Personal Training Articles
With a range of personal training guides and articles that are designed to help you understand your body and how to work out more effectively, the NRPT.co.uk has pulled together a range of guides, tips and information in one place.
Check below for some of our articles or why not check out our dedicated training section that has information about your body, training techniques and ideas.
Exercises To Practise After Undergoing Knee Replacement Surgery
While it’s certainly true that you’ll need plenty of rest following the operation, and strenuous activities are off the agenda for some time, it’s also vital to begin exercising the knee as soon as possible. 1. Ankle Pump And Rotation. This exercise helps to get blood circulating through the leg and acts as a warm up before the other stretches. It also helps minimise the danger of blood clots in the leg, which is a risk after knee replacement ...
By Ian Duncan
The Ultimate Body Management Solution
Good nutrition is vital to any workout - it’s 70% nutrition and 30% exercise. Any workout schedules is incomplete without a good nutritional plan. Your clients’ won't reap the full benefits of your workouts if they're not eating well. Imagine if you could take control of your clients diet, and get the foods you choose (together) delivered to their door. You can take control of calories, macro nutrients and meal options. The Gym Chef system allows yo...
By Ian Duncan
The Glycemic Index and Maximising Sports Performance
What is the Glycemic Index (GI)? The glycemic index is a scale used to classify foods containing carbohydrate including breads, pasta, rice, cereals, dairy products and drinks. Each food or drink is given a score from 1-100 depending on the rate at which the food is broken down by the body, and the resulting impact it has on blood glucose levels. The ranking of GI foods is as follows: Low GI foods – 55 and under Medium GI foods – 56-69 High GI foods – 70 and ab...
By Ian Duncan
Why Bother with Winter Training?
Plan Your Winter Running Training It is often the most difficult time to train, as well as the training being quite difficult. From the weather conditions and short nights, through to the cold and damp, nothing will help you with motivation apart from a training partner, a PT and of course your own self motivation. Why is Winter Training Needed? There's a few reasons really. Not only the obvious need to keep yourself in tip top shape, but also training across the winter will help yo...
By Ian Duncan
Body Sculpting for Women – 12 Common Myths Debunked
Myth 1 Weight training makes you bulky Due to the fact that women do not produce as much testosterone (the hormone responsible for increasing muscle size) as males do, it is extremely difficult for a woman to gain huge amounts of muscle mass. The image that may come to mind is of professional female body-builders. Many of those women unfortunately use anabolic steroids (synthetic testosterone) along with other drugs in order to achieve that high degree of muscularity. In addition, mos...
By Ian Duncan
How Can Physiotherapy Help Low Back Pain During Pregnancy?
It doesn’t always have to be that way, and there are steps you can take to both prevent and reduce back pain. Why is back pain so common during pregnancy? When you are pregnant your body is flooded with hormones, including ‘relaxin,’ which makes your ligaments softer and more stretchy, in preparation for childbirth. In addition to this your body is becoming heavier and your centre of gravity shifts as your belly expands. Combined together this can put an extra ...
By Ian Duncan
New Knee ligament discovered- What does it mean?
Knee collapses following surgery may be a thing of the past thanks to new research that has identified a previously unknown ligament in the knee – the anterolateral ligament (ALL). The discovery brings hope to thousands of sportsmen and women forced to retire early due to knee injury as well as the many thousands in the UK who suffer from knee osteoarthritis...
By Ian Duncan
Should You Consider a Personal Trainer for Your Ski Holiday?
Believe it or not that's how many families, couples and individuals feel after every ski holiday they go on. Apart from the après-ski, one day after another of skiing and people very quickly succumb to weariness if they are not fit and ready for about 3 or 4 workouts each day! Step 1 - Do I Really Need to Bother? Let's look at this practically and sensibly. There's absolutely no requirement for you to get a trainer or even embark on any fitness program for your ski holid...
By Ian Duncan
How To Become A Gym Instructor
Don't be fooled into thinking that it's an easy choice however - becoming a gym instructor takes hard work and dedication. Those who are determined will also need to invest in courses that will give them the knowledge and experience that they need to be able to help others. Obtaining qualifications Formal qualifications are an essential part of becoming a gym instructor. To be able to work as a gym instructor in the UK it is important to obtain the following: ...
By Ian Duncan
Exercise Improves Memory for those at Risk of Alzheimer’s Disease
It is the first study of its kind to demonstrate that older adults who have MCI can benefit from exercise intervention, improving brain function as well as memory recall. A certain amount of memory loss is normal as we grow older. However, significant memory loss, or mild cognitive impairment (MCI), can be an early warning sign of Alzheimer’s disease. “No study has shown that a drug can do what we showed is possible with exercise,” said the study’s lead author...
By Ian Duncan
Exercise Changes The Brain To Be More Resilient To Stress
The researchers found that mice allowed to ‘exercise’ responded differently to stress. When exposed to a stressor their brains showed a rise in the action of neurons that stifle excitability in the region of the brain responsible for regulating anxiety. Running produced a large increase in the number of new neurons in the hippocampus — a brain region shown to regulate anxiety — of a mouse that ran for six weeks (left). The brown cells are new neurons which ar...
By Ian Duncan
![The Complete Guide to Interval Training [Infographic]](/public/images/hero/_thumbs/200x100/img_hero-steps-training.jpg)
![30 Minutes of Exercise Training - The Key to a Healthier You [Infographic]](/public/images/hero/_thumbs/200x100/img_hero-motivationwords.jpg)
30 Minutes of Exercise Training - The Key to a Healthier You [Infographic]
________________________________________________________________________________ Are you interested in becoming a qualified personal trainer? If so please check out our personal training courses. ...
By Ian Duncan
Level 3 Personal Trainer Course
To call yourself a personal trainer - you need a Level 3 or Level 4 recognised qualification! So how can you get your Level 3 (or 4 for that matter) Personal Training qualification? With a myriad of different training providers offering an even wider range of personal training courses from part time to classroom-based, elearning to intensive, you'd be forgiven for getting completely confused as to who to go to and which Level 3 training course to take. Let's go back to basics first. ...
By Ian Duncan
Early-Morning Training - Best Before or After Breakfast?
For Fat Loss - Exercise Before Breakfast Skipping breakfast can make you crave high-calorie food later in the day – but if you exercise before you break your overnight fast, this isn’t the case. In fact it can be beneficial for those trying to lose fat, according to research by Northumbria University. (2). You can also look at home test kits as a way of monitoring changes and effects on your body that you can't see. Dr Emma Stevenson with Javier Gonzalez and volu...
By Ian Duncan
Short Bursts of Moderate Exercise Boost Self Control
The researchers suspect that improvements in higher brain function may be the result of increased blood and oxygen flow to the brain. The review was published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. A number of previous studies have assessed the impact of both short bursts and regular exercise on higher brain functions such as memory, concentration and decision making. While regular exercise did not appear to have a significant effect, the researchers caution...
By Ian Duncan
7 Ways to Maximize Your Time in the Gym
That's probably why so many people end up losing interest and dropping out. It doesn't have to be that way. With a few management techniques, you can make the most out of your time at the gym and enjoy an effective and rewarding workout. Hopefully you’ll ‘catch the bug’ and even learn to love it. 1. Work with a Personal Trainer or Partner Up If you lack motivation on you're own, a personal trainer can give it to you, making sure that you're living...
By Ian Duncan
Acupuncture May Boost Training Performance and Recovery
Article authors reviewed literature from four separate studies in which participants received acupuncture either before or after exercise. Authours Paola Urroz, Ben Colagiuri, Caroline Smith, and Birinder Singh Cheema, University of Western Sydney (Campbelltown), and University of Sydney, Australia, believe that acupuncture may provide a positive effect on exercise and post-exercise recovery. However, they acknowledge that these findings are preliminary. Larger controlled studies and stan...
By Ian Duncan
High Fructose Corn Syrup May Cause Overeating
Listed as an ingredient in a wide variety of foods, high fructose corn syrup has no more calories than regular table sugar. It's the ratio of fructose to glucose that makes the difference. Table sugar has a 50/50 mix of fructose and glucose, while high fructose corn syrup has a 55 to 45 percent ratio. That difference changes the way our bodies metabolize them. With a parallel between increasing rates of obesity and high fructose diets, researchers wanted to learn if high fructose diets ar...
By Ian Duncan
Hottest Fitness Trends
Interval Training Our fast-paced lifestyle leaves little time for exercise –that's a popular excuse, anyway. That's why gyms are offering a greater number of short, goal-oriented classes. With a focus on achievable results, these 30-minute classes can be highly intense. Popular classes target particular muscle groups, cardio, or endurance. You can keep things interesting by rotating classes. Aqua Zumba Zumba has been one of the hottest trends of recent years, but we...
By Ian Duncan
