Wild Geese Fitness Training

I’m just back from visiting my friend Kieran Dolan at his gym in Tullamore.
The reason for todays visit was that he was hosting Irish bodybuilder, winner of class 2 in the Irish Nabba Bodybuilding Championships and The U80kg class at the RIBBF Bodybuilding Championships, Patrick Lowbridge.

Patrick, or Pa as he’s known, gave an informal Q&A where he shared his knowledge and experience of the murky world of bodybuilding, the training, the dieting, the drugs and the tan. All very, very interesting.
A few things he said stood out to me in particular:

• Lift heavy, 3 sets of 6-8 reps, ideally just 6 to failure.

• Stick to big compound movements, forget the fancy stuff
• Get your workouts done in around 45 minutes
• Cycle between 6 weeks of all out training effort and around three weeks lighter, high rep work, around 8-12 reps per set.
• Don’t be afraid to take the week off occasionally, rest is vital.
• Building mass and reducing fat is all about food.
• Eat clean, eat your veggies and get plenty of water into you.
• All good advice, regardless of whether you are a body builder, athlete or simply a fitness enthusiast.

The best result I ever had from a body building program followed similar lines, big exercises performed for 4-6 reps, even with my martial arts practice I still built size and strength. This was way before I started training with Kettles and during a time I was solely focused on mass building rather than athleticism. When my training switched to a more athletic focus again for martial arts conditioning I lost some size but found that I’d built an excellent foundation to build strength and explosiveness onto.
Body building, done in the manner prescribed by Pa, training that follows the old school of Dorian Yates, Arnold and the like, it works. It’ll get you big, it’ll get you strong and it’ll lay a foundation upon which you can base your athleticism.

Pa is very open about the short comings of his training though. We talked for a while about my martial arts and the differences in training practices. Pa and his fellow body builders, in Pa’s own words “we’re not into training those deep (core) muscles, we’re more about superficial, stuff you can see.”
So while he does train his Abs daily, he doesn’t want to thicken his waist so it’s all high rep sets for various styles of crunch, great for aesthetics, not great for power.
Saying that, so long as he squats, deadlifts and performs standing overhead pressing, he should still develop decent strength through the core.

All in all today was a interesting and enjoyable, it’s always a pleasure to hear from high level athletes, regardless of their sport, there’s always something to be learned.

If you’re ever in Tullamore, be sure to check out Dolan Fitness, you’ll find Pa there most evenings as he is preparing for the Worlds.

Regards

Dave
www.wg-fit.com

Hi All,

My blogging has been a bit below par this last couple of weeks, January has been a mental month so far, pretty much every training session I run is at capacity and I’ve several on a waiting list. While this is great, it means I’ve little time for writing at the moment, something I mean to rectify.

So today I’m going to cop out a little and pass you over to a top bloke who always has the best articles on offer. His name is Bret Contreras and while he made his name talking about Gluteal hypertrophy (building big booties) he is actually a training geek of the highest order, he has a brain the size of a planet.
Fortunately he writes in a way we can all understand and often his writing is pure gold. His latest T-Nation piece is one of these. It’s a collection of short pieces covering:
Kettlebell Swings, Strongman Training and Stretching.
Well worth a few minutes reading, click this image to open:

Speaking of Kettles, we are placing an order with our manufacturer, this means we get Kettles at a below market price. If you’re an instructor and are looking for a batch of Kettles for your gym, let us know quick sharp and we’ll ensure to include you in our order. be quick though, the order is going out in about 2 weeks.

I’d also like to let you know that my latest eBook “WMD – Strength & Conditioning for Martial Artists” has been picked up by the guys over at Fitedia.com and added to their list of great titles.
I’m flattered to be listed alongside the likes of Mike Mahler, Al Kavadlo and the entire Human kinetics library.

Fitedia are offering WMD at a 25% discount for a limited time only, if you want a copy (and why wouldn’t you) click this image and take your time to browse their other titles while you’re there:

Thats all today, I’ll be back later in the week with a tutorial on the One Arm Push Up, look out for that one.
Regards

Dave
www.wg-fit.com

Apologies guys, I have to postpone the Level 1 and 2 kettlebell workshops scheduled for the 5th Feb.

I’ve been double booked that weekend and will actually be out of town that weekend. Poor planning I know, but there’a a lot going on at the moment.

I will announce fresh dates very soon.

Good news:

I’ll be in Tullamore presenting a workshop in March, dates are just being finalised.

Steve Cotter will be at Wild Geese on the June Bank holiday weekend.

Mike Mahler has just announced he’ll be visiting dublin for the first time later this year.

JC Santana and I are planning to run his MMA Strength & Conditioning Certification in the second half of the year.

We are also putting together a large kettlebell direct from the manufacturer, if you want kettles for cheaper than the going rate get in touch asap, I’ll post again about this tomorrow.

it’s been a mad busy day, so I’m signing off.

Dave

People love categories, everything pigeon holed into neat boxes.

I have to say, I like categorising things too, it makes life simpler.

To this end I categorise many of my students and clients. I have three main categories, I’ll admit, I stole them from another coach, I heard John Hinds founder of the Monkey Bar Gym talking about it in a presentation.
He was describing the loading parameters for a particular workout and said that “Stability level use Xkg, Strength Level use Ykg and Power Level use Zkg”

Apart from the workout being one that I use with my Lunchtime fitness guys, it was his three categories that got me thinking.

John’s system of categorisation seems so efficient, and I love the simple nature of it. I’m sure his system is much larger than he gives away in these short speeches, but it’s a great reference point.
The thing is, the human body just doesn’t fit neatly into boxes. So our categorisation methods have to account for this.
Obviously we want our members to work through from the basic level (Stability) to the more advanced (power), but we ned to think about how this occurs, how previous training history, injuries and goals all affect the person.

Most beginners, those that come to us with either no training experience or those that are coming from the commercial gym environment, require stability.

What does this mean?
We need the body to be able to hold itself before we can effectively load it. We need to develop the structural integrity and coordination of the body.
We need to develop efficient movement patterns.
We need to  strengthen to core unit.
We need to coordinate movement.
The body must be developed according to the alternating joint theory, which will allow them to progress onto the strength level.

The strength phase can 0nly really begin as the body becomes stable enough to support external load.
The commercial gym’s obsession with weight training machines allows many to bypass the stability stage and start developing muscular strength, however when faced with real life scenarios, these machine built muscles very often fail to deliver, this is because time was never spent stabilising the body and instead allowing the machine to provide a false sense of stability. No stability, no foundation and a house without foundation will topple.

Once a foundation of strength is achieved people can then move onto the power stage. This is where exercises become explosive so require a good solid structure to work from. The muscles and connective tissues all need to have strength and stability, movement patterns must be well coordinated and the athlete is in good all round shape.
Many never get to this stage either through choice or poor training.

Sounds simple eh?

Here’s some progressions:
Stability -> Strength -> Power
Plank -> Push Up -> Plyo Push Up / 1 Arm Push Up
Squat -> Weighted Squat -> Jump Squat
Low Kettlebell Windmill -> Overhead Kettlebell Windmill -> Side or Bent Press
2Handed Kettlebell Swing -> 1 Handed Kettlebell Swing -> Kettlebell Snatch

You see how it works.

The problem then arises when people start to drift between categories.
Many of the female athletes that start out here are already in the strength category for the lower body but the shoulders are way back in stability.
Conversely, lads are often the other way round.

Those that join us from a commercial gym background have strength in the limbs but their core / torso is way behind in the stability area.

And then there’s the injured crowd. Take Linda for example, she was moving rapidly towards the power category until she had a cycling accident.
Now she is stuck in the strength category for around 80% of her body and her injured shoulder is way back in the stability category playing catch up.

Now, I’m starting to lose the point of this post so I’ll wrap up.

The inspiration for this load of babble came from a conversation on progression.
Progression means many things, it can be more reps with a given weight, it can be the same reps with a higher weight, it can be less rest between sets, it can be more complex movement patterns.
But it is essential that the athlete doesn’t progress before he or she is good and ready. This is where having loose, arbitrary categories come into the equation.
Never forget that people drift between the categories on a near daily basis and allow for this in your programming.
Never try to get a stability level client to do power moves, that’s just ridiculous and a recipe for injury.

If you’ve attended my kettlebell workshops, you’ll have noticed that you don’t learn the Jerk and Snatch until the third workshop in the series. First we build stability with Power Breathing, Military Presses, Squats and 2 handed Swings in Level 1, move to strength with level 2′s push press, Turkish Get Up and 1 handed Swing before we even think about teaching the power based moves of Snatch and Jerk.

There will be a Workshop covering Level 1 and 2 on February 4th, details are in the side bar or contact us for more info.

We opened our doors yesterday for the first training sessions of 2012, I was very pleased with the amount of our regular members who came in and attacked the days training.

These guys know why they are here. Many have been dropping messages through Facebook asking when we’re reopening and saying how much they miss the training. Not only is this nice to hear as a coach who depends on these guys for an income, but it’s great to hear as someone who loves training.

These guys have found their Why.

But what does that mean?

My old Kenpo coach had a few catchphrases, one of which was along the lines of “understand the Why and the How becomes easy”
It essentially means, stop worry about how your going to achieve something and start looking at why you want to achieve it.

It doesn’t matter what the goal is, this time of the year for many is all about Fat Loss, for others it’s strength, performance or any number of reasons. It only matters that you have the determination and discipline to follow through to that goal.
No amount of Gucci workout programs, shiny new workout gear, sexy new workout outfits or celebrity DVD’s are going to make you better. I have dozens of former on-line training clients who simply dropped out even though their program was sound. How many brand new gym memberships will be bought and remain unused this month?

All that matters is you have a desire to improve and you are willing to put in the work. Working out is tough, training consistently is tougher still. If you don’t know why you’re doing it, you will undoubtedly stop doing or you won’t give it enough effort to get the results you wanted.

I’m going to wrap this up now before I start to ramble.

Take home message:

Consistent effort leads to consistent improvement.
To have the discipline to put in consistent effort you must really want to improve, you must have reason. What is this reason?

Find it and the rest is gravy.

Click on the image below and you’ll be able to read 41 other peoples why’s. Maybe something in here will help you find yours:

Click here for 62 pages of unadulterated motivation

Regards

Dave

The New Year is almost upon us, that means a new start for most people’s training program. For others it’s simply a start to a training program.

But how much time have you spent thinking about what to do once you get back to the gym?

It’s a question that’s been bugging me the last few days, it actually kept me awake for a few hours the other night (or maybe that was the mince pies and coffee….)

Recently I was informed that the Kilkenny boys will not be organising a Kettlebell Lifting competition in march, partly due to Eddie and his missus expecting twins and partly because they’re busy with other stuff.
So that threw the first three months of my own training completely out the window. Actually it’s closer to 6 months as the last few month I’ve been doing basic GPP with an emphasis on strength as I was planning on lifting heavier kettles at the march event. I usually spend a month or so doing GPP after a competition with an emphasis on undoing much of the problems specialisation for a competition inevitably brings.

But, no competition, no point training for it. So what then?

I’m lucky in one respect, my job is to pick out people’s weaknesses and to train them accordingly. So over the last week or so I’ve been going over my own weakness, things that were particularly highlighted during the filming of the 12 Days bodyweight series that most of you got on the run up to Xmas.
It is apparent that my hip mobility is poor, especially the right hip flexor and I’m weak when fully flexed. I noticed my core wasn’t as stable as it should have been, even though all my weighted lifts as strong as ever, bodyweight training doesn’t allow for any errors, it seems I’m compensating during some weighted lifts but take away the weight and I’m all over the place!

There are others, but I don’t want to bore you.
But these are my weakest areas: End range strength in the hip, flexibility/mobility through the hip, core stability.

My training program needs to take all these into consideration.

Next, what do I want to build?
Since I don’t need to specialise in Cleaning and Jerking a pair of kettles for dozens of reps, I can broaden my spectrum.
Things I want to build:
Greater work capacity
Agility
Explosive power in all planes
Limit Strength in all planes

What do I mean by “all planes” Simple, as a martial artists I am not limited to linear movements, I have to turn, twist, bend, flex. So I want to be strong in all directions.
So, I’m going to take an experimental approach to my training. I’m taking a little inspiration from the Westside philosophy of always max out on something.
The westside guys use a Conjugate Periodisation system, basically they rotate between a variety of lifts that work the same movement pattern. It’s not as simple as that but it’s close enough.
So, I’ll do the same.

Basic movement patterns are:

Upper body Push/Pull Vertical
Upper body push/pull horizontal
Hip Dominant lower body (pull)
Knee dominant lower body (push)
Core flexion/counter flexion
Core extension / counter extension
Core Rotation/counter rotation

Each movement pattern can be hit by several variations. For example when you think of a Hip Dominant Pull you automatically think of the Deadlift. But what about:

Romanian Deadlifts, Snatch grip Deadlifts, Pin Pulls, Deficit Deadlifts, 1 leg varations, Good Mornings, Cleans.

By cycling through the various options over the next few weeks I hope to build strength without overloading my old injuries (the cause of many of my current weaknesses), I can only survive a certain amount of Deadlifting before the warning flags are raised, but if I cycle through deadlift like moves, I think I’ll get away with it for longer!

I’ll also be factoring in bodyweight/kettlebell circuits for my conditioning and to fill in the gaps. These will incorporate the agility work capacity and core work that I fell are lacking.

As long as the workouts are balanced and approached with intensity there is no reason for progress to stall. I’ve had several online clients work in a similar manner, all of whom were JiuJitsu players and each one noticed significant improvements in their game, even more so than when following a more structured workout.
These next few months for me are an experiment to see why and how these guys benefited so much, it’s about the only training program I’ve handed out and never personally tried!

So my training goals for the first part of the year are set.

How about you?

(If you’re struggling, check back in a few days, I’ve a suggestion for you…)

Dave
www.wg-fit.com

Only a couple more hours and I’ll be closing the doors for the Xmas holidays.

It’s another year over, and what a year!

I know I said this last year, but, it’s been a hell of a year and It’ll be hard to top in 2012. However I was wrong last year and here’s a few reasons why:

This year Wild Geese (both sides, Martial Arts and Fitness Training) has gone to a new level.
We’ve never been busier.
Our members have never worked as hard or as consistently.
We had the most awesome seminars such as:

• Steve Cotter teaching Kettlebells and Bodyweight.
  He’ll be back in the spring to present his certification course the CKT
• Mick Coup, Core Combatives founder. He came over to teach an incredible two day self defence workshop, he’s one of the best I’ve seen.
  He’ll be back next year to present his 4 day total immersion course!
• Injury Prevention and Strength Training for Martial Arts  - what a day! We had one of Ireland’s to Physio’s, Mark Sexton. We had Yoga and Somatic expert, Anne Dempsey as well as Paulie and Myself. We learned loads and were presenting!

Our BJJ and Judo teams have performed exceptionally. Many of the competitors regularly train with Kettles and all state that they’ve never been stronger. One of our BJJ coaches now recommends them instead of the gym, and he’s been a lifetime gym bunny!

We’ve been away as well:

• Irish Kettlebell Lifting Championships, where a couple of my guys did very well, and I ended up with a 3rd place in the Biathlon, still not sure how that happened!
• Kieran Dolan had us down at his place for seminars with Ireland’s James Fennelly and top power lifter Andy Bolton. In 2012 he’s planning more seminars, kicking off with one of Ireland’s top bodybuilders.
• Pat O’Malley awarded me with the Level 3 Instructor certificate for his Rapid Response System of knife defence. Apparently I’m the second Level 3 guy since it’s inception, so thanks Pat. I’ll be running seminars in this through 2012.

Then there’s my guys and girls.
Without you lot, there would be no Wild Geese Training. I’ve Shotokan and Kyokoshin Karate balck belts, Tae Kwon Do and Kenpo practitioners, Judo-Ka and BJJ players all in the ranks, these guys are all from different martial backgrounds, but they train together and push each other harder than any other group. Martial artists always seem to have that extra edge, it’s you guys that we set up to train as we share the same background, I’ve never met a population from any other sporting background that pushes in the same way that a fighter pushes.
However, saying that, this attitude has rubbed off on those around you and raised the game of our Rugby, GAA and Triathlon competitors.

I also have my first intern. He’s a learning the art of coaching as part of his Gaisce award. I took him on as a favour as he’s Paulies nephew, but, I’m thinking this could be something I’d like to do again. In 2012, you all could be helping in the development of a young and upcoming coaches career, and I know you’ll be a tough audience, I’d expect nothing else, but the end result will be a competent and confident Fitness Instructor that will raise the average of those currently in operation.

Now for 2012:

Two seminars that are definitely on:

IKFF CKT1 and 2 – two days for the level 1, a third day for the level 2. Steve Cotter has developed possibly the best course for anyone looking to teach Kettlebell lifting, he’s been a huge influence on myself, so if you think I can teach you something, just imagine what you’ll get from this guy.
Details will follow shortly.

Core Comabtives Foundation Course – 4 days, 32 hours of intensely detailed and practical coaching from one of the worlds top self defence coaches. Mick Coup really does know his stuff, he won’t try to baffle you with bullshit, he won’t baby you along and he won’t show anything that absolutely will not work in the real world, and Mick has operated in the real world in the Military, as a Mercenary, as a Nightclub Doorman and as a consultant to many security and LEO agencies globally.
This will be intense, but also awesome!
Details to follow soon.

J C Santana of the Institute of Human Performance has agreed to run a seminar here, although we’re still working on confirming. JC is the old guard, he’s been instrumental in developing the conditioning programs of some of MMA’s top fighters and competitors. He’s been around a long time and does not suffer fools. Check out his website, watch his youtubes and read his facebook posts.
MMA is growing exponentially in Ireland, the quality id going up and up, coaches who understand the physical requirements of the fighters and can create genuinely effective training programmes are going to become very valuable assets in the near future. You may as well learn from the best and that man is J C Santana.

Speaking of martial arts conditioning, I’ve finally gotten around to completing the W.M.D manual based on the conditioning methods I use on our own competitors. The eBook will be available through wildgeesema.com in the new year, there will also be a January sale on all the eBooks there.

That’s all for now, I’ll sign off for the holiday and will be back in touch in 2012.

Merry Christmas to you all and be sure to start 2012 in the same manner in which we finished 2011, fast, aggressive and awesome!

Laters

Dave
www.wg-fit.com