gym – Page 10 – Never Give Up PT

We Are Always Learning Something New.

One of the qualifications that I wanted once I passed as a Personal Trainer was one enabling me to teach boxing. Those within the industry will know that there are lots of different qualifications associated with boxing and martial arts and the Ricky Hatton boxing instructor certification was a popular choice among my PT friends.

But I wanted to make money from my qualifications. I was about to start my PT career at Pure Gym in Leeds. Most of their members aren’t Ricky Hatton and don’t aspire to be. Why would I want a qualification to spa with Tyson Fury costing three grand when I’m more likely to have Tina from Morley paying me to shift a few pounds? I opted for the Boxing For Exercise qualification at a quarter of the cost and it has served me well. I have trained in boxing and kickboxing previously and, as I gained my knowledge at teaching it on my course, many of my trainees have had success at incorporating kickboxing into their fitness programs. I also teach Boxercise which is a very popular class.

Imagine my surprise when, having just passed my Boxing For Exercise course, a 7 ft night club bouncer wanted to vent by doing some pad work after his shift. Pure Gym in Leeds is open 24/7. I was getting hammered by a raging bouncer at 3:30 in the morning. It wouldn’t have been so bad but I had Tina from Morley booked in at 6 before she started her Tesco shift and all I wanted is my bed after Vinnie Jones had finished with me.

Because of my previous training as a punter at various kickboxing dojo’s and then becoming a PT I had lots of demand for pad work. I’ve trained pro/am boxers since qualifying but I never did bother with the Hatton Boxing Instructor certificate. My bread and butter has always been the regular gym goer, like me, wanting to achieve a few fitness goals.

The job often throws in an interesting case now and again though. The Throwing Event athlete training before his season begins again. The American Footballer looking to get stronger and the aspiring Olympian skier who I helped rehabilitate after she had shattered her knee.

So a conversation I had the other day had me perplexed. A lady in the gym was asking me about a certain exercise. Happy to help I showed her the correct form. I then asked her if she would like to join my coaching platform stating it is free to log in and you might find it useful. She scoffed at this suggestion insisting that she did CrossFit five times a week and is very good with food so she didn’t need to join my platform. I smiled, accepted her answer, and went on my way

But it’s left me quite amused! I have coached athletes that have gone on to be very successful in their sports including a Team GB development squad member. Nobody should feel that joining a fitness platform is a cry for help. It’s actually the opposite. It’s an acknowledgement that you are always learning something new. Whatever our goal and whatever our motivation is to reach them I find fitness blogs, YouTube clips, training articles, new workout ideas and coaching platforms an excellent way to develope ourselves in getting to where we want to be.

Team GB’s Thea The Skier on the road to recovery

It really doesn’t matter if you are Tyson Fury or Tina from Morley. We enter a boxing ring, a gym or a running track with the same goal…to do better than the day before. We want to continue achieving so that we can meet our goals. So whether you’re an athlete, a CrossFit enthusiast or a total newbie in the gym, my coaching platform might be for you.

A Non-negotiable

Sometimes a friend will say to me, ‘You’re training again?! Are you not scared of injury or over training?’

I train Monday to Friday for an average of 90 minutes each session. That’s 7 and a half hours of training in a week consisting of 168 hours. It’s the least I could do. So no, I don’t over train. And injury happens when you don’t train or when you train and do it wrong.

Before marriage and kids came along I would easily do double the amount each week but I didn’t have a clue. My 20 year old self wanted to out lift everybody else whatever the cost, even after a night out of smoking, drinking and shoving any recreational drug into me I could find. Yes, you’d still find me in the gym the next day damaging my lumbar spine. But because I was not training correctly, it didn’t matter how long I spent in the gym. My results were very average for a young man who had a naturally lean physique. I wish I could train my 20 year old self now.

No matter how tired my kids are, as they go to bed they must brush their teeth. Also, on getting up on a morning they brush their teeth. It’s a non-negotiable. They even have a penguin egg timer so when they flip it they keep brushing for the two minutes that it takes for the penguin to reach the bottom. Just 4 minutes a day. But it is so important to their health. They have 23 hours and 56 minutes each day to ruin their teeth, so it is important to…A. Do it, and B. Do it correctly. Hopefully this routine will teach them the importance of clean and healthy teeth and they will become mindful of the other 23 hours and 56 minutes.

This is how I view training. I wouldn’t stop brushing my teeth because I couldn’t be bothered. I wouldn’t start peeing my pants because going to the toilet takes up too much time. Just like performing the every day tasks like brushing my teeth or going to the toilet, training is non-negotiable.

For all of it’s aesthetic rewards, keeping a healthy mindset is what keeps me driven. Once the penguin is on the move, I have no choice.

I used to have bad days. Like really bad. Days where I couldn’t get out of bed. These were the days that brushing my teeth didn’t matter. Taking each breath at a time was my only priority. Coping with my demons until perhaps the next day became more bearable for me to move. Sometimes it’s the little things like getting to the bathroom that are actually a massive step.

My experiences are why I have my non-negotiable rule. Training isn’t about wanting to do it or not. I just do it. And if I get a phone call to say my kids are sick and need picking up from school, or I have a flat tyre, or my lucky squatting pants are in the wash and I can’t train that day, I’ll make up the time on the next day.

I’m a busy working dad. Life happens. Sometimes I go to squeeze out the toothpaste and there’s literally nothing left. But teeth are precious, so I buy a new tube as soon as I can and my kids will brush their teeth at the next convenient time.

‘Life happens’. I get that. Tomorrow is my first day back into society after my Covid isolation. It’s been a tough week. But we have to make sure that, just because we acknowledge that ‘life happens’, it isn’t what is inscribed on our headstone.

Tomorrow, the penguin will start its timer. I need to be ready to go.

A Slice Of Life

My initial thoughts on posting about my home made pizza was going to be on how many calories you can save yourself by creating it at home rather than a takeaway pizza. There’s a potential of a 500 calorie reduction by making it yourself. The leading pizza takeaways are around 2000 calories for a 12″ Margherita.

But I thought, nah, if you can eat a whole 12″ pizza like I just have then calorie saving isn’t going to be on the forefront of your mind right now.

So then I thought about the money savings. I made a pizza for less than one pound. To get one the same size and the same toppings delivered to your door is easily close to £15. That is a massive saving. In fact, for the same price, instead of buying in a pizza each week you could subscribe to my online fitness coaching with 24/7 PT support. I’m not hot or spicy but my jokes are always cheesier than a quattro formaggi.

Anyway. I digress.

I want to explain how I feel as I make a chilli con/sin carne, curry, pesto pasta or a pizza. Not only do I know exactly what goes into my dish, which is reassuring in itself, but it makes me feel happy. Sometimes I sing along to the radio. I’ve also been known to dance in the kitchen to my kid’s horror. I’m a cross between Jamie Oliver and Fred Astaire in the kitchen once I get chopping a bit of cucumber.

And it also gives me time to think. I think about my family. I think about what I have to do tomorrow and the week ahead. I think about stuff that I’m unable to think about when I’m busy doing other daily chores. I think about not slipping on the sliced red pepper on the floor as I attempt the moonwalk.

Cooking, for me, gives me some time out. I’m very average at it. I have my set specialities which I listed above and that’s where my culinary skills end. But it doesn’t matter. I enjoy it.

Lots of people that I have worked with regarding their weight control either through not eating enough or eating too much isn’t about them having a lack of knowledge around food. Lots of them can cook better than I. They know roughly the nutritional value of a carrot compared to a chocolate bar. It is their emotional eating habits that have taken over.

Eating isn’t always about when you are hungry. Often the strongest food cravings come at our most vulnerable emotional state. We do it without even thinking about it. Even if we are trying to curb our bingeing urges, there’s alway a McDonald’s advertisement not too far away to keep us on our toes. And that’s where cooking our own food can help.

We need to try to develope a much healthier relationship with our food. No food is ‘bad’. We don’t have to feel guilty all of the time. You don’t blow your fitness goals on a calorific meal and you haven’t got an eating disorder because you miss a meal.

Eating something that you have made can be rewarding, you are able to control your calories (and macro’s) much easier, prepare meals for the week with batch cooking and you get to handle real food. Have fun with it. Try making your favourite dishes. Learn about the qualities of each ingredients. Smile as you do it and, rule number one, move like Jagger.

The Doughnuts.

After working years in social care I knew that I could transfer my skills into fitness coaching. One thing that led me into social care in the first place was the ability to have empathy. From being a kid I was labelled a ‘thinker’ by my teachers. I thought about stuff and, yeah, sometimes this led to anxieties I still have to this day but it also gave me an insight into other people’s thoughts.

The poverty in Africa, the Russia and Ukraine issues, the Afghans climbing onto the wheels of the plane as it set off, Covid, Brexit, the energy crisis, the little girl in Bradford who was murdered by her parents, the young man that I supported who would repeatedly hit his head as he entered another seizure, all seem to occupy my thoughts regularly.

Will they get a meal today? How desperate must one be to cling onto an aeroplane in mid take off? I wonder if that young man is still alive?

I’m not a worrier. There’s a difference between being a worrier and a thinker. I think about small ways in which I can help. I know that I can’t change the world, but maybe I can make someone smile or feel better about themselves. Just like when I was in social care, if I could be a Personal Trainer for free I would be. I genuinely love my job because I see people improving their lives. Even in my days as restaurant manager I had to be front of house to see a customer take their first bite of something delicious and a part of why we wanted an open kitchen is to experience the customer’s enjoyment at being in our restaurant. Getting paid is good. Providing a service that brings a smile to someone is priceless.

I’m having quite a lot of thinking time at the moment. I’m halfway through an isolation period due to testing positive for Covid. And my wife and two children are too. Thinking whether to get changed into regular clothes on a morning. Thinking if the boys should do their spellings today or not. Thinking about keeping my glasses on or putting my contact lenses in. Pretty big deals when you can’t leave the house I’m sure you’d agree!

But there’s another big thought. I was following my training program along with a calorie controlled nutrition plan since the beginning of the year. Where does this put my training regime? I can’t get to the gym and although I have a few bits of equipment at home I have nowhere near the weights that I were reaching in the gym. So I’m fine with waiting a week to resume my training. But what about my diet?

The qualities of empathy and the ability to put myself in somebody else’s shoes means that I would never be an Insta PT. I’d much rather put a picture of me holding up a pint of beer than one of me topless and flexing. I made a good support worker because I felt the pain and the anger of a young man with a brain injury. It could have been me. I make a good PT because I have all the same issues that the gym members do. The Insecurities. Am I too fat or too thin? Does this shirt still fit me? Should I eat this doughnut?

Ah yes. The doughnuts. All 3 of them.

I’ve just had 3 of the sugary balls of loveliness. In real life, I don’t even like sweet stuff. In isolation…get in my belly!

My nutrition plan has taken an unexpected turn. I’m fairly relaxed with my eating aiming at 80% high nutrition with 20% of ‘fun food’. But this week I’m probably at around 60/40. I’m realistic, which is another good PT trait. I know I’ll get back to my usual focused self once I’m set free again.

My message to myself and anyone else who feels like eating three doughnuts if they want to is do it! That doesn’t mean doing it again and again, creating unwanted habits. But if you feel a bit shit, then get it out of your system. We’re not super human. We have feelings. We’re not robots. A big doughnut hug is fine now and again.

Not allowing yourself moments of Time Out will be detrimental to your overall goals. Ok, so my macro’s are pretty crappy this week. So what? It will have absolutely no effects to my overall health, wellbeing, hypertrophy and strength goals in the long term. They were great doughnuts, but my long term goals are too precious to ever want to repeat that any time soon. I train people exercise regime’s, rep ranges and movement, but I also train people how to find their precious goals. For somebody to truly progress in their health and fitness journey, they need to find that precious thing that is far too valuable to give up. And no lockdown, isolation, illness or doughnut will ever ruin it.

Thrust Your Way To Success!

From the conversations that I heard at PT school I knew that the majority of students were expecting to qualify, earn big money, drive flash cars and own big houses. And maybe if you want to apply for coaching jobs at a Premier League football club then you can do. But there’s another way and it would mean selling my soul. I have seen popular PT’s doing it throughout my career and, to be honest, it’s not something I could bring myself to do.

They’ll go easy on their client’s legs and core because, let’s face it, legs DOMS hurt.

During the consultation phase of the trainer/client relationship it often gets brought up by the client that they hate squats and deadlifts citing that it sometimes hurts their back. When I ask them to perform a squat or a deadlift, 9 times out of 10, I can see why it hurts their back. They’re doing it wrong. In fact when I observe most of the members doing a squat or a deadlift it hurts my back just to watch them. And the majority of these members are male.

Rather than address this issue, knowing as a PT that these essential compound movements would massively improve their chances of success (whatever the client’s goals), they avoid them. Sometimes, a PT won’t put their client through something that they are uncomfortable doing because they want to retain the client. Avoid deadlifts, instead let’s pump up the nightclub muscles (biceps) for an hour. Keep the client happy.

I’m all for keeping a client happy. They are happy when they feel themselves getting stronger. They’re happy when they discover new skills. They’re happy when they achieve new PB’s and they’re happy when they see results. Sometimes, it means coming out of their comfort zone. But I won’t blow smoke just so they don’t leave me. My clients WILL have to squat and deadlift.

You’re wanting to lose a few pounds? Ok let’s squat.

You want to lose some belly fat? Ok, let’s squat.

You want to run a marathon? Ok, let’s squat.

You want to exercise to help you through depression? Ok, let’s squat.

Linford Christie had his student sprinters perform squats before their sprints in training. If they could get 13 seconds after doing a 100 squats, imagine what they could achieve at the Olympics. Team GB aren’t too shabby. They’re doing something right.

The issue with squats and deadlifts with men mostly (in my experience) is their inability to activate their gluteals as easily as the women do. Females spend much more time training their glutes in search of a rounded arse. They might give 10 minutes to a cable facepull towards the end of the session but the first hour is often leg dominant. Of course, the men want a broad back and rounded pecs so that’s their dominant area. They’ll sit on the leg extension machine for a few reps so they can say they trained legs.

Ladies love the weighted bridge, AKA the hip thrust. And they’ve every right to. They work. Which is why I will prescribe these for my male trainees. Not only do they help with the everyday functioning of the body, but they give you a good arse. They might not look cool for men to do unless it’s body weight bridges in the stretching area, but as long as we get glute engagement I’m happy. When I go into the free weights section and start laying down, thrusting myself at a barbell the strange looks I get is amusing. But I’d happily enter a ‘best arse’ competition with them. I’d win.

So I’m not the coolest PT. I don’t perform the go to exercises to pump the biceps up for a couple of hours and I wouldn’t do that with my trainees. But I will perform the exercises that keeps me at a healthy weight, that cures my sciatica and makes me stronger. I’ll perform exercises that will enable me to get in and out of a bath unaided when I’m 80.

And not only will I be independent at 80, but I’ll have the best arse at Evergreen Manor Lodge Care Home.

Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff

Moving to Scarborough was one of the best things I could have done for my family. We are by the sea and we literally just have to open our bedroom curtains to see it. My boys play football on the beach, go for walks in the beautiful surroundings and attend a good school. We needed to get away from City life.

But the initial move was a very difficult one. As we were selling our house in Leeds and hoping to buy our house in Scarborough my mum died. She had been ill with cancer for a number of years and eventually she lost her fight. She was 62. My dad was an absolute rock for her every step of the way. She was diagnosed with breast cancer when she was 43. My age now. They were still young. My mum was still young when she died.

Eating pizza. Not sweating the small stuff.

Within months of my mum dying, we left for Scarborough. My dad had lots of family around him. His brothers and his mum, plus my mum’s family. Had he been alone, our decision to go ahead with a move might have been different.

Scarborough isn’t a million miles away from Leeds. A couple of hours on the A64. But with busy lifestyles and a pandemic to deal with we haven’t seen him loads. Fleeting visits both ways every few month perhaps. So I was delighted when we managed to arrange my dad and my grandma to drive over this weekend. It’s always lovely to see my grandma and, despite the list of aches and pains she will tell us all about, she has a great sense of humour. Well, she laughs at my jokes, so she must have.

My grandma, as usual when we see her, said that she would pay for our meals. It’s what grandparents seem to do. I don’t argue. My mind turns to the menu!

It won’t be a fancy restaurant. We’ll be with an 8 and 5 year old. It would be lost on them. Plus, a decent pub with a play area would be nice so that the adults could catch up. Back to thinking about the menu…

I am currently looking for a caloric deficit in my training schedule. Ideally I will lose 2-3 body fat % in the next two weeks before beginning a strength phase. It’s tight. But I’ve been on track all month. Now, I either restrict myself on the occasion where I see my dad and Grandma for the first time in months by ordering the salad, or I get the double cheese burger, onion rings and fries and break the whole calorie thing into the whatthefuck.

I tell my trainees that you shouldn’t sweat the small stuff. If you leave the track then bloody well enjoy it and get back onto the track with no regrets. Don’t regret a slice of cake, a chippy tea, a packet of crisps or a kebab. Enjoy what you enjoy! I’m going to take my calorie thing into the whatthefuck. I’m focussed enough to enjoy the burger, onion rings and fries, enjoy it, and move on.

And that’s the key. You can still be a focussed, determined individual and still break the rules now and again. I have goals that I’m passionate about. My training regime is tough. I demand a lot of myself. But a part of being human and not an algorithm is that I am a husband, a father, a son. Sometimes, the computer says yes, give me the bloody burger!

So don’t sweat the small stuff. Enjoy food. Enjoy training. Enjoy life. We’re not here forever.

Wise Human?

I’ve been glued to a book recently called Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind. Human nature has always interested me, so to read a book that was as informative as this detailing our ancestor’s habits had me gripped.

One thing that strikes me as I read about our Homo Sapien ancestry is that we haven’t developed quite as much as we think we have. A couple of million years ago we developed new ways to communicate, to travel, to hunt, educate and pray. Much like we are doing now. We still fight diseases and find ways to ‘cure’ our illness from viruses. Our ancestors were doing that back then, though I don’t think that lockdowns or masks were ever a thing.

And one part of our make up that is still very much the same is our need to be physically and mentally active. The only difference is that our ancestors HAD to be physically and mentally active. They had to hunt for food. They had to run from danger. They had to fight to protect tribes and land. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t survive. But they had to do that. Now, today, we have a choice. But the fact is that our human bodies need to do it, whether we choose to do it or not is a different matter.

We thrive both physically and mentally when we are active. And when we train, our best results come from moving in a very similar way to how we would have moved millions of years ago. Lifting, squatting, pushing, pulling, running, walking, swimming, climbing, throwing are all the things that we have been doing for years and years. We have become very good at it. So good that we build arenas so that we could watch others perform them. But it wasn’t just kept to a select few people who we could watch, buildings were created so that we could fill them with equipment and apparatus that everybody could use.

Yet as these buildings were being build for our convenience, another type of convenience was becoming very popular. What started out as hunters or farmers catching or growing food and selling it in their villages has turned into shops, restaurants, supermarkets, fast food chains, takeaway’s and UBER. We literally don’t need to leave our house to find food. Our brain, unless we are in the small percentage of people in poverty in the western world, don’t fear hunger or worry about our next meal. We can click our fingers and it will arrive on our doorstep. Our instinct to grow, fight, hunt and kill our food has been lost. Not such a bad thing, I hear you say. And you’re right to some extent, but in the UK I am sold beef from New Zealand, strawberry’s from Egypt and bacon from Denmark. I don’t want to see cavemen carrying an axe and chasing a boar down my street, but nor do I want my food to travel across the world to reach my plate. At least our ancestors kept it local.

Because of our desires to have our convenience, we become impatient. In the gym there are ladies who want Beyonce’s ass or men wanting Tom Hardy’s pecs with no thought about genetics, a plan or a time scale to when this might actually happen. They just want it now. But UBER might do just about everything for us, they’ll even take us to the gym, but they won’t get us what we want. That takes discipline, dedication and knowledge. I doubt our ancestors could make a spear and throw it 100 yards with perfect precision first time either, but they had to become disciplined, dedicated and knowledgeable or they wouldn’t have survived.

In the UK we have some of the highest numbers of obesity and depression in the western world. Convenience foods, fat burn pills, diet fads and the celebrity culture all contribute to it. We are overwhelmed with it. So as much as we have advanced as people from a million years ago, we still can’t get to grips with who or what we are. We put fire crackers up our arse when our gladiators reach a final. We have operations or do restrictive diets because that’s what a Love Island contestant does. But we are very willing to abuse them on social media if they fuck up. The equivalent of Cesar giving the thumbs down in Ancient Rome. It was a brutal society then, it’s a brutal society now. We call ourselves Homo Sapiens, meaning ‘wise human’. We’ve still got work to do on that one.

So for all of our advances in this world, we need to keep learning and reflecting. As a society absolutely, but also individually. We don’t need to access the negative convenience that we do quite so much. An Anti vaxer/pro vaxer pisses you off on Facebook? Log off. A cold beer in the fridge? Drink a pint of water. And if there’s a takeaway on your route home today, drive straight past, go to the gym and run like a sabre toothed tiger is chasing you.

The Man In The Mirror

Without sounding vain a part of my gym goals is to look good. I don’t particularly want to look good to anybody else except the guy in the mirror who keeps looking at me with an unimpressed look upon his face. I don’t think I’ll ever really please him. Some days he’ll give the thumbs up, but more often than not he’ll tell me that I look like a sack of shit.

I know that I don’t really. I know that if I follow the science, the methods that work and my knowledge on training in health and fitness then I’m doing pretty well. But that fellow in the mirror tries to derail me. He tries to get me to sack off dry January, order another takeaway, abandon any sort of discipline and watch Loose Women instead of going to the gym to train.

Those who see me in the gym don’t realize that I have a very unfriendly face ready to frown at me as I get home to look in the mirror. They see the PT. The go to trainer with a few tips and tricks to show the gym members. The motivator. I’m good at what I do so I can pretty much PT myself. I AM the PT and the motivator to lots of people and I’m all of that to myself too with great success. No matter what HIM in the mirror says. I’ve got him under control. He doesn’t control me anymore.

But for years he did control me. I guess, without ever being diagnosed, you could call it body dismorphia.

I was never bothered about going thin on top as a young man. I couldn’t control that so it just never affected me. I love a shaved head now! Even if I was given hair tomorrow I’d probably go for the exact same style as I have it now. But what has always troubled me is the stuff I can control. If I am in charge of it, then I want to do something about it. I can control my weight and my body composition. Genetic factors play a part in my body composition but on the whole, by far, I get to be in control.

And it’s this fixation on this control that became my saviour. I was in a dark place before I started to dedicate my time to the gym around 22 years ago. Exercise saved me. But this fixation also brought about my buddy in the mirror. He was probably always there, I’d just never noticed. But his nastiness got out of hand when I were in my 20’s. Now he has calmed down a lot. He’s actually much kinder than he used to be. Maybe he listens to my wife like me and knows that what she says goes! And she thinks I’m a catch.

My first words to those who train with me is ‘you’ve got to love yourself first, whatever you want to change, you must realise that there is absolutely nothing wrong with you and there’s nothing wrong with wanting change either.’

This is imperative, I believe, to achieve whatever you want to achieve. You too might have your mirror friend looking down at you occasionally, but YOU are in control and not them. Smile at them. They smile back.

Be. In. Control.

Milo of Croton

It rolls off of my tongue quite often and far too easily when I am talking to someone and I say ‘the fitness industry is changing all the time’. What I would rather say if I or the gym member had the time for me to explain is that food manufacturers, gym companies, diet book writers, personal trainers and gym members is what’s changing. The fitness industry, in its purest form of exercising for fun, mental health, to lose weight or gain weight, health or aesthetics and sports remains the same.

The ‘industry’ doesn’t actually exist. It has been created by humans who could make a few quid. The industry has to change because it has a new fad diet to put into a book to sell this year. The industry has to change because a fancy looking ab machine will keep it’s paying members happy as they search for their 6 pack. But ‘fitness’. Fitness is where we need to begin.

In fact I’ll begin in 600 BC. The Greek athlete Milo of Croton might be a story that you have heard of. To train he would run with a small calf on his back every day. The calf grew and due to Milo carrying it every day, he did too. I’ve spoken about the progressive overload before. We need to keep adapting as we get faster and stronger. Recently I spoke to a window cleaner who scoffed at the idea of exercise. He stated that he exercises enough because he is up and down ladders all day. But he won’t be getting any fitter. He has been repeating the same process for 20 years. And as he ages this will become more and more difficult which means continuing his job until retirement is highly unlikely.

Milo carried the calf until it became a bull. He was a champion athlete who we talk about, write about, make statues of him and paintings of him. The thing about fitness or indeed this story is that we don’t need to focus on carrying a bull, but the principles are the same… whatever your goals. So you reach a peak? Great, how should you adapt it so that you’re able to go again? Maybe not just think about the weight of the bull, but how often you carry it or how far you run. There are many variables, but one thing is for certain, the principles have never changed.

The industry, however, want it to change. We’re told, because it’s in a gym and included in fad workouts, that ab machines help us to achieve a 6 pack. A 6 pack requires a very low body fat percentage. If the gym thought that they were that useful it would have more of them in their gym all lined up and people with abs of steal sitting on them. How many ab machines does your gym have? And how many treadmills, barbells, dumbbells and benches does it have? There you go! But selling the idea of getting abs is more profitable than running on a treadmill or deadlifting a barbell. It has to give us new sexy concepts to keep us going back and paying our membership. Like a new diet or miracle pill. It wants us to chase the dream.

Yet when you bring it back to the basics, fitness is pretty straightforward. If you stop listening to the bull and start carrying it, you can reach your dreams without forever chasing them.

A Few Tips…

I can spot a new member of the gym. Often coming in pairs, clutching a towel and their water bottle tightly and whispering to each other ‘what shall we do first?’

An example of somebody knowing what they’re doing.

We’ve all been there. And I have massive respect to those that make that huge step. And for some people it is a huge step. Gyms can be a daunting place. So I have put together some ideas of things that might help you in your first few visits.

* Plan at least your first exercise. The first 5 or 10 minutes are the worst. You walk into the gym and you feel like all eyes are on you. Confidently walk up to your planned exercise and go for it. Once you get to your second exercise the nerves have gone.

* Try out a few moves before you get to the gym. If you are following a programme there will be stuff on there that you can do in the comfort of your own home. If you lose balance or feel silly then nobody will ever know. Keep practicing those that you can do at home for when you take them to the gym.

* Ask somebody who knows. I’m going to be brutal here because I don’t believe that just because they have a ‘Trainer’ top or a PT shirt on that they know what they are doing. If you see them cleaning the equipment more than using it, then ask them how to get your mirrors clean at home, not how to squat. Gyms like to employ people who will work for a set hourly rate or for nothing at all and in all honesty if my car breaks down I won’t start opening the bonnet myself to try and fix it nor will I ask the apprentice in the garage who is making the teas how to fix it, I’ll ask the mechanic. You can spot a trainer or a gym member who knows what they are doing a mile away and they’re usually approachable.

* Keep going back. It becomes less daunting and more enjoyable when you get chatting to a few people and the results start to come. So don’t let the first or second nervy visits put you off. It’s your time to shine!