Reminder – Kettlebell Basics this Weekend

5 02 2010

Quick reminder that I’m running a Kettlebell Basics workshop this weekend.

It is on Sunday from 4-6pm and will cost you €20, or if you’re a Wild Geese Member, €10

Although feel free to pay full price as ALL the cash is going to the Lia Stem Cell Fund

Hopefully Shay (Lia’s dad) or his friend Keith will be present to collect the money.

The workshop is aimed at anyone interested in starting to train with Kettlebells and those wishing to tighten up their technique.
You are encouraged to ask questions.

We will be covering:

· The Swing

· The Squat

· The Press

Time is tight, so please be early.

If you can’t make this workshop, I will be holding more in the near future, both basic and higher level, or if you simply wish to donate to the fund instructions can be found HERE

This weekends Saturday Session will be a held at Grand Canal Dock, D2. Find the red poles and you’ll find me. It’ll be kicking off at 11am.
Be prepared for a short sharp shock using the very best from No Equipment, No Excuses

Dave Hedges

Doce Pares Ireland / Kenpo Karate / Self Protection / Security Training & Services

www.wildgeesema.com / www.WG-Fit.com / www.LiaStemCellFund.com

info@wildgeesema.com

+353 87 672 6090

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Categories : Personal Training Dublin

The Difference Betwen the Old Time Greats and You

4 02 2010

I’ve just been reading through some old time strength manuals and yet again I find their foresight and knowledge to be incredible.

One thing that jumped out at me and inspired this post is the use of Isometrics.

In “Strength & How to Obtain It” by Eugene Sandow, regarded by many to be not only the father of Physical Culture but also the best built man in history, Sandow states that:

“As I have already said, it is the brain that develops the muscles. Brain will do as much as Dumbbells, even more.” He then goes onto recommend that people ought to spend a little time every day contracting their muscles merely with their will power. In doing so “You will find it will have the same effect as the use of dumbbells or any more vigorous form of exercise”

Sandow then continues his statement by saying that isometrics contractions are of value in strength building but “it is perhaps more valuable owing to the fact that it improves the will power and helps to establish that connection between the brain and the muscles which is the basis of strength and condition”

It is this will power and the mind-muscle link that can be the difference between average and exceptional. Sandow knew this back in 1897 when he wrote the text. Most of the elite athletes know this instinctively, but what about the rest of us now?

It seems all but forgotten.

Everyone is looking for a quick fix to their fitness and physique worries.

Perhaps this forgotten method of muscle control, or isometrics, is part of the puzzle in bringing people back to fitness.

For a long time I’ve been an advocate of training from the inside out. Anyone who comes to me as a beginner soon becomes familiar with Planks and Bridges, two drills that build strength in the supporting structure of the body. They then move onto the Kettlebell Swing, another great drill that targets the most common weak links in the body. These drills are chosen as the train the core first, the limbs can be looked at later.

But what if we can go deeper?
Train the mind muscle link. Train the nervous system?

Now training the nervous system is nothing new, but it usually requires heavy weights, explosive lifts or expensive technology (Acceleration training, as made popular by the PowerPlate works on the nervous system). These methods, while commonly available, today are a little impractical. Can we train our nervous system at home, in the car, at home?

Well yes. And it’s isometrics that will do it.

Power Breathing and the Vacuum drill are perfect examples of Inside Out isometrics. Remember these drills have stood the test of time, they’ve been around far longer than your “Shakeaweight” or your “Stairmaster”. They’ve been used by martial arts masters and Old Time Strongmen since training began.

If you want more here’s a link to a free Isometrics giveaway available for download. And this is a video of power breathing and Isometric tension in action:

Regards

Dave Hedges

author: No Equipment, No Excuses – Bodyweight Training for the Home, the Office & on the Road

email info
www.wildgeesema.com / www.LiaStemCellFund.com

+353 87 672 6090


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Categories : Personal Training Dublin, Strength and Conditioning, martial arts

No Money? No Gym? No Problem!

2 02 2010

I’m sure most of you reading this blog are aware of the other side of the Wild Geese.
We’re not just about strength, conditioning and general fitness, no, we are also involved in the overlapping worlds of Security and Martial Arts.

Overlapping?

Yes. You see the Wild Geese founding members both grew up practicing martial arts, this led them to learn about conditioning training to be better able to compete. And then both instructors found themselves working in the security field, where again having strength and endurance can be life saving.

Our boy in Africa is no different.
Wild Geese founder, Paul Cox, met Samir (Sam for short) in the Gambia when Paul was away working. The two became friends and it turned out that Sam was as passionate about the martial arts as Paul is.
Over the course of a few years, Paul would travel over and stay with Sam and they would train. Eventually Sam earned the title of Wild Geese Representative. A coveted honour that has only be handed out to 4 people in the world, and we took it back from one of them.

Well it seems Sam has been doing well for himself. He’s training many of the Gambian security forces in unarmed combat, but now they want him to train them to be stronger and tactically fit.

You can imaging that in Africa, Gyms are hard to come by.

So Sam got on the phone and called up Paul’s for help. Paul came to me. We sat and had a think, here’s what we thunk:

We have already sent Sam a copy of No Equipment, No Excuses, the Bodyweight Manual. But this failed to impress the Gambians as they want all the shiny gear that they see on the telly.
So we have to do something else.

We sent over links to some other peoples sites, people like Josh Henkin and Ross Enamait. People that like ourselves, use basic equipment, and they both strongly advocate the use of the sandbag.

The sandbag is the ideal substitute for a gym. It’s easy to change the weight, but it always feels heavier than the equivalent weight on a barbell. Plus it offers movements that are just not possible with a bar, moves that for a tactical or combat athlete are vital.

So Sam convinced his boys this was the way to go. Over the next few weeks Paul and myself will be creating a program based on the Sandbag and Bodyweight drills to turn the locals into unstoppable warriors.

We’re giving you guys the opportunity to follow along, all the resources we send over to Sam will be made available, via or shop page.
Plus there will be plenty of information posted right here for no charge.

In fact heres a favorite session of mine right now:

Based on a Density style program, set a timer for ten minutes. You will perform as many sets fo 3 reps as possible in that 10 minutes. Record the total number of reps and attempt to beat it next time by adjusting the reps and rest.

Here’s the workout:
1A – Hindu Press Up x 10 mins
Rest 3-5 mins
2A – Sandbag Clean & Press x 10 mins
Rest 3-5 mins
3A – Sandbag Zercher Squat
Total training time including rest periods and warm ups should be no more than 45 mins.

Here’s the Sandbag Clean & Press in action:

Regards

Dave


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Categories : Bodyweight training, Strength and Conditioning, martial arts

Warm Ups

1 02 2010

Warming up.

Not something I’ve ever been really good at.

So what right have I to write a post about it?

Simple. Just because I hate doing the warm ups, I force myself to. I wasn’t always this way and I’ve had the injuries to prove it.
My philosophy was always to start doing whatever I was going to do but at a nice easy pace and slowly ramp it up.

What this meant was I’d jump onto my mountain bike and be in top gear standing on the pedals within 100 meters. I’d tie my shoes on for a run and as soon as I was out the front gate I’d be at full tilt.

I wasn’t much different when it came to lifting.

As I got a little older, I started to wonder why the knees, hamstrings and back were always at me. And then one day BANG!

There goes the back. One misaligned Sacroilliac joint and one herniated disk. 6 months of having to warm up to merely get my sock on.

Now, I warm up for everything.

But how do you warm up? there are so many conflicting stories and evidence that it’s difficult to make heads nor tails of exactly what to do.

Over the years I’ve reached the conclusion that a warm up should be quick and simple. It should tell you how your body is performing today, does it need special attention in any particular areas and is it rested enough to go hard in the days training.
In other words a warm up is not merely a thing you have to do before the meat of the program, it is more like a systems check.

Are the shoulders tweaking? Warm them up more, or maybe leave out pressing today.
Is the hip stiff? Spend longer mobilising, perhaps even stretch.

Learning to listen to the body is a vital skill.

So how do we warm up?
Simple, take a 10-15 minute time slot and break it down. Start by elevating the body tepmerature, skiping or jogging is good here. Then mobilise each and every joint, start with the major joints, the hips and shoulders. Move to smaller and smaller.
Then get active. The following video is one of my most effective warm up routines.
It’s5 minutes of kettlebell work.

I’d already spent a few minutes skipping. This was followed by:

Hand to Hand Swings – warm the hips and hamstrings, elevate temperature
Kettlebell juggling – Wake up the nervous system and boost hand eye coordination
Over head Squat/Windmill – Open the chest and shoulders, stretch the hips
Circular Cleans – Great for the shoulders, gets them nice and warm, also loosend the waist.
Halo’s – For shoulder mobility and core activation

That just about hits all the bases, but the proof is in the pudding. The day I filmed this I hit 2 new PR’s in my strength program. Now thats a good warm up!

Here’s the vid:

Let me know how you get on

Dave

And Don’t forget, on the 7th Feb I’m running a Kettlebell Basics Workshop in aid of the Breaking for Lia fundraiser. You’ll get a full joint mobility session at the beginning as your warm up!


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Categories : Kettlebell lifting Dublin, Personal Training Dublin, Strength and Conditioning, kettlebell

Are you one of the few?

29 01 2010

Well I don’t know what you all got up to over your lunch break, but for an elite few they were down here at Wild Geese HQ sweating buckets, getting strong and earning their weekend break.

Look around your office, do you see anyone looking slightly flushed, maybe with a self-satisfied look on their face. Some one who’s buzzing, powering through their afternoons work load?

That person is the person who did something with their lunch break. While everyone else is queuing up in the canteen, running out into the cold for a smoke, stuffing themselves with bread and stodge, that person was lifting Kettlebells, performing bodyweight drills, boosting their testosterone levels, getting an endorphin rush.

Most likely they’re now eating something fresh and tasty looking, as far removed from your stodge or low-fat “health food” as imaginable.

Now take a guess, which one of you is going to feel sluggish, tired and foggy all afternoon? Thats right, not the lunchtime athlete, oh no, it’ll be you. You’ll be over at the coffee machine trying to trick you body and mind into performing, while the other guy (or girl) is on a natural buzz, sipping on water and powering ahead.

Who would you rather be?

Well many will answer, “I’m happy the way I am” They’re the same ones filing themselves full of coffee, nicotine and sugar in a vain, hopeless attempt at staying alert and productive, a self-perpetuating downward spiral.

A few of you may answer “Yeah, but I’m too tired” These are the few without the backbone to stand up and take charge of their health. They don’t realise that energy creates energy. As you body become stronger and the cardio system more efficient, you store more energy in the muscles, you absorb energy into the blood more efficiently and transport it to where it needs to be faster.

And then there’s the real minority, the “yeah, thats me” crowd. The ones every one looks at and says “I don’t know how they do it” or “Don’t they always look great”, “Where do they get the energy” usually just before the backbiting begins.

Are you ready to stand out from the crowd?
Can you stand being the envy of the office?
Can you rise above the peer pressure and backstabbing?

If you can answer yes to the above three questions, then you know where to find us and you know what to do.

If you answer no, then stay where you are.

And then there’s the even fewer.

Those that are willing to come out on a saturday and play hard. This weekend I will be back in Bushy Park at noon. If you can find the gymnastic rings, then you’ll find me.

See you there

Or maybe not

Your choice

Dave


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Categories : Personal Training Dublin, Saturday Session

Can’t Stop, Didn’t Stop

23 01 2010

It’s a cold afternoon in Dublin, there’s a fog coming in from the sea, wouldn’t want to be hanging about today.

So we didn’t.

For today’s saturday session I was joined by hard charging Wild Geese member, Ray. He’s an IT type, a computer geek with a penchant for mountain bikes, snowboards and anything that’ll push him to his far reaching limits.

If you subscribe to the monthly Wild Geese newsletter, you may remeber this short peice he wrote:
You Cant Stop, You Wont Stop

So I knew I could have a bit of fun.

Here’s what today consisted of:

A short jog to warm up. Of course it’s never that simple, the part of the park we were in has sevaral small hills in sequence, we jogged over all of them untill we came to a set of Rugby posts that weren’t being used.

Then we got cracking:

5x Burpees with a pull up
25 meter sprint

Walk back to the posts and repeat for 5 rounds.

Then jog over to one of the hills for 3 rounds of:

Backwards running uphill
Spiderman Crawl downhill

The whole thing took around 25 minutes and we were both feeling the pain and breathing hard.

You don’t need to train for hours at a time, unless your sport calls for hours of work. Which unless you’re a triathlete or runner is unlikely.

Short sharp shock workouts ought to leave you feeling like you’re ready to take on the world, not wasted for hours (like I used to feel when I trained for the marathon a while back)

Shorter workouts take less time to recover from, they take less time from your day, less time away from your family, so you can do them more often
2 x 2 hour workouts can be split into 4 x half hour workouts. You’d be able to go harder, get a higher boost to the metabolism and really turn your fitness up to the next level.

Try it

You won’t be dissapointed

Dave


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Categories : Bodyweight training, Saturday Session, Strength and Conditioning, home workouts, outdoor training

Where did the week go?

22 01 2010

Do you ever sit and wonder where the time goes?

Today is Friday, it’s almost the weekend and it feels like the last few days never happened!
However I can look at my training log and see that I have completed my scheduled training sessions on Mon and Wed, I can look at my other log books and see that I’ve had a dozen or more clients in and I can see exactly what they’ve done and on which day they did it.

So while the week feels like a blur, I can actually see the amount of work done in simple black and white.

Such is the benefit of keeping a log.

It means you never have to guess. I know that on Monday I performed a total of 21 reps in  the front squat, the time before that I hit 18. I know that today I have to hit 22+ using the same weight.
I can tell you that last friday I missed a workout, I had pain and stiffness that just would not loosen up so instead of the Deadlifts I had planned I did a mobility session.
This was all noted in my log book.

I’m going to ask you, do you keep a note of your training?

I’m guessing most of you don’t, you try to remember what it is you did on any given day. I have to tell you, if you’re looking to make improvements in performance, you’d better start writing down your results.

How else do you know if what you’re doing is working as well as you think it is?

Anyhow, this weeks saturday session:
It’s going to be a little later as I’ve clients in the morning.
So I’ll be in the Phoenix Park, by the old fort (crossing of the Military Road and Khyber Road) for 14.30.

Last week was fun, I’m already looking forward to getting out this weekend.


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Categories : Personal Training Dublin, Saturday Session, Uncategorized

Kettlebell Basics Workshop – 7th Feb

19 01 2010

IKFF & IUKL-IKSA Kettlebell Coach Dave Hedges will be teaching the basics of Kettlebell lifting.

This compressed 2hour workshop will cover:

  • The Kettlebell Swing
  • The Press and variations
  • The Front Squat

No experience is necessarry to participate in this workshop.

Numbers will be limited to ensure quality of instruction. The cost of the workshop will be €20 (discounts for WGMA members) which we will donate to the Breaking For Lia fund in accordance to this post :http://bit.ly/5egGuv

  • Location: Wild Geese Martial Arts (see http://www.wildgeesema.com/ for map to location)
  • Date: Sun 7th Feb Time: 1600 – 1800hrs
  • Cost: €20, discounts for WGMA members.
  • All procedes will go to the Breaking for Lia fund (http://bit.ly/5egGuv)

See you there


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Categories : Kettlebell lifting Dublin, Strength and Conditioning, home workouts, kettlebell

Every Cause But Our Own

18 01 2010

War battered dogs are we,
Fighters in every clime;
Fillers of trench and of grave,
Mockers bemocked by time,
War-dogs hungry and grey,
Gnawing a naked bone,
Fighters in every clime..
Every cause but our own.

“With the Wild Geese” by Emily Lawless

A long time a go people were leaving Ireland to join the ranks of the Wild Geese.
They were leaving because their homeland was under attack and they were too small to put up a decent resistance, instead they’d travel and join their enemy’s enemy where they could now really make a difference.

In essecne they we’re mercenary warriors, fighting not for money, but for the good of their homeland. in the poem above this is summed up by the last line, “Every cause but our own”

We call ourselves Wild Geese. And we have just found a new cause to fight for.

Please go over to our other blog and have a read of this:

http://wildgeesema.blogspot.com/2010/01/please-help.html

Regards

Dave


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When You go down to the….

16 01 2010

Bushy Park on a Saturday morning, you’re sure for a big surprise!!

This weeks “Saturday Session” was in Bushy Park, a place where I’ve often been to do my own conditioning work, but never on a Saturday morning. Boy was I missing out!

The park was heaving.

There were:
Joggers
A Running Club
A Bootcamp

A Football Team

and a huge amount of Dog Walkers.

And I have to say, with the exception of the dog walkers, everyone was, well, jogging.

What’s wrong with that?, you may ask…
And my answer would be, nothing at all. Unless, you’re training for fat loss or any sport other than distance running.

I could go into what each group was doing, or should have been doing, but that would be unfair. They were all out getting exercise and fresh air, and fair play to them.
The running group would most likely be the only group to achieve their goals (better running times), the rest, well, keep trying.

I was there for my Saturday Session. This is for me a deload, no pressures of teaching and instructing, no heavy weights to lift, or bags to hit, just me, my body, the fresh air and maybe a bit of your company.
Today I was joined by a long time client of mine, who also helps out with some of the boring paperwork jobs at Wild Geese, Nicola.

So after watching the “Bootcampers” scurry about like a herd of sheep, admired the work ethic of some of the runners and spoke to a few of the Dogs, we got to work.

We started at the bottom of the hill, looking up at the kids playground, a distance of maybe 25-30 meters, of wet grass and mud. Sweeet..

I set my countdown timer for 15 minutes, we then knocked out as many rounds as possible of the following workout:

1. Single Leg Deadlift (or Airborne Lunge) x 5 L/R

2. Sprint to the top of the hill

3. Press up, any variation x 10
(learn more about these exercises by clicking here)
Jog down and repeat until the buzzer goes.

Short, brutal and effective. We both had shaky legs and were gasping for air at the finish.

Too warm down we wandered into the wooded area and practiced a little Chi Gung. Nicola is a keen student of Tai Chi and I believe that Chi gung is one of the fastest ways to recover after a hard session. My legs were feeling fresh again and I felt energised and ready for anything.

If you wish to join the fun next Saturday, make sure to check in on my Twitter and Facebook pages for updates.

Till then, keep working hard

Dave


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Categories : Bodyweight training, Saturday Session, Strength and Conditioning, home workouts, outdoor training

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