Posted on

Thursday, 21st March

An interesting question from someone I train today.

When I give out home workouts for individuals to do, many here will already know its usually 6-8 exercises, done for a total of 3 times. Most people tend to thrive and get serious results from this type of training, and then by the week we tend to increase the numbers for each exercises.

For example, if you can do 5 press ups in week one, and with gradual improvement you can do 25 press ups in week 6 or week 8 even, then you have made serious improvements. If you apply this to each exercises, and theres no reason to doubt that, then the across the board results can be staggering!

This has often been the case over the years, and this type of training forms the foundation of my home training.

The question I had was “could I do all of the exercises numbers in one go?”, what was meant by that statement was if the person was asked to do 3 sets of 10 press ups, then could they do 30 in one go? I have talked about the one set theory before, and one all out effort can work very well indeed, but it is very tough to do.

This is why I tend to spread the effort over 3 sets. This is also why I don’t do MORE than 3 sets, I want to spread the effort out over 3 sets, but I don’t want to lose intensity of the workout by spreading it out TOO much.

So the answer is that most people 3 sets of an exercise is just about right, but if you have the inclination and want to get your workout over much quicker, and are willing to put a huge effort in, then doing one set of everything can work incredibly well!

Twitt
Posted on

Wednesday, 20th March

Eating breakfast is something you should have done today without even thinking about it too much.

Eating breakfast is regarded as something you do within one hour of getting up.

Drinking water when you rise is a really great idea because it will help clean your system straight away, and set your body on a good path for the rest of the day. Drinking more water throughout the day will help you burn more fat, help a lot with digestion, and boost concentration levels as well as energy.

Eating a healthy breakfast will rev up your metabolism from first thing in the morning and greatly accelerate the rate your body burns calories.

Eating a good breakfast such as porridge, Weetabix, shredded wheat which are all natural products, will give you long lasting energy meaning you are less likely to snack on sugary foods to satisfy the cravings you will get from not eating breakfast or eating a very poor breakfast.

Starting the day right means you set the tone for the rest of the day. The slow and steady release of energy means that you stay in control of your food intake, less likely to make rash choices and your energy and concentration levels will remain much higher for the rest of the day.

Poached, scrambled, boiled eggs are all fine with dry wholemeal toast. This is again a slow steady release of energy and will fill you up for a much longer period of time (and more satisfying) than a sugary start to the day, or even worse missing breakfast. Natural yoghurt and fruit will help too and set your day up nicely.

Those of you who have fallen for the trap of telling yourself that its good to miss breakfast just to “save calories” are misguided and totally wrong. This is the biggest mistake you can make, and sabotage your fat loss plans. Get your body used to burning calories within an hour of getting up, and you will change the way you feel, look and perform full stop!

Twitt
Posted on

Tuesday, 19th March

An interesting part in the paper yesterday about people who had made their names into brands.

Two of the most familiar to you are worth mentioning.

Richard branson and James Dyson of the vacuum cleaner fame of course.

Both of them said they had failed so many times before they eventually became super successful, often having moments of doubt and indecision, always doubting whether they would and indeed, could carry on after a trail of failure.

The best bit of advice they said would be to keep trying if you believe what you are doing is right, and you really want to get there.

This is so important to consider when you think of your eating and exercise programme.

How many times have you thought about giving up? Or more like actually GIVEN up on your programme, only to be brought back into it when you suddenly had the heart to give it one big effort again.

This is the trick, the hardest thing to do like branson and dyson said. To pick yourself up and really drive yourself on in the face of all kinds of adversity.

So you should consider it no big deal to fail-a number of times!

For example, if a baseball player scores just 3 times out of 10 in his innings, he is considered a hall of famer!!!

If you this example, then surely you should be concentrating on your SUCCESSES and not your failures, because failures HAPPEN full stop, and you had better get used to them because they will always be around.

The great news is though that your successes will always far outweigh them! They will be more fun, change your life more and they will be a lot more pleasant! Just keep trying and you know they will keep on happening!!

Twitt
Posted on

Monday, 18th March

A great day to be Welsh on saturday, an unbelievable result and great to see a great team effort coming back so strong, especially after the nightmare against Ireland in the first game. This shows unity, teamwork and a deep seated belief.

Monday is the same for them though as it is for us. Time maybe to still reflect on the weekend, but our minds need to be very much on today and the week ahead. The professionals from saturday will today be back into their stride. They will be eating right again, taking in plenty of fluids, ready to train well and look forward to the weekend’s games.

You should have that same attitude too. It may sound fanciful to you, but getting a professional attitude will keep you in shape for a lifetime.

Those of you who are used to peforming at a high level most of the time, will be used to eating the right things at the right times. You will be used to taking onboard enough water throughout the day, you will be getting to bed early in the week to make sure you recover from your workouts, and this is very much close to the attitudes those boys on saturday are used to showing in their normal daily lives.

This is what i try to teach individuals in their training too of all ages-professional training techniques that will get you results far quicker, and just as importantly, in a totally safe way that won’t stress your joints!

You have all the information now to train and eat like a pro, never has there been an opportunity like right now too get into the shape of your life!!

Twitt
Posted on

Thursday, 14th March

Anyone who trains with me will know that we work on the latest scientific research of training all of the time. Things change and there’s always exciting things happening.

Then you will know we focus so much on balance, brain muscle communication, agility, strength and speed in particular, which will lead to endurance, very good conditioning and outstanding health (which is the most important thing!).

Which leads us to the much discussed conversation on which is better? Free weights and natural movements or machines?

Free weights and natural movements will always win because they go with the body needs to NATURALLY move. The movements we do mimic movements we do in daily life, and this is of vital importance to get you through the rest of your life in good shape and avoid serious injury or immobility problems, which unfortunately affect most people as they get older. Prepare well by doing a whole host of natural movements on a daily basis and weekly basis, and your long term health will seem much brighter.

Machines on the other keep you working on one plane of motion, and can lead to repetitive strain if done over a long period of time. Machines because of their limited range of motion will give you exactly that, LIMITED results, limited mobility and limited flexibility, all far more important than you think.

Its a shame that when these machines started being really popular in the 80’s, that most gyms still consider them viable.

The science of training has moved on light years since then, and most machines apart from a couple needs to be thrown in the scrap.

The sooner you get out of machine based training and get into whats happening in the real scientific forms of training, then you will improve in every single area of your body, your balance, your reaction time and your strength and agility!

Twitt