Posted on

Monday, 24th March

A little known fact is that women recover quicker from their training than men.

The same with weight training or any other type of training.

Women produce more of the chemical that provides the energy to allow your muscles to work better, faster than men do.

Women also will experience less muscle soreness in the day after your workout, women will feel the soreness quicker but the pain and soreness will last more in the man.

This is what I have found over the years, in my experience a lot of men have had to have more time and rest in between workouts, while many of the women keep on coming back for more and recover quicker.

Another technical issue that separates men versus women reaction to exercise is that women will have a little more inflammation than men from a tough workout.

Your body then has to repair the broken down muscle tissue to build lean muscle tissue, and this is a great reason for your body to speed up its metabolism because it has to work hard in recovery.

This means your body will eventually burn more calories just resting 24 hours a day. When people talking about raising your metabolism, this would be a very good example so you are likely to stay leaner without working so hard for it in the future.

This is why strength training is so important for all of us to do, it sets us up to leaner, harder and strengthens our bones too.

Once your body does repair inside, the chances are that the same workout will not cause the same level of soreness again, and your body will become to crave strength work as the results start coming in fast.

Twitt
Posted on

Wednesday, 12th March

Methods of training can vary but one overall aim should never change-you should always aim to get progressively better.

This is a true measure of success and it’s not age dependent.

We have people in their 70’s and 80’s who want each year to add to their quality of life, through their exercise and nutritional programme and make it happen through steady progression in everything they do.

This state of mind encourages success.

I have met people who have been 35 years of age, and ready to give up on their bodies and want to somehow coast it to retirement! I kid you not!

This state of mind develops I think because they see so many other people doing it.

Changing your life for the better is not always easy, and many people’s experience of exercise is just walking into a gym and staying on a bike or treadmill at low intensity for 30 minutes or so. This is not going to be successful in really turning your body around and making you much stronger, much more flexible and more balanced.

Any exercise is great but surely we are capable of achieving more with your variety in exercise. The sad thing is most gyms put a load of machines in a room and expect you to figure out the rest? This is totally unacceptable in my view and you are paying a lot of money to have a guess on what you should be doing.

Not only is this unlikely to give you a good result, but it’s plain dangerous.

Before starting any exercise programme, make sure you have a solid plan that’s going to take you where you want to go. Also, make sure that plan is constantly updated to suit your progress as you go along.

Everyone develops at different rates, so your plan will change quickly along the way to suit your new found abilities.

Twitt
Posted on

Wednesday, 12th February

The ability to eat well in social settings is one of the biggest difficulties most people face.

Some people eat the likes of pizza, Indian/Chinese takeways, party food “just to be sociable”, this is what many of you have told me over the years. The same could be the said about the pressure to drink alcohol every single time you go out no matter what.

Absolutely nothing wrong with the occasional treat, it keeps you fresh and you shouldn’t have to feel you are on some kind of “diet”!

To make the change publicly to eating healthily in front of your friends, or at least not making “quite as bad” choices is a difficult path for some of you to follow.

It is though a powerful sign that you are prepared for people to see that you are on this healthy path, that you don’t want to eat the fast food on offer all the time, and usually people I train are pleasantly surprised how positive it goes down with their friends.

Changing your behaviour and associations with food and alcohol is always difficult, and people will have a few comments to say about your new choices in public, but apart from that initial change and surprise, after that others will almost expect you not to eat all the rubbish in future, even if they are piling in themselves!

To get into shape and the physical conditioning you want to really achieve, you have the change your lifestyle for good. There is no other way and everyone I know who has had the best results over the longer term has changed their lifestyle and will never go back to the way they were.

Nothing feels better than being fit and healthy, to being close to your optimum body fat levels, and being capable of regularly improving your performance levels.

Nothing can beat that!

Twitt
Posted on

Monday, 16th December

Your best memories of when you were in your best shape may seem long gone for some, but you need to start to use those memories to your advantage.

Your body always remembers where its been, when it was in shape, how well conditioned you really were, how fast you were, how strong you were, how tight your waist was, how much endurance you had, how good your muscle tone was, even the individual feats you were capable of.

This is all called “muscle memory”.

Muscle memory will be different in everyone, and everyone improved at different rates. This is why I always ask about your physical past.

It gives me clues on what to expect, what limitations you may have, and what exciting possibilities lay ahead!

Whatever condition you are in right now, you may be in your best ever condition right now, you may have got so far out of shape that you may not feel you can get back anywhere near your best, or you may be somewhere in between.

Whatever your situation, its entirely possible to get into that special physical condition you were once in, and to even improve on it.

Muscle memory isn’t everything of course, you’re going to need a lot of dedication, hard work and resilience.

Muscle memory will give you a head start though, so try and remember what life was like when you looked and felt your best, and focus your mind hard on getting back to those good days when your physical conditioning let you do anything you wanted to!

Twitt
Posted on

Tuesday, 10th December

If you are short of time due to the time of year, and most people usually are right now, then its vital that when you exercise, you REALLY make it count!

Going through the motions for an hour is not an option, challenging yourself to do the biggest “energy cost” exercises will be absolute key so you make the most of your valuable time.

Please don’t end up one of these individuals who spends endless hours of low intensity on the bike or treadmill. That type of exercise will do you good of course, but there’s a huge array of other options you need to get into that will deliver far better results for you.

For example, I always encourage people in the gym to stand up on the spin bike.

Simply starting by standing up for ten seconds in intervals, then sitting down for one minute, then, up for ten seconds again will put some intensity into the workout that you have never experienced before.

When you are able to stand up for 30 seconds, down for 30, up for 30 again etc, you know you will be doing very well and you will start hitting a very respectable level in spinning terms.

Plus this is far more fun than just cycling away endlessly using very little effort, and you will be far more likely to keep this activity up which is very important .

If you are weight training, don’t spend 5 minutes or so in between sets, try working on your lung capacity too and getting your heart rate up.

Weight training does not have to be just about strength. Weights can give you a much stronger heart and some added lung power, IF you cut down your rest in between sets.

Longer term targets for rest in between sets would be 45 seconds. You may have to reduce the weight you use initially, but you will eventually build that weight back up again as you progressively get fitter!

Twitt