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Friday, 20th September

So we went through some ideas on strength work yesterday, and the importance of charting out your programme to get stronger.

Just as importance is your speed and agility work. While those words may give the image of youngsters jumping around full speed and going flat out, the facts are that I do speed and agility work with people of ALL ages.

Anyone can do speed work on ladders, and anyone can develop fast feet, anyone!!

Anyone can run around cones in different directions.

Anyone can run in and out of hurdles, you do not have to jump each time. There are non-threatening things you can do to keep your joints safe.

Anyone can run with parachutes.

Anyone can do our bungee sprints, slow or fast.

Anyone can use a sledge hammer safely when taught properly.

Most people can use our “prowler”, our famous addition to our training the last few months! Again, proper tuition is vital on this piece of equipment.

When you combine all of these things, you are destined to get faster, stronger and much more agile, which would be a major asset in anyone’s life!

If you learn to do these things properly from the start, you are likely to thrive in our environment due to the exposure you will be having constantly to professional training!

Twitt
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Thursday, 19th September

So assuming you have taken onboard the advice over the last few days, I would start to map out your programme out a bit more. Trying to do everything in one session will not work, will be ultra-time consuming and make you extremely tired all of the time, making you quit exercise because it wont fit into your life very well at all!

So I would look at doing weights Monday and Thursday with an all over body programme. Pick 6-8 exercise with one good exercise per body part.

For an average healthy adult male, I would look at giving the following programme a go.

Bench press-3 sets of 8

Upright rows-3 sets of 8

One arm dumbbell rowing-3 sets of 8

Leg press-3 sets of 10

Dips-3 sets of whatever you can do

Tricep pushdowns-3 sets of 8

Curls-3 sets of 8

Aim to improve the weight you use slowly but gradually, and as long as you are eating well, this should be achieved naturally as long as you train regularly and show good commitment levels!

So that would be Monday and Thursday with some sledge hammer work (3 sets of 10) to finish. If you haven’t done some sledge work with tyres before, then you need to change gyms. One lot of flipping tyres over 10 yards and back 10 yards.

So some stretching on the core roller to finish. Again, if you haven’t done some stretching on a roller, then I would strongly question where you are training.

The Monday and Thursday sessions are all about you delivering power in a safe and productive environment.

Your form on each exercise has to be good, you shouldn’t place any strain on your back whatsoever, and you should be shown PROPERLY how to do each exercise properly.

Tuesday and Friday, I would look to do some speed and agility work, and we’ll talk about that tomorrow.

Twitt
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Wednesday, 18th September

So you are starting to realize that its time to change your programme, and doing the same old thing will get the same old results.
Then we talked about the need to change the tempo of your workouts, you need to rest less in between exercises, in order to work your lungs harder and increase the amount of oxygen you are able to take in at any one time.

This process can shock you a little, and can take a few weeks to get used to. The great news is that once you do, you won’t want to train any other way!

Then once you have become used to this way of doing things, you need to make sure you are picking the right exercises to enhance your workout.

We have talked many times about “exercise cost”, and how the bigger the energy cost of each exercise, the more benefits you would have in calories burned, body fat burned and positive effects on your metabolism..

So you need to consider some more options.

Weights are not the only way to get stronger, though they are still important.

Medicine balls/walls balls can be a session on its own.

Bosu balls can dramatically improve your strength all over, dramatically improve your core, and add brand new dimensions to your training.

The swiss/fit ball is a great tool, but often mis-understood and always under-used. The balance work is vital on here, and should be an integral part of your training programme.

Boxing is vital to any programme, and you don’t have to be a boxer to do it of course.

Just these 4 pieces of equipment can revolutionalise your training and bring you dramatically different results! More tomorrow.

Twitt
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Tuesday, 17th September

The first thing to consider when you are aiming to change your programme around is how much time are you taking in between sets?

Are you the type to stand around and talk for 5 minutes in between each exercise?
If you are, then the change around I would recommend in your workout programme will not work anywhere near as well as it should be.

So tempo of your workout is something you need to look at before anything else.

If you are able to cut down the rest in between each set you take, then this will create you to become slightly out of breath. When this happens, your lung capacity is being challenged and if done sensibly, can and will improve quite quickly.

So if you picked 6 exercises and lets say you do them one after the other.

If currently, you take 5 minutes in between sets, then you are not boosting your fitness by much at all.

Try cutting that down to one minute, and see the big difference!

Eventually, you need to aim to get it down to 45 seconds.

The main difference you will have to make is reduce the weight you use in each exercise. This will be unavoidable because you wont have the energy to go at this increased tempo and still use your normal weights.

As the weeks go by, you will find your lung capacity improves greatly and your weights will slowly start creeping back up again.

This will mean your overall conditioning levels will go up dramatically, and the thought of going back to your old ways of training will no longer enter your mind!

Twitt
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Monday, 16th September

Following a fitness programme where you just do, let’s say some work on a cross trainer, some treadmill maybe and a short spell on a bike could be described as very popular in the big clubs, and you would be one of many doing the same thing.

This programme undoubtedly has some health benefits and well done to you on exercising regularly.

If you do the same aerobic type of work, and you throw a little weight training in, then you will do even better. This is a better balance than the first example definitely.

Unfortunately, this is where even the most ardent exercises’ variety of training programmes ends, stuck in the 1980’s and not a thing has changed since! I have highlighted the fact that if you do indeed follow this way of training, then I congratulate you on actually training, instead of talking about it like most people do!

The point here is that exercise programmes have moved on so much more since then. A lot of people aware of the “core” these days, and the importance of working it, but most of these people haven’t a clue on how to work the core, and don’t know a thing about the different tools you should be using to strengthen your core.

They don’t know because they usually are not shown, not given a programme with a great deal of variety, and this is a great problem of the big gyms, when 3000, yes you heard it, three thousand people have to join for them just to BREAK EVEN!! They cant afford to get the quality of staff in, and you could never hope to service 3000 people anyway. This is why 90% of the big clubs are deep in debt or in bankruptcy already, both in the UK and US.

This week we will talk about different ways to make your programme work for you, come into 2013 finally in terms of training science, and actually enhance every area of your body in strength, flexibility and getter leaner than ever, plus reducing the risk of injury right now and in the future!

Twitt