Category Archives: Personal Training

What is High Intensity Interval Training? Well it is a great way to burn off fat by raising your heart rate extremely quickly so you don’t need to exercise for a long time to get results.  We keep our HIIT to 30 mins plus a warm up/cool down/stretching session. This type of training will get you fit quickly with the added bonus of burning fat, fast! Sound good? Well it’s not for the beginner exerciser or the faint hearted, so if you are currently exercising and looking for something a bit more exhausting, then come along to one of our HIIT classes.

What will you have to do? You will get a series of bodyweight exercises to do in a minimal amount of time, so rounds of squat jumps, push ups, lunges for 4 minutes with a 10 sec rest in between, then jogging/walk recovery period for 2 mins, this really increases your heart rate and fatigues muscle quickly that it takes you to an extremely high intensity.  Fat burning, muscle increasing and sweating!  That sums up H.I.I.T!

Check out our group fitness time table for classes.  Try your first class for free!

Need a snack, eat an apple, or why not have 2!

So what’s so good about apples anyway?

• They fight bacteria and viruses
• Help out with cholesterol reduction
• They are an inflammatory food
• Contain valuable fibre
• Assist in stabilising blood sugar
• And assist with cardiovascular system.

What’s not to love about apples, they are a fab, fit, fruit!  Eat one before your Personal Training session or one before any meal does wonders for staving off the dreaded food binge!

The Fat Burning Zone

A popular myth is that there is a specific range of heart rates in which you must exercise to burn fat. Even many cardio machines display a “fat-burning zone” on their panels, encouraging people to exercise in a specific heart rate range. Have you ever wondered if you really have to exercise in a specific heart rate zone to lose fat? And what happens if you venture out of that zone? Jason R. Karp, PhD, a nationally recognized speaker, writer and exercise physiologist who coaches recreational runners to Olympic hopefuls through his company, RunCoachJason.com, sheds light on this issue.

Fuel Use During Exercise

You use both fat and carbohydrates for energy during exercise, with these two fuels providing that energy on a sliding scale. During exercise at a very low intensity (e.g., walking), fat accounts for most of the energy expenditure. As exercise intensity increases up to the lactate threshold (the exercise intensity that marks the transition between exercise that is almost purely aerobic and exercise that includes a significant anaerobic contribution; also considered the highest sustainable aerobic intensity), the contribution from fat decreases while the contribution from carbohydrates increases. When exercising just below the lactate threshold, you are using mostly carbohydrates. Once the intensity of exercise has risen above the lactate threshold, carbohydrates become the only fuel source.

If you exercise long enough (1.5–2 hours), your muscle carbohydrate (glycogen) content and blood glucose concentration become low. This metabolic state presents a threat to the muscles’ survival, since carbohydrates are muscles’ preferred fuel. When carbohydrates are not available, the muscles are forced to rely on fat as fuel.

Since more fat is used at low exercise intensities, people often assume that low-intensity exercise is best for burning fat, an idea that has given birth to the “fat-burning zone.” However, while only a small amount of fat is used when exercising just below the lactate threshold, the rate of caloric expenditure and the total number of calories expended are much greater than they are when exercising at a lower intensity, so the total amount of fat used is also greater.

The Bottom Line

For fat and weight loss, what matters most is the difference between the number of calories you expend and the number of calories you consume. Fat and weight loss is about burning lots of calories and cutting back on the number of calories consumed. For the purpose of losing weight, it matters little whether the calories burned during exercise come from fat or carbohydrates.

Sidebar: Workouts For Fat Loss

To maximize your fat loss, try these workouts. For assistance in designing effective, safe workouts, consult with a Create Health & Fitness personal trainer.

Go Hard

A great way to perform high-intensity exercise and decrease your body fat percentage is through interval training, which breaks up the work with periods of rest. Not only does interval training allow you to improve your fitness quickly; it is also more effective than continuous exercise for burning lots of calories during exercise and increasing your postworkout metabolic rate. Try one or two of these workouts each week:

• 5–6 x 3 minutes at 95%–100% maximum (max) heart rate (HR) with 2-minute active recovery periods
• 4 x 4 minutes at 95%–100% max HR with 3-minute active recovery periods
• 8–12 x 30 seconds fast with 1-minute active recovery periods

Each of these interval workouts should include a warm-up and a cool-down.

Go Very Long

Long runs or bike rides (? 1.5–2 hours at 65%–70% max HR) that stimulate mitochondrial synthesis and promote the depletion of glycogen threaten the muscles’ survival, since carbohydrates are muscles’ preferred fuel. In response to this threat, muscles “learn” how to use fat more effectively and over time become better fat-burning machines.

This article is courtesy of Idea Fitness.  For more information on this topic or an appropriate programme, please contact us www.createhealthfitness.com.au

Australians are wasting $5.2 billion worth of food each year.

Household bins contain over 5kgs of food waste

Studies in metropolitan Sydney showed that the average household bin contains 11kg of garbage, with 5.8 kgs of that compostable waste. 95% of this compostable matter was food waste.

We’re not alone

Food waste is a problem in many countries. In the UK, the Waste Resources and Action Programme (WRAP) estimates that a third of the food bought is thrown out. If that food waste was eradicated, it would be equivalent to taking one in five cars off the road.

Australian households bin $616 of food per annum

Research by The Australia Institute shows that Australians throw away about $5.2 billion worth of food every year. This includes $1.1 billion of fruit and vegetables. The Institute estimates that the average Australian household throws away $616 worth of food per annum.

We waste close to 3 million tonnes of food a year

Australians waste close to 3 million tonnes of food per annum. That’s equivalent to 136 kilos per person per annum (2006-7 figures from Sustainability Victoria show that Victorians alone waste 700,000 tonnes of food waste per annum).

Food waste in landfill generates methane

When food rots in landfill, it gives off a greenhouse gas called methane. This methane is 25 times more potent a greenhouse gas than the carbon pollution that comes out of your car exhaust.

Greenhouse gases are released throughout food production

When you throw out food, what you see in the bin is not the only waste. You’re also throwing away the massive amount of resources it took to get that food all the way from the ‘paddock to your plate.’ That includes all elements of production, processing, storage, refrigeration, transportation and cooking.

Food produces 11.4 million tonnes of emissions a year

Using ‘paddock to plate’ calculations, WRAP in the UK estimate that one ton of food waste generates 3.8 tons of CO2 equivalent emissions. Using the same figures, food waste in Australia is responsible for 11.4 million tons of CO2 equivalent emissions every year.

A kilo of beef waste costs 50,000 litres of water

Wasting food also wastes the water that went into its production. According to CSIRO data, dumping a kilo of beef wastes the 50,000 litres of water it took to produce that meat. Throwing out a kilo of white rice will waste 1,550 litres.

Supermarkets waste significant quantities of food

Tens of millions of kilograms of safe edible fresh food and groceries are discarded every year. This is due to changed labelling regulations, end of season excess stock, production line changeover items, out-dated packaging, discontinued product, as well as slight label or weight inaccuracies.

This information was provided by FoodWise.com.au.

Create Health & Fitness and Zumba have teamed up to bring you Zumba Mums! This class is timed especially to get you exercising straight after school drop off and to get you motivated and energised for the busy day ahead with the natural high that exercising outdoors brings!  This is a quick 45 minute outdoor class at:

Tuesday mornings Clarkson Reserve – Trigg (Beach) at 9:00am.

Thursday mornings at Menzies Park, Mount Hawthorn at 9:00am.

Friday mornings at Yokine Reserve at 9:00am.

For more information and to book, contact us now!