Fitness

Through StumbleUpon, I've get to read over a dozen new fitness routines everyday. Each of these routines range from body-weight only routines to the latest fads in lifting.  I kid you not, many of these will offer 10 or more different ways of doing a routine to "lose weight" or "killer cardio" or "toughening your core".

Let me offer my thoughts as someone who got into running and lifting due to the military.  I was not an athlete in high school so I didn't have a strength and conditioning routine to use to get ready for military service.  I did it like most people, through trial and error.  I found lifting and running to be my favorites so I read up on those as much as I could (and still do).  Here is what I've discovered of my 30 plus years of physical fitness training.

Most of the routines you read about are written by personal trainers who get to spend all day in the gym  (and get paid for it).  Unless you are a personal trainer or intend to make a living from displaying your physique, forget those routines.  Look at what the old time athletes, bodybuilders and strongmen.  They did not have the luxury of today's athletes, they still had to have regular jobs to subsidize their athletic endeavors.

As recently as the 1970s, NFL players would hold summer jobs!  A Cincinnati Bengal remarked how during the off season, he spent the summers digging swimming pools!  Not only did this keep him from developing any poor habits (drugs, booze, etc), it kept him in fine shape for football.

Many of the weightlifters and bodybuilders from the 40s and 50s held, or at least came from, manual labor.  They only went to the gym maybe 3 or 4 times a week because they still had to work.  When they got to the gym, they had to make their time count so they worked on the basic movements (squat, cleans, overhead presses, deadliest) to build their physiques.  It helped that they came from a time when physical education in grade school and high school including things like rope climbing, broad jumps, pull-ups and workouts and gymnastics.

Most people today have to work and hit the gym either before or after work.  They can't spend hours in the gym and very likely, lack the conditioning of their tendons and ligaments to handle the type of routines the personal trainers dream up.  They would do better if they focused on the basic lifts and lifted heavy.  If you are able to press a certain weight 10 times, you need to add more weight.  If you are able to only press a certain weight a wobble 2 or 3 times you need to reduce the weight.  I find the 5 X 5 (five sets of five reps) to give the best results.

I see a lot of guys go to the gym and then jump in the cars and drive home.  They miss the other thing the old timers knew.  Leave the car at home.  Walk or ride your bike to the gym.  The old timers did very little cardio because they did so much manual labor and rode bikes or walked everywhere.  You don't need to take that spinning class!

I love power tools as much as any guy but if you are training to be strong, ditch the power tools.  Try chopping that tree or bush down with an axe.  It will get in shape faster than spending time on the elliptical machine and it will cost less than a gym membership.  It will also help keep you conditioned for emergencies.

I like using the "zombie apocalypse" to help get people to plan for catastrophes.  What they always forget is the need to be in shape.  The time to start training is not when zed shows up at your door looking to feast on your brains.  Get in shape now and be able to walk, run and lift under the type of conditions that you may face during the zombie apocalypse.  Or simply when mother nature delivers a tornado or earthquake that renders our comfortable lifestyle mute.  Will you be able to get yourself and family to safety?  Can you get them out of the basement after the tornado has exploded your home?

One last thing about fitness.  Stop worrying about diets.  It is important to eat good food but when you start trying to cut our carbs or limiting fats or eating only what cavemen ate, your missing the point.  Look at many of the prisoners in our correctional facilities.  They have the worst diets imaginable and limited time in the gym yet many possess physiques that border on the unbelievable.  Sure some may have access to steroids or other performance enhancing drugs but not all.  What the prisoners get that most don't is you need to workout.  Stop talking and planning about it. Stop trying to find the next fad that will give you what you want in half the time.  Get to the gym and lift!