Everybody that comes into the club has a different set of goals and targets that they are trying to reach. For some it’s to be injury-free, others to improve their running performance, but more often than not the average member’s goal is to lose some body fat and feel more confident.
 

Taking a member through a full, in-depth consultation process allows us to uniquely target their goals and assess the timeframe in which they would like to achieve them. Using something called the GTI Principle (Goals, Testing & Intelligence) means we can formulate a plan to hit their goals with the relevant measurements and information needed to educate them on how to execute this plan.
 

For someone who is only looking to lose weight or body fat then the process should be relatively simple. Calculating what that person needs from a daily calorific standpoint and getting them to within a slight calorie deficit should see them drop body fat at a consistent rate. For most people, this is achieved by dropping their daily average calorie intake by 10-20% and increasing their daily activity levels.
 

However, if your goal is to drop body fat but also increase muscle mass levels the process can be a little more technical. The key thing for these two processes to happen at the same time is to make sure you are as healthy as possible. Being healthy has different meanings for each person but for us it is making sure our members are feeling energised, sleeping well and eating a nutrient-rich diet that is high in protein. Beyond this, in order to achieve results you will need to train hard and ensure you are placing great focus on balancing and optimising hormone production as much as possible.
 

The first step is to have your body fat and lean muscle levels tested to establish a starting point. From there you need to be re-measured on a regular basis to ensure constant progression and to allow your Coach to modify your training and nutrition plan accordingly. Our Head of Education and Principal Coach, Mark Roper, does this using the Biosignature method with callipers which is quick, easy, convenient and most importantly accurate.
 

These are the key principles to follow in order to ensure that you are gaining muscle and dropping body fat at the same time:
 

• Follow a strength training programme that creates sufficient muscular damage and applies progressive overload to create hypertrophy of the muscle tissue. 
• Don’t neglect your recovery! You can only train as hard as you can recover so prioritising sleep quality and recovery days will be a huge help. 
• In order to allow your body to use excess calories to gain muscle tissue you will need to be consuming a daily calorie surplus of around 10-20% above what you would normally eat. 
• Nutrient timing is essential to both dropping body fat and gaining lean muscle mass. Aim to time your carbohydrate intake around your training sessions, ideally post-workout and in your evening meals. 
• Make sure your workouts are designed around creating effective nutrient partitioning, this will turn your body into a fat-burning machine, which means that at rest you are burning stored fat and then when training hard you’re using stored glycogen (carbs) in the muscle and liver tissue. 
• Ensure each meal contains a significant amount of protein. At a minimum, you want to have 2g of protein per kg of body weight. 
• Ensure you are sufficiently hydrated. Add electrolytes to your daily water in order to create a more effective sodium/potassium pump which is essential for muscular growth. 

If you would like to have your body fat tested by our Coaches then please get in contact with us – info@coachlondon.uk / +44 20 7315 4260 

Written by Mark Roper, Head of Education and Principal Coach