EXERCISE: THE DECISION AND PRECISION OF AN ATHLETE

‘ZERO I ON YOUR TARGET’ . . .

Through practicing different exercises, after a while, you start to realize what works and what doesn’t; what exercises to keep, and which ones to dispose of - especially if you feel like you have a limited amount of time during the day.

When you have kids to care for, or long 9-12 hour shifts, but you feel like you ‘must do something to look after yourself!’

. . . I may not have kids to care for, or 9-12 hour shifts (most of the time), but I have multiple projects going on outside of work, so I too, have to be decisive about which exercises to choose for my goals: Strength, Hypertrophy, Flexibility, mobility, and endurance.

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MY EXAMPLE

Like I said above, I don’t fully understand what it’s like to look after children, or parents, I will however, do my very best to help you guys ‘zone in’ on what exercises you can do to accomplish your goals, by starting with my own example:

For Hypertrophy (size): Heavy lifts, such as barbell deadlifts, squats, bent-over row, and shoulder press. Additional exercises that help are, Front Row (or high pull), dumbbell lateral raises, and barbell lunges.

For Strength: The above exercises all included with additions of barbell cleans, barbell snatches, and and resistance bands to exercises to increase the resistance of the movement. Additionally, I structure the sets, reps, and rest periods, to cater for ‘strength’.

For Flexibility and Mobility: I add alternating split-movements as best I can; performing hamstring, glute, calf, and lower back stretches (because they are my weakest areas). Finally, for shoulder and thoracic mobility, I add thoracic spine wall rotations and thoracic spine foam roller extensions - because, I learned a while back that most of the time, shoulder mobility is restricted by limited thoracic spine mobility.

For Endurance (of all kinds): I add long distance runs, long distance swims, Every-Minute-On the-Minute (EMOMS), and As-Many-Rounds-As-Possible (AMRAPS). When it comes to AMRAPS, they’re usually 10-15 minutes, and EMOMS can be any time between 10 to 40 minutes.

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WHAT YOU CAN DO

Following on from the above example, think about what components of fitness you want, and think about the body shape you want - what are you trying to achieve?

For Energy and Endurance (of all kinds): you can add EMOMS, AMRAPS, long distance cardio, such as running, swimming, cycling, or rowing. Methods like EMOMS and AMRAPS are flexible in what you can add in there - you can add your favourite exercises in there and you will never get bored!

For Strength (but not size): you can add the above mentions for strength like your heavy compound lifts, and structure their sets and reps for strength and not hypertrophy. You can also add ‘overcoming isometrics’ which is a concept that Bruce Lee used to become strong, but not big, because he knew it would effect his martial arts movement and speed. Overcoming isometrics is when you pick a movement and stack the weight, or resistance to a point where you cannot move it - you push against the weight without moving it, and become stronger over time. It also directly relates to speed of movement. Examples? isometric bicep curl, isometric barbell squat, isometric deadlift, etc.

For Flexibility and Mobility: you can add all of the above, and your favourite stretches, like the ‘Cobra’, the ‘Downward Dog’, the glute stretch, or ‘Standing Child’s Pose’.

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FINAL NOTES: 

1. Frequency of exercises are important: For strength exercises I recommend twice per week for each body part (only if possible). If not, combine them to save time. For flexibility and mobility, 3 times per week MINIMUM, to notice benefit in a shorter amount of time.

2. Structure the sessions in a way that caters for the component of fitness: strength=8-15; power=3-6, and so on.

3. You can have more than one short session per day if you feel like you can - like mentioned before, AMRAPS and EMOMS are a great way to get those short, but intense session in; they contribute to your endurance, weight loss etc., and you can fit them in more than once, because they only last about 10 minutes (depending on how many rounds you want to do).

4. Finally, recovery is important - make sure you are getting the right amount of macros (especially high quality protein), nutrients for your body weight, water, sleep and rest for each workout. If you are only sticking to 10-15 minutes twice per day, then this allows mor time for more efficient recovery.

Thanks for reading!

Brad

Tel: 07376 941640

Email: [email protected] 

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RESOURCES:

‘Top 5 Thoracic Spine Mobility Drills’: Bing Videos

Renaissance Periodization: Renaissance Periodization - YouTube

Alice Mitchell: ‘Coach Mitch’ @Alice Mitchell (@coach_mitch_) • Instagram photos and videos

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This is a work of non-fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s research and experience or are used factually. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely accurate.  

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