GetFit Top Tip

So many people play golf and often complain about injury. The most common injury is the back. Although around 75% of golfing injuries are attributed to bad swing techniques, a lot of these are connected to incorrect posture.

During a Drive, you will be expected to laterally rotate your hips and shoulders. The more the rotation and the faster the controlled lateral movement, the further the ball will go.

Always keep your spine as straight as possible before you start you swing.

To help the spine strengthen, you must train the core muscle and create mobility. One exercise to help achieve this is a reverse lunge with lateral flexion.

Simply step backward into a reverse lunge and then hold one hand upwards and the other downwards whilst you crunch your body. Try this 10 times on each leg. This will help create more stability for your legs, glutes and abdominals. This will also give you more mobility in your spine allowing you to practice longer and hit the ball further.

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You know when you look for something and eventually you find it right under your nose!!!

I have been searching for ages for a decent recipe book that fits with my principles of common sense nutritional habits for the real world. I have come across lots of recipe books that are very good in theory, but when you have to factor in the time needed to prepare the foods, seek out bizarre ingredients and actually having something that tastes and looks good, many books fall short of the mark.

Well Rosa was right under my nose, she is a performance coach at Dax Moy’s Personal Training Studio in London. Having met her briefly earlier this year whilst being coached by Dax himself, I knew little of her background nor the excellent resource that she has created.

The book 101 Healthy Recipes For The Office contains recipes that can be prepared in 10 minutes right through to those taking 60 minutes when time allows. Each recipe is also “Elimination Diet” approved which is Dax Moy’s signature 30 day nutritional plan. I know many of my Top Tip readers and clients who have downloaded the Corporate Athlete handbook will appreciate this excellent resource.

Check out Rosa and the book at RocoFit

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Most abdominal exercise machines, gadgets and devices are pretty pointless when it comes to actually providing adequate exercise. However there are one or two which I think are actually worthwhile, one being the stability ball which is probably the most used piece of equipment in my gym!

The other may surprise you. The ab wheel is actually a startlingly useful piece of kit and proves to be a great abdominal and core exerciser.

Don’t know what one looks like? Well it is basically a single wheel with two handles to hold on to. see pic below…

Whilst it doesn’t really fit the bill as a multi purpose piece of exercise equipment, like a stability ball or a set of dumbbell it does provide a progressive intensity exercise for the core musculature in your body.

If you don’t want to buy this item and you have a barbell with detachable weights then you can achieve the same result.

The exercise normally associated with this item is the ab rollout. Where off the knees you hold on to the handles and roll the wheel out as far as you can and then roll it back to the start position. To make it harder, lift yourself up on to your toes and do the same exercise.

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Nutrition for the majority of the worlds population is becoming a serious problem, not least the busy professional.

Despite the huge amount of advice that is freely available on the subject of good health eating, the dietary habits of the busy professional leave a lot to be desired.

The problem stems from those long busy days at work, where eating becomes an after thought. Breakfast, how often is this missed by you in the morning? Lunch, business lunch at the quality restaurant, over a couple of glasses of wine, OR, stuffing down a deli sandwich at your desk? Evening dinner, a pizza or other fast food fare on your way home, or a hastily eaten microwave meal before going to bed!

And then there is the snacks, the donuts and cakes for a colleagues birthday. The office snack machine always gets raided mid morning and mid afternoon, normally because of a serious blood sugar crash after your poor breakfast or lunch choice!

The nutritional value of all this stuff, equals roughly ZERO!

The problem is your body is a true reflection of what we consume, you know the phrase “You are what you eat!” is absolutely true! So if you eat junk, your whole body is junk, even when you do exercise the nutrients used to repair and grow the tissue in your body, are based on poor quality sources. This increases your chances of illness and injury!

Getting around this problem seems to be a sticking point for many people, however the solution is not as complex as people make out. By sticking to some fairly basic principles of nutrition you can make massive improvements in your overall health.

Eat only fresh and clean produce, this means

* Fresh fruit and vegetables
* Low fat fresh diary produce including eggs
* Fresh lean cuts of meat
* The best quality poultry you can buy
* Fresh water fish and seafood

That’s it!

Avoid all processed foods, i.e. anything that has gone through a manufacturing process to create the “food” that appears on your plate.

Starting today, do this consistently for the next two weeks and I guarantee that you and your body will feel more alive than it has in years! The hardest part is starting, once the habit is developed you’ll be less inclined to go back to the junk.

For a highly effective fat burning workouts done in a fraction of the time of your current workouts, claim your free e-report “How to lose weight even when you are really busy” at http://www.corporateathletehandbook.com/. Tim Goodwin is a fitness professional from Luxembourg, training the busiest individuals to achieve amateur sporting success and a healthier body. Feel free to duplicate this article with the bio and link intact.

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Energy leeches are everywhere. Lack of energy is such a common reason for not training by many busy professionals.

You get to mid afternoon and you are running on empty already and it has only been a few hours since lunch and your are tired, irritable and frustrated at your lack of productivity. Going for a workout? Yeah right, your going home to crash on the couch!

Procrastination is the number one reason cited by people for not working out, your low energy levels contribute even more to your procrastination.

Your common energy leeches include, your computer monitor, the constant barrage of phone calls, or your boss giving you stress on the latest deadlines. This sucks you dry leaving you empty and ready for a night in doing nothing but feeling sorry for yourself. When you don’t go and do your workout, you’ll feel even more deflated lowering your energy levels yet further.

But going to do a workout can actually give you energy! “yeah right Tim, now you really are talking rubbish!” Seriously, despite the physical exertion of the workout, or participating in your sport, the
outcome can be a serious injection of positive energy. The body responds very well to physical activity, at certain intensities your body will stimulate the production of endorphins which give you that feel good glow after a particularly tough workout. This in itself becomes addictive.

Also by blocking out the energy drains, reducing the time spent answering the phone, or staring at your computer monitor, AND, promoting the energy boosts, eating the right foods, drinking water regularly and never missing a workout, you’ll quickly be full of energy again.

Jon, a very busy executive from a key multinational firm hated his workouts, at first it was a real struggle to get him in for our appointments. After a few particularly tough workouts I started to see Jon in the gym outside of our pre-arranged sessions. This then developed to almost every day in the gym. When questioned about this, he simply said with a smile “I still hate my workouts, I just love the feeling of finishing!”

This endorphin rush is quite real and can be brought about easily with workouts at high enough intensities. Many workouts I see being performed in the gym are just too slow and ineffective, whats more the low intensity will not give even a hint of the endorphin hit we are looking for, instead we are usually bored, demotivated and are desperately hanging on till the end of your workout.

Doing resistance based workouts with heavy weights for short repetition ranges are the opposite, and for guys gives a testosterone boost as well as the endorphin rush. A workout that utilises large muscle groups, such as squats, deadlift, push ups, rows and lunges will kick off an endorphin rush for both male and female exercisers.

Females fear not the bulky muscles, you don’t have the chemical makeup to achieve this, guys work hard and you’ll lose the gut as well as boost your sporting performances too!

Start today, by getting down to the gym and getting the advice of a trained fitness professional to show you the correct form for these fundamental exercises. I promise you you’ll view your workouts with more energy than ever before!

For a highly effective resistance workout and other time saving exercises, claim your free e-report “How to lose weight even when you are really busy” at http://www.corporateathletehandbook.com/. Tim Goodwin is author of The Corporate Athlete Conditioning Handbook and a fitness professional from Luxembourg, training the busiest individuals to achieve amateur sporting success and a healthier body. Feel free to duplicate this article with the bio and link intact.

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Excuses, I have heard them all…

Everything from “my wife didn’t wash my workout clothes” to “my dog ate my trainers”. All used to avoid doing a workout or even starting an exercise plan in the first place. But the one I here the most from the busy professional relates to lack of facilities…

“I travel a lot, so I cannot always get to a gym to do a workout”

My clients know better than to pull this one on me! Yes, lack of facilities does present limitations to your “normal” exercise program. Your travel schedule and location mean access to good quality gym facilities are often limited. Your training will lack consistency and your progress will be slow, especially when you travel every third week, or
a month away at a time!

“There is no gym close to my home or work place”

Most new office buildings are actually making provisions for fitness facilities, even if they are somewhat limited in some cases. As it happens the gym i spend the majority of my time in is based in the basement of a new office complex. A perfect place to fit in a fast workout during lunch, just before or just after work too.

Lack of facilities is not the legitimate excuse you may think it is. You can achieve as good a workout if not a more advanced workout WITHOUT any equipment than if you had a huge gym with every machine you can think of. There are many exercises that can be done outside of the gym environment. In fact you’ll find the use of those fancy, expensive looking machines in the gym is fairly limited, and whilst they are great for those not knowing what to do, they may not be the best use of your training time.

Bodyweight training however is massively underrated as a method of training, yet it is possible to get a superior workout using just your body weight as the resistance. In many situations most gym goers are using external resistance unnecessarily.

For example performing the perfect bodyweight squat, lunge, push up or chin up will give you much more of a workout than any machine you’ll find in the gym. Add some small, inexpensive pieces of equipment such as a stability ball, exercise mat and set of small dumbbells for exercises to be done at home, then your exercise choices are multiplied almost infinitely!

One particularly well travelled client was adamant that it was not possible to get a sweat from bodyweight exercises! 15 minutes in to our first routine she was racing for her water bottle and towel, and we hadn’t even touched a dumbbell…

Packing a simple exercise band, basically a long wide elasticated strip of rubber, into your luggage is a cheap, portable and very effective training tool. You can easily get a full body weight workout done in 30-40 minutes with just this piece of equipment. Squats, Lateral Raises, Rows, pulldowns etc etc can all be performed with the band to increase the resistance. Most of the items i have mentioned here can be picked up for very little money at most good fitness stores.

As you can see the lack of facilities should not be limiting your training program. A little bit of planning and investigating the right exercise for you and you’ll keep you training on track.

For a highly effective resistance workout and other time saving exercises, claim your free e-report “How to lose weight even when you are really busy” at http://www.corporateathletehandbook.com/. Tim Goodwin is author of The Corporate Athlete Conditioning Handbook and a fitness professional from Luxembourg, training the busiest individuals to achieve amateur sporting success and a healthier body. Feel free to duplicate this article with the bio and link intact.

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1. Write down your goal. Get a sticky note, write down what dress/jean size you WILL fit in by the end of June. Stick it on the side of your computer monitor, fridge door etc etc.

2. Schedule your workouts for the next 3 weeks: Write them into your scheduler now, they cannot be moved, skipped, deleted, it is like missing an appointment with the hair dresser, you wanna look good yes?

3. Drink more plain water, especially  now the weather has turned for the better. Everything from better skin condition, to better elimination of waste. It will also help absorb and utilise those nutrients you are eating much better.

4.  Don’t Jog - Run, Don’t free wheel - Push the pedals hard, don’t do breast-stroke - do freestyle/front crawl! Intervals are the best cardio method in your arsenal to a better body.

5. Eat more often: Yep, eat every 2-3 hours of the day, NEVER miss a meal, have snacks between meals. Keep your metabolism on full burn by eating regularly, never famine and feast!

Try it.

If you are in Luxembourg, we can provide you with workouts three times a week with “ForestFit June” starting June 10th

If you are not in Luxembourg, try our “Corporate Athlete Handbook“

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From an athletic point of view, being dehydrated can have devastating effects on your performance. Not only does your body slow down but your brain function is reduced, get dizzy, vomiting and an increase in the bodies core temperature.

Now consider that most of the population do not drink enough water, I recently read a statistic that claimed that 1 in 10 people did not drink any water at all! Most of us are relying on other forms of fluids throughout the day, some are more evil than others.

So it is highly likely that you are dehydrated all of the time, to some extent. This effects your concentration, your mood, and your energy levels throughout the day, just like it effects your sporting performance, it massively effects your professional performance too.

The corporate athlete often depends on excessive caffeine fixes, from coffee, teas and so called performance drinks to keep them going throughout the day, just water is just never entertained as an option!

The sodas out of your company snack machine are nothing more than a sugary fix which will just add to your waistline. Step away from these at all costs.

The problem is all these false fluids do not hydrate your body in the same way as plain water, and in many cases cause further dehydration.

To get the best out of your body the solution is really simple and obvious.

- Drink more water! To keep things simple, for every 50lbs of weight you should be drinking a litre of water per day!

- Avoid ALL other types of fluid intake PERIOD.

- Get into a habit of having a full litre and half bottle of water on your desk in the morning and make sure it is finished by lunch, then start again for the afternoon

- And if fat loss is your primary goal, then taking a serious look at your alcohol intake should be your first assignment.

- Drop the alcohol completely from today for 21 days and your body will shed inches like you wouldn’t believe!

Once you are getting the water intake your body needs to function properly, your sporting performances will see an improvement, and you will certainly stay more alert through your normal working day too.

Other benefits of proper water intake include massively improved skin condition, the way your body eliminates waste will be improved. You’ll also stop getting so many headaches and get less digestive problems too.

Whilst drinking water is not so interesting, the benefits are certainly worth the tiny amount of effort of starting today for the next 21 days. I am sure you’ll see the benefits immediately and miss it if you stop again!

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Claim your free “Warm Up” video at http://www.corporateathletehandbook.com/ . Tim Goodwin is author and fitness professional from Luxembourg, training the busiest individuals to achieve amateur sporting success and a healthier body.

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Does you scheduler resemble open warfare? There is so much on there it is impossible to see gaps. Fitting in a workout would just not be possible, you’d have to cancel it anyway because meetings always over run, or someone else wants another “quick” meeting!

Whether you are a top executive, middle management or team player, the working day is full of distractions, seemingly “important” appointments and meetings.

Many of us confuse work and “busy work”. Busy work is the answering of phone calls, reading and answering emails, impromptu meetings with your boss or co-workers, that consume so much of your day. As such your days get longer, lunch hours get shorter (or completely consumed), and late night work to finish a project becomes the norm.

The unstructured day drains your energy and is frankly a waste of time. Your training gets missed too frequently, and then dropped altogether. Not only does your sporting ability suffer but your entire “out of work” life too, there is no balance.

Because your sports and fitness training is vital to you, you need to do something about this otherwise weeks and months will pass you by with no structured workouts done.

Solutions to this big problem are everywhere, all sorts of technology solutions are available to better manage your time, but often these tools become even more time consuming to use and ultimately become “busy work” too.

Having tried numerous electronic organisers from Outlook, online calendars, PDAs, phones, etc etc. I have found coming back to a basic paper scheduler to be the most powerful tool.

As a trainer it is impossible for me to see every single client when it suits them, I force them to work their schedule around me, when they realise that this is for THEIR benefit as much as mine, they discover a freedom and opportunity that they had not recognised before!

The following tips for scheduling and planning your work and workouts have been used successfully by some of my busiest clients with great success:

• Plan to check email only twice a day, just before lunch and just before you go home in the evening. Keep it turned off at all others times.
• Arrange and accept meetings only in the morning, maximum of 30 minutes
• Afternoon is for real work, do 50 minute blocks of work, then break for 10.
• Put all this in your scheduler, blocking out portions of the day for this.
• Put in all your workouts for the week 5 or 6 sessions of 20-40 minutes are enough, the morning, lunch and evenings are obvious times. Sacrifices will need to be made though to make this fit.
• Fix your sports specific training in as well, keep the training focussed and goal orientated

As obvious and as simplistic as these suggestions seem, they are extremely effective if you stick to the rules without deviation for 5 weeks. By this point, not only will you become more effective with your planning, your work colleagues will be better “educated” with how you view your precious time and respect the rules you put in place.

Give these rules a try starting immediately, go to your scheduler and be brutal with the marker pen to block out sections of your day for specific actions. Stop the rot of busy work and turn off the phone and email notifier!

Claim back control of your training schedule and make these appointments as big a priority as your work appointments. It is not easy to start with and I wish you luck.

Claim your free “Warm Up” video at http://www.corporateathletehandbook.com/. Tim Goodwin is a fitness professional from Luxembourg, training the busiest individuals to achieve amateur sporting success and a healthier body.

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