Like many fitness statements/myths this one is a bit true and a bit false all at once. Running TOO much, or while you are really overweight, or on a very hard surface, with poor footwear, and poor technique can indeed be bad for the knees. Running under these conditions can cause degenerative wear and tear in the knee joint, and can also lead to the production of cortisol, a stress related hormone that can encourage fat around the waist.

Having said that, running the right way, for the right duration, with good footwear (we recommend Asics), possibly with some walking intervals if you are a beginner and are overweight is one of the cheapest, most effective and enjoyable ways of getting fitter, burning fat and getting smaller. The weight bearing nature of running can encourage good bone density, strong connective tissue and strong synergists and fixators: these are the muscles that help you balance and that support the joints. Running also has the benefits of being cheap (no gym membership needed) and also gets participants outdoors into the world which adds to the enjoyment. Our personal trainers in the Windsor and Maidenhead areas are also spoilt for choice with lots of scenic runs along the Thames, Windsor Great Park and other green spaces. It also releases LOTS of endorphins, the feel good natural hormones that we make during  vigorous exercise.

As with so many things, there are pluses and minuses, but done the correct way the benefits of running, in our opinion, far outweigh the disadvantages, it’s just a matter of doing it the right way. Start at your own level; 1 minute running followed by 1 minute walking might be all you can manage for now, but progress will come and soon you will be able to move up to a 2 minute run and a 1 minute walk and so on. If in any doubt you could always have a session or two with one of our personal trainers who can advise how much and what sort of running will be best for you. Remember also the importance of keeping any training programme varied, and NEVER to omit some strength training in addition to running. And don’t forget to stretch!!

There are in all walks of life myths, old wives tales and beliefs. Health and fitness is no exception, so in the next series of blogs, I, the personal trainer and your expert, will look at some of the most common myths in fitness. Questions like “is running bad for my knees?”, “Will yoga give me a perfect figure?” and “exercising on an empty stomach, will it make me thinner?” will all be answered.

1-Sit ups will get rid of a flabby tummy. 

False. You can do 1000 sit ups a day and if you are stil eating more energy than you are putting out then you will keep your fat tummy. This myth is closely connected to the “spot toning” theory that says you can exercise a particular area and lose fat in that area alone. This is not the case. Altgough you can tone your arms, for instance, and they may begin to look slightly better, the muscle tone is only beginning to show despite the layer of fat on top that will remain. The body takes fat when needed from all over, all at once, and contrary to belief will do so fairly evenly. Some things seem to get thinner before others during weight loss, but this is simply because some areas are less fatty than others, the areas that are fattest will take longer to appear toned, and areas thet were not holding much fat will be revealed sooner. If you want to have a flat tummy then you need to burn fat. The best way of doing this is to eat slightly less energy then you expend. One of the best ways of doing this is to increase the metabolic rate by building muscle tone. The bigger the muscle group the more effect it will have on this rate, so clients need to do “big bang” exercises. Crunches and sit ups only work the abdominals, a small muscle group, so their effect will be limited. Lunges, squats, push ups and bent over rows however work lots of things at once and toning this way will make you burn fat thus gaining a flat tummy. Out tutor at Premier Global Windsor (the guy who traines personal trainers) would frown (a lot) on crunches given to clients in a programe. They only work a small area and take up time in which you could be doing more efective things. We get lots of personal trainer clients coming to us from all parts of  Berkshire, Windsor and Maidenhed who have been doing lots of gym work and not really getting there. Many times this is because they are not doing the right things in the gym and are doing too many CRUNCHES!! For a simple and effective routing have a look at the video piece I did with the Maidenhead Advertiser on the knowledge  page, and do it 3 times a week!

From BBC online news:

Scientists have unlocked the entire genetic code of two of the most common cancers – skin and lung – a move they say could revolutionise cancer care. Not only will the cancer maps pave the way for blood tests to spot tumours far earlier, they will also yield new drug targets, say the Wellcome Trust team. Scientists around the globe are now working to catalogue all the genes that go wrong in many types of human cancer. The UK is looking at breast cancer, Japan at liver and India at mouth. China is studying stomach cancer, and the US is looking at cancers of the brain, ovary and pancreas.

 The International Cancer Genome Consortium scientists from the 10 countries involved say it will take them at least five years and many hundreds of thousands of dollars to complete this mammoth task. But once they have done this, patients will reap the benefits.Professor Michael Stratton, who is the UK lead, said: “These catalogues are going to change the way we think about individual cancers.

“By identifying all the cancer genes we will be able to develop new drugs that target the specific mutated genes and work out which patients will benefit from these novel treatments.

“We can envisage a time when following the removal of a cancer cataloguing it will become routine.”It could even be possible to develop MoT-style blood tests for healthy adults that can check for tell-tale DNA patterns suggestive of cancer.

Russian roulette-The scientists found the DNA code for a skin cancer called melanoma contained more than 30,000 errors almost entirely caused by too much sun exposure.

The lung cancer DNA code had more than 23,000 errors largely triggered by cigarette smoke exposure. From this, the experts estimate a typical smoker acquires one new mutation for every 15 cigarettes they smoke. Although many of these mutations will be harmless, some will trigger cancer. Wellcome Trust researcher Dr Peter Campbell, who conducted this research, published in the journal Nature, said: “It’s like playing Russian roulette. Most of the time the mutations will land in innocent parts of the genome, but some will hit the right targets for cancer.” By quitting smoking, people could reduce their cancer risk back down to “normal” with time, he said. The suspicion is lung cells containing mutations are eventually replaced with new ones free of genetic errors. By studying the cancer catalogues in detail, the scientists say it should be possible to find exactly which lifestyle and environmental factors trigger different tumours.

So the key message here is that the healthier we are the less chance we have of getting a deadly cancer, even if we are genetically predisposed to it. Stopping smoking can seem like a very daunting task, but it CAN be easy, I know this because I’ve done it! Picture this, I am a personal trainer in Windsor and Maidenhead, and after every client, whether I’m running with them, doing circuits, or resistance training, I need a cigarette after each session. I have one first thing in the morning, in the shower, would you believe. But then I was recommended the”easy Way to Stop Smoking” by Allen Carr. This book changed my like, plus the life of my partner, her sister, and ger mother, who all stopped with little difficulty after reading this book or going to the lecture. So give it a go, you have everything to gain and nothing to lose!

GP’s have once again warned to stop prescribing antibiotics to patients who don’t need them, says a report in the Daily Telegraph recently. The practice is not only costly to the NHS, but also dangerous, because the proliferation of  the drugs is allowing an increasing number of bugs such as MRSA to develop resistance to them. The European Centre of Disease Prevention and Control warns that if trends continue, all sorts of routine operations (hip replacements, for instance) will become potentially lethal because there will be no way of treating subsequent infections.

Patients put pressure on GPs to prescribe antibiotics, but do not realise that coughs and colds are usually caused by viruses and so will not respond to antibiotics which only target bacteria.

The best way to deal with these common colds is to stay as healthy as possible thus keeping a strong immune system. Resistance training, cardio vascular work and healthy eating are all areas that our personal trainers encourage clients to do not just in personal training sessions but also on their own as general lifestyle improvement. Being strong and fit can really make a difference. Several of our personal training clients in Windsor and Maidenhead have independently commented that since they started personal training ad got much fitter and healthier they have not had a single cold or flu virus.

New mothers who express breast milk during the day and feed it to their babies at bedtime may be depriving their infant and themselves a good night’s sleep, reports the Daily Telegraph recently. Scientists have discovered that the composition of breast milk changes “quite markedly” throughout the day, and that ingredients in the milk that stimulate the central nervous system are found in highest concentrations during the day, while the most relaxing doses are found between 8pm and 8am.

“You wouldn’t give anyone a coffee at night, and the same is true of daytime milk,” said Cristina Sanchez of the university of Extremadura. “breast milk has daytime specific ingredients that stimulate activity in the infant, and other night time components that help the baby to rest.”

She advises therefore that if mothers are feeding their babies expressed milk it should be given at more or less the same time that it was expressed.

Overall health of course both during and after pregnancy is very important. Some basic fitness before getting pregnant will also put new mums in good stead.Fitter mums tend to have shorter and less stressful births, and have predominantly healthy weights. Healthy mum leads to healthy baby! Being fit and doing some structured pre natal exercise also really helps to get weight back to normal, and of course a fit mum is all the stronger for hefting heavy babies and accoutrements too!

All our personal trainers in London, Maidenhead  and Windsor are all pre natal trained, so some PT might be just the thing for you if you want to be prepared well.

A female athlete made her mark and proved that you are never too old for exercise or for a personal trainer for that matter. Ruth Firth, a 100 year old great-grandmother was jubilant after winning gold in the shot putt at the world masters games in Sydney. The fact that she was the only competitor in her category (shot putt, women, aged 100-104) does not diminish her achievement. She trains 5 days a week, bench pressing 80lbs and practicing hammer throws and javelin. She is hoping to defend her title in 4 years’ time.

At Diets Don’t Work personal training many of our clients are over 40, and lots of those are older than that; my personal training client Greta is now in her 60’s, I’m doing a 10k with D who has a personal trainer in Sunninghill (me!) who is in her 50’s, and the star of the show is B in Reading who has just passed 84!

In many ways the older a person gets the results of structured exercise become more more beneficial and visible. For a 25 year old, there can certainly be improvements in cardiovascular fitness and muscle tone, as well as lots of other benefits, but as a client becomes older these fitness and functional benefits have a more profound effect and make a bigger change to everyday life. B, our 84 year old success story, has gone from needing help to get everyday chores done, including trips to the shops, to now having the functional fitness and strength to do all of these things independently, thus making a huge difference to her life. Similarly, Greta in Holyport retains great posture and stamina, so is able to carry on life just as you or I would, while many of her peers who have become unfit and overweight are suffering form a range of debilitating conditions, from osteoporosis to knee problems.

So even of you are getting on a bit, it really is never too late, and in fact it can be a case of later having more marked benefits and easier improvements!

Children can be taught to use their imagination to tackle frequent bouts of stomach pain, research shows. A relaxation-type CD, asking children to imagine themselves in scenarios like floating on a cloud led to dramatic improvements in abdominal pain. The US researchers said the technique worked particularly well in children as they have such fertile imaginations. It has been estimated that frequent stomach pain with no identifiable cause affects up to one in five children. The research, published in the journal Pediatrics, follows on from studies showing hypnosis is an effective treatment for a range of conditions known as functional abdominal pain, which includes things like irritable bowel syndrome.

In this study, the children had 20 minute sessions of “guided imagery” – a technique which prompts the subject to imagine things which will reduce their discomfort. One example is letting a special shiny object melt into their hand and then placing their hand on their belly, spreading warmth and light from the hand inside the tummy to make a protective barrier inside that prevents anything from irritating the belly The researchers, from the University of North Carolina and Duke University Medical Center, said a lack of therapists led them to the idea of using a CD to deliver the sessions. In all 30 children aged between six and 15 years took part in the study – half of whom used the CDs daily for eight weeks and the rest of whom got normal treatment.

As usual at Diets Don’t work we must also emphasise the importance of exercise and good healthy nutrition in preventing any illnesses, whether in children or adults. Many of our personal training clients in the London area have families and report that exercise and good nutrition really helps prevent their children getting ill, and it also means that when they do catch something nasty from school it’s gone in no time.

This power of mind over matter also plays a vital role in all sports and for those battling illness. whether it’s the mental toughness of a marathon runner or the mental calmness of  German footballer getting ready to score a penalty!

Feeling stressed? Try mowing the lawn, suggests the Daily Telegraph. A team of neuroscientists from the university of Queensland, Brisbane, has discovered that chemicals released by cut grass have a soothing effect on the brain. After one of his neighbours remarked on the wonderful smell of freshly cut grass, research leader Dr Nick Lavidis had the idea of developing a scent that incorporated some of the chemicals from grass. When tested the smell has been proven to regulate key emotional areas of the brain such as the hippocampus and amygdala. “These are responsible for the fight or flight responses and the endocrine system, which controls the releasing of stress hormones like corticosteroids,” Lavidis says.

Although the scent has been proven to work, one must beware of easy substitutes for the real thing. If the scent itself works, then it will be even more beneficial to actually get outside and mow the lawn, as this also includes the stress reducing effects of exercise, being outdoors and in the fresh air, as well as doing a task that has the satisfaction of an easily achievable result. As part of our personal training service we encourage clients to increase daily activity as much as possible and to get outdoors, not only for the benefits of increased calorific burn and weight loss, but also as it helps feelings of mental well-being and satisfaction. So don’t watch a programme about nature, go outdoors and experience it first hand! Watching an exercise video might make you feel good, but actually doing the exercise will have a real benefit.