As a personal trainer in the Liverpool Street area, I’ve met my fair share of clients who are trying to train around a busy work life. If this is you, then you know that the fitness industry platitudes of “no excuses” just don’t solve your problems. In fact, I would argue that going to the gym isn’t even in the top 3 priorities of most people that I train.
So how is it possible to get results in the gym against this backdrop?
As a personal trainer, I always meet people looking to improve their bodyweight exercises. While a lot of people are working on getting their first pullup or pushup, the work is far from over once you reach that milestone – it’s time to make your bodyweight exercises harder.
The post is for those of you looking to progress your bodyweight exercises to the next level. If this is you, well done! We focus so much on getting our first reps on these exercises, that it’s common to be unsure of what comes after that milestone. I often meet people who have been stuck doing the same number of reps on pushups and pullups for over a year, without being sure how to progress these bodyweight exercises.
To make further progress, we need to introduce some progressive overload into your bodyweight training. This essentially means making your bodyweight exercises harder. There are lots of options at your disposal to make bodyweight exercises harder, including:
However, I don’t want to focus on any of that. To keep things simple, I’m going to focus on one of the most straightforward ways of progressing pushups and pullups: adding weight. This may seem simple in theory, but I still see plenty of people making it more complicated than it needs to be. I’m hoping this post will work as a resource for you to add weight in the safest, simplest ways possible.
Believe it or not, you can gain strength without gaining weight in the gym. This is great news, because so many people avoid strength training for fear of becoming “bulky.”
Luckily, the gym has evolved so far past the point of being a bodybuilder’s playground, and we understand so much more about getting stronger, healthier, and better at physical activity without gaining lots of muscle.
For more information on the difference between strength and muscle gains, read this post.
Around the world, the concept of a four-day working week is gaining popularity. The list of countries that have trialled the four-day work week, or plan to trial it within the next two years, is growing. According to Euro News, it includes:
These countries often trial a model that provides 100% of usual pay, for 80% of the usual work, with a commitment to maintain at least 100% of previous productivity. Of countries that have already trialled a four-day week, there are almost always some companies that continue the practice even if it does not become law. Suggested benefits include increased productivity, better work:life balance, and a reduction in environmentally harmful activities.
There are certainly critics of this initiative, but it does seem to be slowly becoming more of a reality. With this being the case, it’s worth speculating how you could harness the four-day working week to improve your health and fitness.
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If you’re planning on starting personal training, it’s important that you get as much from your relationship with your trainer as possible.
The most important thing about personal training is that it’s a two-way relationship. I’d love to take full responsibility for 100% of my clients’ successes, but the fact is that personal training success is the product of great teamwork with clients.
After more than a decade in personal training in London and Essex, there are definitely clients who stand out as having achieved fantastic results. They all defined their successes differently, for example:
Regardless of these goals, my most successful personal training clients had these three things in common.
Note: you could be nailing all of these habits, but if your trainer cannot match your values, your training relationship will not be as good as it could be. That’s why it’s so important to choose the right trainer for you.
Once you’ve been training for a while, you will be tempted to plan your own workout programme – after all, you know yourself better than anyone. While I think everyone should get help from a personal trainer or strength coach, I fully understand that your budget or curiosity may drive you to write your own training routine.
However, there are some common pitfalls that come with designing your own training programme. When programming for yourself, it’s easy to take certain factors for granted and over/under-estimate ourselves. These tips will help you design your training programme to the highest standard.
Outside of powerlifting, the technical aspects of bench pressing seems to get less attention than the squat and deadlift. While the bench press can be quite nuanced, I think this exercise encourages slightly more reckless training behaviours – due to the reasons we discussed in part 1 of this bench pressing guide.
Bench pressing is possibly more accessible than the other big lifts. However, in my experience of teaching clients to bench press for powerlifting and more general goals, there are still many facets of bench pressing that are not common knowledge. I will attempt to cover as many of them as I can here.
As with all of the lifting guides I’ve made, they’re long posts. Be sure to bookmark it so you can come back to the specific questions when you need to.
Kettlebells are a well-established piece of fitness equipment these days. Kettlebell workouts can form a part of anything from a Crossfit session, to a group fitness class, to a strength and conditioning programme. You won’t have to look far to see people performing kettlebell swings, snatches, carries, and cleans in your local gym. However, the rapid acceptance of kettlebell training doesn’t guarantee that they’re being used optimally.
When I meet a new personal training client, these are the common responses I hear in relation to to kettlebell training:
If this sounds like you, don’t be put off. Kettlebells are very different to other conventional free weights, and this means you generally can’t just jump into a kettlebell workout without learning what makes this training equipment unique. Here are 3 tips to help you get on board with kettlebell workouts so you can do things like this:
I’d like to write about how I got a decent increase to my front squat personal best in the latter half of 2021. It feels a little self-indulgent, but I’m confident these tips will help you develop muscular strength and set some squat personal bests of your own.
Prior to this, it had been a while since I had made progress in my front squat. That being said, I’ve been squatting (relatively) heavy for around 10 years now. Therefore, it’s safe to say this progress wasn’t a result of newbie gains – I can no longer get a new personal best just by looking at a bar!
The lessons I learned from this training block will probably be most applicable if you’re an intermediate or novice lifter. I didn’t do anything super-advanced, so these strength training tips should be useful no matter what your end goal.
Click here to see why I think it’s important to get strong at front squats, and squats in general. Click here for a guide to a lot of the strength training terminology I use in this blog.
In this next section I go into more detail about my own training in 2021. If you want to skip ahead to the main strength training tips, use this contents table.
I’ve previously provided a guide to general gym terms; now it’s time to get a little more specific and talk about strength training terms in more detail. An online glossary may not be the most exciting thing you’ve ever read, but if you’re comfortable with weight training terms and definitions you’ll be better equipped to learn about other strength training topics. Let’s get started!
