The Storm Fitness Vitamin Deficiency Series
If you want to change the way your body looks, controlling your energy intake to energy output is the way to go. If you are interested in FEELING your best and optimising your health, eliminating deficiency where it exists is the way to go! Vitamin A Sources: Liver,...
Storm Client Testimonial – Michael
We visited our friend Michael recently. Owner of clothing brand Always Wear Red. He discusses with us his reasons for training with Storm and how Storm is benefitting his personal life. Who does Michael train with at Storm? Michael trains with Spencer who is...
What are Macros?
Most people have a good grasp of what calories are. Calories are a measure of the energy contained in food. In the simplest terms we need calories to run our bodies and if we take in more than what we need to run our body we put on weight and if we eat less than what...
Winter Wellness – 5 tips to steer clear of the lurgy
It probably hasn’t escaped your attention that this time of year is a great time to pick up sickness bugs. Here are our top tips to keep you healthy and keep your training progressing and avoid time feeling about as much use as an iron-on-tattoo. 1. Keep your mouth...
Training for Stress Relief
Our experience has taught us that without clear goals, planning and focus; training can create stress rather than reducing it. As an example let’s take a look at what the journey may look like using our fictional character Danny as our subject. Danny wants to first...
Convenience Food, Space Travel and Time
BY: Dan Marriot Slim fast,Chicken Kiev, Smash and TV dinners These are all things that used to come to my head, when I thought of convenience foods. However, things have come a long way since Smash. Oh, and if you’re thinking what have Smash and space travel got in...
Epic Nasi Goreng
Here's a Nasi Goreng recipe I picked up from a surf trip to Indonesia, staying with a lovely family near Uluwatu. They would make the dish with dried fish due to their economic situation and what they were able to get hold of on the Island.Nasi Goreng is an Indonesian...
The Same Kind of Different
Do you ever find yourself encountering the same road blocks over and over again? So imagine you find yourself setting up a new diet and exercise regime. What have you done differently this time around that makes you feel confident that you will get a different result?...
Don’t Be a Bystander in Your Own Life
You know that feeling that life is passing you by? Time hurtles on and yet all those moments you wanted to enjoy pass by without you even feeling remotely conscious of them, it’s as if you weren’t even there. I know this feeling. A few years ago I had just started my...
Metabolism: Why Burning Calories isn’t the Answer
Why would I spend time writing about your metabolism? It’s just what we are born with isn’t it? If we have a slow metabolism there’s nothing we can about it is there? The main three aspects that determine how many calories you will burn today are: Your levels...
Protein: Are You Deficient?
When we start working with new clients, whether they are focussed on losing body fat loss or gaining muscle we often find they could benefit from eating a bit more protein. Believe it or not a lot of people don't like the idea of eating more protein and are often...
Are Your Best Days Really Behind You?
Recently one of my good friends Michael at Always Wear Red (Newcastle’s rapidly expanding fashion brand) wrote a blog in response to the question “Can people ‘peak’?”… it was 6 words long, it read: “Only if you think you have” When I start working with...
Keralan Prawn Curry
Try This Fragrant Dish to spice up the dreary winter without ruining your progress! Last year I visited Kerala also known as the "spice coast" in India. Everywhere you step foot there is something edible and the food is simply amazing! I would highly recommend it!...
Using Strength Training to Crush Stress
Even though stress is an emotional state, it carries with it a raft of physiological symptoms. You know that awful feeling of sweating, dry mouth, muscle tightness and pains, a racing heart rate, high blood pressure, headaches and diarrhoea to name but a few of the...
Training For Exceptional Health and Wellbeing
This one is teensy bit sciency… But, I am writing this because I think where “wellbeing” is mentioned, the true benefits exercise has to make life better get underplayed and they are rarely backed up by any mention of the mechanisms through which those awesome...
The Muscle Preservation Mind Set
By Dan Marriot Can I be brutally honest with you? Dieting is tough. When the sole focus of your diet is to reduce scale weight, which it is for a lot of people, dieting becomes even more challenging from a mental perspective. Today I want to offer a different...
Add Group Training For Free This February!
Add Group Training For Free This February Here’s an amazing offer to get you moving this February Add Group Training Sessions to your Personal Training package… FREE OF CHARGE As the gym that delivers the most successful, highly customised Personal Training in the...
Seasonal Affective Disorder & 7 Tips to Brighten Up Your Winter Months
Post by Dan Marriott "I just want to stay indoors, eat food and hibernate, rather than go outside" Why is it, we tend to lay low throughout the winter months? Our energy levels dip, we crave foods that are dense in calories...
Energy System Training- How to Stop Feeling Tired All The Time
When we exercise we use up more “fuel”. Fuel for workouts can come from the food we eat and also the food we have digested and have stored in various forms and in various places in the body. For example when we eat rice (a carbohydrate) we can store it within the...
Knee pain – Why do My Knees Hurt? – An Overview of Knee Pain
Here’s an overview of some of the many causes of knee pain you can experience. During my previous career as a professional sportsman I unfortunately had to deal with knee pain and injuries, so I understand first hand how frustrating they can be. It can also be very...
Dan’s Top 10 Muscle Building Snacks
When it comes to gaining weight, it can sometimes be tough to get enough calories on board. So Dan has put together his top 10 muscle building snacks to give some quick go-to options when it comes to getting the calories in and fueling the hard work your putting in in...
Resistance Training For Women Over 40
Post by: Dan Marriott There are a number of health benefits that females could potentially be missing out on, if resistance training isn’t part of their weekly routine. Even though the mentality is shifting, there is still a high percentage of females, over the age of...
9 tips for a great nights kip
By Dan Marriott When it comes to sleep, there are many factors that can affect us from getting a decent kip each night. Irregular sleeping patterns, stress, having children and demanding jobs can all play a part. Spence has previously written a corker of a blog on...
Getting Your First Chin Up
You walk into the gym and the first thing you see is that person on the chin up bar, knocking out reps like it’s nothing and the first thing that pops into your head is “I’ll never be able to do that”. First off, don’t worry about the person knocking out sets of 15...
The Three Fundamentals of Building Muscle, Part 3: Frequency
Training Frequency refers to how often you train a particular muscle group/movement pattern. You may have heard the bodybuilders of the ‘Golden Age’ referring to this as ‘chest day’ or ‘leg day’. Whilst training a muscle group once a week may give you the drive to...
The Three Fundamentals of Building Muscle, Part 2: Intensity
Intensity refers to the percentage of your 1 rep max on the bar. Before we get any further, no you don’t have to know your 1RM for every lift. Or any lift unless you’re not a competitive power lifter. There is an inverse relationship between intensity and...
The Epic Holiday Workout Post
Holidays are of course about unwinding and getting some downtime; that said if you want to stay on top of your physique or in my case eat more food, throwing in the odd workout can help. Equipment can often be in short supply so here is the only post you'll ever need...
Compassion-o-meter
Imagine you find yourself out of shape. You can feel the loose feeling around your waist and the “overhang” on jeans that used to fit. Your energy levels mean you crash to the sofa when you get home and can barely lift a finger. You are so angry with yourself for...
The Three Fundamentals of Building Muscle, Part I: Volume
For the best results in training for muscle gain, there is no doubt that your training has to be dialed in. To do this, you need to be monitoring and adjusting training volume, intensity and frequency to ensure you are pushing yourself a little more each time...
40 Tips for Over 40’s
1. Start! If you haven’t already started, then there’s no time like the present. There are major benefits on cognitive function which will help aspects such as reasoning, memory, thinking and can alleviate symptoms of depression. Not to mention all the more obvious...
Fitness Over 40- Unlocking Strength Potential
Often when I speak to people out and about they tell me they would love to lift weights but they are too old to get started. In fact even some of my personal training clients are awaiting the impending day when they start getting weaker and losing fitness despite...
Four Factors of Fat loss
Here's an overview of how to build a successful fat loss plan that will work...and keep working. Recently here at Storm Human Behavioural Psychologist Falko Sniehotta shared some data with the team from a nationally representative study by Liz Evans. One of the more...
The Kick Start
Saturday had come and I was finally catching up with my good friend and former partner in crime (not literal crime of course) I could barely wait. I arrived and my pal was sitting down already, he seemed a bit subdued. “Hey Spence, alright?” The choice of restaurant...
Off Season Adaptation
Here’s an article that will turn a little light on in the minds of those of you who are committed to improving your athletic performance. I spoke to an athlete this week who told me “I’m doing everything I can to improve my performance” Now I don’t doubt this...
Your Instincts are Your Enemy (not your friend)
There seems to be a growing number of people who believe that by following our “natural instincts” with food choices we would arrive at a highly nutritious balanced diet There are many ways to consider how we make food choices, but for the sake of this argument...
Get on a Mission!
The new year came and went. If you are one of the lucky ones you still have your motivation in tact and you are still focussed with your training when the majority of folk have jacked in fitness in favour of Net Flix and ice cream! If you want to get the most out of...
Picking the Right Online Personal Trainer for You
"And everywhere, infinite options, infinite possibilities" ~ Haruki Murakami With almost infinite options; here are the top points to consider when selecting the person responsible for improving your health and fitness. Being a good generalist is of course fine and a...
What is Online Personal Training?
Just like every service industry, Personal training is now online and in a big way. Since 2015 the number of searches for online personal training has shot up by nearly 40%! So how does it work and what do we make of it? As is the case with personal training offline,...
The Minimalist Guide to Eating Healthily all Week Long
How to set up your weekly nutrition in 2 hours or less Start by writing a weekly plan for how many meals you’ll need to prepare. If you are looking to make changes to your body shape or performance, it’s not necessarily essential that you prepare every meal in...
Not getting enough D?
"I seem to pick up every bug or cold going around at the moment. I struggle to pull myself out of bed in the morning and I never feel energised." These are words I have heard a lot of lately. There can be a million reasons for low immune function and low energy but...
