If you are expecting to see size 6 women cladded in Lorna Jane outfits bicep-curling 2k – you’ve come to the wrong spot. You should be redirected to the Body and Soul website. Or even worse, Oxygen. I train ordinary women, with real problems. However, what they do is far from ordinary to achieve real results.
2012 – Some new clients
Come back in about 8 weeks time and check the progress out on these new ladies!
Anne Mc. Zero flexibility when she turned up here 4 months ago. You can see huge improvement. You can’t shift load and become stronger if you are tight and stiff and short.
Massive improvements with deadlifts. From 25k deadlifts to 80k deadlifts. A nice fit spine and core.
Once again the core determines how the top and bottom function. (does it not) Here Anne demonstrates that with a conditioned core, squatting 40k as opposed to body-weight is easy!
Karen, 4 months on is very close to a body-weight chin-up. She is only about 6-8k off.
Great translations from a tight, short and flexed type of person to one of strength, length and tone.
Once again the office worker can be seen in this pattern. Flexion. Once the head starts to move forward the rib-cage will deepen and sink. Making squatting very difficult. Gravity is dragging Louise forward and she is losing her vertical polarity. We are too working on posture.
Louise carried her postural patterns into strength training. We have to ensure that the head does not flex but is a continuation.
One of my favourite trainers. Her sweet spot now is around the 40-50k
Another fantastic transformation – this time from Jess. Probably one of my youngest.
Online client. Once again with the anterior tilt we need to be careful when we add weight, as weighting someone can reinforce the pattern we don’t want or worse, distort the current posture. You can quite clearly see here, that we are reversing her anterior tilt, so that the pelvis is more aligned.
Jenny is shorter on one side and longer on the other. This has massive consequences not just on weight-training but movement in general. We are performing some exercises to de-weight one side so that the other side can come back into alignment.
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2011
Have a look at this. Perfect example on when I know a lady has tight hamstrings. See the curving of the lower spine in the bottom of the squat. The last lady has good length in her hamstrings. So what do you think I would have the first two ladies doing? Exactly hip-openers and lengthening the hammies.
Marsha. Osteo-arthritis in the SI joint. In other words, she is in bad shape for such a young girl.
Mary-Lou. Great squatter. I’ll never forget what she said to me after doing 3 squats in her first session. “Oh, I feel thinner already”. Great woman. Great attitude to training.
This is Louise. Mary-Lou’s sister-in-law. We have a lot of work to do for Lou. But we will get there. I had another lady called Jane and you can see Lou is exactly where Jane was 8 weeks ago. But you can see where Jane is now after 8 weeks of solid leg work. Watch this space.
Typical office sedentary type movements. Rounded shoulders. Forgotten how to hinge from hip. I fixed it quite quickly. Her spine will go onto lengthen and strengthen nicely.
Jenny. Another lady who has osteoporosis. Have I got weight on her back. No. Never. Full range of movement in joints is the first thing on our agenda.
Jacqui. A great lady. There is an athlete within her. Trains very hard. Amazing potential. Strong as an ox – and has bones to match.
Forget Jacqui is picking up an additional 30k, the technique and her posture is already changing after 3 weeks. This lady listens.
Jess. This is the perfect example of how I differ from a Personal Trainer or gym. See Jess’s first squat. Typical gym squat. I correct this within 30 seconds. Now she is using both sides of her leg. 5 days later, Jess turns up and back-squats 25k on her first night with good form. Now you tell me, are those legs being strengthened!
Stephanie. Brisbane’s most sought after podiatrist. Has shoulder issues and generally weak posterior and tight hip-flexors. We are about to change all that.
Ann. You maybe remember Ann from last year. Note her mobility in the hips now. We are doing classic Yoga pose called Pidgeon. Great hip-opener. Have a look at the length she is getting now compared to 8 weeks ago. This is being reflected in her squat. Could only manage broomstick work and now is doing 25k back-squats! I will take a photo next week to prove it! Length gives you strength!
Amanda. Online client. Anterior tilt. Common. Although I have to admit the older ladies present more with posterior tilt. Anterior tilt is weak posterior and tight hip-flexors (anterior). This is noticeable as Amanda lacks strength yet to pick up her body-weight at the 8 week mark. Which is commonly met by most girls. Has she lost weight! Absolutely she has. A good trainer.
Hela. Squat progession. Online client. Textbook squat within about 10 minutes of coaching.
Leah. Anterior tilt. Online client. Common. See Amanda above. But just watch as this improves over the 12 weeks.
Bronwyn. Doctor. Online client due to being too busy. You can see her anterior tilt in the deadlift is improving after about 5-6 weeks training.
2011
Ann. Frozen shoulder. Actually turned up very inflexible and stiff. Most joints had less then 70% ROM. After 4 weeks – we finally got full use of the shoulder.
Ann. Squat progression. I always get the women to do their version of a squat. 30 seconds later, they have acquired a new squat. With this new squat, we can then lengthen and strengthen the legs more effectively.
Carol. Deadlift progression. @ 8 weeks dead-lifted over her body-weight. @ Week 1 – Carol was picking up 30k.
This is now one strong lady. Started with a 15k press – ended up pressing 30k by the end of 8 weeks. Was she pressing 30k all along. No. We were operating in the 60-80% of her capacity.
Once again first two photos show Carol’s first squat without any coaching / guidance from me. Second photo is showing Carol how to squat correctly using two simple tricks. Now she can easily squat over 30k.
Debbie. Post menopausal is helping me out with my bone accrual research. Ladies who are post-menopausal need to lift heavier then 5k for bone to adapt.
Jane. Jane, turned up probably more inflexible then Ann. Jane had been sedentary for years. Her balance, core stability, glute stability required a lot of patience and a lot of work and a lot of persistance. It finally paid off. An amazing journey and lady.
Jane could hardly press 10k on her first night. He she is pressing 25k. Persistance!
Don’t worry about the weight here. Have a look at the posture difference. Jane has the typical sedentary worker’s posture. By performing just 4 human movements once a week and some decent core work. We changed all this!
Once again Jane presented with no leg muscles. They were there, but had wasted away. It took us 8 weeks to build up some decent core and glute stabilisation and quad strength to get Jane squatting 10k. Just by doing dumb-bell squats.
Linda. Probably one of my youngest clients at 25. Terrible posture. Have a look at the first photo. No space. No length in the spine. Compared to 8 weeks on – so much more length and space. A better fitter healthy spine.
I got Linda to do 30 seconds of leg work at home. One of the many little tricks I have in my bag. You can quite clearly see on Week 1 – Linda could not squat. No core. No leg muscles. Finally in week 8, with the help of a heel raise (tight achilles) we managed to get some great squats out.
Mary-anne. Was very excited to turn up. She was really looking forward to building some muscle. As you can see she is a whippet. I told her in 8 weeks she’d be back-squatting half her body-weight. 28k. And she was. She aslo deadlifted her body-weight. Something else she thought impossible. She is starting to get some great definition in the upper body.
Michelle. Probably my favourite and funny client that I have. She continually asks if eating 6 pieces of fruit-loaf for breakfast is healthy! Michelle however, is very strong. She has been blessed with short femurs, although she constantly jokes about her height. She back-squatted 60k in 8 weeks. More then her body-weight. Phenomenal strength. Beautiful person.
Rita. Rita is also a whippet. Wants to build muscle. And she is starting to get some nice muscle around the legs and the pec and bicep area. (Even though we don’t do bicep curls). Rita has got great form. Once you have good form and technique, just watch the magic unfold as you become stronger and stronger.
Leah. Leah’s first session. Typical gym goer. Been going to the gym for years, wasted $3000 and she is still crap. Couldn’t squat, and her deadlift form was atrocious. What the hell are they doing at the gyms?
Leah. Once again every lady that walks through my studio shows me their version of a squat. Then with two simple tricks and 30 seconds later, every woman is squatting correctly.
Amanda. Online client. Lives somewhere in Country Victoria. I could be sweating at 6am in the morning here in Brisbane and Amanda is always wearing a tracksuit. I’m just showing here after 4 weeks of training how Amanda’s posture is starting to change. Note the huge dip in the first photo. Classic posterior tilt. Short hamstrings, weak core. The last photo, there is hardly any dip. Her spine is starting to lengthen out nicely. As well as her hamstrings. We do a lot of mobility and flexibility. This is important to becoming strong.
Liz. Special client. An exercise physiologist, runs her own pilates studio, has been in the industry for many years (an ex body builder). Here I am just correcting her deadlift. A tiny-weeny bit. I love training Liz. I can invert her for head-stand push-ups and she takes it all in her stride. A very strong, committed lady.
Monica. A huge success. Monica like Ann above, had poor flexibility and all she wanted to do was a sit-up. In 4 months we got this lady to deadlift her own body-weight, back-squat 25k and well she was doing weighted sit-ups with a 3k medicine ball. (Even though we don’t do one sit-up here). I hate them. They are so over-rated and not doing anything for the core anyway.
I have 3 ladies who can do body-weight chin-ups. Chantelle is one of them. It took her only 4 months. Now remember these ladies train with me twice a week. And we do the pull-up once a week. It’s all about movement ladies. It holds the key to success.
Elizabeth. Huge success story. Had bulging disc of L4. I don’t need to say much here. Just look at the photo. Body-composition, posture, strength.
Colleen. Along with Michelle, probably the funniest lady we have. We call her Miss Bulimba. She knows everyone! She was so excited just to lift something heavier then a can of soup.
Crystal. Young girl. It took us about 8-10 weeks to get her squatting correctly. This is probably the best set of photos I have with respects to progression. I train you like a tortoise. Slow. Not hectic. Not rushing you. Giving your brain every opportunity to learn patterns and those muscles to lengthen. Once they are lengthened, we can strengthen.
Sonia. Lovely lady. Lives just around the corner. Wanted to get her legs strong for a skiing trip in Canada and as such only spent 4 weeks out of the 8. In 4 weeks we had her doing easy 25-30k back-squats.
Nice strong deadlifts in 4 weeks. Was easy doing 50k in week 4. Healthy and fit spine. Perfectly safe with perfect technique.
Sue. Our Qantas air hostess. And she looks and acts like one. She has a hectic schedule so probably only came 50% of the time with her shifts. However, we did manage to get her squatting 12k with the help of heel-raises.