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....

Today I just want to drop a quick post on having realistic expectations about the adaptations that you can expect your body to make when you are training and dieting. Time and time again I speak to people who tell me that they're struggling because they're either a 'hardgainer' and can't build muscle or that they have a 'slow metabolism' and that they can't lose weight, usually after following or reading a programme set out by a media outlet such as 'Pack On 5kg of Muscle in 6 Weeks' or 'Lose A Stone in a Month'. Well I have news for you... YOU ARE NOT A HARDGAINER NOR DO YOU HAVE A SLOW METABOLISM! You simply aren't giving your body the time and consistency it needs to adapt. When I first started training I was as short-sighted as anyone when it came to my expectations regarding the rate at which I expected to change. I was under the impression that I could turn up to the gym, throw a few weights around, eat reasonably 'he...

After eating and drinking myself silly over the Christmas period I decided to go on a bit of a cut in the lead up to Easter in order to lose a bit of fat. When I say a 'bit of a cut' I mean I dropped my calories into a deficit of 200 under maintenance. This was the first time that I'd ever purposefully put myself into a calorie deficient for a prolonged period of time and upon reflection it taught me a few things, which I will outline for you below. 1. Meal Timings - Naively when I started out on the cut I thought I'd be able to eat like I had previously when bulking i.e. have a massive breakfast containing around 1200 calories, a decent lunch of around 700 calories, and then a 900 calorie evening meal. However, what I quickly found out when cutting was that eating this way and having the traditional three meals a day caused periods of extreme hunger and massive energy lags. After a number of weeks I realised that instead of having three meals a day at an average of...

Do you desperately want to get fit yet when the going gets tough you struggle for motivation? Do you often don't want to train? Do you often want to want to scrap your diet plan? Do you often find yourself reverting back to their old-self. Why is this? It maybe because you have been pushing yourself too hard too soon. What I see lots in my gym is newcomers joining up and absolutely thrashing themselves in the first couple of sessions. I think we've all thought to ourselves 'I'm going to go extra hard here' when trying something new, and that's great first time around as you get to see your strengths and limitations. However, if you continually try to push yourself to the limit and then some, the chances are you will lose interest as you will either be absolutely knackered all the time and therefore not feeling the benefits of keeping fit or you will have DOMS (Delayed Onset of Muscle Soreness) so bad you will be physically incapable of working out. What I'...

Many people work their abs tirelessly, yet never get that ripped six-pack look that they crave and they are often left confused as to why this is. Almost certainly the first thing they'll believe is that its their 'poor genetics' which occasionally up to a point it is, but thats not the most fundamental reason why they can't see their abs. The thing is everyone has abs, I have abs, you have abs, your parents have abs but we all have different levels of fat covering those abs. Genetically some people may have a thicker layer of fat than others but EVERYONE can still get ripped abs, all you have to do is burn that layer of fat. The massive misconception that is partly due to the media is the idea that doing loads and loads of sit ups, leg raises etc will get you that ripped six pack that you desire. However, this is not the case! Performing sit-ups, crunches, leg raises and whatever else you may be whacked out will indeed help tone your abs BUT it will not help burn t...

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...