Why do I train

I have been exercising for as long as I can remember.  I have a picture from when I must've been about 3 or 4 years old with my old(er) sister next to me doing situps.  That was just the beginning.  I remember my parents having a weight set in the basement of our house growing up and I was lifting weights when I was about 12 years old.  I've always been fascinated with exercise, fitness, and movement.  Probably because I am so ADHD that I simply HAD to move.  When I got to Jr. high school and high school, I lived in the weight room.  I generally didn't know what the heck I was doing and the extent of strength coaching in those days was for your head football coach to tell you to simply hit the squats and bench press.

The point is that I love exercise.  I've been told that I can be a little narrow minded with exercise and that it's too much a part of my life.  I've been told that I should cut back on it and invest my time into other things to make me more well rounded.  I'm sorry, that's not me.  Don't get me wrong, I should learn more about how the economy effects my 401k.  I should learn more about how to fully utilize my new MacBook (I have no idea what to do with this thing).  Maybe I should learn more about the Muslim religion.

In all of my training and exercise, I have suffered a torn labrum, tendonitis in my biceps tendon, bulging disc in my lower back, numerous strained muscles and sprained joints, and pain in my knee that I never really did find out what it was.  So why do I do this, other than to still look great for my wonderful wife?  Because I can.  Not sure if you heard me...BECAUSE I CAN!  Our bodies were designed to move.  They weren't designed to sit in a chair all day and then come home and plop down in front of the TV and just sit some more.  They weren't designed that way.  We are designed to move.  We are designed for participation in activities.  The cavemen didn't sit around waiting for food to come to them, they went out and got it.  Native Americans didn't sit around and wait for food to plant themselves, the planted it.  The Spartans didn't sit back and let their land defend itself, they worked their assess off and fought for it. Why am I so active?  Because I can be.  And you know what, there are a lot of people out there that can't be active due to physical and mental handicaps.  I thank God every single day that I am able to be active and I am able to exercise.  It is not something I will ever take for granted.  It is something I will offer up as a prayer to God every time I workout.  He deserves that because I am so grateful for the ability to move, play, exercise, run, lift, and be active.

Because I can.  That is why I do what I do.  I will never quit.  Maybe I will find some time to be more of a rounded out individual at some point and maybe I will learn what the hell influences my 401k.  But until then, I will continue to move.  I will continue to play.  And I will continue to be grateful every single day that I am able to be that way.

What Professional Wrestling Has Taught Me

Growing up I was a huge fan of WWF wrestling.  I remember my dad taking me to see Wrestlemania II on Closed Circuit TV (this was before pay per view) broadcast at the Palmer Auditorium in Davenport.  I loved the WWF, AWA, and NWA organizations all equally.  Back in those days, professional wrestling told a story.  Each individual match was either a chapter in a story or an entire story within itself.  There was an introduction, where the wrestlers gave a promo where they talked about how much they hated their opponent and what they were going to do to them.  Then there were chapters written in the ring or wherever else they might fight.  Some matches would take a while, some would be quick, some involved outside interference, but they all told a story if you really watched.  Then there was a conclusion that either consisted of another promo after their match or one of wrestlers would simply move on to another feud.

In fitness, there is a similar story.  There is an introduction, chapters to the story, and a conclusion.  The introduction usually consists of your motivation to start exercise.  It could be to lose weight, to increase your performance, to look better naked, whatever.  Similar to the wrestling promo, this is where you identify what it is you are fighting.

Then the story begins.  Whether it's at the gym, park, bike path, pool, or field, you start your fitness regimen.  But just like in wrestling where two wrestlers can't just jump into a ring and expect to have a great match with no planning, you must have a plan, a script so to speak.  Whether it's your periodization cycle, a workout log, or simply just mapping out what parts of the body you want to focus on, you must have a plan.  If you don't, you will wind up wondering through your workouts with no success.  This is the fight.  Wrestlers plan out there fights.  Sure, some of it can be improvised but for the most part the moves are planned so that the wrestlers don't kill themselves.  And if you don't plan your workouts correctly, you too will risk the possibility of hurting yourself.

Next comes the conclusion, the finale.  In wrestling it's when the wrestler hits his finishing move or cuts a great promo after the match is over.  Then he moves onto another feud.  In fitness it's the goal you are training for.  Whether it's a 5k race, a triathlon, Warrior Dash, trying out for a team, whatever.  That's your conclusion.  You have to have a goal.  Just like every wrestling match has a purpose, so must your fitness routines.  If you don't have a specific goal in mind or an end result you are training for, you have no way of knowing how successful you are in your efforts.  And once you complete your feud, you will move on to the next opponent.  One goal has been met, another goal will be set.

So go out this weekend and tap into your inner Macho Man Randy Savage (RIP) or team up with your own version of The Four Horsemen and write your own story.  I know I will be at my bootcamp on Saturday.

Guerrilla Bootcamp recap

In my shameless effort of plugging my business venture, I felt it might be appropriate to give you an idea of what exactly we have been doing at Guerrilla Bootcamp.

Week 1:  We showed up at The Great Lawn in downtown Louisville.  If you've never been here, it's a great big giant open area located right on the Ohio River.  We had good attendance especially considering it was my first week.  Granted it was mostly my coworkers at SHPS but hey, you have to have start somewhere.  I brought my big tractor tire and needless to say my guerrillas were a little worried at what that had in store for them.  We started with basic instruction on squat and pushup technique.  This is something we always do at the beginning.  I think this is something that sets me apart from others, my attention to detail with exercise form and mobility.  We did 4 rounds of 20 squats, 10 pushups, and 30 yard sprints.  Then we did 4 rounds of 10 burpees and 10 toe touches on the tire.  Then came a little friendly competition where it was guys vs. girls on the tire flip.  There were twice as many girls as guys so I figured it would be fair.  The guys still won by a full minute.  All in all I think it was a very successful week and we had a lot of fun.

Week 2:  My guerrillas attacked my favorite spot in all of Louisville.  Dog Hill at Cherokee Park is LEGENDARY!  I had a few different faces show up this week which was great.  We started with a warm up of 3 rounds of 10 squats, 5 pushups, 10 shoulder press with PVC pipe.  We then took advantage of some small steps and did some bounding up the steps both double leg and single leg.  Then it was off to the hill...THE HILL.  Now I'm not sure if you've ever seen this hill but it's about 400 meters in length and I have no idea what the incline is but I'm pretty sure "steep as hell" serves as a great barometer.   With this we did 3 rounds of 10 medicine ball slams and hill runs.  Ugh.  Pure nasty.  Then we played a little game with the medicine ball.  I would toss the ball down the hill and they had to get it before it got away.  2 of my guerrillas weren't as fortunate as the rest of the band.  They had to run all of the way down the hill.  All of my other guerrillas got to it within about 10 feet.  They were the lucky ones.  Needless to say, a fun time was had by all.

Week 3:  We attacked Fern Creek High School track this past week.  I brought a full arsenal of weapons that included kettlebells and my trusty medicine ball.  We started with a basic ROM warmup.  Then we moved to KB swings so that everyone could get the range of motion down with this as it would be part of the big workout later.  Once I felt everyone was comfortable with that we started our chipper.  We did a chipper consisting of 50 squats, 50 pushups, 20 KB swings, 20 ball slams, 50 shoulder presses with PVC pipe, and finishing with a 400 meter sprint while lunging between each of those stations.  You initially have 3 minutes to complete as much as possible, then rest 1 minute.  Then you have 6 minutes to complete as much as possible with 2 minutes rest.  Then you run through the whole circuit.  Now this was great training for my band of guerrillas.  I think they liked it.

This week we are attacking the Yum! Center in downtown Louisville.  I have a ton of good stuff planned at a monumental landmark.  This is going to be absolutely epic and I implore you to be there if you are in the Louisville area.  It is definitely a training session you will not want to miss.

Guerrilla Bootcamp has taken over Louisville

For as long as I've been out of the Navy, I have wanted to open my own fitness center.  No, I don't want to start a gym filled with nothing but meat heads posing in front of mirrors and only doing bench presses and arm curls.  No, I've wanted to own a fitness center geared towards promoting education and strength training for all populations from women, men, kids, and the wonderfully active aging crowd.  As time grew on my ideas started to shape themselves a little bit more and I decided I wanted to go more towards sports performance.  Then after I graduated with my Master's, I decided that I wanted to go more in the direction of functional mobility and stability and injury prevention for all, not just athletes.  After all, weekend warriors get injured a lot more then those that train every day simply because they don't know how to train.

Starting a place is hard work and it costs quite a bit of money.  I thought I had something going a few months ago with a up and coming franchise but there were several things that didn't add up properly and I backed out.  Rather than incur quite a bit of debt for something I wasn't completely sold on, I passed.  Now I'm back at square one and I'm starting small.  In starting small I can focus on perfecting my craft and establish bit of a following.  Enter Guerrilla Bootcamp.

Guerrilla Bootcamp is now being presented by my business Voltage Strength & Performance.  I am now on the 4th week of classes, which are held every Saturday morning at 0900 at various locations across the Louisville and things are going smoothly.  I have a steady group of 5 or 6 "guerrillas" every week.  So far our training grounds have included the Great Lawn downtown, dog hill at Cherokee Park, and most recently the Fern Creek High School track.  I like to think my bootcamp is a little different than most bootcamps.  For one, I say "bootcamp", whereas most others say "boot camp".  That totally set me apart from the rest.  Kidding.  I start every class with a simple mobility education.  Last week I had a baseball and showed something you can do to help loosen up the pec minor to keep it from pulling on the shoulder girdle.  A very simple way increase the knowledge of my participants.  It's a very simple way of distinguishing my bootcamp from all of the others that simply want to take your money.  I want to educate every one of my guerrillas.

If you are reading this and are living in the Louisville area, I ask you to come and try the class.  You will not leave disappointed.  The mobility training isn't the only thing that sets me apart.  Come to one class and you will find out first hand just how different this class is.  And since your first class is free, you got nothing to lose.

BTW, you can now check me out on Twitter.  I'm @voltagestrength and I frequently update my future locations and different types of mobility and stability exercises you can incorporate into your routine.

CrossFit Games

While I am in the middle of my in-training for Guerrilla Bootcamp, I need to point out that the CrossFit Games are this weekend.  The GrossFit Games are held in California every year at this time and just seem to be getting bigger and bigger with each passing year.  Yes, they are getting a lot more commercialized but I don't see much wrong with that.  The games will be shown online at www.games.crossfit.com.

Guerrilla Bootcamp's first week was wildly successful.  Even with having 6 potential guerrillas canceling the morning of, I still had quite a showing.  We are starting the class on block 0, meaning that I am introducing basic skills and movements so that everyone can be on the same page when we do more advanced exercises.  I introduced pushups and squats then we threw some fun tire flipping in at the end.  I will end every week's class with a fun little competition.  Last week we had a guys vs. girls tire flipping contest.  Even though the guys had exactly have the number of guerrillas the girls had, they won by a full minute.  But a fun time was had by all and that's what matters the most.  

This week's glass will be held at Dog Hill at Cherokee Park.  This hill, for me, is one of the landmark locations in all of Louisville.  It's about 300 meters hill madness.  I got some great stuff planned so if you are in the Louisville area this Saturday at 0900, make sure you and your friends stop by.  

Guerrilla Bootcamp is almost here

Anytime you start a new business, you have to find a way to make it unique.  You have to find a way to make yours stand out from the crowd and draw people to your business rather than someone else's that might be like yours.  Rarely does someone have a brand new idea for a business.  So when decided to start my bootcamp this year, I had to come up with a new concept.

See, Louisville has a number of bootcamps.  There is one that is for females only, there is one taught by a couple of meat-heads that has multiple different locations, there is one that uses kettlebells only, there is one taught on top of a building downtown that oversees everything, and there are a few others I'm forgetting about.  So I had to get creative.  I've taught bootcamp before and am very familiar with the layout, exercises, and means to market it.  But I just needed that extra niche to get people to come to mine.  

I spent 6 years in the U.S. Navy and while I was in, I was the PRT coordinator and in charge of my ship's gym.  Those were great experiences that allowed me to learn the fundamentals of fitness.  These fundamentals are often lost when it comes to exercising in the civilian world.  Kettlebells, medicine balls, tires, weights, machines, treadmills.  Those things are all nice and all make exercise seem like a fun experience, but you move further away from the fundamentals when you start incorporating that equipment.  When I speak of fundamentals, I'm talking about basic bodyweight exercises.  Squats, pushups, lunges, mountain climbers, bear crawls, crab crawls, frog jumps (no more animals I promise), fireman carry, situps, flutter kicks, pullups, planks, and bridges just to name a few.  When you incorporate your own bodyweight into your exercise, you gain so much more than just simple strength.  You learn proprioception (self awareness in space), balance, body control, strength (duh!), endurance, flexibility, power, and mental toughness.  These are the types of exercises we will be doing at my bootcamp.  Back to basics.  This will be a true military style bootcamp.  Now there will be the obligatory appearance of a tractor tire, or a medicine ball, or kettlebell, but those will be used as accessories to the class rather than the main course.  This is what will make my class stand out.  It will be a bootcamp in the truest sense of the word.  

The other thing that will make my bootcamp unique is that it will be popping up all of the greater Metro Louisville area.  I use the term Guerrilla Bootcamp to describe it and this is how I define it:

Guerrilla -- a member of an irregular, usually indigenous military unit operating in small bands in occupied territory to harass and undermine the enemy, as by surprise raids. 

Bootcamp -- a training session with hard physical exercise designed to bring your physical fitness beyond what you thought was possible.  

We are going to be popping up by surprise all over this town.  Parks, streets, parking lots, houses, downtown, wherever.  My little band of guerrillas will be bringing fitness to a whole new level.  My favorite line of that whole definition is "as by surprise raids".  Love it!  That's exactly what we will be doing.  Every Wednesday is when I will announce to the guerrillas where that week's class will be held.  It's going to be exciting, eventful, and most of all, fun!  I can't wait to get this thing started.  Information for the class is listed below.  Be sure to stop by and join my band of guerrillas each and every week.  

What:  Guerrilla Bootcamp

Where: TBD

When: Saturdays at 0900 - 1000

Cost: First week free, $10 every week after.  $5 if you bring a friend.  

What to bring: Yourself, water, and a lot of energy

Website: www.facebook.com/voltagestrength

My calendar of events

This is the year of running apparently because most of the Forever an Athlete events I have lined up are races.  But they aren't just simple 5k's and 10k's.  They are mud runs and obstacle races.  Below is a list of races and events I will be dominating in the next few months.  Below that will be a few that I WISH I could do.

July 23:  Guerrilla Bootcamp presented by Voltage Strength and Performance begins
Aug 13:  Mudathlon in Cincinnati OR Warrior Dash in Crawfordsville (I haven't decided)
Aug 28:  Performance Enhancement Seminar at IFAST in Indianapolis (continuing education)
Sept 4:  Rock & Roll Half Marathon in Virginia Beach (possibly with my brother)
Sept 10:  Rugged Maniac at Paoli Peaks in Paoli, IN
Oct 15:  Spartan Race in Marseilles, IL OR Urbanathlon in Chicago (I haven't decided)
Nov 19:  Tough Mudder in Attica, IN  (The granddaddy of them all!!!)

My wish list:
Mud Rush
Thunder Doom
Central Coast Clash
Metro Dash (this looks amazing)
Primal Mud Run

If you have any other events you'd like to add or see me compete in, let me know.  I'm all about the new events these days.