No matter what your fitness goal, having a strong and healthy heart is key to your development in training. The heart is the organ that helps keep everything working as good as it should and needs to be looked after.

All of us will look in the mirror are pick little flaws in ourselves. We’ll pinch our muffin tops or love handles, we’ll shake our belly and legs and we’ll try and hide our double chin and then we’ll try and focus on those ‘problem areas’ when we train.

Targeting a problem area is fine but you need to look at the bigger picture, for example;

If you’re 220ibs, holding extra weight in your belly, breasts, love handles and arms but your main problem area is bingo wings then hitting an all over body workout will be much more effective than just training your arms. Of course, over time this will help tone but training those small muscles only burns a small number of calories.  Adding some arm exercises in to some HIIT training then becomes so much more effective, you get so much more out of the time you are using and burning extra calories and fat.

Unfortunately, we can’t just focus on one problem area and become super toned there, even though that would be great! The only time this may be possible is if you’re already in a good condition and are training aggressively to build in that particular muscle group!

Doing fully functional moves in your training will help keep your ticker working effectively, help you burn that unwanted fat in and out of your problem areas and help tighten and slim you down to a more flattering figure.

Send me a message if you’d like some more info on fat loss and increasing your fitness. – Rich

December can be a highly stressful month, there is so much to think about; Who you’re going to be spending your Christmas with, what you’re going to provide for food on Christmas day, what gifts to get your loved ones BUT what is important is that we don’t forget OURSELVES.

It’s easy to get consumed in the build up to Christmas but it’s important that we remain active both in our physical routine and in our diet.

Top tips for training with less time;
HIIT Training – set aside 15-20 minutes in your day and have a fast-paced body weight work out. Choose some full body exercises and smash either a 30/30 or 40/20 split (work/rest).
Take the stairs or the longer scenic route. Walk to the shop or park further away and increase your pace, which helps to get the heart rate up a little.

Diet!
We all overindulge at Christmas (it is the unwritten rule of the festive season after all!) but if you’ve got it in the back of your mind that you would like to maintain the progress you’ve made over the year then here’s some tips on achieving this over your Christmas break;
Have a light breakfast – Get yourself started like normal but keep it light if you know you’ll be feasting later in the day.
Keep up with your vitamins – Yes, we feast but we also enjoy our alcohol too! This paired with eating those unhealthy sweets, cakes and foods can impact your immune system in a negative way. Eating fruits, taking multi-vitamins can really help keep your immune system working!
Keep hydrated! – I don’t mean by beer and wine either! Have a glass of water between beverages, your head will thank you for it in the morning! 

All in all, keep active, hydrated and enjoy yourself! 

I hope you have an amazing Christmas and New year, see you all in 2018!

So, February is here, you’ve had a great start on your fitness journey in January, here’s some top tips to keep yourself motivated over the next few months;

Keep it interesting!

Make sure your workout is fun and enjoyable. Don’t do an exercise just to do it or because you ‘have to’. Incorporating exercises, you’re not so keen on, in to a circuit based programmes are absolutely awesome to keep you motivated while you’re working out.

Do your research or seek advice from a professional about what you can do to stimulate the same muscle groups but using different exercises.

Planning ahead!

Make sure your workouts are planned and you try to stick to an allocated time, just heading to a facility to work out without a plan and time scale will often lead to you checking your phone too often and lack of drive.

Check in to a class!

Heading to group based classes are normally filled with like minded people who are there to train. Of course, there’s the social aspect to classes but generally people like knowing that they will be there for a certain time and will be motivated to train. (Most even like that their trainer will stop them talking).

Reassess your goal

January, you set yourself your goal(s), it’s now time to check your stats and your progress. Even if it’s knocking a few seconds off your park run, this all equates to progress not perfection.

Make sure you’re heading in the right direction and look at what you can improve to secure progress in February.

Ideally you want to check all your stats, from body fat to hydration and BMR to visceral fat. All these can be done via a good set of scales. I use Tanita scales at the Functional Fitness Suite which tell you all this and more.