Strenua Personal Training

How to: 6 Pack Abs

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 00:23:02 +0000

Guys want the abs, Girls just want their guys to look Ryan Gosling (according to the wife)

It would have to be the universal goal for every bloke out there and for ladies it would high up on the list.

The mysterious 6 pack abs or flat stomach (for the females out there)

So how do you get them?

It’s simple, in theory.

Difficult in practice;

It will take time, but here 5 steps to take you there.

1. Cut the crap out of the diet.

Your diet will need to be spot on, there is no cheating here.
All natural. Meat, fruit, vegetables and water
A lot of excess calories come from fluids (coffee, soft drinks, fruit juices)

2. Hit the weights

You will need to increase your lean muscle mass
Females, this doesn’t mean getting bulky so relax
The more lean muscle tissue, the more energy you burn at rest

3. HIIT – High Intensity Interval Training

High intensity sprinting, can be either running, cycling, rowing
Must be to the point where you absolutely stuffed to get best results

4. Sleep

Massive step in getting abs.
Majority of recovery is done while at rest
6-8 hours minimum

5. Drink lots of water

Staying hydrated allows the body to perform optimally

It is not an easy journey to a flat stomach, but like everything if you want to achieve it you are going to have to get uncomfortable and just do it.

Want it, start now.

If you need help trying to get there, personal training, boot camp and at home programs can be done by Strenua PT. Contact us to find out more

Happy New Year

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 02:03:22 +0000

Happy New Year everyone, hope you all had a fantastic Christmas and new year.

So, who has made a new years resolution?

I have.

I try to keep mine simple and pick only a few that I can focus on. The reason I do this is because I have the attention span of a 2 year old and i find it easier to achieve them if they are short and sharp. I think others may be in the same boat as me.

When it comes to exercise and resolutions everybody looks long term, why don’t we break them down in to more achievable weekly or monthly goals instead.

Here are some simple sample goals that may help you, modify them according to what you want to achieve.

1. Exercise 5 times this week

2. Be alcohol free Monday to Friday

3. Get 8 hours sleep at least 3 days this week

4. Prepare your meals for the week.

5. Exercise 20 times for the month

Try them, modify them, ignore them and replace them with your own. Either way, your goals have nothing to do with anyone else but you. The only one who will lose out if they aren’t achieved, is YOU.

The choice is yours, happy exercising.

Tell it like it is Thursday: 001

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 10:58:02 +0000

Welcome to the first installment of ‘Tell it like it is Thursday’.

This series of posts are going to be short and sharp, straight to the point, no holding back, (* insert any other cliches you like here*) pockets of goodness for you to think about.

So here it goes … Reality check time

1.     The ‘universe’ doesn’t give a fat rats clacker about you.
2.    Life is not fair or unfair. Life is life. Deal with it
3.    Things don’t work themselves out. You do
4.    Anything isn’t possible. It sounds nice though.
5.    Knowing what to do is not enough. You must act on what you know

You can look at the above and take it which ever way you like

some will act on it and make good use of it
others will get offended
some won’t give a crap and ignore it

Fell free to add you own ‘reality check’ in the comments section below, the best one will get a free personal training session or a free week of boot camp

Have an awesome week everyone.

4 week pre-christmas fat blasting plan

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 06:03:51 +0000

Christmas = weight gain, True?

What a load of crap!

It seems that the majority of people associate Christmas with drinking copious amounts of booze, eating too much junk and fatty foods and being lazy. But why?

If anything we should be able to exercise more and eat just as healthy over the break than any other time of the year.

Most people are on holidays so the old work excuse doesn’t fly, you have more time to get to the supermarket and buy healthy food and you have more time to prepare your delicious healthy meals.

There are no excuses, just lazy people.

There is just under 4 weeks to Christmas, if you apply yourself, treat your body with respect and feed it the proper foods there is no reason why you cannot lose 500g per week and 2kg before Christmas.

So here is the plan to drop those unwanted kilos before Christmas.

1. Stop eating crap.

Only consume natural foods (meat, fruit, vegetable and water), you will feel the difference over night

2. Move your lazy arse.

It’s daylight savings people, there is light till 8pm. Get outside do some sprint training, take the kids to the park and run around. Push ups, squats, burpees, step ups, lunges, do 50 of each of those and that should burn a few calories.

I hope you weren’t expecting some miracle advice there that would make the kilos fall off. Weight loss is simple. Eat properly and move your body more.

Are you getting enough protein in your diet?

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 03:34:17 +0000

mmm, Steak for breakfast. Delicious

Ok, so I know that’s not everyone’s reaction, but for those that have spoke to me know that I am a fan of steak for breakfast. It’s high in protein and keeps me full for most of the morning.

This leads me to Protein.

Protein is an essential nutrient that your body needs in relatively large quantities to keep the body functioning optimally, without it our bodies cannot repair properly, produce essential amino acids or maintain muscle mass.

I hate reading long winded spiels, so here are some short info dot points you should know about protein

1. Protein is classified as either complete or incomplete, complete sources come from animal foods and contain all nine essential amino acids. Incomplete proteins are missing one or more amino acids, incomplete protein foods include grains, beans, seeds, peas and nuts. Soybeans are the only non-animal food that is a complete protein.

2. Protein helps in your body’s maintenance functions, including the formation of blood cells, production of antibodies that protect against disease, tissue repair and cellular maintenance, such as transporting molecules and breaking down toxins. Your skin, hair, eyes and body organs are made of protein.

3. Due to the slower breakdown of protein, consumption or protein will leave you with the sensation of feeling fuller for longer and curb your appitite.

4. You don’t need to eat meat to get enough protein in your diet. Great sources of protein can be found in beans, nuts and seeds.

5. Protein aides in maintaining and building muscle mass. It also helps with exercise recovery and should be consumed directly after a workout (it will help with reducing the soreness)

6. Too much protein and not enough fibre in your diet will leaving you constipated and shitting bricks. Eat plenty of fruit and veg to get your fibre fix

If you find you are struggling to get protein into your diet, you may have to look at consuming some sort of protein supplements. There are huge amounts of supplements out there and all claiming to do different things, my best advice is to read the back of the label and see how much sugar (carbohydrates) is listed and pick the one with the least amount in it. If it has a high level of sugar in it, it is trying to make it taste better because it is crap.

But in saying all that, if you are eating a balanced diet with plenty of meat, vegetables, fruits and water and planning your meals so that you get a good mix of these you shouldn’t have any trouble getting your daily protein intake.

If you have any questions or there is a particular topic you would like to know more info on, let me know

Alcohol and Fat Loss

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 03:40:21 +0000

For all those people that are struggling to lose weight and happen to consume alcohol on a regular occurrence there has been some interesting research on a large scale (over 250,000 participants) out of Europe that has come out with some interesting conclusions.

Unfortunately for the blokes out there the research wasn’t very kind, however for women it wasn’t as clear

Below is a summary of what the research showed, but your can also check out the full article by Charles Poilquin here

Even minimal alcohol consumption will hinder fat loss
For men, lifetime alcohol use, even one drink a day, led to increased risk of greater belly fat, and those who drank beer rather than wine had substantially more belly fat
The more drinks that men consumed a day also correlated with increasingly larger caloric intake from food
Men who previously drank, but did not drink at the time of the study, had a greater rate of chronic disease than nondrinkers and current drinkers
For women, the results were less clear. The women who drank the most alcohol had the lowest body mass index, but the largest average waist circumference. The women who never drank had the largest body mass index, but the same waist circumference as women who were former drinkers or who never drank. Women who drank beer rather than wine were likely to have more belly fat.

So guys, stay away from beer.

Other interesting facts your may want to consider when drinking alcohol are

Increases cortisol (stress hormone) which leads to increases in belly fat
Lowers testosterone in men, not good

Alcohol and weight loss don’t mix well. If you are serious about reducing your body fat and and getting that flat stomach you may want to stay away from alcohol.

Boot Camp

Sat, 15 Oct 2011 21:52:30 +0000

Strenua PT

Sat, 15 Oct 2011 21:38:28 +0000

Welcome to our new look website.

We will be updating it regularly with health and fitness info.

Personal Training

Sat, 15 Oct 2011 21:37:03 +0000

No Excuses, Just Results