Posted on

Tuesday, 25th September

Good comment from jean last night about my piece yesterday on training.

Yes, you should (if fitness allows) aim  to work more in a non-stop fashion, and jean certainly knows the value of this!! This level of conditioning can be only achieved though after a lot of training and a lot of efforts already in the bank, in other words you only move on to this more advanced form of training when you feel ready, and this usually involves more traditional forms of training first, which will be slower in nature with much more rest.

Then there is the question, what happens if the session gets easy? It only becomes easy if you do the same thing all the time with the same amount of weight and reps. You can EASILY change this around and make things far harder for yourself, and that means far more beneficial too!!!

You change it in a couple of different ways. If you are doing a set of exercises, and its usually 6 with a maximum of 8, then how about substituting some or all of those exercises with viable alternative. Tricep pushdowns could become arm dips on a bench or vice versa.

Press ups could be substituted for bench presses, lateral raises could become front raises or upright rows even, so you can see the choices are bigger than you thought!

This will create an immediate effect for the good!

Then there is the rep rane, i always love 8 as a rep number, but nothing wrong with changing that to 10 or 12 now and again, to get a different stimulus that will only benefit your body.

Then when you need to change again, and your weights become very light, how about increasing your weight slightly, this will create an immediate difference in intensity levels, as long as you can do 8 reps minimum per exercise, if you go under this rep range, then the exercise doesn’t become anywhere near as effective!

Always aim for good intensity levels and never let your workouts become run of the mill!!!

Twitt
Posted on

Thursday, 6th September

With the predicatability of the new school term starting as discussed this week, its absolutely no reason to be predictable and boring with your exercise programme.

You may have heard that one needs to change your programme every 12 weeks, but this is too limiting in my view.

You are only limited by your imagination when it comes to designing your workout, and what apparatus, if any, you end up using to reach your goals.

I love doing weight training but it doesn’t need to end there.

I like to throw in a lot of balance and instability work, meaning you really get to work your core in a very deep way, and this helps you get deep down into your muscle, and this is how you really get a strong stomach and back, which is absolutely needed to perform well in just about anything!!!

I love to do speed and agility work. Nothing worse and more boring than going on long, flat runs with no scenery to keep you interested. I love the short and sharper stuff, and getting more agile is what everyone should be interested in. The more agile you are, the better you perform in daily life, meaning less back pain, more core strength and power and you can create an unbelievable amount of energy into your life through this form of training too!!

If you have a look outside our gym by burry port railway station, you will see great big tractor tyres, which are excellent to flip, you will see sledghammers which are great to bash into tyres, you will see hurdles, cones and agility markers, you will see parachutes and harnesses, in fact all sorts of stuff to keep your variety at the very maximum, which also serves to keep interest at very good levels too.

There has never been a more exciting to train and get fit!!

Twitt
Posted on

Tuesday, 28th August

The great thing about doing my job is that I get to see progress on a daily basis, and some wonderful individual stories along the way!!

It could be from the individual who never thought they would be able to run ever in their life, and then starts developing the capacity to run all of a sudden, and its great to see their face when they achieve that!

It could be the lady who has dropped from size 24 all the way down to size 12, and has gone through an incredible journey to get there, and has developed so much as a person through all the courage and determination they have shown along the way.

It could be the person who contacts me in the first place, who says he or she has tried everything else and I am “his/her last resort”!!!

It could be the person who finally starts believing in themselves after years of lacking confidence in their ability, this is when outstanding progress can finally be reached because belief is such an important part in making all of this happen!!!

The stories are always moving fast and can often change on a daily basis, due to certain things happening in people’s lives all the time.

The key is how the individuals react and that’s what im there for, to help them through not only the good “lets celebrate the success” times to the rough times that could be very much classed as “stormy waters!”.

I like to be all about the big progress in terms of losing inches off your waist and hips, regulating blood pressure and strengthening one’s heart greatly, to paying attention to the seemingly “little things” that in the end contribute to this big picture more than anything else.

It’s the sum of the little things that will pull it all around for you, and make those great big goals you made when you first started finally happen!!!

Another productive week of opportunity has started for you so lets make it happen again!

Twitt
Posted on

Wednesday, 22nd August

The power of snacking

Snacks are often an underrated part of your daily diet.

If you don’t snack, then you are likely to be underpowered in your workouts. This is bad news if you are interested in putting in good performances on a daily basis.

If you don’t snack, then the possibility of over-eating at traditional eating times goes way up. How many times have you not eaten from lunch time until evening time and then gone mad before your meal you had to make because you simply couldn’t wait for your main food!!

The problem is that when you are so hungry, you are likely to grab ANYTHING you can get your hands on, and most of the time whatever’s closest to hand in the fridge!

A cheese sandwich smash and grab is not unusual and can make you totally over eat the main meal. This all means a calorie avalanche at your last meal of the day and when you think about it, this is exactly the time when you are LEAST ACTIVE.

It doesn’t take a genius to work out that when you over stuff yourself and don’t move around much, then this would be a prime time to put on body fat, exactly what we are not looking for!!!

If you took the time to snack, you would be eating in between major meals, instead of leaving up to six hours in between meals.

When you snack, this also stabilises blood sugar levels which stop the urge to eat in excess, and is great for avoiding the onset of diabetes, because you won’t have the wild blood sugar variations.

When you snack, you putting a constant energy supply into your body, and since hopefully exercise is a big part of your life, then a good energy supply is obviously vital! This will get you more fired up for workouts and you are likely to last much longer too!

This also encourages you to boost your metabolism, a constant supply of food makes your body think that it had better burn calories a bit quicker, raising your metabolic rate. Eating 5-6 times a day is far more efficient for your body, all you are doing is eating in smaller quantities come meal time, and spreading your food consumption out a lot further than trying to consume 3 huge meals, which doesn’t do a lot of good to your digestive system, that’s for sure.

See your food as fuel, and this will help your body become a furnace when it comes to fat-burning. When you throw in top quality workouts on top, then you have the perfect situation for getting into your best physical condition.

www.kerimckibbin.co.uk

fitness@kerimckibbin.co.uk

07968 980808

Twitt
Posted on

Tuesday, 14th August

The Olympics continue to make the headlines for all the right reasons, and when you delve into the successes some more, you can see why a lot  of these athletes have improved so much

Any athlete who wants to be at the top of his/her game, now has to work harder every day, every week, and every year if they want to become successful in the next Olympics in Rio in 2016.

If you apply the same level of detail to your own training as previously discussed, then of course you can reach new highs and fairly quickly.

For example, you don’t need to accept that just because you are getting older, then the famous, or make that infamous “middle aged spread” will definitely happen! This is not the case.

While it is indeed true that you cannot eat as much and as uncontrolled as you did when you were 18, with a bit of thought and a bit of control, you will be able to control new successful strategies in your life that will offer healthy low levels of body fat and increased workout performances.

This is true of ANY AGE, not only do I see it in the “middle aged spread” category, but I see it with teenagers and senior’s in the 70’s.

If your diet is all over the place at the moment and you lack direction, then its time you stopped putting up with this lack of strong mindset and re-programmed yourself for success.

You don’t have to be this incredible Olympian either to do it! All you have to do is start paying more attention to the way you live your daily life. Model yourself on those who are successful with their weight, their body fat levels and their performances.

Whilst Jessica ennis will likely be very, very strict on her diet, and has been for many years, you can create a stricter version of yourself which will automatically take you up several different levels if you give it some time to work.

Consistency of eating well and training hard and regular can never be underestimated and is the true secret of champions.

Twitt