Wednesday, February 6, 2013
DIY Body Fixing (Groin Pull example): Give yourself time to work the problem
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Ever have an issue that seems to be with you for ages - it's a niggle, a nag, it's not painful but it's enough to through you off your game? Maybe you've seen someone about it, sorta had indifferent results, but mainly you just suck it up? After all - what's gonna get rid of it? Working the movement, not the muscle, that's what.
The following is the story of getting to a point of simply having had enough with just one of those problems - an adductor/groin pull recurrent tweak kinda thing. It's about having enough and saying dam it, let's just fix this. And doing so. Main take away: making the time to work the problem with a Movement based solution is like the joy one feels after banging one's head against a wall - it feels so good when ya stop. And so, to the particular case...
Perhaps you've had a tweak way up in the leg - right where it attaches to the crotch area? This area - usually referred to as the groin - most often means that there's something funny going on with a group of muscles in the inner thigh - the adductors.
The adductors have a variety of roles to play - one is that they bring the leg towards (and past) the midline of the body; the other is that they turn the top of the leg in or out depending on position of the hips, and another biggie is that they support the hips in bending forward. These are the muscles that we can feel come on if we lie on our backs, put a ball between the legs and say "squish that."
Indeed, if i'd had to describe it i would have said it did not feel like everything was hooked up. GOing back and forth, comparing where energy seemed to be going on the funky left compared with the fine right - something felt definitely out of whack.
I finally had had enough.
I had a workout day last week where i wasn't quite sure what i was going to do - supposed to be high volume leg work - and was just not into going through this again with the left side. So, cracked out the books and decided to debug this mofo once and for all. Inspired by a previous master class on shoulder debugging, i thought i must see how far i can get applying the same methods to myself.
Usually this is where a movement coach can help do the muscle testing, but i was on my own. It did seem that i could fire up the right glute, glute med and tfl more intensley on the right than the left.
Redo the movement - in this case a pistol - ya it seemed a bit better but not tweak free.
Now the challenge was to hold that position. and then work that position both manually and actively.
The manual part was to hold the area that was hinky to take it a wee bit out of commission and try the movement without it so much there. better? yes? ok. time to lie on side, relax and work the area. There's some great descriptions on doing this kind of work in Clinical Applications of Neuromuscular Techniques, Vol 2. [US Amazon || UK Amazon]
The killer solution in this that made the biggest difference was the hardest to do - psychologically - and this is what makes rehab the no fun bear that it is. In this case, it was: work the movement. Move into and out of where the discomfort is. Hold where the discomfort is; let go into where the discomfort is IN THE MOVEMENT.
In other words, not lying on a table leg out and manipulating, but actively going down into the movement (here the pistol, at a certain point past parallel - that's where the uglies happened) and explore there. My goal: hold that position, and wait it out to see what happens. Learn more.
Holding the position was in itself a challenge just in terms of being able to maintain the position - finding how i could hold myself in that place in the movement long enough without falling through the movement and without moving into pain rather than just discomfort. Sweating ensues. Kinda cool, from an observer point of view.
After a few of these sink-into-the-discomfort-and-hold reps, and the discomfort going down each time, i did partials that started just above, went through the ick to just outside of it. And the ick started to go further away. By the time i was done - and done was discomfort had largely moved out of the partials - i was able to do the same toe touching pistol full range of motion without the big red lights going off.
What i know is this combination of just working the movement with the tools i know [note on tools below] seemed to help address it. Working the movement; working in motion. To work the motion i likely did not need anatomy - just follow the discomfort - but i don't know if i would have had the same confidence to work that motion without some of that knowledge - to form hypotheses and test them.
The happy thing is i have hope: i have something to rep in. Likewise i have some proof of efficacy: i've just had a recent great discomfort-free heavy work session; i'm pretty sure i can keep working this system to get back there again and have it be increasingly sticky in the positive.
This effort at physical analysis to get to a good result took a couple hours. IF going to see a coach, it likely would still have taken that kinda time - but it was worth it to dig in and get to a solution point.
If working with a movement coach you trust, and dealing with a sticky problem, you may want to ask about booking a double or triple session - maybe getting a discount for that big a booking - in order to have the space to work the problem; to test and retest and get to a place where you have a MOVEMENT solution.
I stress a MOVEMENT solution because getting release on a table in a passive position is different than finding a solution for one's athletic activity - and that's where we want the solution to be - when we're doing the work we want to do. Does your person work muscles or movements? Just a question.
That said, i'm also very conscioulsy drawing on muscle activation techniques i learned in zhealth courses like strength and suppleness, neural activation techniquest from t-phase, and all the anatomy we did in the master trainer program. What becomes exciting is being able to explore a problem to work the problem, to bring in some extra knowledge, and get towards a solution. Manual work is awesome to help to understand an accute response. Active work is powerful to wire in the solution.
If you have a hinky issue that's gone chronic, talk to me - or, may i suggest, get a movement coach and MAKE THE TIME to work the problem
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Ever have an issue that seems to be with you for ages - it's a niggle, a nag, it's not painful but it's enough to through you off your game? Maybe you've seen someone about it, sorta had indifferent results, but mainly you just suck it up? After all - what's gonna get rid of it? Working the movement, not the muscle, that's what.
The following is the story of getting to a point of simply having had enough with just one of those problems - an adductor/groin pull recurrent tweak kinda thing. It's about having enough and saying dam it, let's just fix this. And doing so. Main take away: making the time to work the problem with a Movement based solution is like the joy one feels after banging one's head against a wall - it feels so good when ya stop. And so, to the particular case...
The Adductor Tweak
Perhaps you've had a tweak way up in the leg - right where it attaches to the crotch area? This area - usually referred to as the groin - most often means that there's something funny going on with a group of muscles in the inner thigh - the adductors.The adductors have a variety of roles to play - one is that they bring the leg towards (and past) the midline of the body; the other is that they turn the top of the leg in or out depending on position of the hips, and another biggie is that they support the hips in bending forward. These are the muscles that we can feel come on if we lie on our backs, put a ball between the legs and say "squish that."
Problem: Adductor Discomfort in Pistol Squat, Left Side
On and off for years, and esp. since last january i think, my left adductors would send up signals saying they did not like to do pistols. Not pain but discomfort to the point that it was a real trial working the left side.Indeed, if i'd had to describe it i would have said it did not feel like everything was hooked up. GOing back and forth, comparing where energy seemed to be going on the funky left compared with the fine right - something felt definitely out of whack.
I finally had had enough.
I had a workout day last week where i wasn't quite sure what i was going to do - supposed to be high volume leg work - and was just not into going through this again with the left side. So, cracked out the books and decided to debug this mofo once and for all. Inspired by a previous master class on shoulder debugging, i thought i must see how far i can get applying the same methods to myself.
First Check: what's the complement (or antagonist) muscles?
In the case of the adductors the glute med and TFL both move the hip in opposition to the adductors. Super. Hypothesis: perhaps these guys are a bit off line, and so bringing them back online - ensuring they're firing is a good idea.Usually this is where a movement coach can help do the muscle testing, but i was on my own. It did seem that i could fire up the right glute, glute med and tfl more intensley on the right than the left.
DIY note: if you're not sure where these muscles are, something like a surface palpation guide - that helps identify the bulges in the skin against the muscles depicted in anatomy texts - is a great help. A couple i like:From this identification assessment, i ran through a bunch of simple techniques to bring these areas back on line - i hoped.
- Basic Clinical Massage Therapy: integrating Anatomy and Treatment - the book draws the muscles over the surface, as well as showing the surface view of the muscles. [US Amazon || UK Amazon]
Redo the movement - in this case a pistol - ya it seemed a bit better but not tweak free.
Second Check - anything tender here?
Doing some light massage as per recommendations around neuro-muscular training and trigger point stuff, just wanted to see if there were spots that on light exploration were not happy to be worked manually. There were. Compared with the right yup these guys were sending up signals. Was also getting a wee bit from the vast.med area, too. Interesting, eh?Third Check, where IN THE MOVEMENT does it hurt?
My next task was to find not so much where in the muscle/tendon area there was some manual touch based ick, but where in the movement there was a problem. For this exploration, i used a pistol variant i learned from Kenneth Jay - to put the non-stance foot toe-touch on the ground - taking some of the balance work out of the pistol. AND THERE IT WAS - oh wow! did i find a very special place that fired up like a christmas tree of unhappy signals.Now the challenge was to hold that position. and then work that position both manually and actively.
The manual part was to hold the area that was hinky to take it a wee bit out of commission and try the movement without it so much there. better? yes? ok. time to lie on side, relax and work the area. There's some great descriptions on doing this kind of work in Clinical Applications of Neuromuscular Techniques, Vol 2. [US Amazon || UK Amazon]
Fourth Check: Work the ick in the Movement
But wait, there's more!The killer solution in this that made the biggest difference was the hardest to do - psychologically - and this is what makes rehab the no fun bear that it is. In this case, it was: work the movement. Move into and out of where the discomfort is. Hold where the discomfort is; let go into where the discomfort is IN THE MOVEMENT.
In other words, not lying on a table leg out and manipulating, but actively going down into the movement (here the pistol, at a certain point past parallel - that's where the uglies happened) and explore there. My goal: hold that position, and wait it out to see what happens. Learn more.
Holding the position was in itself a challenge just in terms of being able to maintain the position - finding how i could hold myself in that place in the movement long enough without falling through the movement and without moving into pain rather than just discomfort. Sweating ensues. Kinda cool, from an observer point of view.
 |
| using the 20kg kb as a counter weight to let me get into the ick position and hold it longer than i could if i just tried to hold it for as long as i could. When the hold/ick rather lets go, come up and work down a little lower each time and then explore eye position. holding down here with eyes left and UP made a surprising difference. this work also then becomes a little faster, a little less hold, more working through the specific partial of the whole movement. |
Higher Up and Further In: Adding Visual Activity.
I also did some eye work while i was down in that position and holding it - near far drills and the such like - to bring on more systems actively while i'm sorta static otherwise. This is me re-applying something Eric Cobb had suggested last year when we were trying to work through this problem in a limited amount of time then: the idea was get down to the bottom of the pistol and stay there and do vision drills. Turns out this was largely a great idea - just not sufficient. The refinement i brought to it - after having more time to work the problem from square one, and arrive back pretty much at exactly this same point (validation or what?)- was that for me, now, working not just the bottom of the movement but exactly where and around the discomfort/weakness in the movement was turned out to be the biggest contributor to release from this issue.After a few of these sink-into-the-discomfort-and-hold reps, and the discomfort going down each time, i did partials that started just above, went through the ick to just outside of it. And the ick started to go further away. By the time i was done - and done was discomfort had largely moved out of the partials - i was able to do the same toe touching pistol full range of motion without the big red lights going off.
Fifth Check: real work
several days later it was another leg day. time to see if this worked; if the fix had stuck, functionally. I was still aware of the area up there in the gears (perhaps some DOMS) BUT the discomfort when doing weighted pistols just wasn't there. IT really wasn't there. I had the nicest left side leg work that i'd had in ages. Hope for the lag on the left in terms of load rises. Maybe a 24kg pistol is in its future too?ANALYSIS: WHAT ACTUALLY WORKED?
What does this mean, that the discomfort seems to have been addressed? Does it mean that my hypothesis that something wasn't firing was correct? that i got the muscles more coordinated to play nice together? That there was a visual issue past partial in the squat? I don't know. I don't know what happened. Maybe there was some fascial stretching going on in this too, or neural fatiguing or...What i know is this combination of just working the movement with the tools i know [note on tools below] seemed to help address it. Working the movement; working in motion. To work the motion i likely did not need anatomy - just follow the discomfort - but i don't know if i would have had the same confidence to work that motion without some of that knowledge - to form hypotheses and test them.
WORK PACKAGE: Now REP IT IN.
The add's on that side are not 100% - i just tried a pistol on my left and a bit of a tweak is peeking back, suggesting that other issues may be at play. So it's going to take reps. Again. Like my shoulder rehab that took thousands of light reps with a band in both the push and the pull direction to get the wiring of the brain pattern and tissue to remember how to do those movements without pain.The happy thing is i have hope: i have something to rep in. Likewise i have some proof of efficacy: i've just had a recent great discomfort-free heavy work session; i'm pretty sure i can keep working this system to get back there again and have it be increasingly sticky in the positive.
Take Away: "I need more time, Captain"
Patient Persistence; work the problemThis effort at physical analysis to get to a good result took a couple hours. IF going to see a coach, it likely would still have taken that kinda time - but it was worth it to dig in and get to a solution point.
If working with a movement coach you trust, and dealing with a sticky problem, you may want to ask about booking a double or triple session - maybe getting a discount for that big a booking - in order to have the space to work the problem; to test and retest and get to a place where you have a MOVEMENT solution.
I stress a MOVEMENT solution because getting release on a table in a passive position is different than finding a solution for one's athletic activity - and that's where we want the solution to be - when we're doing the work we want to do. Does your person work muscles or movements? Just a question.
Dialing In:
And one more thing: i'm not recommending you try this set of steps on yourself; i'm making no therepeutic recommendations whatsoever. I'm offering a view that it seems if we're patient, persistent and apply knowledge about the body and especially nervous system to work a problem, even something that's been going on for what feels like ages can be addressed. Right now.Notes on Tools:
Understanding a wee bit about anatomy/kinesiology - about where a muscle takes a limb around a joint - i have found to be extremely helpful in working a problem to resolve the issue.That said, i'm also very conscioulsy drawing on muscle activation techniques i learned in zhealth courses like strength and suppleness, neural activation techniquest from t-phase, and all the anatomy we did in the master trainer program. What becomes exciting is being able to explore a problem to work the problem, to bring in some extra knowledge, and get towards a solution. Manual work is awesome to help to understand an accute response. Active work is powerful to wire in the solution.
If you have a hinky issue that's gone chronic, talk to me - or, may i suggest, get a movement coach and MAKE THE TIME to work the problem
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Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Whole Food and Bifurcated Guilt/Pleasure: respecting the food chain by engaging the chain?
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Whole Protein - Whole Food - and Personal Denial. Recently i was in france where i had the pleasure of going to a fish market each day to bring home fresh seafood for lunch. What gave me pause is dealing with entire creature corpses. That experience somehow changes one's sense of food a bit, doesn't it?
Perhaps people who have hunted or fished their dinners are well familiar with this effect of holding something in one's hand that was so obviously alive and that must now be more or less dissected to be prepared for consumption. Makes one think about this notion of "whole food" perhaps in a somewhat different way.
Some of the catch at a fish stall looks no different than it does at the store: big steaks of halibut or salmon where there's very little in evidence that this was part of something resembling a fish, or to tell one slice from another beyond color. One vendor used the sword of the sword fish as a clever marker to indicate the cuts you see here are from guess what? a sword fish.
The rest of what's on offer at any of the fish mongers i visited however did look very much like the creatures themselves. Fish with eyes in front of their giant heads rather than at the side are some of the most disconcerting - looking very much like "what am i doing here? i never thought it would be like this" Very large snake like eels lie in buckets. Clams glisten and oysters piled up create entirely new if temporary rock formations. Are those shelled creatures still alive? Did that eel just aesphixiate? Does one bash it on the head?
WHOLE, WHOLE Creatures. While we brought home whole fish like brill - often one of the folks at the stall would have cleaned, gutted and beheaded the thing. The sense of whole creatureness was not quite as present. But then, i had the opportunity to bring home squids. This is a whole creature. I did not catch it - i do not know how it is made dead before being placed on crushed ice for sale, but it was certainly clear that this was the whole being. Eyes, body, mouth, tendrils. A carnivore perhaps itself. Did it aesphixiate? looking at fishing sites, they seem to suggest post catch just put the things on ice. So freeze and aesphixiate? I hate the enthusiam i hear in these sites suggesting it is "great fun" to go catch squid And then put them in a cooler. To aesphixiate. I dunno. I digress.
Back in fwance, the fishmonger put three squid i've pointed out into a bag to take home. There they are. Hardly take up any space at all. Relatively cheap protein, fresh. Very whole.
As said i didn't catch these creatures but i am now holding them, whole, in my hands to prepare for eating. It suddenly felt solem, which i suppose only shows both how seldom i deal with whole whole food of the once animate kind, and how removed i am just generally from the whole food chain.
Preparing squid has several parts - removal of the head lets one get at the body in order to remove a spine that is very much like a crushed clear plastic straw. With this removed, the guts are relatively easy to pull out with a finger from the body. The eyes and beak are also removed. Then the body is skinned, the fins removed to be scored a bit separately. The tendirls may likewise be prepared further - scraping off the suckers - and then the tube of the body is cut into the familiar rings seen in calamari.
There is something salutory about breaking down a squid in this way. This whole thing was in the sea recently; now it's in my hands; on the cutting board, these rings no longer recognizable as what it was - now it's in the fry pan, the plate, me.
Consider the Source I don't quite have a handle yet on the whole experience here, but i do think handling truly *whole* food of the post-animate kind is important. Or let me rephrase - it offers an opportunity to get grounded: today i eat the fish; tomorrow the fish eats me?
At least dealing with these squid, it was made very obvious to me what i was doing. Would that be different if that were the more visible case with the other omnivore acts?
Animal Ignorance How many of us know anymore from what part of a pig is the meat cured for bacon? where on the cow is the part that become ribeye? It wasn't till i was doing anatomy that i got my god, i'm eating leg muscle. I don't know what i thought meat was, but it put the quads and hamstrings in a whole different light.
i'm not saying anything spectacularly new: Michael Pollan has written about distance of ourselves from the food supply and has, i think also written about the experience of taking a creature from field to table. I understand there are boutique butchers where one learns to break down a carcas - i'm not sure if one actually has to kill and clean the beast - because a carcass ready for butchery just doesn't look like an animal anymore - think all those sides of beef that get punched in Rocky. No doubt there's likely some kill to clean to butcher boutique in California if nowhere else. And good for them. Bet it costs a fortune too. The privilege of getting close to a process that was just normal to some of our elders.
Getting Closer to Real: mixed feelings. I guess from my experience, i'm finding that it's one thing to read Michale Pollan talk about the value of getting to know one's food directly - especially the mobile kind. It's another to actually have the whole thing in one's hands, unmaking it. I felt vaguely horrible taking apart the squid while simultaneously enjoying the process of preparation - of being able to understand the anatomy in order to preapre the meat. It's like sensing both a hot and cold tap both on and not blending - it's very odd. Makes the pleasure of the meal of a slightly different flavour.
I find myself looking for WHOLE proteins in a new way - and wanting to challenge myself - rather than let myself off the hook , as it were, - anytime approaching post animate food sources. Eat less with more care perhaps?
How 'bout you?
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 |
| squid in the sea (image source) |
Some of the catch at a fish stall looks no different than it does at the store: big steaks of halibut or salmon where there's very little in evidence that this was part of something resembling a fish, or to tell one slice from another beyond color. One vendor used the sword of the sword fish as a clever marker to indicate the cuts you see here are from guess what? a sword fish.
The rest of what's on offer at any of the fish mongers i visited however did look very much like the creatures themselves. Fish with eyes in front of their giant heads rather than at the side are some of the most disconcerting - looking very much like "what am i doing here? i never thought it would be like this" Very large snake like eels lie in buckets. Clams glisten and oysters piled up create entirely new if temporary rock formations. Are those shelled creatures still alive? Did that eel just aesphixiate? Does one bash it on the head?
WHOLE, WHOLE Creatures. While we brought home whole fish like brill - often one of the folks at the stall would have cleaned, gutted and beheaded the thing. The sense of whole creatureness was not quite as present. But then, i had the opportunity to bring home squids. This is a whole creature. I did not catch it - i do not know how it is made dead before being placed on crushed ice for sale, but it was certainly clear that this was the whole being. Eyes, body, mouth, tendrils. A carnivore perhaps itself. Did it aesphixiate? looking at fishing sites, they seem to suggest post catch just put the things on ice. So freeze and aesphixiate? I hate the enthusiam i hear in these sites suggesting it is "great fun" to go catch squid And then put them in a cooler. To aesphixiate. I dunno. I digress.
 |
| squid home from the market |
Back in fwance, the fishmonger put three squid i've pointed out into a bag to take home. There they are. Hardly take up any space at all. Relatively cheap protein, fresh. Very whole.
As said i didn't catch these creatures but i am now holding them, whole, in my hands to prepare for eating. It suddenly felt solem, which i suppose only shows both how seldom i deal with whole whole food of the once animate kind, and how removed i am just generally from the whole food chain.
Preparing squid has several parts - removal of the head lets one get at the body in order to remove a spine that is very much like a crushed clear plastic straw. With this removed, the guts are relatively easy to pull out with a finger from the body. The eyes and beak are also removed. Then the body is skinned, the fins removed to be scored a bit separately. The tendirls may likewise be prepared further - scraping off the suckers - and then the tube of the body is cut into the familiar rings seen in calamari.
 |
| squid unsquidded in preparation for cooking |
Consider the Source I don't quite have a handle yet on the whole experience here, but i do think handling truly *whole* food of the post-animate kind is important. Or let me rephrase - it offers an opportunity to get grounded: today i eat the fish; tomorrow the fish eats me?
At least dealing with these squid, it was made very obvious to me what i was doing. Would that be different if that were the more visible case with the other omnivore acts?
 |
| little left to resemble the whole creature now |
i'm not saying anything spectacularly new: Michael Pollan has written about distance of ourselves from the food supply and has, i think also written about the experience of taking a creature from field to table. I understand there are boutique butchers where one learns to break down a carcas - i'm not sure if one actually has to kill and clean the beast - because a carcass ready for butchery just doesn't look like an animal anymore - think all those sides of beef that get punched in Rocky. No doubt there's likely some kill to clean to butcher boutique in California if nowhere else. And good for them. Bet it costs a fortune too. The privilege of getting close to a process that was just normal to some of our elders.
Getting Closer to Real: mixed feelings. I guess from my experience, i'm finding that it's one thing to read Michale Pollan talk about the value of getting to know one's food directly - especially the mobile kind. It's another to actually have the whole thing in one's hands, unmaking it. I felt vaguely horrible taking apart the squid while simultaneously enjoying the process of preparation - of being able to understand the anatomy in order to preapre the meat. It's like sensing both a hot and cold tap both on and not blending - it's very odd. Makes the pleasure of the meal of a slightly different flavour.
I find myself looking for WHOLE proteins in a new way - and wanting to challenge myself - rather than let myself off the hook , as it were, - anytime approaching post animate food sources. Eat less with more care perhaps?
How 'bout you?
Tweet Follow @begin2dig
Saturday, January 26, 2013
What's you H2 Ratio? MOVEMENT - NUTRITION - RECOVERY - SOCIAL - MIND
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For holistic long term health, wellbeing and feeling of effervescent joy, it seems that we need to include deliberate practice in five areas:
MOVEMENT - NUTRITION - RECOVERY - SOCIALISING - COGNITIVE PRACTICE. What do you think? ring true? Perhaps you've heard it here first - i've heard three and four of these points before, but this five point framing of what we need to be optimal may be new-ish? Wouldn't that be nice if b2d dug up something new?
In any case: we're pscysho-social-physical creatures, yes? That's our history, our trajectory up from the swamp, oui?
So since we still have these evolutionary traces, that is, physical bodies that seem deisgned to run, and that mainly work best with social contexts rather than isolation, then to be healthy, it seems, we need to work all of them. Including the brain and including social practice.
An intriguing thing to me is that these systems - move, eat, sleep, socialize, ideate - reinforce each other.
We can socialize around deep conversation (express idea density, discussed here); we can move around together - game play and engage in strategy (especially excellent for couch potatoes who also want to lose weight) - play, move, socialize, skill/depth of practice - and of course eat and rest in between - maybe in groups.
Indeed, there's a truly fascinating book by Canadian scholar Stephen Cunnane called "survival of the fattest" (UK link || US link) that goes over the case that far from our brains growing as a result of tool use, our brains grew from play. And access to an easy shore-based food supply that made play possible. Theresa Nesbit pointed this book out to me, and i recommend it as a read (or interlibrary loan).
(Reminds me of tree planting - except we'd be too pooped to play games after a day of screefing. oh. and too pooped for deep conversation. so, maybe not tree planting.)
Movement Nutrition Recovery Socialising Cognitive Engagement
is around how to put together our approach to holistic practice.
When we put our training plans together, do we plan as well how we will recover? How we will socialise? How we will work on idea density? If not, why not?
Brain in Motion? While we may have strategies for post workout nutrition, do we have them for sleep? How do we balance socialising and cognitive engagement?
For instance, do we deliberately seek out challenging conversation? challenging books? (what Carole Goble calls "coffee" vs "wine" research paper reading for instance).
Do we practice various social skills like listening, empathy, active engagement? For introverts, this kind of practice is effortful, to be sure, but even extraverts can practice pulling back and being present to others. Or to learn the tempo of conversation and try to support the flow. And so on. Skills and practice everywhere.
Nutrition. Boy, this one i think i've done better in a holistic way than the holistic movement piece. Hmm. Hadn't thought of that. Why? maybe because food is so much more of a regular challenge. Every few hours: focus focus.
Recovery/Sleep. Now here's one where i think i know more than i consistently practice. I do know my best training results however have come when being religious about getting to sleep with hours before midnight spent in sleep, and getting up around 5:30 to work out (much easier in the summer than winter!) Much of any knowledge i have about sleep in particular and relationships of foods/drugs within sleep has been spurred on by sleep scientist Stephan Fabregas.
Socialisation. As said, for an introvert, this is an effort. But practice helps. Best book i've read on this practice? There's lots of stuff around influence, influencing people, listening, having critical conversations All excellent stuff. Above and beyond anything, going back to a classic. Dale Carnegie. One tip that i haven't seen anywhere else: avoid contradicting anyone or criticising anyone. Oy! Now that takes practice.
Cognitive Engagement: Ideation. Being an intellectual is dandy. I have no problem having a good sized vocabulary and using it. IT's my job. But where do i push out of my comfort zone? Kind of like knowing that if there's an exercise we don't like it's one we should likely do, cuz that exposes a weakness, i think working the brain is sort of the same thing: we have to push limits to affect
There are subjects i find really challenging. So this year i'm making a promise to find the best sources (for me) to develop practice in these areas. Like finding the right trainer, the right textbook or the right instructor - at least for me - is key to me getting something.
We may have felt like we didn't have a choice of instructors in highschool but alleluia we do now. The challenge is slotting in hours now for that practice as well as these other bits.
Check out how many hours a week we spend
Ratios See - i don't know what the ideal practice ratios are. We know about workouts for at least a sense of health satisfaction (5 hours minimum). We know at least about sleep that there is good research for us to have 7.5hrs a night). But Play? is is as many hours playing as working out? more? What about socialising? twice as much as working out? half? What about deliberate cognitive practice? 1 hour? 3 hours?
Scales Do we have other scales here? We can assess workout quality, and nutrition and sleep quality. How do we assess socialising/play/restoration qualities? Is vegging out with the TV after a hard day of work reasonable recovery? or would it be better health wise to read a book? or chat with friends on facebook?
So shall we get some data?
Here's to Movement - Nutrition - Recovery - Socialising - Cognitive Engagement -
Let's start to find out what we have vs what we need.
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For holistic long term health, wellbeing and feeling of effervescent joy, it seems that we need to include deliberate practice in five areas:
MOVEMENT - NUTRITION - RECOVERY - SOCIALISING - COGNITIVE PRACTICE. What do you think? ring true? Perhaps you've heard it here first - i've heard three and four of these points before, but this five point framing of what we need to be optimal may be new-ish? Wouldn't that be nice if b2d dug up something new?
In any case: we're pscysho-social-physical creatures, yes? That's our history, our trajectory up from the swamp, oui?
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| Amsa-dong Pre-historic Village, Seoul Korea |
An intriguing thing to me is that these systems - move, eat, sleep, socialize, ideate - reinforce each other.
We can socialize around deep conversation (express idea density, discussed here); we can move around together - game play and engage in strategy (especially excellent for couch potatoes who also want to lose weight) - play, move, socialize, skill/depth of practice - and of course eat and rest in between - maybe in groups.
Indeed, there's a truly fascinating book by Canadian scholar Stephen Cunnane called "survival of the fattest" (UK link || US link) that goes over the case that far from our brains growing as a result of tool use, our brains grew from play. And access to an easy shore-based food supply that made play possible. Theresa Nesbit pointed this book out to me, and i recommend it as a read (or interlibrary loan).
(Reminds me of tree planting - except we'd be too pooped to play games after a day of screefing. oh. and too pooped for deep conversation. so, maybe not tree planting.)
Inclusive 5-point Plan Practice?
My growing question from this five point holistic health guide ofMovement Nutrition Recovery Socialising Cognitive Engagement
is around how to put together our approach to holistic practice.
When we put our training plans together, do we plan as well how we will recover? How we will socialise? How we will work on idea density? If not, why not?
For instance, do we deliberately seek out challenging conversation? challenging books? (what Carole Goble calls "coffee" vs "wine" research paper reading for instance).
Do we practice various social skills like listening, empathy, active engagement? For introverts, this kind of practice is effortful, to be sure, but even extraverts can practice pulling back and being present to others. Or to learn the tempo of conversation and try to support the flow. And so on. Skills and practice everywhere.
Challenge? How build the whole piece?
Movement. Certainly over the past while, i've been deliberate about physical practice - but not perhaps as thoughtful as i might be in terms of optimal, whole body training as opposed to strength goals.Nutrition. Boy, this one i think i've done better in a holistic way than the holistic movement piece. Hmm. Hadn't thought of that. Why? maybe because food is so much more of a regular challenge. Every few hours: focus focus.
Recovery/Sleep. Now here's one where i think i know more than i consistently practice. I do know my best training results however have come when being religious about getting to sleep with hours before midnight spent in sleep, and getting up around 5:30 to work out (much easier in the summer than winter!) Much of any knowledge i have about sleep in particular and relationships of foods/drugs within sleep has been spurred on by sleep scientist Stephan Fabregas.
Socialisation. As said, for an introvert, this is an effort. But practice helps. Best book i've read on this practice? There's lots of stuff around influence, influencing people, listening, having critical conversations All excellent stuff. Above and beyond anything, going back to a classic. Dale Carnegie. One tip that i haven't seen anywhere else: avoid contradicting anyone or criticising anyone. Oy! Now that takes practice.
Cognitive Engagement: Ideation. Being an intellectual is dandy. I have no problem having a good sized vocabulary and using it. IT's my job. But where do i push out of my comfort zone? Kind of like knowing that if there's an exercise we don't like it's one we should likely do, cuz that exposes a weakness, i think working the brain is sort of the same thing: we have to push limits to affect There are subjects i find really challenging. So this year i'm making a promise to find the best sources (for me) to develop practice in these areas. Like finding the right trainer, the right textbook or the right instructor - at least for me - is key to me getting something.
We may have felt like we didn't have a choice of instructors in highschool but alleluia we do now. The challenge is slotting in hours now for that practice as well as these other bits.
Reality Check: What's your H2 (Holistic Health) Ratio?
Something perhaps to try:Check out how many hours a week we spend
- in physical practice (with 5minimum being the ideal it seems for happiness in the bodycomp arena)
- in rest/recovery/sleep
- in socialising/play
- in deliberate attention to food prep and meals
- in deliberate cognitive practice
- whatever's left (like work?)- when we're not doing any of these practices.
Just one week - let's find out what we count as restorative, and when we might also get what Frank Forencich of exuberant animal in Stresscraft calls "Movement Snacks" - and what might also be rest or play or cog practice snacks?
Ratios See - i don't know what the ideal practice ratios are. We know about workouts for at least a sense of health satisfaction (5 hours minimum). We know at least about sleep that there is good research for us to have 7.5hrs a night). But Play? is is as many hours playing as working out? more? What about socialising? twice as much as working out? half? What about deliberate cognitive practice? 1 hour? 3 hours?
Scales Do we have other scales here? We can assess workout quality, and nutrition and sleep quality. How do we assess socialising/play/restoration qualities? Is vegging out with the TV after a hard day of work reasonable recovery? or would it be better health wise to read a book? or chat with friends on facebook?
So shall we get some data?
Here's to Movement - Nutrition - Recovery - Socialising - Cognitive Engagement -
Let's start to find out what we have vs what we need.
Related Posts
- train the physical brain
- train socialising
- football best for couch potatoes seeking fat loss
- deliberate practice
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Friday, January 18, 2013
b2d's Exploration of the Tao and How of We're Working Out - Interview with Al Kavadlo
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Towards looking into this question, Mr. Kavadlo kindly agreed to do an interview with me. Initially, my questions were around the design rationale for Kavadlo's Raising the Bar DVD, but as i started to read more of AK's work, and chat more, this whole question of approach not just in terms of content but of the thinking behind the content came up.
In the following, we're looking for the Al K un grr methodology by talking about Raising the Bar, We're Working Out, YouTube videos and the Progressive Calisthenics Certification that just got announced, but really, i hope what we're going to get at through all these what's is some of the why's that the joyful approach of al kavadlo resonates so well - at least with b2d - though it doesn't seem like any of us here are alone.
In particular, why i find Kavadlo's work important as a case study is for a bunch of refinements:
So by the end of this post, you'll see a full on rough analysis to produce the Al Kavadlo Presentation Methodology. Hope you find it useful in your own practice.
Prologue
The best i can come up with is, Kavadlo is doing some really interesting things in terms of use of media and approach/philosophy to fitness that resonates, while also being different. I mentioned this difference in the review, in particular about bodyweight work. That difference to me is about vibe - approachability. What i've noticed in a lot of the calisthenics videos on the 'Tube is that they are performance oriented with uber ripped dudes doing amazing things that are just completely inaccessible. Like c'mon. And then there's Al doing the same thing SMILING and saying - for free - here's how to do this. Performance vs Practice. Practice vs Performance.
And two concepts of particular relevance where we see the Zen of WWO in RTB: beginner's mind - where challenging moves stay challenging and practice remains important; and getting to a place of Intestinal Fortitude - having to be able to commit to the process of adaptation - to make progress.
..]
There is a difference between the Who and [the What and the Way]. I make know claims here to know Al Kavadlo - not the intent here. As said, the focus has been to better see if i understand what the person is trying to explore and how the presentation of that WHAT communicates that Way. As said at the outset, while that's an interesting thing, the purpose here is not biography but methodology, and what informs that method. Why care? well, methods like skills are replicable. By exploring the components of a method, we may decide these methods are worth exploring further via replication/emulation in our own personal or coaching practice.
I really hope, therefore, this wee article has given y'all a sense of the Al Kavadlo approach, and why it's that approach (perhaps less than the thing itself) that feels so intriguing, captivating, delightful (and effective) about Al's bringing bodyweight work to the Net.
Working the Method/Skills - Deliberate Practice of Presentation. These components i've listed may at least be a good chunk of what we might call the Al K presentation method. While the individual bits are likely familiar to most of us, it seems to me that Kavadlo is the first person on the Net using these principles in a co-ordianated way to deliver content. The result is Kavadlo's presentation style, oui? BUT - by looking at this style, we can explore those components, and make decisions about adopting them.
Some of us do some of these things in this list unconsciously. If we grr about our practice, we likely grr if we teach it or when we show off. By stepping back and looking at method deliberately we can CHOOSE to focus on it and act on it. Al's smile, as he says, is his signature. It's certainly what keeps me coming back.
Those of us who do presentations - can we choose to focus on say that vibe that we use in the presentation and keep it in the demo? Or even simply become aware that that's something that can be constructed, created and practiced?
When doing the pull up photo that would become the poster clip for the gal's "my first pull up" progress party - i was definitely thinking (a) being in the environment and (b) expressing joy - this is fun (cuz it is).
That's on the in front of camera part of the presentation; there's also the practice of getting comfortable being on camera AND getting skilled up about some basic video editing, uploading, managing a youtube channel etc - because Al K does it all himself. These are are EACH method decision points: where do we want to put our practice cycles first if we want to communicate online, and in media that's delivered via an online space?
Working the Method. By way of comparison, consider tony horton of p90x fame. If you know P90X, He hits a number of the above components, doesn't he? As a mental exercise to see how method works, one might ask, what would Tony need to add or change to demonstrate the full Al K method for presentation - and still be true to P90X? Is there anyone else you can think of in the presentation of knowledge space where you can check the AK methods of presentation? (We could get into an entire discussion at some point about whether/how coaches need to be able to model physically what they coach).
The goal here is not to say "here's how to clone Al Kavadlo" - but how to look at the methods that are so well done, and think of them as skills we might want to practice if and as we present ourselves/our thing - whatever that is.
To that end, here's a little more un grring bodyweight work with AK.
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Ever looked at YouTube to learn how to do some bodyweight movement like a one arm push up or a human flag? Chances are, if so, you've encountered the video series that begins "Hi. I'm Al Kavadlo and We're working out." If there's a bodyweight move of interest, chances are high there's a wee Kavadlo video on how to get going with it.
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| YouTube Al: the familiar friendly face of I am Sparticus Kavadlo |
These instructional vignettes have a recognisable set of signature elements: Al's smiling face as model and host; most often Tompkin Square Park in New York as the live, outdoor setting; a set of progressions on how to get from start to advanced form with the movement. The quality is consistently high; the videos useful, and usually leaves one hungry for more insight into these strategies. And as such, they're pretty unique. Unique in terms of breadth of a freebie web resource, and unique in the joyful style of presentation. There is no aloofness, no grr. And yet there's this awesome strength. What's going on here?
Towards looking into this question, Mr. Kavadlo kindly agreed to do an interview with me. Initially, my questions were around the design rationale for Kavadlo's Raising the Bar DVD, but as i started to read more of AK's work, and chat more, this whole question of approach not just in terms of content but of the thinking behind the content came up.
This Piece in Not about Al Kavadlo. It's about the How of Al Kavadlo's Tao.
To that end, the following overview of the Kavadlo ouvre to date and interview in and around Raising the Bar is an attempt to look at some of these ideas that i'm framing as the presentation of the un grr of bodyweight work.
In the following, we're looking for the Al K un grr methodology by talking about Raising the Bar, We're Working Out, YouTube videos and the Progressive Calisthenics Certification that just got announced, but really, i hope what we're going to get at through all these what's is some of the why's that the joyful approach of al kavadlo resonates so well - at least with b2d - though it doesn't seem like any of us here are alone.
In particular, why i find Kavadlo's work important as a case study is for a bunch of refinements:
- he's one of the first guys to bring bodyweight work to the Net
- he's taken youTube as a particular kind of media (video, 3min max) and used it deliberately to showcase what he does - and just being on youtube - getting that that IS where the action is now for online presentation - is very compelling.
- he uses filmic conventions to consider shot, framing etc - so he THINKS about presentation, right down to theme music
- he and the environment and what he models are so tightly coupled so effectively its hard to imagine bodyweight any other way
- he himself embodies a whole lot of what he models and so it cycles back into the production.
- he uses this production for promotion yes, but promotion through education - what has been found over and over to be the succesful mode for selling online.
- the dvd/books/blog are a well-integrated extension of this "brand" with depth, passion, soul.
So by the end of this post, you'll see a full on rough analysis to produce the Al Kavadlo Presentation Methodology. Hope you find it useful in your own practice.
Prologue
The Philosophy of AK's Practice: Humility Before the Bar
In the process of doing this interview i started to look at More Things Al - including going back to the book version of Raising the Bar, and reading his ebook on general training called (of course) We're Working Out. It's been an interesting process. I mean, really, who cares about what goes into making a fitness video? or what someone thinks about training? If it's a good tool it's a good tool; it stands on its own; don't need no more. So why care about interviewing Al - not to ask about personal stuff but about professional stuff - and in particular the approach.
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| exploring personal limits: marathoning in flats |
That smile Al has said is a signature. For sure, but that smile comes from an attitude A philosophy - at least it feels that way. And, i think - at least so far - before Al/We're working Out goes global as a brand and IT All Changes - is a humility. Especially in the We're Working Out book - where al shares his philosophy of training and invites us to participate. That participation, by the way, includes running. Guess what? We're optimized for movement - running in particular, it seems. So good things happen when we practice that skill, too. Just saying - and increasingly folks i know in fitness are getting this: many are into sprinting but i'm betting that more and more are going to get that relaxed longer runs have a place for our selves too.
Al comes across as a very human person who has gone through a process to find out what resonates with him, that is (i keep saying this) accessible and real, from finding his path in fitness to finding a path for becoming more expert in that practice
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| Al Kavadlo from We're Working Out - reflecting on going from a bodybuilder focus to a lean calisthenics machine process - and where happiness lies. |
The process Kavadlo unpacks is very simple -- and b2d readers will get how this approacht resonates with a b2d focus (for example here on rep practice): begin - begin with a doable rep. and then do the rep again, and do another rep, and do the reps do the reps, and keep doing the reps. It will all happen. It happens. It comes.
Which brings us to the worked examples of the application of that philosophy - Raising the Bar, the book and the DVD.
Will it Blend? Making Use of the Kavadlo Corpus
So i have We're Working Out (WWO), Raising the Bar (RTB) the book, Raising the Bar the DVD - how do these work together, one might ask.
The Book - First off it's just visually pleasing. It's a fine ebook but it's an excellent looking physical
volume. The pics are great. These are done by Colleen Leung. The layout / design is by Derek Bringham. Bringham has done a lot of books with Dragon Door. He set the tone with Enter the Kettlebell - one of the best designed fitness books out there (never mind the content). But, combined with Al's vision and Leung's visuals, this thing works as a really nice coffee table book! So, here's a strategy: if you want to inspire your pals, get the hardcopy and leave it out where they'll thumb through it. I really really wish there were a combo deal where you can buy either the ebook or the physical book and get its analog/digital twin at half price. John du Cane, how 'bout it?
Beyond the Coffee Table. For me the book has (slowly) become a go-to place for Kavadlo's thinking about the movements and approaches to them. The book features more contexts than the DVD in which a movement might be explored. The book includes others besides the Kavadlo bro's doing the moves. There are normal looking gals doing pull ups for instance (by normal i mean they do not look like they were members of the US olympic gymnastics team - this to me is a plus to have us see that these moves ARE within the reach of humans if we practice).
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| Al pals of Thompkin Square Park in RTB |
The book connects the philosophy of Al's WWO with the practice of the bar work.
For instance, we once again see that while hanging leg raises are the path to a six pack, eating real food - like veggies - is the only True Way to seeing them. That's another thing i like about Kavadlo's approach - staying healthy is part of this. doing healthful things is important. All of the processes can be achieved without supplements and eating reasonably, eating real food. We also see humility and humanness in RTB the book as in WWO: Al 'fess's up to an abs symmetry envy he's had of his big brother Danny.
And two concepts of particular relevance where we see the Zen of WWO in RTB: beginner's mind - where challenging moves stay challenging and practice remains important; and getting to a place of Intestinal Fortitude - having to be able to commit to the process of adaptation - to make progress.
The DVD - on the other hand - the DVD is, as per the afore mentioned review - a great visual feast of modelled progressions and forms of a movement. It's like, let's assume the Tude is in place; now here's what practice can look like.
In other words, the book gets more into head space and alternatives while the DVD models progressions.
What are we Doing Here? Building Trust - in a Difference
As said, i've been asking myself - who cares about a professional practice interview? If the tools are good, they're good. and i certainly think the DVD is great and the books are really nice complements for the head space needed to support the practice.
And for those interested in the Al way there is WWO; al's own blog has a lot of articles about his process. So what more do we need here??
Indeed, it's this plethora of material that's only built confidence around Al that he's got a nice approach to fitness - an approach that is DIFFERENT IN A GOOD WAY. The non-grr way. The Tao of UnGrr. Do you know what i mean? Do you like that, too? One doesn't have to get all butched up and matchod out to go demonstrate skill. One can smile, laugh, have fun. And be serious.
The Significant Bit So this interview is trying to get at a little more of that process than is currently expressed in the extent material by and around all things AK - i hope i'm conveying why that process is an Interesting Bit (aside: there's this thing in coding about a significant bit, how that one binary switch turning it on or off makes all the difference. Kavadlo's flipped on an interesting, significant bit in his approach).
Look, it's maybe like this: there are so many ways to achieve the same ends - consider all the ways there are to get a pull up - all the programs (here's b2d's own pull up 101 summary of half a dozen approaches at least). Anyone claiming to be different or have THE answer - well that's gotta just be greeted with some skepticism. So increasingly, i find that the rational behind how we present that process is where interesting things happen.
In other words, how does communication of a process work that it lead to success for some group of people? And success in this case is multiple: first, it's helping to introduce people to and move them forward in a new kind of physical practice. Al's doing that in this bodyweight practice. Second, it's an attitude/approach. That is, the humility before the bar, as i'm calling it: one is not *special* - one has to show up. And Al keeps showing up. Walks the walk. You just can't fake these movements. And who has to go "grr" when you can do a Human Flag??
And Now, The Interview(s)
With the above context in place, let's get into even more thoughts from Al about his design rationale.
b2d: Many people have come to know your work through your YouTube vids, and i've heard you say on an interview that you get emails all the time about how to do a muscle up or a human flag etc. Can you take us through the process a bit about how long you prep a move before you video it, how you decide to do this?
AK: High level moves like the human flag are always a work in progress. I talk pretty in depth about my journey toward the flag in these articles: mymadmethods, t-nation, blog
yes - it was the t-nation one that convinced me one assistance exercise for the flag would be getting lighter/leaner...
As for how long I work on a move before I video myself, I record my training just about whenever I can. It sort of allows me to be my own trainer. I don't usually make the video public until I can do the move somewhat decently though! I'm constantly refining my skills though. I sometimes watch my youtube videos from a couple years ago and see mistakes in my form that I didn't notice at the time. That's part of why I keep making new videos. I can do a lot of these exercises better now!
Raising the Bar
b2d Raising the Bar the book gets to freeze frame some of that process of the practice. It also includes a variety of folks carrying out their bar practices. In both WWO and RTB, you talk about the value of having workout partners but not getting hooked on having a partner. In your own practice, what role do these other folks play in your workouts - do you connect with these guys regularly? do you say let's have a pull up a thon on saturday?
AK: Yes, there are a lot of regulars at TSP and we're always getting inspired by each other. Sometimes formal meet-ups are planned in advance, but usually you just wind up working out with whoever is around - though in the winter, there are a lot less people around! Here's a video of a big TSP meet-up that took place in 2011:
Cool. Another feature of the book for which a big thank you for spending many glossy pages on women doing pull ups. And right at the start of the book, too. i'd like to see women doing one arm pull ups and hand stand push ups please - preferably people who do not have a gymnastics background - that is really bumming me out - that so many of these bodyweight icons all seem to have gymnastics backgrounds - doing it since they were kids. Phooey.
AK: I'm really glad that you appreciate me including lots of women in Raising The Bar. I promise my next book will feature at least one photo of a non-gymnast woman doing a handstand push-up
Speaking of rules, in your own work where you talk about training certs, you kinda neg the CSCS, saying in effect suck it up and pass the test then do what you want. Did you not find much of worth in that program/text?
AK: I'm guessing you read my recent T-Nation piece on certifications, right? It's not so much that I am trying to single out the NSCA, but rather that I am trying to demystify the cert industry in general. The value of actual personal training experience exponentially exceeds that of the certification process, especially for certs that don't include any hands-on work.
MUSIC Ok, let's circle back to this a little later and move into your vids for now. You have a fabulous and welcoming attitude in your We're Working Out vids. What inspired the name, the great music theme, and doing videos to reach people in the first place?
AK: As for my theme music, I write and record all my own music, which is great because I don't have to pay for licensing, but also because music has been a passion of mine since even before fitness. I've also been a into writing, photography and videography for a long time, so doing my blog, and making books and DVDs allows me to combine all of the things I enjoy most.
Can folks listen to your music elsewhere? does your theme tune have a name? (again - it's great the way that works with the clips - signature smile; signature tune - interesting instrumentation).
AK: My theme song was originally the intro to a song I wrote and recorded several years ago before I even started my blog. (Music has been an interest of mine since even before working out.) After the site was up I had the idea to use that riff as my theme music. I've since gone back and re-recorded an extended version of the theme which is the version you hear on the DVD and in my more recent youtube clips. I actually put some of my music up on iTunes a while back, including the full version of the song that wound up becoming my theme. Ironically enough, the song is called "Don't Want You To See Me."
You can also hear it in its entirely in this older youtube clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iU8NRfLtF0
I bet most folks did not know about this OTHER creative side of your work. It adds to the sense of you and your style coming to working out, outside.
SMILIN' STYLE This question about your style of presentation is a big differentiator. For instance, i love watching the baraholics do their thing, but that's kinda how i feel - it's their thing, rather than an invitation to get to that place too. You have this "**WE*** part of we're working out. it's an invitation. across the nation... how did you develop that smile/approach??
AK: My smile has definitely become part of my signature. A lot of people think working out has to be this really serious thing but that mindset is a bit of a turnoff for me. There's absolutely a serious aspect to it, but I like to keep a lighthearted attitude because that is just my nature. Something I've often said is that to be successful in the fitness industry you have to embrace your personality and find the people you click with. Nobody is the best trainer for everyone. I'm catering to an audience in the fitness world that has been neglected for a long time. Working out isn't just for clean-cut muscle-head jocks and women who look like Barbie.
good to know :)
As a kid I was a geek
GEEKs n' Freaks You mean you're no longer a geek? and what kind of geek? what do you mean by "neglected" - you're thinking of whom?
Haha - I guess you're right - once a geek, always a geek! Though sometimes people don't expect it from my appearance, I am definitely still a nerd at heart. As for the neglected segment of the fitness industry, I'm talking about the geeks, freaks and weirdos. People who don't fit the textbook definition of "normal."
ok
I was also always bad at sports.
(aside: let's do some vision work together sometime, al…there's just no need for this...no need...)
When you're bad at sports as a kid, you tend to get made fun of rather than being given encouragement or positivity.
or, hmm, skills training?
As I grew up, I was surprised to discover that fitness could actually be FUN. I'm just trying to spread that message.
Fun indeed. But also specifically bodyweight. You've likely noticed over the past maybe two years a growing trend towards bodyweight work. You've been ahead of the curve, would you say? What do you think is bringing folks back to body based skills for strength and conditioning?
I am very excited about the recent resurgence of bodyweight training and I'm grateful to be a part of it. There's definitely been a growing trend towards bodyweight exercise but it still hasn't totally infiltrated the mainstream. When you are into a subculture like the bodyweight community, it's easy to forget that it's still on the fringes. If you go into almost any mainstream gym it's still just a sea of machines and most of the people there will have never even heard of a muscle-up or a human flag, nonetheless be training toward one themselves.
hmm. it's really cool that you see that.
DVD MAKING OF... What's really interesting to note about The Raising the Bar DVD is that it is entirely your production - that's cool - and Dragon Door (DD) is mainly the distributor for you. How did that happen? there's LOT of ways you could have produced and sold this vid - so why this one?
for some of the videographer geeks in the house, can you tell us about the euqipment you use for your we're working out vids? given your shiftlessness, for instance, where does the mic go??
Making this DVD was a fun process but also a tremendous amount of work. I actually had never intended to make a DVD - it always seemed like too much work and the written word has always been more appealing to me. I like making the youtube clips but they are all very short and the standards for production values tend to be lower on Youtube. So it's a much smaller production and less of a time commitment. However, Dragon Door President John Du Cane was really into the idea of making a DVD to go with my book Raising The Bar and I guess it wasn't that hard for him to convince me! Dragon Door has a great reputation and huge following. I feel lucky to get to work with them. Once John told me that he would let me have total creative control it became a very exciting proposal.
The Book Making Of That's excellent - would you like to talk a little bit about how the book happened? how you got hooked up with DD for that? maybe we can sell a few of these, too? love the photography.
I first got involved with Dragon Door through Paul "Coach" Wade. He liked some of the photos on my blog and asked me if I would be interested in modeling for the sequel (CC2) to his popular Convict Conditioning book.
Of course I jumped at the chance. I exchanged a few emails with John Du Cane as well around this time and told him about the book I was writing about pull-ups. He expressed interest and when the manuscript was done I showed it to John and he loved it.
Then the DVD was shot on several different days over the course of close to two months -
wow! that's a long shoot
There was always with a week or so in between shootings. There was really no other way we could have done all those difficult moves as many times as we had to. I feel like we really crammed a lot of content into this DVD and I didn't want the form to suffer on any of the demonstrations so we had to spread it out.
Understandable.
Danny Kavadlo Could i ask why you decided to team up with your bro for most of the moves? It works - though i'm hard pressed to think why it works to have you both replicate these moves (the windshield wipers looks great by the way) - what inspired this?
Involving Danny in this DVD seemed like an obvious choice to me. Our personalities play nicely off each other and it's much more visually interesting to see two different people performing the moves.
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| Al and Danny - from RTB the Book |
It's also good to see that different bodies might look slightly different while performing the same exercise, to give the viewer a bigger scope of reference. Plus I love getting to work with Danny - it's just more fun having him involved. Danny is a busy personal trainer in his own right, so schedule-wise he can't always be in everything I do, but for the DVD we made sure to get our schedules in sync to make it happen.
Makes sense. but wow! Even for a project of this size, that's a lot of coordination, focus, effort. And yet the feel stays very true to the youTube vids.
Most of my youtube videos are just shot on a cheap little camera on a tripod. For the DVD I got actual camera people with better equipment! As for the sound, we couldn't use lav mics because we weren't wearing shirts, so we just had a mic a few feet in front of us and waited for patches of silence - which if you've ever been to NYC, you know can take a while. It was honestly a bit maddening trying to film the talking parts since jackhammers and car alarms keep going off. That's part of why I wound up doing so much voiceover. But hey, everything is a learning experience and I'm quite pleased with the end result, so it was all worth it!
It's super that it is outside - that's another big differentiator. it feels, again, real and fresh. Given the amount of effort, Is this DVD the first in a series? or what is on the ak horizon for reaching the peeps?
As for the future, I'm getting close to finishing my next book, which is all about no-equipment bodyweight strength training. It's titled "Pushing The Limits! - Total Body Strength With No Equipment" and will cover everything from basic push-ups and squats, up to handstand push-ups, pistols, one arm push-ups and more. I'm not sure what the next thing after that is yet. There are several ideas kicking around in my mind, but I usually just try to take things as they come.
PS: PCC
And now, let's circle back to certifications - while we were starting this interview the official announcement came out that you're leading a bodyweight certification with dragon door. Progressive Calisithenics Certification (PCC). Let's talk about that for a moment.
Ok questions: you're saying that the cert will require some challenge to pass. Voila:
MEN’S TEST
1. FULL SQUATS: 40 reps
2. FULL PUSH-UPS: 30 reps
3. HANGING KNEE RAISES: 20 reps
4. FULL PULL-UPS: 10 reps
TOTAL: 100 reps
WOMEN’S TEST
1. FULL SQUATS: 40 reps
2. KNEELING PUSH-UPS: 30 reps
3. HANGING KNEE RAISES: 20 reps
4. AUSTRALIAN PULL-UPS: 10 reps
TOTAL: 100 reps
Does that include a within three months if you can do it and send in a vid you get the cert?? eg, the rkc has always had a snatch test and other assessments guarenteeing a 60% pass rate on the day with the three month buffer zone. Is this the same?
The PCC will be a lot like the RKC in terms of the testing. RKC has the snatch test, PCC has "The Century" (details are on DD's site). And like the RKC, we will be giving those who cannot pass the century in person a chance to video themselves and send it in afterward.
Ok another obvious question that needs to be head on addressed: how is this cert different than Convict Conditioning? What would get someone to pay for this course if they've made progress with that program - or for that matter with your awesome DVD? how does this course fit into your own path for your work - such as the latest DVD raising the bar? what will the differences be between that work and this cert program?
As for how the PCC is different than CC, the curriculum is much more inclusive than CC, which really only talks about 6 movement patterns. Even if you include CC2, it's still barely half of the total PCC curriculum, which includes things like front levers, back levers, muscle-ups, etc. I guess the closest approximation you can make is that the PCC curriculum combines content from the CC books as well as my books, but it will still go more in-depth than any of those materials. More importantly, however, is that it's an interactive experience! RTB and CC are great resources, but they can't actually tell you if your form is correct or give you cues specific to your situation. Also, since the course is designed with other trainers in mind, the PCC will go into great detail about how to appropriately teach and program these movements for other individuals. And of course, it's a chance for attendees to train with Danny and I in person and pick our brains during the Q&A session.
How does Paul Wade fit into the Al K world? you seem to have this thing down, al, about teaching progressions, so why bond with someone else?
Why would I join up with Paul Wade? Why wouldn't I want to join with him?!? CC is far and away the most popular book ever on bodyweight training and while I've made a name for myself on my own, teaming up with Paul and DD is one of those rare opportunities to combine our efforts and take things to the next level. I guess it's an example of the sum of the parts being stronger than each part on its own.
How many certs will you and Danny be leading in a year do your reckon? And women lined up to work with you? non-gymnast backgrounds?
I'm not sure how often we are going to be offering the PCC - I guess that depends on how much demand there winds up being. My hope is that it will grow to the level of the RKC, but only time will tell.
Can we come back to the test for a sec? Can you help contextualise the century test with the goals of the cert? Realistically, someone just able to do that set is not likely to end the cert doing a human flag, and that's on the menu, so...
As for the Century, it definitely does not qualify someone to teach the human flag. The PCC cert and Century test establish a baseline level of competency in calisthenics - enough to qualify certified individuals to instruct beginners and intermediate level students. The more advanced moves will be in the workshop, as some candidates will be ready to learn them, but very few personal training clients are going to be anywhere near ready for moves like the flag and muscle-ups, so it isn't essential for PCC candidates to be able to perform them. It's kind of like how at the RKC, there might be a few people attempting the beast tamer of iron maiden challenges, but for most people the snatch test is plenty to convey competency in the basics.
Ok. Thank you. A bit of a background question to wrap, if i may: i have to ask: what, no martial arts background? nothing wrong with that if there is - but if not - how refreshing.
I've dabbled in marital arts (a little Tae Kwon Do as a kid and a brief stint practicing Jiu-jitsu as an adult) but I never enjoyed those things as much as strength training and calisthenics (I discuss this in more detail in my first book). It's hard to nail down exactly what's so appealing to me about calisthenics. There are a lot of things about it that are very similar to martial arts - particularly the discipline and the direct cause-and-effect relationship between how much work one puts in and their skill level - but I've never been a violent or aggressive person and besides, martial arts are always so serious. Calisthenics is more fun and playful, which better suits my personality.
And one more: why do you think it's great and fun to be able to do these bodyweight movements? what keeps you going with the lever and fingertip work and exploring moves?
There's just something special and transcendent about calisthenics that I can't really articulate.
The Un Grr Difference
After all of the above, that last statement might be seen as filling in the definition of irony, eh? Or possibly it's a bit of that zen in the kone sense of we're working out: discuss everything but the thing itself. For now.There is a difference between the Who and [the What and the Way]. I make know claims here to know Al Kavadlo - not the intent here. As said, the focus has been to better see if i understand what the person is trying to explore and how the presentation of that WHAT communicates that Way. As said at the outset, while that's an interesting thing, the purpose here is not biography but methodology, and what informs that method. Why care? well, methods like skills are replicable. By exploring the components of a method, we may decide these methods are worth exploring further via replication/emulation in our own personal or coaching practice.
I really hope, therefore, this wee article has given y'all a sense of the Al Kavadlo approach, and why it's that approach (perhaps less than the thing itself) that feels so intriguing, captivating, delightful (and effective) about Al's bringing bodyweight work to the Net.
The Methodology of Presentation
Nice sentiment. But what IS then the AK methodology not of working out - a lot of that is already in WWO - but of re-presentation of work? - Here's a few of the significant bits:- walk the walk - demonstrably
- if your goal is to have folks able to explore pull ups anywhere, show pull ups anywhere.
- If the goal is that anywhere is an opportunity for practice, show that.
- if buddies play a role, show that
- if being at ease and having fun is important, show that
- Be true to your space
- if you do your thing in a park, go demo in the park
- Model progress
- if you're opening the door for someone, demonstrate the completion but especially model a path to completion
- Let the Movement reflect the You, too
- if your style is joy, show joy in the movement.
- Humility before the Bar (or implement/technology of practice)
- repeating the message constantly that these moves are not "owned" once and they're in the bag, but require constant practice
- Respect the body
- finding what works for you and then doing it - alot: al's thing is bodyweight - found after exploring/playing with lots of other stuff.
- food: keeping it real food and hence lean
- movement: endurance and absolute strength not so far apart - so running as a part of practice for instance is part of the WHOLE presentation package - with joy
- Stepping Up
- the videos themselves are a testimony to a public stepping up, but so is putting up in front of others who are likewise practicing. Not (necessarily) a competition, but a reminder that
- we can learn from others
- be encouraged by others
- encourage others
- and keep ourselves honest
- Attitude - of joy and honesty
- this is sorta like let the movement reflect you - but it's also part of the pre movement. Al talks on camera, does voice overs explaining the approach. so the attitude in the movement is the same as in what precedes it.
- Practice - getting in lots of reps - Respect the audience
- Al talks about video'ing himself often for being his own coach; he's also done *lots* of youtube videos. Practice - doing it a lot - finding time to do it a lot - is a kind of respect for the audience.
There are a ton of training vids - this practice of presentation is a key element - caring and working to make it effective from music to voice over to shots - is an undeniable (but often unperceived attribute of) what keeps us coming back, no?
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| mc repete apres le model du al k with the gal's first pull upprogress party |
Some of us do some of these things in this list unconsciously. If we grr about our practice, we likely grr if we teach it or when we show off. By stepping back and looking at method deliberately we can CHOOSE to focus on it and act on it. Al's smile, as he says, is his signature. It's certainly what keeps me coming back.
Those of us who do presentations - can we choose to focus on say that vibe that we use in the presentation and keep it in the demo? Or even simply become aware that that's something that can be constructed, created and practiced?
When doing the pull up photo that would become the poster clip for the gal's "my first pull up" progress party - i was definitely thinking (a) being in the environment and (b) expressing joy - this is fun (cuz it is).
That's on the in front of camera part of the presentation; there's also the practice of getting comfortable being on camera AND getting skilled up about some basic video editing, uploading, managing a youtube channel etc - because Al K does it all himself. These are are EACH method decision points: where do we want to put our practice cycles first if we want to communicate online, and in media that's delivered via an online space?
Working the Method. By way of comparison, consider tony horton of p90x fame. If you know P90X, He hits a number of the above components, doesn't he? As a mental exercise to see how method works, one might ask, what would Tony need to add or change to demonstrate the full Al K method for presentation - and still be true to P90X? Is there anyone else you can think of in the presentation of knowledge space where you can check the AK methods of presentation? (We could get into an entire discussion at some point about whether/how coaches need to be able to model physically what they coach).
The goal here is not to say "here's how to clone Al Kavadlo" - but how to look at the methods that are so well done, and think of them as skills we might want to practice if and as we present ourselves/our thing - whatever that is.
To that end, here's a little more un grring bodyweight work with AK.
And, Post Post Script, Thank You
On a personal note, one of the real gifts of Al's stuff? Inspired me to try moves i'd not have thought of exploring before (someone has to help get more images of women doing these moves, eh?...)
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| mc recently in Fwance - where now they not only kiss on main street but do elbow levers in the park where "nous faisons de la musculation" |
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