Today I ‘discovered’ a new type of exercise. New for me at least. It’s hitting a heavy bag while walking uphill
on a treadmill. What kind of newfangled
bullshit is this you ask? Let me
explain. I have head cold and I was home
today getting some rest. I thought that
maybe getting a bit of cardio in would help clear my head, but I didn’t want to
leave the house or do anything too strenuous – just enough to sweat a bit and
help get my body temp up in an attempt to nip the cold in the bud. So I loaded up a Joe Rogan Experience
podcast, hopped on the treadmill and set the controls for a brisk uphill walk. At about 10 minutes in, my phone froze and,
because it was over on the charger I didn’t want to stop and go fix whatever
was wrong, so I just left it. Not
feeling all that great, I didn’t figure I’d last all that long anyway. But once I got about 20 minutes in, the
boredom set in a bit...that is until I caught a glimpse of my heavy bag hanging
within arm’s reach.
Suffice it to say everything
in my gym is pretty much within arm’s reach.
My current set-up shares space with the laundry room, furnace and
workshop, so space is at a premium. I do
have other random implements in the garage and outdoors, but my main ‘gym’ is
downstairs, consisting of a homemade squat cage, treadmill and heavy bag. You can see in the pic below that it’s fairly
tight quarters. I don’t mind – I kinda
like it that way, as I wrote in a previous post. And yes, that black ABS pipe running down the
wall in front of my squat rack is indeed the drain pipe for the toilets
upstairs. It helps when you’re
struggling at the bottom position of a set of heavy squats to be reminded that
instead of this you could be literally
crawling through shit, Shawshank style, rather than just feeling that way!
Today the cramped quarters were particularly advantageous. Just as boredom was setting in on the
treadmill, I took a few random jabs at the heavy bag, soon realizing that it
was a cool sensation. Usually, when I do
rounds on the bag, I’m working from a stable position of power. I move the other equipment out of the way and
can really unload with punches, knees and kicks from the strong foundation of
being on the ground. This was different
in the sense that I was walking on the treadmill at a quick pace, trying to
throw punches while off balance. Right
jabs were easy enough but hard to generate much power at first. Left crosses, across the body were even
trickier. This struck me as useful. How often, in an actual fight, are you
swinging from a stable position? More
likely you’re off balance, backing up perhaps.
Of course, ideally you train for this type of situation by sparring with
actual opponents who are firing back and trying to knock you off your
game. However, from a solo training
perspective, this type of off-balance punching seems to be a worthwhile
compliment to the more traditional heavy bag work. After all, knockouts aren’t always produced
when the striker is in a stable attacking position, as evidenced by the
infamous Anderson Silva KO of Forrest Griffin.
So, speaking of backing the fuck up, why on earth am I doing
long, slow, boring cardio on the treadmill in the first place? I virtually never do slow, steady-state cardio.
I much prefer getting it in through playing basketball, running sprints,
flipping tires, etc. The trend in the
fitness ‘industry’ over the past decade or so I would say, largely influenced
by CrossFit and so called functional fitness, has been toward HIIT-style
cardio, intervals and the like. Works
for me! That kind of stuff is way more fun than hopping on an
elliptical machine for an hour and sweating to the oldies. But I remember back in the 90s (holy shit I’m
old!) and early 2000s, the holy grail of fat loss was always long, slow
cardio. All self respecting bodybuilders
did that shit, preferably in the AM on an empty stomach (or post weight
training). I remember being constantly
told in muscle magazines to do lengthy cardio in the 60-70% max heart rate zone
to oxidize fat. Keep it moderate, as
anything more strenuous would shift the metabolism over to burning
carbs/glycogen.
What’s funny is that, back then, I virtually never followed
that advice. I just could never persuade
myself to devote that much time to
long, boring cardio. So, aside from
sporadic attempts, I never did. But
perhaps my physique suffered for that stubbornness. When the trend in the mid-2000s seemed to
switch over to high-intensity, interval-style cardio, I jumped on that
bandwagon whole-hog....because that’s what I’d been doing all along anyway - talk
about the easy route! You know the
story...someone throws up a picture of a world class sprinter and marathoner
side by side with the caption, “Which one would you rather look like?” The mesomorphic
Greek god or the emaciated Kenyan? Of
course, everyone chooses the sprinter, so the implication is to train like a
sprinter...lots of speed, intervals, high-intensity stuff. Long slow cardio just wrecks your hormones
and makes you, well...slow.
There’s probably some truth in all of that. No one is going to get fast and athletic from
doing slow cardio for 60 minutes each morning on an elliptical. Fast and athletic comes from doing fast and
athletic stuff (as well as good genetics).
But what about body composition?
That’s where I’m not so sure. I’m
not entirely convinced that high-intensity, interval-based sprint training is
the best recipe for body recomposition.
Or at least, maybe not in isolation.
So, not at the expense of, but rather as an addendum to the
fun, high-intensity stuff, I’m going to give slow, monotonous cardio a solid
try. I’d say an old fashioned college
try, except for the fact that, as I said, when I was actually in college I never gave it the time of
day (despite it being de rigeur back
then). So far it’s been four sessions of
AM cardio, on the treadmill – between 45 and 60 minutes each, and with HR
around 65% or so (easy peasy lemon squeezy, as my 3-year-old would say). We’ll see how it goes. Despite the fact that there’s still a
mountain of snow on the ground here, I’m motivated by the vanity of summer
(even if far-off still) and trying to drop a bit of bodyfat before the season
when it becomes more socially acceptable to walk around with your shirt off. The impetus for trying this came from two
sources. Firstly,
following Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson on Twitter in preparation for his Hercules
role, it seemed he was doing a lot of steady-state morning cardio. Lots of tweets about lengthy 5:00am elliptical
sessions (or course in addition to gruelling strength training). Dude has always been huge of course but he
looks absolutely shredded for that role.
The other inspiration is that I’ve been reading Joe Manganiello’s Evolution book. It’s a pretty solid and sensible read, but
one of the quotes that particularly stuck with me was:
“I don’t care how much you hate
cardio or think that weights and diet alone will do the job. They won’t.”
He talks quite a bit about formerly hating long, boring
cardio, but that finally buckling down and adding it in made a huge difference
in his physique. Joe’s attitude is
basically that you may hate it at first but nevertheless just suck it up and
get it done. That resonates. One of his recommendations is to set the treadmill
to a 12 degree incline and do a brisk 3.5mph walk for about 30-45 minutes. I love to walk so that works for me. Sure it’s boring at first. But it’s a good opportunity to listen to
podcasts, audiobooks or whatever you like...or just zone out with your
thoughts. Moving meditation. It’s actually kind of enjoyable.
It’s led me to reassess the whole concept of boredom. I’ve always hated the idea of boredom. It annoys me when people say they’re
bored. I mean, the world’s a fascinating
place, there’s so much to see and learn...how the hell can you say you’re
bored? Read a new book, paint something,
learn a new skill on Youtube...whatever! We’re so programmed to be constantly
stimulated nowadays. It’s a constant
digital amusement park out there. I
think we’ve been cultured to expect that we don’t deserve to ever be
bored. What an insult to think that I
should ever have to hunker down and do something that’s menial and unstimulating.
The thing is, life is often menial and unstimulating. Probably always has been and probably always
will be. Until very recently, people
seemed okay with that, or at least didn’t really question the concept. Sure, it’s not good if things are always boring...nobody wants that. But I think the whole idea that we’re somehow
entitled to be constantly entertained, constantly stimulated, is a relatively
new idea. It seems kind of part and
parcel to the whole ‘me generation’ mentality.
People assume that they should be perennially entertained by their
career, their relationships, their surroundings. If you were to ask someone in the 1930s if
they felt stimulated in their job, they probably would have looked at you like
you had three fucking heads. It wasn’t
even a question – you just go to work and do your job. I suspect that this is also quite a foreign
concept in any kind of traditional/indigenous cultures that still exist (and
would be a good proxy for the bulk of human history). Think of subsistence hunting. Most of that shit is incredibly dull. Trust me, I’m a hunter. Most of hunting is sitting still and trying
to be very quiet. It’s dull – not unenjoyable,
but dull. It’s punctuated by moments of
extreme excitement or course, but those are the exception, not the rule. I don’t have to spend hours on end digging up
tubers with a stick, tanning animal hides or braiding rope but I imagine those get
a bit dull too. But no one in those
cultures sat around wondering if they felt fulfilled or self actualized. You just picked up your stick and dug.
This concept of boredom is at the heart of David Foster
Wallace’s unfinished masterpiece, The
Pale King, which I’ve been reading lately.
The book fictionalizes, among many other things, a group of IRS employees
and their menial tasks, and contains passages such as this:
“I learned that the world of men as it exists today is a bureaucracy.
This is an obvious truth, of course, though it is also one the ignorance of
which causes great suffering.
But moreover, I discovered, in the only way that a man ever really
learns anything important, the real skill that is required to succeed in a
bureaucracy. I mean really succeed: do good, make a difference, serve. I
discovered the key. This key is not efficiency, or probity, or insight, or
wisdom. It is not political cunning, interpersonal skills, raw IQ, loyalty,
vision, or any of the qualities that the bureaucratic world calls virtues, and
tests for. The key is a certain capacity that underlies all these qualities,
rather the way that an ability to breathe and pump blood underlies all thought
and action.
The underlying bureaucratic key is the ability to deal with boredom. To
function effectively in an environment that precludes everything vital and
human. To breathe, so to speak, without air.
The key is the ability, whether innate or conditioned, to find the
other side of the rote, the picayune, the meaningless, the repetitive, the
pointlessly complex. To be, in a word,
unborable.
It is the key to modern life. If you are immune to boredom, there is
literally nothing you cannot accomplish.”
I like that whole idea of becoming ‘unborable’. It seems to me to have something to do with
realizing that we are not our
external environment, no matter how sterile or mundane. But it’s not avoidance either, or retreat
into some sort of internalized ‘happy place’.
It’s somehow the sense that our humanity becomes most evident when
juxtaposed with the most torturously robotic and inhumane of contexts. To talk about it is to trip over words, at
least for me.
Elsewhere in the novel, DFW writes: “Like so many other
nerdy, disaffected young people of that time, I dreamed of becoming an
'artist', i.e., somebody whose adult job was original and creative instead of
tedious and dronelike.” This is of
course what every unique little snowflake these days is raised to believe. I can’t deny that at times, especially when I
was younger, I’ve felt pangs like this too...the idea that I’m somehow above
all the menial and monotonous chaff of everyday existence. Which of course is bullshit.
I’ve repeated the DT Suzuki quoke here before: “Nirvana is
to be sought in the midst of Samsara.”
Or perhaps more tangibly it’s expressed in the proverb, “Zen is not
about thinking of spiritual matters while peeling the potatoes, Zen is simply
to peel the potatoes.” That is, real enlightenment
or liberation is to be found in the most mundane of things. Something to keep in mind the next time you’re
copying formulae in an Excel spreadsheet, or plodding away on the
treadmill. I know I will.
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