Once again the blog has been a bit on the barren side.
It seems that it is now October and Autumn has set in, last time I looked up It was the start of September and the Missus and I were preparing our kids to start back at school.
The last 4 weeks have been off the wall.
Off the wall in a good way, but off the bloody wall!
While my group classes have been a little quite of late, but hell, with the unseasonally good weather, why wouldn’t people want to be outside, but my private/semi-private services have been nuts. Add to that the weekend workshops and September has been a blur.
That said, even though time has been against me, I feel I’ve made great gains in strength and mobility.
How?
By taking on a minimalist training program built around the big rocks and then taking movement breaks whenever I can.
Lets explain.
The big rocks of training:
Upper Body Push Upper body Pull Lower Body
In my case they’ve comprised of: Dips on the rings Pull ups, again on the rings Back Squats
As I have good mobility I can use a high bar position on the squat to go full range, ie my hamstrings touch my calves on every rep. If you can’t et this deep, you’ll need to add in some extra work on the hamstring/glute with some kind of deadlift.
These three drills, hit 3-5 times per week with high intensity in the 3-5 rep range, albeit never to failure have helped with strength and muscle density. Working the rings has been lovely on my old dicky shoulder.
Now for movement breaks.
Before you say it, yes I spend all day every day in my own gym, so I can train whenever I want to. While you are stuck behind a desk or whatever it is that you do to earn a crust.
But we all work.
Yes I work in a training environment, but I’m still short on time and have a family life to get home to.
This is where the concept of exercise breaks comes into its own.
It’s ridiculously simple.
Whenever you have 5-10 minutes, get down on the floor and move.
That’s it.
You may be working on specific actions, I do a fair bit of crawling and hanging. Sometimes I move into and out of various bridge type positions or work hand stand progressions. Maybe it’s merely a few reps, other times its several minutes of unbroken motion.
Hovering is an advanced form of movement….
All in, I think I train three days for around 40 minutes at a time, and then accumulate another maybe 30 or so minutes per day of non specific movement work.
If you’re a busy person, and lets face it who isn’t, this is more than adequate to keep you strong and healthy.
When you have the concept of exercise breaks down, the idea of not having time to train goes straight out the window.
Try it for yourselves.
Regards
Dave Hedges www.WG-Fit.com
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