- Good morning Trainiacs.
Headed out to the pain cavern
for spicy little VO2 max ride,
but out here...
The kind of crap we deal with here in Winnipeg,
everyone says, "Oh, I'd love to come out to Canada.
It looks so beautiful."
No, you don't. Look at this.
I golfed three times last week
and then look like this is a solid foot of snow that we got.
I fear that any efforts I make to ever turn Winnipeg
into a Triathlon Mecca will just go (whistles)
off into the wind with all of our smells.
So with having finished up that eight week FTP Builder Plan
and feeling like I might've plateaued a little bit
what happens is you got to build up FTP
with short 15 to 62nd intervals,
and then you've got to work on increasing your VO2 max
to give yourself more room to continue to build up the FTP.
So you do then longer 2 to 6 minute intervals
for building your VO2 max.
What I'm gonna do is a workout that is just 45 minutes
because I'm a little tight on time today,
where I've got five minutes just spinning,
then five times 10 seconds, high cadence, 50 seconds easy.
Then I will do two minutes on, two minutes off.
And the two minutes on being
somewhere around 5 to 10% above FTP.
After that point, I should be properly smashed.
But later today, I'm going to do a kettlebell workout.
It's been a little over six months
of doing those kettlebell workouts.
I had a run last weekend where it was like,
"Holy smokes. This strength work is really kicking in."
And with us wrapping up filming our 25 hours
of guided kettlebell workouts for our app,
I figured we go through what five things I came up
with that I've noticed that have been
a real significant improvement in my performance
from including those strength training workouts
with the kettlebells.
Two minutes on, two minutes off.
(upbeat music)
(lively music)
Eight minutes times five to 15% over FTP,
I designed the workout and the workout builder
on my laptop to be eight times two minutes at 10% over
but then I got in here and it didn't sync.
So I had to go by actual normal riding, not ERG mode.
I love ERG mode for doing workouts like that
but there's also something to be said
for having to go through the ups and the downs
and having to adjust your shifting
and have those little micro adjustments
because that's what's going to happen in a race.
So I don't stress about everything
always having to be at ERG mode.
So the first thing that I ended up noticing is that,
well after six months now I've actually noticed
it didn't happen very quickly.
But now after about six months,
I would say that my body composition has changed
a little bit.
I have actually noticed that some little bit
of definition is coming back
but my weight is actually still fairly high.
And as I start comparing here,
we'll do like a last summer versus right now photo.
You're still gonna notice that I'm not
like as ripped as I was a couple of years ago
but you're gonna probably see
that shoulders, traps, chest
are a little bit more developed.
When I start putting on pants,
they're fitting at the waist,
but they're tighter in the thighs.
That's what used to happen
when I would lift a bunch of weights,
I tend to put on a ton of muscle in my legs,
like really quickly.
You boys got good getaway sticks.
And there's a big, big thing for triathletes.
Most of us, we are older.
We are adults and we lose a ton of muscle mass
every single year
if we don't do anything about it.
We have to work really hard
to make sure that we maintain that muscle mass.
Why do you want to maintain that muscle mass?
Well, that muscle mass ensures that you are stable,
keeps you less likely to be injured.
Also keeps your metabolism higher
so it's easier for you to stay leaner as you get older.
There's just so many benefits to strength training
and maintaining and building that muscle mass
or at least training to build that muscle mass,
which for most people would probably
just maintain muscle mass
so that we don't get as old as quickly.
The next thing that happened
was I learned so, so super quickly
that you're not gonna see a lot of people online,
me for example, doing heavy, heavy weights.
This is a 54-pound weight.
This is a 36-pound weight.
Back here,
we got the 90-pound big fella.
Yeah, don't be thinking about that
right at the start.
Technique trumps heavyweight in a massive way.
The very first day that I started working out
with kettle bells, I thought, "All right, you know what?
I'm gonna go for a kettlebell certification."
And the kettlebell certification standard
was a hundred snatches over your head within five minutes.
And I had to do the same 48-pound weight
that a 220-pound man would have to do.
Now, here I am.
I haven't lifted any weight kind of triathlete.
I figured, "Well, you know what?
I'm gonna go ahead and grab this here, 45-pound kettlebell
so I can start getting comfortable with it"
What happened?
Day one, I ended up injuring my rib
because I just wasn't comfortable
with how to handle this unstable kettlebell.
One of the stupidest things that I've ever done.
I always tell people in triathlon
don't do too much too soon.
And then I go and do that.
Oh, NTK's here.
Remember when I injured myself with the kettlebell?
- Oh, yes.
- What do you have to say about that?
- A lot of whining happened after that.
- Yeah. That rib injury was so serious
that I couldn't really work out for about two weeks.
I couldn't lift a kettlebell for probably a month.
I was in the hospital getting x-rays even still now.
Yeah. Six months later, I am still feeling little bits
of tightness here because so much gut
knocked it out of place that it was months of physiotherapy.
So what I recommend is that...
NTK what weight did you start with?
- 10 pounds.
- 10 pounder rooney's. - Big 10 pounds.
- I start with the 25-pound kettlebell
after I came back from the injury
and somewhere in and around,
there is a boat where you'd wanna start.
If you're new to kettlebells and a female,
somewhere in that 10-pound to 15-pound range.
If you're new to kettlebells and a male,
somewhere in that 20 to 30-pound range.
And start getting comfortable with just moving this around
and watch a lot of videos on YouTube.
Actually, maybe some of our videos with guidelines
that give you how to actually move with it safely
so that you don't injure rib.
You don't crack your skull.
You don't end up like bruising your arm immensely.
We've got a work-out to do.
So very excited about this work-out?
- You're giving us a bad one.
- Yeah. Wow.
Trainer Craig is giving us a battle.
- We could've picked another one.
You're giving us a battle.
- We're doing one of the harder workouts
from our 25 hours of kettlebell workouts
that are gonna be in our training app.
This is one that we filmed earlier this week and...
- It's a killer.
- Everything all of a sudden got pretty sweaty
and really quiet in that gym.
So we're gonna do that.
I'll be back to you in a sec.
(upbeat music)
(bright music)
- This guy right here,
Trainer Craig, you are a bad, bad man.
You're take?
- The trainiacs are not gonna like that one
or maybe they'll love it.
- What are you talking about? They're endurance athletes.
They'll love it. - You're gonna love it.
Cause it hurts.
- So the third thing that happened is
which is described by a friend of mine.
He said that as soon as he started lifting kettlebells
his sciatic pain went away.
Same thing that happened to me
I've been having back pain since I was about 23
every year or two, my back would go out.
And as soon as I started doing kettlebell swings,
like boom, all of that little bit of slippiness
and the bottom couple of disks were
and feel little bits of pain going down the leg
or like little bits of,
"Oh, if I shift the wrong way,
all of a sudden things are going to go off."
Or standing in a mirror,
I'd feel like I was bent the wrong way.
All that started going away.
That's how we're designing these workouts
that are in the app.
All those stabilizer muscles along the side of the body
they keep everything in the center center.
That's what happened to me.
That's what happened to my buddy, Chris.
I didn't think it was gonna be that simple.
I thought I would still have to do all of my back exercise
and my foundation training, basically
as long as I'm still doing kettlebells
I don't have to do any of that.
Next thing is, here's something I wanna show you
with my pal.
So check this out.
This is what's called a windmill.
Arm overhead,
the butt cheek that is under the side
of where the kettlebell is
just kinda bend that and poke it out towards that wall.
Lean down, look up
to keep the chest open and lean down.
That is what's called a windmill.
What we're working on there
is all of those stabilizer muscles in the center,
but more than anything, it's working on strength mobility.
Strength mobility is something that I noticed went up a lot.
What does strength mobility you might ask?
Well, here's something you don't wanna just be strong
in like a certain range of motion.
You also don't wanna just be strong without being mobile.
If you think about it, if you're able to be strong
at the end of let's say, this is your leg
while it's running and you're able to be more mobile
you're gonna be using less energy
as your leg is going towards the end of the running stride.
And if you're stronger at the ends of those range
it's going to use a lot less energy
to actually get into that running stride.
So what I noticed is I'm not down
till like my super fast five minute per kilometer zone
to kind of pace but I'm easily
at that five 30 per kilometer zone to pace.
And I'm only running about twice a week,
whereas three, four or five months ago,
I was at like five 45 per kilometer
while I was running three, maybe four times a week.
So this is showing that the strength is helping me
be more efficient.
I'm using less energy to go the same speed.
The last thing I definitely didn't do this on the treadmill
but I'm talking about running.
So might as well get on the treadmill for this.
I went from just doing about 13, 14 kilometer,
15 maybe kilometer long runs every weekend
to a couple of weeks ago that friend Chris
he was feeling really good, his sciatic has gone away.
So we want to run long.
And he said, "Hey, do you want to run 20K?"
Well, I went from 14 instantly to 20K
just to be a good pal.
I don't recommend that, but I do have a long history
of running 20K and it not hurting me
but it's been a long time.
What I was really surprised by when that happened
is the 20K took about as much out of my body as the 14K.
My body wasn't beat up structurally.
I still had a really nice up and down posture.
It wasn't leaning like this.
I wasn't shuffling towards the end of that run.
It was just the same.
So my run durability ended up increasing.
And that's the whole idea
behind what you want strength training to do.
It's the whole idea behind how we're designing the app.
You wanna be able to not just have to take all
of your swim bike, run, train
then add strength training on top of it.
You want to be able to take some
of those hours of swim, bike, run down
substitute it for strength training and perform better.
And if you're performing better
while you're maintaining that muscle mass
while giving your body that hormone stimulation
that strength train gives you
while maintaining bone mass
while maintaining and even improving your strength
and your flexibility,
all of a sudden you're gonna be performing better
and you are going to then be living better.
And that's the whole goal.
Not to add on just hours and hours and more hours
of what you have to do over and over and over.
We wanna train you efficiently
and train you in a way that's going to allow you
to enjoy life as well.
Not just be like this one-sided athlete
that all you can do is pump your heart
and breathe heavy for hours and hours on end.
We want you to be able to live better as well.
So trainiacs on the MoTTIV Training app,
hopefully within a few weeks,
we're gonna have those 25 hours of kettlebell
strength training included for it.
They're 30-minute sessions that you just fire up
in the app or online, follow along.
And all you need to do is
hey you can quit your gym membership.
You can get rid of all of the things here
that costs thousands of dollars and just buy one kettlebell.
That's like 60 bucks.
And you're good for the first few months
and then gradually add on more and more kettlebells.
So that's what's up for today trainiacs.
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