Tuesday, 6th November

The US election takes centre stage today for most of the world, and the effects could be dramatic for the strongest and most powerful nation on the planet.

Unfortunately, that last statement has less and less truth in it as the years go by.

Too many people have become disillusioned with any government to make a real difference in people’s lives-and this is very sad and makes too many in society give up hope.

Of course some people have to rely on the government for help, often with good reason, not everyone is a “scrounger” as perhaps the daily mail/express would have you believe. Government is a good backstop for many people that society chooses “not to help”.

When it comes to becoming healthier, we in the UK and in the US of course, have a tremendous obesity problem that is a ticking time bomb for our NHS and ObamaCare in the US.

Despite the government trying to help through public health campaigns which are admirable, the obesity percentages seem to be continuing to skyrocket!

The plain simple facts are that it is almost all down to us as individuals to be healthy, to get in shape, to turn our lives around and to eat well.

We secretly know if we are overeating, a year in year out weight gain will show us we need to eat less and food less in refined sugars and saturated fats.

If we are then aching from all of the extra bodyweight we have accumulated over the years in terms of aching joints and limbs, then isn’t it time we took responsibility for our own actions and got an exercise plan together?!!!

Every single person i have ever trained who has been in a deep hole to begin with, has benefitted IMMENSELY from taking on a healthy, active lifestyle, has usually lost quite a lot of weight, has reduced significantly their body fat, have strengthened their heart rate considerably and from all of this, have become a much more confident and energetic person that have gone on to set and usually achieve much bigger goals in their lives!!!

So the election doesn’t really matter so much anymore, its about what responsibility you take on, and how you responnd to my/your own challenge to finally take control of your own health!!!

Monday, 5th November

Benchmark workouts are a major consideration when it comes to all sorts of situations in your life.

Life isn’t always the same, things crop up, trips happen overseas, layoffs can happen for whatever reason, and the last thing you want to happen is not know where you are in physical and health terms full stop.

Easy ways off checking your health including buying a blood pressure machine, i like to do it every 4 weeks for everyone i train, sometimes more frequently for those who i am really concerned about.

In physical terms, you can measure your waist and hips once a month, you will need to be alarmed if your waist does go up, and then you can alter your diet and training programme to bring it back down.

The “benchmark workout” idea is one which i use every week on most people, and this lets us know straight away exactly where we are.

Someone i train who has been touring america for 3 months got his first workout in today. I put him on one of HIS benchmark workouts, and the results were quite staggering!

Bear in mind that this workout is one which he normally gets through without too much of a problem. It consists of around 300 press ups total in the workout split into 20’s at a time, some step sprints, some backward running up hills etc.

Today, he found it extremely tough indeed!

He has been used to doing 3 shows a day, which is demanding physically of course, but got used to the sugary cereals and breakfasts in the states, and the lack of genuinely plain, sugar free nutritious food that he was accustomed to has hurt his energy levels now he’s back to normal.

This has led to him becoming not so energetic now he is back home, and the benchmark workout reminded him exactly where he was!!!

If you don’t have standards you can measure against, then you will never know or appreciate where you are!!!

This is something to consider when you work out what level you want to be at!!!

Wednesday, October 31st

Halloween is certainly getting bigger in this country, if you have kids then hope you enjoy yourselves!!

Another story in the paper today about the benefits of exercise…………………….this time for the over 70’s and brain power!

How many times have you heard about the benefits about crossword puzzles making your brain sharper in old age, and most doctor’s considered crosswords as highly beneficial in terms of mental alertness alone.

The new study suggests that exercise greatly surpasses the benefits of crosswords, and the power of the mind is greatly increased when daily exercise is part of an individual’s liefstyle.

The power of exercise has often been undervalued and for much of the 20th century, doctor’s were often ignorant on its benefits across the board.

For example, from around 1950 to 1980, it was often thought and advised even that weight training would give you high blood pressure!! The opposite is true now.

Exercising could bring on a heart attack they said! We now know that there is no better way to get a STRONGER AND HEALTHIER heart, i think we all accept this now!

Exercise they said would wreck your joints, your bone density would simply wear away and if you wanted to have strong bones, then just relax and do not wear your body out!! Bone density we now know is made much STRONGER THROUGH WEIGHT TRAINING, your joints will only get stronger if you exercise smart and use proper footwear, these are medical facts and not heresay!!

With all the facts coming out about exercise all the time, there has never been a more exciting time to exercise and you have the big chance to reap all of these amazing benefits!!

Sure, exercise for all the benefits we DO know, but i am sure there will be MANY MORE BENEFITS to come over the years so get out there and do something today!!!

Monday, 29th October

We are coming up to november quickly and this means you have a whole month to get where you want to be by the start of decemember, and definitely the run up to christmas!

Everyone i know wants to be in shape by christmas, and they know all of the excess calories are going to hurt their bodies by the end of it, in terms of putting on weight and feeling stodgy and low on energy. Before we get to that stage, we have to start right now by eating and training to get as lean as possible!

The evenings are already a lot darker, so please use this month as a big positive and there’s absolutely no need to retreat into your shell because of the lack of light, its an opportunity to get your head down and work harder than you have ever done before!!!

Mondays are always the biggest opportunities to start off as you mean to go on, not to leave yourself down and fill your body with energy on the very day you need to make a statement for the rest of the week.

This is an excellent period to set new personal bests too, whether its in endurance or more metres covered on a rowing machine in a certain time for example, or you may just find yourself recovering quicker from each exercise, a sure-fire way of telling that you are getting much fitter. You will always have a favourite exercise so use this month as an opportunity to turn it something you are proud of, one exercise you’re able to do better than most other people, certainly better than you have done it before anyway.

When you set new personal bests, its usually guaranteed that you will see amazing physical benefits in all areas so use this as the perfect springboard for a fresh batch of improvements coming your way in november, which will set you up for a christmas in great shape!!!

Tuesday, 23rd October

Unless you fully appreciate each stage off your development, and try to go from A-Z in record time, you are unlikely to achieve sustainable progress.

For example, we talked about some basic but very handy tips on your eating again.

The big question is do you practice all of these habits on a daily basis? If not, then perhaps you need to visit these again before moving on. How many of us have told ourselves that we know it all anyway, and we do not need to be reminded?

I have heard plenty of people use this attitude and guess what? They are always the ones who continually show LEAST progress!!

The ability to be a “sponge” and absorb every scrap of information you possibly can is always undervalued.

I often see the people with the least individual athletic ability over-achieve and better the results of so called more gifted athletes purely because they have applied themselves a lot more, and the same goes for every area in life.

The people who don’t take advice from a post such as yesterday are also the ones looking for some “magic” supplement that will somehow strip fat at a massively fast pace and somehow get you into your best shape, even without eating really well somehow!!!

Those of you who have been down such a route (and most of us have let’s admit it!), will relish the fact now that we don’t need to use such a complex and usually such an expensive route that is ultimately futile!!!

The tips yesterday will offer you stratagies that cost you absolutely nothing, but you will be able to keep up for a lifetime!

They offer you easy ways to get into shape, to speed your metabolism up, to help you make the right choices, and definitely put you on the road to feeling healthy and getting into the kind of shape you always wanted!!!