Hi everyone. It probably seems a little late to be talking about New Year’s resolutions considering it’s almost February. The reason I am only getting round to it now is that I have been super busy working on Best Fitness PLR so unfortunately the time I have to spend on this website is limited.

Over the next few months this trend is probably going to continue as the majority of my time will be focused on building up Best Fitness PLR. You’ll still be getting the same amount of content on Free Fitness Tips but less content will be written by me and more content will be in the form of guest posts. I understand this may be frustrating to regular readers of Free Fitness Tips but rest assured I do plan to return to writing posts for Free Fitness Tips more regularly once Best Fitness PLR is at a level that requires less input from me.

Anyway, the subject of today’s post is my fitness resolutions for 2012. For the last few years I have been setting myself new fitness resolutions and then reviewing how I performed against these resolutions the following year. This originally started out focussing purely on fitness themed resolutions but last year I expanded it to include online resolutions. Going forward I want to make these online resolutions part of this article series because working online has become a really big part of my life. By including them you get a better understanding of my overall goals and what I want to achieve each year.

REVIEW OF MY FITNESS RESOLUTIONS FOR 2011

2011 was a mixed bag for me. I achieved most of my resolutions at some point during the year but it was a bit of a rollercoaster ride…

Resolution 1 – To Hit Over 30,000 Visitors Per Month:

At the end of September 2011 I hit a new traffic record with Free Fitness Tips and received 31,930 unique visitors for the month. Heading in to October 2011 I was on track for another record month. By 13th October I had already received 15,554 unique visitors and my traffic was 15% up month on month.

Unfortunately, on 14th October Google did a pretty major update to their algorithm which hit a lot of sites including mine. Since that update I have received less than 20,000 unique visitors to Free Fitness Tips each month. This month looks like it’s going to be the first one since September where I finally break the 20,000 unique visitors mark.

Whilst I did achieve my goal of 30,000 visitors in a month, the idea behind this goal was to have something to build on so I’m not counting it as a success.

Resolution 2 – To Post New Content Every 3 Days:

In general I was pretty successful with this goal. I did have a few patches during the year where I became too busy and couldn’t commit to posting 3 times a week. However, for the majority of the year I managed to keep up with this posting schedule.

Resolution 3 – To Complete My Nutrient Articles:

Unfortunately, I wasn’t successful with this goal. I did manage to complete a lot of nutrient articles and now have quite an extensive collection of articles on the macronutrients, the minerals, the vitamins and the phytonutrients. However, there are still many more articles to be added before I box off the topic of nutrients completely.

Resolution 4 – To Provide More Value To My Newsletter Subscribers:

I was a bit inconsistent with this goal over the year. Whilst I did provide newsletter subscribers with more value over the year, some months were a lot better than others. In my best months I sent out weekly updates along with the monthly newsletter. However, in my worst months I failed to send out even the monthly newsletter so there is still a lot of room for improvement here.

Resolution 5 – To Improve My Current Fitness Levels:

This was another goal where I was a bit hit and miss. Some months I was really good with my training and had a consistent routine going. Other months I was so busy with managing my websites that I barely got to the gym at all. I’d say overall my fitness suffered a bit because of this inconsistency.

2011 Summary:

As I said earlier in this article, 2011 was a very mixed bag for me. I achieved 4 of my 5 goals at some point during the year but I was very inconsistent. Whilst certain things were outside my control (for example, there was nothing I could do about the change in the Google algorithm) I could have done better in other areas by being more organised (for example, if I had scheduled in time to write my emails each week then I could have provided newsletter subscribers with regular weekly emails for the full year).

MY FITNESS & ONLINE RESOLUTIONS FOR 2012

Consistency was the main thing that let me down in 2011. In 2012 I am going to be focusing on this when setting my resolutions and hopefully this will make 2012 my best year yet. Below are my 2012 fitness & online resolutions…

Resolution 1 – To Add A Minimum Of 4 New PLR Products To Best Fitness PLR Each Month

At the moment Best Fitness PLR is still in the very early stages so I am writing product after product and smashing this target of 4 PLR products per month. However, once it has become more established and I step back slightly I still want to make sure that it is providing value to new and existing customers. The best way to do this is by creating a minimum of 4 new PLR products each month.

Resolution 2 – To Continue Posting A Minimum Of 1 New Post Every 3 Days To Free Fitness Tips:

I was pretty happy to achieve this goal in 2011 and it’s something I want to continue doing in 2012. Hopefully, towards the end of the year I can provide you with even more content than this but as a bare minimum I want to be posting a new post every 3 days.

Resolution 3 – To Post To Each Of My Social Profiles At Least Once Every 2 Days:

Social networking sites are becoming increasingly popular and many people are now using them as their main source of news and information. For example, look how many stories broke on Twitter in 2011 before they got picked up by the mainstream media. In 2012 I can only see them growing in importance. Whilst I currently have accounts on Facebook, Google + and Twitter, I don’t use them nearly as much as I should be doing. Therefore, in 2012 I want to make sure that I am posting to each of them at least once every 2 days.

Resolution 4 – To Complete My Nutrient Articles For Free Fitness Tips:

When I set this as a resolution last year I probably bit off a little more than I could chew. Although I didn’t complete these nutrient articles, I made some really good progress. This year I’m pretty confident I can get them boxed off so that will be 1 of my targets for 2012.

Resolution 5 – To Go To The Gym At Least 3 Times A Week:

As I said above, my training in 2011 was a bit hit and miss, particularly towards the back end of the year when I launched Best Fitness PLR. So to sort myself out I need to get back to basics and start going to the gym at least 3 times a week every week – no exceptions. My intention is to go a lot more than this and really ramp up my fitness training. However, even when I am really busy in other areas of my life I want to make sure that as a bare minimum I am hitting the gym 3 times per week.

SUMMARY

So there you have it. The above fitness & online resolutions should keep me consistent in 2012 and help me avoid the problems that prevented me from fully achieving my 2011 goals. In summary you can expect the same level of consistent posting, lots more social stuff, lots more products at Best Fitness PLR and hopefully I will finally box off those nutrient articles ;).

Now I want to hear from you guys. Have you made any resolutions for 2012? How successful were you with your resolutions in 2011? Leave a comment below and let me know.

Hello everyone.  Today’s article is a guest post from Stefan Edlund.  On his website Stefan offers visitors a free report on How To Lose Weight Fast.

—–

You have decided that you are going to lose weight, you have found a great training program and diet to follow, and you feel motivated and ready. So the first week goes fine and you follow your program.

Then the next week comes along, and you maybe start to miss a few of your exercise routines, and start to cheat on your diet. And then the third week comes, and you have lost all your motivation for training and eating right, and you go back to your old habits.
Maybe you lost your motivation because you got slow result, or you just felt that this training or diet isn’t for me, or for some other reason.

This right here is a very common scenario when people are trying to lose weight.

One of the key things to losing weight is motivation. Without the right motivation you can have the best training in the world and still fail because you will not follow through with your weight loss. You need to learn how to stay motivated even when it goes slow if you want to succeed and this can be achieved in 6 simple steps:
1. Create a vision of what you want to look like
2. Set goals
3. Get support
4. Make your training a routine
5. Find the right training/diet for you
6. Reward yourself

1. Create a vision of what you want to look like

You need to create a vision of yourself what you want to look like, so you know what you are working towards. You can draw a picture of the body you want, or you can go online and find a picture of someone with a great body that you want.  And print it out and stick it somewhere where you can see it daily and think about it.

2. Set goals

You have probably heard this one before, but it’s also crucial to your motivation. You need to set some long term goals every few month or so, but make sure they are realistic. But the most important part of setting goals is setting small goals each week that you can achieve. Cause if you set a goal and you complete it you will feel great, and want to go on.

3. Get support

It’s hard to do this journey on your own, try to get friends and family to support you, and try to join forums and write and talk to people there in the same position as yourself.

4. Make your training a routine

What I mean by this is that you should be specific about when you train, you always want to train on the same days on the same time. And make sure you follow that time, because it will become a routine and it will be much easier to do it.

5. Find the right training/diet for you

There are a lot of programs out there and a lot of them are just rubbish. You need to find something that fits you, some people wants to go on a starvation diet and get it done fast (but that will not work most of the time) and some people want long term programs. Go on forums and find out more about programs that can fit for you.

6. Reward yourself

This is kind of connected to the goal part. Because when you complete a goal you want to reward yourself, and I don’t mean reward yourself with food or a day of training. I mean maybe go to a spa, get a massage or spend a day in bed watching movies.

Author Resource Box:
Stefan Edlund
Owner of howtolosequickweight.com

Sign up to my newsletter to receive my free weight lose report ($19 value) to learn about super foods that will make you lose weight just by eating them, how to eat restaurant food and still lose weight and more.

*****

Want to ensure that you maintain your weight loss motivation?  Then give Goals On Track a try. Goals On Track is a unique piece of goal tracking software that allows you to set and visualise goals, manage them daily in a time efficient way and measure your progress:

Hello everyone.  Today’s guest post comes from Adana Lima who writes for Dumbbells For Sale – a company which offers a wide range of high quality, adjustable dumbbells.

—–

As you move along with your workout and diet plan, there’s no question that there are going to be times when you do slightly struggle along.  Whether it’s because time is something you just don’t have and getting to the gym seems next to impossible or you’re fighting mad cravings that just won’t quit, it’s normal to expect some turbulence within your program as it is a normal and natural occurrence that will come up.

How you deal with this turbulence though is going to be what determines whether or not you succeed with your plan, so by thinking up some solutions to overcome any obstacles you face right from the start, you will stand a much better chance of being able to combat these issues and stay on track.

Let’s have a quick look at what you should know.

Fight Back Against Time Shortages

The very first obstacle that you very well will likely run into is that time shortage.  You have a ‘to-do’ list that stretches for miles and finding time to get to the gym seems like mission impossible.

So what can you do? How do you fight back against this problem and be sure you stay the course?

The best solution here is to start breaking your workout up into more manageable chunks.  For instance, rather than trying to get to the gym for a full 45 minutes to do your cardio workout and ab training, break that up into three ten minute increments.  Most people will find it much easier to get in a ten minute bout of activity than a full thirty minutes so this may make it that much more manageable.

With your weights workout, rather than going to the gym for the full blown workout, try creating a circuit training program that only takes fifteen minutes to perform.

Move from one exercise to the next as fast as possible, being sure to push yourself as hard as you can and you’ll quickly burn off calories and see strength gains.

Fight Back Against Food Temptations

If food temptations have you down, one smart move here is to make sure that you do have cheat meals scheduled into your program.

Those who attempt to avoid the foods they crave 100% of the time are really going to deal with food cravings but when you do have a cheat meal scheduled, you know it’s only so long before you do get to indulge.
This can make it much easier to deal with the diet and manage those food temptations.

Fight Back Against Fatigue

If fatigue is something that’s keeping you from your workouts or making it difficult to continue to push onwards, make sure you’re having a good look over your program plan.

Do you have enough total rest worked into your workout program? Are you eating enough calories to provide energy?  Are you sleeping well?

All of these will work together to help enhance energy levels and if you’re falling short on any of them, could very well influence how you feel on a day to day basis.

There’s no question that you may be slightly more tired while on a diet as you are taking in less food, but at no point should fatigue be intolerable.

Fight Back Against Others Who Try And Take You Away From Your Workouts

Finally, the last thing that may cause problems for you with regards to sticking with your workout and diet plan is having others who are trying to distract you.  When this is the case, try and invite them along to your workout sessions.  Sometimes this works incredibly well since then they feel more included in your life plus they’ll be making healthier changes right along with you.

If the person is not willing to get active with you, then explain to them why working out regularly is important to you and hopefully that will allow them to see that it’s something they need to try and understand.

Most people will be supportive of your efforts, but in time, you might right into a few individuals who just don’t get why you’re devoting so much time to these lifestyle changes.

So there you have some solutions to the most common obstacles that come up when following a weight loss plan.  Be sure that you think of any obstacles that may come up in your life as well and come up with a proactive plan of action to beat them.

Adana is a stay at home mom who loves hitting the gym & writes for a company offering high quality adjustable dumbbells for sale.

“A New Year’s resolution is something that goes in one Year and out the other.” – Anonymous

With the New Year just getting started you have probably set yourself some fitness resolutions.  Perhaps this is the year where you want to sculpt those those six pack abs?  Maybe this is the year you are finally going to kick your smoking habit?  Whilst setting fitness resolutions is a fantastic idea, the facts are that despite the best intentions most New Year’s resolutions will fail.  In this study of 3,000 people, only 12% were successful with their New Year’s resolutions.  Today I am going to help you fall within that successful 12% with 5 simple steps that will make your fitness resolutions stick this year.

1) SET REALISTIC RESOLUTIONS:- Having a set of washboard abs, cutting out all unnatural foods from your diet and jogging 10 miles a day may sounds great in your head but if you currently eat what you want and your weekly exercise program involves a leisurely stroll to the local shops then it is not going to happen.  The first step to success is setting fitness resolutions that are realistic based on your current diet and activity levels.  If you are a gym fanatic who has a pretty solid diet plan then the above resolutions may be realistic for you.  However, if you are a couch potato that is just getting started something like “to jog 10 miles a week” or “to attend the gym 3 times a week” is much more realistic.  So before you even set your fitness resolutions sit down and think about what you do now and what you can realistically improve on during the year ahead.  Small, realistic fitness resolutions are much more likely to succeed than large, unrealistic goals.

2) LIMIT YOUR RESOLUTIONS:- There are probably many areas of your fitness that you would like to improve this year.  Maybe you want to eat more healthy foods?  Perhaps you want to reduce your body fat levels?  You might want to improve your stamina or increase your strength?  Whilst you may think it is realistic to make 10 or 20 small, positive lifestyle changes in most cases you will be spreading yourself too thin.  Focussing on 1 or 2 goals is manageable but focussing on 10 or 20 is almost impossible.  If you have 20 fitness resolutions, write them down, prioritise them and then pick the top 1 or 2.  Focussing your full attention on 1 or 2 important goals is much more likely to be successful than spreading your attentions across 20 different goals.

3) CREATE A DETAILED ACTION PLAN:- Saying that you want a set of six pack abs by the end of the year is fine but how are you going to do achieve it?  What are you going to eat?  How often are you going to exercise?  What types of exercise are you going to do?  If your fitness resolution is just a throwaway line then you are setting yourself up for failure.  Once you have your realistic fitness resolutions nailed down, the next step is to create a detailed action plan for the full year.  This is a big job but one that needs to be done if you want to succeed.  Start by writing down what you want to achieve by the end of each month.  Then write down what you need to do each week to hit that monthly target.  Finally, break this down into daily tasks.  So if your goal is to get six pack abs your monthly target could be body fat reduction.  Your weekly target could then be general improvements in diet and exercise.  Your daily targets would then be the specific actions you are going to take such as “cut 100 calories by removing 2 slices of bread from my diet”, “burn 500 calories by running for 30 minutes”.  This may sound like overkill but it is crucial if you really want to achieve your fitness resolutions this year.

4) TRACK YOUR PROGRESS REGULARLY:- If you do not track your progress regularly then even the most detailed action plan becomes useless.  Try and sit down once a week and review your actual progress against your original action plan.  If you have a bad week then adjust the following week’s targets to compensate for this.  By doing this you will greatly increase your chances of success.  Instead of blindly working towards a fitness resolution you will know each week whether you are on track or need to try that little bit harder.  You will also be able to identify any setbacks early and adjust your action plan so that they do not turn into full blown relapses and completely derail your fitness resolutions.

5) REWARD YOURSELF:- In most cases, the ultimate goal of a fitness resolution is self gratification.  You might want to look better, feel better or perform better and this is the long term reward for your efforts.  However, even with the strongest will in the world, the most detailed action plan and regular progress reviews, it is difficult to maintain this long term view over a full year.  After a couple of months hard work and no visible reward the urge to quit often kicks in.  To overcome this obstacle reward yourself each month or week that you are successful.  These rewards should be aligned with your action plan and not interfere with your fitness resolutions.  For example, if your overall goal is to reduce your body fat levels then you should not reward yourself with a cake every week.  Instead go for something that is independent of your fitness resolutions like a new CD or new clothes.  By rewarding yourself regularly you will have much more motivation in both the short term and the long term making you more likely to succeed with your fitness resolutions.

SUMMARY

New Year’s resolutions are difficult to achieve and most people will fail.  However,this year can be the year where you are successful.  The 5 steps in this article give you a much greater advantage than most other people.  So remember if you want your resolutions to stick this year:
- Set Realistic Resolutions.
- Limit Your Resolutions.
- Create A Detailed Action Plan.
- Track Your Progress Regularly.
- Reward Yourself.

Sources:
New Year’s Resolution Experiment (Quirkology)

*****

Want to improve your success fitness resolution success rates even further?  Then give Goals On Track a try. Goals On Track is a unique piece of goal tracking software that allows you to set and visualise goals, manage them daily in a time efficient way and measure your progress:

Now that the New Year is upon us you are probably starting to act on your New Years resolutions.  Perhaps you want to quit smoking this year?  Maybe you want to get rid of your beer belly?  Whatever your goals I wish you all the best and if they are fitness related there is plenty of great content available on this website to help you hit them this year.  Today I am going to be reviewing my fitness resolutions for 2010 and making my fitness resolutions for 2011.

REVIEW OF MY FITNESS RESOLUTIONS FOR 2010

1) TO ENTER A 10K RUN:- Unfortunately, I did not manage to enter a 10k run for the second consecutive year.  The main reason for this is that my cardiovascular training has been inconsistent over the year meaning that my cardiovascular fitness levels never got high enough to enter a 10k run.  This has been mainly down to time constraints with my full time job, a full weight training program, doing some part time work for my friend and working a lot of hours on this website leaving very little time for cardiovascular training.

2) TO SLEEP MORE:- This is another fitness resolution I have struggled with.  Again the reason for this is time constraints.  Since I do a lot of work on this website at night time but still have to get up in the mornings for my full time job, sleep is something that often gets compromised.

3) TO BE MORE CONSISTENT WITH MY TRAINING:- This is one resolution I did manage to achieve.  Whilst I have had the odd week where my training schedule has not been great, over the year as a whole I think I have been pretty consistent.

4) TO GET NOTICEABLE IMPROVEMENTS FROM MY TRAINING:- This is another resolution I achieved.  I have managed to increase the weight I am lifting in a number of areas including dumbbell chest presses and squats.  I have also started to track how much I lift each session so I have a visual representation of whether I am improving or not.

5) TO BE MORE CONSISTENT WITH MY BLOG POSTS:- This has probably been my most successful resolution.  Apart from January 2010, I have managed to consistently post new content to Free Fitness Tips and have averaged 8 posts per month.  I have also started to compile a more detailed plan for this website which outlines my weekly, monthly and annual plans in terms of content.  This has allowed me to be much more productive and given me increased focus when it comes to working on this website.

Overall, I achieved 3 out of the 5 resolutions which in my opinion represents a pretty successful year.  Hopefully, I can carry this momentum through to 2011 and achieve even more of my fitness resolutions.

MY FITNESS RESOLUTIONS FOR 2011

As you can see from the fitness resolutions I failed to achieve last year, time constraints are a big issue.  This year I want to address this issue by focussing my efforts on this very website.  Now this may sound like a contradiction as surely spending more time on my website is going to place further time constraints on other activities?  In the short term this is true but in the long term it should save me massive amounts of time.

For example, once I have covered all the key nutrients that foods contain on this website then writing other articles about nutrition suddenly becomes a lot easier.  Once the core information is available on this website I just have to have a quick browse to refresh my memory and then I can quickly write a new article.  The initial work to cover all the nutrients will take massive amounts of time but going forward it will reduce the time it takes for me to produce articles in this area.

Here is another example which uses website traffic.  If I put more effort in now creating unique, quality content for my website it will start to become more popular and get more visitors.  As it gets more popular I will get more interest from guest writers who want to publish their content on a high traffic website.  By writing more content now I will actually have to write less in the future and save myself some time.

So without further ado here are my website focussed fitness resolutions for 2011…

1) TO HIT OVER 30,000 VISITORS PER MONTH:- Free Fitness Tips had 15,000 unique visitors for the month of December 2010 which represents a massive improvement on December 2009′s 8,000 unique visitors.  This year I want to improve even further and hit over 30,000 unique visitors by December 2011.

2) TO POST NEW CONTENT EVERY 3 DAYS:- At the moment I aim to publish new content every 4 days.  Next year I want to knock this gap down to 3 days which will mean that you guys get more free fitness information than ever before.

3) TO COMPLETE MY NUTRIENT ARTICLES:- Last year I used a large proportion of this website’s content to cover the different nutrients found in food.  I managed to cover the macronutrients, the macrominerals, the microminerals and had previously covered the vitamins.  This year I want to wrap this topic area up by breaking down protein even further and covering the amino acids and also covering flavanoids and phytonutrients.  Once complete this will mean that information on any nutrient in food will be available right here at this website.

4) TO PROVIDE MORE VALUE TO NEWSLETTER SUBSCRIBERS:- Currently the Free Fitness Tips Newsletter is little more than a monthly update.  Next year I want to be in much more regular contact with subscribers and use the newsletter to provide weekly content updates.

5) TO IMPROVE MY CURRENT FITNESS LEVELS:- Whilst I think the above resolutions will free up a lot of time I do not want this to be at the expense of my current fitness levels.  So at the very least I want to maintain my current fitness levels during 2011 and ideally I want to improve them.  I will still be going to the gym at least 3 times a week and tracking my progress after every session.  By the end of 2011 I want to be able to lift more and have more stamina than I did at the end of 2010.

SUMMARY

All the above resolutions should be of great benefit to you – the readers of Free Fitness Tips, as they will all improve the quality and quantity of content you receive on this website.  So here is to a healthy and successful 2011.  If you have any of your own New Years resolutions that you would like to share please do so by leaving a comment.

*****

Want to improve your success rate with New Year’s resolutions this time around?  Then give Goals On Track a try. Goals On Track is a unique piece of goal tracking software that allows you to set and visualise goals, manage them daily in a time efficient way and measure your progress:

Hello everyone.  Today’s article is a guest post from Audrey Makepeace who writes for http://www.slimmingresources.com/.  This blog contains some excellent weight loss advice and I highly recommend you check it out once you have read Audrey’s guest post.

—–

Have you ever noticed that some people seem to always be thinking positive thoughts, while others tend to be a lot more negative? Most people seem to fall somewhere in between and get annoyed with the people that fall on either end of the scale. There are some definite benefits to thinking positive though, including links between positive thinking and weight loss. If you don’t believe it, you won’t achieve it, so you need to think positively about any goal you are attempting to meet. Those who think positively are more likely to reach their goals in life, so it is a good habit to cultivate.

Start Thinking Positively If You Want to Get Slim

Many people let the negative thoughts that come to mind derail them when they are trying to reach their goals. However, if you can change those negative thoughts to positive ones you will have a lot more success in life, regardless of what you are aiming to achieve. The positive thinking and weight loss link has been shown to be present. Those who think about the benefits of their slimming efforts are much more likely to succeed than those who think about how difficult it is going to be.

Every time you think a negative thought regarding your slimming efforts, replace it with a positive one. You might want to try placing positive affirmations around the house as well in order to help motivate you so you don’t let any negative thoughts keep you from achieving your goals. You need to really concentrate on positive thinking and weight loss will start to come a bit easier.

How Positive Thinking Can Help You Lose Weight

If you focus on the good that will come out of your weight loss, rather than what will happen if you should happen to give up and not reach your goals, it will help to motivate you and you will be more likely to succeed. One thing you can do is make sure to keep looking toward the future and thinking about how much better things will be once you lose the weight, and what you will be comfortable doing that you were never comfortable doing when you were heavy. This will give you things to look forward to, which can help to motivate you. This is one way that positive thinking and weight loss are connected. Once you start getting slimmer you can even start charting your progress toward your goal. That way you will be able to see how far you have come.

Jump Start Your Slimming  Efforts by Thinking Positively

Although many people don’t think about the connection between positive thinking and weight loss, if you think about it this really makes sense. It takes a lot of effort and commitment in order to lose a weight, especially if you have a lot to lose. It can be hard to keep yourself on track if you keep thinking about possible failure. However, if you think about success you will be more likely to be able to find the time and energy you need to reach your goals. It really is a matter of controlling what you are thinking and the more you think positively the more this will come to you naturally and the less you will have to work at it.

Hey guys.  I hope you had a good Christmas and New Year.  I expect by now most of you will have settled back into work and have enjoyed the first month of 2010.  Hopefully you have all managed to stick to the resolutions you made for the year so far.  Today I am going to kick off the content on the Free Fitness Tips Blog for 2010 with a slightly belated post on whether I achieved my fitness resolutions for 2009, what my fitness resolutions are for 2010 and what topics I am planning to post on the Free Fitness Tips Blog over the coming months.

REVIEW OF MY 2009 FITNESS RESOLUTIONS

Last year I made 6 fitness resolutions…

1) TO IMPROVE MY FLEXIBILITY:- Overall, I believe I have succeeded at this resolution.  I have improved my flexibility significantly this year by staying behind at the gym after finishing my main workout and doing an extra 10 minutes of stretching.  Whilst I have achieved this resolution there is still room for improvement and I plan to continue stretching consistently to increase my flexibility during 2010.

2) TO DO MORE BODYWEIGHT TRAINING:- Unfortunately I did not succeed when it came to this resolution.  I started off the year by focussing solely on bodyweight training but from February onwards pretty much reverted solely to gym workouts.  So whilst this resolution was not a complete failure, taking the year as a whole I did not achieve this resolution.

3) TO DO MORE RUNNING:- I have improved massively in this area and definitely achieved this resolution during 2009. To do this I incorporated interval sprints into all my gym workouts and also managed to fit in some longer distance outdoor runs throughout the year.  This has allowed me to see huge improvements in my running speeds and cardiovascular fitness.

4) TO ENTER A 10K RUN:- Unfortunately I did not enter a 10K run this year so did not achieve this resolution.

5) TO BE MORE FLEXIBILE WITH MY TRAINING:- Unfortunately this was another fitness resolution I did not achieve this year.  Whilst I started off the year with bodyweight workouts my overall training program was not very flexible.  I spent the majority of the year working out in the gym and did not really focus on other training methods.

6) TO SLEEP MORE:- This is another area I have struggled with and a fitness resolution I failed to achieve.  The reason for this is that on work nights it can be very difficult to fit working, training and preparing my meals into a 16 hour day.

So overall I achieved 2 of 6 resolutions.  Whilst this seems low and there is certainly room for improvement, I have made progress over the year.  Hopefully, 2010 will be an even more successful year in terms of fitness resolutions.

MY FITNESS RESOLUTIONS FOR 2010

Although I did not achieve 4 of my fitness resolutions last year, I am not going to add all of these to my list for 2010 because I do not believe all of them are as relevant now.  Anyway, my fitness resolutions for 2010 are…

1) TO ENTER A 10K RUN:- Although I did not manage to do this last year, I want to enter a 10K run this year.  I believe I am physically ready as I have been running regularly and built up my fitness and stamina.  I just need to make the final push and actually enter an event.

2) TO SLEEP MORE:- Whilst I did struggle last year to get my full 8 hours on work nights it is still something I want to work towards because lack of sleep can have a negative effect on your training, your ability to build muscle and more.

3) TO BE MORE CONSISTENT WITH MY TRAINING:- Over the last few weeks I have started really well by training Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.  However, as I get to the mid-point of the week my training starts to tail off for various reasons.  Sometimes I do not even manage to get another session in before the week is over.  Whilst this will inevitably happen sometimes I want to be as consistent as possible with my training this year and make sure that bad weeks are kept to a minimum.

4) TO GET NOTICEABLE IMPROVEMENTS FROM MY TRAINING:- One of the main problems I have with my training is that I struggle to make noticeable improvements in the long term.  This is normally caused by lack of sleep (which can hinder my performance in the gym) and inconsistency (which means that certain muscle groups can get neglected during my training so I lose any improvements in strength, stamina etc).  This year I want to get noticeable improvements from my training by improving in these two areas and also by writing notes during every workout.  This will allow me to track my progress and actually see if I am getting stronger.

5) TO BE MORE CONSISTENT WITH MY BLOG POSTS:- Regular readers of this blog will know that I am quite inconsistent with posting to this blog.  Sometimes I will do 2-3 posts a week then (for various reasons) I will have a barren spell with no posts for a month.  This year I want to be more consistent than ever and ensure that Free Fitness Tips Blog is updated regularly with fresh, unique content.

FREE FITNESS TIPS BLOG POSTS FOR 2010

Last year I did a number of detailed posts on diet and nutrition covering carbohydrates, dietary fats, protein and vitamins.  With my next few posts I want to carry on with this topic area by expanding on the subject of dietary fats and doing some new posts on the different types of minerals out there.  I also want to do some posts later in the year on some of my favourite exercises.  Hopefully, 2010 should be a great year for content at the Free Fitness Tips Blog.

Now I want to hear your comments.  What are your fitness plans for 2010?  Did you achieve the fitness goals you set yourself for 2010?  Let me know by leaving a comment.

Hey everyone.  Today I’ve got something new for you…my very first guest.  It comes from Parth Shah who runs his very own blog over at ShahTraining.com.  Shah’s blog is full of killer workout information and provides you with some fantastic training techniques.  I strongly urge you to check it out after you have finished reading his excellent guest post

—–

We’re going through some tough times. I can understand that. But when has the human race never faced a tough time. Just think about the events in history. The past fifty years will show you how lucky you are. Pick up the paper and see the suffering going on around the world.

I’m lucky to be sitting in a warm room with a computer in front of my eyes. I’m lucky to be able to eat warm, healthy food. I’m lucky to still be able to have a choice about the type of foods I put in my mouth.

Life requires a lot of mental and physical strength to push through it. The only way that I have moved past my bad times – when I was being mocked in middle school for my weight, when my parents disagreed with my career goals, when I just felt depressed due to a series of failures – I pushed through with the support of intense training and sound nutrition.

When you spend time improving yourself, pushing yourself through physical plateaus, you realize the amazing things that you are capable of. I follow the creed of Mahatma Gandhi:

“Be the change you wish to see in the world.”

How to Be the Change

What Mahatma Gandhi meant by this quote was to simply live life the way you want to see the world. I want to see the world healthy and fit. And so I live my life in this manner. I want to see people respect each others’ religion, background, political views, and race. And so I live my life in this manner.

Fitness itself provides a huge vehicle for change. One such example is Anne Malhum’s “Back on my Feet” program. Anne ran past a homeless center in Philadelphia every morning. One morning, she decided to motivate these homeless men to start running with her.

This seemingly simple task changed the lives of these men. The running club transformed from just 9 runners in from over 300 members in across 3 shelters. According to Mahlum, “Running is really a metaphor for life. There is always another mile. You just have to take it a step at a time.” She says that the men have not only improved in their health and well being, but also have learned life lessons such as discipline and goal setting.

The program also has a job training program, complete with interview prep and computer classes. There have been numerous success stories of the program.

Applying it to Your Life

I’m not telling you to go out and start a community program, or even volunteer in your community (but you can, if you want). I’m just trying to give you another reason to stick to your program and perhaps try things you’ve never done before.

A global recession or crisis often makes people not want to do anything. But if anything, this is the time to do SOMETHING. Inactivity or ignorance is probably why a crisis occurred. Someone somewhere wasn’t doing their job properly.

Just as in the world, what happens in life is that you become comfortable. You think things are going smoothly, so you hold back back. You settle. You let things go the way they are. You used to train five days week, but now you’re settling for three days a week, with only half the effort. All of a sudden you find yourself unhealthy, maybe even back to where you originally started.

When things go back, it’s time to move forward, not look back and sulk.

About the Author:
Parth Shah is an average joe who’s tired of all the nonsense in mainstream fitness media. His thoughts, ideas, and philosophy can be found on his website, ShahTraining.com. (Feed – http://feeds.feedburner.com/shahtraining/UQuk)

Today I want to write about a topic that I feel is quite important if you want to succeed at anything – motivation.  Whether it’s a fitness plan, a new diet, being good at your job or anything else in life you need to be motivated to succeed.  In my last post I discussed my fitness resolutions for 2009.  What I failed to mention in that post is the need for motivation in all of them.  Writing a list and saying you want to do this, this and this is easy.  However, actually having the motivation to do the things on that list is not so simple.  To explain this concept further I want to share with you a little story about this list…

My second resolution on that list was to do more bodyweight training.  To keep up with this resolution I wanted to continue doing an outdoor bodyweight routine that I had put together whilst stopping over at my parent’s house (I will be discussing this workout in my next post).  Now I really am not a fan of cold weather so exercising outdoors is not usually my first choice.  However, there were two big factors that pushed me towards this type of workout.  First, I did not have access to a gym and still wanted to do something to keep myself physically active.  Secondly, I was on holiday from work during the Christmas period so I could get myself nice and warm in the house before stepping outside which made the whole routine a lot more bearable.

Next week I return to work full time which means I have two options when it comes to this workout:

1) Get up early and do this workout before work.
2) Do this workout in the evening straight after work.

I presently live in Salford, UK and anyone who has been there will know that it is not the kind of place you want to be jogging around in the evening.  This leaves me with option 1 as my only realistic choice.  Since I am starting work on Monday I decided that on Saturday morning I would get myself up nice and early and do this workout.  I could then repeat this on Sunday and be ready to face the early morning workouts during the week ahead.

Come Saturday morning my alarm went off.  I actually wasn’t that tired but it was very cold so I hit snooze to give myself 10 more minutes to warm up.  The alarm went off again and I needed another 10 minutes.  In the end I did not get out of bed early and had to do the workout in the afternoon.  Since it was a Saturday this was not a massive deal because I had the whole day to workout.  However, if I do this on Monday morning I will have to go to work and the opportunity to workout will be gone.

This got me thinking why I didn’t get out of bed when the alarm first went off?  Sure it was cold but during this time of year it is going to be cold all day.  When I cut out the excuses I realised that it came down to one basic thing – I wasn’t motivated enough.  Once the alarm goes off I am awake and I choose whether to get out of bed or stay in it.  I cannot control the weather and so should not be using it as an excuse but control whether I get out of bed.

Now that I had established I was not motivated enough to get out of bed I started thinking of ways I could motivate myself.  Luckily for me a lot of the fitness blogs I read have been posting about this very topic.  Today I would like to bring all this fantastic information together and share with you some of the best motivational ideas from around the fitness blogosphere:

1) LISTEN TO SOME INSPIRATIONAL MUSIC OR WATCH SOME INSPIRATIONAL SCENES:- Andrew Rubalcava did a really great post entitled songs to help you kick holiday sluggishness where he listed 10 highly inspirational songs.  Some of these songs were from films such as Rocky and the Karate Kid so came with a kick ass training video.  It may sound a little cheesy but just watching these videos before working out can really alter your frame of mind.  The training videos from Rocky just make me want to get out there and emulate what he is doing – even if it is cold.  So next time you need some motivation take five minutes to listen to a song that you find inspirational or watch a short video that motivates you.  It could provide you with that little push that you needed.

My only problem with this post is that Andrew missed out one of my favourites – the training scene from Rocky 4 set to ‘Hearts on Fire’ (he had used it recently in a previous post) so I have included it here:

If Rocky can do it in the freezing Russian temperatures during the Christmas holidays then surely I can get out of bed an hour earlier in the morning :-)

2) LEARN TO PAY THE PRICE:- Vic Magary puts it perfectly in his post How to be a Real Man in 2009.  You need to “determine the cost of what you want and then pay the price”.  I already determined the cost of doing my new workout routine earlier in this post.  The cost to me is getting up extra early in the morning.  The reason I didn’t get up on Saturday is because I didn’t want it enough.  As Vic says; “It all comes down to how much you want it”.  If I really want to do these bodyweight workouts then I will spring out of bed as soon as the alarm goes off and not reach for the snooze button.  You should develop a similar attitude when it comes to your own fitness goals.  Determine the cost (whether it be joining a gym, missing out on a bar crawl or skipping take away Friday) and then learn to pay the price.

3) DEVELOP A WINNERS MINDSET:- Rusty’s post on developing the winner’s mindset expands upon the concept of learning to pay the price perfectly.  He says that without hard work a goal is meaningless and explains how you can learn to look forward to hard work.  I feel Rusty’s got it spot on here.  If you can develop a winner’s mindset getting up early and training in the cold weather becomes a lot more bearable.  Although you will still have to pay the price of getting fit you will be much more willing to do so.  Next time I get up for my bodyweight workout I need to remember that every workout I do is going to make me stronger, leaner, fitter and healthier.  If I keep it up for a month I’m going to realise massive improvements.  Surely that is something to look forward to and enjoy.

4) TAKE ADVICE FROM THOSE WHO HAVE ALREADY SUCCEEDED:- Athletes and sports stars usually know what it takes when it comes to staying motivated.  They’ve been in situations where it would have been far easier to stay in bed or skip the workout but they didn’t.  For this very reason they have excelled in their field and become the best at what they do.  Sometimes listening to how these people have done so well can be extremely motivating.  Eartha has put together a fantastic ebook entitled 100 Inspirational Fitness Quotes which you can download at absolutely no cost to yourself.  It contains lots of great quotes and here is one of my favourites:

”I wouldn’t say anything is impossible. I think that everything is possible as long as you put your mind to it and put the work and time into it.” – Michael Phelps

This guy was a stand out performer at the 2008 Olympics.  He got there by sacrificing a lot of time and putting a lot of work into his swimming.  If I put the same amount of effort into my bodyweight workouts and you put it into achieving your fitness goals just imagine how far we could go.

Even the most positive people need to be motivated at times and I hope these tips have helped.  On Monday morning I’m going get out of bed as soon as the alarm bells ring, make myself a hot coffee (hey even motivated people can do with a quick winter warmer), watch a short inspirational video (I think Rocky 4 is going to have it all the way…that training scene never gets old) and then start paying the price (i.e. going outside and working out).  If I want to succeed with my fitness resolutions this year I’m going to need to develop a winner’s mindset.  Lying in bed because it’s cold simply won’t cut it.

Hello everyone.  I hope you all had a good Christmas and wish you all a Happy New Year in 2009.  Hopefully, you didn’t party too hard last night and are able to read this post without too much trouble.  Since New Years Eve is traditionally a time when people make resolutions for the new year I thought today I would put a fitness spin on this theme and post my fitness resolutions for the new year.

1) TO IMPROVE MY FLEXIBILITY:- I’m not naturally very flexible.  I used to be very flexible in my mid-teens because I incorporated stretching into my daily routine.  However, over the last few years stretching has taken a back seat to the other exercises I do.  When I think about it my flexibility is the last thing I want to lose as I get older as it can really affect how mobile you are.  I don’t want to struggle to put my shoes on, to get dressed or to reach things that are on the bottom shelf because I’m not flexible enough.  To remedy this I plan to start making stretching part of my daily routine again.  I’ve been doing it for the last couple of weeks and have noticed the improvements so hopefully in a month or two I will be back to my mid-teen level of flexibility.  Plus, I will be doing some posts on stretching and improving your flexibility so that you guys can learn about the topic too.

2) TO DO MORE BODYWEIGHT TRAINING:- I like exercising in the gym which is fine.  However, there are undoubtedly times when I will not have access to a gym.  One such time was the past week when I went to visit my parents for Christmas.  Even though I didn’t have any gym access I still wanted to some exercise so I put together my own simple bodyweight routine which I will be outlining in a future post.  Surprisingly even though the weather was very cold I actually enjoyed doing this outdoor bodyweight workout.  So now I want to become more knowledgeable in this area and learn more bodyweight training exercises.  I will also be posting about this topic as I learn.

3) TO DO MORE RUNNING:- I used to be quite good at long distance running in my school days.    However, since school I’ve been on and off with my running.  This year I want to get more consistent with it.  I think that by doing more bodyweight training this will help as I can build running into my routine.

4) TO ENTER A 10K RUN:- Hopefully as I do more running I will get to a level where I am good enough to be compete.  When I feel ready I plan to enter a local 10K.  Not only will this give me something to work towards but it will also add a competitive edge to my training.

5) TO BE MORE FLEXIBLE WITH MY TRAINING:- As I said above I like exercising in the gym.  However, I understand that this is not the only training method out there.  In fact there may be better methods out there that I neglect because I focus on gym work.  Therefore I want to mix up my workout routine and try new things each month.  This month I’m going to focus on bodyweight training then next month I will probably go back to the gym.  The month after I will look at something new.  By training this way it should improve my overall fitness and make my workouts more fun.

6) TO SLEEP MORE:- I’ve mentioned a few times on this blog that I always struggle to get enough sleep on week nights when I am working.  Over the Christmas holidays I’ve had more free time and managed to get a full nights sleep.  This has shown me the value of getting a good nights sleep.  So during 2009 I’m going to be making a continued effort to get enough sleep every day of the week.

So there you have it.  My fitness resolutions for 2009.  I think overall I’ve led a relatively healthy lifestyle over the past year but these resolutions should give me a bit more variety and hopefully improve my fitness even further.

Now I want to hear from you guys?  Have you got any fitness resolutions for the new year?  If so leave me a comment.