Im a REPs Level 3 qualified Personal Trainer, based in Edinburgh. I want to help you achieve your goals, and help you to make long-term lasting changes to your health and fitness.
You can contact me here or on www.b-fast.co.uk.
Stay healthy.
Wow! 2/3s of the way through the year already...how are you guys doing with achieving your goals? All going well I hope! I thought I would start off this weeks links with some motivation. Get ready to be motivated!
Tracy Anderson. God bless her little cotton socks. She came up with the quote in the title in an article in last Saturdays Time magazine and I was reminded of her genius. God knows I've tried hard to forget!
After reading this article, I was compelled to read to the end, I thought I'd check out her website to find out what black magic she uses to suck in all these women to her web of wonder...
Turns out she has a new product, Metamorphosis, which promises amazing results (apparently you can actually transform your muscular structure. Who knew?). If you work out 6 days a week. 2 hours a time. And follow her insane dynamic eating plan...
She has even managed to redefine the body types since endomorphic wasn't specific enough...
Omnicentric - Those who carry their chunk all over,
Abcentric - Those carrying their excess on their stomach,
Hipcentric - Those carrying some extra on their hips, and,
Glutecentric - those with some back fat/ saggy ass issues.
None of these words actually exist, but, I guess they are descriptive enough...
Each "body type" has a workout that specifically targets the problem area ( at $89 each!), shrinking the offending body part.
Intrigued, I checked out the infomercial -
hmmm....
That didn't really tell much about the type of exercises that you would expect to find, so...
Ahhh! Ok, I get it. This is looking promising. She really sounds like she knows what she is talking about right...
"60, 80 even 100 reps each side is fine."
"..work the accessory muscles which will pull in the larger muscles tight..."
"Its important when doing arm exercises where you are using the arms as their own resistance, its really important you understand the power of the wrist and fingers...because these are the movements that activate the muscles in the arms."
" It's important to change the workouts to avoid overworking the muscle. That causes bulk."
Huh?
Add to the section on her website where she doesn't recommend lifting weights above 3lbs, ever, and the craziness is almost complete. Seriously, 3 lbs! For gods sake, don't go shopping, or if you do, take someone with you to carry anything you buy over 3 lbs home for you. You don't want to get too bulky now!
So, the warmup... 100 plies, "hip stretches," forward bends, the all important inner thigh stretch. Comprehensive no?
Into legs with the butt and thigh sequence, and into a quadruped position, working leg externally rotated and some excellent lumbar extension to get that foot up in the air. then some side kicks from the quad position with some excellent lumbar flexion. So much for the neutral spine...
Then we go for abs and arms. Actually, no we don't. I've wasted more than enough of your time and mine on this trash. And I haven't even gotten to the "nutrition" guidelines.I'm not gonna get into that low fat, calorie deficient can of worms, needless to say severe calorie deficit is expected.
So basically if you want to starve yourself, dance about lifting 3lb weights and get down to that teeny tiny point go for it, knock yourself out. You'll probably faint through lack of food anyway so you might as well knock yourself out and save some time!
Or...
Check these ladies out, eat well, lift heavy and get strong. Lean will come, as will the curves.
I have to admit, I was late to the TRX party. I was aware of it, but none of the gyms I used had one (1 trainer looked at me like I was talking gibberish when I asked if there was one in the gym)
When the gym I currently in (Pure at Ocean terminal) has a dedicated TRX station, that and the fact that it costs a third of the monthly fee and is better equipped than most gyms in Edinburgh (plus its 24hr opening means I can workout whenever I fancy it!) was the clincher.
Needless to say, other than a few half-hearted bodyweight rows being done, it's pretty much deserted most of the time.
Which is good for me! I've been adding lots of TRX exercises to my training and I love it and now I have bought one of my own, I can get some great workouts done outwith the gym setting, not to mention all the delights my clients get to work on. Mwah hah hah hah hah!
I thought I would take this opportunity to share some of my favourite TRXercises (see what I did there?) with you guys.
Rows:
RFESS:
Suspended hamstring curls:
Fallouts:
Thats just a few of the exercises I've been adding into my training to supplement lifting heavy stuff off the ground and then putting it back down again!
I'd love to hear any particular options that you guys are using in your training, so you can leave a comment, get me on the Facebook or on the Twitter.
Harold Gibbons gets you all warm and fuzzy, well, warm anyway before your workout.
Jedd Johnson sets a new world record on the 2 hand pinch. I once saw a guy at my gym deadlift less than this with a belt, wrist straps and the worst form EVER! Made my eyes bleed.
I've been slacking. Not posting on here, not reading as much, still training though! I have to admit, waiting for my certification to come through whilst working in a job that I hate (albeit one that pays the bills) is soul destroying. So I had a week or so off from work planned and I've recharged my mental batteries and am ready to go again! Training has continued as normal, being that it is one of the few things that helps keep me sane. Its going pretty well too. I've caught up with my reading and I present to you, a bigger, more packed full of goodness edition of the Linkz!
Enjoy.
Super smart Bret Contreras pushes the pushup on T-Nation
The renegade, Jason Ferruggia on using a full range of motion, parts 1and 2
