Posted on

8th April

Definitely the warmest day of the year and definitely a day to get out there and do something constructive with your health and fitness. The term health and fitness doesnt mean just appear to be doing something, it means adopting a whole lifestyle and living it for the rest of your life. This is where its at!!!

It doesnt mean going to extremes, or it doesnt mean playing at it either, you dont have to be 100% perfect as nobody ever is, all it means is giving things a good go and doing your best 80% of the time.

The weekend is here now and you have two choices. Either you have worked extremely hard on your fitness  this week, eaten very well and you deserve a day off tomorrow, or you have been working hard in an office for example, havent been able to train like you know you should have all week, missed workouts and the weekend now actually offers you a wonderful opportunity to make up for all of that.

The weekend offers you a great opportunity to get up early tomorrow and train early before anyone else is around. The shopping can wait until later!!! There is no excuse to stay in bed on a scorching morning particularly after the winter we have just had. If you do, then you’re prone to making excuses all the time, which means you’re going to be prone to having mediocre results!!!!

I remember someone told me once that they had GIVEN UP their training because their training partner had temporarily stopped training!!!! This was as pathetic an excuse as i have ever heard and i knew right there that this person would never achieve anything worthwhile with that kind of weak attitude!! For the record we have all had weak attitudes, but its always a question if you can recover from a weak attitude or not?

This is why individuals with the weakest genetics can get into great shape quicker than those with great genetics, its all about attitude and desire, and whether you’re willing to do the things you need to do to get into shape for life!!!!!

Saturday morning is a great chance to show your character, i will be up at 6am walking the dogs, this is no time to laying in bed feeling sorry for yourself, lets do it!!!!

Twitt
Posted on

April 5th 2011

Its tuesday already and the great news is i feel alive again. After a weekend of being away and eating not so good food, my energy levels have returned, simply by getting back to normal which is an amazing feeling!!!

Hopefully, some or most of you are going through exactly the same feeling and realise that your normal routines can be much more valuable than you ever thought!!! I know my porridge is very valuable to me in terms of energy and internal health, nothing to beat it.

I know my chicken, turkey, lean beef is going to serve me well, keeps me lean and feeling as hard as possible.

My fish is vital to me, to keep my joints in good working order and to keep those essential fatty acids working very well all the way throughout my body, life feels good when there is fish in my life, plus i get to stay lean too, its a win win situation for me!!!

Then theres the other good carbs apart from porridge, which is the wholegrain pasta  and sweet, new and jacket potatoes, all great vegetables that give me energy and keep me lean, provided i don’t slam lots of butter in the potatoes of course!!!

Then theres the rest of the veg, i feel instantly better outside and inside when i get my daily supply of vegetables. Same with fruit, lots of energy going in and lots of nutrients going in the whole time, if you consume fruit the way i do, the better you will feel and hopefully you will know the same great feeling.

What about water? When we are away, we tend to drink much more coffee and tea, plus alcohol!!! Having water back in my life makes my energy levels and awareness go through the roof, this is the time to be full of energy, full of vitality, full of enthusiasm and try to make things happen, despite what the economy is going!!!!!!!

Twitt
Posted on

April 4th 2011

Good weeks and fresh starts are often kick started by weekends or weeks away sampling richer foods that we don’t normally eat.

If you consume mainly fresh nutritious food nearly every day, then when you experience foods much richer and more full of saturated fat, then your body is not going to react too well. Having been away the weekend, i now feel far less energetic than when i went away on friday. I did go a run on sunday morning, but this was a far more painful run than normal, and i must admit i struggled around far more than my normal early morning runs.

 It was all down to richer food, more salty food and far inferior food in terms of nutritional content than normal, performance is always affected by the quality of nutrients we put into our bodies, and i have to admit, i didnt do too well over the weekend. I wasn’t putting any chips in, or eating every cake in sight, but it was a far less impressive version of my normal weekend’s eating and im still paying now!

To say i need a great start to the week is a huge understatement, and i know my workouts today, as its a monday, will always shape the rest of the week. If i go in half-hearted, i will have a half-hearted week, or definitely medicore in terms of results, exactly what i don’t want to happen!

This type of thinking can also become a negative spiral. Let’s say i didnt train today, or tomorrow and wrote the rest of the week off. This would mean i would really need to start next week off well, but what if something came up? I couldnt get to train and the next week was gone too!! Sound familiar? If it does, then you need to realise that these mondays are highly important to get your week off to a great start, and it will also stop you getting into sloppy habits!!!

Lets give it a huge start this monday and do our best!!!! I’m out to break out of this myself today so i will be going through the pain too!!

Twitt
Posted on

30th march 2011

It’s the end of the month then and have you made the most of your winter’s training? Has it been a productive one or another missed opportunity?

The great thing about training and eating properly is that it doesnt always have to be a missed opportunity at all, you can always start back whenever you want, or indeed start for the first time no matter what age you are, that’s a fact and i have seen it many, many times.

The biggest thing that stops people exercising is perhaps fear of the unknown.

We all dont really want  do something we have never done before, or we think we won’t be that good at, or somehow we would be embarrassed to exercise in front of people which is totally understandable, or we sometimes think we won’t be as good as somebody else at it because we have low confidence levels always before we start.

The low confidence thing is hugely prominent in everyone i have ever started training. I have met some of the nicest people and the biggest egos too sometimes when starting an exercise programme with people. Without fail, and underneath all of that bluster and outward confidence of some, EVERYONE is really under confident when it comes to starting exercise, and don’t let anyone fool you otherwise.

The confidence levels WILL improve when it comes to your health and fitness programme, as long as your initial plan is safe and sound.

To me, fitness is all about improving slowly and steadily, and looking for ways it can improve your everyday life. Nobody i know has failed to improve his/her life by introducing exericise into their lives, ask around and you will probably experience the same answers and results.

If you are thinking of exercising but not sure if it will work for you, i can guarantee 100% it will work every time for you, as long as you are willing to give it some time and apply yourself to giving your best with your eating too, 100% guarantees are hard to find these days!!!!

Twitt
Posted on

29th March

 

Talking about back problems is a big reminder for most people about some low point in their lives when they weren’t so active, the problems it caused in real life and the actual pain they went through. Nobody wants to be known as the person who can’t join in things that most people consider normal, but that’s the reality of life for some.

Not being able to join in activities with your kids is tough mentally, and most people will do anything to get out of this spiral of despair.

A lot of people go through the stage of heat cream, ice sometimes and massage, often finding out that none of them were really the long term answer to a potentially life altering problem.

We talked about the swiss ball, the big ball you pump up you see around the place sometimes in gyms, houses etc but nobody really knows how to use it properly.

Simply sitting on it for 30 minutes watching a television programme can be big enough of an effort for many, as you learn to stabilise yourself for everyday life situations.

One of the favourites is sitting on your back, with legs over the ball and the ball right up against your bum, then roll you hips to the side. This will not only loosen your hips but loosen your back in a big way, and is often a great warm up to any workout. Try keeping your shoulders on the floor while you do it.

When keeping in the same position on your back, places your bottoms of your feet on the ball, hands by your side on floor and lift your bum off the floor using your feet, this is fantastic for your hamstrings/bum area and will develop serious strength in this area, which will again help your back!

The back, hips and hamstrings are all inter related as I said yesterday and remain very important areas to work, they may not immediately be visual improvements but will allow you to do everything better and with greater freedom, virtually eliminating typical aches and strains, and making you far more powerful and flexible and giving you a lifetime on pain free movement!

When it does fix your back problem, and I have no doubt it will, if from time to time your back stiffens up or gives you pain, then these moves will help you a lot to rectify the problem immediately. This ball is for a lifetime so lets give it a go, there are also many demonstrations online if you google swiss ball demonstrations. Will get videos on here one day!!!

Twitt