Training Intuitively Part Two.

7/5/2012

I wanted to write more about intuitive movement, but I wasn't sure what to say. Apart from 'do what you love', how do you instruct someone to move intuitively? How do you encourage people to move, to exercise or train, in a way they find enjoyable and satisfying? How do you know where to start, if you don't like to exercise?

I have known so many people who are resistant to training because they feel trapped, constrained by the feeling that they have to do this thing, this thing that they hate. That they must spend 30 minutes on the treadmill, on the bike, or 'doing' weights, and for what? Improved health and vitality? There are so many different programs out there, and it's crap. Which is to say it's all good, if you like it, but if you don't - it's a complete waste of your time to train. You won't get a thing out of it, except for more negative associations. And where will that leave us?

"Oh, but at least you'll be training, and even if you hate it, the exercise has to be good for you - physically?"

You hear that kind of objection. I don't buy it for a second. This thing, that I call me - the body and mind aren't these two separate things. You can't do something with your body that you despise, that makes you feel trapped and abused, and be working towards your health. You just can't. This is why I don't go to boot camps, and it's why I don't run them. I don't want to sacrifice my autonomy and own good opinion for the sake of burning calories. Those fucking calories.

Train when it's fun. Don't train when it isn't. Finish your session when it's still fun, not when you've squeezed all the joy out of it. Not when you're too depleted to care.

I saw a clip the other day, it was all about that whole 'you gotta want it' stuff. Really? How is 'wanting' it more going to grant me the skill of applying myself to a task with commitment and dedication? How is it going to help me break down my program into realistic and efficient steps for progression? What happens if I stop 'wanting' it - do I stop training? What happens if I 'achieve' it? How is 'wanting' it superior to enjoying it? How is 'wanting' it superior to intelligent program design? Or superior to moving with joy and spontaneity?

Everyone seems to think that they need to be hard on themselves if they're going to get anywhere. They need to punish themselves, push through failure, do this extra set of whatever whiz-bang blah-de-whatzit, that is the secret to lasting badassery.

Where does it get us? Anywhere at all? I've done the 'push through' stuff, disciplined myself to training, and now I'm training in a way that I actually enjoy - now I'm stronger and faster than ever before. I'm working on my own weaknesses in a way I enjoy, I'm working on weaknesses while playing to my strengths, and I've progressed not because of discipline, pushing or punishing myself, but because of self-education, open-mindedness, and the pursuit of what I like, in the moment. Not what I 'want' in some sort of vague future-success, athletic-based-badassery capacity.

What does it mean to have a real experience of exercise? It's like mindful eating. Firstly, there's no such thing as exercise that isn't real. A distracted experience is just as real as a focused one. All experiences are valid. An idle whatever is no less useful or worthwhile than a dedicated and concentrated thingy. If you're paying attention, you'll learn something, and if you're not paying attention, who cares? Who wants to concentrate all the time? How does that help make things fun?

Sometimes a light, distracted jog is great. Sometimes dedicated and focused skills-acquisition is what I need. Sometimes it's many simple repetitions of a hard exercise. Sometimes with friends, but mostly alone these days, doing my thing. I never liked team sports. I don't play well with the other children.

What is the free, unencumbered physical expression of emotion? And is that a goal worth working towards, anyway?

And how do we undo all the damage that calorie counting has done to us, as a society, and as individuals? How do we rehabilitate our idea of training?

For answers to these and other questions, simply purchase my $1000 program 'How To Fix Everything That's Wrong With Everything'.

Note: program may not actually exist.

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9 Comments

Aiyesha

7/4/2012 11:16:57 pm

This question of wanting "it" and, more importantly - "what happens if we achieve it?" - I have only just begun to understand what happens, and I think it's the biggest lie we're sold, the idea of achieving "it" - the perfect body, lasting fitness, lasting change. Nobody wants to think about or be shown the answer, because it's not glamorous: it's football players whose careers are done by the time they're 30, who thicken up and get health problems like everyone else; starlets who hit 35 and are "too old for Hollywopod" so they turn their bodies into fitness machines only to be criticized by the media for being too "stringy" or muscular and yet they have to maintain that dedication to "fitness" because it's that or stop and get soft and plump; it's me and my sporadic, tired relationship with exercise, feeling like I'm not fit enough because I hardly ever go to the gym and hardly ever really "work" and pretty much never "want it" and yet every time I actually *test* my "fitness" it is awesome - I can sprint multiple times and recover super fast, I can lift heavy shit, I can work harder than ever before. I just don't do it all that often, because when you can work that hard, working out gets...confusing. We're meant to "want it" and "kill it" each time we exercise, but that's easy when you're not very fit, I guess? I've had to make a real effort to dial back my workouts and exercise intuitively, because exercise is good for me, and I need it, and I need it to be sustainable. And of course, though I seem to have this "lasting fitness/change" that everyone says they want, my body composition isn't magically ripped and shredded and cut and all those other apt terms for what happens when you starve yourself which has nothing to do with exercise.

I read in a magazine today that Anne Hathaway has been on 500 calories a day for a year. I sure as shit hope that just isn't true, but that's "wanting it" for ya - "lasting change." Only you do that for life! Yippee!

Chris Serong

7/5/2012 07:25:23 am

And the conceit - don't have the result you want - well, "did you try wanting in harder? Do it harder! If you aren't thin, then you didn't want it enough". As if that's all you have to do - but we're not encouraged to actually think, we're encouraged to keep hitting our head against a brick wall, we're told that thinness is achievable through strength of will, through blind obedience (don't question it, don't do that, because then you might discover there aren't any answers) and we're told that it's worth it, despite the measurable and very real damage it does to all of us. Oh, it drives me nuts (clearly)!

I notice a similar thing as you, I think. When you're strong it's easy to overtrain, particularly because - in the process of getting strong - we will have done what we're told, we will have developed the ability to work really damn hard, and how do you actually train for your health, if you're 'wanting' it so hard? And a lifetime of 'wanting' more, that's supposed to lead to a fulfilled life? Or does it just lead to more dissatisfaction?

What if you 'want' your training to be satisfying? What about all the things you might want that cannot be forced? Like personal development and a quiet confidence, rather than a screaming wall of compensation?

Michellers

7/6/2012 05:39:09 am

However...my own experience is that starting to train again after a long absence (and sometimes even maintenance) is seriously un-fun. I'm fat, I work a desk job, I live in a city where we drive instead of walk, and I have been through periods where training was not an option for me for whatever reasons. So to start--again!--with any form of exercise can be really painful. And it takes several months for it to start to feel good again.

Especially because my preferred form of exercise is hiking. I need the carrot of the beautiful view or cool hidden spot to lure me off the couch. Sometimes I overestimate my energy and spend the last miles limping back to my car--I can't just step off the treadmill and be done. So for me, there are moments I really really hate what I'm doing and have to "push through" because there is literally no option.

I have also found over the years that some weight training is necessary to improve my ability to hike (since I only have time to hike on the weekend). I dislike strength training, but if I want to be able to take longer hikes it helps to build up my muscles between hikes. So it's okay that I don't love doing the exercises because it helps me do what I love.

I'm probably reading your post too literally, because when I look at the overall picture obviously I love to hike and find the activity worthwhile. But sometimes it also really sucks. And I hope that I am physically benefitting from the long slog to the car or the stupid leg lifts even if my mind is hating the moment. :-)

7/6/2012 12:43:44 pm

I think training intuitively can absolutely include things you don't enjoy - Ragen Chastain talks about that sometimes on her blog, that there are things she trains at that she wouldn't if it weren't for dance. I think that's where "wanting it" comes in - what you want is to be able to do something you love that fulfills you and satisfies you (hiking, dancing, whatever), but in my view at least, the idea of getting thin or buff or whatever isn't the same thing, there's a distinction to be made. You can sustain doing things you don't enjoy for the sake of doing something else you love, but the goal of being thin is really just about more hate. So I don't think you're being too literal, I think you're asking important questions.

On actual training and fitness and hiking - in my experience, nothing made more of a difference to my hiking ability than squats/leg presses did, and I saw a huge decrease in fitness for hiking when I stopped doing squats, even though I'd taken up running and expected that to really improve my fitness. When I squatted lots, hiking was a breeze; when I was running, hiking made me almost pass out! Also, Chris was always the fittest at hiking (of our little group) and I'm pretty sure he's never done any sort of endurance training, but years of martial arts, which develops and requires really strong legs for kicks and poses and stuff.

Anyway, my very rambly point, I think, is that you don't necessarily have to train for hours doing things you don't enjoy - heavy leg-press workouts can be really short and intense and they'll benefit hiking strength, anything that develops leg strength will, and they don't have to be long, repetitive workouts.

In fact, that would be an awesome blog series for Chris to do! Squat development! Nudge nudge!)

7/6/2012 02:40:34 pm

Funnily enough, I was going to reply with a big squats rant! But Aiyesha kinda beat me to it. Kinda.

If you haven't seen Elite FTS's "So You Think You Can Squat" series, it's definitely worth looking at. It's seriously the best online squatting tutorial I've ever seen. Here's part one! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ME8gEN54Ao

If that was all you ever did, you wouldn't be missing out on much! Seriously - it'll give you strong legs and a strong back, and there's nothing else you need.

It's important to bear in mind that if you aren't getting strong - it isn't strength training. And it usually takes much less to build strength than people think - this is why I don't do leg extensions and curls, or calf raises very much - I don't find them helpful. Everything - especially if it's not enjoyable - absolutely must be helpful. Leg-based strength circuits are not something I train, because I don't find them helpful - and maybe it's because I don't find them helpful that I don't enjoy them? A heavy squats session however, I find that thoroughly engaging. I'm not telling you to "try harder at liking it", but if it's not fun - at least we can work on making training more efficient. And a set of leg extensions, curls and calf raises might be what we're told to do for toning, but if you're not increasing in strength - ie. if the weights or reps aren't going up - there's no point at all in doing it.

The other thing is - once you start isolating all your body parts, you need to watch out for keeping everything balanced. Most of us have a quad dominance, and need to build up our hamstrings and glutes, relative to our quads, and this can get confusing when you're isolating everything. If you stick to simple big movements like squats and lunges however, and you focus on trying to build strength and awareness of your butt muscles, mostly muscle-balance issues take care of themselves, and you can start to address weaknesses as you become aware of them. This leads to a more intuitive and natural approach to weight-lifting and strength training, which is good because it is based on you having autonomy, rather than you being obedient, and mindlessly going through someone else's program.

As you said, getting back into training can be tough and unpleasant - when you need to make up ground that you've covered before, or you need to increase your work capacity to be able to do the thing you actually like - the hiking - covering the ground work can be a little arduous.

Where was I? Yes, squats: if all you did was a nice warm up and then five sets of five reps of (relatively) heavy squats, and you did that anywhere between one and three times per fortnight, you can actually increase strength on that routine, while three times a week of leg extensions are unlikely to be met with such results.... It's weird, I know, but 20 to 60 minutes per fortnight can be enough for progress. There was a period in time where I was only squatting once a fortnight and making consistent progress at the same time.

When I used to train martial arts more often (that was the part of my training I enjoyed the most) I resented having to do strength, conditioning or flexibility training. Now I love it. But my approach was all wrong (not 'wrong' per se, but it was both inefficient and unenjoyable - so what the hell was the point?)

It's a little rambly I know! My suggestion is to pull your training back, do only what's effective, and don't add any exercises into your training schedule without a reason. Then you'll work out what's actually helping you and what isn't. I only started to enjoy strength training when I started training on my terms, and when I started actually getting strong - so it was a longer process of experimentation, and after I noticed the benefit in the way I felt, then a sense of appreciation started to develop.

Another thing that helped me like strength training was when I started to let go of the idea that I should look in any way different to the way I actually look. That was a big one - because it started to reveal what exercises and approaches were complete bullshit.

At any rate, I'm in various degrees of agreement! I know what it's like to discipline myself to doing the training that enables me to do the thing I love, or to be good at the thing I love, and I know what it's like to have the glamour of fancy martial arts disappear when you realise how much hard work goes into it. And I know what it's like when people say stuff like 'it must be nice to be young', as if I didn't put in years and years of hard work - and these are big questions. What do you need to do to enable x? How much work do you put into prerequisite skills?

In a vague summary - for your training I would suggest: watch the clip (even though they might be big, intimidating dudes with bushy beards and attitudes), base your workouts around squats and lunges, strip absolutely everything away if you're not sure if it's helping, and bring your awareness to developi

7/6/2012 02:45:22 pm

.....developing your glute (butt) muscles. Only 'do more' or add more into your training if what you're doing is inadequate for your progression. This way - even if it's not fun, at least it'll be efficient.

And in my experience, breaking down the process, and rebuilding it on your terms - this helps enjoyment - whereas doing what you're told hinders it. But that might just be me. It's kinda like stimulus-response stuff I suppose - if you do something, and you notice a positive result, you're more likely to enjoy it when you go back for more. Or if you discover more, you learn more, this is interesting. Like I said, I used to resent strength training, and now I enjoy it. This has felt a bit vague, but I hope it makes sense. Might work better if I actually blog about that process one day.

7/6/2012 02:47:24 pm

Eeek! That was convoluted. I'm not sure if I managed to express what I wanted. Still, use your sense of enjoyment or satisfaction as a guide, even if you're negotiating waters you don't really like. Fire away questions if you've got 'em!

michellers

7/9/2012 09:15:01 am

No, that was pure awesomeness! Thank you Chris and Aiyesha for your suggestions. I am going to definitely check out the squats, which frankly I have avoided for years because of my creaky knees. But I wonder what you suggest for calf development. Because we like hikes with a lot of elevation gain (and because I struggle with plantar fascitis), I find that I get really flat footed (no spring in my step) unless I do some maintenance during the week--usually in the form of toe raises. In your opinion is there a different exercise that would work as well or better?

7/9/2012 11:52:09 am

I've never found calf raises to be particularly useful, and I suspect poor quality calf raising led me to some issues with my plantar fascia too. If you're going to do them (if you find them helpful), don't let your ankles roll out to the sides - ie. keep your weight over your big toes, and keep your ankles aligned straight above your feet. It's harder, but I think it's better for alignment.

For calves, I do jumps of various kinds (which you might not want to do if your knees are too creaky) and lunges. Walking lunges especially for balance and ankle strength.

Although you might not be looking for muscular growth - so this might not apply to you - I never found calf raises to be particularly good for that, no matter how I did them, I didn't add any mass, and my vertical jump didn't seem to improve - but when I stopped calf raising, and started simply squatting and deadlifting really heavy, and eating a helluvalot, I started jumping higher and put an extra half an inch onto my calves pretty quickly. Yes, I used to measure my limbs.

If it's okay for your knees ankles and hips, I would recommend lunges. Probably in bare feet, unless you need to use orthotics. Also, get a tennis ball or one of those spiky 'pilates' balls and roll it around under the arches of your feet before and after training.

Needless to say I'm sure, pay attention to your body and if any of this causes you pain or distress, disregard it completely!

On the cranky knee topic, most commonly I see cranky knees relating to weak glutes/hamstrings. It may be counter intuitive, but if you've been doing a lot of isolation work for different parts of your legs, it can be tough keeping the muscles balanced properly and it can contribute to more knee pain if you're not careful. If, when you're doing a steep hike, you only feel it in your quads, the impulse might be to strengthen the quads more, but you actually need to work glutes/hamstrings, and bring them up to the point that you feel them too. When climbing steeply (this works better on stairs, which are flat and even), get your whole foot onto the surface, not just the toes, and press the heel down to step up. It works the glutes more.

This is all relative of course, your hamstrings may be stronger than someone elses, but in terms of muscle balance, a quad dominance, and hamstring/glute weakness can lead to an internally rotated femur and knee problems. This is one of the reasons it's so good to work with the hamstrings and glutes when squatting, and the above Elite FTS squat video goes into some detail on this point - keep your weight on your heels and your hips back (this is the main reason for squatting to the box, if you take away the box, for some reason people seem to lose the coordination pretty quickly and the knees start creeping forwards). And laying hip lifts or glute bridges can make for a great 'assistance' exercise if you like.

I read this lately about glute function, and I liked it, but it is a bit technically worded - http://www.ericcressey.com/what-the-strength-and-conditioning-textbook-never-taught-you-the-world-isnt-all-concentric

Anyway, for you, I reckon warming up with walking or rowing or whatever you can do - stand on one leg, lift the upper leg out to your front, and just swing the knee a whole bunch of times - make sure your joints are nice and warmed up and limber before you start, then any combination you like of squats, lunges and hip lifts/glute bridges should be enough.

Here's a hip lift video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uU2xYwNzV4c but I don't think the support under the shoulders is strictly necessary. Make sure the feet aren't too close or too far away, that'll be uncomfortable in the knees. If you really want to emphasise the hamstrings while training, keep the heels down but lift the toes just off the ground. And here's a clip of a dude lifting a whole lotta weight on a glute bridge: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cylwgaK_LEQ

Training Intuitively Part Two.

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