I am, according to Jonathan Goodair, arguably the most revolutionary fitness trainer working in Britain today, a classic example of where most people go wrong. 'All you have been doing is exercising the same muscles again and again in the same way. In running you overwork your quads and underwork your gluts [that's thighs and bottom to you and me]. The body is a very clever machine. It adapts specifically to what you do to it, so it will find the easiest possible way to find fuel for that - in other words the most calorie sparing.'
Which is why at the heart of the Goodair Total Body Plan - a five- or six-week programme of between four and six 90-minute sessions a week - is what he calls treadmill aerobics. 'I want to work someone in the most challenging way possible, and put in as much variety as possible. I don't just make someone run, I make them skip or walk sideways or backwards, and then put in other movements that challenge their balance, and stimulate lots of muscles, not just the quadriceps.'
http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/article/TMG8217206/A-fitness-revolutionary-meet-Jonathan-Goodair.html
What's good about this? The understanding that we're all - Americans, Brits, any neolithic society - frontal plane dominant, and inadequately developed in the glutes, hams and in the spinal erectors.
Imagine walking fast on a treadmill, then imagine lifting your knees high, like a little girl skipping down the street, then imagine doing that backwards, and sideways, and adding in lunges and squats and crossover steps, and sudden direction changes. This is what Goodair means by treadmill aerobics, and it's exhausting stuff.
What's the bad about this? Well, first off, you don't need to work for 90 minutes! If the athlete works hard enough, 10 minutes will buy more adaptation than will 90. Intensity trumps duration!
Second, reading the above description, the athlete is not required to develop the two foundational attributes - powerful hip extension in combination with the capacity to sustain spinal integrity under load. In short, this treadmill training is great for working "not very hard for a long time" but will not help the athlete generate force or power through hip extension, or transmit that power through a rigid spine.
Goodair says this engagement of the brain is key. 'Fitness isn't just about having a healthy heart and strong lungs and muscles,' he tells me in his soft Sheffield brogue. 'It is about co-ordination, about neural pathways, about the fact that your brain is connected to your muscles so you know where your feet are going, where your hands are going. If you do this kind of work you end up feeling much more coordinated, your body is much more connected even when you walk down the street.'
This is all fine - but coordination to what end? Coordination so that you can walk the streets? Can you lift your children? Can you lift a suitcase when you are 60 or 80?
This approach continues in the resistance work, in which weights are largely eschewed in favour of stretchy bands attached to the ceiling, a giant pilates machine-cum-torture instrument otherwise known as the Garuda, and a series of free movements - arm swoops and leg swoops in every direction imaginable - that are incomprehensibly exhausting.
The author is overly impressed with exhaustion. It's fine, it's far better than nothing, but more important is - what physical capacities are you cultivating? If you can do that in 10 minutes, why waste 90?
Again, Goodair's chief concern is to avoid his client putting on muscle bulk; to encourage instead the development of the long, lean muscle we all covet these days.
This is nearly comic! Look, guys can hardly put on all the muscle they want to, much less women - you can count on one hand all the women who will have to worry about gaining too much bulk in muscles!! If you eat right and gain the benefit of an optimized metabolism, you will enjoy every strong muscle you can get, male or female.
However, here's some additional good: 'It is sugars that transport fat into fat cells, that disturb your body's metabolism, stopping it from burning fat,' says Goodair. 'Sugars make your body a less efficient fat-burning machine.' There is no calorie-counting on the programme, but all high-carbohydrate foodstuffs, be it bread or potatoes or pasta, are verboten.
Right as rain.
'If you are training consistently, yes, the ageing process will take effect, but the difference you can make is enormous. The less we do, the less we can do. The body adapts very specifically to what you do to it. You can stay supple and fluid.
There's aging, and there's quitting entirely. The latter results in a rapid diminution of life, the former a very, very slight diminution of life. You finish the race in casket either way, but the life lived can be remarkably different.
Which is why at the heart of the Goodair Total Body Plan - a five- or six-week programme of between four and six 90-minute sessions a week - is what he calls treadmill aerobics. 'I want to work someone in the most challenging way possible, and put in as much variety as possible. I don't just make someone run, I make them skip or walk sideways or backwards, and then put in other movements that challenge their balance, and stimulate lots of muscles, not just the quadriceps.'
http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/article/TMG8217206/A-fitness-revolutionary-meet-Jonathan-Goodair.html
What's good about this? The understanding that we're all - Americans, Brits, any neolithic society - frontal plane dominant, and inadequately developed in the glutes, hams and in the spinal erectors.
Imagine walking fast on a treadmill, then imagine lifting your knees high, like a little girl skipping down the street, then imagine doing that backwards, and sideways, and adding in lunges and squats and crossover steps, and sudden direction changes. This is what Goodair means by treadmill aerobics, and it's exhausting stuff.
What's the bad about this? Well, first off, you don't need to work for 90 minutes! If the athlete works hard enough, 10 minutes will buy more adaptation than will 90. Intensity trumps duration!
Second, reading the above description, the athlete is not required to develop the two foundational attributes - powerful hip extension in combination with the capacity to sustain spinal integrity under load. In short, this treadmill training is great for working "not very hard for a long time" but will not help the athlete generate force or power through hip extension, or transmit that power through a rigid spine.
Goodair says this engagement of the brain is key. 'Fitness isn't just about having a healthy heart and strong lungs and muscles,' he tells me in his soft Sheffield brogue. 'It is about co-ordination, about neural pathways, about the fact that your brain is connected to your muscles so you know where your feet are going, where your hands are going. If you do this kind of work you end up feeling much more coordinated, your body is much more connected even when you walk down the street.'
This is all fine - but coordination to what end? Coordination so that you can walk the streets? Can you lift your children? Can you lift a suitcase when you are 60 or 80?
This approach continues in the resistance work, in which weights are largely eschewed in favour of stretchy bands attached to the ceiling, a giant pilates machine-cum-torture instrument otherwise known as the Garuda, and a series of free movements - arm swoops and leg swoops in every direction imaginable - that are incomprehensibly exhausting.
The author is overly impressed with exhaustion. It's fine, it's far better than nothing, but more important is - what physical capacities are you cultivating? If you can do that in 10 minutes, why waste 90?
Again, Goodair's chief concern is to avoid his client putting on muscle bulk; to encourage instead the development of the long, lean muscle we all covet these days.
This is nearly comic! Look, guys can hardly put on all the muscle they want to, much less women - you can count on one hand all the women who will have to worry about gaining too much bulk in muscles!! If you eat right and gain the benefit of an optimized metabolism, you will enjoy every strong muscle you can get, male or female.
However, here's some additional good: 'It is sugars that transport fat into fat cells, that disturb your body's metabolism, stopping it from burning fat,' says Goodair. 'Sugars make your body a less efficient fat-burning machine.' There is no calorie-counting on the programme, but all high-carbohydrate foodstuffs, be it bread or potatoes or pasta, are verboten.
Right as rain.
'If you are training consistently, yes, the ageing process will take effect, but the difference you can make is enormous. The less we do, the less we can do. The body adapts very specifically to what you do to it. You can stay supple and fluid.
There's aging, and there's quitting entirely. The latter results in a rapid diminution of life, the former a very, very slight diminution of life. You finish the race in casket either way, but the life lived can be remarkably different.
'You need to do 40 minutes of cardio three times a week minimum, ideally four, plus follow my resistance programme for 50 minutes four times a week [ see the video here ].
That's ridiculous - far too much time spent for way too little benefit gained. Go short, go hard! Intensity trumps duration.
That's ridiculous - far too much time spent for way too little benefit gained. Go short, go hard! Intensity trumps duration.
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