Where There Is [No Struggle], There Is [No Strength] – Part 1

To Push or Pull?

In this series I will be telling you why without struggle, there is no strength. What that really means is if you never have to try particularly hard, you’re never going to get better at what you’re doing.

Our bodies love staying the same, so to induce change we must provide a stress big enough to cause a response. However, if you keep pushing, never pulling back, you’ll cause problems, because you won’t have time to respond and grow to overcome the issue.

Yet if you don’t push hard enough or for long enough, you’ll simply never see a positive change. It is knowing when to push and pull and why that is important, and that is what Part 1 is about.

The Push- ‘Progressive Overload’
The principle that is progressive overload simply means that there is a need to increase training load in order to progress. In gym talk, you gotta add more weight to the bar or get more reps out if you wanna make gainz.

So to get stronger you have to push right? As touched on before. That push comes in the form of more weight or reps. Yet like previously discussed, you cannot push all the time. Why? Because our bodies cannot take it, we increase the risk of injury, overtraining and are likely to stagnate and even go backwards. No gainz.

The Pull- ‘Deload’
How do we pull back? This is usually done by reducing volume, and or intensity. The purpose is to allow our body to grow and repair from all the pushing. Growth and repair means gainz.

Combing the Push & Pull – ‘Periodisation’
Periodisation is the means by which we organise our training into blocks of low, medium and high volume and intensity. We have a microcycle (weekly), mesocycle (monthly) and macrocycle (yearly) to organise this within.

If we are always on the high end of intensity and volume all the time, we are pushing too much. Yet if we are using a low volume and low intensity approach, we aren’t providing enough of a push. If we get that balance right, we are on the way to gainzville. This process is captured particularly well by Selye’s General Adaption Syndrome (GAS) model of adaption to stress.

As you can see as we push we start to adapt, but push too long and we can stagnate or even deteriorate. Yet, given the right amount of stress the body will not only adapt but overcompensate (‘supercompensation’) to a higher level in anticipation of similar stress to come.

Push and Pull the right amount, say hello to gainzville.

When to Pull?- ‘Deload’/Taper
Right so we know that we can push our bodies too far causing no further progress. Yet we also know that if we do not push enough we won’t be stressing our bodies sufficiently to adapt. We must find the sweet spot, enough push, and then pull back at the right time.

The time we want to do this is when supercompensation peaks, as said before, too late or too soon and we will stagnate. That is brilliantly depicted below.

How do we know when our supercompensation is going to peak? This is dependent on our training age/experience. And that is where I am going to come to a close on Part 1.

What have we learnt?

• We need to continually push our bodies (progressive overload), to provide a stress response.
• We must take periods where we pull back (deload), to allow for supercompensation.
• This is done via a manipulation of volume and intensity, which is provided via periodisation.
• How you approach periodisation is reliant on your training experience.

Stay tuned for the rest of the series if you want to get really strong!

Haris Rajah – ‘Honoured to be coached by him and to have a T-shirt with his name on it!’

Haris, what were your goals when signing up with me?

My main goals were to lose fat, and then lean bulk and in doing so build my metabolic rate.

What reservations if any did you have before we started working together?

Starting with a coach was a big decision for me as I take my training seriously. So serious I would spend 4 hours some days just smashing the weights. The feeling of having someone responsible of something I care so much about was actually quite worrying at first because I didn’t know how it all worked.

I had doubts over:

• Will I be doing enough exercise, and am I putting enough tension on my muscles?
• Will I be losing muscle as well as fat?
• Will my training style change? (I used to go to failure each set)

How was I able to help you with your reservations?

With just a few weeks working with Steve, I got the hand of counting calories, tracking my weights and being accountable for everything I ate.

The sessions I got by Steve took a lot less time in the gym as well, which I was worried about because I never thought it was enough, but I ended up getting better results with my new training style under Steve. Focusing on compound lifts and then hitting accessory work after, which is very different from what I used to do, such as hitting bicep curls first. It saved me so much time for other things in my life, also because I didn’t need to write up the programmes myself.

Steve would do everything for me, and as long as I was consistent and stuck to my training and nutrition, I would get results. Since my strength was going up as I cut, I gathered I didn’t lose any muscle at all too.

In point form, can you list your achievements training with me thus far?

• Dropped over 20lbs in weight, and still dropping.
• Adding weight to the bar weekly.
• Total has increased 15% to 412.5kg at under 140lbs bodyweight.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Steve has truly influenced my life on a large scale, since training is a big part of my time. Even before I started getting coached by Steve, if I had a question regarding training or nutrition, he would be the man I would go to see about it because he knows what he’s talking about.

I decided to join Steve when I was cutting, but failing halfway through. That’s when I knew I needed a coach. There were other coaches out there, but starting with Steve was a no brainer for me as I knew he would get me results and keep me on track.

On the first day starting with Steve, all my bad habits stopped and I was in a healthy place again. I finished my cut successfully and I was in the best shape of my life.

I’m currently still getting coached and I continue to progress, and it’s the best investment I’ve made towards my health, worth every penny. Highly recommend him to anyone, whether you’re advanced or a beginner. Honoured to be coached by him and to have a T-shirt with his name on it!

Another brilliant client I have enjoyed so much working with. Haris is a work horse and will certainly be a big name in the future, whether it be powerlifting or natural bodybuilding. He has determination like no-one else I have worked with, and to hear the comments above make me incredibly happy.

Interested in online coaching? You can check out what I have to offer here.

Powerbuilding

Powerlifting meets Bodybuilding, my new venture

So my natural bodybuilding contest season is over, my two shows are done and I can proudly say I got shredded and placed in both shows. Goal achieved, and I can be happy that it was a job well done. I didn’t enter because I thought I’d win, or had anything to prove, I decided to compete to experience a journey like no other, and use the lessons it provided to better enable me to coach my clients. However, I do not now want to compete for a good 3 years or so, because muscle building is slow and contest prep is very hard. Apart from building my business, spending time with family and friends and enjoying life you might wonder what my training goals are. I am firmly in love with bodybuilding, however I love lifting heavy things, and think powerlifting is pretty damn cool, so why not combine the two?

Defining Powerbuilding 
Powerbuilding can be defined as a set of principles applied to one’s training with the aim of producing muscle growth, through increasing strength in movements tested in powerlifting.

That means the bench press, back squat and deadlift, and is something I actually have been doing for years, but never really focussed heavily upon. It is all about focussing on getting strong in these movements, and that produces growth. Using the lessons learnt from the best powerlifters and bodybuilders, to get our desired result; a strong and muscular body.

Principles of Powerbuilding
As said it is about using the best techniques and approaches from bodybuilding and powerlifting and combing them to get a desired result. I will now go into these.

Progressive Overload– without this you will not improve in any desired aspect. It is the backbone of any successful strength or muscle building programme. Essentially, if you are not pushing more total volume, you are not going to get bigger or stronger. By volume I mean your weight x your reps, so you either need to be adding more to pounds to the bar or doing more reps.

Periodisation– simply put this is the method of varying training modules including but not limited to total volume, intensity and frequency. There are almost infinite ways to periodise a programme, but current evidence is showing that an undulating method is superior to linear. This means you do not have long focussed blocks focussing on either strength, hypertrophy or power. But you focus on all three in a much shorter time period, allowing you to progress on all of them.

Frequency- in this case we are talking about how often muscle groups are trained. It is becoming widely known that as natural athletes our protein synthesis post workout is up-regulated for 48 hours post workout. Therefore, it makes sense to train each muscle group every 48 hours or so, rather than once a week like the old school bodybuilders. So with Powerbuilding you will train muscle groups a minimum of twice per week, that means using either upper/lower, push/pull/lower or full body type splits. Higher frequency of exposure to good training stimuli means more potential opportunities for growth!

Calorie Surplus– we wanna grow muscles right? we want to get stronger don’t we? that requires energy. If we are not in a calorie surplus we are either less than our bodies need to sustain itself or just enough. How then are we meant to build more muscle? Simple enough, we can’t. So key to a successful Powerbuilding method is consuming enough food, but not too much, remember we still care about aesthetics, we’re bodybuilders too. Plus we know muscle takes a long time to come by. Therefore, look to gain around 0.5-3lbs a month, depending on your training age, less the longer you have been training.

So now you know what my training aims are this ‘offseason’ to get big and strong :D. Hopefully entering my first powerlifting competition next year in the under 82.5kg weight category. Not set myself a overall total kg’s lifted target yet, but I will be. Anyone want to join me in powerbuilding? bodybuilding or powerlifting? Be sure to check out my online coaching, in which I provide weekly guidance on nutrition and training, bespoke and personalised.

Do this before making your New Years Resolutions

So the new year is on its way, and with it comes new goals, dreams and aims. That is good thing, and I encourage everyone to have something they are working towards, whether that be to get a promotion, lose weight or get stronger. However, before you decide on your new years resolution, look back and review your old goals, dreams and aims. Have you achieved them? And if not, why not? Because, what I do not like to see is people make New Years Resolutions and not actually achieve them. If you did what you set out to do, then well done 🙂 keep up the good work.

• Did you lack motivation?
• Maybe you didn’t have the knowledge required to get where you wanted?
• Possibly it was just bad luck?
• Or deep down you knew you just didn’t work hard enough?

Whatever the reason you didn’t do what you set out to do, learn from your mistakes. If you can do that you are back in my good books and you will be much better off and more likely to achieve your future resolutions.

Be Real Man

Something that might be holding you back is setting a target that is actually not even attainable. Personally I want to eventually move out and have a house of my own. However, I just do not have the resources to do that right now, or next year. So better is to say I will be moved out and renting next year. That is far more realistic. If I set myself the aim of owning property next year, I might not even move out! If your dreaming too big then you will be at risk of stagnating. 

Set Mini Goals

By setting yourself mini hurdles along the way not only do you know the process for achieving your overall resolution but it also gives you short term targets, and you can reward yourself for hitting them. For example, you want to lose 2 stone by the end of the year, set smaller stepping stone goals such as by March you will have lost a minimum of 10 pounds. By making this mini realistic goal and hitting it, you’ll be spurred on to continue.

Be Accountable

Tell people your resolutions, friends, family, your twitter followers the more the better. Everyone will then ask how you are getting on and progressing. This will put pressure on you to actively be pursuing your aim, because you don’t want to look stupid right? Something I personally found keeps me on point is having a training and nutrition coach. You be thinking, why would a coach need a coach? Not so much for their knowledge, but for the accountability they provide, it is priceless.

I’m going to do this one now, by sharing with you some of my goals for this year:

• Compete in a Powerlifting Meet & get a 520kg+ total.
• Move out from home.
• Remain respectively lean.
• Grow my business enough to be fully self employed.
• Continue to learn, be open minded, experience new things and show my appreciation to others.

Make this year your year by being real, setting mini goals and making sure to be accountable, to yourself and others! If you have personal health and fitness goals, and are thinking about getting a coach to help, then be sure to check out my services HERE and remember #REVIVESTRONGER

Abdullah Alkanan- ‘influenced my lifestyle greatly to the better’

Abdullah reached out to me from Kuwait, having watched me on Youtube. He saw me as genuine and thought my advice followed suit and was in line with how he thought. Looking to move away from HITT and Crossfit all out failure type training to more resistance based work. Based on Abdullah’s pictures and questionnaire results I placed him on a programme to shed fat while retaining if not potentially building some muscle mass, to achieve his goal of a lean and muscular physique.

So far we have seen some great results, with Abdullah improving his form on all the main compound lifts and getting stronger, while losing fat in the process. So far a little over three months in, this is what Abdullah had to say:

‘I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to Stephen. I was quite unsure when it came to online personal trainers because I tried it in the past and it wasn’t something I thought I would do again.

However, after much researching and using my common sense, I stumbled upon Stephen’s YouTube page and I was convinced that his way of thinking when it comes to nutrition, diet and exercise is something that appealed to me.

So I went ahead and singed up to start with him, and I can say that the last 3 months have been great. There was a sense of certainty, I know what I am eating and how much to eat and what to train. It has influenced my lifestyle greatly to the better. I do have a very busy work schedule but through the great weekly motivation from Stephen in conjunction with his weekly tweaks to my routine I have been pushing through.

I can email Stephen anytime and he is quick to respond, baring in-mind he has a very busy schedule as well. I think the decision to go ahead and join this service has been one I am delighted I made, and I can’t wait for the future.

I truly recommend Stephen to anyone who wants to make a positive change on how their body looks and feels and ultimately get healthy.’

I am truly honoured to have had such a positive impact on Abdullah, to have positively impacted his lifestyle to such a degree is more than I could have wished for. Here is how he is looking just two months on:

As you can see in just 2 months Abdullah lost a total of 10lbs, which was tremendous. He has gotten rid of any love handles and that in combination with increasing his shoulder and back muscle mass has achieved a much broader look. Great job Abdullah!

To learn more about my coaching services please click HERE!

Banish the Belly – The 2 Rules to a Flat Stomach

So summer is just around the corner, people are getting all sorts of skin out on show and soon enough we will be in bikini’s and swim shorts. That means baring our stomachs to the world, and for many that is a daunting prospect. I hate to think of people being uncomfortable with their body, I want to change that, by helping you take control. Once you have control, you then have the power to change your body at your own will, and I believe that is incredibly empowering.

So how do we get a flat stomach? Well it is incredibly simple, not necessarily easy for everyone, but I promise you I will provide a very effective method to ridding yourself of that unwanted belly fat.

The Two Rules to a Flat Stomach:

Rule 1: You have to lose fat

And that means one thing, you need to be in a net calorie deficit, burning more energy than you take in. This can be achieved in a variety of ways, I suggest the best is to select macronutrients appropriate for you and then consume foods that hit those macros, 80% being wholesome unrefined foods and 20% what have you. That for me is the most sustainable approach, however if you want to cut out carbs, increase your exercise or go paleo etc. so long as it produces a calorie deficit, you will begin to lose fat. Make it even easier on yourself, and do some exercise, which leads me to rule two.

Rule 2: You should train with resistance

Notice my wording, I say should because it is not essential to attaining a flat stomach. But who wants a flat stomach without any shape to their body, you want curves, you want to look athletic right? Resistance training is your answer. I am not saying you have to pound the iron everyday, or go join a bodybuilding gym, I just mean you need to use your muscles more than you normally would. The point here is to overload the muscles, so that they have to adapt and grow stronger, thus leading to that ‘toned’ look you’ve always wanted. Compound, full body exercises are your best friends, they give you the most bang for your buck, using the most musculature and giving the largest metabolic effect of all exercises. That means squats, deadlifts, bench press, complexes, kettle bell swings, lunges etc.

Practical Application

1. Create a calorie deficit: This is going to be a catch all, not greatly individualised method, but it will work for most. Ideally you might track your intake for a few weeks, find your average calorie intake and if you maintained weight over this period, hey presto you have your maintenance. But failing that:

Flat Stomach Calorie Formula

(10 x your weight in pounds) x Activity Factor

• If you are sedentary (little or no exercise) 1.2
• If you are lightly active (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/week) 1.375
• If you are moderatetely active (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/week) 1.55
• If you are very active (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days a week) 1.725
• If you are extra active (very hard exercise/sports & physical job or 2x training) 1.9

e.g. 10 x 150lbs = 1500, 1500 x lightly active (1.375) = 2062.5 (maintenance intake)

So now you have your maintenance you need to create a deficit, this can be done by increasing your activity or by decreasing your food intake. The smaller the deficit the easier it will be to sustain and the more likely you will continue to keep burning fat. I suggest a good place to start is a 300 calorie deficit, this means for the example above the person would consume around 1800 calories a day. A rate of loss of 1% of your bodyweight per week is a healthy rate of which to lose at.

2. Resistance train: Now I am going to make this programme with someone new to resistance training in mind, so the exercise selection will be simple, but still very effective. Try the below, start with 2-3 times a week, and build from there:

Flat Stomach Workout

• Goblet Squats- 4 sets x 10 reps – 60s rest between sets
• 
• Dumbbell Romanian Deadlifts- 4 sets x 10 reps – 60s rest between sets
• 
• Walking Lunges- 2 sets x 10 reps each leg – 60s rest between sets
• 
• Kettlebell Swings- 3 sets x 20 reps – 60s rest between sets
• 

So the only way to develop the flat stomach you’ve always wanted is to lose fat and train with a degree of resistance. This is because ‘toning’ in fact doesn’t exist, or the phrase is kinda miss-used, really it means decreasing body fat and increasing muscle size. Those  two things then come together to create tone.

So now you have the tools, you have the power to produce a body you can be proud of for summer!

Training to Failure – Is it necessary?

Train hard or go home right? Well it’s a little more complicated than that, our bodies respond to training to failure in interesting ways. This differs by person and the impact isn’t necessarily positive, it depends on what you are trying to achieve.

Last week my guest blog post was published on Fit Pro Client Recipes on how you might want to approach training to failure. You can find it by following the link below:

http://www.fitproclientrecipes.co.uk/training-to-failure/