Obstacles

“Every obstacle presents an opportunity to improve our condition”.

It has been a challenging month, to say the least; but those challenges have presented me with opportunities, which in hindsight, in a strange way, I am almost grateful to have been injured in the first place. To recount, mid-month I suffered a bad grade 2 tear of my right hamstring. It was little consolation that it occurred whilst scoring the match winning try for Standard Bank’s mixed touch rugby team’s playoff game. And even more disappointing that I had to sit out the men’s final I was due to play in later in the evening, which probably cost my team the game… Not because of my superior touch rugby skills (jokes); more to the point having an extra substitute in a fast-paced, close final. (We lost by a single try in extra time, as scores were level at full-time). And probably the greatest disappointment being, having waited so long for the new Les Mills music to arrive in London (BODYPUMP #70 and RPM #43), it finally turned up on my doorstep the day I blew my hammy! So I won’t have the opportunity to launch for another few weeks. But with all those emotions dealt with, it was time to search for some positives.

As you will know from my last blog, my main goal this year is to complete the Professional Development Module in the first weekend of October. Therefore, my first priority was to see a physio, assess the damage, and begin the road to recovery and achieving my goals. I can thoroughly recommend to anyone in London who needs to see a physio, head to Physio 6 in Fulham! The team there has been incredible, very knowledgeable, and in short, this is where I have found the positives this month. After 4 days on crutches, and severe bruising down the back of my leg (my first bruise in my life! - to indicate the level of damage I managed to inflict), I began my rehab sessions. Physio 6 isn’t so much about hands on massage, etc to heal; but more about looking at the biomechanics of your body, alignment, and education to avoid a recurrence of the injury. As I said earlier, this knowledge could not have come at a better time! To analyse my movements, and realise that I have conditioned my body to 10years of BODYPUMP and 4years of RPM, and to see my weaknesses in any lateral movements was invaluable. In hindsight, I was an injury waiting to happen, especially with my history of lower back problems, so I have relished the opportunity to learn from the experts at Physio 6, and seek to strengthen my weaknesses over the coming months in preparation for the PDM in October.

I have taken two further steps towards my goals this month; I have committed to the PDM by registering this week, so I have a definite timeframe to work towards with my recovery; also in order to give my body the best possible chance to recover quickly, I have returned to my manipulated paleolithic diet.

Although it’s not ideal to be injured, and it’s meant a step back from instructing this month, it has been a fantastic time for reflection (something rare in the fast pace of London), and there have been some long term positives to come out of the month.

My best class this month would be a Sunday morning Spin class I took at Borough Soho Gyms. I know this is a Les Mills blog, so it’s not ideal to be discussing freestyle classes… But I do see these classes as an opportunity to ultimately improve my instructing skills in RPM classes. The class went off! And I pushed myself so hard physically that I nearly threw up (just in case you ever wondered whether instructors push themselves hard on stage). Although the class was freestyle, I formatted it similarly to an RPM class, with some tracks fitting so well I will make some song suggestions on the Les Mills website; in particular, the Ferry Corsten remix of Kosheen – Catch, as a track 6 – Speed Work track.

My memorable moment for the month was at one of my favourite instructing spots – a Tuesday night RPM class at Putney Virgin Active. The class turned into karaoke Tuesday! It was a challenge for me, as the mic wasn’t working, so it was one of my patented – talk as much as I can between tracks, and then instruct the class in sign language during the tracks - classes. The class decided to make the most of a tough situation and began singing together from track 3 – I’m a True Believer! Great way to raise energy levels, and we all kicked on to a fantastic class J

I hope to be instructing RPM again from the 2^nd week of July, and BODYPUMP from the 4^th week; when I’m back, my current schedule of permanent classes will be:

Monday 630pm BODYPUMP @ Covent Garden Soho Gyms

Tuesday 700am RPM @ Fulham David Lloyds

Tuesday 745am Ab Blast @ Fulham David Lloyds

Thursday 600pm RPM @ Covent Garden Nuffield Health

Saturday 1130am BODYPUMP @ Walworth Road Fitness First

Saturday 1230pm Ab Blast @ Walworth Road Fitness First

Finally, for those interested in learning about my nutrition for the next few months, here are some details on my manipulated paleolithic diet. I say manipulated, because a strict palaeolithic diet contains no dairy whatsoever, and no grains either. This is not practical with the intense workload I put my body under, so I do eat light cottage cheese and natural yogurt (for dairy), and stick to wholegrain pasta and rye bread (to increase my carbohydrate intake). The main things to take out of the concept are avoiding unnecessary additives in processed food; avoiding alcohol until my PDM in October; and eating at specific times during the day to ensure my body is fueled and ready for action!

6:30am – 1 cup wholegrain oats (cooked with water), 1 scoop of protein powder, 1 handful of berries (strawberries, raspberries or blueberries).

8:30am – 2 slices of rye toast, with avocado or light cottage cheese.

10:30am – 1 banana.

11:30am – protein shake.

12:30pm – 200g of chicken breast or tuna, with sweet potato or brown rice or wholegrain pasta, and green veges (e.g. broccoli).

4:30pm – 2 slices of rye bread, with natural peanut butter.

7:00pm – 300g of chicken breast or lean red meat steak or salmon, with green veges or salad.

9:00pm – ½ cup of natural yogurt, with a handful of berries.

10:00pm – protein shake.

Throughout the day, I drink 3L of water, no variations on this, this is important.

On top of this diet, I also currently supplement with multi vitamins and b vitamins for general health, fish oils and gingko biloba for mental alertness to combat the effects of operating on a low carb diet, and glucosamine for looking after my joints.

If you are interested in learning more about the pros and cons of the paleolithic diet, there is an excellent website www.paleodiet.com with links to every possible aspect of the diet. You may want to take the next month off work if you want to read all the detail! A tremendously informative page.

I feel like it’s been a bit me me me this month, which of course is NOT the essence of GROUP fitness! I’d like to provide some education for participants through this blog, and in the process maybe denounce a few group fitness myths. So stay tuned next month and I will start by providing some research on one of the most common questions I get from female participants – “Will RPM make my thighs bigger?” Until then…

Kia kaha, be strong.