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
No comments:
Post a Comment