More on Cardio and Some Thoughts on Running

4 05 2012

The last post on Cardio seemed to get people talking a bit, which is always cool.
One of the best things about publishing a blog, especially one such as this where I can air all my thoughts and opinions on fitness, is that people come up to me afterwards, or maybe they post a comment, usually on facebook, with a reply.
Sometimes it’s an agreement, other times it’s a thanks or an “I’ll give that a go…” and occasionally it’s “Dave, you’re wrong, stop being an idiot “

Actually that last one usually comes from my wife….

So what was the biggest thing people are saying about the cardio post?

Well for many it’s, “But I HATE running!”
Which is fair enough I suppose, but why do you hate it so much?

We are after all natural runners. As controversial as that sentence may be in today’s gym culture, it must be true. Can you name another mammal that hunts successfully without running? Almost every carnivorous/omnivorous animal has the ability to move with speed, some cover short distances extremely fast, other lope along for hours never seeming to tire.
We humans seem to well adapted to both ends of the spectrum. Some of us are lighting over a short distance, others are quick over longer distances. But we all have the ability to run.

So why don’t you?

For me personally I dislike running in an urban environment, but put me in a park, or better yet out in the mountains and I’m a happy man. I adore being out in the wilds running over rough, uneven terrain, I enjoy the challenge of a long hill climb, especially when you can turn around at the top and admire the view (Dublin looks best when viewed from the top of Three Rock).
For more intense sessions I hit the park, often with the dog and we run short sprints or do some intervals.

Running is one of our primal movement patterns. Don’t believe me?  Try this experiment:

  1. Take a handful of young kids, say for arguments sake between the ages of 5-10years old.
  2. Give them a bit of space, say a park or sports hall.
  3.  Maybe add a ball, possibly a dog.
  4. Stand back and watch.

Pretty soon, with no instruction from anyone, there will be an outbreak of running.

That’s science. Try it.

But if you still refuse to run. Maybe you’re injured and it’s contraindicated, perhaps you’re too out of shape even to run or possibly you’re just being a princess about it. What are your alternatives?

For practical cardio, the type we’re looking to build in our athletes, at least those that aren’t specifically runners/triathletes, the options must allow us to switch intensities or even change exercise at the drop of a hat.
After all when we’re running I often incorporate direction changes or simply drop into a set of push ups, this isn’t so easy when I’m cycling.

Here’s a list of option that we use:

  • Skipping – easy to change speed, convenient to drop and switch to a calisthenic drill and back again.
  • Kettlebell swings – again convenient for switching drills, intensity can be changed by swinging higher/lower, swinging faster or changing the weight.
  • Bag Work / Shadow Drills – Again, easy to modulate the intensity even if it’s harder to quantify. Intensity can be adjusted by hitting harder/softer/faster/slower. Gloves can limit other options if they need to be removed and replaced for other drills.
  • Battling Ropes – these are awesome and they work great for anyone with lower body injuries, are badly out of shape or have limited ROM. Again, easy to modulate intensity by lengthening/shortening the rope and size of wave.
  • Sled dragging – Like the ropes this is very low impact so can be a great boon to those recovering from injury or starting from very poor fitness. Adjust the weight of the sled or speed of the drag appropriately.
  • Weighted Carries – these can be farmers walks, bear hug carry, shoulder carry, waiters walk, whatever variation you like, even be constantly changing the style.

So there you have it. An argument in favour of running and 6 alternatives for those of you who can’t/won’t run.

Regards

Dave
www.wg-fit.com 


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Cardio – The WMD Method

2 05 2012

A guy once came to WG for a look and asked "Where are the gym machines?" I showed him the squat rack and kettles to which he replied "But, I like to run.
My question seemed to shock him, "What equipment do you need for running?"

We’ve just passed the midpoint of Week 3 on our Boot Camp program.

This means the guys have a mere 4 more training sessions before their week off.

But it also means they just had a cardio session.

For those who know, my main interest in strength & conditioning is Martial Artists and as an extension of that anyone involved in contact/combat sports.
Look at any of my higher intensity group sessions and you’ll find Kickboxers, Kyokushin black belts, Kenpo men, BJJ players mixed in with the odd copper and few rugby/GAA heads.
Each one of these guys needs to be able to hit and take a hit.

It’s well documented that increasing size and strength will boost hitting power and also provide armour plating for receiving impact. But that’s of limited use if the muscle isn’t backed up by an equally well developed cardio system.

It’s a like fitting a bigger fuel tank to your muscle car. You still have the grunt, the speed and the power, but with the extra fuel you can put that power down for longer. Less time at the fuel pump means more time doling out the punishment.

So at Wild Geese we spend a fair bit of time developing our guys work capacity. That way they can power through a scramble, a tackle or a heavy exchange of hands and have the cardiovascular strength to get the oxygen back into the body and do it again, and again. They have the breath control to keep the mind calm, the lungs to get the air in and the heart to pump it where it’s needed.
This all takes practice.

We have a multitude of methods for developing this, but possibly the most effective is the method we use on the boot camp. It’s also detailed in the WMD manual.

It’s simply the following:

400m Run (the block we run round is actually 370m, but who’s counting..?)
Hindu Push Ups
400m Run
Bodyweight Squats
400m Run
Bodyweight Rows
400m Run
Kettlebell Swings

Repeat for 20 minutes continuously.
Time the run. However long the run takes is the time you will spend on the following calisthenic/kettlebell drill. So if it takes 1m45 to cover the first lap, then you’ve got 1m45s worth of Hindu Push Ups to do.

Why only 20 minutes?
First, try it and see.
Second, it gives us a benchmark against which we can judge progress.

But honestly, it’s as much for convenience. We spend 10 – 15 minutes warming up with skipping, muscle activation and jogging. Then hit some short (sub 15meter) sprints, agility and reaction work for another short while. Then we start the cardio.
Each week we increase the intensity of the sprint/agility work to develop a greater oxygen debt. We also try to get more round in during the cardio set itself.
The combination of a larger oxygen debt plus increased work rate means 20 minutes is plenty!

The whole session, including a stretch at the end is done in under an hour.

On the Boot Camp we don’t necessarily time the run, instead we split the group in two, while one group runs, the other group does the calisthenics. It brings some love to the group, especially if the runs start slowing down…

This is cardio, WMD style.
It works.

But don’t take my word for it, get out and try it yourself.

Regards

Dave


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Cardio Training for the Martial Artist

22 11 2011

Cardio training comes in many guises. Most only know the one, extended bouts of running.

Up until recently most boxing coaches would tell you to get out and jog every morning, but times are changing.
We now realise that there are better ways.

Martial artists are required to generate power repetitively under fatigue. So a large part of their cardio training should be dedicated to supporting this.
The cardio vascular system is essentially a transport system, it takes fuel and oxygen to the working muscles and removes waste products. In a fight the legs are working, but so is the rest of the body, so the cardio vascular system must be trained to deliver fuel to the entire structure, not just the running muscles.

That’s where circuit such as this come into play. We use large compound movements or combinations of movements along with sprints or shuttle runs will tax the entire system. You’re fighting an ever growing oxygen debt from the weight lifting and then attempting to be explosive in the sprint.
You’ll see in the video the last of 5 rounds, each round is about 2 minutes and I took 1 min rests. By the round filmed, my legs were shot and the sprint was a pure effort of will.

The circuit used here is as follows:

Renegade Row / Spiderman Push Up combo x 6-8
Clean / Front Squat Combo x 6-8
Shuttle Run (turn around at 5, 10 and 15meters)
3-5 rounds with 1 min breaks.

I used a pair of 24kg kettles, you will use whatever weight is appropriate. Dumbells may be used instead of kettles, just be careful on the renegade rows.

Here’s the video:

Regards
Dave

http://www.wg-fit.com

PS Don’t forget to book your place on the Kettlebell workshops happening December 4th, details in the sidebar —->


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Running for Fat Loss?

10 01 2011

Driving through town the last few evenings I’ve witnessed an incredible amount of people out jogging.

I’ll guess it’s the new years resolutions kicking in and people are all out trying to lose a few pounds.
Fair play to them, but is there a better way?

Short answer:

Yes

Long answer:

Jogging is not the ideal weight loss training method, for a number of reasons. One of which is the damage it can do to the body.
I’m not anti running as seems to be fashionable in the weight loss/fitness industry at the moment, but i do think everything has it’s place.
For an unconditioned, overweight person starting out on a fitness program, running is not necessarily the best start point.

As we run each footfall can land with the force of up to 12 times your bodyweight. I weigh 85kg, so that could be 1020kg on every step being absorbed by my ankles, knees, hips and spine. Now I’ve years of running experience behind me but even in experienced runners this impact is still in the region of 5 times bodyweight (425kg)
If we run for 5 kilometers, that’s 5000 meters. An average stride length will be around a meter, so 5000 footfalls, each sending a tonne weight through you. All on unconditioned muscles and joints.

So for a start, those numbers ought to tell you that going from inactivity to road running isn’t wise. But it’s still not the full story, I used myself as an example, my 85kg bodyweight is around 12% bodyfat, that leaves 75kg’s of lean tissue, muscle, bone etc to take the impact.
For the Mr Resolution, he may be up around 25% bodyfat at the same weight. He will have 64kg’s of lean tissue, over ten kilo’s less than me at the same bodyweight, or if you like, equivalent to me running with a 10kg backpack on.

The potential for injury is very high, especially if like many at this time of year, you throw yourself headlong into your program.

And then there’s the actual calorie count. Weight loss, or more accurately Fat Loss os a two-pronged animal, it requires dietary discipline as well as elbow grease and sweat.
We’ve all heard the “Calories In Calories Out” discussion, burn more calories than you consume and you’ll lose weight. This is true. However it’s not the full story.

We are, as a species built to run, it’s something we’ve been doing since we stood on two feet. Our bodies are very efficient at it. A jog doesn’t require much more energy than a walk. and pretty much as soon as we stop our metabolism returns to a normal level.  You’re likely to burn around 6-800 calories during a run. So long as you eat clean, you will lose some weight.
The weight you lose may not be the weight you want to lose though.
As discussed, we are very efficient when it comes to running. But the body does know that it will perform better with less weight to carry.
As muscle outweighs fat, and fat is a useful energy store, whereas muscle costs energy to keep. What do you think goes?

Quite often runners and other cardio athletes seem to have a hard time shifting their spare tire. The body wants to keep its fuel store topped up.

So to lose bodyfat and get that beach body, running is only one part of the equation, and certainly not the first part.

So what is?

Strength training.

Build some muscle. Just sitting there a muscle is burning energy, the more of it you have the higher your resting metabolic rate will be.
Adding some muscle to the body will involve strength training, this will assist in injury proofing the body, strengthening the tendons and ligaments.
Training using full body workouts, alternating between upper and lower body with minimal rest will provide a cardio effect similar to running but without the impact.
Muscle building workouts, especially short sharp and intense sessions encourage the EPOC effect. This is a fancy way of saying that the metabolism burns at a higher rate for longer.

An aerobic workout will elevate the metabolism but it will return to normal within a few hours. An anaerobic workout will cause the metabolism to burn higher for up to 36 hours. So while you may burn more calories during a 20 minute run than you would in a 20 minute bodyweight workout, over the following 24 hours your total calorie burn will be higher for the strength session as the body does it’s best to rebuild the muscles stronger.

So for everyone who is out on their new years resolutions to lose weight, here’s a tip. Save the running for a while, come back to it later. For now you need to be working your strength, build some muscle, clean up the diet and I can guarantee you’ll like what you see.
Save the running untill after your workouts, or on the days between your workouts. And wherever possible run on grass or other soft surfaces and change pace regularly (intervals and fartleks).

Here’s a sample bodyweight workout, it can be done in less than 20 minutes and will charge your body into a fat burning furnace:

 1A: Jump Squat (regular squats for beginners)
1B: Wall Slides
12-15 reps of each, 3 sets

2A: Reverse Lunge
2B: Push Up
12-15 Reps each, 3 sets

3A: Overhead Squat
3B: Back Hyper
3C: Criss Cross
12-15 reps, 3 sets

If you need further guidance, feel free to come along to any of the classes, or take advantage of our online training service.

Regards

Dave
www.wg-fit.com


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Categories : Personal Training Dublin

Man, I feel Electric!

8 09 2010

How many of you can say that at 8.30am when about to head into work?

Not many eh?

These words were spoken to me by one of my Boot Camp participants, today was Cardio day of week one.
We started with the fitness test which will be repeated on the last day, then went into a slightly easier than normal cardio session. Intensity will build over the coming weeks, but today is week one and also test day so the actual workout wasn’t the meanest.

It was afterwards though that Eoin comes out from the changing rooms with his bag over the shoulder, the last one to leave, with a happy grin and a light behind his eyes, “Man I feel electric, that was brilliant!” And off he went, bimbling along to the office.

I nipped out, had to get some bleach and a few bits, also stop by Lunch!, a local coffee shop that does the best Double Espresso Machiato. As I’m out I’m looking at the hordes of grey people walking by.
Dark suits, grey hue to the skin, eyes fixed on a point in the distance as they all walk in a huddle, aiming towards the Irish Financial Services Centre just over the river.
It’s reminiscent of a George A Romero movie, only it’s daylight!

I will ask you a question, would you rather sleep untill the last minute, rush around getting ready and go straight to the office, to have your senses dulled and brain melted. Or would you rather get up earlier, spend an hour in the company of hard charging, motivated, positive people, then have a long hot shower and leave feeling, as Eoin said, Electric?
Who do you think will perform better in work? Mr Electric or Mr OMG?

An early morning workout can and will set you up for the day, it fires the nervous system, refreshes the blood and gets those “happy hormones” flowing through the brain. It clears away the fog and even if it is cold and wet outside, you won’t care because you will feel alive, you will feel like a real human animal, sharp, focused and alert.

But hey, you could have an extra hour in bed instead….

I wonder, do some people ever really wake up?

Take control of your life, one step at a time.

If you want to feel electric, you know what to do.

Regards

Dave
www.wg-fit.com


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Categories : Bootcamp, Personal Training Dublin, Strength and Conditioning

Sweep the leg. Do you have a problem with that?

31 05 2008

It’s on TV now, I’m sat here mucking around online while the missus is sat flicking through TV channels, guess what she found, hang on it’s the final……..

……………Go on Danny Laruso!! That’s right, The Karate Kid!

Anyway back to the point, 21 years ago I was sat on the sofa, aged 10 watching this same film. Within the month I was training. I had joined the local karate school (St Martins Jnr Karate Club, under Sensei Jack Parker) and finally started something.

This had a major effect me. Karate was one of the few things I really stuck at as a kid. As I grew up, all the other lads grew out, I was a beanpole. While I cycled everywhere, I wasn’t strong. Around the time I was 16/17, Jack turned to me and said that if I wanted to continue improving to black belt standard and to stand a chance in the tournaments.

As a result I asked my mates on the school rowing squad if I could join their gym sessions, they asked their coach and a new era started.

We had two gym sessions per week, the lads obviously had other sessions out on the water, I ran and practiced karate. Plus we’d meet once or twice a week for a session on the ergo’s (what we called the concept 2 rowers, still my machine of choice)
One session was “light day” consisting of Pyramids, the other session was “Heavy day” using 3×10. The exercises were always:
Leg Press, Bench Pull, Power Cleans and bench press. I think that was all, there were certainly no isolation’s!

It’s the warm ups i really liked though. A 20 minute circuit that would make Steve Maxwell blanch, then onto the weights.

Now, I realise it wasn’t the most scientific training we could have done, but we got results!
I put on a little weight, but got much much stronger with conditioning to match, got my black belt and fought for my country. The rowing squad were in the top 15 in the country.

When I need to train up for something these days, I always look back to those days, my first gym experience. Although I know much more now, it was the heart and soul we put into the training, it was the basic exercise selection, it was the high intensity circuits.

I look around the Gym I work in and see the girlie boys spending over an hour trying to get from a b cup to a c cup while I’m in and out in less than an hour, full body done, heavy weights moved and heart in the mouth intense cardio ( I like to finish with a 4 minute tabata after a strength workout). I could never get my head around bodybuilding.

I got into training to improve my martial arts, I continue training to improve not only my martial arts but everything else I do. If strength isn’t functional can it truly be called strength?

Fuck it, the sun’s shining, the Karate Kid won his fight and I’m in the mood to get out into the garden and do some training of my own. Bodyweight only, cos I took my Kettlebells to the gym.

Lets go

Dave

Wild Geese
http://www.wildgeesema.com/
http://www.wg-fit.com/
any cause but our own


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Categories : kettlebell, martial arts

The Road to No Where

19 04 2008

Weight Loss, fat burning and better body composition – Wild Geese Style!

Talking heads said it best when they sang “I’m on the road to nowhere”, endless miles pounded out on the treadmill/bike/crosstrainer/[insert machine of choice here], and the results………

Now be honest……

Yeah, I guessed it, pretty minimal. I’m a personal trainer in a city centre gym and I see the same faces coming in and doing the same thing day in day out, how do they look? same as they did last week and the week before that!

Don’t believe the hype:
· Fat burning zone – Really? So why have you still got that spare tyre?
· Weights make you big/bulky/slow – Go home and watch some sport on TV, every professional athlete will have trained with some form of resistance training, are they big/bulky/slow?

Have you ever heard of EPOC? Probably not, I hadn’t untill a few years ago.

Here it is:
Exercise
Post
Oxygen
Consumption

It’s the amount of Oxygen your body uses AFTER your workout. Simply put, more is consumed because your body is burning more calories, more calories burned equals greater fat loss. World renowned fat loos expert and author Craig Ballantyne calls this “turbulence”, read about it on www.TurbulenceTraining.com

Aerobic training and the “fat loss zone” do burn fat, but do not induce the EPOC effect. Pretty much as soon as you’ve cooled down, your metabolism returns to normal and you are in a resting state. However, high intensity training, for shorter durations will induce EPOC, you cool down after an intense interval and your metabolism will remain jacked for up to 30 or 40 hours after. In other words, you’re still burning calories when your at home on the sofa watching Eastenders!
Proof? Well seeing is believing, get a picture of a sprinter and a picture of a marathon runner, I know who I’d rather look like.

If you want to boost your metabolism even further, lift weights, and I’m talking Bodyweight, Kettlebells, Bar or Dumbbells. Just, please, forget body part splits, get your whole body done and dusted in a single workout, 2-3 times a week. Resistance training will shape and tone the body, making more aesthetically pleasing, further boost the metabolism and burn calories, improve bone density and release mood enhancing endorphins (so does sex & chocolate, but that’s another story!)

Wild Geese
www.wg-fit.com
www.wildgeesema.com
any cause but our own


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Why Cardio Doesn’t Work for Fat Loss

8 04 2008

Here’s an article I picked up from my favorite fat loss specialist. Craig Ballantyne uses what he call “Turbulence” ie the post exercise calorie burn to strip fat off his victims. This is done with the use of intense interval training as opposed to the regular long slow cardio sessions.
Wild Geese also use intense interval training, not for fat loss, but because it delivers the fastest results for increasing endurance and improving recovery time, essential for any martial artist or fighter.
Either way ou look at it, intervals work, the following article is an explanation of

Why Cardio Doesn’t Work For Fat Loss By: Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
www.TurbulenceTraining.com

Cardio exercise is such a strange thing. In theory, it should work
so perfectly well for all men and women, but as anyone who has
tried it knows, the practicality of it just doesn’t add up.

After all, some men and women do cardio 6 hours, 9 hours, or more per week, and still have belly fat to burn. On the other hand, it works just fine for others.

British researchers wanted to get more insight into this paradox, and studied 35 overweight men and women, who weren’t previously exercising.

(Reference: International Journal of Obesity 32: 177-184, 2008).

Subjects exercised 5 times per week for 12 weeks. That’s a lot of
exercise, but it helped the subjects lose an average of 8.2 pounds, which is great – I was positively surprised by the results.

So cardio will work for some people, however, in my experience, it works best in young men, who need the help the least!

Back to the study, the variance in fat loss between individuals was huge. Check this out…

The best subject lost a staggering 32.3 pounds in 12 weeks, while the worst subject actually GAINED 3.74 pounds.

The scientists think they know where things went sour. They
classified the subjects into 2 groups, called the “Compensators”
and the “Non-compensators”.

The Compensators were hungrier, and as a result consumed an extra 268 calories per day, all but wiping out their cardio efforts.

Therefore, the Compensators lost the least amount of weight, and scientists believe that was due to the huge “compensatory” increase in appetite experienced by this group.

Does your appetite increase when you do slow cardio? If it does,
research shows it will ruin your cardio efforts.

So if your cardio program is not working for you, check your
appetite and calorie intake to see if you are “compensating” for
your efforts. If you are, you might be better off using a program
of high-intensity resistance and interval training (i.e. Turbulence Training) for your weight loss efforts.

As Australian Professor Steve Boucher has shown in research,
interval training increases hormones called catecholamines. And
increased catecholamines can reduce appetite, among other fat-
burning benefits.

In the real world, few people lose 33 pounds after 12 weeks of
cardio. Heck, few even achieve an average weight loss of 8 pounds with aerobic exercise.

So again, check your appetite, and consider giving high-intensity
exercise a go for your next workout program.

Beat the curse of cardio with high-intensity Turbulence Training.

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Author, Turbulence Training

About the Author

Learn about the “Dark Side of Cardio” in the free report from Craig Ballantyne at www.TurbulenceTraining.com. Craig is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist and writes for Men’s Health, Men’s Fitness, Maximum Fitness, Muscle and Fitness Hers, and Oxygen magazines. His trademarked Turbulence Training fat loss workouts have helped thousands of men and women around the world lose fat, gain muscle, and get lean in less than 45 minutes three times per week. For more information on the Turbulence Training workouts that will help you burn fat without long, slow cardio sessions or fancy equipment, visit www.TurbulenceTraining.com

Wild Geese
any cause but our own


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