Formosa Fitness

Time to introduce functional fitness and the advantages of this type of training. Hope this makes sense. It was off-the-cuff.

Here I am gutting it out at the end. I managed to pull 15 as a finisher. I like to throw in a final challenge into my workouts as a gut check. It keeps things interesting. I had done about 30 minutes at that point with the TRX.

The TRX will kill your core. It's even tougher than the kettlebell. The kettlebell exercises are done primarily in a standing postion and maybe 10% on the floor (floor press, russian twists, etc.) It works the core but the TRX is more intense.

The TRX has you in a diagonal leaning position for most of your workout time. You're stabilizing (like in holding a plank) for the entire workout. It gets really intense. I love it. That constant stabilization means you're burning more calories than standing up or laying down.

What kettlebell should you buy? What about for your wife or girlfriend? Confused about different models? I clear up some of the confusion and make my recommendations based on my experience here in Taiwan. Hope you find this useful. To purchase kettlebells here in Taiwan, please email or call me. Thanks!

We had a great seminar yesterday in Kaohsiung. Thanks to everyone that came and I hope you all had a good time. I look forward to going back when more people have kettlebells so we can do some more in depth training.

Here's the seminar on the school blog.

The kettlebell pushup was a particular favorite. The instability of it makes it much harder than regular pushups. Some people even tried the one-leg version, which is even tougher.

Jackknives were another favorite. This one is one of the best for working the abs.

Thanks again to everyone and I hope to see you again soon!

P.S. Special thanks to Fatima and Mr. Zhang for buying the kettlebells. Let me know if you have any questions about how to use them.

I did my first actual workout on the TRX yesterday and I started with the All Body Xpress included with the package. It was tough and I was very suprised. I did 1:00 each on the exercises and if you've never done bicep curls with the TRX for 1:00, you're in for a surprise.

There are 12 exercises in total and they're split between lower body, upper, and core. The lower body portion surprised me the most. LOTS of one leg stuff: pistols, balance lunges, step behind lunges, cossack squats, etc. I didn't expect the lower body stuff to be worth much but it's turning out to be one of the best parts of the program.

The core stuff is really killer. I did the crunches and they're brutal. It gets even worse when you do the atomic push up:

The TRX is a solid buy. The exercises are really fun to do and it's easy to make each one easy or hard simply by moving your feet forward or back.

I've introduced the TRX to my clients and many say they really like it. It's more like play, they say. Of course, I didn't show them the atomic pushup. :)

We've been busy little beavers this week, haven't we?

The TRXs are up and the whole place has changed. Very different feel. It's clear now -- we definitely mean business. TRX classes will be starting after Chinese New Year and I'll be attending the TRX basic cert in March. I also signed up for the IKFF level 2 cert so be on the lookout this year for tougher kettlebell workouts. :) 

More TRX info to follow. I'm convinced the TRX is a great functional fitness tool for the masses. Stay tuned.

So here it is: our first seminar. Thanks to everyone that attended. I enjoyed meeting you all. We had a good group and I hope everyone learned something that will help in their fitness journeys.

I learned a lot doing this seminar and hope to improve future seminars. I treated it like I would a normal intro to someone that came into my gym for the first time. But I think that was a bit surprising for some. :)

This is a short intro to metcons I wrote for a local forum:

Metabolic conditioning, usually shortened to metcon, is great way to mix up your usual workout, especially if you normally lift weights. I'm introducing it here because I doubt many people know how to do this. It's excellent for fat loss and conditioning.

Metcon workouts involve anaerobic movements done in a way as to get both anaerobic and aerobic benefits. That's a fancy way of saying you can have your cake and eat it too by combining strength training and aerobics. The combo means you can cut your workout time in half without losing the benefits. Neat, huh?

One of the best tools for this is the kettlebell because it unilaterally loads the body. That means you can work one side of the body while the other rests, do the same exercise on the other side, and then switch back to the other half with a new exercise. This type of loading combined with cycling exercises like this is very efficient.

But you don't need a kettlebell to do it. Metcon can be done with basic barbells, etc.

Try it out if you get a chance. I didn't want to get heavier kettlebells beyond 32kg. So I went with a barbell set instead. Cheaper and it's good to switch up to the bar to train your body in different ways. The bar has much to teach us.

I've got so much going on I can't blog it all.

We have the kettlebell seminar tomorrow in Tainan. Hope to see some of you there.

We now have a Formosa Fitness facebook group. Please join us there if you'd like updates on what we're doing in the gym.

TRX is now on sale!

We have the professional model with the door anchor and core strength DVD for NT$3000. That's a substantial savings over what it would cost in the US! For those of you abroad, PayPal is accepted.

I'm working on my first book and DVD combo. I'm training the program myself first to tweak it and wow! Does it work fast! Look for updates soon. :)

Have a good weekend folks!

There are a lot of fat loss circuits on youtube but the setup is a bit contrived. It almost never actually shows the instructor working out with the circuit. Instead, they're not sweating or usually even breathing hard and look like they're making no effort. Form is immaculate because they are totally fresh.

This clip is my effort to get away from that. This was my workout for the day. I had done 30+ minutes with the kettlebell at that point and that's without putting it down. I didn't plan on doing this 5th rep of the circuit but the 4th didn't record well. Grrr...

So here's me sweating my butt off, breathing hard and heavy, and having my form slip a bit as I get tired.

You can use this circuit for fat loss at home. Just follow along and try to do 3 or so reps of it with the bell. 20 minutes is your goal. Have fun.