Have A Why.

Last Sunday, I spent several hours running, jumping, ducking, and diving while getting shot by paintballs. It was a huge paintball game lasting from 10 a.m. to 3p.m. with over 400 players divided into two teams, and it was a blast! This actually wasn’t the first big game I’ve been in, and it won’t be the last (there’s one scheduled every other month for the rest of the year.)

But why am I telling y’all this? Because I now know that every eight weeks, I’ll be running, jumping, ducking, and diving, and now I have concrete timeframes (mesocycles) to plan my strength training, cardio, and agility workouts.

While I have nothing wrong with the idea of training just for the sake of training, training for something is going to be more motivationally powerful for most people. Maybe you study martial arts twice a week, maybe the boss makes you golf with him once a month, or maybe you’re part of a rec league basketball team that practices Mondays and Wednesdays and has games every Saturday afternoon at 1:30.

You’ll be able to perform any of those sports more safely, more effectively, and more enjoyably if you gear your gym time towards turning yourself into an athlete, instead of “just somebody who plays once in a while”, or worse yet, uses the sport instead of a workout.

Now, I can totally understand having a busy weekly schedule, and maybe you’re just barely finding time to practice your sport. Maybe you’re not even finding enough time to do that. But I’m telling you, there are so many, so many benefits to the combination of sport plus exercise that you really need to make a concerted effort to fit in two or three sessions a week.

They don’t have to be marathon sessions at all. If you’re doing your sport a few days a week, then adding in two or three 45-minute workouts will be plenty to see some impressive results (as long as those precious few workouts are designed efficiently and intelligently.)


P.S. – If you’re not into any sports whatsoever and the sole purpose for working out is to be the hottest bod on the beach, that’s all well and good too. Just remember to smile when us sporty types throw you a whoopin’ in volleyball. ;)

Get Pushin' With The Push-Up

Alrighty, first post of the Bond year (as in 007, as in 2007, get it? heehee), and we're getting back to basics. We're going to review one of the first exercises that everybody learned way back when. In P.E. class, it you probably did something like jumping jacks, squats, sit-ups, and push-ups as a part of the class. But once we found the iron in the weight room, alot of people tend to forget these first few classics. Fortunately for us, true classics never go out of style.

If exercises were words, the push-up would be the word "the". It's that basic and fundamental. I've taught 4-year olds and 84-year olds how to do a proper push-up, because it's simply an important movement to know.

Strength coach Alwyn Cosgrove has said that his clients have to "earn the right" to use weights by first mastering bodyweight exercises, including push-ups and squats. While I may not be that strict, I do believe that everyone should be able to do a handful of push-ups before getting too involved with free weights or machines.

Five push-ups is a bare minimum. That's just the starting point. A rough guideline I often set for clients is to eventually be able to do their age in repetitions for one set, or for the over-40 crowd, half your age. Sorry 30-somethings, you end up with the most work, but it's worth it.

I actually wrote an article explaining a bunch of push-up how-to's for the women's fitness website f-heit.com, but the information is absolutely applicable to anybody. I covered the basic push-up, the close grip push-up, the 1-leg up push-up, the monster big daddy T-push-up (a.k.a rotating push-up),and for bonus points, I explained the plank. The entire article can be read here.