The New Plan

One must change one's tactics every ten years if one wishes to maintain one's superiority. --Napoleon Bonaparte

And such it is that I must change my tactics. I have been working out for about 10 years now, as you may have read previously. As you have surely seen, I have not turned into those dudes from 300, and they just had 6 months of preparation. Man, those guys are ripped. I'm not even gay, but if you want to see some fit-looking guys, see that movie. Anyway, I've been doing more or less the same workout for...the entire 10 years. Somewhere between 6 and 20 reps, 1-5 sets, 20-120 sec rest, bike, run, blah, blah, boring. As anyone who knows anything about exercise will tell you, doing to same thing all the time doesn't make you fitter - it might keep you in shape, but it is just as likely to give you overuse injuries.

So the goal is the do something different. If possible, something different every week. So why not take it one more step, and do something different everyday? That will keep the body guessing, keep it improving. And while we're changing the workouts for the better, why not make them shorter? I don't mind the gym too much, but if I can be out of there in 20 min instead of an hour and see the same gains, that is what I will do. Perhaps we could even change it to make it easier to do at home. Minimum equipment. And full-body, functional exercises. Biceps curls are nice for impressing girls, but do they really help you scale a fence or climb a tree or lift a grocery bag? Not really; my time could be much better served by using all the muscles involved in a real-world activity. If I did that, maybe I could even combine my "cardio" and "weights" together - it should be self-evident that working more muscles simultaneously will give your heart and lungs a better workout than working one small muscle at a time.

But...that sounds like a lot of planning. And creativity.

Enter CROSSFIT. Lo and behold, there is a website that fulfills all of my wishes. It gives me a new workout everyday (yes, it is free), and even tells me when it is a rest day. The workouts are short, and use functional movements with minimal equipment. If you really want to see what the CrossFit theories on fitness and training are, check out the following pdf files ("What is Fitness?" and "Foundations"). If you want the short version, here it is - CrossFit's "World-class fitness in 100 words":

Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar. Keep intake to levels that will support exercise but not body fat. Practice and train major lifts: Deadlift, clean, squat, presses, C&J, and snatch. Similarly, master the basics of gymnastics: pull-ups, dips, rope climb, push-ups, sit-ups, presses to handstand, pirouettes, flips, splits, and holds. Bike, run, swim, row, etc, hard and fast. Five or six days per week mix these elements in as many combinations and patterns as creativity will allow. Routine is the enemy. Keep workouts short and intense. Regularly learn and play new sports.

So try it. I dare you. Abandon your long, knee-jarring runs. Forget about your biceps curls. Or just get off your backside. Do something functional instead. I can tell you, after 2 days of following the prescribed exercises, you'll never feel 13 minutes in the gym was so well-spent.