Posted on

Friday, 10th May

If you’re tired of your week by friday, then today is the ideal time to try something different!

Throw what you planned to do in the bin, and do something you weren’t planning to do.

For example, if you are a big weight trainer, and like nothing more than benching big, working chest and arms on a friday, then you should be really changing it tonight to do something different.

You could try a spinning bike for a change, how about doing a heavy punch bag session, what about finding out how well the rowing machine can work you, or how about doing some speed work outside?

You may well avoid these exercises because you are comfortable with what you are doing right now, and maybe have done for years and years.

If this is the case, then all the more reason to change!

Most people are scared of change because they do not really know what’s going to happen.

I can assure though that if you do take my advice and change right now, you will benefit in all sorts of ways.

You will develop new all round fitness levels, your lung capacity will get better, you variety of workouts wil explode, and you will likely enjoy your training a lot more than previously!!

This method of changing things up will serve you well, and keep you from hitting training plateau’s that are all too common in most people’s training lives.

So friday is the perfect time to change it all up, be aggressive with your training again, feel rejuvenated and more optimistic about your future progress all in one go!!

Twitt
Posted on

Tuesday, 23rd April

Energy cost, effort, meanings of every exercise you do, why you do certain things and their effects are all vital parts of my work, and form an integral part of my planning for everyone’s training.

When someone starts off for the first time, the energy cost of exercises you give them tends to be low in order to see how they react.

Why we do certain exercises is fully explained, and how their body will react is critical to see how quickly the programme will work for them.

This programme can easily take 4 weeks, and from then we can usually accelerate the programme at a faster pace from there. Without a good grounding in exercise, nobody can really be successful in getting into shape both in the short and long term.

So this is why we set the energy cost of each exercise low to start with, and then gradually building up and replacing the lower cost exercises with higher cost ones over time.

This is why the fittest individuals I train will always be used to high energy costs in every session, what this means is that not only will a lot of calories/energy be burnt in the session, but this will lead to quicker fat-burning, raising the metabolism for longer, and create meaningful changes in a very positive way to one’s resting heart rate.

I have started with many people who have started with a 100 beats per minute heart rate, and now have a 60, 50 or even 40 something resting heart rate. As I have mentioned many times before, having a good strong heart rate is vital to enable you to advance in exercise terms and this can be developed gradually by increments in your exercise programme at regular intervals.

All of these results we talk about, always all start with smart, intelligent exercise programming, making sure you improve quickly but at the same time making sure you lay strong foundations for the future.

Regular reviews of your programme are also vital, and everyone’s programme should be seen as a work in progress, and never something that you go through the motions with leading to poor results.

Seize the moment and look to move your programme along regularly!

Twitt
Posted on

Monday, 22nd April

If you stop eating your favourite food completely, and I mean you never plan on eating it ever again, this is a perfect recipe to binge and go off the rails big time.

The best way to get around this is to still eat these foods that may be very high in fat or sugar or both, but eat them in much smaller portions. For example, if you had a habit of eating a whole pizza on a Saturday, and maybe a
Tuesday, then you were probably eating at least 1000 calories in one go, a ton of saturated fat and refined sugars.

If you keep it to one slice at a time only, thin and crispy to lower calories, and eat it slowly to savour the taste more, then this is perfectly acceptable once or twice a week. The main thing you would be doing though is consuming a fraction of your normal amount on a Saturday and Tuesday.

This alone will have the effect of you not seeming like being on a diet. Your saturated fat and sugar will drop dramatically. Your ability to eat a lot in one go (bingeing) will diminish greatly, and your behavior towards food will likely change permanently.

Once your brain realizes that its not on a diet, you will automatically relax and you will develop a far more healthy attitude to food, and be far more comfortable knowing that although you have to eat around 80% good healthy food, you will still be able to have one or two treats a week such as the pizza in this case.

After studying people’s habits for years, I have seen this situation many times turn out that the individual involved eventually goes off treats such as the pizza because they KNOW they can have it! Its when you know you cannot have something that usually makes it far more appealing!!

Try it out and see how you get on.

Twitt
Posted on

Friday, 19th April

How to get your eating right

Write down what you eat and when/why you eat it, or what your drink and why you eat it. If you do this you can really see what you’re eating and drinking, how much more than you may need and what stresses are causing you do it. Once you know where you are, then you will know how not to get into situations in the future that destroy your progress.

Accurate food records for 3 days are the quickest way to fix your eating. If you are stressed, hungry or bored, there will be issues when you make food choices. Write down how long you are training for too because you will need more food on those days, and you cannot train on fresh air alone.

Are you skipping breakfast, nibbling on rubbish all day, overeating in the evening and late at night because you are so hungry you have to eat much bigger amounts of food than normal?

Do you entertain yourself with food when you are bored? Perhaps you reward yourself with chocolate when you’re stressed?

You may need to watch your moods when you eat, most people will feel better when they eat a tub of ice cream initially, but it does nothing for anxiety and stress you may be experiencing in your life. The problems that made you stressed in the first place are never really solved by the ice cream, and you just added a new one of piling on body fat if you do this regularly! You need to avoid this vicious circle.

If you eat food on a regular basis OTHER than giving you energy and health, then you need to recognize that food should be seen as fuel and not as an emotional crutch to get you through some stressful times.

Food becomes dangerous in terms of weight gain and in terms of worsening your internal health when it is eaten for entertainment, reducing stress or just making you feel more comfortable.

It’s a fact that no amount of food solves any problems.

For example, if you eat lightly during the day, and eat excessively at night like a lot of people I start with do, then try and change it right away by having a bigger breakfast, a decent lunch and lighter evening meal, with mid-morning and mid-afternoon snacks. This way of eating will give you far more energy, keep you feeling fuller for longer, make you less prone to have sugary/fatty snacks and transform your body every single week. This is the way your become far more efficient in the way you create energy for yourself, burn fat, and create lean muscle which in turn boosts your metabolism greatly.

You won’t feel like eating late, and you’re going to be far more in control of everything so give it a go for better results.

Any problems tel 07968 980808

Or www.kerimckibbin.co.uk

Twitt
Posted on

Friday, 5th April

The role of speed and agility should not be limited to the “young and sporty”.

How many of you went to school, took part in sports to some degree, then may have even gone on to play for the school team, maybe a proper club team and maybe for a number of years……………….then everything stops!!!

You may have a couple of years off, sometimes a number of years off, and when you try to get back into exercise, the agility and speed you once had in school for example has disappeared!

You feel stiff as a board and you always put it down to “old age”, even though you may only be in your 30’s or 40’s!!! Hardly old age in my book!!

The great news is that there’s many ways around this but you do have to start slowly.

Getting a more general programme that concentrates on making your core stronger is the way to start, getting your muscles more flexible and allowing them to strengthen. You need to stick at this for a couple of months until your body recognizes that its ready to improve again, and you suddenly start realizing that you are not really “too old” at all, that you can feel better, that your clothes start to feel looser and that you can show improvements in your training, and incremental improvements start becoming a normal way of life for you.

Its at this stage you can think about doing more speed and agility work.

Fast footwork sessions are suddenly an option, backward running can be done, light sprint work is back on the agenda, and a whole host of techniques I love to take people through.

Once you get through this work, automatically you will start to remember the way you were in school or in your sports team, you will be a lot more agile, much faster and literally a big spring in your step!

This is what a much more complete programme is all about, and this is why I so feel that amazing results are always consistently possible.

Twitt