Coach Dom PT

30/05/2025

Based in Chichester, West Sussex. Get in touch for training.

I offer online as well as in person training to suit all needs and budgets 💪

24/11/2024

First off, being in a calorie deficit is the only way to lose weight. Meal tracking apps such as Nutracheck or MyFitnessPal are great for this, although they can be time consuming and complicated for some. It can also have an impact on mental health if your tracking app says you're in a deficit but weight isn't changing. If you have the time and commitment then I'd still recommend using a tracking app or food diary however it's not the compulsory. Here are some tips I would suggest to assist with your weight loss journy and keep you in a colorie deficit:

1. Stick to regular meal times with no snacking in between. Ideally 3 meals a day but 2 or 5 meals is fine too. Obviously the more frequent your meals are, the smaller they should be. Drink hot or sugar free carbonated drinks between meals to help keep you from snacking if you find it difficult.

2. Cut out alcohol. Unless you're out for an occasion, the calories just aren't worth it (in my opinion. The same can be said for coffee shops and even "healthy" smoothie bars.

3. Most phones have a step tracker. A lots of trainers throw around 10k steps as a magic number with no rhyme or reasoning. Check your current average steps and set a daily target to increase that by 1000 steps per day. Eg, if your current average is 4000 (not unusual for a desk job), then your new target is to hit 5000 steps every day. After a few weeks this can increase again.

4. It can be hard with children or stressful jobs, but get quality sleep. It's been shown that people who get more sleep tend to have lower levels or cortisol and higher testosterone, both of which are related to a higher resting metabolic rate.

5. Exercise is good, but it doesn't matter what you do. Find a type of exercise that you enjoy and do it regularly. Some options are finding a sport, resistance training, exercise classes, jogging/cycling, yoga.

17/11/2024

09/08/2024

How I would train for the Olympics - boxing

I'm a firm believer that the best thing you can do for boxing is to improve your cardio. However, strength training will always enhance an athlete's skill and abilities.

Really simple formula for boxing as well as any sport that requires power production:
- lower body strength movement (eg, squats or deadlifts)
- full body power movement (eg. Power clean, sled push, med ball throws)
- core and accessory work (planks, bicep curls, leg raises, machine row)

06/08/2024

How I would train for the Olympics - basketball

Next up is basketball. A very high intensity sport where athletes are sprinting up and down the court. Due to this you may have expected to see sprints in the training. This, however, should be covered in the sports specific practice and the athletes should be playing enough basketball to be well conditioned. The weight room is purely for building strength and power which can then be used to elevate the skills of the athlete in their sport.

I would likely start these workouts with a sports specific warmup and mobility work. Basketball players tend to have very tight hips so it could be useful to incorporate mobility work by including exercises like archer squats and glue bridges into the warmup.

05/08/2024

How I would train for the Olympics - Badminton

I'm doing this little series as a fun chance to test my own knowledge of training for sports performance. This is a very general look as there are so many variables aside from just the sport being trained for. I'm going into this with the assumption that the program/workout is for someone who plays the sport socially but wants to add a bit of gym work to support their training.

I'm a firm believer that the best thing you can do to improve as an athlete is to practice the sport. Any beginner to a new sport should spend the first 6 months (at least) just practicing the sport before adding any kind of gym work. Even at the elite level, sports practice will always be prioritised over gym work.

Let me know what you think. Maybe at the 2028 Olympics I'll review this series. It would be interesting to compare my future knowledge and training philosophies to my knowledge now.

04/08/2024

08/07/2024

Big up for his first ever half marathon! 🏃‍♂️💨

Matt went from no exercise since high school (about 10 years ago) to finishing a half marathon with a respectable time in the space of about 6 months 🏃‍♂️

Matt and I were chatting early on in the year and he mentioned he'd signed up for this event. Matt told me how he was completing then would be looking for a detailed training plan. So I offered to write him a training plan that would take him from 5k to 21k in just 12 weeks. Admittedly this is a big challenge for but I was confident that Matt would be able to complete the program successfully - which he did.

The program was released to him in smaller blocks which felt more manageable and throughout the 12 weeks, I would check in with Matt to see if any changes were needed, naturally some were, and I encouraged him to complete all the workouts but not to stress if any get missed. I would remind Matt of the importance of each session and rest days in between. I wanted him to complete at least the long run and one short run per week. After that, I wanted him to prioritise the third run, then add in optional strength sessions if he had the energy.

The entire program is posted at the end and makes use of periodization, progressive overload, deloads and a peaking weeks. If this post is popular I'll add a detailed post for each block of this plan.

02/07/2024

Morning everyone,
Just a reminder that Thursday morning's circuit class won't be running this week due to the General Election.

Legs Bums & Tums on wednesday evening is still going ahead as planned at Barnham.

Thanks,
Dom ☺️

01/07/2024

Let's do a Q&A to start off the week!

Comment any of your health/exercise related questions below and I'll do my best to answer