Olympic lifts, kettlebells, gymnastic rings….these are a few of our favourite things….

Ever wished that there was a single instruction manual containing all of this cool stuff? Well, now there is!

Andrew Stemler, creator of the popular i-Course - a full day of learning all the key Crossfit skills - has produced a manual to go along with it. You can support Gubernatrix.co.uk by getting your copy here.

This means, oh joy, that all you people who would love to go to the i-Course but can’t get to one can now do your own version at home. And you people who are lucky enough to have attended the i-Course now have a handy reference guide for all those skills that you only just managed to take in on the day.

What’s in the manual?

The 85-page Elite Fitness Manual is packed full of goodies including:

• Olympic lifts and all their progressions
• Kettlebell exercises
• Gymnastic ring training
• Bodyweight exercises
• Abdominal training
• Muscle-up

It covers practically every key exercise and lift in the functional fitness arsenal. All except the bench press. But you know how to bench, right?

Who is the manual for?

The manual is designed to be suitable both for beginners and intermediate trainees. There is plenty of progression in all the key exercises so if you are a beginner you start with the first progression and if you are an intermediate, jump in where you feel comfortable.

You don’t need any experience in the exercises themselves but a general familiarity with free weights and bodyweight exercises is helpful. If you’ve only ever worked out on machines, you’ll be in for a shock!

Many of the skills described in the manual are so complex and tricky to master that you will be kept busy for weeks, months, years. Stemler comments that “you never master the squat: its always work in progress: there is always something you can improve”, and I can personally attest to this as my squat has been a work in progress for about five years!

That’s why a manual like this is so useful and such good value for money. It will last many years, possibly a lifetime. As it is an ebook it is a good deal cheaper than the traditionally published equivalent would be.

Presentation

One aspect that has always impressed me about Stemler’s publications is the look and feel. Compared to many self-published ebooks in this genre, the presentation is slick, entertaining and easy to read. The photo sequences are very helpful. I always find it frustrating when a book presents only one photograph of a particular move; what you really want to know is what it looks like to get from A to B.

The Elite Fitness Manual breaks key moves down photographically, which is really helpful. Nevertheless Stemler acknowledges that this lends a certain falsity to what are fluid and dynamic movements.

The overall thrust of the manual is not: here’s an ideal way to do this difficult move that only super-flexible 12-year-olds can pull off, but more: here are some safe progressions that you can practise on your own.  Eventually you will be able to put them all together.

So the Elite Fitness Manual is your passport to a broad range of athletic, functional skills and can be yours for only £12.99. Worth every penny, I’d say.

Go shop!

More from gubernatrix

• Review: the Crossfit London i-Course
• The A-Z of training books
• Review: the complete guide to training with free weights
• Kettlebell training guide
• Muscle-up and ring training guide

Some of you may be really gung-ho about your training. Fit and proud, you revel in being the ‘weird one in the corner’ doing crazy stuff. You couldn’t give a toss what people think about kipping pull ups and you certainly don’t give a monkeys what you look like, puffing, heaving and sweating your way through your workout.

All power to you, I admire you!

Me however, I get embarrassed. I often feel self-conscious about what I’m doing and worry about what other people will think, particularly when everyone else around me is doing something completely different.

Yep, I feel silly

There’s an example from just this week. Having failed to get up early one day in order to train before work, I decided to do the workout at lunchtime instead. The office I work in houses around 500 people and has a large field out back. This is a lovely grassy area that is kept well mown, with benches around the side – perfect for training. Oh yes, and it is also in full view of the staff canteen and several floors of offices!

All morning I was trying to imagine myself training out there but all I could think of was how embarrassing it would be for my colleagues to see me, stumbling around all hot and sweaty trying to grind out burpees and squat jumps. They wouldn’t know what I was doing or why (how many people really understand the demands of a gold standard burpee if they’ve never done one?) and I was convinced that, far from looking impressively athletic, I’d just look like a pathetic lump throwing myself about.

Yes, these really were my thoughts!

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I decided to get out there and do it anyway. The alternative option of getting in my car and driving 20 minutes to the local park when there was a perfectly acceptable field right outside the door was too ridiculous to contemplate. (Although I did in fact contemplate it. At length). Not to mention the waste of petrol and carbon emissions just to assuage my fragile ego! So the office field it was.

As I started to jog around the field to warm up, I got that familiar feeling of excitement mixed with trepidation and by the time I had started my circuit I was definitely having fun – in a painful, sweaty sort of way.

I no longer cared about the girls on the benches with their sandwiches or the maintenance guys smoking cigarettes by the delivery bay. All I could think about was, “I’m the one getting fitter here. Whatever I look like right now, I’ll look awesome in a few weeks’ time!”

Working out in strange environments or doing something a bit different takes a small, private act of bravery. When trying an exercise for the first time, you are afraid of screwing up and looking like an idiot. When going all-out in an intense circuit you know you are going to look a bit crazy. This is all very well if you are surrounded by people doing the same thing. But if you are the only one, it can feel very exposed.

This also applies to any women who regularly find that they are the only female in the gym. Guys will look, they can’t help it. But it can be hard to block this out and just get on with your workout. It’s not as if we are bouncing along at 5 miles an hour on the treadmill with not a hair out of place. We’re under the bar pushing bodyweight or more and it doesn’t always look pretty!

Once I was doing near-max squats when my tracksuit trousers ripped up the back with what seemed to me to be deafening noise. I would have died of embarrassment had I not had almost 100kg on my back at the time.

But if you care about training and you care about results, you have to learn to put these thoughts to the back of your mind. Almost everyone feels self-conscious at some point, but only some people let it hold them back.

Once you learn not to care about what others might think, an amazing thing happens: you find you can do anything!

And here’s another truth: those wonderful exercise endorphins you feel when you train don’t just reduce pain, they also make you feel great about yourself. But you have to be exercising in order to get them. Sitting around worrying won’t make you feel good.

So today’s lesson is: screw up your courage and go for it because you are the one who is benefiting.

I’ll leave you with some inspiration I saw on Ross Enamait’s blog:

Rocky training montage – even Rocky can look kinda silly doing bunny hops with a piece of wood across his shoulders. But who wouldn’t want to train with this intensity and belief?

Large fella on a bike – read this amazing story about how one guy conquered his fear and laziness and made an enormous difference to his life

I have been to many circuit classes in my time and in every class the women are allowed to do ‘girly push ups’ - push ups on your knees.

This is fine for beginners and it is a fact of life that the vast majority of women, myself included, start off with a real disadvantage in upper body strength compared to men.

However I’ve also noticed that after months or even years of circuit training most women are still doing girly push ups. The progression isn’t happening.

Is this the fault of the women? Not entirely. It’s also the fault of the instructors.

In ten years of attending circuit classes at various establishments across the country I have only ever come across one instructor who has made an effort to get his female participants to progress to the full push up as soon as possible.

Was he a boot camp instructor? Was he a tough military type? Nope, he was an aerobics teacher.

Luckily for me, this was the first instructor I ever encountered. Within a few weeks of attending Stewart’s class I was managing full push ups - and I’ve never looked back. I can now knock out 50-plus good push ups in one go. Stewart is probably responsible for my entire strength career as the full push up was the first exercise requiring real strength that I ever mastered.

For me, the lesson is obvious. If instructors don’t encourage their female clients to aspire to full push ups from the word go, few will ever make the progression. They will get used to doing push ups on their knees and won’t build the strength to move on.

The way Stewart taught us was to focus on push ups right at the end of the class. We had already done our aerobic workout and were doing work on the mats, so there was no need to get a conditioning effect from the push ups – and hence no need to make them easier.

Stewart would insist that every single person in the class (and we were all women) attempted full push ups. He said that one full push up is better than four girly push ups - and he’s right! He gave us the following technique tips:

Keep your body ramrod straight. Imagine trying to open a jam jar using the point of a knife under the lid. Your body is like the knife, acting as a lever. The straighter you are, the better the leverage.

Try to pull your belly button up to the ceiling. This will keep your core straight and strong.

Try to push evenly through your whole body. When people are attempting push ups for the first time, they often push with their arms first and sort of snake up to their feet. But you should try to move your whole body upwards as one (think of the knife), pushing with arms and feet and pulling with belly button.

Put your hands on the floor not on the mat. You waste energy pushing into the mat which is a soft giving surface.

Another useful detail was that we started by lying on the floor and pushing up, not starting in the top position and lowering (which is what most people naturally do). This is a great way to train the push up since if you can master the push off the floor, you can do the whole thing.

Having a practice session at the end of class is a useful way to get people to progress. Naturally if the object of the circuit class is to get a conditioning workout you will need to let people do girly push ups initially in order to get the aerobic benefit. But you also need to include an opportunity to build the strength and technique to do full push ups, otherwise it doesn’t happen.

Another tip for instructors: I’ve seen time and again women complaining about push ups because they can’t do them, and each time instructors just give in and let them get away with box push ups or whatever. But aren’t you being paid to improve people? Of course women will complain about having to do push ups if they can’t do them, it’s only natural. What they don’t realise – and what you should realise – is that they are capable of doing them. They just need training and practise. You need to open up that door for them, just like Stewart did with me all those years ago.

The final word, of course, must go to the ladies. You can do full push ups. They are hard but once you learn them it is relatively easy to maintain the skill. Come on, put the guys to shame!

More on this

• Fun with press-ups!
• Crossfit push up development video clip
• How-to: Handstand push up
• Bodyweight or bust!

The sumo deadlift can be a revelation for anyone who has trouble deadlifting in the conventional stance. Sumo stance is particularly popular with female lifters.

What is the sumo deadlift?

The sumo deadlift is the same exercise as a normal deadlift in that it involves picking a dead weight off the floor and standing up straight, but the stance – the position of the feet and legs – is different.

Think of a Japanese sumo wrestler preparing to fight. He takes up a stance with feet quite wide apart - this is where the sumo deadlift gets its name. Instead of starting with legs shoulder-width apart and arms hanging by your sides, as in the conventional deadlift, you start with legs wide apart and arms hanging down between your legs.

Why is it such a great exercise?

The key difference with sumo stance is that it involves the legs much more than the back. In a conventional deadlift, the legs and the back are supposed to be involved 50-50 and in practise many lifters use a lot more back, particularly if they are a bit lacking in leg strength. Bodybuilders even consider the deadlift a ‘back exercise’. Sumo stance by comparison uses an incredible amount of leg and hip power.

Sumo stance is often favoured by female lifters because women tend to have more powerful legs in relation to their back. A proportion of male lifters also prefer the sumo stance, either because they want to use more leg strength or because the mechanics of the lift just suit them better.

Another advantage of the sumo stance is that the bar does not travel as far as it does in a conventional deadlift. Since the lifter’s legs are wider apart, their hands are closer to the ground at lock out, shaving perhaps an inch or two off the bar’s path from floor to lock out.

How to perform the sumo deadlift

It is recommended that you read the how-to on the conventional deadlift as well, for general deadlifting technique.

Step 1: Position your feet

The position of the feet is the crucial factor in the sumo stance. Different people favour slightly different positions – there is no single ‘right’ way so you will need to experiment yourself.

The two variables you need to consider are: how far apart your feet are, and how far your foot is turned out.

How far apart your feet are

Some people deadlift sumo with feet only a little further apart than the conventional deadlift. Others have their feet as far apart as possible, almost up against the weight plates.

Theoretically, wider is better. However it can also be uncomfortable on the hips and does take some getting used to. Some people never feel entirely comfortable in such a wide position and lift better with their feet a few inches inside of the weight plates instead of right up against them.

With a very wide stance you also have to be careful that you don’t drop the weight plates on your feet! This is especially important in the lowering phase or if you are doing speed work. One way to solve this problem is to wear steel toe capped boots, which takes the worry factor away.

How far your foot is turned out

For most of the big lifts like squat and conventional deadlift, the recommended foot position is slightly splayed. However in the sumo deadlift it may actually be better to turn the foot out as close to 90 degrees as possible (see the picture on the right).

The further your foot is turned out, the easier the stance is on your knees and hips as the foot is more in line with the leg. However this does make it harder to balance, especially during the latter part of the lift. As you drive into lock out it is possible to overbalance and sway backwards.

There is also the issue of comfort and how well you are able to turn your foot out in the first place. We’re not all ballerinas! Again, the answer is to experiment and find the most effective position for you.

Step 2: Starting position

Having positioned your feet in the way you want them, squat down and take hold of the bar (see below for a note on grip). Your arms should be hanging straight down between your legs and should grip the bar where they naturally hang. Be careful not to bend at the elbows.

Shoulders should be back and down. Note that due to the mechanics of the sumo stance your shoulder blades are not over the bar as they would be in a conventional deadlift but a little further back.

Your butt should be right down as close to parallel with the floor as you can get it (see right). This is different from the conventional deadlift where the butt is above parallel. In the sumo deadlift, the lower you can get your butt, the more power you can derive from the hip thrust when you lift.

You may find this position uncomfortable on the hips and knees when you first try it. This is normal, especially if you have been used to doing conventional style deadlifts. Try to keep your knees in line with your toes as much as possible throughout the lift.

Step 3: Breathe and prepare to lift

As with any of the power lifts, breathing is very important. Once you are in position, take a big breath in and ‘lock’ everything tight in preparation for the lift.

Ensure that your back is flat or arched before you lift. Try not to lift with a rounded back. You may need to film yourself from the side or get a friend to check your position to ensure that your back isn’t rounding.

Step 4: Lift the bar and drive hips forward

As you start to lift the bar, push hard through your feet and then drive your hips forward. The majority of the power for this lift is coming from your legs and from the action of your hips coming forward.

As with any power lift but especially when you are lifting heavy, you should be trying to accelerate the bar. Since it is heavy it doesn’t actually move that fast, but your intention should be to move it fast. This makes the lift more powerful.

Although the move is powerful, it is more of a squeeze off the floor than a jerk. Keep the bar as close to your body as you can, as this is the optimal path for the bar to take – straight up!

Think also about pushing your knees outwards as you lift in order to keep them in line with your feet, as you would do in a wide stance squat.

Step 5: Lock out

Continue pushing through the legs until you reach the lock out position, when your legs are completely straight. Your arms will also have stayed completely straight throughout the lift.

Some people breathe out when they reach the lock out position, others hold their breath until they have lowered the bar again.

Step 6: Lower the bar

Like the conventional deadlift it is important to lower the bar as carefully as you lifted it, as many injuries occur due to dumping the bar with poor form. Lower the bar safely by reversing the lift. Keep your back flat and the bar close to the body.

If your stance is very wide, be careful not to place the bar down on your feet!

Note on grip

There are two main grip styles used in the deadlift:

• double overhand grip, with both palms facing in towards the body
• alternate or reverse grip, with one palm facing in and one palm facing out

The double overhand grip is safer than the alternate grip but not as strong. The alternate grip puts an asymmetrical stress on the body and particularly on the supinated arm (the one facing away from the body).

It is therefore recommended that you use the double overhand grip for as long as possible before switching to the alternate grip for the heaviest sets, and also to do a lighter set using the alternate grip the other way round so that the body is not constantly stressed on the same side.

Alternatively, continue to use the double overhand grip but use straps for the heaviest sets when your grip gives out. This is safer, but may compromise development of grip strength.

It is also a good idea to use chalk to aid your grip and lessen callus formation. If you belong to a gym that doesn’t allow chalk, you should probably change your gym.

How to use the sumo deadlift in your training

If you are more comfortable deadlifting in the sumo stance than the conventional stance, you can use the sumo stance as your main method of deadlifting. There is no problem with using the sumo stance in competition, for instance.

However, be aware that the sumo stance involves a lot less back work than the conventional deadlift and over time your back strength might deteriorate if you don’t include extra back work such as good mornings, rows and conventional deadlifts.

Many people train both types of deadlift even though they may favour sumo in competition, to ensure that back strength is maintained.

The sumo deadlift uses many of the same muscle groups, and in the same way as a wide stance squat, so regular wide stance squatting will help your sumo deadlift both in terms of technique and in developing the required flexibility to be comfortable in the stance.

Note on footwear

Go to any powerlifting competition and you will see a wide variety of foot attire on display during the deadlift, more so than in the squat and the bench press.

In principle, the thinner the sole of your shoe, the less distance the bar has to travel. A chunky sole could add an inch to the bar’s path. Therefore many people will opt for deadlift slippers, very thin plimsole-like footwear, in order to minimise the distance the bar has to travel as much as possible. You can even deadlift barefoot or in stocking feet.

With the sumo stance however the issue of feet slipping comes into play because of the wide stance and the fact that you are pushing down and outwards through your feet as you lift. You may have to experiment with different shoes and surfaces to ensure you don’t slip as some rubber mats can be a bit slick. It is possible to use chalk or resin on the soles of your shoes to give you better grip.

The other issue with sumo stance, as discussed above, is the proximity of your feet to the weight plates. Steel toe cap boots will deal with this issue but they are generally quite thick-soled so you need to weigh up the disadvantage of adding an extra bit of height to your lift against saving your toes from decapitation.

Further reading

• How to improve the sumo deadlift by Mike Robertson
• Go Sumo from EliteFTS
• 10 tips for sumo deadlifting from EliteFTS
• Converting to sumo deadlift: how I made it work for me from Dragon Door
• Video clip of Ed Coan deadlifting sumo
• Video clip of Aneta Florczyk deadlifting sumo

More from gubernatrix

• How to deadlift
• How low should I squat?
• How to bench press
• Breathing in the bench press
• How to front squat

Photo credit: Jon Tunnell

Most of us have felt a lack of motivation at some point, no matter how dedicated we are or how much we love training. Occasionally things just don’t go well, or life starts to interfere with training. It’s easy to berate yourself but this only reinforces the negative feelings that made you feel bad in the first place. You need your mojo back!

Here are five ways I have used to get my motivation back when its gone walkabout. What do you use?

Online training log

Starting a training log online is great for people who want ongoing support and positive reinforcement - or a kick up the backside! Find a website where lots of other people are training in a similar way to you.

If you’ve already got a training log, spend some time looking back through it to see how far you’ve come. Use your log actively as a training aid, not just a passive record of each training session. It’ll make you feel good about what you’ve achieved and spur you on to greater heights.

Forum suggestions:

• FK.UK - UK-based functional fitness, Crossfit
• Warrior Training - functional fitness, Ross Enamait influence
• Ross Training - functional fitness, Ross Enamait
• John Stone fitness forums - body composition
• Pink Dumbbells - female fitness

Join in an online challenge

This suits people who have a competitive streak and want to focus in on something particular, whether it is losing weight or increasing pull ups.

The relatively short timescale of a challenge (they can be anything from a week to three months) can help to get over a rough patch and give a purpose to training. It is not usually a long term solution for all round fitness but can give you your spark back.

Ideas to get you started:

• Twenty pull ups
• Hundred push ups
• Tactical strength challenge - deadlift, pull up, kettlebell snatch
• Mansized - body composition (open to girls too!)

Get a friend involved or join a class

If you start things enthusiastically but give up too easily, this is a great solution. If you’ve got a regular club night to go to, or you’ve promised someone else you will be there for them, it is much harder to back out. Plus you can support each other.

I used to belong to British Military Fitness and I can’t tell you the number of times I got out there and trained when I really didn’t feel like it, because I had the motivation of a class to go to. Plus the social side was fun!

Set yourself a goal

Again very useful if you tend to get bored or give up easily. You don’t have to choose a stern goal like “lose 4 pounds”, it can be something fun like “climb a mountain”. There are many charities running expeditions and challenges. A few examples in the UK are the Three Peaks Challenge, the Welsh 3000s and the South Downs Trailwalker.

Entering a competition is also great way to set a goal. The date is immovable so once you have committed it is harder to back out. For running races and triathlons, try Runner’s World (UK or US). If you want to put your powerlifting skills to the test, check out Powerlifting UK for upcoming events.

Watch an inspiring film

Useful if you need a quick boost although less likely to work long term. But sometimes there’s nothing like a cheesy sports movie to lift the spirits!

Here are some that I’ve enjoyed over the years:
What It Takes - documentary following four elite athletes as they prepare for Ironman Hawaii. Lots of training and race footage!

Overcoming - documentary about the 2004 Tour de France, following Dutch team CSC. Some good extras, especially from the race itself. Would have liked more insight into their training but I guess that’s a state secret!

Chariots of Fire - classic oscar-winning film about two very different athletes competing in the 1924 Olympics. Sunday afternoon epic.

When We Were Kings - documentary about the infamous Ali-Foreman fight known as the Rumble in the Jungle. Great fight footage and fascinating reportage from that febrile time in politics.

Remember the Titans - moving drama about an American football team starring Denzel Washington. Great for ‘team sports’ inspiration.

Boris from SquatRX makes the point that you can’t sit around waiting for motivation to strike, you need to make training a habit. I concur with this but I am sure many of us have had times when training is a bit of a drag. We might still do it, of course, but it feels like a lot of effort!

So what do you do to get motivated?

Need some inspiration for your next training book? Or even your first? Check out the list below. There are over 30 books here and although I know them all by reputation, I haven’t read them all. I am keen to hear opinions both of the books on the list and any other great titles I have left off. Let me know and I will add them to the list.

Training books A-Z

Tudor O. Bompa & Mike Carrera - Periodization Training for Sports (2005)

Tudor O. Bompa - Periodization: Theory and Methodology of Training (1999)

Tudor O. Bompa, Lorenzo J. Cornacchia, and Mauro G.Di Pasquale  - Serious Strength Training (2002)

Mike Boyle - Functional Training for Sports: Superior Conditioning for Today’s Athlete (2003)

Donald A. Chu - Jumping into Plyometrics: 100 Exercises for Power and Strength (1998)

Donald A. Chu - Explosive Power and Strength: Complex Training for Maximum Results (1996)

Gray Cook - Athletic Body in Balance (2003)

Alwyn Cosgrove & Lou Schuler – The New Rules of Lifting (2008) - read my review

Alwyn Cosgrove, Lou Schuler & Cassandra Forsythe – The New Rules of Lifting for Women (2008)

Frederic Delavier  - Strength Training Anatomy, 2nd edition (2006) - read my review

Frederic Delavier  - Women’s Strength Training Anatomy (2002)

Arthur Drescheler - The Weightlifting Encyclopedia: A Guide to World Class Performance (1998)

Ross Enamait – Infinite Intensity - read my review

Ross Enamait – Never Gymless

Mohamed F. El-Hewie - Essentials of Weightlifting and Strength Training (2006)

Greg Everett - Olympic Weightlifting: A Complete Guide for Athletes & Coaches

Steven Fleck & William Kraemer - Designing Resistance Training Programmes (1998)

Steven Fleck, William Kraemer & and J. Steven - Periodization Breakthrough!: The Ultimate Training System (1996)

Dan John – Never Let Go: A Philosophy of Lifting, Living and Learning (2009)

Steve Justa - Rock, Iron, Steel: The Book of Strength (1998)

Brooks Kubik - Dinosaur Training: Lost Secrets of Strength and Development (1996)

Graeme Marsh – The Complete Guide to Training with Free Weights (2008) - read my review

Stuart McRobert - Build Muscle, Lose Fat, Look Great: Everything You Need to Know to Transform Your Body (2006)

Stuart McRobert – Insider’s Tell-All Handbook on Weight-training Technique (1999)

Mark Rippetoe - Starting Strength: Second Edition (2007) - read my review

Mark Rippetoe and Lon Kilgore - Practical Programming for Strength Training (2006)

Mark Rippetoe - Strong Enough? Thoughts from Thirty Years of Barbell Training (2007)

Mel C. Siff  - Facts and Fallacies of Fitness

Mel C. Siff – Supertraining (2003)

Christopher Sommer - Building the Gymnastic Body (2008)

Bill Starr - The Strongest Shall Survive: Strength Training for Football (1976)

Jim Stoppani - Encyclopedia of Muscle and Strength (2006)

Randall J. Strossen - Super Squats: How to Gain 30 Pounds of Muscle in 6 Weeks (1989)

Christian Thibaudeau - Theory and Application of Modern Strength and Power Methods (2007)

Pavel Tsatsouline - Power to the People: Russian Strength Training Secrets for Every American (2000)

Vladimir M. Zatsiorsky - Science and Practice of Strength Training, Second Edition (2006)

 Many people including myself and many readers of this site would say we do ‘functional fitness’. We use the phrase almost without thinking, but most people have never heard of it and it must sound very odd.

This thought struck me as I was watching a climbing film, Alistair Lee’s Onsight where one interviewee comments that when you try to explain headpointing (practising a route on a top rope before leading it) to anyone who doesn’t climb, they don’t understand the point of it at all. It’s the same with functional fitness. I mean, since when has fitness not been functional?

Unfunctional fitness

“Veronica and I are trying this new fad called uh, jogging. I believe it’s jogging or yogging. It might be a soft j, I’m not sure, but apparently you just run for an extended period of time. It’s supposed to be wild.” - Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgandy

Somewhere down the line, the view was formed that a lot of so-called fitness activity was actually unfunctional. It may have looked like fitness and sounded like fitness and perhaps some fitness was gained as a by-product, but the overriding aim and ambition was to look good naked.

Shiny new contraptions were invented to assist in this goal, as well as accessories, pharmaceutical products and supplements. Perfection could only be attained with the right gear.

Now, I’d like to look good naked as much as the next person so I am not questioning the validity of this ambition. But could you argue that in the modern world, all you need fitness for is to look good and stay healthy, since work, rest and play can all be carried out with the minimum of physical effort? Is that the modern function of fitness?

Physical culture

This became the philosophy in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when the popularity of ‘physical culture’ was at its height.

Eugen Sandow, both poster boy and mastermind of physical culture, wanted to show that an attractive and healthy body was within reach for anybody who was prepared to follow a simple exercise regime.

Physical culture acknowledged that exercise could actually have good looks as an end. Lifting weights would not only make you strong, it would make you beautiful.

We got to the point where, like pop, fitness ate itself. It has certainly become an end in itself. So instead of needing to be fit for something, you can now just be fit. Fit for anything – and nothing.

Modern life is now so geared towards our own convenience, where we have so little need to lift, carry, walk, run or climb that we are obliged to make deliberate efforts to set time aside for fitness because we are just not getting this effect from normal life. So the culture has arisen where fitness is pursued in a gym environment for 30-45 minutes three times a week. It is no longer just part of daily life. For many people it has even superceded sports.

Functional fitness

Functional fitness is about linking fitness to real functions once more. It is designed to reflect movements and functions found in daily life – sled pulling, wood chopping, rope climbing and so on.

I have heard people say, “What’s the point of that? I’ll never have any need to chop wood or pull a sled!”

But the great thing about functional fitness is that you use ordinary objects found around the home or the garage. You don’t need expensive equipment or posh gyms to get fit. A sledgehammer is not only much cheaper than a cable machine, but you might actually be able to use it for other tasks as well. Smashing your old furniture up, for example.

Functional fitness is a simpler approach to fitness. The point is to get fit, not to spend lots of money on machines and supplements. Functional fitness practitioners appreciate simple and versatile equipment like the skipping rope, gymnastic rings or kettlebell. In fact many people get a lot of pleasure from making their own kit.

There is a feeling of self sufficiency that comes from making things or using objects imaginatively that improves your mental wellbeing as well as your physical health (and your financial health, come to that). We may not ever really expect to be dropped in the jungle and have to fight our way out, but it is comforting to think that we are capable enough to have a decent chance.

Functional fitness also takes a holistic view of fitness itself. Fitness encompasses strength, speed, endurance and agility. It includes short, sharp efforts as well as lengthy ones. Most people end up with a bias in one particular direction according to their own preference and build, but functional fitness aficionados make an effort to cover all areas and work on their weaknesses as well as their strengths.

You will often find functional fitness practitioners training outside or in a fairly basic indoor environment. Simple and functional environments are appreciated as much as simple and functional equipment.

Elitism

“Gym Jones is private and isolated from the modern fitness ideal precisely because we believe that attitude to be poison. We believe that a proper training facility is separated from the complacency of the general public, and has its own set of rules and values. We believe that nothing of value may be acquired by simply going through the motions; real fitness is earned.” - Gym Jones

There are people in the world whose jobs involve functions that could be classed under ‘fitness’ – soldiers or firefighters, for example. But many people are simply pursuing fitness for its own sake. And if we’re honest, to be better than other people. Underlying a lot of so-called functional fitness is simple elitism.

Personally I’m all for elitism. I like being fitter/cleverer/healthier than the majority of the population. But let’s call it what it is. In this spirit, I appreciate the honesty of Crossfit’s “forging elite fitness” tag or Testosterone Nation’s strap line of “unapologetic muscle building elitists”. Even the quasi-cultish mystique surrounding Gym Jones could be forgiven on the basis that it is more interested in being true to its values than in being loved.

Many of the functional fitness methods or schools are elitist in outlook. It is an acknowledgement that fitness is more than simply staving off obesity and incapacity for as long as possible. It is about being as good as you can be or as good as your motivation can make you.

There are times when functional fitness, like many interesting concepts, disappears up its own backside. There is an awful lot of gumph spoken about hunting and gathering and being ‘ready for anything’.

I used to be sceptical of this ‘ready for anything’ attitude. It seemed faintly ridiculous for middle-aged suburban men and women to be training as if for battle on the off chance that guerilla war is going to break out in Maidenhead. And if a meteorite does hit the earth wiping out all supermarkets, our survival is going to be more about bushcraft knowledge and a high degree of efficiency than supreme physical fitness (more Ray Mears than Bear Grylls, if you know what I mean).

“Like it or not, we are the product of a very long process of adaptation to a harsh physical existence, and the past couple centuries of comparative ease and plenty are not enough time to change our genome. We humans are at our best when our existence mirrors, or at least simulates, the one we are still genetically adapted to live. And that is the purpose of exercise.” - Mark Rippetoe

But like anything, it is a matter of degree. Some people train to be able to kick a football around with their kids, others want to complete a mountain marathon. Ultimately it is about finding out just how capable you are, and the harder you push the more you adapt.

So functional fitness is the practise of all-round training using basic equipment in an unfussy environment, preferably outdoors. If you are lucky enough to have some real wood to chop or a genuine reason for pulling a sled, lucky you. If not, you may have to make one up.

What are your thoughts on functional fitness? Is the ‘functional’ redundant? Would you call yourself a functional fitness practitioner?

More from gubernatrix

• What is functional strength anyway?
• Fitness on a budget
• Bodyweight or bust!
• “300″ workout

Further reading

• Budget training by Ross Enamait
• Ritual vs Routine - a leftfield take on the relationship between fitness and physical attractiveness from Bodytribe
• 30 days without weights - bodyweight training
• Why Gym Jones is a private facility
• Funckey - the functional fitness community in the UK

 
Alex Puccio on A Maze of Death v12 from Bishop Bouldering

Many people are turning to indoor climbing for fitness. They may, or may not have ambitions to climb regularly on rock but the indoor climbing environment is a fun adjunct to a gym routine.

Rock climbing however is quite technique dependent. I meet a lot of women who say “oh I couldn’t do rock climbing, I’ve got no upper body strength”. There are two answers to that: 1) rock climbing is a great way to build upper body strength, and 2) there are many techniques you can use to overcome deficiencies in upper body strength.

Top UK climber Dave McLeod comments that when he coaches beginners

“always the most dramatic image for students is when someone who is obviously very much weaker than the rest (often a female climber in a group of strong young guys) makes climbing steep ground look effortless through applying momentum and lower body muscle groups.”

This article deals with these issues. It is written from a female perspective but applies to anyone who lacks a bit of climbing strength.

Female climbers

Lynn Hill, Lisa Rands and Lucy Creamer are some of the female pioneers in climbing and they have demonstrated that women can climb just as hard and high as men. Lisa Rands in particular, known for steep highball boulder problems, has always been marketed as climbing problems ‘for guys’. Which is nonsense of course; there aren’t little labels next to routes say ‘for guys’ or ‘for girls’. Men and women climb the same routes. But not always in the same way.

If you refuse to be intimidated right from the beginning by routes that require a lot of strength you will learn how to climb them. The top teenage girls today are climbing steep, hard stuff because no-one’s told them they are not supposed to! Insanely talented British junior Kitty Wallace climbed F8a in Kalymnos (high overhanging limestone) at just 14 years old.

But what about the ‘ordinary’ climber? Well, a rising tide lifts all boats and the fact that the standard of women’s climbing is rising all the time lifts the rest of us as well. Climbing is a predominantly mental game and you have to believe that you can make the moves.

Sometimes though, it is hard to get started. You see your male fellow beginners managing to haul themselves up routes that you can’t even start and it is easy to get discouraged. Strength can be built but it takes time - the strength will come if you climb regularly. In the meantime, there are plenty of techniques and tricks you can utilise to compensate for deficiencies in strength.

Use your legs and feet

A very common issue among beginner and even intermediate climbers is forgetting to use your legs and feet properly. For women this is especially important as we tend to have much stronger legs than arms.

Having your bodyweight over your feet and using your legs to push upwards is a very solid, strong position. It is usually more efficient than reaching up at full stretch with your arms and pulling yourself up. In situations where men might just reach up and pull, women can often complete the move using techniques such as these below.

Laybacking

Laybacking is leaning back with straight arms off an edge or corner while keeping the feet high. This takes some of the pull off the arms and allows you to exploit the strength of your legs

Laybacking is most often utilized to climb a crack or an arête, where there is a long edge to lay back off. However I have also used the technique just as a way to get my feet up to a decent foothold, in situations where someone with better strength or longer limbs has been able to reach up and pull.

Here is Lynn Hill laybacking a flake. Note the straight arms and how high her feet are. Both of these techniques make the movements easier and less strenuous.

Laybacking can seem scary at first but it is a very solid position. The trick is to keep your feet high. When the feet are low there is more downward pressure and your feet are more likely to slip.

Heel hook

The heel hook (and toe hook) is brilliant and makes many a steep route or problem suddenly do-able. It takes a bit of practice to learn how to pull with the heel or toe but is worth it. This is when flexibility – where women often have an advantage over men - can really come in useful; the higher you can get your foot, the more it can help you to pull up.

In this picture the climber is using a heel hook to take the weight off her left arm. She can then use the heel and the strength of her leg to pull upwards, rather than trying to pull off her arms on tiny holds.

The heel hook can be used to get a bit of a rest or take the weight off while you place gear or clip. Heel hooks are also useful when you are trying to reach a hold, perhaps off to the side. Hooking a heel or a toe can provide a secure counter balance while you reach out with the opposite arm to grab the elusive hold.

Heel hooks are often used to top out a boulder problem (climb onto the top of the boulder). If you’ve managed to get your hands on top of the boulder but you can’t find any footholds for your feet to step up, throw a heel over the top of the boulder and use it to help pull you up.

This can be tricky at first. I have had trouble with this in the past (I am a bit of a wuss when it comes to topping out) but it is less to do with strength and more to do with technique – learning how to use the heel in the most effective way and learning how much you can pull on it.

I find that getting used to the position itself is half the battle. Topping out, especially on a slopey top, can make you feel vulnerable and having three limbs out of four above your head is an unusual position to be in! But it is worth the effort – the extra pulling power of the foot together with the fact that you have less bodyweight hanging below you means that pure strength is less of an issue.

Rock over

The rock over is a great technique for slabs or easy-angled routes. You are essentially hauling your body over so it is directly above the foot that you are rocking onto. The movement is sideways not upwards. Once you have rocked over, you can then use leg strength to push up into a standing position.

 
Rocking over onto a foothold

In these pictures you can see that I start (left hand picture) in a laybacking position with my left foot on a foothold. I haul myself sideways not upwards until my bodyweight is over my left foot (right hand picture). I am now completely solid on that left foot and can stand up to reach the top of the boulder. I could even take my hands off the wall and I wouldn’t fall.

Again, the rock over can be used where others might simply pull up. If you can get your foot up and onto a reasonably good foothold, you can rock over with confidence and when you stand up you will be much higher than when you started. The important thing with the rock over is not to try to stand up until your bodyweight is right over the foot that is pushing. If your bodyweight is not far over enough you will probably fall.

Keep your feet on

Strong climbers often climb with barely any footwork at all, swinging around and pulling up impressively. Don’t let this put you off – you don’t have to climb like that. It is almost always better to keep your feet on the rock or wall.

Modern climbing shoes have amazing grip and you can use pressure to ‘hold’ yourself via your feet and take a little bit of pressure off the arms. You also want to keep your bodyweight as close to the wall as possible. This will make you less likely to swing off and will also increase your reach.

Hips

The key to keeping your body close to the wall is your hips. Keep your hips in and the rest will follow. A very common problem with beginners is allowing your hips to hang away from the wall. This puts more pressure on your arms, moves your centre of gravity out into space and generally results in a sudden failure of grip followed by a fall.

Turning your hips into the wall also gives you extra reach with the arm closest to the wall. In the picture below, Alex Johnson is turned right into the wall for maximum reach. She is actually utilising a technique called the ‘drop knee’ or ‘egyptian’ which is a more advanced technique than some of those described here but is essential for steep rock.

Alex Johnson from Bishop Bouldering

If you look at her left foot and knee, you will see that instead of her knee and her foot facing outwards, she has actually pivoted her foot around so that the toe is pointing inwards and the knee is also dropped inwards. This gives her an extra foot or two of reach on the left side and also provides a reasonable foothold through the pressure being exerted outwards. You really have to do it yourself to understand just how useful this move is!

Here is another, simpler example of turning your hips into the wall.  This climber isn’t doing any fancy pivoting, he is just climbing turned to the side, rather than facing the crag. This gives him a bit of extra reach and his centre of gravity is nice and close to the rock.

It is easy to complain about lack of reach but in fact there are not many routes that are completely ‘out of reach’ for all but the lankiest of climbers. Yes, smaller climbers may sometimes have to work harder or be more cunning but most reach issues can be conquered. Watch a good climber with a similar reach to see what techniques they use.

More tips

Try to keep your arms straight as much as possible – it is much less tiring. If you need to pause, whether to clip or rest, hang off a straight arm.

A good cue to remember, especially when climbing outdoors on real rock is: if you can’t move your hands, move your feet.

Conclusion

Although a great deal of noise is made about strength in climbing, the biggest advantage is technique. Steve McClure, one of the UK’s most successful sport climbers, points out that he is not the strongest climber by a long way but he succeeds because he works out the best position for his body to be in:

“You can climb in two different ways: you can be super-powerful and burl your way up it or you can be super-technical and find the perfect body position to make every move as easy as possible….I haven’t got the build or the time to get super-strong so I’ll try and use my head if possible”

Treat climbing not as a competition in strength but as problems to be worked out (that’s why boulder problems are so called after all!) and you are much more likely to succeed.

Further reading

• Climbing beginners - top 5 technique basics - thoughtful principles from Dave McLeod
• Rock climbing techniques explained - basic techniques
• Bishop Bouldering - some of the world’s best bouldering and great photos by Wills Young
• Online climbing coach - great web project from Dave McLeod, for all levels of climber

On Sunday I attended Crossfit Reading’s kettlebell workshop, coached by Andy Craig who runs Crossfit Reading.

Although I’ve had some kettlebell instruction before there are a number of gaps in my skill base so I was attracted to the idea of a workshop where I could cover everything I needed to know in one fell swoop. It didn’t hurt that Crossfit Reading’s price for a three-hour workshop was very reasonable, even taking into account the train fare from London.

It was a good session and I’m glad I went for the workshop option. There’s a limit to how much you can learn from books and the internet, especially with an implement as awkward as the kettlebell. It is valuable to have an experienced person to critique your form rather than simply reading about ‘common mistakes’. You also need some training to get you over the initial hurdle of how to handle the thing without it beating you up!

I found that going through the different exercises and skills progressively helped me to understand and appreciate kettlebell training in a way I hadn’t before. I used to have a ‘take it or leave it’ attitude to kettlebells. I do almost all the exercises with dumbbells or barbells and found it hard to understand why so many people rave about the kettlebell.

Now that I’ve had an afternoon of training I can see the appeal! The kettlebell is quite a flexible tool and the way it handles gives the movements a flow and a rhythm that you don’t get with a dumbbell, making high rep training easier.

Workshop content

The Crossfit Reading workshop gives good coverage of all the essential skills and exercises and I didn’t feel that any of the coaching was rushed in order to keep to time. The workshop covered:

• Squat technique 
• Swing (various types)
• High pull
• Clean
• Push press
• Push jerk
• Snatch
• Turkish get-up
• Windmill
• Side press

Andy generates an easy-going atmosphere. He won’t let you slack off but the feel is informal and friendly. He has a good instructor’s instinct for when to praise and when to critique. I am quite a testing person to coach as I have a habit of directly questioning comments or critique that I don’t understand and I get frustrated with myself if I can’t get the hang of something. Andy passed the ‘difficult client’ test well, as any good instructor should.

I can’t think of much about the session that I would change, which is a sign of a very successful workshop. It might have been interesting to do a proper kettlebell workout though, to show how the exercises can fit together into a workout and give us a chance to try out our new skills in anger!

Conclusion

If you are going to invest money in a kettlebell and train with it regularly, it is well worth the price of a three-hour workshop to set you on your way. It could potentially save you hours of poor training and dodgy technique.

It is also a fun thing to do of a Sunday afternoon. You get to meet like-minded people, have a good training session and learn new skills.

More from gubernatrix

• Review: Crossfit London i-Course
• Kettlebell training guide

Further reading

• Kettlebell exercises from Mike Mahler
• Kettlebell exercises from Chikara - The Other Side of Strength
• Dragon Door kettlebell articles
• Kettlebell Masochist - Master of Sport Catherine Imes’ blog

I’ve just come back from competing at the BDFPA British Unequipped Powerlifting Championships 2009 this weekend. I didn’t set the world of powerlifting alight but my final results are probably a fair reflection of where I am at the moment.

Squat: 100kg
Bench: 60kg
Deadlift: 130kg
Total: 290kg
Bodyweight: 63.4kg

There were some very impressive female lifters at the meet who have inspired me to work hard and improve over the next year. My deadlift in particular is lagging behind the top lifters at my bodyweight, so already there is a point of focus.

However the point of this post is that just as I was contemplating where to go next after this event, how on earth I am going to improve where I need to and so on – I came across this post from Catherine Imes, Master of Sport in kettlebells.

What she has to say about training is relevant to most sports, particularly strength sports. She talks about her decision to focus on technique (bear in mind that this is somebody who is already a Master of Sport so her technique must already be pretty good!) over conditioning and the importance of seeing the big picture.

…my focus has been on technical improvements and refinements. Those refinements have boosted my confidence in terms what I can do on a given day under less than ideal conditions. There is a big picture; and I’m starting to see it. My ultimate goal is to move the 20kg like I do the 16kg. To do that, I must be near perfect with my technique or as perfect as I can be.

What caught my eye here was “what I can do on a given day under less than ideal conditions”. When you compete you learn that you will not always be in the best shape on the day of competition. You try to be, but so many things have to be exactly right for that to happen.

I wasn’t at my best for the powerlifting championships this weekend and I spoke to many other people who weren’t. But that isn’t an excuse and can’t be if you have ambitions in the sport. As Imes points out, once you develop the technique, it’s yours regardless of how good or strong you feel on any given day.

I think conditioning is much easier to build and takes less time than skills and once you solidly develop skills….you own them. Everyone that asked my advice is more than fit. So, now it’s just a matter of stepping back, evaluating technique and taking the necessary steps to improve it. Initially, your numbers in practice may go down, but over the long term, they will climb significantly and your ability to handle heavier bells and longer durations will grow.

So I’ve decided to take Catherine Imes’ advice – which she freely admits is not unique, but is always worth repeating! – to focus less on numbers and more on technique, and to see the bigger picture. When I think about how much I have to lift to beat the top girls in my class, it seems daunting. But that’s because I’m only thinking about it in terms of strength. However with better technique the whole paradigm could shift.