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Thursday, 31st January

Mixing up your training is something we are always keen on talking about, and the benefits and freshness this can bring to your programme.

The same thing can and should be done to your eating efforts.

How boring can it be to eat the same thing all the time?

The trick is to use natural products in your food choices whenever you can.

The aisles in supermarkets sadly contain mostly processed, salty, pre cooked sometimes, and other choices of food that will definitely NOT help you one bit when it comes to supporting your training efforts.

If you stick to the aisles that contain mostly good natural produce, then this will give you more variety and give you different ideas.

You have the fruit and vegetables aisles, these are always going to be good for you. Simply picking different fruit and vegetables each time you go, or every other time you go shopping will give you different tastes and different choices when it comes to meal preparation and selection.

If you are a meat lover, how about changing all of that around and waking up to the delights that fish can offer.Whenever i tend to go in supermarkets, there tend always to be deals on fish.

You don’t have to eat the same fish all the time, as the deals will usually offer a different fish most weeks.

You don’t have to eat ALL of it the same time either, especially when you buy bulk purchase such as a whole salmon on half price for example. It’s easy to freeze it, and get several meals from the remains of the fish you froze.

Changing from meat to fish will not only freshen up your tastes but also give you the essential fats you really need in your diet that are vital for proper function in your body!

Fish is not as expensive as it can be earlier in the week, friday is always a good day in certain supermarkets.

Please don’t stick to the same thing all the time, the last thing you want to get is bored with your diet!!!

Twitt
Posted on

Wednesday, 30th January

Training diaries and records are vital for you unless you have a photographic memory and you can remember pretty much everything you do from session to session!

Some of the most successful individuals I know and train keep a record of everything, from their training to their 7 days eating typically.

The eating plans tend to be done once only every couple of months, or especially the sudden gaining of a little weight!!

The training record though would typically be kept in a little book, and some of these books can go on for years I have seen! The thinking behind it all is that you will have a roadmap on where you have been, and indeed where you intend to go from where you are now.

Also, if you have no plan, no past workout history, and you workout in a haphazard fashion, then your results are never likely to be as impressive as you would like.

Your body responds well to a good routine too.

For example, if you are doing 10 press ups for week one on a Monday and Thursday for example, then pushing that figure from 10 to 12 won’t seem that too much of a stretch.

The week after 12-15 won’t seem that bad, and the week after that, 15-18 won’t be a superhuman effort.

From these examples, its easy to see how people get to doing 25-30 press ups through this system of gradual progression.

The thought of going from 10 to 30 press ups in one go is frightening, and indeed pretty much impossible!!! Doing this gradually and in a methodical way is the ONLY way in my book.

The training diary lets you record this in black and white, and as I have always told you, when you write your goals down in black and white they are 80% more achievable!!

Your training diary is not only a practical way to record your progress, but is much more likely to see you achieving great things with your body and health in general!!

Twitt
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Tuesday, 29th January

According to the media today, the average length of a diet and exercise programme after christmas is now down to just one month!!!

This is sad statistic and everyone should be alarmed about it.

Reasons for quitting an exercise programme include losing interest in what they were doing, too cold to train, too wet to train and a general feeling it was a waste of time.

To me, i can actually sympathise with people who feel like this, because the exercise part is presented by most establishments IS BORING!!!

To me, if you are a big gym and presenting a programme, how do you expect your members to enjoy something that the other 3000 members are doing (apparently it takes 3000 members for these gyms to break even after taking into account rent, equipment etc!). General, boring, re-hashing of the same rubbish DOES NOT WORK and is not EXCITING for pretty much anyone with a brain!!! This is why most if not all of the big gyms (you can read the business pages in any newspaper every day to see how badly they are doing), DO NOT retain most of their members.

This is why you see their adverts outside or inside supermarkets all the time, 18 year olds selling you direct debits outside shops with no interest if you improve or not, all they want is your money.

So this is why according to the media today, peope lose interest and are about to quit or will quit by thursday at the latest.

The same goes for diet clubs, channel 4 did a big expose on weight watchers last night, and there is great alarm at the amount people spend on the diets over the years! Glad to see the authorities are finally catching up with these people who have cheated people out of their hard earned money over the years!!

My mission is to help people out, put them on the right path and retain individuals for years, and not just month on a contract you cannot get out of!!! You retain people by getting constant results, and this is what we should all strive for by making innovative and inventive programmes for everybody!!!

Twitt
Posted on

Thursday, 24th January

We have talked a little about training differently, such as bosu balls, medicine balls etc.

This is a highly productive form of training, and will guarantee good results as long as you know what you are doing.

Now its time to re-visit traditional cardio.

I’m talking rower, treadmill and bike. We also have a device called an Ultraslide at the gym, a wonderful platform that not only gives you a great workout in 5 or so minutes, but i can add substantially to your speed and agility.

So going back to the rower, first of all its important just to get used to it, rowing properly wth good form. Once you are able to row for 12-15 minutes, then its a great idea to set some targets.

2000 metres and 2500 metres in particular are my favourite targets.

These distances give you something to aim for, set your standards at and constantly let you know where you are in fitness terms. These are more intense rowing efforts, and will be far more challenging than just rowing at one easy pace.

I would row these distances just one a week maximum. They will take a lot out of you if you are putting your best efforts in. So once a week, even once a fortnight is always a good idea, and designed to keep on improving you!

Same with bikes, don’t enlessly try to stay at one boring pace. Set targets!

Keep your revolutions per minute at 80. RPM is the measurement on the bike. This has been proven to be the most efficient level to ride bikes for maximum results.

I also like to put clients on spin bikes, encouraging them to stand up on the bike for intervals.

So that could be 60 seconds sitting down and 15 seconds standing up, 60 seconds down and 15 seconds up and so on until you feel as if you have had enough. This is a very effective form of training, and as you get fitter, you can stay up riding for longer.

More on this tomorrow!

Twitt
Posted on

Tuesday, 22nd January

With a bit of luck, you have got through your big workout yesterday to set the tone for the week, and maybe you are thinking how you can replicate that impressive start to the week.

Variety then should be your number one way to keep your standards high, your workouts fresh and therefore your progress high too!!!

This is why your workouts apart from weight training and the usual cardio should incorporate so much more!!!

If you have read this thing for a while, then you will know only too well that i love medicine ball work, bosu ball exercises, swiss ball work, and boxing workouts.

These exercises will work your body in a different way and often reach the hard to get areas that traditional exercise doesn’t seem to get near!!!

All of these different forms of exercise tend to hammer your core much more deeply than a more traditional workout. They are so successful that i consider these forms of training as my “traditional” form workout!!!

Once you have your traditional form of training change, then its at this point when exercising becomes “exciting again”, which is down to the variety AND effectiveness of your training, which in turn produces the big results that we are all after!!!

The best way to incorporate these types of training is to package various exercises into groups of 3.

For example, you could do medicine ball press ups, with alternate squat thrusts, and then finish it off with rope work we like to do at the gym all the time. Let me straight away that the group of three just mentioned may well be the hardest combination you could pick.

Of course, exercise selection depends entirely on your fitness ability and what you can handle.

It’s always better to start off cautiously and we will be discussing much more of this tomorrow!!!

Twitt