IF YOU HAVEN'T GOT SOMETHING WORTHWHILE TO SAY DON'T SAY ANYHING AT ALL

Sorry that I have not blogged for a while, I’ve a mild form of writers block! The reason being I haven’t had anything new or worthwhile saying when it came to the latest developments in the fitness industry. 

 

Similar to what your parents used to tell you ‘if you haven’t got something nice to say, don’t say anything at all’. I have followed this advice but switched the ‘nice’ to ‘worthwhile’. Unfortunately this same advice is not followed by many of the journalist who contribute to fitness magazines.

It seems every month there is a new and exciting training regime which is guaranteed to boost your physique within weeks. If you have the time or inclination, do a quick google search of fitness magazine front covers. You will soon see there are endless headlines guaranteeing you bigger biceps or a 6-pack within weeks and logic tells us they can’t all be right!

 

Simply speaking, these magazines have a vested interest in hyping up a particular training regime, after all if they didn’t they’d have nothing to put in their magazine and therefore no one would buy it. So in effect their livelihoods depend on creating a buzz around these training programmes.

And these articles are not falling on deaf ears! I have lost count of the number clients that have come to me asking my opinion on such programmes which have seen a Hollywood A-lister go from skinny to beef cake within weeks ready for their latest role in an action movie. My reply is always the same: there are numerous ways to reach the same destination and just because that said celebrity went through a supposedly gruesome training regime he may well have got their anyway with a more conservative, less fancy regime.  (Oh and the use of performance enhancing drugs may well have helped him too).

What I am trying to get at is don’t always believe what you read in the magazines, remember these magazines have a financial interest in hyping different training regimes. Choose a regime that works for you and stick with it. After all by the time you keep flitting from one regime to another you will likely find that you would have benefitted from sticking with the first one and just tweaking it slightly rather than constantly changing. After all consistency is often the key when it comes to exercise improvement!

For sound, balanced fitness advice please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Thanks for reading.

Matt.

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matt@mlrpt.co.uk

07939 316 401

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Dieting is like riding a bike – you have to expect to fall off every now and again!

If you started your New Year diet and exercise regime with all of the enthusiasm of a 4 year old boy in a soft play centre the chances in recent weeks you have struggled to keep up with this new lifestyle of yours and reverted back to the old you!

 

So why do so many diets fail?

Trying to remain on a diet is like learning to ride a bike – You’ve got to expect to fall off from time to time! And unfortunately the more extreme the diet or exercise regime for that matter, the more often you fall of.

 

So if you have been following some sort of fad or extreme diet since the New Year and fallen off too many times that you have given up, now is the time to get back on that bike and a begin a more sensible diet.

For many people diets which prohibit particular food groups or require you to semi-starve yourself for X amount of days per week are just too hard to follow for any real length of time. They either restrict your food choices so much that you are constantly craving that forbidden food or they leave you feeling too hungry too often.

So rather than trying to cycle the equivalent of the tour de France with an extreme diet and training regime just make a few changes that will make it less likely that you fall of that diet bike again.

For example, the single most important factor when it comes to weight loss is calorie restriction. This does not have to be done by following a fancy diet, it can simply be done cutting down on your portion sizes through serving your food on a smaller plate!

If you’ve been following an extreme high intensity interval training DVD and found it so hard that you have injured yourself or been left so exhausted that you simply cannot bring yourself to continue with it any more, remember it does not have to be this way. People often ask me what is the best form of exercise and invariably by common response is ‘it depends’. At this point I could baffle you with various pieces scientific research to support various training methods but I am not. The ‘it depends’ simply refers to it depends on what the individual enjoys doing. Find something you enjoy doing which gets your heart rate up and make a commitment to keep doing as often as you can.

In short…

Diet and exercise should not be like a form of extreme religion which guides your whole life. It should be viewed as something that compliments you but does not define you! So choose a diet and method of exercise which can fit in with your lifestyle with the minimum of fuss this way you are more likely to stick to it for the long haul not just a few weeks of the year when you are feeling highly motivated.

Thanks for reading.

For any training advice please feel free to drop me an email matt@mlrpt.co.uk

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THE BUSH AND BLAIR APPROACH TO WEIGHT LOSS

Hello and welcome to my inaugural blog post. It is something I have been meaning to do for a while now but have only just found the time to do so!

With this in mind I have purposely steered away from making the post something akin to a Kate Winslet Oscar acceptance speech - long, rambling and self indulgent and deliberately opted for something more John Bercow-like...short and to the point!

Those of you that know me, will be aware that exercise and politics are big interests in my life (not the two most obvious bed fellows I know!) which is why for my first post, I have included the two (well tried to anyway!). 

Back in 2003, the US and UK's invasion of Iraq certainly divided public opinion. Some of the British public whole-heartedly backed the invasion, in search of weapons of mass of destruction. Others vehemently detested it. Whatever view you take there can be little argument that neither Bush nor Blair spent much time planning for what was going to happen in Iraq once the invasion and subsequent war had reached it's conclusion.

This lack of planning may not be a good way for a government to run it's foreign policy, however it may be good way of designing your exercise programme!

PROCRASTINATION IS THE ENEMY!

I have lost count of the times people have asked me endless questions about what is the best form of exercise for them. Unfortunately they get way too bogged down and confused with the clever marketing surrounding the latest exercise craze.

They want to know whether they should be doing HIIT training, functional training, tabata training, kettle bells, battle ropes, fixed weights, machine weights, cross-fit, box-fit, or flippin' whatsit! There are endless exercise modalities out there and it is not surprising that people suffer from what I call 'paralysis by analysis'. They spend so much time thinking about the pro's and con's of each type of exercise,  they become so paralysed by this information overload and end up doing nothing at all in fear of doing the wrong exercise.

This is where the Bush and Blair approach works just fine. Sometimes you just need to go out there and get on with it, to borrow Nike's strap line - Just Do It! Choose an exercise you enjoy. If you like going for a long run go for a long run, forget that high intensity interval running leaves you with a potentially longer post exercise calorie burn. If you like spending time in the gym using the Smith  machine forget that free weights may be more functional. If you enjoy pounding the streets, go run the streets, forget that the treadmill may be kinder to your knees.

Please do not get me wrong I am not saying that these training methods do not have their place in a well-rounded exercise plan but for the average person wanting to get fit or increase their activity, doing something, anything, is incredibly more beneficial than doing nothing at all. Within reason there are not many (if any) exercises that are more dangerous to the human body than doing no exercise at all. 

If you are into your gym workouts forget about following the same training regime as the muscle-bound hulk who trains beside you, grunting and groaning and smashing the weights around, the chances are he's on steroids and therefore you will never be able lift or recover as quick as him. If you're into your fitness magazines forget about following the exact training regime as the cover model, these models are so genetically gifted he/she would have that physique (or very close to it) if they followed almost any half decent weight lifting programme.

Choose something you enjoy and go out there and enjoy it. Exercise should be fun that way you are more likely to stick to it and do it for years to come as opposed to some people I see who train their backsides of doing stuff they absolutely hate. Sure it may be effective in terms of reaching their exercise goal but because they do not enjoy it, they can not maintain it so any improvements are soon lost!

THE MAIN POINT TO REMEMBER:

Choose an exercises you enjoy doing - You are much more likely to keep doing it!

HOWEVER:

Having said that, if you do still want to some detailed information on training methods forget about listening to your sister's milkman's uncle who used to train in the 1970's. A good starting point is to refer to the position stands produced by the American College of Sports Medicine. 

http://www.acsm.org/access-public-information/position-stands

These position stands are produced by scientists who analyse all of the available research on a given topic and give their well educated view. A much better starting point than putting blind faith in what the bloke down the pub tells you to do!

Thanks for your time.

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