Monthly Archives: July 2010

I was reading an article the other day about the amazing lengths that Tour de France competitor Team Sky went to in order to prepare their riders for what is undoubtedly one of the most arduous challenges in all sports.

Sports science plays a key role in how the team approaches nutrition, fitness and equipment. Sky are the only Tour de France competitor to have appointed a dedicated Head of Apparel to the team. According to his calculations each cyclist’s clothes can hold up to 1 kilo of water (rain or sweat) and he has worked to produce clothing that can limit this effect. As a result riders have a choice of two different gloves and helmet to wear, with one of the helmets giving them an advantage of 1 second per kilometre due to its ‘closed vent’ design.

Bradley Wiggins of Team Sky

Nutrition is not left to chance either and the team has its own chef, providing each rider with a customised nutrition plan. Hotel food is absolutely not on the menu and the team controls each morsel of food which passes the riders’ lips. Hotel beds are also not required – they bring their own, along with pillows duvets and sheets. That means the riders get to curl up every night in their own bed, even if it is not in their own bedroom.

Team Sky’s goal here is obviously to get an edge over their competition. At this level of racing all the riders are insanely talented and train as hard as possible. It’s the little things that separate the guys at the very top.

Down at the level at the weekend warrior, there is very little need to focus on such tiny performance details. Nonetheless, sometimes we can get caught up in the latest equipment, nutrition and even technological advances, which can often lead to a paralysis by analysis scenario.

I heard that x powerlifter or y strongman is doing the latest Russian squat routine – do I need to be doing that too?  Am I taking enough creatine every day, or should I add some BCAAs to my post workout shake? Should I go for a 40/30/30 macronutrient (carbohydrate/protein/fat) in my diet, or would I benefit more from 20/40/40? I definitely need a heart rate monitor because I have to make sure I am working at 70%, not 65% of my max heart rate.

"I just can't decide whether I need 45 or 55 grams of protein in my post workout shake to synthesise maximum fat loss."

The above is all minutae. If you are a top level athlete then maybe you need to look at those things. If you have reached all your goals then maybe you need to delve more into the little things. However, for most of us worrying about tiny details usually means we forget the big picture and the basic building blocks for success.

If you have all the below issues in place and are progressing as planned, then you can start worrying about the details. Otherwise, focus on the basics, be consistent, train hard and you will reach your goals.

Sleep

This is one of the biggies that most people completely ignore. The key here is both quantity and quality How much is enough? According to T.S. Wiley, the author of “Lights Out! Sleep, Sugar and Survival”, 9.5 hours per night. Now that might be a bit difficult in terms of fitting in other commitments like family and work. Robb Wolff has a nice saying here, which goes something like “get as much sleep as possible, without getting fired or divorced”.

Sleep quality is also very important. Ideally, your bedroom should be completely pitch black. That means no light from outside and no digitial alarm clocks or mobile phones with bright screens in the room.

The idea of increasing sleep is in line with evolutionary biology (similarly to the Paleo diet) and our ancestors whose sleep patterns followed the rising and setting sun. According to Wiley, increased sleep can help weight loss, curb carbohydrate cravings, eradicate depression, lower blood pressure and stress levels, reverse type II diabetes, minimise risk of heart disease and help prevent cancer. Not bad for an investment of 9.5 hours per day (and yes, naps also count).

There is no doubt that lack of sleep will derail efforts in the gym, particularly with regards to fat loss goals. Here is an interesting sleep experiment from Dan John, with convincing results.

Not a conducive condition for hitting your fitness goals

Nutrition

Nutrition is definitely a huge subject, and a quick surf around the web will reveal hundreds of phliosophies and plans, all of which are touted as the best for optimal health and physical performance.

Personally, I like to keep things as simple as possible. Eat real food. Anything which has four legs, swims in the sea or river and grows out of the ground is fair game. Anything which has more than 1 major ingredient, or anything that you either cannot pronounce or have no idea what it is (think things like monocalcium phosphate or polysorbate 60) is not.

Delicious? Maybe. Real Food? Absolutely not!

Once again, consistency is the key. If you consistently eat processed foods and junk, your results in the gym will be compromised. As with sleep, fat loss in particular will be completely derailed by a bad diet. If you must have some comfort food, limit it to once per twice per week.

Stress

Stress can be a seriously limiting factor when trying to achive any body composition or performance goals. Stress leads to the secretion of cortisol in the body from the adrenal glands. Cortisol is also known as the “fight or flight” hormone which kicks in when you are faced with stressful situations.

Chronic stress, however, means the adrenal glands work overtime in producing cortisol. Among other problems, high levels of cortisol can lead to:

• Decreased bone density
• Decrease in muscle tissue
• Higher blood pressure
• Increased abdominal fat

Exercise can also be a stressor on the body and too much exercise or workouts that can last too long can also lead to elevated cortisol levels. So while it is fun and challenging every now and then to take on a 25-minute plus CrossFit metcon beatdown, it should not be a part of your regular training.

Reducing stress of course is no easy feat, especially in today’s modern world of mobile phones, internet and around the clock communication. Some interesting research recently from Brigham Young University reviewed 148 studies that tracked the social habits of more than 300,000 people. The findings were that those with strong social networks of friends and family had a 50% lower risk of dying than those with less social ties. They went so far as to suggest that having few social ties could be as harmful to health as smoking a packet of cigarettes a day or being an alcoholic.

You might not be able to avoid the everyday stresses of the work place or an idiot boss, but spend your time with family and a cool group of friends and this can go a long way to allieviating those cortisol levels.

Goals

This is an absolute basic part of both body composition and fitness. If you don’t have any goals, you will never get anywhere. Likewise, if you don’t record your weights, times etc, you will never know if you are getting better.

Going into the gym and deciding on the spur of the moment to poodle around on a few machines with a few bicep curls and some cardio thrown in is not training, it’s wasting time. Every time you go into the gym you should know exactly what you want to achieve.

Have some goals and join a decent gym

Having goals means getting specific. I want to get strong, or I want to lose weight is not a goal. I want to squat 150kgs or I want to lose 8cm off my waist is a goal. Again, that is where the measurement comes in. Is your squat increasing with every session, is your waist size decreasing? If yes, great, if not maybe it is time to assess your program or take an honest look and see if you properly followed your plan for the week.

There is an argument to be made that for those who just want to “get in shape” or sweat a bit, there is no need to worry about goals. That is of course ok, and a general physical preparedness program like CrossFit is the perfect fit. Nonetheless I would always recommend that people set goals as it makes training much more fun and rewarding.  

Exercise

This is of course a no-brainer, but a lot of people get it wrong. Join a decent gym (please, please, please not Silhouette, Holmes Place or Curves!!!), have a smart, well thought out program and stick with it! It’s easy to fall into the trap of jumping from program to program and not really achieving anything, I’ve certainly been there.

If you can, find a decent trainer *cough, cough CrossFit Leman in Gland* a bunch of friends who want to train with you, or failing that, go ask the strongest, fittest guy in your gym for advice.

So there you have it. Remember that you are not a pro cyclist or athlete of any kind so leave the advanced protocols for them. Keep it simple, consistent and measurable and there is no reason why you can’t achieve your goals.

Good movement is an absolute essential part of health, wellbeing and perhaps more importantly (at least for me), ball-bustingly impressive performance in the gym. As someone who has documented his own shortcomings in this area, learning about and improving human movement has become something of a passion of mine. 

But what does good movement actually mean? For my purposes, good movement means having good range of motion around the major joints (shoulders, hips, knees and ankles). In this context, good range of motion means being able to squat, deadlift and press without any restrictions or form breaks. 

If you can perform a deep overhead squat maintaining the bar over your head and a neutral spine position, you are also primed to not only exercise safely, but produce optimum amounts of strength and power (i.e. be a complete badass in the gym). 

If you can do this with your bodyweight for 15 reps, you're already a certified badass

Unfortunately, most people spend the majority of their time in the below position. 

Spending our days seated, often with shoulders hunched forward tapping away on a computer is not a good way to maintain mobility. Most people who come to CrossFit Leman, especially the guys, have some kind of restrictions either at the hip, knee or shoulder and sometimes all three. 

Tackling poor mobility is as important as getting that first pull-up, deadlifting 2.5 times your bodyweight or reducing your Fran time to sub 5-minutes. Unfortuantely, it is nowhere near as fun as any of the above goals and possibly more painful, yes even more so than Fran. Nonetheless, in athletes with poor mobility, improving restriction can result in dramatic increases in performance and that is something we can all relate to. 

There are many strategies to improve mobility from different forms of stretching (static, active), dynamic movements and getting a good massage from a sports therapist. All have a place in the toolbox for tackling poor mobility, but what I want to talk about today is foam rolling. 

Foam rolling is a form of self myofascial release (SMR). SMR works by stimulating the Golgi Tendon Organ, a mechanoreceptor in the muscle-tendon attachment which is responsible for protecting muscles from injury. SMR also helps to rid muscles of trigger points, areas of muscle which are over stimulated and unable to release from their contracted state. 

A good analogy is thinking about a muscle being like a rubber band with a knot in the middle (to represent the knots, or trigger points in our muscles). Every time you stretch that rubber band, the knot will get tighter. That is what happens in our muscles when they contract through movement. 

Trigger points are often sore to touch, which is why foam rolling can be painful initially. 

For a much more detailed overview of how SMR works, check out this article. 

I have been foam rolling now for a few months and it has made a huge difference in my training. It can be painful, although peversely enough I have come to quite enjoy the pain, but it really helps to loosen me up and is a vital part of my movement preparation before I train. 

One of the great things about foam rolling is there is no right and wrong. You just roll over any sore areas in any direction you want, and try to focus for 20-30 seconds on any tender spots. 

Here is a great video on how to use the foam roller. 

In terms of where to buy them in Switzerland, mostly you can find them in shops which sell yoga gear. Here are a few online options.

Stone Sports Nutrition
Sport-Tiedje
Amazon

An even more low maintenance option is to use a tennis ball. The tennis ball helps to target problem areas more efficiently than the roller and really gets right to those sore areas.

Below are two outstanding videos from Kelly Starrett on how to use the tennis ball to loosen up tight muscles. 

I think everyone should incorporate some form of foam rolling into their preparation/recovery regimes. But if you have some mobility problems or restrictions, there is absolutely no excuse not to try it and see if it has any positive effects.

I’m an unashamed basher of commercial gyms, especially the ones in Switzerland. I just don’t believe that they offer the kind of atmosphere conducive to getting fit. Most trainers who work in these places are able to do little more than show you how to use the machines. If they write you a program, it will probably consist of the standard 3 sets of 10 reps at several weight machines, followed by 20 minutes of cardio on the treadmill. You should follow that program for the next 18 months, which will no doubt lead to little progress and much frustration.

Yes, commercial gyms have nice machines, treadmills with tv screens and jacuzzis and saunas. All those things are well and good if that is what you want, but they offer precious little in the type of equipment need to get fit and strong. Barbells, power racks, kettlebells, chin-up bars and good old fashioned floor space are in short supply, and as for intensity, forget about it.

Unfortunately most people who go to these places are unaware that there are much better options for getting in shape. Not only are they cheaper, more readily available and more fun – they are right on our doorstep. I’m talking of course about training outside. There are a myriad of different bodyweight exercises that can be done anywhere, and most parks in Switzerland also have playground equipment that can also be used for exercise.

Add some other cheap and portable items like a skipping rope and rings and the workout possibilities are endless.

Here are some examples of exercises that you can do at any park. All of these exercises can be scaled and below you will find different progressions based on your own fitness levels.

A quick disclaimer on the below video and the demo of the squat. Please don’t try to imitate my form! As I have extensively documented before on this blog, I have horrific hip mobility due to a malformed hip joint. That is why my back is not straight at the bottom of the squat – please don’t imitate this and keep your back straight!

The above exercises are just a dip in the ocean and other simple options where no equipment is necessary are burpees, broad jumps, lunges, bear crawls, handstands, forward/backward rolls, planks etc etc. If you want a really good fat loss workout, throw in some short sprints.

Rather than separating strength and cardio, combine them a la CrossFit. Try 5 rounds of 60m sprint, 10 body rows and 10 push-ups and see if that doesn’t test your strength and cardiovascular system. It will also test your mental strength and how long you can put up with that kind of pain.

There is no right and wrong to putting together a great workout on your own. Incorporate any of the exercises above, watch your form, ratchet up the intensity and keep it short and sweet. Set the clock for 10 minutes and do as many rounds of 10 lunges and 10 burpees as possible. What about swimming? Last time I checked Geneva had a large, accessible lake, another great option to potentially add to a workout. The options are endless, get creative, get outside and get training!