Travel Exercise
I am at the thin edge of the next stage of my life. Could slip back: that's always a risk. But it would be foolish not to look at the move from Glendora to Upland as a distinct line of demarcation.
The commitment is to make the next year of my life a glorious time, worthy to look back and giggle on my deathbed.
To that end, I'm committing to spending an hour a day specifically inputting thought and ideas from teachers I've admired, and studied, or wanted to study. I'm going to post things that I'm learning or working through, but will NOT necessarily post the origins of the thought: not interested in reactions to the personalities or names, just want to focus on the thoughts.
Today:
What is an area of your life in which you are currently happy?
WHY specifically are you happy about it?
If I had to minimalize my program so that it was health/fitness only, I currently think:
Joint Mobility
Yoga
Five Tibetans (5MM)
Inertia Wave Strong
I'm not sure, but I think that would handle everything
There are no perfect workouts, but I like my travel workouts to be in line with the home work. That means it has to be very portable, fit in my bag. Right now, at this moment, the travel workout FOR FITNESS AND HEALTH ONLY is the "Inertia Wave Strong" and a yoga mat.
So…travel will be:
Joint Mobility (wake up)
T5T (5MM style)
Tai Chi (Morning Ritual)
Yoga OR IWS
That means that if I wake up and I have sixty seconds before I have to hop in the shower, its just Tibetans.
1 minute: Breathing, Heartbeat, and Ancient Child
5 minutes: Tibetans plus Joint Mobility with MR
10 minutes: Add Tai Chi, maybe 1/4 of the form, with MR
15 minutes: full rapid Tai Chi.
20 minutes: Medium speed Tai Chi
30 minutes: add Sun Salutations/Yoga
OR
Inertia Wave "Strong"
Finish with Sun Salutation.
Now. Let me explain.
I'll START with centering my emotions. THIS IS MOST IMPORTANT. The quality of your emotions is the quality of your life.
Then I move into my body. The most BASIC qualities of core body-mind integration. I can get that pretty quickly, with the Tibetans and joint mobility. So if I only have five minutes, I'll go there.
Next, if I have a little more time, I get to move into Tai Chi. Now I'm working all BASIC physical aspects, and deepening the emotional with a more powerful Morning Ritual.
Still more time? Now we have a lovely new addition to the program. Still in Beta test, but really interesting.
The "Inertia Wave" is a species of Battle Rope, only you are fighting your own energy rather than gravity. Its WEIRD, folks. Genuinely unnerving once you get that thing going and get the "whooshing" sound. You think its nothing, until you "whoosh" for about twenty seconds…at which time you say "What the @#$$!" as your body suddenly feels it. Forty seconds, and you feel like you're doing some bizarre sort of whole body sprint. And this thing weighs less than three pounds, and connects to any hotel door very nicely.
The basic models seem to work aerobic, anerobic, speed, power, core, coordination, mental focus…and at the higher levels (which I have not yet reached) balance and sheer athleticism. Yeah, I said it. Not just FITNESS but actual body control.
Why? Because every "wave" is a whole-body coordination pulse. That means that if you are doing it right, you might have two or three "pulses" PER SECOND. Bring the body-mind to a focused point, then relax. Focus. Relax. What is the rule with Chi Gong? Breath, sight, mind, and motion ALL FOCUSED TOGETHER. You are doing that 2-4 times A SECOND?
Are you kidding? And some of those motions are nicely specific to MA.
OK…that's cool. But the "Inertia Wave Strong", the best-selling version of the system, is designed BOTH to be used as a "jumpless jump rope" (although there is a jumping movement they call the "Oxygen Thief" that looks…ugly) and as a strength-training cable system. Slightly different composition and length.
THAT means that I can do Tabata-style 20:10 or 30:30 sprints, yes. And just four minutes of that will take you to Gasp Town. But last Thursday, I tried the Strong for the first time, in a very specific sequence (I'll tell you in a minute). It was speed-sprint with a basic "wave", then attach the handles and do a standing set of curls or chest presses. Then back to speed-sprints.
Its @#$%% AWFUL. In a masochistically great way. Thursday I did this:
Five minutes Get Ups
One rep FlowFit 2
Inertia Wave Strong, alternating speed and strength
Sun Salutation
I will see what JUST the IWS does the next time I’m traveling (going to Norwescon Thursday!). But here are the things I covered last Thursday, all in about 25 minutes:
Max Strength: No. There was no single-rep max. But that's not something I'm training for. To be honest, I think this is selecting for performance over health. Not my interest at this point in my life.
General Strength: Yep. Get ups handle that, and beautifully. You are not only working strength, but the way all of that strength flows together. This is hella valuable in general life: you can really feel those transitional steps!
Balance: Yes. Get Ups, FF2. And the "ground engagement" aspect of FF2 (it is simply six different ways to fall and get back up) suggests that when I inevitably take a tumble in the future, I am less likely to hurt myself…or break a hip. All you kids get off my lawn!
Coordination. Yes.
Mobility: Yes
Flexibility: Basic, not advanced. But very practical.
Speed. YES. And this is bizarre. I noticed that the combination of Get Ups and FF increased speed and precision of motion to an unexpected degree. My body was moving without conscious thought. Maybe its doing complex motion while increasingly fatigued. I'm not sure, but something odd was happening. But the IW "Hero Wave" is about four pulses per second. In martial arts, if you move non-telegraphically you have about half a second where it is almost impossible for an opponent to respond. So if you train for .25 second movements, you can slip right past their trained responses. This, by the way, is one of the reasons I LOVE Dr. La Tourette's material. He moves on the .1 second beat, I kid you not. If non-telegraphic, you just cannot respond. Its terrifying.
Specific Strength: the ability to work muscle groups by switching from speed to strength with various cable pulls, is EXCELLENT, and I'd not anticipated what that might feel like.
Muscular endurance: Yes.
Cardiovascular endurance: Yes, because of the cumulative fatigue doing Tabata sets. ANYONE can get gassed in 8-12 minutes of these vicious puppies, from Granny to world-class athlete, if they push themselves to THEIR cardiac and skeletal max. (Be sure to consult your doctor before beginning any such program). If a Harvard Step Test honestly tested overall cardiac health in just 3-5 minutes, I suggest that you can reverse this: that 3-5 minutes of proper exercise can have a positive effect on general fitness. 15 minutes of sprints are probably worth twice that of LSD (Long Slow Distance like "jogging")
Metabolic Conditioning. You know how those pounds get harder to shed as you age, even if you exercise? This is the reason: your basil metabolism is slowing down. You need to JUICE IT UP with Tabatas. That way you are burning calories all day long, and even as you sleep, rather than just when you "work out." Considering that running burns 500-750 calories an hour, and a pound of fat is 3500 calories, jogging is hella inefficient at weight loss. DON'T EXERCISE JUST TO BURN CALORIES. EXERCISE TO RE-SET YOUR THERMOSTAT. Very, very different.
Dynamic strength. Strength that is specifically applicable to your intended activity. Cable pulls while standing force you to ground yourself from the tip of your toes to the tip of your head, and everything in between. You can actually mimic many sports motions with cables, and because you are moving against direct lines of resistance (that often match the "strength curve" of the motion itself) rather than gravity, the carry-over is excellent. Boxing trainers may still reject weight training, but they love cable pulls.
OK. There's more, but if I do this right, the "travel" version excludes heavy Get Ups (although I can do them with a shoe on my hand, for balance and precision) and FlowFit (no equipment needed, but there is rarely enough carpeted space in a hotel room. Actually…there's more often room these days, because most of my travel is VIP these days. Nice. But if I DON'T have that, then I still have joint mobility, tai chi (I can do that in an airplane toilet, and have), IWS, and sun salutation. Theoretically, that enables me to do everything I need:
Mobility and T5T--five minutes
Tai Chi--10 minutes
IWS--9 minutes
Sun Salutation--1 minute
That means that from waking up to jumping in the shower, I can wake up, look at the clock, and design a program on the fly. Now…if I have 30 minutes? Add MA into the mix. And every minute after that gives me more time and depth.
But there is NEVER an excuse not to take care of my body, heart, and mind. No excuse. Ever.
Whew. That was a lot this morning. Now I'm going to go be lazy. This afternoon I drive to LAX to get my precious lady. And tomorrow I hit the ground running.
Gonna be a great week!
Namaste
Steve
