So how did I feel after the first session? Well, the truth is it hurt pretty bad.  I actually went into the session with Chris with a sore back.  The previous week I had done a heavy deadlift and had also been demonstrating a lot of KB swings to my athletes which is why I think I was struggling.

 

I had the worst muscle soreness in my quads and my back was still sore from previous week’s training before seeing Chris.  What was most noticable was than it  felt like my core had gone to sleep- I just couldn’t get that bracing feeling all week and I guess they were just taxed to the max from the maximal effort!

 

Session 2:

I ended up going back to see Chris for my second session a full week later.  By this time the muscle soreness in my legs was gone and my back was just a little stiff.   To cut a long story short we did pretty much the same session as Session 1 but in Session 2 I in also added in a few extra exercises:

 

Core and Kettle bells:

I added in Swiss ball jack knifes 2 x 10 (see below) with a rotation as well as Swiss ball back extensions.

 

 

For Kettle bell I added in Turkish Get ups 1 x 6 each side.   The squat routine was the same only this time I was more accustomed to it and knew what to expect.  This time Chris didn’t need to lift me all the way up, he just nudged me out of the hole and I got myself the rest of the way up.

 

Session 3:

 

This time I actually recovered a lot faster.  I didn’t have anywhere near as much muscle soreness and was able to lift again on Tuesday after I only previously saw Chris last Thursday.  I think Chris is cunningly increasing my work capacity as I now did a more extensive extended warm-up before the main squat.

 

Core and Kettle bells:

We did the same core routine as previous session then I tried several new KB exercises to the growing repertoire! Session 3 looks like this:

 

1.  KB squat swings 2 x 30

 

2. KB goblet squats 2 x 20

 

3.  KB side planks hip lifts 2 x 10 each side- this is so hard!!

 

4.  KB figure of 8 swings 2 x 10 each side

 

5.  KB Arabesque 2 x 10 each side

 

Then we hit the squat using the same progressive sets x reps scheme:

 

warm-up: empty bar 1 x 10

 

1 x 5 at 60kg / 1 x 3 at 80kg / 1 x 1 at 100kg

 

Let’s see what is in store next week!  I feel much stronger in my core and I have modified my squat technique slightly so I am sitting forward slightly more with the bar slightly lower on my back so I can push through my abs and glutes more.  I don’t get knee pain and now it is feeling easier to get the reps done!!!!!

So to set the scene I came in at 16% body fat on the bio-signature when I went for my assessment at UP Personal Training in Mayfair last September.  I told Jonny, my trainer that I wanted to maintain my muscle mass and get down below 10% within 12 weeks.

 

First 2 weeks: insulin sensitivity

 

His advice was to do a 2-week period to improve my sensitivity to insulin by taking away starches and sugars and only eating green vegetables for my carbohydrate intake.  I was allowed up to 300 grams protein per day to meet my energy requirements and on training days I could have a 50g whey protein shake!!  To be honest I found it pretty hard to get 300 grams of protein down me each day.  I felt hungry probably because I didn’t hit my daily protein requirements and was really missing sugar during the first few days!!!

 

Weeks 3-4: Carbohydrate in shake and meal post workout!

I was worried I had lost muscle because I had lost some weight but Jonny said as long as your protein is high and you’ve been training you’re okay. What it will be is water and muscle glycogen, nothing else.

 

So because I had probably lost some body fat too, I could now add in carbs in the shake after training (40 grams) and in the meal after, another 40 grams. In the shake, you have to go for a fast release carb like dextrose, and gluten free slow release carbs in the meal after, like sweet potato or whole grain rice.

 

Weeks 5-6: Have a cheat day accept breakfast

 

So at the half way point I’m feeling like I’m not able to increase the weights on my strength exercises.  I feel weak.  So, we agree that I take a day where I have gluten free carbs at every meal except breakfast. Also, I  dropped the training volume by 50%. So I did all the exercises at the heaviest weights I could, but did 50% of the sets.

 

Weeks 7-8: 2 meals post workout I’m allowed Carbs!

 

Ok, so now I add in some sweet potato or rice in another meal post training, approx 50 grams of carbs.

 

At this point I got re-tested and here is the results:

 

[break]

Weeks 9+: slowly re-introduce more carbohydrates

 

Now I ramp it up to 140g carbs and 70g protein TOTAL in two separate shakes post workout (70g CHO / 35g protein in each shake).  Plus around 80g CHO per meal after that.  I also have Carbs (starches/sugars)  in the evenings on non training days.

  

And now?

 

It’s July 2013 and I recently measured myself with bio-electrical impedance at 77 kg and 12.9% body fat. I’m going to post on my current work-outs which are focused on getting stronger.  I still ‘think’ about the strategies I used to get lean and as a principle I try and stick to the idea of having less starches/sugars on non-training days!!

 

Hope you found the information useful and let me know if you want any more information on the whole process!

 

 

A lot of my posts so far have focused on the theory of principles of training so in case you think I just talk about training I thought I would share with you a little insight into my own training goals over the last year!   First things first I should say that I always use a personal trainer / strength & conditioning coach even though I am one myself! I strongly recommend that everyone has their own trainer if they are serious about achieving a goal.  I think this is especially important if you are a trainer yourself. I find that I am constantly challenging myself to make decisions about what my athletes need and sometimes I don’t give myself the same attention.

 

I like to think about what I would like to achieve and then seek out the best trainer to help me achieve this.  The goal could be a performance goal such as lift a certain amount of weight or an anthropometric goal such as to achieve a certain body fat percentage.   It might seem strange to pay someone else to train you if you pretty much know what to do yourself but I like paying someone because it makes us both accountable for achieving the goal.  It also makes me a better coach because I can relate to my athlete’s experiences, and know what things could work well to motivate them that my own trainer has done with me.

 

2012- Get Lean

 

Last year I wanted to get under the 10% body fat mark inspired by a Men’s Fitness article in which a writer for the magazine Joe Warner was taken through a 12 week training phase to get them in cover model shape.   What got my attention was the fact that this was a typical guy who had a similar body type to me.   He was 6ft, around 12 stone and 16.3% body fat. Photos which were taken every 4 weeks and showed his gradual transformation to cover model physique where he gained a few kilograms and leaned out to 5.5% body fat.  The Men’s Fitness programme was designed and carried out by Nick Mitchell who owns Ultimate Performance in Mayfair, London.

 

 

Having made some enquiries I found that the price of personal training with UP was going to be out of my budget (around £150 per session!!!) So, I arranged instead an on-line training advisory package (see their advert below) with one of the trainers at Ultimate Performance, and basically said I wanted to go through the same process.  The on-line process involved me filling out a medical PAR-Q and an on-line waiver as well as several forms to describe in length my goals, nutritional habits and general training history.

 

 

For £450 I would get 3 months of training plans designed to suit my specific goals as well as an assigned trainer who would be available to discuss the training via email as often as required.  Once the payment was processed I was assigned to Jonny Rees, who would write my programmes.  As I wanted to have some measurements taken I also opted to pay another £150 to have my bio-signature done.  This is a body composition assessment based on the Poliquin method using skin folds.

 

Now to cut a long story short I had the bio-signature at middle of September and one more re-test  2 months later at the middle of November.  I couldn’t wait for the full 3 months because I was leaving the country on business before the 3 months ended.

 

Test results:

 

Starting weight: 74.4kg  and body fat % : 16.1%

 

Re-test weight: 71.6kg and body fat percentage: 9%

 

I can say now that 90% of this change was based on a nutritional intervention.   For those of you interested I will explain the process I went through in my next blog.   By the way, I am writing this blog 6 months later and recently had a body fat % (admitedly from bioelectrical impedance on Tanita scales) of 12.9% and a body mass of 77kg!!!  This is because I now have a goal to get strong and squat 2 x my body weight.  I have had 3 personal training sessions with local strength coach Chris Burford and I will make sure I keep you guys in the loop with how I am getting on with that too!!!

 

 

I had a great night at GTC Gosling Tennis Academy last Thursday.  As you may or may not have seen from the website Gosling Tennis Academy has been a long time partner of APA and it has been great to see us both grow together.  In December 2012 we created a Pro Team (see photo below) and we had a very successful pre-season training camp.

 

 

Since then there have been some fantastic winning streaks including Ed Corrie making 5 Men’s Futures Finals in a row during January/February 2013 and winning 3!!  As a result of this fine run he secured wild cards into Main Draw of Queens and qualifying of Wimbledon!!!

 

David Rice has also had a fantastic start to the year winning 15 matches in 18 culminating in a successful route through Wimbledon pre-qualifiers and winning a round in Wimbledon qualies!! Ed and Dave are both in the Top 5 GB men for ATP points won in 2013!!!!!

 

 

APA provides all the Strength & Conditioning for the entire Academy programme including Dave and Ed who both earned the chance to play at Wimbledon this year after their amazing runs!!

 

To mark the launch of the grass court season Gosling invited a number of pro players to a pre-wimbledon BBQ event to play tennis with the younger players and sign autographs.   I had the chance to catch up with Timi Babos who I had the pleasure of working with for 18 months during her days on the Junior ITF circuit where she got to Number 2 in the world. She is now doing great things on the WTA Tour but still has John Morris as her agent, seen in the photo with myself and Gosling Head of Performance & Sports Medicine, Sergio Gomez-Cuesta.

 

Using the warm-up to get a better functioning body

 

I’ve just taken on a few young athletes who have invariably come to me because their sports coach has noticed that they are quite heavy on their feet or flat footed.  Now the traditional approach to improving this movement flaw is to do a lot of ‘footwork drills’ such as ladders, skipping rope and so on.  And to be honest I have gone down this route myself with different degrees of success.  Certainly some of the drills I have seen Nino Severino do are really effective. But in recent months I have been working with middle distance runners and the coach came to me with a similar problem.

 

Now because they were runners and not playing multi-directional sports such as Tennis, I focused higher up the body on maintaining a taller posture while doing things like this:

 

 

I’ve started to use these drills to compliment my glute bridges in the gym warm-up and I’m finding I am getting some great results.  I also do some planks, side planks and leg lowering at the end of the workout along with some quadricep stretches and it’s really helping.  For some great examples of drills you can do either as a stand alone session or used within warm-ups and workouts see http://www.jumphigherin4weeks.com/7dayjumpcurevideos.html

 

PRE WEIGHTS

Activation: Glutes

Glute bridges 1 x 20

Standing hip flexor iso holds 1 x 10 each side

Core

Do not need to do core if did on court

Around the world 1 x 20 (10 Each way)

Over the top 1 x 20 (10 Each way)

Lunge and twist 1 x 20 (10 Each leg)

Lunge and chop 1 x 20 (10 Each leg)

Mobility:

RFE Lunge 1 x 5 each side

Goblet squat 1 x 10

Dynamic hamstring 1 x 10 each side

Bar warm-up:

RDL x 12

Bent over row x 6

Overhead squat x 12

Drop squat and press x 6

 

While we’re on the topic, I am also going to give you an example of a general APA pre-practice warm-up below which follows the basic RAMP protocol of warming-up.  It is my belief that the warm-up is the ideal time to steal 15 minutes each day to work on the movement efficiency of the body.  I’m focusing on slightly different things here but the principle is still to develop movement efficiency.

 

Think of it this way; you need to fix YOU (your mind) and YOUR BODY first before any workout or programme can really help you.  Most programmes don’t work as effectively as they could because most people’s bodies don’t work optimally.  They don’t recruit the right muscles in the right order at the right time.

 

You need to lay a foundation first.

 

A warm-up will achieve this by giving you a daily dose of movement efficiency work.

There are so many ways you can tweak this to suit your own needs.  For example, in the APA activation section we use mini-bands followed by single legs squats and hops for glute activation, and a nice medicine ball series to activate the trunk and shoulders.

 

But you could easily swap out the mini-bands for floor based glute bridging and planks, and swap out the medicine ball series for some shoulder band circuits.  It is my personal preference that as much as possible is done standing up.

 

R- raise- body temperature

 

A- activate- muscles

 

M- mobilise- joints

 

P- potentiate- wake up the nervous system

 

Pulse raiser: Skipping 50 on spot 25 hop on each leg 25 cross-overs 25 doubles then repeat COULD DO IP here on match days Activation: Glutes Lateral monster walks x 10 each way Forward/backwards monster walks x 10 Balance 5-sec single leg squat hold (F/S/ROT) each side 5-sec Hop and stick  x 3 each leg Core Around the world 1 x 20 (10 Each way) Over the top 1 x 20 (10 Each way) Lunge and twist 1 x 20 (10 Each leg) Lunge and chop 1 x 20 (10 Each leg) COULD DO floor work here on match days Mobility: Lunge series (F/S/ROT) 2 x each leg Spiderman crawl x court width Catepillar walk x court width Coordination: single knee deadleg lift side steps high skips cross-over side shuffle side shufflr butt kicks cross-overs high side skips Sprints Fast feet on spot into 10m sprint there and back

 

Notice that the activation section and mobility section can be changed during tournament weeks (match days).  Doing this whole warm-up on your feet twice a day could become quite energy sapping so instead I get the athletes to do what we call an ‘Injury Prevention’ circuit before matches with exercises that involve more stationary work.  We also replace some of the more demanding lunges and crawls with yoga stretches to loosen the hips and back.

 

These warm-ups teach you to get power into the ground efficiently, and you can achieve this even without gaining additional strength and speed just by making the movements more efficient.

 

In summary a good warm-up should:

 

1.  boost the strength and functionality of the muscles that optimally control your legs:

 

you want the muscles that sit up higher on your body, the abdominals, hip flexors and glutes, to control your thigh bone and lower body muscles rather than the muscles residing lower on your legs.  Strengthening these muscles will go a lot further than focusing on hours upon hours of ‘footwork drills.’  These drills act on the muscles lower down and won’t target the correct muscles higher up that are key to lifting you up onto your balls of your feet and off your heels!!!!!!

 

2.  Boost mobility of key muscle groups

 

Before you can have the strength you have to have the mobility so stretching of the quadriceps, rectus femoris, hamstrings, groin and calves are key here.

 

hope this got you thinking and you enjoyed the post.