FITNESS TRAINING FOR THE EQUINE WORLD

'Should I Fitness Train For Equine Sports?’

I have been Personally Training rising Dressage star Sofie Butchart for a few months now and she has really benefitted from the extra fitness, strength and overall well being that results from the training. She is winning competitions and is more determined than ever.

I know my bodybuilding career is ever so slightly different from equine sports but the drive and mental focus needed to win transfers over to all sports! We work on visualisation techniques and a winning attitude as well as the fitness etc.

I’ll hand over to Sofie and she can tell you in her own words how she transformed herself to rise in the world of Dressage. I did not ask her to write anything for me, this was done off her own back!

‘ Within the equine world it is hard to find the time to be healthy and look after your body correctly. Although in order to perform our best to contribute to our equines overall performance, we should look after ourselves like we do our horses!

Previously I literally lived on fast food, carbs and anything with sugar in to give me a boost of energy on a busy day. I had an extremely inconsistent diet with massive gaps between meals, then times of binge eating. I managed although my concentration levels, energy levels and my overall health were pretty awful! I was ill a lot, I would get injured very easily and feel run down the majority of the time.

I knew things had to change to not only become a better rider but also a fitter and healthier person! That’s when I met Peter Chown, former Natural Mr Universe and Heavyweight World bodybuilding champion who is also a well respected personal trainer and nutritional advisor.

With Peters help and guidance I have transformed from being McDonalds favourite customer to now managing to consistently eat the right foods to fuel my body and being healthy. I also train at the gym with Peter 3 to 4 times a week and under his watchful eye I am stronger and fitter and also i’m loving seeing the visual changes. I feel great!

During my training sessions with Peter we do some cardio but mostly weight training to help strengthen my whole body for my riding. We have recently progressed to training lower body and upper body both twice a week. I have felt a huge difference within my riding performance as well as feeling so much better in myself.

Beforehand I had ‘strength’ in my riding muscles but I was extremely weak in other areas making me prone to injuries, form hernias to having major surgery on my shoulders due to reoccurring dislocations.

Peter is always on the end of the phone for me whenever I have any questions regarding my nutrition plan and training.

Originally I thought eating healthy was just salad and boring foods, it isn’t, I now really enjoy my meals A LOT!! I cant lie, when I first started my nutrition plan I felt awful, my body wasn’t used to healthy food, I craved Dominos pizza so much! But I stuck to it and now I look back at how I used to eat and it makes me feel sick! I wouldn’t feed my horses an inconsistent and unbalanced diet and expect them to perform at their best, although I was doing it to myself.

I also have acupuncture and visit an osteopath every 2-3 weeks to keep any twinges at bay and help my bodys energy and my mind. My horses are very sensitive and their performance changes drastically if I am not ‘on form’ so it’s important for their sake I keep myself in the best shape I can mentally and physically.

I hope this has given you and idea to my personal training structure, how I look after myself in order to perform at my best and also how anyone can turn their lifestyle around with guidance and support, not just in the equine world but anyone! ‘

WELCOME SOFIE BUTCHART!

SOFIE BUTCHART ON TEAM NATURAL PHYSIQUE

Natural Physique has recently taken on the training and nutrition of dressage champion Sofie Butchart.  Sofie approached me to help with her nutrition for the competition year ahead and I also persuaded her to let me help her with resistance training which she was excited about!  

Sofie Butchart

We are training at Muscle Limit Gym twice a week when she can and Sofie is already making great progress!  

Sofie Training Hard at Muscle Limit Gym.  

Check here at Natural Physique and my Instagram (@Chownie1) for progress updates.  Check out Sofie's Instagram @sofiebutchartdressage and website www.sofiebutchartdressage.co.uk . 

My Mindset! By Peter Chown

Mr Natural Universe?  My life?  What was the mindset that I had to achieve what I have achieved in natural bodybuilding?  Hey, its no secret, it was just the way I lived my life!  But none the less I am more than happy to share with you my 'secrets'.  

I started competing as a natural bodybuilder in 1991 after 2 and a half years of training and over the years have won several Under 21 Junior titles including the Junior Mr Britain and Junior Mr Europe.  Later on in my career my achievements extending to winning the INBF World Heavyweight tile in 2005 in NYC and a year later winning the heavyweight title and overall champion at the INBA Natural Mr Universe in Los Angeles, California where I earned my natural bodybuilding professional status.  Plenty of moments I will remember for the rest of my life.  

ANB SOUTH EAST AGE 23, WINNING THE HEAVYWEIGHT CLASS AND OVERALL IN 1996.

Getting yourself into the mindset to train for a bodybuilding competition can be hard!  You know you have many weeks, or even months if you have more than one competition lined up, of hard dieting, hard training, 24 hour commitment, tiredness.  What the hell made me want to do this?!  Well, it is a sport I love and luckily for me its a sport that I was encouraged to compete in from early on in my training as I was actually good at it!  I'm not very good at many things so this was my opportunity to excel in a sport.  When I'm passionate about something my drive towards my goals is intense.  Even before I started training I knew I wanted to be a bodybuilder, I wanted to win the Junior Mr Britain title, to be one of the best in the world.  

One other thing that drove me as well was that I was scared of losing!  I wanted to win, I wanted to feel special, I wanted to inspire others to build a body that they want, if I can do it then so can others.  I was a very shy teenager, I worked in retail where you get many customers look down at you, I wanted to prove that with drive, determination, consistency that this shy teenager in a dead end job could work hard and become a World Heavyweight Champion, a Mr Universe, who could train in Golds Gym in Venice California and be recognised for the physique he built.  

What else drove me to have this intense mindset?  It was seeing how much the body can take in the gym, as I have always been lifetime natural I didn't have the option of drugs helping me build my physique.  I didn't want to limit myself either with the mindset that as I was natural then I'm limited to only building a smaller physique, a physique that could only lift a limited amount of weight.  My goal was to build a physique that wouldn't of looked out of place amongst 1980's style physiques, as to me this was one of the best eras of bodybuilding.   If I told myself that I can't do this because I'm natural, I can't do that because I'm natural then I would limit myself to what I could achieve.  I was a bodybuilder, thats it.  I trained harder than anyone else, I was known for crazy intense training sessions, especially leg workouts.  I got the respect of high ranking non natural competitive bodybuilders.  It's amazing how much punishment the human body can take.  I'm not saying this is the way for everyone to train as everyones goals are different, but this was my mindset, every workout was a challenge, I trained intelligently, but like a nutter too!  

A massive tool that helped me too was visualisation.  I'll cover this inmate depth in a separate blog another time.  In my mind I had what I wanted my body to look like.  Every workout I trained my body, I could 'see' the fibres contracting, the muscle growing.  My body just had grow into what was in my mind.  Every time I ate a meal, every gram of protein was building my body, every step of cardio pre contest was turning my body into a fat burning furnace.  Visualisation really works!

One other thing that is really important, and something I learned later in my competitive career is a balance in life.  Even though I was very intense with it all I learnt to switch off as well.  Pre contest I still made time for others in my life, not early in my career, but the last few years I did.  In the early years I thought everyone should understand what I was going through.  I didn't make much time for others pre contest.  It was when an ex of mine competed I found it really hard to be the partner who wasn't competing, not going out, the arguments.  This was coming from someone like me who had competed several times!  I thought if I found it hard then what must people think who aren't into the sport who's other half is competing, it must be hell!   From then on when I competed I always made time to do things with my other half, no matter how tired I was, my cool bag can come with me and we can have days out.  It helped and I then had more of a balance, certainly not perfect, I did have competitions coming up but I made the effort.  Now when competitors tell me their husbands or wives don't understand, its causing problems in their relationship, I can help.  Competing certainly isn't worth losing a great relationship over and no-one forces us to go through this, we can stop at anytime.  

This sport isn't for everyone, I've seen many people diet for a show and they've suffered badly mentally, they just haven't got the right mindset, they're almost losing their mind, they get angry with everyone, ranting, its really not worth it.  Competing should be fun, seriously hard, but fun seeing the changes your body can make with hard work.  If its not fun then take another sport or activity up, life too short! 

Anyway, I waffled on enough I think but I'll cover more on mindset, visualisation etc. in the future. If you have anything you'd like me to cover then just let me know!  

Peter Chown

Congratulations!

I just wanted to say a big congratulations to my client Fanni for her recent success at the Pure Elite competition.  Fanni's goal was to transform her body for her first bikini competition and that she did! Although she didn't place you have to admit that her transformation was fantastic!  She put in the hard work,  dieted hard but sensibly and naturally, no unnatural unhealthy fat burners, and the results show.  She also enjoyed the whole prep ( so she tells me 😜).   

Congratulations Fanni! 

PETER CHOWN TRAINING TIPS

Chownie's Quick Tips - Parallel Grip Pulldown  

To add variety to the pulldown movement, try various grips and bar attachments. You'll hit the muscles from different angles resulting in your progress moving forward.  Here's the parallel grip, wide grip pulldown, filmed at Muscle Limit Gym.  Work on that mind-muscle connection, focusing on the muscle working, feeling it stretch and contract. 

Personal Training At Muscle Limit Gym, London

More Times Opening Up! 

I have opened up more hours for personal training sessions at Muscle Limit Gym in North London, easy to reach if you are in North London or work in the city as it's only 20 minutes train/walk form Liverpool Street Station and only 5 minutes from Tottenham Hale Station.

I am now available Tuesdays and Thursdays, and Saturday afternoons, any other times then please enquire as I will have the odd slot on other days.  

This is a great opportunity to train with me, Peter Chown, with over 25 years experience in the fitness industry, a former Natural Mr Universe and World Natural Bodybuilding champion in the gym where I won all my major titles.

Muscle Limit Gym has a unique atmosphere, very friendly, no clickyness at all, it's like a big happy family due to it being family owned and run.  Once you hit the gym floor though it's all business, Packed with equipment it caters for all levels of training and goals wether fitness, health, bodybuilding or sports specific.

Click here to book your consultation!  

Peter

Muscle Limit Gym