Pulling Power

It's getting towards the end of the month and time to start thinking about tweaks to my program for April.
For my legs I'm changing the French Contrast to focus on explosive power and increased velocity, this will involve lighter loads, faster movements and slightly modified exercises - more on this in a future blog post.

I am now looking to increase my explosive upper body pulling power, this prompted a discussion with Will Wayland (http://www.powering-through.com) about possibly using French Contrast for upper body pulling.

The French Contrast method is best used to increase ballistic power, so it lends itself to jumping or pressing very well.
But upper body pulls tend not to be ballistic or explosive. However I do want to develop explosive ballistic power in my upper body pulls. This power will make muscle ups and Parkour climb ups easier to perform.

The discussion then moved onto how it could be achieved by varying the exercises slightly so as not to completed destroy yourself. Will was of the opinion that weighted pulls ups and variations thereof would be a good start but was concerned that a lack of variation would fatigue the upper body. I wanted to take a slightly different approach and look at using barbell bent over row and kettlebell bent over row in addition to pull up variations to avoid excessive fatigue by just using one exercise.
After some further discussion and different ideas on exercises and contrasts, we settled on what we both think will be an efficient French Contrast method for building upper body pulling power, specifically with regard to the muscle up.

As much as I don't want to turn into a 'one trick pony' the increased power in my legs is phenomenal, so I am going to try French Contrast for upper body pulling during the month of April.

One session per week will be as follows.
3 sets of the following French Contrast circuit:
3x Weighted (high) pull up, 14.5kg
5x fast medicine ball slams (driven by lats)
3x Resistance band speed row
5x band assisted muscle up (on bar)
With 2-3 minutes recovery between sets

Each of the pulling exercises pull will involve taking the elbows back as far as possible, the pull ups will all be chest above bar (I hope)

After this circuit I'll then perform these additional exercises:
3 sets of 10reps 2x 20kg kettlebell bent over row
3 sets of 5reps Bulgarian dips on rings (must not forget top phase of the muscle up)
3 sets of 6 band pull/push (featured in this video)
3x 30 second static hold, chest to bar (top of pull up)
3 sets of 6reps 70kg Barbell overhead press 

That should be enough to blitz my upper body and increase ballistic pulling power.
I'll keep you posted on how it's going.

This is purely me experimenting on myself to see how it works out.

If you want to try it yourself please let me know how you get on

Barbell bent over row can wait until next month

Training Zoe Salmon

Following on nicely from my post on getting ladies to lift, I spent the afternoon yesterday with TV's Zoe Salmon.
Sadly I didn't have her in the gym lifting large loads, we were being filmed by Mars and I was teaching her the basics of Parkour as part of their newest initiative to get Britain active.

As expected, the former Blue Peter presenter was quite up for trying new things and was very competent for a complete beginner. Zoe got to grips with vaulting and swinging on bars very quickly, as well as adding a few inches to her standing jump by improving her technique over the afternoon. She even managed to put together a short run incorporating a selection of techniques.

Most interestingly was seeing an adult complete beginner face a technique at height, the 'height' involved here was around 3ft off the ground and was a precision jump between 2 walls with a distance of no more than 4ft between them.
Despite having made the distance on the floor and being absolutely fine standing or walking on the walls at that height, Zoe simply could not bring herself to make the jump.
Nothing else we tackled phased her at all, she literally threw herself into the more complicated techniques and movements (at greater heights I might add).
Given more time I would have liked to get her to make the jump by gradually building up to it, sadly we were pressed for time and had to leave that particular jump.

All in all Zoe was a joy to train, was up for (almost) everything and she didn't even mind being outside jumping around all afternoon!

I'll definitely be making sure that my regular Parkour students are pushing themselves to overcome fears and better themselves.

Zoe Salmon with Brad Wendes

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I was once again pleasantly surprised by my increased leg strength and power. 

The area we filmed in is one I am very familiar with and have trained Parkour there many many times over the past few years.

I have not trained there since starting my French Contrast training.

Jumps that were previously challenging were now easy, jumps that took some concentration were now much more achievable. It's a great feeling to see direct results of training and feel the benefits in context in my sport.

Just in case you missed it, here's the article on increasing jump power: http://bradwendes.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/how-to-increase-your-vertical-jump.html

Ladies Who Lift

What women think vs. what actually happens

"women can't lift weights, it's dangerous", "if women lift weights they'll look like bodybuilders", "I just want to 'tone up' with cardio"... These statements are nonsense!

I'm quite pleased to say that I'm hearing more and more people ignoring the "ladies can't lift"myth, I even had a lady call out "strong is the new skinny" during one of my circuits classes. Quite a proud moment.

Becki bodyweight deadlift

I've been training a couple of ladies at Mi-gym.com recently and it's been great to see former traditional gym goers (studio class and 30mins on a cross trainer) having a go at Olympic Lifting as well as some large compound lifts. Not only are the ladies seeing gains and progress towards their goals, they're also quite enjoying themselves (having fun while training hard, surely not?!)

Rachel smiling with a barbell

For anyone that's still not convinced; please remember that the people who compete in bodybuilding contests train really really hard every day, they eat thousands more calories than any of us on a daily basis, and generally speaking they have genetic advantages. There is also a large recorded use of drugs to help achieve the correct aesthetic.
If it was as easy as lifting something heavy a couple of times per week at the gym, we'd ALL look like Mr or Mrs Universe.

Rachel squatting 80kg

I'm not sure who first started the myth that heavy weights will bulk you up, but it has stuck over the years and wrongly makes many people—both men and women—afraid of lifting heavy weights. While there is some truth to the idea that lifting lighter weights for more reps does a better job of increasing the muscular endurance, lighter weights will not help you "tone" better than heavy weights. In fact, because heavier weights build the strength of your muscles (and the size to a small degree—but not to the Hulk effect), thereby helping to increase your metabolism and burn fat, lifting heavier weights with lower reps (8 to 12 on average) and working until you're fatigued is more effective at helping you reach your toning goals than lifting lighter weights. Not to mention that it's more time efficient, too!

So ladies, get yourself to the gym and pick up something heavy.
Don't be intimidated by barbells and dumbells, firstly think of the least intelligent man you know at the gym, does he lift weights? How hard can it be then?
Get yourself booked in with a trainer to show you how to safely and correctly perform a few major lifts; deadlift, squat, bench press & bent over row would be a good start.
Anyone local to myself, drop me an email: brad@bradwendes.com and we'll get you down to mi-gym.com for some serious results-based training!

DO YOU EVEN LIFT?! Hopefully the answer will be 'yes'.

Lift like a man, look like a Goddess

On the left is 'diet skinny' on the right is a trained posterior 

Using more muscle will burn more calories. Simples...

For some further reading, here's a couple of great articles that explain in more depth about the 'Toning Myth':

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/goulet5.htm

http://www.sparkpeople.com/resource/fitness_articles.asp?id=1662

How to increase your vertical jump

I know we discussed the French Contrast and how it fits into my current program earlier this week.
But I really feel the need to share the workout again as I've now added TWO INCHES to my vertical jump in two weeks.
I'm really impressed at how much of a difference this has made and how quickly I'm noticing gains.

If you want to give it a try yourself, here's a video tutorial I uploaded this evening:

Let me know how you all get on...

Brad Wendes 110kg barbell squat

Training with Will

Few pictures from a session at Mi-Gym today with Will Wayland

Brad Wendes 105kg squat

Front squats with chains

Will Wayland front squat with chains

Check out the guns!

In line RDL

In line RDL

40kg barbell curl with thick grips

40kg barbell curl with thick grips

40kg barbell curl with thick grips

Pretty face...

Will Wayland 40kg curl with thick grips

Thick grip curls

French Contrast

Now we're in March 2013 and I'm using a programme that's much much more fun!

My current goals are as follows:
Increase power and strength in legs (for jumping)
Increase upper body pulling power (for muscle-ups)
Acquire Aesthetics (don't judge me!)


I'm using a French contrast method for jumping power and I've added 5kg to my back squat in just 2 weeks!

This method is essentially 4 exercises performed consecutively, followed by a 2-3 minute rest, then repeat for 3 sets.
The exercises start with 3 reps of a heavy load, then 5 reps of minimal load, 3 reps of a moderate load and lastly 5 reps of an assisted exercise (accelerated eccentric)

For leg strength and jumping power I'm doing the following:
3 reps - 105kg Back Squat
5 reps - tuck jump
3 reps - 32kg kettlebell squat jump
5 reps - band assisted jump

I then rest and repeat this 'circuit' 3 times.

After the French Contrast (above) I'm performing 4 sets of 3 high pull ups (chest over bar) as fast and powerful as I can manage.
Then 3x 10reps bent over row with 32kg (2x 16kg kettlebells)
Lastly I barbell curl 35kg for 3 sets of 6reps.

I'm performing this workout twice per week.
In the first 2 weeks of this I have noticed significant increase in leg strength and hip mobility.


Once per week I've adding in an extra workout that's aimed more at upper body strength / maintenance and some glute / posterior chain exercises:

Ring Muscle Up - 4 sets of 4reps
35kg barbell curl - 4 sets of 5reps
press up - 4 sets of 10reps
70kg bench press - 3 sets of 6 reps
110kg deadlift - 3 sets of 6 reps
20kg Kettlebell swing with band resistance - 3 sets of 6 reps


I'll keep you posted on how this programme works out of the next few weeks....


Great article on contrast training:
http://www.musclemag.com/muscle-building/high-contrast-for-huge-gains/

Article on French Contrast method with regard to American Football:
http://www.stack.com/2012/04/04/build-power-for-football-with-french-contrast-workouts/

Hepburn Method

After training with Will Wayland in February this year, I decided to have a try at the Doug Hepburn method to get stronger. Will was using it for a month to change his training up.

This is a methodical grind to get progressively stronger using large compound lifts.

Essentially you start by lifting 80% of your 1RM for 8 sets of 2 reps (with 2 mins between sets) using 4 major lifts. 

I used:

Deadlift

Back Squat

Bent Over Row

Overhead Press  (in place of bench press due to lack of a bench)

You train four times per week, each session you add 1 rep to each lift.

So the sets on your programme will look like this for each exercise:

Day 1 - 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2

Day 2 - 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3

Day 3 - 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3

Day 4 - 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3

etc...

When you have performed 8 sets of 3 reps you add 5kg to the lift on your next session, go back to 8 sets of 2 and start over.

You can see that this is a really methodical 'grind' to increase your maximum lifts.

Every 8 workouts (2 weeks) you will add 5kg to each of these exercises.

Theoretically you'll add 130kg to each of these lifts in a year. That's quite some achievement! 

While this method is a great way (in theory) to build strength, it's incredibly dull. You perform 2 or 3 reps, then wait 2minutes before doing it again.

Every workout is the same and it leaves you exhausted.

I lasted 3 weeks before moving onto something more enjoyable - I was significantly stronger after just 3 weeks though....

Advice, information, assistance...

Now Mi-Gym is a great place to exchange ideas. There's myself with gymnastic and Parkour experience alongside traditional gym / fitness, there's a superb boxing coach, a competing Olympic Lifting Coach, a real life Triathlete / Watt Bike expert, the boss bear Rachel Young herself (if she don't know it about the fitness industry, it ain't worth knowing!) but best of all, another good friend of mine trains and coaches out of Mi-gym; William Wayland.

Although I'd never say it to his face, Will is a massive inspiration and influence on my training. Will is possibly the most knowledgable person I have ever had the pleasure of chatting with when it comes to health, fitness, anatomy & physiology, strength & conditioning or getting results.
As well as being a wealth of knowledge he's just about the most approachable and forthcoming person you'd ever hope to meet.
So if you want to educate your training then hit up his website and listen to this man!
Will Wayland's website is called Powering Through, go read it! http://www.powering-through.com/

William Wayland