08/01/2020
The warm weather is now most definitely upon us. The days are getting longer, the shorts are out and the skies are blue. NOW is the time to be starting the ‘beach body’ programme. I think I’ve written about it in the past how professional football players view the last month of the season as the time to get started in the gym to build their guns and a six-pack to impress the laydeeez on the beach.
Really you should have been getting ready over the last four months my most basic of rules when it comes to muscle hypertrophy is you need consistency and patience! The time for beach holidays how ever is here so if you have left it late what can we do.
Let’s take it that your ‘new body’ programme begins today. What’s the best way to approach this? Well, I know I’ve written about this previously, but the most important things are to:
• Ensure a balance between push and pull: This means, if you do loads of bench press, you need to do a similar amount of bench pull, or chin ups.
• Vary your programme: Don’t keep doing the same stuff all the time. Aim to change your programme and its emphasis (be it strength, endurance or power) every 3-5 weeks. The longer your lifting history, the more frequently you’ll have to vary your programme to keep your body guessing. If you’re still doing routines based in the eighties WAKE UP its time you looked at proper evidence based sports science.
• Lift heavy things but with good technique: The only effective way to get strong is to continually challenge your body to adapt to greater challenges. Don’t sacrifice your technique to do this though otherwise you’ll spend more time visiting the physio than using your gym membership.
• Keep a training journal: if you cant monitor it you cant manage it use your journal to get constant improvement
• Rest for growth: The only reason for training is so that the body can adapt to the stresses applied to it, It does this when you rest not when you exercise so make sure your rest periods are enough
• Stay mentally focused: I’m still not sure about the whole training with iPods thing, to get good muscle contraction engage your mind concentrate on the muscle you are training and feel it, can you do this with Kylie minogue in the back ground? maybe
• Support yourself nutritionally: This means making sure you have eaten before training and that you have a supply of protein and carbs for afterwards.
• Water is your friend: drink 2 litres of water a day to instantly look harder, you can holds kilos of water under the skin the way to remove it is to be hydrated so your body will let it go
• Go easy on carbs: cut the carbs back after lunch you don’t need energy foods towards bed time, load up on green veg
• Eat broccoli: yes even if you don’t like it, broccoli is a mild diuretic and will help you shed water as well as being full of anti oxidants.
• 6 meals a day: you know this just do it, 6 small meals a day kick starts your fat burning machinery, stabilises your blood sugars and stops cravings
Obviously, there are lots of methods of training but that’s for another day. What’s safe to say though is if you ignore these basic points, you’ll really struggle to build the beach body that you want.,
Confessions of a personal trainer
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01DLEHA54/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?qid=1459321137&sr=8-2&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=Confessions+of+a+personal+trainer
Hints and tips from a 20 year veteran
