Feb 10
9
By Jason Mathews, Edmonton Personal Trainer
Written February 8, 2010
Day 3 was a breeze. 3 Days ago I set myself up on a personal 90 Day challenge to eat only nutritious meals and implement a new training program. Despite being up, awake, and working, for most of the last 24 hours today was so productive that I barely noticed the day go by. On Sunday and Monday nights (in addition to personal training clients at the gym) I keep a night time job which allows read and study all the interesting developments in personal training, exercise, and nutrition. Information that might have ‘thought’ to be true just 10 years ago gets proven wrong with a new study daily so it is important to keep track. Amazing!
“Setting a goal is not the main thing. It is deciding how you will go about achieving it and staying with that plan.”~Tom Landry~
Today I’m going to redesign my exercise program; since this is a very common thing people ask me for help with I thought I would share a little about how I’m about to design my own exercise program. There is so much to consider when designing an exercise program that sometimes the intricacies can boggle the mind. I begin with deciding what I want out of my program and what my objectives with creating it are.
One of my first objectives in the first 30 days is improving some areas that are performing poorly because they are tight and weak. Generally the first month of a new exercise program is a period of time for my body to adapt to new exercises I haven’t done before.
There are numerous assessment tests available to figure out what’s weak on a person’s body but I was introduced to one of the simplest and most effective ones in Gray Cook’s Functional Movement screen. Gray’s deep squat, hurdle step, in-line lunge, Active Straight-Leg Raise, Trunk stability pushup, Shoulder mobility, and rotary stability tests create a good baseline of where my body is today. I’ve done the Functional Movement Screen 2 other times in the last 6 months to identify areas that can use improvement. Everything has been steadily improving each time I redesign my exercise program
You can check out the Functional Movement screen for yourself here: http://www.functionalmovement.com/SITE/publications/downloads/FMSPB.pdf
My own personal program over the next 90 days is going to focus on:
- Strengthening my posterior chain (fancy word for the group of muscles, tendons and ligaments from the back of the neck to the heels).
- Improve range of motion and flexibility in my hamstrings, adductors, and hip flexor muscle groups. I discovered how they rated with the Functional Movement Screen.
- Train my body for rock climbing mountains this spring and summer.
- Get myself ready for the Agatsu Kettlebell Level 2 Certification.
- My last objective in the next 90 days is to bring my agility and endurance up to the next level. I’m a big believer in role modeling people who are fitter than I am so that I can continually see what else might be possible for my body that was once upon a time a non-athletic video game junkie. Shawn Mozen, my Agatsu Kettlebell Instructor, provided some inspiration for me to aspire to in December. You can check out Shawn’s crazy abilities on his youtube channel. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Z4SBQY5Q7E
Tomorrow I’ll be posting the specific exercise regime I’ll be following over the first 30 days. Today was a longer day and I had the pleasure of serving 2 core exercise classes(noon and 5pm express), my training clients, plus my Monday & Wednesday kettlebell course participants. During long days I KNOW it’s critical to keep up with a regular eating schedule.
“Don’t be fooled by the calendar. There are only as many days in the year as you make use of.” ~Charles Richards~Since I have been up pretty much the entire day with a couple short naps I started logging my food intake starting midnight. I’ve been eating almost consistently every 3 hours the whole day and because of that I able to keep myself going despite the fact that I’ve had very little rest (I treasure sleep today ….. I get a little less L )
12:00 Am – Chicken Breast, Chick Peas, Alfalfa Sprouts
03:00 Am – Chicken Breast, Kidney Beans, Raw Carrots
06:00 Am – Smaller portion Chicken Breast and Raw Carrots
08:00 AM – 10:00 Am – Nap
11:00 AM – Mixed Veggie Omelet with kidney beans
02:00 PM – Tuna in olive oil, mixed veggies, & Chickpeas mixed with Kidney beans
05:00 PM – Snack Clementine Oranges.
07:00 PM – Chicken Breast
08:30 PM – 10:30 PM Nap
11:30 PM – Chicken Breast, Kidney Beans, Mixed Veggies
Today I did some joint mobility and flexibility exercises. Tomorrow I will be taking a course all day on sports performance I’m sure there will be a workout or two built in. Wednesday I start my new program.
By Jason Mathews, Edmonton Personal Trainer.
February 8, 2010
www.jasonmathews.com
