Click here to read Part 1: Nutrition

Part one of the A Healthy Attitude series covered basic thoughts on nutrition, the first of four pillars of a healthy attitude to life in general. The second pillar is training in the form of physical training. It covers questions on working out and movement in general.

Training is a necessity to keep your body in balance if you are not physically challenged otherwise. A body unchallenged becomes inert and imbalanced with mental ramifications. You are one great whole, a system that can only work in unity. Therefore physical training is an integral issue for most people in industrialized nations who experience a lack of movement. Again, answer a few questions for you to answer for yourself:

Q: What is it I want to achieve through physical training?
A: To stay healthy, it is enough to become active. Look for an activity you truly enjoy and do it. Go for walks regularly and spend as much time as possible beneath the sun, breathing in fresh air. Sunlight is a healing power and invigorates you. Practice your movements consciously and attain a feeling for your body. Enjoy it.

To enhance your performance you have to challenge yourself. To achieve a performance goal you have to take one step at a time in this distinct direction. If your goal is important enough to you, you will find the power to approach it and finally arrive at your envisioned destination. Do not cheat yourself. Without your heart joining forces with your will, you will be led astray in no time. Set fewer goals rather than many and put all your power in achieving them – this is the power of focus. Execute your training consciously and regard both goal and status quo. Take one step at a time and stay in the moment. Reflect on your goal from time to time.

Agony is everything you will ever attain by pursuing unrealistic goals. Take a close look on those who already have achieved what you dream about – and learn from the steps these pioneers have taken. Accept setbacks for what they are: Markers on your road to success. He, who is flexible enough to endure a setback prior to progression, will always progress, given time. Long is the way and a constant flow of vales and peaks, mounting higher over time. Enjoy your training and feel the sensation of joy overflowing your body. Enjoy every little sensation of success, driving you further.

Accept that you are, what and who you are. Everybody has different talents. Find out, which activity you have a talent in and transform into a skill. Do not strive to attain excellence in a discipline you are not talented in.

Q: How much time do I have in spare? How much time will I reserve for training?
A: Regardless of how much time you are going to invest in physical training, there is a training regimen suited for both your time frame and your goals.

Do you like long-lasting, steady activity? Do you love meditative routines? If you take the time, endurance sports will be for you. Start running, cycling or swim like a fish through water. If you love to work out with weights, choose volume training, doing lots of sets of various exercises.

Do you have the feeling that you are short in time? Compress the experience down to a few minutes of extreme intensity. Choose training routines like HIIT (high intensity interval training) for endurance sports, the Tabata protocol for endurance sports, body weight exercises and weighted exercises or HIT (high intensity training) for strength training. With adequate intensity, no training effect is lost in comparison to higher volume training.

Q: How much am I prepared to invest financially?
A: Where is your favorite place to train? Do you love to train at home and be independent, then arrange your training in fresh air or inside. Choose body weight exercises or low tech, do hatha yoga, cycling, running or even install a whole gym at your home.
If you like training in a gym, use it as a place, whose atmosphere is distinctly dedicated towards training. Go there to train and to motivate you with others. Search for motivating training partners that assist you on your way towards your personal training success. Never forget, why you went to the gym. Do not be distracted by external influences.

Q: Who do I train for?
A: Train for yourself, out of intrinsic motivation. If you train for someone else, you will lose either your motivation or your goal and be disappointed. It is then not your judgment anymore whether or not your work is good enough. If you train to be attractive to someone else, you make yourself dependent on what this particular person finds attractive. It is impossible to comply with an ideal. Become self-aware. Attractiveness is founded on individual perspective – this applies for you as well. If you train for yourself, you are the judge over yourself – and only you can be a fair one. Be honest. Criticize yourself where it is reasonable and be joyful about your accomplishments.

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Never forget that physical training has a purpose, which is different for everyone. Train because it enriches your life, not because you want to adapt to the social ideal of a fit person. Do not force yourself to train – learn to listen to your inner voice – it will be your greatest aid in training in the long term.

Be in movement – consciously.

Good evening and welcome to the world of chill!

Our climate has opted to skip autumn and flowed from late summer directly into pre-winter conditions. But cold conditions are not enough to stop us from working out (we even did a training camp at Dominik‘s premises last winter amid a snow storm – no problem at all!). The advantage of working out in the cold is that the temperature itself is little of a problem, as your body is challenged constantly and thereby warmed from within.

Nontheless, it is of great importance that you keep your workouts short in the cold season – especially the rest pause between sets and exercise blocks should be minimized as you cool out almost immediately and thereby are likely to catch a cold. Opt for a workout that is of short duration but of high intensity.

For this workout, I did likewise. The core of the workout is a system that I read about on Testosterone Muscle, authored by (who else ) Dan John: The Litvinov Workout. Hammer thrower gold medalist Sergey Litvinov has a very distinct training pattern: He combines heavy basic exercises with sprint intervals. This type of workout is very short yet extremely intense and therefore more than suited for our timely needs.

We therefore did:

Warm-Up

Pre-Fatigue

5 + 5 Push Press 24 kg Kettlebell
3 x Rope Climb
- 3 rounds

5 + 5 (or 3 + 3) Turkish Get-Up 16 kg Kettlebell as finisher.

The pre-fatigue training targeted the upper body musculature, as it would not be challenged too much in the upcoming Litvinov circuit. We did a pushing exercise, a pulling exercise and (to my knowledge) the best abdominal exercise – the get-up. Needless to say that this part of the workout was very intense already – just try to read it from Peter’s mimics. The foremost problem with the exercises was the lack of grip strength we were able to show – if you have no feeling whatsoever in your hands, climbing is an utter struggle.

Peter was the only one attending (besides me) this time. Dominik and Rainer didn’t make it and Harald will be in Graz for studying for quite some more time.

Metabolic Conditioning

Litvinov Circuit
Front Squat (16 + 24 kg Kettlebell), 8-15 reps
400 meter sprint (including a hill sprint)
3 rounds

The Litvinov circuit is not to be underestimated! I tried to do the number of squats prescribed but utterly failed by doing 6-5-3 squats in the respective rounds – it simply was impossible to accomplish more than that, despite slow running on my side. Not only fatigue is a factor in metabolic conditioning training, nausea is another critical one. The degree by which I was feeling nauseous during the second sprint already was close to the edge of being bearable. Still, this is what gets you further and nothing else

Post-Fatigue

Kettlebell Complex of

• Clean
• Military Press
• Front Squat

5 repetitions, 3 rounds, using one 16 kg kettlebell

The post-fatigue training was incorporated as the Litvinov circuit is intense but still we somehow felt like it was not enough – the capability of the body to come back is tremendous. Three rounds of this light-weight complex was a good finisher to use up the last reserves

Ironic: After the completion of our workout, the feeling in our hands had returned. We were able to perform better rope climbs after the workout than at its start.

Mission Accomplished! Cold climate couldn't stop us from enjoying a great workout.

I am very much looking forward to the next workout. Dominik has revealed a hard nut to crack as the next workout suggestion

Train on and stay strong,
Simon

Yesterday we assembled once more for a heavy CrassFit workout – with one thing to surprise us positively – Dominik found the time to join us again. He is a great motivator and I really feel that he is the true core of our group – the workouts overflow with intensity and motivation whenever he joins us.

After I wrote about the least crass of CrassFit, as Peter put it, I knew that it would become harder this time – but little did I know about how hard it really became.

We did the following workout:

Pre-Fatigue

Three rounds of

Ladder one up to four repetitions of the following complex

• Swing
• High Pull
• Clean
• Military Press or Push Press
• Squat

using either the 16 kg or the 24 kg kettlebell.

Paired with rope pull-ups for the same repetitions.

Metabolic Conditioning

3 rounds of
Hill Sprint
10 Burpees
Jog to start of hill

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Initially, we planned for five rounds of the metabolic conditioning but cut it down to three, due to the sheer fatigue we experienced after the strength part, which really was the main part of our workout.

I brought a 24 kg competition kettlebell with me – a weight most of us weren’t used to. As for me, I have never (push) pressed it more than three times – only Dominik is used more than this. We struggled in our fight against gravity – and prevailed. Rainer used the 16 kg kettlebell and did a great job – it is high time he purchases his first one for private use

Handling a weight you have never handled before is a tremendous challenge that forces your body to progress in strength. We got together in pairs and paused in the time our partner did the kettlebell complex – a pause that we were in dire need of. As I neared the last repetitions, a stiff feeling in my forearms was the most urgent problem apart from the fatigue in my legs – especially when you do push presses, your legs are working all the time.

We talked a lot about the transfer from kettlebell training to other feats of strength and share the experience that kettlebells are a tremendous help to become a monster in regards of strength, velocity and full body stability. Just focus on the basic movements (swings, (deadlift) high pull, clean, press, snatch and squat – supplemented with the get-up) and master them.

After the strength workout, I had a hard time finishing the metabolic conditioning work. Already after round 1 I was barely able to jog my way down to the foot of the hill. If I have ever been close to vomiting during a workout, it was yesterday – a degree of intensity I have never experienced so far.

This is, what gets you further. Incorporate as much intensity into your workouts as you can possibly sustain and grow stronger than you have ever been!

Wasted but happy after roughly an hour of kettlebell madness

Train on and stay strong!
Simon

Yesterday we went for another great CrassFit workout. After a short break of one week without workout (attendees were either sick or had no time – I wouldn’t go for it all alone, did kettlebell complexes instead ) we got into gears just fine.

Unfortunately, Harald and Dominik were absent, for good reasons: Harald is back to Graz and Dominik occupied with heavy manual labor – so it was only Rainer, me and Peter.

We did the following workout:

Pre-Fatigue

5 x 5 Frog Jumps uphill
5 + 5 Turkish Get-Up (with water bottle or 16 kg kettlebell, according to level of expertise)
5 x 2 Lengths rope climbing

For the frog jumps, it is especially important to gain momentum with the right arm work. Look at how Peter is doing the jumps and what impressive horizontal leaps he can take. This is due to long training (he is an active track & field athlete). Lead the arms from down below up and forward and time the movement of the hands with the movement of the feet to achieve maximum leaps.

The Turkish get-up is one of the best exercises to train your abdominal strength but also one of the most dangerous. I highly recommend that you start training it using no weight at all. Start to add resistance only when you have learned the technique! It is important that the shoulder is resting in its socket and the arms are straightened toward the sky – and the look is always facing the hand reaching out of the clouds.

Start slowly and always part the movement into steps. Watch Peter’s form – he is doing great!

Finally, the rope climbing was the first exercise I couldn’t film due to the darkness – I will make sure that I take a good source of light with me in future to enable video capture also amid night hours.

Metabolic Conditioning

5 rounds of:
5 L-pull-ups (easier variation: tucked in knees)
16 Lunge walks
10 L-push-ups
200 meter running

The darkness and other circumstances prevented us from documenting this one. To explain the L-pull-up and the L-push-up, I will provide videos.

The L-pull-up works abdominals as well as the back and arms – it is a lot harder than a regular pull-up. Tucked in knees are the easier version that I used, due to the inability to perform an exercise this hard.

Watch this video at 3:00. Here you see a variation of a push-up with legs up the wall. This is how the starting position of a L-push-up looks like – from there on, it is like a handstand push-up: Descend like you are to ram your head into the ground and push yourself up again. Any wall or elevated platform is fine for doing this – just keep in mind to have a right angle between legs and torso.

We shortened the run a bit due to the circumstances and used it for regeneration issues. In total, this was the easiest workout of the CrassFit series up to date and will be remembered as such. The preparation was suboptimal and will be augmented next time.

Well done, night figthers!
There was nothing left to feel, when I fell into the night...

I am looking forward to next week’s workout. It will be a major test for metabolic and muscular endurance, I guarantee Hopefully, with good lighting assistance to be able to capture it properly.

Train on and stay strong,
Simon