My oldest son, the very successful business guy, called me from his office in Denver the other day. He called to catch up on family stuff but also to tell me that he had hired a personal trainer to help get him into better shape. Now my oldest son has always been a skinny kid whose main interest in sports was X game stuff: snowboarding, skateboarding, surfing, climbing, dirt bikes that type of stuff, still is. He was never really a gym guy. However, as he is now 30 years old and has been working 24/7 running his very successful business (SnackCrate), he started getting a little pudgy. We all spent some time together this past summer climbing and hiking out west where his brother and cousin made sure they pointed out his new weight gain every chance they got. Now you would think that having a father who is a Marine, a fitness author and trainer I would be his go to for advice and help on this, but he decided to seek outside help. One reason was that he can be a real lazy ass when it comes to doing regular PT and he needed someone actually with him to put a foot in his ass to work out and push him when he gets to the gym. I got that, however the other thing he told me took me a little by surprise. He said, “Dad, I’m not interested in getting ready for a war, what I care mostly about is looking good.” “Well” I said, “Myself or the people I train don’t exactly look out of shape?” “No”, he replied, “But I just want the abs and all that, plus I don’t want to do your stuff, it’s too hard”. Really? That got me thinking about that appearance vs. performance debate that has been around a long time in the fitness world.

He’s right that my training during my time as a Marine, the program in my book and what I personally have followed for decades was developed with the main intent to prepare people for military service. It also provides the collateral benefits of great fitness for sports and recreation, weight management, robust health and a trim athletic appearance. But make no mistake, it was designed primarily for performance, to improve what you can actually do, not how you look. However, in today’s viral social media world the value of appearance over performance has reached new levels of desire. It’s very common for any fitness program, supplements or gear to be promoted with the dynamic picture of the “Ab guy or girl.” I get the appeal, but most people don’t realize that the person in the picture is a professional body model, that utilizes a combination of genetics, a very strict diet, full time PT program, a lot of supplements (and no doubt PED’s), to achieve that ripped look. The point being is that they aren’t a realistic representation of what the average person will be able to obtain (and especially maintain), even with a lot of hard work and discipline. Not to mention that there are a lot of photographic tricks used to make these people look a lot better than they are in person. Just like they do with professional fashion models. It’s an image business, based on fantasy not reality.

I’m not saying by any means that being in a lean condition is a bad thing, I’m just saying that having it as your primary goal of your fitness program may be misguided, as it isn’t realistic, sustainable, nor particularly healthy. As an example, track the long term health of many famous bodybuilders and you’ll see what I mean. Interestingly, another place you can see this play out is in the dog world. Now we all have seen the dog shows on TV. The dogs in all the different breed categories are judged solely on their appearance and how they fit into certain physical standards. Many years of careful breeding are used to develop a show dog champion, but too often these lead to genetic issues that can cause serious health problems and short life spans in show dogs. Plus no one worries about if they can run fast, put up with harsh weather or other outdoor conditions, or get along with kids, it’s all about appearance. Plus, these dogs require special diets, medications and are groomed and pampered 24/7 to maintain their appearance.

Now look at dogs that are working dogs like: labs, beagles or hounds that are used for hunting, police/military dogs, or herding dogs used for cattle and sheep. These dogs are usually rough looking, way out of show standard but can handle anything you can throw at them and keep going. Bad weather, sleeping outside, regular dog food, doesn’t matter; they just go and go, doing it all with tails wagging the whole way. When I was a kid, I had a dog that was ½ pit bull and ½ beagle. Whiskey was all of about 25lbs, marked like a beagle but funny looking with an oversized block head mounted on her little body. She had a decent nose and a weird note when flushing rabbits, but that little dog was the Rambo of our neighborhood. She could climb trees like a cat and loved to swim. She was notorious for chewing up our hockey pucks and digging up yard moles for a snack. But the thing she really loved to do was go down a woodchuck hole and drag a woodchuck out by his ass. It was something to see and when the fight moved into the open it often seemed she was overmatched and out of her weight class, but despite often being bit up from head to toe she was never beaten. She followed us on our bikes all day long and lived to be 12 years old, at least 12 as she went outside the wire for her normal morning patrol on a very cold winter day and was never seen again? Fueled by table scraps (and stolen chicken eggs), she never went to the vet and always slept outside on the porch (my dad wouldn’t let dogs in the house), no matter what the weather. Yes, I did sneak her in my room when I could.

I share this story about a little mutt that I loved and was my constant companion as a young boy to illustrate my point. That being that in my opinion it’s more important, more healthy and in the end more satisfying to focus your training on what you can do, rather than how you look. Focusing mostly on appearance will require a routine similar to what the show dogs use and IMO yield similar problems. It will be very hard to maintain and could lead to health problems. The first thing the trainer gave my son was a big list of supplements he wanted him to start taking. The recommended diet was strict, boring and time consuming, it’s your typical broiled chicken breast, steamed broccoli and plain oatmeal routine. The actual workouts (IMO) are pretty weak, 30-45 minutes of light weights and cardio. Certainly nothing I would recommend to get into, or maintain top condition. But I know the goal here is to just get his metabolism going and with the low carb diet and supplements, get his body into Ketosis, to burn body fat. I told my son no doubt it will work, you will lose bodyfat, but you’ll be miserable, hungry and tired. I also know he’ll quickly grow bored of all the meal prep, limited food choices and supplement routine. My guess is he’ll last a couple of months, lose some weight and dump it. I’m not being negative, but I’ve seen this movie a 100x. It’s an old story with the same ending.

Based on my experience if you train for performance you also need to eat for performance. Being in Ketosis is not a high-performance state, it’s actually the opposite. When you are training hard you need real food and frankly lots of it. A wide variety of quality whole foods, not protein powder, branched chain amino acids, creatine, fat burners, recovery drinks, etc, etc. Those things do work (to a certain extent) but what are you going to do, take that stuff for the rest of your life? I’m not and despite most of the advertising, hype, video views, likes and IG picture shares most people won’t either. The fact is most of us do not have the genetics to look like a fitness model. Just like we don’t have the genetic talent to play professional sports, drive formula 1 race cars or do rocket science. However, the vast majority of us can maintain a fantastic level of useful fitness, health and energy that will allow you to live your life in the fast lane. BTW, princess I will also guarantee that when you get there, you’ll look pretty good too. Till next month:

“Be Safe Always, Be Good When You Can.”

Semper Fi

MGunz

When I was a kid Joe Namath was one of my first sports idols. Being from NY and seeing Joe Willie win the first Super Bowl I ever watched and then later seeing him dating Rachel Welch, made a big impression on my puberty scrambled brain. I followed everything he did. I remember reading a story that when he was in 6th grade he went to a local fair and at the arcade, won every stuffed doll they had in that old carny game where you knock over the weighted milk bottles with a baseball. There was also the story that before the days of it being popular, that he used to dunk a basketball routinely during HS games. His college football coach, Alabama’s famed Paul “Bear” Bryant, said Namath was the greatest athlete he ever coached. Coming from him, that’s quite a statement. I think all this was the root of my long interest in cross training. I always found the thought of being an all-around athlete much more appealing than just being good in any one sport, still do.

Throughout my life I’ve tried almost every sport you can think of and was incredibly average in all of them. I had some standout moments in weight lifting and boxing, but for the most part I was pretty unremarkable. However, I enjoyed them all and I especially enjoyed the training, as it was all different. Which fit my five-minute attention span perfectly. Later when I became a Marine, I learned another type of physical training. Then after I retired from active duty and started training international military people, I gained additional training insight, as most internationals don’t grow up with the same sports and recreation that we do in the states. They also (for the most part) didn’t have the assets (money) we did for sports. This is certainly true in their military training. It was all good and along the way I built up quite a data-base of different training methods and experiences.

From all this I’ve come to realize that for the vast majority of us concerning sports, we share a similar experience. That being is while we were never going to become professional athletes, we enjoyed many different sports growing up and even though our serious athletic careers are mostly over by the time we left HS or college, we still want to enjoy sports and other rigorous recreation. With that being said IMO to really enjoy a wide variety of these things, you need to maintain a very good, (if not great) level of all-around health & fitness. What I call the “Do Anything Condition”. A 24/7 level of fitness that will allow you to handle almost anything at a decent level and if desired, provide a solid base to build on for something more specialized, like running a marathon, mountain climbing, or any other specific sport or activity. Now you may be someone who just likes to golf or fish, but I’d suggest that any recreation short of just sitting and watching will be enhanced by better fitness. This enhanced level of physical wellness also provides a lot of other collateral benefits also like: better sleep, more energy, better sex, better overall attitude and outlook on life. There are many more. You could even become more productive at work? LOL.

So how do you get there? Get there without a lot of complicated bullshit and a big -time investment? First realize that this standard of condition is somewhat subjective, meaning it will be a little different for each person, which is based on their needs and goals. However, I think that at a minimum, it’s based on achieving and maintaining a few basic physical standards:

1) An ideal body weight, which is ideal for your height and frame.

2) Strength, expressed your ability to effectively manipulate your bodyweight plus an additional 33-50% (of your bodyweight).

3) Endurance, perform a wide variety of repetitive tasks for an extended time without undue fatigue, this also includes the ability to recover from such tasks quickly.

4) Flexibility that allows a wide range of motion. Important in injury prevention.

5) Robust health that provides a high energy level and a strong resistance to injury, sickness and fatigue.

The key to achieving these states is a program that is properly balanced and flexible. Now, obviously I can’t lay out a lot of detail in this short article, but I can provide a basic training outline that has been proven effective over many years of trial, error and observation. It’s also a basic plan that I have personally followed for many years and with great success.

Monday – Strength

Tuesday – Endurance

Weds – “Active” Rest

Thursday – Strength

Friday – Endurance

Saturday – Specific Sport or Activity Participation

Sunday – Endurance or “Active” Rest.

Now the actual make-up of what you would actually do under these broad headlines depends again on your individual goals. However, Monday – Friday sessions are generally around an hour (workdays), while the weekends can and frequently are much longer. The workout options within this basic outline are literally endless. I lay out many different routines in my book: Corps Strength. It goes without saying that to make this work you need to support it with a sound eating plan. I also give a lot of practical guidance on that subject in my book. Again, nothing complicated, just sound principles that I know work.

Another great “Bennie” of the Do Anything Condition is the ability to be spontaneous with your recreation. This opens up a world of opportunities. It was a normal way of life as a young Marine on liberty around the world and something I still enjoy doing since I retired. Traveling for work I’ve entered road races of different lengths when they came up locally, like the 10k I ran through the Jungles of Sierra Leone with some Canadian and Brit military people. I climbed an active volcano (over 7000ft) in East Africa with some of my students and went free diving to spear lobster and grab conch in over 40ft of open water in Trinidad. I did all of this without a second of any specific preparation. It was all a blast and I had no problem with any of it physically. The point is where-ever I go, I’m physically ready to do whatever fun may present itself. Plus, do it well enough to have fun and not to break myself or be completely worn out afterward.

The reality is that 99.9% of us aren’t going to play professional sports, or date a movie star (shit). But it doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy a lot of sports and recreation, IF and that’s IF we keep ourselves in decent shape and ready to go. The fact is it’s not really that hard either. It just takes a good plan, some consistent effort and a little discipline. It’s well worth it in the end, especially when you’re able to experience these things with your family and friends. Don’t wait, get ready now and remember when you do:

“Be Safe Always, Be Good When You Can.”

Semper Fi

MGunz