UK Strength and Power Series News

The UK Strength and Power Series Qualifier dates and locations are now LIVE! SPQR will be there and look forward to seeing you.

The UK Strength and Power Series is a strong man (or woman) event designed for the rest of us. You don't need to be Mark Felix (or Geoff Capes for those old enough to remember him) to enter; it's a fun filled day with lots to do for the whole family.

The SPQR Warm-up

The standard SPQR warm-up is as follows;

Run or Row 1-2 minutes (basically around the block once or twice)
High knee running 20 metres
Butt Kickers 20 metres
lunge walk with twist 20 metres
Russian walk 20 metres (video of the general exercise here)
Arm Circles x 10 each side backward
Arm Circles x 10 each side forward
Slow Squat x 5
Spider Stretch x 5 each side (video of the stretch here)
Slow Push up x 5
Slow Sit-up x 5

Any other stretches that may be required due to injury or the workout of the day

That's basically it. Quick and easy and gets you set up for the day; it's not a workout by itself but should get you going nicely.

The warm-up is something we leave up to you. We recommend you join in, but also realise that many of us have our own preferences for getting ready to workout.

Vires et Honestas part 2

In one of my earlier posts I explained the whole "Vires et Honestas" slogan we use at SPQR (read it here). The thoughts I put down in that post are especially clear to me today after a disappointing session with the University sports team I coach.

We have a week to go before the start of the new season which means I have (had) one final Sunday session and one Thursday session to teach the guys the new skills they would need to play and win next week. Unfortunately, only twenty or so players turned up. That's not a bad number you might say, but when I tell you the sport is American Football and I need a minimum of 18 players on the sidelines to even be allowed to play the game then my problem becomes clearer. Factor that in, then add in the fact that this is a minority sport over here (at best) and that I have had a total of just four weeks to train guys who never even touched a football before starting University how to play correctly and most importantly, safely. This is a game where catastrophic injury can and does happen, especially if you don't know what you are doing. Add in the further factor that of those guys that did show up for training, only a handful were linemen, the majority were the so-called "skill position" players and it further complicates things.

Everything in football starts with the line, be it offensive or defensive. Without either, nothing will work as expected and the training session becomes less and less useful. Sure, we can run the plays, but without the offensive line blocking, the whole timing of the play is shot. On the defensive side of the ball, with no big guys up front it's just not worth the time put in.

Why weren't the players there? No idea. Only two of the missing players had the decency to call me, e-mail me, text me or facebook me. Hey, I'm flexible, if you have a legitimate reason I can live with it, but to just not show up? That disrespects me, my coaching staff and, more egregiously in my eyes, disrespects their team mates. Vires et Honestas holds implicit the meaning of team, brotherhood, fraternity. Those guys that didn't show up have shown neither strength nor honour and the team is weaker as a whole because of it. In addition to missing a valuable training session, the fact that they weren't there today means they will not be registered in time for the game and so next week my squad will be depleted further.

Coupled with this, many of the players that did show up lacked passion and intensity of effort. They were just going through the motions which helps no one. I keep telling them, train to be mediocre and that's the best they can ever be and I mean it. It is very rare that an athlete will achieve the peak level of their training goal - more often than not the result is less than that. Give me someone that only tries to be a B student and I will show you someone with a C average, give me that same student and have them shoot for an A every time, then that C student becomes a B+. The same is true in sport, school and in life.

If the only effort you display is the effort to be average, then that is the level you will achieve ON YOUR BEST DAY - every other day you will be less so and your life will be the poorer because of it. If you believe you are average, how can you expect to beat the guy in front of you? Often, the difference between a winner and a loser is that the winner believes he will win, the loser believes he might win. The winner may not be any better than you physically, but if that belief is there he will prevail.

The same is true in the gym. When you walk in and see that workout on the board, you have to believe you will own it. Once it gets in your head that it's tough, tougher than you can handle, then you will quit - I guarantee it. Believe you can accomplish the workout and you will - I guarantee that too!

Vires et Honestas means that in everything you give your best, for yourself and your cohorts. Anything less and you are just making platitudes to the words.

Vires et Honestas!

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.

SPQR latest news

Apologies for the lack of updates - get set on doing a workout of the day for friends of the site and it all goes out the window..... What? You aren't following the daily workout over at http://www.funckey.co.uk? Head on over there right away and get cracking.

Things are going from strength to strength in the garage. Thanks to Tim we now have power in there so it won't be quite so dark as the mornings and evenings draw in. Never fear though, I won't be getting a heater in there - what? You want me to make it easy for you? Heck, if it's creature comforts you want, there's a Globo right down the block. Pretty sure they could get you warm and toasty in no time. Of course you won't get in the kind of shape you will working out in the garage and with the amount of work you will be putting in with us, you'll be warm enough in no time!

The whiteboards are also up so your times will be up there for all to see. What better incentive could you need to push that little bit harder?

New toys in the garage include a couple of beer kegs kindly supplied by the local university bar. Typically, those darned students had drunk them dry before we got our mitts on them, but that means I can fill them with sand and water to make it a challenge lifting and moving them around. We also have a rowing machine which was kindly donated by a friend of the site. No, it's not a Concept2 but it does give us some more options for our workouts and will do just fine until we can afford a C2.

In other news, SPQRFitness has been named the official speed and agility source for the University of Surrey American Football team (it was an "unofficial" thing before, now we actually get recognition on their website and that of the University Student's Union). We are also in negotiation to perform the same task for the rugby teams so watch this space for news.

Anyway, keep on training and keep watching the site for news on developments as and when they happen.

Essentials

Chris and Tim have just started to work out with us at SPQR and are currently undergoing the "essential movements" classes to get them up to speed on the wide variety of functional movements they will have to perform in the gym and to introduce them to the intensity of effort required in the workouts.

Today we looked at the power clean, the kettle-bell swing and the pull-up, concentrating on dead hang, band assisted and the jumping variety. We don't worry about teaching the kip until the athlete can do at least five consecutive dead hang pull-ups so as not to impair the motor learning.

After looking at the form and working on technique, the workout was;
As many rounds as possible in 12 minutes of;
3 Jumping Pull-up
5 Power Clean (Chris @ 20Kg, Tim @ 15 Kg)
7 "American" swing (Chris with the 16 Kg KB, Tim with the 12)

Tim managed an excellent 10 full rounds. Chris managed 8 rounds (although I was his form judge and was VERY strict so he probably did an extra round in reps I didn't count!). Both really stepped up the intensity and are showing real progress with every session.

Way to go guys!

Vires et Honestas!

State of the Union.. well, the garage at least!

The garage is really coming along now. The flooring is down and the walls have been painted.
The pictures below show what we look like now.



Left wall with the small (!) tyre.



And the right wall with the larger of the two tyres.

Remaining tasks are to rip out the shelving and cupboards on the back wall (below) to make room for the pull-up bars and to see about getting some power in there for the lights and most importantly the sounds system!

The BWLA drop progressions

Some of our workouts call for the Burgener warm up, coupled with the BWLA drop progressions. The Burgener warm-up is easily found through a search on any of the popular search engines or by going directly to the CrossFit site, however the BWLA progressions aren't so easy to find.

The progression basically takes the form of a drop into the clean catch position from a standing start with the bar at different heights.

Step 1:

Hold the bar in an overhand grip and pull the bar up to just below the chin. From a standing start position, drop down into the catch position and bring the elbows through. You should now be in the bottom of the front squat. Stand and repeat for a total of three times

Step 2:

Lower the bar to the lower chest (just below the nipple line) and repeat the process.

Step 3:

Lower the bar to just above the navel. Everything else is the same, although you may want to start on your tip-toes.

Step 4:

Lower the bar again, this time to mid-thigh. You will have to bend at the hips and the knee to do this, so you should find yourself in the start position of the hang power clean. This time, bring the hips through and shrug the shoulders (both explosively) before dropping and receiving the bar.

The above progressions can be carried out with PVC bar or an empty Olympic bar depending on the athlete; some athletes prefer to start with the PVC then move to the empty bar as the progressions get lower, some stay with the same bar throughout. As the goal is a dynamic warm-up, all options are acceptable.

I will be posting pictures as a visual representation of the process once they have been taken ;)

At least it's a Bank Holiday month... (Saturday August 1st 2009)

Finally, the last day of L-sit progressions has arrived. Hopefully you now have, or are a good way to achieving, a stable L-sit. We will revisit these in the future, maybe building up to a stable L-sit on rings!

Buy in

L-Sit Progression

Strength

Weighted Pull-Ups 5x5

Conditioning

AMRAP 15 minutes

10 Push-press @ 50% max press

10 GHD sit-ups

If you don't have a GHD available, substitute regular sit-ups.

Cash Out

Skipping - 200 singles or 50 doubles

Post weights/times to comments or the Daily Workout forum on FuncKey.

Vires et Honestas

To swim or not to swim... (Friday 31 July 2009)

Another choice day today: swimming, running or cycling. Try to choose something different to the last time just to keep it interesting.

Swimming can be in any stroke.

Buy In

BWLA/Burgener progression

Strength

Overhead Squat 5x3

Conditioning

Swim 1k or

Run 5k or

Cycle 10K

Cash out

L-Sit Progression

Post weights/choice and distance to comment or FK.UK

Vires et Honestas

Pressing things... (Thursday 30th July 2009)

Lots of pressing movements today; the strength workout is the strict press and the conditioning has a couple (!) of press-ups.

As with everything we do, there is a strict form for press-ups: Hands shoulder width apart under the shoulders, back and legs in one straight line and the down position is all the way to the floor. A full rep is the chest to the floor then the arms coming back to lock out at the top in the "lean and rest" position. Anything other than that should not be counted.

Remember, the only person you cheat by doing things by halves is yourself. Give 100% effort and maintain good for throughout and the results will be self-evident.

Buy in

L-Sit progression

Strength

Press 5x3

Conditioning

10 rounds for time of;

Run 100m

10 push-ups

10 sit-ups

Cash Out

Dot Drills

As always, post weights and times to comments or join the fun on the FK.UK forums.

Vires et Honestas

Bye "L" it's a frog stand.... (Tues 28 July 2009)

So this is the last week of the current L-Sit progression work. Hopefully you have made some good progress with this skill and will be able to hold the position for L-Pullups and other exercises that involve a heavy static contraction of the core. You should also have seen the benefit from this work in all the other strength lifts as a stronger abdominal region makes lumbar support that much better.

Starting next week and through August we will be looking at the planche progressions, so to get us a quick head start today's cash-out is a frog stand hold for a cumulative 1 minute. The frog stand is an excellent beginning gymnastic movement that forms part of not only the plancheprogression but is also an excellent tool for learning a stable free hand-stand.

Buy in

L-Sit progression

Strength

Deadlift 5x3

Conditioning

20-15-10

Snatch @ 40% max

Pull-Ups

Cash Out

Frog Stand - 1 minute total on hands only

Post weights/times to the FK.UK Daily workout forum (here)

Vires et Honestas

Ascending Vs static sets (Monday 27 July 2009)

The big question with the strength sets is whether to do ascending sets (increasing the weight each set) or to keep the weight static. Both have benefits and drawbacks. With ascending sets you can be more fatigued on the last set so your maximum effort isn't as high as it perhaps could have been, but on the other hand with static sets you run the risk of not going heavy enough and not drawing a benefit, or going too heavy and really not making the most of the sets. Static sets at a heavy weight are also seem to carry a higher toll on the Central Nervous System and can lead to symptoms of over-training in a quicker time period.

If you feel like giving static sets a go, the recommendation is to start at your 8-10 rep max range and see how it feels. If i is too light, increase the weight for the next workout until each set is taxing and the last almost (or does) lead to failure. Once you can again complete all sets without a failure, increase the weight.

Of course there is nothing wrong with sticking to the ascending sets. As with everything, your will soon let you know what works. Learn to listen to it and your training success will improve dramatically.

Buy In

Basketball free throw shots x 25

for every missed shot do 5 press-ups

Strength

Squat 5x3

Conditioning

4 rounds for time of;

15 Press @40% max

15 Wall Ball shots

Men: Use a 5 Kg ball and aim for a 10ft/3m target

Women: Use a 3 Kg Ball and aim for an 8ft/2.5m target (or use the men's settings as required)

Cash Out

L-Sit Progression

Post weights, times and comments to comments or the FK.UK forums.

Have Fun

Rest Day Sunday 260709

Rest day

Actually, we have a few people coming down for a quick introduction to our methodologies and exercises on Sunday morning. If you feel like coming along, all are welcome. We will be looking at the basic air squat, weighted squats, deadlifts and presses with perhaps a quick intorduction to the olympic lifts. We will probably finish off with a short conditioning routine to show the concept of the intensity we look for.

Should be a fun morning so if you are interested, give me a call (details on the website).

Ouch..... (Saturday 250709)

No strength workout today, the conditioning should be enough of a gasser for you....

Buy in

BWLA/Burgener warm-up

Conditoning

4 rounds for time

Run 200m

15 Clean and Jerk @ 40% max

Cash out

L-Sit Progressions

Post times to comments or your FK.UK log

Vires et Honestas

AMRAPs (Friday 24 July 2009)

Another AMRAP workout today. Do you "game" these or do you go all out right from the start and flag at the end? The preferred method is to go all out, that way the intensity stays up there throughout - by the end you may be tiring, but if you are still pushing for all you are worth then the benefits will come.

One trick many people use is to set the timer to beep at a set interval (every 5 minutes for example) so you can judge how you are getting on. For others, this is a distraction and actually hinders progress.

What tricks, if any, do you use to maintain intensity of effort over the timed period?

Buy in

L-Sit progressions

Strength

Squat 5x3

Conditioning

AMRAP 20 Minutes

15 double unders

15 burpee

15 box jumps (20-24 inch/50-60cm box)

Cash out

Handstand progressions

Post weight/reps to coments or your FK.UK log

Vires et Honestas

Snatch work (Thursday 23 July 2009)

Snatch work today. As the harder of the two olympic lifts, it is essential to get a good first and second pull to get the bar overhead cleanly. The legs need to be in full extension ( the so-called triple extension, with the ankles, knees and hips all extended to the maximium position) and the shoulders shrugged to drive the bar up and over the head . Without it, the bar will be out in front of the body making it very difficult to catch.

Buy In

BWLA/Burgener progressions

Strength

Snatch 5x2

Conditioning

For time

30 Pull-up/5 Push-up

25 Pull-up/10 Push-up

20 Pull-up/15 Push-up

15 Pull-up/20 Push-up

10 Pull-up/25 Push-up

5 Pull-up/30 Push-up

Cash out

L-Sit Progressions

Post weight and times to comment or to FuncKey.

Vires et Honestas

Rest Day Wedneday 22 July 2009

Active Rest Day