Transcend and Include

Today’s post is inspired by Rich Froning, James FitzGerald, and Ken Wilber.

I’m in Georgia this month teaching Spirit of Atlanta Drum and Bugle Corps. A typical day is up at 7 AM for strength and conditioning: I train 150 members from 7:15 to 7:45 each morning. We do some basic barbell lifts on Mon-Wed-Fri, aerobic running intervals Tues-Thurs, a game day on Sat, and Sun off. Breakfast at 8, then rehearsal until noon. Lunch for an hour, then another 4 hours of rehearsal (all outside, mostly all in the sun) until dinner at 5:30 PM. After dinner there’s another 3 hours of rehearsal before a meeting and snack before lights out at 11:30 PM.

Long ass days! There is something to be said for learning how to work hard and push through times when you just don’t want to do it. Social, communal grit and flow experiences I would say. When I was marching as a member I distinctly remember learning how to breathe at The Cadets (so as to not pass out), how to get in the flow state at Bluecoats (I would stare off in the distance during our lot warm-ups and completely ‘get in the zone’), and how to perform my ass off at Rhythm X (watch the video).

Something I picked up from James FitzGerald over at OPT is the concept of “Transcend and Include.” In his field he meant that in the strength and conditioning world, you should always look to upgrade your fitness prescription by transcending the boundaries of your current practice to include the positives of other disciplines. Are you just lifting weights currently? Learn how to do some basic gymnastics. Are you just running long distance? Toss in some sprints. Are you “just CrossFitting”? How about checking out a yoga class, or even going to a different CrossFit gym while away from home?

Yesterday my snareline asked me how much of my teaching philosophy is taken from others and how much is originally mine. I said I stole everything! However, I think I have used the idea of “transcend and include” quite often throughout the years. Everything from Zen Buddhism to social pyschology to strength and conditioning has influenced the way I teach those 8 dudes how to play snare drum together. One day we’ll meditate, the next I’ll reference the flow state, and another we might alternate burpees with roll exercises. Transcend, and include.

Thanks for reading! Please post your comments below, especially if you’ve had any similar experiences.

CrossFit Charlottesville Programming

I recently got the opportunity to program the workouts at CrossFit Charlottesville for April and May. About three years ago I first read an article Greg Glassman wrote titled, “What is Fitness?”, and since then I’ve been hooked on the idea of concurrent strength and endurance training.

These next two months at our gym are going to highlight the Olympic lifts, gymnastics skill training, sustained aerobic power output, and short, intense anaerobic bursts, in addition to several classic CrossFit Girl / Hero WOD’s. My main source of inspiration and knowledge here comes straight from James FitzGerald over at Optimum Performance Training, a total badass who I got the pleasure to meet and listen to talk about fitness while I was in Austin, TX for the PaleoFX Theory to Practice Symposium.

In a nutshell, I’m totally stoked, not to mention totally nervous as to how this will all play out for all the amazing clients who commit their time to do the workouts we say! More to come in the future for sure about positives and negatives of the approach.

Also, been a while since I’ve posted any benchmarks. Recently clean and jerked over 200 pounds for the first time, and also pulled 385# in the deadlift. Snatched 155# for a triple somehow even though I thought it was my one-rep max, so that was fun. Looking to high-bar back squat (full range of motion) 300# sometime soon, as well as maybe get a one-arm chin-up by the end of the summer.

Last but not least, I’m traveling to Rhode Island this week to meet and learn from Charles Poliquin! To say this man is a behemoth in the world of strength and conditioning would be a drastic understatement. He popularized tempo training, speaks several languages, and has huge biceps. ‘Nuff said.

Current Workout Schedule

Here’s an insider’s peek into what I will be doing in and out of the gym for the next couple months:

A good mixture of Olympic lifting, squatting, sprinting, straight-arm and bent-arm pushing and pulling, skill, variety, and fun. Inspired by the following: California Strength, Catalyst Athletics, Eat Move Improve (and Overcoming Gravity), Ido Portal, Dan John, Pavel Tsatsouline, Beast Skills, and CrossFit.

Two Videos on Play

Video #1: Baby Charles-Edward playing with his toys over the course of 4 hours

 

Video #2: Trailer for an upcoming movie, Seriously! The Future Depends on Play

Reflections on Not Owning a TV

About a month ago Jenni and I sold our TV. Neither of us barely ever used it, except for getting sucked into watching “Chopped” or “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives” on Food TV. Now not only is our living room that much more spacious, but our free time is that much more peaceful and static-free. Occasionally we cave in and watch a movie on one of our laptops, but otherwise I really feel like it has freed up a bit of time to do more important things, such as:

• Walk more
• Cook better
• Read more
• Talk to each other

Now it’s completely possible that getting rid of our TV simply correlated with these effects rather than caused them, but regardless the sentiment holds true. I highly recommend not owning a TV if your goals include more free time, better health, better relationships, and more mindfulness.

Slow Down

A series of events recently have led me to rediscover the profound effect slowing things down can have. This post inspired by Eataly in New York, Charles Poliquin, Feist, and Mark Sisson.

In November I visited Eataly Café in New York City, a completely extravagant food environment definitely worth visiting. Founded by Mario Batali, Eataly was inspired by the Slow Food Movement, which tries to pull us back towards how food used to be prepared and enjoyed: slowly. Jenni and I have been cooking a lot recently, and I am trying to pick my restaurants wisely so as to keep in line with slow, local food. In Charlottesville you can never go wrong with Rev Soup or Brookville, and in Richmond The Empress is top-notch.

In the gym over the past couple months I have rekindled my relationship with the barbell. Two months of Reverse Pyramid Training ala Leangains led to some great new PR’s in the back squat and deadlift, and I enjoyed the low volume, high-intensity method. To avoid plateaus however, I am going to spend a month or so varying it up a bit. Here’s what the lifting scheme will look like:

Tuesday: Deadlift, Good Morning, Bench Press, Bent Row (10 x 3-5 @ 75%, tempo 30X2)

Thursday: Back Squat, GHD Sit-up, Shoulder Press, Chin-up (10 x 3-5 @ 75%, tempo 30X2)

So basically this is an “Advanced German Volume Training” as Charles Poliquin calls it, so I will hopefully not only get stronger but also get a little bigger. With the slow tempo I am geting around 25 seconds or so Time Under Tension per set, so this lifting scheme builds relative strength as well as hypertrophy. In summary, when lifting something away from the Earth, go quickly; when lowering it back down, count to 3. Exhausting, and hopefully effective.

On the music front, I’ve been on a total Feist kick recently. Great music to lift to if you aren’t a metalhead. Here’s “The Bad in Each Other” off of her newest album Metals:

 

Thanks for reading! Enjoy some slow time with friends and family this holiday season, perhaps with some slow food and slow lifting thrown in as well.

Rules from Nate Green’s Hero Handbook

I recently read Nate Green’s free e-book “The Hero Handbook” and highly recommend it. It’s 136 pages of no-bullshit advice on life, from nutrition to workouts to finances to goal-setting. Nate’s writing works well as an occasional reminder of where you’re headed and how to get there.

In one chapter he has you actually write down your own “rules” for life. Here are my top six, loosely based on what Nate wrote:

1. Move and play (well, creatively, passionately) so as to inspire others to move and play.
2. Practice health: physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, financially.
3. Engage openly and honestly with my nuclear family and close friends.
4. Experience new opportunities abroad, in music, fitness, spiritually, health, etc.
5. Share my accumulated wisdom, without ego, for the benefit of others.
6. Change this list at any time, whenever I see fit.

A bit cheesy for sure, but adopting a larger framework within which to operate seems like a good choice to me.