Friday 20 January 2012

The Linkz 20th January 2012

Hi!

Hope everyone is doing great, hope all your 2012 plans are on track and all is well!

Heres some reading to keep you going over the weekend, enjoy!


A great random thoughts post from Bret Contreras, theres so much good stuff in here!

Great strength exercise of the week from Eric Cressey

Improve body image, improve your body by Helen Kollias on Precision Nutrition, Interesting read.

Guest post from Ben Bruno on re- re-building the reverse hyper, from Mike Robertsons site.

Tony Gentilcore with his choice in daily supplements.

Harold Gibbons shares some cool TRX exercises.

The Contreras files, in case you missed the link in Brets random thought post above!

Alli McKee with Eat and Train to thrive

Some chocolate protein ice cream, courtesy of Kelly Booth on Elite FTS

Great post from Dean Somerset on Paula Deens stoopid comments regarding Diabetes.

Thats it for this week folks. Hope you enjoy!

Stay healthy.

Friday 13 January 2012

The LInkz - Friday the 13th edition!

Friday the 13th, bad luck day - if you happen to believe in that sort of stuff...


Anyways... on with this weeks links to excellent stuff!



First up, a great 2 parter from Eric Cressey on how much rotator cuff training is too much? Parts 1 and 2.

Nick Tumminello on a critical mistake in corrective exercise.

Tony Gentilcore on the differences between box squats and squatting to a box.

A couple from Mike Robertson, 1st - 3 reasons he returned to power lifting and then 5 tips on how to do less in 2012, but enjoy more!

A great coaching tip from Zach Moore at iFast

An inspiring post from Jason Ferruggia.

Some great exercises you've never tried from Ben Bruno

What the efff from Dean Somerset, followed with the 80/20 principle for programme design.

John Romaniello on 3 hormones important when addressing fatloss.

Chad Waterbury asks if you should bench?

Jen Grasso has some bison meatloaf for ya!

You eat loads right? No you don't, Chris Carter tells you what a natural bodybuilder eats in a day.

Not fitness related, but I got a lot out of this older post from Carl Kingdom on introverts.

Jonathan Goodman on gym etiquette and the NO LIFT ZONE!

Hope you enjoy these and learn something, even a little thing, from these!

Stay healthy.

Monday 9 January 2012

1 week down...

So here we are, a week in to 2012 and I hope everyone is doing great and all your plans and goals are still on track!






Hopefully you are all tracking your progress and ticking off the mini goals that are stepping stones to achieving the major goals you have.

Breaking down those big goals you have set will do a number of positive things for you:

1. "Big" goals can appear daunting, they seem too large to possibly be achievable, you feel you are never gonna manage to do whatever that big task is so you lose confidence and ultimately give up.  breaking it down into bite size chunks gives you manageable "mini"-goals to tackle. Want to lose 40lbs of fat? Big goal, but if you aim to drop just over 3lbs per week, in 12 weeks job done!

2. Track all your progress, as you reach certain points along the way reward yourself. It might be treating yourself to a CD (download?), new clothes, or a Ferrari. By tracking your progress and rewarding positive outcomes (results) as well as positive behaviours, as you go, you will create positive attitudes to your new habits making them easier to continue with.

3. Put a date on the big goals and mini goals. Stick to them. It becomes surprisingly easy to let them slip into the gutter and quickly become forgotten about. Set yourself deadlines, tell someone about them who will keep you accountable. Make them hold you to it. Its easy to lie to yourself and say you'll catch up later, its much harder to justify that to someone who wants you to succeed.

Hopefully you are all still working hard on getting the results you want and deserve this year, I wish you all the success you deserve!

Stay healthy

Friday 6 January 2012

The Linkz - 6th of January 2012

Wow! Almost a week of 2012 done already! Hope those new year resolutions are going strong! I've got a bunch of awesome links for ya to get your teeth into!






Eric Cressey up first with 5 great coaching tips

Debbie Martell on coreperformance.com with a great recipe for quinoa.

Harold Gibbons on weighs in on whey

Squat with chains? No? Mike Robertson on why its a good idea to!

Tony Gentilcore has 4 tips for becoming more awesome

Charlotte Ord has 10 predictions for 2012. (The end of the world is not one of them...!)

Nia Shanks with 11 tips for beginner strength trainees

Bret Contreras with a 5 set full body program along with a list of reason why exercise is necessary.

Jen Comas Keck on how to eat an elephant...

Anthony Mychal on T-Nation with 11 tips on training if you are a skinny fat ectomorph.

Interview with Marianne  Kane from Girls Gone Strong on Driventrainingsystems.com

That should keep you going for a while!

Stay healthy.

How to survive the new years resolutionists in the gym from Dean Somerset.

Wednesday 4 January 2012

New Year Nutrition

How are we all today?

I'm writing this in a different location to my normal writing desk, since we live on the top floor of our building and the successor to Hurricane Bawbag (Scottish humour - love it!) has pulled a bunch of tiles of the roof and dumped a ton of water onto the now unprotected roof, there are leaks in 3 of our rooms including my study/ office/ place where we dump stuff! So I've moved through to a drier area to get this done...

Anyhoo... Since this is the time of the year when everyone and their granny is making new years resolutions, gonna get fitter, gonna eat better, gonna give up smoking, gonna, gonna, gonna... I thought I would do a couple of posts giving some tips on the nutrition/ fitness/ being more awesome resolutions being made.

A load of people I've spoken to have decided that getting fit and eating better are the goals for this year, so first up some basics about nutrition.

Nutrition is one of those things that derails a lot of fitness, fatloss goals. It gets over complicated. Nutrient timing, supplementation, supplement timing, macro ratios, no carbs on a full moon, blah blah blah... It all gets way more complicated than it needs to. Simple works.



You just have to know the rules.

1. If you are eating for fatloss or muscle gain, the amount of calories you consume matters. You want to get rid of some fat? Eat less. Want to get bigger? Eat more. Simple.

2. Eat a portion of protein at every meal. Protein gives you a fuller sensation for longer, meaning you snack less, and is vital for retaining ( or building muscle) whilst shedding fat.

A good rule, is for men - 2 palm sized portions per meal, for women - 1 palm sized portion per meal.
Choose from chicken, turkey, lean beef, fish, beans, tofu, tempeh, protein powders. Any of these will do, "chicken" nuggets won't!

3. Eat veggies. Lots of em. With every meal. They are high in fibre, low in cals, high in nutrients and they taste great! Raw, steamed, baked, juiced, you name it (ok, except deep fried...or microwaved) they taste great. ( I like spinach in with my morning shake, you dont even taste it once its blended, and you get a green shake! How cool is that!?)


4. Cut back on the starchy and sugary carbs. Carbs are kinda necessary. They are great for refueling post-training. Thats about it... Once you replace the energy stores in your muscles and liver (as muscle glycogen) the rest has to go somewhere and that somewhere is onto your hips, ass, stomach and bingo wings as fat. We don't want that to happen, so if you are having some carbs, opt for unprocessed types of paste, rice, bread. The processed options are basically just sugar with no redeeming nutrients.
Guys - 1 fist sized portion is good for you,
Ladies - 1/2 a fist sized portion is good.

5. Eat good fats. What!? Eat fat? Really?? Yup, but they can't be any old fat, I'm talking, healthy, unprocessed fats.
A lot of processed foods are full of processed fats, which are bad for your general health and can lead to fat gain. Healthy natural fats are important for a number of reasons, storage of certain vitamins, cell insulation, healthy skin and hair amongst many more.
Sources of these oils include raw nuts and seeds, olive oil, avocados, oily fish and omega 3 rich fish oil supplements.

Fats should make up about 30% of your total calories each day, try to keep the unhealthy fats (saturated fat typically from red meat and processed fats) to less than 10%.

Use these guidelines, and you will see great strides in your general health and body compositon, use them to get the best out of your training.

Stay healthy

Monday 2 January 2012

Happy New Year!!

Happy New Year everyone! I hope it was a great Christmas and New Year holiday for everyone. I hope you got all you hoped for and had a safe and healthy New Year.

Now we are at the time of year where the obligatory review our lives and goal setting and lists of resolutions for the upcoming year happens.

I'm not all that different, I set goals, have ambitions and work towards them, ticking them off as I go.



The problem most people who set resolutions, or any goals set at any time, is that by 2 or 3 weeks in to them, they give up. They run out of steam, lose motivation, weren't clear enough about what they want, how they will go about getting it and when they plan on having achieved whatever it is they want.

So whether you plan on setting a PR in your lifts, eating healthier, dropping fat or becoming more awesome, your strategy is always the same.





So,
1. For the love of all that's holy, be specific! All well and good having a goal of losing weight, for example, but decide what you want to lose. Be it 10lbs, 20lbs, whatever...find the number you need to lose and write it down.

2. Set a date. Be realistic with both the amount you want to lose and the time in which you wish to lose it. 100lbs by the 1st of February may be a tad unrealistic, 20lbs by the end of February though is more achievable and will lead to a healthier and longer term weight loss result.

3. Decide how you will achieve it:
     1 - Eat a more balanced diet.
     2 - Reduce starches and sugars.
     3 - Increase protein intake.
     4 - Exercise 3 times per week, using a structured plan, set with the help of a trainer.
     5 - Remove negative influences and create a support network.
     6 - Log your activities, calorie intake and progress daily with fitday or mydailyplate.

Whatever you have planned this coming year, breakdown your specific goals, and set about getting them done.
 
I have the utmost faith in you!

Stay healthy.

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