrients are, then give some tips to determine how much of each you need.

Calories are, scientifically, a unit of energy. In the nutrition sense, a calorie is the amount of energy you will get from food. Over the course of a day, you will burn a certain number of calories just for your body to survive, this is your Basal Metabolic Rate. This means that, even if you slept all day long, you still burn calories. Moving around and doing your daily activities will burn even more calories. So, you burn calories on a daily basis, and just like a fire, you need fuel to sustain this burn. That is where food comes in. The calories listed on nutrition labels are the estimated amount of calories you will gain from consuming that food. I say estimated because the amount is calculated in a lab, and the human body is  more complicated than a controlled experiment. That being said, it’s still a good estimate to use the nutrition labels on food. The basic breakdown of how many calories you should eat is dependant on your goal. To lose weight you need to consume fewer calories than you burn. To maintain weight you should consume the same amount of calories that you burn. Similarly, to gain weight you need to consume more calories than you burn. Each person burns a different amount of calories depending on their metabolism, gender, age, weight, and other factors.

The calories in your food can be broken down into three macronutrients; carbohydrates, protein, and fat. The primary purpose of any macronutrient is to provide energy. The breakdown calories into grams for the macronutrients is as follows

Macronutrient (1g)	Calories
Carbohydrates	4
Protein	4
Fat	9

Let’s take a closer look at each macronutrient.

Carbohydrates bring to mind starchy food, like bread and potatoes; but they are actually defined as sugars. Aside from bread and potatoes, carbohydrates are also in fruit, milk, and anything sweetened. Carbohydrates are used for long term energy and for fueling your brain. Due to the use of carbohydrates throughout the day, a person should typically consume a lot of them. The recommended amount of carbohydrates in a person's diet is 45 - 64 % of total calories.

When you picture protein you will often think of meats, but nuts, beans, and dairy are also high in protein. Protein is used as the building blocks of our body and are broken down into amino acids for use in growth and repair. If you don’t have enough carbohydrates to fuel your day, protein will step in and be used to sustain you. It is not ideal to have your body run off of protein since it is needed elsewhere. The general recommendation for protein intake is 0.8g for every kilogram of body mass. This number will change depending on your fitness and dietary restrictions. For example, someone who is looking to build muscle and lifting a lot of weights may need as much as 1.7g for each kg of body mass.

The third macronutrient is fats.Fats are in pretty much everything and, despite their bad reputation,are an essential part of your body’s metabolism. Fats are your energy reserve. While you burn carbohydrates throughout the day and protein goes to repairing your body, fat gets stored for future energy burns and are essential during hard and long exercise sessions. Fat does not immediately get stored as body fat. An excess of calories, regardless of the macronutrient, is what causes body fat storage. Fats also are a source of fatty acids which are important in transporting nutrients throughout your body. The tricky part with meeting your fat intake is ensuring you choose good fats. Fats are divided into trans, saturated, and unsaturated fats. Unsaturated fats are the ideal fats and can be found in avocado, nuts, seeds, and cooking oils. The recommended intake of fats is 20 - 35% of your daily calorie intake.

Your required calorie intake will be unique. Work with a nutritionist to accurately determine your calorie intake and macronutrient amounts. The following two links can be used to get an idea of your calorie intake and macronutrient breakdown.

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/macronutcal.htm

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/macronutrients_calculator.htm

References

http://www.livescience.com/52802-what-is-a-calorie.html

http://www.innerbody.com/nutrition/macronutrients

My Workout Week

Wonder what I do for my workouts? Here is a breakdown of a week in my workouts, complete with sets and reps!

Monday

Warm Up

20 jumping jacks

20 high knees

20 standing side crunches

10 burpees

Workout - 4 Sets

12 stability ball cross crunches (each side) holding a 20 lb weight

10 V ups

30 sec side plank (each side)

12 stability ball reverse hypers

10 flutter kicks (each leg)

Rest 1 min

Cool Down

A few quick stretches and a protein shake

1.5 hr roller derby practice

Tuesday

1.5 hr roller derby practice

Wednesday

Warm Up

20 jumping jacks

20 high knees

20 butt kicks

12 push ups

Workout - 3 Sets

10 squats holding a 20 lb dumbbells in each hand

10 lunges holding a 20 lb dumbbells in each hand

10 single leg calf raises (each side) holding a 20 lb dumbbell on the same side as the leg being worked

12 clam shells (each side) with a 15 lbs resistance band around my legs

10 hip adductions (each side) with a 30 lb resistance tube

Rest 1 min

Cool Down

A few quick stretches and a protein shake

Thursday

1.5 hr roller derby practice

Friday

Rest day

Saturday

Warm Up

20 jumping jacks

20 high knees

20 butt kicks

10 Burpees

Workout - 3 Sets

12 push ups (from toes)

8 lateral arm raises holding a 8 lb dumbbell in each hand

12 tricep dips from a bench

10 front arm raises holding a 20 lb dumbbell

8 assisted chin ups

Cool Down

A few quick stretches and a protein shake

Sunday

Warm Up - around half a football field

Run

Side shuffle

Backwards run

Grapevine

Grapevine

Run

Side shuffle

Backwards run

Agility Run- 3 Sets

Start facing sides, sprint 5 yards to your left, turn around and sprint 10 yards, turn around and sprint 5 yards back your starting place
Rest 1 min
Repeat heading in the other direction

Plyometrics - 3 Sets

10 hops forward, backwards, right, and left

10 single leg hops (each leg) forward, backwards, right, and left
8 tuck jumps

8 continuous long jumps

Cool Down

Jog around the entire football field

That is a week in my workout! I have a few different core, leg, upper body, and agility workouts I rotate through to ensure a full body workout and to keep things interesting! My husband and I also add in one or two outdoor skating sessions in the summer time.

Weight Training: High vs Low Reps

Let’s talk weight training. If you aren’t doing it, you should! Weight training is an important part of any healthy lifestyle. There are typically two types of weight training people think of: heavy weights with low repetitions or light weights with high repetitions. Which should you be doing to meet your goals? Unfortunately it’s not that clear cut.

Weight lifting can be broken down into three zones: high reps, mid reps, and low reps. Using the below chart, we can talk about what type of weight lifting you should do to meet your goals.

Weight Training Type	Training Effect	Reps per Set	% 1RM
Low Reps	Strength	1-5	80-90
Mid Reps	Hypertrophy	6-12	60-80
High Reps	Endurance	15+	40-60

Strength Continuum

1RM stands for 1 Repetition Maximum, or the amount of weight you can lift once. It is the basic unit used to determine strength. Here’s an online tool to help you calculate your 1RM (http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/other7.htm).

First, weightlifting and losing fat. In a previous post, I talked about cardio for fat loss and the link to heart rate. The ideal range of your heart rate to maximize fat loss is 70% - 85% of your maximum heart rate. While that article was about cardio,  The same principle applies to weight training for fat loss as well. How does that translate to high vs low reps? The truth is, it doesn’t matter. The important thing to do is get your heart rate up. My personal suggestion is to do mid to high reps in a circuit of 4-6 moves, taking little to no rest between sets. That being said, the exertion it takes to do heavy weights will also bring your heart rate up. It is harder to maintain a higher heart rate, but the benefit is still there.

Next, what if your goal is to build muscle? It’s commonly thought that lifting heavy weight with low reps is the only way to build muscle.. Studies on the best way to build muscle do not all point to low reps. It seems the most benefit comes from lifting weights until failure or fatigue. So how do you decide which is right for you? It’s going to depend on your experience and time. Doing a low rep workout until failure will be a shorter workout than a high rep workout until failure. The best way to maximize your muscle growth is to mix it up every few weeks. Lift big for a week or two, then switch to low weights.

If your goal is to improve your athletic performance, weight lifting should be an important part of your workout routine. As with cardio, you want to mimic your sport and target the muscles you will be using. If you are in a sport that requires you to be a brick house, like football or rugby, you want to work on muscle growth and strength, so stick to the high weight with low to mid reps. If you are in a long distance endurance sport, such as running or cycling, stick to low weight with high reps. Weight training for endurance sports doesn’t give the body the same simulation as the actual sport itself, but it’s important to have the increased lean muscle to get full power in each stride or push. And lastly, if you are in a power sport that requires you to do quick bursts of action, such as hockey, sprinting or roller derby, you will want to do explosive training. For explosive training, I recommend being in the mid to high reps range, do your movements quickly to simulate the sudden energy you will require in sport.

One last tip. If you are new to weightlifting, start in the high reps range with light weights. Have a friend or a trainer spot you to make sure you are using proper form.

Happy lifting!

References

http://www.builtlean.com/2012/07/19/high-reps-vs-low-reps/

http://www.bodybuilding.com/content/high-reps-low-reps-which-rep-scheme-is-best.html

http://www.trainingscience.net/?page_id=301

http://www.sport-fitness-advisor.com/strengthtraining.html

Post Workout Nutrients

Your workout doesn’t end when you hit the showers, recovery time and nutrients are important factors to help you grow. Your workout is putting stress on your body, and fatiguing your muscles. Post workout, you want to replenish all the energy you used. You will also need nutrients to help your body repair any damage that was done to it during your workout. The two main nutrients you want to consume after a workout are carbohydrates and protein.

Carbohydrates are what you use to fuel your body, so during a workout you deplete your carbohydrate storage. The amount of carbohydrates you need to refuel depend on the intensity of your workout. The general recommendation is to consume 30g of carbohydrates per hour of exercise immediately following your workout. If you are doing an intense or long endurance session, you can get more specific with the amount, 0.6-1.0g of carbohydrates for each kilogram of your body mass. After an intense weight lifting workout, with muscle growth in mind, 1g of carbohydrates for each kilogram of your body mass is a good guideline.

Protein stimulates muscle growth and repair, which is important after an intense workout that damages your muscles. Again, the amount of protein will vary depending on the intensity of your workout. In general, 15g of protein per hour of exercise will be all you need. For a more intense or long endurance workout, aim for 1g of protein per 3g of carbohydrates. If muscle building is your goal, aim for 20-30g of protein.

The easiest way to replenish these nutrients immediately after a workout is using a shake. After drinking the shake, plan to eat a regular meal within two hours. If your primary goal is weight loss, then you can skip the shake, to maintain your planned caloric deficit, and just eat a regular meal within two hours after your workout.

One more important thing to consume post workout is water! You want to drink enough to replenish the water you lost from sweating. If you are looking for exact numbers, weigh yourself before and after your workout; the weight lost is the amount of water you want to drink. If you don’t want to go through the steps of constantly weighing yourself, just keep drinking water. Water is good for you, so don’t worry too much about figuring out an exact amount.

References

http://easacademy.org/trainer-resources/article/endurance-exercise-fatigue-recovery

http://easacademy.org/trainer-resources/article/resistance-exercise-fatigue-and-recovery

http://www.precisionnutrition.com/about-post-workout-nutrition

Recovery Time

Your body needs time to heal! The entire premise of working out is to exhaust and tear your muscles so they can recover stronger and better. In this post I’m specifically going to write about recovery time, assuming you don’t do any special recovery treatments. Recovery and rest time are unfortunately not so cut and dry. There are a few factors you need to take into consideration when resting, the big one is how hard and long your workout was. I’m going to simplify the types of workouts into two categories; low impact (easy) and high impact (hard).

Low impact workouts are going to be steady state cardio, light weight lifting, etc. With low impact workouts, you aren’t pushing your body to a breaking point, so the recovery should be faster. A general recommendation is to give yourself at least 24 hours before working that part of the body again. This doesn’t mean you need to rest every other day, it just means you should change up your routine so you aren’t working the same body part over and over.
High impact workouts are going to be high intensity cardio, heavy weights lifting, etc. High impact workouts are pushing your body harder, so you will need more recovery time. The recommended recovery time is 48 to 72 hours before working out that part of the body again. Similarly to the low impact rest time, you can use these days to workout other areas of your body.

Whether you are doing low impact or high impact weight lifting, you will need a rest day from weight lifting. When you need the rest day is going to depend on how hard you are working, and how quickly your body can recover, among a few other factors. Some rest day options are:

• 3 days of weights, 1 day of rest
• 4 days of weights, 1 day of rest
• 6 days of weights, 1 day of rest

You should play around with your schedule until you find the one that works best for you.

The final step to recovery is the rest week. Unlike all the recovery days, the rest week is a full week away from the gym. This week is to give your body a full reset on your system. You don’t need to become a couch potato during this week, but keep any activity you do light and easy, remember you are taking a week off so your muscles and body can fully repair. Like the full rest day, the rest week schedule will vary depending on the person and the training. Some examples are:

• 4 weeks training, 1 week rest
• 9 weeks training, 1 week rest
• 12 weeks training, 1 week rest

Pick and choose the training schedule that works best for you. You can try to schedule them around events, like vacations. It is important to note that the training program should not go more than 12 weeks, it becomes physically and mentally exhausting at that point.

Remember, every person is different, so listen to your body and find the right recovery schedule for you!

References

http://breakingmuscle.com/olympic-weightlifting/how-much-recovery-do-you-need-7-factors-to-add-up

http://www.timinvermont.com/fitness/fund.htm

https://www.acefitness.org/blog/3565/recovery-redefined-how-much-rest-you-actually-need

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/randy3.htm