Monday, 9th June

One of the least productive ways of training you can do is concentrating on certain fancy exercises that never really give you a great return on your efforts. These are all over the internet and on certain magazines offering “new” exercises that REALLY are the “secret” to get into shape.

This advice usually confuses people even more, and can push you further and further away from getting into shape.

I have seen lots of people waste huge amounts of time doing some obscure cable movements, perform exercises that look technical but will give you very little development and not stimulate your body in the way you want it to.

Sometimes the best individuals to train are the ones who have never done any training before because they can learn the right way to start with.

Many people who have gone to different places before us, usually develop bad form in many exercises, and this poor performance of exercise can take some time to work out of them.

Performing movements the wrong way can also lead to overuse injuries and longer term pain problems. Sometimes you need to strip things back down to basics to move forward.

Most people get it wrong with exercise selection, the way they perform the exercise and men in particular try to use too much weight on that exercise, and perform it way too quickly just to get the weight up.

Women before they get to us usually have not challenged themselves with weights like their potential really allows. Once they do, their progress is always rapid and their body responds very positively indeed.

The best advice is to stick to a few powerful tried and tested exercises that have a history of delivering huge results.

They all take proper instruction to learn how to do them, and they will get you out of breath when you perform them. They are hard work but you need to perform them consistently and you will progress.

Keeping it simple, not getting distracted and following through on your plan is a guaranteed way to be successful.

Sunday, 8th June

Our programmes focus on injury prevention first, and performance second. If you have an injury or even niggle of some kind, the simple fact is that you are not going to be able to perform at anywhere near your best levels, and will likely go on to
develop some kind of longer term weakness in the injured area.

This is the opposite of how many places see people, and I would include sports teams in that too.

This is another reason why I don’t do classes, too many different abilities in one class lead to guesswork, and making assumptions that the weakest members of the class can keep up with the strongest can be a dangerous game.

If someone has a problem, for example, a calf, heel, hamstring, knee, hip problem, any of them, they have to be addressed before you move that person on to bigger and more dynamic movements.

Ignoring a problem only shifts more problems on to other areas of the body. If you don’t teach individuals how to move properly, one part of the body usually overworks more than the area of the body that should be working.

Everyone who has trained with me will know the series of tests and movement ranges we go through all the time. It’s good to be paranoid about not having injuries in your programme, and to make sure preventative steps are in place so that the risk of those I am training getting injured is relatively low.

A problem that starts off in the heel may easily transfer into the hips for instance. Not addressing the heel problem properly will have caused a smaller problem to become a much bigger problem. Analyzing movement in the first place would have solved the problem, and the athlete now would have been very likely moving freely and without pain now.

Of course, the performances of our members is of paramount importance each and every day, but FIRST they have to be injury free and be able to move in many different ways PAIN FREE before they attempt any big performance. Exercise can be a valuable medicine to help you become pain free and become a top performer.

Monday, 2nd June

This is bananas!!

Everybody and their mother knows by now that sugar and saturated fat is bad for us and can make you pile on the weight quickly. Sometimes it’s hard to visualise and accept just how bad they are for us. And worse of all, those little biscuits and cakes are so damn tasty, sometimes it’s just too hard to resist. How many times have we been in the office or an auntie’s house and someone has offered you a biscuit with your coffee. One or two won’t hurt right? I mean you can always work extra hard and burn them off in the gym tomorrow. Think again. Answer this quiz to get you
back down to earth with a bang!

How many bananas can you eat which are equivalent fat wise to 2 chocolate Hobnobs?

26 bananas!!!

Yes, at 0.3g fat, bananas are virtually fat free. Whereas the Hobnobs are 4g of fat each!

Those two little biscuits don’t seem so tasty now, best pass me the fruit bowl…

Eat to train.

Sunday, 1st June

Watching the person you are training in how they move is often far more important than what they have to say.

Anyone I train will know I often ask excessively “how they are feeling” and how was that movement they just did.

Did it work for them? Was there any pain? Was it too much?

When anyone I train doesn’t know me too well, they will often tend to agree with everything I say. Then when they get to know me, they will tend to answer me back and question a lot of what I say-THIS IS A GREAT SITUATION!

Take a movement that’s causing you pain for instance.

When I get someone doing a new movement for the first time, there is a small chance that this new movement may cause them some discomfort.

The person I am teaching may say they found it “fine” but may walk away rubbing their shoulder. This is a clear sign that everything wasn’t fine and that movement we tried was a problem for them.

This is when observation of the person I am training is vital. The person I am training for years will always tell me straight if something was causing them discomfort, and they know I would stop right there.

When new people come to the gym, I always explain how your body works and is supposed to move, and avoiding pain is key for us. Their past experiences of exercise though have often not included this philosophy.

PAIN DURING EXERCISE AND NOT BEING ABLE TO WALK AFTERWARDS ON A REGULAR BASIS IS WRONG, DAMAGING AND IS GOING TO CAUSE LONG TERM PROBLEMS FULL STOP.

There is said it!

This is why how people move often gives more tell-tale signs than what they say.

The potential for new members to make mistakes in their training early on is huge, this is why I need to spend so much time developing them and not leave them after just one session left to their own devices.

Saturday, 31st May

The real challenge is to take a good hard and honest look at yourself and summon up the courage to make permanent, positive changes in the way you think and behave when it comes to your body.

Those faddy diets and exercise programmes that seem to come along endlessly will never be the answer. You secretly know that but the “quick fix” will always be a temptation, and there’s an endless stream of people looking to rip you off and promise miracles.

You may try to talk yourself into it by telling yourself “stories” about the way it could be different this time.

“I’m only doing it to give myself a kickstart, then I will go back to eating normally”.

“This new shake diet hasn’t got any preservatives though, honestly it’s all natural-it must be true the person selling it to me told me”!

“I just want to do “cardio” until lose the weight and THEN I will do weights”.

These statements I hear all the time, and they all get a similar response from me.

Long term, you are going to be eating regular food every day, not shakes and bars so you had better get used to make the right choices now, and making those choices permanent. Fresh, natural food ought to be your lifetime choices, and these
ought to be your “kickstart” and permanent choice.

The “cardio first then weights later” debate should have ended when we discovered the earth is flat. Weight training and training against resistance of ANY kind will burn fat quicker than just mindlessly walking on a treadmill, a cross trainer (we threw out cross trainers years ago) or a bike.

Anyone who ever tells you that treadmills and bikes ONLY is the best way to lose fat please ask them if their livelihood depends on getting that question right? Once you discover that they don’t study health and fitness for a living and earn their living doing something completely different, then that is the moment you should totally disregard their advice.

Bikes and treadmills still have their place in your sessions, but there’s heck of a lot of other options that need to be in your schedule too, many of them much more productive to help you reach your goals faster.

The variety we have now is huge, and it’s all designed to get your metabolism firing on all cylinders, and deliver results in a massive way. Changing your body quickly has never been so achievable, and making those changes permanent is entirely possible.