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Tuesday, 20th March

The number of exercises is definitely not important in your workout.

You could do 30 different exercises in your workout, yet perhaps you wouldn’t have worked out close to your potential. You could do just 4 exercises in your workout and you could have the biggest and best blast you have ever had!

It all comes down to how much you put into your workout, and good exercise selection DOES help.

If you pick the biggest and best exercises that require most effort, then you’re not going to go far wrong.

Some of the exercises invented around 50-100 years ago are often the best, and require the most work and effort. They are like the cabbage of exercises, you don’t really like it but you know its going to be good for you!

Most youngsters for example when it comes to packing on muscular size, will become obsessed with all the fancy machines and they think that in these machines lies the answer to looking like the incredible hulk!

 Nothing could be further from the truth and I often steer them away from these machines on to a tried and tested programme of 6-8 exercises, that if done regularly, will bring truly massive results!!!

When it comes to running, I try and get people away from long tedious run on concrete surfaces on to sprints up tough hills and nicer surfaces such as grass, and more demanding surfaces such as sand. The difference can be incredible!!!

When it comes to long boring swims, I set length targets designed to beat previous bests.

When it comes to cycles, I set specific courses, push for more interval training and get some hills thrown in, variety is the key here.

When you think variety and performance, you don’t have to do a ton of different exercises, its all about the effort you put in and the thought you put into your programme when you’re looking for superior results.

Twitt
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Monday, 19th March 2012

Another monday and you know that should mean a great workout to get you fully into your week, get you movitated and get you fired up for the monday to friday days that are essential for getting a good block of training in.

Whatever way you care to do it, just make sure you do. If you rely on a training partner, then make sure he or she turns up and that they are reliable and never let you down, a common training partner problem!!

If you have a certain ritual that you do before training that makes it a successful one, then please keep it up and keep it going.

You have more light than ever now this time of year, its around 645pm before it gets dark and its very light at 6am when you get up, you do not have any excuse now surely to get yourself going. Take all your excuses out of your life and i find the best way of doing that is exercising early before work, that gets the job done early and you will start the day in a very positive way!!!

Its a monday and hope you have planned things well. If you are working with weights tonight, then plan your other weights sessions for wednesday and friday to give your body a rest. Your cardio work can be done on tuesday, thursday and sunday ideally to make sure you make the most out of every session.

If you plan properly, then you will leave absolutely nothing to chance and you are pretty much guaranteed a good week!

Same with your food, plan to eat fresh and natural foods from monday to friday and have a big of what you fancy at the weekend. This will easily mean you eat well 80% of the time or even more, guaranteeing yet more results and big benefits.

Dont over-complicate it and make good things happen in your life, simplicity will always work for you!!!

Twitt
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Friday, 16th March 2012

Like analysing your food, analysing the way you exercise is just as important and results giving.

One of the most startling realisations I had was when I discovered that if you were on the same moderate programme for years and years, and you do the same thing day in day out, at the same speed using the same resistance, for the same number of times, then your fitness levels hadn’t really gone anywhere for years.

This statement can be upsetting for a lot of people because the truth can hurt, and an enormous amount of individuals and groups even will do things this way. Change is deeply uncomfortable for most people I have found.

The positives you should take out would be that simply changing things around will almost improve you overnight!! There IS a new world out there waiting for you.

If you simply change your programme regularly, then your body will have to keep adapting to change, and this will usually keep bringing you progress too, which is a benefit many have forgotten about unfortunately!

For example, if you have never done any balance or instability work on an unsteady surface, then you are missing out in a big way.

If you have become totally dependent on machines for your workouts, then I guarantee you that you are missing out on the huge benefits of free weights, and that you are really NOT getting the best out of yourself. Your body needs natural movements as much as possible, for all sorts of reasons and many machines do not come close to providing this!

Training is moving away from machines and has been for some time, there are far more inventive and beneficial ways to train, and you need to explore them and ultimately test your body under brand new conditions.

Freshening everything up is usually a massive positive in every other area of life, time to do the same with your exercise!

Put your trust in RESULTS, instead of machines that are already dinosaurs!

Twitt
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Thursday, 15th March

If we are talking so much about analysing the food and drink what you put into your mouth, we must realise by now how important the “little things” really are.

If you can chip away at every meal by simply making small changes, to achieve a MASSIVE result, then this has got to be a change worth making surely?!! Its not really about the massive overhaul that most people imagine either.

If we talk about having a plainer breakfast such as weetabix which means no additives, then that does not mean a “version” of weetabix such as the ones which honey coat or sugar coat the wheat. This I can assure you will turn this normally good cereal into a cereal that contains heavily refined sugar, or the porridge oats with apple pie filling-IT DOES NOT WORK OUT WELL FOR YOU FULL STOP!!

This may taste nicer but its only going to do you harm in terms of weight gain and elevated blood sugar levels. Also, it will keep your “sweet tooth” well and truly alive, making you rely on refined sugars the rest of the day.

Its like taking sweetener with everything, what you are doing is keeping your taste for sweet tooth strong making you prejudiced on the kinds of foods you are “willing” to eat!

If you are only willing to eat heavily sugared foods, then you have little or no hope in achieving your true aims and goals. This kind of eating and behaviour will undoubtedly lead to potential diabetes issues in the near future unless you modify your eating without delay.

When you look at the carbohydrate section on the nutritional analysis on practically every food you eat, if the “of which sugars” is almost or all of the total carbohydrate, then its never going to be any good for you, unless its things like fruit juice which I advised to dilute anyway.

The “of which sugars” part should be comparatively low meaning theres a slow blood sugar release, and doesn’t play havoc with your blood sugar levels. You want stability all day long in this area, meaning you have longer term energy and little or no risk of developing diabetes over time.

Make it your goal to truly analyse what you eat, you may think you are eating healthy but in fact, you could be consuming a lot of unhealthy sugar which will disguise all your good work in the exercise department!

Twitt
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Wednesday, 14th March

After seeing the need to write things down, lets analyse what you are writing down!

Start off with breakfast, do you realise that most cereals  contain too much refined sugars?

Most of the ones that actually come in cereal boxes are definitely too much on marketing, and contain very poor nutritional value. The worst of both worlds so you need to stop falling for it all!

Stick to porridge, shredded wheat or weetabix, the best examples of plain no added ingredients cereal that guarantee you a fine start to the day!!

Alpen type mueslis are another potential bad start for you. The no added sugar/no added salt variety can work well for you, but the normal regular variety cannot be classed as healthy!

If you fall for the “protein only” diets, and go for the bacon and eggs choice, then you’re not going to last very long being healthy, and you know this short termism is not really going to last for you!!! Plus, as i mentioned yesterday, bacon is on the worst list when it comes to saturated fat and meat that could possibly cause health problems for you in the future. A bad situation all round!

Breakfast should be a key start to the day, and will dicate usually how you eat the rest of the day?!! Start off well and you become more powerful and more focused, miss breakfast and you play catch up for the rest of the day.

Simply eating breakfast will be a very powerful start for you!!! If you do not eat breakfast, you will be keeping your metabolism in the slow lane, be likely to make poor food choices, and generally have a lack of structure in your day.

When i give an eating diary out and then filled in after seven days, seeing the breakfast part “missing” is a tell tale sign for me that the individual is not yet serious about their programme and we need to re-evaluate straight away!!!

Lets get serious and talk about the rest of the day tomorrow!!!

Twitt