JonnyBBad Brisbane Personal Trainer

I think I hear this atleast 3 times a week from my Brazilian ju jitsui (BJJ) coach as I am training. He will yell that at me and my fellow training partners when we start struggling in what we are doing, when we start getting tired. He will even sit us down after the session and tell us in the 14 years he has been training he has never seen anyone die from pushing themselves that little bit harder in the session!

Now I know my coach likes to get a little extreme at times but he holds a very good point. How often in your training sessions have you pushed yourself – really pushed yourself to100%? How often have you got 90% through you session and thought ‘that’s enough!’? Think back to your last session in the gym – did you do as much as you really could? Like my coach, said no one has died from running that extra hill sprint, doing that extra set of abs or benching an extra 2.5kg.

My coach will go on to say ‘in BJJ training, it’s the fighter who is prepared to put in the last 1-2% that will win the fight’. This same mantra applies to you and your training. The person who is prepared to do the little extra work is the one who will get towards their goals faster!

For me that extra 1-2% is very easy to find, I have my second comp in the end of October. In the last comp I placed 3^rd so this one I plan on winning! It’s a funny thing, having such clear and important goals. I have now even found myself doing cardio training (anyone who knows me knows I HATE cardio). Start thinking now about what do you have to do to ensure you get the extra 1-2% out of your sessions. It will be all worth it in the end!

My top 5  tips to make that chin up happen

1. Start doing negative chin ups. This is where you start in the chin up at the top of the movement and lower you self down on a 3-5 second count. Repeat this for 3 -5 reps
2. Heavy close grip lat pull down. The lat pull down is a very similar movement to the chin up. Your goal is to be able to do 5 – 10 kgs more than your body weight for 2-5 reps.
3. If available, use an assisted chin up machine. Over time look to reduce the amount of resistance until you’re holding your full weight.

You need to lots of sets and to take lots of rest breaks. As you are doing quite heavy weights in these exercises, you will need to ensure you have at least 2minute rests between sets. You should aim to do up to 5 sets of your chosen exercises and train these sessions at least 2 times a week

Phil has been on a mission to bench big! Only 6 weeks ago doing his first 100kg bench and just last week 110 for 2 reps. Phil is now looking at a short term goal of 120 and a big goal of 140kg! I can’t wait to see that one!

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This week more clients smashed out some amazing goals.

David Richter – 165kg deadlift. At 65kg body weight, that’s 2.5 times his body weight! That’s unreal!

PHIL 110KG BENCH

BOB – lost 2 CM

JESS – lost 1.5CM
Well done everyone!

Starting mid October I will doing a 6 week strength and conditioning group on a Saturday. Now this group isn’t for just anyone – I’m looking to put together a group of 10 like minded people who want to train hard! There will be no massages or fluffy bits here! I will give out a little bit more info over the next couple of weeks. But this is strictly going to be only 10 spots available for this group so if you are interested please email me now and apply to be a part of it!

Why is it so hard to do exercise? You go to you personal training sessions, you do the homework your trainer has assigned you and yet you could still happily not do any of it if a valid reason came up.  Why is this? The simple answer is YOU! You don’t believe you are worth enough to have the best life you can.

That’s absurd you might say, but let’s break this down, shall we:

-        You started training because you let yourself get to a point in your life that you were unhealthy and feeling pretty bad.  Even if it took someone to drag you to training you stayed because deep down your realized you needed it.

Honestly, do you really think someone who thinks of themselves as worthy enough lets themselves get to an overweight or completely drained point in their life? No they don’t!  Their run or training session at 5am, five times a week is a normal fun part of their lifestyle because it allows them to stay healthy and live a full and enjoyably long life.

-        When confronted with exercise you can think of a million reasons to not do it, lack of time, money, it’s too dark, it’s too cold, you have a meeting, traffic is bad, etc.

Seriously, no matter what the excuse, if you thought yourself valuable enough to get healthy there would be no excuse big enough to stop you. Don’t believe me? Look at the other areas of your life where you make excuses that put others ahead of yourself; work, family and friends, ‘I can’t do this (for me) I have to do that for someone else’.  All so everyone else gets what they want and you sacrifice whatever you need or want to do. Starting to see a patter?  Here is something to know…. WORK, FAMILY, and FRIENDS, CAN WAIT AN HOUR BEFORE YOU DO WHAT THEY WANT IT, WON’T KILL THEM.

-        You sabotage yourself after you have gone to training or done your fitness homework.

Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about – the chocolate muffin, slice of cake, and deep fried food that you tell yourself is ok after your hard training session.  Are you kidding yourself, what person who considers themselves worthy of a long healthy fun life, undoes all their work to get there by consuming something they know will set them back.  Just a hint about recognizing self sabotage – if you have to justify something to yourself then you know it’s the wrong thing for you.

-        You are not honest with your trainer or yourself because it gives you a reason to fail rather than succeed.

There is a reason your trainer will ask all those questions in your initial consult and during your session. They want to know everything they need to so they can give you the most out of your training sessions and help you achieve your goals.  Keeping information to yourself such as a medical condition, undermining relationships or highly stressful work project means you’ve decided that you can’t possibly succeed at what you really want. How can that be? Well withholding information means you’ll always have something else giving you permission to fail because sharing it means that IF you fail then YOU fail. So ask yourself does someone who thinks of themselves worthy give themselves so little credit about succeeding?

Now your lack of real enthusiasm has been broken down, let’s get to the real core of things.  Training, although now a habit, still is something you could give up with the right reasoning  because you decided somewhere along the line you are not worth a long, happy, healthy, enjoyable and ability to do what you want life.  Nobody wants to be overweight or unhealthy because it restricts your ability to do things that you want to do. Yet this is the choice you make because training to you is nothing more than something you HAVE to do. What about making it something you WANT to do, for you, because you deserve it.  Your success in life, and at life, is about where you value yourself in the world. So my challenge to you is to ask yourself when did you decide and why did you decide you don’t deserve the life that you want and I guarantee you will see your training in a whole different light.

I’ll be running an interval training session for all clients and any of their friends who’d like to come along.

The session will be held on the running track in Toowong, starting at Jack Cook Memorial Park on Gailey Road and will run for approximately 40mins.

This is a great chance to test yourself and to meet up with some of my other like-minded clients. Please note: this is for all fitness levels, so it won’t matter if you’re just getting started or an extreme triathlon runner – it will be all about pushing yourself to your own limits and beating your own personal best.

Date: Saturday 29 May
Time: 11.30am
Location: Jack Cook Memorial Park, Gailey Road, Toowong.

And the best part of all? This one is on me. No dollars at all! All you will need to bring is some water, maybe a towel and some determination!

Please email me back by Thursday 27 May so I can put the program together for everyone.

See you there!

One of the simplest and well know exercises in the gym, but more often than not it is performed incorrectly!

The Chin Up can be done in either a wide grip (over hand) or close (close grip or over hand).

1. Start position should be holding the bar in a relaxed position as if you are just hanging.

2. Pull yourself all the way to the bar so your chin passes the bar you are holding onto.

3. Lower your self back down in the start position, where you are relaxed holding on to the bar.

Handy Tip: Ensure your feet never touch the ground.

Chin ups are a great functional exercise for helping train your back and biceps – just make sure you are doing the full range of motion that form this exercise.

It was only a couple of Saturdays ago and it was my game day, a three lift powerlifting competition, squat, bench and deadlift. I was going to get three chances to hit personal bests in all movements. It had taken me 14 weeks of training and a minimum of 15 hours a week in weight training alone just to give me a chance to beating my personal bests.

Game day is an opportunity that we all get – perhaps it’s jumping on the scales to see yourself 10kg lighter, fitting into to that pair of pants you never could or maybe running a marathon for the first time.

My personal bests don’t come anywhere near beating any records but that doesn’t stop me from sweating it out every week at the gym. There is no gold medal for jumping on the scales and hitting your goal weight of 10kg lighter, there is no prize for me for pulling my best on the deadlift and you certainly don’t make the paper for fitting into a new, smaller pair of pants. Instead, it’s all about one thing – that moment when you achieve your goals, that feeling you get when you cross the line of your marathon, or put on those pants you have never been able to fit into. It’s that feeling of admiration, accomplishment, joy and excitement that is the reason for putting in all that hard work, week after week in training.

For me on my game day, I came up short of my goals as you will from time to time. That leaves me feeling a little disappointed and wondering what could have been. These are thoughts and feelings that will no doubt go through your head at times like that. But what’s important is how you use them! After thinking those things and feeling that way I will be in the gym more than I was last time and pushing myself to go that bit harder. Pulling up short allows you to see what you need to work on, so next time there will be nothing but success!

The great thing about game days is they can happen often, once you have stepped on the scales ten kilos lighter you just start looking for the next challenge. Being on this journey once before allows you to know what to expect and how good it feels when you achieve your new goals. My goals stay the same, competing in powerlifting competitions. My next challenge is the Nationals in Melbourne in August.

We may have different goals but a few things will be common – name that the journey will be tough but will be all worth when we achieve success on our next game day.