Posted on August 20, 2014 by Jenny Cromack

Hopefully people are aware that on the 20th September 2014 I will be flipping one of our famous motive8 tyre one thousand times for  a charity very close to my heart set up by my family ‘ Take One Moment’.

When I first stood in the farm yard back home looking for tyres that could give our personal training sessions and classes a different ‘fun’ element  I knew that I had to select tyres that numerous people would be able to flip. The first time I tried to flip the big tyre I am using for my challenge I admit I flipped it once and said ‘Right that big boy can be for the strong ones!’ However it is now a lot easier to flip, maybe that is down to the fact it is no longer clogged full of mud?!

When the tyre arrived In the motive8 carpark and I started introducing it into my own training I had no idea I would decide to commit to such an insane challenge, so what training am I doing to help me be prepared?

Like any thing you are training for it is important to plan and prepare. I have been thinking about this challenge for a number of months and was originally aiming for a August date however after a firm word from my mother who didn’t want me covered in bruises for my sisters wedding I have set the tyre flip date for September 20th.

When I originally started talking about doing the flips Chris and I got discussing what training would be involved and we laughed a lot as we named the numerous body parts needed, put it this way its easier to name the parts not needed!

Its important to ensure that my lifting technique is perfect and that even when I become too tired I don’t lose form as this will not only waste my energy but will cause a lot more pain! For me it is vital that my back and legs are up for the challenge. I have always been confident that my legs have been strong from playing a lot of hockey, lacrosse and athletics so I have been doing a lot of squats and box jumps for endurance. The tyre weights 72.5 kg so I have predicted I will be lifting 40kg at a time so I’m currently squatting 40kg x 15 reps at a time to ensure my legs can cope with the burn.

My hands are definitely taking the brunt of the training with hands similar to those found on a building site and I am having to focus on grip strength and wrist strength using resistance bands for high reps. I have just purchased some wrists straps that lock my wrists in place to take away some of the force through them.

If there is one thing I am worried about is my back, the erector spinae muscles run the full length of your back and it is common for these muscles to fatigue easily. I have been working a lot on good mornings and deadlifts for 10 sets of 10 reps and deadlifts for max reps as this will allow the muscles to develop more strength and endurance .

When it comes to the tyre flipping itself the process of training took a lot of trial and error methods as I wanted to develop a training method that I could replicate on the flip day. Although I have been flipping regularly over the last few months it was only the beginning of July when I decided to break it down. One afternoon I started off with the idea of flipping it as many times in 5 minutes this was great until I started seeing my number of flips drop to 47-45-42 Although it was only 8 less I didn’t like the negativity of getting fewer flips each time and I know I have to keep my mind positive on the big day. I then went for 50 as fast as possible but I found my self rushing to complete them as quick as possible. Finally I started to look a bit clearer I have 1000 to do and I need to break it down so I don’t burn out and I feel good about it (well as good as I can) so I found that performing 25 flips at a time was great! By 25 I’m out of breath but not too tired that I can’t recover easily.

So how much time between reps of 25? The answer to this is I don’t know yet. I started off giving myself 45 seconds this allowed me to walk it off, grab a drink and wipe the sweat. I know that I have to be realistic and play it by how my body feels. I also need to take into consideration how much energy I will burn. This weeks training is involving working out how many calories I will burn per flip I’m guessing it will be 3-5 calories per flip for the first 500 and will then increase dramatically as I get tired. Even if it was 2 per flip that would be 2000 calories so I’m going to have to look very carefully at my nutrition but that’s a whole other blog.

Thanks to everyone who has sponsored me so far it will really help keep me motivated to keep flipping. If you would like to support a fantastic charity and give me that extra motivation then please sponsor me my Just Giving page is: www.justgiving.com/Lucyhasflipped/

To read more about the TOM charity follow the link www.tomfoundation.co.uk