Prepare for life’s adventures. Training for the challenges of a lifetime…

JOES GARAGE from Anthony Gordon @ on Vimeo.

We put people on top of the world, we stand  gloves raised in the champions corner, we get to break the tape as we cross the line, we get to hold trophies high on raised shoulders.
Our people have eyes that sparkle with achievement from behind  snow fogged goggles, they get to see the sunrise in far flung places. They spit blood and smile. They get to challenge themselves against themselves or against others or against the elements…
They run, they climb, they swim,  they lift, they fight, they play in teams, whatever their sport, they perform at their best, no more, no less……. they are alive because they have heart!!
Our people our champions! Our people are you…!
 
Transcription of video
Stephen Bock, Everest summiter: There’s no undertaking in my life again, no adventure, whether it’s a trek, whether it’s a climb, I’ll enlist Joe’s services, because he’s absolutely an expert. He makes it a priority to be an expert.
Henry Talbot: The catalyst for meeting with Joe was a group of friends and I decided to do Kokoda in ’09. We were looking for someone to give us a bit of advice and training and recommendation and we spoke to a friend of ours who works in the industry, and we said, you know, who do you know who’s the best to give us some sort of specialist advice in training. And they said: “You need to go and talk to this guy Joe Bonington.”
Joe Bonington, Strength & Conditioning Coach: We look, with a clinical eye, at the challenges that a person has set themselves; the goals that a person has set themselves. And we then take that and we apply the sports science to that goal.
Dr. Gareth Andrews, polar explorer: So what we’re doing, essentially, is racing to the North Pole. And there will be elements of the training that I’ve never done before that are essential to our success rate. There will be times of the race where we will be crossing pressure ridges of ice, essentially where the ice sheets come together and throw up these big walls of ice, and we’re going to have to be strong enough to be able to haul our 70, 80 kilo sled over these walls of ice.
There’s going to be a whole range of different skills we’re gonna need, and that’s why it’s so important to have someone like Joe on board to help us with that.
Joe Bonington: In recreational and adventure sport, a lot of people just think doing whatever it is they’re going to be doing is enough. Then, when they get to wherever it is they’re going, they find out the hard way that that’s not necessarily true.
Dr. Gareth Andrews: Joe puts together these sessions that we’d never be able to come up with ourselves. Essentially, he works in these conditioning sessions to our program that work all the energy systems in the body.
So, one minute you’ll be running, the next minute you’ll be throwing a weight over your head, and the next minute you’ll be dragging sleds; tires up and down the beach.
Joe Bonington: We have a base-level program at the Garage, which is our strength and conditioning Sweat and Tears program, which is our foundation program. And then with our elite-level people, people doing specific, especially my trekking and my altitude clientele, they then have an extra, different program on top.
Stephen Bock: Joe is a specialist, obviously, in training people for mountaineering, for various sports. Of the Australian climbing team, ultimately all of the Australians achieved the summit and they achieved the summit; I think the big reason why they achieved the summit was that they all follow Joe’s programming.
Joe Bonington: The difference here with Joe’s Garage is that our background and our foundation comes from the science of sports strength and conditioning.
Henry Talbot: Definitely applies to everyone, across the board. Anyone who wants to go on any sort of trek, and the training that Joe does here just fits into that just perfectly.
Joe Bonington: At the moment, we’ve got a girl, Heather. She’s in her 50s. She’s going to Kilimanjaro, so she does my trek fit program. With somebody like her, who’s not used to sport and not used to exercise, there’s a big focus on getting her core strength up and then also getting her reactive speed up. A lot of the accidents that happen on the normal trek, it’s mainly people twisting their ankles.
Stephen Bock: And the thing I really loved about Joe was the complete approach in terms of interest of: Why are you doing this? What’s the motivation? What do we need to be working on mentally?
Henry Talbot: Within Joe’s Garage, there’s a whole range of athletes in here. You’ve got super-fit to the just starting out. And there’s friendly competitiveness, but there’s very little ego. It’s like, you know, just get in here. As long as you smash yourself, give it your best, and it just helps you get better in those things you’re naturally weak at. Whatever you’re looking for, really, in terms of is it going to be able to run 10K fast or is it being able to bench 100Kg;whatever it may be, then there will be something for you.
Stephen Bock: For me it was very much about: “I’m in your hands.” You know, this is something that’s not a negotiation in my life. This is something I have to do and I want to maximize my chances of being successful. And he just gave us a blueprint, and that blueprint didn’t just include training. It was a completely holistic look into your life, look into what was required whether it was dietary training, whether it was sports psychology.
Joe Bonington: When we’re training people in endurance sports, we tend to use the 80-20 rule. So, spend 80 percent of the time doing what you’re doing and then you need to spend 20 percent of the time dedicated to strength and conditioning. If you’re trekking, you need to do some core conditioning as well, you know. We need to exercise the legs, make sure that we’re in balance, we need to work on our flexibility, we need to work on our core conditioning. And if we do that, we keep everybody injury-free, well, fit, get them churning over the kilometers, they’re going to have that the whole of the their lifetime.
Stephen Bock: My attitude in life is, if you’re going to go and do something, do it right, do it well, and maximize your chances of being successful. So, whether that’s someone trekking for two weeks in Kokoda or whether it’s climbing Mt. Everest, do it right. Enlist the services of a professional that can point you in the right direction that can get your body to where it needs to be.
Joe’s put the most successful team ever of Australians onto the summit and they all follow his program ruthlessly; religiously.
So, ultimately, from my point of view, that says something.
 
 
 
 
 
 

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