Do I love training?

I was prepared for this post with a lot of quotes and clever points.
Well...
I decided to cut that crap (pardon my french) and simply be honest.

Training is certainly a huge part of my life and I say "I love training" quite a lot I think...
But I´ve got to admit, I never really thought that one through.

I talk about it a lot, I want to talk about it a lot. I want to discuss it, gather information about it, want to know it in every aspect possible.
I crave it when not doing it, I´m looking forward to it, sometimes all day long, I crave the calm before the storm and afterwards. I crave the exhaustion, the sweat, the focus, the difficult breathing.
But training just is, exists.
It is just movement of myself and external objects.
Muscular contraction against a variable resistance with different intervals of contraction and relaxation.
Training doesn´t care about me.
I crave for it, miss it, initiate it.

I decide what and when, I decide the intensity, tough I get carried away sometimes.
It´s something brutally honest, something that, at times, almost destroys me.
But in the end I keep coming back stronger.

Give it all you got. The intense moment where one just can be. Complete.
Because it is simple: Extend your arms/legs. Bend your arms/legs. Tighten your abdomen/belly.
Watching something simple remaining simple but becoming difficult; close your hands, open your hands after a 10- minute- Farmers´ Walk with heavy dumbbells or kettlebells.


A focus behind a blurring wall of sweat pouring down from every inch of your body, muscles not even used shaking from sheer exhaustion of the total being.
Focus on bringing all together, exact movement to generate power, energy, on the spot.
Feeling feedback, feeling the kettlebell, the sandbag, the barbell moving, shifting, trembling when you are. Grabbing it tighter, almost to the point you feel your hands melting with the steel, cast iron, canvas, cotton. Harmony... The tighter the grip the more burning flames Inflame your every fiber, crawl up your arms, to your back, to your legs, somehow fill the lungs, one on each side. A honest feedback.
Well... I guess you could call that passion alright.


My goals in training?
Get better!!
Stronger. Faster. More powerful, More enduring. Become Indestructible.
Training itself got no goals itself, none for me.
Training doesn`t exist without me.

Still...I love training.
There... I said it. It´s out there.
I hope me saying this doesn´t ruin our relationship...

Thinking about symbolism, I´m afraid what this means for my general concept of love.
Well...I´ll go work out now.(Don´t say "make love"...Get your thoughts out of the gutter!)
I post a video on You...YouTUBE i guess...



Train hard and enjoy life!
All the best,
Harry

Regeneration - Not necessary talking training here

After the Christmas Endurance Training I thought i also walk you through my regeneration-day and the most important aspects.

For those who don´t want to know my whole philosophy:
-eat enough protein.
-sleep more than 8 hours.
-drink a LOT of water!
-do something to keep the blood flowing (Joint Mobility Drills, Hot Tub, a massage, go for a walk,...)

Well, now the deeper thoughts...

Why the "not necessary talking training" in the title...?

Well...
I went for a long walk today, primary to get some blood flow going in my sore hamstrings and some fresh air into my lungs.
So I took my MP3- player and started.
After about 10 minutes I shut off the music... I felt like the music was filling my head.
Those of you who know me personally know it´s almost impossible to meet me without ear-phones. The music helps me to modulate my mood, gives me the possibility to attend to myself if needed.
Today I needed an empty head, no modulation, no influence. Just my surroundings, my thoughts.

I discovered i was tense again.
Not my muscles but my mind.(Well...my muscles as well but you do a workload of 16000kg in under an hour!)

I don´t know if this is something special only I experience but sometimes I discover my mind gets tense. It feels like I´m stuck in my own head, it spreads out and tightens my forehead, my face, my chest and there you go...I´m tense all around...

Those long walks help me reflect things experienced... SOmetimes not by thinking consciously about them but by just letting my mind wander or being silent like today.

I bet everyone of you, physical active or not got those events which tighten your head.
Exams, interpersonal relations, job, family,...
Get your recovery! After a good amount of hands-on work with burn-out- patients I can tell you: IT´S IMPORTANT!!
Search and find what´s good for you and DO IT!!

We only progress by hard work. Some do them conciously, plan them. Some just got those "AHA!!" - Moments.
But like training one needs to be able to restrain oneself.
Do not eat that chocolate. Do not have another beer. Do not watch another episode of Lost, Seinfeld or whatever and go to bed!

Knowing my zodiac sign being Cancer, a friend of mine once said to me "Ah...Two steps ahead, one step back."
I guess my friend was right...That is what i, we, should practice. Being able to step back once in a while in my world of training.
Only by stepping back one step once in a while we enable us to see the whole picture and assess if me are making progress.

After the long walk through cold rain I soaked myself into a 30min hot bath. Those do wonders for you. Especially if you finish them with a cold shower.
After those I usually feel like chewed and spit out but 30min afterwards I can eat a whole cow.
By the way, I did that. ;-)
Yeah, like I said, Protein is important!

I´ll finish my regeneration with about 8 to 9 hours of sleep. And I´m looking forward to it!

Train hard and enjoy life!
All the best,
Harry

Christmas Endurance Special

Merry Christmas.

For most people. christmas is family time. You know, hang out with family, dinners, presents, more food...

For me as well. ;-)

But those who don´t do anything during the christmas holidays need nuts like me who also push their workload during the holidays so they maybe do something.
Please don´t go jogging now...

For me, i spent about a hour of my 24th of december doing:

-500x Swings
-500x Push Presses,

both with a 16kg Kettlebell.


It´s about rep 300 at the end of the short clip.

No more rules, just finish it.
It took me something short of an hour.

To be honest, I was suprised how well it went.
Since I worked at a cosy cadence it turned out to be an 1hour endurance event, my grip stayed with me, my legs kept on going, my back feels great and my shoulders are going to be sore tomorrow.

Overall I´m happy. I like stuff like that.

Train hard and enjoy life!
All the best,
Harry

Code of the warrior - TAKE RESPONSIBILITY

A scary duty if you really think about it...

Every word we say, every action we take, every use of our weapons(be it knowledge, words, bullets,...) and every consequence following...We are responsible for it.
We are responsible for our success and failure.

It is YOUR LIFE, YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE!!!

If you don´t like it, do something about it.
If you wanna blame someone else, if you wanna start whining...Go on. And get used to the fact that your problems will never go away.

Enjoy life and train hard!
All the best,
Harry

Code of the warrior - NO WHINING

You are what you have done.
You will become what you do.

ENOUGH SAID?!

Do not waste your time whining. Every moment you complain, feel sorry for yourself you waste a moment to dig inside, DEEP INSIDE and pull that negative stuff out of there and find a solution.

Enjoy life and train hard!
All the best,
Harry

Valentin Dikul

impressive.



A nice way to spend your days when you are older!!

An impressive man, who regained his health after an injury where doctors told him, he may never walk again.

Enjoy life and train hard!
All the best,
Harry

Whats´s to come...?

Hi guys!



Today i finished my EDT- cycle, unfortunatly not with an EDT- session, since i destroyed myself yesterday mit some "assistance work". :-D



Now i´ll take the weekend off(after my exam tomorrow), chill out, go out with my friends, you know: unwind.



But:

What´s next?





On Monday i´ll start a new cycle, the main focus will be (Strength-)Endurance.

Basically this means workouts from NavySEALs.com, CrossfitEndurance- stuff and lots of kettlebell- work (using the AKC FitnessProtocol).

I´ll try to fit in a 6d/w schedule plus my martial arts training.

We´ll see how that goes.



At this point, I´m not quite sure how long it will last, since i really like the EDT- approach but i feel i have to do something else now or i´ll increase my risk of injury.



So maybe it will only last till january, maybe i´ll go with it till february. We´ll see.



The first 1,5 weeks will be used to build up the volume, because during my christmas- and new-years- hollidays i got some nice projects planned.



-1x Naturtrainings- gathering.

-1x Endurance special.

-1x Outdoor special.

-1000x Swings on the 24th of December.

-and another endurance special.



Now that i look at it, i´m not quite sure where to fit in sleep... ;-D



I hope i made you curious, I´ll definetly post pictures and videos as well as detailed reports here on the blog.



Enjoy life and train hard!

All the best,

Harry

Code of the warrior - THINK AHEAD

Easy as pie... Keep your eyes on the road, look where you are going.

If you know the way, or at least know where you are starting from, where you want to finish and a little bit about the way your are already ahead in the game.
SOmetimes you even get some roadsigns on the way to show you how far you already have come...

Enough with the metaphor. But i like to tell metaphors at first, because those are far more benefitial for You and me most of the time.

For many people, such as me, it can be life-changing to realize where they actually are, who they are and thinking, REALLY THINKING abou what they want.
Becoming concious about their goals, what makes them happy.

One thing i kNow, you just have to get up, make up your mind and go Your way...
Take charge of your life.

And the only way to achive this, you already know, is to get to know what´s in front of you.

Steps in the dark are always small, hesitant, unstable.
Brighten your future, enlighten the way, get to kNow it. ;-)

Enjoy life and train hard!
All the best,
Harry

Code of the warrior - FOCUS

Focus.

Paying attention.
Because if you do not pay attention, you lose sight of what matters.
If you lose sight of what matters, you do not know where to go.
If you do not know where to go, you are standing still.
If you are standing still, you are not moving.
The only time you are not moving should be when you are dead!

Focus, attention, what matters, moving.
Do not just take those words literally.
You can translate this to any given scenario.
Being it a soldier on a mission, a doctor performing sugery, a woman/man trying to sell whatever they sell to put food on the table, a parent teaching his child/children, a martial artist in a match or just her/his training, an athlete during competition, training, a powerlifter before his major lift...

Pick any job, situation, it will fit.
If you do not focus, you lose.

Focus.
A broad term, few words.
But it´s a start.
Think about it! I´m looking forward to some feedback!

Stay focused!

Enjoy life and train hard!
All the best,
Harry

"Naturtraining"- Wintercamp 2010

2nd of January 2010.
Some people might still lie around, completely exhausted from several "beer-curls" they performed right before making some new-years-resolutions.
I´m quite sure "being more active" or "doing something for my health" were among them.

I´ll be attending the first "naturtraining"-camp in the new year.

Guys...this is high quality!
In the otherwise deserted fitness- world of austria Dominik Feischl (http://naturtraining.blogspot.com/)has put together an amazing opportunity.
Every last of the attendees is highly motivated, highly trained...
We got people with different backgrounds: from sport reporters with intimate knowledge of world-class athletes and hands-on experience, we got several(!!) kettlebell- instructors (IKFF, Dr. Till Sukopp/Kettlebellfitness.de), we got people with a background of medical science, martial arts, strongman training, parkour and too many more to mention all of them.

A day full of HARD WORK, tons of FUN, SWEAT and EXCHANGE OF EXPERIENCE!!

I´m so looking forward to this!

Enjoy life and train hard!
All the best,
Harry

Military Press Challenge Part 2

After doing the Challenge with the 16kg Kettlebell, i thought to give it a shot with the 24kg.

10min, not putting it down, as many presses as possible.




I hit 53 reps, not bad considering how long i have not been doing presses with the 24kg.
Timed sets of jerks, snatches and double military presses mit 16kg have some amazing effects on you strength.

Enjoy life and train hard!
All the best,
Harry

Playing with numbers - just something to think about

Today is a training-day dedicated to my martial arts training.

But since i felt like moving, working in the afternoon, i threw in a deliberately easy kettlebell-workout, designed with the sport- principles.

2 exercises
one hand switch per exercise
work for time

i did:
2min each hand Snatch with 16kg
rested 2min
4min each hand One-arm Jerk with 16kg.

altogether 14min workout plus the 5min warmup.

19min work and i moved about 2,3 tons overhead.

Keep in mind, this was meant to be easy, quick, technical. In respect of performance i´m still an beginner in the world of kettlebell sport.
2,3 tons. Go ahead and convert this into stuff inclueded in your daily life.

Think about it and contact me if you want something like this for yourself.

Enjoy life and train hard!
All the best,
Harry