Monthly Archives: June 2010

So I’ve decided that I’m going to rent a cow for a month this August. Rosette, albeit probably unknowingly, is going to become a happy member of the Ingram household.

Renting a cow, of course, is not a decision to be taken lightly. In fact, it wasn’t even a decision that I was aware I could make until coming across an article in the free newspaper that gets distributed at Nyon train station every morning.

You can tell by the excited look on Rosette's face that she can barely wait for my visit

Michael Isoz is the proud owner of a dairy farm at Le Fenil aux Veaux in Vaud. It was his inspired idea to start renting out his cows to city dwellers in order to demonstrate that “farm life is very different to what they think”.

Renting a cow does not come without responsibility. Once you have decided on your particular cow (yes, you get to choose), you pay either CHF180 for one month or CHF380 for a season (June to September) and receive a contract. This contract stipulates that you have to come to the farm for a visit and do a maximum of four hours work, which could be anything from bailing hay to chopping firewood.

There were a couple of things that really attracted me to this idea. The first was the chance to get to see life on a farm, how the animals are treated, what they eat and how they end up on my dinner table. Eating good quality food is a mainstay of what we preach at CrossFit Leman. That means opting for meat that comes from farms where the animals eat a natural diet (i.e. grass and not grains), live outside as long as possible, are allowed to roam free and are not treated with any antibiotics or steroids. The question is, how do we really know that the meat we buy in the supermarket was reared under those conditions?

If you buy bio in Switzerland, you can more or less guarantee the above as the regulations are pretty stringent (this is Switzerland after all). Nonetheless, I couldn’t turn down the opportunity to go to a working farm and talk to a real life farmer about how he looks after his animals. I come from London and have lived in cities my whole life. I’m about as familiar with farms as the England football team is with winning major championships – very little experience.

The other bonus is that you get to buy meat and dairy products directly from the farm at a discounted rate. I’ll probably pass on the cheese as that is a no-go on the paleo front. But I do use butter for cooking and cream in my coffee and the meat is very reasonably priced at CH44 for a kilo of steak or CHF52 for rumpsteak. If, as I suspect, that beef is grass fed and not treated with any articificial methods, that will be an absolute bargain.

Once I get my contract I will go up to the farm, which is about an hour from Nyon. I’ll definitely report back once I have visited and am excited about getting my hands on my cow! 

If anyone is interested in renting their own cow, you can find out more at http://www.lecherette.ch/index.php.

If you are like me (an unashamed gym snob) and the thought of not being able to deadlift because some clown is using the only olympic barbell in the gym for bicep curls, a home gym may be the way to go.

Ideally a home gym should look something like this.

Not like this.

There are a number of advantages to setting up at home.

1. You can train whenever you want and are not subject to the usually limited opening times at Swiss gyms (i.e. no early mornings and weekends);
2. You don’t need a huge amount of space (I had a set-up in my old 1 bed apartment in a 10m2 spare room);
3. You get to choose the music;
4. You have the equipment all to yourself;
5. You really don’t need that much stuff to have a great workout space;
6. Despite the initial investment, in the long run it will save money on your monthly gym membership.

There are also some disadvantages of course, particularly if you are the type of person who is motivated by and thrives on training around other people. Plus, unless you have a significant budget, you will probably never be able to have all the equipment that you can get in a commercial gym.

When I set up my home gym, I had a minimum number of items that I wanted, namely:

1. A power rack. This is great for all the barbell movements such as squats, deadlifts, presses, bench press etc. A power rack allows you to do multiple movements and also provides a safety element. If you train on your own and don’t have a spotter, the rack will let you safely dump the weight if you get stuck. If you do get a rack, make sure it is one that comes with a chin-up bar attached;
   

   The mighty power rack

2. An olympic barbell and at least 140kgs of weights. Make sure to get a standard barbell which is 220cm long and has 50mm collars. Sometimes it is possible to get shorter bars, but do not, under any circumstances, buy the crappy thin bars with 30mm collars (often seen in commercial gyms or “fitness shops”);
3. Rubber flooring. If you set up in your apartment (as I did), you will want to protect the floor. Get some heavy dutry rubber matting and this will do the trick just fine.

That is actually all you need to have a great home set-up, far superior to most commercial gyms in the area. Of course, you can always splash out with more equipment and some nice-to-haves would include:

1. 

   Olympic dumbbell handles

   Dumbbells. I bought Olympic dumbbells which I could use with the same plates as for my barbell. Dumbbells are a great way to change up your training;

2. A bench. Although it tends to get used too much by most trainees, the bench press is still one of the kings when it comes to developing upper body strength. Make sure you get an adjustable bench which allows flat and incline pressing;
3. Bands. These are great for assisted pull-ups if you are not yet strong enough to do full pull-ups. They can also be used for a myriad of other exercises such as overhead pressing, good mornings and tricep press downs;
4. Dip station. Most power racks come with the option of adding dip bars. This is a fantastic addition to any home gym set-up;
5. A jump rope. Don’t even think about buying a treadmill or any other cardio machine. If you want to work on your conditioning, nothing beats going outside and running hill or flat sprints. Jumping rope is another great, and dirt cheap conditioning tool;
6. Rings. These can be used to develop strength in pushing and pulling movements (dips, push-ups, muscle-ups etc). They are also portable (hint – get outside to train as much as possible!) and can be incorporated into CrossFit style mixed modal workouts;
7. Bumper plates. These are not cheap and you need a place where you can drop them to the floor. This was not an option for me as I lived on the 2nd floor, but if you have the money, bumper plates are a great investement. They are not cheap, but if you invest wisely they will last forever and are designed to withstand and thrive from consistent dropping – ideal for developing mastery of the Olympic lifts (snatch and clean and jerk);
8. Kettlebells. These are a nice-to-have, although by no means necessary and most kettlebell exercises can be done with a dumbbell.

Once you have decided on the equipment, the next question is where to buy everything. Forget about trying to find this stuff in Ochsner Sport or the sports floor in a department store like Manor. Yes, you can find fitness equipment there but it will be cheap, poor quality and not designed to handle the type of work needed to get strong.

I actually bought all my equipment from a German supplier – http://www.simpleproducts.de/. They had everything I needed and the shipping costs were not too crazy. The service was not great and it took several weeks for them to deliver everything, but when it arrived the quality was decent. I bought everything three years ago and it is all still in perfect shape, despite consistent use.

CrossFit Leman purchased its gear from an Italian company www.functionalstore.it. They stock tons of great equipment and have more than enough to furnish a serious home gym. The service was fantastic and quality good, but it may be a bit pricey for the home buyer.

I have recently discovered http://www.megafitness-shop.ch/. I cannot vouch at all for them as I have never bought anything, but they seem to stock decent equipment and are based in Switzerland, which makes shipping cheaper and less complicated.

That’s pretty much all you need to set up at home. As long as you have a space, which in Switzerland is always at a premium, you have options. There are a number of other items you could add for a kick-ass home gym, and I’m sure I’ve probably forgotten something. If anyone in Switzerland is thinking about going down the home gym route, drop me a note in the comments as I would be happy to provide some help based on my own experience

I have something of a love/hate relationship with the push-up. On the one hand, it is a wonderful exercise which promotes upper body and midline strength and stabilastion, scapular stability and overall shoulder health. There are numerous variations which you can perform to increase the level of difficulty almost infinitely and push-ups can be performed anytime, anywhere (although you may want to think twice about cranking out a few reps during your next office meeting).

On the other hand, push-ups are hard and I feel I should be much better at them. I did the following workout last night which included push-ups:

Row 250M
9 deadlifts@ 105kgs
20 push-ups
row 250m
6 deadlifts
20 push-ups
row 250m
3 deadlifts
20 push-ups

I banged out 20 push-ups in the first round without too many problems. I got 10 in the second round, followed by 4 and then 2 sets of 3. By the final set of push-ups, I managed 5, 3 and singles for the rest – most frustrating! Now of course there are no secrets to getting better at push-ups and my years of study, analysis and razor sharp instincts tell me that the secret is – do more damned push-ups!

While practice makes perfect, technique is also important and from what I’ve observed, most people ignore good form for speed and more reps . In fact,  of all the exercises we use at the gym, I think the push-up is the one which is performed consistently with the funkiest form.

One of the first mistakes people make is to splay the elbows out when descending to the ground. This comes from a mistake in the set up and placing the hands too far in front of the shoulders. Women, particularly, seem to go for this option. At the start this can make push-ups easier, but it is not a very shoulder-friendly position, and developing a more tucked elbow position will not only develop more strength, but promote shoulder health and stability.

An example of a push-up with good shoulder/elbow position

This push-up is an example of the flared elbows approach

Range of motion is also very important when performing push-ups. That means chest to the ground and back to the start position. Push-ups that only go halfway or involving a rest period (no matter how brief) lying on the stomach are not allowed. It is better to reduce the load in the push-up, for example by starting from the knees, and go through a full range of motion, rather than going halfway down.

Core strength is a key component in the push-up. That means keeping the body in a straight line at all times and not letting the hips sag at any point.

Last, but not least, is my favourite fault, the chicken neck. In the mistaken belief that full range of motion is acheived, some people tend to extend the neck in an attempt to touch the floor. Remember – full range of motion means chest, not lips, to the ground – keep the neck nice and neutral.

So to recap, we want elbows in a nice position, full range of motion, a rock solid midsection and a neutral neck position. Here is how it should look.

So there you have it – the push-up. Do them often and do them right (I should put that on a t-shirt..).