Learning From Each Other.

So folks this week i found out I'm successfully graduating with a 2:1 BSc Hons Degree in Physiotherapy, which i am over the moon about! 

People have been congratulating me all week, praising me for for hard work and wishing me good luck for the future. But as I have officially finished the last stage of formal education I have really started to reflect on the past couple of years, especially regarding my educational and professional and professional life. 

Yes I have graduated with (what society would dictate) a decent degree level but can I really take the credit!? In short; I would say the majority of my progression has been down to the time given and the caring attitude from my peers, colleagues, friends and family. Yes they maybe didn't put pen to paper or strip off in class to do countless physio assessments! But, they  carried me through all the difficult parts, and, nurtured what little knowledge I had, developed it, and fined tuned it.

I've met a lot of different people in the last few years, many of whom I will never forget because they took their own time ( and sometimes money) and they decided they would use these two valuable resources many of us hold dear, to help me become better at being....well, me! NOT because they thought I was some prodigy, genius, on the road to discovering a cure to cancer or how to turn water into fuel, but simply because of the kindness in their own hearts to help someone who was finding it tough. And we all know life is tough, no matter what your doing whether its: Uni, work, socially etc.  

On my last placement during of University, each week some of my colleagues took 1 - 2 hours out of their own time to teach me certain aspects I was struggling with. In fact, during these 1 -2 hours per week I often learnt more than the countless lectures i attended in University. Now this doesn't mean that lectures are in no way helpful, they definitely are but It allowed me to improve myself as a Physiotherapist and wherein the situation where lets say these kind individuals didn't take this time to talk to me, I may have been totally lost during the final stages of my Uni career.

As you all know I'm also heavily involved in the world of fitness, nutrition etc. Although i say i'm heavily involved, there is a wealth of knowledge for me to develop. I have had the amazing opportunity to question various trainers and nutritionists to 'pick their brains,' ask them questions and for their opinions! Anyone I contacted, were more than helpful, answering any question I put to them. This again does not reflect on me, as i'm sure these individuals have answered the same question time and time again. The fact is, they again, took the time out of their own schedule to help another individual.

So what am I saying? 

Yeah, certainly go get the qualifications, learn the ropes, the basics. But while you're doing that, I want you all to go and talk to others, learn from them, their experiences, ups and downs. Question them on aspects you're struggling with and don't be afraid, they will have experienced the struggle on the way as well. 

BUT....

In 10 years time when YOU are the expert, and someone wants to learn from you....do them the kindness that others showed you early in your career.

So, as I'm about to graduate in a couple of weeks I just want to thank all those who have supported me as I am about to start into step into the big bad world of employment, jobs, finance and continual professional development. Special thanks to: my girlfriend, parents, andrew and james (two of my tutors), all the physios at Ballymena Outpatients, friends (especially Reuben, Karl, Gareth: for keeping me sane), all the staff at Style n Sport and Creative Gardens, everyone who has ever taken the time to talk to me....

Any success I may have later in life, will come majorly from these people. Thank You!

Help Each Other!

Thank for reading!

Ethan

Monday Blues: Pet Peeves At The Gym

There are no words or actions strong enough to express my annoyance at how quickly our weekend has disappeared and the demands of our overseers (employers) and financial contracts come calling. Very quickly we our thrown back into the joy that is: phonecalls, paperwork, clients, manual labor, cleaning and selling. 

The result is a depressed, bitter, hypersensitive employee, ready to bite the head off the first person who is brave enough to talk to us. So as i gather my clothes, trainers, chalk and supplements to head off the gym I cant help but think of the awfully annoying situations we all face when we head to the gym. So here are my top 5:

1. A cluttered gym floor: full of un-racked weight plates, dumbbells, water bottles, towels, shakers, shoes, chalk, belts, phones, supplements, energy bar wrappers, cleaning tissues and spillages.

We all see those messy people who leave the gym looking like a crash site. People we must remember that when you go into a gym, it is NOT YOUR GYM. You are paying for the privilege to use someone elses gym. Could you imagine if someone came to your house to workout and left your home gym looking like the above picture? You would freak out! So as a guide i want you all to follow the list below, ensuring you respect each and every gym member and gym provider:

• Strip the bar of weights when you're done with it.
• Put the dumbbells back on the rack when your finished with them.
• When you've drank your water and finished your energy bar, put the rubbish in the bin. 
• If you're not finished your drink, place it neatly out of the way, NOT in the middle of the gym floor.
• If you spill anything or notice you've left a rather large sweat patch, clean it up! Use the tissue and cleaning liquid provided!
• The same goes for any spillages of supplements or chalk. If not cleaned up soon, these can stain and small!
• Then put the tissue you've used, into the bin! Do not just throw it anywhere.
• If training barefoot or in sock, leave your trainers neatly to the side, away from everyone else. 
• The same goes for belts, straps and chains.
• And keep your phone in your pocket (better yet, keep it in your locker). Too many phones get broken in the gym because they've been left in stupid places.

2. Groups/Lazyness/Phone users:

Guys, remember why we all go to the gym.......To work out! Exercise! Become healthy! There is nothing wrong with chatting for a minute or two with your friends or colleagues at the gym but please don't do it at the expense or other people's workout, or your own. Gyms can become very busy, very quickly and people often have to squeeze the gym into a very busy time schedule so please, when you're done with a machine, move quickly out of the way or move onto your next exercise. If you want to socialize, go to Starbucks. Again, the same goes to those who for example are bench pressing, finish a set of 12 reps then lay down on the bench for half an hour before they move onto the next one! Keep pushing yourself! Power lifters or those of disciplined strength building programs are the minority who should be resting for longer periods of time, so, when you are done with a set, time yourself until the next, or, get some help from a trainer to properly design a program. And if you're excessively using your phone instead of working out, leave it in the locker!

3. People who make fun of those who are fat/overweight/obese/heavy (whatever the current PC term is) who are clearly at the gym because they are trying to lose that weight!

Why! Why! Why! Why! Why! Anyone who I ever see doing this is promptly asked to leave! Bullying of any sort is wrong and I have no respect at all for those who I catch doing it. People who are fat (and yes i will use the word fat) are individuals are image and body conscious. They have been driven by society to feel that they have to look like a fitness model for people to pay attention to them. Often they are lonely, scared and quiet BUT more often than not they are more genuine and friendly than the ripped-to-shreds guy or sexy hourglass figure girl next to you. You who makes fun of fat people, do not know their story, you do not know how or why that person is overweight (you are maybe even the reason why) and you certainly are in no place to make fun of them for trying to live a healthier lifestyle. They have taken the all important step towards preventing the many chronic illnesses that they are at risk to: lowering their cholesterol, lowering their blood pressure, lowering their blood sugars and lowering their waistline measurements. In fact to put it plainly if you make fun of someone going to the gym because they are fat, your are effectively saying you do not want them to be healthy and you would rather they developed a chronic disease like diabetes, heart disease or cancer. Doesn't sound too nice at all when you put it like that. Anyone who has felt victimized because of bullying keep an eye out for a future blog on the topic. But for now, I have provided a couple of links below for organisations you can contact for help and support:

http://www.stopbullying.gov/
http://www.nationalbullyinghelpline.co.uk/
http://www.samaritans.org/

4. Posers

Now I can sympathize with pulling a few poses in the mirror once or twice a workout. It's nice to see that pump have an almighty effect on your muscle and its good to track your progress. But, please don't make a habit of it. We as gym users do not want to tred on eggshells walking in and around all your flamboyant poses in front of the dumbbell rack. We just want to lift our weights and get on with our workout, which is what you should be doing too! If you want to spend half an hour just posing, do it at home!

5. Bro-science guy/girl

These are the guys/girls that tell us "you have to drink your protein shake within 5 minutes after your workout or it doesn't have any effect" or, "lift light weights for 50 repetition sets for 5 sets and that will tone you up and help you lose weight". There are a multitude of these expressions collectively known as Bro-Science or simply just: "rubbish." In case anyone is wondering, those two statements above are FALSE. It is comments like these that drive fitness professionals like myself mad because we have to spend 15 minutes of every one hour slot explaining to clients, that what they have been told during the week by their gym buddies is wrong and then we explain why its wrong and then we explain the correct answer. This useless information usually comes from people who have heard or read something through the grapevine who spin it off as the gospel truth, which it then falls into a game of gym chinese whispers and finally rests on another poor soul who adapts it 100% to his lifestyle. If you hear something that doesn't quite sound right, then read around the topic first. Or ask a trainer or nutritionist. Don't immediately tell everyone its the new secret to fat loss or muscle building! That being said, below is a link to a very funny guy called Dom, who is obviously joking around in his videos, but the stuff he comes off with are the type of things people preach as Gods divine word. Have a watch to see what i mean:

As I finish this blog I've very quickly realized that there are many other pet peeves, so there may well be another similar blog in the future. But for now, comment your pet peeves below, let me know what you hate/dislike at the gym!

Ethan

All about me

So you've read on the amazing posts to come from my welcome post - if not, why not? Just kidding, but to find out what is to come after this slight deter, give the welcome post a good read.

Regardless you're probably wondering the following:

1. Who on earth is this guy?
2. Why should I listen to him?

To answer these questions and the many more probably rattling round in those heads of yours, it give you a brief history of who Ethan Lowry is.

Some details first:

• Full name: Ethan Stewart Lowry
• What age am I: 20
• Where do I live: Portglenone,  Northern Ireland, United Kingdom
• What school did I go to: Ballymena Academy
• What University (college for you americans) did I go to: University of Ulster, Jordanstown Campus, Bsc Hons Physiotherapy
• What religion am I: Christian

So where does my story begin?

To keep it applicable to my job and this blog, it spare you the details of my first 10/11 years of my life - Thank goodness you all say! Don't worry its not going to be a day to day diary of my life. Events like how I was so distraught that my primary school crush ended up falling for my best friend, is in the past. You'll be happy to know this post isn't going to be about such trivial matters.

I start at the first most influential moment of my childhood, when I had just started secondary school, my beloved Ballymena Academy.  I was so engrossed in being involved in such a sport driven school, twice a week or more we ran the rugby pitches practising our plays for the game on Saturday, once a week we had p.e. and every Wednesday we had games which involved a myriad of sports and activities. So I was definitely an active child, encouraged by my sport driven father and a wildly competitive family, you can soon see how the seeds where planted when it comes to sport and exercise. But something strange began happening a couple of months in at my first year in school. I was drinking lots!  Just to clarify, I was not drinking alcohol, I did not suffer from alcohol abuse at age 11. I just couldn't get enough water, I would drink and drink and drink and it would never be satisfied. I was leaving class, saying I was going to the toilet and secretly running to the nearest water fountain. A week went by  and I was still feeling like this and then one night, BAM, I wet the bed. Yep that's right, wet the bed. At this point I was freaking out, so I told the parents the symptoms I had been experiencing and so the next day they took me down to the Doctors to get checked out. The doctor asked a few question, done some blood work and that was it, he turned round and said "DIABETES." I was confused, I'd never eaten a lot sweets, sugar or bad foods, we were a relatively healthy family. I was eventually diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes melitus. But my diabetes is for another blog.

Testing blood sugars...
One of the many annoying aspects of diabetes

I progressed through school being involved in various sports but mainly rugby and eventually football. My rugby career came to an abrupt end in my GCSE year when i had a severe break in my collar bone with associated shoulder problems. It healed in approximately a year but the rest of the teams had progressed so much i decided to go for the football team. At the same time I had become more involved in the gym. My best friend and subsequent gym partner became "disciplined" in our own eyes, training 4/5 days a week. And we made pretty good progress, with quite a lot of muscle mass and still staying really lean. But at this stage we just followed the standard  "t-shirt muscles" workout - you know, biceps, chest and abs. The very idea of training legs or back never even crossed our mind. We just wanted to look good - forgetting that other people seen a lot more than what we seen face on in the mirror.

For myself this led to over-pronated shoulders due to tight pectoralis major and minor and weak (never used) back muscles. My core strength was terrible from never squatting and my legs were miserably thin. It wasn't until i went to Uni that i realised how this had affected my posture.


On obtaining the grades i needed to get into Uni i headed off in Autumn 2011 to University of Ulster, Jordanstown Campus, Belfast, to do my dream course of Physiotherapy.

 When i got to Uni everyone wants to make a good impression so I decided heck I'm gonna take my training to a new level, I want to look good - even though from the neck up there wasn't much of a chance. Heck I was happily in a relationship so i wasn't even on the pull. But its a guy thing, what guy doesn't want to look bigger and stronger in front of other guys? Who doesn't want the bulging arms that stretch the probably too tight hollister t-shirt and the rippling abs that you "accidentally" show off when you take off your hoody and the tee just happens to slide up your torso.

But low and behold i walked into one of my first practical class for physiotherapy and the lecturer points to me and says; "Can you come to the front and take off your t-shirt and strip down to your shorts." I didn't mind, I thought I was in pretty good shape and I was pretty lean, but, the lecturer was quick to point out all the parts of my body effected by only training the t-shirt muscles when i was at school. He confirmed my pronated shoulder, weak back muscles - signified by muscle atrophy (wasting) - my weak posterior chain (glutes, hamstrings and calves.) The weak posterior chain led to a lordotic curve in my lumbar (lower) spine . This caused a stretching of my abs and even though i had trained them frequently, the stretch caused them to still be relatively weak. More significantly it also caused a huge "sticky-out-butt," which was very noticeable.

Basically I looked like this!

From this new information I quickly changed around my gym routine. I started squatting loads and you know what, I hated it!! I hated the feeling of being weak at the gym. I mean, when I was training chest i could dumbbell press 35-40kg each arm at 18! I could barely squat with 60kg and i was a broken man for the next few days with doms. But, then i started to see progress. I saw my lordotic curve begin to correct itself and i put on about half a stone of mostly muscle in about 6-8 weeks of squatting like this.

So i progressed through my first year at Uni training away! By the time summer came round I had been thinking more and more about entering into the fitness industry. I saw the way physiotherapist and personal trainers often liaised with each other and it finally clicked, why can't I do both. So, I talked to a number of personal trainers and others in the industry and with the financial assistance from my aunt, I enrolled onto my first Level 2 Fitness Instructor course. I was hooked immediately, I was dying to take it to the next level and couldn't wait to enroll onto a Level 3 Personal Trainer course. But i had a dilemma, I was still at University. I couldn't just take 6 weeks off, especially on a course that involves regular placements. I thought I couldn't progress, but then I found out that the same company offered the level 3 qualification part-time. So, I enrolled. At the same time i had taken various different courses in; kettlebells, spin, boxercise, circuits and kinesiotape therapy.

I began reading more and more around the science of training and nutrition. I wanted to be an expert in the field. I knew I needed to take the brave step and start to attract clients for the first time. Through talking to friends and family I began to devise my own set of kettlebell classes. These ran over a period of 6 weeks right through second year at Uni. The summer months were on me again and i decided to offer a an early morning bootcamp over two months. It was during this time I realised the benefits of early morning rises. Difficult at first, I quickly realised that i had much more energy throughout the day and more of the day to enjoy. Through both the classes and the bootcamp, I knew that i loved what i was doing and I wanted to do it more, but, third year of Uni was coming. Finals, dissertations all loomed. But i knew i had to do something to better my knowledge within the industry. I had been wanting to improve my knowledge of nutrition and because of my ties with Uni it had to be part-time. I decided upon enrolling on an Advanced Diploma in Clinical Nutrition. Which as of yesterday i completed with a distinction an I am already putting it to good use with helping clients control their health and weight through simple and effective programs.

So what is next for me in my life. I was hooked on the knowledge i learnt on my diploma and once my degree finishes this year in April i plan to enroll with the International Society of Sports Nutritionists whilst also taking on an Advanced Diploma through the ISSN as well.

I also am currently planning to apply for a Masters program at the University of Ulster in Sports and Exercise Nutrition.

Hopefully I haven't bored you all senseless with this post but I felt it was important to give you guys an insight as to how i entered and started off my journey into the industry

Where can you find me at:

• Facebook: Ethan Lowry Health & Fitness
• Instagram: @ethanlowry_pt
• Blogger: Ethan Lowry Health and Fitness
• Pinterest: SolidRock Gym
• Twitter: @EthanLowryPT

Many Thanks,

Ethan

Welcome !!

Hey everyone,

Since I'm the only one here at my own first ever blog party, let me be the first to welcome you to the newest family on Health & Fitness street.

WELCOME!!!

My name's Ethan, I've just moved to the area and I need some help. You see that big van there? The one that says knowledge on the side? I would like your help to unload it all. As many people as you can find. Many people make light work!

There's lots of things in it that you might even be interested in. We've got; nutrition tips for fat loss, muscle gain or just general health. 

We also have some great information on fitness, sports and exercise alongside some other great information on: physiotherapy,  rehabilitation and pre-habilitation.  Plus there's a few boxes of; motivation, business tips, people skills and communication, regulations and law and anything and everything in between.

It may seem like a lot of work and a lot of information to unload and sort through but the more people we bring, the easier it's going to be for us all.

Health and fitness are two of my main passions in life. Today more than ever our society is in so much need of a cure, not from factors beyond our control but from simple things like our diet, our daily exercise, stresses in our life. For many of us today all three of these pose a negative effect on our lives, they are detrimental to our health and our longevity. 

If we want to change this, we ourselves as individuals must take that all important step! Through the knowledge and information from myself and others on this near daily blog, I hope that we together can help make a difference in the world of health and fitness.

All blogs, posts, articles and studies will be aimed at a variety of people: fitness professionals, clinicians, therapists, natural or alternative medicinal practitioners BUT most importantly,  the everyday person, who just needs that small spark to ignite that bonfire that is self determination.

Keep watch for my first post on......wait for it.....myself! Just a more detailed introduction of who I am, where I come from and what I do.

Many thanks,

Ethan.