After a little more of an extended break than I’d prefer, we’re back!!
First off, a big congratulations to Inga Schlingmann who’s been training with me for the last while. After 8 weeks of training harder than she probably ever though possible, Inga finished in the top 5 at the 2010 Miss New York Pageant. For anyone that still doubts this kind of training leads to not only increased fitness & performance levels, but to even the most stringent of aesthetic goals…here you go.
Inga, congratulations. You did some amazing work in a very short amount of time.
Now it’s your turn. WORKOUT OF THE WEEK
Refer to the videos below for instruction. Record time to completion and loads. Above all else, be safe and operate according to your abilities. Listen to your body folks.
I kind of feel like it’s a back to the basics kind of day. Enough with the new, big, fancy…whatever. This is all about just grabbing a barbell and moving some weight. Practice practice kids. You know what’s coming.
Submitted for your viewing pleasure: 3 perfect examples of why it’s so hard to get people to take us as fitness professionals seriously sometimes.
Read to the bottom. I do have a point to make, believe it or not.
1. Breaking news: Apparently it’s supposed to be ok to trade in your concept II and SDHPs for a video game…
2. A lot of people have seen this one before, but seriously, it bears mentioning again. Insert whatever joke you want on this one.
3. Now this one you might not have seen. It’s maybe an iota more subtle than the handjob weight, but that’d be about it.
Here’s my point. 3 things that have or I’m sure will make a killing in the marketplace. 3 things put out by people looking to take advantage of a gullible public by marketing savvy, physiologically and technically ignorant people. These three things are exactly why what we’re doing here, what Steve is doing over at EFC (see links panel) and the work of qualified performance coaches is so damn important. These pieces of marketing garbage, detritus of a system intent on maintaining an obese, ultimately sedentary and uninformed society only serve to feed our money back into the same system that keeps us fat.
Do Less Work! Get More Results!….how does that begin to make sense.
I’m preaching to the choir, but that’s ok. Stay fired up about your training. Keep pumping the gospel of performance training for fitness to your friends and sooner or later, they’ll listen.
Ok, so Saturdays are the day I usually put up my own composition, an attempt at a somewhat witty, informative and insightful look at the life changing, fountain of youth, elixor of life type movements we promote here at the blog.
Well, while I’m waiting for my nomination for a documentarian of the year award for my efforts, I’m going to take a break from that for a moment and show you something central to our philosophy here. Why do we do all this? Why work so hard.
Here’s why. Meet Johann Martin, a Hungarian athlete. He’s trained with kettles and body weight oriented movements his whole life. While you watch, please remember, in many of these clips, he’s just past his 63rd birthday. The video spans from 1967 through today. This man still maintains many of the movements at very similar loads to what he lifted in years past.
Ever seen those late night/early morning commercials for battery operated, motorized scooters for the elderly?…This is why we train so hard.
I’m always on the lookout for new tools and resources to make available to my clients and colleagues.
Here’s a couple I’ve run into or have had recommended to me over the last few weeks. The first two are particularly good for all our garage athletes.
Online Tabata Timer: http://www.beach-fitness.com/tabata/ Love this one. It’s actually a dual interval timer more than a strict Tabata timer as you can adjust your work/rest or high/low intensity intervals. Free, simple good to go.
Full Screen Stopwatch: http://www.online-stopwatch.com/full-screen-stopwatch/ Straightforward countdown timer or stopwatch.
Run Distance Calculator: http://www.walkjogrun.net/ This is an amazing little map based site that very easily lets you plan out runs near where you are. Want to know exactly where that 400m run interval outside your house starts and ends? This site shows you. You can also access preset runs others have charted in your area. Very cool.
Practice the DB Snatches. They’ll show up soon, but I want you to have time to get it right before we jump in with that.
If you do not have access to a concept 2 rowing machine for the following workout, substitute in SumoDeadliftHighPulls. 10m = 1 SDHP. Advanced men, 45# barbell or kb. Advanced women 30# bb or kb.
See, this is what happens when you give me free reign enough to tell you what really pisses me off about my industry. And now you & whoever else is unlucky enough to bump into this blog today are going to have to sit through this little diatribe because of it.
When blessed with the machines, the beautifully efficient kinetic systems that God and evolution bestowed on us, what have we done as professionals? The human body is a singularly elegant machine. It has evolved over the entire course of human existance on this planet to be a streamlined and smoothly integrated series of energy supply, motors, levers and receptors tk meet the challenges of our every day. While we may not be done growing yet, right now we are at the momentary pinnacle of our evutionary journey. When given a task, we instinctually find the most efficient way to accomplish that task. If we can’t accomplish it, the body grows, learns and adapts to be able to accomplish it next time. The whole working together to accomplish the singular.
So what have we done? We’ve clogged the very spaces meant to develop our physical selves into their utmost with machines of inefficiency, machines that break our beautifully efficient and inteligent system into parts that are forced to function unnaturally independant of each other. We take nature’s greatest, smartest creation and shackle it. We make sure that the body is as comfortable and relaxed as possible to move one joint or one combination of joints in isolation of all else in order to get stronger. We deconstruct a system meant to function in harmony with its self, train the parts to move in isolation and then expect the total machine to work better when we put the whole thing back together again. What the hell?
This is why MOVE. This is why kettlebells, interval training, olympic lifting and all those damn burpees. Sitting in cars, offices Cybex, and Nautilus machines has created such a disonnect that we’ve forgotten what the last umpteen million years have taught us. We have to learn to function in our own bodies, in the real world again. Stand up, pick something with some heft to it and get moving!
Here’s a thought: How long have you been doing the same arm curls and leg press machines? How long have you been trying to lose that last 5lbs or get rid of tht back pain?
How you feeling after the deck squat pushpress rounds? Fun right?
At any rate, one thing I didn’t mention in the captions on this next video, but is mentioned in my previous jump videos is the importance of the landing. No matter what kind of jumping you’re doing at what intensity, land softly. You shouldn’t feel jarring or a big impact in your joints when you hit the ground. If you do, practice your depth drops to hammer in proper landing before moving on to jumping of any kind.
