Have you got what it takes?

Have you got what it takes?

It has been said, that if you spend an average of six hours a week in the gym that you are considered an athlete. This statement is somewhat true but, if you intend on being a high level athlete six hours is just a beginning.

Six hours is much more than the average fitness buff spends on a fitness routine but again, if we look at an elite track athlete’s program or swimmer they have training programs that have them in the pool or at the track around four hours a day, and this does not include gym time.

As the Olympics and the Paralympics have come to an end, I want to give everyone an idea of the complexities involved in a training program for a high level athlete. Programming for an athlete involves many different training goals and each must somehow be incorporated into a program. Each program must be designed to have the athlete’s performance peak at a specific time. The program must allow for proper nutrition, recovery and must have the proper stimulus to create a positive adaptation.

We must remember that training is a stress; this stress is designed to create an adaptation. Hopefully the stress is enough to create a positive adaptation and not a negative one. Too much stress in the form of intensity or volume can have some very negative side effects. Some of these negative side effects include insomnia, irritability, loss of appetite, soreness in the muscles that lingers, injuries and more.

Along with an extensive training regime there must be a nutritional plan.

Nutritional planning for an athlete is no small task. Some nutritionists have made quit lucrative businesses in designing nutrition programs for athletes. Each person’s program is tailored to their specific needs for calorie intake, carbohydrate content, protein needs, recovery, and supplementation. Nutrition for an athlete is an ongoing process.

The program often needs to be fine tuned at different times of the training cycle depending on the athlete’s performance and adaptation to the stimulus. The issue of supplementation is one that often needs to be addressed. Top level athletes do not have the convenience of using many of the high tech supplements for fear they may contain any of the hundreds of banned substances. Most of them usually stick to the basic protein powders and electrolyte based sports drinks. But a good nutritionist will often recommend things like fish oil which will help the tendons and ligaments as well as the joints! 

Sport specific training programs must allow for many factors including, power, strength, speed, agility, coordination, quickness, flexibility, muscular endurance, aerobic capacity and aerobic endurance. The science of training cycles is called Periodization and is very complex and is beyond the scope of this article. The basic idea is the athletes program is broken into four different cycles. The cycles are designed to allow the athlete to achieve the many diverse factors needed to compete at an elite level.

Often athletes are training an average of four to six hours a day, six or seven days a week, with training sessions broken up over the day. The four main cycles are as follows; the “Pre-Season”, “On Season”, “Post Season”, and “Active Recovery” cycles. The basics of each cycle is something like this, the” pre-season” is designed to develop the athlete’s base in strength, power, endurance or cardiovascular base and this is where most of the heavy weight training is done. As the season approaches the exercises are transformed to more sport specific movements and we begin to add agility and coordination drills into the program. Flexibility and speed specific work are ongoing throughout the cycle.

During the “on-season” cycle the program is geared towards maintaining the athletes’ strength, power, endurance etc. Now, if at any time one or more of these factors begin to diminish we will add a micro-cycle or mini cycle of “pre-season” training into the mix to give the athlete a quick jolt.

As the season draws to a close we hope the athlete has not sustained any injuries.  But, if this is the case, then referral to the proper medical personal is the next step. Once the athlete has been rehabilitated we begin the final cycle called “active recovery”. The “active recovery” cycle is where the athlete remains active but is not training at a high intensity. Usually, the athlete will go swimming, ride their bike, do light jogs etc. The duration varies but is usually 2 to 4 weeks. The cycles then begin back at the “Pre season” cycle. Anyone who plays a sport, whether for fun or at a competitive level can make valuable use of Periodization.

As you can see the work involved in becoming an elite athlete is quite daunting!

The athletes must train, diet, work a regular job, and promote themselves and their sport.

All of which is done in a typical day where most of us will work 8 hrs and go home.

As a professional strength and conditioning consultant and athlete I have an in depth look at what it takes to get to the highest level of mental and physical conditioning and let me say that one out of a hundred people has what it takes. We call them champions!!

Our athletes deserve our respect, gratitude, and applause for the tremendous task they have before them.

To all our Olympic and Paralympic Athletes;

“WE ARE PROUD OF YOU, GOOD LUCK, BRING HOME THE GOLD!!!”

Until next time be fit and stay strong!

Peter J. Morel C.F.C, C.I.C, C.P.T.

President

TopShape Fitness Consulting

www.topshapeinc.com

Keeping a Fitness Regime While on Winter Vacation

Winter is often travel time for many people.

I often get the question, “How should I exercise while on holidays”?

While there are no simple answers, the question remains a difficult one for most.

My recommendations differ from person to person depending on that client’s motivation, level of fitness and whether or not they really enjoy exercise.

You see, even though you’re on vacation your fitness is not. You need to workout in order to maintain your current level of fitness. Now, if you are a person who likes to exercise, you will probably make the effort to find a gym in the town or city your visiting and get your workouts done.

Now, if you’re like most people and find exercise boring or difficult, you probably won’t go out of your way to get it done especially on your holiday. Fortunately, there are some simple ways to get exercise in and not regress.

Simple body weight exercises such as push ups, sit ups or crunches as well as chair squats, split squats, lunges etc; are an excellent way to keep fit while away. All of these exercises can be done with absolutely no equipment right in your hotel room.  For a few dollars, you can also pick up some resistance tubes at any local exercise equipment store. With these exercise bands you can do a full body workout with resistance. Just toss them in your suite case and away you go.

Now, the goal while on holiday is to maintain your level of fitness and not regress. You need to maintain your level of strength, flexibility and cardiovascular fitness.

The most difficult aspect of fitness to maintain is the cardiovascular fitness. Cardio fitness is lost the quickest once you stop exercising. In order to maintain it you will need to do some sort of cardiovascular activity. This can be either a jog in the morning, a bike ride around town, or maybe swim some laps in the hotel pool. You can play some tag football in the park with the kids or a friendly game of soccer on the beach.

Always remember to limber up before playing any sports with some light stretches.

You can do a full body stretch before and after your activity and this will also help maintain flexibility.

Diet is equally important; you need to keep on top of this. We tend to over eat and drink on holidays. Each alcoholic beverage ingested is about 150 – 200 calories and that equates to 30 minutes on the treadmill. So I recommend that if you are going to drink, focus on the diet and watch what you eat.  Being on holiday’s is not a cart blanche to eat anything at anytime. Eat well; get plenty of fruits and vegetables, they’re often easy to find in tropical places.

Also, fish and chicken are fairly prevalent in most holiday locations. Pay attention to how it’s prepared and go with grilled and broiled instead of fried. Easy on the deserts and be careful of calorie laden baked goods.

You worked very hard to get fit; don’t go ruining it in a week, stay focused!

Let’s review the basics.

1. Get some form of resistance exercise in. Body weight exercise or use a resistance aid of some sort.

2. Get some form of cardiovascular exercise. Make it fun be it a competitive game of tennis or a fun game of tag football or a simple jog.

3. Stretch, before and after any activity.

4. Watch your intake of alcohol and be aware of your diet.

Follow these simple rules while on holiday and you will maintain your level of fitness and not end up having to start from scratch when you get back.

Until next time, stay fit and be strong.

Peter J. Morel CFC, CPT, CAFS

Managing Partner

TopShape Inc.

Checklist for Body Transformation

Dietary Checklist 

    5-6 meals a day

• Burn more calories through increased meal frequency (digestion burns calories)

15-20 grams of protein women and 20-30 grams protein per meal men at a minimum.

• Burn more calories through macronutrient manipulation. The thermic effect of protein is twice as high as the thermic effect of fat or carbohydrate — and it adds up.

  Protein for breakfast

• Load up here. First 30 grams are strictly for immune support.

1-3 litres of water

• At least spread out through the day. Any other drinks should be 0 calorie containing drinks. I try for 1 gallon (almost 4 litres of water). 

 
Omega 3 fats daily.

• That can be in cooking oils or supplements. Olive oil, mixed nuts, and flax seeds or flax seed oil. At least 6 fish oil caps daily.

Complex carbs only after exercise.

• No starches: pasta, bread, rice, corn unless the meals follow a workout.

12 – 15 servings of veggies per day (1 serving = 1/2 cup)

• 2-3 servings per meal

Daily Calories 

• Eat close to your metabolic rate.  Easiest way is to take your body weight and multiply by 10. Do not drastically cut calories. Raise calories as activity and metabolism raises.

• Don’t “cut” calories. Create a deficit between the metabolism (calories burned) and intake (calories consumed). This deficit can only be closed by "borrowing" from the body's energy stores — i.e. your body fat.

Exercise Checklist

At least 1 hour of exercise per day

• We are shooting for 7 hours exercise     per week. That includes weight, aerobic cardio (walking, cycling) and anaerobic cardio ( interval type training)

Intense cardio training (at least 15 minutes) 3 to 4 X a week.

·       Burn calories through metabolic disturbance (increased activity levels and EPOC,or Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption).

weight training  (at least 45 minutes) 3 x 4 per week

·        As part of your 1 hour a day of exercise.

• Burn as many calories as possible through resting metabolic rate. Lean muscle is metabolically active, so building muscle or at least maintaining it is extremely important.

 Recovery

·        Not just proper sleep; yoga, massage therapy. meditation etc. These utilized daily to combat stress and prevent injury.

Getting Back on Track

Getting back on the road to progress after a less than productive season is quite easy if you apply a few simple ideas. Often during our training it’s easy to fall into a lazy state. Even people who exercise regularly tend to fall into a status quo that leads nowhere. Every day I see people who despite being consistent with their training make common mistakes. Either, they stay on the same program and only maintain or in most cases, regress. When this happens there are usually two results: injury, which leads to a long layoff, or boredom, which can also lead to some time off. Either way, progress comes to a stop. The following is a list of 10 suggestions that I give too many of our clients in order to help them overcome plateaus.

#1.

Get professional help!

People who are successful often try to find others who are also successful in order to learn from them. What you have already learned has been applied to your training program. You need to apply what you don’t know. Fitness trainers and strength coaches make it their business to know and can teach you some new tricks. For example, how many exercises can you think of for the abdominals (the average is about 8)? I can teach you 30 or more. The cost of a professional is worth the commitment. If you learn three new things that you can apply; it was well worth the expense.

#2.

For the next 8 weeks, I want you to use exercises that you have not used for at least a year. Everyone keeps a log of their training, right? Put together a list of the most common exercises you used during the last year. The average is about 20 – 30. Now put together an 8-week program using movements not on the list. Muscles adapt to familiar movements to the point that, after only three weeks of using them, they are no longer allowing your muscles to adapt to the stress.

#3.

Use your log for more than a diary.

Examine your logbook for a time when you made great gains in strength and size. Look at the 8 – 12 weeks that led up to it and copy it using your new max percentages (% of your new one-rep maximums). You must improve on every session; this can be done in a number of ways. You can increase the weight: aim for between 2½ to 5 pounds each session per exercise. Slow the rep speed down if you used a 3-1-1 tempo then try 4-1-2, that is, 4 seconds to lower the weight, a 1-second pause and 2 seconds to lift the weight. Add reps to the set; we use this with exercises in which a person uses a steady weight, like body weight, for example – exercises like dips or pull-ups and push-ups. Try to add one rep to each work out until you can increase the total number of reps by two or three then add weight. Increase the number of sets: a maximum of 10 sets for small muscles like the biceps and shoulders, and 12 sets for large muscles like the chest and lats. Reduce the rest time between sets: use the regular weight but reduce the rest interval by 10 seconds each session. When you can do a full set of 10 – 12 reps with your given weight, in an exercise with only 30 seconds of rest between the sets, and then add weight and rest intervals and start again.

#4.

Time your sets and breaks.

Most people underestimate how important it is to time their sets, reps and rest periods. Let’s take two people, both male, both weighing 190 lbs. and both with 5 years of training experience. They are both doing a barbell curl with 125 lbs. for three sets of 12 reps. Person A lifts with a 3-1-1 tempo and rests 90 seconds before beginning the second set. Person B also lifts 125 lbs. but uses a 5-0-1 tempo and rests 1 minute before beginning the next set. Who has worked harder? Clearly person B; his time under tension was longer and his breaks were shorter making his sets more intense. Use a stopwatch or have a partner time your sets.

#5.

 Make constant changes.

A mentor of mine once said: “the best program for your client is the program they’re not on”. It didn’t make a lot of sense at the time, but after 12 years of designing exercise programs for the average Joe all the way to top national athletes, it now makes perfect sense! By the way, the more advanced the athlete, the more often changes need to be added to the program. Consistency is what the body adapts to first. You should continually try to use different exercises, heavier weights, shorter breaks, faster or slower reps, etc.

#6.

Never use training programs from muscle magazines.

You have no idea how many times a week I walk into a gym and see a group of young novice lifters standing around with the latest issue of Muscle Fitness and they’re preparing to do Lee Haney’s Killer Chest Workout. Muscle Fitness is a great magazine, full of knowledge but, if you’re expecting to do the workout done by a 9 time Mr. Olympia and expecting to get the same results, then you must be prepared to follow the whole lifestyle. One which includes eating between 5000 - 8000 calories a day, training twice a day, and supplementing your system with legal and yes, illegal supplements as well! Oh, and if you do all this and lack the proper genetics, you still did it all for nothing! Remember to keep your goals realistic.

#7.

Proper nutrition and supplementation are key components.

This will make a huge difference if you are consistent. Not everyone has the will power to always eat properly. In these times, with people working longer and longer days, it gets quite hard to eat the proper foods let alone the right amount of calories. Supplement technology has created excellent lines of products, designed to help gain weight in the form of lean muscle. They can often help with recuperation, increase endurance, remove lactic acid from the blood and increase your overall potential. They are not for everyone but they have earned their place in exercise science.

#8.

Do other activities.

Things other than what you’re muscles are used to! Muscles adapt to the imposed demands placed upon them. If you bike, your muscles will adapt to biking; if you swim, they adapt to the specific movements and stresses of swimming. By doing different activities, you are always keeping your body in tune with different stimuli and it must always learn and remember to do different things. Play ball, hockey, scuba dive, play tennis, etc. These activities help speed your metabolism, burn calories and help facilitate recovery by increasing blood flow. Now of course if you are a skier then you must ski as well as any sport specific movements but, if you only do those movements and nothing else you’re looking for trouble! Imbalances in strength can and most likely will occur!

#9.

Take time off.

Whether you think you need it or not; if you’re at a point where you’re just going through the motions and progress is at a standstill, then take some time off and rest. You will be amazed at the gains that will be made after even a short break. If you train and never need a day off, you’re not training hard enough. Every person I design a program for is instructed to take at least one week off every two months. Of course, this depends on certain factors, but it’s a good idea to stop hard training and let the body super compensate from the stress of 2 – 3 months of training. Often these breaks are for the psychological aspect of your training.  If your mind is burnt out your body will soon follow.

#10.

Keep your goals in focus.

If you have lost the edge then stop, take a break, re-evaluate your program, look back at your log and examine your diet and supplement regime. If all seems fine, look at your technique. Are you using the muscles the way they were designed to work and are you stressing them properly? If you want to get stronger, you need to find how best to move the heavy weights. If you want to look like Arnold, then you need to find the best way to pack on muscle. It’s all about focusing on the goal and the best ways to achieve them period!

In closing, you may have noticed that I tried not to use the words ‘schedule’ or ‘routine’ and this is something that you must stop doing. Making a habit of exercising is good, making a habit of the way you exercise is wrong. If you’re going to plan your exercise program, change the plan every time. Variety is indeed, the spice of life. “Every day you either get better or worse: you never stay the same”.

Until next time: “Stay fit and be strong!”

Peter J. Morel C.F.C, C.I.C, C.A.F.S

Where would we find you?

If I didn't know you but had to meet you at your gym, where would I find you?  In the weight room, step class, pool, cardio machines, spinning class or maybe the yoga studio.  What if I asked what your exercise goal was, would this help me find you?  Chances are I would be looking for you in all the wrong places. 
Most of my clients come to me for fat loss, energy gain and lean muscle development.  When I look to see what they have been doing to reach this goal in the past they seem to be performing counter productive exercises and practicing low calorie nutrition habits.
Women tell me that they want to tone (I hate this term) and lose fat. So I would look in the weight room to see what strength interval workouts they were performing, but instead find them in an hour long 'spinning class'. Spinning is an inefficient way to lose body fat.  Spinning will increase the storage of intramuscular and subcutaneous fat in the hip and thigh areas to provide a more readily available source of fuel for the muscles.  "But I sweat", they say. Sweating is a poor indicator of work, I know people who sweat reaching to the bottom of the fridge. 
I'm not picking on spinning! This is just an example of people who want a result but are misinformed on how they should get there. The same goes for yoga for fat loss, pilates, doing long duration treadmill or elliptical work for fat loss. It is counter productive.
Strength and interval resistance training is far more efficient. Mix up your training modalities and use low rest intervals with proper weight and volume to stimulate lean muscle growth and most importantly, fat loss mobilization.
So you may go to the gym 4 days per week and say I don't need a personal trainer. If you don't know where you are hormone deficient, what ratio of lean to fat mass you are, or what your daily micro-nutrient breakdown is (carbs, proteins, fats), then seeing a personal trainer for a proper assessment and program maybe just what you need.
TopShape Mike