Christmas Damage-Control Exercise

As my bootcampers will be aware, I have been focussing on damage limitation over the holiday season, mainly focussing on food. Now that bootcamp is finished for 2011, I thought I would fire out some basic workouts and tips to keep you moving for the next few weeks. Below are 3 options, increasing in intensity and commitment, from a 2 minute pre-meal set of exercise to a full on circuit that you can do in the park.

1) Pre-Meal: Between 15 and 30 minutes before a meal, especially a big one that you know may be a bit naughty, complete 30 squats or lunges. Excuse yourself and go to the bathroom or another room and gently perform them (no warm up so take your time). This will help to send the food that you are about to eat to your muscles instead of to your fat stores, as well as increasing your insulin sensitivity, meaning your blood sugar will not spike as badly as it could.

2) Brisk Walk: This is super simple and you can do it any time you like, although first thing pre-breakfast is great to get the fat burning before a heavy day of partying. Walk faster than usual so your heart rate is elevated and maintain this pace for 20 minutes or more if you have time.

3) Basic Circuit: This can be done at home, in your garden or in the park, and is best done with a friend for competition and support. First of all complete a warm up for the whole body so you feel warm, with your pulse elevated and joints moving freely. Then complete the following exercises in order without rest. Once they are complete, rest for 2 minutes and repeat as many times as you like. You could combine this circuit with a brisk walk for a great winter workout.

15 Squats

15 Press Ups

10 Side Lunges Each Side

10 Mountain Climbers Each Side

20 Jumping Jacks

15 Ski Squats

As I said, this is pretty basic, so feel free to add some extra reps or to modify the exercises, like doing squat jumps instead of squats, or burpees instead of jumping jacks.

Stay Strong

Anytime, Anywhere. A Basic No-Kit Workout.

Hammy the Hamster may need a barbell for a good workout, but you don't! Get fit and strong with your bodyweight.

So, you have just finished bootcamp and you are looking and feeling awesome, and you are off on your holidays or back to work and don't want to lose all the hard earned gains that you have made. As well as keeping the diet clean you will need to keep on training in order to keep on feeling and looking good. Here is a basic workout that you can do anytime, anywhere to keep yourself fit, lean and strong.

This is a circuit workout where you will complete all the exercises back to back without rest to raise the intensity of the session. If you have a stopwatch then use that and do each exercise for 30 to 50 seconds. If you don't have a stopwatch then do 10-15 repetitions of each exercise. For each exercise I will list a basic and advanced version depending on your ability.

Warm Up: Methodically move all of your major joints in all directions starting with ankles, knees, hips etc. Run or jog to raise your pulse and body temperature. Perform a few of each exercise with good form to prepare the body.

Circuit:

Squat/Squat Jump

Press Up/Narrow Hand Press Up

20 Metre Sprint (If indoors sprint on spot)

Lunge/Rear Lunge With Toe Touch

Jumping Jack/Jumping Jack with Ankle Touch

Mountain Climbers

It really is that simple! Complete the whole circuit and then rest for 2 minutes and repeat again. You can do it as many times as you want depending on time available and your fitness level. The key is intensity - do a good warm up and then SMASH the circuit - NO MESSING AROUND!!

Stay Strong

Ben

Strength Programme Needed

For a while I have been making some good strength gains in the gym , particularly focussing on deadlift, which I really enjoy. I seem to have hit a plateau at 180kg, and really want to pull up a 200kg lift some time this summer so I am going to write myself a strength programme incorporating deadlift, rack pull, and front squat so I can start to make some progress again. I will post it on here maybe with some pics when I get started.

Stay Strong

Ben

My First Go At EDT

Escalating Density Training is a training system designed to make maximum gains in muscular strength and endurance, whilst burning fat and all in minimal time. It was developed by Charles Staley, a renowned strength coach who was fed up with the normal sets and reps approach to weight training and wanted to get the maximum amount of hard work into a session. Sounds too good to be true, so I did some research and tried it out for the first time today.

In more conventional hypertrophy training approaches you would try and fatigue the muscle or muscle group over a number of sets, training to failure and typically doing 3 sets of 8-12 reps. With EDT the idea is to "manage" muscle fatigue by using the same weight that you may otherwise use and doing sets of only 5 reps. The real difference is that your workout is divided into a number of zones, each comprising opposing exercises for instance a bench press and bent over row. A zone is usually 15 minutes and within that time you carry out as many sets of 5 reps of each exercise as possible and record that number. 5 reps bench followed by 5 reps rows non-stop for 15 minutes!!! Then rest for about 5 minutes and complete your second zone or two opposing exercises. Over a series of workouts you record your results and once you have improved your score by 20% you increase the weight.

This evening I used an adapted approach using hardly any kit in my front room:
1st Zone
10 Press Ups (hands in low position as if doing planche press up)
5 Pull Ups (mostly overhand grip but some sets underhand as could not do any more!)
2nd Zone
5 Sumo Squats with Kettlebell
5 Pull Overs with Resistance Bands

My results:
I managed 22 sets of zone 1 and 23 sets of zone 2.
It felt good and I got a full sweat on and a really intense pump too.
Next time I will need to adjust the exercises a bit as the squats were too easy and I lost intensity on zone 2.

I will modify the workout and let you know how I get on. Have you ever done EDT? If so let me know how you train and why!

Stay strong

Ben

My Morning Workout Today

Recently I have lost a bit of muscle mass due to a fairly hectic schedule and a few days off sick, so I am working hard to put it back on, especially with summer on route. Here is what I did....

3 x 15 Squat Press with 20 kg kettlebell.
2 x 30 Kettlebell swings 20kg.
4 x 10 Chest squeeze press ups - this really burns!!
2 x 10 Round the world with 20kg kettlebell.
2 x 15 Single leg deadlift with 20kg kettlebell.
3 x 15 Pull overs with resistance bands.
3 x 8 Pull ups into my loft!!

Some of you may be reading this and thinking it is not an out and out hypertrophy workout, however it will give you good all over conditioning and some muscle growth without going into the gym and hitting the bench and squat rack.

Remember to warm up and stretch EVERY time you train.

Ben

How to Lose Fat and Influence People

Do you want a flat tummy, less wobbly thighs and a more toned body? If so you are not alone with obesity rates soaring in the UK despite all that modern technology and science can offer.

I do a lot of my training in parks in West London and every time I go out I see the people doing crunches and situps to get a flat tummy, thinking that if they work that area, they will “tone” that area. If it were that simple then we would all have washboard stomachs by doing a few exercises per day. These endless situps will make your abdominal muscles stronger, and give them more endurance, but if you are carrying a spare tyre around your belly then nobody will see the product of your hard work. So how do you shift that weight?

Well it is not going to happen overnight, but what you need to do is start doing a mixture of cardiovascular training and resistance training, combined with a healthy diet (see future posts) and balanced lifestyle (also coming soon). At the heart of your weight loss programme should be resistance training. By this I mean using your body weight, dumbbells, medicine balls, resistance bands and so on in a progressive manner to change the composition of your body. By performing these exercises you can build new muscle, which in turn raises your metabolism and capacity to burn fat as fuel throughout the day, even when you are not training. This is where the women always say....”But I don’t want massive arms like Arnie!!” Well you won’t get massive as you are missing one vital ingredient – Testosterone.

So let’s think about some good exercises that will have the desired effect. What we want to do is whole body or “compound” exercises that use the big muscles of the body like those in our legs. A few perfect examples are the squat, lunge, dead lift and press up. All of these exercises recruit a large number of muscles all over the body to perform them and as a result they will stimulate muscle growth. We will look at exercise form in the future. By performing a circuit of different exercises we can maintain a high intensity and really make the body work hard. If you are not sweating, or are not out of breath then you are not working hard enough and will not shift much weight from those flabby areas – Simples!

I will talk about circuits and routines in future posts, but for now go out and learn to squat and deadlift. Ask your trainer or a friend or just go on youtube. Happy training.......

Ben