Monday, July 6, 2009

Challenge.....178! Also, functional training...

My challenge for the next two months is to get down to 178lb (about a 12lb. weight loss) without losing any strength and maintaining my kettlebelling abilities. Any retard can (and typically does) go on a treadmill deathmarch and lose weight and look like a Biggest Loser reject. This person typically regains the weight because they have no "foundation" of fitness.

The key is going to be cleaning up the diet. I will have to be more diligent in preparing meals to take with me as I would my personal training business.

Here are the skills that I will need to maintain:
425+ lb squat
475 lb deadlift
120+ reps in 5 minute snatch test
sub 6:30 mile
flipping 500lb tire

Losing weight for the purpose of losing weight is pretty silly.

I have been hearing a lot about functional training. One thing that I have found is that a lot of people who are weak are actually "justifying" it by saying that their training is functional. Their definition of functional is "I must include some type of fitness crap (e.g., bosu, medicine ball, exercise ball, fitness band, balance board)" in the exercise.

Here is my definition of functional (taken from dictionary.com):
having or serving a utilitarian purpose; capable of serving the purpose for which it was designed

Lets take heavy lifting (not necessarily 1RM lifting). We lift heavy things all of the time. Therefore heavy lifting is "functional". Let me ask you a question -- if you were moving a couch, who would you rather have help you. Someone who can lift heavy things, or someone that can do squats on a bosu.

Lets say you were moving to a new home. Who would you rather have help you. Someone who can lift a moderate amount of weight a lot (i.e., work capacity), or someone who does leg lifts with an exercise ball between their legs.

I know from my training that I can go into any class (spin, yoga, step aerobic) and do just fine. Ask your yogi to get under a bar loaded with 2x their bodyweight and see how they do. Strength carries over to all "functions". While other stuff is important - I swear that personal trainers talk about functional fitness because they are unable to teach someone how to lift. What they did is call their gimmicks "functional".





Let us look up

1 comment:

Jennifer said...

sub 6:30 mile? Maintain? Strong work!