Navigating the seas of strength.

It is by knowledge and experience that I navigate the oft tumultuous seas of fitness.

Defeating physical pain, conquering mental anguish and surmounting performance plateaus, I pilot the only vessel I'll ever carry from the pre-dawn of my life till the lights go out at dusk.

I seek uncharted biological territories, but heed the warnings of captains before me. I've sailed the planet through peaks, valleys and oceans, successfully challenged monsters and battled with wits and brawn at my side. Some beasts I haven't tamed, others are emblazoned on my crest.

"Be water, my friend". Sometimes, I resist its currents and fight its tempestuous nature, other times I let it guide me through its channels to where I ought to be.

With the realization that it is sometimes beyond me, survival comes from accepting its beauty. You can depart from any port, circumnavigate the globe and find yourself in the very place you left physically, but have you embraced the journey?

You can Powerlift, Oly lift, body lift.

You can machine press, dumbbell press, barbell press, kettlebell press.

Upright row, seated row, bent-0ver row, renegade row.

Pull-up or pull-down.

Bench press or push press.

Relax to the point of tension.

Slow grind or fast & loose.

Clash with Titans or defeat Goliath, for sometimes, a well aimed little metaphoric pebble can take you down for the count. Even the greatest warrior Achilles had a weakness.

Search your golden fleece, find your golden goose. Your journey awaits you, but you must prepare for it.

Embark with me, join the ranks.

Soon, the Actionaut will leave these banks!

Advice for the young at heart

Soon we will be older...

After listening to a great call between Dan John and Geoff Neupert, 2 bad mo-fos in strength, grip, bending stuff, kettlebells and more, I decided to repost some of the things Dan discussed, paraphrasing from the notes I took, as a reminder for everyone entering Autumn or Winter...

Hypertrophy and mobility are the key for anyone on the North side of 50 (hypertrophy, by the way, is the fancy term for building muscles, in this context).

Hypertrophy because as one gets older, joints are going. Ever heard the concept of when an elderly person slips and falls, ending up with a broken hip, it’s not the impact/fall that breaks the hip, but the slip (i.e. as the person slips, the hip breaks because of lack of joint stability and muscular atrophy BEFORE landing)?

Think of the body as a Lego set, you know, the modular brick toy that promotes creativity and building with kids. The bricks stack up and stay strong by pressing each one into the other, you don’t just set them loosely on top of one another like a house of cards. The same goes for your joints. You need to “compress” your kinetic chain so that you remain stable from top to bottom. Any looseness in your kinetic chain, a.k.a weakest link, and down you go (this is valid for anyone doing resistance training). While yoga, for instance, is great at keeping you loose, you still need to be able to operate your body through gradual progressive overload (GPO). Your body will respond accordingly, following the SAID principle (Specific Adaptations to Imposed Demands). Don’t expect to get strong and build muscles if you don’t apply resistance on your body.

So, if you used to be able to leap, but now merely trod, you need to get your spring back!

Bring your reps up in order to build fresh muscle (you’re only as old as your connective tissue). Yes, we lose muscle as we get older, but that certainly doesn’t mean you cannot build muscle anymore. Quite the contrary, it is essential for the elderly to keep exercising and building muscle. Not only does it keep you strong, stable and connected, but it also helps strengthen your bones; resistance training has been proven to help with ostheoporosis, because as you build muscle, your body also starts to pull more calcium from your food in order to keep the structure of your body (the bones) strong.

Fitness in the work place: unleash your inner athlete!

Coaching the
Wellness Revolution
by David Krueger, MD

Wellness is currently a $500 billion industry and just getting started. It is about how simple choices profoundly affect our lives. Wellness integrates mind, body and spirit with a balanced flow of energy. It is an ongoing process of choices that become the stories of our lives.

Proactive or Reactive?
Sickness is reactive: people react to a specific condition or ailment. Products and services treat the symptoms of a disease or attempt to eliminate the disease.

Wellness is proactive: people seek activity, products, and services to feel healthier, reduce the effects of aging, look better, and prevent illness. Wellness is characterized by problem avoidance and prevention.

The Need for Wellness Coaching
In studies of coronary bypass patients—when their lives are at risk unless they adopt healthier lifestyles—only one in nine is able to change their habits by themselves. Other findings:

• 70% of health-care costs stem from preventable diseases.
  (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
• Stress undermines work productivity in 9 of 10 companies.
  (Industrial Society Survey)
• 70-80% of physician visits are stress related.
  (US Public Health Survey)
• Obesity, diabetes, and heart disease have reached epidemic proportions—almost all are preventable.
  (American Medical Association)
• Every dollar invested in worksite wellness yields 300-600% return through reduced absenteeism, increased productivity, and decreased health-related costs. (Partnership for Prevention National Coalition)

People don’t need more advice about vitamins, supplements, how-to exercise, or 1700 calorie diets. They need a clear, specific, step-wise program for change and an informed guide to help them.

Shouldn't that guide be you? Become knowledgeable about integrating mind, body and spirit and you're well on your way to guiding your clients to wellness.

Contact Action Fitness, Inc. for all your 2010 fitness resolutions before they turn into faded memories, wasted gym memberships, extra unwanted pounds or new prescription drugs. Empower yourself, unleash your inner athlete!

I need to be Zen...

It happened again today. It's not like I shouldn't expect it, and you'd think I'd learn after all this time. I even thought that after a few hours, I'd cool down a bit and let bygones be bygones. But, seeing as Mondays are usually learning days for me (Tuesdays, I write), while I am listening to a teleseminar hosted by Geoff Neuport, Senior RKC (site: http://kettlebellsecrets.com/specialer.html), interviewing Dan John (http://danjohn.net/) I thought I'd beat the iron while it's hot.

I am taking advantage of a slight change of environment for my training for a couple of weeks, by going to a very "chichi", expensive gym, because they were giving away a free trial membership. My own gym is literally a few blocks away, but I figured what the hell? Some pros switch gyms all the time for variety and fun. This one prides itself at having the "best trainers", all NASM certified (which I am, among other certs). I also like that they have kettlebells there (and I find myself to be the only one using them. I even heard a staff trainer tell his client how bad it is for your joints to train with kettlebells. I let it go. The guy didn't look like he could punch his way out of greasy paper bag, though he probably knows more about hair conditioners than an Aveda rep).

But here I was today, in my "cage" where I was going from bench press, to deadlifts, to shoulder presses and split squats. Simple, 5 ladders of 3 rungs per drill, moderate weight, good grinds. Today, I was not drawing attention by doing Turkish Get-Ups, Windmills or KB snatches. I was blending in.

What stood out, though, was watching trainers demonstrate crappy training progressions (by jumping around from one exercise to the next without rhyme or reason or purpose, letting clients move with form that resembled a house of cards trying to withstand gusty winds.)

Countless times, I saw idle trainers walk by a person working out on their own like an epileptic without even the conscious attempt to correct them! I mean, come on! You don't have to collect money every single time from a person for a simple form correction!

As I was doing a joint mobility drill, I had a person come to me and ask for advice on how to do the same thing. Same thing when I was deadlifting, a gentleman near me was doing bent-over rows with poor form, so I corrected him, and he welcomed that. I felt great. Apparently, I demonstrated skills that these folks recognized.

It's interesting to "secret shop" and see what others are doing. A colleague of mine sees a "sh#t show" (her words)all day at her gym in Vancouver, BC, with so-called "trainers". Pavel Tsatsouline, Mr KB himself, has learned to not get bothered by it. I feel it is necessary to try to educate members in proper exercise techniques, but how do you do it if there is no quality control anywhere in gyms? It's like a surgeon passing the medical boards, but botching every surgery afterwards with no consequences! Each bad move I saw was making ME hurt, so I can only imagine how the poor sap protruding his knees and going into spinal flexion during some plyo-box jump squats is going to feel later!

I propose that all trainers start a "secret shopping training guild", go to gyms and offer our services and report anything that ultimately represents a liability to the gym by having their staff ignore proper technique. Who's in?

Living like the Hadza

I just finished reading a killer article in National Geographic about the Hadza tribe of Tanzania.

They are probably the last surviving tribe on the African continent that still truly live like hunter gatherers. A truly present tense existence without the hassles of economy, taxes, job cuts or everything that ails modern society. They live remarkably worry-free and follow their likes. They spend a few hours a day (4-6) looking for food or water, nap whenever they feel like. They have the greatest food storage at their disposal (the Land), either at the nearest berry bush, baobab tree (bears a tasty fruit), wild bee-hive or a few poisoned arrows and a stalk & hunt away from baboon or giraffe meat.

I'm not saying I want to live in their conditions. But, I am envious of their peaceful existence, for however longer they can sustain it, with the encroaching civilization. These people are fit, healthy, resourceful, eat what the Land offers (really, how we're meant to eat. Farming introduced many diseases and ailments into our society).

I guess I'll stick to my eating habits, which I try to have resemble theirs, but for the occasional processed carb (beer, candy bar...) and try stalking and catching waves with my quiver of boards...

Seriously? On National TV?

I was watching one of my favorite train wrecks yesterday, The Biggest Loser.

It seems the trainers are learning and evolving to be more constructive rather than all-out mean. I still dislike that they the way one of them uses kettlebells is inappropriate (using way advanced skills, like balancing on an upside down kettlebell, which is difficult but doesn't accomplish more than a good old plank).

Anyway, one of the eliminated contestants winds up meeting with a former contestant who was his team partner the previous season. The guy had ballooned up to what seemed to be a heavier weight than when he had started. When questioned about his weight loss, he said he had other priorities and that he just wants to relax, and that when he takes care of other things, the weight will come off. What a crock!

The eliminated contestant expressed his concern for his buddy, seeing as he recognized in him what he used to do: make excuses, stay comfortable and in denial. I remember that same person going home for a visit, trying to eat healthy meals but saying he couldn't find things he likes (he was a corn dog and fries guy), and his family (all morbidly obese by the way) telling him "you can do it" as they stuff themselves with fries!

So, here he is, a season later, bigger than ever, having blown an opportunity like TBL, with all the nutrition, support and training you can unrealistically get! I hope that the folks in his position can use this as a wake-up call and find the inspiration and motivation to be honest with themselves and that he became an unsuspecting herald for a condition that affects 2/3 of the US population.

There is nothing more important that your health. Not your family, your children or your work. And before you chastise me for saying I am a fitness nazi, which I am not, just ponder the consequences for not being healthy:

a) Diabetes.

b) Heart disease.

c) Cancer.

If these 3 don't feel like they affect you, think about it when you are unable to care for yourself, or unable to care for your family because you cannot work. Or, when you suffer a heart attack, how it's going to affect your children. You chronological age is a number, but your real age may be higher, meaning you may be 20 years old on your passport, but be over 40 (and not a healthy 40, in which a 40 y.o. person can have a real age of 20 something). So that heart attack is right around the corner.

And, oftentimes, it's not one or the other. You can get the trifecta of conditions and become the super-villain Metabolic Syndrome X!How much trust should you place in someone who cannot even manage #1?

Be a hero: be healthy. Heroes always overcome hardships, get out of their way for the greater good. The greater good is taking care of your health. Everything else stems from it. Everything. Don't believe me? Let's debate.

Business Fitness

This can sound like at least two things: the business of fitness or the fitness of your business.

If you address the former, the business of fitness is comprised of polar opposites. So many disciplines, gurus, options, preferences, proven techniques as well as snake-oil salespeople. How do you even discern what's right for you?

As a whole, the fitness industry is doing well, despite the recession. People attach more value to what is important and especially to what they can control. You can't control whether your company will keep you employed, though you can control the search for a back-up plan, but even that is oftentimes a gamble. But more and more, people realize that the one thing that can be improved regardless of the times is their physical wellness. Even the fittest of the fittest continuously improved their personal records or abilities, while rookies get started on adding years to their life, increase their chances of fighting all sorts of diseases and witness tangible improvements in their quality of life.

While some business have to scale back (for instance, individual personal training has dropped), one can always find their way to a group class (which can benefit both the trainer and the trainee alike, creating volume and savings, respectively).

Which leads me to the fitness of one's business: Just like a barbell allows you to spread a load evenly and lift more with proper leverage versus 2 dumbbells of the same cumulative weight, how do you keep your own business fit? How do you leverage your load? I've already given an example for the business of personal training (group vs private classes), but here's another example: corporate fitness, for instance, is about survival of the corporation before the individual. Which is why companies result to lay-offs when money is tight, rather than focusing on improving productivity in an already negative climate.

Think about our species: reproduction is essential to the survival of our species, while on an individual basis, it does little to affect you other than fulfill an emotional need even before addressing a primordial one. Not everyone choose to have children. Whether you do or not has nothing to do with your individual survival. Heck, not having kids can be an argument when you see the state of the world! But rather than focus on this pessimistic view, let's turn back to the fitness of a business.

If a company addresses the individual needs collectively, its chances of survival greatly improve. But, how can you address individual needs "collectively"? Stay with me: find what it is that most people need, and employee appreciation tops most everything. Yes, everyone wants money, and everyone works for the ability to pay for things. But sooner or later, it is in our nature to want more. Sooner or later, productivity drops if there isn't some form of incentive.

Incentive doesn't have to be monetary. Rewards can come in the form of a company luncheon, an afternoon off or better yet, fitness.

Don't roll your eyes just yet. You know what I do and what my passion is. But ask yourself: why do we all want more money? To get things we want? What do those things do for us? Make us more attractive to potential mates (it's called "peacocking"). Looking good is part of the mating process too :)

But more seriously, find me ONE person who ultimately doesn't like feeling better and looking better in the process. The feeling alone can boost one's confidence enough so they appear more attractive. When you feel strong and healthy, you feel like you can accomplish a lot more.

So, business owners, CEO's and HR managers, invest in the health of your employees by offering workshops or lectures on how people can better manage their wellness (fitness, health, safety -nothing boost more confidence like the ability to kick butt and defend yourself!-).

It is actually very cost effective, because that expense promotes not only productivity, but also employee loyalty. Additionally, a healthy employee costs less than an unfit employee whose immune system is weaker, thus more likely to call in sick or infect co-workers. In the long term, you can also benefit from breaks for insurance carriers for providing such benefits to your employees.

See, you can take care of individual needs collectively :)

Hire a fitness coach for your executive fitness. Schedule a luncheon presentation or a series of lectures on nutrition, posture, easy remedies and how to choose the best approach for each person to improve their wellness, and you'll have happy employees instead of grumpy ones!