New Trainer with Military Experience

It is with great pleasure that we welcome to the family Elena Efimova, as a Personal Trainer. Elena is a fitness professional with 26 years experience combined in Millitary Corps Training in Russia and Civil training in United Arab Emirates for physical fitness training programs and body building. She loves riding her Harley Davidson, scuba diving, desert camping.

Elena has the following qualifications:

• Ex Russian Military Surgeon assistant (traumatology field)
• Ex Russian military sergeant, MTI (basic and initial training)
• Certified by Weider Academy for Cultural Training
• GCC National Coach (A;B;C)
• GCC Continental Coach (C)
• Certified by ME Fit
• Professionally qualified and highly skilled in training programs tailored to individual goals (strength increasing, weight loss/weight gain, muscle development)

Please join us in welcoming Elena to the team and feel free to drop her any questions in the comments below.

Running in Dubai - Safa Park? No Better Time Than Now

If you've been toying with the idea to start running or get in shape, then there is no better time than now, what with all the races coming up soon. Being a runner myself, and having participated in so many races in Dubai and abroad, here is what I do to get myself in the "zone" and start training: I thought I'd share these ideas with you hoping it would help you start, and if you're ever interested in a running buddy, feel free to ping me, or leave me a comment.

Sign Up and Commit

Signing up for a 5km or 10km run provides us a goal and gives us valuable motivation to become more active. There are few better ways to get fit and lose weight. Merely completing the 5km or 10km distance is as far as many people plan, and in today’s blog I will suggest a simple method to organize your training so you can gain more fitness and be more successful on race day.

Get Started

Here in Dubai there is no better time to start then right now, the end of summer, the weather is beginning to cool and there are still a couple months before the recreational running season gets into full swing, and we can use this time to get in shape which is what I'm going to do.

Many “learn to run programs” which can be found with a very simple online search are based on one simple principle; some workouts are run faster then race pace and develop speed, some are run slower then race pace and develop endurance, and some are at race pace to increase race fitness.

Make A Schedule

Based on a three day per week training schedule one workout should be run at each of these three speeds. Day 1 faster then race pace, day 2 slower then race pace and day 3 at race pace. When adding more training days you should first add workouts that focus on your weakness, which for most people is speed.

Pace Yourself

Pacing is a great starting point to build your training from and will enable you to organize your workouts and track your progression. It helps to run somewhere where you can track your distance. Our own Safa Park (appox. 3.5km around) is ideal because it has the distance marked out every 50m and the surface is fairly friendly to run on.

A watch that has GPS location is another pricier can track your distance, pace, run time and heart rate all from your wrist. The two main watch brands that have these functions are Polar and Garmin.

The treadmill is a third option where you can set your speed and measure your distance. You can escape the heat training indoors on hot days also.

Next week I will lay out some example training schedules and provide more tips on how to get the most out each workout and thus see the most results.

Useful Running Resources

Here are some useful links to help you get started:

http://www.premiermarathons.com/ - the center of the UAE running universe

http://www.amitdubai.net/ - where I bought my Garmin watch here in Dubai

http://www.polarusa.com/us-en/ -use the retail finder to find a dozen stores in Dubai

http://www.dubai-road-runners.com/ - a group that runs at Safa Park twice a week

Original picture was taken by Denis Todorut licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Introducing Runner Champ: Gilbert Sophie

The Fitness O2 team is happy to welcome a new member to our family, Gilbert Sophie, Personal Trainer, Swimming Coach, and 1st Sergeant role in Bootcamp Training!

Gilbert has excellent credentials and his main expertise is in running:

• Ex African Triathlete and Mauritius Champion
• Finished in the top 5 in Vertical Marathon 2009 and and top 4 in 2011 in Dubai.
• Best 10 Km Road Runner in Abu Dhabi last season
• Won 2 series of 4 Km Road race in Super Sports Series 2010 & 2011

Please welcome Gilbert to the family and feel free to ask him questions about running, swimming or fitness in general in the comments below.

Applying for a Job in Fitness: 5 Email Tips

We get a lot of CV's and resumes from interested candidates who want to join the Fitness O2 family, and we noticed over and over again a shocking trend that does not play to the advantage of applicants.

We thought of writing a small post about how to approach sending your resume or CV to a fitness company and increase your chances of being contacted, here they are:

1. Your subject line is everything, in fact the subject line will either prompt a recruiter to open your email, or forever mark it as "read" along side the thousands of read emails they have.
   
   What this means is: make your subject line very specific and quote facts, do not bother with generic or vague subject lines like "Resume Personal Trainer" or "John Doe Personal Trainer CV", but use powerful and specific statements like "ACE Certified Personal Trainer with 5 Years Military Experience", or better yet: "Certified Cross Fit Trainer with Nutrition Certificate". These statements tell more about your credentials, they are factual and will probably get more people to open your email. Think facts, do not use selling jargon like "Excellent Personal Trainer" or "Fitness Professional with Excellent Experience".
   
   
2. Do not CC different companies on your email: this betrays their privacy and will not only have people annoyed, but chances are many of them will mark your email as "spam" therefore raising the chance of your email getting marked as spam in the future.
   
   
3. Personalize your email a little bit, add a little twist that makes the recipient feel that you took the time to go through their company's details: "i visited your website and liked the new service you launched...", or "I read your blog post on HIIT and thought it hit bull's eye", "I have seen your gym, and am impressed at how well maintained it is". Do not overdo it, or be dishonest about it, just pick one thing that attracted your attention and mention it candidly in your email.
   
   
4. People skim through emails, so keep your email short, simple and straight to the point, your objective is to get them to open your CV. The objective of your email is NOT for them to contact you. Let me repeat this one more time: the objective of your email is NOT for them to contact you. That's your CV's objective.
   
   
5. Use bullet points: If you have a lot to say and cannot get yourself to shorten the email to a few paragraphs, make use of bullet points or headings to make it easier for the recipient to read your email. Making your email a breeze to read will be appreciated, at least making it hard to read will definitely make recipients close the email, or worse, delete it.

So there it is our 5 email tips to applying for a job in the fitness industry. We hope you find it useful, and please feel free to share your experience in the comments below.

Image from the Gartoon icon set from Zeuslicensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation

Free Whitepaper: Fitness Commonly Asked Questions

We have been busy putting together a document summarizing questions we frequently get asked. The free whitepaper ("Fitness Commonly Asked Questions") has been written by Chris Williams, one of our Personal Trainers. It answers the following:

1. How long before & after a workout should I eat?
2. What should I eat before and after a workout?
3. Why I am not losing weight even though I have started working out?
4. How often should I work out?
5. What equipment is needed if I want to work out at home?

Chris talks about good calories vs bad calories, the impact of High Intensity Intermittent Exercise, references a study done by the Journal of Obesity.

About Chris Williams

Chris Williams is a certified CHEK exercise coach. He has a degree in psychology from the University of British Columbia and has worked in the fitness industry since 2004 in Vancouver British Columbia, Canada and Dubai, UAE. He has completed a number of vocational training courses including scientific core conditioning, scientific back training, and advanced exercise program design, all from the CHEK institute. He is an avid runner with a background in track and field where he competed at the university and international levels in the 400m and 800m.

Latte vs Non Fat Latte: 50% More Calories

We all love our morning coffees, latte, espresso, soy latte, they come in different sizes, shapes, tastes and more importantly, different ingredients. We compared two different coffee products a lot of us consume on a daily basis, and charted it out to give you a better visual representation.

We looked at Tall Cafe Latte and Tall Non Fat Latte, we got our data from Livestrong.com, an excellent site by the way, and (drum roll..... more drum roll....) here are the results:

There is 50% more calories between the non-fat and regular versions of the drink, but in terms of proteins and carbs, pretty much the same weight in grams. Would you like us to compare any other foods or drinks?

Fitness Deals and Discounts in September

Well with all the deals craze going on in Dubai, and the summer heat winding down, we thought we'd release a few goodie goodies for our readers and fans to shape up after long summer breaks. We have deals for Bootcamps, and Personal Training and savings of up to 50% on some of the 3 months subscriptions.

The deals expire on 25th of August, so you still have a few days left to snatch them. Here is the link to our deals page.

It's Now Easier for You to Comment

Today we've rolled out a new feature in our blog, allowing readers to post their comments by logging into their facebook, Yahoo, or hotmail accounts. We're hoping this will make our blog much more engaging and provide you with a better experience overall.

What do you think of it, please share your comments below :).

Personal Training Results: 29% Improvement on 1Km Run

Impressive improvement achieved by one of our clients training with Zena one on one, in a bit less than 2 months, her 1Km run time dropped by 30% from 8mins 55s to 6mins 19s!

Effect of Long Term High Intentsity Interval Exercise on Fat Loss

We've been scanning the Internet reading about High Intensity Interval Exercise (HIIE) vs Steady State Exercise (SSE), and found a very interesting study (UPDATE: by the Journal of Obesity). In summary, the result is quite impressive.

First, HIIE (High Intensity Intermittent Exercise), or HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training), according to Wikipedia:

"High-intensity interval training (HIIT) or sprint interval training is an exercise strategy that is intended to improve performance with short training sessions. HIIT is a form of cardiovascular exercise which is beneficial to burning fat in a short and intense workout"

Bootcamps for example are a good HIIT example due to the cyclical and interval nature of the workouts consisting of highs and lows.

Here is the chart showing the results of the study in terms of fat loss ((a) subcutaneous and (b) abdominal):

The details of the test subjects, and test protocols can be found here High-Intensity Intermittent Exercise and Fat Loss.

Our source for the chart (with our appreciation and thanks) is High-Intensity Intermittent Exercise and Fat Loss, by J Obes. 2011;2011:868305, author Stephen H. Boutcher reused here under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.