Your Health and Fitness Routine check-up

By now you should be into your health and fitness routine for the year.

Pay attention to any niggles, pain and injuries no matter how slight you think they are - get them checked out now by your trainer, coach or GP and make good use of any specialists they refer you on to and listen to your trainer's, coach's or gym instructor's exercise instruction.
Are you making progress? Progress can be as simple as looking forward to and enjoying your training sessions, feeling happier, sleeping well. Progress can even be re-learning and re-training your exercise technique, or taking some rest days to allow you to recover so you can continue to train.
If you're not making any progress or feel that you're going backwards then it's time to review your program and your goals.
Haven't started yet? - well now's a good time to get moving!

New Year's Resolutions - 4 point plan

Into the third week of 2012 so those health and fitness resolutions should be taking shape as training plans and if you're well motivated you'll already be back into your training routine.

To help you get started and keep you going, have a think about these four points:

• Get rid of excess body fat gained over the holiday period
• A few days of strict eating (cut out all unnecessary carbs like soft drinks, alcohol, sugar, cakes, biscuits, chocolate; cut out as much fat as possible) followed by sensible eating - Dietary Guidelines for Australians is easy to follow.
• High intensity cardio-vascular training for two weeks. Sprints and fartleks (running and cycling), PHA (peripheral heart action) circuit training (that's a circuit that alternates between lower body and upper body, eg 2 minutes of step ups followed by 2 minutes of push ups followed by 2 minutes of lunges etc)
• Build on base fitness and functional movement for upcoming events (The Cocos Lagoon Swim is 10 months away so now is the time to build up swim fitness and get some stroke correction; if your event is 6 months away work on increasing fitness and building up endurance; 3 months away is the time to work on power, speed and strength; 2 months away practice partial distance of event and get used to the course; a month away you should be tapering off.)
• Stay focused on your goals. What do you really want? Do only those things that help you achieve your goals.

• Acknowledge those actions that inhibit your goals (if your goal is to stop smoking, having a cigarette is not going to help!).
• Employ your fitness and health professionals to get you going in the right direction and keep you on track.
• Annual blood tests and ECG's, regular weight checks, height measurements (particularly for children and older adults), girth measurements are all good indicators of health and you should be able to access these through your GP or health clinic.
• Body work in form of regular massage or chiropractic or physio for optimum biomechanics.
• Personal trainer, sports trainer and sports coaches for exercise prescription and motivation to make sure your program is effective.