In just under 3 months time the Tough Mudder will hit Sydney. I know they have had massive numbers of people sign up for the event, and that is probably because it looks like a lot of fun. I have personally got a team of over 25 people enrolled!

So now that you’ve signed up for the Tough Mudder Sydney, shouldn’t you get fit for it? Even if you’re doing it for fun, you are going to need at least a moderate level of fitness to cover the 18+km’s and all of the obstacles.

Some trainer buddies of mine have told me about some new clients that they train 1on1 once a week to get ready for the event. Once a week? Even if you hit your local gym another couple of times a week, you’re not going to be too flash on the day.

Why would you opt for this 1on1 style of training when you could hit a bootcamp or large group style of fitness training?

My group personal fitness training in Centennial Park runs 5 mornings a week. You’ll be outdoors, on the grass, running, jumping, pushing up, squatting, throwing ropes and the list goes on. This is the type of training you should be doing for an event like this. Hitting it hard 3 – 5 days a week in the great outdoors with a varied workout every day of the week.

We have trained people to compete in many adventure races and have had numerous finishers in the top 3 and even a couple of 1st places. Now that is good effort considering there are hundreds of people that sign up for these races. We have had a 12th place in the tough bloke challenge out of over 1000 entrants and loads of others have entered the Warrior Dash and other races around the year.

Our Tough Mudder team is full, so we can’t take on new runners in the event, but it doesn’t matter who you are running it with or for, we have spaces available in our group fitness training and we can get you ready for the event.

If you’d like to join our group fitness training in Centennial Park, you can take advantage of our Winter special with a 3 week trial for $50. Head to our Group Personal Fitness training in Centennial Park page here and check out all the details!

Well, the running clinic was well worthwhile on Saturday.

I am sure you are all a little sore in places you are not used to.

Think of it this way. Everyday we use our arms to pick things up and our legs to sit down and stand up and walk etc, but it is not until we do some vigorous exercise that we start to feel those muscles.

This is the same thing. We all do a fair bit of running, so why so sore in the feet, calves, hammy, hip flexors?

Because we did something different. We made all of those muscles in our feet switch on. They usually get to do a fair bit of sleeping in our shoes. Your calves are sore because you stayed off your heels which put a lot more pressure on your calves. Having said that, you shouldn’t be too sure in the calves and if you are, you probably were on your toes too much. Remember, your heels should lightly brush the ground.

The perfect example of this is when I was away on holidays recently running on the sand, I looked back and thought I was hitting the ground too much with my heels because there were light heel prints in the sand, so I decided to run “normally” for a few strides and when I looked back, the hole my heel made was massive, so that light heel touch on the ground is ok.

Now onto running shoes, I do recommend you get some 5 fingers so you can really feel the ground when you run. this really helps to get the feel for running correctly and lightly, but I don’t recommend them for any long runs for quite a while. Can you feel how your muscles in your feet and calves are waking up? Well, we want to wake them up gradually so you don’t end up with foot or achilles problems.

My process has been this;
Nike Free 5’s for running anywhere any time. I have used them in every adventure race since my “pose” course
Nike Free 3’s to wear at all other times I would wear training shoes, so that my feet could get used to as little support as possible.
After a couple of months 5 fingers worn for a few hours a day in place of trainers. Once again so my feet could get used to having no support whilst exercising.
After another couple of months, 5 fingers for some very short runs. Big focus on technique.
Now I wear INOV8 f-lite 230’s most of the time or 5 fingers the rest of the time.
I have no problem at all running in my Nike Free 3’s or my INOV8’s and they are both some of the most minimalist running shoes around. They give next to no support.
I will still wear my Nike Free 5’s in the adventure races because they have a little bit more sole for all the bumps out there in the bush.
My next pair of shoes will be the INOV8 f-lite 195’s which have even less support.

Hope this helps, take your time, don’t just jumps straight into the thinnest shoe possible, but I do encourage you to work on your running style and ditch the runners we all pad our feet up with.
But, having said that, if you are not going to change your running style, by doing lots of research on pose running and practice until you have it pretty well down pat, then stick with your heavy running shoes that can help to protect you or you will do yourself an injury from all the heavy heel strikes.

Remember, “Pose, Fall, Pull”

or

Eyes up, shoulders back, hips forward, lean from the ankles, pull your heel up under you, don’t lift your leg out in front, 80+ strides per minute, pull your foot off the ground don’t push your foot into the ground

or simplified even further,

Eyes up, hips forward, pull the foot off the ground. Done!

Over the last couple of weeks, we have dedicated some time during the morning classes to developing the pose technique in your running.

I am sure that most of you understand the technique, and most of you got the drills correctly, but getting the running technique is a whole different ball game.

It can take a lot of practice to get it just right, don’t expect to change years of running technique (or lack thereof) by just understanding a new concept and wanting to do it. Unfortunately it is a whole lot harder than that.

Another problem you will run into is that you will change 1 or 2 aspects of your running, but others will not change and you will find that your energy expenditure goes up. This is understandable, until you get the technique down. but don’t get lazy with it, think about your technique all the time when you are running and constantly adjust your body as you feel you are out of pose.

Here are 3 links that are useful in there own ways.

Link 1 has a great overview of the Pose technique. have a good read through it.
Posetech overview

Link 2 shows Dr Romanov describing the purpose of drills in developing your perception of body awareness. Drills are not to improve strength or flexibility, they are so you can be more aware of the way your body is moving.
Posetech perception drills

Link 3 shows some common drills. the video is a bit boring, but stick with it, watch it through, it goes for a few minutes and practice these drills, they are the solid basics of creating that perception of where your legs are moving.
Pose drills

If you can handle a really nauseating video shot on the side for some reason and not the best quality, this one has some good drills and explanations of those drills.
Crossfit pose drills (shot on the side, so turn your head to the side for the least nauseating effect)

Take the time, progress through the links from 1 to 3 in that order and you will have a much greater understanding of what you should be focussing on when you are running.

Any questions or comments, no matter how silly you might think it is, please post it to the forum because it is more than likely that several other people have the same question and I can answer it for everyone.

This weekend I had the pleasure to attend a pose running clinic presented by the founder of the Pose Method, Dr Nicholas Romanov – Olympic coach and sports scitentist.

A small group of trainers, coaches and runners including the owners of CrossFitFX, Crossfit Sydney & Original Bootcamp  took in 18 hours of theory and practical and came out the other side questioning why everyone isn’t running with the Pose method.

The Pose method involves 3 key points. Pose, Fall, Pull. Assume the “Pose”, fall forward then pull your foot off the ground to assume the “Pose” once again. Repeating this cycle will have you moving forward lighter, faster and more injury free than ever before.

You may think it a little weird to attend a clinic to learn how to run, but if you think about it, what sport or activity do you do that you don’t have to first learn? Swimmer, golfers, weight lifters etc etc They all have techniques in place to perform well and stay injury free. But, if you attend most running groups, all you are given is how far and how often to run. It is merely assumed that you know how to run and you are now given sometimes ridiculous distances to run in the hope of becoming a better runner. What happens is that you become a stronger runner through training and developing a stronger cardiovascular base, but you don’t become a “better” runner. One of the other main things that will happen is injury. If you have a poor running technique and you run 20km’s a week, you are probably striking the ground 20,000 times incorrectly. This will not take long to manifest into an injury of some sort.

The Pose method involves a “standard” and any deviation from this “standard” can be regarded as an error. If you can eliminate the errors, you should be able to eliminate the injuries.

I’ll give you a few basics and you make up your mind as to whether it makes sense or not;

One of the main points to the method is using your body weight to your advantage and not against it. If you look at a typical runner, they stand upright and run from heel to toe on every stride. There is mistake number 1. Your heel is a brake, so everytime you place that heel on the ground, you initiate a braking force into the body. So your pattern is project yourself forward then brake, project yourself forward then brake over and over again. By running on the ball of the foot, you eliminate this braking. But do not run on the toes, this will lead to calf injuries. It’s the ball of the foot!

Use gravity to your advantage. Lean forward! If you are leaning forward, you are allowing your body weight to fall forward with gravity. When  you do this, you are moving forward without using any muscular actions at all!. The next step is to pull your foot up from the ground and your other foot will hit the ground. By repeating this action, you are moving forward. Some might even say running!

Does it make sense? Trust me, the theory is much more in depth than this and there are far more things to think about while running, but this will get you started on your journey.

I am not saying it is easy to master, but what in this world that is worthwhile is easy to attain?

There is a wealth of information on the internet about Pose running, I urge you to do some reading of your own, but for all of my outdoor clients, we will be putting the focus on the pose whenever we run from now on!

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Please post any comments or questions to the new Fitta Bodies Forum as it will open up discussion easier than the current comments section below.

There is one thing that is common in anyone that has had true success. The power of consistency.

Reaching your goals of better health or weight loss is so easy to do. It is not rocket science, it is purely doing the right things over and over again.

We need to to stop searching for that quick fix to reach your goal, because it will never happen! The only way you can truly reach your goals is to sew, cultivate and harvest. These days all we want to do is harvest.

What do I mean by that?

Sew: Undertake an exercise and healthy eating plan.

Cultivate: Train daily and eat healthy most of the time for an extended period of time, day in day out until you reach your goals, for as long as it takes. Be patient and diligent.

Harvest: Enjoy your new found health and fitness.

Like I said, this is not rocket science but I feel like it must be because the majority of people just don’t get it. I get so excited when somebody does get it, and you know what happens when I meet somebody like that? They reach their goals. They harvest!

Far too often I meet those in search of the quantum leap and you know what happens to them? They don’t reach their goals and they don’t harvest. They just go off in search of the next quantum leap promise. Unfortunately they will do this for the rest of their life unless they come to the realisation of the error of their ways and begin to consistently repeat the correct actions that willl eventually lead them to successfully reaching their goals. You will know this person when you see them, they always have something new they want to tell you about which doesn’t conform to eating a balanced healthy diet and doesn’t involve regular normal exercise.

Everyday you are faced with decisions. From the moment you wake up to the moment you fall asleep, you are faced with decision after decision and your action at the time of that decision will help to shape your future.

The funny thing is that we don’t really acknowledge how important those decisions are. Think about this:

Do you instantly become unfit if you miss your exercise session today? No. But the fact is, you will repeat that action throughout the course of a year. Does that make you stay unfit and not progress? Yes

Do you instantly become fit if you turn up to your exercise session today? No. But if you repeat that action throughout the course of the year, will you become fit? Absolutely!

Not rocket science…

Do you have a heart attack everytime you eat a Big Mac, Fries and Coke? No, but I’m sure if you did, you wouldn’t eat another one any time soon. Does repeating that action throughout the course of the year lead you closer to a heart attack? Most definitely. The actions we make today help to shape our future.

Do you instantly become healthier when you eat a nice plate of meat and veggies and skip dessert? No, but if you make that choice today, you are probably going to make a similar choice tomorrow and the day after. Does that make you healthier? Absolutely!

Making the right choices over and over and over is the only way to reach your goals.

Eat well and exercise regularly

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

With all of the info around at the moment, I thought I would give you a brief explanation of why it is that we do certain things if we want to lose weight.

I hope with this understanding, you will be able to make better choices and not follow fads or be sucked in by headlines in magazines.

What is the most effective weight loss mechanism? Our metabolism! The calories that are burnt while our body carries out it’s own internal functions.

Why do we train at all then? We want to burn more calories. calories are a unit of energy that we receive when we eat food or drink beverages other than water. If that energy is not used, it will be stored as fat.

Why do we train aerobically? Aerobic training increases fitness levels, helps our health and most importantly for a lot of people, it burns calories. It burns calories at the time of training and during the recovery hours after the training. With the chronic changes that effect our blood and organs, we will speed our metabolism.

Why do we train weights? Weight lifting gives us more muscle tone and being stronger helps us in everyday life. We burn calories during a weights workout and in the recovery time after the workout, but the most important reason is that more lean muscle mass createsa faster metabolism by needing to use more energy to support the newly created muscle mass.

Why do we walk? Most of us don’t move enough! We wake up, drive to work, sit at our desk and then drive home to have dinner and go to bed. We NEED more movement in our lives! Don’t you wonder why we are a population that is getting bigger and bigger?

Why do we eat regularly? When we eat regularly, our bodies need to process the food, thus speeding our metabolism. If we leave large gaps in between meals, our body may think it is starving and it will hold onto the food we put in, not knowing when the next meal may come. By adding food regularly, we eliminate this problem.

Why do we eat more protein and less carbohydrates? Protein is the building block of the body, our growth and repair rely on the amino acids that are found in protein. 

Carbohydrates give us energy. If you consume too much energy without burning it away, it will be stored as fat. High glyceamic carbohydrates will spike your blood sugar levels causing insulin to be released into your blood supply which will immobilise your fat cells. Putting it simply, don’t expect to use any fat as energy for the couple of hours after eating high glyceamic carbohydrates.

Most of the population eat far too little protein and far too much bad carbohydrates!

Why do we train our abdominals? Our abdominal wall gives support to our spine. If you can strengthen your abdominals, you will have less chance of back injury.

If you are very lean, training your external abdominals will give you a six pack look.

Why do we stretch? Tight muscles can cause injuries not only to the muscle itself, but to the joint that the muscle crosses and/or affects.

Why do we rest? Our bodies need rest to avoid over-training. With too much exercise, our body may start to panic and go into survival mode and hold onto fat as an insurance for itself as it doesn’t know how much more exercise is around the corner.

Our muscles need rest to recover from the workout that we have put them through, so that they can repair themselves and grow stronger to accomodate the overload that we put them through with each workout.

Troy Shipsey

Centennial Park Group Fitness Trainer

Once you have decided to take action to achieve your goals, you must determine where it is you want to be and realise where it is you are starting from. From there, it is a certain amount of “positive steps” you need to take to achieve that goal.

Everybody has to take a different amount of “steps”, as everybody is different.

The variables that determine the amount of “steps” you need to take may include:

• Your fitness level when starting out
• Your goal at the end
• Age
• Gender
• Your hormones
• Your lifestyle
• Your metabolism

All of these things and many more must be considered when making your action plan for success.

You have to be taking constant steps forward to reach your goals.

The more steps backward you take, the longer it will take to reach your goals.

Examples of “steps” forward are:

• Eating breakfast
• Eating regularly
• Eating healthy nutritious meals with a balance of low GI carbs, protein and salad or vegetables
• Thinking positively
• Training correctly
• Training regularly to your appointed schedule
• Opting for water rather than alcohol or soft drink
• Sleeping 8 hours per night
• Drinking 3 litres of water per day

Examples or “steps” backward;

• Skipping meals
• Eating incorrectly such as high GI carbs and high fat, high sugar meals
• Not incorporating enough protein into your diet
• Drinking alcohol
• Drinking soft drinks
• Skipping workouts
• Training incorrectly
• Thinking negatively
• Not sleeping enough
• Not drinking enough water

Remember that taking a step backward does not leave you level, it leaves you back one step from achieving your goals, because if you had taken that step forward you would have been one step closer, now you are 2 steps further away because you passed up the opportunity to be one step closer.

So every time you take a step backward, remember it takes 2 steps forward to advance you along the way to achieving your goals. Try to think of how many steps forward you took this week and how many steps backward you took. Did you advance, stay level or go backward?

Does this make it a little clearer as to how diligent you have to be to reach your goals?

Fat doesn’t lose itself!

Yours in Fitness

Troy Shipsey

Something that is often overlooked in fit individuals is walking.
They think that walking can’t do much for them if they are already fit.
They think that their time could be better spent doing more high intensity activity.
Then why do we see so many fit overweight people?

A great exercise regimen will incorporate high intensity exercise and lower intensity exercise.

When you work at a lower intensity your main fuel source is fat.
When you work at a high intensity your main fuel is carbohydrates.
Our heart rate has a direct affect on what we use to fuel our workouts.

When you are sitting at your desk, you are using fat as your fuel. The problem is, you aren’t using enough fat to make a difference to your weight.

With a brisk walk, your heart rate should rise from about 60 beats per minute to about 60 – 70% of your maximum heart rate. 
At this level, you are still using fat as the main source of fuel and it is high enough to make a difference.

Once you get your heart rate up above 70%, you need to make energy a lot quicker. Fat is quite hard for our bodies to convert into energy, so our bodies need something that will convert to energy quicker. This is why we now tap into the carbohydrate stores. Carbohydrates are the easiest thing to convert to energy.

We still use some fat at this level, but the ratio of fat to carbohydrates is smaller.

Running or other high intensity exercise should never be neglected and should form the cornerstone of our regimen as it burns more calories and it increases our cardiovascular fitness. But, the main calories it burns off are carbohydrates and this is great, because it stops those carbs being stored as fat, but we need the walking to tap directly into the fat stores.

Another factor to consider is that our bodies will fight hard in order not to burn out. So, if you are constantly performing extreme amounts of high intensity exercise trying to burn off as many calories as possible, there is a strong chance that it will have the opposite effect and will hold onto the fat because the body panics and goes into protection mode.

The fact is, combining the right amount of high intensity exercise with regular power walks will provide the right formula for your body to effectively lose weight.

My recommendation; 5 exercise sessions per week plus 5 – 7 power walks per week and adhere to the other 3 tips for a great bod this Summer.

Let’s get fit for Summer Part 3
Let’s get fit for Summer Part 2
Let’s get fit for Summer Part 1

Yours in Fitness
Troy Shipsey

Does alcohol make you fat?

Ok, so we have discussed training to burn calories in Part 1, eating for good health and less calories in Part 2, now it is time to talk about the pure fuel source called alcohol.

I call it fuel, because that is what it is. Calories are a fuel source for our bodies. When you consume more calories (fuel) than what is needed by your body on a daily basis, you will gain weight.

Alcohol is just empty calories.

There is no enzyme in the human body that will convert alcohol to fat. So what happens is, you drink alcohol and it sits as your fuel source to be used next. Next being before the food you are eating. So what happens to that food? It gets stored as fat. The more alcohol you drink, the more empty calories are sitting waiting to be burnt and the longer it will take to burn it off, so the more food will be stored as fat.

You can’t counteract this by not eating on a day when you drink because we all know that starving our bodies results in even more negative changes to the body eventually resulting in more weight gain.

What you can do if you know you are going to have a big night on the drink is eat very healthily on the days leading up to and after the drinking session and also increase you exercise on the days either side to compensate for the extra calories that are hanging around in your body.

Another thing to take note of is the junk food that you usually eat when you are drunk or hing over. Generally, any healthy diet goes out the window when you have a few drinks in the system!

A general rule of thumb that I use is 1/2 a calorie in each ml of alcohol. This is not exact, but it is a good rule of thumb to give you a general idea of the sabotage you are doing to your weight loss goals when you head out on the drink.

I haven’t touched on the negative affects that alcohol has on the human body, but believe me, there are plenty. For now, I am just talking alcohol and weight loss.

Does alcohol make you fat? Absolutely!

Next time you get stuck into the drink, remember the negatives;

* 1/2 calorie per ml

* You will eat more junk food when you are drunk

* You will eat more junk food when you are hung over

* You won’t want to train if you are hung over

* You won’t train in the morning if you went out drinking the night before and you wouldn’t have trained at night because you were already out drinking

* Weight loss aside, alcohol is a depressant and a diuretic

Not really anything good about alcohol is there, so drink it in moderation!

 

Let’s talk walking in next week’s tip let’s get fit for Summer Part 4.

Yours in fitness

Troy Shipsey