Excellence In Focus & Cardio Pre-Exhaustion

I hope this finds you all blessed. Really we all are blessed most of the time in ways that we don’t even bother to count the things that we take for granted every day. Life, breath, health, abundant food, shelter, work, family and friends are deep blessings that we are so accustomed to that we rarely appreciate them to the fullest or give appropriate thanks for them. We also spend way too much time feeling sorry for ourselves.

People who have been through true tragedies usually come out on the other side of it with full appreciation of the blessings for the simple things of life. Many times these are people who also overcome great obstacles to perform great achievements. One thing you absolutely cannot do when you’ve entered this mindset is waste time feeling sorry for yourself. There are certain circumstances that we simply cannot change. Once you stop worrying about that and start getting on with your life it’s much easier to live the life that you want.

Many people make a huge mistake about this. They see changeable circumstances as insurmountable obstacles. I believe that God is ultimately in control and caring for us even in hard times. That doesn’t mean that every piece of life will be easy or that He ever intended for it to be. Don’t blame the Creator for things you can change and don’t waste time worrying about the things that you can’t.

Let me explain this a little further and maybe it will make my thought clearer. You can’t change your height and you can only minimally add to your bone structure. You can’t change your body’s natural tendencies toward being thin or big, but you CAN control almost every other variable that effects your body. You can make the absolute most of the body you have. And for many people there is the possibility of very high-level physical achievement. Even with “less than perfect” genetics. The people who have successfully achieved most of the time don’t come from perfect genetics. They quit worrying about the things they couldn’t change, but they over powered every other conceivable, controllable factor to reach high-level achievement.

They train smarter and harder than anyone else. They are disciplined about what they eat and how they rest. They acquire every bit of training knowledge they can, constantly searching for the best and they put it into practice. They find their own physical talents and over develop them. They keep consistent focus in these areas of their life and mental and spiritual energetic focus towards their goals. They refuse to quit or to accept less than the performance that they want. They realize that there are a few factors that they can’t control, but there are many that they can and that every one that they can had better get in with the program… or else!

That is what it takes my friends. Thorough self-understanding and an unflinching desire for the goal regardless of the obstacle. I believe this is the case on every front. Not just the physical, I just used that for an example, because it is easy and motivating to see the overcoming of a physical obstacle. However it applies just as much to your spiritual and mental life. What you focus your desire on is what you become. If you constantly focus on not being able to do something, what you get is the ability to not be able to do that thing. If you instead focus on achieving that thing and not lamenting the negative then you move toward that achievement.

Life is full of examples of these points illustrated in the real lives of those who overcome and it’s in every area. These things motivate me to get better; maybe they will you too.

Here are a few quick examples of greatness and what the people who personify it overcame to get there.

Paul Anderson became arguably the strongest man that ever lived and Olympic champion. Nearly died as a child from Bright’s Disease and was plagued with it. Didn’t have weights to train with so he improvised and made his own. Dennis Rogers and Pat Povilaitis are the best in the world at the type of strength that they specialize in. Amazingly powerful men who BOTH had scoliosis as children. Pat actually had to have back surgery and there are still some movements that are a problem for Dennis because of residual effects. Do they let that stop them from being the best? No, in fact nearly no one is close to this kind of strength even with a totally healthy background. Jack LaLane, the longest standing fitness guru in the world was sickly as a child, but he became interested in health and turned it around. Lamar Gant, one of the greatest lightweight powerlifters ever, had EXTREMELY severe scoliosis to the point that when you watched him deadlift it didn’t even look like he had a torso. It just looked like his chest sat straight on his hips. Yet he was a perennial world champion with a well over 600lb deadlift at 132lb-body weight. Steve Kirit, multiple time professional competitive strongman, US national champion, was born without some of the tendons in his knees. He wore knee braces as a kid. Jackie Robinson became the first professional African-American baseball player at a time of intense racial inequality. Ray Charles overcame poverty, blindness, racial discrimination and drug addiction to become one of the most beloved singers in the US. Abraham Lincoln came from nothing and was self-educated and yet became president of the United States. Stephen Hawking, has a body that has been wracked with ALS, yet is considered one of the most influential minds of our time. Albert Einstein could barely read and flunked out of school as a child, yet became a landmark mental giant. Homer Hickam was a below average student from a poor coal mining town yet found a passion for rocketry and through very intense mental work became a NASA engineer and now best selling author. St. Augustine, who in his own words, came from a life of spiritual corruption to one of the most influential spiritual men of the Christian world. Joan of Ark followed a spiritual vision to the place where she raised an army, fought in a war and influenced an entire nation at a time when women had less rights than animals. St. Patrick came from abandonment and slavery and excommunication to become one of the most enduring, endeared and beloved spiritual icons.

These are just examples off the top of my head and once you really start going on this subject it’s hard to stop naming people. Every one of these people overcame something that he/she could not change yet they changed what they could and achieved anyway. Many times their achievement was the beginning of a basis of change not only in their circumstances but also in the whole world. We all have circumstances there’s nothing we can do about. So what. What are you letting stand in your way?

There’s no valid excuse for not pursuing your dreams. Nor is there a valid obstacle that you can’t surmount. If these people who are flesh and blood men/women just like you and I can achieve these things regardless of the hardships thrust upon them then you have no excuse. Trust God, get to know Him, have faith, plot your course, and don’t stop.

Get out… and do it!


TRAINING TIP

Cardio Pre-exhaustion.

This tip is based on combining a couple of styles of exercise to create a greater than normal cardio conditioning effect and applying it with an old principle, pre-exhaustion.

Pre-exhaustion generally is a muscular training style. It refers to using an exercise that pre-fatigues a particular muscle and then immediately using an exercise that continues to train that same muscle yet allows the surrounding muscles to take some of the load thereby pushing that muscle harder than normally possible. It was very possible within the HIT/Arthur Jones/Nautilus training styles. In muscular example it’s the idea of doing a curl to exhaust the bicep muscles and then following it immediately with a chin up or row to let the big back muscles help drive the biceps harder than they normally would. The big exercise forces the biceps to work yet they must work in unison with the bigger muscle groups which will take a significant part of the load and allow the biceps to continue working after they would normally have failed.

We’re going to apply this concept a little differently. Now in the past I haven’t been big on applying cardio machines and I still think that your greatest training comes with using alternative conditioners. Exercises that allow you to work muscular and aerobic endurance with intervals and many different implements. However I think that cardio machines can be effective if you simply apply them in the alternative conditioning parameters. Most people simply use them for long slow training just like jogging. I don’t like this idea of training I think it can take away from your maximum strength and for the time and effort spent it is not nearly as effective as kettlebells, bodyweight exercises, Indian clubs, cables, etc. Obviously not all cardio machines are created equal, some are pure junk. Some can give you really good conditioning, but I think the conditioning is going to be more in how you apply the machine than the machine itself. The aerodyne bike, the rower, and the versa-climber can all be great tools to add to your arsenal. While I still believe that alternative conditioning movements are your greatest benefit, when you apply these with the same style of training we would normally use and in various twisted mixtures, you can drive the benefits you would normally get out of a cardio machine up to a world class level.

So here’s how to use it with cardio pre-exhaustion. Pick whatever machine is at your disposal and a regular alternative conditioning movement or workout (kettlebell swings, bodyweight squats or pushups, sledge hammer swinging, etc.). I do like the aerodyne for this because you get some good upper and lower body movement and drive your heart rate and breathing up without overly taxing your muscles. Not the same way a regular alternative conditioning workout would, but that’s the whole point here.

Begin with a general warm up on the machine for a few minutes, then spend five to ten minutes (or up to 15 if you choose), doing sprint intervals on the machine. You can vary this according to your personal conditioning level and preference and it’s probably good to vary it from workout to workout or even interval to interval. Because I’m rather a fast twitch guy, I prefer shorter more intense intervals and trying to keep the rest periods short as well. Something akin to a Tabata protocol is what we’re talking about here. You should be breathing hard and your heart rate should be up, but your muscles will be worked, should not be as trashed as if you had done a more muscular type of cardio. Once you finish your intervals, immediately jump off your equipment and go directly into your regular alternative conditioning workout.

By doing this your heart and lungs will already be worked and working, but your muscles won’t be as fatigued as usual therefore you can jump into your more muscular based cardio and use that muscle freshness to drive your heart and lungs harder than usual. At first it will be significantly harder to finish your regular conditioning workout especially with the same pace, but it will get better. Do this for a few weeks, and then jump back to your regular conditioning workout. You’ll see how much improvement your heart has made and how much easier and faster you can cruise through your regular workout.