Hamstring: The Forgotten Muscle

The hamstring is probably one of the most forgotten about muscles and that’s probable because they can't be seen in the mirror, so people may think they're not as important as the Quadriceps (quads). Personally, I’m just lazy, so once I’ve done my variation of squats and lunges, doing hamstring exercises are the last thing on my mind.

However, recently I found out that I might suffer from knee problems because my Hamstrings are weaker than my Quads. I know knee problems are quite common in females and after having a read around the problem, I think this might be something a lot of females might relate to.

Before I go any further, I think I should explain the function of the Quads and the Hamstring and how they relate to your knees.

So your upper leg contains two opposing muscle groups, your Quads and your Hamstring. These muscles together, move your hip joints and your knee and stabalise your knee.

Your Quads flex (bend) your hip and extend (straighten) your knee and your hamstring extends (straightens) your hip and flexes (bends) your knee. In most cases, the Hamstring tends to be weaker than the Quads because the Quads are bigger and are used more frequently in day to day activities.

I’ve suffered from ‘bad’ knees for about a year now. I went to physio, completed my rehab exercises and home works and had the all clear to go back to weight training, but things were never the same.

It is important to have a balance between your Hamstring and your Quads because a strength imbalance increases the risk of injuries, such as damage to your muscles, ligaments and joints. As your Quads contract, your Hamstring lengthens and if you’re Hamstrings are too weak, your Quads will pull your Hamstring faster than it can lengthen, which may be too forceful and that’s where the injury starts.

Putting this into context with my own training regime, it all makes sense. I rarely train my hamstrings anyway, in comparison to my quads, so this does not come as a surprise at all *sigh*.

So how can you fix this problem then? It’s simple, train your Hamstring!

There are several exercises that can be done, which I will list below:

1.     Stiff Leg Deadlift 

2.     Lying leg curl 

3.     Good mornings 

4.     Exercise ball curls 

5.     Kettlebell deadlifts 

6.     Glute bridge 

All these exercises should help increase the ratio between your hamstrings and your quadriceps, which should hopefully fix the problem.

G

 

Can you increase your breasts through exercise?

Recently, I’ve had a few comments from several people about how small my boobs have gone ...and on reflection…its true eccckkkkkk

I blame the cardio to be honest, because when I first started working out, I was a 32DD and now I’m a ...never mind! But anyway, I’ve done my research and I have good news and bad news. I’ll start with the bad news first…

Unfortunately, breasts do not have a lot of muscle tissue in them, so they are not like your glutes, where if you were to go crazy on the squats and lunges, you bum would get bigger. Your breasts are pretty much made up of fatty tissues and the size of your breasts depends on how much fat your body stores in certain places. This is based on things like your genetics, weight, health and age. So, in my case, my fat stores in my stomach, legs and bum. However, although breasts have limited muscle tissues in them, the muscles that lie underneath your breasts (your pecs), are responsible for the ‘perkiness’ of your breasts.

The good news is you can make your breasts more predominate and “perky” by increasing the size of your pecs, which in most cases, should make them appear bigger.

How can you do this? Simply by doing the exercises and eating the specific foods I mention below.

Exercises

Dumbbell Chest Press

Using two hand weights, lie on a mat or stability ball or incline bench. Your knees should be bent at a 90-degree angle. Hold dumbbells next to your arm pits with knuckles facing forward. Count to three as you push the weights up away from your chest, until your arms are almost straight above you. Slowly lower back to starting position using the same number of counts.

*At an incline, the chest press builds the top of the chest directly underneath the collarbone. This pulls skin upwards, causing the breasts to be lifted.
  

 

*At a decline angle, the lower part of the pectoral muscle is worked, which is directly under the fullest part of the breast tissue. The extra muscle depth provides structure underneath the fatty tissue, pushing it both forward and slightly upwards.

Dumbbell Flys

Lay in the same position as you would for a bench press. Instead this time, place both hands above your chest with arms straight, elbows slightly bent and knuckles facing out to the side. Open arms out wide and lower your arms until your elbows are in line with your shoulders, taking three or four counts. Bring back to starting position using the same amount of counts.

The dumbbell fly works the centreline of your chest, which will give you the appearance of more cleavage.

Isometric Chest Contractions

Stand straight with your knees slightly bent. Grab each end of a towel and hold it straight out in front of you at shoulder level. Now pull the towel at opposite ends at the same time, using small pulsing motions. Try to keep the towel taut in between pulses. Continue for one minute, repeat three times.

Push Up

Lie stomach-down on the floor with your arms bent at your sides and your palms flat against the floor. Push up with your arms to raise your torso, keeping your knees straight and your toes on the floor. Continue pushing up until your arms are straight. Lower yourself slowly back to the floor, then repeat.

This provides almost the exact same benefit as the flat chest press, except many more muscle groups are engaged when you do this bodyweight exercise. Your abdominals, hip flexors, lower back, quads, triceps, calves and obliques all have to pitch in to complete this motion.

Food

Estrogen is the main hormone responsible for breast growth and development. This hormone helps females to get right body curves and also plays an important role in breast growth. By eating foods higher in Estrogen, you will boost your natural Estrogen production, which should help your breasts grow.

The recommended foods are:

• Apples
• Plums
• Peppers
• Cucumber
• Beets
• Rice
• Barley
• Wheat
• Sunflower
• Parsley
• Clover flax seed
• Soybeans
• Kidney beans
• Peas


Please remember, like any other fitness goal you are trying to achieve, results are not gained overnight. It will take hard work and consistency, but if you stick at it, you will get there in the end.

G

Portion Control

So my mum always tells me I eat too much. My excuse and response is that I’m active so I need to eat a lot in order to keep me going. However, she might actually be right. I’ve been a serious lover of food from when I was a child and on reflection; I can honestly say that I’m quite greedy.

However, that’s all soon to change, because I’ve bought something that will help me adjust my portions.

Meet the Meal Measure …

This brilliant gadget is a plastic portion control guide that fits right over your plate. You can measure your protein, starch, vegetables and fruit for perfect portions. Each hole of the meal measurer has a 1 cup and 1/2-cup mark so you can adjust portions for your individual dietary needs.

What I really like about the Meal Measure, is the fact that you don't have to use measuring cups or scales to figure out just the right food portions for your meals. All you need is your Meal Measure, which will fit in most standard sized dinner plates. It’s easy to use, easy to clean and a handy alternative to an individual portion plate as you can use it to measure more than one meal at once.

The only thing I would say is that it is a bit over priced. I paid £15 for mine on eBay. Also, the product doesn’t come with any guidelines as to whether you should have half a cup or a full cup, but for me, a full cup is less than what I usually consume anyway, so it’s still been a massive help.
I ordered mine from eBay; however they also sell it on Amazon as well.

Using the Meal Measure has shown me how much I’ve been over eating over the years and although it’s a bit pricey, I think it’s a very good investment.  It definitely gets Just Geen’s stamp of approval.

G

Fitness Myths

Since it’s the beginning of the year, and a lot of people have taken their first steps to a healthy lifestyle, I thought it would be appropriate to discuss the exercise myths; I first faced when I began working out.












Myth 1: Women who lift weights become masculine




Fact: In regards to muscle size, testosterone is a key ingredient. Men have 20 to 30 times more testosterone than women, which is why they bulk up so easily. However, for a woman to reach a masculine physique, she would need to do far more weight-lifting than the average woman, and also have some sort of hormone imbalance (either genetic or induced with steroids). To be honest, weight training helps burn fat and tones the muscles, so it should be incorporated in your routine.










Myth 2: Only doing ab workouts will give you abs




Fact: The truth is you can do as many crunches as you like, but unless you get rid of the fat on top of your abs, your abs will never show through. The more reps you do, just increases muscle memory, rather than burning fat. For your abs to be visible, you would need to reduce your overall body fat because unfortunately you cannot spot- train and pick and choose areas where you’d like to burn fat. By doing cardio eating clean, and accompanying this with core workouts, your body fat should decrease, allowing your abs to eventually show.












Myth 3: You're not working hard enough if you are not sweating




Fact: Sweating does not necessarily mean you are working hard. Some people, like me, have high sweat glands so they sweat easily. I mean I get sweaty just by walking from my house to the station. Sweating does not mean you are actually burning fat. Sweating is a way of your body cooling itself whilst you’re working out. You initially loose water weight after an intense workout, but as soon as you drink fluids, you will replenish the water weight lost.












Myth 4: More hours spent in the gym leads to better results




Fact: Overtraining stops muscle growth. Instead of your body rebuilding its muscle tissues, it'll continue to break it down, which means you'll actually start to lose muscle. The key is to train smarter and not harder.












Myth 5: If you're not sore or in pain, you're not working out hard enough




Soreness can come from many different factors that have nothing to do with the quality of your workout. For example, the type of workout you're doing, what you eat before and after your workouts or whether you stretched after your workouts. A good way to judge the quality of your workout is by wearing a heart rate monitor and working at 60 to 85 percent of your maximum heart rate.












Myth 6: Muscle turns into fat




Fact: You can’t turn muscle into fat, the same way you can’t turn fat into muscle. Building muscle and losing body fat are two completely different processes and while this can be done at the same time, it is very rare. Most of the time, you need to focus on one objective before you can focus on another. This is because, in order to gain muscle, you must consume more calories than you burn and, in order to lose body fat, you must burn more calories than you consume so your body will find it difficult to do both at the same time. 












There are too many myths to mention, but these are the most common 'myths' I hear when I'm in the gym, so with that said I will leave it here for now.




I hope this helps.




G

Just Geens Plantain Pancakes

Ingredients

·         1 and ¼ super ripe plantain, when I say super ripe I mean one that is dark brown/black in colour and squishy
·   1 egg
·         250 ml wheat flour
·         250 ml almond milk
·         1 tea spoon coconut oil
·         1 heaping teaspoon cinnamon (or more)
·         2 tablespoons of honey
·         1 handful of blueberries
 

Instructions

1.       Mix your pancake ingredients together: eggs, wheat flour, almond milk, coconut oil, cinnamon and 1 plantain (you’ll use the remaining ¼ for your syrup), until you get a smooth thick paste. I used a blender because whisking the plantain would have taken ages.

2.       Now heat up whatever you love to cook your pancakes on. I used a non stick frying pan and added a teaspoon of coconut oil.

3.       Add a small amount of your pancake mix to the hot frying pan and cook until bubbles begin to appear in the batter then flip. Cook for about 2 minutes per side, depending how big you make them.  I find that wheat flour makes the pancakes fluffy and softer than normal pancakes, so it breaks a lot easier. I would suggest making the pancakes small. The smaller you make them, the easier they are to flip and not break apart.

4.       Make all your pancakes.

5.       Dice the left over plantain into small pieces and fry for about 2-3 minutes.

6.       Add 2 tablespoons of honey and a handful of blueberries to the diced plantain and let it simmer for a minute.

7.       Stack your pancakes and pour your syrup on top.

Bon Appétit

G

GYMS KITCHEN

Gyms Kitchen – the UK’s first protein based restaurant.

They're definitely not lying; this restaurant is every gym go-ers heaven. Since it opened in 2012, I’ve heard nothing but good things. But word of mouth isn’t always gospel, so I decided to take a trip down there and try it out for myself.

My experience was nothing short of amazing. With fitness quotes on the wall such as “eat clean, train dirty”, pictures of the ‘fitness evolution’ and the weightlifting toilet signs, the restaurant's decor was impressive and it won me over, before I had even tasted the food. You can tell that a lot of thought went into creating the perfect atmosphere.

The menu was overwhelming, with so many options to choose from. Porridge, eggs, protein pancakes, wraps, sea food, smoothies anything healthy you can think of; it was all there. What I really liked about their menu was, not only did it provide you with the amount of calories per dish, it also listed the nutritional value contained in each dish, such as the fat content, the grams of protein and grams of carbs, which is pretty handy for a gym go-er, like myself.

As this trip was after a workout, myself and @bigboatstrainingroom were keen to fuel our muscles with as much protein as possible. For starters, we were served carrots and celery with homemade hummus. If you’re a hummus fan, then you’ll appreciate the authentic taste, in comparison to the store bought ones from places like Tesco and Asda.

For our mains, we decided to share the mixed grill platter. The platter was protein heaven and contained 268g of protein, split between both of us. The feast included Chicken Wings, Lamb Cubes, Chicken Cubes, Butterfly Chicken and, of course Lamb Chops, which we washed down with a Banana and Peanut Butter protein shake. The portions were generous and accompanied by a garnish salad and Gym’s Kitchen sauces. I wasn’t too fond of their chicken, but I would highly recommend the lamb. The lamb did not disappoint, they were perfect, succulent yet crispy and rightly seasoned.

To seal off the occasion, we decided to share their Protein Pancake Tower combo. The tower consisted of three different types of pancakes; Apple Crunch Protein, Banana & Chocolate Protein and Blueberry Protein. They were topped with fresh fruit and served with honey drizzle and peanut butter. The pancakes were a perfect way to end my experience and are a good alternative for those with a sweet tooth.

Overall, my experience at gyms kitchen was 10/10. The restaurant is a prime example that you can eat out and enjoy a healthy meal without having to restrict to a salad. Their nutritional balanced menu doesn’t hold back on taste and I would highly recommend this to anyone.

They currently have two locations:

Restaurant 1- 388-392 High Road, Leyton, E10 6QE

Restaurant 2- 376 – 378 Cranbrook Road, Gants Hill, Essex, IG2 6HW

For any non-east Londoners, I suggest you give either branch a visit. Trust me; it is definitely worth the journey.

G

Impossible is Nothing

I can't believe its 2014 already! I guess it's time to reflect on last years achievements and assess what changes you want to make in the New Year. Don't be discouraged if you didn't achieve all your goals, use this year as an opportunity to prioritise the goals you didn't achieve last year. 

However, be realistic when goal setting. Sometimes we aim to accomplish 101 things by the end of the year, without assessing whether this is even feasible. I mean there's no point completing the year having completed all your goals half heartedly. 

As the year was coming to an end, I got a bit upset that I didn't get to complete everything I set out to do. Nevertheless, I realised that there was a reason for the delay and it just wasn't the right time.

However, I have so many things to be thankful for that I don't even know where to begin. I'm not going to list all of them, because you probably don't want to hear them lol, but what I will say is, blogging has shown me that nothing is impossible.

Blogging was one of my resolutions last year and within a year I've had over 30,000 views. Anyone who knows me personally knows that I was very nervous and scared about blogging. I put it off for the longest time. I was scared that no one would read it or that it would be rubbish. To some people it may be just that, but my hits tell me I'm doing something right. I have had nothing but positive feedback and I would just like to say a big thank you to everyone that has followed me and supported me on my journey.

Your support means a lot to me and is the motivation I need to keep doing what I'm doing. I know I've said this before, but when I first started my journey it was all about me. I wasn't doing it to benefit anyone else and it was all about my personal gain. I was just a girl who liked posting gym pictures on Instagram, but I soon came to realise that I was beginning to inspire those around me without even noticing it, and for those reasons, I won't stop doing what I'm doing.

My advice for this year would be set yourself realistic goals that way you’re more likely to stick to it. If your goal is to finally get active and lose weight, instead of it being a resolution, why not have it as a change in lifestyle with the intention of it lasting a lifetime. As I've said before, fitness isn't a destination but rather a journey. It’s much harder to maintain your results once you've reached your goal.

I would suggest creating a 2014 vision board and placing images and words of all the things you want to accomplish this year. Have this board in a place you will see everyday. This should keep you on track and act as a constant reminder of your objectives for that year. Sometimes having your goals on paper, is what you need to take the steps to make it a reality. 

Let's make 2014 a productive year and focus on making those dreams a reality.

G