What My Training Looks Like These Days.

I just read Dear Mark: How Are You Training These Days?  I try to break down my training in a similar way to Mark. I have my training, hard strenuous exercises to strengthen my body for the demands of life. Then I have play, which is fun, carefree movement, be it working on my parkour movement or tag with my girlfriends kids. Finally, I have rest, which is often the most nebulous part of my training. Some days I am resting and working in my garden, doing yoga or straight vegging. I don't always have a set sequence of days that I do any of these activities. I cycle through these more organically. When I attend training with Parkour Horizons I do what they do. When I am don't train with them I do what feels right for that day. 

My training days can vary. Yesterday I wanted to lift, however, my schedule didn't allow me to. When I do lift I spend about an hour in the "gym." I can take as much as an 15 to 20 minutes warming up. Then I hit hard with a series of compound lifts that incorporate the whole body. When I can't get to a weight set I do either body weight exercises or speed work. For body weight stuff I fall back on my parkour training. I use lots of quadrupedal movement and classic movements like squats, push ups and pull ups. For speed work I was doing lots of sprints until recently. For me sprints are 400 meters or less. These days I have been working up to longer distance. I know the science, especially in the paleo sphere, points to shorter distance for optimum health, but I have been testing my metal with mile repeats. This is one of those "training for the demands of life." I share a car with my dad, this means that about two times a month I need to get across town in a car sort of time period, but all I have are feet. Therefore, I have been doing longer track work outs. These are things I haven't done since high school, but more on that some other time. 

I work hard so I can play hard. For me a lot of my play is movement and flow based or playing with the kids at the park. I work mostly on dexterity and proprioception. I try to make awkward things graceful. I work on things that challenge or scare me. Or sometimes I just try to remember what it was like to really believe the ground was lava. 

Some days after rocking for a few days, my body tells me I need to chill out for a day. I try to vegg out for a day. However, that never works completely. I usually take some long walks. Sometimes, on those walks I find a big thing to carry around like a log or a rock, movnat style. I always foam roll, in fact, I do that almost every day. I have been getting back into yoga. I used to do lots of yoga, but I quit when I got some knee pain two years ago. However, I have been being careful with it and trying to regain lots of mobility. I have always been really flexible cause of a genetic condition. For a long time I counted on that to carry me through any mobility I needed. Recently I started noticing some lapse in that area of my movement. More on this some other time. 

This is what my training looks like these days. I train to play and I play to live. I listen to what my body needs. I give it sweat when it needs sweat. I give it food when its hungry. I give it laughter when it needs joy. I give it rest when it's tired. I am off to foam roll.