I am the type person who enjoys doing a lots of running and physical activity, just recent I
had suffer a great pain in my heel, at first I thought it was just a standard tired pain, however,
then next morning I woke up, I was in so much pain I could just about walk for the first two
hours of the day.
After carefully examining my foot, I found that I am suffering from Plantar fasciitis, lucky
for me it was not so bad, since I had found out quite early, before I could do more damage to
it. In this blog I am going to break down for you what, Plantar fasciitis is and how to treat
or prevent it.
Plantar fasciitis stretches may be prescribed by your physical therapist to help improve your
overall foot mobility. Performing plantar fascia stretches regularly may be one component of
your rehab program.
Plantar fasciitis is an overuse injury caused by inflammation of the plantar fascia, a thick
fibrous band that connects the heel bone to the base of the toes. Symptoms of plantar fasciitis
include heel pain that is initially worse in the morning. Stretching the plantar fascia can help
decrease the symptoms of plantar fasciitis.
If you have plantar fasciitis, you may benefit from physical therapy to treat your pain and to
get your foot feeling normal again. Your PT may use various treatments and modalities and
will likely prescribe exercises to treat your condition. A good PT would be able to also tell
you what to STOP doing that may be making your symptoms worse. If you develop foot pain,
starting physical therapy first is a good choice.
Here is a list of exercises that your physical therapist may prescribe for plantar fasciitis.
Check in with your doctor before starting this exercise program to ensure that it is safe for
you to do.
Long Sitting Stretch
1. Sit on the floor with your legs stretched out in front of you
2. Loop a towel around the top of your affected foot
3. Pull the towel towards you until a stretch is felt across the bottom of your foot
4. Hold for 30 seconds then relax, and then repeat 10 times
Achilles Stretch
1. Stand facing a wall and place your hands straight out on the wall
2. Step back with your affected foot keeping it flat on the floor
3. Move the other leg forward and slowly lean in toward the wall
4. Stop when you feel a stretch through the calf
5. Hold for 30 seconds then relax, and repeat 10 times
Stair Stretch
1. Stand on a step on the balls for your feet
2. Hold the rail for balance

3. Slowly lower the heel of the injured foot until a stretch is felt
4. Hold for 30 seconds then relax. Repeat 10 times
Can Roll
1. Sit in a chair
2. Roll your injured foot (without a shoe on) back and forth from the tip of the toes to
the heel over a can
3. Repeat ten times in both directions
You can help treat the pain and inflammation of plantar fasciitis by performing the can roll
with an ice bottle in a technique called the ice bottle massage.
Toe Stretch
1. Sit on the floor with your knee bent and foot flat on the floor
2. Pull the toes back on the injured foot until stretch across the arch is felt
3. Hold for 30 seconds then relax and repeat 10 times
Plantar Fascia Toe Stretch
1. Remove your shoe
2. Stand facing a wall and place the ball of your foot on the wall. Your toes should be
extended up the wall
3. Slowly press down, stretching your toe backward and elongating your plantar fascia
4. Hold the position for 10 to 15 seconds.
5. Repeat five times.
Your PT may prescribe these stretches to be done regularly throughout the day, but you
should stop if any stretch causes lasting increases in your pain. In that case, check in with
your doctor or physical therapist.
A Note from Tranquillity 360 Fitness
If you have foot pain due to plantar fasciitis, you may benefit from some gentle foot and
ankle stretches to start treating your condition. Your physical therapist can help you
determine which stretches are best for you to be doing. By working hard in physical therapy
and by being vigilant about your plantar fasciitis exercises, you can maximize your chances

As a personal trainer you learn new things everyday on your journey, the main reason why you will see some personal trainer have a personal trainer. During my time training, I used to spend so much time doing weights, with very little cardio, well 15 minutes cardio. Back then I thought I was super fit, because I could easily do 3km in 15 minutes and feel great to do a full 2 hour lifting after that, one day a friend of mind invited me to run a 10km and I struggle badly could just about complete it in 57 minutes. So, decided I take deeper dig to see what the cause and I realised although I was fit I was locking endurance. Now what really is endurance? Good question am going to break down the entire process in this blog for you.
 
Endurance is a term widely used in sport and can mean many different things to many different people. In sports, it refers to an athlete's ability to sustain prolonged exercise for minutes, hours, or even days. Endurance requires the circulatory and respiratory systems to supply energy to the working muscles to support sustained physical activity.
When most people talk about endurance they are referring to aerobic endurance, which is often equated with cardiovascular fitness. Aerobic means "with oxygen" and during aerobic exercise, the body uses oxygen to help supply the energy needed for exercise.
The objective of endurance training is to develop the energy production systems to meet the demands of activity for as long as they are required.
How Foods Fuel Exercise
The body converts food to fuel via several different energy pathways. In the simplest terms, the body can convert nutrients to energy with or without the presence of oxygen. These two energy systems are called:

• Aerobic metabolism (with oxygen)
• Anaerobic metabolism (without oxygen)

These pathways can be further divided. The three energy systems most commonly mentioned in exercises include:

• ATP-CP (Anaerobic) Energy Pathway: Supplies short bursts of energy lasting up to 10 seconds.
• Anaerobic Metabolism (Glycolysis): Supplies energy for short, high-intensity bursts of activity lasting several minutes.
• Aerobic Metabolism: Supplies most of the energy needed for long duration, less intense exercise, and requires plenty of oxygen. The waste products, carbon dioxide, and water are removed in sweat and exhalation.

Aerobic Metabolism 
Most often it's a combination of energy systems that supply the fuel needed for exercise, with the intensity and duration of the exercise determining which method gets used when. However, aerobic metabolism fuels most of the energy needed for long duration or endurance exercises.
Athletes continually strive to push their capacity to exercise harder and longer and increase their endurance. The factors that limit sustained high-intensity efforts include fatigue and exhaustion. Sports training has been shown to modify and postpone the point at which this fatigue occurs.
VO2 Max and Aerobic Endurance
VO2 max or maximal oxygen uptake is one factor that can determine an athlete's capacity to perform sustained exercise and is linked to aerobic endurance.
VO2 max refers to the maximum amount of oxygen that an individual can utilize during maximal or exhaustive exercise. It is measured as milliliters of oxygen used in one minute per kilogram of body weight. It is generally considered the best indicator of cardiorespiratory endurance and aerobic fitness.
Elite endurance athletes typically have a high VO2 max. And some studies indicate that it is largely due to genetics, although training has been shown to increase VO2 max up to 20 percent. A major goal of most endurance training programs is to increase this number
Muscle Fiber Type High-level endurance athletes often have a higher proportion of slow twitch (Type I) muscle fibers. These slow twitch fibers are more efficient at using oxygen (and aerobic metabolism) to generate more fuel (ATP) for continuous, extended muscle contractions over a long time.
They fire more slowly than fast twitch fibers and can go for a long time before they fatigue. Therefore, slow twitch fibers are great at helping athletes run marathons and bicycle for hours.
 
 
Adaptations to Endurance Training
With endurance training, the body becomes better able to produce ATP through aerobic metabolism. The cardiorespiratory system and aerobic energy systems become more efficient at delivering oxygen to the working muscles and converting carbohydrate and fat to energy.
Training Programs
There are many ways to train for improved aerobic endurance. The duration, frequency, and intensity of each type of training vary and the training focuses on slightly different energy systems and skills and results in different physical adaptations. Some of the most well-known endurance training programs include:

• Long slow distance training is the most common type of endurance training and the foundation for marathon runners, long-distance cyclists, and other sports that demand long, sustained steady energy outputs. It is also the easiest form of endurance training for new or novice exercisers.
• Pace/tempo training consists of training at a steady, but fairly high intensity; just slightly higher than "race pace" for a shorter duration, usually 20-30 minutes at a steady pace.
• Interval training consists of short, repeated, but intense physical efforts (3-5 minutes followed by short rest periods).
• Circuit training consists of a series of specific exercises performed for a short duration and rotated through in quick in succession with little or no rest in between. Traditional circuit training routines build both strength and endurance and can be varied in a multitude of ways to meet any athlete's training goals.
• Fartlek training combines some or all of the other training methods during a long, moderate training session. During the workout the athlete adds short bursts of higher intensity work with no set plan; it's up to how the athlete feels.
  

If you are looking to lose weight or in the fitness industry at some point in time you will hear that 2 pounds per week is the maximum amount of fat you should safely lose? But If you are training hard while watching your calories closely then shouldn’t you be able to lose more fat without losing muscle or damaging your health? What if you want to lose fat faster? How do you explain the fast weight losses on The Biggest Loser?
These are all good questions that I’ve been asked many times.  The diet marketplace being flooded every day with rapid weight loss claims, these questions desperately need and deserve some honest answers. So where does that 2 pounds per week rule comes about and what it really takes to burn more than 2 pounds of fat per week?
Why Only 2 Pounds Per Week?
The truth is, two pounds is not the maximum amount you can safely lose in a week. That’s only a general recommendation and a good benchmark for setting weekly goals. It’s also sensible and realistic because it’s based on average or typical results.
The actual amount of fat you can lose depends on many factors. For example, weight losses tend to be relative to body size. The more body fat you carry, the more likely you’ll be able to safely lose more than two pounds per week. Therefore, we could individualize our weekly guideline a bit by recommending a goal of 1-2 lbs of fat loss per week or up to 1% of your total weight. If you weighed 300 lbs, that would be 3 lbs per week.
Body Weight Vs Body Composition
Weight loss is somewhat meaningless unless you also talk about body composition; the fat to muscle ratio, as well as water weight. Ask any wrestler about fast weight loss and he’ll tell you things like, “I cut 10 lbs overnight to make a weight class. It was easy – I just sweated it off.”
You’ve also probably seen people that went on some extreme induction program or a lemon juice and water fast for the first week and dropped an enormous amount of weight.
 Once again, you can bet that a lot of that weight was water and lean tissue and, in both cases, you can bet that those people put the weight right back on.
The main potential advantage of any type of induction period for rapid weight loss in the first week is that a large drop on the scale is a motivational boost for many people (even if it is mostly water weight).
Why do you hear so many diet and fitness professionals insist on 2 lbs a week max? Where does that number come from?
Aside from the fact that it’s a recommendation in government health guidelines and in position statements of most nutrition and exercise organizations, it’s just math. The math is based on what’s practical given the number of calories an average person burns in a day and how much food someone can reasonably cut in a day
How Do You Lose More Than 2 Pounds Per Week?
Can you lose more than 2 lbs of pure fat in a week? Yes, although it’s easier in the beginning. It gets harder as your diet progresses. How do you do it? My rule is, extraordinary results require extraordinary efforts. An extraordinary effort means a particularly strict diet, as well as burning more calories through training because you can only cut your calories so far from food before you’re starving and suffering from severe hunger.
If you have a 2500 calorie daily maintenance level, and you want to drop 3 lbs of fat per week with diet alone, you’d need a huge daily deficit of 1500 calories, which would equate to eating 1000 calories per day. You would lose weight rapidly for as long as you could maintain that deficit (although it would slow down over time). Most people aren’t going to last long on so little food and they often end with a period of binge eating. It’s not practical (or fun) to cut calories so much and in some cases it could be unhealthy.
The other alternative is to train for hours and hours a day, literally. People asked me all the time, “Malachi, how is it possible for some people to lose so much weight in a short time span? But first they’re not measuring body fat, only body weight. Then you have the high starting body weights and the large water weight loss in the beginning. After that, just do the math, most people who lose weight fast are training hours a week, so they’re creating a huge calorie deficit.
Without a personal trainers and proper dieticians to motivated and accountable their needs then not even possible Would it even be possible.
 
 Fast Fat Loss: Less Food or Harder Training?
Trainers are becoming more inventive these days in coming up with high intensity workouts that burn many calories and really give the metabolism a boost. This can help speed up the fat loss within a given amount of time. But as you begin to utilize higher intensity workouts, you must start being on guard for overtraining or overuse injuries. That’s why strict nutrition with an aggressive calorie deficit is going to have to be a major part of any fast fat loss strategy. Unfortunately, very low-calorie dieting has its own risks in the way of lean tissue loss, slower metabolism, extreme hunger, and greater chance of weight re-gain.
My approach to long term weight control is to lose weight slowly and patiently and follow a nutrition plan that is well balanced between lean protein, healthy fats and natural carbs and doesn’t demonize any entire food group. To lose fat, you simply create a caloric deficit by burning more and eating less (keeping the nutrient density of those calories as high as possible, of course). But to achieve the extraordinary goals such as photo-shoot-ready, super-low body fat or simply faster than average fat loss, while minimizing the risks, I often turn to a stricter cyclical low carb diet for brief “peaking” programs.
 
There’s No Magic, Just Math
In my experience, a high protein, reduced carb approach in conjunction with weights and cardio can help maximize fat loss – both in terms of increasing speed of fat loss and particularly for getting rid of the last of the stubborn fat. It helps with appetite control too. But always bear in mind that the faster fat loss occurs primarily as a result of the larger calorie deficit (which is easily achieved with sugars and starches minimized), not some type of “low carb magic.”
If your diet were high in natural carbs but you were able to diligently maintain the same large calorie deficit, the results would be similar. I’m seeing more and more advertisements that not only promise rapid weight loss but go so far as saying that you’re doing it wrong if you’re losing “only” two pounds per week. “Why settle” for slow weight loss, they insist. Well, it’s certainly possible to lose more than two pounds per week, but it’s critically important to understand that there’s a world of difference between rapid weight loss and permanent fat loss.
It’s also vital to know that there’s no magic in faster fat loss, just math. All the new-fangled dietary manipulations and high intensity training programs that really do help increase the speed of fat loss all come full circle to the calorie balance equation in the end, even if they claim their method works for other reasons and they don’t mention calories burned or consumed at all.
Beware of The Quick Fix
Faster fat loss IS possible. My question is, are you willing to tolerate the hunger, low calories and high intensity exercise for that kind of deficit? Do you have the work ethic? Do you have the supreme level of dietary restraint necessary to stop yourself from binging and putting the weight right back on when that aggressive diet is over? Or would you rather do it in a more moderate way where you’re not killing yourself, but instead are making slow and steady lifestyle changes and taking off 1-2 lbs of pure fat per week, while keeping all your hard-earned muscle?
Remember, 1-2 pounds per week is 50-100 pounds in a year. Is that so slow or is that an astounding transformation? You don’t gain 50-100 pounds over night, so why should anyone expect to take it off overnight? Personally, I think short-term thinking and the pursuit of quick fixes are the worst diseases of our generation.
If you want to be one of those “results not typical” fat loss transformations, it can be done, and it may be a perfectly appropriate short-term goal for the savvy and sophisticated fitness enthusiast. It’s your call. But when you set your goals, it might be wise to remember that old fable of the tortoise and the hare, and buyer beware if you go shopping for a fast weight loss program in today’s shady marketplace.
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