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Tuesday, 6th May

Determining your best workout should be thought of in terms of what does it cost your body in energy terms. This is the real way that great things are going to happen for your body.

A lot of men tend to measure their workouts on how good it makes them look, or think it makes them look. For many men for example, they tend to make Friday night “chest and arms” night because the chance are that they are going out later and want to look their “best pumped up”!

We like to think that we have changed that thinking completely.

Many women think that as long as they hit the treadmill and spend endless hours on the bike, that the fat will be “stripped away” and they will get their “beach body” far quicker this way.

Weights many females think are for the “bulky look” and they really don’t need them, in fact many females never hit the weight room. It should be obvious by now that we train with huge variety, and mixing strength training up with everything else is the way to go.

Many of our women are stronger than many men in certain tests, and all of those women are getting leaner, would certainly never be classed as “bulky” and are reaching new standards of fitness on a weekly basis.

Energy cost of workouts are a good way to think about your efforts, and will have a direction relation to lowering your body fat, getting you leaner and sending your fitness levels through the roof!

The tyres, the prowler, sledgehammer work with little rest in between, has a lot more energy cost than doing curls and leg extensions with very light weights for example.

It may be nice doing a couple of light weights exercises, and chatting on the bike for half hour at low intensity, but your time in the gym should be as productive as possible. Your weight sessions should be high on energy cost too, just like the ones I keep showing all of you all the time, and all of you are doing very well on them.

Use your gym time wisely, and you will always deliver far more impressive results.

Twitt
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Monday, 7th October

Formulating your workout plan should have began yesterday, and you should be approaching this Monday with great enthusiasm, hitting your Monday hard and setting yourself up very nicely for the week!

Planning a week of workouts is imperative, rather than making it up as you go along and ending up missing workouts often.

You have 168 hours a week to deal with to make at least 3 workouts a week happen.

Take 37 hours a week off for an average working week and you are down to 121 hours.

Let’s say you have 8 hours a night sleep, and you need to subtract another 56 hours a week off.

So we are now down to 65 hours a week left to fit in a minimum of 3 workouts.

A lot of individuals I train have 1,2, 3, 4 even 5 children, so that takes a lot of time up.

Many I train work over 37 hours a week, those in business and those who have high responsibility jobs.

The funny thing is that those who have the kids AND the business or high pressure jobs, are exactly the ones who never miss a workout!! THEY ARE ACUTELY AWARE that they need to perform at their best, they need greater energy levels than most, and the self-confidence and self-esteem that being in shape brings, gives them so much in whatever they do in life, and being in shape goes hand in hand with being who they are, how they perform and the results and happiness they now have in their lives!

So if we say on average we have a maximum of 65 hours to do 3 workouts a week, and bear in mind we can do an awful lot in just 30 minutes, then committing one and a half hours to keep yourself in shape really isn’t a lot at all!

All depends where your priorities are, are you going to get in shape now and keep it up for life, or perhaps you have had a break from training because you haven’t got time, but you can see from this illustration that you DEFINITELY CAN fit it in, all you have to do is manage your time A LOT BETTER and you will very soon be enjoying the vast benefits that exercising brings!!

Twitt
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Thursday, 12th September

The forgotten athlete we often miss out on in general life is the senior athlete.

Today, I am talking very much about the senior athlete over 70, and I do train quite a few, and most of them are remarkable for their age. The term “remarkable” for their age is often said in a patronizing way, but I can prove people wrong by comparing the stats with some of the over 70’s to my 40 somethings and 50 somethings.

I have people for instance who can bench press what many struggle to do in their 40’s-this is a fact.

I have senior athletes who can cycle for an hour no problem.

I have senior athletes who are far more flexible than some 20 somethings I know.

The bone density tests that a lot of senior athletes have done, come back remarkably well without fail. A solid well structured resistance/weights programme for the over 70’s is not only recommended, its essential!

All the senior athletes I train retain a high level of physical confidence, which is vital going into the autumn of one’s life.

Quality of life is everything and the worst thing I have ever seen is someone in their 30’s, 40’s or 50’s give up on themselves and say “they can’t be physically active anymore like they used to”!!

The senior athletes are a great example on how to do it, they compare very well in terms of strength and endurance levels compared to most people, and the last thing they want is ANY KIND of patronizing comments. Being 70 plus is not the life-ender it used to be, we have a new breed now fighting for new levels of strength, fitness and overall outstanding health!!

Twitt
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Thursday, 5th September

So after I hit the 6 mile mark in the marathon, I knew I would be up against it carrying a 2 stone object for the next 20 miles. What made it worse was that I couldn’t put it on my back, and I had to carry it one handed.

The next 8 miles wasn’t too bad, but soon after I hit tower bridge I started to feel it much more. Believe it or not, you can run 14-15 miles in the London marathon and there are huge amounts of people right in front of you, to the side and right behind you, I found at the 16 mile stage things began to space out a bit and you tended to be in groups of 5-6 runners instead of about 200!!

What got me to mile 20 was the abundance of people still shouting at you to carry on, even speed up! You have your name written on your vest and number so everyone knows your name!

By 20 miles, my shoulders felt as bad as my legs because the pie was still in one hand at a time, my legs were feeling very bad because the extra weight was being transferred to my legs too.

From 20 miles onwards, I felt every single mile took A LOT longer somehow! Each mile was dreadfully painful and long, and nothing could get rid of the pain and tiredness, and even at the late stage 0f 24-25 miles, I saw the odd person collapse, or get injured, or simply couldn’t go any further, their dream ruined for the day and year.

What keeps you going from mile 20-26, known as the “wall”, was the much bigger again crowd support! I actually knew one or two people in the crowd and when the roads open up again, you know you aren’t far from the finishing line! This is a massive lift, let me tell you!

The 20-26 mile area is the hardest emotionally, as you really want to stop, you may lose a couple of toe nails, you may have very painful blisters, and everything will be aching like never before, but the crowd are the biggest part of the equation getting you through, anyone who has taken part will tell you all that!

This is also when your training plan comes into its own, this is when all the good preparation really counts and gets you home in one piece!!

Twitt