New Year, New You!

It's that time again – New Year, New You! Yes it's a cliché, but that's because we all do it. The new year brings a clear definitive point in time where we can draw a line under the missed opportunities of last year, and make a real, concerted effort towards achieving something meaningful in the coming year. I am no different, but on top of setting new goals for myself for 2015, I also want to help you achieve your goals too.

In order to truly achieve the changes you desire, you need to understand why it hasn't happened before. Two big reasons stand out – nutrition, and procrastination. Nutrition because people still believe they can achieve results without it, and the fact is, it just isn't true. Even if you don't care about a six-pack, or being beach-body-beautiful, you cannot achieve a worthwhile level of performance without correctly nourishing your body. FACT. The other equally important reason is believing you have all the time in the world to achieve results. Well unless you take responsibility and set a specific time period, you will procrastinate in your training and not really push to achieve it – after all; there's always next week right? WRONG. Set a goal and set a specific time period to achieve it is the only way you'll ever get there.

With that in mind, I am offering the following 3 packages guaranteed to give you results!

All packages will include fundamentals that you cannot do without if you are to achieve the goals you desire. They will be a FULL assessment, including measurements, photos, physical testing and food diary analysis. They will also ALL include a personalised and tailored training program for you to follow on your own. ALL packages will include weekly nutritional consultations to ensure you stay on track. The difference will be how many PT sessions you commit to. ALL packages are for 13 weeks (3 months), because results don't happen in a week. You need long enough not only to start changing, but to ensure you don't stop at the first site of change!! You need to make it a habit, and you will need help to push past the first sign of progress towards real change!

I am looking to take on new clients who are serious about making a permanent change to their lifestyles and their bodies.

I will be offering 3 packages:

ALL packages will include the following:

1. A 2-hour initial assessment including measurements, 'before' photos, food diary analysis, nutritional consulting and a physical assessment & testing.
2. Your own personalised training program, tailored to your goals, needs and physical ability.
3. Weekly nutritional consulting to ensure you stay on track to achieve your goals.

Package 1: £500 or 3 payments: £250, £150, £100

1 x PT session every 4 weeks to ensure you are using good form, timing your work/rest periods correctly, and are pushing yourself hard enough.

Package 2: £700 or 3 payments: £350, £200, £150

1 x PT session every week. If you need that constant push to keep you motivated, I will see you every week and ensure you are working out correctly and to your potential.

Package 3: £1,000 or 3 payments: £500, £300, £200

2 x PT sessions every week. With doing half your workouts under close supervision, you can only win! The high frequency of PT sessions will keep you motivated during your own sessions too.

At the end of your 3 month package, if you decide to continue, you may purchase another package.

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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


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

Kettlebell classes Southend Essex Discount

BodyQuest Kettlebell Gym offers TWO kettlebell classes every week – Tuesdays and Thursdays at 7pm. If you are new to kettlebells you NEED to book in beforehand by contacting myself (details below) and making sure you arrive 30 minutes early for tuition on what's to come in the session. Classes are £8 each, but if it is your very first time it is FREE.

For the months of November & December 2014, if you pay for the classes in advance, you will pay only £99! That's saving £29! Hurry, payment needs to be made before the 11^th of November.

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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 


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

3 THINGS YOU NEED TO ACHIEVE RESULTS

3 things you NEED to achieve results (and the #1 reason why you don't)

Consistency – Technique – Intensity

#1. Be consistent. Much like the tortoise and the hare, consistently (regularly) plodding through will eventually get you to where you want to be. It is sticking to you gym program diligently that will eventually show results. It is attending your gym classes every week that will eventually show results. In fact, this is the only factor that will succeed without the other two! Sure, your results will be hampered, you won't quite achieve maybe what you set out to achieve, but being consistent will trump everything else.

If you merely attended both my Tuesday and my Thursday kettlebell classes every week without every skipping a class, you will surprise yourself at the results you can obtain. You may be surprised to find out that my kettlebell classes form the base of what I do. They give me the strength and mobility to go on and do other things. If I recommended nothing else, it would be to attend those two classes every week without fail (hopefully combining that will Technique & Intensity!).

#2. Perfect Technique. Practice doesn't make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect. How you specifically perform a movement will determine what you get out of it. If your technique sucks, at best you just won't reap the benefits, because you won't be engaging what you need to get the best out of the exercise. If you're deadlifting and you're pushing your knees forward and dropping your hips, then you are engaging your quads instead of your hamstrings. You just won't get the stronger posterior chain that you should from deadlifting. At worst, you're setting yourself up to get injured, for putting yourself into a compromised position during an exercise. Repeating a movement won't fix it unless you're repeating it correctly. Whatever you do will be engrained, so do it right first time, every time.

#3. Intensity! This is the missing component to most people's training. The lack of intensity is to blame for their lack of results! You can have the best coach in the world. You can have the most well-equipped training facility in the world. You can have the most well devised progressive training program ever created – but if you do not apply yourself you will never achieve anything. Intensity is focus, drive determination... Attacking your workout with purpose. It is likely no more than 60 minutes; often less. That's a short enough period of time to push yourself hard – get out of that damn comfort zone! It isn't time to chat, it isn't time to look good. It is time to work HARD. Only with that uncomfortable effort, that hard-to-breath, that muscle-burning, that I-want-to-quit-so-badly-right-now feeling; will you be able to break free from your old self and forge a new, stronger, tougher, fitter, faster, leaner you.

Let me say it again. THE NUMBER ONE REASON PEOPLE DO NOT ACHIEVE RESULTS IS A LACK OF INTENSITY IN THEIR TRAINING.

I don't care if you do kettlebells or zumba. I don't care if you like muscle-isolating machines at a commercial gym or if you enjoy lifting Atlas stones or flipping tyres. INTENSITY = RESULTS. Lack of intensity = 99% of the population who are complaining about how 'this' and 'that' just didn't work for 'them'. Nonsense. Anything will work. Do what you love doing, and do it with intensity. It will work. Period.

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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 


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

My Top 5 Supplements

In general, I do not advocate supplements. Well, at least not the million different typical bodybuilding supplements available nowadays. Most of them will do nothing but slim down your bank account. There are a few however, that really do make a difference. Here is my take on what I consider to be worthwhile supplementation.

Supplements are exactly that – something to supplement your existing nutritional intake. You supplement because you are, for whatever reason, not obtaining sufficient quantities through normal nutritional intake. This could be because you diet is not optimal, and you're missing out on vital nutrients – in which case you should really address that rather than just add in a supplement. The other reason is maybe your requirements are greater than what can be obtained through a usual healthy nutritional plan.

My top five supplements:

Magnesium (oil)

Zinc

Vitamin D

Protein

Creatine

When I started supplementing with magnesium, I noticed the positive effects in about 7-10 days. NOTICABLE effects. I use magnesium oil, which you can buy from Holland & Barratt for about £12, and should last about a month. There may be a tingling sensation when applied to the skin, but that's just an indication that your magnesium levels are low.

Here are just some of the benefits of my all-time favourite supplement!

One of the main benefits is it acts as a muscle relaxant. Potassium and calcium are the opposite, and are responsible for muscle contraction. Magnesium is also responsible for the absorption and metabolism of calcium, as well as actually keeping calcium out of the cells (when magnesium is low, calcium rushes in and causes cell death).

Magnesium also activates enzymes that control digestion, absorption and utilization of proteins, fats and carbohydrates. There is a direct relationship between the amount of magnesium and the ability to avoid high blood pressure. Magnesium lowers LDL cholesterol (bad) and raises HDL cholesterol (good). It also prevents muscle spasms of heart & peripheral blood vessels which lead to things like high blood pressure and heart attacks. Magnesium will also prevent calcium build up in cholesterol plaque in arteries, and magnesium is just as important as calcium in preventing and treating osteoporosis (magnesium is required to activate enzymes for new bone growth too).

Magnesium is also the ultimate stress buster – it supports the adrenal glands that get worn out by stress! Serotonin, the feel-good hormone, depends on magnesium for it's production and function.

Rather than bore you with several more pages of why the other 4 are good, I will just give you the main points:

Zinc acts as a natural testosterone booster (just as important for women, it isn't an exclusive male hormone). I would recommend men taking up to 150mg a day, and women 75mg a day. The recommended daily dose isn't sufficient to obtain noticeable changes. Zinc will improve your athletic performance and strength, as well as supporting reproductive health and fertility. It will also boost your immune system and make you more insulin sensitive.

Vitamin D is actually not a vitamin, but rather a steroid hormone. It is critical for fighting diseases, as well as avoiding the winter blues. If you take it in higher doses, take vitamin K2 alongside it. When you take higher doses of vitamin D you body produces more K2 dependant proteins. There's a great relationship between vitamin D, K2, calcium and magnesium!

Protein! Most people just don't consume enough (people who train have a higher requirement for protein anyway). Whatever you are consuming, you can safely double it. If you cannot get enough in your actual food intake, then supplement! I recommend buying the protein supplement with the LEAST amount of ingredients. Keep it simple. A couple of shakes a day will do wonders for most people (in addition to their food! Do not 'swap' shakes for food!).

Creatine. This is probably the only (typically bodybuilding) supplement to have real science backing it. Over 200 studies over the last decade alone. Creatine is a naturally occurring substance in the body, required for energy production. Quite simply, it will help you exercise at a more intense level (the main reason why people do NOT see results from exercise is a LACK of intensity! Watch out for my blog soon on this exact topic). You will be able to perform more reps, lift more weight, create more tension, speed... etc. You will be able to apply yourself much better. What are you waiting for? My tip is to use plain creatine monohydrate. Don't waste money on fancy supplements when the basic ones do the same thing with less junk thrown in.

There you have it folks! My top 5. If you have a question on any of the above, or maybe another supplement you're curious about, just email, text, carrier pigeon me and I'll get back to you.

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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 


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

Secret discounts!

If you're quick & quiet, you'll be able to sneak off with this amazing discount on the BodyQuest group classes!

The offer is valid for the classes from the 3^rd of November 2014 until 21^st of December 2014. That's 7 full calendar weeks – pay £126 (cash in advance) and save £42!

That's only £6 a class, and if you do this, we'll throw in Tuesday the 23^rd of December's kettlebell class in FREE!

All payments must be made in cash, in full, by the 8^th November 2014 to qualify.

BodyQuest Classes

There are 3 classes a week at BodyQuest Kettlebell Gym - 2 kettlebell classes and 1 circuit class. The kettlebell classes are on Tuesday and Thursday evenings at 7pm, and the circuit class is Saturday mornings at 8.15am. All classes are £8 per person.

If you are new to kettlebells, you need to contact us to book in, and you will need to arrive no later than 30min early (6.30pm) for tuition on using the kettlebells. The Saturday circuit class is getting more and more popular with the awesome energy that Kirsty delivers, you're set up perfectly for the weekend!

There are 12 classes in the month of November, and 10 classes in December (before Christmas). That's a sh!tload of exercise between now and Christmas that could make a huge difference to the usual Christmas 'bulge'.... I guarantee you that if you attended those 22 classes, plus made 2 changes to your nutrition, you would be amazed at the difference in your body in just 8 weeks! When making changes to your nutrition; look for the one or two changes you can make that will have the biggest impact. Here are some examples:

Cut out sugar - this includes soft drinks, and the usual junk like chocolate, ice cream, cakes, biscuits, etc

Cut out soft drinks - if you're a heavy consumer of soft drinks this is great change to make

Cut out anything with food colouring in - you'll be surprised....

Cut carbs - especially eliminating bread and pasta (maybe even rice & potatoes too)

Consider cutting out dairy. A few weeks will tell you if there's a difference and whether it's worth adding back in or not.

Cut out snacks between meals - more challenging than you may realise, and don't make the mistake of increasing meal quantity to make up for it!

So there you have it. 22 classes from November to Christmas. Attending all of them will make a big difference, but are you will to step out of your comfort zone, and make it a priority?

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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 


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

Trial By Fire

My trial is by Fire. What is yours?

(Trail By Fire is a clubbell workout – 100 double swipes, 100 mills, 100 hammer swings. The swipes are 100 doubles (both arms at the same time), the mills are 100 in each hand (done separately) and the hammer swings are 50 in each direction).

7 full weeks remain until Christmas! I am going to be counting them down, as I have set myself a target, a goal, to achieve within that time. Why? Because so many people, most people will slack off in the run up until Christmas, and then wonder what on earth happened. Then the usual hard slog to fix it begins in January, which is twice as hard because of the lapse before Christmas. It invariably ends up as a disappointing failure.

Are you going to be that person, or are you going to be the person who gets a head start on everyone else? NOW is always the time for action! I started a plan 3 weeks ago, but if you didn't, you can start now! 7 weeks is more than enough time to make a habit, and make a change. Think of the difference it will make in January, if you arrive then healthy, fit and strong! You get to make that decision; nobody else, so join me. Do whatever you want to, but start now - set a goal to achieve, formulate a plan to get you there ON TIME and go for it!

If you need help with goal setting and planning, get in touch, book a consultation and together we can make it happen for you!

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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 


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