Thursday, 28th March

If you think you can do something, then you are right.

If you think you cannot do something, then ou are also right!

If this does not make sense, then you may not have got the meaning of this statement.

What it means that your mind is the all powerful factor in the decisions you make, especially when you decide to take no or no take on a challenge, however beneficial that challenge may be for every area in your life.

How many times have you not taken something on because it may have been too scary, too uncertain, too hard, too uncomfortable or you were worried about what “other people” would say?

I’m sure all of us have done this despite us knowing the end result would so beneficial to us. That decision not to even try has held most of us back many times.

When we do decide to take a challenge and we actually go through with it, we still live through the uncertainty, we get through the hard times and we definitely feel uncomfortable a lot of the way through it, so you can see a pattern of feelings here that either stop us doing things or make us/allow us to reach our goals.

So it all starts with that first quote again, its up to us whether we take it on because its US after all that decided whether we can do it or not, its US that decided to go through with it or duck the challenge for a “quite life”!

If we think we can do something then, we switch something ON in the brain that allows us to use all our resources to get the job done, and we are very likely to see it through and actually achieve this big thing in our lives.

It sounds simple, but it really comes down to that decision we make right at the beginning of the thought process. Your exercise programme and your health depend on you believing and being positive throughout.

If you think you can, then you probably CAN do it!

Monday, 25th March

The biggest thing you can change this week would be getting salt out of your diet. You get enough sodium in most foods, and overdoing it with salt can be a really bad idea.

Adding salt to your foods is a cardinal sin, and this one will hold water and fluid in your body like nothing else! Fluid retention is unpleasant and I know a lot of people get it, getting rid of salt will get rid of it for you.

Cooking with salt is something that many people consider “natural”, the same factors apply here too. Adding salt to your foods is strongly linked to high blood pressure problems, water retention and other serious health problems. Salt added to foods that make them highly processed are causing big problems around the world, and nows the chance to turn back from that road and fire on all cylinders and reach new levels of performance and health!

In fact, there was a big story in the press at the weekend about salt being linked to more deaths than sugary drinks, this is a serious charge when you consider all the terrible press that sugary drinks have had lately!!!

When you get salt out of your diet, straight away you may notice your food doesn’t taste as nice, but these feelings will go soon enough, and when you get used to cooking without salt, you will never go back to your old ways!! It would be like going from having two sugars in your tea to no sugar overnight. Tough to start with but you will never go back to adding the sugar would you?!!!

Refreshing that salt is getting exposed in the press, after getting away with it to a degree compared to sugar and saturated fat!!

Time to change right now!

The benefits of no salt go all the way across the range, and from a health standpoint, as well as looking and feeling a lot leaner, salt has to go and it needs to go now.

Friday, 22nd March

Most people accept that when they get older, then automatically they will gain weight, slow down a lot, become full of aches and pains, feel as if they have no energy, feel a lack of optimism and I find the most common is a feeling they cannot do the things that they took for granted when they were younger.

Most kids take it for granted they can run and dodge.

Too many people over 30 even these days, feel as if they have lost the ability to do these things.

Most people who hit the gym in their teens and early 20’s often will work hard, and aim to get in the best possible shape typically for their summer holiday.

Many I speak to in their late 30’s and 40’s and older, never even seem to have this ambition anymore.

Lets hit you with a few facts.

I train people from 7 years of age all the way to 80.

Not a single one of them hasn’t kept on improving every month and every year, not one of them.
Part of this success is re-educating individuals on what they are capable of, rather than what they have become “used to” and have now settled for a lower quality of life, and a lower quality of health, and back to the first example, used to NOT doing anything like what they were used to when THEY were 21 years of age!!

As soon as they realize that they CAN do anything they want again, its at that exact moment that their progress really improves at great speed!

It can be a slower and much more gradual start than when you were 21, but the longer term results can be even much greater.

When you train smart, you will learn to run faster and why, you will learn to get stronger, much stronger and how to keep it that way and why we do it apart from looking good, your endurance will go to new highs, you will develop a much stronger core than ever before and why its going to be so important for you to keep it that way.
Endless possibilities as you get older, so lets stay optimistic and aim high.

Thursday, 21st March

An interesting question from someone I train today.

When I give out home workouts for individuals to do, many here will already know its usually 6-8 exercises, done for a total of 3 times. Most people tend to thrive and get serious results from this type of training, and then by the week we tend to increase the numbers for each exercises.

For example, if you can do 5 press ups in week one, and with gradual improvement you can do 25 press ups in week 6 or week 8 even, then you have made serious improvements. If you apply this to each exercises, and theres no reason to doubt that, then the across the board results can be staggering!

This has often been the case over the years, and this type of training forms the foundation of my home training.

The question I had was “could I do all of the exercises numbers in one go?”, what was meant by that statement was if the person was asked to do 3 sets of 10 press ups, then could they do 30 in one go? I have talked about the one set theory before, and one all out effort can work very well indeed, but it is very tough to do.

This is why I tend to spread the effort over 3 sets. This is also why I don’t do MORE than 3 sets, I want to spread the effort out over 3 sets, but I don’t want to lose intensity of the workout by spreading it out TOO much.

So the answer is that most people 3 sets of an exercise is just about right, but if you have the inclination and want to get your workout over much quicker, and are willing to put a huge effort in, then doing one set of everything can work incredibly well!

Monday, 18th March

A great day to be Welsh on saturday, an unbelievable result and great to see a great team effort coming back so strong, especially after the nightmare against Ireland in the first game. This shows unity, teamwork and a deep seated belief.

Monday is the same for them though as it is for us. Time maybe to still reflect on the weekend, but our minds need to be very much on today and the week ahead. The professionals from saturday will today be back into their stride. They will be eating right again, taking in plenty of fluids, ready to train well and look forward to the weekend’s games.

You should have that same attitude too. It may sound fanciful to you, but getting a professional attitude will keep you in shape for a lifetime.

Those of you who are used to peforming at a high level most of the time, will be used to eating the right things at the right times. You will be used to taking onboard enough water throughout the day, you will be getting to bed early in the week to make sure you recover from your workouts, and this is very much close to the attitudes those boys on saturday are used to showing in their normal daily lives.

This is what i try to teach individuals in their training too of all ages-professional training techniques that will get you results far quicker, and just as importantly, in a totally safe way that won’t stress your joints!

You have all the information now to train and eat like a pro, never has there been an opportunity like right now too get into the shape of your life!!