Tag Archives: muscle

Is it a jailyard?

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One of the world’s best gyms – probably the very best actually – is Gold’s in Venice Beach in Los Angeles. They have a good yard out the back for working out in the California sunshine – but one problem is they really don’t like filming taking place.

But when I was there with Dan Wynes we managed to sneak a friendly cameraman’s lens through a hole in the fence – giving a very paparazzi and illegal look to what already appears like a jailyard in the first place!

Take a look at the video, so if you agree…

http://bitly.com/ChrisVideo015

On stage in two days!

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There are now less than 48 hours to go until the Pure Elite Fitness Model contest in Margate. I’ll be there on stage, and I’m both looking forward to it and apprehensive in equal measure!

This is the first time I’ve competed in Pure Elite, although I have been on a stage elsewhere in similar contests organised by Miami Pro four times in the past – two categories each time, so in fact I’ve been on the stage for eight separate contests.

So why I am apprehensive? It sounds like I’m an ‘old hand’ at this game! Well, there are a couple of aspects about the Pure Elite that make it all a little bit more of a challenge.

Firstly, there are the age categories. For Miami Pro, I have always entered the over 50’s age group in both the Fitness Model and Muscle Model categories; I’ll be doing the same two category names this Sunday too, but Pure Elite has a different age structure, and I’m in the over 45’s, not over 50’s. This means I’ll be competing against guys who are almost 13 years younger than me – and age is certainly a factor in being able to reach peak physical condition. In my other contests, I was usually the oldest on stage by about 5 years; in this one, I’ll be a week away from my 58th birthday, I suspect I’ll be the oldest again, but will have a much greater age gap to the youngest.

Secondly, I’ve also had another fitness-related focus on my mind. I’ve been raising money for a good cause – a young girl called Esme with an incurable disease. The high point of my fund -raising for her was running a marathon in Dublin on Monday this week (the marathon and cash-raising story is on www.bitly.com/chris4esme). I’m not used to much long-distance running, and I was pretty exhausted at the end of the 26 miles. An article on marathon running I read previously suggested runners need 26 days without training to recover post-run, based on a day’s recovery for every mile ran. I certainly couldn’t afford that time off with the Pure Elite being 6 days after the marathon, so I decided to make that 26 hours off-training rather than 26 days! I hope the marathon hasn’t taken too much out of me for the Pure Elite, and that I haven’t taken my training too far off course as a result.

Apart from the marathon, I think I’ve prepared well for Pure Elite. I have been training alongside Dan Wynes, a young guy to whom I have been acting as fitness mentor for the past six months. Even though I’m the mentor, I know that I have learned as much from Dan as he has from me over these past months, and we have both been determined at pushing each other on. Dan has formally challenged me to be the best of my generation present at Pure Elite, and I issued the same challenge to him.

The most intensive period for us was a week’s dedicated training taken as a trip to Gold’s in Venice Beach, Los Angeles, ending the day before travelling to Dublin. That week in Gold’s was the toughest week’s gym training of my life, and my thanks go to Dan for encouraging me on so much – and also to Rob Riches of True Performance Nutrition (the USA-based company for which I am an ambassador) who joined in the training there and further helped both Dan and me reach new reserves of strength and dedication to achieving the best body we each can.

Coming forward to today, I checked the mirror and scales this morning, and feel happy with what I saw. I’m at the lowest bodyfat for five years, just beating my final number on the Gold’s trip – the bodyfat actually went up significantly in Dublin due to the mega-high carbs fuelling my run on Monday.

Have I done enough to repair the fitness diversion caused by Dublin, and to be a worthy opponent to those competing alongside me on stage? I hope so.

My wife Jenny and Dan’s girlfriend Liz are in the front row of spectators on Sunday, and will be screaming madly for both of us during our separate times on stage. I hope they get to see their chaps have met to the challenges we gave each other with success. We want our ladies to see us achieve results to make them proud of the two of us.

More next week, when Pure Elite will be over – for this year, at least!

TV update

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I have produced a four-part TV series on fitness called ‘Fit Happens’ which is currently being shown in the UK.  I chose the series name because it rhymes with…

Each episode is hosted jointly by me and sports nutritionist Keith Cormican, and takes a magazine-type format – a bit like Top Gear but on a tiny budget!

The target audience is anyone who is interested in learning more about increasing their fitness levels, reducing their fatness levels, or a bit of both.

CK and foodIn the four shows we cover gym training for various body parts, running, cooking healthy recipes, cycling, aerobics classes, cardio, yoga, stretching and a wide variety of viewers’ questions.

We hope we haven’t missed anything, but there’s only so much we can cram into four shows of 30 minutes each!

Its on the Community Channel, which is found on Sky 539, Freeview 63, Freeview-HD 109, Virgin Media 233, and Freesat 651. Each episode premieres Sunday night at 8:30pm.  Then that episode is repeated on Monday at 6pm, Wednesday at 9pm and Saturday at 8pm.

Dates of the 8:30PM Sunday premieres are:

Episode 1 – July 27
Episode 2 – August 3
Episode 3 – August 10
Episode 4 – August 17

Fit Happens LogoAnd remember, if you miss the premiere on Sunday, that episode is repeated three times in the following week – as mentioned above. Keith and I hope you watch and can pick up a few tips that will improve your fitness – not just in the short term, but for the rest of the year and beyond.

We’d love to get your feedback:

To me on :Chris@FitnessOverFifty.co.uk
To Keith on: Info@KeithCormican.com

The top question

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Chris at Zone Gym 04I’ve heard many times that it’s impossible to add muscle and burn fat at the same time.  But is this correct?

While I agree this is true for any one instant of time (the body can’t do both at exactly the same micro-second), I don’t think its true over a realistic period – such as a month.  In the past month, I’ve been able to add a little muscle and lose fat through my nutritional and training strategies, heading up to my World Championship bid a couple of weeks ago.  Its a combination of nutrition and exercise, so here are my top 10  recommendations to achieve that magic combo – the key things I did in the two months leading up to the contest:

On the nutrition side:

1. Low calories than most but high protein within it (target 40% of calories from protein)
2. Minimal sugar and other fast carbs
3. Lots of green veg to go with the protein sources of meat, fish and eggs plus some whey shakes to up the protein
4. Low saturated fats
5. As much natural food as possible – avoid processed

On the exercise front:

1. Cardio every morning pre-breakfast but post-black coffee or fat-burner
2. Vary the cardio to be either low-moderate resistance on some days, high/low intensity intervals on the other
3. Spend ten minutes on abs straight after the cardio
4. Daily afternoon resistance training, ideally five days per week, on a bodypart-split basis – ensuring the same bodypart isn’t trained on consecutive days
5. Ensure there’s two days off per week from resistance training – you can do the cardio and abs on those days of course

If you want to go the extra mile, you may want to think about supplementation – I used BCAA’s, Creatine and a morning fat-burner (Ripped) from True Performance Nutrition, the company for whom I am an Ambassador.  That level of detail may not be for everyone, but this next point is – remember that consistency is important; you won’t be able to stick to all of those 10 points every day – but the more days you do, the better and more likely you are to succeed.

Does it work?  I’ve measured the results on myself measured through reducing body-fat percentage measured by my scales, and increasing weights numbers in the gym.  To me, getting results on both of these over two month counts as doing both at the same time, so yes – I’d say it can be done!

Have a great, fat-losing, muscle-building weekend!

I want to tell you a story…

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Well, its not any story, its actually my story.

I’ve created a article for a Los Angeles-based web site called MyFitTribe, as they were keen to tell the world about an obscure 57 year old Englishman that they know.

Depending on how well you know me, and how many of those nearly three-score years  I’ve spent in your company, you may already know some of the info in the article.  Whether its all new or not, I hope its of interest.

My thanks, of course, to MyFItTribe for asking me to do this.

Enjoy the article, any questions or comments as always, please, to Chris@FitnessOverFifty.co.uk

I’ll be back with more blogging next Friday (probably…).  And, as usual, have a healthy and fit sunny weekend!

Chris

A bit of re-resolving

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The first blog of 2014 and so, of course, the first thing to do is wish you a happy, healthy and fit new year! I’m not a big fan of the word ‘resolutions’ – they get broken far too easily – but I hope that you have taken a few minutes to think of your fitness priorities for the year.

I’ve a bit of ‘catch-up’ work to do on the fitness front myself. The family Christmas and other celebrations have led to me being less fit than I’d like to be – for example, I’m up to 12% body fat today, and I like to be under 10% for most of the year, coming down to a lower number for contests. Additionally, I have a number of fun events coming up (some holidays in Feb, a TV series in March, and the Miami Pro Fitness Model World Championships in April) so its definitely time to get back into shape.

I’ve decided to commit to my fitness objectives for the year, and here are the highlights. It’s nothing new, just a re-commitment to last years approach. I hope it’s of interest, and if you need some inspiration in setting your own priorities, maybe there’s something in here that can help.

Keeping fitness levels up and fatness levels down is a blend of nutrition and movement. My view is it’s 50% nutrition, 30% cardio and 20% resistance training, and since there are three components, I’ve re-committed to objectives in all three.

On the nutrition side, my ideal day has seven meals. That’s made up of three smallish main meals per day – breakfast, lunch and dinner – with a smaller snack in between each, plus a shake after resistance training, and finally a late night snack. I don’t count calories accurately, but I do make a rough eyeball estimate of each meal; the three mains should typically be about 500 calories each, with the snacks and shake each at 250 – that comes in at about 2500 for the day. I make sure that each of those seven meals has a substantial protein element, and I keep the sugar and saturated fats down. And it’s definitely time to put the Christmas booze away.

For cardio, I’d like to get my 40 minutes pre-breakfast cardio back up to five days per week. I keep my cardio effort at around 65% of my maximum heart rate, which works out to be 120bpm – this ensures I keep in the aerobic activity zone with the main fuel source being fat. Nothing eaten beforehand, only black coffee or my RIPPED fat burner from True Performance Nutrition. On Saturdays, I replace the cardio with a 5k ParkRun – and I’m sure I can keep to the Sunday goal of a lie-in!

On the resistance side, my aim is to get back up to five days per week in the afternoons or evenings – cycling round ABCDE body parts, one part per day (arms, back, chest, delts and elevators). That’s a 50 minute per day trip, which is now back to being a high priority, as Christmas is done. Elevators are legs by the way, in case you don’t know my strange use of the alphabet!

There’s nothing new in the above, it’s what I was doing pre-Christmas for 2013. So my resolution – if we are going to use that word – is to get back to business as usual!

I hope there’s something in the above that helps you. There’s more about everything on my website www.FitnessOverFifty.co.uk – and I’d be happy to answer any questions or comments on Chris@FitnessOverFifty.co.uk

And as I said, a happy, healthy and fit new year to you!