Saturdays 1.30-2.30pm – cost £10

Location: Strength and Conditioning Studio @ Balance, 113 Gauden Road, Clapham North, Lambeth, London, SW4 6LE.

This Saturday Balance is very excited to have boxing back on our timetable of quality physical training sessions. This is not boxercise, cardiokick or any other fitness industry invention – this is boxing.

Boxing training, apart from being a useful way of improving boxing skills is excellent for overall health and fitness,  conditioning for other sports or disciplines, develops agility, co-ordination and confidence.

The coach is Dennis Ricketts who has been involved in boxing for 25 years and is enthusiastic as ever about the sport and what it offers its participants (whether they have a desire to compete or not). As an amateur he was Royal Navy Light Heavyweight Boxing Champion.

Dennis holds credentials as an ABA Coach, Professional Boxing trainer/second and has additional knowledge and experience in Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). Dennis will also be available for personal boxing training before and after the class.

We have known Dennis here at Balance for many years as he has been a regular user of our gym and studio, giving our heavy bag a serious pounding and putting significant mileage on our speed rope.

Any questions give us a call – 02076272308.

MMA Bay arranged a Q&A session on their forum with Michael Bisping, I logged on and asked a question on strength and conditioning. http://tinyurl.com/pb3lgx

There is also a training video on the Industrial Strength London website http://www.islondon.co.uk

We havent gone live with our online Physio retail shop as yet but we still stock a bunch of things to assist people through the early days of sports injury or back pain episode. Then onwards through rehabilitation and ongoing maintenance then you get onto strength and conditioning (at home or an independent gym facility for the best results).

The Power Wheel is an awesome piece of fun…Steff fo

und this review of the power wheel… http://tinyurl.com/awkq3f

Steff contacted us via Twitter, if Twitter is something you use follow Balance at http://twitter.com/BalancePhysio

power wheel pike

We see a lot of martial artists and combat athletes at Balance. Men and women from different clubs across London have either searched on google and discovered us or they have heard from friends that not only do the physiotherapists at Balance have an in depth understanding of movement and therefore all sports but also that the strength and conditioning team employ moves that integrate all of the ground, stand up and transitional work required to be a well grounded athlete. Without good quality movement and efficient mechanics all the strength you believe you have in your kick, punch, throw, clinch, hold, pin, roll, elbow, knee, lock, guard or mount is wasted.

A strength and conditioning coach’s job is to drive your physical status/integrity high enough to cope with the specific demands of your sport or art.

A good strength and conditioning coach will unlock your potential but its the technical coach who will make you execute your sports moves more effectively.

We often see poor technique at the root of an injury (even if it was traumatic) so we encourage our clients to make special efforts to work with a good coach who can break down and analyse specific technique to the same degree as we do with athletic movement in general.

Combat Sports/MMA kicking seminar

Nicky Carter (WBC World Thai Boxing Champion, Thai Boxing Coach) with coach Phill Ireland (Double English Thai Boxing Champion -6 x World Stick-fighting Champion -Level 3 Fitness Trainer -3rd Grade Doce Pares Black Belt -Thai Boxing Coach)

It was great to hear from Phill Ireland, Thai Boxing and Doce Pares (stick fighting) coach, that he was putting on a “kicking seminar”. Phill is not only an excellent combat sports coach  (he has coached national and world champions) he breaks down technique in an understandable way, so this workshop is highly recommended!

Contact Phill directly for further details:

“Hi, well we have another exciting seminar running

Kicking Seminar

5th April 2009 at 1pm-4pm and cost £25.

Acacia Fitness Centre, Dartford, Kent

A specific kicking seminar to help you all improve your kicking technique as it can be tricky to get it right.

We will cover low kicks, body kicks, high kicks, teeps and variations of them all.

Places are limited so for more information or to book your place call me on 07967963309
Phill Ireland”

I remember the joys of cross country running at school; moving with heavy loads across boggy, rocky, steep, treacherous terrain as a Royal Marine; and tackling the mountains of British Columbia as an adventure racer. All far more honourable and interesting than a city marathon road run – but that’s just my opinion!

So I was particularly impressed watching the Edinburgh Men’s 8.9km Cross Country race on Saturday afternoon and the speed the runners sustained around the Holyrood Park course , even whilst tackling the steep inclines at the foot of Arthur’s Seat, and also against strong winds. The winner, in 26:51, Ethiopian Abebe Dinkesa,  produced a phenomenal kick at the beginning of the last lap that left the world class runners that led up till then in his wake and unable to catch up.

What the winner did requires, in addition to his in-built running talents,  leg strength, strength and power endurance. Such qualities are necessary in all running based sports and activities – so that would include almost everything – and also all stand up sports and activities – that would include almost everything else.

So whether its cross country or marathon, hockey or thai boxing getting strong and powerful legs that can keep on producing the goods over an extended period of time should be a goal.  But its not about leg extensions and hamstring curls, or going to Body Pump once a week.

Running practice, practicing strength/strength endurance, practicing power endurance and a lot more running practice whilst being strong and powerful is required (as opposed to only steady pace running). For other sports – practicing your sport in an intelligent structured way is what will improve specific elements within it.

The tools and methods you use will determine the magnitude of the results you get based on the amount of hard work you do, the discipline you show and the recovery strategies you employ.

These are the most effective tools for the task of leg strength, endurance and power:

• Hill sprints – leg and trunk strength, anaerobic power, aerobic recovery. You don’t need to live in Wales to do this and it isn’t about a run that has inclines on the route.

• G-trainer intervals – this treadmill is the ultimate tool for running based intervals. Leg strength, power and over speed training way beyond what can be achieved conventionally.

• Kettlebells - strength, power endurance training without the joint stress and providing a far greater stimulus to your body than running alone. Why not barbells or dumbbells? The kettlebell, when used correctly, demands that you accelerate against resistance and decelerate the resistance and do so repeatedly. Add the angles used, the total body involvement and the synchrony of effort in the hip, pelvic girdle, trunk (core), and shoulder girdle found in kettlebell lifting and you have much more of a stimulus for athleticism than any other form of resistance training.

• using your own bodyweight to develop strength and power is essential. It allows you to move freely, unencumbered, change speed and the overall emphasis of the drill rapidly, increase the complexity or simplify the moves you are using instantaneously to reflect what you are trying to achieve. For metabolic conditioning you might want to use movements you are very familiar with, to improve your movement skills you need to employ challenging movements. Either way bodyweight training whether ground based, stand up, hanging or transitions from one to another are needed to be a better athlete.

• Flexibility and movement training – being flexible can NOT make you stronger! I hear many people saying. But it simply doesnt matter how much weight you can lift, or tension you can apply if the range of movement you can use it over is limited.

hope all this makes sense…let me know if you have any questions and contact me via the contact page.

Ken and Steve of London Kettlebells have been busy and one of their new projects has been to launch a site that allows people with something interesting to say about health and fitness.

They thought the G-trainer and the multiple opportunities it offers was worth an article so I put a piece together particularly on the tremendous interval training opportunities it presents for everyone from first time marathon runners to serious MMA or Thai boxing fighters and even NBA basketball giants.

G-trainer: the “anti-gravity” treadmill. The ultimate tool
for interval training
Submitted by Jonathan
Lewis on Thu, 27/11/2008 – 10:33am

I’m not one for bling or using high tech when low tech
will do. If you took a look inside the Balance gym and studio you would see two
dozen kettlebells, truck tyre, sledge hammer, sand bag, a bar for pull ups,
carabina attachments in all sorts of places to hang and pull from, a pile of
judo mats, a couple of marine ropes, medicine balls, etc. These things are low
tech in the extreme but provide highly effective results.

The G-trainer on the other hand is high tech in the
extreme. It looks space age because it is NASA technology; we know it works
because it was tested by Nike Professional Athletes, and they kept it and their
runners have produced some great results. It offers something that has not been
offered before, the opportunity to “defy” gravity whilst running!

It’s used by some of the world’s best athletes but now
that we have one at Balance we’ll work out exactly what it’s capable of. We
specialise in performance and we know how to get the most out of someone. We
also like to be innovative; using things in a way they weren’t necessarily
designed for and we have already discovered the G-trainer has some undisclosed
strengths.

I’ve dubbed the G-trainer the “Ultimate for running
interval training” but it also has many applications in strength and
conditioning. Here is a brief summary of some of the benefits adding the
training variable of bodyweight reduction offers.

Strength and conditioning

• Increased effectiveness of speed and leg
  strength/endurance/power training intervals
• Metabolic conditioning (anyone who reads the ISLondon blog
  will be aware of the state known as “metabolloxed”, a state easily achieved on
  the G-trainer)
• Jump training and plyometric control
• Great cross training for sports/martial arts

Marathon training/running performance

• guaranteed to maintain the pace on your “long run”.
• achievable tempo runs
• increased intensity of effort with reduced chance of injury
• increase aerobic base with greater mileage per week without
  the joint stress, strain and impact.
• Heart rate training
  

Elite Athlete’s; some of worlds top sports clubs, and US
Military organisations. Below are a few of those who have embraced the treadmill
for many different applications.

• NY Marathon winner Paula Radcliffe to make an early return
  to running following her hip injury.
• The Nike Oregon Project pro runners, coached by Alberto
  Salazar, utilise it to add approximately 25% more miles to their programme per
  week.
• AC Milan
• Manchester United
• Fort Bragg
• Walter Reed Army Medical Centre
• Los Angeles Lakers (NBA)
• New York Knicks (NBA)
• Oakland Raiders (NFL)
  

For more information and how you can use the G-trainer for
yourself in London contact Jonathan Lewis on 07960 861 267, jonathan@balancephysio.com and take a
look at http://www.g-trainerUK.blogspot.com

See the article in situ….

http://www.lkbfitness.com/G-trainer-the-anti-gravity-treadmill-The-ultimate-tool-for-interval-training

Jon Bik triathlete using the G-trainer, Jon is also an above knee amputee.