David @ DHPT

One of the hardest things to deal with when trying to get fit is feeling like you aren't making progress.  This is often a product of looking at the scales and not seeing them move very much day-to-day.  There's more than one way to judge progress, however.  I thought I'd give you a few of my other favourites to use. The first one that comes to mind after the scales is a tape measure.  It seems obvious but it isn't one that many people use - maybe because it's easier for someone else to measure you than it is to measure yourself.   However, if you have someone who can measure you then I would advise you to take advantage of this.  It doesn't have to be a thousand different measurements, you could just use a couple if you wanted to.  The main ones that I recommend are hips, waist and chest.  But you can go into more detail and take neck, calf, bicep, thigh and even more measurements based on your goal and how much time you want to spend gettin...

One of the best ways to make progress towards your health or fitness goals is to exercise with regularity.  I often tell my clients that consistency is king when it comes to moving the needle on their performance and health.  If you're struggling to get into a regular training rhythm, here are some tips that may help you out. 1: Schedule your day This one seems pretty obvious but it's surprising how many people don't do it.  Even I've been guilty of this at times.  One way to ensure that life doesn't get in the way of your workouts is to put them into your calendar (both your personal calendar and your work one if appropriate).  By blocking out the time it will both remind you that you have an appointment with the treadmill or squat rack and it will also prevent other people from requesting meetings or planning other events during that time.   2: Get your work in early This one follows on nicely from the first point.  If you can, schedule your wor...

Usually, you read about people needing to care for the environment rather than the other way around.  But in this case, I don't mean the environment as in the ozone layer and the ocean, rather the environment you live in and the people around you - your home, work, school, friends, family members, colleagues and so on. When we are trying to get fit, lose weight, put on some lean muscle, or reach almost any goal related to our health and wellbeing our environment plays a huge role.  What you surround yourself with really matters.  Let's start with the people around you.  You may have heard motivational gurus say that you are the sum total of the five people you spend the most time with.  I am not sure that is entirely true, but who you hang around with does have an impact on your health and fitness. Are the people you hang out with most always hitting the gym, choosing healthy places to eat when you all go out to dinner, getting to bed at a reasonable hour, do yo...

The story of the tortoise and the hare, it's pretty much required reading for toddlers and young kids worldwide.  As we all know (if we can remember that far back), the tortoise wins the race due to its slow and steady pace and not giving up when things got tough.  While the hare essentially went hell for leather and blew out before getting to the finishing line. Does this sound familiar when it comes to your health and fitness?  Or the health and fitness of someone you know?  Massive push when summer rolls around and then back on the doughnuts and pies by February?  Great commitment to get into the suit or dress for a wedding and then let all of that good work go to waste after the photos have been taken? If it's sounding like you, don't stress.  It's a common issue facing people trying to reach fitness goals.  And if you reached your fitness goal and now hitting the gym every other day isn't something you particularly care about, cool, this blog isn'...

Health and fitness are often perceived, and even promoted as an all or nothing prospect.  We regularly get shown images of fitness models with captions underneath promoting a mindset of no pain no gain, or advising people that if they aren't all about the fitness lifestyle then they aren't going to get results. This is not true. You may not get results as quickly as other people, you may not get to the same level of fitness or body fat percentage as someone who is completely on point with their training and nutrition, but to say that if you aren't perfect all of the time you won't achieve anything is just incorrect. This blog post is about taking a different approach, a better approach.  No seriously, that's the approach - just try to do a little better.  Just a little bit. Instead of changing your usual breakfast of a bacon and egg pie and a coffee from the local bakery to a fruit salad with Greek yoghurt, or an egg-white omelette and a glass of celery juice, how a...

Last week I announced on my Facebook and Instagram pages that I was rebranding my personal and group fitness training business.  I thought, seeing as I have a bit of time on my hands at the moment with this lockdown, that I'd explain the reason why I decided to do this - in case anyone was interested. My new company branding 360 Degree Fitness was a company that I started from scratch.  I built it with the help and support of a great many people.  People who probably don't even know how much they supported me.  To those people - my clients, my suppliers, my friends and family, those random people who read my blog posts when I was writing terribly and wondered if I would ever find my own "voice" to write with, I want to say a huge thank you.  I truly appreciate every blog view, every time you liked a post on my social media accounts or share it with your friends and family.  You truly have no idea how much that has meant to me over the years.  ...

So, every day since this lockdown started (except when in the torrential rain) we have gone on a morning family walk.  It's something that I'd quite like to continue even after the lockdown ends as it's good quality family time and gets all of us out of the house as well.   We usually ask each other 4 questions on the walk as a sort of check-in to see how we're all doing.  First, what's one thing that makes you happy today? Second, what's one thing that makes you sad today? Third, what's one thing your worried/anxious about today? Fourthly, how can I help you today?   For us it works as a way to check in with each other, it's a time for us to feel free to talk about how we're feeling in a supportive way where the people we're with can use the time to see if there are ways to help each other.  But most of all it's a way we can air our feelings, frustrations, anxieties, and happiness and feel heard. Today on our walk, I had a proper anxie...

Right now every trainer, psychologist, life coach, herbalist and their uncle have been doing blogs, vlogs, articles, TV Interviews and short operatic musical dramas about how to make the best of this COVID-19 lockdown.  While I don't want to add to the noise out there, I figure if this helps one or two people get through it then it's worth writing. Being cooped up inside can be tough, even for introverts like me.  It brings a certain level of stress into life.  This is before we even get to the prospect of illness, job and financial insecurity, trying to manage kids and animals that are out of routine and stressed themselves, and trying to help other friends and family members who may not be able to manage in this situation as well as us. Here are some strategies that may help reduce the stress you could be feeling.  Firstly, breathe.  In particular, try square breathing.  It's a technique that I've used in the past when feeling anxious.  It's simp...

It's been a little while since I posted an update about my training for the Oxfam Trailwalk that myself and 3 mates are looking to complete in March, so I thought I should fill you in on my progress. Training has been going well recently.  There was a little period a few months ago where my motivation to train just wasn't there - I think it was a case of the walk being too far away to scare me into action!  But suddenly March doesn't seem too far off anymore, which has prompted me to get out there and get my kilometres done. Two big things that have made a difference for me are competition and permission. Let's talk about competition first.  I'm a competitive person by nature, anyone who's seen me on a football field will know this.  One thing our trailwalk team has done has been to institute a minimum step count for each week of 100,000 steps with a penalty for falling short.  While this only averages out to about 14,000 per day which isn't a huge am...

This week one of my training walks included an ascent of Mount Kaukau as part of the session for the day.   It wasn't a huge walk, especially compared to what we're going to be faced with on our Oxfam Trainwalk , but it was what I had planned to do for the day.  As far as how the walk went, I was very pleased with how I got through it.  The main reason I was happy was that some new things I incorporated into my mindset on this walk worked well for me.  The first little tactic was when the going got tough as I was climbing up the Johnsonville side of Mount Kaukau I simply started smiling.  Now, I'm sure this may have looked weird to anyone who saw it happen, but I don't really care about that, I just wanted to see what impact it might have on me mentally.  And I can report that it made things easier.  I struggled less with wanting to rest and definitely found it easier to keep moving up towards the summit. It makes sense really, studies have sho...

Over the past few months, I have started on a different training programme than I usually follow.  It has included a lot of walking. And I do mean a lot.  What is the reason behind this shift in focus?  Well, it is to help a good cause and challenge myself at the same time. Three of my college friends and I have decided that we will be doing the Oxfam Trailwalk in March 2020.  We have decided to call ourselves the NOBS - aka the Newlands Old Boys Society. For those of you who don't know anything about the Trailwalk, it is a 50km or 100km walk based in the Bay of Plenty with the purpose of raising funds for Oxfam to continue their valuable work.  We have decided that we will aim to complete the 100km walk.  This is a fairly big ask, especially as the 100km walk has to be completed over a maximum time of 36 hours.   I have never been an endurance athlete of any kind.  As a teenager, I was a fairly good sprinter, and I could stretch out t...

Something I see a lot on social media is people stating that they're going to get fit or lose some weight for summer.  This is a perfectly reasonable goal.  Except I often hear it in late November or early December. That might work out fine if you're living in the United States, but here in New Zealand, that time frame is cutting it pretty fine, especially if you want to lose a significant amount of weight/fat.  These things take time. It's generally considered a sustainable goal to reduce your weight by 500 grams per week.  This means that if you want to lose 5kg for summer, then it will take you about10 weeks.  Using this formula, if you start in November you won't have enough time. You also need to take into account that this is a best-case scenario.  You won't hit your nutrition plan and training program perfectly each week.  Some weeks will be better than others.  So this timeline is likely to be stretched out even more.  Especiall...

The last few months have been hectic for me.  We've bought our first home which has been stressful (albeit very satisfying).  This meant moving house which added to that stress.  I also picked up a bunch of new clients at the same time as well as renovating and setting up the gym at the new house.  Don't get me wrong, these are all good things.  It has just meant that has been a very busy few months for me. But with that busy period has also come a drop in my motivation to get my own training sessions done.  Finding the motivation to work out after working a 12-14 hour day where I am on my feet for most of it, encouraging other people to get fit sometimes leaves me lacking the enthusiasm required to motivate myself.  But one thing has propelled me off the couch and into the gym.  The thought that if I only trained when I felt good then I would never achieve the results that I'm after. Training when you're feeling motivated, fresh, physically a...

These days there's an overwhelming pressure to be results focussed.  It can relate to your job, to the sports team you follow, to your schoolwork or university study.  Whatever the situation, it seems that results are all that matters sometimes.  Well, I'm going to say something that may shock you, but when it comes to fitness, don't focus on your results. That's right, I said it.  Don't focus on the results. Instead, focus on the process.   If you focus on the outcome measures, you can easily get discouraged if the results you are expecting don't come as soon as you want them to.  However, if you focus on what you can control - the process, then you can identify the progress you are making, no matter how small.   Think about it, if your goal is to reduce your body fat and you work really hard for a couple of weeks, but you jump on the scales and there is no change how would you feel? What about if you adjusted your measur...

There are thousands of different training and nutrition programmes available in the fitness marketplace.  Dozens of gyms in each city around the world.  Hundreds of different personal and group fitness trainers in your city or town alone I would think.  So many people are understandably unsure when it comes to choosing one program, gym, nutrition or workout plan. I have trained a lot of clients over the years, and there is always one thing that has worked time and again.  It isn't sexy, it isn't fancy, it isn't complex.   It is consistency.   The clients who make the most gains in their health and fitness are the ones who turn up day after day, week after week, year after year.   These are the clients who succeed.  Yes, they have time off when recovering from injuries or illness.  Yes, they go away on holidays.  Yes, they have off days.  But the difference between them and the ones who don't get such great res...

All too often health and fitness are shown to us in films, TV, and articles as bulging muscles and toned waistlines.  We are led to believe that the goal of fitness is to be as aesthetically pleasing as possible to the opposite sex.  Sure, this can be a part of it depending on what your goals are, but there is so much more that is important about being physically fit.  Here are some of the reasons why you might want to think about getting a little healthier if you have let your fitness fall in your priority list over the years. 1: To keep up with your kids. Are you the parent who is always putting off joining in with your kids when they want to play rugby or netball down at the local park/school?  Is there always some pain which prevents you from taking them on walks through the bush or along the beach?  Is just the thought of going rockclimbing making your back hurt a little?  Getting a bit fitter and stronger may help with a few of these little niggle...

Over Easter weekend, I went on a little trip away.  Two school mates and I went on a fishing trip to the far north of the North Island.  It was great.  We did a lot of driving, camped a lot, fished a lot, did a lot of catching up, and made fun of each other a lot.  What guys tend to do when they catch up after a long period of not seeing each other much. More importantly for me though, it was great to just get away from the city.  For the most part, we were in areas where our mobile phone coverage was iffy at best.  It meant that there was no point in having our phones with us so, for the most part, they stayed in the vehicle.  And I enjoyed the change.  I heard someone say recently that we are so connected that we are disconnected these days, and I thought that that made a lot of sense. Another thing I enjoyed about the weekend was getting out into nature.  I make no secret of the fact that I am a city boy.  Born and raised in the s...

No, I'm not referring to the early 2000's Basement Jaxx hit song.  I'm talking about what your mind is telling you, or more accurately, what you are telling yourself. Our minds are powerful.  The things we have going on in our heads can drive us to achieve great things or drive us to terrible depression or anxiety attacks, and many things in between. One important fact that most people don't really take notice of is that we are the person we talk to most in this world.  Think about it, every thought, every memory, every consideration we make is essentially a conversation with ourselves.  If we tell ourselves that something is impossible, guess what, we usually believe that it is. Now I don't want to make this blog post some diatribe of positivity platitudes.  I understand that just believing you can do something isn't the only thing you need to make it happen.  But I believe that we need to pay more attention to how we talk to ourselves.   ...

That is a confronting question to ask, I know.  But I think it's an important one nonetheless.  As we get older there's a tendency to slow down a little.  We tend to exercise less, or certainly with less purpose.  We enjoy those sweet or fatty foods a little more often than we did previously.  We're less active in general, we sit more, move less, and carry more weight than we used to. These things are understandable, as we get into our 30s and 40s, and older, we have families, full-time jobs, busy lives.  Fitness often just isn't a priority.  This a common trend for many people, and it's understandable to some extent.  But here's one thing for you to consider if you find yourself in this position.  We all pay for our health in one way or another, it is just where and how we pay for it that is the variable. Some people pay earlier, up front.  They join a gym, keep walking, watch what they eat (mostly), hire trainers.  They r...