The Get Fit for Life Month Crunch with Matt Roberts and Samsung GALAXY S4

Personal trainer Matt Roberts is on a quest to shape up the nation through S4 a Day, part of a specially designed one-month programme called Get Fit For Life Month Crunch. In the previous three weeks, Matt has focused on exercise, lifestyle and nutrition. This week the focus is on wellness.

Episode 4: Wellness

This programme demonstrates that, by striking a healthy balance of exercise, fitness, diet and rest, you will not only feel more energetic and healthy, but also have an improved sense of wellbeing. It’s all about getting into a positive cycle and Matt encourages you to keep going with your personal programme beyond this final week. The S Health app on the Samsung GALAXY S4 is a great tool, which can help you stay motivated and in control of your lifestyle. The app allows you to monitor everything from your calorie intake to your sleeping pattern and intensity of your work-outs.

Using all the skills and techniques you have learned from the previous three weeks, the fourth and final week is all about intensity. This is the time to muster all your focus, determination and strength as Matt looks to help you achieve the best possible gains.

The exercises shown here are some of the main exercises of Week 3’s programme.One way to help you keep track and remember all the new moves you're learning is through the Story Album feature - a clever new photography app on the Samsung GALAXY S4 that sorts all your work-out pictures into a neat album, helping you to get in shape.

Click here to follow Matt’s carefully designed S4 a Day Programme updated daily on Twitter #S4aDay.

Matt’s Top Four

SINGLE LEG BRIDGE

This exercise is a progression of the glute bridge and encourages the left and right glute (buttock muscle) to work independently. This means the stronger or more dominant side is not providing the power to compensate for any weakness in the opposite side. This will lead to a more balanced body.

• Lay on your back with your knees bent and your feet on the ground. Raise one leg straight in the air.

• From this start position, lift your hips towards the ceiling as high as you can, keeping shoulders and head relaxed and in contact with the floor.

• When you can lift no higher, ensuring you are not putting pressure on the lower spine, squeeze the glute muscles together. Hold for a count of one before slowly lowering the spine back down to the floor to resume your starting position. Repeat for the desired amount of repetitions with one leg lifted before performing on the other.

PLANK

An abdominal bracing drill that challenges strength of the core area. Strong abdominals mean greater ability to prevent injury, which can deliver better training results.

• Lie face down with your elbows on the ground.

• Lift your body up, keeping your weight distributed between your forearms and your feet.

• Elbows should be bent at 90 degrees and your back should remain straight with your hips raised from the floor.

• Squeeze the torso and glutes tight, ensuring the body is parallel to the floor.

• Hold this position for as long as required.

KNEE CROSS OVER TUCKS

A good abdominal exercise for developing stability around the lower back.

• Assume a face down position on the ground with the palms of the hands on the floor under the shoulders and legs extended onto the balls of your feet. Raise yourself up using your arms, maintaining a stable, straight torso.

• Holding this position, lift one foot from the floor, raising the leg and bending the knee towards and across the upper body to the opposite elbow.

• Stop raising the leg at the point you feel your lower spine bending and return the leg to the starting position. Repeat this movement on the other side.]

BICEP CURL

Toning the front of the upper arms, this is a popular exercise.

• Stand straight and keep a neutral spine with your feet firmly placed on the floor. Hold the dumbbells with straight arms just outside of legs.

• Curl the weights up to the chest by bending the arms, keeping the elbows tucked in. Then lower the weight by straightening the arms slowly to the start position.

S Health – Your perfect fitness workout partner

Check Your Figure with Weight Tracker

Weight Tracker on the Samsung GALAXY S4 S Health app lets you track an important stat for measuring your fitness progress: your weight. Just select ‘Weight’ on the S Health app and update it with the latest reading from your scales. You can track your weight over a time period and the app provides you with a range of healthy targets to use as part of your fitness programme planning. Click here to see the full range of features of S Health and find out how it can improve your fitness, visit: (need the S Health web-link requested by Samsung)

To see the full range of features of S Health and find out how it can improve your fitness by clicking here.

Click here to start shaping up today

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Matt’s Top Tips

1. Take your resting heart rate every morning. If it is higher than usual, you need to de-stress and take things easy for a bit.

2. Lie on your back with knees bent, take 10 deep breaths filling the tummy, ribs and chest with air. Expel all air before next breath.

3. Twice during your working day, get up and do some stretching. Focus on the hip flexors and the pecs.

4. Make your bedroom as dark as possible for more restful sleep and improved recovery from training.