Posted on

Monday, 27th April

Great question today about which ONE exercise is best for core?

The best answer I always give to that question is that there isn’t just one exercise, it’s EVERYTHING IN YOUR PROGRAMME that will give you your best and strongest core.

We do everything for a reason, and all we do is aimed at getting your waist down, your hips down but not only that. You need to be much stronger with your core too because it’s the central source of power for your body, and where all your strength comes from too.

You work hard on your weights and your core is a prime mover on every exercise. As you lift more, your core gets stronger.

You put a lot of exercises in on the TRX, vipr, Bulgarian bag and your core takes a pounding. All of those movements require so much strength and power.

Your medicine ball work requires you to be a certain level on core strength before you even attempt it. Steadily increasing your tolerance to medicine ball exercise is critical for your overall development.

Think of the tyres outside, the sledgehammer, the prowler-all are massive power movements that hit your things, hamstrings, hips, stomach, back-all that are vital in making up your core.

When you run, when you sprint through our ladders, cones, hurdles etc, your core is on fire.

The workouts we do on the grass are absolutely massive for core as most of you will know, getting to work deeper into your muscles than ever before.

So the bottom line is that EVERYTHING works for you and a stronger core will make you look, perform and feel at your very best, so keep hitting it from all angles!!

Twitt
Posted on

Monday, 22nd December

Most of you are really finding it really difficult to make training happen for you this week in any meaningful way, and are just trying to get through your sessions in any way you can.

I see this happening most years of course, and a different strategy will always work far better for you.

So when it comes to your workouts, you need to simplify what you do more.

Time will obviously be the biggest constraint this week, so making the time you DO have count is ultra-important.

Time-crunching your workouts will mean cutting your overall number of exercises and sets, but raising the intensity of everything you do.

If you normally for example do 3 sets of 8 on each weight training exercise, then you need to drop that down to 2 sets of 12 giving everything in those two sets.

If you normally hit 10-20 prowlers at the end of your workout, then try just ONE to the three bollards. Much more time efficient but still get a huge amount from your sessions.

The new bikes are great for this, instead of doing 30 minutes on the other bikes, just 2-4 minutes can be unbelievable on these new bikes, and definitely get the job done.

You can use the same strategies on the rowers and ski machine, just work harder and for less overall time.

So when you hit the gym, aim to do what you can in 20-30 minutes, going as non-stop as possible, starting again when you get your breath back.

This way of training will definitely get the job done, plus saving you plenty of time to do other things at this very busy time of year!

Twitt
Posted on

Friday, 27th June

If you are start off in school in year 1 and you start learning basics, then it’s a natural progression to move on to new stuff pretty much year in year out, and often from week to week even, all of which are stepping stones to your development.

If you use this analogy in relation to exercise, then it should work the same way but often in practice it never does. Most gyms are not accountable to their members, because most people’s experience of gyms is being shown around the gym in broad terms, given a sheet of paper they give to everyone, and then forgotten about and left to their own devices once the direct debit is signed.

How many people do you know when they begin to exercise keep on doing the same old thing at the same level of intensity (or lack of!). It’s heartbreaking when you see this going on for long periods of time, and these individuals never progressing the way they should.

Proper exercise technique can take a lot of time, not only to show it but make sure good form continues to happen.

It’s human nature to go back to old ways, and when you exercise going back to old ways can mean sloppy form and potential injury, and definitely no progress.

It’s also human nature to find the easiest way of doing things.

Going through the motions in gyms is what most people do. Picking the more difficult movements, which require a high amount of energy just to do them are unfortunately what most individuals avoid, leading to mediocre results and a lack of general fitness. You commit to spend time in the gym, so why not make it as productive as possible?

Your programme needs to change regularly if you really want to seriously change the way you look and perform regularly, you need a few different types of workouts that will challenge your body to adapt, and you need to totally get out of your comfort zone, because your body requires a different stimulus all the time to keep on progressing.

See your training as a constant progression, and not just training and getting through it for the sake of it. It makes the difference between being a constant success story or just drifting through your programme without any kind of meaningful results to show for it.

Twitt
Posted on

Wednesday, 25th June

Many trainers are in the business of exhausting their clients, more and more reps just for the sake of it, no plan, no purpose and definitely no progression. Don’t forget that anyone can stand there and try and destroy you with exercise, but it takes true skill and experience to build you up gradually, so you become a much better athlete.

Understanding proper programming, and making sure the individual you are training EXECUTES your programme is of paramount experience, and this is why you see me running around a lot, things HAVE to be done properly no matter what, and we have to get through certain workouts every week like it or not.

Results are vital, and there has to be a plan on how to get them.

The variety of exercises we use in with one purpose in mind, to make you a better athlete full stop!

Hopefully, the goal of the individuals I train is to look better, feel better, and feel stronger and healthier.

We are the opposite of places who train you like you have to be worn-out sore, and feel like they have been crushed. This will likely lead to injury, and over-stress your central nervous system which means your body will break down sooner rather than later.

You need to train hard, but to learn new skills too. You need to get your body to adapt to new movements, then get it to recover with good nutrition, so it’s ready to do those movements easier next time you do them.

Please don’t fall for the rubbish you need to exhaust yourself every time. If you are continually getting stronger, a little bit faster with more endurance, then you are in a great place and you are likely to see incredible results in a far more pleasant and more enjoyable way!

Twitt
Posted on

Sunday, 22nd June

Most women carry at least 10% less muscle than they should for all sorts of health reasons due to modern lifestyles, meaning lack of exercise and lack of proper nutrition.

This is why our programme concentrates so much on you getting stronger, making you build lean muscle tissue just to get you to recommended levels, and help you burn calories much faster 24 hours a day than you probably are now.

Your body needs lean muscle to become leaner, and the strength training will have a big added benefit of strengthening your bone density. Osteoporosis is a very real threat to all of us, in particular for women, so a large part of our training focuses on countering that, along with balance and coordination.

You need to forget about the scale too. Please do it. This is the most distracting way of making you doubt your progress when the pounds are not dropping dramatically. If you build lean muscle, you will actually become smaller and more shapely, your clothes will fit much better and according to every single female we train, you are very likely to drop a couple of dress sizes, or several dress sizes even in many cases.

The new health and fitness indicator is your CLOTHES, and it has always been so with me and all the people I train. The sooner everyone changes their benchmark of true success in changing their body the better!

Most weight loss and media focus purely on weight-this is madness and leads to false expectations and can lead to women going on crazy diets that focus on dangerously low levels of calories. This is why large parts of the weight loss industry is extremely dangerous and always lead to misery in the end for the person who buys their “products”.

Would you rather having a lean, strong athletic body that looks great on holiday too, with great internal health and look unbelievable in clothes, often fitting into a clothes size you previously thought impossible and you can go into any shop and pick anything, even if you didn’t have a massive loss on the scales?

OR

Become obsessed with the weighing scales, hardly eating anything just to please the scales, doubting yourself all the time, being miserable and if you don’t train the weight loss will do nothing for “bingo wings”, and a soft, unfit body in general.

Losing weight is great but if you still have the loose skin afterwards, you are still not going to be happy displaying that body without clothes?

Focus on your health, use your clothes as your barometer of success, and focus on increasing your physical performance rather than starving yourself on faddy dangerous diets.

Twitt