Tag Archives: training
Bodyweight
Queuing for the equipment, sweaty people, pushy PT’s selling their programmes on the back of a beer mat. The gym might not be your cuppa tea.
Loud music or music too low, ogling men, Insta fitters, pricey membership, too far to travel or you just can’t be bothered with going today.
Let me present to you the home workout!
Ok, first of all, let me just say that not all gyms are like the above. Most gyms that I go to these days are friendly, clean and affordable. But still, it doesn’t matter how good the gym is, sometimes you just can’t make it in.
But it doesn’t mean that you can’t train. So I’d like to suggest to you a couple of the most valuable pieces of equipment that you will need in your home to be able to get a good workout in without being in a gym (and it doesn’t cost a lot or take up too much room).
1. A selection of dumbbells. If you find a weight range that covers light dumbbells that you can rep for 15 plus and heavier dumbbells that you can rep for 6 then you will have a whole range of exercises that you can do. But the best bit of kit…..?
2. You. Just you. And I don’t mean you have to ‘turn up to get results blah blah.’ Of course you need to get it done. But your bodyweight is by far the most underrated piece of equipment that is available to you. A good bodyweight workout programme would prove this.
If you weigh 70k then you carry this weight when you walk, squat, lunge, press, jump and run. It is why larger people either carrying excess fat or muscle are able to lose weight faster. The more you weigh, the more energy it takes for your body to move, function and exercise.
Sure, long distance trainers and strength competitors need a whole host of equipment and venues for what they need to achieve, but if you are looking to feel a bit fitter and start the new year with a healthy outlook, you already own your best piece of kit.
Bright And Shiny Object
The bright shiny object is a term that is used particularly in business, but can be relevant in many different situations in life.
It is the belief that, although you have put a plan in place, a new venture or interest catches your eye that attracts you to it. This new thing being the bright and shiny object. In the psychology field they have even called it a syndrome (Shiny Object Syndrome, SOS).
It can often be derailing to our original commitments and the extra cost and time devoted to the shiny object begins to affect a plan that was actually already working rather well.
In the gym I see it daily and, make no mistake, the shiny object is as alluring to me as for anyone else. But I have trained my mind to move on and stick to the plan as difficult as that might be sometimes. So let’s give a couple of examples of what it means in our health and fitness goals and our diets.
Case 1. The Inconsistent Trainer.
This is the shiny object that often tries to put me off of my stride. And it did for Jack. Jack had committed to the gym four times a week to follow a program plan by his trainer which would eventually see extra muscle mass and a leaner, aesthetic physique. He was fully focussed, made the investment in time and money and, after a few weeks, began to notice subtle changes to the way he looked and felt.
His program continued to be challenging as he progressed through the different phases of training, but after 3 months a friend had started to send him YouTube videos of a few different fitness influencers. They became Jack’s new, bright and shiny new object. He wanted to try the sort of techniques and ‘kick ass’ moves that would quicken the process and reach his results in less time.
He began only loosely following his program as he diverted from it during his training to try the new stuff that he had seen from the influencers. He no longer practiced conventional deadlifts. Instead he was keen to master the Jefferson deadlift, which was described as ‘quad killers’ by the influencer. However, whilst the Jefferson might be a useful lift for many of their subscribers, for Jack it put pressure on his spine. Over time, he began to suffer with lower back pain. His PT advised him to stick closely to his original plan, as he still needed to master the original deadlift before trying different variations.
Jack became frustrated. He understood what his PT was saying, but the pull of an influencer with thousands of followers was too much of a draw. Surely they knew their stuff, he thought. And of course he was right, they did know their stuff, but they didn’t know Jack. However, Jack decided to stop the services of his PT and try to pursue his own routine.
As the year progressed, Jack went from having moments of motivation where he would manage to get to the gym four or five days a week to not managing to get there at all for weeks at a time. Either through injuries or simply feeling demoralised, Jack didn’t reach his goals. He ditched his original plan designed specifically for him for the bright shiny object. He found that one influencer would tell their audience to do one thing and another influencer would tell their subscribers something totally different. Jack’s consistency and motivation had gone.
Case 2. The Yo-Yo Dieter.
Jill had promised herself that she would lose some weight and started to be more careful about the food that she ate. Having a sweet tooth and grazing throughout the day meant that she had put on a certain amount of weight that left her feeling lethargic and uncomfortable about herself.
Jill decided that she would download a calorie counting app to keep a check on the amount of calories that she was consuming. She didn’t want to be too restrictive, so along with meal plans of some of her favourite nutritious meals, she allowed herself some of her more indulgent treats a couple of days a week. Jill knew that, as long as she could track her calories, she could remain in control of her portions and enjoy her efforts to lose the weight that she wanted. After a few weeks, Jill felt that she wasn’t so tired all the time and she decided to join a local running group and also began enjoying long walks with her partner.
After 6 months of the positive lifestyle change, Jill was talking to a friend. They were discussing weight loss and it was apparent that her friend had lost a considerable amount of weight. Jill’s friend told her that she was on a diet which allowed just 800 calories a day and, although she felt too tired to exercise from the lack of energy, she was losing lots of weight each week.
Jill had been happy with her progress, but her friend’s impressive story had made her wonder if she could do the same. Jill concluded that, due to the darker cold nights setting in, she wouldn’t want to go running anyway. Plus, if she can make the sort of progress that her friend did, she could hit her target weight for Christmas, 6 months earlier than she’d expected.
Jill started the new diet. But it wasn’t long before her energy fell and she quit the running club. Her mood changed too. She felt snappy with her partner and didn’t want to attend special occasions because she was unable to eat or drink the same as anyone else. She lost weight quickly, but she wasn’t happy. Eventually, she would have binge days and this left her even more frustrated as she felt like she was failing.
Jill came off of the diet and tried to go back to her original plan. This proved to be more difficult than she’d expected though as all of her positive habits that she had worked on had gone. She found herself grazing and eating all of the wrong things again. Despite having bouts of motivation, Jill has not found the consistency that she had once enjoyed.
Summary
In both scenarios, Jack and Jill had found something that worked for them and their lifestyle. There is nothing wrong with what a friend might be doing differently or what an influencer might suggest, but what Jack and Jill were doing was successful to THEM. Yet something new and exciting swayed them into boycotting their plans. The very plans that were working.
Alterations, tweaks or little changes to a plan are fine as long as it is exactly that…the plan. Nobody wants a training program to stagnate or a nutritional menu to become boring with the same meals each day. But the foundations in which it was first created need to remain the same.
The bright shiny object will always have us wondering and the newness to try alternative methods is intriguing, but take it from someone who has had his fingers burnt on many occasions before becoming a Personal Trainer, it will often end in derailing our good work and possibly even ending it with nothing in return.
The Journey
A very important piece of advice was given to me the other day and it has stuck with me. In fact, the more I think about it the more I can relate it to me and my goals and I see it in other people too.
The person who loves to walk will walk further than the person who loves the destination.
When you love the journey, goals just happen. The destination is cool too! But you are so engaged with the process you don’t even realise that you are there. You carry on. You hit more milestones. And whether you inch forward on some days or you take big strides, you want to continue.
This advice is so huge it goes beyond the stuff we do to become fitter or jacked or to control our weight. This is a lesson for life. There are some months I could earn more money in my previous job. I could walk away from being self-employed with no holiday or sick pay and know that I could have a regular income each month.
But this journey that I’m on? Priceless. I’ll enjoy this journey so much more. The stress, the pitfalls and the headaches are there but the good times, by far, outweigh the bad. This is my own process. My destiny.
I’ll need to give myself a little tap on the shoulder in future when I have a moment feeling down or inadequate just to remind myself of why I keep walking. Some days I’m crawling, some days I’m running. Either way, I keep going forward on my journey because I enjoy it.
I spent so long not enjoying the process. In the gym I’d choose the wrong exercises because ‘that’s just what you need to do, dude!’
And yet it isn’t what I ‘just need to do’. I need to find the few exercises that I enjoy and become good at them. Then the journey really begins. I find new and interesting formulas and techniques. Maybe stuff that I hated before became appealing and the challenge of trying it and succeeding gets me out of bed in the morning.
Transferring this attitude into everyday life is similar. The journey needs to make sense to you. It has to be yours and a good PT will make it yours because it will be personal to you. Something I’ve yet to see from Poundland PT is actually making Personal Training personal. If a PT can’t do that all they do is give every person they train a gym induction. Gym inductions are free.
Your journey becomes an obsession. Obsessions can be healthy, even if we might not like the word or its connotation. Most people we see as being happy, healthy or successful got to where they are because they were obsessed about their journey. They trained almost every day. They made their journey personal and kept on walking.
So what of the destination? Is it irrelevant? No, for sure it plays a part, but if you focus on the big house, the sports car, becoming jacked, being a size 8, taking 4 cruises a year or having the perfect family then you will be disappointed. You’ll want short cuts. You’ll take routes that you don’t enjoy and can even be dangerous to your mental or physical health. You become desperate. You quit.
The destination just happens. But it only happens if you enjoy the walk.
43
I set myself a little challenge when I hit 40. I didn’t mind turning 40. In fact I feel at ease with the ageing process. We are born, hopefully we live to a good age and then we die. Job done!
It’s the ‘living to a good age’ bit that I wanted to get right. I was pretty good at being born, so my mum said. I reckon I’ll give dying a good go too. But the middle bit I had to start getting right. It has been widely reported that the human body shows signs of decline at 40. So if this is something that happens whether I like it or not, I wanted it to be on my terms. I’ll age my way.
It is around 40 that our metabolism starts to slow down. This means it is easier to put unwanted weight on. To combat this I developed a regular resistance training programme that means I am burning around 3,500 calories per week at rest. The benefits of this is that I’m not constantly dieting. I’m strict with my nutrients and macros for 80% of the time but for the other 20% it is play time!
Also at 40, we begin to shrink. This is actually due to a form of bone disorder called kyphosis when the spine starts to curve. The old person depicted on the road sign didn’t follow a strength programme. Had they done, their back might be much straighter and they might not have a walking stick. Our bones begin to weaken and an effective strength routine can create bone density in older age, not lose it.
At 40 we develop more digestive issues. Indigestion, constipation and ulcers are more common. I used to dodge the fruit and veg in my 20’s and 30’s. The phrase ‘you can’t outrun a poor diet’ is very true, but when I was younger I didn’t believe it. I could eat whatever I liked and had no stomach illnesses and belly fat wasn’t a problem. But as I approached my late 30’s I started to believe. I had to change my attitude towards what I ate and fast, but for someone who enjoyed ten cold hotdogs out of a jar and a bottle of wine every night it wasn’t easy. Training my brain and changing my habits was just as important as what I do in the gym.
Now, at 43, I feel fitter and stronger than ever. I suffer less injuries and less anxiety. My performances in the gym have improved year on year in recent times and I’m pleased with my aesthetics. Aesthetics are important to me. They always have been but at an age where hairs sprout from strange places and hair disappears from where it should be, being in control of my appearance where I can be is particularly satisfying now.
So the challenge that I set myself when I turned 40 was to improve my physical and mental state even though the evidence is stacked against me. It means that I need to work harder for it. I have to believe in MY process, not the ‘ageing process’ I read in Medical Monthly.
My process. My fight. My life. And I’m bloody loving it!
Not If, But When
I like to think that I have a group of motivated and enthusiastic trainees who are focussed on their goals. At the moment there seems to be a buzz of excitement in what we are achieving, but it comes with a big red flashing light of caution.
As early as the consultation stage I like to prepare my future clients for the reality. Yes, they will succeed. They can reach their goals. But only if they become comfortable with the knowledge that it will be a case of not if, but when they have to face the feelings of failure.
Failure comes in many different guises. To some it’s a disappointing week with nutrition. To others it could be not seeing the results as quickly as they expected. It could be that they feel that they haven’t dedicated enough time to the gym or their weekend binge has set their progress back.
Even in elite sport the athletes will face failure. Djokovic might win Wimbledon, but he will drop sets. City might win the league, but they will lose games. A boxer might win the fight, but it doesn’t come without a few blows along the way. Real Madrid lost a whopping four times during their Champions League campaign in 2022 and yet went on to win the final. Being a Liverpool supporter I know that stat all too well!
The above sports people are trained to deal with the highs and lows of sport and competition. And let’s not hide away from the fact that your goals are a competition. If you set any type of target or goal, you begin to compete against yourself. Today, you compete against the yesterday’s you. Find that mindset and you make a big step towards your success. Acknowledge that sometimes the yesterday’s you will defeat you, then that’s an even bigger step.
But if you allow yourself to get bogged down on the low days then your journey will be so much more difficult. For many people it becomes too much and they give up.
The low days are the ones that you can look back on and embrace. These are the days when you learned something about yourself and you responded. It becomes an education. And in many ways you learn more on these days than you ever will on your good days.
Giving up on your goals is like slashing your three other tyres because you got a flat.
Sometimes you will get a flat tyre. Acknowledge it, know what to do or who to ask when it does, fix it and move on.
Dirty Fries
Scarborough is a small town. It’s the sort of place that if you go into the town centre you will probably know somebody to say hello to. Train in a gym with almost 3,000 members and the chances are that I will definitely see somebody I know.
Had they seen me in a bar this lunch time they would have found me with a large gin and tonic and some ‘dirty fries’. When I ordered them I imagined some chips with a sprinkling of grated cheese. What I actually got was a bag of potatoes, a pack of bacon and a block of cheese squeezed into a good sized pasta bowl. This wasn’t the amuse bouche that I had visioned in my mind, but it was one my belly was happy to try.
I wished a client of mine would’ve walked in as I slurped the stringy melted cheese into my mouth. If only to keep proving my point. I keep reiterating my point regarding food and weight management…eat it. All of it. If it fits your daily calories, eat it and enjoy it. But there’s a slight caveat. Just one little rule.
If you aren’t going to cut out the low nutrition foods, then you must keep the nutritionally dense foods high. Whether you are very active with fitness goals or more sedentary, keep the nutritionally dense foods high.
You see, I don’t believe in banning food types. If you want to stop off at a bar and order a truck full of McCain’s Chips then do it, as long as your weekly macros are met. Yes, weekly. Some days your carbs might be up, but if you keep the nutritionally dense and high protein foods a priority over the course of the week then your calories and macros will average out. Judging your Journey on just one day will serve you no purpose.
I knew that I could eat some greasy cheesy chips today. I count my calories.
Now, if you read the newspapers you might gasp in horror at the knowledge that I count calories and I also endorse it for others. The one exception being anybody suffering from an eating disorder. In which case they don’t need me, they need professional medical support.
But the media seem to be very negative towards counting calories. Which is interested, because they print lots of other methods such as 5:2, Intermittent fasting and promote large dieting companies who count ‘syns’.
My conclusion is that counting calories isn’t sexy. It isn’t a buzz word or trending on Twitter. And if it isn’t a large company paying a newspaper to advertise their diet or a book publisher paying them to flog Michael Mosley’s new fad diet, then it gets demonized as wrong.
If I go into a shop and see something that I want to buy I will check my bank balance before I purchase it. That’s just simple accounting.
If I go to the carpet fitters I will take the measurements of the room that I wish to have carpeted with me. That is just common sense.
If I take my son to buy a pair of shoes I will ask the assistant to measure his feet first. Efficient.
And if I want some dirty fries washed down with a gin and tonic I will make sure that my meals around this tasty treat are low in calories and high in nutrition. No anxiety or concerns.
I get what I want now and again and I also get to keep my body on track with my fitness goals. And a part of my fitness goals is my mental health, therefore stressing at banning all of the foods that I enjoy is not something that I consider healthy. I have a good relationship with food. I don’t want to feel anxious about being in a social environment and seeing half of the food on the menu to be cancelled for me.
I don’t develope programmes or challenges for my clients if I wouldn’t do it myself. So occasionally doing my own Balanced Plate Challenge works for me. My clients succeed, why shouldn’t I enjoy my own methods too?!
And so it’s time to make my smoothie. With plenty of spinach and fruit in there my body will still know that I love it. And it might even get another bowl of dirty fries again next week!
Goal Setting
https://mindist.page.link/EDHu
Above is a link to my recently recorded meditation guide I entitled Goal Setting.
We get so fixated on the goal sometimes instead of the little challenges that we overcome to have to reach the big stuff. Those little steps, the 1%, amounts to great things if you perceiver and confidently follow the process.
Every day there should be a time to reflect on your goals and expect that some days won’t always be the best. But as long as you acknowledge them and move on then you will still get to where you want to be.
Thank you for reading and listening!
Shay PT
Resistance Machines
My usual gym routine is from Monday to Friday. The weekends are generally for family time and relaxing away from formal exercise. It works for me. There’s no set rule that works regarding a training plan. Perhaps my ideal plan would be having two rest days that aren’t together but personal circumstances have to be accounted for.
What training a full five days in a row allows me to do is have a definitive day in which I can begin a wind down in the intensity of my workouts. I can’t hammer my body every single day with heavy compounds. Indeed, I believe in my 420 reps workout that I have developed for others so much so that I am doing it myself. This means that once Thursday’s session is over I have completed over 1500 reps. By Friday, my body is telling me that I need a little assistance from machines!
And this is exactly what the resistance machines are perfect for. They provide much more relief for the body and it isn’t just the physical aspect that needs the respite. Neuromuscular Innovation, or more commonly known as the mind-muscle connection, takes its toll on the brain. The thought process of connecting with your target muscle in a bench press scenario is much greater than on a press machine.
Foot positioning, core engagement, time under tension, breathing and the contraction are all crucial components of a bench press. Sure, there’s still the necessary check list to go through on a machine but in no way is it as thorough. Therefore, instead of risking injury with sloppy end of the week technique, I still get to workout without breaking myself.
It does concern me, however, how overused these machines get. I get the impression that lots of gym goers use them because they haven’t been shown how to squat, deadlift, bench press or barbell row. Their inductions usually include a brisk talk through these machines, so why would they use anything else?!
When I did gym inductions I went through deadlift form as a priority. It is a free weight compounds that requires the whole body to move and work together as one. I can analyse the hip extensors and knee flexors of the participant and get an understanding of overall strength and fitness levels. Without it, I would struggle to know what machine or what type of exercises a new gym member should be doing. So I am perplexed as to how the gym staff know. Introducing them to an ab crunch machine is way way off of where most new gym members need to be.
And don’t get me started on an ab crunch machine. An over reliance on a resistance machine can cause injury, but an ab machine can be particularly dangerous. The deep abdominal muscles, together with the back muscles support and protects the spine. I cringe as I see yet another gym member rocking wildly like a wound up toy trying to work their abs. Back pain is the biggest reason for staff sickness in the UK and until we begin to train our lower backs correctly this statistic won’t change.
The Final Word
Resistance machines are a great way to supplement your workouts. A heavy session on the bench or in the dumbbell section takes a lot out of us physically and on the nervous system. Rounding off a session on the machines or cables can be a perfect finish. But we can’t rely on them to reach our goals, be it injury rehabilitation, weight control, muscle gain or movement. If you are completely new to the gym then I would recommend starting in the free weights area with a trainer who knows what they’re doing.
That you for reading this article. If you have any questions on this or any of my practices then do get in touch!
Shay PT.
Smoothie Does It!
Like with most kids (and many adults) they can be fussy around certain foods. Textures, tastes and smells can put a kid right off. If only a banana looked like a chicken dipper!
My youngest has started to check his food to the extend of him looking at a slice of melon like Gil Grissom analysing a crime scene.
And I must admit, there are foods that I wouldn’t be too fond of eating if they were put on a plate for me. Medjool dates are a prime example. But if I prepare them with lots of other fruit and vegetables into a smoothie then I can enjoy them.
I have found this with my kids, especially if they prepare their own smoothies and experiment with different ingredients then there is a much greater chance of them getting the nutrients and vitamins that they need without the fuss.
This morning they prepared a banana, strawberry, orange juice and spinach smoothie. They hate bananas and spinach and my youngest doesn’t like strawberries, but they enjoyed the process of creating their own smoothie and were pleased with what they had come up with. They felt empowered.
I have a smoothie at least once a day. A zesty citrus ensemble on a morning and usually a banana, milk and protein powder later in the afternoon. I find that smoothies can…
* Stops the hunger pangs and feeling snacky.
*Wake me up on a morning.
* Fit into my calorie and macro goals and I am getting the fibre into my body that I wouldn’t get if I were eating a meal.
Although I would never consider them a meal replacement, I do put ingredients into a smoothie that I would not make into a meal. I know that I wouldn’t eat the recommended daily fruit and veg that I need if I had to prepare it as part of a meal. I enjoy cooking, but sometimes life doesn’t allow us the time to spend on making the perfect balanced meal. This is why the convenience of a smoothie maker works for me and my family.
One of my biggest concerns is for my kids to be getting good nutritious food into them each day. It’s a constant battle. And when I know what they have as school dinners the need to feed them proper food at home is even more important. I’m not looking for clean eating and banning foods for me or my kids, but a balanced approach is a sensible one. And so far it’s working!
Never Give Up PT 