David @ DHPT

One of the key factors in reaching your health and fitness goals is motivation. In fact, it is probably the most important factors. Without it, you simply have no chance of sticking to your exercise and nutrition plans. As such, here are a couple of different ways to keep up your levels of enthusiasm when you feel them starting to wane. Get a training partner… Training by yourself is tough. Dragging yourself out of bed at 5:30am or finishing work at 6:00pm and then getting to the gym is difficult if the only person expecting you to show up is you. By having someone else who expects you to be there and will hold you accountable for not being there you are more likely to get your regular training sessions in. Especially on those days where you just don’t feel like hitting the gym – and trust me we all have them. On a personal note, I have also found it easier to push myself in terms of what I am capable of doing once I am in the gym if I have a training partner with me. There is a...

New Year’s resolutions are more often than not short-lived affairs. Often they barely make it past New Year ’s Eve let alone through January. Perhaps the most common of all New Year’s resolutions is to get fit. If you are wondering why you went to the gym twice and have not returned this year, the reason may be below. You went too hard too fast… A common issue when starting out on a fitness plan is to go at it like a bull at a gate. Often people getting back into exercise or starting regular exercise for the first time want to get into things as fast as possible. This would be fine, however, there is just one small problem – often they are unfit. This might seem like it’s stating the obvious but it needs to be remembered. You might walk into the gym on the 3 rd of January and see a guy squatting 150kg and think you want a piece of the action. What you need to remember is that the guy who squats a buck fifty has been squatting a long time to reach that number – you haven’t. S...

Let me say this straight up – I understand this is a controversial headline and that there will be some trainers/coaches who will just flat out disagree with it. That’s fine, everyone has their own personal philosophy. I am not trying to insult or disrespect anyone. These are my thoughts based on my philosophy of training.  I only ask that you read the below with an open mind. I also would like to say that if a 12-week weight loss challenge is what it takes to get someone off the couch and into exercising, then more power to you. Doing something is always better than doing nothing. In saying that, I would like to outline why I do not feel that these types of challenge fit with my philosophy. No end dates First and most importantly I do not like the subconscious impression given in a weight loss programme that has an end date. By doing this it gives people the impression that the way to lose weight is to “go hard” for a few weeks and then just go back to what they normally d...

With the Christmas and New Year holidays coming up it's a time when people often go away on vacation and forget their gym routines and fitness goals. While some may be fine with this, there are others who want to get in some workouts wherever they are no matter the location. As such, here are my top 4 exercises which can be done anywhere with no equipment. Push-ups This is a classic bodyweight exercise that is often one of the first introductions many people get to strength training. It can be done in any space big enough to lie down in which is a huge benefit when you are staying in small hotel rooms or tents. It also has the benefit of working a heap of muscle groups. Properly executed push-ups work the chest, triceps, and core. They can be made more difficult by raising the feet onto a box or chair or made easier by doing them from the knees. They are definitely worth including in your holiday workouts Squats Squats, in my opinion, are one of the best exercises you ca...

The offseason for many sports people is just that – time off. It is time to hang the boots (or shoes, or skates) up for the summer and take time to relax and unwind. Unless you are a professional athlete who trains year round, you will at some point have time off from training. This article is aimed at the non-professional yet serious athlete who wants to make some offseason improvements. I am also aiming this at team sport athletes, however, there will be take away points for most athletes no matter what the code so if you want to get a little better…read on. Take a fortnight off The first thing I tell my athletes once the season is over is to take 2 weeks or so and just do nothing. If they must do something, it should be absolutely nothing to do with the sport which they play. In my case, in terms of my sports coaching, this is football (or soccer for those that way inclined). The reason for this is that it gives them a mental break from the sport. This is important. If you ta...

In most team sports, speed kills…the opposition that is. I can’t think of one team field based sport where speed is not a game changer. If one team is fundamentally faster than another they already have a huge advantage. Many coaches of sporting teams want to develop faster athletes (myself included). There are some however who are not sure how to go about doing this.  As such, I thought I would shed some light on the issue and do my best to help anyone who would like to get the jump on the opposition (either athlete or coach). Of course, if you just like reading my writing then I’m OK with that too.  What is speed? Speed can be split into two broad categories – first, there is top speed (maximal velocity for those sports science geeks out there). This is essentially how fast you can run when in full flight, think Usain Bolt at about the 60-metre mark in a 100-metre race. This is important for track athletes but less so for team sport athletes. It's nice t...

As a personal and small group trainer, I often find myself repeating the same advice over and over again. While there are many other aspects of health and fitness that are frequently discussed with clients I find myself coming back to these 5 pieces of advice time and again. So if I had to choose my five most common pieces of advice, these would be them… 1. Have some patience... Losing weight takes time. Especially if you want to lose weight and keep it off. You can lose weight rapidly but this usually involves diets with extremely low (often dangerously low) calorie intake and excessive exercise. Whilst the weight may fall off in these programmes, often it comes back again because the low level of food intake and the high levels of exercise are not sustainable long-term.  A more sustainable way to approach weight loss is to look at a gradual reduction in weight over a longer period of time. By taking your time to lose the weight, it makes it more likely that you will keep...