Training? Here we go again. 2016 is here already. How much ground do you need to make up? Did you stay on top of your fitness regime throughout the holiday break? When the morning sunshine of early January hits your face Rod Stewart-style and the pressure to face up to a new year sets in, I wonder, what action will you take? Moreover, how will you approach your fitness program? Will you see it … [Read more...]

Some call it “the toughest challenge in sports,” others label it’s “the hardest thing they’ve ever attempted,” to race and finish a marathon is respectable in any language. I can report the successful bids of several Bowes Fitness charges in the recent Sunshine Coast Marathon. Words don’t do justice to the heroic efforts of but four men who braved the hot, hilly and windy Queensland asphalt on … [Read more...]

When I was growing up in the great decade of the 1990s, an unfortunate part of my existence was the perennially low ladder position of my football team, Collingwood. We got a premiership early, in 1990, celebrated for five years, then spent the remainder of the decade entrenched at the foot of the ladder. The top teams during the 90s were West Coast, North Melbourne and Adelaide, who claimed two … [Read more...]

I recently accepted the task of coaching (online) a new charge for the Gold Coast Marathon. He’d seen me present a talk on running training at a workshop and thought I had a clue. So we discussed his goal, age, experience and time commitment and I drew up a program to get him there. After I’d sent the email his response went: “Hey Bowesy, thanks for the program. It looks awesome and super … [Read more...]

Bowes Fitness Pre Session Self Assessment Template FREE download, click here. Anyone who trains (or does anything regularly) knows that on certain days you feel good, bad or indifferent about the workload ahead, and for a variety of reasons. Your legs are killing from the squat set you did on Monday, you have young children and haven’t had a decent sleep since the French and Indian War or you … [Read more...]

Since we all want results and progress from our physical training regimes it’s important to consider our training programming for peak performance. I spoke recently about various approaches to appease the need to peak for a particular event and whether we should use the ‘peaks and troughs’ or ‘stay up and about’ all year strategy. My personal preference is, go down to come up, but it’s entirely … [Read more...]

It’s common for people to start training to get in shape for a particular occasion or event. Often I hear the cries of, “I’ve got to be fit for...whatever).” It’s the same for all levels of sport, so far as I’ve noticed, the big day is when an athlete wants to be at their best and ready to fire. Whatever your big day is, we all agree, we want to be going well when it really matters. Then the … [Read more...]

In these early months, January and February especially, a temperature increase makes for less than ideal training conditions. Depending of course on your perspective, if you like a shirts off, glistening in the sun, training in front of a scenic backdrop à la Patrick Swayze in Road House, then Down Under this time of year really is your packet o’ biscuits. It’s real steamy down here, and hats off … [Read more...]

I spoke last week about starting off your fitness year and the importance of sticking with the program and giving it time to reach a resolution. We all know there’s a number of ways to get ourselves in shape with every athlete having their preferred method. This is great. A good boxing coach once told me, “Whatever works for ya,” as justification of boys choosing different ways to train. In my … [Read more...]

The start to the year has arrived and with it new enthusiasm for another launch into a health and fitness regime. It’s beautiful to see people getting back into routine and facing the training programs usually put on hold over the Christmas period. There’s plenty to get excited about with summer Ocean Swim Series races on all over the place and only a few months until the winter road running … [Read more...]