Friday 19th November 2010

The colder weather to come for the next week (as cyril says) is actually a wonderful training tool and you should definitely celebrate it!!

The reason?

Your  body has to work harder to get up to its core temperature. What this means is that your body likes and even needs to be at a certain temperature to maintain balance. If your body’s temperature goes up even slightly, there will be health issues. It’s like when you were a child, you often had your temperature measured and were prescribed medicine if it was too high. You would even be taken to hospital if your temperature was really high!! Your body cannot function properly unless it has a balanced core temperature full stop.

So your body has to burn more calories in colder weather just to maintain itself at proper levels. This will not happen of course if you just stay indoors in front of the fire!! You need to get outside and DO SOMETHING if you really want to benefit so plenty of fresh air should definitely be on the agenda for you not only in the summer but colder winters too. I wouldn’t recommend you go out in the ice of course as that would be dangerous. As long as you’re sensible and use some solid routes with good footing, you shouldn’t have a problem.

The effect the cold has on your body is called a “thermogenic” effect. You may have heard of this word when it comes to “Fat-burning” tablets often sold in health shops etc, even supermarkets.

They claim to strip fat off you, but the reality is often an accelerated heart rate which in turn burns more calories. This is in my view dangerous and many of these tablets have been taken off the market. I could name you at least two big companies in the states that have been sued for hundreds of millions of dollars. The negatives can be extremely worrying and nobody wants to be putting extra strain on their hearts, thats for sure so beware these bogus companies and their claims!!!!

So in summing up, you need to get out there and have some fresh air, this will be your own thermogenic effect on your body in a NATURAL WAY. If you ever needed another reason to get outside, this is just another one of many so lets not just talk about it, lets get out there and do it!!!!

Thursday, 18th November

As the weather gets even gloomier, now is the time to bust out of all that by taking yourself to places you thought were long forgotten!

At 14, you probably thought you would be capable of anything for the rest of your life. Nothing was too much of a problem and you had high aspirations in just about everything!

At 18, this idea was probably reinforced very strongly!! You start to think that you are indestructible at this age, and anything you try seems to come off in your favour, physically at least!

At 30, you started to look back at 18 maybe as your peak, and some minor aches and pains started to come in. You may not be quite so quick as you used to be and everything is starting to become a little bit more of a struggle.

At 40, sport or any activity may have been a distant memory and you may be too embarrassed to ask the best advice on how to get going again. Annoying ailments such as bad backs, bad necks etc start entering your life and you sort of accept that you’re never going to be as active again.

At 50, health is probably very important to you because major aches and pains are there, and the risk of serious ill health rises significantly. 50 years of age in the now the most popular age to exercise and people in this age group are exercising in very large numbers. This is the age when finally, people realise that they CAN do something about the ageing process and what comes with it.

The facts are that the average 50 year old I train now is anything BUT average. There’s a test I like to do sometimes on the general public and it staggers me every time.

For example, if a 18-21 year old woman asks me to measure their body fat, it typically ends up being around 28%, don’t ask me why but that is the average number I usually come up with over a large cross-section in that age group.

So remember that is the 18-21 age group.

The typical female 50 year old I train right now would have a body fat of around 22%. Some a little less, some a little more.

This shows (I have the statistical) evidence to back this up that age REALLY DOES NOT MATTER. As long, as you approach your eating in a consistent and sensible manner, and you train regularly throughout the year, you WILL significantly reduce your body fat and put your health into a superior range.

It’s a shame it takes many people until 50 to realise it, but if you are this age and still treading water when it comes to health, there is a pathway waiting right now for you to achieve some major things in your life.

It all starts right here and sourcing the information required. Its all here so lets get it going!!!

Wednesday, 15th November

Use this opportunity to work even harder inside on your strength and resistance work. Some people buy a treadmill for indoors, what a waste of money when you get some cracking workouts inside.

If I want to keep it basic for myself and for everyone I train. I always think of working the whole body in one go to maximise the amount of energy and fat my body uses in the workout. If I wanted the easy option, I would isolate different body parts but I’ve discovered that’s the easy way out on so many different levels.

Right now, I’m all about discovering and proving which workout works best and it turns out those workouts tend to be like eating your greens as a kid. Those exercises that are best for you tend not be the easiest or even the ones you enjoy the most. They may be harder right now because they are very challenging and it may take your body getting to another level before you can do them without too much problem.

Anything that periodically takes you out of your comfort zone and drags you sometimes kicking and screaming to the next level is hugely positive for you. Don’t see it as a hardship though, see it as growth and an exciting time in your life.

If you’re one of these people who thinks your body declines after the age of 30, then im here right now to tell you that you’re wrong.

With a well-structured training and eating plan, you can literally improve each and every year, seriously I’ve seen that happen to everyone who takes their health seriously and takes action every week to look after their body.

The natural evolution for people who have such a great attitude is that so many good things happen when you attain very good health. Some people treat high energy levels, low levels of body fat and good levels of strength as NORMAL now. Most people however haven’t got that luxury so that’s why I’m urging your right now to take action and make health a huge priority in your life once again!!

38 days to Christmas so an excellent time to make it happen in a hurry starting today!!!

Keep your goals, change your approach

The goals you talked about at the start of the year should remain intact. If they have gone astray, then you need to change the way you approach your goals.

For instance, if your goal at the start of the year was to lose say 2 stone, and drop a couple of dress sizes, then how did you approach it? Did you really train a minimum 4-5 times per week? Did you eat well 6 days per week? Did you get to bed at a decent time every night in the week so you could keep your energy levels high for your workouts?

Also, when you did all of this, did you see real progress with your training? Did you get faster and stronger? Did things you found really hard at the start of the year suddenly become a lot easier as you got lighter and fitter? Did you get more energetic, did you become more positive in your outlook?

Did your self-confidence rise up to new levels, and what about your self-esteem, did you regain it even though at one time you may have thought you had lost it for good?

So 2010 could very well have been a stellar year for you? Or did it not really happen for you?!!

If it didnt work out the way you thought, then you can still keep optimistic goals, all you have to do is give yourself a reality check and get back to the basics that took you so far in the first place. If things come apart from the seams sometimes, don’t panic, re-evaluate what you’re doing and let’s get back to training with purpose, eating sensibly in healthy amounts, lets make sure your water comes in every day, throughout the day in small amounts, and you be back on the road to success in no time at all!!!

So whatever you chose to achieve way back in january, its not a lost cause at all, lets just re-focus and get back to the tried and tested things that really work for you!!

Monday, 15th November

This is supposed to be a dark time of year in terms of weather and light, but exactly the time of year to put in the hard yards and make the gains ready for christmas! I personally get excited by making so many gains this time of the year because of the lack of distractions. It’s monday and start of another week, but im very excited to see how i can get the best out of myself and of course, other people. When you get into a culture of trying to motivate and improve others, it rubs off on myself too and im fired up even in my own workouts.

The summer months are full of distractions and options on how to spend your time and a big contrast to right now. It stays light until 10pm at its best and brightens up early in the morning sometimes at 4.30am. The weather is usually up and down but mostly much warmer and sunnier than right now. For many, summer is the favourite time of year and with obvious good reasons. 

Personally i love the seasons and although lots of people hate this time if year, im serious when i say that right now IS EXACTLY the right time to put all your serious workouts in and really make some amazing progress. As ive been banging on for some time, we have this period up to christmas to really transform ourselves and reach a new standard that will propel us into a brand new body into christmas!!!

We talked about 12 weeks to christmas some time ago and now believe it or not, it is only 5 weeks saturday!!! This period has allowed me to get my focus and 100% and i can honestly say that my performance levels are at their best levels for a long, long time. This is true for most of the individuals i train too, never has so much scrutiny come into my training in terms of analysis and making sure people reach their goals. It really is that exciting!

I urge you right now to make the very most out of every day, the weather is very cold today but DRY, and thats more than enough encouragement for me to get going, get excited, get fired up, get energised and start the week with some absolute blasters of workouts!!!!

One thing you need to watch out for when the temperature drops is that you will gasp for breath more in cold weather. It’s very important to you to keep your workouts up to allow you to get used to colder and colder temperatures. This allows your body to adjust gradually and still keep your standards up. Get used to it because we have around 4 months of cold weather. There’s no reason to complain or put anything off, see it as a challenge and a chance to show how great condition you’re really in!!!