It can hardly come as a startling confession that I have been most remiss at keeping up with blogging of late. I have limited excuses, time is precious for all of us although the pull of ensuring that the growth in our new personal training gym is kept pace by the continued excellence of effort and time that we put into each personal training client has proved challenging of late. My absence hasn’t meant that the grass is growing under my feet in terms of pushing out useful information that can aid in your fat loss, muscle building, or general health promoting efforts. The last month or so has seen Ultimate Performance trainer Glenn Parker appear in Men’s Fitness (again), we have made our usual small showings in the likes of Men’s health, FHM and even had a little mention in the Daily Telegraph!
I have also been busy looking at something very popular, but extremely new for me – the world of “exergaming”. I received a call a few weeks ago asking if I’d like to help Nintendo as the “celebrity fitness trainer” (that’s what my contract said, if my friend Marc Coles is reading this I put it in just for you) with the launch (can’t say when, sworn to secrecy) of the new Wii Fit Plus. Just between you and me, I thought it would be a great opportunity to align myself with such a world class brand, but what the hell would a Wii Fit have to offer a properly hardcore training guy like. I can bench press nigh on 450lbs so waving my hands about whilst stood on a board wasn’t going to offer up too much in the way of a challenge for me was it? A favourite saying lurking forever in the Mitchell brain is that “assumption is the mother of all f**k ups” and how right I was. To my surprise I found so many aspects of the Wii Fit challenging, and once I had a console at home to play about on I would easily lose 30 minutes and a couple of hundred calories following the instructions in movements as varied as lunges and push-ups, to yoga poses and hula hoops games (we may YouTube this if I don’t imagine the sign of an 18st oaf like me gyrating on a Wii Fit has been seen all that often). Of course, it’ll never replace the real gym experience but as a way to sneak in some flexibility and posture moves it can be a nice addition to even the hardcore trainer’s world. And for those strange people who don’t love gyms or are intimidated by them, I am told they exist all over apparently, I think the Wii Fit Plus would be a fantastic buy.
I am currently writing this blog from 20,000 feet (maybe??) over the Atlantic as I am flying onto the East Coast of the States to visit Charles Poliquin’s “Poliquin Strength Institute” – I’ll be sure to pick up some gems as Charles is unbelievable in his ability to stay at the forefront of cutting edge strength & conditioning trends.
