What I learned from 30 days of yoga (and 100 days of meditation). How to form habits. Part 1.

"I was burned out from exhaustion, buried in the hail, poisoned in the bushes and blown out on the trail." - Bob Dylan, Shelter From The Storm.

After a long time ultra-running my body was gradually breaking down. I'd made perfunctory efforts at mobility and tried to stay strong as well. My right ankle mobility was gone, my calves were always tight, my right hip and right knee were like rusty hinges, and my T-spine had always been like a breeze block, and it later turned out to be Sheurmanns disease. I was chronically stiff, and my posture was edging towards Mr Burns on a bad day. It was time to do something.

Mr Burn: former ultra-runner

I had to dedicate specific time to mobility, flexibility and breathing. Tacking it on to my normal gym workout wasn't going to cut it.

I decided to do some home Yoga. I knew I wasn't going to commit to going to a class, due to my schedule changing, trying to find a class near me that suited my time (and budget) and my general male ego of going to a class of mainly female Yogis. Also I knew doing this once or twice a week wasn't going to be enough.

Don't get me wrong, I knew the benefits of having a teacher who could correct you 'hands on' in the moment. I had a one to one with a Yoga teacher I work with, which highlighted  even more the stiffness in my joints and what I needed to work on. But having one to one sessions every week wasn't an option. And I knew without some kind of guidance I wasn't going to break into spontaneous self guided Yoga sessions at home.

I tried some Yoga apps, they were okay. Then I found some Yoga channels on youtube, these were more like it, Yoga with SarahBeth and Yoga with Adriene. I liked the fact the videos were at varying lengths, some only 15 minutes, some longer 30-40 minutes. Which I could fit into my schedule. I also liked the tone of the videos, passionate about Yoga, good teaching without being overly serious.

I started doing a few a week, mainly in the evenings before bed, I liked the Yin Yoga ones, good for relaxing, and focusing on the areas I needed to work on. Plus for me, I didn't need to really focus on the strength moves, I didn't need Yoga for weightloss or anything like that.

Then someone mentioned ROMWOD. A crossfit website, with 20 minute routines. I signed up. This involved holding the poses for a long time, holding poses like lizard and pigeon for 2, 3, 4, 5 minutes at a time. This is hard. Each session may only contain 3 or 4 poses or positions at most.

This felt like what I needed, these longer holds to really open out. After a while though I began to dread another session of holding Lizard for 5 minutes. It became too repetitive for me. Sometimes it felt like I was getting better, but other times it felt like my hips were feeling chronically worse. I decided to cancel my subscription. I still think it is a good option for a lot of people.

One of the yoga youtube channels had a 30 day yoga camp, so I decided to do that.  I knew from previous experience, that one way to ingrain a habit was to commit to doing it every day. I had done it last year with meditation.

This would help me form the habit. I would start on the first of the month and do every session for 30 days.  First of all I couldn't believe that this was actually free, a new session every day, varying in length from 15 to 50 minutes. Second, I knew doing it everyday was the best way for me to form a habit.

100 days of meditation.

I'd always been interested in meditation, and like many people, had tried a few times, sporadically to do it, but given up.

I had started reading increasingly about mindfulness, neuroscience and decided it was time to really try meditation again. (please note: this isn't going to be a discussion about the benefits of meditation or mindfulness, but how I formed the habit).

I already had a comprehensive guide in meditation, a whole set of DVDs I had bought from Zenways years before. I had watched all the DVDs. dabbled in the meditation and then given up. I even had a meditation cushion. And when I realised I couldn't crowbar my ultra-running hips into a lotus position I bought a meditation bench as well.

In the little booklet that came with the Zenways DVDs, Wake Up and Live, it mentioned the practice in Zen tradition of meditating 100 days in a row. So I decided to try 100 days in a row, if you miss a day, you start again.

I didn't realise at the time this is a productivity idea called breaking the chain, attributed to the comedian Seinfeld (Of course, there is a good chance the Zen monks probably came up with the idea before Seinfelds sitcom aired and Jerry came up with the funky slap bass opening theme tune). When asked about writing jokes, he said write every day, and mark off on the calender everyday with a big X, it will get to a point where you don't want to break the chain, so you keep going. This article here explains it.

Class calendar picture

And so it was with the 100 days of meditation. I didn't actually mark anything off on a calendar, and I didn't write it down as a goal, I just resolved to do it.

I started with the 8 week mindfulness audios that come with the book 'Mindfulness: A practical guide to finding peace in a frantic world'. It was easy to commit, some of these were only 10 minutes a day.  I already had some John Kabat Zinn guided CDs as well, which I had done a few times.

I then moved onto the Zenways 8 week course, starting at the beginning,

As I had resolved to do this every day no matter what, the times I did the sessions were variable. I don't work 9-5 Monday to Friday. Sometimes I would do the session in the morning, other times I was doing them at 11.30pm at night, making sure I was getting them in before midnight.

I committed 100% to doing the session by the end of the day no matter what, however tired I was, whatever was happening that day.

I also downloaded the insight meditation time app, I can't remember when. This has a timer on it, and other guided sessions. Even now I use this to get a 10 minute meditation on the bus or at home.

All these various guided sessions were very useful in forming the habit. Especially with meditation it is very hard to sit down yourself and essentially do nothing. The guided sessions give you a sense of 'I have to do this', the guiding voices help. Also, I can get annoying pulsating tinnitus, Bodhidharma may have stared at a wall listening to ants scream for 9 years, but he probably didn't have to put up with tinnitus. At one point, I was on holiday during the 100 days, and I had to do the sessions in my hotel room unguided, sitting on pillows every morning after breakfast, but at this point I wasn't going to stop.

It was the same with Yoga. I could have tried doing Yoga by myself everyday with no videos, after all I know a lot of moblity and flexibility exercises. I just knew, that wasn't going to happen for me. Much like going to a class, I need to switch off and be guided by the teacher at first.

At some point I  passed 100 days of meditation, and I kept going. The habit was formed. Later in the year I went to a meditation retreat for a few days, and that was a good experience. It was good to hear that you can't really do meditation 'wrong', if you're doing it, you're doing it.

"Think of your meditation practice as mental training." - Julian Daizan Skinner.

Once the habit was formed, missing a few days here and there didn't matter. No need to beat yourself up, you always know you are going to come back to it, the ground work has been done. I knew I was going to do this forever.

I could apply the same to Yoga.

30 days of Yoga: First let go of judgements.

One thing I had probably learned from meditation, or it would be more proper to say 'gradually absorbed' rather than learned was to be a bit less judgemental and open.

When it comes to exercise, I have quite a strong evidenced based idea of what I think is 'good' and 'bad' exercise. With the Yoga for 30 days, I decided to do all the exercises and moves that came up regardless of what I may have previously thought about them or judging them.

Same with the idea of Chakras and that type of thing, it get mentioned a fair bit in Yoga, and I decided to be okay with that.

I did the 30 day Yoga Camp with Adriene on Youtube. And much like the meditation, I did it whenever I could, it might be 7am it might be 11pm, it helped that the sessions varied in length.

Unlike the meditation, I did write down everyday in a journal/diary what I had done. I also put asterisks next to sessions I really enjoyed so I could go back to them again. I also started to write down meditation sessions in the diary.

After a while I didn't want to break the chain, and more importantly, I was enjoying it, I looked forward to doing it, especially at the end of the day after being at work. I could see how people called it moving meditation.

At some point I decided it was time to buy a Yoga mat. (This involved a trip to the land of sub minimum wage worker exploitation Sport Direct, explaining to the girl I didn't want the pink mat, I needed the black manly mat, which involved her having to go up a ladder to a high shelf. I'm sure official ladder training protocol had been broken).

I did also go to a Yoga workshop and Yoga Nidra session. The Yoga workshop was hot Yoga, for me there was no benefit to it being hot. And some Yoga sap who was sweating profusely said he wanted it hotter, at which point I could only think of Hank Hill, King of the Hill, 'If it gets one degree hotter I'm going to kick your ass.' But hey, each to their own.

Hank Hill after going to Hot Yoga

I liked the Yoga Nidra, it was basically a progressive relaxation technique.

After 30 days.

The 30 days finished, and I carried on. I'm no Yogi, I'm never going to have the perfect technique or posture. This is not a story of transformation, I can't suddenly do the splits, and all my injuries didn't suddenly disappear. But it did help, I feel more mobile, without sounding like a cliche it does make you feel better mentally and physically.

This isn't meant to sound all 'look how great I am I did Yoga for 30 days and I meditate too'.  I'm essentially a neophyte when it comes to these things, I'm no expert. I just happen to like them and think they are beneficial.

I'm not saying you have to go and start meditating or take up Yoga, that is up to you. What I am saying is you can apply this simple technique to forming any habit.

And for me this technique works, do something for 30 days or longer, resolve to do it everyday, no exceptions and the habit is well on its way to being formed.

In part 2, I will briefly show have I also applied it to nutrition and social media. And the reason why these are harder habits to form, and why I still think SMART goals are dumb.

Resources.

This is a list of resources I used. I am not affiliated to any of them. And I'm sure there are equally good youtube channels and meditation apps and books I am not aware of.

Yoga with Adriene, the youtube channel for the 30 day Yoga Camp. Why don't I live in Texas?
Sarah Beth Yoga, another youtube channel I like, especially the 20 minute deep stretch videos.

Zenways, comprehensive Rinzai meditation course. Plus I also have their summer Yoga download and Spontaneous Zen download.

Mindfulness book and 8 week audio course. From the guys at the Oxford Mindfulness Centre, no religious  or 'new age' overtones if you don't like that kind of thing. Practical and clear.

Romwod : Crossfit mobility videos. Good if you need to hold stretches and positions for a long time to see results. There is a 7 day free trial.

Insight meditation app for your phone or tablet. Loads of guided meditations or just use the timer.

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

The Yoga Up Dog Pose For Mobility (Urdhva Mukha Svanasana, What?!)

I've been meaning to write this for a while. A few months ago Mike Reinold posted on his blog that the Yoga cobra pose may be the best postural stretch. The reasoning was quite sound, using the joint by joint approach this stretch opens up many of the tight areas in the body.

Standard Desk Jockey Position

However, what I wanted to know was how to do this pose correctly, and the best person to ask is a Yoga teacher, so I asked a friend of mine, Janet Kelly, to talk me through it and demonstrate various progressions (see the video below of Janet demonstrating it). The first thing to note is she called it the up dog pose and not the cobra. I'm sure that many Yoga people argue the subtle differences between the cobra and the up dog and where the arm positions differ. All in all I'm looking for the mobility exercise that can be modified, used by the most people and benefit the most people. This is the strength of Janet's progressions and explanations of where you should be feeling this pose and how to do it, and this is why I think these up dog progressions are going to better for most people.

Why You Should Do It

This pose is going to lengthen your anterior chain. In the desk jockey picture above you can see the head is forward, the shoulders rounded, the chest collapsed inwards (Janda Upper Cross Syndrome) the hips flexed and the knees flexed. The up dog pose is really the opposite of this posture.

Who Should Do It

The up dog pose is similar to the McKenzie extension position, one of a series of extension exercises popularised by New Zealand Physiotherapist Robin McKenzie. This extended position is proven to provide back pain relief for some people with discogenic back problems, helping to 'suck' the disc back in. However, like everything, this is an individual thing.See the quote below from Stuart McGill (online article 'Selecting Back Exercises' available at his website)

"The location of the annulus breaches can be predicted by the direction of the bend. Specifically, a left posterior-lateral disc bulge will result if the spine is flexed with some additional right lateral bend (Aultman et al, 2004). Subsequent twisting leads circumferential rents in the annulus that tends to make McKenzie extension approaches for these clients useless, or even exacerbating."

Also, I imagine any type of facet joint problem could be made worse by this position. In short, use your judgement, if it hurts, stop, figure out why and do something else.

If you don't have any of these problems, this is a fantastic mobility exercise that you should make it part of your training routine, especially if you are a desk jockey or do a typical bench press routine or spend a lot of time cycling or driving. This is a great reverse posturing exercise.

As usual the people who should be doing it are the ones who are not doing it. All the guys in the gym spending all their time bench pressing should be in the studio doing some yoga and mobility work, and all the women in the yoga studio working on their flexibility should be in the gym lifting weights. This is the nature of things, resist the urge to only gravitate towards things you are good at, sometimes do the opposite of what you normally do.


How to do it

In Yoga the up dog pose is done as the opposing move to the down dog and is part of the sun salutation (don't ask me, I'm not a Yoga teacher!). In this example we are doing it as a stand alone move. In the video and explanation it is broken down into 5 levels, this is for ease of explanation and progression, these aren't 'official' levels.



Level 1

• Forearms down, elbowed directly beneath shoulders
• Rolling shoulders back and down
• Think of sliding chest forward and up
• Chin tucked & head neutral
• Relax lower back
• Big toes in, all 10 toenails resting on the floor
• Relax glutes

Level 2

• Slide elbows behind shoulders
• Opening middle back but not 'impinging' shoulders
• Imagine back and chest equally open and wide
• Don't retract shoulder blades, think of length

Level 3

• As previous levels but now more pressure through the forearms
• Think of pushing floor away rather than lifting the body up

Level 4

• Hands beneath shoulders, softness in the elbows
• Make sure there is space between your ears and shoulders
• Eyes looking forward
• Hips are now off the floor

Level 5

• Knees off the floor
• Now only the top of your feet and hands are in contact with the ground
• The body is not being driven downards, think relaxing again rather trying to force yourself down
• Stay open and still think of the chest going forward and up

 A note on breathing: Breathe in as you go into the pose, then exhale as you settle into position and soften

How long for

As we are using this as a stand alone mobility exercise, as long as you need to, 15-30 secs would be a good starting point to aim for

Where should you feel it

You should feel this opening out your hips and in the thoracic area. When I first tried this I felt it in my lower back, until Janet coached me to relax my lower back, and relax my glutes and then I could really feel it in the thoracic area. Remember, you are not trying to push your hips into the ground.

If it's painful stop and try something else, there are plenty of other exercises you can try to open out the hips and shoulders, this one just happens to accomplish a lot of things in one go. Using the joint by joint approach the only joint I think that needs to go the other way for most people and especially runners is the ankle. In this pose the ankle is in plantar flexion, I think for a lot of people working on dorsiflexion and calf tightness is the way to go. Of course, that's why in Yoga, they do the down dog pose as well. Who would have thought they knew a thing or two about keeping the body in balance a few thousand years ago.


Thanks to Janet Kelly. Also bear in mind that Janet is your typical flexible yoga teacher, her spine looks like that without her forcing it, don't expect yours to necessarily look the same, mine definitely doesn't!

Top 5 most pointless fitness fads and gimmicks

These are the things that make me want to go on a palm striking spree.

When someone claims something is the next biggest thing, it usually isn't. Sometimes the thing that annoys me most is not the actual fad or piece of equipment but the hyperbole, when fitness gurus tell you how this particular invention will change everything, when patently it wont  In this post I will show you how to dissect fitness guru speak that makes no sense, and how you can create your own fitness trend.

Number 1 - The ViPR

The website for this piece of equipment says that it is the "evolution of free weights" and mimics barbells, dumbbells and kettlebells. No it doesn't.  At the recent leisure industry week in Birmingham where equipment suppliers hawk their wares, my friend said to one of the Fit Pro clones that he thought the vipr was a gimmick, at which point the guy said the whole industry is built on gimmicks - yeah it is, thanks to fools like you!

If you're thinking 'that looks like a piece of rubber with some handles cut into it' - you'd be right!

According to the Vipr website, this piece of equipment

"uses the four pillars of human movement: gravity infused, stretch-to-shorten, tri-planar and integrated."

Lucky for me it uses gravity infused movement because I normally train in the weightless environment of  outer space and don't usually have to deal with gravity (insert sarcastic laugh here).

Apparently it's also safer that normal steel free weights, because hey, dropping 20kg of rubber on my head is obviously lighter than 20kg of steel dropping on me.

Currently the vipr gurus have developed over 9,000 exercises. Which means they have developed approximately 8,990 pointless exercises. Check out the website videos where you can see people doing tri-planar movements like toes taps/ step ups on the thing or pushing it side to side.

Here's a piece of pvc pipe I covered in tape, it costs about £5 to make. I call it the Cobra, its a multi planar myofascial release device, you can buy one off me for £80

If they just said, this is a new piece of equipment that you can use in a circuit classes as one of the stations, or you can do a few exercises with this that you can't really replicate with a barbell or dumbbell, I'd be fine with that, but they always have to over hype and over price.

Do yourself a favour. Make yourself a slosh pipe, a piece of pvc pipe filled with water which makes it unstable to carry and you can adjust the weight by adding water. First time I read about this was an article by Dan John here, far as I can tell he invented it. Recently I've noticed a website that offers professional slosh pipes, this misses the point of home made equipment! The point is you're mean to get all McGyver and make the thing yourself.

Slosh Pipe - pvc pipe filled with water, make it yourself

Look out for a personal trainer using the vipr in a gym near you and making outrageous claims, then go home and make a slosh pipe to beat him with.


Number 2 - kettlebell fusion and kettleworx

I like kettlebells, I think nearly everyone could benefit form doing swings, goblet squats and turkish get ups. However, their recent popularity leaves me with a dilemma, everyone's trying to do them these days or claiming to be an expert. Back to Leisure Industry Week, about 5 years ago I went to it and there was not one kettlebell in sight, I had one at home that I'd bought from a guy he'd forged himself,  but the equipment manufacturers were selling the usual machines. Fast forward a few years and everyone is selling them.

The problem I have is people swinging around 2kg kettlebells. Hello, I've seen octogenarian women on GP referral schemes lateral raise more weight, therefore you can't do a swing with it - it's too light! Stop doing crazy exercises with it, stick with the basics. In my opinion anything less than 8kg and you shouldn't be doing kettlebells in the first place.

Now I see in Health Club Manager magazine certain enterprising individuals are creating fusion classes like Pilates and kettlebellsand yogabells. To take a phrase from Pavel (the guy who probably started the whole kettlebell thing) - the dishonour! If you're doing Pilates, do Pilates, don't try to latch onto the coat tails of the latest trend to keep your class numbers up. Please stop doing kettlebells badly, people who wouldn't normally even do a dumbbell press and haven't lifted a weight in their lives are jumping straight into snatches. Oh, and for the record I got people to do body weight 'turkish get ups' in Pilates 2 years ago, so I already invented Pilates kettlebell fusion, so there!

Here's how to create a fusion class/ concept. Combine two things, and then use some fancy words and marketing speak that doesn't make any sense. I just made these up, I hope they don't exist!


'Hotbells' - kettlebells in a hot room, combining the benefit of saunas, Bikram yoga (see below) and kettlebells. This class will literally remodel your muscle fibres and re-align your fascial trains, while burning fat at an unprecedented level.


'Great balls of fire' - take your hotbells to the next level. We heat up the kettlebells. They're literally so hot you can't hold them, as you throw them away you will develop plyometric power and rate of force development, train like the Russian Inuit special forces. As used by the national Finnish sauna team.

Okay, maybe I'm just bitter because something I like went mainstream.


Number 3 - Bikram yoga

Please note that this does not refer to yoga in general - but specifically Bikram yoga. I think yoga in general has many benefits when used in the right way and in the right context.

Bikram yoga was 'invented' by a guy in the 1970's, he had the bright idea of performing yoga in a room that is heated to 105 degrees Fahrenheit. It doesn't bother me that the founder of  it lives in Beverly Hills and has 40 Rolls Royces (according  to this article in The Times). And even the spurious health and fitness claims don't bother me that much (several Bikram yoga websites claim that it makes your body burn fat more effectively and redistributes fat in the muscle structure - hmm, so if I sit in a sauna I'll burn more fat). What mainly bothers me is a bunch of guys wearing Speedo's. Sorry, but I don't want some dude in a pair of swimming trunks doing a down dog in my face and spraying sweat all over me!

The only time you should be wearing speedo's is if you are in a swimming pool in an actual swimming competition

Okay, I lied the spurious health claims do bother me. As does standing on someones back while they are in full spinal flexion, McGill is somewhere in Canada, probably in his spinal lab shedding a tear. Bottom line, I don't think overstretching ligaments and tendons in a hot environment is a good idea.

Here's a picture of Mindi Smith to help erase the last picture from your memory. If your retinas are still burning from seeing the guy in swimming trunks, this should help with the pain

Let me repeat for those of you who skim read - this is specific to yoga done in a superheated room, not the yoga that has been practised for 1000's of years.


Number 4 - Underwater spin bike -  hyrdorider aqua bike

Cycling is a low impact exercise, but it turns out that it needed to be made even more low impact but putting the spin bike underwater. But hang on, doesn't water have more resistance than air, yes it does, so even though movement in water is harder, don't worry because the aquabike is

"Making it easier to work harder... the unique feature of the aquabike is its variable resistance facility letting you decrease the resistance of the Aquabike prior to a class beginning so you can even bring your granny along."

So it's easier but also harder, and you can decrease the resistance but the resistance can't be less than a bike on land, because air has less resistance than water, so the aqua bike is always going to be harder, right?! And bikes on land have gears and resistance levels, so you can make them harder too. Cycling is a movement without much eccentric muscle action, therefore not much muscle soreness, but don't worry with the aqua bike you can cycle backwards too. And don't forget that according to hydro fitness "water creates a massage effect", what like swimming does, or if I was in the water moving without the aqua bike?

Don't try and be all things to all people.

Number 5 - Functional training that is not functional

Somewhere along the line functional training jumped the shark. It metamorphosed into people standing on various objects filled with air while doing a rotational lunge matrix. I was hoping this stuff was dead, but only a couple of weeks ago I saw a guy trying to stand on a swiss ball, and last year in a London gym I saw a trainer with his clients standing on the bosu with a medicine ball.

Functional Clown Training

If something is functional, what is it functional for. Unless your clients spend their lives standing on bags filled with air then there is very little functional carry over. A quick summary of the research on unstable surfaces goes like this: Standing on these objects may help if you have previous history of structural instability in the ankle, sprains and so forth - if you haven't its not going to help and it may actually cause more problems in the knees and ankles. It may fire off a few stabilising muscles and make you better at balancing, but this is unlikely to carry over into everyday activities, as in life the surface is normally fixed. It is probably more applicable to upper body training, where the feet are fixed on the ground, and may help in a deload phase, for example a dumbbell press on the ball because you can't lift as much weight basically (hint: you don't need a deload phase if your aren't lifting any weight in the first place). However, for your fat loss client who can't lift any weight to begin with and who is now standing on the bosu with their ankles inverted, their knees bowing and their lumbar spin flexing it's going to do diddly squat for fat loss and probably make them more unstable. And before you say, what about sports where people are on an unstable surface, I don't see many pro surfer clients. And even then, people need to get strong first and move in the right way.

Functional should relate to the task at hand. For example, with some elderly GP referral clients, things like squats from a bench (getting out of a chair), step ups (for walking up stairs) and suitcase deadlifts (for picking up shopping) are all functional to their needs.

There is no need make clients start doing rotational lunges in the transverse plane with a flexed spine, when probably 90% of clients when I first see them do a squat completely with their knees and lower back rounding and have no hip hinge ability. It's also surprising how many people can't do a lunge in the sagittal plane (back and forward to you and me, fitness gurus like using terms like this with their clients to look impressive) to begin with. And please don't tell me we have to train the back to lift while rounded and twisting because that's what happens in everyday life. It happens because of poor mobility, why groove in poor movement patterns, why not get people to move right in the first place, and minimise dangerous loading in joints and ligaments and maximise the spine sparing effect. Core pendulum theory states that, yes, the back should be able to fully extend and flex, but ideally we want it resting in the middle, in a state of equilibrium. We know from McGills work that continuously flexing and extending and twisting the back with low load will cause disc problems. It's the repetition that causes the problems.

The tools aren't the problem, it's how you use them. If you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail, but please don't try and use that hammer if you haven't got a screw driver, get the right tools. I can think of one good exercise on the bosu, so for me it's not worth spending £70 for the one exercise I'm going to do with it, I can find something else to do the job. And to the guy on PTonthenet who says the bosu is "not just a product, it's a philosophy", err no! It's a tool, it's half a blue ball filled with air.

In short, most of our clients want to lose fat, need to get strong, be fit for everyday tasks and gets some additional muscle mass; do all of this before you start doing crazy gimmicks because you can't think of anything else to do, because you think it makes you look cool and you're worried your clients going to get bored..

Numpty - or £50 per hour - you decide

A few things that didn't make the list


The bodyblade and power plate (vibration training) didn't quite make the list. The work of Charlie Weingroff has helped convince me of the benefits of vibrational training for certain injured populations. However, this doesn't mean you should have rows of them in health clubs with otherwise healthy individuals standing on them when they should really be focusing on weight loss and strength. You are not going to vibrate your way to a size 8 dress size.

A note on bodypump - why it didn't make the list.

A few people wanted me to put bodypump on the list. However, I don't have too much of a problem with bodypump. Anything that gets women and some men to lift weights is a good thing. I might have a few misgivings about the exercise technique they use on some of the movements, but at least they are lifting weights. I have as many misgivings about some peoples deadlift and squat technique in the gym. And using high repetition weights all the time is not the way to go, but then again neither is the standard 5 day body part split countless gym rats follow with no apparent leg day.

The problem with any system is when people don't progress, if you are lifting the same weights as you were lifting 5 years ago, you haven't progressed, if you're body shape is the same, you haven't progressed. If you only do high repetitions or low repetitions you need to do the opposite every so often.

So with that in mind, bodypump can be used as a training tool as long as its not the only thing you do. You can use it as a high repetition day, or as a change of pace if you normally do explosive movements. You can even see it as more of a glycogen depletion type workout (to steal someone elses phrase) to aid with fat loss. If you want to hit your legs and you don't normally do legs, give it a go. Overall, more women lifting barbells is a good thing. If it introduces them to free weights that's good, and we can iron out any technique differences when they start lifting heavier in the gym.

Top 5 greatest fitness things

Ok, I've covered the worst things, here are the top 5 things you should be using

1. Body weight (ok, a cop out, but your body was designed to run, jump and move, body weight exercises can be some of the most effective
2. Barbells
3. Dumbbells
4. Power rack
5. Kettlebells
6. Ab wheel

Ok, that's 6 things, but i don't count bodyweight as equipment. Basically if you had a gym with only these things in, or trained at home with only have of these things you would get results. It doesn't need to be complicated or expensive. Choose things that have been proven to work over and over again. I need to go and lift some weights now.