Functional training out in the park and forest [x-post r/pickup]
submitted by marc_kindall to Fitness
http://www.reddit.com/r/pickup/comments/t8nlz/paf_stayin_manventure_swole/
We don't have a gym available, so we're pushing ourselves with a really functional workout. I'm a starting strength compound lifts monkey, and this has absolutely killed me. The gym gives you strength, but not functional coordination and additional compound muscle balance.
So how do we measure the individual level of functional?
Everyone who trains strongman is laughing at you.
Give it a shot if you want functional and to be sent to your limits.
Holy fuck, how do people not understand that functionality is relative to the situation? If you are competing in a powerlifting contest but all you've trained for is a marathon, you probably aren't a functional powerlifter. It's completely goddamn relative.
Calling it functional fitness is a way for people who feel inadequate to make themselves feel good about the little that they can do. Also, the reason for this outdoorsy, look how manly we are bullshit probably has a lot in common with self-identifying as pick-up artists.
This is who I picture on the other side of the keyboard whenever I hear someone talking about "functional strength".
Your body responds to the stresses you put on it. If you gradually load a barbell and perform squats and deadlifts, you will gradually get better at squats and deadlifts. If you run around in the woods playing "Memory" with rocks, you will get better at running around in the woods playing "Memory" with rocks.
Gym strength is plenty "functional". For instance, my 500 lb deadlift is two and a half times more "functional" than my brother's 200 lb deadlift.
Also, the post you linked to is full of inaccuracies and bad advice:
...really? Cleans and snatches are meant to be performed with heavier weights, and squats and deadlifts are meant to be performed quickly and with lighter weight?
Oh boy...
So, you did a crossfit workout in the woods? It sounds like a really great way to ruin a camping trip.
Edit: It's funny how besides me, the only commenters in this thread are buddies from seddit and pickup. I was wondering why I hadn't seen them around /r/fitness before they all decided to weigh-in on this x-post from /r/pickup. Edit for spelling, also.
you have an interesting definition of functional
God you are a dipshit.
The point is that the entire concept of "functional fitness" is a bullshit cross-fit excuse to avoid getting good at one thing and be very mediocre at a bunch of other things. The workout that this guy describes is no more "functional" and no more accurately replicates a survival situation than working out at the gym and then busting out a bunch of sprints afterwards does.
If you want to get better at responding to survival scenarios, train for those specific scenarios. Want to get better at carrying an unconscious victim? Doing sandbag work and practicing x-chest and modified fireman carries are going to go much further than running around in the woods. Want to get better at lifting heavy objects off of pinned survivors? Then do a variety of odd-object lifting.
The kind of exercise this guy is describing isn't "training". It's "working out till you get really tired". I have no problem with people doing this (hey, doesn't affect me), but he's delusional if he thinks this is any more "functional" and any less contrived than a workout in the gym.
Like this?
That's called training specificity. It will definitely get you better at carrying people out of dangerous situations.
What you described in the post is a full-contact form of Memory. Which will get you really good at playing Memory with really big rocks.
Rocks are heavy and hard to lift out of rivers. This problem gets wildly more complex in certain spots where the current moves ridiculously fast. The memory aspect is throwaway, basically all I wanted to do was force the guys to remember some tidbit while sucking life's proverbial dick.
It seems like a lot of guys are slugging in here, that post was just an update on our subreddit to keep some of our users posted on what kinds of things we've been doing to stay fit while couped up in a car away from our gyms.
It's like, all the skills I pick up in the gym--and all the weight I'm used to lifting, get put to the test when I actually have to lift heavy things in situations that are less than ideal. But like you said, it's just different skillsets, contrived to accomplish different things. I think OP was just commenting on the challenge of coming from one school to another, you know.
I am in no way advocating what was written in that short post, as some "all inclusive guide to fitness." Quite the opposite, just a look into how I'm training right now.
Let me introduce you to a few things you can do without a gym:
You don't have to go out to a river and play dick whistler with your buddies then come back with a monologue about how you are all of a sudden Bear Grylls.
I have more muscle mass than xxxmoneypower and am pretty sure I can do classic starting strength lifts with more weight than him, even considering the weight difference between us.
All that muscle mass becomes close to useless when I'm not doing concentrated low-rep shit -- even if it is compound barbell lifts. I have no lifting endurance and my lower body bulk has resulted in a muscular imbalance where I can't even maintain a reasonable handstand using my traps, triceps, and shoulders.
I don't necessarily feel bad about this; I prefer bulk over functional quickness (especially since I'm genetically primed for it), but it's made me realize that living in the gym shuts you out of a whole world of shit -- balance, muscular coordination, true mental toughness, etc. I'm at a local maximum with gym work, but have so much more to gain to reach a global maximum in overall fitness.
There it is again!
There's no reason in the world that artificially manipulating external conditions (temperature, training environment) is any better at producing "true mental toughness" than manipulating training stressors in a gym -- either through weight, reps, sets, rest time, distance, intensity, etc.
Except for the fact that the gym itself is an artificially manipulated enviroment, designed to make it easy to focus on one thing at a time?
The point of such excercises to me is to do lots of things at once. Doing one thing at a time wont build mental fortitude - dealing with all the shit that the enviroment throws at you will.
Because you totally aren't a shill account for one of the people involved in this project. Jesus Christ people, you're pathetic. Thanks for weighing in on this.
I am just me, bro, shill or not. And really, you havent presented any really compelling arguments at all in this thread, though you started to when you were talking about how different exercises work a large portion of the musculature in your discussion with my friend r16d. I know that they do. But they also always work the body from the same angles, in the same way, each time, because that is "good form" that will allow you to get the maximum amount of reps without hurting yourself.
Recognising this, why is working out in non flat, resistant enviroments, that challenge normal form and force you to adapt, a bad thing? How is it not beneficial? I am interested.
Because the only other three posts you have to your history are promoting these guys and their project...
I have no problem with what they're doing. In the absence of a gym, it's an awesome way to get a workout. And being on the road and in the woods is certainly fun. I just don't understand why everybody in this thread is so eager to jump on the "running around with rocks in the woods and playing games is uber functional, man" bandwagon without ever taking the time to define "functional", or explain why this is more "functional", superior to, or any less contrived than working out in a gym.
This is my "go out and comment on forays and such" account, I just meant that I am not any of the other users in here.
I think you just got peoples blood roused when you dismissed it out of hand, which is probably why people flipped out in defense of it.
I guess the only way which I think its superior, if at all, is in the terrain/enviroment/uneven ground. That kinda thing builds leg muscles associated with balance, that I feel like most guys going to a gym forget/dont pay attention to at all. But I think that they are crucial when applying what strength you have built up in a real life situation. Since a gym is always level, I dont really see it building that up.
What do you think?
That's why good programs include hill sprints, prowlers, and sled drags on conditioning days.
Persistence in a warm room with weights you can safely dump is one thing. Persistence in the cold rain is another. It is the sort of thing that trivializes all else in your life -- it reminds you life isn't so difficult as we tend to think it is. It's the same reason I prefer running outside in the cold rain over doing it on a treadmill.
Yeah, you can build a mental toughness in the gym, but it's more about forcing complete failure and trying to hit maximal CNS activation through focus on contraction. But it won't absolutely test your willpower in a way that will benefit you in day-to-day life.
And it's not about the environmental temperature or weather; consider the many forms rocks come in -- you can't easily deadlift every one. Consider how uneven terrain can be -- its consistency, grade, etc. Just because of this, I am very prone to ankle injuries just because I am only trained to push heavy-ass weight upward on a flat surface. Same thing as a track runner may reach a mechanical peak on the track, but be decimated in cross-country runs because they can't stabilize properly.
A lot of guys get in to powerlifting because they want functionality, but it's easy to blind themselves to what's beyond that.
Cold rain? Cold rain? That's your idea of persistence? Something that gives you perspective?
Divorces. Deaths. Clinical depression. Immediate family members having incurable diseases. That's what gives you perspective, you fucking fat headed dipshit.
Hey man, the rain was really cold.
So was my broken engagement.
These assholes think they're special forces. I spent 6 years in the infantry and spent many sleepless nights in the cold rain. Know what I realized? It's not that bad.
When one of your best buddies commits suicide from PTSD, that's what gives you perspective. Go stack some more rocks in a field and think about how much tougher you are than people who bust their asses in the gym. Fuck you and your aspie PUA bullshit.
Thank you for weighing-in on this; I'm very sorry for the loss of your friend. I also thank you for your service, and I agree with your points completely. I want you to know that what I'm going to say in the next few sentences/paragraphs is in no way comparing my experiences to yours or posturing.
I work with rape victims and victims of domestic violence two to four days per week. Counseling people who have walked in on their children being raped by their husbands and then having to stand up in court and cross-examine these people gives you some fucking perspective on life too, and makes you realize that nothing you can artificially manipulate through planned/programmed workouts ever comes close to real suffering. The very idea that going for a run in the cold rain (this is the kind of thing I do to get away from the voices in my head) or fucking around in a stream with rocks gives you some sort of privileged look into what pain or suffering really means is the reason I've been so vehemently throwing down in this thread.
If the post was merely, "Hey, check out this cool workout that we did," I would have no problem with it and would have probably upvoted the entire thing. It's the self-aggrandizing aspect of it that gets under my skin.
I totally get you man. Some people consider themselves tough motherfuckers because they did 100 burpees in the snow or ran a 5 mile adventure race that required them to get a little muddy. So they go out, do their little "hardcore race" and go to their nice home and take a hot shower. It gives them a false sense of superiority and they feel as if they are part of some elite group that is incredibly mentally tough. They're "warriors", "fighters", or "elite".
I hate to burst their bubbles, but there are plenty of children (not even counting adults) that have seen more in their short time on earth than these people will ever see in their entire lives.
In case I haven't said it when you've given me lifting advice: I love you, man.
Hmmm, something that young children enjoy playing in...yeah that builds persistence.
That's what gets me. Running around in the rain, moving rocks, hanging out by a river...these things are playing. I've done them since I was a kid and I still do. Olympic/powerlifting lifts with hill sprints and some distance cardio thrown in? That's training.
Not everyone belongs to some cushy Gold's gym. Some people train in crusty old buildings, train out of storage centers, in parking lots, in shitty cold basements, and smoking hot attics.
Do you even strongman?
You know what really builds mental toughness?
u can also get the same efect by surviving the war on fat
PFTSD (Post Fat Traumatic Stress Disorder)
Are you a real person? Is this.. when did 4chan show up?
so you think isolated exercises are as equally as functional as integrated exercises? how so?
lol, you post this whole rant and then criticize people on a multi-month road trip for working out
DYERead? Please, show me where I said that.
EDIT: you sound like a good coach.
Did I once say that isolated exercises are as "functional" as integrated exercises in any of those quotes?
You clearly have 0 reading comprehension skills.
At least I don't need flowcharts and strategies to get laid like you do.
You sound butthurt.
so then you don't think that isolated exercises are as functional as functional as integrated exercises? is that what you're saying? help me out.
there's a flowchart? where?
Please tell me how a deadlift, a squat, a properly executed clean and jerk, or a push-press is an "isolated exercise" that doesn't implicate almost your entire musculature.
you're the expert, and yet you can't answer a single question. i'll try emulating you and see if i get all swole by being a combative dick on the internet.
now cough up that flowchart you're sitting on. i could really use some pussy right now, and i feel i'm missing out on some secret skills and strategies you must already have since you're obviously pulling down mad play based on your personality alone.
LOL Pickup talk always makes me crack up.
Holy shit dude, please stop.
This is brutal
You're the "pickup artist", not me.
You didn't pose a single question, you merely mischaracterized a claim I made and then proceeded to do a shit-poor job defending your point.
have i characterized myself this way?
those were questions. what's my point?