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Fresh attitude

Sometimes the best way to feel fresh and enthused about your training is to look for new standards and take a look at all the sport going on at the moment.

Some of you cycle a lot, and the main event is about to start this saturday, the tour de france of course. Lance Armstrong says its his last tour and although the 3 weeks can seem like a bore for some, i will be glued to this game of chess on a bike. If you watch it every day it can be addictive as you learn about tactics and why certain riders don’t do the obvious things at times, saving energy for later even more incredible feats.

All of this will add to your own performance in your cycling. You will take notice of your own bike more and its maintenance, how to improve your own performance and how to get faster and eventually use less energy, that has to be the goal.

Whenever you follow a professional sport, and you see athletes do it better, most of us are inspired to get better ourselves.

It could be the world cup, and what youngster doesnt want to play magical football like the Brazilians.

Its always good to strive to be the best we can be, and all of this interest you may now be showing in sports, Wimbledon, the world cup, summer rugby internationals, the tour de france etc will give you a whole new fresh attitude that will put fresh vigour into your training and eating.

Twitt
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England are out!!!

Apparently, England are expecting a heroes welcome today, their flight home has been diverted to Glasgow airport! That was on Talk sport this morning which is an english radio station but thought that was really funny!

Jean asks why was Rooney looking so slow etc and i think that most of us are fed up of the “bigging up” by the press, the england team are either rubbish and unpatriotic, or they are world-beaters! Clearly they are no world beaters so this probably leaves england amongst the weaker nations when it comes to international football.

The question that has been asked is why these players play so well for their clubs and they are so poor at international level.

There are a number of reasons i suppose and im not an international football coach, but playing players out of position doesnt work, the english players are not technically as good as the germans, the germans “wanted it” much more and were prepared to run all day to make opportunities to win the game.

The likes of rooney, terry, gerrard are obviously over-hyped and were taken to the cleaners by this relatively unknown German team, these unknowns are now household names now in germany and is a testament to their youth policy. You have to say they were the best team.

In this country, the focus seems on getting the best foreign talent in and not developing our own. This probably means that club football is far more important than the international game, and really exposed when england gets such a hammering and end up being a disgrace.

A lot of people are saying get rid of Capello and bring in Harry Rednapp.

As i stated before on here, Rednapp seems a much better man manager and seems to have the knack of getting the very best out of players, many of whom were previously heading to the scrapheap! He is also full of passion and drive, and its great to see he is getting the recognition he deserves.

Getting people to believe in themselves is more than half the battle, Rooney doesn’t become a terrible player overnight, after all he was voted the player of the Premiership this year. He clearly has lost confidence, perhaps his injuries caught up with him, whatever the reason, there was no excuse for not chasing every ball down and no trying your best, at times it did seem many of the English team were not as committed as the Germans clearly were.

England need a huge inquiry into their performance and need to create a centre of excellence, like most successful nations have. However it appears the FA are about as pro-active as the Lawn Tennis Association, plenty of talk but on the results front, pretty useless and a national disgrace, always have been and always will be.

Twitt
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Motivation can’t last

Jean makes an interesting point today, she says she has forgotten how to diet, how to train, and definitely forgotten about how to get motivated!

I remember jean when she was doing very well and it wasnt that long ago.

She now makes reference to the asthma pump back in her life, when she was training regular and eating better, the asthma pump amazingly disappeared, in fact everything seemed a lot better.

I take the point on  board about enjoying your lie, one life you have and all that, but here’s another approach.

Say you want a few drinks whenever you want and say its tonight. What is wrong with that? You can make the decision yourself and all you have to do is be ready to do something the very next morning.

I hate it when people say “no point in exercising the day after a few drinks, it doesn’t do you any good”! WHAT RUBBISH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Everyone i know who trains after a few drinks the night before feels much better afterwards, and are sure in their minds that most of the sugar/alcohol they put in the night before is being worked out.

I have done this for years, without fail i have either cycled or ran the day after, and always felt great the day after.

I remember i did not do it one week the day after and felt lousy all day long, and felt really bloated and i felt horrible, so working out after the night before is now a way of life for me.

Back to the motivation cant last statement. NOBODY stays motivated 52 weeks a year, nobody!

So how does someone workout 52 weeks a year? Structure and making exercise and eating well a part of your life forever and no, its not boring!!!!

You can still eat your favourite food in moderation, you can still drink alcohol but it doesnt have to be every single night of course, drink when it means having some fun and you dont feel you’re missing out, but like i said, you need to train the morning after to get all the weight-gaining chemicals/sugar out of your body.

Motivation doesnt always last, it will come and go but its vital you keep some structure in your life of moving around more, when you shop for food your trolley is not full of rubbish, have some treats but the majority should be wholesome.

This one life you have slogan is great, but surely the best way to achieve that is making sure you are healthy too to enjoy it to the full.

Have your treats, have a drink, have plenty of fun, but make sure your workouts and wholesome food are in there too!

Lets do it and whether you’re motivated or not, lets make it happen until it comes around again, and it will for sure!

Twitt
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Don’t waste your efforts

Everyone seems to give a different effort into their training.

Those who give little effort and tend to go through the motions tend to get some mediocre results, often drifting in and out of their training programmes and not really achieving a whole lot. They promise themselves that “next time” they will really do it.

If you have had some outstanding results lately, you are really in the category of giving an enormous amount of effort and you are willing to suffer heck of a lot to get some great sessions in. You are expecting harder and harder sessions, and you adapt to these very well by showing the level of commitment you show on a regular basis.

You are creating a deficit of calories in your body that should be prime time for body fat loss. The times that this ideal situation is disrupted is if you consume more calories than you need.

I know most of your calories may be good, and its not as if you eat rubbish every day.

The biggest problem when you’re trying to reduce your calories is the initial hunger pangs you feel in the first week. If your body is used to a certain amount of calories, a certain portion size etc, it is very difficult to feel satisfied that first week of trying to cut down.

This first week is so critical in laying the foundations of portion control. Always remember that if you eat too much of anything, you WILL put weight on, this is the fact you need to remember.

This is why its always recommended to eat with good guidelines in mind. Think size of your fist with carbs and protein portions, and have as much veg as you like. A pack of cards is a good way to describe your carbs and protein portions too, think smaller portions and you will get smaller full stop.

So now we are thinking a lot more about food and portions control, imagine how powerful this will become with the enormous effort you put in your training. Whenever you put the powerful combination of hard training with disciplined, well controlled eating, you are going to have serious results full stop so let’s get it going!

If you can do this, and not pick on things in the kitchen just because nobody is looking, you will be given yourself a big guarantee of superb results.

Always think of the incredible efforts you put into your training, do you really want to waste ANY of that by over-feeding yourself? None of us are perfect but the serious eating control will make you have 100 times more reward than if you just hope for the best on the eating side of things.

Twitt