The vast majority of people I watch and talk to in the gym as a personal trainer have fairly vague notions of what they are trying to achieve in the gym and even less idea of how to achieve it. Most do a combination of some steady cardio, perhaps a few weights machines that they… Continue reading What should you be doing in the gym?

Clients often want to know how to lose weight and feel better but don’t want to listen to me rambling on for hours! So here, in a nutshell, is what works for the vast majority of people; Most important, eat a high fat, relatively high protein, low carb diet. Avoid starchy carbs, base your diet… Continue reading Blueprint for weight loss

Are you pressed for time?  Not enough hours in the day to train? Here is an example of a very short, simple session you can perform at home, in the gym, in your hotel room, in the garden, in your lunch break – whenever you’ve got a spare 15-20 minutes. A combination of cardio, strength… Continue reading Quick bodyweight HIIT session to promote weight loss

If there is one postural abnormality that practically all my clients suffer from it is rounded, hunched shoulders, often accompanied by a head that juts forward to a greater or lesser degree. Very commonly, they suffer from headaches and neck pain, sore shoulders and upper back and usually they have restricted movement somewhere in these… Continue reading Tense, aching shoulders?

A 100 miles is a very long way to run. But on this occasion it was time that beat me not distance. My plan had been to get to Henley at 51 miles in around 12 hours, leaving the possibility of walking it in from there in 16 hours to beat the total cut off… Continue reading Thames Path 100 mile run 1 Dave 0.

This Saturday at 10am I will be setting off with another 300-400 fellow lunatics from Richmond on Thames on a 100 mile non stop foot race, following the River Thames, finishing in Oxford sometime on Sunday. This is my third and ultimate endurance challenge over the last 2 years, having completed the 100 kilometre Race… Continue reading 100 Mile Run -The Final Frontier (at least for me)

In my experience people choose a personal trainer for several different reasons: Because they’ve not used a gym much before and just don’t know where to start. They want to know how to exercise safely. Because what they’ve been doing up to now just hasn’t helped them to achieve their goal. Most people just go… Continue reading Why choose a personal trainer?

This is a follow up from my blog post about how calorie counting just does not work for 95% of people when it comes to weight management. I meet these people every day as a personal trainer who just cannot understand why their weight doesn’t change despite burning sometimes thousands of calories per day on… Continue reading So what does work to lose weight?

For the umpteenth time yesterday I found myself having this familiar conversation with a client. His BMI was in the obese category, his body fat way above healthy levels, along with visceral fat. As usual, the conversation went something like this; Client: “I can’t understand why I’m not losing weight. I train regularly and I… Continue reading Ditch the calorie counting – you know it doesn’t work!

I had the pleasure today of conducting a fitness test on a client of mine, aged 71. Two months ago I carried out a body composition check on this guy and he was quite unsettled by the results. He had been coming to the gym for years and plodded his way through a regular cardio… Continue reading 71 years old and achieving amazing results!