Good advice.

Cashew and Coconut protein balls

Prep time: 10 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1 bag of cashew nuts
• 3 scoops of protein powder
• 6-10 dates
• 1-2 tablespoons of honey
• 2 tablespoons of coconut oil
• Desiccated coconut

Blend the cashew nuts until they form a paste, then add the other ingredients. If it is too dry just add more oil. Roll them up into balls, and then roll them in the desiccated coconut to coat them. Place them in the fridge for 10-15 minutes and voilà! Enjoy your healthy snack :)

If you need help on how to make improvements in your diet, get in touch. Personal coaching can help you achieve the results you desire, as well as giving you the necessary effective tools you need to keep striving forwards, to keep changing and progressing on your journey.


Challenge everything, especially yourself.

Alex Kay Grimmer


Contact me for Kettlebell classes and Personal Training in Southend-on-sea.
Please visit my website: ALEXKAY

Congratulations! You're one of the few that actually follow the links! Quote this poster to get your kettlebell class for only £5 - valid up to and including the 18th of November 2013.

Home exercise equipment and workout routine

This is a question that I get asked time and time again. “What can I do at home?” So I have come up with a short list of home exercise equipment, plus a home workout routine that you can follow. When looking at home exercise equipment, there are a few priorities to consider. Firstly is always going to be Bang For Your Buck. Basically, you don't want to spend too much, and for what you do spend, you want to get the biggest return. Now you could get away with less equipment, just as you could always add more, but I have capped the budget at £100. This is a reasonably small amount of money to invest into your own health & well-being without stretching the budget too far. Face it, a gym membership will likely have a joining fee of around £30-£50, plus the same again per month. So for the cost of 2 or 3 months gym membership, you get yourself into the game.

Ab wheel

Chin up bar

Skipping rope

Foam roller

Kettlebell

(Rings & Straps – suspension trainer)

(resistance bands)

All of the above can be purchased for under £100. If you need help finding them for the right price, ask me and I will point you in the right direction.

If you are looking to just get fit, maybe use exercise to burn fat, the skipping rope alone will be a great investment. Start off small, but 10 minutes of skipping every day will dramatically increase your ability to uptake oxygen (fitness) and will do wonders for shifting those unwanted pounds.

Forget sit-ups or crunches. Those two mindless exercises will only make you better at doing sit-ups and crunches. Nothing more. Invest about £7 in an AB Wheel and get rolling! Make sure you do it safely and do not arch your back during the roll out. Think of it as a moving (and therefore more beneficial) plank.

A kettlebell is a wonderful piece of home exercise equipment; extremely versatile and it doesn't take up much space. Everything from swings to squats to get ups. There's a reason it's often referred to as “the gym in the palm of your hand”.

(Optional additional extras can be resistance bands and a suspension trainer)

Resistance bands are again wonderfully versatile, from shoulder pressing to glute activation to assisting with stretching, you just can't go wrong.

If you have somewhere to throw straps over, rings & straps will replace a TRX at less than a fifth of the cost. Now think rows, presses, curls, extensions, flies, and that's just the basic stuff - Getting on the leg scissoring for extreme Ab workouts!

Finally a foam roller. Recovery is as important as exercise. You don't get stronger from lifting weights, you get stronger by recovering from lifting weights. If you are not taking recovery seriously you are in for a world of problems later on.

Now for the workouts...

The reality is we are all different. Different bodies with different strengths and weaknesses, old or new injuries, vastly different goals... etc... but I will attempt to give you all a very generic workout that should cover all bases.

Program one:

Skipping – 2min

Turkish Get Ups – 1 each side

Goblet squats – 8-10reps

(superset the TGU and the squats for 5 sets)

Ab wheel roll outs – 5 sets of 5-8reps

Program two:

Skipping – 2min

Swings – 10reps

Pull ups – Your max but only up to 10reps

Push ups – Your max but only up to 10reps

(Triset the swings, pull-ups & push-ups, and do 5-8 sets)

Ab wheel roll outs – 5 sets of 5-8 reps

Do each program at least twice each every week. It shouldn't take longer than 30 minutes.

If you would like a specific home workout routine based on your body and your needs, contact me for a consultation and I would be happy to help you.

If you need help on how to do this, get in touch. Personal training can help you achieve the results you desire, as well as giving you the necessary effective tools you need to keep striving forwards, to keep changing &; progressing on your journey.


Challenge everything, especially yourself.

Alex Kay Grimmer


Contact me for Kettlebell classes and Personal Training in Southend-on-sea.
Please visit my website: ALEXKAY