PERSONAL TRAINING | QUEENS

This post is especially for Jig, Kosh, Tanyette, and any of my other clients that have had to run to the bathroom during a good training session.

Today, on Labor Day, I’ve had the same experience so not only can I relate, but I can tell you the reasons why. I push to the limit every training session, and with my clients I accept nothing less - with that type of training, there are certain precautions we need to take or we’ll be messing up our gym clothes every single time we go to the gym.

First off, you need to eat at least an hour before going to the gym for you food to digest. As you all already know, the pre-workout meal is a relatively large, well-balanced meal. It needs to be consumed with ample time for digestion or your body will feel the need to purge it during a hard workout. I’ve gotten away with eating right before a workout many times before, but if you’re engaging in a very intense session that’s pushing your limits, you’ll inevitably have to go! In my case, I woke up late and the gym was closing early; combine that with a big leg workout for me today, and the causes are obvious.

What is it about the training that may cause nausea and how can we prevent it? When we’re training at our highest level of ability, the exercise tests not only our muscle strength, but the work capacity of our entire central nervous system. It’s this type of training that creates the best results, but also requires the most recovery time between workouts. For my clients, I don’t want them to have to work out endlessly when they’re not with me, so I go for the most “bang for your buck” so to speak, with an intensity level that will produce the most adaptation and will also allow them to spend their own free time for recovery rather than more training.

However, when this training spills overboard, combined with eating that’s too close to the session, the results can be messy. To avoid this problem, I recommend everyone to bring up their cardiovascular capacity along with their strength. The best way to do this is through interval training, and I don’t mean easy intervals over an hour. After a good 5 minute warm-up, I want you to push your cardiovascular capacity on every interval, followed by a recovery period that’s as short as it needs to be, and then another intense interval. If you’re comfortable jogging for 30 minutes at 6 miles an hour, then your high point in your interval should reach 8 mph, and your recovery speed can be 5 mph or a brisk walk at 4 mph. Keep that up and just 15 minutes of work will leave you exhausted, but will also lead to more progress and calories burned than a full hour at a low intensity. (the only exception is if you’re really out of shape now, spend two weeks on moderate intensity cardio 3-4x per week to build a baseline of aerobic capacity before you begin intervals) This will build up your overall anaerobic threshold and will allow you to work even harder during training sessions, leading to increased ability to reach muscle failure (rather than cardiovascular failure while the target muscle is still strong) and thus much better results.

If you’re so busy that you can’t get in your intervals, that’s fine - you’re CNS capacity will eventually adapt from regular personal training sessions with me, but the process will be much slower and their may be some sessions where you feel queasy or a little light-headed, especially if you’re not timing your eating properly.

That’s what happened to me this morning. In eating so close to my workout time and rushing to get the workout done before the gym closed early, I went beyond my CNS capacity and had the nausea spell I talked about. I won the battle and was able to keep my breakfast down and wait for my queasiness to pass - but I know some of you haven’t been as lucky!