It was just a nasty day today. 15 minutes of stair climbing, with 10 squats on each full landing. Pop on the music and loose yourself in the boring pain.
If you are going to go on a Keto diet, and then bang on about how great it is, and how you are in ketosis, the very least you can do is to buy some Ketostix, wee on them, and show us that you are “burning fat”.
We don’t assume that you have access to a pull up bar! But today we stayed in the flat because we have a pull up bar there (with rings on). We wanted to do a version of Cindy. The Crossfit workout of 5 pull ups, 10 push ups, 15 squats. AMRAP in 15 minutes (it should b 20 minutes, but Im 59, so I cut myself some slack now and then.)
Most days I’ll post a workout you can do with minimal equipment and no gym access. It be will be on a 3 day on, 1 days off rota
The “gym-less” workouts only assume you has access to 1) some dumbbells 2) a kettlebell 3) a skipping rope 4) a car park and some benches.
Obviously a full Crossfit or exercise regime requires more stuff and more variation, and ill encourage you to practice and train in weightlifting and gymnastics and other forms of cardio, but doing these workouts as bits of intensity (hard and fast) should help most people
So todays workout is
With a running clock set for 15 minutes as many rounds as possible of
20 lunges, 20 double under’s, 100m run.
Feel free to tweak everything: 10 lunges, 10 single skips, walk 50m for 7 minutes 10, or 12 minutes. If there is an exercise you cannot do or tweak, feel free to switch it with one you can do, or just leave it out and practice it later if you can.
If you are in chronic pain take it easy, feel free to limit the range of motion, feel free to rest if you must, but it’s simply about pushing you on a bit or a lot, depending on where you are
For food, ill be recommending the Zone diet . For now this is a TWO BLOCK snack, or “brunch” if you prefer.
This snack had 2 blocks of carb in the form of a slice of bread, 2 blocks of avocado (In the form of 2 (overly generous) teaspoons ) 42g of ham (as one block of protein) and 28g of cheese (as another block of protein).
I sneaked in a tea spoonful of chia seeds for extra fibre and a mini scrap of butter as an old habit
and ended up on toast like this
I’ll be explaining in great details how the zone block system works, but its intention is to ensure that each meal or snack has a balance of the main 3 macro nutrients: carbs protein and fat.
Ill be a launching a free ” how to zone course” some time in the next few months so do join my mailing list and ill tell you when you can get it
Effective exercise can generate powerful huge forces if they are initiated controlled and dominated by the hip.
Many untrained athletes have a muted hip which creates postures and mechanics that reduce power output, promotes postures and mechanics that are considered by many to be unsound.
In simple terms the Muted Hip Function (MHF) results from the legs compensating for the failed of the hip, in effect using leg extension to compensate for non existent hip extension.
According to the Crossfit Journal the causes and consequences of MHF include but are not limited to:
• structurally disadvantaged spinal posture
• low glute recruitment
• low hamstring recruitment
• pelvis abandoning the spine and chasing the legs
• centre of gravity shifting dramatically backward
• centre of balance shifting toward toes
• knee experiencing unsound shear force
• leg extension being the only productive effort
• hip extension not being possible with low hip angle
• pelvis rotating the wrong way
The cure is deliberate and focused training. Thats why you probably need a trainer like me. Why not join the mailing list a get useful information
It’s a big, big, sweep of the arm, but most of your lifts can be (could be) compared to your back squat. If you back squat 100kg, the chances are you can snatch up to 60kg, and clean 75kg. Bear in mind these figures could vary by as much as 15%
Front Squat
Snatch
Clean
87.5%
60%
75%
Overhead Squat
Power Snatch
Power Clean
67.5%
55%
65%
Deadlift
Snatch Pull
Clean Pull
125%
90%
100%
Christian Thibaudeau adds extra ratios and insights here
Waxman’s gym has a fascinating “Weightlifting Lift Calculator” here
My take home message is this: once you start struggling with your olympic lifts, and your technique is quite good, start to consider improving your strength.
Once all the fuss goes, the 20 squat programme is doing 20 squats, with your ten rep max.
It’s one of the oldest lifting programs there is. It was introduced by John McCallum in 1968 and was originally coined “Squats and Milk” because old school lifters would drink a gallon of milk a day (GOMAD) while on it. According to the Jacked factory “This routine is not for the mentally weak individual. It will test your will power and bring you to a threshold that will either make or break you. One of the reasons why this routine works so well is the “breathing squats”. Generally around rep 15 or so you’ll be out of breath, legs burning, telling yourself this was a horrible idea while you stand there with the weight on your back. At this point the reps come few and far between as you muster up the strength to squat out another rep”.
Strossen publishes a well-marketed book, assuming you fancy doing this for 6 weeks: