It never gets easier...

A few clients have made a similar comment recently to me, along the lines of (best delivered in a style similar to De Niro in the Godfather....)

"Just when I thought I was getting fit, you made it even harder!"

The fact is, to progress in training you have to be continuously pushing your limits. Go to the gym and do the same workout for a year, and you'll probably look pretty similar at the end of the year! Therefore, it is a good plan to change up the stimulus regularly to ensure you keep making progress. This is a concept my clients are only too familiar with!

This is only one of the many benefits of personal training - it's all too easy to forget how hard the workout you are doing now was the first time you did it or overestimate how hard you are working now and stagnate. If you are training with me or any good trainer you will never reach this stage. You can get all the reps with that weight? BAM! More weight on the bar, now do it again! You can do that lunge variation? BAM! We increase the range of motion, slow the tempo, cut the rest or mess with any of the many possible variations to increase the difficulty. Make sure you are always progressing.

"If you are not moving forwards, you're moving backwards"

My training plan for next few weeks

I am entering power phase of my training now, so will be incorporating the Olympic lifts a lot more than in the past and cutting down my conditioning work. I have also put heavy pulls in my routine for the first time in a long time, as I have noticed that my lower back has quickly got weak and I need to drag that back into shape! There’s more than one was to strengthen the lower back, but I quite like the thrill of standing in front of a bar with lots of weight on it with the adrenaline pumping. I am optimistic that this training block will yield good results!

Chili - A burning sort of cool!

Recently I have been really getting into chili, with almost everything I eat being spicy enough to be used as a substitute for rocket fuel! As a side effect, I have been looking into the health benefits of it, and to my surprise, there are MANY great health benefits, including:



- High in vitamins and minerals

- Good for pain relief

- Reduce risk of cancer

- Kill intestinal parasites

- Clear nasal passages

- Control of blood sugar (reduced risk of diabetes)



Therefore, if you do not already, I recommend bringing a bit of spice to your life! There is a level for everyone, from a touch of paprika to extra hot chilli powder, so choose a level that won't blow your head off to start with! I like using fresh green chilies too, anyone that is brave enough can ask me for a sample of my chilli, but you'd better like it hot!



If you are planning on trying out adding some spice to your cooking, I thought it may be prudent to add a link to this page on how to cool chili burns!



http://www.wikihow.com/Cool-Burns-from-Chili-Peppers

Bacon gives you lung disease?!

This was brought to my attention by a client – there was a story in the paper recently about bacon giving you a fatal lung disease. I have also researched this and as far as I can see there is no real substance to it (note: just because I can’t find any evidence doesn’t mean it’s not true!). The disease is called COPD, and I have looked into it a fair bit as I said before. I have found that taking a certain supplement considerably reduces your risk of getting the disease. Anyone that has read this or known me for any period of time should be able to guess what it is, the supplement that does pretty much everything, fish oil! So if you are worried about this disease, you now have another reason to take copious amounts of fish oil. At this rate I’m going to have to open a fish oil distribution company!