Welcome back to another session from BT23 Fitness, in this months issue we will be doing a full body session, all of the exercises this month can be done using just bodyweight, if you feel the need to make the   exercises harder then you can add some weight if you have them.

The Importance of rest and sleep

A good nights sleep is one of the most important components in building muscle and losing Fat.

Although the amount of sleep needed varies from person to person the average amount required is anywhere between 7-9 hours a night

I’ve stated few basic pros and cons to getting a good sleep however I want to touch more on why sleep effects muscle gain and fat loss

During sleep, leptin levels increase, telling your brain you have plenty of energy for the time being and there’s no need to trigger the feeling of hunger or the burning of calories. When you don’t get enough sleep, you end up with too little leptin in your body, which makes your brain think you don’t have enough energy for your needs. So your brain tells you you’re hungry, even though you don’t actually need food at that time, and it takes steps to store the calories you eat as fat so you’ll have enough energy the next time you need it. The decrease in leptin brought on by sleep deprivation can result in a constant feeling of hunger.

The other hormone related to sleep and weight is ghrelin. The purpose of ghrelin is basically the exact opposite of leptin: It tells your brain when you need to eat, when it should stop burning calories and when it should store energy as fat. During sleep, levels of ghrelin decrease, because sleep requires far less energy than being awake does. People who don’t sleep enough end up with too much ghrelin in their system, so the body thinks it’s hungry and it needs more calories, and it stops burning those calories because it thinks there’s a shortage.

Science class over, if your trying to lose weight or gain muscle and feel you’re putting in all the work in the kitchen and gym but still not seeing your desired results, consider the amount of rest you’re getting, take a nap or become more organised and make sure you give yourself enough time to get the required 7-9 hours rest your body NEEDS!

This Month Session In summery:

• 4 exercises
• 3 sets of 10 reps
• 30 secs to 1 min rest between sets
• no longer than 2 mins between exercises

* For the exercises that isolate one side of the body (split squat and door frame row) do 3 sets of 10 reps on each side.

Walkouts:  From a standing position we bring our hands to the ground and walk out into a plank position, hold for a second and the reverse the movement back into a standing position, make sure you are stood back upright before going into the next rep.

Russian Twist: Similar position to the Crunch in & out except this time we will try to balance our weight in the middle, keep the legs slightly bent and off the ground and arms into the chest to start, slowly start to twist the shoulders around to the left then back to centre and then to the right, once you have twisted in both directions you have completed 1 rep.

Split Squat:   using a bench rest one foot up on the seat and take one hop forward, keep the weight in the standing legs heel and drop down so that the knee on the raised leg is just off the ground, from here press back up through the standing heel until leg is fully extended.

Single Arm Doorframe Row: Stand  with feet shoulder width apart and come down into a squatted position holding onto the door frame taking the weight in the arm, from here keep the elbow tight to your side as you pull yourself into the doorframe, from here slowly lower yourself back into the starting position.