On Mindful Training

The classic mindless training picture: In some gyms you pay £70 a month for this

How to spot a liar in 0.01 secs in the gym

I work in a gym where people can just turn up and pay for a session, all they have to do is sign an indemnity form to say they're experienced in using gyms and with gym equipment and away they go. Sometimes I ask them how long they've been training and what they normally do. They normally tell me they've been training for years and they don't need any help; if it's a guy the first clue that they may not know what they're talking about is 1) When they mention a day dedicated to biceps or forearms except they don't look like Dorian Yates 2) They ask where the Smith machine is. If it's a woman it's when they say they usually just use the x-trainer and ask where the Adductor machine is.

Dorian Yates: didn't have a dedicated forearm day, didn't spend his time arsing around in the gym

I'm not ready to write them off just yet. Normally in about 90% of cases I can guess what the guys first exercise will be. Will it be a mobility warm up? No. Will it be some foam roller? No. Will it be some warm up squats with an empty bar? No. Nine times out of ten, it will an alternating bicep curl, standing as close to dumbbell rack as possible so no one can get close to it, making sure that the actual bicep curl is not full range of movement. As we all know the alternating bicep curl is the gold standard in warm up exercises and nervous system activation.

From this point onwards it normally goes downhill,  a random selection of exercises follows, Smith machine quarter squats using the knees only, bench press with feet up of course, hang on, they've just spotted the pec fly, time for some partial reps with as much weight as possible, need some more biceps, quick to preacher curl and if they've brought a friend with them some partner assisted reps should help those guns really get under stimulated. And so it goes on, until you feel the need to palm strike them out of their training stupor. Maybe in everyday life they aren't a douche bag, but in the gym the mixture of arrogance combines with complete training ignorance makes them one.

It turns out in most cases, they don't actually know what they're doing. Yes, they've trained for years, but they've been training half arsed, never actually following any type of program or structure, no intensity, no progress, no point. Now, I'm all for cybernetic periodization and intuitive training, but these guys aren't doing that, they've never trained with any intensity or plan; you need to know the basic rules before you start to break them. In a nutshell, they are training mindlessly.

Of course this phenomenon is not limited to guys trying to get big in the gym. Women fall into the same trap. Recently, I heard a women who goes to classes say that she didn't come here to think, when the studio instructor added in some exercises she was unfamiliar with. And that's the crux, a good many people want to stay in their comfort zone, switch off, plug in the ipod, do the same class over and over again with the same exercises and the same weights, go and get a coffee afterwards, stay fat, still not be able to do a plank for 30 seconds, complain that their body shape never changes and exercise doesn't work. And the whole industry pandered to this group over the last 20 years, gave them machines that required no thought or co-ordination, gave them 'workouts' that achieved nothing, made it easy to keep their business. But maybe, just maybe things are changing... a bit.

Mindful training  - stop working out

In the DVD club swinging essentials and the accompanying manual Dr Ed Thomas talks about mindful movement. Gray Cook, Brett Jones & Dr Thomas ask

"Why do we go to the Gym? "To get in a workout" is the common answer, but breaking a sweat or working through the latest extreme program are poor reasons. What if going to the gym meant learning.?"

 Dr Thomas states that in the past people went to the gym to learn a skill, to realise the full potential of the human body.

These days we are re-discovering kettlebells, Olympic weightlifting, Indian clubs, body weight exercises and more. But people are enamoured by machines. I was working out in a commercial gym last week and one of the instructors was showing a lady some floor exercises for the back, her question was "Is there a machine that does this?". She didn't want to believe that a simple body weight exercise could be the most effective exercise, she wanted to believe that one of those expensive machines must be better and could somehow do the work for her.

Some of it is misinformation and fitness myth, and sometimes it's difficult to see where it all comes from. The research on strength training and interval training has been pretty much consistent in its findings over the last 20 to 30 years. However, the average member of the public is still fearful of weights and non steady state cardio. I was training a marathon runner a few weeks ago, I did the usual movement screen, mobility warm up and eventually had him doing some goblet squats with 8kg (yes, bear in mind this was only an 8kg kettlebell) and some presses as well. In the next session he told me he only wanted to use machine weights as he thought that the free weights would hurt his back, he perceived that the machines would be safer. Eventually I persuaded him otherwise, but in his mind an 8kg kettlebell was causing more impact than the 1500 foot strikes per mile in a marathon. Now I'm not talking about people with chronic back pain, with all the yellow flags and a genuine fear of making their pain worse until you show them what they can do, I'm talking about people who are essentially 'fit' and 'exercising' in some fashion already.

So what should it be

Joseph Campbell says in the TV series The Power of Myth

"A life evokes our character. Put yourself in a situation that evokes your higher nature rather than your lower."

 This applies to the way you exercise as well.Do something that makes you grow mentally and physically, something that challenges you, that results in the aquisition of a new skill. Campbell again

"All of life is a meditation, most of it unintentional."

 There are certain exercises that require focus and stillness, what Campbell refers to as one pointed meditation. This is a common way of meditating, where you focus on one object, for example, the light from one candle flame until everything else falls away. Exercise examples of this would be Olympic lifting, trail running (not road running, but trail running where you have to focus on the ground all the time to avoid falling over), and even more so running at night. If you've ever run at night with just a head torch for light on a trail then you know what the meaning of one pointed meditation is. You are focusing on that tunnel of light, unaware of everything else but also acutely aware at the same time, so you don't fall in a ditch or go the wrong way.

Olympic weightlifting: an exercise in one pointed meditation

Night running. Now make it pitch black, put yourself deep in the forest and turn your head torch on - that's one pointed meditation

 The quiet centre

Joseph Campbell talks about that quiet centre in athletics when everything just flows.

"When you find that burning flame within yourself, action becomes facilitated in athletics.. or performance of any kind. If you can hold to that still place within yourself while engaged in the field, your performance will be masterly. That's what the Samurai does. And the real athlete."

 However paradoxically mindful training like this takes practice. This is where learning the skill comes in, getting those neural connections to fire, getting those myelin pathways to thicken. But it can't be mindless practice. In the book Bounce Matthew Syed makes an analogy with driving. Nearly all of us who have been driving for years can do it automatically, you switch off and drive without thinking, you might have even done the 10,000 hours that should make you an expert. But it has been mindless practice, you've been on autopilot, you haven't been increasing your skill limit, you haven't been deliberately doing the same complicated manoeuvres over and over again until you get them right. You've got your 10,000 hours but you don't stand a chance in a formula one race, or even a standard track day event.

In the gym and classes you see it all the time, 10,000 hours in the treadmill and xtrainer but still can't run 10k, 10,000 hours of toning classes but still can't do a press up. You've been training mindlessly.

The same in sport, for example, with rock climbing, the beginner is too busy panicking about death and dealing with the pain in their hands, they can't switch off, there is no quiet centre.

Rock climbing: an exercise in moving meditation, a quiet centre and a self limiting exercise. And if hot women do it, I really should take it up.

But the experienced climber or athlete knows their craft, knows their weak points, is always trying to improve

 The eventual paradox in mindful training: the expert is looking for beginners mind. Absorb everything and then forget everything. Where there is no thought, everything is unconscious. Winning, losing and everything in between become unimportant.

"Anything you do has a still point. When you are in that still point, you can perform maximally." - Joseph Campbell

 So train with a intensity, train like you mean it, train mindfully. And most of all don't be that dufus who turns up in the gym and thinks he knows everything, and ends up learning nothing. The best of the best are always willing to learn.

References

Diane K Olsen(1991) Reflections on the Art of Living. A Joseph Campbell Companion.

Joseph Campbell The Power Of Myth DVD

Matthew Syed (2011) The Myth of Talent and the Power of Practice

Gray Cook, Brett Jones, Ed Thomas Club Swinging Essentials DVD. Dragondoor.com

Club Swinging Essentials DVD - A Review

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

It looks like this

Cost and what you get for your money

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


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

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


Content in brief

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

You must grow a moustache before you start swinging clubs

Paradigm Shift

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

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

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

1. Joint Integrity
2. Mobility
3. Efficiency

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"go to the gymnasium to learn to workout"

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

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

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

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

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

Safety section

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

The five movements

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

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

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

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

"Do it well before you do it fast."

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

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

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

Advanced moves

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

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

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

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

Bonus section - return to the source

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

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

One good reason to start rope climbing again!

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

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

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


Philosophy

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

These questions have got me thinking.

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

Conclusion

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

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

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

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

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