Tie me up! The benefits of TRX suspension training

So, I was in my local gym for the first time after it had a big makeover, and suddenly there’s a big scaffold that’s appeared with straps hanging off it. What the hell’s that, thinks I, and more to the point why are the local PTs always hanging around, or off, it?

To the untrained eye TRX suspension straps may look like a limited form of training. However, in the right hands (or ankles, arms, etc.) they become an all over body workout.

The TRX works via gravity assisted and gravity resistive moves – with the only weight involved being your own bodyweight. There are hundreds of different exercises which can be performed using the straps, ranging from those suitable for beginners through to the most elite of athlete. Below are just a few of the many benefits TRX suspension training can offer:-

a) TRX suspension training can take place virtually anywhere: it’s extremely portable and requires only limited space. You don’t need a fancy gym or fitness centre to train with TRX. All that is required is a beam or other suitable prop for attaching the suspension straps to. That makes TRX ideal for outdoor training, and given its weight and size it is an easy piece of equipment to take on your travels – giving you no excuse for your training to suffer! It is also very fast to set-up in any location. These are some of the reasons why TRX is proving very popular with the military, particularly in the US.

b) TRX is an effective total body workout. There are numerous suspension exercises and workouts which target all parts of the body to varying degrees of intensity. Many of the exercises stimulate multi-muscle groups at different levels, making quick but effective workouts possible.

c) TRX is suitable for people of all age, sex or fitness level. TRX suspension training is for everyone and anyone. From people in their 80’s to teens, the difficulty, intensity and weight exerted can be tailored around the user via the thousands of exercises.

d) The equipment is relatively inexpensive. To recreate the range of movements and muscles worked using traditional gym equipment would be very costly. The suspension straps can be used to work every muscle group meaning they are an all –in- one fitness solution. Each TRX comes with a DVD demonstrating some of the very best exercises, along with numerous extras.

e) Combine cardio and strength training into one workout / exercise. Given the nature of TRX training it can be utilized to combine strength training and cardio in the same exercise. This has benefits in regards to time saving, and means that even a short workout can have a bigger impact.

f) Increase sports performance. TRX can be used to generate and build superb muscular balance, mobility, joint stability, and core strength – which will help you perform better in all sports and physical activities.

If you haven’t tried TRX suspension training yet, maybe it’s time you did! A couple of people have already posted TRX challenges on Konkura.com, but if you’re a keen TRXer we’d love to have more on the site.

The great new sport of Crossfit

Crossfit is a buzz word on the lips of many fitness enthusiasts all over the world. It was born in the mid-90’s when Californian gymnast Greg Glassman and wife Lauren opened the first Crossfit Gym. Their initial goal was training a police department – not surprisingly Crossfit became popular amongst the services such as the police, firefighters and the military, and this continues to this day.

The Crossfit philosophy of ‘constantly varied, high intensity, functional movement’ rapidly grew, resulting in the thousands of Crossfit Gym’s currently spread across the USA and the World.

The beauty of Crossfit is that it is aimed at everyone and anyone – no matter what their fitness level or goals. It’s not just a fitness program, it’s a sport – the sport of fitness. Whilst Crossfit is often referred to as a strength and conditioning program based on varied functional movements performed at high intensity, the intensity level is customised to the individual, taking in to account age, fitness level and experience.

Crossfit gyms are not about providing a place where individuals go to do their own thing, it’s a concept that adds motivation, competition and achievement into working out. This can only be a good thing. As the founders of Konkura, the sport and fitness challenge site where friendly competition is key to motivating and enjoying your training, we’re obviously very keen on the whole concept, and welcome Crossfit enthusiasts and other gym athletes to create challenges on the site.

We’ve recently set up a category for these types of gym challenges, so Crossfit enthusiasts and other gym athletes can create and find great challenges based on their competitive workouts. You can find the category here – it’s only just been added so if you’ve got an idea for a great challenge, why not create one straight away – it’s free and only takes a moment.

Some of the many benefits of Crossfit are as follows:-

• The variety of Crossfit means that it prepares people for physical activities in everyday life. The emphasis is on good performance in every task imaginable.
• Gaining overall fitness by improving strength, endurance, flexibility, power, stamina balance, speed, co-ordination,
  mental focus, agility, motivational peaks and will power.
• Following a healthy lifestyle with regards to diet and nutrition.
• Varied exercises and varied equipment. Many gym users do the same routines and workouts over and over
  again, which is boring and can reduce results. With Crossfit the variety is unlimited. From gym favourites such as Kettlebells and medicine balls to previously non-conventional training aids such as ropes and wagon tyres – Crossfit has incorporated anything that can create new movements and methods.
• Three element Workout of the Day (or ‘WOD’ as they are commonly referred to) which include nine exercises or movements, three in each of the elements. The elements are squats, presses and deadlifts – but there any many variations of each. The workouts are often timed, thus giving a benchmark for progression and comparison with fellow competitors.

These are just a few of the present benefits of Crossfit, and these benefits will only increase with the evolution and growth expected year on year. You can find out more about this great emerging sport on the Crossfit website.

Find or create gym fitness challenges on Konkura.com:
Cross fitness challenges
General gym challenges
Strength challenges

Andre Ward v Carl ‘The Cobra’ Froch – October 29th 2011

Ian, our in-house wannabe Harry Carpenter, has put together another over-excited preview of an upcoming Big Fight. He reckons he’s an expert on boxing. We reckon he knows nothing. Read his “thoughts” below, then let us know what you think in the comments.

This October the undefeated Super Middleweight Andre Ward takes on the battled hardened Brit Carl Froch in a unification battle which doubles as the final of The Super Six Tournament. On the line will be Ward’s WBA belt and Froch’s WBC strap. The fight will go some way to deciding the hierarchy in the Super Middleweight division, with the winner hopefully going on to fight undefeated Canadian belt holder Lucien Bute.

Andre Ward holds a record of 24-0 with 13 KO’s. He has long been touted as a talent, but his entry into the Super Six competition saw the caliber of his opposition increase dramatically. His win over Mikkel Kessler confirmed his status among the elite in his weight class, given that Kessler’s only previous defeat was at the hands of Joe Calzaghe, and he has since defeated Froch in a grueling 12 rounder. Whilst Ward will go into this bout as favorite, the American is not without his critics. Many onlookers feel he has had an easy ride to the final with all his bouts being staged ‘at home’ in America. With the final certain to be staged in America (New York, Las Vegas and now Atlantic City are the touted venues) it will mean Ward has had a major advantage over all other competitors in the tournament. His style has also come in for stick, with calls of ‘foul play’. Accidental head-butts and illegal shots seem common place in most of Ward’s fights, in particular the Kessler bout.

If Andre Ward plans to play the ‘rough game’ in the final, he may more than meet his match in granite chinned Froch. Froch holds many advantages over Ward in terms of size, power and experience. His recent list of bouts read like a ‘who’s who’ of the Super Middleweight division. Wins over former Light Heavy champ Jean Pascal, Andre Dirrell, Jermaine Taylor, Arthur Abraham and Glen Johnson have finally seen Froch get the recognition he deserves. His one defeat came against Kessler in Denmark. In a brutal bout Kessler gained a close decision. Many felt if Froch had simply raised his work-rate in the last few rounds he would have taken victory, as it appeared Kessler was the more hurt of the two. That defeat leaves the Cobra with a pro record of 28 wins, 20 via knockout, and a singular loss. Whilst the two fighters have fought a similar number of times, there is no disputing that Froch has taken on much harder opponents.

The bout is scheduled to be shown on Sky television, with Nottingham born Froch finally getting the media attention after years stuck in a visual wilderness. Froch is no stranger to travelling and will have no problem going to America to face Ward. I expect it to be a cagey tactical battle, with Ward perhaps shading the early exchanges with his handspeed and evasive style. However, I don’t believe he has the power to KO Froch, which means he would need to steer clear of Carl’s big shots for 12 rounds. I believe Froch will be willing to take punishment in return for landing his bombs, and this will eventually pay dividends. Based on this I expect either a Ward UD or a Carl Froch KO between round 8-12 – and I’m leaning slightly towards the latter.

Guardian fitness special today – check it out for inspiration

The Guardian newspaper in the UK has published a fitness supplement today that covers all sorts of exercise with a wide range of interesting articles around peoples’ motivation for keeping fit: The Guardian fitness special

Admittedly, most of the articles seem to start from a default position that exercise is boring and a right pain, when of course we all know that it’s great fun (if you find the right sport or exercise, and introduce a bit of friendly competition)! There’s a great headline about why Jon Ronson (author of “The Men Who Stare at Goats” – an excellent book and not bad film) runs – apparently (and clearly unsuccessfully) it’s to look like George Clooney. In the article itself it’s more a question of him realising how thin Clooney was when he met him, and that inspired Jon to start running.

As a new dad I’d already worked out the baby benchpress in this article – not sure of the workout benefits, but it definitely works to keep baby happy. May have to try the full baby workout in future, although the dog has a tendency to get jealous and try to get involved!

Then again, the dog always helps when I try to do press ups by jumping on my back – that’s not bad in terms of toughening up the exercise, but then she tries to lick my ears, which is kind of distracting!

As someone in the comments section on the Guardian points out, the key to enjoying your exercise is “Find an activity you enjoy and exercise becomes a pleasure rather than a chore. Surely this is bleedin’ obvious…”

We couldn’t agree more, and that’s why you can find a huge range of sport and exercise challenges on Konkura.com, and why we created it: so you can keep finding new challenges so you can try new things and keep your training fresh and varied, and so people who’ve already found the type of sport or exercise that they’re passionate about can share their interests with other people.

If you know of any other good articles about grass roots participation and encouraging exercise, we’re all ears – please let us know about them in the comments section.

The Tour de France 2011 – Get fit in tandem with cyclings biggest nutters!

It’s that time of year again. As temperatures in France climb steadily, so do a bunch of brightly-clad nutcases with the most astounding cardiovascular systems and pain tolerance imaginable!

The stats of the Tour are incredible. 21 stages in 23 days (2 rest days? They’re being spoilt!) 3,430.5km. That’s over 2100 miles in real money! 6 high mountain stages and 3 medium mountain stages (bet they don’t look medium to you and I!). Amusingly, all the mountain stages are clustered near the end of the event, once everyone’s nice and tired. And on top of all that – have you seen how sharp those saddles are?! It’d be like sitting on a razor blade (to quote a British TV ad from the dim and distant past).

How can you help but be amazed and inspired by these incredible athletes? OK, so along with 99.9% of people you’re assuming they’re all still on drugs. I don’t think so, not after all the scandals – I’d be surprised if more than a handful are. And in any case, what kind of drugs could get you and I to put ourselves through the Tour? To be honest, I’d still be amazed and inspired if these guys were completing it wearing full-body nuclear powered robotic exoskeletons, like Iron Man!

If you’re feeling inspired to get fit by the Tour, we’ve created some tough challenges so you can play along with Bradley Wiggins, Alberto Contador, Mark Cavendish and the rest.

If you’re already a keen cyclist, you can see how far you can cycle during the Tour by recording your distance (on your bike, turbo trainer or in the gym) on each day there’s a stage: The Tour de France 2011 Share the Pain challenge. Let’s see who can get the closest to the full Tour distance!

If you’re not a cyclist but just want to use their example to get fit, you can train as many times as possible during the Tour and record your total calories burnt each day. You can do any type of cardio exercise, provided you have some way to measure your calorie consumption. The Tour de France 2011 Max Calorie Burn Fitness challenge. Let’s see who can burn the most calories – and who can get closest to the estimated 118,000 that the Tour winner will get through!

If these challenges sound like too big a commitment, don’t worry – there’s challenges of all types and levels on Konkura.com. Why not take part in the Fastest Mile Time Trial, or create your own Tour-related challenges for free?

Wladimir Klitschko vs David Haye – Clash of the Titans, or Handbags at Dawn?

On the 02nd July 2011 David ‘The Hayemaker’ Haye faces the biggest challenge of his boxing life when he squares up against the might of the number one heavyweight in the World; Wladimir ‘Dr Steelhammer’ Klitschko (seriously, that’s his nickname? How lame is that?!). In arguably the highest profile fight since Lennox Lewis destroyed Mike Tyson almost a decade ago, two of the top three heavyweights fight it out in a unification battle.

At stake will be Haye’s WBA belt, which he won against the lumbering limited giant Nikolai Valuev in 2009 and has defended twice against John Ruiz and Audley Harrison. Haye is adamant that he will retire before he turns 31 later in the year regardless of the outcome of this bout, but a victory would surely make a fight against Wladimir’s WBC champion brother Vitali a must make mega-matchup.

Wladimir Klitschko brings to the table the IBF, WBO, IBO and Ring belts along with the tag as ‘the Man’ at heavyweight. Along with the belts he also brings a record of 55 wins out of 58 fights, an amazing 49 coming by way of knock-out! He has a major height and weight advantage over Haye, standing 6 ft 6 inches and usually coming in at around 18 stone mark. He is, in all senses of the word, a bonafide heavyweight fighter.

Haye, on the other hand, is a relative heavyweight novice with only 5 bouts at the weight. He won the title in only his 3rd heavyweight fight against Valuev after easy ‘taster’ bouts against Tomasz Bonin and the ageing Monte Barrett. The majority of his career has been spent at Cruiserweight where he had an excellent victory against Jean Mormeck to unify the division.

Whilst Haye is no ‘titch’ standing at 6 ft 3 inches and fighting at a weight of between 15 and 16 stone, his physical statistics look no match to Wlad’s. However, what Haye appears to lack on paper doesn’t really transcend into the ring. He is an amazing athlete, in awesome shape and with power that defies his size. He throws shots from varied angles and has a real killer instinct once he has his opponent hurt. He holds a professional record of 25 wins, 23 coming by the way of knockout. His only defeat came in the early stages of his career against the ring savvy veteran Carl ‘the Cat’ Thompson in a fight Haye dominated early on, but appeared to ‘gas’ as the fight went on. Whilst these stamina issues don’t appear to have been completely cured, in defeating Valuev over 12 rounds he demonstrated definite improvement.

His problem appears to be that he often tries to blast opponents out early with heavy energy sapping combinations. If these don’t do the job he appeared slightly vulnerable to gassing. This was evident in the John Ruiz fight, although
he ultimately came through and stopped the durable American.

Klitschko has 3 defeats on his knockout laden record – all against fighters he should easily have beaten. His first loss came against the journeyman Ross Puritty in December 1998 by an 11th round TKO. Wladimir had entered the fight as a heavy favourite and with a record of 24-0. He then went some way to dismissing this defeat as a mere ‘blip’ with wins over experienced names such as Monte Barrett, Chris Byrd (to win the WBO Heavyweight title) , Francois Botha and Ray Mercer in a 4 year period which took his record to an impressive 40-1. Then came the 2003 disaster against ‘power puncher’ Corrie Sanders. Klitschko was stopped in the early seconds of the 2nd round after Sanders connected at will once he has him in trouble. This really raised question marks over Wladimir’s ‘chin’, which were further exposed by
Lamon Brewster a year later. Again, Wlad suffered a TKO, this time the fight being stopped at the end of round 5 with him being unable to continue. Despite employing the services of the legendary Emmanual Steward, this defeat left Klitschko’s career in tatters. His confidence was rock botton. Freddie Roach has recently stated that around this period he had told Wlad what a fine athlete he was. To this Wlad is alleged to have replied “I wish I could fight”!

Despite calls to retire coming from many sources including his champion brother Vitali, Wlad, under the masterful eye of Steward, went about the pain-staking task of redeeming his career for a second time – and he has done so in spectacular style! Since the defeat to Brewster in 2004 he has gone on a winning streak which is still intact. Victories against big hitting Samuel Peters (twice), Chris Byrd, Calvin Brock, Ray Austin, revenge against Lamon Brewster, Sultan Ibragimov, Tony Thompson, Hasim Rahman, Ruslan Chagaev and Eddie Chambers has seen him establish himself as the Heavyweight king. Whilst his brother Vitali currently holds the WBC belt (both brothers have always maintained they will never fight each other – memories of childhood scraps perhaps?!), the only belt missing from their collection is the WBA strap which proudly hangs around the six pack of England’s David Haye.

Since the Brewster defeat Wlad has adopted a safety first approach to his fights. He stays behind a potent left jab and only commits himself to opening up once his opponent is clearly finished. Whilst many claim his style to be boring, the power behind this jab should not be underestimated – as many of his opponents claim it to harder than most heavyweights’ full blown shots.

Come the 2nd July it will be interesting to see what tactics Haye chooses. It’s highly likely that Wladimir will box as he always does, cautiously behind the solid left jab. However, less certain is how David Haye will approach the fight. Many believe he will go all out from the first bell, trying to take Wlad out before he gets into his rhythm. Others believe he will use tactics similar to the Valuev fight where he ran and occasionally picked off the giant. My personal opinion is that such tactics would not work against Wladimir who is far more active, accurate and quicker than the lumbering giant Valuev. I believe Haye will use the first couple of rounds to find his range, keeping away from Wlad’s jab and staying on the back foot. I then expect him to unleash powerful combinations from round 3, with the hope of taking Wlad out by KO or TKO.

It is my belief this is David’s best chance of a victory, although I would still consider Wlad the strong favourite, despite the British press’s usual biased take that Wlad is a past-it hasbeen. The picture will be much clearer once Haye finally tastes Wlads jab. How he reacts to that first shot may very well shape the rest of the fight.

Either way by midnight GMT either David Haye or Wladimir Klitschko will have the WBA, WBO, IBF, IBO and Ring belts in their possession and the title of best heavyweight in the World. Whether anyone will rank them with the true greats despite that amazing achievement is anyone’s guess

You can take part in Boxing challenges, exercises, workouts and much more on Konkura.com, or create your own challenges in moments for you and your boxing friends.

The TV-addict children who can’t swim or ride a bike

In the UK news today are reports suggesting 1 in 6 British kids between 6-15 years of age can’t swim, 1 in 10 can’t ride a bike, and almost a quarter have never run 400m.

The figures are based on a survey of 1500 kids by a special interest group, so it’s always worth adding a note of caution, but if it’s remotely genuine it’s worrying news, and a clear indication that the vast amounts being spent on the Olympics might have been better spent on encouraging grass roots sport.

The swimming figure is particularly worrying given the safety as well as health benefits of being able to swim. Whilst the oft-quoted claim that there are more swimming pools in Paris than in the whole of the UK is apparently nonsense (at least according to the QI forum!) there are definitely a lot fewer pools in the UK than there used to be.

The public schools have the resources to make sure kids try every sport going, so that pretty much everyone (Stephen Fry excepted, if you read his excellent autobiography!) who goes to one manages to find at least some form of sport or exercise that they enjoy, or at least tolerate.

The story in state schools is completely different, at least according to received wisdom – either it’s non-competitive sport that doesn’t engage anyone, or you get written off as “no good at sport” (like the founder of Konkura did!) just because you’re not instantly good at the first couple of games (usually football, rugby or hockey) you try.

We need a sea-change to make sport and exercise much more fun and an intrinsic part of daily life for kids – cycling or walking to school, playing outside, and taking part in competitive sport at school and outside. The opportunities to try more sports to find what they enjoy, and then the encouragement to keep doing them. Also, we need to cut through the current marketing nonsense that claims Wii Fit and Kinect can be at the core of a fit and healthy lifestyle, as opposed to a bit of fun that may burn a few calories but are not a substitute for genuine exercise.

Otherwise, it looks like sport will become an ever more specialised and exclusive activity, and the only gold medals the majority of the population will be winning will be in highest obesity rates.

What do you think? How should kids (and adults for that matter) be encouraged to do more sport and fitness. Or do you think it’s not an issue? Please comment below.