Upper body work

The other day was 3 25' rope climbs, 50 pullups, 75 dips.

200m sprint

200m sprint , 25 sit- ups 25 pull ups

200m sprint

200m sprint, 25 sit - ups 25 pull ups

200m sprint

200m sprint, 25 sit - ups 25 pull ups

then i did a rest day only doing www.sealgrinderpt.com's warm up and 50# ruck 1 1/2 mile walk with the dogs

day after that I did heavy bench for 6 sets and heavy straight bar curls for 6 sets

yesterday was a rest day 3 mile walk with the dogs

today

300 pushups

300 situps

50 pull ups

sprints till failure but sprint out then back pedal back for every other sprint

Aerial Training

A great way to build upper body strength is what I am going to call aerial training. It is hard and frustrating in the beginning. I remember in high school wrestling I could climb the rope all day long, no legged, no legged with two ropes one hand on each rope, even upside down. Now with an extra 30 #'s of body weight put on it isn't as easy. It is time to make my muscles adapt to the new stress that is being introduced to them.

Starting with the obvious Rope there are a lot of different diameters but the smaller you go the harder it is. You need it to be at least 15' I am lucky and have a 30' rope. Climb Climb Climb. In the beginning you will use your feet to help push you up locking the rope in between them. Then you can build your way up to no legged. Learning to climb rope is like learning to do pull ups just keep going to failure and your body will respond to the stress.

Pull ups and dips help build your climbing strength. After I cannot climb anymore I move to a series of pull ups and dips to help push my limits a little more. If your up on your pull ups do muscle ups.

Your forearms and grip should come naturally just from all the new stress your muscles are dealing with but you can still hit them with traditional weighted workouts.

Once you get strong start climbing all kinds of things, rope ladders are fun and easy to build. You can add a rope at the top of your rope that goes to another tree and shimmy across or monkey bar your way over.

Ladders are fun on an angle monkey baring your way up. You can go to the park when its unoccupied and climb all kinds of slippery poles.

Trees are fun, there is no end to the amount of material that you can climb and how hard it will work your body.

The long Run

Todays planned workout 7k run with dogs down a long wet muddy road that transitions into hard dirt, soft dirt, and rocks for a while. During the run 4 sets of 25 reps pushups and situps wherever a dry spot can be found. And 4 sprints as long as you can handle. Its a long workout but our weather has finally broke and it will feel good to have the fresh air on my skin.

The worst part of the run is the rocky part of the road, probably about a half mile total it slows you down to a fast walk in some parts when your wearing anything on your feet besides boots, especially five fingers. The dogs don't seem to mind. Total time 45min, 30 degree day 20 mph winds with harder gusts and tons of huge deep ice puddles but the sun was out.

The Original Primal Workout

With all of the new buzz going around of the paleo lifestyle lets not get caught up in the glitz and glamour and examine what a true paleo workout was. There are tons of scenarios that our ancestors could have faced, fights, chasing one another or animals, swimming, climbing, jumping, traveling long distance, traveling long distance with a load, building structure, gathering fire wood, hunting and many more.

Lets discuss the last one a little more in detail, Hunting. I am a hunter out of passion and for sustenance. Now most hunters go walk down a trail and climb a ladder into a tree, sit, wait, shoot, and go get there truck or atv and drive up to the animal and haul it out. There are tons of hunters that do things differently, I do both. The paleo hunter most likely would have stalked most of the time. Not to ruin romanticism but a true hunter is also an opportunist taking what he can when he can, but for sake of arguement lets say our hunter is full and happy and is looking for big game to full his storage of life giving food.

On a hunt our hunter will most likely travel to an area known to hold animals (running, jogging, traveling). When he reaches his area he is going to slow down to make his presence as unknown as possible. Stalking through the landscape moving slowly holding his weapon is hard work ( air squat holds, slow lunges). If he is in an open area he might travel in between areas at a rapid pace (running) or he might climb rock or a tree to get a better vantage or even hang out in a good transition area in hopes game will travel by ( climbing, pull ups, dips). When his game comes we will say perfect clean kill, now the work begins. If its a deer it could be 100#'s plus which means one or more trips back to camp (heavy lifting, long distance travel with load). I have drug and carried many deer out of the woods by hand, through swamps knee deep in mud, under trees, over trees and your tired, sweating, your muscles are tired and sore, its a workout and a half a lot of times.

So lets go over what we have for a workout , running, jogging, long distance travel with our without loads, pull ups, dips, lunges, squats, heavy lifting which would include all kinds of different muscles in use. Thats how our bodies have developed over time to function. That should be the best way our bodies will respond to physical activity. Thats why if you want to get strong you lift heavy weights in small amounts of reps with lots of rest. Your body is responding to the demand and is growing to cope. Thats why p90x and workouts like it are successful in shedding fat and building muscle, because your body wants to be light and powerful to adapt to the stress it is encountering in the workout.

I will continue to post my thoughts, my workouts, my diets and my response to the massive amount of information that is now available to everybody on the internet, I hope you enjoy. Some of my favorite sites to read up on daily are marksdailyapple.com , sealfit.com , sealgrinderpt.com , cavemanpower.com , crossfit.com , movnat.com and dieselgym.com. Check them out.

MMA Style Workout

Got a good workout today with a close friend. The morning started off a little slow trying to wake up in the heat and humidity. We did a glove work two rounds of three minutes, which really gets the sweat pouring.

Practiced an arm bar for a few minutes then did a little circut for two rounds.

45 second intervals non stop of
sledge hammer hits
dead lifts
push ups
abs
curls
one arm snatches

Good Little Workout

The other day had a great workout. To beat the heat at high tide I took the dogs to a great bay beach, no house two spots where creeks meet the bay. It was a great three mile run in super soft and at least half of the run was calf to thigh deep water. The outfalls of the creeks needed to be swam and pushups and situps were done on nice sandy dry spots adding up to 150 and 150 reps. All and all a great workout.


Another quick run out back my house is a 1.5 mile stretch of train tracks. I run it as hard as I can, hitting certain spots doing situps, pushups, there is an old telephone pole doing cleans and presses. A large chunk of cement pick up and throw, and a pull up spot on a branch.


The reason these workouts are successful is because it incorporates everything rapidly. These workouts can be short or long but normally short 15-20 min. Its raising your metabolism and your metabolism stays up long after these workouts. Your hitting fast twitch and slow twitch muscles and making your muscles work together. Your using explosive movements and confusing your body it doesn't know what your going to do next. Doesn't that sound better than sitting on a bench in a gym waiting for someone to move out of your view of the mirror so you can do ten more reps.

Native Americans

The ancient Native American is a prime example of good health. They were part man, part animal, and part spirit. Meshing there lives with the earth and living closely to her. Eating the plants that grew wild and hunting the animals that roamed free. Healing there bodies with herbs and strengthening them with normally day to day living. The traveled long distances, moved impossibly slow contracting all there muscles then sprinting while hunting. They climbed, swam, jumped, and carried. There is numerous writings from the first Europeans about how healthy and strong the American Indian was. Running barefoot for 20-30 miles at a time with a load. Being shot in battle multiple times without flinching and dieing still in a sprint.


How do we get our bodies that way. I believe the Native Americans pre European man were close to the pinnacle of evolutionary fitness. So we need to learn from how the lived and mimic it in our modern day. Workouts need to be sporadic, incorporating the whole body. The body needs to be exposed to the elements and strengthen. The body needs to be nourished with whole foods that fuel it and feed it.



More on living like a wild man later.