There is nothing more demoralizing then failing at something, anything, but do you ever ask yourself why you failed. Do you ever try to look back and find out where you went wrong? It’s a big problem and the cause of many a headache which is why I want to look at why you fail and why you might not be able to stick to a plan.

In my opinion you start to fail when you start to deviate from your plan. Plans can change but you need to maintain that structure and direction your plan gives you to be successful. A well structured plan tells you what you need to do, and more importantly what you need to do next.

Apart from a well structured plan you also need motivation to carry it out. If you don’t have enough drive or energy behind what you’re doing you’ll never be able to pull yourself through the tough times you’re going to eventually face. You can’t start anything like a weight loss plan without something driving you because you won’t have anything to push you when you get down. The stronger your reason for doing something, and the greater your resolve the better your chances are at succeeding. If you do something for superficial reasons you will find that it will quickly fall apart.

There are things you can do though that will help you stick with your plan and to reach your goals:

Make a plan: Nothing ever really succeeds without one and the better and more realistic your plan the more chance it has at succeeding. It needs to action oriented to motivate you to get what you need to get done. Planning in advanced also means you always need to know what to do next.

Find your fire: To succeed at anything you need to you need to have something that drives you, something that makes you want to get up in the morning and get it done. Whether it’s money or a healthier lifestyle it doesn’t matter. All that does matter is that it’s important to you, not anyone else, and that it can be used to get you through difficult times and gives you a purpose.

Find a friend: This is one of the hardest things, and it isn’t a requirement, and it requires a bit of luck, but if you can find someone who has a positive outlook on life and is willing to help, and go through the process with you then you’re in a very good position to achieve anything.

Stay Accountable: Staying accountable for your goals and sticking to them is a very important step. The best way to help this along is to write them down somewhere you see every day so you have it constantly remind you of why you’re doing what you’re doing. Accountability is a big part of life and is something each person must get under control themselves.

Conclusion

Failing to prepare is preparing to fail is a phrase I use a lot and is the main reason why people fail at what they want to do. Just remember to get started, to make a plan, and to become accountable. If you can do all this goals will become all the more attainable.

Pacing isn’t just important in your physical training you need to pace your lifestyle as well. Everything in your life needs some sort of pace, but if you make it to fast you will quickly burn yourself out. You need to find a balance that lets you work hard but still gives you time to recover so that you’re not burning the candle at both ends, so to speak.

Firstly I want to talk about the importance of pacing with the frequency of your workouts and the exercises or training you do during a sessions.

How you pace, or how regularly you do your workouts can have huge affects on the results. If you train to frequently and you don’t give your body enough time to recover you can do some serious damage and increase your chance your injury, but if you do too few you may not get the results you’re after. So how do you work out what pace is best for you?

The answer is it’s different for everyone depending on your lifestyle. If you have a sedentary lifestyle you need to realize that your body recovers much slower then someone who works a more physically active job, and as a result you need to take in more recovery time. The harder your workout the more you’ll need to incorporate these recovery sessions into your schedule or you risk injury.

Although you may have a quicker recovery time working an active job you are also putting a lot more strain on your muscles, so more intense and frequent your workouts are the more you will need to stretch to stop your muscles from building up to many toxins.

Now onto the workout and exercises you do during a training sessions. The pace you set during a training sessions is directly related to the results you get from your training. The quicker the pace means it’s more intense which leads to a shorter workout that puts a lot more strain on your muscles. These kinds of workouts are ideal for people who play sport, or for sprinters, and require quick bursts of speed and energy.

On the other hand though you can slow the pace right down and this leads into your longer cardio sessions which are good for building up your endurance in longer events. This kind of training can last anywhere up to a few hours and is ideal for marathon runners or endurance racers.

You really need to decide on what you want out of your exercises before you start because how you set the pace will ultimately determine the results you get. For example you don’t want to set a fast paced workout if you are training for a marathon. It’s also important to mention that a slower paced workout can be performed much more frequently than a fast paced workout because the strain on your muscles is much lower, and they require less recovery time.

So in the end what you need to take from this is to make sure you plan out your training sessions and how frequently you do them and to what intensity they’re performed at. This will have a very large effect on your results. If you’d like to know more about pacing I suggest you consult your personal trainer as they will know what pace you need to be working at.

Stress is a natural part of anyone’s life, but too much of it can have very negative effects on your health one of which is weight gain. But why does stress cause weight gain? When you are put under high levels of stress your body triggers a number of different things one of which is the release of cortisol which can slow your metabolism and mess with your blood sugar levels.

Cortisol is important to your body and it will always be present in your blood stream because it helps maintain proper glucose metabolism, it regulates your blood pressure, helps fight disease, and it also helps maintain correct insulin levels. So you might be wondering that if it’s so important, and does all of that how does it cause weight gain?

Whether you’re in a life threatening situation or you’ve got a hectic and stressful lifestyle your body reacts the same way. By triggering your fight or flight instinct which gives you a small boost of energy so you can either fight or run. During this process though your digestive system shuts down, and your body starts producing cortisol to help regulate your blood stream, and to supply your muscles with energy.

This isn’t an issue if you are actually in danger and you need to fight because I’m sure you would use the excess energy, but long gone are the days where we hunted for our food so usually you’re stuck with too much excess energy which typically just gets turned into fat. This is a big problem for people who work in offices where there is high stress but little physical activity. This coupled with your shut down digestive system leads to a gain in weight.

Here are some of the biggest factors attributed to stress and weight gain:

• Increased levels of cortisol slow the metabolism down meaning you’re burning less energy through the day.
• Increased levels of stress can also lead to food cravings and emotional eating.
• If you remain in a prolonged state of stress the excess cortisol messes with your blood sugar resulting in a loss of energy, mood swings, and a number of other health concerns which will cause you lots of trouble as you get older.

There are things you can do though to help combat the effects of stress and weight gain though.

The most important thing you can do, if you find yourself under constant stress, is to maintain correct and healthy eating habits. Maintaining healthy eating habits helps balance any imbalances that come from excess cortisol. Here are some of the best ways to maintain healthy eating habits.

Planning: One of the best defences you have against overeating is proper planning. It’s important to plan out your weekly meals and to only visit the grocery store once a week so you only buy what you have on your shopping list. Under times of high stress you’ll find you will have an increased appetite this can lead to you buying a lot of unnecessary and unhealthy foods.

So basically if you find yourself under a constant level of stress you need to be mindful of the harmful side effects. Just remember that under these circumstances the best thing you can do is maintain a healthy and well balanced diet.

Doing an exercise and completing a set, and doing an exercise ‘properly’ and completing a set are two very different things. Something I see a lot of in the gym is people trying to force their way through a set with no technique or care. That’s not how you should be approaching your training program though. Training and personal fitness isn’t about who can do the most push-ups or lift the most weight it’s about your personal health, and part of that is taking the right amount of care in your technique.

For example a set of 10 push-ups performed with proper technique and timing is far more beneficial than a set of 20 push-ups which are done poorly and rushed.

Focusing on technique not only increases the benefits you gain from the exercise it also helps greatly reduce any risk of injury. In any sort of exercise you‘re putting physical strain on your body, and it doesn’t take much to cause some serious damage which is why making sure your technique is perfect is important.

So how do you perform correct technique?

Obviously each exercise is different, and some amount of research and advice from your trainer is always necessary, but there are 3 key things in any exercise that need to be worked on, and they are your body alignment and posture, breathing, and tempo.

Body alignment and posture:
Having correct body alignment is one of the most important aspects of any exercise. Correct alignment reduces strain on your joints and helps work target muscle groups more directly.
Here are some quick points to keep in mind when you’re exercising:
• Never over extend your joints
• Always maintain the natural curve of the spine
• Avoid specifically targeting and flexing the lower back
Tip: It’s essential to know the correct posture and motion for exercises like squats because they put a lot of strain on your knees and lower back and can cause serious harm if performed incorrectly.

Breathing: Breathing is the second biggest thing you need to work on when you’re performing an exercise. The body get’s a lot of its energy from the oxygen you breathe, so the worst thing you can do is hold your breath.

The key to correct breathing is control, and to breath out in the ‘lifting’ phase of an exercise and in again on the way down. Remember without oxygen your muscles can’t function properly and you won’t be able to lift as much weight.

Tempo: Tempo varies with the exercise it’s always important to have a controlled tempo. If you try to perform an exercise at top speed there is no way to maintain proper technique or to control your breathing.

If you rush through a set you also lose a lot of the benefits of your exercise because momentum is carrying you half the distance meaning you have less of a load on your muscles.

So if you’re one of those people who do whatever they can to get to the end of a set without worrying about technique, stop! You have a lot more to gain by maintaining correct posture, breathing, and tempo. You need to be focused on improving the motion of how you do the exercise with each rep. It doesn’t matter if you can’t complete a set either because that’s why you train. When you can successfully complete a set you know you’ve improved.

Procrastination is something that affects us all, some more than others, and it’s one of the biggest strings that hold us back from living up to our potential. You’ll never see highly successful individuals in any field wasting time with meaningless tasks. They got there because they knew how to work hard and deal with procrastination. The good news is though anyone can learn how to effectively deal with it when it hits.

Firstly though I’d like to talk a little bit about what procrastination is and why we do it. There are a number of reasons but the major ones are as follows:

Large and Complex Tasks: One major reason we put off tasks is because they seem to big or complex, and you see it as being hard or taking up large portions of your time so you put it off. The thing you need to recognise here though is that with the time you waste you could have probably finished the required task.

Fear: Fear is the other major factor. Whether it’s fear of success, failure or anything else it can really restrict you and hold you back. This is where it is important to know why you’re doing what you’re doing and to be prepared for anything.

There are however a number of ways we can combat these things so that we stop procrastinating and increase our work output. Here are 10 simple ways to help you combat procrastination:

1. Ask yourself why you need to do this task. Knowing clearly why you need to complete a task is important for finding motivation to complete the task.
2. Make the task your first priority, and do it before you start ‘anything’ for the day.
3. Just start. Usually if you just start trying to complete the task you will usually find that completing the task is quite easy.
4. Don’t worry about perfection, or getting every little detail perfect because you can always fix it up later.
5. Try and get rid of distractions even if this means disconnecting your internet or finding a quiet space somewhere away from your normal work area.
6. Keep it as simple as possible. If you start messing with the little details you’ll start confusing yourself
7. Tell yourself you only need to do 10 minutes. You’ll quickly find that you easily put 20-30 minutes in if not more, and if you don’t you still made a start.
8. Put something you have no desire to do at the top of your list. This way you will not put it off by completing the tasks below it.
9. Think about why you’re doing the task and what excites you about it.
10. If you don’t have a good reason and you just can’t seem to stop perhaps it’s better not to do it and to put it on the backburner. You’re wasting too much time not doing a task when you could be doing other important things.

If you follow all of these steps there is a good chance you will overcome whatever mental hurdle that is holding you back. The main things you need to remember though, and your greatest weapon against procrastination is the reason why you need to do the task. If you don’t have a good enough reason why you want to complete the task you’ll never complete it.

Say you wake up every morning, get out of bed, and walk out your front door, and you always run into some cobwebs that have been made overnight. You do this every morning, but then you go on vacation, and that spider has more time to build bigger and thicker webs, and when you get back it’s a lot harder to break through.

Your muscles work a lot like this in which if you fail to actively use them every day they build up fibres between them restricting your movement and making you less flexible increasing your chance of injury. The longer you don’t use these muscles the more time they have to develop stronger fibres and breaking these fibres becomes harder and harder.

So let’s get a bit more technical for a second here. When you sleep these fibres develop between the moving surfaces of your muscles causing adhesions and tension which impede movement. Essentially like cobwebs if they aren’t cleaned up regularly they build up and become harder and harder to remove. There is however a number of things you can do to prevent these builds from happening.

Morning Stretch

It’s always so hard to wake up in the morning, and it’s a common feeling to feel very stiff when you first get out of bed. This is because your muscles have begun seizing together through a process of covalent, and hydrogen bonding. As you start to move around your movement begins to free up because these bonds are being broken.

If you ever see a cat or dog wake up in the morning you’ll notice the first thing they do is stretch out their limbs.

That brings us to the first and one of the most important ways to deal with these bonds, stretching. Stretching all of your muscles in the morning not only breaks up these bonds and frees your muscles it also makes you feel much fresher as well as increasing your flexibility. It also helps to wake you up and keep you alert.

Exercise

Apart from stretching every morning there are some great muscle strengthening exercises you can do that will help stretch out and loosen up your muscles as well. Here they are:

• Deep Squats: The squat is one of the best exercises there is and no workout is complete without them. The reason the squat is so effective is because it works almost all of your muscles, and long, slow, deep squats are a great way to break up any bonding.
• Shoulder Circles: These are a great way to loosen up your shoulders in the morning.
• Lunges: Lunges are a tough leg exercise and they help stretch out all of your leg muscles. Just remember to do them slowly and try to stretch out your muscles as much as you can.

Massage Therapy

Another great way to release muscle tension and bonding is to get a deep tissue massage. These types of massages are a manual way to target each muscle and to break up any bonding that may have formed. Getting these massages is a great way to deal with bonding that has been built up as a result of an injury because it target the muscle but doesn’t require you to move it.

So remember to keep using your muscles, and that a great pre-morning ritual to get into is stretching. If you stretch every morning before you start your day you will find yourself feeling more alert and fresh.

Setting a goal is one of the first steps anyone takes in losing weight, building muscle or any other physical goal you might have. Your goal should be what get’s you through the hard times or moments of weakness and it forms a majority of your motivation. There isn’t anyone I know who starts a training program without a clear goal in their mind.

But even though having a goal is essential to your success there is one thing that’s more important and that’s your happiness. If you aren’t happy with the process, or what you’re doing you’re dooming yourself to fail.

Achieving the goal is important, and don’t ever forget that, but don’t let the goal get in the way of enjoying the process that leads up to it.
It’s actually proven that you are happiest when you are in the process of achieving a goal because you have a target, you have something to aim for, you have some kind of purpose. As soon as you reach your goal you have those few days of elation, but then you get really depressed. You get really depressed because you’ve reached the top, and you’ve achieved your goal and now you don’t have anything to aim for. You’ve essentially lost your motivation to keep going.

As they say once you reach the top the only way to go is down.

Moving away from the negative, here are some ways that I stay motivated. The first thing I always do is make sure my ultimate goal is something far beyond my reach. Not something that’s unattainable but something that will take a very long time to achieve. This acts as my main goal, and something that’s always there to fall back on. The second thing I do besides setting my main goal is to set some key milestones, and use them as short term goals. Having these short term goals is a great way to stay motivated through the process, but you still get that feeling of accomplishment when you finish one without any of the depression.

There is a book called “The Happiness Hypothesis” by Jonathan Haidt that applies psychological ideas from big thinkers of the past like Buddha and applies them to our modern lives. The books main focus is on the keys to happiness, fulfilment, and meaning, and covers a lot of what I’m talking about here. In chapter 10 Haidt talks about the meaning of life and how love and work give a sense of meaning to life. The topics he covers in this chapter can all be brought back to what I’m talking about, and I recommend if you have time to check it out.
What you need to take away from this is to make sure you don’t let your goals get in the way of your personal happiness. If that means having a cheat day every week where you can have a small portion of your favourite food every week then that’s ok. Don’t be afraid to move and change your goals around either. Your goals are there simply to act as motivation and to give you something to aim for. They aren’t there to stop you from having fun and enjoying yourself.

So remember stay happy and don’t be afraid to change what motivates you.

Have you ever felt that muscle soreness you get after a really tough new training program? Have you ever wondered whether it was natural or if there was something wrong? The truth is post-workout muscle soreness is a very natural process, and there are a lot of things you can do to help prevent and speed it along, but you still have to be wary about injuries.

Firstly though what is post-workout muscle soreness? The process is called delayed onset muscle soreness, or DOMS, and it happens every time you over exert your muscles causing them damage. The body reacts to this by trying to rebuild the muscles to cope with the new strain you’re putting on them.

Although this is a natural process you shouldn’t be feeling the effect of DOMS after every training session. If you are it’s usually a clear sign that you are overworking yourself, and that you need to slow down a bit.

If you’re getting DOMS after all your workouts it means your causing too much damage to your muscles. This is something to watch out for because if you aren’t careful you can cause your body serious harm which can lead to sever muscle fatigue, adhesions, and injury. There are some ways that you can help your muscles cope with the stress though.

One of the most important workouts in any high intensity training program is a restorative workout. A restorative, or recovery, workout is just a short program that helps fix any imbalances, stress or tightness caused by intense training. These recovery workouts can be worked into your current program in a number of different ways from just being tacked onto the end of intense strength training sessions, or taking a full week to focus on recovery.

These recovery sessions can be any type of exercise that will help stretch out your muscles so you can keep training at a high intensity without injuring yourself. How much recovery time you need varies based on your daily lifestyle as well. If you have a sedentary job you’ll find yourself needing a lot more recovery then someone who has a high stress job.

Some of the most popular recovery workouts are Yoga, Pilates, Swimming, or just plain stretching, but you can really do anything as long as it stretches out your muscles.

One of my favourite restorative workouts is a light to moderate 10 minute walk where I try and stretch out my legs. I follow this up with a 20 minute stretching and flexibility session where I try and target all of my different muscle groups. I typically do this at least twice a week in the middle and at the end of a weekly block.

Tip: Pilates foam roller exercises are another great way to relieve any back tension and stretch out your muscles.
So it’s ok to be sore after a workout every now and then but if you’re regularly performing high intensity training programs and finding yourself getting sore after all of your workouts you need to start incorporating restorative workouts into your training regime. If you don’t you’re putting yourself at risk of getting injury. This may seem simple but stretching and recovery are two of the most overlooked factors in training programs and are the primary reason you might sustain an injury.

One of the biggest problems with people who’ve started trying to lose weight is subconscious eating. Subconscious eating is just eating without realizing it or paying attention like when you’re watching TV or working, and you instinctively reach for some kind of snack.
As a personal trainer I see this all of the time with new clients. They start a new training program and without realising it they eat more than usual to compensate for the calories they may have burned in their workout that day.

Nutrition is the biggest component of losing weight, but it’s also one of the hardest to get under control, and part of controlling your nutrition is getting a handle on subconscious eating habits. There are a number of things you can do to help keep track of what you’ve been eating though that will help you understand what you need to work on.

The first and most effective thing you can do is to start keeping a food journal. A food journal may sound simple, but if you record everything you eat, when, and how many calories it was for a week you’ll be able to clearly see where the major faults are in your nutrition.

Here’s an example of what a very basic food journal might look like:

Name:

Time Food Item Calories
6:00
7:00 Eggs on Wholemeal toast 210
8:00
9:00
10:00 Banana 108
11:00
12:00
1:00 Ham & Cheese Sandwich 270
2:00
3:00 Apple and some Almonds 120
4:00
5:00
6:00
7:00 Steak and Veg 590
8:00
9:00
Total: 1298

You don’t need anything quite as formal as this. Actually I found the most effective food journal I ever had was just a simple notebook I kept in my pocket and wrote in every time I ate something. This way I had it on me at all times and it never got in the way so I never needed to leave it behind.

A more in depth food journal would include columns for protein, fat, and carbs. You only really need this if your nutrition needs a lot of work or your trainer requests it so they can get a better idea on how to advise you.

Keeping track of everything you eat isn’t quite enough either though. You need to act on the information you collect. It’s not enough just knowing that you’re eating too many potato crisps while you’re working you need to be able to act on that information and be more conscious of it next time you’re in front of your computer.

The other big factor in staying on top of subconscious eating and your nutrition is staying accountable for your goals. You need to have a reason for doing what you’re doing and you need to have something you can say to yourself to help you through those moments of weakness. You can’t rely on other people for this part of the weight loss process, it’s something you need to do for yourself and it’s one of the hardest and biggest steps you can take especially with nutrition.

So the key to controlling your subconscious eating habits and getting a hold on your nutrition is to keep a detailed food journal and to stay focused on your goals. Remember this it’s a lot harder to burn 500 calories then it is to eat 500 calories.