Posted on

Monday, 2nd June

This is bananas!!

Everybody and their mother knows by now that sugar and saturated fat is bad for us and can make you pile on the weight quickly. Sometimes it’s hard to visualise and accept just how bad they are for us. And worse of all, those little biscuits and cakes are so damn tasty, sometimes it’s just too hard to resist. How many times have we been in the office or an auntie’s house and someone has offered you a biscuit with your coffee. One or two won’t hurt right? I mean you can always work extra hard and burn them off in the gym tomorrow. Think again. Answer this quiz to get you
back down to earth with a bang!

How many bananas can you eat which are equivalent fat wise to 2 chocolate Hobnobs?

26 bananas!!!

Yes, at 0.3g fat, bananas are virtually fat free. Whereas the Hobnobs are 4g of fat each!

Those two little biscuits don’t seem so tasty now, best pass me the fruit bowl…

Eat to train.

Twitt
Posted on

Sunday, 1st June

Watching the person you are training in how they move is often far more important than what they have to say.

Anyone I train will know I often ask excessively “how they are feeling” and how was that movement they just did.

Did it work for them? Was there any pain? Was it too much?

When anyone I train doesn’t know me too well, they will often tend to agree with everything I say. Then when they get to know me, they will tend to answer me back and question a lot of what I say-THIS IS A GREAT SITUATION!

Take a movement that’s causing you pain for instance.

When I get someone doing a new movement for the first time, there is a small chance that this new movement may cause them some discomfort.

The person I am teaching may say they found it “fine” but may walk away rubbing their shoulder. This is a clear sign that everything wasn’t fine and that movement we tried was a problem for them.

This is when observation of the person I am training is vital. The person I am training for years will always tell me straight if something was causing them discomfort, and they know I would stop right there.

When new people come to the gym, I always explain how your body works and is supposed to move, and avoiding pain is key for us. Their past experiences of exercise though have often not included this philosophy.

PAIN DURING EXERCISE AND NOT BEING ABLE TO WALK AFTERWARDS ON A REGULAR BASIS IS WRONG, DAMAGING AND IS GOING TO CAUSE LONG TERM PROBLEMS FULL STOP.

There is said it!

This is why how people move often gives more tell-tale signs than what they say.

The potential for new members to make mistakes in their training early on is huge, this is why I need to spend so much time developing them and not leave them after just one session left to their own devices.

Twitt
Posted on

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.

Twitt
Posted on

Thursday, 22nd May

Judging your progress just on the weighing scale can be very destructive in terms of how it destroys self-confidence.

Everyone knows now we regularly have individuals who lose 2, 3, 4 even 5 inches off the waist in a month.

Most people would be and should be thrilled with that progress, because you usually look and feel heck of a lot better too.

The ones that aren’t have been conditioned to think of the scale as the ONLY measure of success. This is simply untrue but the media has told us that weight off the scale is the one thing we should worry about!

The medical profession will tell you that 1-2 pounds a week is the recommended weight loss, and this is the sustainable way to do it and keep it off.

When you hear of people losing 5 or more pounds in a week, this is usually due to drastic cuts in calorie intakes (usually faddy diets/shake and bar diets), and this may carry on for a couple of weeks until it eventually reaches a screeching halt.

When the individual gets frustrated and starts eating properly again, the weight piles back on quicker than ever before and usually leads to that person ending up at their all-time heaviest weight, and this can lead to low self-esteem and confidence.

What would you rather look and feel like? Clothes feeling really loose, changing sizes at regular intervals (perhaps down to sizes you haven’t been since you were in your early twenties), everyone complimenting you on how great you look, you start feeling full of energy and your workouts step up to your best ever levels,

OR

Just losing weight on the scales, feeling hungry all the time and even when you lose weight, you still have saggy skin left?

Then inevitably put the weight back on and 5% more-numerous In depth research of the diet industry says this is true.

Forget about the scales, your clothes and how you feel will always be a better guide. Your waist and hip measurements will be vital.

We test body fat professionally too, so this test will always confirm your progress.

Be realistic, and always look to lose weight and body fat sensibly.

Twitt
Posted on

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!

Twitt