Personal Training Tips

You are more likely to fit in exercise and to stick to your workouts if you have a training partner e.g. friend, neighbour, work colleague, family member. Having a training partner will keep you motivated, you're less likely to want to let them down by missing a session, you can have fun and compete with and challenge each other to progress.  

Achieving your goals will give you a great feeling of satisfaction, pride and sense of achievement. It will make all the hard work worthwhile. Write down your goals, make your goals specific, measurable and with a time deadline. Make the commitment to achieve them and constantly review them throughout 2013. Relentlessly go after them. Knowing what you want to achieve is the first step you need to take in order to achieve your health and fitness goals. Remember, regular, small steps lead to giant, progress strides.

The hardest part of any workout can be the first few minutes. If you are tired, upset, have had a stressful day or just have things on your mind, you may not feel like working out. Set your emotions aside for ten minutes and do a warm-up by going for a walk or a few lunges or couple of minutes of boxing. As you warm up and clear your mind of any issues, this will make you focus only on the workout you are about to do and the benefits to be gained.

When you first start exercising, it is a good idea to seek the advice of professionals to insure you are making the right choices. Getting the consent of your doctor is a must before beginning any exercise program and will save you countless problems. Meeting with a personal trainer or exercise instructor will allow you to get up to speed fast. The more you learn about working out, different exercises, proper technique, stretching, nutrition etc, the easier it is to maximize your progress.

With your health and fitness plan, focus on the basics and excel at them. Don't overcomplicate matters. Ensure you:

• Set SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time focused) goals,
• Get more active more often each day (keep your exercise varied, challenging, fun and progressive),
• Eat nutritionally well every 2-3 hours,
• Drink 2-3 litres of water a day,
• Stay motivated, committed, determined and relentless

Spend less time sitting and more time standing/moving. This has many benefits including raising our heart rate and forcing our muscles to contract. Ways to stand/move more and sit less include:

• standing whilst commuting to work on the train/bus,
• doing an active task whilst watching tv like ironing,
• embracing frequent screen breaks by getting out of your office chair,
• parking a few minutes walk away from work etc.

Encourage your neighbours, family, friends and work colleagues to exercise and get active with you. For instance, set up a walking club, a running team, a dance class, a weekly sports game e.g. five a side football or dodgeball etc. This will make your fitness training more enjoyable and rewarding. Also, it will help to keep you motivated and you will get a great workout.

As part of your long-term health and fitness plan, to help maximise your progress, to keep your body guessing and to avoid boredom, add variety to your training by using different forms of exercise. For instance, Gym on a Monday, Football on a Wednesday, Zumba on a Friday and Cycling on a Saturday.

Surround yourself with positive people, for instance your training partner, and tell yourself that you will achieve your goals.

Think of why you are putting the effort in and keep evidence of your progress to keep you focused on your goals and motivated e.g. progress photographs.

Write down and constantly think about what you want to achieve in the short term e.g. 2 months, in the medium term e.g. 6 months and in the long term e.g. 12 months plus.