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Wednesday, 12th February

The ability to eat well in social settings is one of the biggest difficulties most people face.

Some people eat the likes of pizza, Indian/Chinese takeways, party food “just to be sociable”, this is what many of you have told me over the years. The same could be the said about the pressure to drink alcohol every single time you go out no matter what.

Absolutely nothing wrong with the occasional treat, it keeps you fresh and you shouldn’t have to feel you are on some kind of “diet”!

To make the change publicly to eating healthily in front of your friends, or at least not making “quite as bad” choices is a difficult path for some of you to follow.

It is though a powerful sign that you are prepared for people to see that you are on this healthy path, that you don’t want to eat the fast food on offer all the time, and usually people I train are pleasantly surprised how positive it goes down with their friends.

Changing your behaviour and associations with food and alcohol is always difficult, and people will have a few comments to say about your new choices in public, but apart from that initial change and surprise, after that others will almost expect you not to eat all the rubbish in future, even if they are piling in themselves!

To get into shape and the physical conditioning you want to really achieve, you have the change your lifestyle for good. There is no other way and everyone I know who has had the best results over the longer term has changed their lifestyle and will never go back to the way they were.

Nothing feels better than being fit and healthy, to being close to your optimum body fat levels, and being capable of regularly improving your performance levels.

Nothing can beat that!

Twitt
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Friday, 27th December

Following on from our last post about guidelines about training through the Christmas period, it’s important to write it down in layman’s terms.

This is because quite a lot of you have continued training throughout the holidays, and some of you even on Christmas and boxing days, some of you train these two big days every year, simply because you feel better you tell me, and we can all relate to that feeling that exercise gives us.

So let’s assume you are looking to keep some sort of decent condition over Christmas, it’s important to remember some key recommendations.

Most of you will not have much time to train as normal, with other commitments taking precedent so it’s vital you cut to the chase!

If you are doing a weights workout, you need to prioritize getting the most from your body.

If you usually pick 8-10 exercises for your session, then you need to just do what is necessary, and try to work your whole body in one session. Many people have gone away from working your whole body in one session, but going back to it will surprise you in terms of the effort required and the huge benefits it can give you again. Many people try to go straight on some kind of pro routine when a simple all over programme 2-3 times a week would be far more beneficial for them.

Just pick one exercise for your legs, chest, shoulders, back, arms (triceps/biceps) and core.

Pick an exercise that tests you quite hard and requires a lot of energy, for example bench press for chest, upright rows for shoulders, one arm dumbbell rowing for back, leg press for legs, dumbbells curls/bench dips for arms, etc, and some medicine ball work for core.

After a brief warm up on the bike, try 3 sets of 8 with a weight that’s going to test you. This will give you a short and very productive workout in less than half and hour.

Aim to take 45 seconds in between sets, or however long it takes you to get your breath back. You may have to use less weight than normal, but your heart and lungs will be having a great workout too, and as you get used to it over a few weeks, your lifting weight will gradually creep back up again.

You will be out of breath at times, your heart rate will be accelerated, and you will definitely break a sweat, in other words you will be getting the job done quickly.

Christmas is a great time for getting back to basics, and this simple plan will take you a long way into the new year too.

More on other simple training strategies to come, that you can use the rest of the week.

Twitt
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Monday, 16th December

Your best memories of when you were in your best shape may seem long gone for some, but you need to start to use those memories to your advantage.

Your body always remembers where its been, when it was in shape, how well conditioned you really were, how fast you were, how strong you were, how tight your waist was, how much endurance you had, how good your muscle tone was, even the individual feats you were capable of.

This is all called “muscle memory”.

Muscle memory will be different in everyone, and everyone improved at different rates. This is why I always ask about your physical past.

It gives me clues on what to expect, what limitations you may have, and what exciting possibilities lay ahead!

Whatever condition you are in right now, you may be in your best ever condition right now, you may have got so far out of shape that you may not feel you can get back anywhere near your best, or you may be somewhere in between.

Whatever your situation, its entirely possible to get into that special physical condition you were once in, and to even improve on it.

Muscle memory isn’t everything of course, you’re going to need a lot of dedication, hard work and resilience.

Muscle memory will give you a head start though, so try and remember what life was like when you looked and felt your best, and focus your mind hard on getting back to those good days when your physical conditioning let you do anything you wanted to!

Twitt
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Wednesday, 11th December

It’s very easy to walk away from this programme, and even easier to never start it. It takes guts and determination to get through it and come out the other side a much fitter and healthier person. I’m getting some pretty inspiring stories through too, such as daughters and sons nagging their parents to keep on going right up to christmas, even when the parent is trying to find excuses a lot of the time.!

When questioned, the main reason the parent wasn’t going to exercise that night was due that old chestnut “I didn’t have time”! That’s my favourite one, or at least my favourite because its probably the most used excuse we have all used at times and most of us are sick of by now.

If you look at the training/workouts section of my blog (www.kerimckibbin.co.uk), some of those workouts are 15-20 minutes long JUST to fit in with those who have no time. I work on this theory and it’s heavily based on actual progress, and actual results. Anyone who has ever been through it will know exactly what I’m talking about. Some of my best workouts have been shorter ones when I had no time.

If you start off being able to do 4 press ups, then 6 weeks later you may be able to do 30, would you say you progressed?

Of course you have, if you did 20 squat thrusts to start with, and 6 weeks later you are up to 100, did you progress? It doesn’t take a genius to work that one out, so hopefully you are seeing you can actually do this thing!

Three sets of 5-6 exercises takes a maximum of 20 minutes including water breaks! So what exactly are you spending your time on? What do you exactly base “I haven’t got time on”?!!

Most people work so 8 hours there if you’re full time, let’s give you 8 hours a sleep night, family responsibilities I know are very challenging this time of year, but you have to find the minutes(not hours) to exercise! For some people, the extra hours go on watching neighbours, emmerdale, coronation street, and estenders, sorry I forgot holby city? And what about the trashy reality shows that are much worse again? Sorry, I forgot that life was supposed to be about all of those?!!

So even allowing for all of that, you probably have a couple of spare hours, yet you need just 15-20 minutes to turn your life around, and you can’t manage that? Compare that to driving to some gyms, 30 mins there and back, then a workout and that’s nearly 2 hours out of your night, same with the swimming pool?

So the question is again, is 15-20 minutes too much inconvenience in your schedule to get you into shape, sorry I forgot about the pub on the way home, the petrol station to get wine, the spar to get chocolates, and tesco to get your ready meals? There are more important things every day than your health, I apologise!!!

If you’re reading this for the first time, then you may think who this crazy person is, but I make no apology for stating the obvious!!! Many people, make that, most people have become very skilful at making excuses why they aren’t in the physical condition they want to be!

What would happen if you actually committed to the 20 minutes most days, and within 3 months, people started saying “wow, you’re looking great, what have you been doing?!!!”, would you like that? Would you like people saying that those clothes are hanging on you? You should buy a size that fits you?!! Would you like that or not? Would you like to be on the beach or certainly wearing less clothes, and people commentating on how amazing you look now and you look 10 years younger? THIS IS POSSIBLE AS LONG AS YOU QUIT MAKING YOUR EXCUSES NOT TO DO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Don’t fool yourself anymore, this IS possible I’m repeating myself and I want to know when you are going to give yourself the body and health you really deserve?!!!!! I’m excited anyway because I’m living this every day as I am helping others to achieve what they want. Nothing better when you see someone you are training and their clothes no longer fit, and they realise they are getting into their best ever shape, that’s a great feeling for all of us, so let’s pick up the pace and really hammer the final few day to Christmas!!!!

Twitt
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Monday, 9th December

Milk as a recovery drink post exercise

Milk is a near –perfect recovery drink, in terms of both glycogen and muscle replenishment and rehydration. In research, milk has been proven to produce a more favourable hormonal environment immediately following exercise compared to a carbohydrate sports drink. This they suggest encourages protein anabolism during recovery, in other words encourages muscle growth and repair.

Canadian researchers have found that when male weight trainers who were new to the sport consumed skimmed milk as part of a 12 week resistance programme, it promoted greater hypertrophy (muscle gain) than isoenergetic soy or carb drinks. Another study with females who were on a 12 week resistance exercise course found they reduced body fat levels , increased lean mass and strength after consuming skimmed milk post exercise.

It is thought that milk somehow changes the metabolism of proteins in muscle and so enhances muscle adaptations to exercise.

A post recovery drink should be drunk as soon as possible after exercise. There is a two hour ‘window’ post exercise when glycogen storage is faster than at any other time at a rate of 150% the normal rate. Therefore drinking the milk at this time speeds glycogen (blood sugar levels) and muscle recovery.

For harder, longer training sessions, extra carbs might be needed. Researchers have found that eating a bowl of wholegrain cereal with milk was as effective as sports drinks, but it also promoted greater muscle protein synthesis compared to the sport drink.

Twitt