Cameron’s Spartan Experience…
Cameron did the Spartan in The Carolina’s the weekend of June 25th. Here is his first-hand account…
The race was intended to be approx. 8 miles with 15 obstacles. The fastest times were intended to be around 80 minutes. It ended up being (after adding the turns) (more…)
- Subcutaneous Fat vs. Visceral Fat
It’s almost too cliche to have fitness sites talking about abs and stomach fat as summer approaches, but then again, that’s important to most readers this time of year.
Have you heard of the difference between visceral fat and subcutaneous fat? Mike Geary has a (more…)
Continue reading about Stomach Fat – Subcutaneous vs. Visceral Fat
I did a quick write-up for my team mates to jump-start our Spartan training. See previous post on the Spartan Race for context.
This is far from complete, and is just some basic principles. As I’ve mentioned, each of our 5-person team is coming with completely different strengths and weaknesses so this is just to get us all on the same baseline. What I personally am doing is slightly different. I’ll share that at the end.
General Principles
- work up each week (longer or more intense, etc.); each week should be harder than the previous [we had 8 weeks at the time I wrote this]
- use varied training methods
- keep an eye on recovery: you don’t want to be so sore that you miss workouts but you don’t want to undertrain either
- deload (reduce training 4-5 days before the event)
- stretch daily; this is important for recovery; my advice is mostly active stretching, but static stretching is fine too as long as it is AFTER exercise; foam rolling is amazing
- eat smart (don’t try to diet during this, but don’t eat junk; eat lots of good, real food to help your body recover)
- sleep well for recovery
Types of Training We’ll Cover
- endurance running (long distance)
- core training (stability, strength, endurance)
- load training (carrying)
- strength training
My Recommendations For the First 2 Weeks
These are the things I think should be a minimum.
1) TRI once a week. [For you WFN readers, I don't have time to explain the game of TRI but think of it as Rugby with 3 teams.] If we miss a week, you need to spend at least 30 minutes doing similar training (sprinting with change of direction, add in throwing).
2) 2 runs a week. One shorter one longer. Goal will be to get your longer runs up to 8 to 10 miles by early July. Depending on your current capacity, this could be a big leap so let’s talk if you can’t already do at least 4 mile runs. Try to do a lot of your running on trails.
For your shorter run, I suggest the type of training you see in the spartanraceblog. Something like this: (more…)
- Spartan Race Training
Some of you may have seen some recent discussion over at the forum on The Spartan:
http://worldfitnessnetwork.com/forum/goals-and-motivation/spartan-race/
This is one of those intense “races with obstacles”. Cameron is doing one this month in SC and I’m doing one in August in VT. The obstacles might be any (more…)
Join the forum discussion on this article, or comment below.
I could hardly believe what I was reading.
I sat in absolute bewilderment as I read an article in a recent muscle magazine. It explained in detail why you should lift your hips as high as possible off the bench (called bridging) when you bench press.
Was the author seriously recommending this type of thing to people who are trying to improve their workouts? I could hardly believe that any widely distributed magazine would publish this sort of “advice”.
Of course, I don’t think that the muscle magazines are very good reading for most people out there. They focus on what the pros are doing for their workouts instead of telling the readers what will help them the most. I’ll drop by once a month or so and read them just to see what’s out there (and only because I blog about this).
But there it was, right in the magazine. The author was praising the advantages of arching your back as high as possible and shooting your hips into the air on the bench press.
His argument was that arching your back and lifting the hips gives you more power for your bench. More power lets you lift heavier weights, and lifting heavier weights means you’re building strength and muscle.
So how could that be wrong? (more…)
Continue reading about You Gotta Be Kidding Me- Bridging on the Bench Press
