Metafit Beckenham

Sitting up straight does not prevent or treat back pain, study finds There is not one ‘safe’ or ‘proper’ way to sit when it comes to back pain

Rudolph should have invested in some soft tissue therapy before we went into Tier 4 😂 Merry Christmas to my fab clients and thank you for all you support 🎄🌟

Oh wow the final Metafit. 10 years of jacks, burpees & hot hands! We couldn’t train inside so we embraced the grey skies. Here’s the 09h30 team, the early group had left for a hot shower 😂 Thank you thank you for all the gifts & see you on Zoom for HIIT January 😘

Hurrah we are back for the time being

Good to go (until we get demoted) 👇🏽 Fab to see real people yesterday at - thank you so much for your enthusiasm & loyalty ❤️

The day Liz McColgan broke the world half marathon record - gotta love this determination

Yes to this 👇🏽

Celebrate the power of girls. May girls be free from all forms of violence and may they continue to tell their stories and lead us into the new world. Nothing is more powerful. May girls thrive, today and every day.

Talking Tendons - Why Women are not Small Men

Tendons consist of mainly type 1 collagen fibres and proteoglycan. The type 1 collagen fibres are responsible for the tensile strength of the tendon whereas the proteoglycan are responsible for the viscoelastic nature of the tendon.

Most injuries happen around tendons, quite simply it is put under more tension than it can currently handle and the collagen fibres become strained & disarrayed.

👉🏽 Thé enzyme lysyl oxidase is responsible for cross-linking the collagen fibres in the tendons.

👉🏽 Oestrogen directly inhibits this enzyme, so females will have less tendon stiffness than males.

👉🏽 This makes us more « bendy » but more susceptible to tendon & ligament injuries, especially during the lutéal phase (days 10-14) of your cycle when oestrogen levels peak.

👉🏽 Female athletes suffer more ACL, Achilles & knee tendon injuries than men, by almost 8 times. Évidence now shows most of these will happen in lutéal phase.

👉🏽 You can mitigate this by including at least your RDA of vit C (more for athletes as Vit C is water soluble so we may sweat some of this out). Vit C is a co-factor in the making of the other enzyme, prolyl hyroxylase which stimulates growth of collagen fibre.

👉🏽 Also foods containing gelatine & collagen fibres - bones / skin (think chicken casserole or tinned sardine) to support lysyl oxidase.

👉🏽 Track your cycle - know when you are in lutéal phase as it’s then that shorter, faster sessions are going to put more stress on your tendons & ligaments.

👉🏽 Then you can plan your nutrition and recovery around this time, which should include less static stretching and more active recovery such as walking.

👉🏽 The best time to really load our tendons with short fast reps & plyometrics so as to increase cross links & therefore improve speed & reduce injury risk are days 1-10.

“Women are not small men, don’t eat & train like one” - Dr Stacey Sims

To all the gang who know Julia Dolke - she’s running the virtual London marathon on Sunday. Julia has trained like a demon for this and overcome just a few injuries! Please support her if you can

Julia and Chloe Help us change the world! Make a donation now.

Most non acute injuries occur because the bones, muscles, tendons have been asked to do more than they can currently handle. If you are often injured, assess all the factors to the right of the barbell before blaming weak glutes, lazy technique or one leg shorter than the other (my favourite! 😂)

🔥STOP BLAMING TECHNIQUE🔥

All too often bad technique or poor form gets blamed for injuries or pain in the gym

Many will say its your butt wink, hip shift, or knee valgus that causes your back, hip, or knee problems

When in fact there are many other factors that are far more likely, but far less sexy, to be the cause of pain or injury experienced when training

Unfortunately many of these other non sexy factors are ignored or not recognised by many clinicians, coaches or trainers and so bad technique or poor form gets the blame

This is not to say that technique and form can’t contribute to injury or pain

But if you’re ONLY or ALWAYS blaming a butt wink, a hip shift, or some knee valgus for an injury or pain when exercising you are missing the bigger picture

Or called GOATA, Seedman, Vinnie, Bent Bogbrush, or Skwat University or something similar 😏

And thanks to .ekstrom for letting me use his awesome graphic for this post... pls go follow him

This is so important yet so often overlooked. If you are a growing teenager, think 10 more like hours. Also if you are female, over 16 and do not have a regular menstrual cycle, address this ahead of anything else

Steve Magness on Twitter “Anyone looking to cutting edge science to "optimize" their performance who isn't sleeping 7-9 hours a night should start there.”

Tomorrow will be our 66th and hopefully final HIIT Lockdown Zoom sesh! 18 weeks, wow! THANK YOU everyone for logging in and working hard, I’m SO proud of this group. To see whole families, neighbours, 20 somethings home from university all working out together has been quite emotional at times.
Great friendships, good camaraderie and team sprint. Let’s have a 100% turnout tomorrow for the finale 💪🏽

Thought this would be useful, before icing everything that hurts. Inflammation is the first stage of healing, whether that’s inflammation following a tough training sesh or an acute injury. Some evidence that ice baths are especially not helpful to recovery especially in the male athlete - it may adversely affect protein synthesis