No Rower? No Room?...then Climb!

The forgotton exercise... The Mountain Climber! Brutal with high reps, this bodyweight exercise is ideal to throw in to a regime to split up your heavier lifts, creating a more metabolic session! Hitting the major muscles of the hip and lower leg, plus a huge demand on the core and shoulder stability.

Aim to keep each stride long and nice and light on the toes. Aim for 100+ steps each time, and if your feeling it, add press ups and chins either side, to finish off your shoulders for the day! Enjoy

"Toning" the marketed myth!

It must be the word which has been spoken the most times in any gym! The big name gyms, equipment brands and magazines have successfully forced this term into the industry's vocabulary book (along with many more) purely to boost business and sales. However, There is no such thing as Toning!

Muscles either increase in size (hypertrophy) or decrease in size (atrophy) depending on the demands forced upon them. If we begin to lift heavier loads than a muscle is used to (overload) then that muscle will change physiologically (adaptation) in order to handle these new loads next time they occur. The muscle fibres grow and the muscle is able to move a heavier load, and so on. Likewise, if a muscle is underused, then the fibres may shrink causing them to weaken.

It is common routine to perform lighter loads for many reps, but this will not cause any noticeable change. You have to push your muscles to provoke a change in strength, and what seems to be more important...appearance. If this is not true, wouldn't it be correct in thinking that people who chew a lot of gum will have toned, strong looking faces?

So it may be a good idea to think about the weight you are lifting? Explore slightly heavier weights but drop the reps down to 6-8, and keep on top of your conditioning to control fat storage (see next post).
It takes a lot of dedicated work and nutritional control to get "too big" especially for girls. Don't be worried about building a bit of muscle, it will give you that 'toned' look ;)

The Fat-Loss Trap

Now, pretty much everybody has fallen into this one before! Whether its been in the gym or on your bedroom floor, this mistake is so common beacuase it seems to be the obvious solution:
If you have a belly and want to get rid --> do a tonne of Sit Ups!!

Unfortunately, the human body doesnt work in this way. Each and every person gains weight in a different way or pattern. For example, some people may respond to a lack of exercise, poor diet and little sleep by storing fat around the gut, some on the bum, arms, in the face etc. We have zero control what the our body does with it and where it stores it. What we can control, is how much fat (if any) is actually stored, and how much we can burn! Our body uses this same pattern of fat storage, but in reverse, when we want to lose weight.

If you look at the exercise, the Sit up, it is using predominantly the abdomial muscles, which are relatively small in comparison to the glutes, quad and hamstring groups. Smaller muscles use less calories. It is also not very aerobic, it is a short movement, which again doesn't really need much energy to complete.
In order to lose weight, burn fat, we need to expend more calories than we take in. High intensity, Interval based exercises where the large muscle groups are used, paired with long duration sub-maximal exercise, is the most effective way to burn a load of calories. Completing exercise similar to the above, will result in fat stores being reduced, wherever your body likes to reduce it!

So, the best way to lose that gut, is not to do 100 sit ups a night, but rather a load of squats, swings, rows, burpees, jumps, sprints and long runs, eat a balanced diet, drink loads of water and sleep at least 8hrs a night. Basically, do the stuff humans have always done for thousands of years!

Enter the Kettlebell

So what are Kettlebells?

   In days of old, Russian Strongmen were named Bogatir, and were known for their super strength and power. They trained with Kettlebells and the story goes that they used their power against evil. Fairytale or not, the Russians still favour these balls of iron, where Kettlebell lifting has become a national sport, and the major part of military training. It has become synonymous with strength so much so, that the Russian term for strongman is 'Girevik', or 'kettlebell lifter'. Kettlebells have also been tracked way back to the ancient Greeks, where athletes and gladiators used them to train.
   Back in 1913, the Russian magazine 'Hercules' reported: "Not a single sport develops our muscular strength and bodies as well as kettlebell athletics."

Sigmund Klein

 What makes them so good?

   Kettlebells have been referred to as 'The Ultimate Conditioning Tool'. The techniques or 'lifts' can be used to develop and improve: Strength, Power, Endurance, Flexibility, Core Function and Functional abilities, with most of these achievable in the same lift. They target predominantly the muscles of the posterior chain, running from you heels up to the back of your neck. This chain includes some huge muscle groups (glutes, hamstrings, traps etc), which are responsible for big power movements such as sprinting, jumping, kicking and pulling- very relevant to sports and, everyday life really. These muscles tend to be forgotton by the average gym goers, whether its because they can't be seen flexing in the mirror or people are just unaware of good back/leg exercises, which is not our fault. Next time you go to your gym, note how may more machines are targetting the big 'mirror muscles', chest, biceps, quads galore! Always more! Shame.

the swing

 Working such big muscle groups intensifies the workout, developing all-over strength improving metabolism which burns more calories, giving that stripped, cut-up musculature.

   Along with the benefits listed above, improved coordination and balance seem to be the quickest adaptations to kettlebell training. The nature of the lifts (swinging, one-arm/leg, multi-planar), cause the body to be pulled off balance and out of form while performing them, requiring you to resist by locking up big muscle groups to complete the lifts correctly. A great benefit, with these factors added to every rep, just proves why they produce so good results so quickly! And they are definitely not just for guys, they are a great tool for women who want that lean, defined physique without developing muscle mass!

                                           Get Involved!!

The (Unfortunate) Rise of the machines

Functional training is all the hype at the moment, especially since we found out that the actors of '300', fell victims to this method of exercise, but what is it? Functional Training involves training the movements in which the body would experience in real life. These are the movements we put our bodies through on a day to day basis, and the more dynamic real life movements we perform when playing sports. A functional movement usually consists of large muscle groups coordinating together to move the body through different planes to complete a task efficiently. Unfortunately, the fitness industry, especially the big gym names, have strayed away from these principles and the gym machines have taken over! Because they are on a fixed path (opposite to free weights), the machines have managed to cut out a massive amount of muscle involvement when doing that exercise, for instance, just sitting down, stops the core from taking any part!  

It is rare for us to use a single muscle on its own, at any given time. So why should you train them on their own? The fixed path machines isolate single muscles and only them! Now this may be beneficial, for example maybe when returning from a specific injury, or if you are into bodybuilding, but for the rest of us they are fooling us in thinking that we are doing our bodies good. Infact we are causing muscle imbalances throughout our body and becoming less functional.

If you refer back to the caveman times (I often do), and think what kinds of movements (i.e. exercises) they would be doing? They would be sprinting after animals, throwing spears, dragging them home, jumping, climbing, lifting. Im not suggesting that you climb a tree, spear an animal and drag it home for your workout, just have a thought when you are training next, and how functional is what you are doing?