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Your list of priorities

How high you put your workouts up your list of priorities will usually be a very good indicator of how good shape you’re in.

Someone who says “I train when I get time”, or “I do my best when I’m not busy” or “I have to be in the mood” or “I’m waiting for my ‘training partner’ to call me” are destined to get zero results and be guilty of being the pub “bore”.

Someone who says “I have to train a few days a week to feel good” or “I have to train a few days a week to be in shape” or “I have to train a few days a week because its so important for my health” or “I have to train a few days a week to create all the energy I need in my life” or “I have to train a few days a week to perform the way I need to in my life” is likely to be in great health and good physical condition full stop.

Attitude is always paramount, you are either going to be putting your head in the sand and hope for the best with your health, or you will always be honest with yourself, care about your health and the way you can help your friends and family out because you will have outstanding health and an abundance of energy to be productive every day.

You don’t have to be perfect either like these airbrushed pictures in media magazines. Carrying a couple of extra pounds is no problem, as long as your lifestyle is health most of the time, then your health across the board should look really good.

I have found if you take the pressure off someone and encourage them to be healthy, you will tend to get amazing results. If you tell people to abstain from everything, then its not realistic at all and they are likely to go the other way and have massive binges from time to time, totally unhealthy behaviour of course.

If you can accept someone can have a couple of drinks, eat a bit of what they fancy from time to time, not always have their best ever workouts, then I think the scene is set for an individual to blossom and show their real talent with all the pressure OFF!

This is when this whole thing becomes a lifestyle choice, your way of life forever in a non-threatening way. This is the best way I’ve found for most people, unless of course they have to be in absolute prime condition for a particular reason (actress landing a role for example or a lady having to lose weight for an operation or that person wanting to be in amazing condition JUST BECAUSE they want to be and it feels fantastic!!).

This is the whole message today and the great thing about is that every single one of you are capable of achieving it!!!

Twitt
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Measure yourself

Depending on what level your fitness is at, the more attention you pay to it says a lot.

The attitude of just doing some exercise and hoping for the best never really works because you will not be really focused on getting fitter or eating well, you will exercise simple “because its supposed to be good for you”!

Getting together a proper plan can and will make all the difference and make your health and fitness far more sustainable.

So as we talk about all the time on here, you need to do a mixture of strength work and your walking/cycling/running/swimming etc. You need to do this every week as well as eat well every week of course.

So ASSUMING you have taken all of this onboard and you are taking part in all of this, its time to raise the bar a bit and take your exercise plan a bit more seriously.

An easy way to do this is to measure your waist regularly, once a month is fine. As we have talked about before, if you are 6 foot tall then you are 60 inches. The equation should be that your waist in inches is half or less than your height in inches. This means that your waist should be a maximum of 35 inches if you  are 6 foot tall. Work on and keep it under 35 if you can, this will lead to you not only looking great but the health benefits will be endless!

The weighing scale is not always the most accurate measurement of progress but keeping a once a month check will be helpful and give you a general guideline on how you’re doing. Women should avoid weighing at their time of the month as this can easily add up to 5 pounds on that is only temporary!

If you have a close friend or family member, try asking them to do a more detailed measurement. Try measuring your neck, shoulders, chest, waist, hips, thighs, calf, upper arm, forearm. You can also buy a cheap blood pressure machine from the chemists these days starting off at just £10. Try and do these measurements once a month to keep regular checks and give you a very good indication on how you are doing.

Your health is your most important thing you can have, without it you can’t really do anything worthwhile in life. These are the options open to you without even having to go to the doctor/nurse all the time. The idea of keeping a close eye on your body has never been more valid!!!

Twitt
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Never short of workouts

You really do have several workouts available this weekend.

All these posts are designed to get rid of any excuses you may have left in your cupboard!

So we have gone over inside workouts this week, you can do them in ANY weather, there are no snow storms in your living room or spare room? It is not too cold or wet either in your living room and you can even have music on in the background! This is a workout you can do ANY time, so if you have an excuse, you know its not possible for me to believe you!!!

What about your outside workouts?

Are you going to get out there and do them? Or are you going to put on your dressing gown at 6pm in the evening and drink a bottle of wine a night, a takeway most nights or the biggest bar of chocolate its humanly possibly to eat? Lots of people really do live their lives like this, and need rescuing from themselves and need to be introduced to an active lifestyle, it really will change your life and make you far more optimistic for the future!!!

If its cold inside, get out there and do your workouts outside, you will soon get warm, you will soon get some adrenalin through your vains and pretty soon you will be invigorated to go and do something!!! I bet you when you get back inside, you will switch the heating off and wonder how you felt it cold in the first place!!! Staying indoors all weekend and complaining its “cold” doesnt wash either, it really doesnt, and sometimes you need to shake yourself to get out of this vicious circle of feeling sorry for yourself.

Theres a million things you can do this weekend, and getting out there and being active is guaranteed to make you feel better, give you more self-confidence in your abilities and really set the tone for all weekends coming up to christmas!!!

For starters i would look at it this weekend for walking up and down some very challenging terrain but with great scenery. These place include pembrey country park, burry port beach, burry port harbour, sandy water park, mumbles promenade, mumbles mountain, beaches-langland, caswell, llangennith, rhosilli, swiss valley reservoir, millennium coastal path, any cycle path!, burry port park, and there are about a million other places i could list right now for you to try out but i think the above list is enough to get you started!!!!

I know many of you will know more “secret” places so please try them all out, it makes life far more interested if you try different and fresher venues!!

No time to waste in shops the weekend, get out and there and do something that will get your blood going again!!!

Twitt
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Check your workouts

So hows your workouts going and are they working?

Have you started off with good intentions but reverted to “your old ways”?

No doubt that the workouts i ask you to do are intense, are tough sometimes but the good part is that they are relatively short in duration. The main point of them is to get fitter and healthier, on EVERY measurable level there is simple as that!

So the song remains the same because it tends to work big time for most people.

The inside workouts need to work the whole body because you dont want to leave any body part out. Also, this is the most efficient way to train because you burn more calories, you burn more fat, you get greater lung capacity, you get a harder and leaner body, and they pretty much get you ready for anything after you’ve given them a chance to work.

So you need to pick 6-8 exercises at the very most in each workout, and aim to do them for a total of 3 circuits without a break, thats your goal but it wont come fast. You will need to give it some time but you WILL get there if you are consistent with your workouts and eat well.

The inside workouts i would do 3 times per week with a day off in between each of these workouts to give your body some rest. If you keep it to 3 days per week, you will remain fresh in your workouts and attitudes towards them so we’re thinking long term too.

The other days and i would suggest 2 other days, i would try and not too long boring walks, running or cycling, i would focus on intensity and actual performance in your workouts. So you need to be aiming for 30-40 minutes and look to improve regularly.

It could be doing 8 sprints for 30 yards up a steep hill, running forwards and backwards eventually (8 forwards and 8 backwards would be an awesome standard).

It could be interval sprints, jogging one streetlight, sprinting the next, jogging the next, sprinting the next and so on, you could easily be very tired in 5 minutes, and this is something you can work on until you get to 15-20 minutes, which will be a huge standard!!

The same with your cycling, in quieter times on the coastal path, you could do sprinting phases of say 100 yards and use a marker in front of you and give it your all until you get there. Then go quietly for the next 100 yards and then belt it again! This is a great way of becoming a better and more powerful cyclist, and bringing some huge benefits to your fitness.

If you cant be bothered to be running some days, go for a longer walk but pick the big hills and this will have a terrific effect on your legs and lungs, plus you get to take in some very good scenery in the area. All enjoyable workouts.

So the bottom line is to do work hard and in shorter periods of time to really improve your fitness all the time, and this will naturally reduce your body fat and automatically make you feel 10 years younger after 6 weeks of training this way.

Before attempting any of this harder training, make sure you have at least 6 weeks of building up slowly first, as this is definitely not beginner’s training! Make sure you have AT LEAST one day off complete rest, no matter how advanced your training is!

Good luck and let me know how you get on!

Twitt
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Staying positive in the gloom is vital to get you through!

People doing well should be encouraged and appreciated at the moment. There is more than enough bad news in the media pretty much all the time. Some people like bad news and thrive on negativity. With the spending review of the government coming out tomorrow, there will be a lot of edgy people out there.

So it may not be fashionable at the moment, but lets try and concentrate on the good things going on and whatever bad things come, let’s promise to work our way through them as best we can.

Jean for instance, is on a roll to say the least and seems to be gathering fresh new momentum every day. This is a perfect situation for jean, as when you have momentum, you will always feel fitter, lighter and more eager to take on more and more challenges, which will automatically bring further gains.

As we discuss regularly, its not a matter of doing more and more training in terms of minutes and hours, its about keeping the quality of your training very high and making sure your body gets used to very good performances, results in being in great physical condition.

The only thing that can stop almost constant progress is negativity. If we listen to people who are always negative, then we become negative and the emphasis then is never to even attempt anything positive, because the risks are then too “negative”, there is too much of “what if it goes wrong, or what if it doesn’t work” type of talk.

If we associate with more positive people, attempting meaningful things in life becomes the norm and second nature. Its this type of atmosphere and environment we really need and can thrive in. The talk then becomes of whats really possible in life and the rewards of attempting big things in your life.

How many times do we talk about on here about positive things? Every single day is the answer because this is the only way to go, the only option available and the only way to end up truly fulfilled and happy.

You have many different choices over the week, the month and year and those moments when you are faced with tougher decisions that directly affect your health are the critical ones. Staying and getting into shape is never as easy as A,B,C, but if you face all the difficult choices in a highly positive manner, the chances of your getting and staying there will be very high.

Will start posting more workout schedules from tomorrow so see what you think?

Twitt