TRAINER’S TIPS
TRAINER’S TIPS
blog
Get the same guidance that Jayd gives her coaching clients.
Select a topic from the categories below or scroll to the bottom of the page for full table of contents.
FAT LOSS
It's no secret that when it comes to losing weight, there are a variety of factors that come into play - including exercise, sleep, stress levels, and more. However, when it comes down to it, though, the majority of fat loss really does come down to managing what you eat. Read more to learn some starting tips for managing your calorie intake to get your body burning fat!
One of the best ways to stay motivated in your fitness journey is to track your progress! Taking body measurements and progress photos every few weeks can give you a sense of momentum to keep showing up for your workouts and diet plan. Read more to learn how to track your workouts, take progress photos, track body weight, body measurements, and more.
If you’ve been building muscle for a while, you may be ready to enter into what we call a “cut” phase in your training. Follow these tips to get started and learn how to eat, exercise, and track your progress throughout your fat loss journey.
Struggling to lose weight and keep it off? There are three things you must do if you want to burn fat for good. Check out this week’s blog post to learn more about how to balance your energy budget for fat loss.
In case you are stressing about keeping up with your training and nutrition plans, let me just tell you right now–it is 100% okay to enjoy the holidays. Living a fit lifestyle is all about balance. Your body only reflects what you do most of the time! So if most of the time you eat a healthy diet and exercise regularly–a few days off isn’t going to set you back in your progress!
A great way to get your body burning tons of calories is to incorporate cardiovascular exercise into your weekly workout routine. Click here to learn how to incorporate cardiovascular exercise into your workouts!
EXERCISE
Improving your heart health is one of the most important aspects of getting in shape. Your heart and cardiovascular system are responsible for getting oxygen and nutrients throughout your body both in and out of the gym. Having a strong heart will allow you to train and recover more effectively from your workouts. The best way to improve your heart health is to live an active lifestyle and move frequently throughout every day. In your workouts, you can maximize gains in your heart health by doing cardiovascular exercise (or “cardio”).
If you want to have a strong upper body, bench press is one of the best exercises to train. This compound movement targets multiple muscle groups, including the pecs, delts, triceps as well as stabilizing muscles throughout your core and legs. In this post, I give step-by-step directions for how to perform the bench press exercise safely with good technique.
In weight training, a great way to get a sense of your strength levels is to test your maxes. A max is the maximum amount of weight that you can lift in a set of between 1 and 5 repetitions of a single exercise. The most common way of testing maxes is to find a 1 rep max (1RM). This is the maximum amount of weight you can lift in a specific exercise 1 time. This number can be helpful for determining what weight you should train within your normal training sessions. Depending on the goal of your program, experts recommend training with different percentages of your 1RM with various rep ranges. Check out these step-by-step instructions for testing your maxes.
Many people mistakenly think that doing tons of biceps curls and tricep kickbacks will make their arms look more “toned” and strong. But in reality—it’s the shoulders that really make the arms pop! Training the shoulders is not only important for developing sculpted-looking arms. It’s also a key part of training for injury prevention. Check out my training tips for incorporating shoulder work into your weekly training routine as well as 10 example exercises with demo videos!
If you’re looking to get in shape, make sure to include cardiovascular exercise in your weekly training routine! Click here to learn how to improve your overall health and maximize your gains with a variety of training styles.
Many exercisers have a bad habit of skipping their warmup—this is not a good idea! Your body needs time to prime and prep for your workout. Without a proper warm up, you increase your risk of injury, and it’s likely that your performance will also suffer. So before you jump right into the challenge portion of your next workout, take 20-40 minutes to prepare your body. Check out my step-by-step tips for warming up effectively before your workouts!
Our bodies are built for movement. So to look and feel our best, we need to build an active lifestyle. Getting plenty of activity every day can improve your brain health, manage your body weight, strengthen your bones and muscles, reduce your risk of disease, and improve your ability to do everyday activities. Check out these Trainer’s Tips for how to build a workout routine to keep your body healthy and to improve your fitness.
NUTRITION
One of my favorite ways to cook well-balanced meals with minimal prep time is to make sheet pan recipes. These involve baking or roasting all the ingredients together on a single baking sheet to save time and keep cleanup to a minimum. As someone who wants to spend as little time as possible in the kitchen, these dishes are a staple in my weekly meal prep! Check out these example recipes and the new Sheet Pan Recipe Collection for 70+ dishes to save time and mess at meal time.
Eating plenty of veggies is an important part of a healthy diet. If your goal is to burn fat, eating vegetables can help to reduce your overall calorie intake, combat belly fat, and boost your metabolism. If you’re trying to build muscle, it’s also super important to each plenty of vegetables. One of my favorite ways to sneak more veggies into my diet is to blend them up with fruit and other ingredients to make smoothies. Check out these recipes for getting in your veggies with delicious & nutritious smoothies.
It's OFFICIALLY October, which means some of my favorite vegetables are in season. So this is the ✨perfect✨ time to re-launch our community Eat Your Damn Veggies challenge. Our community goal is to eat a ton of veggies throughout this month! Show off your veggie dishes by posting a picture of your plate every day in the #eat-your-damn-veggies channel in my Coaching Corner Discord server. The people who post the most veggies by the end of the month will win a free download of their choice of either a meal plan or recipe collection from my website.
When it comes to building muscle, exercise is just one piece of the puzzle. Proper nutrition also plays a crucial role in supporting muscle growth and recovery. In this post, I’ll share my training advice for how to eat to maximize your gains, including how many calories to eat, how much protein to get in, and how to eat a nutrient-dense diet. Click here to read more.
I tell my clients all the time: “What you eat is just as important as how you exercise—no matter what your fitness goals are.” To perform best in your workouts and maximize your gains, you gotta fuel your body with proper nutrition! What you eat before and after your workouts can significantly impact your energy levels, muscle growth, and overall progress. Click here to learn more about the general guidelines for pre-workout and post-workout nutrition.
No matter whether you’re trying to burn fat or build muscle, eating a high-protein diet is a MUST. Protein is an essential nutrient that plays an important role in building and repairing tissues, producing enzymes and hormones, and maintaining a healthy immune system. When you don’t eat enough protein, your body may struggle to function optimally. You may have a harder time burning fat, building muscle, and recovering from your workouts. Read here to learn more about the signs your body gives you when you need to eat more protein and get a reference guide of high-protein foods.
Whether your fitness goal is to burn fat or build muscle, it’s important to fuel your body with the right amount of energy every day. Everything that our bodies do requires energy measured in calories, which comes from our food.
Practicing Meal Prep is a great way to ensure that you’re getting the right amount of calories and macros every day! Check out these easy, one pan recipes for delicious meals with quick clean-up!
A great way to ensure that you’re getting the nutrition that you need while also saving time, energy, and money is to practice Meal Prep. Get started with the tips in this post!
I get asked a lot: “what are the best exercises for tightening up the abs? No *one* exercise is going to help you trim fat from your belly and tighten it up. You could literally do crunches every single day for months and not see an inch go away from around your torso. The good news is that there are some strategies that can help you burn your belly fat—but crunches aren’t going to do it for you. Read more here to learn how to eat and exercise to start making progress!