Tuesday, November 16th, 2010
When the weather started to change I recommended some strategies to keep your workouts fun while getting the same bang for your buck that you did during the summer. However, I’m sure now a month later, some of you are starting to again get bored with your training. Thus, I think it is time to go over a few more killer, I mean fun ways to keep your training exciting!
One of my all time favorite make-you-want-to-puke things to do is plate pushes. What are they you ask? Well, grab a 45 lb plate (or whatever size works for you), put it on the ground, get into a position as if you were about to bear crawl with hands on plate, and push away.
Gotta love a good ole iron plate!
Yes, I know this is typically done on turf and you don’t have access to turf. Never fear, there is an easy fix. Grab your plate and a towel; mosey on into the aerobics room, wrap the plate in the towel and you are good to go!
Depending on how your workout is set up, you can add plate pushes to a super or giant set, add them in-between sets, use them as a finisher, incorporate them in a crank; you name it, the possibilities are endless.
Now that you already have your plate set up (wrapped in a towel); I’ve got another great one for ya. Get in a plank position with your feet on the plate. Position your feet so your toes are right up against the ridge of the plate and begin walking yourself forward with your hands while dragging the plate behind you. For this variation, you stay in a plank the entire time.
And yes, there is a second variation, keep your hands where they are and pull the plate in with your feet similar to a prone tuck. Once feet are pulled in tight, walk you hands out until you are again in a plank position and repeat. Continue all the way across the aerobics room.
Both of these plank-walk variations are also great to add into a workout just like the plate pushes.
Moving on from the plate, here is a great twist to the deadlift. Take your conventional or sumo deadlift using a loaded barbell. Start with the barbell on the floor in front of you. Place hands on the barbell and walk back into a plank. Hold for desired time (preferably 10-15 seconds) then jump feet forward and perform your deadlift. If feet do not land the correct position to start a deadlift, move them into position. The position of your feet and proper execution of the deadlift is the most important part of this exercise. As you lower the barbell down after the deadlift, jump or walk back into your plank.
Depending on what your lifting goal is, you can use this variation for all sets/reps of your deadlift or you can perform all sets/reps then add a one or two sets using this variation as a finisher.
While I’ve already listed a few ways to add these bad boys into your workout, I know not everyone is working towards the same goal. Here are a few surefire ways to add these guys in without interfering with your goal:
If your goal is building, you are lifting heavy and need to take full advantage of rest periods à Do not start supersetting plate pushes/plate plank-walks or plank deadlifts with your current program. Your rest period and ability to lift heavy is the point of your workout. However, once you are finished with your training, head into the aerobics room for a few laps with the plate. Or after your last deadlift, add on a set or two using the plank technique (lower the weight so not to injure yourself). You will be adding these bad boys in as a finisher to your workout to give you that extra boost!
If your goal is to maintain your athleticism for your sport à hopefully you have either dedicated one or two days to some sort of plyo/agility/speed work or you are mixing those elements into your lifting. I am a huge fan of mixing those elements into your training and that is what you will do with the three exercises. Add in a plate push during your rest period, tack it on to the end of a superset, sub a regular deadlift for the plank variation, you name it, mix it up.
Finally, if your goal is weight loss or body recomposition à you can play around with either mixing these elements into your training or using them as a finisher, the choice is up to you.
So there you have it, three new and fun exercise variations to add to your training and keep the winter exciting! Hope you enjoy – and let me know how it goes!
Thursday, November 4th, 2010
Yes…we are.
There is much going on here behind the scenes. It’s kind of cool.
I had much on my mind when I wrote the Power of Ten article a few weeks ago and much of it is coming to fruition:
Joanna, as you know is going behind the scenes. She is helping us with the much needed re-design of MP4 and the development of our affiliate companies. Who is coming to forefront will be announced tomorrow. Just know, great things come in small packages.
MP4–and the rest of our affiliate companies–are going live in 2011. (Wait for that info…you will like it when you hear it.) And when it does, there will be more MP4 staffers coming out of the wood work! Very excited.
Our blog is getting a face lift and with the addition of our new blogger and MP4 staff member, we will take on a more refined approach to the information we provide for you.
All of the programs mentioned on the blog thus far will be released in 2011. They will enable you to reach your goals, both weight loss and performance, in an organized, affordable manner. Your food will be done for you, your weight training, functional and supplementation schedule laid out for you. Short of it working out for you, it is complete!
Heather is moving to the Northeast. Oh wait, did I say that? Ok…she’s not, but I tried. Haha! Wishful thinking.
The sister company to MP4, for those of you who want what MP4 has to offer but are not prepping for an athletic event, is on the way. This has been the number 1 request of 2010. “I love what you have done for me and my ‘fill in the blank’ is not getting ready for anything, can she still work with you?” Up until now we have said no. But not anymore. Many are hounded when they are in the gym by folks wanting to know ‘who they are training with’ because our programs are so fun and unique. If you are tired of the same old weight routine that looks like it was plucked out the back of a magazine, just know that there is more to working out than a four day split. Or if the power/Olympic lifting thing is not quite for you, just know again that there are options out there that get you to the same place without you having to learn a clean and jerk.
Have patience with us as we unfold everything over the next 3 months. Email us at info@modelper4mance.com because many things will be in place before you see it on the site so keep in touch. Although I will say, there are lots of you who are doing that already and we thank you for your support! Hang tight!
Thursday, September 23rd, 2010
Are you wasting your time doing a four day split while trying to get ready for an event? Are you shoving things in on days that you are dead or missing whole days b/c you ‘got nothin’? Only to find that it’s not doing anything for your body composition any more?
One of the tools we love to rock at MP4 are complexes. They are fast, effective and all encompassing. You can substitute a day of cardio for them, aw well. Try them and let us know if you like them.
What are they?
They are a barbell workout designed around 4 to 8 exercises that are set up in a way so that they create a flow of movement around the barbell. All exercises are big muscle movers and major windsuckers so you are fully out of breath by the time you finish.
Isn’t that a circuit?
Umm…no. Any time you say the word circuit I cringe. Honestly, I have visions of women in regular clothing moving from machine to machine sans sweat who are there solely to pass time in between rounds of bingo next door at the church hall. Once the outer square and overall are done, they’ll go back in for round 2.
What’s the catch?
The catch is, you cannot put the barbell down once you start. So you do each exercise separately and complete all reps before moving on to the next exercise. This is killer! You must choose a weight that is challenging to the weakest movement and then go for it.
I’m Confused…
Ok…here’s a great complex: Overhead press, overhead squat, back squat, front squat, bent over row and Romanian deadlift. Perform that with a barbell and do 7 reps of each exercise. Once you start with the OH press, DO NOT PUT THE BB DOWN until you have gone through each exercise at least once. Do this for 4 sets of 7 reps each. Rest 120s between each set. Remember to bring a puke sack with you, you’ll need it right about the time you hit the 3rd set and you’re doing the back squat. OY!
This is cardio?
Heck yeah! Again…try it before you question. It’s also a great way to maintain muscle without having to kill yourself. AND…IT’S FAST!!!!!!!!
Please try this out and let me know how you do on it. I love complexes and I know you will, too!
Thursday, September 16th, 2010
I swear everything we did when we were kids was so much better than now that we are adults.
Youth would be an ideal state if it came a little later in life. — Herbert Henry Asquith
But we didn’t know what we had when we had it. We wanted to grow up over night and live like we were 20 something when we were only 13. We knew it all. We had it all. And the best of all: we weren’t responsible for a thing. No, that was left to our parents. That was their job to worry over the bills, make sure we were safe, drive us to Palace on Route 1 at 10 o’clock at night b/c we had a cute outfit (er…or was that just me?). Our parents were saviors and menaces all at the same time. Take me where I need to go but don’t ask me where I’m going! What’s wrong with that picture? Haha
I am in a state of reflecting (and flux, tbh) right now because the rock of my life, that I did not seem to give such credit to, had a very traumatic thing happen to him last week. My dad, the smartest man I have ever met besides his brother Bruce, went in for a routine medical procedure that for the average person would have been an hour to two hour procedure with a bit of monitoring to follow to make sure he was ok. Instead my dad, while sitting up and fully aware, proceeded to have a stroke and a heart attack all at the same time on the table. Yes, he is alive. Yes, he is out of the woods. No, he’s not the same and never will be again—and it is so hard for me to type that.
I know I have said this before and I truly do mean it: there are worse things than dying. Living less than who you are or who you know yourself to be is sheer hell in and of itself. Value the gift of movement because it is fleeting at best. At any time life can take something as precious as that from you and you cannot do anything about it. Obviously this is why we work out the way we do and why we care about how we look and function. My dad is in there somewhere and he cannot get out. How frustrating must that be? More importantly, this was all preventable if he lived in a different generation. Health was not important when he was in his prime and it definitely was not when he passed it. All we can do is sit back and watch our parents choose to live in ways that make US now sit on the edge OUR seat waiting for THEM to come home.
I do miss the old days.
“Sometimes when a man recalls the good old days, he’s really thinking of his bad young days.” Anon
Not because it was better in terms of my life or circumstances (I am so truly blessed with some of the best people I could ever ask for in my life—please refer to the MP4 team), but because exercise was fun and not something I had to do to stay in shape. I know someone is going to say I love to exercise and I am going to tell you to go fly a kite. And honestly, even if you do, you do not love it now like you did when you were a kid. Now exercise is a fad: crossfit, p90x, parkour and so on. Back then…it was life; it was fun.
Running
Is what you did because you could. Whether you ran to your girlfriend’s house two streets over in your jelly shoes or you ran to the park to make sure everyone was there in your tight Jordache jeans, running was purely acceptable. No one wore heart rate monitors. No one bought books on running. Very few kids back then were heavy. We ran everywhere. Spontaneously. In any clothing. In any footwear. And we’re still around to talk about it.
Parkour (FreeRunning)
In the old days, Free Running is what you did when you were about to miss the school bus. See, the school bus did not pick you up in front of your house like it does now. You actually had to *walk* to the school bus. But let’s face it, you were never on time. So you had to *run* like a lost African tribesman caught out in the Serengeti alone. Unarmed. In the dark. At any given moment you would see about 20 kids come flying off the side streets onto High St. doing a buck twenty five trying to catch the bus. At least once a week there was a casualty (Someone would miss it, someone would wipe out, someone would have a wardrobe malfunction. Scary stuff.) and we’d all talk about it for months and laugh. But then there were the champs. They were the ones that would jump over cars, climb trees, dive roll, fall, roll, get up and keep running. These folks meant business. Clearly if they missed homeroom one more time, stuff was going to go down. So they mastered the art of Parkour, got older, gave it a name and started a movement. We know the true origin, though.
Crossfit
This is another form of “way too much time on your hands in the summer down at the park”. This is when you would say to someone: “I dare you to climb the slide the wrong way, jump over all the animals in the park, do 10 pullups on the monkey bars, run around the block 2 times and then lift Tony up 5 times. You do that and I’ll buy you a steak cheese.” Next thing you know, everybody goes flying off and Tony finds himself being hoisted up by 4’ 8” girls wanting a steak and cheese. Shame. Cuz now you have to pay to do this kind of stuff. And an even bigger shame is that you can’t find a good old fashioned park anymore either with dangerous things like 15 foot slides and merry go rounds that could spin faster than the earth’s orbit. But now it’s all about the deadlift, kip up and pull up with no Tony to be found anywhere.
Relivio
Probably the best form of exercise there is in the country and there is nothing else like it. Group hide and seek. At least 30 kids in the neighborhood get together and form 2 teams. One team has 5 min to disperse across a 5 street area and hide. The goal is for everyone to get back to base. Inevitably there would always be one jackass who would forget who is on his team and who is not and be captured. Then there was at least one couple that disappeared never to be found that game again. Someone would get bitten by a dog and at least 2 people would end up forgetting what was base and what was not. But you always knew a game was going down because all you could see was a bunch of kids running through the neighborhood like a bunch of cockroaches after the light’s been turned on. It was awesome. Unfortunately nowadays if you see that, it is usually called a “citywide search” and it involves handcuffs and mug shots.
Multisport
Now known as triathlons and duathlons and most involve swimming, this actually got its origin from the street lights coming on. If you were unlucky enough to be too far away from your house when this happened you were required to run, bike, sky dive, crawl, hitch rides and so on to get your behind home FAST. Do not mistake this for running or Parkour. This condition brought on athletic feats that mankind still has not reproduced. You would see 4 kids on a huffy bike (one pedaling, one on the seat with you in the back, one on the handle bars and the last in the back on the spokes) moving at the speed of light—the street light that is or cutting through yards, hopping fences, swimming through neighborhood pools—you name it, it happened here. It always involved 2 to 3 modes of movement: running, biking, praying. And it was grueling to say the least. You really never knew you made it til you made it. No time keepers. No water stops. No bike transition areas. Every so often, though, one of the cool parents in the neighborhood would provide a friendly voucher for you (“honestly, Julie, Jodi was here helping me out. She’s on the way now.” Whew!) and bought you some time, but that was about it.
OH I MISS THESE DAYS! And I miss my dad. My heart aches in a way I cannot describe and I am not one to put emotion out on the table. He may or may not “come back”. Pray that he comes back.
In the mean time…I love you all. Along with my family, you complete my life. Do not ever forget how important that last time you may see someone is. God Bless.
Thursday, July 29th, 2010
Do you ever feel like what you're missing in your program is really simple?
Then get faster.
Ok, it is not that simple, but it is a start.
Our passion here at MP4 is the everyday athlete: the person who gets up every single day rain or shine and just gets it done. You are not looking to go to the Tour De France, but you are looking to win your local race or sporting event without having to give up life with your kids or weekends with the friends. We love working with folks like you for 2 reasons: your resolve is absolutely no joke. Some of you scare us with how focused and detailed you are (although we love it) and the second reason is the room for improvement is tremendous.
For the majority of clients, you are not doing many things “wrong” as much as you have no focus and are just doing whatever the latest magazine told you to do and you either switch up every week as to what you should be working on or you start right into a pro athletes program and fizzle out after a few months. The following is a checklist needed to build a solid foundation as an athlete who really does want to win their 5k, 10k, marathon, hockey tournament, soccer match, etc.
Nutrition:
Get the junk out of the cabinet and actually eat breakfast. There is a new type of food in town, it is called protein. Try it. It works. I have been doing this for years and it still amazes me in this day and age how many people do not eat enough protein. I am not asking you to kill a deer on the way home from work and stock up your freezer with some meat, but a stop at your local supermarket should land you some gems like fresh fish, lean meats and poultry. Heck, I’ll take beans and tofu, too, if we are anti-meat. Don’t hold back now. You need to have some with every meal.
Workout:
Get an assessment of some kind. I know many of the tests out there are expensive and that may not be where your head is at, but that info is worth it. But say you really are “anti” formal assessment. Perform your own standardized test. Pick a distance that you run or a drill your league does every week and measure your performance in some manner. This is baseline. You must have this info. Then, start basic and easy with your workout program BUT ramp it up every week in a way that actually makes sense. Do not follow your favorite pro athlete’s plan that he/she used to get ready for the Olympics! OY! Instead, find a beginner plan or better yet, have us put one together for you and you’ll be good to go.
Recovery:
Take a day off, psycho. Yeah, I called you psycho. What else should I call you when you workout 7 days a week with no rest because you think that’s going to make you lose weight faster? Contrary to everyone’s belief, a protein shake (just whey protein only) is not a recovery drink. You need a lot more in there. You are not “recovering” by throwing back plain protein (although I am impressed that you are eating protein), but at least you are on the right track. You get an A for effort with this one.
Nutrition:
Now that you have a foundation you need to work on three things: meal timing, meal components and supplementation. When you start feeling like you have a bit of a swagger in your step because you are eating clean and showing restraint, begin to hone in on perfection by eating on a consistent time basis with all the right foods in each meal. And then top it all off with the right recovery nutrition at the right time. Having this together is a mark of maturity and is rarely seen with athletes whose workouts are at the “progression” level.
Workout:
Once you are consistent with your workouts (and I mean for your sport—not the weight room), now it is time to track them. Here is another sign of maturity. Yes, you are running a marathon and distance is important. But please do not just get up and run every day without tracking *something*. And once you start tracking, go back and *compare* to see if you are improving. If you are not, come see us and we’ll get you there.
Recovery:
Now you have ample days off built into your plan and you are not trying to fit everything you possibly can into one week. You have time to rest and you even have a few mind/body classes built into your schedule. Lastly, you take your multi-vit everyday and your protein shake has more than protein in it. Life is starting to take shape.
This is a very simplified check list of “where to start” to begin improving in your sport. This is not for the mature athlete who is now looking to dominate a national event but more for the athlete that is trying to do this on their own for the first time but are not ready yet to invest in the “Lance Armstrong” treatment.
Next week we’ll talk about the Advanced Progression and I will be much more specific as to what this looks like. Stay tuned because it will be worth your while. Til then, can you please just have some protein?
