Friday 25 December 2009

Seasons Greetings!


Merry Christmas and a happy New Year to you all. Wishing you health, wealth and happiness in 2010!


Thursday 17 December 2009

The Learning Ladder


Everyone has heard the expression “practice makes perfect”. The thing is, this isn’t strictly true – if we practice something incorrectly, all we get is very good at doing something wrong! For example, if you always perform (in other words practice) press ups with a sagging lower back; this is how you will always do them. It will become engrained and breaking this habit will be very difficult and time consuming – thus practice didn’t make perfect, it merely taught a bad habit. Really, the saying should be “perfect practice makes perfect” as it’s far better (and easier in the long run) to establish good habits in the first place, rather than have to unlearn bad habits before replacing them with better ones.



It’s sometimes quoted that (in terms of exercise performance) that it takes around 500 repetitions to learn a new technique and for it to become automatic but 5000 to unlearn an old one and that assumes that all 5000 are performed faultlessly! This is one of the reasons that at Solar Fitness Qualifications, we strive for good form in all our exercises from the very beginning of our courses. We know that, for every day we let our students perform exercises with poor form, there will be a whole lot of extra work required to prepare them for their assessment time both for the students, trainers and the assessors alike!


This leads nicely onto something called the “Learning Ladder” which describes the process we go through when learning a new habit or skill. The learning ladder can be applied to just about any behaviour but this article will focus on things health and fitness related...


Unconscious Incompetence
On this rung of the learning ladder, the individual doesn’t realise they have a negative habit. This could be a gym goer who always does lat pull downs behind the neck without realising the dangers to his or her shoulders or a dieter who skips meals to help them lose weight, not knowing that this behaviour could disrupt their metabolism and stall their fat loss. People who are Unconscious Incompetents would benefit from education and explanations to teach them why their behaviours are not the best way forward in achieving their goals.


Conscious Incompetence
“If at first you don’t succeed, try try and try again!” goes the old saying. This sums up the Conscious Incompetent. They know what they should be doing but often fall “off the wagon”. This could be the dieter who just can’t say no to cakes when it’s some ones birthday at work (and there are a lot of birthdays at their office!) despite the fact they know it will hinder their fat loss or the weight trainer who, more often than not, misses their Friday leg workout because the guys on the football team convince him to skip training and have a few beers down the pub instead, despite the fact he knows this will unbalance his weekly training programme. Conscious Incompetents need help with motivation and assurance that the new habits they are trying to develop will be of long term benefit. Tools such as goal setting and decision balance sheets can be very beneficial for this type of person.


Conscious Competence
To an outsider, those that have reached Conscious Competence may seem to have it easy but the reality is that, despite the fact they eat what they should and exercise regularly, it’s a struggle. They’d love to skip a workout or two or relax their diets and eat some junk food but they just won’t give in to temptation. Periodically the gravitational pull of the sofa, the lure of the pub or the thought of sugary foods can get to the point where they feel like it would be easier to just give up and indulge but they stay focused and stick with it - but it’s not always easy to do the right thing. For this person, positive affirmations can be very useful to help maintain focus and as a reminder that all the hard work is worth it.


Unconscious Competence
At this level, exercise and eating well are a part of everyday life. No external stimuli are necessary as habits are now just a fact of life and it would be unthinkable to not exercise regularly or eat well. For this type of person, adherence to regular exercise and good nutrition are easy which, ironically, can make them less than ideal as mentors to those people who find sticking to their new healthy lifestyle choices a struggle. It’s possible they may lack empathy as it’s been so long since they found exercising frequently and eating well a struggle. Ideally, we should all strive to reach this level of self-mastery but the reality is that very few do which is probably just as well or personal trainers and nutritionists the world over would soon be out of a job!


Regardless of your current level on the learning ladder, keep at it, and keep striving for improvements. It IS worth it in the long run. It’s not always an easy process and there will be times where you’d rather stay in front of the TV or buy a take away instead of cooking a healthy meal at home BUT...they payoff every time you resist temptation you will be one step closer to your health and fitness goals. And remember, perfect practice makes perfect!


Patrick Dale

Wednesday 9 December 2009

The Deck of Cards Workout
















Ever been at a loss as to what training to do? Ever thought “I’d really like someone to tell me what workout to do today”? Well then – the Deck of Cards Workout is for YOU!

This workout has been around a while and has been written about by the likes of Matt Furey and Ross Emanait and I’m pretty sure neither of them lay claim to having invented it but it’s such a good effective training system it’s worth promoting again.

The Deck of Cards Workout is deceptively simple...using a normal deck of playing cards allocate an exercise to each suit for example Hearts = squats, Diamonds = press ups, Spades = lunges, Clubs = bent-leg sit ups. Then, starting with the well shuffled deck face down, turn over the top card and do the prescribed number of reps for that exercise so if you turn over the 8 of spades you would perform 8 lunges (either in total or per leg – that’s up to you.) Then, with minimal rest turn over the next card and do that exercise and so on until each card has been turned over.

Jokers can be removed or left in to provide extra exercises – the Joker could be something like run 500 meters or do 20 burpees...whatever you feel like putting in. The idea is to complete the deck as fast as possible so it’s an excellent cardio and muscular conditioning workout. Personally I like to make sure the Joker is a real challenge to add some extra intensity to the workout but whilst a challenge is good, making the Joker so tough that you fail to complete the workout would be erroneous so use some common sense!

Regarding the picture cards, there are a couple of options...Jacks = 11, Queens = 12, Kings = 13 or all picture cards = 12 (or higher). The beauty of the Deck of Cards Workout is you set the parameters based on your current fitness level and progress is very easy to logically progress the workouts over time. For example, as time progresses and you get fitter, the ace can increase from 1 rep to 3 reps and later to 5 reps and so on which adds volume to your workout. Ideally, when you have designed and completed a deck of cards workout it’s a good idea to repeat it on a regular basis so you can monitor your improvements as you (hopefully) complete it in less time than before.

The Deck of Cards Workout lends it’s self particularly well to body weight or minimal equipment exercises which keeps the transitions fast and the pace of the workout high but it can work equally well using traditional weight training exercises. Below I have outlined some of my favourite Deck of Cards Workouts to get you started...feel free to use them as they are or mix elements from the different workouts into your own unique training session. If you come up with a particularly good one, why not post it below for others to use?

1) Black cards = push ups
Red cards = bodyweight squats
Jokers = run 500 meters.

2) Hearts = Burpees
Diamonds = double unders (x 2)
Spades = high pulls
Clubs = sit ups
Jokers = 60 second planks.
(For this workout, when performing double unders complete 2 reps for every number of Diamonds i.e. 4 of Diamonds = 8 double unders)

3) Hearts = skipping (x 10)
Diamonds = body rows
Spades = kettlebell swings
Clubs = dipsJokers = row 500 meters.
(For this workout when skipping perform 10 turns of the rope for every number of Hearts i.e. 7 of Hearts = 70 turns of the rope etc.)

4) Hearts = step ups
Diamonds = sandbag clean and push press
Spades = chin ups
Clubs = crunchesJokers = 100 rope turns skipping

5) Hearts = barbell squats
Diamonds = barbell deadlifts
Spades = body rows
Clubs = bench press
Jokers = 60 seconds of twisting sit ups
(For this workout use around 60% of 1RM – it may be necessary to perform the reps rest/pause style i.e. if unable to perform all of the reps when a high card is revealed then do as many of the reps as possible, rest briefly and then continue with the set)

I strongly recommend writing in large letters the exercises you have allocated for each suit and sticking it somewhere visible for the duration of the workout. This will minimise any time wasted trying to remember what exercise you are supposed to be doing and avoid making mistakes.

As the cards come out in a random order, sometimes you’ll get a good run of dissimilar cards but from time to time you’ll think you must be playing poker and you’ll get runs of suits or lots of high cards in a row. Tough! That’s the beauty of this workout – you never quite know what you are going to get and that randomness is part of not just the fun but also the training effect. Runners call this kind of mixed training Fartlek which means speed play so just keep on keeping on – for every “bad” run there will be a good one.

There are endless variations for the deck of card workout and you are only limited by your imagination and as a change from the norm it’s a great but simple workout which really gets the job done!

Stop-the-press!
Feeling inspired after writing this piece so I did a Deck of Cards Workout for my own training today.

I warmed up by skipping for 5 minutes and doing a few dynamic stretches...

Ran 500 meters
Black cards = press ups
Red cards = bodyweight squats
(All picture cards done for 12 reps, other cards for face value)
Jokers = run 500 meters - my pack has 3 of ‘em for some reason!
Ran 500 meters to finish

182 reps completed for press ups and squats plus 2,500 meters running

Total time from start to finish including the additional 500 meter runs = 26 mins 7 secs of FUN!