Getting and staying physically active is one of the most effective things you can do to improve your health. Yes, you can make fitness complicated, but it can also be super simple too. Read on for our 5 top tips for leading a healthy and active lifestyle:
Tip 1. Stay hydrated
Hydration is one of the fundamentals… and for good reason too. The human body is at least 60% water and water is involved in almost all of the processes in the body that keep us alive and well, make us human!
Drinking water little and often is one of the easiest ways to ensure your body is well hydrated each day. In the UK, it is generally recommended to try and drink 6-8 glasses of water each day.
Proper hydration contributes to better cognitive and physical performance, enhancing your ability to take on and complete difficult tasks (and even some of the easier ones) each day.
Serious sports people and athletes should aim to drink a little more than the recommended minimum each day to replace fluid that is lost during intense exercise and some athletes may also use electrolyte supplements or consume sodium containing foods to aid hydration.
Tip 2. Raise your heart rate
Taking steps to get and stay physically active has time and time again been shown to be beneficial for both our physical and mental health & wellbeing. Raising your heart rate away from resting and into a more ‘active’ zone is a great way to reduce the risk of developing a whole host of conditions.
Exercise of any kind and of at least 15 minutes will improve your mood and get to work on your improving your cardiovascular health too.
Head on over to the U Perform Knowledge Hub to search through some of our favourite workouts and training sessions, suitable for all abilities.
Tip 3. Eat thoughtfully
The reason why so many diets don’t work is that we simply cannot stick to them. There are too many limits, restrictions, and things we should cut out. This isn’t fun or sustainable and often we don’t reach our end goal because we fall at the first hurdle.
Our first rule is to eat thoughtfully, consuming foods that you enjoy and in amounts that meet your daily needs. Everything in moderation is far better than cutting things out that you actually enjoy – even if they aren’t the absolute best for you… you deserve a treat at the end of the day.
What a lot of people don’t realise is that the more active you are, the more calories you will need to consume to fuel that activity and the recovery afterwards.
Tip 4. Cut down on the screen time
Digital screens and even some room lighting emit certain types of light that are highly stimulating for the brain. When we are trying to get restful sleep, a highly active brain and body as a result of too much blue light exposure isn’t going to help in the slightest.
If you usually go to bed around 10:30pm. Try cutting out screen time from 9:30pm or if that is too much of a stretch, try switching to ‘Night Mode’ on your devices or using blue light blocking eyewear.
Your sleep is dictated by your circadian rhythm (body clock) so if you’re after another sleep hack you could also try setting your circadian rhythm (body clock) by looking at sunlight early in the morning and watching the sunset.
This helps your body create a positive association with natural light and encourages a consistent sleep-wake cycle which has been proven to help you sleep and recover better each night.
Tip 5. Practice self-care
Too often, too many of us associate self-care with yoga, meditation etc. etc. But what we mean by self-care can actually be any of things we have just mentioned, plus just about anything else. Find what makes you feel happy, calm, energised and find time to do that once a day if you can or at least once or twice a week as a minimum.
And for our bonus tip: NUTRITION
You train hard year-round to achieve your fitness and lifestyle goals, good nutrition can be the difference between seeing the results and not. We always recommend a food first approach, ensuring you are eating a healthy and balanced diet that contains a sufficient amount of carbohydrates, protein, some fats, sugar, and a little salt.
Daily recommendations don't always work for every person, but they are often a great place to start and for those of us in the UK, the NHS website is a great place to go for this. You will very quickly find out that proper nutrition will help support sleep, hormones, recovery, injury prevention, gut health, your immune system, weight management, muscle gain, and your energy levels - contributing to a lasting and fulfilling active lifestyle.
Supplements play a really important part in this too! They come in handy when you are short on time or simply don't have as large of an appetite as you used to do and are a great way to quickly and conveniently tick off a few boxes and stop any gaps in your daily diet that might impede your performance and health.
Here at U Perform, we are specialists in recovery nutrition - formulating products that optimise our recovery from exercise, injury, or just the stresses of daily life. From collagen to greenfoods and a few others along the way, we are confident that there is something for everyone. To learn more about our products and their purpose, check out the Shop Products or Shop Goal tabs in the drop-down menu of this website.
When we take part in regular physical activity or exercise, we rely on our connective tissue to facilitate movement and flexibility. Ligaments, tendons, muscles, and other soft tissue are the scaffolding that holds us together but unfortunately are prone to damage and injury and that’s where collagen supplements like Active Collagen come in.
Whether you are going for a walk, run, performing yoga, or even just doing the shopping, we are using and breaking down the scaffolding of our body. Athletes, through specific training, do this deliberately to encourage adaptation – making them fitter, faster, and stronger. For the rest of us, we simply want to have the energy and strength to keep active throughout our daily lives, to perform daily tasks pain free and to enjoy the benefits of physical activity for our minds and bodies too.
Connective tissues are made up of highly complex collagen fibres that give them their characteristic rigidity and elasticity. Collagen also happens to be the primary structural protein in the human body and makes up almost 70% of the protein structure of ligaments and tendons. Collagen also makes up around 90% of the protein in our skin. Supporting our body with collagen each day to maintain health and function is vitally important to help us get and stay physically active as well as supporting the look and feel of our skin, hair, and nails too.
Like many things in the human body, as we get older, the rate of collagen production starts to slow down – annoyingly at a time when our level of activity does not. This means that each year we lose overall around 1 – 1.5% of collagen in the body that would otherwise be used to support things like ligaments, tendons, and skin.
Taking a collagen supplement is fast becoming commonplace but unfortunately there are a lot of products out there that simply cannot deliver on the promises made. Here at U Perform, we use hydrolysed Bioactive Collagen Peptides® from a bovine source, all with independent research evidence behind them to demonstrate efficacy and value. The culmination of almost 20 years of collagen research is Active Collagen…
U Perform’s Active Collagen gels are a gamechanger when it comes to daily collagen supplementation. Combining 2 unique and proven collagen peptides, Active Collagen supports the health and function of our ligaments, tendons, muscles, as well as skin, hair, and nails too. So, not only will you feel better, but you will also look better too.
Taking Active Collagen daily not only supplements your diet with the collagen building peptides and amino acids it needs to fuel repair and recovery, but it also has been clinically proven to re-stimulate natural collagen production as well as – by 65% in just the first 56 days.
Active Collagen contains 8g of collagen per 30ml serving – plus added vitamins & minerals to enhance energy levels, support muscle function as well as provide an extra boost to the immune system.
Making Active Collagen part of your daily routine is a perfect way to supplement your active lifestyle with a high-quality collagen, vitamin and mineral supplement designed by experts in sport and human performance – to help you to get and stay physically active and to enjoy the many benefits of living an active lifestyle pain and injury free.
Muscles are the primary active motor apparatus of the human skeleton – which in simpler terms means that every movement and even some non-movements are as a result of a muscle contraction by muscles attached to bones, internal organs, and blood vessels.
The most obvious movements enabled by the musculoskeletal system are walking, running, and jumping but let’s not forget some of the more subtle movements that control facial expressions, respiration (breathing), and eye movements. Skeletal muscle is continually making micro adjustments to inform our posture and joint stability in moving and stationary positions.
The individual skeletal muscle cells like many other body cells are relatively soft and fragile so alone they would not be able to withstand the forces of contraction. It is the connective tissue, fascia, and collagen fibres that surrounds and sheaths all these bundles of muscle fibres that gives them their strength and elasticity – in exactly the same way as for ligaments, tendons, and skin – soft and connective tissues in the human body (including bone) are characterised by their ability to be strong and flexible at the same time.
Through exercise and activity, we break down muscle and collagen fibres, in essence to stimulate repair and adaptation. Exercise in the forms of endurance or resistance training and protein ingestion are anabolic stimuli for skeletal muscle mass and result in a net positive muscle protein balance which promotes repair, strengthening, and overall growth in muscle mass. This continual process and balance between breakdown and resynthesis happens every day and is often referred to as ‘protein turnover’.
Protein contributes to the maintenance and development of muscle mass and is an important macronutrient in a healthy and balanced diet. That’s why for active people and athletes worldwide are filling their cupboards and kit bags with our Active Whey & Collagen protein powder – as a simple and great tasting way to increase our daily protein intake and to support optimal post-workout recovery.
Without including exercise, whole-body protein turnover equates to about 20% of daily energy expenditure – again, that’s without accounting for exercise when generally protein turnover would be significantly increased as a result.
Protein turnover is a highly metabolic and nutrient demanding process which needs a constant supply of energy and amino acids (building blocks) to restore and rebuild muscle tissue and to induce hypertrophy (growth of muscle size and strength).
U Perform’s Active Whey & Collagen is a convenient and cost-effective way to supplement your active lifestyle with the all the essential, branched, and collagen building amino acids you need to support optimal muscle recovery and strength.
Active Whey & Collagen uses a brand-new muscle specific Performance Peptide® called BODYBALANCE® to improve muscle strength and recovery and combined with whey protein, Active Whey & Collagen is a great tasting complete protein source ideal for anyone who leads an active lifestyle.
Each 30g serving contains 22.9g of protein from both BODYBALANCE® collagen peptides and whey protein and is a great way to increase your daily protein intake. You can mix it up in water or milk, or even add it to other foods, baked goods, and smoothies for a high protein treat.
Active Whey & Collagen is available in two great tasting flavours (Chocolate or Strawberry) plus in travel-friendly single serving sachets too! Try it today – SEE and FEEL the difference for yourself.
Today, every 1 in 4 adults experiences some form of joint pain or disorder in their life and for many, they will experience multiple. These can range from being mild or niggling pains, all the way up to bruising, inflammation, and even arthritis and dislocations etc.
Whether we are participating in sports, or just generally leading a busy and active lifestyle, maintaining joint health should be a top priority for everyone – not just for their longevity in sport and physical activity, but also for maintaining mobility and flexibility in all aspects of their daily lives.
Cartilage is a strong but flexible connective tissue that protects joints and bones from friction during movement. Cartilage also acts as a shock absorber throughout the body, absorbing impact forces when we walk, run, and jump. Up to 70% of the dry weight of protein in cartilage is from Type II collagen fibres. Their unique properties give cartilage its shape and strength.
The strongest fibrous cartilage exists in the spinal column – the intervertebral discs. It is their job to protect each vertebra and in turn the spinal cord, so strength and flexibility is vitally important. After that, the cartilage in joint capsules is the next strongest as they need to suitably resist the forces of impact and movement.
An example of why this is important is during running. For a typical runner, when jogging normally, they will land after each stride with 1.5 to 3 times their bodyweight. Take this up to sprinting, you can see forces equivalent of up to 10 times a person’s bodyweight! Without sufficient protection, bones and other soft tissue will become quickly overloaded, and not only that you would be in a significant amount of pain too.
That’s why taking a specific joint health supplement like Active Sport Collagen, that is targeted to promote collagen biosynthesis is a great way to optimise your joint health and active lifestyle.
Cartilage is an especially unique connective tissue because it doesn’t have any direct blood vessels or nerves. Cartilage cells, known as chondrocytes, that live within a ‘gel-like’ matrix, are instrumental in producing a complex physical matrix of primarily Type II collagen fibres, proteoglycans, and other non-collagenous protein molecules.
As a ‘gel-like’ matrix of this kind, hyaline and fibro cartilage is strong enough to resist compressive forces as well as facilitate flexibility and joint movement which makes it perfect for its role. However, over time, cartilage is subject to the same wear and tear of other soft and connective tissue and due to its lack of direct blood supply, it was often thought that once articular surfaces had been degraded, they cannot be restored.
Here at U Perform, we identified a revolutionary collagen peptide formulation called FORTIGEL® that directly re-stimulates the resynthesis of Type II collagen fibres by chondrocytes from within the cartilage matrix: in turn restoring and regenerating articular surfaces such as cartilage in joints.
U Perform Active Sport Collagen is unique formulation of Type II optimised Bioactive Collagen Peptides, clinically proven to restore mobility and reduce activity related joint pain. In just 5 easy-to-swallow daily tablets, Active Sport Collagen is a convenient and cost-effective way to boost collagen levels in the body and to optimise your joint health to support and maintain your active lifestyle. Try it TODAY - See and Feel the difference for yourself! You can even subscribe & save for up to 20% OFF every order!
