What's your Fitness Goal in the New Year?

Very soon, 2008 will pass us by and we'll welcome 2009 although some will not look forward to the gloomy economy of 2009. Wheather or not the economy is good or bad, I feel that looking after your body should always be a priority. It's easy to understand why but often people overlook the importance having a healthy and fit body. With a strong body, you'll perform and think better at work and be able to leave good impression when you go for your job interview with the energy you got. Well there is a whole lot of other good stuff you already know. 

Before you even get into your workout gear in 2009, think about what you really want to achieve in 2009. It's very crucial that you don't miss this step. Why?  With no destination, there is no road map. You may probably heard about or done all these goal setting stuffs and may think it's about sheer determination and just some positive self-talk that do not work. I urge you to read on because it's about asking yourself why you want those goals or the desired changes you wish for. And you want your goals to serve you and goal setting is also about taking personal responsibility.

I can't stress enough that the  Number One "pitfall" is not setting any meaningful goals. This is a surefire way to FAILURE! I seen many who did not set goals get nowhere and eventually gave up. Not that they did set goals, they set very vague goals. What are vague goals? The following are examples of vague goals:

• I want to lose some weight.
  
• I just want to tone up.
  
• I want to be fitter.
  

Do you get what I mean? All the goals above cannot be measured and are very subjective and would definitely be considered as vague goals.

So what's a meaningful goal? It is objective and clear and can be measured quantitatively. The following are examples of meaningful goals:

• I want to lose 10kilo of body fat
  
• I want to achieve a 15% body fat body
  
• I want to be able to run a marathon
  

You get the idea now? Meaningful goals have values to it and very clear. If you have not set any goals for 2009 I urge you to do so now. Because you'll never do it on another day. Write your goals on a piece of paper you will look at everyday.

When you set you goals, keep this in mind "There are no unrealistic goals but only unrealistc deadlines". So go ahead set yourself some goals and have a look at them for a minute. 

Ask yourself very honestly why are those goals very important to you?

If you can't answer these honestly to yourself, you going to find it hard to achieve your goals. Remember you want your goals to serve you and not you serving your goals.

I remembered I had a client who wanted to lose weight and I asked her why. 

She said:"It's obvious I'm overweight and I need to lose weight." 

Then I went further by saying:"there is no crime in been overweight and it's not wrong to be overweight."

She later confused that she wanted to look good so she can meet people and feel loved.

It's important to find out the true reason and let that be the catalyst and motivation you can draw from.

Setting goals can be scary as well for some people because they can't envision themselves the way they want to be. Maybe because they don't think they deserved to be in great shape and that's probably why people set vague goals. I personally had clients who were afraid of the thoughts or images of themselves in great shape. If you can't picture yourself in great shape, how can you achieve it? According to a book called Psycho Cybernetics 2000, we cannot distinguish the difference between the subconscious and conscious mind and our subconscious mind dictate most of the things we fail to achieve. And I personally believe that sometimes we do have self-defeating thoughts in ourselves that we aren't even aware of. Really sometimes we do talk ourselves out of trying to do the things we needed to do in certain situations. Things like:" I should give up exercise because I am so unfit to begin with and I hate it." I'm sure you heard something like that before.

In order to stop the self-sabotaging, you got to catch yourself in that negative self-talk and stop that "head-thrash". Because all those "head-thrash" are going to stop you from realising your goals in the new year. Well of course, it will take more than just positive self-talk such as "Exercise is going to make me fitter and I love it". 

"All the things we achieved are things we have first of all imagined"

David Malouf, Australian Writer

According to Bobbe Sommer(author of the book I just mentioned),  all these logical thinking and verbal self-talk take place in the left brain which works in tandem with the conscious mind. And the subconscious mind is paired with the right brain which Bobbe Sommer called "the theater of imagination". If you could not imagined yourself to be in a certain state you wish to achieve, all those logical thinking or positive thinking or even willpower is not going to overcome all the barriers such as bad eating that sabotages your fitness goals. You need to able to visualise yourself to be in the desired state you want to be. If you can't see yourself in a situation, it's never going to happen. To engage you right brain and program your subconsious mind, practise mental imagery in a quiet place everyday in a relaxed state. Visualise with as much detail as possible in the way you want yourself to be.  

Let your goals serve you and act as if you are already reached your goals.

Happy New Year!

Don't be a Quitter in 2009

TC

Women Bootcamp
 

Looking Back at the First Women Bootcamp

Today is the last workout day of the Perth Women Bootcamp in 2008 and everyone turned up on the morning of Christmas Eve with the same level of enthusiasm they had in the first session. The Perth Women Bootcamp started off in late November 2008 with 5 participants. I must say it’s quite a difficult month for most people as many find it pretty hard to achieve any meaningful goals let alone motivate themselves to start exercising. I wasn’t very hopeful to get anyone at all in the camp but somehow I was fortunate enough to have 5 very motivated ladies enrolled in the boot camp. If you asked me why I started the boot camp in the first place I would say that it’s because of Ingrid, the first bootcamp member, who signed up for the bootcamp online. Then she got her friend Gabby to come along and somehow I ended up with 5 people. I was going to start the boot camp even if I got only one bootcamp member for the month even though it‘s not going to be cost-effective for me. Believe me! I was going to do it and I done it before with the fitness camp with 1 or 2 members for several weeks in the winter and you can see why I was very thrilled to start off with 5 members this time. I was very pumped to help everyone of them in every possible way to get the most out of this camp.

When I started this bootcamp, I slowly came to realize that people have an impression that a bootcamp workout would have people crawling on the ground under barbwire, doing crazy amount of pushups, lifting giant ropes above their heads and addressing their boot camp instructors as corporal of Sergent. Or even get yelled at as “recruits”. But it’s not the case with the Perth Women Bootcamp as everyone is treated with great respect and is worked hard according to her own individual ability. And I’m sure the women bootcamp members would agreed with me. Look at the following videos. It has none of those things that people thought a bootcamp would have.





In my opinion, it’s been great start for everyone at the Women Bootcamp. One member, Dr Leonie, told me that she could have put on a couple of kilos easily this month had you not done the bootcamp in December. Despite the festive season, she lost 2.4kg, 2% bodyfat, and a total of 19cm off her right arm, right thigh, waist and hips. In fact, everyone in the bootcamp had lost centimetres off their body despite not being able to follow the boot camp eating guidelines 100%. It’s not hard to understand why everybody found it hard to stick to the healthy eating guidelines towards the end as I would find it hard as well due to all the overwhelming social events (work Christmas party, friends’ party, etc) that had came up this month. The healthy eating guidelines are not some calories restrictive or starvation diet that some people I spoke to thought it would be. It’s meant to educate everyone how to eat healthy and lose and maintain fat lost permanently and at the same time everyone can apply the eating guidelines into their lifestyles to ensure long-term success.

In the end, I think everyone had worked hard enough to offset the less than perfect eating to lose centimetres off their bodies. And I’m glad that everyone in the bootcamp will have a headstart to 2009.

To all the Women Bootcamp members, I would like to thank you for your participation and the hard work that you all put in. And I hope you had enjoyed the women bootcamp experience and I’m sure you will be able to build on the momentum and find it easier to get back on track to a new body in the New Year 2009!

Hey enjoyed your victory with a few drinks and see ya soon! I’ll be looking forward to my wife’s chocolate cheese cake and enjoy the evening with a few drinks and recharge myself for 2009.

Merry Christmas!
TC

5 Surefire ways to prevent weight gain during the Christmas Holidays

Here is the 5 sure fire ways to help you prevent weight gain before the New Year. This is the busiest period where everybody gets really busy with the Christmas preparation and easily the time many people would fall off the wagon and start gaining weight. People are trading in their workout commitment for more time for Christmas errands and events. Don't let that be you. Why? It is a huge mistake to risk losing the lean muscle mass and strength that you have worked so hard to gain. Your resting metabolism rate accounts for 60-75% of your total daily calorie intake and losing lean muscle mass will actually lower your resting metabolism rate which in turn will cause your body to burn less and less calories day by day. This means that you will be at a greater risk of easily gaining excess weight on your body. Plus, losing the strength will mean your performance will be sub par the next time when you get back to work out and you will find it a lot harder to gain your strength back than to lose it! So should you resign yourself to eminent weight gain that seems to affect everyone? Not really because there are smart and effective ways, both from exercise and daily activities, to help you maintain and stay in tip top shape during the Christmas holidays. Just follow the simple strategies below to prevent the dreadful holiday bloat!

1) Accumulate your workout throughout the day

The number one excuse most people have is not having enough time to do exercise. Often times, people will say they don't even have 20 minutes for exercise. Well no more! When it comes to expending calories, your body cannot recognize difference between 100 squats done in a row or 100 squats done in a day. I'm sure you can get quite a few free moments throughout the day like waiting between the time after you put in the turkey into the oven and taking it out. You will be surprised how many free moments you have in a day that you can sneak in something like 10 squats, 10 burpees, 10 pushups and 10 rows. Using these method throughout the day will lead to big numbers and results in more calorie burning and lean muscle building effects. Have a target! Go for 100 squats, 100 pushups and 100 burpees or something else.

2) Do multi-joint compound movement exercises

Forget about doing all your time-wasting biceps curls, triceps extensions/French curls or shoulder lateral raises. They are termed singled-joint movement exercises because the movement occurs in only one joint. The problem with single-joint exercises is that it would be very time consuming to perform all the single-joint exercises required to get a whole body workout.

3) Perform at least a intense strength training workout once a week

Studies show that one intense strength workout a week is enough to help maintain your current strength and lean muscle mass. For maximum fat burning effects, perform three full body strength training sessions per week and three cardio interval training sessions on non strength-training days.

4) Be on your feet most of the time

Stop using all the machines that has made us all incredibly all of shape and overweight. You should still drive to the shopping malls and do your Christmas shopping. But you can certainly find opportunities to burn more calories by parking your car further away from the shopping malls, forgoing the escalators or lifts and walk more on your feet. And carry your own shopping bags for more calories consumption!

5) Engage in more outdoor holiday activities

If you're in the hot summer of Australia, and heading to the beach for some social outing during the Christmas holidays, don't just lie around and drink your booze. Have some fun by bringing a football or volleyball and played some games or just get into the water and have a swim. Talk about burning awesome amount of calories without thinking about it!

Train Smart !
TC
Perth Women Bootcamp

Building the Ultimate Circuit Training For Rapid Fat Loss

In the past the cornerstone of most resistance training workouts has been performing exercises in a straight set of format. Essentially, this means you perform a certain number of reps for a given exercise or you perform as many reps as possible for a given exercise and then you rest anywhere from 30 seconds to five minutes based on your training goals before repeating this set a certain number of times based on your goals. For more of a fat loss and lean muscle gain emphasis shorter rest periods are ideal. For more of a strength or power emphasis, longer rest are prescribed.

So. what's the problem with this format? Well, though straight sets are extremely easy to comprehend for people new to fitness, they are also an extremely inefficient way to order your exercises. In most commercial gyms you'll typically see someone perform three sets of 10 reps for let's say the bench press or dips. They pump out 10 reps, go to the water fountain, talk with some buddies, watch a couple of highlights on ESPN or staring at MTVs, and then gingerly walk back to the bench area to hit up their second set. In general, most people, guys in particular, tend to take about 3-5 minutes between sets. Well, it does happen to ladies when they hang out together in the gym.In the case of the three sets of 10 on the bench that means it would take up to 15 minutes to complete only one movement pattern (a horizontal push). That means you'd need at least an hour to perform four different exercises!

A much more effective and time-efficient approach to ordering your exercises is ultilizing the alternating set format. Here you'll perform one exercise, rest for a short period of time, then perform another non-competing exercise, rest for a short period of time, and so forth. Alternating sets allow you to work different areas of your body when you would otherwise be resting with the straight set format. Plus, by working another area of your body with a non-competing exercise you allow your body to recover from the previous exercise(s). The result is imporoved training economy and density: more work accomplished in less time, the cornerstone of any sound fat loss program. There are several ways to perform alternating sets outlined below:

1. Supersets: Alternate between two different non-competing exercises (e.g. upper body and lower body such as push-ups and lunges)
2. Trisets: Alternate between three different exercises (e.g. push, pull and lower body such as push-ups, rows and lunges)
3. Circuits: Alternate between four or more different exercises

In my opinion circuit training would be in the best options compared to supersets and triceps because it's time-efficient in working the whole body. Why? Let's examine my favourite circuit training template using timed set intervals:

The 50-10 Five Exercise Circuit. You will alternate between 50 seconds of work and 10 seconds of rest for all five exercises in the following 5-minute circuit:

Exervise#1- Squats

Exercise#2- Dips

Exercise#3- Single-Leg Hip Extensions

Exercise#4- Pull-ups

Exercise#5- Leg Raises

Perform this circuit up to 4 times for a 20-minute total body fat burning workout.

Bascially, in the same 15 minutes that it took to get in three sets on the bench you could have gotten in three sets of five different exercise for a staggering toatl of 15 work sets! Plus, the intensity on each exercise will be just as high as in the straight set format becasue in this five exercise circuit you will have full recovery with over 4 minutes befire you return to any given exercise (just as you did with the straight set format described earlier).

To recap, the key to creating the optimal hormonal environment for fat loss is to perform each exercise with maximal intensity while separated by brief rest periods in order to accumulate a high volume of total body work in the shortest amount of time possible. Circuit training provides for the best of both worlds and is thus simply unmatched for simultaneously maximizing fat loss and lean muscle gain. Use the following template I use with my many boot camp clients for some killer, yet simple fat loss circuits:

Exercise#1- Double-Leg

Exercise#2- Push

Exercise#3- Single-Leg

Exercise#4- Pull

Exercise#5- Core

I'll be sharing some more great circuit training workouts from my bootcamps in the weeks to come ;)


Be Inspired and Train with Belief!
TC
www.perth-women-bootcamp.com.au