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Thursday 4th July

If you ever needed any inspiration to train, then you have some very good examples at the moment to follow.

If you needed an excuse to get out there and cycle, you have the Tour de France, this is a great event to follow once you have watched it a few times, as it takes a while to get to realize what the tactics are. You may appreciate the mountain stages more at the moment, and these are usually on the weekends, and this is when most of the “fireworks” happen!

You don’t have to try and bike it up impossible mountains though, just getting out on your bike and riding for 30 minutes is likely to be a major step forward for you.

You have Wimbledon of course for tennis. We don’t seem to see many kids playing tennis anymore, but these two weeks used to the time when you would see people inspired to buy a racket and get out there and play. Tennis clubs used to put people off with the snootiness factor, but I hear they are much more welcoming these days so why not try them out!

The British and Irish lions are in the third and deciding test at the weekend, and have taken part in an enthralling series so far.

This is a great time to enjoy rugby and wet your appetite for the upcoming rugby season. I have many rugby players who are just starting their pre-season training, so a good performance on Saturday, especially with so many Welshmen in the team is bound to inspire the next generation of players coming through!

With sports being such a major fact of life and entertainments these days, and the life lessons it teaches us, use all of these opportunities to spur you on to new physical prowess, and to take your enthusiasm for sports and training to another level!!

Twitt
Posted on

Wednesday 3rd July

Great workouts are the results of a variety of factors, and don’t “just happen” by accident.

They definitely don’t happen due to a “pre-workout formula” you can drink before training, they don’t happen just because you psych yourself up and shout at yourself, they don’t happen because of the fancy training gear you have on, they don’t happen just because the gym you train in looks “pretty”, and definitely don’t happen because you have a direct debit for a gym and never go!!!!

If you fit into any of these categories and have tried such a strategy, then I am probably preaching to the converted and this means you have been constantly disappointed with your results, and probably spent a ton of money in realizing this in the end.

This is not putting you down for making a bad decision, and I sincerely hope you have learned from all of those people trying to make a quick buck out of you and delivering extremely poor results if any at all!

Great workouts happen over a period of time.

Great workouts will happen time after time if you keep eating well for the vast majority of your week, week in week out, month in month out etc!

Your fluid intake will always dictate how well you perform and feel, a key element that needs to happen throughout the day, every day!

If you sleep well most nights, then you set yourself up for success, if you don’t then you won’t feel like doing much!

Great workouts will also happen over a period of incremental workouts, in other words, you will gradually get better over a longer period and this is when your capabilities are there to cope with great demands.

You can achieve these workouts if you stay consistent in all the key areas, and when you get there you will know how you achieved this great level of ability.

Twitt
Posted on

Monday, 1st July

July brings a fresh batch of challenges in terms of training improvements.

You will be usually be in one of two camps.

The first one is the attitude of taking it easy just because it’s july and july is a month of holidays, finishing school for example, stop fortnight for factories, and the weather is usually much warmer and sunnier too (sometimes!). This camp will usually miss a lot of workouts, start drinking alcohol in the week, generally eat much more poorly than normal, and justify all the weight gain on “the time of year”.

The other camp is the one where you have people either who are about to go on holidays, or have just been away. They are now dead keen to get back into their training, they are hitting their workouts hard, never miss a session and maybe about to start pre-season rugby or football. This camp associates july with hard work, tough workouts, and have got accustomed to working out in warmer temperatures, and have got to the stage they actually relish it.

The first camp end up piling on the weight, and often take a long time to get back into their training after their holiday. These are the inconsistent ones who never achieve anywhere like their potential.

The second camp are the more serious trainer, who are used to seeing results and are prepared to keep putting the results in.

July is a critical month for you to change your attitude and mindset to set yourself up for a month of great results, and the months to follow after that. Don’t settle for a lazy july, instead change the course for the rest of the year right now by showing up all the time this month and making every workout count!

Twitt
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Friday, 28th June

Moving your body over different directions or planes of motion is something you experience in everyday life, and this means you should try and practice and imitate in your workouts.

In the workouts I give out, I always try to give maximum variety for a good reason. The results are all important and therefore if you are giving out variety, then there should be multiple reasons for the programme design.

Safety is the number consideration. Any jerking, jumping around for the sake of it, improper form etc is a big no no in avoiding pain for the person involved.

Then you must make sure that the exercises are done for the specific reason you want.

Then you have to make sure that the movements are implemented properly and with the intended purpose.

If you work on these three rules all the time, then you shouldn’t really go wrong.

Once you work out your goal, then you have to design an effective way to get there in the safest and most time efficient way.

This is why you should always use traditional exercises, ones which involve rotation, and some backward movements where possible.

When you think of your daily life, you often get into all sorts of different positions and its important to plan for that.

This is why I never include sit ups in a workout anymore. It is far more beneficial to include movements that work your core as a whole (your stomach, back, hips, thighs and hamstrings). Most of my workout will work your core in a direct or indirect way, so we are always thinking of how to include your most important area on the body.

If you are still doing prehistoric routines with little or no basis in exercise science, its time to change and adopt movements that will significantly improve your posture, your strength and muscular endurance, all of which will enhance your performance and future quality of life!

Twitt
Posted on

Thursday, 27th June

An instant solution to sort your eating problems out is writing down everything you eat and drink.

If for instance, you had a cooked breakfast, then you had a roll for mid-morning bought in a garage, then you grabbed something out for lunch in a shop, then mid-afternoon you had a bar of chocolate and packet of crisps, then to finish off you picked up a takeaway on the way home, just because you had a busy day and you couldn’t be bothered to make your own food when you got home.

If you did this most days, then it wouldn’t take a genius to work out that you will not get in any kind of decent
shape!

Most people though do not realize what they eat, and never have any kind of plan for their day ahead. Its this type of approach that will lead to longer term weight gain, longer term health problems, and a feeling of hopelessness when it comes to how you feel about your health.

To change all of this, I strongly encourage individuals to keep a 7 day eating diary, writing down exactly what they eat for a week and how much too. They will also write down what they drink, again how much is important too.

What this does is immediately recognizes how well you are actually eating, it shows if you are overeating in each meal or not, how much of your calories are coming from drink (studies have shown that obese individuals can consume 40% of their total calories through fizzy drinks, alcohol etc).

Once your awareness goes up, and it definitely will doing this, then you are likely to get a plan developed, have a good healthy shopping list for the first time in a while, and you will be likely to start cooking many meals yourself, as the takeaway, grab something at lunch time option, grab something in the garage option, soon becomes a thing of the past, as long as you prepare more before you leave the house in the morning.

This simple 7 day eating diary will make all the difference!

Twitt