Review - myprotein.co.uk

Bit of a review and a plug, but thought it may be of interest.

Recommended by a BMF instructor, I had a look at www.myprotein.co.uk - a sports supplements company trading solely on the internet selling “unbranded” sports supplements in bulk at a snip of the price of other brands. BMF’s pretty tough and with this, combined with Jiu Jitsu, I need all the supplementary help I can get to recover my weary muscles.

In the past I’ve dabbled with sports supplements – mainly protein shakes as a post-workout recovery drink. The main brands I’ve tried until now have been Myoplex, Maximuscle and Protoplex (Holland & Barrett). The first two are typically expensive (around £30 for just under 1kg) and Protoplex about the same cost for slightly more.

Myprotein’s Impact Whey Protein costs about £12.50 for a kg of flavoured powder. The cost alone makes them a winner.

But there’s more. The taste is excellent – so far I’ve tried, Strawberry, Banana and Chocolate and all taste like reasonable milkshakes – not too sweet and a decent flavour. Some of the other brands taste pretty bad, almost “stale”. Then there’s the mixability – shaken up in a blending bottle (also available from the website), the result is a smooth drink – not gritty like some others. A big plus for me is in the ingredients – myprotein are transparent in what their products contain and importantly, contain nothing artificial, especially Aspartame. It seems that you can’t buy anything these days without Aspartame being hidden in it and from what I’ve read it’s not something that I want anywhere near my body. Just google it – nasty stuff…take a look at this for starters.

Take a look around at the rest of the site and there’s plenty of stuff to keep the hardcore bodybuilder happy, but even everyday supplements like multivitamins are cheap here and good quality.

The customer service is excellent – delivery is usually within a couple of days and you can choose what service you wish to use. I’ve phoned their helpline for guidance a couple of times and the call handlers are friendly and knowledgeable about the products.

If you want to give them a low-cost try, most of their products are available as 99p samples, most of which is recoverable on placement of a full order.

If you want to give them a try, enter the code MP135819 when you checkout your first order and get a 5% discount.

Great products, great service – not much more you could ask for.

Hear the drummer get wicked!

I need to open this post with a big “Congratulations” to Roubel who got his Blue Belt at the end of May. Roubel has been training for something like eight or nine years (with some breaks) and in my humble opinion was at Blue belt level a good few years back. It’s always been the lack of opportunity to grade within Rickson’s Association that has meant some pretty long-held belts within our club. Under the Association, gradings are formal affairs and administered by “licensed” Black Belt examiners (of which there are now only a few still in the Association).

But the times have changed.

Rickson’s Association seems to be really only that by name. Rickson is back in Brazil doing his own thing and running his seminars. Many of Rickson’s Black Belts (whilst still loyal in spirit to Rickson) have gone on to do their own things. Association is mainly through loyalty to Rickson’s name and this is the case in our club. Rickson is Dean’s Instructor…that’s a strong enough link for us to be a “Rickson” club, but the loyalty is to him, not necessarily the Association – the two seem to be increasingly separate entities. It’s interesting that even Kron competes under the Humaita banner…

These changes ultimately enabled Dean to speak with his friend, Romolo Barros, one of Rickson’s Black Belts and close friends and seek permission to award a well earned belt. It goes without saying, but Dean is well qualified to understand how a Blue Belt should perform against the standards that Rickson sets and it was this, combined with Romolo’s knowledge of Dean’s Jiu Jitsu that allowed Romolo to sanction the award.

This is great news for Roubel and I’ve confessed to him a degree of envy that it was Dean who gave him his belt. I’ve said it before, Royce is a good name to drop, but ultimately, it is Dean that is our instructor and has guided us through, and I know that Roubel cherishes this accolade. I also feel that I can now wear my belt with some credibility – despite knowing (and having been told) that I’m the worthy holder of a Blue Belt, it always felt strange wearing it knowing that there were guys better than me still wearing white belts – sure, it’s all cosmetic and about opportunity, but nonetheless….

Roubel’s one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet and since he’s been back training regularly his Jiu Jitsu has become just great, aided by his naturally good movement and athleticism. When I roll with him, he reminds me of all that good technique and movement in Jiu Jitsu is…something that’s easy for me to forget. It’s great as I feel that between Roubel’s technique and movement and my size and strength, we can both develop each other’s games.

Training

Training’s going OK at the moment – we’ve been covering probably one main technique per session and really drilling it for the whole session. This is a really great way of learning as you get to fully understand the technique and the movement variations that can occur. If we’d have done this a few years back I think I’d have been impatient to move on to the next technique, but now I really value the depth of understanding that I can gain within each technique. It’s the difference between good and very good Jiu Jitsu. A lot of what we’ve been doing has also really highlighted the use of efficient leverage, which, when combined with sensitivity and movement is really what Jiu Jitsu comes down to. It’s great and adds a whole new dimension, but it’s tough trying to overcome the mind and body’s natural urges to use strength as a substitute. It’s great training.

At the moment, I’m training 2-3 times a week, which is great as I love it, but work seems to be getting in the way a lot lately – a bit of travelling and a few overnight stays. Another problem, (but an infinitely nicer one to have) is that the summer brings with it, more opportunities for family days out…don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a complaint – I wouldn’t have it any other way, just it necessitates the odd missed session here and there.

My back has been playing up a bit again recently too – not sure what’s going on but it’s certainly not as bad at it has been in the past. This has meant that my movement has not been all that I want it to be and when I’m rolling with the likes of Roubel, this is highlighted even further. I think it’s this that has led to a bit of frustration for me in my training recently. I have known and felt a better way of rolling…at times my movement has been good – now it sometimes feels like I’m regressing. I’m hoping that just as past “dips/plateaus” have come and gone, this one will too, but it’s always tough when you’re in the middle of it.

BMF

I’ve been going to BMF for a few weeks now and I’m still really enjoying it. As with Jiu Jitsu, work has been getting in the way of the two sessions a week I’d like to attend but overall it’s going well. Gains? I’m not sure…I think I’m upping the intensity slightly, but haven’t lost any weight as yet (need to fix my diet!!!). In my last entry I told you how I’d plumped for a Blue (novice) bib. Well last Saturday we had a Fitness Test. These are held roughly every two months and consist of a timed 1500m run, max press ups in 2 mins, max sit ups in 2 mins, max burpees in 2 mins and timed 15x 20m shuttle sprints. In doing this you are able to assess where your fitness lies. I set myself the target of getting the minimum scores needed for the Red bib group. I managed this in all but one of the exercises, which I was really chuffed with – to be wearing a red bib, you need to get “red” scores in at least three of the exercises. Sit ups was my worst exercise as I find these really make my back hurt…and I’ve got rubbish abs!

Still, I hit my targets and next time I plan to wear a red bib. Granted, I’ll be at the bottom of that group, but it means that I’ll get worked harder and have something more to aim at. Another good feature with the BMF Fitness Tests is that all your scores are put into a series of graphs in your member’s area of the website. They show your exercise scores overall and then your scores for each exercise against the highest, lowest and average scores for the group. These are great for me as I work well with targets to hit, so now I’ll have scores to beat at the next test.

One thing I am struggling with at BMF and have done with Jiu Jitsu also, is what to eat when. Tuesday is fine as it’s after work so I can plan my eating at work and time it well so I’ve got enough energy but am not full. Saturday morning however is harder as the time between waking and training is short so trying to eat enough but without feeling bloated and getting stitch is a challenge. One week I’ve felt close to being sick, another I just had no energy and lagged at the back of the group all session. It’s just a case of experimenting and finding a formula that works I guess.

Kodo

One last thing that I have to mention is the show that I went to this last weekend. I went to the Royal Festival Hall to see the Kodo Drummers from Japan. Now, the linkage here with Jiu Jitsu is tenuous at best, apart from, maybe a shared Japanese lineage and physical exertion, but I just had to post about this. I’ve always been interested in all things Japanese – I just think it’s a fascinating culture. I first heard of Kodo from a mate of mine who shares an interest and he told me about how he was blown away by them, so I’ve waited about a year for them to come back to the UK.

Before the show, I was lucky enough to attend a talk with Kodo’s Cultural Director who gave a bit of history of the troupe and their work and lives, which was fascinating. Kodo are an ensemble of musicians, dancers and mainly Drummers who live on Sado Island in the North of Japan and their mission is to preserve the traditional Japanese cultural arts. For them this is done mainly through the use of the Taiko - the drums. The drums themselves are amazing – the larger ones hewn from single tree trunks and covered with animal hides.

The show itself was like nothing I’ve ever experienced. Drumming stirs a primal energy in all of us and the power of these drums makes your entire body shake. The skill, composition and timing of the pieces performed was amazing, but what really blew me away was the sheer physical exertion put into each performance. The largest drums are beaten with what can only be described as baseball bats wielded with huge speed and power for pieces that can last over ten minutes. Even some of the smaller drums are beaten fiercely with Rounders bat sized sticks. The deep postures the drummers hold are essential to be able to wield the power needed to strike the drums and these postures alone would challenge even the fittest people – add knocking ten shades of ssss out of huge drums, in perfect rhythm for ten minutes and these feats are not only artistically awesome but also super human feats of endurance! One piece was performed almost exclusively on the largest drum of them all – about 2 ½ times larger than a man with the drummer wearing little more than a fundoshi (loin cloth). This served undoubtedly to keep the drummer cool as by the end of the piece he was dripping with sweat, but it also showed the strain of every sinew in his body as he struck the drum. With the loudest beats you could see his whole body lift the baton into the strike with the kind of audible exhalation that only comes with violent physical exertion. After this piece these drummers then moved onto smaller (but still huge) drums that were played from what I can only describe as a half sit up position. Simply awesome. Holding a half sit up for the duration of the piece whilst laying into a drum skin in perfect artistic timing… awesome is the only word that springs to mind. I couldn’t help but shake my head in disbelief at what I was seeing and hearing. The two standing ovations were well and truly earned.

If you have even the faintest interest in Japan, drums, performance or simply human endurance go and see Kodo if you get the chance. I was blown away.

Take care

Al

Stand by......GO!!!

Earlier this week I went along for my free trial class with British Military Fitness. This was something I’d written about doing in a previous post.

I turned up at their Mote Park venue in Maidstone nice and early and as 7.00 pm approached I noticed a group of healthy people gathering to the side of the leisure centre (ironically, most of the people to’ing and fro’ing the leisure centre looked anything but healthy, many red faced after their “workouts”, lighting a cigarette on their way back to the car!!).

Anyway, disclaimer in hand, I approached one of the instructors – a strong looking guy wearing DPM combat trousers, called “Danny”. All of the BMF instructors are either former or currently serving military – most Physical Training Instructors (PTIs), all with fitness instruction qualifications to their names. Danny gave me an overview of what would happen in the classes and talked me through the three different groups within the class – Blue bibs, Novice, Red bibs, Intermediate, Green bibs, Advanced. Unsure what these fitness standards meant in reality, I plumped for Blue… I didn’t want to overestimate my level of fitness and embarrass myself. Apparently it is for each individual to decide which bib they wear at any given session, which is cool as I guess you could up yourself and really cane it, or drop down if you needed to take it easy. I think the bib system is also good in terms of progress – it gives you goals to aim for, much in the same way as the belt system works in Martial Arts.

We jogged off to an area of the park for the warm up, which I had been warned would be the worst part. It consisted of a series of shuttle runs, gradually increasing in pace, with various exercises in between to warm up the major muscle groups. This was followed by a range of exercises and runs in groups, Greens, obviously running furthest and doing the most reps.

Then the whole group was split into two – one group of Blues with a few lower end Reds, the other group Greens with upper end reds. The session was then a series of short runs interspersed with various forms of abdominal exercises, squats, burpees (the exercise loathed by all who’ve ever done military PTI – we used to call them “bastards” in the RAF), various types of press ups and so on – all done in reps of 10-20, numerous sets so the overall number of reps is quite high. If you follow the PTI’s instructions and keep moving then you are doing something continuously for an hour, but there were a good few in my group that either found it hard to keep up or simply slacked off (which I have trouble understanding given that they’d paid to be there and to get fitter – each to their own). At the end of all this, there was a warm down run and some stretching.

The session lasted an hour and as I’ve said, if you keep moving, it can be an hour of non-stop movement which is good (how many gym sessions of an hour are a full hour of exercise?). The body weight exercises were in quantities enough to be challenging, but I found the aerobic aspect easy – I barely broke a sweat, but this has given me a bit of confidence in my existing level of fitness. I think, given that there was 1 or 2 lower end reds that were ahead of me and that I found some of the later press ups hard (damn you lactic acid!), I’m likely to stick with the Blues for a few weeks until I feel I can give a reasonable account as red – certainly I’d want to be at the head of the group I was in last night to feel that I was ready to move up….much like Jiu Jitsu – unless you’re at the top of the heap against all other white belts then you shouldn’t be thinking about a blue belt (IMO).

I went along to another session yesterday (Saturday) which was with a different instructor and was far harder - after some exercises my legs were like jelly and I found it really tough - great!! (Then I went and trained Jiu Jitsu for three hours straight after!!! - actually it was quite a good antidote.) Apparently there are some fitness tests coming up which should be a good way to guage where I am and also to track progress with future tests (approx every 2 months).

I can’t really think of any downsides with the experience. The instructors are friendly, knowledgeable, approachable and game for a laugh and any images anyone has of a PTI shouting into your ear commanding you to drop face first into the mud and give them infinity should be dismissed. Even in the regular Forces, I never met a PTI that needed to resort to that to get the best out of people – they just have a genuine desire to see people give their best. Do that and you’ll get along fine. The other participants are friendly and encouraging (I’d guess that 70-80% of the membership are women), it was well organised and exercising with other people, in a sociable way, outdoors is simply so much better than the sterile gym, full of posers and slackers. The other advantage is that there are no limits that will create routine, which can be a killer of even the most committed gym-goers. I know, from what Danny told me, and from experience that every session will be different – all you have to do is turn up and do your best with what the PTI gives you to do.

I feel I can make rapid gains with this, so I signed up for unlimited sessions per week - £38 per month where I live (it does vary region by region) which is only 50p more than my gym membership which I intend to cancel. I’ll be able to attend twice a week normally – Tues eve and sat mornings. The other advantage is that if I’m away somewhere with work, there are enough locations around the UK to be able to pitch up and train anywhere now that I’m a member.

Overall, it’s a great sociable, directed workout which I think will motivate me far more than the gym. I also like the format which, if you have the right mindset will encourage you to push yourself further than being alone on a treadmill will. Big thumbs up from me.

Catch you soon.

Al