Reinventing Fitness
- By Chris Hardwicke
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- 11 Jul, 2018
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How Frontier Movement Reinvented Fitness
Six years ago, as we set our course away from machines and body builder moves I took a long look at hundreds of workouts and bought every book and video that featured human movement including functional training, sports training and moving-flexibility training. I traveled to several forward-thinking gyms such as Velocity and Monkey Bar and joined several paid sites for strength coaches and trainers. Many seminars were led by the most famous athletic trainers in the world such as Jack Blatherwick, the conditioning coach for the American “Miracle On Ice” Olympic gold medal winners. Much of this turned my world upside down as I found out how the pros really train.
Imagine being told that abdominal “crunches” were simply not performed by coaches in the know as they have a direct link to bulging discs in the spine! I perused the internet endlessly for unique movement work. I learned a lot and I’m still learning a lot. I found that no one had the total package for our needs.
Most elite trainers were working with elite athletes who typically spend 5 or 6 days a week in the gym. My clients have much more on their plate than going to the gym. My intention has been to condense and refine all this great conditioning knowledge into a total package for my clients.
By a “total package” I am referring to the ultimate fitness hour. What should such an hour include? First it should be total body workout. By this I mean that every major muscle group should be thoroughly worked. This means to, or very near to, exhaustion.
Second, no repeat movements for months so that variety can bring superior results and stave off repetition and boredom. (Currently we have no repeat movements for four-month cycles and incorporate over 600 unique movements.)
Third, it should be well beyond aerobic (75% of max HR) and strive for a maximum (100%) heart rate at predictable intervals throughout the hour. This negates the need for supplemental cardio in all but serious athletes. Also, flexibility should be increased by the work, not reduced, as is often the case with gym work.
Fourth, specific rest intervals are essential to train the body’s ability to recover from effort more effectively. To this end, we have forced rest intervals done while seated in chairs.
Fifth, to accomplish all this we must raise the bar on research and development. Each of our workouts take an average of six hours in research before a single movement is performed. Following that, our staff will rehearse the movements for several weeks. At this point we evolve the workout for heart rate plotting, appropriate intensity, flexibility and muscle fatigue. We attempt to make it interesting and fun. Importantly, we must be able to modify each movement in order to accommodate ALL levels of fitness. This is where we are truly emerging as leaders in the field as often developing and create new equipment of our own design.
Now we begin giving the new movements to the clients and the evolution of the movements continues based on their feedback and heart rates. I believe this process gives us, without a doubt, the best workouts in the fitness business. Just two of these total body workouts per week bring big results. Sound Impossible?
We are fight or flight, hunting and gathering animals. In our DNA are all the tools for energy creation. Through the Kreb’s cycle, we can convert ALL food to energy. We can live in excess of 40 days on water alone. We can walk 300 miles without anything other than water. Though it is occasionally not evident, we are the most highly evolved animals on Earth.
To better understand how we create more energy, we would do well to visualize a spiral. If we follow the line of the spiral we see that it moves up and then levels out, reaching an ever-increasing height. The same is true when we create energy. Our energy levels cannot simply rise straight up. We must also level out to create energy (rest).
If you have been sedentary for a long time and one day you decide to go jogging for a couple of miles, you will be tired for several days after. You will need to rest. Tiredness is the downside of the spiral. From just that one run, you have created more energy that is yours to use AFTER recovery. This increased energy is the upswing of the spiral. If you continue to run and rest, the spiral will go up and level out with the net result being a gain in energy. Our heart becomes bigger and our lungs more toned, the relevant jogging muscles are stronger and more efficient.
To return to our car analogy, our engine has become bigger and stronger. When running a couple of miles no longer challenges us we have ADAPTED to our running regimen. At this point, if we do not run faster, farther or longer we will not continue to increase our energy. Our current level of running will MAINTAIN our current level of ADAPTATION (energy level). If we stop running we will gradually go back down the spiral. If we do not allow for full recovery through proper sleep we will also see a drop in performance. Sleep is an important part of the leveling out of the spiral.
In a nutshell, we must work hard enough to go higher “up” the spiral, and then rest, through which we will adapt to higher and higher levels of energy.
You can feed all the fuel you want to a weak engine and it will still not go faster. You can cleanse the fuel lines all you want and you will not increase YOUR performance if your engine is small and weak.
We have total control of our energy level. We are responsible for creating our own energy. If you do not have any, you have created the weak engine I am talking about. It is very easy to look to cleanses and supplements, but a strong engine can run very well for a long time on junk food, much as putting cheap gas in your car often takes 100,000 miles to have a negative effect.
In our car analogy, we fixed everything but the engine and still we had no better performance. A big difference between human engines and car engines is that if you park your car in the garage for a few years, the engine remains just as powerful. The human engine, however, will actually shrink. Your entire system can get clogged by parking it on the couch too long and not taking it out for a good drive once in a while. If you only drive it to work and back it won’t continue to run well for long. You will see what I mean when you finally “floor it” and black smoke pours out of the exhaust! It may even stall! Quick, before it’s too late, let’s make this thing run right, faster, and longer.
Why don’t you have some coffee, sugar, or fruit? That ought to pick you up! How about an energy drink with some wild sounding jungle herbs? Most of us regularly look for energy in a particular food or drink and we are eventually forced to acknowledge that it does not work.
We have an epidemic of blood sugar problems (hypoglycemia) that affect an estimated 60% of this country. In fact, most companies give workers a break at 10 a.m. and often this is not because they are generous, but productivity has markedly slowed. At this point you have only been at work for two, at most three, hours! Certainly you are not already out of energy. Notice that your break room is filled with caffeine, candy, and salty and sweet carbohydrates in hopes of kicking you back into productivity.
Further notice that the great ‘medication stations”—convenience stores— that are filled from one end to the other with these items! I can fix your “Blood Sugar” problem such that you can fully access energy you already have, but that will NOT create more!
Many alternative modalities promise to remove “blocks” to your energy or increase the flow of energy. Often “cleansing” of some type is recommended. Notice that removing blocks and increasing FLOW are NOT the same as creating MORE energy. For a better understanding of energy, I shall use a car for my analogy.
Let’s say that the tube that carries gasoline to the engine (the fuel line) is clogged. The car runs poorly. When you clear the “blockage” you “increase the flow” of fuel to the engine. While this is important and I often recommend energy-flow work, you will NOT have MORE energy, but full access to the energy you already had.
How about if the carburetor is not mixing the air and gasoline correctly? Again the car runs poorly. Many vitamin and supplements companies make “increased-energy” claims based on improving your fuel mix. While supplements and diet can sometimes correct nutritional deficiencies, you will only have better fuel, not more fuel. This is very important as better fuel is necessary for high performance. Many people in third world countries suffer from malnutrition and cannot perform well. However, you and I are likely getting everything we need for our day-to-day performance and even our “weekend warrior” athletics. Body builders, high school, college and professional athletes may well need supplements if their diet is less than perfect but I’m willing to bet that quality fuel is not your problem.
For now, let’s assume that your fuel system is clean enough and you eat a good enough diet. If this is the case, and most often it is, the cause of your lack of energy is that your motor is small and inefficient and that nothing you put in the gas tank can change that!
It is both true and logical that the ‘mixed’ body type will blend both the apple and pear diets. The mixed type stores fat relatively evenly throughout the body. I would like to differentiate the “genetic” mixed type from the “acquired” mixed type.
If you have always stored excess weight fairly evenly both above and below the waist you are the genetic mixed type. The acquired mixed type originally stored excess weight in the thighs. Over time, a diet high in processed carbohydrates had the same effect on these mixed types as it did on the apples, that is, a tummy began to appear as the pancreatic function was compromised. In my experience the acquired mixed type will do well by exchanging all high and medium glycemic carbs for low glycemic carbs much the same as the apple.
Following the last-in-first-out principle, you will lose the upper body weight first including the upper arms and face. This corrects the acquired aspect of your weight gain. You will then begin to gradually eat less as you should have been able to eat your fill prior. “Eating less” means following the protocol for pears. Let weight loss be slow and permanent. No radical food reduction or meal skipping.
The genetic mixed types who have always stored excess weight fairly evenly throughout the body do well with a blend of the pear and apple diets. The results will be a more even top to bottom weight loss than the acquired type.
Everybody should start with a good housecleaning. Consciously remove the “worst offenders” first. These are the foods that not only cause weight gain due to their lack of satiety, but they are making you sick as well. Candy, sugar and white flour desserts and soft drinks are toxic yet many refer to these as “treats!” Treat yourself to premature aging, diabetes, cancer, ovarian cysts, and a good yeast infection!
Eliminate processed white flour that is used to make crackers, chips, breads, bagels, etc. and switch to whole wheat. You must resist the rare occasions where you eat till you hurt such as Thanksgiving and Christmas and contrary to the popular saying, there is NOT always room for dessert! If you are full; stop eating.
These rare occasions of gluttony can be the root of the problem for the add-one-pound-every-year weight gainer. Our client weigh-ins have shown this to be true and there has been one good clinical trial supporting a weight gain of 1 ½ pounds on the average American during the holiday (gluttony) season.
As I have previously said gluttony is not the cause of the obesity problem, in fact healthy people go on to lose this small gain every spring. But those of us not paying attention to this occasional gluttony can very gradually get into trouble.
