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Progress and scare stories

The scale of your efforts are always measured by what you did the week before.

There is always a good standard being set and if that dips, your health dips a little bit and your fitness dips too of course.

Fortunately to remain on an upward curve in your training, certain standards have to be met.

It used to be thought years ago that working at high intensity would put strain on the heart and increase blood pressure. The scientific evidence right now and the last few years says a lot different. The heart is a muscle and you are strengthening it every day by exercising hard, your blood pressure is actually being regulated and remains in a healthy range due to exercising hard. There have been numerous scientific studies to say that this is true and i myself have plenty of case studies to say this is true.

The stories about over doing it were mostly false, and simply down to people having a pre-existing heart condition before they started exercising or it was people who lived a very unhealthy lifestyle who did a run now and again, once a month or something like that and were not conditioned to do so, therefore putting their health at risk. I encourage everyone to start off slowly and make gradual improvements, this is always the way to go and safety and doing things right is always my number one goal.

There is nothing better than being very well conditioned and this is only achieved by exercising well and regularly. Also, eating the right foods and keeping your arteries as clear as possible. If you all the wrong foods, your arteries are likely to thicken inside (becoming “furry” is sometimes a term used) and also likely to minimise your blood flow, which is the worst thing to do especially when exercising.

Your heart likes a steady flow of blood to make sure it operates efficiently and exercising regularly and making sure you eat a wide array of healthy, natural foods will helps this enormously too.

It’s all about balance, its about doing the right things and not over-doing it. You will find though that if you workout regularly, you should be able to make constant improvements which can lead to you getting to an impressive level if you give it enough time. The one thing that spoils many people’s programme is that they have no patience and want results “yesterday”.

Give it some time and wonderful things will happen to you if you take the pressure off yourself and not set ridiculously short time limits on you achieving unrealistic targets. Remember 1-2 pounds a week off is recommended and don’t panic if you don’t lose every week, weight is not the only thing and not the most accurate measure of progress. Look more at how your clothes feel and how your fitness standards are coming along, as well as the way you feel of course.

Let’s keep it up and do all the right things to make sure you’re firing on all cylinders, inside and out!

Keri

Twitt
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Schedule it in

Making the effort to get your programme going seems the biggest “effort” to most of you right now.

There are lots of different ways to get around this.

Why don’t you call an old friend, and ask them if they want to get fit, and you can support each other. Both of you will have times when you don’t feel like exercising or eating well, or both. This is when your friend becomes important, picking you up off the floor when your morale is also “on the floor”.

Many of us appear super-confident, super-motivated and super go getters. The realities are that i train many such people, but really are the pussy cats, the worriers, the self-doubters just like the rest of us. We are all worrying about the future, regretting sometimes about the past but we have to put it into context and condition ourselves to not worry about the things which are likely to drag us down every time.

That’s why i feel that scheduling in your workouts is hugely important and is far more important than your dental appointments, your doctors appointments, your appointment with your solicitor-YES IT REALLY IS!!!!!!!!!!!!

Do these people promise you great health or do they just fix something that has gone wrong?

When you workout, are you investing in your future big time? Of course you are and you know it, i just don’t think you realise HOW IMPORTANT YOUR WORKOUTS REALLY ARE TO YOUR WELLBEING. I really believe this!

Shrugging your shoulders is not good enough when it comes to assessing your weekly performances and trying to hide the fact that physically, you havent made the most of your obvious attributes!

Making the leap from where you are now to where you really could be is all about scheduling it in, and you know it and taking care of business. Taking care of business means getting the job done, making those workouts count, getting in those extra couple of reps in when you feel like you can’t do any more.

Getting up that hill on the bike when it would be eaiser to walk the bike up is crucial to your development, you won’t get to this standard UNLESS you schedule in regular workouts and you know it.

Its the workouts you do when NOBODY is looking really counts and you know it. This is no programme for show offs with all the best gear, its about fighting to get to your personal best, and not talking a good game that gets you absolutely nowhere. This is the time for action, the time to scheduled workouts that you never miss and getting serious about your health and fitness, once and for all so lets do it!!!

Twitt
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52 week hero

52 week hero

Why do people like so many short cuts and so many easy but non-productive ways to do things?

I seriously think that the true hero’s are the ones who can train throughout the year, never miss a workout unless they are ill and always look for improvements and consistent progress.

Yes, these people ARE out there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I get questions all the time about the best training programme, whether the power plate vibration system is any good, whether the masai based trainers with the big heel’s are truly the answer, whether the vibration belt’s you put across your stomach really work, whether the latest gym opening is really going to work this time, whether the latest fitness dvd is any good, whether the 2 minutes a day workout can really change your life, whether the flimsy machines you see on the shopping channels are really any good?!!!!!!!!!!!!!

These are the questions I always get and they get the same answers.

If you show up 80% or more of the time, you WILL progress.

If you eat well 80% or more of the time, you WILL progress.

If you train with purpose 80% or more of the time, you WILL progress.

THIS IS IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why look for questions and answers and try and re-invent the wheel?

Cyril is back in good form, and yes he is a hero because he does show up consistently, and that mean he “gets it”!

Isn’t the time you don’t train for an extended period the least productive part of your year?

That time you give up again doesn’t really HAVE to happen does it? Do you really want to go backwards that much, because im telling you now that’s what’s going to happen unless you start showing up to your workouts, instead of making the same old excuses why you can’t train again.

A week off turns to a month off, and this can turn to the whole summer off! In my book, that’s not acceptable and all of those endless and big talk promises you made to yourself don’t count for nothing!!

That’s why this is called 52 week hero, that person who achieves that (allowing for the odd cold/illness, holiday etc) really is a hero in my book. When you think about it, how many people do you actually know who make that kind of commitment in their life.

Someone who achieves this deserves all the benefits they get, because they quietly beaver away at achieving the most important thing you can get, GREAT HEALTH!!

The time for talking a good game is over, its time to go for it and be your best once and for all!

Twitt
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More focus in your training/cycling

The same old training all the time brings with it more limited results, and a lack of motivation because you will be doing the same old thing all the time.

If you’re out cycling today, then you may be just in the mood to get out there and coast it, no problem at all with that.

If you’re out to do something different and add something quickly to your fitness, i would look to challenge yourself a little more.

Easy ways to do this on a cycle path for instance, would be to pick off targets along the way. Paula Radcliffe for instance would aim to chase down targets or runners in front of her. If you see someone in front of you cycling, then try to chase them down and eventually pass them, then you can coast for a while.

When you get your breath and legs back, you can chase down the next one and so on. 20 minutes of this type of workouts will get you breathing very hard indeed!!

You can mix it up on the hills too, there must be some path or some succession of roads that you never thought you’d be able to cycle up? Well, let’s go and try it!!

I would start like this. Take your time more than normal on the flat, and do your best to get up the very steep hills, work up gradually of course and don’t take on the worst hill to start with!

The key to climbing hills on the bike is to stick to a pace that you can keep with. No point going off like mad and then blowing up 15 yards later, remember you’re not in the Tour De France and its not a race up the mountains.

You will get confidence from making gradual progress and the first time you take on a tough hill, that will be the worst feeling you’ll ever get because IT IS your first time. Every time you take that hill on after that, IT WILL FEEL BETTER AND EASIER. It’s all a question of practice and not quitting after the first time you do it because you didn’t achieve that much.

I’ve trained lots of people take on the most mammoth of hills, and they have lived to tell the tale! They developed great self belief from their accomplishments and they are proud to say that their cycling is now first-class and now literally no hill scares them, in fact some people go searching for them now!!!

Have a great day and an even better bike ride!

Twitt
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Massive efforts (only sometimes!)

Making  huge efforts all the time isn’t going to be good for your exercise programme. It is one sure fire way to get fed up of exercise and it soon wears thin in terms of enthusiasm.

We can all pull out all the stops and have amazing efforts in terms of workouts. People do amazing things for charity, and you have to commend them for doing so.

So before you think I’ve gone totally mad, I’ll explain!

A well structured exercise programme aiming to get a 7-8 out of 10 each time you train, will likely be far more successful than workouts now and again demanding 10 out of 10 each time. Even champions can’t work at that intensity all the time, they actually periodise their training plan into different sections of the year.

The time when the champions often go flat out is often only 8-12 weeks of the year. The rest of the year is often structured to create a base for the next level up.

That’s why its sensible to focus at steady and gradual improvements. We talk about it all the time, if you can do 5 press ups in week 1, and you can do 25 press ups in week 5, then this is a great example of making progress without working so hard that you’re blue in the face!

You look forward to workouts that don’t have unrealistic challenges in store. They become more enjoyable and you tend to love the whole process more. Going for a run in a scenic location is fun, and exillerating at the same time.

If you approached the same run with maximum intensity every time you did it, and were constantly trying to beat your personal best, you would soon become sick of that and start putting off workouts when your time wasn’t improving.

You should know by now that im all for working out with great intensity, but you have to put it in its proper context.

Those who did the London marathon a couple of weeks ago will have spent many months or even years training for it.

Those who did the Mumbles Childline Triathlon with us definitely worked hard for months before.

These two events were examples of pinnacle’s in people’s sporting lives.

The reality is that you can’t train like that forever, you have to scale it back for a while, and look at fresh goals.

The bottom line is that you’re still exercising every week, you’re eating well every week and to me, that amounts to being truly successful as you’re aiming to be fit and healthy for the rest of your life, not so many people get to achieve that unfortunately!

Keep working hard!

Twitt