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Monday, 24th September

Here are some good rules to follow on your training, assuming you have some experience already, and not just starting off in your very first session (although i will go over that process soon in future posts).

1. Don’t get over-obsessed with lifting too much weight. Most people, especially males will be obsessed with how much they can bench press, how much their friends are lifting and so on. The reality is it doesn’t matter! All that matters is that you are improving regularly and you are using proper form when you perform each set, and don’t get carried away. You should feel the muscle working on every single exercise, i would go for 3 sets of 8 reps on each exercise. Doing 12-15 reps is only suitable for those with different goals and 3 sets of 8 works big time for nearly e veryone i know trust me!

2. Try resting for 45 seconds in between each set. This will enable you to keep your heart rate elevated, keep a great tempo going and is great to keep an aerobic effect, and if your lungs and heart are working well, then your heart is always going to be in great shape. You may have to drop the weight on each exercise until your conditioning rises to meet the extra challenge, but once you do, your body will adapt and you will slowly build the weight back up.

3. Use perfect form, i need to tell you again!!! If you don’t do every exercise in good form, you will suffer in many ways, you will develop a bad back, putting injury chances much higher in all areas, and your body simply won’t respond as well when you don’t use perfect form. Those who “cheat” on each exercise never get anywhere, or certainly don’t reach anywhere near their potential!!! Lighter weight done perfectly will benefit you 100 times more than using too much weight using terrible form!!

More tomorrow, there’s plenty more to come regarding doing everything the right way, saving you months and possibly years in your training journey!!!

Twitt
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Friday, 21st September

Finishing off the week well is just as important as starting it well!

This is when your balance in terms of your training week becomes all important.

I have this conversation all the time with people, what workouts to do and when, and this can make a huge difference to one’s improvements and the speed of progress.

For instance, i have the question “which exercise is the best one to  do?”, or “i don’t want to get too bulky from weights”, or “i go to spinning classes, isn’t that all i need?” or “we discussed in work the best exercise we should do and we decided it should be running”!!!!

Let’s get after these questions and answers straight away so you don’t make the same mistakes as these people may have done!

First of all, there is not ONE exercise that’s the best, or one exercise that will get you into shape quicker than anything else, it just can’t happen that way. The answer i give to these people is that EVERYTHING is need to get into great shape, and to work your body in as many ways as possible.

You need to do your weight training/resistance training AND your cardio (running/walking/cycling etc) AND your balance/core work involving bosu balls, swiss balls, balance pads, rollers etc. You can do some speed and agility work, rope exercise, the list is endless really and will definitely make sure you do not get bored, so you’re constantly moving on.

You WILL NOT get bulky from weights, it doesn’t happen unless you eat vast quantities of food and take steroids, so fear not.

Spinning is great fun, we do plenty of it in the gym, so i am a big fan, but its only PART of your programme. Using spinning exclusively will not get you into your best shape, use it wisely but only a small part of the big picture.

If you think running IS the best exercise, then what happens if you have a bad back? Or bad ankles or feet? Or you simply cannot run for whatever reason? I have taught many people to run properly but again, it’s only part of the big picture, and you should divide your efforts between lots of different forms of training.

This way, you get maximum results, maximum variety, never get bored and you consistenly get fitter, stronger and healthier!!

Twitt
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Thursday, 20th September

What a great subject contributors leighton and jean have brought up and discussed!

They talked about yesterday about the merits of fasting, and once again its getting popular, on some non-scientific notion that you clean your system out by fasting, and SOMEHOW, you get your body ready to drop weight quicker by the fact that your body is empty and will “therefore” take the new good food “better” and get the weight loss system moving quicker.

As a coincidence, a client of mine recently was given the hard sell on a cruise she has just come back on. I informed her that this method has no scientific proof, none whatsoever. I then asked her how much this so called seminar cost her? She said it was free but they did try to sell her drinks such as the ones you talked about, liquid meals and shakes that would somehow transform you into some kind of body beautiful!!!

The fasting and then shakes diet has never really gone away, and takes several different forms and they are all around us.

Number one on the list of shake diets is lighter life, number one as in giving you false claims about how it will affect you.

Sure that the birds of a feather star pauline quirke will have lost seven stone and well done to her. The problem begins when she starts to eat properly again, and the piling of the weight happened to her co-star in the same show, while she was following another faddy and dangerous diet. Hope it doesn’t happen to her but studies say that 97% of diets DO NOT WORK!!!!

You cannot live on 200-400 calories a day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is the fasting period am i right?!!

Then when you take the shakes onboard, they may claim that you are taking onboard a few hundred calories but please consider this!!!

The NHS and any doctor will tell you that any calories under 1200, thats TWELVE HUNDRED will be considered as being MALNOURISHED!!!!

Imagine spending up to £40o a month on shakes and bars, only to be putting your health in serious danger!!!

This subject gets me very angry as you can tell, but i hate to see individuals and groups having their lives DESTROYED by these illegal criminals in my eyes, and based on false claims and tall tales!!!

Make your decisions based on science and common sense and you will be on the right path!!!

Twitt
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Tuesday, 18th September

We talk all the time about making huge performance gains, and how you can enable yourself to reach impressive levels of fitness, but sometimes its all too easy to forget where we first started.

It is usually a nervous time when you first start exercising, and we all remember that particular period of our lives.

You may or not be surprised that there is an increasing number of individuals who start training who have blood pressure problems, heart disease, diabetes and bone/joint problems, i personally have seen this trend go up sharply over the last 17 years.

This shows that the starting point for everyone can be remarkably different.

So if you are just nervous about beginning to exercise, imagine how hard it is to start the health and fitness journey with a known disease?!!! Some people never overcome this mental hurdle of actually making a start, and this is a shame. I call it a shame because i have so many people who have started with various ailments, and have gone on to achieve some pretty special things.

If you think its impossible for someone in her fifties to do triathlons after high blood pressure worries when she first started, then think again!

If you think its impossible for someone classed as physically disabled to learn how to run for the first time, then guess again.

If you think its not just possible for someone with deep breathing problems to run a full marathon in 8 months, then you’re going to be wrong because with the right training, the right eating and right guidance, it can be done!!

So you can see that the so called “starting point” is very much different for everybody, and wherever you are right now, there is absolutely nothing that should put you off!!!

Twitt
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Monday, 17th September

First of all, a big shout out to all of those cyclists who took part in the Gower bike ride on sunday, some found it harder than others and the overall feeling was that it went very well. Another message of support to the lady who has knocked down by a car on the Mayals Road, let’s hope she is okay after being airlifted from the scene. This hammers home the dangers of road cycling and how aware we need to be.

Cycling in general is matter of simply “doing it” !

When you first start learning to ride a bike, you simply do that, you learn how to handle your bike, the ups and downs, the fall offs, the twists and turns, and eventually you move on to using gears, and you finally discover how to go up hills, as well as the fun part of going downhills!

Then when we cut a very long story short, and you can do all of the things necessary to have full confidence to ride on your own, we then move on how to actually improve your performance, to get stronger and faster on a bike and how to last for longer.

This is a journey that can last a lifetime, and one thing you learn for sure as you get older is to ride “smarter!”.

Selecting the appropriate gears, hitting the right revolutions per minute (i always like 80 rpm), and learning how to use “drafting” to benefit in terms of work you have to do, using the wind to your advantage and benefitting from other cyclists in front of you, or even cars sometimes!

We can talk about all of these techniques and ins and outs of cycling, but the actual DOING IT is how you really develop, how you really learn how to handle a bike, and how you can end up doing such fulfilling charity rides such as the Gower bike ride yesterday, move on to triathlons maybe, or just set your own individual goals, such as your first century as one of my clients did the other day, all for his own personal satisfaction.

Don’t waste a moment and enjoy your ride, it’s all a matter of getting out there!!!

Twitt