Christmas is coming!

Christmas is coming! 🎅

Yes, I’ll be the first to say it!

This is the best time to get super shredded!

Wait! What? Summer is the time to get shredded….. Isn’t it?

Okay, yes, maybe, personally I love being in great shape and feeling awesome during the festive season as it when friends and family come to visit and I know that I’m going to relax a bit in December. That means we now have two months (until the start of December) to get in that great of a shape that we can afford to gain a couple of pounds over Christmas and new year.

Here is a very effective plan you can follow to get Shredded for Christmas:

Step 1️⃣- Set yourself a goal! It can be a goal weight, dress size, body fat %, total cm’s, whatever it is, just make sure you can track it.

Step 2️⃣ - Break that goal down into weeks or months and make sure you’re on track each month/week.

Step 3️⃣ - Book the gym time and food prep into your calendar (with reminders), these times can change, but never cancelled.

Step 4️⃣ - Buy yourself a nice dress/suit and shirt that you wish to wear and fit in for Christmas and new year, and make sure you fit into it on Chrismas day (no gift recite as you will hit that goal!).

Step 5️⃣- Tell your friends and family about your new goals, tell the postman, your butcher, the receptionist at the gym, the guy in costa who always puts a cool leaf in your coffee, even post it on Facebook, this will get it out in the open and it will allow more people to help and support you towards this goals.

Do we like eating clean?

Do we like eating clean? 😶

Hmmm, now this is a tough one to answer 🤔

If you put in front of me a Big Mac meal, full-fat Coke and a Mcflurry vs chicken and broccoli. I would rather eat the McDonald's, I'm not going to lie, I'm human, we all are, plus McDonald's is nice, really nice, so damn nice!😬

However, I know that if I consumed that crap consistently I would have a host of health issues, such as an increased risk of heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, certain cancers, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, increased body fat, the list goes on🤢

Now, if you have the odd McDonald's it will not make you fat, or unhealthy. Just like eating one plate of chicken and broccoli is not going to make you lean.

The main thing is being balanced and if you want to tip the odds in your favour, you're best off avoiding too many McDonald's meals 😧

A big part of having a healthy lifestyle and consistently pushing forward is having a bit of good old fashioned self-discipline💂‍♀

Do you want to eat that McDonald's?
Of course, you do, who wouldn't?
Should you eat it? 
Will it negatively or positively impact your goals?
Maybe if you eat the McDonalds it will reset your mindset and refocus you for the rest of the week!
Maybe not though!
Ask yourself these questions and make a judgment call based on your goals, if you’re one of my clients you will likely need to track this and answer for it👨‍⚖

As much as at that present moment I would choose the McDonald's, I would much rather choose the healthy eating lifestyle as it gives me more energy, it increases my performance, increases my energy levels, optimises my recovery and gives me a general feeling of awesomeness 😎

Stick to the 90% rule - 90% clean, 10% not so clean.

“I wish I was naturally fit!”

“I wish I was naturally fit!”

“I wish I had good genetics!”

Now, as much as people can have very gifted genetics, if they are in great shape they have obviously had to work for it too!

Many people will look at someone who is in great shape and undermine all the hard work they had to put into their physique, by saying it’s all due to their genetics.

Trust me they had to work for what they have, and work hard!

If you want to achieve great results then you need to put in the work!

If you find it hard to gain muscle and you say it’s your genetics, maybe you’re right, but maybe you’re not working hard enough. Can you tell me if you have lifted more this week than last week, have you even tracked this? I’m sure you’re in a calorie surplus in order to build sufficient muscle tissue, yes? Are you even tracking this? 

Alternately, you might want to focus on reducing body fat and toning up, I’m sure you know how many calories you’re consuming each day? Ohh you don’t know? Maybe you’re eating too much, or just eating too much on the weekends.

These might sound very patronising, it’s because they are, now I wouldn’t say this directly to someone, because it is patronising and I’m not a d#*k. However, let me say it indirectly to everyone as it does give people something to think about and if you’re currently struggling that much that you have convinced yourself that it’s due to your genetics then maybe you need to have a realisation, the realisation that if you put in a little bit more work or train a bit smarter then this could be enough to stimulate amazing changes.

#TRAINSMART

Fat loss made simple.....

Simple fat loss

Train hard - Your body will not change unless it needs to, you need to force it to change. Prioritise developing muscle tissue in the gym, the more muscle you have the faster your metabolic rate as your body will need to fuel that muscle.

Avoid drinking too much alcohol - Okay I didn't want to put this on here, just because I like to focus on what you can add into your training and nutrition, and not what you should take away. However, I do often look at peoples weekly diet and think to myself "If you didn't consume 900 calories worth of alcohol (5 pints), followed by the 1,200 calorie kabab, followed by a 1,335 KFC (Big Daddy Box Meal) the next day (hangover food of course), if it wasn't for all that, I would be looking at a good week".

Track progress - Unless you're increasing volume, intensity or frequency over time (progressive overload) you will hit a plateau with your progress, you'll need to track progress to make sure you're consistently developing.

Control calories - You don't need to starve yourself, you simply need to be burning more calories than you're consuming.

Rest and recover - You need to give your body time to develop and recover, 7 to 8 hours sleep is ideal.

My training from a young age......

Training

Okay, so I don't like to talk about myself much on here, I think there are far too many self-obsessed people within my industry, but let me breakdown my training experiences for you all.

👶🏻I started when I was about 12 doing press-ups and sit-ups...why??? Because I wanted to look like Bruce Lee of course!

👱🏻Once I hit about 14 I started lifting weights and running

💂🏻Aged 16 I joined the army and focused my training around that

At 17 I joined the battalion boxing team and became all about boxing

🏔18 I climbed Mount Kenya

🔫 I was in Afghanistan when 19 and geared my training around strength and conditioning when not on patrol

🏋 When I came back from Afghan I became an All Arms Physical Training Instructor, with my job being to keep everyone fit and healthy I wanted to look strong, but also wanted to make my workouts look cool as hell, so I did mainly bodybuilding with the odd CrossFit workout for some added conditioning. I left the army and continued to train people, but I did this as a civilian

In recent years, I have focused my attention on becoming strong as hell and competed in a strong man competition, where I came second in my weight class

💪 Evidently, I have had a varied training history and enjoy a bit of everything.

You see, fitness isn't just about looking good naked, it's not just about having big muscles, being the fastest or the strongest, although we can all always pursue these kick-ass goals. In my humble opinion, it's about the experience and constantly striving to better yourself. Stronger than you were yesterday, faster than you were last week and, yes, if those abs make a guest appearance we can't complain. 

I have no doubt that you can reach your desired body composition goal if you set your mind to it, but if you want to maintain it then it needs to be fun and part of your lifestyle

Happy training!

Are you exercising or training?

Are you exercising or training?

Are you TRAINING or just exercising?

If you want to reduce fat, build muscle and develop an athletic physic, YOU MUST TRAIN🏋!

Now this sounds obvious, the problem we have is people just don’t train, THEY JUST EXERCISE(🦄).

🦄EXERCISING looks like this - You arrive at the gym, you have a quick recce, you spot some equipment you think would be nice to use and would give you a good workout. That is about as advanced as most people go. This can work, especially in the short term, but eventually, you’ll need to get a bit more specific.

🏋TRAINING looks like this - You have a set goal and a set plan to get you to that goal. You know exactly what you need to do for each and every session, you know the exact reps and sets you need to do, you know how much weight you need to lift and how much you lifted last time. You have a nutrition programme that is going to fuel your workouts to optimise your performance. 

📈👨‍🔬The main thing you need to look at when it comes to TRAINING is progressive overload👨‍🔬. This is necessary with both muscle building and fat loss, the more muscle you have the faster your metabolic rate because your body will need to fuel that newly founded muscle.

What Is Progressive Overload?

“Progressive overload requires a gradual increase in volume, intensity, frequency or time in order to achieve the targeted goal of the user. In this context, volume and intensity are defined as follows: Volume is the total number of repetitions multiplied by the resistance used as performed in specific periods of time.” 

That, my friends, is straight out of Wikipedia.

When exercising, your body will adapt to a point, but if you want to make further development then you need to exert greater demand on the body by TRAINING and TRAINING SMART.  If you don't progressively overload the muscles by forcing them to do more than they're accustomed to, they have no reason to make further adaptations. Simply put, your body will not develop unless it needs to!

📝If you want to start TRAINING and not just EXERCISING, you need to be tracking absolutely everything.

Implement these simple changes to your training if you’re not currently following a set and structure regime:

🔵 Increase and track the resistance (weight lifted)

🔵 Increase the volume -  sets multiplied by reps and then multiplied by resistance.

🔵 Increase training frequency - i.e. the number of times you’re training. Remember, there is no such thing as overtraining, just under recovering, so make sure your nutrition supports the increase in frequency.

📢THE HUMAN BODY WILL NOT CHANGE UNLESS IT IS FORCED TO!!