Exercise during pregnancy- DO IT!

Many women, especially first time moms, hesitate on keeping up with their workout regime while they are pregnant. There are many different reasons why women are nervous but I'd just like to talk about how beneficial the exercise is for your body AND your baby through pregnancy.

First of all, if you currently workout you understand the sheer mental, emotional and spiritual benefits to exercise. it keeps you focused, grounded, positive and feeling strong. All these aspects are just as important if not more when you are pregnant.

Cardiovascular exercise (anything that increases your heart rate and keeps it up for an extended period of time) is amazing to help with weight management and to keep stress levels down, lower blood pressure and to make you sweat!

Strength training will help you keep your muscles working and firm as well as supporting your joints as your belly get bigger and your weight shifts forward. Posture is VERY important to reduce back pain and to keep a strong core. A strong core and muscles overall will also help during labour.

Yoga/Meditation is also an incredible form of exercise during pregnancy to keep muscles stretched and to teach breathing techniques that can be used in labour. Also, meditation can be a VERY beneficial tool for those women that struggle with high blood pressure or managing stress.

So as you can see, there are MANY benefits to exercise during pregnancy and there are many more than I have mentioned as well. One of the biggest things you want to remember is just to keep active, eat healthy (don't fall into the trap that you are eating for 2, your body only needs an additional 300cal/day while pregnant) and go by how your body feels. There will be days that you are more tired and give yourself permission to take it easy on those days.

There are also certain positions and exercises that you should not be doing after a certain point in your pregnancy, like lying flat on your back or holding your breath while you do anything! Also, when doing core exercises stick to plank and side planks, no crunching or crossover motions, these will add pressure from the inside pushing outwards on your abdominal muscles which can create or increase the size of a diastasis (the separation of the abdominal muscles).

                                          

                

So stay active and have a great pregnancy!

Are you "FEELING" your recent workouts?

Great job! 

You earned that feeling!

 Embrace it, that is what change feels like!!

I know we work you hard at Performance Fitness but we want to show you what you are capable of and create a change on the inside, not only the outside.

YOU ARE STRONG!!

CORE Blaster

Plank -60sec
Bicycles- 50x total (25/side)
Side plank- 45sec/side
Superman(lying on stomach, lift arms and legs off floor using lower back)-15x
Russian twist- 40x

Repeat 3x!!
Feel the burn!!

Meet our new trainers!

Performance Fitness is expanding and growing! With that we have brought on two more AMAZING personal trainers/kinesiologist who we would love to introduce you too. Elise Cunningham and Jeff McLellan come to us with lots of experience in the fitness industry and a passion to help clients achieve their goals.

Check out their BIO's on our webiste http://www.performancefitnesstraining.com/index.php/about-us.html#elise 

Elise will be taking over many of my clients when I am off with the baby as well as our early morning and lunch time group sessions.
Jeff is a full time teacher with a passion for health and fitness, he will be working some evenings and leading the Men Only workouts along with the endurance athletes group on Tuesday evenings.

If you would like any more info on either of them or to set up personal training with them please contact me at paula.performancefitness@gmail.com

Can you eat TOO LITTLE and gain weight?

It is Jan and we all think about some new goals for this fresh new year, many people have some sort of weight loss goal. It can be 5lbs or 80lbs, but either way we all need to have the right nutrition along with adequate exercise in order to see those results happen.
Cutting down calories is not the only aspect of nutrition you need to look at but today that is what we are going to discuss. I have had some clients who do TOO MUCH activity for the amount they are eating so their body thinks its going into starvation mode and tries to conserve itself. So it won't release calories to be burned off, instead it stores them in case it doesn't get fed enough through the day. When the calories get stored guess what happens to your weight...it definitely doesn't drop and can even go UP!
You always need to be aware of where you are getting your foods from; good sources or fats, lean proteins and good grains as well as fruits and veg. If you are getting your calories from processed foods and refined sugars your body will not lose weight at all.
So make sure you eat enough for your activity and you will ensure the weight loss happens/continues. I highly recommend working with a Holistic Nutritionist to get an individualised plan to at least start you on your journey, you will learn so much about the relationship between your body and food and know what you need to do to get your body to respond.

What is more important; Exercises or Eating well?

I get asked this question ALL THE TIME and its like clients are testing me. There is no science to it honestly and I am not a nutritionist BUT I 100% understand that in order to maximise results you have to combine both exercise and eating properly to see long term and lasting results.

The exercise programs we design at Performance Fitness are always results oriented, we combine;
 *strength exercises to increase muscle mass which will speed up metabolism and allow you to burn more calories even as you sleep and to keep your body burning calories at an elevated rate for up to 4hrs after our workouts finish!
*core to increase whole body support, tighten the waist line and support the lower back
*cardio to burn maximum calories during the workouts

All these components combined have allowed our clients to some pretty amazing results. We have now launched an awesome program in collaboration with Holistic Nutritionist Debbie Allen to combine our expertise in fitness and Debbie's in Nutrition. Our clients have lost an avg of 2.5lbs/wk in the first 2 weeks of their program.
These results have really solidified to me how important BOTH Exercise and Nutrition are in the whole game of weight loss but not only that, in a long term lifestyle change to KEEP THE WEIGHT OFF.

You must put both components together to see the results you are looking for and to keep it off. Learn how your body uses food and how the right and wrong foods can effect your weight loss. Also learn how to exercise efficiently to maximise your time working out and to train using full body exercises that will transform and drop inches fast.

At home 20min "Sweat Session" for this week

If you didn't do the 15min Body Blast last week, add that to your "to-do's" for this week and here is this weeks "20min Sweat Session" quick blast workout for you to do at home. You don't need a gym or even a weight to challenge your body, burn calories and get a GREAT sweat on!

GET AT ER'

30 squats

30 mountain climbers

30 dynamic lunges (alternate legs)

20 tricep dips

20 bicycle abs

20 squat jumps

20 lateral squats (stepping out to side and side down then back to center and do opp side, repeat)

Plank on hands- 60 sec

Side plank- 30-45sec/side

20 Leg raises (keep pelvic tilt so low back stays down)

Repeat full circuit 2-4x

Let me know how it feels!!!