Nick Mitchell's Ultimate Performance

BioSignature Modulation in Women’s Fitness

Nick — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:00:43 +0000

I often harp on about the myriad benefits of utilising BioSignature Modulation. Certainly it is one of the primary tools that we use at UP when assessing clients’ dietary and supplement needs. It’s not the only tool mind you, and in many cases we opt to push things further with blood work (for seemingly intractable there are ALWAYS solutions), but make no mistake about it, BioSignature is a brilliant concept in the hands of the right practitioner. At UP we are very fortunate to now have over a dozen qualified personal trainers, amongst them such talent as Rich Phillipps who is carving himself a great reputation as a female fat loss specialist.

Women’s Fitness ran a recent feature article with an in depth interview with myself on how BioSignature Modulation works. They have pretty much got everything spot on and I highly recommend you have a quick read. Just ignore the bit where I am quoted as saying that an acceptable body fat % for females is up to 30%. This was politically correct journalistic license at it’s very best. There is only one way to describe someone with 30% body fat, and it starts with “corp” and ends in “ulent”. If you think you are approaching that and are struggling with how to defeat the problem then as good a place as any to start is to google “BioSignature Modulation” to find someone close to you. And if you want any advice on who may be good locally then just drop me a line and I’ll be only too glad to help. There are some truly marvelous BioSignature specialists out there, but sometimes we all need a bit of steering to sort the wheat from the chaff. I hope that you enjoy the article below -

Bio Signature Womens Fitness

101 Tips to lose fat and get lean: watch out for your fat friends!

Nick — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 20:15:29 +0000

Tips to lose fat and get lean: watch out for your fat friends!

Try not turn too many of your meals into grand social affairs. Research at the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that those who eat with a friend will typically consume double the calories than if they were eating with an unfamiliar peer. That’s an awful lot of extra and unnecessary eating in between gossip and chit-chat!

Social Eating In Action!

So the take home lesson here is to minimise social activity whilst dining and perhaps save it for the post meal coffees. Sans chocolates of course!

As hard as it may seem, very often we have to perceive food as being FAR more about function and less about an indulgence of the senses or an extension of one’s social life. I am rediscovering this myself right now as I go through a total sea change in my dietary habits due to an H Pylori infection (more on this in a later post), and it is always worth reminding ourselves that all, and I do mean all, of our great fat loss transformation clients have broken ingrained dietary habits to get themselves in stellar shape.

“No Matter What…” – What It Takes To Transform Your Body

Nick — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 17:56:05 +0000

The following paragraph is part of something I have recently written for my upcoming book. Many people want bigger muscles / a leaner, more defined body but do they really have the heart to go all the way for a radical fat loss transformation / muscle building revelation?

To paraphrase Arnold Schwarzenegger in Pumping Iron, building a muscle is all about having the determination and the courage to push on through a set no matter what the pain and no matter how much your body wants to stop. Great training is all about heart and having the mental fortitude of a champion. If you journey into any hardcore gym in the world you will readily observe that the biggest and baddest men are those who push past the pain barrier and milk each and every set to its fullest potential. The techniques for extending a set past the point of no return are manifold and manifest and can be taught and explained with ease. What isn’t easy however, is the execution. Overriding the burn of the lactic acid, pushing the nausea to one side, ignoring the light-headedness, and embracing the feeling of microscopic muscle trauma as you tear down muscle fibers that will later be remoulded as bigger, faster and stronger units takes grit and determination and is not something that can be taught off the page. It comes from within and is what separates the men from the boys.

The photo below is a taster of what can be achieved by following the principles I will explain both in the new book, and of course to our personal training clients here at Ultimate Performance in London. The full story (and photos) of this remarkable 12 week fat loss transformation (with an over abundance of muscle building thrown in for a total body change) will be coming soon to this blog. The results are simply fantastic and could only have been achieved through a tonne of educated effort and the courage and the determination to go on “no matter what”.

An Incredible 12 Week Fat Loss Transformation!

If you’d like to register your interest in the book (that has already gone through so many tenative titles that it remains as yet unnamed!) please email caroline@UPFitness.co.uk and she will put you on the list.

Ten Ways To Improve Your Bench Press

Nick — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 13:12:25 +0000

Bench presser and bodybuilding personal trainer extraordinaire Justin Maguire has just published a great new article on how to improve your bench press prowess. It is full of great tips and tricks for getting the most out of what many regard as “The King Of The Upper Body Exercises”. You can read the full article on the main Ultimate Performance website by clicking on “Ten Ways To Improve Your Bench Press“.

A quick summary is that positioning, breathing and decent equipment are all very important and should be ignored at your peril. Do of course bear in mind that this is a handy “ten ways to improve…” type list and is by no means exhaustive. We could write a book (and many have!) simply on the improvement of bench press performance. One aspect that MUST always be considered is good structural balance in the upper body, most notably the shoulder girdle / rotator cuff area (if you are interested I wrote an article a while back on “The Importance of Structural Balance“). The exact aspects of this are quite involved and my advice is always to seek out a very well qualified and experienced personal trainer to teach you the best way to both bulletproof your body from injuries and to become as strong as possible across the “chain” of muscles responsible for bench press power. I always use the analogy that you can’t shoot a cannon from a canoe – think on this and if you don’t quite get it then drop me a line and I’ll explain all!

101 Fat Loss Tips – Be Realistic About Your Fat Loss Targets

Nick — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 22:52:11 +0000

Tips to lose fat and get lean: Be Realistic about your Fat Loss Targets

Setting realistic, step by step goals to hit your fat loss targets is the only way to make sustained progress and achieve that lean, ripped body you so desire.� Too often I see people come to our London personal training centre with crazy goals that are doomed to fail.

"Look in my eyes" - THIS is the right mindset for fast fat loss success!

The latest example who springs to mind is �Mr Delusional Fat Loss�.� This is a man who claims to follow the bodybuilding lifestyle, obsesses to the tiniest detail about his supplement regime, and yet is carrying almost 30% body fat and is verging on the clinically obese.� He wants it all and wants it now, which is why he is doomed to continue down his spiral of dieting failure.� This is a character who understands nothing of the discipline of fulfilling small achievable goals (small steps eventually add up to long progress) because he sat opposite me and with a straight face claimed that he wanted to hit sub 10% body fat in less than 5 weeks.� Given that he was carrying an excess of at least 70lbs of fat he would have to burn off 14lbs a week for 5 weeks without losing an ounce of muscle mass.� Our clients are well known for achieving some pretty stellar results and I am very confident that I am a great personal trainer, but I am not that great!� Only the Lord Almighty can help this guy and unless he starts to root himself in reality he will never drop a decent amount of body fat and continue to look and be an unhealthy fat man.
So the lesson here is that you should set yourself small goals all aiming towards your one big long-term goal, whether it be getting lean for the beach or shredded for the bodybuilding contest stage!

Extend The Set For Greater Muscular Gains

Nick — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 12:19:01 +0000

We have just posted another great article on the main UP website detailing intensity techniques on how to get the absolute maximum from any set of just about any exercise that you will ever do. It’s written by UP London personal trainer Michael Hoad, who has rapidly established himself as one the “go-to” personal trainers in London for generating maximum muscular gains in the minimum amount of time. As you’d expect from a UP personal trainer, Michael “lives the life” and is supremely dedicated both to his own training and in continuing to learn and grow in the UP constant quest for more knowledge to stay at the very top of this fantastic business of personal training. I myself am constantly picking up new tricks (perhaps less on the exercise side and more on the medical side these days) and bounce out of bed every day buzzing with what we are going to come up with next at UP!

Tom Platz- the hardest trainer of them all?

The article itself can be found by clicking on this link – “Extend The Set Training For Greater Muscular Gains” – but a short precis to wet your appetite is that Michael deals very comprehensively with a range of classic bodybuilding intensity (“intensity” in this context meaning “to make more difficult and painful” as opposed to the classic strength training definition of percentage of 1 rep maximum). He covers to name just a few:

Drop Sets / Negatives / Forced Negatives / Cheating / Rest-Pause / shortening the lever / changing the angle.

I highly recommend this great article written by a great personal trainer to all of you who want to push you own training to the next level. He has picked techniques that we have used in bodybuilding circles for decades: techniques that sort the men from the boys. If you want to see an example of multiple techniques (cheating / changing angle / forced reps) click on the video below of the AMAZING Tom Platz, a bodybuilding icon from the the 1980s in an era when brutal bodybuilding training was everything. Be warned though – only ever try this if you have a few years experience in the gym to your credit.

Are You Prepared To Die on A Treadmill?

Nick — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 21:22:34 +0000

I am not one given to the idol worship of movie stars, but you can’t help but love Will Smith (go to 4.20 into the video for the best bit).� Success leaves clues, and Will Smith has been consistently at the top of his game for nigh on 20 years now.� And the secret to his success isn’t necessarily talent – his words not mine.� Nope, the true secret is something that is available to us all and comes without prejudice or agenda.� This secret has many names and descriptions ranging from:

PERSISTENCE

DETERMINATION

PASSION

HUNGER

COMMITMENT

SELF BELIEF

DRIVE

But what I liked the most was Mr Smith’s own words when he said that he wasn’t afraid to die on a treadmill.� “No one will EVER outwork me”. Imagine if we could all apply that philosophy to our lives.� Our potential would be endless.

You can of course apply this lesson to personal training, but I prefer to see it as a guide for everything I strive to achieve in my life, be it building our business, bringing up my son, and just living my life.� I will not let myself down by not being 100% committed in everything that I do, and will hustle and graft until the day the treadmill stops turning!

Personal Training Results

101 Tips to Lose Fat & get Lean: Eat Fat Before Bed

Nick — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 22:36:09 +0000

Fat is NOT the enemy of effective fat loss! Forget about what your pyramid shaped dietitian tells you! Not only do we need fat for overall cellular health (interestingly enough we don�t have any vital requirement for carbohydrates or grains no matter what studies the Cereal Board and Kellogg�s may sponsor!), but we also need fat to actually best spark the fat burning process inside our bodies.

Fat also fulfills another supremely important for the sometimes hungry dieter. Fat gives us satiety in a way that protein, and most especially carbohydrates, cannot. It is common sense that if two foods are of equal calorific value and one fills you up for longer, it will be that �longer lasting� food that can help us stick to our fat loss diets for longer. Take two eggs and compare how long they may fill you versus a bowl of cornflakes! This aspect is one of the reasons why consuming extra fibre / roughage can also enhance a fat loss regime.

Some Serious Fat Loss & Muscle Building went into changing this back in less than 2 months!

One good trick of top professional bodybuilders (men and women who must diet longer and harder for the tiniest ounce of last fat loss than any mere mortal can realistically comprehend) is to have a spoonful of (ideally organic) peanut butter before going to sleep. The fat sparks the metabolism and perhaps more significantly provides just enough �fullness� that it limits the chances of waking up in the wee hours with that bane of all successful fat loss programs, the dreaded munchies.

For more tips of fat loss see the 101 Fat Loss Tips section of this blog, or visit our main London personal trainer site.

New Personal Training Location in Central London – Covent Garden / Holborn!

Nick — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 11:46:05 +0000

Thankfully our reputation means that personal training enquiries come thick and fast at Ultimate Performance.� However, we have been limited as to how we can best service some of our potential clients as our personal trainers are almost always too busy to travel to random homes and we do very limited park training as the blunt fact of the matter is that it isn’t the most effective way to get into the best shape of your life. This means that unless a client is willing to travel to our City of London personal training gym we have to pass on their business.� Fortunately most of our clients come to us because they want something special, not for any perceived notion of “convenience”.� Almost all of my own personal clients travel from West London, and we have some clients who regularly make trips from as far away as Wales and Nottingham!

However no one believes that this is the ideal situation so I am delighted to announce that we will now have elite Ultimate Performance personal trainers (including operating a BioSignature Modulation practice) from within the ultra exclusive confines of the INC private members club on Grape Street, in the west end of London (Holborn, Oxford Street, and Covent Garden areas).� Although INC is a haunt of the likes of Cheryl Cole and is normally reserved solely for it’s own clientele from the world of fashion and performing arts, our own clients will be allowed to work with their UP Covent Garden / Holborn personal trainer without actually joining the club.

The INC gym is itself ideally geared towards personal training, and like our main EC2 personal training gym is totally private and will never get crowded. The feel and atmosphere are slightly different from UP’s main home, with our new West End location being more focused exclusively towards fat loss, toning and fitness workouts rather than the huge array of training modalities that we can apply from within the confines of Paul Street.

For those of you wish to learn more about personal training in London’s West End, Covent Garden, Holborn, Bloomsbury, and Oxford Street areas please see the information below:

Address:
INC Space
9 – 13 Grape Street
Covent Garden
London
WC2H 8ED
email: caroline@UPFitness.co.uk

Hours: for personal training and BioSignature Modulation assessments our personal trainers operate from 7am-9pm seven days a week.
Personal trainer and personal training serving Central London and the West End of London, including Holborn, Covent Garden, Bloomsbury, Oxford Street and Soho.
Relevant postcodes for working with an UP personal trainer in central London include W1, WC1, and WC2.

Charles Poliquin to train Arnold Palmer?

Nick — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 19:13:04 +0000

Charles Poliquin has asked me to post this message for all the PICP coaches who read this blog. Apparently Charles will now be writing for golf legend Arnold Palmer’s magazine and he feels that this may open up some lucrative strength and conditioning opportunities for the right people. Anything that can broaden the appeal and opportunities within our profession is something that I am very happy to support. And remember folks, it takes FAR more than taking a few courses to become a “proper” personal trainer, but the PICP courses, especially the Level 1, have a practical application that make them de rigueur at our London personal training gym.

News Announcment:
East Greenwich, Rhode Island, USA � January 22, 2010 � Charles Poliquin�s world-renowned expertise in strength and wellness will be featured in a regular column for Arnold Palmer�s Kingdom magazine. This regular feature will offer many new job and networking opportunities to those coaches who are current in their certification by the Poliquin International Certification Program (PICP).

A high-quality print magazine published three times a year, Kingdom will reach more than 130,000 private members and is available at the more than 300 golf courses designed by Mr. Palmer. Named after its founder, Arnold Palmer, who is nicknamed �The King,� Kingdom is promoted as a communication tool that will strengthen the sense of community for an affluent golfing audience.

Charles Poliquin Training at Ultimate Performance in London

Founded in 2003, Kingdom exceeds 200 pages per issue and covers all aspects of the game. Topics include reviews of championship courses, news about the latest golf equipment and apparel, and exclusive one-on-one interviews with the top players in the game. The articles are written by the most accomplished names in golf journalism, and in fact one of the regular contributors is Donald Trump, with his �Trump Talks Golf� column.

Considered the most accomplished strength coach in the world, Coach Poliquin has extended his knowledge to elite trainers through his PICP certification and Special Consideration Training series. PICP coaches work in over 57 countries, helping their clients achieve the highest levels of athletic and physical fitness in the shortest time possible. In 2009 Coach Poliquin opened an elite educational facility in East Greenwich, Rhode Island, that includes a 5,200-square-foot, state-of-the-art strength and conditioning performance center and 2,000-square-foot multi- media classroom. His multi-lingual website, CharlesPoliquin.com, is regularly viewed by individuals in more than 125 countries.

Coach Poliquin�s contributions to Kingdom magazine will provide a networking vehicle for those golfers seeking the best strength and conditioning coaches in the world .