Tag: health

FitStrong PT

The Only 5 Exercises You Need

MoveStrongblog

For a Strong Life Over 50

Walk into any gym and you’ll see a multitude of ‘stuff’ happening. Stuff is an apt description! Some of it might look awesome, inspiring, frightening or downright weird! Is any or all of it a requirement for optimal or maximal physical health? Do you really need to do dozens of movements to benefit?

I’m a long term practitioner of essentialism, verging on minimalism even. In fact, the most successful program I run is the Amazing 12 transformation program that utilises just five strength movements to create outstanding physique and strength development.

Now, as for the top, essential movements for a healthy, strong and fit life over 50, let’s learn about five essential movements for optimal health and strength.

In terms of adding to our lives productively, we should endeavour to practice movements that will consider our physical design as well as movements that will make us more resilient for our future lives.

What’s this mean? Our design dictates that we should physically push, pull, lift things up from the ground and bend our oftentimes creaky knees to squat down. The 5th I’ll add here will most likely result in a raised eyebrow or two… …Getting down to the ground and learn to move around down there aka ‘ground based locomotion‘.

This brief list of movements might sound like a physical day in the garden. You lift up bags of compost, dig a few holes, plant some new perennials, wrestle the mower around and trim a few of the neighbours branches overhanging your property.

This might also sound like a potential day in the future looking after the grand children (if you’re not there already). Bending over picking up toys or little Liam and Olivia, pushing buggies around the shops, crawling around the floor playing games or heavens knows what haha. The grandparent thing is not quite on our schedule yet, but the Daughter is just starting university, so new chapters are on the horizon for all of us, you included.

To be more tolerant, physically for all the exhausting parts of life, requires practice and preparation. And that’s what an essentialist gym program is perfect for.

Apart from getting physically prepared for life now and the future, strength training also adds to our health. Increased bone density, stronger joints, lowered blood pressure, improved heart health, lowered LDL, lowered body fat, lowers blood sugars, reduced risk of diabetes, decreased risks of developing cancers, decreased risk of developing cognitive decline and associated disorders. Any kind of google search on ‘disease reduction and strength training’ will pop up numerous supportive studies.

Okay okay, I will now get to the good stuff; the exercises I like to promote.

What I’ll do below is briefly introduce the key movements and then go a bit deeper with some video demos. Keep in mind that each key movement is part of a family. Pushing for example includes multiple forms. Squatting too may include a wide variety of options. There is always a solution for every body regardless of limitations or experience.

ONE

Lift stuff up from the floor. Also known as deadlifting or hip hinging, this movement is probably the most common activity of a physical nature that we undertake frequently. For my over 50 trainees, I like to build this in with loaded carrying. This bonus movement is just an add-on to lifting a weight up. Lift and carry for a number of steps and put the weight down.

TWO

Pushing is a vital movement that recruits our upper torso muscles like the chest, shoulders and arms. Done correctly (read safely) any pushing movement should involve the whole body or as many muscles as possible.

THREE

Pulling movements are the act of pulling something towards us from above or from in front of us (or any angle between these). Yet again, done correctly a pulling move will strengthen the upper back and arms but will utilise as many muscles of the body as possible.

FOUR

Squatting is yet another high frequency movement we all perform daily. From sitting down on anything and getting back up to perhaps squatting down to tie your shoelaces unless you’re a cool kid with slip-ons of course; is all part of the squat family.

FIVE

Ground based locomotion is perhaps one the most essential practices an over 50 exerciser should perform. If you came to me and said, “hey Jamie, I’ve only got 15 mins a day to do some strength training, what should I do?” I’d give ground based locomotion as my preference to practice. Number five on this list actually includes two key parts. The getting down act and then the ‘moving around whilst you’re down there’ part. Oh, and then you have to get back up too. Ground based movements include a massive family of activities, but here’s just one quick post I made a while ago. READ ON

Let’s summarise

Push, pull, squat, lift stuff and get down to the ground can be just as simple as that.

Pick a movement that fits each description and practice the skills of that movement. You don’t need to train each move to exhaustion in fact that is something quite detrimental to good strength training practice. Best programming entails practicing each movement until your effort may be defined as moderate or 70% of your maximum ability or maybe until you feel you could only perform a few more repetitions safely.

If you’re local to me, I’d be more than happy to build a program for you. I meet people in Limerick and help formulate a routine to practice and this can an ongoing arrangement or an infrequent check up, accountability arrangement.

Don’t think too long about it though, spots are filling up.

Jamie

MoveStrong Strength & Movement

0894462653
movewithjamie@gmail.com

Me doing a wee kickstand squat
FitStrong PT, Original Strength, personal training

Breathe Like Your Ancestors

MoveStrongblog

In part ONE breathing as we were meant to, the way we were born to breathe was introduced along with the idea that for many people, they breathe too much. 

In part TWO below, let’s look at what happens in more depth when we over-breathe and when and where it is appropriate.

Imagine yourself living in a hunter/gatherer society. Think about the things which would cause you to feel stressed. A predator perhaps, an attack from a neighbouring group of people. Most situations you could think of would be met with physical action. Now imagine the situations that would cause a positive sense of excitement. Spotting some delicious looking prey or a beehive high up in a tree… Again this excitement would be followed by physical action.

It makes sense that in any of these situations your sympathetic nervous system would be switched on to prepare your body for action. A host of changes occur. Blood is diverted away from the digestive organs to the muscles, heart rate increases, the brain switches into high gear- into a state of hyper vigilance, blood sugar levels rise to provide a ready source of energy, and breathing increases, both in breaths per minute and in total volume of air per minute. This is referred to as the ‘fight or flight response’ or simply being in a sympathetic state.

All of this is of course highly adaptive in the short term when faced with a situation requiring a high level of exertion. But each of these effects is problematic when maintained long term, and will lead to impairment of our health. As useful as it is, the sympathetic state is not meant to be our default setting.

The way we are meant to spend most of our lives is in the opposite state – lowered heart rate, plentiful supply of blood to the digestive system, relaxed state of mind (though still possibly very alert) lower blood sugar, and slower breathing. This is known as the ‘rest and digest response’ or being in a parasympathetic state. This is the state that our ancestors quickly returned to after escaping the predator or catching the prey.

Now imagine the types of stress you are likely to be exposed to in the modern world. Stuck in traffic, bills, work deadlines, difficult co-workers or customers, an important meeting. None of these require significant physical activity, but your nervous system acts as though they do. Next think of the activities that cause a positive sense of excitement. A gripping movie, a video game, a sporting match on T.V., or an amusement park ride. Again your body is geared up for action which never eventuates.

All of the effects of the sympathetic nervous system – already only healthy as a short term response – become far more damaging when they are no longer linked to the physical activity that is meant to accompany them. The focus of this article, however, is the way that stress combined with inactivity leads to a state of hyperventilation.

In the stressful situations above, the volume of air breathed per minute increases, ready for physical activity –

But as the physical activity never comes, the body is breathing more air than is necessary.

This sounds harmless enough – what could be safer than air?

But there is a problem. Breathing removes carbon dioxide from the blood stream – when breathing is matched to the level of activity, this is a good thing – a waste product is being removed.

But carbon dioxide is only a waste product in the sense that your body produces more of it than it needs. It is not a ‘bad’ substance. In fact, it is essential to the body in a multitude of ways.

When breathing is in excess of what is required for the level of physical activity, carbon dioxide levels fall below a healthy level. A variety of negative effects of this situation will be discussed in part 3, but for now we will focus on the one which can turn over breathing into a chronic habit which is self-sustaining even in the absence of ongoing stress.

Breathing and Blood pH

It is essential to the functioning of your body that your blood is kept within a fairly tight pH range. The mechanisms which act upon the pH of the blood are mostly relatively slow acting, but one mechanism that can allow adjustments second by second is breathing.

CO2 is a weak acid which is always present in the blood, so if the level of acidity becomes too high, CO2 can be removed by faster breathing as a way of bringing acidity back to normal levels. This explains why we breathe so heavily after intense anaerobic exercise. The lactic acid produced in our muscles has increased the acidity of our blood, and removing large amounts of CO2 will normalise pH in the short term until the lactic acid can be dealt with.

If however you breathe heavily when there is no physiological reason to, CO2 will be removed from the blood and the pH will rise too high. If this state is maintained, the body will alter other processes to reduce the pH back to normal.

One way that your body adjusts the pH is by losing bicarbonate ions. Bicarbonate is a vital part of your blood’s buffering system (If chemistry is not your thing, let’s just say that it helps you deal with acid). If you breathe too much at rest and have lost bicarbonate ions, then your lactic acid tolerance, and hence your anaerobic fitness will be seriously compromised.

Once the biochemistry has adjusted, this lower level of C02 will be required to maintain pH in the short term, and your brain’s breathing centre will register this artificially low C02 level as the ‘new normal’.

The default unconscious breathing, controlled by the breathing centre of the brain, will increase in order to maintain this new lower level of C02.

Breathing less than this (in other words a normal amount) will feel uncomfortable because your blood C02 level will be higher than the new artificially inflated set point.

Your breathing rate will tend to remain at this artificially higher level…until the next time that you are stressed while physically inactive when the whole process is repeated and your breathing rate increases still more.  

It is in this way that increases in breathing rate become ‘locked in’, and with the passing of time the effect is gradually increased.  

Fortunately this process can be reversed – the breathing centre can be reset so that your automatic unconscious breathing return to a healthy level. Details of how to do this will be in a later article. But to get you started:

Homework :

  1. Try to breathe through through your nose (in and out) ALL THE TIME. The extra resistance of nose breathing is enough to reduce the rate of breathing.
  2. Any time that you are conscious of your breathing ask yourself this question – ‘What is the least amount of air that I can breathe without feeling uncomfortable or stressed.’

Next episode:

What are the actual mechanisms by which hyperventilation damages your health and normal breathing restores it?

This article is intended as information only, and should not be viewed as medical advice. It is not written by a medical professional, and it takes no account of your own individual circumstances.

FitStrong PT, Original Strength

Back to Breathing

MoveStrongblog

‘You don’t know what you don’t know until you know it’ is a phrase used often when enlightened with an ah-ha moment, or in my recent case, desperation!

Breathing is a natural, involuntary act that just ticks over without really having to focus on it until it takes all of your focus.

A couple of years ago for a variety of reasons my own breathing became something of a labour. Oftentimes I was overwhelmed by the urge to yawn, take huge gulps of air, light-headedness and general misery. My doctor did all the usual tests from lung tests, x-rays and scans and came back with, “well Mr Hunter, your lungs are stronger than the average man your age and your heart function is fantastic – I’ve no idea what is wrong, let me refer you …” I ended the process there, frustrated by a few weeks of wasted time and after some further personal reading, research and clarity that came from talking to a close friend, I came to the realisation that indeed, anxiety was taking over my life and breathing.

Shortly after this time I attended the OS Pro workshop in Brisbane that proved a lovely progression from OS level 1. However, apart from spending time learning and meeting with Tim and Dan I also got to meet other participants and got to chatting with them. Now, as an introvert, this is a challenge to me haha. Idle chit-chat isn’t something I do easily.

One participant in particular (Chris Hall) had an infatuation with breathing and we casually chatted about it – he is a very easy chap to converse with. I didn’t however broach my personal problem until after the workshop via facebook messenger. I explained to Chris in brief my problems and some of the practice we use in the OS system but Chris was very open to discussing progressions that may help me.

We all love ‘simple’ and I threw myself into the simple solutions Chris suggested. Some of these were good daily practice and some, reactive to when my breathing problems arose.

Willing to share his information, Chris is guest blogging on here on MoveStrong over the next few weeks.

I’ll not divulge what I practiced as I want you to read the work of Chris in this area… so without further ramblings , here is Part One.

Oh, and my breathing issues were vastly improved within a few weeks and now, not a problem

Baby’s Breath

The Original Strength Resets are inspired by the movements that occur during the
development of infants: Head rocking, rolling on the floor, rocking back and forth while on all fours, crawling, and of course, breathing. Breathing is performed the way that we
naturally did at the beginning of our life – DIAPHRAGMATICALLY and THROUGH THE NOSE.

Both of these factors are enormously important, but there is a third distinctive feature of
the breathing of infants which is also extremely beneficial to mimic – A low rate of
breathing. Newborns breathe a remarkably small amount (even allowing for the fact that they are very small). Many parents have had the experience of wondering whether their sleeping baby is breathing at all.

This low level of breathing is enough to keep the baby well oxygenated, but with a higher
blood level of CO 2 than you would typically find in an adult. I would argue that just as we were designed to continue breathing diaphragmatically and nasally for our entire lives, we were also meant to continue breathing lightly as we did when we were infants.
When speaking of ‘light breathing’ I am referring to the total amount of air which is inhaled per minute – the combination of the breathing rate and the volume in each breath. Thus light breathing could conceivably be quite deep if the rate of breathing is reduced sufficiently. Alternatively it could mean taking in less air with each breath.
An adult requires 3-6 litres of air per minute at rest. This is enough to fully oxygenate the
blood while keeping a CO 2 level similar to that found in infants. Most of us breathe
substantially more than this. This increased breathing does not lead to any significant
increase in blood oxygenation, but causes a significant reduction in the CO 2 concentration in the blood.

Most people are surprised to hear that carbon dioxide can be desirable. It is only a waste
product in the sense that your body produces more of it than it needs. It is not a ‘bad’
substance. In fact, it is essential to the body in a multitude of ways.

In this book I will outline the ways that a reduced concentration of CO 2 damages our
health, and how returning to a biologically normal rate of breathing will reverse this
damage.
At this point many readers are probably shocked at the suggestion that it could be healthy to breath less. Perhaps a better way to put it would be that there is an optimal amount to breathe, and breathing more than this is detrimental to your health. If you are breathing more than this (as I would argue that most people in the developed world are) then reducing your breathing back to the optimal range will be beneficial.

I am simply challenging the idea that more is better.

There are many substances that are essential to life that are unhealthy or even deadly when taken to excess. Just as too much food or even too much water will damage your health, too much breathing can as well. If your intake of a substance is more than the optimal amount, then reducing that intake will positively affect your health. This is the case with our breathing.

Low C0 2 levels resulting from over breathing is actually a recognised medical condition
known as ‘hyperventilation syndrome’ (HVS). It is usually only diagnosed in severe cases
and even then it is regularly overlooked, but it is actually recognised by mainstream
medicine.
Hyperventilation syndrome is classified as chronic or acute. In the chronic version the
patient suffers from the ill effects of a continuously elevated breathing rate. In the acute
version issues are temporarily triggered by short term increases in breathing (eg stress or exercise).
Many (including myself) argue that there is little distinction between the two: The person who has the acute version is breathing at an elevated level around the clock, but not enough to cause obvious symptoms. When their breathing rate increases (eg due to stress) it only requires a small increase to reach a level that causes symptoms. Similarly the person diagnosed with chronic HVS will be at a very high risk of acute episodes from any short term increase in breathing.

So what are the effects of hyperventilation? There is little point in giving an exhaustive list when this information is readily available online, but some of the common effects include:
Airway constriction – asthma, blocked nose, coughing, hiccoughs
Blood vessel constriction – high blood pressure, poor circulation, cold extremities.
Increased nervous stimulation – anxiety, panic attacks, restlessness, poor attention,
emotional instability.
Digestive system issues – irritable bowel etc.
Immune issues – Immune system less effective against actual pathogens
(lowered immunity) yet highly responsive to harmless
events (increased allergies)
Increased muscle tension – cramps, knots, spasms etc.
Fatigue – especially the ‘tired but wired’ variety.

Most people in the developed world have some combination of these symptoms – even if many of us rationalise this by saying ‘no more than most people’. The symptoms above are so common that as a society we have virtually accepted them as normal, but being common does not equate to being normal. In the OS community there are a great many things that we recognise as common but refuse to accept as normal:

  • Mouth Breathing
  • Chest breathing
  • The inability to squat
  • Loss of head control
  • The inability to hip hinge
  • Loss of balance as we age

In the same way, over breathing is common, but it is not normal, and neither are the
associated symptoms listed above. We were NOT made to be broken.

Homework:

How do you know if you are breathing more than you should be?

There is a simple test that you can use to check which can be found here.

Next week: Some readers might find it hard to believe that whole societies could develop the habit of breathing too much. The next post explains how our modern lifestyle causes this to happen.

This article is intended as information only, and should not be viewed as medical advice. It is not written by a medical professional, and it takes no account of your own individual circumstances.

Get Ups
FitStrong PT

Get Back Up

MoveStrongblog

In a 2002 Brazilian study, men and women between the ages of 51 to 80 were followed for an average of 6.3 years. Those who had to rely on their hands and knees to get up and down to the ground regardless of age were almost seven times more likely to die within six years than those who could get up unsupported. Those individuals with poor overall muscular strength and mobility were the the ones who had to rely on using their hands to awkwardly get down and up.

Clearly being stronger has more implications than just being able to carry the shopping in after a grocery shop.

In part 1 we looked at other statistics that looked at mortality and affects on quality of life from falls but in part 2, let’s consider prevention measures.

Getting to the floor should happen in any training session regardless of whether or not it’s an intended exercise but if getting down to terra firma proves a tad troublesome, where do you start?

Even if you’re an experienced strength athlete / trainee, some the drills below will give your body an added edge in being more resilient. How often do you see muscular people moving rather stiff ? Yes, a bit too often. If you move like a robot, some mobility training should be in your life.

Below I’ll demonstrate the strength exercises that give us the ability to move down to the floor and also the mobility exercises to practice that allow us to more smoothly navigate to the floor and up. After that, we’ll take a look at the drills that we practice to move down and up and prepare the body further.

None of these exercises should ever be taken to muscular fatigue or muscle failure but you should feel the muscles doing their jobs. Always stop a set knowing you could do a few more repetitions.

General Strength

Progressing Strength

Practice?

Don’t worry if you haven’t got heaps of time, you can spend as little as 3-5 minutes every couple of days ‘playing’ with these movements. A couple of sets of each move will be enough initially to get you moving and stronger. As the moves in the first video get easier, move to video 2 and play with the moves there. I use the word play to suggest you don’t count repetitions, instead practice each move to make it better. Not sore and fatiguing, just getting better at each.

Imagine lying in a hospital bed with a broken hip, stressing over lost work, medical expenses and rehab afterwards. Not so pleasant…

Now consider just spending 3-5 minutes every couple of days practicing getting yourself stronger. No medical bills or rehab, just getting down to the floor and back up.

I know which I prefer and to be honest, longevity is the number one key objective of MoveStrong  – to help people find longevity.

If you’re interested in investing your time further, please reach out and let’s work something out. 

What do you think? Got any suggestions, thoughts, opinions or stories to share? Please do get in touch.

 

Turkish Get U\p
FitStrong PT

Why Training ‘Getting Down to the Floor’ is So Important

MoveStrongblog

I love questions in the gym or from peoples in the interweb facebook world. I even love the questions I can’t immediately answer. If I need to really think a subject matter through, I will and if I need to refer to a smarter associate, I will.

I’m actually very lucky to be within a network of some of the smartest thinkers in the health and fitness world. Note the word ‘health’. The fitness world alone is awash with unnecessarily sweaty, nonsense – you know the ‘stuff’ you see on social media with all the pouting, posing, flexing, ‘look at me’ distractions.

Talking of smart people, I am very blessed to have attended a weekend workshop a few years ago with world renowned strength and conditioning coach Dan John. We be spent the weekend covering some content from his latest book, 40 Years with a Whistle along with sections looking at the economics of strength training. Overall, it was an awesome weekend with gold nuggets of information bouncing off the gym walls.

Dan John ties in nicely with todays post and a question I get often from new-comers to the gym.

“Why do we get down to the floor so much during a training session'” 

Let’s read a few statistics, a somewhat scary tale of the current day for you.

    1. Deaths from falls are increasing by 3% per year, or 30% between 2007 and 2016. Link
    2. One in three older people fall every year and two-thirds of them fall again within six months.
    3. In Ireland, falls are more than 50% of injury related hospitalizations among people over 65 years and older. The major underlying causes for fall-related hospital admission are hip fracture, traumatic brain injuries and upper limb injuries.
    4. In Ireland, subsequently to falls, 20% die within a year.
    5. Muscle weakness, poor balance, alcohol and medicine use along with certain medical conditions are leading factors in falls.

I’ll stop at 5 but you get the message. Falling is almost inevitable.

Whilst the falls alone are traumatic the post-fall life of a fall patient is greatly impacted by a reduction in willingness to partake in physical activity for fear of falling again. Even in younger patients, they too will most likely seize to exercise as much. This reduction of quality in life simply snow-balls the inactivity and allows frailty to set in, in turn increasing risks of heart disease, stroke, diabetes. One study has shown that the two year survival rate of cancer survivors is greater than that of falls patients.

If you’re not seeing why we get to the floor and back up again often in a gym session, maybe you need to read the same statement from one of the worlds greatest strength and conditioning coaches.

‘It’s one of the strongest statements I have made in my career. I feel like no one is listening, but…please…do some work on getting to the ground and getting back up. Practice falling before you need to!’ Dan John

A bit more information from Dan perhaps?

So, how do we get to the floor? Well, we get down to the floor silly. Simply practicing the many methods of getting onto the floor and whilst down there we practice some purposeful trunk exercises. Any action that’s purposeful and mindful, repeated often will develop muscular and joint strength as well as developing the reactive or reflexive strength in the movements. If we’re stronger in practicing getting down to the floor, we will be more resilient if and when a slip or fall occurs.

For general strength and conditioning, we practice the following:

  • Lunges in all directions to get closer to the floor or onto the floor.
  • Squats in all shapes and forms to get closer to the floor.
  • Hip hinges both two legged and single legged to get closer to the floor or onto the floor.
  • The wonderful Turkish Get Up and other Get Up movement drills are quite specific multi-planar movements that teaches the skill and strengths of getting to the floor and back up.
  • Single leg balance to assess and develop the ability to stand on one leg for 10 seconds. Test that yourself. If you struggle to balance for 10 seconds, there’s you next most important goal to work on.

We also have a great drill I call the Flamingo. This drill I developed to address multi-planar movements of the legs. Really, it’s just a tease for the legs, hips, ankles and trunk to maintain balance over a range of moves. Here’s a video I’ll share now.

In part two, I will share a video containing the other list of moves I mentioned above.

Action point?

Can you stand on one leg for 10 seconds?

← Back

Thank you for your response. ✨

FitStrong PT, limerick personal trainer, over 40

AGE WELL AND PROSPER

MoveStrongblog

Once upon a time, during the latter years of the 20th century, I was in fact in my 20s. In fact I was also once in my 30s and 40s and now in my 50s I can reflect and have a really good laugh at my 20th century kid self. I think It’s good to laugh at oneself, laugh in awe and wonder at all the things we used to value and put huge amounts of energy into. In hindsight a large chunk of what I used to do in the gym was a total time suck.  But, at the time, I thought I was living the life of a gym God … hahaha.

Back in the late 90s Friday was always arm day. An hour or more pumping the armacondas from all directions and angles to get them huge for an evening of posing in the club with my redbull and whisky! Yes, I did have expensive tastes, as I still do. These days I spend my spare cash on plants for the garden and Ikea products!

Training was influenced by a thing called ‘Flex magazine’ as training certifications didn’t go too deep on the details of getting big and sexy.  My weeks would unfold with numerous hours in the gym working up good sweats, pumps and ultimately quite a few injuries too. Elbow tendonitis, muscle tears, T-shirt tears, hangovers – oh wait, that was the other stuff too!

Yep, the learning curve was steep, mostly through trial and error or curiosity, but back in the 90’s there really wasn’t much emphasis on exercise for longevity. 

What would happen in the future was anyones guess, but no-one really cared when maxing out the bench and squat was the focus on the mind of every gym bro. 

Longevity was not really a talking point in the average gym, but that was about to change with the emergence of new, forward thinking people, training organisations and such. By the mid naughties (2005+) some older, aging trainers started to contemplate the ‘what next’ conundrum. What do we need to do in the gym and life to be able to function better as older and hopefully wiser adults? 

Longevity, living well into our 80s and 90s, wont be achieved by luck alone, winning the lotto or by relying on how we exercise in our 20s and 30s. 

We should not merely want to add years to our lives, but life to our years. 

To add this life to your years you’ll need some practical skills like flexibility, mobility; practical strengths, aerobic fitness and of course good nutrition, sleep and stress management.

I’ll not be going into detail in this post but I’ll draw particular attention to the things I can influence in the gym, like the practical life strengths, mobility and flexibility. 

No one, I guarantee, will be interested in what you could bench press or how fast you could run 5km when you’re 80. 

Your immediate family and peers will be more concerned and impressed by your ability to function. Can you get off your chair, toilet, into the shower, get dressed, drive the car, carry in your shopping, pressing linen into the top shelf of the linen cupboards and all the other domestic stuff life will include. “Oh how interesting” says no one, I get it. This doesn’t exactly describe an interesting gym training session, I know. But to live like a successfully aging adult, we aught to train for the future like a responsible adult. 

A brief outline of a typical gym session for my current over 50 gym members looks like this:

  • Dynamic warm up – much like this video
  • Squatting movements
  • Pressing movements
  • Pulling movements
  • Stability and balance enhancing movements
  • Getting down to the floor and back up with ‘style’ movements
  • Picking up and carrying ‘stuff’ movements
  • Simple flexibility exercises
  • Dealing with dizziness events
  • And quickness (reaction speed and reflexive strength)

To keep the skills contextual we use simple equipment, often times awkward, because life can be just that. A heavy plant pot hasn’t got handles like a kettlebell, so let’s use a medicine ball for example as it is indeed awkward. 

A big component of our gym time over 40 and 50 is intensity. How hard is hard enough? As a basic rule, if lifting weights, ALWAYS finish every set with 2 or 3 repetitions left in the tank. Do not train to maximal effort. Perform and practice numerous sets of 70% efforts. Good things will happen. ‘Maxing out’ will not be your friend. 

Outside of the gym, lifestyle consistency is vital. Go to bed roughly the same time every night and awaken about the same time. As we age, sleep quality and consistency becomes all the more important. A poor nights sleep can ruin the day that follows, adding elements of danger and poor choices. We can and do get away with poor sleep by our own decisions when younger, but we just don’t get away with it once we’re over 50!

Do consider this – nothing good ever happens after 10pm, so go to bed. 

I shall not dive into nutrition today but essentially, if you’re an adult, you really do know deep down that your body functions best on real food. Real proteins, natural carbohydrates and heaps of vegetables and fruit. All the other stuff is play-food. Maybe enjoy some of that every now and again, but it shouldn’t be seen in your kitchen all that frequently. But you know that, don’t you. 

Whilst the ingredients may vary, the recipe is always the same. Simple

KEEP IT SIMPLE, AGE WELL AND PROSPER

With the summer quickly running out – not that we’ve seen much of a summer, I am taking expressions of interest from people over 40 who want to learn how to get stronger and fitter for now, and for the future.

I am happy to offer a FREE consultation and movement screen at Urban One on the Dock Road, Limerick. Fill in the form below to get started.

FitStrong PT, Kettlebell Training, Strength training

How Hard is Hard Enough?

MoveStrongblog

The Less and More conundrum 

Confession time – I’m one of those people who keeps stuff. Not like a serious hoarder like you’d see on TV, but a collector of details. 

I can proudly claim to have a record of every s.i.n.g.l.e training session I’ve done with every client over the years, including group classes and workshops. I also have records of my own training going back to 1989 when I took up cycling firstly for touring then as a competitive cyclist. 

At first it just seemed like a good idea to see how progress is made with time per each training program but in reflection the historical details added value regarding the ‘how’ the progress was made. 

At times progress was made unexpectedly and wasn’t achieved when expected – ‘what the deuce’? 

Some common themes became identifiable: 

  1. High Intensity (90%+) only works for the short term, like a booster button. But soon it wore off and continuing to hit that booster button lead to niggles and injuries. Short, infrequent use of high intensity seems valuable, like a 1 or 2 of sessions every 4th to 6th week. 
  2. Repeatable efforts, repeated often lead to more ‘what the heck’ affects than any other effort. By repeatable or medium-high I am really describing an effort you could label as being in the:
    • Goldilocks zone.
    • Like an 80% effort or.
    • An effort where you always stop the set a few reps from really pushing it.
  3. However, #2 is conditional on one big provision – consistency. Frequently training a focussed movement in hand with medium efforts leads to be best advancements. 

Regardless of whether the goal is maximal strength or endurance, frequent medium efforts with very infrequent bursts of high intensity delivers favourable results and to be honest, if you want to vastly reduce the likelihood of injury, leaving out the high intensity all together works just as well. Seriously!

Consistency transcends Intensity

Over the past few years I’ve used less and less high intensity work. Instead, I’ve favoured training 3-5 times a week where I follow one of two patterns. 

I either spend weeks just turning up, putting in some medium efforts, leaving the gym to return again the next time without strain or stress or injury or, I follow a 6 to 8 week program that gradually waves the number of reps I use upwards until on the final week or two I work somewhat harder, to achieve a new personal best or achieve a goal I had set. 

Overall though, the medium efforts used allow for another vital component of success, that of practice. By comparison, if you take a high intensity approach to training, near all of your focus is on pushing as hard as you can to achieve the set. Attention to form, correct breathing and safety is near zero! You are just too distracted by the effort to have any chance of remembering good form. 

By practicing at a sustainably comfortable effort, you can pay attention to what you are doing. 

Revisiting the ‘consistency transcends intensity’ idea, doing something well and often leads to progress via skill acquisition and good exposure to the target movements AND specific adaptations. Conversely, doing something sloppily every now and again leads to …. mmm, getting better at doing something sloppily. 

What sounds better – ‘100% of the time it works all the time’, or ’60% of the time it works some of the time’!

On this latter note, do consider that doing an exercise at high intensity does not allow for high frequency. If you again compare the high intensity model to medium intensity model, which will allow for more overall practice of doing something well over a year? 

I don’t think I need to answer that one.

So, rather than more is more or less is more, or minimalism is best, how about to clarify, more medium effort, less high intensity.

If you are one of those people who really enjoy the feeling of getting out of breath or pushing up a new weights personal best, how can it be done?

First off, I’d suggest you really question why you want to use high intensity? 

Is it because you think it will deliver results more quickly? 

Maybe you do actually enjoy the satisfaction of high effort? 

Perhaps you like to punish yourself for something, like eating, poor personal relationships or a crappy job? Perhaps you like showing off amongst your gym rat companions hehe! 

If it’s the latter you need a different outlay and help.

If it’s the former, you need to reread everything I’ve written above and the program idea below.

If it’s the second idea, well then, you need to look at your high efforts strategically and in keeping with a well structured program and a valid, realistic and attainable goal. 

Here’s a program for y’all. 

One of the simplest yet effective examples of working with medium efforts to achieve a new strength goal is outlined below (a Pressing program) and can be read about further in this post https://movestrong.studio/2015/08/19/consistency-trumps-intensity/  from a while back. It is one of my favourite easy-simple programs.

In habit coaching we often refer to working on your one thing, one thing at a time. This program does just that too. Each session increases in volume in a minimal dose, consistently over 3 sessions a week for up to 8 weeks. The volume just creeps up over the weeks without really affecting the perceived efforts. Your attention to technique grows steadily and you run next to negligible risk of injury. Starting a program healthy is a clear and obvious condition. 

There are many ways to play out this gradual or waving volume game in programs – this is just one. But it works with the model of consistent medium efforts over the long run. Dan Johns Easy Strength, Steve Justas singles program, Enter the Kettlebell – Rite of Passage are all examples of great medium effort programs that get you stronger. 

This program consists of 20 sets of Kettlebell Pressing. 

Over a 20 minute session, each set starts pretty much on the minute every minute. This is NOT obligatory of course. You’ll notice it’s written as 5 blocks of 4 sets, just for the purpose of writing the progressions. 

Rest between sets by shaking off tension to ready yourself for the next set whether it’s on the minute or not. Note: bigger guys with relatively bigger weights will need longer rests than the majority of people. 

Day 1: 1,1,1,1 x 5 rounds 20 total reps

Day 2: 1,1,1,2 x 5 rounds 25 total reps

Day 3: 1,1,2,2 x 5 rounds 30 total reps

Day 4: 1,1,1,2 x 5 rounds 25 total reps

Day 5: 1,1,2,2,x 5 rounds 30 total reps

Day 6: 1,2,2,2 x 5 rounds 35 total reps

Day 7: 1,1,2,2,x 5 rounds 30 total reps

Day 8: 1,2,2,2 x 5 rounds 35 total reps

Day 9: 2,2,2,2 x 5 rounds 40 total reps 

Do you see how the volume waves up and down? Three sessions progress in reps then, go back one step and continue. 

You continue until you achieve 20 sets of 4 reps, rest a few days then retest your max, 5 rep max or anything in between that you desire.

The total of 80 reps works fine for pressing however for squats for example, I’d work with 10 sets with the same rep scheme and more rest between sets (2-4 minutes). That does accumulate up to 40 reps but seems to work best for most people. 

This program works great also for Front Squats, Bench Press, Pull Ups or Rows. A similar concept can also be applied to many speed and endurance activities.

You could naturally conduct your own 10-15 years trial to see what works best or just use what I’ve found 😉 

Need help building a successful program for strength and fitness? 

Punch in your contact info below… 

Contact us

0894462653
movewithjamie@gmail.com

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‘Go Strong’ Birthday Offer

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As part of my 50th birthday celebrations this week (yes, I am actually hitting 50!) I am offering ALL NEW ONLINE CLIENTS an introductory 25% discount off the first months program.

My updated 12 week ‘Go Strong’ program is now Online and specifically designed for people who want to look good, feel strong, and improve their overall well-being without having to spend hours a week in the gym, and with no killer, soul destroying workouts either.

With my guidance, you’ll get your personalised program and the support you need to achieve your results in 12 weeks or less with just a time commitment of 45 minutes, 3 times a week! I can even tailor your program to 6, 8 or 10 weeks if needed.

If you’re local (Limerick / Ennis or in between) you can train with me personally in the gym. If you book within the week (by November 5th) I’ll honour the discount too. Train with a friend or follow the program yourself. You’ll get my full support regardless.

Contact me today to get started.

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FitStrong PT

Amazing Physique and Athletic Performance in 12 Weeks!

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Amazing 12 Limerick will show you how to release your UNLIMITED potential without drugs, gimmicks, and most importantly, without PAIN. Through attentive manipulation of the mathematics of training progressions, your training will propel you forward in ways that will amaze you.

I help people struggling to get lasting results …

Most people feel unhappy with their ability to get results in the gym. They believe it’s impossible for anyone to achieve significant natural gains in strength, muscle gain, fat loss, and cardiovascular conditioning at the same time, let alone in 12 weeks. They think that anyone promising to deliver that must be mad or just wrong.

… Get the ‘super’ body you’ve always wanted

The Amazing 12 Limerick program delivers substantial gains in physical strength, cardiovascular performance and aesthetic changes that can be jaw dropping in just 12 weeks. There’s a specific way to unleash this, and almost all other programs fight your efforts and shut you down. However, with this smart program, the sky’s the limit.

Amazing 12 programs safely and comfortably perpetuate gains in strength, muscular development, fat loss, and cardiovascular conditioning simultaneously, and at levels never before thought possible drug free. The A12 as it’s become known, has created almost 15,000 jaw-dropping physical transformations with men and women, of all ages, shapes, sizes and genetics, and are regarded as the world’s number 1 body transformation program.

If you want to be a successful A12 graduate you’ll need to:

  • Be willing to invest in yourself
  • Bring a positive attitude
  • Be fully committed
  • Be motivated to achieve your best possible result in 12 weeks
  • Be willing to learn technical excellence in the exercises involved.
  • Have the courage to meet ‘the real you’, for potentially the first time, at the end of 12 weeks. 

A12 Express with MoveStrong Strength & Wellness

The A12 Express is another part of the proud A12 lineage, designed by A12 creator Paul McIlroy, specifically for people on the go!  At just 45 minutes per session, including the warm up, 3 times per week, the A12 Express is designed to produce the biggest ‘pound-for-pound’ (or minute-for minute) result imaginable in the most efficient way possible! 

The A12 Express, with only 105 minutes of training time per WEEK, and 36 total sessions in 12 weeks, the results are astounding.

What’s involved in The A12?

#1 Optimisation of Exercise Technique – We’ll show you step-by-step the optimal (and required) techniques and their subtleties to master each exercise and minimise risk of injury even as you progress through higher and higher strength levels.

#2 Optimisation of Nutrition – The food you eat is very personal and if you battle through hunger or if your body craves something that’s missing, you will suffer needlessly. And then you’ll stop and eat what you want. The stakes are higher when it comes to fitness programs because the diet versus exercise debate has traditionally accepted the view that “It’s 90% diet.” We’ll teach you how the reality is that it’s actually 90% training when it comes to a body TRANSFORMATION (sounds bogus we know, but look at our results…we’ve proved it and we’ll prove it again and again). 

#3 Optimisation of Exercise Programming – Great technique and great nutrition are not enough. For optimal results, you need optimal programming. And since the vast majority of programs out there do not get results (and most fitness coaches fail to deliver results for their clients), something is clearly broken with fitness programming.  The main problem is the accepted view of “no pain, no gain.” It’s inspiring talk, but it’s no way to get long term results and is physiologically counter-productive. The reality is “Any pain, no gain.”! To perpetuate progress we shouldn’t leave our comfort zone…we should EXPAND it until it envelopes our previous limits.

When and Where can you join?

The Amazing 12 Limerick is run in Limerick throughout the year in the privacy of a private PT studio. 

Check out our results on the A12 Limerick Facebook Page

The A12 Limerick is ready for you NOW.  Due to growing interest, I am building a list. If you would like to express your interest in taking part in the Amazing 12, the first step is to meet up, talk through the details and get added to the 2025 and 2026 list. 

Due to the detailed coaching and support offered, only a small number of people can be taken through each wave. 

If you want to see people just like you, how they started and how they transformed, check out the gallery of transformations. You can even compare age groups, over and under 40s ladies and gents.

TRANSFORMATION GALLERY

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The ‘Total’ Body Transformation

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GET THE RESULTS YOU WANT

THE AMAZING 12 TOTAL BODY TRANSFORMATION

Build An Incredible Physique, Athletic Performance & Confidence in 12 Weeks…

…And with just 3 weekly sessions of 45 minutes!

The Amazing 12 program is designed to unlock your boundless potential and help you attain the incredible levels of strength, fitness, and fat loss that have eluded you thus far in the gym. So get ready to unleash your true capabilities and achieve the remarkable results you have been striving for.

The A12 delivers an unprecedented body transformation in a surprisingly short period of time, every time, no matter your age, experience or genetics. If you’re a beginner or an advanced exerciser, following this program will work for you.

🔻LEARN MORE AND SET UP A CONSULTATION HERE 🔻

www.amazing12limerick.com

The A12 program delivers an advanced system of optimal nutrition, optimal exercise choices, optimal techniques and optimal programming that is tuned to your ability for every single training session.

What clients have to say…

Stephen: The strength side of the training blew my mind. I trained hard but at the same time, I walked away not feeling exhausted. By the end I was lifting heavier than I thought was possible, given I’ve lost over 20lbs!!

What you get:

  • ✅ Professional 12 week program
  • ✅ 1 technique week
  • ✅ Private, safe, clean gym in Limerick
  • ✅ Realistic and achievable results
  • ✅ Advanced coaching and support throughout
  • ✅ Sustainable habits once the program is complete
  • ✅ Before & After Photoshoot to see how much you’ve achieved
  • ❌ No fad diets, no drugs or unsustainable lifestyle
  • ❌ No starvation
  • ❌ No egos, shouting or negativity
  • ❌ No soul destroying workouts

To secure a place, you will need to:

  • invest in yourself for 12 weeks
  • be able to train 3 x per week for 45 minutes
  • bring a positive attitude and motivation to change yourself
  • be coached to train at sustainable efforts (no training to failure)
  • be willing to learn technical excellence in the exercises involved

If this is you, click through to the Amazing 12 Limerick website to arrange your FREE consultation.

ARRANGE YOUR CONSULTATION HERE

www.amazing12limerick.com