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Add pelvic floor exercises to your daily “To Do” List – Not TENA to your shopping list!

This is a workout with a difference – this is one workout that ALL women should do DAILY. Please don’t resign yourself to adding a pack or two of “TENA” to your shopping list – act now!

Urinary incontinence (poor bladder control) is a common condition (up to 37% of Australian women*) that is commonly associated with pregnancy, childbirth, menopause or a range of conditions such as asthma, diabetes or arthritis.

Poor bladder control can range from the occasional leak when you laugh, cough or exercise to the complete inability to control your bladder. Other symptoms you may experience include the constant need to urgently or frequently visit the toilet, associated with “accidents”.

The most common problem and cause of poor bladder control are weak or too loose pelvic floor muscles, largely due to pregnancy and childbirth. However, they can be successfully strengthened with pelvic floor muscle training.

What can make these muscles too loose?

  • Pregnancy and childbirth – evidence suggests that problems can start during pregnancy, not just after birth. Do you tick any of these boxes? Women who have had multiple births, instrumental births (eg. Forceps delivery), severe tearing or large babies (4kg+) are at greater risk of pelvic floor muscle damage
  • Straining on the toilet
  • Chronic coughing – asthma, bronchitis or smokers cough
  • Heavy lifting – can create pressure on the pelvic floor and ultimately lead to prolapse
  • High impact exercise
  • Age – pelvic floor muscles tend to get weaker with increasing age
  • Obesity

In almost all cases it is possible to gain control over the pelvic floor muscles and train them to do their job well.

THE Daily Workout

The Continence Foundation of Australia provides lots of excellent information relating to Pelvic Floor exercises. Here is their description of how to activate your pelvic floor muscles and perform a muscular contraction. You can do this whilst sitting, lying or standing.

“Imagine letting go like you would to pass urine or to pass wind. Let your tummy muscles hang loose too. See if you can squeeze in and hold the muscles inside the pelvis while you breathe. Nothing above the belly button should tighten or tense. Some tensing and flattening of the lower part of the abdominal wall will happen. This is not a problem, as this part of the tummy works together with the pelvic floor muscles.

After a contraction it is important to relax the muscles. This will allow your muscles to recover from the previous contraction and prepare for the next contraction.

It is common to try too hard and have too many outside muscles tighten. This is an internal exercise and correct technique is vital.

If you have mastered the art of contracting your pelvic floor muscles correctly, you can try holding the inward squeeze for longer (up to 10 seconds) before relaxing. Make sure you can breathe easily while you squeeze.

If you can do this exercise, repeat it up to 10 times, but only as long as you can do it with perfect technique while breathing quietly and keeping everything above the belly button relaxed. This can be done more often during the day to improve control.“

If you are or have experienced bladder problems and a DIY approach to exercises hasn’t helped, I would highly recommend seeing a specialist Women’s Health Physiotherapist. For further information on this topic and a listing of Physio’s in your area, please have a look at the Continence Foundation of Australia website.

 

* Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2006

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Metafit – Child’s play for lasting benefits

Metafit – for a  long, healthy life

A metafit session may not be child’s play, but it does involve playful movements such as jumping up and down or standing on one leg, things we often leave behind with childhood. Yet these movements can benefit a grown-up’s body. Jumping can strengthen bones, and standing on one leg improves balance.

You don’t need to come to a metafit session to do either of these movements, but if you do come to metafit I guarantee you will do things you didn’t know you could (still) do. So, if its been a while since you jumped, stood on one leg or went outside your comfort zone, these are some of the reasons to give metafit a go.

A decade ago, a typical cardiovascular class (aerobics class) at a gym often involved so many choreographed moves you almost needed brains in your feet as well as your head. Now the trend that metafit leads is to less complex exercises that improve all-round physical function – not just aerobic fitness, but muscle strength, power, flexibility and bone density.

Old-school basic training, with movements such as push-ups, tuck jumps and burpees. Yes BURPEES – where you squat on the ground with your hands on the floor and kick your feet back so you are in a push-up position. Then jump your feet back into the squat position, jump up in the air and do it all again.

What is good about these movements is that, although they take effort, they are not complicated to do and, because you move quickly from one to another, there is no time to get bored.

“Traditional classes like step or aerobic classes have waned and I think its because the complexity of the choreography often compromised the physical benefits you got from them,” says Alisha Smith, education manager with Australian Fitness Network.

Metafit is functional training

Metafit is based on functional training, meaning exercises that target multiple muscles at once rather than just one muscle, such as a bicep curl. These movements are closely related to activities of daily living – think of how many times a day you move from sit to stand.

Now you don’t need to come to a metafit session to get fit, but one advantage of a class is that you generally work harder than when you are left to your own devices.  Metafit will also push you to vary your movements. Modern living can limit how we use our body. We walk a bit, sit a lot, don’t lift much weight and don’t jump. Yet research shows jumping is the most effective exercise for improving bone density, says Professor Robin Daly, chair of exercise and ageing at Deakin University.

Bones thrive on the stress and element of surprise that comes with jumping, he says. “We should include bone-loading activities like jumping, skipping and hopping. To improve bone density, it’s more important to vary the direction in which you jump than to keep jumping higher. Jumping from side to side is one way. So is a burpee.”

Metafit "explosive jack"

Bones thrive on the stress and element of surprise of jumping – a metafit “explosive jack”

“We don’t know exactly how much jumping is needed to improve bone density but our research suggests 50 to 100 multidirectional jumps three to five times a week.”

A lot happens in a 30 minute METAFIT session – some of the results of HIIT training are obvious in weeks, others not so obvious but have long lasting benefits for your health and well-being. Come and try a session – no fancy choreography, just old-school functional training that gets results.

 

 

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How to Foam Roll Like a Pro

DIY Massage with a Foam Roller

Have you seen people rolling around on a foam roller and wondered what on earth are they doing? Why are they doing it? How do I do it? Let me put your mind at ease!

The foam roller is a brilliant tool to have around the house – it can be used before training, after training, before a stretch session, even just to give yourself a massage at the end of a busy day. The benefits of using a foam roller include:

  • muscle tension relief (post metafit soreness!)
  • correct muscle imbalances
  • injury prevention
  • increase range of motion & flexibility

In addition to its therapeutic benefits, a foam roller can be used as a training tool – think of it as a way of decreasing stability therefore increasing the degree of difficulty of core exercises that you would normally perform on a solid surface e.g. plank hold with hands on the roller, or lying with your spine down the length of the roller and performing an alternate arm/leg lift whilst maintaining balance.

Foam rollers are sold at most sporting equipment stores and cost anywhere from $15-$60+. Look for one that is solid enough to withstand regular use and retain its shape. There are also rollers with raised patterns and dimples on them that provide additional deep tissue massage – just be careful with how “deep” the massage is!

The diagram below by Greatist.com shows you “How to Foam Roll Like a Pro”. When rolling, the pressure or intensity you feel should be no more than a 7/10 where 10/10 is excruciating. If you feel too much pressure, back off and take it a little more gently.

So, buy yourself a foam roller, keep it in the family room and when you next sit down to watch the TV grab the roller and massage away!

Foam Rolling Infographic

Get health and fitness tips at Greatist.com.

 

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Metafit is Functional Fitness

Metafit is Functional Fitness

Functional fitness exercises train your muscles to help you do everyday activities safely and efficiently.

Do you live to exercise? Unless you’re an elite athlete, or have an endorphin addiction (like me!), you probably answered no to that question. Most people, in fact, would say they exercise to improve their quality of life. And that’s the focus of functional fitness.

Functional fitness exercises are designed to train and develop your muscles to make it easier and safer to perform everyday activities, such as carrying groceries, playing a game of basketball with the kids, or working in the garden. Functional fitness exercises train your muscles to work together and prepare them for daily tasks by simulating common movements you might do at home, at work, or in sports.

Common movement patterns include – push, pull, bend to extend, squat, single leg and twist actions. While using various muscles in the upper and lower body at the same time, functional fitness exercises also emphasise core stability. For example, a squat is a functional exercise because it trains the muscles used when you rise up and down from a seated position, or pick up low objects. By training your muscles to work the way they do in everyday tasks, you prepare your body to perform well in a variety of common situations.

METAFIT™ is functional exercise at high intensity. Our qualified coaches are taught how to perfect technique and adapt exercise in order to provide a controlled and safe training environment. The more METAFIT™ you do, the stronger, fitter and more functional you’ll become. Adapted from Metafit Australia post.

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