Turbulence Training Thanksgiving Thank You!

Today is Thanksgiving here in Canada, and so Bally the Dog and I have a day off. Last year he ran away at the park on Thanksgiving, hopefully he doesn’t try that again!

But I wanted to say a big “Thank You” to you for reading my emails, watching my youtube videos, and commenting on my blog posts.

I really appreciate you and your support. It sure is a lot of fun helping you eat better and exercise smarter so that you get more results.

These days, there’s probably nothing I like more than to hear a new Turbulence Training Success Story from people just like you.

Today’s “giving thanks” got me thinking about about all the clients I’ve trained over the years.

If you had only known me and lived in Toronto a few years ago, you could have trained with me up to 3 times per week like dozens of other men and women did.

Imagine this…

You coming in to train with me and me waiting there with a bottle of water and a towel – waiting on you hand and foot!

After that, we’d go into the training room where I put all my clients through a total body warm-up. At first, they thought my bodyweight exercises were crazy, but eventually they started to love my circuits, such as:

– Prisoner Squats
– Off-set Pushups
– Prisoner Lunges
– Spiderman Climbs ===>
– Stability Ball Leg Curls

One of my favorite clients was Amy, a hard-working mom of 2 who loved to run, but also loved my strength training challenges.

Over the 8 months that I worked with her before she moved back to Oregon, Amy used Turbulence Training for Women to max out at 35 pound dumbbell chest presses, 15 decline pushups, and 5 chin-ups.

All this despite the fact she was 5’4″ and 135 pounds. She didn’t back down from any of the challenges I would give her, such as this workout:

1A) Barbell Squat – 8 reps
1B) Chin-up Negatives – 5 reps taking 8 seconds to lower her body

2A) Dumbbell Chest Press – 8 reps
2B) Dumbbell Split Squat – 8 reps per side

3A) Ab Wheel Rollout – 10 reps
3B) 1-Leg Stability Ball Leg Curl – 8 reps per side

The first time she tried that workout we only did one set per exercise, but eventually she built up to doing 3 rounds of each superset.

Because Amy liked to run, she didn’t do intervals with me (she saved that for her running group), but I did put some of my other clients, like Nick (my old landlord) through my favorite workouts.

His strength workout looked a lot like Amy’s, but then we went into interval training on the treadmill (because I was training him over the Canadian winter – if it was summer, we would have went outside).

After 3-5 minutes of warm-up running, we increased his first interval to 6.5mph for 1 minute and then brought it down to a 3.5mph walk for 90 seconds of recovery. That first interval was “warm-up” as well.

Then he did 5 intervals at 7mph for 45-60 seconds interspersed with a 90 second walking recovery at 3.5mph. And then Nick finished up with a cool-down for 3-5 minutes.

The biggest mistake most people make is working too hard during the interval recovery time.

You MUST take it easy and slow it down so that you can recover and work really hard when it counts – during the actual work interval.

Combined with his resistance training, Nick was in and out of that workout in just under 45 minutes.

(NOTE: You can do interval training on any machine, but I prefer a treadmill or a bike if you are going to workout inside. I also like using Kettlebell Swings or Snatches, or even better, getting outside to do intervals.)

As you can tell, there isn’t a lot of time to socialize when you train with me, but after the session me and my clients would often cross the street for a Green Tea (me) and coffee (them) – if I had time before the next client.

Those were good times. Feels great to think back and give thanks for all the great people I’ve trained – in-person and online.

So again, I just wanted to say Thank You to you for your interest in Turbulence Training and for getting results. I love hearing your success stories – and look forward to more of them!

Stay strong and train safe,

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Author, Turbulence Training