3rd January 2017 | Nottingham

Welcome to 2017!

So it’s time for a clean slate and a new start all round. Our fitness article is all about fat loss (something which I’m sure many of you, including myself!) will be interested in after a period of indulgence. And why not indulge? It’s what Christmas and the festivities are about but there is no better time to refocus on those health and fitness goals. Do book in with a member of the fitness team and have a chat about what you want to achieve, they are here to help.

On January 14th we’re getting involved in the Global Launch Party for Body Pump 100…more information is included below but make sure you get booked in, it promises to be brilliant!

I would like to thank you all for your continued support during 2016…let’s make 2017 even better!

Julie Bowley and your Roko team

Member Referral Offer

FITNESS NEWS

Now’s your time to make that change, a fresh start and new goals to be set.  At Roko we have re-invented our fitness path so get the most out of your membership and help you achieve your goals.

Let’s kick start the New Year together!

Your rokofit. is formed of gymfit., classfit., swimfit. and stayfit. These sessions are designed to give you a personalised start to your time with us in the areas of the club that are most relevant to you, and also to keep you motivated and engaged throughout the life of your membership. Depending on your interests you may choose to take part in one or more of the rokofit. sessions.

book your rokofit. session now

to make the most of the gym refurb and hit your January resolutions hard

The amazing gym refurb is now complete. It's a really exciting time but you may be feeling a little unsure about all the changes and new additions. Well this is where your rokofit. can help you. You can book a stayfit. session to get instruction on how to use the new kit. It will be you and a member of the fitness team, together on the gym floor for half an hour to get a run down on how the new kit works and how you can best benefit from it.

So book your rokofit. session now and really hit your resolutions hard!. Book at reception next time you are in, or enquire on-line by clicking here.

Fat Loss

When it comes to fat loss, exercise seems to get a lot of the attention. Often, when a person’s progress stalls, one of the first things they do is increase exercise duration, frequency, or intensity and more often than not, all three!

While training is important, to bust through plateaus we need to look at four other things first. The Hierarchy of Fat Loss:

Nutrition
Sleep
Stress
Daily movement
Training

Each of these factors affects the other, and in order to get the best results possible it’s important to optimise each of these areas. Jump-starting fat loss in a sustainable and healthy manner is about much more than simply adding more exercise. If one or more of these areas are greatly suffering, that could be the reason why you aren’t seeing the results that you expected to see.

Nutrition: Exercise less, eat less
What you eat and how much of it are the most important factors when it comes to losing body fat. Often, people eat more food than their bodies need, and then they attempt to “work it off” with exercise, but that typically doesn’t lead to the results they thought they’d get. Doing obscene amounts of exercise usually further increases appetite for many people, which can lead to eating even more than necessary, so they add more exercise to “balance things out” and it becomes a vicious cycle.

Additionally, chronically over-eating and over-stressing (which can include over-exercising), can lead to insulin resistance.

The ‘exercise less, eat less’ approach can help prevent some people from eating too much as a result of increased appetite from working out so often. If your fat loss efforts are stuck, and you feel you may be exercising too much and not reaping the rewards, you may have great success with this approach.

Try it out: For the next couple of weeks, try scaling back your workouts a bit. You could do this by shortening the duration, decreasing the frequency, or dialing back the intensity. Then, decrease your food intake just a bit. Start by taking about two to three bites less at each meal, and see how you feel. Remember, you can always adjust.

Sleep
Have you ever noticed that when you are tired, your cravings for carbohydrates and sweets increase? That isn’t a coincidence. When you’re in a chronic sleep deficit, your body wants quick energy, and it also tanks your willpower. This is a double-whammy when it comes to being able to make healthy nutrition choices.

This is why the pastries at the coffee shop in the morning seem especially tempting when you’re tired.

Sleep is the cornerstone for optimal health, and when you are short on sleep it affects everything from mood, hormones, stress levels, appetite, willpower, energy, the ability to train hard and recover well, and so much more. If you find that you’re frequently getting less than seven hours of sleep per night, there is a good chance that this is hindering your fat loss.

Try it out: For the next few weeks, make a plan to ensure that you get a bit more sleep each night. It may be an extra hour on some nights, or an additional 15 minutes on others, but know that every extra bit counts, and will help you towards your goals. Consider dimming the lights in your home, and turning off electronics at least one hour before bedtime. If you are tempted by the notifications on your phone, you may benefit from turning it off altogether, or putting it into airplane mode. If you find that you’re staying up to watch your favourite show, try recording it instead.

It also helps to establish a bedtime routine. Eventually, this tells your body to start winding down and prepare for sleep. It could be a bath, followed by a book, or whatever serves you and your lifestyle best. However, it should be something that you find soothing, peaceful, and relaxing.

Stress
Between jobs, partners, kids, and everything else that makes up our unique lives, we—as a population—seem to be dealing with extremely high levels of stress all of the time.

Some stress is necessary, and even a good thing, but too much of it for longer periods of time will cause problems.

In the context of fat loss, stress can prevent us from getting good sleep, and it can contribute to emotional eating. Not only that, but the body also views intense training as a form of stress, and when you start piling stress on top of stress, it can affect your fat loss efforts, not to mention that you won’t feel great.

Try it out: Put together a small list of things you find to be incredibly comforting, and do something from that list every day. One day you may have five minutes to work on this, and other times you may have an hour. Try to put a few things on the list that take various amounts of time.

For example, it may be a five-minute guided meditation, lying down to snuggle your pup for 10 minutes, taking a 15-minute leisurely walk, or spending 20 minutes in a warm bath reading magazines. Whatever you choose, do your best to incorporate one of these into your day. On some days, it could be something as simple as opening your front door, sitting on the porch taking ten deep breaths, and softening your shoulders and jaw.

Bringing chronic stress down will help you sleep better at night, and help prevent emotional eating.

Daily Movement
Surprisingly, the majority of people who train four to five times per week are still sedentary. Most people sit for eight hours or more each day, which makes them quite inactive. It’s important to get up and move your body as often as possible. This gives you a chance to get out of the same, seated position, and possibly prevent musculoskeletal imbalances that often arise from sitting for long periods of time. Every time you move you add to your energy expenditure.

If you’re already training several times a week, think of ways to increase your non-exercise physical activity. Move your body at every given opportunity.

Try it out: How can you get some more movement in your day? Take the stairs, park farther away from the store, play an extra game of fetch with your dogs, take a daily walk, or throw yourself a dance party while you fold your washing.

Though you’ve heard all this before, it bears repeating because it truly all adds up. Get creative, because your body loves to move!

Training
Ah, training, finally. Training is important for things like preserving and building muscle, fixing imbalances, gaining confidence, improving bone density, and keeping your heart healthy, just to name a few benefits. More muscle mass means more calories are burned at rest, and the energy expenditure of training certainly contributes to the bottom line, but training is not the be-all-end-all for fat loss. It however, is amazingly effective when you get it to work in unison with the four other factors in the Hierarchy that have been mentioned so far.

You might like to try the following if you want to feel better, lose fat, and gain or preserve muscle:

Strength training three to four times per week, prioritizing big multi-joint movements, and following it up with supplemental work, hypertrophy or “beach” work (typically single-joint movements like biceps curls, triceps extensions, and calf raises), and core work.
Moderate-intensity cardio twice per week for about 25 minutes per session, keeping heart rate between 120 and 140 beats per minute
One or two interval sessions, or HIIT (high intensity interval training) sessions per week.

If:

your nutrition is right for your body
you’re getting plenty of high-quality sleep
you’re keeping your stress in check, and
you’re moving your body a lot each day

… Then the training mentioned above should be just right to help you reach your goals while keeping appetite under control.

When working towards fat loss, it’s so important to look at the process as a “team effort” with your team being nutrition, sleep, stress control, daily movement, and training. If you can make small improvements on the ones that are lacking, you will likely reap big rewards, because they all work best as a cohesive unit. Remember, everything counts! Make small improvements consistently and you’ll move in the right direction in leaps and bounds!

If you’ve been training harder and harder, only to realise that you’re not getting the results you’re looking for, and you want some more guidance, we can help and it’s what your fitness team are here for! There’s nothing more heartbreaking than watching you, our members exhaust themselves in the gym, desperate for results, only to end up spinning their wheels and not making the progress they want to make.

Now is the perfect time! Not to get too caught up the cliché of “NewYear, New Me” but a New Year can often represent a new start, a clean slate and…we’ve just had all the new equipment in the gym so there is no better time to give your programme a refresh and your body a new challenge.

Please contact reception to book or speak with one of our Health and Fitness Consultants on the gym floor. At the time of going to press we’ve loads of available appointment slots through the first couple of weeks of January so do book in!

GROUP EXERCISE NEWS   

It is Launch time again for our Les Mills class participants but this time its extra special as it is the 100th release of Body Pump! Saturday 14th January is GLOBAL launch day so book your place now! Saturday 14th runs as follows…

08.30 – Body Attack
09.30 – Body Combat
10.30 – Body Pump

Join us for a Body Pump Party!!

Body Jam and Body Balance launches will follow on Tuesday 17th Jan at 18.30 and Wednesday 18th Jan at 09.35 respectively. 

SWIMMING NEWS

Swimming Update-New term w/c 2nd January-w/e 12th March 2017.

I hope you’ve all had a great Christmas and raring to go this term after a well-deserved rest!  I wanted to let you know about some exciting additions/updates happening in January..

Aqua babes & Aqua tot sessions-we are now following the Swim a Song programme, thank you for your support and patience whilst I have been learning all the songs during December!! This is a recognized ASA Programme linked to awards enabling baby and you to progress through the many different stages, great fun as well!  We have introduced a few additional sessions on a Monday and Tuesday, Saturdays and Sundays to cope with demand.

Stage 4 upwards- We are introducing Rookie Lifesaving into the lessons. Each swimmer will get a Rookie Lifesaving booklet and teachers will work through the criteria during lessons in order for swimmers to gain their Bronze, Silver and Gold awards. This will add more variety and a very important life skill as swimmers progress through the higher stages.

Fridays from January 2017-As most of you know Sophie will be away for 10 weeks from January on a work placement, she will be back for term 2. Whilst she is off Georgie and myself Jennie) will be taking over the lessons.

Sunday lessons-New for January 2017, great small class sizes, Ducklings 1 at 9am, Stage 1 at 9.30am, Stage 2 at 10am - book your space now or email me for further details jennie.keast@nottingham.roko.co.uk.

swimfit. Group classes every Monday evening at 6.30-7.15pm suitable for all levels, led by an experienced Level 2 swimming teacher. Kick start that fitness!

Also keep any eye open for our booster sessions happening in the school holidays.

LATEST PREMIER PARTNER OFFERS

Being a member at Roko Nottingham is so much more than just having access to our fantastic facilities, it also gets you some great deals with local businesses. Here is a quick breakdown of what is available to you, for full information look on our website or ask in club.

Petit Paris Restaurant – 25% off food Mon-Thurs
Grange Print – 50% off all canvas
The Riverbank Bar & Kitchen 20% off food Sun-Thurs
Ruddington Arms – 20% off food Mon-Thurs
The Mud Crab Restaurant – 20% off food Sun-Thurs
Revolution Prints – Free family photo shoot and wall portrait
Ford Sandicliffe – 2 years free servicing and bespoke special offers
Joshua Tree – 10% off all hair and beauty treatments
Alea, Marco Pierre White – 20% off food Sun-Thurs
Ruddington Grange Golf Club – 30% discount on green fees