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Thursday, 10th October

There’s a nice little story in the paper about the famous runner and Olympic champion Mo Farah, in the press today talking about his upcoming autobiography.

He talks about his early career and all of his ups and downs, and his long journey from Somalia to where he is now.

The critical moment was way back in 2005, when he was advised to attend a Kenyan training camp. This changed his life in many ways, but brought the professionalism in that was required to take him to being a world champion.

When he first arrived, he expected to go to the cinema or go out dancing. He looked at his watch and it was only 830am, yet all the Kenyan athletes went to bed! He used to drink 6 to 7 cups of tea a day, the Kenyans only drunk water, and when he followed this advice, his performances started improving quickly! He also started eating only simple whole foods, and this was a major change and revelation for him.

Then at 6am, everyone got up to loud church music, and he was required to do a 7am really hard run which half killed him!

Then they would return for food, then the Kenyans would sleep in the afternoon, then hit another big run at 5pm, eat throughout the day and then go to bed at 830am, day in day out without fail!!

This was their true secret of success.

While I could never ask anyone I train to follow such an extreme training regime, there are similarities in what I ask people to do.

I always say that regular, high quality training sessions are the way to go.

I always recommend getting to bed early, especially in the week, and putting great value on proper rest. My clients who do this are my best performers and usually look incredibly well!

I recommend much plainer, whole foods, which nourish the body very well and help you perform extremely well!

I recommend plenty of water, up to 3 cups of tea or coffee can be fine, but you dehydrate after that so this downgrades performance.

The Mo Farah story is a great learning experience for all of us!

Twitt
Posted on

Last friday in September

One of the most common questions is how to reduce an individual’s stomach area.
The misconception is that you can reduce one area of your body with a couple of exercises.

There is no way you can do this without reducing your overall body fat. You cannot have a lean tight stomach with your abs showing, without your arms being lean and tight too, without your back being defined, without your legs looking leaner etc etc.

Your body fat as a whole is the key element in you looking fit and lean. I have seen many, many people train really hard, but never eat well and consume a diet high in sugar and saturated fat.

Their goal in having an impressive stomach area will never be reached until they change their diet and start eating more whole foods, more natural foods full stop, and cut out the processed foods full of sugar, saturated fat and salt.

Eating sugary breakfasts like crunchy nut corn flakes will never make you lean, it will only put on body fat!

Having chocolate and crisps for lunch will only bulk you out in the wrong way!

Not paying attention to your evening meal and eating anything you want will make your stomach and hips expand only!

You can train as hard as you want, but until you start paying attention to your diet, your goal of leaning out in the stomach area is never going to happen!

Your taste buds will take a few weeks to change maybe, some people get into it quicker than others, but I guarantee you the results will be definitely worth it!

What’s more, your taste for sugary products will wane so much that you want to eat all those sugary snacks and fatty meals in the future.

This is all part of the new you and will last a lifetime if you put your mind to it!

Twitt
Posted on

Monday, 23rd September

Summer has almost gone, temperatures are going up again for their last indian summer hurrah, and the feedback I am getting is that most people I train are re-positioning themselves to have one big run at getting into their best shape for Christmas.

13 weeks tomorrow it may be, but Christmas will come soon enough, and its ample time to hit your very best physical condition.

We talked about the best way to do it last week in training terms, so if you’re not used to that way of training, then you had better change right now to accelerate your results dramatically.

This can take a month or so to get used to, so that will take you into the end of October already.

How’s your eating doing? Are you eating small meals and snacks every 3-4 hours, and eating good quality nutritious foods at least 80% of the time? If you are not, then
you need to use the next month to get used to eating good quality foods.

If you’re jumping from one diet to another, one fad to the next, then it is likely to crash and burn time after time. There has never been a better time to get it right finally.

The next month could really be the perfect opportunity for you to create the foundation you need to be in shape for the rest of your life, and all of the benefits that come with that!

Whatever training fad, whatever dietary fad, whatever pathway marketing men get you to go down, you will eventually have to come back to eating sensibly and using the latest training science to put yourself on a sustainable path for the rest of your life that’s GOING TO WORK FULL STOP!

Make the change today and get some good momentum on your side before Christmas!

Twitt
Posted on

Tuesday, 17th September

The first thing to consider when you are aiming to change your programme around is how much time are you taking in between sets?

Are you the type to stand around and talk for 5 minutes in between each exercise?
If you are, then the change around I would recommend in your workout programme will not work anywhere near as well as it should be.

So tempo of your workout is something you need to look at before anything else.

If you are able to cut down the rest in between each set you take, then this will create you to become slightly out of breath. When this happens, your lung capacity is being challenged and if done sensibly, can and will improve quite quickly.

So if you picked 6 exercises and lets say you do them one after the other.

If currently, you take 5 minutes in between sets, then you are not boosting your fitness by much at all.

Try cutting that down to one minute, and see the big difference!

Eventually, you need to aim to get it down to 45 seconds.

The main difference you will have to make is reduce the weight you use in each exercise. This will be unavoidable because you wont have the energy to go at this increased tempo and still use your normal weights.

As the weeks go by, you will find your lung capacity improves greatly and your weights will slowly start creeping back up again.

This will mean your overall conditioning levels will go up dramatically, and the thought of going back to your old ways of training will no longer enter your mind!

Twitt
Posted on

Monday, 16th September

Following a fitness programme where you just do, let’s say some work on a cross trainer, some treadmill maybe and a short spell on a bike could be described as very popular in the big clubs, and you would be one of many doing the same thing.

This programme undoubtedly has some health benefits and well done to you on exercising regularly.

If you do the same aerobic type of work, and you throw a little weight training in, then you will do even better. This is a better balance than the first example definitely.

Unfortunately, this is where even the most ardent exercises’ variety of training programmes ends, stuck in the 1980’s and not a thing has changed since! I have highlighted the fact that if you do indeed follow this way of training, then I congratulate you on actually training, instead of talking about it like most people do!

The point here is that exercise programmes have moved on so much more since then. A lot of people aware of the “core” these days, and the importance of working it, but most of these people haven’t a clue on how to work the core, and don’t know a thing about the different tools you should be using to strengthen your core.

They don’t know because they usually are not shown, not given a programme with a great deal of variety, and this is a great problem of the big gyms, when 3000, yes you heard it, three thousand people have to join for them just to BREAK EVEN!! They cant afford to get the quality of staff in, and you could never hope to service 3000 people anyway. This is why 90% of the big clubs are deep in debt or in bankruptcy already, both in the UK and US.

This week we will talk about different ways to make your programme work for you, come into 2013 finally in terms of training science, and actually enhance every area of your body in strength, flexibility and getter leaner than ever, plus reducing the risk of injury right now and in the future!

Twitt