Muscle definition is something everybody wants, from the elite athlete to the normal gym goer who is exercising for health benefits more than for the looks department.

The best way to achieve this is through high repetition training, now remember this is not a theory, I am speaking from experience and results as this is a method I have used hundreds of times on clients during the past 11 years of my personal training career.

The Benefits of High Repetition Training (HRP)

- Burns off subcutaneous fat and increases the visibility of muscle striations.

- Increases the protein content in the muscles through performance of long, high-reps sets.

- Increases capillary density within the muscle through increased adaptation to aerobic work, which may result in a slight increase in muscle size.

Get rid of FAT

In order to get the best defined look possible you need to reduce as much body fat as possible.  To accomplish this, the duration of nonstop muscular contraction must be increased.  Traditionally you will try running on the treadmill, rowing, cross training, cycling, stair climbers etc…but this unfortunately will not produce the desired results! 

The high repetition training method will result in elimination of fat from the overall body and more importantly from local muscle groups involved in the activity.

The number of repetitions and sets per muscle group need to be drastically increased in a progressive manor and in a nonstop fashion.  To avoid complete melt down of a muscle group during your workout, it may be an idea to exhaust one muscle group then straight after a set is complete move onto the opposite working muscle group.  For example, if you have just completed 10 sets on the bench press using the HRT method then it would be a good idea to then train the back muscles as they are still fresh, unfatigued and will allow you to perform another set of 10 sets! 

This is not only causing you to burn more calories but also keeps your heart rate up and adds an aerobic style routine to your training regime.

Considerations

Ensure when taking part in high repetition training that you leave only a few seconds from using one machine and moving onto another to keep your heart rate up.

HRT requires that muscle groups be constantly alternated

Beginners to exercise should enter this style of training regime with great caution as the end result can be muscle soreness for days which can be highly demotivating

Do not try to speed through the sets as this will cause your muscles to build up lactic acid at a much faster rate, instead, employ a steady speed throughout the set

It would be advisable to only take part in this training system twice per week to begin with if you are a beginner and for the elite athlete up to 4 times per week.

Ensure that your protein intake is always high and consume plenty of water.

3 Basic Rules of Strength Training & Bodybuilding

Rule # 1 – Concentrate on improving joint flexibility before developing muscle strength

When first embarking on any kind of weight training the new trainee tends to be more focused on how much he or she can lift rather than focusing on how NOT to pick up an injury or even thinking about flexibility.

Joint flexibility should be the first part of your training regime for many reasons but the the most being to avoid joint pain.

During most exercises the weight of the barbell and dumbbells compresses the joints to such a degree, that if you do not have good joint flexibility, it can result in strain and allot of pain!

The best way to improve joint flexibility is to take part in range of motion stretches.  This in a nutshell refers to how far you move your joint.  You would be looking to move and stretch your joints through all the its range of movement.

The muscles and tendons that support the joint lengthen every time you stretch which in turn allows the joint to move that little bit further and more freely.  You may experience some burning in the muscle or tightness during this process. 

It is always advisable to take part in a thorough warm up prior to taking part in stretching to reduce the chances of picking up an injury.

Rule #2 – Develop the tendons before developing the muscles

The rate of gain in muscle strength always has the potential to exceed the rate at which tendons and ligaments can adapt to higher tensions.  Make sure the tendons and ligaments have time to adapt, remember health, fitness and weight training is a life long journey so don’t be in too much of a hurry and forget about the basics! 

This common and very amateur mistake is the equivalent of to trying to build a house on sand rather than on solid concrete foundations!

To train tendons and ligaments you need to take part in a low-load program (light weight, high repetition training) for at least 2 years!  Yes you read correctly 2 years!  There are no short cuts unfortunately but the result of this will be increasing the size in diameter which will allow your tendons and ligaments to withstand tension and wear.  Patience will ultimately pay off!

Rule #3 – Develop the body’s core before developing the limbs

Yes big arms and legs are impressive and takes allot of training to develop these areas.  Don’t forget that the trunk is the link to these areas and these limbs can only be as strong as the trunk.

A poorly developed trunk represents a weak support system for the hard working arms and legs, so never forget to focus on this important area. 

As tempting as it may be to just train the arms and legs, “don’t do it!”  Ensure that there is adequate core training included in your workout regime.  The areas of interest should be the muscles of the abdomen, lower back and spinal column.

It’s January, your News Year’s Resolutions have probably been set in stone for now…and you are ready to hit the gym to try and get rid of all the visible signs of over indulging during the festive season.

Before we get going allow me to go through the workout you would have been mentally preparing in your head over the past few weeks and then I will then I will be covering what you should be doing…

Your Mental Plan of Action

For a few weeks now you will have been mentally preparing your workout and setting the intensity levels that you will be working out to in January.

This is all great but too much focus on the intensity of your workout could be where you potentially go wrong and will also determine if you will be consistently training over the weeks and months to come.

You will already have painted a picture of going all out on the treadmill, cross trainer, rower, lifting life threatening amounts of weights etc… and sweating bucket loads during the process!…However, this is the opposite of what you want to do…and here’s why…

Your body may have been used to exercising on a consistent basis and overtime would have developed a high level of tolerance to exercise and the recovery process would have also been pretty efficient after intense workouts.

Even after a few weeks of not exercising the conditioning of your muscles will not be to the same tune as they were a few weeks ago.  “So what does this mean for your workout?”…it means we have to cut back on the intensity for a good few sessions.  By doing this you will reduce the amount of muscle soreness but more importantly it allows you to exercise again the following day with less soreness.

Muscle Soreness Can Affect Motivation Levels…

By exercising too hard straight away you will find your motivation to get back into the gym is overcome by muscle soreness and even if the will power is there to exercise the lack of muscle flexibility and soreness limits your performance levels whilst exercising.  This is also how injuries can be picked up. 

Recommended Plan of Action

For the first few weeks I would recommend you concentrate on consistency rather than intensity.  It is better to get into a routine of exercising 3 times per week rather than taking part in 1 hard training session and then spending the next 4 days to recover and then repeating the process.  There is very little benefit in this routine.  You will find as you exercise more frequently, your body is quickly getting back into it’s normal routine and your muscles tolerance levels to exercise is improving which in turn means your recovery process is also allot quicker. “Remember Health & Fitness is for life, it’s not going out of fashion so let’s start slowly and positively”…

There are additional steps you can take to help the recovery process and that is to feed your muscles with its natural properties which are water and protein. 

Always stay hydrated as this can help maximise your training effort…remember muscle tissue is made up by 70 to 80% of water and about 25% protein!
Additional resources can also be protein shakes, this is a great way to supply protein to your muscles straight after your workout!

Conclusion…

So there you have it, start off slowly, concentrate on exercise consistency rather than exercise intensity (to begin with), drink more water, consume more protein and one last thing that we haven’t touched on yet is to try and get 8 hours of sleep as inconsistent or heavily disturbed sleeping patterns can also reduce recovery times and can also cause weight gain!

Yes it’s that time of year again when the weather takes a turn for the worst, fitness becomes less of a priority and the festive foods take over!

While it’s very easy to get caught up with the cold weather, snow and generally jolly moods, let’s not forget to keep focus on the well being of our bodies.

This may sound like hard work given all the elements we are facing but in actual fact it’s not really that difficult.  If you can sustain 30 minutes of cardio/resistance training per day that will see you through the month of December very nicely.

The trap you don’t want to fall into is going to work and finding yourself eating the cup cakes and other goodies in large trays that your very generous peers have left.  This will result in you eating nothing BUT SUGAR for 8 hours and this will continue for weeks because the next day another friendly peer will also bring in some festive yummies.

Then there will be after hour drinks and bar nights resuting in late dinners and so forth…and you will casually smile and accept what is going on because its Christmas!…Well it’s not quite Christmas, it’s the “lead up” to Christmas but you will only be more than happy to tell yourself that it is…

Now before we tackle the do’s let’s just quickly get the do not’s out of the way first as I like to end on positive and lighter notes…

Do Not…

- Do not starve yourself during the day so you can over indulge on snacks, goodies and Christmas diners

- Avoid sitting at your desk and snacking for 8 hours on cakes and goodies that your work peers have bought in!

- Separate yourself from your nearest and dearests December habits, they may not want to look after themselves as well as you do

- Avoid late night diners and going to bed straight after

- Do not get drunk on every given opportunity & avoid “one for the road”

- Do not be bullied into eating and drinking more because friends and family members are saying “go ooooooon……you know you want to”….it’s a trap!

Do…

- Drink plenty of water during the day, this will help release toxins from your body

- Do try the odd cup cake but don’t get excited and get caught up in the moment and find yourself elbow deep in tray full of assorted cakes!

- Continue to eat 3 regular meals during the day

- DO 30 MINUTES OF CARDIO/RESISTANCE TRAINING EVERY DAY

When I say cardio I am talking about going for a jog, swimming, skipping cycling any fitness activity that will have your heart rate up for at least 30 minutes.

Not only will this help you burn calories but it will keep your mind, body and immune system fit during the month of December…this will not only keep you active but it sets you up nicely for your New Years Resolutions.

Resistance training could be body weight exercises such as push ups, sit ups, squats, lunges etc…these exercises will help keep your muscles remain strong, supple, flexible, toned and well conditioned! 

Other advantages to 30 minutes of exercise per day is it keeps your immune system finely tuned resulting in you minimising your chances of catching a cold/flu and other airborn viruses that tend to pop up during the colder temperatures of December.

 I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a safe and wonderful “Lead Up” to and Christmas

Deepak Bhangu
Head of Operations & Personal Trainer
Musclemadness

Learn to Hypnotise Your Self  Back into Fitness

“We have been recieving allot of emails on how to get back onto track with exercise after your training routine had stopped abruptly through an event that was completely out of your control.  The reason could be a serious injury, the death of a loved one, moving home…it could be any reason that has resulted in inactivity for long periods f time.

Luckily we are able to pass these questions on to our in house mindset expert Ron G Holland who will cover some basic self hypnosis techniques that are a sure fire way to get you going again…”

It’s a good question; having been a qualified hypno-therapist for over thirty years, I feel well qualified to answer it. 

Much depends of why you quit in the first place. 

If you quit because of some physical ailment: you badly strained a muscle in your leg or slipped a disc in your back, it may be time some time before you get back into physical shape and can get back into your exercise regime full tilt. 

However if you just lost the will to exercise that’s a different proposition and one I have come across many times.  I use a lot of hypnosis and self hypnosis.  This entails taking yourself into state of relaxation, what I call the relaxation induction.  Talk to yourself for 2-4 minutes of how relaxed you feel.  Using a dreary monotone voice helps. 

You can put this on an audio-tape so you can listen to it everyday until the program is properly installed into your mind. 

Then to the relaxation induction you add a number carefully worded ‘super suggestions’. They could be on the lines of: 

Every day I awake at 6am and feel motivated and ready go and start my exercise program. 

Every day at the proposed time I work out for thirty minutes. As I do so I feel happy, I fell healthy and I feel terrific. Tiredness falls away. 

Will I stick to my exercise regime?  YES I WILL! YES I WILL! YES I WILL! 

During the day I begin to look forward to and anticipate my exercise regime which I love, everyday that I work out builds a more powerful program in my mind to exercise the next day. 

You can add a few more that are appropriate to your own circumstances, but now you get the idea! 

At the end make sure you put a thirty second SNAP OUT of the relaxed mode on the tape so you are then fully awake and ready for the day or evening ahead. 

You can loudly state you are coming out of the relaxed state, that you feel fit and raring and ready to go…

Play the tape every day until you find yourself back in your regular routine and raring to go. It’ll be effortless! 

Ron G Holland 2010
Mindset Expert – Musclemadness
www.wealth.co.uk

Dumbbells Vs Kettlebells 

So what are these relatively new kettlebells that everyone seems to be going on about?…they look like cast iron balls with a handle on it…but is there more to them than meets the eye?

Derrick Twum and Myself were invited to a fitness roadshow last week where we used allot of new up and coming equipment to give reviews and had the opportunity to speak to hundreds of people that were attending the event.

Whilst using some of the gym equipment we moved over to the free weights section and noticed a set of kettlebells sitting there waiting to be used.

I have seen kettlebells being used in demo videos but never really had the opportunity to use them myself so we thought we would give them ago.

We went through a number of exercises that were illustrated on a poster and to my amazement they were actually really good workouts  and worked up quite a sweat.

Now I wouldn’t replace them for dumbbell exercises completely but they were an excellent way to get warmed up and get the heart pumping!

The handle plays a vital part in allowing you to swing and clinch the kettlebell in certain ways which a standard dumbbell doesn’t allow you to do, but all in all there were allot of exercises that could also be done with a dumbbell!

So is there really a big difference between a dumbbell and a kettlebell?…

Yes I believe there is, I no longer look at them as a ball of cast iron with a handle, that handle allows me to perform warm up exercises I wouldn’t really perform using a dumbbell or I could but it wouldn’t feel as comfortable as using a kettlebell.

Our favourite exercise had to be the kettlebell swing , this exercise is a great way to warm up the entire body, it really works the back, legs, shoulders, hips and we found our hearts were really racing after this exercise!  (we will be releasing a kettlebell training video VERY SOON – Watch This Space)

As we raised the poundage the exercises naturally would have become more difficult but the intensity was allot higher than we anticipated, this wasn’t necessarily because we were lifting heavier weights but due to the fact that every set you perform you are using the majority of your muscles resulting in quicker fatigue, where as with dumbbells you are isolating the muscle you are working thus using less energy and calories. 

This is why there is a big mention on burning hundreds if calories whilst training with kettlebells on every kettlebell training video and posters,  you definately can but one word of warning, make sure you practice and get the exercises done correctly, due to the swinging nature of these workouts you want to make sure you don’t end up injuring yourself! 

Start off with light weights and master the exercise before raising the weight and trying more complex workouts.

Good Luck and share you stories of kettlebells with us in our forum

Deepak Bhangu
Head of Operations and Personal Trainer
Musclemadness

Dangers of Sugar

I really wanted to make an in-depth article on Sugar but I also wanted to keep it as easy to read and understand as possible….so as I was researching this article, I surfed the web and was surprised to find that the majority of the websites that mention sugar say that it is fine to eat in moderation!!!.Most of them say that your body turns all food to glucose regardless of the kind of food eaten, so whether you eat sugar, vegetables, or steak is irrelevant. 

Now to me this is pretty shocking!!!

First of all, it is true that your body converts all foods to glucose. 

However, there is an important difference between sugar and those other foods…..meat, fruits, and vegetables all have vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and amino acids when it comes to HOW your body react to them.

 Sugar has none of those things to assist in its digestion and absorption.  As a result, metabolizing refined sugar puts the body at a severe nutritional disadvantage.

Oh yes! I know! How many times have you heard…and said it yourself in fact…”Oh I feel weak I need some sugar!”…NO…you do not need sugar…lets have a look and understand why…

There have been many researches on this topic and science has now shown us several times that there is NO DOUBT, the sugar in our food is damaging our health far more than we can imagine.

Sugar is loaded into your soft drinks, fruit juices, sports drinks, and hidden in almost all processed foods, ketchup, sauces, cheese…everywhere!!. And now most infant formula has the sugar equivalent of one can of Coca-Cola, so babies are being metabolically poisoned from day one if taking formula.

No wonder there is an obesity epidemic!!!

Did you KNOW…???

A can of Coke contains:

Caffeine → it’s a DIURETIC which means you will wee free water

SALT!!! → 55mg of Sodium per can! It’s like drinking Pizza

So what happens when you intake so much salt and eliminate water? You get thirstier!

And of course SUGAR! Why so much sugar? Nobody wants to consume a salty drink!  Thats the amount of sugar that covers the taste of salt!

Oh yes the people behind this are pretty clever hey… I’ll leave it to you to judge.

Too Much Fructose Creates a Metabolic Disaster in Your Body

Now…If your diet was like that of people a century ago, you’d consume about 15 grams per day… Amazingly, 25 percent of people actually consume more than 130 grams of fructose per day!

Making matters worse, all of the fiber has been removed from processed foods, so there is essentially no nutritive value at all. And the very products most people rely on to lose weight—the low-fat diet foods—are often the ones highest in fructose.

It isn’t that fructose itself is bad—it is the MASSIVE DOSES you’re exposed to that make it dangerous.

Why is fructose so damaging?

1. Your body metabolizes fructose in a much different way than glucose. The entire burden of metabolizing fructose falls on your liver. This is NOT the case with glucose, of which your liver breaks down only 20 percent. Nearly every cell in your body utilizes glucose, so it’s normally “burned up” immediately after consumption.

So where does all of this fructose go, once you consume it?

On your thighs!! It is turned into FAT which means more fat deposits throughout your body.

2. People are consuming fructose in enormous quantities, which has made the negative effects much more profound.

3. Fructose tricks your body into gaining weight by fooling your Metabolism—it turns off your body’s appetite-control system. Fructose does not appropriately stimulate insulin, which in turn does not suppress ghrelin (the “hunger hormone”) and doesn’t stimulate leptin (the “satiety hormone”), which together result in your eating more and developing insulin resistance.

4. Fructose rapidly leads to weight gain and abdominal obesity

One of the more recent findings that surprised researchers is that glucose actually accelerates fructose absorption, making the potential health risks from HFCS even more profound!!

You can now see why fructose is the number one contributing factor to the current obesity epidemic…

…read full article on www.ilariapetrucci.info 
(includes 75 reasons why we do NOT need Sugar!)

 Gym Love

Ila

How sleep can help build you Muscle

You can spend hours and hours in the gym, lifting hundreds of kilo’s and forcing those last few reps out…but all that can quite easily be going to waste by simply losing out on sleep!

If you are staying up late, getting all worked up over something before bed or sleeping in a noisy environment then this is not going to help your cause, however if you find that you have reached that training plateau then spending a few hours in bed is a better solution to destroying yourself in the gym trying to get over the plateau.

Let’s have a quick look at the basics, if you are not getting enough sleep then your body’s growth hormone which you need to build muscle get disrupted and on the flip side its production of stress hormone cortisol which can cause fat gain will go up!

There are many other negatives that come hand in hand with lack of sleep, it can cause depression, weaken your immune system and make you more vulnerable to bacteria.

To avoid all of the above it is best to try to get eight hours of  quality sleep, lying in bed and updating your profile on facebook on your mobile device does not count, get some real shut eye! 

Consume Slow Release Protein  before Bed

Consuming a slow release protein will also be highly beneficial such as casein or mixing a weigh protein, fish, glutamine and flaxseeds to drip feed the body throughout the night.

I was going to write an article on de-hydration this week but changed my mind after I got involved in a discussion last weekend about the differences between Weight Loss and fat loss.

Is there a difference I hear you say?

It is extremely important that I clarify the difference between weight loss and fat loss and believe it or not there is a big difference.

I remember reading the article below some time ago and I think it pretty much summarize it all:

“I mean sheesh, anyone can lose weight, all you have to do is eat birdseed and arugula with a side of grapes”…now I know what you are thinking…Arugula what? Yes I wasn’t sure either so … I googled it…it is just a type of salad! It’s green.

Now ….STOP!!! I bet it already crossed your mind to add the following to your shopping list:

-Birdseeds
-Arugula
-Grapes

I am not going to be able to stop you if that is what you decide to do but take some time to read what follows before you make that decision.

My advice to you is that take your time and be patient, far too often I see too many people wanting amazing results with very little effort on their part, so again…be patient!

If you want to be successful in your fat-loss journey don’t be in a rush, allow yourself to relax, allow your body to adapt to the changes and accept your new healthy and balanced regime, it takes time your, body need to trust you and the food you are consuming.

You need to be looking at creating a small negative energy balance (300-500 calories MAX), which is something you’ll be able to stick to long-term, rather than the ever- so popular crash dieting strategies sold to us by so called weight loss experts on TV and in all those magazines.

These magic potions and diets aren’t realistic. A 900Kcal per day diet isn’t realistic; the liquid diets are not realistic either!

Why Crash Dieting Doesn’t Work

Crash dieting is unlikely to work long-term for various reasons:

First of all the motivation for rapid weight loss is short-term because it centres on a quick-fix mentality. This invariably leads to the nightmare roller coaster ride of emotions that the yoyo dieters or “crash dieter” often falls into… determination to diet, rapid weight loss, weight-loss plateau, loss of determination, return to old habits, depression, rapid weight gain, depression, guilt, new determination to diet, rapid weight loss and so it goes on…Its extremely frustrating to go through all this and it creates an ENOURMOUS amount of stress for the body which is completely UNNECESSARY.

After all, do you want to be in shape only temporary? Of course not and to sustain this new you there has to be a lifestyle change. Stop looking for these shortcuts that don’t exist!

A little bit of maths…there are 3,500Kcal in a pound of fat…(yes that’s right! )…which mean to lose ONE POUND of FAT you have to burn 3,500Kcal. This explains why fat loss requires time and patients’.

Now, our body cannot only fuel on fat,..It will always be a ratio of fat and carbohydrate (that’s why carbohydrate are so important to fuel your workouts)…and the ratio depends on the type of workouts activity you do.

Now let’s look at water loss or weight loss:

When losing weight its inevitable that water will make up some of the weight loss. No matter how we lose weight or how long the weight loss takes, everyone will lose water.

This is determined by:

1. Which exercise is selected

2. The diet (Nutrition) – for example, a too low carbohydrate diet may increase water loss

3. Calorie intake – lowering calorie intake too much will cause more water loss

4. Body composition of the person – the amount of protein and carbohydrate stores before new diet

The water weight loss comes from a net loss of protein and carbohydrates especially during the first few weeks of a reduction in calories.

On reducing calories the body needs to rely more on energy within the body and thus breaks down protein and carbohydrate for Metabolism.

When these nutrients are metabolised (used for energy) water is released.
Fat stores do supply a little of the energy but, at first a good proportion comes from protein and the limited stores of carbohydrates within the cells.

For fat loss the trick is to reduce losing water weight as much as possible so the body is forced to burn more body fat stores.

Here come the tips:

1. Consume small portions of high quality protein at each meal
2. Reduce food intake gradually and count calories (where are the calories coming from?)
3. Do NOT starve yourself or go on a crash diet!
4. Train for strength so to increase muscle (The amount of lean muss we have will determine how fast our metabolism is)
5. Lose weight slowly no more than 2 pounds per week…PATIENCE IS KEY

And that is all the tips from me today…until next time…

Enjoy your workouts!

Gym Love

Ilaria

The quick and short answer to this question is YES…You are your own worst enemy but on the flip side you are also your very own best kept secret.

I was doing my rounds at my health club a few weeks ago and broke into a conversation with a polite middle aged man who looked a little lost and unsettled.  I introduced myself to him and got chatting away…This gentleman has decided to get back into the gym after having spent 10 years sitting on the sidelines doing NOTHING!

He did not play badminton once a week, he did not go for walks, he didn’t go swimming, he didn’t play 5 a side football….he was very upfront about it and said he has done NOTHING!

Wow…was my reaction…I have never met anyone that has claimed that they have done nothing…I always hear “I play badminton once a week, a play squash, I play 5 a side football once a week, I swim every now and then…..”

I was yet to hear, “I have done nothing in 10 years”…

I drilled a little deeper as to why!…and this is what I was told!  “I got married and then came my little boy and I was taking care of him, then I had a little girl….and they are a right handful and then this happened and then that happened…and I found I never had the time”

My first question was, ”What has changed?”…He is still married, he still has a boy and girl, he is still working!…”So what has changed?”… 

He didn’t have an answer and was struggling to find one…I had to tell him what had changed…It was simple, his mindset had shifted and is what caused this sudden change, I say sudden because he has gone from 10 years of no activity to joining a gym and now trying to lead an active lifestyle.

All the reasons above were just excuses for not exercising; he had convinced himself so well that he was too busy that he did not exercise for 10 YEARS!

Maintaining Your Motivation & Mindset

I knew straight away I had to help this new member become settled into a routine and make sure that no one, especially him, disturbs his new found mindset.

I instantly asked him if he had a training partner and suggested he gets one and fast because he never.  By having a training partner not only does it add instant value to the social aspect of exercising it creates another reason for having to continue exercising…you don’t want let your partner down!

If there is a day he does not feel like training but his training partner decides to go to the gym, it is more likely that he will make the effort of going, guilt is the only reason for going, but the object is met!

Once going to the gym becomes a regular habit and please bear in mind this habit can take only a few weeks to form it can be the difference between sustaining a very healthy lifestyle for you and your family or another 10 years of inactivity and poor health.

A week later I revisited this newly formed health fanatic and was happy to hear that he managed to convince his friend who has also not trained for 10 years to join and start leading a healthier lifestyle!  His gym visits increased from twice a week with no training partner to 4 times per week WITH a training partner!

Now that does not sound like a big jump, but in fitness years that’s brilliant, he is now doubling his activity resulting in twice the amount of calories being burnt in a week, his muscle tone, strength and endurance will increase at a much faster rate and best of all he will start seeing mental and physical results allot sooner!

Did you notice something?

There was something that my new member had said to me about his friend that had just joined.  He also hasn’t exercised for 10 years!  As I met more often with these two I also learned that they work together, that they always had a beer after work together, they both supported the same football team and were season ticket holders TOGETHER!

Whether you want to believe it or not, you will do what those closest to you do!  They were both happy not to exercise for 10 years and were both happy to eat, drink and go to sporting events together but none of them mentioned exercising together!

But somewhere along the lines one friend’s mindset had shifted and changed for whatever reason, it could be health reasons, to prolong life, for family etc…

But that shift in his mindset also infected and positively impacted the mindset of his close friend.  What was his friends motivation?…there wasn’t one there…he has decided to take part in exercise because his friend for his own his personal reasons had decided to. 

Imagine what these two can achieve if they now decided to start looking closely at their eating and drinking patterns, what impact will this have on their families if they also change their mindset and focus on health and fitness?

The possibilities are endless and the point I am trying to make is only YOU can restrict yourself from everything and anything and you also have the power to influence those closest to you to also change their mindset.

So stop pointing the fingers at scenario’s that you have made to be true for not exercising and start pointing those fingers back at Yourself…as for “You are Your Own Worst Enemy”…but as you now know, that doesn’t have to be true…