Category: fitness

I really enjoy training women for a variety of reasons. One, it’s great doing strength training with the so-called “weaker gender” and then watching them get stronger than your average man. There’s kind of a thrill in that. Second, women usually do what I tell them to do since they don’t have all their gym-going buddies giving them competing advice. Although it is sometimes hard to argue against the “get a six pack in a week” segment of the industry.

However, it isn’t all roses and there are a few issues to deal with when training women.

First is the lack of body control usually due to women being hyper-flexible and hyper-mobile. Women aren’t as tight as men so they sometimes have a hard time controlling what their bodies are doing in space. This is a big issue for a personal trainer to deal with because this kind of control is crucial to exercise results but takes time to learn — a big detriment when people expect results NOW. Having any kind of exercise background would help but that isn’t present in many cases. Without it, we have to start from scratch with something that was best learned as a child or teen.

Second is the inability to generate muscle tension. I’ve trained some women that found it practically impossible to generate muscle tension, especially in the upper body. In training for pullups, for example, I would give them assisted pullups in which they still had to squeeze the muscles to get their chin over the bar but the feet were on the floor for assistance. But some of these women seemingly couldn’t generate tension with the upper body to pull themselves up. They didn’t struggle or strain to get above the bar — they either could do the movement or not. Feeling their muscles revealed no tension being used.

Third, despite the popularity of Pilates in women’s fitness, some women really struggle with squeezing/activating the core. This is a combination of one and two above, but becomes a real problem when a trainer specifically address the core and the need to activate it for safety reasons when lifting weights. Again, teaching this takes some time and is necessary to proper progression and once it’s learned, the need to do extra abs work diminishes and the total workout time goes down as the weight lifted goes up. I would have thought that the experience of giving birth might increase the ability to control the core since women have to push in labor. But perhaps more women are opting for C-Sections these days? Splitting the abs muscle does change a woman’s lower abs forever.

Fourth is the quad dominance found in women that leads to the knee collapsing in during squats, etc. (knee valgus for the fitness nerds). Quad dominance leads to a lack of posterior chain strength in the glutes and hamstrings, which in turn leads to the knee bowing in during squats. Combine this problem with hyper-mobility and a trainer can have a real problem on their hands. Men who don’t have glutes usually don’t have knees that bow in because they aren’t hyper-mobile. Men’s natural lack of flexibility leads to other issues but the knee moving in isn’t usually one of them. Again, this is correctable but takes precious workout time to fix and most people didn’t come to have their movements corrected.

Taken separately, none of these issues is insurmountable for a good trainer. But combine some or even all of them together into one person that is looking to fit into a bikini next month or who has some other short-term goal, and even the best trainer has their work cut out for them.

This is a must see video that explains what we’re trying to do at Formosa Fitness and why we had the TSC recently. It should be required viewing for anyone interested in true fitness instead of the mere illusion or appearance of fitness. Far too many people miss the building of character and values that goes into a true fitness program. It’s about loyalty, courage, honor, integrity, and a whole bunch of other words that are meaningless in our modern “smart phone” addicted society.

I wanted a place that built character rather than catered to lazy, pampered people who were barely willing to do the absolute minimum required to get fit. That’s nearly every other gym out there. It’s about something more than physical, it’s a transformation of mind, body, and spirit. That transformation often needs a capstone event — a testing of the will and spirit — that provides a challenge above and beyond the normal in order for the transformation to be complete. Events such as the TSC provide that opportunity for normal people to experience what it’s like to be a champion and to reach new heights as people.

Not everyone is qualified for this but for those willing to step away from the ordinary, the possibility exists in Taiwan to do it.

Here’s a video of what our tactical strength challenge looked like. We had a blast and look forward again to it next year.

the benefits of training for something like this are enormous. So many people lack focus in their fitness. They don’t know what they’re doing, how to do it best, and have no timeline to reach their goals. Training for the tactical strength challenge or a similar competition brings focus to the chaos. It’s held on a certain date so you have to focus your efforts and then ramp them up between now and competition time. The events are set so you know what to train for. Others are also competing so you’ll be able to measure yourself against them. The tactical strength challenge’s three events has one that favors big guys, one that favors smaller but still strong guys, and one that favors endurance. Put these three together and it’s very well balanced and makes a great challenge for anyone.

And fat loss comes into play because your weight is part of the equation. We had two guys in the novice category get exactly the same score, so the lighter guy won! It was that close!

Anyone who is looking for a challenge should try it out next year. See you then!

The first annual Tactical Strength Challenge was a blast! Thanks so much to everyone that came out and competed! We love all of you!

The men’s open winner was Tyler who deadlifted 227kg (500lbs), snatched the 24kg 131 times, and IIRC 19 pullups.Second place went to Mike who challenged Tyler in an exciting snatch showdown with the 24kg! Mike added some humor to the event by casually hanging out on the pullup bar between pullups. 🙂

The winner of the men’s novice division was Alex who did just a great job all-around. We love Alex’s warrior spirit!!

Second place in the novice division went to Ting-wei who did the best looking pullups of the day. His pullups were perfect and he pulled each on to the top of his chest! He tied Alex for first place, getting EXACTLY the same score, but Alex was lighter, putting him in first place. Ting-wei will be hungry for a win next year!

Third place in the men’s division went to Billy, who would have placed first if he had pulled more in the deadlift, which he could have done. This was his first competition and he was too conservative with his lifts, as each one went right up without effort. He could have added 20kg to the last deadlift attempt easily, which would have put him in first place. Go for it next year, Billy!! It was an honor to experience the efforts these guys and gals made today! See you next year!

They’re here! Our Athena Group has arrived!

They all showed up for pics and measurements today. We also got in a small workout because we have time and I couldn’t wait to get started. Here’s what it looked like:

Yes, she did 6 pullups at the end! We’re gonna get her to 12 before this thing is through!

Stay tuned for much more!!