Good evening, fellow readers!

Some of your might have discovered a surge of postings done within one single day and are a bit surprised how these postings stray from the blog network principle I have explained some postings before.

I first intended this to be a blog network with clear-cut categories until I noticed that I got myself into a bit of a hurry. I noticed, that this might be just too big to maintain, if this blog is merely something I do on the sideway – I am and never will be a full-time blogger, so I am of the opinion that – if I am to keep a blog up to date – I need to focus on one blog containing all the information.

All of the categories show interests of mine – training, nutrition, media (movies, music), spirituality and personal development – and will be part of this blog. If you are not interested in one of the particular areas, feel free to skip postings irrelevant to you.

As time progresses, I will implement RSS feeds for all of the categories specifically, so that you can be informed about the sections you are interested only – bear with me until then.

I wish you all a very good night!

Shine on,
Simon

Growing your own vegetables is a truly worthwhile task to do. While creating your own garden is surely some effort, the harvest you will reap will make up for everything you have invested into it. While gardening itself has numerous advantages, I will stick to the advantages of homegrown vegetables in this posting as the question of what differentiates homegrown vegetables from those purchased from a grocery store (or a supermarket) is likely to arise often.

Naturality

Every vegetable and fruit you have once sown will grow naturally and therefore yield an all-natural harvest. This is as close as you can get to the natural state of every plant – a difference you will not only taste but also see – a vegetable from your garden looks different than one out of the piles at the supermarket. I will admit that they will not always look better but there are various attributes that make up for that.

Genetical modification of foods is also a topic of today’s world. With homegrown plant foods, you are on the safe side – if you do not plant genetically modified seeds, you won’t reap those either. And even if you did – there are reports of gardeners that plants tend to return to their natural state as generations of homegrown plants go by.

Security

You get what you see. A plant from your garden is always what you have sown and how you have grown it – nothing more and nothing less. Everything you buy is beyond your control – you cannot possibly say – with 100% certainty – that a plant from the supermarket pile has this or that quality or has undergone certain (chemical) treatment. It simply is not possible. So you have to rely on the goodwill on manufacturers, that will most probably not focus on providing the best crop but rather on maximizing their profits, although this matter cannot be generalized. If you ever find a chance to purchase vegetables and fruits that are of great quality, stick to that reseller – he most probably is amonst the few that focus on product quality. Homegrown foods always underlie your own quality guidelines – you determine how good or bad your plant food will be by taking measures – or letting them be (just as watering the plants, applying chemicals, etc…)

Taste

Homegrown vegetables and fruits have a taste incomparable with those purchased at virtually any place. While purchased vegetables and fruits tend to look great and are big (in comparison), the taste oftenly is shallow and a far cry of what would be possible with proper care. Homegrown vegetables and fruits normally taste great – they sucked up the minerals from the soil below and transformed them (along with sunlight and water) into the marvellous plant they are. The better taste can be traced back to the aforementioned naturality of homegrown foods – for commerical use, foods have to have the maximum size and weight, not the maximum taste – hence the focus of the food industry.

Freshness

Probably the most striking argument pro homegrown foods is the sheer freshness of the foods. Vegetables and fruits tend to lose vitamins and minerals very quickly after harvesting, as they are cut off their own nutrition sources – they increasingly lack the power to sustain homeostasis, which is necessary to keep their mineral and vitamin circulation intact. While the plant is still alive, it gradually loses its integrity – and becomes foul, because of chronic undernourishment of the foul areas – damage cannot be undone anymore. Compare the plant with a human body – we need to be perfectly alive in order to repair damage done to tissue. Tissue cut off the stream of nutrients will become dysfunctional and starts to die. Taking this into consideration, numerous plants need to be eaten as fresh as possible in order to transfer their maximum nutritional value.

Those plants, which need to become ripe before consumption (like bananas or avocados, harvested far from being ripe and riping by lying around), also show differencies in quality between homegrown and purchased. Purchased plants are much more likely to become foul in the process (instead of ripe), as they are weak. Most purchased plant foods need to be treated with chemicals to assure survival – they would not stand a chance in real nature. This is why homegrown foods are a lot sturdier. You can test this out by growing a specific plant and purchase the same plant. Put it on a table and leave it be for a few days. The purchased plant will most probably become foul at a time when the homegrown one still looks perfectly fine.

This point of criticism is only partially true for organically grown vegetables and fruits. Organic foods tend to be a lot more sturdy, as they have to grow without the support of chemicals.

Price

A major block to eating healthy is the horrendous price for vegetables and fruits in good quality. The customer nowadays normally has two options

• go with the mainstream plant foods, devoid of nutritional value and treated with chemicals, priced average
• invest substantially more money and go for better quality

Vegetables and fruits are amongst the most expensive foods hands down. Creating a meal using mostly starchy foods like potatoes or flour is a lot cheaper than serving a staple of colourful vegetables, albeit them being a lot healthier. Therefore, money is a hindrance to enhance the nutritional value of the average diet.

Growing your own vegetables and fruits promises to be a solution to this problem – at least partial. Seeds are a very cheap good and good soil is also not too expensive. Unless you are living in the center of metropolian area, there might also be some green space you can cheaply rent and use for growing your own food. Even in cities there are little gardening spaces which you can rent and use – the rent will pay off by the amount of vegetables you will be able to grow. Even if you do not manage to cover your complete palette of need, you will have saved yourself a lot of money, which you can in turn invest in better quality for the rest of the plants you have to purchase.

In winter months, glass houses are a tremendous solution – there are countless plants which will grow in every season of the year.

—

In conclusion, homegrown vegetables and fruits beat their colleagues from the supermarket hands down. Even if they cost you an investment in time (and money), even if you may not manage to save even a penny while growing at home, even if you – at the end – even pay more than before – it will all be worth the quality foods you reap.

I live in a very rural area, which gives me the tremendous opportunity to use a lot of space for gardening and growing my own plants but growing plants is possible virtually anywhere. Go purchase a good book about gardening and give it a go – or even better ask contemporaries, friends and familiy members if they are – by chance – passionate gardeners. Odds are, that you will find someone.

Eat healthy, eat fresh, eat your own.

Warm regards,

Simon

During the summer camp with my youth group this weekend, I again ran into an interesting discovery as to how resonation works with your environment which perpetuated my sublime belief, that we are not merely islands, living for ourselves – and that we influence other beings with our words and deeds tremendously.

The incident

Amongst every group, there are people you like more and people you like less and while amongst our teenagers there is nobody I particularly dislike, there is at least one of them who regularly manages to drive me crazy and let me lose my temper – something I hold deep regret about afterwards. Over the course of the first 24 hours of the stay (half of the stay elapsed), I had gotten myself pretty deep into the problematic belief that I simply have no other option but to feel aggressive and uneasy about this particular individual – but it was then, when the revelation suddenly came upon me, as I was talking to my girlfriend, how our environment really is nothing more but a mirror that what we emit.

The revelation

Standing there and thinking about my own words, a sudden flash of enlightenment came upon me. I was merely saying this words but not understanding them  - on an emotional level. This sudden change in perception had a equally sudden change in my environment. I chose the first stranger to walk by to conduct the first experiment – I walked by, focused him and just smiled. Like many of his fellows, drinking booze and stirring the embers of their barbecue grill, he did not seem to be particularly amazed or amused by the moment but then he suddenly catched my smile – and smiled himself. The surge of emotions that ran through my body was beyond description – I did not feel too extatic, but it simply was the confirmation: It was true after all – our environment is a mirror of what we think, feel and act like.

The ramifications

Although I did not see through the challenge of always applying this principle, the second half of the stay proved to be the better half in terms of understanding with my teenager group – and the particular fellow straining my nerves. We got along well and had pretty good talks in the evening – in fact, I was surprised, how profound he was able to express himself- it was lovely to experience, a memory, carved in my heart more than all of the quarrel stirred.

The principle

The question, how this principle can be applied to your situation specifically should not remain unanswered. It is fairly easy to implement, if you stick to some basic rules

• Never cease to assess your beliefs, thoughts and actions – were they beneficial to you and your environment (which means in turn: to you as well)?
• Always strive to uncover and elimiate prejudice as it blurs your perception of what is and therefore disables you to connect with your enviroment
• Compare yourself with your environment to your liking, but stay away from assigning different value to different beings – a difference in value is equal to a prejudice and will render you unable to connect with others
• Ideally, just smile whereever it seems suitable and possible – just in case this is the way you want to be treated and feel (smiling, that is)
• Remain true to your own feelings. If you feel down, do not force yourself to trick yourself into something you aren’t – but feel the best you can without corrupting your identity

Obeying these rules is a stony path to follow, especially the self-assessment is a time- and nerve-consuming process, done over and over again but without progression you are destined to stay where you are at forever. This investment in your mental resources will soon start to pay off thousandfold. As soon as you start to transform what you emit, there will be a increasing number of individuals reflecting this thoughts, emotions or words – and with every individual soul on your side, your movement towards a betterment in your environment will gain momentum. Do not force it – let it happen naturally. Be gentle towards others’ response but stern towards your own mental emission.

Shine and enjoy the light you will stand in.

Shine on,

Simon

Album Title: Anno Domini High Definition

Album Artist: Riverside

Year of Release: 2009

Genre: Progressive Metal

Tracklist

1. Hyperactive (5:46)

2. Driven to Destruction (7:06)

3. Egoist Hedonist (8:56)

4. Left Out (10:59)

5. Hybrid Times (11:53)

total:  44:44

After their 2007 release Rapid Eye Movement, the Polish progressive metal combo Riverside is finally free to live out their ideas and emotions without being bound to a dedicated concept – and to incorporate new flows of style which were missed throughout the last release by the band. Riverside became increasingly known after their sophomore release Second Life Syndrome, which is – up to now – regarded as one of the classics of progressive metal post 2000 and in general. They have set the bar extremely high and for the second time they are on to best their up-to-now masterpiece.

Anno Domini High Definition is the name of their newest release – the age of high definition video streams, of crystal clear audio files, of permanent media exposure – a hectic time where standstill is prohbited – which is in particular the theme the album is built up around. The abbreviation of their fourth album – ADHD – attention deficit hyperactivity disorder – also merges nicely with the theme and the total album lenght of 44:44 is a take for the trivia – they only miss out on doing only four tracks on the album, otherwise the numbers would have fit perfectly.

The music reflects the lyrical theme just perfect – from the emotional and moody sound of the predecessors, they evolve further towards hectic sounds and breaks, dominated by spacy keyboard solos, a loud hammond organ and the ever-present guitar magic of Piotr Grudziński. The vocals of Mariusz Duda, which are the amongst the trademarks of the band, do use up too much audible space, although they are present most of the time – the range of his vocals is again tremendous – from sensitive and hurt to aggressive shouting – an improvement over the relatively monotonous predecessor Rapid Eye Movement. The whole sound landscape seems to be thoroughly filled, the overall impression of a very dense production cannot be overheard – a very welcoming feature, Riverside did not try to stretch out the album’s total length unaturally and focused to place the notes just where they are right.

The album itself starts with a piano solo, which leads over into the highly electrifying modern sound of what Riverside is anno 2009. Start-stop is the mentality of the vocals, harsh shouts tear harmonies apart – this is what Hyperactive, the opener, sounds like. Driven to Destruction offers a very groovy side, combined with classical Riverside style, overall a very pleasant experience. The real innovation dawns with the inclusion of trumpets on the so-far longest track Egoist Hedonist - also the first track to offer a real moment of the sound magic, Riverside has become famous for – amid the song. Sadly, the instrumental leading out of the tracks seems to go nowhere – and leaves the track without conclusion –  a flaw I hadn’t expected from Riverside.

The second half of the album consists of two longtracks – Left Out and Hybrid Times. The former lets you catch your breath after the racing sound of the first three tracks – melancholic soundscapes flow naturally into hammond harmony, growing harder and increasingly epic – truly a longtrack in its dimensions. The finishing track gets back into gears instantly – high tempo and insane rhythms drive the ultimate anthem to the title-giving hybrid times – a wild rollercoaster of progressive sound elements. This has to be amongst the creative highlights in the history of the band – or does it only sound like it’s refreshingly new?

Lyrically, Riverside are beyond criticism. The words to ADHD are impressive and flow perfectly into the song structure, reading and singing along to the lines won’t go without a shiver or two, the atmosphere is just so dense and the whole impression makes me think about what the world is like today. I feel that music has to be very good to deliver such a state of awareness.

Anno Domini High Definition does not reinvent the wheel, but it is a distinct refreshment of a band that was endangered to be confined in a sound universe that limits their capabilities. It’s like Riverside has finally broken free and the musicians pour themselves on the tape. The concept is hardly noticable but ever-present in the style of the record – these are hyperactive times and Riverside naturally go with this flow – it is new, it is refreshing and there are no objection towards musicianship and quality of lyrics.

Does this mean, we have a new, perfect masterpiece which will best Second Life Syndrom in the second attempt? Listening to ADHD a lot in the last months, I doubt it. ADHD, without any shadow of doubt, is a terrific record and masterfully crafted but it lacks something a record needs to have to be a remarkable masterpiece – magic. Aside one moment during Egoist Hedonist, I won’t find too much traces of this magic. It is already too modern to be a classic – and therefore probably condemned to be forgotten all too soon.

I recommend this record to anyone interested in progressive music. This is – up to this point – one of the best records released in 2009 and shows what Riverside are capable of. However, if you are particularly interested in discovering Riverside, I suggest you try out Second Life Syndrome first.

Conclusion: Riverside have reached the modern ages, with all their advantages and setbacks. This is the nature of this record.

Rating: 8.5 points (out of 10 points)

On Wednesday, 18:30, the first (unofficial) CrassFit workout meeting took play in the Freinberg Park, next to the Jägermayrhof, Linz, Austria. This is the first of a series of workouts that will take place weekly here in Linz.

Attendees

This first CrassFit meeting was a small one with only four attendees, due to private arrangement: Me (Simon), Dominik (from naturtraining.at), Peter (a mutual comrade from Dominik’s workshops) and his sister. Plans for advertising the training are underway – the attendee numbers will rise for sure.

From left to right: Me, Dominik, Josi (Peter's sister), Peter

Location

In the evening, the Freinberg Park is a quite silent area, even with the mild temperatures we had. For our first workout, we searched the park for suitable places to do exercises we planned on and are elemental to CrassFit (dips, pull-ups, …) and we were a bit disappointed not to find the ideal space. The city of Linz installed a Fit4 circuit in this park but unluckily it is firstly split into fifteen stations and secondly does not offer a long and high hanging pull-up bar – which would have been integral for our upcoming workout. Finally we (Peter and me, at that time) improvised and chose a playground with its swing framework. In addition with a Jungle Gym, we figured we had sufficient pulling options.

Workout

We decided for a metabolic conditioning workout beforehand which perfectly suited the landscape we were training in

• 20 kettlebell swings (16 kg kettlebell)
• 10 Maxwell-Burpees
• 400 meters running (including a hill sprint as finisher)

5 rounds (for time)

Peter and Dominik fighting against Iron Bells

We decided to stop the time although it was not important to us which time we would need to finish – to finish, that was the goal. I had a hard time to keep up proper form with the swings and as the rounds of the circuit progressed, I was feeling increasingly nauseous. I am sure I would have cancelled the workout after three rounds if the others did not push me further – they were formidable!
Peter’s sister did an earlier version of the workout – 10 high jumps, 10 push-ups on a slide (easier than normal) and the running. She did very well for her first try on circuit training
I finished the workout within 19’43”, approximately 2′ slower than both Peter and Dominik, who were equally fast.

… with the last breaths, up the hill

As a finisher, we did a dip ladder on the Jungle Gym, up to 7 repetitions. I personally maxed out at five, Peter’s sister did static  holds in support instead.

Dips Madness – Ladders and Stuff

Done. Strenuous but great fun. Regardless of how nauseous I felt during the workout, the feeling afterwards is priceless and well worth the effort undertaken.

Conclusion

The meeting was a blast! Training with other fanatics (you may even call them ‘lunatics’ ) in the park is so much fun, I’d even pay for attending – even better that it is free now and will always be.

The next workout is scheduled for Monday, 10th of August 2009 – I’m looking forward to it!

Post your thoughts and times in comments

Simon

Impressions

Ropes are excellent tools to train with. I started off with a rope, 7 meters in length and 35 mm in diameter, only to hang it onto the branch of one of the trees on the edge of the forest near my house. Although rope climbing is an excellent way to train the whole body, the possibilities to train with the rope are not merely limited to climbing only.

Tara Scott is one of the prime reasons I first became interested in training with ropes, along with her mentor Dr. Rocannon MacGregor . Their blogs Coach Tara and Primal Nature Play are a must read for people interested in natural training – although I am not a dedicated follower of their ideas, they are a inspiration. Look out for posts about rope training. As for the rope training itself, I got into gears after a workshop with Dominik Feischl, whose blog is also highly recommended for all readers who understand German.

Versatility

Ropes can be used in various forms. While they pose a great tool to climb up to (with or without the help of the legs), they also create incredible ballistic and gravitational forces when swung or moved otherwise using momentum. The rope is a training utility that renders training fun while staying extremely effective nontheless – regardless of how you train using the rope, it always turns out to be great investment in your whole body development!

The following exercises are some few out of the vast pool of those possible.

Rope climbing

Rope climbing is the most obvious choice available. Just find yourself something to hang the rope on to, fasten it and start the climbing fun! In contrast to what most people think, ropes do not have to be hung high above ground level to become an effective tool for climbing. Interval climbs of short ropes are a tremendous exercise to strengthen your grip and pulling power – just try to sustain three to four rounds on a rope of approximately 2 meters height – good luck!

Short Rope Climbing – GMX Video

Seilklettern – GMX Video

Rope Pull-Ups

The rope challenges your grip strength – if you easily do a set of pull-ups on a normal pull-up bar you will find a set of pull-ups on the rope to be a hard task to do at first but you will gradually adapt to the more challenging grip on the rope. The less the diameter of the rope, the harder the task. I recommend ropes with diameters between 25 and 35 mm, the thicker, the easier – I am still sticking to the thickest one.

Power Rope

The power rope is an exercise which is very much fun to watch from the side – the rope lining is spinning like a helix, something you do not notice too much when doing the exercise yourself. Hold your upper arms firm and work the forearms only with this exercise. If you can go on 30 seconds without fatiguing: Congratulations! – this exercise is much harder than it looks like and very well suited to be done in circuits. Highly recommended!

In addition to the health benefits I noticed that this exercise works like a magnet when done outdoors and with people nearby. It just looks so much fun that everyone wants to have a try – and quickly find out that it is very challenging in nature!

Power Rope – GMX Video

Rope Swings

Want to feel just like a cowboy? Then do so. Take an appropiate part of the rope and swing it above your head – the longer the rope piece is, the larger the gravitational force working against you. You will feel it everywhere in your body that it has to work hard in order to sustain its stability.

Short Rope Swings

For the short rope swings you will need a shorter rope, length up to five meters. Like with the normal rope swings, swing the rope around above your head – switching hands. The advantage of this exercise is that you can vary the swing gradually in height as you go by – from above head height down to waist height – just be sure not to touch the ground with the rope. Progress with increasing the rope’s length.

Coach Tara writes about this exercise in this blog article. Be sure to read it thoroughly!

Rope Pulling/Dragging

To utilize the rope further, attach an object of varying weight and size to one end of the rope and then go about either pulling the object towards yourself with the power of your muscles or dragging the object along for either a distance or time. With both pulls and drags, you can incorporate intervals of pulling/dragging and sprinting on the other end of the rope’s reach. Three to four rounds and you should be more than well done!

—

The rope is one of the exercise utilities I was most surprised to get to know better. Normally I used to climb up the rope as the only exercise I would do but since I took the rope with me on a weekend camp with my group of teenagers I found out that the usages of a rope are tremendously versatile. I will incorporate this great training tool further in my nature trainings and am sure that both the fun and effectivity of my workouts will increase thereby.

Profit from training with ropes as well – go and purchase one. For European customers, the Seilerei Sammt is a great place to go to – places for purchases from that States will follow.

Have fun doing so!

Live the fun,
Simon

Good night, fellow readers!

Last saturday (25.06.2009), Dominik Feischl and Karl Humer hosted the Gorilla Training Workshop in Thomasroith, Central Upper Austria. It was a true feast for everyone interested in increasing their strength in grip, pulling and lifting (as those areas are tightly interconnected).

I started my journey towards the Underground Strength Gym Thomasroith at 9 AM, calculated very sharp, as the workshop started at 11 AM and my route was planned to be exactly 2 hours (1hr 59min to be even more exact ) – I gladly arrived five minutes before time and had a very relaxed meet-and-greet with the other participants – strong and enduring athletes throughout, as they would demonstrate to be afterwards. Warm sunshine awaited me but a day with a heavy mixture of sunny heat and rainshowers promised to lie ahead of us.

Part One : Pulling and Static Holds

Part one started at Karl Humers premises, where he has built up an impressive parcours – the paradise for every athlete with aspirations in terms of grip and pulling power. Warming up was first to come, with some surprises from start on. Old Inline-Skates used as Ab Wheels, crutches as training utility and crawling on hands and knees to warm the whole body up.

The complete program consisted of the following:
Rollouts on inline skates
Full body swings with crutches
Crawling up stairs
Lat pulldown with elastic band
Side-step slalom
Rotatory exercise (on a kind of motorcycle handle bar)
Crawling down the rest of the distance

A great warmup indeed, which was complemented with stretching exercises for the wrists – they are highly exposed to strain during pulling and static holds on bars and other objects, so we better made sure they were warmed up and good to go!

The program itself started with climbing a ladder – inverse – and working along a horizontal ladder, from step to step, with the difficulty of woodblocks, which hardly enable the athlete to hold on, during the way.

We contined with a complete climbing circle – up the ladder, along the horizontal ladder, along the rings and cross over to the climbing rope which we had to conquer – I am awe struck by the performance of those who completed the circle!

Probably the hardest exercise of all was the static hold circle: We assigned eight static hold exercises, which we performed with 30 seconds work and some seconds rest thereafter. Our forearms collectively were pumped up so heavily that we were merely able to operate our fingers correctly – the forearms just felt like completely swollen!

Another key component were instructions on rope climbing, a great exercise to build strength in all of the upper body, including the abs – of course, you have to do it without your legs help working you up the rope to attain maximum results. Rope climbing has some key factors to watch over when done correctly:
Do not train too often – 2 – 3 times a week is enough!
Do not train if you are not feeling good – best case: You won’t gain anything, worst case: You inflict an injury upon yourself and are out of training for some time
Pull with one arm at a time – not with both arms. Develop pulling power for the one-armed row, hanging at the rope, to climb the rope efficiently
Proceed with a little number of but long pulls instead of a lot of short pulls
Use your legs as stabilisator when coming down from the rope – climbing down without using your feet increases the injury risk beyond reason!

I injured myself during one of the last pulling exercises, when we climbed up the ladder in push-up-position (with explosive push-ups inbetween steps) and thereafter slided down the horizontal ladder in order to hang onto it and proceed the steps from below. I let go too quickly on the descend and ripped off some skin on my palms – very annoying and hurts a lot. Kudos to Karl, treating the injury right away, so that I could still be part of the game!

The first segment was concluded with some heavy rainshowers. We expected them to vanish soon, but they only increased in intensity – that’s life on a cloudy summer day in Upper Austria! It was therefore high time for a break!

After a pause for the lunch (steaks and rice) and waiting for the sun to shine again, we finishedthe pulling and static holds part with means by which you can improve your performance with pull-ups
ABC pullups
Ladders

ABC pullups are a technique, where you do a full pushup, and then do three things
descend to arms extend at a 120° angle – which means hanging low but with tension
pull up again, descend to arms extend at a 90° angle – which means you go down only half the way and hold the position
pull up again, descend to arms extend at a 30° angle – which means you go down only a little bit from top position and hold the position

Start with around three seconds static hold for all the positions (120°, 90° and 30°) and work up to 15 seconds static hold – I promise that this will kill your pulling power. I was out of the game after just one round of five seconds – the 90° position was already impossible to maintain.

Pullup ladders are a technique, where you start with one repetition and then work up to sets of X repetitions (where X is a number of repetitions you can manage), with little breaks between sets. You can also arrange this in the form of a pyramid, descending from X to 1 repetition with every set after reaching X repetitions.

After we finished the pulling part, we proceeded to Dominiks Underground Gym, where we started the second part.

Part Two: Lifting heavy and iron grip

Dominiks Underground Gym is a great assembly of training equipment rarely seen in western gyms. Upon arriving, the eight participants (including me) were split in half, one working with Karl, one with Dominik, switching group by group.

Dominik introduced to us oldschool training equipment. Clubbells are weights in the form of a club, constructed out of water pipes and screws, filled with screws and other metal materia. They work your shoulder stability and grip strength tremendously, as they are extremely ballistic in nature and move nothing like you want them to – the stability work you have to undertake is huge! The bulgarian sand bag is a sand bag constructed out of a car pneu tube, cut in half and filled with sand, thereafter sealed. This utility is also very ballistic and useful for twisting them around in circles – a great exercise to build up strength in the upper body in general and the rotatory abs escpecially. A wrist roller is an easy training tool, built by taking a wooden pole, some thick string and fastening a weight on the other end – by wrapping the pole, you elevate the weight and train your grip strength thereby. Lastly, we tried out a Captians-of-Crush gripper, the best on the market. Nr. 1 requires around 70 kg of gripping power to compress – I almost attained this skill with one hand (the right one), as I know this tool from home.

Karl instead continued the gripping ordreal on a horizontal tree trunk and some wood blocks – both posed extreme challenges to keep yourself up and not falling down, as the grip is extremely challenged by the kind of force and structure of surface. At least, this proved to be the last pulling / gripping exercise of the day.

We went on with some farmer’s walks – a tremendous exercise to build strength in your shoulders, traps and the whole body in general – carrying a weight from position A to position B works literally every muscle in your body – if not actively, then at least passively in a static hold. We carried along weight carriers (hard to balance), a traktor wheel (around 70 kg, balance required) and a deadlift hex bar (50 kg, easiest of those). Going for speed, our breath was sure to get short! As if the carrying wouldn’t have been enough, we were encouraged to carry each other as well – a funny experience and easier than I thought. For those who liked to, we examined the campus board as well, a training utility, mainly used by climbers to build grip and pulling strength.

Thereafter, the very same traktor wheel had to be dragged using a rope – which showed to be extremely difficult, as you have to work with both your legs and arms to succeed. Again, the one-armed-pull is required, using both hands to pull at the same time was prohibited and beyond reason. A few failed attempts by me, but I finally managed to understand the technique and dragged the beast along the ground.

As the semi-last exercise, we faced each other sitting and had to be resistance force for our counterpart while holding ropes. This was going to become hard, as we did our best to build up the utmost resistance – we worked our best!

The finisher was an atypical exercise: We were presented a big rock to carry around the field for two laps – as a group! We did our best and altough participants like me weren’t able to handle the rock for too long, we surpassed the two laps and did three of them easily – nice!

Now it was time for changing clothes and smalltalk about nutrition and training – a very interesting time and hands down one of the best days in 2009 from my perspective!

Kudos to Till Sukopp for showing me the basic kettlebell techniques after the training workshop – I now have a deper understanding of how the swing should look like and work out!

As a summary, I’d like to write down what lessons I learned through the workshop
Training utilities are not necessarily hard or expensive to build – quite the opposite
Rope climbing is complex and has to obey some rules
ABC pull-ups are a tremendous way to improve strength/endurance for the pull-up
Even in circuit training, the repetition quality counts, and not so much the total repetitions
Activate your shoulders for the kettlebell swing, shins parallel, swing not too high up, weight on heels
The abdominal muscles are the most important for climbing – to keep stable and off the ground
Quality is what counts, overall

What I loved in particular about the workshop was
I was able to compare myself with others but strained from assessing them
Training in groups is a lot more motivating than training alone
The people I got to know were very nice to meet
Networking with people living nearby becomes possible
The workload gives me a tremendous feeling of mild fatigue and relaxation – I feel so un-stressed!

In general, I can wholeheartly recommend this workshop to anyone who is interested in increasing his/her strength levels and looking for new ways how to train. Dominik and Karl are great sources of innovative training concepts and will convince you, if necessary. You will have to understand German to attend, though But I guess, Dominik and Karl will bear with English speaking visitors as well – they would feel honored, actually. Dominik already had guests like Steve Maxwell visiting him, so he is used to foreigners invading the holy halls of the Underground Training Gym.

Check out this opportunity to train like a gorilla to become strong like one!

Warm regards

Simon

P.S.: A comprehensive photo gallery by Karl Humer can be found here.

Here are some excerpts

Karl Humer and Dominik Feischl

Ab-Wheel, Crutches and Rotatory Utility

Climbing Rings and Ropes

Wrist Stretches

Me, standing and training

Farmer’s Walk

Carrying each other and the campusboard

Wheel Dragging

Stone Carrying
Finishing off with a sample video file – enjoy!

Gorilla Workshop Sample Video