So, Like everyone else, when things start progressing nicely with weightloss and fitness we get injured!  With me it’s my knee. I’ve no idea what I’ve done, which is worrying for a start considering my profession, but its put a stop to all my training.  As with all injuries they set back training plans which we have to accept.  I’ve started having treatment with Matthew at our Manchester branch and its going really well. Once its recovered, its important that I don’t just carry on my training from where I left off, as this can easily cause further injuries, depending on how long I am resting for.  You have to start training slowly again and build back up to where you were, by not rushing back into training.  I’m not saying go back to the beginning, just take a week or two to ease back into it slowly.  In the mean time, I can work around my injury by doing things like core work and cross training.  Which despite the fact I hate it, being married to the personal trainer means I’m actually doing it!

Last weeks blog was very much one for the women, so this week I’ve got technical with gadgets to please the rest of you!

Over my running career I’ve have polar heart monitors, garmins and various other gadgets so goodness knows how much I’ve spent!

Now that I am taking it less seriously I’ve started looking at the different apps you can get.

I now take my phone with me, and considering I run with 4 dogs and a buggie I didn’t think the extra weight would affect me too much! Not only is this for safety but also kills about three birds with one stone. I am contactable if I choose (to get picked up mainly!), I have my music on hand but also access to hundreds of different running apps!

Some are free whilst others aren’t. Some measure your route before you go, some even measure out your intervals. Which gets me to my point. These apps, I use ‘map my run’,  can help massively with interval training. Some people call it the Farlek training, others speed work, but they are all variations on the basic theme of a fast bit followed by a slow bit, which is repeated. It’s the fundamental issue here that is important, not what you are calling it and these apps help massively to measure distances so you can run 500meters then walk or jog 500meters repeatedly. It’s this type of training that will help you greatly improve not only distances but the time you take to run your races. At least one of your weekly sessions needs to be based on interval training in a good balanced training plan.

Sorry guys, this one is for the ladies this week!  A lot of my friends who have had babies at the same time keep asking is it safe to exercise and breast feed?  They have heard (a tale from an old wife) that if you diet or exercise when breast feeding it will interfere with your milk supply! Well luckily the old wife who made this tale up wasn’t right.

There are only a few substances that can affect milk supply with are, these are:

• Smoking
• Caffeine
• Contraceptive pills and injections
• Severe weight loss diets
• Peppermint, parsley, sage (in excessive amounts)

You are also able to carry out a wide range of activities, including impact work, without it effecting the feeding or milk supply.  It is important to wear the correct apparel for obvious reasons,(big boobs need supporting) and timing of exercise is also important. Do not try and exercise when you are hungry.  Its best to eat, then feed the baby and then exercise for both your comfort as well as for your energy levels.  Depending on your activity, you may find that you also need a small snack before you exercise after feeding.

So, boot camp sessions are going well, as well as my run, jog and walks.  These are a great way to start back running after a long break.  If you break down your run into walking sections and running sections before you start it will motivate you to actually run the running sections rather than do it ad-hoc when you won’t actually run the run sections.  By pre planning these sessions you will actually run further that you would have done by just saying ‘I’ll run to the next lamp post’.  These interval sessions are a great way to build up stamina before working on speed.

Also this week as I’ve been writing a lot of nutritional plans for Anatomy clients, so I decided to take a good hard look at my own.  Did you know that just one bottle of beer a night is an extra 1000 calories a week!  Which is roughly a pound of weight gained every month through just beer alone!  Wine is even worse, as a glass of wine can contain double the calories of a bottle of beer, which can equate to two pounds a month in weight gain.  So dry January is not only good for your liver, if you are serious about losing that Christmas bulge, cutting out drink is an excellent way of reducing your calories intake.

Don’t panic, I’ve not forgotten you all, its just taken me a week to gather the strength to type again!  So, I did what everyone does, stand on  the scales after the new year only to find they were broken. So after rushing out to buy a new pair, only to find they were broken too, I had to conclude that the half a stone I had shed before Christmas had somehow reappeared!

With this in mind, plus number one going back to school and cramming too much into the 6 hours of ‘free time’ I ran, walked, jogged our normal 4 mile dog walk.  This meant that I haven’t been able to walk for the last week and I’m in all sorts of trouble!

So that aside, its back to starting to exercise properly.  I’m walking the dogs between 2 and 4 miles every day, and whilst pushing a double buggy this is actually quite a work out.  I also started with the ‘bootcamp’ classes.  I have to be careful here and many people fear these kind of classes, plus they are run by my husband, so I feared that it would quickly end in divorce.  I was wrong, there was a lovely bunch of ladies, none were lycra clad showing off six packs, none were trying to out-do each other and they were all friendly!  There was no shouting, it was actually fun, difficult but fun! These classes are on most day each week and although I don’t pay (because that would defeat the object of owning the place) £25 for 10 sessions is brilliant value.  They are a great way of toning up, losing weight and having fun, which right now, after an average of 4 hours sleep a night, it’s what I need.

So… I’ve continued with two sessions this week and still the morning after each session it is proving difficult to walk. We have worked out that my back isn’t very strong and even simple bridging is proving too difficult to do, so I have my homework to try and help strength it in between sessions.  And like everyone else, I can find endless amounts of time to waste on Rightmove (not that we are moving) and Facebook but no time to do some simple exercises!

The back becomes very weak during pregnancy so strengthening it is very important, bridging, the plank, chest raises on the floor and even single leg bridges are great to help with this and can be done at home.

Ok, so last week my brain wasn’t computing anything but sleep! But then some bright spark told me how many calories are consumed on Christmas Day! 8000 apparently!

This combined with seeing friends who had their babies at similar times and looking in the mirror and being married to a personal trainer got me into the gym.

My mile and three quarters mile dog walk had doubled, not every day, but that’s the intention and I’ve now had two sessions at the gym. It’s only been two because I couldn’t move for four days after the first session. Everything was nice a gentle pace but included kettle bell swings, work on the FK Pro, plank (admittedly not for very long) and even some walking lunges and some dead lifts!

I intend to carry on as I have started….. Time will tell!

So….. According to my pre baby brain I should be three weeks into my marathon training……. I think my post baby brain is struggling to comprehend anything apart from trying to function on less sleep than I could have believed! How on earth did I manage to go out till 3am twenty years ago and still show up to work and function? Now trying to get a baby grow on the right way round is proving difficult!

I’m sure it wasn’t this hard last time around! But then I didn’t have a three year old and everything that goes with her!

What I will say is that my two mile dog walk is now taking 40 minutes not an hour, and I did run across the road last week, which hurt! There is a lot of giggling with the baby so that must count, mustn’t it?

I promise I will start after Christmas……..

Well, I’m at the final stages of my pregnancy so this will be my last post until I’m on the other-side! So to speak. Exercise is not recommended for the first six weeks after childbirth, and as I’m having a section, there will definitely be no exercise! Once the midwife has signed you off then remember to start gently and build back up again. For those of us who have gained more than our baby’s weight, remember to lose this before toning exercises are started. Dieting however should not be your first thoughts, breast feeding is a great way of helping to control your weight. Once you feel alive again, or remotely human, this is when you should consider your return to fitness, not before. Remember there is no pressure, and for me, if I can’t run a marathon next September, then I’ll put it back till November, when my body is ready. There is no point rushing anything as that will only lead to injury.

As the end of this pregnancy is now insight, sleep becomes a thing of the past as does feeling comfortable.  So over the last few weeks a swissball, or fitball, has become my new best friend.  This week I am sharing some very good exercises with you to help keep you mobile, if like me, you are nearing the end of your pregnancy.

Firstly just sitting and bouncing on the ball will help to alleviate back ache by creating movement in the lumber region. This can be progressed to rocking your pelvic forward and backwards to help create movement around the hips and between the vertebra in the lumber and even in the thoracic spine when you rock your pelvic from side to side.  If you are feeling really adventurous you can make circles on the ball with your hips and waist which will really help create some much needed movement, and help reduce stiffness and pain in the pelvic area.  If you have been getting some SPD pain, use the ball to help stretch your hamstrings and adductors (inner thigh muscles) and this will take pressure off your pubic symphysis and again alleviate some of that stiffness and pain.  If you are unsure of any of these exercises send us and email and we can send you an exercise sheet, or book in for some much needed treatment.

At 34 weeks pregnant you feel like your ready to pop. However, it’s not stopped me thinking about good core sessions to start when training begins in about 3 months time.

A good session I’ve been putting together will include lots of exercises on the FK Pro, such as squats, both single and double leg, hamstring curls, quad curls, press ups and overhead side bends.  We have put videos of all of these exercises for you on our website, or click here . These sessions can probably be started two months after I give birth so looking forward to them already! You can remind me of this when I complain bitterly after my first session back!

Well this week has been full of aches and pains many of which have been far too personal to mention. However one thing I do suffer with is pain in my mid back. This has been discussed at length with my friends who are going to give birth around the same time as me.

It’s a common problem which gets forgotten about in pregnancy, but one that hits most of us as time gets closer to due date.  The pain in the mid back will increase as the lordosis increases in the lumber spine through the weight of the growing baby and the adapted postures. The pain is also increased by the growing bust size, and the extra weight some of us carry.  I managed to get in with Tina at our Manchester branch for a half hour deep tissue massage which helped greatly to relieve some of the aches and pains around my mid back and shoulder blades. By sitting in a massage chair you get to feel the benefit of the pressure rather than being laid on your side and just being uncomfortable.  This is probably the best half hour I’ve spent in months!

Even though it’s now cooler, my hands and feet have decided to swell up. This is a common issue in pregnancy and it can be quite painful. Many ladies suffer with swollen feet and ankles which can be exceptionally painful. It can be painful to walk if the ligaments also loosen off. This can be helped by wearing lace up shoes such as trainers (if you can still bend down to do them up) and tying them tightly to give the foot support. Alternatively taping the arch of the foot can also help through using k-tape or rock tape to proved the support and help prevent the pain on weight bearing.

This week I’ve been giving quite a lot of thought to the types of training sessions I will need to start doing.  Interval training such as one mile reps will need to feature. For this I need to decide on my target time.  I have been thinking that three and a half hours is a good starting point, and if I manage anything quicker then it will be a bonus.  The idea is that you run one mile faster than your expected pace, and then alternate it with a mile that is slower than your expected pace.  This is also a good tactic if you are feeling tired in a race and you want to break it up a little.   Obviously to start with I will be running a minute fast, alternated with a slow minute, but as I get fitter and further into the training programme the time intervals will get longer.  I will also need to add in strength sessions.  These will include exercises such as squats and dead lifts, as well as lots of core and upper body work.  Strength is important in long distance running to help improve stamina, however it is the one part of a training plan many athletes will miss out.