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Home exercise equipment and workout routine

This is a question that I get asked time and time again. “What can I do at home?” So I have come up with a short list of home exercise equipment, plus a home workout routine that you can follow. When looking at home exercise equipment, there are a few priorities to consider. Firstly is always going to be Bang For Your Buck. Basically, you don't want to spend too much, and for what you do spend, you want to get the biggest return. Now you could get away with less equipment, just as you could always add more, but I have capped the budget at £100. This is a reasonably small amount of money to invest into your own health & well-being without stretching the budget too far. Face it, a gym membership will likely have a joining fee of around £30-£50, plus the same again per month. So for the cost of 2 or 3 months gym membership, you get yourself into the game.

Ab wheel

Chin up bar

Skipping rope

Foam roller

Kettlebell

(Rings & Straps – suspension trainer)

(resistance bands)

All of the above can be purchased for under £100. If you need help finding them for the right price, ask me and I will point you in the right direction.

If you are looking to just get fit, maybe use exercise to burn fat, the skipping rope alone will be a great investment. Start off small, but 10 minutes of skipping every day will dramatically increase your ability to uptake oxygen (fitness) and will do wonders for shifting those unwanted pounds.

Forget sit-ups or crunches. Those two mindless exercises will only make you better at doing sit-ups and crunches. Nothing more. Invest about £7 in an AB Wheel and get rolling! Make sure you do it safely and do not arch your back during the roll out. Think of it as a moving (and therefore more beneficial) plank.

A kettlebell is a wonderful piece of home exercise equipment; extremely versatile and it doesn't take up much space. Everything from swings to squats to get ups. There's a reason it's often referred to as “the gym in the palm of your hand”.

(Optional additional extras can be resistance bands and a suspension trainer)

Resistance bands are again wonderfully versatile, from shoulder pressing to glute activation to assisting with stretching, you just can't go wrong.

If you have somewhere to throw straps over, rings & straps will replace a TRX at less than a fifth of the cost. Now think rows, presses, curls, extensions, flies, and that's just the basic stuff - Getting on the leg scissoring for extreme Ab workouts!

Finally a foam roller. Recovery is as important as exercise. You don't get stronger from lifting weights, you get stronger by recovering from lifting weights. If you are not taking recovery seriously you are in for a world of problems later on.

Now for the workouts...

The reality is we are all different. Different bodies with different strengths and weaknesses, old or new injuries, vastly different goals... etc... but I will attempt to give you all a very generic workout that should cover all bases.

Program one:

Skipping – 2min

Turkish Get Ups – 1 each side

Goblet squats – 8-10reps

(superset the TGU and the squats for 5 sets)

Ab wheel roll outs – 5 sets of 5-8reps

Program two:

Skipping – 2min

Swings – 10reps

Pull ups – Your max but only up to 10reps

Push ups – Your max but only up to 10reps

(Triset the swings, pull-ups & push-ups, and do 5-8 sets)

Ab wheel roll outs – 5 sets of 5-8 reps

Do each program at least twice each every week. It shouldn't take longer than 30 minutes.

If you would like a specific home workout routine based on your body and your needs, contact me for a consultation and I would be happy to help you.

If you need help on how to do this, get in touch. Personal training can help you achieve the results you desire, as well as giving you the necessary effective tools you need to keep striving forwards, to keep changing &; progressing on your journey.


Challenge everything, especially yourself.

Alex Kay Grimmer


Contact me for Kettlebell classes and Personal Training in Southend-on-sea.
Please visit my website: ALEXKAY

Let me start off by saying I really don't care about weight-loss. I am not a weight-loss coach. I am a strength & movement coach. If weight-loss is your goal; cut off a leg or two. Hell, maybe even an arm for good measure. Presto. Instant weight-loss. What's that you say? That isn't what you wanted? Now we are getting somewhere. Let's get more specific. If weight-loss isn't really your goal, then what is? Could it be that you just want to look better? Then why are you using the scales to measure that? Could it be you want less bodyfat? Again, why use the scales – they don't tell you bodyfat do they? Could it be you want trimmer waistline with more defined legs and arms? WHY ARE YOU USING THE SCALES?! Here's your first task. Throw your scales away. I mean it. Now get yourself a full length mirror and a measuring tape. Maybe some callipers (optional).

I myself am performance orientated. You might not be; that's okay. There is nothing wrong with having aesthetic goals. If you do, you have two main training options open to you.

One, train like a bodybuilder. They train specifically for aesthetics. This doesn't mean you are going to be entering bodybuilding shows, it just means you follow their protocols for training, using aesthetics as a goal. Please do not utter the words “I don't want to get too big...”. I eat as much food as I can possibly handle, sometimes over 5,000 calories a day. I train like a beast possessed and I lift as much weight as I can handle safely. Sometimes more. I have not gotten “too big”. I have not even gotten “big”. If somehow you find the holy grail of getting too big please come and tell me as I really want to know.

Your second option is to train with performance as a goal. This is what I do. I value being able to lift more weight over gaining bigger biceps, but I enjoy the fact that my biceps look better as a result of my training. Aesthetics is not my goal, but it HAPPENS ANYWAY as an enjoyable side effect of my improved performance.

This brings me to food. I view food as FUEL. It is what my body needs in order to perform better. I need high quality fuel (naturally nutritionally-dense food sources), and LOTS OF IT. I am not scared to eat more in case I get fat; I am scared to eat less in case I cannot perform as well. A small salad is just water. My body needs rocket fuel. When you view food as fuel, you start to realise that you need the best quality, and you start to realise that you probably need quite a lot of it – even if your goal is to be physically smaller. Starving yourself just doesn't work. Your body will then crave something calorie-dense – ANYTHING calorie-dense – and you will likely give in and eat a pile of junk.

LIFT WEIGHTS plus...

PLENTY OF NATURAL NUTRITIONALLY-DENSE FOOD plus...

AS LITTLE CARDIO AS YOU CAN POSSIBLY GET AWAY WITH plus...

(active) RECOVERY will equal...

A HEALTHY BODY THAT LOOKS GOOD & PERFORMS WELL.

Isn't that really what you wanted?

If you need help on how to do this, get in touch. Personal training can help you achieve the results you desire, as well as giving you the necessary effective tools you need to keep striving forwards, to keep changing &; progressing on your journey.


Challenge everything, especially yourself.

Alex Kay Grimmer


Contact me for Kettlebell classes and Personal Training in Southend-on-sea.
Please visit my website: ALEXKAY

Do you really want to lose weight?

 Recently I had a conversation with someone that struck a cord with me. It's not a new topic. It has been done to death. However; it still seems to be unresolved - weight loss.

It seems there are still people whose main focus is to LOSE WEIGHT. Their goal, and happiness, is forever tied to the number on the scale.

 When I have questioned people about their weight loss goal, the real reason always boils down to the same thing. They are seeking to become more attractive; which is fine to have as a goal. We all want to look better. However the problem is people are confusing attractiveness with with their relationship to gravity. By merely losing weight, you become lighter, the numbers on the scale go down, but do you really look any better for it? Probably not - because you are using the wrong tool to measure progress towards your goal. You become a slightly smaller version of yourself, but look no better for it.

If your goal is to LOOK more attractive towards others, use the same means of gauging attractiveness as they do - HOW YOU LOOK. They don't stand you on a scale to determine how attractive you are, so why are you doing it? Throw out the scale and get a full length mirror instead.

Want just to weigh less? Eat less.

Want to look better? Train better & eat better.

If you need help on how to do this, get in touch. Personal training can help you achieve the results you desire, as well as giving you the necessary effective tools you need to keep striving forwards, to keep changing & progressing on your journey.


Challenge everything, especially yourself.

Alex Kay Grimmer


Contact me for Kettlebell classes and Personal Training in Southend-on-sea.
Please visit my website: ALEXKAY

Tearing your hands?

One of the main concerns people have when training in kettlebell sport is how not to tear their hands up. First and foremost, proper, progressive training to effectively condition your hands is very important. Tearing up your hands is not a badge of honour. It just results in downtime from training.

The biggest reason for tearing the skin on your hands is overgripping the handle. If you have a death-grip on the handle, when it moves it's going to take skin with it! If the kettlebell is below your waist it should be held in a hook grip, just the ends of your fingers. It may take a while to build strength in this grip but it is necessary. Practice swinging in the hook grip.

When the bell is above the waist (ie: racked or overhead), it should hang low and diagonally through the palm – not straight across the palm. If you are able to fully grip the handle, your hand position is incorrect. When the bell shifts from the hook to low in the palm, it should just 'pop' back and forth, and not drag across the skin. The transition has minimal skin contact. The more friction-contact you have, the more likely you will be to tear your skin.

If you train properly, callouses will form, so make sure you keep them under control. If they get too big and hard, they will tear away from the soft skin around them. Rub them down with a pumice stone and use a moisturiser.

Challenge everything, especially yourself.

Alex Kay Grimmer


Contact me for Kettlebell classes and Personal Training in Southend-on-sea.
Contact & location details are on my website: BODYQUESTPT

Do you enjoy training with kettlebells? Why not take it to the next level and compete? Traditionally kettlebell sport is Girevoy Sport, and if you'd like to know more about that contact me or Google it. However... there is a new kid on the competition block – Pentathlon. This is kettlebell sport that is accessible to everybody, a great deal of fun, yet still challenging – which is what we want! If you are familiar with the 5 required lifts: Clean, Clean & Press, Jerk, Half Snatch and Push Press, then you are ready to compete.

It goes as follows:

• Each lift is for 6 minutes followed by 5 minutes rest
• You may change hands as often as you like
• There is a maximum number of allowed reps to encourage heavier bells and to discourage sloppy technique
• Clean: 120, Clean & press: 60, Jerk: 120, Half-snatch: 108, Push-press: 120
• Each bell size has a value. 8Kg=x1, 10kg=x1.25, 12kg=x1.5, etc.
• Your score (or quotient) is your number of reps multiplied by the bell value
• Your final score / quotient will fall into categories to indicate your ability level

That's it!

Exercise is just that – exercise. Training is exercise with a goal. So why not give Pentathlon a go? It's quite exciting to test yourself and have a bit of fun in a competition, plus once you have your quotient, it gives you an excellent starting point and something to train for and beat next time.

The first Pentathlon will be held at BodyQuest Kettlebell Gym in Westcliff-on-sea, Essex on Sunday the 4^th of November 2012, with many more to come, as well as regular training workshops. Get your name down, and get involved with the new kettlebell sport – PENTATHLON.

Join the Facebook group PENTATHLON UK 

Kettlebell Pentathlon

Kettlebell Pentathlon is a relatively new kettlebell sport. It is the brain-child of Valery Fedorenko, who came up with it so that everyone can compete. Girevoy Sport, because of it's 10 minute sets remaining a tad elitist. There's a ton of information on the Pentathlon via Google, so I will attempt to sum it up as briefly as I can.

There are 5 lifts to do, each working set is 6 minutes with a 5 minute rest between sets. The lifts are as follows:

1 - Clean
2 - Clean & Press
3 - Jerk
4 - Half-snatch
5 - Push-press

Unlike Girevoy, only 1 kettlebel is used for both men & women. You may change hands as many times as you like during the 6 minute sets. You may not set the bell down.

There is a maximum number of repetitions for each lift. Any reps done over and above the maximum do not count. If you achieve the maximum reps you will be expected to use a heavier bell next time. The maximum reps are as follows:

1 - Clean - 120 reps
2 - Clean & Press - 60 reps
3 - Jerk -  120 reps
4 - Half-snatch - 108 reps
5 - Push-press - 120 reps

Each size kettlebell has a quotient score, which you use to multiply you rep score to get your final score for each lift. The quotients are as follows:

8kg = 1.0x
12kg = 1.5x
16kg = 2.0x
20kg = 2.5x
24kg = 3.0x
28kg = 3.5x
32kg = 4.0x

I understand the quotients continue (0.5 increase for each 4kg increase) up to 72kg. If you're a mutant.

You may use different size bells for different lifts.

The final scoring is categorised as follows:

Women:

Less than 360 - Low
361-540 - Average
541-720 - Good
721 - 900 High
901-1080 Extreme
More than 1081 Superhuman

Men:

Less than 720 - Low
721-900 - Average
901-1080 - Good
1081-1260 - High
1261-1440 Extreme
More than 1441 Superhuman

The thing to bear in mind, is if a man used a 16kg for all the lifts, and hit the maximum reps allowed, his score would be 1,056 - which would only place him in the 'Good' category. To get high numbers, you have to lift heavier.

So what are you waiting for?? Give it a go! It is not as demanding as Girevoy Sport, so it opens the doors for kettlebell lifters to have a go at competing - even if it is just for yourself.

Link to my first pentathlon set

Challenge everything, especially yourself.

Alex Kay Grimmer



Contact me for Kettlebell classes and Personal Training in Southend-on-sea.
Contact & location details are on my website: BODYQUESTPT