Wild Performance

GOAL SETTING

Having a goal is an important thing in health and fitness. It is something that helps keep focus and motivation and to continue making positive lifestyle choices.
Something I was lucky to learn at a workshop I attended recently was evaluating goals and understanding why they are really important to you. The more you know about them the better you can understand them and the more focused you can be on achieving them. Try and use the 'five why's'.

Write down your goal that you have in the gym (most of them are lose weight, tone up, get bigger etc), whatever it might be. Now answer why that is a goal of yours. The answer you get from that ask yourself why that is again. Repeat that process three more times and you might be very surprised by what you find out. This will help you to truly understand your goal, and hopefully keep you more focused and motivated for achieving it once you know the real reasons why you are doing what you are doing.

Just out of interest, is there anyone that would be interested in daytime strongman bootcamp sessions at lifestyle fitness Darlington round 10AM ish. Possibly something that would be starting up soon and costs £5 for the hour. Just wanted a show of hands, for any info or questions give me a PM. Thanks

TENSION

how many people when training for hypertrophy and fat loss really think about what the muscle is doing from point A to point B?
Where the muscle really changes is all within the tension you can apply to it throughout an exercise for a given amount of time. This is called time under tension when what most people do is time under weight/load. If your goal is to put on muscle/lose fat, try reducing the weights you currently use (maybe even by 50%) use a full range of motion whilst maintaining tension, squeeze hard the entire time and don't let that muscle stop for between 50-70 seconds. I guarantee it will do more than lifting heavier for a shorter amount of time. Over the last two days I've reduced my total number of sets, reduced the weight and I feel I've worked twice as hard and walk out the gym thinking I couldn't have actually done more. Give it a shot and see how it works for you.

When working towards a goal, especially one with a time frame, make sure you allow yourself enough time to achieve that for better results and health!

Look at this scenario, getting ready for a holiday in 4 weeks. You will have an image of how you want to look, most likely something totally different from how you are. Now in order to achieve fat loss you will cut back on your calories, try to do too much in the gym, exhaust your body whilst doing this (you tell yourself it's ok because it will only last 4 weeks) and you will probably achieve a very short term result. Now what happens when you go away is you will most likely over consume food, do very little in ways of burning energy and go right back to how you were before you started your little holiday prep (or whatever you want to look good for, wedding etc). In the meantime you will have lost motivation to train and try be healthy, because very few people eat really well if their training is shocking.

To take away, if you have something to look good for, give yourself a lot more time to prepare for it, it will make for greater energy levels, productivity, more room for error and improvement and the damage caused on holidays/time off etc will be minimised. Give yourself more time and stay consistent :)

Lactic acid anyone?

Well done to the brave five who took on a very challenging endurance strongman circuit. High energy demand and muscles on fire guaranteed.

Well done to all

Strongman was bouncing tonight. Thanks to the fifteen who came for making it an awesome session. Big well done

Every client of mine has probably heard something along these lines from me lol I'm sure they would agree ;)

Looking forward to another modified strongman session tonight. All the participants showing great progress in strength and fitness, and numbers increasing each week adding to the motivating atmosphere. Tuesdays at 6pm and Thursdays at 5.45pm, £5 per session. Come be part of it

Some motivation for Thursday morning :)