Hello, and welcome to your SpinStream Premium Membership!
We are delighted that you have decided to come on board with us and hope you reap the benefits of our additional services on your journey with us. Whether you are new to spinning or exercise, returning after some time out, or a regular cycling enthusiast we have something for everyone at SpinStream Premium.
We not only showcase great cycling classes, giving you the motivation and inspiration to exercise on a weekly basis, but have a real vested interest in each and everyone of our members health and wellness which goes beyond just exercise.
Our Nutrition Plus area gives you some great background information on nutrition basics and scientific, simple, easy to follow guidance in helping you develop the correct habits and behaviours in small manageable steps to successfully transform your body and make some potentially big changes to your health and fitness.
Now is always a great time to start to make changes. Change happens in an instant, you just need a bit of leverage, social support and accountability to get the ball rolling. You also have to want to change, pretty bad. It’s simple….people change through the pleasure to want, or the pain to avoid. What is it in your life that you want so bad because of the desire to look like or feel like or to not be the person you are right now? Those could do’s and should do’s need to become must do’s, you need your close circle of family and friends to be truly supportive of the changes you are going to embark on and you also need that little voice on your shoulder that is helping to keep you in check…that’s where we come in.
Nutrition Plus gives you access to amazing tips, tricks, bio hacks, articles, blogs and much more to give you up to date information and advice to help you create optimal nutrition for your given lifestyle, and whilst getting your nutrition on point, as they say, is important, you must also ensure that you ha e the correct attitude and mindset that allows all the changes to fall into place. Whilst I’m not going to get into the nitty gritty of how mindset can affect, for one, fat loss, right now, being master of mind instead of mastered by mind is definitely important to recognise in your development with us at SpinStream Premium and we will be pushing some content your way in which to help you in such areas.
Nutrition and Mindset is a little like the chicken and the egg. Which comes first? Well both really but seeing as though I’m a bit of a nutrition nut, we will start here. Bare with me, I’ll try and go easy on the science bit, but I do want you to understand why. After all, knowledge is power!
Here goes… firstly I’m going to assume 99% of you want some form of body transformation, and that might mean, especially to the ladies, to tone up. We’re all familiar with that phrase so I’ll give you the science behind what you mean. Tone up simply means having less body fat. To be leaner and less wobbly. And we are pretty much all searching for this one thing. To look good in clothes, to look good naked, to have more self confidence, to feel sexy etc. Even men who are looking to put on some size still want to be lean at the same time so body fat is a common, shared, desired standpoint. And yes, should be the primary quantifiable measure when looking at progress, not the scales. Scales, both physiologically and psychologically fail to address the key make up of what’s going on inside someone’s body so leave them be wherever possible. Clothes, pictures, hip/waist measurements are much better to take markers from for progress.
So how do we go about getting less fat? We can and should attack from different areas. The first and most simple part of the process, which takes less overall physical effort but a little thought is to increase the amount of movement that occurs in your typical day to help increase metabolism. Movement can be as simple as taking stairs, walking a little further to the office, walking to work, walking the dog more, doing daily chores. Even standing to take a phone call at work or having a standing work desk will increase daily energy expenditure, which is one half of the in vs out balance. Additional movement during the day coupled with any form of exercise you do, is your physical activity level (PAL) whether that be a weight training workout, a Spin Stream session or a game of football are all placed in the calories burned fire along with what we call basal metabolic rate (BMR), the amount of energy you require to perform the most basic physiological processes like breathing. BMR + PAL = daily energy expenditure (DEE) . As I said initially getting more movement is a good place to start and can account for up to 75% of DEE so plan more movement into your day to begin with.
The main thing that I would like to get across when it comes to exercise, whether you take part competitively or for more social reasons is that you try and adhere to the principle of ‘progressive overload’. All this means is that we stress our bodies to the point now and again whereby we place a greater stress than our bodies can cope with. Our body recognises this added stress, regenerates and comes back next time more able to deal with the previous training load. Too many times people do the same things, at the same intensities, week in, week out and expect change. That my friends is insanity, and yes you will get even a reverse effect on your fitness levels. Moreover it’s just not that great for losing fat.
Now, if you’re a runner, you ought to be doing more running than anything else. If you’re a swimmer then you ought to be doing more swimming, and if you’re a bodybuilder then you ought to be lifting mostly weights, and so on. Being specific to the sport/physical activity you partake is most wise, although it’s not the only thing you should be doing. For those people who don’t train for a specific discipline then doing a good variety of fitness workouts will definitely benefit you as a well rounded athlete. Yes I said it, once you start training, you are, an athlete.
I’m going to categorise the different fitness aspects into 3 main sections, and you should be doing each of these in your training schedule. Depending on your focus, the percentage of time spent in each area will differ. Our 3 angles are
Cardiovascular Conditioning (SpinStream, Running, Swimming)
Strength and Conditioning (bodyweight training, weight lifting)
Rehab and Mobility Stratagies (yoga, foam rolling, self massage)
Especially in the first two disciplines you should aim to mix your workouts up in relation to intensity and duration. As a good rule of thumb, the more intense a workout, the shorter it would be, and vice versa, the lower the intensity, the longer the duration. A word on exercise intensity which we will cover in more depth during our blog posts: If a workout is truly intense, because of the sheer damage to the body, it takes longer to recover from. Hence we use up more fuel post exercise in which to recover to normal levels. In short we use up more calories after we finish the workout for a longer period of time. After all, calories in vs calories out will rule.
Final word on exercise in relation to fat loss; lifting moderate to heavy weights does wonders for maintaining muscle mass, keeping metabolism high and burning greater calories at rest. Lifting is for everyone!