Friday, January 22, 2010

CONVICT CONDITIONING

A while back, I ordered a copy of Convict Conditioning by Paul Wade. I have purchased many books and DVD's from Dragon Door Publishing and have never been disappointed. I am especially high on Pavel Tsatsouline's work around kettle bells and stretching.

After receiving my copy and devouring the 300 pages in one sitting, I knew that, not only was I not disappointed, I was in for what could well be a two year affair with the most comprehensive book on body weight conditioning that I have ever read.

There is much talk of the author's time in prison, where he painstakingly developed, refined and taught this program. The references to prison life, while not to the point and not applicable to his larger audience, is nevertheless entertaining.

The gist of the book is that nearly anyone can develop incredible strength and flexibility without ever touching a weight. If you read my earlier posting on the TRX system of training, you know that this is right up my alley. This is accomplished by performing 6 basic exercises through 10 progressions per exercise. In fact, I found that I could use the TRX to more effectively execute some of the prescribed movements in Convict Conditioning.

The first progressions are incredibly easy. So easy I think my mother could do them and she has been dead for 45 years. I recently got my wife to do the beginner levels for the 6 exercises and her comment was, "Is that it?!". Regarless, everyone no matter what level of fitness they enjoy, is admonished to start at the beginning. Absolutely resist the temptation to skip ahead. This has the effect of conditioning the ligaments and tendons and preparing the joints for the more challenging excercises to follow. Don't worry, you are in for some really tough workouts down the road. Tough, but, in my opinion far safer, because you have properly prepared the body through the time you have invested in the easier work. These gentle progressions have other benefits, you leave each exercise bout feeling refreshed, not totally drained from over (s)training, and when you have finished the progressions at one level, you are confident that you are prepared to take on the beginning repetitions of the next exercise.

I reluctantly did this and about two weeks into the program I was despairing my loss of definition. When I got to the third level of progressions in push-ups, pull-ups and squats, I suddenly noticed that my definition was back and I had lost an inch or so off my waist. The most important thing though was that my poor shoulders, shredded from years of too much weight too fast, had not felt so good in a very long time and I am thinking, maybe I don't need surgery after all!

I do not know if, at 65, I will ever achieve the elite levels of (1.) 1 set of 100 one arm push-ups (2.) 2 sets of 50 one legged squats, (3.) 2 sets of 6 one armed pull-ups (4.) 2 sets of 30 hanging straight leg raises (5.) 2 sets of 30 stand to stand bridges (6.) 2 sets of 5 one arm hand stand pushups. I know that I am going to just happily follow the progressions in no particular hurry and see where it takes me. As they say, I will keep you "posted".

I do not know a single soul connected with this book or Dragon Door Publishing. I am not receiving one red cent for writing this article, but I just wanted tell you about a really good thing when I heard about it and after I had a chance to try it out on myself as well as on two of my clients who are also happy with the results they are achieving.

Yours in health,

Walt

Friday, January 15, 2010

FITNESS IS NO MATCH FOR MOTHER NATURE

I just returned (very thankfully) from a very cold but great trip to Seeley Lake, Montana. I say "very thankfully" because my buddy and I managed to get into a bit more sledding ( the cool way to say snowmobiling) than we had bargained for.

First off, we are complete novices to the sport. Secondly we set off into the high country the day after a -31 degree night, but we felt encouraged on that front since the little red line was pushing a balmy 0 or maybe even 5, I can't remember exactly.

Looking like a couple of guys that might be out to shoot an ad for Michelin, we set out on his two brand new, "green" friendly sleds around noon. We struck off over frozen Lake Seeley at as fast a clip as allowed in the break in guide. What a gas! Flying by ice fishing huts, stopping to take the obligatory pics to send to my wife, and laughing and whooping it up. Amazing how fast things can turn around.

About 20 miles farther up, and farther into the wilderness, we suddenly found ourselves on a trail that definitely was not groomed and surely not for the likes of us. When Robert tried to turn around, he quickly mired his sled in some pretty deep snow. I jumped off my sled and after digging some snow away from the sled's drive belt with my heavily mittened hands, I squatted behind the sled and heaved upward in dead-lift fashion. Thanks to all the heavy training, I was able to wrestle the end of the 650 lb. sled up and on to fresh snow. From there, Robert was able to motor it down the ungroomed trail in search of a turn around.

Very pleased with myself and thinking that I could blog about how my training regimen had saved the day, I tried unskillfully to back my sled 200 hundred yards to the nearest turn around. I suddenly became aware that Robert was no where to be seen or heard. After some minutes I saw this dark form staggering toward me from the direction I had just left. Robert had done a much more thorough job of burying his sled about 100 yards from the original sight.
He was exhausted from trying to pull the sled off its side and from trudging through the thigh deep snow and he just sat down huffing.

Neither of us had to look at our watches to know that it was getting late and it was definitely getting colder! We had no choice but to abandon his sled and tandem it down the mountain on my machine lickety-split. Since the second seat is higher and Robert being extremely tall, I gallantly took the rear seat thinking he could block more wind that I.

The difference those few inches made was exponentially bad. I have gone snowshoeing in -30 weather. That was nothing compared to this. In short order, my toes, face and hands were uncommonly uncomfortable, but my knees were in excruciating pain (they were pointed directly into the merciless wind), and we still had many miles to go.

Thanks to Robert's excellent sense of direction, we made it back to the lake in about 1 hour. If it had been left to me, we would have been hopelessly lost since I simply followed him up, having long since consigned my frozen eye glasses to a pocket. On top of that, it was now dark.

As we again passed the ice fishing huts, I remembered our jocular mood on the journey out. All humor was now totally frozen out of me. We stopped at a sporting goods/auto supply company where Dan, the owner said he could take us up then or we could wait till tomorrow to get the sled out. Guess what we opted for!

The trouble was, we still had another grim 10 miles to go on the vehicle which had safely delivered us, but made us pay dearly for our transgressions. When we finally arrived home, looking all the world like those two idiots on the motor scooter in Dumb and Dumber, I could barely hobble on frozen knees into the warmth of the house. Robert turned and gave me a big hug and we both exclaimed, "we're home!" He then said, "How about a scotch?"

"You bet" I said, "no ice!'

By the way, I don't care what kind of shape you are in, if Mother Nature wants you, she can have you---anyway she wants you.

Stay tuned, in the next posting I will show you how "savvy" and skill trumps brawn in a tight spot.

Yours in health,

Walt