Fitness Challenge - Week 7

BIG changes, and not just for me.

The gym where I've been working out - Strength and Performance in Stockport - is also having a makeover too.

If you want to be in good shape, you have to make sure you find time for working out just as you would going for a drink to maintain a social life.

Sean and Zoran have taken one of the sledgehammers I normally hit big tyres with and literally knocked through into the unit next door.

Not only has the gym doubled in size, but it's now got a luscious length of astroturf covering one side - much comfier for press ups and it beats pushing the prowler along outside in the rain.

Press ups have actually been a good way of measuring how my body has changed and my strength has developed.

When I started out, I could do about three. Badly. Now I can bang out four reps of 12.

That's down to all the dumbell snatches, kettlebell lifts, etc, Sean and Zoran have had me doing.

It's been hard this week - a ten day break for a holiday and I was struggling to get through my first session back.

Which just goes to prove that you get the best results from doing something constistently rather than sporadic two week diets or fitness fads.

I watched something on the telly during the week about Claire Richards, who used to be in pop band Steps. Her weight went up and down as she tried diet after diet and one extreme regime after another.

What she couldn't get through her cake-addled brain was that it's not about denying yourself things for a few weeks, then reaching for the biscuits. It's a lifestyle thing.

If you want to be in good shape, you have to make sure you find time for working out just as you would going for a drink to maintain a social life.

What I've been doing is hard, but sensible. Little changes to diet here and there, and structured exercise designed to suit me.

Watch the videos below to see what they've had me doing this week - renegade rows (pulling weights up from a press up position) and kettlebell snatches (my hamstrings still ache) were particular highlights.