As an athlete, I am constantly striving to match my stimulus with recovery, and lately, have been thinking about my fitness future, once I've hung up my competitive field hockey stick. I've been frequenting the gym for almost 10 years (since I was just 15!) and wonder, how it can be that I've come to value my training environment as something other than my natural environment. You see, Manski and I have been snowshoeing and soaking in as much of the mountains and snow as we can, and I have found that the demands of blazing your own trail in the snow, of bouldering through huge rocks, and even decelerating down steep climbs incredibly rewarding.
Am I advocating a switch from gym-life to full-on outdoorsing? Not entirely, but I do think that most of us could merit from a more integrated approach to wellness. The benefits of exploring the landscape around you go far beyond the aesthetics of the land; they include variety in movement patterns, fresh air, a sense of connectedness and respect for one's environment, physical/athletic challenges and a wondrous sense of escape from city life.
Also, I encourage one and all to scope out Iron Radio, a brand new and really fascinating compilation of leisurely (but incredibly well informed) discussions on all manner of topics related health and fitness/nutrition. For serious information, or tongue-in-cheek podcasts on unique and thought-provoking subject matter, I definitely recommend checking it out!
3 comments:
I get paid to think (and draft). For the most part, it's big fun - except when it's not (or when one is brutally sick - which I continue to be).
Having said that, I have made a discovery - liquid ibuprofen gel caps plus black coffee are, perhaps, the best way to create a clear "window" within which one can go and train.
Of course, there is a price to pay when the ibuprofen wears off and, if I've managed to get a good workout in, I pay it gladly.
Using nature as one's gym has some big advantages - the avoidance, as you've hinted at, of what Paul Chek has referred to as "Pattern Overuse Syndrome". Perhaps a more important benefit is liberation - the freeing of one's self from the need to be in any specific place to train. Caloric expenditure, hypertrophy, strength development - it all ought to be do-able to a reasonable (or even high) degree, depending upon one's level of creativity. The body, after all, is nothing more and nothing less than a wonderfully complex chain that pushes and pulls in different planes of movement.
So, push and pull aggressively in different planes of movement and you should be fine. Unleash thy inner Rocky Balboa, as it were, and run in deep snow with a log on your back. That'll GPP you.
Another forced day off. It's cold but brightening. Eye, throat and broncial infections are subsiding, but still there. The ibuprofen and coffee are kicking in and I feel a gentle wave of relief wash over me...the window has started to open.
The harder it becomes, the harder I seem to want to push. The need to exercise my will is as great if not greater than the physical need to train.
An unyielding desire to push (although, recently, I have been stopped on my way out the door as well - thank God I've started listening a little bit more).
Sublime. Transcendant. Borne of pathology and insecurity.
To all of these, I say yes.
It's what happens, sometimes, when one realizes that one is human but wants to be...more.
There is a stillness now, inwardly, outwardly and the voice that speaks to me isn't yelling, or screaming or doing any of those things that end up happening when a person is trying to convince themselves of something that they don't really believe. I am more accustomed to a tidal wave that slams into me and so, welcome the gentle way in which the words wash over me:
Go and see
what will be
Will be.
Will is everything.
Training is nothing.
Impossible is nothing.
Heya Jaya...Thanks for the love on my blog..I've been reading some of your stuff..Very interesting..To answer your question I'm 9 weeks out.
Don't overthink this stuff people.
Get outside and breathe and walk!
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