So it was actually kinda warm today and I took a 1.5 hour movement break to a park near me. I spent about 30 minutes walking between random sets of lunges, burpees, crawling, balancing, pull-ups, squatting in different stances, foam rolling, dynamic stretching, mobility stuff…basically lots of movement in an aerobic fashion…I’m trying to take advantage of training at altitude-and I was sore from my last two days of training. After about an hour of all that, I suddenly felt really good to move faster and harder…but I was smart and only did 3 rounds of each of the things in the video below. At the end of the video I tell you what I was focusing on for the day.
Archives For November 30, 1999
In my most recent workshop in Toronto, at Strengthbox, I took the opportunity at the end of our two days of instruction to get a little training in. This video is a fun little sampling of the things we did…generally we did each item between 2-4 times. My music selection is top notch.
Here is an older video from January when Brian Tabor and I did the Brett Contreras “sexy challenge”
And finally, here is a challenging clap pull-up variety that is pretty challenging
So, pretty cool, a workshop I just taught in my position as Master Instructor at MovNat was covered in the Washington Post
Now, the article was good, the writer picked up on some cool and pertinent points we make in the workshops-and was fully supportive of MovNat, but what was funny was two paragraphs towards the end of the article
Before we get carried away, however, it’s worth hearing out Todd Miller, an associate professor of exercise science at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services and a board member for the National Strength and Conditioning Association.
Although he supports MovNat’s style of training — which shares many elements with how top athletes train today — Miller says humans have evolved too far away from these movements to make them a part of their daily lives. “When it comes to exercise, the gym is the place you do it. We’ve compartmentalized fitness,” he says.
He is quoted as supporting our style of training-which is good. But also quoted as saying “we’ve compartmentalized fitness”-as though that was a good thing. Maybe he was just saying it matter of factly, but regardless of how he said it, it’s crap. Sorry to be blunt, but why the hell would we be better off compartmentalizing fitness? Relegating it to only the gym for 3 days for 55 minutes…? That type of attitude, recommendation, and authority is exactly what we are trying to change in the Fitness world. Fitness is not movement, its some arbitrary measure that really doesn’t mean shit to me without enjoyment, happiness, and health. Mr. Miller saying that “humans have evolved too far away from these movements” is exactly why the hell we SHOULD be doing them. I titled this post Mind Bottling, because proples’ Minds have been Bottled by convention. Don’t let that type of thinking bottle your mind.
To be fair, I don’t know what else was said in Miller’s interview…in reporting, generally, fair and balanced is encouraged, so an opposing view is sought out in the article. Sometimes the opposing view looks so bad though that it helps the original 🙂
RANT OVER
The fitness world is so divided on things, it’s entertaining. A fun one right now that produces all sorts of debates is CARDIO/AEROBIC TRAINING.
Out of the gates I will state that I think heavy weights, and intense effort for short(er) durations provide better and more efficient benefits than traditional cardio (20+ minutes at something like 180-age beats/minute).
So I wanna get a discussion going about how much “cardio” is too much…because saying that it is disastrous for one’s health to do anything more than 10 minutes is probably a bit too black and white, IMO.
I think training for or running a 5k 2/3 times a week is a safe goal that shouldn’t interfere with other athletic endeavors. But that is only about 60-90 minutes/week. This is different than 10 mile runs, or hours on the elliptical…
Now, for me personally-I find steady state stuff boring, and have never done it enough to interfere with my own goals of strength and power-but I understand how that could be problematic. Such as in sports-once the athletes are already in shape, through their games, and sport practice they likely receive enough conditioning and perhaps additional running etc is counter productive…seems like this is a trend that is picking up speed in the S&C team sports world. Pretty cool.
Easily my favorite stance is that of Jason Ferrugia…who says that you should either go really hard and short like hill sprints, or long and easy, such as walking for an hour.
So, I know not much of a post, but I want to know–HOW MUCH “CARDIO” IS TOO MUCH?
I’ve never set yearly goals before. I’ve done short term goals: like 300lb bench, 30 pull-ups, etc…but year long goals not so much. So I am gonna try it this year.
I would absolutely love to do a bodyweight turkish getup. I weigh 200, but think I’ll be down to 190 this year-I don’t know if the 2 knee injuries I had this year was due to excessive travel, tight hips, less than optimal diet, or bad luck-but maybe being a little lighter will help. Currently I can do 150 on TGU’s on the right side without hesitation, and about 125 on the left. Plan is to just TGU often, with different things often.
10 Strict ring muscle ups, front lever, back lever. I just bought rings and will be traveling with them, so I think this’ll be “easy”.
20 consecutive wall muscle ups. This is harder than you’d think: yes you can use your feet, but you have no real grip. It’s really tough.
Human flag. It’s just cool.
5k barefoot without calf/achilles soreness. I wore ankle braces from 17-27 every time I played basketball….and I never ran. So my lower leg “stuff” needs lots of work, and I get ridiculously sore in a mile of bare footing…so I’m making a concerted effort to get that stronger.
Better swimmer. Just need to do it. nike. ugh.
Handstand mastery. It’s a useless skill but it pisses me off I can’t do it well.
No knee injury. Hurting each knee this year was pretty annoying.
So what are your goals?
The recent new article about Hope Solo being told she was “too muscular” for dancing with the stars got me annoyed, so I’m venting a tad. What demographic is DWTS for? Women.
I’m not gonna write about why women should put down the little weights and lift bigger weights-plenty are doing that already. JC Deen, Girls Gone Strong, Strong is the new Skinny, Rachel Cosgrove, Nia Shanks – that’s good for now-but there is lots more out there.
Instead I wanna touch on all the silliness about how women should look, how they think they should look-and what things are big influencers.
First, I think it’s complete bullshit that men are generally made the evil enemy in why women are “pressured” into trying to be skinny etc. I’ll agree that marketing campaigns can objectify women (beer, cars, etc)-but the idea that it is just for men is silly. Women’s magazines show the same ads, portray skinny chicks as their models, and do more to keep the negative body imagine problem alive than men’s magazines do. Check out this quote
Researchers report that women’s magazines have ten and one-half times more ads and articles promoting weight loss than men’s magazines do, and over three-quarters of the covers of women’s magazines include at least one message about how to change a woman’s bodily appearance—by diet, exercise or cosmetic surgery.
In addition to this-let’s stop and think about our own lives, people in our lives, and who we are really trying to look good for. I say we, because men and women both are doing all the primping, beautying, and readying for women’s’ opinions. Example: Had a cousin of mine tell me about how proud she was that she was recently complimented on her legs. I said “cool, from a girl or guy?” to which she replied “a girl, and so it meant more”. Yep-just as I suspected. Yet we men are blamed for this obsession with how you need to look when in fact you are mostly trying to impress your friends and other women you don’t even know….and men are called too competitive. Ha. I’m not even trying to pull references for this past paragraph-it’s fact and you know it. Stop ONLY blaming men, no matter how you look there are lots of men who are going to hit on you. Even if it takes a couple beers 😉 Bottom line: women are the bigger influencers in regards to creating body image problems. **
Continuing, my biggest irritation is that in the “fitness” industry we have so much shitty information for women to follow. A very very cool movement is the one that is encouraging girls to lift heavy, and not be stupidly afraid of bulking up. Again, see the first paragraph for many links which will take you to loads of good articles about this. Even still, We get knuckle head trainers telling girls that they should only train with small weights because that’s what ladies do, we have all the silly ass “shape” style magazines which only show women lifting silly ass little pink dumbbells, we have this type of article (note the comments). Now, Check out this Men’s Fitness survey (78% say athletic or curvy) of what is mens’ ideal female body type-it 100% correlates with my 29 years of talking with other dudes about what we like in women. AND hey you shallow ladies….I bet that the men who like fit (not saying skinny) girls are in fact generally fit and attractive themselves. Basically this survey shows we are attracted to women with small waist to hip ratios-note the key word being ratios. This article over at Evolvify discusses attractiveness more smartly than I do-read it.
Now, don’t take this “we don’t like skinny” talk to mean that we like fat. Nobody really likes fat, (and when i say fat i mean obese-not thick) I’m just being honest here- no matter how much that may be getting to be politically incorrect (another article entirely would be our culture’s stupid ass acceptance of unhealthiness-which is hugely influenced by people becoming huge). What we men do want are fit and healthy women. And healthy comes in a variety of shapes, ranging from thinner, to thicker. In fact check out the urban dictionary definition of thick – not fat, not skinny, but just right. healthy means so much more than scale weight (nobody cares about this by the way, except you girls). Healthy means skin firmness, color, and “glow”. I mentioned in my recap of the Ancestral Health Symposium how generally hot and healthy all the people were there-so basically eat healthy and don’t train like assholes. Fit and healthy shows a respect for one’s self, and that’s attractive. Healthy means mentally healthy-and worrying about losing lots of weight and trying to impress your friends isn’t healthy, and that’s why strong and fit girls are so damn awesome-they gain confidence from actually getting strong in the gym, from actually having the ability to change how their bodies look-they gain confidence by taking ownership of how they look and how they want to look rather than relying on everyone else-and that’s sexy.
I’d also like to point out that I’m not even trying to say “lift heavy no matter what”. If you don’t want to, you don’t enjoy it, or it scares you, then please do whatever it is that makes you happy. Just understand that what you are doing MAY not yield the results you want.
Now ladies, please go do the following things: work up to going heavy for 3-5 on deadlifts and squats. Do more volume with hip thrusts, lunges, step ups, and KB swings. Do pushups, pull-ups, dips, horizontal rows, and press weight overhead. Go for hikes and walks, and do sprints every so often. Go to pilates/barre/dance/zumba if it’s fun. Enjoy yourselves! That’s all you need to do. Don’t get fancy, get strong. Like Jessica Biel (who got voted as too muscular on this site-which I don’t like as IMO it perpetuates the bulky fear).
Healthy:
This is healthy. It’s from film, so its not photoshopped. Biel works her ass off (well on it seems) in the gym.
Also read this, as it’s uncomfortably hilarious and much more brutal than what I wrote. http://www.forgingelitesarcasm.com/2011/12/about-your-female-body-issues.html
**Note here-the sites and groups dedicated to accepting obese people for who they are, are in my opinion borderline stupid. Enabling a fat, unhealthy life is ridiculous. http://beastmodaldomains.com/2011/11/09/fat-acceptance-is-unacceptable/ (note, this is too extreme to be helpful…but still I’m linking it-because most of what he writes is hilarious)
Editor’s note: i don’t edit. this is an unprofessional blog.
I rarely watch the news and now I know why. Last night I saw something that left me speechless and questioning my fellow man. We’ve all heard the phrase “I thought I’d seen it all,” and just when I thought I had – the stupidity of mankind reared its ugly head once again. At the center of controversy was Coke (not the drug), the mega corporate soft drink manufacturer. Apparently the good people at Coca Cola decided to run a wintery ad campaign aimed at benefiting the endangered polar bear. Every year some major brand will run a seasonal ad to benefit a disadvantaged group or an endangered species. Coca Cola for years has been putting polar bears on their classic red coke cans signifying the upcoming holidays and the change of season.
You may be asking yourself, why is this news worthy? This year the executives at Coke changed the original red coke cans to white (to signify snow…polar bears, get it?) in an effort to raise money for the endangered bear. According to last night’s national news thousands of coke fanatics had and are having what can only be called a s$#t fit over the white can. Apparently all over the nation scores of coke drinkers were fooled by the white cans. The reports were that the white can was too close in color to the METALLIC SILVER diet coke cans and people were confused, they just couldn’t tell the difference – despite the obvious fact that one can said DIET and the other did not. I’ve seen both cans and if you can’t tell the difference between a snow colored white can and a metallic silver can then you have too much sugar on the brain. Some coke drinkers went as far as to write and call the Coca Cola Corporate headquarters accusing them of changing the formula – which of course they didn’t only the can. Some even swore on television that their beloved coke tasted different in a white colored can. Seriously?
The only thing that did change is my faith in man. Due to the outcry and the decrease in sales, coke has decided to discontinue the fund raising effort two months earlier than originally scheduled. Ridiculous! C’mon people, are we that blind and strung out on sugar or are we just that bored and stupid that we have nothing else to do but get worked up over the color of a soda (or pop) can? Really? Personally I’m ashamed.
The ironic part of all of the blustering about red or white cans, good or bad taste is that we forgot the original point – which was to raise funds for an endangered animal. We’ll get our precious RED can back and everyone will win……except the polar bear. Maybe next year they could try a lighter colored red can.
You may be asking yourself, why is this news worthy? This year the executives at Coke changed the original red coke cans to white (to signify snow…polar bears, get it?) in an effort to raise money for the endangered bear. According to last night’s national news thousands of coke fanatics had and are having what can only be called a s$#t fit over the white can. Apparently all over the nation scores of coke drinkers were fooled by the white cans. The reports were that the white can was too close in color to the METALLIC SILVER diet coke cans and people were confused, they just couldn’t tell the difference – despite the obvious fact that one can said DIET and the other did not. I’ve seen both cans and if you can’t tell the difference between a snow colored white can and a metallic silver can then you have too much sugar on the brain. Some coke drinkers went as far as to write and call the Coca Cola Corporate headquarters accusing them of changing the formula – which of course they didn’t only the can. Some even swore on television that their beloved coke tasted different in a white colored can. Seriously?
The only thing that did change is my faith in man. Due to the outcry and the decrease in sales, coke has decided to discontinue the fund raising effort two months earlier than originally scheduled. Ridiculous! C’mon people, are we that blind and strung out on sugar or are we just that bored and stupid that we have nothing else to do but get worked up over the color of a soda (or pop) can? Really? Personally I’m ashamed.
The ironic part of all of the blustering about red or white cans, good or bad taste is that we forgot the original point – which was to raise funds for an endangered animal. We’ll get our precious RED can back and everyone will win……except the polar bear. Maybe next year they could try a lighter colored red can.
Rudy Thomas
Today focused on Squats and Pressing. The squats were done with 2 kb’s, and were never even from side to side. The video has the weights etc…
Wednesday did two sessions-a small KB session in the morning, and another small session in the afternoon of balancing and a little climbing, then in the evening worked on some planks.
Kettlebells on the beach
Thursday (thanksgiving) was a little regenerative workout in the morning (planks, prone hip extensions, bridges ) but besides that I didn’t do a damn thing.
Friday I went with a group of friends and hiked 1,500″ up over a distance of 1.5 miles carrying a 20kg bell. Barefoot. It took 30 minutes to the top, and another 30 down. The bell was not put down except at the top of the hike. That’s fatiguing.
Earlier today with Brian Tabor I did Bench Press and Trap Bar deadlifts and my sets were
- bench-135×5, 185×4, 205×3, 225×2, 275×1, 225×10
- TrapDL-135×5, 185×5, 235×5, 285×5, 285×5, 285×5
Then we did some agility work, rolls, balancing and ground movement out in the sun on the turf field at SDSU. Finished with 20 minutes of sauna.
This evening went to open gymnastics. This was play, but holy hell I’m gonna be sore as shit.
- Pole climbs with jump into foam pit x 4
- backflips into foam pit x 5
- front flips into foam pit x 3
- kong vaults into foam pit x 3
- big ass diving flips into foam pit x 5 (a note about foam pits-it is an amazing workout to get out of a damn foam pit!!)
- parallel bars back and forth for about 15 minutes of just stuff
- 3 upside down rope climbs (shoulda filmed the first!)
- about 30-40 various vaults over those big pads
- 5 back flips on the floor
- like 10 handstand attempts
- pistols on balance beam around 5/leg-from sitting to standing, really hard
- precision jumps beam to beam-did this til someone ate shit, like ten 6′ jumps
- crow pose pushup into handstand x 5
- sommersaults
- handstand walking
- TGU’s of 120lb girl (2 on right side, failed on left, dammit)
- rolls with big circle pad
And that’s play. Not exercise per se. And there is a difference. But I’ll still be sore.
BA training. 