How to get the most out of your training

When you first begin a new training programme whether it be in the gym or just becoming more active throughout your day, there a number of important factors that need to be taken into account and applied in order to get the best results and the most out of your training. At first it might seem a lot to take on board, but even just applying one factor at a time will make a significant difference to your training and overall wellbeing. Let me take you through some key points to consider when starting your journey to a healthier lifestyle.

Hydration

When undertaking physical exercise your body will lose more water through breathing and sweating so ensuring you keep hydrated is key to help with performance and keep up your energy levels. Dehydration can affect aspects of brain function and can result in a loss of concentration and can even cause headaches and migraines in some individuals

The current recommendation of fluid intake is 6-8 glasses a day (around 1.2 litres). This will need to be increased in hotter climates and with increased physical exercise, up to 2 litres every day. The easiest way to know if your body is dehydrated is to check the colour of your urine. The stronger the colour, the more dehydrated you are so ideally a pale yellow or clear urine will mean your body is hydrated.

Keeping hydrated will also help to improve the efficiency of organ function and of the digestive system, as well as improving joint and spine health. Regular fluid intake will also help aid weight loss as it can help increase satiety levels. If water is consumed regularly throughout the day and before meal times it can create a feeling of fullness which can prevent overeating at meal times.

Sleep

Ensuring you get enough rest and recovery throughout your week will make a significant difference to how well you perform and will have an impact your energy levels. Irregular sleeping patterns is a sure way to impact your energy, motivation and performance, and not in a good way! In order to help your body repair and recover from training, it is recommended we try and aim for around 6-9 hours of sleep every night. The best way to achieve this is to go to bed at regular times and avoid stimulating your brain before you sleep. Basically, avoid using your phone or laptop before you go to bed, difficult to do in this day and age but it will help massively!

Rest/recovery days

Allocating rest/recovery days in your training schedule is also super important and must not be over looked! Rest and recovery days will help to increase longevity and quality of your training and will help to avoid any injuries from over training. By taking days off training, you allow your body to recover from the stresses you place on it. This will allow your body to repair and rebuild the damaged muscle fibres which are caused from training. As worrying at that may sound, it is actually the process we need to go through in order to increase muscle mass and get stronger! By putting stress on your body more than what it is used to, such as resistance training, you create tiny micro tears in your muscles which will then repair as you rest and sleep. These tiny micro tears can cause delayed on-set muscle soreness, also known as DOMS. You will certainly know when this happens as you will feel achy and sore from your workout 24-48 hours later which is completely normal.

However, if you are just starting out and are a complete beginner and you wake up the next day after training and ache from head to toe, it wouldn’t be wise to then go and hammer your body away in the gym again. It is much better to give yourself at least 24 hours full recovery or have an active recovery day instead. This can either be going for a long walk or taking part in a Yoga class. Not only that, training when your body is suffering really bad from DOMS can impact on your form and technique which should never be compromised as this can lead to injury and further issues down the line.

It is worth pointing out that if you do have the time to hit the gym on consecutive days, you should ideally train different muscle groups each time so that they still have to chance to recover. This will obviously depend on what your goals are as to whether this structure applies to you as an individual. However, for most of us taking 1-2 rest days is adequate enough each week.