I've seen a lot of 10 things for this and 5 great gifts for that recently so I thought I’d do something along those lines but use it to show you why you can get so much more from your training if you do it with us. So here are 5 reasons why you should be training at The CC:
1, Programming: Most people seem to know what they want from their training, but have all sorts of crazy ideas of how to get there. Well that doesn't happen at the CC. Everyone gets the programme they need, written from the most current knowledge in S&C, from the experience of coaching literally hundreds of athletes everyday to get them to their goals the fastest and safest way.
2, Coaching: Remember that time in your gym when you had a big lift to do and couldn't get up for it or when you were lifting like Bambi on ice trying to get the right technique? My members don't...Because it doesn't happen in the CC. If you’re struggling for motivation we whack the music up and get everyone in to make sure you get the lift that you need to get better. Qualified coaches help you do the right exercises the right way to keep them safe and working what they should be.
3, Great members: That tool in the beater stood curling in the squat rack stopping you from squatting; or the guy shouting "it’s all you bru!" while reverse curling the bar for someone benching like a mating walrus don't exist in the CC. The members are all there to genuinely get better, not just to boost their ego. They are keen to listen to the coaches and each other and help everyone improve.
4, Real kit for real lifting: We have the right equipment for you to train hard and make serious gains. If I ever think that I don't have what the members need to make them better I do my best to buy it because I want the CC to be the best gym in the country and have what you need to make continual progress.
5, Care: This sounds cheesy but it’s true. I care about my members. I want them to succeed and will do everything I can to make that happen. I'll write you the best programme, I'll coach you through it all, I'll get you psyched for the big lifts; I’ll help you with any injuries, if work picks up and you haven't been in for a while I'll call you up and check everything’s OK. I'll also tell you when you need to just get on with your training. I want the CC to be the part of your day that you look forward to most, because you know it’s full of great people and you will leave better than you arrived.
So if you want to be part of the CC and start getting better, get in touch and take a step towards success http://www.conditioningcentre.com/
Russell
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Max Strength Programming For Beginners
I hope you enjoyed the last post and it got you thinking about your max strength work. I realised after reading through it again that I never told how you might go about building your max strength. So I thought I would give you some more info.
The key to max strength development is to keep the sets small (1-5 reps) and the rest long (3-5 minutes); this will keep you fresh and allow your muscles chance to recover the energy supplies required for big effort sets. There is no point trying to lift really heavy on short rest periods, it can’t be done.
Different people will tell you different things about how many sets you should be doing: some will work up to 1 big set; others will try to keep the same weight for 5-10 sets. I would suggest that your first foray into max strength development looks like 3-5 sets of 3-5 reps, where the weight builds from a reasonably easy first and second set up to a tough final set. That allows you a good warm up and builds the weight gradually so you know you can handle it. The worst thing is to jump too high too fast and get stapled to the ground! One or two heavy sets are plenty for athletes new to strength training. Athletes that are experienced in strength training will need a lot more stimulus than this and will go into the higher weight for many sets.
Obviously it’s vital that your technique and form are very good when lifting heavy, as any limitations that you have will be magnified under heavy load, so make sure you get this sorted early on or you’ll be risking an injury.
So there you have simple way to attack your max strength and start getting strong.
Please feel free to post any comments or questions.
Cheers
Russell
http://www.conditioningcentre.com/
The key to max strength development is to keep the sets small (1-5 reps) and the rest long (3-5 minutes); this will keep you fresh and allow your muscles chance to recover the energy supplies required for big effort sets. There is no point trying to lift really heavy on short rest periods, it can’t be done.
Different people will tell you different things about how many sets you should be doing: some will work up to 1 big set; others will try to keep the same weight for 5-10 sets. I would suggest that your first foray into max strength development looks like 3-5 sets of 3-5 reps, where the weight builds from a reasonably easy first and second set up to a tough final set. That allows you a good warm up and builds the weight gradually so you know you can handle it. The worst thing is to jump too high too fast and get stapled to the ground! One or two heavy sets are plenty for athletes new to strength training. Athletes that are experienced in strength training will need a lot more stimulus than this and will go into the higher weight for many sets.
Obviously it’s vital that your technique and form are very good when lifting heavy, as any limitations that you have will be magnified under heavy load, so make sure you get this sorted early on or you’ll be risking an injury.
So there you have simple way to attack your max strength and start getting strong.
Please feel free to post any comments or questions.
Cheers
Russell
http://www.conditioningcentre.com/
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Why Do Max Strength Work
Good morning crew,
Its been another great week, lots of hard training from you lot and the stash is in (T-shirt above) so we can all show everyone else that we train to get better and not just because we think we should.
Today's post is a little longer than usual because its something that I feel is really important. So bear with me and have a read.
I firmly believe that maximum strength is the foundation to high level performance and that trying to get anywhere without developing it is going to lead to failure. Creating strength gives you the potential to be powerful, efficient and conserve energy; as any load bearing task, be it walking, lifting, jumping etc. has become a proportionately smaller load and therefore requires less effort.
Many feel that doing strength training will make them slow, that they will get HUGE and cumbersome within minutes of touching a heavy weight. This may be true if you only train by lifting maximal loads for years, but if your max strength training comes as part of a balanced programme and you continue to play your sport it can have fantastic benefits. My football (soccer) players at the Uni often say they don't want to lift weights because they don't want to get slow; I usually refer them to these studies:
There is a strong correlation between maximal strength in half squats and sprint performance and jumping height in soccer players. (WislĂff et. al., 2004)
In elite basketball players Squat 1 rep max performance was the best single predictor of 5m and 10m sprint times. (Chaouachi et. al. 2009).
I once heard Dan Baker explain the adavantages of max strength really well: Increasing your strength can increase power production and your ability to succeed in contact sports: Peak Power is found at 45-60% of 1 Rep Max (Baker et al. 2001). Therefore, increasing your 1RM strength widens the range of weights that fall in this zone and the ability to accelerate yourself, an object or an opponent. Let’s say you are a 95kg rugby player with a 1RM squat of 140kg, if your max power is achieved at 45-60% of this, you are able to exert the most power against an opponent weighing 63-84kg. If you increase your 1RM to 180kg, your max power range increases to 81-108kg. Which puts your opponent perfectly in your max power range; so you can smash them all over the field!
Further support comes from a study by Moss et. al. (2003), they showed that training at a high % of 1RM increases power throughout the entire weight spectrum, whereas training at low % of 1RM only increases power at lower loads. So if you only train at low % of you 1RM you will get very good at moving light loads quickly, but you will be on your arse when it comes to being powerful when dealing with heavy loads, such as other people.
It is even good to strength train when competing as an endurance athlete: Paavolainen et. al. (1999) Studied the effect of plyometric, barbell and sprinting exercises on endurance athletes and found that “simultaneous explosive-strength and endurance training improved the 5K time in well-trained endurance athletes”. So even distance runners need to be strong. I have found this to be true in my own personal experience. When I was a rower at University level I was the fittest I have ever been in my life, I had a 1RM back squat of 135kg, so I could do 125kg for 2, maybe 3 reps. 3 years later having done zero fitness training for 2 years and trained almost exclusively in Powerlifting I had a 1RM of 207.5kg and did 125kg for 25 reps! That’s because 125kg is now only around 60% of my 1RM, so I can bully it around all day long. If I ever went back to rowing again I reckon I would be a hell of an improved rower now that I am nearly twice as strong as I used to be.
So there you have it, getting stronger can give you a greater opportunity for success.
Hopefully that has given you an insight into my thinking and hopefully an urge to get in the gym and lift!
see you in the gym.
As always please check us out on Facebook Twitter Website and post any questions that you might have below.
Russell
Today's post is a little longer than usual because its something that I feel is really important. So bear with me and have a read.
I firmly believe that maximum strength is the foundation to high level performance and that trying to get anywhere without developing it is going to lead to failure. Creating strength gives you the potential to be powerful, efficient and conserve energy; as any load bearing task, be it walking, lifting, jumping etc. has become a proportionately smaller load and therefore requires less effort.
Many feel that doing strength training will make them slow, that they will get HUGE and cumbersome within minutes of touching a heavy weight. This may be true if you only train by lifting maximal loads for years, but if your max strength training comes as part of a balanced programme and you continue to play your sport it can have fantastic benefits. My football (soccer) players at the Uni often say they don't want to lift weights because they don't want to get slow; I usually refer them to these studies:
There is a strong correlation between maximal strength in half squats and sprint performance and jumping height in soccer players. (WislĂff et. al., 2004)
In elite basketball players Squat 1 rep max performance was the best single predictor of 5m and 10m sprint times. (Chaouachi et. al. 2009).
I once heard Dan Baker explain the adavantages of max strength really well: Increasing your strength can increase power production and your ability to succeed in contact sports: Peak Power is found at 45-60% of 1 Rep Max (Baker et al. 2001). Therefore, increasing your 1RM strength widens the range of weights that fall in this zone and the ability to accelerate yourself, an object or an opponent. Let’s say you are a 95kg rugby player with a 1RM squat of 140kg, if your max power is achieved at 45-60% of this, you are able to exert the most power against an opponent weighing 63-84kg. If you increase your 1RM to 180kg, your max power range increases to 81-108kg. Which puts your opponent perfectly in your max power range; so you can smash them all over the field!
Further support comes from a study by Moss et. al. (2003), they showed that training at a high % of 1RM increases power throughout the entire weight spectrum, whereas training at low % of 1RM only increases power at lower loads. So if you only train at low % of you 1RM you will get very good at moving light loads quickly, but you will be on your arse when it comes to being powerful when dealing with heavy loads, such as other people.
It is even good to strength train when competing as an endurance athlete: Paavolainen et. al. (1999) Studied the effect of plyometric, barbell and sprinting exercises on endurance athletes and found that “simultaneous explosive-strength and endurance training improved the 5K time in well-trained endurance athletes”. So even distance runners need to be strong. I have found this to be true in my own personal experience. When I was a rower at University level I was the fittest I have ever been in my life, I had a 1RM back squat of 135kg, so I could do 125kg for 2, maybe 3 reps. 3 years later having done zero fitness training for 2 years and trained almost exclusively in Powerlifting I had a 1RM of 207.5kg and did 125kg for 25 reps! That’s because 125kg is now only around 60% of my 1RM, so I can bully it around all day long. If I ever went back to rowing again I reckon I would be a hell of an improved rower now that I am nearly twice as strong as I used to be.
So there you have it, getting stronger can give you a greater opportunity for success.
Hopefully that has given you an insight into my thinking and hopefully an urge to get in the gym and lift!
see you in the gym.
As always please check us out on Facebook Twitter Website and post any questions that you might have below.
Russell
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Hip Flexors: Small Muscles; Big Problem
Imagine the situation....A new athlete or member of your gym comes up to at the start of their programmes saying they have back ache and tight hamstrings all the time, they haven’t made much progress in training recently in the big lifts like the squat and aren’t getting much faster. What is it that’s causing this and how can you help?
You take a look at their posture and their hips are tilted forwards and they have a big arch in their lower back. A few basic tests seem to reveal that they have chronically tight hip flexors. OK, but how will this cause their problems?...The tight flexors will pull the top of the pelvis down and rotate it forwards, this will cause the arched back. It will also lengthen the glutes (bum muscles), which basically stops them from working properly. As the glutes are the major muscles involved in extending the hips (a vital action for basically anything involving jumping, running or squatting) they cannot now effectively do their job, so the hamstrings and lower back start doing a rubbish job of trying to compensate for the lack of work coming from the glutes. They are weak in comparison and don’t have enough strength to really help and over time they become overworked and sore. This could be the cause of many people’s chronic back pain and at best is a major limitation to their athletic success or achievement of their personal fitness goals. At worst it’s an injury waiting to happen.
So how are we going to fix this:
Specific time needs to spent to address this issue, leaving it or half-heartedly doing a couple of stretches will not solve anything and will leave you frustrated from the lack of progress. All my athletes and members that have this issue are now spending 15 minutes at the start of every session to get the problem sorted so they can move on and progress towards their goals. They are doing 3 basic things:
Glute activation: Basic drills like glute bridges to make sure the athlete knows how to activate the glutes so they can make sure they are working in the lift or movement.
Stretch the Hip Flexors: Lengthen the muscles to help reduce the tilted pelvis. Use Lunge stretches and rotational squats as part of your programme (Mike Boyle has some great stuff about this).
Strengthen the Hip Flexors: Lengthening the muscles isn’t enough; they need to be strong as well. Use exercises like cable hip flexion and sled crossover drills to get some targeted work done.
In time they should find that their posture and performance improves, all from 15 minutes of focussed work on the small muscles that were holding them back.
You take a look at their posture and their hips are tilted forwards and they have a big arch in their lower back. A few basic tests seem to reveal that they have chronically tight hip flexors. OK, but how will this cause their problems?...The tight flexors will pull the top of the pelvis down and rotate it forwards, this will cause the arched back. It will also lengthen the glutes (bum muscles), which basically stops them from working properly. As the glutes are the major muscles involved in extending the hips (a vital action for basically anything involving jumping, running or squatting) they cannot now effectively do their job, so the hamstrings and lower back start doing a rubbish job of trying to compensate for the lack of work coming from the glutes. They are weak in comparison and don’t have enough strength to really help and over time they become overworked and sore. This could be the cause of many people’s chronic back pain and at best is a major limitation to their athletic success or achievement of their personal fitness goals. At worst it’s an injury waiting to happen.
So how are we going to fix this:
Specific time needs to spent to address this issue, leaving it or half-heartedly doing a couple of stretches will not solve anything and will leave you frustrated from the lack of progress. All my athletes and members that have this issue are now spending 15 minutes at the start of every session to get the problem sorted so they can move on and progress towards their goals. They are doing 3 basic things:
Glute activation: Basic drills like glute bridges to make sure the athlete knows how to activate the glutes so they can make sure they are working in the lift or movement.
Stretch the Hip Flexors: Lengthen the muscles to help reduce the tilted pelvis. Use Lunge stretches and rotational squats as part of your programme (Mike Boyle has some great stuff about this).
Strengthen the Hip Flexors: Lengthening the muscles isn’t enough; they need to be strong as well. Use exercises like cable hip flexion and sled crossover drills to get some targeted work done.
In time they should find that their posture and performance improves, all from 15 minutes of focussed work on the small muscles that were holding them back.
Friday, September 23, 2011
sportBU S&C begins
As the new term starts at Bournemouth uni and the freshers flood in wide-eyed and beer fueled I am doing my best to get those that are looking to compete in our varsity sports into the gym early doors. This will give them the best chance to hit the season running and more importantly...winning.
There are many potential road blocks to this effort, one of which being a misunderstanding of our programme by our athletes. Before they even get in the gym many seem to think that my job is to make them massive, sore all the time and of course lifting weights makes you slow....right?
This couldn't be further from the truth, my job is to train the athletes in the appropriate ways to make them faster, fitter and injury free. Yes for some teams like rugby that will mean adding plenty of muscle mass to be able to produce huge forces and tolerate big tackles. For other sports we will be lifting less weight and concentrating on movement skills, balancing muscle groups and giving them the best chance to play well all season.
You probably will get sore the first few sessions...its inevitable if you are doing something new, but this will subside and you will soon see the benefits on the playing field. If you give up because the first few sessions left you aching and were tough then welcome to the bench, you'll be sat on it all season.
Strength & Conditioning is vital to improving sporting performance....many of your opposition know that already.....see you in the gym.
There are many potential road blocks to this effort, one of which being a misunderstanding of our programme by our athletes. Before they even get in the gym many seem to think that my job is to make them massive, sore all the time and of course lifting weights makes you slow....right?
This couldn't be further from the truth, my job is to train the athletes in the appropriate ways to make them faster, fitter and injury free. Yes for some teams like rugby that will mean adding plenty of muscle mass to be able to produce huge forces and tolerate big tackles. For other sports we will be lifting less weight and concentrating on movement skills, balancing muscle groups and giving them the best chance to play well all season.
You probably will get sore the first few sessions...its inevitable if you are doing something new, but this will subside and you will soon see the benefits on the playing field. If you give up because the first few sessions left you aching and were tough then welcome to the bench, you'll be sat on it all season.
Strength & Conditioning is vital to improving sporting performance....many of your opposition know that already.....see you in the gym.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Make Your 15 Minutes Count
15 minutes of exercise each day can increase your fitness, lifespan and physique all at the same time! A recent study found that performing 15 minutes of exercise per day could increase your lifespan and the benefits increased up to 100 minutes of exercise per day (Wen, et al., 2011). Not everyone has over an hour and half of time every day to perform exercise, so how can you make the most of the small amount of training time that you can free up on a regular basis
It has been proven that High Intensity Interval Training is one of the most time efficient ways to improve fitness and lose weight: One study showed that 4 minutes of exercise comprising of 20 seconds of maximal cycling followed by 10 seconds rest improves your fitness more than 60 minutes of moderate cycling if both are performed 5 times each week (Tabata, et al., 1996). So you get better fitness results from 20 minutes of hard exercise per week compared with 5 hours of moderate exercise each week, yes that’s 4 hours and 40 minutes less every week!
Not only are you fitter but you also burn more fat: A study on inactive but healthy women aged 18-30 years old found that the group performing interval training for 20 minutes per session three times per week lost on average 2.5kg to 4kg of fat (10-15% of their body fat) over 15 weeks, whereas the group who moderately exercised for 40 minutes per session GAINED 0.5kg of fat over the same period (Trapp, Chisholm, & Boutcher, 2008)
You don’t have to do exactly 20 seconds ON 10 seconds OFF every time; you need to start at the right point for you. If you haven’t done much before you could start with 5 seconds ON and 20 seconds OFF and build up the work and decrease the rest over a few weeks. If you wanted to vary the length of the work period within each workout you could start with a longer period and decrease it through the session, maybe 30 seconds ON 30 seconds OFF at the start and reduce it by 5 seconds each time to 5 seconds ON while keeping the rest at 30 seconds. That format has been shown to be more challenging to the energy systems but easier on the mind than increasing the work length through a workout (Meckel, et al., 2001). The way you perform the exercise is up to you: if you like riding bikes then do that, go running if you can run fast, or you can use weights in the gym, this is perfect in a group exercise setting. So find the way that you are most comfortable with and use that.
Hopefully this has shown you that you don’t have to go out and spend hours pounding the pavement to lose weight. You can spend as little as 15 minutes each day performing shorter bouts of more challenging exercise to get much better results.
Russell
http://www.conditioningcentre.com/
It has been proven that High Intensity Interval Training is one of the most time efficient ways to improve fitness and lose weight: One study showed that 4 minutes of exercise comprising of 20 seconds of maximal cycling followed by 10 seconds rest improves your fitness more than 60 minutes of moderate cycling if both are performed 5 times each week (Tabata, et al., 1996). So you get better fitness results from 20 minutes of hard exercise per week compared with 5 hours of moderate exercise each week, yes that’s 4 hours and 40 minutes less every week!
Not only are you fitter but you also burn more fat: A study on inactive but healthy women aged 18-30 years old found that the group performing interval training for 20 minutes per session three times per week lost on average 2.5kg to 4kg of fat (10-15% of their body fat) over 15 weeks, whereas the group who moderately exercised for 40 minutes per session GAINED 0.5kg of fat over the same period (Trapp, Chisholm, & Boutcher, 2008)
You don’t have to do exactly 20 seconds ON 10 seconds OFF every time; you need to start at the right point for you. If you haven’t done much before you could start with 5 seconds ON and 20 seconds OFF and build up the work and decrease the rest over a few weeks. If you wanted to vary the length of the work period within each workout you could start with a longer period and decrease it through the session, maybe 30 seconds ON 30 seconds OFF at the start and reduce it by 5 seconds each time to 5 seconds ON while keeping the rest at 30 seconds. That format has been shown to be more challenging to the energy systems but easier on the mind than increasing the work length through a workout (Meckel, et al., 2001). The way you perform the exercise is up to you: if you like riding bikes then do that, go running if you can run fast, or you can use weights in the gym, this is perfect in a group exercise setting. So find the way that you are most comfortable with and use that.
Hopefully this has shown you that you don’t have to go out and spend hours pounding the pavement to lose weight. You can spend as little as 15 minutes each day performing shorter bouts of more challenging exercise to get much better results.
Russell
http://www.conditioningcentre.com/
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
"It's not THAT heavy!"
A great phrase I have been using recently came from one of my athletes who was doing a heavy sled set sled in the gym and to motivate himself for the last trip he said aloud:
"It's not THAT heavy!"
It obviously worked because he got down and drove hard and that trip was much faster than the previous one.
This proved a point that I have been finding in my own training and with the guys I have been coaching at The Conditioning Centre; that perception of what you are doing is everything. If you let yourself get beaten by a set or rep in an exercise by thinking that it is too hard then you're not going to get it done. If you tell yourself at the start of the set or mid way through a heavy sled push that is starting to slow that "It's not THAT heavy" and drive hard I am convinced that you will find the strength to get it done and finish strong.
The reason for the effect of this simple phrase is that I believe there is a place in your head where it doesn't want to go in a normal situation, a place where a few extra percent of strength, fitness and power are waiting to be unleashed. They wait there in the dark corner because it hurts to go there, its not fun and it takes mental strength to stay in there. But once you have got there and bullied the sled, bar or rep into submission you will be glad that you found that place and feel like you learnt something about yourself today.
So next time your struggling in the gym, stop thinking about how hard it is and say one thing: "It's not THAT heavy!"
Russell Jolley ASCC
http://www.conditioningcentre.com/
"It's not THAT heavy!"
It obviously worked because he got down and drove hard and that trip was much faster than the previous one.
This proved a point that I have been finding in my own training and with the guys I have been coaching at The Conditioning Centre; that perception of what you are doing is everything. If you let yourself get beaten by a set or rep in an exercise by thinking that it is too hard then you're not going to get it done. If you tell yourself at the start of the set or mid way through a heavy sled push that is starting to slow that "It's not THAT heavy" and drive hard I am convinced that you will find the strength to get it done and finish strong.
The reason for the effect of this simple phrase is that I believe there is a place in your head where it doesn't want to go in a normal situation, a place where a few extra percent of strength, fitness and power are waiting to be unleashed. They wait there in the dark corner because it hurts to go there, its not fun and it takes mental strength to stay in there. But once you have got there and bullied the sled, bar or rep into submission you will be glad that you found that place and feel like you learnt something about yourself today.
So next time your struggling in the gym, stop thinking about how hard it is and say one thing: "It's not THAT heavy!"
Russell Jolley ASCC
http://www.conditioningcentre.com/
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