Johanna Leitch Personal Training

A massive thank you to Southern Zone Rugby League for arranging a PD day in Auckland with the One NZ Warriors One NZ Warriors NZ Warriors Pathways
Across the day I was able to see the teams on the field, in the gym, sit in on workshops and reviews, along with talking shop with the S&Cs, Physios, and a few players.

Main highlight was being able to observe how other teams operate and taking that knowledge back to Southland Sharks Academy Southland and my fellow HP S&C’s in Southland!

In 2024, Feter N, Ligeza TS, Bashir N et al ran a meta analysis (which is the gold standard level of research) and found that:

✨Breaking up sitting time with physical activity can improve short term brain function, with evidence being seen in time frames from 3 hours to 3 days!! ✨

That’s insane and a fantastic reminder to keep slipping little bits of movement throughout your day!

These don’t have to be full gym workouts, but could be as little as:
🧠 walking while on the phone
🧠taking walking meetings
🧠 walking to meetings (if realistic)
🧠 switching your commute to walking or biking (could skate if you’re brave and cool)
🧠 spend 5 minutes stretching
🧠 whip out a few simple exercises, think calf raises, squats, lunges
🧠 have a cheeky dance party or just literally shake energy out

A little Move Your Butt for wrap up!

While I didn’t hit my KM target (thanks to being over ambitious while dealing with a persistent injury) we’ve moved plenty, raised awareness and smashed our donation target, over $1200!

Thank you to every single person who donated! Whether you’ve donated to support us, the cause or in memory of someone you’ve lost, we’re grateful for it all the same! 🫶🏼🥹

Although the month is over, the awareness of bowel cancer shouldn’t stop.

Southland unfortunately has some of the highest rates of bowel cancer in NZ and bowel cancer is the second highest causes of cancer deaths across the country, only second to Lung Cancer!

Simple lifestyle changes can help to reduce your risk of not only Bowel Cancer but most other cancers, diabetes, heart disease, stroke and even diamenta!

These are, but not at all limited too:
🏃🏼‍♀️Exercising regularly!
🥦 Reducing your red meat consumption
🍻Lowering your alcohol consumption
🍎 Increase your fruit & vege intake to increase fibre
🚭Quit smoking/vaping
🧑‍⚕️ Early screening if symptoms persist!

We lose far too many friends and whanau to cancers like these! So have a little more 💩 chat, remind people to get checked out and look after your 🍑

5 ways to make meal planning easier!

1. A shared note filled with your households favourite meals, recipes you’ve saved from the internet etc
🥦It often feels like the options for meals are endless, having something that has them centralised is extremely helpful!

2. Take 15 minutes on grocery day to plan out what your meals for the week will be
🍅We do this on a Sunday morning, plan our dinners, lunches if dinner won’t give us leftovers & breakfast is always the same, easy!
🫑Knowing what we’re eating each day allows us to balance our meals ensuring there is a variety of proteins and veges!

3. Use what’s in your fridge or cupboard
🥔Didn’t finish the sour cream last week? Cool, we’re having something Mexican this week to finish it off before it expires.

4. Use a whiteboard or similar on your fridge so that everyone knows what’s for tea & what needs to be defrosted.
🥩This could save people snacking on the items you need for tea
🍎Saves the “what’s for dinner questions”
🫛Less “sh*t, we forgot to take meat out” moments!

5. Look ahead at your schedule for the week and align the low effort meals with the busy nights or split the load on cooking if you cook with others
🥙Know you’re both out on a Tuesday until 8pm - opt for Monday leftovers, homemade burgers or a slow cooker meal. No point putting your elaborate 2 hour prep dinner on the busy nights

👩🏼‍🍳Mondays & Wednesdays - I finish at 8pm so Daniel cooks, Tuesdays and Thursday’s I’m home first so I cook then

These little hacks can be massive at saving time, stress, money, reducing food waste and helping you eat healthier.

There’s a growing body of research showing just how important it is to stay active and exercise regularly. While much of it reinforces what we already know, a gentle reminder never hurts—especially when it comes to something as powerful as movement.

Regular physical activity has a profoundly positive impact on our overall health and wellbeing. It truly is the closest thing we have to a ✨magic pill✨for many of life’s physical and mental health challenges.

Whether it’s supporting mental wellbeing (by reducing symptoms of depression and anxiety, and boosting self-esteem and confidence), improving physical health (by lowering the risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer’s/dementia, and even some cancers), or simply helping us age well and live well—exercise is a game changer.

From an economic standpoint, a healthier, more active population means less pressure on our healthcare system—something that benefits everyone.

The ability to move our bodies as we age is a privilege—one we shouldn’t take for granted.

So, how can you move more? Here are a few ideas—from free, easy ways to get started, to more structured options. The key is to find what works for you.

Season one in the shark tank ✔️✔️

As always plenty of learnings, plenty of highs, plenty of tin shifted, a lot of gratitude, far too many short jokes and one team of genuine good humans 🦈🧡

Injuries, niggles and illness are a common occurrence within training - but they don’t have to be the end! 🤕

With an experienced coach and primary care team (physios, doctors, surgeons, dietitian etc) we can work around the injury and use the rehabilitation time to improve other areas of potential weakness.

When programming around an injury I consider
🩼 injury mechanism - how did this happen?
🩼 location of injury and pain - e.g. knee injury does it hurt to squat/hinge/jump
🩼 the sport or activity we’re aiming to return too
🩼what are the common injuries in this sport
🩼 previous injury history
🩼 physios exercise prescription - these become essentials
🩼 what is the persons goals, aside from rehabbing the injury? - this is important for long term rehabs as it helps them focus on something other than the injury

All of these answers, along with their primary care team help formulate a program which helps to gets that athlete back on the court/track/bike/living their life ⛹🏼🏃🏼‍♀️🏋🏌️‍♀️🏄🏼‍♂️🚵🏼‍♂️

Spotify wrapped is out, JLPT wrapped is in 👊🏼

Carrying an injury? 🤕
No worries, I’ve got your back at helping you continue rehabbing while progressing towards your other goals 🏆

Over the weekend I jetted off to the big smoke, to learn all things oly lifting from one of the leading experts in NZ,

To say it was one of the most educational courses I’ve been on in a while is an understatement.

Naturally learnt so much in terms of technical skills for myself and coaching but also general coaching skills or philosophy’s which I can’t wait to implement across the 3 spaces I coach in!

There’ll be no dogs 💩 in this house