David @ DHPT

One of the hardest things to deal with when trying to get fit is feeling like you aren't making progress.  This is often a product of looking at the scales and not seeing them move very much day-to-day.  There's more than one way to judge progress, however.  I thought I'd give you a few of my other favourites to use. The first one that comes to mind after the scales is a tape measure.  It seems obvious but it isn't one that many people use - maybe because it's easier for someone else to measure you than it is to measure yourself.   However, if you have someone who can measure you then I would advise you to take advantage of this.  It doesn't have to be a thousand different measurements, you could just use a couple if you wanted to.  The main ones that I recommend are hips, waist and chest.  But you can go into more detail and take neck, calf, bicep, thigh and even more measurements based on your goal and how much time you want to spend gettin...

One of the best ways to make progress towards your health or fitness goals is to exercise with regularity.  I often tell my clients that consistency is king when it comes to moving the needle on their performance and health.  If you're struggling to get into a regular training rhythm, here are some tips that may help you out. 1: Schedule your day This one seems pretty obvious but it's surprising how many people don't do it.  Even I've been guilty of this at times.  One way to ensure that life doesn't get in the way of your workouts is to put them into your calendar (both your personal calendar and your work one if appropriate).  By blocking out the time it will both remind you that you have an appointment with the treadmill or squat rack and it will also prevent other people from requesting meetings or planning other events during that time.   2: Get your work in early This one follows on nicely from the first point.  If you can, schedule your wor...

So, every day since this lockdown started (except when in the torrential rain) we have gone on a morning family walk.  It's something that I'd quite like to continue even after the lockdown ends as it's good quality family time and gets all of us out of the house as well.   We usually ask each other 4 questions on the walk as a sort of check-in to see how we're all doing.  First, what's one thing that makes you happy today? Second, what's one thing that makes you sad today? Third, what's one thing your worried/anxious about today? Fourthly, how can I help you today?   For us it works as a way to check in with each other, it's a time for us to feel free to talk about how we're feeling in a supportive way where the people we're with can use the time to see if there are ways to help each other.  But most of all it's a way we can air our feelings, frustrations, anxieties, and happiness and feel heard. Today on our walk, I had a proper anxie...

Right now every trainer, psychologist, life coach, herbalist and their uncle have been doing blogs, vlogs, articles, TV Interviews and short operatic musical dramas about how to make the best of this COVID-19 lockdown.  While I don't want to add to the noise out there, I figure if this helps one or two people get through it then it's worth writing. Being cooped up inside can be tough, even for introverts like me.  It brings a certain level of stress into life.  This is before we even get to the prospect of illness, job and financial insecurity, trying to manage kids and animals that are out of routine and stressed themselves, and trying to help other friends and family members who may not be able to manage in this situation as well as us. Here are some strategies that may help reduce the stress you could be feeling.  Firstly, breathe.  In particular, try square breathing.  It's a technique that I've used in the past when feeling anxious.  It's simp...

It's been a little while since I posted an update about my training for the Oxfam Trailwalk that myself and 3 mates are looking to complete in March, so I thought I should fill you in on my progress. Training has been going well recently.  There was a little period a few months ago where my motivation to train just wasn't there - I think it was a case of the walk being too far away to scare me into action!  But suddenly March doesn't seem too far off anymore, which has prompted me to get out there and get my kilometres done. Two big things that have made a difference for me are competition and permission. Let's talk about competition first.  I'm a competitive person by nature, anyone who's seen me on a football field will know this.  One thing our trailwalk team has done has been to institute a minimum step count for each week of 100,000 steps with a penalty for falling short.  While this only averages out to about 14,000 per day which isn't a huge am...

Something I see a lot on social media is people stating that they're going to get fit or lose some weight for summer.  This is a perfectly reasonable goal.  Except I often hear it in late November or early December. That might work out fine if you're living in the United States, but here in New Zealand, that time frame is cutting it pretty fine, especially if you want to lose a significant amount of weight/fat.  These things take time. It's generally considered a sustainable goal to reduce your weight by 500 grams per week.  This means that if you want to lose 5kg for summer, then it will take you about10 weeks.  Using this formula, if you start in November you won't have enough time. You also need to take into account that this is a best-case scenario.  You won't hit your nutrition plan and training program perfectly each week.  Some weeks will be better than others.  So this timeline is likely to be stretched out even more.  Especiall...

The last few months have been hectic for me.  We've bought our first home which has been stressful (albeit very satisfying).  This meant moving house which added to that stress.  I also picked up a bunch of new clients at the same time as well as renovating and setting up the gym at the new house.  Don't get me wrong, these are all good things.  It has just meant that has been a very busy few months for me. But with that busy period has also come a drop in my motivation to get my own training sessions done.  Finding the motivation to work out after working a 12-14 hour day where I am on my feet for most of it, encouraging other people to get fit sometimes leaves me lacking the enthusiasm required to motivate myself.  But one thing has propelled me off the couch and into the gym.  The thought that if I only trained when I felt good then I would never achieve the results that I'm after. Training when you're feeling motivated, fresh, physically a...

All too often health and fitness are shown to us in films, TV, and articles as bulging muscles and toned waistlines.  We are led to believe that the goal of fitness is to be as aesthetically pleasing as possible to the opposite sex.  Sure, this can be a part of it depending on what your goals are, but there is so much more that is important about being physically fit.  Here are some of the reasons why you might want to think about getting a little healthier if you have let your fitness fall in your priority list over the years. 1: To keep up with your kids. Are you the parent who is always putting off joining in with your kids when they want to play rugby or netball down at the local park/school?  Is there always some pain which prevents you from taking them on walks through the bush or along the beach?  Is just the thought of going rockclimbing making your back hurt a little?  Getting a bit fitter and stronger may help with a few of these little niggle...

Over Easter weekend, I went on a little trip away.  Two school mates and I went on a fishing trip to the far north of the North Island.  It was great.  We did a lot of driving, camped a lot, fished a lot, did a lot of catching up, and made fun of each other a lot.  What guys tend to do when they catch up after a long period of not seeing each other much. More importantly for me though, it was great to just get away from the city.  For the most part, we were in areas where our mobile phone coverage was iffy at best.  It meant that there was no point in having our phones with us so, for the most part, they stayed in the vehicle.  And I enjoyed the change.  I heard someone say recently that we are so connected that we are disconnected these days, and I thought that that made a lot of sense. Another thing I enjoyed about the weekend was getting out into nature.  I make no secret of the fact that I am a city boy.  Born and raised in the s...

No, I'm not referring to the early 2000's Basement Jaxx hit song.  I'm talking about what your mind is telling you, or more accurately, what you are telling yourself. Our minds are powerful.  The things we have going on in our heads can drive us to achieve great things or drive us to terrible depression or anxiety attacks, and many things in between. One important fact that most people don't really take notice of is that we are the person we talk to most in this world.  Think about it, every thought, every memory, every consideration we make is essentially a conversation with ourselves.  If we tell ourselves that something is impossible, guess what, we usually believe that it is. Now I don't want to make this blog post some diatribe of positivity platitudes.  I understand that just believing you can do something isn't the only thing you need to make it happen.  But I believe that we need to pay more attention to how we talk to ourselves.   ...

With the age of the smartphone in full swing, I thought that I'd use today's blog post to share with you the apps that I have on my phone.  Throughout the years these have changed as I have found better and more useful apps.  But the ones I have on my phone at the moment have been there for a while so they're solid, reliable, and useful.  Here they are. Firstly, we have an interval timer.  This one's pretty self- explanatory - it's a timer I use for my interval training workouts.  Well both mine and my clients, so I guess it's doubly useful for me.  The great thing about this timer is that it's very programmable.  You can change the work and rest times very easily, but it also has a warm-up timer before the workout begins.  You can save the various workouts in an easy to access dropdown menu so you can quickly change between timing protocols which is useful when you have back to back sessions and need to quickly access a different timer settin...

Often people will decide to get fit and jump straight into a gym membership, personal training package, or bootcamp program.  This is sometimes done without much thought about how each type of training will suit them.  They might go along with a friend or relative because they have raved about it for a while.  This can sometimes work, but it can also be the wrong setup for their personal needs.  So here are a few questions to ask yourself before joining a training program or gym. 1. What is my goal? Often this will be to lose weight, but what if you want to get really strong?  Or gain muscle mass?  These three goals have very different training and nutrition needs.  A personal trainer would be able to help you with all of these goals, but a bootcamp is not the best setup for gaining a whole lot of lean muscle - the training programs are not usually designed for this goal.   The same could be said for the strength goal - and I mean powerl...

Core exercises are important for many reasons.  The core is essential in most human movements.  It gets used in the following ways: transferring power through the body, stabilising us as we move, bracing and protecting us when moving heavy stuff around, and in many other situations too. I'm sure most of you know a few core exercises, they are fairly common knowledge really - planks, various crunches, medicine ball twists, and the like.  But if you're looking to add some extra options to your core training, here are some great exercises that I use with my clients to really get their cores firing. Pallof Press - This is a great exercise for working the anti-rotation element of your core - basically the act of preventing your body rotating.  You get a little bit of light chest and arm work with it too as a bonus.  It looks deceptively simple, but when you select the correct band, it will light up your core.  Give it a try next time you want to add some va...

A while ago I wrote a blog post about how I'd been diagnosed with diabetes and the steps I took to battle that diagnosis.  I thought it was time I wrote about why it's important for everyone to keep an eye out for the signs of diabetes (and pre-diabetes) so that they can get on top of the condition before it gets worse. Firstly, what is diabetes?  According to Diabetes New Zealand , "Diabetes is the result of the body not creating enough insulin to keep blood glucose (sugar) levels in the normal range.  Everyone needs some glucose in their blood, but if it's too high it can damage your body over time. In type 2 diabetes, either the body doesn't produce enough insulin, or the cells in the body don't recognise the insulin that is present.  The end result is the same: high levels of glucose in your blood." Having high blood sugars over a significant length of time can lead to complications affecting many different body parts such as your eyes, kidneys...

I don't have time. It's one of the most common reasons that people give for not keeping fit.  In a world of time pressures and demands placed on people to always be busy, I'm not particularly surprised when I hear it. Some people consider it just an excuse, I have even heard it called the adult equivalent of the dog ate my homework, but is it really? People look at life in different ways.  To some, fitness is a way of life, even an obsession, but to others, it's the opposite.  They simply have other priorities which they consider to be more important. This is where time becomes a factor.  If getting fit is not your priority, then you simply won't find the time.  If getting or staying fit is a priority, then you will.   I hate to oversimplify the drivers that move people to get fit and stay fit but this is a big one.  There has to be an intrinsic motivation for people to want to do something about their health.  A doctor telling you ...

Losing weight or increasing your fitness is tough. It won't always be easy, you'll have setbacks - bad nutrition days, injuries, muscle soreness, time and life pressure, just to name a few. A useful question to ask before you start a program is: are you making it harder for yourself than you need to?  In other words, a re you fighting yourself? Everyone has individual preferences when it comes to both nutrition and training.  For example, I can't really stand running long distances.  My knees hurt from years of abuse on the football field, but to be honest even when I was younger I wasn't too keen - I'll run after a football all day long, just don't ask me to run around a field for an hour and expect me to smile about the thought. But get me into a gym and I love it.  I love the challenge of lifting heavy things, the focus it demands, and the visible progress in terms of the weights going up week by week.   So why would I start a pro...

One of the first things that I have clients do when they start with me and are keen to lose weight is complete a food diary for around a week.  This accomplishes a couple of different things.   Firstly, it shows me what their commitment level is like - keeping a food diary may be a bit of a pain to do, but it isn't that taxing in reality.  It takes a few minutes per meal.  If it is too much hassle to do this, how ready are they to adjust their lifestyle and keep working on it when things get tough? That may sound a little pessimistic but I have found a pretty good correlation between the two.  Motivation plays a huge role in lifestyle change.  Next, it makes people more mindful about what they are consuming.  I make a point of asking them not to alter their eating.  It's not about judging them, it's simply a snapshot of where they are starting from.  Somewhere to begin, and something that shows me where we could make simple changes...