How to get in great shape when you’re a parent

How to get in great shape when you’re a parent

This post is inspired by my new son Arthur Rhys Griffiths,👶🏻 he is 3 months old and my second child (first is my beautiful daughter Ruby you can see hanging off my arm). If you’re a parent you’ll know the challenges that come from trying to get in or stay in great shape when YOU are not the priority, you can even feel guilty when you do something for yourself. This is a big problem long term, what kind of role model are we to our children when we can’t look after ourselves.

I use the oxygen mask analogy with this scenario, if you’re on a plane and it starts having some major problems (touch wood this never happens to you), the oxygen masks will deploy. When this happens you’re advised to sort out your own oxygen mask before your children’s, this is because you can’t help others unless you help yourself!

Personally, I’ve been struggling with this the last 3 months, the reason I struggle is that the majority of my time is spent working from home as the majority of my business is online. I regularly get tagged in to look after Arthur which prevents me from working, I’m cool with this, of course, however, when you’re self-employed you’re always working and can feel guilty when you’re not. This result is my own time being sacrificed (gym time), I’ve been making it work to an extent, but sometimes only hitting the gym twice a week, this for me has just not been enough. Then when I have squeezed in the time I’ve not eaten correctly (or enough), due to time. I’m sure a lot of you can relate to this.

So what can we do? Do we sacrifice our time with the children? Do we train less?

My best piece of advice is putting a plan together, a simple plan that you stick with. 📝

Here are the problems I have and the new solutions.

Problem one - Taking time away from family to train.
The solution, to train when they are sleeping, that’s right! Starting tomorrow I’m going to get up at 5 am to go to the gym, everyone is likely still sleeping, my family and my clients. This prevents me from being stuck working or being busy with family.

Problem two - Having time to eat clean.
The solution, prepping food! I’m now going to get back on the prep wagon, I’ve stopped prepping food as I had time in the day to cook etc, this is no longer the case with my business growing fast and my family commitments.

Problem three - Missing out on family time due to work and gym commitments, I’ve structured and planned out my days and done this with my other half (better half), we have put a plan in place so that we both have regular gym time, eating clean time and taking care of the newborn time. Today, for example, I’m taking both children out and my other half is going to have some time to chill out, breath and hit the gym.

Inevitably this comes down to having help, support and a structured plan in place!

Now it’s your turn, have a think about the problems you have and possible solutions you might have to these problems.

Think who can help you (look after children for an hour).

Then put a realistic plan together and that you can stick with, the times can change, but the core of the plan wants to stay consistent.💥

10 Immutable Fat Loss Tips

10 Immutable Fat Loss Tips

The Internet is full of conflicting information, so here I'm providing you with 10 Immutable Fat Loss Tips, tips that have stood the test of time and are backed up by plenty of research. I believe that most fitness professionals, no matter what their background would all agree with these tips. Don't waste your time with the latest trends and meal replacements shake, just master the basics and start with these immutable tips.

What is the perfect rep range for fat loss?

How do I calculate my rep range for fat loss?

This is a very common question, and it’s not the first time I’ve touched on this subject.

Let’s get straight into it.

High Reps (12-15):

Burn more calories 

Medium Reps (8-12):

Optimise muscle building 

Low Reps (4-8):

Strength

Okay, so if my goal is fat loss, then it makes sense for me to perform a higher amount of reps to burn more calories, correct? Well, not really!

If you want to lose fat, you should be trying to develop a decent amount of muscle tissue (in the gym), the more muscle you have, the faster your metabolic rate. 8-12 reps are gold when it comes to hypertrophy (muscle development). You can very effectively hit all three mechanisms of hypertrophy (three mechanisms of developing muscle):

- Mechanical tension (high resistance)

- Metabolic stress (pump/cell swelling) 

- Muscle damage (stretch)

Okay, so if my goal is fat loss, then it makes sense for me to perform between 8-12 reps, correct? Well, not really!

Possibly the biggest factor when it comes to muscle building is mechanical tension, putting enough resistance through your muscles to force them to develop. You will need to use heavyweight; therefore, you’ll need to perform fewer reps (4-8 reps) to optimise this mechanism.

Okay, so if my goal is fat loss, then it makes sense for me to between 4-8 reps and lifts heavier, correct? Well, not really!

You’ll need to have plenty of rest between sets when lifting very heavy, so you won’t be burning a high amount of calories.

I can hear the shouts....”Andy……I’m confused…..How many reps will help me to lose fat??’

 

Well, you need an element of all three. You can include each element in each of your gym sessions e.g heavier at the start, or a more effective plan would be to incorporate this through phases /cycles. 

Example: 

- Month one mainly higher reps with the odd strength session

- Month two mostly medium reps with the odd bit of strength work

- Month three should be strength-focused, I don’t mean spending the full session training between 4-8 reps, instead start the session with heavy compound exercises like squats or deadlifts (after your warm-up of course), then increase the reps through the session. Once you come to the end of this phase you should have increased strength, that would be the goal of this phase.

Here is an example of how you could structure these sessions:

Month one full body example session:

A1 - Leg press - 12 reps x 3

B1 - Cable row - 12 reps x 3

C1 - 45 degree hip extension - 12 reps x 3

D1 - Seated shoulder press - 15 reps x 3

E1 - Lateral raises - 15 reps x 3

Month two full body example session:

A1 - Front squat - 10 reps x 3

B1 - Bent over row - 10 reps x 3

C1 - Lying leg curls - 10 reps x 3

D1 - Military press - 10 reps x 3

E1- Horizontal cable pull - 12 reps x 3

F1 - Dead bugs - 15 (each side) x 3

Month three full body example session:

A1 - Barbell back squat - 6 reps x 5

B1 - Cable pull down - 8 reps x 4

C1 - RDL’s - 8 reps x 4

D1 - Barbell bench press - 10 reps x 4

E1 - Cable tricep push down 12 reps x 3

F1 - Rowing machine 200m x 5

Now, a big thing you need to consider when putting your training plan together is how likely you are to stick with that plan, if you do the same session every single day then this will be completely soul destroying. You need to consistently mix it up (month by month) allow every workout to take you one step closer to where you want to be.

My number one best piece of advice

My number one best piece of advice

A guy in the gym asked me a really good question today“Andy if you could give once piece of training advice, what would it be?”

Now, tons of things came to my head, train hard, stay consistent, eat plenty of protein, don’t use Herbalife, lift heavy things, train your legs, don’t buy stupid fitness products like those weird abs stimulator things just because someone like Cristiano Ronaldo says he uses it……….All of these would have been good bits of advice……… but I didn’t say any of those, after about 3-5 seconds of thinking I said: “Track your training and nutrition”.

After I said it I was wondering if it was actually the best answer……. what is the best answer???

The more I think about it the more I think it was a good answer….. great answer in fact.

When you track you can see progress, before you see progress...let me explain. A lot of people get disheartened when they don’t look a certain way after a couple of months of training. This is because they are measuring their progress/success by body composition alone, they forget how much stronger, faster and how much their diet has improved. This is because they haven’t tracked their nutrition or their training, they don’t know how much fitter they are.

You see, training is a lot more enjoyable when you’re can see progress, if you focus a lot on getting stronger and getting faster, trust we when I say you’ll have a decent change in body composition. 

Do athletes train to look like athletes? No, they train to be athletes and their inspirational body composition is just a by-product of their hard work and consistency.

Most of us are naturally quite competitive, and although it might not be a good idea to try and compete or compare ourselves with other people, I truly believe we should always be competing with ourselves and constantly trying to better ourselves both psychologically and physiologically.

Why is the fitness industry so contradicting?

Why is the fitness industry so contradicting?

This is what happens to a lot of people…… Something happens that makes you want to get your shit together, maybe you try and fit into some clothes that used to fit and are now screaming.

You decide to take things seriously, a quick google search makes things seem relatively simple, but the next article you read completely contradicts the first one, now you’re confused and it doesn’t stop there, the more you read the more confusing its gets.

So why is this?

Well, as you know a large part of the worlds main objective in life is to make a shed load of money, and the way they do that in the fitness industry is by adjusting the facts slightly in an attempt to sell their products……or they just have no clue about human physiology.

You see, fat loss and muscle building is very simple, the confusing stuff is not that important and half the time it’s just marketing. It’s cool to know, but it’s not needed for 95% of gym-goers.

Let’s look at the facts:

Fat loss goals - Train hard, eat clean, make sure you’re in a slight caloric deficit (tracking is key). STAY CONSISTENT AND GIVE IT TIME.

Muscle building: Lift weights, make sure you’re progressively lifting more than you could in the prevues month (tracking is key). Make sure you’re eating a sufficient amount of food in order to put you in enough of an anabolic state to build muscle tissue, you need to fuel muscle building. STAY CONSISTENT AND GIVE IT TIME.

Often a muscle-building plan can look very similar to a fat loss plan, the main difference is the calorie intake and macros nutrient ratios. Regarding actual exercise choice, someone with a fat loss goal would likely need to do more cardio, but it’s not essential.

If you want to learn more that’s great, personally I’m always trying to progress my knowledge further, but you need to make sure you’re nailing the basics, STAYING CONSISTENT AND GIVING IT TIME.

Why walking is the best exercise you can do

Why walking is the best exercise you can do