Bullshit, Brawn and Business

So you started hitting the gym. You start going consistently. You start making progress and begin to see some changes. And then all of a sudden… They Stop! As frustrating as they are unfortunately plateaus in performance and rate of visual change are completely normal and happen to everyone at some point in time. Some people manage to break through the plateau however for others it becomes an unbreakable wall, which they ultimately succumb to. It would be easy for me to sit here and analyse why many people succumb when a plateau in performance hits but instead I am going to highlight the factors which helped me when I hit a performance plateau earlier this year. It was Mid-June, I was 11 months into my ‘bulking’ phase, which after a mini-cut (for 2 weeks) prior to a holiday in May I was quite happy with the way things had gone. I was clearly more muscular in appearance and stronger in terms of performance than when I had started the mass-bulking phase in the previous July....

Last July I started a new job... Exciting I know! However, before I started I was aware that the job involved very long hours, 10 hours a day sometimes more. This meant that I had to fit my gym time into one of two slots, either before work or afterwork. After a little bit of thought I decided to go for the before work option as gyms are quieter in the mornings than the evenings, I would miss the morning rush hour if I found a gym by my workplace and I wouldn't be tempted to find an excuse throughout the course of the day not to hit my session afterwork. I managed to find a gym which was literally a two minute walk from work that coincidentally also had 24/7 opening hours! My first week at work came and went in a flash but it was absolutely creasing me. Not because the job was hard but because I was waking up at 4:45am getting my bag and breakfast ready for the day, then I was grabbing lunch on the go, which is never the healthiest, and then I was coming home and watching TV un...

When I talk to people about my training, the thing that seems to startle people most is that I train first thing in the morning. What I'm going to do in this article is attempt to explain why I do this. Historically I have never been a morning person, I was the person who would get out of bed at the latest possible moment in order to get somewhere on time but in January 2013 I realised that I was using the excuse 'I don't have time' too often not only in terms of keeping fit but with my work as well. I was right I didn't have time to work out and complete all of my work to a high standard because I would spend the first 3-4 hours of the day procrastinating, thinking about how tired I was and therefore made a change to my lifestyle in order to become more productive. The change was getting my arse up in the morning and train! What I quickly found out is that the hardest part of training in the morning is actually turning up. The 10 seconds between my alarm going ...

Success in the gym, as with most things in life, comes down to mastering the basics. Once you've mastered the basics your more likely to see the results. With that in mind, here are a few exercise tips that nobody wants to believe, but everyone should follow. Take these ideas to heart and you'll reap major benefits. While most people waste time debating the endless stream of supplements, "new" workout programs and diet plans, all you really have to do is focus on these simple concepts and you'll see results. 1. You need to commit for the long term. Most people work out with a short-term goal in mind. I like looking at health in a different way. The goal is not to lose a stone in the next 12 weeks. The goal is to lose weight and improve your health for the rest of your life. The goal is not to bench press 100kg. The goal is to be the guy who never misses a workout. The goal is not to sacrifice everything to get your fastest time in next month...

Every diet, when implemented properly has some kind of restrictions, whether thats a restriction of certain foods or the amount of calories you can consume. With restriction come cravings, cravings for the things you can't have. Its human nature to want the things you can't have, but when it comes to diet most of us it seems just can't help ourselves. We're now moving into February and its been a month since you promised yourself that you would eat healthily but the reality of it is a Chinese take away has never sounded so tempting. The problem that I find with the majority of diets today is that they 'ban' certain things and it causes the big red button syndrome amongst people. What I mean by the big red button syndrome is that if somebody tells you don't press the button, the only thing you want to do is press that button. So when somebody tells you that you cannot eat chocolate, the only thing you want is chocolate. What a lot of dieticians and fitn...

Being fit is a concept that comes naturally to some people, it even gives them enjoyment. Whilst others struggle to grasp the concept of a training and couldn't think of anything worse than getting up at the crack of dawn to head down to the testosterone fuelled gym to sweat your nuts off and to hear 'Big Al' telling just about anybody who'll listen that he's just set a new bench press PB. But whether you like it or not sooner or later the likelihood is you are going to be told by your partner/friend/doctor that you need to get a little bit fitter; and that thought probably scares the life out of you! Now, the HARDEST part of getting fit is STARTING! This piece of advice can be applied to anything from starting your own business to starting training in order to get fit. The problem with us humans is we live in fear. We fear uncertainty, we fear failure, and therefore we fear trying! I also have a passion for business and I've lost count of the amount of peopl...