I am currently reading this, it is very wordy, as you would expect, but excellent and written as if Stephen Fry is actually reading you the book. You can hear him saying each sentence, A good, interesting read...

Injury - what a pain

I recently played 5 a side football in a Dads tournament, and survived a whole 8 minutes till getting an injury. I hyper extended my knee, after it jarred into the ground under a tackle. The initial pain is bad enough, but in my line of work, and being self employed, alsorts of bad thoughts crossed my mind. A week later, 2 trips to Hospital and x-rays, there doesn't seem to be anything broken or snapped - phew. But ligament and tendon over stretching. Time seems to helping the healing process and hopefully in a couple of weeks I will be able to start running again and building up my fitness. I have not trained myself now for over a week and it is so frustrating. I have sympathy with anyone wanting to play, participate in a sport and not be able to due to injury.
So keep the faith, train hard when you can, and be positive.

Line Circuit - Tough one

You will need a set of Dumbells, I did this with a female client this morning and she used 4Kg, and a marker (cone, football, stick). A mat and some space, preferably outside in the Garden. Set up your mat at one end and the marker at the other, about 15 - 20m if possible, or as far apart as you can fit in.

The sequence works like this: Do exercise 1 then sprint to marker and back, that would be one run. Then do exercise 1 & 2 then sprint to marker and back, Then exercise 1, 2 & 3 then sprint again......I'm sure you get the idea keep adding an exercise then sprint etc.
Use the dumbells for every exercise except the Bicycles. Have fun and try to complete in 30mins max.

Exercise Reps Sprints
1 Squat 12 4
2 Push Up 12 6
3 Shoulder Press 12 8
4 Lunges 12 10
5 Row 12 12
(in hand plank position throughout)
6 Abs Bicycles 12 14
7 Chest Flyes 12 16

Run all the way through then last set, circuit it from exercise 7 to 1 with 20 sprints to finish. This is a great way to combine resistance, cardio, fat burning and a massive amount of exercise in a short space of time. Give it a go and have fun.

Bad Week

Been feeling really poorly this week, started last Friday, with headache, aching muscles, sore throat, and zero energy. Thought it was just the start of a cold so "toughed" it out, but steadily got worse over the next few days, was struggling to get of the sofa and couldn't be botherd eating (which is really scary for me). The final straw was when I was in bed and had to get out of it due to the amount of sweating I was doing had soaked the entire mattress and I was a wet as being in the bath - lovely!(sarcasm that incase you think I am a bit weird)
Called the Doctors the next morning - got through after 23 attempts, later that day I was diagnosed with Sinusitis, which I had never heard off, anyway got some antibiotics and starting to feel much better.
The biggest problems with being self employed is 1)letting people down, 2) no work - no pay and 3) hating being ill in the first place. Hopefully be back in full swing by Friday.

Gym etiquette - Advise or not

Whenever I am in the Gym, I always see poor form and technique, people training to light and often way to heavy, to name but a few of the things that don't deliver what the Gym member wants.
I don't work at the Gym that I train in, but have never seen any of the staff speaking to the members in there about there training, I often get the urge to go over and speak to the person to offer a bit of advice and assistance, although I have never done it.
What would you think if someone came over to you, whilst you were training and offered advise, would you appreciate it or think what is it to do with you?
Shouldn't the people who work in the Gym be doing this, although Gym's are not very proactive once they have your membership, so not sure that will ever happen.

Biggest Loser - Biggest Dissapointment

Watching the Biggest Loser UK last night I was stunned and dissapointed with a number of points throughout, so in no particular order I will just spill out my views.
The little if any weight losses measured was not understandable initially until the programme then hinted at the food must be a problem - I thought the trainers and nutritionist where getting the contestants to record what they ate on the ipads they keep showing and the website they keep plugging - have they not looked over the last 4 weeks, not very encouraging to say the least.
The tactical voting at the end to eliminate the Biggest Loser of the week, quite frankly stinks! so much for TEAM work. Surely if you want to be the best you have to beat the best...not just vote them off so you don't have to face them.
The temptation challenge is ridiculous, I know it is suppose to reflect the "outside world" but they won't be offered 4lbs weight loss if you eat some cakes, so hardly real - they would be better teaching people how to lose 4lbs or find better alternatives that could be chosen. I was hoping the programme would encourage people to lose weight, get fit and achieve great things for themselves, but leaves me thinking why should people bother.I hope this is not how it leaves others feeling who could do with losing some weight, as great things are achievable and many of my clients are achieving excellent results so don't be put off by a programme that must be put in the entertainment only category, rather than educational and encouraging.
It will be interesting to see what happens next week when we see what the contestants have been eating and what advice they have been given along the way, some may have intolerances to certain food groups will this have been tested? have they been eating high fat, low protein? will the contestants start losing the weight they deserve? lets hope they get the rewards and the programme, trainers and nutritionist step up and stop treating it like some Biggest Brother style programme.

A good Day

Started the day kickboxing with a client, then went to the gym - chest day today so did 4 sets of 45 degree incline dumbell presses, 4 sets of 30 degree incline bench press (on smith machine) then 4 sets overhead rows. I followed every set/exercise with a set of chin ups. This is a great superset for the upper body and means you do a hell of alot of chin ups without realising it, till near the end.
I do a similiar routine when I train my back, but do push ups after every set/ exercise - just doing 12 push ups every time means you do 144 push ups in total, this would sound daunting, but isn't to bad when broken down into this routine.
I count this as part of my rest time so only take an extra 20 seconds actuall rest between the supersets.
Great workouts in double quick time and maintaining intensity - what more do you want.
This afternoon went to the Tate Gallery in Liverpool, well worth a visit, some really cool "art" in there as well as some stuff I really don't understand or can even appreciate, but it is all up to individual taste I suppose. If you go make sure you ask someone in there to explain some of the sculptures etc; we did and found a new perspective to it. There is a disco type room - with a tall lifelike girl leaning against the wall really freaky!! and one room has a cube mirror that you look in side which is awesome.
So get yourself training both body and mind!