Wednesday 4 April 2012
Posted: April 4, 2012 Filed under: Random Workout | Tags: active rest, crossfit, exercise, fitness, health, jogging, kettlebell, marathon, motivation, natural, paleo, perspective, pilates, running, trail running, walking, WOD, yoga 22 CommentsIn the hopes of reaching the moon men fail to see the flowers that blossom at their feet-
Every once in a while (about three times a week) we find ourselves overwhelmed by life. A little bit of this and a little bit of that and before you know it? Life is completely out of balance. Honestly this is more of a “Life” piece than a “Fitness” piece today. NO, we are not getting all soft and timid peeps! It’s just that stepping back a few steps to put things in a wider perspective is always a fairly decent idea.
So how do you write about finding balance in all aspects of your life without offering some bit of self-serving advice? Into murky waters we travel…Conviction: The conviction to make the difficult choice; to exclude other possibilities in order to choose the one that suits you best (why does CrossFit and Yoga come to mind); to let go of fearing the disapproval or disappointment of others. Take the time to care about yourself and soon enough “things” will eventually become more balanced, we hope!?!
The Plan-
Our Philosophia could be considered a living breathing document. Just like life it is always changing…Here are a few things we have been kicking around as they pertain to “Fitness” and the “Logic” central to the programs we put together for you daily. Other blog-o-sphere types throw in your general direction daily: 2 Minute Kick Ass Ab Workout, 30 Day Burpee Challenges, Blah, you get the point! The problem is that there is little or no thought about “YOU“…Uncle Brandon swears by his workout routine although it may not work for you:
Big shout out to: Twisters Sports Center!!!
CultFit Universal Program Principios
These apply to all of our programs:
• Use of the stretch–shortening cycle of muscle contraction.
• Minimization of energy used to perform the task (Extreme/Elite fitness peeps will NEVER grasp this concept!!!).
• Control of redundant degrees of freedom in the segmental chain.
CultFit “As We See Fit” Principios
These apply primarily to speed work (whenever we get around to it):
• Sequential action of muscles.
• Minimization of inertia (increasing acceleration of movement).
• Impulse loading and/or absorption (we have been writing about this for the past two months).
• Increasing efficiency in the acceleration path.
• Overall stability.
That sums up our training theory for the year. Thank you for reading!!!
The truth hurts peeps:
The Workout-
So how do we begin to feel whole again after basically breaking ourselves in two with Push Ups and Walking Lunges? Tricky question…
Gently pulled from our “If it smells and looks like yoga” series here at CultFit HQ:
Certainly not for time:
Trail Run/Walk/Hike/Bike/Run (Not to be confused with jogging! You might as well walk)…Off into some Random direction. Followed By:
30 Minutes or so of a flowing, graceful Sūryānamaskāra series
During your journey home pick a number between 500 and 750…And behold: This is the number of Perfect Push Ups to perform during the course of your day!
Simply: We are adding perfect volume broken up neatly into 15-20-25 rep chunks. If we smacked you up side the head and stated: Perform 500 Push Ups in an hour? The first 50 or so would be good and the rest would go to hell, quick!
Every rep today is perfection…Pattern the movement to a point where it is second nature to you. The simplicity in this is just that, keep it simple. Too many times we are barraged with complex kettelbell, Olympic lifting etc moves “recommended” from a dear blogger…Pattern, Load, Progressions…Four people understand why this is important today?!?
**(Note if you are stuck inside feel free to use a treadmill, stationary bike or a big wheel)**
Notes:
Push Ups are but one example, a simple one at that. Pull Ups as well and Goblet Squats easily fall into the same category (sense a theme here?)…Be safe today and most importantly, ENJOY!!!
CultFit 
Perfectly-sketched pain wheel. Reminds me of what I’m finally pulling out of where it comes to career. “The conviction to make the difficult choice…” — You mean like showering and cooking lunch?
Why not do both at the same time 😉
bah hah (sound of deep belly laugh)
I’m really intrigued by the minimum of energy concept and how it applies to degenerative disease reversal. An interesting thought.
You touched on what I feel is paramount to living a healthy life…Efficiency. Through my own series of injuries and through helping others train (in essence this is what CultFit is about) I will often talk about balance, flow, grace etc. More times than not the word “fitness” can be interchanged with “therapy”. A 25 year old dude likes to hear fitness…An older father with children likes to hear therapy.
To me it’s all the same: respect and listen to your body.
I could write and talk all day on this subject. Thank you for reading this morning!!!
Great post, got my brain working, no mean feat.
Working up programs can be hard, and basing them on principles makes alot of sense to me and makes it easy to tailor to individual needs. Best thing about an idea is thowing it out there and seeing what people do with it. But if you get an idea from somewhere, change it to make it work for you.
This is something I have lamented painstakingly about since day one here: “Before you do something say it out loud!”
Like this: I want to run a marathon next month but I hate running and haven’t run an inch since grade school…” You get the point.
Yesterday is a great example…Lots of email about inverted rows and how we have all but forgotten about them over the years. A handful of people give them a go for a few days and see how they get on with them. If they work for you great…If not you tried something and learned a bit more about your body.
very true, we are our own best guinea pig! i love inverted rows, i call them reverse pushups, but i think they are they same thing, right? they help me on overhanging stuff being the weakling i am 🙂
Yeah, same thing. Shortly I was going to do an “Inside CultFit” similar to what you shared yesterday in regards to training equipment…In the garage hangs a set of rings and a set of metolius climbing holds from the ceiling…Killer doing inverted rows on them! Damn my fingertips are still screaming from the other day! I’ll share some pics here shortly!
looking forward to that, i long for the day i have a garage to call my own! 😉 i was looking into getting some metolius climbing rings, they look amazing, but for now my plain old gym rings are enough challenge!
Great post as usual!! Thanks for sharing!
Thank you so much!!!
You’ve got my vote. This is my favorite blog–outside of my own of course! But no, I love the variety of content on each post. Great stuff. I just bragged about you on a facebook share, so hopefully you’ll have some new followers!
Be good.
Thanks mate! Your style of writing is thoroughly enjoyable and memorable to say the least!
Thank you once again for the Facebook share and more importantly…Be well and stay healthy.
Love the graphic at the end of the cycle of ineffective living – somethign we already knew, but the visual puts it into perspective.
Really glad you liked it!
This is such a great blog, gives examples and simple steps to take to change something that people can change from day to day basis to be somewhat a little more active. Now in days people like taking elevators and all that instead of walking stairs but with a simple change its a way of changing a day to day bad habit routine:)
Love the graphic with the arrows to the stairs and escalator!
I enjoyed your blog. It’s very enlightening.
I really appreciate your post. I’ll be coming back to read more.
I’ve spent almost an hour being amused, intrigued, amazed, informed by your blog. Great style!
You say ‘listen to your body’ but isn’t ‘don’t listen to your body’ equally valid?
But thanks – witty and original
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