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Having trained on and off for the best part of 12 years, I thought it was best to get my fat lazy ass back into the dungeon! It has been 3.5 years since I was last in decent shape, and quite possibly the best shape of my life. May 2005, Dean, Aaron, Dan (my bro) and I were kicking some serious ass. The gym became our battleground, and the free weights became our weapons of choice!

Back then I remember back squatting around 150kg, my best was 180kg – way back in my Olympic weightlifting days! I was bench pressing 120kg for multiple reps, and needless to say we were in the zone! So much hard work, naturally, without the assistance of performance enhancing drugs. Only regular intake of good quality protein supplemented with Creatine and Glutamine.

So here I am 3.5 years later, in a different country to my fellow warriors, looking rather worse for wear, and with the wife realizing that perhaps I am not quite the same guy she fell in love with. I am less than 2 years from 30 and hardly have the base fitness levels to compete in any sport (chess aside) so perhaps now is time I actually do something about it, before it gets too late to bother!

For some strange reason I found motivation? My brother in law Gary is currently living with us Down Under, and he found my motivation too. We decided to check out our local gym, yeah it is slightly commercial in that it caters for all users, but it has the raw materials to achieve godlike physiques! We joined, and so far having had just 4 sessions I have this amazing buzz back, just like I had in the trenches all those years ago. There are less warriors this time around, just Gary and I. But I am passing on years of knowledge, and years of battles won against the steel of barbells to my new young apprentice.

We are hitting our second chest & legs session tonight, and I am looking to bench press 75kg, and then squat 85kg. I know I can do more, but I am trying to break myself back into the zone. I am currently weighing about 93kg, no doubt my heaviest in my life and my new partner is not quite up to 60kg. We are complete opposite ends of the spectrum, I need to cut up, he needs to bulk up, but the common goal and focus to lift good heavy weights and look pretty good is the key motivational tool.

So this section of my blog will be dedicated to my fitness and workouts. I will endeavour to update it weekly, discuss training, muscle groups, nutrition and supplements. And I will also try and add photo updates!

This photo is a little old, taken about 10 months ago, when I was actually in better shape than I am now. Hopefully by the end of Feb (my 29th Birthday) I will be able to post a picture with a much improved physique. Unfortunately I don’t dare put a current picture live on the net.

I have neglected my blog for a few weeks, not because I wanted to, more because I was stacked with a project which took up far too much my free time.

I have always believed in doing whatever is needed in order to get job done. That collective team togetherness, working under pressure, can create amazing results. Perhaps for a few days it is ok, but when the past 5 weeks of your life have been systematically taken over by something else it becomes far too much, even for me!

I am a perfectionist, I am creative, and I personally feel responsible for the work I do. My parents drilled into me that level of responsibility and so I generally will do what it takes to get the job done. Sadly 100 hour working weeks are way over-rated and as that was the culmination of 5 weeks of intensive work I can honestly say now, was it worth it? The job got done, by all accounts it was considered reasonably successful. I got to work with some great people with a real “can do” attitude. I managed to get my team of people motivated and working in unison for a common cause. On the face of it, I should be proud of the achievement.

You see for every hour outside of work I spent on that project, I spent another hour away from my wife and my home. Having moved to Australia together, she shouldn’t have gone without her husband for that amount of time. I enjoy our time together, and for the small amount of time I was at home, I spent most of it complaining about the project. The past 5 weeks have put a tremendous strain on our marriage, no reward, financial or otherwise was worth that strain.

My boss spoke about how impressed he was with my performance, and that my work was beyond exceptional, but was it really worth having to work to that level, under that amount of stress, and putting both myself and my wife through all that?

Quite simply the answer is no, regardless of how impressed many people are/were with the project, personally for me I am quite sad that what is truly important in my life (wife & family) were relegated whilst something else took priority for 5 weeks of my life. You cannot put a value on time, those 5 weeks are lost, never to be replaced again, no praise, money or time off could account for those lost hours.

Part of the reason I left the UK to move to Australia was to get the whole work/life balance correct, having nearly worked to the point of mental and physical exhaustion I can honestly say I never want to be that involved with a project ever again, life is too short, and quite frankly I don’t get paid anywhere near enough for that.

So rather than thanking the countless people who actually made the project a possibility, and there are a lot of thank you’s needed, instead I would like to say sorry to my wife for not being around much the past few weeks. I work to live, I work so I can enjoy a good life with my wife, for us to enjoy our time together. I’m sorry the past few weeks have not reflected that, and only hope I never have to do this again!

Love ya babes

Dam due to ill health and a lack of response from my website hosting, I missed the opportunity to take part in what is certainly blogging for a good cause! http://blogactionday.org/ came and went before I had a chance to take part, so I will post my after thoughts about what I see as keys to global poverty.

Basically it comes down to one simple thing, greed. We all want more, we all want bigger cars, bigger houses, bigger salaries, bigger dinners, bigger TVs and we all want them cheaper as well. This greed goes far and beyond everyone’s basic human rights, and most basic human needs.

It saddens me that whilst so many people live in luxury, there is so many more people who have nothing, or live so close to the poverty line that they have no idea where or when their next meal is coming from. We can fly all these great instruments to Mars, and spend billions on a 27km tunnel to test the big bang theory, yet collectively, as a human race, we continually fail to actually do anything which benefits mankind.

We all want the easy solution, we don’t care about recycling, we care less about food waste. There is so much overall waste, both food and money that it really is criminal how the western world eats and lives (to excess) when there are those who truly go without.

I wrote recently about defence budgets, and it is truly sad how much money is throw at defence globally, compared to how much money is spent developing a cure for aids, cancer or malaria.

The world needs to change, we need to change. Both internationally, nationally and regionally. The world needs to care, about the health of our planet, and the health of our fellow human beings. Big businesses need to start taking responsibility for their greed, and their waste. Governments need to start looking out for the welfare of its citizens, instead of how much profit business is making.

Everybody should have access to good food, clean water, security, a free education and hope that the future can be better, if we work united, for the good of mankind and all nations. Not for the good of profits, or greedy execs, the mentality of the world needs to change, and true leadership is required from those who have been elected to represent the people of the world. True leadership is required from big business, it is time to start working in a sustainable way.

The poverty that was around in my parents generation has only become worse, perhaps it is time our generation started to do something to improve these points?

I check out a lot of blogs, mostly based around professional understanding, however there are a few blogs I visit on a lesser basis. One of those is Seth Godin’s blog, and he puts some really interesting points in his recent blog post about effort.

On many occasions I feel like I don’t have enough time for life, yet I know each night I veg out in front of the TV or PS3 for at least an hour, maybe 3. What Seth proposes is for us to take 120mins a day and put it to good use! To learn new skills, improve our fitness and generally do things we wouldn’t normally do.

I believe there is merit in his points. Having recently read the book “Evolve Your Brain” there are clear parrallels in both points. One key point that Seth makes is to ensure that you only spend money on what you need to for a whole year and save the rest. Such conservative thinking might actually help a lot of people across the world deal with the current financial stresses. He also discusses learning new skills - surely upskilling will also equate to improved pay as well?

Not to mention exercise - it is no secret that people who exercise regularly are generally healthier and happier than the rest of us. So for everyone depressed about the financial state of the globe, take yourself for a walk and cancel your cable subscription! You will be rewarded with better health and more cash in your wallet.

Whilst I do Veg out everyday for sometime, I do also try to get my 30mins of exercise, walking the dog! I also spend an hour getting the train to work, and an hour back, so I try to read, and learn new skills during these crucial 2 hours each day. However having recently bought a house I can honestly say that at the moment I have too many DIY projects to try and save any extra, but maybe next year I will take Seth up on his challenge.

I have had the pleasure of working with a lot of creative people during my career, and I love how passionate those people are, both about their jobs and other projects they get involved in. Right now I work closely with a great young creative who shares a passion for computer games and the web. Whilst we work together on web projects, it is the affection for computer gaming which has kick started his own little off-shoot project.

So let me introduce to you Mindtank Studio’s - they are currently developing their first adventure flash game, and will be sharing the journey with everyone direct from their website, including development, successes and failures.