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My Health & Fitness, Barangaroo (2025)

30/11/2024

22 Benefits of Strength Training

Why do we do resistance training (other than the fact our trainer makes us)? We all know resistance training is good for us, and there are so many reasons to add it to our exercise routine. Some people do it to build muscle. Others, to reach a goal, like being able to pick up our grandkids. Maybe, it’s our way just to relax. Whatever our reason, we deserve a big pat on the back just for doing it!

Only 1 in 2 Australian adults get enough exercise and meet Australia’s physical activity guidelines. This is especially true when it comes to resistance training! Out of 168 countries, we are ranked 97th for the percentage of the population being sufficiently active. It’s scary considering physical inactivity is so highly associated with chronic health problems.
What is Resistance Training (aka strength training or weight training)?

Resistance training can be anything from body-weighted strength to lifting very heavy weights. The person that hasn’t broken a sweat all session, and the person that is drenched in sweat at the end of the session – have both engaged in strength training.

It looks completely different for everyone and that’s the beautiful thing about strength training! It can be adapted and individualised just for us and our body’s specific needs.

For those who maybe don’t know all the amazing benefits of strength training, I’ve made a nerdy little list below. Please feel free to share this with our friends and family members who maybe aren’t quite convinced on exercise, there’s something in here for everyone!

Benefits of resistance training with your Exercise Physiologist:

1. Improves focus
2. Improves cognitive function
3. Decreases anxiety
4. Reduces depressive symptoms
5. Improves feelings of well-being
6. Increases self-esteem
7. Decreases risk of dementia
8. Reduces markers of inflammation (particularly in people who are overweight)
9. Decreases cholesterol
10. Decreases blood pressure
11. Improves insulin-swings for those with type 2 diabetes
12. Improves insulin-sensitivity
13. Boosts metabolic rate
14. Reverses ageing factors in mitochondria and muscles
15. Increases bone mineral density (and prevents bone loss)
16. Increases muscle mass
17. Improves movement control
18. Reduces chronic lower back pain
19. Decreases arthritic pain
20. Reduces pain from fibromyalgia
21. Improves balance
22. Increases walking speed

08/09/2024

How Exercise Can Lower Your Blood Pressure

Most people probably know that blood pressure is a vital, yet basic, metric of our general health. Odds are, you’ve had your blood pressure taken at least once in your life. But apart from knowing that blood pressure is something your doctor will inevitably check when you pop in for a check-up, what do you actually know about blood pressure?

Let’s take a look at what causes high blood pressure, and how exercise can help to manage it.

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08 Feb How Exercise Can Lower Your Blood Pressure
Posted at 07:00h in Chronic Conditions by Exercise Right
Most people probably know that blood pressure is a vital, yet basic, metric of our general health. Odds are, you’ve had your blood pressure taken at least once in your life. But apart from knowing that blood pressure is something your doctor will inevitably check when you pop in for a check-up, what do you actually know about blood pressure?

Let’s take a look at what causes high blood pressure, and how exercise can help to manage it.

What exactly is blood pressure?
In a nutshell, blood pressure is your basic indicator of how your “blood plumbing” is working. If we think of our blood vessels, arteries and veins as our internal pipe system, then a blood pressure measure is basically an indication of how well the blood is getting transported around through the system and how the system is functioning. Blood pressure is gauged and measured by essentially “feeling and listening” to your arteries and thus gathering an insight at how hard the blood is flowing and pressing against out arterial walls.

Blood pressure peaks when the heart muscle contracts and pumps blood, a cycle called systole. It falls when the heart relaxes and refills with blood, a cycle called diastole. Systole is the top number and diastole is the bottom number. It is displayed as two numbers, e.g 120/80 mmHg.

So, what should your blood pressure be? An optimal blood pressure level is a reading under 120/80 mmHg. Readings over 120/80mmHg and up to 139/89mmHg are in the normal to high range. Your doctor will advise what your ideal blood pressure should be based on your circumstances.

What causes high blood pressure?
Any abnormalities in your blood pressure reading can be indicative of problems with your pipelines (arteries and veins), blood volume or the heart itself. Some of the most common causes of abnormal blood pressure include:

Arterial narrowing via small or large obstructions in the arteries and/or veins. This causes a bottle neck and pressure inevitably builds.
Arterial stiffening – harder/inflexible pipes
Abnormal heart rhythms (weird beating). If your heart beats too fast, pressure builds because blood is getting thrust into the system quicker than it can be circulated.
Blood volume levels. Sheer higher volume will also naturally raise pressure.
Heart stroke volumes – the ‘size and strength’ of each heartbeat
blood pressure

Risk factors
There are a lot of factors that increase your risk of developing high blood pressure, including:

1. Diet
A regular poor diet of high salt, high fat, high calorie foods puts you at risk of hypertension. High cholesterol can cause plaque build-up within the artery walls (atherosclerosis), causing narrowing of the arteries. High salt diets can cause fluid retention in the food, which in turn increases the blood volume.

2. Exercise
Being inactive or doing only irregular exercise will have bearing on the robustness and function of your heart and internal pipework. Inflexible and less pliable arteries are usually indicative of poor cardiovascular conditioning due to low exercise levels.

3. Smoking
There’s an endless list of chemicals in a single cigarette, but carbon monoxide and ni****ne both have profound effects in terms of contributing to hypertension by way of arterial plaque deposits and arterial hardening. Ni****ne also has both acute and chronic elevations in blood pressure, causing an overall general rise in blood pressure over time.

08/09/2024

Self Care 101: Love yourself enough to exercise

According to a recent survey, exercise is the number one priority for women of all ages wanting to improve their health. Despite this, less than half of all women are sufficiently active. So, what’s stopping women from slotting regular exercise into their lifestyle? And more importantly, how can we overcome these barriers and encourage women to move more?

Why you should make time for exercise
Too often, women forget to prioritise themselves and make time for their health. Maybe you feel guilty for taking time out? Maybe you just feel too tired? Whatever the reason, it’s got to stop.
Exercise not only reduces your risk of developing chronic diseases like diabetes and some cancers, but it also gives you more energy. This means more energy to dedicate to your kids, your job, your friends and your partner.

When women start put themselves first and engage in regular exercise, many of the concerns they have around exercise and movement start to melt away. Additionally there is a mounting body of evidence supporting the role of exercise in managing depression and anxiety and improving mental health outcomes.

08/09/2024

Why Aerobic Fitness is the Best Predictor of Health

What if we told you that there’s a health component that’s more important for healthy ageing than the combined effects of smoking, obesity, and diabetes?
Yet, the average GP is unlikely to mention it, much less actually test it. Could they be missing one of the most important assessments at our check up? So, what’s this crucial component?

Aerobic fitness.

That’s right, our aerobic fitness is our best health predictor and effector. Not sure what this means? Read on!

1. Anything is better than nothing.
Simply moving, even just a little, does reduce our risk of heart disease. If you go from being very inactive or unfit, to being just in the lowest quarter of either ‘active’ or ‘fit people’, you achieve the greatest return on our investment!

For example, if you are in the lowest 10% of either ‘active’ or ‘fit’ people, you get very little protective effect from cardiovascular disease. But if you move to the 25th percentile in activity levels, you get about a 10% protective effect. This jumps to a whopping 40% protective effect for those in the 25th percentile in fitness levels.

2. Being ‘fit’ gives you better results than just being ‘active’.
There’s an obvious difference in protective effect of “general physical activity” vs “aerobic fitness”.
You’re busy, and it’s hard to find time to exercise, so you want the best possible return on your time investment! This data shows that increasing your fitness has a significantly greater impact on your health, compared to just ‘being active’.

01/07/2024

Exercise and Low Iron Levels

Iron deficiency is somewhat of a “silent epidemic” because the symptoms are often overlooked as “day-to-day” tiredness. If we’ve been diagnosed with low iron, we can surely relate to the feeling of fatigue that goes alongside it.

So, what’s exercise got to do with it? Well, a bit, as it turns out.

We take a look at what causes low iron and how training load can affect our iron levels.

What causes low iron?
Unfortunately, the body cannot create its own iron when it’s necessary. Therefore, daily dietary intake is essential to acquire and counteract our daily losses to sustain a healthy iron balance. Though seemingly simplistic, replenishing our iron can be somewhat challenging because our body typically only absorbs ~2 – 35% of the iron we eat, dependent on the source.

How can exercise impact iron levels?
There is no doubt that iron, and its roles in oxygen transport and energy metabolism, is fundamental to our exercise capacity. However, beyond the typical 1-2 mg of iron we normally lose each day, there are also several exercise-induced avenues of iron loss that likely account for an additional 3-5 mg of iron loss per day.

These pathways for iron-loss include sweating, gastrointestinal bleeding, microscopic amounts of blood lost through urine (haematuria) and the destruction of red blood cells via weight-bearing activity (haemolysis). This is compounded by the challenge to replenish these lost iron stores via dietary iron when its absorption is so low.

Tips for improving iron levels
Need to boost your iron levels? Consider the following…
Consult a trained dietitian

I will always advocate to consult trained dietetics personnel if we’re looking to change/improve our overall diet or iron intake.

Thus, it is not surprising that avid exercisers are particularly vulnerable to iron deficiency. Added to the already low absorption rate of iron from the diet, scientists have recently shown a strong association between exercise and the body’s key iron absorption regulator, the hormone hepcidin.

01/07/2024

Speed training for football players

When you’re watching a game of football, it’s usually high-speed movements that drive match determining plays.

Fast attacking players terrorize defenders, put points on the scoreboard, and excite crowds. Fast defenders, on the other hand, can more effectively shut down their opposition and recover from errors.

How speed is used as an identifier of talent in football

Speed is regularly a key criterion in talent identification. Fast players are often selected ahead of ‘skilled’ players as it’s a widely held notion that game skills can be taught but speed is something we’re born with.

Adding speed training to your football training sessions
I incorporate the same fundamentals into my speed sessions with footballers from all codes.

Here’s what a typical M E Hughes AES Football session includes:
Basic drills:
Mini band activation, technical drills, injury prevention
Constraints based and resistance activities (e.g., wicket drills, sleds)

Speed training:
Progression to maximal velocity sprints utilising various starting positions
Example: falling, push up, rolling
Maximal velocity sprints
30 – 60m reps
Volume: 200m – 300m in total
1 minute rest per 10m sprinted
Cool down and feedback
Timing gate metrics on testing days

11/06/2024

Two reasons to make the most of exercising this winter

Today, we hope to get us to think outside the box when it comes to exercising in winter. Sure, it’s cold, but there are some great reasons to start training and achieving our health goals, no matter what season we’re in!

1. Increase our aerobic fitness
A major limiting factor of exercising in the summer months is temperature. Going out for a lunchtime run probably does more harm than good and leaves us worse off for the rest of the afternoon.

2. Develop exceptional habits
If consistency is something you struggle with, then training in winter should be our go to! Consistency and discipline are simply skills and if we want to develop a skill, we need to practice it.

How many times have we heard or said, “I want to get really fit this summer”?

11/06/2024

Boost our Brain – why movement is medicine for our mind!

Our brain is central to everything we think, feel, and do. Most people know that exercise is good for our body, but many are unaware of the powerful impact exercise has on the health of our brain.
Exercise can increase blood flow to the brain, make our brain cells more active, strengthen connections between different brain areas and even make areas of the brain bigger, all of which can improve how well it works and protect it from disease.

FOUR WAYS EXERCISE CAN BOOST OUR BRAIN
1. Improves cognition (thinking skills)
Just like our heart and lungs, our brain is an organ and exercise can improve its performance.

2. Improves memory
Another important thinking skill that can be improved by exercise is our ability to learn and remember. These skills are fundamental for success at work, study, and in everyday life.

3. Reduces our risk of brain disease (including dementia and stroke)
In Australia, the impact of poor brain health is becoming increasingly important, particularly with our aging population. As brain-related disorders are more common in older adulthood, the number of people living with significant disabilities and reduced quality of life is increasing rapidly.

4. Can help manage symptoms in those with brain disorders
In addition to reducing the risk of developing brain-related disorders, exercise can be used as a tool to help manage symptoms. Following a stroke, exercise can significantly reduce the risk of having another stroke and improve physical functioning and quality of life.

10/05/2024

The benefits of exercise for pain

Exercise and movement are essential ingredients in the management of persistent pain.

Many pain researchers and health professionals recognise that increasing physical activity levels can improve pain, function, and wellbeing across a range of persistent pain conditions including osteoarthritis, back and neck pain, shoulder pain, fibromyalgia, and post-surgery pain.

The benefits of exercise

Exercise related health benefits for people with persistent pain include:

Improved sleep. For people experiencing persistent pain, poor sleep has been linked to higher levels of pain. Exercise contributes to changing the fight or flight response, winding the nervous system down and promoting relaxation.

Improved mood and reduced stress and anxiety. Improved release and responsiveness to naturally produced ‘feel good’ hormones and neurotransmitters (for example dopamine) can reduce your perception of pain. These work similarly to some frequently prescribed pain medications and can help reduce pain medication dependency.

Increased pain tolerance and pain desensitisation. Even a single short bout of exercise, like a brisk 20 min walk, can decrease pain for 20-30 minutes post-exercise. Regular daily exercise can increase pain tolerance and assist with reengaging in activities ceased or limited by pain.

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