DO YOU LOOK GOOD NAKED? PROBABLY NOT BUT IF YOU REALLY WANT TO CHANGE YOUR BODY SHAPE, YOU’VE GOT TO AIM HIGH!

Do you remember why you joined a gym? A recent study, cited at a seminar I attended in the UK, suggested that nine out of 10 people join a gym for fat loss, but only one per cent of those are successful.

So, in essence, everyone joins a gym to look good naked, but only a tiny percentage are successful and happy with what they see in the mirror every morning!

Gym-goers frustrated by their lack of success often follow the same route to madness — doing the same things over and over again, hoping to get a different result. Hours and hours of treadmill running and aerobic classes and tonnes of sweat have failed to yield a dividend? So what is the secret? The training environment is all important.

Training environments help create honest endeavour as the people you train with can inspire and motivate you to do that bit more, to challenge yourself. However, the training environment can also be affected negatively by the people you interact and train with.

Philosopher Jim Rohn has said you are the average of the five people you interact with, so are your training partners raising or lowering your standards? More importantly, what is your training environment like? What do the people lift? How hard do they train and are they getting results?

When I started training in a gym environment my ambition was to carry over the work ethic I had learnt as a child playing soccer and Gaelic football: teamwork, honesty and a willingness to challenge the physical and mental limits of my body.

These ideas — based on the principle of overload or, in Japanese, kaizen (never-ending improvement) can form the basis for improvement in any area of life.

First up, you need to be tested. You can ‘test’ yourself by looking at yourself naked in a mirror, but the best way to determine your progress is by using body-fat calipers — a 10-point measurement to determine your body fat by measuring the percentage of muscle to fat on your body.

Weight loss is not a good measure of progress as it doesn’t distinguish between fat loss and muscle loss, and muscle loss reduces your metabolism and therefore your ability to change your body shape.

Determining this ratio is important because fat stores toxins. The higher your body fat, the more toxic you are and you increase the risk of heart disease, cancer and diabetes.

The lower the body fat, the more energy, vibrancy and lifespan you will have.

In my gym, the target for females is below 16pc whilst the target for males is 10pc. This means that all males should have six packs. That is the gold standard regardless of age or circumstance.

When you first get an idea that you want to be in the best shape of your life your brain may start making excuses as to why it cannot be accomplished. The longer this idea breathes the stronger it gets and when you surround yourself with like-minded people it spreads like a wild-fire and it makes you more determined to accomplish it.

Irish people tend to suffer from ‘small-country syndrome’, where we blame our lack of success on international competition or on our population numbers. Our Scandinavian neighbours’ results at Olympic level do not seem to affect them, so is it our beliefs or are our standards too low?

Recently I spent a week with UK rugby team the Leicester Tigers, where the players’ weightlifting standards in different exercises are listed on the wall. You either shape up and raise your expectations or the revolving door will see you make a swift exit.

The players’ body fat and hydration levels are also listed on the wall, so other players can see who is working to help the team and who is holding them back. This social pressure has helped lead the Tigers to Heineken Cup crowns and the English Rugby Premiership more than once.

You may feel this is harsh, but you are constantly tested in life too. At school, at work. But are you applying the same principles in the gym? Are you measuring your progress? Do you record the weights you lift, the distance and the speed you run?

What we measure we improve, and if your bar needs to be raised, find people who will challenge you to achieve your potential.

I dreamt as a kid I would be the best in the world and play for Man United. When I was 17 I achieved this. My path has since taken a different route, but the standards remain the same.

After all, it’s much better to die on your feet than live on your knees.