Today's WOD is deceptively simple. Go ahead and try it.
100 repetitions of kettlebell snatch with the heaviest weight that allows you to complete all repetitions in ONE set. Select your weight carefully. Hand switches are unlimited and you are allowed to rest the k-bell in the overhead position only. However, once you pick up the weight, you must finish the set. If you set down the weight, go hang your head in shame, the workout is over and you've proven yourself to have an inflated sense of your own abilities.
Immediately after the set is over, WITHOUT REST immediately bear crawl 30 steps forward and 30 steps backward as quickly as possible.
WITHOUT REST immediately run for 15 minutes as fast as you can sustain.
At no point in the workout is rest allowed. The full benefits of the movements can only be attained when performed under physical fatigue.
This workout should be doable in less than 30 minutes and will greatly tax all muscle groups and all organ systems, especially if one adheres to a strict balanced diet for the rest of the day.
Tuesday, July 31, 2018
Sunday, July 29, 2018
Building a Head of Steam to Succeed
One important function of training, education, and practice is to prepare not only one's skills, but one's motivation to succeed. Seeing the way forward and seeing oneself match and surpass those who have 'made it' is equally important as developing skill. Nothing is more intensely motivational than seeing exemplars who are succeeding well at an endeavor who possess just as much, or less skill than oneself. It feels like a head of steam building. One sees the competitor succeeding. One sees their skill relative to one's own. And a righteous indignation builds to compete with and surpass others who are currently 'making it.'
However, there is a balance to this process. Trying to 'make it' too early will result in failures due to simple incompetence and naivety. On the opposite extreme, avoiding failure by never trying will doom one to mediocrity and futile jealousy. One must prepare and practice to the point of building a head of steam, but must eventually release that energy into productive work at the correct time. To paraphrase Master Asia, victory is the confluence of strategic advantage, divine timing, and inner peace. One should meticulously cultivate skills with humility, but not be tentative when the time comes to take the initiative and be ordained as the new exemplar. All of these factors characterize the seasoned practitioner of any art: a master of developing one's skills and resources, biding one's time, and calmly executing one's plans when conditions are optimal for success.
However, there is a balance to this process. Trying to 'make it' too early will result in failures due to simple incompetence and naivety. On the opposite extreme, avoiding failure by never trying will doom one to mediocrity and futile jealousy. One must prepare and practice to the point of building a head of steam, but must eventually release that energy into productive work at the correct time. To paraphrase Master Asia, victory is the confluence of strategic advantage, divine timing, and inner peace. One should meticulously cultivate skills with humility, but not be tentative when the time comes to take the initiative and be ordained as the new exemplar. All of these factors characterize the seasoned practitioner of any art: a master of developing one's skills and resources, biding one's time, and calmly executing one's plans when conditions are optimal for success.
Thursday, July 26, 2018
Martial WOD #2
Today's WOD focuses on weaponry, specifically the bow, foldable knife, and pump shotgun. By reading this post any further, understand that this author does not recommend performing this workout ever, under any circumstances, and you are fully responsible for obeying the laws of your jurisdiction regarding weapon restriction. With that stated, here is WOD #2.
Triple check to make sure all weapons are unloaded or safely stowed. Store all ammunition in a separate room and set down weapons in your immediate vicinity away from children with the breech open, safety on, and facing a safe direction.
30 times drawing and opening a foldable knife from concealment and dispatching a visualized combatant. Vary your techniques and try to draw as quietly and discreetly as possible. Do this facing a mirror and try to avoid moving enough to visually detect your own draw. Advanced: do this from both pockets with both hands.
50 bodyweight rows from a bar at waist level in as few sets as possible for time. Advanced: 50 pullups in as few sets as possible for time.
100 hip bridges in as few sets as possible for time. Advanced: 50 1-legged hip bridges per leg for time.
15 shots with a recurve bow from 30 feet away. Aim for a fist sized target. You must hit at least 5 times to finish practicing. Make as little noise and movement as possible to draw your shots. Visualize hunting small game.
15 dry draws with the opposite hand, or as many as you loosed with the other hand to equalize muscular development. DO NOT loose the string without an arrow, or you will damage your bow.
Shotgun: 30 times pumping, depressing the safety, and dry firing 2 snapcap shells at visualized combatants and loading 3 snapcaps into the magazine tube (only if you stow your shotgun without a round chambered, as recommended for drop safety). Advanced: perform this same procedure on the opposite shoulder with the opposite hand. Elite: perform this same procedure one handed, alternating hands.
Finish the WOD by taking apart, wiping down, lightly oiling, and reassembling the shotgun. Inspect all arrows, targets, the bow string, and the bow for damage and discard anything that is broken, cracked, or frayed. Check the alignment of your folding knife, the lubrication of the joint, and the sharpness of the edge. Sharpen if needed. Store all weapons safely in accordance with local laws.
Triple check to make sure all weapons are unloaded or safely stowed. Store all ammunition in a separate room and set down weapons in your immediate vicinity away from children with the breech open, safety on, and facing a safe direction.
30 times drawing and opening a foldable knife from concealment and dispatching a visualized combatant. Vary your techniques and try to draw as quietly and discreetly as possible. Do this facing a mirror and try to avoid moving enough to visually detect your own draw. Advanced: do this from both pockets with both hands.
50 bodyweight rows from a bar at waist level in as few sets as possible for time. Advanced: 50 pullups in as few sets as possible for time.
100 hip bridges in as few sets as possible for time. Advanced: 50 1-legged hip bridges per leg for time.
15 shots with a recurve bow from 30 feet away. Aim for a fist sized target. You must hit at least 5 times to finish practicing. Make as little noise and movement as possible to draw your shots. Visualize hunting small game.
15 dry draws with the opposite hand, or as many as you loosed with the other hand to equalize muscular development. DO NOT loose the string without an arrow, or you will damage your bow.
Shotgun: 30 times pumping, depressing the safety, and dry firing 2 snapcap shells at visualized combatants and loading 3 snapcaps into the magazine tube (only if you stow your shotgun without a round chambered, as recommended for drop safety). Advanced: perform this same procedure on the opposite shoulder with the opposite hand. Elite: perform this same procedure one handed, alternating hands.
Finish the WOD by taking apart, wiping down, lightly oiling, and reassembling the shotgun. Inspect all arrows, targets, the bow string, and the bow for damage and discard anything that is broken, cracked, or frayed. Check the alignment of your folding knife, the lubrication of the joint, and the sharpness of the edge. Sharpen if needed. Store all weapons safely in accordance with local laws.
Wednesday, July 25, 2018
The Dye Theory of Muscle Maintenance
As a young man, I was always stronger than my peers, though I have never been inclined toward athletic contests. Even at that young stage of development, I perceived a distinct difference between the kind of strength I possessed through purposeful exercise and the kind that appeared to exude from hard people. I could tell immediately for example, that firefighters, policemen, veterans, and manual laborers were almost all as strong as I was, but obviously exercised far less to maintain their strength. Many of my friends who returned from the war in the Middle East took terrible care of themselves by exercising very little, drinking heavily, and otherwise struggling to focus on their well being. However, to a man, these survivors remained hardy, well muscled and physically formidable, even as their health has deteriorated. As my life grew more difficult, I too found myself working jobs in manual labor, grappling with some severe personal losses and hardships in my family, and training at a no-nonsense school of martial arts where the stress of training was severe. I used to joke about doping with cortisol instead of testosterone. This chronic stress manifested in numerous physical symptoms, but the most interesting one was a default state of muscularity that persisted no matter how I did or didn't train.
To this very day, despite my vegan diet of solely plant foods and no oil, despite a reduced stress lifestyle, despite a workout routine consisting solely of running, pushups, situps, squats, kicks, and punches, I remain physically formidable. Yet if I had attempted to build muscle through these means before my hard years, I would have stayed very weak. I have a theory for why this effect has persisted: I call it the dye theory.
Conventional wisdom about bodybuilding posits that muscle growth is a function of resistance plus nutrition, but this approach is myopic. How shall the body prioritize muscle building? Why do certain exercises cause gains for some and plateaus for others? How do extraordinary individuals like Herschel Walker sustain their incredible strength on suboptimal routines composed entirely of calisthenics? One hidden variable contributing to these exceptions may be hormonal stress. Testosterone and human growth hormone may cause building, but they cannot on their own encourage the body to begin the process. Therefore, the building metaphor of muscle growth does not seem complete. Otherwise, there would be one single way to workout and eat that would guarantee optimal muscle growth across all people, and that perfect way has never been found.
A better metaphor for muscle growth may be color fastness and dying the body. Muscle grows more like a cloth being dyed than a structure being built. That cloth can vary from color fast, or difficult-to-dye, to easy-to-dye. Stress makes the body easier to dye and causes the muscle that IS built to be preferentially maintained. This may explain morphological differences among people engaged in the same physical activities. It also explains exceptional individuals who engage in suboptimal routines yet manifest above average muscularity.
In my case, I've found that the muscle I built during my hard years has been largely dyed into me through the high levels of stress I carried during that time. Even as my levels of stress decline, those morphological changes have proven resilient in spite of a diet and exercise routine that are intrinsically suboptimal for muscle maintenance. However long this effect persists remains to be seen, but to those seeking to gain muscle, consider the following revised formula for muscle growth: Growth is a function of resistance, diet, and stress. To increase stress, you'll need to live with purpose and self sacrifice. To my knowledge, there are very few gyms where this kind of austerity can be found.
Another outcome of this dying is that the body, given a choice between maintaining the health of tissues or thickening and maintaining muscle and tendon, will tend toward the latter, even at the cost of negative health effects, such as calcified and hardened arteries. As a result, if you want to reverse damage from hard living, you need equally severe opposite stimuli of diet, exercise, and stress: you'll need to eat, exercise, and calm yourself like a monk for as many years as it takes to readjust your physical constitution. I can only hope I have enough time left to fix the damage done.
To this very day, despite my vegan diet of solely plant foods and no oil, despite a reduced stress lifestyle, despite a workout routine consisting solely of running, pushups, situps, squats, kicks, and punches, I remain physically formidable. Yet if I had attempted to build muscle through these means before my hard years, I would have stayed very weak. I have a theory for why this effect has persisted: I call it the dye theory.
Conventional wisdom about bodybuilding posits that muscle growth is a function of resistance plus nutrition, but this approach is myopic. How shall the body prioritize muscle building? Why do certain exercises cause gains for some and plateaus for others? How do extraordinary individuals like Herschel Walker sustain their incredible strength on suboptimal routines composed entirely of calisthenics? One hidden variable contributing to these exceptions may be hormonal stress. Testosterone and human growth hormone may cause building, but they cannot on their own encourage the body to begin the process. Therefore, the building metaphor of muscle growth does not seem complete. Otherwise, there would be one single way to workout and eat that would guarantee optimal muscle growth across all people, and that perfect way has never been found.
A better metaphor for muscle growth may be color fastness and dying the body. Muscle grows more like a cloth being dyed than a structure being built. That cloth can vary from color fast, or difficult-to-dye, to easy-to-dye. Stress makes the body easier to dye and causes the muscle that IS built to be preferentially maintained. This may explain morphological differences among people engaged in the same physical activities. It also explains exceptional individuals who engage in suboptimal routines yet manifest above average muscularity.
In my case, I've found that the muscle I built during my hard years has been largely dyed into me through the high levels of stress I carried during that time. Even as my levels of stress decline, those morphological changes have proven resilient in spite of a diet and exercise routine that are intrinsically suboptimal for muscle maintenance. However long this effect persists remains to be seen, but to those seeking to gain muscle, consider the following revised formula for muscle growth: Growth is a function of resistance, diet, and stress. To increase stress, you'll need to live with purpose and self sacrifice. To my knowledge, there are very few gyms where this kind of austerity can be found.
Another outcome of this dying is that the body, given a choice between maintaining the health of tissues or thickening and maintaining muscle and tendon, will tend toward the latter, even at the cost of negative health effects, such as calcified and hardened arteries. As a result, if you want to reverse damage from hard living, you need equally severe opposite stimuli of diet, exercise, and stress: you'll need to eat, exercise, and calm yourself like a monk for as many years as it takes to readjust your physical constitution. I can only hope I have enough time left to fix the damage done.
Friday, July 20, 2018
The Proper Way to Die
The martial path confounds and frightens many because it appears to glorify death and destruction. This is a misunderstanding of the teachings of conflict. Life itself is merely particles in chaotic perturbation. As mentioned previously, one can resolve calamitously or easily when they pass. It follows that in the broadest sense, the proper way to live and die is with an eye toward life's end. Regardless of what follows that death, all can agree that one's reputation and offspring outlast physical life, and that these priorities, being more long lasting than life itself, should at least partially dictate one's choices in how to live and allocate time and resources. Therefore, the martial way is one in which simple resolutions of deceptive profundity resolve contradictions until none remain. Life, being the most basic contradiction, is the last one to resolve, but it need not be the most complicated or chaotic. One can also simply fade and pass like a calm breeze that wanes and dissipates, or a rippled pond again settling into stillness and clarity. To the detractors of this view, your objection is irrelevant. You too will eventually find ultimate peace. There is no other possibility for you or your loved ones. Death is a bastard that wants to kill you and it will eventually succeed. So you'll only cheat the reaper if you can create something here that will keep him busy past your defeat.
To ensure you are outlasted, you must breed and protect your family til the bitter end. To secure a good reputation, you must act honorably, choose honorable courses of action, and be seen as honorable to those who find your effects. You should encourage the best in those who remain. To discourage, demoralize, or wound the pride of your family after your passing is worse than death, as it doubly wounds your survivors. Therefore, with the time you have left, resolve to die properly and choose your paths toward that end. Because your outcome will be the same, the only reason to die well must be the well being of your family and friends. They must assume critical importance as you begin to decline and use your last days to their fullest. Like all battles, death can only command fear until it is done. Then, those who remain collect what survives and learn from the example of the deceased. Strive to be a fine example, so that your memories inspire peace and wisdom. And if you've lived a life of chaos, it is never too early to begin the inevitable and calm down. You have the rest of your life to figure it out.
To ensure you are outlasted, you must breed and protect your family til the bitter end. To secure a good reputation, you must act honorably, choose honorable courses of action, and be seen as honorable to those who find your effects. You should encourage the best in those who remain. To discourage, demoralize, or wound the pride of your family after your passing is worse than death, as it doubly wounds your survivors. Therefore, with the time you have left, resolve to die properly and choose your paths toward that end. Because your outcome will be the same, the only reason to die well must be the well being of your family and friends. They must assume critical importance as you begin to decline and use your last days to their fullest. Like all battles, death can only command fear until it is done. Then, those who remain collect what survives and learn from the example of the deceased. Strive to be a fine example, so that your memories inspire peace and wisdom. And if you've lived a life of chaos, it is never too early to begin the inevitable and calm down. You have the rest of your life to figure it out.
Monday, July 16, 2018
Martial WOD #1
The martial path affords many ways of conditioning the capacities of the body from strength to endurance to flexibility, and traveling the martial path far enough will necessitate taxing these capacities so consistently that 'workouts' in the traditional sense are no longer necessary. The 'workout of the day' initiated by CrossFit is one way of describing a variable, comprehensive, and function based approach to fitness that develops general physical abilities. However, the exercises may be TOO variable, especially when the goal is to refine perfect form in a small number of important movements.
High level martial practice forces one to model, practice, drill, and refine specific techniques almost daily to the point that workouts begin to seem like unnecessary leisure at best, and detrimental distraction at worst. The solution at this level is to confine workouts to brief supplements in martial training. In this spirit, the WOD's on this blog will seek to document and consolidate some of the spontaneous training the author undergoes in hopes of assisting the beginning martial artist in understanding the kind of training to expect at the top level and offering new ideas to experts. These WOD's, unlike those of CrossFit, are meant to be executed perfectly, with no sloppiness allowed. They are also meant to be sustainable without injuries daily. Therefore, these will not be impressive on paper. The trick is to actually DO these daily without making excuses or requiring a social group to stay consistent. Combined with diet, the healthy person will acquire and keep all the muscle they need simply by completing these WOD's daily. If they are diligent in perfecting their form and visualizing application, they will also hone their martial skills.
The first workout was developed to be begun in a hotel room and finished in the hotel swimming pool with PERFECT FORM on every technique.
WOD #1
10 standing front leg raises, left and right
10 reverse crescent kicks, left and right (turning reverse crescent kicks for the advanced)
10 crescent kicks, left and right
10 side kicks, left and right
10 back kicks, left and right (turning back kick for the advanced)
50 pushups in as few sets as possible
After finishing the last pushup set, immediately begin low bear crawling 30 steps forward, then 30 steps backward without rest.
Jump in the pool after catching your breath.
20 underwater roundhouse kicks, left and right (keep the toes pointed to increase water resistance, maintain form as similar as possible to those done outside of water, push powerfully on both the concentric AND eccentric movements, be neck deep in water to prevent splashing)
20 underwater palm heel hook strikes, left and right (to work the front of the body)
20 underwater in to out palm heel strikes, left and right (to work the back of the body)
2x 50 underwater straight palm heel strikes, left and right (straight punches with the palms facing forward instead of fists)
All techniques must be performed strictly, with the intentions of simultaneously moving with maximal power and increasing water resistance as much as possible by maximizing the surface area of the palms and feet. Visualize delivering knockout strikes. This workout was developed through sheer intuition to maintain skills out of town and performed in just under 30 minutes. It was sufficient to maintain excellent muscle tone for 2 days.
High level martial practice forces one to model, practice, drill, and refine specific techniques almost daily to the point that workouts begin to seem like unnecessary leisure at best, and detrimental distraction at worst. The solution at this level is to confine workouts to brief supplements in martial training. In this spirit, the WOD's on this blog will seek to document and consolidate some of the spontaneous training the author undergoes in hopes of assisting the beginning martial artist in understanding the kind of training to expect at the top level and offering new ideas to experts. These WOD's, unlike those of CrossFit, are meant to be executed perfectly, with no sloppiness allowed. They are also meant to be sustainable without injuries daily. Therefore, these will not be impressive on paper. The trick is to actually DO these daily without making excuses or requiring a social group to stay consistent. Combined with diet, the healthy person will acquire and keep all the muscle they need simply by completing these WOD's daily. If they are diligent in perfecting their form and visualizing application, they will also hone their martial skills.
The first workout was developed to be begun in a hotel room and finished in the hotel swimming pool with PERFECT FORM on every technique.
WOD #1
10 standing front leg raises, left and right
10 reverse crescent kicks, left and right (turning reverse crescent kicks for the advanced)
10 crescent kicks, left and right
10 side kicks, left and right
10 back kicks, left and right (turning back kick for the advanced)
50 pushups in as few sets as possible
After finishing the last pushup set, immediately begin low bear crawling 30 steps forward, then 30 steps backward without rest.
Jump in the pool after catching your breath.
20 underwater roundhouse kicks, left and right (keep the toes pointed to increase water resistance, maintain form as similar as possible to those done outside of water, push powerfully on both the concentric AND eccentric movements, be neck deep in water to prevent splashing)
20 underwater palm heel hook strikes, left and right (to work the front of the body)
20 underwater in to out palm heel strikes, left and right (to work the back of the body)
2x 50 underwater straight palm heel strikes, left and right (straight punches with the palms facing forward instead of fists)
All techniques must be performed strictly, with the intentions of simultaneously moving with maximal power and increasing water resistance as much as possible by maximizing the surface area of the palms and feet. Visualize delivering knockout strikes. This workout was developed through sheer intuition to maintain skills out of town and performed in just under 30 minutes. It was sufficient to maintain excellent muscle tone for 2 days.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)