DEAN COULSON

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Injury, Motivation

Bad Training Days

I am sure everybody has gone through this, you get all fired up for a training session, got a real good feeling, get to the gym and it just doesn’t go right for you, in fact nothing went right!

What do you do when a session hasn’t gone as planned, in fact what if it sucked?

Do you:

Go in a strop for the rest of the day?
Let it affect your next session by not doing that exercise again?
Stop training for a while?
Never train again?

If the answer is yes to any of the above questions then you need change how you think and soon.

Some of the above might sound a bit extreme to some of you, but I have actually seen it happen with some people!

Bashing yourself up about it ain’t the way to go. It can lead to all kinds of negativity and self doubt, eventually leading to stopping doing things altogether.

Back in the saddle

The first thing you must do is don’t get so wrapped up in it. If the session was crap, then deal with it and move on. Use it to push yourself the next time, do not over analysis it and continually question, this is the path to self doubt, so that the next time you are at the gym you will be thinking about how you couldn’t lift a particular weight and it will have an adverse affect.

I deal with it by getting mad with myself for losing the battle and making damn sure next time that I win it, whether it is with the iron or with a conditioning drill. Whatever it is will be destroyed the next time.

Injury & Illness

Of course there are times when there will be other situations, such as if you get injured or if there is something underlying like a bug which doesn’t allow you to perform at the level that you are used to. In these cases, each issue should be assessed on its own merits, however these are only lapses, don’t allow them to manifest into weeks off the gym (unless of course it is serious!).

Journal it!

Of course the only way to remember what didn’t go right is to keep a training journal. Sometimes reflecting back over the previous week provides an answer to what happened, but at the very least, it gives you that target that you will be gunning for.

Get mad and annihilate it!

Dean

Conditioning, Speed

Get Lean & Explosive with Hill Sprints

I find hill sprints an awesome conditioning drill, a great way to increase explosive power, endurance and leg strength, especially the hamstrings and groin muscles.

I remember when I was at school I used to see people my age and younger running a local hill, a decent incline up to the top, round the tree and down over and over. I used to think they were mad!

Fast forward a number of years and that is no longer the case. I got into it by chance, a local running route some time ago had some pretty sharp inclines and I used to challenge myself every time to get up them as quick as possible. Just got me thinking that I could do the same thing over and over as a different way of conditioning without a 5 mile run attached.

The Same Hill

I ended up using the same hill that those runners did years before; it is under a mile away from where I live, which serves as a decent warm up by way of a jog.

This is a great way to develop…..

Mark out about 100 yards on the hill (I used that tree as a marker) and aim for around 10 sprints. The first sprint is always at a moderate pace, really to acquaint the tendons muscles and ligaments to the hill, get the arms pumping in a rhythm and to get me breathing right. Walk down the hill for a recovery period. This way you get the most out of every sprint.

Long stride

The next sprint, I work on a long stride pattern mostly for power building as this technique retards forward momentum somewhat. It also restricts all out sprinting and serves as a further warm up.

All out fastest sprints

After that you should be sufficiently warm to go all out, this involves a short stride and a high knee motion going for as fast a leg frequency as possible, don’t forget to pump your arms and keep the sprint going to the end, in fact imagine the end is 5 metres past actual end point so you don’t allow yourself to fade.

Ramp the intensity!

Just doing the sprints is fine but what about ramping up the intensity?

At the bottom of the hill I perform a body weight exercise, I usually perform 1 upper body then a lower body the next time. This could be push ups (different variations), squats, lunges, even burpees.

Sample Workouts

Sprint up a hill 10 times and walk back down.

Intensify it with Body weight…

If you want to challenge yourself add some body weight exercises at the bottom of the hill as follows….

Sprint uphill – Walk back down – 20 Body weight Squats
Sprint uphill – Walk back down – 20 push ups
Sprint uphill – Walk back down – 20 Lunges
Sprint uphill – Walk back down – 20 Close grip Push ups
Sprint uphill – Walk back down – 20 Squat Jumps

you don’t have to think of dozens of exercises, use the 5 above and repeat twice or just use 1 exercise or 1 upper and one lower body. The combinations are endless and are only restricted by your imagination.

Make it competitive…..

If there is a bunch of you introduce partner drills……

Race each other up hill, then walk down to recover at the bottom. When the last man reaches the bottom go again. It pays to be fastest uphill to get more rest down. Remember though, walk back down the hill for recovery.

Not tough enough? Try hill carrys….

Carry your partner up the hill as fast as possible, then both walk back down and repeat with roles reversed. If you don’t have a partner for hill carry’s, introduce objects such as sandbags, tyres, sleds. Anything to add resistance.

Enjoy!

Dean

Conditioning, Motivation, Strength

Warrior Training

I am a big believer in thinking outside the box, doing away with convention and finding another way, a better way, an even harder way of doing things. If it doesn’t make you uncomfortable, even fearful, it isn’t worth doing. It is these boundaries that you must push through to grow.

I see too many people at commercial gyms who do nothing. Sure they are there, but what are they really doing? Getting fit and strong? I doubt it. They justify it to themselves that they workout 3, 4 or even 5 times a week because they go to a gym. But what that really equates to is that they go to the gym that many times. Do they put the work in? Not really, they go to meet their mates or sit on a stationary or recumbent bike for an hour, achieving very little and wondering why they are still out of shape. I was talking to someone last week who trains weights in the morning and does classes in the evening. No program to speak of! WTF? From what they were saying they could take it down to a third of what they are doing now and be better off and get better results.

Get in, Get out!

People need to get off their arses and start putting some effort in. My motto for training is “Get in and get out”. If it is a strength day I will be looking at least 2 or even three personal bests to be broken, if I don’t I am really not happy with myself and you can bet your bottom dollar that it will drive me to push harder the next time. I want to get in there spend quality time in there and get home with the job done.

If it is conditioning then I am looking at one more round than the previous week or Jumping higher, faster or longer than I have before. Doing this shows me I am improving. Whether it is one of the strength factors (maximal, speed, explosive) or Conditioning via GPP, HIIT or tabata protocols, I want to see improvement.

Time Limit

If I achieve that before the cortisol starts kicking in at around 45 minutes then I am a happy man. I always aim for max effort in the shortest time. I might feel tired straight afterwards, but it doesn’t last long as my recovery these days is pretty good. Why? Because I am consistent and I don’t shy away from difficult training, I embrace it.

Praise indeed

I was training not long ago, doing a burpee pyramid, when one of the guys in the gym commented that you can get the measure of someone when they train alone and do burpees by choice. I am not trying to show how great I am, what i am trying to emphasis is simply this:

Get in there, Do the hard stuff and get out to recover.

Be a warrior, push the envelope.

Dean

Mental Strength, Motivation

Internal Chatter – Positive Self Talk

You know the feeling, The alarm goes off for work on a dark morning and you just want to turn over and go back to sleep. Or you are running and you are struggling to keep going and something is saying “just stop, it’s alright, just walk for a bit”. Or you are in the gym, you are lifting heavy, and something in your head is saying “that’s enough, don’t need to train anymore, you are gonna drop that”.

Inner Voice

That something is your inner voice, your subconscious mind trying to stop you to achieve. All too often in this day and age people just accept and listen to this voice and do what it says!
Why??

Quite often ignorance, not actually realising it is a voice inside your head that has been programmed by you.

Yes YOU!

You see, your inner voice listens to everything, it never switches off. So if you are a negative person or even just someone who always gives in or keep themselves down, your inner voice will tell you to do just that, it becomes programmed by yourself to be negative and uses every opportunity to tell you.

Be Positive

This is where positive self talk comes in. Because your subconscious listens unconditionally, feed it positive things, you don’t even need to believe it, your inner voice doesn’t judge what you are saying, it just accepts it and over time you can condition the mind and it’s responses to positive messages that will actually help you.

DO NOT make the mistake of feeding your mind with negative information, be conscious of what you are feeding it, whether it be your thoughts, what you watch on the television, what you listen to on the radio, even what you read. Take positive action!

A.N.T.S.

Don’t have ants – Automatic Negative thoughts. Be mindful of what you are saying to yourself, what others say and what you take in by what you watch, read and listen too.

Of course this is only one facet, you need to do this in all areas of your life, having positive affirmations coming out of your head when you are hill sprinting for example, may not happen when you are lifting. The stimulus is different.

A few years back I did a few ½ marathons. I am a big believer in being prepared so I built up to run more than the distance and did speed training round the track. Every time I ran I used to chant a positive affirmation consciously. This had the effect of training my mind and blocking out the negative chatter from my inner voice. It was something like “I am fit, I am fast, I am relaxed, I am strong”. Notice how they are positive statements?

Over and over I did it. To the point now, that when I struggling, more times than not it is my inner voice telling me to keep going. It chants those words back. why? because I programmed it to and you can do it too. It just takes effort, just like when you exercise to look good, you have to do mental training too!

Positive Words

One thing you must must remember to do is use positive words. Phrases like “don’t quit” or “don’t give up” or “limit less” are negative words, it enforces the opposite of what you are trying to achieve. Your brain read the words separately. Instead of hearing the meaning of “don’t quit” all your brain hears is “don’t” and “quit”. Yo gotta change that shit and quick!

A phrase like “always keep going” is always going to be better, because it is a positive phrase.

Next time you catch your self saying, “I could never do that”, stop, all you are doing is creating a self fulfilling prophecy, you are training your mind to believe that phrase!

No matter what you think, make sure it is positive. Remember the great thing is, you don’t necessarily have to believe what you are saying to yourself, all you have to do is enforce it by changing the way you talk to yourself and what you ingest through your eyes and ears.

Make sure it is POSITIVE!

Stay strong

Dean

Injury, Motivation

When Injuries Strike

Sports injuries really suck. How often do we train, everything is going well and then we are struck down, preventing us from achieving what we want?

I’ve Have my fair Share..

from breaks to sprains to tears I have had my fair share of set backs. They push you not only physically, but mentally too and when they keep happening they can eat away at you and you can find yourself giving yourself excuses not to train. You ever done that?

I cannot do that because xxxxx

I am scared to try because xxxxx

It is easy to give yourself an excuse to stop. but is that true?

Is the reason why you stopped really the injury or an excuse that you cannot train your legs, arms any more. Again is that really true?

When I injured my left wrist, I trained my right arm. I saw an opportunity to train my weaker arm, not to sit on the sofa, watch tv and get fat!

Injuries shouldn’t stop you

Injuries don’t necessarily need to stop your training. If you injure your knee for example or tweak your wrist, work around them. If you can’t do lower body, do upper body. Switch it around do different types of strength training (Maximal, speed, explosive), even upper body conditioning is possible depending on the nature of your injury.

If you box or use the heavy bag as a conditioning tool and your wrist is hurting, use it as an opportunity to train your other arm, improve skill work, just keep things moving.

A knee injury years ago prevented me from martial arts training and squatting so I switched it around I decided to use running from sprint training to middle distance. I even went a bit crazy and was able complete 5 half marathons, and let’s face it everyone has to be crazy to run half marathons and insane to run a full one!

Work Around the Injury

The point is this, every time I have had an injury preventing some type of training, I have adapted to train in a different way. An injury is NO EXCUSE to stop training. This doesn’t mean to say I am advocating training an injury, just adjusting my training to work around it.

Too many people get a niggle and just stop everything, gym visits stop, TV goes on, job stopped. It does not have to be that way.

Now I am not saying go gung ho and ignore it, hoping it will go away, but by being sensible about it there are more options that you might realise.

I once had a wrist injury, I reduced the volume of training with the wrist but I still performed mobility drills and performed in a range motion so as not to aggravate it.

For example: I did one arm dumbbell exercises, hell I even boxed the bag one handed. It didn’t stop me and it shouldn’t stop you.

Prevention is KEY!

I have learnt over the years that you have to have a proper program in place to protect yourself. For a long time I took that as warming up before strenuous exercise as my training is always strenuous (is there any other kind?) and stretching. But it is much more than that. Daily stretching and joint mobility work is a must, deep tissue massage is a bonus if you can find a good masseur and better yet a chiropractor or an osteopath.

Tennis Ball /Foam Roller

If you can’t find or afford a masseur or physical therapist all is not lost. Foam rolling is an effective form of self massage and goes a long way to ironing out any knots and adhesion’s. For more specific areas a tennis ball is ideal, but are an inexpensive way of keeping you injury free.

There is so much you can learn here. In fact I would say for longevity in your training, mobility work and foam rolling are as important as your training sessions. Look after your joints and muscles!

Getting it Treated

In the past it has always been the sticking point where to turn to. there are many avenues and not all of them are what you need. I see physical therapy as a tool and it is important to get the current tool for the job. In my colourful injured past I have been to see and talked to many people and I know it can be a minefield. Therapists usually care for their clients and will try their best to help them, even if their “tool” is not the right one for the job. You wouldn’t use a screwdriver when you needed a hammer and this is true here too.

Word of mouth is scarce, but I have come to know some excellent therapists. There is always someone out there, keep looking and trying until you resolve the issue. But don’t spend a fortune seeing the same person when the treatment only lasts a few days before the problem returns. That is treating symptoms and not the cause. the cause will always perpetuate the problem until it is addressed first.

Don’t ever give up on something, if you know there is a problem, keep looking until you find someone who can help.

Be strong and intelligent, Take care of yourself!

Dean

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