Get Tough or Die: Metabolic Conditioning for the New Age BAMF

“But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get it and keep moving forward” (Rocky Balboa)

Training should always be purposeful practice.

Never just “working out”.

That to me is silly.

Training is never about the “sweat factor” – that is merely incidental.

This is what I am continuously forced to tell new clients of mine because for some reason a lot people still just don’t seem to get it.

eh.

But hey, if you really want to pay me to whoop your ass, I have no problem with that. It actually makes my job a lot easier. I have no doubt in my training abilities that I can beat you down to your knees, praying for the sweet release that only death can bring, with some of the downright nastiest metabolic conditioning routines you could ever imagine.

But what I tell my clients is that I’d rather make them better instead – and that there are lot better (and a heck of a lot more enjoyable) ways to make themselves sweat and throw up, if that is truly their end goal. Seriously, I do. Ask me about it.

Remember – just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

There needs to be a clear delineation between training and working out. Following the Birth of a Hero is training. You are working towards something specific and doing so in an intelligently structured approach.

Zumba (which wouldn’t be all bad if they served alcohol) is working out (if you can even call it that…).

Just strolling into a Crossfit gym and doing the “workout” of the day, is well, just working out. Now don’t get me wrong, you may very well get better at some things by “just working out,” just never as good as you could be getting through a proper and intelligently designed training regimen.

Now one thing that Som and I like to often test to see how productive our training has been is to examine our “toughness factor”, or how well our training holds up under severe amounts of stress and fatigue. (This has a lot to do with us being martial artists – but I believe it to be of equal importance to all athletes) because ultimately, as an athlete, if your training and poise don’t hold up under pressure, then something’s wrong…

So what we do to test this is commit the ultimate sin.

And for one day –we just workout solely with the malicious intention of whooping our own asses and finding out just how much we mere mortals can handle.

Because the truth is, as athletes and coaches, we need and want to be pretty damn tough. We take great pride in being the guys who have always walked the walk. And part of our training is designed to make us tough(er).

So how do we test that? How do we know if we are actually getting any tough(er) and/or more resilient? Such things aren’t so easily quantifiable – and of course there will always been semantic noise in regards to what “tough” really is. But for our purposes, we will focus on one’s physical and mental resilience and endurance.

Again, what we do to test this is commit the ultimate sin.

We work out with nothing more than the grand idea of complete self-destruction in mind.

The absolute foulest, filthiest, unrelenting, and unforgiving “workouts” you could ever imagine, a workout so punishing and so arduous that it will surely separate the true men from those who are just barely removed from their mother’s teat.

Each one always nastier than the predecessor.

If we survive and make it – we deem ourselves tough(er). And then it’s Miller Time.

So far, we’ve never not had Miller Time…

The system works, folks.

Strong(er). Lean(er). And tough(er).

Today, I am going to take you through one of these tests of merit. Keep your puke buckets nearby and the paramedics on speed dial.

NOTE: Never do you push through into bad form. This is all about how tough you can be, yet still maintain poise under pressure. Slopping through something is just slopping through something. That’s not tough. That’s sloppy. Completing something with integrity is what we are after here.

For today’s episode self destruction – I warmed up with the 100 rep RKC snatch test. Clocked in my 100 reps in 3 minutes and 47 seconds.

The System Works.

Get ready for the big nasty.

And share some of your favorite self-destruction routines in the comment section!