We're welcoming Strength & Conditioning Coach for the University of East London, Leon Williams this week to help with any flagging motivation you might have for keeping your body and mind mentally fit.
Leon's 5 tips, alongside exercise, will help you stay on track with your fitness goals, after all, a common training mistake people make is lacking patience. People will often overestimate what can be done in 6 weeks, and underestimate what can be done in 6 months.
Here are a few things you can do alongside your exercise to keep you going.
1. Log Your Workouts
With the amount of free home training advice and programs on offer it is important that you keep track of everything that you’re doing. Creating a simple work out journal that includes your session type, set, reps, time, and mood after your session is a good way to do this.
Keeping track of your workouts is also a great way to keep your sessions balanced. If you’re someone who likes training legs, you’ll soon see that all your workouts look the same - and that other areas of your body have been neglected. Sound familiar? Maybe you should include an upper-body or yoga session to help with mobility.
2. Reading
We’re not asking you to become sport scientists - simply by reading these tips you’re probably already ahead of the curve! Having a better understanding of what exercise can do for you will help keep you engaged and encourage you to try new things.
Improving your knowledge will add variation to your to workouts, show you different ways to set up your sessions, add exercise progressions as well as new movements to your repertoire.
🍏The principles of nutrition with practical guidelines for your daily life,
🌱An overview of modern food trends,
🧠The relation of various foods, the gut, the brain, and the chemistry that runs your emotions.
💪A guide to max your mental performance & happiness levels with practical guidelines, brainy recipes and mindfulness tips
📒 Tips to integrate new healthy habits into your daily routine.
3. Watching
Whether you’re into hardcore Crossfit events, enjoy simple transformation vlogs or visual podcasts, there are thousands of hours of fitness content on
YouTube to help you along your journey. No matter what kind of content you like, you’ll realise that you’re not the only person to have struggles along your fitness journey. Learning how other people have dealt with their challenges can go a long way to keeping you on track and focused.
YouTube is also a great way to find new exercises, recipes and workout playlists to keep you going.
WARNING! Those YouTube algorithms work really well, so make sure you limit yourself before you end up losing your whole day on a YouTube binge, like I have…
Here are a few fitness You Tube pages I like to have a look at:
4. Eating
With time spent indoors, it is likely that you are finding yourself raiding the fridge multiple times a day hoping a new snack will magically appear.
Use your days to find new healthy recipes for snacks, lunches and dinners that you can perfect. The more time you spend practicing in the kitchen, the easier (and more fun) it’ll be to cook the right meals when your schedule gets back to normal.
I’ve found Pinterest and YouTube to be really good when looking for new healthy recipes and inspiration. I also like to follow these Instagram accounts for new dishes:
@nomnompaleo @daveynutrition @rhitrition
Don’t be put off by fancy plating and lights - cooking can be really fun and enjoyable for everyone so just give it a go!
5. Sharing
You don’t need to be an Instagram model or Youtuber with thousands of followers to share exciting, interesting and useful content. If you’ve just completed a cool work out or read, watched or cooked something exciting then SHARE IT! You’ll soon find people within your social network that are in similar position to you - and before you know you’ll be creating a small fitness community of your own.
Leon works as the lead performance coach for StarBridge Football Academy who provide a full-time development pathway for football and academics. He completed his undergraduate degree Sport and Exercise Science at the University of Roehampton and a masters in Strength and Conditioning at the University of East London.
Leon is an accredited coach with the NSCA. Leon coaches a wide variety of athletes, from professional to recreational level. His professional work includes two seasons at AFC Wimbledon.
