Club Swinging Essentials DVD - A Review

This is a review of the Club Swinging Essentials DVD featuring Brett Jones, Gray Cook and Dr Ed Thomas. I purchased this DVD from dragondoor.com

It looks like this

Cost and what you get for your money

The DVD costs $79.00. International delivery was not cheap and cost another $20 to ship to the UK. On the plus side Fed Ex delivered the DVD a mere 4 days after it was shipped from Dallas Texas, which is quick, on the minus side British customs charged me VAT on top! Which means delivery and VAT cost me almost as much as the product itself.


The DVD is approximately 1 hour and 27 minutes long and also comes with a 72 page colour spiral bound manual. The manual is particularly useful when you are teaching yourself the moves without the DVD in front of you, at the gym or in the garden. The manual covers many of the discussion points from the DVD, as well as photos of the movements, there are also some extra points about  functional movement screening and  historical material about clubs in the manual.

A small point, the word movment (sic) is spelt wrong on the front of the DVD cover, some proof reading may have helped here.


Content in brief

The DVD starts with an introduction discussion with Gray Cook, Brett Jones and the humble Indian Club Master Ed Thomas. It then moves on to Brett Jones discussing safety and grip, then the five movements are explained and demonstrated by Ed Thomas standing and then Gray Cook in tall kneeling and open half kneeling postures. After these five essential moves, three more advanced moves are demonstrated by Ed Thomas. We then move onto a demonstration of club swing by Ed Thomas and finally a discussion about the history of clubs, fitness and the philosophy of fitness.

You must grow a moustache before you start swinging clubs

Paradigm Shift

In the introductory section Gray Cook explains that he sees Indian Clubs as the upper body equivalent of the jump rope, expanding on his idea of self limiting exercise. Both skipping and club swinging demand technical proficiency, unlike running for example, which is easy to do badly with poor posture.

Ed Thomas then explains his background and where he learnt Indian Clubs, after his explanation of clubs as both a healing and martial tool, his time spent in Burma and elsewhere learning the clubs, and his self effacing attitude you are in no doubt that Dr Thomas is the real deal.

The idea of neural training is introduced and then Ed lists the three concepts that are needed to move well

1. Joint Integrity
2. Mobility
3. Efficiency

Dr Thomas them covers some more profound ground. Making the point that every time you do a movement you do it differently, you are a different person and

"every breath you take, you're a different person"

He then covers the concept of rational training, every movement you do either makes you better or worse off.

The dynamic between Gray Cook and Brett Jones is great, as it is on all the DVDs they have done together that I've seen, and Dr Thomas complements this nicely. At this point, you know you are getting much more than a list of Indian Club exercises or a fitness DVD. The fundamentals of exercise are being addressed.

It feels like you are watching the development of a paradigm shift in exercise, away from the mindless treadmill running and 'we must smash our clients into pieces because that's what they expect' attitude towards what Dr Thomas calls 'Mindful Movement'.

Having the brain and the body in the same place at the same time. This is very much in the martial arts tradition, as well as Yoga and Tai Chi Chuan schools.

It gets better, with Dr Thomas explaining that people need to learn to move, when they come to the gym we need to teach them something. People need to

"go to the gymnasium to learn to workout"

With this point I think he hits the nail on the head, this is something I've been trying to evolve towards in the way I coach people.

 Ed Thomas cover his training principles of progression, variety and precision.

Gray Cook adds that much of the exercise variety we have is for entertainment purposes, not for the purpose of exploring how our bodies can move and that the

"solution is not moving more, it's moving well."

For me, this introductory section alone is worth watching over and over again. I don't know if they script this stuff before hand, but the discussion and banter looks natural and spontaneous.

Safety section

Brett Jones then covers safety, just in case you don't know that swinging a club in you house might result in you breaking some stuff. He then goes through the grip, wrist position, elbow and neutral pelvis. This attention to the precision of movement wasn't covered on the power club course I recently attended (see review here).

The five movements

In the next section the five movements are covered, helpfully numbered 1,2,3,4,5. The complexity builds with each new movement.

First Dr Thomas demonstrates the movements in the classic standing posture. A posture I've seen used for classic military pressing and in the original Pilates exercises. Then Gray Cook demonstrates them in tall kneeling and open half kneeling.

Gray points out that these kneeling postures allow for a more reflexive stability, they mimic the developmental sequence (see Pavel Kolar & Vladimir Janda) and help to break bad patterns. They also allow the trainer to see mistakes more easily, as the lower body is taken out of the equation.

The movements are done with what Brett Jones describes as 'Tai Chi slowness' to begin with, and Ed Thomas breaks down the movements as well. Again the details matter. Dr Thomas then comes out with another gold nugget quote

"Do it well before you do it fast."

 There are five movements in total, done in three positions, so that's 15 movements, not counting having to do some with both arms

Gray Cook takes a back seat in this section as he demonstrates the kneeling moves and Brett Jones coaches and talks.

These movements are a lot more complex to learn that the powerclub moves. I personally wouldn't be confident to coach these moves without a lot more practice, as in hours and a few thousand reps! Whereas, powerclubs does have some complex moves, it also has some simple moves that can be coached immediately.

Advanced moves

After the five essential moves, three advanced moves are covered 1) Side stepping lunge 2) Deep knee bend and 3) Wrist Pattern.

It'll be a while before you attempt these moves, but it's worth watching this section for the discussion of the deep knee bend, as Gray Cook says

"people can't squat because they don't squat."

The presenters point out that these are the essential moves, there are an infinite number of patterns after this.

Bonus section - return to the source

Next is a section showing Ed Thomas swinging the clubs, so you can see what can be done. Then there is a discussion between Ed, Gray and Brett.

This is a really interesting section, Ed talks more about the history of clubs, the Turner gymnasiums that originated in Germany, the martial and restorative aspects of clubs and how they can be a weapon or healing device. Ed Thomas then covers off the ground training, and how this is essential as gravity is constantly moulding the human body, so we need to adopt uncommon postures (more on this can be found on the internet). But to give you an idea, we all used to climb ropes in school, I remember there being a ropes in the school gymnasium, but gradually they fell out of favour, no one knew how to teach it properly anymore, safety became an issue and they stopped being used.

One good reason to start rope climbing again!

The point about going to the gym to learn and not workout is re-iterated, you will get a workout in the process. This is a fundamental point that is worth repeating.

Gray Cook then attacks the bootcamp mentality, where everything has to be a full on balls to the wall (my words not his) workout, which is okay if you are 20 and fit but not if your 30 or 40 and overweight and sedentary. You should come out of your workout feeling better than when you started, and then occasionally you test your limits.

The clubs used in the video are only 1 pound (approx 0.5kg), Dr Thomas states that boxers always used lighter clubs, and wrestlers used heavier ones, this is situational correctness, does the club remain therapeutic and restorative, no one begins with a heavier club. Unlike Power clubs, where you start with a minimum of 2.5kg and are using weights in the 4-8kg range quite quickly. Ed Thomas finishes by demonstrating with some 8 pound clubs, which are considered light in the world of power clubs, but the movements are different.


Philosophy

Some fundamental questions are asked by Dr Thomas.
Why do we go to the gym?
What is the purpose?

These questions have got me thinking.

And Gray Cook inadvertently quotes British comedian Harry Hill 'You gotta have a system'! Yes you have.

Conclusion

As you can see from this review, the discussion of fitness, the philosophy and its antecedents interested me as much as the Indian club techniques.

I can recommend this DVD, though the best place to start with Gray Cook and Brett Jones would be Secrets Of The Shoulder or Secrets Of The Hip and Knee. I intend watching Kalos Sthenos next.

There is a definite difference between power clubs and the Indian clubs presented in this DVD. Ideally take the middle way, you can do both. The therapeutic Indian clubs and the more strength basic powerclubs.

If you are doing this at home, I would buy the Indian club DVD . If you are going to be personal training clients then do the powerclub course. I'm somewhat sad to say that the variety of power clubs holds more of an attraction for the average client and putting the time and effort in on a five key moves may be beyond most clients, and the power clubs have some technically easier moves. But you don't have to be that guy or gal! You can teach your clients and they can get a workout as part of the process.

Personally I'm going to use the lighter Indian clubs, and the power clubs, and kettlebells, and Olympic bars, and dumbbells, and bands, and run etc etc etc....................

A Review Of The Premier Training Power Club Course

This a review of the one day power club course that Premier Global (Premier Training International) offer here in the UK. I took part in this course a couple of weeks ago.

I was looking for a course to learn more about club training (Indian clubs, power clubs etc), this course was the only one I could find in the UK. It is a one day course, that is REPs accredited with 4 CPD points (for what it's worth, the pointlessness of REPs points is a discussion for another day).

A picture of some power clubs aka clubbells - just in case you were wondering what they look like

Cost

The course costs £129, for this you get a one day workshop and an e-manual sent to you.

The manual covers all the major exercises, brief history of club training, the various grips and positions, and a table given suggested club weights for men and women of different strength levels. The manual is 65 pages long, I would recommend printing it out if you have access to a printer, as it's easier to read and flick back and forward with a printed version.

Venue

The course I did was held at Premiers venue in North London. Having a dedicated venue makes a difference. So many courses I've attended are held at health clubs, where you end up having to wait for the studio to be free, or sitting in a store cupboard because someone forgot to book the room out. The Premier training venue has dedicated classrooms with projectors and PowerPoint, as well as a gym and studio space. This gives it a more professional feel than some other training providers.

Content

The course was presented by a guy who looked like Rudy Reyes from Generation Kill. It also turned out that he was a part time fitness model, who had recently taken part in a feature on power clubs in Mens Fitness. This immediately made all the women on the course start swooning and made me want to hit him with a power club. But just like Rudy Reyes he was a nice guy, so it was difficult to hate him!

Rudy Reyes from Generation Kill - as far as I am aware he doesn't teach power clubs

An aside

There were only a small number of people on the course I took part in. The course teacher recognised one of the women as having done the premier personal training diploma a couple of years before, and said it was good to see that someone was still working in the industry. This is a sad indictment on our industry, that someone who runs fitness courses' is surprised to find someone still  working in the industry a few years later.


Back to the course

We started with a brief history of club training and looked at some videos of club training like the one below featuring the premier trainer Ben McDonald who developed their power club course. But as the Rudy Reyes lookalike pointed out, we weren't here for a history lesson but to learn some power club exercises!



In the studio, we covered all the power club exercises in the manual and more. Rudy Reyes doppelganger was a good easy going teacher with two caveats.

I would like to have seen some more coaching on our technique. Seeing as there were only five of us present, there could been a lot more coaching, and he really could have been a stickler for precision and hand and elbow position. Since attending the course I have watched Indian Club Essentials with Gray Cook, Brett Jones and Ed Thomas (which I will review in a few days time) and they covered some key points on hand and wrist position which didn't happen on the power club course. Heavy power clubs and Indian clubs are used in slightly different ways, but the wrist and hand position is crucial to both.

There is  always a danger with one day workshops, that anyone can do them, and you can't fail them. So you could have the worst technique in the world, and no one is going to fail you, a few days later you can be out there teaching power clubs to people even if you can't do it yourself. Of course, I'm not saying I'm perfect and I would have liked a bit more coaching on my technique, but my background with kettlebells and Olympic lifting gives me some ideas of how to move.

We covered more exercises than were in the manual, which in some ways is a good thing, as it gives a whole host of movements to go away with. The disadvantage of this is we didn't really spend too long on any one movement. Possibly doing less and trying to perfect fewer moves would have been more advantageous. This is a trade off, everyone want variety for their clients, but too much, and the movements become confused and merge. Quality movement and doing less until these are perfected is the direction I'm going in, the details matter with these type of dynamic circular movements.

Another aside

Lunch break, one of the women in the course was standing outside smoking a cigarette, classic fitness industry.

Back to the course

We covered quite a few hybrid movements. Though the instructor said we were doing complexes, I would disagree and say if one rep flows into the rep of the next movement you are doing a hybrid, whereas with a complex you would do all the reps of one exercise before starting the next exercise. For example, if you do a front squat straight into a torch press, straight into a flag press then you are doing a hybrid, if you did 5 front squats followed by 5 torch presses then you did a complex. This a minor point, and I don't want to get hung up on definitions, and it didn't spoil my enjoyment of the course. And the hybrids/ complexes we did were mostly good.

To his credit the instructor stated that power clubs were an adjunct to other training, you still need to do your squats, deadlifts and strength training. Also, in a classic moment one of the participants asked the Rudy Reyes lookalike instructor what he thought of the ViPR, he replied 'I think it's a piece of plastic with two handles in it!', which echoes my own views to be found here.

We finished  two hours early, maybe because there were so few of us. However, as I had paid £129, a bit more content could have been put in. Possibly, us having to design a power club circuit and be observed coaching the other participants of the course.

Do I need to go on the course or could I teach myself power clubs from the internet?

Most of the information covered is available on the internet. The Mens Fitness article that our instructor took part in, covers many of the exercises. And the guy who developed the course appears in a whole series of youtube videos demonstrating many of the exercises. So yes, you could teach yourself.

However, there is something different about having someone demonstrate the exercises for you and talk you through them. I think this can help you get a better feel for some of the movements. Having an instructor breaking down the moves and seeing them from different angles does help. Its always good to see how other people coach and teach, and interesting to see other people who work in the industry.This can either make you feel good about yourself or despair for the future of mankind.

If you don't work in the fitness industry and you don't need a certificate to say you're competent to teach other people then you could teach yourself.

Nice touch

The clubs we used on the course were the clubbells made by Wolverson and developed in conjunction with premier. Doing the course entitles you to a 15% discount on any order of these clubbells. I purchased a pair of 2.5kg, 4.5kg and 6kg, and so far have been impressed with their quality.

Final thoughts

I enjoyed the course. £129 for a day course is a reasonable price, there was enough content to justify this. An actual printed manual would have been better than an electronic one, and a bit more coaching of our technique would have added to the content. If you want to learn power clubs to teach the public this course is a good starting point.

Since taking part in the course I have been using my power clubs personally and with a couple of clients. And the exercises I learned on the course are great for the forearms, grip strength, shoulder mobility and strength; and the circular movements feel natural and a good departure from linear training.

Look out for my review of Indian Club Swinging Essentials DVD in the next few days. Which resource will come out as the winner, the power club course or the Indian club DVD?

In the mean time stay frosty!

Top Ten Fitness Trends For 2011

It's been a busy January. Unlike some internet fitness gurus I actually train people in the real world, hence this is my first blog of 2011.

Here are my predictions of what's going to be big in 2011 fitness-wise.

Note: Of the top ten trends I have put together, some are things that I like, some are things that I don't personally like but will be popular anyway, and a couple of things are probably wishful thinking on my part - things that I want to be trends. I have also put a list together of things which are already popular and will continue to grow.

Before I get to my list I want to review the list that is put together by the American College Of Sports Medicine (ACSM). Below is their list and my commentary on it

1. Educated and experienced fitness professionals. Of course they would say that, they are an accreditation organisation. I want this one to be true. Rather than having a system that at one end of the spectrum churns out sports science graduates who don't even know how to squat or deadlift, and at the other end has courses that last a day or two and then suddenly the person is a fitness professional. A profession that lets you deal with peoples bodies, the most sacred possession they have, with the minimal of experience of training. Let's hope this changes.
2. Fitness programs for older adults. This one has been around for years, and it has never really taken off or come to fruition. Here's why: older adults are not all the same! I have a female client in her 70's who can rack deadlift 60kg from just below the knees, as well as doing goblet squats and a whole range of strength exercises. I also teach a group of older people, where at least 4 of them couldn't get of a chair due to a whole host of problems they have accumulated over a lifetime. And then we have ultra runners like Jack Dennes who is in his 70's completing the badwater ultra. The obvious point is, the population over the age of 60 are not one amorphous group; some are very fit, some are injured, some have trained their whole life, some haven't.
3. Strength training. How can strength training be a trend?! It should be a fundamental component of any fitness program!
4. Children and obesity. Another one that has been banded about for years. All attempt I've seen so far to tap into this market have failed.
5. Personal Training. Of course they would say that. See my list to see a more specific trend. One to one training may well be over.
6. Core training. Whatever the core may be, there is no definitive definition. Having core training as a trend is like having leg training as a trend.
7. Exercise and weightloss. Shouldn't this be number 1, every year, forever?
8. Bootcamps. This is already happening, see my list for how it may evolve. And my previous post on bootcamps here.
9. Functional training. Whatever this is, isn't a deadlift functional?
10. Physician referrals. This is a whole other blog post, because the healthcare system is set up differently in the UK compared to the USA, I will write about this another time.

And without further ado, to my list of the top ten fitness trends in 2011.

1. Small group training/ semi private training.


I'm going to make a bold statement. Personal training doesn't work for most people, you might as well do a gym induction and write them a program to go away with, it has about the same success rate. Here's why. Most people only have one personal training sessions a week, if you're lucky they might do two. Then most of these clients don't do any training when they aren't with the trainer or train in a half-arsed way, and then most of these have a few sessions and then stop. Of course, there are some exceptions, but most people follow this route.


The cost of one to one sessions is too prohibitive for most people. That's why they only have one session a week or buy a block and then stop. Small group training makes the sessions more affordable, suddenly a person is paying a quarter of the price, so they can then attend more sessions.

But the most important reason the small group sessions work better for most people is the group dynamic. With all the small group training sessions I have been involved with, there is a sense of group camaraderie, banter between the participants and the instructor, and they are always high energy with everyone pushing everyone else to achieve more. The results from semi private training are superior in my opinion. As an instructor, they are more enjoyable to teach and you end up getting results with more clients. Everyone's a winner.

The semi private training model has been perfected and made popular by the likes of Alwyn Cosgrove and Cressey Performance and has been around for quite a few years. However, it seems commercial gyms have never really gotten a hold of it, and don't know how to deal with it. Are the trainers teaching a class or doing a personal training session they ask? It doesn't fit their payment model. This year might be the year commercial fitness facilities finally grasp the concept, and don't get left behind; as they increasingly are these days.

2. Online training

You can only train so many people one to one, and even in group training environments you can only train so many people per week. With online training, it is possible to have hundreds of clients at any one time.

This guy has 500 online personal training clients

Again, online training has been around for a while. And got a bad name in some circles, as it ended up being the domain of internet gurus who had never really trained anyone in real life. Also the technology wasn't there to begin with. Now anyone, can put together some decent quality videos and post them immediately.

Two recent products seem to have exploited this video phenomenon. Eric Cresseys Show & Go and Mike Boyles BodyByBoyle. I don't own or subscribe to either of these products. But the model is sound, why buy a book when you can get a whole video library as well, either through a one off payment or on-going monthly subscription.

Commercial gyms already have access to the market, but once again are lagging behind. If someone joins your gym and has a one off induction, (and if you're lucky they might get 4 or 5 follow up appointments) but then want to remind themselves of an exercise technique, why not create a video library online. They can still get advice and coaching from the instructors, they two concepts are not mutually exclusive. If a customer wants to buy an exercise program from you or access your virtual gym, why not let them. Sales people and owners of large chains are still enamoured by equipment and museum tours. Your product is not the room full of treadmills, it is the expertise of your staff and how they help clients achieve results.

With an online product, your market is not just the town you live in, but everyone in the world who could benefit from your knowledge. It's time the true fitness professionals took the online market back from the hucksters and keyboard warriors.

3. Crossfit style workouts & crazy gymnastics

There are a few crossfit facilities in the UK, but not that many. I expect a few more will open. But what is more likely is trainers will start to copy the model. Get yourself an olympic lifting qualification, even if you haven't lifted a weight in your life, buy some gymnastic rings, put together a random workout and bingo - you got yourself a class!

There are some good people involved in cross fit, see Kelly Starrett's mobility WOD blog for an example. And we could debate the benefits of high repetition olympic lifting all days. But more troubling, will be the trainers with a little knowledge making people do stupid things. These are probably going to be the same people doing bootcamps in the park. Don't worry if you've got the hip mobility of a wooden table and a bad back, these clean & jerks and hand stand back flips should sort you out.

Crossfit does make women hot

Conditioning workouts can be great, and crossfit does seem to produce an abundance of hot women. But appropriate movement screening and exercise modalities to suit the individual should be considered.

Or are the women of crossfit hot before they even start?

Again, commercial facilities could create their own version of this and invest in their staff training, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

Who cares: hot women do crossfit, that's all we need to know

4. Bootcamps

Yes, bootcamps are already a trend. See my post here. In 2011, I think the market will become more segmented and commercial facilities will try to get in on the game about 2 years too late.

There already is some market segmentation, with bootcamps for women only like Fit For A Princess. This year there will be more of this. Rather than just military bootcamps, there will be weight loss bootcamps, kids bootcamps, sports bootcamps etc. Of course, the exercises you will do in all these bootcamps will be exactly the same! Run around the park, do some burpees, crunches, plyometric lunges and press ups.

Workout in the park: Bootcamp Peter Griffin style

Bu the people running these know they are onto a good thing. No equipment, no personal training rent, no individualised program, no building needed. Why make £40 an hour from one person, when you can get 20 people and charge them £10 each, that's £200 an hour for shouting at people in the park. Job done.

5. Corrective exercise & mobility.

With all these cross fit style workouts and bootcamp randomness there are going to be some injured people. The trainer well versed in corrective exercise and mobility will be positioned to deal with this. These days, it's rare for me to see anyone who hasn't been injured in some way. May be its just the people who get referred to me, but in  nearly every consultation I have some kind of back, shoulder or knee injury is mentioned. Almost every week someone says to me in passing 'I've got a shoulder/ knee/ back / problem what exercise should  I do for it.'. The correct answer is, it depends. I'm not going to give you some random exercises without assessing it and getting some history.

With regards to this I recommend Charlie Weingroffs DVD 'Training = Rehab Rehab = Training'. Use the functional movement screen, the selective functional movement assessment, the joint by joint approach and the core pendulum theory as your blue print. Again I can't recommend this DVD highly enough.

Even if you don't use this, have some type of systematic approach to it, I have no problem blending the work of Janda, Sahrmann, McGill, and Thomas Myers Anatomy Trains. Be the go to person.

This is one of my wishful thinking trends. I still see trainers giving people crunches and knee side to side...sigh.

6. Indian Clubs/ Power Clubs

The most popular exercise of the Victorian era is due a come back. I first saw 'bear clubs' mentioned on www.intensefitness.co.uk (the place I bought my first kettlebell from) about 6 years ago. Since then Indian clubs have been threatening to be the new kettlebell, but have never quite broken through.

Indian Clubs

There is now at least one training organisation (Premier) in the UK offering a one day course in 'power clubs', see the video clip below. I haven't done this training course, but I may well do.




The name 'Indian clubs' has always been dragging them down, if they'd called them 'hardcore MMA conditioning clubs' or 'fat loss skittles' then they'd be mainstream already.

The potential for shoulder rehab work, mobility, as well as conditioning, make these are versatile tool.

7. Yoga, breathing, meditation

Yoga makes a comeback every few years with a different emphasis. Sometimes its as a cardiovascular power workout like Ashtanga, sometimes its purely as a stretching class and sometimes its a bunch of folk in a super heated room overstretching their ligaments.

The current comeback will be based around breathing. In this ever increasing  sedentary and stressful world people are breathing in a very poor way. Recently, I've seen quite a few people breathing high up into their chest and shoulders, and they were unable to breather into the diaphragm or abdomen when I first demonstrated it, they had lost the ability to breathe properly.

The benefits of meditation and breathing correctly are well known. Many people are still reluctant to go to a class on meditation, but they will go to a yoga class, where they can get many of the same benefits. Though, I think in 2011 we may even see a rise in meditation classes. Good yoga instructors can combine breahting, stretching, mobility and quietening of the mind into one seemless narrative.

Here's a good article on the benefits of meditation.

And this is an article on breathing I like by an RKC and yoga teacher

He may be meditating peacefully now, but how's he going to get back to dry land?

8. Intermittent Fasting

The only nutrition trend to make the list. Fasting has been around since forever, but as a product it's hard to sell. You tell someone not to eat for 24 hours, they don't really need a diet plan or supplement for this. There's nothing to sell them.

In recent years, intermittent fasting has started to get an underground internet following which may well go mainstream. Brad Pilons ebook Eat Stop Eat is very good and covers some of the science, the website leangains has a good following and most recently Christian Thibaudeau on T-nation has come up with at least two fasting protocols. And rather than saying eat nothing, they've linked it to a supplement protocol, which makes it more marketable. And once somethings on t-nation its only a matter of time before someone copies and pastes it. True story: I have seen a PowerPoint presentation given by a training company to group of people as part of a Fitness Industry Association seminar that had sections in it copied and pasted from t-nation. Now the information was good, but it shows that the people running training companies don't know anymore than anyone else with an internet connection.

When intermittent fasting goes mainstream expect it to confuse the public and the mainstream media. For years, the message to eat breakfast and  eat 4-6 small a day has been a mantra in the fitness industry. Suddenly, the message will get confused, when someone starts saying, actually you don't need to eat breakfast, and may be try eating nothing for 24 hours?!

Of course, the 'eating small and often' and the 'intermittent fasting' approach both work, just to add to the confusion the public will have about this.

9. Vertical pole

Pole dancing has never gone mainstream. However, as I mentioned in the complete history of fitness part 1, at least one company is offering vertical pole classes to men and women. And if anyone at pussycat poles wants to invite me to try the class and write a review, I'm more than happy to give it a go!

All you need to do is put one of the vertical poles in a crossfit style circuits and call it a  'gymnastic core conditioning pole' and you got yourself a trend.

10. Everything will continue as before.

The biggest trend of 2011 will be inertia. Commercial chains will do what they've always done, offer their members one to one service in the sales blurb and then ignore them. Rely on an underpaid, undervalued and minimally qualified workforce. And continue to sell memberships like you're buying some double glazing off of a guy in 1983. Keep investment low, and have facilities over reliant on cardio machines and resistance machines that they have had for years. And a whole group of personal trainers with spikey hair and shaved legs will continue to say 'awesome' too much and will become bootcamp & crossfit experts as well.

If only Rollerball was going to be one of the fitness trends of 2011

Trends that will continue.

Zumba

Already popular. I didn't realise until I recently sent some staff on a zumba course, that it is a 2 day certification that anyone can do. No fitness qualification needed. They show you a few moves and then encourage you to free style and add in your own moves. Like most fitness courses, everyone passes regardless of how bad they are (remember the ACSM number 1 trend). Which means, you could go to class taught by someone who is a trained dancer and it will be great and inspiring or you could go to a class taught by someone who dances like you Nan at a wedding. Either way, expect there to be more zumba instructors than participants by the end of the year. Kerching!


Kettlebells

Popularity will grow because they work when done properly.

It goes without saying, if your instructor can't do a clean or snatch or turkish get up and doesn't know what a hip hinge is, go somewhere else.

Excuse for another crossfit woman picture

Boxing/ MMA

Either in small group format or as part of the bootcamp. Either way 'tap out' have got a lot of clothing they need to sell.

Suspension training, TRX, fitkit

Becoming part of mainstream gyms at last. Gymnastic rings are the cheaper option.

Wrap Up

Well those are my predictions, lets see if I'm right.

The Complete History Of Fitness - Part 1- from paleo to pole dancing

The Complete History Of Fitness – Part 1- from paleo to pole dancing

Note: Of course, no history can be complete. And pre-history is a matter of guess work. Everything, however, mentioned in this article is true, except the mythical bits and the bits I made up,.

In The Beginning

Somewhere in the Paleolithic era some cavemen were trying to stay warm, as no one had figured out how to light a fire yet. One cave guy was doing jumping jacks, but no one called them that back then. And then another cave dude picked up a big rock and held it over his head to try and impress one of the cave women.

Everyone eat raw food because that’s all there was until someone figured out how to light a fire and cook stuff. And everyone ate paleo, because that’s all there was back then, until it became the Neolithic period, so I guess they ate ‘neo’ then. They pretty much ate whatever they could and didn’t worry about macro nutrient ratios and whether seeds and nuts were good for them, if meat was around they ate it, if they only had fish they ate it. You get the picture.

And everyone walked everywhere, because that’s all there was. No one had invented the wheel yet, and even when they did, it took a while for them to figure out how to make a cart and make an animal pull it for you. And it was literally aeons before someone invented the bicycle. Everyone was barefoot as they tramped across the super continent. When the Pleistocene came along it got pretty cold all the time, that was the time for footwear and skis.

Back in the Paleolithic, as they were hunting and gathering, every so often they would come across some water, and then someone probably invented swimming, but it’s unlikely anyone invented the butterfly stroke as it is so ridiculously hard and not user friendly.

Then they hit the sea and someone probably made a kayak out of a some tree bark and then before you know it they were rowing too and spreading out across the world. No one had invented the indoor rowing machine as of yet because there was no need for it

The Film 2001 A Space Odyssey: I like to think it started like this, but it probably didn't

Train like an Egyptian

The ancient Egyptians did a lot of things quite a few thousand years ago. One of the things they did was invent sand bag training, as the picture below shows. They liked to wave the bags overhead. Mostly though the Egyptians were pretty busy building pyramids and mummifying people, so they didn't have much time to exercise.

Egyptian sand bag training

Greece – things get classical

The Greeks really got things going, they liked sport and fitness, so much so they invented the Olympics and set the template for many of the western ideas of fitness.

The word gymnasium comes from the Greek gymnasia, a training facility and place to hang out – literally. The Greek word Gymnos means naked, as competitors in Greek sports were naked and it was men only. They also oiled up before training and competing, much like the modern day competing bodybuilders, except the ancients used a lot less fake tan and didn’t have dynabands to pump up pre-contest.

The Greeks had three weighted implements - javelin, discus and halteres. The halteres are hand held weights that they use during jumping exercises and drills, sometimes this was to music, flute driven music no less, sadly the jazz flute did not exist back then. Halteres can be considered the ancient dumbbell.

Halteres - ancient dumbbells

Milo of Croton

Not only did Milo have a cool name and come from a place with a cool name, he was really strong. He lived  in the 6th century BC and supposedly got strong by lifting a calf as a child, as Milo got older the calf got older and bigger and he kept lifting it until he could lift an adult bull. Thus he invented linear progression and progressive overload. If only he’d known about Westside and conjugated periodization he would have lifted a small sheep on dynamic effort days and de-load weeks and attached some chains to the bull to create accommodating resistance; (Well that's what an internet fitness expert would have told him to if they existed in ancient Greece). He was a 6 times Olympic champ in wrestling between 540 and 520 BC. He also ate loads of meat and bread and wine, thus setting the template for modern powerlifters.


Marathon

In 490 BC Pheidippides ran from to Sparta and covered about 240km in two days, and immediately invented mutli day ultra running without even wanting too. Then more famously he ran from a battlefield near Marathon to Athens, about 40k or 25 miles, and invented the marathon. Unfortunately, no one had yet invented the energy gel or recovery drink, so he immediately dropped dead from exhaustion.

The marathon distance continued to be about 40k/ 25 miles until the 1908 Olympics when it was officially set at a bizarre 26 miles and 385 yards – so the queen at the time could see the finish. Marathon runners ever since curse this extra distance as they limp the extra yards of pain.

Let’s get mythical (to be sung to the tune of Olivia Newton Johns Let’s Get Physical)

In Greek mythology Sisyphus was condemned by the gods to push a boulder up a hill only to watch it roll down again, and then push it back up again for eternity. Sisyphus is therefore widely regarded as the mythical inventor of The Prowler, eccentric-less training and GPP Hill training and conditioning.

GPP hill training

Achilles became the first person to suffer from an Achilles heel problem and he didn’t even wear trainers.

Heracles/Hercules was really strong, but he was half god, so it doesn’t really count, like anabolic steroids, it wasn’t a level playing field, having a dad whose a god is considered cheating for sure.

Go tell the Spartans

Sparta was a city state in ancient Greece. The Spartans were hardcore, they trained for war all the time. At aged 7 young boys had to enter The Agoge – a permanent military bootcamp/ school.

This military bootcamp format has survived through the ages. Little did the Spartan know that thousands of years later this would result in people paying trainers £10 an hour to shout at them in the park while they do burpees.

Also, without the Spartans Mens Health or whoever couldn’t have invented the 300 workout and spawned a myriad of random workouts based on 300 reps.

Sparta is really the first time we see fitness women as well. Women had quite a few rights in Sparta, they could wear revealing clothing. Both girls and boys exercised nude, mainly as it was thought to promote fitness, which is probably more feasible in the Mediterranean climate than in northern Europe.

They had women who were sporting celebrities, but they weren’t allowed to compete in the Olympics in Athens

Apparently in the comedy ( I don’t know if it’s actually funny, I’ve never read it) Lysistrata by the Athenian playwright Aristophanes, some Athenian women say to a Spartan women called Lampito . 'What healthy skin, what firmness of physique.' And then one says, 'I've never seen a pair of breasts like that.' To which Lampitos comes back with, 'I go to the gym. I make my buttocks hard.'

This seems to be the first example in history of a female fitness athlete/ gym goer.

Spartan woman: Doing a rotational lunge (probably)

The Romans

There’s a lot of crossover between the Romans and the Greeks. The Romans liked chariot racing, marching places and gladiators. Gladiatorial battles are the ultimate cage fighting, no holds barred, with the advantage that no one is wearing ‘Tap Out’ clothing.

Roman women were allowed to train and use halteres/dumbbells. Check out the mosaic below, no one had yet decided that dumbbells for women had to be pink.

'Bikini Girls Mosaic' 4 century AD. The worlds first figure athlete picture

Everyone was eating the Mediterranean diet as well, because that's were they lived, except those poor Romans who got stationed up on Hadrians wall, they were probably eating a bit more paleo as the Scottish hadn't discovered the battered Mars Bar yet.

Western culture is slightly obsessed with Greek & Roman history, but lets not forget…

Meanwhile In India

The Indians had been doing there own thing for quite a while. Yoga has been around a long time, maybe 4000 or 5000 years! Which means while in Europe we were figuring out how to eat nettles the Indians were doing down dogs and working on their fitness and mind body connections. The first corrective exercise.

Without yoga there is no pilates or bodybalance or err yoga. It’s one of the few things that has stayed constant

The Indians also invented the Indian Clubs. Except they didn’t call them that. These probably developed from Gada or war clubs. These were as the name implied heavy clubs for hitting people with during battle. Swinging a club around for fitness had been practiced in the Middle East and and ancient Egypt. Eventually in India the war club became a fitness device. There were two types of clubs a light one for speed and a heavy one for strength. During the British colonial period in the 19th Century some British military personnel noticed how muscular and built some of the Indian soldiers were. They put it down to their Indian club training, exported it to England and it became the most popular type of training in the 19th century. The Brits only used the light clubs. They should have kept the name 'war clubs' though, it is a lot cooler. (This will be covered in more detail in part 2).

Light Indian Clubs

They also invented a gymnastic sport called Mallakhamb somewhere  possibly back in the 12th Century and for definite in the 19th century. You can see from the video below that this is like some crazy pole dancing. However much I watch that clip I still can’t see how the guy gets on the pole without permanent injury.
Anyway, this takes phenomenal amounts of core strength & balance.

Don't attempt this without some 'No More Nails' and a safety harness

It also justifies my attempts to attend those pole dancing classes; women only, pah! What you talking about, I want to work on more core strength like those Indian guys and nothing more. And I want to wear traditional pants like those Indian guys and will not be looking at you in your hot pants.

Pole Dancing: Great for core strength, it really is!

And while ‘researching’ this I found this link. Yes, it seems someone has set up pole classes for guys, it’s called Vertical Pole. I am so going to be there in my orange pants dominating with my core strength!

Meanwhile over in China – Shaolin

Bodhidharma, a Buddhist monk was born in India, and then decided to make his way to China to spread the word. Back then you couldn’t go overland, so he went by sea and arrived in China in about 475 AD. Long story short, the guy then becomes the mythical patriarch of Zen Buddhism and makes his way to Shaolin.
It’s probable that having come from India he already knew yoga and some martial arts. When he gets to Shaolin he finds the monks are weak and sets about showing them some fitness moves, maybe some yoga, or qi gong type stuff. Before you know, kung fu is invented and Bodhidharma walks off into the sunset carrying one sandal.

Without Bodhidharma, there’s no Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan and to stretch the plausibility even more, there’s no bodycombat either, though the Shaolin monks probably don’t know who Les Mills is.

That’s it for part 1, in part 2 I’ll jump forward to the 18th & 19th century and cover barbells, kettlebells, strength training, aerobics, Arnie, Jane Fonda, health clubs and everything else in between.

Sources:
Wikipedia
From Milo to Milo - A History of Barbells, Dumbbells and Indian Clubs by Jan Todd. Iron Game History
http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/H/history/n-s/spartans2.html
http://www.ihpra.org/war_clubs.htm