I’m thrilled to share our August schedule with you, plus a special August membership deal!
It’s a great time to try a different class, shake up your routine, and join sessions you might not normally have the time to do.
As a member, you have the bonus of the TV channel so you can take a class any time, any place, anywhere—early or late, even from your holiday villa or hotel room terrace!
If you aren’t a regular DYBO Dude or Diva, this is a great opportunity to come and join us for the Summer (maybe you are a student, a teacher, or your regular class is closed for the holidays). It is also a fab time to return if you’ve not been for a while!
Overcoming Injury: Moving Beyond Total Rest
This week, I got a “please help” message from a DYBO family member who had injured themselves on holiday. They were wondering: What can I do to heal? How can I speed up both my recovery and my return to my regular schedule and fitness level?
Decades ago, the standard advice was that total rest was the only response. Today, we know better. There are many actions we can take—including targeted exercise—that will get us back into action more quickly and completely.
In fact, research supports correct activity and exercise even when facing progressive diseases and terminal diagnoses. Both Sir Chris Hoy, who has a terminal cancer diagnosis, and his wife, who lives with MS, exercise daily. They choose to live a fit life optimally for as long as they have life, and they are not alone in this approach. He continues to be an inspiration to us all!
Good sleep, excellent nutrition, and stress management, alongside expertly advised exercise and activity, are key to optimal outcomes. Research supports what many of us know anecdotally and through experience: when experiencing long-term (and even significant) illness or injury, taking relevant and appropriate exercise will often speed recovery, reduce suffering over time, and provide improved outcomes.
What Can I Do When Injured?
Training your non-injured limb helps the injured one recover through a process called cross-education. This relies on neural adaptations and brain signalling to preserve strength and limit muscle wasting.
How Cross-Education Works
- Brain Activation: Exercising your healthy limb sends nerve signals from your brain’s motor cortex down the spinal cord, which also lightly stimulates the resting limb on the opposite pathways.
- Strength Retention: It tricks your nervous system into keeping the idle muscle fibres primed, reducing the total amount of strength you lose while resting.
- Less Muscle Shrinking: While it does not fully replace physical therapy, it slows down muscle wasting (atrophy) in the immobilized limb.
Benefits During Recovery
- Faster Comeback: Because your nervous system stays connected to the injured limb, regaining actual muscle power once you start moving again is much quicker.
- Easier Start: When your doctor clears you to use the limb, the muscles respond better because they are not starting from zero. Additionally, your exercise habit has been successfully maintained.
One System: Mind and Body
Taking back some control over our health and wellbeing reduces the risk of low mood, anxiety, and the helplessness often associated with mental health when injured.
When facing an injury, individuals frequently experience a sense of loss. It is common to worry about how long the recovery will take, whether it will be complete, and to even feel grief for time lost. Negative mental states change our behaviour and can bring about a self-fulfilling prophecy regarding recovery. Maintaining our “Happy Hormones” is essential for wellbeing, quality of life, and rapid healing.
Amazing Results in Stroke Recovery
Stroke rehabilitation research strongly validates the strategy of combining cross-education on the unaffected side with mental modelling to accelerate recovery. When a stroke severely weakens one side of the body, standard physical therapy can be limited by a patient’s inability to move. Two evidence-based methods bypass that limitation by targeting the brain’s pathways directly:
- Training the Unaffected Side (Cross-Education)
Clinical trials show that high-force or resistance training on the healthy side significantly improves strength and motor function on the paralysed or weakened side.
- Bilateral Brain Activation: Neuroimaging studies show that lifting a heavy weight with your strong limb activates motor regions on both sides of the brain. This cross-activation stimulates the stroke-damaged hemisphere.
- Combating Muscle Atrophy: A 2024 study published in Scientific Reports confirmed that unilateral training on the unaffected side directly mitigates overall muscle wasting (sarcopenia) and improves upper limb function across both sides.
- Forcing Neural Reorganization: Training the stronger side helps the nervous system adapt and reorganize its communication pathways (neuroplasticity), which primes the weaker limb for eventual movement.
- Mental Modelling (Motor Imagery)
Mental practice involves systematically rehearsing a physical movement in your mind without actually executing it.
- Shared Neural Pathways: Functional MRI (fMRI) scans prove that imagining a movement fires up the exact same motor networks in the brain as physically performing that movement.
- Kinaesthetic vs. Visual Practice: The most effective mental modelling combines visual imagery (seeing the hand open) with kinaesthetic imagery (imagining the internal feeling of effort and muscle contraction).
- Accelerated Clinical Outcomes: Randomized controlled trials indicate that adding motor imagery to standard therapy leads to significantly higher scores in daily living activities and upper extremity performance compared to physical therapy alone.
How They are Used Together in Modern Rehab
Clinicians increasingly use these tools to build a continuous rehabilitation loop, especially when a patient has minimal active movement:
- Mirror Therapy: A mirror is placed between the limbs so the patient looks at the reflection of their healthy side moving. This visually tricks the brain into thinking the stroke-affected limb is performing the task perfectly, linking cross-education with immediate visual modelling.
- Action Observation: Patients watch a video of a healthy limb performing a precise task (like grasping a cup), mentally simulate the feeling, and then immediately execute the movement with their unaffected side to maximize brain network activation.
Isn’t the brain amazing!
The Week Ahead…
Please remember there are no classes on Mondays or Fridays during August.
- Tuesday (7:30 PM) – Boogie Fit & Fab: Boogie Fit crew, we will be excitedly waiting to welcome you on Tuesday !
This name reflects the temporary August blend of our two popular classes. Featuring an all-new routine and a steady approach to teaching the choreography—with plenty of easier and harder options offered throughout—you are going to love it!
- Tuesday (6:30 PM) – Cardio, Condition and Core: Total Tone crew, you will be well cared for at this combined Total Tone and 5-in-1 class. Expect a multi-level fitness class with banging tunes, plenty of sweat, banter, and laughter!
- Wednesday
- Thursday
New Choreography is waiting for you—see you there!
Summer Glow Chickpea & Peach Salad
You might be growing some of these ingredients in your garden? I love using my home grown stuff, it makes me feel all grown up.
This recipe has a balance of prebiotics (plant fibres that feed good gut bacteria), probiotics (live beneficial bacteria in the dressing), and polyphenols (antioxidants from summer produce that promote a diverse microbiome).
Serves: 2
Ingredients
- The Salad
- 1 can (400g) chickpeas, rinsed and drained (excellent prebiotic fibre)
- 2 ripe summer peaches or nectarines, washed and diced
- 1 medium cucumber, diced (keeps skin on for extra fibre)
- 150g cherry tomatoes, halved (rich in polyphenols)
- 1 small red onion, finely diced (high in prebiotic inulin)
- A large handful of fresh mint and basil, torn
- Dressing:
- 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (healthy fats that support the gut lining)
- 2 tbsp live, unpasteurised apple cider vinegar or lemon juice
- 1 tbsp honey or maple syrup
- 1 small clove of garlic, minced
- A pinch of sea salt and cracked black pepper
- Optional Toppers:
- 2 tbsp pumpkin seeds or sunflower seeds (for crunch and zinc)
- 50g crumbled feta cheese (if you tolerate dairy, look for traditional, authentic feta which contains gut-friendly cultures)
Instructions
- Prep the Veg & Fruit: In a large mixing bowl, combine the drained chickpeas, diced peaches, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, and red onion.
- Whisk the Dressing: In a small bowl or jar, vigorously whisk/shake together the extra virgin olive oil, apple cider vinegar, honey, minced garlic, salt, and pepper until emulsified.
- Toss: Pour the dressing over the salad and toss gently to ensure everything is evenly coated.
- Finish: Fold in the fresh mint and basil. Top with the seeds and crumbled feta if using. Serve immediately or let it sit in the fridge for 20 minutes to let the flavours mingle.
I’m so excited about the next few weeks in August, I’m going to do all the things I can’t usually do because I work 5 nights a week, so having Monday and Friday nights will give me scope to go further afield to explore – any suggestions?
Love ya,
Helen x
DYBO Live & Online – This week’s Classes are as follows:.
At All Hallows, Farnham & DYBO Studio, Church Crookham (Book in Advance only): Zoom class details further down the page.
Tuesday (AH)
6.30pm: Cardio, Condition & Core
7.30pm: Boogie Fit & Fab
Wednesday (DYBO Studio)
6.30pm: Old Skool Step
7.30pm: Barre Fit
Thursday (AH)
6.15pm: Contemporary Stretch
7.30pm: Dancespiration
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Joining us at All Hallows or The DYBO Church Crookham Studio? – Protocols and Information
I’m so happy to be able to run Face to Face classes at All Hallows and at the DYBO Studio in Church Crookham. My primary objective is to ensure that we all have a wonderful time with effective and fun classes that are engaging, relaxed and of course, safe.
Preparation
1) Firstly ensure that you have booked by sending us an email info@dybo.co.uk confirming all the classes you wish to attend plus your payment method, be it as a member, using your voucher, or pay as you go. No on the door bookings or payments can be taken. Bookings are not refundable or transferable. I will keep records of all attending, please also keep a record of your own attendance too.
2) Preparing your kit bag/box. This depends upon the class you are attending.
Boogie Fit, Dance Fit and Dancespiration crew will only require your indoor trainers/dance shoes to change in to, sweat towel, and drink.
Total Tone and 5 in 1 crew – in order to prevent cross contamination currently I am not sharing equipment in a group exercise setting so you will need your mat, a resistance band and light hand weights/equivalent in addition to your trainers, sweat towel and drink.
Contemporary Stretch crew need a mat, band, chi ball and on the last Thursday of the Month you will need 2 x tennis balls and a sock for our Trigger Point and Myofascial release class !
3) Re borrowing equipment – if you would like to try a class or have forgotten equipment then you may borrow equipment on that occasion and please ensure that you sanitise it before and afterwards (sanitising products supplied). I can assist you with sourcing your own equipment inexpensively, moving forward.
On the night
*When you arrive at All Hallows, enter the school via the gates to the left as you face the school and follow the road around the school buildings.
*Please park in the playing courts and walk between the old school building and new sports hall, up a few steps on to the outside seating area, the studio door is to your right.
*Participants are required to arrive 5-10 mins before the class.
*Please change into your clean trainers for indoor activity as you enter, ie. slip off your outdoor shoes, place in your bag, or leave at the door , and change into your indoor trainers . This is to maintain the hygiene and cleanliness of the space, avoiding stones and glass being walked in and potentially causing injury and to protect the lovely new wood floor.
*The toilets are open to use but please arrive changed, ready for activity so as to keep use time minimal and avoiding queues.
*After a wonderful class change from your indoor trainers to outdoor shoes and sanitise your hands again if you wish.
*Please tell friends and family about our wonderful classes!
When joining me at the DYBO Studio (No.42, GU52 0YA) I will send information directly, including entrance code for the Studio and please note, advanced booking is required.
Fees, you have THREE options!
Please note that all Classes must be booked and paid for in advance and are non transferable or refundable.
Online payments only.
50 min Class – £9.00, 60/65 min Class – £9.50
10 Class Voucher: £85 (to be used within 12 weeks of purchase).
Membership: £59, unlimited classes, plus a bonus of free access to all class recordings on our DYBO TV channel, and another bonus of a £5 discount for one to one services for current membership holders.
To be paid by the 1st day of the month (at the latest) and is valid from the first to last day of calendar month.
One full month’s notice of membership suspension/cancellation is required with one membership restart permitted within a 12 month period.
Bank details are UK Fitness Academy Ltd.
Sort Code 09-01-28, Acc No. 04284324
Please email me when you have made a payment and use your name and what it’s for as a reference. eg. Jane Smith Class Voucher
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Joining us on Zoom? – Links and Information
Tuesday
6.30pm Cardio, Condition & Core
7.30pm Boogie Fit & Fab
Wednesday
6.30pm Old Skool, Step & Strength
7.15pm Barre Fit
Thursday
6.15pm Contemporary Stretch
7.30pm Dancespiration
****** All the above classes change and vary weekly! *****
How to prepare your Zoom environment
- You need space to move 2 side steps, 4 walks forward, 4 backward. Move trip hazards and furniture as much as you can (get help, be careful!) to give you maximum space for upper and lower body movement. Roll up rugs or secure them so they don’t slip or cause you to trip.
- Plugging your device in to your TV with an HDMI cable is brilliant as it gives you a good picture of you (like a mirror) and me – as well as boosting the sound if you go through the TV/Hi-Fi sound system. If you can place your device under the TV, then even better.
- I know some of you are using your phones – try to plug in to a speaker system (even those little speakers we have when we go on holiday would help) so that you can hear better as you move back from the phone. Angie has tried Bluetooth earphones and it worked well.
- Ensure you have maximum access to your Wi-Fi in the house and as close to the router as is feasible. Take phones off the Wi-Fi system and pop them on to your 4/5G network or place on airplane mode, unless that’s what you are using to join us, obviously. Ask family to do the same for the duration of your class – keep them off the internet whilst you need the bandwidth. The more bandwidth you have, the better the picture and sound and the less likely you are to lose the feed. Your health is a priority at this time and I’m sure they can do something else for that short time!
- Ventilate your exercise space, have plenty of water and towels to hand, keep your exercise equipment close – if you need anything, let me know.
- Wear correct footwear for your activity – putting an old pair of socks over the toes and ball of your trainers will help reduce friction when exercising on carpet (if they are a really old pair, cutting the toes open and then just having them over the ball of the foot is even better). It’s up to you if you want to dance or train in bare feet but be careful if you don’t usually do this as it takes time for the muscles and connective tissue of the feet and rest of the body to adapt to barefoot training.
- Make your own gym equipment. Save laundry liquid or milk bottles – you can fill them with water or wet sand/rice etc. to add weight and make a dumbell/kettlebell. I recommend you make a few in differing weights and you have written on them so you know what they weigh and seal the caps with tape to prevent leakage. Get a heavy duty shopping bag and put weighty items in it, check they can’t fall out and you have a kettlebell alternative. Make your own hurdles, put cushions, pillows, boxes, books on the floor to jump over. Use household items as floor markers for circuit activities. The stairs and outdoor steps are great temporary steps/benches for cardio and upper body work. The garden is a great open space to make an assault course or if you can get a signal, take your class or PT session outside, but do make it safe.
Disclaimer
I declare that all of the information I have given (both written and verbal) is accurate and truthful. I know of no reason why I cannot participate fully in any exercise programme and I do not deem it necessary to consult my medical Practitioner/GP/specialist. I undertake to inform my instructor should any information change.
I understand that I participate at my own risk and that any information given is not intended to replace or represent medical advice. I agree to comply with all terms conditions and class protocols and instructions as outlined above and whilst attending DYBO classes/training.
Do not attend classes if experiencing symptoms of Covid 19, Flu or airborne transmissible infection or have tested positive.
