Hope You Have A Great Xmas

I know, it's not Monday, but I'll not be sending out a newsletter until the new year.

Taking time off is important.

This is one of the things that has become more apparent to me of late.

So in this newsletter edition, I want to catch you up and give you an overview of what has been going on in my world over the last couple of years.

Moved out of Dublin

At the end of 2019 my wife and I left Dublin and moved north to Tyrone.

This meant leaving WG-FIT. For several months I did a daily commute to and from Dublin. This wasn't sustainable so I spoke with Seba, who'd been a fixture at my side for several years at this point, watching everything I do, and asked him if he would take over.

Thankfully he agreed.

Unfortunately, the country was forced into Lockdown very soon after.

Covid enforced Sabbatical

While this Lockdown near proved disastrous for WG-FIT, it was a blessing in disguise for me.

WG-FIT survived thanks to you lot, our dedicated members.

Many kept their membership live, taking advantage of our online services, and without you the place would surely have closed down. So thank you, without you there is no Wild Geese.

As for me, I took a job and went on sabbatical.

Over the last 15 years I've spent more time in WG-FIT than almost any other single location ever in my life.

Stepping away, as difficult as it was, was also a relief.

It took until mid 2022 for me to actually relax and remember who I am without WG-FIT.

Launched Force of Nature, why and how

I took a few courses, one of which was with a business coach with the intention of figuring out my next path.

We all need coaches, a voice that challenges your thoughts and opinions.

And what I learned, or rather what he helped me realise that what I do in WG-FIT really has very little to do with all the Swings and Push Ups I make people do.

It has very little to do with shoulder and foot mechanics or the breathing lectures…

It's about getting in people's heads and helping them believe how awesome they are, to see the awesomeness that I see in them. And to to realise that awesomeness.

So that is what the Force of Nature program is about.

In 12 weeks I take you deep into your head, more directly than I ever did on the training floor, but on the course I have 24 hours over 12 weeks with you.

On the training floor, I have 2-4 hours a week for as long as you train there, and for most that's a number of years, not weeks.

Of course I still build you a training plan, based on your wants, needs and movement assessments, you don't get away without doing a few Swings and Push Ups, and listening to me harp on about foot mechanics and breathing….

Online Training

The training program is delivered, as is all my online training, through the TrainHeroic App. But in the Force of Nature program we meet over Zoom with a session dedicated to giving the guys opportunity to ask questions, workshop problems and even get live demonstrations.

And this is something I'd like to roll out as part of the regular online training service.

How this will work is as follows.

Online training clients will have the option to join a weekly Zoom call. As there are many of you and you don't all have questions every week, there's no need to be on every call, but maybe 1 or two per month.

The plan here is schedule these a few weeks ahead, maybe cap the number of participants allowed to ensure some level of value.

If you're doing online training with me, I'll reach out to you individually in January.

The future of Wild Geese Fitness Training

WG-FIT is still going, albeit a little on the quiet side.

Since the end of the lockdowns it's never got back to full strength.

But it is going nowhere, at least not anytime soon.

Seb is doing a great job, I've seen him in action.

And I've seen the results he's getting with his clients.

They are flying.

I can't tell you how proud I am of him and thankful to have him step up like he has.

Kettlebell Sport

Also it's been great to see the kettlebell sport crew come back.

Wild Geese was there right at the very beginning of kettlebell sport in Ireland, forming our own small but very competitive team, the Kettleheads.

Having them back in WG-FIT is great to see.

And seeing them take part in competition and challenges still fills me with pride.

I did promise a while ago to run an Introduction to Kettlebell Sport workshop, and I've simply not had (or made) the time.

Drop me a line if you're interested, I'm thinking of setting it up for early next year.

It's been a strange few years, but it looks like we are back stable.

So let's take a bit of a breather over Christmas and then get back kicking arse and taking names in the new year.

None of this “new year new you” nonsense

Rather, new year, same me, pushing my boundaries ever more.

Hope to see you in the new year, either online, during one of my visits to Dublin or at a workshop .

Chat soon

Regards

Dave Hedges

www.davehedges.net

Can You Make Progress With Varied Training?

I sincerely hope you've been enjoying these newsletters as much as I've been enjoying answering your questions.

Please keep sending questions in, as they say the only stupid question is the one you don't ask.

This week, we're talking about progression and variety.

This isn’t in response to one question, but to a theme that's come up in conversation with several clients over the last few weeks.

Can we make progress with varied training, or must we stick with the same exercises?

It's a big question to unpack, but in short it comes down one simple thing.

What's your definition of progress?

If we're talking brute strength, then yes, you'll be best served repeating the same exercises over and over again.

But for general fitness, becoming a “Swiss army knife” or “leatherman tool” of a human animal, then variety works.

In skill training, its been shown that training several skills in a session may lead to a slower initial learning if we just look at one individual skill from the session than if we simply learn one skill in the same time period.

But over a longer timeline, we see that skill develop further when trained concurrently with others than the isolated group.

If we think of fitness as a set of skills, for example my base categories of fitness being Strength, Mobility and Endurance, but there are many more than those three, then I believe we can develop well rounded and above all, useful fitness without needing to follow a strict program.

I think I have just invented a new term, “useful fitness”

What might that mean?

It means if you play a sport, your sporting performance improves

It means if you’re a non athlete, you can do whatever activity you fancy with reasonable success.

It basically means generally capable.

The fancy Strength & Conditioning term is “GPP” or general physical preparation.

For athletes this is the foundation of fitness which then is taken and sharpened going into competition. For non athletes, this is probably all you ever need. Unless there's a specific event or goal you want to prep for.

Looking back at things like Georges Herbert's Movement Natural, many of the martial arts traditions, original crossfit and my own WG-FIT lunchtime sessions, the idea of non specific, non linear training plays out really well.

Assuming of course it's not truly random, that can be a problem.

There must be some thought put into it.

The base structure of push, pull, hinge, squat, everything else keeps you from going too far off the reservation.

Understanding intensity and rep ranges certainly helps, although we can bypass technical knowledge by either training close to failure or using RPE (rate of perceived exertion)

For example we have a squat pattern to train.

But we can break it into bilateral or unilateral. One both legs, or one leg at a time.

We can go heavy, which will lower the rep count, or just bodyweight which pushes the rep count up.

There's zero point, outside of absolute beginner/obese/injury, in doing just three reps of a bodyweight squat. Unless we're talking high intensity variations.

But three reps of a barbell front squat loaded heavy has high value.

So load/intensity dictates rep range. Or is it rep range dictates load?

Pot-aye-toe / pot-ah-toe

In theory, and this certainly what I've seen play put in the real world.

Follow the push, pull, hinge, squat, other template with a variety of movements done in a variety of rep ranges and good things happen.

Over time you develop strength with exposure to higher intensities and lower rep ranges.

Endurance with exposure to higher rep ranges and overall training frequency

And mobility due to exposure to a variety of loading patterns.

And that last section I think is a key factor.

Variety of movement patterns.

As I mentioned last week in the Simple and Sinister newsletter, people who have a large array of movement in their sport or day to day life won't need as much in the gym.

But people with limited movement exposure, as in most white collar work, could do with some variation.

The issue with varied training is it can be difficult to track.

So it's an idea to have tests or “benchmark” workouts that pop up infrequently just to check you are moving in the right direction.

A sports person would call these games or competitions.

In fitness, this concept created things like the strength sports, the krypton factor, Gladiators, Spartan Race Series and the crossfit games with it's imitators.

Now, 2 bits of news to tell you:

“Last Set Best Set” t-shirt now in the WG-FIT shop, limited time availability.

Get yours before they go away again at the end of January, have a look here: https://www.wg-fit.com/product-page/unisex-sports-jersey

Online Training clients, due to the success of the Force of Nature program which has a weekly Q&A call, I want to offer you lot something similar.

In the new year I'll be letting you know the details of this group call.

Now, hit reply and send me your questions and feedback

And please share this with anyone who might benefit

Chat soon

Dave Hedges

www.davehedges.net

www.wg-fit.com

What Do I Think About Simple & Sinister By Pavel Tsatsouline?

Andrea asks:

Hi Dave! I hope all is good with you. I'm getting back into kettlebell. What do you think about the Simple and Sinister program by Pavel?

Cheers,

Andrea

Which is a lovely question once we dig into it some.

Simple and Sinister is the evolution of the old “Program Minimum” as featured in Pavels benchmark book “Enter the Kettlebell “

While he'd been around for a while, it was this excellent 2006 book that really put him on the map.

SImple and Sinister is pretty much a 2019 sequel.

But is the program any good?

Yes, it is a good program.

Limited yes

But still good.

The two lifts, the Turkish Get Up and either Swing or Snatch are all excellent lifts. And between them they tick a lot of boxes.

They need little space, minimal kit and not a lot of time.

Pavel really propagates the idea of high frequency training, so short, concise workouts fit this idea. Making his work ideal for busy people

Where these programs fall down is they are only 2 movements in particular rep schemes so the outcomes are going to be somewhat limited.

The 2 lift methodology is another Pavel classic.

Power to the People : Deadlift and Bent Press

Naked Warrior: Pistol Squat and One arm Push Up

Enter the Kettlebell: Get Up and Swing, then Clean & Press and Snatch.

Simple and Sinister: Get up and Swing

Quick and Dead: Push Up and Swing or Snatch

Have I missed any?

What Pavel does do, that I think many miss, is he teaches principles through his works.

This is where he shines.

The programs themselves are fairly unremarkable and if I'm honest limited, I'll get to that shortly.

But if you pay attention, not just to the texts, but how you perform the drills and protocols, there is real magic there.

After all, doing Swings and Get Ups is pretty standard fair.

The way you do your Swings, the way you do your Get Ups, with the particular intensity, the particular set and rep scheme, the particular rest periods, the attention to detail.

This is where magic lies.

The minimalist programming will suit beginners as an entry into training or people returning to training after a lay off.

It'll suit sports people/martial artists who are already doing a lot of movement patterns in their actual training, so don't need much in the supplementary fitness work.

But people who aren't doing sport and are looking for well rounded fitness training, you’re going to miss out.

Unless the convenience of short 2 move training is all your schedule allows.

My own experience with Pavels work started when I bought my first Kettlebell and the Enter the Kettlebell Book back in around 2006 or 7.

At that time I was training daily in the Martial Arts academy and was working the doors.

I was also trying to get over some severe back injuries.

The program minimum suited me down the to the ground.

5-15 minutes work, 5 or 6 days per week.

Simple.

I actually credit that with a large part of my early recovery.

The “Rite of Passage” programming in that book is what gave me the ladder set and rep scheme, which I used on different exercises, but that also gave me a huge step forward in my rehab.

I had started collecting Pavel’s work at this stage, so was using the Naked Warriors Pistol Squat and One Arm Push up, with the addition of a pull up.

Each day I arrived at the Martial Arts academy, I cracked on with the “Rite of Passage” template.

As a result, my midsection became incredibly strong, I regained the hip[ mobility I’d lost and pain reduced significantly.

I was back!

And I’ve used very similar with a great many clients over the years, very basic minimalist training that allows time and energy for many other things.

Which brings us back to the idea that if this is your main training, is it enough?

Honestly, not really.

Once past the beginner stage, you are likely to plateau pretty hard.

I hope this helps.

As I said, Pavels work is brilliant, but I think maybe dragging that brilliance out of the books takes a bit of thought and knowledge.

If you're interested in looking at what Pavel is produced, this is my Amazon affiliate link that will take you to his author page: https://amzn.to/487DI5M

And if you have a question like Andrea's, or any of the guys from the previous emails, do hit the reply button and send it in for future editions.

Regards

Dave Hedges

www.DaveHedges.net

www.WG-Fit.com