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- Mar 29, 2007
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This isn't a post relating to the J Wiliams fitness challenge. It grew out of it a bit, but this is a more general topic- WSS fitness.
We can, though all classifications are somewhat arbitrary - classify some general areas of WSS needs:
skills
tools
attitude/psychology
fitness
Obviously, some of these are inter-related. Skills can have a huge effect on tools through an ability to make, improvise, or adapt tools. Tools can have a huge impact on skills- firestarting being a classic example. I can't go anywhere, anytime, and make a successful hand drill fire.
The psychological aspects are hugely impacted by skills, tools, and your body.
What I'm addressing here right now is the fitness aspect.
As some WSS members are aware of, J Williams started a fitness challenge in July, with a Gunny as a prize. As I recall, the idea for the challenge came from observing people in massively unhealthy states dealing with EMS needs.
Well, I took a look at myself and got religion.
I'm going to outline some of what I think of as basic parameters for fitness in a WSS context. This is a base, it's obviously going to change for people depending on skill level, task level, injury or health conditions. Modify as appropriate- Hushnel is a good example, if I may pull him in- he has several legacy injuries that prevent 'standard athlete' performance, but has gotten to a state where he can go on extended hunting hikes, which is fantastic- but he may not want to try stand-to-stand bridges!
The hardest part of planning this post is coming up with a quantification of fitness. There's strength (3 main types of that alone!), metabolism, work capacity, flexibility, the categorizations can go on endlessly.
So I'm just going to put my arse in the flame pot and lay some out.
Metabolism- a body that does stuff is going to have a metabolism that does stuff. This is going to have effects from curing depression to improved digestion to increased endurance and work capacity. Fortunately, metabolism mostly takes care of itself if the diet and exercise levels are right. Mostly- I am still supplementing iodine due to a slow thyroid, a congenital trait I've been aware of for years. It's become simply a part of my diet.
flexibility and work capacity will likewise take care of themselves if the right exercises are chosen. Basically, you want to be able to move without straining or stressing yourself, and you want to be able to move long enough to "gitrdone"
Diet-
This is where we hit some meat. Whether you want to end your 'food coma' states, lose weight, gain weight, or just clean up, similar diet choices rule.
(note that I'm not a doctor, I'm writing purely from personal expecrience and observation of people close to me who joined me in this project)
Some ground rules:
1: I'm not an anticarb nutcase, but I would consider empty carbs and sugars to be the current single largest health issue in the dis-United States and Canuckistan. Cutting all candy, soda, sweets, and flour based products from the diet is a pretty tall order at first, but I'd advise this for anyone and everyone. There are much healthier ways to get grains if you fel you need them, and with the exception of the social necessity of eating half of your small slice of MIL pumpkin pie, sweets fall into the same situation. Apples are pretty damned sweet when you haven't had any sugar for a month, lemme tell ya.
2: quantity! The American Dream is to get 5 times the food for half the price. Chill that out. There's a few ways to handle it. At the extreme end, you can portion control with extremely small dishes, pre-pack meals, and buy super small sized items from the grocery store- the cost may not end up as a higher net because you might end up eating half as much! There are other answers like the Warrior Diet and Eat-Stop-Eat systems where you 'mostly' fast throughout the day and have a CONTROLLED overeating phase for one evening meal. I've done that and it actually works out well if you don't have a nervous snack habit.
3: Quality- I found out, by way of my mother's extreme mold allergies, that there's some serious issues with pre packaged and processed foods. Too much to write down completely- it's more than mold spores, more than chemical bleeding. So I'll just lay out a flat piece of advice-
With few exceptions (I make my son spotted dick when we go camping)- avoid all, ALL, factory canned, jarred, prepackaged prepared foods.
Diet wise- his leaves you with needing to acquire a basic set of cooking skills, and a higher ratio of hunter-gatherer foods. At first, if you go this route, it can start to feel like all you eat is steak and salad, but it could be much worse
How diet works with exercise.
I've noticed that if I cheat and load up with a peanut butter sandwich, a tiny bowl of pasta, or even a small slice of birthday cake, I end up having some really silly grumpiness and get in purely dumb arguments with Koyote Girl, Apikoros, and Ms. Koyote. Unless- unless, it's a small, small dose of carb laden food within about 15 minutes of a sweat inducing exertion. Koyote Girl is a great example, we tried an actual experiment with her- one day she had a serving (4 ounces is a SERVING) of garlic mashed taters after sitting at the computer for a couple hours and, yep, moodiness ensued. We tried a half dozen other times (she LIKES taters) immediately after a 5 minute cycle of heavy kettlebell swings and no issues.
I think a focus on heavy processed carbohydrates and sugars is a bad idea in general- but a simple, easy takeaway from this is - KEEPING YOUR PORTION CONTROL- exercise before you eat. Always. Yes, that has meant me going out with friends and popping out to the parking lot for 3 quick sets of 15 pushups/20 hindu squats each.
Diet is a touchy subject, from the official wisdom that says you need to eat incredible amounts of grain products to the Atkins extreme. Everyone has a firm opinion based on complete conflicting research of interpretations of research.
So- briefly. I've lost 40 pounds, don't get lethargic, and feel much better. No processed grains (that includes flour), no canned/prepackaged foods (except home canning and pickling), no sugar, and lots of greens. (A George Foreman grill is a nice thing, too.)
Take from that what you will.
One aside- high density survival rations can be many things, but snacks isn't one of them. One of my other housemates has gained 45 pounds int he past year, and now is about 110 pounds over his 'basketball weight' - a few months ago he switched from 2 candy bars at work for a snack to 2 cliff bars. No positive effect. Why? cliff bars aren't made to fuel your body at a desk, dude. It's CANDY.
Exercise:
Okay, now we get to the fun stuff. Here's where I get to really talk WSS, minimalist skills, and independence!
Rescue Riley, when J Williams first started the workout challenge, mentioned his workout routine. There was a word in there I didn't recognize in context- swings. So I googled it and stumbled into the wonderful world of kettlebells. A heavy iron gym that fits in a backpack! dynamic, ballistic powerlifting! Heavy calisthenics and endurance conditioning! all using just a cannonball with a handle.
The exercises, with a very few gotchas- are the opposite of injury risks- they strengthen the joints and supporting muscles. Period. (the gotchas are all the same thing- good form on your back and hip movements. period. dot.)
This is close to as minimalist as you get with iron. It's probably the best thing I've ever tried for building work capacity, raw strength, and endurance strength. Explosive strength (the third type) is something you can choose to worry about or not, but it's going to go up with raw strength to nearly MMA competition level.
The basic suggestion I'd make form a WSS point of view would be to get either a book titled enter the kettlebell, the russian kettlebell challenge, or spend the dinero for a few weeks of training. Get a 16kg kettlebell (12 if you are a woman) and just go. you don't ever have to move up, since you can make the exercises harder. (But if you get the bug, you'll end up with at least a 24KG kettlebell.)
An example, my current primary twice weekly kettlebell practice is a 15 second work/rest cycle- 8 'snatches' (flinging the kettlebell from between my legs to a full one armed press lockout) in 15 seconds, 15 seconds of rest then repeat on the other side. each set counts as one, the goal is to get up to 80 sets. This is way harder than pushing some basic swings out! I'm at a comfortable working rate of 36, can push further, but I've got some other focus areas right now....
Which brings up pure minimalist fun- bodyweight. Go bodyweight! This is my main focus area right now, and I'm using a book called "the naked warrior" as a manual- but anything that works will work.
My thoughts on this are pretty simple- maximum strength comes from maximum MOMENTARY effort- that means getting past doing 50 pushups and 50 hindu squats (thoguh I still do both periodically) and getting to intensely difficult bodyweight exercises- planche pushups (one of my goals for 2010) one armed pushups, pullups, hanging leg raises, one legged squats.
This is, like, the WSS inedpendence holy grail. All you need in the
end is gravity, ground, and yourself. (a rope is nice for some things,
but not an absolute) And timing- is everything. The best part about
the Naked Warrior book next to the lack of gym fees is something
called "greasing the groove". The idea being to work out often- 3 to 6
times a day- with an effort level that makes you burn, but not
fatigue.
Possibly the best thing about bodyweight exercises is that there's some variation anyone, regardless of physical incapacity, can do. The next best thing is that the risks of major injury are very, very low compared to any other type of workout. Generally (within some pretty broad boundaries of reason) if you CAN do the move, it's safe in joint terms to do the move.
Oh yeah- run. Don't run if you are well over 20% body fat on the circumference test, it's not worth it. But run, walk, jog, move. There's simply nothing better for endurance than moving your whole body quickly for a mile and a half, or 5 miles- whatever floats your boat.
In survival terms, I'm not nearly good enough, but I've managed to pull out a 13 minute 1.5 mile run. that's 1:45 under the minimum standard for my age group in the Navy, which is pretty bitching since I couldn't do that at all in July. 1.5 miles isn't particularly far, but (and I gotta try this next time it's not raining) it should translate well to a fairly quick jog/walk cycled 5 mile extraction course. 3 miles from my house is wilderness, just to put it in practical terms......
Lots of posts like this end up with a basic advice statement: Do
Stuff.
In this case, Do Stuff Independently. The more independent you are in
food preparation, the better. The more independent you are in
exercise, the better.
If I was going to list a basic WSS fitness level goal (modify for physical needs)-
1.5 mile run or 500 yard wim in Navy PFT time for your age group.
25 pushups
at least 3 one arm pushups each side
25 hindu squats
2 one legged squats from butt on the ground, each side.
2 solid, real palms forward pullups
one hanging straight leg lift to shoulder height.
if you can do that, you can be reasonably confident that you can physically deal with a survival situation. :thumbup:
If you can't (and I'm still working on that damned hanging straight leg lift!) then you have a goal. once you reach the goal, start adding to it.
We can, though all classifications are somewhat arbitrary - classify some general areas of WSS needs:
skills
tools
attitude/psychology
fitness
Obviously, some of these are inter-related. Skills can have a huge effect on tools through an ability to make, improvise, or adapt tools. Tools can have a huge impact on skills- firestarting being a classic example. I can't go anywhere, anytime, and make a successful hand drill fire.
The psychological aspects are hugely impacted by skills, tools, and your body.
What I'm addressing here right now is the fitness aspect.
As some WSS members are aware of, J Williams started a fitness challenge in July, with a Gunny as a prize. As I recall, the idea for the challenge came from observing people in massively unhealthy states dealing with EMS needs.
Well, I took a look at myself and got religion.
I'm going to outline some of what I think of as basic parameters for fitness in a WSS context. This is a base, it's obviously going to change for people depending on skill level, task level, injury or health conditions. Modify as appropriate- Hushnel is a good example, if I may pull him in- he has several legacy injuries that prevent 'standard athlete' performance, but has gotten to a state where he can go on extended hunting hikes, which is fantastic- but he may not want to try stand-to-stand bridges!
The hardest part of planning this post is coming up with a quantification of fitness. There's strength (3 main types of that alone!), metabolism, work capacity, flexibility, the categorizations can go on endlessly.
So I'm just going to put my arse in the flame pot and lay some out.
Metabolism- a body that does stuff is going to have a metabolism that does stuff. This is going to have effects from curing depression to improved digestion to increased endurance and work capacity. Fortunately, metabolism mostly takes care of itself if the diet and exercise levels are right. Mostly- I am still supplementing iodine due to a slow thyroid, a congenital trait I've been aware of for years. It's become simply a part of my diet.
flexibility and work capacity will likewise take care of themselves if the right exercises are chosen. Basically, you want to be able to move without straining or stressing yourself, and you want to be able to move long enough to "gitrdone"
Diet-
This is where we hit some meat. Whether you want to end your 'food coma' states, lose weight, gain weight, or just clean up, similar diet choices rule.
(note that I'm not a doctor, I'm writing purely from personal expecrience and observation of people close to me who joined me in this project)
Some ground rules:
1: I'm not an anticarb nutcase, but I would consider empty carbs and sugars to be the current single largest health issue in the dis-United States and Canuckistan. Cutting all candy, soda, sweets, and flour based products from the diet is a pretty tall order at first, but I'd advise this for anyone and everyone. There are much healthier ways to get grains if you fel you need them, and with the exception of the social necessity of eating half of your small slice of MIL pumpkin pie, sweets fall into the same situation. Apples are pretty damned sweet when you haven't had any sugar for a month, lemme tell ya.
2: quantity! The American Dream is to get 5 times the food for half the price. Chill that out. There's a few ways to handle it. At the extreme end, you can portion control with extremely small dishes, pre-pack meals, and buy super small sized items from the grocery store- the cost may not end up as a higher net because you might end up eating half as much! There are other answers like the Warrior Diet and Eat-Stop-Eat systems where you 'mostly' fast throughout the day and have a CONTROLLED overeating phase for one evening meal. I've done that and it actually works out well if you don't have a nervous snack habit.
3: Quality- I found out, by way of my mother's extreme mold allergies, that there's some serious issues with pre packaged and processed foods. Too much to write down completely- it's more than mold spores, more than chemical bleeding. So I'll just lay out a flat piece of advice-
With few exceptions (I make my son spotted dick when we go camping)- avoid all, ALL, factory canned, jarred, prepackaged prepared foods.
Diet wise- his leaves you with needing to acquire a basic set of cooking skills, and a higher ratio of hunter-gatherer foods. At first, if you go this route, it can start to feel like all you eat is steak and salad, but it could be much worse
How diet works with exercise.
I've noticed that if I cheat and load up with a peanut butter sandwich, a tiny bowl of pasta, or even a small slice of birthday cake, I end up having some really silly grumpiness and get in purely dumb arguments with Koyote Girl, Apikoros, and Ms. Koyote. Unless- unless, it's a small, small dose of carb laden food within about 15 minutes of a sweat inducing exertion. Koyote Girl is a great example, we tried an actual experiment with her- one day she had a serving (4 ounces is a SERVING) of garlic mashed taters after sitting at the computer for a couple hours and, yep, moodiness ensued. We tried a half dozen other times (she LIKES taters) immediately after a 5 minute cycle of heavy kettlebell swings and no issues.
I think a focus on heavy processed carbohydrates and sugars is a bad idea in general- but a simple, easy takeaway from this is - KEEPING YOUR PORTION CONTROL- exercise before you eat. Always. Yes, that has meant me going out with friends and popping out to the parking lot for 3 quick sets of 15 pushups/20 hindu squats each.
Diet is a touchy subject, from the official wisdom that says you need to eat incredible amounts of grain products to the Atkins extreme. Everyone has a firm opinion based on complete conflicting research of interpretations of research.
So- briefly. I've lost 40 pounds, don't get lethargic, and feel much better. No processed grains (that includes flour), no canned/prepackaged foods (except home canning and pickling), no sugar, and lots of greens. (A George Foreman grill is a nice thing, too.)
Take from that what you will.
One aside- high density survival rations can be many things, but snacks isn't one of them. One of my other housemates has gained 45 pounds int he past year, and now is about 110 pounds over his 'basketball weight' - a few months ago he switched from 2 candy bars at work for a snack to 2 cliff bars. No positive effect. Why? cliff bars aren't made to fuel your body at a desk, dude. It's CANDY.
Exercise:
Okay, now we get to the fun stuff. Here's where I get to really talk WSS, minimalist skills, and independence!
Rescue Riley, when J Williams first started the workout challenge, mentioned his workout routine. There was a word in there I didn't recognize in context- swings. So I googled it and stumbled into the wonderful world of kettlebells. A heavy iron gym that fits in a backpack! dynamic, ballistic powerlifting! Heavy calisthenics and endurance conditioning! all using just a cannonball with a handle.
The exercises, with a very few gotchas- are the opposite of injury risks- they strengthen the joints and supporting muscles. Period. (the gotchas are all the same thing- good form on your back and hip movements. period. dot.)
This is close to as minimalist as you get with iron. It's probably the best thing I've ever tried for building work capacity, raw strength, and endurance strength. Explosive strength (the third type) is something you can choose to worry about or not, but it's going to go up with raw strength to nearly MMA competition level.
The basic suggestion I'd make form a WSS point of view would be to get either a book titled enter the kettlebell, the russian kettlebell challenge, or spend the dinero for a few weeks of training. Get a 16kg kettlebell (12 if you are a woman) and just go. you don't ever have to move up, since you can make the exercises harder. (But if you get the bug, you'll end up with at least a 24KG kettlebell.)
An example, my current primary twice weekly kettlebell practice is a 15 second work/rest cycle- 8 'snatches' (flinging the kettlebell from between my legs to a full one armed press lockout) in 15 seconds, 15 seconds of rest then repeat on the other side. each set counts as one, the goal is to get up to 80 sets. This is way harder than pushing some basic swings out! I'm at a comfortable working rate of 36, can push further, but I've got some other focus areas right now....
Which brings up pure minimalist fun- bodyweight. Go bodyweight! This is my main focus area right now, and I'm using a book called "the naked warrior" as a manual- but anything that works will work.
My thoughts on this are pretty simple- maximum strength comes from maximum MOMENTARY effort- that means getting past doing 50 pushups and 50 hindu squats (thoguh I still do both periodically) and getting to intensely difficult bodyweight exercises- planche pushups (one of my goals for 2010) one armed pushups, pullups, hanging leg raises, one legged squats.
This is, like, the WSS inedpendence holy grail. All you need in the
end is gravity, ground, and yourself. (a rope is nice for some things,
but not an absolute) And timing- is everything. The best part about
the Naked Warrior book next to the lack of gym fees is something
called "greasing the groove". The idea being to work out often- 3 to 6
times a day- with an effort level that makes you burn, but not
fatigue.
Possibly the best thing about bodyweight exercises is that there's some variation anyone, regardless of physical incapacity, can do. The next best thing is that the risks of major injury are very, very low compared to any other type of workout. Generally (within some pretty broad boundaries of reason) if you CAN do the move, it's safe in joint terms to do the move.
Oh yeah- run. Don't run if you are well over 20% body fat on the circumference test, it's not worth it. But run, walk, jog, move. There's simply nothing better for endurance than moving your whole body quickly for a mile and a half, or 5 miles- whatever floats your boat.
In survival terms, I'm not nearly good enough, but I've managed to pull out a 13 minute 1.5 mile run. that's 1:45 under the minimum standard for my age group in the Navy, which is pretty bitching since I couldn't do that at all in July. 1.5 miles isn't particularly far, but (and I gotta try this next time it's not raining) it should translate well to a fairly quick jog/walk cycled 5 mile extraction course. 3 miles from my house is wilderness, just to put it in practical terms......
Lots of posts like this end up with a basic advice statement: Do
Stuff.
In this case, Do Stuff Independently. The more independent you are in
food preparation, the better. The more independent you are in
exercise, the better.
If I was going to list a basic WSS fitness level goal (modify for physical needs)-
1.5 mile run or 500 yard wim in Navy PFT time for your age group.
25 pushups
at least 3 one arm pushups each side
25 hindu squats
2 one legged squats from butt on the ground, each side.
2 solid, real palms forward pullups
one hanging straight leg lift to shoulder height.
if you can do that, you can be reasonably confident that you can physically deal with a survival situation. :thumbup:
If you can't (and I'm still working on that damned hanging straight leg lift!) then you have a goal. once you reach the goal, start adding to it.
