Well last Friday and Saturday we organised a 24 hour fitness marathon at our Randwick Personal Training studio and what a success it was, thanks to all of the support from our dedicated clients, we raised $2235. All of which will be donated to the Red Cross  Bushfire Appeal.

We conducted 27 personal training sessions and also got our clients to sponsor us to do specific exercises.

My workout consisted of 60 burpees, 40 roll up to push up, 2 km on the rower, 20 chin ups, 120 push ups, 40 x 1 pood kettlebell snatch each arm, 100 x 1 1/2 pood kettlebell swings, 100 olympic ring dips and 30 sit ups.

That workout earned me $240 thanks to my generous clients who opted to sponsor rather than train.

Once again, thanks to all who participated. Your contributions have gone to a very worthy cause!

Troy Shipsey

Randwick Personal Trainer

Last month I spent 2 days at the State Sports Centre weight lifting facility getting certified as a kettlebell instructor. What this means is that I am one of only a handful of fully certified and insured Kettlebell instructors in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney.

So what is the Kettlebell is why is it such an awesome tool for strength, fitness and my client’s focus – weight loss.

What:

A traditional kettlebell looks something like a cannonball with a thick handle.

They traditionally come in weight increments of 4kg or 1/4 pood. A pood is 16kg. The kettlebells were originally used to weigh grain in Russia, which is where the pood measurement and the handle comes from. One day someone decided this heavy ball would be good to lift and so kettlebell training was born.

Kettlebells have been in use for centuries in Russia and have been used in the past by western strongmen and athletes.

But…

As the body building gym mentality took over, kettlebells faded from popularity.

But, But…

A new breed of fitness enthusiasts have enjoyed the revival of Kettlebells which was initiated by an Ex-Russian Special Forces Trainer Pavel Tsatsouline.

This little bit of history sounds good, but what does it mean to us???

Well, My Focus;

With obesity at an all time high, some fitness professional have decided to shun all the fancy machines and the gyms that house them to take on a more fundamental and effective style of training, using whole body movements and simple fitness tools.

I read an article the other day by Don Stevenson of Octogen Fitness and he articulated the scenario perfectly. I quote exactly;

“Functionality is the guiding principle of all Kettlebell training.

Despite what the over-tanned pump’n'toned trainers at your local gym think, functional training is not doing one armed bicep curls with 3kg while standing on a wobble board.

Real functional training is about preparing the body for the demands of sport, work and day to day life. The reality is that in most real life situations you will be called upon to manipulate an unevenly weighted object in three dimensions.

Kettlebell training is supremely functional. The kettlebell itself is unevenly weightled and even the simple act of picking it up off the ground forces the body’s stabilizer muscles to kick in.”

So there you go, kettlebell exercises work the whole body, great for weight loss and great for the core.

So forget all the weird and wonderful machines at your local gym, the most effective tools are often the simplest.

Your in Fitness

Troy Shipsey

Randwick, Centennial Park Personal Trainer

This workout was a bit of a killer because I worked one muscle group at a time to complete exhaustion. The guys weren’t used to this, so needless to say, I heard about it lots throughout the class.

I am sure that everyone is aware of the tragic events that took place earlier this month which saw Australia’s worst ever natural disaster.

I am also sure that everyone has already donated to this very, very worthy cause.

So…..

We have decided to host a 24 hour charity fitness and personal training marathon.

This way, you get a little something back for your money, improve the quality of your own life and have a bit of fun at the same time.

We will be running training sessions from 3pm on Friday the 20th March 2009 to 3pm on Saturday the 21st March 2009 at our Randwick Personal Training studio.

We will be donating our time for 24 hours. 100% of the fee for every training session that is conducted in that time will be donated to the Red Cross Bushfire Appeal.

If you haven’t tried 1 on 1 personal training before, this is your chance. It’s basically a donation and a free session.

Bring your friends, bring your family. We are counting on our regular clients to throw their support behind this awesome event, but we would love to see new faces or faces we haven’t seen in a while. We would also love to have a few corporate sponsors to boost the donations and make our 3am sessions worth while.

We will also take large groups, small groups or 2 on 1 training.

Now for those of you who don’t want to train, you can merely sponsor us to train for you.

I am sure that during the early hours of the morning, I am not going to have many takers for training, so this is when we will train ourselves. We guarantee there will be training conducted all the way through the 24 hour period.

Please take this seriously, it is a very worthy cause.

Please book your time slot NOW, to avoid disappointment.

Feel free to get together friends and family. The more the merrier. Any volunteers for the middle of the night would be greatly appreciated…..

Anybody who is willing to send this to their work colleagues would be greatly appreciated, the larger the audience we reach, the bigger the donation we can make!

Your in Fitness

Troy Shipsey