A very long plank

A 71-year old woman held a plank for 36 minutes and 58 seconds, if you can believe it.

Exercise helps woman beat world planking record

The best part is this was a demonstration of her fitness after a long period of unfitness. She lost a significant amount of weight and greatly increased her strength and strength-endurance.

Very impressive.

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Still posting but . . .

. . . I will probably be posting a little more irregularly. For several years now I have posted on this blog every weekday, with the occasional break for vacations or busy times.

As my client load has gotten heavier, and my other workload has also increased, I've been rushed to get out updates here and they haven't always been on time.

Instead I'm going to post often but not on a strict M-F schedule.

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The most popular post I ever made was about Bulgarian Split Squats. Maybe not coincidentally, my favorite single-leg exercise is the Bulgarian Split Squat.

Recently an article on Bulgarian split squats hit T-Nation.

This article is an excellent addition to the BSS family. It presents a few options I covered in my post, but also some new ones, such as goblet hold BSSs.

In the interest of science and leg strength, I did a few sets of the goblet hold version. I found the weight is much more difficult to control in this position, even compared to kettlebells held in rack. The weight wasn't so hard on my legs, but the amount of weight I could keep tight to my chest wasn't so high. I augmented the sets with a couple of chains draped around my neck, and that helped immensely. The core and balance challenge of goblet hold Bulgarian split squats is a nice change from racked kettlebells, a barbell, or dumbbells held at the side (even unilaterally). They (and the other options in the article) are worth a try if you like this exercise.

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Trainign around a Cold

I occasionally get clients who come in sick, and want to train.

While I'd rather they stay home and recover, once they are in, they will train. So how do I adjust to that?

What I've been doing is:

- keeping the weights the same as last time, or lower.

- reducing total volume (2 sets instead of 3, or 10 reps instead of 12)

- reducing cardio to almost zero (no bike, elliptical, or Prowler)

- wiping all the gear down after they use it (in addition to normal cleaning).

My working theory is that there is a benefit to staying active while sick, especially if you feel like you should be moving. However, it's crucial to stimulate not annihilate, and too much training is likely to leave you tired and crushed and unable to fend off the cold.

I don't have research to back this up, just personal experience as a trainer and trainee. But it does seem to work well - you get in a workout and maintain, you keep active, but you don't leave exhausted and extend your sickness.

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Quick Tip: More or Less

In my experience, the best way to lean on edge cases is:

. . . for lifting, training, or exercise - do less.

. . . for diet - eat more.

"Do less" for training encourages you to actually rest, to pare down to what is really needed, and otherwise keep things on track. Cut away anything that isn't measurably improving your progress.

"Eat more" for diet counters that tendency to drop to sub-1000 kcals for fat loss or to skip meals to lose weight, or to just not eat enough when trying to gain! If things get stuck, nudge the calories up a bit and see what happens. Only if your progress fails consider another option.

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Free Kettlebell Course

Well, free with registration, etc.:

There is a free one-hour kettlebell course being offered at the RKC Instructors Certification in Downington Pennsylvannia.

Since I work on days ending in "y" I won't be attending but perhaps some of you might want to check it out.

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Sad day

Today is a sad day, and I'm not going to post about S&C. We lost one of our training buddies from Advanced Fighting Systems over the weekend, Leif Mickens. He died in a car accident.

Leif was a great training partner. He always went hard, but not too hard - you weren't getting hurt because Leif pushed things he shouldn't. He had a wicked crossover choke and explosive energy you couldn't believe. He a lot of integrity, he was a great teammate, and he was willing to work with you on whatever you needed. He was a great guy to roll with and a good person to be friends with. I'll miss him and I'll miss his stories about walking his three crazy-friendly pitbulls, too.

It's hard to believe he's not going to come to class anymore, and I wanted to take this post out to remember him publicly. He won't be forgotten by anyone who trained with him.

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