Step into a BODYCOMBAT workout and you’ll punch and kick your way to fitness, burning up to 740 calories along the way. This high-energy martial-arts inspired workout is totally non-contact and there are no complex moves to master. A LES MILLS instructor will challenge you to up the intensity and motivate you to make the most of every round. You’ll release stress, have a blas

With live and virtual classes to choose from what are you waiting for? We hold BODYCOMBAT classes everyday. So get yourself booked on today!

For more information and to book online make sure to click here!

We all know that keeping our little angels occupied can be a difficult task at the best of times. As society drifts increasingly towards living our lives online, it can be even harder to convince the techie generation to take advantage of alternative methods of entertainment.

I’m not going to whine on about increasing rates of childhood obesity – that’s another post entirely, haha! That said, we are staging an intervention at Diana’s – it’s time for kids to be active, happy and healthy! To assist with this, we’re opening our doors to the under 15s until 30^th April 2016 for free with any Diana’s member!

We’re hoping this will help you turn family time into fitness time and get your kids excited about being active again. We understand that gyms can often feel like adult-only spaces but we’re keen to highlight the importance of family exercise.

By incorporating fitness as a standard family activity, you’re paving the way for your child to build it into their adult lives too, ensuring they are fit and healthy for life!

Burn off that energy!

Studies have shown that adults need on average 150 minutes of moderate exercise a week and that children need even more – up to 60 minutes per day! No wonder they don’t want to go to bed early! Get them using that energy in a productive way.

Family support

Getting the kids involved in family fitness isn’t just about their development – they can be a terrific support system to keep mum and dad on track too. Just try and skip out on an arranged session with the excuse of being too tired and see how it goes down.

Making family exercise a tradition from an early age can also help when your kids hit those straining teenage years. It provides a routine that naturally brings the family together even during that period when they want to be as far away from their embarrassing parents as possible.

Choosing an activity

There are lots of options at the gym – children are welcome to use the swimming pool, squash courts, gym and take part in exercise classes…there’s just so much choice! Here are our favourites to get you started:

1. Squash

A fantastic activity for ages 4+, squash certainly keeps you on your toes and improves your dexterity, coordination and general fitness. We are a Gold Clubmark England Squash Club and PROUD! This means that we have a great reputation for our Squash and Racketball facilities as well as being a hub for S&R tournaments, both national and local…what better place to learn?!

2. Swimming

Exercising in water is a fantastic way to get an all over body workout, low impact on your joints and of course great cardio too! Take part in lane swimming, Aqua Zumba classes or even learn to swim for the first time with our Swim School & 1-2-1- lessons…it’s never too late or too early to learn!

3. Junior Crossfit

Inspiring the next generation of athletes, your little one could be the next Mo Farrah or Jessica Ennis-Hill! We’ll burn off their excess energy in our safe gym environment.

Whatever you choose to do, remember to make it fun and stay safe! It’s easy for children to push themselves too far, particularly when they are enthusiastic and enjoying themselves. Make sure you build in regular breaks and keep hydrated!

It is often said that yoga has healing powers. Our expert trainers know for a fact that downwards dog could be the key to better muscle strength, better health and even a better night’s sleep.
Yoga has been getting countless celebrities hitting their mats recently and displaying their love of the lotus position by posting some seriously inspiring selfies.

Jessica Alba, Ellie Goulding, Lea Michele of Glee and Lady Gaga are just among the many, many celebs caught up in the yoga craze. Even Beyoncé has been posting pics on Instagram with her latest ‘bridge’ pose!

What is yoga all about?

Yoga is a calming, comforting ancient form of exercise first developed in Northern India. The discipline uses meditation and a variety of postures to affect both the body and the mind. The use of the ‘Om’ sound not only relaxes and encourages breath control but can even open the sinuses to combat any head colds. It can also aid your immune system fight off any unwanted illnesses.

The postures themselves can be used to improve a person’s posture, and can seriously help the spine in doing so, so anyone who knows the aches of sitting behind a desk could have their pain taken away by practicing yoga. It can also help with your balance and flexibility by keeping your joints working and strong to prevent any cartilage breakdown and releasing any pent-up tension.

Yoga is excellent for the blood, too! It may sound strange, and even scientists are struggling to figure out how it does it, but yoga can increase blood flow and even lower blood pressure and blood sugar, leading to some significant health benefits. It’s even proved to be good for your bones and therefore your core strength.

The celebrities have got it right!

Even if your health is tip-top right now, yoga has another purpose. Many studies have shown that yoga can actually make you live a much happier life. In completing the exercises on a regular basis, yoga allows you to be much more focussed and relaxed so if the stresses of the work day are on your shoulders, shrug them off with a shoulder-stand instead.

If we’ve convinced you that yoga is the way to go, join in with the yoga selfies and send them our way!

Post them on our Facebook page: Diana’s Health & Fitness or Tweet us your pics: @Dianas_Gym

HIIT stands for High Intensity Interval Training, and it is ideal for anyone pushed for time, hence the words ‘high intensity’. 20 – 30 minutes of training can be equal to a whole hour’s moderate workout, which means that you don’t need to worry about spending hours of the time you don’t have.

HIIT is also significantly effective in gaining muscle and reducing fat and studies have shown clear results of the benefits of high intensity sessions when compared to slower cardio sessions. Not only does it affect you while at the gym, but has a strong after-effect that aids your workout even further. This training increases the metabolic afterburn, meaning you will continue to burn calories up to 6 hours after leaving the gym!

What can HIIT involve?

Tabata is a great form of HIIT that really burns fat and builds muscle. It can be used for any type of exercise, and emphasises the high intensity part of the training by allowing you to complete short bursts of all-out activity with minor breaks in between each one. For example, you could do 20 seconds of strong, full-on training and break for 10 seconds before repeating this 8 or more times to total around 4 minutes of workout.

Of course, this is only one example of a massive variety of workouts you can do using this method of training. But that doesn’t mean that you should be using this method all of the time – as HIIT is so intense, too much of it can be damaging, so you need to know how to pace yourself.

What we can do

We can figure out exactly how much training you need and can monitor how it is working for you personally. At Diana’s, we run HIIT classes Monday-Thursday, Saturday and Sunday, combining cardio exercises and muscular toning in our get-lean programme.

So what are you waiting for. HIIT the gym!

Between weekends and school holidays, children have plenty of free time to use up all that pent-up energy youth provides them with but too often we find them slumped in front of games consoles, while the sun is shining.

At Diana’s we’re staging a fitness intervention – it’s time for kids to active, happy and healthy!

Tennis

Use the impact of Wimbledon to get children picking up a racket and heading straight to the courts. It’s the perfect summer sport and they can learn lots of different skills from serving to volleying.

Play together as a family in a round-robin tournament or if you’re feeling brave play a game of kids vs. parents – winners get first dibs on the strawberries and cream! Game, set and match!

Squash

This racket sport is a year round favourite and its fast moving pace is ideal for children. Challenge the kids to see how long they can maintain a rally for – with the ball whizzing around at speeds up to 170mph they’ll definitely be kept on their toes!

Whether they’d like to improve their game or learn a new sport, we have several Junior Squash coaches who can help them develop their skills while having fun in lively sessions.

Football

The nation’s favourite sport is everywhere: from the buzzing Premier League to Sunday league and the recent surge of Women’s football following England Ladies success.

Start off by taking a ball to the park for a kick about with jumpers as goal posts, and you could soon be signing them up to weekly coaching sessions for boys and girls of all abilities.

Swimming

Swimming is a life skill in itself but making a splash in the pool is also relaxing and lots of fun! Let them embrace being a merperson with swimming lessons to teach them how to have fun and be safe in water.

Grab your goggles and join them in the swimming pool to help them practice their different strokes – children always enjoy showing off their new skills.

Athletics

Have fun as a family by creating a mini Olympics; each family member represents a different country and you compete in different activities from long jump to sprinting.

You could even introduce silly activities such as the three-legged race and egg-and-spoon! By keeping score the kids will experience and enjoy the adrenaline associated with physical activity.

Gym

Did you know children as young as 11 have access to our cardio equipment when supervised by an adult? The gym is a perfect introduction to a healthy lifestyle, where they can watch and learn how you work out.

We have child and family membership options available – we’re a fitness family!

Read the tips below and start making your fitness plan.

Training

Back to Basics

First, and probably most importantly, don’t forget the basics. Throwing yourself into a complex workout routine in your first weeks back after the holidays can be a daunting task. Keeping things simple will allow you to get back into the swing of things more effectively than jumping straight in at the deep-end.

Compounds are Key

Be smart about your training. Don’t waste hours at the gym training using every piece of equipment and doing every exercise under the sun. Compound exercise will build more muscle and burn more fat than isolations. So, if all you’ve got is 30 minutes to workout on your lunch break, don’t waste it doing 4 sets of bicep curls. Stick to compound lifts for the best and quickest results.

Form Over Ego

Don’t go too heavy or do too much. When jumping back into the gym lots of people make the mistake of lifting too heavy or doing too much. Remember you’ve just had a break from the gym and may have even lost a little strength or muscle mass during your merry holidays. Take it slow and steady. There’s no shame in lifting lighter dumbbells for the first few weeks. Equally important as not lifting too heavy is form. Form trumps weight, there’s not debating it. Always remember to get the most out of your weight training, control the lowering portion of the exercise. Slowly lower for 3 to 4 seconds to get the best results.

Avoiding the Rush

With all the masses taking up a health and fitness resolution, the Club will be extra busy this time of year. So to get the best possible workout and not have to wait, try changing your training time. Your body will adjust to a different training time in a few days and after that it becomes routine.

Mixing Things Up

Many people see cardio or weight training as the enemy. Try mixing up your workouts to get the most out of your training and really give your body a kick-start to achieve your goals. Or maybe try something completely new like one of the many classes on offer here at the Club.

Nutrition

Don’t Restrict

Changing your eating habits can be a great way to lose weight and look your best, but changing it too quickly and severely can have a negative effect on your mood and stop you achieving your goals. Some of your favourite ‘unhealthy’ foods can be too tempting to resist after a long day and hard workout, and having them can cause you to binge on more ‘unhealthy’ foods. To avoid this don’t restrict just control. If you love some peanut butter have a smaller serving every few days or, if you crave a bowl of ice cream for dessert, schedule a day a week where you allow a little indulgence. Controlling your eating habits in this way will keep you sane and keep you on track.

Gradual Changes

As with training, don’t jump in too fast. Making gradual changes to your nutrition every week will allow you to stick to your new eating habits a lot longer than jumping in and restricting everything from the start.

Motivation

Don’t be fooled by the Water Weight

After all the merriment of the holidays, your body is bound to be holding onto a little bit of extra water. After you start training and eating better you might find a few more pounds dropping off the scale than usual. But don’t be fooled. The maximum you should aim to lose in a week is 1lb (0.5kg). Anymore than that and you may not be eating enough, which could cause you to put the weight back on more easily when you’ve hit your target weight.

Setting Goals

Always start small. Setting your long-term goal is great, but not having short-term goals can leave you unmotivated after a few weeks. Simple things per week, like going to a extra class or lifting 10kg more, can be the different between sticking to your resolution or crashing a few weeks in.

Partner Up

Sharing a resolution can be a great way to stay motivated and help someone else achieve their goals too. Working out with other people is a great way to keep you focussed on your fitness goals and help you both stay on track. Plus the competitive edge can give you a boost during your training routines.

Need a Helping Hand?

And of course, if you really want to get the most out of your workouts, why not speak to one of our experienced Personal Trainers and book a taster session.

When first joining a gym to improve fitness and lose weight, it can be a very daunting experience. You start the journey with an eagerness to fulfil your goals but as time goes by your motivation starts to flag and your training becomes stagnant, leading to you slowly losing all interest.

Smash your fitness goals with group exercise

Group exercise classes can reignite your passion for the gym and set you back on your weight loss and fitness journey. You will have more fun exercising with the group than if you were alone and you meet people who have similar goals to you. You’ll quickly find these new found friends will encourage you to attend more regularly and boost your motivation to meet those goals.

Achieve more with motivational instructors

Working out as a group with a dedicated instructor challenges you to push beyond your own perceived limitations. I monitor each member of my classes closely and motivate you to push past the fatigue.

I also encourage you by helping you improve your form and providing hints and tips throughout the class. I like you to understand how the exercise is impacting your body too so we discuss the muscles worked and benefits you should expect to see over time.

Join our family

Group exercise is like belonging to a family. We all go through the pain and the joy of success together. We praise each other to boost esteem and work together to stay on track. Classes quickly become addictive!

Try a class today and join our family!