Week 10 - Rugby 7's

Making Up for lost time

I'm starting to regret the drinking thing. I feel heavier and when I stepped on the scales I was up a by just over a kilo. Disappointing. I'll be working extra hard this week to right my wrongs!

The other thing that has cropped up is the Dubai Rugby 7's. Rugby has always been my passion but although I love and always have loved rugby, it hasn't really loved me back, well not in a physical way anyway. Concussions, shoulder reconstructions, pulled muscles, snapped muscles, broken fingers, dislocated thumbs, broken leg, facial stitches and a broken sternum just to name a few. This is why I decided to retire from rugby 5 years ago.

These injuries however haven't stopped me from getting a regular itch. Pretty much whenever I hear the word rugby let alone watch it on tv or even worse, live! Anyway to cut a long story short I have agreed to play this year. I'm playing for a team called the Conquistadors who are a charity team put together by a group of passionate rugby players, in order to raise money for the Mike Ballard Foundation. A cracking guy that broke his neck playing in Abu Dhabi recently and who is now helping others in a similar position to himself. More details here: http://winstoncowie.com/2015/11/23/mike-ballard-foundation-conquistadors/

Pic. Sprint Training hurts.

This will be having an impact on my training. I will now be focusing on lower reps and more power based movements in the gym and swapping my 20 minute cardio with sprint sessions and speed endurance sessions. Why? Because if I don't I'll be slow and unfit. The training I have been conducting is purely for body composition purposes and although it's kept me strong and fit, it's not a great way to train if your goal is to exceed at competitive sport. With regards to food, I will be sticking with a similar plan but with some extra carbs thrown in on big cardio session days.

By the end of this week I had finally lost the beer/water retention weight . I find it amazing that one slip up can put you back a week (with regard to fat loss). Imagine if it's the same for chocolate, burgers or whatever else. It should make you think; how far is this 'whatever' setting me back? If one piss up had halted my progress by a week, then no wonder my clients struggle during certain periods of training. Fat loss really is a commitment and if you're not fully committed then expect to be frustrated with your results.

It really is a two step forwards, one step back affair if you don't get your food right. Even if you're doing zero training, you can consistently lose fat with diet, unfortunately the same doesn't apply for exercise. If you cheat with your food, you will fail. It's like training is the exam and food is the revision. You can do as many exams as you like but if you don't learn the answers to the questions, you will always fail and you'll end up being a fat portable toilet cleaner all your life ;)

Other personal philosophies

I speak to my clients about the ladder quite a lot. If you imagine a ladder with the bottom rung representing obesity and an unhealthy body with the top rung representing fantastic shape and a healthy body, most people would put themselves in an average category between 4 and 6. So if you class yourself as a 5 and you eat well and grind out the training for a month you may rise to a 6 or even a 7, but the moment that you fall off of the wagon, you will be right back to a 5 again (assuming that falling off the wagon only lasts for a couple of months max).

So just imagine if after that month of training you continued to train hard and eat well for months two and three...now you’ve climbed all of the way up to level 10. Well now you can afford to fall of the wagon and you would still end up at a level 8 before reining yourself back in again and taking a month to return to level 10 if you wanted to.

The point is that if you never get up there then you will always be hovering back and forth in a place that leaves you feeling unhappy about the way you look and feel. Yes you could get all PC on me and say how terrible it is that I’m encouraging people to indulge in self image etc. Whatever, that’s the way the world works and I’m talking about health as well as appearance. Guess what, looking good outside makes you feel AMAZING inside and feeling fit and healthy surpasses that!

My main point is that 3 months to get to level 8, 9 or 10 is worth it. If you then overindulge or accidentally end up at three back to back weddings like I did last year and fall down to level 8, it doesn’t take much mental or physical pain to get back to where you left off, or even better you just tick along maintaining your level 9 or 10 with significantly less effort than climbing up towards it.

On the flip side, going from 7 to 5 or lower and feeling miserable all the time is painful. Believe me the view from the top of the ladder is better than the one half way up it, I have been at both levels.

Next stop week 11, Bring it on.