Get That Friday Feeling!!

You've made it to Friday, you've worked hard all week and now you just wanna relax and move into the weekend!! First though you need to finish the week off with a top quality workout to alleviate some of the guilt over the inevitable weekend indulgence to come!!  If you are after a quick, 30 minute sweatathon give this little beauty a try!!

25 DB Push Press
25 Kettlebell Swings
25 Pull Ups (Full/Horizontal/Jumping)
25 Lunges
25 Dips
25 V-Sit

Repeat 4 times with a 60 sec rest in between

That makes 150 reps per round, 600 total reps.

Bring It!!!

A Day In The Life Of A Personal Trainer

Ever thought about being a Personal Trainer, or wondered how on earth I manage to fill my days??  Well today is your lucky day.  I am giving you an exclusive back stage pass into the life of a Personal Trainer (that makes me sound far more important than I actually am but i'm gonna roll with it!!).

So my day usually starts at 5.50am when the alarm goes off and I am usually wishing I could stay in bed!!  From there it is up, quick shower and downstairs to make a nice strong coffee for the journey in.  I leave home at around 6.15am and arrive in Manchester at 6.45am ish and head over to the studio.  From here on in I am going to take you through my day on Tuesday 20th Jan.

7am is my first appointment and at the moment 4 times a week it is a gentleman preparing for his wedding and trying to increase his bulk.  Today was a pull session involving pull ups, bench rows, upright rows, reverse flye, curls and plenty of core just for good measure!

I then had a gap of around 90 minutes, perfect amount of time to get a quick breakfast, a nutriblast, before going over the sessions I have planned for the rest of the day.

My 9.30 is a gentleman who is looking to lose a little bit of weight and increase his fitness levels.  The session we did was interval based and was a combination of bodyweight and cardio based exercises.

I then had another 90 minute gap, perfect for lifting!!!  Today is back and biceps so plenty of pull ups!!!!

My 12 o'clock was also someone looking to bulk and today was push day!! Bench press, dip, push press and press ups a plenty!!

My 1pm was a lady who is looking to increase her overall fitness and strength.  The session involved a combination of body weight exercises interspersed with core and cardio exercise.

I then had one of my longer gaps, 4hrs!! It started with a brisk 5k row then there was plenty of time for marketing and session planning for tomorrow followed by a little bit of lunch!

6pm was a bloke I have been training for just over 12 months and his goals are currently to lose weight and reduce body fat.  The session involved plenty of high intensity intervals of cardio and body weight exercises.

7pm was my final session of the day and it was a lady who has trained with me for a while now who struggles with her weight but also a troublesome lower back.  The session involved some interval training, back strengthening exercises and plenty of stretches.

I left the studio at 8pm and headed back to the car for the drive home. I arrived home at about 8.45 to a lovely home cooked meal of beef chilli, before packing my backs ready for tomorrow.

This was probably about an average day for me with 6 PT sessions split over a 13hr period.  Yes they are long days, but the fact that I am doing something I love and am really making a difference to people lives makes it all worth it.

There aren't many people who can say that they genuinely enjoy their jobs, but I am one of them!!

CrossFit - Yes or No???

Over the last few years CrossFit has been becoming more and more popular, but what is it and should you be doing it?

What is CrossFit?

The definitiion of CrossFit as given on the crossfit.com website is 

CrossFit begins with a belief in fitness. The aim of CrossFit is to forge a broad, general and inclusive fitness. We have sought to build a program that will best prepare trainees for any physical contingency — not only for the unknown, but for the unknowable. After looking at all sport and physical tasks collectively, we asked what physical skills and adaptations would most universally lend themselves to performance advantage. Capacity culled from the intersection of all sports demands would quite logically lend itself well to all sport. In sum, our specialty is not specializing.

Make sense??  No it didn't really to me either but I will try and translate for you.  For me the most important line in this definition is the last one - In sum, our specialty is not specializing.  Basically this means that sessions are not targeted at a specific set of goals. Each session or 'WOD" (workout of the day) is designed to cater for all.  CrossFit trains you to be good at exercising through variety, repetitions and no real set theme.

Who does it?

The simple answer to this is quite literally ANYONE can do CrossFit.  It truly is one of those activities which is truly inclusive and prides itself on its CrossFit is for everyone ethos.  This attitude, however, is also one in which I feel CrossFit can become dangerous.  There are numerous vidoes on youtube of people doing crossfit and doing exercsises that they shouldn't be doing all under the watchful eye of a CrossFit instructor!  Now I am fully aware that there are many PT's out there who have clients doing things they are not capable of, or it is dangerous for them to do. The major difference, however, is that they tend not to post videos of them having people do stupid and dangerous stuff on YouTube and being proud of it!  

If you are having to ask the question "I wonder where does CrossFit?" or "Do I know anyone who does CrossFit?" Then no on you have ever met has done or is doing CrossFit.  Don't ask me why but CrossFitters seem to have this amazing talent at bringing any conversation back to the fact they do CrossFit, no matter where the conversation started!

Should I be doing CrossFit?

Now this is a difficult question for me to answer, but I will give it a go!  I know it seems like so far I have been slagging off CrossFit, however I feel that it is a very relevant form of training and has some major benefits for some.  But that I have to write "for some" is one of my major issues with CrossFit, there is no specificity.  If your sole reason for training is to become really good at doing CrossFit then it is definitely the activity for you.  If you are looking to specialize in any area of fitness whatsoever - bulking up, increase running ability, sporting preparation for example - then stay well clear!  As a CrossFitter you are the ultimate jack of all trades, master of none!  Again it sounds like I am really having a go at it here, but I am not.  Those at the top are some of the fittest guys and gals on the planet, when you take fitness in its entirity.  They are essentially the decathletes of the fitness world.

So to answer the above question 'Should I be doing CrossFit?'  Yes if you want total body multi faceted fitness that won't really prepare you for anything specific.  No if you are after targeted results and have specific goals.

Conclusion 

Apologies if it seems like I have just spent the last few hundred words slagging off CrossFit, as this wasn't my intention.  The subject of CrossFit is very emotive amongst members of the fitness industry with people either loving it or hating it.  I am somewhere in the middle, I can see that for some it has major benefits, but that there are also a number of glaring flaws.

Pros

• Can be fun
• Great workout intensity
• Teamwork and friendship
• Total body exercise

Cons

• Telling everyone you do CrossFit
• Glorified circuit training
• Not enough emphasis put on technique
• No specificity
• Seem to be too many questionable instructors.

Pebble Smart Watch Review

You may think that me doing a review of a smartwatch may be a little strange, however as some of you will be aware I do love a gadget.  I especially love a gadget that a) makes my life easier and b) helps with my training.  I was definitley hoping for both from the pebble.

Why?

So, what drew me to the pebble instead of waiting for the much anticipated iWatch?  A couple of things really - 

1. Compatibility - the pebble works across all mobile platforms, meaning if I ever move away from iphone again the watch will still work.
2. Battery Life - due to the e-ink display I get a good 3-5 days of battery out of it, unlike the estimated 1 day expected from an iWatch.
3. Price - Although the price of the iWatch hasn't yet been announced it is widely ecpected to be around the £300 mark. The pebble cost me just £100 (£90 if you include the £10 voucher i got back from Argos for spending £100).

Initial Thoughts

After opening the box the watch came in I was instantly surprised at how light the watch is, which with some things is a bad thing, however in theis case the quality still feels like it's there.  I bought the black pebble, but others including white and red are available.  Although most watches these days seem to be round faced, this is a rectanguar faced watch but in my humble opinion it still looks modern and good enough to wear all day long.  The watch comes with enough charge to switch on and hook your phone up to it, which was a really simple and quick process.  To setup the watch you need the Pebble app which was pretty easy to setup, however I have to say it looks and feels a little basic!

Watch Faces

The main function of any watch should be to tell the time and with the pebble, unlike most other smartwtahces, you can do this without having to wake the display.  There are a couple of analogue and digital faces that come with the watch, however via the app there are hundreds of others to choose from. Some of these have dynamic screens with changing weather forecasts and even rss feeds, however the more dynamic the display the more battery power it uses. My personal favourite is the Words Date Day face, clean to the point with minimal battery power.  Another favourite, which is probably not safe for work or schools is the Drunk O'Clock face which tells you the time through a variety of profanities! 

Apps

One of the main reasons to get a smart watch is to use it for functions other than a watch! In the case of the Pebble you shouldn't be disappointed.  There are apps for most things you could imagine, including things like a paypal app to pay for things and a dominos app to see the progress of your pizza! These are all available through the pebble app store which to be honest is better populated than i expected! I do continue, however, to find that the app store is a little buggy.  Sometimes the search function freezes and scrolling through the apps is a little jumpy but nothing to stop you using it.

Fitness Tracker - One of the main things that intrigued me about the pebble was the introduction of activity trackers, through 2nd party apps.  I was wearing both my fitbit flex and a watch, this gave me the opportunity to combine the two.  The app I decided to use is called misfit, which has its own app you need to download in order to use.  The misfit app is really nice and professional looking, much more so than the pebble app, which is good to see.  You can link your account to some of the major fitness accounts like myfitnesspal but not to all of them. You can however, use the apple healthkit, unlike fitbit.  I decided to wear the pebble with my fitbit for a few days to get an idea for the accuracy and im pleased to report i found it compared pretty well with the results gained from my flex.  Each day it was within 300 steps which I thought was pretty consistant.  The misfit app also measures sleep, like most other fitness trackers, however I found this to be a little disappointing. It automatically detects when you are asleep, but I found the accuracy terrible! According to the app I very rarely had more than 4 hours sleep, when I had infact had 6-8 hours.  All I can think is that I am a pretty active sleeper and it doesn't know when I am asleeo or awake!!

Running - Unfortunately the pebble doesn't have a built in GPS, but if you are like me and you use yourphone for music whilst running this isn't really a problem.  The watch links with Runkeeper to allow you to track distances using your phones GPS whilst being able to look at speed, distance, average pace and so on through your pebble.  I have had a garmin and the TomTom watch before and I have to say that the pebble is the most comfortbale watch I have ran in.  If, like me, you use your phone anyway for music then it definitely ticks all the boxes.

Timers - there are hundreds of different timing apps available on the pebble app store to help you to time your workouts, or whatever you feel the need to time!  Some good, some not so good! For stopwatch purposes I have found the best app is called RaceTime.  It has all of the functions you would expect - start, stop, lap timer - and they all work pretty well and don't seem to drain the battery too much.  Another timer I have found really useful especially when training myself is Tabata Timer, which does exactly what it says on the tin!! It is set to 8 rounds of 20sec work 10sec rest, but each of these can be changed. The thing that I found worked best was that the watch vibrated at the end of each round, meaning I wasn't having to constantly look at the watch, I could train right up to the buzzer!

Conclusion

Pros

• Great battery life
• Compatibilty
• Clear visible screen
• Comfortable
• Cheap(ish)
• Good 3rd party apps
• Most functions work!!

Cons

• Pebble app looks outdated and is quite buggy
• No touch screen (con for some people)
• No colour screen
• Can only have 8 apps on the watch at any one time - including watch faces

Workout Of The Week - Resting Lifts

The name of this session may be a little confusing, but it is actually quite simple - rest at the bottom of each rep!  This session is a great way to increase your strength at the bottom of a rep, the most difficult part of the rep.  Bench press is the easiest exercise to explain this way of lifting so here goes! 

If you are lifting in a power rack with spotting bars this works best, however you can just rest on your chest.  Lower the bar down as normal and pause and relax for 2 seconds once you hit the bar/chest then press with as much power as possible.  The same format can be used for most exercises, both push and pull.

As this is a session essentially looking at strength you should be looking at completing 3-4 sets of 4-6 reps of 3-5 different exercises.  You can superset with other exercises but try to make them lighter exercises for 10-15 reps.  Adding flyes with bench press for example.

This is a deficult session as once you have rested the elastic energy stored during the downward phase of a movement is negated by the rest.  The muscles stretch shorten cycle is removed, meaning the focus is specifically on rapid concentric contraction.

Workout Of The Week - Abs

To many people sit ups are the main way in which they target their abs, which is a great exercise, however there is and should be much more to it than that.

The abdominals are made up of numerous muscles located deep within the stomach as well as superficially and around the sides.  In order to target all of them effectively a variety of different exercises should be performed on a regular basis.  The following session can be performed after every session to target each of the muscles. It will onlt take a few minutes and can be progressed dependant on the strength and conditioning of the abdominal muscles.

Session

10 Russian Twists

20 Reverse Crunch

30 Bicycle Crunch

 40 Heel Taps

50 Crunches

40 Heel Taps

30 Bicycle Crunch

20 Reverse Crunch

10 Russian Twists

The progressions for this pyramid are as follows. Continue to the next progression when all exercises can be completed without rest move on to the next.

10 of each exercise

10, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 10

10, 20, 30, 30, 30, 30, 30, 20, 10

10, 20, 30, 40, 40, 40, 30, 20, 10

10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 40, 30, 20, 10

Workout Of The Week - 21's

This weeks workout is an adaptation of a crossfit session. Now anyone who knows me will be aware that I do have the odd swipe at crossfit, however, I do like some of the session formats.  I regularly use this session as an assessment to get to know the fitness levels of new clients across a range of movements and muscle groups - Pull, Push, Abs, Legs and Cardio.  The session is to be completed as quickly as possible and the time recorded.  The session can be repeated at regular intervals as a rough guage of improvements.

The session involves 7 rounds of 4 different exercises with a 200m row at the end of each round.  The reps to be completed for each round reduce by 3 each time - 21, 18, 15, 12, 9, 6, 3.  The exercises are - 

21 Pull Ups (Horizontal Pull Ups if required)

21 Press Ups

21Crunch

21 Squat

200m Row

18 Pull Ups

18 Press Ups

18 Crunch

18 Squat

200m Row

etc

Should I Try Personal Training? - A Clients Account

Below is a blog written by one of my clients about her first experiences of Personal Training.

I've always been a bit scared of personal training. I don’t like being told what to do, or the idea of someone watching my every move. But with a heavy workload and busy family life, I really needed to build up the strength and fitness to keep on top of life. I'd been going to the gym in the hope of reducing stress and boosting my energy levels, but it wasn't having much effect.

So in February, I decided to overcome my doubts and give personal training a go. I booked three sessions with Chris Bamber at CB Conditioning.

After just one session I looked more toned. After two sessions, I had to increase my calorie intake to stop myself from losing weight

Chris has a BSc in Applied Sports Science and has worked with professional athletes including Salford Reds, MCFC and Lancashire County Cricket Club, so it's fair to say he understands how to get results.

I was a little worried that he'd be so used to working with the pros, he wouldn't know how to motivate an average gym-goer like myself. But he assured me he enjoys helping people of all fitness levels, including those who haven't exercised in decades.

His sessions are held at the Core studio, which is located under the arches on Deansgate, close to Atlas Bar. Light, spacious, and airy, I felt more at home here than in a busy gym. Chris asked me about my fitness goals and lifestyle, and then we got started.

Session one focused on four key exercises: pull-ups, press-ups, crunches and squats. Under Chris's encouragement, I did 21 reps of each, then 18 reps of each, then 15 and so on until I was on three reps – with a 200 metre row between each set.

If it sounds like hard work, that's because it was. But it was also fun and exhilarating. Having your own one-on-one trainer makes you work more, and Chris's coaching ensured I was doing the exercises properly rather than just going through the motions.

Session two took place a week later. This time, it was tabata training. This involves 20 seconds of intense exercise followed by ten seconds of rest, repeated eight times. Exercises included pull-ups, rowing, burpees, spin bike and reverse crunch, plus some boxing at the end of the session. Again, I left feeling energised rather than exhausted, despite the fast pace.

The final session focused on strength. With Chris's help I lifted of up to 12kg – well above what I thought I was capable of. The sense of achievement, and the variety of lifts we tried made the session really enjoyable. Before this, I'd found weight training a chore as I didn't know the right techniques or how to mix it up.

I definitely enjoyed the training but what about the results? After just one session I looked more toned. After two sessions, I had to increase my calorie intake to stop myself from losing weight. After three, I was a convert. I've booked three more sessions, and intend to continue training with Chris long-term.

Marathon Training Tips

Top Tips for Marathon training –

• Strength Training – most of a marathon runners’ training will obviously involve endless hours pounding the streets, however, spending some time in the gym will definitely lead to improvements in your running and recovery times.  Historically running coaches have dismissed resistance training, claiming extra weight and bulk is bad for a runner, however, more are now in agreement that resistance training leads to a greater power output per stride and quicker recovery times between runs.  Just ensure that your time in the gym is scheduled around your shorter distance days.  It is also important to remember not to neglect upper body resistance training as a strong upper body leads to a strong running arm movement.

• Electrolyte Drinks – most people are aware that to perform at your best your body must be well hydrated, in fact performance can decrease by up to 20%.  What many people aren’t aware of, however, is a condition called Hyponatremia.  Hyponatremia is a condition caused by drinking excessive plain water during an endurance event, which leads to a low concentration of sodium in the blood, causing a massive decrease in performance.  To avoid this ensure you regularly consume electrolytes with your water whilst running.

• Nutrition – carb loading is a practice commonly used by endurance athletes and when done properly can lead to massive performance improvements.  It is important, however, to note that the protocol will be slightly different for each individual and event type.  If you are planning on carb loading for a big event always practice a few times before hand for smaller training runs or build up events, in order to discover the ideal timescale for adequate depletion and loading.  Just as important as the nutrition before a race or training session is the nutrition immediately following.  Your bodies recovery rate is quickest during the two hours straight after exercise, meaning this is the best time to get important nutrients into it.  The recommended levels are 1g of carbohydrates per kg body mass for the two hours post exercise. It has also been shown that combining protein with carbohydrates leads to optimal recovery.  Look for your recovery drinks to contain 20-40g of protein and 60-120g of carbohydrates.

• Footwear – having the correct footwear for running is a must if you are looking to improve and remain injury free.  The technology and expense involved in trainer design is staggering, with each brand having their own unique selling point as to why you should choose them. But how do you choose?  The best answer is that you don’t.  Most decent running shops will now offer a free gait analysis before you purchase running shoes, which will tell them which level of support and cushioning will work best with your own specific Gait.  You may pay a little more for your trainers than popping into your local sports shop, but it will definitely be worth it in the long run (excuse the pun!!!).