Not enough time in your day to spend an hour at the gym?

Looking for a short but effective workout that is going to push your body to its limits?

In this video George takes you through a 16-minute EMOM (Every Minute On the Minute) workout, which is great for conditioning. He has chosen four different exercises to be completed over four rounds in the time frame set. Each exercise needs to be completed within a minute, and the remainder of time in that minute is then used as a rest period.

EMOM is an intense form of HIIT that gets your heart pumping and body working at maximum effort with limited rest time.

Benefits of an EMOM workout include:

• A powerful workout in a short amount of time
• High calorie burner
• A productive structure
• Controlled rest period
• Builds up your muscle and strength endurance

Workout

• 1 Min – Wall balls 16 @ 9KG
• 2 Min – Rower 16 calories
• 3 Min – DB snatch 16 @ 22.5KG
• 4 Min – Thrusters BB 10 @ 50 KG
• Complete four times

I almost killed Mike Thurston - The HARDCORE Workout for You and Your Training Partner

"I like to train with someone who is more insane than me." said Mike Thurston, dripping with sweat and looking like he needed CPR.

We got together when I was in Ibiza, to train in disgusting 31 degrees celsius heat and filmed our workout for my latest YouTube video.

This is a perfect partner workout made much easier with support. You split the reps between you both so make sure you don't lose count!

Mike said this put more strain on his body than his usual weightlifting workouts and for good reason - it is HARDCORE.

Are you looking for an effective way to sustain your health goals?

Then meal prepping is for you.

What is meal prepping?

Meal prepping is the process of planning and preparing your food ahead of time.

Meal prepping doesn’t have to seem overwhelming and is made simple once you gain an understanding of what you are doing. It is a great way to stay on track, build physique and maximise performance. Other benefits include; saving you time, helping you to purchase only the necessary food you need (saving you money and minimising food waste) and assisting you to eat healthier.

Think you haven't got time to cook healthy food that's going to help you lose fat, build muscle and feel amazing?

Let George show you how to prep 3000 calories of delicious food for a whole day in under 20 minutes.

Let George show you how to;

• get a whopping 200g+ of protein into your daily diet
• stop eating "boring as sh*t food" (as George says)how to not get bored by what you eat
• his top tips for steak
• what he eats for performance
• and also laugh along as he forgets what a spatula is called! (He wouldn't - make it on Masterchef, put it that way!)

But I hate meal prepping - it takes ages!

Meal prepping doesn’t have to seem overwhelming and is made simple once you gain an understanding of what you are doing. It is a great way to stay on track, build physique and maximise performance. Other benefits include;

• saving you time
• keeping you organised
• helping you to purchase only the necessary food you need (saving you - money and minimising food waste)
• reducing decision fatigue so you don't have to rely on motivation assisting you to eat healthier

Of course you can treat yourself - let us show you how!

At Physique Academy we work on an 80/20 approach with nutrition which means 80% whole foods, 20% processed or a bit of a treat. We are not too strict with our meal plans because it is all about balance and being sustainable. This is proven to be beneficial through the results that our clients achieve.

Are you feeling tired and fatigued after a busy week of training, work, or just general everyday life stuff?

Have you not got much time to go to the gym but still want to get a workout in?

Here’s a 30-minute quick body weight workout to do, ideal for conditioning. This Cindy workout – with burpees and running added – can be done from any location, saving you that travel time to and from the gym.

What is a Cindy workout?

This consists of 5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups and 15 squats to be completed for as many rounds as possible (AMRAP) in a 20-minute time frame.

In this workout that George is talking through, he is going to push you that extra mile and add in some burpees and a short run to each round, taking the time frame up to 30 minutes.

Have you heard of the Glycemic Index (GI)?

It’s often cited in the media as an essential tool for picking carbohydrate sources and managing blood sugar.

You’ve likely seen that cereal box with LOW GI stamped on it like a badge of honour.

But what is it, and is it worth paying attention to?

While it can sound like a complicated term, simply put, the Glycemic Index is a value given to measure how fast a specific food increases blood sugar (glucose) levels.

Foods are categorised as low, medium or high glycemic, on a scale between 0-100. The lower the number, the slower your blood sugar will rise after eating it.

This week's weekly workout is taken from my recent YouTube video with Bodybuilder Joe Ballinger.

CLICK TO WACTH THE VIDEO 

I put him through his paces with a Crossfit-style landmine workout.

It's simple but very effective and amazing for the core. Anyone can do it, all you need is a barbell and weights. Ideally a barbell in an anchor point but if you can wedge it into the ground safely, that works too.

Inspired by my latest YouTube video, this is the way I like to train to take you from bodybuilding style, hypertrophy building muscle and strength then into conditioning.

With this pull workout, we're aiming to build muscle and sculpt the body, be functional but be jacked.

You can watch this workout in full on the YouTube link at the end of this email.

Pull Workout

T-Bar Row

• 2 x sets of 10 reps
• 1 x drop set of 30 reps
• On the drop set, lower the weight every 10 reps

Iso Single Arm Machine Row

• 2 x sets of 10 reps (each arm)
• 1 x set 30 drop set (each arm)
• On the drop set, lower the weight every 10 reps

Double Arm Machine Row

• 2 x sets of 10 reps
• 1 x drop set of 30 reps
• On the drop set, lower the weight every 10 reps

Pronated Dumbbell Rear Row

• Aiming for the rear delts
• 2 x sets of 15 reps
• 1 x dropset of 30 reps
• On the drop set, lower the weight every 15 reps

Alternative Dumbbell Curls

• 1 x set of 10 reps (each arm)
• 1 x set of 15 reps (each arm)
• 1 x set of 20 reps (each arm)

Spider Curls

• Using an EZ bar
• 2 x sets of 15 reps
• 1 x dropset of 30 reps
• On the drop set, lower the weight every 15 reps

Take a look at the workout in action with bodybuilder Joe Ballinger in my latest YouTube video.

Sore neck and back? Is your chest workout to blame?

When clients sign up to customised 1:1 online coaching with Physique Academy, we get them to fill out their initial medical screening and health questionnaires.

One thing comes up more and more and more;

• Neck ache
• Back ache
• Shoulder pain

This isn't an age thing either. We are seeing it in guys younger and younger. Even those who have been working out for years can't escape this problem.

As coaches, when we get our clients to complete their initial check-in and send us over those all-important starting photos, we are focusing a lot on your posture.

You already know how important protein is for muscle growth and recovery.

You likely consume it with every meal, and theres a good chance you have a cupboard full of protein supplements to ensure you hit your daily requirements.

But what about protein timing, does it matter? Is it more important to have protein pre or post workout?

Today we’re going to dive into the research, explore the importance of protein timing, and see what you should do for best results.

Are you still trapped in isolation exercise training cycles?

Hitting one “muscle group” at a time. Chasing muscular destruction from every possible angle, each and every week.

Training ultimately comes down to a series of choices, and the type of exercises you choose to focus on consistently will be reflected in your body composition and athletic capabilities.

How do you view the human body, simply as a collection of muscle groups that need to be hit separately? Or, as an integrated unit that should be trained and strengthened through full-body movements?

Dehydration is a drag on human performance.

You’ve likely felt this yourself. Increased fatigue, lower motivation, and a reduced exercise capacity to name a few.

Surprisingly, these effects occur at as little as 2% total bodyweight dehydration(1).

According to the lay press, 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated. A shocking statistic if you think about it, the result being, hundreds of millions of humans that are underperforming physically.

You’re probably aware of the importance of protein when it comes to body composition, muscle mass and optimal health.

And for a good reason, after all, it’s the foundation of the muscle tissue we work so hard to acquire and maintain.

It’s likely you’ve even taken steps to increase the amount of protein you consume. Protein shakes anyone?

What’s less understood is how much protein is optimal for building muscle, burning fat and improving recovery, and how this might vary based on your goals.

Caffeine, glorious caffeine.

Known for its mind and body stimulating effects, caffeine is the most widely consumed drug globally.

You might even be caffeinated as you read this.

Caffeine is found in many plants' leaves, seeds, and fruits, including tea leaves, cocoa beans, and coffee beans.

You already know that yoga can improve flexibility and strength, in fact, many people are surprised after their first class at just how physically demanding it can be.

But beyond the demanding poses and modern advertising of what’s become almost a fashionable endeavour, yoga is an ancient practice that’s been around for thousands of years, and it’s not for no reason. 

While Instagram reels would have you believe it’s all about extreme flexibility, there are a host of other reasons you might want to consider adding a yoga class or two into your weekly regime.

Keep reading if you want to discover some benefits of yoga that you may, and may not have considered.

Strength - the quality or state of being physically strong.

As a new trainee pursuing an improved physique, strength gains are a fortunate byproduct.

But as the beginner gains curve begins to flatern, without specific intention, many athletes find their strength plateaus.

Perhaps you got into training for aesthetics, but as your obsession builds, you’re looking for a more performance orientated pursuit.

Want to train specifically for strength?

Today we’re going to discuss a fundamental principle of strength training, and how you can integrate it into your routine.

Testosterone is a hormone most men have heard of. After all, isn’t it THE hormone that makes a man, a man?

Because of its well-known links to muscle mass and sex drive, testosterone drives a lot of worry in men.

As you might expect, the internet is aware of this and is littered with potential ways to increase testosterone, often using photos of enhanced athletes in perfect lighting to lead you down a sales funnel to the latest supplement.

While some supplements can help, there are much more powerful and reliable ways to increase testosterone levels (T levels) naturally.

Have you ever woken up late for work and accidentally skipped breakfast?

Turns out you’ve also practised intermittent fasting (IF).

In fact, you are intermittently fast every day whether you realise it or not.

Let’s say you finish eating your dinner at 8 pm and aren’t eating breakfast until 8 am, guess what, you’ve just fasted for 12 hours.

While calories, macros and meal plans focus on WHAT you should eat, intermittent fasting is the practice of WHEN you should eat.

Do you ever find yourself at the end of your training session and think to yourself, damn, I should probably stretch but… nah.

Perhaps your body often feels tight and stiff, but you ain’t no yogi, you want to be jacked, strong and ripped, you wouldn’t be seen dead in the stretching zone.

But if you’ve ever experienced a serious injury, you'll remember that dealing with that can be a long and frustrating process.

If you want to minimise the chance of that happening as much as you can, this is your reminder. Today we’re going to highlight the benefits of stretching for injury prevention, and discover what kind of practice you might want to include in your routine.

So why is it important?

T-minus what seems like a lifetime until our precious gyms re-open. There’s light at the end of the tunnel for fitness fanatics, and that light shines down on the 12th April.

With just under a month until we can walk into our beloved gyms, this is the perfect time to congratulate our clients, and those yet to join Physique Academy, who have tackled lockdown head on and improve their fitness lifestyle. Those who have adapting their training programmes, completing home workouts and embracing the great outdoors for their cardio.

Unfortunately, lockdown has been the cause of many people who once loved training, neglect their fitness routines after the novelty of the Strava app wore off and the lack of access to gym equipment deterred any training motivation.

As the re-opening of gyms draws closer, we know there will be hundreds of thousands of gym goers eager to get straight back to where they left off. We love the determination, but this will do more damage than good. Here are some tips on returning to the gym after lockdown.

1. Take it easy

With a long break from the gym, your body has adapted to the reduced physical stress on your muscles, nerves and connective tissues. This means going straight into your 1 rep max after a prolonged time away from the gym is likely to cause injury and will increase your time away from the gym. For your first couple of sessions, bring back some of the intensity, reduce the weight from what you used to be able to lift and focus on your form.

There are two different types of people. Those who act on their goals and strive towards what they want to achieve, they learn from their mistakes and take failure in their stride by understanding that failure is inevitable but look at this as a steppingstone on the road to success. There are also those who consider themselves as a victim, their constantly have a negative outlook on every aspect of what is happening around them, everything seems to be going wrong and they believe they have been dealt the wrong cards in life. Not only do they impact themselves through this way of thinking, but it can ultimately impact those around them to fall into this type of mindset.

Tackling Failure

When someone slips up or divert ‘off track’, do not consider this as failure. In fitness, it is not failure if you have gained a little bit of weight, it’s all about learning and using this as an experience because with fitness one weekend can be detrimental to someone’s fat loss results especially if you have a large appetite and enjoy your food. You could ruin time dedicated sticking to your training and nutrition plan but the moment you go off track is the pinnacle moment of whether you question yourself; are you going to act and get back into your routine? Or are you going to play what we call ‘the victim game’?

We see this multiple times. This is the moment when you step back and you think to yourself “what are we going to do here?”. A lot of the time, the victim game wins, especially if you have tried multiple training and nutrition programmes and have not seen the results you aim to achieve. It can be a constant battle with your goals, and it can be frustrating to keep fighting to achieve what you want to achieve. This isn’t just related to fitness, there are going to be things in life that will throw you off that track completely, but this is where you challenge your inner victim and come out stronger.

When training with Physique Academy, we can guarantee that there are going to be situations and barriers you are going to have to overcome but we nurture and enhance the positive mindset for you to wave goodbye to the ‘victim game’, the self-blame and negative thinking. We know that external factors have a factor on your fitness. Whether this is work, financial, family or friend related, these can lead to a downward spiral preventing you from staying on track with your training and nutrition. It’s vital that we work together to stop factors sabotaging your progress and continue to keep going, as this will not only continue to push you towards your goals, we guarantee this will help overturn any negative thinking you have with an alternative and fresh outlook at these external factors.
Do not worry if you have gone off track, or you have slipped up. This is not failure. Failure is letting this minor setback influence your future self and being unable to get back on that progress path you have worked so hard to get to. It has a lot to do with your emotions and how you deal with them and everyone has different ways of doing this. It may just take a minute for you to sit down, and simply tell yourself that you have slipped up and this is just temporary, or you talk to us here at Physique Academy and get the best advice on how to turn things around. We learn, overcome and adapt to these small hits, but we avoid playing the victim with positive headspace and realising what the real goals are.

If you have diverted away from your fitness goals and want to change your lifestyle and mindset then book a free consultation call with us here.

Sleep is vital to sports performance. There are numerous studies and countless professionals, some of whom are considered the best in their respected fields, that support the enhancement of physical and mental attributes associated with sleep.

Weight Control

Studies have shown that deprivation of sleep has a positive correlation with cravings calorie-dense, high fat foods. Those who gain the correct amount of sleep will find it much easier to make healthier nutritional choices as the hunger for junk food is much less than individuals who don’t. Getting yourself into a fixed sleep routine with enhance this even further as you will be consistently getting the ideal amount of sleep to curve those cravings.

Motivation

Lack of sleep is known to effect mood and emotional health. Motivation is key to anyone’s fitness journey. It’s a main source of positive mindset that pushes you to keep going to achieve your fitness goals and reduced sleep can ultimately impact this.

Recovery

Sleep facilitates the production of human growth hormones which repair damages muscles. A consistent sleeping regime in lined with a training schedule will allow for optimal performance and recovery. A full night’s sleep allows your body to recover from specific work-outs, maximising your preparedness for the following days session and reduces and potential injury problems.

Stamina

Waking up with heaps of energy is positively correlated with a good night’s sleep. This will enable to you take on your training schedule with peak energy levels. A lack of sleep will decrease your stamina and will negatively impact your training, in some cases rejecting any training at all. Increasing your stamina levels by being well rested will impact your fitness goals.

HIIT training stands for High-Intensity Interval Training. This form of training consists of a combination of short bursts of a verity of exercises, usually paired to target all areas of the body with limited rest periods. Pushing your body to go harder in a shorter period of time has a multitude of benefits compared to your conventional training session or a steady state workout.

Improve Fitness

HIIT is a form of cardiovascular training and implementing a HIIT workout into your training regime will improve your fitness and stamina levels.

Burn More Fat

The result of training at high intensity in a shorter period of time challenges your body to work harder. Burning fat requires oxygen and the more oxygen you intake, which is increased with a HIIT workout, the more fat your body burns. This form of training also impacts the recovering and repairing of fatigued muscles, resulting in burning more body fat and calories post workout than you would from a steady state workout. Pushing your body’s repair cycle means you will burn fat for 24-48 hours after interval training.

Retain Muscle

Studies have shown that in the 24 hours after a HIIT workout, the body produces more human growth hormone than a steady state workout, encouraging your body to build and reserve muscle mass whilst targeting the removal of fat.

Fit for all

HIIT workouts can be adapted to all kinds of fitness levels. This can be done by reducing the number of exercises within the workout or extending the rest period to allow for optimal performance. HIIT workouts are also extremely versatile compared to your standard training session. You can change and modify these types of workouts to remain motivated as you are ultimately not getting bored of a repetitive routine. 

Cutting back your calories can be detrimental to your fat loss results. We get it, you want to get fast results and achieve your results in the quickest time possible. A lot of the time, it’s really difficult to sustain a calorie intake that is pushing you both physically and mentally because when you cut back your calories your energy levels will decreased leaving you feeling lethargic, drained, fatigued, ‘hangry’ and will see an ugly side to yourself then when you were on a healthy and rigid diet tailored to your body. We’ve all been there; hunger can stir up emotions like anger and agitation. When you are on a fat loss journey and you cut your calories back too much too soon, these are the emotions you will feel frequently on a daily basis and is not sustainable.

These diets are not enjoyable and will end up hindering your quality of life for yourself and others around you. When you are trying to speed the process up too much and cut corners it never works. It’s rare that we see people go on a very strict low-calorie diet, get amazing results and then sustain it. Usually, the case is people cut back too much to speed up this process as a quick fix to look good but don’t consider the physical and mental implications. Essentially you cut back your calories and are left with no energy to train to your full capacity, you don’t enjoy the food included in your diet, you ruin relationships within your support system because of your mood and you are more likely to fall into an unhealthy regime. So, unless you are willing to completely suffer then you want to think about the long game and enjoy the process of training, eating the foods you enjoy and getting better results because of this.

This is journey for a reason. Take your time and trust the process and most of all enjoy bettering yourself, your lifestyle and your mindset. There is no such thing as a successful quick fix, it’s all about adopting those healthy habits and implementing a routine to allow you to enjoy the journey and relish in the results without suffering.

At Physique Academy, we guide every client on their diet and training to ensure they get optimum results whilst enjoying every second of the journey. We supply the tools every step of the way on the right time to alter specific parts of their training, whether this be cutting calories, adding certain food groups, increasing training to benefit each individual.

Book a FREE consultation call with us and let’s kick start your routine.