We train a wide range of fitness skills at the EF box (gym);

• Cardiovascular & Respiratory endurance
  
• Stamina
• Flexibility
• Strength
• Power
• Speed
• Coordination
• Agility
• Balance 
• Accuracy

Regardless of which sport, or sports, we pursue it would be difficult to imagine a sport (or any daily task for that matter) where these skills wouldn't come in handy.

One sport where most if not all of these skills are taxed is snowboarding.  No surprise then that Matthew, one of our young athletes, makes this complex skill look easy despite it being his first time on snow. 
 

















Matthews first time on snow; pictured at Harwood Ski Club, County Durham Pennines

Matthew, one of our young Athletes, putting his fitness to the test in the real world and looking cool in the process!!!

We hereby acknowledge that Bev Sinkinson has an understanding of foundational gymnastic and Olympic weightlifting movements and has demonstrated safe practice in the hallowed gymnasium.


Graduating with a not too shabby sub-eight minute time too! 


Session 1: 09:44 Vs Session 12: 07:10

Well done Bev!

Perhaps it's something to do with the onset of the Winter Olympics (apparently it's started, just waiting on the snow!) but our athletes have been breaking some personal records of late.

• Ged joined us a dozen or so weeks ago and despite an impressive running-pedigree (we've heard he's fairly handy with a football as well) didn't have a pull-up to call his own (The pull-up is a lot harder than it looks and zero pull-up count is the norm for most of our athletes at point-of-entry).  His first pull-up arrived after weeks of hard work and the second was also slow to surface.  However, the pull-up drought is well and truly over as Ged has seen his pull-up count go from 3 to 4, and then a solid 6 today.  That's doubled his PB in less that 2 weeks!  That nice round 10 has your name on it mate, good job!

Not one, but three, 'Geoffrey' (winter protocol; 200m, 15/12/9 Squats/Push-ups/Ring-rows, 200m) personal bests to report; 

• Stephen Farr took an already impressive sub-ten minute score down to 7:52.  As a side note Stephen lost 8lbs during the process.  Keep up the good work Stephen!

Session 1: 09:38 Vs Session 12: 07:52

• Hazel Boyd knocked a full 3 minutes off her original time. Way to go Hazel!

Session 1: 11:03 Vs Session 12: 08:03

And only today Bev Sinkinson graduated from her month long induction with a very impressive sub-8 minutes.

Photo to follow but her scores stand at Session 1: 09:44 Vs Session 12: 07:10.

• The Level 1; 500m Row goal is 1:55 (male) / 2:20 (female).  Achieved by Michael and Vicky.  Both comfortable passes with Michael seconds away from the Level 2 target. V. impressive!

• Even our Evo-Fit kids were getting in on the act with 30s static-hold goals achieved for Matthew and Olivia.  Nice work guys!

Lying down is an activity we all appreciate but, lying down after hard work is hard to beat.

It's also hard to explain, but it's all too familiar to our athletes.

...you're lying on your back having just completed a workout that, at the beginning, you weren't even sure you were capable of.  You're lying in a pool of your own sweat and snot (mainly sweat) and you don't even notice let alone care.  A heady mixture of exhaustion and elation... 

...the feel good endorphins produced from exercise are just kicking in and you can feel your heart beating high in your chest...

To be honest we hadn't heard of the Bob Graham Round until Lee brought it to our attention last month, when he said he was confident (read; crazy) enough to do it, but now it seems to be everywhere.  An article features in this months Runners World and it was shown in detail last night on the BBC.  Here's a link to that piece...
BBC Bob Graham Round

...Lee you'd better start adding grass to your diet!

With February already upon us it's time to take stock of those New Year's Resolutions.  Are you on track, or are you still struggling to determine clear goals for 2010?

Whatever your goals, we hope that they are very ambitious, audacious even!  We believe that it is far better to fall short of a huge target, than achieve a mediocre one...and of course there's always the possibility of achieving that outlandish goal if you make the right commitment.

One athlete who has taken this ambitious message to heart is our 31yr old Lee.   Lee has set his sights on joining what has to be the most exclusive club in Great Britain; The Bob Graham 24 Hour Club.

I say exclusive, in fact it's open to anyone, anyone who can complete 42 of the highest peaks in the English Lake District within 24 hours that is; A 27,000 foot circuit covering 72 miles! 

When you consider Mount Everest is 29, 000 feet we get an idea of the challenge Lee faces.  Even within fell-running circles, no stranger to extremes, it's considered a test-piece of human endurance. 


Lee on his first fell-running outing of the year in Rothbury.

"Lee, we salute your audacity, and look forward to the many training sessions ahead.  Good Luck!"

Watch this space for Lee's training reports...

Having already used the term 'busy' in our last blog I thought I'd better use a different adjective in the title this week!  Take your pick as once again the gym has been a blur of vigorous activity and personal achievements.  Let's take a look...

In no particular order...

Johanne Carr achieved her 50 unbroken squat target;  Johanne had her eye on this goal for a while and with her long levers (biomechanics speak for being tall!) we knew she'd have to fight for every rep.  Nice job Johanne!


We've have not one, but two Ramp-Up graduates to report; Lynn Bradford graduated with an excellent time of 7:16 (Winter Protocol) having joined us with an initial 11:25 for the same workout just 4 weeks earlier.  Nuha Woolmington also graduates, narrowly missing a sub-ten minute round, with a time of 10:02.  Nuha has seen solid progress and slashed a massive 4:31 off her original score come race day.

So whats a few minutes improvement between friends?  Well, our rudimentary maths reveals that this is a 36% and 31% improvement respectively.  If a recreational half-marathon runner made gains of this sort of magnitude they'd be crossing the finish line half-an-hour earlier!  And that's in a mere 4 weeks of training.  Nice job Lynn!  Nice job Nuha!


New Skill Level Introduced (0.75% Classification; Senior Athlete):  Having attempted/achieved some of our Level 1 goals you will all know that they are demanding tasks for anybody starting out in fitness let alone senior athletes.

No rubber bands and swiss balls; here one if our senior athletes throws weights around like everybody else!

Despite the bar being set very high, some of our senior clients have made huge inroads into, and even achieved some of these Level 1 goals.  However, we feel the need to introduce a new skill level to reward their hard work and maintain motivation, whilst acknowledging the impact of those advanced years (this article is a mine field!)

2000m Row in 9mins26s: Speaking of Level 1 goals, a big well done to Laura with this impressive time.  Easily within the female 9:50 goal.

The 2000m row is a test of our capacity to do work.  More than endurance, it is the ability to work at a high level for a sustained period of time.  Performance over 2,000m on a rowing ergometer is dependent upon the functional capacity of both the aerobic and anaerobic energy pathways, with the relative amount of energy derived from anaerobic metabolism being 21-30%(1). 

In tests designed to mirror the demands of a 2000m race, caloric expenditure has been calculated as 36kcal per minute making it one of the most energy demanding activities ever studied (Hagerman FC. Applied physiology of rowing. Sports Med. 1984 Jul-Aug;1(4):303-26).


500m Row in under 1min55s (Male): Another away we can define our fitness on the rower is by testing speed rather than capacity.  A different kind of 'hurt', this row demands working at your very top end albeit for a much shorter duration.  Michael demonstrated plenty of speed when he crossed the finish line with seconds to spare on his successful 500m attempt.  Nice job Michael!

We know that this is just a few of your personal achievements but rest assured we notice all of your gains (and the hard work that makes it happen)!  Don't be shy, ask us to take your photo and we'll report your achievements to inspire others!

PS. Tell your friends to do the smart thing and get fit!!!

It's been busy, busy, busy after the holiday season.  Here's a little reminder of the blur of the past few weeks...




Shuttle runs, Power-cleans and Press-ups: Siobhan finishing a clean, Laura gearing up for her next one, and David...well David seems to be doing Velociraptor impressions??


A real Velocirapror


Mark, working at speed and high-volume on the bench-press


Rowing, Sit-ups, Squats, Pull-ups and ladder drills


On top of everything else Kip lost her first puppy teeth this week!


Possibly the only gym in the UK where you'll see a man working out in his duffel-coat!  But it's performance not cosmetics we care about at EF and when you can squat 100kg at a body-weight of 73kg (pictured) you can wear what you want! Nice job Geoffrey; next goal, twice body-weight!