If you’re not aware, Tim Ferris is author of the best selling book: the “Four Hour Work Week” (click here for the US version) which I have just finished reading and can say is a very inspirational book. I may just flip back to the start and re-read it immediately again, which would be a first for me.

Anyway, back to the point. As I said, Tim claims to have put on the muscle shown in the pictures (along with lose all his body hair and gain a tan! lol) in just 4 weeks. He says that his own study of muscular hypertrophy led him to:

“Follow Arthur Jones’ general recommendations for one-set-to-failure from the little-known Colorado Experiment, but with lower frequency (maximum of twice per week) and with at least 3 minutes between exercises.”

However I suspect the key factoid about how he did it is tied up in this step:

“Perform every repetition with a 5/5 cadence (5 seconds up, 5 seconds down) to eliminate momentum and ensure constant load.”

Which (I think) sounds very similar to the cadence prescriptions defined on the Optimum Performance Training blog which I know some Crossfitters are following, with great strength results.

Which brings me nicely to the germain issue, at least from my perspective: is this sarcoplasmic muscular hypertrophy or myofibrillar muscular hypertrophy? To be clear, sarcoplasmic muscled growth increases the size of your muscles, but does not increase their strength. Weird I know but true. Whereas myofibrillar muscle growth increases muscle size, but has a corresponding increase in strength.

Personally I don’t have a lot of interest in increasing muscle size. I’m not a body builder and have no intention of wasting my life working out for aesthetic reasons only. I’d rather be thin and strong, than big and (relatively) weak. So it’s a shame that Tim hasn’t supplied any strength figures.

But all that aside, is it even possible to put on such a huge amount of muscle in such a short period of time? Tim models himself as an exceptional person, which is his selling point, and maybe he did it. Certainly I’m not going to discount his story out of hand, but I doubt I’ll be following in his footsteps to see for myself. Would you?

It occurred to me that there’s one group of people who are pretty athletic, that given their underground nature, probably don’t frequent the mainstream gyms, but clearly have great strength and flexibility. Parkour types (what’s the collective name for people who do Parkour??). Look and you will find and all that, so here ia a Parkour strength training video, from my very own Manchester no less.

Checkout the weighted squats, pistols, burpees, broad jumps, human flags for reps(!), deadlifts, L-sits, muscle ups, L-sit muscles ups(!!), plus a load of crazy made up body weight exercises. I like their attitude too, I have no doubt they’d do very well at Crossfit!

It just goes to show, no kit is no excuse not to exercise, and the things you can do out and about are only limited by your imagination.

Imagine my surprise then, when we realised that our week’s holiday was actually affected by a Moroccan heat wave. The temperatures stayed around 44-45 degrees C, spiking on Tuesday to 47 and on Thursday into the 50’s!! It was so hot, even the camel riding was cancelled on the Thursday afternoon! This is what my daughter looked like after the morning session:

The irony was, that for the majority of the days then, it was too hot to lay in the sun, which was no hardship as I’m not really a sun bathing person. To be honest I find that idea of sun bathing moronic, and the concept of a “healthy tan” oxymoronic. It’s the old correlation / causation argument. A tan can be evidence of a healthy, active, outdoor lifestyle, but in itself, a tan is not a healthy thing to have. If my body had thought that I should have darker coloured skin, it’d grow some!

Marrakech is an interesting place, with a lot of history and just 3.5 hours flight from Manchester. We did the touristy thing and visited all the palaces and tombs etc. And wandered through the souks (market) in the Medina. There’s a lot made of the souks, that there are some 6000 shops there, many selling stuff that’s been hand made on the premises, and for that reason, it’s an interesting place to go. E.g. seeing a teenager making chess pieces with a hand bow lathe (no electricity) and his feet! But in reality, there are not really 6000 stalls, there are 6 stalls, each copied a thousand times. Once you’ve seen one leather slipper stall, you’ve seen them all. They are all the same, selling the same tourist tat.

And boy do you know you’re a tourist in Morocco. Everywhere you go, you’re hassled either for tips or to buy some tat. You can’t even take a photo or go to the loo without someone wanting paying for it. When we went out to Ourika valley, there was a gang of local tat sellers literally following the coach around on scouters and hassling us every time we stopped to get out.

I’m fairly convinced that every guide we had was on the take too, even the official ones. Mostly by telling us where not to buy, and only taking us to shops where they were on *very* friendly terms with the owners. Rarely are goods priced, and haggling starts at ridiculous numbers: 5-10x the price they should be. For English people in particular, haggling can be intimidating and they know they’ve got you before you even start. I wanted a small pendant and a belt and the guy started at £50 GBP for them! That’s not that far off an entire months national average income.

Do I recommend going to Marrakech? Yes.
Would I go back? No.
But if you do go, don’t go in mid summer!

I’ve really struggled with where to begin to describe the course, as there was just such a wealth of knowledge imparted by the training team, it’s almost too much to take in. We covered a vast array of material that draws on nearly a decade of experience in teaching children, from as young as 3 through to 17.

Of course there’s the material on what exercises are right for what age range. Including when to add weights, how much and in what increments. How much of a focus to put into form and how to get it across to the right ages for example, you can’t say to a 5 year old who you’re trying to teach the shoulder press to: heels under your shoulders, toes pointing out a bit, hands to shoulders, elbows in, mid section tight, now press, head forward, shoulders to ears etc. But you can tell them to jump up and down a few times, point their elbows at your knees, then push the sky up!

Breadth and depth are the 2 words that best describe the course. Of course we covered the 9 fundamental Crossfit movements: the shoulder press, push press, push jerk, air squat, front squat, thruster, deadlift, sumo deadlift high pull, and the medicine ball clean. But each one taught with a focus on the needs and limitations of three different age groups:

• Pre-school: 3 – 5 years
• Kids: 5 – 12
• Teens: 12 – 17

There were also talks on various topics which included subjects like: the origins and aims of Crossfit Kids; how to structure classes at the different age groups; safety, learning types; coaching cues; various science lectures e.g. about the brain’s development and its relationship to exercise, and scientific research into safety in sport, injury rates and bone density etc; how to fix common mistakes in all the exercises; teaching styles; general nutrition and how to educate the kids and deal with disagreements from parents; programming at various ages; how to motivate kids of all ages, with tricks and tips; trainer ratios; class sizes and even optimal kid placement in classes; a focus on sport specific athletes; internet safety and photography; health issues; business development etc etc etc!!!

You get the point. There was a ton of information which is absolutely invaluable and necessary for anyone who has an interest in teaching fitness to under 18s. I cannot recommend doing a Crossfit Kids certification course enough, it was amazing.

Probably the most amazing was seeing the fruit of Jeff and Mikki’s labours though, in the evidence provided by their 3 fine boys: Connor, Keegan and Duncan, and their friend David. I think you’d be hard pressed to find a group of stronger and fitter teenagers anywhere. These guys epitomise what Crossfit is capable of, in terms of building incredible athletes who can apply themselves to a broad range of physical endeavours. One anecdote about David probably sums it up nicely. It was a long story, so I’ll paraphrase:

David decided he wanted to run a sub 5 minute mile, and a marathon. Coach (Jeff) pointed out that whilst the mile was a good goal, the marathon was stupid, and as he’d already programmed his next 6 weeks of training and wasn’t going to change it. That very weekend, despite having not run more than 800m at any point in the previous 6 months, David decided to do it any, in fact he decided to kill both birds with one stone and ran the first mile of the marathon in 4:47 (or something like that, it was 4: something) and continued to run the rest of the marathon, finishing in 3 hours 29 mins (or similar). Pretty impressive without any marathon training whatsoever, but get this: on Tuesday he was back at the gym doing heavy squats, and continued to achieve personal best lifts at every session for the next 10 days!

Now that’s Crossfit and that’s the kind of fitness that years of Crossfit Kids training can achieve.

I’ve thought long and hard about what I want to say about it and also what I feel I can say about it. I am privileged enough to have been told some things in confidence, I haven’t betrayed that confidence and I have no intention of starting now. It’s no secret however that last year Karl Steadman left Crossfit Manchester in Stockport, and setup Crossfit 3D in Trafford. That event set the wheels in motion that have ended up with my decision of yesterday.

I don’t think it’s a secret either, that sadly the relationship which built the first Crossfit gym in England, soured as a result of that split. Once wrangling over who gets what in the divorce start (for divorce is essentially what it was), it’s inevitable really that it starts to feel personal and people get upset. I had hoped that I could remain impartial, as I have the greatest respect for both Mark and Karl, as I have attested to many times on this blog. They, as instruments of Crossfit, have had a profound affect on my life, and I owe them a debt of gratitude. Mark in particular spent a lot of time helping me attain my British Masters title this year, and I’ll long be grateful for that.

However it has become obvious in recent months that Mark and I were not seeing eye to eye on many things. I am not going to go into the reasons, as to do so would only give the impression that I’m airing my dirty laundry in public and I have no intention of doing that. Suffice it to say, that I’ve become increasingly unhappy this year, though no one thing was enough to tip the boat.

Fast forward to Monday and I decided that it was time to have a heart to heart, and Mark and I spent a good hour having a reasonably amicable, open and honest conversation. Mark is after all, a very nice and agreeable fellow. Someone who’s company I have enjoyed many times over the last 3 years outside of the gym environment. It was a useful conversation for many reasons, not least of which I felt it cleared the air and got stuff said.

To my surprise however I did learn that Mark and I disagreed on several more things than I’d even thought going into it, but he’d not felt in a position to say so before then. Notwithstanding that however, I was rather hoping we could work things out. Sadly, we couldn’t get past the sticking point that hopefully in the very near future, I’ll be working on a joint venture with Karl (more on that another time).

So before it came to a head, I decided to leave whilst Mark and I were still on amicable terms. I’d like to think I could pop in and say hi to Mark and Jo and the members I know down there occasionally. I still have a lot of affection for Mark and Crossfit Manchester and look forward to seeing them go from strength to strength. I certainly have no hesitation in continuing to recommend Crossfit Manchester to anyone that hasn’t got bored of my spouting off about Crossfit by now!

It’s always sad when a door closes on something that’s been a big part of your life, and I feel rather melancholic about it. Life is full of surprises though and you never know what tomorrow will bring.

“Oh really?” I replied. “And what diet are you trying exactly?”

Long story short, one of the guys I work with, who I’ve been sporadically talking to about Crossfit and weight lifting and the zone diet and paleo diet, has taken it upon himself to try out some of my dietary suggestions. Specifically he seems to have only made 2 changes to his diet:

1. Stop eating bread
2. Only eating pasta once a week

Ok that’s not a bad start, I approve of both those things. Interestingly he’s not done anything else, like increasing exercise for example (not that that’s of much use as we know that exercise doesn’t reduce weight much), nor has he changed the rest of his diet much. So I was quite interested to hear what effect these 2 changes had had, here’s what he said:

• He’s lost 1.5 stone (21 lbs or 10kg) in just 6 weeks
• Stomach cramping / bloatedness has gone

WOW!! I’m not surprised, but still super impressed. Well done that man. I’ve adopted a phrases from one of my other work colleagues: bread is the Devil’s Dough!

That claim is backed up by this piece of research done when France won the 1998 world cup. In which it says:

Instead of about 33 deaths a day in the five days before and after the match, 23 men died of a heart attack on match day.

So there was a 30% drop in heart attacks in men the day France won the World Cup. Which means there should be a similar reaction in Spain. 10 more Spanish men are alive (or at least escaped a life changing trip to the hospital) as a result of Spain’s win yesterday.

But, in true interweb science fashion, there’s another study which says it ain’t so. This study reports that:

In a study conducted during the 2006 World Cup in Germany, researchers reported that men are three times more likely to have heart attacks on days when their national football team is playing in a key match.

Although it should be noted that this study was done in Germany, and Germany didn’t win the 2006 World Cup (Italy did), so maybe football increases heart attacks throughout the group and knockout stages, but there’s a reduction on the final day, if you actually win.

So I guess the real question is, how many people did the World Cup competition kill?!?

Well, remember those interactive adventure books you used to read as a kid, where you’d get to the bottom of the page and you’d have to make a plot decision? “If you attack the troll, turn to page 18. If you run away crying like a little girl, turn to page 37.” Well this is an hilarious interactive adventure video serious, featuring the one and only Lindsay Lohan (spoof obviously). It’s a corker:

I’m reminded of this xkcd.com cartoon:

As if diet wasn’t important enough already, it seems you can’t feed your kid junk, then kick him/her out to play and hope they burn it off.

It was a 2 day course, all day Saturday and Sunday, and teaches you how to coach the basic Olympic Weightlifting lifts, specifically the Snatch, Clean and Jerk. Whilst it is predominantly a practical course, it doffs a cap to health and safety obviously, a bit on stretching, warm-ups and downs and scheduling (or programming if you prefer that term). As I said though, it is mostly a practical course with some time watching demos of the lifts, plenty of time to personally practice the lifts in small groups of 3 or 4, and a lot of opportunity to coach others.

In terms of assessment, there was a practical test where we had to stand up in front of the group and go though the BWLA method for teaching the Power Clean, including a personal demonstration and also coaching a student. Additionally there’s a 90 minute written exam at the end, which has been sent off for marking, so I’ll have to wait to hear back on how I did on that. It didn’t escape my notice that I was the last to finish the exam! The point being, that this isn’t just a “Certificate of Attendance” course; t is assessed both practically and academically.

We were very lucky to have as our instructors, 2 very experienced lifters who have both lifted on the international stage and refereed at a world class level: Suzy Trebillock and Eddie Halstead. It was a privilege to benefit from their experience.

It was a useful course and I do recommend it. As a Level 1 course it gives the basics of how to breakdown and teach the Olympic lifts. There is a follow on Level 2 course, which is the full BWLA Club Coaches’ course which is over 2 weekends, but that is more theoretical, looking more a physiology and programming rather than practical hands on coaching.