THE JOOMPA JOURNAL

Fitness industry insights, information and opinion pieces from our experienced exercise professionals, covering everything related to training and nutrition from building muscle to staying motivated.

Understanding Muscle Soreness

Understanding Muscle Soreness

No pain, no gain, right? Not quite. Learn why muscle soreness is rarely a good sign when it comes to making progress.

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Eating Healthy While Eating Out

Eating Healthy While Eating Out

Just because you’re sticking to a particular meal plan doesn’t mean you have to stick to meal prep! From simple salad swaps to ordering your sauce separately, these are simple strategies that can help a night out fit into your nutrition plan.

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Quick Tips to Help Weight Loss

Quick Tips to Help Weight Loss

Forget ‘fitfluencers’ promising you the ‘best exercises to lose weight!’ - because there really is no such thing. Weight loss comes down to one simple equation: calories in vs. calories out. Here are six simple tips to help you burn more calories and keep you on the right side of a calorie deficit.

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Women Who Lift: An Empowering Movement, Falsely Marketed

Women Who Lift: An Empowering Movement, Falsely Marketed

For decades, the average gym-going female was discouraged from lifting heavy weights. Then, slowly, people began to understand the connection between genetics and adaptation to training. But has the pendulum now swung too far in the other direction?

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Staying Motivated for Home Workouts

Staying Motivated for Home Workouts

In the face of a global lockdown, home workouts are more popular than ever. However, the novelty has faded a little bit as the pandemic drags on. Here are a few ways to stay motivated to keep moving, even if you're staying indoors.

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Supersets & Compound Sets: Analysis & Application

Supersets & Compound Sets: Analysis & Application

If you’re at all familiar with working out and training in general, the terms “superset & "compound set" will have come up at some point. Technically though, they’re very misused.

In this article, we explore their differences - and application - in depth.

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Unhealthy habits that hinder diet progress

Unhealthy habits that hinder diet progress

If you’re following a diet plan, it’s reasonable to assume that each meal of the day should be tailored for optimal nutrition. However, there are many, often unconscious, habits that hold us back from making real progress on any weight-loss (or muscle-building) programme.

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5 Must-Haves for Home Workouts

5 Must-Haves for Home Workouts

As we face another lockdown, here are five of our favourite pieces of kit that allow you to get a great home workout in. This essential equipment will ensure you get enough variety in your routine to keep things interesting and effective. Plus, staying fit physically will work wonders mentally, too.

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N-WHY-E: Find your foundation for fitness in 2021

N-WHY-E: Find your foundation for fitness in 2021

N-WHY-E: Find your foundation for fitness in 2021.

Somehow, we’ve made it to the end of this crazy year and, like the end of any year, it’s that time for setting new goals, targets, and resolutions.

This year has been particularly tough for making resolutions stick, especially fitness-related ones. How can you go for that daily jog if you’re not allowed out of the house? How can you make that promised gym session when they can’t even let you in?

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3 Reasons to Start Your New Year’s Resolution Before New Year

3 Reasons to Start Your New Year’s Resolution Before New Year

2021 has been an … interesting year, shall we say. And with not long left until the New Year, we might as well just put our feet up, ride the rest of it out, and hope that 2022 has a lot more to offer, right?

Wrong.

We reckon New Year’s resolutions are going to kick up a gear this year. Plenty of people will be making up for lost time, wishing they’d done more during lockdown, or got a taste for a new hobby that they promise themselves they’ll stick to.

But who wants to follow a crowd?

There’s every good reason to set - and start - your New Year’s resolution before January 1. We’ve picked out just three of them.

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How To (Safely) Get Juniors in the Gym: Starting Kids on Resistance Training

How To (Safely) Get Juniors in the Gym: Starting Kids on Resistance Training

On the “Gym Rules” sign in most gyms, you’ll see “No children under the age of X”. This reinforces the misconception that children or teenagers should stay away from the weights room, which isn’t strictly true.

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Preventing Injury While Working Out

Preventing Injury While Working Out

Any exercise - any movement for that matter - presents a risk of injury. Whether a dynamic change in direction that puts stress on your knee ligaments, landing a jump and challenging your ankle, or a heavy overhead press that puts strain on your spine and shoulders, we must always exercise caution (quite literally). The simplest way to avoid injury and reduce this risk is learning how to maximise your body’s mechanics through the right movements. In this article, we walk you through the three key steps.

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5 Reasons you need a PT

5 Reasons you need a PT

While there is no shortage of fitness guides and training tutorials on the internet, sometimes it can get more overwhelming than helpful to sort through it solo. Selecting which workout plan to follow, what movements work for your personal body goals, the kind of equipment required to execute them, and whether or not can you even stick to the workout plan you’ve set for yourself - it’s all very daunting.

If you can relate to even one or two of these pain points, it might be time to start working with a personal trainer. Here's why.

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