Kettlebells will change everything in fitness and strength training. So will CrossFit. Mixed Martial Arts will forever change the martial arts landscape AND the fitness world. What’s going on here?
“Old” fitness is dead. So are traditional martial arts. We’re in Web 2.0 and World 2.0. Everything is changing and growing and evolving. What works is in and what benefits the user rules. In business, cold calling is out and so is interruption marketing. In fitness, it’s the same thing. Glossy magazines promising impossible results from warmed-over routines and useless supplements are struggling and blogs and forums are jumping with activity.
Just like everything else in the 2.0 World, martial arts and fitness are changing and evolving to meet the needs of the user and be more real. The playing field is leveling. Why? Because things are changing too fast for anyone to be “established” for very long. If you have 20 years of experience doing anything now you’re a dinosaur. The playing field levels all the time. Daily. This creates an accessibility for new people coming into things that never really existed before. Things are evolving faster than a traditional power structure can be built around them. This is great stuff! And it’s why a 20 year old with a Mac can run a business out of a Starbuck’s better than GM can run itself anymore.
As the power has shifted away from traditional structures and toward the user and enthusiast, everything has changed. Flex magazine, Muscle and Fitness and the handful of smaller mags are no longer in charge of what we see and hear. The media can’t just broadcast what it wants. People are talking and sharing and finding out what really works and what REAL fitness is.
About 10 years ago, I worked in a Vitamin World store. This was way back at the beginning of that company when they only had two stores in Connecticut. I worked in the Westbrook store. Just about every Friday night, it would be me and the Store Manager, Russ. It was never too busy, so we stocked shelves and got ready for the weekend. Inevitably, one or two of the regulars would come in – bodybuilders – and we’d end up having an impromptu round table discussion. I learned more about training and nutrition and supplements (and steroids) those nights than I ever learned anywhere else. Why? Because real people were getting together and talking about what worked and what didn’t.
Those awesome summer nights I learned so much about the trial and error of training and body and health manipulation. And it stays with me to this day! But it was nothing I could learn from a book or a magazine. Because it was based on REAL people sharing REAL experience. Now, we can do the same thing on the web. And we do. And so does EVERYONE else.
That’s why what works spreads like a virus and what doesn’t work dies off in a few mouse clicks. And THIS is why Kettlebells, CrossFit and MMA are thriving. But how will they change everything? By actually working. By raising the bar. By setting expectations that the old stuff can never compete with.
I was a diehard devotee to bodybuilding and training. I loved it and I still do. But the old “weights and cardio” approach wasn’t really delivering the goods for me anymore. And, frankly, it was boring me to tears. I was getting really stale. Monday is Leg Day. Wednesday is Chest. Friday is… YUCK!
On top of that, I was training in traditional martial arts. I had weights, cardio, martial arts techniques, kata, sparring and stretching. Pretty much impossible to keep up with.
Now I do something different every day. 20 Rep Deadlifts. Long timed sets of Kettlebell Snatches. Kettlebell Get Ups. Rounds of Jiu-Jitsu with my training partners. Tire flips. CrossFIt workouts. Running. Muay Thai. As Coach Glassman says, “specialize in not specializing.” And my body fat is dropping, my testosterone is rising and I FEEL great!
On top of that, I train nearly EVERY DAY! I was never able to do that before!
Now, “success” isn’t determined by how big your muscles are or how many hours you log in the gym every week or how well you perform a choreographed set of movements. Now, fitness is about something REAL. Real strength. Real endurance. Real skill. And the REAL ability to beat a live opponent senseless.
I extrapolate REAL fitness to mean health as well. The old bodybuilding adage of “at least I’ll die huge” stopped working for me in my mid 20s. Now I want to ensure I can train well into my 40s and 50s and beyond. Being in great shape once in my 20s and being a wrecked pile of injuries and illness in my 30s isn’t what I want for myself. I want true, untouchable, real and robust health.
As far as I’m concerned, there is no fitness without health first. People who are “fit” and pound caffeine or live on Zone bars and “meal replacement” shakes aren’t healthy. Or they won’t be healthy for long. You just cannot sustain true health on processed foods and chemicals.
But, we’re learning this too. More and more I run into brave and intelligent people who have figured out how to eat in a way that works for their bodies and their individual – and universal – biology. The information is out there and more and more people are finding it.
To me, Kettlebells, CrossFit and MMA are indicators of the larger trend in our ever flattening world. The user is King and what works rules…
ttys
Adam
Originally posted on my site: [http://deathbywallball.com/blog/kettlebells-crossfit-change-everything]
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