Wednesday, 24th April

Visualising your progress and the way you want to perform and look has long been a habit of the most successful individuals.

For example, you hear of many sportspeople who will visualise or imagine how their game the next day is going to go.

They visualise themselves scoring goals, scoring tries, winning races etc.

Studies have shown that these techniques can be very successful, and helps you focus far greater on the performance to come.

You can do the same with your workouts. Try relaxing and going through your mind how your workouts going to go. From the exact moves you’re going to perform through to how much weight you’re going to lift, how you’re going to feel when you complete what you want, and how much effort it’s going to require.

If you are going to get into amazing shape, imagine what it takes to get there. If you really think of what it’s going to be like, then you would imagine how important it is to live a healthier lifestyle, eat better foods, drink more water, not drink so much alcohol and generally be far more choosy in your nutritional habits. You know that it takes a bigger effort to drop body fat and look very healthy, rather than feel and look overweight.

Visualising is one thing, but doing is another so let’s get down to it today and make it happen!

A succession of things needs to happen to look and feel your best, and you can start them now instead of imagining it. There’s a very good chance that you will soon look like exactly who you want to be if you live as healthy a lifestyle as possible, it can and WILL happen if you make the change right now, and be consistent with this change until you reach your big goal!

Wednesday, 3rd April

The constant need to improve your programme is vital.

How many times have you been introduced to new exercises, a new way of working out, you have tried fresh new thinking in terms of exercising and it all seems to work very well indeed, and you actually start getting some very strong results.

Then what happens next can be a gradual easing back of your schedule, back to the old exercises and the “old” routine you used to go through.

Then you tend to get the “old results” you used to have.

Not even the lack of results seems to put you off, because it feels “more comfortable” to be in the old programme, its what you know and “that’s the way it is”!

This shows that perhaps the “new way” wasn’t shown to you in an attractive enough way, it wasn’t shown in a new way at all, and no programme making it fun was never set up for you.

Im not saying that doing new things is everything either, in fact anyone who has trained with me will know I mix the new stuff with some tried and tested old school methods, but the main outcome has to be that you improve no matter what.

Improving regularly makes you automatically much more motivated.

How can you not be motivated when your clothes are feeling a lot better, you have a million times more energy, your body is feeling tighter than ever and not many days go past when people seem to be complementing you on your appearance. THIS is where true motivation always come from.

So back to the point, all of those new ways of doing things shouldn’t be forgotten about, simply because its easier to go back doing the same old thing all the time.

Have the courage of your convictions to stick with it, really get inspired by the improvements to your body and actually aim to get better every single week, it can be done and I know dozens of people doing it every single week!

Thursday, 14th March

Anyone who trains with me will know that we work on the latest scientific research of training all of the time. Things change and there’s always exciting things happening.

Then you will know we focus so much on balance, brain muscle communication, agility, strength and speed in particular, which will lead to endurance, very good conditioning and outstanding health (which is the most important thing!).

Which leads us to the much discussed conversation on which is better? Free weights and natural movements or machines?

Free weights and natural movements will always win because they go with the body needs to NATURALLY move. The movements we do mimic movements we do in daily life, and this is of vital importance to get you through the rest of your life in good shape and avoid serious injury or immobility problems, which unfortunately affect most people as they get older. Prepare well by doing a whole host of natural movements on a daily basis and weekly basis, and your long term health will seem much brighter.

Machines on the other keep you working on one plane of motion, and can lead to repetitive strain if done over a long period of time. Machines because of their limited range of motion will give you exactly that, LIMITED results, limited mobility and limited flexibility, all far more important than you think.

Its a shame that when these machines started being really popular in the 80’s, that most gyms still consider them viable.

The science of training has moved on light years since then, and most machines apart from a couple needs to be thrown in the scrap.

The sooner you get out of machine based training and get into whats happening in the real scientific forms of training, then you will improve in every single area of your body, your balance, your reaction time and your strength and agility!

Tuesday, 12th March

Spring has formally started for me in terms of getting outside and working out hard in the fresh air. You may find that a strange comment on another brutally cold day, but the facts are that it is light at 610am to get some great cycling, and running workouts in. It is light also to around 620pm which opens a whole host of outside options in the evening!

I love using the agility ladders outside, hurdles, harnesses, cones and markers to create all sorts of new speed and agility workouts, and this fresh weather is great for getting the parachute on and testing our sprinting prowess to brand new levels and limits.

If you have been stuck in an office or a car all day, then there is nothing more liberating that flipping tractor tyres, getting the sledghammer out to give your core a thorough going over, and all of this work will certainly blow away all the cobwebs you would have built up from being stuck in an office all day!

All of this outside training we do at the gym in burry port in particular, is the best for stress relief you can get. This is the feedback i get all the time, FROM MALES AND FEMALES.

Its a shame, a big shame that many women restrict themsevles to “traditional” female training in most gyms. Doing the cross trainer or the treadmill or the bike, and maybe a couple of sets with some dumbbells is criminally unimaginative in this day and age when exercise science has moved on so much!!!

I tell people all the time that the majority of individuals i train are women, and the hardest trainers are usually women too, often putting the guys efforts in the shade!!!

This is why training outside is great for men and women, and the exercises i mentioned will bring massive benefits to both, and this is what matters to all of you!!!