Posted on

Saturday, 19th April

Bumped into three individuals yesterday.

One has had two heart attacks by the time he was 35, now had a child and was unable to play with his child for any length of time because he would get out of breath. His partner confirmed this to be true.

The next has a severe bad back, and couldn’t stand for any length of time. She was a good sportswoman in her time, she is now 42. She couldn’t go anywhere anymore because of the embarrassment of not being able to walk far, and always needing to sit down. She had trouble keeping up with her kids and was depressed about her condition.

The third was 32 years of age, been a big drinker with the medals to prove it, and was suffering from very high blood pressure. He wouldn’t talk to anyone about it because he felt embarrassed, because his sporting past was so good, and he didn’t want his employer and his friends to find out about it.

They all asked for help due to their various ultimately unsuccessful ways of trying to solve these problems. All of these people could be classed a relatively young and in the prime of their lives.

They explained that they had been to gyms before, but the recurring theme of being shown around machines once, then they were left to their own devices. Their “programme” consisted of treadmill, bike, and rower IF they could do it.

They felt alone, and soon the feeling of hopelessness flooded their minds again, and led to them quitting their very limited “programme” almost before it started.

The big question has to be asked, all of these examples have been badly let down before and forgotten about in the “system”.

Their progress HAS NOT been followed up, their needs haven’t been considered, and proper care was not taken.

One of the most common questions we get is “do you look after us all of the time, EVEN after the first session?!! All of you who train with us now know we do of course we do. New members still ask us that question and we still have to keep giving the same answer of YES until they find out that we do ALL of the time. Yes we do measure all the time too, with several tests every month no matter what.

This will always make us the complete opposite of any other gym.

I like to answer it another way too, we like to DEVELOP everyone because you don’t really know how everyone will react to exercise, and ALL of you will improve and reach new standards and new highs and physical development, balance, coordination and mental concentration, plus significantly improving any health worries.

All of those three examples at the start can be helped enormously and their lives can be turned around, but a lot of care and attention must go into them first.

Twitt
Posted on

Friday, 29th November

Part two of the list we started yesterday

m. Exercise helps enormously with depression, which is a huge problem in society but rarely people admit. People need help and support and exercise and eating healthy plays a significant role in treatment now, after all nobody wants to be on pills all their life, and they want an escape route from this common condition if possible.

n. Exercise gives your social life a boost. When you workout or play sports, you tend to do it with other people, and you sometimes meet like-minded people that enhance your social experience.

o. Exercise proves that females are at least as fit as men, and in my personal experience of training a lot of individuals, most women I train now train harder than men-fact!

p. Exercise before the age of 20, along with good healthy eating limits the number of fat cells you can produce. This is biological fact and this is why exercising when you are younger determines a lot of conditions for your future. No exercise and fatty/sugary foods in your teens is a ticking time bomb that is already costing the NHS billions!

q. Exercises changes lives! Every single one of the transformations I have taken individuals through has changed them mentally and physically and all for the better! Every area of their lives improves!

r. Exercise gets you pregnant! I have trained women in the past who were told by their doctor in the past that they couldn’t/or were unlikely to get pregnant due to their weight and health, but once they made big changes to their lifestyle and health, quite often they fell pregnant straight away!

s. Exercise helps you help others. When you get healthier and feel much stronger and fitter, you tend to stop relying on others and want to help others achieve things in their life they may not have thought possible.

t. Exercise saves lives. Anyone who cant have an operation because they are too overweight will testify to this. Once the doctor tells you THAT YOU MUST LOSE WEIGHT just to have an operation, you take note and you get it done. Exercise benefits your health in all sorts of life-enhancing ways.

u. If you’re a parent, exercising will inspire your kids get healthy too. Sit on the settee, eat rubbish and be negative all the time and they will follow whatever you do. Setting a great example works.

v. Exercise helps you sleep better research shows in every study. Those who exercise will know this. There are 120 sleep disorders, 80 are linked to alcohol.

w. Exercise and weight bearing exercise gives you stronger bones and protects you into old age. Weight training/body weight exercises are the number one recommendation.

x. Exercise gives you natural highs! You don’t need drugs, just try to progress your programme so that your intensity
of exercise goes up, and then you will get the natural highs that many of you get anyway most days when you exercise.

y. Exercise teaches you discipline. The regime of eating healthy and working out regularly teaches you proper routines, and keeping them up can be a challenge. It’s the success of keeping it up that teaches you discipline that transcends into every area of your life.

z. Exercise and healthy eating gets you into shape without the aid of drugs or anything unnatural like weight loss powders which provide long term misery, which teaches you self-respect and respect for others. You know that this process can be very challenging, and overcoming all the self-doubts is hugely rewarding, this process is one of the most important of all.

Twitt
Posted on

Wednesday, 20th November

Post-workout snacks

Whether you are hungry or not, the quicker you eat food or drink after a workout, the quicker your body will recover. The enzymes responsible for making glycogen are most active immediately after your workout, leaving you with a 2-hour window to reload your muscle glycogen. Carbs are converted into glycogen one and a half times faster than normal during this post-exercise period.

Begin refueling with a high carb snack preferably with a high GI which will pass into your muscles much quicker than a low GI food.

You will have to watch portion sizes as eating too much carbohydrate will be stored as fat and not turned into glycogen. To help with recovery it’s a good idea to combine protein with carbohydrate for the post workout snack.

1. A couple of pieces of fresh fruit eg bananas, with milk.

2. 1 or 2 cartons of fruit yogurt such as Yeo Valley or Rachel’s.

3. A smoothie made with crushed fresh fruit whizzed in the blender with small handful of nuts.

4. A homemade milkshake. Use milk, yogurt and fruit such as bananas and strawberries for an excellent mixture of protein, carbs and antioxidants.

5. Tuna or cottage cheese sandwich. Choose wholemeal rolls, bagels, pitta or wraps.

6. A couple of rice cakes with jam and cottage cheese.

7. A handful of dried fruit and nuts.

Twitt
Posted on

Thursday, 3rd October

Just under 12 weeks to go to Christmas, and some people are already describing it as the Christmas run in!

In terms of your body and health, 12 weeks is an ideal time to make a monumental change for the better with your body and mind.

If you improve the way your body looks, feels and performs, then mentally you are going to feel a whole lot better!

I know of many people who say they feel lousy, and it usually coincides with them never exercising or given up exercising, they don’t often eat well and sometimes drink too much alcohol.

So you can see that living a much healthier lifestyle is a whole 180 degrees from that lifestyle of eating and drinking too much, and never ever working out.

The mental side to training is not discussed anywhere near as often as it should be. There is a strong connection between exercising, eating healthy and feeling at your best.

When you feel at your best, you tend to be at your best emotionally too. This always goes into every area of your life too, making everything seem much more positive, and leads to a whole new level of optimism in your life!

The best part about making a big lifestyle change is that it is relatively easy to keep up, and you really wont want to go back to feeling that you haven’t got any energy in your life, you wont want to go back to feeling that you cant fit into your clothes any more, you wont want to go back to feeling sluggish all day, you wont want all of that negativity in your life again.

This is why its vital that the emotional side of things comes with your physical improvements, they have to go hand in hand.

This will make your overall chances of feeling happy much higher, and when you are happy you tend to make much better everyday decisions, cutting the risk of falling back into your old ways when your lifestyle was making you really unhappy.

When you are happy, you tend to want more out of life, you will tend to want to improve all the time, and this is why its much easier to stay healthy and in shape for the rest of your life.

All it takes is exercising sensibly and using common sense with your food, it’s a great time to start right now!!!

Twitt
Posted on

Wednesday, 18th September

So you are starting to realize that its time to change your programme, and doing the same old thing will get the same old results.
Then we talked about the need to change the tempo of your workouts, you need to rest less in between exercises, in order to work your lungs harder and increase the amount of oxygen you are able to take in at any one time.

This process can shock you a little, and can take a few weeks to get used to. The great news is that once you do, you won’t want to train any other way!

Then once you have become used to this way of doing things, you need to make sure you are picking the right exercises to enhance your workout.

We have talked many times about “exercise cost”, and how the bigger the energy cost of each exercise, the more benefits you would have in calories burned, body fat burned and positive effects on your metabolism..

So you need to consider some more options.

Weights are not the only way to get stronger, though they are still important.

Medicine balls/walls balls can be a session on its own.

Bosu balls can dramatically improve your strength all over, dramatically improve your core, and add brand new dimensions to your training.

The swiss/fit ball is a great tool, but often mis-understood and always under-used. The balance work is vital on here, and should be an integral part of your training programme.

Boxing is vital to any programme, and you don’t have to be a boxer to do it of course.

Just these 4 pieces of equipment can revolutionalise your training and bring you dramatically different results! More tomorrow.

Twitt