I didn’t have a baby to do one of the demos. My “toddler” is 18 now and would not agree to be in my demo. My 31 year old son probably would have had he lived in town.

Workouts you can do at home

Don’t have ropes and chains at home? No problem. You can drag anything. Just stay low and tight.

Out of all the stuff I’ve been into in the last few months, boot camp is still my first love.

We’ve really changed some things around and the first was for me to take a step back from teaching. This was very hard for me because I felt like I should be at every class since this is the business I started back in 2006. The worse part is not seeing all of the friends I have made over the years. I just couldn’t continue to run the business and get up at 3:30 am anymore to teach classes. The lack of good quality sleep effected everything from my personal life to the business.

I have now turned over the reins to Mike who has been by my side for almost the whole 6 years. Two of our clients have earned their Hardstyle Kettlebell Certification and one of those, DK is working with us “full time”. Becca will be helping teach Kettlebell classes along with Mike Munroe, another long term client.

So that leaves me with teaching a few classes, doing personal training and running the business.

We’ve changed things around and added some new classes. Some of the things we are offering are Monday, Wednesday, Friday classes at 9:00 am and 6:30 pm in addition to the classes we have always had.

We are doing monthly adventure race training with our new side business, Adventure Race Camps. We can do any type of adventure race training from 2 hour obstacle race training to all night Death Race training. Some people use our ARC to prepare for races and others use it as a gut check.

We are coming to the end of our boot camp transformation challenge that began the first week of January. So far our top male and female leads have lost over 25 pounds and that is without doing anything crazy.

We are also about to begin an on-site boot camp program for Killearn Lakes Elementary School. I am very excited about this opportunity. I think teachers today have one of the toughest jobs there is and to do something to help them improve their health is a blessing.

Now that I am not waking up in the middle of the night anymore, I hope to keep up this blog as well as all of my other projects.

I got this quick video on Wednesday of the 5:30 pm class wrapping up their workout with this human centipede ab workout.

Several weeks ago I had the incredible opportunity to teach a basic Kettlebell workshop to the Tallahassee Police Department’s Tactical Apprehension and Control Team. This will go down in my history as one of the coolest things I’ve ever done as a Kettlebell instructor.

I met Sgt. James Fairfield several months ago when he came out to my gym to build a 12 foot climbing wall for my adventure race training workouts.

The Wall in progress

I was impressed with his mad carpentry skills and he was pretty much blown away by my gym and equipment. James and his team began using my gym for their very unique type of training.

The TAC team as well as other first responders have training needs that are not met with traditional gym workouts. Doing 3 sets of 12 rep bicep curls at several different angles are not going to help or make much of a difference when lives are at stake. As a matter of fact, no machine at the gym will properly train an officer for the very unique situations that occur on the job and out in the field.

I invited James and his team to come out to the gym for a very basic Kettlebell workshop taught by myself and my brother, Mike.

So on January 5th the TPD TAC team rolled in with their Mobile Command Post, Public Relations Officer and two uniformed officers. Reporters with the TallahasseeDemocrat and WCTV showed up shortly after.

Also in attendance was David Ross, catcher for the Atlanta Braves baseball team.

We began our workout with some basic movement prep so that Mike and I could get an idea of what types of injuries or dysfunctional movement patterns we might be dealing with. The Face the Wall Squat is a great way not only to begin opening up the chest, prestretching the glutes and warming up the legs but it is also a great assessment for me to check the thoracic spine and ankle mobility. Right away I was able to see who had ankle and t-spine issues.

Many trainers don’t realize how important ankle mobility is in squatting. If someone has tight ankles, they will not be able to squat properly. People hate me for it, but function and form come first in my classes and in my training.

We continued our warm up/prep work with Pumps and kneeling hip flexor stretches. I like to do my Pumps a little bit differently so that again, I can assess the ankles while working on gaining more movement.

Next up was Face Away From the Wall Deadlifts. This is is where we begin focusing on loading the glutes and moving from the hips. The drills from Kettlebells from the Center are perfect for this step. Again, I use this as a learning tool, movement prep and to assess what needs to be addressed before we begin touching the Kettlebells.

From there we went to deadlifting a light bell. We used the 16k, probably to the surprise of both team members and those looking on. After close to an hour the DL were looking good enough to try out some swings. This is where things can get ugly and they did.

Many of the guys as well as many of my clients have never moved from the hips. Spending time on the DL allows them to groove that movement pattern. Swings are taking that perfected pattern and adding explosive power.

For many people putting it all together is tough. As long as the movement is slow like a DL, everything is good, once power is added, compensations and prior movement patterns take over and then you have a mess on your hands.

This is when it’s important as a trainer to educate your client on progression. Some of the guys had to go back to Deadlifting while others worked on the Swing.

We taught Goblet Squats and then finished the class by touching on the Turkish Get Up.

Turkish Get Ups done correctly are one of the best exercises I know for strength, mobility and stability. Everyone should be doing TGUs but especially first responders. David Ross, the catcher for the Atlanta Braves said that he really liked the TGUs and could see how they would be a great addition to his training.

The officers say this type of nontraditional training comes in handy because their standard gear set can weigh between 65 and 97 pounds.

Sgt. James Fairfield said it himself when a reporter asked him why they were doing the class.”We need something a little bit more dynamic. So, what this type of training affords us is physical stress in a positive way that is more similar to the kind of unusual circumstances we’re face while we’re loaded in heavy gear, operating in uneven terrain, and in close quarters environment.”

The TAC team is used to performing in extreme conditions and circumstances. Their training program and conditioning is intense. Adding Kettlebells and a few simple exercises to their arsenal compliments their current training program while giving them an intense conditioning workout coupled with functional movement without adding extra impact and pounding on their joints. For the officers, this is a match made in heaven, for bad guys, this is a match made in HELL.

After lying in bed for thirty minutes I decided to turn on the TV.

I was hoping to find something boring and doze back off to sleep. With blurry eyes I flipped through the channels. I thought my remote was stuck because it looked like the same show was on every station. It was nothing but infomercials. Three stations had weight loss gadgets, one station was some gadget to change your life in the kitchen and one station was showing something to change your life in the bedroom. At 4:00 am, the only change I want going on in my bedroom is some sleep!!

I decided to see what kind of crap was being sold at 4:00 am and what kind of ridiculous promises were being made.

First channel surfing stop was a product known as the Contour. This gadget is a belt that when worn around the midsection sends electrical currents to tighten and tone while you get to sit around and watch TV. I watched as they showed the user doing traditional sit ups. On cue, he made the squishy, contorted facial expression of a man in pain. He said the sit up hurt his back….poor baby, poor incredibly ripped, lean hunk of gorgeousnesses.

Enter the expert!

The expert showed a thermoscan of gorgeous male model’s muscles while doing sit ups and then while wearing the “amazing” Contour belt. Of course the Thermoscan lit up when that hunk of a man put on the belt.

Even in my sleep deprived state, I knew that this was a load of crap.

If you watch closely enough and take you eyes off of that hot body long enough, you will see a quick flash of print at the bottom of the screen, the same print that is on the bottom of the TV screen of all these stupid gadgets and that is that results are not typical….blah, blah, blah. Does anyone even read that or they already on the phone ordering, not one but 2? God forbid you ever get just one item from an infomercial. We all know that if you act now, they will send you another one for FREE!!

Ok, in case you missed the print at the bottom of the screen, here it is.

Regular users of the Contour device can generally expect modest strengthening and toning of abdominal muscles. Results are not typical. He lost weight on a reduced calorie diet and an exercise program.