When I personally train some one one on one, I've always believed that true fitness comes from 4 areas.  The first three being the obvious ones,

• Strength (Resistance based exercise)
• Cardiovascular (Running, cycling, boxing etc.)
• Flexibility (Stretching)

None of these should be neglected if good all round fitness is to be achieved.  The forth is less obvious, Mental well being.  It amazes me that people spend so much time developing their bodies but not their minds, I've always found if I'm developing my mind through reading, intelligent conversation and goal setting, everything in life seems to fall in to place.  Its as if the universe conspires to make things happen.  So the message here is make sure you have a fitness training schedule for upstairs as well as downstairs

For now

Rich

Hi Everyone

We've had a Boxercise class in Place for over a month now, Its in Dodington Parish Hall in Yate/ Chipping Sodbury on a Monday night 7:45 - 8:45, e-mail us at info@richlucasfitness.com to find out more or just come along and join in, at just £3 on the door you can't go wrong!

Hi Again

Christmas is coming and everyones getting fat!  Just got back from training up Spanorium boxing gym near Bristol.  Got some skipping, bag work, thai pad work, body conditioning, weights and some sparring done.  Weights and martial arts.  Most of us do it these days, but are we lifting right?  Try this, practice your art ~(Whatever it may be, have a hard session)  Once you have finished your rounds on the bag, Kata or whatever, work two body parts like this

15 reps (Up the weight)

12 reps (Up the weight)

10 reps (Up the weight)

8 reps to failure

Won't work for everyone but give it a try, should really knacker you out!

Have a great Christmas/Holidays

Rich 

Hi All

Been a quiet week training due to a mad busy work and social schedule (No excuse, but hey, it's Christmas!) Did get something done though and would like to share this drill with you...

Most of you will do speed kicking as part of your drills, this is where you throw fast continuous roundhouse kicks to the pad/bag/ribcage. 

Firstly throw one kick...then two....then three etc all the way up to 10, then switch legs and do the same on the other side.  Nightmare, keep the intensity up and you can really feel it.

Have fun

Rich

Hi everyone

This is my first ever blog post so be nice if I get it wrong!  I thought I'd add my own personal training journal to this website for two reason.  Number one, I think that I have to train and I have to train HARD if I've got to write it down for all to see, and also maybe you could read it and take some of the lessons learned through my blood, sweat and tears.

Bit of background, my martial style has its grounding in Shotokan Karate studied when I was a kid, switching to freestyle Kickboxing/Taekwondo in my late teens/early 20s.  My black belts are in freestyle taekwondo, but my training revolves around pad work, roadwork and weights so more like kickboxing really.

I just got back from an excellent weekend in the Isle of Man, training with the BKA's Ace Ward and his son Rik and George Gawne at IoM Ji do kwan.  It was my second visit since beginning to train with Ace, who's grading my black belts at my club and bringing me along too.  The weekend consisted of all day training on Saturday and a few hours on Sunday.  We practiced freestyle karate, sparring drills, bit of stick fighting and plenty of good rounds of sparring.  All in all, I think I came away from the training weekend a better martial artist than when I went as there were so many different styles including mixed martial arts, karate, Kickboxing and TKD.  So the black eye and the bruises were all worth it.

Beautiful morning in Douglas, especially on the beach at 8 in the morning doing breathing exercises, great way to start the day!

Anyway, nuff blogging from me, speak soon

Rich