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Functional Strength Training for the Endurance Athlete: Part 2

Friday, September 17th, 2010

Functional Strength Training for the Endurance Athlete: Part 2

So you’ve now had an insight into the benefits of appropriate and functional strength training for the endurance athlete, and now it’s time to give you an idea on exactly what it is that should/needs to be trained in order to maximize specific functional strength and power output for your sport.

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It’s first necessary to take a quick look at what is written in training books for the endurance athlete. I’m sat here with my 4 favourite ones, and just recapping on exactly what they recommend in terms of exercises and programming. Now, before I say anything at all, it’s important to mention that I am by no means slating any of these authors, as they are all experts in their chosen fields, have given and continue to give huge amounts of fantasic information to the sport and I respect them all very much for their contribution to the endurance sports world, and my own personal knowledge also. That said, here are my thoughts:

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What is prevalent in all these books is single joint isolation exercises, fixed path machines, bilateral (2 legged) exercises, a few stability ball and resistance band exercises.

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What largely isn’t present is multi-planar movement (the body works in 3 planes of motion; side to side, forward/backward, rotating), uni-lateral (single legged) exercises, any emphasis on exercises that work on your opposite shoulder to hip relationship through integrated core training, or any real bodyweight training.

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The above are a few of the very basic things that MUST be in your strength program to achieve the performance results you are after, yet for some reason are neglected in just about every book out there that covers strength training for the endurance athlete. Here’s why they’re so key:

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Multi-planar movement

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As stated, the body works in 3 planes of motion. The frontal plane, which works side to side, the saggital plane, which works forwards and backwards, and the transverse plane, that works rotation. These planes are all prevalent in endurance sports and so must be trained. Running was initially thought of as a purely saggital movement (you’re moving forwards). However, all 3 planes of motion are present. To pinpoint a couple, in addition to the obvious saggital movement, there is the frontal plane movement of the weight shifting from one side to the other, and the transverse movement through the torso as your shoulder and opposite hip link up. Even in cycling there is an element of transverse and frontal plane motion, for instance as you turn corners, and shift your weight side to side to climb a hill respectively.

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Single legged movement

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This is an easy one. One of the biggest endurance sports out there is running. How often in a run are both feet firmly planted on the floor? So why should you train for running, with two feet on the floor, or even worse, with your legs strapped into a leg curl or extension machine? It makes no sense. In order to improve running strength, economy and power output, you need to be strong and stable on a single leg. You get a lot of ground reaction forces with running, and it’s important to ensure that your ankle, knee and hip joints are all working efficiently and well enough to cope with the demands without injury. Any exercise you can do on 2 legs or sat down, you can do on 1 (or an equivalent exercise at least). These are a few very basic and general exercises this can be applied to: If you’re doing seated bicep curls, get up on 1 leg and do them. If you’re squatting, do them on one leg. If you’re doing bench press, get up and do it on 1 leg using a band or cable. Now I’m not saying that every exercise needs to be on one leg, it doesn’t, and shouldn’t be. However, it IS important to have an ELEMENT of single legged work in your program. Exercises like single leg reaches are great for improving running mechanics as well as working on hamstring and glute strength, and single legged, single arm band presses will give a great workout for your spinal rotators as well as providing shoulder stability work, and again, looking at that shoulder to hip relationship.

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Integrated core training

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Core training and core stability is something that has gotten a lot of emphasis over recent years, and rightly so. Ensuring you have a healthy, strong core is necessary to remain injury free and for top performance in sports. However, many people seem to think that core training is all about doing all your exercises standing on a BOSU or stability ball, laying in a plank position, throwing in a pile of sit ups, and maybe a few hyperextensions on the mat. It’s so much more than this, and half the exercises I see people doing in the gym environment every day for ‘core stability’ are doing precious little of anything.

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Without going into big detail, your core is pretty much all the muscles from your ribs to your knees, and is the thing that connects your upper to lower body. From the big externally visible muscles to the smaller hidden muscles, all your major muscles attach to the core in one way or another, either directly or indirectly. If the core is weak, then the link between upper and lower body is weak, so your power output will be weak, your movement patterns will be less than efficient, and you stand a bigger risk of injury.

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Your core affects every big movement you make in endurance sports, from pulling your arm through the water, to spinning your pedals, to running in a straight line, and has big implications on, to name a few, stride length and frequency, pulling power, and out of the saddle hill climbing.

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In terms of integrating core training, your body doesn’t work in isolation, it works in integration, so train that way. I have nothing against sit-ups, hyperextensions, or any other valid exercise, but it’s about using the right tool for the right job. How is banging a load of sit ups going to help your running? And why would doing biceps curls on a BOSU ball help you run better?

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Core training needs to focus on a few things such as strengthening the diagonal force production and transfer (exercises such as diagonal chops, single arm-single leg presses/pulls are great for this), opening up the hips to help counteract seated positions (posterior reaches, staggered stance reverse band flys, and ensuring your midsection is able to cope with what you ask it to. If the core is not strong enough, is not stable enough, and is not stiff enough when required, when you go to push it harder in the swim, hammer it up hill on the bike, or quickly slowing yourself down to turn a corner on a run, it’s like you’re shooting a cannon from a canoe. Integrate your core training by ensuring all your exercises require it to be working. Push ups and recline rows rather than fixed machine chest presses and rows, squatting rather than leg pressing, cable chops instead of sit ups, the list goes on.

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Bodyweight training

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I won’t spend long on this at all, but for some reason, and I don’t know why, this is often massively neglected. It seems that most peoples perceptions of what is functional and beneficial, involves the use of some bit of kit. BOSU balls, stability balls, dumbbells, benches, barbells, power plates, body blades, balance boards an whatever the hell else is out there. But what ever happened to bodyweight training? It seems as though it’s mostly been lost somewhere along the way. The importance of bodyweight training can be summed up in the answer to this question - What is it you carry around with you in every workout, every practice, every race, all day every day? Your body. So why would you not train your body, with just your body? In order to master your performance in a sport, surely you need to have total control of your body, how it moves, and how it performs. Functional strength training for the endurance athlete must start with bodyweight work, or at least the vast majority of it must be bodyweight based.

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Importance of knowing your sport

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One of the key aspects of training for functional strength is making it specific to the environment and demands of your sport, as well as the movements and forces that are present within that sport.

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Take swimming for example. This of course takes place in water, and so ground reaction forces, gravity and momentum don’t play a big part as they would in other disciplines such as running. We (usually) swim in a prone position, and so the force we generate comes not from the ground, but is largely generated by our core musculature. Every movement comes from the core, as each body part involved in swimming is anchored at the spine and hips, and so core stiffness and strength is a major factor in efficient and powerful swimming. With the swim, you must also realize the rotational forces transferred through the body, with every kick and every arm movement causing your body to rotate in the water. Stability within the shoulder and hip joints is also essential for the swimmer. If these joints are strong and stable, combined with a strong core, incorrect muscle firing and movement patterns will significantly decrease, leading to increased economy and power output and a decreased risk of injury. So if you’re someone who frequently gets shoulder or lower back pain while swimming.

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I was recently speaking with a runner friend of mine who religiously completes a ‘run specific’ strength training routine that was given to him by a fellow runner, 2-3 times per week, although doesn’t really feel any real benefits from the program. He’s kindly let me have a look at it, and I’ll share it with you now:

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Bench press: 4 x 6-12

Machine leg press 3 x 10

Machine hamstring curls 3 x 10

Lat pull down 3 x 10-15

Dumbbell ‘arm running’ 3 x 30 seconds

Biceps curls 4 x 6-12

Tricep dips 3 x 6-12

Twisting sit-ups 3 x 20

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It doesn’t take a genius to see that this isn’t in any way run specific at all. As with most peoples training programs, it follows more of a traditional, ‘bodybuilding’ type workout, and it’s easy to see why he hasn’t been getting the gains he hoped for. After all, what has heavy bench press or curls got to do with running?! What I did for the guy, is completely revamp his workout into a much more run specific session. I’ll explain the exercise selection a little as we go:

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Bench press is swapped for push ups: The push up is a fantastic full body exercise, and not only does it hit the pecs, triceps and shoulders, but also works on providing core strength during deceleration.

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Leg press has been changed for a single leg squat: The single leg squat is much more run specific than a heavy leg press. By using this exercise, he is now getting a great workout for not only his quads, glutes and hamstrings, but also for the strength, stability and integrity of the knee, hip and ankle joints, while also causing a much more specific core workout at the same time, as the body stabilises itself on the single leg.

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Machine hamstring curls swapped for stability ball hip lifts: The position I’ve got him using during the hip lift simulates the point at which the leg is pulling back against the ground to propel the runner forward, and is giving the hamstrings and glutes the specific strength they require to do this effectively, powerfully, and efficiently.

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Lat pull down swapped for a recline row: The recline row allows him to target his lats, biceps and rear delts, while also helping to open up the hips in order to counteract poor postures, as well as being able play around with various leg and foot positions to increase/alter the core demands of the exercise.

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Dumbbell arm running replaced with band resisted single leg step ups: Driving your arms forward and backward with some light dumbbells does nothing to improve your endurance running! The exercise I replaced this with provides a beast of a workout through the entire leg, which also providing single leg stability training and some kick ass core work too, while also allowing the runner to work on arm mechanics for running.

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Bicep curls replaced with dumbbell single leg reach-curl-press: Hitting the beach weights won’t help any endurance runner to get faster or better. SO what I’ve done here is incorporate the curl into a run specific exercise that targets the ankle, knee and hip joints and their surrounding muscles, while also hitting the shoulder-hip relationship, but still alowing him to bang out some curls!

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Tricep dips has been replaced with a slit stance overhead band triceps extension: The position we adopt here actually stretches the hip flexors and opens up the hips, while also providing some great deceleration training through the core, as well as enabling him to hit some triceps at the same time.

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Twisting sit ups were replace with a high to low cable chop: The chop is a great way to work on the shoulder-hip relationship, and also provides a great workout for the spinal rotators and stabilisers, much more so than any sit up can ever do.

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So that’s what we did with his workout. In the 8 weeks it’s been since I changed his program, he has put a poor start to the season behind him and has smashed his previous PB’s in both 5k and 10k races. Is it all to do with the strength training? No. Did it have a good effect? Clearly.

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I hope that this article has given you some food for thought, and will cause you to think seriously about integrating an appropriate strength training program into your regime. You WILL feel and see the differences, in the way you look, feel, and most importantly, in your race times.

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Andy ;-)

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Functional strength training for endurance athletes: Part 1

Sunday, March 21st, 2010

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Endurance athletes typically have a few things in common.

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Firstly, they love what they do, and knowing the fact that 99.9% of the population couldn’t imagine doing the sorts of races they do, whether its a Channel Swim, Ironman triathlon, mountain marathon, century ride or ultra distance run. Having the determination and dedication to complete and compete in these events is true testament to the human will, and something that only a small minority of people are capable of. The endurance athlete loves to push him/herself to the limit, overcoming barriers in training, and breaking down every wall that stands in their way on race day.

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They also love to train. Endurance athletes are quite happy to slog out 10, 20, 30 hours per week at their chosen sport, and make the sacrifice that is necessary to achieve their goal, whether it’s simply completing the course, or a top 5 finish. The training mindset of the endurance athlete is one that is strong, whatever the weather, against the odds, and willing to go the extra mile.

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However, like everyone, endurance athletes have flaws. The biggest that I can determine is that they (not everyone, but the vast majority) neglect strength training, or at least don’t perform the correct type of exercises in the gym. It is this similarity that is the focus of this article.

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Ask any endurance athlete out there why they aren’t performing strength and conditioning as an integral part of their plan, and I can guarantee that one or all of the following 3 points will come up:

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Strength training will make me heavy, slow and inflexible . . . .

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First off is the thought that performing strength training will make them heavier, sluggish and inflexible, and so strength training should be excluded from their training plan. There are a couple of things to address with this misconception. Firstly is the nature of the training that the athlete is associating with strength and conditioning. Often when people think of strength training, they think of traditional bodybuilding training, which is largely dysfunctional to the endurance athlete (although still seems to be advocated in a number of endurance sports training books). However, with a functional training program that has been designed in order to specifically enhance performance, you’re not going to get huge muscle mass gains, you won’t get any slower and you won’t get less flexible. In fact, you’ll actually become faster due to increases in strength, power, economy and movement patterns, you’ll get more flexible due to the integrated nature of the training, and as for getting bigger and slower? Nope. Regarding this, the first thing to mention is that the strength gains you’ll be getting are largely going to be down to improved neuromuscular performance, without a big increase in muscle size. Secondly, in general, endurance athletes are largely ectomorphs, who find it extremely hard to gain any significant muscle size. Those two things aside, the strength and power improvements you’ll gain will totally outweigh any added weight as you’ll be stronger, more powerful and more efficient at your event(s), thus making you a superior athlete and improving your performance greatly.

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I don’t have the time to train strength . . . .

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The second point is one of time. The endurance athlete spends so much time each week actually out on the road, in the pool or on the trail, that they believe there is no time left to perform strength training. To be fair, in their current regime, they’re probably right. But they shouldn’t be. There is time, and plenty of it. More so, it is a case of not being willing to ‘sacrifice’ a little swim, bike or run time in favour of 45 minutes strength training 2-3 times per week. The philosophy of the vast majority of endurance athletes is that in order to get better at swimming, cycling and running (or whatever your sport entails) the only and best way is to do more swimming, cycling and running.

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This is largely where overuse and overtraining injuries set in; that niggling hamstring injury that forces you to take a few days off every couple of weeks, that knee pain you get after mile 13 in your long run, the lower back ache when staying in the aero position on the bike for more than 5 minutes or when running up hill; the list goes on. In order to get better at your discipline, it’s NOT necessary to do it for longer, you just need to do it better. There’s no point rowing the boat harder if it’s pointing in the wrong direction.

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Strength and power training won’t help me as an endurance athlete . . . .

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My third point is the single greatest myth when it comes to training for the endurance athlete, and that is the fact that the endurance athlete feels that strength and power work will not improve performance in their endurance based event.

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During my recent mentorship at the Institute of Human Performance in Florida, Juan Carlos Santana explained this beautifully. Basically, believe it or not, endurance sports are ALL about POWER. The equation for power is work/time, So if an athlete runs a 3h30m marathon one year, then runs the same race the next year in 3h flat, she has become more powerful, as she has performed the same amount of work, in less time. The more functional power you have, the greater your stride length, swim stroke and cadence will be. Another equation for power is force x speed. If you’re stronger, you can generate more force, and as the equation states, power is dependent on strength and speed. So, you can see that it is absolutely necessary to develop functional power (it’s no good working on a 1 rep max power clean) as well as working on strength in addition to speed.

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By incorporating an appropriate and functional strength program into your training, you will improve also economy no end, meaning that movements require less effort, and so performance improves and injury risk reduces. Just think, in a 2 ½ hour run each foot will hit the ground around 13000 times. If it’s planting incorrectly, then that’s 13000 incorrect foot strikes in a single run. How many more times does your foot need to land poorly before your knee hurts, adductor pulls or achilles inflames? Not only this, but with incorrect movement patterns, comes power wastage, and if the body is not generating power from where it’s meant to, it’s got to find it from somewhere else. If however you’ve been (and still are) performing the right types of conditioning exercises, then you’ll minimize this and increase your power output and thus improve performance.

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An appropriate functional strength training program will give you the following key benefits:

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· Improved economy

· Reduced risk of injury

· Improved power output

· Improved neurological performance

· Improved lactate threshold

· Increased flexibility

· Increased functional strength

· Increased stride length

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From this article, you should now be thinking differently about the need for training strength for endurance sports success, and in part 2, I’ll be going into a little depth regarding just what a truly functional strength training program involves.

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Triathletes, do we need to train so much?

Sunday, February 28th, 2010

Triathlon training at any level takes time, and lots of it. Professionals may train for up to 30-40 hours per week, and novices right up to age groupers will often put in between 4-25 hours per week depending on their circumstances. But is all this really necessary? Do we NEED to train for that long, or is alot of what we are doing, purely JUNK MILES? Is there a better way to train?

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I’ll be clear on something right now: The purpose of this post is not to try and change the way you train, or to rubbish any other method of training, rather, it is to encourage people to have an open mind when it comes to training for triathlon, and to let you know just what I’m up to right now in terms of training, following my week in Florida.

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During the mentorship program, in one of our final lectures, we got talking about swim training, and in particular, why it is that a sprint swimmer will put in so many hours and miles in the pool each week, when they are training for a race that lasts less than a minute. Do they really need to spend so long training? After all, a 100-400m track athlete doesn’t spend so long training, and we are all humans, so how is it beneficial for a sprint swimmer to train for so long? Would it not be more beneficial to have shorter, more focussed workouts, and more rest in order to allow proper recovery and reduce the risk of injury and over training? After all, how many swimmers (in particular children who are overtrained) develop shoulder, back and hip problems? I don’t know the exact figure, but it’s alot! We then spoke about marathon running, and again, is it really necessary to put in 40-80 miles a week, or would it be more beneficial to have shorter, more focussed workouts, with a bigger emphasis on recovery? After all, you make your improvements while you recover.

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We then touched on triathlon, and again the same things came up. Is it NECESSARY to do so many hours? Has ANYONE ever experimented with far less hours, but a much increased quality of training at the expense  of junk miles? If you’re training for a long race, do you have to train for as long as the race (or at least each discipline) will take you? If you’re training for Ironman, that could mean putting in 2+ hour swims, 8+ hour bike rides and 5+ hour runs. No not every session, but you get the idea I’m sure. What I’m also sure of, is that there HAS to be a much better way to train. Step up Juan Carlos.

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At the end of the mentorship program, a few hours before we were flying back to the UK, I sat down with JC to get his thoughts on Ironman training, and in particular, to help me reduce my own Ironman training volume. Now, as well as the fact that I’m 100% sure that there are more effective methods of training for triathlon than are currently being utilised, I’m also recovering from a shoulder operation which has sidelined my swimming for 12 weeks, cycling for 8 weeks, and running for 11 weeks. On top of that, I work a long hours (much like you), and juggle a girlfriend, friends and family at the same time. Right now I have just 18 weeks to get into the best, injury free condition of my life in order to knock the 45-60 minutes off my Ironman time at IM France on June 27th (that’s my personal goal for the year).

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JC is a huge lover of all things sport and fitness, and was more than happy to look at my proposed training program, and after checking out my program, subsequently decided to slash my training hours by about 40%, and ‘play around’ with intensity a little, as well as introducing some pretty exciting new techniques. We then came up with a plan of attack. A structure was formed, followed by specific phases, and I spent much of the long flight home planning out each individual session. What we have come up with is something that has NEVER been tried, or at least documented, within the industry, and could well be something that will help triathletes all over the globe to achieve their goals in less time, with more recovery, and increased performance.

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What methods are we employing?

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Well…..there have to be some secrets right?! All I can tell you is that a couple of methods could, and probably will, raise a few eyebrows in the triathlon world, but both JC and I are extremely confident that what we have devised will work, and when it does, we are going to be ready to transform the way many triathletes go about their training, leaving you with more time, more energy, and better performance.

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From now, leading up to June 27th, I’ll be posting regularly on here letting you know how the training is going, the results I’m seeing and everything else….except of course the program! So keep your eyes on this area, and feel free to add your own comments ;-) Before you leave, checkout this video of myself and JC talking about the plan right here

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Wish us luck!

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Andy

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Day 2 at IHP

Thursday, February 18th, 2010

Day 2 started with a workout with JC, we did 5 exercises in a circuit, with 30 seconds work and 15seconds rest for 40 minutes nonstop! This included ropes, stability balls, grip trainers, slings, hydraulic push pulls and a lot of effort! So we were all set up nicely for the day!

The first seminar of the day was a one where we discussed the biomechanics of the core musculature and the applied applications for a number of exercises and movement patterns. Carlos, explained also, the implications when we are trying to improve the performance of various movements for our clients.

Once we had finished this we had the privilege of being invited to watch the American Top Team training. For those of you who haven’t heard off the ATT, they are Mixed Martial Arts and Ultimate Fight Championship professional fighters. We observed a conditioning session and talked with the fighters after the session, gaining a great insight into some different ways to condition and train for different movements and fighting disciplines and styles.

Then we headed back to IHP and we discussed Body weight training circuits, both indoors and outdoors. Cesar, one of IHP’s top trainers, discussed the design of some awesome circuits for improving agility and body composition, which will be an invaluable reference tool for when we get back to the UK.

We finished the day with a brutal session of short but very intense sprints towing a 150lb tyre! Look out for pictures and videos soon!

Speak soon!

Andy

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