Wednesday, 18th May

Once you are comfortable in your own skin, you can set your OWN records, your own shape, your own progress, your own level of happiness and on YOUR own terms.

It’s pointless comparing yourself to others, because we are ALL different.

We have a massive variety of individuals each with their own gifts, their own challenges and their own different situation.

Someone who has just had a baby (we have many), will have far different goals than someone who plays professional sport. Comparison is pointless.

Someone who has high blood pressure will have different goals to someone who wants to raise their self-esteem and self-confidence.

Someone who is struggling with their mind to function day to day will have different goals to someone who is 70 years of age and suffering from osteoporosis.

Someone who is 14 stone who wants to look exactly someone 8 stone is unrealistic and the heavier individual is not celebrating how good she can look if she maxed out her OWN potential. Comparison will eat you up if you let it especially when it’s pointless and always self-defeating.

We have members looking amazing at 8 stone AND a few stone heavier full stop.

Mark lewis will bust me up pulling that tyre up the hill in terms of time, but instead of crucifying myself inside about it, i celebrate the fact that i can do it myself, and doing it, EVEN if it takes me much longer, it is a victory for ME.

The message is to be happy what you are doing, appreciate the progress you have and ARE making, how far you have come in ALL ways since you started and celebrate all the big things you can still do and ASPIRE to do and are totally within your reach.

All of this makes you far happier in your own skin, puts a sense of perspective on everything we do and totally celebrates you as an individual, what makes you unique and how you stand out as someone who may have overcome the odds and the chances are that many ADMIRE you either publicly or from afar.

Monday, 9th May

Here’s the chances you have of great success over the next 3 weeks in the new programme starting officially today!! We have just had a huge morning and i want to spell it out to you what you need to do.

You need to hit every workout with real intensity, with focus and a true desire to do better each time. Hard work leads to results, no excuses, you need to put it in often so expect hard work to be the cornerstone of your overall results.

You need to show up a minimum of three times a week without fail. Showing up is half the battle, because you know once you get to the gym, you will be guaranteed to have a big session.

Eat right. If you are putting all of this work in, then you want to maximise your results. Don’t waste any of the effort you put in by eating rubbish. Concentrate on shopping for good food and make sure you eat good quality, made by yourself meals regularly. No ready meals, cook from scratch whenever possible.

Drink plenty of water. If you’re not taking enough water in, then your performances will dip quickly, you will get dehydrated and you will develop headaches which will destroy your progress. Water is vital for all sorts of reasons!

Sleep well. If you don’t get enough rest, you will show up half-hearted, irritable and half the energy you need. Get to bed early and your body will recover well, and come back with a big bounce ready for your next workout!

Get your mind right. Associate with positive people whenever possible, write down your goals and review them regularly to see how close you are getting. If you get all the previous things right, then your mind will be clearer, more focused and more positive so you hit this programme like a train!!

This sounds like a basic list but will give you everything you need to outperform over the next 3 weeks and conquer this latest very demanding programme!

Wednesday, 16th March

Reviving your movement ability again is the very first thing we teach. How many 30, 40, 50 somethings do you know that “give up” on their movements that they used to take for granted when they were playing sport or back at school. You used to bounce around no problem then because you had a lot of natural balance and you were used to moving around full stop.

Somehow accepting the fact you will be stiff as a board for life once you leave this environment is dangerous. Once you accept that your movement is not so good anymore, and start thinking through rose-tinted glasses how “things used to be”, then everything will turn on a downward spiral.

Our training involves a lot of getting into multiple different positions designed to test you to the extreme. Simply getting into those positions is tough, performing exercises whilst in those positions is even tougher, but this strategy will always bring you superior results.

Then our strategy is always to take you out of that comfort zone as soon as you get used to it. This allows you to reach your potential far quicker because you are always in a state of challenging yourself, reaching for more, and endlessly seeking more results and rewards out of your programme.

Mentally this does wonders for you. There only becomes opportunities and possibilities in your training programme for the NOW and the future. There’s no fond stories on how things used to be and how you cant do them now. Now the talk is how good you are now, how great you can become and you will automatically find yourself volunteering to take on new and fresh challenges.

You either are getting better or falling behind, you can’t stay still that’s for sure. All of you who hit the gym with us 3 times a week will be in a constant state of improvement, positivity and development. This is great for the mind too, keeps you striving for more and let’s you know that you are alive and about to get in the best shape of your life!!!

Tuesday, 16th February

Going “all in” means total commitment. Going all in means you are likely to achieve what you put your mind to if you give it enough time, and you do something positive each and every day to bring you closer to your goals.

“All in” isn’t something you do “sometimes”, or something you do when you just “feel like it”.

You need to jump in with all your heart if you really want to accomplish your best work. If you take 5 axe swings every day at a tree, no matter how big, tough or stubborn the tree is, then the tree will always fall eventually. If you take 5 positive actions every day, then sure enough you will achieve exactly what you set out to do, and usually a lot more!

You need to get into a mindset that it’s impossible to fail, that as long as you take enough action consistently every day, then nothing is beyond your grasp.
Once you get into this mindset, it will break any feeling of not wanting to do anything or frustration you may have that you’re not accomplishing what you really want.

If you get into a mindset of throwing yourself into your programme, then opportunities will open up for you to do even more, your body and brain will accommodate your efforts and recognise you are constantly aiming to get better and better.

Progress is achieved one step at a time. First one is getting yourself on a programme. Then you learn it. Then you get used to it and then you thrive on it.

Our motto is that you always move forward with your exercise programme, you always need to be tested in a different way, you always need to find new ways of strengthening your weaknesses, and a new challenge every day keeps your mind fresh, and tells your body it needs to constantly adapt.

This way progress becomes a daily part of your life, and it becomes impossible to fail because you’re finally giving it everything you’ve got!!

Saturday, 16th January

Achievements always have much more meaning when they are earned over the longer term, rather than achieved in “five minutes”.

You think about educational qualifications, all of them take time (the real ones anyway). There’s a massive difference between studying a subject in depth over a long period (and continue to commit to ongoing education), rather than completing a weekend course and suddenly you claim you are an “expert” in it. Deep down, the “do it in a weekend” courses will never give you the satisfaction of knowing you have studied your passion for years and years. Plus you are far more likely to last in your chosen field.

Fame is like that now, many people are “famous” for not actually doing anything meaningful. As the great chat show king Michael Parkinson said “if you were famous, the reason was you achieved something memorable and had done something meaningful”! Deep down, the 5 minute “celebrities” know they couldn’t hold a candle to those who have strived to create proud achievements with their lives (and usually not constantly craved attention through a PR agent). This is why they are gone in 5 minutes too.

Physical achievements always take a while to get, because it involves the completion of multiple small goals that compound on one another to achieve one massive improvement, and this will take time no question about it. You can bet your life though that all that blood, sweat and tears will give you infinitely more satisfaction doing it the right, sustainable way for life. One goal leads to another and your journey of self-improvement (both physically AND mentally NEVER ends).

Compare that with yo-yo dieting, taking diet pills, going on yet another faddy diet (social media/newspapers are full of them right now), using gimmicky ways of exercise (often leading to injury or little progress long term), false promises of “this time it’s different” etc etc. Bottom line is you WILL lose weight but ALWAYS put it back on and 5% more (scientific studies back this up) and make your body less receptive to the next “wonder system”.

Doing things the sensible, changing your lifestyle for the long term always works, makes sure you avoid the soul-destroying “crash and burn” way of trying to improve your health, and ultimately gives you far more pride, fulfilment and satisfaction that you are on the right path for a lifetime.