Train Like An Olympian. Think Like An Olympian.

Over the last week we've witnessed some amazing performances in the Olympics. I was lucky enough to be in the Olympic stadium on day one of the athletics, where I saw Jess Ennis break the British record in the 100m hurdles on her way to heptathlon gold. Elsewhere, Britain continues to dominate in the velodrome, seemingly breaking world records every time we hit the wooden track. In the rowing more gold medals, and athletes pushing themselves so hard they had to be lifted out of the boat at the end by Steve Redgrave. (Yes, I'm British, so I am somewhat bias in all the events I have mentioned, to redress the balance in the weightlifting seeing a guy lift triple his bodyweight overhead and another guy squat jerk 204kg at a bodyweight of 77kg is enough to fire anyone up).

Did I mention I was in the Olympic stadium on day 1 of the athletics when Jess Ennis broke the British 100m hurdle record

But can mere mortals take anything from the way these athletes train and think, and apply it to their own training? I think they can. You may not have the luxury of being a full time athlete, and your goal might be to lose half a stone or run 10k in less than 60 minutes, but you can take certain principles and start using them straight away.

The basics

The first thing to note is that most athletes training consist of basic exercises and drills that anyone can do. Yes, there are a few secrets that they are not going to tell anyone, and in the case of British Cycling they really did have the Secret Squirrel Club working on these type of developments. However, the basics remain fundamental. The Chinese, Turkish, South American and North Korean weighlifters do essentially the same exercises as everyone else. They have to practice the clean and jerk and the snatch, and do some accessory lifts, but to get good at lifting weights you have to lift weights. It's the same with running, to be good at running you have to run, you have to put the time in. Whether you're Kenyan or Mo Farah or looking to run 10k, there are really three basic things you have to do

1. Sometimes run long
2. Run some hills
3. Sometimes run fast, using intervals

This applies to fat loss, too often people search for the magic holy grail, obsessing about the details when they haven't even covered the basics (that green tea supplement ain't doing nothing if you're troffing a big mac and fries everyday). This article here by Nia Shanks covers the basics of fat loss and also contains this great quote from Dan John

"I think many of us think this way: If it’s free or simple or easy to understand, it can’t be as good as something that’s expensive, complicated and difficult to figure out on your own"

Consistency again, No one wants to hear about the hard work

After winning the 10,000m Mo Farah said this in his post race interview

"120 miles, week in, week out, long distance is a lonely event, what you put in is what you get out"

You can see the full interview here.

Mo Farah and his training partner, Galen Rupp, beat the East Africans, but they had to put the work in, they were still running 120 miles a week. It doesn't matter if you have the best coach in the world you still have to put the work in, no one is going to do it for you.

Geraint Thomas (member of Britain's winning Team Pursuit Squad in London 2012, that also happened to break the world record) said a very similar thing. The hours in the velodrome, sometimes from 7am to 10pm at night, the endless repetitions and hard work and grind.

So the question is how much do you want to achieve your goal, what are you willing to sacrifice? You could have a full time job and other family responsibilities, but if you want to lose that weight, if you want to run that distance, what are you going to do differently. How much time can you give to it? And on those dark winter days when no one cares about your goals, what's going to drag you out of bed to go for that walk or prepare those meals for the day? How about never missing a workout for a year or two years.

Decide how much time and effort you are willing to give to your goal, and then stick to it. And have a contingency plan, you know what barriers you have, you know when you might waiver and fail, you know when your busy times at work are. At some point you might get ill, then what? Have a plan.

At some point something or someone will attempt to derail you, be ready for it.

"The Aggregation of  Marginal Gains"

The above quote is by Dave Brailsford, Performance director of British Cycling. To quote from the team sky website

"We've got this saying, 'performance by the aggregation of marginal gains,'" Brailsford continued. "It means taking the 1% from everything you do; finding a 1% margin for improvement in everything you do."

In elite sport, 1% can be the difference between winning gold and being at the back of the field.

The problem with many amateurs is they start looking for the 1% gain when they haven't covered the 99% first. For example, the bicep curl is a 1% exercise. There is no point in doing it if you haven't got the basics covered; squat, deadlift, pressing movement and pulling movements. But a lot of young guys, especially, get it the wrong way around, they do tons of bicep curl variations and ask you how they are going to hit the outer head of their bicep when they can't do a chin up or a deadlift. I'm pleased to say I do see this gradually changing, where I work the squat racks and platforms are always busy with people doing squats and deadlifts and presses, and much of that can be put down to the coaches on the gym floor.

Don't chase the 1% until you've got the basics squared away.

But then look at EVERYTHING you do. The time in the gym, is it efficient? What you eat, what you do at work, your sleep patterns, the people you spend the most time with. Are all these things conducive to you achieving your goals. If not, how can you change them, will a 1% change be enough to reap rewards.

For more on the British Cycling approach see here, here and here

1% Flip it

However, there is another way of looking at the 1% if you are not on a pro cycling team and don't spend all your time in wind tunnels wearing lycra.

Jamie Staff, former member gold medal winning member of the British Cycling team, knew before the Beijing Olympics that to win he needed to improve his time by 2.78%, so he went about improving everything by 2.78%, improving his squat in the gym by this amount, dropping his bodyfat by this amount and so forth. In a NY Times article he states

 “When you break it down, it’s actually really small gains in all those small things that when added together make a huge difference”

You can apply this to your own goals. Say you want to lose one stone in weight, and for ease of calculation lets say you currently weigh 150Ibs. If you focus on losing just 1% of bodyweight per month (1.5Ibs) you would have lost the stone in 10 months, losing a mere 0.375Ibs per week, which is hardly noticeable, but over 10 months adds up. Of course, if you're in Biggest Loser territory you can lose way more than this just by doing the basics.

Setting PBs in the gym can be the same, squat is 150kg, increase by 1.5kg per month, and you've got an 18kg increase in 12 months. Of course, in reality, progress is rarely linear, and as a beginner you can make big jumps by improving technique alone.

You can also apply this principle to nutrition, change one thing at a time. One less chocolate bar per week, one less glass of wine, one more serving of vegetables per week, over a year these things add up. Exercise volume, its the same, 10 minute walk one week, increase by 1 minute per week over a year and you've got 60 minutes exercise per day.

But don't forget the basics.

And these things take time. You have to be patient. Increasing numbers of young guys are taking performance enhancing drugs, these are recreational lifters, with no desire to compete anywhere, but with anabolics easily available on the internet and an instant gratification culture, they will go for the easy route before looking at the basics, and then all the other 1% they can improve on. A clean rider won the tour de france (Bradley Wiggins), therefore this marginal gains stuff works.

Coach

What do Victoria Pendleton, Mo Farah, Bradley Wiggins, Jess Ennis and Lu Xiaojun all have in common. They all have a coach. And all of them have mentioned their coaches and support team in post event interviews (well, I don't know about Lu Xiaojun, but I'm sure he mentioned it when the Chinese state media interviewed him).

Jess Ennis has a coach - but maybe she wants a new strength & conditioning coach - I am available

And most of them have a whole team behind them, including physiotherapists, sports scientists, biomechanical analysis, chiropractors, psychologists and nutritionists.

The athlete also has to have total faith in their coach, their support team and their program.

But for some reason, the average gym-goer seems to think they can train themselves, write their own program or get their program from a magazine (or in most cases don't really have a plan or program, 'I think I'll do some chest and biceps today', 'I think I'll go for a 20 minute run today'). The only problem is, its very hard to assess your own weaknesses and strengths, what you need to work on, when you should back off and when you should push it and when you need to go back to the drawing board.

Coaches come in all different guises, some were world class athletes in their own right, for example, Mo Farahs coach Alberto Salazar,  Jess Ennis's coach Toni Minichiello seems to have always been a coach and was never an elite athlete  (I could be wrong, as there is surprisingly little information about him that I could find) and  it seems to be law that nearly all Olympic weightlifting coaches are an old fella in a tracksuit who will slap his lifters on the shoulders and if they are a female lifter on the ass as well!

The lesson here, is firstly a coach can really help. Secondly, don't be fooled by the appearance of the coach. Too often, in the gym environment the trainer who looks like a bodybuilder get the guys who want to bulk up (and the women sometimes who want to lose weight). I doubt Lu Xiaojuns coach has ever jerked 204kg and Toni Minichiello has probably never run a 12.54 100m hurdles, but they know how to coach and get the best from their athletes. Look for the coach who has got results and can prove it. Of course, athletes at the top of many sports are genetically gifted (save the genetics vs training argument for another day), so find a coach who has also got results with ordinary folk as well.

Kenyan coaching - a lesson

You might be thinking, this is all very well, but I don't have access to the facilities and support team that these pro athletes do, and you may be thinking that there is a 'special secret' training technique or drug that you don't know about.

Over to Kenya, the antithesis of British Cycling, in as much there is really no system or scientific high performance strategy. Of course, being born at altitude and spending your formative years running to school helps, and you can't change that, but this is true of many countries who don't win any long distance event.

If you want to go and train in Kenya, you can, there is no secret training camp. Adharanand Finn's fantastic book Running With The Kenyans outlines his time training there, and Toby Tansers book More Fire has several training programs of the elite Kenyan runners listed. And before going to the USA Mo Farah also trained in Kenya.

The most successful distance running coach in history is Brother Colm O'Connell, an Irish missionary with no background in coaching before moving to Kenya. So don't be fooled by appearances. With nothing more than a stopwatch and a track of rubble, they have dominated until recently all long distance events.

The secret is there are no secrets, do the basics every day, run, get up at 5am and run, run in a group, eat and run and rest, run long hills, do punishing hill sessions and go easy and back off when you need to. If anyone has taken to basics and turned them into an artform, it's the Kenyans.

Personal Training or Coaching

What is the difference between a personal trainer and a coach. This is my take on it. People employ a personal trainer because they need extrinsic motivation, they want someone to make them come to the gym, they want someone to count the reps. Sometimes there is balance of power issue with a personal trainer and client. Its not unusual for clients to tell their trainer that they don't want to do this or that, and they want a new program after two weeks because the current one isn't working. There can be a fair amount of second guessing the trainer, especially if the trainer is newly qualified or is trying to build up a client base, they are financially dependent on the client and sometimes do things to please the client rather than get results.

The coach is different. Yes, there is a dialogue, but the athlete must have complete faith in their coach. The British Cycling team and Rowing team have complete faith that they have the best coaches and system, there is no second guessing.

A few days ago Dave Brailsford was interviewed on BBC Breakfast news, yes he said you need talent and commitment, but without commitment talent was no good and he also stated

'fundamentally it's all about coaching'

Intrinsically motivate yourself

In a study by Connaughton et al (2008) they interviewed elite, world champion  and Olympic athletes to find out what type of mindset they have. They found athletes had three attributes regardless of the stage of their career

1. Having an unshakable self-belief in your ability to achieve your competition goals
2. Having an unshakable self-belief that you possess unique qualities and abilities that make you better than your opponents
3. Having an insatiable desire and internalized motives to succeed

In short, all the motivation quotes and pictures in the world aren't going to help if you can't motivate yourself

And two underlying mechanisms were cited again and again

1. Coaches' leadership
2. Social support

 Find a support team, a coach if you can, who will show you what you need to work on and what you can ignore.

Ultimately, you have to have no doubt at all that you will succeed in your goals.

Time for another Dave Brailsford quote, this time from an interview in The Independent newspaper

"You have to work out, is this athlete intrinsically driven? Is there that burning desire inside them, to continue to compete, to continue to improve, to continue to go through all the pain and the hard work, the nutrition, the lifestyle, the sacrifices you have to make. If you look at all the great champions … it's not to do with anyone outside, it's what's inside them, they're special in that respect. And if you haven't got that, it doesn't matter how much talent you've got, you're never going to get sustained success."

A good coach gives you belief and confidence. But you must have an internal drive, and as we will see at the end of this article, it is possible to cultivate that.

Over training

Many beginners are fearful of over training. Somewhere along the line, someone told them that if they did weights two days in a row or went for a run for two consecutive days they would explode, their muscles wouldn't recover and they would get injured.

Olympic athletes show you how much you can train and how much you need to train. Now, I don't expect you to run 120 miles a week or weightlift for 3 sessions a day, but lets face it, those 5 hours a week you're doing probably aren't going to lead to over training. The average Kenyan school kid is doing more.

But build up gradually, and you'll be surprised how resilient your body is.

At the other end of the extreme are clients who want to smash it every session. They do hours on end. As the old adage goes (I think it was Charles Staley who said it first, but I could be wrong) - stop chasing fatigue, chase performance. If the fatigue doesn't make you faster or stronger or lose weight, then why are you doing it?

The classic example, is when people start using plyometric drills as metabolic conditioning. They start jumping around with awful technique and not really creating any plyometric effect. This is where the coaching part becomes relevant, if they can't do it properly there is no point in doing it. Its also making the client aware that elite athletes rest 2,3,4,5 minutes between plyometric exercises. Its about maximum power and explosiveness, always know why you are doing something.

Even Kenyans take it easy...sometimes

In the excellent documentary 'Born to Run - The Secret of Kenyan Athletics', the presenter Eamonn Coghlan travels to Kenya to see how they train. In one scene, David Rudisha (edit: now Olympic champion, 800m world record holder, first man to run under 1.41) goes back to train with Colm O'Connell at his old school. Not only, does one of the greatest middles distance athletes of all time train with school kids, he does exactly what his coach says. The session is surprisingly easy, they practice running with tempo and rhythm and being completely relaxed, they do a long easy warm up and then do a few laps around the school yard and that's it. The presenter Eamonn can't believe how easy the session is. As Colm points out, not all sessions have to be hard, yes, they will have some very hard sessions, but other session have different goals which in the long term make the athlete better. In another scene the athletes do yoga and stretching. I highly recommend watching this documentary if you can.

The take home message is, training can undulate, when you train hard, train very hard, but when you need to recover, then do so.

Even Chinese lifters warm up with the bar

While watching the weightlifting at the ExCel live and also on TV, I noticed that before the clean and jerk even the top lifters warm up with the bar. That's right Lu Xiajun and Lin Qingfeng, gold medal winning lifters still warm up with the bar. Then I saw one of them put just 40kg on the bar to continue the warm up. The reason they are so technically good is they practice the moves over and over again. If the top lifters in the world still do a warm up with the bar and practice the movement then you probably need to as well.

Lu Xiaojun squat jerks 204kg at 77kg bodyweight. Unless you were born on Krypton and now live on a planet with a yellow sun then I wouldn't attempt this. Oh, and he still does bar work to warm up.

Under training

The opposite of training all the time and never undulating or varying your approach is not training enough. Some people seem to think that the once a week gym session is going to help them lose that weight or transform their bodyweight. Please don't ask me why you haven't lost weight when you do Pilates once a week, go on the treadmill for 10 mins and don't modify your eating habits.

Put some effort in. If you can't commit time to your goal then you will fail. A few sets of bicep curls with a 5 minute chat in between aren't going to cut it. In Olympic weightlifting, if you follow yourself you only get 2 minutes rest between maximal efforts. Get the job done. Focus.


Fail

While I was watching the heptathlon high jump in the Olympic stadium (did I mention I was in the Olympic stadium?!) it struck me that all the athletes keep jumping until they fail, they end on failure. You have to be willing to push out of your comfort zone, find failure and then learn from it, what could you have done differently. Learn to fail and use it to drive you on.


It was the same watching the weightlifting, lifters fail all the time, they go out, fail a lift and then compose themselves and go again. It was surprising to me how many lifters failed an attempt and then came out and got it the second time, or even put the weight up and then got the new weight. Even those who had already won the event, would often come out for their third attempt and try for a PB or world record when they had no need to. Push yourself, compete against yourself.

Train with people who are stronger than you or faster than you can help, as can having a coach, pushing you past levels that you previously thought were your limits.

As Dave Brailsford said 'you will lose more than you win', but you have to keep trying.

Lin Qingfeng. The look of a man who will win at all costs. He doesn't use the door, he just walks through the wall, unstoppable.

Excuses

Okay, maybe you're still thinking, that's all very well, but I have a full time job, I can't afford a coach and I'm not moving to Kenya. Well here's a non Olympic example for you. Scott Jurek, American ultrarunner, won the Western States 100 mile run, Badwater 135 mile run, Hardrock 100, Spartathlon 152 mile run. He had no coach, for most of his early career he was working in a running shop or as a Physical Therapist, and was in a sport with no prize money and in the early years of his career no sponsorship. He would train by running to and from work, and at weekends, with no money and in debt before he became the face of ultrarunning. I highly recommend you read his book Eat & Run.


If you want it enough, you'll do it.

As If

I recently finished reading a book called Rip It Up by Professor of Psychology Richard Wiseman. I highly recommend it.

It is based on a principle first explained by philosopher William James over a hundred years ago

'If you want a quality, act as if you already have it'

 Common sense tells you that your emotions cause behaviour, for example, you are happy so you smile, or you are an extrovert therefore you have outgoing behaviour. In fact, research has show over and over again that the reverse is true. Behaviour causes emotion, if you smile you will feel happier, if you adopt a 'power posture' you feel more confident, and if you tense your fist hard for a minute your testosterone levels will go up. This is the opposite of positive thinking in many ways.

If act like you are an elite athlete, train like an athlete, look at every aspect of your life like an elite athlete, then you will take on some of their attributes (now this doesn't mean your are going to run a 9.63sec 100m but it does mean you will attack your own personal goals in a more professional manner and are more likely to achieve them).

Elite athletes have a coach, get one if you can, or even just get someone to write your training program for you. As one of the athletes in the study by Connaughton said

"When we got into the elite standard of training we were very structured in our training. My coach and I would plan out the training month by month."

In summary to train like an Olympian and think like one

1. Work on the basics, practice, put the time in
2. Once you've got the basics, think about everything else you can improve, the 1%
3. Get a coach or a support network
4. Internalise your motivation. When its dark and cold and you need to get up and train, only you can motivate yourself
5. Act as if you are already elite in the way you approach your training and goals.

Final thoughts - slaying the dragon

One of my favourite athletes (and commentators) of all time is actually a sprinter - Michael Johnson. If you don't know who Michael Johnson is, you probably live in a cave somewhere, but in short Olympic 200m and 400m champion in Atlanta and the most insightful commentator on athletics with a no nonsense approach; not sugar coating and not dumbing down for the audience. His approach to training and attitude always really appealed to me, the results spoke for themselves.

In his book Slaying The Dragon (now out of print, but you can pick up a second copy for a couple of quid) he covers many of the techniques that helped him become a champion, one of these areas is crafting self discipline. If you have set yourself the target of doing 50 press ups or 10 intervals, then do 50 not 49, do all 10 intervals not 9; apply this principle to all aspects of your life and not just your training. Also, importantly remember that the journey can be hard, yes you should enjoy your life, but cutting calories is hard, pushing away that cake is hard when everyone around you is eating it,turning off the TV and putting in another training session when you feel fatigued is hard. As Johnson says

"Ask yourself: 'Why am I doing this?'....when it comes to practicing self discipline, don't fool yourself; go ahead and admit that fat free cheese doesn't taste as good. It only works if the end is something you really want. Remember, this is a decision you consciously made. Remind yourself why."

(Of course he wrote this before everyone went high fat and low carb and then intermittent fasting crazy, because what is the point of low fat cheese - hello taste?!).  Remind yourself on a daily basis why you are doing what you are doing.

Michael Johnson - 'Do the 50th push up' and check out that satorius muscle on his leg!

"after you have stared long enough into the dragon's eyes, there is nothing left to do but slay the dragon. For each of us, that dragon is the thing closest to the center of our lives. It is our core, our ambition, and our joy." - Michael Johnson

Afterward

In an interview on BBC Breakfast Dave Brailsford mentioned 2 other things, get a decent pillow so you sleep properly and use handwash so you have less chance of picking up infection and then not being able to train. If Brailsford says it, I'd probably do it!

British Cycling - they use round wheels, decent pillows amd hand wash

Further Reading

Connaughton D et al (2008) The development and maintenance of mental toughness: Perception of elite performers. Journal of sports sciences. 26:1, 83-95
Finn A (2012) Running With The Kenyans
Jurek S (2012) Eat & Run
Johnson M (1996) Slaying the Dragon (out of print)
Tanser T (2008) More Fire. How To Run The Kenyan Way
Wiseman R (2012) Rip It Up

Links

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/dave-brailsford-cycling-coach-reveals-secrets-to-gbs-success-8005870.html
http://www.teamsky.com/article/0,27290,17547_5792058,00.html
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/marginal-gains-bear-fruit-for-great-britain-in-olympics
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/23/sports/olympics/2012-olympics-how-britain-conquered-the-cycling-world.html?_r=2&smid=tw-share


Further watching

Kenyan running doc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BknGrh7mJ6Y

for those who can't access BBC website, here is Lu Xiaojun lifting 204kg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQRk8kK-GxM

Julia Rohde - just because

Vanishing Point. Zen And The Art Of Training

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

           - The Oxford Reference Dictionary

Vanishing Point: Make sure you watch the original 1971 film

 
Typical Gym Conversations


Typical gym conversation no.8

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


Typical conversation no.9

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

Typical conversation no.12

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

Simplicity, Consistency, Intensity.

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

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

The three pillars of training:

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

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

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

The foundation

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

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

Discern the advantages and disadvantages of all things

Discover through yourself those things that cannot be seen

Take care even with small matters

Do not do useless things

and explains

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

 - John Maki Evans

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

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

         - Hagakure, The Book of the Samurai

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

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

- Tom Waits in the film Rumblefish

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

Simplicity

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

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

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

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

Simplicity in weightlifting

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

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

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

Monday: Clean & Press 3reps x 5sets

Tuesday Snatch 3reps x 5sets

Wednesday: Squat 3reps x 2 sets

Thursday: Clean & Jerk 1 rep x 5sets

Friday: Rest

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

Sunday: Squat  3reps x 2 sets

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

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

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

Simplicity in running

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

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

So what do they do? Firstly

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

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

Monday

AM 60 mins easy running

PM As above

Tuesday

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

PM Easy running, distance does not matter

Wednesday same as Monday

Thursday

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

PM Rest

Friday Same as Monday

Saturday

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

Sunday Rest

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

(Taken from Tanser, 2008: 229)

Running programs can really only have 4 elements

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

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


Consistency

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

           - Hagakure, The Book of the Samurai

To get good at anything requires repetition.

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

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

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

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




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

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

          -Hagakure, The Book of the Samurai

This applies to weight training as much as anything else.

Consistency in running

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

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

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

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

Day           First Workout               Second Workout    Third Workout

Mon          12  miles easy               30-60 mins easy

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

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

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

Fri             Easy Run                      30-60 mins easy

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

Sun            long run 2- 2.75hours

Source: Fitzgerald (2010;69)                       

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

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

Intensity

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

        Taisen Deshimaru - The Zen Way to the Martial Arts

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

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

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

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

Intensity in running

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

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

Intensity with weights

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

Beyond intense

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

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

Vanishing Point Redux

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

         Hagakure, The Book of the Samurai

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

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



References

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