Fit Tips of the Year from the Alpine Health and Fitness crew

One of the great things about an Alpine Health and Fitness gym membership is that you’re surrounded by fantastic instructors, trainers and gym crew that are there to help. We’ve asked some of them what their favourite fit tip they learned this year was:

Deni Zawalski, wearer of many hats:

One of my favourite stretches is the ‘book open’, which helps to improve spinal mobility in the thoracic region. It is very common to see tightness in spinal rotation, and this can lead to stiffness or soreness in other areas such as the neck or lower back. As well as mobilising the spine, the book open can also stretch the chest and shoulders. When performed correctly, the movement should initiate from the torso rather than the arm. Keep the hips and knees stacked on top of each other and focus on deep breathing throughout the movement.

Kirsty Robson, Instructor extraordinaire:

A good one for me has been keeping a bottle of water in the freezer then rolling underneath your foot after a big run.  We always stretch the other muscles of the body but tend to forget the feet which are so important.  Feels particularly good at the moment with the weather getting hotter!

Nat Jakobs, Watcher of all things gym

I love functional training. Functional training involve training multiple parts of the body at one time, which is great if you are time pressured. By adding these exercise into your workouts you are helping your body to work better as a whole unit. Some examples are, cable squat- row, swissball Russian twists, or by adding equipment like buso balls and bands.   Add a few to your next workout or try some of our classes that included loads of functional exercises, like, Grit, BodyPump and Core.

Maria Bradley, Group wrangler and instructor

I think the big eye opener for me this year was listening to a podcast by Dr Matthew Walker, the neuroscientist , talking about the importance of sleep and the effects on the body of NOT getting enough sleep. Not getting enough sleep will put you at so many disadvantages. So over the break make sure you never get less than 6 hours sleep a night and preferably the full 8. And check out this TED talk by Dr Walker.

There is no point eating well and working hard on your fitness if you don’t get enough sleep!

ENDS|KUA MUTU.

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