I read an article by Paul Chek called ‘Fear the squat no more’ and it reminded me of my client Alan. He started out training with me with no real experience lifting weights and a weak lower back. His intensive sports training scedule was blitzing his body and he needed to develop the structural integrity so as to avoid injury. He went from this cheeky, roll up smoking, beer guzzling Irish lad…

… to this super buff guy in the gym that gets both female and male attention when he’s lifting as many weights as we can find!

To squat this much (160kg – double his body weight) you need to be strong through to the core as Paul Chek demonstrates in his article

“The squat has been called the “King of Exercises” by many strength training icons. As far back as the early Olympian days, the squat was considered the best exercise for overall conditioning. Heavy squats have been touted as a great exercise for developing the abdominal musculature due to their primary role as stabilizers”

So, as you can see I’m pretty proud of him and this is what he has to say about it…

“I’ve been training on and off with Michelle for a couple of years now. The training has been relatively sporadic as I hadn’t really dedicated myself to any sort of goals. However, over the past couple of months I made a mental decision to fully apply myself to both a training regime and a healthy lifestyle to try and achieve the targets that I wanted. These targets were a stronger body so as to avoid injury (I have lower back issues so core stability work is key) and, on a slightly more vein level, to look better naked!

Michelle gave me guidance on all aspects of how to achieve this including my diet which was a vital component. The workouts were always varied and challenging and I enjoyed them thoroughly. I’m now at a level that I never thought I would be at and the funny thing is, it wasn’t all blood, sweat, and tears. Once I got into the swing of the new eating habits and gyming it regularly motivation was not an issue. Add to this the benefits it had not only on the way I looked but the way I felt and I was positively chomping at the bit to get to the next gym session so I could take another step along in the process.

I’m off on holiday now (defiantly with a stronger body and hopefully looking a little bit better naked!) but already looking forward to getting back and working towards the next set of targets!”