Found this great little YouTube video of a circuit designed for boxers.  Well worth a try if your in any combat sport.

Remember to check out No Frills Fitness!

Just when you thought Sean Croxton of Underground Wellness could not possibly fit any more into his day, he has gone ahead and proved you wrong.  He has just launched the awesome undergroundwellness.tv, a on-line TV channel dedicated to what Sean does best, wellness, nutrition and fitness!

Well worth having a look! It debuts on March 15th!

Here is a clip from one of his shows

Look out for a review of the site in the next few weeks!

TOM

Manchester shine is a night walk event held annually in Manchester in aid of Cancer Research UK.  This event has got bigger and bigger over the years and now has many dedicated followers.

The great thing about Shine is that is open to all, so get your walking shoes on and join in.  You can choose to do the full on 26 mile walk or the 13 mile walk in and around Manchester city centre.  If you would like to see the full route have a look at this map.

For more information have a look at yourshine.org

Foresight Personal Training Manchester, will be doing a series of Q+A for those involved in Manchester Shine 2010.  Look out for the link!

To enter and support this great event all you need to do is click here.

This is a great, fun, but challenging event.  Why not join in and help Cancer Research UK raise some much needed cash!

TOM

Not posted much in the way of You Tube goodies lately, so here is a great video from Sean Croxton of Underground Wellness all about sugar!

TOM

Lee is the creator of an awesome site called fitnessvenues.com this site covers all aspects of health, fitness, nutrition and wellbeing.  The site is packed full of reviews, articles, a forum, and listings of health professionals and gyms.  It is a great resources for anyone into health and fitness.

We talked to Lee about how the site came about and what the future holds for fitnessvenues.com.

TG: Hi Lee, for those of you who don’t know you, you are the man behind FitnessVenues.com.  Can you tell us a little about your background in the wellbeing and personal training industry?

LM: I have been interested in health and fitness since my teens. Because of this I enrolled onto a health and fitness degree and then a post graduate course in Exercise Physiology. It was during this course in 2000 that I came up with the idea of setting up a health and fitness web site with the primary idea that the site could point people to local health clubs and personal trainers. I understood though that to get people to the site I’d need to pad out the idea with fitness, exercise and weight loss content.

TG: So what got you started on the idea behind fitnessvenues.com?

LM: Well, I create then sold a very popular health and fitness web site in 2005. To be honest that site wasn’t everything it could have been … I had to manage the web site in an archaic way, including having trainers and gyms email me with their details, which I’d then cut and paste into a very basic directory. Also,  if I ever added a new page or change the site in any way I had manually change ALL pages of the site to show new pages and then upload the WHOLE site again onto our server!

So, I spent some of the money made selling my first site to develop a health and fitness site which could be run in a more automated way. So now people can add and manage their own listings AND view stats on their listings and I can add new content that automatically appear on the site. Not only that but FitnessVenues.com also includes online quizzes, interactive tools as well as up-to-date news and much more.

TG: How long was the site in development and what kind of hurdles did you have to overcome?

LM: I started FitnessVenues.com in August 2006. Up until July 2007 the site simply listed health clubs and personal trainers. Enrolling personal trainers and gyms was hard work – cold calls and lots of discussions about why listing on FitnessVenues.com was a no-brainer … all listings are free.

Adding content to the site was a little harder still. I came up with the idea that personal trainers and other industry experts could contribute stories and content in exchange for better coverage of their business on FitnessVenues.com. This idea worked. So now FitnessVenues.com has a wealth of writers and contributors who all benefit from giving us content because time and again we send them quality business leads.

TG: What do you feel sets Fitnessvenues.com apart from other fitness based sites?

LM: FitnessVenues.com is everything a fitness site should be – interactive, relevant, up-to-date and interesting. What separates us from the rest is that we add ‘news’ stories almost daily, which means we are up to the minute in terms of health, fitness and wellbeing news.

As our listed businesses are concerned we drive quality business leads to their services for FREE as well as giving them full access to their advertising stats – impressions, web click numbers, emails sent via FitnessVenues.com (and more) … something NO OTHER web site does, not even the likes of Google.com!

TG: What is the best thing about your job?

LM: I have created many sites in the past, some in and some outside the fitness industry and the real thrill is creating something from scratch that people really appreciate and interact with – FitnessVenues.com now has a readership of over 80,000 + users a month

TG: What does an average day in your life look like?

LM: To be perfectly honest working solely in the IT industry holds very little interest for me. Sure I enjoy watching the site grow in terms of pages, readership and income but as the site is full automated I found the site needed very little management. So a few years ago I trained to become a primary school teacher. So my typical day sees me teach 5 and 6 year olds. Needless to day, as you can imagine, each day is very different … not to mention full of laughs and endless entertainment supplied by the children.

TG: I have been particularly impressed with the forum, I have been a member for a few years now.  What is the future for this particular aspect of your site?

LM: Well, the forum, for me was a little disappointing. It hasn’t grown as rapidly as I’d have liked. Sure, some people do post – you for example, but not enough people interact with the forum to make it a place for people MUST visit and post Q & A’s.

So, I’ve decided to focus user interaction in comments within stories. In the very near future users will be able to post their comments on any story that interests them. This, I hope, will keep discussions alive and allow stories to grow organically based on the comments users make.

TG: What are your top tips for weight loss?

LM: Weight loss is all about calories in versus calories used. You can exercise until the cows come home but if you eat more calories than you burn you won’t lose any weight at all.

TG: What would be your top three tips to improve your overall levels of wellbeing?

LM: I believe wellbeing is all about the mind so I’d suggest the following:

1. Exercise & eat healthy foods – it makes you feel good, gives you energy and helps you to focus on mental tasks.
2. Get enough sleep. I personally need 7 – 8 hours a night.
3. Expand your experiences – meet new people, go on holiday to somewhere different, eat new foods.
4. Set yourself achievable goals and reward yourself when you reach them. For example, if your goal is to lose 10 lb, as soon as you do go out and buy yourself some new clothes as a reward or go out for a meal at your favourite restaurant.

TG: What’s in store for the future of the site?

LM: Good question. I have new ideas all the time, some good, most not. However, I think over 12 months my main aim will be to expand the site in terms of content – more stories and new channels etc rather than investing in site development.

That said, as mentioned before I will be developing a ‘Add your comment section to each story. But in terms of cost, this is a relatively cheap update.

TG: It has been great talking to you Lee, good luck for the future!

So on Friday we went down to the Channel M studio at Urbis to talk about the project.

Here’s the You Tube clip of the news segment.

While Mark is doing all this he is also trying to raise awareness of the SOS Children’s Village charity, a great cause and one well worth supporting.

Mark’s story is truly inspirational and if you would like to follow in his footsteps give us a call and see how we can help you make positive changes in your life to help you live a happier, healthier and longer life.

Look out for regular updates on here and dontbuythismanapint.com.

Tom

]]> http://www.foresight-fitness.co.uk/blog/2010/02/02/tom-on-channel-m/feed/ 0 http://www.foresight-fitness.co.uk/blog/2010/01/20/dont-buy-this-man-a-pint/ http://www.foresight-fitness.co.uk/blog/2010/01/20/dont-buy-this-man-a-pint/#comments Wed, 20 Jan 2010 23:32:59 +0000 Tom Godwin http://www.foresight-fitness.co.uk/blog/?p=294

Hi all,

I have recently become involved in a great project that Mark Bowness is has set himself, he is giving up alcohol for a year.  During this time he is looking to improve himself both in body, mind and spirit.  Want to know more have a look here.

He is also doing the very brave thing of telling everyone about his mission and also blogging about it at dontbuythismanapint.com.  He is not only doing this but he is using the media interest to get people involved in SOS Children’s Village, a charity that sponsors villages in poorer regions of the world.  He has pledged to use £20 of the money he would have spent on alcohol in a month to put towards this charity.  Why not do the same? We have decided to give him some support, in terms of his fitness, nutrition and wellbeing.  Stay tuned both here and on Mark’s blog for more info of what we will be doing.

Here is what i have had to say about this great project:

Mark talked to us at Foresight Personal Training a few weeks ago and explained that his mission for the year is to give up alcohol and go on a journey of self discovery.  This journey will take him through improvements in both body and mind, when we first heard about this we though ‘wow what a brave bloke’, not only is he embarking on this epic goal, but he is documenting and publicising it for the world to see. 
 
We are so happy to be involved in this exciting project and hope that this helps Mark to live a happier, healthier and most importantly longer life.  We look forward to supporting Mark in every way we possibly can and hope his tale acts as inspiration to those who follow his story to make small, lasting changes to their lifestyle in order to reap the massive rewards of improved health. 
 
Mark is not only making a massive change in his own life but by his support and fund raising for SOS Children’s Villages, he is also making a massive change in so many others lives across the world.  This is a great cause and we do encourage you to support them!
 
We would like to thanks Mark for the opportunity to be involved in this great project and we hope that our advice, that will be made freely available on by the dontbythismanapint.com blog and on our blog (www.foresight-fitness.co.uk/blog/) will lead to improvements in health in the wider community.
 
TOM Godwin
Managing Director
Foresight Fitness Services

Just came across this video from Coach Brett Klika from FitnessQuest10 in San Diego. It outlines the basic motor skills that need to be developed before starting to squat, bench press, or train using many of the olympic style lifts.

What do you think? Please do comment!

TOM

How many of us look over the past year and say “I wish I could have done… ” or as the New Year approaches you are thinking, “This year I’m going too…”

I have been in the same situation numerous of times, recapping the years that have past and coming up with “New Year Resolutions” to achieve in the up coming year. I can honestly say that each year I have personally made a laundry list of goals I wanted to accomplish and have been able to fully complete only a few. There are people out there that are able to write out their list of 5, 10, 20…etc goals to achieve in the New Year and are able to complete them. But, like myself there are so many people that can not do it because life seems to throw us challenges.

Three years ago, I learned a way to setup realistic holistic goals that not only was I able to accomplish them, but I was also able to enjoy the journey. The system that I learned is detailed and takes sometime to get it down. I want to give you the overview and a few tips so you can start working on your Holistic New Years Resolutions.

1) Understand and live your Core Values.

2) Know your Legacy and live it daily.

3) Do not set more then 3 Goals at a time.

4) Draw out a mind map on how you are going to accomplish each goal.

5) Figure out how you are going to do 1 action per day to work towards each of your goals.

Here are some tips that are very helpful for setting goals. Think of goals like children; you have to care, feed, play with and love them. If you can only handle taking care of one child then do not set yourself up for caring for 3 children. I use this analogy because it is so true when it comes to goals. If you can not spend the time, feed, nurture, and love your goal(s) how are you going to be able to accomplish them? That is why when I teach people about goal setting I teach them how to properly manage their expectation and how to set realistic goals. This way they can accomplish their goals without getting overwhelmed and quitting.

Once you have this foundation down you can easily set S.M.A.R.T (Specific, Measurable, Action Oriented, Realistic, Timed) Goals and have a successful New Year!

I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year.

Love & Chi