Hi All,

Hope you are all doing great.

Everyone wants to get fit and healthy....but the problem is do you really know what that means?

Do you really know what it is to be overall fit?  Do you think that a marathon runner has a great overall fitness?  Most people would say yes, and if you did well I am going to tell you that you are wrong.

A marathon runner is only fit to run a marathon.  Have you seen how skinny they are?  Do you ever see a marathon runner with a well built body?  Of course not, they are designed to run long distances and nothing else....what if they had to lift a heavy object at the end of the race?  Do you really think that they could do it?

I am not having a go at marathon runners here, I think that they deserve a lot of credit to be able to do what they do, but I am just using this an example.

Basically athletes are fit for one thing...to do what they compete in and nothing else. And that is fine if that is what their dream and goal is.  But they will never be fully overall fit for everyday needs or emergencies.

Now take a firefighter, these people are what I consider to be fully overall fit.  Same as a SAS soldier etc;  These people need to be able to do everything...they need to work in extremely unfavourable conditions, they need to be able to run, jump, lift, throw, pull, sprint, have incredible endurance...and all the while being able to maintain a clear and focused mind!  This is what I consider fit to be.

This is why I train the way I do, and why my clients go through some extremely tough workouts.  I train myself and my clients to be everyday fit.  They run, jump, sprint, pull, lift, push, go for endurance, I push them mentally and the end result is that not only do they obtain incredible bodies, but they are overall fit and extremely mentally tough.  This is what is going to help them in their everyday life, or if an emergency comes up.

I have been critiscied again and again by so called "experts" about the way I go about my training.  These experts are pretty much scientists....they study how to get the optimum benefit out of the body and how to train each of the systems within the body.  So they tell me that I am only supposed to push people hard for 90sec and then they need to rest for 3 minutes and then they can go again...or some other so called perfectly calculated numbers that they need to work and rest for.

And this is where they have a go at my training, because I dont do it their way!  You know what, these so called "experts" probably have never done anything that they are preaching anyway.   But they have the right to have rubbish my training methods because I dont allow people to rest after 90sec of work.....to those people I say "save your breath and go tell your opinions to someone who actually gives a damn!"

So my methods may be a little unorthodox at times, but they are tried and tested and it works!  When you do something that not everyone else is doing you are going to have your haters....my theory is, bring them on.  The more people that hate what I am doing means the more that it is working.

Ok here is an example of your everyday fitness.  Lets say someone you care a lot for is trapped under a heavy object and they may possibly be over 1km away and you have no mode of transport.  What are you going to do?  Are you going to start running, then stop after 90sec so you can rest for another few minutes and then start going again....and then to finally get there and you are too tired and weak to lift anything?

Or would you rather have trained past your limits every time and know that you are physically and mentally capable of running the full distance and still being strong enough to lift objects?

I am not going to tell you which to choose....but I know which one I would want to have!

So next time someone tells you that they think that they are fit, chances are they are exactly that....they "think" that they are fit! 

I know what I do works, I know that it is extremely hard and most people dont want to do it because it is so hard.  But those that do, are heads and shoulders above 99% of the population in regards to fitness!!

Until next time
Train Hard but Train Smart
Joe