Winter Camp Day 3: Paul Dyck Kicks Our Collective A$$ets

Paul Demos the single leg back lunge to hop

I'm friends with Paul on Facebook and a fan of his page for his personal training business, Creative Conditioning. Paul likes to publish quotes from his clients; things said to him in the heat of a workout. Such as:

"Hey Paul! Thanks for the best workout ever! Never thought falling asleep at a bomber game could be possible!"


Client: "Paul, Can I go home yet? Im tired and dont care if I get the whole Hour in."
Me: "I have a better idea. How about you go put your big girl panties on and finish off your last 5 minutes of core work!"


"Paul, I hope I croke when you're training me just so I can make you look bad" This was shortly followed by.... " Paul, that was 20, you lying sack of..." 


And 


"Paul, at the last bootcamp I went to I could wear my shirt twice and that was in +35c. Now we are only 15 min and I want to take this shirt off" 


I've been watching these quotes appear, here and there for the better part of the last year, so I should have known better than to think I could show up to a Paul Dyck workout, with a touch of a head cold, and actually plan to not sweat. I was, as the last quote said, soaked within 15 minutes. We all were. 

Except Coach Pat, who we all know is inhuman. 


We started with a dynamic warm up including running, those A's and B's thingies, some organ grinders (or whine makers as I think of them) and other variations on the theme. I used my sniffly status and my self-appointed role of club camp reporter to slack as much as I could *cough cough* Somebody had to take the pictures for the blog, you know. 

Dynamic warm up

After leading us through a few killer gentle stretches we were on to the main event. As a personal trainer, Paul often works with clients who travel and can't bring a lot of fancy equipment with them and aren't always guaranteed a gym at the hotels they stay at.  So our time in purgatory workshop with Paul was designed to give a great workout that could be done anywhere. 

What Triathletes look like at the start of a stair climb workout.

So, of course, we hit the stairs. And we did this:


Run up 3 flights single steps x 3 (with the down portion as recovery)
Run up 3 flight double steps x 3
Right foot lead one step at a time x 3
Left foot lead one step at a time x 3 -- you know, like how small kids climb stairs but lots faster. 
Then two legged hop up three flights x 3

What Triathletes look like at the end of a stair climb workout (Note: Coach Pat never stops moving)

Wow... you think you're a good athlete. You're a triathlete for cripes sake. You're guaranteed to have the most well rounded fitness out there. But you don't know nothing about fitness until you've done a few of these exercises. And that, ladies and gents, was just the warm up.


And why not another short video:

We then went into the timed set from hell which looked like this:

We had about 20 attendees (give or take) tonight. I count 9 finishers on my time list. And the rest were DNF's (including myself). This felt like, as someone who's name I won't mention (Gillian) said, "a s&*t kicking."  The photo of the sheet shows the podium spots. Pat, Jim T. and Cindy. And there were a lot of really fast people way down the list. Which just goes to show you that fast does not always mean most agile or strong or coordinated. In fact, in my experience, most strong individual sports athletes, will tell you how average they performed in their youth at team sports (baseball, hockey, soccer etc.).

Nothing like a good Burpee to help catch Coach "perfect technique" Pat, in a bit of an awkward moment.

A room full of triathletes hurting, A LOT. 

Things slowed down a little after that. We did some core and strength exercises with the rubber bands. And then some warm down stretching and that concluded a very thorough strength and core workout.

Rowing and Planking

Paul Demos the side-row -- "Squeeze those shoulder blades"

And it was nice to meet Paul's "slave-driver" side. By day, Paul is this really sweet, somewhat soft spoken, and definitely polite guy. I'll never look at him the same way again.  


Thanks Paul for what is likely the hardest workout I have done in a very long time.  I truly believe if you want to be the best athlete you can be these are the kind of exercises you need to work into your routine. I'm sold. I have a new respect for the boot camp style workout.  


For further information on any of these workouts or Paul's personal training, check out the Creative Conditioning website here. 


Given that we are all going to wake up unable to walk or lift anything tomorrow (except Pat and Paul), it is probably a good thing it is scheduled as a day off. We are back at it on New Year's Eve (Saturday) with the last winter camp instalment which involves the typical Saturday Brick which all Tribalistic Members have all come to love (starting at 9:00), followed by a pool session and stroke analysis using the club video camera (starting at 11:00 in the Pan Am Training Tank). This session will be lead by Tribalistic members, Head Coach, Pat Peacock and Chris Always-the-first-out-of-the-water Graham.