Posted on

Wednesday 3rd August

The pre-season for sports is happening for all the traditional winter sports right now across the country, and some are having greater success than others.

If you want to make sure you have a very good season in sports, its absolutely critical to have a good pre-season conditioning period to set you up nicely for the coming months.

Players and sportsmen of all kinds who think they don’t need it or could do without it, are really living back in the 1970’s as sports conditioning has moved on light years since that attitude existed.

So if you are new to it or doing the same old stuff every year for your chosen sport, then its time to open your mind and change.

Long slow runs for a few miles are well and truly gone, and hugely intense sports specific workouts are in big time, and have been for years, it just takes a while for the message to get through. Where in the past 2 hours was normal, now it can be 30 minutes if you know what you’re doing and you’re willing to give total commitment.

Long runs that put strain on your body have been replaced with lots of short sprints, both on flat and up hills. There is forward running and backward running, lots of work for your core (stomach, back, hamstrings and thighs), and flat out lung busting work!!!

If any of this sound familiar its because you know thats the way i like to train because im always after maximum results!!!

I don’t tend to go from the team playbook when it comes to workouts or follow the pack. I want to do whats right and what works, and if the team training i have seen over the years is anything to go by, im glad i have sticked to my guns and given the best possible workouts to my clients and specific to their needs, not long boring runs that require little or no thought!!!

I will give you the example of the junior rugby international i was training in the 90’s, he was given jam sandwiches as a snack suggestion by the welsh rugby union!!! I ripped into that suggestion then and will have a go at any nonsense that still comes out now.

Its tried and tested all the way for me when it comes to training and eating properly, lots of ideas on here so lets make it happen!!!

Twitt
Posted on

Monday, 1st August

Monday is perfect to hit your hardest workout and really get stuck into your own personal improvement programme. Nothing should be in your way now if you have had a good summer of training.

 Nothing or nobody is ever perfect though and I understand some of you have had big blows to your training because of injury.

 Monday though is the best way to give your best and nothing beats that tired feeling you get after a great workout, a shower and a good meal afterwards.

 This assures your body that’s its on a good course, you are more or less assured of a good night’s sleep meaning that you have the perfect set up for another great day on Tuesday!

Have a good Tuesday and Wednesday and the rest of the week becomes exciting because you know you’re going to be in a very good place indeed!

If you are following this blog most weeks and taking action each time you read it, and I stress those words in bold TAKING ACTION, you should be in a very good situation yourself today, and be very pleased with your progress. Just as this information I am giving you is upbeat and we can all pat ourselves on the back, the other side of the coin can make you downbeat to say the least and send you in a vicious circle.

 If you don’t or cannot train, then no fat or calories will get burnt.

 On top of that you won’t have the incentive to eat well.

 On top of that, you will likely to throw the towel in and no longer consider yourself “an athlete” in any sense of the word.

These are the two sides of the coin that face you, and both offer very different results of course, that’s why training in any way possible and starting your week off in the best possible way are so important!

Twitt
Posted on

Friday 29th July

If you are in control of your food, then thats fantastic and you should be proud of your appearance and performance lately.

If you’re not, then you need to back to where you were when you first started.

Most of us remember that feeling when we finally made the plunge to eating healthy the rest of our lives. It was intimmidating at first, but over time it became easier as the weeks went by, and even easier again when we started showing some really good results!!!

So if you are at a halfway house right now, by that i mean sometimes eating healthy and sometimes eating badly, then you need to go back to the start to enable you to move forward!

When you go to the diet section on the right hand side, there is a repetitive but valid theme on there. It goes on all the time about the importance of having a healthy breakfast and gives you many examples. A doctor would back this up.

It encourages you to graze and not gulp huge amounts of food down in one go, this means it is better to have smaller meals and snacks but regular and often to sustain energy and kickstart your metabolism, this is a proven way for fat loss and lean muscle retention. Your doctor would encourage this too.

The meal ideas on there are packed with variety, and all the foods are nutritious and are going to heavily contribute to you being in outstanding health! A nutritionist would tell you the exact same.

Water is vital to life, as well as good health, how many of you have forgotten that? Did you know its also a contributory factor to fat loss? Did you know its going to be better than some much-vaunted face creams for your skin’s appearance? I haven’t got another hour to write down all the extra benefits but you should be getting the idea by now!

Bottom line is the basics ARE the bottom line!!!! Face facts and go back to the start and remember how well you used to eat!!!

Twitt
Posted on

Tuesday, 26th July

The issue of post workout nutrition has never been so important.

If you are currently going through a tough pre-season for sport for example, what you put back into your body is going to be of extreme importance.

If you train very hard and then don’t care what you eat, then you’re not making things very easy for yourself at all.

There used to be a saying in the 80’s, 90’s and still sometimes today, that “as long as you train hard, then it doesn’t matter WHAT you eat afterwards”!!! What rubbish but what’s even sadder is that some people believe this!

Let’s look at it logically.

When you train hard, you break down your body.

You will lose a lot of nutrients out of your body.

You will break down muscle tissue down.

You will disrupt the chemical balance of your body and lose vital nutrients that need to be replaced.

So does a takeaway really cut it as an after workout meal?

Does the chip shop meet all your needs?

Is a bottle of wine really going to help you replace what you have taken out?

Is a couple of pints of lager going to repair your immune system or help destroy it?

So let’s get one thing completely straight. YOU CANNOT EAT EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANT AFTER A TOUGH WORKOUT IF YOU REALLY WANT TO GET IN SHAPE!!!

Okay, i’m glad i have got all of that off my chest.

So what should you eat?

White meats, lean red meat once a week, any fish as long as it hasn’t got batter, eggs, cottage cheese are all EXCELLENT protein sources!!!!! These are vital!

You don’t need a bucketload of carbs after either.

A moderate amount, the size of your fist will do and avoid white bread, white pasta and you will be fine.

Vegetables will provide a lot of the nutrients you need to replace in your body, you will be so much better off by having a good variety of veg in your meal after training for all sorts of reasons. This along with proper hydration will be vital in your athletic goals.

I have tried to make it plain and simple, lets just do it!!!!

Twitt
Posted on

Thursday, 21st July

Knowledge is power and stops us wasting endless hours, days weeks and even years in trying to get in shape.

If we try to go too fast too soon, we sometimes get injured and more often than not, lose all the enthusiasm we had at the start.

This is because we don’t stop to learn the basics, we try to go through a programme that someone far more experienced is doing, such as some athlete in the magazines or something very advanced we see online, both are likely to be unsuitable.

Many magazines are filled with information, but a lot of it unfortunately is targeted at those who have been training for many years, and not those who are beginners or need a helping hand.

The best way to start off or pick up where you left off is to simplify matters.

Select a whole body programme where you work just one exercise for each body part, work up to doing 3 sets of each exercise over a couple of weeks, and aim to do this programme 3 times a week. That’s it, nothing complicated, nothing that will confuse you or your body, just plain old solid routines that will work each every time.

As i keep saying, unless you’re a professional athlete, please, please, please DO NOT waste your time by working one or two body parts each time you go to the gym.

There are two things going on with that last statement.

Are you really up for having fantastic results? Or are you listening too much to your friends and following their programme that’s usually very poorly designed with the no end goal in sight?!!!!

So back to the point, knowledge really is power IF applied properly and its time to start applying it properly. Think what programme is going to WORK FOR YOU!!!!! Its about YOUR progress and YOUR body and keeping it simple is the way to go, just show some effort with your training and the sky’s the limit!!!!

Twitt