Four great articles by Charles Poliquin today on weight loss.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Happy Easter! I hope everybody enjoys their Easter eggs responsibly. That or you work hard to EARN them.

Today’s post is about Christian Thibaudeau, a strength coach who is slowly growing an almost cult like following.

Christian contributes regularly to t-nation, with often illuminating approaches to gaining strength and size.

What inspires me most is that Christian definately “walks the walk”, one look at him and you know he practices what he preaches.

I can recommend his books “High-Threshold muscle Building” and his now famous “The Little Black Book of Training Secrets”

For more info on Christian, visit his site at www.christianthibaudeau.com

Today’s inspiration comes from a true legend in the Strength and Conditioning world, Mr Charles Poliquin.

Charles has established a solid foundation for providing well researched and expert advice.

In his career as a coach so far he has coached Olympic medalists in 12 different sports!

I love reading articles for his unique blend of well researched fact and sometimes almost brutaly straight advice.

Charles shot into mainstream recognition with his contribrutions to t-nation and his extremely successful books, such as “The Poliquin Principles” and “Modern Trends in Strength Training”.

He also runs some of the most advanced training programmes for strength coaches and personal trainers in the world under his PICP certification programme.

To find out more about Charles and the certification programmes he runs, check out his site at www.charlespoliquin.com

Here is a clip of Charles discussing some of the fundamental issues related to long-term health:

Jamie Oliver is currently in America fighting the crusade against poor eating and obesity.

In much the same way as he did in the “Jamie’s School Dinners” series on Channel 4, he is visiting schools and communities and using the power of knowledge to help transform people’s lives.

So profound has his impact been, that the good people at TED have awarded him the TED 2010 prize for his work.

Here is the video from Jamie’s passionate lecture at TED:

“I wish for your help to create a strong, sustainable movement to educate every child about food, inspire families to cook again and empower people everywhere to fight obesity.” – Jamie Oliver

Today’s post is about legendary Strength coach Joe DeFranco.

Joe is famed for his balls-to-the-wall training and for getting serious results with the athletes he works with.

Joe’s training philosophy is based around the maxim “No gimmicks, just hard work”

He has successfully combined elements of power-lifting training (West-side Barbell methods), traditional strength training, functional training, agility training, corrective exercise and athletic conditioning to produce complete programs to bring out the best in those he trains.

One of the key elements to every workout is the element of competition, which helps to drive his athletes to work consistently hard in the gym.

I will be using one of his programs as the basis for my next training block, with the aim of improving strength in the key movements of the bench press, pull-up and squat. So I am looking forward to some hard work, tough workouts and great results.

You can find out more about Joe at his website: www.defrancostraining.com and at his YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/user/joedefranco

In the meantime, here is a video of some of his work:

Adding a link to the blog of a renowned strength and conditioning coach called Robert dos Remedios, or coach ‘Dos’ as he is affectionately known.

Coach Dos has been training athletes for over 20 years as was recently featured in an article in the UKSCA journal.

Famed for his tough, no-nonsense and passionate approach – Coach Dos has created a solid reputation amongst other S & C coaches.

Dos’ principles for building training programmes:

• Cover the major movement patterns
• Learn to deal with your own bodyweight
• Use unilateral exercises and work laterally
• Maximise effciency by using supersets, complexes and compound movements
• Keep the sessions short and sweet.

Here’s a link to his site.

Back after a short hiatus, today’s inspiration comes from Paul Chek.

Paul is a legendary trainer, coach and philospher all rolled into one.

He always excudes positivity, passion and belief in his work on educating his students and clients to mkae changes and improve their quality of life.

I believe that EVERYONE can benefit from watching his videos, reading his articles and books.  In fact, my current favourite book is “How to eat, move and be healthy” by Paul.

It explains in simple, clear and concise terms the importance of getting the basics of nutrition, sleep and reducing stress right.

Here’s a couple of videos of him in action.  The first discusses the issues caused by a weakened abdominal wall.

…and just to prove he does indeed walk the walk, here’s a video of one of his workouts:

You can find out more about Paul at his website: www.paulchek.com and his video’s are available on his youtube channel: www.youtube.com/user/PaulChekLive

Today’s inspiration comes from Jack Lalanne.

In this previous  post, I featured a clip of Jack in his prime way back in the 1950′s, well here he his last year at the age of 94 and still showing the lust for life he had half a decade ago!

And here he is this year aged 95 and still going strong!

A straight talking legend of the fitness world.

I hope I am as determined and relentless as he is when I reach 95!

For more on Jack, you can visit his site at www.jacklalanne.com

Today’s post is about “The Godfather of Fitness” – Jack Lalanne.

Jack is a fitness and cultural icon, who has promoted the benefit of regular exercise and healthy eating in a career that has spanned over 70 years and inspired millions.

He presented an extremly succesful television programme, called “The Jack LaLanne Show”, that ran for 34 years! Which educated the viewers – or “students” as he called them – on nutrition, exercise and general wellbeing.

He also produced some famous quotes:

“Ten seconds on the lips and a lifetime on the hips”

“Better to wear out than rust out”

And my favourite:

“Exercise is King, nutrition is Queen, put them together and you’ve got a kingdom”

Jack is still going strong at the age of 94, working out every morning in the weights room for 1 1/2 hours and then swimming or walking for another 1/2 hour.

He’s a classic clip of Jack in action during his show:

For information about Jack, visit his site at www.jacklalanne.com

I’ve also added a link to Jack’s blog in my blogroll

Thanks again to James at Excelsior for this excellent amd inpsirational material!

I wanted to post something up about this extraordinary man.

For those who don’t know, Mr. Poliquin is a legendary strength coach based in the US. He has coached a vast array of top athletes to their best results and he writes some great, no-nonsense articles on the subject.

I wanted to share two of my current favourites:

Learning From Exercise Bloopers

The “Functional” Training Delusion

I like his approach to training – keeping it simple by using what works and treating each athlete as an individual. I think if those two principles were adopted by every strength coach/trainer, then the world would be a better place for it.

Bri.