Training after Achilles Surgery

7 weeks ago, today, (as I write this, anyway) I ruptured my achilles tendon in the first event of my first ever Strongman contest. I had almost finished walking the 320kg yoke the required 15 meters when ***BANG!!!*** My lower leg instantly went numb and my foot went dead and floppy!

Less than 24 hours later the amazing team at Melbourne's Alfred Hospital were stitching the tendon back together. It hadnt torn off the bone - somehow it snapped in the middle! The surgeon made a point of visiting to tell me the 2 ends of the tendon were over 6cm apart when he went in. He had to keep slicing up my leg to find the top end! Somehow my pathetic little calves generated some real pulling force!

Everybody I spoke with - including my less-than-conservative friends - told me the same story: an achilles rupture is a LONG recovery! I was told to think 12-18 months! This was not like my bicep tear mostly because you don't need to jump up and down on your biceps.

I was to be on crutches for 12 weeks before rehab began. The first 6 weeks would be in a cast. Then I'd move to a moon boot for 6 more weeks. Then I'd walk off crutches. I joked at the time that walking was the same as squatting 3 plates so in 12 weeks I was going to squat 3 plates. I was joking... but I wasn't. The video below shows I managed to prove walking is indeed like squatting 3 plates and I got there 6 weeks early!


Squatting - 6 weeks post Achilles Reattachment Surgery from Damon Hayhow on Vimeo.

Once the injury was done, there was nothing to do but get on with life. So the day I was released from hospital I got home, cooked up my food and was immediately back on my regular diet. The next day I was in the gym.

In terms of training, all exercises that involved standing were obviously out. Well, sort of. I discovered I could do barbell presses and curls kneeling and within 2 weeks I was back to 100kg on the kneeling press and 83kg on the kneeling curls! The looks of incredulous disbelief from other trainers were priceless!

I even found leg training was less limited than I expected. I could do single leg curls and extensions with limited compromise. So I hit them hard, twice per week, working up to reps on 124kg on single leg extensions and 56kg on the single leg curl; and that was on the leg in the cast! The only issue was keeping the calf relaxed on the curl.

My weighted chin-ups were unaffected, working up to an additional 60kg hanging off me. But virtually all other back exercises were compromised. I couldnt hold myself in the seat for heavy pulldowns. I couldnt brace with my legs to do any rows or back extension. So it was all light, squeezy rubbish.

When the cast came off a different doctor assessed me and said I COULD walk in the boot... but my leg would have lost the strength to hold me up. I just laughed. Even if I hadn't trained at all for 6 weeks I would still be able to squat over 220kg. For the rest of my life - with or without training - I will forever be much stronger than any average person and most athletes. Thats one of the lifetime benefits of proper strength training!

Because I had been training I was even more confident that my 124kg-extending leg had the strength to hold me up! I just didnt trust I should put 90kg through the slowly healing tendon? I had heard so many stories and warnings about re-rupturing an achilles that on my first attempts to put weight on the foot, I chickened out! I was just too scared. And the foot was still very swollen, bruised and painful.

But a few hours out of the cast and my foot had visibly reduced in redness and swelling. And a few hours after that I was indeed walking around the gym, in the boot with no crutches... carrying 20kg plates even! The very first exercise I did the night the cast came off was cable row. And I was delighted to find I was able to work up to the entire 140kg stack for a strict set of 10 (well, the first few were strict)!

Next day - without the boot - I was very carefully and gingerly walking around home! By walking I mean I could use the straightened left leg like a crutch. I certainly couldn't step off the toes or even get my foot to 90degrees. The ankle was VERY tight and even light stretching felt extremely unpleasant!

The third day after the cast had come off was leg training day. After leg curls I experimented with Stiff Leg Deadlifts. I stayed light, doing 15-rep sets and managed to work slowly up to 150kg at which point my grip exhausted first. I always keep my weight through my heels so I didnt even have to worry about putting weight through the toes or the tendon.

So I decided to try squats. Clearly walking the bar out of the rack was out of the question. So I succumbed to doing squats on the smith machine. I HATE smith squats! They are a terrible exercise that encourage terrible squatting habits. Anybody who says they squat on the smith machine to alleviate pressure on their back or knees is simply admitting they have no idea how to squat properly! Free barbell squats are the only way to squat!

Unfortunately there was no practical or safe way to do a free barbell squat. And on the Smith machine I was able to set up with a very wide stance and a slightly forward foot position that prevented any flexion at the ankle - which would risk the achilles - while keeping my weight entirely in my heels.

One 20kg plate per side was so pathetically light there was nothing I could do to even pretend I was working my legs. How anyone does smith squats with 1 plate is beyond me? Its actually harder to control or feel than having a heavy weight! So I went to 2 plates and it was still too light and easy. But most importantly there was absolutely no stress at all through my left achilles and no sense of wanting to lean into the toes!

So I smiled and went to 3 plates. Despite my fatigued back (from the stiff leg deadlifts), it was genuinely easy and felt light! By this point the gym was about to close so I quickly put 3 1/2 plates on for a few reps and called it a night.


160kg Bent Over Rows, 6 weeks Post Surgery from Damon Hayhow on Vimeo.


Visit www.BiologicLabs.com.au for Body Recompositioning diets, training programs, strength coaching, supplements and hormone balancing. Extreme fat loss and muscle development that Personal Trainers and Fitness gyms cannot achieve.

PRESS RELEASE: Women's Accidental Super-Freakism Conspiracy!!!

Paranoia has gripped women around the world as Accidental Super-Freakism (Accidentilium Superious-Freakazoidus or ASF) reaches epidemic proportions – yet mysteriously, not a single sufferer can be found!

ASF seems to manifest as an allergic reaction to weight training equipment loads in excess of 2 kilos. According to reports, overnight the victims entire structure undergoes horrific mutations such that by morning they resemble a professional male bodybuilder – complete with dark tan, paper thin skin, rippling abdominals and posing oil!

Doctor Richard Head, is baffled.

“I am baffled! These poor women are suffering that which men previously required more than a decade of deliberate, chronic, anabolic drug abuse, intense weight training and long-term extreme dieting.”

“Even more remarkable is that it is most prevalent among the least likely of people. It seems the more thoroughly neglected the body, the higher the chance of infection. Those truly unmotivated, obese women with a lifetime abstinence from exercise combined with poor eating habits are most at risk! It never occurs in elite athletes or bodybuilders that might want it to happen.”

Dr. Head explains that somehow these women’s bodies begin synthesizing new protein at biologically impossible rates resulting in their super-human levels of muscle mass. Simultaneously their entire store of subcutaneous fat is lost. Literally hundreds of thousands of calories of energy are consumed over night, while tens of kilos of protein is somehow constructed out of thin air.

For all of the obvious seriousness of ASF, nobody has ever come forward to be studied. The lack of evidence of ASF has lead intelligent people to argue that the condition is a figment of women’s imagination.

While intelligent people are correct in their assertion that ASF is a biological impossibility, Dr Head believes ASF is actually being covered-up as part of an international conspiracy.

“Knowledge of the condition is very widespread so why are we unable to find a single sufferer? Personal Trainers regularly refer women [to my clinic] in terrible distress about ASF. They usually know of friends or celebrity victims now hiding from the press, such is their shame. Sometimes they themselves claim to have gone to a gym, touched on the 2-kilo mass limit and seen mutations begin. Yet none are able to bring forward a single sufferer. I want to know who is covering this up!?”

More suspiciously, those convinced they have a predisposition to ASF display hostility and disorientation when pushed to explain their experiences.

Dr Head says: “Their reactions are similar to alien abductees or Paranoid Schizophrenics. They are utterly convinced that any form of weight training will cause their body to instantly and uncontrollably mutate into a professional male bodybuilder!? And though their claims make absolutely no sense – biologically or philosophically – as long as my name is Dick Head, I’m going to give these people’s concerns due respect!”.

Government and leading Feminist group representatives have so far refused to comment.

For potential sufferers, Dr Dick Head offers the following advice:

• Walking for 30 minutes, 3 times a week is all the exercise you need
• Treadmills are best: you are more likely to quit exercise sooner
• Steppers can be used if you don’t actually bend your knees; a small ‘wiggle’ at the hips is best
• A glass of wine, every night is essential to maintain your current physical state
• If you must lift weights, do not lift more than 2kg dumbbells in any exercise. Plastic coated dumbbells are best.
• On weight machines do not lift more than 2 plates – remember it is the visible amount of metal and not the actual load on the muscle that causes ASF
• Use the Swiss Ball for everything. The Swiss Ball is proven to be an entirely ineffective form of exercise.

If you have any further questions or information for Dr Head please call the Department of Stupid Services.

Visit www.BiologicLabs.com.au for Body Recompositioning diets, training programs, strength coaching, supplements and hormone balancing. Extreme fat loss and muscle development that Personal Trainers and Fitness gyms cannot achieve.

Why Most PT Clients Want To Fail & How PT's Oblige

After Training clients for just a few years I came to a demoralising realisation: the majority of PT clients WANT to fail!

Subconsciously, the majority of Personal Training clients want validation that they are a victim; that their sub-par body is something unfixable that happened TO them by an unbeatable external force. They NEED to fail in order to say to themselves and the World: "My fatness is no fault of my own and it is not due to my actions. It's my genetics/God/hormones/[your excuse here]. I am powerless to fix it. I have no choice but to continue being lazy and eating rubbish because it makes no difference. I tried. I did everything I could. I even paid a Personal Trainer!"

To diet and train effectively would only prove that their fat, decrepit body was their own fault and that they do have the power to fix it. It would also prove that the reason they got out of shape was because of the diet and lifestyle they really do not want to give up because it's probably a lot more enjoyable to them than disciplined training and dieting.

In all things, people tend to put in the effort concomitant to the success they want and/or expect. And when you plan to fail you certainly won't put forth the effort required for success! So most clients treat their PT as a conscience for hire. They want someone else to blame and take responsibility for their own bad choices; as evidenced by the defiant (or guilty) way they admit to eating knowingly fattening foods. Their PT is the perfect target.

And most PT's disingenuously pander to this 'business opportunity' by pretending to sell motivation. This has never ceased to amaze and disgust me! Motivation is: "the desire or willingness to do something". It is self evident that you cannot buy the desire or willingness to do something you have no desire or willingness to do! It is exactly as ridiculous as thinking you can buy unconditional love or everlasting happiness. And any PT pretending to sell 'motivation' is either incapable of rational thought... or just a lying snake-oil salesman!?

Of course, selling motivation to unmotivated people leads to a horribly demoralising and dissatisfying situation for the PT as well. In a referral based business like PTing, the business you take becomes the business you get. So the more vampiric clients a PT takes, the more vampiric clients they will get. And nobody in any industry wants to wake up everyday to work with unmotivated clients who don't respect or desire their service but want to bleed them dry of their energy. The only people who can withstand that are vampiric parasites themselves. Hmmmm...

The Biologic Labs Difference
I created Biologic Labs with a very different goal: to see if SOME people actually DID want a proper, uncompromising body recomposition service? If nobody wanted it, at least I would have the answer to that question for myself! But I was never going to compromise my product to cater to people who didn't want it (despite the continued, persistent 'recommendations' of short-sighted people who just cannot seem to see past copying what everybody else is doing badly).

At Biologic Labs everything is measured and preplanned and presented up front so there are no surprises. If a prospective client doesn't like the way we do things, thats fine; we don't take their business. If they don't want to work that hard or have to follow the diet we set, thats fine; we don't take their business. If they don't want to give up drinking alcohol, thats fine; we don't take their business. Its really simple - if a person doesn't want the quality product we offer, we don't sell it to them!

Clients who don't want to do what is required to succeed are going to fail regardless! Changing our successful product to sell them the failure they want is not good business! The client who fails is disgruntled even when failure was what they wanted. Even worse, before they are disgruntled they refer their friends who want to fail. So the business becomes a place for failures. That then impacts on staff morale and the quality of work staff do. Staff start to expect failure and so they become good at delivering it.

By staying true to our business we ensure we get to focus on doing good work with committed clients who DO want our product. Success breeds success, as they say. It feeds upon itself, just like failure does. The choice for Trainers and clients is which they really want?



Visit www.BiologicLabs.com.au for Body Recompositioning diets, training programs, strength coaching, supplements and hormone balancing. Extreme fat loss and muscle development that Personal Trainers and Fitness gyms cannot achieve.

Why Recomposer Is Unavailable to End-Users

Introduction

Recomposer is the software I personally designed (with a LOT of help from my partners, David and Tibor) to provide the ultimate body recomposition service. It is a very specialised software tool that gives our specialist staff the analysis tools they need to prescribe the exact nutrition and and training for clients to achieve their goals.

Recomposer was designed to help our staff do a better job more easily, deliver a more professional product to our clients, make training new staff more efficient and effective, protect the IP of our business and meet a plethora of other business needs. It is a business tool!

Why Recomposer Is Not Available to End-Users

Recomposer doesn’t create programs and diets. Its the tool our Recomp staff use to create programs and diets!

The measurements and calculations Recomposer makes depend entirely upon the quality of values fed in by our expert staff. If the skinfold measurements or strength test values are inconsistent or incorrect then every prediction and calculation in the system will be completely useless! 

The results our clients get depends on upon the appropriateness of our prescription to their individual needs, and then on their application of that prescription. We could create our prescriptions on a piece of paper or in a spreadsheet. But for a variety of business reasons, we do it with Recomposer.

Really, the software provides nothing more than a bunch of numbers on a screen! Those numbers - the quantities of foods and the weights and reps to be done in the gym - need to be given context to the intended recipient by the Consultant prescribing them! Thats why we have invested heavily in the best equipment to train our clients on. Good numbers used badly are no different than bad numbers!

So in the same way dentists drills are not suitable for the general public to fix their own teeth, Recomposer is not suitable for the general public to create a training program and diet! It is designed for our experts to efficiently create and measure each clients prescription. It doesn’t decide the prescriptions for us! 

Visit www.BiologicLabs.com.au for Body Recompositioning diets, training programs, strength coaching, supplements and hormone balancing. Extreme fat loss and muscle development that Personal Trainers and Fitness gyms cannot achieve.

The Sickening Truth About Our Health System

Australia has what is formally described as a conservative health system. Its most basic philosophy is that no citizen should employ any intervention that might risk their health. And on the surface of it, this seems perfectly reasonable... until you consider the real meaning.

‘Health’ is defined as “the absence of disease”. Technically and medically, there is no such thing as healthier than disease free! You can look terrible, feel terrible and function terribly, yet still be medically ‘healthy’. If you have no measurable clinical markers out of the established range, you are as healthy as can be!

The literal meanings of other words used in discussing health are equally important. An 'intervention' is simply any deliberate action to improve a situation. A 'risk' is the possibility of something unpleasant or unwelcome happening. 'Disease' is defined by any clinical measurement outside an established range that is based on what the majority of the population measures! (And when you consider that the majority of the population is likely to die of heart disease, cancer or diabetes, it's somewhat baffling that they would be made the yardstick of health)!

With these definitions in mind, now reconsider the meaning of citizens not undertaking interventions that might risk health? The literal translation of this philosophy becomes:

Citizens are not to deliberately do anything to improve their health; particularly if there is any possibility of comparing less favourably with average people (who are likely to die of a major disease).

So despite the best original intentions of our conservative health system, the application has resulted in something scarily different. The institutionalisation of rank mediocrity and predictable, major disease is definitely not what you and I mean when we talk about health! But as far as the health system is concerned, it is. And as far as the health system is concerned:

• Whatever is practiced by the majority becomes the ‘standard’ of normal ‘health’, irrespective of how predictable the negative effect on wellbeing is.
• Anything you do for the purpose of bettering your health is considered an intervention that 'risks' health. But if the same action is completely uninformed, unintentional and unmeasured, then thats OK (it's only an intervention if it's deliberate).
• Anything that benefits physical performance, body composition, energy, mental performance and/or general well-being is irrelevant and unnecessary to health because the simple absence of disease IS health!
• Health practitioners should prevent citizens from taking any deliberate action to affects their health in any way! If a person has a disease, then medication is the treatment.
• The 'healthy' ranges for clinical markers are revised occasionally to better reflect the state of the majority of the population, even when it is well established that the majority of the population are more unwell than before (eg BMI and male estrogen)!
• Regardless of how terrible you look, feel or function, there is no appropriate course of action if your health measures are within the range kept by the rest of the population. If you are particularly upset about this then you might be considered to have a mental health problem for which anti-depressants are the treatment!
• Regardless of how good you look, feel or function, any measure of health that doesn't agree with the typical measures of the majority of the rest of the population is considered a disease.

So when health professionals advise of a course of action for your health, they are often NOT talking about something that will contribute positively to anything you consider desirable or indicative of good health. They are talking about complying with a state of rank mediocrity established by the majority. In many cases, what health professionals advise for your health can significantly reduce what you and I would consider 'health'. Their advice is designed to reduce your wellbeing, body composition and future health to the level of the 'average' person!

So if you ever wondered why the advice provided by health experts was so often so hypocritical or just downright unhealthy, this is why! Virtually all of the advice you hear is tainted by this warped perspective! It pervades everything from the safety and labelling of the foods to the treatments and advice your doctor offers when you are sick.

When you understand the above and listen more literally to what you hear and read (when it comes to health advice and warnings) you will get the real meaning. And if you aspire to anything better than mediocrity for yourself, what you hear will disgust you even more than it intrinsically should anyway!

Visit www.BiologicLabs.com.au for Body Recompositioning diets, training programs, strength coaching, supplements and hormone balancing. Extreme fat loss and muscle development that Personal Trainers and Fitness gyms cannot achieve.

The 'Diet' Word Everybody Hates

It is popular these days to hate the concept of going on a 'diet'. Its slightly ironic given that whatever you eat IS your diet!

The only difference between following a measured diet versus not, is whether you are informed or ignorant. Either way, its a diet. How you feel about the word doesn't change the fact that you cannot avoid doing it. Even not eating is a 'diet'.

The great benefit of being ignorant about your diet is that you can blame bad luck (or genetics; which amounts to the same thing) for your sub-par body and go-nowhere training.

But if you follow a diet thats planned, suddenly you take responsiblity for the resulting body that you present to the World! And for a lot of people, thats an extremely distressing thought! Its much easier to join the mantra of the masses who claim that their fat, diseased bodies happened TO them rather than as a result of their own bad choices!

Ignorance might feel like an escape from the responsibility of your diet. But its not. And just because most planned diets out there are stupid, doesn't mean that planning your diet is stupid! Whether you deliberately follow a stupid diet or unintentionally have a diet thats stupid, either way you have a stupid diet! One way you know what was stupid; the other way you are ignorant AND stupid! But either way you are responsible for your the body (and "lifestyle diseases") that result.

The benefit of following a consistent, planned and measured diet - even if its not a great diet - is that you can make educated, intelligent decisions about how to change it when it doesn't deliver the outcomes you want. It's only if you eat the same things, in the same quantities, everyday, that you remove all other variables and can make a true judgement about the effect of your diet. Then you can adjust it accordingly.

Saying you eat 'healthy' by eating random quantities of random foods at random intervals - sorry, by having 'variety' - doesn't change the fact that when you fail to get the body you want, you have no way of fixing the situation! What should you do differently when you always do something different? You can't do anything! And thats not an opinion or judgement about it; its just a fact.

Plan your diet or don't; either way you are dieting! You cannot escape the word just because you don't like it. And you cannot escape the responsibility of the outcome because you choose to be ignorant!

Visit www.BiologicLabs.com.au for Body Recompositioning diets, training programs, strength coaching, supplements and hormone balancing. Extreme fat loss and muscle development that Personal Trainers and Fitness gyms cannot achieve.

Body Recomposition vs Fitness

Fitness does not mean 'lean, 'energetic', 'strong', 'toned', 'muscular', 'athletic' or any of the other positive terms people mistake it for. Fitness is nothing more than the absence of general physical malaise. To be 'fit' is to be 'suitably able' to function as a human should. It is, by definition, as physically mediocre as a person should be before they are sick or debilitated.

Body Recomposition is the process of becoming lean, muscular, athletic, toned or whatever other term you prefer for a better body! By definition, Body Recomposition is going BEYOND the mediocrity of 'fitness'. It involves MEASURED sports performance exercise and diet to achieve a MEASURED, desirable, athletic figure or physique of whatever extreme you desire. Whether you are talking about a flat tummy or pro bodybuilding, its all body recomposition; not fitness!

Critically, Body Recomposition involves the methodical measuring and planning that is critical to success in any endeavour. In direct contrast to 'fitness' where the objective is to 'destroy the body you hate', body recomposition is creating the body you want, by design!

Who is Body Recomposition For?

Body Recomposition is for any healthy person who wants a good or great body. But it is only for people who are willing to work harder and eat better in order to be better than average and the best they can be.

Fitness is for every sick to average person to maintain a minimum state of mediocrity. Hence, most Fitness training prescriptions are rehabilitation techniques from Physiotherapy. Unless you were born with an amazing body, things like walking on a treadmill, 'functional training', 'core stability', swiss/bosu balls, Pilates etc do not create great bodies. They aren't designed to. They are designed for 'fitness' mediocrity. As the names suggest, they are literally training techniques for normal human function and nothing more!

Measurement

Body Recompositioning focusses solely on the manipulation of bodily fat, weight and muscularity levels as measured by regular body composition testing. All nutritional and exercise interventions are meticulously measured and planned to achieve specific, measured changes in bodyfat and lean, muscle mass.

By contrast, in 'Fitness', if anything is measured then they are things such as heart rate, oxygen uptake, flexibility and other amorphous qualities that have no relevance to bodyfat and composition.

Nutrition

Body Recompositioning nutrition is measured and planned to achieve predefined, measured body goals. It is precise, prescribed, purposeful “sports nutrition” requiring true discipline and leading to significant, positive physical change.

Fitness professionals are not legally allowed to prescribe diets! The extent they can help is to 'recommend' random 'healthy' food choices and malnourishing starvation for indiscriminate 'weight loss'. Curtin University measured their prescriptions as having a 95% failure rate!

Exercise

Body Recompositioning exercise is measured and planned strength training. Again, everything has a purpose to achieve a specific body outcome. Training targets are designed to parallel muscularity goals. And the training is structured to work synergistically with the sports nutrition program for ultimate fat loss and muscularity.

'Fitness' exercise is deliberately low-intensity, low-risk movements designed to achieve and maintain 'normal' physical capability. Concepts like 'functional training' and 'core stability' are meant literally - they are literally training for normal, non-athletic human function without such maladies as 'back pain'! They have nothing to do with looking like a gymnast or making the abdominal muscles become visible!

Conclusion

'Fitness' involves a variety of varied activities and 'healthy' eating to achieve basic health and wellbeing. With 60% of the Australian population deemed 'overweight' and 'unfit', fitness IS a legitimate need in our society. But it shouldnt be mistaken for meaning anything great. Fitness is literally the minimum physical state a person needs to not be mildly debilitated.

Body recompositioning is for anybody who wants to improve their body beyond the mediocrity of being just 'fit'. It involves the disciplined application of measured strength exercise and sports nutrition to achieve extraordinary improvements in the form and function of the human body.

Visit www.BiologicLabs.com.au for Body Recompositioning diets, training programs, strength coaching, supplements and hormone balancing. Extreme fat loss and muscle development that Personal Trainers and Fitness gyms cannot achieve.