Friday 24 February 2012
Posted: February 24, 2012 Filed under: Random Workout | Tags: crossfit, cycling, fitness, health, motivation, perspective, running, yoga 1 CommentGo outside and take a deep breath of fresh air before attempting to murder us-
This post today has the potential to become fragmented and touches on some sore subjects for some of you, our dear readers.
As some of you know we have been lamenting about pain all week and how we basically do a few stupid things with it, like: Ignore it, work through it, use it as a barometer to gauge our progress and many more. Now this is where we try to delve into the minutia and go sideways…Our crack Research Department has shown that 23.7% of you are flippantly ignorant in some aspect of your life. Say hello to yoga, foam rolling, cardio barre burn, active recovery days and whatever novel term you may use to ease your pain, OK?
What we are proposing to you is to allow balance and symmetry to ease into all aspects of your daily life. Face it we all on one level or another are fragmented in our programs. Wake up at 5am and kill a workout/run for an hour, update Facebook and twitter, rush off to work and the rest of the day spirals out of control. Mix and match it anyway you like, it happens. “Well like hey smarty pants, how do you go about fixing my problems?” First start by reading this: Slow Movement With Awareness (as always we defer to an expert rather than pretending like we know what we are doing here?!?)
So what is the next logical step when you are finished not listening to the pain your body is constantly providing you? Step back and take a deep breath? Or continue doing what you were doing in the name of a free bit of schwag and a race bib?
What fundamentally happens when you are in pain? Some common examples of pain from our readers are stressing over not getting the close spot to the door and the poor selection of granola at Whole Foods as well as the feeling of anxiety before the big race? You breathe harder, faster and basically you breathe more. Say hello to Uncle Ujjayi Pranayama
We spew a fair amount of rubbish around these parts and a few of our readers have adapted the keen ability to weed though it over the last year. Try to spend the weekend working on this technique, it would be time well spent! Remember every minute spent practicing is better than the minute before…
The Plan-
The Workout-
Warm up thoroughly into a nice lather doing what you do best, then:
CultFit Pro Agility Test
Set up three cones (or anything else lying around) five yards (or meters for our Canadian friends) apart:
Start at the middle cone with both feet and one hand on the ground
Sprint five yards right or left to an outside cone
Plant, touch-line and sprint 10 yards in opposite direction to far cone
Plant, touch-line and sprint five yards in opposite direction through middle cone
Get after it today!!!
If this is you first time doing this program today take it easy and get into a flow before you go nuts. If your goal is to injure yourself? Go balls to the wall the first time through!?!
Notes:
Enough about pain its time to move on with life. Rest up this weekend and ENJOY!!!
Thursday 23 February 2012
Posted: February 23, 2012 Filed under: Random Workout | Tags: crossfit, fitness, Harry Potter, health, motivation, perspective, recovery, rest, running 11 Comments<</Insufficient data for meaningful answer>-
You Know What You Want To See<—Hello, feel free to click on me.
Amazing things happen all the time, just not the way you like to see or envision them. As an example:
The Plan-
From CollegeHumor
The Workout-
Rest Day consisting of nothing even remotely health related. A Rest Day as in: Don’t beat yourself up cause you ate too much yesterday or I could have added 10lbs more on my OHS only if I didn’t eat those extra 15 almonds earlier in the day. Or… “Damn my goober friend just sent me this totally awesome Hairy Potter WOD?”
Rest, understand? How hard is it? Harder than your workout or run? That’s what we thought!?!
Notes:
How nice it is to do nothing, think about nothing and cleanse our minds while, well? Doing nothing, ENJOY!!!
Wednesday 22 February 2012
Posted: February 22, 2012 Filed under: Random Workout | Tags: crossfit, cycling, exercise, fitness, health, hiking, motivation, running 5 CommentsHear the meaning within the word-
Thud, thud, thud…”Why in the hell is my left knee hurting during this morning run? Two more miles and I’ll call it quits…” Fast forward 1-2-5-10-15 or however many years later and you know what? Watch this video if you dare! (The video is real and graphic – Just like life if you can’t handle it stop beating yourself up daily)
Total-Knee-Replacement-Surgery
After you finish up watching the video take a gander at this excellent piece:
Mr. Able simply breaks it down for all of “You People” that stop by here daily.
Raising Our Kids to Think, Feel & Be Healthy
Now to set up the above article and we know this is hard for some of you (like the 482 peeps that emailed yesterday). The writer ties together nicely in a polite sociable sort of way what we would spend a whole week banging you over the head…”Hey wait aren’t you guys doing that right now?!?”
Does your training prepare you for this? Probably not!
The Plan-
We always like to present our fair readers with unique and challenging programs to consider. So on that note check this out:
The Workout-
Trail Run/Bike/Swim/Hike or whatever you honestly enjoy and do not say you enjoy running with sand bags, for about an hour. Followed by:
2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2 Perfect Pull Ups (each set of two is with a different and unique grip)
5 Thread the Needle Reverse Lunges (each leg) and 5 Lateral Lunges (each leg) between each set of pull ups duh!
We feel as though due the increase in Random Fitness readers over the past month to preface this workout: It is not a balls to the wall kill yourself for time event!
A majority if not all of you will not even break a sweat doing this, oh and no bands on the pull ups either! “Hmm I wonder why pull ups and lunges are important…Oh well I never ever use abductors when running a marathon anyways. And since when are abductors important to the overall health of my knees?”
If you do this above program properly and with the correct muscle activation…tomorrow is going to be hell!
Notes:
Be safe peeps and as always feel free to experiment and let us know the results, ENJOY!!!
Tuesday 21 February 2012
Posted: February 21, 2012 Filed under: Random Workout | Tags: crossfit, exercise, fitness, health, lifting, motivation, perspective, running 3 CommentsThe man is happiest who lives from day to day and asks no more, garnering the simple goodness of life–
We generally hope you know that acute pain signals an injury, we hope? As you reach out your hand to “accidentally” touch a hot stove; you pull your hand away in response to the pain. Give or take a few days and before you know it all is healed and you are prepared to go at it again.
If only it was the simple huh?
The discussion we want to have today touches on pain and self-awareness (feel free to comment on something blatantly unrelated to what we just wrote…)
One of the major problems we have is a mind-body disconnect. A really good book to pick up is the: Science of Flexibility by Michael J. Alter
A few examples of a mind-body disconnect you see almost daily maybe in yourself or others: Doing back bends in yoga after not bending like that for 35 years, Glute/Ham Sit-Ups for no apparent reason, Bench Press with your mate after WOD’ing (what a ridiculous term!) for six months and claiming the bench is too functional, kipping Pull Ups. The list is long so hopefully these will touch a nerve in you?!?
As we try to tie this together today let us get back to our original message concerning the hot stove. We know there are a few X-Fit apes and yoga moms reading today that simply don’t get the point and continually reach out and touch the hot stove over and over again feeling the pain each time, becoming conditioned to enjoy it as the scars grow bigger and bigger. Just as we preach about playing like a kid and enjoying life…How many times does it take for a kid to touch a hot stove to learn his lesson? That’s what we thought peeps!
The Plan-
Simple day today, really simple!
The Workout-
Not for time…
500 Swings
250 One Arm Press (each arm)
100 Hinge Walk Out Push Ups (Arms sore from yesterday? Good!)
If you don’t move throughout the day as effortlessly as the slinky above you need to watch this gif all day long then. Who would have ever thought you could learn how to lift and learn from a slinky?
Notes:
Stay safe Random Fitness peeps and good luck to our X-Fit/CultFit open peeps, ENJOY!!!
Monday 20 February 2012
Posted: February 20, 2012 Filed under: Random Workout | Tags: diet, exercise, fitness, health, motivation, perspective 1 CommentWeather forecast for tonight: dark. Continued dark overnight, with widely scattered light by morning-
Not so Breaking News: My Active Faith v. The Cult of CrossFit
We will be paying attention to what happens above…stay tuned peeps this is going to get interesting quick!
How do you begin to form a sense of self-respecting awareness? Follow us here at CultFit HQ as we explore the path that is often overlooked. We apologize to those of you reading at Starbucks this morning for allowing us to take a break the last two weeks, kicking the proverbial can down the road. We do take Random Fitness seriously. Just not after surgery and mega doses of painkillers and Arnica Oil rubdowns.
Insanity, P90x, ReeBok CrossFit, Yoga-Mom Yoga, Pilates, Group Fitness, Boot-camps, late night infomercials (Hell anything else you can think of?) fail you and us on so many levels. We are not opening the floor up here for debate whether or not these programs work. Some do and some don’t, understand? We’re digging much deeper here than the yoga instruction PDF that came with your recent P90x purchase or broad times and modial domain rubbish that X-Fit was founded on!
Talking points for the next fortnight: Pain is a gift, foundations, awareness of breath, small muscle groups, range of motion AROUND the joints not through them (we are currently penning a book touching on this subject and something a majority of you need to address soon.)
There will be more added to the list and as always expect some douche bag antics along the way to keep things light. Did you read that? Don’t take yourself too seriously Greek yogurt addicted Random Fitness albóndigas!?!
The Plan-
9 out 10 emails we receive a week touch on this subject:
If you had to put our CultFit style/theory into a “Family History” definition of sorts? Consider us fourth cousins second removed from holistic fitness. Some call us the “back packing across Europe cousins of X-Fit” and the “holiday in Peru Grandparents” of a brash young crowd consisting of hipster Random Fitness peeps.
Required Reading <—Take time to read this!!!
If you fail to see the angle from which we write you from after reading about the great Jack LaLanne in the above article? 3-2-1 continue picking your programs from the netz, paying out $$$ for gym memberships on a yearly basis and trying quick fix remedies for your fitness aliments.
“There’s a bullying strain to the modern fitness ethos, a blurred line between cheerleading and hectoring. And it’s hard not to wonder whether that kind of intimidation — in addition to the social and economic realities of diet and exercise — helps explain the paradox that for all the newfangled aerobic machines and reduced-rate January gym memberships, Americans aren’t noticeably haler and healthier.”
The Workout-
Our journey this week is predicated on the belief to avoid pain when you work out. Pain is to be treated as a gift to give us feedback about what we are doing wrong. Do not confuse pain with difficulty, exhaustion, pushing the limit etc. Pain from here on out is a feedback tool to let you know you are an insufferable idiot!
If you are already mid-stream in a rugged, proven, goal oriented and tested (like our tested links to the side here) program you can use a majority of what we do on your planned recovery days. Over the 270 posts we have written: 97.4% of the our Workouts push you to the limit. These are no cheering squad “Box” workouts where the entire class performs band assisted pull ups and lives vicariously through your impressive lifts. We need to look deep whiten ourselves and find the motivation to succeed. Uncle Mo is still feeling the side effects from competing in the X-Fit games back in 2008 with three cracked ribs (yeah we were competing in the X-Fit games before you knew it was cool…Gosh you really do take yourself that seriously?!?). Pin these thoughts in the back of your mind as we gather steam for the next few weeks.
An old favorite that in its simplicity humbles so many peeps…
45 Second Hand Stand Hold
35 Perfect Push Ups
45 Second Hand Stand Hold
30 Perfect Push Ups
45 Second Hand Stand Hold
25 Perfect Push Ups
45 Second Hand Stand Hold
20 Perfect Push Ups
45 Second Hand Stand Hold
10 Perfect Push Ups
45 Second Hand Stand Hold
5 Perfect Push Ups
Notes:
We know some of our readers are scratching their pretty fragile brains right now. Here’s why: As the snow starts to melt and the self-proclaimed ELITE athletes around the world come out of hibernation to prove themselves (yoga mom 5k’s, X-Fit Games, princess marathons). Injuries are going to happen to you for some very vain reasons, ENJOY???
CultFit 