TW Personal Training

When I first speak with prospective clients, we discuss what is likely to be the factor that gets in your way… 9/10 times a main one is ‘I don’t want to give up my social life’.

Now this can prove to be a challenge as everyone I work with has an outrageously busy schedule with only a finite amount of time to train and effort to apply into their nutrition 🍏.

So how do we mitigate this barrier, maintain the social life and allow for better adherence and better results long term? 📉

Being smart when organising your fat loss programme. Efficiency with time is everything when it comes to maintain a balanced lifestyle.

And how do we become as efficient as possible?

1. Train BEFORE work. Having that time limit to get done by a certain time will stop any procrastinating.
2. Compound movements (big exercises) are the best bang for your buck exercises to achieve greater fat loss potential.
3. FULL BODY WORKOUTS! Hitting every muscle group in one session allows for more muscle training frequency throughout the week whilst minimising time in the gym day to day.

Implementing these 3 things helps to remove that barrier of ‘spending too long at the gym’ whilst maintaining effectiveness meaning it’s less intrusive into your lifestyle and easier to sustain!

Incorporating fitness AROUND your life rather than fitting your life around fitness improves your chances of winning at this 💪🏼🏋🏻‍♀️ and who doesn’t love winning!

DM me ‘TIME’ if you want to find that balanced lifestyle while still achieving your fitness goals 🏋🏻‍♀️

*** NUTRITION IS KEY ***
Massive shout out to .m this week for a mega transformation 💪🏼

Now this one is a bit of a throw back to lockdown but I wanted to share it to demonstrate the power of consistency in nutrition.

When Michalis first came to me to start training his goal was to first drop some body fat then start building a muscular physique 💪🏼. The main struggle was finding a routine and diet that worked with his lifestyle and finding the balance between restriction and results 🤌🏼

About a month after we started LOCKDOWN hit! 😩😩😩

Together we worked on a strategy to still achieve his goals remotely and with very limited gym kit to play with 🏋🏻‍♀️.

After some discussion on where to place our focus we came up with a perfect balance for him that saw him chip away at body fat at a solid rate without NEEDING access to the gym.

And credit to him, he fu***ng smashed it 💪🏼. He dropped over 4 stone in less than a year!!! 😯 with barely any access to the gym!

We didn’t do anything ridiculously extravagant, just chipped away nicely with great consistency 🤌🏼 WELL DONE MATE!

We’ve just finished our bulking phase now after losing this weight where he’s packed on some dense muscle and is knocking out 140kg squats for fun 🤣…
Now time for the next shred 💪🏼😅

Remember CONSISTENCY IS KEY! Small incremental improvements amount to enormous changes 💪🏼💪🏼💪🏼 keep plugging and remember that Rome wasn’t built in a day 🏋🏻‍♀️

Are you someone who has tried one or a few different diets?

You’ve done the 6 weeks or whatever, lost a few pounds or maybe more!

One month later the weight is creeping back on and you have no idea why because you’re eating ‘normally’.

So you go back to the same diet that lost you that weight and repeat the process over and over again without any long term STABLE results.

Why does this happen?
OVER RESTRICTIVE DIETS!!!!

Implementing a calorie deficit that is too aggressive and too low is a dangerous game to play and can push you into a bit of a spiral. Why’s it bad:

1. Over restriction increases likelihood of breaking the plan and binging on nice stuff 🍕🍻 because you aren’t allowing for any of it in your diet!
2. Diet regimes usually come with a time frame ‘get lean in 4 weeks’ or something like that… so naturally as soon as the 4 weeks is done, YOU’RE DONE! 🤣 and in comes the pizza etc because the ‘diet’ is over.
3. Your metabolism alters according to new levels of incoming calories so restricting them for long periods can dull your metabolism making it harder to drop fat!

THE BEST DIET FOR YOU IS THE ONE YOU ALREADY HAVE (just with some changes and direction 😝) that’s how you get stable results that last long term 💪🏼

***WEIGHTS VS. CLASSES***

Are you someone who has avoided the free weight area and sticks to the fitness classes that are provided in your gym?

So many people I speak with in the gym fit this criteria and I GET IT! Classes are great! If you’ve been to any of mine, you’ll know I love them! They’re great fun 💪🏼 great community feel and can be tough as f**k 😅.

But they have their limitations…

1. They have to cater to everyone rather than being tailored to YOU and YOUR specific goal and physiology

2. The instructor doesn’t always have the time to come and correct issues with form you may have

3. Even though you burn a s**t tonne of calories during the workout they do little in terms of muscle conditioning and strength.

I’m not slamming classes because they’re great, and they’ll take you so far! But at some point your body will hit a plateau where it’s comfortable in terms of both body fat and strength 🏋🏻‍♀️. And at this point, it could be time to mix it up and step into the weight room…

Reason being, the way we continue to drop body fat or continue to get stronger (the principle is the same for both goals) is through PROGRESSIVE OVERLOAD… so you need to keep increasing the challenge on your body.

And you can easily do that with free weight training. These bars, dumbbells and machines in the gym literally have levels that you climb up as you require more of a challenge! You are working to YOUR specific limit.

I understand the confidence aspect of jumping into something new. It’s scary! But with perseverance and understanding the BENEFITS of taking that step into free weight training, you’ll be glad you did it 💪🏼🏋🏻‍♀️

If you’re ready to take that step and broaden your horizon click the link in my bio 💪🏼☺️

***PROUD PT MOMENT***
A shout out this week to 💪🏼

Like many people I encounter, when Meg first started with me she had NO confidence in her ability and was BRAND NEW to the gym. Her goal: to build her confidence in taking ownership of her training and to build some muscle and strength 💪🏼💪🏼.

In such a short space of time she’s making massive improvements to her form and starting to increase the weights 🏋🏻‍♀️.

But what I’m most pleased with at this point is the fact that she’s been brave as f**k and taken the dive to come in and train on her own! 👍🏼🎉

Building confidence to take ownership over your training is so crucial if you want to ensure it’s a habit for life 💪🏼. Allow yourself time, build up slowly and then suddenly, you’ve got the bug!

And you’re well on your way to becoming completely autonomous in the gym 💪🏼🏋🏻‍♀️

So well done Megs!! Now onto the business of squatting heavy and building those glutes 🍑 she’s got this! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

***CONFIDENCE TAKES TIME***

Something a lot of my clients have trouble with when they first start training is feeling comfortable in gym and with trying new exercises.

I completely empathise with this… a few years ago I took a step away from PT to have a go at something new (wasn’t for me by the way - love PT way too much ☺️💪🏼). And I remember walking into the office on my first day and thinking, ‘f**k! I know nothing and everyone knows I’m new and they’ll judge me for being s**t’…

My next thought was, ‘it all makes sense now, this anxiety is what my clients feel’.

Now breaking this cycle of anxiety and self doubt is really tough and takes a conscious effort. But until you have the confidence, your fitness progress will be on the back burner.

How to turn the corner:
- start building a basic repertoire of exercise that don’t use complicated equipment.
- do those 👆🏻exercises in an area of the gym that makes you anxious (usually the weights room) therefore building a positive association with that area and a feeling of comfort ☺️🏋🏻‍♀️
- maximise your time in that area and try variations of the same basic exercises you are comfortable with 💪🏼
- and above all else remember this: NO ONE IS ACTUALLY JUDGING YOU ☺️

At the end of the day we are all there for the same reason, self improvement 💪🏼 if you’re there to improve something, awesome! So am I! We have that in common.

And remember, NOT BEING GOOD AT SOMETHING ISNT A GOOD ENOUGH REASON TO STOP 💪🏼💪🏼. Growth comes from adapting to uncomfortable situations. Keep plugging, we were all new at something once… sorry for the essay!💪🏼☺️

IMPORTANCE OF RECOVERY -

So often we place all our emphasis on the work we do in the gym without thinking about the long game.

If you feel that your lifts are starting to plateau or go backwards and your muscles lose their ‘umph’ (that is the scientific term)… then it’s time to have a deload week…

Having a week where you either come away from lifting altogether or go a lot lighter is vital in pursuing long term muscle growth and even fat loss..

How light is light?
- 25% less load than your normal (for 10 reps)
- 10-20% less volume than your normal
- slower tempo (to force more blood through the muscle meaning higher levels of growth hormone and better recovery ☺️🤌🏼)

Why is it important?
If you’re lifting weights your goal probably has something to do with dropping fat, building muscle or getting stronger - or all 3 🏋🏻‍♀️🙃

So muscles don’t grow in the gym. What we do in the gym is break the muscles down and damage them… then we eat, replenish the muscle, sleep and recover. That’s when the muscle repairs and adapts to the damage you caused in the gym earlier that week - then we get stronger 💪🏼🏋🏻‍♀️

When we get stronger - the muscles tend to grow - when the muscles grow - your metabolism increases meaning you need more fuel - higher metabolism means it’s easier to get into a deficit - means better fat loss capabilities 🏋🏻‍♀️☺️ lovely!

How often you take deload weeks depends on your training age and how often you train per week so if you’re feeling a bit s**te and tired or are interested in knowing when would be best for YOU to take a rest week - drop me a message ☺️

CLIENT SPOTLIGHT - big shout out this week to .cox98 who, as you can see has made an enormous transformation since we began training!

Jade and I have been working together for just over 2 years and she came to me with the goal of building muscle (particularly on the upper body) and increasing her strength in preparation for her career in the military 💪🏼.

Building any muscle at all is a painfully slow process and Jade will be the first to admit that she struggles to hold onto mass so this is a testament to how hard she has worked.

Over two years she’s added about 10kg to her body weight 💪🏼. She’s taken her squat from 40kg to 80kg for 6 reps, her deadlift from 40kg to 102.5kg, gone from never doing pull ups to comfortably doing 6 reps and achieved a bench press of 75kg 💪🏼. As well as stacking 225kg on the leg press. Absolutely amazing work mate 👏🏼💪🏼

What I’m most proud of though is her self confidence. She has completely transformed that aspect and it’s great to see. Well done mate 💪🏼 keep turning the screw 🏋🏻‍♀️

Happy Valentine’s Day to my P.I.C and best friend 😘 love you lots

It’s been so long since I’ve posted anything I forgot how to do it!

What a year! Gyms are shut again I’ve been meaning to put this offer up since the announcement last week but wanted to get my ducks in row with my current clients first 🦆 🦆🦆

So, for this month I’m going to be opening up 4 more spaces for online PT for anyone who is struggling with accountability and needs a little guidance to get the most out of this period 🙃

Drop me a message if you are interested or have any questions!

Here’s the timetable for this weeks workouts!... If any of you who are struggling to find some motivation to get back into the swing of things come along and grab me after the class if there is anything I can help with!

All workouts can be booked onto through the link in my bio! Any questions, give me a shout 🤪💪🏼

*** BOOT CAMP BOOKING IS LIVE ***

All boot camps are now available to be booked onto! 💪🏼

Spent the last day warming up the vocal chords ready for excessive shouting and sa**sm 😇😁

If you fancy a beasting and a kick up the arse (not literally ) then book onto a class for £10, or go for the monthly membership which allows you access to 2 bootcamps per week and induction into my PT group for £72pcm...

Book now through the link in my bio! See you soon 🤪😊