Posted on

Friday, 24th June

Good news will come from your training efforts if you remember what it was like to start in the first place.

Remember the times when you thought of beginning an exercise programme, you seemed to have plenty of enthusiasm, an urge to do well, and to take onboard a new approach on how to get fit and healthy. You rigorously followed the advice given, were proud of your much healthier supermarket trolley and knew how much those foods would do you good.

You took pride in drinking more water, and you noticed how much more alert you became throughout the day, and how much better you seemed to perform in your exercise sessions.

Then as you started to progress, you took even more of an interest, and you started to question on why you did certain movements, why you did certain exercises on certain days, and why you started to perform better on some days than others.

Then you started to take an even greater interest in your body fat improvements, how your resting heart rate was coming down, how your blood pressure was coming into a healthy range, how your waist was continuing to come down, and in general how much of an incredible difference you were making to yourself!!!

If you are currently stuck in a rut, you should remember how all of this felt, and with some effort you can easily get back there look and feeling your best!!

Twitt
Posted on

Wednesday, 19th june

Last great day of the week in weather terms today maybe, but you should use it to your fitness advantage.

The british lions recently played a rugby match in hong kong, and most players agreed that it was the most humid, and hottest place they had ever played rugby. Anyone who has been to hong kong will testify that to be true, and the humidity is unlike anything you will experience.

I was in hong kong in 1994 and have never felt so uncomfortable staying still even!

We haven’t got anywhere near like the temperatures of places like hong kong, and will never achieve the humidity, BUT these temperatures we have right now (likely to reach 26 degrees today) do help us with our fitness.

The lions medical team said as much with the game in hong kong on how training and playing in such intense conditions would benefit their players in the weeks to come.

If you get used to training well on a day/night like today, then when it gets cooler you should be able to train at a higher level.

The one BIG THING I can say to be cautious about all of this warm weather training is drink water regularly throughout the day, and in particular THROUGHOUT your training session. Training in warm weather without water is downright dangerous!!! Please do not train without water, I hate to repeat myself but I have to over-emphasise this!!!

Hopefully, we are now out of the stage where you avoid training just because it is sunny and warm too! Its time to have a professional approach to your training if you are really serious about your training and health, and this is what this blog is about every single day, to encourage you to be healthier, fitter and perform at the best of your ability to help you reach your goals quicker!

Twitt
Posted on

Friday, 5th April

The role of speed and agility should not be limited to the “young and sporty”.

How many of you went to school, took part in sports to some degree, then may have even gone on to play for the school team, maybe a proper club team and maybe for a number of years……………….then everything stops!!!

You may have a couple of years off, sometimes a number of years off, and when you try to get back into exercise, the agility and speed you once had in school for example has disappeared!

You feel stiff as a board and you always put it down to “old age”, even though you may only be in your 30’s or 40’s!!! Hardly old age in my book!!

The great news is that there’s many ways around this but you do have to start slowly.

Getting a more general programme that concentrates on making your core stronger is the way to start, getting your muscles more flexible and allowing them to strengthen. You need to stick at this for a couple of months until your body recognizes that its ready to improve again, and you suddenly start realizing that you are not really “too old” at all, that you can feel better, that your clothes start to feel looser and that you can show improvements in your training, and incremental improvements start becoming a normal way of life for you.

Its at this stage you can think about doing more speed and agility work.

Fast footwork sessions are suddenly an option, backward running can be done, light sprint work is back on the agenda, and a whole host of techniques I love to take people through.

Once you get through this work, automatically you will start to remember the way you were in school or in your sports team, you will be a lot more agile, much faster and literally a big spring in your step!

This is what a much more complete programme is all about, and this is why I so feel that amazing results are always consistently possible.

Twitt
Posted on

Tuesday, March 26th

We have had some great successes this week and last in my personal training, and at the gym by the railway station in burry port.
The average losses of body fat over a 4 week period were more than 2%, some over 3% and one person was an incredible 4% body fat loss!!!
To give you an idea, 1.8% body fat loss is considered as very good over a month, so you can see we are outperforming these levels in abundance at the moment.

Whilst all of this good news is great, the trick is to draw a line under those measurements straight away and look forward to the next 4 weeks, and look forward to hitting those 1.8% body fat levels and hopefully more, just as we have been doing.

The danger always is trying to over-congratulate ourselves too much, and forgetting what got us in this great situation in the first place.

This is why I tell everyone who has done well over the last 4 weeks, the last 6 months month, the last 18 years even, to forget about the last month and really set about upgrading their training once again, look for things that may improve their eating habits once again, make sure they stay hydrated, sleep better maybe, and keep alcohol in moderation.

I know and all the people I train know that if they keep these lifestyle habits up, they will be bang on course for another truly impressive measurement.

This is a culture I have got everyone into, and the positive reactions have been overwhelming!

Its all about being honest about your food intake?, how much of it you eat?, how much you really drink in alcohol terms?, are you skipping workouts?

Once you can be honest about these questions, you instantly become more accountable and therefore much more likely to create a situation where you can attain outstanding results!

Twitt
Posted on

Friday, 22nd February

One of the most popular questions I get asked is “which exercise is best, or my friend just goes to spinning classes and she has lost a stone, or my friends just runs and he feels and looks amazing now, or my friends just do yoga and they swear by it”! You get the picture but here’s the answer!

They are all partly right but entirely miss the point when it comes to constructing a valid programme that will serve you well for the short and long term, and keep you getting sustainable results.

Spinning is great for example, but to say it should be 100% of your programme is misguided, delusional and you will be missing out on much better results if you put more variety in your programme.

Spinning should be 10% of your programme.

The running should be 10% of your programme (assuming you have good knees and a sound back or you could run into problems).

Yoga is great, but again should be incorporated into your programme, rather than become ALL of your programme.

Weight training and body weight training should be a fundamental part of your programme, but doesn’t need to be the overwhelming part. You should work your entire body every workout, therefore needing just 2-3 workouts a week maximum.

You also do not need the 4-5 sets per exercise, and you don’t need the 3-4 exercises per body part like some do.

Choosing one exercise per body fat for 2-3 sets of 8 reps will work very well for you, IF done with real intensity and progress keeps happening for you, which it WILL if you are doing it properly!!

Bosu ball, balance work, fitball work should also be a big part of your workout plan, and done a minimum of 2-3 times a week, but doesn’t by any means need to be the whole of your workout.

Same with boxing, a big part of everyone’s training I teach, but done at the end of most workouts but very valuable all the same.

We work hard with ropes in the gym that will bring amazing results, and so do sandbags and tyres, as well as sledgehammers.

My job is making people’s workouts brutally efficient, saving lots of time meaning you can concentrate on the exercises that REALLY count, and you can get much variety than you every imagined!!

So a little bit of a long answer, but that’s the truth when it comes to which exercises you should/could be doing for amazing results!!

Twitt