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Get back to your best

How many of you are hovering 10 pounds to a stone above your best and can’t seem to do anything about it?

Here’s my guess on why.

Are you just showing up for workouts going through the motions maybe?

Have you forgotten how good it feel likes to be at your best?

Have you lost your confidence in your physical ability? Are those hills you used to go up suddenly “off limits”?

Is it easier now to be a little bit overweight, maybe the effort of being at your best now is “too much”?

The great news is that we all go through such situations and we all need to snap out of this thinking as soon as posible.

That initial uncomfortable period of finally getting your best “head on” only lasts around a week, after that you wll have regained the desire needed to get those extra pounds off.

I’m talking about getting back up those hills, getting back on the bike maybe, being more active full stop.

This will then lead to better and better performances. For instance, you may get back to doing sprints up hills but how much effort are you REALLY putting in to them. Is it simply a matter of gettiing to 6 0r 8 0r even 10 sprints, but not worrying how fast you are going?

Once you get back to worrying about your performance and really wanting to get 100% out of yourself again, this is when those extra 10 pounds to a stone will come off. Your body will recognise the big efforts again, and adjust itself accordingly. Lower body fat will have to happen, more toned muscles will have to happen, better lung capacity will have to happen, a stronger more efficient heart ready for anything will happen once again!

You will start to feel alive again and realise that getting back to your best wasn’t mission impossible after all!

A dry 3 days coming up believe it or not so lets make the most of it!!!

Twitt
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A better employee?

There are many parallel’s between your training and your place of work. I train many employer’s as well as employee’s, so i see both sides of the fence, and here’s what i see.

When we train, we are at some stage going to get tired, sick or sore, or all three and there are times we either pick ourselves up or just lie down on the floor. We know though that withing 5-10 minutes of doing our workout, we will feel automatically better once we get going and remember why we train in the first place.

Work is like that sometimes. When you are faced with a side of the job you’d rather not work on, you need to show the same perseverence as your training, and complete the task no matter what.

The same with time keeping. An employer doesnt want someone who drinks every night and has hardly any sleep, this is likely to lead to being highly unproductive in work. Most employer’s i know would like their staff to come to work with lots of energy and on time. If you’re in a workout programme of any kind, you will know how important it is to stick to a schedule and show up on time for your workouts, perhaps meeting a training partner that you never want to leave down. Being punctual is a good trait, especially when someone pays you to do it!!

Impatience is good sometimes too, how many of you who suddenly get into a health and fitness programme start getting impatient at being slow in your job, or those around you being slow? The fitter you get, usually the more ambitious you become and you want to achieve much more. You will take less time over the same job and this will lead to an increase in your desire for promotion etc.

How many people do you know who always moan at their job, part of the reason is usually they find their day a struggle and therefore hate their job, this is mainly down to them being unfit, overweight and lacking the health and energy to do their job with the pride it deserves. Am i right or talking rubbish?

The facts are usually the fitter, healthier employees tend to be better for the company involved, less sick leave, more productivity and generally happier workforce.

Twitt
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“Women shouldn’t lift weights”……..don’t talk rubbish!!!

This statement is wrong on so many levels its not true, but lets set the record straight once and for all!

In most gyms, you only see women near the CV machines, the bike, stepper and treadmill mainly, and never seeing them pushing any kind of weight.

First of all, if they don’t start lifting weights, they will NEVER reshape their bodies effectively. If you just do aerobic exercise, you may be likely to get smaller but the shape you want will never happen.

Your metabolism won’t be raised as much either, if you do aerobic work your metabolism will be raised for around 12 hours, if you do some weights and aerobic work, your metabolism will be raised for 36 hours, huge difference right there and a great reason to include resistance training in your workouts.

Women in recent studies have been found to be twice as likely to suffer from depression.

It has been found that intense weight training or intense resistance exercise has been found to get rid of many of the symptons associated with depression. The same results were not found by doing aerobic work alone. This can be a massive change and uplift to anyone’s mindset and is very recommended.

All women i have trained hard with weights always look more feminine, and never bulky. You get toned with resistance work and not “bulked out” like so many people say, that only happens if you consume huge amounts of food daily as well as illegal steroids, which leads into a whole new world of negatives.

Don’t forget the bone strengthening benefits of resistance training, in these days of osteoporosis and osteoarthritis, there has never been a better time to do your resistance work, any doctor will tell you that. I have seen some serious results first-hand so i know it works in a big way!

You will get an enormous amount out of resistance training, and do wonders for your appearance as well as your mindset. When you get used to lifting weights, you will become more confident and it will feel very good to be thata much stronger and much more toned.

In short weight training and resistance work will benefit you in every single way, so lets get on with your workouts and incorporate resistance at least twice a week!

Twitt
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Summer’s the time to practice!

This is the time to get out there every day and make a huge change to the way you look and feel.

For example, those of you who don’t like an audience when you train, there are far more opportunities now than in the autumn/winter.

I saw a lady who perhaps had 3-4 stone to lose power walking in the woods in the country park, and she seemed to having a great time. Perhaps, she wouldnt have done this if she had to walk on the main roads in the winter? This is a regular event for her now, and she seems to love her weekend walks, if she carries this on until the end of september, she should achieve some incredible results.

If you do a map search of the UK from above, you will see that there is more green areas in this area than nearly anywhere. For example, when you watch the opening credits of Eastenders, you will see the map of the east end of london, and there are VERY FEW areas of green on the map, so we should feel lucky to enjoy the surrounding area.

The wet week (like this week)  is no excuse either, it may actually be an advantage.

When its wet and rainy, there tends to be less people out and about so this gives you even more opportunity to do your workouts without too many people around. When its sunny and hot, there tends to be stacks of people around, therefore making it off-putting for many. Also, when its wet, its usually a lot cooler, allowing for better performances and generally making the whole experience a lot more enjoyable.

Summer is a great time to practice and get good at whatever you want to do. The swimming pool is usually quiter so you have more opportunity to become a better swimmer.

There are more daylight hours in the summer so the excuses you may use in the winter won’t apply here. The summer hours are long but slowly getting shorter as of now, so its time to get out there and get a firm foundation before winter is upon us again!

The habits/foundations you lay this summer will make all the difference when you’re trying to get through the cold wet winters.

Lets get out and do something, not only to feel better but to shape your future!

Twitt
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Quality of food

Debbie makes a very good point that if you get ill, you have to replace your nutrients more or less straight away when you feel well again. There is a difference between this and just chucking anything in your body when you’re feeling better, and it can make the difference between putting on a few pounds and maintaining your ideal weight, between creating new cravings and not creating them, developing new energy or feeling flat and deflated.

Its coming up to the weekend again, and the cravings will instantly start once we wave the white flag to the fattier and more sugary food friday, saturday and sunday.

Have you noticed its very hard to stop once we give in and start eating things we strictly do not eat during the week?

The quality of food you eat in the week always propels you to new heights, or drags you down to new lows.

The biggest myth out there is that if you really bust a gut, train extremely hard and really outdo yourself, then you can literally eat what you want. This is truly when a lot of people fall down because they are not replacing the lost nutrients that debbie talks about. Debbie actually talked about lose nutrients after illness but you still need to replace those lost nutrients after exercise too, or you’re not going to recover quickly simple as that!

The fitter you get and the longer you eat good, healthy nutritious food, the more you like the taste of this good food. Its all a process of getting used to it and discovering food CAN be nice in its natural state. All of those fatty sauces make me wheeze like mad, and me wheezing all day and producing lots of unwanted flem can be seriously bad for my day.

So the quality of food will be highly important for just about everything you want to achieve, so the question is, do you want to achieve a huge amount of not?!!

Twitt