Posted on March 19, 2014 by Jenny Cromack

The last couple of days have been great days, great personal training sessions with my clients and my own training has gone really well.

One of the common things I’ve talked about to my clients in the last couple of days is about making exercise a priority and prioritising their nutrition. I appreciate that everyone has busy lives, and I don’t want this to sound like I’m going on a ‘Jenny rant!’ (I promise you I’m not, I just want you to achieve your goals!) but unless people prioritise their own training sessions and nutrition people will never achieve their goals.  It’s that simple! I want you to think of something that is really important to you in your life and think about how much energy and attention you give that ‘thing’, you now have to do the same with your training.

I can think of many of my personal training clients who have demanding jobs and/or family lives but because their goals are high on their list of importance this means they become top priority to fit around everything else in their lives. They also have ‘back up plans’ that if something crops up and they have to miss their workouts that they can sneak it in somewhere else.

My thought is that there will always be reasons (excuses?) not to train or miss out one of your sessions…..things happening at the last minute or life-stresses are part and parcel of life but if you focus on making exercise a priority and get into the routine of fitting them in no matter what then your workouts will just become part of your day to day routine. And yes, there maybe times when you have to skip the odd one that’s just life, but once you start skipping workouts on a weekly basis then that’s become a bad habit.

Here are some blogs which may help you in making exercise a priority:

http://www.m8north.co.uk/blog/busy-lifestyles-prepared-food/

http://www.m8north.co.uk/blog/motivation-and-commitment-what-it-takes-to-achieve-your-goals/

http://www.m8north.co.uk/blog/the-exercise-diary-the-best-kept-secret-for-keeping-in-shape/

As for my training so far this week, yesterday’s training session was tough! My next 8 weeks of my run plan are focused on developing my Anaerobic system so I can run at faster paces without reaching my lactate threshold as easy and therefore I should be able to run faster without become as fatigued as easily. So, yesterday I did an 8 mile run, 4 miles at steady pace followed by 1/2 mile intervals at lactate threshold level, with 1/2 time to recover – a tough session. Hated it at the time, but a sick sense of satisfaction at the end!

Today was another strength day, the session started with a pyramid interval of hill sprints on the treadmill. Sprinting for a minute uphill, starting at 3% incline and then increasing by 0.5% every other interval until I’d completed 10 intervals.

This was followed by a strength session, at the moment I’m focusing on PHA training which alternates between upper body and lower body exercises as this is great for fat burning and allows me to train my legs using run specific exercises without killing them off completely if I have a run session to do the next day! So I focus on leg specific exercises such as stability leg curls, lunges, dead lifts and squats combined with compound upper body exercises such as press ups, chest press, rows, etc. A great workout!