Have You Ever Wondered Why?

Have You Ever Wondered Why?

Alright, I know that's kind of a vague questions, but let us give you some context. Have you ever wondered why we train the way way we do? Have you ever had the question pop into your head during a training session "Why in the world am I doing this?" We are going to hopefully anser that question and explain why we program your workouts the way we do. Let's get started!

Why We Warm-up

If you've ever tried to sprint and gotten a hamstring cramp immediately, you probably didn't give your legs a chance to warm up good enough before rocketing out of the gate like a racehorse. You have to prepare your body for a long metaphorical war. We use the warm-up to prime/prepare our body and nervous system for optimal performance throughout the workout and life. We also need to make sure that we can create quality movements. This is why we program dynamic stretches throughout the workout. If we can create quality movement, we can get the most optimal performance out of our bodies for the long haul.

You're An Athlete Whether You've Played A Sport Or Not.

We think that every single person is an athlete. We aren't just talking about a big football or basketball star athlete. We mean everyone is an athlete in life and we should be training so. When we hear the word performance, our minds probably go directly to an Olympic athlete who's been training all their life for one big moment. While there is validity in that, there is some truth that we can apply to our daily lives.

We train for things like power, speed, and agility because every single one of us needs that throughout our lives. While it may not mean setting a world record in the long jump or making the game-winning catch in the end zone at the Super Bowl, we need to train these things in order to live a long, healthy life. We train things like lateral leaps and sticks in order to prep our bodies for moments when we might need to change direction suddenly. What if you need to get out of the way suddenly or need to catch yourself from stepping off a curb that you didn't see? This is why we Program these "athletic" movements on a regular basis.

How Strong? Too Strong!

Being strong is the main focus of our training. We like to make sure you're getting as strong as you can. Why? Because as you age you lose muscle mass and bone density. How do we fight that? By lifting weights regularly. We want to make sure we make the muscles and connective tissue as strong and resilient as possible in order to keep you rocking and rolling for as long as possible. We don't train "weightlifters", we use weight lifting as a tool to help your performance and function in life.

We Put The Ass In Assistance

You might have seen this on some of your workout spreadsheets, Assistance. We use a slew of different exercises for our Assistance portion of the program. These are all exercises that help elevate you to the next level. They're literally the sail that helps propel our boat, the peanut butter to our jelly, the Pippen to our Jordan. They provide the compound to help polish our strength and performance to a diamond-like shine. Some of our favorites are single-leg lunge variations, extra hamstring work, pull apart variations, and loaded carries. Think about any exercise that is going to bring balance to the big picture.

The Human Condition?

This is probably your least favorite topic, but it's necessary for us to explain why conditioning is important. We use multiple ways to challenge your conditioning. Whether it's pushing a sled or doing sprints on Satan's bicycle, you need to be training your energy systems. It's important to use both high-intensity and low-intensity cardiovascular exercises in order to optimize your heart and lung function. We do this because we think that training both gives you the best of both worlds. You should be able to sprint to safety if you need to and you should be able to maintain a good level of fitness to decrease your risk of injury from a poor ability to recover from physical stressors.

High-intensity work helps you tap into your power, promotes growth, and can burn a substantial amount of calories in a short period of time. Yes, it's the cooler sexier looking cardio, but on the downside, doing too much high-intensity work regularly can wreak havoc on your central nervous system and lead you down a road of poor performance and injury.

Low-intensity cardiovascular exercise isn't sexy. To be honest, it's pretty freaking boring. However, it is important to ensure that we are adding this into our programs and doing this type of conditioning throughout the week. 30-minute low-intensity walks every day can help reduce stress, increase your cardiovascular function, decrease your risk of heart disease and other diseases like diabetes, and help you recover from physical stressors that can keep you from getting good quality sleep at night. While crushing some high-intensity exercise is important, we think checking the low-intensity cardio several times per week is more important to our overall health, function, and longevity.