I put up with a lot at work…even fat chicks

We’ve been getting some outdoor sessions done…this young lady is doing push ups like this because:
1. If she put her full weight on her arms they would snap like twigs.
2. Everyone knows that if girls do proper push ups they damage their ovaries.

This session went as follows:

Run across the pitch and back
10 Push Ups
Run across the pitch and back
10 KB Squats of Plate Squats
Run across the pitch and back
10 Inverted Rows or KB Rows
Run across the pitch and back
10 KB Swings or Plate Swings
Run across the pitch and back
5 KB Presses or 10 Plate Presses
Run across the pitch and back
10 Sit Ups

Then 2 mins rest….most did 3 – 5 sets…some mad cows did 10 sets…but they needed more work than others anyway.

You have to go to the 4 minute mark in this video

I know I have a heap of work to do and I’ve approximately a zillion emails to answer…but I just wanted to put this up first.

It is nice to see someone I coach contributing something worthwhile to society…the Cookie Monster strikes again.

The surprising thing is that Cookies is always so concerned with safety in the gym…I mean this is a guy that uses safety collars on the leg press for God’s sake…he didn’t seem to concerned with safety when he tackled that guy in the video.

Cookies is always worried about the Leg Press tipping over

In other news…Damian’s updated his blog
You can find it here. Yesterday he basically designed his own program. I thought some people might find it interesting and as far as program design goes and might want to talk through the thought process behind it.

Disciplinary Action

Neck Strengthening – Part 1 (Swiss Ball and Band Work)

I thought I better put this here rather than do what I was going to do and stick it back where I initially mentioned neck strengthening. I was just going to leave it there undiscovered by the masses. If you haven’t noticed…and I’m sure you haven’t…all the posts bar 3 have been categorised to make it easier to find everything that you’re not looking for. There were some photos, videos and maybe more than a few posts that went MIA in the move from blogger over to here at wordpress. Next week after the seminar is done and dusted and I’ve put up the notes I’m going to go back to the start of the blog. I’m going to make sure everything that should be there is where it should be and I’m also going to engage in a fair bit of rewriting of history. Making sure that I appear much brighter now than I appeared in reality at the time…which shouldn’t be too difficult. Eventually at some stage months from now I might even make my way all the way back to this post where upon reflection I’ll be able to delete the entire thing and start again. Until then you’ll have to make do with this….

Part 1 – Some Swiss Ball and Band Neck Strengthening

Winter wonderland

It is so strange to see Dublin covered in snow and by strange I mean I hate seeing Dublin covered in snow because it means it is even colder and more miserable. If anyone reading this blog has a gym anywhere sunny and needs a trainer/coach who is willing to work for minimum wage as long as he can do so in the sunshine please drop me an email and I’ll send you my CV…I’m willing to move immediately…or as soon as the snow clears and flights resume.

Some people really don’t want anyone to know that I’m coaching them…to the point that they are happy to assault me to stop the evidence getting out!

Barry and Damian 

This is the lads session from this morning:

Bike – 5mins
Y,T,W – 3×5,5,5
3×4minute row with 1 minute recovery
Work Block 1 – 10 mins
1A Box Jumps – 5 reps
1B Pull Ups – 3 reps
1C Elevated Push Ups – 10 reps
3×4minute row with 1 minute recovery
Work Block 2 – 10 mins
2A Split Jumps – 10 reps
2B Inverted Rows – 5 reps
2C KB Shoulder Press – 5 reps each side
3×4minute row with 1 minute recovery
3A III Way Bridging – 2 sets (30second each bridge variation)
3B Natural Reverse Hypers – 2 sets of 15 reps

Here’s Barry’s Heart Rate Profile

Barry's Heart Rate Profile

 

 

What caused this was as follows:

Row 1 - 4 minute efforts with 1 minute recovery between efforts
1003m
1032m
1065m

Work Block 1 – 7 circuits in 10 minutes

Row 2 - 4 minute efforts with 1 minute recovery between efforts
1017m
1030m
959m

Work Block 2 – 7 circuits in 10 minutes

Row 3 – 4 minute efforts with 1 minute recovery between efforts
1007m
995m
1003m

The worst of both worlds

I thought I would do a quick lunchtime blog update while I had the time. I dealt with two ends of the conversation/social interaction spectrum this morning…I had a session with the gyms biggest talker…Denise ‘I passed my driving test…pay me attention’ Fox and the gyms most prolific question asker James ‘Explain the universe and all it’s components’ McGee. So on one side of me I had Denise spouting endless white noise and on the other side I had James asking endless questions…I was in a no win situation. If you don’t talk to Denise then she doesn’t stop talking and goes on and on endlessly so you don’t get any break…not that she actually listens to anyone when they are talking to her…it’s just nice to get some respite. Then with James I know that no matter how many questions I answer and how many answers I give all I am setting myself up for is more questions.

It really was a nightmare…thankfully something useful came out of it. It was in the same vain as what I was going on about last night but it’s my blog so I will talk about whatever the hell I like.

James was asking me about tire flipping firstly and what I think about it. I was making the point that when you train athletes variety is important. I have athletes that have been involved with me since 2000. I would say that at least 25% of the athletes that I work with have been involved with me for over 5 years. That’s a lot of sessions. There are only so many squat and bench variations…switching from overhand pull ups to underhand chin ups only gets you so far. I’ve heard people go on and on about ’strongman’ training…tire flipping, sled dragging, farmers walk and how great it is for sport, how it is so much ‘functionally’ better for athletes etc etc …I have one word for you….BULLSHIT.

It’s all relative

I met up with an athlete today that I haven’t seen for ages…the first thing he said was how slim I looked…I’m tipping the scales at 116kg or 256lbs at the moment and I look slim? I must of been an incredibly fat bastard when he knew me….but heh…apparently I’m slim now so it isn’t all bad.

Anyway…firstly I sorted out that stuff for Ian. You guys do realise that I often go back and edit old posts don’t you?

I had something else that I wanted to blog about tonight but can’t remember what it was….so apparently it must have been a lie…like everything else about me if you believe what you here…I’d tell you it was true but who would believe me.

I got this comment in an email today…I won’t name names (I never do) but:

“Oh and I finished Lyle’s book. He likes to crap on just like you. A lot of what he said and the way he said it reminded me of you.”

In fairness to Lyle though the fat cow that made that statement was reading his book for a reason…and doing my program for the same reason…and it’s all due to the fact that she’s always either got rubbish coming out of her mouth usually in the form of abuse or rubbish going into it like the sweets she’s filling her face with in this photo on the recliner…I mean Leg Extension machine. So she’s got good reason to hide her face.

I really liked that comment for so many reasons…firstly because I immediately found it more insulting to Lyle than it was to me and secondly I really happy with the fact that I can take stuff like Lyle’s work and regurgitate it so well that people read Lyle’s stuff and it reminds them of me.

The Fatathon went as well as I planned….naturally

I brought Steven Carroll in to put the Bodymetrix body composition ultra sound and software to the test…well I wanted to make sure of the lads body fat measurements as well as ensure none of the bellies they were sporting weren’t the result of an unplanned pregnancy.

There is no where to hide your fat from sound waves.

As you can see…some of us had more fat to try and hide than others.

I shouldn’t let some of my female athletes test with the lads…it’s bad for their confidence.

Before

After – I think you’ll agree that there has been a significant decrease in the amount of muffin top overhang?

Chops did well…the secret according to Chops is no carbs after 3pm except for the 2 nights a week at which time he gets completely plastered! Well…who am I to mess with success.

Day 1 – 120.9kg
Day 7 – 119.8kg
Day 14 – 117.6kg

So a loss of 3.3kg. I think that is 1.5kg off each love handle and 0.3kg of his neck.

Before

After – I know what you’re thinking…what has that fat bastard got to smile about…in fairness I think for two weeks work….10 training sessions and anything but strict dieting…he can afford a smile.

He’s got 3 weeks worth of strength work and field conditioning to do and if he isn’t under 115kg’s by then he’ll have another 2 weeks of fat camp…that’ll wipe the smile off his face. I intend to have him playing at a lean and hard 112-115kg come the start of the season.

Before

After – At least Johnny won’t need that girdle any more.

Day 1 – 122.5kg
Day 7 – 119.2kg
Day 14 – 117.9kg

So a loss of 4.6kg

Johnny’s program is going to be similar to Chops only he has a little more gym based conditioning to do as he is still continuing his rehab some recent knee surgery.

Before

After

Day 1 – 122.9kg
Day 7 – 117.8kg
Day 14 – 121.2kg

Did you see what happened there…Logi was the hot favourite to take the title after week 1…he was pretty mad about his 2nd week of dieting…actually….can it be called dieting when you actually put on more weight than the other guys lost? He was so mad at one stage I thought he was going to have a stroke. Then I saw this photo and thought he already had.

Logi was so mad that he gave himself a little bit of brain damage…or so it appears.

Home & Away

No…not the crappy Australian TV show…I mean we played at home and away today. Had a great morning session…the weather is great at the moment so we dragged all our gear out into the car park (did I tell you how cool it is having our own facility) all the kettlebells, boxes, rowers, benches and dumbbells and got our pump on in the blazing Irish sunshine…ahhh….Tropical Ireland…I love it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If she can Inverted Row…why can’t you?

Then I went down to The Pinnacle Gym (thanks to Mick the owner of The Pinnacle Gym…I think he let us train mainly because he knows he’s going to move some serious amount off liquid egg whites over the next several months while I’m dieting) in Dublin city centre and met up with Johnny and Dave for a great bench session. Johnny’s bench is going to climb another 10kg to 175kg I think based on what I saw today.

Johnny hitting 190kg on his partial press.

Dave did well also…he is one strong S.O.B and definitely lifts well above his weight class but is as uncoordinated as can be…I don’t think he’ll mind me telling you that…as I said it loud enough in the gym for everyone within a single city block to hear me. I’m going to video him doing his shoulder stability band work next week so you can see for yourself…it will look a little like he’s doing his work during an earthquake or that he has a degenerative neural disorder…I actually wanted to rest my shake on his head while he was doing it because he would have mixed it so well he was shaking that much. Dave’s going to get some great numbers and I’m glad he found me because he’s incredibly powerful and is yet another one of the athletes I’ve been lucky enough to work with that will make me look like a much better coach than I am…great natural talent…just needs to be pointed in the right direction…I want all his PB’s on the squat, bench and deadlift because he’s going to smash them all easily in the future….and when I sell out at some stage in the future (we all know it’s sure to happen) I will take credit for all his hard work.

Dave hitting 135kgs easy on his partial press.

So cunning if she had a tail you’d think she was a fox!

DF started her May program yesterday which will not come as a surprise to most of you as it was the 1st of May. We are trying something different this month in that we are going to do just 2 sessions.

Session 1 will be focused on Deadlifting and Session 2 will be focused on Pull Ups. She’s built a good base over the last few months and dropped body fat and put on a noticeable amount of lean muscle mass. We are also going to finish each session with 10 minutes of gym based ‘conditioning’.