Training Tips

First, please do look at the Mental Shifts list first, as some cover how to approach your training from a mental standpoint. The tips below will assist you in getting the most out of your sessions from a tactical standpoint.

• Use Simultaneous Training to get training volume while doing your daily activities: commuting, cooking, reading, on your smartphone, etc. You only need a minute and the mental fortitude to use that minute to train.
• Use Opportunistic Training to get training volume when you find yourself with some time to train: playing with your kids outside or inside, in your hotel room, at school pick-up, etc.
• Maximize Complexity: get the most of your training time but maxing out the complexity. Doing push-ups for example? Do them balancing on top of a bench or on a line on the ground. Same strength benefits, you just work balance in addition to them.
• Maximize Variability: increased variability in your movements means increased adaptability in your capabilities. Only training pull-ups on gym pull-up bars? You’re in for a surprise when you try them on thick tree branches or thicker bars like playground swing-set…
• Train in as many places as possible: this is the best way to get maximal exposure to variable demands and so develop adaptability. Natural or Urban, Controlled or Uncontrolled, etc. Just maximize your mix.
• Corollary: decrease your use of standard fitness gyms. No need to go to zero if you enjoy it, but it’s ironically one of the least optimal environments for the reasons exposed above.
• Push yourself mentally: especially for endurance and conditioning exercises, we usually drastically underestimate the capabilities of our body. Push yourself through the pain and you’ll discover new limits.
• Use mental scenarios and visualization to go beyond perceived limits: I usually can go a long way when I carry my backpack using a strenuous chest carry, but only because of these mental tools. At first, I imagine myself carrying a log within a group of students at Seals selection training. Imagining a group setting helps in pushing. When that fails and I want to let go, I imagine carrying one of my kids, injured, to the nearest road from a deep forest. And I can then go on that much longer…
• Train while watching over your kids: it may seem “less perfect” than training with 100% focus in the gym, but overall, it’s better for you. And way better for them.