Bryan Evans Fitness - FITNESS NEWS

In This Month's Issue:

Avoiding injury

Environmentally Friendly Workouts

How Sick Britain Is Affecting The Economy

UCI World Cycling Championships launch new bike

Avoiding Injury

We are all familiar with the scenario, your training programme is going well, whether it is for personal goals or a marathon, and suddenly you pick up an injury. Without warning you are out of training for any time up to 6 weeks and can find yourself plagued by the same returning injury. How can you avoid this?

Firstly, identify what type of injury you have? Is it a chronic complaint, persistent or aching back, dodgy knee, weak ankle, or something that happened suddenly, you fell or sprained an ankle during a run, or maybe pulled a muscle when weight training.

Then you need to deal with the injury effectively. ALWAYS seek medical advice and follow it. If you need to rest, do so. Persisting with a training programme could exasperate your injury and leave you requiring more time out.

Sports Massage Therapy can help, regular sessions will help aid healing of the injury and restore the muscles. It will also help ease other muscles that may be over compensating for the injured ones. Bryan Evans Fitness (www.bryanevansfitness.com) offer Sports Massage Consultations and treatments, please contact us for further details.

So how to avoid injury in the first place?

• Warm up properly. Take your time and gradually increase the speed/level of your warm up. This will ensure your muscles are warmed up enough for your main workout.
• Pace Yourself. This applies to both weight and cardio training. In cardio training increase the intensityor duration of your exercise gradually, and ensure when weight training that you gradually increase theweights you are working with.
  
• Listen to your body. It is trying to tell you how you feel. Exercising when ill or fatigued may make you more prone to injury. It's ok to push yourself, but only within safe limits, only you know how you feel.
• Pay attention to form. The correct positioning will make strength training like weight lifting moreaffective and help to avoid injury.
  

Environmentally Friendly Exercise

1. Climate change and global warming are 'hot' topics these days (excuse the pun!) Fitness enthusiasts can also do their part.
2. Vary your workout. The energy consumed by powering treadmills and other electrical machines in gyms can be massive, not to mention factoring in the lights, televisions, and air conditioning!! Working outoutside sometimes will vary your routine (a varied routine is more likely to be sustained) and you can actually get out and enjoy some of the world you're trying to save!
3. Use body powered machines, such as rowers and spin bikes. For details of the spin classes available through Bryan Evans Fitness please visit www.bryanevansfitness.com.
4. Strength train using your body weight for resistance with squats, push ups, lunges, dips and step ups.
5. Use gym equipment at home that doesn't require electricity to generate power, such as weights,kettlebells, jump ropes and spin bikes.
6. Choose workout clothes and materials made from natural or organic fibres, you can ever get shoes made up of recycled materials. (visit www.buyorganic.com.au)
   Reuse – pass on old gym clothes to charity, check out recycling schemes for old shoes, such as Nike's(visit www.nike.com for more details)
   

For ways in which you can reduce your environmental impact in other areas of your life try WWF's footprint calculator at http://footprint.wwf.org.uk/

Sick Britain

We've heard all the headlines, obesity is on the increase, numbers of medical professionals, nurses and doctors are on the decrease, and the number of sick days being taken by employees is costing Britain £100 billion a year according to recently published reports.

So what can we do to ensure that our employees enjoy optimal health?

Research and experience has shown that employees who exercise during the working day benefit from improved health and well being, and feel more motivated in the afternoon after an energetic lunch hour spent exercising rather than sitting at their desks. Employers benefit by having more effective employees who take less sick leave.

Bryan Evans Fitness (www.bryanevansfitness.com) offer a range of local lunchtime classes which employees can experience. Even a brisk walk or a jog at lunchtime can help boost staff health and morale. Time is often a factor. Employees feel they cannot fit exercise and their lunch into a one hour lunch break. Flexibility over lunch hours, and maybe even an office shower, can help.
Communicating with your employees, not just about their physical but also their mental health can also help.

Employees who become sick and are not helped quickly enough, can all too easily find themselves on a downward spiral into long-term sickness and a life on benefits. It is common knowledge that stress is a major contributing factor, especially in the workplace. Exercise helps
relieve stress by releasing feel good endorphins. It's also hard to feel angry or stressed when you've been kick boxing or running for a good ten minutes! Sports Massage Therapy also helps promote a greater sense of well being and better sleep. Bryan Evans Fitness (www.bryanevansfitness.com) can offer a range of corporate benefits, including fitness testing, stretching classes, corporate massages and nutritonal advice.

Investing in your employee's health and fitness now equates to a long term in vestment in your business.

And finally....................

Here at Bryan Evans Fitness we've been avidly following the UCI Track Cycling World Championships 2008 held at Manchester's Velodrome and it was here that Wattbike recently launched their new indoor cycle, which is the first to be endorsed by British Cycling.
The Wattbike is a new generation of bike, incorporating an exercise bike, spinning bike, testing bike, competition bike and rehabilitation bike all in one. This means it can be used by everyone, from children, to atheltes to senior citizens.

Visit www.wattbike.com for more details.