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25.01.2022 Healthy Eating Healthy eating involves us eating a selection of foods from each of the 3 major macronutrients (Protein/Fat/Carbs) whilst meeting our micronutrient (vitamins and minerals) targets and not gaining an excessive amount of fat (if at all). Eating healthy will:... - Improve mood - Improve training quality - Prevent disease - Maintain regular bodily functions It will not, however, independently facilitate weight loss which is a common misconception with healthy eating. As long as the body is in a surplus of calories it will gain weight; no matter what foods were eaten. Apart from the aforementioned factors, healthy eating can be very complimentary to weight loss/fat loss by: - Increasing satiety/fullness - reducing the effects of lethargy a prolonged period of being in a calorie deficit can induce - Usually results in a more even distribution of energy throughout the day - Health/whole foods are typically also easier to track and calculate

23.01.2022 https://www.dietvsdisease.org/17-diet-and-nutrition-memes-/ A bit of a laugh on this fine Friday morning.

21.01.2022 How to bring up lagging muscle groups PART 5 Here is a quick reminder of the potential reasons why your body parts could be lagging. - Poor exercise form... - Insufficient attention to that muscle group in your programming - Inability to adequately contract the target muscle group during specific exercises - Inappropriate exercise selection - Lack of progressive overload being applied - Excessive effort allocated to already strong muscle groups - Problems with nutrition - Genetics Lack of progressive overload if you are training a specific muscle group but you are never progressing in regard to muscle size it could be because you aren’t progressing in terms of training performance. In order for your muscles to get bigger you need to provide not only a stimulus but a stimulus that gets gradually more difficult in some way over time. As examples, this could be using more resistance, it could be performing more reps or it could be performing more sets of the exercise. There are other ways to apply progressive overload but the aforementioned ones are the most standard, measureable and simplest to apply. If you have anything to add let us know in the comment section below. PART 6 of this series will be posted on our facebook page next Tuesday. See you then.

19.01.2022 Merry Liftmas! Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a happy 2017 festive season from all of us here at Active ID Training Systems. Have a safe and fun time spent with those close to you. (p.s Everyone officially is granted the gift of unlimited macros for Christmas Day - from Santa)

16.01.2022 Training/dieting as we approach the holiday season In the next few weeks we will be planning our holiday protocols with our clients. Here are some of the main factors we look at when preparing for 'non-routine' periods: - Schedule... It is very likely to change. Some people can train more, some less. Successful training involves getting all your days in during the week so as not to leave our muscle groups/movements. Make sure your training split is realistic and you don't end up missing days due to the changed schedule. - Recovery Holiday period = more rest and less stress. You may even be able to train at a time that suits you as opposed to your work. A lot of people are able to train with higher volume and intensities due to these factors. - Diet Dieting through holidays can ruin both diets and holidays. Unless you have a specific event you are dieting for, we recommend taking a diet break over the holidays. Psychologically you will feel a lot better during the holidays and primed to diet after.

16.01.2022 Happy Halloween! Halloween is more of an American tradition celebrated widely across the United States. It’s not hugely popular in Australia but it’s gaining ground. More and more people are recognising it and just having a bit of fun. Of course part of Halloween is the trick or treating for candy. This is mainly something kids are involved in but sometimes adults will buy and eat a bit of extra candy just to join in the festivities.... And that’s totally fine and something we encourage as part of a balanced lifestyle. Of course individual goals need to be taken into account. If you are currently dieting for some specific goal like a photoshoot or a bodybuilding competition then you might need to hold back on those treats for a while or incorporate them minimally because they are quite calorie dense. Otherwise just view it like you would eating chocolate at Easter. You have a few extra treats for a day or two and then you go back to your normal habits. In our opinion so long as it’s not all out uncontrolled bingeing, that’s balance. Have a great Halloween from all of us at the Active ID Team!

16.01.2022 Is strength training the best way to build muscle? First I want to clarify that by strength training I mean training with heavy weight for low reps. For example deadlifting for 3 reps would be considered training in a strength specific rep range. So is training in such a manner the best way to build muscle? The short answer is no and the reason is there are more efficient ways to achieve the same result.... To explain we need to look at a study by Shoenfeld from 2014 (1). In this study seventeen males were assigned to either a hypertrophy training group (3 x 10 reps) or a strength training group (7 x 3 reps). The training between these groups was volume equated and this is important because it allows us to compare the outcomes. The first thing to note is that bench press and squat one rep maxes improved more in the strength training group than in the hypertrophy training group. So strength training is more effective for increasing maximal strength as measure by one rep max than hypertrophy training is (who would have thought!). The second thing to note from this study is that there was no significant difference in hypertrophy between the two groups. That suggests that both strength training and hypertrophy training produce equivalent muscle hypertrophy when training volume is equated. So that’s good news right? Kind of. The thing is the strength training group trained for 70 minutes per session whereas the hypertrophy training group finished their session in just 17 minutes. In addition, the strength training group complained of joint soreness and fatigue while the hypertrophy training group reported that they could have done more training. So what does this tell us? Yes hypertrophy is going to be equivalent for both strength training and hypertrophy training if volume is equated. But hypertrophy training is much more time efficient per unit volume and it beats you up a whole lot less. That doesn’t mean you should never perform any strength training if your main goal is hypertrophy. Factors like personal preference and potential for progressive overload certainly come into it as well. But just make sure you are not under the illusion that strength training is way better than hypertrophy training (unless your goal is just to be strong - then it’s definitely better). Unfortunately it’s just not the best way to build muscle. References: (1) Effects of different volume-equated resistance training loading strategies on muscular adaptations in well-trained men Shoenfeld 2014

13.01.2022 Happy New Year! The Active ID Team wishes you a fun, healthy and productive 2018. We aren't much for motivational quotes because we prefer to see you take practical daily and weekly steps to reach your goals (at any time, not just in the New Year).... This year we'd like to see everyone challenge themselves in some way and actually achieve what they set out to do. Comment ONE resolution for this year below and we'll check in with you in a month to see how you're doing with it.

12.01.2022 How to bring up lagging muscle groups PART 7 Throughout this series I’ve included a weekly reminded of the reasons why your body parts could be lagging. Here they are: - Poor exercise form... - Insufficient attention to that muscle group in your programming - Inability to adequately contract the target muscle group during specific exercises - Inappropriate exercise selection - Lack of progressive overload being applied - Excessive effort allocated to already strong muscle groups - Problems with nutrition - Genetics Problems with nutrition this one is more of something that applies generally to growth rather than being specific to weak muscle groups. However technically it will still prevent weak muscle groups from growing so it needs to be addressed. That is that a caloric surplus is required in order to gain weight and build muscle. So if you are a chronic dieter, always trying to lose body fat then it should come as no surprise that your weak muscle groups are improving. I’ll add that additionally if you are consuming a low protein intake you could also be limiting your capacity for general muscle growth. If you address these two factors you will put yourself in a state where general muscle growth is more likely and therefore weak muscle groups will also have a chance to grow. Genetics there are genetic limitations to muscle growth and body part specific muscle growth. This can vary greatly between individuals. Unfortunately these genetics are inherited from your parents and considering there is nothing you can do about it, it’s not worth worrying about. My suggestion is to just attempt to do the best with what you’ve got. That’s the last post in this series guys. Thanks if you’ve been following along week to week. I hope you’ve enjoyed it. Let us know in the comments if you’d like to see more series like this one in the future and what topics you’d like to be covered.

11.01.2022 Tips for reducing holiday weight gain It's all good to know that minimising caloric consumption will prevent unwanted weight gain. Here are some practical tips to put this into action: - don't buy calories you don't want to eat/ don't shop while hungry ... - plan eating around events - when at events fill up first on protein and nutrient dense foods. These foods are usually the most filling and will incidentally equate to the lowest intake - don't go to events hungry. Have a nutrient dense meal before you go Finally, the holidays are a time to relax and enjoy. However, think about your choices and only eat foods you are actually enjoying and not for the sake of it!

09.01.2022 High V Low Load Training for Muscle Growth and Strength So 2 months ago this was published: https://rd.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs40279-017-0795-y... Summary: High Load (>65%1RM) training provides greater strength gains (duh -_-), however, Low load (<50%1RM) provides comparable muscle growth. So what can we take from this? 1. Low load training is a lot less taxing on your nervous system (CNS) and shouldn't be overlooked for periods when recovery on the CNS is a issue. 2. Being less taxing on the CNS you can also up training volume which could potentially lead to greater gains if muscle growth is your sole purpose. 3. Before we get all jack up over Low Load training there are a few limitations: - Practically, I have never seen anyone build significant size and strength using only low loads. - All studies included in the meta analysis go from 6-12 weeks, a speck of time in a serious gym goers training life. - The studies which are on the longer end of the study period (12 weeks) take note of a trend towards High Load training yielding greater muscle growth So at least in the short term, low load training is comparable to high low training for muscle growth. On a personal note which is not backed by any studies known to man so far I feel that low load training is relatively more beneficial to advanced rather than beginner trainees. I feel it has something to do with advanced trainees still being able to use significant weights for low load/high repetition training. Feel free to add your own thoughts below!

06.01.2022 As we are terrible at cheesy New Years inspirational statuses here's something to think about for anyone starting out with the goal of 'health' or 'everyday function'. AIM HIGHER! These are goals which are hard to measure and are actually rather trivial to achieve.... Healthy alternative goal? Adopt the superficial goal of looking better; leaner and more muscular. Remember that the body is the expression of everything going on inside it and the visual expression is one of the last aspects to come through. Hence, if you just aim to look better; as vain as it may seem your goals in relation to health have probably long been accomplished. Profound huh? ;-)

05.01.2022 What’s the deal with drop sets? A drop set is a set of the same exercise performed immediately following a normal set using a reduced amount of weight (hence the name). This is usually performed after the final set of an exercise. For example I might be doing cable push downs with 30 kg and after reaching failure then reduce the weight to 20 kg and continue performing reps to failure with that weight. Drop sets are useful for adding transient amounts of volume and subsequent ...muscle fatigue to your workout. Now I say transient because it is indeed additional training volume but there is really no clear way to progress volume there other than to (a) do more reps or (b) just do more and more drop sets or to add drop sets to additional sets/exercises. So the increase in volume doesn’t really go anywhere in terms of progress, it just adds a little bump in volume to your training temporarily. Many times it is difficult to increase the number of reps performed or the amount of weight used because the fatigue generated with this kind of technique is high and it’s built around performance being reduced not enhanced. Obviously there is also going to be a limit to how many additional drop sets you can perform until you are just tapped out and there is nothing clear about what you are doing. So you might do drop sets in limited amounts: - if your goal is muscle hypertrophy (not strength) - if you want to add more volume in a short space of time - if you have a limited amount of time to train - if you are doing a mesocycle or a day within a microcycle of higher rep training - if you enjoy doing them (for adherence and enjoyment purposes) - if they don’t negatively affect the total volume of the training you would otherwise perform without including them Do you perform drop sets in your training? How do you structure them in? Let us know in the comments below.

04.01.2022 What’s the deal with super sets? A super set is two different exercises performed back to back. They can be performed with opposing muscle groups eg bench press and lat pull downs for the chest and back or with the same muscle group eg bench press and cable flies both for the chest. What contexts are they useful?...Continue reading

04.01.2022 I'm gonna try my best here: 1. Ancestral diets are a silly concept. The human gut can adapt in a matter of months. Also, cavemen were kinda chubby and lived to 30. 2. Performance likely improves when not in a fasted state. Besides, does when you filled your tank of petrol make a difference to how much petrol you use?... 3. Keto generally makes people smell bad. Some people actually do rather well on it, but generally it takes about a month to get 'keto adapted'. Most literature would agree that when it comes to performance high carb still trumps high fat. 4. Fasting elevates growth hormone (GH), this is because the main function of GH is to increase fat oxidation (burn phat ya know); as you have been fasting. GH within the natural spectrum is not anabolic. Only in injected levels.

03.01.2022 Well said Mike, this is something we see all too often. A good source of protein should at least have the largest portion of its calories coming from protein and not require you to take in a heap of calories from carbs and fats to get a decent serving.

03.01.2022 Tammy has trained with ActiveID for about 18 months and unfortunately the time has come for her to move back home. It has been a pleasure getting to know you and we will all miss you. Keep up the good work and stay away from those pizza nights at Planet Fitness!!

03.01.2022 Important Qualities of a good Trainer/Coach We commonly get this question from people we are unable to train ourselves. Coming into summer when most people tend to consider hiring a trainer here are the qualities we feel are paramount to our profession: 1. Appearence... A good trainers' physique should reflect the pride and passion they have about what they preach (interpret how you want!). Someones body is often a good indicator of their choices and values. 2. Knowledge They should be able to explain to you the 'why' behind everything you are directed to do and get you to a point where you are independent and understand your training. 3. Experience/application Knowledge without experience has no understanding or application sense. For example, its easy to tell someone to reduce calories for fat loss, but only someone who has experienced it understands that the real struggle of dieting is psychological and can give insights into how to make the calorie reduction work for you. 4. Planning and programming They plan and program your training blocks in accordance with your goals and schedule, fully accounting for things like holidays and days when you are training without them. 5. They encourage you to train without them. 6. Uncertainty Every good trainer knows the 2 most important factors to their clients' results are genetics and adherence; both of which you have no clue about when you just meet someone! Chances are, a good number of your questions will be met with a healthy amount of uncertainty. Oh! and they don't use bouncy or unstable objects to train you on!

03.01.2022 Should you gain strength during a diet? Short answer, no. Assuming optimal training in there is no reason why you should gain strength when in a negative energy balance as opposed to a positive one. In other words; the same training done in a caloric surplus should always yield better results than when done in a deficit. ... Some reasons why you could gain strength in a diet: 1. Pound for pound strength/ strength to weight ratio may go up 2. You just don't train as hard or enthusiastically when not dieting (very common) 3. You put more effort into your training when you diet (also common) 4. It's just early days in training (novice) 5. It's the early days of the diet Next week we will look into whether we think it is a good idea to do strength training (<8 reps/set) when dieting.

02.01.2022 Strength training on a diet... In the case of short term (6-10 weeks) diets there is nothing wrong with keeping some strength training (<8 reps) in to maintain prime conditioning towards heavy weights. However, in general, we do not recommend training under 8 reps per set in the long term. Here's why:... - at this stage your girths have probably changed a lot - mechanically you aren't as suited to heavy loads on the bar anyway - fine tuned motor patterns are now changed ever so slightly to account for narrower waist and levers putting you at higher risk of injury - nervous system is under a lot of stress - recovery is probably already an issue - intuitively you probably don't want to train <8 reps anyway - at this stage doing things like 1/3/5 RMs only satisfy ego - you aren't gaining strength at this stage, if you are you need to question how you are training when not dieting - focus is on maintaining muscle; this is something higher rep ranges >8 do a lot better anyway.

02.01.2022 How to bring up lagging muscle groups PART 6 Reasons why your body parts could be lagging: - Poor exercise form - Insufficient attention to that muscle group in your programming... - Inability to adequately contract the target muscle group during specific exercises - Inappropriate exercise selection - Lack of progressive overload being applied - Excessive effort allocated to already strong muscle groups - Problems with nutrition - Genetics Excessive effort given to strong muscle groups we all have a finite ability to recover. That is we can’t just do more and more and more to an unlimited extent and expect to recover and make progress. With this in mind it makes sense to (at least in phases) prioritise in our training the muscles that we have most trouble building by giving them more work. If we are already doing about as much volume as we can reasonably recover from or as much as we practically have time for then something has got to give. A smart compromise is during these phases to reduce the amount of work performed by strong muscle groups. After all, these muscles generally maintain their size without a whole lot of work. Many times people keep doing a large amount of work for their strong points because, let’s be honest, we all love training our best muscle groups. But sometimes we need to take our foot off that gas pedal so that we can put more work into weak body parts and continue to recover adequately. Let us know what you think about strong and weak point training in the comments. We still have one more post in this series (PART 7) and it will be posted on our facebook page next Tuesday. Make sure you like our page if you don’t want to miss it.

01.01.2022 Why we train muscles For looks/aesthetics: The only thing training will do in this regard is make the muscle bigger. Training will increase muscle fiber size and count for muscles which have the capacity to hyperthrophy or grow. That's pretty much it. You can't change the shape of a muscle as that is genetic nor can you 'bring out definition or tone'; you'd have to lose the layer of fat sitting over it to do that. Keep this in mind especially for abdominal training. ... To improve your physique you can only either get your muscles bigger or get leaner. For Performance: Increasing muscle fiber size and count comes with performance benefits too. Neural drive/efficiency increases with training age and especially with a lot of high intensity strength work. This means not only does your body have more muscle available to use, it gets better and more efficient at using it. Yes, no matter the purpose.