As we near the end of Ramadan a quick update on timings.
THERE WILL BE NO BOOTCAMP DURING EID.
The full Bootcamp schedule will resume after Eid. i.e. 0600 Corniche session, 1800 Ed City Session and 1930 Ed City session on Sunday and Tuesday. On the Thursday sessions are at 0600 on corniche and 1830 at Ed City only until further notice.
The last session before Eid will be tonight, Sunday 28 August, at 1900.
Have a great break.
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At Bootcamp we generally incorporate a mix of resistance and cardio training. The mix of cardio and strength will vary over the month. Sometimes we incorporate a large amount of cardio in the programme and sometimes we focus on strength. Strength training is different from the HIIT (high intensity inerval training) that forms a large part of Bootcamp. To get the most out of a strength training session the loads must be challenging and you must REST! If you don’t lift challenging loads then your body will not develop and if you do not rest then you will be too tired to lift challenging loads. BUT why is strength training so important for EVERYONE?
Physiologically, the benefits of consistent strength training include an increase in muscle size and tone, increased muscular strength, and increases in tendon, bone, and ligament strength. Strength training has also been shown to improve psychological health as well, by increasing self-esteem, confidence and self-worth.
Improved Physical Appearance and Performance
One important result of strength training is increased physical performance. Muscles quite literally utilise energy to produce movement, functioning as the engine or powerhouse of the body. Strength training increases the muscles size, strength, and endurance, which contribute to improvements in our work, favourite sports hobbies and our general day-to-day activities.
Another benefit of a good strength-training program is its effect on our overall appearance and body composition, which can directly influence self-esteem, self-worth, and level of confidence. Take, for example, an80kg man who has 20 percent body fat; 15kgs of fat weight and 65kgs of lean body weight (muscle, bones, organs, water, etc). By beginning an effective strength training program, he replaces 2kgs of fat with 2kgs of muscle. He still weighs 80kgs but he is now 17 percent fat with 10kgs of fat weight and 70kgs of lean body weight. Although his body weight remains the same, his strength, muscle tone, and metabolism have improved, giving him a fit appearance.
Both our physical appearance and our physical performance can be improved by muscle gain or hampered by muscle loss. Research indicates that unless we strength train regularly; we lose about 250g of muscle every year of our lives after age 30. Unless we implement a safe and effective weight lifting program, our muscles gradually decrease in size and strength in the process called “atrophy.”
Lifting weights is therefore important for preventing the muscle loss that normally accompanies the ageing process. A common misconception is that as we reach the age of senior citizens, it is normal to stop being active and to start using ambulatory aides like canes and wheelchairs. Many people think we have no choice; they think this is normal.
But this couldn’t be further from the truth. There is absolutely no reason why all of us can’t be physically and mentally active, living a healthy vibrant life until our last day on Earth! The reason many elderly people rely on ambulatory aides and become slower and fatter is simply that over the years their muscles have been wasting away, so their physical performance and metabolism also decrease, becoming less efficient.
Increased Metabolic Efficiency (your ability to burn excess calories)
That 250g of muscle loss every year after age 30 produces a 0.5 percent reduction in basal metabolic rate (BMR) every year. A reduction in BMR means that our bodies are less able to use the food we consume as energy, thus more gets stored as body fat. “Basal metabolic rate” refers to the energy used by our body at rest to maintain normal body functions.
Our muscles have high-energy requirements. Even when we are sleeping, our muscles use more than 25% of our energy (calories). When you implement the principles of effective strength training and you are consistent in your program, you will achieve an increase in lean muscle mass throughout your body and increase your BMR. In other words, you can actually condition your metabolism to work better and more efficiently even when you are at rest.
An increase in muscle tissue causes an increase in metabolic rate, and a decrease in muscle tissue causes a decrease in metabolic rate. You can see that anyone interested in decreasing body fat percentage and their risk of disease as well as in increasing physical performance and appearance,should be strength training to help condition their metabolism (BMR).
One of the biggest mistakes people make when starting a weight-management program is not including a strength training routine with their cardiovascular exercise and diet.
This is unfortunate because when we cut calories without exercise, we can lose muscle as well as fat.
Decreased Risk of Sustaining an Injury
Our muscles also function as shock absorbers and serve as important balancing agents throughout our body. Well-conditioned muscles help to lessen the repetitive landing forces in weight-bearing activities such as jogging or a game of tennis. Well-balanced muscles reduce the risk of injuries that result when a muscle is weaker than its opposing muscle group.
To reduce the risk of unbalanced muscle development, you should make sure that when you are training a specific muscle group, the opposing muscle groups are being trained as well (though not necessarily on the same day). For example, if you are doing bench-pressing exercises for your chest, you should include some rowing exercises for your back muscles as well. This was discussed in an earlier post about “Mirror muscles” here.
At Bootcamp we ensure that a mix of training methods are employed to ensure that both strength and cardio vascular fitness levels are built and maintained.
It’s hard to escape the idea of training muscles when you work out. If you use weight machines at the gym, they will have clever illustrations denoting the muscle groups which will get worked by operating that piece of equipment.
Most of the well known exercises like arm curls or leg extensions are geared towards working very specific muscles, like the biceps and quadriceps respectively.
But primarily, the concept is promoted by most people’s desire for superficial changes in their physical appearance. Guys want bigger arms and ladies want tighter butts. If they work hard enough, they’ll probably get what they’re after (in a cosmetic sense) but what do they gain from a capability stand point?
Probably very little.
Targeting specific muscles to achieve changes in appearance is a very inefficient process. You have to perform a host of exercises each geared towards hitting specific muscles, in order to escape the common fate of having an unbalanced physique. Aside from being less functional imbalances in muscles caused by isolating your “mirror” muscles can lead to injuries in the medium term. For example by heavily developing your quads on the leg extension machine and ignoring your posterior chain (hamstrings etc) you could be setting yourself up for knee problems. Training natural movements often avoids these issues.
People who really want to build strength in the most effective manner possible will use compound lifts and presses like deadlifting, bench pressing, and squatting. These types of exercises activate more than one muscle through its range of motion and will sometimes even work the entire body. While many will still think of these exercises in terms of the muscle groups they work, intrinsically they are training movements.
The muscles that are being worked by these movements are certainly important and obviously factor into what you are doing and what you want to accomplish – but what you are ultimately doing is training your body to perform work through the full range of natural movement.
Training a movement is what people should really focus on because in the real world that is what your body performs. Whether in response to a daily chore, a dangerous threat, or some energetic play time, your body maneouvers through its environment by way of a series of natural movements.
Instead of focusing on making one’s biceps as big as possible, it would be more useful and liberating to be able to effortlessly execute a pull up. From training pull ups your arms will likely get bigger and stronger, but you’re working them within the context of an inherently useful and natural movement.
Train movements, not muscles.
High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) this is the bread and butter of the Bootcamp session. Tabata/sprint intervals. We have endless permutations on the theme but the theme remains the same for good reason.
HIIT works and is more effective at improving your health and fitness than many hours of your regular endurance training (see elliptical machine reading hello magazine or even 2 hours of treadmill running).
HIIT is typically short periods of very high intensity work separated by periods of medium to low intensity work. The high intensity must e close to y0ur maximal effort.
There have been various studies over the years that illustrate the benefits of HIIT over typical prolonged training advocated by many. Aside from being more beneficial there is the added benefit that HIIT takes less time. You can achieve the same fitness goals by working at high intensity for short periods so why spend 2 hours in the gym?
The Tabata method is a favourite of BootcampQ. This is 8 periods of 20 seconds high intensity work (squats, sprints, lunges etc) with a 10 second rest. e.g. 20s squats 10s rest, 20s squats 10s rest etc. Tabata is the name of the Japanese exercise scientist who did a study in 1996 using this protocol and showed significant improvements over athletes doing steady state training. There have been innumerable studies since and they all point to the same thing. Working hard, with high intensity even for just short periods of time give you greater benefits. So factor this into your training regime.
If you are using a treadmill make sure that you do a sprint phase every so often, likewise on the bike and the rower. Push yourself out of your comfort zone for short periods of time and reap the rewards of your time in the gym.
We all know the questions we hear and that we pose about nutrition e.g.
How is it that someone can eat 30 bananas a day and not gain weight, or someone else can eat nothing but potatoes for 60 days and lose 20 pounds?
How do the Kitavans or Okinawans maintain good body composition despite a higher carb diet?
Why can my brother eat anything he wants and never gain a pound?
In our reading picks (see below on the right) we recommend the Primal Blueprint as some excellent reading on nutrition. Some of the examples above and a whole host of similar puzzles that we see in our day to day life would seem to contradict the advice in the book. Are they all anomalies or is something else at work?
These questions all bring to mind one of the main principles underlying the Primal Blueprint, which is that ultimately there are no right or wrong answers in life, just choices we make based on what we think we know or what we believe to be in our best interest.. We seek to optimize our individual genetic potential using these principals and to literally influence gene signaling. Of course, there are other ways and other choices to get lean, some of which might even get you close to healthy if you do everything right. At Bootcamp we want the option that gets us the fittest and healthiest with the least amount of pain, suffering, sacrifice, discipline and calorie-counting possible.
The truth is, if you never undertook to live a Primal lifestyle, the chances are still pretty good that you might enjoy a “relatively comfortable” existence for a substantial part of your life – until the wheels inevitably started to fall off. Millions of people around the world “get by” just fine in their obliviousness on the SAD (Standard American Diet), only 10 or 30 pounds overweight, a little arthritic, maybe some GERD for which they gladly take a pill. Some people even appear to thrive for a while on less-than-ideal diet and exercise programs.
Of course, genetics has a lot to do with it. But sometimes a guy can look lean, and not be healthy.
There’s a lot going on under the hood. Your 30 bananas guy above looks skinny because doesn’t get enough protein and he cycles endless miles in a valiant-yet-doomed effort to burn off all that sugar. He also takes in paltry amounts of protein, and it shows in the lack of muscle typical of a high-carb endurance athlete. His inability to gain weight while eating lots of carbs is actually a bad thing, since he’s constantly losing muscle mass and enduring all manner of glycation inside.
The Kitavans and the Okinawans thrive partly because they typically don’t overeat (see: Calorie Restriction) and partly because they expend a fair amount of energy not sitting at their desk all day long I suspect that their reliance on real food and low intakes of processed and high omega-6 PUFA seed oils also contribute to their metabolic efficiency.
Clarence Bass can look so great at 73 on a grain-based diet because he has spent his life focused on staying in shape, mostly as a body-builder. He understood very early in his career that lean mass was the main driver of health, and he orchestrated a workout and diet plan contemplated to keep him fit. He’s never really been out of shape and he’s pretty strict with his diet in terms of macronutrient breakdown, calorie count and meal timing. That takes a lot of discipline. If you do it right, you can get pretty decent results. The fact that he includes grains in his diet and apparently suffers no ill effects puts him among a select minority who may not be as susceptible to their antinutrient effects as most of us are. Again, maybe he’s genetically “gifted” that way.
Each of us has the recipe for a lean, fit, strong, healthy human contained within our DNA. Biological processes don’t really differ from one person to another (except in rare occasions). We all make proteins the same way, we all digest and process nutrients the same way, etc. But it’s the individual variations in our specific familial DNA (those pesky single nucleotide polymorphisms or SNPs) that often account for the differences in the degree to which we tend to build muscle, or burn or store fat. From there it comes down to the signals (those diet and exercise choices) we send our genes that maximize our ultimate potential or not. The truth is, some of us are just lucky enough to be able to “get away” with eating certain foods that aren’t exactly Primal, not gaining much weight and not experiencing noticeable inflammation. Others among us who may have genetic red flags really need to pay attention or we easily gain weight or develop health issues if we stray at all. There is for each of us a predetermined “range of genetic outcomes” that we do inherit from our parents. You need to make the right choices to optimise your potential
Humans are among the most adaptive (short-term anyway) animals on the planet when it comes to diet. We can survive on just about anything, as witnessed by the plethora of obese Americans surviving on fast food and soft drinks. Over half the world stays “slim and trim” on a low-calorie, grain-based diet simply because there are paltry few food choices and they just can’t take in enough calories to gain much weight (store fat). But let’s not always confuse their leanness with good health.
It is no secret that office jobs are generally bad for our health. We spend up to 8 hours a day sat staring at a computer screen, sometimes even eating where we sit. Only moving to visit the bathroom.
What would you call someone who spent the weekend in a similar fashion. i.e. sat on the sofa staring at the TV eating food while only moving to go to the bathroom. There are a lot of terms slob, couch potato etc etc.
Somehow the time spent in the office has avoided these derogatory terms and from a health persepective that is a pity as it might have made more of us take some action.
Sitting at the desk with limited activity day after day does impact our fitness and makes us prone to put on weight. Our muscles atrophy, our posture degenerates and our metabolism slows. So what can we do to reduce the negative impacts of office work. Here are a few ideas:
across the idea of massaging the plantar fascia in order to loosen up the entire posterior chain? Sitting in an office chair for hours at a time does terrible things for your posterior chain, especially for the glutes and the hamstrings. But sat at your desk you can roll the soles of your feet on a tennis ball at regular intervals and nobody needs to know. Hey presto! Looser posterior chain muscles for a better squat depth that evening.At Bootcamp this week there has been a strong bias on the muscles that you don’t always see in the mirror. In fitness parlance this is called the “posterior chain” with posterior simply meaning “back”. That is all the muscles along the back side of your body from the legs up to the shoulders.
There is a general tendency to only work those muscles that you can see in the mirror (hence the title). “I want a six pack” etc. It makes sense as this is the image that you present to people. The side effect of that, and the fact that many hours sat in an office desk atrophies your posterior chain, is a very weak and underdeveloped back of your body.
A good indicator of the strength of your posterior chain is the basic bodyweight lunge. You should be able to lunge with a big stride and keep your torso completely erect and stable with the back leg bent and knee touching the floor and the top of the front leg parallel with the floor. If you need to use your hands to support you or you can’t keep your torso upright you have a weak posterior chain.
Why is the posterior chain important?
Proper Muscular Balance
The very first reason why you must be sure to train the posterior chain is for good muscular balance. Those who only perform exercises for the front of the body will develop the front while the back muscles actually grow weaker.
Over time this can lead to a muscular imbalance which can not only cause poor posture but can also set you up for a number of long term injuries.
Good muscle balance will reduce the risk of a range of injuries and niggles including common problems with knees and the lower back.
Greater Strength Development
So many real life movements are compound exercises. That is they use a range of joints and muscles to allow the motion to take place. If you train the front of the body and neglect the back (which is used less frequently anyway in today’s sedentary work) then you will not develop your overall strength and this will make compound exercises more challenging.
Having greater strength allows for greater intensity which will help you with your weight loss and fitness goals.
Workout
Perform 3 sets to failure of bodyweight or assisted pull ups
“So, why is fish oil good for you?” The question comes up periodically. The full answer is a really long one (see Barry Sears’s book The Omega Rx Zone), but here’s a short version.
Fish oil is a rich source of a category of fatty acids called omega-3s (specifically EPA and DHA). The ratio of omega-3 fatty acids to another category called omega-6s is important to the function of a whole lot of hormonal and cellular processes in the body–including a lot of things having to do with insulin response (and the chain of hormonal reactions that it sets off), inflammation, blood cholesterol management, and immune-system, cardiovascular, and neurological function, etc.
Unless you supplement with omega-3s, pretty much everyone eating a western/Qatari diet gets way (way!) too many omega-6s and not enough omega-3s. This is because Omega 6 oils are cheap (sunflower oil, canola oil etc) and also because much of the meat we eat (intensively farmed chicken and fish) have been fed corn in their diet (corn turns into Omega 6). Fish oil is an easy–and relatively inexpensive–way to help restore the balance. The super-short answer is: it’ll help you lose weight, control cholesterol and blood pressure, regulate hormone levels, and generally stay healthier.
If you’re taking any medications, it’s always a good idea to check for side effects. Especially folks on blood thinners. (On the other side of the coin, fish oil and a Zone-like diet can reduce the need for a lot of medications, especially cholesterol-lowering ones.) In some cases, doctors will actually prescribe it (and therefore insurance to pay for it) – although that is unlikely in Qatar.
You’ll have to look around for it in Doha but do check the label to ensure that you are getting quality fish oil. The liquid is a good value,but it’s less convenient, and some people are squeamish about the taste or texture–though we find it utterly inoffensive. Whatever kind you use, store it in the fridge.
Workout
Try 3 rounds of 50m walking lunges, 50 squats, 30 back extensions (complete all exercises before starting next round).
If new scale to 30m, 30squats, 20 back extensions. Make sure the technique is correct on lunges (body upright, knee to ground) and squats (weight through the heels butt below the knees).
“Cool” winds from the North bringing cooler times to Qatar over the weekend. Coolness is relative term, we’re talking 38C (at the hottest time of day) rather than 45C like last week. It is a welcome decrease though and gives us the opportunity to work all the harder at training.
Today’s session features a fair bit of cardio but we also work to develop your abdominals. An often overlooked part of the abs is the lower abs, they are hard to target but essential to a strong posture and core. An exercise worked on today is the hollow rock. So read up on it below:
The Hollow Rock
A seemingly innocuous little exercise, the hollow rock is a staple of gymnastics conditioning and excruciatingly tough when performed correctly.
To perform the hollow rock lay face up on the ground with your arms stretched overhead and legs out straight. Raise your arms and legs about one foot off the floor and attempt to assume the shape of a rocker on a rocking chair, then gently, slowly, teeter back and forth.
The critical part of this movement is to pull the lordotic curve (lumbar arch) from the back so that the entire back is rounded from shoulders to butt. Initially, you will find that the rocking is rough because of a flat spot in the lower back. This is a perfect measure of both a weakness in and inability to innervate the lower abs.
The role of the hip flexors is fairly insignificant in the hollow rock but the role of the lower rectus (lower abs) is dramatic. (Recent evidence suggests that the obliques play a major role in lumbar flexion http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/0689.htm)
For many people the hollow rock is so hard that no matter how hard they try they “clunk” on each rocking as they come to level and the flat spot caused by insufficient lumbar flexion smacks the floor. This “clunking” is a perfect measure of one’s lack of lower ab recruitment.
Lower ab recruitment is the toughest part of ab training and never well developed by most athletes. It is so common as to be a visual cliché that the aerobics instructor who teaches “ab classes” at your local gym can do thousands of crunches but still has a lower abdominal pooch as though three months pregnant. Activation, full recruitment, and development of the lower abs require enormous concentration and focus over months if not years. The hollow rock is a near perfect tool to both test and develop low ab capacity.
You can practise the innervation/recruitment required to engage the lower abs/flex the lumbar spine and perform the hollow rock by standing with your back, feet, and head against the wall and pressing hard against the wall at the shoulders and slowly rolling the contact point from the shoulders down to the mid-back, down to the lumbar spine and ending with the butt pushed hard against the wall. You will notice that making hard contact with the wall through the region of the low back is exceedingly hard and requires an anterior to posterior roll of the pelvis and deep low ab contraction. You can test the contact by having someone place a rolled up magazine in the region of the lumbar curve while you try to pinch it against the wall as they attempt to slide it out. Done correctly, this produces a distinctive pulling above the pubic bone. That’s your lower abs working. Repeating this ten times is a great low ab conditioning drill.
Practice the hollow rock even if it gives you difficulties. Start by trying to rock continuously for two minutes regardless of the quality of the movement. Avoid raising the hands and feet to maintain the rocking motion as best you can.
When mastered, the body is dished out flat, the hands and feet are low, and the impetus for the rocking is nearly undetectable. When you can do this smoothly – no flat spot – for two minutes you’ll have the best abs in town.
Mobility needs to be worked but rarely is. People will happily do an extra ab session or an additional run but how many will spend 5-10 minutes developing their mobility? I hear all the excuses: it’s hard to find the time, I always forget about it, It never seems to improve, blah blah blah
Mobility and flexibility improvements are hard to measure but increased mobility will vastly improve the quality of your workouts and allow you to lift heavier, and perform exercises to the full range of motion with better accuracy. This will make you stronger, which will allow you to lift heavier and faster, which will make you leaner and more muscled, which…well you get the picture.
Work on your mobility. Stretch your problem areas. No matter what your schedule, commit to 5-10 minutes a day. See some advice here. Every day. You will be astounded at the results a couple months, even one month, of dedicated stretching and mobility work will do you. If you need some help email us or add a comment with a question.
WOD
Bootcamp Qatar signature session today. We call it the Diamond or Almaz
Give it a try
AMRAP 10 minutes (As Many Rounds As Possible)
FIRST AMRAP
SECOND AMRAP 10 Minutes
THIRD AMRAP
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