Get fit with Craig Suckling By Tom Kembery

Words Tom Kembery (Still a little bit fat)

We get dictated to all the time! Wear these jeans, have your hair this way, look at the Calvin Klein model's body…..is that how every man should look?

Then on the other side, we have all the health posters and warnings! Doctors report this week to make sure you stick a carrot up your nose to avoid getting any type of STD!

When it comes to fitness let's be honest, no man or any human on the planet really cares about being "healthy". We sweat on the treadmill, curl weights and plank all day long because all we want is to look fucking sexy naked! Fit and ripped as fuck; so that when a girl looks at you she wants to rip off your clothes, smother you in whipped cream and lick you all over while she repeats the words "You are a god"!!

So, to get sexy Reader, you need to get yourself a personal trainer! I've had two personal training experiences in my life so far; one was with a beer-bellied sales man from David Lloyd gym group that insisted that I sign up to 20 easy direct debts from my bank account while he enjoyed a Twix and watched me do crunches. The other was a body building champion "Woman" who wanted nothing more than to KILL ME! I'm serious - I couldn't even move the next day after she had finished with me!!!

It was time to find a new trainer, so where did I turn to? Facebook of course! And after chatting to my friends, I was introduced to Craig Suckling a former martial arts expert turned trainer now working out in the famous "Locker Room" gym in Southend, Essex. We exchanged a couple of emails about what I was looking to get out of a trainer and arranged our first gym session.

"There are a lot of cowboys out in the personal training world," Craig tells me. "When picking your trainer, make sure that they know what they are doing, it might sound like the most obvious thing to do, but you need to make sure you check them out and that they have their personal training qualifications. It's all about word of mouth and reputation; if they're a good trainer then you'll easily find information about them."

Once I had thrown my gear in the locker, Craig then proceeded to pull what can only be described as a "giant white claw" from his Nike bag. "What is that? I asked.

"This is going to measure the amount of fat on your body. Once I know this, I can work out your program and we can keep tabs on how you progress." So once my fat had been measured and entered into Craig's iPad, we were set to hit the gym for my hour session.

As I am looking to lose weight, Craig started me off on the treadmill to get me warmed up. "What type of clients do you tend to train?" I asked. "I get a real mix of people come to me, most are looking to lose weight, or get fit for the summer. They then tell their friends and that leads to me getting more clients. I use social media a lot too like Facebook and Twitter. It's really great as I can tag photos of the people I'm training and this gives prospective clients more of a visual reference to what I'm doing. It's all about the numbers."

Once I was done on the treadmill, it was over to the floor to do a few cycles of squats, jumps and press-up's! After about 3 sets, I could feel the pain and what didn't help was that I was hungover from a fantastic Super Dry party that I had been to the night before, but Craig pushed me through it. That's the really great thing about having a trainer, they really push you that little bit further. To be honest, if I was there on my own I would have just been lying there thinking about what film I was gong to watch that evening. But NO! Sweating was more important.

Taking a few moments' breath, I asked Craig how many times would he recommend people have a trainer. "I always say that if you're committed then it's great to do 2 sessions a week. However, this isn't practical for somepeople as it can be expensive. If you aim to use a trainer at least two times per month, then that's a good start. I then tend to write a programme that my client can follow in their own time to keep them on track"

After a few little weight exercises, we finished the session on the cross trainer. Taking the speed up and down around every 3mins, I was starting to wonder if I was having games played with me. "How come you take the speed up and down?" I asked. "The resistance gets you working harder and this is when you are burning fat. However, the body needs to recover so we take the speed down to avoid burning you out, before taking the speed up again to burn more fat. You can do the same on the treadmill"

After 15mins, I was totally fucked! I was out of breath and my legs were killing me! Signs of a good workout :-)

No pain, no gain as they say! It was time for a protein shake and a sit down.

"So what happens now?" I asked. "The first session gives me a really good idea about the person's fitness level, what their strengths and weaknesses are. Once I know this, I can create a diet plan working using the fat measurements taken earlier, height and weight etc…This takes me a couple of days to come up with because each person and diet is different."

"Follow the diet, do your session and you"ll be on your way to fitness heaven!"

"I always make sure that I'm on hand for all my clients who, at any time, can send me an email or drop me a link with any questions about anything we have done or their diet plans. Sometimes people don't remember everything so it's really good to offer the extra support."

Overall, I had a bloody good workout with Craig, who kept me motivated and focused with the exercises; some follow up sessions will deffo be on the cards!

Craig is available for sessions both at The Locker Room gym in Essex and by private appointment.

Good luck and get SEXY!

Twitter: www.twitter.com/@craig_suckling