Hi and welcome to another week,
Really appreciate everyone getting to the gym last week. Attendance has been great – nearly 10x people per day up on this time last year – which really speaks to the dedication of our members given the dual impacts of school holidays and cold weather!
Special thanks at the start of the blog today to Aaron at The Shorehouse for putting on brekky for the running club crew this morning. The food was amazing and the location, well, if it isn’t the best in Perth if is surely in the top 5! Check out the menu on the website (http://www.shorehouse.com.au/) and if you are thinking of getting out for breakfast, lunch, dinner or even just a coffee, head along to see Aaron (who you will find at the gym in either the 6am or 9:15am classes) and you will not be disappointed.
So, we have had a couple of injuries at the gym – both in classes and in running club – recently and, as is always the way, the people who were injured were hitting it pretty hard in preparation for an upcoming event/competition. Unfortunately injuries do occur from time-to-time and whilst I am a big believer that doing your warm-ups and movement preparation really does help avoid any problems, sometimes stuff ‘just happens’…and unfortunately any revisionist views as to what you could have/should have done in order to avoid the injury are a day late and a dollar short – what has happened has happened and you need to move on.
So – if you are injured what do you do? And more to the point, if you are injured and have a completion coming up, what do you do? The choices are pretty clear cut in most cases and look something like this.
You can rest completely and pull-out of the event. You can rest completely and just hope for the best – that the work you have already done will be enough to carry you over the finish line. Or, you can take the approach followed by pretty much every professional athlete in the world which is something like this – keep training as hard as ever…but lay off that injury!
I have spoken one million times about managing shoulder and knee issues whilst participating in boxing classes so I am not going to touch those ones here. What I am going to talk about is working around some of muscular injuries (calves and hamstrings) that we have seen in the gym lately and how you can manage them. Further though, I am not going to talk about those injuries in the context on a boxing class – if you want to do a boxing session and have a hamstring injury, you 100% can…just chat to the trainer before class and get ready to go – but rather working through/around an injury when you are chasing goals outside of the gym (for example, participating in a crossfit competition or running in a Fun Run).
Remember, the general rule here is ‘do no harm so if you have any pain to the injured area at all, well, STOP. Remember also that these notes are pretty general – for specific help and advise, talk first to your physio and then to us! What we are trying to do here though is maintain conditioning whilst unable to perform the sport specific movement(s) you are going to need in the competition…this stuff will probably be harder and at least as challenging as your sport training – first off, you wont be as familiar with it which eliminates the ability to ‘switch off and cruise’ (runners, cyclists and swimmers will understand) and secondly, in most cases you will be in a high volume workload phase…than needs to be maintained despite the injury if you want results in the event!
Option number 1 is clearly just doing some off-legs conditioning. At Round 1 we have an awesome bit of machinery called a ‘Krank Cycle’…I am not sure how many people have used it but it is like a bike for your arms! (Check out the Krank Cycle here: www.krankcycle.com). Now I like to use the Krank to do interval training (usually 20 second sprint, 10 seconds rest) but Matrix Fitness who sell the Krank actually offer a free online training service for these machines and you can sign up for it here: http://www.krankcycle.com/education/online-training/ I have found the training starts off a little ‘slow’ but if you get started with the online program you will quickly get the idea of some things you can try!
Now, whilst the Krank Cycle is awesome, I think everyone at Round 1 would be more familiar with the Ski-Ergs – we have a few of those and regularly use them in our Boxing classes. They can be used for the off-legs training just as easily as the Krank!
The second option is to do some ‘split’ work where the ‘split’ exercise features some genuine ‘max-effort PLUS’ exercises. I program this sort of challenge into our TANKS sessions every few weeks – we will do things like 100 pushups or 50 pull-ups which really forces the body to push past physical limits. I have heard people refer to this as a training bottleneck at times (so if you hear that term, this is sort of what it means) but have always called it a MAX Plus effort. I guess an idea you could implement to incorporate this into a conditioning session would be to do a ‘steady’ 2km ski-erg, then 100x pushups (set a 5 minute time cap) followed by another 1km on the ski-erg. Boys would be targeting 8mins for the 2km ski, ladies 9mins.
If you do decide to do that, let me know how you feel the next day!
The 3rd suggestion I have would be to incorporate some mid-weight/hi-rep barbell work into your training…and if you are really keen, to work in some off-legs cardio. Again, the TANKS crew go through a consolidated 4-week ‘block’ of this type of training every few weeks when we do the PowerAthlete Metabolic Circuit (Back Squats/Bench Press/Strict Pull-ups/Front Squats/Underhand Grip Pull-ups/Front Squats/Push Press/Tricep Dips/Bicep Curls) as part of our ‘Living the Dream’ challenge. The idea is that you complete one of the exercises every 90-seconds – and to complete it you must finish 2x sets of 10 repetitions. As the weeks go by, the weights go up (hopefully) and we add some cardio (in the form of 10calorie bike sprints) to the mix. It is T-O-U-G-H.
We do a form of this sort of training in Boxing and Body Work all the time – and a great example is when we do the November challenge (Clean and Press, Pushups, Upright Rows, Bicep Curls, Bentover Rows, Back Squats) circuit. A great way to condition would be to finish that challenge circuit (20x reps of each exercise) followed by a 500m Ski. Then repeat the whole lot twice more.
The last conditioning method to use if you are injured – or at least the last one I am talking about today – is to pick up something HEAVY and walk around with it. The most common way to do this – or most common way we do it Round 1 in any case- is by completing a kettlebell farmers carry. Check out an example of these here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92cwGLa-wdQ. Carrying heavy stuff is a really under-rated method of conditioning – and whether you are carrying a sandbag, kettlebells, trap bar or wearing a weight vest/weighted back back you will quickly learn that these activities are way (WAY!) harder than they appear to outside observers.
Where is all this going? Well, nowhere I guess. We have a gym chock full of stuff that can help keep you fit and on track with your training despite whatever injury it is you might have suffered. If you have hurt yourself, don’t give up – just ask for some help and get your mind right for some solid hard work…
See you in the gym,
Michael.
OK – our August Challenge will be opened for registration late in this coming week. This one will be an exercise only challenge and will offer three ‘tracks’ for participants to enrol in:
– Track one: Cardio
– Track two: Strength
– Track three: Core
Both the Cardio and Strength tracks will offer participants multiple options for each day in an effort to make allowances for people managing injuries. The training rhythm will be based on 3x group sessions each week + 3x ‘EXTRA’ workouts each week.
I am going to try and do the ‘CORE’ track and as part of that will be doing exercise demos for anyone interested in joining me on that track at 9am on Sunday, July 30th 2017. The Challenge itself will kick off on July 31st (Monday) and will run until Sunday, August 27th. Cost for registration will be $10 to participate and $30 to participate with 2x Body Scans.
Just an FYI that due to feedback following our challenge last October, I am gearing up for that challenge already in an effort to make it as ‘BIG’ and all encompassing as the February 28-days Later challenge. The idea is – as people keep telling me – to get everyone in their best shape of the year BEFORE summer. I have started working on a new recipe pack and creating a series of 15-minute challenge workouts. All up, it is coming together well so far and I am excited for the potential of this challenge.
On Sunday 23 July at 9am (following the 8:15am class – so lets say 9am kick-off!) Kelly and Lauren will be collaborating to provide you with some great information to help you assist your body to run at optimal levels. Kelly will share her knowledge of essential oils and how they can provide natural and effective solutions for everyday health. She will explain how you can reduce the toxic load in your house and use essential oils to support your immune system, increase energy, balance emotions, improve sleep quality, manage stress levels, natural pain management an keeping your family healthy.
Lauren will demonstrate how you can supplement your workout routine with some stretching that will help your body recover better from those tough workouts. Find out how to improve your flexibility & core strength to get the best out of your training.
Well done to our running club crew who pushed their way through the 8kms of the Cottesloe to Port Beach return run this morning (followed by the amazing breakfast referred to in the opening of this blog – cheers again Aaron).
Next week we are back to our interval work at Anning Park and we will be meeting at the gym at 7am. Really looking forward to it – we are only a couple of weeks out from our Bold Park ‘Challenge’ run and everyone seems to be progressing well for the CTS event at the end of August.
This week’s homework:
Day 1: 25x 100m walkbacks. Sprint 100m then walk back to the start-line and repeat. Repeat 25x. Looking to ‘GO’ every 90 seconds or so with each sprint effort taking approx. 20seconds.
Day 2: 30 minute run. Nothing crazy. Follow by 10 minutes of 30-30 ‘sprint-jog’ efforts when I really want you to empty the tank.
There will be ONE MORE opportunity for everyone/anyone to secure one of our cool new Round 1 “Training” hoodies. An order link will be going up on the website tomorrow (Monday, July 17th) and It will just be a matter of selecting the size you want…final order will be placed on Friday, July 21st.
So – our latest delivery is just about to arrive…and this time it will be pretty unexciting stuff in many ways. Keen eyed members would have noticed that our latest order of gloves and MMA gloves all features new Round 1 ‘carry’ bags which make it a helluva lot easier to keep your gloves together in your gym bag/boot of car as well as just LOOKING better.
We have bags arriving for every pair of gloves on the shelves and can’t wait to make the reception area look just that little bit better.
Probably worth mentioning that not only has the price of our gloves not changed despite the additional cost of the new packaging, BUT the price of our bag mitts, MMA gloves etc hasn’t changed since we opened! And that doesn’t even take into account the value offered by our Perkville rewards scheme…
As always, our plan with this stuff is to offer quality, well priced products that deliver the best value to our clients. If you aren’t wearing Round 1 gloves, well, let’s just say you should be! J
This is a repeat of last week’s note – as mentioned, stay tuned as we continue to build our database!
Been spending a bit of time working on getting a database of specialist services together lately – trying to use the experience we have garnered in the past Seven (7) years in Cockburn to be able to offer pretty basic consults for people who need help with medical services, external training services and a few other things. The way I see this working is that if you need some physio help, we connect you with the physio and are able to discuss the issue with them directly before you arrive for your appointment (and in theory we can set up the appointments but that is a bit more of a work in progress). Same for chiro, podiatry, OT…you name it. Same for specialist training services (sprint coaching, olympic lifting etc). Whilst I wish we could cover EVERYTHING in house, it simply isn’t realistic given the wide range of specialist services people are chasing…
Anyway, in the short-term, if you need help with something and you are a member of the gym, dont be shy about asking for help and we can get you in touch with the people best positioned to help you.
So – the tipping has closed up AGAIN but Dazza has held firm on top of the ladder by selecting 7 out of 9. Big winners of the week though were ‘Kentucky’ (who IS that?!) who nailed 8 out of 9 and has moved up into 3rd spot. Only one other picked 8 this week – Ben – but he is (more than) a few off the pace!
Some BIG scores in Fantasy with 6 coaches topping 2200 points. A great result recorded by Michael Campbell (Bulleits) who recorded the top score AND a close 8 point win to keep his finals hopes alive. Only a couple of weeks left until the finals so don’t forget to make your trades by bouncedown this FRIDAY.
Well, ‘cos I watched this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bO7hSmVM3nk I needed to watch this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3suAxCsGRj4 (how to get better at the assault bike). My advice is don’t watch the first one – who wants to see someone crack 86 calories in 60 seconds…
We know this can be a daunting time. You’re probably wondering if we really are the right fit for each other. And it’s OK! Many people before you, have felt the same, and that’s why we want to offer you something special – our $29 Health Check.
Let’s work out together to see if we’re the right fit. Just hit the button below to let me know if you’re ready to see what’s included.
Subscribe below to join our tribe.
You'll receive email updates about the studio, special events, and membership option sales!
