https://chloeoldfield.wordpress.com
Personal training and sport psychology consultancy in Buckinghamshire and surrounding counties.
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I am a trainee sport and exercise psychologist, personal trainer and competitive distance runner. Using a combination of evidence-based techniques and personal experience, I provide high-quality tailored personal training. This includes specific exercise programmes, nutritional guidance and behaviour change strategies. Regardless of your experience, I can help with:
fat loss, gaining muscle mass,
running or sport-specific training, strength training, and exercise for general health. In addition, I can help you to find time to exercise regularly in a busy schedule, kick-start your motivation, bust through plateaus, and change unhealthy eating habits for good. As a trainee sport and exercise psychologist, I also offer individual consultations/group workshops to improve sporting performance or engagement in exercise via performance psychology.
Learn how to take a DNS/DNF in your stride | by Precision Hydration
Knowing when to quit a race or cancel it before you reach the start line is tough, yet it’s a skill that reinforces your strengths an athlete. It’s about level-headed risk management and is as much to do with your mind, as it is your body...
https://stmarys.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/resist the RESIST research group is investigating urges to stop or slow down during endurance exercise. As someone who used to drop out or slow down all the time, I find this fascinating!
The project is aiming to develop psychological strategies to help people resist the urge to stop or slow down, which is relevant for so many sports and physical pursuits! Please consider completing this short survey if you are involved in regular endurance training of any sort :)
Online survey BOS
Have you ever considered that it's a good thing when you haven't been able to achieve something yet?
This seems like a counter-intuitive statement; we work towards our goals because we want to achieve them. But it is having something to work towards that is currently out of our reach that drives us.
Take push-ups for example. They are a challenging bodyweight exercise, and naturally most people can't do them when they first start exercising. I used to hate them when I first started because I felt demoralised that I couldn't do them - and this line of thinking is reflected in many people I chat to, who often avoid them as a result.
But not being able to do something like a push-up yet is awesome, because you have all of that improvement yet to experience! Part of the joy of hitting goals is the work you had to put in, and noticing the small incremental improvements you have made along the way.
It doesn't matter where you are at now - just know that if you have a long way to go, you've also got a lot of progression to enjoy along the way, and that is an intensely satisfying feeling. Take what you want to achieve, break it down into small steps and focus on one at a time. For example, start your push-ups resting on your knees instead of feet, and with your hands elevated. Make it as easy as you need to - by doing something challenging you are by definition overcoming a challenge.
My reflections on the past year... https://chloeoldfield.com/2018/04/29/athletics-and-identity-my-own-reflections/
I feel very fortunate to have such a rewarding and enjoyable occupation - part of my role is to encourage and inspire people, however every day I find I am being inspired by my PT clients, who rock up with fabulous attitudes, take on challenges and make great changes all the time, even without realising it sometimes. The amazing thing about fitness and personal growth is that it looks different for everyone, and there are infinite ways you can work on it. Big changes are made up of lots of tiny ones over time, and I love seeing these little improvements every day - keep up the smashing work everyone 😀🏊♂️🏋️♀️🤸♀️🤾♂️🚵♂️💪 and on that note, it is never the "wrong" time or "too late" to start, so if you are looking to find your fitness, drop me a message!
Hi all - please check out my new website! I would be very grateful if you could share :)
https://chloeoldfield.com/
As part of my training as a sport psychologist I will be publishing a piece of research testing the effects of a new psychological intervention on performance. I am looking for athletes from individual sports who would be interested to participate - please drop me a message if you/anybody you know may be interested!
https://chloeoldfield.com/2017/11/28/challenge-versus-threat-the-power-of-perspective/
I recently wrote a blog post about the use of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy techniques for performance anxiety, and how suppressing the anxiety may not be the answer for everyone. I am continui…
A lot of the time, losing weight or getting fitter isn't just about knowing what to eat and how to exercise, but also about honing a constructive mind-set. I firmly believe that every individual is capable of making their desired lifestyle changes, and this is something I guide people in doing as a trainee sport and exercise psychologist. If you are looking to find your motivation, enhance your enjoyment of exercise or make some challenging lifestyle changes, drop me a message to see how I can help :)
Exercise hack: if you struggle to get much activity in during the day, try just walking around when you take a phone call. I just racked up 1500 steps by wandering in and out of the kitchen/living room during a 30-minute client call, and that wasn't even my intention. It may not be effortful, but it accumulates and gets your legs moving which is far better than sitting 👍🏻
Is changing or suppressing performance nerves always our only option?
https://chloeoldfield.com/2017/10/02/performance-anxiety-suppress-or-embrace/
The idea of performance anxiety – butterflies, pre-race nerves, fear, dread, however you like to describe it – is aversive for many athletes. Admittedly, there is nothing instantly appe…
If you are trying to lose weight, you needn't try and turn your whole lifestyle upside down by jumping straight into a new eating regime. Here are 3 simple but effective changes you can make to your diet that won't prove so hard to stick to:
1) Go alcohol-free on one of the days in the week where you usually drink. Alcohol is a big source of hidden calories and doesn't provide many nutrients with it.
2) Base main meals around protein; choose a quality protein source before anything else (lean meats/chicken/fish/pulses/eggs/quinoa and so on) and then add your veg/some carbs etc. Protein not only keeps you full but uses up significantly more calories being digested (up to 35% of the calories consumed in the protein!).
3) Identify your least helpful eating-related habit (eg. buying snacks at the petrol station, food-shopping when hungry, taking the whole bag of crisps to watch TV with, eating a chocolate bar every lunchtime, etc.) and look at how you can make a slight alteration to it (eg. keeping a healthier snack in the car to avoid temptation, pouring a smaller serving of crisps into a bowl, swapping the chocolate bar for dried fruit and nuts, shopping with a list and without being hungry!) - just examples.
If you consistently do these things you could be saving potentially a few hundred calories a day, which add up, and all without masses of effort or deprivation. If you have a busy life, convenience and simplicity are key in making changes!
It's quite common for people to feel that when they train their back muscles their biceps take over and prevent them from activating their back properly. It's important to be able to train these muscles effectively as most of us a) overwork the chest muscles through pushing motions and b) sit with protracted (rounded forward) shoulders in the car and at desks, and even when we do core moves like planks, causing the chest muscles to tighten and the back to weaken, which equals a bad posture.
I thought I would share my top tips on how to target your back effectively; these things I have learned through both experience and advice from various sources!
This first couple of pictures shows what is called a "bat wing" row, the idea that your arms look like bat wings from in front when you contract. The following cues are very useful here for effectively targeting your back muscles, particularly your rhomboids which are the smaller middle muscles that many people struggle to hit:
1) Make sure you grip the dumbbells loosely (without dropping them), preferably with your thumb on the same side as your fingers - this helps to avoid over-activating your biceps and forearm muscles. Think hooking instead of gripping.
2) Imagine pulling your thumbs towards your armpits, allowing your elbows to go right out wide.
3) Imagine pulling with your elbows, not with your hands - almost visualise drawing a line backwards with your elbows (not inwards).
4) Keep your shoulders away from your ears - if you shrug them up you will just involve your trapezius (upper back/shoulders) which tends to dominate over other back muscles.
These cues can help to stop your biceps dominating, but also helps to hit those hard-to-target back muscles such as your rhomboids. This movement can perhaps be made even more effective by lying on an incline or flat bench.
Hi everyone - I am soon to be officially practising as a trainee sport and exercise psychologist, which means I am offering individual sessions and group presentations/workshops to people who are interested in enhancing performance in sport OR exercise through optimising their mind-set. If you (or someone you know) are looking to increase your motivation, build confidence, train more consistently, reduce anxiety, improve your focus or enhance any other aspect of your performance mind-set please drop me a message!
https://chloeoldfield.com/2017/06/29/why-goals-arent-enough/
Goals are useful, but they won't keep you motivated unless you are connected with the true values behind them. Knowing why you really care about your journey is what helps to keep the motivation going.
Goals are an incredibly effective aid to behaviour change – they guide and motivate people, plus they provide a way of monitoring progress. I set goals with all of my clients, whether these i…
I have started writing articles for Running Magazine, surrounding both running training and psychology - this is my first, check it out if you are interested in starting running, it's about how far and how fast! :) https://chloeoldfield.com/2017/06/27/running-magazine-article/
Recently I have been kindly given the opportunity by a friend to write training and psychology articles for Running Magazine. Here is my first – check it out and look out for the magazine if …
Many people when they hear the word "exercise" will immediately think of high-intensity activities such as running, cycling, gym classes or weight-lifting. But another great way of upping your activity levels and doing your body some good is walking! Brisk walking will build your fitness and use just as much energy as jogging - plus you can do it anywhere and incorporate it into your routine easily. Many of my clients have seen great results from just upping their daily steps or incorporating a nice hilly countryside walk a few times a week - it all adds up and it's enjoyable, which is key in making movement a habit!
https://chloeoldfield.com/2016/09/23/good-habits-to-make-a-healthy-lifestyle-easier/
Making changes to your lifestyle in order to improve your health can seem daunting, whether that means trying to move more or overhaul your “diet”. This is partly because we often try t…
Hi everyone! I am soon to be enrolled as a trainee sport and exercise psychologist, which means I am practising under a supervisor for a period of time before being officially qualified. If you or anybody you know would be interested in improving your mind-set - whether that be for sporting performance, motivation to exercise or anything else - drop me a message!
Hi everyone - I am writing a running Q&A for Running Fitness magazine and need a question to answer about running training. Does anybody have any questions about running?
If you are training for an endurance event such as a long bike ride or a marathon (particularly shorter events such as a 10k), once you have established your baseline endurance then adding some speed training will help get you to the next level. The quicker you can run a mile, the quicker you can run several of them put together! Speed adds variety and you'll find improvement in areas you never expected you would (Y)
https://www.instagram.com/p/BPFUlI1DZJM/?taken-by=chloeoldfieldpt
57 Likes, 3 Comments - Chloe Oldfield () on Instagram: “2 sets of 8 x (200 at 85% effort, 200 jog) continuous with a few mins rest in between the 2 sets. I…”
I get a fair few questions from clients regarding stretching, so here are my tips:
1) Don't hold static stretches before exercise - this has been shown to potentially reduce performance. If your muscles are tight they won't thank you for stretching them cold! Save the static stretches for when you are warmed up post-exercise.
2) Pre-exercise, try "dynamic" stretches instead such as gentle leg swings, body-weight squats, rotations or walking high knees.
3) If you want to improve your flexibility, ideally your stretches should be held twice for 30 seconds and preferably 3 times per week or more.
I've had questions from clients recently about how "bad" carbohydrates are for you.
Very few types of food are inherently bad for you unless you eat them in excess over a long period of time. Foods packed with chemical additives and trans fats aren't great, but chances are you aren't eating too many of those.
Carbohydrates do NOT make you gain weight unless you eat a calorie surplus, and they do not necessarily make you feel less full or send your blood sugar rocketing. It all depends on what you eat with them and what types of carbs you eat.
The ratio of carbohydrates to fat and protein that you have in your diet is not as crucial as you might think, unless you are trying to fine-tune your body for a certain sport, or you have a health condition such as diabetes or high cholesterol. To add to that, there are individual differences in how well people perform with or adapt to certain ratios, so there cannot be a one-size-fits-all approach.
Research comparing the positive/negative effects of different extremes of diet has so far produced very conflicting results, and overall suggests that balance is the most important factor, no extreme either way.
Here are my 2 tips:
1) Give your body as much variety as possible. Your body requires and thrives off a range of nutrients, so the best thing to do is make sure you have a source of quality protein and plenty of fresh veg/fruit with each meal. Switch up your carb sources with rice, pulses, potatoes, other grains and pasta.
2) Fuel your activities. If you are doing high-intensity exercise, fuel up with some carbohydrates beforehand. If you are lifting weights, protein is key before and after, but some carbohydrates will also give you energy and help the recovery process. If you are doing long-duration low-intensity exercise, a mixture of fats and carbs is ideal.
If you like apples (who doesn't?!) this is pretty good as a snack or light dessert :) halve and core an apple, cover with a little butter and brown sugar plus a hefty dose of cinnamon, then bake in tin foil for 30-40 mins, maybe longer if you want it really soft (Y)
https://www.instagram.com/p/BQSpAc7juG-/?taken-by=chloeoldfieldpt
See this Instagram photo by • 6 likes
My favourite glute exercise is the reverse lunge, because it allows high levels of glute activation, challenges the core and doesn't stress my knees. This one is the deficit version with kettlebells, and I quickly found out that using a deflated BOSU ball instead of a step (I couldn't find one!) is very tricky as you can see by the wobbling and laughing... if you struggle to activate your glutes with squats try the reverse lunge on flat ground or off a low step.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BQP924XjQta/?taken-by=chloeoldfieldpt
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Single-leg Romanian deadlifts with kettlebells - this must be one of my favourite exercises for activating the hamstrings and glutes to the max. Also a great core workout :) If you have back or knee issues and therefore struggle with traditional squats or deadlifts, single-leg exercises can be safer, and they are just as effective. Personally, I find I can activate the targeted muscles more so through single-leg versions.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BQIwx2JDZaq/?taken-by=chloeoldfieldpt
See this Instagram video by • 5 likes
Have you ever considered how the way you talk about yourself can affect you? And by this I mean out loud to others, or internally to yourself. Treating yourself harshly or self-criticising when things are tough has a profoundly negative influence on your motivation and self-esteem, and hence your future behaviour. You needn't be harsh on yourself to succeed - sustainable motivation and well-being comes from a place of self-compassion and forward thinking.
https://chloeoldfield.wordpress.com/2016/08/29/are-you-self-critical-if-so-read-this/
How often do you find yourself despairing over mistakes you have made? Do you judge yourself in comparison to others? When you fail at something, do you feel like a “failure”? If these …
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