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Benefits of being strong!

Back on my schedule today again, the 6.10am run and the day off yesterday did me no end of good so im hitting this message today with no end of energy too!

 I like to talk about balancing your schedule throughout the week, and how important it is to have your week planned in a broad sense to make sure you are successful each week full stop.

You always need to be doing some strength work a minimum twice a week to boost your metabolism, increase the rate your body burns calories 24 hours per day, really firm you up all over, get you stronger and fitter all round.

For many years, doctors argued that weight training and resistance work of all kinds would simply give you a heart attack if you pushed it too hard and would give you high blood pressure too. We all know now that the opposite is true.

Making gains in your health and fitness plan is impossible without having resistance training in your plan.

Another myth that used to be put around was that strength training slowed you down a lot.

The heaviest users of weight training in the running world are always the sprinters. Try telling someone who can run under 10 seconds for the 100 metres that weight training/resistance training slows you down!

The realities are that the athletes were the ones finding out first what worked before the doctors. The doctors would then research the claims made by athletes and then verify all the amazing benefits that they were constantly reporting.

Now any sport from tennis, to football, to squash, to canoeing all use strength training as vital parts of their weekly training, year round!! None of this rubbish “i don’t want to get too big”!! If only that was possible that easy!!! Sportsmen are discovering the benefits of strength training in all sorts of different ways for their chosen sport, and are not “getting big and slow”, they are getting sharper, fitter and lasting a lot longer into their 30’s than ever before.

A lot of strength training is about avoiding injury too. Most people dont know that you are strengthening your bones and joints when you use resistance too. This makes your body work together in harmomy more, making the chance of injury much less.

When you get in old age, you want strong tendons and ligaments, as well as strong joints and bones to avoid falls for instance, and to do things that will still give you a high quality of life. We all want to be active into old age but you have to create a strong base and foundation first.

You need to do your strength work AND cardiovascular work (running, walking, cycling, swimming etc), thats a perfect balance!!

Have a great sunday and thanks for visiting!

Twitt
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The right path

It’s never to late to take the right path. We have all chosen certain ways of doing things, approaching challenges etc, and many of us are too stubborn to change course, even if the ship is at times heading firmly for the rocks.

It stands to reason that we fall for the best marketing technique when choosing a way to be healthy. Actually, that was wrong, most marketing techniques are aimed at those who want to lose weight, whatever the consequences! Being “healthy” doesn’t seem to matter to most people as you would think. Associating losing weight with being totally healthy is misguided at best.

Living the healthy lifestyle involves a number of factors, and losing some weight can be beneficial of course if you have to lose in the first place.

Choosing what food and drink goes into your body matters greatly.

Exercising regularly matters heck of a lot.

Sleeping properly is hugely important.

Living life in a positive manner supports your immune system, being negative often brings on stress which attacks your immune system, you can see how important this is.

I find that most people go through all the marketing techniques before they get to me usually. I can be the last resort to some, but bringing people back to doing the right thing is always the answer.

Doing the “right thing” again after going through so many faddy ways of doing things may not work immediately believe it or not. Because you will have confused your body so much by constant dieting, and different methods of dieting, your body can be resistant to new ways of losing the weight.

I will concentrate on doing the right thing and your body has to get used to finally getting used to consuming all the important nutrients again. You have to get used to working out properly, doing the right exercises on the right amount of days, with enough rest in between. This will help you sleep better, which is massively important to your ultimate success.

So once you’re on a solid plan, regular improvements should come almost on a weekly basis to start with. These improvements will constantly increase your belief in the programme, and with that will come self-confidence.

After you’ve had some experience doing the right thing continuously, you will wonder how on earth you ever fell for all the faddy marketing techniques in the first place. Don’t feel like a fool, there are people out there making a lot of money in “selling” you this imaginary result that is never likely to happen, or at least last for an extended period or a lifetime.

So whatever your position, its never too late to get on the programme and put your body on a firmer course. All I know is that this way works, there may be some ups and downs, but ultimately you’re going to arrive in a better place, and you will be able to keep it up for life without too much trouble.

Its always the right time to do the right thing!

Twitt
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Seeing the light

Looking at things in a different light can make the difference between doing positive things, or feeling your are collapsing under the strain of life.

Some of us have terrifying schedules to some, and some of us moan about our jobs, our lives, our responsibilities. If you look at these factors in a different way, and feel lucky that you have such a busy schedule, feel lucky that people make us responsible for others and take pride in that, and that our jobs are actually meaningful, we can soon feel pretty lucky indeed, and look at things in a different way.

I feel lucky that some of you communicate after i’ve shared my thoughts with you every day. This helps me learn and understand what’s really going on out there, and i learn more about the highs and lows of human emotions.

You will hopefully benefit from me sharing all the things i know, and its great to have some positive feedback on what we do on here.

I am on the verge of putting my house up for sale, having a young family makes you grow out of houses very quickly, and so im about to see things in a different light in a different address! I feel lucky i have the opportunity to move house and are able to finance it. Life’s about different experiences and im sure a ton of them are about to come!!

Seeing the light for many of you came through our recent 84 day challenge, you may have been on the verge of giving up, the verge of throwing in the towel many, many times, but some of you came through and actually demonstrated to yourselves that if you employed the right strategies, you could really improve yourself and make a major contribution to your wellbeing and health in general. You overcame feelings of hopelessness at times and were brave enough to get off the floor aqnd come back fighting.

Look at the way Cyril picks himself up every single day, good or bad and somehow manages to work it out for himself, and shares all those ups and downs.

I have said many times that one of the biggest secrets of success is simply showing up 80% of the time. if you expect good things to happen, and you take positive action each day in the hope they will, chances are that some good things will happen.

Gary Player, the famous golfer once said when asked by the media on how he was so “lucky” he replied, “the funny thing is, the more i practice, the luckier i get!

Hope your week is going well and keep practicing!

Twitt
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With a purpose

If something is worth doing, then its worth doing well.

If you’re planning a workout, make sure you put some effort into it, and you’re not guilty of going through the motions.

If you struggle to get going some days, then get going anyway. I find if i get a day like this, i feel a whole lot better 5-10 minutes into the workout. After the workout, i am really so glad i got going in the first place, and everything feels better after the event!

We all would like to act on some of the takeaway leaflets that come through the door sometimes, wondering in fact if we are really missing something? When we fall for it again, the reverse is true of how we feel after a workout. We feel all groggy, sluggish and generally terrible, exactly how we didn’t want to feel!

Doing things for a purpose works on a time basis too. We all have constraints on our time from time to time, and if we train with a purpose, we usually have to train LESS than most people do, because we have a purpose in mind and simply we want “to get the job done”!

Making changes in our body fat, and energy levels can be done with eating with a purpose too. I gave you the pizza example earlier, or just about any takeaway, when we feel terrible after junk. The opposite can be done with “good” and “clean” eating, we automatically feel better when we do this, but we have to shop with a purpose too, this means pre-written shopping lists with intent on being healthy and being well-nourished. This is easily done and you don’t have to think about it too much.

Good planning is often imperitive if we are aiming for some impressive results. When this planning becomes second nature, then good results and a good standard of health and fitness becomes natural, and almost like being no effort at all.

Most people are impatient and unwilling to give it time. This is a common reason for failure. If you give anything enough time, you will do well as long as you’re sure what you are doing contains common sense and has every chance of working.

One of the secrets of success is simply showing up time after time, remember the 80% rule about doing everything right. Then 20% of the time, do whatever you want and enjoy the treats in life on all sorts of levels.

Twitt
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Day 82

Okay day 82 and we are approaching the last weekend of your challenge! What a weeekend with all the nice weather hitting us too, so no excuses not to get out there and enjoy the sunshine!

People in new york i can imagine use more exercise equipment because there tends to be extremes of weather there, it can be freezing in the winter, and the humidity can be a killer in the summer! So whatever you are doing, you tend to do indoors, spring and autumn apart of course when it can be fantastic!

Then, you have the likes of california, when all year round tends to be fantastic to workout outdoors, and do things where you have plenty of fresh air. We in the UK tend have mediocre weather which makes us feel pretty low sometimes, and then we tend to get over-excited when its sunny, and nothing worse than the sight of people taking their tops off for no reason at times, especially when its not the prettiest of sights!!

The number one thing is doing things you enjoy, and if you do them quite often, you are likely to get better and better at them, which means getting fitter and healthier of course.

Saturday is usually my day off, but i’m always looking for balance to my week and this week will be no different. I haven’t run so much this week as i’d like (which is a rarity) so i’m throwing a run in there at 6am tomorrow morning. A bit early for some maybe but as most of you know by now, 4am is my normal wake up call every work day. I know i will feel amazing at 7am!!

Nothing better then getting out there and getting some fresh oxygen in your blood. This process will help you repair all the cell damage we all go through every week due to the environment, be it pollution from smoke, eating food with too many chemicals, drinking too much alcohol, passive smoking, direct smoking or just about anything.

The bottom line is that we need to treat our bodies very well if we want it to be in good shape for our old age. Your retirement is there to be enjoyed in great shape, not some kind of meaningless existance that’s a constant struggle, you can turn it around right now and prepare yourself for some amazing health into your golden years.

So tomorrow morning, when i go for my run, not only will i enjoy it with all the great scenery, my dogs will enjoy it because they will be on a great run which they love and they get to swim, not only all of that, but i will be flushing all the toxins out of my system and re-charge my system, re-charge my blood cells, re-charge my vital organs to new levels of health and vitality, and i’m revving myself up with boundless energy too!

This is a great way to feel better, and its all free of course!! The best workouts are usually free, not stuck in some gym waiting for some exercise machine, with lots of germs circulating the air. Your best venue’s are all inside so enjoy them while you have the great weather around us.

Use your inside workouts for the mediocre weather, so you have a nice mixture all year round.

Two and a half days to go, finish them off strong!

Twitt