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Monday, 20th February

Losing can often teach you more than winning, or so the saying goes in sports.

The same goes for your health and fitness programme.

How many diets have you crashed and burned on?

How many times have you tried to exercise and thrown the towel in?

How many times have you said “this time i’m going to do it no matter what” and still failed?

If you have been through all of these, and most of us have if we are honest, then they can become very valuable experiences believe it or not!!!

As long as we remember where we went wrong, then perhaps next time we will learn and not do it again?

If someone suggest we join them in a weight loss class, that we know that didnt work last time, and probably never well, isn’t it madness to go through the same useless process again?

The programme we did in the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s may not have worked out too well, because some of us didnt train too smart, and got obsessed with doing cardio all the time maybe for example. We know that doesn’t really work and we need to mix it up with weights/resistance work.

So we have all the knowledge now on how to train effectively, so you would think that most of us would do it right, having failed so many times before? It is madness to go through the same process time and time again and expect a different result!!! But still some peope do it believe it or not.

Would you attempt an exam in school or college and say you only had 40%, then the next time you had 41%, the time after 35%, wouldn’t it be time to change your approach and work in a far more effective manner? Unfortunately a lot of people don’t get this and never get the very most out of their training, when sometimes all the solutions thhat they need to achieve their goals are right in front of them!!!

Learn from your past mistakes, and as long as you do, you will find the right approach and achieve great results faster than you ever thought possible!!!

Twitt
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Tuesday, 14th February

Valentine’s day is a big day for some of you, and its a day of vast 0ver-commercialism for others. You may either be preparing to go off your diet tonight, and you may be out of pocket after paying double money for your flowers, whatever you do, have a great evening and enjoy yourselves.

Valentine’s day is no excuse though to quit on your training, and please do not use that “lack of time” excuse, because its definitely not going to “wash” here!

No time for a run?

Not even 10 minutes?

If you swap your steady jog you were planning, then how about doing some interval running instead. You know the one, we have talked on here a lot about it, do a couple of minutes warm up run, then use lampposts as a guide for the intervals you need to train in.

You jog for one post, then sprint the next, jog one post, sprints the next and so on until you can’t do anymore. 10 minutes of this will be MORE than enough!!!

How about hitting a punch bag?

If you can manage 10 minutes on this great training tool, then you will be doing very well indeed. Even three times one minute rounds will be enough to get your heart pumping like never before, scratch the ten minutes, think THREE minutes!!! No excuses!

If you work in an office in a town or city, there must be a group of steps around the place. Just 5 minutes up and down steps can be like a 20 minute steady jog, and give your body a workout to remember, this is tough but over in a flash with a big bunch of benefits thrown in!

Bottom line is if you don’t train before you go out tonight, you won’t feel so energised, you will have to work harder tomorrow night, and you will be letting your commitment levels slide. Use time to your advantage by working out smart, instead of mindless boring long workouts control you!!

Twitt
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Monday, 21st November

Under five weeks to go now and i find there is huge momentum with everyone i train now coming up to the festive period.

Most people i know want to be in their best shape for the end of the year.

There has been a cultural shift the last few years too. Years ago, christmas used to be all about the parties begining at the start of december. Now because of the changing culture of people not going out so much, and there not being so many parties for whatever reason, people’s health has become much more important again, which is great news!!

People are also becoming much more aware of the health in general too, more check ups and more preventative measures are being taken. People are also more aware of the need to be in shape in december to avoid the folly of going on some kind of faddy drastic diet in januuary.

Most people realise now that if you’re in shape during december, then theres no need to diet in january, maybe lose a few pounds but no monumental effort needed!!

Once you manage to get over the “let’s get in shape for this or that season/holiday”, you will really understand that its the best overall strategy to be in shape ALL YEAR LONG!!!

Your body will thank you too!!! One of the most destructive things you can do to your body is diet hard and lose lots of weights, then don’t care for a while and pile lots of weight on. Then the more times you repeat this process, the more resistant your body becomes to losing weight in the future, which is a very negative situation!!

So under five weeks left, you don’t need major efforts, all you need to do is use common sense, eat sensible portion sizes and try to keep your food as natural and as fresh as possible. No salt, very little refined sugars and little saturated fat.

Start your week off well, stay positive and you’re off to a flyer!!!

Twitt
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Thursday, 17th November

So we have talked about how to feed your body to maximise muscle gains for the young rugby player, we have talked about how to employ the most successful training strategies from beginner to a more developed athlete.

We talked about why we do all of these things.

Then it comes to a big factor that we haven’t mentioned yet-WATER.

Most people don’t realise that water is far more important than food.

For example, you can usually last 5-8 days before you die without water.

You can lost without food for approximately 7-8 weeks as hunger strikers have proven, with often fatal results.

Another huge fact for you is that if you DON’T drink enough water throughout the day, your performance is likely to be down 33% or even as low as 40%!!

Not only your training and game day performance but your concentration too. They have done numerous studies on schoolkids when they supplied one lots of kids in a school environment water for 3 months and im talking regularly every day. The most startling part was that their educational tests result success went up an incredible 100%, and their concentration levels were proven to be 40% up!!!

So the bottom line is that you eat well all day, you can sleep well and you can train hard, but if you’re NOT drinking enough water, your performance levels and ultimately your results are likely to be down between 33% and 40%, which is an incredible figure.

If you drink water regularly too, you will burn off more body fat than if you don’t, this has been scientifically proven too.

So if you are looking to become a better athlete, as well as a better student, water should be a big part of your every day life!!

Twitt
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Thursday, 10th November

To follow on as promised from yesterday, its time to talk about what happens after the first 4-6 weeks.

The first month or so is seen as your perfect opportunity to get used to the various exercises, get used to weight training in general, and get your ligaments and tends to a much greater force than normal, and this DOES take time.

Okay, assuming you get through this period with no problem and you have mastered proper technique, its time to move on to newer more challenging exercises.

Rugby is a tough game, but if you train in the right way, you can make the game a whole lot easier and set yourself up for future success and hopefully avoid injury to a better degree.

So the first week after week 6, assuming you are doing 3 sets per exercise, I would change your programme to the following.

Bench press-still in there as a great power movement

Chins-this is a new one for you, it’s the one where there a bar usually hanging high on the wall or even better from the ceiling. You usually have to jump up on a bench to get to it if you’re not that tall, and all you do is hang on it, and then pull yourself up.

This is a tremendously hard exercise so I would start off doing half movements if you find the full movement too hard. Persevere and you will get better, it may well take 6 months to get to 10 full reps.

Next is one arm dumbbell rowing, look for a demonstration of this on a google search again and is a great back builder, which will be of enormous help if you are mauling in rugby or simply fighting for the ball. Do 3 sets of 8 with a dumbbell that tests you-great exercise!

Then on to legs with squats or leg press. Two great choices there, do which ever suits. I would also put in a leg extension and its important not to lock out on this exercise, and will develop the muscles above the knee very well.

Leg curls are an underrated exercise too. Anyone who has ever pulled their hamstring will wish they would have done this one. A great hamstring developer and important to keep the balance of leg training so everything get worked.

You can add calf raises to the list too, another neglected exercise for the calf of course.

Upright rows is a great mass builder for your shoulders, and will add some serious strength. Shoulder presses can be good especially seated in your younger years, but as you get into your 30’s, try to avoid them as lots of people run into overhead movements with their shoulders as time marches on, so I would pick upright rows.

Bench dips or arm dips are great for triceps as discussed yesterday but I would move on to parallel bars dips from now on. This is much harder exercise than arm dips and when done with a wider grip, will also work your chest, shoulders, arms and back indirectly. Dips is one you ought to get used to and fast, its one of my key exercises but like chins, will take you a while to get used to depending on your current bodyweight.

Then to finish you have dumbbell curls, you arms can still take some work by this stage and strong arms are vital for all sorts of reasons in rugby, and in life in general.

So these are examples of very good weight training exercises after week 6 and these will form the foundation of your training for the next few months.

They will constantly challenge you and push you on to new levels of development and progress.

Please email me on fitness@kerimckibbin.co.uk for further info. Keep it simple and don’t over-complicate.

Even more tomorrow!!

Twitt