Hacking the Body Mind

Hey there everyone. I just received a question from a friend and it sparked some inspiration for a blog. I appreciate the question because it touches upon some very important ideas and something that many people are curious about these days.

He actually asked what types of exercises I do to build my core. And, while there are exercises I would recommend for specific ab or core training, I don’t tend to exercise them specifically.

I know that I have mentioned before that my preferred training method is Crossfit. My belief is that it is the perfect method for many reasons.

-Its scalable for anyone at any level of fitness from elite athletes to grandmas.
-The workouts are quick. They take up very little time in your day.
-Because the focus is compound movements, you can tend to get into much better shape in much less time and in a much more efficient way.
-The focus is a universal approach to well rounded fitness rather than specific movements to train specific body parts or for specific sports or athletic events.
-The nervous system and posterior chain is a big focus which means that the body begins to function much better. This also relates to how compound movements are used in every workout and also how the workout advocates doing different exercises in different ratios each and every day.

With all this said, I think its clear that if you are actually looking to develop true and lasting levels of fitness that will be there to help you in everyday activity and in sport than Crossfit can be your key to success.

Now, what I want to do is go over some of the basics that can help you make a standard exercise strategy into an explosive one.

Key #1-Use barbells and dumbbells often- The key here is that using barbells and dumbbells force you to balance and will engage all the muscles in your body. The core and auxiliary muscles will be engaged throughout the exercise so it becomes less important to specifically train for that washboard look that we all want and it simply begins to appear. Also, a big factor is that whenever the entire body is engaged, your nervous system responds as well and this is the most neglected part of our bodies but it should be number one on our list when we think about what we need to train.

Key #2-Do body weight exercises-Body weight exercises are all the rage these days. And, its not a surprise why. If you think about how easy (and how CHEAP!) they are to implement and how effective they are than this fact should not be a surprise to you. Body weight training, like training with barbells and dumbells, engages all auxiliary muscles, core muscles, and stimulates nervous system activity. High repetition bodyweight exercises also stimulate the creation of new capillaries in the system which dramatically increases blood flow, oxygenation, and nutrient absorption. So, do pushups, dips, air squats, and pull ups as often as you can.

Key #3-Focus on compound movements-When I train, I do things like power cleans, squat cleans, squat thrusters, lunges, squats, dips, pull ups, pushups. I tend to go through a gamut of about 30 different exercises throughout my training as I alternate exercises, but I NEVER do exercises that focus on specific muscles like biceps curls. I train for maximum efficiency so rather than focusing on specific muscles, I focus on using diverse compound (full body) movements. Within each movement certain muscles may be emphasized but other body parts are always being trained as well. This creates a HUGE metabolic effect as well.

Key #4- Train with speed in your movements- Something that Glen Glassman (creator of Crossfit) says is that if you want to develop speed than train fast. This is a large emphasis in Crossfit styled training. Typically, you would go through a circuit of exercises against a time clock. The idea is that the speed at which you can go through a workout is a measure of success that precedes the amount of weight you can lift. This is not to say that you want to neglect form. In the beginning of Crossfit training, this is the first thing that is taught. Form is of utmost importance for injury prevention. But, as you begin to gain efficiency in the exercises than the next metric is the speed at which you can go through a circuit. What this does is instill a inherent speed and a high level of fitness in your body while promoting increased metabolism, oxygenation, and nutrient delivery.

Key #5- Change your exercises as often as possble-A big concept that has found its moment in the spotlight is something called muscle confusion. And it has found its way into really amazing exercise programs like P90X and Crossfit alike. This is nothing new. The Russians discovered that changing up movements in a workout regimen on a regular basis creates the ability to avoid the dreaded plateau effect. We have all been there. We go to the gym everyday doing the same few exercises until we find that we are no longer improving. The Russians realized that simply changing even small details about the exercises that we are doing can help to push us past that plateau. It came to be known as the Russian Conjugate Method of training. What Crossfit has done is to create a program where everyday the workout is different from the day before. And you may go a month or more before repeating a workout. This creates the effect of a massive upswing for your overall fitness and your muscles are always being challenged.

So those are just a few keys to an amazing exercise program. I would encourage you to go to the Crossfit.com website and check out what they have to offer. What I am planning on doing in the near future is to create a small course simplifying the Crossfit approach and giving you a small selection of workouts that can be used and applied very simply for great effect. It is important to ALWAYS scale back the workouts as they are prescribed on the Crossfit website. You can end up in over training very very easily and this is NOT what you want. Trust me, I have been there. It is always important to go slowly at the beginning. So if any of you have any questions about the Crossfit approach please send me an email and I will explain it to you.

Peace, Love, Life!