Posted on

Tuesday, 14th May

Leaving yourself no other option but to succeed is crucial to your success, and a big secret to achieving for the long term too.

If you give yourself too many options sometimes, then you’re always going to struggle.

For instance, if you are planning to do a workout tonight, and you start going through your mind that “maybe” you should leave it tonight, “after all you have to get the shopping, cut the lawn, clean the kitchen etc”, then the workout can easily be left.

Then you may say lets do it tomorrow? Then what happens is that maybe someone has invited you out, invited you for a drink, for pizza or just to have a chat, then the workout suddenly gets moved to Thursday.

Then one of your children tells you that they have parents evening and you HAVE to go of course! Then it gets to Friday, and then you come out with the oldest excuse in the book, “no point in starting back on a Friday, I’ll start back next week”!!!

This is a great example of you not prioritizing your workouts enough, and you can see it wont take much for “other” things to take priority!!!

The basic message of this is to put your workouts as something you MUST do (recipe for success), rather something you plan to do AS LONG as something else doesn’t come up (recipe for failure).

Ask yourself would you miss an appointment with the doctor, dentist or solicitor? Your workouts need to be considered just as important, as you will be looking after your health and there’s nothing more important.

Prioritise your exercise today and you will automatically get much better results!

Twitt
Posted on

Friday, 10th May

If you’re tired of your week by friday, then today is the ideal time to try something different!

Throw what you planned to do in the bin, and do something you weren’t planning to do.

For example, if you are a big weight trainer, and like nothing more than benching big, working chest and arms on a friday, then you should be really changing it tonight to do something different.

You could try a spinning bike for a change, how about doing a heavy punch bag session, what about finding out how well the rowing machine can work you, or how about doing some speed work outside?

You may well avoid these exercises because you are comfortable with what you are doing right now, and maybe have done for years and years.

If this is the case, then all the more reason to change!

Most people are scared of change because they do not really know what’s going to happen.

I can assure though that if you do take my advice and change right now, you will benefit in all sorts of ways.

You will develop new all round fitness levels, your lung capacity will get better, you variety of workouts wil explode, and you will likely enjoy your training a lot more than previously!!

This method of changing things up will serve you well, and keep you from hitting training plateau’s that are all too common in most people’s training lives.

So friday is the perfect time to change it all up, be aggressive with your training again, feel rejuvenated and more optimistic about your future progress all in one go!!

Twitt
Posted on

Friday, 26th April

Finally friday is here, and friday is always the day when many people start thinking about the weekend, and a great workout, sorry make that ANY kind of workout goes firmly on the back burner.

This is down to the state of mind rather than what your body is actually capable of.

If you are one of those who traditionally misses a friday workout, then you could be missing out on serious gains over the long term.

I find that friday is great for a one off type of workout for a variety of reasons.

First of all, if i typically schedule some people on a monday and thursday all over whole body weights programme, then tuesday and friday would work well as a core orientated session, with some outside speed an agility work thrown in too. Anyone who has done this type of session with me will know we have an extreme amount of variety involved in these type of sessions, they tend to be fun but still hard work and results giving.

So let’s say today is friday which it is, and you have one of these different fun sessions scheduled, then this should give you every reason to show up for your friday session every single time.

I think that’s a big reason for many people in gyms not showing up for their friday session and starting the weekend early, they are not being given entertaining sessions so they get bored, and have absolutely no incentive to complete their week of training. Indifference to training is criminal but usually the fault lies with the person giving out the fitness programme in the first place, and NOT with the customer who is paying their hard earned money to get into great shape AND has a right to be entertained in a fun way in terms of exercise presentation.

Have a great weekend!

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

Monday, 22nd April

If you stop eating your favourite food completely, and I mean you never plan on eating it ever again, this is a perfect recipe to binge and go off the rails big time.

The best way to get around this is to still eat these foods that may be very high in fat or sugar or both, but eat them in much smaller portions. For example, if you had a habit of eating a whole pizza on a Saturday, and maybe a
Tuesday, then you were probably eating at least 1000 calories in one go, a ton of saturated fat and refined sugars.

If you keep it to one slice at a time only, thin and crispy to lower calories, and eat it slowly to savour the taste more, then this is perfectly acceptable once or twice a week. The main thing you would be doing though is consuming a fraction of your normal amount on a Saturday and Tuesday.

This alone will have the effect of you not seeming like being on a diet. Your saturated fat and sugar will drop dramatically. Your ability to eat a lot in one go (bingeing) will diminish greatly, and your behavior towards food will likely change permanently.

Once your brain realizes that its not on a diet, you will automatically relax and you will develop a far more healthy attitude to food, and be far more comfortable knowing that although you have to eat around 80% good healthy food, you will still be able to have one or two treats a week such as the pizza in this case.

After studying people’s habits for years, I have seen this situation many times turn out that the individual involved eventually goes off treats such as the pizza because they KNOW they can have it! Its when you know you cannot have something that usually makes it far more appealing!!

Try it out and see how you get on.

Twitt