The hotel room workout

If you’ve got a small space you can still get a killer workout. No tools needed. No enormous space required.

First, select 3-5 exercises from this list (search online for examples):

• hollow rocks
• burpies
• push-ups
• sit-ups
• back extensions
• jumping jacks (star jumps)
• squats
• lunges
• tuck jumps

Now, select a workout format from this list:

• 3-5 rounds of 60 seconds per exercise
• 10 rounds of 10 repetitions of each exercise
• 50 repetitions of each exercise
• 100 repetitions of each exercise
• Tabata intervals for 3-5 exercises

Now, get a stopwatch and complete your workout as quickly as you can.

You can get a great workout (in fact a great series of workouts) by following this method. It is not a complete fitness training program but will suffice when you are travelling or stuck indoors without equipement (due to the weather perhaps). You can even do the whole thing without moving from the place where you started.

How to get the most out of every workout

Fitness training scares a lot of people, others do it for the wrong reasons, some people are fanatical. It’s very personal.

We all ebb and flow through many aspects of our lives and the taking care of ourselves part is no exception. Sometimes we’re all over it, sometimes we just couldn’t give a hoot. I’d like to think that most of us really do care about our health and fitness but that is pain delusional (just look out the window if you need proof).

I make the bold assumption that as a reader of this blog you are interested (hopefully exceedingly so) in your health and fitness. I have been involved in the industry for a few years now and have seen far too many fads, ideas, plans and programs to remember let alone critique. Suffice to say most of these do not work for the simple reason that they are either not applied properly or are unsuitable to the individual in question.

Once you’ve made the commitment to training (and it is a commitment) you should expect results. If you are not getting results then something is wrong. Very wrong. Either you are doing something wrong, or you have the wrong information, or there’s a disconnect somewhere (your diet maybe). I hope you get my point.

Now, we finally get to the subject of the post (re-read the headline if I veered too far off course). Here are three ways to get the most out of every workout that you participate in:

Forget about the outside world

When you are training your entire consciousness should be focused upon yourself and your efforts in training. No thoughts should be wasted on what’s going on at work, what you have to prepare for dinner, why you can’t find that black sock. Your mind and body must be connected and in complete alignment for you to achieve amazing results. (Case in point: how many people do you know that read magazines whilst walking on a treadmill who are dramatically fitter in three months?)

Make your workouts a meditation. Strip away all the craziness of the outside world. Clear your mind. Focus completely on yourself. Be a little selfish.

Get your diet in order

I am sure you’ve heard this before. It does warrant a reminder though. Diet is the key to your success even in singular workouts. What you eat before and after your workouts have a direct correlation to how you perform during your workouts. That’s not rocket science, it’s just plain simple truth. Don’t for a second think that a post-workout recovery drink will suffice. You have to be on the ball all (or at least most) of the time.

Your degree of diligence in following a sensible nutrition plan (either the Paleo or Zone diet or both) will directly correlate to your performance. If you adhere 80% of the time you will get 80% of the rewards and so on.

Get competitive

Competition is an amazing motivator. Even those people who say they are not competitive really are, it’s just they compete differently to the rest of us. And even those people will get competitive in a group, it’s just human nature. No one likes to come last.

You don’t necessarily have to compete against anyone else. You can compete against yourself. All you need to do is record your workout results and always aim to do better next time. Always aiming to improve is competition against yourself. What greater motivation do you need than to do better than before or to beat the guy or girl next to you?

The manifesto

I recently finished writing the CrossFit Victoria Manifesto. It will be online when the new website is released (hopefully this month). Here is a sneak peak – this section is called “Gap”.

No matter how much we learn, there is still more to learn. The pursuit of knowledge is an admirable task. It is the kind of task that has no conceivable end. The rewards are in the journey rather than the destination. In truth, the more that one learns the further away the elusive goal of all-pervading knowledge becomes. To some this may be reason to resign themselves to ignorance. In other cases it sees people fall back on dogmatic beliefs passed on from generation to generation (or in our industry from trainer to trainer).

In our society, we see an overwhelming ignorance to the correct practices required to achieve lasting health and fitness. This level of ignorance is amazing given the apparently limitless amount of information available to the population.

As a society we tend to believe what we read in newspapers, watch on TV or hear on the radio without bothering to consider the background, education or experience of the media presenter. And thus the knowledge gap grows.

Governments, medical societies and professional training institutions are active in their delivery of misinformation to the public. These organisations are so invested in dogma that they fail to admit fault and change their stance on a wide array of topics. In the health and fitness arena this problem is further exacerbated by the piles of money earned by giants in the industry: the globo gyms, the pharmaceutical companies and many more.

Need examples? Take a look at the ‘healthy’ food pyramid that your local GP and government department provides as the benchmark nutritional guide. It might as well be upside-down. Or have a chat to someone who works at a pharmaceutical company (off the record of course) and ask them about statins and whether GPs should be prescribing them as readily as they are. We could go on.

The gap in understanding is widening. Experts are resting on their laurels. Instead of educating their clients and public at large they play their cards close to their chests. Are they afraid that someone might learn their secret? (Perhaps their only secret is that they really don’t know what they are doing and why.)

Surely there is a better way. How about in place of taking money and keeping people blissfully ignorant of the truth we start to educate the masses? How about we break down the walls that separate the truth from mere speculation and downright underhandedness?

The fitness professional has a supremely important role; she is part psychologist, part coach, part motivator, part empathetic companion. And this role is too often taken advantage of. There are countless individuals who honestly need the skills and assistance of a fitness professional. They should be able to receive fair, honest and above all successful service.

The individual must first understand their own limited knowledge. This is a substantial task. One must ask some tough questions and look hard for the answers. Sometimes they are not where expected.

When athletes become intelligent exercisers and trainers are open to any and all praise and criticism we have a situation where real results can be achieved.