550 Kettlercise Challenge

During 2014 Kettlercise instructors Karl and Simon are participating in a team challenge. Once a month during a kettlercise class the class will be split into 2 teams. Starting at the same time each team (1 with Karl leading and 1 with Simon leading) will perform 10 different kettlebell exercises starting with 100 reps and reducing by 10 every time the exercise changes. For example 100 Squat to Press, 90 rotational Lunges, 80 Cleans etc. until we are down to 10. The first team to all finish all exercises and reps (550) wins. There will be a leader board over the year to see which team will prevail during 2014. This is a simple but great idea to boost class participation and get a buzz around the club with your members. Also it adds a friendly competitive edge for your members to push themselves and achieve better results. No matter what we say we all have a little competitive edge inside us all and a fun simple idea such as above might just bring it out and push us on to that next level of fitness.

Attitudes Towards Training

The world of fitness is varied and there are good points, bad points and plain confusing points. This week I want to address attitudes towards training, recently I have heard some very confusing statements by people in regards to their training, such as, ‘how do I lose weight with the least effort?’ ‘I don’t want to train like that because I will get really sweaty’ ‘I don’t do those lifts they are too difficult’ ‘I am not very good at that so i never train it’ and so on…

A large percentage of people who go to the gym will do the same thing day in and day out, the same thing for months and years, with little motivation, little energy, no thought to adding new elements, people today seem to do what they think they know and little else, hardly pushing themselves, never working up a sweat, no increase in weight, intensity, pace or recovery, just same old different day.

Firstly the simplest way I can put it is ‘if it doesn't challenge you, it doesn't change you!’ training should challenge your abilities, you should work, sweat, push hard, dig deep and have to power your way through. Recently I did circuit based training on my weaknesses, I chose for things I am not great on and put them into a chain focusing on my technique, strength and endurance.  You won’t lose weight sticking to the same pace, you won’t get fitter doing the same few exercises with huge amounts of rest, you won’t get bigger lifting the same weight for the same reps, you will simply plateau.

There are so many types of training, so many variations and so much to master, there are a multitude of lifts, fitness and endurance training methods, lifting techniques, skill and agility building, flexibility and all round conditioning methods, so try them, bring back some excitement to your training and if you’re not sure where to start then find a trainer, we have a personal training team here at Breadsall Priory, we all have various backgrounds and experiences with fitness and our individual training methods vary and complement one another, we offer one to one training, group classes, inductions, personal programs and not to mention we are always happy to answer your health and fitness questions, our training team also work on the reception so don’t be scared to have a quick chat about your training or what new training we are doing, fitness is our career, our passion and we love the opportunity to talk about fitness and jump at the opportunity to train. So let’s reignite some passion and bring back that get up and go, in short, let’s get back in the gym and let’s smash it!

My Weakness Workout

30 wall balls
20 double unders
10 pull ups
5 muscle ups

For 5 rounds.



Karl O'Sullivan

Don’t forget to train your legs guys

Nowadays training legs doesn’t have the same appeal as say training your chest or biceps does to most guys, maybe due to the fact that you don’t see that instant pump you would do training biceps and the fact that training legs can cause DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness). Meaning the next couple of days can be reasonably painful to walk. However legs are actually the most important muscle to train as they are the largest muscle group and training them will increase the release of growth hormone throughout the entire body. Not only will it stop you looking completely out of proportion but having strong legs helps you generate more power performing upper body exercises. If you aren’t familiar with that many legs exercises the guys here at Breadsall Priory can give you that much needed advice on how to build strong legs, this should help to avoid looking like our friend pictured just above here. We also have a Legs Bums And Tums class starting in January so feel free to book in and come along. Corey Hodgkinson

It Is The Season!

Christmas is coming up soon! Which means a few things, adverts, presents, stock piling of the kitchen and of course, the Christmas parties, which means drink, lots of drink. Now I have no intention and urging you to be on the wagon this Christmas, after all it is the season to drink and be merry, but I will outline a few drinking facts and maybe that will encourage more reserved drinking or a rethink of your regular training. On a typical British night out it is not seen as unbelievable to consume anything in the way of, a bottle of champagne or brandy, ten bottles of beer, eight doubled up spirits or bomb upon bomb of the Jager.

The drink	Alcohol	Workout
Champagne	11%	3 hours dancing
A bottle of brandy	40%	4 hours cycling
10 bottles of larger	5.1%	1.5 hours playing squash
8 gin & tonics (doubles)	37.5%	2 hours football
6 Jagerbombs	35%	1 hour of rowing

So in short if you have parties lined up this merry season, then gear your training towards that high intensity calorie burn and remember, drink responsibly and be merry!