“Fatigue makes cowards of us all.” – Vince Lombardi

Training for fatigue is simple. Any fool can beat themselves up and revel in the pain.  I hear people boast about the “beasting” they inflict upon themselves (or others) as they struggle to walk upright, put on their shoes or raise their hands above their head. If you can put as much effort into recovery your progress and ultimately your performance will improve exponentially. Look at the continuum – practice provides the foundation, , progress follows, hard wiring the basics and as the process matures we are on our way to the holy grail – performance.

Training is Trauma

Every time we  train we expose the body to some degree of trauma. This is where training for recovery  comes in. If I base practice on my ability to maintain a high degree of efficiency, relative intensity and focused technique, laying the foundations for progress, rather than letting my ego get the better of me, I can monitor my progress, self correct and adapt. I become the driver rather than the driven.

Let’s go back to the start…

Over the next few months you are going to see the (re-)emergence of a very simple, functional tool. I will tell you now, there’s a bunch of folk who will try to lay claim to “discovering” it. They will tell you what’s “old is new” again. They will probably try and convince you that they have “top secret” information. It may even be from the Eastern Block.  And if you are really lucky they might just ask you to part with an extraordinary amount of cash to learn the “long lost and never before seen art”  they use.

Indian clubs have a rich history, from the Persian Wrestlers Zoorkaneh (House of Power) through to the British Army. Jonathan Lewis of Balance Physio informs me that Indian Clubs are still being used by the Royal Marines. Such is their history with that elite force that Physical Training Instructors are known as Club Swingers. If you are interested in the cultural history of club swinging you will find some in the references at the bottom of this article. If you are interested in how Indian Clubs might help you, read on…

In the interests of simplicity and sustainability there is a model you can use to get and keep your practice consistent. We could get technical. We could “undulate” and “wave”. We could prioritise, periodize, focus on mass, endurance, power, fat loss. Or we could simply get consistent with a general routine that will let us intelligently focus on specifics once a base line of fitness is established.

It goes like this…

Choose a selection of whole body moves. No isolation. You have 600 hundred muscles. Believe me, it’s easier to train the body as the integrated creature it is. Your are much more than the sum of the parts. Isolation is useful when you have a formidable base to build from or a particular weakness to address.

We push, we pull, we squat, we bend, we lunge, we twist. Everything you do in terms of building a foundation should reflect the natural requirements of our daily lives.

Each session should address two or more of these movements. Pull ups work well with squats. Push ups with lunges. Train two movements back to back and you have yourself a workout.

Start with the biggest move first. If you are not sure which is which, start with the one you like least!

“ The sooner a man begins to verify all he hears the better it is for him…
Accept nothing you cannot verify for yourself.”
 -G.I. Gurdjieff

The fires rage and burn. People like to go down with their dogma, all flames and gnashing of teeth. But personal experience is earned. Simply parroting what someone else says doesn’t make it right and doesn’t mean it applies to you.

If you are not an athlete why would you train like one? Don’t get me wrong, those at the cutting edge can share their hard won findings and some of that stuff applies. But we are fixated on the achievements of others. It’s great to watch those who have dedicated their lives to excellence in a given field. But they are not barometers for our success. Athletes live on a  knife edge, they measure success in millimetres and micro seconds. They walk a path between peak performance and injury. That is the price of sporting excellence. For those of us in the real world the rules of engagement are not the same.

The sacrifice involved to perform at the highest level is simply beyond the scope of the average person. And if that average person is looking for exceptional results, training like Lance or GSP or Federer wont improve their game.

The Internet is awash with programs, systems, methods and protocols all designed to help the average person lose weight, build muscle, increase endurance and become leaner, meaner and all round better.

So what’s the problem?

Why do so many people fail to make even a modest dent in their fitness goals. Why do so many people start out all fired up only to fall off the wagon and go lie on the couch? Between, work, school runs, childcare, meetings, grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, bed time stories and the latest episode of 24 we can find our efforts easily derailled. We make a commitment to get fit and as soon as that commitment is undermined it becomes a stick we use to beat ourselves. Soon enough it’s easier to quietly ignore your nice new running shoes, the skipping rope hanging over the exercise bike sitting next to that kettlebell you kept going on about at Christmas. You’ll get back to those soon enough, when the weather gets better, that new work project is finished and you catch up on your sleep. Wakey, wakey. Your excuses fool no-one, least of all you.

Progress is a series of small steps. Small steps, that in time, cover a great distance. We get stronger incrementally, lose weight gradually, regain health, movement and wellness one rep, one workout, one day at a time. So a little bump on the road to fitness is just that, you stalled, it happens, that’s life. The journey continues. Buckle up.

The more I train, the healthier I feel, the more connected I become mentally and physically. This process over the last couple of years has been incremental. For the longest time I thought the bigger the plan the bigger the result. I’ve come to realise that i’s all about consistency.

Years back when I first learned about meditation, I approached sitting as some esoteric exercise in wish fulfilment. I thought that if I sat there on the cushion a light would suddenly come on and bang…well, to be fair, I had no idea what would happen after the bang but I suspected it had to be good.

Anyway, it’s not a sudden flash, it is a slow sunrise. A gentle awakening as the light creeps across the room. Conversly, the expectation for fireworks ultimately commits us to sitting in darkness in endless anticipation.

When I first came across the Kettlebell all I could think about was how heavy could I go. No real mental component, just a visceral desire to lift heavy. Once I removed my ego from the equation, or rather the kettlebell removed my ego, I realised that getting stronger was really only possible if my whole process of movement got better. For sure, grit and spit will get you so far but it will also grind you down and leave you spent. Good movement, superior movement, that is where grace and power live.