Monday, 27 February 2012

A glimpse into my training


Some people spend 40 hours a week in an office crunching numbers, or 40 hours at a computer designing, coding, scripting, facebooking or whatever it is people do when they leave their houses at 7am every morning.

I spend that time coaching, guiding and motivating athletes to soccer moms to weekend warriors on how to be stronger, faster, fitter and leaner.

However, when it comes down to coaching myself, I am as effective as eating cereal with a fork.  I'll walk into the gym to train myself and will be side tracked within 5 minutes by the pretty moth on the wall or the grubby mark on the window.  I have an attention span of a goldfish.

I too need guidance.  Enter my delegators:

I have two trainers, a strength coach - Terence Mitchell, and a kettlebell coach - Sean Temple.

Since I've given my body to them (not like that you pervert) I've seen some incredible changes physically, strength wise and mentally.

Terence has converted me from plain Jane to Ninja over night, my body composition has changed drastically and my strength accomplishments are forever escalating.  Where as Sean has tackled my mental strength and built endurance and stamina most real athletes would be jealous of.

Together they have created an awe inspiring machine in me.

Now, I am not an athlete, (as much as gym junkies of this decade like to refer to themselves as 'athletes', sorry, if you are not competing you are not an athlete) so my training is kept to an average of an hour a day 6 days a week.

I generally spend 3 days a week at Mitchell Strength under Terence's guidance, his workouts are tough, demanding but fun as hell.  Here's a snapshot of what we covered today:

* Soft tissue work (foam rolling)
* Dynamic warm up
* 10kg loaded chin ups
* 20kg loaded dips
* Pull ups
* Ring push ups
* Incline rope rows
* 24kg db rows

Our workouts vary on a day to day basis, I don't want to bore you with too much detail but lets just say it's been an interesting couple of months.  Terence is an excellent strength coach, his knowledge, guidance and down right bad ass training styles have got me in the best shape of my life.

When I'm not hanging from a bar in Ballito, I'm with Sean at Flux Motion in Umhlanga, I try and spend at least 2 days a week under Sean's watchful eye.  We focus on my conditioning through the use of kettlebells. These tools have increased my aerobic capacity, improved my mobility, flexibility and contributed to my overall strength gains.

Sean's style of training centres around GS where this technique promotes explosive power, fitness and endurance.  A peep into a general workout with Sean will include:

* Joint mobility warm up
* Energy system work (kettlebell swinging, pulling and pressing)
* Various kb exercises predominantly following the HITT principles
*  Recovery and static stretching

These conditioning workouts differ from session to session but are concentrated around high intensity exercises and leave you wanting to throw up a kidney, aching in muscles you never knew existed and yet you find yourself begging for more.

Sean thrives on the natural high generated by these tools, and his energy just leaks into you and keeps you going long after you think you cant.  The mental strength Sean has built inside me through his crazy conditioning methods have me smashing feats I never knew imaginable.

That's me, in a day with the people that keep me going.

That's a wrap