Hi There!

No matter why you want to get fit, it’s easier and faster than most people think.  Most fitness manuals, videos, gym-programs and books make it too complicated and difficult.  But it isn’t. 

Over 30-years of training, I’ve learned this the hard way.  Like anything else, it helps if you know how to do something.  The snag is that learning can take a long time and there are piles of potentially painful pitfalls. 

My aim with faster-safer-fitness.com is to help you learn the easy way not the hard way.  Get your hindsight in advance here.

Enjoy the site.  Your comments will be welcome.

Best wishes

Jon Dyson

Founder of faster-safer-fitness.com.

Bio

From around the age of 5, I was usually faster on my feet and could outrun other kids.  This naturally drew me to sprint events and hurdles where I won numerous contests.  Later it took me to rugby where I usually played on the wing or as a prop forward.  Modesty forbids me to boast about how marvellous I was at these events.  Let’s just say that I was considered pretty good.

But at university the longer distance stuff such as cross-country running and orienteering took over from sprints.  These gave me a better ‘high’.  At that time, my only other fitness activities with a claim to the title ‘all-round’ were swimming and fairly light workouts with weights.

This turned out to be a real weakness.  By this I mean that although I was fit for distance running, I was useless at power events.  Spending a year in Germany taught me this in a gentle way when I briefly went back to sprints.  I realized fast that although I had an overabundance of stamina, I no longer had the power needed.

Fit & Weak

The same lesson was learned in a nastier way when I got back home from Germany. 

What happened was that I was attacked in the street one night not far from where I lived in Manchester.  The attack was without provocation and I totally failed to see it coming.

The first piece of good news was that no weapons were involved.  The second piece was that I was fit enough to avoid being beaten or hurt. 

But the bad news was that I wasn’t strong enough and didn’t have the fighting know-how to subdue or punish the attacker.  The best result I could get was a stalemate.  Looking back, that wasn’t too bad.  It could easily have turned out much worse.

Frighteningly Unfit For Fighting

Remember, this was at a time when I was really fit from lots of running.  Yet I was pretty well exhausted after a struggle that probably lasted less than a minute.

Now just think of how many fitness ‘fanatics’ you know where this would apply.  That is, they spend the lion’s share of their workouts doing the thing they like best or do best, such as jogging or bike, or whatever.  That’s great. 

But it’s less great when another kind of activity comes along, maybe in an emergency, and other elements of fitness are needed.  Likewise, if you already have a powerful upper body, how about your running? 

So, my own immediate conclusion from the attack was that being fit for running was fine for running but that’s pretty much it.  In any case, it’s tricky running with a maniac on top of you doing his best to beat you to pulp. 

All-Round Effective Fitness Needed

In other words, the lesson was that sticking overwhelmingly to one main activity has its drawbacks. 

My second conclusion was the now obvious need for more upper body strength.  In other words, what I needed was better conditioning to be stronger and more durable all-round.  And that’s how I got into weight training several years ago. 

Yet another conclusion was that it’s wise to have some fighting know-how.  But that’s another story (though you can see the article on this site, Self-Defence: Being Attacked & Attacking Back, which demonstrates that the various martial arts self-defence systems are full of pitfalls and hopelessly inadequate for a real fight).

About Faster-Safer-Fitness.com

Love Hurts But Why Should Fitness Hurt Too?

One of the snags of getting fit is the risk of injury.  The long and short of it is that weight training has its dangers.  And this isn’t just an age thing.  In reality, injuries in sports and fitness training are rampant at all ages - along with painkillers and rampant drug taking for those who prefer pharmacy fitness to real all-round fitness. 

Like many people I’ve had my share of injuries.  In my case, the worst injury was to my neck when I was told I would have to wear a support collar for maybe two years.  Fortunately, I was able to get rid of it after 5 months.

But none of my injuries were as serious as those of plenty of friends.  In fact, as a mental exercise, just totting-up how many people I know who’ve had knee and hip operations is frightening.  And this is mainly among runners and rugby players who are generally amateurs!  It's even worse amongst the professionals. 

Out of Action > Into Action > Ouch!

Now add in all the injuries of the new enthusiasts who are scared by middle age into taking up a fitness regime!   After 25 years of inactivity, they decide they need to go to the gym or start jogging to preserve their youth.  That’s seems like a great idea.  But it’s not so marvellous in practice unless notions of fitness they had 25 years ago are rethought.

Otherwise, chiropractors, physiotherapists, so-called ‘alternative’ medicine practitioners and sales of painkillers are doing well, thank you. 

Hello Houston

We have problem.  This is what inspired me to write the eBook Dangerous Exercises:  Plus Safer & Superior Alternatives. 

This shows you a bunch of exercises, with and without weights, that are either useless or dangerous or both.  Yet I see them time and again in my local gym despite the fact that they constantly lead to injuries. 

What makes it worse is that there are incredible alternatives that are both better and safer.  The snag is they are hardly known at all.  That’s why I got into writing.

For the same reason, I developed the eBook, The Fitnessblasting Manual.  The main theme is that a normal person can get fit faster and safer without weights and machines or pounding out mile after mile on the streets.  My view is that the use of weights and machines is entirely unnecessary.  In truth, they are generally part of the problem.

But How Can This Be True?

Now, for many people, this idea is something of a problem. 

After all, everyone knows that to be serious about fitness means using weights or machines, don’t they?  Practically every gym or fitness club projects this idea by being full to the brim with apparatus.  They would struggle to justify their existence and their fees without it all. 

Countless fitness books, magazines, videos, classes and websites reinforce the same idea over and over.  And many of us reinforce it ourselves by being gadget-mad anyway. 

Having been indoctrinated with this idea for so long, it’s hard for some people to shake it off.  So, let me help you shake it off. 

I’ll show you how a normal person can become extremely fit without becoming a fanatic.  You can do this without the dangers of weights or machines and without being bored senseless by hours of aerobics. 

Here Are A Few Advantages

The Only SIX-PACK You Really Need

The main theme of Fitnessblasting is the rapid development of all-round effective fitness rather than merely to display big muscles.  In other words, muscle-bigness is not to be confused with all-round fitness. 

But What Is All-Round Fitness?

All-round fitness consists of 6 critical elements:

The proof of the pudding is in the eating, of course.  But for fitness at any age, I don’t believe there’s a better place to start than right here. 

Enjoy the site and get going with the Program.