Since June, when I stepped up my training at the gym to go five to six days a week, I’ve started seeing some massive improvements. Over the months, I’ve been doing a lot of investigating literature and speaking to other people on how they train. From this, I have come up with a hard-core training plan which is certainly pushing me to my limits.

I’ve seen some excellent techniques, and some really bad ones. The bad ones have been every bit as instructional as the great ones! 

This system works for me, and probably will help you if you choose to adopt it (or something similar). These cards help you focus on individual muscle groups, one at a time. If these five exercises are carried out over the course of seven days, resting on any two days you choose, you are only hitting each muscle group hard once per week. In other words, you are getting six quality days rest and growth each time. You will probably see results within a month.

Just going to the gym and doing what you think needs doing is a recipie for disappointment. Develop a system, have confidence in it, and stick to it.

I hope you enjoy.

Pete’s Top Tips 

• Consider using “broken pyramids” (i.e. medium weight for warm up set, then heaviest, then drop down.)
• Choose sufficiently heavy weights so that you can complete 8-10 reps per set only. A little pain is good!
• Stick to this card order – it gives the muscle groups minimum overlap and allows them to rest fully.
• Do one card and then put it to the back of your pile. Then do the next one. Repeat. This way you achieve a balanced workout – not just what you ‘feel like’ on the day.
• At least two ‘rest days’ are recommended per week. You can do cardio and light stretching, but you should give your muscles a chance to recuperate.
• This is an intense workout if done properly – you must eat and sleep well to reap the full benefits.

I find it a good idea to write each of these on a white plastic card using permanent pen.  These all fit nicely into a ‘bus-pass’-style wallet and you can bring them into the gym without looking too much like a dick.  

My “twist balance crunch” is as follows:  

• Starting with your back back flat on the floor with your legs straight out and raised off the floor by a few inches.
• Feet never touching the floor, execute a crunch but twist your head and arms so that the left elbow approaches your right knee.
• At the same time, keeping your feet roughly the same height off the floor, bring your legs in towards your bum to maintain your balance.
• Return slowly and under control to the start position, however, do not let your shoulders relax and touch the mat again until the set is over.
• All the time, you should focus on your stomach muscles and make sure they are under tension and doing all the work – NOT your thighs.
• Keep the movements fairly slow and under control – to not jerk or throw your weight about as this defeats the point of the exercise.
• Aim to do sixty at the start, middle and end of your workout. I suggest breaking it down into 30/20/10, but you might prefer 25/20/15.  

Some of these exercises may not be ones that you know. There are some excellent resources on the internet which show you just how to execute them if you are unsure.  

You might try these sites:  

  http://www.shapefit.com/training.html
  http://www.bodybuilding.com
  http://www.acefitness.org/exerciselibrary/

Warnings were issued earlier today in an attempt to calm public anxiety over the newly emerging H3N3 virus.  Evidence here also points to Mexican origins where domestic animals will frequently live under the same roof as their owners and pets. The strain, which has managed to cross yet another species-gap, has gained a foothold in Mexico City’s local dog population.

Initial indications from exhaustive laboratory tests have shown that the virus is much weaker than H1N1 – commonly known as Swine Flu – and so transmission from human-to-human is unlikely.

Sex tourists to Mexico, however, were recommended to steer well clear of chihuahuas.

Hardly a day goes by without the Media reporting a new juicy tidbit of the “latest research just out”. If you trust these sources, drinking alcohol will give you Alzheimer’s, and eating coloured berries will make you live longer.

These marvels of critical journalism are of course backed up with phrases such as ”investigated by scientists” or “statistically proven”. These words in themselves mean nothing, and our experts are quite likely to be a spotty student or a reporter with a calculator.

Check the methods and double-check the figures yourself. These attention-grabbing, scare-mongering headlines sell papers but provide little in the way of sound scientific investigation. I’m sure they won’t lose too much sleep over their shoddy reporting.

I recommend taking any such headlines with a big pinch of salt.

However, too much and this could raise your blood-pressure or give you cancer….