Jason Crow | Senior Exercise Specialist and founder of Better Body Shop

ONCE THE RUNNING SHOES ARE ON

2010-01-13T02:58:00.001-08:00

You have made the decision to start using up your stored festive fuel, you have bought your new running shoes and you have managed to make a little space in your diary. Well done, so what is next? Here are 4 guidelines that have served my client’s well over the last 20 years.

Fuel. Whether you are getting back into running or looking to lose a little weight make sure good wholegrain complex carbohydrates (pasta, rice and oats) make up at least 50% of each meal. They will enable you to use your stored fat effectively, fuel you for those faster bursts and allow you to keep your protein stores for repairing and regenerating your muscles.

Intensity: To improve your functional fitness and make your body a better performing and more efficient system at least 20% of your training time should be at a high intensity, between 85% and 95% of your maximum training intensity (spinning class, interval training or hill runs). For best use of fat the remainder of your training should be at 70% of your maximum training intensity.

A little thought: Here is the common sense bit. Always warm up before you exercise, make sure that you have eaten through the day and if not chew on a few jelly babies throughout the session, finally if you are exercising outside within 100 metres of a road please where something reflective. All black lycra doesn’t look as cool when perched on someone’s car bonnet.

The end in sight: Set a goal no matter how small, give it a time frame and then reinforce it by telling others about it.

Now get yourself exercising, stay safe and have fun. Jason Crow

SEVENOAKS GOLFER PETER APPLEYARD MAKES THE OPEN

2010-01-13T02:55:00.000-08:00

Less than a year ago, Sevenoaks’ top professional golfer Peter Appleyard was selling shoes and teaching the game at Wildernesse. Last month, his dreams came true when he hit the headlines after qualifying to play in the biggest golf tournament in the world, The Open Championship. He even briefly led the tournament. How was this possible? Peter’s sporting life as a golfer changed beyond recognition, he says, the day he first met Jason Crow, who worked closely with Peter to improve his game and his strength as a golfer. The results proved dramatic. Here, writing exclusively for Vine, the two Sevenoaks men give their own inside story of a remarkable sporting success.

Peter says:

A generous member from Wildernesse, Mark Roy, approached me one day and talked to me about his company, the REaD Group, with a view to sponsoring my efforts at playing full-time, which has always been my dream. This was a fantastic opportunity that just had to be taken. But there was a problem: my fitness. Four years of long days, shop work, teaching and a little practise now and then didn’t leave much time for eating correctly and convenience food meant a few extra pounds had sneaked on. My strength and endurance levels had severely diminished, with silly little niggles restricting my performance. At the end of 2006, I first met Jason Crow.

We worked during that winter whenever possible and things started improving straight away. Weight had to be lost and power had to be improved, so Jason took me on as the Better Body Shop’s sponsored athlete. The great thing about working with Jason is that his knowledge of what and how the body needs to be trained is extensive. Within the first five minutes of meeting him, I knew we were onto something special – he’s not the average trainer you find at the gym. He set me a programme of general strength work, combined with very essential sport-specific exercises.

Now I don’t feel anywhere near as physically tired after playing. The silly little injuries have diminished. The Open was a great experience and one that will never leave me. I will forever be able to say that I have led The Open, regardless of how the tournament ended for me. Jason and his knowledge sit right up there alongside everyone else as a key part in my development. Without him I would not be where I am today.

Jason says:

When Peter walked through my door and asked me to condition his body to get the consistency and distance that every golfer looks for, I couldn’t wait to apply my grey matter to the task. Peter is a natural athlete, which made my job a lot easier. But it was going to be tough on him because I knew I was going to demand a lot from him. He set high expectations for himself and I wasn’t going to let him down.

Mind you, he wasn’t asking for much: he told me he just wanted to compete with and beat the best golfers in the world. At the Better Body Shop in Sevenoaks, we are proud of our track record and reputation for achieving fat loss. But fewer people know about our successes in physically preparing local sportsmen and women of all ages to excel in their chosen disciplines. Throughout my sports science degree and much of my post graduate study, my passion has been strength and conditioning, working with a wide range of athletes from Olympic fencers to Kent County Cricket fast bowlers.

With Peter, and all golfers, our approach is to emphasise the following steps in golf-specific, strength-and-conditioning training. This includes: Building a solid foundation. We first had to build Peter’s base strength to give his muscles the ability to make the most of the training to come. Teach muscles to communicate. Called proprioception, this is your muscles’ ability via neurons to tell your body where they are, what they are doing and how hard they are working without you even thinking about it.

The better Peter’s proprioception, the more control he had over his body. Golf recruitment initiative. Golf-related strength training enabled Peter’s body to recruit a greater number of muscle fibres critical to a long and consistent golf swing. Taking the brakes off your swing power. Strength training, especially the upper body plyometric work we did with Peter, reduced the inhibitory effect of your Golgi tendon organs, whose job is to suppress muscular force throughout the body.

We felt hugely proud and excited when Peter perfectly moulded all his achievements with us into his own golf training and reached the goal he has set himself. At one point this man was leading the Open and everyone we knew was glued to his every move!

CALIFORNIAN FITNESS GURU RETURNS

2010-01-13T02:50:00.000-08:00

Jason Crow, fitness expert, came back to Britain three years ago to set up his Better Body Shop in Sevenoaks. He left behind the sunshine of California and a glossy client list. Why? In response he said: “There’s more to do here.”

As I suck in my stomach and strain to look less like someone who needs “work”, he explains what he means. “There’s far less awareness of health and fitness issues in the UK than in the US. “The science behind exercise and diet programmes is complex, and without a real understanding, you can do more damage than good.”

If anyone understands the science behind health, it’s Jason, originally from Dartford. He has an Honours degree in Sports Science, and is currently setting out to do a PhD on strength conditioning.

He’s also built like Arnold Schwarzenegger (who, incidentally, trained at Jason’s gym in California). He’s been power-lifting since he was 12; his grandfather, who lifted weights till he was 86, got him started. “My granddad was a real tough guy,” he says, laughing. “He’d been a Colour Sergeant in the Grenadier Guards. He’d do his lifting in the shed, and take the cushions off the living room sofa to protect his chest in case he dropped the weights. “My gran used to be furious. We’d have to go out and check on him from time to time, in case he’d killed himself.”

It would be fair to say that Jason is evangelical about physical health. (Within minutes he has our photographer Paul on the mat, as they discuss something technical to do with knees and running.) He’s passionate about “giving something back.”

“I’ve been working with people in hospital,” he says. “Because that doesn’t involve running around, I’ve been finding that I have to exercise more to keep my weight down. It’s given me an insight into the problems people have when their bodies aren’t in the perfect shape for exercise.”

The Better Body Shop – three packed rooms – are busy with people whose bodies are rather more like mine that Jason’s. “People sometimes plunge into intense exercise,” says Jason. “They’ll sign up to do the London Marathon, and then want to get fit quick. “But bodies aren’t always up to that kind of activity. Cartilage only lasts so long; it’ll break down as you get older, and you can’t do as much. “I try to point out that there are other things you can aim for – five km runs, cycling – that are better for your body.”

Jason works with a lot of youngsters and children. “For example, kids who were born premature are often behind in physical development," he explains. “They get to about six or seven years old and they’re falling behind their peers in school. Part of the problem is that the brain pathways haven’t developed. Working with them to build up their bodies and co-ordination gets them from “far behind” to “in the pack”, which can make all the difference. We had one girl who came reluctantly at first, and had to be constantly encouraged. After a while, we couldn’t stop her.”

Why are so many of us so unfit, despite our best efforts? “People often do fitness training ‘wrong’,” says Jason. “They do little bursts, and then eat rubbish and undo the good work in between.” “After a while they get discouraged and end up going on a crash diet, getting ketonic and burning protein and muscle. For example, carbohydrates store water.” “Stop eating carbs, and you stop storing water, and you lose ‘weight’. “You also get dehydrated, and as soon as you eat normally again, the water and the weight come back.”

This is news to me, I mentally cross several crash diets of my spring list. “Jason gets consulted by people from all over the world,” says trainer Tony Rae (from Beckenham via Texas). “He helps out someone in China by email. He’s awesome, as one client said.” “The Golden Balls of personal fitness,” add Peter Appleyard. The staff – Tony, ex-gymnast Lucy Curtis and Paul Jordan all roar with laughter. “You know, for years I honestly thought my granddad was Tarzan,” says Jason. He convinced me he was Johnny Weissmuller. “He had a handshake that used to bring you to your knees. When he died, we joked that he’d shake hands with St. Peter and have him in tears.” We shake hands as I leave. I’m delighted to report that he’s very gentle with me.