Keri McKibbin Personal Training

A great today for running, walking or just about anything outside, even if it is brutally cold!

You should ignore the fact that it’s cold, and simply brace yourself for the first five minutes of sheer cold, then you will soon get used to it! There is nothing like it to blow away some cobwebs!!

If you get used to these temperatures, then ANY weather is going to be okay for you. I used to get my chest wheezing pretty hard at the first sign of cold weather in the winter, i actually now find this good for me as it truly breaks me in for the winter.

If weather was a factor in allowing or stopping us training, then we wouldn’t get much training done in this country at all. If i were you, i would factor in that 9 months of the year is going to be terrible weather, and anything better is a bonus.

This gives you the mindset that you will train in any weather, as long as its not too icy and unsafe, and you will be totally willing NOT to make any more excuses about why you are not in shape.

There is nothing worse than making excuses not to train for bad weather.

My other favourites include not making it to the gym because i didn’t have the car, even though you could easily walk.

Then there’s the one about not having a “training partner” or this ficticious training partner always let you down!!!

So say for one minute anyone believe these excuses, i have given you a million ways on how to train in the house, THERE IS NO EXCUSE NOT TO!!!

If you forgot all of those lame excuses right now, and promise yourself you will NEVER make an excuse again not to train, then your mindset will take you to great heights and great shape in particular!!!

Use this weekend for getting out, whatever the weather because you know you’re going to be proud of yourself when you get back, and you’ve had a hot bath or shower.

The power of actually “DOING” is all powerful and will bring fantastic results out of you not thought previously to be possible!!!

Following on from yesterday, we talked about how to improve quality and intensity of your workouts. We said that cutting down on rest periods was important, as well as much effort you give each exercise of course.

Changing your programme around is always good for your body. So let’s say that you are still doing 6-8 exercises with your weight training, but you have probably designed this so that its mostly fairly moderate exercises each workout, then you need to start changing those more moderate exercises into more challenging calorie-burning exercises/movements that will expend more calories per workout and in particular, reduce body fat at a more rapid rate.

For example, lets say you are doing lat pulldowns for your chosen back exercise, then if you change it to one arm dumbbell rowing, then automatically you are going to have a better, more fat burning workout.

This is because each and every exercise as a “metabolic cost”. What this means is that each exercise has an energy cost and takes a certain amount of calories to perform.

The lat pulldown takes less calories and effort than the one arm dumbbell row. So it shouldn’t take a genius to work out that by switching exercises, you will burn more fat and calories per workout.

If you walked the dog at a moderate pace, then swapping that for running at a moderate pace would significantly help you burn more calories and fat per workout.

This step up in intensity is only possible when you have got used to the lighter more moderate exercises and are comfortable with these. Your conditioning levels are very important and these improvements should only be made gradually.

You can increase the workout intensity on any workout plan you have.

Instead of doing steady long runs, try some hill sprints instead.

Don’t get carried away with the fact that you need to increase the time duration all the time in your workout, this is not really true and all we want is results after all isn’t it?!!!!

If you train for 45 minutes at a time for example, then this is around the maximum time you need to be training. If you find this easy, then as we have talked about the last couple of days, you badly need to increase the intensity and effort going into those 45 minutes.

Don’t get carried away with time and I know a lot of very fit individuals I train can get amazing workouts in just 20-25 minutes. Anyone who has trained with me can testify to that!!!

Train hard but make sure you train smart!

Simplicity is beautiful and brutally efficient when it comes to organising your training schedule.

I have had several instances over the last couple of weeks of putting people on the best path when it comes to maximising their training results.

For example, there are people out there who do well on their initial programme, which is fairly basic but effective, they have good results but wonder how they can improve from there.

 The natural reaction for some is just to add on more exercises on top of their programme, instead of making the more sensible and results giving tactic of simply upping the intensity of the programme they are normally on.

For example, if you are doing 6-8 exercises for weights with around 45 seconds in between each set, plus some punch bag to finish, you will get results.

A lot of people then mistakenly think that to improve, they must put another 3-4 exercies on for the sake of it, or just put 20 minutes of treadmill on top.

The answer they need to look at is to increase  the intensity of the current exercises and simply work harder at them. For example, if you do a bench press with 100 pounds, then moving up to 105 pounds (if you are capable), will automatically add intensity.

If you take too much rest in between each exercise (say 3-5 minutes), then try to get that down considerably, eventually getting down to just 45 seconds, this will create huge intensity!

If you are doing three one minute rounds on the bag to finish off, then you need to start working harder over these 3 minutes or work up to 90 seconds a round, and ultimately get to 3 minutes a round. I know this is slightly longer but 3 minutes a round must always be your goal on this exercise eventually, especially if you’re looking to get into top shape.

Adding more exercises on for the sake of getting a longer workout will see you lose intensity in your workout, lose focus, spend more time in the gym and eventually lose motivation.

Time to get the intensity back on, ramp up your focus and bring in great results every time!

Good workouts always come from a good night’s sleep, and you can never underestimate their importance.

If you struggle with sleep, then you are going to have to address that before you start getting the very best out of yourself.

Some people are early birds when it  comes to sleep, others can’t go to be before 11 or even midnight. As long as either get a good night’s sleep, then it doesn’t really matter when they go to bed, although going to bed earlier gives you more options when it comes to getting up earlier.

Missing sleep can always increases hormones in your body to increase body fat. Your body very much goes into defensive mode when it comes to lack of rest because it has to protect it’s immune system and not get broken down too much.

If you think of all these SAS survivial programmes, the one thing they say that breaks you down more than anything is lack of sleep, and the people who torture you will often use the method of keeping you awake to make you give in, and to even make you delirious!

Sleeping in the day for even small 10-15 minute periods can be of enormous help when it comes to making up somewhat for lost hours at night for whatever reason!

“Power naps” as most people know them can bring you added power during your evening workouts too. Athletes at all levels, and all sports use this tactic of bringing added freshness into their days and performances, and schedule them in as part of their day.

When you feel rested and fresh, you are usually capable of a lot more and you are sending messages to your body that you expect big performances out of it.

Don’t forget ever that you only improve when you rest and sleep, and not when you train. You break down your muscles and body during training, but when you recover, you heal, your immune system builds again and its only then that your body hits new heights of development.

The perfect formula of training smart, eating well and good rest can never change if you want optimum levels of health and performance.

Monday is the start of another week for you, another week of change and you wouldn’t like it any other way!

Change is inevitable and your body is changing right now. Your cells and body as a whole changes slightly every day, for the better or for worse.

Everything changes, the economy, business, technology, just about everything wants to go quickly and there’s nothing we can do about it!

When change happens, you either go along with it and do your best and look for all the benefits, or you can pretend it’s not happening and resist it, and get run over by it! Your choice but one of two things i going to happen!

You should see change as an opportunity for growth and fresh levels of health in your life.

If you eat pie and chips for lunch, doughnuts for snacks and a bottle of win tonight, then change is going to happen for you in terms of increased body fat, in terms of more body weight, in terms of lower energy and definitely make you far more irritable!

We talk about the other sort of change on here all the time, the one where you live healthy and we practice what we preach? You know that one!! You know all the benefits by now so hope i don’t have to remind you.

So if you accept there’s going to be two sorts of changes in your life that you can’t avoid, you will be fine.

The first one is the economy and weather, the economy is in the gutter right now, but will eventually get better, and the weather may be freezing or absolutely lovely, depending on time of year, you know how it is by now.

Regarding your health, that will only go downhill through your habits most of the time, or it will improve again through your habits most of the time!!!

Everything is spinning around all the time moving forward, up to you if you want to get on the bus and keep changing for the better!

It can seem very difficult to be positive when your environment is seemingly negative.

It always takes work to be positive and motivated.

Bad things don’t always go away, but there’s a lot you can do to turn your negatives into the positive!

The people who end up being successful in getting into shape, and more importantly, stay there tend to be positive in their focus no matter what is going on around them.

From talking to them and using it as research, they tend to always mention their past successes, and don’t usually mention or certainly DO NOT dwell on their past failures. Their focus tends to be on the steps they can take to achieve their goals, rather than their distractions and negatives that life can bring more or less every day.

Being proactive in what you need to do is massive if you really want to get leaner, stronger and develop huge amounts of energy. You will find that these actions build on top of each other and you can reach optimum health levels with less work than you initially thought!

To increase your focus, try this game in your mind when you go to bed.

Review your day, recognise your successes, still focus on what’s to come in your future and make real detailed plans for you want to achieve the very next day.

If you don’t have a plan for the next day, it can drift and sometimes you won’t be able to get anything done. If you get used to achieving every day, then it will become normal everyday life for you and you will start becoming very successful without thinking it’s hard work at all!

If you do this at the end of the day, its been proven to stay in your unconcious mind up to 6 times more than in any other part of the day. Its like reading a child a book before bedtime, they not only fall asleep but often the lessons from the story and morals often become part of the child’s consciousness.

Programming yourself for success is all in the mind, and every bit of valuable information is handy to be taken onboard.

Educating individuals on how to eat well and maximise their potential is always difficult, depending of course on how much they know already, some people know a lot already and some know absolutely nothing.

It’s worth sticking at it though because of the enormous benefits that will come with a proper eating plan. Hopefully you are reading this every day for a no nonsense way to improve your health, so I have to lay it down to you as straight as possible!

I have met so many people who have transformed their lives by switching their fast food diet over to fresh natural foods. If you want better skin instantly, a stronger leaner tighter body, a much stronger immune system and an amazing level of energy, then make the move now!

I cannot overstate the results you are likely to get from throwing away your past life of eating empty calories which can lead to ill health and low energy levels, to one full of rich nutrients that will energise you to a much higher quality of life. This is no gimmick and there are no faddy diet clubs in sight, this is real and WILL work!!!

People always say that its hard to eat healthy all the time, but that statement is totally false. This pack of lies is usually told by people who are not really committed to turning their lives around.

The hardest part is the first week when you make the initial switch, there can be headaches, irritability, light headedness etc all in the first few days, but give yourself a few weeks of eating right and how can you go back to feeling the way you did before?!!!

You will be in the fast lane of development, I have met some people who only ate crisps and chocolate all day for whatever reason, then they changed to white meats and fish, wholegrain and whole wheat pasta, new, sweet and jacket potatoes, brown rice, lots of fruit and vegetables and a steady supply of water, and they made a transition of such magnitude, that people thought it was scarcely possible!!

People all the time will tell you theres a million ways to do things, but if why not keep it to the most sensible, tried and tested and as it happens, the most SCIENTIFIC way of getting it right with your body.

January 19^th and still not too late to get into great shape by spring, only you can decide to do it!!!

With the weather a bit up and down, or mostly down this time of year, you have may have been faced with inside options most of the time this winter!!!

This is not always a bad thing and it will help hammer home the importance of strength training, using resistance works full stop for a million and one reasons.

I was dealing with an individual today who has had a snowboarding accident and badly damaged his shoulder.

You may think that strength training is out of the question in this case, but its never been more important for him.

We can still work the legs very hard, and this often helps bring a weak area up for most people because you can give it much more of a concentrated effort.

The shoulder has calmed down a lot now, so i have introduced some fantastic shoulder exercises. This gentleman can normally use 30 pound dumbbells for his shoulder work, i have stripped it down now right to 5 pound dumbbells! This allows me to concentrate on building up the strength of the tendons and ligaments around the shoulder, and very gradually build his strength up again.

You can never be over cautious in this type of situation, but its imperitive to get back the strength and integrity of that shoulder joint!

Contrast this with an elderly lady i train who is looking at the same five pound dumbbells, but using them in a lot of different exercises to develop her strength, and she is well into here 70’s. She is getting tremendous benefits in every area of her life now from being fitter, stronger and healthier!!!

I am not going to put an exclamation mark after that because i find these days my clients in the 70’s are usually stronger than most 40 year old’s i know, and thats no exaggeration!!!

I try to treat each and every person on their individual abilities, and not discriminate against anyone on their age in particular!!!

Whatever their age, strength training will remain paramount in my plans for them!!!

“If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is compromise”.

Robert Fritz, author of The path of least resistance.

Most of you who have achieved something in life will have experienced someone trying to talk you out of it in the first place. I know i certainly have. It’s fantastic to prove people wrong, and i’m sure many of you have done that, and it’s always been a result of keeping your head down and working hard in the end, and deflecting negativity and doubt that others will try to inflict on you along the way.

Not only do people talk you out of doing things that are important to you, they will sometimes call you crazy for even thinking about it!!! This is the point you know that you are onto something really special and others are envious about your upcoming possible big success in life.

There will also be those who laugh at you and will try to bring you down to their level. I don’t have to tell you by now surely that these types of people are exactly the ones you should be IGNORING and whatever they tell you, i would advise the exact opposite!

The greatest danger for most of us is not that we will aim too high in our ambitions and come a cropper, but by far the biggest danger is AIMING TOO LOW and reaching those levels!

It takes guts to have lofty goals, and deep determination to carry out the necessary things to get there. This is why not many people reach where they want to be.

Once you set your goals, however high they may be, start expecting them to happen and start practicing the habits to get there. If you want great health, then you had better be eating as much natural fresh food as possible, as well as sleeping well, and in addition to proper well thought out training of course!

It all starts with belief, without it you will aiming too low and unfortunately likely to get there!

Change course now and shoot high!

James Cameron, who directed one of my favourite series of films, the Terminator series and Titanic, has a great saying and it sums up what most people are trying to achieve in life, and i certainly take a lot from it.

“People call me a perfectionist, but i’m not. I’m a “rightist”, i do something until it’s right, and then i move on to the next thing”.

If you follow this advice you are unlikely ever to go wrong.

How many have started an exercise programme and gone about it the wrong way? Thinking there must be a short-cut every time and you could really eat”whatever you want”, and somehow cheat the system!!

 I have been there myself and it took me a while to figure out that you couldn’t cheat the system, that it really did take hard work and consistency, and you had to be very mindful of what you were eating every day.

Then i discovered that you couldn’t really drink every weekend, all weekend. I found out for the best results, that once a week in moderation was really the maximum i could do if i wanted to lose body fat. People will try and beat this system too, usually without much success.

I thought too that i could do without sleep, that i could somehow do without it and still have unbelievable energy levels. Guess what? That didn’t work either!! Now sleep is paramount to me, for my performance and my general health, if i don’t i suffer full stop!!!

The secret is that i encourage everyone to work at all these CONSTANTLY.

In certain cultures, they strive for constant and never-ending improvement, successful people in all walks of life tend to use this mantra, and have figured out long ago that if you don’t try to keep on improving that you will get left behind.

Whichever way you are eating and drinking, what methods you choose for training, promise yourself that you will do IT RIGHT, and you will keep on even if you don’t get it right to start with. Focus on self-improvement and see this week as a fresh opportunity to get better once again!