Hotel Ultra Run: Some Run To Remember, Some Run To Forget

Your hand hovers over the button. You pause for a second. Then. Click. Your in, you've paid for it, you've entered an ultra run.

Why?

The first time you did it, you could rationalise it, someone asked you to do the event with them (thanks Dad!), but the second time you entered, it was your decision, no one asked you to do anything. So why?

And people ask you why, and you fumble around for an answer. If you look quickly out the corner of your eye, you can almost glimpse the answer, but then its gone.

Of course, the question wouldn't even arise if your hobby was playing Sunday football, or golf or fishing or running a 10k. But you're not. Ultra running is like mountaineering, everyone wants to know why. It seems outside the realm of everyday activity.

I can tell you up front, there is no answer. The answer is the act itself. Being in it and doing it. Living it. But the reason people sign up in the first place. Having said there is no answer, I'm going to give it a go, try to explain why people sign up in the first place. The first few explanations are quite prosaic, feel free to skip to the hurt locker moment section.

The athlete - the easy answer

This is the easiest reason. Someone is a really good athlete, maybe they run a marathon in 2.30, may be they've  run trails their whole life. Genetically gifted, they are in it to win. Though again it doesn't make sense why they've entered an event that has no cash prize, little chance of sponsorship and you can't make a living from. So even for this group the answer is not so clear cut.

Tough Of The Track Types

These guys are the seasoned runner. They've tried everything, every weekend you'll see them doing 10k and half marathons and all the big city marathons, they are most likely to be a member of a running club. They aren't necessarily the fastest, but they are dedicated. They've had enough of the carnival that is the big city marathon with tens of thousands of people crowding onto the roads, it's a logical extension of trying to run them all. They can be the most logical and prosaic of runners, its just another event to be done and overcome, like an exercise in geometry, another puzzle to be solved by training.


Interestingly this group also seems to be the ones who try an ultra run once, hate it, and never come back. They can become the 'never again types'. It could be because the training is somewhat solitary, and most clubs don't cater for it. But mostly, it seems they can't cope with the broken rhythm. Unlike, a flat road marathon, you can't switch off and get into your 'zone' and run. And there is a group of runners who hate this idea, the fact the trail makes you concentrate, the fact that some hills have to be walked. Tick the box, and do another one.


Souvenir Hunters - skip over this section to avoid getting angry

There a small group of people who do these things because it is the done thing. Something to talk about in the bar after a hard day of banking. I've heard stories of people turning up to the Marathon De Sables with no intention of doing it or even getting passed day 1, they get their photo taken at the start line and then abandon. Then during meetings they can tell clients 'oh yes, I've been to the MDS'. If I meet them, I will palm strike them or hit them with the wet kipper of reality. I hope this is a small minority, and they don't ruin it for everyone else. As they are taken up a space that a true runner could have had. Anyway, putting this group to one side, most people do it because of the hurt locker moment.

The Hurt Locker Moment



You're in the supermarket. The isles are full of stuff you don't want, you look around, everyone is on autopilot, like shopping drones, they're already dead. A small child is crying, a parent is scolding them or ignoring them and a couple is trying to have an argument without anyone hearing. Fuck, is this it, is this all life is going to be? You just had the 'hurt locker moment'. Named after the supermarket scene from the film.

Most people who enter ultra runs are not super athletes or even seasoned runners. They are the ones who came face to face with the hurt locker moment and acted upon it.

The hurt locker moment can strike at anytime during routine everyday activities. Maybe, you're sitting on the commuter train watching everyday as the newly built housing estates rush passed the window, and past the advert that says 'Feel like your wasting your life commuting' ( yes a real advert, oh, the irony, the commuters have to go past this advert everyday into London, attached to the outside of a new apartment block complex) maybe you're sitting in traffic, gridlock in the city, windscreen wipers and rain, maybe your sitting in your cubicle at work with people you have nothing in common with all around you. You get up, go to work, come home, watch TV that you have no interest in, until one day something breaks. It's the hurt locker moment.

Turn on the computer and search. Maybe it was an article you remember half reading, there's a spark of something you have to pursue. With the internet, something that was once hard to find, and diffuse and esoteric is now easy to find. These things are gaining in popularity, a reaction against the humdrum. Next thing you know, you're in the desert.

Because in modern life, there are no more frontiers, you can't head west, there is no unknown territory, you can't be an explorer anymore or go the the new world. There are no more discoveries in the most literal sense. But all these things can be experienced internally. Every individual has there own internal map, there are personal discoveries to be had, there are mental frontiers to be explored.

You want to find your limits, modern life doesn't let you, it protects you and cocoons you and wears you down in the most nefarious way. You want to turn the Blackberry off, and answer to no one. You want to simplify.

Run, Eat, Sleep, Run, Eat, Sleep repeat. Routine.

And be careful what you wish for. The trail will be break you down. And deep down you want it to. You don't tell anyone, but you want to find the limit, at what point will you break? The attrition is one way. There will be parts of you left on the trail, in the forest, in the desert that you will never get back. And you wouldn't have it any other way.

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms"

                          - Henry David Thoreau

Marathon Monks - missing the point - Siddhartha already tried this so you don't have to

If you don't know what the marathon monks of Mount Hiei do, then have a look at the video clip below. (The youtube link below this is much better and in depth, but that video can't be embedded here so you will have to click on the link to see it)



longer video on the marathon monks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S06oMxdt40A

You can take it too far. An exercise in flagellation. Some see it as some kind of atonement, they run because of something in there past to make amends, they want the pain to wash their sins away. It's an escape, like some French foreign legion moment, they want to forget. This is a flawed reason, in the words of Tony Soprano "There is no geographical solution to an emotional problem".

Or they think there will be some kind of spiritual awakening. If you watched the marathon monk videos above, you know the crazy things they do. 80km a day, every day for a 1000 days, wearing a pair of straw sandals, a crazy hat (only a matter of time before Raidlight make a version of this hat) and a lantern. In this Tendai sect of Buddhism, if the monk fails, he is meant to kill himself (it's a Japanese samurai culture thing). If he makes it through all this, he then gets to sit down for 9 days without food, water or sleep. I believe, it used to be longer, but too many of them died! Now with no disrespect to the monks they may have missed the point, this path does not guarantee any satori or break through. Siddhartha (Gautama Buddha, the Buddha, Shakyamuni Buddha - all the same person) already tried all this ascetic stuff on his road to enlightenment so you don't have to. He hung out with all the crazy ascetics, who sat in the middle of fires, and then starved themselves to the edge of death to look for meaning; and he realised it was a waste of time. He then pursued the middle way, of meditation.

Don't go looking for answers on the trail. People sometimes ask if you had any type of break through or spiritual experience on these type of extreme events, and the answer is no. If you switch off, or zone out, you will step on a pine cone, or fall down a hole or go the wrong way. So, in the way people ask you the answer is no. But in the purest Zen sense the answer is yes. Because, when you run, you are in the present moment, you must concentrate when trail running or you will fall over, there is no switching off. When you eat, just eat, when you wash up, just wash up, when you run, just run. Like a moving koan. And then the pain will kick in, you drop you sachet of energy drink and you're wondering where the aid station is; as it should be, the everyday concerns of making it through.

Average Joe

"because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"

                                                  - Jack Kerouac


Most people who enter ultra runs are 'normal', not superhuman, but there not average, because who wants to be average. In the marathon monk clip, one of the monks says

"When I was a salary-man, my life was passive"

This makes sense to me. Everyday life can seem disempowering, who's in control? Some boss you have no respect for? Ultra running is a chance to be active, to take responsibility, to do it on your own terms. To take a lead role in your own journey, because ultimately only you can wake up and make that decision, and do the training, and pack the rucksack and run the distance.

And on the trail, in the camp, you will meet like minded people, and the camaraderie, and living outside, stripping life down to the basics will connect you. You will never see most of them again, but you will remember them. Unspoken.

Because, whats the alternative, take up Sunday football or fishing, or sit at home watching formula one and decay? But everyone else does that, and you don't want to be like everyone else. Maybe it is an ego thing, but you want to be different and live life on the edges.

There is a moment just after you finish the race and just before the crashing come down of 'what do i do now?'. In between these two moments, there is a space, and in this space you feel invincible. And it may only last a millisecond, but for that moment you are bullet proof, anything is possible. And you might be walking down the high street, or you might be sitting in your car, or you might be at work, and that feeling will flash over you; and you'll smile to yourself, for a second you're invincible again, alive again; and average people are walking by and they will never understand. And that's okay, it doesn't make them bad people. And over time that feeling will happen less and less, and it will fade, and you'll know, you have to go back...

"And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage" - Pink Floyd.

 Yes, you need to go and listen to Pink Floyd 'Wish You Were Here' right now!


There is no other life 

Everyone has their own personal reasons for ultra running or taking part in any extreme event. Possibly, none of the above reasons apply to you. When someone asks you why do it, you might mutter something about the challenge and fitness. The real answer though is always more nebulous and hard to grasp, and you might not even be able to explain it to yourself. And there is no need to justify it to anyone else. All you need to know is this is what you do, this is how you define yourself. This is who you are.

WHY LOG TRUCK DRIVERS RISE
EARLIER THAN STUDENTS OF ZEN

In the high seat, before dawn dark,
Polished hubs gleam
And the shiny diesel stack
Warms and flutters
Up the Tyler Road grade
To the logging in Poorman creek.
Thirty miles of dust.

There is no other life.

-Gary Snyder 'Turtle Island'

Gary Snyder wrote this about loggers in the Pacific Northwest of the USA. I think you can apply it to the trail or running. Thirty miles of dust, there is no other life, what else are you going to do?

Once Upon A Time In Aquitaine. (The Greatest Ultra Run You've Never Heard Of Is Over)

The 7th Edition of La Trans Aq is over. And possibly this event will never run again, which will be a loss to the world of ultra running and multi stage events; as quite simply this is one of the most special races there is. I've been luckily enough to take part in and complete two Trans Aqs (that's 2 stars next to my name), some people have done all seven.

In some ways I don't want to tell you about this race, I want to keep it a secret. I don't want it to turn into the Marathon De Sables (MDS), where there's a two year waiting list and it cost several thousand dollars. But that's just selfishness on my part, maybe this race will never run again so all of this is a moot point. So I might as well let you know the secret.

But what is the trans aq, why is it so special, and where is it and how did it come about. To answer this I must start at the beginning.

Aquitaine

Aquitaine is in France

Aquitaine is in the Southwest corner of France, think Bordeaux, and that's where its at. The terrain is pine forests, beaches ocean, lakes and sand; and being in southwest France it can get warm.


What Is The Trans Aq

It is a 6 stage multi endurance event, about 220km in distance. There is one long stage on day 3, it was 58.4k this year, a night stage on day 4 when you run up and along the Dune Du Pyla (biggest dune in Europe) and then into the forest with just a head torch for company. The other stages all take place in the pine forest mostly, with some running on the beach and around the edge of lakes.

You carry your own food, with a drop bag of 3 kg at the end of the third stage which can contain whatever you want, but sensibly should contain your food for the next 3 days

But these are just the facts, this is not the story...

Once Upon A Time There Was A Runner Called Gerard

G�rard Caup�ne is the runners runner. To say he's been there and done that is an understatement. His achievements include 240 km solo without any assistance in the Sahara desert between Araouane and Timbuktu in 2003. 203 km in 24 Hours in 2002. 31st place at the "Marathon des Sables" in 1998. 100 km PB 8h53 at 24 years old.




With a mixture of Zen mind and French flair, almost mythical stories of him running on sand with trainers with specific holes cut in them to let the sand drain out, and of course, no socks.

Maybe, he saw the MDS and knew he could do a similar race in his region of Aquitaine, and try to avoid all the things about the MDS that he didn't like. Who knows.

He made his money from selling scalextric in France (strange but true), and had organised large scalextric racing events, world championships with specially constructed tracks. Combining his organising skill and knowledge of ultra running the Trans Aq was born.

He funded it himself with his own money. It wasn't about making money, he'd break even at best. The event is cheap in comparison to the MDS, racing the planet and even a 1 day ironman events. It was about the spirit of Raid running and the trail.

I don't know anything about organising races, but I think a multistage race must but the hardest type of race to organise, compared to say a 24 hour race where you run in a circle of even a long 100km run, where you only have to deal with marking out one course for one day. A 6 day run with all the trail markings, moving of camps, gaining permissions from various people to run across their land, medical support and aid stations and a million things I haven't even thought of must be a logistical nightmare.

But he did it, and people turned up to run for 7 years.


The Gestalt Race. The event that is greater than the sum of its parts.

So you're running in the forest in Franc. And in peoples mind this seems easy, but its not. As Gerard says, it doesn't have the romance of running in the desert. However, the challenge is the same, it is as tough in its own way because it sneaks up on you and leaves you shell shocked because you wasn't expecting it.

"The MDS has one day of sand dunes, trans aq every day is sand, it's like someone dropped a pine forest on top of a beach." - Welsh Arthur*, no.111, Team Alf Tupper

And the stages are designed to push you. The design is psychologically clever, Gerard will see how far he can take you, distance is almost irrelevant. You didn't come to the trans aq to run on cycle paths and roads did you? Just when you think your safe, you'll take a right turn and be on the dreaded rollercoasters of sand, up and down, up and down; but you wouldn't have it any other way. You'll learn a new language of classification for paths and from S0 (no sand) to S5 (soft sand everywhere), you'll spend 6 days looking at road books looking at S2, S3, oh no S2 has become S5 because of the dry spring.

Race briefing: No, the guys at the back haven't been doing some painting and decorating

But its not just the terrain, 'The map is not the ground.'


Corkscrews & Black Fly

The two volunteers have been standing in the forest for three hours being attacked by insects. The head torches bounce towards them like slow moving tracer. They get the bottles of water ready, offer to top your water holders ups, they notice that your English, shout go, go, go and your away.

The volunteers hold this race together. They volunteer their time and holidays to be part of this race. Always positive, always there for you, many have done this race and others like it, they know how you feel. Many have volunteered for all seven editions of this race, a honorary cork screw for every edition on their name badge. They set up camp, have the aid station ready, provide medical support, and in the case of the night stage, can end up on the go and awake for well over 24 hours.

There are only 10 or 11 English people on this race, and to my shame I don't speak French. However, you never feel excluded. Of course, some of the volunteers can speak fluent English as wells as German and many other languages. Even, when their is a language barrier, the communication of concern and support is obvious.

In everyday life you are faced with negative people on a daily basis. On this race though, everyone is positive, there is a 'you can do it' attitude from all the volunteers and participants. You have to take responsibility for yourself, this is France, health and safety culture hasn't taken over (imagine a ride on a Zodiac boat in England without a safety briefing,  no signing of a waiver and no one wearing a life jacket, in France your an adult - deal with it!). But the organisation of the race is spot on, with aid stations, control points, camp set up and start times.

One thing you can say about the French, they always look stylish. And Raidlight has no need to sponsor this race because everyone is using their gear anyway

If you did it, you did it

The first person in and the last person in get the same t-shirt, the same medal. If you did the distance, you did the distance, you finished it. Maybe you had your personal battle, a twisted ankle, a swollen knee, maybe you fell in a swamp. If you made it though, you know how that feels. You will get cheered across the line, bravo, you made it. In the banquet at the end, everyone goes up on stage and gets their t-shirt, medal, bottle of wine & resin pot (found scattered through the forest, used to collect resin from the trees a long time ago). Last person goes up on stage first. No cash prize. The spirit of raid running is here.

(Why you did it and how you did it are subjects for another article to follow soon!)

�Always watch where you are going. Otherwise, you may step on a piece of the Forest that was left out by mistake.�  - Winnie the Pooh

Breathing Out

And it will come to you in flashes and fragments like a dream you once had. The beach, the sand, running in the forest alone at night, blood, blisters, the guy who paced you up the beach, the wild boar crossing your path, Run Like Hell playing on a loop in your head, a glow-stick, in a zodiac boat crossing the bay; and then your back in the room.

Most of the wounds will heal. Right now, my right achilles is healing nicely, I change the dressing on a daily basis, and my left foot doesn't feel broken anymore! You're left with scars and memories.

Standing in a t-shirt that says 'finisher', stand back, the forest is darkening in the background as the sun falls. There is wine in your hand, and the ocean crashes but your can't see it from here, an Um Pa Pa band is playing. Remember the moment. Most of these people you will never see again. In the marquee laughter and conversation. Stand back and soak it in. It's already history.

And a long time from now, in conversation someone will ask and you will say 'I went to Bordeaux once, I went to Aquitaine once'.
'What were you doing there?'
'I was running in the Trans Aq'
'What was that like?'

There is no answer. Once I went to Aquitaine and ran with 140 other people. And if you weren't there I can't explain it. Once I was a runner.

Steve Collins** Team Alf Tupper

"There are other Annapurnas in the lives of men."[and women]

                                        -Maurice Herzog (first person to climb a 8000m peak - Annapurna)

Trans Aq J - 10

For the past month I haven't updated this blog as I've been busy running, training and preparing for the the trans aq 6 day ultra run in the Aquataine region of France.

The trans aq ultra run is just over a week away. Me and about 140 other people will be taking part. At this stage you can't get any fitter. All you can do is try and stay injury free and prepare yourself mentally.

Taken from the transaq.fr website:

 "On Psychological Preparation

This is word for word what Fabien Hobl�a says (French 24 hour racer) in the Ultrafondus magazine:

'without forcing things, I visualise the race. I live it by anticipation, in a dream, I make it something positive and something that I really want to do and do well. I build myself a positive impatience, integrating an acceptance that there may be some difficult conditions (note that I don't say "bad conditions") during the week end's race, especially as the weather forecast... etc.'

Everything's been said!"

It's not all sand, honest! It's forest and trail and beach and more

50 Rep Squats - They'll Make You A Believer! Endurance Athletes You Need To Do These Now

Recently I have been following Dan John's Mass Made Simple Program, available here.

Not so much to build mass but to maintain mass and strength while I up my running in preparation for an ultra run. The mass made simple program basically covers all your bases - upper body, lower body, strength, complexes and endurance reps - all in one workout.

The workout normally finishes with some high rep back squats with a barbell. This is after you've done all your upper body strength work and complexes.

I haven't tried high rep squats for a long time, not since I did the super squats 20 rep squats program, rest pause reps,  also favoured by DC Training, where you do (and I did) 20 reps with a 10 rep max weight, with some heavy breathing in-between every few reps after number 10.

Second most popular squat picture on the Internet

The squats can be in the 25-30 rep range, and today I did a set in the 50 rep range. That's right 50 reps in one go, after a couple of warm up sets.

This is the only weight training that comes close to the feeling you get running up a long hill on trail with a rucksack on, a hill that takes at least 45-60 seconds, and sometimes takes 5-10 minutes.

The high rep squats make you push into that same zone. Your legs are screaming, you are breathing hard, trying to recover, keep form and get some oxygen in. You fight through the fatigue and keep going. It has the same mental feeling as endurance hill running, where you have to push through the pain and your body's saying 'stop you idiot, just stop and sit down'.

Although the research for strength training for endurance athletes tends to focus on the lower rep ranges, less than 5, and Olympic lifts, and plyometrics, and also the standard 8-12 reps; I can't helps but feel that these high rep squats have the same mental training effect and the same fatigue effect. There must be some carry over in my opinion, even if its 'just' mental toughness.

Yes, low rep squats are still valid for all the usual reasons we should strength train. However, I would say these high reps must have some glycogen depletion effect, and possibly localised capillarization and increase mitochondria. And even if none of this is true, you should still do them, as nothing else quite gives you that ultrarun feeling of an elephant standing on your chest while your legs are both painful and numb at the same time.

Alli McKee squatting should make you a believer ladies

So give it a go, finish your workout with 2 x 25 reps of squats, and build from there, maybe 2 x 30, and then 1 x50. Start with just the Olympic bar, 20kg, or light kettlebell goblet squat., and increase the weight from there.

Also, for all you trainers and coaches out there. High reps squats are something you can get your female clients to do. If you ever tried to get a woman to do a set of squats that are at her 5 rep max, only to find that in reality they could 10 reps with that exact same weight, this is the method for you. Using just the bar means some women trainees will be lulled into a false sense of security, happily thinking they are in their 'toning range', then make them do 30-50 reps, and they'll realise that light weights with proper depth squats (parallel or below) are hard - psychologically and physically. Their legs will be somewhere between painful and numb, and their heart rate will be way beyond the normal 'I'm watching the cardio theatre range'. Once you get them hooked on squatting, you can increase the weight and lower the rep range.

Third most popular squat picture on the Internet: Pauline Nordin

Try it. High rep squats will make you a believer. And in my opinion, carry over into endurance training as well.

Club Swinging Essentials DVD - A Review

This is a review of the Club Swinging Essentials DVD featuring Brett Jones, Gray Cook and Dr Ed Thomas. I purchased this DVD from dragondoor.com

It looks like this

Cost and what you get for your money

The DVD costs $79.00. International delivery was not cheap and cost another $20 to ship to the UK. On the plus side Fed Ex delivered the DVD a mere 4 days after it was shipped from Dallas Texas, which is quick, on the minus side British customs charged me VAT on top! Which means delivery and VAT cost me almost as much as the product itself.


The DVD is approximately 1 hour and 27 minutes long and also comes with a 72 page colour spiral bound manual. The manual is particularly useful when you are teaching yourself the moves without the DVD in front of you, at the gym or in the garden. The manual covers many of the discussion points from the DVD, as well as photos of the movements, there are also some extra points about  functional movement screening and  historical material about clubs in the manual.

A small point, the word movment (sic) is spelt wrong on the front of the DVD cover, some proof reading may have helped here.


Content in brief

The DVD starts with an introduction discussion with Gray Cook, Brett Jones and the humble Indian Club Master Ed Thomas. It then moves on to Brett Jones discussing safety and grip, then the five movements are explained and demonstrated by Ed Thomas standing and then Gray Cook in tall kneeling and open half kneeling postures. After these five essential moves, three more advanced moves are demonstrated by Ed Thomas. We then move onto a demonstration of club swing by Ed Thomas and finally a discussion about the history of clubs, fitness and the philosophy of fitness.

You must grow a moustache before you start swinging clubs

Paradigm Shift

In the introductory section Gray Cook explains that he sees Indian Clubs as the upper body equivalent of the jump rope, expanding on his idea of self limiting exercise. Both skipping and club swinging demand technical proficiency, unlike running for example, which is easy to do badly with poor posture.

Ed Thomas then explains his background and where he learnt Indian Clubs, after his explanation of clubs as both a healing and martial tool, his time spent in Burma and elsewhere learning the clubs, and his self effacing attitude you are in no doubt that Dr Thomas is the real deal.

The idea of neural training is introduced and then Ed lists the three concepts that are needed to move well

1. Joint Integrity
2. Mobility
3. Efficiency

Dr Thomas them covers some more profound ground. Making the point that every time you do a movement you do it differently, you are a different person and

"every breath you take, you're a different person"

He then covers the concept of rational training, every movement you do either makes you better or worse off.

The dynamic between Gray Cook and Brett Jones is great, as it is on all the DVDs they have done together that I've seen, and Dr Thomas complements this nicely. At this point, you know you are getting much more than a list of Indian Club exercises or a fitness DVD. The fundamentals of exercise are being addressed.

It feels like you are watching the development of a paradigm shift in exercise, away from the mindless treadmill running and 'we must smash our clients into pieces because that's what they expect' attitude towards what Dr Thomas calls 'Mindful Movement'.

Having the brain and the body in the same place at the same time. This is very much in the martial arts tradition, as well as Yoga and Tai Chi Chuan schools.

It gets better, with Dr Thomas explaining that people need to learn to move, when they come to the gym we need to teach them something. People need to

"go to the gymnasium to learn to workout"

With this point I think he hits the nail on the head, this is something I've been trying to evolve towards in the way I coach people.

 Ed Thomas cover his training principles of progression, variety and precision.

Gray Cook adds that much of the exercise variety we have is for entertainment purposes, not for the purpose of exploring how our bodies can move and that the

"solution is not moving more, it's moving well."

For me, this introductory section alone is worth watching over and over again. I don't know if they script this stuff before hand, but the discussion and banter looks natural and spontaneous.

Safety section

Brett Jones then covers safety, just in case you don't know that swinging a club in you house might result in you breaking some stuff. He then goes through the grip, wrist position, elbow and neutral pelvis. This attention to the precision of movement wasn't covered on the power club course I recently attended (see review here).

The five movements

In the next section the five movements are covered, helpfully numbered 1,2,3,4,5. The complexity builds with each new movement.

First Dr Thomas demonstrates the movements in the classic standing posture. A posture I've seen used for classic military pressing and in the original Pilates exercises. Then Gray Cook demonstrates them in tall kneeling and open half kneeling.

Gray points out that these kneeling postures allow for a more reflexive stability, they mimic the developmental sequence (see Pavel Kolar & Vladimir Janda) and help to break bad patterns. They also allow the trainer to see mistakes more easily, as the lower body is taken out of the equation.

The movements are done with what Brett Jones describes as 'Tai Chi slowness' to begin with, and Ed Thomas breaks down the movements as well. Again the details matter. Dr Thomas then comes out with another gold nugget quote

"Do it well before you do it fast."

 There are five movements in total, done in three positions, so that's 15 movements, not counting having to do some with both arms

Gray Cook takes a back seat in this section as he demonstrates the kneeling moves and Brett Jones coaches and talks.

These movements are a lot more complex to learn that the powerclub moves. I personally wouldn't be confident to coach these moves without a lot more practice, as in hours and a few thousand reps! Whereas, powerclubs does have some complex moves, it also has some simple moves that can be coached immediately.

Advanced moves

After the five essential moves, three advanced moves are covered 1) Side stepping lunge 2) Deep knee bend and 3) Wrist Pattern.

It'll be a while before you attempt these moves, but it's worth watching this section for the discussion of the deep knee bend, as Gray Cook says

"people can't squat because they don't squat."

The presenters point out that these are the essential moves, there are an infinite number of patterns after this.

Bonus section - return to the source

Next is a section showing Ed Thomas swinging the clubs, so you can see what can be done. Then there is a discussion between Ed, Gray and Brett.

This is a really interesting section, Ed talks more about the history of clubs, the Turner gymnasiums that originated in Germany, the martial and restorative aspects of clubs and how they can be a weapon or healing device. Ed Thomas then covers off the ground training, and how this is essential as gravity is constantly moulding the human body, so we need to adopt uncommon postures (more on this can be found on the internet). But to give you an idea, we all used to climb ropes in school, I remember there being a ropes in the school gymnasium, but gradually they fell out of favour, no one knew how to teach it properly anymore, safety became an issue and they stopped being used.

One good reason to start rope climbing again!

The point about going to the gym to learn and not workout is re-iterated, you will get a workout in the process. This is a fundamental point that is worth repeating.

Gray Cook then attacks the bootcamp mentality, where everything has to be a full on balls to the wall (my words not his) workout, which is okay if you are 20 and fit but not if your 30 or 40 and overweight and sedentary. You should come out of your workout feeling better than when you started, and then occasionally you test your limits.

The clubs used in the video are only 1 pound (approx 0.5kg), Dr Thomas states that boxers always used lighter clubs, and wrestlers used heavier ones, this is situational correctness, does the club remain therapeutic and restorative, no one begins with a heavier club. Unlike Power clubs, where you start with a minimum of 2.5kg and are using weights in the 4-8kg range quite quickly. Ed Thomas finishes by demonstrating with some 8 pound clubs, which are considered light in the world of power clubs, but the movements are different.


Philosophy

Some fundamental questions are asked by Dr Thomas.
Why do we go to the gym?
What is the purpose?

These questions have got me thinking.

And Gray Cook inadvertently quotes British comedian Harry Hill 'You gotta have a system'! Yes you have.

Conclusion

As you can see from this review, the discussion of fitness, the philosophy and its antecedents interested me as much as the Indian club techniques.

I can recommend this DVD, though the best place to start with Gray Cook and Brett Jones would be Secrets Of The Shoulder or Secrets Of The Hip and Knee. I intend watching Kalos Sthenos next.

There is a definite difference between power clubs and the Indian clubs presented in this DVD. Ideally take the middle way, you can do both. The therapeutic Indian clubs and the more strength basic powerclubs.

If you are doing this at home, I would buy the Indian club DVD . If you are going to be personal training clients then do the powerclub course. I'm somewhat sad to say that the variety of power clubs holds more of an attraction for the average client and putting the time and effort in on a five key moves may be beyond most clients, and the power clubs have some technically easier moves. But you don't have to be that guy or gal! You can teach your clients and they can get a workout as part of the process.

Personally I'm going to use the lighter Indian clubs, and the power clubs, and kettlebells, and Olympic bars, and dumbbells, and bands, and run etc etc etc....................

A Review Of The Premier Training Power Club Course

This a review of the one day power club course that Premier Global (Premier Training International) offer here in the UK. I took part in this course a couple of weeks ago.

I was looking for a course to learn more about club training (Indian clubs, power clubs etc), this course was the only one I could find in the UK. It is a one day course, that is REPs accredited with 4 CPD points (for what it's worth, the pointlessness of REPs points is a discussion for another day).

A picture of some power clubs aka clubbells - just in case you were wondering what they look like

Cost

The course costs �129, for this you get a one day workshop and an e-manual sent to you.

The manual covers all the major exercises, brief history of club training, the various grips and positions, and a table given suggested club weights for men and women of different strength levels. The manual is 65 pages long, I would recommend printing it out if you have access to a printer, as it's easier to read and flick back and forward with a printed version.

Venue

The course I did was held at Premiers venue in North London. Having a dedicated venue makes a difference. So many courses I've attended are held at health clubs, where you end up having to wait for the studio to be free, or sitting in a store cupboard because someone forgot to book the room out. The Premier training venue has dedicated classrooms with projectors and PowerPoint, as well as a gym and studio space. This gives it a more professional feel than some other training providers.

Content

The course was presented by a guy who looked like Rudy Reyes from Generation Kill. It also turned out that he was a part time fitness model, who had recently taken part in a feature on power clubs in Mens Fitness. This immediately made all the women on the course start swooning and made me want to hit him with a power club. But just like Rudy Reyes he was a nice guy, so it was difficult to hate him!

Rudy Reyes from Generation Kill - as far as I am aware he doesn't teach power clubs

An aside

There were only a small number of people on the course I took part in. The course teacher recognised one of the women as having done the premier personal training diploma a couple of years before, and said it was good to see that someone was still working in the industry. This is a sad indictment on our industry, that someone who runs fitness courses' is surprised to find someone still  working in the industry a few years later.


Back to the course

We started with a brief history of club training and looked at some videos of club training like the one below featuring the premier trainer Ben McDonald who developed their power club course. But as the Rudy Reyes lookalike pointed out, we weren't here for a history lesson but to learn some power club exercises!



In the studio, we covered all the power club exercises in the manual and more. Rudy Reyes doppelganger was a good easy going teacher with two caveats.

I would like to have seen some more coaching on our technique. Seeing as there were only five of us present, there could been a lot more coaching, and he really could have been a stickler for precision and hand and elbow position. Since attending the course I have watched Indian Club Essentials with Gray Cook, Brett Jones and Ed Thomas (which I will review in a few days time) and they covered some key points on hand and wrist position which didn't happen on the power club course. Heavy power clubs and Indian clubs are used in slightly different ways, but the wrist and hand position is crucial to both.

There is  always a danger with one day workshops, that anyone can do them, and you can't fail them. So you could have the worst technique in the world, and no one is going to fail you, a few days later you can be out there teaching power clubs to people even if you can't do it yourself. Of course, I'm not saying I'm perfect and I would have liked a bit more coaching on my technique, but my background with kettlebells and Olympic lifting gives me some ideas of how to move.

We covered more exercises than were in the manual, which in some ways is a good thing, as it gives a whole host of movements to go away with. The disadvantage of this is we didn't really spend too long on any one movement. Possibly doing less and trying to perfect fewer moves would have been more advantageous. This is a trade off, everyone want variety for their clients, but too much, and the movements become confused and merge. Quality movement and doing less until these are perfected is the direction I'm going in, the details matter with these type of dynamic circular movements.

Another aside

Lunch break, one of the women in the course was standing outside smoking a cigarette, classic fitness industry.

Back to the course

We covered quite a few hybrid movements. Though the instructor said we were doing complexes, I would disagree and say if one rep flows into the rep of the next movement you are doing a hybrid, whereas with a complex you would do all the reps of one exercise before starting the next exercise. For example, if you do a front squat straight into a torch press, straight into a flag press then you are doing a hybrid, if you did 5 front squats followed by 5 torch presses then you did a complex. This a minor point, and I don't want to get hung up on definitions, and it didn't spoil my enjoyment of the course. And the hybrids/ complexes we did were mostly good.

To his credit the instructor stated that power clubs were an adjunct to other training, you still need to do your squats, deadlifts and strength training. Also, in a classic moment one of the participants asked the Rudy Reyes lookalike instructor what he thought of the ViPR, he replied 'I think it's a piece of plastic with two handles in it!', which echoes my own views to be found here.

We finished  two hours early, maybe because there were so few of us. However, as I had paid �129, a bit more content could have been put in. Possibly, us having to design a power club circuit and be observed coaching the other participants of the course.

Do I need to go on the course or could I teach myself power clubs from the internet?

Most of the information covered is available on the internet. The Mens Fitness article that our instructor took part in, covers many of the exercises. And the guy who developed the course appears in a whole series of youtube videos demonstrating many of the exercises. So yes, you could teach yourself.

However, there is something different about having someone demonstrate the exercises for you and talk you through them. I think this can help you get a better feel for some of the movements. Having an instructor breaking down the moves and seeing them from different angles does help. Its always good to see how other people coach and teach, and interesting to see other people who work in the industry.This can either make you feel good about yourself or despair for the future of mankind.

If you don't work in the fitness industry and you don't need a certificate to say you're competent to teach other people then you could teach yourself.

Nice touch

The clubs we used on the course were the clubbells made by Wolverson and developed in conjunction with premier. Doing the course entitles you to a 15% discount on any order of these clubbells. I purchased a pair of 2.5kg, 4.5kg and 6kg, and so far have been impressed with their quality.

Final thoughts

I enjoyed the course. �129 for a day course is a reasonable price, there was enough content to justify this. An actual printed manual would have been better than an electronic one, and a bit more coaching of our technique would have added to the content. If you want to learn power clubs to teach the public this course is a good starting point.

Since taking part in the course I have been using my power clubs personally and with a couple of clients. And the exercises I learned on the course are great for the forearms, grip strength, shoulder mobility and strength; and the circular movements feel natural and a good departure from linear training.

Look out for my review of Indian Club Swinging Essentials DVD in the next few days. Which resource will come out as the winner, the power club course or the Indian club DVD?

In the mean time stay frosty!

Vanishing Point. Zen And The Art Of Training

"Vanishing- point: the point at which receding parallel lines viewed in perspective appear to meet: the stage of complete disappearance."

           - The Oxford Reference Dictionary

Vanishing Point: Make sure you watch the original 1971 film

 
Typical Gym Conversations


Typical gym conversation no.8

Member: I'd like to book in to get a new program written
Instructor: (Places coffee cup down) Ok, when did you last have a new program?
Member: 4 weeks ago
Instructor: I see (skepticism now kicks in), can I have a look at the program
Member: Sure, here it is
Instructor: This program card looks pristine, have you actually done this program?
Member: Yeah, at least 3 times
Instructor: And what's this, all these other program cards stapled to it. You've got a program from every trainer here. And they are all untouched! Dammit, you're a program whore! You're looking for the magic bullet. Stop wasting my time and get out! (or more realistically, okay, you're a paying member, so I'll write another program you'll never do and a little piece of my soul will die and my bitterness levels will rise another notch).


Typical conversation no.9

Member: I think I need a program update
Instructor: (carefully places his protein shake down) Ok, how long have you been doing the old one?
Member: 2 years, but I'm not getting any results
Instructor: 2 years and no results, wow, that's a long time with no return for your investment
Member: I know, and I train every week, a minimum of three times a week
Instructor: Ok, lets have a look at what you are doing..... so by how much have you increased the weights you are lifting, the time you run for, the speed you run?
Member: Oh, I haven't changed anything, I do exactly what the instructor wrote, I lift the same weights, do the same amount of cardio at the same level and at the same speed. I thought it would be unsafe to increase without someone telling me how.
Instructor: Listen to your body! Train with intuition and most importantly you need some progression. Your body will never have to adapt if you never increase the load or the stimulus. I bet you do cardio while reading a book or watching This Morning. You're making me look bad!

Typical conversation no.12

Member: I haven't trained for 6 weeks because I was ill, what should I do? I need a new program
Instructor: Just do what you were doing before, but lower the weights, times and sets. Take it easy and see how you feel.
Member: I'm not sure how to do that
Instructor: Listen to your body, feel your way back into it. What weight were you lifting before? How far were you running.
Member: Lets see, before I was ill I did a couple of runs, but before that I was on holiday for 2 weeks, I managed to get one gym sessions during that time. But before that I was really busy with work, so only made it to the gym twice that month, and I tried running outside but it hurt after 10 minutes so I stopped.
Instructor: You've got no consistency. Do the basics consistently. It doesn't have to be complicated, a simple program you will follow is the best. Without training on a regular basis you won't have any feel for what works or what your body is trying to tell you.

Simplicity, Consistency, Intensity.

Variations of the above conversations happen in nearly every gym every week.  I've come to the conclusion that most training programs should follow three basic concepts, simplicity, consistency and intensity. If you follow these principles you will get results. I'm going to give you examples of world class runners, weightlifters and martial artists who follow these principles with great success. If they can, so can you and your clients.

And its not all the fault of the gym members, yes some are lazy and don't want to be there but others are just confused by the shear amount of information and disinformation and don't know what to do for the best. Trainers and instructors have written them programs, but no one has shown them how to train properly.

The three pillars of training:

Simplicity: The program doesn't have to be complicated, but it has to be effective and work. In the first example above, the member was looking for the golden fleece of programs. Trainers can end up writing more and more complicated programs to appease the clients boredom and frustration, none of which work because the basics haven't been mastered. As we will see, some of the best Olympic Lifters and Power lifters of all time follow deceptively simple programs. And constant program switching also means no consistency.

Consistency: Mastery of something involves repetition. Without consistency there is no training effect. As we will see below the Kenyan distance runners are the masters of this. In the conversations above, the last member had no consistency, constant breaks from training and interruptions means your body doesn't have a clear run at it. You will never progress because you don't know where you're at.

Intensity: In the middle conversation above the gym goer had consistency, they trained regularly every week. But there was no intensity, they were going through the motions. If you don't stress your body in some way, it will not have to adapt.

The foundation

Before moving onto examples of the three pillars. There is a key element that has to be in place for these principles to work. Without this foundation the pillars will fall down.

In the book Kurikara: The Sword and the Serpent, the author quotes Miyamoto Musashi, the famous Japanese sword fighter:

Discern the advantages and disadvantages of all things

Discover through yourself those things that cannot be seen

Take care even with small matters

Do not do useless things

and explains

Even though the goal is desirelessness, if you do not find a genuine love for this art, leave it well alone      

 - John Maki Evans

In short, before you do anything you need to want to do it. If you want to run an ultramarathon or enter a powerlifting competition, do it because you really want to do it, not because you think others will look up to you or respect you more for doing it. The passion and excitement must be there in the first place, to help fire you through the darker times when you wonder why the hell you're doing this thing in the first place. Conversely, if you hate going to the gym, stop blaming everyone else and making excuses, just stop going and find something else to do, something you actually want to do. Life's too short to waste time.

There is surely nothing other than the single purpose of the present moment. A man's whole life is a succession of moment after moment. If one fully understands the present moment, there will be nothing else to do, and nothing else to pursue. Live being true to the single purpose of the moment

         - Hagakure, The Book of the Samurai

Or to put it another way, how many summers you got left, how many good summers? If time is limited, focus on the things you want to do, simplicity, consistency and intensity require you to first be in the moment doing what you want to do. Of course, this is easy doing something you love. I can't make it any clearer than this.

Time is a funny thing. Time is a very peculiar item. You see when you're young, you're a kid, you got time, you got nothing but time. Throw away a couple of years, a couple of years there... it doesn't matter. You know. The older you get you say, "Jesus, how much I got? I got thirty-five summers left." Think about it. Thirty-five summers.                                                          

- Tom Waits in the film Rumblefish

Tom Waits as Benny in the film Rumblefish. How many summers you got left? How many good summers?

Simplicity

Training programs don't have to be complicated but they do have to work. The average gym bunny does more exercises than an Olympic athlete, but it doesn't make them any fitter. The equipment options are vast now, weights, dumbbells, kettlebells, bands, swiss balls, bosus, cables, vibrating platforms and a million fly by night fads. And personal trainers sometimes try to combine all these equipment options into one workout, utilising sagittal, frontal and transverse movements in 20 exercises variations per workout.

Compare this to the average Olympic Lifter, who does the following:

1. Clean
2. Snatch
3. Jerk
4. Front Squat
5. Back Squat

Yes, some of these are technical movements, and they may do some power variations of the lifts and some pulls and presses. But this amounts to about 10 exercises in total, forever!! And the better a lifter gets, the more they focus exclusively on the lifts.

Simplicity in weightlifting

Check out the training programs that Glenn Pendlay gives his Olympic lifters and American Football Players at California Strength. There is rarely more than five exercises in a session. This simplicity allows for the other elements to shine, they can focus on coaching and a fantastic training environment.

In the book The Purposeful Primitive Marty Gallagher outlines the training programs of some of the greatest strength athletes in history.

For example, Bob Bednarski was an American lifter who clean and jerked 486 pounds (220kg!) back in 1968. His training program consisted of the following after warm up sets:

Monday: Clean & Press 3reps x 5sets

Tuesday Snatch 3reps x 5sets

Wednesday: Squat 3reps x 2 sets

Thursday: Clean & Jerk 1 rep x 5sets

Friday: Rest

Saturday: total on 2-3 lifts, work up to max single in 2 or 3 lifts

Sunday: Squat  3reps x 2 sets

Simple as that. Everyday concentrating on one lift. Chemical assistance aside, this guy managed to put 220kg over his head at a bodyweight of 110kg following this program.

And Ed Coan, the greatest power lifter of all time also followed a simple approach, get as a strong as possible in the off season in the bench, deadlift and squat wearing no lifting gear, not even a belt; and crucially never missing a lift in training. He then basically followed a 5 day split program of legs, chest, shoulders, back, light chest & arms. No crazy exercises, the same rep ranges everyone else uses in the gym and progressive incremental increases in resistance. The guy deadlifted 901 pounds at a bodyweight of 219 and squatted below parallel 1003 pounds (455kg) at a bodyweight of 241 pounds! (if you want to know more, go and buy the book The Purposeful Primitive).

In weightlifting you can basically do push movements, pull movements in the upper body, knee dominant & hip dominant movements in the lower body. Pick a few of these and get better at them, and get stronger.

Simplicity in running

The Kenyans are pretty good at distance running. So what do they do differently to everyone else. In his book More Fire: How to Run the Kenyan Way Toby Tanser outlines several of their training programs.

Kenyans generally don't use heart rate monitors or fancy gear, they generally don't record their weekly mileage though most of the marathon runners are hitting over 100 miles per week.

So what do they do? Firstly

"run to improve running." (Tanser, 2008:282)

Couldn't get more simple than that! Tanser also states that Kenyans get a training program and stick to it. If its a 12 week program they follow it exactly, and do exactly what the coach says. The book More Fire outlines the training programs of a whole host of runners from 800 metres up to the marathon. Below is a typical program. Felix Kipchoge Limo has a personal best of 2.06.14 for the marathon:

Monday

AM 60 mins easy running

PM As above

Tuesday

AM Fartlek, not less than 15k of 3 mins hard, 1 min easy*

PM Easy running, distance does not matter

Wednesday same as Monday

Thursday

AM Long run, 38k, start program at 30k and work up

PM Rest

Friday Same as Monday

Saturday

AM Either 1 min easy 1 min hard for 15k or 2 mins hard 1 min easy for 15k

Sunday Rest

* Can be hill work or speed session 15 x 1000m

(Taken from Tanser, 2008: 229)

Running programs can really only have 4 elements

1. A long steady run (slow run)
2. A run where you go fast and then slow and recover (interval, fartlek)
3. A hill run (can be slow or fast, short or long)
4. A fast run (tempo runs, or where you try to run as fast as possible for a set distance)

That's it. The distance you are training for will determine the length of these runs, the number of intervals you do and how fast you run relative to your maximum speed. But that is all there is, all training is effectively a combination of these elements. Simple.


Consistency

Throughout your life advance daily, becoming more skillful than yesterday, more skillful than today. This is never-ending.

           - Hagakure, The Book of the Samurai

To get good at anything requires repetition.

"This is stressed in maxims like 'ten thousand hours achieve the goal' or 'a hundred thousand swings bring mastery'. Yet other factors must be taken into account if repetition is to bring success." (Evans, 2010:1)

This means be wary of going through the motions. You must fully engage in the repetitions and the moment. Sometimes you must battle for fatigue, and this can involve attempts to 'switch off' but this is only possible if you are completely confident in your technique and form. Mindless repetitions are no use.

See the video below of John Maki Evans training in Japan, learning the art of the sword. At the start of the video he states that he trains 30 hours a week, and the art of the sword takes 30 years to master. Now, not everyone is going to go and live in a temple in Japan or stand under a freezing waterfall in the snow (7 mins into the video), but that sure is dedication.

It is a hard concept to grasp for the western mind that after 2 or 3 years of training, one of your teachers would consider that you really hadn't made any progress but that is what one of his teachers says at about 8mins30secs into the video. Training for over 10 years in Japan for 30 hours a week certainly is consistency. We live in a world where people are considered experts and masters after a weekend course. Where exams are designed to make sure no one fails, where quality has been subsumed by quantity and the 'I want it now' attitude.




Of course, training 30 hours a week and living in Japan may not be feasible if you have a full time job, a family and other commitments. But you can certainly take elements of this approach and apply it to your own training. Dedication. You take what fits into the time and place you live.

It is said that what is called the 'spirit of an age' is something to which one cannot return. Although one would like to change today's world back to the spirit of one hundred years or more ago, it cannot be done. Thus it is important to make the best out of every generation. This is the mistake of people who are attached to past generations. They have no understanding of this point. On the other hand, people who only know the disposition of the present day and dislike the ways of the past are too lax.

          -Hagakure, The Book of the Samurai

This applies to weight training as much as anything else.

Consistency in running

As noted above to get better at running, you need to run more. The average beginner or runner doesn't run enough to get better (I include myself in that). Matt Fitzgerald outlines this in his book Run The Mind Body Method Of Running By Feel.

"Most runners run less than they could and would run better if they ran more, but they prefer not to run more." (Fitzgerald, 2010;64)

In essence they like running, but they don't like it that much. And in the real world, you can only run so much when you have to go to work etc and are not a full time athlete. And for the average person, the increase in performance is not worth the effort. As Fitzgerald point out, very few elite marathon runners run less than 100 miles per week. For distance running, getting your mileage up above 70 miles a week means you are going to have to run twice a day.

Consistency also requires volume. You may consistently run for 30 mins once a week, but you are never going to get any better doing that. And if you're happy with that, it's fine. If, however, you want to improve you need to do more, but in the right way. Below is the training program for Deena Kastor when she prepared for the 2004 Olympic Marathon, she got a bronze medal.

Day           First Workout               Second Workout    Third Workout

Mon          12  miles easy               30-60 mins easy

Tues          6-8x 1 mile                   30-60 mins easy      Strength & Plyo

Wed          2 hr run                        30-60 mins easy      Strength & Plyo

Thur          12 x 600m                    30-60 mins easy      Strength & Plyo

Fri             Easy Run                      30-60 mins easy

Sat            8-10 mile tempo run      30-60 mins easy

Sun            long run 2- 2.75hours

Source: Fitzgerald (2010;69)                       

Note the other key thing here is repetition. Doing the same runs and the same workouts over and over again. Both Fitzgerald and Tanser point to this as another reason for the Kenyans success, they do the same training runs, run the same hill, over and over again. This gives you a standard against to measure yourself, if you keep running random distances on all different courses, you will never know if you got any better. And your body doesn't have time to figure out how to cope with a distance, how to pace itself. Try and be consistent with your intervals and hill training, this way you will see if you are making progress. Take you time building up volume, getting to the point of running 70 miles a week takes time. Be patient.

Repetition obviously applies to weight training. If you follow a program for only 6 weeks, and this program has legs only once a week, and you do a standard 3x10 with squats; this means at the end of 6 weeks you would have only done 180 repetitions of squats. If you then replace squats with something else, you really haven't done anywhere near enough repetitions to even be competent at squatting. Let alone thinking about increasing your weights and intensity with the squats. Pick something and do it consistently.

Intensity

To practice Zen or the martial arts, you must live intensely, wholeheartedly, without reserve - as if you might die in the next instant.

        Taisen Deshimaru - The Zen Way to the Martial Arts

This is easier said than done. Living intensely while you are standing in the queue for the supermarket or waiting for the commuter train to arrive is a hard thing to do. However, you can apply this to training.

Make every repetition count, make every step perfect. This doesn't mean you should finish every training session exhausted, in fact the opposite. You should try to concentrate and be in the moment and feel vitalised.

Now, sometimes intensity does mean you need to go for it. You need to try and lift a heavier weight than last time, you should push to run faster or further.

The Kenyans are the masters of the improvised intense session. They may start with their planned intervals and if they are feeling good, just keep going and going until exhaustion. Spontaneity is important in training, if you are feeling good, then use that energy.

Intensity in running

Hill training is intense. In the training program used by Felix Limo mentioned above he would sometimes replace his fartlek training for hill training, after a 30 minute warm up he would then run up and down a 200m hill for the next 1.5 hours! The famous Kenyan runner Moses Tanui, another guy who can run a 2.06 marathon will often run the infamous 20k hill in the Eldrot region of Kenya that starts at 1300m altitude and climbs to 2700m, he does this in 1hr 30mins! As he says, if you run this hill, you will never fear another hill.

Intensity is about picking something you're not sure you can do. Running through the fear. Try and clean and jerk that weight that you're frightened to pick up over head. We can't all train like we're at the Kenyan Armed Forces Marathon training camp, but you can apply intensity whenever you need to push past barriers in your own training.

Intensity with weights

Donny Shankle, American weightlifter, advocates going maximum every day. Ripping that weight off the floor. He states that a master is somone who lives without fear. You must fear that heavy weight, and overcome it.

Beyond intense

Ray Zahab was one of three guys to run the entire Sahara desert, 4300miles over 111 days without a day off. By his own admission Ray was just a regular dude who decided to start to run. In the documentary film about the run, Ray says

Any limitations we have, we set upon ourselves. If you think you can only run 5-10k, you will only run 5-10k. It's where we set these boundaries.

Vanishing Point Redux

Existing where there is nothing is the meaning of the phrase 'Form is emptiness'. That all things are provided for by nothingness is the meaning of the phrase, 'Emptiness is form'. One should not think that these are two separate things.

         Hagakure, The Book of the Samurai

Somewhere in France: It's the same distance back as it is forward. Run to the vanishing point and then keep going until you disappear

Head for the horizon. Run for the vanishing point. In the midst of  the repetition and the intensity, go beyond the vanishing point, until you disappear. Until there is no you, there is no training, it just is.



References

John Maki Evans(2010) Kurikara, The Sword and the Serpent, Blue Snake Books
Marty Gallagher(2008) The Purposeful Primitive, Dragondoor
Taisen Deshimaru(1982) The Zen Way to the Martial Arts, Compass
Matt Fitzgerald (2010) Run, The Mind Body Method of Running by Feel, Velo Press
Yamamoto Tsunetomo Hagakure The Book of the Samuria translated by William Scott Wilson
Toby Tanser (2008) More Fire, How to Run the Kenyan Way, Westholme