New Personal Training Video

If you’re been reading much of this site, you’ll know that, since turning 50, I have massively improved my own fitness.   It’s now my turn to help others increase their fitness levels which I do through one-to-one training or on-line package sessions.

Click here to see the video which introduces my personal training approach and some of my clients.  I hope you find it of interest and relevant to you – please drop me a line on Chris@FitnessOverFifty.co.uk if you’d like to discuss if I could be of help to you in this way. I can help you increase your fitness levels, reduce your fatness levels, perhaps some of both.  Adding years to your life, and life to your years, is what its all about – no matter what age you are!

Many thanks to Alex of www.AlexBlakemore.com for the filming and editing.

The final time on stage for me

I decided to retire from the fitness modelling contest stage this year – after four years – with my last contest being in September this year. I’ve had an exciting time, met some great people, and ended up with a few trophies.

Here’s a video showing how well (or how badly) I fared in that final stage visit.

http://bitly.com/ChrisPureElite2015

PS – Retirement is a reversible condition.

First gym vlog

I had a great day on Monday with Alex Blakemore of Notts TV.

 Alex is filming a documentary in a few weeks focussing on people taking up fitness late in their lives, and he asked me to appear – I guess I qualify!

He came to London as a pre-filming introduction, we shared a couple of pretty intense workouts (arms and legs) and a high-protein lunch. And being a trendy young chap, he videod the day and made a vlog from it (its what young people do, don’t you know!).

Take a look at he vlog (link below) – and once you’ve done that, see his other great videos using the link on the comments of this one:

Gym Review

Snapshot - 201I’m lucky to have tried gyms all around the world, in just about every continent (damn you, Antarctica) – and I was pleased to receive an invitation to visit Fitness First in Tottenham Court Road last week, just down the road from my usual London gym in fact.

This was my first visit to the gym and I was impressed by the huge range of facilities there – at 6pm, there were four exercise classes taking place simultaneously, all well-attended.  I don’t know many other UK gyms that have the amount of separate studio rooms that would be needed to support that number of activities.

And there is, as you’d expect, a large range of cardio machines – with multi-channel TV – and a large resistance training area with a good weights platform (for all of you who for some reason insist on dropping the bar in a deadlift rather than lowering under control) plus dozens of machines from calf raise to shoulder shrugs and everything in between.    For virtually every machine, there are multiple instances – I think I counted four leg extension machines, for example.

All good – and massively popular.  And that, perhaps, is a drawback – it was very crowded in the cardio, free weights and resistance training area.  A workout would need to be flexible if you didn’t ever want to wait for anything.  Supersetting could be a bit difficult, I expect.

A more personal drawback is that it doesn’t have high ceilings.  I know that may be seen as a weird comment, but I like training in an airy space – in London, think of Jubilee Gym in Covent Garden, and Fitness First’s own locations in St Pauls and Broadgate, both of which have partially double-height workout areas.  Further afield, two of my favourite gyms – Hercules Gym in Telford and Gold’s in Venice Beach – both have high warehouse-high rooflines, which contribute to the atmosphere (it for me, anyway).

There’s also a swimming pool, which I didn’t use, and looked pretty tempting if you like that in your gym.  I’ve discovered that putting a swimming pool in a Fitness First gym usually moves the membership category up a tier – which means those with Fitness First memberships of a more lowly calibre can’t use any of the facilities there – which is why this was my first visit.

In summary, Fitness First Tottenham Court Road is a great gym with more equipment and a bigger floor area than I’ve seen in any other London Fitness First.   And I guess the popularity was due to my 6pm visit time.  Go at some less popular hour, and I know you’ll have a great workout!  Checkout their website and you may just find a way to get a free one-day pass.

And thanks so much to Shaun and the team at Fitness First Tottenham Court Road for inviting me over for the visit.

My nutrition approach – yours too?

People often ask me about my nutrition, so here’s a typical day.  The pic is meals 1-3 of the six I’ll be having.

Meal 1 is the power breakfast of oats, nuts, seeds, berries, cinnamon, and whey shake with water – with some of the shake poured on the oats to turn them into a great chocolatey taste.

Breakfast pic 22 is mid morning Quest Bar in pumpkin pie flavour.

Meal 3 is grilled chicken breast chunks plus green beans and sweet potato – with some oil to keep the potato getting dry over the day.  This is prepared in advance and packed to take for a day away from home.

That lot comes to 1100 calories of my daily target of 2500 – and provides 100g of my daily target 250g  of protein, 95g of my daily target 250g of carbs, and 35g of my daily target 60g of fat.

Later meals will be:

Meal 4 – mid afternoon – cold roast chicken slices dunked into rhubarb yogurt (from M&S)

Meal 5 – post-workout – another whey shake plus a banana

Meal 6 – dinner with friends at a restaurant – I’ll probably go for steak with veg and share some red wine – this is a sociable occasion rather than diet-focussed, so I’ll make good choices but I’m not going to be a diet bore over dinner.

That 2500 daily calories is made up of 250g of each of protein and carbs and 60g of fat, which is a 40/40/20 percent split on macros.  That’s a ratio that has always worked well for me and I recommend it to all my fatness-down and fitness-up clients.  It’s also easy to calculate!

I hope that helps and answers the questions… but get in touch if you’ve any questions or comments.

Fitness talk on HayesFM – listen again…

I had the great pleasure of being invited to be a guest on the FuestelFIT programme on HayesFM 91.8 a couple of days ago.  HayesFM is West London’s leading community radio station, and this particular show, hosted by fitness personality Nicola Feustel, is the top weekly radio show specialising in fitness anywhere in London.

During the chat with Nicola, I talked both about my own fitness story, and also tips for others – both over and under 50 – during the half-hour I was on air.

If you missed the show, and you’d like to hear it, then you can listen again on
www.bitly.com/ChrisOnHayesFM

Fit for life!

I spend a lot of time doing my best to keep fit and make progress in the gym. But it isn’t all just for vanity (a bit maybe, but not all!).

What I do in and around the gym helps keep me fit for life, and the benefits accrue in many different ways. They add up to enjoyment in pretty much every aspect of my life.

I wrote an article on this, its been published by the nice folk at WatchFit – take a look on www.j.mp/ChrisA29

Quick Muscle Beach day trip…

Filmed last November, when the weather was lousy here, Dan Wynes and I decided to do a quick all-body-part workout together showing some of our favourite exercises for Arms, Back, Chest, Shoulders and Legs – and then crammed them all into a quick four minute video.

And to make you truly jealous of the winter weather, we hopped on a plane and did it outside at sunny Muscle Beach in Los Angeles.

If you want to see these fave exercises, or just like seeing other people doing the work in the sunshine (or even see if my music choice has improved), take a look – its the top left video on www.bitly.com/ChrisVideos

Ideas on building abs

You may have others say that ‘Abs are made in the kitchen – not in the gym’.

Well, that’s not really true. They are actually made in the gym – but they are indeed made visible by what you do in the kitchen. Work in the gym (or on the floor at home) will build those abs, but only getting down to below-average levels of bodyfat will make viewable.

The best abs exercise to show what you’ve built in the gym is without doubt: five sets daily of eating less rubbish!

But you do indeed have to build them – and I’ve written an article about what I’ve found to be the 6 best simple exercises for building the lower abs. On most people, that’s the bit south of the belly button, the lower slabs of your soon-to-be-visible six pack.

The article is in two parts, both on the great Watchfit website – take a look at the articles here:

Exercises 1-3

Exercises 4-6

I hope you find that helps you on the abs building part – now go plan that good nutrition to work on the making-visible part. There’s tips on my website about the nutrition approach you will need, but if you still want ideas, just drop me an email.

And have an ABSolutely fine time doing it, too!