​The No Hand Get Up is a great body weight flow that will improve your lower body mobility, core strength and aerobic conditioning. 

This is the fist time we have used the battle ropes in Workout o't' Week.
Ropes are a brilliant high intensity exercise that improves core strength, stability, upper body strength and power as well as your mental toughness!

I have been playing around with a few flapjack recipes recently.  I wanted something that could be eaten when you have a craving for pudding, but wasn't full of calories and sugar and also something that would be nice for the kids in their lunch boxes, but had some nutritional value and not just empty calories. 

So I came up with "Reasonable Flapjacks".  They are called that for a few reasons:

1. They are reasonably tasty.
2. They are reasonably low in calories (162kcal per portion)
3. They are reasonably low in sugar (3g per portion)
4. They are reasonably high in protein (13g per portion)
5. They are reasonably vegan, meaning if you swap the whey protein for a vegan alternative it's vegan.

These flapjacks aren't going to blow your mind with their taste, nor do they have the magical ability to torch your belly fat, but we have found them reasonably useful for dealing with sweet cravings, as handy snack when you're on the go and as nutritious addition to the kids lunches. 

If you'd like to add some reasonableness to your life then here's the recipe:

Makes 16 reasonabley large sized flapjacks.

1. Mix 220g Oats with 1tsp cinnamon and 100g protein powder (we used vanilla flavour but feel free to experiment and let us know how it goes).
2. Mix in 250ml Unsweeted Almond Milk and 200g peanut butter into the oats and protein.
3. Add 2tbsp syrup and stir well.
4. Spread evenly on a greased baking tray and leave in the fridge for 30mins.
5. Heat oven to 190° and bake for 12-15 minutes.
6. Leave to cool and slices into portions. We individually wrap ours and freeze them so they're ready for lunches and mainly so we don't pick at them!

Grab 3 different kettlebells and lets get swinging!

A short workout to strengthen and mobilise the wrists.

Another article from the archives. Enjoy.​

​I have this client.  Let's call her Joanne Bending, a totally random name to protect her anonymity.

Joanne told me she wanted to lose weight and look better.  A lot of people come to me with these two goals and I always ask them which is more important, weighing less or looking better?  Most say looking better.  So it is fat loss they want appose to general weight loss.  It's easy to lose weight, just don't eat enough protein and your muscles will waste away leaving you, what I call "skinny fat".  People who do lots of cardio are at risk of being "skinny fat", they may be slim, but don't have a desirable body shape and are still wobbly around the middle with no definition on their arms due to lack of muscle.  Joanne does not desire this figure, so I don't make her jog.  She eats well and lifts heavy, perfect for promoting fat loss and looking good.

I met Joanne today, she told me how good she was feeling, her training had gone well and she was looking better.  She then asked to get weighed, personally I didn't see the need as she had already stated how she looked and felt better, which was her goal, but I obliged, also measuring her body fat and muscle mass.  The scales showed a gain of 0.3kg, not much but still a gain.  When we looked at body fat and muscle mass, it actually showed that she had actually lost 0.6kg fat and gained 0.9kg of muscle, probably the reason she was looking better.  When you haven't got a lot to lose 1lb of fat off and 2lb of muscle on can make a big difference.

Being the objectionable character she is, she was not pleased.
I was a bit bewildered and explained how she had lost fat and looked better, exactly what she wanted.  Joanne proceeded to tell me how she used to weigh less and wanted to get back to that weight.
"Did you look better at that weight?" I asked
"No, I was flabby" she replied

After banging my head against the wall and using a lot of language that my mother wouldn't have been proud of, I sat her down and tried to explain again.

The moral of this story is that you need to 'keep the goal, the goal'.  Losing weight may be a sign that you're looking better, but it also may not and it can become a distraction that starts to sabotage what you want to achieve.

A few years ago I used to write a blog about various things to do with health and strength and I've just been reading back through a few of them.  Some of them weren't half bad although my opinion on certain things has changed and I have definitely learnt more since then.  I thought I would share a few of few of the ones I enjoyed reading on a Thursday, partly because it will make me feel young and hip being able to hashtag 'TBT'