Phoenix Pro Fitness head coach Charlotte Ord was recently interviewed by Tim Egerton at Sprint Strong on the topic of speed development and fat loss. Here's the lowdown!..
Charlotte Ord Interview
I recently conducted an interview with Charlotte Ord who is one of Britains leading personal trainers. It is a really interesting read and Charlotte reveals some great information. Enjoy!
Tim: Hi Charlotte. Thanks for taking some time out to do this interview.
Charlotte: No worries!
Tim: I know you were recently named Personal Trainer of the Year at the International Fitness Showcase Awards. It would be great if you could fill us in with a little more information about yourself.
Charlotte: Sure. Um, ok so I’ve always been pretty sporty, um, and played a range of different sports at school; I was on the junior England lacrosse squad and rode horses internationally as well, so I got quite a bit of experience through both of those. I actually rode professionally for a few years before realising that I really wanted to become a personal trainer, but as I was already doing a lot of teaching the transition from one to the other was fairly smooth. I’ve been coaching fitness now for about 5 years and absolutely love it; I’m the director of Phoenix Pro Fitness which is a Surrey (UK) based personal training company, and we’re in the process of moving into our own gym facility at the moment, so that’s super exciting!
Tim: Having been a successful athlete in a number of sports, do you train your clients in much the same way as you trained when competing?
Charlotte: To be honest, no! I think particularly with my lacrosse training because it was within a school structure to start with, there wasn’t that specific a training plan in place; I stayed fit because I was doing so many different types of sport and put my all into all of them, but at the international tournaments a few times I found myself running low on energy and I’m certain that was because neither my training nor nutrition were geared towards the events themselves, it was all a bit haphazard. I encourage my clients to have the same commitment, team spirit and skill practice that I benefitted from, but the actual conditioning elements are way more structured. I don’t want my clients to be in any doubt as to whether they are ready for the task in hand, and that means being vigilant when it comes to preparation.
Tim: You have authored The Beach Babe Workout, a 30-day step by step exercise and nutrition programme for females. With this in mind I would be very interested to hear your thoughts on how (if at all) coaches and trainers should approach programming differently for male and female clients.
Charlotte: Um, to be honest I train my male and female clients in a very similar way. Girls are surprisingly tough so I definitely don’t go lighter on them in terms of body relative loads, technical lifts etc, but I would take into consideration hormonal balances of each and how these may affect performance, and advise how to optimise these both in terms of training, recovery and nutrition. Generally I find lifestyle, like stress levels, sleep patterns, and goals to be more influential factors in my programming than gender.
Tim: As well as being an expert in training for health and aesthetics, you have an interest in strength & conditioning for sports performance. Are there many similarities between your programmes for these different populations?
Charlotte: Um, yes and no. Obviously someone training for an ultra marathon is going to have a fairly different programme to someone who is 5 stone overweight and not exercised for 10 years, but there are similarities in that both programmes will essentially be fat loss programmes (no one wants to carry excess fat), both will cover both bi and unilateral movement patterns and work the body in each plane of motion, and both will incorporate elements of corrective work, core training, resistance work and intervals.
Tim: What would be your five 'go to' exercises for an athlete wanting to develop sprinting speed, and why?
Charlotte: The first one would definitely be the deadlift; it’s a posterior chain exercise which is notoriously weak and extremely relative to the sprint technique, and is a great one for all round strength development. Second, um, I think split squats, all variations of... these can be adjusted through stance width to place emphasis on particular muscle groups so are versatile but my main reason for liking them in terms of speed development is that all running takes place on one leg, and hence we need to train the body to be strong, fast and stable unilaterally. In terms of explosive work I like bounds, skips and hops equally for transferring power into a horizontal plane, so we’ll count them as one! Again these are easy to progress depending on the athlete’s training level and goals. I really rate cleans as an explosive strength exercise, and finally hip flexion, particular psoas exercises, such as supine leg raises, to encourage a quick leg turnover.
Tim: What are some of the biggest mistakes you see being made by coaches and athletes in the gym?
Charlotte: My number one bug bear with coaches is that they don’t actually coach, they count reps. That isn’t helping anyone, I think if someone comes to you to help them achieve a goal you have to give them as much information and guidance as you possibly can to help them get there. They can probably count themselves! Athletes, and non athletes actually, tend to want to lift weights and forget about the core and prehab work. It can be a bit laborious so it’s the first thing they want to skip, which is why I always programme it first.. no core work, no lifting weights! Doing it first also helps to activate the stabilisers necessary to lift well. The other thing I often notice is people compromising form in order to shift more weight. I think if you’re a strongman competitor there may be validity in lifting as heavy as you physically can no matter what, but in terms of transference to sport it’s not relevant if you can’t maintain good form, which is why I train my clients to technical failure only. Needless to say I don’t train too many strongmen competitors!
Tim: Thanks again Charlotte. Could you let the readers know where they can go to find out more about you?
Charlotte: You’re welcome, thanks Tim. My website is www.charlotteord.com and my gym's website is www.phoenixprofitness.com
Wednesday 19 May 2010
Wednesday 12 May 2010
Beach Body Workout
With summer on it's way (yes, even we Brits have seen a flicker of sunlight in the past few weeks!) our clients have started to turn their thoughts towards holidays and swimwear, and their fitness campaigns are being ramped up accordingly. If you are interested in how we help our clients get into bikini body shape for summer, you might like to check out the interview our head coach Charlotte Ord did recently with fitness coach March Kent. Just click the link below...
http://marckent.com/840/charlotte-ord-interview/
http://marckent.com/840/charlotte-ord-interview/
Tuesday 4 May 2010
Guildford based Phoenix Pro Fitness coaches on Sky TV
Below is a short video promo of Phoenix Pro Fitness director Charlotte Ord. With help from her fellow trainers at PPF, she presents a functional training and fat loss show on the Active Channel, Sky 281, helping people from all over Europe learn new techniques to help them get fitter, healthier and happier.
Monday 3 May 2010
Would you like to lose 11cm off your waist in the next 30 days?
Our latest client to finish her 30 day personal training trial at Phoenix Pro dropped a fantastic 11lbs and 11cm off her waist. Needless to say both she and our team are thrilled, but these are results that we are used to achieving thanks to our tried and tested SYSTEM of achieving fat loss, and hence why we are so confident in giving our clients the opportunity to start seeing results before they sign up for membership with us.
Did you know that the acronym for SYSTEM is:
Save
Yourself
Time
Energy &
Money
? Well as far as fat loss is concerned it's essential. Sure you can get some results by eating a bit less and training a bit more, but the likelihood is that without a proper formula, or the willpower of a saint, the motivation will soon dwindle and you'll be back to square one, having wasted time, energy and money.
What makes our team of coaches so successful at achieiving the results our clients are looking for is that we know the recipe required for creating an internal environment in which your body is happy to let go of surplus fat. It's a balance of smart nutrition, intelligent training, and a healthy dose of mindset coaching, and it gives rise to a more athletic, slimmer, happier and more energised you.
Our trial is just £69, a ridiculously low investment for a whole month of expert advice from Charlotte Ord, UK Personal Trainer of the Year 2010, and her team at Phoenix Pro. For more information or to book your trial, contact us today at info@phoenixprofitness.com
But hurry, our schedules are filling up pretty fast!
Did you know that the acronym for SYSTEM is:
Save
Yourself
Time
Energy &
Money
? Well as far as fat loss is concerned it's essential. Sure you can get some results by eating a bit less and training a bit more, but the likelihood is that without a proper formula, or the willpower of a saint, the motivation will soon dwindle and you'll be back to square one, having wasted time, energy and money.
What makes our team of coaches so successful at achieiving the results our clients are looking for is that we know the recipe required for creating an internal environment in which your body is happy to let go of surplus fat. It's a balance of smart nutrition, intelligent training, and a healthy dose of mindset coaching, and it gives rise to a more athletic, slimmer, happier and more energised you.
Our trial is just £69, a ridiculously low investment for a whole month of expert advice from Charlotte Ord, UK Personal Trainer of the Year 2010, and her team at Phoenix Pro. For more information or to book your trial, contact us today at info@phoenixprofitness.com
But hurry, our schedules are filling up pretty fast!
Sunday 2 May 2010
3 easy steps to start combatting unexplained lethargy & fat loss failure
I've been focusing a lot of my personal research on stress and fat loss recently, and how nutrition plays a big part in combatting both 'unexplained' tiredness and plateaus in fat loss, even when exercise regimes and calorie intake seem conducive to success.
Following a live & dry blood analysis with rugby, boxing and strongman strength and conditioning guru Phil Richards last weekend, I am now even more convinced that both our feelings of well being and body transformation success are enormously influenced by 2 things. Our diet and our stress levels.
To put it simply, we are only as healthy as the liquid we float in, and if our blood is congested, tired, & sticky, the likelihood is that's how we'll feel too. At a basic level, it comes down to blood acidity; the more acidic, processed foods we consume, the higher the acidity level of our blood & the worse we feel. This goes for water too. Many of us still drink tap water by the gallon thinking that it is good for us, but it's actually riddled with hundreds of chemicals (350 in the UK), rust & sediment from pipes, and a number of nitrates that are washed off fields, including herbicides and pesticides. Yum.
It was interesting to hear a coach like Phil, who has worked with some of the biggest, strongest men in the sporting world, reiterate over and over again how important a positive mental attitude and the ability to talk about problems rather than bottling them is for both health and fat loss. People who have a tendency to harbour intense emotions are proven to experience more bowel problems, and those who suffer from anxiety, pessimism and other repeatedly negative states of mind are at twice the risk of disease. This ties in convincingly with the fact that high and maintained levels of cortisol (caused by a variety of different stressors) results in impaired metabolism, insulin resistance (potentially leading to what is known as Syndrome X, or Metabolic Syndrome), and consequently, more fat, particularly around the abdominal region. I will be going into more detail about the relationship between cortisol, testosterone and insulin resistance in the next few days, but today I just want to give you 3 quick tips on how you can immediately start feeling brighter and more alert.
So,
1) drink bottled water only. Remember you are only as healthy as the liquid you swim in. So keep it really clean.
2) Take alkalising salts or bicarbonate of soda every day to help reduce your blood acidity levels and promote healthy red and white blood cell production.
3) Get as much sleep as possible. It sounds obvious if you're constantly feeling below par, but it's more than just a simple case of shut eye. A lot of people get into the habit of staying up late, getting up early, and generally depriving themselves of the sleep our bodies really require in order to function optimally. The problem with getting too little sleep (ie. less than 8 hours a night) is that sleep deprivation results in elevated cortisol levels, which in turn contributes significantly to insulin resistance. Studies have shown that people who sleep less than 6.5 hours per night secrete a whopping 50% more insulin yet are 40% less sensitive to the effects of insulin compared to normal sleepers..bad, bad news for both fat loss and health at large.
I will be in touch in the next few days with more easy tips on how you can start lowering your cortisol levels, improve your blood composition for good health, and take the handbrake off your fat loss without changing your exercise programme.
Until then, stay Strong,
Charlotte
www.phoenixprofitness.com
Following a live & dry blood analysis with rugby, boxing and strongman strength and conditioning guru Phil Richards last weekend, I am now even more convinced that both our feelings of well being and body transformation success are enormously influenced by 2 things. Our diet and our stress levels.
To put it simply, we are only as healthy as the liquid we float in, and if our blood is congested, tired, & sticky, the likelihood is that's how we'll feel too. At a basic level, it comes down to blood acidity; the more acidic, processed foods we consume, the higher the acidity level of our blood & the worse we feel. This goes for water too. Many of us still drink tap water by the gallon thinking that it is good for us, but it's actually riddled with hundreds of chemicals (350 in the UK), rust & sediment from pipes, and a number of nitrates that are washed off fields, including herbicides and pesticides. Yum.
It was interesting to hear a coach like Phil, who has worked with some of the biggest, strongest men in the sporting world, reiterate over and over again how important a positive mental attitude and the ability to talk about problems rather than bottling them is for both health and fat loss. People who have a tendency to harbour intense emotions are proven to experience more bowel problems, and those who suffer from anxiety, pessimism and other repeatedly negative states of mind are at twice the risk of disease. This ties in convincingly with the fact that high and maintained levels of cortisol (caused by a variety of different stressors) results in impaired metabolism, insulin resistance (potentially leading to what is known as Syndrome X, or Metabolic Syndrome), and consequently, more fat, particularly around the abdominal region. I will be going into more detail about the relationship between cortisol, testosterone and insulin resistance in the next few days, but today I just want to give you 3 quick tips on how you can immediately start feeling brighter and more alert.
So,
1) drink bottled water only. Remember you are only as healthy as the liquid you swim in. So keep it really clean.
2) Take alkalising salts or bicarbonate of soda every day to help reduce your blood acidity levels and promote healthy red and white blood cell production.
3) Get as much sleep as possible. It sounds obvious if you're constantly feeling below par, but it's more than just a simple case of shut eye. A lot of people get into the habit of staying up late, getting up early, and generally depriving themselves of the sleep our bodies really require in order to function optimally. The problem with getting too little sleep (ie. less than 8 hours a night) is that sleep deprivation results in elevated cortisol levels, which in turn contributes significantly to insulin resistance. Studies have shown that people who sleep less than 6.5 hours per night secrete a whopping 50% more insulin yet are 40% less sensitive to the effects of insulin compared to normal sleepers..bad, bad news for both fat loss and health at large.
I will be in touch in the next few days with more easy tips on how you can start lowering your cortisol levels, improve your blood composition for good health, and take the handbrake off your fat loss without changing your exercise programme.
Until then, stay Strong,
Charlotte
www.phoenixprofitness.com
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