We had an absolute BLAST this morning at our Warrior Dash Training!
The highlight of my day was seeing the incredible teamwork as everyone got over “The Wall”, followed by the Slip.N.Slide down the hill!
You Guys Absolutely ROCK!
On June 25th Dean & I are heading down along with quite a few Get Fit NH Bootcamp clients to participate in the Warrior Dash New England in Amesbury MA. You absolutely must head the Warrior Dash Website and check it out!
It’s not too late to sign up to join us on this wild adventure – Registration closes on June 13 at 3PM. We are headed down on the 25th, but you can race the 26th as well.
Over the next couple of weeks you are going to see some activity going on at Get Fit NH Bootcamp Epsom, as we build our own obstacle course to not only help train for the event, but just have a blast any old time!
On Saturday June 11th we are going to do a “Warriors in Training” workout! You don’t have to be a participant to come as we climb, crawl, leap, duck and jump over and around the obstacle course being built – Don’t Miss It!
More details on the way, but put Saturday June 11th on your calendar now!
I am sure most of us have heard that little ditty, but is it true? Turns out when it comes to exercise it is! Researchers put new exercisers on a conditioning program for eight weeks, which resulted in dramatic improvements in cardiovascular fitness and aerobic capacity. After the eight week period they stopped exercising altogether for another eight weeks, then tested them again. The results? They lost all their aerobic gains and returned to their original fitness levels – not cool! Other studies have shown that deconditioning can occur in as little as three weeks!
The take home? If you want lifelong fitness, training has to be a lifelong pursuit. Regular exercise (3 or more times a week) is best, but your gains can be maintained with as little as two days a week of hard training. Spring is here and summer is coming, but training doesn’t stop. Coach Nancy rightly says that we train hard so we can get out and hike, and bike, and garden, and do other outdoor activities without being miserable the next day. It’s always cool when a client comes up to us (like happened 3 or 4 times to just me in the last couple weeks) and says “I (gardened, packed all my stuff because I am moving, chopped firewood) and I wasn’t sore because of the training we do at bootcamp”. There’s nothing like a hard days work and having energy to spare!
Your health and fitness doesn’t take a vacation. Your lungs keep breathing and your heart keeps pumping. Without exercise your muscles get flabby which makes you crabby. 🙂
Start planning now to keep fitness in your life all year long!
Make It Happen,
Coach Dean
Got some video of Coach Nancy cranking it out with Dave “The Band Man” Schmidt and BJ “Sven” Gaddour.
Good Times!
Think Steph Needs Recovery?
Next week is Recovery Week…no Bootcamp all week 🙁 But what is ‘Recovery Week’? Its the week we will need to recover from THIS WEEK!!
It all started Friday… you know “Fun” Friday! Only now they are dubbed ‘Booty kicking Fun Fridays’.
Ok, so who’s genius idea was it to ADD 5 minutes to our grueling 60/15’s on Fun Friday?? Oh right… it was MY swell idea! Next time someone stuff a towel in my mouth or slap me upside the head would ya!? Wasn’t it fun enough to do a minute of squat-thrusts, pushup holds, burpees and star jumps for umpteen rounds with a 15 second rest? Oh and lets not forget the Partner band rows (with Nancy! as my partner- no comment necessary). We had 10 minutes left of class, so why not add another 5 minutes doing our favorites? But, my ‘favorite’ is jump rope… oh! we have to pick from the list?! My idea (I usually have great ideas), my grumbling… while the 6pm Hardcores killed it, and didn’t kill me (always a good thing). Saturday and Sunday they may have wanted to kill me as they were feeling the ‘Fun’ after shocks.
Mondays workout was a ‘Sneaker’ workout. Seemed straight forward, a good one, we worked hard felt great. Plankety Plank Planks, Pushup Holds, Pushups (I’m stuck in the down and can’t ‘push UP’). The rotating side Pillars, and the Abs Wars. By Tuesday afternoon the stiffness sets in, that small movement of the arm is felt…thats the ‘sneaker’, it sneaks up on you when you least expect it. Oh yeah, that was a great workout.
In we go tonight, for… more abs and arms!! TRX bicep curls, slamballs, dumb bell front raises, and kettle bell swings. Oh me, oh my… arms are gonna need Wednesday to recover! But the finisher… my favorite! JUMP ROPE!! Let it not be said that our trainers do not listen to us.
So I’m figuring… Monday, Tuesday have been abs and arms… does this mean Thursday, Friday are going to be legs and glutes? Can’t wait to see… That, really would be reason for Recovery Week! We’ll have a week of, as Sven would say, “let it marinate”.
Blog you later.
gretchen
psst! where are the fighting ropes and the farmers walks?… and has the snow cleared? because the HILL awaits! The FUN isn’t just on Fridays… it’s Monday, Tuesday, and Thursdays too!
When a man hears the word “Muscle”, he is probably thinking of big biceps, broad shoulders and a tapered waistline.
A women might be thinking the same thing, which is all well and good as long as it isn’t her sporting the huge guns!
Conversely when a women envisions being “Toned” she is thinking thin, slim and shapely. You know, looking good in a swimsuit.
A man probably has the same idea, as long as it’s not him with the 12 1/2″ biceps and eurosuit.
The common denominator?
Both goals (muscle/tone) really are both sides of the same coin and usually require two components:
A common objection (and misunderstanding) among women is that resistance training will “bulk them up” and they will look like a man. In reality this is very difficult for a women (it’s hard enough for men to gain large amounts of muscles) primarily because of lower amount of hormones such as testosterone in women compared to men. While there can be exceptions (“Outliers” as defined by Malcolm Gladwell) it is certainly not the norm for women to get “hyooge” with hard and even heavy weight training. Take a look at Coach Nancy (as I like to do) and you will see what I mean.
When you do not strength/resistance train during “dieting” you run the serious risk of losing large amounts of your metabolic engine – lean/tone/muscle, which has serious negative consequences down the road.
Your bodies main task is to do one thing – survive. When you don’t eat enough calories to maintain your current weight, your body assumes you don’t have enough food, and true to form starts doing what is necessary to stay alive. Unfortunately for you that means it is going to shed the most metabolically active tissue first – your muscle (the lean, tone, good stuff).
Why?
Because muscle requires about twice as many calories to maintain as the stuff we don’t want – excess fat. Plus fat stores energy, so while your body might burn some off to meet your energy requirements it is going to buckle down and keep as much as it can.
Unless…
You resistance/strength train (which is why we focus on such training).
So our goal when losing “weight” is in reality to keep as much as the good stuff (lean/tone/muscle – hereafter known as LTM) and get rid of the bad stuff (excess bodyfat).
Because…
We don’t want to metabolic engine to slow down, which occurs when we lose LTM.
Remember… Lean burns about twice as much energy (calories) as fat, so keep the lean – lose the fat.
We have probably all heard of “Yo-Yo” dieting. A person goes “on a diet”, loses a bunch of weight, goes “off the diet” and ends up fatter than before.
That’s because he slowed down his metabolic engine by losing a bunch of LTM, and when he goes back to eating “normal” his body doesn’t require as much energy (calories) and starts storing the excess as bodyfat – Ughhh!
An Example:
Two women (Matilda and Madeline) want to get into beach body shape for the summer. They are both weighed, measured and their bodyfat % calculated, and how amazingly convenient, they both have the exact same percent of bodyfat, which happens to be 40%
Starting Weight: 170 lbs
Lean Tissue: 102 lbs
Fat Tissue: 68 lbs
Bodyfat: 40%
Six months later Matilda and Madeline come back to be weighed and measured again, and lo and behold both have lost 40 pounds! The scale is my friend, or is it? Let’s dig a little deeper.
| Matilda | Madeline | |
| Ending Weight: | 130 | 130 |
| Lean Tissue: | 82 lbs | 102 lbs |
| Fat Tissue: | 48 lbs | 28 lbs |
| Bodyfat: | 37% | 21.50% |
Matilda and Madeline both weigh the same (140 pounds) but their bodies are nothing alike! Although Matilda lost 40 pounds total, she only lost 3% bodyfat and sacrificed 20 pounds of LTM to do it!
On the other hand Madeline managed to preserve all her Lean/Tone/Muscle and lost 19.5% bodyfat – nicely done!
We will outline how Madeline did it in a minute, but first I want to show you what the difference is.
Fellow fitness pro Leigh Peele has created a guide to body fat percentage, which shows you what different percentages look like on both the male and female body. It is well worth the look at both the page and the website and downloading her free guide.
Click on the link below and scroll toward the bottom of the page, there you will see a visual of what 30%, 25%, 20%, all the way down to 11% looks like (if you download the guide there are more example).
Click this link (go ahead, I’ll wait) Leigh Peele Bodyfat Pictures and Percentages
Pretty dramatic difference between 30% and 20%, wouldn’t you say?
How to get on the “Madeline” plan
There are some basics to preservation of LTM while concurrently losing bodyfat.
They include:
Resistance/Strength Training: As we discussed last time, steady state aerobics does not have the LTM preserving abilities or the fat burning abilities of resistance/strength or high intensity interval training. You must give your body a reason to preserve lean tissue, and when you resistance train your body wants to adapt to that training by preserving/building more LTM.
Adequate Protein Intake: You must have enough material (protein) to both maintain the daily functions of living and build/maintain the LTM. Inadequate protein intake affects your immune system, your hormones, and ability to maintain your structure (LTM). How much is adequate? A loaded question for sure, but a general rule of thumb for healthy adults with no contraindications is 1 gram of protein for every pound of LTM and often higher. So Madeline and Matilda would have been eating around 100 grams (400 calories) from protein every day.
Eat Slow Carbs: Read Low Carb or Slow Carb
Recovery Drink & Meal: Read Post Workout Nutrition Made Easy = Better Recovery = Better Results
Additional Recovery: Getting enough sleep, recovery between training sessions, reducing stress, and taking a whole-food multivitamin are also supportive activities to keep your fat loss fires burning.
So while Madeline is enjoying her new healthy body, Matilda continues to struggle and find herself bouncing on the yo-yo once again. If only she had listened to her coach! 🙂
Don’t Be Matilda!
Coach Dean
A couple weeks ago we discussed “cardio” and it’s relative effectiveness for losing bodyfat. (More Cardio Please!)
I promised a follow up that would explore more evidence that steady state cardio isn’t always what it is cracked up to be.
When you walk into Get Fit NH Bootcamp you are not going to see traditional “cardio” machines such as treadmills, ellipticals and stationary bikes – and that’s not by accident.
Our philosophy of training dictates that we do the least amount of training time-wise to elicit a training effect. In other words we train using movements and protocols that give you the most “bang for your buck” to build lean muscle and lose bodyfat. Our choice of equipment reflects our philosophy, simple as that.
Intense metabolic resistance training and high intensity interval training (H.I.I.T.) are what both science and the real world results we see in the gym show to be the best way to get the job done. And while there is a place for low intensity cardio, it’s not first place. On top of that studies show that the number calories you burn during exercise isn’t nearly as important as what happens afterward.
It’s an “EPOC” phenomenon.
EPOC is an acronym for Excess Post Oxygen Consumption, and is defined as the “recovery of metabolic rate back to pre-exercise levels” which “can require several minutes for light exercise and several hours for hard intervals.”
Here’s a couple studies which indicate high intensity training is superior to steady state cardio for fat loss.
Study One
Endurance training. 20 weeks. 28,661 calories expended during training.
vs.
Interval training. 15 weeks. 13,614 calories (less than half) expended during training.
Results?
When corrected for energy cost the interval training group showed a nine times greater loss in subcutaneous fat than the endurance group. That is the power of EPOC. Even though the interval group trained less and burned fewer calories during training, the metabolic rate over an extended period of time caused much greater fat loss. Bottom line, they worked less time and got better results – pretty cool!
Tremblay A, Simoneau JA, Bouchard C.
Impact of exercise intensity on body fatness and skeletal musclemetabolism. Metabolism. 1994 Jul;43(7):814-8.
Study Two
15 weeks of 20 minutes per session interval training, 3 times per week
vs.
15 weeks of 40 minutes steady state exercise, 3 times per week.
Both groups burned the same total calories over the 15 weeks and ate the same diet.
Results?
Trapp EG, Chisholm DJ, Freund J, Boutcher SH. The effects of high-intensity intermittent exercise training on fat loss and fasting insulin levels of young women. Int J Obes (Lond). 2008 Jan 15
Interval training “works” because it is extremely metabolically demanding. The body works harder for longer, even after exercise is over. Studies indicate that resistance training works in much the same way.
When you have a choice (and you usually do) metabolic resistance training and interval training are the way to go. But you can’t just go through the motions. You have to give max effort during the work periods to get maximum effect, and take the proper recovery between.
Next time we will discuss what kind of nutrition is most effective for fat loss.
Until then keep…
Making It Happen!
Coach Dean
Many people train at Get Fit NH Bootcamp so they have the ability to walk, run, hike, bike, ski, and swim as they wish. I say go for it. Spend your free time with family and friends moving.
Others want to be able to move again. Life doesn’t always deal us what we want. Accidents, falls, surgeries, weekend warriors; acting 19 when you are really 52 without proper training leave some people at the doctors.
Now what?
At Get Fit NH Bootcamp your coach is there to help you no matter where you fit in the fitness scale, or even if you don’t think you are on it! Our training is designed so everyone can work to their own abilities while working as hard as they can.
A huge part of our training is often overlooked in program design – Mobility and Flexibility. Mobility is achieved through foam rolling and the dynamic warmup. This is designed to get your tissue and joints ready to work.
Flexibility training (defined here as primarily post-training static stretching) is planned into each training session to keep you injury free. It is crucial. When I was in high school sports I didn’t see the need for mobility and flexibility so when I would exercise in my 20’s I would jump right in. Guess what? I had constant knee and shoulder pain. I figured I was training too hard so I quit. Yes, I quit and I all I was doing was aerobic type workouts with videos in my living room.
If only I knew what I know now!
Our muscles do not need to be just strong. They need to have the proper length and the proper tension to do the job they were designed to do. Our body is an amazing machine, but the machine needs maintenance. Each joint has a proper combination of mobility and stability that keeps the whole chain working correctly. Think of the song “ankle bone connected to the knee bone, the knee bone connected to the thigh bone, the thigh bone connected to the” …. You get the idea.
During a training session our muscles contract and tend to want to stay shortened. It is vital to help them relax and lengthen back out. We accomplish this with static stretching. During our stretching periods you will benefit most by listening to your body, not the person next to you. Take the time to feel your muscles resist your coaxing. Continue breathing and focusing. As you listen you’ll find your muscles relaxing within a few seconds so you can reach a bit further. Our stretching is designed with progressions just like the resistance training we do. While stretching can be uncomfortable keep in mind it is a skill to be mastered, just like a Kettlebell swing. Perfect practice makes perfect.
Taking the time to stretch will help prevent injuries, alleviate soreness, and leave your body able to function at its best. Another benefit to stretching is your body will be able to work better at your next training session.
Still need living proof? I train harder, lift heavier, and put the VCR tapes away a long time ago. I am past the “big 4-0” by a few and I have no knee problems or shoulder issues like I did at 26.
The difference?
I stretch.
To your best health,
Coach Nancy
We had a great time at the 1st annual Wicked Winter Workout!
A very cool (very, very cool 🙂 training session followed by a healthy hot breakfast to thaw out a bit (complete with Nancy’s secret “frosting” recipe).
Thanks for the good times!
So, I’ve had writer’s block this week… until today! All week I would get a random thought in my head but nothing would mesh. No surprise there, it’s rare for my thoughts to mesh and make sense to a normal person.
Thanks goes out to my girl Robin! She totally rocks the 9:00am Ladies Class. She threw out the Spring Training Challenge for the day.
It was Spring Training Fun Friday with a game of baseball. Not your average, sit on the couch watching your baseball team play. Complete with a little happy nappy, a little refreshment and snack baseball game. Oh, and did I mention a little nap baseball game?!
It’s Get Fit NH BOOTCAMP Baseball! = No NAPS!, NO snacks, and NO couch!! It’s 1st base jumping jacks (?); 2nd base Ins/Outs; 3rd base StarJumps in order to score a run for your Team. OR a home-run is 25 squat thrusts. Actually, I’m not certain how many reps of each exercises 1st,2nd, & 3rd were because I’m a Home-Run girl. Just like Babe Ruth, I am pointing out to the stands – batter up baby! The only reason I remember all the exercises at all is because I was ‘lucky’ enough to demonstrate with 5 reps of each one at the start of the game.
Note to self: DO NOT arrive late for Nancy’s class!! Late arrivals become exercise demonstrators! (By the way… do I get to add the 5 squat thrusts to my total?)
Now for Robin’s Challenge: If we could beat her 350 squat thrusts, she would come back at 7:15pm to make up the difference.
Ooh… a Challenge!! If you haven’t met me, you should know I love a Challenge! Gotta love Robin because she knows this about me. What she may not have figured on is that there are several 6:00pm Challenge Masters. So, Karl, Mike and I (yup, me and the boys) set off to top the 350 squat thrusts.
After the first 100, I wonder how the heck did she get to 350? At 200, we finished the first 10 minute ‘game’. It’s no longer a game and more like ‘hard work’. I’m wondering, can I keep the same pace for the next 10 minutes when my legs are screaming and my heart is in my throat? 300, well great I can’t feel my legs anymore which could be a good thing. I can’t open my mouth for fear all my vital organs will come shooting out of my mouth. Once I hit 350, I matched Robin and I can stop. Then Nancy says 5 more minutes, really? I can’t just stop and rest for 5 minutes… must keep going. Plus the boys are still going, sooo, must keep going!
OK here’s the Truth: I had no idea how many squat thrusts I was doing at any time during the games. The lack of oxygen to the brain makes things a little fuzzy. By the end, I still couldn’t tell you… I could only count to 25 and start again at 1,2,3…
Final tally… 435, unless of course you add the 5 demonstration squat thrusts at the beginning of class (440)! I’m feeling every one of those bad boys let me tell you.
Tomorrow …I’m not looking forward to tomorrow. Lets add to the hurt though with a special Get Fit NH Bootcamp Snow Day! Oh yes, I plan to hobble on over. It’s gonna be a fun Sno-deo at the Carlsons… this “Arctic Cat” will see you there! Why because I am a Bootcamp Warrior Machine…
Blog you later!
gretchen
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