Mobility Up A Mountain

Over the last year, I’ve been using an approach to health and fitness composed by the creator of Circular Strength Training™, Scott Sonnon. It is an approach that has the greatest degree of balance, moving thru many degree’s, that I’ve come across to date. It employs Joint Mobility, Prasara Yoga and Clubbells; to keep it simple. And Sonnon’s outlook truly takes in all aspects, not just the physical. In truth, this system goes to such depths that, as far as I can tell thus far, there is something in it for anyone, no matter where they’re at.To shed a little more light on the extent and effectiveness of this program, I’d like to share a story with my own experience using it.

As anyone that’s been following us here at Gym Jane can tell you, Chris and I hike out in the local mountains quite a bit. A little less in the last year, but 6 months prior to starting the blog and 6 months in to it, we were getting out just about every weekend. The hikes varied from 1hr (straight up) to 9 hrs. Up steep faces, thru the snow, in the rain, in the fog, in the hot sun, over rivers and sometimes a combination of all of these in a single hike. And during the first 6 months of Gym Jane, we were training pretty intensely, 4 days a week, working up to completing the “300″ test created by Gym Jones. And we trained very much in a style that encapsulated Gym Jones/CrossFit/Kettlebell Lifting. So to say the least, we were in pretty damn good shape.

Now something we’ve been doing every summer for the last 3 years is going for a hike up to Crown Mountain with our father-in-law Richard. Hike takes about 6 hours all together (usually because we hike most of it over snow). This summer was no exception. And this time we also brought Chris’s younger brother Kevin (14yrs) along with us.

This summer however, Chris and I didn’t have the benefit of the training we’d had the previous summer. Due to our schedules, we haven’t been able to train together. And for myself, I’ve been dealing and working thru a major back injury. It is actually what brought me to finding RMAX and delving into CST. As part of my rehabilitation, I’d been doing Intu-Flow, CST’s Joint Mobility system. Actually, because of the severity of my back injury, that was basically all I could do. Every day. Twice a day for the first 3 months (both sessions combined for no longer than 25 min). So by the time we got up on the mountain, I’d been doing it for about 5 months, with a bit of a few other things, but nothing that would come close to constituting “getting fit”. And Chris and I hadn’t been out for a hike in a while.

But while hiking, I found myself full of energy. I wasn’t out of breath, my legs weren’t burning, nor did I feel tired. If anything, I actually felt like I was “bounding up the mountain”. I kept feeling like taking off in a dead run…..up. But I held myself back, as I didn’t want to rub in, to my compatriots, that they were sort of struggling along and I felt like breaking out into a song and dance;). And I was feeling just as good, if not better, than the summer before, when I was in some wicked shape. As I kept going, I realized what was giving me all this energy, what had contributed to it. It wasn’t too hard, as Intu-Flow was really the only thing I’d been doing. And it wasn’t just the hike. My recovery was FAST! The next day, I felt it a little in the thighs. But then I also road my bike for an hour and a half. By the day after that, it was as if I’d never gone up.

We’re not talking about some “new, crazy, top performance” training program here. We’re talking about a 10-15 min a day joint mobility program that releases tension and helps you reclaim your full range of motion. The foundation of CST. And that’s just scratching the surface. So if all you’ve got is 10-15 mins a day to spare, no energy or chutzpah to get yourself going on a fitness program…..check it out.

You may find yourself up a mountain before too long.

s.

P.S. My 3 com padres all now practice a little joint mobility program themselves;)

The Lonely Road to Discipline

I have not been around here for a while. In fact, I have probably not written a post in the better part of a year, which is a sign of everything else in my life. Over the last few months I slowly but surely slid down the slope of discipline into the void of randomness.

Last summer I was in extremely good shape which was only a manifestation of the discipline that I had practiced. I could do anything that I wanted and I had great confidence in my abilities and this year I have had aches and pains and hardly any energy to play with the kids. The sharp contrast was all to obvious and heightened by the thought of having to start all over again by myself. While I was working out with Shane it was somewhat easier since I had someone to do the work with and most importantly, I had someone with whom to reflect.

This is where loneliness starts. Some people enjoy to have a lot of time on their own and in some cases it seems to burden them to have to spend too much time with others (if you are one of those, this post will make little sense for you! ).

This is were life has become isolating. It is not so bad once you get started but having to muster the focus to get started can be overwhelming. The fact is that in the end you are alone in this world. There might be people that love you and like to be with you, but you are still alone. Stuck in a small head, behind a pair of eyes and ears. You can absorb all you want but you have to decide how to process it all. Discipline for me is the ability to focus ones energy to the task at hand repeatedly and systematically while maintaining command of ones thoughts. It is infused with a certain purity of mind, heart, soul and body.

This is where the loneliness lives. I have had to face this demon again. I will have to reflect on my own. I will have to take charge once again. But only in this way will life really mean something.

ae

I thought I would share a quote that helped me in the first few days of starting again.

“Sharp must be thy sight and adamant thy soul, and brass-like thy feet, if thou wishest to be unshaken by the assaults of the selfish desires that whisper in men’s breasts.”
~ Bahá’u’lláh