BodyBlitz Fitness Solutions

The word “foundation”  have many meaning to many people, though many the end result is somewhat the same.

It entails some form of  low level support for building something else . Take for example foundations for a wall is the steel bars(re-bar) that are inside to hold the concrete, and it is as strong as how many bars are there to reinforce the wall.

The foundations of physical fitness is no different from a building; gravity affects us all and no matter how many ways you cut it, its going to lead back to same thing.

I won’t go as far as to speak about athletic community and specific sports because as of now, I have not specialized in any sport as of yet but I train the general population more. So I have a better understanding on the average Joe or Jane on the street, whom for some apparent random reason wanted to get fit.

First of all, I don’t try to make up my own rules and views on the definition of fitness. I try to fit the definitions within conventions if its reasonable and for more obvious reasons, that its just common sense.

I view physical fitness as the ability to do a physical activity well – short, sweet and most of all simple. I don’t want to use big words which makes no sense at all, things like broad time and modal domains whatever…

So what is physical activity for an average office worker like? – wait that was a rhetoric joke, because it almost nothing.

Clicking on the mouse and staring at the screen 10 – 15 hours a day, and another 2- 3 sitting front of the computer/television screen before finally hopping into bed. Maybe, just maybe once in a while,  your boss dumps you a huge stacks of file or some pretty chick/handsome dude needed help with carrying some stuff, and you’ll volunteer.

Doing nothing at all, won’t cause problems right? I mean you did nothing but sit on your ass all day, what problem can there be?

Well quite a bit, depending how bad it is. The best part is that when the idea of getting fit suddenly pops into their little sedentary minds, the first thing they do is engage in some vigorous form of sports or put on a trainers and start jogging 2-3 km then start to think they can do a marathon already…

Don’t get me wrong, I believe something is always better than nothing but when most sedentary slugs do this, they’re actually trying to build the top of the building without laying the foundations, building the ground floor or the floors underneath the roof.

No one with common sense will try to build a peak without a foundation; a roof without anything to support it, stuff don’t just float in the air. Yet, this is whoever who have no clue where to start does. Maybe not so common sense after all.

I know alot of people will say, “Don’t be a wuss…just do it!”

Which is fine if you’re 15 to maybe mid 20 but when you get older, things that you damaged while doing physical activity don’t heal as fast and you need to work to pay bills or your mortgage.

Before someone quotes me out of context, and “over” comprehend my point and start putting words into my mouth -

• All I’m saying is that, unless you get paid while injuring yourself, then fine go ahead and stop reading.
• If you can run your life with a sprained ankle or a bad knee, more power you!
• If being in pain all the time with injuries is your fetish, then what can i say?

If you don’t have such  luxuries, fetish or method to work around it then read on…

The foundations of fitness is laid with bricks of strength -

As  I said before – you’re up against gravity; your friend, nemsis and alibi all rolled into one.

Gravity is the one thing that makes the difference of a 150kg (mostly fat) vs a 50kg man landing from a jump. I don’t have to expand the magnitude of a “Richter scale experience” by the 150kg man on his ankles, knees and joints.

He could even kill a person if he landed on the right spot.

If your joints/muscles are not strong enough to take such abuse, it is impossible to hold up a structure (your body) with ample support.

Getting stronger is the first priority to cardiovascular conditioning, because seriously… how far do you need to run everyday from your MRT station to your office? Or bus stop to home/flat?

I’m not saying that cardio is useless but in terms of priority, conditioning would depend on the kind of physical activity needed for your everyday life. Doing simple metabolic conditioning in terms of body weight circuits and supersets is ample for a beginners as long as its low impact and moderate intensity.

But a full on 5km run or a hard interval training all the time isn’t the solution in the beginning. Getting stronger is, and if you get stronger everything else will improve together with it.

Strength is the key element to anybody’s fitness, without it you’re just fighting a losing battle with gravity.

When in doubt, do less -

There is a saying – “what doesn’t kill, makes you stronger.”

That is almost true on most parts but what doesn’t kill you also may cripple you. What cripples you make you crippled, period. Unless you plan to compete in the para-olympics, then ignore what I wrote and stop reading.

Laying the foundations of your fitness need not be a competition to fuel your ego, just because you can do 10 doesn’t mean you have to do 100 to prove your worth.

Although I am a firm believer that practice makes perfect and practice is at least 25 reps or so as a minimum however it must be with good form and done with quality movement.

If you’re killing yourself by forcing repetitions and doing bad ones, do less of it because you’re doing yourself a disservice by teaching yourself the wrong things. Also if you’re not doing it properly and with too much volume of work/load, you’re going to injure yourself.

Less sometimes is more, exercise is like a drug; ample dosage provides a cure, too much and you’ll over dose on it.

Always train with movements and not muscles -

I’m not going to go as far as to say that muscles are not important, because they simply are.

But going to a gym and then doing only bicep curls isn’t  going to improve your life and fitness level a whole lot. We don’t use the bicep a whole lot in everyday life.

There are different planes in space that we move our bodies – front and back/ up and down / left and right.

As a newbie,  your biceps or chest muscles should be the least of your worries. It is like tweaking the rims of a car when the problem is the chassis and the axial that rotate the wheels if you catch my drift.

Sure you can argue that the rims are equally important but you need not worry about that now, that can come later when your foundations are strong.

So aim for full body compound movements – Squats/Deadlift/ Chin ups / Shoulder presses/ Bench presses / Rows – Oh quick question – Does the chin up have a bicep curl within the movement?

These are the basic and most fundamental movements everything else spans from this and are variations, if you can’t master this then all the “functional” exercise in the world won’t save your life.

Most of it is too exaggerated and reeks of B.S, seriously…what is so functional about moving your mouse around the desk? But thats what you do for a living…

And for your information, doing squats and deadlift don’t injure you… doing it wrong does.

Trust me, I’ve seen many who do and they think they’re doing it right…

Summing up -

These are just a few points to take into consideration.

Lets face it, everyone was a newbie even myself, everyone had to start somewhere. However opinions differ as to what you should do when you’re starting out and it is no different with mine.

The only thing I’d like to point out is that if you have to listen to someone, make sure it makes sense to you and not kill yourself doing things that are stupid.

The simple rule of thumb to follow -

• If it hurts, stop doing it.
• If it doesn’t progress you nearer to your goal, assess what went wrong.
• Do not let yourself get sucked in; everything works(if its sound), just that some things work better for you
• Don’t get injured but don’t stop yourself from progressing with unfounded fears.
• If you want to be cheap then you progress slow. If you want more efficient training, hire someone who knows what he’s doing. (everyone needs a coach)

So there folks, my view on how to lay the foundation of fitness.

Everyone will tell you to work hard and put a lot of intensity into your workout but should we?

Obviously there’s a limitation of how hard we can push ourselves and it varies for individual tolerance. Most people tell me to work hard, push yourself hard and go all out each time.

Thinking about it, working hard by going all out each time you work out may not be a good idea afterall, for the simple fact that it works against you adversely than helping and unless you’re on drugs, you cannot recover fast enough.

Recovery is the limitation of the human body, not stress limit.

Naturally one person can take alot of stress load on yet not collapse under it, however when he does cave in that person takes a long time to recover and often have a psychological scar that comes with it.

And if that was a physical stress, then it would be injury and a whole lot of pain to ensue.

So working smart would be a better idea, but some people think that by working smart and not pushing yourself to the limits, you’re short changing yourself. The “hardcore” folks will call you a pussy for not doing it with your balls to the wall or some will call you lazy.

Well thats not true, working smart simply means to regulate your workout according the way you feel and how fast you can recover; common sense really.

If you are fresh and you want to crank up the intensity, go ahead but the subsequent workout the next day has got to be light(er) because you need to recover.

This is not obvious when you are not dieting but when you do and train like this for a 2-3 weeks, everything goes down hill from there.

Working smart is to work with quality in mind, without mindless grinding for the sake that it should be done as the workout suggested. It is how much you can do with decent form and know where is your tipping point before you start to slide.

Working smart is about consistency in mind that you can stick to it knowing you can progress by the empirical data of your performance in the weight room and towards overall goal.

Its pointless to go hard and fast and furious to then crash and burn and then stop having consistent workouts or injuries which will lead to fruitless progress.

But working smart is not easy, don’t let it fool you mentally or let others tell you other wise – Always work within your limits and not let ego take over you.

If you’re doing a heavy workout on monday, then the subsequent workout on tuesday will have to be a lighter one.

If you’re having a heavy workout week, then the subsequent workout week would be towards pre-hab and regenerative drills.

To go all out all the time and lift at maximum load all the time is stupid, there is a time for everything and progression is key.

Its not how you start that matters, it is how you finish that counts.

This week is interesting because I’ve learned so much by just simply reflecting on what I’ve done.

There were many meaningful things that I chanced upon to review my practices.

Here is the list -

1. Train at least 20 hours a week. Mastery comes around the 10,000 hr mark. At 20 hours per week you will need 10 years.

2. The pyramid theory

It seems that by apply the principle of what i learned in no.1, It makes me have more purpose to go out and do something.

If I want to be good in my job – a trainer then i’ll have to make every hour that i spent with my clients and myself in the gym worthwhile.

I’ll start a countdown on Monday and we’ll see how much i’ve learned when it reaches the 100th hour mark.

I’ll do a reflect review on what I’ve experience so far and build upon that.

I believe its a good way to add meaning and to look further than just seeing it as a routine. It gives me purpose to strive for excellence.

2. The Pyramid Theory

We always want more, greedy for success.
The pyramid theory is in conjunction with the kaizen principle.

The Japanese word “KAIZEN” means improvement, improvements without spending much money, involving everyone from managers to workers, and using much common sense. The Japanese way encourages small improvements day after day, [B]continuously[/B]. The key aspect of KAIZEN is that it is an on-going, never-ending improvement process. It’s a soft and gradual method opposed to more usual western habits to scrap everything and start with new.

http://membres.lycos.fr/hconline/kaizen_us.htm

I’ve found that in my training now and my limit capacity with my dieting that if i take small steps to improve on what I’ve build upon, end of the day i’ll add a lot more progressively in the long run then strive to hit it big immediately.

E.g My goal is to jog nonstop for 20 mins however i can only jog 15 mins and cannot push on after that.

If i pushed myself for 15 seconds more each time, it is a realistic sizable goal that i can achieve.

So each time i try to improve by 15 seconds, i’ll be able get to what my goals are of 20mins within 3-4 months time.

If i keep aiming for 20 mins each time, and always fail at 15 mins, there will be little improvement and you cannot track your progress or plan to improve a little more each time.

So the morale of the story is though we like to aim high and dream big but we need to set sizable goals to achieve to slowly improve and feel motivated to stick to the plan.

My own innovation from that principle is to fortify the base. A strong base will allow me to build faster; i see it as a trickle up approach while i slowly improve from at the top.

Without expanding my base of my pyramid(goals that i wish to achieve), my peak of the pyramid will be shaky and sometimes like the game of jinga, topple over and the time I’ve spent with this malpractice would be a waste of time.

In relation to the pyramid theory is what the great Bruce lee said – “Absorb what is useful, reject what is useless”

So its always wise to revisit each base you’ve fortify and make it stronger, what may work for you now, may have a better method later.

The bring home point is this -

Your foundations is always shifting to reinforce the peaks, without strong foundation there will be no sustainable growth.

No practices or methods are perfect; if you think what you’re doing is great, there will always be something better.

Don’t be afraid to change your opinion, admit you’re wrong and innovate what you’re build as long as it gives you the results you desire.