Formosa Fitness

And no, I'm not advocating spouse abuse. :) For new readers, I'm referring to the Crossfit Cindy workout: 5 pullups, 10 pushups, 15 bodyweight squats done circuit style, as many as you can in 20 minutes. I do this periodically as a fitness test.

Today: 19 reps and almost finished 20.

Totals: 98 pullups, 200 pushups, 293 squats. Overall total: 591, just 9 short of a 600.

Needless to say, I'm a happy camper today. :) That's the best ever for me.

So I'm not putting these numbers up to impress anyone. Some of you studs and studettes can do this in your sleep. Instead, I want to make two points.

1. Having a fitness test every now and then let's you know where you are and where you need to go.

2. working escalating density style (EDT) is a great way to stay motivated.

Expounding on point two, what makes Cindy tick is that it's an EDT style workout: you want to do more volume by even the smallest amount each time you do the workout. And an increase of just 1 in any exercise shows that you're making progress.

Do you realize how inspiring that is?

Instead of dreading going to the gym, each workout becomes a part of an overall competition in which you're competing with yourself. Do one single more rep than last time on the test and you win. That's progress. No, I don't make every workout a competition as that would put way too much pressure on me and I'd burn out. This is where point one comes into play. I make the fitness test my competition with myself. I pick a single day (and not too often) and go for it. That's what I did today and it was great.

Have a great day. :)

I got 200 swings with the 24kg kettlebell today and it wasn't easy but it was there. I did a 1-10-1 ladder and pooped out at 4 on the down side, if you can believe that. I stopped to breath for a few seconds before cranking it back up. My lower back was aching like crazy.

The results?

My snatch has gotten a whole lot stronger and the hardstyle idea of building the swing before the snatch obviously makes sense. You can't hope to snatch weight you aren't comfortable swinging.

Additionally I've found that swinging the 12kg bell for 80-100 reps makes a great warmup if I'm short of time. I never thought of using swings as a warmup before the challenge but I can say now that they work.

So what's up for December? Not sure yet, but kicking around the idea of a burpee challenge. I did 50 today so....

Sorry for the lack of updates lately. It got a little crazy around Thanksgiving. We're getting back on track now.

I just ordered this DVD and the book from Bodytribe Fitness. Out of all the small gyms in the links to your lower right down there, the one that impresses me most is Bodytribe Fitness. It's just everything about them. I love the blend of weightlifting, kettlebells, Indian clubs, sandbags, flow yoga, etc. And their place is beautiful. NOT your typical gym, is it?

There's a difference between someone that makes the call to a fitness professional and someone that doesn't: motivation. Let's not hem and haw around it. People that don't try or that won't even call aren't motivated enough to do so. And for many, not deciding to act is deciding to not act at all.

Fact is, neither I nor any other fitness professional can give someone the motivation to call or otherwise take that first step. It has to begin with the client.But the old cliche applies: the client has to WANT to change.

And it really, really saddens me to see the people that just will not do that until something catastrophic in terms of health has taken place.

But that's what has to happen for most people to get motivated. The idea of "an ounce of prevention..." simply doesn't exist in America or a lot of other places any more and it won't again for a very long time. With no crisis, there's apparently no motivation.

Thing is, many of these people wait until it's just too late. You can manage some health issues, you can make things slightly better. But at a certain point, it's really too late to change things around. Decisions have been made even if people don't want to face those facts and consequences will have to lived with.

I BEG you, don't wait until it's too late. Act now and take control of your health while you can still turn things around. 

As I've said many times, I test things on myself in order to teach better classes. I'm the guinea pig and the scientist all in one. I tweak programs and throw out exercises based on my own experience in order to teach clients better and I hope it shows.

One thing that has bothered me over the past month is whether or not to include the kettlebell snatch in my program. It's a tough lift and possibly too much for some fitness clients. For one thing, it's tough on your hands. You run the possibility of tearing the skin on your palm if your technique is off and you do too many at the beginning -- two things that are very hard to avoid when practice is exactly what you need.

So how to solve the problem?

I've looked at most everything on the snatch available and most of it is waaaay too extreme. Doing 200 snatches with the 24kg etc. is great and all but beginners need a mile long on-ramp before they are ready for anything like that. But descriptions of that on-ramp are few and far between. So I've been looking at building my own. 

What I came up with was intervals -- specifically a :15 work, :15 rest interval and switching hands every :30. This means :15 of work and :45 of rest for each hand -- plenty of time to let the hand recover. Plenty of time to know whether or not the hand is getting over-stressed.

None of the typical stuff was working for me. Long sets, even with multiple hand switches, was ripping the crap out of my hands. That's just a no-go. It was really hard to teach with ripped up hands. Not gonna happen. Besides, the protocol itself was going to rule out beginners. One minute of snatching is too much.

I've been working with this protocol for a few weeks and I love it. It got me from the 16 to the 20 and now the 24kg in a much shorter order than anything else I was trying. Yesterday I did the 24kg for 5:00 and the 20kg for 5:00 back to back. That was 50 snatches with the 24kg and 50 with the 20kg in 10:00. No hands tears whatsoever and that's unheard of for me on this volume at this weight.

So try it out and see what you think.

Snatches with the 32kg kettlebell. Excellent. Shows what consistent training with good coaches can do.

LOL. This one really snuck up on me. So I was going to do my upper body emphasis today with the kettlebell but I wasn't sure what lifts to do today. I did snatches yesterday and the day before....yada, yada. You get the picture. So on a whim I went and picked up the 32kg kettlebell.

Last time I tried to press it was July and that was a no-go. Lifting it is on my agenda but haven't gotten around to it yet.

And LOL up it went. No problem. After I calmed down, I tried it again to see if I was seeing things but no, I pressed it again. So you know what I did then, right?

Had to see how many times I could press it. Answer: five. What about the left? Five. So want to guess what I did then?

Yep, got to see how many sets I could do. Answer: 3 sets of 5 left and 5 right. Well, almost. Set 3 stopped at 4 on the right and 3 on the left.

So I'm happy yet embarassed a little about this. For one, I should try this stuff out a little more often. I need to have more confidence in my training sometimes. This stuff really does work. Been too focused on trees instead of the forest lately.

Second, I'm not sure how I did this. I had hoped to train in a systematized fashion through sets and reps of the 20, 24, 28 and then the 32. I was going to have this great program that clients could follow, just like I did. Except now that's ruined because I didn't plan for this. Haha.

I've been reading a lot of stuff by Charles Staley and Dan John lately so that's likely the source of how I did this. The escalating density training (EDT) is no joke. You got to get some of that, if you haven't already. I did a cycle with the double 24kg of double presses and double rows for about a month. But the numbers were fairly stable the whole time. Then later I did another EDT cycle of pullups and dips that was really fun. Actually, I'm still doing that one. But it must be working in spades. I know my pullups are at an all-time high.

I'm also doing some other things that might be contributing too, but in any case, it's all working. Who can tell? I've added Optimum Nutrition 100% Whey over the last month and have been trying to follow Precision Nutrition lately. It's all good.

Anyway, I'm feeling really, really good today and hope to drag some of the things I'm learning along the way into classes. I love seeing clients get stronger while staying healthy and I always make myself the guinea pig.

So train hard and stay safe this weekend!

One of the main things people need to do is stop drinking their calories. Drink nothing but water and this one change alone will make a big difference over time. Sodas, milk tea, and juice have a whole heck of a lot more calories than people think they do. Do some Googling if you're not sure.

Drinking 350 calories a day will equal one pound of bodyweight (3500 calories) in 10 days. Most drink a heck of a lot more than that. If people cut that out, drank nothing but water, and made no other changes, they could cut a pound of weight in just over a week. What would they look like in a year?

Follow through is naturally the catch.

One of the most persistent myths I see is the idea that someone doesn't have the energy to workout. When I hear this I think to myself, "Does anyone ever have the energy to work out at first?" Does anyone really expect that at the end of the day, they might one day just have this abundance of energy that they just have to get out? When does that ever happen?

Never.

Most people's idea about exercise and energy is completely reversed. Here's the real deal: you work out first and THEN you get the energy.

Counterintuitive I know but there it is.

It works like this. If you don't exercise then your body seeks equilibrium. You aren't going to have a massive amount of energy one day to start a fitness program. Why would you? Where would it come from? Your body has gotten used to its current state. To get more energy, you have to break out of that equilibrium.

When you start exercising, your body becomes more efficient with energy. That means you will feel more energy as that efficiency increases.

You'll also find that movement stimulates your mind. We all have a human need to MOVE but many people don't fulfill it. Moving improves your mood and gets you on a positive feedback loop. You start feeling better. Combine this with diet and you start getting synergistic effects -- the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Then you start looking better and feeling better and...

So don't wait for an energy blast that will never come. If you want to feel more energetic in your life, start moving! 

Because...well...why not? Love how he describes the advantages of the kettlebell curl.

http://strengthandphysique.blogspot.com/ This is his blog. I have one of his books and it's great. Check him out.