Work It Paleo

Not me....

Ok, so there are two parts to almost any fitness plan; diet and exercise. As you may have guessed, the dietary focus for me will be on a Paleo Diet. Essentially, I will be mimicking the diet that was eaten by our caveman ancestors. I will delve more into this later.

The second part of any good fitness program is exercise. To me, when people think of a fitness plan, this is what comes to mind. It also tends to get the lions share of attention when it comes to making your perform well and look good.

For me, performance is more important than looks. Logically, if you can do well at the goals you have set out to achieve performance wise, the form of your body will follow accordingly. Of course, I am no fitness expert. I only know what I have read, but I have been doing an extensive amount of reading on various exercise philosophies for the past 11 years (since I was 14).

Now, goals is a good place to start when trying to define a fitness program. Some people simply want to look good. Others want to perform well for a sport, or enter the local strongman competition. Some people have specific goals like “I want to bench press 250lbs.”

Personally, I have two goals. The first is to make everyday things effortless. This might not sound like much, but I get winded going up two flights or more of stairs , I struggle a bit with moving heavy objects, and I get tired really really fast when exerting myself. I feel that I shouldn’t even have to think about doing these things. If someone asks me to come out and move furniture, I want to be able to work all day without feeling like I am at maximum effort. Not like these things come up often, but that is what I am working toward.

The next goal is nowhere near as practical, and will probably not be attainable until I reach my first goal. That goal would be to have the athletic capability of an action hero. I know it sounds silly since many of them do crazy stuff and seem to have superhuman abilities. But, try to think Indiana Jones or Jason Bourne (on the high end with Bourne). They have great endurance, can easily hoist themselves up over a railing or a ledge, can pull up others without to much issue, have good balance, and good range of motion. Less than a superhero, more than Joe Sixpack. That is what I am shooting for.

The thing about these goals is that they are not defined by numbers. They are defined by capability, which is harder to measure, and that makes some people uneasy. I think that even though it is more difficult to measure capability, it is ultimately more satisfying to achieve that kind of goal. If someone can bench press 350 lbs, but they can’t carry a sofa up a flight of stairs, what have they really achieved? Unless of course they are powerlifting, then that bench press becomes a capability goal in itself.

So how do I plan to achieve these things? Well, I intend to keep things as random as I can manage. The idea is that life is not as structured as we would like. Also, our bodies are not machines. With that in mind, a fitness plan based around rigid structure or the idea that working your body as if you were no more than a mass of parts, is silly. Isolation exercises don’t make sense, except at the very start of a workout plan. And that is only to ensure that you have enough base strength to do the more complex exercises. Then again, body weight exercises are also a great way to start, and they work muscle groups together.

Which brings me to the next tenent. Complex movements. The idea with this is that your body should work as one cohesive unit. The more involved the rest of your body is in an exercise the better. A good example is leg press vs squat. In a leg press, you are sitting at an angle on a seat, pushing weight that is on rails moving in a fixed range of motion. A squat will work all the same muscles while forcing you to balance the weight. This is a more realistic situation and it works more muscles since you have to utilize those smaller stabilizers in your legs and back. This limits the exercises that you can do a little bit since you will be avoiding machines and isolation exercises, but it I feel the workout quality will be higher, and there are still plenty of exercises left to play with.

Also, variety will be key here. I want to spend sometime doing alternative exercise. I have read about some really neat things that sound like fun to boot. Examples include water tube exercises, sledging, and the 300. I will locate the links and repost them here, but suffice it to say that variety is what will keep this interesting. Doing the same thing all the time is boring. In fact, I think every other attempt at exercise I have made has failed because of boredom and plataeus. The boredom is from doing the same routines or having a very limited set of exercises to work with. The plataeus are a result of the same thing, but also there is the mindset that goes with that. Essentially, if you are not increasing your weight, you will are not improving. That is a very discouraging thought indeed.

Next up is cardio. I hate it. That being said, I don’t plan on doing any cardio. At least not in the sense that most of your traditional people would think of cardio. I don’t mind running a short distance like a mile. I kind of like doing sprints too. Neither of these would really count as cardio to most people. Sure it involves running, but one mile is too short for most to consider anything more than a warm up, and sprints are more of an anaerobic thing. However, I don’t plan on running a marathon, half-marathon, or competing in the ironman competition. So being able to run any further than a mile is practically pointless. And I can here the question forming in your head right now “But I thought you wanted endurance like an action hero.” Well, yes I do. But most action heroes do not go running or jogging from point A to B. Most of their endurance is more related to raw strength than lung capacity over several miles. Using our Indian Jones example, he outran a boulder, because he was fast, but had enough energy to get to the mouth of the cave. Additionally had to run a little farther afterwards to escape the angry natives. Of course, he had a nice rest in between.

Now, because of my knees and the horrid condition they are in, I will have to be careful with running and sprints. Actually, for now, I plan on using the elipticals at the gym. They don’t hurt my knees at all, but I would like to get back to something like running, swimming, etc.

Next, make it quick and to the point. No one wants to spend an eternity in the gym, and really don’t you have better things to do? Like working on your project car, making barbecue, or playing with your kids? Hell I still have yet to finish Diablo II, which is fairly important as things go. Also, once you get to a certain point, your going to be too tired to have good form. Also, if you have been doing complex movements, you will have already hit all your muscles within the first 30-45 minutes. Body builders stay in the gym for hours because they 8-12 reps and 3 sets to complete for every tiny muscle in their body on an individual basis. Yeah… try to avoid that.

Last item. Rest. Get some good rest between workouts. Take a week off every now and then. It only makes sense to me. It takes time for your body to heal itself between routines, so give it the time it needs. I only plan on hitting the gym 2-4 times a week. 2 if I am feeling meh. 3 on average. 4 if I am feeling cheeky.

Also, a word on the gym. I would eventually like to get away from ever having to go there. It consumes both time and money. At $80 per month for two people (me and my brother), it is going to cost nearly $1000 a year toward membership fees. Assuming that I will be paying for two people for the rest of my life (I am 25 now, so I am hoping for another 50 at least), we are looking at $48,000 over a lifetime toward gym fees. That is a lot of money and it doesn’t even account for inflation. Especially considering that you can build up a nice home gym for less than that (at least I would hope so!).

Ok, so let’s review the “exercise rules” as I see them:

1) Establish goals
2) Be random
3) Use complex movements
4) Avoid machines
5) Find fun alternative exercises
6) Say no to cardio
7) Make if quick
Rest well

I would say that sums it up nicely. Here is the sample workout I plan on using this morning:

Pull-ups 8 reps 2 sets (complete with negatives if needed)
Squats 8 reps 2 sets @ 110 lbs
Hanging leg raises 15 reps 2 sets
Deadlifts 8 reps 2 sets @ ??? lbs
Dips 8reps 2 sets
Swiss Ball Crunches 20 reps 2 sets

I will be looking more into bodyweight stuff for working out. If I can cancel my gym membership… well that would save a lot of time and money! Although I like doing squats/deadlifts/bench press and having the eliptical available.