The easy way to get fit
01 February 2009
Mary Kate O’Flanagan
Educogym, which is based on an Irish concept, is flowering as 2009 starts. The company is expanding in Ireland and abroad, taking on staff, increasing business and opening up new gyms.
‘‘Swimming against the tide is proof of the product,” said Jamie Myerscough, a businessman who became involved with Educogym in pursuit of his own fitness goals and then partnered with the company, having become convinced of its effectiveness. Myerscough has added nutritionist and personal trainer to his qualifications since opening three Educogym franchises.
‘‘The results are so quickly and easily achieved that clients are hooked,” Myerscough said.
He has investigated why, when regular exercise and ideal weight are the fondest wishes of so many, it should prove so difficult.
‘‘I looked at the area of why normal warehouse style gyms have such drop off,” he said.
‘‘Industry figures suggest 90 per cent stop going to a gym after three months. Conversely, Educogym sees about 80 to 90 per cent of members renewing their membership after the initial three-month trial period.
‘‘There are endless ways to lose weight, but this system is the most efficient in the short term and the long term. Traditional approaches to weight loss are twofold: low-calorie starvation diets and aerobic exercise. Either separately or together, these will result in weight loss.
‘‘However both these approaches can cause a person to lose muscle. Research shows that 25 to 60 per cent of weight lost through aerobic exercise can be muscle and up to 90 per cent of weight loss on a low calorie diet can be muscle.
‘‘The key point is that metabolism is directly linked to muscle; people aren’t completely cognisant of that fact. Understanding why muscle is important is the foundation of the whole system.
‘‘Lose muscle and your metabolism - the rate at which you burn food and body fat for energy - drops. People who lose weight on a low calorie diet have been shown to actually increase body fat as they lose muscle. People are so dedicated and focused when it comes to achieving an optimal physical state, but their energy is misdirected, which is very discouraging in the long run.
‘‘Most people who diet excessively or over exercise regain weight in the long run, because metabolism has dropped, which is exactly the opposite of what you want.
‘‘At Educogym, we concentrate on weight training at a fast pace in short bursts, which gives the benefits of aerobic exercise without the attendant stresses. The heart rate is raised and the lungs are getting a workout, but the levels of cortisol, a stress hormone, are not excessively elevated.”
The aim is to increase the muscle and decrease body fat. Research shows that 90 per cent of calories burned on a daily basis is due to muscle, and the fact that each pound of muscle burns 50 to 100 calories per day means a modest gain of 3lbs of muscle results in burning up to 300 calories more per day.
After the age of 30, the average person loses half a pound of muscle a year, so that kind of positive impact on the metabolism is like turning the body clock back six years. ‘‘That’s why we call our specially designed exercise machine ‘the Time Machine’,” Myerscough said. ‘‘It offers non-stop training for 20minutes so is efficient exercise, but it also reverses the effects of time by replacing lost muscle. It is important to note that women don’t have the physical make-up to add large amounts of muscle so they tend to improve their tone to shape up rather than bulk up.”
The Educogym programme in its entirety orchestrates hormones to make sure that a person’s hormone levels are optimal for getting into shape. At the start, there is an individual consultation, including full body measurements and discussion of nutrition.
A trainer will do three one on one sessions with a new client to habituate them to the exercise machine. Subsequent sessions are supervised to make sure that you are pushed and doing the exercises correctly. Creating and maintaining the right mental attitude are the last components.
‘‘If you can change a person’s image of himself or herself, you can motivate someone to train more intensively, and that’s what we are doing when we give them a goal to work towards,’’Myerscough said. ‘‘In addition, the fast results give people a mental and emotional boost, which makes them to continue and train harder.”
Attendance is appointment based in order to guarantee that each workout is supervised. It also means people are less likely to skip a planned workout. Each workout is an intense 20 minutes, which makes Educogym especially popular among people who want to make exercise a regular habit but are pressed for time as it is.
March 2009 will see a new Educogym open in the Dundrum Town Centre. With its Luas stop and other attractions, Dundrum is an easy location for thousands of Dubliners to make a base for exercise. The first 100 readers to sign up are offered 25 per cent off annual membership. For more information, contact Educogym on tel: 1850737737 or visit www.educo gym.com