Swing it...

Do you swing? I do! And I spent the whole of the last weekend swinging...a Kettlebell...and I have the bruised forearms to prove it!

I spent two days at Fitness First Bondi Edge and I am now a qualified Kettlebell Instructor. The course was taken by Cory Bocking from Performance Training Institute and it was awesome! Cory was great and he showed us how to swing, snatch, clean, jerk and some other wicked exercises that I can't wait to practice more and start introducing in to my client's sessions.

cory

 

To give you a bit of back ground, Kettlebells were developed in Russia in the 1700s where the Soviet Army used them as part of their physical training and conditioning programs. Known as the Girya, the Kettlebell has been used in competitions and sports throughout Russia and Europe since the 1940's. Pavel Tsatsouline developed the first instructor certification program in the USA in 2001 and the rest, as they say, is history.

So what makes Kettlebell work-outs so good? The mass of the bell and the position of the handle on the outside of the mass creates a longer leaver further away from the centre of gravity making the exercise more dynamic and challenging whilst recruiting more muscles. The bell moves around the handle and creates a very different and beneficial training effect more so {some say} than a dumbbell or barbell.

The Kettlebell works many qualities needed for most sporting pursuits and it is a great training tool for athletic performance and movement. Most sports will require you to have strength, power, muscular endurance, range of movement, energy systems and co-ordination. Kettlebell training works many of these qualities! Think of a sport and I bet that sport is done dynamically (moving) and quickly. Now think of doing a Kettlebell exercise. That exercise is also done dynamically and quickly and corresponds perfectly to the most athletic sports.

The core exercises are the Swing, Snatch, Clean, Military Press & Front Squat. These are all designed to focus on training the body to come to full range of movement, to achieve optimal alignment and maintain balance across our body in all of our kinetic systems.

By Sunday night and after 14 hours of swinging a Kettlebell it was safe to say I was wrecked! Yesterday was my rest day with just 40 minutes of stretching and foam rolling my aching body.

Today I feel good and am excited to get in to the gym and train with the bells! If you are interested in Kettlebell training please let me know, I would love to show you how to really swing and swing it good!

 

IFBB...

So here they are, the photos taken at the IFBB competition back at the end of March.

I've had these photos on a disc for a few weeks and I have thought and thought about a blog post that I could write to go with them. I am coming up with nothing so I thought I would just post them on their own...

 

 

 

Chef's Hat...

I am not much of a chef. Considering how much I love food, my cooking skills are limited. In the last few weeks I have served up overcooked steak and undercooked barramundi. In our house, I generally prep {chop, marinade, etc} and Simon comes home and cooks everything.

I was never taught to cook and it wasn't until I was 22 and did the Body for Life Challenge that I actually made my own food. Mum was always the chef in our house and she is an incredible one!

To be fair to myself, I feel I do chef up some pretty scrumptious meals for someone that doesn't really like cooking and I do experiment as much as I can. As you will know from my blog and also my facebook and instagram, I do try in the kitchen and I feel proud of myself when a new meal turns out right.

The other night I decided to make Spaghetti Bolognaise from scratch! Yes, from scratch! When I make it for the kids I use Pasata in the jar and I use tinned tomatoes for me and Simon as it has less sugar in it. This time I had a bit of time and a kilo bag of tomatoes so I thought I would give scratch a try!

Ingredients ::

500g lean beef mince
500g tomatoes
1/2 brown onion
2 carrots
2 zucchini
2 celery stalks
2 cloves of garlic
salt, pepper & chilli flakes

Instructions ::

1. Heat grill to 180* and place tomatoes on a tray. Grill until slightly mushy
2. Blend tomatoes in a food processor or blender
3. Finely chop all veggies {you can use any veggies you like; I like mushrooms and capsicum in mine as well}
4. Heat large saucepan with a tablespoon of olive oil. Add mince and brown {a lot of mince is full of water so best to cook this away before adding veggies}
5. Add tomatoes, chopped veggies and salt, pepper & chilli flakes
6. Simmer on low for about 40-50 minutes
7. Serve and enjoy

This made dinner for me and Simon and we had this with a rocket, Spanish onion & cherry tomato salad with balsamic dressing. I had two servings left over which I packed up for lunches.

From scratch was not so hard and it was definitely worth the extra few minutes!

Beast mode...

I have just received an amazingly awesome CD from one amazingly awesome and incredibly talented boyfriend. For those of you that don't know, my BF Simon is an uber talented photographer. He normally shoots houses but a few days after my competition he shot me training up at the wicked gym Animal Kingdom in Cromer.

 

 

So much fun...and thank you to Mark from Animal Kingdom for letting me crash the gym for a few hours! And thank you again to Simon for making me look so strong. I love you and I love the photos.

 

Today was Day 1 of my new program. The last two weeks have been pretty unstructured as I really wanted to just train and do what I love. After 12 weeks of being on a strict program and wanted to mix things up and have given some new exercises and new cardio sessions a try.

 

I am excited to see what I can do with my body over the coming months and I am also excited to see how focused I can be without having an end goal.

 

Stay tuned for updates.

 

Erin. x

Ritchie...

Meet Ritchie...

...and that is his wife Gabi and daughters Taylor and Sophie {cute!}.

Ritchie is on a mission! He is part of my team of awesome people that are part of the 12 week transformation challenge and he is rocking it!

Coming in to the challenge Ritchie's main goal was to lose weight and get fit. He has a holiday in Las Vegas coming up in June and I'm guessing you've all seen the pool parties they have over there? Ritchie wants to look good at said pool party and he is definitely working steadily towards smashing those goals.

Ritchie also likes running and plans to take part in the City to Surf in August with a view to smashing a half marathon later on in the year. How amazing is that?

Before the challenge Ritchie was doing no cardio training and was getting to the gym when he could; on average about once a week. He felt his diet was reasonably good; half the time healthy but naughty food and beers were what he felt was not helping him get his weight under control.

Ritchie and I are now moving towards the end week four of his transformation and we are scheduled to take measurements this weekend to see how he has gone over the last fortnight. Trust me when I tell you his weight loss from the start until when his measurements were taken at the end of week two were nothing short of outstanding. I am a proud trainer!

Have I mentioned how much I love receiving photos like these from my clients...

Nothing like a wicked food prep and packed lunch to get you one day closer to the body of your dreams!

Ritchie, you're rocking it, keep on being awesome!

To do...

I have written a list...

 

I find if I have a list of things I need to do then I do it. If I keep them in my head I find it too easy to put those certain tasks that I know I need to do in to the "too hard basket" part of my brain! Simon and I call these blue frogs; I have called them blue frogs for years. I don't know where the name came from but it has stuck and now when Simon and I have blue frogs we challenge each other to get them done and ticked off the list.

 

I find having my tasks and errands written in black and white, right in front of me makes them a lot harder to ignore. It makes them harder to conveniently forget and put off until tomorrow! I have decided to apply this theory to my training this week.

 

I have suggested this plan of attack to a few of my clients who are time poor and miss work-outs due to other commitments. My advice is to plan their week ahead each Sunday; sit down with their diary and schedule their work-outs and what they are going to do at each. What days and times in that week do they know they can put aside for themselves; for their work-outs. This is the time they owe themselves; this is their hour for nobody else; the time they set aside to work closer to their goals.

 

My challenge is consistently including a good amount of interval cardio and strength endurance work. I love weights, I could push weights around the gym for hours if my body would let me. But what I struggle with is finding the motivation to do my cardio. I prescribe it to nearly every one of my clients and do a lot of strength indurance work with them but do very little myself. I know how good it is and what awesome results it brings but I find excuse after excuse not to do it myself. I am being brutally honest here and being a personal trainer I probably shouldn't let my clients know this about me but I feel it only right that they know that I struggle with certain parts of my training in the same way that everyone else does.

 

I am all over my nutrition, this I have no problem planning and sticking to. I love food so ensuring that I always have my meals with me is the not so challenging part for me. My fridge is always packed, my on the go meals are always packed and you very rarely see me with my cooler bag by my side.



 



My cardio training is what needs my attention! So I am going to plan the rest of my week and I am going to {do my absolute best} stick with it!

 

Here is what my week from today until Sunday looks like ::

 

 

Do you plan or do you wing it? Do you have those blue frogs that you know you should have done today but have said you will do tomorrow? Write a list, write one with me and see if having it there in front of you helps; can we all smash our work-outs and get to the end of the week and know we have kicked some massive goals and not cheated ourselves out of "me time". I promise to try my absolute best to stick with my week planner!

 

And as my Grandma would say...

 

Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today!

 

 

Marco...

Meet Marco…

We have been training together for the last six weeks and at the beginning of the month he started his 12 week transformation challenge with me.

The 12 week transformation challenge is a complete overhaul of a person’s nutrition, training program and supplementation. It takes a huge amount of commitment, drive and determination to take that first step to commit to the 12 week challenge. Commitment to not only hand yourself over to someone who tells you that everything you have been doing with your health and fitness has not been working for them, has not helped them reach the goals they set for themselves and that bigger, more drastic changes are needed to kick those goals.

As you know I am one for setting and kicking goals so to have the opportunity to work with Marco in helping him achieve big things is a great honour and I feel lucky and excited that he has entrusted me with his goals. My goal for Marco is to be there every step of the way, to keep him motivated, show him that he is not alone when temptation creeps in, that every drop of sweat I am sweating with him as I continue on with the challenges I have set for myself!

Marco’s training before the transformation challenge was a mixture of strength and cardio three to four times per week, including one personal training session with me, and football training.

Nutrition wise Marco was eating three relatively healthy meals per day; breakfast, lunch and dinner. He was snacking throughout the day on not so healthy snacks. Dinner a few nights a week was take-away and he isn’t much of a drinker.

So Marco’s goals are as follows:

* To lose body fat; currently sitting at about 19% and would like to get down to about 10%

* Improve his level of fitness from a 7/10 to a 9/10

* To have no love handles or man boobs

* Build strength in his upper body and do 10 unassisted wide grip pull ups

Marco’s strength in the last few weeks has improved so much so that when his wife joined one of our sessions last week she commented on how much it had improved. How awesome is that! His program has been designed around fat loss with a variation of high repetitions and interval training. His nutritional guidance has been focused around clearing out his system of all things that aren’t conducive to fat loss.

Keep your eye on the blog to track Marco’s progress! He is going to kill it! Check out this picture I got from him the other night! He is all over his chicken & veggies!

 

 

 

And if you have any questions or queries about the transformation challenge please do get in touch. It is not too late to make some awesome changes and start kicking goals!