Awareness & Outstanding 15 Minute Workout

Hope this finds you all well and blessed. Sometimes you keep running into something and it starts to add up to you. It could be a particular story, a particular person or a particular event that for some reason you just can’t get away from. Have you ever stopped to think that maybe that’s for a reason?

I’ve run into this story in two different forms in the last week. Now maybe that’s not enough occurrences to make it exceptional, but it’s a powerful story and since I have this platform to pass along things that I feel would be helpful to you, I thought I would share it.

I was in Walmart last week picking up something, I don’t even remember what, and I happened to walk by the magazine aisle. Now I had just been speaking to a friend of mine about writing for a magazine for which I thought he would be perfect. That magazine happened to catch my eye so I stopped and was thumbing through, scanning the articles. This particular story jumped out at me.

As I sat here today to produce this newsletter, my wife showed me a copy of a story she received in an email. It’s basically exactly the same story, but with an interesting twist. I’ll paraphrase the whole thing and just tell you the high points right here.

It all has to do with your perspective on the time that you have while you’re here. Both stories for one reason or another had a man sitting down to calculate the number of weekends left in his life. The average person lives 75 years x 52 weeks per year. You end up with 3,900 weekends. Now you subtract from that the number of weekends you’ve already lived. While this is by far a crude estimate, it puts a pretty fine number on how many weekends you have left.

When you add in to that number the fact that unavoidable circumstances of life and work are going to take up some of those weekends, (emergencies, sickness, etc.,), that number drops even lower. When you can quantitatively define the amount of time you have, it helps you put a fine point on WHAT you should be doing with it. WHO you should be spending it with and HOW you should be spending it.

One of the men in the story made the decision to jealously guard that time. To only spend it doing the things that made memories or made a difference for his family. The other had a unique approach. He got a jar and filled it with the exact number of marbles that he figured he had left. Then every Saturday he took one marble out of the jar, reminding him to make that day special as he literally took a piece of his remaining time out of the jar.

I think these stories are truly powerful. I think anything that strongly focuses us on not wasting the time that we have is a tremendous ally. An ally that will help us to live our life the most consciously and successfully.

Remember also that there is no promise that these weekends are going to be there. My life is living proof that anything can happen at anytime and you may or may not live to see more chances.

So get off your butt! In a colloquialism “Make hay while the sun shines.”

Do the things that you know you need to do that you’ve been screwing around and putting off. Get right with God. Come to know, love and accept Jesus Christ. The peace that comes from this will make a huge difference in the rest of your life. Be better at everything. A better husband or wife, a better father or mother, a better athlete, a better friend, a better provider, a better son or daughter.

Don’t waste time. Every minute doesn’t have to be focused on business. Some of it needs to be focused on fun. BUT aggressively guard against things that have no relevance yet seek your time.

Go out and buy yourself a jar and some marbles. In fact, buy two or more. Buy one to give to somebody so they can focus on their time as well. Those of you who have kids, buy a second jar for yourself. Remember this… they’re only kids for a certain number of weekends. Weekends that they’re going to be able to spend with you, and weekends that you can show them love and influence their life. Calculate how many of THOSE you may have left. Don’t waste that time either!


TRAINING TIP

In keeping with the theme of not wasting time, this week we’re going to give you a 20-minute workout that will cover all the bases of strength, endurance and conditioning.

Also in thinking about making a workout fast you want to preset as many pieces of your equipment as possible and have any other accessory that you’re going to use, i.e., a belt, etc., right there so you waste as little time as possible.

For this workout pick three exercises. One max-strength exercise, one strongman exercise, and one alternative conditioning exercise. Begin with one minute of general warm up (jumping jacks, pushups, squats, etc.). Then begin with a moderate single of your max exercise. Follow that immediately with 60 seconds of your alternative conditioning exercise. Move back and forth between them for 10 sets adding weight as you can to your max exercise and trying to keep a good pace with your alternative conditioner. This should take you approximately 15-minutes. If you add weight you will need to have the weight right there so you won’t have to waste time chasing it down. Finish with two sets of your strongman exercise alternated with two more singles of your max exercise. This should take up the last four minutes and leave you lying on the ground in a heap.

I suggest that unless you need a tremendous amount of specific endurance for a particular body part you pick an alternative conditioning movement that is general in nature, or emphasizes the opposite muscle groups of your max strength exercises.

For instance don’t do max squats and bodyweight squats in the same workout. Max squats and heavy bag work or club or sledgehammer swinging or cable pulling, or kettlebell, etc., would be better combinations because they’re still going to work your muscular strength and endurance. However they’re going to allow you to move back and forth between sets faster without over fatiguing the muscle group that you are training for max strength. Remember that all training is systemic as well so you’re really training your whole body.

It’s also your choice whether or not your strongman exercise is directly related to your max strength exercise or is general in nature. For instance using the squat as our max strength exercise again, you might do sled pulling which is directly leg work or perhaps keg loading which is very general in nature. Both will drive your strength and conditioning sky high. It’s your choice if you want to drive the legs in that direction or whole body.

You can use a clock if you wish to keep track of your time. I prefer just to keep an eye out to make sure I’m keeping on pace, but I don’t watch it specifically for the minute. I find that distracting. You may have to play with your alternative conditioner as this workout is very rough the first time through and you may not be able to keep the pace. Just go as quick as you can. I like to count how many reps of the alternative conditioner I use and use that to pace for my minute. You can always use shorter times as the workout progresses and the pace becomes impossible to keep. You will find if you stay with it for a few times that it is very adaptable, shoots your conditioning sky high and allows you to build a very unique type of conditioned strength. Your max strength will come up while under aerobic and endurance stress. A great type of strength to have. Plus, it only took you 20 minutes. Plenty of time left to go take care of life.

Enjoy!


A NEW INTERVIEW WITH ME AT RUGGED MAGAZINE

There’s a new interview article with me by Dave Whitley up at Rugged Magazine. I think it has some new stuff you all might find interesting. Some great questions and perspectives on training. Rugged Mag also has many good articles and hard core elements and some great people write for them as well. Check it out at: http://ruggedmag.com


THE PLAN

I thought we would now update you on the plan for the next few weeks. First off we’re going to be introducing a new product every week for the next several weeks. Some will be videos/DVDs, some will be books. They’ll be adding to our Alternative Conditioning series , our Odd Object/Strongman series and some new products that have their own class.

The website is constantly being modified but is basically fully updated with a thorough explanation of each product, what it will do for you and why you should have it. As always new articles, by myself and by guests, will be coming.

We’re toying with the idea of a monthly challenge. Maybe as a contest, maybe as a motivational tool. We’ll see. Lots of other things in the works as well… we’ll be letting you know about them along the way.

Our newsletter will go to twice a week. We’re going to slightly change the format. The first newsletter each week will be just like this one. A mental/spiritual/life tip and a physical training tip. The second each week will be a product introduction or highlight showcasing a new product or article as well as whatever else finds its way in along the way.


TOMORROW

We’re going to introduce the first of our two-a-week newsletter with a brand new DVD that is absolutely outstanding and is going to be a classic of the strength world for years to come. It’s the first time we’ve carried anyone else’s product, but rest assured, you will be SHOCKED at the amazing strength shown and the hardcore, drug free feats.

Plus, we’re going to offer a special package of our own products that will help you train for some of the awesome feats you’ll see on this new DVD.