Training Secrets of Olympian Dara Torres

Dara Torres has mastered the art of training her own body. But it didnt happen overnight.

Everyone seems amazed by Dara Torres and her olympic journey.

And rightfully so. She is an amazing woman with an amazing story to tell.

Daras daughter looks forward to competing against her mother in the 2020 Olympics.

But before you wonder if there is truth in all the ‘performance enhancing’ headlines, take a moment to ponder this:

what if her training and recovery routine is just that much better than the current system all the other athletes are using?

When I was in Australia I had the opportunity to work at the Australian Institute of Sport (a developmental center for Olympic and developmental athletes). Something I was constantly amazed at was the hours of training the AIS swimmers put in every morning. They would swim for hours and hours, perfecting their technique so they could carve through the water all the more effortlessly.

What I didn’t realize at the time (and what many coaches at high level competition also fail to realize) was the amount of overtraining that was happening. In fact, many swimmers are chronically overtrained.

Dara used to train like that. But not anymore.

Dara is now training 5 times a week in the pool – breaking world records and swimming half as much as her Olympic teammates.

How does she do it?

Swimming records depend on flawless technique in the pool. Once that technique has been learned, is it necessary to put in the same hours? Dara might be living proof that once perfected, training need not be so rigorous and focus can shift to other areas of performance.

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Dara is also an example of an athlete who has taken the initiative and chosen her own training routines. If she keeps bringing home the gold, who is to blame her for finding her own path to excellence?

Thankful to her moms and pops

The Dara Torres genetics, limb lengths and mental toughness all play a role in her natural affinity to gold medals – but lets also note the perfect swimming form her coaches constantly praise her for.

Dara Torres is one tough bitch

Wanna know how tough she is?

Dara Torres gave birth… but made sure she found time to lift weights and swim laps the very same day

Mental and physical gifts aside, perhaps the real reason Dara is getting her great numbers at such an age is the great support network she has built around herself.

Let’s take a closer look:

Dara Torres support team

1. Chris Jackson: Sprint coach
2. Andy O’Brien: Strength and Conditioning coach
3. Steve Sierra and Anne Tierney: Two full-time personal stretchers (these people work together to stretch Dara in ways a single person cannot. Might this be a key secret?)
4. Electro-physiotherapy – not sure of the science on this one, but a lot of the research points towards muscle rehabilitation rather than performance-based outcomes
5. Nanny to help look after her young ones
6. Nutritionist and meal plan program
7. doctor (her boyfriend) to ensure she stays in perfect health

Thankfully Because of the status she is, she receives assistance from sponsors to help pay for this team of (non-olympic funded) experts.

(Spare a thought for the other non-sponsored athletes who must work at Home Depot and live off of the ‘all-you-can-eat-pizza-bar’ to keep their training up with the hope for an olympic dream.)

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However, sponsorship/lack of sponsorship aside:

Daras workout may be a key:

holding weights while on a fitball makes for strong posture in the water

Daras workout believes that machines are built to help people get better at using machines, not swimming.

She often works out without sitting down in a single machine.

Her constantly changing regimen encompasses Swiss balls, medicine balls, bands and resistance cables in innovative and functional methods.

The compound workout she is driven through is designed to teach her muscles to be stronger together – not stronger apart. The finely tuned neuromuscular network she constantly builds upon means her body works together in all the right places.

Daras recovery may be even more important:

Dara receives daily attention from a couple of experts that stretch and massage her in innovative and brutally painful ways. The result? A body that regenerates quickly and moves smoothly come next workout.

Her workouts make sure the same muscles get worked out differently each time. Her massage/stretch team make sure her muscles get the maximal recovery. Her reduced swim load means she gets to practice her technique but not reach a point where she is overtraining. Which is where the majority of professional athletes are right now.

If you are a high level athlete, chances are you are overtrained right now

If you want to be doing whatever it is you do at an older age, here are some tips for you:

Secrets to help make you a ‘Dara Torres’ at whatever you want to be best at:

1. Get a massage on a regular basis. If you build up the waste in your muscles, you have to be able to remove the waste from your muscles. Simple equation, huh.
2. Stop eating food that you know is not good for you. You are what you eat. That means your joints are made of that crappy fast food you choked down last week. Crappy fast-food joints don’t last that long (in case you didn’t know).
3. Try things outside of your regular team protocol. If you want different results than everyone else, do things differently. Try relaxation. Try yoga. Try acupuncture. Try sleeping at a decent hour every night. If you look at the habits of the greats in any sport, they do the things that others don’t.
4. Be a stickler for form. Good form means relaxed muscles, smooth joints and reduced injuries. It also means better performances now and tomorrow. Daras coaches know she has her form down pat. She ought to, given the years of practice she has had. But she didn’t get it without focus and conscientious effort.
5. Make your next gym visit a functional training session. Your body will realize connections it never realized it had before. You will feel muscles that were previously dormant. You will curse me for giving you the idea for this workout but thank me later when your performance improves dramatically.
6. Stretch. Focus on loosening the tight muscles first – think about what tighten as you sit. Your chest, lats and hip flexors are a great place to start.

If you haven’t been doing any of this, then start tomorrow. It is never too late for good health.

Last word of wisdom for everyone out there, athlete and non-athlete:

If you are working hard, you should be recovering even harder.

Triathlete or Track & Field athlete, money-maker or mother of four – if you are putting in the effort, make sure you give yourself the opportunity to recover.

This will give you the best chance to keep you on your game and keep doing the things you love with less burnout, doing it better, and doing it at a high level for many years to come.

Live in Denver?  Go to WWW.FITNESSBYATLAS.COM to get a free pass to one of our classes

Jamie Atlas

https://jamieatlas.wordpress.com

Quines mas macho?   Dara Torres es Michael Phelps?  Click here to read a post comparing the two

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Do YOU want to be a Personal Trainer? What you Need to Know pt 2

To continue pt 1 of this post, let’s jump in with what happens in the life cycle before people even think of becoming part of your clan of clientele:

The WiiFit is just one of your competitors in the Personal Training/Fitness market

Things a person tries/considers before they even think about getting a personal trainer:

• buy an infomercial product
• try an exercise/nutritional program that a friend did
• pick up a fitness/health book or two from the local store
• do some research on the internet
• ask some friends what do
• ask a personal trainer at a party (one of my favorites is talking about nutrition over dessert and wine!)
• start attending group gatherings that focus on nutrition or exercise
• work out with a friend
• sign up for a membership at a local gym
• go jogging/walking with a couple of friends

You may not yet realize it, but your potential future co-workers are not making your quest to change the above pre-conceptions any easier. Think for a moment about a picture of a personal trainer.

French guy... drinking Wine? No way!

What images ran through your head when thinking about Personal Trainers? What you see as a personal trainer might be very different than what others see.

You are a stereotype until you prove otherwise

Thats you, Mister or Miss Personal Trainer.

Think of the standard assumptions people make about this occupation.

Ever seen ‘Celebrity Fit Club’? Bravo’s TV Show ‘Workout’? ‘Worlds Biggest Loser’?

Those are just a few of the stereotypes you will have to overcome.

The potential negatives of using a Personal Trainer:

• The greatest financial investment for no guaranteed results
• Might mean pain such that I cannot walk tomorrow
• Chance of public embarrassment with everyone staring
• Admitting that we cannot do this without professional help
• The last option – if this doesn’t work, chances are nothing will

The negative perception of the personal trainer by the public:

• the pretty boy/girl of the gym
• boisterous
• self-centered
• as loud and and brash as they want to be
• the person that you curse the next day when your entire body breaks down into rigor mortise
• able to bring regular people to vomit/tears/tears as they vomit
• during a session is more occupied with the other pretty boys/girls in the gym than their client

And so having reviewed those odds, it would seem it is a miracle that the person is willing to be seen talking with a Personal Trainer at all!!!

If the person is able to overcome their fear and reservations of all of the above, then then are at last ready to tentatively step up to the plate. But your battle to make someone feel comfortable and accepted under your expert tutelage is far from over.

Probably not the guy who coined the phrase 'Hugs not drugs'

The fear of the unknown

There is a good chance that your client is afraid of what people will think of them working with a trainer.

They are afraid that other people/co-workers will stare. Judge. Sneer. Doing a session with a personal trainer is the same as placing a large neon sign on their head that says ‘look at me! I am the dummy that doesn’t know how to workout like the rest of you guys.”

The timeless crossroad

As a personal trainer, you might not even realize the amazing amount of power you wield.

Having read this, You now understand the journey this person took to get to you.

You now have an idea of the courage they had to swallow and the cash they had to dish out to spend time with you and your expertise.

A good trainer has the potential to achieve the following:

• Change someones attitude to fitness
• Change someones attitude to life
• Change the way their family/co-workers/new people they meet see them
• Change the direction in such a way that even after they stop training with you they may continue on a path that could lead to amazing hikes, game winning shots and a self-respect and lust for life that might not have previously been possible.

You can have all of the blame and a small piece of the glory. Sometimes your client wont even see the change in their life that you create. But know that when they meet you, their life is at a crossroads. You have a change to create immediate and longlasting change that could change the lives of people you will never meet simply by them being an inspiration to others.

You can be a Superhero

You can make the world a better, healthier place. One person at a time.

In fact, you might be able to stop someone from going down a path that could lead to them dying ten years earlier from a lifestyle related disease.

You could gift someone ten quality years of life.

You could save someones life.

What could be more important than that?

So, having read pt 1 and pt 2 of becoming a Personal Trainer, if you still are keen to get started as a trainer, then go get certified.

But only if you are ready for that responsibility. Only if you understand the power to change that your client will place delicately and squarely on your shoulders.

Above all, only become a trainer if you are willing to treat every client with reverence and gratitude. For although you didn’t see it, they came a long way to get to you.

Be the trainer that respects them.

Be the trainer that shows them how.

Be the trainer that changes them forever.

Jamie Atlas

PS I run Personal Trainer development courses periodically. If you are interested in being part of the next course, click here to view my contact details and ask me more

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Do YOU want to be a Personal Trainer? What you Need to Know pt 1

Being a personal trainer carries much responsibility. More than most realize.

I get a few blog responses from people who have recently become trainers or are about to become trainers.

If you don't look like you just stepped out a fake tanning booth after not eating for 3 weeks, don't worry. You don't need to look like this to become a personal trainer. In fact, it can be intimidating to others if you do.

If you are considering becoming a trainer, know that it is NOT anything like you see on TV. It can be a thankless and frustrating occupation. Or it can be the best thing you have ever done. The choice will be up to you. But in the name of having full disclosure, allow me to talk you out of this supposed ‘occupation’.

Reasons NOT to become a Personal Trainer:

You won’t get a full workout in ever again. People will want to talk to you in the middle of sets.

They will ask you questions and blab on about their new Ipod playlist while you nervously eye the clock, wishing you could go back to the days of anonymity when people had no idea who you were.

Then, after a 10 hour day of having clients, the last thing you will want is to work out at the same place you train.

You will work from 5-9 – not 9-5. Erratically At 5am you will have clients, at 7 and 8pm you will have people that want to train. Why? Because the people that want to train with you also have jobs so they can afford to train with you.

Your clients will have important jobs then they probably start early and/or work late. So they need you to fit their schedule. You will have busy days and quiet days. You will also have big gaps in the middle of your day that will leave you unsure of what to do or how to fill them before your next client (possibly if they don’t no-show) arrives.

It’s hard work

75% of trainers quit after 3 months because they do not make enough to pay their own bills.

To be a Personal Trainer is to always be ‘on’, always be helping people, to be a walking advertisement that is dedicated to helping others achieve more out of their workouts – and their life. To not be afraid to ask people to shell out thousands of dollars for the honor of training with you.

Most Trainers cannot handle the fact that people do not automatically line up to be trained by them. This is a job that requires you to build a customer base. Once built, you have the opportunity to live an amazing life surrounded by amazing clients that will teach you amazing things.

But until then, you better get used to filling cups of water and walking aimlessly through the gym with a permasmile locked on your face.

If you are thinking of becoming a personal trainer, know this:

You have the opportunity to change people’s lives. In ways they never imagined possible.

After his client snapped, Jake the trainer used everything at hand to defend himself.

I’m not saying that your clients will one day sit around the campfire and sing songs of your body-transforming workouts. But fame or no fame, being a personal trainer is one of the most important jobs you will ever have.

Still feel the desire to help others in a way that no other occupation can?

So if that didn’t scare you off, congratulations, and what is wrong with you, you sick puppy!?

If you are still interested and know the sacrifices involved, here are some more real (but slightly more positive) things you need to know before becoming a Personal Trainer.

Sometimes you are the last chance a person has before they give up on being healthy altogether.

The Doctor is ‘out’

The doctor wont help them get to optimal health (not trying to rip on doctors, just saying that they don’t learn how to be superhealthy, they learn how to stop you from being unhealthy. There IS a difference).

With friends like these… Who needs enemies?

Sometimes our friends help us. Sometimes they drag us down. Sometimes they don’t know what they are talking about and recommend you to do the MegaCleanse 7000 because they heard about it watching the E channel and it totally worked for some random celebrity. They might be right. But they haven’t been trained to give honest, tough love advice. Nor should they. Thats the job of someone who cares enough to tell the truth about the problem but also have the knowledge to provide the answer.

Think personal training is all about carrying a fancy clipboard and shouting at people for ‘just one more’?

Think again.

The client sees their Personal Trainer as all of the following:

• a confidant
• a listening ear
• a person to remind the client of what is really important
• the voice in their head next time they want a donut
• the person that keeps them accountable
• the reason they show up
• the one who will help change their world
• the boss of the workout

Knowing that you have many hats to wear on top of being able to count to 12 and give high fives, you should also know that people have tried almost everything else before they decided to spend big money on you.

See pt 2 of this article to see why people are scared to death of personal trainers and the hurdles you must overcome to win their trust.

Jamie Atlas

htp://jamieatlas.wordpress.com

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Fitness and Health Propaganda: The ‘Sit and Reach’ Test is a Useless Measure of your Flexibility.

Your ‘sit and reach’ test results have nothing to do with your functional flexibility

Heres why:

In gyms across the world right now someone is sitting in a small room with a measuring device between their heels – straining, grunting and reaching with both hands for an ethereal point just beyond their toes.

The participant will try to hold that point for 2-3 seconds then exhale and lean back, looking up hopefully at the personal trainer conducting their initial fitness assessment.

The trainer will jot down the number, look back at the hopeful face of the client and smile awkwardly, saying “not bad… something to work on for later”.

You will then likely be given a ‘ranking’ to let you know how poor/well you did.

But what was the test supposed to measure?

Was the test supposed to measure how well you can bend over to pick something up? So why did they test you from a sitting position and not standing?

Do I think a sitting flexibility test is a good measure of functional flexibility? Not in a million years.

Real World Hamstring Flexibility in Action

We use our hamstrings standing up, not sitting down.

If a test is designed to help measure increases in function, the test should be based in function.

Muscles react to control the tilting of the body as you bend over

When we lean our bodies forward to smell a flower/tie our shoes/pick up laundry, the muscles in the lower back and legs (in fact most of the muscles on the back half of our body) receive a signal.

The signal that is sent through the body as you lean forward goes something like this:

“Hey all you back-half-muscles!!! Something just happened and this body is tilting forward at an accelerating pace! If we don’t switch on and all work together to pull, we are going to end up landing our pretty face right into that rose bush/concrete/pile of smelly undies!”

WHEN LENGTHENING THE HAMSTRINGS, WHICH VERSION DO YOU USE MORE OFTEN – SITTING OR STANDING?

Sitting:

1. At gym, doing non-functional movement because trainer tells you to
2. in bed, reach forward to pull off socks

Standing:

1. reach over to pick up kids/toys/diapers/kids in diapers holding toys
2. pick up keys off of coffee table
3. field ground ball
4. completing a volleyball dig
5. bend over to tie shoes
6. swing club in golf
7. lean forward for a backhand shot in tennis
8. tilt our body forward FOR ANY REASON from a vertical position.

Does it make sense to you that a more FUNCTIONAL test would be to measure your flexibility from a standing position?

So print this off and give it to your trainer/local gym rat and say “what do you think of that? That guys crazy, right?” then give them a second to look it over, then a few more seconds to watch their wheels start to turn as they realize that they have been testing for something completely different than they thought they were.

Let me know what they say…

Just don’t tell them where I live – I am still catching heat for my ‘never run on a treadmill again‘ post a couple of months ago that upset more than a few tread-lovers out there.

Bottom line: Don’t blame the trainer. Don’t blame the fitness club. They are only doing what has been passed down to them from the previous generation of sports scientists.

Know that this test is a great measure of your ability to do this test – not necessarily of the flexibility you need in the real world.

Just wanted you to know that 🙂

Jamie Atlas

https://jamieatlas.wordpress.com

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Weight Loss Paradox: Your Bathroom Scale Must be Destroyed

You may need to gain weight in order to lose more fat.

Let me explain a bit more clearly.

My clients that are focused on losing body fat sometimes hit a brick wall. When that happens, I usually get asked to give my opinion. Usually I receive a request for my expert opinion and thoughts in the following manner:

“Hey! My scale hasn’t budged in the past 8 weeks? Whats up with that? Call yourself a personal trainer?”

In fact sometimes the client even weighs MORE (and then they are really freaking out)!!! This usually brings a big smile to my face. But not because they are moving backwards in their health. I smile because (given lifestyle and nutrition factors are on the mark) a gain in weight means my client is progressing even faster towards their goal. This inevitably creates confusion.

It is at this point I quickly ask the first key question:

“Your weight has not changed?”

The response can vary, but usually goes along the following lines:

“No, my weight has not changed. And I have been doing your stupid workouts and eating according to your stupid nutrition plan and my stupid scale says I am the same stupid weight! Dhhharrrrggghhh!”

At which point I ask the second key question:

“Have you lost any size in your pants/dress/waistline?”

The answer (if they are being honest with me and themselves) is “yes”. It is at this point my client begins to realize what has happened to their body is not a direct correlation to their weight.

Your scale has been lying to you the whole time.

Here is a deeper explanation:

At the start of any exercise program you will have an initial period where you gain muscle and lose body fat. It is scientifically proven that if you take pretty much anybody and make them do something when before there were doing nothing, they will change their composition and lose body fat and gain muscle.

Any trainer worth his/her salt can take someone and create change in the first 8 weeks. Past then is when the body starts to stabilize and things need to change. After this initial ‘honeymoon period’ the trainer must then adjust the program accordingly. The person will likely start to gain more muscle and lose less fat (comparatively and generally speaking).

After 8 weeks your body starts to gain more muscle but is not losing fat as fast.

This means that you will see your scale start to level out. But fear not, faithful exerciser. Your body is still changing, just not in the same way it was initially.

For the next 8 weeks your body can experience an increase in muscle without shedding a pound or gaining any size.

What does this mean? If you are a trainer it means you get lots of clients who have seen one too many late night infomercials and believe that weight loss is an easy process in which you just keep doing the same thing and your body keeps losing poundage until you look like Brangelina (well, I meanBrad or Angelina.. maybe not a combination.. that really would be unnatural!!).

Your body burns more fuel sitting around if it has more muscle

So throw away your scales! No longer must you stand in the bathroom on an early sunday morning cursing at the weight scale that confounds you so.

The goal pants know all

If you want to lose weight, you probably want this because you want to look better in your clothes/fit into smaller clothes. So pick out a pair of pants/a belt, and mark where it is now or how they feel now.

Then hide them for two weeks. Then put them on again. Smaller? A bit less snug? Give yourself a pat on the back and sneer heartily at the evil white square with the wavering needle that once held so much power, now reduced to an incidental measurement with minimal validity to your true goals (as opposed to its previous position of determining your reason for being).

This is your thigh on drugs… well, actually it is one thigh with more muscle, another that has less muscle and more fat – notice how they are relatively the same size?

If you were to weigh these two thighs, the muscular one would weigh more than the other more flabby one – which might make you think that the more muscular one was less healthy – if you were looking purely at what the scale says, that is…

Your weight is less important than how you fit into your clothes. You cannot know what lies below the skin – you can know that if you weigh more and your clothes are looser – you have more muscle, and less fat.

If you have not been losing weight but are feeling stronger and healthier than ever, then keep going! Know that as long as you are continuing to eat healthier and move with more vigor, that you are on the right track, and that though your weight may stay steady, you will be fitting into those goal pants in no time.

Have you seen changes in your body due to your workout plan that your weight does not reflect?

Jamie Atlas

https://jamieatlas.wordpress.com

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