5 things I wish I knew...

1. You cannot SWEAT the booze out. 

A lot of you will know that I am sober and enjoy being so, BUT 10 years ago I also enjoyed a good session on the booze. Drinking all night and then getting up and heading to the gym or running to sweat it out. 

10 years later I now know that my body would of been under a huge amount of stress after drinking heavy and would not be performing well at all. To top it off, hitting a big physical session would have put my heart under huge strain.

Lesson learned and implemented.

1. Sleep is a super power.

Staying up all night drinking (there is a theme here!) and having hardly any sleep all weekend was the norm for me. Due to education I now know that this is basically social jet lag. Hello sluggishness and grabbing sweet treats for energy. Not only that by depriving myself of sleep I would underperform the day or 2 (minimum) after and increase my risk of injury.

So implementing a sound sleep routine has helped me to better health.

1. Abs are made in the kitchen.

This is one that I encountered when I did my first body building show. You can do all the sit ups you want, if your nutrition is not dialled in then those abs ain’t poppin’.

A balanced diet and sound exercise plan will always prevail. Those of you who look at influencers, be aware that is their job, they often have photo shoots and use the pictures over the year.

1. Training hard all the time is not good for you.

This was a tough one to implement and felt super contradictory to everything I had done within my life so far. Take your foot off of the gas and do a lower intensity workout at least once a week. The term zone 2 has become very popular over the last couple of years. Put quite simply it is where top athletes spend 80% of their time and then 20% in the max zone.

Try implementing one of these to your week and see how you feel.

1. Walking is the remedy.

This was hard to grasp! In my younger years if i was going somewhere I was running or riding. BUT, since Covid I have discovered how good walking can be, in particular in green or open space. The physical and mental health benefits are huge!

Rather than sitting down to recover over the weekend, get out and use the power of walking as your active recovery.