Suzanne Schwartz, local cycling instructor and avid triathlete, is teaching two more 5-week cycling intensives at The Training Room in Somerville! The classes, 105 minutes each (90 minutes on the bike), are geared toward outside riders and triathletes. Participants work on cycling fitness, progressing though workouts each week to improve strength, endurance and power on the bike.
Week one focuses on form and technique on the bike, with an eye toward understanding different tempos/cadences. Participants also establish a base level of fitness by the end of the first class, checking perceived or actual exertion with both a set of intervals and an endurance climb. (So, if you’re a returning participant, you can compare your new base level of fitness to your previous one.) All classes have a combination of endurance, speed and interval training. As the classes progress, the strength exercises increase in intensity and Suzanne lengthens endurance efforts. The classes build toward longer intervals at higher exertion with less recovery. The final class returns to the same set of baseline intervals and endurance drills as the first class in order to evaluate the improvement in perceived exertion and fitness. Heart rate monitors are highly recommended.
Cycling Intensive Details: The Training Room 691a Somerville Ave.
Somerville, Massachusetts 02143
Monday Session: 7:15PM-9:00PM, February 28 – March 28
Sunday Session: 9:00AM – 10:45AM, March 6 – April 3 *participants must register for either the sun. or mon. session sign-up now
cost: $99
February 2011 - The Training Room is taking Small Group Training to a new level.
TRX Suspension Training + Kettlebells = an ultimate workout
The Training Room strives to help clients maintain a balanced fitness routine that fits well with their personal and professional lives. By combining strength training and metabolic circuits in one 60-minute workout, your body will get more bang for your buck.
TR owners Heidi Brown and Maren Kravitz have created a 6-week progressive training program with these two versatile pieces of training equipment for a total body workout that can be easily integrated into your local gym or at-home routine.
Why spend countless hours on cardio machines in conjunction with 3 sets of 12 repetitions on every weight machine in the gym? You can be more efficient combining training styles, working harder for less time. Change it up – spend the extra time working on preparing healthy meals that will help to give you the change in physique or increase in strength that you daydream about while reading the latest fitness-crazed diet fad on the elliptical.
out with the old… in with the new!
What is TRX Suspension Training? Suspension Training bodyweight exercise develops strength, balance, flexibility and core stability simultaneously. It requires the use of the TRX Suspension Trainer, a highly portable performance training tool that leverages gravity and the user’s body weight to enable hundreds of exercises for every fitness goal.
What is Kettlebell Training? Take a cast iron cannonball, add a handle, and you get the extremely efficient fitness tool that originated in Russia. Kettlebell training has quickly become a staple of functional training in the fitness industry. Most commonly associated with a “swinging” movement, these unique tools allow you to perform a variety of total body and core strengthening exercises with just one piece of equipment. Help increase your cardiovascular endurance while building strength and burning calories!
Three separate weekly sessions will be offered:
-Tuesdays @ 6:15pm – 7:15pm
-Wednesdays @ 7:30pm – 8:30pm
- Sundays @ 11:30am – 12:30pm *6 participants per class, must attend the same day/time each week
At The Training Room we strive to make fitness accessible to anyone, anywhere and at any time. So move the coffee table aside, get a piece of floor and prepare to burn some calories and work up a little sweat. Only equipment needed for this workout is you.
Complete 2-4 sets going from one exercise to the next. After completing the fourth exercise take as little rest as needed before beginning your next set. By limiting the rest between sets you will increase your heart rate working your cardiovascular system.
1. Body Weight Squats: 10-20 repetitions
With your feet placed shoulder width distance apart, and your toes slightly turned out, squat down like you are trying to sit back in a chair. Remember to keep your weight distributed on your heels as you want your glutes and hamstrings to fire more than the muscles in the front of your legs. Maintain the alignment with your knees over your toes (not in front) and keep your chest tall by looking forward throughout all the reps. Feel free to place a chair, bench or ottoman behind you as a target for your squat.
2. Push-ups: 10-15 repetitions
The push up is probably one of the most under rated, misunderstood exercises that is often performed with incorrect form.
To perform the push up correctly, you must maintain a straight body or plank position. holding the body tight throughout each repetition. The muscles of the back, abdominals, glutes and legs work together to maintain the proper plank position. Push ups may look easy, but there is technique involved in performing a correct push up. Some common mistakes seen with push ups are: looking up or hyper extending the neck, allowing the head to drop towards the floor, or leading with the chin, allowing the hips to drop or sag, elbows out, shallow range of motion.
With that in mind, the correct way to do a push up is:
-Lie face down on the floor with toes pulled under
-Keep elbows at about a 45 degree angle
-Press up to the starting position and slowly lower yourself toward the floor
-Keep a neutral neck – don’t look up and don’t allow head to drop to the floor
-Keep chin tucked
-Keep your abdominals tight and squeeze your glutes
3. Body Weight Lunges: 8-12 repetitions per side
-Stand with your feet approximately hip-width apart and your arms at your sides or behind your head, squeezing your shoulder blades together.
-Take a long enough step to keep your knee behind your toe and in proper alignment. Weight should be equally distributed between both feet.
-Keep your torso erect as you bend your front leg so your thigh is parallel with the floor. As you do this, bend your back leg, bringing the heel off the floor so your knee almost touches the ground. Your shoulders should be over your hips or just slightly in front of them, depending on your flexibility.
-Return to the starting position stepping backwards if you are completing forward lunges, or stepping forward if you choose reverse lunges.
4. Plank and Side Plank Position
Feel free to switch between the prone plank and the side plank to focus on different muscles groups.
Plank on elbows: Hold for 30 seconds – 1 minute
Cues: Low back should look exactly like it does when your standing (slight arch), glutes squeezed tight, and brace core.
Side Plank: Hold for 30 seconds – 1 minute
Straight Leg
If the straight leg version is too difficult, drop down to your knees to reduce the long lever position.
cues: Hips are pushed forward and keep them high; elbow should be directly below the shoulder.
[Andy wanted to collaborate on this post. His comments are in Bold]
Andy trained with me somewhat infrequently for a couple of months until he proposed to his now fiancee and decided to really buckle down and get aggressive with his training. Putting his trust in me, he made some major changes and sacrifices to both his diet and physical activity levels in order to not only improve his general health but also to ensure his wedding pictures didn’t portray him as he put it: “a tub of lard”.
The very first thing I needed Andy to do was to keep a detailed food log to see what kind of improvements we needed to make with his eating habits. I can’t stress enough that it is impossible to out-train a bad diet. Using a free iPhone app called “Lose It” he was able to get a pretty accurate representation of the amount of calories he was taking in as well as the protein/carbohydrate/fat macro-nutrient breakdown of each meal. Rather than nitpick and poke holes at every little “mistake”, I chose a couple of guidelines to correct some of the major flaws in his diet – mainly, eating a higher quality breakfast and cutting down on the amount of alcohol. What many don’t realize is that “a drink or two every night” adds up and can sabotage the efforts of an otherwise sound diet.
Drinks Add Up!
Most people on New Year’s resolutions or just general fat loss kicks try to do too many things at once and end up getting overwhelmed and are doomed right from the start. Real, long-lasting results will occur through lifestyle changes and that doesn’t happen overnight. Andy also began eating smaller amounts & eating more frequently, upping the fruit & vegetable intake and cutting back on sugar, particularly added sugar (“sugar is the devil”).
Step two was to figure out his training schedule. Realistically, Andy had about 3 days to work out during the week. He supplemented training with me once a week with a 50/50 class at the Training Room as well as a regular gym session on his own, which included a weight lifting and high intensity cardio interval regimen. The first half of our sessions were solely for building strength and gaining mobility while the second portion was completely metabolic and meant to burn as many calories as possible.
What many fail to realize is that the more lean muscle mass you have, the higher your resting metabolic rate (RMR) will be. Your RMR comprises approximately 70% of your total caloric expenditure per day (the rest is made up of physical activity and the energy it takes to break down food), which means the amount of muscle mass you have is crucial for any fat loss endeavors. Unfortunately, your body doesn’t deem it quite as necessary because it’s so metabolically “expensive”. For that reason, any time your body encounters a period of lower caloric intake (a diet), lean muscle mass is often the first thing to go. The only way to “bypass” this is to strength train with weights challenging enough to provide the proper stimulus that tells your body that it needs to hold on to the muscle mass.
Drop the pink dumbells and challenge yourself!
With less than a year of serious weight training under his belt, Andy puts up some serious numbers. Andy’s mantra: “More weight, Jason, more weight” was interestingly inaudible throughout this entire session:
400lb Trap Bar Deadlift:
Tough, but he made it. Notice the two little 2.5 pound weights sticking out at the top because there wasn’t any space left on the bar.
300lb Squat:
Could’ve gone lower, but depth is understandable considering the max effort trap bar deadlift right before.
We decided to load his pushups with one of our trainers, Lauren:
Two (and a half) reps with about 120 pounds on his back – not too shabby for a guy who could barely do any a year ago.
An example of one of our Kettlebell “Complexes” with 2-20kg KBs:
Front Squats, Alternating Push Presses, Romanian Deadlifts, Alternating Rows, and Swings
Andy before at 272lbs and 31.1% Body Fat
Completely transforming your physique requires a tremendous amount of hard work and discipline. All too often, people create excuses for themselves. Work, life, stress, kids, etc. all “get in the way”. With his optimism and enthusiasm, Andy was able overcome these excuses and set aside the time to make healthy lifestyle choices. That’s why it’s important to set yourself up for success. Surround yourself with people that support you, keep healthy food choices at the office, and train hard at the gym so that with the right self-motivation you can achieve your goals like Andy did.
Andy at 223lbs and 21.6% Body Fat
It’s still May, so one more final push until Andy’s July 31st wedding date! Stay Tuned!
Train Hard,
Jason
Andy’s Comments:
A year ago I figured that the weight I had put on after some personal issues the last few years was there to stay with my 40th birthday now some years behind me! Jason’s right that the galvanizing event was my upcoming wedding to Kate, and armed with that deadline I challenged Jason to help me get into shape. A year and 65 lost pounds later, I can’t say enough good things about how much Jason has helped me.
Jason gave me nutritional advice and regularly checked in via Txt to see how I was doing. As he said above it helped tremendously to just focus on a few key things. Probably “sugar is the devil” was the key learning for me, as focusing on that alone led me quickly to be in or around my daily calorie target without focusing on calorie counts, fat intake, etc. Of course, My fiancée Kate gets major credit for cooking healthy meals and giving me healthy snacks for the work day (generally, almonds and fruit). Plus, no doubt, the knowledge that Jason would be checking food logs was undoubtedly a motivating factor on those evenings when a beer would have felt good after a stressful workday!
Jason was always well-prepared for workouts with the exercise schedule written up in advance; and workouts were always varied and challenging. As someone who had never really lifted weights before I quickly found that I enjoyed that challenge and was amazed to see the weight levels being increased as the body weight came down. The daily stretching routine that Jason prepared has been helpful to me also, particularly early on as I had a long way to go flexibility-wise.
I also tremendously enjoyed the Training Room exercise classes, after the first-time nerves that perhaps I’d be out of gas after the first 15 minutes! The combination of cycling and body weight or circuit exercises keeps things interesting and for me I push myself much harder than if I was in the gym on my own with the headphones on.
To sum up, the Training Room are lucky to have Jason on the team. I couldn’t have achieved the progress I made in the last year without his counsel, guidance & support. [Jason: It was a team effort with Heidi, Maren, and Lauren - best instructors ever! And even more importantly - Andy's drive and dedication!]
On Saturday, May 1st at 11:30am The Training Room ultra relay team will begin the 13 Relay, a 200 mile adventure beginning at Squantum Park in Quincy, MA, traveling past beautiful beaches, coastlines and some of the most quintessential New England towns, before hitting the finish line in Provincetown.
Most of the participating teams will consist of 12 members – each running three non-consecutive legs varying in length and difficulty. Each leg of the 13 Relay ranges from 1.7 miles to 10.3 miles; this equates to each teammate running an average of 16.85 miles.
Unlike the 195 teams that consist of 12 runners, Team TR is one of 10 “ultra” teams that consists of six runners, which on average will run 33.71 miles each.
Let’s introduce Team Training Room one last time with the mileage they are each responsible to cover in a 24-hour period.
Marc Blandin (3 legs totaling 36 miles) – his competitive nature drives him to run 100+ road races a year always striving to beat his best time. An avid cyclist and assistant coach for the New England Chapter of Team Challenge Crohn’s & Colitis, Marc has completed 12 marathons in 5 years and aspires to qualify this coming fall for the 2011 Boston Marathon.
Derek Christeler (3 legs totaling 33.8 miles) – cycling instructor at The Training Room, Derek started his quest to become fit after topping the scales in college at 225lbs. Never participating in organized sports, Derek found his place training for triathlons which has helped him to shed 40-50lbs. Derek has completed two marathons and numerous triathlons in the past two years. Derek will be competing in his first Half Ironman this summer, and he hopes to qualify for the 2011 Boston Marathon this fall breaking three hours and 10 minutes.
Maren Kravitz (3 legs totaling 37.7 miles) – co-owner of The Training Room, Maren became addicted to endurance events when she realized it helped to release her endless energy and provide a means to concentrate better in all areas of her life. Focusing her endurance training on cycling and running, Maren has completed 8 marathons in 3 years, qualifying for the Boston Marathon two years in a row. Maren is hoping to take her endurance training to the next level by participating in her first solo 50 Mile ultra running race this November.
Chris Mullins (3 legs totaling 36.6 miles) – newer to the racing scene, Chris has caught the “runner’s high” participating in his first half-marathon in Hawaii while helping to coach the New England chapter of Team Challenge Crohn’s and Colitis. Chris quickly moved up to the marathon distance running a solid three hour and 17 minute race at the 2009 Lowell Bay State marathon. Chris is determined to shed the last few minutes off his marathon time this fall and qualify for the 2011 Boston Marathon.
Marisa Nucci (3 legs totaling 32 miles) – youngest member of Team TR, Marisa was a Division One recruited soccer player for Stoneybrook University. An avid runner and cyclist, she has completed three half marathons with a personal best one hour and 41 minutes at the Chicago Half Marathon in August 2009. That same year Marisa ran her first full marathon in Hyannis, MA. Marisa will complete her next full marathon this fall in hopes of running a solid qualifying time for the 2011 Boston Marathon.
Roz Puleo (3 legs totaling 30 miles) – cycling instructor at The Training Room and veteran endurance racer, Roz has won two national championships on the bike (in the mountain bike discipline of Super D, a mass start downhill race in 2007 and 2008). She also qualified as an elite in the 2004 24-Hour Solo Mountain Bike World Championships and placed 13th out of 21 women. Competing at this level means a lot to Roz as she weighed over 200 lbs 13 years ago and was really out of shape. As the last racer to cross the finish line for Team TR, this particular finish line will put a drastic pause to Roz’s endurance racing and active lifestyle – donating a kidney to her father the week after the relay. Pending a strong recovery, Roz will focus on completing her first Half Ironman this fall.
The “core”. It’s a word commonly thrown around, but often misused and misinterpreted. What exactly is it? How do we train it?
As complex as our “core” is, core training today has somehow been relegated to abdominal training – namely, crunches and situps. In my opinion, the core is literally everything between our upper and lower extremities – the hips, torso, and midsection.
Now, let’s take a look at each of these individual regions and their respective anatomical designs. The lumbar spine (lower back) can safely rotate approximately 13 degrees, which is an extremely minute range of motion. It is also an area that is prone to injury when exposed to repeated flexion and extension. Why are we training an area that so obviously craves stability by crunching, bending, and twisting under load? Here’s a quote from physical therapist Shirley Sahrmann in her book Diagnosis and Treatment of Movement Impairment Syndromes:
“During most activities, the primary role of the abdominal muscles is to provide isometric support and limit the degree of rotation of the trunk which, as discussed, is limited in the lumbar spine.” (Sahrmann, p. 70)
When we train for core stability, we are actually training for spine stability. Now, if this is true, why do I believe that the hips and torso are part of the core? Why not just the midsection? This is definitely where the line starts to get blurry. Where does training for hip mobility and stability, as well as thoracic spine (trunk) mobility have any place in a “core” training program? This is where we need to start thinking outside the box.
Each of our joints (feet, ankles, knees, hips, low back, upper back, shoulders) need a certain degree of mobility (how well a joint moves) and stability (how well a joint resists movement). When a baby is born, they are one big ball of mobility . They can’t even stand, let alone walk. But as they move around and develop some strength throughout their joints they start to crawl, stand, and eventually walk. Ever see a baby squat down to pick up some toys?
Picture perfect mobility
Now, fast forward this same exact child 30+ years. Picture him in a cubicle working over 40 hours a week sitting at a desk job hunched over his computer. Our bodies and tissues start to adapt or “creep” to this caveman posture. What used to be a ball of mobility eventually turns into a stiff board of stability!
Our bodies are masters at compensating. When a joint like the knees lacks stability (more mobility), the joints surrounding the unstable joint (the hips and ankle) are forced to “lock up” to prevent further instability throughout the body. The same goes for a joint like the hip that is mostly meant for mobility but for whatever reason (sitting for long periods of time for example) starts to stiffen up and become more stable. The joints (knees and lower back) surrounding the hip pick up the slack and become more mobile.
Now, what this tells us is that without proper hip mobility, the lumbar spine is not able to hold itself in a stable position. What about the thoracic spine? Unlike the lumbar region, the t-spine has close to 70 degrees of range of motion compared to the 13 degrees in the lower back. Ever watch an athlete rotate through their lower back? Probably not. If they’re good and injury-free, they probably swing through their upper back and hips.
Look at Tiger Woods and Albert Pujols. Different sports, but same mechanics. Both are rotating perfectly through their trunk and hips while maintaining a solid midsection. In athletic or functional settings, having a strong core will allow the body to transmit force from the ground to the upper extremities. In the event that an athlete showed a weakness at any point throughout that transfer of force, a series of “energy leaks” would present themselves that would seriously limit the potential of elite performance.
So why are we still prescribing exercises like russian twists and cable chops where the emphasis is rotating through the lumbar spine rather than attempting to preserve the stability in the midsection?
Now, if having proper hip and trunk mobility is so crucial for lumbar spine stability then why aren’t we considering them as part of our “core” training? Why do we only insist on training our “six-pack” muscles? If we dont re-evaluate how our bodies actually function, then we’re crunching and twisting our way to future lower back issues.
Part 2 will discuss safe and effective exercises to train the core. Until then,
