PHYSICAL CULTURE RENAISSANCE MAN

Transcription

1 HOW TO BECOME A PHYSICAL CULTURE RENAISSANCE MAN BY LOGAN CHRISTOPHER Copyright 2012 Legendary Strength 1

2 What is a Physical Culture Renaissance Man? Did you know Leonardo Da Vinci could bend horseshoes with his hands? This was on top of his expertise in science, mathematics, art and other areas. Leonardo Da Vinci is wellrecognized as the epitome of the Renaissance Man. In fact, many people think that this is where the term originated, for him and a few of his contemporaries who excelled in many areas of life. That s what being a Renaissance Man is all about. And this is great in the broad sense. In the future I plan on writing a book about being a true Renaissance Man for all of life. However, in this book I want to drill down into one area and apply the idea of the polymath there. That may seem counter to the whole point. But it is something we can do as a model that may help us get better. The idea of Renaissance Man basically means to be great in all areas. So if we apply the term to one area, in our case physical culture, then that means to be great in all areas of physical culture. Of course, no one is going to start out with this greatness. In takes work in the proper areas and that s what this book is about. Not only will we cover how you become one, but also why it may be in your best interest to do so. Also I owe a thanks to Geoff Neupert. He was the one who first called me a Physical Culture Renaissance Man when we did an interview on kettlebell juggling, so this book would likely not have come about with out him. Thanks Geoff! It should go without saying but I will say it anyway, this all doesn t just apply to men. It is equally applicable to women. I don t want to have to in every case say Renaissance Man or Woman or the generic term Renaissance Person as that doesn t have the same ring to it, nor meaning. Plus I am a man and most of my clients are too. But for all the women who are reading this, I encourage you to also learn from it just as much as the guys. Copyright 2012 Legendary Strength 2

3 Jack of All Trades, Master of None? The term Renaissance Man has a positive connotation to it. Yet, the term Jack of All Trades does not share in this, because it is always followed with the phrase Master of None, which no one wants to be. Let s go back to our model of the prototype Renaissance Man, Da Vinci. Is there anyone who would call him a master of none? Absolutely not. Not only was he great in many different areas, but one of the greatest ever to live in several different areas. I will say this. Back in his days there were fewer things to be good at. As time has passed the knowledge and pace of the world has greatly increased. It is impossible to really know something about everything these days. But when we drill down into the world of physical culture is this still true? Here there is still so much you can possibly do. What this means is that there is a point where you spread yourself too thin. And that we want to avoid. Some specialization is necessary, if you ever want to move beyond mediocre, into greatness. But this doesn t stop you from doing anything else. Even for the Renaissance Man there will be areas of specialization and more focus. For myself a lot of what I do is focused on bodyweight training and kettlebells. Those by themselves are big categories. Yet I don t limit myself to them as benefits can be derived from any and all areas. For the reasons you ll see you can not only become a Jack of Most Trades but a Master of a Few. To do this you follow three guidelines: 1) Don t aim to do absolutely everything as you can spread yourself too thin. 2) Do enough consistent work to actually get good at what you do. In some areas this will be more. In others this will be just enough for good enough. 3) Select a couple areas do specialize more in so you can become a master. But never do this to the exclusion of everything else. Nick Waite, an attendee an the first Super Human Training Workshop, said his goal was to become half as strong as the top people in every area. That is a great goal for a Physical Culture Renaissance Man, and probably just as achievable as becoming the strongest in one single area. Copyright 2012 Legendary Strength 3

4 Looking at the Percentages Thinking back I probably first got this idea from Bud Jeffries. In one of his books, I think Twisted Conditioning II, he talks about the concept of becoming 90% in 20 different things. You can do this with about the same effort as 100% in one single area. To put it another way you can look at it like this. How easy is it to get better then 99% of the population? The answer is very easy. Even if you re starting at the bottom of the pile, grossly overweight and with no level of fitness, within a few years you can radically transform yourself and be better then most people in regards to your fitness. For most people it won t even take a year. Why is this so easy to do? Because most people aren t willing to do it and are in that place of no level of fitness and overweight. But let s flip this equation over to look at the other side. Let s look at a specific weight lifting sport, for instance Olympic Lifting. What does it take to break into the top 1% of athletes across the world in this specific sport? Years and years of dedication. To become the best, especially in a high competition area, will take complete dedication. And even then you might not make it. (Of course you can always seek out low competition areas, where becoming the best isn t as hard, though it still takes dedication, just not on the same level. For instance what does it take to become one of the top performing strongmen alive? Not that much, as their ain t many of us. That s something else to take into consideration, going with the Principle of Low Hanging Fruit.) So you can become really good in comparison to most people with a minimum of work. And you can become really good in comparison to the top people in that area with a lot of work. The choice is yours. This isn t to convince you that you shouldn t seek to become the best in a high competition area. If that s what you want to do then by all means do it. But that is not necessarily the best approach if you want to be a physical culture renaissance man. Copyright 2012 Legendary Strength 4

5 What are the Benefits? From my past experience and looking at the experiences of other people I believe that the body craves variety. The body is great at adapting and when you give it many things to adapt for the body will be happy. What do I mean by happy and craves? I mean that you will be healthier and less prone to injury for it. Problems often occur when people over specialize in one area. In essence, they give up their ability to do other movements, in favor of their chosen few. This isn t always the case and is definitely worse in some areas over others, such as powerlifting. With more training in many areas your body will gain better knowledge about itself, assuming you re paying attention. If we look at it from a muscle control and coordination stand point, the more you do, the better you ll be. So the next time you play a new sport, try a new training tool, or do a new exercise, your body and mind can pull from all prior experiences and more then likely you ll do well. Add to this that you re likely to have the strength, flexibility and other attributes all developed to a degree and doing new things becomes easy. This means you ll pick up any new physical skill easier then someone who isn t as well-versed in physical culture. Let s take a counter example. A guy that has always trained with barbells and machines begins a course of bodyweight exercises. This guy has never had to manipulate his own body in space and against gravity, only other objects so this is completely foreign to him. His flexibility and coordination may be completely absent as he tries to do bridging or a handstand against a wall. This is not a Physical Culture Renaissance Man, but he could be on his way to becoming one. When we re talking about movement there are a number of attributes that it can be broken down into. I cover these in much more depth in my book The Master Keys to Strength and Fitness but here is a quick list of those attributes: 1. Strength 2. Endurance 3. Speed 4. Power 5. Flexibility 6. Mobility 7. Stability 8. Agility 9. Coordination 10. Aesthetics Copyright 2012 Legendary Strength 5

6 In fact, that entire chapter on Strength & Fitness from that book is relevant to our discussion here so you may want to check it out, if you haven t already. With this well-rounded training you re also less likely to get injured. Your superior map of your body should allow you to know when to push and when to back off. And any injuries you do suffer, you should find that you bounce back quicker. And the more physically fit I become, meaning the building of all the attributes above, the more vital life and energy I seem to have. And I m not the only one. Along with this if you are choosing to specialize in an area I encourage you to do one that creates well-rounded athleticism. An Olympic weight lifter for instance, needs most of the above. A Powerlifter only needs strength, and in search of that strength they sacrifice all the other attributes, especially to reach the highest levels. A Bodybuilder may only seek to look good and never care about what he can do. But a Gymnast can do just about anything, although they may over-specialize and not be able to handle anything but their own weight if they only practice with such. The bodyweight only athlete will talk about you being able to handle and control your own weight. And I agree. But you also should be able to handle weights that are outside your own body. That s why there s people that can military press more then bodyweight but can t do a handstand pushup. And there s also those that can crank out handstand pushups but can t put bodyweight overhead. They have completely different feels and that is important to the Physical Culture Renaissance Man. Be a person that can do both. In the end I firmly believe that more well-roundedness will add to everything you re doing, not subtract from it. Copyright 2012 Legendary Strength 6

7 The Areas of Physical Culture I created this chart to give you an idea of all the different areas you can train in. But I don t claim this to be a complete list, just what came to mind. And of course there is crossover from area one to another. Crossfit includes some but not all of the below. The truth is they re not even as complete in cross training as many think they are. Yet their specific style is something someone can work on and even compete in if they choose. Bodyweight Training Hand Balancing Parkour Animal Movements Pushups Pullups Squats Running Jumping Bridging Calisthenics Martial Arts Wrestling Muscle Control Swimming Stretching Breakdancing Gymnastics Tumbling Bars Rings Vault Beam Trapeze Trampoline Kettlebells Hardstyle Girevoy Sport Juggling Other Tools Cables Indian Clubs Heavy Clubs and Maces Stone Lifting Log Lifting Barrel/Keg Lifting Isometrics Sled Dragging Carrying Objects Machines Competitive Strongman Crossfit Barbell Dumbbells Bodybuilding Olympic Lifting Power Lifting Partials Hand Strength Grippers Pinch Support Holding Wrist Exercises Feats of Strength Steel Bending Copyright 2012 Legendary Strength 7

8 We can drill down into any one of these areas even further. Some are broad and some are more specific. But if we re talking about barbell or dumbbell training alone there are thousands of possible exercises. And then there are the different methods of training with them. A person that only has experience with singles will not be as well rounded as someone who has done singles, 20 rep squats, HIT, EDT and all manner of other routines. The different areas and different methods of doing them will take different amounts of all the attributes of fitness. And besides some weight lifting sports, this chart doesn t even begin to look at all the different sports you can play which take their own degrees of physical fitness. Once again this chart is to just give you some ideas. But if you have some experience in all the six major categories I ve outlined here, you ll have a great start on being a Physical Culture Renaissance Man. Copyright 2012 Legendary Strength 8

9 Becoming Renaissance So what does it take to become a Renaissance Man? Here are six guiding principles. 1. Fix Your Weaknesses When you train a new exercise, play a sport, or compete you can analyze where you re weak. (I m not just talking about strength, but it could be an endurance weakness or flexibility weakness, that holds you back). This can tell you specific movements or categories of movements that you need to work on, to build up your skills and attributes of fitness. So work on them and re-test. You can always work more to improve further, or you may get to a point where you re happy with the results and can spend more time focusing on other areas. It may no longer be a weakness, but that doesn t mean you need to turn it into your strength. 2. Use Your Strengths What are you good at without trying hard? Is your body built a certain way that helps you with certain exercises? Are you hugely motivated to do certain things but not others? Use your answers in all these questions to your benefit. If you re drawn to kettlebells then work a good amount of your time on them. You can go pretty far with kettlebells as a main tool. Later on you may wish to change your focus and then you should. (Of course this isn t an everyday thing as you need consistency.) Are you a small person in weight and height. Bodyweight training will come easier to you then for someone twice your size. Use it, but don t use the opposite as an excuse not to do something. If you re the big guy then to bring up your weaknesses you ll need to do some bodyweight training. And the small guy should lift heavy weights. Train your strengths and your weaknesses. 3. Seek New Experiences This can be fun to think of from a collector s point of view. How can I collect new movements? If you re visiting a new gym and see some tools you ve never used before, then try it out. It you re reading a book or watching a DVD and you see a new movement, try it out. Just going through the earlier chart you may have noticed an area (or a few) that you haven t done before, but it s something you d like to try. So go ahead and do it. When you try something new you ll either find that you suck at it, or are a natural, and of course somewhere in between. If you re no good it is a weakness you may want to bring up. If you re naturally good you may want to pursue it further. Copyright 2012 Legendary Strength 9

10 This does not mean you completely abandon what you re currently training in to focus on this new thing. But you take it into consideration as your training is ever evolving. 4. Work the Biggest Bang for Your Buck A barbell wrist curl doesn t do much. Yes, it has its place, but even among wrist strengthening exercises there are vastly superior ones. It s a limited exercise that builds strength in one small area of the body. Contrast that to a freestanding handstand pushup. This skill takes strength, balance, coordination, some flexibility, not to mention it looks awesome. A barbell snatch takes strength, speed, power, flexibility, agility and more. Since we re all limited by our time, you should seek those exercises that give you the most out of doing them. This will depend on the person, their specific goals, and what their strengths and weaknesses are. You ll also want to look at whether an exercise will help you achieve just one thing, or several. The biggest-bang-for-your-buck exercises will make up the core of what you do regularly. This does not mean you ll always do all of them, as there are more phenomenal exercises then you could possibly do, even in this group alone. But this will be supplemented by a support group of exercises as well. 5. Prioritize I ve stated several times that even though we seek to do it, we really can t do it all. And even among the things we do, you ll have to set your priorities. What is most important to you right now in developing? This will change overtime which is why I used the qualifier right now. For example, I often do various sorts of gymnastics along with some weightlifting. While I am able to mix these, with certain exercises, I ve found that they are not best done in combination. I can t pursue them both with equal zeal, at the same time. Instead I have to choose what is my priority right now, and what get s placed in maintenance mode or on the back burner. In time that will change. You may prioritize based on your goals, upcoming competitions, to fix your weaknesses, to see where you can get with your strengths, to explore new skills or any other number of ways. 6. Balancing Consistency and Variety To become good at something you have to work on it over time. Even getting to the point of better then most people will take some work. Copyright 2012 Legendary Strength 10

11 The body adapts quickly in the first couple of weeks of training a new skill. This is mostly neurological adaptation After that point the gains slow, but this is where the real progress generally is made. This is where you truly build those attributes of fitness. So you must stay consistent with something long enough in order to get real and lasting results. If you endlessly flit from one thing to the next you will not get very far, because there isn t enough consistent stimulus to cause adaptation in the areas you want to go. At the same time you are seeking to become a Renaissance Man so you have to have plenty of variety. The aim of our next section is to show you how to setup your training to accomplish all these goals. Copyright 2012 Legendary Strength 11

12 How to Train Renaissance Style We re going to break this down into two sub-sections. What not to do and what to do. The Don ts 1. Do Not Train in Just One Thing There are too many areas to train in. Even if you cycle through them, which we ll get to shortly, you d be wasting a lot of time by training in just one. You ll have to break back in to a new area, and build back up to where you were before, before you can start to make new gains. Even if you have a primary focus, just a little time per week in other areas can build more well-roundedness, keep your skills up, and break the monotony. You could just select a few biggest-bang-for-your-buck exercises in areas different from your primary focus and work on those once a week. This maintenance mode would not subtract from, but probably add to your other training. (Also while I call it maintenance I would still seek to make progress in those exercises, not merely maintain. You either get better or worse, so go for better.) 2. Do Not Do Something Completely Different Every Day Crossfit has some great points about its training, but it lacks the consistency in any one area to go very far with it. Instead if they rotated primary focuses, while still working the other movements, their athletes would have far greater success. The Workout of the Day model is great for people that don t want to think, or to keep people busy, but if you value progress over that then you need some structure in your training. This doesn t mean your workouts ever have to be the exact same from one day to the next. Far from it. You can always use variety but keep that pointed in your main direction and priorities, or use more variety in your support movements. Copyright 2012 Legendary Strength 12

13 The Do s 1. Do Work Many Categories and Movements in One Workout or Week As an example I will give you my current training plan. Two or three days a week I train at the park. Here I work on a whole bunch of different high strength bodyweight training exercises like levers, one arm pullup work, handstand presses and more. I ll also do some kettlebell juggling. Another two or three days a week I do my weight lifting. Right now I m focused on an upcoming competition, the Tactical Strength Challenge, so my prioritized goals here are the deadlift and kettlebell snatches. I work those each day I m in the gym. I ll also regularly do some squats, neck and grip work. And occasionally I ll also do some hill sprints. I get my flexibility, mobility, agility and coordination throughout all this training. I m working strength in my entire body. I get my endurance from the kettlebells and sprints, though after looking at writing it down I should do some more longer bouts occasionally as well. Just one of these two different workouts by itself would be pretty good, but I would say not quite complete. But combining them I m getting great results, and building towards a good number of my goals. You can also add in support groups that will further turn you into a Renaissance Man. If you want to do Indian Club swinging go for it. It s really not something I d encourage you to do as a main focus, but it can easily be done on top of other things. 2. Do Cycle Your Main Focus We know that you need to be consistent to get great results. We also know that to become a Renaissance Man you need to be good at many things. Earlier we talked about how you can become pretty damn good without all that much work. So now we bring all that together. When you are training you should have a main focus. Or maybe two to three main focuses. Select one category or competition that you re working towards. In the previous example you saw how I m structuring my workouts around two main focuses, the upcoming TSC competition and a whole bunch of bodyweight strength training goals. How focused is your focus? Let s take a broad category of bodyweight training. This is too broad. But within it I ve found a grouping I m currently working on. Its upper body strength exercises including hand balancing presses, one arm pullups, levers, flags, and planches. It works great as a group. Another group could be the gymnastic skills. Or you can go far for awhile with animal movements. Copyright 2012 Legendary Strength 13

14 My other group here is the TSC. This involves three exercises, a max deadlift, pullups for reps and kettlebell snatches for reps. The pullups is already taken care of in my other goal. That leaves just a two exercise focused group. A basic group of barbell lifts, press, row, deadlift and squat would work great too. Many of the categories, but not all, in the earlier chart work as groups. Girevoy sport, hand balancing, Olympic lifting, power lifting, feats of strength, these may all be a primary focus for you. A program from a book or DVD would be a focus. Remember to take into account how overall rounded is this focus, compared to the big picture of everything. If it s a relatively easy group you may not need to work all that long to make huge progress. But for most things you ll need to focus on for at least a month, and preferably longer. What I like to do is set a goal? This goal could take a month or a year to accomplish. If you have a long term goal, meaning several years, you ll always maintain some focus on it, though you may way to cycle between it as a main focus, or a secondary focus. If you re looking to learn kettlebell juggling devote some time to it. Choose a goal, for instance mastery of the over-the-shoulder flip. Once you ve achieved that goal, check your priorities. You may choose to set a new goal in the same area and continue at it, or you might like to shift your focus. The latter happens quite frequently for me. Putting all the mental and physical energy behind one training goal, after I m done with it, I like to do something completely different. This happened with my 301 kettlebell snatches and my 505 lb. deadlift. After each of these I switched focused. Only now am I getting back into them in a big way. It is taking some time to build back up to my previous highs, but I m fine with that, knowing that it ll all come pretty quickly, and in the meantime I ve gotten much better in other areas. What you may want to do is not completely abandon something like I tend to do, but put it onto some sort of maintenance mode, or at least work something similar enough where your ability doesn t go away. 3. Do Understand Your Body and How Your Skills and Fitness Stay and Go Skills tend to stay with you. With a little practice you can usually be back on top, unless you let many years go between them, with never any work. I didn t practice kettlebell juggling for years, except doing a little bit here and there once in awhile. Now that I m working on it again I can basically pick right back where I left off. Hand balancing is similar but a little bit harder. To get back to my best might take a couple weeks of work, if I haven t been working at it at all. You need to understand where your skills are and how well they will stay or go when you re not doing them. This way you can Copyright 2012 Legendary Strength 14

15 plan to work on them enough during downtimes to keep them up, or just realize you d have to do some extra work to catch-up when you do make it a main focus again. Endurance can usually be brought back pretty quickly. Still you want to keep up some sort of conditioning training at all times. And then realize that it is fairly specific to what you re doing. So if you want to achieve a specific endurance goal you ll have to work that movement for some time so your body can become efficient and relax as much as possible during it. Strength may stay or go quickly. I find that my top end will disappear quickly unless I m currently working on it. But about 80% of that will always stay. So when I push up my max I m also increasing my ability of what I can do at anytime without training. But in order to push up this max I will have to devote more time to it, bringing it to a primary focus. Flexibility will be similar. But with a little work every once and a while you can maintain your greatest amount of flexibility. But this is quite true for just about any movement. The only problem is that just trying to do some maintenance on everything, would be quite the job itself. Just understand that if you re not spending time on something it certainly won t be getting better, and it is likely getting worse. You have to play a balancing act in what you re focusing on, what you want to keep up, and what you let go for the time being. Continue to experiment and find what works well for you. Copyright 2012 Legendary Strength 15

16 Other Sides What we ve covered here is quite complete in regards to the physical training. A very important part but not the complete picture. But physical culture is also about two other areas. This led to the formation of what I call the Peak Performance Trinity. The three legs of this are: 1. Physical Training 2. Health and Nutrition 3. Mental Training If you look back at the original definition of physical culture, you ll see that it was never devoid of health and nutrition. This is important to physical training because it will give you the energy to do more, provide for the recovery you need, and also keep you free of illnesses that would cut into your training time. A great place to start here would be my book 101 Simple Steps to Radiant Health. Also physical culture is mental culture and vice versa. You cannot divide the body and mind. So you might as well use it to the best of your abilities. As you mind power grows so will your strength. That s because mental training can help you to remove the blocks that may be standing in your way, and directly increase what you are capable of. A great place to start here would be at When you spend some time studying and practicing in these two areas it will not only round you out as a complete Renaissance Man, but the time spent will be worth it, for the gains you see in your training as well. Copyright 2012 Legendary Strength 16

17 Summary In this last section I wanted to sum up everything we ve covered here. You can do a lot but you can t do everything. Even doing a lot you can still become great in a few select areas. Remember the 90% Rule. You must balance specialization with generalization. You must balance consistency with variety. Remember to do some work in all 10 attributes of fitness preferably at all times. Work your entire body at all times. Some of the broad categories you ll want to look at training include bodyweight training, gymnastics, barbells, kettlebells, grip training, and all other training tools and methods. Be sure to also seek to improve your health, nutrition and mental training. Choose the biggest bang for your buck exercises in all areas. Do focus on one or two main areas at any one time. Cycle your focuses over time for well-roundedness. Learn how your body keeps and loses skills and fitness. Work both your strengths and your weaknesses. Prioritize what you wish to achieve. Seek out new physical culture experiences and learn from them. If you follow these ideas you too will become a Physical Culture Renaissance Man. ****** You can find much more about these ideas and the specifics of putting them into action at my two main websites: Copyright 2012 Legendary Strength 17