Strong Fitness Project

👊🏻🔥 INTRODUCING JONNY ‘THE UNIT’ JONES // 1 STONE OF MUSCLE IN 8 WEEKS 🔥💪🏼

I have to give a ‘shout out’ (I’ve used inverted commas so that you know I’m not a cheeseball) to my ‘boi’ Jonny. 🎤

Jonny was a classic ‘hard gainer’. I turned the fan on during his first workout and it nearly blew him over (sorry Jonny 😉).

He came to me in June wanting to put on some muscle. He put on 5.5kg in 8 weeks….which is INCREDIBLE progress. 🔥

This deserves a special mention, because ‘bulking’ properly is not an easy thing to do. Fat loss is a relatively simple concept (although many nutrition companies / pros would lead you to believe otherwise….).

Gaining even a kilo of lean, metabolically active (i.e living, breathing) muscle tissue requires extreme focus in the gym, total diligence with your nutrition and clever programming.

…..Jonny has built nearly a stone of it. 💪🏼

It is worth mentioning that he’s also put on 800g of fat, but his diet has been carefully managed to ensure maximum muscle gain relative to fat.

This is important: Beware of any person or product who says you can put on muscle and burn fat at the same time. I call bullsh*t……it is literally IMPOSSIBLE from a biological perspective. 💩

You are either ‘anabolic’ (gaining mass) or ‘catabolic’ (losing mass). BUT you can be smart with your nutrition and recovery in general to keep the fat gain under control.

Well done Jonny 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

🤔 ARE YOU DOING TOO MUCH HIIT? 🤥

If this post grabbed your attention, then the answer is probably YES. 😳

should NOT be your only form of training. Are you wondering why you are still the same size / shape but you’ve been doing HIIT or every morning for the last two years?!

Would you let that lack of progress slide in any other facet of your life?! I’m guessing NOT.

I’ve even taken it upon myself to incorporate work into any HIIT sessions that I run, because I know too many of the members do far too much HIIT. Guess what? people are starting to report that they’re feeling stronger and their shoulders are healthier as a result💪🏼

You’re welcome 😉

I’m not suggesting HIIT is a waste of time, far from it. HIIT should be used to SUPPLEMENT a wider programme that is predominantly focussed around…you’ve guessed it….STRENGTH!!

The work also needs to be structured, progressive and specific to your training needs, but we’ll leave that for another day.

Unless you are training for a specific event or sport, where the training needs are such that all you need to focus on is aerobic capacity with no emphasis on getting stronger….of which I can’t think of any….then PLEASE HEED THIS ADVICE.

⬇️ HOW TO KICK YOUR HIIT HABBIT ⬇️

1️⃣ Operate on a 2:1 strength to HIIT training ratio. That means if you can only make 3 sessions a week, 2 of them should be focussed on resistance training.

2️⃣ Even if you can make the gym every day (and I probably wouldn’t recommend it), stick to 2-3 HIIT sessions per week maximum.

3️⃣ Speak to someone competent and qualified about pulling together a programme for you, or risk being in fitness no-(wo)man’s land.

Thanks.

Alan



@ RxGym - West Didsbury

🧐 THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX 📦

I enjoyed introducing a few of the members at to some isometric training today.

It’s great getting people thinking about how to train and moving them away from the ‘3 sets of 10’ mentality - especially when you still see them applying the methods you have taught them weeks later 👌🏽

Isometrics essentially involve holding a position under load, and they are great tool to have in your locker, whether you are training for size / aesthetics or strength 💪🏼🕺🏻💃🏽

⬇️ TRY THIS TO GET STARTED ⬇️

Start holding a stretch position for as long you on the last rep of any exercise (i.e. hold a deep squat, or hold the dumbbells just off your chest after a bench press).

You’re welcome 😉.

🏋️‍♂️ A LONG OL’ ROAD 🚘

If I was labouring under any misapprehensions that this powerlifting lark was going to be easy...I’m definitely not anymore 🤦🏻‍♂️

✅ 125kg for 3 reps with some left in the tank. On the face of it I should be relatively pleased with that, but the last 2 were sloppy and the bar path was far from straight. Technically I felt good, but my posterior chain is p*ss weak!

I hit reasonable depth on all reps, but my femur length (and body type in general) is not exactly optimal for a powerlifter. It feels like I'm descending for about 5 minutes and I don't think I'll be invited to train at any time soon.

A sh*tload of posterior chain and abdominal work is the order of the day.

Onwards and upwards.

🏋️‍♀️ BRING IT ON 🤜🏼💥

I constantly bang on to clients (and anyone else who will listen) about how important it is to have OBJECTIVE and TIME-LIMITED and performance goals 🎯.

It’s what allows me to build your programmes. It’s the driving force that keeps you motivated and accountable, especially when you think you can’t be arsed to go to the .

However, I’ve been so wrapped up in delivering world class programmes and results for my clients 😉 … that I haven’t exactly been practising what I preach lately.

As a result, for the past few months I’ve essentially been been treading water.

Trialling different programmes that I’ve created for clients, which has been useful, but it’s left me in a fitness ‘no mans land’.

Rudderless, with no objective goal to drive any form of progress or deliver any tangible results of my own.

I’ve returned from my family holiday in France a little flabbier, but reinvigorated. It’s time to throw to myself into competitive 🏋️‍♂️

I’ve always trained for strength. Strength training is at the core of my coaching philosophy, but I’ve never actually competed in a powerlifting meet.

It’s just the thing to get me out of the office / off my arse and to start training as hard as my clients do!

I’m going to compete in January in the under 93kg class. Goal weights are yet to be decided, but I’ll keep you posted. Let’s get to work 💪🏼

🧐 HOW TO LEARN PUSH UPS (CORRECTLY) 🏋️‍♂️

Having blitzed his initial weight loss goals, we are now starting to incorporate more performance related goals into Srini’s programme. One of which is ‘to be able to do 10 strict push ups’. 📈

When learning to do push ups, don’t be tempted to start from your knees.

WHY?

There is a large element of core work involved in push ups (you are essentially holding a plank).

If you rest on your knees, you are removing the core element (which needs to be trained) as well as completely altering the mechanics of the movement.

Here are two useful progression options:

1️⃣ Start against a wall and then use a box to progressively lower the angle of your body relative to the floor.

2️⃣ Use a band to assist the movement and progressively use thinner bands.


@ RxGym - West Didsbury

MAKING MACHINES 💪🏼💥 “You won’t get bull****, you will get a tailored service, you will get value for money and you will get STRONG!” - This very kind testimonial was written by Kieran who dropped from 100 96kg - and with some clever programming, we were also able to add 3kg of muscle mass!

💪🏼🔥 VARIETY + TENSION = ‘GAINZZZ’. 👊🏻

In my experience, the 2 biggest factors that influence muscle growth in the context of a training session (i.e. excluding recovery & nutrition) are:

- MUSCLE TENSION: Aim to maximise the amount of TIME that your muscles are actually under tension / working

- VARIETY IS THE SPICE OF…GROWTH(?!): You need to continually overload your muscles in order to avoid accommodation and plateaus! Don’t just add more weight to the same exercise week by week, think about varying the tempo / volume / position or even the exercise itself.

TRY THIS:

- Get out of the ‘3 sets of 10’ mindset and start thinking about maximising the time that you are actually working. Compare a set of 5 slow reps (with a 6 second eccentric) to the standard 10 reps of about 1-1.5 seconds. That’s at least DOUBLE the time under tension using the same weight 💪🏼

- Throw in some high volume ‘finishers’ to provide overload and ensure you are encouraging both myofibril (i.e. adding more active muscle tissue) and sarcoplasmic (i.e. ‘the pump’) muscle growth 🔥🔥

Here’s an example session I gave at To give you an idea about incorporating these principles into an actual session.

Any questions, please give me a shout 👍