Looking Forward....

Hope this finds everybody well and that you all had a great Christmas.. I love this time of year because it's an opportunity to look back on the past year, think about what went wrong and what went right, and how I can improve on things for the coming year. The past year saw the opening of my dream gym, which was huge. New Hampshire now has its first functional strength training gym right in downtown Nashua at Dynamic Strength and Conditioning. The response has been phenomenal and everybody is really excited about the way we're redefining the way to get in shape. I want to thank everybody who has been coming to the gym and talking it up with their friends and family. The only way a gym like this works is through the excitement and commitment of its members. Michele and I are totally committed to helping each of you reach your goals.

At this time last year I made a list of goals for the year.. On the list I had things like, "open a gym", "come top 20 in a cyclocross series", "top 10 in the Green Mt Stage Race, masters group".. These were in there with the regular stuff like "save the world" and "be kinder to the French".. I have to admit that I wasn't real good about reaching many of my goals, but that was because opening the gym took so much effort that everything else kind of took a backseat. I wasn't able to train for bike racing so I actually didn't get to do one race last year. To reach the racing goals I had for myself I would have needed to be at about 15 hours a week on the bike. I just didn't have the time with a 40 hour a week day job and then trying to get a new business going in my spare time. Oh well, there's always next year, right? Which brings us to "next year".

In 2009 I've set my primary training goal to get top 10 in my age group for the Mt Washington Auto Road Bicycle Hillclimb.. 7.6 miles of relentless uphill at an average grade of 12%. No breaks. No downhill. I've done this mountain 3 times in the past. Best time was 1:20:00 two years ago.. This year my goal is to get 1:10 and if conditions are really tough then I want to be no slower than 1:15. Once you get above treeline at about mile 6 the wind gusts get up around 50mph+ and riders have been known to get blown off their bikes. There's really no way to describe how difficult it is to finish this race. At mile 1 you feel OK, but know there's a long way to go. At mile 2, you've been going uphill for about 20 minutes and your heart rate is up over 90% max and it has been since mile 0.4. Things are really starting to suck. Then right around mile 3 you hit a section that's an average grade of about 18% for a mile and you question your sanity. You know you're not even half way, you're working super hard, and your mind is telling you "there's no shame in getting off the bike. this is stupid and i think we might die if we continue. i don't think we're going to make it to the top today. please stop."... It only gets worse and your mind gets less polite and starts saying things like "what are you thinking, you fking asshole!!". After mile 4 the road goes from pavement to gravel. On the gravel sections, it's steep enough that when you stand up on the pedals to give your back a break the rear wheel spins out on you so you have to sit back down. The last 3 miles are completed, literally one pedal stroke at a time. The last 50 yards of the race are at 22% which is like climbing a wall on a bicycle. I'm sitting here getting nauseous just thinking about how much it sucks. So why do it? I don't really have a good answer. But it's the single toughest thing I've ever endured (physically anyways) and I always like to prove to myself that I can endure things that test you at the highest levels mentally and physically. Plus they give you a really cool fleece blanket at the top after you fall off your bike in a shivering heap because it's 26 degrees and you're in a state of shock with cold sweats. It's all about the blanket :)

So that's the primary goal for 2009.. I have a bunch of other goals too.. 

- Buy more organic food and clothes.. I'm not saying I'm going to become the guy at Starbucks with the pony tail and the t-shirt that boldly states "The Hippies Were Right".. What I'm saying is that eating organic is really good for your health and wellness and that dressing in organically made clothes is good for the planet.. If it makes the planet a better place for my kids' grandchildren then I'll pay a couple extra bucks to wear wool, organic cotton, and clothes made from recycled water bottles. 

- Continue to learn and train hard so that I can give our gym members and personal training students the best experience possible. I can't teach it if I don't live it. I spend hours a day training in the gym and reading books and watching video to make sure I'm the best trainer and coach I can be. I live it and I love it. None of you will ever have to wonder whether or not I'm the real deal.

- I'm planning to bring some of the top functional strength training coaches in the world to Nashua for workshops in 2009. I'm already working out the details for a visit from Steve Maxwell in March and Jon Hinds in May or June.

- 100 burpees in 5 minutes. I'm not saying anything else about this one. It hurts too much to even think about it.

Oh yeah, and save the world and be kinder to the French....

Here's a workout for you for today:

250 revolutions on the jump rope

100 hindu squats

25 hindu pushups

10 pullups

10 burpees

Repeat for 4 rounds total...

All the best,

kevin

Downtown Nashua Dynamic Fitness Challenge, Final Day

We completed the Downtown Nashua Dynamic Fitness Challenge yesterday in the middle of a massive snowstorm that has dumped about a foot and half of snow on us over the weekend. Everybody was in good spirits and even a little nervous with the butterflies you get in your stomach the day of a big event. The Dynamic Fitness Challenge was a 60 day fitness event where 12 people from the Nashua area signed on for 3 workouts a week for 8 weeks. We performed body measurements and fitness assessments at the beginning so we had something to compare to at the end of The Challenge. The fitness "test" was a workout in what we call a "Prison" format where you do descending numbers of repetitions of each exercise for each round. In this particular workout the challengers needed to complete rounds of 10-9-8-7 down to 1 repetition of each of the following: Pushups, Situp and Reach, Burpees, Body Rows, and Box Jumps. At the end, prizes were given to best overall time and best improvement in time for both men and women.. You'll see a chart at the end of the video that shows the improvements everybody made. Absolutely outstanding!

The results of this Challenge were phenomenal. Everybody lost between 1 and 2 inches off their waist measurements.. The men added inches of muscle to their arms and thighs. The women took inches off their hips. Their fitness level improved so much that their times in the Challenge decreased by as much as 55%! To watch the improvements these people made over the past 2 months was a true inspiration and it made me and Michele incredibly proud to have been involved with the group. 

We're starting the next 60 Day Challenge on January 5th and still have some spots available.. I guarantee that if you stick with the program you will get results that you didn't think were possible.. 

Enjoy the video!

All the best,

Kevin

Sorting Out the Pretenders...

In my efforts to continually improve myself as a coach and trainer I do a lot of reading and watch a lot of video. There is so much material out there in print and especially on the internet that it can be overwhelming. How do I know when I'm reading something that is really useful? How do I know when I'm reading something written by some out-of-shape armchair trainer trying to make a quick buck? The first thing I look for is proof of how fit the person is that I'm looking to for guidance. Guys like Steve Maxwell, Ross Enamait, Jon Hinds, Steve Cotter, Mike Mahler are absolute freaks of nature. The second thing I look for is how much their training philosophy lines up with my own. My training philosophy is essentially that I strive to get in the best condition possible through functional conditioning and healthy eating. And I'm willing to train very hard to attain my goals. The guys mentioned above share this philosophy. You won't see any of them trying to sell you on a new piece of fancy equipment or bizarre diet.. They're not going to have you wasting your time on the bench press or the leg press when they all know that different variations of pushups and squats kick the crap out of the bench press and leg press for functional strength.. Now don't get me wrong, I'm open minded enough to know that there's a place for bench pressing and leg pressing. They're great for bodybuilders who need to isolate muscles to bulk them up and take all the functionality out of their bodies. They're also great for people who care more about what they look like in a mirror rather than how they feel or function in real life. But there's lots of coaches out there who will tell their athletes to do these exercises which, in my opinion, makes no sense at all. An athlete needs full body explosive power to be competitive. Not a limited range of motion and a lot of bulky muscles. I guess if you suck at football and find yourself on your back a lot with heavy opponents on top of you then the bench press is a good exercise to strengthen your chest and triceps so that you can push the opponents off of you and get back to the huddle. At the NFL combines they have people see how many times they can bench press 225 pounds.. In 2007 the best performance was from a defensive lineman  that benched it 42 times.. Holy Crap!!! He must be super strong, right? But he weighs in at 307 pounds so that's really only 73% of his body weight.. Not so impressive now is it? I wonder how many "true to form" pushups he can do? Probably not 42... OK, enough ranting about isolation exercises where most of the muscles in your body are completely supported... 

My main point today is to make sure you don't get sucked in by hype. Getting really fit is simple. Hard work, natural full body exercise, healthy eating.. The reason not everybody is fit is because most people don't want to work hard and they don't put the effort into eating right.. Anybody on the internet or in books or on video that is trying to sell you some kind of "secret" to get you in the best shape of your life without a lot of hard work is full of crap and is only out to make a buck. The longer it takes for them to describe their "secret", the more crap they're full of. (You know what I'm talking about.."But wait, there's more! You'll also get........". This goes on for about 3 pages.). Also, if you have no proof of how fit the individual is, then you have no proof that they are living the life that they're trying to sell to you. Stay away. If a person doesn't actually live it, then they can't teach it. I read a lot of stuff from noted "professionals" that prescribe 3 sets of this, 3 sets of that, rest this much between sets, blah, blah, blah.. And I think to myself, "I know people can work a lot harder than that because I do it every day.. How is this supposed to get an athlete in top form?".. So common sense tells me that if this person can't put a workout together that I think is difficult, then this person doesn't know what it's like to work hard himself.. 

You don't need to subscribe to 17 different newsletters to get in shape. It's very easy to get into information overload. Find a half dozen or so sources that you trust. People that you know work hard, are in great shape, and are not trying to sell you some "secret to better fitness". People that keep it simple with natural, full body exercise. Here's a workout for you that I had a group at the gym perform the other day.. It has everything in it that you need and it was intense; pushing, pulling, squatting, jumping, every muscle in your body engaged, all the time.

In a 40:20 format (40sec work followed by 20sec rest) for 5 rounds:

Kettlebell Swing

Burpees

Uneven KB Military Press (Great neuromuscular development by having one arm push a different weight than the other)

Jump Rope

Renegade Row

Scissor Pushups (which are a twisting pushup where one leg gets twisted under the body and out to the opposite side, sorry no video)...

See? No secrets. Just intense exercise that works your whole body..

All the best,

Kevin

 

Developing Full Body Power During the Power Outage

It's been 5 days without power at home now due to the ice storm.. When I got out on the roads on Friday morning it was like a war zone, trees and lines down everywhere.. Any of you that live out here, I'm obviously not telling you anything you don't already know. But where some people look at the power outages and damage to power lines and trees as an inconvenience, I immediately thought about the opportunity of getting full body workouts playing with downed trees.. My workouts for the past weekend consisted of finding big, broken trees anywhere from 10-20 feet long and weighing anywhere up to over a couple hundred pounds and doing things like flipping them over end to end, carrying them around, pressing them, and just basically doing stuff that gave me a tremendous workout.. It's also a great workout to just go up to a tree that is definitely not moving and put everything you have into trying to knock it over.. I would do sets of end over end tree flipping followed by isometric pressing on trees that wouldn't move.. Anywhere from 5 to 10 seconds of an all out isometric effort, engaging every muscle in my body, putting all the energy into the tree.. Awesome stuff.. Can't wait to get back out and do it again next weekend!

In the gym yesterday, I continued with the "awkward load" type of workout and did sets of Sandbag Get-Ups (SGUs) with my 109 lb sandbag (73% of my bodyweight).. You basically start on the floor and roll the bag onto your body and then get up to standing "turkish-getup" style.. I did four rounds of 10 sandbag getups (5 continuous on each side) followed by 25 burpees.. This was an intense workout.. 40 SGUs and 100 burpees total. After getting up 40 times with a 109# bag on you it's amazing how light you feel walking around when the workout is over.. It was awesome..

Today's workout was a great workout as well.. I'm starting getting miles on my bike to train for the Mt Washington AutoRoad Hillclimb in August.. Known as the toughest hillclimb race in the world.. Having done it before I won't dispute their claim. It's easily the most difficult thing I've done in my life. So today's workout started with an hour on the rollers in the gym.. Riding on rollers is great because it's so unstable that you really need to keep your entire body engaged otherwise you crash..

I followed the bike ride with 5 rounds of 15 ring dips followed by 20 pistols... Ring Dips are a phenomenal upper body exercise. Actually, anything on the rings is a great exercise since they force the body to engage all kinds of stabilizer muscles that wouldn't need to work on a fixed piece of apparatus. Pistols are a great strength move that require a lot of leg and core strength. Both the ring dips and pistols are excellent power moves.

I wrapped up the workout with 100 windmills with a 16kg.. But i had to try to get 50 on each side consecutively without putting the kb down.. I honestly had no idea if I'd be able to make it, but like a lot of things I do I just try to pick a number and then go for it.. I decided that 25 windmills with a 16kg might be tough so I doubled it.. I was right, it was very tough. I got to 45 on the left side before I almost dropped the kettlebell on my head.. Only got to 40 on the right side but I think part of that failure had to do with the fact that I already had done the 50 on the left side.. Anyways, I almost got my 50 on each side without stopping and now I have a goal for next time :)

Totals for workout:

60 minutes on the rollers

75 ring dips

100 pistols

100 windmills

Who said anything about a power outage?

All the best,

Kevin

Hindu Hell

Every two or three weeks I throw a session from Hindu Hell at myself... Actually, this is probably not an appropriate analogy since the Hindus are reborn after they die and therefore never go to Hell... But if they did, it would be something like this...

A ladder workout with ascending numbers of Hindu Squats, Hindu Pushups, and Jacknifes.. Last time I did a workout with these exercises was a few weeks ago and I did it in a format where I did as many rounds as possible in 30 minutes of 100 Hindu Squats, 20 Hindu Pushups, and 20 Jackknifes.. I got 7 full rounds for a total of 700 Hindu Squats, 140 Hindu pushups and 140 jacknifes.. Not too bad for 30 minutes of work, but by limiting the number of each exercise per round I was able to really crank without putting myself into maximal effort.. Today I went to another level.. It was a ladder workout where I did 4 rounds with ascending reps. The rounds were:

-100 Hindu Squats, 25 Hindu Pushups, 25 Jackknifes

-200 Hindu Squats, 50 Hindu Pushups, 50 Jacknifes

-300 Hindu Squats, 75 Hindu Pushups, 75 Jackknifes

-400 Hindu Squats, 100 Hindu Pushups, 100 Jackknifes

The first round was a nice introduction to the torture I'd be experiencing over the next hour. It took a little under 5 minutes and I quickly calculated that this workout would take me close to an hour to complete and that I was going to put myself into some serious pain to complete it. In each round I completed the number of hindu squats without stopping. I had never done more than 200 of these in a row, so doing 200,300 and then 400 in a row was brutal. At a pace of about 40 squats per minute the lactic acid in the legs builds to a very uncomfortable level (in other words, really starts to suck) right around 100, so the push to continue after that is as much mental as it is physical. Beginning a set of 400 squats with 600 already in your quads is daunting, painful, and kind super challenging on a number of levels. The last set of squats took me 10:30. No stops the entire time. Walking really funny when it was over... The Hindu pushups were pretty agonizing for the rounds of 75 and 100. On the round of 75. Having already completed 75 of these, I had to stop at 60 before continuing on. And on the round of 100 I had to stop at 55 and 85.. The rounds of pushups were brutal. I went until my whole body was shaking and I had to take 3 breaths between reps just to complete another one, until the point that one more rep was impossible.. I would then rest 30 seconds and go again until I completed the number of reps I needed.. There was a lot of noise coming out of me, mostly unintelligible with some R rated wailing mixed in.. The rounds of jackknifes were just as difficult if not more so since it got to the point where I had to finish my last 50 in the round of 100 by doing 10 and taking 10 breaths, then 10 more jackknifes, and then 10 more breaths...

This is what training hard means. It means not knowing what your limits are but always training to try to find out.. My totals for the workout were 1000 Hindu Squats, 250 Hindu Pushups, and 250 Jackknifes.. Completed in 4 rounds of increasing difficulty. That's key.. I could just as easily have broken this down into 10 rounds of lesser reps and not pushed myself one quarter as hard as I did. I went into this knowing the number of reps it would take to put me in pain and I doubled it.. That was my goal for the workout and I achieved it...

To cap it off, after a 20 minute break I got on the power wheel and knocked out 200 yards of power wheel crawl and 80 power wheel hamstring curls in 7 minutes... 200 yards of power wheel crawl is much tougher when it follows 250 hindu pushups and 250 jackknifes... 

I think I'll take it easy the rest of the day... 

Train hard, be well,

Kevin

Nutrition: Part 2

Earlier I wrote about how, if your ultimate goal is to get strong AND lose weight, then you need to burn more calories than you're taking in for the losing weight part... Keeping a nutrition log and determining what you're putting in your body is the first step.. Eating well is the next step and it's not rocket science. I read a book by Michael Pollan called "In Defense of Food, an Eater's Manifesto".. He has a quote on the cover of the book that pretty much covers all you need to know. "Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much."... Simple, right? 

There are so many "diets" and magic pills out there that "guarantee" to have you losing weight in no time. But they're all a crock. If you want to be healthy, then you need to eat natural foods and you need to exercise. Simple as that. When you exercise, you have to work hard. 30 minutes of walking or gardening is a nice break from doing absolutely nothing, but it's really only a step or two above napping. If you exercise hard and eat naturally, then you will become strong and lean.

What does eating naturally mean? It means eating fruits, vegetables, and nuts. If you're not vegan then eat fish and lean meats. Eat stuff that has expiration dates that time out within a week or two. If you have something in your cabinet that's good until October of 2011 then toss it.. 

Think of it this way. Every living organism is designed to survive under a certain set of living conditions. If living conditions change, then the organism evolves to adapt to the new conditions. This takes thousands, if not millions of years.. Our bodies were designed for the hunter/gatherer lifestyle. It's designed for hours of strenuous exercise every day that is fueled by mostly carbohydrates.. I can guarantee you that our ancestors of just a few hundred years ago were not sitting around worrying about getting 30% or more of their calories from protein or restricting their carbohydrate intake because it makes them chubby and have less energy. Our genes are essentially the same as the ones the cavemen had. The problem is, we don't exercise as much as they do and we take in way too many processed carbs and refined sugars. For you Creationist types out there who don't believe in evolution, just remember that Eve tempted Adam with an apple, not a Twinkie. Carbs give you energy. They're not the evil that anybody selling a diet book tries to tell you they are.. If you eat processed crap and refined sugars and drink lots of alcohol then you're filling yourself with empty carbs and you will be fat and lethargic. If you're eating fruits and vegetables to get your carbs then you'll have great energy. I get 60% or more of my calories from carbs. Nobody is going to come into the gym, look at me and say "He's not very energetic.. Must eat too much carbs.".. But I eat natural carbs. I eat 2 or 3 bananas a day. I eat a couple apples and oranges every day. I eat vegetables two or three times a day. I get my protein from nuts, fish and lean meats.. I train hard and I eat well..

As for the training hard part... Obviously we live in a time that makes it impossible for most of us to get hours of strenuous exercise in every day like our ancestors did. If you're a farmer or in certain types of construction then you have the ability to work your body hard all day.. But if you have a sedentary job, you need to find the time to exercise hard.. Going to a chrome and fern palace like Best Fitness and jumping on a treadmill or elliptical machine is pointless. Spending two hours among the chrome and fern while you perform a set of biceps curls every 5 minutes and spend the rest of the time chatting up some fountain of botox is even less useful. You need to train your body at a high intensity for short durations to raise your metabolic rate and give the body the type of exercise it was designed for.. That's what we do here at Dynamic Strength and Conditioning. It doesn't take long either.. 20 or 30 minutes of work like we put in here at the gym will give your body all it can handle. Doing it 4 or 5 times a week will increase your metabolic rate to that of a caveman. Ever seen a fat caveman? Not even in the Geico commercials, right? 

Train hard, eat naturally.. Sounds easy, but if it was easy then everybody would be fit.. Come to our gym and we'll help you take care of the training hard part.. We can guide you with the eating naturally part but it's on you to make it happen. 

All the best,

Kevin

A Continuum of Suffering to Achieve Optimal Wellness

Sound contradictory? Why would I need to suffer to achieve optimal wellness? Good question, and to be honest, only a few push themselves to a place of true suffering.. But suffering is the ONLY way to get to the top of your game.. There's no pill, diet, DVD, or new age shiny fitness machine at Gold's that will get you there.. It's in your heart and it's in your head. Top level cyclists know what it is to suffer.. Nobody suffers more than a guy like Lance Armstrong climbing Alpe d'Huez or a guy like Tim Johnson throwing it down at a cyclocross race.. The ability to get your heart rate at above 95% max and keep it there for 20,30,40,60 minutes... I did it climbing Mt Washington on my bike.. At the top I got off the bike and dry heaved for 3 minutes with a smile on my face because I knew I just pushed myself beyond the limits any sane person would. Most people can get their heart rate to that level for well under a minute and then they stop because something in their head tells them to. For those that push past those signals, we benefit by achieving a fitness level that few will ever realize.

I'll give you an example of a workout that I did just this morning where my head was telling me to slow down after 2 minutes but I pushed through and suffered for 10.. I did a 10 minute workout of burpees (with full pushup and jump with hands overhead) in a 45:15 format where I would do burpees straight for 45 seconds and then rest for 15 seconds (if i had to guess, 15 seconds of rest after 45 seconds of burpees is about enough to get your heart rate from about 100% max to about 95% max).. After the 2nd set I was already saying "holy shit" knowing that I had 8 minutes to go.. But I pushed, and pushed, and pushed harder.. My numbers for the sets were 15, 14, 14, 14, 14, 13, 14, 13, 13, 15 (last one i went through the beep at 45s so I could get 15).. 10 minutes, 139 burpees.. My heart rate couldn't be measured.. It was a random mess of something resembling a burst from a John Bonham solo followed by a second or two of silence.. Is this dangerous? I don't know.. But I do know this.. I'm in the best shape of my life, I'm 41 years old and I'm at about 6 or 7% body fat.. I'm this way because I push myself using old school methods of training.. I use my bodyweight, kettlebells, medicine balls, sandbags, ropes, monkey bars.. No machines, no pills, no magic diet.. I train for performance.. You want to train for aesthetics and not have to feel pain, I'll point you to a nice shiny gym with showroom models toting around clipboards that will set the pin on the leg press machine for you.. What a joke!

After the burpee workout I played with the power wheel for a bit working on a new exercise I've been playing with called the Power Wheel Handstand Press... And no, you won't find anybody doing this at Gold's.. Because they can't.

Later in the afternoon I did the workout that I put a few people through this morning and I have planned for the Spartan Workout tonight.. I put a really fit detective from Nashua through it at 10am and then I had two of the fittest people at the gym do the same workout at noon and they also had to push really hard to get through it.. So I had to try it out for myself.. The workout consisted of:

-Battling Ropes (50 ft 2" rope wrapped around a pole.. Grab both ends of the rope and repeatedly slam it into the ground. This is a super difficult exercise. 30s of this is the longest 30seconds of your life)

-Kettlebell swing

-box jumps

-burpees

-double kettlebell press

I did this workout in a 30:30 format (30seconds work, 30 seconds rest) for 4 rounds with no breaks.. I give the groups a 2:00 minute break after 2 rounds but I wanted to push myself a little harder.. I did the swings with a 32kg bell, jumps on a 24" box, and presses with double 20kgs... I can see why everybody had to work so damn hard to get through this workout. Definitely a decent level of suffering when you push yourself hard with this group of exercises.  And I got to add another 40 burpees to my total for the day since I was getting 10 burpees every round... Mental, I know....

Train hard, be well.

kevin

killer workout

I put my workout up on the board not thinking that the Renegade Rows would end up being the easiest thing on there.. When renegade rows are the easiest exercise in your workout you know you're getting a good ass-kicking workout.. Today's workout..

-narrow stance 20 kg Renegade Rows (20 reps )

-Plyometric Pushups between ground and a 12 inch med ball, this is done by launching off and back onto the top of the ball. (20 reps)

- 5 Double 16kg Getup Situps with a 10 second negative (very tough). 

- 50 double unders forwards and 50 double unders backwards on the jump rope..

I went through this 5 times.. 5 stars for this one!

Have a great Thanksgiving,

Kevin

The Numbers Don't Lie

We're halfway through our Downtown Nashua Dynamic Fitness Challenge and yesterday was "assessment" day to see how far our challengers have come in the first 4 weeks of the Challenge.. To recap, the Challenge is made up of 12 people that work for or own businesses that are local to downtown Nashua. We have Deb Soby of Patisserie Bleu, Karen Campfield of Surf Restaurant, April Bohaker of Salon Apryl, Andrea Granger of Verde Salon, Kathleen Palmer of the Nashua Telegraph (who is covering this same event on her own blog), Jen Amidio of J. Bella, Roni Vetter of Jake's Old Fashioned Ice Cream (I'm actually eating some of Roni's Hunk O'Berry ice cream as I write this, it's the best :). On the men's side we have Pete Johnson of Johnson Electric, Paul White of Northern Acres, Kirk Dubois of National Grid who is single-handedly responsible for the drop in natural gas prices over the past month so you can feel free to thank him personally. We also have Dr. Paul Gasch of Amherst Family Chiropractic and Marc Petit of A.H. Machining. Marc comes to my noon time kettlebell workouts and then comes back at 5:00 for the fitness challenge workouts 3x per week. He's becoming a beast!

The challenge is this: Everybody performs a workout consisting of pushups, sit up and reach (with med ball), burpees, body row, box jumps. The workout is done in a format where you perform each exercise 10 times, then 9 times, then 8 times, etc... all the way down to 1.. Everybody completed this workout 4 weeks ago at the start of the program and the times varied from a best of 17:30 to 32:00... In just 4 weeks, everybody absolutely shattered their times. The improvements in time were anywhere from 20% to 50%!! The efforts that were put in were inspirational and the times this time around were between 14:05 and 22:00.. People were knocking 10 minutes or more off previous times.. In 4 weeks! To me, that is truly amazing. Everybody involved has been commenting about the increase in energy, stamina, clothes fitting differently, more positive attitude and self-confidence. I don't think I'd be exaggerating to say that for some of the people involved, if not all of them, it's been a life changing experience.. The numbers don't lie.. These people are getting themselves in the best shape of their lives.

I was so inspired by their efforts (and scared that they were getting too close to my time I put up 4 weeks ago), that I re-did the challenge myself this morning... Last time I did it in 11:42 but when I was done I knew I could have pushed a lot harder, mostly because I didn't have much of a goal in mind to shoot for and I had never done the workout before.. This time I went into it with the goal of beating 10 minutes. I pushed as hard as I could and finished at 9:30.. I checked my heart rate at the end of the session and it was at about 99% max.. Last time I put out the challenge that anybody who beats my time gets a free month at the gym and it still stands.. You just have to do it a little faster now :)  Burpees have to be full burpees with pushup and jump with hands overhead at top of jump and box jumps have to be 24" jumps landing both feet on top of box.. Women can do burpees without pushups and jumps on an 18" box... 

Come on down and give it a shot.. If nothing else you'll get one of the best 10-20 minute workouts of your life...

All the best,

kevin

Pushing Through the Pain

I went out for my trail run yesterday morning.. it's about 4.5 miles through the trails of Hollis and it's an awesome run. Streams, hills, fields, boulders and granite to jump on.. I absolutely love it.. But today was probably the toughest run I've had. I've been fighting off some chest congestion (I'm not going to call it a cold because I think i've won the battle and it never really set in) and I had kind of a hard time breathing. This coupled with the 20 degree winter chill and it was like i was sucking air through a straw. I was really struggling and then my vision started to go. I started seeing a lot of white light, like swirling rectangles.. It was kind of like a bunch of spinning Spongebobs with light coming out of his pores.. It's hunting season so I looked myself over to see if maybe I'd been shot by a hunter. I kept trudging on, figuring it would pass.. I came to the first steep hill of the run and I went from feeling like I might have been shot by a hunter, to wishing a hunter would just shoot me and put me out of my misery. It was absoutely awful.. At this point I knew that at the top of the hill there was a shortcut back. But at this point in my life I've trained myself to the point that this is not an option. I would finish the run regardless of how badly I was doing. This is the type of mentality you develop by pushing yourself past your limits on a regular basis. The shortcut was there, but i didn't consider it for a second. Along the way I got my vision back but I was still sucking wind through a straw. I got to the point about halfway where the 40" granite monument is that I like to do plyometric jumping on. I had decided beforehand that I would finish the run but didn't have the lung capacity to do the jumps today. As I was passing the granite monument I could swear I heard it call me a wimp or something.. So I turned around and went back to it. This rock has taken it's share of blood and skin out of my shins and with a tender hip flexor from 100 pistols and some plyometric jumps a couple days ago I would have been smart to have just kept running.. But, again, the way my mind works now this just isn't an option. I stuck my first jump and added a second just for kicks and then headed on my way. I finished the run a little slower than normal, but I finished.

The reason I'm writing this is because I want people to understand what it takes to get yourself in the best shape you've ever been in. You have to constantly push yourself. It's hard, and sometimes it really sucks, but it's necessary. It's not easy. If you want easy, then stick to the elliptical machine and weight machines that only make you work one or two muscles at a time while you crank out your 10 reps. If you want to get in shape, then you have to be ready to work your whole body and you have to be ready to work it hard. And when it hurts, you have to continue to push through it. You have to be able to push yourself out of your comfort zone and into a zone that's really uncomfortable.. But then again, if it was easy, everybody would be in great shape. 

The people who are getting the most out of the workouts at the gym are the ones who push themselves to their limits every time they come in. When we do interval sessions, they work like hell for the entire interval. They do this despite the heart rate which is approaching 100% max and despite the pain they're feeling. They push out one last burpee or squat thruster because it makes them stronger. The benefits are there for those who are willing to push themselves to that level. The people coming to Dynamic Strength and Conditioning have more energy than before, they're stronger and leaner than before, they're happier and more confident than before. It's a wonderful thing to see. 

All the best,

Kevin

Workouts of the Week

A few great workouts from this week that I wanted to share...

Alternating 10's:

Picked two exercises and alternated between them for ten minutes..

1st set was walking lunges followed by Overhead Squats. I'd walk across the gym and back (~25 yds total) carrying double 16kg kettlebells. Then perform 5 OH squats on each arm with a 24kg kettlebell. Did 4 round trips, and on the last set of OH squats I did 10 on each side. 

2nd set was power wheel crawl across the gym and back and then flip over on my back and do 10 power wheel hamstring curls.. I did this 10 times in ten minutes. Last few minutes were pretty tough.

3rd set was alternating between 5 pullups on the rings, unassisted isometric pulls with chin over the rings. No kipping. Followed by a Turkish Getup on each side with 28kg. I got 5 rounds in 10 minutes.

Totals for workout:

34 minutes, 30 mins effort plus 2 mins rest between sets

100 yds walking lunges with 32kg

50 OH squats with 24kg

250 yds PW crawl

100 PW hamstring curls

25 pullups on the rings

10 Turkish Getup with 28kg

Workout #2 was mostly to feel out how my right forearm was doing after trying to take it easy for a couple weeks and also to start doing some work on long sets.. I decided I want to work towards achieving some World Kettlebell Club rankings which will require long sets of snatches and jerks.. For this workout I went light on the kettlebells but it was still a great workout from an endurance standpoint.

10 minutes of 1 arm snatch with 1 arm switch at 5 minutes.. 12kg kettlebell. 21o reps.

5 minutes of the jerk with double 16kg kettlebells.. 46 reps..  this was pretty brutal.. i have a long way to go with this exercise.

I haven't done a lot of long set work. It's very demanding on a physical and mental level. Your body starts screaming at you to put the weights down but you just have to push through it. It's tough, but it's a great workout, and you put up some huge repetitions which build awesome strength and endurance. Best thing about this workout today was that my forearm responded really well to it :)

Workout #3

5 sets of 100 2 arm KB swings with a 24kg followed by 10 ring dips. When I thought of this workout I was thinking about how many consecutive two arm swings it would take with a 24kg bell for it to start to suck, and then I doubled that number. As it turned out, getting to 50 wasn't so bad. But getting to 100, especially the 4th and 5th times, was definitely challenging. Doing long sets of swings really works your grip. Each set of 100 took 3 minutes. My forearms were really pumped at the end of these sets. The ring dip is a phenomenal exercise that works your upper body really hard. Anything you do on the rings is great for the whole body because the unstability factor will require you to engage a lot more muscles than if you do the same exercise on a fixed bar.. Totals for this workout:

510 24kg swings (I did 110 on the last set.... just for the hell of it)

50 ring dips

Sometimes it's fun to figure out how much work you did by figuring out how much weight you moved.. In doing 510 swings with a 24kg I raised 26,928 lbs!

Train hard,

Kevin

Setting Goals and Challenging Yourself

One of the things that keeps us working out is setting goals.. Sometimes people will get in a rut with their workouts because they don't have any actual goals they're striving for.. With people who compete, this is easy. You can set goals for different races you enter and train towards that goal. For people who don't compete there needs to be more creativity. Lots of people have goals of losing weight, which is a great goal if you're overweight, but it's kind of boring.. I like physical and mental challenges better. They give you something clear to set your sights on and, if you set the goal appropriately, you have to work your butt off to get there, so the weight loss and great physical shape come as a result of your efforts.. Examples of inappropriate goal-setting would be for a person who can do 10 pushups to set a goal of doing 12.. Too easy.. Or for someone like me who's in their 40's and American to set a goal of competing on the Chinese Men's Gymnastics team in London 2012. That's unrealistic (I doubt I could get the citizenship by then :)   

Here's how I set goals.. I pick challenges that are things that I am not even close to achieving yet and I know will take a great deal of physical and mental strength to get there. Like the 100 burpee challenge in 5 minutes.. I'm at 6:42 right now and I was a mess the last time I tried it.. 20 burpees in 1 minute I can do.. but for 5 straight minutes? not even close. This is a challenge that will take me months to achieve and there's always the possibility that I may not get there. That's what a challenge is all about. Pushing yourself beyond your limits.. Another challenge I set for myself is to do 200 snatches with a 24kg kettlebell in 10 minutes with 1 arm switch.. I've done 50 snatches with a 24kg with 1 arm switch and it was super hard for me. Plus, I'm still in the process of trying to heal a forearm muscle that I strained snatching a 32kg bell about 8 months ago.. A couple days ago I snatched a 12kg for 10 minutes with 1 arm switch to start building the strength back up in the forearm following my 2 weeks of (trying but mostly failing to) taking it easy on the arm. I got 210 snatches and it felt pretty good the next day so I'm pretty psyched about that.

A long time ago I also set a challenge to be able to do 5 pushups with an 80lb clarinetist on my back.. And I'm happy to say that I can now cross that one off my list :)

I'd be interested to hear some of the challenges you've set for yourself.. Or, if you need help setting goals let me know and I can definitely help you..

All the best,

Kevin

On the Cutting Edge With Kettlebells in Nashua

The Nashua Telegraph had a feature article this morning on the benefits of training with kettlebells, especially with women. This is nothing new to those of you who have been training with me.. I've been promoting this for a while now and opened the only kettlebell gym in the region right here in Nashua, NH. For those of you who haven't been to Dynamic Strength and Conditioning in downtown Nashua, now is the time to get the best functional training available out there. We have kettlebell specific training sessions every day. We even have an intense 30 minute kettlebell workout at lunch that will get you in and out with a great workout and a shower and still have time to eat before getting back to your job.

Hope to see you for one of our kettlebell sessions soon. Join the cutting edge and come see why everybody is raving about the benefits of training with kettlebells, right here in downtown Nashua, NH.

 

When Will I Start Losing Weight?

Losing weight is very important to a lot of people. We've been open 4 weeks now and the people that are working out with us are talking about feeling stronger, having more energy, moving so much better, having clothes fit differently (in a good way) and being able to painlessly perform activities that used to cause them trouble.. All this in 4 weeks! But I've also been getting the question, "When will I start losing weight?". There's no clear-cut answer to this question. I can't tell you it will be 4 days, 4 weeks or 4 months. And that's because, ultimately, it's up to you.. I called my friend Rob Hudson, owner of Fitness By Design in Indianapolis, IN., who has been training people for over 25 years. He also gets this question a lot, and we had a good discussion about the issue. 

There's only one scientific piece of info I'm going to throw at you and it's really a very simple concept. If your goal is to lose weight, then you need to burn more calories than you're taking in. There's lots of ways to burn calories. Your body will burn calories watching TV, of course if your hand is reaching for a beer to wash down the handful of potato chips you just put in your mouth while watching TV, then you won't be burning quite as many calories as you're taking in. You can burn calories going for long walks, jogs or bike rides. This type of moderate-intensity aerobic activity gets your heart rate up and will burn calories at a higher rate the harder you work. But with non-interval, moderate-intensity type of aerobic training your body will stop burning calories at a high rate the second you stop your aerobic activity. My favorite way to burn lots of calories is to train like we do at Dynamic Strength and Conditioning, with High Intensity Intervals. I said I wouldn't throw any more science at you, but I have to here... There were extensive studies done by a Japanese researcher, Izumi Tabata, that compared the effect of 4 minutes of high intensity intervals (20 seconds of work at max effort, followed by 10 seconds of rest, for 4 minutes), against 60 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise with heart rate between 60% and 80% max.. The result was 9x more fat loss doing the high intensity intervals. You're probably thinking that there's no way you can burn more calories in 4 minutes of intervals than you could in 60 minutes on a treadmill and you'd be right.. But, like I said before, when you're doing moderate intensity aerobic work you stop burning calories at a high rate the second you stop the exercise.. With high intensity interval training, you raise your metabolism so that your body continues to burn calories at a much higher rate even after the exercise has stopped. The result is 9x more fat loss! Of course, this means you have to work super hard during your intervals. If you're able to carry on a conversation during your 30 or 40 second interval of burpees then you're not working hard enough and you won't get the maximum benefit from the training. For max benefits, you need to work the intervals at max effort.

OK, so there's the part you need to burn calories and get strong.. And the great thing about that part is that you can come to a gym like Dynamic Strength and Conditioning or Fitness By Design or the Monkey Bar Gym and we can guide you to get the best workouts of your life. But there's a lot more to it than just getting in your workouts. If you want to get lean then you have to take the nutrition side of it into consideration. Both Rob and I agree that a lot of people don't do as well as they could on the nutrition side of things. I'm generalizing here, but many people tend to think that they can continue with the eating habits that got them in the poor shape they're in to begin with and continue with those eating habits as long as they start exercising.. Or, they think that since they're exercising, they can eat more junk, or just eat more in general. While it's true that exercising will help a lot towards getting you feeling better, looking better and raising your energy level, it's incredibly important to also fine tune your nutrition plan to complement your exercise plan and be more in line with your overall wellness goals. The best way to do this is to keep a nutrition log, just like you keep a workout log. Write down everything you eat and drink every day for a week or two. Figure out how many calories you're taking in and what the balance of protein, carbs, and fats are.. If you can't do that, then you bring it to me or Michele and we'll do it for you. We take a look at what you're taking in and see if it matches up with what you're burning. Like I said at the start of this, if you want to get lean, you need to burn more calories than you're taking in. 

But you still need to give your body the energy that it needs. Too many people will really restrict their intake to the point that their body's metabolism will actually back off because it senses that you're not giving it the fuel it needs. This is counter productive and unhealthy. You want to be at a point where you're taking in a few hundred calories less than what you're burning per day for a healthy rate of weight loss. The body is getting the fuel it needs and you're burning fat and building lean muscle with your high-intensity intervals. Don't get too caught up in numbers on scales. While burning fat you'll also be building muscle so the numbers on the scale don't really indicate how your body composition is changing. It's possible that you could have periods where the number on the scale may actually increase because you're building lean muscle at a rate faster than the fat you're burning. There are many ways to measure your actual body composition, whether it's with tape measurements, calipers, or some other form of measure. We can take measurements at the gym and that will give you a base point to compare against as you go forward. The most important thing is setting your wellness goals and putting together an exercise and nutrition plan that is going to get you to your goal in a healthy way. If you do that, and stick to it, then the rest takes care of itself. 

Michele and I are here to help you with your entire wellness plan. We're definitely helping everybody through our doors on the exercise part of it. Everybody coming in has been saying these are the best workouts they've ever gotten. Now let's get the other piece of the puzzle in order. Start working on your nutrition plan. Keep a nutrition log and let's take a look at it and get it fine tuned. You can also take your nutrition to another level and get yourself a health and wellness coach that specializes in nutrition like Laura Moran who is healthy, lean, and fit. Working with a health and wellness coach is a fantastic way to complement what you're doing with us at Dynamic SC. I'll admit, keeping track of everything you eat and drink for a couple weeks is a pain in the butt. But it's necessary, and it's only a couple weeks. Once you get your nutrition plan fine tuned, you understand what you need to be doing and you'll do it naturally without having to write everything down. 

If you want it, and are willing to commit to it, then there's absolutely no question that you will realize all your goals.

All the best,

kevin

Workout 11-14

Quick blog about my workout today.. I've been wanting to do a different variation on my 300/3000 workout that I've done with the 300 yds of power wheel and 3000 revolutions on the jumprope.. I've been doing a lot of hand balancing work over the past several months. When I first started out I couldn't hold a handstand if my life depended on it and I could get maybe 3 feet of handstand walking, simply from the momentum of kicking my legs up. But I never gave up and continued to work on it. Now I can hold handstands for a minute and I can handstand walk about 70 or 80 feet without dropping.. Hand balancing is a phenomenal full body workout. Every muscle in the body is engaged and working really hard to keep you upright. I highly recommend adding hand balancing work into all of your workout routines.. Plus it's a lot of fun, and think about it, if you ever need to get work in the circus or cirque du soleil, being able to do handstands is required. 

So my new 300/3000 workout was to go for 300 feet of handstand walking and 3000 revolutions on the jump rope in under 30 minutes.. I split it into 10 sets of 30 feet of handstand walking (made it 9 out of 10 times without dropping) and 300 revolutions on the jump rope (150 forwards, 150 backwards).. Finished the workout in 26:48! I was pretty psyched. It was a great workout.. 

Then my 12:00 kettlebell workout group started coming so I decided to join them for a Steve Maxwell inspired kettlebell workout that included many variations of the Turkish Get Up and different types of kettlebell rows. We wrapped it up with 3:00 minutes of heavy kettlebell swings in a 15:15 format.. Pretty intense 30 minutes of kettlebell workout.. Awesome energy, fantastic full body workout!

All the best,

Kevin

It Was the Burpees That Killed Him...

I can see it in my obituary.. "He seemed so fit, I never thought anything like this could happen... It was those damn burpees!"... I mentioned in a previous blog that I want to get to the point that I can do 100 burpees in 5 minutes.. I'm sitting here now cursing myself. 100 burpees in 5 minutes? What do I think I am, a 50 pound 5th grader? But the challenge (to myself) has been put out there, and I'm going to do it (unless it murders me).. Today I put burpees in everybody's workout, including my own, and most weren't real happy about it. The burpee is the single most effective way to coordinate and engage every muscle in your body at a really high level. The burpee is the kind of exercise that really starts to suck for most people at about 7 or 8, so going to 15, 20 or more is an excellent physical and mental challenge that really forces you to push yourself. For my own workout today I started out with about 20 minutes of jump rope....

... and then I started the burpees.. Last week I got 100 in 7:04 or something close to that.. Today I got it in 6:42!! 22 seconds off my previous best.. But it left me in a heap. Holy crap was it brutal.. I did the first 60 without stopping and it took 3:20.. I rested 30 seconds (which wasn't nearly enough), did 20 more, rested 30 seconds (which was even worse than the last 30 second break) and then did the last 20.... And then collapsed in a puddle.... Still a long way from my goal of 5 minutes, but I'm getting closer.

I finished the workout with some intense core work. Two sets of 5 Double Getup Situps with 2 16 kg kettlebells...

...followed by the one i've been working on lately that have been having trouble with, (and still need more work on), the kettlebell dragon flag...

Later in the day I did four 30 second sets of alternating SOTS press which is another incredible core exercise with kettlebells (video coming at a later time).. And then I went back to the stairs for another round of Shaolin Squat Stair Jumps with a Reverse Bear Crawl which I wrote about in a blog last week.. I was working the NM varsity basketball team out and I had them do 3 rounds of the stairs followed by one backwards bear crawl.. Each of them said it was the most difficult thing they've ever done and they couldn't wait to tell everybody at school that they did it.. Very cool!!

Train hard.. Be Well!

kevin

Just Monkeying Around...

As far as I know, the Dynamic Strength and Conditioning Gym is now just the second gym in the country, and possibly the world, to have a set of Monkey Bars.. The other being at the Monkey Bar Gymnasium in Madison, WI... This is a heavy duty set of monkey bars, 14 feet long and supported by 8 1/2 foot 4x8 hemlock beams that were each bolted into the floor with brackets fastened by 5/8 x 5" lag bolts. Want to guess what my weekend workouts consisted of? How about ratcheting in 56 5" lag bolts into 6" of wood floor for starters. Thankfully, the mill has wicked thick floors with 5 or 6 different layers of different kinds of boards. These monkey bars will be there till the end of time. And I know we'll be enjoying them at the gym for a long time to come.

Had a great workout yesterday.. Worked out with the DSC gym rat Marc. We went through a great power-building session based on a 5x5 format which is 5 sets of 5 reps. Typically, if you're going to go with lower reps, you load up on the resistance or make it a really difficult exercise. In yesterday's sessions we did the following:

5x5

Handstand Press

Ring Dips

Weighted Pistols (5 each side per set)

Ring Pullups

Power Pushups

I did the weighted pistols holding a 12kg kettlebell which is just under 20% of my bodyweight.. Next time I'm going to go with the 16kg.. The power pushup is a pushup that uses one of Jon Hinds inventions, which is called "The Power Pushup" (go figure).. I have a few of these at the gym so ask me about it next time you're in and you can try it out. I had it setup with 6 cables which adds 120 pounds of resistance.. The ring dips are a great exercise that requires a great deal of core strength.. Any exercise that's done on the rings really adds a new dimension and forces you to use every muscle in your body.

We followed the 5x5 workout with one set of Turkish Getups, 5 on each side done with a 24kg kettlebell.. Nice cooldown :)  Excellent workout!

All the best,

kevin

Fun With Stairs

A couple days ago Michele and I took Jake for a walk down to the Mine Falls trails which are about a 5 minute walk from the gym.. Mine Falls is a gorgeous network of trails in the woods of New Hampshire along the lovely Nashua River. Anyway, we're walking along and we come across this really steep set of about 30 steps that link the lower trail we were on with an upper trail.. I look at things differently than most people.. Where most people would see a set of stairs, I see something that can give me a killer workout. My first thought was of the Shaolin Monk squat stair  jumps that I heard about from my friend Jon Hinds, who is full of great ideas.. Apparently, when the Shaolin Monks weren't busy doing Monk stuff, they used to do full range of motion, butt to heels, squat jumps up stairs and mountains. Trappist monks brew beer, Shaolin monks do squat jumps. I prefer the Shaolin method of killing time :)  

So I told Michele we had to come back and get a workout in on these stairs. So today was the day.. We brought Jake out for a walk, went to the stairs and I started in.. One sprint up the stairs, one set of single step squat jumps, one set of double step squat jumps, and one set of triple step squat jumps.. My legs were really burning and got a super pump.. I was pressed for time and had to get back to the gym so I couldn't do any more sets of jumps, but I did have time for one backwards bear crawl up the stairs. Very, very difficult exercise and it works every muscle in your body... Great stuff! And a lot of fun.. So next time you're out for a walk in the woods, I hope you look at things a little differently. Enjoy yourself and act like a kid.. Jump, run, climb, crawl and work up a sweat..

Train hard, have fun!

Kevin

Another day in Sparta

Another Thursday night, another great Spartan workout... Today's workout was in a 40:20 work:rest ratio. Complete 6 circuits of:

Double Kettlebell Swing

D-Ball Clean and Press

Double Kettlebell Getup

Sledgehammer Strikes

Jump Rope/Heavy Bag.

Huge effort by Niko, Nicole, Eric, and Michele.. Also it was awesome to see CJ climbing the rope like it was nothing. The people coming to the gym are bringing great energy. Let's get some more people down here for these Spartan workouts, your only regret will be that you didn't start sooner... I think people see the word "Spartan" and get initimidated. Granted, you want to be in good shape to come to one of these because I do set these up with a lot of exercises that can challenge you at a very high level.. But they're still designed to challenge you at whatever level you're at today. If you don't want to realize the phenomenal results that I've gotten doing these workouts then stick with your workouts at WOW or Curves. If you want to get in the best possible shape that you can be in then get your butt down here and join us. We're absolutely redefining the fitness world with our functional strength and conditioning workouts...

Some of the people coming to the gym have started leaving testimonials on our white board on the front door... Testimonial of the day:

Couldn't have said it better myself....

kevin

No such thing as going easy...

No matter how hard I try, i'm just not programmed for "easy".. Am I taking it easy on my forearm like I said I would? Yes.. Well, kinda.. I'm not doing any heavy kettlebell work and no snatches or cleans for another week and a half.. But I have to work myself and i have to work myself hard.. When I work out I challenge myself every time out. My easy days are my rest days.. If I'm exercising, then there's nothing easy about it.. Today's workout was intended to be a 30 minute session of burpees (Michele talked me out of trying 60 minutes).. So I set off on my 30 minute burpee adventure, after warming up with about 10 minutes of jump rope.. 99.9% of the people that come through the gym hate the burpee (I've blogged about this before). The reason is because it is a damn hard exercise that works every single muscle in your body.. And when you're doing burpees for more than 30 or 40 seconds it really starts to work your head too because the urge to stop is very high.. I was just over 10 minutes into the workout at 130 burpees and I was on pace to hit 400 burpees for 30 minutes when a new potential physical culturist came in to see what we're all about.. Luckily, when she saw how hard I was working she didn't get scared and run away.. She stayed, she liked what she saw and she'll be back for sure. But my 30 minute burpee session was stalled and will have to wait for another day.. I finished my workout with an amazing full body core blast with 50+ hanging windshield wipers.. Then I was practicing another move that I've been playing with which I'm going to call the kettlebell dragon flag (video of that one coming soon). My core was pretty torched from the wipers when I started on the dragons so my form kind of sucked and was not video-worthy just yet.. I finished up with another 10 minutes of jumprope fun... Here's a video of the hanging wipers...

Excellent full body workout.. 150 burpees, 50+ hanging wipers, about 6 or 7 KB dragon flags, and 20 minutes of jumprope.. No harm done to the forearm. Will be back snatching the 32kg in no time!

Be well, train hard,

Kevin

Workout 11-3

As much as I like working out with the kettlebells, sometimes it's necessary for me to just leave them alone for a little while and go back to bodyweight workouts. And when you have a strained forearm muscle that requires a "shutdown" period if it's ever going to get better, it's important to be able to still get kickass workouts in while you're shutting down that particular muscle. Using nothing but your bodyweight really allows you to do this. I strained the muscle about 8 months ago and have been reluctant to stop over-stressing it.. I continually perform heavy KB snatches, cleans, and swings and the muscle continues to give me trouble. Just last week on a day that I was determined to go easy I PR'd my Turkish Getup with 2 reps at 36kg (53% of my bodyweight). I admittedly have a lot of trouble "going easy".. So I'm going to spend the next two weeks without picking up a kettlebell and I'm going to go to a strict regimen of ass-kicking bodyweight workouts.. Today's workout was a 30 minute session to see how many rounds I could get in of the following:

100 Hindu Squats

20 Hindu Pushups

20 Jackknifes

I typically like to do longer sets of hindu squats but for today i really wanted to push the number of rounds and get a good number of pushups and jacknifes in as well.. When you're doing long sets of hindu squats, the lactic acid starts to build up in the quads at about the 40 second mark.. Being able to continue pushing through the burn requires a great deal of mental strength as well as physical endurance. It's similar to the feeling you get when time trialing on a bike or climbing hills. There's no recovery and you have to be able to push through the pain as your quads start to feel like they'll explode.. Of course, at sets of 100 squats, you're only going for a couple minutes, but when your quads are burning up it sure feels like a lot longer than that. 

As the timer went off at 30 minutes I was completing the 20th rep of the jacknife of my 7th set.. I don't know what was burning more, my quads or my lungs.. Great cardio workout, and an awesome full body burn. Huge energy level at the end of the workout! 

Totals for the workout:

700 Hindu Squats

140 Hindu Pushups

140 Jacknifes

30:00 minutes

But I sure miss the kettlebells :(

I put Michele and Marc (Official DSC Gym Rat) through a killer kettlebell workout at lunch that I wish I could have joined in.. They did the following:

100 1 arm swing

100 1 arm snatch

100 see saw press (alternating 1 arm military press)

50 KB thrusters

Michele was using 12kgs on the 1 arm swing and snatch and double 8kgs on the see saw press and thrusters.. She finished in 18:49! It was a stunning effort. Marc also came in under 20 minutes using the 16kgs.. Great job to both of you.

All the best,

kevin

Downtown Nashua Dynamic Fitness Challenge

Yesterday we started a very cool event at the gym that we called the Downtown Nashua Dynamic Fitness Challenge.. We have 12 people that work for or own businesses local to the Downtown Nashua area that are competing against themselves and each other in a fitness event that challenges the body as well as the mind.. It works like this; everybody completes a workout that Michele and I came up with that we feel tests a person's full body strength and endurance as well as your mental toughness. The workout is in what we call a "Prison" format. There are 5 exercises and you have to complete 10 of each the first time around, then 9 the next time around, then 8, and so on until you get to 1.. I got this format from my friend Jon Hinds at The Monkey Bar Gymnasium. I think it's called a prison workout because you don't really feel like you're making any progress through the first few rounds and it feels something like being in prison (i'm guessing here :)... On the other end, once you get to the last few rounds you're cranking through the rounds and when you're done it feels like you've been released from prison (again, i'm guessing).. The exercises in this particular prison workout were: Pushups, Sit Up and Reach (with a medicine ball), Burpees, Body Rows, and Plyometric Box Jumps.. The challengers really pushed themselves and came in with some great times! Best overall was 17:29 on the men's side by Paul White, and 19:38 by Karen Campfield for the women.. Excellent times! These initial times were saved. Now we'll be working out together 3x per week for the next 8 weeks and we'll be performing the same workout at the end of the challenge to measure everybody's improvement.. Prizes will be given to best overall time and best improvement in time for both men and women.. Our challengers are:

Roni Vetter - Jake's Ice Cream, Rt 1o1A

Karen Campfield - Surf Restaurant, Main St

Jenny Amidio - J. Bella Salon, Rt 101A

April Bohaker - Salon Apryl, Elm St

Deb Soby - Patisserie Bleu, Main St

Andrea Granger - Verde Salon, Main St

Wendy Steinmetz - Myoptic, Main St

Paul White - Northeast Acreage

Pete Johnson - Johnson Electric, Front St

Kirk Dubois - National Grid

Marc Petit - AH Machining, Factory St

Dr. Paul Gasch - Amherst Family Chiropractic

Great job everybody! 

While I'm thinking about it I'm going to throw out my own personal challenge to anybody who wants to try it.. I went through the Downtown Nashua Dynamic Fitness Challenge myself this morning to see how fast I could get through it. I did it with full burpees (pushup and jump), and 24" box jumps.. It took me 11:41. Anybody who wants to give it a shot, come on in to the gym and try it out.. If you beat my time we'll give you a free month at the gym. Men have to do it with full burpees and 24" box jumps.. Women can do burpees without the pushup, 18" box jumps, and pushups from their knees. Come on down and try it out. Hope to see you soon...

Finished my workout playing on the ropes.......

All the best,

Kevin

Workout 10-26 and 10-27

Just wanted to quickly share a couple great full body workouts with you that I did today and yesterday... Yesterday's workout was my 5 mile trail run with some plyo jumps and plyo pistols followed by 5 x20 of explosive crossover pushups...

alternating with 5x30 of the Corkscrew...

This morning I had another great workout. I started out with 5 minutes of skipping rope to get loose. Then I tried a burpee challenge which I've been wanting to try for a while now but haven't gotten around to.. The burpee challenge is to see how quickly I could do 100 burpees.. These are full burpees with a pushup and a jump. It took me 7:08 to complete the 100 burpees. I did the first 50 without stopping in 2:49.. My goal is to eventually be able to get 100 burpees in under 5:00.. I have a long way to go. Give this a try and let me know how you do.. I followed the 100 burpees up with 100 jackknifes:

Followed by some handstand work....

All great exercises. All with nothing but my bodyweight.. Killer workouts! Train hard my friends...

All the best,

Kevin

Don't Go Back to Rockville.....

Ever hear the REM song "Don't Go Back to Rockville"? I never understood what Michael Stipe had against the town of Rockville, but to be honest, I can never understand what any of REM's songs mean anyways.. I love their stuff but none of their lyrics make any sense. But today, I can understand why nobody should go back to Rockville.. I'm sitting here with an article in front of me that talks about the Funfit Family Fitness Center in Rockville that has kid sized exercise bikes, treadmills, air stepper, and hydraulic strength training equipment... Every time I read it I have to shake my head...

(This is me reading the article shaking my head)

Am I the only one who has a HUGE problem with kids on treadmills and exercise bikes? Apparently, Diana Ennen of Margate, FL doesn't have a problem with it.. She signed her 10 year old daughter up at her health club where she uses the stair stepper and hand weights.. Diana's comment... "Her clothes fit better. You can tell she's firmer.".... You can tell she's firmer???? Your 10 year old daughter?? Sounds like Diana squeezes her daughter like she's a tomato in the produce rack.. My question for people is why take a bad idea, like starting exercising on machines as an adult, and make it worse by having your children do it too.. Damn, Diana, I know the weather is really awful in Florida, but on the couple of sunny, warm days you do get down there why not take your daughter to the playground? Hmmm, what an alternative idea that is.. 

The gym has been growing on a daily basis.. New people coming in every day. Everybody that comes through the door is having a great experience and they're telling all their friends.. You know why? Because there's no machines, they're getting the best workouts of their lives, and they're having fun doing it because, as challenging as the workouts are, they're playful. Skipping rope, doing burpees, climbing ropes, jumping on stuff, doing exercises on gymnastic rings. It all brings us back to a time when we were fitter, more mobile, and happier. It's all natural, full body movements. I don't think there's one person that I've trained that hasn't said on at least one occasion "I haven't done that since I was a kid". And it's always with a smile on their face. People comment on their increase in energy and the positive, supportive atmosphere at the gym. I'm not lying when I tell you we're changing lives at Dynamic Strength and Conditioning. 

As for Rockville??? Like Michael said, "Don't go back there..."

All the best,

Kevin

Killer '300' Workout

Just a quick post on a killer workout I did earlier this week. I've been playing around with a lot of different "300" style workouts lately which are workouts where you pick a few different exercises and mix it up for 300 total repetitions.. The workout I picked for this particular day was:

100 burpees

100 pistols

100 Double KB Press with 16kg kettlebells

Awesome full body workout..  I did this in 5 rounds of 20 reps of each exercise.. 20 burpees really gets your heart max'd out and gives you a true full body workout. The pistols and KB presses are just great moves for building strength and explosive power.. Make up your own 300 workout and let me know what you come up with.

All the best,

Kevin

Just Havin' Fun

Sunday we went out for a hike up Mt Watatic.. It's a great local hike with an excellent view from the top and it was the peak of the Fall foliage season. To be honest, I don't get the whole "we have to go see the foliage" thing, but I do get the whole "let's go hike up a mountain" thing.. Mountains are about the best outdoor functional conditioning gyms around.. For example, there's giant boulders to climb up on and do sets of pistols....

There's trees to climb...

There's big rocks to do plyometric jumps on:

And there's lots of uneven, rocky surfaces to challenge yourself on with your handstand walking.... Right up to the point where your hand slips and your finger gets stuck in a crack of a rock and almost breaks off...

And like the last time we all went hiking we played the "ten lives" game on the way down where you start with ten lives and you can only step on rocks or roots on the way down and every time that you step on the ground you lose one life.. As we were playing the game on the way down a group of guys in their 40's and 50's came up behind us and got held up a little by us playing our game. I quickly described the rules of the game to them to let them know what we were doing and they laughed, probably thinking it was a goofy game.. After about two minutes they were still behind us and I said to them "you're playing the game, aren't you?".... 

You know what the answer was, don't you? It doesn't matter how old you are (or you think you are), you're never too old to stop playing.. I heard the quote once "We don't stop playing because we get old, we get old because we stop playing".. Very true.

Have fun,

Kevin

If You Choose Not to Decide, You Still Have Made a Choice...

We make choices every day that really have minimal impact on the present but have a huge impact on our future.. Choices like deciding to spend Sunday afternoon watching football, drinking a six pack and eating nachos.. Big deal, right? Who's it hurting? There's always tomorrow to exercise and take care of yourself.. So you get up Monday morning, skip breakfast, grab a large coffee with extra cream and sugar, maybe a muffin, and head off to your job.. Maybe you like your job.. Or maybe you're one of those who, when asked how you like your job, respond with a chuckle and say "it pays the bills".. I can always start looking for a better job, eating right, taking care of myself, etc., etc.., tomorrow.. Well, for many of us, tomorrow doesn't come until we're 72 years old with a shelf full of heart, liver, and cholesterol pills, a pack of Depends in the closet and a full one in your pants, wishing you had taken better care of yourself when you were younger. We live in a reactive day and age where we don't pay enough attention to our health and wellness until we get symptoms, and then we react to them. We react by getting a prescription to make them go away.. But that doesn't fix the problem, it just prolongs the eventual (and certain) point where your body has had enough. 

It doesn't have to end that way and regardless of what your starting point is today and how you got there, you have the option to re-write the ending. And it all starts with your choices. A choice to not workout is a choice to be unhealthy. A choice to eat pre-packaged meals loaded with refined sugars and processed carbs is a choice to be sick. Colds aren't caught, they're cultivated by not taking care of ourselves. I asked a guy a few weeks ago if he was going to come to the gym once it opened and try a couple workouts. He responded "I'm a smoker.", as if it was his nationality. People have so many excuses. It's inconvenient, it costs too much, I don't have the time.. But they're just that. Excuses. If you don't make the choice to do what it takes to be healthy and strong then you are making the choice to be sick and weak. If you want to be healthy and strong, then make the commitment to a healthy lifestyle. Re-write your ending and join us. It all starts with a choice.

Be Well,

Kevin

A Visit From North Sparta

We held our first "Spartan Workout" at the gym on Tuesday night and we had a visit from a couple friends from North Sparta which is up near Manchester... Doug and Steve are part of a Sunday morning workout group that regularly scour the internet looking for the craziest workout ideas to give themselves fantastic full body workouts. They tell me stories of pushing pick-up trucks full of gear (uphill), flipping tractor tires across football fields and swinging 20kg kettlebells around their heads on a rope.. Very cool stuff.. I worked out with these guys one Sunday morning and there is a lot of great energy and they put themselves through some amazing full body functional conditioning routines. So I was really psyched that Doug and Steve came down to workout with us.. George also showed up.. George has officially become Dynamic SC's first gym rat, having participated in workouts every day the gym has been open. He even stuck around for a second workout on Monday (but don't tell his wife, she thinks he was shopping for a present for her or something like that).. The Spartan workout was very difficult and the three of them put in a fantastic effort. We started out with rounds of:

Battling Ropes

Plyo Burpees

Ring Pull-ups

Double KB Front Squats

The boys completed 5 rounds in a 30s/30s work to rest ratio. 30 seconds of any one of these exercises kicks your ass, never mind cycling through the four of them one after the other.. After completing 5 rounds of that I had them on the power wheels for 100yds of power wheel crawl (50 forwards, 50 backwards)... Everybody put in max effort and are all looking forward to coming back for more.. Enjoy the highlight reel.. Good work men!

Having watched the guys doing all those plyo-burpees the other night inspired me to add them to my trail run today.. Workout for today: 5 mile trail run, 75 plyo-burpees along the way jumping on various rocks, felled trees, stumps, benches, and mounds of dirt of varying heights from 12 - 30 inches..

Added some pseudo-Planche pushups (3x20) and 6 x 15 second parallette L-sits

All the best,

Kevin

Nothing like a good butt-kickin to pick you up

For me, the days that I least want to workout are the days that I most need it.. Today was one of those days. As everybody who's been following along here knows, the gym opens in a couple days and I still have a bunch of stuff to do to get completely ready for it. Columbus Day Weekend is a big soccer tournament weekend here and I coach my daughter's soccer team so my morning and early afternoon was spent at the soccer fields. It was an incredible day for soccer and we had a great day. We won 3 and lost 1 (to a team that we were better than) and everybody had a really good time. But here was the problem.. I'm a little stressed (OK, a LOT stressed) over getting the gym ready for opening day and the tournament was taking me away from so many things I needed to get done which just added to my stress level. But I told myself a while ago that even though I knew the gym would be a significant time commitment I was still going to commit to my daughter's soccer team.. If I hadn't, I know I would have looked back on that decision in about 20 years and said "I should have kept coaching her team even though I was just starting a business.".. And I know I made the right choice. 

Anyway, I'm the type of coach who is completely committed and focused, and coaching is really mentally draining when you're as committed to it as I am.. Some people tell me I should lighten up a little, but I say if you're not committed enough to it so that you're mentally drained after a game then you don't care enough and shouldn't be doing it. Any good coach will tell you the same thing and it really doesn't matter if you're coaching U10 or the National Team. So we had 4 games today and I was spent. And the food at the tournament was CRAP (other than the pumpkin bread that Grace's mom made which was fantastic :) I left the fields in the middle of the afternoon really feeling spent mentally and run down physically. The motivation for a nap was high. The motivation for a work out? Not so much. But I knew that a workout was the only thing that was going to bring me out of it.. And I also decided it needed to be a workout that would completely torch me. So I had a pb n j on whole wheat and a glass of chocolate milk with added protein and off to the gym I went..... 

Let me tell you, when you own a gym and you can go there on a Saturday afternoon and you're the only one in there and you crank the music so that it registers on the Richter scale, it is a very, very cool feeling and it is very motivating.. I decided I was going to do the 30/300/3000 workout which is the kind of workout that challenges you a ton, both mentally and physically. It's 300 yards of power wheel crawl (see video here for an example of the PW crawl) followed by 3000 revolutions on the jump rope (1500 forwards and 1500 backwards) and it has to be completed in under 30 minutes. My previous best was 29:24 and I was determined to beat it. I set it up so that I would power wheel forwards 30 feet and backwards 30 feet without stopping, rest for 3 breaths, and repeat for 15 sets.. By the 9th set I was needing 4 breaths before starting again and by the 13th set I was taking 5, which wasn't nearly enough. I finished the power wheel crawl in a little over 7 minutes and went right to the jump rope, alternating between 500 forwards and 500 backwards until I had 3000 jumps. After doing 300 yards of power wheel crawl the shoulders get very tight which makes it really hard to jump rope for an extended period. Especially when you need to keep a pace of about 150 revolutions per minute. I found that when I would throw in about 50 crossover jumps every so often that it would really help loosen up my shoulders and allow me to continue at a fast pace... I completed my 3000th jump at 28:39. 45 seconds better than my previous best! 

The best thing about it was how much it energized me. I felt amazing after this workout. Especially after feeling so run down earlier.. Life is good

All the best,

Kevin