Hi All,

Been meaning to get this written for a while. Fitpro is the leading magazine for personal trainers here in the UK. It has a long and established history, and has some of the countries (and the worlds) leading authorities in the fields of health, fitness and Wellbeing writing for it.  I have been a reader of Fit Pro for a number of years and you can’t walk into many staff rooms in gyms in the UK without coming across a copy of Fit Pro or one of its sister publications (Fit Pro Network and Fit Pro Business – look out for reviews of these in the next couple of weeks).

The magazine itself offers a wide range in terms of article subject matter.  One of the great features of Fit Pro Magazine is that it mixes both academic style articles based on reviews of current research with more practical base how to articles.  This allows the reader to pick up knowledge on a number of different levels from reading the one publication.  Fit Pro besides all the health, nutrition, physical activity and exercise based articles also looks at the business side of being involved in the fitness industry.  This is an area that a lot of publications miss out on but can have a massive effect on how well you operate as a personal trainer or fitness instructor.

The magazine also has a number of fun sections such as competitions to win all kinds of thing health related, it has also had a great range of seasonal ideas for the less imaginative personal trainer, such as Halloween special workouts and ski fit.  The magazine also places a great emphasis on interaction from readers, this is seen in the members forum section of the publication, where members can write in on whatever burning topics they wish.

One of the most impressive aspects of Fitpro magazie is that it is so responsive to the needs of the fitness community.  It always seems to be on the pulse of what is going on in the fitness industry and even better shows you a little glimpse of what is ahead.  The magazine is written in a friendly way that invites you to read it, it is not like some journals that are bogged down in the science and give little thought to the practicality of how to apply it.  Every time I have read a copy of Fit Pro I have taken away something new and it has improved my abilities as a Personal Trainer.

Fit Pro Magazine is well written and planned, it really is aimed solely at the specific needs of our industry.

If you are a Personal Trainer, Strength Coach, or anyone involved in Health and Fitness I strongly recommend that you take out a subscription to this awesome publication.

Have a look at the Website for more details.

TOM

Hi All,

This is just a very short post about what it means to be Physically Active, as a Personal Trainer in Manchester, I get asked all the time what is the minimum amount of activity a person needs to do for health.  A scary fact is that 6 out of 10 men and 7 out of 10 women in the UK are not active enough for health (according to the Department of Health).  The worst bit is it is so easy to be one of the few who are physically active.

So we are not talking for weight loss, or toning, just for basic health. First of all lets look at the benefits to low level physical activity on the body.

What Moderate Physical Activity will do for you:-

- Reduce your risk of premature death by 20-30%

- Reduce your risk of getting Type II Diabetes (Adult on set)

- upto 50% less likly to suffer with Coranary Heart Disease

- Improve function

- Reduce risk of back pain

- Increase bone density (reducing osteopherosis risk)

So what do you need to do?

- Moderate acttivity 5 times per week for 30 minutes

Moderate activity is anything that slightly elevates your heart rate, you might start breathing more deeply and feeling your heart rate raise.  However you should NOT be gasping for air, sweating heavily, or in any kind of pain.  For most peolpe brisk walking constitutes moderate intensity.

In terms of time you do not have to do this lot in one 30 minute block, you can break it down into sections of a minimum of 10 mins, this makes it much easier to fit into your day.  Lets face it we are all busy people and trying to find an extra 30 minutes to fit into your day for physical activity can be hard.

We have a solution!

We encorage people to look for activities that they already have to do, such as shopping and see how they can start to use these activities of daily living as physical activity.  Alot of the time we are moving about or doing physical activities but we just don’t do them at a good enough pace to constitute physical activity.

Some ideas for you!

- Walking round the shops

- Gardening

- Stairs instead of the lift

- DIY

- House work

- Walking the dog

- What else can you think of? Fill in your ideas in the comments box below.

Take every opportunity to get a little bit of activity in, and trust me it will all add up to have a massive overall effect on your levels of wellbeing.

Take it a step at a time!

TOM

Hi All,

Here is a great video form some of the guys at Fitness Quest 10, a great circuit using bands, tyres (yes tyres and not just any old tyre we are talking tractor tyres) and ropes!

Struggling to imagine what they are doing with them, have a look!

TOM

TG: Hi Brandon, thanks for being interviewed. Could you start out by telling us a little about your background in the wellbeing industry?

First, I would like to say thank you Tom, for the opportunity to share with your audience. I really appreciate that.
To answer your first question, I was very athletic growing up and was always interested in sports and physical activity. I was actively engaged in just about all sports and settled into basketball, track and field, and boxing competitively throughout my teenage years.

When I was 17, I suffered a back injury that would change things for me from that moment on. I had a hard time overcoming the injury with conventional methods of treatment (i.e. – physical therapy, etc.) so I decided I would take matters into my own hands. I read my first orthopedic and rehabilitation text at that time and was fortunate enough to rehabilitate myself and get back to my old “young” self again.

From there I decided to pursue a career in the health, fitness, and rehabilitation industry. I began working with clients professionally immediately out of high school and accumulated several certifications. Roughly a year later in 2000, a colleague turned me on to the CHEK Institute, Paul Chek, and the CHEK Certification Program. I took my prerequisite courses and completed my Level 1 training in 2001. From there, I immersed myself in the CHEK Certification programs and all that they entail and I moved from my home state of Louisiana to Rhode Island to be part of a very elite group of rehabilitation professionals. I worked there for 2 years heading up the clinical and corrective exercise for the facility prior to returning home to start a clinically based holistic health and corrective exercise practice that I run today.

TG: How important do you feel it is that individuals take responsibility for their own health?

This is one of the most critical aspects of attaining ideal health and wellness. As someone who has been in this field for a while now yourself, you are very familiar with the fact that many people believe that when it comes to their health and wellness, that “life is doing them.” They are a victim of poor genetics or some other “cause” of ill health. Taking responsibility for where one is in life, whether that be in terms of health and fitness or otherwise, is a necessary first step in “turning the ship around” so to speak.

I do feel that we, myself included, overuse the word responsibility. The word itself is very punitive and sort of has a stigma of blame attached to it – “Who is responsible for this mess?” I prefer to teach my clients that they are the co-creator/architect of their own health. There is no one or no “thing” to point the finger at for why you are where you are. I am personally a huge believer that 99% of the things that happen to us in our lives – we create. That is not always easy to accept, but for me, true nonetheless.

Health, fitness, rehabilitation, performance enhancement, etc., are not things that can be done “to” someone. An individual has to want to be healthy or fit more than the trainer, coach, or whoever, they are working with. If this is not the case, results will likely not manifest in a timely manner, if at all. So taking on the self-responsibility of creating more health and vitality in one’s life is an absolutely essential step to long-term success in my opinion.

TG: In what ways can people do this?

I feel one of the first ways this can be achieved is through attaining an awareness of the consequences of the choices we all make on a daily basis. For example, everything we choose to eat or not eat has a physical, mental, and hormonal consequence to it. Knowing what those consequences are, at least for some, may help to steer them in the right direction. I am of the opinion that the more you know about a given topic, the easier it becomes to make a better decision.

I also like the Ericsson Theory of Deliberate Practice. The main point of this theory put forth by K. Anders Ericsson, PhD, is that in order to achieve expert performance in any endeavor, one must engage in deliberate practice with the explicit goal of constant improvement.

There are four basic steps to Deliberate Practice and they are as follows:

(1) Practice

(2) Break the goal down into small, manageable components

(3) Enlist the help of a coach and be coachable

(4) Be prepared for setbacks.

In terms of applying the Ericcson Theory to taking responsibility for one’s health, one first has to make the conscious choice to improve his/her current state of health. Then they can choose to find a coach, someone like you or myself as an example, who will help them break that goal into small parts (what to eat, when to eat, lifestyle modifications, and on and on). Next, they have to practice implementing those small action items on a day-to-day basis and finally, they must be prepared for the occasional setback and be aware of how to respond if and when they occur.

TG: You are a CHEK Practitioner. What special skills has this given you?

That is a great question. The training that I have received as a higher level CHEK Practitioner has proven for me to be invaluable. I suppose the biggest take-away that I have received to date is the ability to accurately assess my clients on all levels – physical, mental, emotional, chemical, and even spiritual – to identify the root cause of their issues. Integrating this information into total wellness program design in order to give my clients whatever tools they need to foster health and well-being is what I consider to be my greatest ability as a CHEK Practitioner. The CHEK Program has been the catalyst that has helped me to help individuals who would be considered “challenge” cases. To anyone who has a passion for living a life of health and helping people overcome chronic pain and ill health, I recommend the CHEK Institute Programs without reservation.

TG: How important is the connection between body and mind?

Well, the two are inseparable. Without the mind, the body would not survive and vice versa. There is no body and no mind – there is only a body-mind. So from that standpoint, it is hard to overstate the importance of the connection. One thing that is very interesting is that if you look at the research that has been done on individuals with multiple personality disorders you find that one personality is near-sighted and another personality is far-sighted! One personality will be allergic to cats and another personality loves cats with no ill effects. It is the same body, but a different mind controlling that body.

By the same token, it takes a healthy body to support a healthy mind. I believe it was Socrates that would have his students practice with wrestlers because as he stated, and I may be paraphrasing here, “You have to be in shape to think!” Whatever it is that the mind conceives the body has to have the ability to support that idea for it to manifest. For example, my mind may hold the idea of running a marathon. But if I have spent the last 15 years living a completely sedentary lifestyle, I will probably run about 800 feet and then I will either pass out or vomit – or both!

I encourage creating a lifestyle that integrates mind and body to foster well-being. Many of the Eastern Philosophies do a great job of this. Meditation, Tai Chi, Qi Gong, Yoga, and all of the cultivations sciences are excellent additions to a really sound exercise program – provided they are executed in their truest form of course.

TG: What does your consultation process involve?

Well I usually have potential clients fill out an extensive array of paperwork prior to their Initial Consultation in order to maximize time during the consultation process.

Typically, I review past and current lifestyle factors, past and present medical and injury history, review any medical tests/imaging studies the client may have, set an overarching goal, address any questions that the client may have about the healing process, investigate financial and temporal resources available for healing, and establish the short and long-term commitment options.
From there, my clients are scheduled for their physical evaluations and we move forward based on those results.

TG: What are your top 3 tips to achieve weight loss?

My first tip is always to develop a healthy relationship with food. Many people view food as an inconvenience and do not realize that that attitude towards food has physiological consequences which can set them up for fatigue, weight gain, sleep issues, and a host of other problems.

Far too many people try to rely on their exercise programs as the primary tool for weight loss, when the focus should be on their nutrition. You will never out-train bad nutrition. How many times per week can someone exercise? Now, how many times do they typically eat? So where is the priority – the answer is obvious.

My second tip is to eat whole, real food and avoid foodstuffs that are processed, enriched, and/or fortified. It takes life to give life – that is the bottom line. The further from Nature your food is, the more difficult it will be to lose weight. The longer the shelf life – the worse the food is for you. Two very basic rules of thumb that I give my clients is that (1) If it was not here 5,000 years ago it will detract from your health not contribute to it and (2) If it has more than a handful of ingredients, or words on the food label that you cannot pronounce – do not eat it. That’s pretty much it from a very basic level.

I suppose my third tip would have to be to listen to your body. Our bodies are constantly sending us signals and communicating with us. We have to be still enough and have an awareness to listen and interpret the signals accurately. Headaches, pain, digestive problems, fatigue, sleep issues, and on and on – all of these are the body’s attempt to let you know to change your current habits because they are not serving you. If you continue to ignore the body’s signals, it will be increasingly difficult to achieve any health or fitness related goal you may have – or any other goal for that matter.

TG: What part do you feel nutrition has to play in overall wellbeing?

Hippocrates stated very clearly, “Let your food be your medicine and let medicine be your food.” Nutrition is your acquired life-force, or energy. It is an extension of energy from the Divine, or that which you feel created you. It is necessary to provide the body with what it requires to be healthy.

If you stop eating right now, you may live only 2 weeks –depending on your body fat levels. As I mentioned earlier, everything we choose to eat has a physical, chemical, and hormonal consequence to it. Unfortunately, we have added over 10,000 man-made chemicals to our food supply in the last 100 years, and very few (I believe it is less than 3%) of them have ever been thoroughly tested in any quantity.

Here in the United States, we have a very interesting silent experiment running and if I were to title that experiment it would sound something like this: “The negative health effects of feeding a healthy population of people overly processed and fast foods over an extended period of time.” The results are pretty clear so far – they get sick – very sick. Over 90% of the money spent on food in the US is spent on fast and/or processed foods and we have more disease of every kind per capita than ever before in history. This is not a coincidence.

If the quality of your nutrition/food is poor – so will your health be.

TG: Tell us a bit about what the future holds for you.

The future is very promising. I am currently in the process of re-branding my company and I am writing an e-book which is at the present moment untitled. I am currently integrating a fair amount of Functional Lab Assessment into my practice and am also studying Traditional Chinese Medicine Food Cures and slowly integrating these into my practice where applicable. As well, I am designing a several 4-6 week presentation series on various topics such as fatigue, chronic back/neck pain, and weight loss to name a few. I plan to begin these presentations within the next 6 months.

On the educational front, I plan to continue to work towards my Level IV CHEK Certification and position myself as an Instructor candidate for the CHEK Institute.

HI All,

Not sure if you saw the first video that I posted containing Fritz (Wellness Mafia), be warned the video is a little different to the usual stuff that I post.  Awesome non the less so please do have a look!

What will Fritz do next?  Is he a Personal Trainer? Is he Human? Who knows!

TOM

TG: Hi Robert, thanks for being interviewed.  Could you start off by telling us a little about your background in the wellbeing industry?

RB: I started personal training initially out of one of the Fitness First health clubs in Queens Park.  I worked there as a freelance personal trainer for 2 years and really enjoyed my time there.  This gym was a hard gym to find clients in as most of the clients couldn’t really afford personal training but I managed to still get a 30 hour week of personal training on a regular basis here.  At the same time as working there I hired a personal training studio by the hour just off Baker Street where I trained one or two clients, this studio is actually where Power plate began and they shared an office with this studio.  This studio was tiny and had very little equipment it was at this point I decided I wanted my own studio at some point.

TG: Can you tell us a little about your studio?

RB: I opened Personal training studios W10 in 2006 as I wanted a place to train my clients from Notting Hill and Queens Park.  Personal training studios W10 is hired out to personal trainers by the hour and I am a personal trainer here to.  Personal training studios W10 is open 24 hours a day and we regularly train clients at 11:00pm and later.  Personal training studios W10 is a popular personal training location for businessmen and women who want to train in peace after a hard day.

TG: What do you think is the biggest myth in health and fitness?

RB: Just picking one is hard, but I would say my number one would be how often you need to workout, most guys think that if they workout 6 times a week they will get the best results, this is not the case, I tend to workout for 40 minutes at a time 3 times a week which for bodybuilding I find keeps me at the optimum level of muscle growth.

TG: What are your top 3 weight loss tips?

RB:

TG: What are the most common barriers that your clients have to sucsess and how do you overcome these?

RB: Time is always the main factor, this is what most people say holds them back, everyone has time to workout each week its just that it’s not a main priority so they never come around to doing it.

TG: What should someone look for when choosing a personal trainer?

RB: When looking for a personal trainer go on reputation, personal training testimonials are very important check out their testimonials on their websites.  Don’t get caught up on qualifications I know of many bad personal trainers who have loads of qualifications, experience I always think is more important but qualifications are essential to.  There are a huge number of bad personal trainers in London just doing the job as they think they can do a few hours work and make a good living from it, they often have no qualifications or experience so be warned.

TG: What are the three most important traits a personal trainer must have?

RB:

TG: Can you tell us a little about what you have on offer at your studio?

RB: At Personal training studios W10 we offer one on one personal training in a private luxury environment catering for most fitness and weight loss goals.  What ever time of day you want training we can train you.  The gym has parking right outside the door at 50p an hour so is easily accessible and the studio is available for exclusive hire so you can train in peace.

TG: Tell us a bit about what the future holds for you?

RB: We are currently looking to launch another Personal training studio in Mayfair in the next few months and we are launching an online supplement store soon to go live on our site.  If you are a personal trainer looking for a studio to work from then please come down and check us out, its an affordable studio to workout of and most of our trainers have been working here for years.

TG: Thanks for your time Robert, and we wish you all the best for the future!

Hi All,

SO how hard is it to choose a water bottle? Very in terms of health and wellbeing using soft plastic bottles can present a number of health risks in terms of leaked chemicals. It is always advisable to use a stainless steel bottle where possible!

Have a look at this video for more information:-

TOM

Hi All,

Here is another awesome video from Wellness Force, looking at the importance of having an organic diet.

Tom

Hi All,

Thought I may as well carry on the Top Ten thing, with my top ten wellbeing blogs!

1. A Day in The Life of a Personal Trainer (John Izzo)
2. Outside the Box (Sarah Rippel)
3. Alwyn Cosgrove
4. Fit Street Total Health Solutions
5. Michael Boyle
6. What Martial Arts Mean to Me (Lun Lok)
7. Aegis Training
8. Brando’s Blog
9. The Kettlebell Coach
10. Back Pain Relief Blog

Hope you enjoy them as much as I do!

TOM