How to choose a gym

I wrote an article for my friends over at www.maximaleffort.com

It's called 'How to choose a gym', so you can probably guess what it's about, you can find it here

The Digital Disruption of the Fitness Industry. (Here comes the future and you can't run from it*).

"It's not sufficient to do things better. We need to do better things." - Mark Shayler

Fitness at its heart is very much an analogue activity. Regardless of the gadgets and fancy gear, you still have to lift the weight or run the distance.

Although the 'gamification' of the fitness industry has probably been overplayed. (go to any gym, like the one I am a member of and see how many people use The Trixter bikes, basically none, once the novelty has worn off). The way we engage with the public, get them to join our facilities and the products we offer need to move on and reflect the new way the market behaves.

Opening a gym used to be relatively simple, a 2 stage process:

1) Fill a room with machines
2) Hand out some leaflets and hope people joined

This process was then added to by some of the big players. And despite my claim at least one of them would go under, specifically LA Fitness in the last couple of years, they have more or less stayed afloat. Though, those of you who keep up with such things will know that LA Fitness had to close several sites, sold a load to Sports Direct and had to re-negotiate the rent on the others.

The process favoured by the standard industry representatives is:

1) Fill a room with machines
2) Hand out some leaflets
3) When people come in with the leaflet put them on a call list
4) Call them offering no joining fee until they join or tell you to stop calling them
5) Ignore them until their contract finishes and then call them again to ask about renewal.

Of course, this model forgets that the Internet, amazon, google and facebook have since been invented.

1998 called, it wants its marketing campaign back.

I have heard the same figures quoted for leaflets for the past 10 years, a 1 to 3% return. Don't forget this was the possible return rate in a world without facebook. These days you would be better off sponsoring the recycling bin because that's where your leaflets are going.

A brief history of the fitness industry.

We are also in a period where innovation is being driven from the bottom up in fitness.

In the last 50 years or so, fitness has gone through the following phases:

1) In the 1950 & 1960s. Guys who liked training in gyms, opened one up for their friends to train in.
2) In the 1970s & 1980s tennis clubs and squash clubs started to open. In the UK leisure centres started to spread. Some had a small gym attached, normally a multi-machine.
3) In the 1990s. The current modern era started, with various health club chains opening, this is the model most have joined the industry in the last 15 years or so are familiar with. The agenda was set by these companies in terms of how you set up a club. i.e. rows of cardio equipment, minimal weights, resistance machine, saunas & steam rooms. It was a top down model, and someone at the top decided what was going to attract the most members or the desired type of member.
4) Now. Guys and females who like training are opening their own micro gyms, or PT studios or Crossfit boxes. The agenda is now set by these clubs. Innovation is being driven from the bottom up.

The trend in kettlebells, HIIT training, functional rigs and so forth were all adopted by the big chains after they had been proven in smaller facilities.

And most of this disruption was driven digitally on facebook and youtube. With coaches and trainers posting videos of their facility, their clients and what they do.

Innovation in marketing.

The  main focus of this article will how to engage more people in fitness via the marketing we use and the ease with which consumers can access our products.

A quick look through the websites listed below and several things stand out:

http://www.lafitness.co.uk/

Join online includes free PT
Still has tour de france promo from July on site
PT yes, no prices

http://www.virginactive.co.uk/

Can’t join online, gives prices

 http://www.nuffieldhealth.com/

Can’t join online, usual PT spiel, no price

http://www.fitnessfirst.co.uk/

Yes, can join online, includes bodyfirst PT sessions

http://www.gymbox.com/Join

Can’t join online, meet the PT section, seemed to have got away with work out of the day without being sued by crossfit

http://www.bannatyne.co.uk/healthandfitness/

Arrange a visit, can't join online

http://www.fitness4less.co.uk/

Can join online

http://www.thegymgroup.com/

Can join online

http://www.davidlloyd.co.uk/

Can't join online, you can get free membership until Jan 2015, plus they have a playlist app. Yep, a playlist app but no fitness or nutrition app.

http://crossfitlondonuk.com/

personal training appt slots, prices per session and monthly on site

1) How similar all the websites are, the same stock images, the same menus at the top of the page, the same phrases.
2) How on some of them you still can't join online. They still have the gatekeeper mentality. You need to contact a sales advisor to be able to join. You might be able to buy a car online, or a holiday or a computer worth a £1000, but when it comes to signing up for a gym you have to go through the sales team still.
3) The prices range per month range from £10.99 to £70+ per month, and at first glance it is very difficult to discern any real difference between the different companies. They have the same classes on offer, the equipment is made by the same manufacturers. So obviously you are paying for the service...

There are no 'purple cows' as Seth Godin would say, no one is really standing out from the crowd. They all look the same, and offer more or less the same service.

These companies have become too big to innovate, they are fighting for the customer who occupies the mythical middle ground. The customer who so far has made most of their business models untenable.

The myth of incumbency is alive and well. You think these companies know what they are doing, they are the experts in the fitness industry. But hang on

"Sony missed the mp3... Kodak missed digital... and Nokia forgot about innovation." - Mark Shayler

Being the big guy on the block doesn't mean a thing in the face of the current technologies.

"The only source of competitive advantage now is a focus on knowledge of and engagement with customers." James McQuivey

The claims that they have 'built a gym package exclusively for you or me' can't be true. If any of these operators go beyond off-peak/ peak/ corporate and contract/ non contract I'll eat a bosu.

"Don't try to make a product for everybody, because that is a product for nobody." - Seth Godin

Before & After pictures - the calling card.

The current outlets of facebook, twitter and websites allow individual trainers and small companies to engage as much or more with their customers than large corporations.

Its not unusual for self employed solo personal trainers to have more facebook likes, more twitter followers and more interactions on social media than their big business counterparts.

Firstly, posting before and after pictures and testimonials is very powerful and most large companies don't do it or are poor at it. This could be related to the personal training model they follow (see below). Whereas, success coaches and PT's make it their business to post success stories and testimonials.

Secondly, in many ways it is easy for the lone trainer to engage with his audience on facebook & twitter. They do not have to go through a corporate filter or marketing department. They can be their authentic self.

"The way you break through to the mainstream is to target a niche instead of a huge market." - Seth Godin

This is the approach Crossfit took and small independent trainers can take. The large chains that think they just target the mainstream have forgotten that total marketing penetration for the fitness industry stands at about 12%.

For large corporations, there is always the chance that the opposite will happen. Check out Nuffields facebook page to see how former disgruntled employees will have their say or any other operator to see how unhappy members will rate your service or how vociferous they will be if something goes wrong with the service or their contract. This is then compounded by pages being updated sporadically, less than once a month, and the complete lack of member transformation stories. The PR war has been lost before it even begun.

Personal Training - not really part of the service.

Looking at the websites listed above, it is hard to find personal training on any them. It becomes doubly hard to find out how much personal training costs and just about impossible to book an appointment.

One provider, Fitness First, does provide some PT sessions as an option as part of the initial sign up package.

The reason for the difficulty finding PT is most operators don't see it as part of their core service. The trainers are normally self employed and pay a monthly rent to access the clients in the club. Again, you will be hard pressed to find any testimonials or before and after pictures on any of these websites.

How about integrating personal training into the member experience. Don't make them pay for it in blocks of 5 or 10 sessions. How about charging an enhanced monthly rate for personal training and rather than making the PTs freelance hired hands, make them the instructors that you pay an additional (decent) amount to for training clients. And how about measuring them in terms of results and PR generated.

App Attack.

I checked all the major app stores and couldn't find any current fitness operator who had delved into this market, except recently Nuffield with their health measuring app and David Lloyd with their playlist app.

Again, another missed opportunity. The public are using 'my fitness pal' and all sorts of fitness workout apps and the fitness industry was in the perfect position to produce their own one, but as far as I can tell no one did. We have the gyms, the staff, the workouts and the member base. It wouldn't have taken much much for one of the big players to release a fitness app which they gave to every new member for free, and/or sell it somewhere like the 'play store'.

The same goes for nutrition apps or even basic workout tracking apps. But it seems the industry waits for someone else to do it.

Outside the building.

As an industry, we are still very much in the mindset of  'put some machines in a room and people will come'. There is no reason why our products could not become more virtual. Even if apps are not developed there is no reason why you couldn't be selling nutrition and training programmes to people not actually in your gym. Freelance trainers from the USA and UK are doing this right now with online clients; but for some reason this is an aspect of business we dismiss.

If you start to develop clients outside your geographical sphere of influence you have just widened your market wider than you ever thought possible. But it has be done properly, a half arsed effort is not going to cut it in today's market place.

Joined up thinking.

I found only one website, a Crossfit one, where you could actually book a personal training appointment via the website. Surely, this should be the norm.

The following simple changes could make the difference

1) The front page of your web page should make it easy to join and obvious what the price is.
2) Your website should not consist of stock images of people sitting on swiss balls but real before and after testimonials from clients, people actually training in your gym with you.
3) The client should be able to book personal training or their first gym orientation online, most places let people book classes online now, why not this.
4) Integrate PT into your business model not as stand alone blocks of 5 or 10 sessions. Pay staff to be your personal trainers.
5) Widen your customer base to include distance coaching clients, online programme writing and more. If you have an IT department why aren't they developing a fitness app to give to your members or to place in an app store.
6) Don't try and be all things to all people, Crossfit doesn't, Zumba doesn't, the best TV programmes don't try to be - so why are you? Pick a market, and be authentic with how you represent yourself and your product.

But fundamentally start asking what your customer really wants and what you can do to stand out from the crowd.

Are you offering customers what they really want? Do they want rows of equipment? Do they want fast classes? Or do they want results? Do they want to belong to a tribe? Do they want to join with a friend or would they rather join and meet like minded people? Do we really know the answer to these questions or do we presume? Do we as an industry know the answer to these questions?

Standing out doesn't means starting some crazy fitness class that no one wants to go to but developing a product that is easily accessible and provides something that no one else is providing or they provide it but you just do it better.

If you don't start disrupting now, someone else will and you will be left behind.

"Just asking customers for feedback won't lead to the breakthrough disruptions... because customers don't always know what they want." - James McQuivey

Oh, and if anyone asks, I invented digital fit street.

References

Seth Godin (2003) Purple Cow: Transform your business by being remarkable. Penguin

James McQuivey (2013) Digital Disruption: Unleashing the next wave of innovation. Amazon publishing.

Mark Shayler (2013) DO Disrupt. Change the status quo. Or become it. DO Books Co.

"Marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department." - David Packard

* line taken from Billy Bragg song Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards.

Leadville. Random Thoughts and Observations.

I'm back! After a few months off writing it was time to re-activate the blog. I completed the Leadville 100 mile trail run in Colorado, USA, a couple of weeks ago, so now I'm having some down time, time to write and not spend all my spare time training.

Leadville. It looks like this. Source: www.skyrunner.com

This post is just some random observations and thoughts. I will save the in depth discussion on training and running for another time.

So in no particular order:

• The most popular running shoe on the run was the Hoka by a country mile. Followed by Salomon and Brooks I would say. The Hoka has gone from obscurity to the ultra running favourite. First time I saw anyone wearing these sponges on their feet was about 4 years on La Trans Aq run in France, when this couple suddenly appeared in front of me (yes, they had cut the course and were 'orienteering') wearing matching and bizarrely stacked shoes. Who would have thought they would take the ultra world by storm.

Hoka: the minimalist running trend has been usurped by these.

• A few hardy souls were wearing sandals/ huarache's/ Lunas. But maybe less than 5. One barefoot guy had done the Leadman challenge - which means running the marathon, doing the 50 mile run or mountain bike and the hundred miler. Did he do the mountain bike barefoot or do Luna make a special clip-in huarache sandal for a bike?

A few hardy souls were running barefoot and in sandals. Be careful running down to Winfield, don't stub your toe. Is there a mountain bike clip in version of the huarache?

• The barefoot minimal trend seems to be over, and as always with these things the pendulum has swung the other way to the super cushioned Hoka. For the record I was wearing Nike Pegasus and Inov 8 315s.
• I was under the misapprehension that the first half of the course consists of a fair amount of road running. It doesn't. A few miles at most. Hence I was wearing the Nike Pegasus for the first 40 miles and the last 40 miles to cushion myself on the road, as I don't road run that much. As it turned out the Nike was fine, I didn't get one blister.
• The de rigueur trail wear for female ultra runners is long socks (preferably brightly coloured, possibly compression) and 'sassy' shorts, topped off with a head band/buff.
• Male ultra runner clothing breaks into 2 camps. The Kilian/ European school of thought - white Salomon compression sock, white Salomon compression shorts, trekking poles and the other school, the Anton/ Hobo runner school of thought - beard, no shirt, hand held bottles.
• Americans are the most positive people on Earth.
• The three most popular running vests were: Ultimate direction, Nathan, Salomon S Lab, and then hand helds.
• Some pacers aren't pacing anyone, some pacers are basically Sherpas' carrying everything, some pacers are actually pacing.
• Running across a field full of rabbit holes/ gopher holes is difficult during the day and almost impossible at night.

Caddyshack. I don't know if gophers live in Colorado.

• Someone projectile vomiting by the side of the trail can really put you off noodle soup.
• The aid stations were faultless. Big thanks to all the volunteers. As I ran in they asked if I had a drop bag, went and got my drop bag when I did, filled up my bottles and were generally awesome (in the truest sense of the word). If you are used to some British runs, where the aid station consists of a bloke with a bowl of Jelly Babies and a woman from the St Johns ambulance who can't be bothered to get out of her chair while moaning about her job as you run in after 40 miles (yes, I have witnessed this) then you are in for a treat. Special mention to the ad hoc Spacemen aid station at the top of Sugar Loafin Pass on the way back in the middle of the night. My girlfriend was running with me over the last 24 miles, and as we approached the the top of the powerlines we could see all the lights and hear the cow horn. Confused, I said it wasn't there on the way out. At the top were some locals who had obviously partaken in Colorado's legal Marijuana supply, they had cola and ginger beer, LEDs and some 'far out' postiive guys that really cheered me up at that stage of the game.
• Marijuana dispensaries advertise on the local radio in Colorado.
• Some people seem to be able to talk continuously while running one hundred miles. I can barely stand up and breathe, so I have no idea how they manage to do this.
• Most of my calories came from energy gels & a carbohydrate/ protein drink.
• Watermelon is a life saver.
• If you wear a head torch too loose you will end up with a big bruise in the middle of your forehead. Now I know why people wear a buff under their head torch. 
• Thanks to my crew, my Dad, his wife Vanessa and my girlfriend Tiss. When you are running time compresses after a while and you enter 'dream time', it doesn't seem like a day has passed. But for the crews it is hurry up and wait. Hours waiting at an aid station, then a big rush for 5 minutes, and then the runner is off again, and the crew has another 4 hours of waiting in the cold and dark. Being crew is a hard job.

At the top of Hope Pass with Tiss, On a course recce 5 days before the race

• The training is what gets you up the hills, but something else keeps you awake and moving and I don't know what that is.
• Hershey bars are terrible.
• American coca cola and sprite is made with high fructose corn syrup and not sugar.
• The river crossing doesn't get much of a mention when they talk about Leadville. Or to be exact the swampy water that is next to the river. You have to wade through several pools of this on a jeep track, above knee height, and some of it don't smell too good, the river water is clean and cold. I guess living in England has got me used to running with wet feet. But the smell of the swampy water is still embedded in my Inov 8 trainers.
• I need to practice running downhill. Ascending I was strong, but got over taken all the time by people when going downhill including a fella wearing huaraches on the descent to Winfield (hats off my friend). At the end of the run the only muscle soreness I had was in my quads - like I had done a million squats.
• Americans say 'Good Job' the same way French people say 'Bon Courage' on the trail. Again the friendliest, most positive atmosphere to run in.
• The race briefing talk by the doctor was very entertaining.
• To paraphrase Ken Chouber at the race briefing talk, this isn't a motivational talk, motivational speeches work until the first time your throw up. Something else gets you to the end.
• My girlfriend wants to live in Colorado, preferably in a camper van. Mainly in the hope of bumping into Anton Krupicka.
• Trekking poles, once the preserve of European runners are very popular in the USA now. (I used trekking poles for the first time).
• I got my blood taken at the end as part of a research study. I got sent the lab results, sodium, potassium and glucose levels were all normal but I'm not sure how my kidneys and liver are still working, the results were 'abnormal but not unusual for an ultrarunner'. I luckily had no GI distress, and all bodily functions were normal during and after the run.

Beer is a recovery drink. Fact.

• Most runners seemed to live in Colorado and most first timers had paced the race before. I met people from UK, France, Australia, Sweden, Florida, Washington, Oregon and probably a few other places.
• Don't ask for a white coffee in the US, no one has any idea what you are talking about.
• Ever wondered how The Beatles, Led Zep, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd still make millions of dollars every year. Its because American radio stations play them constantly - which is a good thing.
• Put Body Glide everywhere, I mean lubricate absolutely everything!
• Starting at 4am in the morning and running down 6th Street in Leadville while the residents of one of the houses play Springsteens Born To Run full blast - seems like a dream I once had.
• British Airways are a rubbish airline.
• I want to grow a beard like Rob Krar.

FAQ

A list of the most common questions I have been asked after finishing Leadville:

• Were you tired?
• Did you stop?
• Did you run all the way?
• Did you sleep?
• Did you do it all in one go?
• Did it hurt?
• I bet it was hot, is it hard running in the heat? (British people are obsessed with the weather and appear to think anywhere that isn't the UK is hot all the time)
• Is it the hardest thing you've ever done?
• Are you doing it again?
• What's next?
• Are you going to do the London marathon?
• Did you eat anything/ what did you eat?
• Were you sore the next day?
• Have you lost weight?

"Life's barely long enough to get good at one thing. So be careful what you get good at." - Rust Cohle, True Detective (TV Series)

View from Sugar Loafin camp ground. Hope Pass in the distance. Time to stop.

The Trail (Homecoming).

There is a map on the wall of a trail and it's old. You can see the creases where once it was folded, small tears where the corners would have been. There is a crumpled poster on the wall of a mountain, and that mountain is older than the map and the trail, it's real old. A holy mountain, Machapuchare, fish tail mountain. I remember the poster and I remember seeing the mountain too.

The trail on the map is just a line, its complexities hidden in a two dimensional image. The trail at night is different from the trail during the day, but the map doesn't tell you that. The trail changes during the seasons and the map doesn't tell you that. And the trail changes with you, and the map definitely doesn't tell you that. Of course, the terrain never really changes, you change. Living in the past - Running with ghosts. Living in the future - running with fear. Living in the present - just running.

The night runs are the ones where nothing seems real. You lose all sense of gradient and distance. Just a tunnel of light, senses heightened by the darkness. You tune into the sounds. You see strange shapes. And sometimes the strange shapes really are strange objects, coming across an oil field nodding donkey in the French forest. Deep in the forest, alone, there is a primal fear and a primal exhilaration too. I didn't think I'd make it this far, this is old ground.

On the nature of trail running.

There is purity in movement. There is death in inertia. The trail shows you. Its passive, you bring to it whatever you want, it doesn't care. It just is, in the elements, in the snow, and rain and burning sun. It will strip you to the bone. Where are you running too? Always returning home. And for those not running home, they just keep going and disappear. The trail is the home for them. But for most of us its an escape. Switch off. Long before gadgets and gels and training logs there were runners. And for a while you escape...

The road is different. The concrete, the noise. Running early in the morning in the dark and rain. Headlights like tracer rounds, the glare. So many people commuting. I see them, do they see me? Are they the same as me? Do they think I'm insane? The occasional nod and raised hand to someone else running out of the darkness. I wonder why they do this.

It never gets easier, it only ever gets harder. And still we continue. Searching, waiting for that perfect effortless moment when everything comes together and you feel like you can run forever. If you're lucky, you get one of those moments, and you spend the rest of your life waiting for it to happen again. Like the endless beach run, it went on forever, until I came around the corner and it was finished.

Come home, shower, go to work, like a normal person. (Is anyone normal? Or are there just some boring people?)

But in the background, one thing occupies your thoughts. Not the dreams of childhood, they burned away in the cold light of day a long time ago. These are different. Forged in the furnace of everyday mundanity. Some people take crystal meth, some people 'wash up and go racing in the streets', I entered Leadville. All choices are equally logical.

Sure 'there are other Annapurnas in the lives of men', but sometimes you have to get the Annapurnas out of the way first.

I needed a 'sunburn, a raincoat' or whatever. And I figured I had a 'whole lot of karma to burn.'

Sometimes one or two minutes pass when I don't think about Leadville or the trail or running.

But you've got to get these things in perspective.

Sometimes going for a run helps you do just that. The trail is always waiting.

Walter White - To hell with your cancer speech (Breaking Bad)

Cancer Patient: Its like they say man plans and God laughs

Walter White: That is... such bullshit

Cancer Patient: Excuse me...?

Walter White: Never give up control, live life on your own terms

Cancer Patient: Yeah...No... I get what your saying. But eh... cancer is cancer


Walter White: To hell with your cancer! I've been living with cancer for the better part of a year. Right from the start its a death sentence. That's what they keep telling me. Well guess what? Every life comes with a death sentence. So every few months I come in here for my regular scan knowing full well that one of these times. Hell,  Maybe even today day I'm gonna hear some bad news, but until then. Who's in charge? Me! That's how I live my life

References
Michael Herr Dispatches
Bruce Springsteen Racing In The Streets
Counting Crows Raining in Baltimore
Bob Dylan Desire liner notes
Maurice Herzog Annapurna
Breaking Bad TV Show Walter White Cancer speech

Fitness Trends For 2014 (Not The Usual Suspects).

The official ACSM list of fitness trends for 2014 can be found here. Yeah, high intensity interval training, bodyweight training blah blah, catch up fitness industry and media hacks, that's so 2008. The real fitness trends and hot predictions are listed below:

No.1: Bicep Curls or if you are a female - tricep extensions (or if you are a patronising fitness expert appearing on daytime TV in January 'working on the bingo wings ladies').

The bicep curl will always be number one in the gym. If you spend more than 2 hours in any gym at least one guy will come in and start his workout by warming up with some alternating dumbbell curls while standing exceptionally close to the dumbbell rack.

The bicep curl is so versatile, too tired to squat? You will still have enough energy to do some arms. Hard conditioning session? Always time to work on the guns at the end.

Can you see how complicated this is? Of course it needs to be trained every workout.

The bicep is essentially three muscles that cross the elbow and shoulder joint (or if you are Charles Poliquin probably 23 muscles -each with a unique action) but at last count there are approximately 23,000 bicep exercises. Because it doesn't matter that it may be one of the smallest muscle groups you work on - it is the most important. No one can tell if you workout if you only do legs and have to wear trousers. But biceps, there is always time to put on a tight T-shirt and pump up before heading out.

No.2: 30 minutes on the x-trainer/ elliptical if you are female or Chest Day if you are male.

It doesn't matter how much people tell you that you don't need to do steady state cardio to lose weight, or that weight loss is all about nutrition, because as a female you know that the real key to success is the x-trainer. Whatever  fancy program your trainer gave you with weights and kettlebells and functional shit and HIIT it doesn't matter; because deep down you know the key to all physique goals is the x-trainer. Plus all that stuff is too hard, and you can't remember how to do it plus there is no TV attached to the kettlebell so you can't watch Hollyoaks while instagramming fitness inspiration pictures.

For Chest Day refer back to no.1, there is always time for chest, and Monday has been international bench press day since the beginning of time or at least the beginning of Golds Gym in California. And all those dopes doing bodyweight stuff are just clogging up the area that you need to scatter weight plates around the flat bench to prove how much you can lift.

No.3: Paleo & Ketogenic Backlash.

You tried paleo and it was fucking hard and you didn't transform in to a paleolithic warrior in 7 days. Plus no one knows if you can eat a freakin' potato or not (sweet potatoes are okay but no one knows why) and if you so much as look at a legume your intestines will explode. If you write a paleo book be sure to make sure that whatever you like and don't want to give up is considered paleo - this normally means coffee, red wine, chocolate (Swiss paleo) or milk (as long as the milk is from a wild cow and you milk it yourself).

Potato: Can I eat this or not?

Plus those coconut farmers need a break, Somewhere in Hawaii or Southeast Asia or wherever all the coconut oil comes from, some of those farmers have been working 24/7 since The Paleo Solution was released. And if the world runs out of coconuts all the Paleo/ Keto people are screwed. And there will be mass panic at your nearest Crossfit Box.

Give it a rest paleo people, these fellas need a day off

As for the ketogenic diet, the Italian Pasta Cartel is not going to stand for it anymore. As pasta sales plummet they realise this madness has got to stop. They are going to 'take care of' Robb Wolf, Mark Sissons and Tim Noakes for sure.

Expect some of your favourite fitness and diet gurus to change their mind and decide that now you have to eat high carb and low fat; bran flakes, pasta and rice galore. As you already bought their last book, you are going to buy this one too.

In the future we will discover that High Fructose Corn Syrup is actually a health food. Much like when Woody Allen wakes up in the future in the film Sleeper, his character was the owner of a health food store, but in the future they have realised that all that health food is actually bad for you.

Dialogue from the film Sleeper

Dr. Melik: Well, he's fully recovered, except for a few minor kinks.
Dr. Agon: Has he asked for anything special?
Dr. Melik: Yes, this morning for breakfast. He requested something called wheat germ, organic honey and tiger's milk.
Dr. Agon: [ laughs ] Oh, yes. Those were the charmed substances...That some years ago were felt to contain life-preserving properties.
Dr. Melik: You mean there was no deep fat? No steak or cream pies? Or hot fudge?
Dr. Agon: Those were thought to be unhealthy, precisely the opposite of what we now know to be true.
Dr. Melik: Incredible.

Source: www.Explore-Science-Fiction-Movies.com

Woody Allen in Sleeper

Stay confused and consume.

No.4: 700Ibs Deadlifts.

There are now a record number of elite powerlifters who only ever lift in their garage or on the internet. You rarely see them in the gym, I guess because they are all at home lifting 700Ibs but unfortunately they don't have a video camera. The 600Ibs deadlift is now so common that most lifters achieve it within weeks of reading Starting Strength and critiquing Supertraining and claiming that those Westside guys are all pussies; so the only place left to go is the 700Ibs deadlift.

Strangely, I don't see so many people claiming sub 2.10 marathons, I guess because you can't do that in a garage.

No.5: Some crazy kids toy/ bongo fusion disguised as the latest fitness tool.

Right now there is some guy, probably in California or Australia or New Zealand figuring out how he can part you with your cash.

The quickest way to come up with the latest fitness gimmick is to take a kids toy like a hula hoop and then combine it with some high energy music, then brand it, licence it, and claim it burns fat and works the core better than anything else.

But most of the obvious stuff has been done, for the fitness entrepreneur this means some lateral thinking is required. How about taking one of  those pedal powered cars the kids drive in the film Bugsy Malone and turning it into a cardio machine. Or how about the new dance sensation - Polka, combined with Flag Signals - I call it Polkwa. A total body conditioner plus practical if you get lost at sea or find yourself at a wedding in Central Europe.

Car from Bugsy Malone: Strap a TV on this and you've got a new cardio machine

No doubt Gym Box already has these classes, so please don't write to me.

I've combines Polka and Flag waving - I call it Polkwa.

No.6: Barefoot Backlash.

It turns out barefoot running didn't turn you into a Kenyan overnight, plus your calves hurt and it took a lot of goddamn effort.

As is human nature, rather than finding a middle way, we swing to the other extreme. How about attaching a couple of sponges to your feet or those springy pogo stick shoes that Saturday morning kids TV presenters would bounce around on back when such TV existed. Unfortunately, Flubber doesn't exist, or does it? How about a pair of Hokas. Or how about training, or doing some strength training, or work on your mobility or not thinking there is an equipment solution to a fitness problem.

Hoka - It's the French word for Flubber

No. 7: Sit-Up And Crunch Comeback.

Unless you work in a commercial gym, in which case, you just stopped doing them because you read the research from 2002.

The tricky thing about those researchers is they keep saying it depends, it depends on the client, it depends on their goals, it depends on their spine morphology. Well that's no good, you want a six pack and so do your clients. And all this 'it depends' is no good for debating on the internet, there can be no grey area.

Abs are not made in the kitchen, they are made on the sit up bench.

Plus, your favourite MMA/ Boxing fighter does 1000's of sit ups so they must be okay. And whats more Crossfitters do those sit ups on the Glute Ham Raise and none of them are injured. And you're bored and your clients are bored of planks. Crunch ahoy! Much like bicep curls there is always time for some isolated core work.

No.8: Special Selfie/ Instagram Zones At The Gym.

You're at the gym and you need to take a picture to prove you're at the gym and so everyone knows what a rich and fulfilling life you lead; and to motivate all your followers on Instagram. Except the lighting's no good and you left your phone in the car. No problem, this is an idea I stole when visiting Guinness Storehouse in Dublin - they take a picture of you pouring a pint and then you can go to one of their ipads and share the picture on facebook. Genius!

This is exactly what the gym needs! The special selfie zone will have the right amount of lighting to make you look thin/ pumped/ ripped and you can share the picture instantly on social media. No need to take pictures of yourself surreptitiously in the changing rooms or look like a dick while your friend videos you on the calf raise machine. You can focus on what the gym is really about, telling other people you are there, so you can feel smug.

No.9: Weightlifting Shoes As Fashion Accessory.

Your Mum has bought you some new weightlifting shoes. The only problem is only the Bros you lift with are going to see them. Or if you bought them yourself, you spent a fair amount of cash on them - but you only get to wear them at the gym a few hours a week.

Solution: Start to wear them out and about. You will look taller, in the event of a fight you basically have two lumps of wood strapped to your feet, plus in the club on the dancefloor while making some shapes you can easily hit a deep squat/ cossack move and impress all the chicks (at least one of who is bound to be a bikini competitor - result!)

Do you know how much these cost? Damn right I'm wearing them to the pub

No.10: Some New Social Media Network You Haven't Heard Of Yet.

Facebook will be dead by the end of the year or maybe tTwitter will be or MySpace will make a comeback, I dunno. Or someone will invent a new social network. We all need more outlets to tell people what we are doing. Picture of your paleo dinner on Instagram? Check. Motivational quote on Twitter? Check. Awesome Bicep curl video uploaded on Facebook? Check. But its not enough. We need more.

No.11: Les Mills - times they are a changin. (A serious one).

Les Mills have been using the same payment model forever. The likes of bodybalance, pump, combat etc are massive in health clubs. If you have never heard of them you probably don't go to a health club. I guess way more people do Les Mills than do Crossfit. But Crossfit has appeared in The Huffington Post, The New Yorker and the British Press. It really is in the zeitgeist. Les Mills hasn't - epic fail. If you run 3 or 4 Les Mills programs it costs the same as having a Crossfit affiliation for the year. Crossfit is also sponsored by Reebok and has created a tribe effect. Food for thought there.

Camille Leblanc - apparently she does Crossfit, which unlike Les Mills you've probably heard of.

I thought Zumba or Bokwa or Bootcamps would kill Les Mills, as they are either licence free or make the instructor pay the licence. With the new music licencing laws in the UK - health clubs have to pay the money themselves and can't make the self employed instructor pay for it. And then there is all the quarterly workshops. In the end Les Mills will euthanize itself unless it catches up to way things work and gives you a bit more for your money than a few posters and leaflets. They need to use the same tactics as Crossfit or your class studio will be or already is a Crossfit box.

No.12:  People On Blogs Writing Lists Of Fitness Trends.

Yep, we all love a top ten list and predictions about fitness trends. Look on the bright side, unlike a newspaper you didn't have to pay to read this and unlike something written by some weary Journo, it's not some regurgitated list from 2008. Some newspapers and magazines seem to think their readers have never seen the internet or used Google and are already behind the zeitgeist by the time they get round to reporting stuff. Rant over. Do what you enjoy.

"Don't follow leaders, watch your parking meters."  Bob Dylan

Happy New Year Fitness World, make 2014 a healthy one. Another year lost in fitness.

Of course

I've Seen The Future And The Future Is... Coaching (or possibly cleaning, one or the other).

"The quality of a man's life is in direct proportion to his commitment to excellence, regardless of his chosen field or endeavor." - Vince Lombardi

We are in a golden age of gym equipment. A few years ago you were lucky if you could find a gym with a basic power rack and an olympic bar. Standard health club gyms consisted of resistance machines, some kind of terrible key system and cardio, and if you were lucky the dumbbells went up to 20kg. The management were afraid of 'hardcore' lifters and were trying to attract some mythical exerciser who was willing to pay £60 a month for the chance to sit on a stationary bike; except that person never turned up in large enough numbers to build a viable industry.

Nowadays, some of the biggest chains have power racks and bumper plates and functional rigs. Crossfit* gyms and micro gyms opened and they all had Olympic bars and ropes, sleds and prowlers and minimal if any of the standard cardio and resistance kit. A few years ago bands and chains and specialist bars were rare, they existed on the internet in Westside. Now the average 16 year old gym goer may have seen a safety squat bar, football bar, cambered bar, pushed a prowler, tried to break his leg by jumping on a stack of plyo boxes and build his biceps with a thick grip barbell.

Its is only 5 or 6 years ago when I went on an Olympic weightlifting course, it was hard to find, it was the only one I could find and they didn't even call it Olympic weightlifting (BWLA weightlifting for sports course to be exact) and I think one of the guys who opened Crossfit London or Manchester was on the same course. And I couldn't find any videos on the internet on Olympic lifts or how to do them. My, how times have changed, suburban housewives are doing Oly lifting as part of their daily WOD and the Reebok shop in Covent Garden sells Crossfit branded Olympic lifting shoes (there was one website that sold them in the UK when I purchased a pair).

Equipment is not enough.

But. It is easy to become enamoured by gym equipment. More people are Olympic lifting than ever before, but very few people lift heavy or come close to being national level. There hasn't been a sudden rush of world records or big powerlifts. Quite a few people have got their 10,000 hours in, but we're not suddenly giving China or Eastern Europe a run for their money. There is a possibility that it takes more than practice, that 10,000 hours has become over emphasised. The same is true in endurance sport: triathlons, 100 mile ultras and weekend 10k's are fully booked, barefoot running is mainstream but as a nation we are less competitive than we were 30 years ago in Marathons - take out the one runner we have and we have no one. People are running slower marathons than they were in the early 1980's.

And however much equipment there is, there is always someone who wants more, if only your had Eleiko bars or a monolift - then they would be a champion, despite the fact people were lifting heavy and winning for eons without any of this stuff. And some guy in a Bulgarian basement is lifting with a rusty barbell and kicking their ass.

Rocky 4 - back to basics, it's not about the equipment

But I digress, the point is, if it was only about equipment and facilities and participation we would see way more people competing at a high level. But we don't. Of course, many people doing these activities have no desire to compete, they just enjoy them, and they like training and being fit.

"the best teacher is repetition, day after day, throughout the season." - John Wooden

And the other point, is having the equipment is not enough. You can have a room full power racks and performance equipment, but if the gym culture is still embedded in body part splits, it will all be empty apart from the bench press and the adjustable benches closest to the mirrors. And there is a fear, a lot of guys and even more so women, who have been using gyms since their rise in the 1990's default to what they know. Why try something if you risk looking like an idiot, its pretty hard to go wrong on the cross trainer or doing a bicep curl, but get the glute ham raise wrong and not only could you end up being rescued there is a chance your hamstrings will explode.

So without coaching and a change in culture all this new equipment (which is really a return to the old0 will stay unused.

"The more I coached the more I became convinced that the mind, the will, the determination, the mental approach to competition are of the utmost importance." - Brutus Hamilton

What do Jess Ennis, Mo Farah, every professional football team and all of British Cycling have in common? They all have coaches.

"'The main thing about Percy is that he coaches your spirit' Elliott believed 'The body itself may only need two months training to get fit, the rest of the time you're building up your spirit - call it guts, or some inner force..." Herb Elliott on coach Percy Cerutty

Health Commitment Cop Out.

If you go to a small micro gym, studio or Crossfit facility there is a good chance you will get some coaching (the debate about quality is for another day) due to the format these facilities use - small group training, one on one, you have to book in. These facilities also have an advantage that certain populations would have self selected and excluded themselves. People arriving at Crossfit or an olympic lifting gym know what to expect, they know what the deal is, the chances of the obese grandma with a dodgy knee and blood pressure pills turning up to take part in the WOD are slim.

In a health club or leisure centre the system is set up differently, anyone can turn up and expect to do anything. Many clubs in the UK have now adopted the Health Commitment Statement produced by UK Active (the governing body for the fitness industry in the UK??!). It is designed to replace the Par-q which was too medicalised. For example, the first line on the HCS is

"We will respect your personal decisions, and allow you to make you own decisions about what exercise you can carry out. However, we ask you not to exercise beyond what you consider to be your own abilities."

Now, we are treating people like adults, which is a good thing, and not expecting the coach to start delving into medical history. In another section it states

"You should not exercise beyond your own abilities. If you know or are concerned that you have a medical condition which might interfere with you exercising safely, before you use our equipment and facilities you should get advice from a relevant medical professional and follow that advice."

Except, firstly people ignore what they have just signed and still ask you what to do about their bad back or achilles or what is best for blood pressure. And secondly, what both the Par-q and HCS fail to address is that most people don't have medical conditions that restrict them, they just have appalling movement patterns, poor mobility and have no idea about how to make an informed decision about what the best exercise to do is or how to it correctly.

And certain exercises will be unsafe for them at this stage, they don't have the knowledge to decide, their judgement of their own ability is flawed. Its like saying, go into the supermarket and buy healthy food, some people will get it right, some people wont. Or like asking someone if they are a bad driver, most people are going to say no, ego is a powerful thing. If someone has a warning light on the dashboard of their car, yeah, they could keep driving and hope nothing happens or they could go to a mechanic and find out what it is. The HCS is kinda like saying to the public, you might have some warning lights up, but we'll let you decide if you can keep on driving the car, we don't want to get involved. We don't want to put up barriers.

And yes, if you work on the premise that most gym members are going to do 10 minutes on the cross trainer and then do a few resistance machines, then they will probably be okay. Except the game has changed, they could turn up and start doing high intensity intervals or body attack or box jumps supersetted with thrusters.

Just Say No.

So what is to be done? Well don't be afraid to coach. And don't be afraid to say no. And knowing what is appropriate and not appropriate requires screening, unless someone has been screened in some fashion, how do you know what there is ability is? This is where Crossfit and the general fitness industry fail, screening is virtually non existent and no one gets told 'actually this is not for you'.

Consider the short burst fast classes and HIIT classes that are all the rage. In a large health club anyone can turn up. The coach on the gym floor has to make a decision, the person turning up has signed the HCS form, but there is a good chance the person signing has no idea what a tabata interval is, there decision is based on incomplete information. So the coach has several choices, scale the workout (it's not high intensity anymore, you are not ready for high intensity), let them do it and risk the possibility of them literally stroking out Andrew Marr style or say no. Sometimes coaching is about pushing people, sometimes it's about saying no.

Somewhere along the line, the industry got desperate, it needed to make the sale, we lost faith in ourselves. Don't be afraid to say no to the client, there is always another choice for them. And this could work in your favour sales-wise:

"The minute it was clear that we weren't desperate, the moment we started to lead instead of beg, the sale was made." - Seth Godin

Coach & Differentiate.

"Let all know that you expect them to possess the highest level of expertise in their area of responsibility." - Bill Walsh

The way to differentiate is to coach. Anyone can buy equipment but can they use it? Anyone can shout at clients and make them do 1000 burpees. But can you affect change, can you get results? Is anyone even measuring your results? Coach everyone all the time in your facility, this is a world away from personal training.

Nearly every elite athlete, every team, has a coach or a whole team of coaches. And yet, the public expect to turn up and get results with no help. They are scared and disappointed too. Scared of looking stupid and disappointed by an industry that let them down on numerous occasions. Be different, start coaching everyone and the atmosphere will change, you will change the game from the inside out. Suddenly there will be a buzz about your facility.

Have a training philosophy, have a deep knowledge about everything your are doing and not doing but then realise that coaching is not always technical. It could be simple phrase or word or look, it could what you leave out that matters.

"Teach 'connection and extension'. An organisation filled with individuals who are 'independent contractors' unattached to one another is a team with little interior cohesion and strength." - Bill Walsh

Be aware of the prism you see everything through. Maybe you personally favour hypertrophy, or strength or kettlebells or whatever. But be ware of processing all your clients needs through these prisms. Start blank, see it through the prism of the client, what they really need and then pick the right coaching route. Your philosophy of coaching should be bigger than the tools and methods you use. Coaching is flexible.

Does Louie Simmons Put The Hoover Round?

But what if no one cares about your coaching. There is a good chance that if you work in a commercial facility the management has never even asked you about coaching or measured it, there is a 100% they have measures your ability to clean. The scenario could play out like this:

The health club see all this stuff about small group training and functional training and thinks this is a bandwagon we need to jump on. So they buy all the kit and tell the instructor he/she now teaches fast classes. The instructor is teaching the class and someone complains about the cleaning. The instructor is then conflicted, they are being measured on the cleaning, not the  coaching, and all this stuff could be a fad anyway. The instructor then realises they are actually a cleaner, which is not a bad thing, except they then discover that the actual cleaner gets paid more than them. They then figure out that the studio instructors are getting paid three times as much for teaching a class as the fitness instructor is for teaching on the gym floor and no one asks the studio instructors about cleaning. Yes, its a way of having all these classes on the schedule without paying the instructor more than minimum wage. The instructor gets demotivated, the kit stands empty, everyones doing what they always done. Of course, some clubs pay the instructors a decent rate for coaching, but show me a manager who didn't panic about a cleaning complaint and I'll show you a....

Of all the people, whoever left a gym , it seems no one ever left because they failed to achieve their goal, they left because they didn't have time or it wasn't clean enough.

Which makes me wonder, does Louise Simmons, Eric Cressey and Mike Boyle have the same issues. No one ever released a fitness product on how to keep your gym clean. Does Louie put the hoover round first thing in the morning, do lifters complain that Westside is too dirty or there is too much chalk around, do people tell Rippetoe to get better air conditioning at Wichita Falls. Does Louie just catapult any complainers out the door with a purple band? This topic seems sorely unrepresented on fitness forums.

I can't help but feel the likes of Boyle and Cressey are missing a trick here, how about 'Shoulder health while dusting, avoiding anterior glide of the humerus when cleaning cardio equipment' or 'Advances in mutli-tasking in the gym environment, how to re-tune the TVs on the CV equipment while dealing with a complaint about the music'.

The game has changed.

"'That's the way we've always done it' is the mantra of a team setting itself up to lose to an organisation that's not doing it that way any more." - Bill Walsh

The large chains still pursue a supermarket model, they are trying to cater to the masses. They think they can be all things to all people. But if you try to market to everyone, you have a product aimed at no one. And you end up with some pissed off members, because your product was never really for them in the first place, you just told them it was.

"Don't try to make a product for everybody, because that is a product for nobody." - Seth Godin

Much like coffee shops, you could go to Starbucks and get an insipid cup of coffee that doesn't really offend anyone, but at the same time there is a rise in independent coffee shops, its the same for pubs and micro-breweries. It's the same for gyms, except the way to differentiate is with coaching. Except way more people go to coffee shops than go to gyms, going to the gym is a niche activity, whether you like it or not. Going to the gym is more akin to collecting vinyl or vintage cars, it's a niche that wants to be mainstream. Once you accept this marketing becomes easier, you are not trying to please everyone.

There are really only 2 or 3 big players in cardio and resistance equipment, most gyms look the same. Anyone can buy some dumbbells and weight plates. It is what you do with it that counts.

Somewhere along the way, personal training became the antithesis of coaching. It became number counting. No one wants to be associated with the personal trainer moniker anymore. The fitness courses didn't teach people how to be coaches. How to motivate, how to inspire, how to innovate, how to individualise but still have a system. So, the trainers aspired to be coaches, but you'd be shocked at the level of knowledge in these courses.

And the coaching course are stuck in another era, if you've ever been on one, its more about how to control large groups of people and make sure no one falls down a hole; basically a health and safety course. That's what we did to coaching in this country, we turned it into the lowest common denominator health and safety course pitched at kids. It is more akin to an old school PE lesson, which is okay if you are teaching kids. But most of us are coaching adults, grown ups, professionals, who need professional coaching.

Coaching is not about holding someones hand or shouting, its about teaching them a skill, knowing when to instruct and when to not. Knowing when to let someone make their own training decision, and giving them the information to do, but also having the confidence and guts to say when someone should not do something, when to push and when to say enough is enough.

The game has changed, the big health clubs just don't know it yet, or like most large industries with layers of bureaucracy are too slow too react, suffer from inertia or try to copy something really half arsed.

The best gyms have a system, they coach everyone and they have results they can show you. Not one off aberrations, but consistent results with clients across the board.

I could be wrong, maybe all health clubs should bin all their instructors and employ 10 permanent cleaners and everything will be fine. Or possibly there should be a new REPs level 4 cleaning qualification.

The answer is to coach and coach some more, or get out like alot of people are doing these days. Open your own facility, be picky with the clientele, it takes guts for sure.

Have confidence, the equipment is secondary. It could be just me standing in a room with a couple of kettlebells and a bar, and its worth the money because of the coaching and the atmosphere.

Build the gym, but then coach, and create the atmosphere and the reputation. Build it and they will come is only half the answer, the building is just the first part, the people is the second part and the most important. People get results.

Be 'consumed by the process of developing the ability of others. You do it because you really care for it, you do it because you have to.' ( Bill Walsh)

"Concentrate on what will produce results rather than on the results, the process rather than the prize." - Bill Walsh

Coach, the alternative is to be the same as it ever was, which is no choice at all.

References
Bill Walsh, The Score Takes Care of Itself. My Philosophy of Leadership.
Gary M Walton, Beyond Winning. The Timeless Wisdom of Great Philosopher Coaches
Seth Godin, Purple Cow & The Icarus Deception

* Without wishing to get drawn into the eternal crossfit debate, here's my 2 cents worth. There is a puritanical element who seem to think crossfit are responsible for all random training shit. As if before crossfit everyone walked around with a copy of Supertraining under their arm and everyone periodised properly and everyone trained properly and it was all logical and despite powerlifting, olympic lifting and bodybuilding being the most minority of sports - it seems everyone in the gym was competing in these disciplines despite never actually competing; and all training programs had a clear goal and purpose. And of course, everything was logical like splitting your workout into bodyparts, and no one ever did anything illogical like working chest and arms everytime they went to the gym. And all sports are logical like swimming 2.4 miles and cycling 100 and running a marathon, and 22 people kicking a bag of air around a park, and back flipping on a beam and bench pressing in a triple ply denim shirt. Of course, all pro athletes train using a completely systematised approach and no one ever coasted on their genetics, and how someone trains for football or baseball or powerlifting should be the basis of all training, because the gym is only full of serious athletes. And you can't copyright circuit training, in the same way you can't copyright dancing (Zumba) or yoga and pilates (Bodybalance), but goddam they cornered the market and created a tribe with minimal equipment and we all wish we had thought of it first. And its dangerous, because I've never seen a powerlifter or bodybuilder who had to get their pec re-attached or their bicep rupture repaired, and no endurance athlete ever had to have knee surgery and no football player ever had an ACL repair, and every year thousands of people get rescued off of mountains after throwing themselves down them on skis after no actual training or practice and everyone in the world now knows what rhabdo is, and I've never seen anyone get it even in ultra endurance events. (and I can't do a handstand press up or a kipping pull up and there is no way I'm wearing long socks).

A Simple Way to Use Triphasic Training Principles with Bodybuilders, Figure Competitors, Athletes and Everyday Clients.

Triphasic training is a method developed by Cal Dietz and Ben Peterson to train athletes. The book can be purchased here, my review can be seen here, an explanation by one of the authors Ben Peterson can be found here, a video of Cal Dietz explaining it can be found here and there is more good info over at the powering-through blog.

The purpose of this article is to show how triphasic training can simply be applied to training programs for all types of clients. The original book is focused on athletes but I have used the principles with physique competitors, bikini competitors, beginners as well as endurance and field based athletes. I will give examples from real world programs below.

Hopefully, Dietz and Peterson wont think I've taken too many liberties with their training system!

There are key elements that make up triphasic training (in my opinion)

1. The triphasic element which gave the sytem its name
2. French Contrast Method and accelerated plyometrics
3. Oscillatory movements
4. Timed sets

It's also how Dietz and Peterson organise these into a block periodized program using various percentages of weights. If you want to know how to do this go and buy the book! Here I have stripped out all the percentages and the specific periodization they use to give you a simple applicable version.

This article focuses on just the triphasic element - eccentric, isometric and concentric movement. I will touch very briefly on the french contrast method but for a good explanation and more examples of how to use it go to powering through blog here. I have used oscillatory movement, but won't cover it here. As for timed sets, I haven't used them and without a special piece of equipment called a Tendo unit they are hard to do.

What is triphasic?

The classic triphasic picture - you want to be the blue line. Source: www.stack.com www.xlathlete.com

In a nutshell work on the three elements of a muscle movement, the eccentric (lowering, lengthening phase), the isometric phase (the static part), the concentric (muscle shortening, lifting the weight up phase). In the graph above both athletes are lifting the same weight and have the same 1RM but the blue line is completing the repetition more quickly, the eccentric phase is quicker, the isometric phase is shorter and the concentric is faster and more explosive.

Essentially, training the three elements can make the athlete quicker, more reactive and have the ability to develop more force at a higher rate. In essence, if the two athletes were on a pitch playing rugby or football, the person with the red line would still be slowing down and deccelerating while the blue line person would have already stopped and then exploded in the opposite direction.

3100 - Tempo.

At this point you might be thinking, well, I already know about tempo training and emphasising the eccentric etc. A decade or so ago this type of training was popularised by Ian King and Grand Master Poliquin. But it all got a bit too complex and random for my liking with all sorts of tempo schemes for all sorts of exercises. You used to see the four number tempo written all over programs. So like most people I just stopped using it and thought about lifting as explosively as possible and having some control on the eccentric.

What the numbers mean - in seconds:

3 - the eccentric lowering phase

1 - isometric

0 - concentric

0 - time at top of rep before starting next rep

Then triphasic training came along and showed a much more structured and logical way of using tempo during specific phases and only on certain exercises.

Time Under Tension (TUT). Triphasic could help build muscle?

One of the elements that make muscles grow is time under tension. All bodybuilders know this but as pointed out by Dave Tate in this article a few years ago on T-Nation - very few people know how much time under tension they are getting. They do their 3 sets of 10, but it then turns the time under tension was less than 20 secs, as they have rushed through the reps with poor form. According to the article the  maximum hypertrophy takes place somewhere between 30-45 seconds, and most people generally support the idea of it being just under 60 secs somewhere depending on the load. 

So could lower repetition sets and a relatively high weight but with a slow eccentric help with muscle growth. Seems feasible. And if you are used to always doing 8-12 reps at the same tempo, it is certainly going to challenge and change things up.

For Physique & Bodybuilding.

For example, in the program below there is a 6 second eccentric, if you consider the rest of the repetition takes 1-2 seconds, then 3 reps is going to give you 24 secs under tension. And 6-8 reps with a 6 second eccentric, with total rep time being 7 seconds = 42 to 56 seconds under tension.

Day 1 – LEGS – each block is 2 weeks – warm up before session

Exercise	Block 1 -eccentric	Block 2 - isometric	Block 3- reactive
A Back Squat	2x5 1x3 WU then 3x3 with 6 sec eccentric 6000	0500 drop like a stone – hold isometric explode up	0000 reactive 5x3
B RDL	4x8 - triphasic	4x8 - triphasic	4x8 - triphasic
C Bulgarian split squat	3x10/side	3x10/side	3x10/side
D GHR	3x slow eccentric	3x slow eccentric	3x slow eccentric

This was day one of phase one of a program for a guy who is an experienced lifter, who before was doing the classic hypertrophy training and wants to compete in physique competitions. In the above example, WU= warm up and 6000 means a slow 6 second eccentric and everything else as fast as possible.

Note, I didn't use percentages like in the original triphasic. In my experience guys who train at higher rep ranges rarely go near maximal or have no idea of what their 1RM is, therefore after warm up, I instructed him to build up to a heavy 3 reps. If using percentages you want to be somewhere between 80-90%, above 90 will be too heavy.

With the RDLs 8 repetitions with the triphasic principles is hard! And this rep range is way higher than Dietz would use with athletes. In retrospect 6 reps would have been hard enough.

Block 2 is isometric. This helps to recruit high end fast twitch motor units - the type rarely recruited by traditional hypertrophy training. Not only do In think this gets the person amped up for the rest of the training session and fire up the nervous system, I think in later phases it will help them to recruit more muscle, lift more weight which can only be a good thing.

In Day 4 of the phase 1 program for this client see how the first exercise is triphasic and a compound movement and the following exercises are more traditional exercises and rep ranges for hypetrophy. (Please, note the exercises selected were based on these clients specific needs, injury profile etc)

Day 4 –CHEST – SHOULDER EMPHASIS

Exercise	Block 1 -	Block 2 -	Block 3-
A Incline BB Press	Triphasic	triphasic	triphasic
B 1 Cable flye	3x12	3x12	3x12
B2 Cable rear delt	3x15	3x20	3x25
C1 TRX Y	3x10	3x10	3x10
C2 TRX Press up	3x10	3x10	3x10
C3 Stir the pot	2xmax	2xmax	3xmax

In my experience bodybuilding guys love the triphasic element, they find it extremely taxing, it brings a strength element to their training but it feels like hypertrophy training. A slow eccentric lower into a squat or holding a bar an inch of your chest for 5 seconds and then exploding back up brings a quality element to the training. No cheating or bouncing off the chest with this. Every rep counts.

Beginners.

Of course with complete beginners we're not loading them up with 85% of a 1RM and then doing some heavy reps. With beginners I am really using the triphasic principles to get them better at moving and controlling the rep, it could be bodyweight only or with a kettlebell for goblet squats.

And with beginners you can do a couple of weeks of each phase or doing them all in one workout. For example:
Set 1: Bodyweight squat or goblet squat at whatever normal speed is and look at depth
Set 2: Slow eccentric phase, 6 seconds, can use a box to ensure consistent depth, emphasize the technique and exploding back up
Set 3: If everything is looking ok, drop down into as isometric hold for 3-5 seconds and drive back up
Set 4: Reactive - reps as quick as possible.

Repetitions of 5-8 work well. Experiment.
Again this really helps the beginner focus on quality reps and technique rather than just going through the motions.

Hockey Player.

This was a program for a county/ national level Hockey player. One day of the program had triphasic training in. The other days consisted of foundational plyometrics, power exercises, conditioning and agility drills as well as mobility. This athlete still had a full time job so had to fit his training outside of hockey practice in his lunch break, so realistically only had 30mins or so for each session. Hence, on the program I indicate that if he runs out of time to only do the triphasic squats on this day even if he does nothing else.

Session 2 – leg strength emphasis

Exercise	Block 1 -eccentric	Block 2 - isometric	Block 3- reactive
A Back Squat*	2x5 1x3 WU then 3x3 with 6 sec eccentric 6000	0500 drop like a stone – hold isometric explode up	0000 reactive 5x3
B RDL	3x6 – triphasic as above	4x6 - triphasic	4x6 - triphasic
C Calf raise 1 leg	2x10/side slow eccentric	2x10/side slow eccentric	2x10/side slow eccentric
D GHR	2x max slow eccentric	3x max slow eccentric	3x pulse

*key exercise, do this if nothing else if you run out of time!

This block of training was 6 weeks, like all the triphasic training, 2 week blocks work well. In phase 2 we added in French Contrast Method and Sports squat (see video of sports squat here). Note, the sports squat is a narrow stance squat that is favoured by Dietz and Peterson as being more sports specific, as the feet width is more like your natural gait width, it also means you may not be able to go as low or lift as much weight.

DAY 1: French contrast method MONDAY

Exercise	Block 1 – 2 weeks	Block 2 -	Block 3-
A1 Sports Back Squat Rest 15 secs A2 Split lunge jump Rest 15 secs A3 ½ Weighted squat jump Rest 15 secs A4 Single leg hop Then rest 4 mins	3x3 @ 85%+ 3x3/side 3x5 @30% RM or weighted vest 3x4/side	3x5 3x4/side 3x5 3x5/side	4x3 4x4/side 4x5 Accelerated band jump 4x5-8
In the rest period do prehab work Choose from 1. cable face pull 2. band pull apart 3. hip flexor mobility 4. wall scarecrow 5. or any exercise from recharge day	10-12 reps	As block 1	As block 1

For a more in depth explanation of French Contrast and how to do it for upper and lower body see powering through blog  here or Triphasic training itself. In essence it is a form of contrast and complex training, where a heavy exercise is followed by a bodyweight plyo then a another heavy exercise (but not as heavy as the first) and then another plyometric - a faster plyometric than the first one. In the program above in block three, an accelerated plyometric is added at the end, as is done in triphasic training, this is a more overspeed plyometric. This is one of the few programs to also mention a percentage of weight as this athlete was used to such things.

All this day consisted of for this athlete was the french contrast and the corrective exercises done while resting, as he only had 30 mins or so to train. Other days consisted of more lateral movements needed in a sport like hockey, dynamic effort weights and shock method plyos.

Note, how I did not introduce French Contrast or sports squats until phase 2 - so 6 weeks of foundational training even with an athlete with experience of plyometrics and explosive work.

The Marathon Runner/ Duathlete.

This was a training program for a marathon runner/ duathlete trying to break into being elite. He had already achieved a sub 2.30 marathon, coming third in Warsaw and wanted to win a big city marathon and powerman duathlon. He later went on to win Phuket marathon and Powerman UK long course in 2013.

Unusually for an endurance athlete this guy had a background in strength training and Olympic weightlifting, so wasn't your typical weak endurance athlete. Still phase 1 of the program there was no triphasic, in phase 2 the sports squat was introduced - as this stance was applicable to the width of running and cycling gait; and in phase 3 triphasic and French Contrast was introduced (see below). So 12 weeks of training before I introduced French contrast and triphasic.

Endurance athletes are some of the most challenging to program for, as in this case for example, running and bike training can be up 15-20 hours week, training twice a day. And then on top of that there was mobility, plyometrics, strength and some other power training. So bear in mind this is a small but important part of the entire training plan. This athlete also had oscillatory training as part of their training program.

Day 1 – each block is 2 weeks

exercise	Block 1-eccentric	Block 2- isometric	Block 3- concentric
Sports Squat 15sec rest Split Lunge jump 15sec rest Barbell half squat jump 15 sec rest Single leg long jump 3-4min recovery*	WU 1x5 1x4 then 3x3 6 second eccentric 3x5/side 3x5 3x5/side	Back squat – drop fast into bottom position – 5 sec iso hold – explode up Set reps the same	Sports squat – reactive – fast as possible in all phases
*during recovery TRX Y	3x10	3x10	3x10
GHR	3x6	3x6	3x6
Rollout with 2 DBs	3x10	3x10	3x10

The Bikini Competitor.

This is the program I probably take the most liberties with the triphasic principle, and you could argue that I am just using tempo in a traditional sense.

It does seem to be an issue with some women, that it is very hard to get them to train near a repetition maximum. Ask them to lift the heaviest weight they can 10 times and they will, then ask them to lift the same weight for 20 reps and they will, they were no where near their 10 rep max the first time round. One way to increase the difficulty is to add in an eccentric element and an isometric element to make the repetitions more challenging. In the case of this competitor there were certain weak areas she wanted to work on, and also the competition she entered had a fitness testing element as well  - consisting of maximum box jumps, bench press, and various other elements - hence the structure of some of the days below. She went on to win her age group in the bikini category.

DAY 2:
WARM UP THEN
DUMBBELL SNATCH  2X5 THEN 2X3 EACH SIDE
RDL WITH BARBELL 3X5 – SLOW ECCENTRIC – 5 SECOND COUNT DOWN – EXPLODE UP

LATPULLDOWN – WIDE – FORCED REPS ( WITH PARTNER)–OR VERY SLOW ECCENTRIC 2X10 THEN 1X10 ALL OUT FORCED REPS SET

LEG CIRCUIT – 3 ROUNDS
BODYWEIGHT SQUAT X 10
LUNGE X 10/SIDE
STEP UPS X 10/SIDE
BOX JUMPS X 10 – STEP DOWN BETWEEN JUMPS

FITNESS TESTING PRACTICE DAY

WEIGHTS:
BENCH PRESS, BAR X 10, BAR X10, 25KG X5 30X5 35KG X3 (ALL SLOW 5 SEC ECCENTRIC)

THEN BENCH PRESS WITH BAR ONLY – MAX NUMBER/ FAST

PRESS UP 3XMAX

DIPS 3XMAX

On another day I also utilised walking lunges with a pause isometric. The slow eccentric RDLs worked really well in developing the hamstrings.

Best Triphasic Exercises.

To simply implement triphasic training pick a compound exercise (though, now I think about it I think you could do it with barbell bicep curls - don't hate me too much Cal & Ben!) from the list below. It should normally be the first and/or second exercise or both in your training plan. If Olympic lifting, personally I would put the explosive lift before the triphasic exercise.

These exercises work well:-
Squat -  especially box squat/ bench squat options to get consistent depth on eccentric phase
Sports Squat - sports specific stance and nice for reactive concentrics and in French Contrast
RDL - you may need to where straps
Bench Press/ Incline Press
Military Press - I haven't tried - could work
Pull ups/ Chin Ups - slow eccentric makes this very hard even bodyweight. On the isometric days, drop like a stone but stop before your arms are straight, so you are still holding the position with muscle tension with a bend in the arms, use various angles, and then try to explode back up - a 3 sec pause is hard. On the reactive days people may mistake you for a crazy kipping crossfitter.
Deadlifts don't work, and it should go without saying it doesn't work with Olympic weightlifting

Pauline Nordin: This picture has nothing to do with triphasic training but my girlfriend thought this article needed a picture of a hot woman

End.

Please be aware that the training programs I have outlined above are not like the ones in the triphasic training book, this is my own take on it using the elements and principles of triphasic.

Not every exercise or phase has to be triphasic, but it is a good way of getting some strength training into programs, help technique, gets time under tension where needed and sets the tone for the rest of the workout.

I've had good success with this method, let me know if you have tried it and what the results were.