What do you think is the real secret behind my client success? Well, if your answer was my aforementioned training and nutrition system, then your almost half right . It is an awesome program, but unfortunately it’s useless if someone is unwilling to start it AND stick to it, right? Consistency is the golden key here … I am going to literally walk you through the initial consult and three step goal setting process that everybody who is training toward a realistic goal should follow. This is so important to fitness and weight loss success that I now require it for any new people joining our program.

OK, I am fully aware a lot of people think goal setting is just a cheesy, useless sales ploy type thing. But it serves to keep anybody who wants to achieve any thing on track..I can assure you. I am always counting the days i have been on my fitness program. I actually have a white board and I mark days off.   The bottom line is that the most successful people out there, and I mean not just weight loss success, I am talking business, lifestyle, etc., are shamelessly goal driven. They know exactly why they want to do something and harness that super motivation to figure out what and by when they want to go about accomplishing that. Furthermore, they plan and prepare for every possible roadblock they will encounter in their path to success. This is what I want to share with you today!

Step One- The Why: Why do you want to do this?

This is where it’s time to get real. In almost every initial consult I do, when I ask why they have contacted me today, here is the typical blanket response that I first hear:

“Well, I just want to get healthy and lose a bit of weight I guess.”

Sure, I know people want to lose weight and be healthy, I mean who doesn’t, but really WHY do they want to do this? I mean, what is it that’s going to get them up at 5 am to get their morning workouts in or take a couple of hours on Sunday to plan and prepare their meals for the upcoming week?

Let’s face it: everybody, including YOU, wants to look better naked. You know it’s true  and frankly that’s okay because the desire to improve one’s appearance is the most powerful motivator there is. This shouldn’t be such a big surprise since the main life mission of any species is to procreate. This is instinctual. And obviously, looking better makes this more of a reality.

So, after a little digging, I find out the real reason why they want to do this; I find their past or pain and then establish their current and future ambitions. Some people want to be able to mow the lawn in the summer with their shirt off and not feel self-conscious. Others want to get back into their favorite pair of pants that they haven’t been able to get one leg into for the last five years. Then there are those who want to look and feel more attractive to ignite some passion back into their relationships and/or put for their best image at work. And of course, my personal favorite is preparing for big events that have built in deadlines. Wanting to get as lean and as ripped as possible to rock that dream bathing suit down the beach, or get off the plane in Queensland when visiting family you haven’t seen for a while to blow them away with your brand new body, or being a classic beauty in your wedding dress on the big day, it all works! This is the stuff that gets people hyped and ready to commit to sticking to a healthy lifestyle. How do I know? Well, I just shared with you verbatim the exact “WHY’S” of some of my own PT and bootcamp clients.

So, the first thing everyone, including you has to figure out is your personal WHY. To make this even simpler for you, just answer this question: what are your physical dreams? Once you establish this, everything else is going to be easy.

Step Two- The What and When: What do you want to accomplish and when do you want to accomplish it by?

Now we need to establish what objective goal(s) need to be accomplished in order to realize this subjective dream.

Well, from a logistics standpoint and keeping things as cost effective as possible, there are three major ways I track “look better” progress with my clients, in order of importance from least to most important:

1.) Scale Weight: For a lot of people this is by far the most important goal. It gives a number that’s worth tracking, although we really need to be looking at body fat and composition.. The key is to taking your initial weight before you start and then not weighing more than every 2 weeks. I have found most people to do better with tracking their weight every month. There are simply too many variables for controlling your body weight and the natural fluctuations based on diet (and for women, their menstrual cycle), means the less frequently you do this the better. Sometimes the the scales are just too de-motivating for people in general. I suggest  just skip this one altogether if you must, because the next two markers are far more important.

2.) Dress/Pant Size: This is probably the most simple and effective unused method of tracking whether or not you look better. I think it’s safe to say that if you are dropping dress and/or pant sizes that you will be looking better, right? Your best bet is to also select one dress or one pair of pants that you really want to get into since that is the true end goal in mind. I tell my clients to assess how they are fitting in their preferred dress/pant size tracker on a weekly or bi-weekly basis since our clients that follow our program exactly as outlined typically lose a dress and/or pant size every month (until they get to their ideal dimensions). For those of you would want to argue that every outfitter has different sizes, well that’s a mute point if you use the same pant or dress size to track. There’s nothing more powerful than being to literally being able to feel yourself comfortably get into clothes that use almost rip when you put on. I know I have been there. i once had an accident and could not walk for 6 months properly. In this period I packed on 20 kilos…

3.) Digital Pictures: Pictures never ever lie, that’s the bottom line. If you want to look better, what better way is there to assess this than pictures? I cannot begin to tell you how important this is. Taking a before picture is essentially you telling the whole world that you are ready to change and that you are ready to do whatever it takes to make those changes. They key is take pictures wearing exactly what you want to look your best in. Now, don’t be sending me nude pictures of yourself, ha (though you can keep these for yourself to track if you’d like). Maybe it’s taking pictures of you in the dress or pair of pants that you are using to track your dress or pant size. Or maybe it’s a sleeveless shirt and tank top that you want to wear during the summer. And if you want to see your abs, then you best believe that you need to take pictures of your abs to track how much more definition you get. Take a front, side, and rear view picture and be sure to note the exact conditions in which the picture was taken (lighting, distance from camera, time of day/week, etc.) to be as accurate as possible in your assessment. The clients whom I’ve transformed that failed to take before pictures in the past have nothing but regret about it. Your before pictures will become your trophy and they are an absolute must if you really are serious about getting results that count. We tell our clients to take new pictures either bi-weekly or monthly until they reach their goal(s).

Step Three- Planning and Preparing for Roadblocks: What are the big obstacles that will prevent you from having the success you desire? What’s contributed most to past failures?

Now that we know what you want to accomplish, it’s time to plan and prepare for any obstacles that might get in your way of getting the job done based on your own personal schedule.

The number one thing I hear is that people are too busy and tired and don’t have enough time to get their workouts in or make their meals. Well, I don’t care how busy you think you are, there is always hidden time throughout the day and week that can be freed up if your re-prioritize. Again, think back to why you wanted to do this in the first place and then examine what’s most important to you. Make your workouts and your meal times just like work appointments. Either you make the appointment or you don’t. And if you want to keep your job (or get your dream body) then you better make that appointment.

Alcohol. People like to drink and unfortunately alcohol is about as detrimental to burning fat as it gets. Again, what’s more important to you, looking sexy or getting hammered. The choice is yours. Remember, once you achieve your goal(s), alcohol can be added back in with moderation. But know this, lean people just don’t get wasted unless they are genetic freaks. Low to zero alcohol consumption is needed if you want to look your best year round and that’s a fact.

A lot of people deal with boredom eating or emotional eating. Boredom eating means just that, eating to fill up dead time when you have nothing better to do.I like to stick a post it note on my fridge that reads…IMPULSE CONTROL The best way to deal with this is, you guessed it, to do something! Find an active hobby to keep your mind off of eating when boredom strikes and you can beat this trend. Emotional eating describes the use of food to cope with stress or to reward for accomplishment. Food is not unlike drugs or alcohol in this regard, it can be very addictive. There is no quick fix for emotional eating other than avoiding trigger situations (bars, parties, etc.) and trigger foods (starches, sugars, fast food, etc.) in the short term to break bad habits.

Whether your roadblocks are very individual or if they fall in line with the general roadblocks our clients encounter on a regular basis, the most important key is to be honest about them and to plan and prepare for them. And that’s where social support and accountability come into play. The clients who have had the most success with us have undergone their transformation with the support of other friends or family members. This is so critical, especially since most of the poor food and drinking choices that sabotage one’s progress occur on the weekend, when most people hang out with their friend and family. If they are committed with you and your goal to get fit and look better, you can put yourself in a much better position to realize the success your desire and deserve. The last thing anybody needs is sabotage or peer pressure from those closest to you, so get them on board and get them on board early.

It was good for me to get out and stretch the legs as this week i was bogged down with work all week..I had tax to finish off as well as 3 new mums and bubs groups to organise for Activemums group.

We were missing a few of the usual suspects as they were still recovering from yesterdays Tough Bloke Challenge.

So next week we are aiming for a 16.3k run…should be good ( providing I am in Sydney as I may have to head home down south to Bawley Point near Ulladulla for a few days).

We all know how beautiful Sydney is on a clear blue day..And admittedly I enjoy hanging out and relaxing with some descent chow and a coldie on occasion..And that is exactly why we need to rain hard to “stop the rot” so to speak

Before we get right into this, one thing I definitely don’t want to do is feed into the idea of individual body part training and spot reduction on certain areas of the body. I am a fervent believer in total body training, meaning that we train the upper body, lower body, and core during every single workout. By training the whole body at once we maximally stimulate lean muscle gain and metabolism and promote total body fat burning in order to effectively eliminate the body fat that is hiding those areas that people are having trouble seeing; yep the stubborn fat areas that prevent a good body from becoming a great body. Plus, a diet high in lean protein, fiber, and green veggies and low in unnatural fats and refined sugars and starches is of course a pre-requisite if you want to see your muscles pop in a good way. It is also important to know that you lose fat in a genetically predetermined way. You can do all the crunches you want but without total body training, proper eating habits, and enough time to get to those stubborn fat areas you will never get rid of your gut, jiggly arms, or the junk in the trunk.

Moving onto the main event: the world’s greatest lower body exercise (in my humble opinion ). My favorite leg exercises are any sort of lunge variation because I prefer single leg exercise in lieu of their double leg counterparts for many reasons. For any person with back issues, single leg exercises allow them to safely perform lower body exercises without putting their lower lumbar spine in jeopardy of hyper flexion or excessive rounding that can cause back spasms in the short run and herniated discs in the long run. Furthermore, I feel there’s often such a strength and/or flexibility imbalance between one leg and the other for most people that it’s critical to address one leg at a time to really shore up the weak links from the start.

My favorite lunge variation is called the rear foot elevated lunge. So basically we’re going to elevate the back foot on a chair, bench, box, or any other sturdy foot support, usually about 30-45 CM high. You’ll put your front leg well out in front of you in order to make sure that your front knee and ankle are lined up. In general, I tell people to exaggerate how far you put your front leg forward so that the front knee is almost slightly behind the ankle as this really helps reduce sheer force on the knees. Initiate the exercise by loading the front heel and dropping your hips as low as you can in a pain-free range of motion while staying really tall up top with a proud chest and shoulders down and back. When you finish the rep  explosively drive through your front heel to return to the top of the movement. You can start with body weight only in search of front thigh parallel to the floor or lower depth and then progress by adding speed of movement or by adding dumbbells. You can even incorporate some very cool combination movements with this lower body exercise like adding a curl to press at the top of the movement or even by raising dumbbells overhead to really challenge your core and single-leg balance and stability.

I have yet to find an exercise that hits the legs as hard as this baby does. In particular, it really helps strengthen your vastus medialis muscle, that inner quad muscle that looks like a teardrop, that’s heavily responsible for tracking your patella and keeping your knee caps in line. So if you have a history of overtraining or patella-femoral issues this exercise is phenomenal for keeping your knees as bulletproof as possible.

Also, what’s great about it too is that it provides a very good stretch for the hip flexor of your back leg, an area that is often very tight, especially for guys. Any exercise that allows you to simultaneously stretch and strengthen your body is a real keeper. Don’t waste another moment with the useless adductor machine (a.k.a. the sex machine) and get off your butt and crank it with the world’s best lower body exercise today!

If you feel like dropping in and doing some single leg work drop me a line and come down to Sydney bootcamp at Pyrmont

I know the bayrun is 7k so 2 laps is going to get you 14k.  However its as flat as an ironing board

Also Gladesville bridge run is 7.2 k from Chiswick… 2 laps of that will do the trick, there is also some nice hills we can incorporate into the run.

Any ideas?

Chis seeds are awesome and contain the essential fatty acids omega 3,6 and 9. They also contain a high level of protein and fiber.  You can read more about chia seeds on the net , just google them They are available on Ebay and fairly cheap as far as supplements go and I have started adding them to my daily nutrition plan.

anyway –

Everything was very expensive, for example psychic readings were $60 and scented candles were going for $50.

In my humble opinion it was a big money spinner. But having said that , you do need the market to be able to  support such endeavours.

I may get a lot of people offside with my next comment.  I think people are looking for an easy way out and are prepared to pay through the nose for a service that is somewhat of a placebo.

The fitness expo on the other hand was full of great information, and a lot of free samples and everything was decently priced.

Life is not meant to be comfortable all the time.  Sometimes we have to deliberately move out of our comfort zones, work up a sweat, experience some of natures power and turn down some luxuries such as rich foods and alcohol.

I guess I  pretty glad no one from the bootcamps went to the festival in a way

There is no substitute for hard work.

At Pyrmont I run 5 outdoor fitness classes a week. The classes are a mixture of muscular  strength & endurance, boxing, cardio and team activities.

Today’s session was an outdoor boxing class and I thought it was a lot of fun! There was a good turn out considering it was the coldest morning we have had for a while.

The Pyrmont outdoor  boxing class  session plan was:

Unders / Jog / Squat hold

Hooks  / sprinst / v holds/ toe touches

Straight punches  / foot work drills

Up punches / pushups

swap

Unders / jog / squat jumps

Hooks/ walking lunges

Straight Punch / Footwork drills

Uppers / Step ups

We have a number of packages available that can be tailored for your organisations needs.

Rather than focusing on simply  the exercise component of health, we offer a complete package that includes culinary, complementary therapies as well as the exercise component of a health  program.

We offer packages for 15-30 people that introduce participants to quick and time efficient ways of preparing food, efficient fitness and exercise program  as well as explain the role of, and give an introduction into supportive therapies such as physiotherapy, massage and  acupuncture.

Our services are offered in an on site/off site combination that require us to deliver services to your place of work as well as requiring your staff to attend our center for corporate wellness.

For more information please visit the Corporate Health Sydney website.

These kind of session are my favorite as bootcamp instructor as it give me a chance to move around the area and suss out all the early morning movement of the local community.

We started off heading down to the pier and stretched/warmed up. from there we did a small run followed by some plyo-metric work on the wooden stairs by the water. We stopped on our run for a little Michael Flattely work at another wharf

We then headed over to Jones Bay and used the park there for some running and step ups/dips.

Then we hit some stairs and headed back to the meeting point at Pyrmont Point Park

Good job guys.

Your went hard!

Its good to see people taking an interest in the fitness industry and fitness lifestyle in general. These types of events are an awesome way to keep motivated and stay enthusiastic about your fitness training.

There were lots of supplements, training clothes, gym equipment as well as heaps of stuff for outdoor fitness groups such as bootcamps and group training.

Of course there were a few wacky bits of equipment you would expect to see on late night/early morning TV.

Anyway, I got o say, I am pumped for anther year of training, until Expo is back !

Good work to the people that got in there and checked it out!

See you soon

Nate