I have come from a very stressful job in a secondary school, where my role was looking after a particularly naughty year group and often dealing with less than supportive parents/carers. I was also leading an expedition to Borneo for some students who had to raise over £3500, which I was only given an hour a week to do. I did not receive very much support from colleagues; in fact it verged on bullying.
On top of this I was studying a full time distance learning degree in Psychology which took up most of my spare time. If that’s not enough I was also training most nights and competing for Eastwood Amateur Boxing Club… it doesn’t even end here! My partner was also serving in Afghanistan on the front line. As you can imagine I was very busy, and there is only so long you can go without it catching up with you.
About 10 months ago I had a mini melt-down and had to reconsider my life and put things into perspective. I had to prioritise what was important. Firstly, my health. Without health, you cannot enjoy anything else in life. I’m not just talking about physical health, but all round mental, physical and spiritual wellbeing. After a lot of soul-searching I made the decision to quit my job, quit my degree, quit boxing competitively and focus on what really matters and guess what? I’m happier, healthier and fitter than ever.
So my point is: drop the excuses. I don’t care if your job is stressful. I don’t care about your family commitments. I don’t care about any other personal problems that you're using as an excuse NOT to prioritise health and fitness. That might sound harsh but without the latter you have none of the former! I’m not saying quit everything and hope for the best. I'm not saying to ignore your family and friends commitments. I’m saying act now and don’t let the hustle and bustle of everyday life grind you down, eventually putting you in the position that I ended up in.
If you want to put your health and fitness first then please contact Real World Fitness and together we will put a plan together that addresses your personal commitments and advise you on how you CAN do it. Sometimes failure just isn’t an option.
Showing posts with label training. Show all posts
Showing posts with label training. Show all posts
Monday, 11 July 2011
Tuesday, 21 June 2011
The Gym Divide - Rebecca Conlin, PT @ RWF
I have used many gyms throughout my life, training with men and women. I have trained for sport, for fat loss, for strength and for fun. It has been apparent to me that in every gym I have used there has always been a male/female divide. Typically males and females have different goals, as in my experience women strive to be as slim as possible and men as big and ripped as possible. Chasing the ideal, cartoon like physique!
So as I wander through the cardio area of my gym, crossing the divide into the weight room, I always get a few glares from both males and females alike. Then I start my chin-ups, dips, rows, bench press etc. I use heavy weights and I work to failure. Often I get approving nods, especially from the man with bigger biceps than my thigh! Sometimes though, I don’t get the right support from my male counterparts, who feel that they are qualified to advise me on what (as a female) I should be doing, simply because they are male.
The type I’m talking about can be divided into 2 groups; the skinny little boys who come into the gym complaining that our dumbbells ONLY go up to 30kg… if you were using 30kg right (full range of motion helps!) you would, at a minimum, have bigger arms than Bambi’s legs! The second group are the old school weight lifters who feel the need to carry my empty barbell to my next station when they have just seen me deadlift 1.5 times my body weight! Full of good intentioned advice, very helpful but unable to change their own out-dated training methods into newer more efficient methods.
Now let’s discuss the 'female' area of the gym, the cardio room. I hear the whispers and I see the stares as you train for hours upon hours on the treadmill… *yawn*. I know you think that I’m going to ruin my body and become the female incredible hulk! NEWS FLASH! It’s impossible! Firstly, as women, we do not naturally produce enough of the hormone responsible for muscle growth, testosterone. Secondly, skinny is no longer beautiful! Strong and sleek is the new skinny, and to achieve that athletic, long lean defined look you have to lift weights.
So what can we learn from each other?
I use to train with a pretty serious weight lifter. We will call him Bob. Bob use to lift weights daily, had put on a serious amount of lean muscle in a relatively small amount of time and even considered competing as a figure athlete. On Sunday nights I played football with Bob for a male football team and as much as Bob ‘looked’ in incredible shape, I ran rings round him. Through his bulk he lacked cardiovascular fitness, speed and agility. Bob lacked overall fitness and after considering going into the armed forces had to consciously spend time like any beginner building his cardiovascular fitness up. Bob did, however, teach me the importance of excellent weight lifting technique, the importance of core strength and the key to permanently increasing my metabolism enabling me to efficiently lose body fat. Lifting weights is the key to sculpting your body and achieving your ideal physique.
For advice on how to achieve overall fitness whilst also sculpting your body into its ideal shape, don't hesitate to contact the personal trainers at Real World Fitness.
Sunday, 19 June 2011
5 Reasons to be wary of online advice...
We all do it these days - we have a problem, we often turn to the internet. Most of the time, someone else has had the same problem. Not only that, but they've written about it, and written about the solution to it. Most of the time, that's great. Loads of problems have basic solutions that are maybe just a step beyond common sense.
But what happens on the more complicated stuff? How about that rumbling you hear under the car bonnet? A quick Google brings up hundreds of solutions, with each person being certain that their answer is the answer.
Fitness, training and nutrition advice online is no different. There are a wealth of amazing sources of information out there, from people who really know what they're talking about. They've been there, done it, often countless times. But, unfortunately, you also have a lot of armchair experts. They've read every book, seen every study, argued every point - but never actually set food in a gym. Never trained anyone. Never been responsible for making someone stick to a nutrition plan. Often, they've barely ever trained themselves.
Here's a few warning signs to look out for if you're buying advice on the internet:
1. Websites, or forum posts, full of typos and spelling mistakes. Seriously, it's not that hard to spellcheck. If someone is that casual with the presentation of information they want you to follow, it's likely they don't know enough or care enough to get the information right either.
2. Advice offered with no bio/photos of the person offering it. This is an industry dominated by vanity and aesthetics. If the person offering advice isn't willing to show themselves, or at least detail their achievements, it's likely they don't practice what they preach (and yes, RWF bios and photos are on the main website).
3. People who are far too insistent that their way is the ONLY way. It's rubbish - almost every fitness, strength, fat loss or sports goal has more than one method that can be used to get success. If someone is adamant that their way is the only way, they're probably either (a) ignorant of the variety of training and nutrition methods available or (b) trying to sell you something. Or maybe both :)
4. I touched on it earlier. The internet has allowed everyone to become an unaccountable expert. I can recall a number of situations where the self-appointed 'guru' on a forum has turned out to be a 17yr old with no training experience, or an overweight guy who has rarely trained in their life. If the information seems to be written too rigidly, or in text-book speak, it's probably because it's copied and pasted from somewhere else.
5. People who claim that a certain method 'worked for them, so it'll work for you'. Not necessarily true. Granted, we aren't all as unique as we'd like to think we are, but to imagine that the routine that Big Dave in the gym uses is somehow the exact same routine that you, with no experience of training, should do is absurd. Realise that what YOU need to do, may not be what experienced people currently do. People giving advice often forget where they started, and are too quick to get new trainees to move away from the basics. If you're being encouraged to do something complicated, back away. Training, especially at first, is not complicated.
There are probably a million and one other things to look out for. These five are the ones that routinely come up over and over again, and do a lot of damage to new trainers.
Advice is great, but it's up to you to weed out the helpful bits and discard the rest. Remember the 'Wear Sunscreen' song from a few years back?
"Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth"
But what happens on the more complicated stuff? How about that rumbling you hear under the car bonnet? A quick Google brings up hundreds of solutions, with each person being certain that their answer is the answer.
Fitness, training and nutrition advice online is no different. There are a wealth of amazing sources of information out there, from people who really know what they're talking about. They've been there, done it, often countless times. But, unfortunately, you also have a lot of armchair experts. They've read every book, seen every study, argued every point - but never actually set food in a gym. Never trained anyone. Never been responsible for making someone stick to a nutrition plan. Often, they've barely ever trained themselves.
Here's a few warning signs to look out for if you're buying advice on the internet:
1. Websites, or forum posts, full of typos and spelling mistakes. Seriously, it's not that hard to spellcheck. If someone is that casual with the presentation of information they want you to follow, it's likely they don't know enough or care enough to get the information right either.
2. Advice offered with no bio/photos of the person offering it. This is an industry dominated by vanity and aesthetics. If the person offering advice isn't willing to show themselves, or at least detail their achievements, it's likely they don't practice what they preach (and yes, RWF bios and photos are on the main website).
3. People who are far too insistent that their way is the ONLY way. It's rubbish - almost every fitness, strength, fat loss or sports goal has more than one method that can be used to get success. If someone is adamant that their way is the only way, they're probably either (a) ignorant of the variety of training and nutrition methods available or (b) trying to sell you something. Or maybe both :)
4. I touched on it earlier. The internet has allowed everyone to become an unaccountable expert. I can recall a number of situations where the self-appointed 'guru' on a forum has turned out to be a 17yr old with no training experience, or an overweight guy who has rarely trained in their life. If the information seems to be written too rigidly, or in text-book speak, it's probably because it's copied and pasted from somewhere else.
5. People who claim that a certain method 'worked for them, so it'll work for you'. Not necessarily true. Granted, we aren't all as unique as we'd like to think we are, but to imagine that the routine that Big Dave in the gym uses is somehow the exact same routine that you, with no experience of training, should do is absurd. Realise that what YOU need to do, may not be what experienced people currently do. People giving advice often forget where they started, and are too quick to get new trainees to move away from the basics. If you're being encouraged to do something complicated, back away. Training, especially at first, is not complicated.
There are probably a million and one other things to look out for. These five are the ones that routinely come up over and over again, and do a lot of damage to new trainers.
Advice is great, but it's up to you to weed out the helpful bits and discard the rest. Remember the 'Wear Sunscreen' song from a few years back?
"Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth"
Friday, 17 June 2011
Do you self-sabotage? by Derran Langston, PT and Owner @ RWF
Ok - this post isn't going to win any awards for revolutionary thinking. You're not suddenly going to have a light-bulb moment when you realise this is the one thing nobody ever told you. The problem is, as with many things in life, that you already know it. You just don't actually do anything about it.
There's a business model based around learning which details four stages of 'competence'. One of the four stages is 'unconscious competence'. Basically speaking, you're so damn good at something, you don't even have to think about it. You just do it, and do it well. The flip side to that is 'conscious competence'. You're still damn good at it, but you have to try. It doesn't come naturally.
Either one of those stages is a great place to be. Naturally talented or gifted athletes have the former; the rest of us that achieve anything halfway decent have the latter.
So where do the vast majority of people slot in to this model? I warn you, it's not pleasant reading and I suspect many people reading this will wince as they recognise themselves...
We've got to the unconscious incompetence level. This sums up a lot of people - you're well-intentioned, maybe you've gone out and bought all the new gym kit, joined a spanking new health club and signed up to a 10k for a couple of months time. But you're just not getting anywhere, because you don't have the first clue how to train properly. You're doing stuff, but not the right stuff. You're being incompetent, but you don't realise it. That's ok though - you are one of the curable people. There's hope for you - you just need guidance from a decent PT (such as us at www.realworldfitness.co.uk perhaps?).
The people that are really going to struggle are the last bunch. Please tell me you've already recognised yourself in one of the last three categories. Because if not, this is going to sting a little...you're consciously incompetent. Yep - you're doing all the wrong stuff., and you KNOW you're doing it. But guess what? You don't care enough to do anything about it. Ever heard the definition of insanity? It's doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results. If this is you, if you've been plodding away at the same things to reach your goals...and never quite getting there...then I suspect you already know what you're doing wrong. You're deliberately being incompetent.
If anything in that last paragraph strikes a chord with you, change today, not tomorrow. Be any of the other three types of people, because all of them will eventually get results, and get to where they want to be. Stay consciously incompetent, however, and you'll always be chasing a goal that gets further away from you...
There's a business model based around learning which details four stages of 'competence'. One of the four stages is 'unconscious competence'. Basically speaking, you're so damn good at something, you don't even have to think about it. You just do it, and do it well. The flip side to that is 'conscious competence'. You're still damn good at it, but you have to try. It doesn't come naturally.
Either one of those stages is a great place to be. Naturally talented or gifted athletes have the former; the rest of us that achieve anything halfway decent have the latter.
So where do the vast majority of people slot in to this model? I warn you, it's not pleasant reading and I suspect many people reading this will wince as they recognise themselves...
We've got to the unconscious incompetence level. This sums up a lot of people - you're well-intentioned, maybe you've gone out and bought all the new gym kit, joined a spanking new health club and signed up to a 10k for a couple of months time. But you're just not getting anywhere, because you don't have the first clue how to train properly. You're doing stuff, but not the right stuff. You're being incompetent, but you don't realise it. That's ok though - you are one of the curable people. There's hope for you - you just need guidance from a decent PT (such as us at www.realworldfitness.co.uk perhaps?).
The people that are really going to struggle are the last bunch. Please tell me you've already recognised yourself in one of the last three categories. Because if not, this is going to sting a little...you're consciously incompetent. Yep - you're doing all the wrong stuff., and you KNOW you're doing it. But guess what? You don't care enough to do anything about it. Ever heard the definition of insanity? It's doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results. If this is you, if you've been plodding away at the same things to reach your goals...and never quite getting there...then I suspect you already know what you're doing wrong. You're deliberately being incompetent.
If anything in that last paragraph strikes a chord with you, change today, not tomorrow. Be any of the other three types of people, because all of them will eventually get results, and get to where they want to be. Stay consciously incompetent, however, and you'll always be chasing a goal that gets further away from you...
The Yo-Yo Dieter - by Rebecca Conlin, PT @ RWF
Looking at what I have achieved now it’s hard to believe that only a few years ago I was overweight, unfit and extremely shy. In fact growing up in a family who put health and fitness last I was uneducated on what being healthy meant.
It was a visit to the doctors aged 13 which led to me being in the career I love today. Walking into the surgery with a knee injury, the doctor examined me and then to my horror weighed me…13 stone! I weighed the same in stone as the years I had been alive. The diagnosis was childhood obesity; my growing bones were being put under too much stress making my knee joints painful.
Firstly, I want to put an end to the excuses. You are not overweight because you have the fat gene. You are not overweight because you have big bones. You are overweight because you eat too much and/or you don’t move enough. I know this because if anyone should be using these excuses, it is me. All my family are overweight, I myself was overweight, I was ‘big boned’ and it was ‘genetic’… it made me feel a little better, but I was lying to myself.
Immediately disgusted that I weighed so much I cut out all junk, did not eat after 6pm and if my weight loss wasn’t going as planned I wouldn’t eat at all. This is where my yoyo dieting and disordered eating began. I lost and I gained, I went up and I went down, I had good days and I had bad days. The amount of diets I have tried and ultimately failed, I would need more fingers and toes to count on. The heaviest I have weighed is 15 stone.
So why do people yoyo? How many times have you heard, or said, 'I did lose weight but I put it all on again'? First of all the word ‘diet’ has a certain stigma to it. The word ‘diet’ automatically makes people defensive. Diets typically give you a set of strict rules to what you are or are not allowed to eat, and if you deviate from the plan you have jeopardised it all. What happens when you follow the diet word for word, you step on the scales and… nothing, zero weight loss, despite all your efforts? Reducing the amount of food you have eat so much so that you can’t possibly reduce it anymore?
What if I told you to lose weight you needed to eat more?
Almost 15 years later I am a stable size 10 weighing 10 and a half stone. I eat more often, I have a constant supply of energy AND I’m happy and confident.
Why?
1. Eating smaller meals more often is believed to keep your metabolism running at the optimum level. After 3 hours your body detects that you haven’t eaten for a while and responds by slowing the metabolism to make your energy last longer. Eating every 3 hours can help prevent this.
2. The main bulk of my diet comes from unprocessed foods, lean meat and fish, fresh fruit and vegetables, whole grains, herbs and spices, nuts and most importantly lots of water. Keeping your diet as close to nature as possible, the way we were built to eat.
3. My diet fuels my workouts making me perform at my best in every session. In addition to diet, combining high intensity interval training with a specific weight training programme will allow you to sculpt your body into your ideal physique.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)