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"CLIMBING CHALK"
Obj: Power Endurance
Training:
(1) Hike/Run 1.0 hour, 1,400 foot elevation gain
Switch mode to Climbing Gym
(2) 1-6-1 Partner Pull up ladder, 42 pull ups total each athlete
(3) 400 hand movements on the auto belay, 3:1 work/rest ratio. Unweighted.
Comments:
I'm not sure nutrition and form are nearly as important some would try to make us believe.
I think there is a lot of righteousness preached about these two topics which gets seriously pretentious at times.
Nutrition first.
I don't think nutrition is the key to fitness, performance or health. I've known plenty of gym rats and athletes who were
very fit but had terrible diets - Curtis P. is one of them. That guy would weld in the oilfield all day, come into the gym
at night, crush me during fight gone bad, heavy bag cleans and pulls, or Curtis P exercise races to 30 reps, and he fueled
it all on a diet of processed carbs, junk food and Monster energy drink.
Fact is, you can get into great condition eating crap. Are you going to reach your full potential. No. Would a better
diet help your performance. Yes. Would I rather have you eat well? Absolutely. Do I preach diet to my athletes. Yes I do.
And I'm not too sure a perfect diet is sustainable. Worrying about what you eat all the time is mentally draining. I aim
for 90% compliance in my own paleo-esque diet - and 90% is the best my undisciplined butt can do.
Now if you are training for a race or event, that's different and I think better compliance is certainly possible for
relatively short, intense periods.
Another problem with holding nutrition up as the foundation of fitness and performance is that for some industrial athletes
eating well just isn't possible. In the heart of the busy guiding season, the guides that I train aren't carrying around a
well-stocked fridge on their back. They are slamming carbs and snickers bars and anything else they can get their hands on
for fuel.
It would seem that soldiers would have a similar problem. Even a Secret Service agent who trains at the gym has trouble
eating well. He described being the road continuously during this busy spring presidential primary season and struggling to
eat well in restaurants and receiving lines.
I like Dan John's approach. Start by eating a good breakfast every day. That alone will address much of what nutrition
can do for your fitness.
Proper form and technique is another area where I think things can get out of hand.
If I was to insist on proper form 100% of the time, my athletes would never get any work done. It takes a long time, years
in fact, to drill form on some of these lifts. A mature air squat alone is not an easy thing to attain! Let alone a power
clean, dead lift, and the hardest exercise of all, a medicine ball clean.
A lot of perfect technique involves experience, mobility, and athleticism - and athletes vary on all these attributes.
Safety is another issue where proper form comes into play. But really only in a couple of lifts - primarily dead lifts,
which people can "muscle" up with rounded backs on occasion.
But many of the lifts and exercises we do are self-limiting when it comes to the safety/form equation. If you don't have
good form, you simply can't squat clean enough weight to really get hurt.
Why is it in the weight room that some righteous athletes and coaches expect perfect form before athletes can start using
weight to get into shape?
Compare weight training to skiing - a much more dangerous activity. It's not like you have to be an advanced skier before
the ski area will sell you a ticket. There are plenty of skiers rocketing down the slopes arms flailing, skis crossing, and
barely in control - I'm one of 'em!
Does that mean their ski instructor is a "bad" instructor for letting them have some friggin' fun? Of course
not.
Do I preach form during training session? Yes. Do I stop athletes from the activity if their form is bad? Yes. Do I contstantly
correct and comment on form during training? Yes. Do I expect new lifters to have perfect form? No.
I'm interested in getting athletes strong and well conditioned. And getting strong is not beholden to any single lift
or exercise. Part of my job is to chose exercises that are fundamental enough to do the job, and simple enough to get a working
mastery of relatively fast.
If I've got an exercise in my aresenal that gives a lot of athletes fits, I cut it away and find another one. One great
exercise I've cut away is the kettlebell deck squat. Too many of my athletes just couldn't figure it out.
Further, perfect form isn't needed to get a lot of great benefit from performing these exercises safely. A good example
is the kettlebell clean and press. We struggle to dial in the best Kettlebell clean technique, but even done a little sloppy,
this exercise will hammer you. In fact, it probably hammers the athlete more when the form isn't perfect.
Dan John (yes, him again) likes to say, "the athlete will figure it out." And he's right. Drilling form can
often lead to over coaching. And sometimes, the coach needs to get out of the way and leave the athlete alone with the barbell
to figure it out themselves. You'd be surprised how many athletes will look around the weightroom, watch other athletes doing
the exercise correctly, and manage just fine.
One note. Proper technique is different than full range of motion. A half-assed, chicken-neck pull up is not the same
exercise as a full range of motion pull up. Full range of motion is important for strength and conditioning and should be
insisted upon.
- Rob Shaul
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| Suffering a little .... |
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| Suffering a lot. |
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