Blinco Built personal training

Category: Fitness

  • Walking into a new gym can be SCARY!

    Walking into a new gym may be the scariest thing you have to do

    It’s a foreign environment, you have no idea what to expect, there are people in there that know each other really well (if the gym has a great community), which is great!

    Except they don’t know you so you immediately feel like an outsider

    Even if you’ve tried many gyms in the past, you can feel this anxiety when starting somewhere new

    This is why we meet with everyone 1on1 before you start, then you at least have a friendly face

    You can go through you can be confident that your coach has your best interests at heart, because we find out what matters to you and make sure we can deliver on that

    Also, we treat you the same way we would if you were coming to our house for the first time, make sure you are seen, you are not just a number and you are made to feel at home

    That’s important, if this place is become a safe space for you to become a better version of yourself

    You need to trust that this is a place that it is safe to push yourself and to become part of a community of people that are all striving to live life more fully outside of the gym

    The gym doesn’t have to be scary, it can be the start of an incredible journey to being more self confident, a more energetic parent, and a fitter and stronger human

    Take the first step and we’ll meet you half way

  • You need problems

    You need problems.

    The idea of any sort of improvement isn’t to eliminate all your problems, it’s to get rid of the boring, annoying problems and replace them with meaningful, joyful problems, the kind of problems you’d love to have

    Problems like, should you kick the footy with your kids or go for a run, ride or swim with them? Instead of worrying about whether your back will give out while picking the laundry basket up

    Not worrying about whether your body will hold to basic tasks vs being able to live life fully outside of the gym

    Problems like, should you have pasta or steak for dinner? Instead of worrying about how you are going to stop putting on weight

    Not knowing whether you should cut carbs, try keto or start fasting vs having a plan that allows for you to enjoy the foods you love in the portions that will make you feel great and get the results you want

    There are good problems, the ones that are new and interesting and fun to solve, the ones you upgrade to, and there are the bad problems, the ones you have tried and failed to solve over and over again

    The way to get better problems? Increase knowledge, skills and get someone or something thing you are accountable to that will guide you along the way

    What problems do you have that you’d like to upgrade?

     

  • An Easy Method to Supercharge Your RESULTS!

    When’s the last time you counted how fast you perform a squat? Sure you count the reps, the weight and the sets, but tempo? What the hell is that about anyway?

    Tempo is the time you take to go down, how long you stay in the bottom (stretched position), how long you take to go up, and how you stay at the top (shortened position)

    It’s represented by four numbers:

    4020

    This would be 4 seconds down, 0 pause, 2 seconds up, 0 pause

    This is a great tempo for teaching the movement, taking movements slowly forces you to focus on each part of the movement, it also prioritises the stabilising muscles as you are less able to use your tendons to just bounce out of movements. This also means it’s great for preventing injuries like back pain in squats and deadlifts

    The other great benefit is the tension it puts the muscles under means you get greater growth and expend more energy

    Lastly, by manipulating tempo you can change the effect of your training thereby giving you another way to avoid plateauing with your strength and your results

    If you aren’t using tempo you are leaving a HUGE amount of progress on the table, try it in your next workout and you will feel the difference, during the workout and the next day

  • Principles vs Strategies

    Principles vs Strategies

    What are principles vs strategies and why should you even care? 

     

    If you’re like everyone else, you’ve probably banged your head against the wall chasing different strategies to get the results you want without a clue what the principles are and wondered why you never get the result and if you do happen to luck out and get a result you quickly lose it

     

    It’s why losing weight and keeping it off is so hard for most, not because studies show it is statistically unlikely, but because most approaches worry about strategies and fail to teach people the principles

     

    Principles cannot be broken, they are natural law. You know they are true because if you reverse a principle it seems ridiculous, the classic, to lose weight you have to eat less calories than you use, the opposite is to eat as much calorie dense foods as you can and move as little as possible, obviously that won’t work

     

    Principles are the territory. Strategies are the techniques you can use to get through the territory. The method you use to climb over the mountain. Strategies are situation specific, principles never change

     

    Once you know the principle, you can find the strategy that will work for you, and if a strategy doesn’t work you’ll be able to figure out why

     

    Went keto and didn’t lose weight? Knowing that keto didn’t help you eat less calories means you move onto a different strategy that might help you feel fuller and less likely to overeat

    Working to principles is empowering. If you stick to the principles then failure is less disheartening and becomes more of informative process, it’s not that you are a failure, it’s that you need to find the right strategy for your situation

    If you need help finding the principle for certain areas then it helps to find professionals that can help, and is also a good test for those professionals as well

    Stay tuned for some important nutrition and training principles you can apply for awesome results!

  • Looking to lose fat? This is your number 1 priority

    When looking to lose weight, your number 1 priority is eating less calories than you use. Simple

     

    That principle cannot be circumvented, it’s obvious too, think about the absurdity of doing the opposite of this principle, eating as much calorie dense foods as you can in order to lose weight, it doesn’t make sense

     

    Once you have that principle in place, it’s simply a matter of measuring the result and seeing if what you’re doing is adhering to the principle or not

     

    If, over time, you are losing weight, then you are clearly adhering to that principle, if you are gaining weight, then you are not

     

    Over time is a key factor here, this is not measuring weight changes from day to day and adjusting from one day to the next. Weighing in daily and then getting a weekly average (weigh in Monday-Sunday and divide by 7 to find average) is an incredibly effective method of tracking progress, I won’t go into the why here, I have done a post on this previously. However, it gives you snapshot and then you can look at each 4 week block and see whether you are trending down, staying the same, or trending up over that period

     

    You then adjust intake accordingly. The principle is that simple. How you adjust calorie intake is up to you

     

    Some people find keto works well for them, others find a low fat higher carb approach works well, or intermittent fasting, or a combination of those, or veganism, or carnivore

     

    These are all strategies that will only work when the first principle of eating for weight loss is followed, you cannot eat in excess of what you use and hope to lose weight

     

    The benefit to knowing this and keeping this clear in your mind is that you can try all these different strategies and find the one that allows you to stick to the principle of weight loss with the least amount of effort. Why would you want to use more effort than you need? 

     

    If you try one and find it impossible, maybe you can’t stick to keto, no problem, you’ve got hundreds of other strategies that will work better

     

    You might also find that the feeling of failing isn’t nearly as bad because you know what you need to do, it’s just a matter of finding the right approach for you at this point of your life

     

    Protein intake, vegetables, satiety, all important factors when finding the right strategy, but only if the principle of weight loss is followed first

     

    Try not to make things more complicated than they need to be, life is already complicated enough, make your health as easy as possible

  • The positive return from risk taking

    The positive return from risk taking

    Do you take risks? I don’t mean jumping out of a perfectly good plane, although that is taking a risk and can apply to this post, I mean taking a risk on yourself, like starting an exercise routine or attempting to get your nutrition in order 

     

    These are risks. You feel hesitant when you start, don’t you? The fear of failure can make these undertakings feel inherently risky

     

    I think that’s a good thing. You just have to reframe it: 

     

    The positive return from taking a risk isn’t the potential for gain i.e. losing weight, the real benefit is the growth inherent in pushing yourself outside your comfort zone

     

    Think about the impact this reframing, the next time you undertake something like a new healthy lifestyle regime, instead of having the belief that you will likely fail, you think to yourself no matter what happens here, if I learn something, I’ve won 

     

    Three things happen; firstly, you are more likely to get up and start, win, secondly you will be desperately searching for lessons to learn, so likely you won’t just learn one thing, but many, and if you’re learning things, and lastly, you are almost infinitely more likely to stick with it in spite of the inevitable setbacks, because you’ll start to realise that they are the lessons that will help you in the future 

     

    Things become fun when you take this approach, it’s why children don’t give up when learning to walk, or talk, because they are just so curious about what’s happening, they haven’t taught that failure is a bad thing, and that’s why they are constantly laughing when things don’t go as planned

     

    Imagine laughing when things don’t go as planned, imagine thinking to yourself, wow that was a great lesson. You just know that would keep you on track, if the you removed the fear of failure and instead looked for the learning inherent in undertaking risky tasks, you’d unleash an almost unstoppable version of yourself 

  • Internalised beliefs holding you back

    “Hey Joe, what’s with the salad mate? Going on a health kick? Yeah good luck mate” *knowing that he’ll never stick to it*

     

    Have you been here? Maybe it was a first time parent telling you about their plans to not let their toddlers use their mobile, or maybe it was a teenager telling you how they’re going to change the world

     

    We’ve all been there, outwardly supportive, but inwardly telling ourselves they’ll never stick to it

     

    Plot twist: You aren’t talking about them when you have those thoughts, you’re actually talking about yourself

     

    Congratulations, you’ve just discovered an internalised belief about why you couldn’t do such and such

     

    I actually mean congratulations, there is nothing better than discovering an internalised belief that is holding you back, and make no mistake, it IS holding you back. If you’re saying that about someone else, even internally, you are DEFINITELY saying that to yourself at some stage

     

    It’s likely stopping you from even trying something challenging, or could be the reason why you start but never follow through after you encounter the first hurdle

     

    There is a reason why you have that belief, someone passed it on to you, a parent, sibling, friend, colleague, Instagram, and the good news is that you can change it, you don’t have to hold onto it. Even if you’ve been holding onto it from childhood

     

    It’s weird, you change your phone every year or so, but there’s beliefs you have about the world and yourself that haven’t served you and yet you’ve held onto them for years, or decades and never questioned them

     

    This is your wake up call, it’s time to question them and decide whether you actually need them or not

     

    Do you believe that you can’t be fit and healthy? That it’s not possible for you? That’s a belief, not a fact, it can be explored, challenged and ultimately changed, it won’t be easy, but it can be done

     

    Try to be aware the next time you think to yourself, “they/I won’t stick to that” and try to think about the first time you had that said to you, or thought that about yourself, sit with it and decide whether you still need that belief or not, it might be time for an upgrade