Training Philosophy
The basics:
- Strength and Endurance Go Together
- Eat Natural Foods
- Training movements should always have an application in the real world. If you don’t do pec fly’s in real life, why are you doing them in your workouts?
Deep Thoughts
What’s Your Motivation?
Here’s what I really think about training. Everyone excels differently. Some need one-on-one guidance and pushing. Others need a whiteboard with numbers to beat. Someone else needs the smell of rubber stall mats, cleaning fluids and clanging weights to get charged up. The important thing is that you won’t know what gets you going if you don’t try a variety of approaches.
It doesn’t matter what motivates you to get fit, you are a VIP to someone or you have a VIP in your life (i.e. your family, friends, etc). Those people depend on you and you need to be fit for them. If what you need to get in top physical condition is a shake weight, then by all means, shake away! If it’s group training and it keeps you coming back, by all means do it. If the group thing isn’t your thing, and you just want to clear your head and move some weight, perhaps you are a cellar dwellar and didn’t know it!
Find out what motivates you and use it.
Being Ready
I believe strongly in the ability to be ready for whatever physical challenge life throws at you. When you least expect it. Peaking is awesome if you’re spending 4 years at a training center where your meals are prepared for you, and all you have to do is wake up, eat, train and sleep. For the rest of us, and in particular, the ‘aging’ rest of us, training can’t leave us wrecked for days on end. We have to be able to get back in it and recover as best as we can. This means turning our training into a practice, rather than an event.
As someone with an endurance bias, I feel I should be able to run 20 miles any given day, or be able to swim 2 miles without much effort. I also value strength and I feel that I should be able to deadlift and/or squat 300lbs in my sleep (that number will move up – it’ll be closer to 400lbs). All these things I should be able to do, simply because I’m practicing the movements and I’m not having to worry about peaking for an event. It’s not to say I won’t try and peak for an event like the Donnor Lake Triathlon (that bike leg is TOUGH), but I should also be able to complete it even though I might have had a rough week.
So, on the deeper end, find out what motivates you. Practice your lifts and your workouts, and be ready!
