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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
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Tuesday, 18th June

Psychology plays a vital and all important role in everything we do.

If we think we can achieve something, then we are right.

If we think we really can’t achieve something, then we are also right.

That sounds stupid but nothing has ever been more true.

If you think you can do something, then your body and mind will do everything it can to do so. Your brain will send signals to your body to work a little harder, to engage yourself in a more positive way, and you will be likely to take constant action in order for you to get there. You will be building on positive stepping stones all the time, and you will take massive encouragement from your little successes along the way to create one big massive success!

You will hardly miss a workout, your supermarket shop will be full of good food, natural when possible and full of nutrients that will help your body become more energetic, and develop a level of vitality that you have never had before. You will make sure you hit the sack early most nights making sure you are well rested, and ready to give it another big effort the next day. Success is coming your way if you adopt such habits.

When you turn it the other and you never believe you can do anything, in fact you flat out believe you can’t do anything, then you will definitely go out of your way at times NOT to do things.

For instance, if you are wanting to get into great shape but believe there is no way you can do this, then you will practice unhelpful habits. You will start missing workouts, you will start putting junk into your shopping trolley as “one won’t really matter” when it always leads to several. You will be down on yourself frequently and this downward spiral will usually lead to you eventually quitting your programme, only to start it a few months later again and without success if you still keep the same negative belief system.

You can that whatever you believe to be true is where you are likely to head. Leave yourself one option and that’s the positive one!!

Twitt
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Monday, 17th June

Another monday hits us and as always hope you are prepared to hit it hard to start the week off on the right note!

Some base their most important workout on a monday, some just ease gently into it, some don’t have any kind of plan and just hope for the best (not recommended), some hit their highest intensity on a monday-whatever your situation AS LONG as you are exercising then you will be off to a flying start.

If you let your weekend go into a monday in terms of alcohol, overeating junk food and no exercise, then you are not serious about your health whatsoever, and you need to re-assess exactly what your goals are and set a realistic plan on how you’re going to achieve them!

Monday is always a great day to get your weights/strength work in, nothing raises your metabolism as effectively (and i am talking about weight training with little rest and with plenty of high energy cost movements no plodding slowly along!). I set a lot of strength workouts on mondays and thursdays with a nice three day gap in between, allowing for plenty of recovery in between.

A lot of my other workouts get set up for the tuesdays, wednesdays and fridays. This allows me to set up the fundamentals up for the week for people, and give a lot of variety in between, making sure we are fat burning every day and we are going to get higher and higher numbers almost on a week to week basis, which means we are constantly improving!

So you should be looking forward to a big monday, making the bigget possible statement for the week ahead!!!

Twitt
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Friday, 14th June

A common misconception with different training methods and different exercises is that you are only “supposed” to do certain movements based on your goals.

For example, if you are trying to lose body fat, trying to increase your speed, then you don’t need to do much weight training, and power exercises are totally not necessary!!

This is the big mistake that many people walk into.

Power and speed are very closely related, and you cannot have one without the other. This is why i always put these power movements in every programme, because of the strength it gives you all over. Bodyweight exercises for example involve total power. Your core has to take a lot of the strain and will deliver a lot of power throughout your body.

Boxing requires a lot of power, and this is one great discipline for getting you a lot faster and gets you shedding body fat quicker than just about anything else. Boxing is a great addition to your training programme for speed and power without a shadow of a doubt.

People used to say that weight training slowed you down, we now know that the opposite is in fact true! If done properly, weight training can revolutionalise your speed and power.

One of the best training techniques is sprinting, and if you have done it you will realise its all about power. Why do people sprint? Because they want to get quicker of course!

Power exercises should be embedded in your programme and never leave if you want to be stronger and faster in just about anything you want to do!!

Twitt
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Monday, 3rd June

With the temperatures finally rising, there is even greater opportunity to train hard and expand your options! This is what you would think anyway.

My experience with people i bump into in general life says that people usually get diverted in the warmer weather, and the summer months are not usually the best throughout the year. My own experience with the people i actually train is that because they have a good level of commitment, and i do a lot of early morning sessions, then the weather becomes less of a factor and my summer months of training individuals can be very productive indeed.

I do a lot more cycling sessions in the summer. I run more in the summer, i even do swimming sessions sometimes in the summer! I do some hiking up mountains in the summer due to the much more pleasant conditions, and i still manage to get a lot of indoor work done too. I love the variety at this time of year due to the extra light, the better surface running conditions and generally everywhere is so much more accessible!

So the message here today is to get away from thinking that its “too warm” to train, or you could be doing “other things””, its time to be more positive and realise how many more different options you now have in your training, and have the courage of your convictions and actually do them, instead of talking a good game!

Plan your training sessions in advance, work hard when you get to your training venue, follow through on what you planned to do, drink enough water and make sure you have some available at all times, and eat well afterwards.

This is a successful way to do it, then keep planning your sessions and exactly what you intend to do.

Don’t gie up on yourself, recognise what all this nice weather has to offer and embrace it for much better results!!

Twitt