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Thursday, 24th November

All options are possible if you apply yourself to a goal that’s uppermost in your mind.

What stops us getting there is being sidetracked into minor things that have no bearing on what we are trying to achieve.

This week as I have said yesterday, has seen me focus on getting every single person I train up to their best levels for the year. This has led to exciting training sessions and previously unseen motivation levels.

There are so many things that can detract us from our goals, this is why its vital to have a structure in our lives we can do without even thinking about it.

I had to visit the dentist today with a minor complaint, but still enough pain to cause me some distress. We then get lectured (rightly I might add!) on how to clean our teeth properly, twice a day to enable us to have our teeth for a lifetime. Im sure most if not all of you have experienced this.

So why do we brush our teeth every day, twice a day, some people more, and we cant look after the rest of our bodies every day?

If we don’t look after our teeth, they eventually fall out!

If we don’t look after our body and continually abuse it, we are likely to have a heart attack or bring on a serious disease.

So by that comparison, most of the population doesn’t treat their body with the respect it deserves, until its too late usually when you are being lectured by a doctor in hospital!

So if you are doubting whether to continue your exercise programme, and somehow questioning the virtues of eating healthy food daily, then surely this must be the wake up call you need?

The primary need to exercise and eat right is to be healthy, to function properly in daily life, for your immune system to be strong to fight off disease, and to live a decent quality of life.

Surely these most basic reasons are enough to get you back on track and get you exercising today!!!

Twitt
Posted on

Wednesday, 15th November

On from yesterday means more about the importance of proper nutrition for sports.

So we assuming the client is 14 years of age again and looking to get bigger for rugby.

Then we explained how important it was still important to eat good quality food, and in bigger portions gradually over time.

Now we have to explain why you need to eat every 3 hours ideally, and its importance in rugby and sports in general.

When you play rugby usually on a saturday, its a tough sport and you will naturally break down muscle tissue in all the mauling, ripping of the ball and wrestling and big hits all over the field for 80 minutes! You need to recover from this on the saturday night and sunday and this is done by showing great interest in the power of food in recuperation terms.

Whenever you break down muscle tissue, you need to replace it again through the power of food and the power of good sleep.

So putting a meal together of good protein and good carbs, along with vegetables will replace a lot of the broken down muscle tissue and help you not only recover, but make fresh gains.

This same principle applies to weight training too, as we have talked about in the last few days.

Whenever you do a weights session, you naturally break down muscle tissue. So guess what? Yes, its the good quality protein, good carbs and vegetables you need to put back into your system again within an hour of finishing weight training and throughout the day.

You need your porridge for breakfast, wholemeal bread, wholegrain pasta throughout the day packed with lean proteins such as white meats and fish, and try to pack in a meal with veggies included in it at least once a day. This will make sure your body is in fine shape inside and out!

Tomorrow we have an insight on how important water is in your diet and how it affects your performance and health overall.

Twitt
Posted on

Monday, 14th November

Some more grim news on the health front for wales and the UK today.

Never has there been so many diseases been brought on by poor diets in the country.

It seems as if there has been an even further deterioration in the nation’s health, and lots of different factors have been blamed.

From lack of money, more people in the poverty trap than ever, more people eating fast food than ever, more people not exercising, a lack of activities and sport in schools, a lack of activities in the community and a poor participation rate in just about anything linked to moving around and being active.

It seems as if all the government initiativeshave mostly failed despite the high visibility, and “ticking all the right boxes” or so they claim.

Personal responsibility takes a big part too, you cannot make someone exercise if they clearly do not want to.

You cannot make someone eat well and healthy if they do now want  to on their supermarket shops.

What we CAN do is offer every opportunity to those who want the chance to be fit and healthy, and therefore be far more likely to  AVOID serious disease and early death in some cases.

There should be more incentives to those at work to exercise and eat well, its getting bigger in america but still not so big here although i am developing a couple of organsiations as i speak.

There should be far more visibility to those sections in supermarket that are healthier than others.

There should be tax relief to those organisation such as gyms, fitness centres, fitness providers to contribute as much as possible to those who think they cant afford the gym.

There should be even more educational programmes starting earlier in schools, and more money put into school canteens so they can offer healthy options, instead of the rubbish they offer now.

They should offer cookery courses to parents, all parents not only the ones that are obviously struggling, we are all learning and it wouldnt hurt to learn more.

There are endless things we can do, we are not short of options, all we need is the government to work with all of us who know whats really going on!!!

Twitt
Posted on

Friday, 11th November

Another follow on from yesterday, its important to give this programme some time and not expect results overnight!!

The results WILL come but you have to take into account a lot of factors.

Some kids at 14 are more physically developed than others, and therefore likely to respond quicker than others to this programme and may become outstanding athletes by 15-16.

Some kids take until 17 0r even 18 to really fill out like they hoped due to their physical maturity. This is down to nature but as long as the individual works hard, they will develop into an outstanding physical specimen soon enough. Thats not to say that the person who develops later will be any less strong, their tendons and ligaments will develop amazingly well through weight training, even if their bodyweight lags behind, you just have to give it time and give the programme a chance to work.

The temptation is that the young rugby player/football player panics and gives up on this programme after a few weeks if he doesn’t look like the incredible hulk instantly! I personally guarantee amazing progress in this programmme as long as a proper eating programme is also employed too. 50% of the equation to be in great shape and carrying the kind of muscle mass for modern day rugby is down to good nutrition, and can make the difference from average results to outstanding results. We will touch on that next week.

So now we have got the right guidelines out of the way, and this IS the right way to do things, patience is all you need.

When you train hard, you break down muscle tissue and that needs replacing by eating lots of good quality food high in protein and carbs. People are scared of carbs these days but you wont  grow inless you pack them in, and you wont have energy unless you keep packing them in, this is a fact.

The third element is always sleep, unless you sleep well, you can train until the end of time and you wont grow. Getting to be most nights allows the rugby player to grow and recover from the weight training and sets up perfect conditions to progress quickly.

Nutrition strategies next week………….

Twitt
Posted on

Wednesday, 9th November

A popular request i get a lot of the time is from 14 year old rugby players who want to “bulk up” for rugby.

First of all, 14 is a great age and the recommended earliest age for exercise.

Exercise in terms of weight training is not to be done at 100% flat out capacity with maximum intensity, weight training should be moderate at this age because your bones are still growing. You should start off light under supervision and add weight when the previous weight becomes really easy.

If you’re at a gym, a good programme to start off would be;

one set of everything first week, monday wednesday and friday

two sets of everything second week, same days

three sets of everything in the third week

8 repetitions per exercise and use a weight that tests you over the last couple of reps, but doesnt strain you too much, this is important to follow, NO STRAINING!!!

The exercises

Bench press

squat or leg press

upright rows

one arm dumbbell rowing

arm dips on bench

curls with dumbbells

Plank-aim for 10 seconds working up to 60 seconds over the next few weeks

Most people try to over-complicate things, and of course theres a million other exercises you can pluck out of any magazine, but for best results i would stick to those exercises over the first 4-6 weeks.

Take around one minute in between each set, you’re not there to sit around talking all day!

The first is all about conditioning your body to weight training, it can take a while and some pick it up quicker than others, and after all, you will have plenty of years ahead of you training, so theres no huge pressure to get it right in week one for example!!!

The other temptation is to want to copy others in the gym and want to put too much weight on, this is a big error and two things will happen, you will either get injured or get fed up with not being able to lift as much weight as others!!! This is a long term game and not a flash in the pan type of programme!!!

This is the first basic lesson on how to start off, if you start off properly you will be successful, if you don’t, its highly unlikely you will keep it up even in 3 months!!

More tomorrow!

Twitt