Posted on

Saturday, 18th January

Everyone wants to feel better about themselves, and most people I have dealt with at the beginning think that they have to change how they LOOK so that they can feel good about themselves.

This is the biggest mistake they make because they never actually get the whole story and concentrate too much on looks.

If you change your attitude towards your body-not changing your body-is one key element to feeling a lot better about yourself. When you feel good about yourself, you can do what it takes to get more out of yourself in terms of your body fat levels and your health as a whole.

The next question is how can you go about doing that?

How can you change your body image?

How can you stop feeling so bad about the way you look?

The first thing to realize is that your body image is influenced by many areas of your life.

For example, how about the negative comments and teasing from school, work colleagues or your family even? These can seriously hurt your body image and make you feel terrible about your appearance.

What about the media? How about all those bodies that are too thin and make you believe that THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG with you just because you are not that small when it’s probably not even possible to be that small without getting ill!

What about the way you talk to yourself about your body. Talking internally to yourself and constantly putting yourself down will take its toll over the short and long term and set yourself up for failure.

If you have parents who think negatively about their own bodies, then their influence tends to rub off on you creating yet another damaging role model on the way you think you should treat your body and health.

If you can realize right now that all these examples may be working against you, then this is the first step. Now you HAVE to do something about it!

More Monday.

Twitt
Posted on

Wednesday, 8th January

I have already got through an awful lot of measurements with individuals in 2014, and the range of emotions has been dramatic.

My easiest measurements were the ones who trained all the way through Christmas, some even hit personal bests through the holiday period, and to actually improve substantially during Christmas is staggering!

My toughest measurements were the ones who stopped training perhaps 3-4 weeks before Christmas, and ate much more than usual, didn’t train, and some drank too much alcohol a few times a week.

When you are measuring someone all year long and they get used to dramatic results every four weeks, then to undo a chunk of that progress can floor someone who has become to regular victories in their training challenges.

The psychological let down usually makes people go one of two ways.

Either they stand up and fight, and really promise themselves that they are going to eat well again, get right back into regular training, cut right down on alcohol, and although there is a tough month to get through, that they are going to stick with it and make big inroads on the excess body fat they have gained.

Most people can’t stand feeling all the extra weight on them again anyway, especially after feeling so fit and well at their peak only weeks before Christmas, so its usually a matter of simply wanting to feel their best again anyway!

However, some people take it really badly, and a lot of the hard won confidence levels they developed through successive positive physical improvement can be damaged.

This is when the individual concerned needs a mixture of big emotional support from friends and family, from myself and regular exercise to get their body remembering how good it felt to be at their best.

The support system for the individual is all important, and will make the difference between long term sustainable success, or becoming someone who once did well, but loses self-esteem and hits a long slippery slope when body fat gain becomes the norm, and one’s self-worth hitting an all time low.

This is exactly the time of year to stand up and fight, really accept you do not want to feel overweight, unfit and lacking in ambition.

Really, whatever your situation, this is exactly the time to stop talking about it and get on and change yourself right now, because all of you have the resources and power to change and reach your absolute potential once again!

Twitt
Posted on

Monday, 30th December

So this time of year in the holidays is about making sure your exercise sessions go in, and then making them productive.

First of all, you will probably know by now that I like to avoid doing mindless cardio that doesn’t really make the most of your time at the gym.

That type of training should have disappeared in the 1980’s and 1990’s, but unfortunately I do hear of it happening still today. This is usually due to a lack of direction being shown in one’s exercise programme, or a “tell them to go on there for half an hour and forget about them” type of attitude.

Getting individuals to stay on a treadmill for long, slow periods, staying on the bike at a low intensity for long boring experiences, are what I would consider an insult to the person’s intelligence I was training. Doing “a bit of weights now and again” is not acceptable either, you should exercise with purpose and look for constant improvements every 1-2 weeks.

There’s far more productive ways to train and this is why we will never become a “go through the motions” type of gym, and definitely not a gym who concentrates on getting a direct debit out of you and hoping you never show up! This is why too that every bit of exercise we do in the gym is going to directly benefit you, rely on the latest science of training, and directly show on your body, and your heart strength when you get your regular in detail measurements.

This is why we retain most people who join too, and therefore don’t rely on the typical January rush, training should be a lifestyle change that is achievable, and not ripping you off on a 6-18 month contract where the only pounds disappearing will be from your pocket.

So if you’re looking for your cardio in a quick period of time, you need to focus and concentrate on targets that will regularly change for the better.

A simple way of looking at it is to look at these two examples.

Lets say in week one you can manage 5 minutes on the rowing machine in a particular training interval, and you’re really tired after that so you need plenty of rest before moving on to other things.

Then after week three, you’re up to 10 minutes on the rower, and you can do some boxing with me with no rest.

Then after week eight maybe, you’re into set specific metre challenges on the rower, you are doing walking or even running up on the railway bridge right next to the gym, and you hit the ropes hard, and THEN finish off with a flurry of punches with a boxing session with me.

This is only an example, and all different scenarios are possible, of course only working within that individual’s capability and I never overwork anyone past their boundaries in that particular session. Some people will be more capable than others of course, but every single person should be capable of SIGNIFICANT improvement at
regular intervals.

Now THIS IS PROGRESS and you’re starting to feel alive again! This is achievable at ANY AGE.

This is why the results are coming in thick and fast and this is why you should never accept mindless “programmes” that never consider you as an individual, and if you’re going to improve or not!!!

Trust in results.

Twitt
Posted on

Friday, 27th December

Following on from our last post about guidelines about training through the Christmas period, it’s important to write it down in layman’s terms.

This is because quite a lot of you have continued training throughout the holidays, and some of you even on Christmas and boxing days, some of you train these two big days every year, simply because you feel better you tell me, and we can all relate to that feeling that exercise gives us.

So let’s assume you are looking to keep some sort of decent condition over Christmas, it’s important to remember some key recommendations.

Most of you will not have much time to train as normal, with other commitments taking precedent so it’s vital you cut to the chase!

If you are doing a weights workout, you need to prioritize getting the most from your body.

If you usually pick 8-10 exercises for your session, then you need to just do what is necessary, and try to work your whole body in one session. Many people have gone away from working your whole body in one session, but going back to it will surprise you in terms of the effort required and the huge benefits it can give you again. Many people try to go straight on some kind of pro routine when a simple all over programme 2-3 times a week would be far more beneficial for them.

Just pick one exercise for your legs, chest, shoulders, back, arms (triceps/biceps) and core.

Pick an exercise that tests you quite hard and requires a lot of energy, for example bench press for chest, upright rows for shoulders, one arm dumbbell rowing for back, leg press for legs, dumbbells curls/bench dips for arms, etc, and some medicine ball work for core.

After a brief warm up on the bike, try 3 sets of 8 with a weight that’s going to test you. This will give you a short and very productive workout in less than half and hour.

Aim to take 45 seconds in between sets, or however long it takes you to get your breath back. You may have to use less weight than normal, but your heart and lungs will be having a great workout too, and as you get used to it over a few weeks, your lifting weight will gradually creep back up again.

You will be out of breath at times, your heart rate will be accelerated, and you will definitely break a sweat, in other words you will be getting the job done quickly.

Christmas is a great time for getting back to basics, and this simple plan will take you a long way into the new year too.

More on other simple training strategies to come, that you can use the rest of the week.

Twitt
Posted on

Sunday, 22nd December

There is a huge increase in most people’s eating and drinking this time of year, this is what most of you are experiencing right now with a couple of days left to christmas. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with enjoying yourself either, as most of us are going to do it anyway!

As you get further into the holidays, the vast majority of people who train will always train less, most likely not at all, and train with less intensity when they do make it to training that is, and in general lose the enthusiasm they have had to be active all year. There is a direct link between stopping training and your enthusiasm to be active again almost disappearing.

This is why most people never get around to starting exercising again.

This “pause” usually turns into a 2-4 week slump that many never come out of. The start back becomes 100 times harder seemingly, and the new year resolution you are likely to make is 97% of the time never going to happen in reality (according to recent surveys).

In terms of exercising, surveys showed in 2013 that most people who promise to get fit in their new year resolution, actually saw that dream collapse on January 28th. So 3-4 weeks seems the average life-span of many people’s get fit plan each year.

Keeping your exercise plan, however short you want to make it, will often make the difference between you carrying on exercising, or becoming one of the statistics that often has a stab at exercise, but never carries it on due to the hammering their body takes over the Christmas holiday period.

Condensing your workouts into much shorter workout intervals always makes sense, it saves you time, you get to feel better because you have exercised, and it never crosses your mind to quit exercising completely!

More tomorrow on this.

Twitt