Thoughts from Grayson: The Long Haul

Grayson Fertig

Training Strategy for the Long Haul

The first 4 weeks

Create for yourself a strategy-driven approach to physical readiness. Think in terms of 4 week periods. Develop your intensity across 3 weeks and use the 4th week for active recovery. Train 3 times per week with the focus building off of Day 1 Body Awareness Strategies winding towards Day 5 Strength Training Strategies finishing with Day 9 Integrating Body Awareness with Strength Training. Day 9 is your strategy for the long haul and leads nicely into week 4 where you integrate it all into your life beyond the gym. You will know the 4 weeks is a wild success if by the end you can see your way forward you have a developing sense of how you will make this work for you.

What does strategy driven mean? And as compared to what?

Across the 3 weeks, your goal is to execute and then incorporate the exercise sequences you choose into a strategy that serves you for where you are in the process. Meaning if you have back problems pick exercises that your repetition of will lead to understanding and healing of your weaknesses. As compared to just executing sequences or routines that are not specific to your needs. Define needs by the most pressing physical obstacle.

Be honest with yourself. Even if you don’t really want to work on your weakness, do it. If you prefer a more positive term think of the areas you focus on as opportunities to gain in areas where easy gains can be made due to the fact you are working at your trailing edge. Ie. you’ve always wanted to learn how to surf. 3 weeks of surf camp will support your goal and after 3 weeks of surfing, you’ll probably have moved closer to your goal, hope, wish.

How do you develop your strategy?

Each individual session should build into the takeaway you choose at the end of 3 weeks. Which allows you to repetitively source and practice training concepts/exercises in a way that open-ended training does not support. Avoid the rut. By the end of 3 weeks feel that you’ve made real progress towards the synthesis of the repeated exercises across the great triumph of Body, Mind, and Spirit.

Wait did you just say Mind, Body, Spirit?

Yes. This is how you can go beyond exercise execution. Meaning that being ready for any physical activity across the next 4 decades starts now. By the end of 3 weeks, you will know you’ve been successful if you’ve started to form a long-term strategy for health and wellness across your lifespan.

That’s great what about short term gains for this winter?

There’s no doubt that you will make huge leaps in 3 weeks. What exactly they will depend entirely on where the biggest opportunities for growth and learning are. You can identify those areas by insufficient strength, body pain, lack of functional aerobic capacity, inhibited range of motion, compromised co-ordination, not knowing what to do when you go to the gym, balance challenges, etc.

How do short term gains connect with long term gains especially considering the aging process?

The gains you make in the short term compound to become long term gains which ultimately are who you will become physically and by extension mentally and spiritually. Steady improvements towards developing the broadest possible sense of how your body operates in any given circumstance. From there working narrowly to develop sport specific skills that will improve the depth of your experience. All of it adds up to being able to continue for the long haul to enter into physical situations that you enjoy or will come to enjoy whether they are biking, hiking, running, yoga, skiing, hockey, surfing, weight lifting, picking up your kids, or just walking through the town park. Short term efforts that reflect a long haul strategy are what will keep you in the game thereby assuring long-term involvement in the activities that bring you joy.

Best,

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