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Tuesday, 22nd November

A massive amount of colds, flu you name it, its around in a big way at the moment, and a huge amount of people have got some illness one way or another!

This is the first big wave of illness to hit us this winter, and undoubtedly, not the last. Some people have already had it for a couple of weeks, some people havent been out of the house at all.

We usually talk about how being fit makes us look better and lose body fat and weight, but its exactly at times like this that we need to talk about the importance of a health and fitness programme for our immune system.

Without a healthy immune system, our bodies would break down and make us vulnerable to the biggest and most threatening illnesses. This is why hospitals have become much more responible for cleanliness and not passing germs/viruses on, because when you are ill in hospital, your immune system is down and you are highly vulnerable to infection, which has even killed some patients in the past of course unfortunately.

So if you are one of those who are ill or have been ill lately, being healthy and feeling just “normal” again would be an achievement! Weight loss and fat loss may not be on your priority list right now, and getting your immune system back up to speed is the most important thing you can do right now!

I bang on about fresh, natural healthy foods where possible, and these happen to be the most important foods when it comes to boosting your immune system. These are often called “superfoods” and they are becoming more and more appreciated, and you can usually read about them at least once a week in the national newspapers.

These foods will form the foundation not only for your immune system and how healthy you feel, but for your entire future success, they are that important!!!

Twitt
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Monday, 21st November

Under five weeks to go now and i find there is huge momentum with everyone i train now coming up to the festive period.

Most people i know want to be in their best shape for the end of the year.

There has been a cultural shift the last few years too. Years ago, christmas used to be all about the parties begining at the start of december. Now because of the changing culture of people not going out so much, and there not being so many parties for whatever reason, people’s health has become much more important again, which is great news!!

People are also becoming much more aware of the health in general too, more check ups and more preventative measures are being taken. People are also more aware of the need to be in shape in december to avoid the folly of going on some kind of faddy drastic diet in januuary.

Most people realise now that if you’re in shape during december, then theres no need to diet in january, maybe lose a few pounds but no monumental effort needed!!

Once you manage to get over the “let’s get in shape for this or that season/holiday”, you will really understand that its the best overall strategy to be in shape ALL YEAR LONG!!!

Your body will thank you too!!! One of the most destructive things you can do to your body is diet hard and lose lots of weights, then don’t care for a while and pile lots of weight on. Then the more times you repeat this process, the more resistant your body becomes to losing weight in the future, which is a very negative situation!!

So under five weeks left, you don’t need major efforts, all you need to do is use common sense, eat sensible portion sizes and try to keep your food as natural and as fresh as possible. No salt, very little refined sugars and little saturated fat.

Start your week off well, stay positive and you’re off to a flyer!!!

Twitt
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Friday, 18th November

Finishing off the week in style is always a good feeling, and if you have started to adopt some of the habits i suggest, then you should be improving quite a lot by now.

Its usually this session, the last one of the week, that usually defines the way we feel about ourselves going into the weekend. If we have a big productive session on a friday, we usually feel good about ourselves and end up on a big high.

Like a football match, we feel we are only as good as our last session!! If we have been consistent for weeks and months, our last session is likely to be first class unless we have felt ill or something that hinders our performance.

I feel exactly the same way when i’m giving out the session and instructing it.

If i don’t give value for money, and i don’t produce quality sessions, then i would be out of business straight away. Unfortunately, in the fitness industry there are a lot people who rely on marketing and telling you in the media how “good they are and how they can change your life”. Some people do believe them but are often let down when they find out there is little substance to their claims. These people often then go to another job or industry peddling their outlandish and false claims!

I always laugh at the charlatans who claim they train so called famous people. I remember jenifer lopez’s trainer telling all the world’s media how he “created her famous bum”, WHAT RUBBISH AND PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE to create that shape without her genetics!

Then 6 months later there was another trainer claiming the success, and last year i saw yet another trainer trying to claim the same success! The facts are that these trainers only usually work with these people a couple of months, and these people or so called celebrities and go off to do their own thing. You cannot sustain a business on such short term ventures.

I try to value my everyday people who have given back a lot to me emotionally and physically for many, many years, and any trainer who has been in the game with a sustainable clientele for many, many years will tell you the same thing! If i mentioned so called famous people i trained or other media/TV ventures, i would consider myself detracting from my every day, every week, every year, every ten years individuals i have been training, some have been training for over 15 years straight now which is all credit to them!

So back to your training, judge yourself by your last session or week’s training. Unless you have been ill, this shows exactly where you are RIGHT now and what you need to do to improve from here. There has never been a more important workout than today so lets get out there and really give it your best. I feel exactly the same because i will be giving out many before the weekend starts and i want to make them of huge quality!!!!

Twitt
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Monday, 14th November

Some more grim news on the health front for wales and the UK today.

Never has there been so many diseases been brought on by poor diets in the country.

It seems as if there has been an even further deterioration in the nation’s health, and lots of different factors have been blamed.

From lack of money, more people in the poverty trap than ever, more people eating fast food than ever, more people not exercising, a lack of activities and sport in schools, a lack of activities in the community and a poor participation rate in just about anything linked to moving around and being active.

It seems as if all the government initiativeshave mostly failed despite the high visibility, and “ticking all the right boxes” or so they claim.

Personal responsibility takes a big part too, you cannot make someone exercise if they clearly do not want to.

You cannot make someone eat well and healthy if they do now want  to on their supermarket shops.

What we CAN do is offer every opportunity to those who want the chance to be fit and healthy, and therefore be far more likely to  AVOID serious disease and early death in some cases.

There should be more incentives to those at work to exercise and eat well, its getting bigger in america but still not so big here although i am developing a couple of organsiations as i speak.

There should be far more visibility to those sections in supermarket that are healthier than others.

There should be tax relief to those organisation such as gyms, fitness centres, fitness providers to contribute as much as possible to those who think they cant afford the gym.

There should be even more educational programmes starting earlier in schools, and more money put into school canteens so they can offer healthy options, instead of the rubbish they offer now.

They should offer cookery courses to parents, all parents not only the ones that are obviously struggling, we are all learning and it wouldnt hurt to learn more.

There are endless things we can do, we are not short of options, all we need is the government to work with all of us who know whats really going on!!!

Twitt
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Friday, 11th November

Another follow on from yesterday, its important to give this programme some time and not expect results overnight!!

The results WILL come but you have to take into account a lot of factors.

Some kids at 14 are more physically developed than others, and therefore likely to respond quicker than others to this programme and may become outstanding athletes by 15-16.

Some kids take until 17 0r even 18 to really fill out like they hoped due to their physical maturity. This is down to nature but as long as the individual works hard, they will develop into an outstanding physical specimen soon enough. Thats not to say that the person who develops later will be any less strong, their tendons and ligaments will develop amazingly well through weight training, even if their bodyweight lags behind, you just have to give it time and give the programme a chance to work.

The temptation is that the young rugby player/football player panics and gives up on this programme after a few weeks if he doesn’t look like the incredible hulk instantly! I personally guarantee amazing progress in this programmme as long as a proper eating programme is also employed too. 50% of the equation to be in great shape and carrying the kind of muscle mass for modern day rugby is down to good nutrition, and can make the difference from average results to outstanding results. We will touch on that next week.

So now we have got the right guidelines out of the way, and this IS the right way to do things, patience is all you need.

When you train hard, you break down muscle tissue and that needs replacing by eating lots of good quality food high in protein and carbs. People are scared of carbs these days but you wont  grow inless you pack them in, and you wont have energy unless you keep packing them in, this is a fact.

The third element is always sleep, unless you sleep well, you can train until the end of time and you wont grow. Getting to be most nights allows the rugby player to grow and recover from the weight training and sets up perfect conditions to progress quickly.

Nutrition strategies next week………….

Twitt