Thursday, 29th May

Confidence can be a two-way thing and can either work for you or against you.

You develop positivity and confidence usually by overcoming challenges, and discovering you can actually achieve more in your training and with your body than you ever thought.

You develop momentum by putting a string of workouts together, lose body fat, look better, feel so much better and soon enough it becomes an important part of your daily life.

You start lifting more, you become more agile, you become quicker and in general you start to move very well, sometimes better than ever before. Your confidence can quickly develop to an all-time high.

On the other side of the coin, events can conspire to make you lose your confidence.

An injury of some kind in daily life can happen out of the blue.

Work commitment can hinder your ability to make your sessions.

You may develop a short illness.

You may have negative people around you who don’t support your training and nutritional efforts.

All of these things can stop you hitting the gym as often as you would like. This leads to your gym sessions becoming harder because you become a little out of practice and you try to do the same things as when you were hitting regular good quality sessions. This is when motivation can suffer.

This is why a proper routine and programme becomes vital. You need to train regular and this is the only way to see consistently good results. Coming back strong after you recover from any setback can be tough, but regular sessions even when you don’t feel like some of them will make a dramatic difference to you mentally.

The other benefits are that the fitter you are and if you take your nutrition seriously, the stronger your immune system becomes and the more likely you are to have a strong sense of wellbeing.

This leads to a great sense of confidence because your body will be in a regular routine of looking after itself.

Living a daily healthy lifestyle makes everything work better for you, and gives your self-belief a massive boost at usually the times you need it most.

Monday, 19th May

There are all different types of people who join gyms, and whoever it may be, it’s important to get them back down to basics to make sure they improve.

People who dabble in this and that, need to start buckling down to a proper programme and develop real strength and endurance.

For example, you often get individuals who have tried a bit of everything.

They have done weight training before at times, they sometimes have used the latest machines and convinced themselves that somehow they were “better”, they may have tried endurance training such as longer runs and longer cycles and bought all the latest kit and looked like a pro, they may have tried yoga and pilates, and more than likely swore blind that each of them was the best form of training at one particular time.

These people are willing to try anything, and many of these individuals have developed some strength and some endurance, which is a great start when it comes to our programme.

However, when it comes down to it, they usually have never done enough training to develop the skill, strength and power that comes with more specialist programmes that REALLY transforms you!
When many people come to us, they lack the strength of someone who trains consistently and has developed real strength.
Their tendons and ligaments haven’t developed the strength to learn a new way of training.

Our programmes are transparent, well-thought out and may look easy on paper.

If they were really easy to do though, you are doing them wrong or not putting enough into them!

We build everyone up gradually, and with time you will develop into an impressive athlete.

To start with though, you have to learn to do things right, to follow through with a programme for the first time ever, and to test yourself constantly.

You have to take your nutrition seriously, you have rest properly and you have to come in with a positive attitude.

Nobody gives a damn what you wear in the gym or how much make up you have on, but you better be prepared to work hard!

Monday, 5th May

Anyone who has gone fishing for crabs could probably never guess that this story could be related to getting into great shape, but here goes!

When fishermen go out trapping crabs, they bring them back to shore, and put them all in a big bucket of water.

All the crabs surprisingly stay in the bucket even though they could climb out as there is usually no top on the bucket.

The crabs are usually then left in an open bucket all night.

If one crab tries to get out of the bucket, the other crabs would pull him back down, and if he kept trying then the other crabs would pull one of his legs off so he would be made to stay in the bucket.

You would think that the other crabs once they see that one of the crabs can get out, they would want to get out too, but this is not the case. They were more interested in keeping everyone in the bucket.

This story relates very closely to human nature.

When anyone is doing something to improve themselves like exercising or eating healthy, there will always be those who want to drag that person back down and stop from them being successful.

Think of the times you are out when people give you a hard time for not having a few drinks, or they give you a hard time for eating healthy or they want you to do anything else apart from train? There are people within your circle who won’t want you to succeed, and you have to break out of this.

If you are trying now to make a drastic change for the better in your life, then you are probably experiencing these scenarios right now. Just think that you are one of the crabs trying to get out the bucket, but some of your friends will do anything to keep you stuck in there just like them!

It’s important to surround yourself with people who are going to support you no matter what, this is a key element for being successful.

I have seen it many times, someone I am training is really keen to change their body, but someone in their immediate circle is intent on stopping them adopting the habits that are going to let them be successful.

It could be not supporting them eat healthy by continuously eat junk in front of them, it could be putting them off making their exercise sessions by constantly giving them other options and saying things like “missing workouts here and there won’t matter”, or a general lack of support or kind words, even when that person may be doing amazing things! This lack of support WILL drag you down.

Ask which people are supporting you, and which ones are sucking the life and motivation out of you?

So you have to decide which one you are, the one trying to change everything and escape mediocrity or the one who really wants to stay with the rest of the crabs as the fisherman story goes!

Be conscious about the time you spend with negative people, if those people are giving you constant negative thoughts, then see these people as poison to your chances of being successful.

Surround yourself with as many positive supportive people as possible, it will make all the difference.

Monday, 28th April

For most of you who join our gym initially, the way we do things is 99.9% different to anywhere else you have been, to treat people as individuals is the only thing we know and it works best. We don’t do classes, we don’t give you a sheet to follow that has been photocopied hundreds of times, that never changes and you get bored of, and was never designed for you in the first place.

Everyone has a purpose, and has a unique capability of achieving it.

For many of you, you have begun lifting things you never thought possible, and running and moving in all sorts of different ways.

When you saw what went on outside of our place, and heard what went on inside, you maybe really wanted to try it, but never thought that you could possibly do it, or you didn’t want to be embarrassed when you eventually tried it.

That sense of confidence that many of you now possess cannot be bought, and the sense of a swagger in your step only comes from overcoming challenges that you thought impossible.

The best part about it all is that it doesn’t stop there, it continues and continues and never stops.

Overcoming and changing your body so much opens doors that you never thought existed.

You find that once you hit certain levels that you see others reaching, you not only want to go on and achieve much more, but you become an inspiration to others too.

Your family will view you as much more of an athlete and respect your achievements, you will go on to inspire others at the gym too who are only just starting out on their journey, and you will begin to set new horizons for yourself in all areas of achievement in your life.

Sunday 27th April

Best bit of advice I ever had was to make sure you get some sort of exercise in on the Sunday morning after a few drinks the night before.

If you don’t, you are likely to feel like rubbish all day on Sunday, and you don’t really recover until the Wednesday as the booze and excess food will sit on your stomach for a couple of days.

You may try to train it off on a Monday but in all likelihood you will still be feeling rough, be able to put in only a light session if at all, because you will want to hit the sack early after your first day back in work as your tiredness will hit a peak!

Then Tuesday you will want to put a big session in, you still feel exhausted but you do your best, and then have an early night, so it’s Wednesday before you are actually 100% again!

Starting your week mid-way through is always going to put you on the backfoot, so this morning is an ideal time to try and make up for a Saturday of excess. Monday then can be a great productive session and you are all set up to get a quality week’s training in!

Sunday should be your version of going to church for your body, feeling much better immediately and getting all the rubbish out of it.