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Thursday, 20th December

In an ideal world, the body of your choice would just happen, good food would be just put in front of you and getting into shape would be the easiest thing in the world!

There would be no problem getting to the gym, and all the chores in life would be done for you.

This is an imaginary world of course, especially in the week before christmas, so we had better get back in the real world!!!

We are in a world where we make mistakes and we make them often.

So what we have to do is DO what we can do!

Life shouldn’t revolve around your diet or some kind of totally strict never have a treat regime either! This will not work. Frequently i hear from individuals that they have some big party and trying to be perfect somehow, they say that for some reason that they need to avoid the party!

This is nonsense of course and there is no need to avoid ANY social occasion or bring your own food just because there’s not a healthy meal already prepared there for you! Using common sense in these situations always works and as long as you don’t pig out too much, or don’t drink the bar dry, then put it down to a one off and make sure you get a workout done the very next day!!!

I have always said that you need to just concentrate on eating healthy at least 80% of the time, this should be enough to keep you healthy and energised for your workouts. If you constantly try to be at 100%, then you will be heading for failure and such plans never work for any length of time!!

If you allow yourself treats on one day a week for example, or two maximum, then you always have something to look forward to, and your diet will never become over-bearing. Common sense will always work for you, especially right now in the festive season.

Moderation always works, and keeps your mind very fresh and positive for your upcoming workouts that should always be at least a small part over the next two weeks.

Twitt
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Tuesday, 18th December 2012

Having done many measurements over the last week, and most people fulfilling a lot of their goals and ambitions that they made at the beginning of the year, one question comes up all the time from most individuals i train.

“How much should i expect to lose in a set period of time”?

To answer that can never be exact.

It all depends on the effort you put in, how well you are eating, how much good sleep you get, do you keep yourself hydrated, do you miss workouts regularly or do you hardly ever miss, how much intensity to you put into your workouts, are your performances constantly improving, do your drink too much alcohol too often or do you keep it in moderation, is your workout plan good or is it more haphazard, do you stay positive in times of stress or do you let stress stop you from doing your workouts?

These are all potential helps or hindrances and are are definite factors when it comes to determining progress. No two months are exactly the same and i can spend as much time councilling people on their problems sometimes as much as i do training! This is what it’s like in the real world, “life” happens and you have to keep doing your best with it!!!

Baseline figures are possible though and here’s what has been typical for me working with individuals for a lot of years now!

Waist-1.5-2 inches a month off, sometimes more

Hips-1.5-2 inches a month off, sometimes more.

Resting heart rate-2-3 beats per month down OFTEN MORE

Blood pressure-big success in getting people back into a normal healthy range

Body fat-1.8% down a month, often more!

These are exciting changes you can make your life, and all deserved to be measured!

More on this tomorrow.

Twitt
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Monday, 17th December

Finally in the week before Christmas and how’s it going for you in terms of your exercising and eating?

It’s always a “finally” moment for all of those who have given up the ghost for their training in 2012. I must say i am lucky to train a relatively large number of individuals right up until christmas eve, as most people i am involved with now know the benefits of training all the way through.

If you expected some piece today about me agreeing with those of you who want to knock their training on the head right now, and pig out on mince pies and all the alcohol you can muster, then no, i’m really not going to do that.

I like to think i am very understanding but agreeing with people so they can feel out of breath, put lots of weight on, and feel nowhere NEAR as good as they normally do is a point of principle for me. I remember a lot of years ago that i had a couple of weeks off myself, and felt so bad that i said i WOULD never do that EVER again, the pain was really do much!!!

Those of you who are continuing to train (and there a many of you) have your monthly measurement come up. This is awfully brave of you late into december when everyone else seems to be losing their heads, but the feedback i get from most of you is that still doing your monthly measurement keeps you off the sugary and fatty foods, it keeps you exercising and in general keeps your standard very high.

If you’re involved in our way of doing things, then i take my hat off to you all who don’t want to be part of the crowd who are falling for all the christmas massive excess, and really want to fight it and stay in great shape ALL YEAR ROUND!!!

The choices are there for you, no excuses to get totally out of shape after working so hard all year!!!

Twitt
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Friday, 14th December

For more uplifting cycling workouts that you may or may not have time for this year, it’s time to get specific about your cycling efforts and with it you can save a bundle of time!!

Most pro cyclists will work at a specific revolution per minute. When you see the rpm screen on a bike machine for example, try and work out your intensity by concentrating on that particular part of the screen.

The desired number you need to look for is the magic figure of 80. If you can cycle at this intensity, then you know you should be getting some good workouts in. It doesn’t really matter on the difficulty level on the bike, that level has to match your ability to keep 80rpm up full stop!

It may seem easy or relatively easy for the first minute, but i guarantee that you will start feeling it far earlier than a normal workout!!! Keeping at the 80 rpm is extremely difficult after a while, but if you practice working at this level, you are likely to become a far better cyclist.

Another tip to become a good cyclist is work heavily on your core. Work with the swiss ball three times a week working on a mixture of back strengthening and flexibility exercises, this will enable you to cycle harder up hills and to keep up an intensity level up for longer.

Most people do not realise the amount of work that goes through your back when you cycle especially up inclines/hills of all kinds.

Working on your core is the number one to increase power, endurance and explosive strength for your cycling efforts so i wouldn’t keep ignoring this very valuable piece of training advice. Most of my programmes now put a heavy focus on all sorts of core exercises, due to the fact that you should consider internal benefits of exercise, and not just the cosmetic side. Look after your insides and your outsides will look after themselves.

Twitt
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Thursday, 13th December

Since it is an icy time of year, then its more important than ever that you have other options when you run, rather than running on icy pavements.

One place that is usually a lot kinder to you than a pavement is a rugby pitch, and this type of pitch contains the perfect spread of lines in my view for top quality running workouts.

This is a quick workout that will work in a big way and definitely get the job done.

Start off on the try line and do 5 press ups, then run to the 25 yard line and then run backwards to the try line where you do 5 press ups, then run to the 10 yard line, then run backwards all the way back to the try line and do 5 press ups.

Then run to halfway line and backwards to try line and again too 5 press ups.

Then the next line and backwards and do 5 press ups.

Then the last but one line and run backwards to the try line and do 5 press ups.

Then its one big long run to the opposite try line and run backwards, again do 5 press ups.

By this time you will be absolutely shattered!! The record is 3 minutes 6 seconds.

Anything under 5 minutes is very good indeed.

This is a quick way of having a quality workout, getting the job done in super quick time and really a great test of strength and endurance!!

Give it a go and be interesting how you get on!!

Twitt