Mind, Body, Spirit

Yoga, an ancient but perfect science, deals with the evolution of humanity.  This evolution includes all aspects of one’s being, from bodily health to self-realization.  Yoga means union – the union of body with consciousness and consciousness with the soul.  Yoga cultivates the ways of maintaining a balanced attitude in day-to-day life and endows skill in the performance of one’s actions.

~ B.K.S. Iyengar, Astadala Yogamala

…”There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.”

~ Rumi

So I was listening to Krista Tippett’s On Being last week — Krista’s show being one of my favorite commute podcasts — and was absolutely enthralled by Seane Corn’s description of Yoga as being “body prayer”.  What an awesome analogy.  And not just for Yoga, but, in my mind, for all pursuits of true Physical Culture.  This is one commonality that I’ve observed among those who, regardless of their particular fitness expression of choice, remain in the Physical Culture scene for the long haul — that the expression of choice becomes a vehicle for (or toward) something much greater than becoming better at that particular discipline.  In essence, practice of the particular discipline of choice continually re-establishes that connection between “self” and “other”.  Refined and bettered skills, body composition, what-have-you then become a nice secondary consequence, rather than the focus of the pursuit itself; it’s rather like the old axiom of only finding true love when you’re not actively looking for it, or of finding God only in the silence and stillness.

Of course it wasn’t always this way for me, and I initially came to Physical Culture as a kid who wanted to get “swole”, dominate on the football field and, of course, (and being devoid of any other talent) to gain some kind of an inside with the ladies.  I believe this is the natural course of action for these things.  Great artists, it seems to me — those with real staying power — follow a similar path.  And what is the essence of Physical Culture if not an artistic expression of sorts, or (and to steal a rif from Seane), body prayer?

So give a listen to this particular episode of On Being — you won’t regret it.  Yeah, even the most hard-core, HIIT weight trainers among you will be able to relate.

case in point: just check out how Seane describes her practice of  Vinyasa Flow Yoga, in the clip below.  Does this not sound like an athlete — any athlete — in the zone?

The linking of mind and body; remaining clear and steady, focused and grounded.  I like to associate Yoga (and like practices — for me, that would include hucking the ol’  fixie about town and sprinting.  MovNat-like endeavors?  Yep, that, too) as the “Yin” to HIIT’s “Yang” aspect.  And in both practices, I attempt to engage what Seane is speaking of here — a direct linking of mind, body and spirit.  I have a client who is active in both weight training and ballet; an awesome pairing, I think.  And kudos to her for dismantling preconceived notions both of what it is to be an dancer, as well as what it is to be a hellified strength athlete.

Now, most would consider a high-intensity slam-fest as being anything but a spiritual journey; why, though?  In my mind, it’s just another pathway, another opportunity to “connect”.  Anything that is physically challenging, and that can help razor-focus the mind is an opportunity to help link the spirit to the other — whatever “other” might mean for you.

~

Physical Culture as analogous to the culinary arts –

Have a look at the menu offerings at one of my and Meesus TTP’s favorite Austin-area restaurants, Foreign & Domestic.  Beyond this being high-dining “hog heaven” for the Paleo-minded, I am reminded, once again, of the parallels between the crafting a fine dining experience and expert fitness programming.  Both become works of art in the hands of the skilled practitioner; both, too, can become deconstructed and devalued to the point of being nothing more than a soulless, for-profit-only, vehicle.   Quality, in both disciplines, can be found in the love of, and absolute reverence for, the art.  Industrial fitness, like industrial food, is an anathema to the refined pallet.  And, too, elegance is found in simplicity.  The good need not be complicated and, in fact, to the extent that a food or fitness program is overly complicated is simply an attempt at covering what is lackluster at the onset.

simple ingredients, simple food, high taste

~

On to the workout front –

Sunday, 3/6/11

Sprints at the local high school.  Ropes, bars, and other fun.  Check out some of the new toys!

Climbing ropes in the background. Oh, yeah….

Monday, 3/7/11

(A1) snatch grip high pull: 135/7; 165/7; 185/6; 205/6

(A2) dips: 45/7; 70/7; 80/7; 95/5

(A3) pull-aparts (red band): 15, 15, 15, 15

Tuesday, 3/8/11

(A1) power cleans: 5 sets of 7 (fast cadence), 30 secs between sets

(B1) straight bar DL: 225/5; 315/5; 365/3; 415/1; 435/1, 1, 1, 1, 1 – very little rest between sets.  Leaned toward more of a metabolic hit vs an expression of max strength.

Thursday, 3/10/11

(A1) XCCentric 45-degree incline press: (+50)/21 rest-pause reps

(B1) trap bar BOR: 255/21 rest-pause reps

Friday, 3/11/11 –

AM – Pendulum Hip Press – 145 + 2 black bands, 8 sets of 3.  Speed!

PM – Pendulum Hip Press – 145 + 2 black bands, 8 sets of 3.  Speed!

Immediately following each of these leg press sessions, I hopped on the old fixie and rode — hard, but intermittently so; fast when I did put the hammer down, though and pretty damn far as well!  All-in-all, a nice mix of work.  And in excellent, ATX (spring-like!)  weather.

~

And finally –

The Austin Primal Living Group hosted a pot luck dinner on Saturday, March 12th; among the many attendees was none other than Angelo Coppela, host of the most informative and expertly produced, Latest in Paleo podcast.   Angelo and his friend Tom Sadira (mistahmojo!) were here in the ATX — the epicenter of Physical Culture — to attend the now infamous South by Southwest Film, Interactive and Music festival.  Angelo and Tom were nice enough to take time out of their SXSW partying to drop by our little Austin area Primal Meet-Up shin-dig, even going so far as to bring along some of that rockin’ Paleo beef jerky.   And it’s a tasty recipe, indeed!  Do check it out.

On Sunday, Meesus TTP, Angelo, Tom and I swung by the Efficient Exercise Westlake studio for a CZT/ARX (Accommodating Resistance EXercise) throw-down.  Both of the fellas survived the session (at least long enough to get in a post-workout photo op, and some follow-on Tweeting), but apparently brought Fago de Chao to it’s collective knees in trying to satisfy the guys’ resultant — and rampant — follow-on carnivory 🙂

Me, the lovely Meesus TTP, and Angelo. Hat tip to Tom “mistahmojo” for snapping the pic

Check out the clips of the guys’ CZT/ARX tussle at the Efficient Exercise YouTube page, or at our Facebook page.  Sweet!  But be forewarned – you might want to tone the volume down a bit when watching Tom’s workout, if you think the shrapnel from a little F-bombs might hurt 😉

In health,

Keith

Primal Needs, 21st-Century Constraints

Here at TTP, I tend to focus most of my training-related posts on the athletic betterment end of the optimum health/optimum performance continuum, as that happens to be what really gets my training-related geek-out juices flowing.   It also happens to be that end of the continuum where I target my own training  as well.  More precisely, I attempt to push the envelope of performance, while at the same time being very cognizant of the effects of that training on my overall health, because (and as I’ve said before), optimum performance often begins where superior health ends. The competition and training for competitive athletics takes a helluva toll on a body.  It’s simply the case of too much of a good thing being detrimental on that same system over the long run; you can only red-line a finely tuned engine for so long, and for so many bursts, before something breaks down.

The training techniques, environment, technology, and supportive science (and learned art, let’s not forget) afforded to, and practiced by, high-level competitive athletes does have relevance to the merely health-conscience, though, in the way that space-bound NASA missions have relevance to earth-bound humanity at large.  At-the-fringe science  — like at-the-fringe training methodology — affords trickle-down know-how and useful (practical) by-products to the masses.  Whereas, for instance, the push to space gave us Teflon, the push to build a better athlete more efficiently (i.e., impart the same level of strength/power while saving more time for skills development) give us the roots of High Intensity Training (HIT).  We at Efficient Exercise are in the midst of carrying this idea a step further by demonstrating that, with very little in the way of training time investment and lifestyle alteration, an individual can positively affect his or her health to the point of (1) lessening the collective burden on the (broken) healthcare delivery system, and (2) escaping the personal (and, by extension, family) hell resultant of the ravages of metabolic derangement, and the high cost — both in a financial and quality-of-life sense — of “diseases of civilization”.  We’re not attempting to make athletes here; no, our endeavor is simply to prove that an individual can still live a healthy, happy and highly productive life, even while facing the crushing constraints (time and otherwise) of a 21st-century lifestyle.

Primal needs, modern technology –

For optimum health, our bodies require intermittent doses of high-intensity output, and the safest, most efficient way to realize that level of required intensity is via smartly programmed resistance training.  While few dispute this fact, most agree that finding the time in a busy day to accomplish that task is…well…daunting at best.  Again, we’re not talking about the driven athlete here, we’re talking work-a-day, family-raising Joe and Jane citizen — the same people who ultimately become — even against their best intentions otherwise — part of the collective burden on our healthcare delivery system.   And as I’ve said before, no healthcare delivery system can be created that will not ultimately implode under the weight of a diseased citizenry.  None.  To be sure, the system itself is in need of serious reform otherwise — but let’s face it, the crux of the problem resides squarely with the man, woman and child in the mirror.

So let’s get back to surmounting the time/convenience issue.  For this purpose, we at Efficient Exercise utilize our CZT — think Critical Zone Training — technology.  A whole-body workout in 10 – 15 minutes?  Yes.  And I don’t mean just a workout (yawn….), but a friggin’ workout! Sounds like the stuff of Sunday morning infomercials, right?  Hardly.  Check-out some of the clips over at the Efficient Exercise YouTube page.  How does CZT technology force such an intense dose of work output in such a truncated amount of time? Because it’s an  Instantaneously matched,  accommodating resistance exercise, my friend.  Simply stated, the device matches the trainee’s available force output at the bio-mechanically weakest, and strongest, positions — and everywhere in between for that matter — in both the concentric and eccentric portion of the movement.  The trainee is producing maximum available force at each point along the strength curve for that particular movement.  The loading of any conventional exercise is limited by one’s strength at the bio-mechanically weakest position — otherwise, there would be no movement at all (bro-sistance bench pressing not withstanding  🙂   ).  The bottom line is a heavy-duty dose of high-intensity work in a very short period of time.  In the hands of an athlete, this is another fantastic tool for the for the overall training toolbox.  Not the end-all-be-all, of course — but a great tool nonetheless.  In the hands of Joe and Jane citizen, though, we feel that CZT accommodating resistance technology is the answer to acquiring all the health benefits of resistance training with an absolute minimum time investment.

So I love training the driven and those with single-minded determination, no doubt.  Athletes, and those aspiring for peak performance, are fun as all hell to program and train.  But I decided to come to Efficient Exercise for another, more lofty reason — because I truly believe that the purveyors of Physical Culture in this country (and every country, for that matter) are tasked with leading the general citizenry out of this global healthcare morass, and I wanted to partner with an entity that shared that same vision.  Needless to say, I found just that in Efficient Exercise.

Puttin’ our money where our yap is…

So fixing the nation’s healthcare crisis one person at a time isn’t all just bluster, blather and wishful thinking — we at Efficient Exercise are leading the way in devising a manageable program for Joe and Jane citizen.  Keep tabs on the happenings over at our facebook page; the fun kicks-off with a participant group orientation on Tuesday, 1/18.  Could fixing the healthcare crisis really be as easy as a grassroots push to adopt a Paleo-ish diet and a half-hour a week on CZT equipment?  We at Efficient Exercise certainly think so.

 

 

In health,

Keith

Progress? Progress!

A client asked me recently how she would know that she’s making adequate “progress”, with the context, of course, being fitness-related, and more specifically, strength biased.  And I wish I had a ready answer for her; the truth of the matter though, is that “progress” is a tough thing to define, and even tougher to measure — it’s a little like herding cats.  Sure we can say, for instance, that one’s squat has increased 30 lbs over a certain time frame — but what if in gaining that increased squat poundage, we had to sacrifice a tenth of a second off of a 40 time; 20 seconds off of a 5 k?  The fact of the matter is that “progress” can only be measured relative to — and, in fact can only be defined by — our stated goals.  As Dan John is fond of saying, the “goal is to keep the goal, the goal…”  Now, this might sound a bit flippant at first blush, but I can tell you from first-hand experience just how difficult this is in practice.  Dan also likes to base weight room progress on the movements: a deadlift max, maximum number of dead-hang pull-ups and the standing triple jump; you’d be hard-pressed to argue for better weightroom yardsticks and yet, what about the more nebulous indicators —   blood work, say?  Bodyfat levels…overall exuberance for life?  Ever been around a bodybuilder in the final week (or hell, final month) of contest prep?  Exuberance is not exactly a word that comes to mind.  What if we’re looking to be strong, yes — but not at the expense of chipping away at our overall health (this happens to be my goal, by the way)?  In that case, I think Art DeVany’s “metabolic headroom” is a great place to start.  In other words, what’s the separation between your metabolic “idle” and metabolic “redline”?  I’ll have to come up with a working definition here that doesn’t leave my intended audience with their eyes rolling back in their heads.  Any help and/or thoughts on getting this point across to those not geeked-out on diet and fitness is greatly appreciated.

The week’s training — a mixed bag…and I like it like that!

It’s not often that I rumble through three training sessions in a row, but that’s just the way things shook-out this week.  So in true power-law, random-loving fashion, I rolled right on along with life as it hit me.

Tuesday: a quick-hitter supper-set with these two –

barbell muscle-ups (from the high hang): 115 x 8; 135 x 6; 145 x 5, 5, 5

Efficient Exercise exclusive hip press: 400 x 12; 500 x 6; 545 x 4, 4, 4

 

Best in the business; the Pendulum Hip Press

 

I like this pairing for a quick, total body workout.  If I had a bit more time, I would have tossed weighted pull-ups into the mix, and I’ll add those in next time I do this little number.  Also, I’ve got some good 4-6 rep range numbers to work with now so as to employ Autoregulation principles to the exercise loading next time out.

Wednesday: making the most out of ready access to Nautilus equipment –

Nautilus pec dec: 110 x 11 (41×1 tempo), then immediately to

weighted dips: 70#  x 6, 3, 2, 2, 2, 2 rest-pause extended set

and to round things out…

Nautilus pull-over: 230 x 9+ (not quite 10), 50×0 tempo

The extended rest-pause set: think of this as a hybrid between a DeVany-esq Hierarchical set, and the standby classic rest-pause method.  The pec dec serves as a good pre-exhaust movement, here; big rep drop-off between the first and second “set” of dips.  Without the pre-exhaust, we’re looking at an initial rep range of 10 to 12 or so, and an increased loading prior to the initiation of each and every “set” until we reach (about) the 2-rep threshold.  From this point, we’ll bust-out doubles until failure.

Thursday: holy friggin’ HIT, Batman!  Check-out the clip below –

If you weren’t keeping score, here’s what Skyler put me through:

Romanian Deadlift: 5 rest-pause style dynamic/hyper reps (about 5 seconds rest between reps; max effort each rep)

Dip: 5 rest-pause style dynamic/hyper reps (again about 5 seconds rest between reps; max effort each rep)

Pull Down: 5 negative-only reps

Military Press: 5 negative-only reps

Squat: 5 rest-pause style dynamic/hyper reps (same drill, about 5 seconds rest between reps; max effort each rep)

Hey, what is that, a friggin’ mouthpiece shoved in your pie-hole?  Yeah it is, I’m a teeth-gnasher on the “long”, grind-it-out lifts.  I’ve actually bitten clean through a few of these bad boys.  I’d like to keep my teeth around for rippin’ through grass-fed animal protein, thanks, so I’ll keep sportin’ the old mouth vinyl.

So this CZT equipment is, well…it just has to be tested to be appreciated; the intensity that can be generated here is simply phenomenal.  If you’re in the Austin area and you want to take this equipment for a spin, give Skyler or myself a holler; we’d be happy to take you through a round.  Anthony Johnson, of the 21-Convention, did just that when he came through “the ATX” recently.  I gave Anthony a dose of hierarchical rest-pause on the Pendulum Hip Press on one day, then a few days later he followed my own CZT workout with one of his own.  Again, the master of ceremonies here is none other than Dr. HIT-dose himself, Skyler Tanner; check it out:

And checkout Anthony’s notes on his Efficient Exercise and CZT experience, here.

Moving Daze, and X-Ccentric Equipment

So, just how does one prepare for the rigors of moving day (actually moving days…or even more appropriately, daze)?  Well, if you’re an idgit like me, you do so by cranking-out a couple of tough-ass workouts in the days prior, just to be sure that you’re good & well zorched even before lifting that first dastardly-heavy armoire.  What the hell was I thinking?  Well, to put it simply, I wasn’t.  Even as Meesus TTP and I sat through the signing process at Alamo Title Company, two thoughts ran through my mind.  One was that I actually did have a positive net worth there for a while, during that short time I was out from under my last mortgage; the other was that, yes — quite possibly, ripping-off 12 sets of power snatches was no way to prepare for the following couple of day’s worth of toting around the assorted heavy and cumbersome accumulations of 45 years of wanton consumerism.  My grandfather’s advice to me when I was a young lad (but already knew everything there was to know) — and which I promptly dismissed as the babblings of a madman — was to never own more than you could carry across the river; I’m sure his soul had a good laugh at my expense this weekend.

Wednesday’s session; Mike Mentzer HIT, anyone  🙂  I pulled-off this doozie at the Efficient Exercise downtown location:

Tru squat: (weight – 100, counter weight – 115, wide stance, 3rd pin, 4040 tempo*) 12, approx. 15 secs. rest, 10 – then immediately to:

Super-slow leg curl: 150 lbs x 10, approx. 15 secs. rest, 10 –  4040 tempo

Nautilus Pec Dec: 110 x 7 ( 4040 tempo), then immediately to:

Nautilus chest press/crunch: 150 x 12 ( 4040 tempo)

Nautilus pull-over: 200 x 10 (4020 tempo), then immediately to:

Strict reverse grip pull-ups: bodyweight x 6, 15 secs pause, 4 (5010 tempo)

Nautilus shoulder lateral raise: 160 x 10 (2040 tempo), then immediately to:

*X-Ccentric upright press: (no counter weight, no added weight) x 7 (4020 tempo)

Friday’s between-client power snatch session, Efficient Exercise Rosedale location:

And by the way, this one might not rank very high on the creative scale, but damn if it doesn’t reek of effective work!

power snatch: 115 x 7, 7; 135 x 7 sets of 3.  45-minute break, then: 135 x 5 sets of 3

X-Ccentric Equipment

*This is some of the the coolest, most inventive pieces of equipment (next to its kissing-cousin, the CZT line of equipment) that I’ve run across in all of my years in the iron game.  Part free-weight, part machine — a true hybrid piece of weight training equipment.   With the added bonus being that it looks downright medieval 🙂

The cool thing about this equipment — aside from fantastic leverages, biomechanical suitability and a fabulous strength-curve matching  — is the ability for the trainer to apply precise amounts of positive and/or negative assistance to the trainee.  Check-out the following couple of clips to get a feel for what I mean:

As you can see, there is no limit to to the way this piece of equipment can be utilized.

As is with the CZT, the X-Ccentric line of equipment is a fantastic addition to the weightroom arsenal.