Explanation

An explanation is difficult when what you do is so much different from the cultural norm. It’s like trying to come up with an explanation to why you just seen ducks playing chess. Here we will explain what it is we do in the practical sense...somewhat.

Foundational Fitness

Foundational fitness is exactly as it sounds, the foundation for all else. When most athletes or anyone else trains they often do so too specifically right from the beginning and ignore their foundations. This may provide an explanation as to why some athletes constantly sustain injuries and cannot balance out their weak points.

There is so much hype in the sports science and fitness communities now about training specifically. What are neglected are the foundational, broad aspects of fitness.

What we do is not random, it has structure but is evolving on a daily basis, not a decade by decade basis. Having said that, we make use of the rawest, most simplified training methodologies used in the most productive ways.

We are expert at building the strongest possible foundations for each aspect of fitness. What we do applies across the board, from marathon runner to sprinter, shot-putter to gymnast, teenager to grandparent. By conditioning solid foundations you are ensuring a most advantageous base is created.

Foundational fitness is our specialty and we are good at it. It's not cozy, clean gym work that will lay a solid foundation. It's gruelling, dedicated and progressive training in all fundamental movement patterns and energy systems.

The explanation is in the action, not the theory.

Metabolic Conditioning

Everything you do requires the metabolism. You need to metabolise energy in order to perform tasks, whatever they are. Sitting on your butt requires energy, running a marathon requires energy, scratching your nose requires energy and performing a maximum bench press requires the use of energy.

For a muscle to contract it needs to metabolise energy in some form. The energy that it accesses is dependant on the intensity and duration of the activity. If you train for marathons you are conditioned to that activity and would make a lousy sprinter and vice versa. Metabolic conditioning is about being relevant but also being broad enough to cope with a larger scope of demands and adapting to the extremes.

What we do is use various methods to stimulate the metabolism in a wide variety of planned ways. Metabolic conditioning -whether it’s stated or not- is the foremost reason for fitness training on it’s most fundamental level.

Look elsewhere for an explanation or even a mention of metabolic conditioning. You won't find it, which is a shame because it's essential. It doesn't matter how strong a muscle is. It needs to metabolise energy to contract. The more efficiently this is accomplished the more forceful or prolonged the contraction will be. So every aspect of fitness can be somewhat exlained by energy metabolism.

Weight loss is about conditioning the metabolism to not store too much energy. Weight gain is the opposite. Endurance is aimed at utilizing energy efficiently over a long period of time. The goal of power is to quickly access enough creatine to convert to ATP and cause a forceful and rapid muscle contraction.

With the right metabolic stimulus you are also ensuring that hormones are regulated most efficiently as they are required in order to regulate other body functions. To get an explanation of why your body behaves the way it does, look to your hormones, which are affected in turn by energy systems and metabolic conditioning.

So all training accomplishes metabolic conditioning to a degree. The only difference being that we actually consciously focus on metabolic conditioning and manipulate the training to suit this most fundamental purpose.

All-Encompassing Efficiency and Effectiveness

This could turn into a very long topic. In that case it will be covered only briefly.

An explanation of what we do at Personal Evolution is only possible with a brief mention of our purpose to help people achieve a greater level of efficiency and effectiveness in anything and everything they do. Basically to become the superhero version of themselves.

To get an understanding of this concept, imagine a person who is physically lazy and very physically de-conditioned. The explanation is in their eyes, their posture, their entire demeanor. You can just tell. A person conditioned efficiently in all foundations and energy systems has a corresponding opposite manner.

All-encompassing efficiency and effectiveness refers to the overall, broad and functional nature of the training methods we use. They are not traditional gym methods. What we do leaves a mental imprint. We aim at producing psychological and physical results.

Sometimes I take certain skills for granted like they are easy. Something as simple as a squat jump. Then I will coach someone else to do them and they land each time with a thud and a noticeable jarring of the knees.

This concept is a consequence of what we do. Everything is aimed at efficient function, not just pretty looks. The continuous conditioning under the circumstances we provide are designed to sharpen reflexes, increase function of all body systems, increase coordination, condition all aspects of fitness and not just a single one and all-in-all make people as indestructible as possible for as long as possible.

Services

Personal Evolution is not a chain of popular gyms or something that belongs on an infomercial. We offer serious services for those serious about achieving certain results. This also applies to our weekly workouts and challenges posted on this site.

Although the workout section mostly shows broad, all-inclusive and non-specific fitness training, we do also offer training for highly specified purposes. However, everything is still coached from a stand-point of being foundational.

The following is a brief explanation of our services…

• Correspondence Coaching: This is not online personal training. It’s not set up as one of those sites that create generic programmes that you could figure out on your own with a little research.

  There is a comprehensive and scrutinised assessment process that is evaluated by a coach. Every week the coach calculates volume, intensity, nutritional requirements and everything else mathematically.

  Not everyone is accepted as a client in our correspondence programmes as we cannot always meet the needs of each person without face to face contact. For those we accept, there is always profound results due to the pin-point week by week analysis of volume, frequency and intensity in addition to the calculated nutritional requirements.

• Training Camps: Our training camps are not fitness conventions or a fancy expo. We offer training for various groups, coaches, athletes etc. Training camps can either be short-term (less than a week), mid-term (one week to three months) and long term (ongoing).

  Each training camp is a project with specific objectives as a whole and for each individual who attends. Training camps are basically a practical experience of our overall approach and methodologies in action. Here you will understand why we do what we do having witnessed the results firsthand.

  An explanation is one thing, understanding needs action and physical immersion.

• Consulting: Personal Evolution offers consulting services with other professionals and athletes to design strength and conditioning programmes, structural development of overall conditioning approach and anything else related to the foundational development of athletes and other individuals.

• Seminars and Courses: Personal Evolution runs seminars and courses for the general public and for professionals in the sport, fitness and coaching fields.

  Seminars, courses and our training camps and any other special events will be posted on this site.

So what exactly does foundational fitness and metabolic conditioning consist of?

Foundational fitness involves movement patterns and skills that are needed in a wide range of tasks. For example, running is a foundational movement as is squatting. These are foundational in the simplest and most rudimentary level. Just identifying what foundational means goes a long way towards providing an explanation of what Personal Evolution is about.

Foundational fitness involves anything that forms a foundation for something further. It’s no good teaching an Olympic snatch to someone who can’t do a basic squat, that would be backwards. However taken a step further a snatch is a foundational movement for more complex skills.

Foundational fitness refers also to the actual structure of training and fitness aspects that are developed. Specific might be to increase strength in a very specific plane of movement. Foundational provides a basis to work from to increase strength in multiple planes so that when it comes to specifics the outcome is already almost reached before specific training is even started.

The development of foundational fitness allows a person to be prepared for anything, both physical and mental. A person without adequately developed foundations has weak links. In our approach weak links are not tolerated. It simply means we have not done our job or the athlete has not done theirs.

As for metabolic conditioning, this applies to highly developed foundations also. With conditioned energy systems your body becomes more efficient at performing most tasks adequately.

Metabolic conditioning consists of training the body in a way that taxes the energy systems in varying intensities and durations. Peripheral Adaptive Endurance training is a method developed by us that involves high intensity training over a relatively continuous and prolonged period of time. This trains all three energy systems to almost their upper limit.

We make use of intervals with varying rest periods to condition the body to recover at a certain rate. We train for power, we train for endurance, we train for strength and for mid-range anaerobic capacity. All this in combination with foundational aspects such as the development of overall agility, speed, balance etc.

Basically we use fundamental weight lifting, gymnastics, sprinting, fight training, athletic skills, jumping, climbing and many others in carefully structured, endless combinations to achieve certain objectives. We train to become as indestructible as possible. This also applies to the mental, emotional, psychological fitness of people.

As I have mentioned many times and will mention many more times, what we do is not random. Everything we do has purpose. Why do something without a result in mind? It’s pointless. Personal Evolution coaches are experienced and have professionally trained in formal education institutes and worked with athletes and others.

We know what we are doing. This is why it’s not sunshine and lollypops. We are serious about getting results and achieving outcomes with the minimal of fluff and fanciness. We pride ourselves in what we do and how well we do it.

We hope the preceding page provides a bit of an explanation into what we do and why we do it.

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