So here in Perth, Australia it’s still Winter and for the last week it’s been a bit wet, windy and cold so the thought of getting that Summer Beach Body might feel a long way off still. However it’s not as far off as you might think….

We are literally on the cusp of Spring. Spring being the first day of September. Summer is only 3 months after that on the first day of December. So if you haven’t been hitting the gym or the training track you are already behind the 8 ball.

Building a Summer Beach Body takes time. In fact you should have been doing it all throughout Winter, Autumn prior to that and realistically the Summer before this one.

If you are one of those people who exercise all year round then kudos to you because you might already have the body that you are happiest in and all you need to do is maintain it or start eating a little less winter comfort food. If you aren’t one of these people though then I’m going to give you a few simple suggestions to get you started.

Start Today

Not tomorrow, not in 2 weeks time after your holiday, start today! We generally need about 3-4 weeks to form good habit’s (Short Term at least anyway, Long Term requires good discipline and a strong mind) so start now. It’s too easy to think I’ll start next week, only to put that off because this happened and that happened. Don’t make any more excuses, start now.

Do some form of Strength training

Cardio is great, don’t get me wrong I definitely think everybody should do some form of cardiovascular training in particular for heart health. But in order to build a strong body that will efficiently burn calories even whilst you sleep then do some strength training. Doing strength training will help speed up your metabolism and as your body needs to repair the muscle fibres that are shredded during training your body will burn calories whilst in recovery mode i.e sleeping and resting.

Get Flexible!

Not only will getting flexible help you with avoiding injury and feeling too sore to move after your workouts but it will also help you burn more calories! So there is no reason to avoid it, after all we want strong, muscular bodies with limbs that are capable of operating in all ways so get on it people.

Start eating better

It’s time to start switching off from eating those comfort foods, we can still have them occasionally but only occasionally. Try to eat more Protein, Vegetables, drink more water and eat less processed Carbs. When food shopping make sure you have already eaten before you go and try to stick to the outside perimeter of the supermarket.

Get lots of sleep

When you start training you will need more recovery time before you build up the conditioning that will stop you from getting unnecessarily sore from exercise. Sleep is when we recover best so make sure you get it.

Don’t become too restrictive

This is probably my biggest gripe with the 8, 12 week body transformation plans and with programs for Fitness Figure competitions. The diets can be so restrictive that it’s unsustainable and when people relax and go back to a normal eating pattern they balloon out to become bigger and more unfit than when they started. This is not healthy. So lets work on a sustainable program for life, not for 12 weeks. Yes cut down on sugars, get rid of those unhealthy habits as much as possible but make sure that what you are doing is something you can live with.

Do something you enjoy

This is the last one and it’s the most important. Quite simply if you don’t enjoy what you are doing, find something you do and Do It!

Thanks
Jason
Calisthenics Coach