Successful Strength training like marriage  is measured in years not  weeks or months

Pay attention to the basics . Lift often, lift heavy (5 plus, but vary from 5 to 1)  be happy with small increases. Every relationship or  “thing”  in your life requires consistency

Don’t panic if  you plateau.

In what other part of  (real) human existence  do we expect to have increases all the time . We can tamper with economics and pretend we have yearly growth:  some  NHS workers ( apparently ) get a  grade increase each year , but that always, always  unravels. “Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow…….’

The hall marks of successful  strength training  (marriage) is patience and maturity: watch for the opportunity to improve but don’t obsess., be happy with consolidation,  treasure consistency and above all, be confident enough to rest and take it easy.

Eat well and sleep well

Bear in mind  that all advanced programming is dedicated to one phenomenon, failure.   Many marriages fail because one partner isn’t happy with the perfection they have, and instead   indulges in fantasy . Don’t let the strength porn of a few gifted ( psychotic) individuals deprave and corrupt your  normal image of how things are.

Failure is rushing at  fantasy  target too hard and fast.

Having preached consistency, it’s equally essential to mix it up and be creative. Add  and vary assistance exercises.

Variety has always been the spice of life   But variety is still just a spice. It makes the fundamentals seem a bit different that’s all. It still needs the fundamentals/

In short, don’t see strength as something geeky or the preserve of experts. See it as the perfect romance or marriage, demanding consistent loyalty commitment and work , along with romance and variation.

So to be successful, research how to be romantic and simply build it into your strength regime

Self defence is a misunderstood subject.

 Self defence is a bundle of activities that you may on rare occasions be forced to use if you are unlawfully attacked or threatened . it’s not nice, it’s certainly not pretty

Self defence is not a sport, a martial art or a spiritual pursuit. It is not a pleasant restraint that you can use against an angry customer, a hysterical child or for that matter a slightly over amorous date.

It’s what you will do to someone who wants to rob,  beat,  rape and kill you.

Self defence begins with a thorough understanding of the law of self defence and a thorough appreciation of the human rights of others .

Self defence  also begins way before  any physical attack occurs. It relies on an effective scanning and awareness system. Most effective attacks take the victim by surprise. The attacker ” suddenly turned  nasty”  or “jumped out of no where”

There are a few courses that teach awareness : however, they lack the “Stemler bag” concept. It’s simply a sobering security visualisation.If you “Stemler Bag” properly, you will probably never have any type of physical confrontation

Imagine a see through bag stuffed full of cash. A lot of cash . Its yours. You can keep it, but you still have to do your normal week and carry it around with you, so its visible.

How would It change  your behaviour ? Would you take it to dark strange places where you are not familiar . Would you get drunk and take a snooze in a park. Would you willingly chat to strangers who wanted to ask where you alone? Did you have any martial arts experience ? Was the money bag a joke and where you being filmed.? Or, would you be a bit suspicious of absolute strangers approaching you and being weirdly friendly ? Would you listen out and notice if someone was following you  or would you listen to your i-pod instead? Would you  fumble for your keys while you put your bag down at your front door or would you have your keys ready to go. Maybe you would plan your journey, maybe you’d have a back up plan ?

I think it was James Coburn who said, ‘avoid arseholes and big egos, avoid places where arseholes and big egos hang out’. A good friend of mine, Geoff Thompson added ‘don’t be an arsehole and don’t have a big ego yourself’. It helps”

If you breach this Rule: you have screwed up: everything from here on is making the best out of the poor situation that you created!

If you are approached and a dialogue starts ( known as the interview), take up a small inconspicuous 45° stance place your lead hand in that all-important space between you and your antagonist to maintain a safe gap. This is called The fence. It gives you a degree of control without  alerting your  potential aggressor

Don’t let a potential attacker touch you at any time, The more weirdly friendly, the more deadly and dangerous

You will get scared. Its ok to be scared. The shaking leg, the swirling  tummy is your body gearing up for a fight. You may need that extra energy buzz

Try and talk your way out  If talking fails , it can you could try posturing.

Create a gap between you and your attacker by shoving the attacker hard on the chest. Once the gap has been secured “go crazy; shout, salivate, spread your arms, bulge your eyes and drop into single syllables” ( Geoff Thompson) This triggers the opponent’s flight response and often scares him into capitulation.

If that fails, one of 2 things happen: the language and the look of the attacker changes: their speech will become more and more limited, you’ll notice them scanning the area to see who could help you or be a witness , they will try and get super close the moment they close the gap, you are getting hit OR the attacker steams back in . Either way, after the shove, if they touch your fence for a second time, knock them out.

If that fails ( and you have really screwed up, we will teach  you an eye gouge, groin strike, so at least, on the way down, you do some damage).

Its impossible to run an effective programme without some consideration of  the work of  Mike Boyle and , for this article, the way he has popularised the Bulgarian Split (see here for his view point).

All it offers is better, stronger  bigger legs, but without back stress,  balance ,  hip flexibility, and a high level of safe training discomfort.

Marvellous

This will be making a regular , structured feature in most of my programmes Start practicing at home now  if you haven’t seen it before . It often features in our Metcon classes , but I know most of  our coaches sneak this into their training, so grab a PT session to get up to speed.

You’ll be grateful for  all that walking lunge practice you’ve had.  Pillow on the floor as a comfy knee target,   top of the rear foot on the sofa  and go!  Start off  with a lower rear surface if it helps, and “split”. If you need to revise for exams, while practicing, so be it. Do keep your torso upright if possible. Obviously an appropriate abdominal brace.

Get to 20 each side, 30 seconds rest between each leg, 2 minutes rest  then 2 more sets. Once you have  learned  this, we will be looking to load this .

The Bulgarian Lunge: apart from the fact that it isn’t a lunge and didn’t come from Bulgaria, its great.

For those of you who enjoy a bit of science while suffering should read  MORTON, D. P., and R. CALLISTER. Characteristics and Etiology of exercise-related transient abdominal pain. Med. Sci. Sports Exerc., Vol. 32, No. 2, pp. 432-438. Is as good a place as any to begin to get up to date with what causes the stitch. Obviously you need to clarify what you are talking about . Its that sharp abdominal pain that some people get while being active. Not an aspect of needle work. (BTW ETP=  exercise-related transient abdominal pain)

This study issued a questionnaire to different types of sports people and asked them about the stitch.  ETAP appears to be most prevalent in activities that involve repetitive torso movement, whether ” vertical translation or longitudinal rotation”. Its normally  a local pain  mostly experienced in lumbar regions of the abdomen. Some  unlikely people also also experience “shoulder tip pain” (STP) too, famously known as the  diaphragmatic-referral  site, suggesting a miffed diaphragm

Note. No one has actually done anything in this report. They havent got runers, held them down and cut them open, or ultra sounded them, or poked them with sharp sticks. All they did was to ask some people if they have had it.  Thats not being a scientist, that being a pollster and a gossip

Conclusions:   This gives “perspective” to suggested etiologies of ETAP, which include diaphragmatic ischemia and stress on the visceral ligaments, and suggest we should be looking at other causes  such as cramp of the “musculature and irritation of the parietal peritoneum” ( who knew)

Interesting to note that the condition that is mostly associated with runners, is suffered through all sports. Its merely that runners whine more.

And the cure, after all this science?…. “factors that provoke and techniques that relieve ETAP, are not well understood” ( All that money, all those surveys, for this. Fu@%ers)

Several causes “theories”  make the rounds in gyms ;ischemia of the diaphragm and   stress on the visceral ligaments  have gained the most credibility. Im surprised my theory about irritated pixies hasn’t got more coverage. “Further examination of the characteristics of ETAP and the stimuli that provoke it may be beneficial for evaluating the integrity of these and other theories”. Oh, and guess what, more studies, funded by the tax payer is some secret roundabout sort of way, is needed. Oh yeh!

With my Therapist and Crossfit hat on, it was interesting to note that rotational movement through the torso played a part.  A lot of what we try and achieve  at Crossfit is to maintain a solid “core” which acts as an anchor for the limb to swirl about. We train you to use your legs to Deadlift, while keeping your  torso “locked down” Clinically we have noticed a tendency among aerobic athletes, when they come to us, to be unable to initiate a leg movement without a body movement. ( If they swing a leg it begins from the lower back, not the hip. load is lifted from the back, not the hip) in short, if every time you move you have to wiggle your core.

Thats a lot of additional movement for a biological box with lots of other stuff to do

I’ve decided to share as much of my programming as possible, where possible. as I write for clients, I’ll post outlines here. Obviously, this won’t be the total programme as that will include warm-up ideas, mobility,  cardio, mental work, but, I thought, its good to share, even if it’s just a bit. Many of my City of London clients will go on to a 20-minute boxing session, for cardio, stress relief,  but also mental training under pressure.

This programme is basically a good spread of functional, compound movements for the legs, with upper back work for posture, and arm stuff, well, for Saturday night!

I’ll cycle between 5, 10, 15 reps, but be open to the mood and workload of my clients

Day 1

A) lunge plus Bulgarian split squat

B) Pull up 5 sets: some of these are wide grip for back development