It is time for a more primal kind of training.
I have been improving far faster than I expected, thanks in part to my diet and also because of my extreme dedication, but I know I can do so much more. My friend Vandulf is one of the strongest people I know. He looks strong, but his actual strength puts even that to shame. Today, he showed me how he trains... And admitted that he rarely even did it, and that he could be so much stronger if he did.
For most people, a pushup is a pushup. It's just an exercise. You go through the motion enough times, your muscles get stronger. That's the way I thought about it, too.
But what if we viewed exercises differently? What if, instead of viewing them as abstractions, we thought about them as concrete movements that we want to be able to do with more force. A punch, pushing someone away from you, catching yourself while you fall, lifting large loads with your legs... You can strengthen all of these motions if you design an exercise of working that motion repeatedly (with or without weights).
So I'm taking my runs outside. No more running on a treadmill. I'm doing a wider variety of pushups to strengthen various areas of my body, and I'm going to mix up every workout. Things are gonna be a little different around here, not as routine, but I will grow so much stronger.
I'll do workouts with that kind of real application six times a week. Many of the exercises won't have weights, some will... But everything will be a practical motion.
This is also an excellent way to build dexterity and the ability to actually respond to stimuli. I could make this a balance exercise as well.
I think the possibilities for improvement are infinite and it's freaking exciting.
