Gym Jones at the OLF Training Centre
Last weekend we had the team behind the Gym Jones Gym run their First Degree Instructor Certification at the OLF Training Centre here in London. Mark Twight the founder of Gym Jones and his right-hand man Rob Macdonald were in the building. This was the first seminar that the guys had done outside of the States and the first FDI outside of their Salt Lake City base.
The guys were brought over by the CJ Swaby and Sabina Skala of CJSFitness. Sabina is an EKI and AEKI from years ago and at the Gym Jones base in Salt Lake twice since December 2008 and has been trained by Rob Macdonald via correspondence since- all in all Sabina’s one fit cookie. When Sabina asked me if we were interested in hosting Gym Jones I couldn’t really say no. I’ve been following their workouts and website since 2007.
I was quite excited about having these guys in the centre. Their whole philosophy and approach is totally hard core, no compromise and no BS. I was looking forward to hearing and seeing them in action. Well it didn’t take long for the guys to get into their stride.
Day 1 Friday 22nd October kicked off with introductions a bit of historical background business and then we were into their philosophies. The guys seemed a little nervous or perhaps just excited and the morning seminar was a little disjointed, to be fair to the guys part of it was probably down to the heap of questions they were inundated with from the get go. By lunch-time however the guys had found their stride and things were kicking along.
Just after noon it was time for the first ‘practical’ (insert training!!). The practical commenced with explanations and practices of the various warm up and movement preparation exercises. These included lots of repetitions of: Wall Squats, Squats, Squat Jumps and Tuck Jumps. After we were all suitably prepared it was time for the Workout component. The workout was ‘ tail pipe’ which was a partnered workout. Tail Pipe is 3 rounds of a 250m row followed by 2x 24kg Kettlebell rack holds. It’s performed by: as one partner holds the other rows, and you hope your mate rows fast! I’d not been on a rower in years and I soon remembered why. This was tough- the thought process behind it is that your body learns to breathe and recover properly in the rack!
After a break for lunch we then went through the remainder of Gym Jones’ philosophies, thoughts and methods. All-in-all a knackering but enjoyable day.
Day 2 Saturday 23rd October. Was about finishing off philosophy and starting to discuss nutrition. It was about working up to a maximal Dead Lift and the performing the Jones Crawl. After an explanation of how to perform the Dead Lift it was then time to put that talk into action and we all started to work up to a 1RM Dead Lift. There were some strong people in the building with some working their way to above 245kg! Leigh Carter had to stop as there wasn’t any more room on the bar due to the width of the Bumper plates.
After everybody had worked up to a single it was time for the Jones Crawl. The Jones Crawl is an exercise pairing from Hell. You perform 3 rounds for time of 10 Dead Lifts at 115% of their body weight plus 25 Box Jumps (men 24 inch box, ladies 18 inch box). To say this was tough is an understatement. The guys were quick to point out that just as the ‘Tail- Pipe’ was a big man’s exercise the Jones Crawl is definitely a little man’s exercise. Regardless it’s not very nice to anybody! The big guys particularly suffered. The lungs and quads were on fire!! We almost had a record broken on the Jones Crawl as well!
The rest of the afternoon was filled with more theory. It was then time for home and bed!!
Day 3 Sunday 24th October. On Sunday we made our way through the rest of Nutrition and then we were on to the workout. Day 3’s workout was working up to a single repetition Turkish Get Up. These were performed with Kettlebells and with Barbells. Rob Macdonald performed Turkish Get Ups with 60kg Sabina and with 69kg Andy McKenzie! After this we performed a TGU (Turkish Get Up) remedial shoulder drill. This comprised of 3 TGU’s on each arm followed by 1min Press Up position plank holds repeated 5 times. When this was completed we moved to 4minute shoulders. This was a 30seconds on: 30seconds off protocol where the on comprised of push press’ and the off was an overhead lockout hold. My shoulders haven’t been the same since!!
The rest of Saturday was spent discussing nutrition; it’s importance and implementation in an effective Strength and Conditioning programme.
Day 4 Monday 25th October. This was the final day. The lecture components consisted of programming, periodisation and session planning. I got a lot of useful info out of this and for me this was the most useful part of the certification. It helped me realise where there continually gaps in my own programming.
The workout on Monday was No Gear Training. After a warm up, which was similar to Friday’s warm up except that we performed Kneeling Jumps instead of Tuck Jumps, we went into 3 x 4 minute rounds of 30 on: 30 off of Burpees, Lunge Jumps and Frog Squats. This was to prove that you don’t need any kit to get a decent workout- effective, I can still feel my quads and butt!
The rest of the day was spent wrapping up programming and putting it all together. Overall it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. I’ve already implemented thoughts and ideas into my own training and my clients have been subjected to the Jones Crawl and variations of it.
I’m looking forward to the Gym Jones team coming back in 2011, I may even sneak a trip to Salt Lake in the mean time!
