10/24/2008

Getting Started:

Now that technical information for site navigation has been posted I can start to ruminate training concepts into everyone. Everyone should get familiar with one another because you are going to be going through some heavy shit together. Make sure to wave and introduce yourselves, we have quite the medley of people here, the list of which covers but isn't exclusive to:

-Marine Corps Scout/Snipers
-Moms
-Professional MMA fight team members
-Air Traffic Controllers
-and one of those weird hermits known as "Mechanical Engineers"

Since I started working out and keeping records of what I have done my training has come almost full circle and once again uses many of the same lifts that we used in high school football. I wonder at how this happened sometimes and wish it were more complicated than it is. John, Ben, and Ditolla amongst others that will join us here, can attest to the skills that Coach Knight taught us all in the Olympic and Power lifting sports and their overall effectiveness when applied to the game of football. The foundations of athletic performance that I learned in high school would propel me far down a path of concepts driving my interest and and study to where I now find myself reading medical journals and scraping for any new evidence of the lactate shuttle and what this means for metabolic pathways in exercise. Fitness evolved for me as I played rugby and then again as I spent time in the military, and once again as I came home in my discovery of a community called Crossfit.

Crossfit is not the be all, end all; but they also do not pretend to be. Crossfit to me was the best overall definition I could put to fitness at this time in my life. When I reflect on my aspirations with training I see a desire to fascination with the ability to survive, adapt, and thrive in a myriad of "all or nothing" situations. Dire situations that caused me to overcome my previous shortcomings and change my way of thinking became a training philosophy that was all inclusive for me. Crossfit turns something as serious and broad as this into a game based on competitive scoring and give me access to a community where the results are what matters, not just exploiting the general misunderstanding the public has in regards to training and nutrition. I am honored to think that in even the smallest way I am helping bring the best possible Marines, Snipers, Fighters and Survivalists to the table. Crossfit is only one resource that we will borrow heavily from, and I encourage everyone to chase down the links which further explain the topics I bring up. Safety and training intensity is just one of a bunch of free Journal articles they have for people so get over there, download and print the two pages and read something that might save your life.

Moving on...

Nothing that comes to you for training hasn't first been applied to myself. I have kept meticulous logs on both training and nutrition and am in the process of putting it all together for you in the simplest way possible. If a topic jumps out at you and you would like some real scientific method style data on the "why" of it then just ask and I will break out my notes for you to read.

I am very passionate about biology, adaptation, evolution and the human organism in its infinite levels of detail. I know sometimes I may intimidate a bit by throwing all kinds of information at people but that is never my intent, please forgive me for the fact that I get so excited and worked up, but my intent is truly to only impart an understanding and grasp of concepts on a level where everyone is capable of really training and programming for themselves.

As far as the science I will include more and more from my notes as we go along, education will be continuous here but for now things should be pretty simple. We all just want to get this stuff rolling. Remember that everyone following this blog has huge input on what is coming down the chute, just let me know what you want and if I don't already have it I will hunt it down and bring the stuff right to you.

Now for a bit of mind work on your part:

  1. Ask yourself why you are training and write it down
  2. Look at what exercises you are performing and try and draw a connection for applicability in relation to answer #1.
  3. If it doesn't seem to make sense then you need to throw it out and start over, make yourself uncomfortable and try new things.

4 comments:

BamBam said...

Q1. Ask yourself why you are training and write it down
A1. To live long and prosper.
Q2. Look at what exercises you are performing and try and draw a connection for applicability in relation to answer #1.
A2. Don't let the other guy hurt me.
Q3. If it doesn't seem to make sense then you need to throw it out and start over, make yourself uncomfortable and try new things.
A3. I don't see how a thumb in the bum will help the situation but... It will be uncomfortable and new (kinda)

SRD said...

I am taking your answers to 1 and 2 and having Conan give you a concise and combined answer with the same meaning:

"Conan, what is good in life?"
"To have your enemies driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of the women."

Answer 3 does not represent a training input variable according to this program. But by all means if it seems to be sport specific.

Grinster said...

The blog looks great Ross. You have so much training information in your head it's about time you created a site like this.

Now for the serious part...

My goal is to be in the best possible shape I physically can come March. The workouts I've been doing over the past 5 years have been strength specific. Meanwhile, I have neglected the idea of overall fitness. I need to change things up so I can prepare for baseball which requires not only strength but: increasing speed, agility, endurance, and reaction time (fast twitch muscles).

I would like to start using your training programs asap so I will be in touch.

SRD said...

The ideas for training you find here will leave you lightyears ahead of what you have been doing for baseball season.

Let's start by dedefining the few words you used for describing "fast twitch" muscle training.
Forget where you learned that whole idea and let me replace it with the words metabolism and hypertrophy. Using a meterstick to measure 10 aspects of fitness we will use different kinds of metabolism to induce a kind of hypertrophy called "myofibrillar". Theres some google homework for you.

The 10 aspects of fitness can be found most readily by looking on the Crossfit main page and downloading their free journal. Those 10 aspects are readily accepted by almost any source of exercise physiological study. Your challenge is to go get those 10 words and definitions and some back ground on the hypertrophy and post them here as a response, lets see if anyone else wants to get in on this dialogue and once we are all done here I will post the cliffnotes in a special section for everyone. Thanks for joining, dude.