If your trainer still believes the only way to a healthier heart or better endurance is through long slow distance cardio work, perhaps ask them to look into the comparisons between traditional long slow distance work and different forms of interval training. If they use the term “Core” in reference to balance work or TVA as opposed to core exercises like squats, lifts, pulls and pushes then you may well be suspect.

Sure, some sports require long duration events but most do not and the vast majority of us that workout do so for health and looks and exercise protocols such as Crossfit and H.I.T. have at least shown us that short workouts of the correct intensity will produce both health and fitness beyond the levels of traditional cardio routines that consume more of our time than most can now days afford to sacrifice.

If you are told that you must eat breakfast to lose fat as it “stokes” the metabolism it may be time to look else where for a trainer. Naturally there is variation in the methods you can and will abide over the long haul but there certainly other “easier” options available to you.

Your health, weight, body fat levels and strength really needn’t take up hours of dedication each week and provided your Personal Trainer is on top of their reading they can help you achieve 99% of fat loss and general fitness goals within a very short period of actual training time.

I have been helping people lose body fat, gain strength and be better with thirty minutes per session with between 1 and 3 sessions per week for years now and if you live or work near to Epsom then I suggest that you give me a call. You deserve to know just how to go about looking better naked and being healthier without spending more than 90 minutes per week in the gym.

Richard “Peg Leg” Ham Williams

Epsom Personal Trainer

07742 952 208

The talk and banter has already begun on Twitter under the hash tag of #TeamAwesome which you are more than welcome to follow or join in with.

For those that are unfamiliar with the events of Powerlifiting here is a brief overview;

The SQUAT

The BENCH Press

The King of lifts; The DEADLIFT

They are the three lifts we will be performing on the day; Squat, Bench press and the Deadlift;All three have a great history and world records that are mind boggling.

RULES;

Apologies to the purists out there but our rules are somewhat more slack than those of an official meet;

Squat – the crease in the hips must be in line with or below the height of the to top of lifters knee. Each lifter will have the rack safety bars set to height and the bar must touch them for a clean lift.

Bench – the bar must touch the chest but no pause is required, touch and go is fine. Buttocks to stay on bench and bar to be fully locked out before re racking.

Deadlift – is there a way to cheat on the deadlift…bar simply leaves floor and must be pulled to a standing position without the use of wraps. Belts are fine (we don’t want anyone crying about a bad back). You can lift rounded, drag it up your thighs whatever works for you.

You can have as many attempts at the lifts as you wish.

Chalk allowed. Assisted lifts do not count.

Chalk, obviously

There will be overall winners for each lift and and overall winner for biggest combined lift totals along with a best power to weight ratio lifter.

Each of the competitors that have a twitter account will be updating training and diet info through the previously mentioned #teamawesome and at the individual twitter pages. So far we have myself; @RHamWilliams  @TeamJDPT @RBPTSpecialists @SalusFitness  so follow each of us and see what you can pick up from the tips and information you read  (If you are part of the team already and I haven’t mentioned your twitter tag please let me know).

Videos of the event will also be posted along with some training tips we may have used.

We have not got any female trainers wanting to join in as of yet but they are welcome and encouraged for women can benefit far more from lifting weights than men in this day and age, ladies…strong is sexy!

EDIT;

After discussion it has been decided that no assistance whatsoever should be allowed to keep it as raw as possible, this I like.

So no belts,straps or chalk. Street Strength is perhaps an apt name for it. Just you and your clothes versus gravity and slag.

Now we have covered, in brief, fibre types we can move onto training of those fibres.

Each fibre type plays a different role in our lives. Type 1 are the weakest so it will be of less benefit to any other than endurance athletes to fatigue these, which their events will do nicely in themselves without additional training exercises. Type 2 are very strong and have the greatest force output as previously mentioned and the practice of many sports, past a certain point, will not stress these enough to fully stimulate a positive performance enhancement. Anyone involved in sports will be best suited training type 2 fibres.

Every person has a different distribution of fibre types throughout their muscular structures. The majority of people have an distribution pattern that is in favour of intermediate twitch fibres (type 2a and 2ab) which have a moderate force output capability and moderate anaerobic capability making up about 60% of their muscles, the other 40% being made up of slow twitch type 1 fibres (20%) and type 2b fibres (18%) with a small amount of the strongest type 2x fibres (c2%). Those percentages were as an example only.

Others will have a distribution more favoured to one fibre type than another. Examples would include endurance athletes; they display a higher percentage of type 1 fibres than average. Strongman, power lifters, sprinters etc. display a higher than average percentage of type 2b fibres (type 2x dominance abnormalities will express themselves in only the most gifted of athletes – think Usain Bolt).

They do not display those fibre distribution patterns because of their sport; rather, they gravitated toward those sports because of their fibre type distribution.

A brief but important note;

Fibres are defined by the nerve that they are controlled by – fast twitch fibres are controlled in larger numbers (for example, one motor unit may control one hundred fibres) by a powerful motor unit with a strong electrical discharge and have a fast shortening speed. Slow twitch fibres are controlled in smaller numbers (for example, one motor unit may control only ten fibres) by smaller and less powerful motor units with slower shortening speeds and less powerful electrical discharge.

The greater your share of type 2b and 2x fibres, the bigger and stronger you can be. They have the greatest size of all the fibres and if you have more of them then you will get bigger than normal muscles.

The greater your share of type 1 fibres, the wirier and more enduring you will be. They are the smallest of the fibre types and even if you have lots of them, you will not ever be really large.

The more even distribution of fibres you have, the better all round athlete you can be. You can attain a great athletic physique.

If you have a domination of type 2b or 2x fibres then trying to become anything other than a strength athlete is futile – you will never excel at endurance events. The same holds true if you have a dominance of type 1 fibres, you will likely not succeed in strength based sports. Play to your strengths as the saying goes.

Now it gets a little tricky to break down training parameters into a simple text, I will however, try.

A muscle grows due to the depth and duration of fatigue (this may cause uproars, read on). If it were mechanical load/work as many follow then isometrics simply would not produce the same degree of hypertrophy as dynamic exercise, and they do.

Fatigue is best viewed as a depletion of strength away from your maximal capacity.

Example;

If your maximum strength is one hundred kilos and you lift eighty kilos until you can longer do so, then you have lost twenty kilos of strength. A momentary loss in strength of twenty percent.

Your dominant fibre type distribution will determine just how many repetitions you will achieve with these eighty kilos;

Type 2b and 2x dominant will perform far less repetitions, perhaps as little as three to six depending on the severity of the dominance.

An even mix of fibres (as most of the population have) will achieve between eight and twelve repetitions.

A tendency to be type 1 dominant will see higher repetition ranges from thirteen up to thirty and in some cases, more, depending on the severity of the dominance.

This will affect your training in two major ways. Firstly it will guide you to understanding which repetition ranges to utilize and secondly, perhaps of more importance, it will give you a sense of how frequently you should push hard in your training.

If you are type 1 dominant then you will mainly be working fibres that recover quickly and wont fatigue until higher repetition ranges have been used – frequent hard training can be handled and required for the fastest results to manifest.

Type 2a and 2ab dominant trainees will be training fibres that mostly recover moderately quickly and fatigue fairly slowly which will allow for higher repetitions ranges than someone of type 2b fibre dominance and slightly lower than a type one dominant trainee. The frequency of hard training will need to be less than someone who has a dominance of slow twitch fibres.

The type 2b/2x dominant trainee will fatigue to high levels within a limited number of repetitions, far less than a type 1 dominant trainee but they will likely display far greater levels of maximal strength. They will take a far longer period of time to recover due to this abnormal number of large type 2 fibres and would be best served only pushing their training hard very infrequently.

What use is this to you? It should at least signify the use of training by a guided percentage of your maximum ability opposed to just picking a traditional repetition range that may well be hindering your progress.

It has been said that you will gain the most size if you lift a weight that you can handle for eight to twelve repetitions, the most strength if you lift for three to six repetitions. Great, if you are an average mix of fibre types, if you’re not then that will likely produce limited results, if any at all. At this stage, many walk away from strength training. Sad but true, and understandable.

An example of how this may produce less than optimal or satisfactory progress is if you are anything other than type 2b/x dominant. A type one dominant trainee may be able to perform eight to twelve repetitions with 85 – 90% of their maximum effort, which leads to a fatigue of 10-15%, hardly enough to create anything approaching optimal stimulation.

A trainee with a standard mix of fibres lifting may need to use 75-80% of their maximum force for 8-12 repetitions, signifying a deeper state of fatigue at 20 – 25% – a better stimulus indeed.

The trainee that will get the most size (and ultimately strength) from the old recommendation of 8-12 repetitions for size is the one who has a domination of fast twitch type 2b and 2x fibres. An eight to twelve set may mean they need to use 60% of their maximum force and thus fatigue their muscles by 40%, a rather significant degree of stimulation.

Andy Bolton, the strongest dead lifter to walk the planet entered a friendly competition with friends to see how many times he could lift 200kg (his record at this time stands at 457.5kg), this represents a little over 40% of his maximum force output. He achieved 24 repetitions. Twenty four repetitions with 40% of your maximum shows a fatigue rate of about 2.5% per repetition. This shows that he has a fairly even distribution of fibre types. And what does this tell me? That there is more to strength than mere fibre types. Joint structure, tendon insertion points, limb lengths, muscle belly length and size and neurological factors such as rate of force development and motivation are HUGELY important subjects to consider. If you don’t have a great number of type 2b fibres, all is not lost if superhuman strength is your goal.

If your maximum strength is 100 kilos and you use 10 kilos of force then only the type 1 fibres are used. If you now use 80 kilos of force, the type 1 and all type 2 fibres are in use. If you continue to produce eighty kilos of force until you can’t and you are of a normal fibre distribution then you will have fatigued the small number of type 2b and x fibres you have to zero force capability, you will have fatigued the weaker type 2ab and 2a fibres to a lesser degree and the type 1 fibres to barely any mentionable level. This signifies that you have only stimulated enough fatigue to cause a great response in the type 2b/x fibre types but seeing as how this trainee has so few of them; it will make little difference to the size of his muscles. He would be better served training the fibres he has in large quantities, in this case, type 2a and 2ab.

From that example it should be clear that if another trainee is predominantly type 2b/x fibres then this will represent a much larger number of fibres that have been fatigued. If the trainee is a usual mix of fibre types then the depth of fatigue the majority of fibres have received is low and not enough to stimulate large scale results. What little number of type 2b/x fibres they have will still have been deeply fatigued, they are just not vast enough in number to manifest as any large scale results.

If you have 100 fibres in your muscles and 20 of them are type 2b/x, 60 of them are type 2b/ab and 20 if them are type 1 then which do you think he would be better focused on for hypertrophy training – the ones he has many of or few of? Just a thought…

Earlier I mentioned that fatigue was the stimulus for strength and hypertrophy. The question then becomes – how much fatigue is enough to elicit a response? The work of Medx over the past twenty or so years has suggested that fifteen to twenty percent fatigue will work to allow performance increases in strength of the lower back. Increases certainly, but not maximum increases.

A few have tried and applied this fifteen to twenty percent fatigue protocol for strength successfully, many have found this lacking.

This could be to do with the fibre type distribution previously mentioned and applying the incorrect number of repetitions suitable to their individual fibre type dominance, not resting long enough or training hard too often (causing overuse atrophy). However, it could be that reaching a suitable level of fatigue (peak fatigue) and then resting may not be enough of a stimulus to the body. Remember that high tension (above 60% effort) creates an anaerobic environment in which the cells approach death the longer they are anaerobic. A simple level of fatigue, achieved once, for a brief period of time (one set), may just be enough to stimulate gains for differing periods of time for each person. A more advanced trainee may need the fatigue stimulus to be endured for longer to manifest more dramatic gains, as you would experience with rest pause or drop sets due to prolonged occlusion.

Another point worth mentioning here is that to display maximum strength, the skill at which you want to display that strength should be practiced as often as possible, in the most specific way possible to specifically work the motor patterns and appropriate cross bridges* associated with that skill. This applies to all sports, perfect practice makes perfect.

* Each skill/movement pattern will use a different selection/degree of cross bridges to be formed due to muscles performing mechanical work by shortening. A joint nearer the position of flexion will display a greater number of cross bridges than one nearer extension. This goes a long way to explaining why new and unfamiliar movements will cause an unusual degree of soreness – new cross bridge connections are being strained in a way they usually are not.

A barbell athlete should train to be as muscular as his weight class allows and practice lifting heavy weights as often as possible to refine the exact and most efficient and economic way to lift.

A track and field athlete, a footballer, rugby player and all other sports should first and foremost practice the skills of their sport. They can then enhance their power production through strength training. They have no need to learn how to apply their maximum strength to a barbell as power lifters and Olympic weightlifters do. They should merely use barbells to grow the appropriate muscles and learn how to use them with the skill set specific to their sport.

If this seems gibberish to those of you involved in strength training you need look no further than the world strongest man competitors – they are clearly monstrously strong but their best barbell lifts are not world records, they know to use the barbells to build muscle and then learn how to specifically use it in their sport. If they were to focus on barbell only lifts and practice them as judiciously as they do their strongman lifts then I guarantee their barbell specific skills would display greater barbell lift numbers. Such is the specificity the body works to. Simple SAID principle.

Bottom line, lift weights progressively in a manner that is both appropriate to the fibre type you want to develop** and your specific goals.

**If you are of an average mix of fibre types and want to display as much strength as possible without putting on size then you would need to avoid fatiguing your dominant fibre type and focus on the less dominant and bigger type 2b/x fibres. Your maximum strength will be inhibited due to not achieving maximum size but you will get stronger (and a small, possibly unnoticeable amount bigger) and your power to weight ratio will improve. The same principles can be applied to any mix of fibre types if the avoidance of size is desired.

Watch out for part 4

The successful trainees are the ones that accept that no matter how effective a trainer you may have doesn’t take away from the fact that fat loss and body transformation is a battle won in the kitchen.

The REALLY successful trainees are the ones that eat right AND work hard in the gym. Really hard.

Chances are you don’t have the best genetics in the world…why else would you want a trainer if your results are already great? It just means you may have to put in twice the effort to get half the results. Sucks, but true.

What happens when you train with me in Epsom?

1) You will learn which foods will help your fat loss and performance goals

2) Like a ruthless Military commander I’ll trim away all the useless fluff exercises that are excess baggage and do nothing for your goals.

3) You will be trained in a manner that is realistic, tough and progressive so no matter where you start from you will be able to start.

4) Expect to lift weights, nothing is as effective as re-shaping a human body as diet and weights.

5) You may end up viewing me as the bringer of pain over time. Success in any endeavour requires painful sacrifice. I get no pleasure from your suffering, well perhaps just a little ;)

6) If your goal is fat loss then you will be expected to manage your diet through the advice and support given. Continued failure in this results in expulsion.

7) Your success is rewarded

8) Your failures, punished.

9) You will get stronger, faster, leaner and better as a matter of course.

10) You will succeed.

Don’t be another NHS statistic.

1)Deadlifts –  Push your bum back, sit on your heals and take a bow!

2)Treadmill – forget them them if you want to work your bum, run outside. It’s harder and forces your gluteus maximus (bum) to pull your leg back and thus propells your body forwards. Treadmills take that away from running.

3)Posture – the single best exercise I have found for improving posture and keeping a healthy spine is the deadlift along side the chin up.

4)Cardiovascular exercise does not have to mean spending a long time on a select few pieces of equipment. Anything that raises your heart rate for a prolonged period of time is “cardio”. Play with your exercises, mix and match them for interesting cardio.

5)Manage fatigue, both peripheral and central. Relax.

6)Harder not longer is a great mantra for exercise.

7)Fat Loss is far more a function of what food you put in your mouth. Eat less bad goop and more good vitalising food. I have known people train for years with no noticeable difference until they changed their eating habits. Don’t be that person.

8)Strength is about teaching your body to perform the normal under load. There is no way around lifting relatively heavy weights.

Take from this list what helps you, throw away the rest!

It should be noted at this stage that each muscle group around the body can display different ratios of fibre types.

Type 1 are classified as slow twitch and are aerobic in nature with a small anaerobic fuel supply. They can only produce a low level of force and recover very quickly (think seconds here).

Type 2 fibres are classified as fast twitch and there are varying classes of type 2 fibres; in order of force production from weaker to stronger, type 2a, 2ab, 2b and 2x.  It looks like 18% of people may not even have type 2x at all. Type 2 fibres have a larger anaerobic fuel supply than type 1 and will produce much higher levels of force. They are also bigger than type 1 and take a longer time to recover (this range is massively broad and can be from as little as a few hours to five or more days and can be dependent on the severity of tissue damage incurred during exercise). What has to recover is a matter of debate, ideas are that the nervous system becomes more drained from signalling to these fibres due to the higher energy demands, some say that depleted glycogen supplies cause the residual fatigue, others say that it is the calcium channels “leaking” ( a subject outside the scope of this paper). Whatever it turns out to be doesn’t change the fact it exists and needs to be considered.

Recruitment; the hierarchy of muscle

The heavier weight you move, the more fibres are recruited. 100% maximum effort requires that all fibres and fibre types work together (The percentage of effort that calls upon all fibres varies between muscles, the hand for example has been shown to use all fibres at as little as 40% effort, whereas the bigger thigh muscles may need up to 80% effort).

A 20% effort may only require a small collection of type 1 fibres to work. The required effort is not high enough to warrant calling in the use of the high energy type 2 fibres.

Muscle fibres are recruited according to the amount of force you require of them and the level of fatigue you have induced.

The smaller and weaker type 1 fibres will always be called upon first, then the slightly stronger type 2a, then 2ab, 2b and finally, if you have them, type 2x. At this stage, you are recruiting all of your fibres- this is always the case. There are other factors at play such as rate of force development; rate coding and synchronicity that will affect how much strength you can display but the explanation of such factors are not needed for an understanding at this stage.

In part 3 we’ll look at individual requirements for training and how these fibre types play a role that is mostly overlooked.

We see ripped abs, sexy buns and flat stomachs every day in advertising which leads us to believe that anybody can achieve such a physique. They can’t.

Genetic variance is so vast that the models used in advertising are such a rarity in society that they may as well be a different species. they are both physically and mentally different from the vast population. Humans have adapted for generations to display wildly different physical characteristics due to the environments with which they have been exposed.

Abs anyone?

Take the fatty deposits in the eyelids of the Mongolian people for an example; if it suddenly became in vogue to have such eyelids in the same way it has become cool to have a six pack, how many people do you think would succeed in training for this…..exactly, a tiny percentage of the globe. My point? Genetics, the coding you have been passed down from your ancestors greatly determines what you can be.

Muscle size and body fat distribution is no exception to this rule. If you have a lineage of thin, short muscled and tall ancestors, you will find it impossible to become a giant behemoth strong man competitor. If you come from a long line of sumo wrestlers, do you think you can get a six pack as easily as a family history of sprinters and athletes?

It also in the mind, we get passed down and nurtured into thought processes and lifestyle patterns that become so engrained in our being that to alter them would be as hard to grow a third arm. You may have the physical ability to be a great and lean athlete but if you are not of the mental capacity then you’ll never realise that potential.

Six pack in his family...I think not

For example;

I come from a long line of strong willed and physically active stubborn people. For generations we have worked hard manual jobs, been soldiers on horseback, farmers and gardeners. Being strong and capable is “in our blood” so to speak. To be weak and feeble is an insult to us. To be fat and greedy is an insult to us. Our minds and bodies are programmed for this and to change it would be an immense upheaval and would all but destroy our spirits in the process. It is who we are.

Now just think for a moment, if my ancestors were the opposite, if they were office bound, aristocrats or just plain lazy or came from a line where being over weight were seen as a sign of health and wealth for generations. Do you think it would be easy for them to change that trait, if all they have known is this? NO, it would be down right impossible in all but a few cases.

This is what I had passed to me

So if you are not lucky enough to have had the family before you I have that blessed you with frugal eating habits, big and strong bones and a mindset that says never quit you pussy then give yourself a break. It just may not be in your destiny to be athletic, strong and physically superior. It takes a strong willed person with the right hereditary expression to be a great physical specimen.

Average people see me train and are often times wowed by the weights I use and how hard I can push myself but make no mistake, I am as weak as kitten compared to any professional strength athlete, these guys were born to be huge and strong. Could they keep up with me on a heavy bag, a jump rope or chin ups…unlikely as they are not endurance types, their genetics allow them to be strong and massive and should they one day decide that they want to become master marathoners with their 6`5″ twenty stone bodies then they too would have as rude an awakening as the skinny kid wanting to be massive. It just ain’t in your future.

Play the cards you have and play them well.

Play your hand, whining wont change it

Am I saying that if you are fat you should just stay that way, no. I am telling you to keep some sense of realism to your goals; everyone can keep their body fat levels to a degree that is considered sexy and fit but not everyone can have a visible six pack.

Just because you can’t build a massive chest, firm round bum or mega arms doesnt mean that you can’t make them stronger and better than they are now, just be realistic.

I have a distinct feeling that I’ll never break any deadlift records because I simply don’t haver the mindset to eat anywhere near as much as I’d need to but it won’t stop me trying and I won’t be left in disbelief when it doesn’t happen. I am realistic.

With all that said, none of your best potential can ever be realised without the long term gut busting hard work that needs to be applied on a DAILY basis to achieve your own greatness. Sure some people appear to look great in-spite of their lack lustre efforts but that is down to their lucky genetics and the joke is on them, if they look great with pitiful efforts then they are wasting their potential by not pushing as hard as you. They lose out from not knowing what is like to push and achieve. Struggling and making it out the other side is what makes us great.

Writing this has inspired me to train harder as I know I can, some days I just wish I could work a little less intensely, eat what I want and it’ll somehow work out, I fall prey to that mindset too. The belief that my diet isn’t that bad or that my training will somehow counteract that diet. It won’t but sometimes I believe or hope it will. Then I look at myself and realise that to squander my ability is just downright rude and pitiful. People out there in this world struggle for so much more with so much less so who the fuck am I to bitch about what I don’t have. Who the fuck are you?

Who are you and what can you do?

Over the past few decades it has become more and more apparent that strong athletes are better than their weaker counterparts, the same can be said of everyday people; strong ones are more useful, less prone to illness and live a more independent and functional life.

Due to this realisation, people have been searching for the most effective method for increasing strength relative to an individual’s goal. An athlete that requires maximum power to weight ratio will want to be as strong as possible whilst minimizing hypertrophy (think gymnast or sprinters). An athlete that needs both maximal strength and hypertrophy (think scrum in rugby where extra weight is of most use) will want to train to increase both muscle mass and strength. Of course maximal strength can only be achieved with maximal muscle mass and skill practice.

Much debate rages about how to achieve these differing goals. This is my contribution to that debate.

First we need to understand what causes a muscle fibre to respond favourably to our goals and then we can manipulate that to suit our training.

When a muscle contracts, the blood flow is restricted and in turn the cells nutrient supply is also restricted. The harder it contracts, the greater the restriction. Once in a restricted state the internal fuel supply of the muscle switches from aerobic to anaerobic and has a finite length of time it is capable of sustaining that contraction (if you were to carry on past a point then the muscle cells would die as has been shown through forced electrical stimulation). This anaerobic switch usually occurs from approximately 60% of your best maximum force effort.

The longer the restriction of blood flow lasts, the longer the tissues go without nutrients. This causes a situation where the very lives of the cells themselves are threatened. New muscle will be grown in response to this so that you will be stronger meaning the same load can be handled for the same duration and not represent such a threat of death to the cells.

In part 2 we’ll begin to look at the different types of muscle fibres that each muscle displays and how to best utilise the knowledge to your advantage.

You are what you do and not what you say.

If you want to succeed then you have to want it as much a dying man wants to live. Nothing else can matter to you while in pursuit of your goal.

Will Smith shares a few of his outlook on his success in this Video:

When you look to lose a few pounds or shape up you have to want it badly enough and act on it!

Here in Epsom we train hard, we don’t just talk. Join us.

“I have a slow metabolism” OR “But I don’t eat much”

This article is a nice eye opener and offers sound advice.

“There’s a common belief that people who are overweight have a slow metabolism (burn energy slowly), while thin people have a fast metabolism (burn energy quickly). This is a myth.”

This should get your attention in itself.

If not, how about this little excerpt:

“When asked to write down everything they’ve consumed in a day, people tend to report eating far less than they actually do. This may be to impress the researcher or because they genuinely forget to include some items.”

Not enough? Bottom Line……

“The bottom line is you’ll gain weight if you consume more calories than your body needs. This can be a difficult fact to face, but recognising the need for change is vital for successful weight loss.”

No Personal Trainer has a magic pill or secret magic word to make fat loss anything other than food restriction and exercise.