A group of us went over to Crawfordsville, IN last a week ago last Saturday to participate in an event called Warrior Dash. You might recall that earlier in the summer, we were in Indiana for something called Tough Mudder, which was a 12 mile obstacle run.
While Tough Mudder was a pretty serious event which took a lot of training to get ready for, Warrior Dash was just a 5 K obstacle run, which equates to 3.1 miles. This brought it well within the reach of almost everyone, including people relatively new to exercise. If someone had difficulty running the entire way, or up the hills, they could simply walk when they felt like it.
On the other hand, if someone wanted to push through it as fast as they could, that was fine too. During Mudder, it required a team approach to get over many of the obstacles, but in Warrior Dash, there wasn’t really anything you couldn’t get over yourself.
AN OLYMPIC ATTITUDE
Posted: August 08, 2012
If you’re like me, you’ve probably been keeping an eye on some of the events from the 2012 Olympic Games going on in London right now. I have to say, the athletes are both amazing and inspiring, even in the sports I didn’t know anything about.
Take table tennis, for example. Sure, I played a game or two as a child, and we’ve all watched “Forrest Gump” in the movie. But these guys and gals are fast! How can they react so quickly to such a little ball on such a little table?
It’s the same thing with beach volleyball, and even regular team volleyball for that matter. You just know there is no way they’ll ever get to the ball, and then somehow they dig it out and put it back in play.
STAYING POWER!
Posted: August 01, 2012
This week I’d like to talk about a quality that can take you a really long way called staying power.
Athletic ability is great if you’ve got it, but even that only takes you so far. Pretty soon, you’ll run into someone better equipped and just as talented, if not more. At that point, it becomes about conditioning, preparation, experience, and finally, who simply wants it more.
Back in my competition days, I won quite a few matches against better, more talented fighters simply because I was able to outlast them. I couldn’t defeat them, but I could defend long enough to survive the initial onslaught. Then, when their meter started running down, I still had a pretty full tank of gas. As their reactions started slowing down, I could often catch them with one or two moves I’d practiced a thousand times. That was good because I only had a couple moves back then!
GETTING STARTED
Posted: July 18, 2012
Once you’ve made the decision to get started, the biggest challenge is often…getting started. It’s easy to put things off, especially something like working out and changing your diet. But like we talked about last week, if you can just take a couple steps in the right direction, you can get some momentum working for you.
Here are 10 ideas that can help you get started:
1. Set your alarm 20 minutes earlier and go for a walk outside every morning. I like to walk 5 minutes down the lane and back, and then get on my rower for 5 minutes, and then do the bike easy for 5 minutes. It’s different, takes just 15 minutes and gets my mind going and my body loosened up. If I have time, I’ll do 2 rounds.
“THE OUTSIDE FORCE”
Posted: July 12, 2012
Last week we talked about excuses. This week, I want to talk about one reason why we’ve become an overweight society.
There’s a principle in physics that states that objects at rest tend to stay at rest unless acted on by an outside force. Likewise, objects in motion tend to stay in motion unless also acted on by an outside force.
A good example is trying to push a stalled car off the road without any help. At first, it’s pretty hard to get it moving, but once you get going and build up a little speed, it’s a little easier to keep it going. This is called overcoming inertia, which can be difficult.