Guest post by Jamie Young. Enjoy, Hi my name is Jamie Young and Rob has asked me to write on his page, as he mentioned he has a wide variety of people who follow his posts, myself included. The reason he asked me to write was because I may have a unique perspective on exercise and sport and maybe insightful to people how like his page. Again I stress that this is a perspective however an informed one I hope! A little about me: Being from Australia I played every sport under the sun and appreciate all different sports- not sure about darts tho, more so the drinking aspect! I moved to England in search of my dream of playing football professionally and 13 years on i’m still engrossed in the sport. In that time i’ve met some interesting people- some have gone on to play at the highest level and some who have not quite made the heights, all great people though! Rob and I have been friends since we both worked at Wycombe Wanderers, 7 years and he is a honest, genuine person and passionate about exercise and well-being. Further to playing football i’m a final year undergrad student in sport science as well as taking my personal training certification, it’s fair to say exercise is part of my life! Past experience methods - Being involved in professional sport for so long I have been privy to various modes of exercise and the latest fads creeping into the industry as well as the latest strategies to acquire optimal performance and fitness. Ive been exposed to terrible training methodologies as well and this is still rife in lower league professional football to this day! For example: Managers prescribing players to do 40 mins ‘fat burners’ before training to lose fat or players being allowed to consume foods such as dominos pizzas post games- yes that includes me too! This is partly the reason why football in many circles are still in the dark ages as opposed to sports such as NFL or rugby where human beings are performing incredible things. Don’t get me wrong- at the top level strategies and methodologies are state of the art- some clubs perform blood tests to assess hormone levels of their players on a regular basis etc. or perform VO2 max tests in a laboratory to assess aerobic capacity etc. Further to this my dissertation involves genetic research correlation between the gene ACTN-3 and footballers. This could well be the future of sport science in football! Yes ice baths are a regular occurrence in wheelie bins you would put your garbage in- an interesting fact, research has shown ice baths in wheelie bins are effective because of the compression the enclosed surface has on the muscles as well as the ice water thus accelerating recovery, it is suggested this is more important than ice water itself! Game ready’s are a common sight- an advanced icing machine that allows for enhanced icing and compression, did I mention they are £6000 plus? A cheaper compression tool is recovery tights aka skins- I prefer the brand skins, they cost more but are effective and last longer. On exercise- Ive been exposed to various modes of exercises such as: olympic lifting SAQ exercises, plyometrics, yoga, pilates, body pump- shaking head!, free weights, using fixed machines, core balls, kettle bells, body weight exercises- push ups, chin ups, pulling/pushing sledges, spinning, pool sessions. Im sure there is more!! Exercise, which are the best? People advocate a certain forms of exercises that will rock your world if you perform it like its the best thing from sliced bread- in my opinion no one mode of exercise is the answer- a combination of different exercises modes will give people a greater perspective of exercise in general and attack the body from different angles to improve. For example performing free weights solely is not going to help me run a marathon anymore than yoga solely is likely to help me become a body builder. I stress the word SOLELY. I think of an exercise program as a diet and I like to incorporate as many different things as I can to continually attack my body into achieving adaptations - a way to break plateaus. Therefore use different modes of exercises to work together to achieve your goals. On nutrition- such a widely debated subject but the best piece of advice I could give to anyone is to understand nutrition properly, you have to understand how the body functions in relation to consuming food. Ive tried and heard all sorts of diets- most of them aimed at maintaining or increasing muscle while losing fat. Intermittent fasting, carb cycling, atkins, paleo, vegetarian, carb backloading, I even had one teammate claim he drank his own urine first thing in the morning as he thought he thought it had nutritional benefits.... so does an orange mate! I know how it feels to lose weight. In this case I was told to lose weight or face disciplinary fines by the club, I felt the pressures of being a guinea pig. I did 45 mins ‘fat burning’ before training - a term that I resent to this day and still occurs in football! Needless to say it did nothing for me except in the long term except increase my volume of training-fatigue me, frustrate me and resent the sport scientist! Eventually it got to the point where I just said i’m not doing it! By the end of of all that I was 6 ft weighing 97kg- i’ve always been thick set person! and being told to lose weight again by another manager! This pisses me off- weight is not a indicator of obesity- in extreme cases yes but in pro sport no! What is of importance is body fat percentage. Needless to say I said ok and tried again. This time though I did it my way- I had studied sport science for 3 years at that time read about alkalinity, paleo dieting and performed a combination HIIT (high intensity interval training) weight training and pure strength training. in 7 months i went from 97 kg to 84kg and the crazy thing was I was lifting even bigger weight than I used to. the biggest thing for me was though I went from 15.5 % to 10.5% and I was proud of that because I never thought I was capable of it. People always comment on their weight loss and how great it was for example, weight watchers- people lost 4 stone blah blah blah, what they do not tell you is how long they kept it off for because in many occurrences people put it on again in a rebound effect. That was 4 years I started my journey and today I weigh in at 92kg but i’m a lean 92kg around 11% body fat. the reason I have stayed there is through solid training, nutrition and recovery principles all based on science. If I had one criticism of that process I just mentioned it would be that I also lost muscle as well as fat, and this occurred due to not eating enough especially at the right times. But that’s ok because it’s all part of learning and this is partly the reason why i am now 92kg but 11% body fat. Most recently i’ve been performing Carb back loading- a diet which again has changed my thinking of health and exercise but it’s part of learning and expanding my perspective on the subject. It’s something that contradicts a lot of methodology but is hugely supported by research... i’m willing to give it a go at least to further my education. It contradicts many professionals advice but is hugely weighted in research and I recommend this diet to someone who wants to gain muscle and keep fat % low, however I stress this diet is for people who have experience with exercise and weight training and exercise constantly. In my humble opinion this is a diet aimed at performance more so than a well being diet, although if tweaked with correct thought potentially could be. Perspective on experts- Im assuming a lot of people on this forum are guided by comments who are PT’s other than Rob or are trained by PT’s other than Rob. My advice- be very careful whom you receive advice from. In the context of PT’s- they can achieve their certification in as little as 6 weeks. This is no where near enough time to fully understand the principles of bodily function, periodisation etc. This is because there is much conflicting evidence in the world of health and exercise. Studying something and teaching something takes years of dedication to perfect. For example, i’ve read in an article that cross trainer instructors can receive their accreditation after a 3 day seminar. This is hugely irresponsible as they are teaching techniques such as dead lifts and power cleans that on their own takes years to perfect their movements. It is the ability of one to interpret information correctly and apply it in the real world that makes them stand out from the crowd. I stress again, THIS TAKES YEARS! Overall personally I am not an advocator of one thing, sure I have favourites that I enjoy, but more so i am an advocator of many things, and appreciating different exercises and health strategies. I’ll admit i’m a strength and power man, however I suck at yoga, but i’ve experienced it enough to appreciate the strengths it can give people. Furthermore, i’m a believer in overall and health and well being- this means to live a healthy, active lifestyle through reenforcing my strengths and working on my weaknesses. This could be through increasing anti-oxidant rich foods, or increasing the amount of exercise I do too. Food for thought- in my opinion, people have illogical perspectives to their lifestyles, that is to say they would prefer to purchase a Mercedes Benz for 100K or a pair of Gucci shoes for £1000 instead of investing in their bodies. What is more important? Your head or your car? Investing in health every day is one of my priorities.... Yes Rob even the odd ben and jerry’s! If anyone has any questions or just wants to talk about their experiences, this forum is the place to do it, Rob is someone who always wants to help as this is his role as a PT and a nutrionist. All the best in health Jamie.
Posted on: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 19:25:33 +0000