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Tuesday, 17th July

Studies in perserverence are all around us every day.

You have the Olympic Games about to start in this country, you have the British doing so very well in the Tour de France for the first time ever (in such a high podium position) and we always do well in the Paralympics.

If you look at the human stories behind the headlines, you have athletes putting in untold amount of hours in, you have the sacrifice of parents sometimes not being at their children’s birthdays because they are in another country training, you have athletes going through absolute hell sometimes in recovering from career threatening injuries, above all you have inspiring stories of great sacrifice that most people cannot or do not want to understand.

On many different levels, i see studies in persererence each and every day.

I see individuals in sports all the time reaching new levels through increased effort in dedication.

I see dedication with individuals losing sometimes ten stone, and ten inches off someone’s waist is not uncommon.

The problem is that most of society does not realise how much work and effort goes into this, sheer hard work is not always appreciated but this is exactly what it takes!

This is why i try to get people away from purely shakes and bars diets, frankly they set people up for long term misery and i see they are doing the rounds around this area again. Quite how people fall for this sort of rubbish time and time again is beyond me, but unfortunately it keeps happening!!!

So no fads, no gimmicks, just hard work and results!!!

If you’re looking for an easy way out, then be prepared to be disappointed again so please make the right choice!!!

Take the inspiring examples of the athletes i mentioned at the start of this piece, and use their perserverence to inspire you to  new highs!

Twitt
Posted on

Monday, 16th July

Measuring yourself against others is often a very popular human trait, but doesn’t often get you anywhere in health and fitness terms.

There are too many variables between different individuals to get reliable comparisons, this is why its important to measure yourself against…………….you!

Competing with yourself is always healthy because you are then focusing on continually raising your standards.

If your waist is 40 inches, then getting it down to 32-34 inches is a significant achievement.

If your weight is 21 stone, and you want to get down to a much healthier 16 stone, then this will be an achievement to be proud of.

If you have developed a significant amount of more energy in your life, compared to the days when you didn’t exercise or eat well, then of course you are much healthier and likely to achieve much more in your life.

These are important factors to look at when deciding what you are getting out of your programme.

If you are doing the same programme, or not in a programme, or getting hurt in whatever programme you’re doing, then you need to stop right there and question what you are doing, and why you are doing it!!!

I consider it standard to measure an individual’s waist and hips, to take their body fat, to measure their heart strength and blood pressure, these are vital indicators for me, so i can formulate a programme to work for them.

Everyone has to start somewhere but its just as important to make THE RIGHT START!

Nothing worse than summoning up the courage to exercise, and then someone giving you a programme that is not well designed, or even worse one that they have taken off the internet! This is a sign of someone who doesn’t care about your goals, they don’t care how much you improve or if at all!

Take command today, make the most of your exercise efforts and try and have a big strong finish until the end of the summer!

Twitt
Posted on

Friday, 13th July

Making the commitment to be fit, stay fit and always be fit is totally overwhelming for almost all of us.

This is why i encourage everyone to take one day at a time, and just do your best that particular day.

Chances are you will improve much quicker like this rather than somehow trying to plan your year!

I can totally see how you can plan your week,  but your month or next couple of months is extremely difficult for all of us.

If you focused on one day then, you can see from the following how it can work very well for you.

For example, if you concentrated on eating a good energy filled breakfast every morning, full of slow-release energy, then you’re not going to go too far wrong.

This can be fairly easy if you only buy good quality cereals with only natural ingredients.

If you go for the likes of porridge, shredded wheat and weetabix and stick to the basic versions of these fine cereals, then you’re not going to be taking excess sugars into your sytem, meaning you will be energised and still lose body fat.

Lunch from monday to friday for most people is again fairly simple, make sure you eat some vegetables, good carbs of wholegrain variety where possible and a good quality protein source.

Your evening meal will be fairly similar, and trying to make sure you get some fruit in the day along with plenty of water, at least 1.5 litres.

On the exercise side, try and commit to being active most days, there is a huge variety on offer and we talk about exercise all the time.

Sleep is often underrated, so make this a priority.

Get these things right and you will taking one day at a time very well indeed!

Twitt
Posted on

Thursday, 12th July

A good measure of how well you are doing is your attitude to work. An individual’s work ethic often dictates his/her achievements in life.

One client I have who has shown this over many years is Olly Jenkins, who has just had the role of Robin in the world famous Batman stage show which will be touring the united states over the next 12 months.

This is an example of how hard work pays off, and how an attitude of continuously trying to improve one’s self is of paramount importance.

If you want to be an actor or actress at the highest level, you had better make sure your immune system is very strong for a year long production.

The gruelling schedule of a stage production, all the travelling and  performance standards dictate that these days you need to be in incredible physical condition.

These are pre-requisites of most jobs these days, especially if you want to work at a very high standard. I train people from all walk’s of life, and each and every one of them reports a marked improvement in their work performance after an extended period of training.

The consistent practice of eating well, drinking enough water, training sensibly and regular will pay enormous dividends over a sustained period of time.

If you study some of the most successful people, you will find that many of them will run first thing in the morning, most of them will do weight training of some kind, you will find that also the days of a heavy drinking lifestyle are over too.

You simply CANNOT work under pressure and perform well with a hangover or a headache!! This simply cannot happen.

More and more working lunches and evening meals are supported by plenty of water and good quality food, not only is this much better for one’s concentration, but this will enable you to perform much later into the day, instead of collapsing into a heap at the end of it!!

Life is continuously getting about longer days performing at an elevated performance level, your lifestyle will dictate if you are going to get to the highest level or not!

Twitt
Posted on

Tuesday, 10th July

Talking about elite athletes yesterday, its important to take some vital lessons from how they train.

Perhaps most people wont be able to show the extreme dedication they show to training, diet and basically living like a monk, but reaching our own personal best can be just as important for our own needs.

This is why we talk about constant improvement on here, and how to achieve exactly that and the processes involved.

It all starts with the monthly measuring and it follows from there. Its all about accountability and this is what you will have in common with these elite athletes, they are constantly being measured and constantly analysing their performances.

Nothing can make up for results and you need to make yourself accountable as much as possible.

If an elite athlete loses a race, or performs really badly in the race, there will be a lot of reprecussions, usually resulting in losing money or sponsorship or both.

There won’t be any such penalties if you don’t lose two inches off your waist in a month for example, but you can usually tell if you have had a good month of training and eating-or not!

There aren’t many good reasons to just go through the motions in your training, if you do then you need to find some motivation from somewhere and re-assess what you are doing.

If its lack of intensity, then change it and get much more fired up about your training.

If you have been in  the same exact routine for 6 weeks or more, then change it now and you will see an immediate result for the better!!!

If you wonder why you still train, then remember why you first started, why you are doing it now and what you really want to achieve, deep down, from your training and eating efforts!

This is what we can learn from the star athletes, and the accountability they constantly have to go through, use it in a positive way and you will automatically get better results!

Twitt