More Resolution Thoughts....

What do New Year Resolutions mean to you?

Do you set them every year? Do you achieve what you set out to do each time, or is initial progress soon ground to a halt as old habits kick in?

I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. Personally i like to consider the year ahead, also break it down into quarters, and sometimes set specific challenges like 100 days. I always have a sense of my targets and goals and therefore times like New Year or Birthdays etc, don't seem like such big deals. It's a constant process of awareness and improvement or challenge.

I think this is a successful approach - consistency of effort, goals and challenges seems to work pretty well for exercise and nutrition too. Rather than endless cycles of frustrating stopping and starting that tend to go no where, a constant awareness of where you are and where you want to be along with consistent effort and tweaking over time will go far!

While i will no doubt come up with what could be considered some resolutions, i think the idea of New Year Resolutions have a sense of failure built into them. Just in terms of culturally there is an assumption of badly set goals not lasting 3 weeks into January! Or maybe that's just my impression, but from what i've read the statistics on successful resolutions seem to back it up.

So why not consider resolutions of a sort - every month rather than every year? Committing to this gives you a great chance to review and reassess what you want and celebrate your successes. It gives you a chance to simply start again on something if that's what you want or need to do.

There is no way to 'blow it' because it's a constant process rather than all or nothing!

As mentioned in the previous post, to really become a goal getter check out the Magic 100 programme - Click Here

I do get a commission if you buy it through this link.

Steve
Sussex Bootcamps

It's New Years Resolution Time!

Have you set yours?

Are they just dreams or wishes or actually things you are going to do and make real?

How are you going to need to be in order to achieve what you want?

What are the reasons you might fail? How can you overcome them?

Are you dreaming too small?

On the right of this page is a link to the Magic 100 programme by Dax Moy.

It's a proven system of goal achievement and life changing action!

If you are serious about turning your dreams into reality you should click the link and check it out.

Here is the link again http://f4c69pnejrvhztfysh0pn0umxj.hop.clickbank.net/

You have nothing to lose and everything to gain!

Have a great 2010

Steve Cork

End Of Year Reflections - How Did You Do?

It's great to use this time of year to look back on the past year and how much of what you wanted to achieve actually got done.

This can obviously be appied to your fitness, nutrition and health, but also the other areas that make up your life.

As for training, this is one reason i love to keep training diaries. It's great to look back on the past year and even previous years to compare what i have done, what has lead to success, what challenges needed to be overcome etc.

I do feel training diaries lend themselves best when you can attach some numbers to what you are doing, for example weights lifted, repetitions, time taken, distance covered, average speed etc. This just makes it easier to compare training sessions and the results from them.

Even without much of this quantification, i'd still recommend keeping track.It's like looking at a roadmap of how you got here!

I feel i had a good year overall. I trained hard and consistently with a well rounded approach. I did suffer a pretty significant injury, but i was able to work around it so it didn't slow me down too much! I set a goal of Deadlifting 200kg's earlier in the year. As i got to the final months of the year i knew this would need to be revised slightly.

So last Sunday i managed 192kg's - a good personal best and exactly 2 and a half times my bodyweight!

If you didn't have any friendly challenges to look forward to this year, how about setting yourself some for next?!

Time for the Bootcampers to step up to the challenge once again on Monday 4th January. Still some spaces available - http://www.sussexbootcamps.co.uk

Steve

How Many Burpees.....?

.....Could you do if you just fixed your mind on a number and got determined to get there no matter how big that challenge seemed and how long you had to take?

Check out my effort at 100 from a few weeks ago!



Burpees are a great whole body movement that demand a large amount of energy and effort!

If you are going to do a lot of them it's worth getting very familiar with the movement first and make sure your back feels good doing them.

Adapt to your own fitness levels, take out the press up and the jump if you need to. Also, hands can be on a raised surface to make easier.

As your ability increases work harder and faster for an intense fat burning exercise!

Steve
www.sussexbootcamps.co.uk

Party Season Is Here! Fat Gain Or Loss??

Yes it's December! And if you haven't already seen an increase in your social life then it's probably happening from this week. And let's face it, that can be great and it can also be a disaster for fat loss and fitness.

What happens often is training sessions are dropped, calories are increased, especially from alcohol, fat and carbohydrate! Sleep is reduced, stress levels can be higher etc.

This all adds up to quite a challenge for your body to be a lean, mean fitness machine!

So, let's be as practical as possible about this.

Commit to still exercising. Do your normal days and times if possible, if not simply try to make a different time on the same day. If you can keep some regular habits going this will all be easier to stick with and fully resume once life is more back to normal.

If you have to, simply cut down the time you are exercising to avoid missing it out altogether. Make up for this by working harder, cutting down on rest times etc. If you are spending more than an hour exercising then you are probably not working hard enough anyway!

A longer workout does not mean a more effective one, despite what many people still think. Depending on what you do and what your goals are, a hard 30 minute session can achieve more than 90 mins of easier or less effective work. What are you more likely to be able to fit in?

The bottom line is you are going to feel so much better for staying active. Your body will also more effectively deal with the calories it takes in and keep your metabolism raised for more of the time.

In terms of eating, go for the leaner meats, fish and vegetables first. Fill up on the good stuff and hopefully there will be less room for the not so good!

If you are going somewhere with only snacks available, again try to eat well before going out to avoid over doing the snack calories.

There will be meals where you no doubt do go overboard, and that's ok! Just be a little better to yourself on the other meals you have that day or week. Again, good meats, fish, vegetables and some fruit as the basis for your eating will go a long way to minimising the negative effects of the big party meals.

If you are out a lot, choose to make some nights alcohol free, or offer to drive to make sure that happens. It is your choice and it will still be plenty of fun!

So, to sum up. Keep exercising - you'll, fee, function, and no doubt look better for it! Eat right most of the time, and enjoy yourself when you don't! Stick with this for the next month and you could continue to lose fat and/ or get fitter while enjoying a busy social December!

Steve
www.sussexbootcamps.co.uk

P.S. Our free week of bootcamp is filling up very fast. Have you registered? www.sussexfreefitnessbootcamps.com

What Size Are 'Normal' People Anyway?

What size and shape are we meant to be?

What are the average's - is that what we want to be?

What are the images we are bombarded with of the 'perfect' body?!

I'm most aware of these questions when shopping for clothes - which doesn't happen that often! I can only imagine the trouble professional athletes have to go through to get clothes that fit!

Now for those of you who don't know me i am far from large framed, i grew up doing long distance running and martial arts - always just a regular or lean size and shape.

Even today with lots of strength training i'm certainly not at all stocky.

Thererfore it always surprises me when jeans are tight around the thighs and bum. Shirts are often tight around the back and neck.

Surely people are meant to move, exercise, and have their body's adapt accordingly!?

It seems that if you are active enough to actually cause some positive changes in your physique you may find yourself out of the current norm. I think part of this is still the popular culture's obsession with the super skinny.

Or we have the opposite side to this:

Sussex Bootcamps are off to the Bright FM awards this evening to present one of the awards and therefore need to be dressed up.

I went to hire a suit from Broadbridges just around the corner from us in Haywards Heath, which was great. On going back to collect my order they had my order slightly queried, as the size of my jacket 'should' have accompanied trousers 4 inches bigger than i need for my waist!

This is relevant to our bootcampers experiences as we often hear of people noticing clothing fitting differently. From the reassuringly baggy, to the concerned tighter around the legs!

If someone, particularly a woman is experiencing areas getting larger from something like a bootcamp, i'm going to suggest 1 of 2 things are happening. 1, they are possibly not being too good with nutrition and this is simply some weight gain, or 2, if it's actually lean muscle tissue then they were under muscled in the first place.

This may not be what individuals want to hear but if a small amount of muscle tissue (and it can only ever really be small doing what we do) is added this is simply a healthy and positive response, so don't let old clothing sizes or media images convince you you are not actually looking better!

More soon from the front lines of fitness and fashion!!

Steve

Free Bootcamp Week To Help Homeless At Christmas

That's right we're stepping up to the demand from our Bootcampers and offering an extra week with a difference!

We weren't sure how to run it, we could be having an extra week off! We could be busy promoting our January Bootcamps, our charity events etc. So instead of that we've decided to offer the week of the 14th Dec for free!

People just have to register to reserve their free place and then donate some food that we can then pass on to the Emmaus Homeless charity in Brighton.

We've only just started to tell our current bootcampers about this and the response is very positive so far.

I'm sure it's easy to have mixed feelings about the homeless. Sometimes you hear people saying they have brought it on themselves or are being lazy etc.

Maybe this is true for some of the people who find themselves in this position, but i'd guess there are many who are there through no real fault of their own, who haven't been able to cope, who have had society turn it's back on them.

What we're talking about is other human beings who probably crave some of the things we take for granted at this time of year - friends, family, food and shelter from the winter weather.

If we can do a little bit to give back to those who find themselves worse of at Christmas then i think we should take that opportunity. After all there is generally so much excess and waste going on elsewhere.

So here it is - the last chance to make a difference to your fitness in 2009 and get a head start on any new years resolutions.

Reserve your place here http://www.sussexfreefitnessbootcamps.com/

We're excited to offer some turkey busting workouts!

Steve Cork

P.S. Our new venue for Bootcamps is Trading Boundaries at Sheffield Park. We start in January and we're ready to help you make 2010 your healthiest and best year ever!