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!!!

Day 37 Your key 5 days-sun to thursday

Day 37-work, rest and play       

Most people will concentrate on one or another, some will train hard but eat what they like, some people will eat very well but not want to put much effort into their training, some will eat well and train hard, but never hit the sack much before 12.

Any of these combinations makes your progress not so good as it could have been. Sometimes you can’t get all three in of course, but that’s life and you should try and still do the best with what you can.

If you look at it like this, you should aim for Sunday to Thursday as solid, no nonsense types of days when you nail it every day, you eat good fresh food, you train with real energy and drive and you make a point of getting to bed on time every night. This should be within most of your abilities.

Obvious exceptions will include those with young children, but I have to be honest and say that many with young children I train are actually some of the very best performers!

Other obstacles to having very good Sunday to Thursday include drinking wine or beer in the week. I love a beer as much as the next man, but you really don’t need it in the week as it will put a big dent in your progress.

Your training drive will be diminished, you simply won’t feel “up for it” all the time. Alcohol will also encourage you to eat higher fat foods on the same night, and the morning after. Alcohol drives blood sugar levels up, then they come crashing back down which in turn creates a savage hunger at times. Then, when you wake up, you crave anything fired to satisfy your hunger upon rising, anyone know what I’m talking about??!!!

One more thing about alcohol, there are over 120 sleep disorders out there, and around 80 of them are linked to alcohol. So you may think that the extra glass of wine will make you sleep well, but the opposite is true. When you don’t have good sleep, you become irritable, your performance goes down, you crave fatty and sugary food etc etc.

You can see now that it’s a great idea to really concentrate on Sunday to Thursday and really get it almost perfect. Most people aren’t invited to social functions in the week, so it’s ideal to get foundations firmly laid around this time every week.

Everyone loosens up the weekend a bit, and when you do, you will be comforted in the fact that you have had a great week, your performances will be at the upper levels, your cravings for fatty foods will be at their lowest and your sleep should improve greatly.

This site is all about performing at your best, feeling your best and trying to live the quality of life that you always promised yourself.

To do this, life is full of challenges and obstacles, this is just one more but you have every ability to get over it again. There’s heck of a difference between knowing what to do and actually doing it, so let’s make it happen!!