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Going to the gym does not equate to good health. Sleep and nutrition are the fundamental building blocks to health, wellness, performance, and looking good. There are three simple things that would increase the chances of success and change in any training program.
If I could convince clients to actually make these changes and commit to these as a lifestyle, this intervention would make them healthier and look, feel and perform better.
Research shows that these simple changes increase quality of life, brain health and productivity in all aspects of life and allow people to be mobile for longer and more emotionally stable.
"You cannot out-train poor sleep or nutrition"
You can not out train poor sleep or nutrition. Health and wellness are built in the bedroom and the kitchen. You are NOT a unique snowflake! The better you eat and sleep, the better body you will recover and build and the better your longevity will be. Sleep is when the body rebuilds and heals. Food provides the building blocks or the “legos” for the body to rehab and rebuild. If you put crap in your body, you will build new tissue and repair old tissue with crap. If you eat well and sleep well you will increase your longevity.
When I get old, I don’t want people to have to wipe my ass or need a little blue pill to be intimate with my partner. I want to live a robust active life until I die. I want to fit as much living in as I can. This happens by being stronger. As a kid we laughed at the “I have fallen and can’t get up” commercials. As a trainer and a bodyworker, I have seen that it is a real concern for many. It happens because people get weak. Strength is where the magic is. Strength is not just about how much you can lift, it has to do with how you move your body. Can you get up and down, help you partner off the ground, pick up your grandkids, jump out of the way of a car, fall down and not break? These tasks all get easier when getting stronger. A person does not build this necessary strength by running, using treadmills and ellipticals etc. It happens by using a full range of motion and lifting up heavy things. There is no reason that a 70 year old woman can’t deadlift more than her bodyweight and those that can will have better quality of life. They will be able to enjoy their lives more. When I was working on the Ugandan/Sudanese border, I was sitting with a woman who was 80. She was sitting on the ground with straight legs drinking moonshine. Without spilling a drop, she stood on one leg like a pistol and took off into a walk at the same time she picked up a child with one arm. She is strong, and she is living!
This is more demanding but allows a person to maintain power. Strength plus speed equals power and it is one of the first things a person loses as they get older. People lose the springiness in their body and working on these two, METCON and S2 (Sport Specific) help retain this ability to generate power.
Metcon stands for metabolic conditioning. Metabolic Conditioning is a term that is used to describe all the different ways to work train all the different energy systems in the body. There are 3 common energy systems, which I go into in the pdfs, but if you design a fitness system you should build your long term program to cover all three. This happens best if you look at your fitness as a long term concept, a lifestyle.
Sport Specific should almost never be trained unless you are making millions of dollars on your body and even then you don't need to spend too much time in this modality. Sport is an expression of fitness, it’s not fitness. If you are training properly you should be able to run a marathon without doing a “couch to marathon in 24 weeks”. You should be able to go play pickup basketball, ultimate frisbee, and run a 5k with no problem. S2 is HARD on the body and the odds of you getting hurt skyrocket. Spend most of your time in Strength and METCON.
Flexibility is not as important as people think because most people don’t train it well. They only get flexible, and don’t build strength through their range of motion (ROM). If you increase your flexibility, you have to increase your strength through the new ROM. Don’t sweat flexibility training as much loaded full ROM training.
In the beginning, it is important that you build a stable joint and which is stable through all of its ranges of motion. Can you keep straight arms in a plank, reverse plank, side plank, handstand and hang. Each ROM is needed.
Mobility is maintaining a stable joint through an entire ROM while moving.
Agility is stability and mobility with speed. You don’t have to train agility as much and as often as people and most trainers think. If you are training properly and getting stronger through a full range of motion your agility will improve. Agility should be added for variety and fun but not as a priority.
Durability is how much damage you can take and remain uninjured. The same rules apply, as agility, if you get strong through a full range of motion you will become more durable..
I grew up playing sports and in high school I decided to join the Marine Corps with the goal of becoming a Scout-Sniper. During my research phase I began to learn what physical requirements I would need to even stand a chance in making it into a Scout-Sniper Platoon. With limited understanding and resources, I began to do “Recon Short Cards” and Chris Carracci’s Navy Seal Training Video. I had no idea what I was doing but being young and doing anything physical can yield improvement. Once I made it to the STA Platoon, I was surrounded by really strong fit Alpha males and this is where I began to really focus on what we, as “tactical athletes”, were lacking. We were supermen and we were injured. This idea was deepened and reinforced as I went through Amphibious Reconnaissance School which was more about fitness compared to Scout-Sniper school which focused more on skill sets. Recon school exposed me to how much physical damage we could take and recover from. It also showed me that those of us that were a little older did a better job even though we were dealing with injuries. This motivated me into trying to figure out injuries and performance. I left the Marine Corps and went to massage school where I realized I didn’t really like massage because it didn't accomplish what it claimed, but I worked in the industry for a long time with the idea that I wanted to learn more about both fitness and rehab. I began teaching yoga even opening a yoga studio where I really got deep into yoga and flexibility. During this time I met Patrick Collard, who also taught me body language. He was a bodyworker and this was the path he used to teach body language. I spent 4 years apprenticing with him and then things really started to happen. I was teaching yoga, training athletes and stay at home moms, I was doing bodywork and beginning to see how all of this really integrated. I moved to Wyoming and started working with the top snow athletes in the world, and I found out that their requirements were the same as what I needed in the corps and they had similar injuries. Later, I moved to Los Angeles and began working with dancers and actors. These two were a whole new animal and I didn’t understand Hollywood needs until after I left. I could not understand why they would want to be so skinny rather than healthy. Not until I left and started working with dance companies and dancers did I realize that actors are athletes in their own way. They know that they are not as healthy as they could be but like professional football players they are making millions with their bodies. What dancers taught me is they are the closest to military athletes in their needs. They are ALWAYS injured and don't have resources, money or enough time, to really get properly taken care of. What all of this drove home to me is that things need to be simple, accessible and quick. Exercises should be able to be done at home when someone doesn’t have access to a gym. Everything I do now is based on getting the most bang for your buck, what is the least I can do and net the biggest profit. Man what I could have done with this information when I was 15 looking at joining the Marine Corps.
There is a lot of information running around the internet that is designed to sell books and sell you on an idea or give you a quick fix. The PDFs below are available to you for free to download. These are the same documents and information I give all of my clients when I start working with them. From working in the trenches with clients and researching, I have found that this information is what works. If you’re looking for more in-depth information or you have questions that you still need to answer, I’ve listed some resources below. These are some people who I personally reference because they really do the deep research, they cite everything and they understand the relevant systems in context. My goal is that you have all the information to make informed decisions and to learn information from reliable sources.
I am working on a paid monthly subscription to help people that need more support but in the meantime I have put together a free basic program. This program is set up for 3 things.
More specific instructions for this program can be found in the PDF linked below
I am a one-stop-shop for a lot of information that I use and teach on a daily basis. Even though I am an expert in everything I teach, no matter how much I study and read and practice there are people that specialize in one modality who know more than I do. One of the things I pride myself in and has helped me become an expert is being able to sift through the fluff and get to the people that are the best specialists. I have rules for finding leaders and people I trust which include: Are they willing to say they were wrong or change their minds when they are presented with more accurate information? Do they use their information, intelligence and know-how with real people or is it theory? If they are theorists is their information being used to help real people in real time? If they get a yes to those answers then I listen to them. If one of the people who I’ve vetted and find valuable references people that they defer to, I will also give that person a place at the table. Here is a list of books from people that I value.
Robb Wolf https://robbwolf.com
Chris Kresser https://chriskresser.com
