Tonight on The Biggest Loser a new era begins!

Yes, all the Masterclass stuff begins tonight. Learn how to stretch, how to exercise and how to prepare “delicious” healthy meals.
Also, Sharif’s going to visit. It’s unclear whether he’ll be bringing his bellyskinflap. Hopefully he’s got that sorted out by now.

Strap yourselves in, kids, this is one hell of a long episode!

Jarna tells us Masterclass is not only for the public it’s also for the contestants so they can learn the skills they need to continue losing the weight on the outside.

Hayley tells them that this is the day they take a break from the game and focus solely on improving their life. They want the contestants to have the skills necessary when they inevitably leave the house.

Michelle and Shannan rock up and Michelle says this is her favourite time of the week… a hint that maybe this isn’t the first Masterclass after all?

Lisa has a bandage on her leg and Michelle asks her about it. Lisa says it’s from a torn calf muscle but she got a scratch and a bruise from working with the Commando. And she had to have a tetanus shot which was worse!

Michelle says to them all they’ve all got little niggles and strains and shin splints that are quite natural when you’re training as many hours as they do. But they can be relieved or even almost stopped by doing one thing – stretching!
She sees a lot of people go and do training or play sports without stretching beforehand, warming up and cooling down while stretching afterwards, which leads them into more injuries than they would otherwise have.

Shannan grabs David as his “beautiful model” to demonstrate Shannan’s three favourite stretches. Shannan says it’s his incredible athletic prowess and ability that’s brought him up there today!
Shannan tells the Losers that a lot of the impact and work done in training stresses the lower legs. Shannan instructs David on how to stretch out the calf muscle and the ankle. I’m not the best at describing the position so you should watch these for yourselves if you want the best technique… But if you can imagine how you would push an extremely heavy trolley along? It’s sort of that position, hands braced on a chair with one leg crooked in front and one leg thrust out behind. Once you’ve assumed that position you gently push the heel of your foot onto the ground.
Then to do a bit more of a stretch you bend the back knee and crouch a little before moving the heel down to the ground again.

Then Shannan says another reason this is important? For girls that wear high heels all the time! How does Shannan know this? He doesn’t say…
If you wear heels all the time though, your calf muscle tends to shorten, so stretching it out helps a lot.

Second stretch is for your quadricep, which is a muscle that runs along the front of your body from around your hip all the way down to your knee.
Two ways to stretch your quads – first way is the standard holding your foot up behind your body. Stand nice and tall and straight and it’ll stretch out nicely.
“Most miscellaneous knee pain can be treated by loosening the muscles around the knee joint.” Cheers, Shannan. I have knee pain!

Next Shannan asks a question. Who’s had back pain?
Pretty much everyone’s hand goes up. I can’t see anyone without their hand up, nor can Shannan!
Apparently back pain is often actually caused by the muscles connected to your hips. To help with that you need to stretch your quads, your glutes and your hamstrings. But you also need to stretch your back!

David’s now lying down on his back on the floor with his hands out flat either side. He brings his legs up at 90 degrees, then lie them over to the left and let them relax there. It pulls on your back muscles quite a lot, Shannan says.
Take a nice deep breath in, then back out, then move your legs over to the other side.
After that, straighten one leg and roll the other leg over the top and relax it over that way. Once he gets used to that level of intensity he can also use a hand to hold the bent leg over.
David looks like he’s getting quite the workout, just from stretching!

Shannon asks how many times you should repeat each stretch. Michelle says it’s good to repeat the stretches 3 or 4 times, though sometimes she just holds it as long as she can.
Shannan says it’s important to listen to your body – if you stretch it and it’s still tight? Stretch it again! Michelle says ultimately you can’t stretch too much.

Michelle’s first stretch is the hamstring stretch. The hamstring run from right underneath your glute and all the way down to your knee. Tight hamstrings are common because we all spend quite a bit of time sitting down and that can cause issues with both the knees and the back.
First level of stretching, for beginners. Put one foot on a small stool or step and bend the leg you’re standing on. While keeping your back nice and straight, rest your hands on the leg you’re standing on. You’re trying to push your butt out and your chest out.
Second level is simply putting your leg on something higher and continuing as before.

Lisa asks if you start using the second one when the first one just isn’t doing it? Michelle says no, it’s probably better to mix it up and use both once you can. If you’re really tight in the hamstring you’ll struggle getting your foot up high enough anyway.

And because Lisa asked a question, she gets to demonstrate the next one!
Lisa is told to lie down on her back and raise one leg straight up into the air, then grab around the knee and pull the leg towards your body. If you’re especially tight in the hamstring you can use a towel wrapped around your knee to pull.
Shannan also says a common mistake is to pull on your toes when trying to stretch your hamstring – that actually stretches your calf more than your hamstring.

Michelle’s last stretch is… “Glutes! Hahahaha!” She says it while smacking her butt.

It’s another “lie on your back” one. You rest one ankle on the other, crooked, knee, like you would hold your legs for crunches. Then you push the knee outwards, the one not supporting your ankle that is.
Stage two is to slip a hand between your legs and one around the outside of your leg, behind the knee and pull the leg towards you. Stage three, you can grab the front of your knee and pull.
Shannan also says it’s a good one to do with a partner since your partner can do the pushing, gently, while you tell them how much to push and so on.

Michelle says they’re recommending 5-10 minutes of stretching after every training session and two or three times a week a dedicated stretching session.

Shannan then explains some simple stretches you can do even in the office or at school or even in the car. Presumably not while the car is moving.
Michelle says stretching will save you from potential injury, help you recover from existing injuries and make your life so much easier!

And just to reiterate – if you’re thinking of doing some stretches of your own please watch the videos or consult a qualified trainer person or doctor or something. If you injure yourself by following my descriptions I accept no responsibility. :-P

Hayley’s back after that to talk about diets and how the concept of being on a diet has gotten out of control.
Luckily they have Dr Swan to talk about diets today!

The Doctor starts by saying that there’s no amount of exercise that will ever compensate for what you’ve eaten. His second message is that there’s no more diets. It’s about regularising what you eat.
I think the Doctor is inventing words…

Then he asks how many of them have been on a diet. All the contestants stick their hands up. As does Hayley!
40-60% of the Australian public is on a diet at any one time, apparently. That’s a lot!

First “diet” is the high protein diet. Focuses on lean meat.
Second one is the no carbs diet.
Third is a “single food” type, where you eat one type of food and as much as you want of anything else, for example grapefruit!

Jarna’s tried the high protein diet, to the point where she smelled of meat and protein!
Phil’s tried it and he did lose some weight but he got sick of taking laxatives, he was on the can all the time!

Jarna went off the diets because it’s not educating her about the right way to eat and then you end up not wanting to bother with it and the low calorie with supplements diets aren’t really sustainable.
Weren’t The Biggest Loser pimping those last season? Ha!

Dr Swan asks how many of them have taken supplements due to thinking their diet was inadequate? Many had.
Apparently we have the most expensive urine in the world! We take all these supplements and then pee them right back out again!
Apparently antioxidant supplements are actually not good for you. He’s citing some study where people who take them die sooner than people who don’t.

I would quite like to see that study…

He tells us that a “whole food” diet is better for you.
Another table is uncovered with the “Mediterranean Diet”. Apparently the healthiest diet in the world!
Protein from legumes like beans, lentils and so on. Little red meat, mostly fish and chicken instead. “Fat” is olive oil, monounsaturated fat. Lots of vegetables and not really that much fruit.

Apparently fruit juice is not just laden with fructose, it’s got heaps of calories, because it’s lots of pieces of fruit as opposed to eating just one piece of fruit.
But eating isn’t drinking, Doc!

So apparently we need to learn to cook like a Mediterranean.
If you grill a red capsicum, lightly, with some olive oil, it will release more potent antioxidants than you can get from a tablet.

… soooo antioxidants are good for you again already? Okay, I’m starting to deeply mistrust this guy.

The Asian diet is also very healthy, apparently. It’s actually very similar, apparently. Very little red meat, lots of fish, quite a few more carbs but a lot of vegetables and not a lot of fruit, so they’re quite similar.

The Doctor then says the key to it all in the long term is controlling portion size.
How many of them know the standard portion size for pasta? Hayley asks if it’s the size of a fist and indeed it is!
Rick is told he has to go for a small fist, because he has huge fists!

Apparently when you get rice in a restaurant it tends to be more like 4 or 5 serves worth. So you should ask for no rice or to have it in a small bowl so you can control the portion size. And eat slowly!

Wayne asks whether it’s the same advice for people of all ages, because 18-20 year olds eat like horses!
Dr Swan says you don’t want to tell an adolescent girl to go on a weightloss diet, you want to get her into exercise to burn it off.
But it’s still just as important to feed them things that are good for them, so not chips and sweets are a special treat, etc.

A lot of diet books say that you must never be hungry but apparently hungry is normal and when you feel hungry you can feel the fat’s falling off of you. So you can learn that hunger is a good feeling.
Erm, yeah, I’ll stick with shoving food in my gob and do more exercise if it’s all the same to you guys!

Hayley asks if it’s true that if you don’t eat more frequently through the day then your metabolism slows down. Dr Swan says it’s more that you burn more calories by eating more often. People are moving away from that somewhat now though as it’s harder to do portion control and keep track of what you’re eating if you’re doing that.

Dr Swan says most of them, to get to the weight they’ve got, most of their calories have been after dark. That’s the pattern of those who put on too much weight – they don’t eat so much during the day at work or what have you, then are starving when you get home. That’s where the importance of breakfast and snacks come in – you don’t end up starving by the end of the day.

Hayley then asks if it’s fair to say that eating healthy and forgetting the diets is the way to go? Correct! No more dieting!

Janella Purcell is the Masterclass Chef. She asks them what they think of when they think Mediterranean food?
Lots of vegetables, some fish, lots of herbs. Today she’s going to make a salad!
What do they usually think of as a healthy salad option? Chicken caesar salad!

Janella calls Elise up to guess how many calories in the salad. After going through various ingredients the tally comes out to 860 calories, yikes!
Plus lots of fat and other unhealthy bits.
“We don’t need parmesan cheese, we don’t need bacon, we don’t need all that dressing on there… the lettuce is great! There’s 14 calories in there so you can have more of that!”

So instead they’re going to make a chicken & chick pea salad, 360 calories, no saturated fat!

Janella gets Elise to help her with the cooking.

Ingredients:
Lean chicken breast
Cup of mixed lettuce
4 snow peas (14 calories)
half a cup of chick peas (~99 calories)
one cucumber
tomato
onion
lime
parsley

Janella says there’s not a whole lot in it but it’s going to be nice!

Janella asks Rick what sort of salad he’d make normally… and he doesn’t normally eat salad!

Take the stringy bits off the snow peas. Otherwise you get stringy bits in your salad. Duh!

Elise has been chopping the cucumber, then she moves on to the snow peas while Janella chops the tomato as Elise doesn’t like tomato!
They mix all the chopped ingredients in a bowl then add the chick peas.

Next is cooking the chicken. Small spray of oil in the pan or you can grill it if you want. You don’t have to have the chicken if you’re a “vego”, Janella says. Chris asks if you can sub the chick peas for something else and Janella says not really as the chick peas are kinda the whole point!
She says it’s also a good habit to get into since you can then move on to all kinds of other legumes.
Michelle asks him if he asked due to carbohydrate content and he said yes but mostly because of the taste!

Michelle says they are about 25% carbs but they’re good for low GI energy which is great in the morning if you know you’re going to have a big training session in the afternoon, it’ll give you the kick you need.

The chicken then gets added to the salad and tossed through. Michelle says it looks like a pretty big salad, is it a single serving? Janella says yes! 360 total calories, 100 of them from chick peas, almost 200 from the chicken and then it’s really just lettuce and a couple of other little bits.
Squeeze of lime, half of one. Teaspoon of whitewine vinegar, then toss it some more.
Rick says he’d make that, now!

Janella says it’s not weightloss food, it’s healthy food!
Jarna looks kind of bemused. Caitlin looks… well, horrified.

Then Janella gets Elise to try a taste of it and tells us that she’s the fussy girl who wouldn’t eat her mushroom the other day. Definitely not the first Masterclass!

Janella then beckons Rick and says don’t make her come and get him! Rick says good luck and Janella laughs and says it’s true, he’s huge!
Rick comes up and grabs a bit of chicken first but Janella won’t let him leave until he’s tried a chick pea.
He finally tries one with a dubious look on his face but Janella assures him it won’t bite him. He grudingly admits it’s good. Hooray!

Janella says one of the big problems for overweight people and that’s “grazing”. You eat, then your sugar crashes, then you need to eat more.
Phil used to eat cheese and cracker dip things, packed em for lunch every day.
Janella has some crackers and dip. Daina says “yummmmmmmmm!” And Janella says NOT YUM! NOT YUM! YUCKY!
Phil says he’d brush his teeth with it! Eww!

French onion dip and the crackers, full of fatty, refined carbs, full of sodium and trans fats, at least 300 calories on the plate. 100 calories in the crackers, about 200 in the dip!
It’s the sort of food you eat a lot of but you’re still hungry! It’s empty calories though, no fibre in it.

So now they’re going to make a healthy alternative!
Joe’s called up to help this time.

Sweet yoghurt and fruit!
Ingredients:
4 strawberries (take green bits off, cut in half)
half a pear
half a cup of low fat yoghurt (50-70 calories)
little bit of honey
sprinkle of cinnamon
couple of mint leaves

Janella tries to feed half a strawberry to Joe but he won’t let her. She seems quite upset. You can feed me any time, Janella!

They then lay the strawberries around the edge of a plate as you start digesting with your eyes, apparently.
Then the pear is cut in half again, big and chunky bits on the plate.
Grab a spoon and dump the yoghurt right in the middle of it all, then drizzle a little bit of honey over the top – 22 calories in a tea spoon, but she’s only using half a spoon.
A sprinkle of cinnamon (“Smells like donuts!” Joe admits to Janella) and some mint leaves on top.

Less than 150 calories in the whole treat and that’s about what you want the maximum calories of a snack to be.

Joe tries one of the strawberries with some yoghurt and cinnamon on top of it. She likes layers!
Joe says he can really taste the cinnamon which Janella says is a real trick to it, using herbs and spices to add a bit more complexity to it without any calories being added.

Next up is dinner!

The contestants are asked if they’re fans of the Aussie BBQ, which of course they are!
Shannon says on his BBQ plate would be steak, chicken on skewers, big bowl of potato salad his fiance makes – he reckons if Janella tried it, she’d be converted too! Pork spare ribs on the BBQ.

Steak, baked potatoes with sour cream, corn on the cob slathered with butter, coleslaw, garlic bread and good old tomato sauce!
Chris is asked to guess how many calories on the plate and he guesses 1200 calories, which is almost exactly right!

The steak on the plate is 280 grams, 560 calories! Some of them used to eat 1kg of steak at a time. That’d be 2000 calories. That’s a lot!

Now we’re having mediterranean style fish and grilled vegetables instead. 350 calories for the whole meal!

Ingredients:
Capsicum (red, lots of antioxidants)
Eggplant
Zucchini
Asparagus
barramundi
lemon
thyme
olives

Michelle says that this works well at a BBQ because you can just put them right on the BBQ like everyone else’s sausages!

Caitlin goes “Ugh!” at the eggplant. Janella says she’s so tasting it now!

Chris gets to do the “manly BBQ thing” and gets to turn the vegetables over. They don’t want them to go black, just grilled.
Then Janella gets out some… “dukka”? It’s a spice blend. Dried oregano, sesame seeds and a little sea salt. She puts a teaspoon on the BBQ’ing veggies, then another teaspoon later.
Caitlin asks if it would have calories in it and it does, a tablespoon is about 40 calories, but it adds so much flavour to it.

She cuts the asparagus in half to make them cook quicker.

How do you tell when veggies are ready? They start to go a little soft and you can pierce them with a knife, that means they’re nearly ready!

Shannon tries to get Janella to make sure Chris tries the barramundi and Chris has already whispered to Janella that he doesn’t want to, so he’s going to have to!

Because they’re not using any oil in the tin foil to stop the barra sticking to it, Janella puts a couple of lemon slices on the bottom to lift it up. Caitlin asks if that’ll make it really lemony but Janella says she’s actually going to add even more lemon when it’s done to bring the flavour of the fish out.
Janella puts a couple of sprigs of thyme on top of the fish, along with some olives. They’re really good for you but Shannon looks horrified!
Some pepper and lemon on top, then fold the tin foil up nice and neatly so the steam can’t escape, then whack it in the oven at 200 degrees for 10 minutes.
About 7 minutes on the BBQ. But don’t forget that because it’s in a parcel it’ll continue to cook once you take it off or out of the heat. So it’s best to take it out a little early if you’re not quite ready to eat and it’ll finish itself off.

Janella then gets a clove of garlic and says you can’t put it on the veggies while they’re on the BBQ as it’ll burn. She crushes it and stirs it through the veggies, adding some more of the “dukka” stuff to the bowl while stirring it through.
Joe asks if there’s something else you could use and Janella says you could use pretty much anything, there’s all kinds of blends available.

Then she lays them all out on a plate and retrieves the fish from the oven.

And now Chris has to eat some of the fish, sucker!
Capsicum is awesome. No comment on the fish though!
Jenny tries it too but she usually likes fish anyway. She likes the veggies too though!

Keys to a good mediterranean diet are to eat lots of vegetables, cut down on red meat, eat legumes 3-4 times a week, especially once they get home. A little bit of olive oil for cooking, not too much. And plenty of green, leafy vegetables.
Easy food that’s really healthy for you!

Shannan’s got them all back in the weigh-in room for another chat.
Shannan says a common thread in his years on the show has been the way people have put their lives on hold because of their weight. Most of them agree with this.
Shannan says it breaks his heart that they’ve taken themselves out of the game of life. You only get one go at it and if you waste a day, that day is gone! Can’t get it back.
Yeah mate, I’ve had days like that too…

Shannan wants to arm them with the tools they need to get back into the game of life and stop living behind the excuses they think have been making them invisible.

Shannan says one of the biggest transformations on the show happened last year. It was a big guy and he came to Shannan one day in training and said, “Shannan, I want to understand what it means to be tough.” From that day on he’s grown and grown and grown. And a year later he’s one of their best success stories they’ve ever had.
Shannan then introduces Sharif, last year’s 3rd place getter.

Sharif then shyly comes from backstage and… Face looks the same, body looks great! He’s obviously kept it up really well.
He’s in his personal training gear and having a look around the gym while Shannan blathers on a bit.

Sharif says he’s now free to do whatever he wants. That was one of the big things for him, he realised he was truly free. He knows what it’s like to be truly happy, not just pretending to be happy. He knows what it means to do whatever the hell he wants!
He came to the show weighing 178kg a mere 12 months ago.

Then they have a look at what that looked like at that weight.

Sharif still finds it hard to look at. He says to Shannan he thought he’d be over the emotion of it. That man isn’t him anymore. “That person didn’t live. That person lead a life that he thought was a life but it was actually an existence. There’s a difference between existing and living. Living is when you actually get out and do stuff. Living is when you actually have valuable things in life. Where you make a difference not only to yourself, but to other people.”

Elise asks him if it’s hard to let go of the old guy, even with all the progress he’s made. Sharif says that guy’s dead. 12 months ago he was in their spot and he still had doubts in his mind.
Then one day he got broken in training and when you get broken down you’re stripped down to your bare emotions, the raw feelings and thoughts you have about yourself. It was a training session with The Commando and he got to a point where he thought he couldn’t do it. And he cried.
We get a replay of Commando Steve asking him if he believes in himself and Sharif saying no. Commando asks him if he thought Steve would have spent so much time on him if he thought he was a failure? He doesn’t think anyone’s a failure, they just give up on themselves.

Sharif says to them that they need to think about whether they want to be the person who gives up again or the person who continues to strive forward and set new goals.
Sharif says the tipping point for him was when he made it 100 grams past the halfway mark because he was closer to the finish line than the start. Closer to the real him, the new him. Makes it so much easier to leave the old person behind. They’re on this journey to find the real them.

Shannon thought the biggest struggle would be physical, he thought he was fine mentally. What’s the best way to not go back to making the excuses again?

Sharif answers the question with another question: “You’ve got one foot in your old life, one foot in your new life. If what you were doing in that old life was working, why are you here? Did your old life work for you, at all, in any way shape or form. You can’t live your life focusing on the 10% that’s good. You can’t ignore the 90% that’s bad and live for that 10% that’s good. You want 100% that’s good. You want to ditch the bad stuff!”
Sharif asks if the three months you spend away from your family giving you another 20 years with them is worth it? The kids might bitch and moan now, but they won’t when you’ll be there for their 21st, their weddings, their kids having kids, etc.

Shannan and Michelle will give them the world, you’ve got all the tools, plenty of time there to learn what you need to learn. The critical ingredient is your own responsibility, the choices you make.

Sharif’s advice to them all is to not worry about next week, or what anyone else is doing, focus on what you need to do to achieve your goals. Don’t wait for success to come to you, it’s waiting for you to find it!

Sharif heads off once more and now it’s time for a Masterclass Challenge?

“Today, we’re going to get physical!” Many people say they’re time poor and claim it’s hard to find the time to exercise. Too hard to fit even 30 minutes into their schedules.
So they’re pressed for time and need to get the best calorie burning in they can in 10 minutes.

There’s eight training stations set up. Bikes, weights, steps, etc.
Couples will draw a station from a hat and then have 10 minutes to burn as many calories as they can at their station. While exercising they’ll be wearing their Garmin heart rate watches.
After 10 minutes they’ll take a reading and the couple with the most effective workout will win this week’s Masterclass Challenge!

Daina and Caitlin get the punching bag station, Elise and Teneale the steps, Wayne and Geoff get the mat area though Geoff can’t compete personally, he’ll only get to coach.
Phil and David get the treadmills.
Jarna and Lisa get the crosstrainers, which has Lisa excited.
Phoebe hopes for anything but rowing so of course that’s what her and Jenny get!
Shannon and Chris have the spin bike combo?
Rick and Joe get the free weights.

The Challenge is about finding the most effective means of burning calories. Michelle says they need to think laterally. Even if they have a station they don’t think will burn a lot of calories, think again. Think back to the past training sessions and you’ll find the answers.

They get a few minutes to stretch and warm up – of course! – and then it’s monitors ready annnnnd… go!

They’re all doing pretty typical exercises.
Jarna and Lisa’s strategy is to do 30 seconds sprint, 30 seconds steady pace on the crosstrainers. Shannon and Chris do a similar workout on the spin bikes.
Caitlin’s got her heart rate up to 171!

Caitlin and Daina have impressed Shannan and Michelle by working on the upper body first then working on kicks so the blood is moving around a lot more.

Elise and Teneale are mixing their training up a bit, running around their step boards, playing silly clapping games and so on.

Rick and Joe are only sitting around 150bpm, but their workout is with weights meaning they’ll get muscle tone and the calories will be burning for hours afterwards.

Chris tries to convince Shannon to spin his arms around during their 30 seconds of steady pace. Shannon’s having none of it!

David’s struggling quite a lot on the treadmill though he’s only doing walking pace. He’s feeling the burn!

Joe and Rick are now using the weight benches as steps to hop over as well as steps to get up on while holding weights in each. Michelle and Shannan are laughing because when they try to get them to do such things normally it’s a big effort!

Daina’s kicking away at the bag and Michelle is egging her on, saying think it’s whoever you want, so long as it’s not her!

Final minute and it’s time for everyone to really smash it out. Everyone goes really hard and there’s lots of grunting and groaning all round!

After another 4 minute ad break we have Shannan and Michelle explaining that sometimes you can’t get your desired training equipment so sometimes you have to make do.
David has a small injury which doesn’t stop him from exercising as such, just not running. So he had the treadmill on an incline to increase the heart rate.
Phil had no such restriction though and he did a steady jog, which Michelle would recommend when you have plenty of time.

What she would recommend for shorter bursts is interval training instead. But first you need to practice the getting on and off the treadmill thing, so you don’t wind up as treadmill roadkill, as we’ve seen so many times in the past!
Michelle gets Phil back on the treadmill and ramps up the speed to 12 and he manages to keep going. Then Michelle starts counting him down to jump back off for his rest interval but he jumps off right away. Michelle lets him get away with it though because he’s already bathed in sweat!
But then he has to do another proper interval!

Michelle then explains that if you do 30 seconds on and off for 10 minutes you can get 10 sprints done and you’ll have burned way more calories than just doing the steady jog. But practice the on and off. No road kill!

Shannan’s got another tip for the rowing machines. Interval training too. 100m though, rather than a speed. He also gives her a tip on how to get more out of the machine – dig deeper and pull harder on each stroke.
Phoebe then gets a bit of a rest with slow strokes.
Then Shannan resets the counter after noting it took her 34 seconds to go 100m.
Now she gets to row for 150m. Shannan also says the next intervals will be 200m and 250m.
Shannan asks her which one she was working harder in but Phoebe’s huffing and puffing too much to answer properly!

Phoebe says everyone should be able to find 10 minutes in their day and maybe even a couple of times a day!

So now they’ve tallied up the calories burned.
But Shannan and Michelle are aware that the bigger you are the more calories you’ll burn so they took that into account when deciding who won.

Phoebe and Jenni came in 8th place with combined total of 176 calories but they now know how to get a lot more out of it in the future.
7th place is Jarna and Lisa with 186 calories.
Elise and Teneale next with 226 calories. Michelle and Shannan thought their plan was clever because despite only having two steps to work with they kept their heart rates up the whole time.
Daina and Caitlin, 248 calories with the boxing. They were impressed by them working the upper and lower body in that session.
Wayne and Geoff get 260 calories – Wayne got 130 which they just plain doubled.
Shannon and Chris next, 297 calories on the spin bikes.
2nd place, David and Phil on the treadmill, 308 calories which was particularly good given David could only walk.

1st place, Rick and Joe with the free weights – 461 calories! Smashed it!

But the criteria was not just calories burned but the most effective use of the equipment you were given. Traditionally weight training is seen as just lifting a few weights, having a chat to your mates, doing some more weights and so on.
But the boys did continuous total body exercises to push their heartrates through the roof, plus their metabolisms will be kickstarted so they’ll continue burning calories for 18-24 hours afterwards.

Rick and Joe are now the proud owners of the Masterclass Champion’s shield. How exciting!
They get to take the shield back to their room to swoon over or something. Not sure.

Masterclass is now done for another week. Back to the competition. Last Chance training coming up and the weigh-in thereafter!

Sunday night, Geoff “faces reality”. Has to make some kind of decision?
And Wayne sees red. Very violent tackle pad workout with Shannan goading him into hitting harder and harder. Wayne’s an ex-footy-player and Shannan’s an ex-footy-trainer, so it should be pretty full on!
Also there’s some crap about the game being turned on its head, talk of a “Second Chance” or some such. Can we have Channel 10/Fremantle done for false advertising? No tricks, no twists, NO TRUTH!