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Monday 5th September

The first week in september takes us all back to our brand new school year, and the start of a very big and nervous time in our development. Its an exciting and an uncertain time and this is when true progress is always made.

How often have you had this feeling when you trained last?

When was the last time you thought about your upcoming training session and what you were going to do?

When did you last reach a fitness goal?

When did you last fit into your all your favourite clothes?

When did someone last complement you on the way you look?

When was the last time you hit a personal best in your workout?

When was the last time you enjoyed your workouts?

When was the last time you had a good week of eating, and by that i don’t just mean 2-3 good days either!!!

When was the last time you had the mental resolve to follow things through and reach a goal?

If you can’t answer these questions very well, then you badly need to look at what you are doing and why you may be falling short of every goal you really want to achieve!!!!!

September for me is all about being fresh in weather and outlook!!! Its not about settling into some kind of  “cosy” routine because thats not going to get you anywhere, its really not!!!!

September is the month to get you going and use the nearly 16 weeks right up to christmas day to the very best effect, its about managing your time better and making the most of your energy, your time, your inner drive, just about everything thats going to help you reach that goal that drives you deep within, so lets get it going again in spades and really pile it on right up until christmas!!!!

Twitt
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Friday 2nd september

Friday hits you in a big way, good or bad?

If its in a good way, it means you have worked hard all week, you are still planning a good workout today and you should be pleased with your workouts and ultimately your progress. A tight week of eating with all of this will make all the difference too, and all of this adds up to you doing your very best, thats what we encourage on here and has to be the ultimate goal-constant weeks of progress and thats what excites me!

This is the friday that “hits” me in a big way!!!

The other sort of friday that upsets me and should upset you are the “dormant” type of weeks.

What i mean by that are the weeks that you don’t think really count somehow. Perhaps you think just because you have a week off, somehow it doesnt matter and you can just start again next week!!!

Its a free country and a democracy thank god, but those types of weeks are going to set you back if done every other week.

Remember for every week you miss, it takes 1-2 weeks to even get back where you were!!! This is a fact you should consider right now and whether you are switched on to what you can achieve or not?!!!!

So if you are finishing off a week of not doing much, that week of inactivity and probably inferior eating habits will push you back and give you another reason to give up in your quest to get in great shape, or make that any kind of shape!!!

So we are at friday, and what kind of huge impact have you had on your  body? Its your brain that ultimately decides whether you’re going to be healthy or not, so have you decided to get into shape or are you just going to moan about all the reasons why you’re not?!!!!

Twitt
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Thursday 1st September

One of the biggest changes I have seen in the fitness industry over the last 20-30 is the size of gyms. They went from a small little community gym to the massive operations that are owned by the huge companies.

A lot of people joined the biggest gyms, and they made a lot of money.

The problem was that the big gyms didn’t realise that their memberships were not going to stay faithful for as long as they had hoped.

As has been previously discussed on here, due to a lack of attention and usually experience, the staff were not able to cope with the massive numbers joining these “super gyms”, and because profit was the main driver for these gyms, they always employed the minimum wage staff who were usually not very experienced.

The customer soon got fed up of not seeing results and constant turnover of staff, and biggest of all, the draconian contracts they had to sign, sometimes for 1-3 years in some cases as Watchdog has shown!

Then in America, then trend started to turn dramatically around 4-5 years ago. Despite offering cheaper memberships just to get people through the door, retention rates dropped to 3-5% which is devastating on any business.

When you add in the fact that the overhead for these businesses was £300 thousand a month, you had a business model that was about to crash and burn!

If you take a look at the business pages of any paper these days, you will see many casualties who can’t pay their rates and rent on their gyms, and often losses of millions of pounds.

The fact that they have 20 treadmills and bikes in one room doesn’t impress so many people anymore, but it does cost a SERIOUS amount of money and that’s whats hurting them.

A recent study done in America confirms this trend. 8 out of the top 10 gyms are much smaller, independently run gyms offering much more specialist training and advice. Results are always the number one offering from these places, instead of a competition of how many treadmills and bikes they can offer.

Its no coincidence that these smaller gyms are actually making a much bigger profit too! Its great that results matter again these days, and that training on endless machines is dying a slow death!!!

Training only on machines is not  very efficient for the body, and can hamper your results, get back to free weight and freedom of natural movement, you will spend less time training and have double or treble the results!!!

Twitt
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Wednesday, 31st August

One of the most heartening stories we see in the papers yesterday and today was the probably signing by Manchester City of Ex-Manchester Utd midfielder Owen Hargreaves.

Hargreaves has had a varied career after being born in canada, he then moved to Germany and was a major player for Bayerrn Munich, and from there became a much valued player for England, gaining international respect and becoming the first player named on the team sheet.

He then joined manchester utd and after a very impressive and promising start, was limited to just 26 appearances.

His last comeback was limited to just a few minutes when he pulled his hamstring.

Manchester Utd decided not to offer him a new contract this season, despite him  offering to play for them for free!!!

He then famously shot a video of himself training and the levels he is currently at. To say the levels he was pushing himself to were very high would be an understatement!! You can see the video on youtube and just put a search in for owen hargreaves training video. He did much of this training while he took part in rehab in los angeles, physical rehab i meant of course!!!! This took him 3 months and spent 3 hours a day mastering certain movements all over again, especially around the knee area, where his intitial problem was.

You will see a lot of different exercises, and many of you who have trained with me or are training with me right now will recognise a lot of the exercises.

It turns out that these are the most efficient exercises for your body and make sure you are training in the most results based manner we know. I am always researching new  training and the great thing we are able to do now is do far more in a shorter period of time purely down to exercise selection and execution, and the focus is always on self-improvement and develpment, this never stops!!!

Read the owen hargreaves story, it will inspire you to get out there again and do something worthwhile!!!

Twitt
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Tuesday, 30th August

Is this the famous lull after bank holiday or is it a starting point to another turning point in your life?

Are you regretting the end of summer or are you looking forward to the start of another exciting season?

Are you “barbecued out” or have you a craving for good lower fat and lower sugar foods?

Have you written of the summer or have you used it  as a springboard for success in the autumn and up to christmas?

These are all choices that you have and have had all summer! You can see how important that choices are, and even more important is making the right ones of course!!!

You can follow the right path or sort of do both. By that i mean you could be considered neither a healthy eater or a bad eater all the time, you could be considered neither fit or unfit, its this state of limbo that is never really satisfying and definitely never brings you any kind of lasting result!!!!

If you do go on the right path, then its very important from a mindset perspective. If you eat healthy and train hard, your mindset will be that of a fit individual, and therefore be very likely to make continuously good choices. This path is not always to keep to but you will be much more aware of the benefits constantly, because you will be “wearing your results”!!!

By this statement, i mean that whatever you put into your body, you will be showing off in terms of physical appearance. Follow the right guidance and you will look very good indeed. Only you can tell how you feel inside, so you will be the only one how good it feels to live a healthy lifestyle, and internally the benefits you receiver each and every day!!!

Twitt