Blogging has been sitting on a back burner…lots of work, and professional continuing-ed at present…
Today: Nine-hundred strength training exercise movements 60% External WR. 40% Bodyweight WR.
2-days ago: Vehicle Push-Pull.
Hike four days ago.
Soccer Scrimmage five days ago.
Now on Kindle for $7.19
10 adaptable, customizable principles, and 7 training dimensions / evolutions that provide a broad and deep base for whatever you’re training for, in sport, arts, or work. This is a book that harmonizes training philosophy and practical, very simple takeaways for sustaining a consistent, building, growing training life. Cheers!
the open sky
If you delve into your least favored training areas, be it endurance, primary muscle strength, core strength, or application in sports, arts, or work, you will be raising the level of your foundational condition.
Let tedium become self-training in the gift of focus.
Let hardship be your elevator.
Let slowness be your path to thoroughness in preparation, and prevention.
Cheers!
One way to train inspirationally: 650 muscle movements with bodyweight resistance and watching an inspirational training documentary, going back to the days when athletes were not afraid to train and compete all-natural:
Complete your muscle movements as fluidly and naturally as water moves.
Five-hundred-fifty muscle movements by day’s end. The exercises varied, 1/5 were weighted, while most were body-weight. This is a average number for this kind of training day, on the low side. Still, all major muscle groups engaged the Earth. A building block, a place holder, a training day, and then, nutrition.
Made dinner for the pack. I’ve been moving to more rice-based breads. Grabbed two Amy’s organic rice-crust pizzas; chopped organic triple-washed baby spinach and sprinkled on; added chopped Portabella mushrooms; added also micro-greens with daikon radish and pepper cress.
Instead of pizza bread sticks, took the remaining fresh Portabella mushrooms, sliced them, drizzled olive oil on them, and sprinkled some mozzarella on them, and put them in the residual heat of the convection oven after the pizzas were done and staying warm.
Leafing backward in the book of the day, nutrition page…
Breakfast had been fresh blueberries, raspberries, banana, and spelt bread with honey. Tried some pumpkin seeds on the side. Lunch had been sunflower seed butter sandwich. If I’d had alfalfa sprouts on hand, I’d have added ’em on.
After the seasonal bug from Hades ran through our house for a couple of weeks, this was my return to above ground on Saturday:
The mountain bikers saw one of four of us hiking this foothill trail, my circuit being an hour and twenty minutes.
Went off trail to see where adjoining ranchers left horse hoof prints along the fence lines, and rusty barrels for target practice.
When our house had “gone viral” my training was solely slow muscle movement training, static hold muscle training, and range-of-motion.
What a privilege to sit down and talk with Federal Executive Institute alumni and friends last night. These professionals brought up a host of great topics. We talked gluten freedom, how eating, drinking, and sleeping are self-trainable behaviors, and how intelligent attunement can benefit us in every dimension of physical action as well as perception. These civilian and military public servants, technical, and knowledge workers spoke in ways revealing their high accomplishment, and by their intelligence had found the many packaged fitness offerings in the marketplace unfulfilling or unsustainable. We also discussed the texture of real life: traumas, shadows, and challenges in daily life. Being with intelligent people can be a good time, but being with intelligent, feeling people is the best of times, and that is what last night’s gathering was like.
We talked nuts and bolts: Muscle, Mileage, Mobility, Midsection/Core, Mountains’ Meaning, and more. Everyone in attendance had been athletic in their lives whether they considered themselves so or not, and I made sure to point this out first of all. We must be clear about our identities, that we are among other wonderful truths, mind-body entities capable of athleticism in physical sport, art, and work. Yes, the basic adaptive physical training pathways can expand to intellectual and for some, spiritual athleticism.
On the sheer material side, a la Steve Martin in The Jerk, needing to hold onto some possessions on an anniversary date when I had once felt I’d lost everything, I brought some self-comforting props for my presentation. Rip’s Fire Engine 2 (TM) Plant Strong cereal (my strength), and Toblerone (TM) swiss chocolate (my weakness). They seemed like the props to bring at the time.
Along with a box of books and a gym bag with all I needed, I walked into Breckenridge Craft Colorado, home to craft beers and LoDo Denver venue-name dropping. You may remember our former mayor and now Governor Hickenlooper owned a restaurant in LoDo (Lower Downtown), where rough-hewn, red-brick mellow-looking pubs and brewers fill old warehouse buildings near lofts where nearly everyone walking around down there looks like they do Pilates during breakfast, Yoga during lunch, and feed intravenously through a liquid food bladder while running long distances through dinner.
Well, that may be an exaggeration but I’ll tell you what is not: most people living in downtown lofts are single, young, career starters enjoying urban life to the fullest, and throwing their pliable youthful bodies into one or two training modalities, sometimes not really bothering with long range thinking. They live close to their white collar work. They’re busy on various levels, but many don’t yet know the change that comes with rising in the ranks of responsibility, having a family, and having more and more people they are responsible for (at which time they often move out of the lofts). That doesn’t make them lesser or lazy, they just fill more of their time focusing on self-development than other-development because of their phase in life. Logic says juggling a one bean bag business is easier than juggling and adapting to three or more bean bags’ businesses…
Leading me to the course of our discussions last night: How do those with hairy schedules at work and home, extra-curriculars in the community, and little time to themselves make changes that temper for them a sound, powerful training life with consistency, excellence, and purpose? How do they overcome the crushing, conflicting, Hoi Polloi of Expectation-a-Legal living and not become unhealthy?
That is what Farm Your Training Day was written to begin answering. It contains many specific guidances on HOW, not just statements and restatements of a vague vision. I couldn’t convey all of it in one sitting and standing. What I could convey are some of the broad brush adaptive training principles and dimensions, and suggest that the fullness of these is in the book. This includes illustrations, guidances, sources, stories, and some visualizable details over 276 pages and 17 chapters without pictures.
All I can say is, after reading the book, which is not a Polly-Anna Manifesto by any stretch, and which takes a look at the mundane and dramatic obstacles to a consistent training life that would wear us down and make us unhealthy, I think people find not only bedrock to stand on within themselves, but a process of remolding their bedrock again and again from the interior life. Their training lives spring out of this aquifer of intelligent, planned and unplanned energy and movement within that connects with the world around them. The book maps forward, not ‘out.’ I say forward, because every reader is invited to be the pioneer who adds to this map, innovates, and improves the book by going into other principles and dimensions of adaptive training.
I know something of what there is and wrote a book about it, yet part of that is seeing that I do not know the limits of what is possible.
For two and a half hours this morning I had the opportunity to work on flood remediation efforts with some wonderful people volunteering with DonateBoulder.org. We worked in the Martin Acres subdivision.
For those who are medically cleared for this kind of work, I highly encourage volunteer physical labor for those who cannot do it themselves, or who are overwhelmed.
Among the training benefits are asymmetric muscle work, pulling, lifting, carrying, hacking, breaking, dragging, stacking, leveraging, maneuvering, prying, throwing, and tossing. Working with tools with your hands is a bonus, as hand tools benefit your connective tissues and fine motor muscles in ways merely lifting weights cannot.
The best thing about training this way is that you get to work with some special people: other volunteers. You get to help someone in difficult circumstances. And, you help free up another wave of volunteers for the next effort by knocking one out.
You may only have a morning to work, or a whole day. We all have different obligations and time sensitive items any given day. Yet if you put in what you can, and others do too, this expedites humane relief and mitigation of adverse health conditions.
The must have tools and qualities: (1) mask that filters out airborne dust, molds, and noxious building materials such as asbestos; (2) tools for pulling up baseboards and tearing out sodden drywall, i.e. crowbars, wood chisels, hammers, dustpans, shovels, brooms; (3) approved anti-mold and mildew spray product; (4) first aid kit; and (5) safety sense.
Volunteering, like group training, builds camaraderie, dispels loneliness, and strengthens community. Those intangible fringe benefits are as valuable as the physical mission and physical training benefit. Yet the training benefit also helps give the person helped a better feeling that someone is helping them, yet getting something out of it.
That is all true of course, so long as volunteers take the necessary safety precautions, such as an updated tetanus shot and the equipment listed above.
I did not expect the unexpected on Saturday. That’s good or else it wouldn’t be called unexpected. Expectations did not fail, they changed. However, adapting prevailed.
I’d planned a 5-7 mile run depending on how my foot felt. My friend and neighbor (who has been very busy lately) happened to be running at the same time. It was good to catch up, and to have someone else to share a cadence with on the road. We didn’t say much, just our feet. My friend’s ankle limits his running, a result of pounding from basketball. After a brief talk about that, and some talk about Eastern medicine approaches, I ran his run with him for three miles. I could run again later, and do a double. It was no problem for me. Waving him off and running further would have risked discouraging future runs together, so I ran in with him. My neighbor invited me to the Mayweather-Alvarez fight later in the evening. I said yes, and we parted ways.
I went inside, and focused on the heaviest kettle bells for 100 slow, near continuous movements (squat / dead lifts / rows / shrugs / incline presses).
After the run I had intended to spend the morning working on my current writing project, study my NSCA strength conditioning materials, and watch the thunderheads build over Colorado. Then I thought of my brother-in-law’s brother, whose basement had been flooded in the foothill community he lives in.
I put in a call. He was tearing soaked carpet out of a walkout basement. Nice. As I spoke to him I watched a huge thunderhead building over the mountains in his direction. Phoning a person whose basement has been flooded to say, “Hey, how’s it going, let’s get together sometime,” is shallow to someone in deeper waters, so it was not long before I was driving down a rural country road toward the mountains, toting water remediation stuff I got from Lowes and my garage. It was an opportunity to listen to a U2 CD I got at a garage sale and drive new roads.
It also became a physical labor opportunity for conditioning. Here were some movements one doesn’t get to do every day. Squeegy work, water vacuuming, more carpet removal, baseboard prying, movement of irregular, heavy items, fan assembly, including a Precor treadmill, box hauling, and dumping water vac containers. After 3 hours of that, I realized that opportunities for exercise will arise under many circumstances helping people with physical burdens.
Later it was Pho Vietnamese soup with my family, and we all puzzled over the question of MSG, what had the least of it, and how to avoid it in the future when we wanted to go out.
The Mayweather fight was excellent as was the good company and conversation at my neighbor’s house. Observing Mayweather’s boxing mastery was a beautiful thing to behold. His humor came out a couple of times too. Without destroying his opponent physically, he mastered the fight in every way. His defense was subtle, swift, and sapped his opponent’s energy. His jab was a granite blur. His combinations were carefully timed, highly accurate, and powerful. His larger and younger opponent had not trained as hard or as long to be a master of the sweet science. Mayweather had, and it showed. On the other had, Mayweather’s team had forced a catch-weight regulation on Alvarez that had Alvarez dropping and gaining weight again swiftly before the fight. It may have affected Alvarez adversely to undergo such a fluctuation. Asked about it, Mayweather’s team chalked it up to the art of war.
An interesting fact: Mayweather was accompanied to the ring by rapper Lil Wayne and singer Justin Bieber. Psychological warfare, no doubt, meant to distract, or maybe feign excessive preoccupation with fame. If so, Mayweather’s training was definitely not distracted by fame.
With this guide, you can take ownership of your physical training life and leave behind co-dependence on unsustainable, packaged dieting and fitness hype.
Here you will learn ten principles to help you rewire yourself to train adaptively, more consistently, and thoroughly. Seven training dimensions encourage you to train often, in more places, with more choices.
Introduction ………………………………………………………………………. vii
Organization, Content, and Safety Notice ………………………………..ix
Part I. Principles of Adaptive Training ………………… 1
Chapter 1. The Training Day Principle ……………………………………3
Chapter 2. Interval Farming Principle ……………………………………..7
Chapter 3. Adaptive Journal Principle ……………………………………40
Chapter 4. The Working Principle ………………………………………..45
Chapter 5. The Gradualism Principle …………………………………….60
Chapter 6. Windfall Principle ………………………………………………71
Chapter 7. Attunement Principle …………………………………………. 74
Chapter 8. Adaptive Eating, Drinking, and Sleeping Principles….90
Chapter 9. Objective Principle: Identify & Excel in Your Sport,
Art, and Work …………………………………………………. 107
Chapter 10. Navigation Principle …………………………………………. 111
Part II. The Seven Dimensions of Adaptive Training …127
Chapter 11. Dimension One: Muscle …………………………………….130
Chapter 12. Mileage ………………………………………………………….. 155
Chapter 13. Mobility …………………………………………………………. 173
Chapter 14. Midsection + Core …………………………………………… 183
Chapter 15. Mountain ……………………………………………………….. 192
Chapter 16. Movement with Forces (MWF) …………………………..206
Chapter 17. The Seventh Dimension: Mind-Body Training via
Sport, Art, Work ………………………………………………254
Acknowledgements
Click on Image for WSJ photos with full article…
Mind and body thrive on early-to-bed, early-to-rise sleep schedules. This should help!
Another club, says the article, offers dance parties in the daytime. What a great way to be physical without losing sleep, and to encourage family bonding in a healthy, moving activity. It’s encouraging to see a few businesses wise-up and introduce the notion of family friendly dance venues. This was once a routine rural family and community bonding event in small town America.In Australia I know they have “sports clubs” which are recreation centers really, with social gathering opportunities for all ages too.
Now imagine dance rooms with direct sunlight, fans, cool mist machines, and electrolytic drinks for healthy Vitamin D, good hydration, and a tan.
The French gave us the statue of Liberty. Maybe they’re liberating an industry that has become too jaded, opening our memory to the dance halls of old.
Generations staying fit together…
This 2008 piece is relevant to people who are undertaking weight loss. At the link, you will find other very useful related pieces on exercise, attitudes toward exercise and aspects of weight loss. A hat tip to my AFPA newsletter for referencing this and other Science Daily pieces.
Saturday, Day 7 after September 22nd’s Half Marathon was my first day running again. I’d been sick after the run with a full on cold. I’d held it off a long while and the run cinched it.
Saturday was also a vacation day away from my usual haunts, and when I stepped out to run, I was asked how far. I didn’t know, it depended on how I felt, I said.
4.5 miles later in 100F territory, running steep hills and enjoying more oxygen at 2,000 feet above sea level instead of 5K plus, I was feeling pretty good with the sweating and circulation. It wasn’t too soon to get back into it. Major symptoms were over with, and all that was left was getting the bad stuff out. The run helped.
Since, other than lugging luggage, I logged one muscle work day yesterday on Day 10. I hit my goal, working at medium intensity, and hit the sack early. No reason to over-do it, and no reason to under-do it. It felt right.
Learning to listen to that inner voice when it listens to all systems and rings true is key in the art of recovery. That goes for all circumstances, sick or well.
And today came an opportunity for a few miles walking with someone I wanted to converse with. A double benefit.
Now I am thinking of the next event, the next goal. More on that soon. Thanks as always for being here.
G2G Fit 