new ink!

Ah! so i went into book a consultation to get my first tattoo drawn up! Bring on the 19th of September!!!! WOOP WOOP! a few ideas below....for upper left arm ;p

 
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.

truly wise words from Keith Norris of Theory to Practice

"Truth. Keep in mind though that this is a journey, not a destination. Learn to enjoy the ride. You’ll never wake up one day and say “That’s it! I’m here!” Rather, you’ll reach a point where you’ll like where you’re at, but (and in a very enjoyable, non-stressed way) you’ll endeavor to improve even upon that."

full post here:

http://theorytopractice.wordpress.com/2010/07/24/of-routines-ruts-and-habitual-eating/

Can you use yoga as a tool to reduce player burnout? I think so...

Below is an email that I have sent to a few rughy union teams in London...

"I'm a 27 year old New Zealand/British Yoga Teacher with over 11 years experience looking to branch into the team sports industry with a particular interest in Rugby Union.

My teaching style really aims to address the chronic stress levels that come with the pressure and responsibility of playing professional sport in todays performance driven society and all of its implications on fitness and player performance. I have aligned my yoga and meditation classes with evolutionary (Paleo) nutrition and high intensity style training to try and provide the relaxation (CNS recovery) piece of the puzzle.

As part of my classes, I encourage participants to set an intention for their practice at the beginning of class. It could be to try every posture, to work on linking movement with the breath, or to stay focused on what is happening on their mat rather than worrying about what has come before and what will follow after the class. For many this intention is what sets yoga apart from traditional forms of exercise.

My underlying goal is to share my passion of yoga and meditation with like-minded people – while also contributing a significant piece of the training puzzle to help build more well rounded people and sportman alike.

With this in mind I would like to offer a free 30-minute Yoga stretching/relaxation session to the members of the coaching and physiotherapy teams.

If you would like to include Yoga as a tool to reduce player burnout, increase range of movement and limit recurring injuries with a teacher who understands the importance of bridging power/strength style training with CNS recovery and active rest then please get in touch to arrange a demonstration session."

I will keep you posted with how I go.  Exciting times head! 

Below is an article that appeared in Australian Yoga Life 2008on how the Titans rugby league team are now using yoga as part of their training programme.

The Titans turn to Yoga

Yoga and rugby league may seem unlikely allies, but thanks to Billy Johnstone - one of Australia's leading National Rugby League trainers and conditioners - yoga is part of the regular training schedule for the newest team in the NRL, the Gold Coast Titans.

Greg Wythes talks to Billy Johnstone and Santina Giardina about how the Titans are responding to their yoga regime.

Billy Johnstone is one of a new breed of conditioners and trainers in the hard world of modern rugby league. His approach contains all the components of the professional trainer - though his players would say he works them harder - but he has one further ingredient: yoga.

Billy has a long history in sport and fitness. He trained initially as a boxer and had his first fight at the age of eight.  In his late teens and early twenties he was a top ranked light middle weight boxer, with 26 professional matches to his credit. He then played 155 first grade rugby league games, mainly for the Canterbury Bulldogs, retiring in the early 1990s. During his playing career he was renowned for his training ethic, an ethic that kept him at peak fitness and allowed him to continue in the game well into his thirties. Billy moved directly from playing to training and conditioning, and has worked for a number of clubs including the North Queensland Cowboys and now the Titans. He is also the current conditioner for the Australian and the Queensland State of Origin teams.

Billy is a man working at the top of his chosen field and into this field he decided to bring a young, blonde, fine-boned female yoga teacher. The rugby league world is decidedly male dominated. It has a reputation - rightly or wrongly - for an old fashioned, pre-feminist attitude to women. At worst it is misogynistic; at best blokey. It is not a world where women are normally accepted, and even more rarely into the training sphere. So when Billy introduced Ashtanga yoga teacher Santina Giardina to the Titans players, he must have known he was taking a calculated risk. It is a measure of their respect for him that they were prepared to give yoga and Santina a chance, but it was not a willing and open acceptance.

"In the beginning they didn't like it," says Santina. "They complained. They  moaned during the asana work.  ‘We don't get paid to stretch,' they would say. It was tough for them. Their bodies are stiff. They found the concentration hard. I had to struggle to keep them involved. And if Billy wasn't there, they wouldn't participate."

Billy had introduced his players to Iyengar style ropes in their home gym at the Runaway Bay Sports Centre at Bond University. He used the ropes as a means of supported stretching to lengthen muscle groups, particularly after a weight training session. But a structured freestyle class was a big step up.  "The main thing for me," says Billy, "is that yoga is the direct opposite of what they're doing 90 percent of the time. It's about bringing in some balance. A kind of yin/yang thing, if you like. It also helps to get away from the testosterone-fuelled, macho approach of the modern game. But I like to phase it in and out, and I try not to force it down their throats. We do 10 to 11 training sessions a week; things like swimming, cardio

Billy came to yoga in the early 1990s and went to Iyengar classes twice a week for 12 years in Sydney. Once he began working with the Titans on the Gold Coast, he began attending Santina's classes. He found the Ashtanga style, with its flowing vinyasa approach, its strong physical demands and its emphasis on the breath, gave a new dimension to both his own practice and to what he could offer his players.

"When I first discovered yoga I thought: ‘How stupid have I been?' It just seemed to offer so much," he says.  "I had started sports very young and towards the end of my career I was looking for something else. I had a hip replacement and yoga helped me a lot.  And it wasn't just the physical side of it. It really helped to give clarity and balance to where I was going."

Santina's approach with the team began with the basics and she modified it to suit the culture she was working in. "I don't use Sanskrit terms and we don't do any chanting," she says. "They want to keep moving on all the time but I bring them back to the mind and the breath. One pose and then another, keeping the focus on their own bodies and not comparing themselves to anyone else in the class. I work on things that will help to open up their bodies, like half lunges. And I try to give them things that will break it up a little for them, like a Headstand or a Handstand or Bakasana (crane pose), to challenge them and give them a sense of achievement. But I make them work. I have a similar work ethic to Billy and I think that's why we get on."

Professional rugby league players do not give their respect easily and they are not easily impressed, but slowly things began to change. Santina started to notice subtle differences in the way the team approached her class.

"As you'd expect, they are very competitive," she says, "especially at the beginning of a session. But as the class progresses they begin to gel better. They're more connected and there's more sense of community. They groan till about half way through, and then that drops away. By the end of the session they are much more co-operative and willing to help. And then after one class, Luke Swain, one of the forwards, said; ‘Thank you, yoga', on the way out and it became a kind of refrain. Now they all say it as they leave."

Before long some of the players began to stay behind to ask for specific help: "How does my body work?" How does the hip rotate properly? I need some postures for my hips. I need to open them." Their interest began to grow and their comments to Santina reflected a budding awareness of the processes within their bodies. "I don't feel as compacted or compressed." "I feel younger." "I feel lighter." And this is exactly the kind of response that Billy had been hoping for when he introduced yoga to his players.

"Rugby league is a collision sport," he says. "It's a painful occupation. You have to prepare to be hurt. I find the more props you can use the better because of this collision aspect. The doctors will tell you that the injuries the players sustain are similar to those of a car crash victim. Yoga can help a lot to reduce this effect, and I use it to try to minimize injuries that can often affect players for the rest of their lives. I'm confident that down the track it will be a normal part of every team's program."

But for this year's Titans team, yoga has been something very new, and for a lot of the players the results have been more than they expected. Three months into the program a core group of players began to attend Santina's classes independently because they wanted more yoga than they were getting as part of the club's normal training.

"It's been great," says David Myles, one of the club's senior players. "I'd never done yoga before but now I feel so much better. As a rugby league player there are not many times when you're not sore, except after yoga and then the next day. I'm 30, so I'm getting towards the end of my career, but it's taken five years off the way I feel. As an elite athlete it gets you thinking about things. I'm much more aware of my body now."

At 21, centre Brett Delaney is one of the club's younger players. For much of the season he has carried a back injury and has found that yoga with Santina has made all the difference in the management of his pain.  "She understands our job and tailors the stretches and the postures to suit us as rugby league players," says Brett. "I see yoga as a means of long term maintenance for my injury. It has made a big difference in relieving the tension in my lower back, my hamstrings and my glutes. I'm beginning to see how I can relax into the postures and go deeper and better. I understand my body in a different way. I don't think another yoga teacher could do what she does for us. She's really good at her job. I go every week and I'll be going back next year too."

"Santina keeps reminding us not to strain," continues David Myles. "A big part of it is the controlled way we do the breathing. She chips away at us to relax our faces and not to clench our teeth, but at the same time she pushes you and she watches you carefully. She makes sure you work, but properly, with the right approach. I recommend all my friends to come to her classes. I think yoga could play a really big role in rugby league."

The impact of relaxation, and specifically Shavasana (Corpse pose), on the players is one that both Billy and Santina see as critically important. For Billy this is in the carry-over to the mental preparation for each game and the mental strength of the players. For Santina it is in bringing a new psychological facet to the players that deepens and invigorates their experience of yoga.  "In Shavasana they have a taste of ‘no mind'," says Santina, "and they crave it now. It's new to them and they don't know how to respond to it. They are shifting, inside, to a more internal sense. When they work on the mat, when they breathe and they focus and work with intent, and then bring all that to Shavasana, the deeper they go. They probably don't fully understand what's going on but there's a knowing in their eyes. I love working with them and seeing that. They have come so far in a few months. I'm really happy with their progress."

"One of the big problems facing players today is how to get themselves up to play each week," says Billy. "There is so much emotional pressure put into rugby league and so much pressure on the players to perform. Yoga can give them a different mental approach. Some guys have played the whole game in the dressing shed before they go on. Yoga helps by relaxing them so that they don't use up too much energy prior to the game. And it's a big plus for me when players start taking responsibility for their own training by going to Santina's classes."

For Billy, yoga is no short term experiment. As Australia's leading trainer and conditioner in his code, he views yoga as an integral part of the training program. It is a holistic approach, based on a much broader perspective than simply winning games, though this too is important. It recognises and addresses aspects of player health and fitness that are not normally addressed in most clubs. It reflects an innate care and concern for his players as people who will have a life after rugby league, as well as trying to get the best from them during their professional careers. It is an approach based on Billy's own experience of the benefits of yoga over many years of practice. Will yoga give a team the competitive advantage to take it to the top of the competition? It seems unlikely, given the range of factors at play at this level of elite sport. It does seem more likely, however, that yoga could provide a team with an important edge in preparing for the unique demands of the NRL. And Billy Johnstone has brought his team to that edge.

Australian yoga life - 2008

my arms feel like jelly! haha!

Had another great session in the gym today. YEAH BOY!

Today was max effort upper body.

Incline Bench Press:
Warm Up:
20kgs - 8 reps
30kgs - 5 reps

Max effort:
40kgs - 4 sets of 4, 2, and then last 2 sets were 2 reps followed by lowering the weight down very slowly to a count of 10....(up by 2 sets)
37.5kg - 3 sets of 3 followed followed by lowering the weight down very slowly to a count of 10.
35kg - 3 sets of 4 reps (up 1 rep per set)

Military Press:
Warm Up:
7kg - 5 reps (up by 1 kg)
8kg - 4 reps
10kg - 3 reps

Max effort:
12kg - 3 sets - 3, 4, 3.5 - elbows not quite straight (up by 2kgs)
10kg - 3 sets of 5 reps
9kg - 3 sets of 6 reps

i was f*%ked after this! jelly arms all the way! but it felt really good and then stretching was so calming.....

I am teaching tonight so just trying to rest my arms. lol. Ive got liver for dinner and I cant wait! YUM!

I have noticed that my skin is looking very radiant and clear and alive! yes! thanks paleo foods and coconut oil ;p

(not me!)

Fast length: 17.5 hours

Macro nutrient break down:
Cals: 1996
Fats: 35.7
Carbs: 248.3
Pro: 181.5

over the last 2 days...

hey hey paleo peeps!

hope all is well in your world ;p So Tuesday was my max effort lower body workout and it was KICK ASS! I was soooo it the zone!

During my last lot of back squats I had noticed that on some of the reps my thighs were not parallel to the floor and more of in a partial squat position....this could have been because last week I did dead lifts before squats as my spotter was with a client so my legs were fatigued by the time i reached the squat rack.
So this time I did my squats first and I made sure that I always come to parallel. I felt very strong and was stoked with my technique too! And I also made gains in the numbers or reps to! WOOP WOOP. And if i had a badge like the won below I would have worn it all day!

  

Fasted training with 2x black coffees and bcaa's

Back Squats
Warm up:
5kg - 13 reps
6kg - 11 reps
40kg - 5 reps
50kg - 5 reps

Max lift: (2mins rest between sets)
65kg - 3 sets - 4, 4, 5 (up 1 rep on both 1st and 2nd set)
62.5kg - 3 sets of 5 (down was 1 rep each set but these were full and not partial squats)
60kg - 3 sets of 6 (up 1 set)

Dead lift
Warm up:
30kg - 5 reps
35kg - 5 reps

Max lift: (2mins rest between sets)
42.5kg - 3 sets of 3, 3, 4 (up by 2.5kgs)
40kgkg - 3 sets of 5
37.5kg - 3 sets of 6

Fast length: 17 hours

Macro nutrient break down:
Cals: 1996
Fats: 35.7
Carbs: 248.3
Pro: 181.5

Taught yoga in the evening and had such a great time....My script is coming together nicely, learning the art of getting information across while not over loading them and it is extremely rewarding to see your students progressing and relaxing! Thanks for all your hard work guys and for helping me become the teacher I am. I am just absolutely loving evolving and growing as a teacher. Another thing that made 2nights class so special for me was I was amazed at how easily I can now throw my self around my yoga mat and hold the postures and talk and breath at the same time!!!!!

Wednesday 25/08:

Black coffee followed by 45mins of cardio on the bike set at random and switching between level 1-3 (legs tired aye lol) followed by yoga stretches.


2 more black coffees and a half hour walk pushing my 5 month old niece in her pram along a very bumping farm track.

Fast length: 15.5 hours

Macro nutrient breakdown:
Cals: 1506
Carbs: 31.4
Fat: 75
Pro:197.1

Yesterday was the hardest day I have had on IF....i was ok during the fasting state and had my 1st meal just after 2pm and ate again at 3.30ish but from about 5 i was ravenous so i had another coffee as i didnt want to have dinner to early and throw out my fasting times and i didnt want to really eat more as im not exactly sure of how many calories and how fat ect...Ive leaned out quite alot already in just 9 days and i feel that my number are in the right place for now and as I lean out more I will up my fat intake on rest days. I did manage to keep busy and distract my mind and tummy from food and then dinner was amazingly tasty and well worth the wait!

Keeping your food intake where it should be is KEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Woke up this morning feeling great and feeling leaner and lighter on my toes! I've guessed the  amount of fat and calories I should be consuming on rest day as Martin writes in the Leangains guide:

 * Macronutrients and calorie intakes are always cycled through the week. The specifics depends on the client's ultimate goal: fat loss, muscle gain or bodyrecomposition. The details will be revealed in the book. Generally speaking, carbs and total calorie intake is highest on training days. On rest days, carbs are lower and fat is higher. Protein is kept high on all days.

And I took the amount of carbs to have on workout days from this post that Mark Sisson wrote:

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/carb-refeeding-and-weight-loss/

My maintenance level caloric intake is: 2154
My basal metabolic rate caloric intake is : 1389.5

Training Day break down (around about):
Cals: 1996
Fats: 35.7g
Carbs: 248.3g
Pro: 181.5g

Rest Day break down (around about):
Cals: 1506
Carbs: 31.4g
Fat: 75g
Pro:197.1g

I am also having a daily doss of fish oil ;)

So today looked like this:


Black coffee x2

Went to the gym at 1.30pm for 45mins cardio on the bike set at random going between level 2-3 and 
then yoga stretches

Broke 17.5 hour fast with -  yip you guessed it! Ham, eggs and cheese!

Black coffee

Meal 2: the same - Will i ever get sick of this dish???? ;p

Meal 3: Chicken stir fry with wakame and carrots cooked in coconut oil.


I had 11 in my class 2night and 5 of them were guys!

 

(not sure what is up with his triceps! lol!)

I missed not being able to blogg over the weekend!

Saturday 21/08:

Coffee and BCAAs

Trained 8am:

Warm up:
Mobility drills

Leg Press: 70kgs 2 sets of 12, 61kgs 1 set of 15
Leg Curl: 40kgs 3 sets of 12

Chest press: 35kg 2 sets of 12, 28kg 1 set of 13
Seated Row: 33kgs 1 set of 15, 40kgs 2 sets of 12

(i found my arms where a bit weak from Thursdays max effort workout and to be honest so where my legs from Tuesday! I have enjoyed doing the cardio on rest days but i have to keep the resistance pretty low)

Side to side: 6kg ball 3 sets of 20

total of about 25mins followed by yoga stretches ;)

Coffee and more BCAAs

And then i taught LBT......I have a nice bunch of girls who come along to class. Class is small and is between 4 - 7 each week.....10.30am on a Saturday morning is bit early for most! haha

Broke my 16.5 hour fast with with 395grams of prawns with a combo of sweet potato (370g) and butternut squash (260g)

Meal 2: 340g non fat yogurt with 100g blue berries.

2 black coffees

I have decided to introduce fish into my diet so i booked Julius and I into a seafood restaurant....


Dinner: 5 king prawns with cherry tomatoes, sea bass fillet, bean sprouts, shitake mushrooms, new potatoes and fries

Pudding: 170g non fat yogurt

Macro nutrient break down:

Cals:1,990

Fat: 37.4
Carbs: 239.6
Pro: 193.2


Sunday 22/08:

2 black coffees

Broke 16.5 hour fast with my fav ham, eggs, cheese,  and sauerkraut! again! I'd love to have bacon instead of parma ham but I'm trying to keep my fat intake around 75g for the day and bacon completely blows this of a the water! 
But as i lean out i will be able to up the fat and then BRING ON THE BACON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Meal 2: ham, eggs, cheese,  and sauerkraut! again! HEAVEN!

Black coffee

Meal 3: Turkey stir fry with wakame and broccoli (cooked in coconut oil with garlic, ginger and coriander)

Macro nutrient break down:

Cals: 1506

Fat: 70g
Carbs: 31.4g
Pro: 197.1