Most people start exercising for one or more of the “holy trinity”:
- To lose weight
- To get fitter
- To get stronger
Here are the most basic things to remember about how to achieve them…
Cerin
Changing behaviours and developing habits
I’ve talked before (click here) about having to change your behaviours and actions to improve your health and fitness. This is the first and most important step, and unfortunately is where a lot of people fall down. Luckily the boffins and head doctors have come up with a “map” detailing the 5 steps we go through to change our behaviours. And here they are…
An absolute beginners guide to gaining strength
People want or need to gain strength for a number of reasons, but they usually fall into one of two camps…
An absolute beginners guide to losing weight
It’s the new year and we have loads of people coming to the gym for the first time wanting to “lose weight”. There are 3 places where we lose fat. In order of priority, these are:
People with disabilities shouldn’t be in the gym
“People with disabilities shouldn’t be in the gym.”
That’s what I learned this morning and I’m still furious! Here’s the story…
Just a gorgeous photo…
Just a gorgeous photo…
Core Strength and Stability
Core stability and strength has been growing in fashion for a few years now, and most people have their own different idea of what it means, ranging from “the cure for all things” to “totally pointless and only for girls”. The truth is, people who say either of these don’t know what they are talking about. Here are my thoughts…
Why EVERYONE should train for performance, rather than their waist line.
Take a look at this news report here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8425161.stm
It backs up why I keep banging on about why people should be more concerned with their ability to perform physical tasks, and less so with just how they look.
Snow, practical training and simple head doctoring.
It’s snowing and another example of how practical training involving movement & variety is so good for us.
Latest quote to live by…
Keep an open mind and learn something from everything. I heard this quote from a most unlikely source the other day…
Assessments: Food diary and diet analysis
This is my first post in a while. I’ve been testing out my new diet analysis on a few unlucky guinea pigs and so far it is working out quite nicely! A study showed that most people underestimate their food intake by up to 50%! This means that however much we think we are eating, we’re actually eating up to half as much again!
Choosing a good breakfast
In my list of 10 simple food rules to live by, rule #2 is
“Always have a good breakfast every day.”
So is your breakfast a good or bad one?
Assessments: The Multistage Fitness (Bleep) Test
This quick look at assessments is on aerobic fitness. This is the ability of the body to process oxygen and perform physical actions. The classic assessment is the Multistage Fitness test…or the bleep test. Chances are you did this in school (and probably hated it!).
Recommended Reading: Precision Nutrition
There is a lot of crap information out there. We all got to be carefull what we believe.
But here is a place I have got a lot of quality info from!
Gym Intervention
My sister told me about these guys when she had a go….she loved it!
Do you recognise anything here?
I work in a gym and I do!
If nothing else, these should make you smile 🙂 (I cracked up at the “babys head” line!)
Stretching: Why, what, when and how.
Stretching: Why do it?
We all know stretching is good for us, and most of us ignore it or just go through the motions.
Here are a few things stretching is good for:
Training for health, life or performance…ultimately it’s all the same thing.
A theme I keep coming back to when training myself or other people is: “is this practical?”, and “is this going to improve my performance?”.
Basically, I emphasise practical performance over aesthetics.
But a lot of people argue:
Revolutionary, scientific, amazing tool guaranteed to make you fitter than ever!!!!!!!!!!
OK, the title is a bit overboard, but i’m about to go on holiday and i thought i’d try to attract your attention.
So what is this amazing new product and where can i get it from, i hear you ask…
Trick to help your skills based sport/event
My friend Karen is a very good swimmer and she train 5-6 days a week. In an event like swimming, you need both very good conditioning (so you don’t run out of puff and sink) and very good technique (so you don’t waste energy as you go through the water).
We were looking at Karens current training timetable and she cycles through “hard” and “easy” days each week. What this meant was, she would crank it up to 11 and go all out on her “hard” days, but simply ease back and go through the motions on her “easy” days.