Tuesday 20th September

The rest intervals in between your exercises are one of the best ways to increase intensity in your workouts, burn body fat, build lung capacity and increase muscular endurance.

Intensity for your workouts are done in several ways, but i really trust this way of doing things as its tried and tested.

An old saying is that fitness can be defined as the ability to get up after being knocked down, and do it again straight away! This may be more of a rugby example but the example holds true.

When you transfer that to the gym or home workout imagine it like this.

You do a press up and the most people have a rest for a couple of minutes, maybe five minutes then do another exercise.

If you try to do two exercises back to back for a change, it automatically becomes harder of course, and your muscles feel much better worked, you get out of breath easier, and the whole thing becomes a much bigger effort, leading to overall better results.

This is a good way to start, press ups followed straight away by arm dips, then rest for a minute, then try another two exercises, you will be able to build up over the weeks.

Ultimately, you want to be targeting 6 exercises and up to 8 exercises in a row.

For example, if you are working at home

press ups

arm dips

alternate squat thrusts

squats

sit ups

lunges

If you were in a gym, it may be

bench press

lat pulldowns

leg press

upright rows

tricep pushdowns

curls.

This is just a small example of what you can do, and your programmes and workout ideas are only limited by your imagination!!!

Just concentrate by working on one exercise per body part and you won’t go far wrong, you can literally have a different workout every time you train!!!

So tempo of workout is everything for me, the less rest you have the better (as long as you are well conditioned first!), and once you get used to training this way, you will never go back!!!

Wednesday 14th September

Great things happen to happen to individuals who take action.

Those who hide and bury their heads under the sand will undoubtedly worsen their plight.

Okay, so once you have decided to take action, you will probably realise that you don’t have a whole lot of time to do it.

This is because life has become faster, people don’t have time anymore for things they used to take for granted.

Just look at most people’s days now, they still have to put their time into work but you are expected to do more in that time.

You are expected to do the job quicker and more accurately, and if you don’t like it, then with the current grim economic climate, then there’s usually someone right behind you prepared to take your job!!!

When you go to see the doctor, they say that they usually have 6 minutes for you according to research!

6 minutes is unbelievable so hopefully its not a complicated condition!!!!

We want to drive our more powerful cars quicker so we can get to places quicker, even if there’s speed cameras everywhere!!

We want to shop quicker, we have much more limited attention spans so pick shorter programmes, so hopefully you get the picture with all of this!!!

So when it comes to taking action in workout terms, your exercise session had BETTER be short but at the same time of course, you WANT AND NEED results!!!

So whenever i go through a session, i insist i give the absolutely best session i can!!! This means a high tempo and a lot of variety, including making sure each and every session is 100% safe!!! NOBODY has time to get injured these days!!

So wheneve you’re picking your workouts, make sure you make it count and give it your very best. Nobody has all day to train anymore so pick your time and hit it hard!!!

29th June 2011

You had two different sorts of stories in the newspapers today, both of them say a lot about the difference good quality food makes.

First of all, you had the story about fizzy drinks and diet fizzy drinks, how they still make us fat and we should really avoid them at all costs. Do we really need all of those chemicals in our bodies? The report and common sense says we really don’t and if you google the article “diet drinks make us fat”, then you can see the common sense of avoiding these drinks most of the time, or all of the time if you don’t want that rubbish in your body.

Then there is David Haye, the world boxing champion who is looking to unify the title on saturday against the huge russian gentleman in germany on saturday night.

Whethere you love him of loathe him, you will appreciate how healthy he looks, how good a shape he is in, and how much of a healthy glow he has in general.

He also performs superbly well, doesn’t get carried away with putting too much weight on, and relies on speed and power for his craft.

It then went on to list his diet which was 100% organic, he did a lot of juicing of fruit and vegetables, ususally first thing in the morning and last thing at night.

He was a big eater of fresh fish, lots of vegetables again, plenty of water and was all about putting organic snacks in of nuts and fruit, and in general, as healthy as could be.

This man leaves nothing to chance so the very best of luck to him on saturday.

The second story about haye contrasts wildly with those who drink a lot of fizzy drinks, and even those who go on faddy diets. Guess which one is healthier?!!!!

Haye proves its quality that matters, and all of those extra chemicals in fast food, ready meals etc will eventually have an adverse effect on your body.

21st June 2011

Mixing up your training is not only good for progress but good to keep you fresh.

Another good point is giving you more options when it would be easy enough to call it quits for the week!

If you pulled your calf, twisted your knee or hurt your arm, there IS another way to train as many of you are proving.

I won’t go over all the excuses i have heard over the years, but they still make me mad from time to time, make that ALL THE TIME!!!!!

My favourite or not so favourite one is the one that someone cant train because their “training partner” is not training anymore, so they can’t train anymore!!!! Have you heard anything so ridiculous in your life!!! But i have heard this a few too many times i can assure you! You DO NOT have to rely on someone else to exercise, you really don’t!!!!!!!!

So the bottom line is getting used to all sorts of training so your options become greater and greater. If your arm is a little sore, what’s to stop you cycling or running, although i will admit you do use your arms on both, in different ways but workouts are STILL possible wouldn’t you say!!!!

If your knee is bad, you can do weight training circuits that don’t hurt your knee obviously, just find out the exercises that don’t hurt so much!!!

Swimming is a good exercise if you have aches and pains, because like cycling, it is non-weight bearing and will actually help your body improve, instead of slowing recovery down like other forms of exercises can do.

Nothing wrong at all with walking too if you have a pull in your arm or upper body, the bottom line must ALWAYS be if it hurts, then DO NOT do it. If there is no pain and makes you feel good, then it will be fine and you always need to use this rule, the saying “no pain no gain” is absolute hogwash, train smart and thats means training carefully!!!!

Lots of options out there and that means no excuses!!!

Monday, June 20th

If you’re looking for your big start to the week, then you need a fundamentally good start to the week and it all begins with some solid eating plans!
 
 
Nothing wrong with up to 3 cups of tea or coffee a day, but you do need plenty of water on top of that, 8-10 glasses a day or around 1.5 litres if you are consuming by the bottle.
 
 
Breakfast is always going to work best when its a natural choice, weetabix are always fine, and porridge can be a great selection giving you a nice long steady supply of energy to start the day off. Dried fruit can be a great sweetener.
 
 
If you are having some fruit juice in the morning or at any other time, its always an excellent idea to dillute it as you wont be consuming as much sugar as a whole glass of juice, therefore saving on needless calories too.
 
 
Fruit is usually a matter of personal taste, some people like certain fruits and tend to stick on the same ones. Its always good to mix them up a bit so you get different nutrients, but the bottom line is that fruit of any kind should come in on a daily basis.
 
 
Vegetables are a must have in anyone’s day, a lot of people ignore these at their peril, because they provide a lot of what your body needs when it comes to supporting good health.  Again try to keep it varied and your body will feel all the better for it.
 
 
Your protein selections should be the lean choices, such as white meats and fish, and if you keep to this, you will feel full and your calories consumed will be relatively low, red meat is fine but only once a week.
 
 
One of the biggest mistakes people make with carbs is portion sizes, and if they are bigger than the size of your fist, then everything you eat will be putting on body fat rather than giving you energy.
 
 
Portion size for some people is one of the most difficult thing to change, but once you do get used to the smaller amounts, then your appetite gets smaller, and your ability to eat big meals goes down, which means a smaller and flatter stomach of course.
 
Put in a great workout today and add of all this great food, and you’re off to a flier early on in the week!!!