7 Body Transformation Lessons I’ve Learned From Fighting

I have been training in various forms of martial arts for the past eight years, and seriously for the past three, or so. In that time I’ve competed in muay Thai, submissions grappling and mixed martial arts (MMA).

I lost my sole Thai fight by decision, took a gold medal in my only grappling tournament to date and have a semi-professional MMA record of 2-0-1; that’s 2 wins and 1 draw, by the way.

I consider myself to be a martial artist and not a ‘fighter’; except when I’m chatting up a girl, in which case I am a ‘cage fighter’. (That’s a joke…honest…)

I also very much consider myself a novice, and probably always will, but I’ve learned some valuable lessons over the years that I think you could apply to your life in order to help you reach your fitness and physique-related goals.

7 Things We Don’t Like About Gyms (& How We’re Different)

At RSF Improve, we call ourself ‘the gym for people who don’t like gyms’.

We know it’s a weird tagline for what is, well…a gym.

But RSF Improve was founded on basic pillars upon which it still stands today, almost one year after opening.After working for years as Personal Trainers in commercial gyms, us coaches at RSF decided it was time for a change.

We grew to dislike the ‘big box gym’ environment as we felt it just didn’t offer enough to its members.

Here’s a few things we didn’t/don’t like about gyms, from a member’s perspective:

1. Queuing for equipment at peak times

How many times have you walked into a gym after work, taken a look around and thought “well bang goes that workout”, because every squat rack, bench and barbell is being used?

Or maybe you’re looking to get some cardio in on a treadmill, but there’s a queue behind it with people moaning and groaning if you spend more than the suggested 20mins on a piece of kit.

Maybe you’ve walked in, looked around and just walked straight back out.

Embracing Failure, Overcoming Adversity & Being Average: An Inside Look At My Life Thus Far

We’re living in a time period where the pressure to succeed has never been greater.

Magazine covers showcase dream physiques, billboards advertise cars we can’t afford and our social media feeds are awash with other people’s champagne lifestyles with constant posts about how happy they are.

It can lead to us looking at ourselves and feeling low; like we’re inferior and/or not good enough.

Looks crap, doesn’t it?

“Why can’t I look like that?”

“I wish I could afford that.”

“I want to be that happy.”

We’re led to believe that other people float along through their lives constantly achieving, whilst we languish behind seemingly tripping over the smallest of hurdles.

Maybe I look like the former. Maybe it appears that I’m winning.

So I figured I’d give you a wee run down of my life thus far. You know, to help you understand that we all have to overcome failures…and to give you a bit of a giggle too.

Becoming A (Good) Personal Trainer: Where To Start

I’ll admit it…

I got into Personal Training to make money.

I saw the ‘PT’ course ads and I was deceived into thinking I’d make £30k in my first year.

I had a four year sports degree behind me, a ton of coaching experience and had interned with the Scottish Institute of Sport’s strength and conditioning department.

I thought I was well ahead of the game (and it was pretty clear that I was, once I started my course).

However, the past 5 years have been an absolute battle.

It’s been worth it, don’t get me wrong. I’ve managed to open my own facility, fill it with amazing people, I’ve spoken at events and conferences, appeared on national radio, met a ton of amazing friends and was even voted Personal Trainer of The Year by my peers.

Yet, I still don’t drive a Ferrari or live on a tropical island sending programs to people from my sand-proof laptop.

4 Things You Should Know About Fitness Before You Get Started

There’s two things that happen in the fitness industry in January:

1. People go mad and join gyms, programmes and ‘slimming’ clubs.
2. People quit.

It happens year in, year out and never fails to get me down a little.

The start of a new year is bedlam in commercial gyms. People queuing up to get on treadmills. Four people crowded round each machine. Others trying to hide in a corner with a yoga mat and a kettle bell.

For all of the madness, it’s an amazingly positive and energetic environment, which is why it saddens me when we get to mid-February/March and it’s back to being the same people who were training mid-December all the way through, after all of the January joiners give up.

The reason for the drop-off, in my opinion, is due to unrealistic expectations of both what can be achieved and what ‘fitness’ actually is.

I’d love for this article to be used as a means of reducing the drop out rate once we get to mid-February, and so here’s 4 things I believe you should know before you get started on your health kick this year and keep in mind when the going gets tough:

5 Things To Consider Before You Hire A Personal Trainer

It’s January 1st, 2016.

The daylight gently creeps in beneath the curtains.

You know you don’t have to get up – it’s a public holiday.

You share a quick, content smile with yourself and roll over.

“Let’s go back to sleep”, you think.

Then it hits you…

The hangover from hell.

You can’t get back to sleep.

You’re desperately try to put the pieces of the jigsaw together to figure out what happened last night.

You’ve got the fear.

Eventually, you give up and decide to get out of bed and face the music.

As you begin to deal with the day ahead, you start to contemplate your life choices.

Your Facebook newsfeed is littered with ‘New Year, New You’ adverts.

There’s meal replacement adverts everywhere.

You’re not really too sure what’s going on.

You know you want to look better and to feel more confident, but you find the whole ‘New You’ thing a little cheesy.

4 Things I Learned From Top Nutritionist Martin MacDonald

As well as picking up my award for ‘Personal Trainer of The Year’ over the weekend (shameless self-indulgence), I also attended a fairly game-changing seminar with Martin MacDonald.

I have to be honest and say that I had no idea who Martin was before the seminar, but had been told by men whose opinions I respect (namely Chris Burgess and Stuart Aitken) that his seminar was the best they’d seen on nutrition so it was a no-brainer for me to sign up.

Martin’s delivery was very matter of fact, simplistic and easy to understand. He delved into the deep waters of nutrition but did so brilliantly in that he didn’t leave anyone behind as he excellently laid the foundations of knowledge and expanded at a smooth pace.

At the risk of bastardising Gregg Slater’s words (throughout the whole post, actually), I feel that I’ve got a good level of knowledge and that a lot of the seminars I go to I find myself nodding along thinking: “this is good, but what’s better is that I already know it.”

It’s reassuring for me to know that I’m doing things ‘correctly’ and that those ‘higher up’ in the industry do things similarly. (Albeit I’m not claiming to be a guru-genius – just been around the block a few times.)

However, after Martin’s seminar I felt that there’s going to be a few changes in the way I approach certain clients and situations going forward.

Not in the sense that I’ve been way off up until now, but in the sense that I believe I have a couple more tools in my tool box that up until Saturday I wouldn’t have had the confidence to use as I felt it was ‘wrong’ to do so.

To move on from my ‘humble bragging’, here’s a quick list of my biggest take-aways from the weekend:

8 Reasons You Didn’t Lose Weight in 2015

January’s looming.

The New Years Resolutions are about to be made.

Number 1 on the list is ‘get in better shape’.

The new year is always a fresh start. It’s a time people set out to right the wrongs from the previous year.

And, in fitness, that ‘wrong’ seems to be made year after year.

Rather than telling you how to achieve your goals in 2016 (which I’ll no doubt do at some point too), I’m going to tell you what to look out for to prevent you from quitting and failing.

Dealing with Anxiety

I’m going to kick off with a bit of a disclaimer here.

I want to make sure you know I’m not ‘playing the victim’ and to state, bluntly, that I am not seeking sympathy.

I’ve also never had a panic attack or anything as severe as that so I’m by no means claiming that I suffer with it. In fact, I feel like a bit of a fraud even writing this, but I’m merely talking about how a teeny wee degree of it affects my day-to-day life.

I’m putting it out there because I think it’ll help someone.

I’m not sure who that person is. But I know that, as with everything else, if one person struggles with something, there’s a ton of people out there struggling with similar stuff but too afraid/nervous to speak up about it.

I’ve also never really spoken about this before; particularly not publicly. It’s got absolutely nothing to do with fitness or nutrition, but it affects both.

I’m talking about anxiety.

Do You Realise How Easy It Is To Overeat?

What’s the best diet?

Is it the 5:2? Is it low carb? Is it weight watchers? Or is it something else?

Most people have no idea, so they try one for a few weeks, then jump ship to the other…rinse and repeat.

Years go past and they’re still looking for the perfect diet.

…And, yet, they’ve still not lost weight.

Or they’ve yo-yo’d up and down like a whore’s drawers and ended up fatter and heavier than ever, despite having spent 10 years ‘dieting’.

No one wins there, do they?

Except maybe the companies pedalling the ‘diets’ and the people who wrote the books.

So what is the perfect diet?

Always Struggling to Stick to Your Diet? Here’s Why …

I bet this story sounds familiar…

“Right, this time it’s for real. I’m doing it.”

You commit to your goal, 100%.

You’re really excited about the ‘journey’ and see no way you can fail. You’re on it. Totally unstoppable.

The wave of positivity generally lasts until you actually start working towards that goal. Usually, this’ll be your first day of dieting or your first workout or maybe up until the end of your first week.

Although, if you’ve tried and failed before then maybe the positive feeling will halt just before you actually start.

At this stage you become more and more aware of how hard the task at hand actually is. The feeling of ‘unstoppability’ suddenly disappears and you become a little down…right at the very beginning of the process that just a few days ago you were sure was going to be a cake-walk.

You could quit at this point, before you even start, but we’re going to run with it a little farther.