Thursday, 12th July

A good measure of how well you are doing is your attitude to work. An individual’s work ethic often dictates his/her achievements in life.

One client I have who has shown this over many years is Olly Jenkins, who has just had the role of Robin in the world famous Batman stage show which will be touring the united states over the next 12 months.

This is an example of how hard work pays off, and how an attitude of continuously trying to improve one’s self is of paramount importance.

If you want to be an actor or actress at the highest level, you had better make sure your immune system is very strong for a year long production.

The gruelling schedule of a stage production, all the travelling and  performance standards dictate that these days you need to be in incredible physical condition.

These are pre-requisites of most jobs these days, especially if you want to work at a very high standard. I train people from all walk’s of life, and each and every one of them reports a marked improvement in their work performance after an extended period of training.

The consistent practice of eating well, drinking enough water, training sensibly and regular will pay enormous dividends over a sustained period of time.

If you study some of the most successful people, you will find that many of them will run first thing in the morning, most of them will do weight training of some kind, you will find that also the days of a heavy drinking lifestyle are over too.

You simply CANNOT work under pressure and perform well with a hangover or a headache!! This simply cannot happen.

More and more working lunches and evening meals are supported by plenty of water and good quality food, not only is this much better for one’s concentration, but this will enable you to perform much later into the day, instead of collapsing into a heap at the end of it!!

Life is continuously getting about longer days performing at an elevated performance level, your lifestyle will dictate if you are going to get to the highest level or not!

Tuesday, 10th July

Talking about elite athletes yesterday, its important to take some vital lessons from how they train.

Perhaps most people wont be able to show the extreme dedication they show to training, diet and basically living like a monk, but reaching our own personal best can be just as important for our own needs.

This is why we talk about constant improvement on here, and how to achieve exactly that and the processes involved.

It all starts with the monthly measuring and it follows from there. Its all about accountability and this is what you will have in common with these elite athletes, they are constantly being measured and constantly analysing their performances.

Nothing can make up for results and you need to make yourself accountable as much as possible.

If an elite athlete loses a race, or performs really badly in the race, there will be a lot of reprecussions, usually resulting in losing money or sponsorship or both.

There won’t be any such penalties if you don’t lose two inches off your waist in a month for example, but you can usually tell if you have had a good month of training and eating-or not!

There aren’t many good reasons to just go through the motions in your training, if you do then you need to find some motivation from somewhere and re-assess what you are doing.

If its lack of intensity, then change it and get much more fired up about your training.

If you have been in  the same exact routine for 6 weeks or more, then change it now and you will see an immediate result for the better!!!

If you wonder why you still train, then remember why you first started, why you are doing it now and what you really want to achieve, deep down, from your training and eating efforts!

This is what we can learn from the star athletes, and the accountability they constantly have to go through, use it in a positive way and you will automatically get better results!

Monday, 9th July

The pursuit of excellent is continuously being shown by Andy Murray.

He may not have won yesterday, but in his own words, he is “getting closer”!!

It didn’t help of course he came up probably the greatest ever player, but he did have Federer on the back foot for some considerable time.

Hopefully, he will get at least one grand slam and hope  to see it soon.

It never ceases to amaze me the amount of hate and vitriol he seems to get especially online, when most of it is surely unjustified. I think everyone will agree he showed his “human side” after his tearful speech while accepting his runner up trophy.

Another sporting hero who is getting a hard time at the moment is Bradley Wiggins. You would think that being the first ever British cyclist to be favourite for the tour de france would be a big thing, but apparently not.

The press have turned it into a personal hate and smear campaign against Wiggins, and this time mainly from the french and spanish press. They cannot accept that wiggins is NOT on drugs, and that he MUST be doing something illegal to be such a favourite!

They forget that wiggins won three g0ld medals, and should really have had a fourth gold medal if mark cavendish had shown up on form that day.

Wiggins was also fourth in the tour de france three years ago, was tenth the year after after losing form, and was in great shape last year only to crash out with a broken collarbone.

This year he was won the paris-nice classic, the tour of romandie, the dauphine de libere so i hardly think he has somehow got “lucky” this year!!

Wiggins has shoved two fingers up at his detractors this year, as has murray.

Wiggins will surely be a grand tour champion in perhaps the world’s toughest sporting event, Murray needs one more step.

Time to stay positive and get behind our sporting stars.

Thursday, 28th June

We always talk about how to get more out of yourself, and being the best version of yourself is something that most of us are aiming to get to at some stage.

All of this talk is fine, but can be more than a little off-putting for some individuals I have found.

Not everyone wants to be some kind of high-achiever that is focused on giving 200% every time he or she trains. In practice, that is not often possible anyway!

The way I get around this is to give people little and often exercise sessions.

If I told an individual that they had to constantly do a complicated exercise programme, then I know a number of individuals I train would shy away from that and find it very difficult in reality!

The approach to use is to give someone a fairly simple (but still very productive) exercise programme that lasts them around 20-25 minutes maximum.

Then to include no more than 6 exercises in their programme so things never become in any way complicated, or difficult to remember.

Most people have complicated lives as it is, the last thing they need is a headache when going through their workouts.

For example, cleaning your teeth is one of the most simple things you do, pretty straightforward for everyone you would hope.

The result from all that brushing?

Good mouth health and hygiene, your teeth and gums in good shape and when done twice a day, you tend not to have too many painful visits to the dentist!!

The same should be true about your exercise programme, keeping it simple encourages a lot more participation and regular exercise. Get the actual exercises right and your results will become strong.

No need to over-complicate unless you’re training for something very specific. To the average exercise, simplicity is always best!

Wednesday, 20th June 2012

Following on from the post yesterday regarding the dangers of too much sugar, and the evils of corn syrup which is practically in everything, i will share with you the difference it seems to make to people i train.

I do train people who are away for much of the week, and tend to live on hotel food.

No matter what hotel you stay in, the food is usually laden with sugar, not only that but salt too. This is on top of the saturated fat, so when you think of the composition of hotel food, its not really a pretty picture.

Consuming this type of food can be very destructive for your performance too. Its a double-whammy really, you put weight on because you start eating food thats of poor quality, and you struggle to get the performance out of yourself to burn it all off because this food can’t be absorbed quickly and efficiently for good workouts!

Wherever you go, there seems to be a problem with eating establishments dishing out effectively “rubbish” food.

Having had three children, i remember having to eat quite a lot in hospital canteens at all sorts of hours.

No matter how hard you try, the food is full of salt, sugar, and mostly saturated fat, this is exactly what you dont need!

Try a piece of fish there and its smothered in batter and fried.

Whatever half-decent turns out to be smothered in sauce.

So you end up eating all of these varieties of food, and guees what? You soon become used to eating food high in sugar again, and your sweet tooth comes back very quickly indeed!!

Then you find it hard to go back to where you were before, by that i mean eating much more plain food and avoiding added sugar whenever when possible!

This is why eating food made from scratch makes a lot of sense, and where possible asking the cook/chef to have something that was not battered, not covered in sauce or fried.

Don’t forget its your money and you should be able to get what you pay for, especially if staying healthy is a priority for you!!!