Happy New Year!

The new year is here, and statistics show that most of us plan to get fitter, stronger or lose weight in 2012.  But statistics also show that only a fraction of us will actually succeed.  If you are working out your new year resolutions,  make sure you don’t fall into any of these exercise and diet pitfalls…

Doing waaay too much.

Often people overestimate themselves and go:

• Gym 5-7 days a week!
• At least 2 hours while in the gym!
• An exercise class every weekday!
• Eat nothing but 1 apple a day!

This is unsustainable and will lead to either injury or frustration, but defiantly failure.  Be realistic and practical.

Doing waaay too little.

People often underestimate themselves too.  They have spent their whole lives being told this, that and the other is dangerous, or they can get something for nothing, and have no actual experience of hard, physical work. 

So as soon as someone does something that slightly nudges their comfort zone, they back away and decide that is more than enough for this week.  After all, if they have been in the gym for half an hour, they have sat on the bike for a bit and waved the little pink dumbells around…surely they deserve to sit down, have a rest and “recover” with that cake!

Not having a goal or target to aim for.

Many people have a vague idea that they should do something and they want to change their bodies in some vague way.  But unless you have a clear idea what you are aiming for, how do you know if you are getting it or not?  How do yo know if you are improving, staying the same or getting worse?  And if you don’t know if you are improving, it is all too easy to simply assume you are doing fine and slip back into bad, old ways.

Setting an outcome as a goal or target.

And while we are on the subject of setting goals or targets, make sure you choose the right ones.  Don’t set your goal as an outcome, or end result.  Make your target an actual, consistent action to perform.  For example, instead of saying:

• “I aim to lose weight”, say “I will eat no more than 1 piece of junk food per week”. 
• “I am going to get fitter”, say “I am going to do something that gets me out of breath for 1 hour, 3 times a week”.

Each of the above “outcome” based goals have many different and sometimes conflicting ways of achieving it.  This breeds confusion in most people.  Instead, choosing the “method” based goal is far simpler, better for long term adherence (consistency) and is a direct route to your desired body change.

Over complicating things.

Keep It Simple should be one of your mantras.  Don’t be one of the people who starts the year with a training programme of 2 dozen exercises per body part, or a diet that reads like a mobile phone instruction manual. 

The more complicated something is, more things can go wrong, more loopholes can be found in it and the harder it is to follow consistently.  Start with the basics and don’t complicate things unless you absolutely, positively have to, or your life is at stake!  A good starting point is my “Holy Trinity”.  Click here for more details.

Relying on your memory.

It has been proven time and again that we are rubbish at remembering things when it comes to exercise and food.  We forget what we did in the last training session, we forget what junk food we have had, we forget that we havent done any exercise for a month, we forget that we should not be having that chocolate “treat” 4 times a day.

Write it down!  Write down targets, write down deadlines, write down what days we can/cannot treat ourselves.  If it is written down in black and white and stuck up somewhere prominent (eg on our kitchen fridge), then it is harder for us to cheat.

If you want to control your weight, then writing a food diary is almost a must!  Click here for more details.

Doing it alone.

Humans are social animals, even me, and I’m an antisocial bugger!  When we are alone, it is easy to fall off the wagon, to wimp out or even quietly convince ourselves that we never really meant it in the first place.  If we are in a group of people with similar aims, we can make it so much easier on ourselves and make use of the peer pressure that comes in such a group.  If everyone around us is doing something, it is much easier to do it ourselves.

In fact, a good training partner, social group or coach is worth their weight in gold.  And of course, if you are looking for a coach to help you, contact me today!

Doing it at home.

Every year, people buy home gym equipment (workout DVDs, exercise bikes, ab crunch frames etc), use them once, then never use them again (except maybe as a clothes rack).  For most people, our homes are a place to relax, unwind and have fun with family/friends.  And most of us have developed an almost Pavlovian conditioning to not doing strenuous work or exercise there.

There are so many distractions in our homes that most people find it almost impossible to exercise effectively in their own homes.  So get out side, go to a gym, go to a village hall or even go to your training partners house.  Your presence will help them train properly in their home, and they can return the favour at a later date.  In fact, you will almost certainly find it easier to train properly virtually anywhere other than by yourself in your own home!

If any of this has made sense to you, please feel free to share it with your friends, or even find me on Facebook.

Movement compensation on crutches

Since I started to learn Karate when I was 7 years old, I have consciously or subconsciously been trying to improve the way I move.  I have learned that if I want to put my body in a certain position, there are loads of different ways I can do it.  But I have also learned that some ways are better than others.

Movement Compensations are when one part of your body doesn’t (for whatever reason) play it’s part fully when you try to do a movement.  In order to put your body in the desired position, a different part of your body has to do more than its fair share, or maybe change its role entirely, or “compensate”, in order for you to complete the move.

A classic example is if you get your leg in plaster and have to use crutches.  In this case, your leg is not working properly, so your arms, shoulders and other leg take over, compensate and support your bodyweight on the crutches so you can walk. 

Another common situation is that many people these days have stiff or immobile hips (hence my mini series on hip mobility recently).  With the hips not moving fully, the spine has to compensate by bending too much and this can lead to injury (click here for more on this).

In my series of “How To:” articles, most of the “bad” examples show classic Movement Compensations, where movement at the hips/shoulders is reduced, while movement at the spine is increased.

I’m sure all of you recognise the general situation from your working life.  If you are working in a group or team, and one of you is a bit rubbish and not pulling their weight, then to achieve deadlines or targets, the rest of the group/team has to do extra to make up for the slacker.  It is obvious this working situation is far from ideal, and the same goes for the body.

But our bodies are so good at compensating for weaknesses, it is often the case that we don’t even know that we have a weakness that is being compensated for!  And without this knowledge, we don’t do anything about it and this can lead to:

• The weakness is never corrected.
• The weakness gets worse.
• The compensating bodypart is chronically overloaded.
• The compensating bodypart is injured.
• Another bodypart has to compensate for both the original and new weaknesses.
• …and so on…

So now we know what Movement Compensations are, how do we avoid them?

• Maintain or increase mobility of your hips and shoulders.  If we can move these major joints easily, then we are more likely to move them instead of others.
• Strengthen all muscles that move the hips and shoulders.  It takes strength to move these joints through their full range.  If we find it physically hard to do this, we are less likely to keep it up.  And notice I said strengthen all the muscles, not just “tone up the sexy ones”.
• Apply it to every aspect of your life.  If you only do it for a couple of minutes a week during training sessions, you are less likely to do it in real life where it really matters.  Make proper movement a habit and it will become second nature.  Make it part of your background activity.

Follow these points and your joints will thank you!

It’s not what you do, it’s the way you do it.

Which exercise machine burns the most calories?

This is a very common question.  The short answer is:

None of them.  No exercise machine burns any calories.

The slightly longer answer is that you burn the calories, not the machine.  And if you are asking the above question, you are missing the most basic but important thing…

• You have to put the physical effort in to burn calories and get slimmer.
• You have to put the physical effort in to lift heavy things and get stronger/toned.
• You have to put the physical effort in to get out of breath and get fitter.
• You have to put the mental effort in to stick to your diet…even if it is Christmas or someones birthday.
• You have to put the mental effort in to go back out training even if you don’t feel like it, or you are tired, or its raining.

While you are still looking for some machine or external force to do the work for you, you are not going to achieve your goals.

As Yoda would probably say:

Inside you, the answer lies.

Backward Lunge – Good

Name:  Reverse Lunge

Also known as:  Backwards Lunge.  (If you know these by any other name, please leave a comment below).

Main muscles used:  Bum, legs.

Other muscles used:

Top tips:

• Start and end the move standing tall and balanced.
• Take a stride straight backwards with one leg, landing on the toes.  Keep the heel pointing straight upwards (don’t let it twist in/out).
• Take as long and low stride as your flexibility and balance will allow.
• Try to get your back knee as close to the floor as possible without cracking it on the ground.
• Keep your belly tight and body tall and feel a stretch at the front of the back hip.
• Dig the heel of the front foot into the floor and start to stand back up straight, keeping your belly tight and body tall throughout.
• Repeat with the other leg.

Backward Lunge – Bad

Common mistakes:

• Not stepping back far enough.
• Not stepping low enough.
• Hunching your back forwards.
• letting the front knee cave inwards.
• Letting the back foot collapse in/out.

Comments:

This is a progression of the normal Lunge.  Stepping backwards into the “unknown” can be a bit nerve wracking, so this can help your confidence and body awareness.  The longer and lower you go with this move, the more of your bum and hamstrings are used.  It can also be used as a fantasic hip mobility exercise.

If you know anyone who may benefit from this, please share it with them using the buttons below.  Thanks.

Bastards

I get bored easily.  I have noticed that unless I have some kind of goal to aim for, or unless I have someone keeping me accountable, I can easily put things off until another time (why do something today if you can put it off until tomorrow?).

And once I have put something off once, it is easy to put it off again (if it was all that important, I would have done it by now!).  And then my consistency goes all to pot.

So one trick I use to con myself into keeping on going is to set myself little challenges/games.  This is my latest…

My girlfriend is REALLY looking forward to opening her advent calendar.  But I banged my head recently and have decided to set myself an Advent Challenge.

In the run up to Christmas, I am going to do 2,500 Bastards.

Starting on December the first and ending on Christmas day itself, I am going to do 100 bastards each and every day.  And here are the rules I have set myself so far (I have a bad habit of bending rules unless they are cast in stone by the Gods themselves):

• 100 full, quality Bastards each and every day (no rubbishy half-harted ones with a rubbish jump/pressup).  After all, a challenge isn’t a challenge if it is easy.
• A day lasts from midnight to midnight.  I am not likely to wake up at 1am in order to do  them, but at least the option is there if I am feeling a bit odd/drunk.
• They can be spread out or grouped together in any way (eg I can do all 100 in one go, or do 10 sets of 10 over 10 hours etc).
• I can not do any less than 100 a day, and any over 100 do NOT count to the total (so I can’t do 200 in one day, then take the next day off).  This means I have to be consistent.

I am hoping this advent challenge will tick all my character flaw boxes:

• I can honestly say that I wont be lazy if I am doing shed loads of bastards every day…they are not easy or nice and everyone sane avoids them like the plague.
• It won’t take that long to do 100 of them, so I will have little chance to get bored.
• I don’t need any equipment or gym memberships or have to spend any money at all to do this.
• Announcing this here will mean I can’t give up half way through, because my ego won’t let me face that shame and my sister will never let me live it down (and feel free to slap me hard if I make any lame, whining excuses as to why I havent done them).

So there we go.  This is one of the random tricks I play on myself to stop me getting fat and lazy.  Do you have any tricks that work for you?

As always, feel free to share this with anyone you think may be interested using the buttons below.

Thanks!

Bastards

Name:  Bastards

Also known as:  (If you know these by any other name, please leave a comment below).

Main muscles used:  Legs, chest, shoulders, arms, heart.

Other muscles used:  Everything else.

Top tips:

• Start by standing tall.
• Squat down and put your hands on the floor, a bit more than shoulder width apart.
• Jump your feet back into the pressup position in one smooth movement, just like the first half of a squat thrust.
• Keep your belly tight all the time, don’t let it sag towards the floor.
• Do a full, quality pressup, with chest touching the floor.
• Jump your feet back to where they were, just like the second half of a squat thrust.
• Jump high up in the air and tuck your knees tight to your chest, just like a tuck jump.
• Land softly on the balls of your feet, then repeat.

Common mistakes:

• All the same mistakes as the constituent parts (squat thrust, pressup and tuck jump).
• Cutting each part down into smaller and smaller moves as you get more and more tired.

Comments:

The Bastard is a progression on the already difficult burpee.  It is essentially the same move, but with a pressup and tuck jump added.  Because the whole body is being used, it works your heart and lungs a great deal.  The pressup makes it a very good upper body strength exercise.  The explosive tuck jump makes it a very good lower body strength exercise.  The combination of everything makes this a very, very hard, full body exercise.

And it is horrible…hence its name.

If you find this useful, please share it with your friends using the buttons below.

Inverted Row – Good

Name:  Inverted Rows

Also known as:  Australian pressups, bodyweight rows (If you know these by any other name, please leave a comment below).

Main muscles used:  Upper back, arms.

Other muscles used:  Lower back, bum.

Top tips:

Inverted Row – Good

• Hold onto a solid, secure bar, with hands a couple of inches wider than shoulder width apart.
• Hang underneath, with heels digging into the floor.
• Squeeze your bum and make sure it does not “sag” downwards.
• Start pulling your chest up to the bar by squeezing your shoulder blades back and down.
• Continue the pull using your arms, until your chest makes contact with the bar, then return to the start position under control.
• Keep your legs, back and neck in a straight line throughout.
• Let your elbows make a 45 degree angle with the sides of your body.

Inverted Row – Bad

Common mistakes:

• Letting your bum sag down to the floor.
• Over arching your spine in attempt to get your chest higher.
• Reaching your chin forwards to the bar.
• Not touching the bar to your chest at the top.
• Not keeping your legs, bum, back and neck tight and straight.
• Trying to pull yourself up with the arms, instead of with your upper back (shoulder blades).

Comments:

This move complements the pressup wonderfully, working all the body that was missed in the pressup.  Make the move easier by having a higher bar (so your body is more vertical).  Make the move harder by having a lower bar (so your body is more horizontal).

I was asked a common question the other day.  A young lad came up to me and asked if he should be having a protein drink like he sees all his friends having.  He trains once or twice a week and when I asked, he said he had no specific goals.  He seemed the perfect example of the average lad doing recreational exercise for general health.

This was an easy one to answer…

No.  He shouldn’t have a protein drink.  I’ve mentioned these before (click here) and i still stand by what I said.  Protein drinks are there for a specific purpose.  They help your body recover after a tough training session and get ready for the next tough training session that is just round the corner.

If you don’t take part in tough training sessions, and if the next tough training session that you wont be taking part in is up to a week away, it won’t have any noticeable effect on you.  If you are genuinely asking from a health point of view, you will be far better advised to go home and eat your greens and lay off the junk food.  But if you are asking because you want to fit in with your mates swigging back on bright pink protein shakes….I’m the wrong person to ask (I don’t have any mates!)

If we want to emulate high level athletes who will benefit from supplements like this, I suggest the first thing we should try to emulate is their work ethic and focus.  They tend to know what they want from their training and tend to put in the years of training needed to achieve their goal.

But that is a very difficult thing to do and it is much easier to put style before substance.  I know this because I do it myself every day…but I’m trying to change.

If you need help putting substance before style and doing some quality training, contact me and maybe I can help.

Training when injured

My friend was out running in the rain the other day, slipped and twisted her knee.  It is now lovely and swollen and she has been advised to avoid too much force going through her knee.

So what does she do now?  Does she have to lay up for a couple of weeks recovering and possibly losing some of the fitness she has trained hard to gain?  Of course not!  This is where cross training (and a little imagination) comes in!

First of all, here is the usual obvious disclaimer:

As with any injury, get it checked out by someone who knows what they are talking about.  It is stupid being all macho, ignoring an injury or “training through” it and screwing up your body for months/years to come.

Pain is a signal from your body that something is wrong.  Listen to it!

Then you need to find out what things are best to avoid.  In the case of my friend, it is higher impact, explosive forces.  Especially those that can force the knee in directions it does not like.  Knees do not like sideways or twisting forces.  They only like bending back and forth.

So for the moment, running, jumping and sudden changes in direction is out.  But her upper body is fine, and simple straightening/bending of the knee is also fine.  So instead of focussing on what we can’t do, we need to focus on the various things we can do…and then get doing it!

This is called cross training…or doing something different to complement our goals.

So simple things first.

Cycling

Cycling.  This involves simple, predictable bending/straightening of the knees, with virtually zero impact.  It maintains mobility of the swollen joint, increases blood flow (which can help healing), maintains leg strength and is fantastic cardio vascular exercise (it gets you out of breath).

Swimming.  Avoiding breast stroke where you can.  Breast stroke kicking has sideways forces going through the legs (not what an injured knee wants).  And on a side note, if you swim like most people (including myself untill recently), you arch your spine and neck back sooo much in an attempt to keep your face out of the water so you can breathe.  Stick your face in the water between breaths.  Your fitness/neck/spine will thank you for it!  Anyway.  In my friends case, she might want to swim front crawl, or back stroke.  This involves simple kicking of the legs back and forth (again, in the direction knees like) and is great for fitness.

Upper body erg – or the arm bike

Upper body ergometer (arm bike).  We have one of these in the gym and they are great.  No legs involved at all, so you don’t have to worry about aggravating an injury, so you can concentrate on working hard!

Rowing.  I love these machines!  But make sure you do them right.  Sit tall to look after your spine, and make sure when you bend your knees, they are between your arms.  Don’t twist them out so your arms are between your knees.  Remember, knees don’t like twisting!

Punching the bag.  Be honest now…are you really all that surprised I’m suggesting this?  I LOVE it.  You will just have to make sure you stay in one place.  No Ali-Shuffle for the moment.  Just stand in front of the bag and show it who is boss and keep out of breath.

Increasing your Background Activity levels.  If you are seriously struggling to find any form of training, then make sure that the rest of your time is not spent sitting down watching X-Factor.  Do something, anything else.

We will all get injured at some point.  The trick is to not throw our arms in the air and say

“buggerit!  I’m screwed!  I may as well sit here and eat cake until I’m fixed!”

Instead, we just work out what we can do, then get on and do it until we are able to get back into training for real.

1. Get injury checked out by someone who knows what they are talking about and start re-hab.
2. Find out activities/exercises you can do that do not aggrevate injury (eg if you lower limbs are injured, use upper limbs more and vice versa).
3. Adapt your training plan accordingly, then get on with being consistant.

Please do your bit and “share” this with your friends with the buttons below.  Ta!

Your average gym monkey

I work in a gym, but I don’t think I am your average gym monkey (at least I hope I’m not).  I am not interested in isolating muscles and “maximising the burn”.  Instead, because of my background in Karate, I am more interested in being able to move in strong, powerful, fast and well coordinated ways.

The human body is the most sophisticated, versatile and amazing gadget we will ever own.  Forget your iPad.  As sexy and funky as it may be, it is nothing compared to the body you are living in right now.  So I think everyone should be able to move it properly and get the most out of it.

I was chatting to my friend the other day.  He was telling me about some resistance machines he had used.  They had little flashing lights that guided how you should move, how far and how fast.  Now, I can see how that kind of thing may be very nice and quite useful for absolute beginners, but personally, I would hate it!  Maybe its just me, but I would much prefer to know what I was doing and why, rather than following mindlessly, sheep-like, a machine that was set for the lowest common denominator.

Talk about setting your sights low!  Which sounds best to you:

“I want to be the best I can be”

or

“I want to be bearly adequate”.

So, here are a few basic movement patterns that we should all be aware of, and should be able to do well, every day of our lives, whether you are in training or not:

Push (or press)

This is when the force in a limb is moving away from the body.  Examples include:

• Pressups - the arms are pushing away perpendicular to the body.
• Shoulder Press - the arms are pushing away parallel to the body.
• Leg press – legs are pushing away from the body.
• Punching – arm is moving away perpendicular to the body.
• Kicking - the leg is pushing away from the body.
• Throwing a ball – the arm (and ball) is travelling away from the body.
• Tug of war – the legs are pushing the body away
• Climbing stairs – the leg is pushing away from the body and down into the floor.
• Standing up from a chair – both legs are pushing away from the body into the floor.

Pull (or row)

This is when the force of the limbs is moving towards the body.  Examples include:

• Seated row - arms are pulling the weights towards the body.
• Rowing in a boat – arms are pulling the oars towards the body.
• Pullup - arms are pulling he body towards the bar.
• Tug of war – the arms are pulling the rope towards the body.
• Picking up a suitcase – arm is pulling the case towards the shoulder.

Twist (or rotate)

This is when the torso or limb moves around its own axis.  Examples include:

• Throwing a baseball – the body “winds up” before the throw, then “uncoils” during the throw.
• Swimming freestyle – the body and head twists as you take a breath.
• Throwing a hook punch – the body rotates to generate the power of the punch.
• Swinging a golf club - the body rotates as the club swings around.
• Using a corkscrew – the forearm twists to screw it into the cork.
• Passing a rugby ball to the side – the body twists to the side to increase the range of the pass.
• Reversing a car – the body/head turns on its axis so you can see behind you.

Stabilise (or not move)

This is not a “move” as such, instead it is the deliberate prevention or stopping of a movement.  I use this mostly in core training.  Examples include:

• The Plank - preventing your belly from sagging in the middle.
• Squat or deadlift - stopping your spine from slumping forwards.
• Tug of war – keeping your spine strong and still so it does not collapse and fold in the middle.
• Using a corkscrew – the other hand has to keep the bottle still while the screw is being twisted.

As you can see from some of the above examples, in a single act (eg, tug of war, using a corkscrew) different parts of the body can be doing different moves at the same time.  And things will only work properly if you coordinate all these different moves.

Pec Fly

A prime example is a guy I was helping in the gym.  Now this guy was very big and very strong.  He was showing me how good he was at the chest press and pec fly machines, and he could do almost twice as much as I could!  But he wanted to join the army, so obviously we got round to doing pressups….

…he couldn’t even do 1 of them.

He had been training his individual muscles for ages!  And his individual muscles were very very strong.  But they couldn’t work together for toffee!  He didn’t know how to stabilise his mid-section while pushing with his upper body, and so his belly would crumple half way through each pressup.  If I was being harsh, I would say his muscles were fantastic…but his body was useless.

And I don’t want that for myself or the people I train.  I would much rather fantastic muscles and a fantastic body.  Or am I just being greedy?

So if you come train with me, you won’t find many bodybuilding routines involving “back & bicep” and “chest & tricep” days.  Instead you will learn how to make your body fitter, stronger, healthier, more capable of moving well…actually doing things in your everyday life.

As Alfred said to Batman:

“What’s the point of all those push ups if you can’t even lift a bloody log? “

Contact me today by clicking here or leave a comment below!