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Thread: Weights or callisthenics

  1. #11
    Master Travs's Avatar
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    I do most of my hard hill work on the treadmill in the gym, a geographic necessity...

    These are usually very draining sessions... so it’s very difficult, if not impossible for me to lift heavily afterwards, certainly for squats, which probably points to my bias for low weight and high reps.

  2. #12
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    If I squat with anything heavy I always pull my hamstring. Same with lunges. Even bodyweight lunges and I'm out of action for days. I used to do lots of HIIT etc with jump squats. I could barely walk the next day. A PT said it was because I have very long legs!?
    Now it's just Pilates every day and kettlebells 3 times a week.

  3. #13
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    I used to do kettlebells loads with kickboxing, then took a break from them for about a year when I started fellrunning... picked one up in the gym one day, nothing heavy, maybe 16kg, did a few sets, and my hamstrings were in agony the next day... surprising where they hit you!

  4. #14
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    I don’t want to cast aspersions on your PT, but I find it hard to take them seriously...

    I know a couple...

    One is a girl I went to school with, and she has absolutely no physical exercise experience other than having done the course and got the certificate. Seen her walking round Parkruns etc... her Facebook name is now “Xxxxx xxxxxxx PT”

    The second one I used to play football with and admittedly he’s in great shape. But he was coaching a friend of mine and doing diet plans for him, and allowing him to eat McDonalds.... he was also a total arse, and quit our Sunday league football team because the manager wouldn’t phone him up with a wake-up alarm call...

    I’ve played sports for years, occasionally at a decent level, professional in one (I also taught in this sport)... yet I couldn’t get a job in a commercial gym supervising someone jogging on a treadmill... although anybody reading the Today’s Training thread might say this is a good thing... not saying I’m anything special at all, but it does seem that paperwork/qualifications takes precedence over experience... which is quite different to a fair amount of jobs in the “real world”
    Last edited by Travs; 07-10-2019 at 09:35 PM.

  5. #15
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    I love kettlebells. I knackered my knee last week and can't bend it properly as its got 15 stitches. I can still do a full KB workout, just skipping the squats etc. Best thing for a full body workout IMO. I used to do them in the living room but my sweaty hand lost its grip doing swings and it just missed the TV. 24kg going at a rate of knots. I'm now relegated to the garage for everyone's safety.

  6. #16
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    We used to do sets of 20 x kettlebell swings, followed by bear-crawl across the gym and back, all x5.... it was a great workout but more specific to the sport we were doing rather than running... it hurt.

    Another great (and fun... I often used this to finish off particularly serious sessions, or kids sessions) upper body workout, is a partner workout...

    Wheelbarrow walk across the gym, when you reach the other end 5x press-ups whilst your partner still has your legs held up. Then you get up and fireman carry them back across the gym. All x3. Then swap roles. Light-hearted but agonising if you do it hard.

  7. #17
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    Skipping is fantastic for calf strength... if skipping is a chore or,you can’t pick up the technique, then find an old tyre and bounce up and down on the rim of it in bare feet for 10-15 minutes a day (build up to this).

    Tyres are useful... a fantastic way to build upper body strength is to repeatedly hit a tyre with a sledgehammer.

  8. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by Travs View Post
    Tyres are useful... a fantastic way to build upper body strength is to repeatedly hit a tyre with a sledgehammer.
    …opens eBay…

  9. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by Travs View Post
    I do most of my hard hill work on the treadmill in the gym, a geographic necessity...
    I’d noticed your treadmilling proclivity on today’s training.

    Being as I’m probably going to be in the same boat over the winter months out of geographical necessity, do you have any tips/thoughts on how to get the most out of it? (Beyond “turn up the incline and go for it ‘til you’re bored” which is my current plan.

  10. #20
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    I think if you just turn it up to 15% and then try and run up it as long as possible, you’re quickly going to become bored and extremely knackered.

    I try to do things that mimic a Fell Race... for instance 5 minutes power-walking at 15% followed by 5 minutes hard running at around 4%... repeat as fitness allows...

    Or similarly, repping between power-walking and “running” at 15%.... depending on the intensity of your run, and the ratio between walking/running, this can be an extremely challenging workout.

    Sometimes I treat it as I would a long easy run... chuck it on 15% and power-walk for an hour, like a steady-state run. Can also use this to increase your general power walking pace... for example my “steady” walk pace at 15% is 6.0, which I can happily knock out for an hour (although I’d certainly be sweating afterwards).... but at 6.7 it would be a different matter entirely.

    Unless there is a specific need, certainly wouldn’t whack it on 15% at running pace (anything above about 7.2) and just try and bang out an hour. I tried this in order to mimic the Snowdon Uphill race and I think I managed 23 or 27 mins before I had to turn it down and walk a section (which is incidentally a lot longer than I managed before walking in the actual race..!)

    It’s certainly a good tool though... a hard hours work can see you around 3000ft climb, give or take a few hundred feet, depending on fitness level.... and like the track there’s no hiding place... the physical need to have to turn the treadmill down once you’re on a hard rep is a powerful psychological deterrent, whereas it’s easier in my opinion to slow down on the hill...

    It’s not fellrunning, but I reckon it has its place.
    Last edited by Travs; 08-10-2019 at 03:18 PM.

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