Fitness

A 41-year-old transformed his body with 2 diet changes and 1 simple workout technique

Published

4 months ago

September 20, 2024

A 41-year-old transformed his body with 2 diet changes and 1 simple workout technique

An office worker got ripped and transformed his fitness in seven months with a few simple changes to his diet and exercise routine.

London-based Alec Knebeg, 41, works for a bank and said he had spent years hitting the gym with little to show for it.

“I’ve always been somebody who went to the gym, but I didn’t really know how to achieve what I wanted to do,” he told Business Insider. “I had been plodding along doing the same thing for a few years not seeing a lot of results.”

Earlier this year, Knebeg began working with personal trainer Adam Enaz, who specializes in men’s fitness transformations. Enaz helped him streamline his workouts and clean up his diet to break through the frustrating fitness plateau.

Knebeg said he was able to build muscle, burn fat, and look visibly fitter thanks to three major habits: he started lifting heavier weights with a basic exercise technique, and added a protein goal and calorie deficit to his diet.

More challenging exercise led to better results

Knebeg said he started seeing major progress in the gym after picking up a technique called progressive overload.

In his 20s and 30s, “if something was too heavy, I wouldn’t push myself,” Kneberg said.

Enaz pushed him to gradually increasing the challenge of exercises over time in order to force the muscles to adapt.

To do so safely, he encouraged Kneberg to keep track of what he was lifting and aim for lifting heavier weights with more reps. The goal was getting within a few reps of failure, the point of being physically unable to continue with good form. Some recent research suggests working near muscle failure can lead to more muscle growth.

But without the help of a personal trainer, most people underestimate how hard they can (and should) train for best results, according to Enaz.

“In a normal, day-to-day person, what they consider failure is 20% short of what real failure is,” he said. “Most people only really get to failure when they’re working with a PT.”

Knebeg said his current workout schedule involves three to four session per week for about an hour each. The sessions include a quick cardio warmup followed by six to eight exercises, using supersets (or back-to-back movements without rest) to save time. Knebeg also switched from a workout split to doing a full body workout every day. He said the change gave him more energy to push himself.

“I’ve been able to lift things i’ve never been able to do before. I’m kind of impressing myself because it’s things I didn’t think i could do,” he said.

Diet tweaks helped, too

Knebeg didn’t make all his gains in the gym. He also made a few basic adjustments to his eating habits.

Previously, he didn’t pay much attention to calories, and would often eat multiple servings of food at a time without thinking much of it.

But becoming more mindful of portion sizes, and sticking to a daily calorie and protein goal, helped him burn fat and build muscle.

How to know if your workout is effective

Some simple signs can you help tell if you’re challenging yourself enough to build muscle and strength, according to Enaz.

Your workouts are more likely to be effective if:

The weight starts slowing down as the reps going on, indicating your muscles are under enough tension to prompt growth
You’re struggling to complete the final rep of a set, but still have good form — if you stop when it starts to feel hard, you could be leaving gains on the table
A workout log shows that you’ve been steadily increasing the amount of weight, number of reps, or numbers of sets you can complete over time, a clear signal of progress

The last point is key, since one of the most common mistakes is failing to keep track of your workouts, since that makes it difficult to tell if you’re improving and to keep pushing yourself.

“A majority of people go wrong because they don’t record anything,” Enaz said.

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Fitness

Gainesville Health and Fitness: Glutes and hamstring exercises

Published

3 hours ago

January 20, 2025

Press Room

Gainesville Health and Fitness: Glutes and hamstring exercises

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (WCJB) – Sometimes when working out, the best thing you can do to improve your workout is trying something new.

Trainer Adam from Gainesville Health and Fitness shows you a new way to exercise your glutes and hamstrings in this week’s Your Fitness.

RELATED: Gainesville Health and Fitness: Squat rack exercises

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Fitness

New exercise benefit revealed: Study shows it helps older adults process language better

Published

11 hours ago

January 19, 2025

Press Room

New exercise benefit revealed: Study shows it helps older adults process language better

Exercising has countless benefits, whether it’s the simple daily step count reducing depression risk or cardio improving cardiovascular health. Similarly, working out proves effective for enhancing various cognitive abilities. There is a correlation between exercise and improved language skills.

Understanding words and replying back may become slow as one ages, but exercise helps boost the comprehension skills. (Shutterstock)

A study from the University of Agder in Norway and the University of Birmingham in the UK, published in Aging, Neuropsychology and Cognition, uncovered a link between increased fitness levels and better language processing abilities. As one age, regions of the brain responsible for memory begin to deteriorate, but staying physically active is one way to preserve language comprehension.

ALSO READ: Intense 30-minute exercise gives you more brain power than regular workout durations

Link between exercise and language

The study observed that in older adults, their language comprehension skills increased with exercise. The researchers examined these older adults by putting them in a six-month home-based exercise program. They had to do circuit training or cardio, which included a variety of exercises like uphill walking, jogging, and running, completed two or three times every week. All these exercises gradually increased their fitness levels and helped them better understand language, recognizing words and their meanings and replying more quickly. However, this exercise-language association is only applicable to monolinguals (people who speak only one language).

As the study participants completed the six-month program, they showed a 7% improvement in their ability to identify the correct words. This improvement suggests that increasing fitness has a positive effect on the brain’s language-processing capabilities. It is especially beneficial for ageing adults, as cognitive functions like language processing tend to decline with age.

Doesn’t work for bilinguals

The language comprehension benefit from exercise is only for those who know one language (monolingual.)(Shutterstock)

As their fitness levels increased, the older adults who were monolinguals could quickly understand words and respond more adeptly. The change was gradual, with participants showing a 7% improvement, according to the study’s findings. However, this effect was only seen in monolinguals, not in bilinguals (people who speak two or more languages). This is because bilingual people’s brains are already engaged in the complex task of juggling between two languages, so exercise does not enhance the benefits in the same way.

ALSO READ: Longevity to weight loss; 6 wonderful health benefits of regular exercise

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and not a substitute for professional medical advice. Always seek the advice of your doctor with any questions about a medical condition.

Fitness

Gym member’s shocking hair loss proves why exercise equipment hygiene is so important: ‘I’m so scared’

Published

19 hours ago

January 19, 2025

Press Room

Gym member’s shocking hair loss proves why exercise equipment hygiene is so important: ‘I’m so scared’

This is a warning for all avid gym-goers.

Fitness enthusiast Hillary Nguyen recently shared a video on TikTok describing the health crisis she dealt with after interacting dirty gym equipment.

“PSA to all my gym girlies, if you’re not wiping down every single piece of equipment before you use it you’re gonna want to start,” Nguyen said, per Daily Dot, in a clip shared on the now-defunct video-sharing platform.

“Three months ago I discovered that I had scalp ringworm and it literally made go bald,” she explained

Nguyen continued, “That same day I went to the doctor’s and they did a black light test on me and that’s how they discovered that it was ringworm. She asked me if I go to the gym and I said basically every day, so that was most likely why.”

In another video, Nguyen said that her scalp improved after three months of treatment.

Nguyen’s first video had over 40,000 likes and over 491,000 views on Saturday before TikTok was shut down that night following a temporary federal ban on the app.

Viewers weighed in on her PSA about gym sanitation in the comments section.

“I sanitize my phone with alcohol wipes and wash my hands right after the gym. I’m so scared to catch something!!! No one wipes stuff down at my gym,” one person wrote.

Another said, “Well new fear re-unlocked. I do wipe all equipment but this was like not an active conscious thought about ringworm avoidance til now.”

Someone else commented, “I got ringworm from the mats at my gym a while back it sucked! Def bring wipes and disinfectant if you can [i know] some gyms don’t keep up with it like they should.”

According to the American Academy of Dermatology Association (AAD), people are at risk of getting ringworm at the gym.

“This is because bacteria, viruses, and fungi that cause skin infections to develop, thrive in warm, moist places like sweaty exercise equipment and locker room showers,” the AAD’s website says.

The AAD recommends several tips for preventing skin infections at the gym, including wearing loose-fitting, moisture-wicking clothes, always wearing shoes, disinfecting equipment before and after using it, washing or sanitizing your hands immediately after working out, and showering as soon as possible.