The quest for physical freedom, for me at least, doesn't have a destination, but rather it is an ongoing process. For the first roughly half of one's life, it is the quest to develop one's physical capacity to the fullest when measured by the ten physical skills espoused by CrossFit . The latter half of one's life is then slowing the decline of these to the best of one's ability in order to preserve independent function, and therefore the ability to enjoy life on one's own terms. This is only meant to serve as a rough approximation; clearly, none of us knows exactly when we die, and therefore cannot identify life's midpoint, and equally, not all of the ten physical skills will develop, peak, or decline at the same rate or time. The principle remains extant, though, in that our ability to enjoy life on our terms is dependent to a large extent on our physical capacity. Seeking to develop this though, is multi-faceted, complex, and not fully understood by anyone, not least because the fields of health and fitness encompass so many specialisations, and hyper-specialisations, that those who try to understand from a holistic perspective, are very few in number. So what use is all of this? I think three things are critical, at least for a short blog article, but I'll discuss many more in the future:
You don't periodise life. The principles we learn from periodising for athletes, or even those with specific physical goals have some utility, but for those seeking physical freedom, I do not believe most schools of thought surrounding periodisation have any place.
If decline is inevitable, then increased capacity is a hedge against the inevitable decline. Perfection only exists as an abstract, but any progress you can make from where you currently are, is money in the bank.
Consider skills that you might need only in an emergency to be just as important as those you need daily. They might be required far less often, but the magnitude of skill required, and the cost of failure is likely to be far greater!
So what of today? We'll file it under active recovery. I ran a little while taking the Officer cadets for PT, and walked plenty - some 18000 steps in total, but there was no structured training. I also ate, a lot! Why? Because I felt like I needed it, it's as simple as that really! Food is outlined in a little detail below, and the running, for the sake of posterity, was a 1-mile run, accelerating from a 10-minute per mile pace, to around a 6-minute per mile pace. I performed this in two separate sessions.
Food
I ate breakfast at 8am. A real rarity for me of late, but today my body needed fuel. I ate 3 rashers of bacon, a sausage, an egg and some tomatoes.
At 12:15pm I had lunch. I had Nasi Goreng which, being served in a military cookhouse, was far less a fragrant Indonesian dish, and far more leftover breakfast and rice! I followed this up with an orange, and two yoghurts.
At 5pm I had a snack of 3 scrambled eggs, some smoked salmon, and half an avocado.
At 8pm I had rump steak, homemade potato wedges, tomatoes, mushrooms and half an avocado. I followed this with Greek yoghurt, berries and grapes.
Back to the gym tomorrow, and I already have the urge to lift heavy things! When I feel like this, I know I'm well-rested, well-fed, and in a good place to train hard. This is when I love training the most. One week after competing, and it is truly back!
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