So where can I start?
 
It’s all very good for athletes and trainers to harp on about “advanced training technique X” or “the secret training system for extreme fat loss” but really what most people (and by this I mean people who may not be gym goers, overweight, self-conscious etc.) want is an idea of where to start without killing themselves!

I had the pleasure of competing at the Muscletalk show this last Sunday in Bedford. It was an excellent event and professionally organised. The big buzz of the day was about Jodie Marsh competing for the first time in a real federation (UKBFF). I’m sure most of you have followed her story to some extend and seen the madness first hand, her malnutrition and poor advice
she was given throughout has, I fear, painted this sport in a bad light. There
are a million trainers around and even more diet and training plans. What is
clear to me is that there is no “one-fits-all” approach, despite what the big
businesses would have you believe. You need to have real advice from someone you can trust and more importantly to put your faith in that person to deliver you the results you want without straying from their plan, the worst thing you can do is to seek professional advice from multiple places or overthink the
 advice given to you. I can’t tell you how many opposing views have been
presented to me during my pre-contest prep – but I stuck with the advice from my coach and achieved success.


Don’t stray from the advice  given!


Now with that being said there 10 basic rules  that apply to everyone:



1.      
Clean up your diet:  remove: sugar, crisps, sweets, fizzy drinks, cakes, chocolate, pizza, chips,  burgers etc.(you know -the bad
things!).


2.      
Do at least 30 minutes  of something each day, running, swimming, football – anything that makes you sweat! (yes including bedroom cardio, 30 minutes might be pushing it though)


3.      
Get a good night’s sleep; don’t fall into the trap of sleep debt. Sleep is when your body heals itself, it’s so important!


4.      
Don’t skip breakfast; by doing so you mess up your metabolism and cause your body to be more likely to store fat. This one is so important and every person I speak to who says they “just can’t eat breakfast” soon sees the benefits once they start.


5.      
Don’t overeat, binge eating is a great way to get fat - you should never feel bloated after a  meal.


6.      
Alcohol and recreational drugs; fun? Yes –helpful for healthy living and a good body composition? No.   (Moderation)


7.      
Green veg; so important to leading a healthy life I can’t begin to tell you how much my health improved after upping my green veg intake (see my kale shake recipe). Goodbye constipation.


8.      
Low fat arrgh!?!?! Generally speaking “low fat”products are worse than the regular versions, instead of having fat they are usually full of sugar instead (which in my opinion is much worse). I'll have a full-fat yoghurt over the low-fat version any day. 


9.      
Processed food; avoid at all costs – everything should be from a natural source if possible.


10.  
Vitamin pills: Forget apples, one of these a day will help to keep the doctor away!

I was speaking to a site member last week (hi Nicole) regarding her goals to improve on various lagging body parts. It’s interesting to see that like most athletes or gym goers her immediate thoughts were to increase weight and reduce repetitions. While this approach can have success it is limited in a couple of ways, let me explain...



Normally lagging body parts are lagging behind for a reason, that reason being that they lack stimulus to grow. Why is this? It’s quite simple really but not something that’s obvious until someone explains it. If we take the example of posterior (rear) deltoid (shoulder) muscles which are a problem for most bodybuilders/fitness athletes. When targeting this muscle it’s more of
a case of mental control/connection than adding more weight, if you are performing a face pull exercise to target this muscle group specifically it can be excellent but at the same time if you don’t focus your attention onto that muscle you will end up using your lats, rhomboids or traps to compete the movement, this situation is compounded by adding more weight. Remember it’s a lagging muscle, it’s weaker than its neighbours so if weight is increased this muscle will become unable to complete the movement no matter how great your mental control (motor-neurone connection). In this case you immediately compensate by incorporating the other “pull” muscles and usually remove all intensity from that area you actually want to target!



How many times do the front of your shoulders (anterior deltoid) hurt after doing bench press? If the answer is anything other than never, you’re going too heavy and actually reducing the intensity of the workout for your pectorals. It’s the same scenario, your pectorals are too weak to lift the weight alone and end up asking any other nearby muscles for help, which not only reduces the load on the target area but also can lead to overtraining of the assisting muscle group (now you can’t train shoulders the next day without overtraining and risk of additional injury).



Woah, that was information overload! Let me summarise:


Don’t fall into the trap of increasing weight to increase intensity, it’s just the easy approach. Make sure you’re lifting nice and  slowly, not jerking, feeling the target muscle group work. Use tricks like rest/pause, super-setting, triangle sets, drop sets etc. There are many more ingredients to increase intensity without incurring the risks mentioned above.


Best of luck



James