Posted on

Wednesday, 24th April

Visualising your progress and the way you want to perform and look has long been a habit of the most successful individuals.

For example, you hear of many sportspeople who will visualise or imagine how their game the next day is going to go.

They visualise themselves scoring goals, scoring tries, winning races etc.

Studies have shown that these techniques can be very successful, and helps you focus far greater on the performance to come.

You can do the same with your workouts. Try relaxing and going through your mind how your workouts going to go. From the exact moves you’re going to perform through to how much weight you’re going to lift, how you’re going to feel when you complete what you want, and how much effort it’s going to require.

If you are going to get into amazing shape, imagine what it takes to get there. If you really think of what it’s going to be like, then you would imagine how important it is to live a healthier lifestyle, eat better foods, drink more water, not drink so much alcohol and generally be far more choosy in your nutritional habits. You know that it takes a bigger effort to drop body fat and look very healthy, rather than feel and look overweight.

Visualising is one thing, but doing is another so let’s get down to it today and make it happen!

A succession of things needs to happen to look and feel your best, and you can start them now instead of imagining it. There’s a very good chance that you will soon look like exactly who you want to be if you live as healthy a lifestyle as possible, it can and WILL happen if you make the change right now, and be consistent with this change until you reach your big goal!

Twitt
Posted on

Tuesday, 23rd April

Energy cost, effort, meanings of every exercise you do, why you do certain things and their effects are all vital parts of my work, and form an integral part of my planning for everyone’s training.

When someone starts off for the first time, the energy cost of exercises you give them tends to be low in order to see how they react.

Why we do certain exercises is fully explained, and how their body will react is critical to see how quickly the programme will work for them.

This programme can easily take 4 weeks, and from then we can usually accelerate the programme at a faster pace from there. Without a good grounding in exercise, nobody can really be successful in getting into shape both in the short and long term.

So this is why we set the energy cost of each exercise low to start with, and then gradually building up and replacing the lower cost exercises with higher cost ones over time.

This is why the fittest individuals I train will always be used to high energy costs in every session, what this means is that not only will a lot of calories/energy be burnt in the session, but this will lead to quicker fat-burning, raising the metabolism for longer, and create meaningful changes in a very positive way to one’s resting heart rate.

I have started with many people who have started with a 100 beats per minute heart rate, and now have a 60, 50 or even 40 something resting heart rate. As I have mentioned many times before, having a good strong heart rate is vital to enable you to advance in exercise terms and this can be developed gradually by increments in your exercise programme at regular intervals.

All of these results we talk about, always all start with smart, intelligent exercise programming, making sure you improve quickly but at the same time making sure you lay strong foundations for the future.

Regular reviews of your programme are also vital, and everyone’s programme should be seen as a work in progress, and never something that you go through the motions with leading to poor results.

Seize the moment and look to move your programme along regularly!

Twitt
Posted on

Friday, 19th April

How to get your eating right

Write down what you eat and when/why you eat it, or what your drink and why you eat it. If you do this you can really see what you’re eating and drinking, how much more than you may need and what stresses are causing you do it. Once you know where you are, then you will know how not to get into situations in the future that destroy your progress.

Accurate food records for 3 days are the quickest way to fix your eating. If you are stressed, hungry or bored, there will be issues when you make food choices. Write down how long you are training for too because you will need more food on those days, and you cannot train on fresh air alone.

Are you skipping breakfast, nibbling on rubbish all day, overeating in the evening and late at night because you are so hungry you have to eat much bigger amounts of food than normal?

Do you entertain yourself with food when you are bored? Perhaps you reward yourself with chocolate when you’re stressed?

You may need to watch your moods when you eat, most people will feel better when they eat a tub of ice cream initially, but it does nothing for anxiety and stress you may be experiencing in your life. The problems that made you stressed in the first place are never really solved by the ice cream, and you just added a new one of piling on body fat if you do this regularly! You need to avoid this vicious circle.

If you eat food on a regular basis OTHER than giving you energy and health, then you need to recognize that food should be seen as fuel and not as an emotional crutch to get you through some stressful times.

Food becomes dangerous in terms of weight gain and in terms of worsening your internal health when it is eaten for entertainment, reducing stress or just making you feel more comfortable.

It’s a fact that no amount of food solves any problems.

For example, if you eat lightly during the day, and eat excessively at night like a lot of people I start with do, then try and change it right away by having a bigger breakfast, a decent lunch and lighter evening meal, with mid-morning and mid-afternoon snacks. This way of eating will give you far more energy, keep you feeling fuller for longer, make you less prone to have sugary/fatty snacks and transform your body every single week. This is the way your become far more efficient in the way you create energy for yourself, burn fat, and create lean muscle which in turn boosts your metabolism greatly.

You won’t feel like eating late, and you’re going to be far more in control of everything so give it a go for better results.

Any problems tel 07968 980808

Or www.kerimckibbin.co.uk

Twitt
Posted on

Thursday, 11th April

Moving on with the hip and back problems, there is plenty for you to do when it comes to staying and becoming more active, which is the long term answer to having good back and hip health.

Most back problems in particular are down to too much weight around the trunk area, so you can see how important eating healthily, keeping your weight under control is and staying active are when it comes to living a pain free life.

Non-weight bearing activities are the key, running for instance is your worst choice available although it can have good weight loss results. The downside risks with running with a bad back are monumental, so this is why I firmly DO NOT recommend running if you have any of these problems.

Walking is kinder on the joints, but as I said yesterday, try and make sure your trainers are never more than 6 months old, and you change them regularly. Also, don’t be tempted to wear your OLD trainers either! If you do, even for silly little things like working in the garden, doing little jobs around the hourse, they WILL cause a problem for your back and hips even on these odd occasions. They need to go straight in the bin!

Swimming can be good, but avoid breaststroke, many good physios recommend you avoid this particular stroke because it works against the body’s natural motion, and can put strain on your back and shoulders, and hips for that matter.

Weight training is recommended with only lighter weights and strict form, using benches for support when possible for your back. This will strengthen your back as long as the exercises are sensible, obviously power moves and big heavy lifts would do more harm than good so please avoid. I would try a whole body programme of around 6-8 exercises for 3 sets of 8 repetitions, this would be done twice a week with a three day gap in between.

You can see that there are many options, and staying active is key but the effort must go in on your food too, or you wont get the results you need to relieve the pain for good.

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