How simple can you make it without losing effectiveness?
22 September 2005If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Recently Ive had to introduce folks whove never lifted weights in their entire lives into my ways and my methods. This has caused me to deeply reconsider procedures and philosophies done for so long and so regularly that in some cases Id forgotten why I do things the way I do them. Ive lifted weights since age twelve and at age 55 thats 43 years of hands-on experience. Thats good and thats bad. Anytime a person does something for that long they tend to get pretty damned good at it; on the downside you tend to become a bit automatic and take elemental modes and procedural things for granted. Its been a long time since Ive pondered the how and why. Oh I can rattle off reasons like an auctioneer at a cattle sale but dealing with total beginners something I hadnt done in a long, long time caused me to rethink much of what Ive taken for granted. I work with serious weight trainers on a regular basis and almost without exception these people have a fair amount of progressive resistance experience otherwise they wouldnt be aware of me to begin with. Im purposefully obscure, hard to find and off the beaten track so when ardent fitness types make their way up to the mountains to see me theyre looking for fresh direction on a journey already underway. I see these seekers for four or five hours then they head back to their world. This time its different, this time Im working with stone cold beginners with zero previous experience right in my neighborhood.
To compound complexity Ill be working with the beginners for 60-straight days and looking to extract maximum results in this relatively short time frame. Being a guy whos worked hard and diligently to extract himself from society and get away from dealing with others, someone who purposefully constructed a rural, isolated lifestyle in order to get really good at solitary pursuits, life suddenly took a sharp left turn. Circumstance presented me with an opportunity to really give something of value to folks who could really use some assistance. This required I reenter a world I purposefully left. The fitness folks that come to me for advice are a savvy lot. I dont spend time going over why I do the things I do. Like a celebrity chef I have my style of cuisine and repertoire of signature dishes and the public loves what I do and all is right with the world insofar as maintaining my comfort groove. Then along comes a gaggle of stone cold beginners that have no freaking idea who I am and have never ever touched a weight and Im put in charge of maximizing their physical progress in sixty days while staying true to the purposeful primitive philosophy, dictates and methods. On the one hand, its no problem at all. As I tell these people these methods work and that is beyond dispute; the procedures are rooted in science and biology and their effectiveness is a result of simple cause and effect: do this and that happens. Lift weights in the proscribed fashion, perform cardio as instructed, eat with discipline and the human body must reconfigure itself it has no physiological choice in the matter.
With four decades of empirical experience under my belt I now know what works and whats a waste of time. Working with clinically obese folks has caused me to undertake an unexpected reexamination of Purposefully Primitive methods and procedures: could I break the basics of an ultra-basic system down even further? Was it possible to create basics more basic than those already in place were? Could I create a skeletal framework so sparse that it could be used by the untrained masses, people who worked full time jobs and had large families with lots of responsibilities? How simple can you make it without losing effectiveness? How much can be pruned and pared, trimmed and reduced, without losing the essential essence? This was a challenge that excited me in a way that I hadnt been excited in a long time and if successful could prove a literal lifesaver for people whose bodyweight jeopardized their health and threatened to kill them. Was there a way to reduce Purposefully Primitive methods down to an irreducible core that could be used by obese individuals to help solve their dilemma? How do you get maximum progressive resistance/cardio training bang with a minimum time investment? What dietary approach would work for people whove battled with food their entire lives? Obese people have a love/hate relationship with food and a hate/hate relationship with exercise. A successful fitness approach need take into account psychological likes and dislikes. Unless we successfully recalibrate the brain of the obese individual so they learn to love training and love the prescribed foods the whole adventure is doomed to failure. Anyone can tell someone to be perfect. Anyone can pontificate to a person that doing something they perceive as horrendous and awful will make them the better for it. Hey fat person, start exercising six days a week for two hours a day and eat nothing but steamed broccoli and skinless chicken breasts for the rest of your life. Do it and youll get rid of all that fat and if you dont then I guess you dont want it bad enough.
This is the wrong motivation; motivation rooted in fear and willpower and as Krishnamurti was quick to point out every act of will is finite: there is only so long that the mind can demand the body do something it deems as unpleasant or distasteful. Sooner or later every act of will must come to an end. The trick is to make physical transformation enjoyable without losing its effectiveness. True transformation begins in the mind and requires an elemental psychological calibration. In a nutshell our approach is based on several factors: hard training triggers endorphins and well work this to our advantage. Anyone whos ever trained with a good group of training partners can attest that lifts done while others watch causes a person to exceed that which they would do alone. So well take advantage of group synergy. Outdoor cardio done in a beautiful setting is something most people can learn to enjoy or love. Eating great tasting food that happens to be diet foods is not dieting at all. Introduce the group dynamic into lifting, get them outside and communing with nature while performing beneficial cardio and inject taste into diet foods. Bip, bang, boom! Sounds great on paper and in a few weeks well see how it shakes out in reality. It should make for a wild monkey ride and one with potentially profound implications for folks in need of a hand up and a way out.
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