DeanCoulson
20 Rep Shuffle
All you need
Hey there, just wanted to post up my training session from today.
You don’t need much equipment to put yourself through a gruelling training session. As you can see from the picture, a box, med ball, a pair of dumbbells and something to jump over is all I used, hell you could get away without any at all, your bodyweight would take care of the rest.
Today was a conditioning day and so used a modified version of the conditioning circuit I gave my class last night, they rocked it and I missed out, so not to be out done I swapped it about and changed the rules using repetitions instead of being against the clock.
The difference between reps and time is that depending on time limits, reps can be harder, no clock saving you, you just gotta rep it out!
I picked 10 stations, 20 reps per station and no rest until the circuit is done. By completing 5 circuits it gives you 100 reps per exercise!
- Box jump – Standing jump on and off a box, bench etc
- Dips – Off the box or bench
- Frog Jumps – Squatting down palms on the floor and jumping up
- Dumbbell punches- Light dumbbells, arms moving in and out in front of you
- Prisoner Squats – Hands behind your head, squatting down and up
- Med Ball Slams – Pick a med ball above your head and slam to the ground fast!
- Dumbbell Lunges – As you lunge down, press dumbbells into the air
- Lateral Burpees – Perform burpee, jump sideways over an object and repeat
- Pushups – Different variations (Wide, Normal, Narrow, Pike, Divebomber)
- Skipping rope – High knees, keeping a fast cadence
So 20 reps per station, with the exception of 2, You ain’t gonna get much from 20 dumbbell punches and 20 rope turns, so I upped them to 100 each.
Train Hard, keep lean!
The beauty of the 20 rep shuffle is that it is versatile, exercises can be changed, number of reps or number of circuits. But remember… IT IS MEANT TO BE HARD….. No shirking off!
This is a great way to burn fat, save lean muscle and build explosive power and build a high level of stamina, muscular endurance all in one simple workout.
I would love you to drop me a comment about this workout or anything else you want to know
So there you have it the 20 rep shuffle…….With a twist
Stay strong, stay fit and I will speak to you soon.
Dean
3 Things to avoid on Holiday
Hey everyone, recently got back from holiday and had to put up my thoughts on training when you are away on vacation, so here they are…………
DO NOT DO IT
I repeat
DO NOT DO IT
you should be kicking back and be relaxing!
Don’t Do it!
Here are 3 possible examples of what you might get the urge to do…………..
1) Go out running! For one thing it is just plain cazy to go out running it the heat, it looks so painful! shuffling along leaking more water than you can take in and on top of that you end up lost?!?!? WTF??? No way! not when you could be lying by the pool chilling out!
2) Try to build a sand Castle the size of a small mountain!!! too much effort required!!! Lets your kids do it whilst you lay on the beach and listen to the waves come in!
3) Participate is some crazy assed sport that a holiday rep drags you too.
Ok, so they sound crazy right? but you would be amazed how many people cannot switch off and chill out on holiday!
I have recently spent a great 12 days on holiday with the family. It is always great to get away from it all and really relax and not worry about anything including training.
Your body requires rest and and recuperation through out the year but spending time relaxing away from your normal environment is a great way to recharge your batteries.
The Old Days
It wasn’t always that way for me. Before I had my little lad and was just gung ho training, I went on every holiday armed with my skipping rope and my bodyweight as my tools of choice for training whilst I was away.
My wife thought I was crazy, but alas that made no difference, if I had a half hour going spare, I would pulling myself up trees, squatting, push ups you name it. Skipping was my favourite, however I don’t recommend skipping on a beach, it just doesn’t work, no matter how much you try!
For the people that know me I am known for my drive and intensity when I am training, I just keep going and going. If I can make an exercise harder I will, I really do have a masochistic streak. However as I have gotten older I have also gotten wiser and now I do not do a thing when I am on holiday other than relax and have fun. In the scheme of things you won’t lose much by way of strength or conditioning. Sure it will dip, but letting your body rest and recuperate are more important values in my book.
Some may argue that they need to exercise and believe me, I hear ya, but the bottom line is this….
You, your body and your mind need to back off every once in a while. Realistically you should factoring in a week of complete rest or decreased training volume every 8 weeks or so. Go find something else to do, just take it easy.
And nobody knows that more than me!
You got any comments on holiday training craziness then fire away, I would love to hear from you.
Stay Healthy
Dean
Weekend Training Madness
Having had a very busy week work wise, I have had little time to put together any substantial training sessions. However, just because there is maybe little time, doesn’t mean you cannot train.
Today’s training session comes courtesy of my garage gym. It’s not big, but it’s functional and has everything I need to push the envelope and come out drenched with sweat and drained of whatever energy I went in with.
Make no mistake, you don’t need a commercial gym to get a solid workout. My aim today was an alternative total body strength session, none of the usual weight exercises here, although I did use dumbbells I also used other training modularities.
I added a mix of upper and lower body exercises to cover all bases and was still done in 45 minutes, no chit chat, no waiting for equipment to be free, no distractions.
If you are serious about training and getting fitter and stronger, then start thinking outside of the box and have fun…..well if you can call it that! I always enjoy myself no matter how hard it may be.
Here is my Weekend madness, I covered upper and lower body with an alternative strength session and ended with a tabata finisher and core work to round things off…..
Warm up
Started the warm up with some upper body work with a bungee and light shadow boxing. Just stretching out and warming up specific areas I am looking out for.
I moved onto minute drills of boxing/punching a maize ball and skipping for 10 minutes, no need to go all out, the aim is to get thoroughly warmed up for the session ahead.
Strength Session
Heres the session…
1a) Dumbbell Snatch
1b) Kettlebell swing
I completed 2 warm up sets and then 2 max sets, the a and b represent that the exercises follow straight after each other in a “super set”. Keep the rest period after each superset to no more than 60 seconds.
Then a complex of….
2a) Weighted Chin ups.
2b) Weighted Push up*
2c) Weighted Strap Row
2d) Weighted Squat
6 rounds of the above circuit. I was going for numbers within an amount of rounds. I made sure to stop 1 rep short of failure to try and keep some in the tank. Although I tried to give myself a minute between each to make sure I got the best of every set, I wasn’t stringent with that rule, I rode the fatigue meter. If I felt ok I went in less time, if I needed a little more for recovery then i did it. The complex doesn’t have to be 4 exercises, you could just start with 1 or 2.
* – Vary the push up style in each round. I did normal, close grip and walking push ups to add variety. There are many other variations that you can choose from.
Finisher
To stoke the metabolism I added a finisher based on the tabata protocol (20 secs training, 10 secs rest for 8 rounds) to the session for good measure…..
3a) Burpees
3b) Medicine Ball Slams
Core Circuit
To finish off I hit 3 rounds of…
4a) Hanging leg Raise
4b) Hanging knee twists.
4c) Ab wheel roll outs.
Again, don’t go to failure, perform an exercise until you know you have a rep left and then stop.
The End
Remember this, there is always time in a day to train even if it 20 minutes. And you don’t need to drag yourself to a gym, train at home and before you say you have no equipment, it is still no excuse, your bodyweight is an excellent tool, use it!
Do you have any great alternative circuits? if so, fire some comments in for everyone to read.
Stay strong.
Dean Coulson
Animal Training for Warriors
A while Back I visited a wild animal park with my Family, it was amazing to see so many animals, in particular the Big Cats. They are the epitome of what we should strive to achieve on a fitness level. These beasts are awesome, I stood there and watched as a 25 stone tiger climbed a telegraph pole effortlessly to get some meat. It was truly incredible.
These amazing animals are in phenomenal condition, they exude power and conditioning by the bucket load. It was good to see the keeper being inventive and keeping them in shape by making them climb telegraph poles! Can you imagine climbing a pole at 25 stone especially as gracefully as these beasts?????
We can learn a lot about animal training from creatures such as this. For one, the only thing they use is bodyweight, no trips to the gym for them, just hunting food and surviving in the wild. Granted they are pretty well equipped to do so!
Although it ain’t sound practice to go live outside in the wild and go killing things to eat to get into awesome shape like these animals, sometimes it is worth looking at mammals and to emulate them in training.
The next time you are going to do some conditioning, think about adding the following into your training……
Bunny Hop
Start in a squatting position, hands behind your head and hop around.
Bear Crawl
Walk on all fours with your butt in the air, move left hand and left foot together then right hand and right foot at a brisk pace.
Crab Walk
Again on all fours, but this time with your stomach facing upwards. Walk forwards backwards and sideways.
Frog Jump
Start in the squat position with you hands on the floor in front of you.Jump forward and land on your hands and feet at the same time.
Inch worm
Start with your feet shoulder width apart, bend forward until your hands reach the floor. Walk your hands forward as far as you can without your stomach touching the floor, then reverse the process, walking your hands back to their starting position.
Kangaroo jump
Begin in a squat position. Jump forward and upwards at the same time, fully extend yourself during the jump. Make sure to land back in a squat position and repeat.
Alligator walk
go into the bottom position of a push up with your arms by your sides and without your torso touching the ground.Move forward left hand and left foot then right hand and right foot.
Get to it
The beauty of these exercises is that they can be done anywhere. The next time you think about doing sprints or shuttles, try doing them this way, I guarantee that you will immediately feel the burn.
in fact try the following shuttle complex….
mark out 25 metres, pick 4 of the exercises above and do them without rest. Rest 1 minute and repeat 8 times.
And before you say it, who cares what people might think or say when you are seen doing these movements. Who cares!!! Get them down doing it, I guarantee they will soon shut up!
Train hard, train strong!
Dean Coulson
All about the Balance
All About the Balance
Balance, what is it and why do we need it?
Think about it, when was the last time you worked on your balance? For most people I am willing to bet that since they learned to walk as a toddler, they have never thought about balance again.
I have performed some kind of balance drill for years, primarily with my martial arts background. Nowadays I even end up wrapping my hand wraps standing on one leg at the end of a boxing session, performing swings with my non standing leg! I also do them in the dark before I go to bed. If I am out I am always jumping on walls or fences see how far I can reach before I fall or not!
Injury
Balance training is great for restoring stability in joints particularly the knee after injury. I have spent time after my recent knee injury performing such drills. Knee stability is paramount in rehabilitating the knee along with strength training and stretching.
Difficult to Measure
I frequently hear people going on about how fit or fast they want to be or how strong or powerful. Then they toddle off to the gym and get on the weights or on the track to try and make it happen. These are all valuable elements of an all round athlete, however there is one vitally important ingredient that can be easily missed….Balance Training!
I guess it might be because it is difficult to quantify, you can’t really say how fast can you balance or flex your “big guns” and say “look at the balance on that”. It is hard to measure and is therefore so often neglected. However, look at professional sportsmen/women, when their poise and agility just becomes one fluid movement as if they were born to do it, that is balance.
Balance is something that we can all work on, there are many drills that can be performed to improve its function. It is closely related to coordination and agility as both are dependent on how good your overall balance is. Problems that you thought were related to poor coordination or speed could actually be coming from poor balance. If the balance isn’t there you are going to really struggle to improve technique.
Maximise Performance
In say a combat sport for example, the power of a punch or kick is paramount. However all the explosive/power training in the world won’t help if balance is not mastered. Why? because without proper balance these techniques will not be effective, power will not be maximal and thus be ineffective.
Conditioning is the same, repetitive squats and lunges for example will be affected if balance is not present, it will directly affect the execution of the technique and therefore what you get out of it.
You must be able to control all body parts in a certain movement and be able to react quickly in the event of an attempted change in movement. The faster the reaction, the faster the recovery.
Improve Your Balance
To maximise performance/results, you must include balance training in your daily routine. At the end of the day balance is a mastery of your centre of gravity at all times. Although standing on one leg is a good basic drill, in reality balance training has to be dynamic as movements are dynamic. I have never seen “standing on one leg” as an Olympic sport!
Playing football for example creates a constant change in external forces surrounding you, whether it be the weather or other players, improving your dynamic reactions will allow you to maintain your centre of gravity.
Develop and train Balance in motion
There must be a variety of drills performed from basic one foot standing to dynamic balance training. There are many facets of training balance, start off slowly and work on improving.
Balance Training Drills
Include balance training in your daily routine. By incorporating a 5-10 minute balance routine in your daily warm up you should see improvements.
Try these drills no matter what you may think, I guarantee you that even if you think you can balance on one leg, your outlook might change if you then close your eyes and try it again.
One Leg
1. Balance on one leg with arms by your sides, switch legs every 30 seconds.
2. Same drill with your eyes closed
One Leg with head rotation
1. Stand on one leg with your arms by your sides, slowly turn your head from side to side and up and down. Alternate legs every 30 seconds. Once mastered you can roll your head.
2. Repeat this drill with your eyes closed as before.
One Leg with leg swings
1. Stand on one leg with your arms by your sides, swing your non standing leg forward back and to the side.
2. Repeat this drill with your eyes closed as before.
Once you have mastered these then you can move onto more difficult dynamic balance drills:
Best thing you can use for this is a 2×4 inch wooden board, anywhere from 8 to 12 feet long.
Lunge
Perform the lunge technique whilst balancing on the board, do not touch the floor.
Heel to toe walking
Walk heel to toe from one end to the other.
Spinning walking
Walk along the board in a 360 degree spinning motion, every step you perform part of a turn. Once you complete one length go back spinning in the opposite direction.
If you are serious about training and want to improve, add this into your daily routine, I guarantee you you will see a difference.
yours in training
Dean Coulson
