The goal was to keep the workout brief. Under 20 minutes.
20 minutes is a sweet spot for me, especially with higher intensity efforts.
I’m able to get the training effect I want, without losing technique to fatigue or subjecting myself to unnecessary injury.
Higher quality work in shorter amount of time.
I really like these short burst sessions that address cardio and strength in one shot. Life doesn’t always allow for 60-90 minute daily workouts. We wish it did, but it’s turbulent.
Being able to walk in the gym, warm up quick and get after it is awesome.
The Workout
Biking. The addition of the 1-minute air bike ride at the end of the round shakes things up. The goal is to keep the RPM above 80.
The first few rounds were fairly easy, but rounds 4 and 5 were a bitch to keep pace.
Why bike?
Biking is a low impact activity that requires ZERO skill. Get on and ride. Air bikes involve the entire body via turning the pedals over while pushing/pulling the dual action arms.
Biking is a safe way to condition while mitigating stupid workout injuries.
Fatigue. The ascending rest period tactic was perfect.
As fatigue accumulates, so does the amount of rest.
The extra 5 seconds of rest added to each round helped managed my fatigue.
75 seconds of rest will seem long in the beginning. But again, the fatigue hits you like a slap across the face.
In rounds 3, 4 and 5… the 85-90 seconds rest passes by quickly.
During your rest period, focus on breathing. Deep and full breaths.
Breathe deep into your BELLY, not your chest and neck.
Exercise technique. Metabolic conditioning is designed to stress the muscles and cardiovascular pretty aggressively, but it should NEVER come at the expense of technique.
Scale the workout for yourself. Start with longer rest in the earlier rounds. Use less weight or bike for 30-45 seconds at a lower RPM instead of 1 min at >80 rpm.
Explore and tweak it as you go. You can expect each “round + rest” to last 4+ minutes, with the later rounds lasting longer because of the increased rest.
I took a break from jumping rope for about 2 months.
After destroying my 4th jump rope and nearly slicing my cat in half on the very next rotation of the broken rope, I decided that the durability of 90% of jump ropes on the market are piss-poor.
[On a side note, I recently came to learn the origins of “piss-poor”… kind of interesting actually]
I gave up on jumping rope for a while.
Replacing ropes was getting expensive and frustrating.
Considering that most jump ropes are nothing more than plastic handles with plastic rope or leather rope, spending $20 on a tool that has a lifespan of 2 months seems ridiculously. At least it does to me. I want my equipment to last. I want to be able to abuse it (not recklessly) without holding my breath, waiting for it to break. My first jump rope (from a reputable company) severed at the handle/rope junction and smashed the screen on my 47″ Vizio television. No damage resulted, but it was extremely frustrating.
That’s why I love kettlebells. They are indestructible and effective. Pay once, use them forever. That is a good investment if you ask me.
But, the benefits of jumping rope are tremendous and undeniable, and I could not push forward with my workouts without having the jump rope around. It’s just too valuable of a tool to not leverage. Both as a warm up tool, a circuit filler drill or a complete conditioning tactic in and of itself, jump ropes serve a number of purposes and truly work wonderfully.
So after searching the forums high and low, along with discussing jump rope products with colleagues, I made the decision to go with the Rogue SR-1 speed rope. $20+shipping might seem like a lot, but honestly, it’s a steal if you’re actually going to use the rope. If you aren’t going to use the fitness equipment you buy, everything is a rip off, right? Use it and you can justify it.
Choose to eat out one less time per month and the rope becomes affordable! 🙂
Instead of pretending like I wrote an original gear spec on the SR-1 rope, let me share a snapshot taken directly from the Rogue website:
Although the description touts the rope as the best for “solving your double-unders”, I should tell you that it’s not necessary to be able to execute double-unders in order to get a great workout with a jump rope. I view at double-unders as the “hill sprinting” of the jump rope world. Sprinting an incline will definitely create a large training effect (strip fat, building athletic-like conditioning, etc), but you can also arrive to your destination without sprinting that hill, or in this case, using double-unders.
Single revolution jumping can be tweaked to create a serious training effect also.
Are double-unders great? Yes, absolutely they are, but you can use other variations of jumping rope to accomplish goals also, or at least until you are able to work into double-unders. I’ve had my heart rate at the upper ranges using aggressive single revolution jump workouts.
I commonly use my jump rope for 5-10 minute of continuous jumping warm-ups or interval style work. Set the clock in plain sight, adjust your Spotify playlist to something up tempo and go.
If you’re thinking of warming up using a jump rope, work in a bunch of variations of jumps (two foot square, single leg, running, side to side, forward and back, rotational, etc) within that time frame. It will keep you engaged, work different body/foot positions and make the time move much faster. The more monotonous you make jumping rope (or training in general), the more likely you won’t jump at all.
Keep it fresh.
For intervals, I would suggest starting by executing one style of jump, twirling the rope as fast as you can while maintaining solid body posture and rope technique.
Usually, the two-foot square stance jump is a great place to start. As you become skilled at the basic two-foot square stance jump, progress to a stationary running action as you twirl. Stay soft on your foot ground contacts and bring the knees up to a reasonable height (without hunching), which is probably a few inches below belt level.
30sec work: 30sec rest for 10 rounds (or slow jumping active recovery) is a great place to begin scaling to your conditioning level. If you are crushing a 30/30 for 10 rounds no problem, add time to the work and decrease the rest or add additional rounds. Play around with the logical progression that suits your situation. I prefer to keep the 1 minute block for work:rest. It’s much easier to calculate if you don’t have a dedicated interval timer like a Gymboss .
I’ve found that single foot jumping is very challenging, but I have to admit that I don’t like it for conditioning specific workouts. Technique gets sloppy as the loading is overwhelming for your foot/ankle/leg to handle. Think about it, it’s the entire weight of your body coming down on each impact, and the impact is completely vertical in direction.
Single leg plyometrics are considered advanced methods for training elite athletes, so imagine the effect they have on the average desk worker. Before of the increases ground contact time with single leg jumping, the rope tempo also slows down.
I’ll work single leg jumps in often while jumping rope, I am just not sold for using single leg jumping exclusively for interval training. It’s too much for a lot of people and it seems to work against the idea of interval training.
If I do work single leg hopping in for an interval session, it is usually a 3right + 3left alternating variation to avoid exhausting either side, keeping the tempo as high as possible.
But, as always, I recommend that you test it for yourself because your situation is unique to mine.
Peaking back at the construction of the SR-1 jump rope, notice the length of the handles, the ball bearings and the construction of the rope itself (cable coated in plastic).
All of these features make this rope silky smooth when jumping, which in reality, is the key to great jump rope experience. If you have to fight a jump rope that grinds on every revolution, you’re going to drive yourself nuts. I’ve been there a bunch so I can attest to this situation.
Here is a more complete view of the rope:
Lastly, you can adjust the SR-1. Don’t buy a rope that you cannot adjust. A jump rope needs to be fit to your height in order to work properly. Most come in a 9ft length, and you can trim down from there. Here is a video on how to adjust the rope from the Rogue guys:
If you’re a small space workout warrior (like I am), jumping rope is the perfect conditioning alternative to running and cycling during the Winter months. Cycling is out of the question (unless you ride a $2500 fat bike) and running becomes a challenge here in Wisconsin from late November through March/April (or late May as we received 10inches of snow last year). Yuck.
Yup, that should about do it if you want to jump rope inside.
Jumping rope on carpet is a nightmare, so I would avoid it from the beginning if I were you. You’ll have a much better experience on hard floor with the rope skipping underneath your body without any interference.
Jumping rope is a an acquired taste. I composed a post a while back that discussed what I personally believe are the pitfalls of jumping rope. I would call these words of caution, not a protest against jumping rope. Even though the jumps in between the rope rotations is basically a low intensity plyometric, it is still ballistic and requires high volumes in order to receive any kind of training effect. These were just words of caution.
If you haven’t conditioned your legs, specifically your calves and ankles to jumping rope, start slow. You’ll know instantly if you overdid it, as you won’t be able to touch your calves without wincing in the days that follow.
Know thyself you’ll be just fine.
If you’ve lost faith in the quality of jump ropes recently, re-read this post and restore that faith.
There are decent products out there, you just have to do some homework before you make the purchase.
6 years ago I watched Jon Hinds strap his LifeLine Power Wheel to his feet and proceed to walk on his hands 100 yards down entire length of a football field.
I have to admit I thought the entire sequence was pretty badass. The feat also seemed like something I could achieve… wrong. It’s way harder than it looks.
The LifeLine Power Wheel boasts that it’s core activation is top notch, and that is supported with a study composed by CSU-Sacramento students. The two other training tools that were compared to the Power Wheel were quite weak in my opinion (Ab Revolutionizer, ab straps).
However, it appears that based on muscle activation (through surface electromyography (EMG), the Power Wheel performed extremely well.
When you watch YouTube videos, especially how-to exercise videos, it can be hard to find value in what the performer is showing you. You watch it, roll your eyes and move on the the next suggested video.
I did exactly that with Jon’s hand walking video 6 years ago.
It’s a damn shame.
But, fast forward 6 years and I am an advocate spending more time loading the upper body via static/dynamic various of crawling, handstands and hand walking. I think we need to stress our upper extremities in a similar fashion that we do our lower extremities.
Battling ropes are an example of a tool have added tremendous value to the average trainee’s tool box. Battling rope drills are primarily executed in a standing position, involving timed (or rep based) work sets that are highly metabolic, recruit a ton of muscle for completion and train the upper body to produce repeated effort force in a way that is extremely unique.
But, battling rope drills don’t require our upper extremities to support the weight of our body.
Sure, the shoulder is not a load bearing like the hip or the knee, but we should be able to support and stabilize a percentage or even our entire body with our hands and arms. Please don’t ask me to give “functional” examples of how drills such as handstands transfer over into real world activities until you yourself perform a series of 1-minute inverted holds yourself.
Doing so might make you feel like you like a weakling whether you are an avid exerciser or not. I sure did.
—> What can you attribute to the difficulty of a hand walking/crawling/stands?
New stimulus? Yes. Very challenging regardless? Absolutely, every single time.
The average workout just doesn’t stress the upper body in the same way that it tends to stress the lower body. It makes sense since humans are bipedals. Keeping our lower extremities strong, mobile, stable, and capable of sustained and high level repeated physical effort serves us very well.
But we need to be strong, stable and mobile movers in many different positions, not just with walking and running.
Hand walking, crawling, handstands and other upper body support drills stress the upper body much differently than push ups, overhead pressing, Turkish Get-Ups. In the past, most hand walking drills were exclusive to gymnasts and other tumblers. It’s amazing that it has taken so long for this type of training to leak out to the general population.
But, it’s here now and we need to leverage it. It’s a tool (or maybe a strategy is a better description), and like all training tools, it serves a purpose in our physical development.
Handstands. I have been a huge fan of hand walking and crawling for years, but have more recently begun to see amazing value in practicing handstands. Simply kicking your feet up to a wall and holding that position with assisted support from your feet is extremely challenging and beneficial for overall physical improvement.
Try it for yourself. Go. Now. Try it.
It feels unnatural to support yourself vertically and I believe this is a good thing (unless you are experiencing pain). You’re acclimating yourself to a new movement skill. I am all about safety in training because it keeps us moving for life, but exploring uncharted territories of movement will bring you back to your childhood roots, where exploring is encouraged and crucial for overall development.
Fast forward to our adult years. People who are hesitant to participate in certain physical tasks haven’t exposed themselves to that stimulus before. They haven’t explored, so the movement seems risky, difficult or in some cases unfathomable.
Much of this handstand talk is probably coming from Ido Portal’s training philosophy, which is fine because I love the tenacity that Ido is bringing to the movement community. He doesn’t dabble with movement, he is movement. That’s pretty cool. Devoting your life’s work to becoming the best mover possible, and then teaching the progressions on how to get to that level to others, is pretty amazing when you think about it.
Kudos to Ido Portal.
In my own training, I have divided my hand walking/crawling into two different categories:
Horizontal walking/crawling
Vertical walking/crawling
Both of these have two sub-categories that can be broken down even further:
Static (not moving)
Dynamic (moving)
I haven’t felt the need to progress any further than the bulleted points to be honest. Hand walking/crawling is a supplement to my current training regimen, not the entire training regimen itself. It’s a skill that I am looking to develop starting from ground zero. The decision to keep hand walking/crawling as a supplement to the whole is based on my current goals.
My warm-ups have proven to be prime time for practicing and experimenting with various progressions of hand walking/crawling. 80% of the time I am crawling, which is what I would consider to be a horizontal-dynamic drill. Something like this…
If you slow down while performing a basic bear crawl and do it properly, you may notice that you aren’t as connected as you thought you were. Timing and an upper/lower body connectedness are two main keys to crawling properly. The core serves as the conduit between the upper and lower body. You’ll also notice that crawling isn’t as easy as it looks, as it can be extremely taxing even at shorter distances.
If you’re looking for a core workout, start crawling. Start with a basic static hold. You’ll find that supporting yourself in this position activates your torso musculature like the 4th of July. Progress to dynamic crawling slowly, working on the the timing of your opposite hand/foot. Again, feel the burn in your stomach.
Here is Dewey Nielsen working through the ladder of crawling progressions…
—> Why should you incorporate more crawling and hand walking into your training?
1) It’s fun.
I never thought that I would tout “it’s fun” as the top reason for crawling and hand-walking, but it really is. Both provide a unique challenge that we can look forward to. Pursuing specific goals in your training will keep the fire going in your belly. Otherwise, it’s easy to begin flaking out on training.
I have recently dropped a few barriers with regard to my viewpoints on training, and what it means to “workout”. For sometime, I felt unfulfilled in my workouts. It seemed there was a piece that was missing. I felt like a robot going through the motions. Start a set, do the reps at a particular tempo using a particular weight, stop, rest, rinse, repeat. It was nauseating.
Crawling and hand-walks scratched that itch. Now intentionally incorporate warm-ups packed with plenty of crawling and hand walks. It’s open new doors for me as I know it will for you.
2) Loading the upper extremities uniquely
Moving yourself around using your hands/arms is a new training stimulus for many. Even holding yourself against a wall for a brief period of time puts a valuable stress on your upper body to support the weight of your body.
3) Balance
Horizontal or vertical crawling/walking are activities that require constant body correction. Reflexive stability is a hot topic right now, and crawling/walking works reflexive stability nicely. Keeping the hands connected to Mother Earth is advantageous, creating a closed-chain training scenario. Crawling is both simple and more complicated than we think, especially when we realize how dysfunctional we have become from our lack of movement. Holding a wall supported handstand requires stability, strength and balance. A free-stranding handstand is the perfect expression of balance.
4) Connecting the core
Not six-pack abs. Chasing six pack abs should be furthest down on most people’s list. The torso musculature’s main job is to protect the spine. Our core is supposed to activate when it senses that the spine might be in jeopardy. Our torso lights up (activates) to keep our bodies stabile and in control during these movements. Lightly palpate (touch) your stomach while in the assumed basic bear crawl position, tell me what you feel.
5) Primal movement
We had to crawl before we could walk. Crawling isn’t a fitness progression, it’s a human life progression. Regressing back to crawling can help to restore lost movement patterns from which we can build a bulletproof body. The body’s wires can easily become crossed, don’t make the mistake of blowing a fuse by skipping the crawling section of the progression book.
6) Low impact
Crazy is the craze right now. Extreme, hardcore, tenacity and intensity! But not everyone wants crazy workouts, and crawling fits the bill nicely for those who seek a bodyweight challenge without the risk of injury. Although it’s possible to hurt yourself doing just about anything, crawling/handwalks are extremely low on the injury potential ladder. Your joints will applaud your choice.
7) Movement
To take an unofficial idea from Ido Portal’s training philosophy… Just start f’ing move people. Stop over thinking it and engage in full fledged movement. Explore what your body can do in space. If you’re embarrassed to do it in the public gym, do it behind closed doors in your basement or garage. As I have said before, movement is the benefit of moving. So keep moving every which way. Caution… be prepared to be humbled at first… you might need to lubricate your joints and blow off the cobwebs for a few sessions before it starts flowing and feeling natural.
So there you go, the most un-organized 1600+ word article ever written on crawling/handwalking.
Stay tuned for how to get started with crawling/walking and where to slip it into workouts…
Cheers to exploring the upper body’s ability to move!
Spend a few minutes scrolling through your news feed on Facebook, you’ll inevitably come across someone posting spirited words of inspiration.
Diagram A:
Diagram B:
Very spirited posts indeed.
Let’s start with “strong is the new skinny”…
I recently read a Huffington Post article that made a great number of points about the concept that “strong is the new skinny”. I have to say that I agree with many of the points made in the article. I felt that the author made some really good points that seemed to be deeply tied to her preferences.
I’ve never preached skinny. I actually think that “thinning out”, “getting skinny”, “slimming down” are all as annoying as “strong is the new skinny”. Strong definitely is strong.
What’s even cooler than saying that “strong is strong” is building up a person’s confidence to the point that they are about to explode with ambition, drive and the pursuit of their own form of greatness. Whether “getting skinny” or “getting strong” is the path to jump starting a person’s legacy, it doesn’t matter to me. Use whatever fuel gets you moving.
I once trained a 12-year old hockey player in Detroit, MI, who will remain nameless. At 12 years of age, most males are just starting to figure out their bodies, muscles, etc. They are on the brink of puberty, so this makes sense.
This young man was one of my favorite training sessions of the week, by far. I always looked forward to working this kid because I could tell that he didn’t have much confidence, and his Mom- after a few training sessions- praised my efforts by telling me that her son really looked up to me as a coach. I praised him every chance I got. High-five’s, knuckles, shouting and clapping when he succeeded was my formula. As with any enjoyable client, his strongest trait was that he listened. He was coachable. He may have been smaller and weaker than other kids his age, but he was willing to listen to my advice and follow through with my suggestions.
A few months down the road, after never missing a scheduled training session, he walked into our training center smiling from ear to ear. “I made the Peewee A team (hockey), I am the strongest on the team and a girl at school said I have big muscles”.
Naturally, I laughed, particularly at the end part of his comments. I was ridiculously proud of this kid. His entire demeanor had changed over a course of months. Not necessarily from an introvert to an extrovert, but definitely from a kid that lacked confidence to a kid that realized he could accomplish whatever he wanted if he stuck to the recipe and did the work.
Strong may not be the new skinny, but building strength, both physically and mentally can change a person in a matter of weeks. You’d be surprised at home many people, kids or grown-ass adults have displayed a new-found confidence from improving that strength, ability to move, performance and most recently… their composition of their body.
So, I really don’t care what you choose to refer to “it” as, but in this situation, strength is confidence.
Next, “Is sitting the new smoking”?
Kelly Starrett thinks that it is, and while Kelly Starrett isn’t god, he is certainly a massively influential face in the movement world right now. Right up there with Ido Portal.
The truth is that I don’t think that comparing sitting to smoking is really a good comparison. I understand the message that people are aiming to convey by saying that over-indulging in sitting is kind of like smoking, but sitting is sitting, and smoking is smoking.
Everyone needs to sit at some point. Quite honestly, I enjoy sitting. It usually means that I am reading a book, listening to music, watching the waves roll in on a lake, watching NHL hockey (as I am right now) or writing. All great activities that I thoroughly enjoy.
I don’t punish myself for sitting and nor should you. However, I also don’t sit 8+ hours day for my career. That fact, makes me consciously accepting of times that I sit. I feel that I earned the right to sit, rest my feet, relax and reboot.
The magnitude of the negative effects that sitting has on a person should be related to each person and their unique situation.
If you’re a person that remains seated and stationary during most of the waking day, you probably need to be more conscious of your sitting. You probably need to move more. You probably need to consciously focus on an improved posture for sitting.
Photo credit: bodybuilding.com
You probably need to consider a standing desk (if you can have one where you work or at home), you probably need to take more walking breaks throughout the day. You also probably need to be more aware of the structural changes taking place with your body as a result of such prolonged periods of sitting.
If you sit too much, you just need to be aware. Don’t get compulsive about it, just be aware of the events that are taking place as a result of sitting so much.
Also, if you are sitting for prolonged periods, understand that you need to be consistently diligent about off-setting the effects of sitting. Here are some simple things that you can do:
4) Foam roll aggressively and then hold this stretch…
Although sitting affects us all differently (just like getting punched in the head affects us all differently), the rules of unwinding and off-setting the negative adaptations of sitting can be somewhat generalized and still provide tremendous benefit and relief. As I have said in the past, our bodies are extremely complicated and yet at the same time, extremely predictable.
So is sitting bad? For some people, yes, it’s a slow road to a whole host of future issues. But sitting is not evil and there is no need to pull your hair out if you sit down for a while. Just be aware of how much you are moving around, and do you best to increase it or sustain that movement for the long haul.
Smoking, on the other hand, is terrible. I cannot think of one benefit that anyone receives from bucking a dart. I have an orthopedic surgeon colleague that was telling me a story not too long ago about a patient that he saw in his clinic. This particular patient was in severe pain from bone on bone knee articulation. Obviously, the average person is supposed to have nice lubricated cushion of meniscus, but this lady had worn through her cushion. So, bone on bone grinding was taking its place.
Surgeons do extensive health checks for any patient that is a candidate for total joint replacement. Upon conducting a health check on this lady, it was identified that she was a heavy smoker. By heavy, I am talking about a pack of cigarettes per day, if not more. This is common for orthopedic surgeons to see during consults.
After taking this patient’s knee through range of motion tests, exhaustive questioning about symptoms and an evaluation of her x-rays, the doctor told the patient that she was in fact over-due for a knee replacement.
“I would like to see you again in a week for another series of tests so we can properly schedule your surgery”, the surgeon told her.
“Another visit?! I can’t afford that!”, the patient responded.
“Why is that? It’s important to make sure that you’re able to make it through the surgery, it’s in your best interest ma’am”, said the doctor.
“I won’t be able to buy my cigarettes if I have to drive down to the clinic again”, the patient said.
The irony in this story is that the patient had terrible bone quality from smoking, diabetes and no meniscus in her knee from her lack of activity and her weight.
But she just couldn’t give up those cigarettes.
Sitting is not smoking and smoking is not sitting.
Cheers to moving more, sitting less and the pursuit of your greatest self!
This will probably be the easiest post that I ever compose on this blog.
The idea is clear and I think that most of us can relate to it, at least at some point in our lives. Heck, maybe we feel this on a daily basis.
It’s a common barrier to fat loss and performance.
As the title of the blog shows, “If I had ____ I would definitely be _____” is a self-inflicted syndrome.
Some common examples go like this:
If I had more time to workout, I would definitely be in better shape.
If I had a membership to that new gym on the other side of town, I would definitely be in better shape.
If I had more money to go 100% organic with all of my food, I would definitely be able to see my abs.
If I had more equipment at my house, I could perform all of the best exercises and engage in all of the best workouts that the magazines talk about.
If I had more fitness apps on my iPhone, I would be able to make much greater gains in much shorter time.
If I had better fitness apparel, I would re-dedicate myself to my movement.
If I had those supplements, I would be able to drop the weight and exercise more frequently.
If I had _____ I would definitely_____” Syndrome.
It’s a syndrome brings us to our knees, cripples us, leaves us uncertain about whether our goals are worth all of the effort.
We convince ourselves into thinking that the grass is greener on the other side, and then when we get to the other side, we realize that the grass is the exact same color.
Use exactly what you have right now, where you are at right now.
If something is worth doing, it’s always worth the effort.
Don’t get caught up in the minutiae of building health, wellness and performance.
Because there is a lot of minutiae. If you’re a beginner, all you need to know is enough to get started. If you’ve already started, all you need to know is enough to keep going.
You’d be surprised at how taking a few minutes to re-examine your training options can open doors to new challenges and a refreshing movement experience. But you have to be willing to open your eyes to all of the things that you do have going for you (time, equipment, space, a roof, mobility, etc) versus dwelling on all of the things that you don’t have.
If you’re wondering where you can find new ideas for your training, comb over the archives of this blog. I have been posting for a little over a year. There are more than 150 posts to read on Range of Motion. Bookmark it in your browser or better yet, sign up to get an update whenever I post.
A lot of the posts on this blog contain workouts and effective exercise variations, some performed by yours truly and others I outsourced because I didn’t have the video or someone else was more effective at demonstrating. Eat your heart out.
One big culprit of “If I had _______ I would definitely ________” Syndrome are fitness “secrets”. There are no secrets, there is only what you know and what you don’t know. And you don’t know what you don’t know. Ok?
If you’re really in an exercise slump, redirect yourself back into the movements that you avoid and hate the most. Chances are quite high that those same movements might be the missing link in your training success. More often than not, this advice will hold up. That which you dread just might that which you need.
Just a few simple thoughts on a Monday.
Go do something great today. Go ahead, you have time.
Less thinking and more doing, and I will do the same.
Cheers to wiping “If I had ____ I would definitely ______” Syndrome off of your shoes at the front door before entering!
Riding the stationary bike might be on the lower end of eventfullness and brutally repetitive, but it is not the devil.
I’m about to share completely unscientific and unsupported Jedi Mind trick for your next stationary bike workout that will boost your conditioning efforts.
I use it extensively in my home training sessions on my trusty Schwinn Airdyne. If you’ve read any of my work in the past, you know by now that I believe that the Airdyne (yes the old school Schwinn Airdyne) is one of the best conditioning tools on the market.
Browse on Craigslist and I best you can find one dirt cheap.
It’s well worth the investment assuming you give it a little TLC to ensure that the nuts and bolts stay tight and the chain is lubed.
But you don’t need the almighty Schwinn Airdyne to reap the benefits of making this simple switch to increase the effectiveness of your biking sessions.
The fact is, although it might not be the BEST option, you can get yourself into excellent cardiovascular shape by riding the stationary bike on a regular basis. At the very least, you can lay a great foundation of conditioning to build from. If you’re a runner, you might find that the carryover from the bike to the pavement isn’t the greatest, as it really isn’t.
The demands of running and cycling are different. Just because you are efficient at one doesn’t mean you’ll be efficient at the other. Look at Lance Armstrong’s (all doping aside) plunge into the running world. A lot of people thought based on lab statistics that he could finish quite high in the marathons that he ran, but this just wasn’t the case. Lance was quoted to say post-marathon, “that was the most challenging thing I’ve ever done”.
Interesting don’t you think.?
But anyways, the stationary bike is a low impact alternative to other higher impact methods of cardio such as running. Running also isn’t the devil, but high impact all of the time can agitate and overwhelm a person’s body. The stationary bike becomes a valid alternative in these situations, and with the properly prescribed training session, it delivers.
At some point, despite your personal preferences, you may find yourself forced to ride a stationary bike, and I am here to tell you that it really doesn’t have to be a nightmare. Embrace it, make the best of the situation. Put in your headphones and get to it.
As mentioned in past posts, a person doesn’t need special equipment to leverage the benefits of a workout… but you have to be wiling to adapt on the fly and try something new occasionally.
So, here is a subtle trick for you to squeeze even more out of that dreaded pedal session…
What’s different you ask?
Riding for distance, that’s what. I want you to ride hard for a distance versus riding for time.
In fact, forget about riding for time, ride for distance for the next 4-weeks. When you ride for time, people tend to give a much lower effort, just “surviving” against the clock. A lot of us will quit pedaling well before the clock hits our target work time. I’m guilty of it.
When you pedal for distance, you want to get the pedaling over with a quickly as possible. This is a natural tactic that promotes effort beyond what you may have given had you been riding against the hands of the clock.
That is a long time to be pushing it hard. Remember to remind yourself not to judge the demands of the workout based on the first set, second set or even the third set either. As I have said before…
… the fatigue is coming, be patient, it is coming.
If you are curious about the timing of fatigue in a work capacity style workout, read about the golden marshmallow. Although that I wasn’t referring to stationary bike conditioning… fatigue is fatigue. The article still applies.
So as you can see, the concept is beautifully simple. Switch your target effort markers of hard pedaling from time-based to distance-based. Spin to that .3 mile mark as hard as possible, then verify the time that it took to get there.
It’s just a simple mind trick and it works.
Give it a shot… reading without implementation will yield the same results. You have to actually do it to see reward!
Cheers to tricking yourself to boost the reward of your workout investment!
Non-traditional movement has been the name of the game lately.
Pure ground based locomotion and flow.
It’s not that I don’t have time for more mainstream forms of movement, because I believe in that also, but I am becoming increasingly intrigued with other methods of movement training. I almost used the term “time-tested” instead of mainstream. It might have been a better description, but admittedly, 95% of my personal workout habits and the habits which I recommend to others seeking movement regimens are in fact, mainstream.
A simple blend of squats, lunges, hip dominant hinging, upper body pushing and pulling in a vertical and horizontal fashion will set you up for success. Add in some chops and lifts and you have got yourself a damn good routine. It’s all in how you organize it and tweak the variables to best fit your goals.
A squat is a squat, but with a few tweaks here and there, you can make the squat conducive to building a number of different human physical qualities (strength, endurance, power, etc), all completely different from each other.
Always remember, in the beginning… establish mobility, establish stability in that new-found range of motion, then begin the process of building strength.
It’s a layering effect.
This is a recipe that works every single time for the person that is willing to be diligent in their training efforts.
Are you that person?
Because here is the reality: Movement works every single time. 100% effective. It’s people that fall short.
Movement works. People don’t do the work. Shame on us.
Over the past few weeks, I have progressively integrated more and more Ido-style movements into my pre-work training block. Maybe I shouldn’t refer to these movements as “Ido-invented” (after watching some of his videos he probably would deny they are his but were there from the beginning of time), but he was one of the first (and still the best that I’ve seen) to make sense of less mainstream forms of movement.
He is a mover, in every sense of the word.
From one-arm hand stands and other hand balancing, single arm chin ups, planches and twice bodyweight back squats, Ido can move with flow and move load if necessary.
Planche
I keep referring to Ido’s teachings as “movement”, and that’s because it is. He neither specializes nor generalizes.
I guess I never really stopped and thought about it, but most of what is published and preached today is purely about fitness. Even Yoga, with it’s cult like following, doesn’t necessarily make a person MOVE better. It might help a person increase flexibility and improve range of motion, but it doesn’t guarantee that you will move better.
You have to practice movement to improve your ability to move.
Now, I will say that I don’t necessarily believe that the mere act of practicing movement is going to grant you access to better movement. It may open a few doors to becoming a better mover, but I also think that each person needs to be real with themselves and their own situation. Some folks have got some real compensations, imbalances and dysfunction going on. Who knows where or how these issues manifested themselves (a lot are from sitting too long) but they are there, so it may be completely necessary to address these movement restrictions before you’ll ever be a great mover, or even an average mover.
The Functional Movement Screen is a great system for evaluating yourself, and your ability to move. Why? Because it is systematic. You grade your movement quality, and lesser quality scores in any given movement pattern has a roadmap of corrective drills that you can use to clean up that movement pattern. In essence, you can correct faulty movement rather quickly.
Realistically, you can perform a poor man’s movement screen at home on yourself. It will always be better to have a knowledgeable FMS certified trainer evaluate you, but hey, we can DIY.
Use a big mirror or better yet film yourself performing the tests from the movement screen. Don’t feel dumb filming, you can delete it immediately. The filming of your movement capabilities is extremely valuable. What you “think” you’re doing isn’t always what you actually doing movement-wise.
Take your video and compare it to some perfect screens (which you can easily find on YouTube) and take note of the differences. Most people will notice that their overhead squat is a lacking, rotational stability nearly impossible to complete and the inline lunge makes you feel like you’re balancing on a tight rope.
Cleaning up these patterns will make you a better mover, and probably decrease the likelihood that your dysfunction manifests itself into an injury.
However, cleaning up the screen doesn’t mean that you’ll all of the sudden be a great mover. You have to practice moving to be a great mover. Are you sick of me saying move? Mover? Movement yet? Sit tight I’ll drop those terms a bunch more in the coming paragraphs.
In many cases, I have substituted ground based crawling variations (supine and prone) and walks in place of my go-to dynamic warm up. I haven’t felt like I am sacrificing anything by doing so. My joints still move through a full range of motion and my muscles are activated in a low-impact fashion. I would even argue that my time is being maximized by practicing my movement flow using Ido’s training drills versus my standard cookie cutter warm up.
I’ve actually exited many of these warm-ups in a pool of sweat, even before beginning what I would consider to be the “work” portion of my session. Interesting.
I’ve quickly found that I am ridiculously weak in certain positions, uncoordinated and all around uncomfortable as I work in some of the Ido Portal warm-up drills and ground based training. It’s an ego check for sure, especially since he refers to many of these flow-like drills as being “beginner”. Ha! Soreness has also been a product of the unfamiliar movements, although it’s never a goal. Unfamiliar movements almost always produce soreness because your body hasn’t experienced it yet.
I am reminded – as I continue to force myself to become more vulnerable by the day with Ido’s training idealogy- of how a newbie to the workout scene feels at first. It’s an emotional uppercut showing up to a personal training session or a group class (even training by yourself behind closed doors) knowing that you’re going to struggle to complete what is being asked of you.
But the key is to keep coming back. Keep grinding. Keep learning. Realize that it’s a process, just like everything else. And as a process, you’ve got to work at it, consistently and in a focused manner. Leave your feelings at the door and work.
We’ve become detached from our bodies and desensitized to our physical abilities. In fact, many of us no longer have a relationship with our body, and our physical abilities. Things that we could easily do as kids are now foreign and seemingly impossible. But all of that can be regained.
One major takeaway from the my small bit of reading Ido’s work is this: We’ve got to establish a lifelong relationship with our movement. Every one of us. We will all start at different points and need different adjustments along the way- and this makes sense because we are all individually unique- but you’ve got to make sure that you start and find a way to make it stick.
Enjoy the challenge of learning new physical skills. Embrace the frustrations and work out the solutions on your own. If you find yourself stuck, hop on the computer or tablet and search out a solution. The internet is packed with incredible free information that can get you where you need to go.
I suck at many of Ido’s locomotion drills right now. I’ll admit that. I filmed myself and I look stiff and the opposite of gracefully. But that will change with time and practice. It’s frustrating to know that I am practicing something that I am not good at (yet).
I think many people may find that they actually like dedicated workouts more when you a aiming to develop a certain movement skill. Pursuing skills transforms a person’s daily workouts into a journey instead of a dreaded 60 minutes of robotic physical activity that we feel we need to participate in to chase the idea of “fitness”.
A movement journey may not have an end point. But that is the beauty of it. You achieve a goal and begin planning and preparation for the next goal. One day you look back and realize that over the course of time you hopped over barriers that you never imagined you would hurdle. That’s an incredible feeling to evaluate significant forward progress, especially when looking at where you started.
People often ask me what the benefit of an exercise is, or which exercises will best target a specific area of the body…
For a long time I couldn’t find the exact words to answer this question in a way that felt true to myself… but try this one out because I think this might be where I stand…
Cheers to getting uncomfortable in your movement endeavors…
The KISS method is the most effective path to jumpstarting a consistent training program.
It’s also how you make a active lifestyle stick for the long-term.
If I handed a lot of people a 12-week training plan, most won’t progress passed the first week, if not the first few days.
It’s just too much to process.
Too much information to process. All of the information creates a surplus of anxiety and excitement inside of a person’s head. They have EVERYTHING that they need in that 12-week program, but there are way too many moving parts to concentrate on completing them.
We lose focus and end up doing nothing when we get overwhelmed.
We shut down.
What you can handle (mentally and physically) will determine what you need right now, at this very moment.
And surprisingly, the amount that you need to make significant change is relatively small.
If I write the world’s greatest fat loss program, not everyone is going to hit a home run with it.
Why? Because the world’s greatest fat loss program might be way too much for most people to digest.
My hesitation in talking about kettlebells on this blog has always been that not everyone is ready for kettlebells. Some people don’t even know what they are until they read about it on here. Are they good candidates for kettlebell training? Maybe, maybe not.
Maybe we should consider that there are far better places for these folks to start. Places that will engrain powerful habits of exercise that will one day evolve into kettlebell training and all of the amazing benefits that come along with kettlebell training.
Some folks cannot execute a bodyweight squat, push up or run a 1/2 mile without taking a pitstop. And that’s fine if you can’t, all in good time. You have to start somewhere.
I reference the Bruce Lee quote consistently on this blog:
“Absorb what is useful and discard the rest”.
This blog is a la carte style. You pick the information that you can apply to your situation right now. Act on it. Everything else, discard. You won’t hurt my feelings by doing so.
And truthfully, I write about whatever I feel like writing about for that day. My most popular posts have been centered around sharing detailed workouts, but I don’t want to be the blog that just shares workouts without discussing WHY you’re engaging in them.
Treat this blog like a menu at a restaurant. At a restaurant, not everyone in the group is going to order the same meal, which is why they provide a vast variety of options.
Back to KISS…
The next time that you get the motivation and inspiration to push forward with a movement program, take a second to step back and ask yourself, “How complicated does this process need to be? Can I arrive at my destination (goal achievement) by employing simple strategies?”
KISS is a theory that thinks so.
Many before you have used KISS to absolute perfection, achieving amazing results over time. Be patient and proactive in your approach, and for heaven’s sake… KISS!
There is really nothing like sprinting up and down a long staircase.
If you’re fortunate enough to have a staircase near you that is of decent length, congrats, you’re in luck.
By decent length, I am referring to a staircase that takes about 30 seconds or longer to run up at a brisk pace.
If you’ve never treated yourself to a staircase training session, you’re going to find that running vertically is nothing like running horizontally. Every step/stride requires brute force and attention to detail.
Why attention to detail?
Because the split second that you get lazy or lose focus on what you’re doing, you’re going to miss a step and leave shin skin on the staircase.
Staircase running requires hip extension. You can fake to make it for a little while, but you’ll find that opening up the hips and driving “down and back” with every stride is going to get you to the top faster and with a higher efficiency. The hips are the powerhouse of the body, so you might as well use them if you have them, right?
Besides, your quads are overworked. Let’s build a backside.
If you are finding that you cannot comfortable achieve hip extension, I would suggest regressing and addressing these issues quickly…
Here are some videos that might help…
Thanks KStarr.
Now on to the workout…
165 glorious stairs
Total time from start to finish for this workout.
This is the break down of the workout. 30 minutes of work was my initial target. I hit that.
My heart rate peaked at 168bpm, which I thought was surprising. I thought that it would have been much higher. I’ve seen it 175bpm while running trails. Interesting. I suspect that had the staircase taken me longer to run, I may have seen higher heart rates.
I have to disclose that I probably whipped through 12-13 rounds. 2 of these round were loaded up with kettlebells. I brought my trusty 24kg LifeLine kettlebells with me for some fun carrying variations. After looking at the length of the staircase and evaluating what I wanted from the workout, I decided that I would only use one kettlebell for these carrying drill.
I worked overhead, racked position and farmer carries, switching hands using a single arm swing hand transition + KB clean + Press. I can explain this later, but I prefer using this method for switching hands during single kettlebell workouts. Always loaded this way.
The general structure of the workout look like this:
Running the stairs took around 60 seconds (I think)
Rest periods were 1.5x-2x the length that it took to climb the stairs (or recovery to 130bpm)
Upper body focus was placed on arm action (elbow drive and hands to face) and keeping posture vertical versus slouching once fatigue set in.
Lower body was all about putting force into each stair and extending the hips aggressively, picture your feet as springs… explode!
Men’s Health ran an article almost a year and a half ago that I thought I would share because they included a research study out of the British Journal of Sports Medicine which concluded that stair climbing was pretty bad ass, even at relatively low output (just walking up).
One interesting thing to think about here. Keep in mind that the speed with which you run the stairs is not the only quality we are aiming to build here.
We are also aiming to reduce the time it takes for you to recover, and repeat that effort. Faster recovery is a sign of improving conditioning.
If you’re a weekend athlete or a movement enthusiast, increasing your ability to recover quickly from multiple bouts of vigorous activity is beneficial for performance and your body composition.
Runners, I would consider this an amazing supplement to improving your running endeavors. You’re essentially lifting yourself with every stride while running a staircase, and focusing on explosive hip extension is what most of you could benefit from. Get the hips involved people.
[This blog post has ZERO pictures. Straight written word kids]
I’ve read a lot of books on health and wellness.
Nutrition, biomechanics, fat loss, athletic development, psychology of sport, anatomy and physiology, Orthopedic volumes and so many more.
I cruise through blogs that are maintained by some of the brightest and most innovative on the planet.
While I do feel that all of my reading has been for something, I also feel like at the end of the day… you’ve got to continue self-experimenting.
Some of the biggest names in the industry frown about self-experimentation, but I look at the concept as being no different from playing as kids. You live, you experience, you learn.
Obviously, don’t dabble around with something that could potential harm your life permanently, but don’t be afraid to… just… try stuff.
Try it. See if it fits in your program.
The truth is that almost anything that you do exertion-wise is going to move you closer to your goals, especially if those goals are aesthetically based goals.
If you want to trim down, create less of a shadow, decrease your pant size, drop lb.’s on the scale, flatten that stomach, develop some muscular definition…
You’ve got to make an effort to progressively move more and eat with a sense of urgency.
Exercise is simple. Start somewhere that fits your current strength and conditioning level and training know how, and begin climbing the staircase. Stop over thinking it, just put on foot in front of the other and climb. There are free resources all over the internet that can get you moving forward.
Progress yourself as quickly your body can tolerate over time. Keep progressing. The body is no different than the mind. Imagine if you would have stopped learning mathematics at addition and subtraction. Would you have understood Calculus? No, you wouldn’t have. You would have been lost like a puppy and miserable. You’ve got to progress and build up to learning Calculus, at least most of us did.
Trust me on one quick thing here… you’re going to reach a point in your progressions where it feels like you’ve reached the top, but believe me, you can bust through that barrier.
There is another gear that you can drop in to. Always another level of effort.
If you disagree with me, ask yourself if your body is holding you back, or if your MIND is holding you back. You might be surprised at what you find here. The mind is the command center of your universe… get it in check.
With eating, explore everything. I am serious with this suggestion.
Buy something, cook it and eat it. If you like the way it tasted, right down the recipe. If you didn’t, find a new one. Just because something doesn’t taste good the first time you try it, doesn’t mean that it will never taste good. Give food another chance. It’s not all vegetable’s fault that you don’t like eating it, it might be your desensitized palate.
If your diet primarily consists of processed foods, of course most veggies and fruits are going to taste like cardboard at first!
Everyone eats differently. What I like to eat, and can tolerate eating on a daily basis is not the same as what you can tolerate eating on a daily basis. This is just my guess.
If you don’t like boiled broccoli, sauté it. If you don’t like either of those options, throw it on the grill. If you still don’t like it, season it for heaven’s sake! I don’t even think that plain broccoli is that appetizing.
If you hate broccoli, stop complaining about how much you hate broccoli and eat something else. Find a substitute, an alternative. There are thousands of foods on the planet. Choose something else that provides a nutrient load that you body can use.
Seasoning can change a food, and to be quite honest, who cares if you add some salt to your food. Just don’t be a donkey and throw a pile of it on there. Be sensible in your approach, a pinch is more than enough. You season foods to enhance their flavor, not drown it out.
I’ve always wondered why people drown food in condiments. Why eat something if you have to bury it in so much ketchup, BBQ sauce or some other condiment on it to the point that you don’t even taste the meal? Not judging, just wondering why we do it.
Eating for performance is different from eating for aesthetics. This might be getting a bit too detailed, but when I was eating to sustain my athletic performance, I didn’t have the greatest physique. I was lean, but only because of my daily energy expenditure. When I finished my athletic career, I cut out a few foods that I was initially led to believe that I “needed”. Bread was one of them.
Thanks government created food pyramid for that load of B.S.
My abdominals popped through in less than 3 weeks. Ironically, my performance didn’t suffer a bit. I had no idea if this elimination would work, but it seemed logical. Pure trial and error here.
Actually it was more like trial and success.
One thing that gets beaten like a dead horse is the concept of avoiding trying to out train your diet.
I should stop telling you not to try this, and let you try it for yourself. Go ahead, workout like a maniac and eat whatever you please. See what happens. It’s an experiment right? So, go ahead and experiment with it. Challenge the thought. If you’re an Ironman, I don’t want to hear a word from any of you, because you’re about the only category of human that can make this work.
Experiment and experience.
Guys and gals are writing books, shooting DVD’s and maintaining blogs (just like this one) that preach a certain way of doing things in order to get results.
But how about this… learn a little something, enough to get you started, and begin carving out your own path. Nothing about fitness is the law. There are theories that I would prefer to follow, but if you break them, who cares!
The more you do something, despite your knowledge, know-how or skill level, the more you learn.
You develop knowledge that sticks because you experienced it. You didn’t read about it and do nothing, you experienced it first hand. You became an eye-witness to what works well for you and what doesn’t.
It’s important to break out of your shell… practicing and experiencing things. My suggestion, as I have learned in my own life, is to get out and practice as many things as you can. You’ll develop likes and dislikes, and you’ll carve your own path.
I tried not to get too specific with anything here. This is a thought process that applies to everything.
Trial and error, self-experimentation and experience are tremendously powerful methods for catapulting a person forward toward their goals. If you have the conviction and dedication to follow through over the long-term, you’ll find methods that are the best fit for you.
Just remember, the grass isn’t always greener on the other side. Trust yourself…
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M(eaux)tion Fitness 