130th Post - Making hard easy

How is this possible? This blog has received the upmost neglect over it's two year existance. This also means I've averaged one blog post every 5-6 days which means I'm actually not a too infrequent blogger - ha!

I've just completed a great workout. I'm feeling a little run down at the moment and have a bit of a cough so was debating whether or not to exercise. I decided to embark on a not too challenging workout:

24kg kettlebell(s):
5 turkish getups each arm (swapping arms between reps for total of 10 reps)
10x10 swings
50m farmers walk

Easy.

Well... what I have started to experiment with is what I have coined "easy hard". That is, attempting to make hard efforts or exercises easy, as opposed to making hard workouts or exercises hard and absolutely opposed to just doing easy workouts - although the goal is to make it easy.

The whole idea behind this is to pick something hard, and try to do it with as little effort as possible.



Einstein said:
"As simple as possible, but no simpler"

I say:
"As easy as possible, but no easier"

Imagine something hard, like running up a certain nemesis hill. When you run this hill, it is hard, and you try hard, because you want to get up it quickly and have a great workout while doing so. Have you ever tried to run up this hill while thinking about expending as little energy as possible?

"Of course I have, I've jogged and walked it before, or ran slower - why would I want to attack it slower?!"

But I didn't say slower, I just said with less effort. Try running this hill like a graceful wildebeest, stay tall, BREATH DEEPLY (into your belly button, not your ineffecient chest). I want you to run this hill just as fast as you normally do, but focus utterly on relaxing as much as possible.

You may find that you get to the top faster, you may find not. I gurantee you will feel more refreshed and charged at the top though, as opposed to feeling exhausted and about to die.

Try this out on your next workout or training session. Even if this means doing bicep curls in the gym.

Oh and on bicep curls, if you have to do them, firstly use dumbells, secondly try out for size closing your eyes when doing the exercise. Hello is that your core?

Level 3 Runner: Less is More

"We are young, we are strong, we're not looking for where we belong.
We're not cool, we are free and we're running with blood on our knees."

Apologies for a rather shit blog, I'm sleepy and distracted, this is a bit of a random disorganized ramble.

In a week and a half I am competing in an Olympic distance (standard distance if you're not cool) triathlon. 1500m swim, 40km bike and 10k run. Tonight I set out on a run.

Music in ears the first 15 minutes of my run was pure uphill. I have discovered the art of economical running. How amazing it felt to own that hill, to get to the top without my heart rate going crazy.

Not too long ago running on the flat caused my heart rate to hit 160 as a minimum. I was perfectly fit, the problem was not in my fitness, but my economy of effort. In this recent pass I earned what I like to think of as "level 2 running". This is my version of running goal setting, instead of distance or times I'm basing it on the feeling of my performance. Level 2 dictated that I could run a reasonable distance in my Vibrams and actually enjoy it from start to finish, subsequently not feeling pain or crippling soreness the following day.

Level 3, earlier tonight, signifies a different change. I now feel that I can regulate my effort. You good runners out there will scoff, but there used to be no such thing as a recovery run for me. Running was always effort. Now I just ran up Mickelham without breaking sweat. Hello level three!

A couple of observations:

My right knee hurt at about 25 minutes in, it felt like the knee was being subjected to unbalanced force or is not being loaded properly. It basically felt like the muscles surrounding my knee were doing all the work but the muscles surrounding the hip were asleep. The solution? Actively think of squeezing the ground with big toe (which my left leg was doing naturally), this IMMEDIATELY solved the problem. I always think if there is pain, there is an immediate solution to be found before injury. Pain is a symptom, quickly treat the cause and it goes away.

It is possible to get an extreme adrenaline rush and workout from running downhill. To the tune of Pussy - Rammestein, I charged down a trail and had to leap and dodge the undergrowth, suddenly all this speed just arrived. My legs were turning over at an impossible speed, and my running form felt perfect. This was accompanied by a heart rate of 180-ish. Good times.