This session was awesome they all worked so hard and were so focused I’m sure some of them lost a pound or two just in this workout!!!!

I know that some of the moves are a little extreme but if you look closely you’ll find that everyone is working to their own ability.

Our boot campers build their exercise complexity carefully over time. We always offer options for people who are new to exercise or have injuries as you will find on the Bootcamp website, just check out the testimonials and then come meet the people!

Enjoy 52 seconds of other people doing the hard work!

Fast Tube by Casper

This stuff work and works fast so come and try out the Bootcamp. Click here to find out how you could have 2 weeks of training for £1 with us!

Click Below;

Boot camp Berkhamsted

If you have not started getting into shape don’t leave it any later. The magazines with the headlines flat stomach in 2 week or a 6 pack in 6 days is lying to you…!

I have started my own summer regime, Monday was drop sets, Tuesday 10 rounds of hard boxing and today metabolic circuit training! If it wasn’t for the stiff and sore muscles I’d feeling fighting fit!!!

Our boot camps are about more than just weight loss and fitness this weekend was a big weekend for 12 of our campers!

On the Friday the 25^th a group of excited and slightly anxious Absolute Bootcamp Berkhamsted Bootcampers embarked on a 5 hour journey to North Wales.

For some of it was going to be an event of a lifetime, other a celebration of how far they have come in less than a year!

Joining last September some have gone from sedentary to mountain conqueror in just 9 short months!

We took 15 including me up and brought 15 back. I can’t say for sure that they are the same 15 people as many when through some changes as they conquered fatigue and fears.

We all arrived at the hotel at the bottom of mount Snowdon on Friday evening after a long 5 hour drive. Obviously there were only 2 things on people’s minds…

1)      A good meal

2)      Hitting the bar!

Some of us hit the bar harder than others but a good time was had by all.

By 2.30 most were in bed getting the necessary shut eye for the climb ahead… others (Amy) where still up trying to sober up a little before bed!

Here she is the following morning not looking ready to go????

I think she may have been still drunk as it was not long before she looked like this!

The alarm went off all too soon at 7 for a 7.30 breakfast, then we splint into 2 groups, a fast and a slower group.

The fast group had an extra job to do.

Drop the cars off on the other side of Snowdon and then get back and catch up the other group who would have about an hour head start.

I led the faster group and we quickly got our kit together and got off to the drop point. My dad (Tony in this photo) led the slower group who then signed out the hotel and started their climb up the mountain.

I don’t know if you like driving, but if you do I can recommend the Snowdon area, but make sure that you have someone who knows where they are going or a good satnav!

I thought we were trouble…. As I heard my co-pilot come out with the quote of the weekend…. She (Susan) was doing the map reading…

“I think we’re in trouble. There does not seem to be a wiggle for the wiggle that we are on!!!!…..

Possibly not what you want to hear when you are throwing your car through the lanes of Snowdonia we 3 other cars following you rely on you to not get lost!

All was good though the map just needed turning round so that all the wiggles matched up.

We quickly got back from the dropping off of the car and started our assent. The pace was brisk and I have to give congratulation to Angie White, Neil Williams, Susan Beddal and Gale Jackson as they kept the pace and stormed the mountain!

We caught the up with the other team at about 12.30.

It was then a hard climb to the top as we were climbing in 25+ degree heat without a cooling wind.

We regrouped before the top….

Amy had to regroup mentally as well as physically, hangover in full swing in 25 degree heat!!!!

The top was gained in 4 hours so we had celebratory nibbles, water and a photo. After we all used the new toilets and congratulating ourselves for getting there regardless of painful bits and medical conditions it was time to start back down.

We started in good sprit’s knowing lunch was going to be an hour or less away and that we were on our way home….  The happy campers soon learned that down is a lot harder than up. For those of you who have never climbed a mountain, the down part is harder for 2 reasons. 1) The strain on the leg muscle and knee joints is far greater and 2) uneven ground covered in lose pebbles becomes treacherous.

Although people knees and leg were getting tired after lunch everyone battled on. Strong breeze was cooling us and our bellies were full again. Amy’s hang over was subsiding and she was starting to look positively perky!

We got to the car park on the other side of Snowdon about 8 hours after the first group had left the hotel.

Time for a finishers photo a good congratulatory slap on the back!

Well done to everyone one who climbed, I really enjoyed myself. We’ll choose a different mountain next year for some more climbing and photo taking.

I have heard mention and interest for doing the 3 peaks challenge I’ll be asking those of you interested soon. But for the time being it’s time to look forward to the summer BBQ in July and then the next activity weekend in September.

Hope to see you all there,

Keith

P.S – You see Absolute Bootcamp Berkhamsted is not just about the exercise and the weight loss, we are also about the experience and friendship that can only be gained through experiencing things together.

I know it seem like they are just lucky but usually this is just not the case, they not lucky.

I can guarantee they have a different mindset to you. It’s all about what you tell yourself. Whatever your inner monologue is saying is what will happen. There is plenty of science and physiology that back this up.

There is an area of the brain called the central reticular activating system that stops you being overwhelmed by information. It helps you to focus on what’s important at any one time. If you keep negative thoughts/words in your mind body and soul you will get negative results as this system will help you to focus on the negative.

It’s a fact in life, bad things happen but it’s how you cope with it. You have a choice whenever something happens. You can either get stressed which will cause more worries and everything to seem worse or you can take it on the chin and think how you can overcome this and put a positive twist on it.

I have a question for you, what is your main goal for health and fitness?

The answer you have given to this question could tell me a lot about your mentality and your long term success rate.

If your answer was “I don’t want to be fat anymore and I am fed up of being tired”

This type of answer will not help you achieve your goal as you are keeping “being fat and tired” very much alive and in the front of your mind. Without you even realising it you are focusing on being fat and tired. We want you guys to move towards your goals not to move away from your current state.

So let ask the question again and reframe the answer, ‘What is your main goal for health and fitness?’

“I would like to have more energy and to feel sexy and comfortable in myself”

With this answer you are moving towards your goal and this is now what you are focusing on.

You now will have the start of a very powerful tool that will help you achieve your goals in life and to keep long term success.

I’m not saying that changing your whole mind set is easy, it is something that could be very emotional but with our 100% support and your awareness of it you can achieve it.

You need to really focus and concentrate on what YOU want, what will make you happy. Remember the unconscious mind needs to know what you are aiming for and you get what you concentrate on.

This is similar to a person walking through a field and always taking a particular route. After a number of times through the field, a path will begin to form. As the path forms, the person’s pace will become faster since he knows where to go and consequently the grass is worn down under one’s steps, eventually becoming a well trodden track. In the same manner, by having clients focus on what they want, a neuron path for the desired state and its associated behaviour will begin to form.

Each step is a step closer, so today I want you to focus on what you want and if a negative thought or feeling may cross your mind I want you to consciously reframe it into a positive though or sentence. Doing this consciously will then help the unconscious mind to build that pathway.

Each morning think of three positive things you would like to achieve today for example:

I would like to attend Bootcamp/personal training session today

I would like to go the whole day eating the best possible foods

I would like to spend quality time with my family

There are three positive actions that will improve my day.

Each night before you go to sleep I would like you to think about the day and only focus on the positive things that happened in your day.

Remember there is ALWAYS a positive!

Amy

But never fear, we’ll not leave you with out a training session. No excusses not to keep the new years resolution going.

Below are video work out for you to follow. You don’t need any equipment just the space of your front room or spare room.

The first film is a warm up, the second a leg work out to tone and sculpt those thighs, the third film is a core training workout to flattern the belly and then we have a cardio vascular film and finally a stretch.

The work out should take about 45 minutes and will burn fat from your frame.

Film 1 The warm up

Fast Tube by Casper

Film 2 The leg workout

Fast Tube by Casper

Film 3 Core training

Fast Tube by Casper

Film 4 Fat burning CV workout

Fast Tube by Casper

Film 5 Stretch it out

Fast Tube by Casper

Once you have completed the work out text me and let Clare and I know how it went!

Good luck,

Committed to your success

Keith, Clare and the Team

P.S. If you want to find out more about the fit body boot camp click here and get all the facts;

www.fitbodybootcamp.co.uk

As neither you nor I have been able to make it to boot camp over the last couple of days and this evening I lost my car in the snow on Warners end hill coming back from the town, Clare and I decided that there was no excuses for you not to work, out when we can tell you what to do and you can do it in your spare room or living room.

No excuses!

So here it is the Fit body “home” weight loss work out!

Fast Tube by Casper

Once you have completed the work out text Clare or I to let us know how it went. See you Wednesday at bootcamp I hope!

Keith

Many of you have been in even though you were sore. Well done and kudos to you!!!

Many wondered if you were doing the right thing and I’m sure that many more of you avoided coming training. Although it’s a little counter intuitive research has show that it is fine to train on stiff and sore muscles if they are suffering from D.O.M.S.

D.O.M.S stands for delayed onset muscle soreness and can last from 3 to 5 days. Many of you know this already!

The studies have shown 2 things;

1. Full metabolic recovery occurs within 48 hours even if still sore

2. Training on muscles suffering from DOMS does not affect their recovery time

As far as weight loss in concerned you want to be back in training the very next day so that you keep stoking up your metabolism and burn twice as much fat. If you do a training session and then take the next 5 day off you are never going to get the metabolism of its ass and doing its job. FAT BURNING!

The painful truth is the more you train the less you’re going to suffer in the long run as your body adjust and therefore gets used to it.

For myself I rate the quality of the training session on how stiff and sore I am. If I’m not it was not a good session and not as productive as it could have been.

What can you do to relieve the pain?

Many people have asked me what they can do to relieve the symptoms. The honest answer is that your body has to do it in its own time but you can help it to do its best job by doing the following;

1. Eat good quality foods

2. Make sure that your meals are based around good quality protein

3. Drink plenty of fresh clean water

4. Plenty or rest and good quality sleep

5. Have a hot/warm bath

6. Light massage of the area

These will either bring you light short term relief (bath or massage) or will help the repair process, therefore shortening it slightly.

See you at the next boot camp session

Committed to your success

Keith, Clare and the team

No messing here we go!

1. I going to attack main stream ‘health food’ such as microwave meals and low fat options and I can add to that many slimming shakes. These are often cleverly disguised junk foods. Yes they are fast and they are convenient but they are nutritionally deficient and are more likely to stimulate you storage mechanisms increasing the about of fat you store around your belly. Remember the diet and food industry only have one agenda…… MAXAMISED PROFITS!

2. I have said it before and I’ll say it again Ab exercises like crunches, sit-ups will not flatten you belly or give you that allusive six pack. They are more likely to give you a bad back and postural problems, so don’t make them the most important or only exercises that you do.

3. Boring repetitive cardio exercise routines will slow your progress, you could be doing a lot better for your weight loss goals and not have to commit the time that long runs or walk require. How would you like to double or triple your results and only train 30 to 40 mins. In fact the right 20 mins is more effective at burning fat then a 5k run if you do it right. The fit body boot camp or melt the fat Personal Training will give you the tools that you need and the results that you desire.

4. Get yourself on a health promoting nutrition programme such as the Personal nutrition course. Take the power back and learn how food reacts in your body rather than relying on the media. 

5. Low calorie diets! Do they work, well some do and some don’t but generally let’s say yes, you will lose weight on a low calorie diet. But is it the long term answer to your weight problem? I’m going to have to give you the painful truth and say……………………… No, No it’s not. I think that I going to do a whole blog post on this in the near future so I’ll save the low calorie rant for then. Many of our client’s have been on low calorie diets and yet they have still ended up at our door!

So what are the answers, by telling you that these thing don’t work I have probably created more question and therefore more problems.

We’ll I’m going to give you them tomorrow!

Committed to your Success

Keith

For my first post I thought that I would tell you a little about myself and the differences between Personal Trainers.

The Fitness Industry is a fantastic industry so many different approaches and so many avenues to go down. In this article I (Amy Black), am going to be talking about my journey to Absolute Training and the difference between Personal Trainers and Renter Friends. These are two completely different things as i will explain, as well as give you a little backround knowledge on myself.

As some of you may know i have just started working with Absolute Training, very different to what I was used to. Do I like it or prefer it? Well you’ll just have to wait and see……!!

I left school at 16 which did get frowned upon slightly by friends but of course I just wanted to earn money so I got a job as a leisure assistant at the Oxford Belfry hotel cleaning the gym and working on reception. I had a lot of fun to and also got qualified as an NVQ level 2 fitness instructor and that’s where the journey begins.

I left to work in Cannons now Nuffield Health. It was like a dream a massive gym and a 20 metre pool, classes, inductions, health assessments loads to do.

Well for the first few months.

Then it was standing on the gym floor for about seven hours a day cleaning. Have you ever walked into a gym and seen fitness instructers look like anywhere else would be better than where they are now?

Well that’s how i felt. I went on to my level 3 in advanced training to allow me to do Personal Training. I had been there a year and started to build a client base but things weren’t making any sense to me. On my course we got told machines are rubbish leisure centres aren’t doing the right job, trainers don’t train people properly. My head was just in a whirl wind I’m being told so many different things. I was looking around and was seeing clients achieve nothing although they had been with there trainer for two or three years.

Is that possible?

Trainers were taking their clients from machine to machine each week counting to 15. In my head I was thinking ‘surely this cant be my future job’ ‘Do I want to do this’. The answer was NO!!

Yet another Health assessment to do ‘GREAT’ but little did I know this was the health assessment that would change my future. I had the Clare that we all no and love.

 As two normal girls we got chatting about the industry and hormonal issues, from that health assessment I met Keith. I got to know him more when I attended the Personal Nutrition Course where I learnt heaps and felt so positive about life in general.

WOW food has a massive impact on our lives, something I’m sure I’ll be writing about in the future.

We got chatting and then the next thing i know I’m looking after his clients for a week while he is in America.

I have to admit there were times when I freaked and didn’t want to do it or felt I couldn’t but I just took a deep breath and got on with it this then led me to working with Keith and Clare, becoming part of the Absolute Training Team.

‘I’ll be ok I’ve done Personal Training before,’ or so i thought.

But in actual fact i had been a renter friend not really taking an interest in there posture or lifestyle I was there to talk to them have a laugh and watch them exercise.

Now I have people with injuries, stress issues, poor posture and muscle imbalances. Gone are the days where I ignored that, it has to be dealt with to get any results. AHHHHHHHHH it can be a complicated nightmare!

More days come where I thought I can’t do this im out of my depth. But by watching Keith listening and learning and discussion I have built on the solid foundation of my qualifications, so much information so fast!  

The early mornings are hard although I am getting there. We are working with real people not lycra gym bunnies, people with real worries and injuries. I have learnt that you need to start with the inside before the outside gets focused on.

Building real relationships with the clients working together to help build a better quality of life. That is why I can get quite tiered because you build a relationship with that person and you can go away still thinking of ways to help them. No client is ever forgotten about.

So The Differences between a Personal Trainer and a Renter Friend:

# Renter friends think its all about the exercise.

# Personal trainers build a relationship and coach’s people with all aspects that affect health.

# Your health and your results is the most important thing for a Personal Trainer

# Renter friends have lots of machines

# Personal Training is not ‘JUST A JOB’ we have a passion to making you feel fantastic inside and out.

The answer to which one do I prefer…..

Well a renter friend is a whole lot easier but who wants easy, so of course there is no doubt it is working with Absolute training being a Personal Trainer!!!

Hope to see you soon

Amy

It’s the sprinter, did you get it right?

On average a sprinter is between 5 and 6% body fat and the marathon runner is about 14%.

Now this gives you some clues as to the best way to train to reduce your body fat %, decreasing your weight and giving you a toned, strong body.

Knowing this also means that you don’t need to run/walk for mega long periods of time each day to get your desired body shape. Short sharp explosive work is far more effective as stripping the fat off you then long slow (boring) endurance based exercise. You could be in and out in 40 minutes having had the most effective work out of your life.

But how do you do this?

Well one way is to use a professional fitness team such as us the Absolute Training team and train one on one doing short 30/40 minutes cost effective workouts, saving you time and money but getting you the results that you want.

If one on one is too daunting or you have budgetary concerns, than your best bet is the Fit Body Bootcamp. You will still be working with qualified personal trainers and they will guide you through the exercises that are required to get you the figure that you need.

If you can’t get to either of these you need to ask you gym team about the correct exercises - exercises such as mat flipping/ running, single leg press, dead lift, clean and press etc. If this is not an option you could try the killer workout that we have videoed for you, which you can find featured just on the right hand side of this page.

Committed to your success

Keith

P.S well done to Bruce for doing the Killer work out the other evening! Awesome!