Are you in the habit of skipping the final 5-minute stretch of your workout to get a head start in the showers? Your strength training and cardio routine is paying off, your diet is on point, and you’re feeling great about your progress. But one day you wake up with slight back pain. You try to work through it, but the aching or sharp pain doesn’t seem to subside. You begin to stretch out your injury, realising that mobility work is the key to injury prevention as you begin wishing you had integrated a stretching routine from the beginning. It’s easy to overlook the important stretch session a ..read more

For some people, planning weekly meals is as simple as making a list, buying the ingredients and setting aside time to turn their meal plan into a weekly reality. For others, the daunting task of meal prep is too much to grip, leaving the decision of what you’re going to eat up to your future hungry self. The problem is that people often wait until their body is in starvation mode to choose what they are going to feed themselves, possibly resulting in choosing high caloric foods and larger than necessary portion sizes as you’re lead to think with your stomach’s cry for help rather than your br ..read more

There is something noticeably different about boxers that frequently shadow box in their training, and those that don’t. The sense of calmness and comfort that exuberates from the movement of those that often shadow box seems to set in as naturally as breathing. On the other hand, a fighter that lacks shadow boxing in their training routine steps into the ring full of nerves, anxiousness and excitement. Their fight mode has often been switched on to the extreme to offset nerves. Mid fight, panic mode sets in, creating an unnatural look to their movement in the ring. There is something to be sa ..read more

It’s no accident when a professional boxer makes it to the top. It’s tribute to their focus, dedication and commitment not only to their training, but to their diets too. Boxers must pay far more attention to their diets than the average person, as proper nutrition is not just important – it’s critical. Healthy eating is the foundation of the speed, strength, and mental clarity required for success in boxing. Other than the specific nutrition requirements of a pre-fight and post-fight diet, there are general nutrition guidelines that professional boxers follow in-between fights to ensure they ..read more

There are three main pieces to the total fitness puzzle – diet, exercise, and sleep. Diet and exercise are widely discussed in the fitness industry, but one third of the equation is mostly overlooked. Sleep is vital for body rejuvenation and healthy functioning, not only affecting mood and memory function, but more importantly to the avid gym goer – your health, weight and energy levels. Most studies show that an ideal amount of sleep per night is somewhere between 7-9 hours for the general population, depending on lifestyle and activity factors. Sleeping is the body’s cherished recovery time ..read more

There are so many different training techniques floating around the fitness industry. Each offer different methods regarding appropriate exercises, the number of sets and reps, the length of the rest period, and the amount of exercise required per week. There’s so much out there that it’s easy for a game changing concept such as tempo weight training to be overlooked. It’s time to hit the brakes on cranking out countless reps at the same pace day in and day out. Sure, your muscles are feeling the slow burn, but what if I told you that adjusting the tempo of your reps could spur new muscle grow ..read more

For the last several weeks, you were making huge progress in the fat loss department through your exercise regimen. Your motivation was high and the pounds of fat were just falling off your body as you felt yourself building strength. But suddenly your progress has come to a screeching halt, and you’re left wondering why no matter what you do, the remaining fat you’re trying the shed seems to be clinging to your body for dear life. It’s important to understand that fat loss plateaus are a natural part of fitness, and at some point, everyone’s progress will stall. Think about it like this: if y ..read more

Weight loss is such a hot topic, but there’s a huge difference between losing weight (which is the sum of your bones, organs, muscles, body fat, etc) and losing body fat to achieve your fitness goals. Oftentimes when we step on the scale and observe a slight increase or decrease in our weight, we assume we’ve gained or lost fat, but the reality is that it’s not that simple. First, it’s important to understand the difference between weight loss and fat loss. A healthy goal is to maximise fat loss without compromising your muscle mass and the required amount of water retention to sustain life. W ..read more

Closing the fist and extending the arm out towards an impending threat to inflict damage and uphold self-defence is a primal instinct present in all human beings. However, some are inclined to pack a better punch than others based on their proper use of techniques, positioning, focus, body type and strength. Initial power of the punch is launched from the relationship between the soles of the feet and the floor. A strong stance with legs shoulder distance apart will allow the energy from a punch in motion to travel from the floor to the feet, through both legs into the glutes, up the core into ..read more

Have you ever completed a training session without a bead of sweat on your body? Or rather have you ever stopped halfway through your session bent over gasping for air, feeling the pain in the name of gains and results? Depending on your training experience, you may have fallen into the trap of overtraining, in which you think that the more times you train and the harder and longer you go, the more gains you’ll make. But how hard and how long can you train before you begin pushing your body into a state of getting less than optimal results? The body is a complex machine. There are so many fact ..read more