Jamie (April 2017)

MANY women steer clear of lifting weights for fear of getting bulging muscles or becoming bulky, all of which, for many reasons, is incredibly difficult to achieve.

I like to think after her second journey through the Amazing 12, my wife, Jamie Abrams, personifies both strength and femininity.

She went into the program in pretty decent shape, which makes it more challenging to create change. She follows a good eating protocol as a vegan of more than 15 years. She doesn’t drink, smoke or consume junk food. In the 12 years I have known her, Jamie hasn’t ever even taken medication. As a yoga teacher of 17 years, she lives the life on and off the mat.

For Jamie, who has had two natural childbirths and is aged 37, this experience wasn’t about getting a shredded six-pack. This was also about adding strength and stability to her already flexible body. Jamie is living proof of how to effectively combine yoga with weight-lifting. As you will read, she more than achieved that.

I can’t offer any details regarding body fat or weight loss. We don’t have a set of scales in the house and never have done. Jamie has always gone by how she feels.

“Physically, I was in good shape. I felt fine about my body,” she said. “I knew I had lost some strength since the last Amazing 12. I wasn’t super-unhappy, physically. I just felt mentally and emotionally challenged in my working stratosphere. I wanted to use the physical training to rebuild myself mentally.”

Jamie had recently gone through some big life changes and wanted to work on herself from the outside in.

“In the yoga world, if you go too far in one direction, like have too much flexibility and no strength, you can get injured. I now have a good balance between strength, mobility and flexibility.

“I’m stronger now than I have ever been. I’m not just hanging out in my ligaments and joints.

“My musculature can support deeper movements and positions because I’ve built strength in my end range of motion.

“In yoga there is a lot of pushing, but no pulling movements. The A12 helped add some balance to my system. I got really strong in the pull, because I can now do chin-ups.”

“I wanted to get a stronger body and create a stronger sense of self,” she explained.

“I’d done the Amazing 12 before and knew it gets results. That’s why I decided to do it again. It’s given me a strong body, for sure. By building a strong foundation, it has helped me to become mentally and emotionally stronger.

“In 2015, I was at a different point in my life, both family and work-wise. I can’t compare the two experiences.”

The two experiences were quite different, however, particularly from a coaching perspective. Working with your partner or spouse isn’t for everyone. There are many personal trainers who simply refuse to. I’ve been warned against it. There’s clearly a dynamic shift that takes place and it’s simply better for some relationships to not take on that test.

In the past I’ll admit I’ve found it challenging coaching my wife. But this time round it was a relative breeze. I can’t pin down why exactly. Maybe it’s because she knew the ropes and just got on with it. But it was certainly a different – and smoother – experience.

That’s not to say Jamie didn’t put in the same kind of effort. She most certainly did. I’m very proud of her effort and devotion to following the program. She worked really hard, attending 95% of the gym sessions, only missing a few days because she had to help teach yoga in Lithuania.

“I learned from this experience that my husband can train me,” she said. “A lot of people can’t train with their spouses. He’s patient, focused and meets the person where they are. I felt safe because I knew the programming was intelligent and Claude wouldn’t give me anything I couldn’t do.

“I knew if you showed up consistently that you would get the gains. For the Amazing 12, having a coach is massively important. I don’t know how to do programming and make strength gains. I’d be shooting in the dark [on my own].”

As I said already, she went into this in pretty good shape. She’d had periods of inactivity following the first Amazing 12, but was training reasonably consistently at Core Results prior to the program.

The gym world is very different to her life on the mat. My wife’s like Roger Federer. She’s consistent and steady. Like the great Swiss tennis master, her expression doesn’t change a great deal, even when things get tough.

You watch Federer play tennis and he’s never gasping for breath. His hair isn’t out of place. There’s often a joke about Jamie when she trains that she keeps a yoga face. She’s also a big Federer admirer. 

There’s a part of Jamie’s personality that doesn’t allow her to go pedal-to-the-metal. It can be a real asset at times. She doesn’t push when it becomes uncomfortable and, on the Amazing 12, that works almost perfectly.

Jamie doesn’t think of herself as especially fit, but I don’t agree: I see her as someone who paces herself well. She didn’t slacken off during any of the sessions. Her prowler test run went from 3 minutes 31 seconds in the first week to 2 minutes 45 by week 11. And, given that the prowler is a piece of equipment she’d been used to working with fairly consistently, making progress was always going to be slightly harder than for someone trying it the first time.

When I first started working out with her (about 10 years ago), she’d get grumpy if I directed her near to the zone of uncomfortability. I saw that face a good few times over the 12 weeks.

Once or twice she’s threatened me with divorce papers and tried dropping kettlebells on my toes (she claims otherwise).

But it was worth it. She looked genuinely pleased with herself when, at week 12, she banged out 33 chin-ups in 15 minutes having not been able to do one at the start. Then, three days later, she got 41!

Strength-wise, she became much stronger than two years ago on her first Amazing 12.

Here are some examples: her working weight for the bench press in 2015 was 33.5kg compared with 45kg this time; on shoulder press she went from 28.5kg in 2015 to 35kg; her deadlift improved from 68.5kg for reps to 77.5kg and back squat from 45kg to 56kg, again for multiple reps.

Even better is that with all those movements, her form was significantly better. Improved technique, greater results. That’s what this type of program, when combined with a nutritious diet, is all about.

Jamie had to eat differently to the others on the program. While the nutrition side of things felt challenging in 2015, Jamie found it pretty plain sailing this time.

“I was switched on, food-wise,” she said. “I felt like I ate cleaner than before. It reinforced the fact that I am a healthy person. I barely had sore muscles. I wasn’t sick at all even though we trained through the winter season. It shows I’m in good health. The program highlights consistency, which is common sense.”

I’ve seen a level of commitment from Jamie that I haven’t seen before. Since completing the program, she’s been training three times each week under my guidance and set up a small, local sprinting group.

To those contemplating doing the Amazing 12, Jamie said: “What are you waiting for? If you want changes then you have to change what you are doing. If you want lasting changes this might be the program for you.

“The Amazing 12 is about changing habits around how you train, eat, how often you train and learning about how to have the energy to get through the day and not feel tired.

“People see the pictures and think it’s purely about aesthetics, but for me it’s primarily a strength and conditioning program.”

Want to achieve results  in strength, fitness and body composition? Feel you can follow a training and dietary program for eight or 12 weeks? Want to learn how to lift properly and safely while under supervision? Want to achieve physical changes you’ve not seen or experienced before? Then send me an email – Claude@intelligentstrength.co.uk – for information on the next Amazing 12 Chichester wave. An eight-week course starts on May 8. The next 12-week wave begins in September.