Cookie Cutter training

Scaling the work to fit the capacity of the athlete is something too often overlooked by many personal trainers. A cookie cutter approach to exercise prescription is fundamentally flawed and will result in many clients simply quitting because the work is too hard, or not progressing as they should because it is too easy.

Pretty much anything can be scaled with some imagination, allowing each and every athlete to work at a level at which they will see great results.

Today's workout involved a combination of deadlift and handstand push-ups. Deadlifts are easy to scale - simply adjust the weight used but the scaling of a body weight exercise such as the HSPU requires a bit of thought - you can't easily chop weight off an athlete!

In the shot below, Chris is demonstrating a scaled handstand push-up. By having his legs resting on the box, a significant percentage of his body weight is supported. Because of this, Chris is getting a good workout at a level he can maintain with intensity and good form whilst at the same time building the proficiency required to move up in the progression until he can do a full handstand push-up using his whole weight.



At the other end of the spectrum, we have an athlete who has progressed through to the full HSPU, so to maintain the intensity of effort his version was completed wearing a weighted vest!


Vires et Honestas!

Monday evening

Tim came over for an evening session and learned a new movement - the sumo deadlift. This is a great accompaniment to the standard deadlift and concentrates more on the quadriceps. It's also often slightly easier for the taller athlete, like Tim.



The workout format was the same as the morning session -
3 sets of 5 sumo deadlift followed by a conditioning routine -
5 rounds for time of;
Run 250m
30 Sit-ups
30 Good mornings

The shot above is Tim after he finished the workout - the huge grin says it all! We then moved on to looking at the handstand and demonstrated some basic progressions to build confidence in the inverted position.

Vires et Honestas!

Tyres and sandbags and burpees - Oh my!

New Chris (;)) and Tim came over on Saturday for a quick workout to clear out the cobwebs - Three rounds of a Fight Gone Bad protocol of Jumping Pull-Ups, Tyre Flip, Burpee, Hammer Strikes and sand bag cleans. Unfortunately, neither of them seem to be able to count so they have no idea on their totals which is a shame. Both of them put in a good effort though and coped well with the unfamiliar movement of the hammer strikes and the sand bag cleans.

Chris has become a regular at the garage recently, putting in 4-5 days training in a week and is already seeing some good results and we will hopefully help him along the way to achieving his goal of becoming a police officer.

Tim hasn't been down in a while, but it's good to see he hasn't forgotten everything we taught him on the "Essentials" course.





One of the key things we look to foster at SPQRFitness is the enjoyment factor that comes from working out in a group - it allows you to gauge your progress against others and gives you that much needed support group to keep you going when the going gets tough. Hopefully the Saturday morning group session will become a regular occurrence and we can work on some team events to build up the camaraderie in the garage.