Alex Coombes, Author at TruBeLife ™

Do you need a gym to workout?

November 26, 2015November 1, 2018 Alex Coombes1 Comment

In this new age of fitness we find ourselves needing to rely on the gym less and less. In most cases relying on the gym to keep you fit and healthy may actually be detrimental. It makes more sense to invest in convenience, knowledge and in someone who motivates you to do something that is going to actually help.

But what if “I don’t have any workout equipment”, “I live in a small flat” and “I don’t have the time to exercise”. All of these barriers can be broken down quickly and easily.

Knowledge is power
When you only have a small amount of space to train in you need to be extremely creative with the exercises and the way you put them together. Our trainers are all taught to “rule the tool”, this means, they create the exercises around what the body can and should be able to do.

Use small pieces of equipment
Stay away from the spin lock dumbbells you were thinking of buying from Argos. They’re a nightmare to store, they don’t look cool in the corner of your bedroom and do more harm than good when you keep stubbing your toes on them.

You don’t need heavy weights all you need is equipment that can manipulate your body into positions that will help you to break a sweat. All of the equipment we use in our sessions fit into a regular sized rucksack and weighs no more than 5 kg.

Find someone/something that motivates you
You’ve heard it all before, training with a partner or trainer is more enjoyable and so on … This doesn’t have to be someone to be there with you it could be someone you admire on Instagram, an event you’ve signed up for or even to impress that special someone.

Pay an expert
There’s nothing more demotivating than when your unreliable workout buddy cancels last minute. By booking a personal training session through our app, we can guarantee that one of our highly rated trainers will be there on time ready to get the most out of your workout. In the long run this will save you a lot of time and stop you from wasted money on unused gym memberships.

Why not download our app and let one of our experts show you how to workout at home.

How to Correct your Posture

November 12, 2015November 1, 2018 Alex CoombesLeave a comment

As an ex-professional ballet dancer, exceptional posture was a must. Now as a TruBe trainer, one of the most common complaints I hear from my clients is that they have poor posture. But what does this actually mean and how do we rectify it?

What is poor posture?
Posture is the relationship between the skeleton, muscle and other tissues of the body as it tries to stay upright against gravity. It can be as important to good health as proper nutrition, exercise, and a good night’s sleep. Bad posture occurs when certain muscles are activated too much and other muscle groups are under used, usually caused by sedentary lifestyles.

How do we get poor posture?
The largest part of most people’s daily life is spent working in the office which means we are spending most of our time sat at a desk. Sitting for prolonged periods of time can induce poor posture, causing rounded shoulders, a hunched upper back and a curved lower back.

Why is this bad for me?
If poor posture isn’t addressed it will only get worse and likely lead to chronic pain. Rounded shoulders can lead to shoulder impingments, hunched backs to neck pain and curved lower backs to chronic back, hip and knee pain. If left alone, surgery is the only option to resolve these problems.

How can I stop it?
There are some little tricks that we can look to incorporate into our daily lives that will help with your posture:

Use your standing time wisely. Check your stance whilst you’re brushing your teeth, cooking your dinner or even waiting for the Tube
Concentrate on standing as upright as possible. Maintain a natural curve in the lower spine and open your chest by pulling your shoulder blades together.
Stand-up every half hour at work and take a short walk around the office to help promote blood flow and prevent the tightening of muscles
There are many apps that remind you to stand-up, such as the Apple Watch. You will be surprised how much these can help.

To improve your posture even faster and reduce the chances of developing bad posture, here are some exercises you should and shouldn’t be doing:

Overhead squats
Lunging whilst reaching back and over your head
Try yoga, pilates or Ballet fit (Try a session with TruBe!)
Mobilise joints in 3 dimension
Avoid crunches
Avoid seated exercise machines
Avoid lengthy cycling or spinning sessions

If you need help with your posture or feel that your poor posture is leading to chronic pain, download our app and and book your next training session with one of our TruBe trainers.

Matt Williams – London Personal Trainer & TruBe Master Ballet Trainer

From the Gym to the Office

November 10, 2015April 25, 2018 Alex Coombes1 Comment

Hello, my name is Phil and I’m the Marketing Manager at TruBe. I’ve never worked in an office before, so when I sat down at the desk on my first day, I started to experience some nerves.

You see, before all this, I was a Personal Trainer for five years, and as a PT, I had some fitness goals that I wanted to achieve, namely:

1. To be to do thirty pull-ups in a row and at least five muscle-ups
2. To be able to planche the pinnacle of all push exercises
3. To be better at squatting and deadlifting
4. To win a 200m race

As a PT, I was used to working early mornings and late evenings, exercising in-between when the gym was less busy and my energy levels were high. I don’t have that routine anymore, so it was time to find a new place to train at and to make time for it.

Being in London, finding a gym close to the office wasn’t difficult. I settled on one literally just a two minute walk away and for my running, I found an amazing free track at Paddington’s recreational ground.

I still needed to make time to train, and I found that planning my week on a Sunday helps.

The final step was to motivate and make myself accountable. The motivation barrier is the trickiest for sure. I’ve found that by telling others about my goals, I have automatically made myself accountable. This drives me to want to succeed so that I can share my success with my friends and family.

Now that I’m feeling motivated again I have no excuses!

Phil – Marketing Manager

P.s As marketing manager I need to shamelessly plug our app, so go download it now!

Do Low Carb Diets Actually Work?

November 4, 2015November 1, 2018 Alex CoombesLeave a comment

I often get asked about what I personally eat or don’t eat to stay lean. This may surprise you but I do not restrict my diet in any way. I love food and I eat a lot of it.

I don’t even like the word ‘diet’ because of it’s associated with weight loss, which is not everyone’s goal. While society has got us believing that skinny is best, in the fitness world strength and health is best and happiness is key!

For anyone who’s been to my Instagram page you can see that I eat everything including lots of carbs, plenty of fish, veg, fruit, poultry and even the occasional burger! I don’t pretend to have the perfect diet because I don’t. But it works for me and every individual is different.

Carbs have such a bad rep these days for being the main cause of weight gain, but remember that any food can be fattening if eaten in unnecessarily large quantities.

So ‘Do low carb diets work?

To answer the question simply, yes they do work. It will deplete your body of energy, reducing your intake of fibre and cut out vital nutrients that help your body to function. A low carb diet could certainly help you lose weight but it is by no means the healthiest way to do it.

Much to popular debate carbohydrates play an important role in a healthy body. They are the body’s main source of energy, they contain loads of vitamins and minerals which help your body and mind to function and they even help to promote serotonin, the feel good brain chemical!

The big secret is…you gotta burn it to earn it! Be it ‘Low-carb’ or ‘low-fat’ if you are consuming more calories than you are burning you will gain weight. My advice is to find a balance that works for you. Keep variety in your meals and your workouts and stop hating on carbs!

Chelsea – London Personal Trainer, follow me on Instagram: @Chelsea_Siegel

Book a session with me by downloading the app.

Functional strength training – without the gym

October 28, 2015November 1, 2018 Alex CoombesLeave a comment

What is your max deadlift/bench/squat/bicep curl….??

As a trainer and sportsman I’m often expected to meet these questions with responses of mammoth figures. Seriously, my max bicep curl?? Um I don’t know… how much does my cup of coffee weigh in the morning?

My max deadlift could completely vary from around 150-180kg, squat 120-160kg and my bench from 85-100kg all dependant on circumstances. What variation of the lift I use, my mood, daily food intake, hours of sleep and sometimes even what music I listen to.

The truth is I really don’t know and to be honest I don’t care much either.

How often in a day are you expected to push hundreds of kilos away from your chest or pick up an unnecessarily heavy weight from the floor and put it down repeatedly? I bet this happens very few times in a day, year or even a lifetime.

Now I’m not saying that conventional strength training and weight lifting isn’t beneficial at all and by no means am I saying that sportsmen should leave this out of their programming. I just want to talk about what we at TruBe believe true functional strength is.

While training with good form (neutral spine, perfect joint alignment etc) is highly important when grooving basic movement patterns, we shouldn’t ignore the fact that our bodies still have the ability to perform exercises outside of these perfect movements. They can extend, flex and rotate at many joints in many different planes and positions.

In daily life your joints will be required to leave their ‘neutral’ positions many times and also during sporting situations whilst taking in large amounts of force. This is why it is not only important to train your neutral positions but to also get comfortable performing multidirectional exercises to help you to improve your strength, power, stability and therefore overall athleticism and functional ability.

You’d be kicking yourself if you picked up an injury in a position that your body should be able to deal with, but you didn’t train it because deadlifting is much more fun and your buddies said ‘do you even lift’ when you tried to include it in your bro workout. Seriously, leave your ego way behind when it comes to training. You will find you excel much more this way.

Try this quick functional legs workout using only your bodyweight:

10 reps on each exercise on each leg, take a 1 min rest then repeat 2 more times.

Side Lunges

Split Squat

Raised Single Leg Squats

Let us know how your legs are feeling after this circuit.

Ben Howard – London Personal Trainer

Book a session with me by downloading the app.