Category: Daily

Training for general health and wellbeing is really simple.

1. Cover each fundamental human movement once a week.
   – Squat
   – Hinge
   – Push
   – Pull
2. Use a resistance that’s moderately challenging.
3. Um… that’s it.

Although I published Spandex Not Compulsory only two and a half years ago (wrote the program three years ago) I now look at the training program in it with a disgust. It’s way too complicated. It’s clear I was trying to prove how smart I was by adding all sorts of nonsense in it.

To be clear, the basics of it are still sound. The actual training plan is still a ok. And it works. But there’s just so much bloat around it that is hard to stomach now.

Training itself is simple. Something that I follow with most clients at the moment follows a this template of

A1 Lower body power
A2 Upper body power
A3 Core or carry

B1 Lower body strength
B2 Upper push strength
B3 Upper pull strength

For those who like to keep their heart rate higher during the session I might add a B4 or C1. Depending on the person’s preferences and goals. That can be swings, slams, marches, crawls…

That’s it. Warm up can be anything that takes the body through full ranges of motion. Downward dogs and spidermans, squats and reaches, ninja kicks and Al Pacino monologues. Whatever elevates the tissue temperature and raises the heartrate. Simple.

All or nothing attitude is a common stumbling block that rarely resolves itself without deeper introspection. When you struggle to let go of perfection

If you struggle with all or nothing mentality with exercise or eating

No snacking might be THE thing.

Less calories.

Lean into the feeling of feeling peckish. What causes it? Is it a psychological or a physical feeling.

Hunger pans go with a glass of water.

Flexibility with your day.

If you’ve ever had a peek at the main page of this website, you’d know this much already. This is what Reps And The Rest is all about. And, what training for me is all about.

Balancing health and fitness for a strong, fulfilling life.

Not to be a gym junkie*, but to live a vigorous life doing what you love.
Not to compete, but to explore and complete.
Not to rush, but to reconnect with nature, yourself and the people you love.

Inspire, teach and help others to do the same.
And shape a better world.

*or worse, a fitspo-bullshit social media “sensation”.

But since I have the somewhat annoying tendency to dig deeper than sometimes necessary, let’s. Here are three further points to round out what training is all about.

Mission statement for training:

Do just enough.

Walk away feeling like you could do a bit more. Sometimes a lot more, other times little more.

Sure sometimes we do more than enough. But most of the time when that happens it’s just to chase the feeling of tiredness. Which in itself rarely leads to anything more than, well, feeling tired. But sometimes that’s a nice feeling. This is pretty much the opposite to Crossfit (or sex) where you go until you no longer can.

Do it with purpose.

Training itself is not the thing. Rather, training is done to get better at something (hiking, climbing, running) or to reach a very specific goal (body composition). Or, my favourite, just to live a more robust life.

And here’s where it gets tricky. Most people (including myself) say that they train to have a more robust life, but ignore the first principle here by doing way more than just enough.

When we do more than just enough we risk injury, overtraining, exhaustion, soreness and whatnot. All of which lead away from a robust life.

Everything connects.

Daily

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Working towards something?