Foundation X

Squat Damnit!

There is nothing more functional, nothing more applicable, and nothing SAFER in training than the squat.

End of story. I don't want to hear it. Scream whatever kind of sharing forces, compressive forces, lower back issues you want to. If you move through your day on two feet on a regular basis, you should be doing some sort of squatting.

You squat every morning getting out of bed, every time you get up from your morning constitutional, get out of the car, up off the subway seat... You squat. Shouldn't you practice to be better, more efficient and stronger at it? Knee problems, hip issues, lower back problems; there is a variant of the squat that can and actually will help you improve. That having been said, if you have any of those issues, remember, consult a licensed professional before taking on any physically exertive activities.

Why? You're working posture, coordination, legs, hips, back, shoulders, proprioception and balance, just to name a few. The sheer act of walking is a form of reciprocating unilateral squat. So find something, put it on the ground or some place that lends its self to easy loading and PICK IT UP!!

Now, when we want to take this a step further and get seriously efficient with your time, we'll talk about overhead squatting.

Foundation IX

Balance: Remix

You've trained yourself to balance your body, now train the body to be balanced. Instead of equilibrium, this time I'm talking about balanced movement. For each push, there's a pull.

You've seen that guy walking around the gym on pencil legs with the rounded shoulders, knuckles dragging the ground while he walks? That's anterior rounding. He's not working through his back and legs as much as he's working his bench and those "curls for the girls." He's also predispositioned himself for injury and back pain. Don't be neanderthal man. Train balanced movements.

Pull a weight towards your body. Do it a certain amount of times. Now find an equivalent weight and push it away from the body in the same manner. Pick a weight up and throw it away.

Take foundations 2, 4, 5 & 7. Get outside, reach down to the ground, pick up something heavy and throw the thing as hard as you can. Ask the boys over at the Eads House of Pain how much fun it can be to throw a kettlebell on the beach.

Saturday Night Blowout

Foundational fitness postings will continue tomorrow. Right now we need to take time to recognize last night's athletes.

Last night we met a new beast and it's no small thing to say that each of our athletes met it head on.

It seems simple. You've got ten minutes. You've got one task. You get to pick the load and the modality for that task, but you just can't stop. Keep moving. Keep pulling. Keep engaging your entire body to accomplish one thing. When that one movement is a clean, when that one demand is full body coordination, explosiveness, power...it takes its toll very quickly. But we're not done yet. This evolution is only halfway over. 

This is only the second time our athletes have met a Barbarian. Each has to depend on another to find success. Each has to depend on another in order to find their own way through to the end. The clock doesn't stop ticking. The "rest" is built in. It's funny how in some cases the rest makes you pray for the release found in the work. 

Walking into a room with weights, machines, tools, various implements and loads to lift, push, pull and throw, we know how hard things can get. We have an idea of just how difficult the next few minutes of our lives can be. But what happens when we walk into an empty room, working only against our own body weight in space? Excuses are lost. We literally become our own challenge, our own barrier, our own obstacle.

The same rules apply. We lift, push, pull & throw. But this time, it's not the machine or the barbell that is too heavy or too hard. We succeed or we only have ourselves to blame. Hence more often than not...we succeed.

Awesome work everyone. For the first time an entire class has stepped up to the evening and unflinchingly completed the entire evolution. Every week your body and your determination changes. Every week you get stronger, faster and more efficient. You are evolving. 

Keep it up.

Foundation VIII

Train your balance.

In practicing Foundation II, you've already started this process.

You're on your feet, now move your feet in closer together. Practice the same movement you were practicing. Now stand in a staggered stance. Practice like that.

The more you challenge your body's ability to keep both feet on the ground, the more you're stimulating response and growth from the body. It's like saying "This one goes to 11!" If you've got all your stabilizers switched on and firing just by standing up, now we're ratcheting them up a little higher by challenging your equilibrium.

It would be nice if all life's demands were thrown at us when we're standing at the ready in the universal athletic stance, but they're not. You never know when you might have to jump back up the curb because of that taxi you didn't see coming. And you're certainly not necessarily going to be standing in correct neutral posture ready to receive your luggage in the middle of the swarming throngs of people at the baggage carousel when you lunge past that blue hair in front of you to grab your bag.

Foundation VII

Don't Limit Yourself to the Gym.

Get outside. Get some fresh air. Remember back a few weeks. Arthur Saxon himself, in both of his books, was a huge proponent of getting out in to the fresh air. There were very few things he valued as much and there currently are very few things that I believe can make your workout more functionally applicable.

Practice doing the things you enjoy doing or find yourself doing every day. Take your regular afternoon walk, but wear a backpack with a few pounds of books in it. Take the dogs for a jog instead of a walk. See how many times you can squat down and lift that 2 gallon jug of olive oil you got at Costco from floor to counter before you have to rest. See if you can make it all the way across those monkey bars.

Make your fitness plan real and immediately related to your routine.

When you make tasks in every day life harder, the rest is cake.

Foundation VI

Vairety

It's widely understood that over time, most programs have a goal of moving progressively heavier weight. But don't get hung up on load. We're training performance here. We're not training to be Mr. Olympia (God forbid).

Maybe you move similar weights, but decrease your rest? Maybe you start looking at power development and moving that load, or just yourself, as fast as possible. Maybe you change up the complexity and move two lighter objects instead of one. I'm not advocating that we never lift heavy. Lord knows I love picking heavy sh*t up. But we have to move beyond just lifting heavier.

Your body and your sustained results will thank you.

Foundation V

Train With Complexity

If you look at most strength training programs, they use both arms or both legs at the same time & push/pull a weight in front of or below you. It's a good start, but the key is to move beyond.

A significant portion of our days are spent using one side of the body at a time, turning, twisting, reaching at odd angles.

Our training should reflect that. Tie this in with foundation II and III. Stand up in your space. Reach across your body to pick something up off the ground. If you don't have the range of motion to perform this safely, then reach across to a low table or chair. Stand back up straight with the object. Feels pretty natural doesn't it? That's because we spend most of our day doing that. Now ind something a little harder to pick up and keep practicing.

Remember, when you go to the gym & make normal life harder, everything else is cake.