After being knocked back from various football academies around the UK, George turned his attention to fitness as the age of 14. Gaining advice on both nutrition and training from a local Bodybuilding gym, George started competing at 17 years old and won the Mr United Kingdom under 18s in his first bodybuilding show in 2013. After which he went on to win 9 shows in just 2 years of competing. After taking a step back from competing, George found his passion for helping others achieve their fitness goals by sharing the expert advice he gained throughout his own journey. Coaching clients at all levels became his main goal and thus, Physique Academy was born.

When did you begin your fitness journey?

At 14 years old, I started weight training in my garage. My brother Harry and I worked out with limited weights; a bench press, rusty dumb bells, a few kettle bells and an EZ curl bar. We then joined the local gym in the space of a year as we needed more equipment, but I will always thank that garage gym for opening my eyes to fitness and fuelling my passion for it.

What is your greatest achievement in fitness?

I have two achievements I consider my greatest. Firstly, winning MR UK Body Building show at just 17 years old. Secondly, this is an unconventional achievement but overcoming a 4-year battle of injuries. Not only did this time period away from training to my full capacity took its tole on where I wanted to be physically, but also pushed my mental capability to the max. Fitness is my passion and injuries hindered this, but I managed to put my focus in helping others and getting back on track.

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How has investing in a fitness journey helped you in other areas of your life?

It has helped to build discipline, structure, relief stress, good habits and developed my mindset to push through difficult situations. These are they key elements I push on our clients, adopting a structured fitness routine will 100% help you in other areas of your life.

It’s time to reveal our latest Client of the Month. Carl Harley has been chosen for his incredible levels of dedication to his specific training and nutrition programme. His hard work is a true testament to the Physique Academy movement, improving his lifestyle, his mindset and his knowledge on training and nutrition. Since joining the academy, Carl’s confidence and self-belief have skyrocketed and his physical results speak for themself. Losing 5kg in 8 weeks, Carl built muscle and strength whilst loosing body fat. The plan is to keep on bringing body fat down until he is in a position to increase his calorie intake and alter his training programme.

When did you join the Physique Academy?

I started Physique Academy in March during lockdown

Why did you join Physique Academy?

I had let myself go over the last few years and needed a kick start to get into shape. From speaking to a friend, who has had incredible results since joining the Physique Academy, I requested a call with the team to see what we could do. It's been the best decision I've made.

What have you achieved both physically and personally since joining the academy?

Physically I've achieved a physique I didn’t think was possible in 8 weeks. There's still a long way to go but I couldn’t be happier with the physical changes to date. I've learnt a lot about myself in 8 weeks and the programme has pushed me on. It does take commitment and determination to achieve your targets and that’s something I was lacking in prior to starting this journey. In the short time I've been joined up to the Physique Academy I have become a much happier and determined person.

What is your ultimate fitness goal?

I don’t have a defined fitness goal. My short term aim was to improve my health and fitness, looking forward my aim is to continue to push my body to achieve the best outcome and be proud of my achievements.

Contrary to the title of this blog, no morning steps are not a miracle, but there are plenty of reasons both physically and mentally why you should boost yourself up and get active first thing in the morning with a step routine. Getting to the gym first thing in the morning for some may be impossible to due opening hours, commute, working hours and family commitments, but morning steps are the perfect alternative to maintaining your fitness and hold some fantastic health benefits.

Routine

Morning steps are a perfect way to kick start your daily routine. We’ve touched on the topic of why implementing a fitness routine is vital for success.

Boost Your Energy

Getting outdoors for your morning steps has proven to be a natural energy booster when compared to indoor walking. A study showed that adults who walked for 20 minutes outdoors experiences more vitality and energy than those who walked indoors.

Improve Mental Clarity

A morning walk has the ability to improve cognitive processing, meaning you can think more clearly and creatively throughout the day.

Mood Enhancer

Completing exercise as your first task of the day will certainly lift your mood. As previously mentioned, morning steps can improve mental clarity, this can also reduce stress levels and anxiety towards daily jobs. Walking has proven to help release endorphins and serotonin, especially in an outdoor environment. These are your body’s natural mood and self-esteem enhancers.

From working out in his garage with rusty weights from the age of 15, to becoming a Welsh BNBF Regional Bodybuilding Champion, Harry brings heaps of nutritional and training expertise to Physique Academy. Brother of George, the founder of the Physique Academy, competitiveness and drive to be the best runs in his veins as the two have gone to battle since their Dad set up a home gym when they were younger. Since adopting endurance training to his own lifestyle, Harry enhances the programme by introducing alternative training techniques, with nutrition and weight training as the foundations.

When did you begin your fitness journey?

Started at the age of 15, in my garage at home. My dad bought me and George some weights to start with. We had a bench, dumbbells, barbell, Ez bar – all super rusty!

What is your greatest achievement in fitness?

Winning the Welsh BNBF regional bodybuilding show in 2018

How has investing in a fitness journey helped you in other areas of your life?

It has helped in all aspects: Mindset, discipline, drive and determination to become the best version of myself. This comes across in my work life, family life and literally anything.

Jamie found his love for training at the age of 16 and in just two years’ time, placed top 3 in the Junior BNBF Manchester Bodybuilding competition which led to him being invited to the British finals that same year. His level of expertise on nutrition on training comes from his own experience and his levels of dedication come second to none.

When did you begin your fitness journey?

I began training at the age of 16 due to my lack of physical development needed to play football.

What is your greatest achievement in fitness?

My greatest achievement so far was placing top 3 in the Junior BNBF Manchester bodybuilding show, where I was invited to the British finals at the age of 18.

How has investing in a fitness journey helped you in other areas of your life?

I quickly realised that training meant so much more than physical appearance/attributes, training allowed my confidence to grow helping me with job interviews, education and my social life.

Physique Academy are proud to announce that we have teamed up with Supreme Nutrition as our official lifestyle supplements brand. This is huge for Physique Academy as we push to promote a healthier lifestyle choice, being recognised by the likes of Supreme Nutrition who provide the supplementary value to assist with achieving fitness goals takes it one step further.

The partnership brings together two brands with the same goal; design specific services to support true improvements in both your overall health and physical ability.

Supreme Nutrition have grown their products through vigorous testing with elite athletes, PT’s and nutritionists which has resulted in a range of high quality performing and tasting supplements. Supreme Nutrition provide a precise range high quality proteins to great tasting wellness products, perfect for those looking to implement, improve and enhance their fitness lifestyle.

At Physique Academy, we constantly push our clients to implement, perfect and continue a specific routine. An effective routine result in consistency, and consistency effectively gets results. We promote a sustainable routine not only for the physical and fitness benefits, but in many ways building the foundations of a specific routine can enhance other areas of your life.

As humans, we are creatures of habit and good habits in the form of a well-structured and organized routine promote health and wellbeing. A routine can be applied to all areas of your life; the time you wake up, making your bed, morning steps, ensuring you eat breakfast, training and eating at certain times, going to bed. All these elements carried out each day, every day will form your routine and when you factor a routine into your training and nutrition, this is where we see the best results.

Training and nutrition aside, as we mentioned earlier a well-structured and organised routine promotes both health and wellness:

Improved Stress Levels

A daily routine has the ability to eliminate stress levels and can lead to better mental health. Having no routine can cause anxiety, leaving people feeling they can’t get things done because of the lack of organisation.

Better Health

Becoming more organised through the help of a routine will ultimately lead to better health. Routines will enable you to free up more time ensuring you don’t miss that meal, you don’t skip that training session and you don’t slip into unhealthy habits. Healthy diets and training require advanced planning, by having no routine you are not planning ahead which can force last minute unhealthy nutrition decisions and lack of training.

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. 

We are in touching distance of stepping foot in the gyms once again. Like most of you, we are eager to get back into our weight-lifting regimes and training routines. To celebrate our excitement, Physique Academy are giving one of our lucky Instagram followers a year’s FREE gym membership at a gym of their choice. Not only that, we’re going to supply some Physique Academy merchandise to wear proudly as your bench press, dead -lift and squat throughout your gym membership.

Make sure you take a look at our previous blog ‘tips on returning to the gym’ to ensure you know everything you need to know come the 12^th April.

Competition Details

• Only entrants between (3rd April 00:00 – 11th April 23:59) will be valid
• Entrant must follow @physiqueacademy, like, comment and share the competition to be counted for entry
• Entrants must be 16+ years
• Competition winner will be chosen at random and will be announced on Physique Academy Instagram page
• Competition winner will be contacted via DM and email post announcement to arrange prize allocation

Prize details

• Prize is a yea’s gym membership paid for my Physique Academy
• Gym membership is capped at £250
• Winner will also receive 2 x Physique Academy t-shirt
• Physique Academy are not responsible for any post transaction relationships between competition winner and the chosen gym
• Membership payment will be discussed with competition winner (purchase membership on behalf of winner and sign up for gym of choice)

Physique Academy would like to introduce our client of the month feature. This allows us to shine a light on specific clients who have shown incredible levels of dedication to their nutrition and have taken their training to the next level. This month we would like to congratulate Tom Molly who’s a well-deserved recipient of some Physique Academy merchandise and a tub of Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard Whey Protein.

Tom has been with the academy for 3 months and has proved himself to be a consistent client devoted to achieving his fitness goals.

We spoke to our client of the month to find out a bit more about him and his time with Physique Academy

When did you join the academy?

I joined the academy back in December, 2 weeks before Christmas.

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.

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.

If you’re just starting on your weight loss journey and have decided to take it upon yourself to do a little bit of research, then we can guarantee you will have come across the term ‘Calorie Deficit’. To put it simply, a calorie deficit is the process of consuming less calories than your body burns over a period of time. The correlation of calories consumed and burned is directly linked to weight gain, weight maintenance and creating a calorie deficit enables weight loss.

In order to understand how many calories you burn a day, you can use the Harris-Benedict Formula which allows you to calculate how many calories you burn a day based on your age, weight and height. This is known as the basic metabolic rate (BMR) calculation:

• For men: 66 + (6.2 x weight) + (12.7 x height) – (6.76 x age)
• For women: 655.1 + (4.35 x weight) + (4.7 x height) – (4.7 x age)

The results of the BMR calculation are then used to multiply against the average daily activity of the person. Points are awarded based on how active a person is:

• 1.2 points for a person who does little to no exercise
• 1.37 points for a slightly active person who performs moderate exercise 3-5 days a week
• 1.55 points for a moderately active person who performs moderate exercise 3–5 days a wee
• 1.725 points for a very active person who exercises hard 6–7 days a week
• 1.9 points for an extra active person who either has a physically demanding job or has a particularly challenging exercise routine

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.