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I’m hoping that I’m not the only human being with a seemingly insatiable appetite for self-improvement. For every issue of Maxim sitting on my shelf, I have many more books on how to get rich, talk to women, get fit, lose weight, get ripped six-pack abs, win fights, or learn a new language. I am a self-confessed junkie for personal improvement and growth.

The problem with this pathological obsession for being richer, tougher, smarter, sexier and fitter is that I don’t think any of these self-help books have done me any good. And here’s why. There is no shortcut to success.

The reality is that it will take us our entire lives to become the men we want to be. It’s kind of like Groundhog Day when Bill Murray has to go through despair, compassion, hedonism, love and even death before he can achieve that sense of grace. The writer of the script said he envisioned his character being reborn every day for 10 years. The director thought more. 10,000 years he reckons it took for the character to find contentment.

I’d always felt distinctly average in everything I have done until recently. I’ve found what I consider to be my winning formula to get myself fitter, stronger, and healthier than I have ever been before. In just two short months I’ve lost 20lbs of fat while increasing my muscle mass, bench pressing 180lbs and squatting 270lbs. Now I know these aren’t ground breaking figures, but for me they are. The best thing is that I’m improving every day. It’s not just my fitness that has seen the benefit. I’ve got improved clarity and am able to think more clearly about my goals and how I want to achieve them, and I feel happy all the time. A major improvement on the back end of last year.

So how did I do it? Well, here are the seven habits that I have adopted religiously in my pursuit of physical success.

Habit #7 - Motivation

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For me, the hardest part in my pursuit of fitness was giving myself a reason to go to the gym. I’d quite often find myself making excuses for not going. It got so bad that I actually stopped making excuses and just didn’t go at all. After seeing myself in the mirror one evening after a shower, something inside me clicked and I made the decision there and then that I was going to get my fitness back.

The best way to motivate yourself in order to get out of the kind of slump I was in is to make a goal and focus on it 100%. My first goal was to lose fat, improve my cardiovascular fitness and look good in the mirror. Whenever I think about quitting (which is very rarely) I think back to how I looked in the mirror that evening and it keeps me going. You need to find whatever trigger you need to motivate you. It could be how you look, how someone you admire looks or how your girlfriend feels about your body.

Another great way to keep yourself motivated is setting short term goals. When you achieve them, it feels great and keeps you pushing on to achieve more. It could be that you want to increase your squatting by 20% or something as simple as doing 5×100m sprints on the rowing machines with 100m slow rowing between them in 5 minutes. Create achievable short term goals and make them more difficult each week.

Habit #6 - Desire

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This habit directly relates to your motivation and can be a motivating trigger itself. For me, I used my desire and passion for self-help to continually strive for improvement. Part of being that man we want to be is having the desire to do something out of the ordinary and this craving is what keeps us going.

I like to think that my desire is strongest when I’m in the gym lifting weights. When I’m struggling to finish that 5th rep of 270lbs on the squat rack, there is nothing I want more in the entire world at that very moment than to complete my set. I purposely block out everything in my life for those few moments and focus all of my desire and energy on squeezing out one last rep.

Your desire comes back to what motivates you to workout in the first place. Whether you want to lose weight or build strength, it’s quite simply a case of how badly you want it. I’m quite lucky in that I’m very much an all-or-nothing kind of guy and so I give 110% and never give up until I complete the goals I set myself at the beginning of the workout. You need to man up and be strong. Not just physically, but when your body is tired and you feel like finishing 1 rep shy of the set you need the mental strength to force another one out.

Habit #5 - Reflection

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This is a very powerful habit that is often overlooked and sometimes even laughed at but when used correctly, it can fuel both your desire and your motivation to succeed. It involves reflection throughout the day on the workout you’ve done. If you dominated on the deadlift and set a new record for yourself, you should hold on to that for the rest of the day. How could you improve on it? Was your technique flawless? Not only will it help you to better yourself next time you perform the lift, but thinking about a good working makes you feel great. The endorphins are still flowing and you’re naturally on a high. There’s no bigger incentive to head back to the gym than when it makes you feel good. Arnold Schwarzenegger famously once compared working out to ‘coming’ and let’s face it, if we all felt like that after a workout maybe we’d get a physique like he had!

Another source of reflection is the mirror. The mirror doesn’t lie and is a terrific way of judging your progress. Being able to see a slight hint of six-pack after years of a beer belly can be extremely motivating to force you to burn off that stubborn bit of remaining fat. I like to use the mirror as a way of determining my goals too. Once I’d cut my body fat and could see my abs, I noticed my shoulders were underdeveloped and immediately began to focus on body dips and standing shoulder press exercises. The mirror is a weapon in your arsenal, so use it.

Habit #4 - Resting

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Rest is essential to allow our muscles to repair and grow, and it gives you time to focus on your state of mind too. One of the biggest mistakes I made in earlier years was not giving my muscles time to recover before working out again. The result was that I was unable to lift to the maximum of my ability in the gym because my muscles were still sore and weak. This obviously resulted in a strength plateau which, at the time, I assumed was down to my routine and simply switched the exercises. Needless to say that didn’t work and I have now come to embrace rest as a very valuable part of a successful fitness routine.

Resting doesn’t mean just sitting around doing nothing though. I like to use rest time to challenge my mind through creative writing or memory exercises. In addition to that, I use visualisation to focus on my muscles development. Actually meditating on the muscles and tissues themselves and visualise them healing and growing. It works really well, especially when done during a deep tissue massage. You may need to smooth-talk your girlfriend into that though!

Habit #3 - Eating

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When I was a teenager, I was extremely active and I could eat whatever I wanted without putting on a single pound. These days, however, it’s a whole different ball game and I do watch what I eat. I’ve never been a big advocate of calorie counting because preparing food is a big enough chore without having to get all mathematically as well! Instead, I try to focus on eating natural, healthy foods such as fish, chicken, eggs, wholemeal bread/rice/pasta. In fact, I’d say that 90% of my meals consist of at least one of those foods.

Now, I’m fairly lucky because I don’t really need much variety in my food to keep me satisfied. I only eat to provide my body with the necessary fuel to repair and build my muscles. This suits me fine because I hate planning ahead anyway. However, if you do need variety then I suggest setting up a weekly meal plan. It’s a bit of a pain to plan out your food consumption in this way but in the long term you’ll benefit exponentially from it.

One thing I always know about with each meal however is the amount of protein I’m consuming. I try to get in about 30-40g per meal x 5-6 meals each day. It’s the only thing I obsess over when preparing food and I can be a bloody nightmare about it! As a general rule of thumb, you should be aiming to consume 1g of protein per lb of body weight. Therefore, if you weigh 200lbs, you would try to get 200g of protein each day. Personally, I try to get it through all natural sources such as egg, chicken, tuna, beef because protein powders cost a fortune when you think how many tins of tuna you could get for the same price (there is approx. 30g of protein per 130g drained tuna).

Habit #2 - Progression

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I got into a nasty habit early in my fitness routines in which I’d bench and squat the exact same amount of weight for weeks and sometimes even months. Initially, my muscles got sore and I had to recover before working out again but over time, my body adapted and the weight just wasn’t challenging my muscles anymore which meant they never got bigger or stronger.

I never made the correlation between the lack of growth and lifting the same weight week-in and week-out. It’s actually blindingly obvious that if you want to get bigger and stronger, your workouts need to progress. This is one of the most useful habits I have ever adopted because my body is now in a constant state of change. I add weight to my workouts session to session and have seen a massive improvement in strength and size as a direct result. It also makes it more difficult for my muscles to plateau because I am constantly stressing them with an increased load.

Just like anything in life, you need to progress to achieve more and this is no exception. If you wanted to earn more money at work, you’d progress to a higher position with more responsibility. If you want to lose weight or build muscle you need to progress to more challenging cardio workouts or heavier weights. If you’re looking to lose fat and build muscle then you need to head on over to Strong Lifts for more information on how strength training can improve your fitness.

Habit #1 - Consistency

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This is the single most important habit of any workout routine and one that many people struggle to form. At this time of year, hundreds of thousands of people have probably quit, or just about to quit, their fitness routine. It starts as a new years resolution but never really becomes a habit, and so they quit.

The best way to remain consistent is to just go to the gym. Don’t waste time thinking about reasons to go or not to go, just go! And when you get there, focus all of your energy on your goals. I am so engrossed in my gym habit now that if I am unable to make it, it consumes me with guilt and stress. Yesterday I lost my gym card to get in and, because I was in the habit of going at 10.30 every day, I became agitated, frustrated and annoyed that I couldn’t go. In the end I went anyway and talked my way in by blaming my girlfriend for losing it! The point is, if you go to the gym (or workout at home) consistently at the same time every day for a long enough period of time it will become a habit. You won’t even need to think about it anymore and that’s the point.

Of course being consistent doesn’t just apply to going to the gym. You need to be consistent with all your other habits if you hope to succeed. For me, being consistent in cutting out junk food, working out at the same time 4-5x per week, progressing my workouts, motivating myself, resting and reflecting has fueled my desire and I could never go back to the sedentary lifestyle.

If you’re serious about getting fit and healthy, losing weight and building muscle then you need to form long-term habits today if you want to be successful.

If you’ve formed any habits not mentioned here, drop us a comment and let us know what it is and how it has improved your fitness routine.

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The next time you see a guy running through the town centre and leaping over the couple sitting on the bench, don’t automatically assume that he’s just stolen a purse from a helpless old lady. It could be that he’s one of these new-fangled freerunners.

What is a freerunner?

Remember the opening sequence in Casino Royale when that extremely limber fellow was giving Daniel Craig a run for his money by legging it through buildings, over walls and up a giant crane? That’s freerunning. But freerunning isn’t just useful for running away when you’re hijacked by assassins, bomb makers and the like. It’s also an ideal alternative to paying for a gym membership and having to put up with all those bloody New Year newbies.

So - do you want a strong core, great balance, agility and an amazing ability to make people go ‘wow’ when they see you leap from building to building? All you need is nerves of steel and a pair of trainers. Oh, and clothes are advised too!

The freerunning basics

You may already know that I’m a huge advocate of bodyweight exercise. Well freerunning is all about lifting your own bodyweight and learning to use it as efficiently as possible. There are lot of climbs and jumps, which means your core needs to be carved from stone. Here are a couple of exercises to get you started.

Hanging hip raises

1. Hang off a bar or a high rail with an overhand (palms facing forward) grip and arms about shoulder width apart.
2. Bring your knees up to your chest, hold for a second, and then lower them steadily. Focus on the contraction of the stomach to really work your core.

If you’re starting to feel cocky, you can do this exercise with straight legs too for an extra challenge. This exercise is advised for freerunning because it also strengthens your upper body and improves your grip (which helps prevent you falling to your death from great heights).

Do 3 sets of 8-12 repetitions. Once that’s easy for you, move on the straight leg raises. If even that is too easy for you, add weight to the exercise by holding a dumb-bell between your feet.

The plank

1. Lie on the floor with your upper body resting on bent elbows.
2. Raise your hips so you’re in a rigid press-up position on your forearms and toes.
3. Hold for one minute and repeat three times.

If you can’t manage the full minute, perform mini-sets of 15 seconds with 5 seconds rest between each.

This will strengthen the core muscles needed to support you as you run and swing from things like a gorilla (in the mist).

Muscle ups

1. Hang from a bar or high rail with your arms extended and overhand grip.
2. Pull yourself up, flicking out your elbows so that you can push your torso up and over the bar.
3. Then, lower yourself back down slowly and repeat.

It’s the same principle as when you climb out of a swimming pool. Only drier. And a lot harder.

Aim for 3 sets of 4-6 reps to begin with. If you can’t complete a muscle up, then focus on alternating explosive pull-ups (pulling up so that your chest touches the bar as fast as possible and lowering down slowly) and bodyweight dips on a dipping station.

Another way is to perform what I call ‘ugly muscle ups’. This basically means doing whatever you can to complete the muscle up. Different grips, using your legs, even jumping up to the bar to gain momentum.

Note: because freerunning is done on concrete, it’s essential that your whole body is warmed up before attempting your two-footed urban assault to avoid injury!

The freerunning moves

Jumping

A major part of freerunning is jumping from one obstacle to another. You’ll need to be accurate in your jumps. There’s no Matrix style jumps here so be careful.

1. Start with your feet on the edge of the obstacle you’re jumping from and focus on your landing point. Crouch until your legs are at right angles. Oh and don’t close your eyes, you’ll want to see what’s coming!
2. Push off the obstacle, using your arms as balance and tuck your knees up while in mid-air. Keep the focus on the exact place your feet will land.
3. Try to ’stick’ to the ground by absorbing the momentum by bending your knees on impact. Otherwise the momentum will take you beyond the landing point - which can quite bad seeing as most landing points will be high up with a drop on either side!

Wall Spinning

This move can build explosive power in your legs and can be a lot of fun to keep your momentum going until your next obstacle.

1. Approach a wall at a 45 degree angle - you’ll probably want to approach with your strongest hand closest to the wall. For me, that’s the left.
2. At the wall, explode off both feet as if you’re hopping up. Plant your bottom hand flat on the wall and push up, round and over your legs with the top hand.
3. The movement should spin you 180 degrees with lots of momentum. Land on the balls of your feet and keep running, making the whole thing as smooth as possible.

Don’t attempt this while drunk! It’ll most likely end in embarrassment. Or a trip to the hospital.

Climbing

If an obstacle’s too high to jump onto with your feet, you can conquer it with what the Cat Leap move. (It’s a jargon term from the freerunning circle of people in the know).

1. Approach with confidence (and a bit of speed), jump off your strong leg and extend your arms, concentrating on where you’re going to grab the ledge.
2. Grab the obstacle and bring your feet up, absorbing the impact with your legs. Don’t slide down; your arms will give way and you’ll fall to your death! Okay you might survive if the obstacle isn’t very high.
3. Pull yourself up with the ‘Muscle up’ movement and use your feet for extra stability, then get going to your next obstacle.

A word of advice for this move though. A cat may have nine lives, but unlike our feline friends, a Cat Leap freerunner only has the one! Start ’slow and low’ to avoid having a tragic, and possibly quite painful, accident.

One final move for you, if you’re feeling particularly adventurous, is the Tic Tac to Cat Grab. Check out the video to see how it’s done:

Final freerunning thoughts

Freerunning can be absolutely brutal on your joints. There’s no point in performing a Running Cat across the Eiffel Tower if you feel like escargot in the morning. (For those of you who got the escargot reference, kudos to you my friend)

Here are three simple ways to recover from leaping great heights onto concrete surfaces.

1. Jogging

   A slow-paced jog will mobilise the joints and get the blood pumping again. I find it best to run across a soft surface such as fields to reduce the impact on damaged joints.

2. Swimming

   Freerunning will leave you aching from muscles you never knew existed. A few lengths in the pool with give you a light, supported stretching session with added cardio benefits.

3. Stretching

   Obvious? Yes. Do loads of people not do it? Yes. I’ve never been a big fan of stretching. I’ve never stretched and never had any negative side-effects. However, when your joints and muscles have been damaged through freerunning, stretching from your ankles all the way up to your neck can improve your recovery time no end.

If you’re interested in learning more about freerunning then check out the American Parkour website. Also, if you’ve tried freerunning or are a freerunner yourself, drop us a message in the comments and let us know how you got started and the type of exercises you do to keep on top of your game!

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The Royal Marines are the Royal Navy’s amphibious infantry on permanent readiness to deploy across the globe, and is a core component of the UK’s Joint Rapid Reaction Force. In short, they’re badass and the best of the best at what they do.

Much like the U.S Marine Corps, the Royal Marines are a flexible infantry force. To achieve their goals Marines need a very high level of all around fitness, as well as a positive and determined state of mind.

When I think of a Royal Marine, I see a man who approaches the impossible with steely grit and intense inner belief. These attributes are, in my opinion, applicable to anybody looking to better their life. Be it through self-improvement in your job, your physical fitness or your finances and lifestyle.

Whatever your goals, a positive mental attitude will get you a long way to achieving them. In particular, your determination to succeed. Royal Marines have determination in bucketloads. For a Royal Marines Commando, their state of mind is the driving force. It reminds them that the mind powers the muscles and that they are not special because they are Marines. They are special because of what they do and how they do it. As Aristotle said:

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

This is the ethos of the Royal Marines. Their state of mind can be broken down into 4 elements - known as The Commando Spirit.

The Commando Spirit

1. Courage
2. Determination
3. Unselfishness
4. Cheerfulness in the face of adversity

On paper, these attributes seem simple and anybody looking to put together a quick list of ways to improve themselves could recite them. However in practice, it is much more difficult to apply this Commando Spirit to your everyday life. Many people simply don’t have the determination to achieve their goals. I’ve been as guilty as anyone for merely coasting along and doing the minimum amount of effort to get by. But for a Royal Marine, these are drilled into their minds so deeply that it’s no longer a conscious decision. It is part of who they are and I can only imagine the level of clarity and focus that having these attributes drilled into your subconscious will bring.

So how do we achieve this Marine-like mental focus to improve ourselves?

It’s actually quite simple. You need to know what you want. It can be difficult to figure this out - but once you know what you want, the only thing left to do is focus yourself absolutely and completely to achieving it. Force out all the negative thoughts. The last thing you should be thinking is “I can’t do this!”. Of course you can. If you focused all of your mental efforts on how you’re going to achieve your goals rather than worrying that you can’t achieve them, you’ll have a lot more success. Other attributes for you to focus on include:

• Unity - Whether it’s uniting you mind, body and soul or something less cliché like unity with your work colleagues
• Adaptability - You need to be able to adapt through new workouts or new life approaches based on what has worked and hasn’t worked for you in the past
• Humility - You can’t push yourself forward with a pat on the back. When you succeed, be humble and focus on further improvement. Don’t gloat!
• Fortitude - You need the physical and mental strength to endure adversity with courage

If you’re still unsure of how to achieve the focused, Royal Marine state-of-mind, here is a list of tips to improve your clarity and give you the steely determination you need to succeed:

1. From the moment you wake up each day, focus on what you want to achieve and get motivated to succeed.
2. Cut out (or at least down on) bad habits such as smoking, drinking and eating bad foods. Nothing ruins clarity like impurities in your body.
3. Focus on your short term goals. Your long term goals will materialise as an effect of the short term goals.
4. Be as self sufficient and reliant as possible. There won’t always be people around to push you so you’ll need to learn to push yourself further.
5. Never be satisfied. Always strive to achieve more.
6. Don’t focus on limitations. Focus instead on what you want to achieve and the steps you need to take to get there.
7. Believe in yourself. If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything.
8. If you struggle or falter, ask for help or advice. I’m happy to help out wherever I can.

The mental stamina of a Royal Marine, coupled with a high level of physical fitness, is what separates them from the mere mortals. They are both core components to the puzzle. Without fitness, all the mental stamina in the world won’t help if every muscle in your body is fully exhausted. Without mental stamina, all the fitness in the world won’t be enough when everything in your being is telling you to stop. Things like gun fire, bombs, endless walking across the Falkland Islands, the altitude of Afghanistan or the blistering heat of Iraq.

So, besides mental strength, what physical attributes do the Royal Marines have - and how did they get them?

The Royal Marines Training Schedule

Royal Marines are typically more lean that U.S. Marines. Regular cardio exercise and interval/fartlek training are a staple in the training arsenal.

Marines often workout twice a day. In the morning this will usually be 30-45 minutes of cardiovascular exercise such as swimming, running or biking. In the afternoon that’s when the fun begins.

Royal Marines Circuit Training

For a Royal Marine, there is a high focus on muscular endurance. They need to be able to give a high level of exertion for prolonged periods of time. The best way to achieve this is through circuit training. As you’d expect, the majority of exercises a Royal Marine performs are based on bodyweight. This allows them to workout wherever they are in the world and can give a fantastic workout in a short amount of time. Here is an example of a Royal Marine workout:

1st SET | 2nd SET | 3rd SET

15 Press-ups | 20 Press-ups | 15 Press-ups
20 Vertical Jumps | 25 Vertical Jumps | 20 Vertical Jumps
20 Squats | 30 Squats | 20 Squats
4 Pull-ups | 6 Pull-ups | 4 Pull-ups
10 Hanging Leg Raises | 15 Hanging Leg Raises | 10 Hanging Leg Raises
15 Box Jumps | 20 Box Jumps | 15 Box Jumps
4 Dips | 6 Dips | 4 Dips
20 Sit-ups | 30 Sit-ups | 20 Sit-ups
10 Lunges | 20 Lunges | 10 Lunges

This circuit should be completed as quickly as possible with no rest in between exercises or sets. You can rest only as long as it takes to get your breathe back to continue.

When performing this routine, Royal Marines ensure that their posture and form is perfect on each exercise. They don’t rush to get through them by arching their backs on press-ups or swinging their legs to complete a pull-up.

In addition to circuit training, Royal Marines also perform regular progressive shuttleruns - also known as The Bleep Test.

The Bleep Test

The objective of the bleep test is to run for as long as possible between two points which are placed 20 metres apart; keeping to the speed indicated by the bleeps on the bleep test.

The test is maximal and progressive. It starts out slowly and the speed increases each minute. A single bleep indicates the end of a shuttle run, which means you should be at the 20 metre line when you hear it. As the test continues, the amount of time between beeps shortens. This means that you need to increase your speed to reach the end of each shuttle in time. When you hear three beeps, this indicates the end of a minute, at which point the speed will increase.

Make sure that you start each shuttle with at least one foot behind the 20 metre line and ensure you turn properly by pushing away with one foot or the other to avoid injury.

Here’s the link to download the audio file for the bleep test

It’s in .wav format so you may need to convert it for use on your iPod or MP3 player.

Ready to become a Royal Marines Commando?

Once you feel like you’ve achieved a good level of physical fitness and your mental strength and clarity is steely, gritty, determined etc and so on, you can - if you’d like to - apply to join the Royal Marines. For many people, performing the exercises and gaining the mental strength of a Royal Marine is enough. But if you’re one of the select few that strive to achieve more than this, then you’re exactly what they’re looking for!

If you’re a Royal Marine, or training to become a Royal Marine, drop us a comment and let us know how the training is going and any tips and advice to become better men.