Hobart Personal Trainer | Hobart Fat Loss | Hobart Personal Training

At times you can stumble upon ideas and information in an unusual manner.

We all know that boxing workouts are great for your fitness and great for burning fat because of the high intensity and full body nature of the workout. Basically anytime you do a full body, interval based workout, you are going to get fit and lean in a hurry!

Now as you might know, Racheal managed to injure her knee last week and has been unable to do much lower body exercise during that time. But Rach loves her boxing and she was keen to make a comeback even if it meant that she would only be able to really use her arms.

Now when I teach people how to box, I really do emphasize the importance of working from the ground up with each and every punch. You have to be strong from the floor and deliver all of the power from the legs, through the hips and core and then finally deliver the punch with your fist. If you don’t do this you will run into a number of problems.

First of all your arms have small muscles when you compare them to your core and leg muscles. If you let your arms do all of the work they are going to fatigue very quickly. This is a problem because once your arms are gone the whole intensity of your workout is going to suffer and you will struggle to get your heart rate up and then miss out on most of the benefits of boxing!

Secondly, if you aren’t using your legs and core to generate the power behind each punch you will severely limit your output from both your heart rate and therefore your ability to burn calories and boost your metabolism.

So Rach certainly found out the hard way on Thursday that if you don’t use your legs, your arms are going to cop it. But please don’t take this as me saying that if you want to tone your arms and get a great upper body workout to use your legs less. In fact the opposite is true.

By using your lower body more you will be able to go harder for longer and get a better full body workout. This doesn’t mean that your arms are working less it is just that you are working smarter and by the end of the session your whole body (including your arms) will be done!

Box this way and you will get all of the benefits that go with intense boxing workouts. Fitness, fat loss, tight stomach and toned arms.

Part One – Correct Setup

Part Two – Six Basic Punches

Part Three – Footwork Basics

Part four in the series, lets have a look at how to hold and use the focus pads or focus mitts. The key with focus pads is to be confident and strong, so that you are giving your partner a solid target to hit. While you will be getting a bit of a rest when you are on the pads, it is more of an active recovery and your heart rate won’t completely recover.

Watch the video then have a practice or leave some comments below.

This morning I did something that I have been putting off for at least five years.

It is something I have truly been fearful of.

Fearful to the point that when I thought about it I would feel nauseous, sweaty and my heart rate would rise.

When I found out I would be doing it, my eyes welled up because of the built up emotion I carried.

I had to do it, now was the time. I wasn’t going to be putting it off any longer.

Today, if you didn’t know is my 30th birthday. And kindly enough, my wife Racheal organised for me to go skydiving (that is, jump out of a perfectly good plane) from 10 000 feet.

This has been my number one fear since at least my 25th birthday when I said bravely that I would do it. Instead I packed my bags and moved to Queensland. Talk about confronting fears head on!! Then I have considered doing it every year since, as well as in most scenic cities we have visited, and never followed through.

The result? It gets worse. The built up anticipation and fear multiplies. What was once (possibly) completely reasonable now seems completely impossible.

(I remember lying on the couch when we lived in Broadbeach, eye closed, visualising flying up in the plane, opening the door and ‘jumping’ out. I fell off the couch, my heart was racing, and telling myself I couldn’t do it.)

Now having done it, I feel,… well I don’t really know how I feel.

I do feel a bit numb, I feel that I have a different perspective on life (and Hobart! what a view!!) but it’s hard to put how I feel into words.

What I do know however, is that I can now do anything I want to and that the only thing holding me back is myself and a negative outlook or mindset.

Which ever way you look at it, if you tell yourself that you can or can’t do something, you are going to be right.

So what is holding you back from achieving your goals? Chances are that you might have put some of your own obstacles in the way whether they be physical or mental.

Work on finding solutions and ways to overcome these obstacles instead of focusing on the problem.

Make a change to something in your control that will bring you closer to your goal instead of further away (and instead of making the obstacle appear bigger).

Utilise the information you have at your disposal and take action! Knowledge isn’t power unless you do something with it.

Today I want you to have a look at yourself in the mirror, ask yourself “What is my biggest fear? What is holding me back?”

Then openly ond honestly answer the question. Tell yourself what you are going to do to overcome this fear or obstacle.

Believe it then do it.

The rewards are amazing and cannot be put into words.

My experience today backs this up 100% and I want everyone to feel the same!

Have a great day.

Following on from the success of the post 8 More Ways To Instantly Improve Your Eating, here is the workout version. Too often we get caught up focusing on minutia instead of getting the basics right. If we take the back basics approach, more often that no there is a lot to gain. Enough rambling, lets get to it.

1. Stand Up. If you can do an exercise standing then….do it standing. We sit down way too much these days so the last thing you want to be doing when you are trying to improve your health, fitness and physique is to be exacerbating an existing problem.
2. Avoid Machines. The most advanced machine known to man is, well, man itself. (Perhaps I should have said the human, but I didn’t!) Body weight exercises, free weights and other forms of resistance such as kettlebells, sand bags, resistance bands will get the job done. The only ‘machine’ worth using is an adjustable cable. If you don’t know how to exercise safely and effectively without machines get someone (ideally me…or at least someone qualified to do so) to show you what to do.
3. Work the whole body. Yes guys, there are muscles on the back of your body. A full body workout isn’t just chest, arms and abs! Your strength in general will increase if you can squat or deadlift more weight. Strengthen your butt and hammies and you will be able to run better and fill out your jeans at the back. Increase the weight you can row, or the number of chin ups you can do and all of a sudden your bench press increases. Get to it and work the muscles you can’t see in the mirror.
4. Go unilateral to save your back. Huh? Uni what? Think single leg exercises. Step ups, lunge variations and single leg deadlifts. These will work your legs just as much as the bilateral versions (two legs) but because you aren’t using as much weight you will decrease the amount of stress on your spine.
5. Get up (and down). One of the best ways to get your heart rate up is to get your body moving vertically. Think about it this way. Star climbing, jumping, hill running. All of that is seriously hard work. If you want to keep the intensity up in your workouts, either throw in some sort of jumping exercise (jumping, skipping, burpees) or alternate between floor exercises and standing exercises. This little trick will send your body into a calorie burning frenzy!
6. Weights first, cardio last. If you are doing any sort of cardio, metabolic or conditioning work make sure you leave it to the end. The reason I suggest this is two fold. First of all you want to be lifting the maximum weight possible for all of your exercises. If you are fatigued from intervals, you won’t be doing this. Secondly, if you are fatigued , physically and mentally (and you should be after some serious conditioning work) then the chance of injury will be higher. Follow this formula. Warm up, weights, intervals -> go home.
7. Change it up. Whatever you are doing, even the most perfect workout, will have a shelf life. I’d suggest that somewhere between 3 and 6 weeks is the most you should follow the same program for. Even if you are making physical progress you will find that your potential progress might be limited when you get bored with a program. If you really like the program, mix it up, do something different for 3 weeks and come back to it.
8. Have goals. Last but definitely not least, goals will make or break your success. Have at least one if not many. A goal might be just to workout 3 times per week. It may be to deadlift 210kgs for 5 reps (that’s one of mine right now), or it might be to train consistently for 4 weeks. Whatever the goal is doesn’t matter. If you don’t have one, why are you training?

I could keep going on but I’m sure you’ve had enough listnening to me! Lets have at it. What is your number 1 method to instantly improve your workout?