Doubt

Found myself listening to an interview with Steve Cotter this morning on my way to work. He speaks about training with kettlebells, how he got involved, what his prior training history was, etc. There were a couple of nuggets in the interview.

"Training is a luxury and not a necessity." - This really puts things into perspective. Training should be an adjunct to your life and not the sole purpose of. Each workout is a privilege and should be viewed as such. Steve drew the comparison with a lot of African nations where the notion of "training" in a western sense is non-existent. He said that they are a people that will walk up to 2 hours to a physically demanding job and then back home. Surely the notion of getting home to hit the stairmaster would be laughed off by most.

Steve also speaks of doubt in reference to children and adults. Kids have the advantage of having little doubt and can ride bikes and do big jumps or skateboard, etc. Doubt is ingrained by our parents and society in general over time to the point where as adults we are often paralyzed by doubt. As an almost contradiction to the above statement, training is where you can challenge your doubts by pushing into new areas, new challenges, etc. and come out a better person. Steve and the interviewer Mike Mahler, were very much in favour of training improving you as a person and that any gains in strength, without the subsequent gains in character, are almost futile.

Would really encourage you to have a listen. You can go to Mike's website www.mikemahler.com.

Training last night was a variety day in the Rite of Passage workout. Did 5x5 loaded cleans with a 24 kg KB alternated with 5x1 get-ups with the same bell. This was topped off with 3x10 swings again with the 24. This was the first time I've used the 24 in a training capacity (aside from carrying it around to move it) and I must say I was pretty happy with how it went. There was a small part of me when I was going the get-ups that thought "if I drop this I will probably kill myself or at best, hurt myself bad". Herein lies the difference between doing kettlebell work or barbell work - the continual requirement to focus on what you are doing in order to prevent injury.