How to Start – Why Strength Matters to You

Do you know what the most effective approach is when starting a fitness plan? If I was in school I’d be the first one to put my hand up and say “pick me, pick me!”  Let me lay out my argument for what I think is the best way to start.

When people start in the gym, they tend to do high reps, light weights, with a big focus on machines and isolation exercises. This is certainly a fine way to start because…you’ve started. That’s worth celebrating for sure. But, what if you want to start the best way?

Compound VS Isolation:
Compound is how you move in the real world, think pushing, pulling, which requires your whole body. Exercises like squats, deadlifts and bench presses. Your old car has broken down (OK, my old car), you had better compound-push it to safety.

Isolation is single muscle groups, like biceps curls and triceps extensions. It’s not how we move day to day until it’s the evening and you attend the discotheque and do “the robot” dance. 

Robot

Stand back… I’m about to unleash some serious moves.

Foundational Strength:
You come into the gym with a low baseline of strength, and then the goal is to build that up to create a new baseline, and everything becomes easier after that. Once you’ve built up the skillset to learn how to build strength effectively, you can get stronger week to week.

With your newfound strength and resilience, you have more options than if you had started with light weights. Why? Every dumbbell you lift is now heavier because you’re stronger. And because it’s heavier, that’s what’s going to make your body adapt and change. Now imagine if you’d started with light weight and high reps, over the same period, do you think you’ll be able to lift the same heavy weights? No.

Do Heavier Weights Really Matter?
Yes. Little dumbbells are better than no dumbbells, but if we really want physical change i.e. more muscle, less fat, we need heavy things to force our body to grow, otherwise we stay the same.

What do I mean by “heavy”? If you can do 20 reps with it and it’s pink, it’s not heavy. Of course, good form is really important here, so make sure you take the time to learn how to lift heavy weights correctly. “Heavy” is relative to you. If you see a big guy in the gym with loads of plates on the bar, that’s his heavy, not yours. Your heavy is lifting something that weighs more than last week.

Pink Dumbbells

It only counts if you can lift ALL the pink dumbbells

Building your Baseline for the Long-term:
If you have a higher level of strength, you have something to lose when you get ill, have an accident or need surgery. If your baseline is low to non-existent, you’re going to have a much harder time bouncing back. Build that baseline up and as you can see in the graph below, you’re going to be much better equipped before, during and after. Another way to think of it is like this: it’s better to work on your mental health whilst you’re in a good place, so that when the inevitable suffering arrives, you’ll have more tools at your disposal to manage your situation.

Graph
Not everyone wants to get strong. Your journey is your journey. After I present my argument to a new client, they have full freedom to choose the direction they want to go in with my full support, and that’s because my baseline for exercise is: do something, anything.

So, get strong first, and you’ll have set the foundations for the rest of your life.

If you’re unsure how to start, just drop me a message and I’ll be happy to help,

PT Shaun

Posted in Fitness | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Your Stomach is a Liar!

Does your body tell you when you need a particular nutrient?

This question was sparked by a conversation I had with a client who told me that he is an “intuitive eater” and his body told him when he needed “selenium or potassium”. Maybe there’s some truth to that B.C.E (Before Common Eateries) where we didn’t have constant food at our fingertips in convenient buckets.

Meat Tenderiser

I’m just tenderising the meat for you, Sir.

Unfortunately, we’re easily swayed by everything that’s around us, yes, even you (fine, and me too). There’s a reason why fast food companies spend billions of burger pounds on advertising – it works!

There’s also the peer pressure of going out and consuming food and drinks, ignoring how you really feel after eating a family pack of sausage rolls on the bus on the way to meet your friends at the pub.

burger

Searching for this made my stomach rumble, and I just had lunch!

I don’t know about you, but when I watch a movie, I want snacks. Okay I lied, I do know about you, and you want snacks too. This is another example of a situation where hunger is not the driver for eating, but a learned, social behaviour of watching a movie and eating noisy popcorn with a slurpy drink, to add to the enjoyment of the people around you who are trying to watch the film.

Our lack of ability to know when we’re actually hungry can develop when we were younger. For example, we can inadvertently condition our children to eat when feeling sad. “Poor Shauny fell off his skateboard, would you like an ice cream to cheer you up?” I wish my wife wouldn’t speak to me that way. From that example, you can see how food might become a crutch when difficult emotions appear in adult life.

pizza

“By the time I finish this pizza, I am sure I’m going to be happier”

What Can We Do About It?

All is not lost. We can still train ourselves to be better in tune to our needs, and be more aware of our desires. If I’ve had a hard workout, my body is hungrier on those days but I am fulfilling my needs instead of fruit crumbling to my desires.

  • Eat slowly and taste your food
  • Eat mindfully and appreciate your food for all of its complexities
  • Notice when you’re hungry or in fact bored or feeling a negative emotion you’re trying to ignore
  • Eat until satisfied, and not finishing the plate because a child is hungry in Africa (donate instead)

So, you can get better at being intuitive, but it takes time and paying attention to how you’re truly feeling. Most of us are probably better off having a more specific system like occasional food logging or a set of rules like “I only eat a cake on weekends” that we follow, as this is a more reliable approach if you’re finding you’re overeating on a regular basis.

I hope that gives you something to think about this month, and if you need any help, please get in touch.

PT Shaun

Posted in Health | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

From Suitcases to Tuna: This Is What You Train For

Lifting weights can seem like a waste of time to some people. “So, you pick up a heavy thing and put it down again? Lots of times? Is everything okay at home?”

barbell

Getting ready to do some bicep curls

I was speaking with a client recently, who is pretty new to training and he told me his personal anecdote (which involves the word “train” defined as both a travel vehicle and a planned exercise programme, so I’ve clarified both meanings at the risk of insult to the reader’s intelligence):

“The escalator was broken as I came out of Liverpool Street Station. I had my heavy suitcase, which I had planned to rest on the perpetually moving step. I lifted my suitcase up and said to myself “this is what you train for” and carried it up the stationary stairs. When I arrived onto my choo-choo train (not an exact quote), I was able to lift my suitcase up to the top compartment, another reminder of why I choose to train.”

We build resilience in the gym so when life requires us to lift something heavy, we can. “When do I need to lift 120kg off the floor?”. Not that often, but if you can lift 120kg, how easy do you think lifting a sack of spuds on special offer would be? Did I need that many potatoes?

sack of potatoes

We’re mostly going to be eating potato based meals this month, kids.

 

We have a saying in our house which is “this is why we train”. You may hear us shouting it down the road when we’re late for something (an all too common scenario) and we have to run to get there. We always make it, because we train and we’re physically able to.

Training isn’t just for the kids, it’s for you. To train is to feel empowered, capable, and to bring about an independence you’ll want, right into your later years. Of course, it’s not just physical improvements, but mental too. If you show yourself that you can deliberately practice “voluntary discomfort” (as suggested by the Stoic, Seneca), you will become a more resilient human being.

There will be many moments in your life where you’ll be thankful for the consistent work you’ve put in year after year.

Unlikely But Not Impossible Scenarios:

  • You trip up on the edge of the white cliffs of Dover – You pull yourself back up and continue eating your beef jerky (Pull ups)
  • A girder falls onto your friend Mr. Wayne – You lift it off his chest so he can continue his Billionaire lifestyle (Deadlift)
  • You fall on the top stair in a public place – To avoid embarrassment, you land on your hands and push yourself back to vertical like nothing happened (Press Up)
  • You have a large tuna fish and only one high shelf available – You lift it overhead on the top shelf in your walk-in refrigerator (Overhead Press)
Tuna

This fish asked to remain anonymous.

I hope you found that helpful, and if you need any guidance, just drop me a message.

PT Shaun

Posted in Fitness, Health | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Opportunity Effect

WARNING: I’ll be using the word “Opportunity” a lot because my Franklin thesaurus is broken.

I’ve been checking my gym app which tracks how often I’ve been to the gym in a month. It ranged from 9 sessions (I blame Santa Klaus and school holidays!) to 15 sessions. 9 opportunities to improve VS 15. Over the course of a year, you’ll be able to see and feel the difference between the two.

Every time you train is an opportunity to improve. 1 opportunity to improve is better than 0. 2 is better than 1 and so on. Of course we could reach a point of diminishing returns but within the constraints of a typical person’s life, we can pick a realistic maximum. You can’t always chase progression, but you’re giving yourself a chance for it to happen. For me, 3 opps (slang for opportunity I assume) a week is the sweet spot for recovery and enjoyment.

We naturally seem to gravitate towards short timelines when it comes to our bodies with people signing up to online programmes named:

  • 8 Week – Get Shredded like a Cabbage
  • 10 Weeks to Set Your Fat on Fire!
  • 11 Week (nope, sorry, no improvement is possible with an odd number)
  • 12 Week – Oh I’m Beginning to Hate my Life.
  • 16 Week Rip You to Shreds – Seriously, I’m out?
Unhappy Customer

She’s one day into the programme and missing Maltesers and Strictly

Things take time, lots of time, especially if you have developed many unhealthy habits. If we expand our timelines and think about it like “If I eat a croissant for breakfast every morning, that’s 365 croissants which is 17.5 blocks of Anchor butter”. Let’s say we reduced it down to 1 croissant a week, that would be 2.5 blocks of Anchor butter. How much of an impact do you think that would have over the course of a year? The other benefit is you’re really going to look forward to your weekly croissant!

If you apply this principle to other things you’d like to improve upon, how many other things could you achieve in a year? Opportunities for:

  • Improving sleep quality
  • Finishing a book
  • Building a skill for a hobby
  • Eating Croissants
Croissant

Oh man, I’m off to Lidl bakery, brb.

Time Marches On
I would now like to give you a convoluted, very long analogy, but please stick with it, it’ll pay off in the end (if it doesn’t, please unsubscribe or call the local authority who handles such matters).

You’re told you have to walk an indefinite distance, barefoot and naked. It could be 10 miles or 657,000 miles, you’ll never find out. Along the way you meet a merchant who has 3 items for sale, of which you can pick only one: flip flops, walking boots or really cool gold fashion trainers. You make your choice and you keep walking in your new footwear until you encounter the next merchant who has 3 items for sale: 5 doughnuts, a chicken salad or a stick of celery. Along the way, you meet many more merchants, and make many more choices. The choices you make will have an effect on your walk. Alfonso, who chose to walk in flip flops and pick 5 doughnuts at every food merchant is probably not going to be enjoying his walk as the distance increases. Tatyana chose the walking boots and chicken salad and she’s loving her walk. But, at any point, they have the freedom to change their mind and make a different decision, for better or worse.

Merchants

One of these merchants needs to buy pants from the underwear merchant

This is the abridged version, the original had chariots and a sky full of burning arrows.

In summary, time marches on regardless, and the choices we make along the way affect us positively or negatively. Remember, it’s never too late to make a better choice.

I hope you found that helpful, and if you think it’ll help somebody else, please share it with them.

PT Shaun

Posted in Fitness, Health | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Gym Anxiety is Real – Here’s How to Beat It

The gym is scary.

Believe it or not, when you join a gym, the people in there are your people. You might not be in the shape you want to be in (yet) as you look upon the crowd of chiselled physiques who at first sight you assume were born that way. The truth is, everyone has a story. When I was working in a health club, I’d often ruin members’ workouts to ease my boredom (and ease my boredom it did) and I got to find out about why they were there and the challenges they had to face. Their body only tells us a fraction of their story, and the irony is that we’re the ones who are making judgements about them, yet we’re worried they’re making judgements about us. 

We’re a social species so of course it’s natural to worry about what other people think about us. This is all fine and normal until you start to care more about what strangers supposedly think, which stops you doing what you need to do to get the most out of your life.

bodybuilder

His mum forgot to wash his gym t-shirt it seems.

So, do people deeply care about what you look like? Of course you know the answer on an intellectual level. But on an emotional level, that’s a different story. Talking through it can bring you into a more rational state and help you to realise they don’t care about you.

I mean it, they actually don’t care about you. It’s even more true today than ever. With personal mobile telephones (okay, Grandad) lots of people are too busy sharing photos with “friends” of their sweaty countenance, tongue out making a rock hand gesture despite listening to the “dance party smash hit anthems” playlist on Spotify and never really knowing that KISS was a band.

What about the people who do care about what you look like? Let’s say they exist, do you have respect for someone who goes around judging people? Do you think maybe that their judgemental attitude comes from a place of deep insecurity? It does. I know, because I’ve done it myself. Now when I catch myself doing it, I recognise that I’m feeling inadequate in some way that I need to address. 

The Spotlight Effect
Some of us may suffer from the illusion that we’re being watched more than we actually are. Didn’t perform a perfect set of Swiss ball single leg squat jumps? Nobody noticed. Actually, if you did try doing that, EVERYBODY noticed. Read more here: The Spotlight Effect

spotlight

Ladies & Gents, are you watching? What do you mean “no”?!

Common Reasons for Gym Anxiety (and the Solutions):

  • Fear of looking foolish for doing an exercise incorrectly
    • Hire a coach/watch YouTube videos/use machines which don’t require skill
  • Not happy with how you look
    • Guess what, nobody is, but today is the day that you’re on your way to feeling happier with how you look
  • Everyone is looking at you
    • They’re not, Tik Videos of people dancing in the name of Yuan is far more interesting
  • You’re not sure if what you’re doing is going to work and you’ll always look and feel the same.
    • Follow a programme and aim to get better at it. There’s nothing worse than the “hmm what should I do next” approach because “go home” is an option
  • You’re afraid to ask
    • Ask gym staff about how to use the equipment. It can be a really boring job working in a gym, so when a member of staff gets an opportunity to help, they’ll leap at it
  • People will be rude to you
    • It’s very rare, but yes, it can happen, but it can also happen at the supermarket when you pick up the last Mars bar. Some gyms have a nicer culture than others, and with more and more gyms opening, you can find one that you feel comfortable in
  • Comparing yourself to others
    • It’s like comparing apples, to Apple, to Apple Records

This guy’s just conquered his gym anxiety after reading my article

Now, go conquer that fear, the gym is yours!

PT Shaun

Posted in Fitness, Health | Tagged , , , , , , | 6 Comments