Archive for July, 2010

What is Crossfit?

Thursday, July 29th, 2010

A blog to help you all better understand the Crossfit world and the style of training I am doing at the moment in Canberra. 

This little exerpt is taken direct from the Crossfit website. Check it out here: www.crossfit.com

CrossFit is the principal strength and conditioning program for many police academies and tactical operations teams, military special operations units, champion martial artists, and hundreds of other elite and professional athletes worldwide.
 
Our program delivers a fitness that is, by design, broad, general, and inclusive. Our specialty is not specializing. Combat, survival, many sports, and life reward this kind of fitness and, on average, punish the specialist.

The CrossFit program is designed for universal scalability making it the perfect application for any committed individual regardless of experience. We’ve used our same routines for elderly individuals with heart disease and cage fighters one month out from televised bouts. We scale load and intensity; we don’t change programs.

The needs of Olympic athletes and our grandparents differ by degree not kind. Our terrorist hunters, skiers, mountain bike riders and housewives have found their best fitness from the same regimen.

Thousands of athletes worldwide have followed our workouts posted daily on this site and distinguished themselves in combat, the streets, the ring, stadiums, gyms and homes.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzD9BkXGJ1M

New Adidas Ad – Crossfit style

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLFunBPgPOo

The Future of Crossfit right here:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ih9NoxNs2RI

Stay tuned for the Succeed Xtreme outdoor fitness program to be launched soon in Canberra… these sessions will be ran by Crossfit Cerified trainers

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Posted in My Crossfit Training Journey | 75 Comments »

Less is More

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010

A blog on the benefits of shorter high intensity workouts

Since the fitness craze really started to pick up steam in the early 20th century, there have been two rather distinct camps, one stressing traditional workouts, and another stressing shorter, but more intensive and exhaustive training sessions. Even to this day, there is little scientific evidence to back up one side over the other. The truth is that each has merit, and should be made use of by the average person.

A high intensity workout simply refers to doing something with greater, you guessed it, intensity. This is generally defined by the measure of one’s heart rate. If you’re pushing your heart rate to near maximum capacity, you’re said to be engaging in a high intensity workout.

The actual differences in results aren’t vastly different. High intensity workouts typically burn more calories, while longer, lower-intensity workouts burn slightly more fat, so depending on your specific workout goals, those characteristics may factor into your decision.

Of course the other element to consider is that high intensity workouts are performed much quicker than low intensity ones, which is perfectly suited to the lives of busy folk all across the blue marble we call home. Whether it be lifting or using more weight with less reps, running or sprinting instead of jogging, or doing a more intensive but shorter cardio routine, you can get the same results in less time, as long as you’re willing to give the old ticker a good workout.

The great thing about working out is that it never has to be the same. If you’re running short on time, speed through a high intensity workout and be on your way. On days when you have the time for a full-fledged workout, take it slower, try new things, and enjoy the experience. Changing your routine has legitimate fitness benefits, as well as allowing you to work within the confines of your busy schedule.

I have done both long slow sessions and short sharp sessions, and have worked out the calories over a 24 hour period following the sessions. On every occasion I have burnt more calories doing a short 20 minute workout over a long slow workout.

This is why the crossfit style of training method is fast becoming the number one way to train.

If you are in the Canberra area and are looking to get into Crossfit then let me know and I will gladly get you started. Or stay tuned for my all NEW ‘body overhaul’ program due out soon that is all crossfit style training programs…

What sort of training do you like the best? Weights, boxing, pump??

Let me know your preferred method of training below?? 

Scott

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Posted in Fitness Articles | 98 Comments »

I Need Your Help

Tuesday, July 27th, 2010

Hey Everybody,

I hope you are all doing great?

I am looking for a bit of help from all of our Canberra Boot Camp and Canberra Personal Training clients.

If you haven’t already, I would love for you to subscribe to our website in the RSS section on the right hand side of the our website.

How to do it:

1. enter you email address in the RSS section on the right side of the website: www.succeed.com.au

2. go to your email, you will receive an email from feedburner (check in the junk mail) and click to verify you have subscribed (be sure to whitelist the email address that I send to you) and that is it…

3. also any chance you get I would love to hear some of your feedback on what I post, things you would like me to post about, etc

For those that are reading this, I would love to hear below what you would like me to post about?? Training, nutrition, motivation, discussing various products on the market. You let me know and I will post about it for you.

Also don’t forget for ALL Succeed Personal Training members, we now have a FREE fortnightly Newsletter and also a FREE monthly E-online Fitness Magazine for you to read and learn new training tips + 100’s of healthy recipes that will surely give you a bit more spice and variety in your kitchen… Simply fill in your details for the FREE report on the Succeed site and you then have FREE access to the Newsletter and online magazine

Here is the latest edition of the mag (Get Flatter Abs) :

checkoutouronlinemagazine-style2-square

The Succeed Team

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Posted in Fitness Articles | 78 Comments »

The Motivation to Train

Monday, July 26th, 2010

Find the Motivation That Will Lead You to  Fitness Success

A blog post by yours truly Scott Williams

motivation

Motivation is really what drives us to do anything in this world. No matter what we do, whether it be getting off the couch to fix a sandwich, or volunteering your time to read to children, there’s a motivating factor behind your decision. The difficulty with motivation is that it’s not always easy to pinpoint from where it springs.

If you’re having trouble motivating yourself to workout regularly through conventional methods, try thinking outside the box. What motivates you to accomplish other tasks? Is it your partner? Your parents? Your children? What’s worked and what hasn’t when it comes to getting you going? Consider a different line of thinking and the many ways in which working out would not only have a positive effect on your life, but on the lives of the others around you as well.

Still, it’s OK to do things for oneself as well. Perhaps much of your motivation lies in making money, or being seen as important and influential, and if so that’s fine. Don’t shy away from the real factors that influence your decisions, instead, embrace them, and determine how working out and being of sound body and mind can help you reach your goals.

One of the biggest reasons that leads to people either quickly giving up on their workout plans, or never getting started to begin with, is that they simply don’t believe they will see any results. This concept that only certain ‘lucky’ people, or those with specific metabolisms will see the benefits of working out, is a complete misconception.

Absolutely anyone can and will see the positive benefits of working out when they’ve put a solid plan into place, and follow through with it. There is no luck or random factors involved, whether you’re working out to lose weight, build lean muscle, increase your endurance, etc. A proper workout plan, coupled with the proper diet for your metabolism will lead to sure-fire results.

With the right motivation and a positive, yet realistic outlook, you’ll be side-stepping the common pitfalls that derail many a person’s workout goals. Once the results start coming in, they should be motivation enough to keep you going, regardless of any potential changes in your initial motivating factor(s).

If you need any help at all with your fitness endeavours here in the Canberra area, don’t hesitate to contact the Succeed team. We would be more than happy to help out.

Have an awesome day,

Scott

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Posted in Personal Development | 77 Comments »

The Truth on Body Fat!!

Wednesday, July 21st, 2010

Some Body Fat is in fact good for you! You may not realise, not all body fat is bad.

There are two types of body fat, essential and non – essential body fat.
Essential fat helps our body to function, it keeps us warm, protects vital internal organs and regulates the nutrients going into our bodies.

Non – essential body fat is the type that begins to make your clothes seem tighter. It stores when our body collects more energy from food and fluid than your body needs. It tends to store around organs like the heart and lungs.
As levels of non essential body fat increase, so does the layer of adipose tissue (fat) underneath the skin. Healthy eating and a change in eating habits can get rid of those unwanted kilos.

Muscle cannot turn into Fat!

It is a common myth that when you stop weight training, muscle will turn into fat. When you stop training, your muscles reduce in size. If you continue to consume the same amount of food as when you were more active you will increase your body fat levels.

You cannot Spot Reduce Body Fat

Every individual carries their body fat in a different way. Women, for example, tend to carry more body fat on their arms and bum (pear shape), while men tend to carry more around the upper body and stomach. Unfortunately, it is impossible to reduce fat on one specific area of your body. To lose body fat from anywhere on your body, you need to take on some aerobic/anaerobic training and pick up a few dumbells!

A mix of Aerobic training and Weight training is best for shedding unwanted KG’s

To burn body fat, you need to expend more energy throughout your day than you are putting in. The more cardio training you do (running, walking, swimming e.t.c) the better. When you combine this training with a weights program, you will see greater results in a shorter amount of time.

The good news is, the more muscle you have, the more body fat you will burn throughout your day!

On average you burn about an extra 4 calories per hour for each extra kilo of muscle.

A useless fact: this equates to around 27,700 calories per year or 4.5 kilo’s lighter you would be, you can also lose another 4.5kg simply by having correct posture and sucking your stomach in and chest out…. there is 9kg in one year and  you haven’t even started training with Succeed Canberra yet!!!

kilo-fat

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Posted in Nutrition | 69 Comments »

Abdominal Separation

Thursday, July 8th, 2010

Hey All,

Ok, today’s post is inspired by the fact that ALL of friend’s have had or are having kids, so I have decided to do up a little post for all the new or new to be mothers out there…

Checking for Separated Muscles

It is very easy to determine whether you have separated abdominal muscles.

•Lie on your back with your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor.

•Slowly raise your head and shoulders off the ground. This should cause your abdominal muscles to tighten.

•Place your index and middle fingers just below your belly button.

•Press into your abdomen with your fingers. You should feel a soft gap between two hard muscles.

•Measure the space of the gap using your fingers. If the gap is greater than two finger widths, you may be suffering from separated muscles.

Exercises to Treat Those Muscles

•Lie on your back with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor. Work to bring your navel as close as possible to your spine, so it looks as if your stomach is “caving in”. Hold this for a minute or two, while continuing to relax and breathe. You hold it that way as tight as possible for 10 seconds or as soon as you need to get some air in ! You do that exercice ten times in different positions : on all fours, standing up with your arms pushing in front of you as if you had an imaginary wall in front of you,, kneeling and slightly leaning forward, etc.

•Lie on your back with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor. Place both of your hands on your abdomen, fingers pointing towards your pelvis. Exhale and lift your head off of the floor, while pressing down with your fingers.

•Lie on your back with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor. Exhale and extend one leg out in front of you. Wait for your abdomen to contract, and then inhale and place your leg back on the floor. Alternate legs.

•Wrap a long towel around your stomach with the ends in front of your abdomen. Do a crunch. As you raise your shoulders and head off of the ground, pull the ends of the towel towards one another.

Before you start any exercise regime, be sure to get clearance from your Doctor.

my two treasures

my two treasures

Scott Williams

Succeed Personal Training

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Posted in Fitness Articles | 112 Comments »