- You are here:
- Home »
- Uncategorized »
- Lessons From Slipping and Falling on My Arse
Lessons From Slipping and Falling on My Arse
(And an ideal training training template over a week)
A couple of weeks ago, it was super icy as I’m sure you were aware.
So I was leaving the house on way to the gym and I took an absolute flyer.
Like, literally…both feet up in the air and I thought I was going to crack my head or break something.
Fortunately, I moved quick enough so that my arm hit the step before my head did and my forearm took most of the impact.
Now yes I was lucky. No doubt.
But there are also a couple of crucial lessons here where I think training for a long time really helped me.
1)Strong bones.
Diet definitely helps here getting plenty calcium out but there are links to stronger bone density and physical activity/strength training.
As we all get older our risk of falling increase. The cool thing about training and getting stronger is you are giving yourself the best chance to either not fall or if you do…reduce the damage/severity.
2)Why we program the way we do.
We put a lot of time into this at the gym and over time through doing this, training lots of clients, myself and being in the industry for over 10 years now I think there is a ‘sweet spot’ or template for the ideal fitness program so that it covers all bases.
So what is the ideal template over a week for example.
8 workouts. Yeah I know we have 7 days and only so much time so how do we get this in? Stick with me and I’ll explain what they are and HOW to get them in…
(Side note: as I alluded to a couple of weeks ago, your chances of success over a YEAR will only need 50% compliance on food and exercise on an ideal week or program so don’t stress on this and DON’T STOP.)
Strength Work – 2-3 times per week. This would be 8-10 hard strength sets across big muscle groups over 2/3 sessions. In the gym this would be like Power/Build or in our Small Group sessions really pushing hard in the strength blocks and striving for better every time.
High Intensity or HIIT – 2 times per week as a target. We are really testing our heart rate here. Getting into red and yellow zones for a session (if using HR Monitors in gym).
Steady Cardio – 2 times per week. This is probably the easiest to do on your own and no reason why you couldn’t do this one hour per day getting a decent paced walk in. But it would also be just going on the bike or rower and sitting between 130-150 beat per minute for the entire time and working at about 60-70% of your maximum. This could be part of a recovery day that’s why it’s important this element of cardio is light and done as an active recovery, rather than a workout.
Speed/Power work – 1 time per week. As we get older we Don’t necessarily lose strength, we lose power. And for things like falls and me above ^^ this is huge. Reaction time, coordination and ability to move quickly improves by doing this regular.
Essentially here. You use it or you lose it so you must keep doing things fast. This doesn’t mean you have to do sprints or anything like that but in the gym it could be fast feet, ladder work, ball slams etc. Doing something like this one time per week is crucial to keep your power output up and your ability to keep you injury free for longer.
As you can maybe tell you can incorporate these into one session as we do in the gym anyway. We may have a strength blocks, cardio and speed work thrown in within 1 session so you can cover multiple and strength focused sessions like power and build.
You could cover all 8 of these over 4/5 days.
We are also going to be testing ‘sweat’ sessions out in the new year which will be pure cardio and high intensity work.
And you can easy use open gym at times to use cardio kit and get your 45min-1 hour work in.
I have been doing this a long time now for my own training and especially since I stopped playing football. And has helped me tick all boxes with my training and the key as ever is not doing it perfect…but just keep going and keep doing it. Regardless how you feel or how motivation is.
You will ALWAYS be better off for it in the longer term 😃
It’s also important to be aware this goes hand in hand with proper sleep and nutrition.
There are 3 buckets to long term change and striving to be the best version of yourself.
Health and long term behaviour & habit change is something we cover a lot. Making sure our daily habits align with our longer term goals…whatever they may be.
Nutrition and having an element of tracking what goes into your body. This doesn’t mean obsessing about calories – there are many forms of tracking.
The final one which we have covered here is Performance.
The by product of all of these is change in your body composition – what we usually want the most initially – body fat goes down, lean muscle mass improves and we manage our weight the way we want to.
Having an awareness of all of these will not only give you what you want…you will be able to sustain in longer term, build confidence, a level of accomplishment and enjoy the process.
Hope that all makes sense?
Dan
P.S. If you would like to join our wait list when we re-open for new members late January/Early February
Dan Moore Elite Training
3 Longman Drive
Inverness Highlands IV1 1SU
UNITED KINGDOM