I have a theory in life that we are all just boats sharing the same river. Within this river are barges, speed boats, kayaks, and everything in between. Each of us is doing our thing yet we are all creating wake for one another. When I make decisions I try to consider not just my fun, I also try to consider the wake that I am creating. This theory stands the test of time, yet one area it never quite worked out is when it comets my training. My training has moved more into the Henry Rollins approach, it is about me pushing to be a better me. This got me thinking, how we train becomes how we look, feel, and perform.

Monster Truck vs. Lambo

Tenzing and I went to watch Monster Jam last weekend and it was a blast (he watched the trucks, I people watched). Tenzing’s favorite truck (Megladon) was not there, yet his second favorite GraveDigger was there, my truck is El Toro Loco. While watching these impressive machines I let my mind wander about training. How do torque and horsepower work together to make these machines do some amazing tricks. For the uninitiated, give me a minute of your time to revisit some science. Zatsiorsky wrote about three methods to increase muscular tension.

1. Maximal Effort (ME)- Moving a heavy load slowly.
2. Dynamic Effort (DE)- Moving a light load quickly.
3. Repetition Effort (RE)- Moving a moderate load for multiple reps.

Everything we do in training still falls into one of these methods. Too often I see people fall in love with one of these methods. Some love to be explosive, and train too often in an explosive manner. While others are always “grinding,” and training too often in a heavy manner. The last group love the pump, and always  use using RE to feel “bumpy” when they  leave the gym.

No one method of training is perfect and every program has holes in it. The key is to not being just a machine made for torque, (using ME all the time) or one made for horsepower (DE). Training should be a compliment to your life and at times your body will need to run, jump, or shovel snow. Train your body to do all of the above. Movement is medicine and if we wish to be healthy we shouldn’t train solely to be a monster truck or a lambo. We should train to be humans who can move.

Another way to think about this is as my good friend Brett Bartholomew said, “lift different weights, at different angles, at different times of the year, at different speeds.” I may have messed up that quote, yet you get the idea. The goal in training is to be prepared for life and to be strong means being strong at all things. The exception is when are preparing for a specific event (powerlifting or marathon will be very different training). Once the event is over return to training for your life.

Now let’s all go be a chevy volt.

🙂

We are already 2 weeks into the New Year, and today is page number 13/365. Many of us use this start to a brand-new year to get their mindset in the right place and to set some goals to reach. For some, it is a challenge to self-reflect and get your mind in the right place to determine what goals you want to achieve. However, I feel that it is important to do this in the sense that we all could benefit from the motivation and drive it takes to achieve these goals. Goals are fun since they can be absolutely anything, and we can set them to be a one-time thing, short term, long term, or even for a lifetime. I am going to share my top 5 goals for the New Year with you:

1. Continue to build resilience.
2. Develop new leadership skills.
3. Have a solid regular training schedule.
4. Increase my frequency of cardio sessions.
5. Create better reading habits.

I have cultivated a crazy amount of resilience in the past year, and I would like to continue to stay strong and build resilience throughout this New Year. With my new position as Director of Business Operations here at UF, I will need to be a leader. I have been in leadership positions before, but not with any of my full-time jobs, so I am excited to learn from the others here and to continue to develop my own new leadership skills. I have fallen out of my regular training schedule almost completely, so I would love to set a solid schedule for the New Year. Cardio has never been my friend, but I would like it to be. To change this, I will increase my frequency of cardio sessions and hope that it doesn’t completely destroy me. Finally, I would love to create better reading habits for myself. I used to read a fair number of books throughout the year, and recently I have fallen off that trend.

Remember it is never too late to set your goals. As Mahatma Ghandi once said “The future depends on what you do today.” It may not be easy, and you will probably run into some obstacles along the way but without any change now, nothing will be changed for the future.

Toria