Posted on

Tuesday, 11th September

The overwhelming story overnight was the huge Andy Murray win in Flushing Meadows, New York.

A lot of people wrote andy murray off, as a “choker”, a “bottler” or someone couldn’t handle the pressure at the highest level.

This assertion has now been thrown in the rubbish bin, because murray defeated his most difficult opponent, who has previously crushed him in past matches and a final, and racked up 5 grand slams in double quick time.

Murray’s story is about perserverence, sticking to a plan when most people questioned whether it would work out, his supporting team believing in him despite the sport’s highest prize seemingly out of reach forever.

How things can change overnight!!!

Now there is a raft of people coming forward saying “i told you so”, and they never doubted him all along!!

This is a prime example of sticking to your beliefs, sticking to what you know is right, and following it through.

Not many people have had so many knocks, and come back from each and every one of them.

This happens every day, every week, and every year of our quest to be in shape, to get into shape and to create huge energy levels in our lives. This is a constant challenge and anyone who tells you otherwise is surely lying to you, or probably trying to seel you some kind of dodgy diet that is doomed to failure.

The message on here is always about trying to do the right thing, eat well and with some common sense, train hard but in a proper way, rest properly and have a bit of what you fancy, keeping your sanity is very important after all!!!

Twitt
Posted on

Monday, 10th September

Your training should always be balanced each week over a seven day period, and you should plan what you’re going to do each workout.

For example, today is monday and typically would be a great time to put some weight training/resistance training in. This can be done through weights and dumbbells, or using your own bodyweight as resistance.

I encourage all over body workouts each time, so I would look to put my second weight session in on a thursday whichht gives you 72 hours to recover. Your muscles break down during the session, and build back up again and recover properly only when they have had enough rest.

48-72 hours is a great rest period enabling you to come firing on all cylinders.

A beginner would tend to do their weight training programme on a monday, wednesday and friday because the intensity of their workouts isn’t going to be so great, therefore needing less recovery time.

A beginner will also spend a lot of time just getting used to the new movements, usually using a lot less weight so this means less muscle tissue broken down, this is the big reason not so long a recovery is needed.

So monday, wednesday, friday if you’re just starting out, monday and thursday if you have much more experience and you’re familiar with training and the required exercise and intensity.

Then we look at the cardio side of things. Down at the gym in burry port, we use treadmills, rowers and bikes, but there’s so much more to cardio in my view.

I’m a big believer in the battling ropes, which anyone who has trained with me knows only too well! They are massive on lung capacity, shoulders. Arms, back, legs and most importantly, core! You only need around a minute on these ropes, and you are absolutely blasted so get used to them as soon as possible!

Then we like to use a lot of speed and agility techniques, as discussed late last week, so you can see you definitely DO NOT need to rely on traditional forms of cardio anymore!!

I would put these fun sessions in on a tuesday and friday, with wednesday off to recover and rest properly. Recuperation is vital and always an underrated part of your health and fitness programme.

The weekend can be your fun stuff outside, getting up walking or running even up mountains, and you have endless routes to try in terms of cycling.

There’s always swimming, longer walks in natural surroundings such as pembrey country park and exercise ideas are only limited by your imagination!

Twitt
Posted on

Friday, 7th September

There’s an old song called “it ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it” and this definitely applies to your training!

How many times have you been caught up with the mantra that you MUST train for an hour, or even an hour and a half?!!!

This may have applied to the thoughts of previous generations and the people who gave them this misleading and inaccurate information, but now you have to accept that times have indeed changed, and now exercise science dictates that we do not have to spend endless wasted hours exercising, especially when we can achieve a huge amount in the fraction of the time it used to take us to exercise!

If you believe that endlessly running on a flat surface is much more results giving than doing sprints up hills, then you need to think again.

If you still believe that lifting big weights, take long gaps for testing in between sets, then slowly move on to exercise to exercise is the best way to go, then please re-visist that thought process once again and try it out for yourself. Stop resting for 5 minutes in between sets, and cut down that rest period to 45 seconds. You will have to drop the weight maybe, sometimes by 20% if you’re not conditioned to it, but the overall effect of the workout will absolutely blow you away!!!

Too many people go to gyms and train so inefficiently it’s not true!!!

You need to get to the point, go after your targets with urgency and hopefully you have some kind of plan and direction you intend moving in!

This is a “must have and have it now” society we live in, maximise this by making your workouts shorter, more intense and make sure you’re focused on results!!

Twitt
Posted on

Tuesday, 28th August

The great thing about doing my job is that I get to see progress on a daily basis, and some wonderful individual stories along the way!!

It could be from the individual who never thought they would be able to run ever in their life, and then starts developing the capacity to run all of a sudden, and its great to see their face when they achieve that!

It could be the lady who has dropped from size 24 all the way down to size 12, and has gone through an incredible journey to get there, and has developed so much as a person through all the courage and determination they have shown along the way.

It could be the person who contacts me in the first place, who says he or she has tried everything else and I am “his/her last resort”!!!

It could be the person who finally starts believing in themselves after years of lacking confidence in their ability, this is when outstanding progress can finally be reached because belief is such an important part in making all of this happen!!!

The stories are always moving fast and can often change on a daily basis, due to certain things happening in people’s lives all the time.

The key is how the individuals react and that’s what im there for, to help them through not only the good “lets celebrate the success” times to the rough times that could be very much classed as “stormy waters!”.

I like to be all about the big progress in terms of losing inches off your waist and hips, regulating blood pressure and strengthening one’s heart greatly, to paying attention to the seemingly “little things” that in the end contribute to this big picture more than anything else.

It’s the sum of the little things that will pull it all around for you, and make those great big goals you made when you first started finally happen!!!

Another productive week of opportunity has started for you so lets make it happen again!

Twitt
Posted on

Wednesday, 22nd August

The power of snacking

Snacks are often an underrated part of your daily diet.

If you don’t snack, then you are likely to be underpowered in your workouts. This is bad news if you are interested in putting in good performances on a daily basis.

If you don’t snack, then the possibility of over-eating at traditional eating times goes way up. How many times have you not eaten from lunch time until evening time and then gone mad before your meal you had to make because you simply couldn’t wait for your main food!!

The problem is that when you are so hungry, you are likely to grab ANYTHING you can get your hands on, and most of the time whatever’s closest to hand in the fridge!

A cheese sandwich smash and grab is not unusual and can make you totally over eat the main meal. This all means a calorie avalanche at your last meal of the day and when you think about it, this is exactly the time when you are LEAST ACTIVE.

It doesn’t take a genius to work out that when you over stuff yourself and don’t move around much, then this would be a prime time to put on body fat, exactly what we are not looking for!!!

If you took the time to snack, you would be eating in between major meals, instead of leaving up to six hours in between meals.

When you snack, this also stabilises blood sugar levels which stop the urge to eat in excess, and is great for avoiding the onset of diabetes, because you won’t have the wild blood sugar variations.

When you snack, you putting a constant energy supply into your body, and since hopefully exercise is a big part of your life, then a good energy supply is obviously vital! This will get you more fired up for workouts and you are likely to last much longer too!

This also encourages you to boost your metabolism, a constant supply of food makes your body think that it had better burn calories a bit quicker, raising your metabolic rate. Eating 5-6 times a day is far more efficient for your body, all you are doing is eating in smaller quantities come meal time, and spreading your food consumption out a lot further than trying to consume 3 huge meals, which doesn’t do a lot of good to your digestive system, that’s for sure.

See your food as fuel, and this will help your body become a furnace when it comes to fat-burning. When you throw in top quality workouts on top, then you have the perfect situation for getting into your best physical condition.

www.kerimckibbin.co.uk

fitness@kerimckibbin.co.uk

07968 980808

Twitt