This may help.

Something I see often in today`s fitness industry all to often is "experts" trying to create dependency on them from clients. That makes sense in a way, I get it. Someone has grown reliant on them and therefore keeps giving them money to keep seeing them for the service or product. As I write that I can't help but think this is a parallel to a drug dealer and a junkie (in a small way). To me though it seems a little short sighted. Why? Because this industry should not be about a dependency being created, it should be about educating and creating someone that can do it on there own. Now I am not saying you need to get a degree and so on but you should understand the why's and how's just as much as the whats. Many fitness gurus advertise products and services like ,"get shredded abs in seconds", or ,"get the body you have always wanted in X days". It seems to work, these people are making money. Let us conclude that a person pays the money and does the course and is successful. What happens if they get injured and take 3 months off and put on weight and lose the "shredded abs"? They do the course again? What if they can't or they can't afford it? Well it may be a struggle to get back those "abs". What I am saying is that knowledge is power. If you go and see a personal trainer, exercise physiologist or a strength and conditioning coach they are a product of knowledge and experience. For me I want to share some resources that may help you. If tomorrow I woke up and everyone was fit, healthy and chronic disease free I think I'd be happy about that. To be clear some of these resources I used long before going to get a formal education in the fitness field and some I picked up whilst at university.

First one I will point out is Starting Strengthby Mark Rippetoe. If you are starting as a beginner and want to get strong this is a good place to start. If you are reading this thanks to Reddit, Starting Strength has a big following on there. Rippetoe is a smart guy and the keep it simple approach works really well. No BS just a decent book with a decent program that makes compound movements and the barbell king. Now I am not going to get into a deep review of this or anything merely suggest some resources that may help.

Now if you are thinking of going the Crossfit route for fitness. Becoming a supple leopard is a book you should read. Dr Kelly Starret breaks down the "standards" of Crossfit but even more important is the way he tells you that if you can't achieve movement A you shouldn't try movement B until you can achieve X. That is important to me and it helps give some prescription help and knowledge to remember for yourself. Even better though is if you can't get into a position due to a mobility issues he gives out methods to improve that issue.

If you haven't heard that kettlebells are all the rage or you have and you want to get into it. I have written in the past about how my grandparents bought me my first KB (kettlebell)here. I haven't looked back. In order to learn about using a KB though I needed help. I found Mike Mahler's training dvd. I really enjoy kettlebells they are a different but accessible pieces of equipment. If you can't afford a barbell or gym membership a KB may be the answer.

I think the last resource I will talk about is the internet. Granted there are a lot of people selling snake oil but you can now learn anatomy for free via Youtube which I encourage you to do. You don't have to be Bones to have some knowledge about how your own body works. So do some research and be diligent. After all ,Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

Disclaimer: If you do buy any of the above mentioned resources I do receive some income off of it. If you choose to go elsewhere to find it cheaper that is fine as long as you are learning.

Sometimes we fall down but we have to get back up.

Life sometimes throws us obstacles. Now some call it an act of god, some say just chance, I say it’s an opportunity be it a well disguised one. Well, life has thrown me an obstacle. I recently was playing a game of volleyball. Whilst contesting a ball I jumped up to hit the ball back over the net and at the same time someone else on the other side jumped to stop me. He came down first I came down second and landed on his foot. In basketball this term is called a “broke ankle” and well for me whilst not being a broken ankle it was no party. So I left the court and sat down, I could barely walk, somebody got me some ice and I iced it for the rest of the game. When I left I put my shoe back on and laced it tight. I needed to add some compression. Now I figured since I could sort of walk on it, I didn’t see a doctor right away. I got home and did the usual first aid. I spent hours with it elevated and iced. It was beginning to swell. To add to matter, I had a friend's 30th birthday dinner to go to. Whilst at this dinner it was a buffet so I had to make a walk a couple of times. Over the next few days I limited the amount of walking I was doing. And like DOMS (delayed onset of muscle soreness) it got worse on the second day. Swollen, bruised and reduced range of motion. At one stage I had a sack of fluid on the top of my foot that would jiggle when I walked.

So it has taken a few weeks for the bruising to reduce and the swelling is still present. I have seen a doctor and luckily there appears to be no ligament damage or fractures. I have it pressure bandaged up and if you have an ankle issue they can be a handy thing to have. I also have access to a ankle brace and I will recommend it to patients that have a chronic injury, but I want them to always move towards not wearing it so all the tissues get stronger. But here is the kicker to this article I am not writing to share some soppy story. You see, this is an obstacle for me but I have training on about how to handle this. Some people would use this as an excuse I won’t be. So I can’t put weight on that ankle, but my other leg works and so does the rest of me. This is the real crux of this article some people find excuses and sometimes they are legitimate, but my ankle injury is not an excuse to not exercise or begin to eat junk and say why me.

People create pros and cons to the situation, I’d prefer to look at the pros of this situation. I could have no leg, it could have been blown off. I have options to work with. You know, what if I didn’t have university education and experience to back it up I would still be looking at ways I could progress. The difference isn’t in how much I know or how much you know. It is about how you approach the obstacle you are confronted with. Weight loss, injury and many other things with a small reframe of the situation we can see the positives and benefits we can take from this obstacle and create a opportunity from an obstacle.

Never fear the talented

Have you ever seen that person who seems to be able to do anything really well? Like the universe has given them something special. I know I have. These people seem to breeze through life and things just fall into place. They can do anything easy and eat anything with no repercussions. Many will say “they are lucky”, or “they are talented” or “they have great genes”. I have had heard people at various competitions say “oh that person is so talented”, and they’re right. What I have noticed is often people that are talented seem to lack a key characteristic to true success. I am talking about persistence. Now I am not saying talent doesn`t count, just look at the Williams sisters, they are talented and hardworking. Granted they seem to be able to work less to accomplish more but they have also been persisting their whole lives at tennis so the line could blur between talent and persistence.

For the most part though persistence and effort will triumph over talent. Often I see talented people fall by the wayside because it comes to easy so they don`t appreciate what they are doing. You may point out various people and situations that are different. To the everyday human persistence is what counts. I have two degrees and various other qualifications. I have been lucky to be born into a situation where I could access that opportunity. It took persistence and effort to achieve those things and come out the other side once I took advantage of the opportunity. This applies to almost everything in life. We cannot choose where we are born but we can choose to a large degree what we do about our situation thereafter. Often when people fail something be it a diet or a training plan we look to blame some outside force. Whilst there may be some truth to their excuse for the most part the onus lies with that person. Like getting financially independent it takes persistence and effort. Having a long lasting relationship takes persistence and effort. Having a healthy body and active lifestyle takes persistence and effort.

What is persistence and effort? It means trying and keep moving forward. Some days things won`t come easy or most days they won`t. That doesn`t mean quit and make excuses. That’s the time to persist and put in the effort. They are times that count and you grow. I can tell you I thought about giving up and I have been lucky to have a partner support me and tell me to remember who I am. Who I want to be. Do you want to be that person that quit and didn`t get what they wanted and blamed someone else or pointed to the talented person because they did it easy. Don`t be that person, never fear the talented and persist, persist, persist.

Ain`t No Mountain High Enough

So my 30th birthday approaches shortly and I am frequently asked if I feel old or am I scared of getting older? Do I feel old? No, not at all. Am I scared of being thirty? Off course not. I am however scared of not achieving more, I feel like I haven`t quite achieved enough yet in my lifetime. You see my birthday follows closely to my anniversary. Generally my partner and I go away to celebrate to different and sometimes random locations. This year was no different as we both visited an area neither of us have been.

Where we stayed there were two nearby national parks. So on our first free day we decided to go on a hike. When we arrived I saw the very aptly named “the pyramid” through the trees. A mountain made of granite with its large tip bare of any trees. Once we gathered a limited understanding of some very crude maps we sighted the trail and began walking. From the beginning I wanted to climb to the top of it. I have had quite a bit of experience climbing indoors/outdoors and bouldering so I felt comfortable with the idea. The trail itself was 1.6km (1mile) long which is nothing to walk at all. But at the same time the trail also ascends to 1200m (3/4 mile). So in a word the trail gets steep and my partner is as good at climbing hills as I am at swimming. (Which would make sense to you if you read my previous posts and knew just how terrible I was at swimming). Now really this was a challenge for her. We had to stop a few times to allow her to get comfortable with the height and steepness of the trail we were walking. I thought that she was going to turn back at one stage early on, but after a few minutes she had become comfortable and we went up further.

Now this trail ascends through forest, brush and bush with giant granite boulders and formations protruding randomly from the earth. Then we came to a clear area which was the base of the climb to the top of “The Pyramid”. At this point my partner chose to stay at the base where she would take photos of the view at 960m (3149ft). She didn’t feel comfortable with the steep terrain combined with the bare granite that she felt wouldn’t grip. I took off up the mountain which quickly began to slow me down as it was getting steeper fast. I was guided by a track marked with spray paint every few metres.

As I ascended I went through a channel of granite and passed two fathers with their two young children. On the way up we passed a teenage couple and they told us there is a section that is a “bit slippery”. Granite has lots of grip when dry but when it is wet it`s dangerously slippery. I went through the channel and took some photos of lizards that lived up there. I came to a section with some running water and then I began to traverse the outside of some granite to try and follow the marked trail. The recommended trail began to slope off to one side where there was a shear drop. The ground was too slippery and my feet stumbled. I managed to steady myself and decided that there must be a better way. So I climbed over the granite boulder and through some trees. I came across a couple with the boyfriend trying to get around the outside like me. “I told him and his girlfriend about the safer route I took. They went that way and I passed them.

As continued on I found myself pausing as it was getting very steep and I couldn’t help but wonder how I was going to get back down. I was scared and my heart was pounding. I told myself I was going to get down and I had no option but to continue. I had come this far I might as well see the top. I took control of my breathing and relaxed. The trail corkscrews up clockwise and I climbed some boulders and got to the top. I couldn`t see my partner so I had to crab walk down the face so I could see her. She took my photo and I began to make my way back. The air was getting cold and the clouds looked dark. I knew I had to get off of this rock. As I made my way down I had to crab crawl again just before the slippery section. It was at this point I had originally seen the two fathers with their kids. They had gone through the same trail I did to avoid the slippery section. One father got down like I did as we passed and crab crawled. I went back down and hung onto the channel to stop me getting to much speed. It began to rain when I reached the base. Two wives/mothers were sitting at the bottom waiting for their husbands. I said “you should call your family back it could get really dangerous”, luckily they had already done it.Really it was to dangerous to have young children on that trail. I caught up to my partner and we started to head back down. By now it was pouring. We tried to hide under an overhanging rock but we were already soaked so we thought we will just continue. We decided to walk a few other tracks, taking photos and enjoying the rain as we went. We were worried about the people on the mountain and wondered if they had gotten off safely. I had no climbing gear to help them if they did get stuck I would be little use. Turns out when we got back to the car after our hour ,3.5 km detour they had just managed to get down from the mountain. They has some scratches but were ok. I felt relived.

Now it turned out whilst I was on the mountain trail my partner had climbed up even higher. It was something I hadn’t realized with all the excitement until we were reflecting on the photos later. Alone and eager to try she inched up using the same method of step by step weaving through the limited rock formations she could find to help her feel comfortable with the steep terrain. It reminded me of a thought I had when I was sitting on the mountain top. Fitness is often like that day, it is a hard slog to get up there and it can be risky or painful but it is worth it. We got soaked that day but both my partner and I could`ve quit and turned back at any time. Neither of us made excuses we just took one step at a time. My partner really did a great job and she seemed really happy with herself. I am very proud of her because I know how big of a challenge it was. That makes me happy when someone persists and achieves and off course you can do that to. Just persist and try and it will be worth it.

You don`t need all that jazz.

So I am a bit ADHD, I lose interest in things or get distracted. Exercise is no exception to this, so every 4-6 weeks I change up my training program. Now it may be small changes, such as variations of the exercises I am doing. Sometimes I do a re think and change the whole thing. Now over the years I have acquired a fair bit of equipment and I will try to train different things. So for one block of training since I have kettlebells I do kettlebell training. I also have a weight set and for a block after that I might do a barbell block or use both pieces of equipment. To be honest, I have a bunch of equipment, but really the number one thing I have is my mind and my body. I don’t mean calisthenics necessarily either, I am talking about using my mind to lead my body. Recently I made some paralette bars out of pvc.

This piece of equipment is used to perform various gymnastic moves. I thought I would like to challenge myself and do something different. To be honest, I thought it would be easier to use these bars due to the helpful grip component and try out some moves. Turns out not so easy and to be honest, I kind of like that. It challenges me and it highlighted some areas I could improve. They were cheap to make too. I made them for $31 and about 30mins worth of time. That’s the thing I want to highlight in this article is that really it is your mind and your body that you are training and to be honest, if my equipment disappeared, I`d be upset but at the same token I don`t have to have equipment. You probably don`t either, seems when people make the choice to start exercising they have to get the latest gym wear and awesome shoes, etc. To be honest you don`t have to have all that kind of stuff. I was told that exercise cost too much. I suggested to this person 1. Could they afford to be unhealthy? 2. Exercise can be free or low cost. I built my paralette bars and many pieces of equipment many pieces are cheap or free. Really, it is about being creative if you have two buckets you could fill them with water and lift them up. You can use furniture or logs or a wheelbarrow or walk home from shopping and every time you stop do a different exercise move.

Exercise is about being creative and improving your health. It isn`t about the latest gym wear or shoes and we need to remember that when we put up barriers to exercise. Children are great exercisers and they are very creative many times using the world around them. Could you find ways to exercise using the world around you relatively cheap or free?

Stick it to me

Do you like to have people smoking near you? I don`t. Do you like people with the flu, coughing near you and spreading their germs? I don`t. Do you like to drive your car without wearing a seatbelt and risk crashing? I don`t. If you become remotely offended in this article I really don`t care, but please think about your position before you attack me. You see I am confused, I am confused about why there is a movement towards not protecting humans against a long time enemy we have fought long and hard against for our survival. I am talking about disease.

Now I don`t know about you but I am vaccinated against a variety of diseases. Many of these jabs were not my choice but that of my parents. They exercised their parental rights to get me vaccinated just as they did when they made me wear a seatbelt in the car or a helmet when I rode a bike. Now in my opinion, these three things are all very similar. Each of them are designed to be preventative measures against insult to our body. It was also widely accepted back then that vaccinations like wearing a helmet was a safe way to protect your children. Now it appears the argument is vaccinations cause a variety of adverse reactions. I do wish to side note that many of these adverse reactions are extremely rare and the evidence that is relied on by many anti-vaccinators is a paper that has long been discredited and settlements in court about adverse reactions that have been taken out of context. People are now moving towards vaccinations being the boogie man that hurt people.

Now I am curious if any of these people were around when Polio was a big killer? I am also curious if they are vaccinated themselves? I wonder if these people are truly aware that the decisions they make affect people and populations around them. The recent Measles outbreak that has occurred is great evidence. Measles is no joke and neither is Polio or many other diseases. They argue it is their right to not vaccinate their child and send them to school. Do they drive their cars whilst their child is unrestrained? I am not arguing about what these people’s rights are but I am arguing about the general population’s right to be as protected as possible from disease, which on the whole is due in a large part to vaccinations. They seem to argue that it is ok to risk a child under 6 months who can`t be vaccinated. Not so much with words, but by merely having their child or them around to potentially pass on a disease show that they are ok with the risk. It is the definition of arrogance in my opinion. It is a misguided sense that it will never happen to me or my child.

Now I generally write about fitness and health. I get that this is an opinion piece, but it is an opinion based on common sense. We use to say, well it is survival of the fittest, but the game has changed. Humans have worked long and hard to reduce risks to our lives and that is part of the reason why our species flourish. It is simple for me there is no point writing about exercise or health if our lives were like they were 40 000 years ago, it wouldn`t matter. Things would not be like they are now without seat belts, helmets and vaccinations. I`ll leave you with this thought, millions of cars are driven and they pose a risk of accident and death. A seat belt makes a significant difference in survivability, but some people do suffer whiplash. Ask them if they preferred to crash without a seatbelt, the answer is obvious. So I ask how many outbreaks do we need to have before people start wearing their “seat belts”.

It’s not how hard you train but how well you recover

The last post was about sleep and how we don’t get enough. In this article I mentioned how important sleep is for recovery. If you haven’t heard yet, you don’t build muscle or get stronger when you are training/working out. After we have challenged our body, it improves various tissues and abilities to try and cope the next time it is challenged. So hitting the gym every day for 3 hours and working hard to work towards your goal, without adequate rest may be the reason you are feeling tired all the time and just feel crap. There is good news once you have identified the problem you can fix it. But what if you are still feeling sore and just seem to struggle? Well, there are various recovery methods that can be used and many are cheap that can help aid your body's recovery.

Firstly, just want to cover some quick information, muscle soreness often occurs 1-3 days after a big session this is known as DOMS (delayed onset of muscle soreness). If you are not sore after a session that doesn’t mean your body isn’t healing to get you, “them gains”. Something you should know our muscles will recover quicker than our neurological system. If this is new to you, let me explain, your muscles are the engine and the ignition system if your neurological system. Basically, your nervous system governs how much your muscles can give. The neurological system can take much longer to return to 100%.

So what can we do to aid the body to recover? Well, we have talked about sleep already. But there are other methods. The first one is just as, if not more important than exercise, it`s nutrition. The pre and post nutrition intake can make a big difference. Depending on what kind of exercise you are doing can dictate what kind of foods you could be eating. If it is intensive try to stay away from anything that can lead to an upset stomach or something that will be terrible if you vomit. Try to have a pre-workout meal about 1.5 hours before exercise this may mitigate the risk of vomiting. The pre workout meal helps provide the nutrients to fuel the workout and improve performance. As for the post workout meal, try to get your meal within 30 minutes after you train. Now this isn’t a hard rule but research has shown that 30 minutes after a session the body is at the optimal state to absorb the most nutrients to aid recovery. I`d recommend a pre-prepped meal for easy access with some protein and carbs. Also in the coming days, research shows that taking about 20-30g of protein every couple of hours can help keep the protein synthesis fires burning. So taking a heap of protein in one go may not be ideal.

So let’s talk water. Not hydration I assume you are doing this and I won`t go into depth about how important hydration is for recovery. But there other ways we can use water to improve our recovery. Firstly, the contrast shower, we use hot and cold water in an alternating fashion. This helps the body relax and begin the recovery process. I have seen multiple protocols for this, I personally use a 2mins hot and a minute’s cold. I repeat this for about 10 minutes. I will caution this can be tough as the cold feels really cold. I do contrast showers if I can’t get to a pool. I love to use the pool for recovery. When coming home from weightlifting training I jump straight into the pool and I begin to do some walking forwards and backwards, leg swings, arm swings, etc. Try to use movement that use muscles you have worked during your session. The cool water of the pool helps return the body back to a normal temperature state and relax the nervous system. The hydrostatic pressure of the water helps with muscle swelling (edema). An Epsom salt bath can be handy as well. The magnesium helps the muscle soreness and recovery and helps relax the nervous system. Dissolve about 500g into a hot bath and relax. Do not do this if you have high blood pressure or kidney issues.

Now back on dry land there are some key things we can do. The warm down is the biggest one. It helps the body works out metabolites built up from training and helps relax the body. After a weightlifting session I like to go for a 30min walk this way I get some recovery and I cover the exercise guidelines of moderate cardiovascular exercise. Now if you don’t have time for that, a simple 5min jog or a 5 minute walk followed by some stretching may be fine. Stretching is something we all should be doing be it around our exercise or just when we are in front of the TV. Stretching and yoga can help ease DOMs and relax us before bed. We can also do some self-massage of our muscles as well as this aids blood flow and helps relax our muscles like stretching. You can use a foam roller and all those instruments of release if you like.

The most important part of the recovery protocols I think is about returning the body back to its normal state and using blood flow to get nutrients to tissues that need it. It will relax the nervous system so the body can get to 100% regeneration mode. Try some of these out and see how they work for you. Get back to me in the comment section about what you like and dislike. I am still thinking of ideas for an online course. Contact me with what you would like to see.