In part 2 we learned from veteran body builder, Jason Ferruggia  the importance of including mobility and flexibility exercises into your workout routines.

Today, Jason will share more tips as he explains the different types of sprinting techniques.

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CRAIG BALLANTYNE: Remember when you trained Hyson?  Maybe tell us briefly on how his program was back then, and what you would do now to change that program.  It’s been like two years or something.  What would you have changed in his program to keep getting him those awesome results?  You use a new style of Renegade training.

JAY FERRUGGIA: Yeah, that’s a good question actually.  He was doing three days.  So he was doing upper, lower, upper because he was running a few days a week as well.

CRAIG BALLANTYNE:  Really?

JAY FERRUGGIA: Not jogging.  He was running sprints.  But yeah, it was a park he found in Brooklyn that had pretty good hills.  So he was doing hill sprints.  But what I would have him do now is probably, the diet would be something different first and foremost.  Back then – I’m trying to remember exactly what we had him – this was two years ago, so I was still doing a more traditional six meals a day type deal.  We were doing carb cycling and calorie cycling.  But I would trim that down.  I would either have him use an intermittent fasting type approach, which I have kind of my own unique spin on that I’ve been using, over have more time between meals.  Most people I’ll have do one of those two.

So we’ll have three meals a day, but there will be five to six hours between each one.  Have him kind of just sit down and determine what approach.  But I’ve found better success with those.  And most people don’t have time to eat six meals a day, or the desire.  So either of those two approaches ends up being three or four meals, usually three – maybe a workout shake or something like that.

And then for the training I would probably definitely have him do four days.  The fourth day, just off the top of my head we’d probably have him do another lower body day.  If he was doing upper, lower, upper I’d probably throw in a lower body day in there.  But since he was running sprints a few times a week and squatting the other day, that day would probably be more hip extension stuff so as not to stress his knees as much.  And we really wouldn’t want to stretch his spine as much either.  So it would probably be heavy single leg RBL swings, glute hams, back raises, glute bridges, hip thrusts, sled work, all that kind of stuff.  And then abs and whatever assistance work.

I just think that fourth day, if you’re not killing yourself and you’re being smart and making all the changes that I had previously mentioned, it definitely will help a little bit.  You’re still getting an extra day where you’re burning calories, you’re building muscle, you’re getting positive hormonal changes.  I’d have to sit down obviously and think about it all.  But those would be just kind of the general changes that I would make to it, off the top of my head.

CRAIG BALLANTYNE:  So the general question here for guys that want to get strong – well, guys or girls – stronger and gain muscle.  That’s been like the focus.  Where does the sprinting – is it something that will help them, is it something that is okay to do or is it something that will kind of get in the way?  How do you do it right so you can get stronger and bigger and still sprint?  Or do they even need to?

JAY FERRUGGIA: I think most people can do it.  In the past I was trying the old school, the old super squats kind of theory of don’t run when you can walk, don’t walk when you can stand, don’t stand when you can sit down, that kind of stuff, for skinny guys or girls looking to gain size.

But I think that doing some condition actually does enhance your results.  It’s a very rare person that doesn’t have trouble gaining 10 to 20 pounds of muscle and staying lean at the same time.  Eighteen-year-old kids can do it.  But after that, unless you’re a real genetic freak, most people – and I’ve worked with a ton of regular people – they do tend to end up getting fatter when they’re trying to gain a lot of size.  Even ten pounds sometimes, they’re going to get fatter.

So I think it’s smart to always do some kind of stuff like that.  Some high intensity conditioning definitely makes it better.  It enhances your recovery, not only between workouts but your between set recovery gets better.

You’ll notice that when you start running sprints your recovery, say if you’re alternating chin-ups and military presses or something like that, just within a few weeks you’ll start to notice that between sets your drop off isn’t as much.  You’re not breathing as heavy.  You feel better.  So your workouts actually get better, your recovery between the workouts gets better, your overall health improves, you’re able to eat a little bit more, which you’re going to need for gaining that muscle without getting this fat.

And then if you look at some of the most jacked guys in the world that most people would pay to have their physique, NFL running backs or wide receivers or d-backs, they’re all running sprints all the time.  The one thing you don’t want to be doing is jogging.  That’s going to kill you.  But if you’re running I would say it’s going to have more benefit than any negative effects really.

So let’s say if you were lifting three days a week and you ran sprints two days.  If you’re training five total days, and the sprint workout is only going to be 20 or 30 minutes, most people are going to be able to recover from that.  If you really have recovery issues then you could throw those sprint workouts in right after training.  So you train 30 to 45 minutes, and then you’re already warmed up at that point so you don’t need much of a warm-up.  Sprint for 15 to 20 minutes and you’re good to go.

CRAIG BALLANTYNE:  What type of sprinting should they be doing?  Should they just be doing hills, or is there something special with the hill sprints?  Or is it okay to do sprints on a treadmill?  Or is that maybe not the best idea because you’re going a lot faster and you could hurt yourself?

JAY FERRUGGIA: The only reason that I picked hill sprints first and foremost, is just because it’s way harder to get hurt.  If anyone’s listening to this call who’s in their 30s and hasn’t sprinted since high school, the possibility of getting hurt is fairly good if you’re not smart about it.  You’re going to want to take a few weeks to work up to it.  And the first couple of weeks you’re going to do so little that it’s going to be boring.  But you have to do that to be smart about it.

If you haven’t sprinted in a while yeah, you can do flat ground. But it’s just that the angle that it puts you at when you’re doing your hill sprints greatly reduces the impact and the chance of injury.  So that’s why I recommend hills sprints above all else.

And then if you had a sled you could run with, either attached to a belt or if you’re dragging it or you have your arms extended in front of you and have attached rings or Blast Straps to it.  Again, that reduces the possibility of injury simply because it slows you down.  Or if you were pushing the prowler, the angle of your upper body would be kind of similar to what it would on a hill.

If none of those are options then obviously your only choice is to run sprints on flat ground.  I’d rather it be outside than on the treadmill.  If the treadmill is your only option, if you’re somewhere where it’s all icy out during the winter, obviously that’s better than nothing.  So you can do that.  But again, work up to it very slowly.  Start maybe 70 percent the first day, and literally only do maybe three 40-yard sprints.  That sounds like nothing, but you’d be surprised at people who get injured doing that, doing slightly above that the first day.

And keep it very minimal then just work up.  Don’t be too eager.  You’re not going to get down to five percent body fat in two weeks no matter what you do.  So take it slow and be smart, because once you get injured you’re not going to be able to train.  Then all your goals are out the window anyway.  So just real slow, a couple sprints and see how your knees feel, see how your hip flexors feel, see how your hamstrings feel.  You don’t want to tweak or pull a hamstring or anything like that.

And make sure you’re running with proper mechanics.  You do not want to be heel striking.  I see people who haven’t sprinted in a while and they heel strike.  That’s the last thing you want to do.  Make sure that the ball of your foot hits the ground, and kind of pause like a bull and pull at the ground behind you.  So you should be running pretty quietly.  If you’re just clogging along and I can hear you from two blocks away you’re going to get hurt as well.

So work on running mechanics.  Try to be quiet.  If you’re running on flat ground your heels should land directly beneath you, not way out in front of you, when you’re jogging.  That’s when you get that impact that’s just way too stressful on the knees and everything.  So all those things are real important to consider.

CRAIG BALLANTYNE:  What about if you have a car and your friend drives the car and you attach yourself to the car, like [Mandelbaum].  Is that a good way to train?

JAY FERRUGGIA: Yeah, yeah.  That’s what you and I do when we’re together.  It’s a really good way.  And then use blood for gas.

CRAIG BALLANTYNE: Yeah.  And if you’re transporting blood, where should you transport the blood in the car?

JAY FERRUGGIA: In the gas tank.  You want to use it as fuel.

Next up,  Jay will share with us his plans and goals for 2012. Click here for part 4.

Yours in Health,

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, M.Sc.
Certified Turbulence Trainer

Over the next few days I’ll be sharing with you this expert interview series from one of the most in-demand trainers in the industry. My friend Jason (Jay) Ferruggia.

He is a renowned strength coach has been training athletes from over 90 different athletic organizations, is the chief training adviser to Men’s Fitness Magazine and on the advisory board for Live Strong.

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CRAIG BALLANTYNE: Hey everybody. Welcome to another Turbulence Training podcast. It’s really just another chat with one of my buddies. And we’re going to catch up with the legendary Renegade coach, Jay Ferruggia. Jay, welcome to the call.

JAY FERRUGGIA: Thanks, Craig.

CRAIG BALLANTYNE: All right. So as I mentioned just before we got on here, this is going out to everybody on the Turbulence Training podcast. So there will be tens of thousands of people listening. And we just want to catch up with Jay in a nice casual conversation, and see what he has learned in 2011.

So Jay, you did a Renegade seminar. You told me you had quite a few lessons from that. But you’ve been down in California. And you’ve got the gym running back in Jersey. You’re still learning a ton of things. So this year what were some of the top lessons?

JAY FERRUGGIA: There were a lot of lessons this year, actually. And this was mainly due to my personality. I think a lot of the things that we tend to recommend, and in the way we train people, is due to our own personalities, our own genetics, what works best for us. And my personality has always been pretty intense.

I always liked training super intense, but to the point where it was detrimental. Where I would over train a lot, and I suffered a lot of injuries that I shouldn’t have just being stupid and not knowing when to tone it down. And I was always going a hundred percent, always ball to the wall. And even over the last two years I’ve definitely trimmed back on that and recommending that a lot. Always leave a couple reps in the tank, this and that. But I cut it back even more this year, and it’s definitely helped my clients and all the members of the Renegade Inner Circle.

I feel a lot better. I make better progress. I avoid injuries, stuff like that. When you’re always going all out, like I always like to do, things start to break down and eventually you do get the nagging injuries. And then you’re forced to take layoffs. And then you’re always kind of in that cycle of training’s great, then you’re hurt, then you’re not training, then you’re rehabbing, and just that never ending cycle.

When I say I toned it down a lot this year, I mean that some of the things were weights above 90 percent, even weights above 85 percent, I cut back on more. I do more work with myself and with everyone in the 75 to 85 percent range, and try to avoid doing a ton of stuff at 90 percent and above.

Obviously there’s always a time and place for it, and for maximal strength development it is important. But you do tend to burn out and you do get hurt doing that too much. So I kind of limited that. Going to close to failure.

Again, I really had never advocated that much the last few years. But there are times when you’re competing, with friends or whatever, when it does get out of control. I’ve been better able to temper that with myself. And I always hold my clients back. I just see the benefits across the board of doing this kind of stuff. And by making these changes, myself and clients, I’ve been able to train more frequently actually. Do a little bit more volume. Do a little bit more frequency. When in the past I really limited guys to three or four days a week.

I actually have some guys that were only able to recover from three days with the old style training. Now I’m training four days, some people even training five. And I’ve done stints this year. I trained six days on an upper lower. The workouts are only 30 minutes.

But recovery is just better all-around when you’re not frying your nervous system, frying your joints, things like that. So that was another thing. I kind of neglected work capacity a little bit, because the training was so intense we had to keep the volume so low. But I think we neglected work capacity a bit by doing that. So now there’s more of a balance, where we’re bringing up strength, size, conditioning and work capacity all together now. And it’s working synergistically, and just getting better results all around. Those were some of the biggest things that I learned. I’m trying to think what else here. And basically I eliminated any risky type exercises as much as I could.

And I realize this is not always possible for most people. But myself, I had custom made bars at the gym. So they have a fat two-inch diameter angled grip instead of straight bar. If you don’t compete in Olympic lifting or power lifting, or it’s not going to get tested on the bench press as an athlete, for most of us there’s not a huge reason to use a straight bar if you can avoid it, simply because it’s a little bit riskier. It’s a little unnatural to use a straight bar.

If anyone looks at this right now, it kind of does like a military press and puts their hands up in the bottom position. For most people you’ll see there won’t be a straight line. Your hands will be angled in slightly. So that when you force them to connect through a straight line like that, it puts a little bit of undue stress on the wrists or the elbows. And that makes the shoulders, everything’s connected. And that might not be a huge deal for everybody. But over time if you get strong, five or ten years down the line that is going to add up.

So things like that as you get older you try to be more conscious of that and think about that. So I’ve tried to eliminate the straight bar. And whenever possible use fat grips or custom made fat handles on everything, just because that is a lot safer on your elbows and your shoulders. I spoke with a lot of strongman competitors this year, just trying to do more research and find all this stuff out firsthand from a lot of these guys. And because they always have to press the axle bar and two-and-a-half and three inch diameter bars in competition, they’ve gotten so used to it now. They notice such a tremendous difference that a lot of the guys I know, they say they won’t even press with a regular bar or use a regular bar at all anymore, because it’s so stressful to their elbows in comparison to the fatter bars. And anyone listening, all you have to do is try it one time.

If you press dumbbells with a two-inch, if you’re used to those pencil thin grips that most gyms have and you slap the fat grips on there or go to a gym that has custom made fat handles, you will notice an instant difference in how your elbows and shoulders feel during the workout or the next day. People can prove this to themselves right away. Let’s say you grab a 105-pound dumbbell and try to farmer’s walk with it, versus grabbing a 150-pound kettlebell, which has a fatter grip, you’ll notice that it’s actually easier to hold the fatter grip. Which doesn’t sound like it would make sense, but it just has to do with the length/tension relationship and just the way it kind of sits in your hand.

Those were, I guess, most of the changes. I’m trying to think if there’s anything else I didn’t cover. I guess mobility and flexibility also was something that I myself neglected. I actually had everyone do it, but I personally neglected it too much. So I made it a real goal to get a lot better at that this year. And I do at least a half hour a day, every single day. That’s part of my morning routine, just like brushing my teeth and flossing. I absolutely force myself to do that every day. And I feel a thousand times better. My recovery is better. I can actually squat. Not that I squat heavy that much like I used to anymore, but I can do it deeper with a lot less pain. So that’s been huge for me. I’m trying to think what else.

CRAIG BALLANTYNE: You’re not doing your mobility always right before you train? You’re just doing it any time of the day?

JAY FERRUGGIA: I’ve actually become so obsessed with mobility. There’s so many different drills that I do. I have countless mobility drills. So I tend to break it up. The first thing in the morning I do stuff that doesn’t involve spinal flexion, because I just think that’s a little risky first thing in the morning. But I do it just to force myself to do certain things first thing in the morning. So I’ll do about 15 to 20 minutes. And then before I’m training, depending on what I’m going to do that day, I’ll do another 8 to 12 mobility drills as well.

So I end up getting at least a half hour of it in each day. And then before training I might throw in some dynamic stretching and certain activation drills as well. But the other stuff is just part of my morning routine. Like before I even start working now I’ll just go through a whole circuit. And that’s, like I said, it’s just like brushing my teeth now.

That’s all we have for today. Please join us in Part 2 where Jay talks about mobility drills.

Yours in Health,

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, M.Sc.
Certified Turbulence Trainer

This week’s QnA is courtesy of an interview I did with the fitness team at MSN.com. I also have a fitness feature coming out in Details magazine, of all places. More about that soon.

If you have any questions, make sure to visit the TT Facebook page here.
Now let’s go through everything that you can do to get a great workout in a busy gym – perfect for January’s New Year’s rush.

Question: What would you recommend to an avid exerciser/fit person who comes into their normally quiet gym in January and finds it packed? How should they go about getting in a workout?

Answer: First, explore all of your training schedule options…can you switch to a different time or day that is less busy?

Second, do your warm-up at home – if possible. Treat yourself to a foam roller for Christmas just to have for general self- massage anyway…but if you have all your warm-up stuff at home, you can do this and then after a short walk or drive to the gym you can whip through your workout with less stress.

That’s what I do when I know I’ll be training at a small, busy, poorly equipped gym.

Third, always have options. For every exercise in your routine, have two alternatives planned.

For example, in the case of bench press, know that you can also do dumbbell presses, incline presses, or dips.  For db presses, know that you can also do incline db presses, barbell presses, db flyes, or decline pushups.

If your goal is to gain muscle and lose fat, then you really don’t have to worry about the EXACT exercise…not being able to do a specific exercise is only a problem if you are training to improve that specific lift (i.e. if you are a powerlifter trying to increase your bench press).

On the bright side, totally flipping your workout with new exercises can lead to new changes in your body. Of course, be conservative when trying a new exercise because at the very least it will give you a new level of soreness.

And the worst thing that could happen is that you could hurt yourself by doing too much too soon – NEVER skip your warm-up).

No matter how busy your gym is, stay positive, and keep a list of awesome alternatives you can use.

Finally, make sure to have a good list of bodyweight exercises in your repertoire in case you are limited by space, lack of dumbbells, etc.

Trust me, a good bodyweight plan can still give you an incredible workout.

Check out my Ultimate 101 Bodyweight Exercises plan here.

Question: What exercises can someone do/pair that will use the same weight throughout, so they don’t have to change weights and search for dumbbells that are in use? How should they pair these exercises? Why are these good moves to do?

Answer: Great question, and lots of proven, powerful pairings to use.

In a classic superset like DB Chest Press and DB Row, you can use the same weight, but you’ll need to increase the # of reps per set in the DB Row. That’s fine.

(NOTE: If you are stronger in the press than the row, you have a LOT of work to do for your back, my friend.)

High-rep (15 per side) dumbbell lunges (or split squats) can be supersetted with moderate rep (8 per side) “standing 1-arm DB shoulder presses”.

DB squats and DB chest presses are another combo. The squats will be high rep (15) while chest presses moderate (8 reps).  For your arms, DB Curls and Lying DB Triceps Extensions are a good pair, but expect to do 30-50% more reps with the triceps move when using the same weight.

An alternative scenario is to simply pair a db move and a bodyweight move in a superset.

I.e.)
1-leg squat + DB shoulder press
DB row + decline pushup
DB chest press + bodyweight row
DB RDL + spiderman pushup

etc.

Always be prepared with bodyweight and dumbbell alternatives.

NOTE: We shouldn’t forget about the power and convenience of a kettlebell…you can do a great program with 1-kettlebell of the same weight (swing, snatch, 1-arm press).

Talk to the Kettlebell expert, Chris Lopez, about your kettlebell needs here.

Question: How should these exercises be put together into sets and reps for building muscle and burning fat at the same time?

Answer: For maximum muscle building and simultaneous fat loss, try to keep exercises in the 8-15 rep range…so choose your exercises and weights accordingly.

For example, using classic supersets from the original TT2K3 and TT2K4 programs, you have perfect examples.

In a squat rack, do:

1A) Squats – 8 reps
1B) Chin-ups – Up to 15 reps
- Rest 1 minute and repeat 2 more times.

And then grab some dumbbells to do:

2A) DB Chest Press – 8 reps OR a tough pushup version for 15 reps
2B) DB RDL or DB Reverse Lunge – 8 reps
- Rest 1 minute and repeat 2 more times.

If that’s all you did – plus a warm-up, of course – you’d get great results with that workout – using just 4 basic moves.

Question: If you ran into a crowded situation like this, what’s the workout you would do?

Answer: I might use one last technique that I haven’t mentioned. I wouldn’t be afraid to do more sets of basic exercises.

For example, if I could get access to a bench and the right set of dumbbells, I’d have no problem going back and forth on DB chest presses and DB rows for 6 sets each, then finish with a couple sets of pushups and pullups to call it a day.

(Oh, and maybe squeeze in some Meathead Arms, too.)

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Hope that helps you get set-up for dealing with busy gyms in January, and if you have any other questions, drop by the TT FB page here.

Time to do a dog walk and some foam rolling,

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Certified Turbulence Trainer

As we finish up this interview series, Alwyn gives us a low-level  stressors exercise that should be added to your daily training.

However, before you read on jump back to part 3, where we took a look at boxing from a business point of view with fitness expert Alwyn Cosgrove.

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Alwyn Cosgrove I’ve told this story before. When I got out of the hospital my dad came over to visit me.  And every day I was doing as many pushups as I could as part of my sort of comeback workout.  And I think I was out of the hospital and I could do five or six.  And my dad did ten clapping his hands, complete plyo machine.

But a year later I was over visiting him.  And I said, “All right, let’s have a rematch.”  It was a year or a year-and-a-half later.  And he couldn’t get in position, Craig, to do one pushup.

The only thing that happened in that time, because there’s no way he went from ten plyometric pushups unable to hold a position for one in 18 months without severe injury.  And he never had one.  What happened is he retired from work and he just stopped moving really.  He had a physical job, and he stopped moving.

So I have a theory that training has to change partly with age, but partly it’s just your lifestyle and other factors.  When I was training in college, if I was too beat up and sore I just wouldn’t go to class the next day.

You don’t have that option as an adult.  If you’re a 45-year-old guy with two kids you don’t have the option of training so hard that you can’t walk the next day and you just take a couple of days off of work.

So a lot of this stuff is other factors.  You have other stresses in your body.  I don’t know who said it, [Punneman] I think, is a guy that stretches like water running into a sink.  And every stressor is a different tap, a different faucet.  And once it overflows you’re going to break down.

So it’s short-sighted of us to just look at training volume as the only stressor we can control.  If somebody’s going through a divorce or a family member is sick, they’re going to lose their house, lost their job, that person might be 22 but the body is going to respond like it’s a little older.

So it’s kind of a roundabout way of saying I think age is a factor in training volume and wear and tear, but the wear and tear on a 22-year-old UFC fighter is probably going to be more than a 42-year-old accountant that stayed relatively healthy.  I think there’s a use thing, not just an age thing.

Craig Ballantyne: Very cool.  That’s a good place to end our call today.  And we’ll come back in a couple of months and chat a little bit more about that after we’ve both had some time to think about that.  Our clients as well.

Alwyn Cosgrove: We have a client just in the local newspaper.  He’s 50 years old and he’s a police officer and he’s in great shape.  He said he’s in the best shape of his life, but he didn’t arrive at our gym in horrible condition.  He’d been active his whole life.  So he responds well to training and he recovers well.

There are other people that we’re constantly monitoring and you’ve got to cut sets.  And even at a certain point, if you can squat 200 pounds, or anything over 100 pounds, even in a warm-up, is training load.  So with some people you have to be careful how many warm-ups that you do, because that’s all load.  So listen to this call and start thinking about it.  Sometimes pulling back with some clients gets them better results.

Craig Ballantyne:  Right, yeah.  Good point.  And then putting in more of the mobility and foam rolling stuff.

Alwyn Cosgrove: Yeah.  You don’t have to just sit.  When I say rest, you can do mobility and stretch and activation work that’s very low level stressors in between sets and stuff.

Craig Ballantyne: Yeah.  And where would you rank putting mobility and foam rolling into somebody’s program on a scale of 1 to 10?  Would you say it’s 10, or an 8?

Alwyn Cosgrove: It’s hard because everything’s important.  If you didn’t have time to do mobility and foam rolling, I would pull something else.  So it might be the most important.  I don’t want to say it’s more important than strength for a power lifter or more important than cardio for an endurance athlete.

This is like I’ve got to take care of the tissue before I ask the tissue to perform better.  So if you said, “Hey, I’m running late today.  I’ve got to get out of here in 25 minutes.  What do we do?”  And I’m like, “Right, we’ll do foam rolling, mobility and core, and we’ll get the strength and conditioning stuff done another time.”  So I never cut back.

So I guess the answer to that is then it’s got to be the number one priority.  It’s got to be a 10.  What happens is it’s one of these things where people who don’t need it enjoy it.

Like I said, when I was doing static stretching when I was doing taekwondo, I would find it very relaxing to hold a stretch for a long period of time.  Other people are grimacing in pain.  And that’s the problem is that when you’re really tight and sore the foam roller hurts.  That’s the time you need it.

But it’s hard to get somebody to do something that uncomfortable.  My dad’s almost 69 now.  If I could get him to do one thing it would be foam rolling and mobility.  Quality of life is based on, I think, with the real aging population on tissue quality, range of motion and the value to produce power.

I think our focus on cardiac health is obviously important and our focus on muscle is important.  But I think we missed the boat.  I think the muscle declines because we’re not using it.  and you start doing that because you’ll hear – I’ll watch an old person reach for something.  And everybody looking at this old man, a picture if they reach for something or bend to tie their shoes with an involuntary groan.  Like, “Ahhhh,” like it’s a max effort thing.  That’s the first thing to go.

Obviously when you look at it, not to be morbid, but the last thing to go is obviously the heart.  But people lose their quality of life and their ability to move around and get in and out of cars, up and down stairs because of mobility and tissue issues way before they lose cardiovascular health.

Craig Ballantyne: That’s what I believe too.  I do 20 to 25 minutes, maybe even 30 minutes, before every workout, mobility and foam rolling.

And my shoulders haven’t been better in years.  And I’m just able to beat myself down in training and still allow myself to do that because of the foam rolling and the band pulls and the stretches that I do before training.

And it’s just like any other part of training.  It was not the most fun thing in the world to get started with, but it’s important.

Alwyn Cosgrove: It starts to feel good as you loosen up.  What we do is we do 50 minutes in the beginning.  And then between every – like if we do a split squat and dumbbell row, then instead of saying 90 seconds rest it may be 15 seconds rest and a head flexor stretch each side for 30 seconds.  So we put an end between the work sets too, just to increase the volume of it.

Our challenge has always been we need to get these people in shape and let them enjoy this workout and as much of this as possible.  There is a part of foam rolling and stretching that’s kind of relaxing and then I want people to get fired up and do something.  So we fit it in between work sets to get in some extra volume.

Craig Ballantyne: Yeah, that’s exactly it man.  And that kind of is a sneaky way of getting it in so that people don’t think, “Oh, I’ve got to go and do this warm-up before I actually get into my training.”  So throwing it in there as well is almost a third exercise in a tri set.

Alwyn Cosgrove: Right.  And that’s a separate way.  And the other way is to make the warm-up a little more – I think when people are – our clients know it’s a warm-up.  But I think if you saw me do this in the park, if I was doing a boot camp where I was doing a bodyweight class, you wouldn’t know where it ended and where the next part of the workout began.  Because you can make a warm-up fun.

I’ve always felt like there are some people who feel like it’s this drudgery you have to get over with before they really start training.  That’s our coaching issue.  You’ve got to program your clients to understand that this is part of the training.  This is maybe the most important part.

Craig Ballantyne: Yeah, exactly.  Hopefully some people on the call will take their warm-up seriously and get that foam roller and add it to their system, because in terms of the long view it’s really, really, really going to make a difference.

Alwyn Cosgrove:  It’s the poor man’s massage therapist.  If we could get a massage every day you’d love it.  This is the way we can do it without having to pay for a massage therapist every day.

Craig Ballantyne: Yeah, exactly.  Well sir, we’re out of time here.  That was a really good call.  It’s always good to talk to you again.  And I really appreciate everything you shared there.

Alwyn Cosgrove:  Sure, man.

Craig Ballantyne: All right.  Thanks again.  What’s your blog again, for people to check out?

Alwyn Cosgrove: It’s just my name, AlwynCosgrove.com.

Craig Ballantyne: It’s just my name that you can’t spell.com.

Alwyn Cosgrove: It’s just my name that you can’t spell.  As I’ve said on a call with you before, if I can make money on the Internet with a name spelled like that, anybody can make money on the Internet.  Right?

Craig Ballantyne:  That’s exactly it, man.  That’s exactly it.  All right, sir.  Thank you very much, and thank you to everybody being on the call.

This is just another little chit chat we’re having about training and all the good stuff that my friend Alwyn Cosgrove knows about.

So check out his website and we’ll talk to you soon.  Bye-bye everyone.

Alwyn Cosgrove: All right.  Cheers, man.