Here's a full body workout using just your bodyweight. With a lot of restrictions at gyms right now and home gym equipment being hard to find, we all need simple minimal workouts like this! Here are the exercises.   Jumping Jacks Squats Pushups Peeing Dog To Donkey Kicks Spiderman Mountain Climbers Crunches Superman   Do a total of two or three circuits. Each exercise in the circuit is done back to back. After this, do the Qigong finishing exercises and closing For more information about these exercises or for personal training, click here

I had the whole place to myself. Now with the new Covid regulations, you have to book your time now and I guess no one else did! Anyway here were the exercises. I just did straight sets today (no supersets or circuits)    Cable Pulldowns Dips Lateral Raises Dumbbell Curls Knuckle Pushups Goblet Squats One arm kettlebell swings.   For more health and fitness tips or for information about In-Home or Online Personal Training, click HERE

One of my favourite methods of fitness training is by using Fitness Challenges. I mean everyone loves a challenge, right?! There are a number of ways to do it, but to me the best way is to use either reps or distance. If you're using reps, then pick a number like 300, 400, or 500. Then pick some exercises and an appropriate number of reps so they'll add up to the total number.    For distance, take something like a football field or perhaps a large parking lot. Cover the distance with various drills. They could be anything. My martial arts teacher…

I love HIIT training (High Intensity Interval Training)! It can be done with just your bodyweight and the will to get it done. For this workout we have 9 exercises, each one done for 30 seconds of work followed by 15 seconds of rest, and a total of 3 rounds. It works great. The exercise are   Burpees Pushups Squats Speed Skaters Renegade Rows Mountain Climbers  Ape Crawl Bear Crawl Crab Crawl For more Information about Online or In-Home Personal Training, click here  

We all know about the importance of core training. The health of your lower back, posture, and overall health make it essential. So how do we go about training it? There are three methods to train the core.    1. Core Stability 2. Core Contraction 3. Core Rotation   Although they are all important, by far the most important of the three is the Core Stability. Planks and variations of it is the best way to train this. This will also lay the foundation for the other two. The problem when people try to do Core Contraction exercises without sufficient stability is that the hip flexors…

Here's an at-home bodyweight workout. I did use a set of chest expanders. However that could be modified for other bodyweight only exercises. Chest expanders are a very underused piece of equipment and I always bring them with me when I travel due to their light weight and portability. Anyway watch the video to see the workout!   And for more information about Online or In-Home Personal Training, click here

This is a killer workout I learned of recently from my Boxing coach. It's called the Walkin' 25s. Here's how it works. It's a circuit with several exercises done back to back and done in a ladder format. With ladders the reps for each exercise increase by 1 with each subsequent circuit. Start with 1 and increase all the way up to 25. After every 5 sets some of the exercises change, but there are some that remain the same all the way through. You can of course change the exercises, but for the example in this post, the exercise that stay the…

We're living in a very chaotic time right now. In December , nobody knew what the Coronavirus was and now it's all over the news in what seems reminiscent of the Spanish Flu of the early 20th Century. We will get through this with positivity, social distancing, and being careful and responsible. In the meantime however, managing stress is super important. And one of the best ways I know of is through Qigong Meditation. I've practiced it for many years now and it's really helped me at particularly stressful points in my life.   There are many ways of practicing this. It…

We are currently dealing with the Coronavirus Pandemic which is leaving a huge number of people stuck indoors at home with nowhere to go. Unfortunately this is just something that we all have to deal with. However that doesn't mean that your fitness has to suffer. In fact, some of my best workouts ever have been right in the comfort of my own home. And of course as an in-home personal trainer, I train people exclusively in their homes. But for those of you who are accustomed to the gym and need to have some at-home workouts, here they are.   One…

There are tons of different opinions on this. All I can do is give you my opinion as well as the reasons behind it. Hopefully it will make sense to you. It certainly does to me, but you'll have to decide.   So to start with, I remember I used to work at a gym where there was this other trainer about the same age as me. He always changed his client workouts every workout. I don't know if I every saw his clients doing the same thing twice. He would justify it by saying that it's for muscle confusion and to…

There is a lot of confusion about what makes a good workout program. Unfortunately part of the problem is just plain old misinformation. I'm sure you've heard the terms "toning" and "shaping". But the fact is that both of those terms are meaningless, and there have been countless people who've simply done poor ineffective workouts in the name of shaping and toning.   You have control over exactly two things as far as your muscles and body composition are concerned. They are: 1) BUILDING MUSCLE 2) LOSING FAT   When people look at a so-called toned body, they are looking at someone who has added muscle…

The youth of today are our future of tomorrow. Therefore it's  super important for them to be healthy and fit. There are of course many distractions that exist today that didn't when I was a kid. Internet, video games, social media, etc. Unfortunately as a result of this, kids are now more sedentary than they've ever been before. So there's the problem.   HOW DO WE GET KIDS INTERESTED IN FITNESS?   Of course as I'm sure you already know, people won't do something unless it's fun. Hardly a revelation, but it still needs to be pointed out. Personally I think the best way is…

Ask 10 trainers for their favourite workouts and I'm sure you'll get 10 different answers. There are many ways to train and they all hold value. It really is impossible to name one workout more effective than any other. The goals you're trying to achieve, physical limitations you may have, your personality, preferences, and other factors all play a role in figuring out the best plan for you.   So while it may be impossible to name one absolute best workout, I have discovered one plan which seems to work quite well for most people, is easily customizable, and can be trained…

Tabatas are a great exercise method. The entire process is 4 minutes long. 20 seconds of work followed by 10 seconds of rest. This is done 8 times totaling 4 minutes. You can take either one or two exercises. In this video, we did 2 exercises which were the Wideouts and the Mountain Climbers. A short yet effective workout!  

Rep challenges and other types of high reps workouts are very popular ways of training. In addition, competition style workouts where you have a leader board and try to complete your reps in the fastest time are also very popular.   Unfortunately the fact is that these types of high volume, high reps workouts also have a higher risk of injury. Injuries happen most often when you are either excessively fatigued or you're not focusing. Both of these things things are far more likely when you're doing the last reps of an extremely high rep set of an exercise. You're far better…

One of the older workouts from the golden age of bodybuilding was the "I Go, You Go" workout. It's as simple as it sounds, but it certainly isn't easy. It is a more advanced program so I'd recommend that you have at least 6 months or so before trying it out. A good trainer can of course evaluate your fitness level and determine if it's appropriate for you.   You'll need a trainer or a training partner for this one. One person does 10 reps of an exercise. Then the second person does 10 reps. Then the first person goes again and…

I just thought of this combination this morning. I figured I would try it out with my client Ed. Battleropes and Sandbags are two of the most versatile pieces of equipment out there. Excellent for strength training, endurance training, and of course functional fitness. They can be purchased at Fitness Depot which is where I buy all my equipment   https://youtu.be/Hm_RUjmopJo

Yes, not all trainers are created equal. While there are many outstanding trainers out there, there are also many trainers who have no business training themselves and certainly not clients So here are the Top 10 signs that your personal trainer sucks.   1. THEY DON'T SHOW YOU WORTHWHILE OR PRACTICAL EXERCISES There are many trainers who love to amp up the "WOW" factor and show you crazy, exotic, and often dangerous exercises. Standing on a stability ball while doing dumbbell curls and simultaneous knee lifts may seem very effective. You're training your balance, core, coordination, and so much more, right? Wrong! You're risking falling…

After many years in the fitness industry, I've narrowed it down to 12 Keys To Success In Fitness. So if you're ready, here they are! 1. TIME AND EFFICIENCY  This is the old quality over quantity rule. I'm sure you've all seen the lazy bench presser who does a set, waits 10 minutes, does another, waits 10 more minutes, etc. He then tells people that he works out for 3 hours a day when in fact he's probably doing about 30 minutes of work. He's just taking 3 hours to get it done. Scientifc studies have shown that the best result-producing workouts are…

Most people have probably heard the term HIIT before. In case you haven't, it stands for High Intensity Interval Training. A very solid method of training particularly for fat loss. In fact, some studies have actually shown that it can be up to 3 times more effective than steady state cardio.   Not that anything is wrong with steady state cardio, but for maximum efficiency HIIT wins. Of course this concept is hardly new. A round of boxing is interval training as well. 3 minutes of work followed by 1 minute of rest. And of course, as an alternative to timing your…