If you don't know what it means, look it up. What will you do? Can you survive in any potential situation that may present itself? This is such a fun (and sometimes scary) thought process to have, trying to figure out what could potentially go wrong in life. An easy way to get started with it is to just call back all those Armageddon movies out there and think about what the hell you'd do if anything like that ever happened.Nuclear attacks, tsunamis, meteors, hostile takeovers, terrorist attack, alien invasions, major economic crisis, floods, zombie epidemic (or more seriously, some form of major virus outbreak), etc. etc. What would you do? What if you get lost? In the woods, at sea, in the desert, hell, in a damn city (perhaps one where nobody speaks your language)? What kinds of experiences do you have physically, mentally, globally, nature-ly? Seriously, take a second and ask yourself if you'd survive in any given situation. It's really not all that far-fetched to think something pretty shitty could happen to us at any given moment. And, while I have no intention myself to live in fear of all things that could go wrong, I know it's worth a moment here and there to at least think about things and make sure I have the wherewithal to actually figure out what to do!I hope to live a life that opens my mind to being able to do anything and survive anywhere and in any situation. And I want to do all of this with a smile on my face because the whole time I'll be following my dreams. When the shit hits the fan, I have a feeling that I'll be totally fine. I won't panic, I won't freak out or have no clue what to do. And that is the best way to live a life in my opinion.Well, I've been reading up and following people who life their lives the way I am slowly figuring I want to live mine, and it's so incredibly motivating to see some of the things people do. Here's a list of a small collection of the stuff I've checked out over the past few weeks. I really recommend you take the time to check them all out. Share your thoughts!Nerd FitnessMake It CountBeast SkillsAnywehreFitTim FerrissMary Beth LaRueNever Stop, GET FIT.Josh Courage
The other day, one of my best friends Brendon Mahoney of CrossFit San Mateo sent me an article posted by a favorite author of mine, Tim Ferriss. Check out the article HERE, but the gist of it was getting one of the founders of a show on MTV of all places called The Buried Life. The idea was that three friends would take some time off and travel around crossing as many things off their 100-things Bucket List (things they hopped to do before they die) as they could. And to add to it, every time they crossed one off their list, they would help someone they did not know achieve something off their list. Awesome! The article itself is about how these guys figured out how easy it actually was to get things done f you really want to. Highly motivating for sure, and it left me inspired to make a list of my own, along with apparently thousands of others who found these guys to be great muses. Mahoney had sent out this article to a few people, and asked us all to post up a few things we wanted, but I wanted to take it one step further, so, that’s what I’m doing here! I am creating a 50-article Bucket List for myself that I will share with all of you at the end of this post. My goal will be to complete at least half of them in the next three years, and the ultimate goal would be to complete at least 100 of these wonderful, mostly lofty goals by the end of my life. I have no intention of challenging all of you to anything super grandiose, but I would like to get you all involved in some way. So, I ask all my readers to post 10 items you have always wanted to do at some point in your life. I don’t care if you think it’ll never happen, if you’re too busy or you can’t wrap your head around actually achieving it. Just write it down and post it up. You’ll see that on my list, there are a few things that seem pretty easy for me to achieve at some point, while others would either be extremely complicated, or extremely time consuming. But that’s the goal of these things. It is a list of all the things I’ve really wanted to do, no matter how big or small. So, how do you write a Bucket List? It’s actually pretty easy if you are good at being honest with yourself, and have a decent sense of what you like and don’t like. Also, a key aspect to writing one of these lists is knowing that there are no real limits. If you’ve never hiked a trail before but want to climb Everest, put it on the list! If you really want to do something before you die, it does not matter if it seems impossible! This is the whole point of these things. What are you going to do with your life? Will you just succumb to whatever rules you have learned; settle with a life that is just “ok”? Or, will you step up and pursue the things you’ve always wanted? I know these questions can lead to tons of debate, and I would love to have that debate with all of you at any time. But right here, all I want is for all of you to take a few minutes, a few hours, a few days, whatever, to create a 10-item list! Here’s mine: · Compete in the CrossFit Games · Finish an Ironman Triathlon · Finish a 100-mile ultra-marathon · Act in a decent-budget movie · Host/star in my on TV show · Spend 2+ weeks backpacking in Alaska and/or New Zealand · Live at least 1 month with only nature as support · Lift weights with Louie Simmons · Climb Kilimanjaro · Learn Spanish · Build a house (cabin, legit tree house, etc.) · Write a “best selling” book · Get at least one gig as a fitness model · Finish riding my bike across America · Ride a motorcycle to the Southern tip of South America · Base jump off one of the highest cliffs in the world · Base jump/repel off one of the tallest building in the world · Go skydiving · Start a non-profit helping kids and their families get fit · Get through Navy SEAL BUDS training · Go 1+ week in complete silence, meditating with monks out in Tibet · Run with the bulls in Spain · Hang at a café in Cain, Spain · Pilot a plane · Ski and surf in the same day · Hunt, catch, kill, prepare and eat a large animal · Cook and prepare a meal for 100+ people · Stop a major criminal from committing a major crime · Squat 500, deadlift 600, snatch 275, clean and jerk 315 · Hold a legit 5-second Iron Cross · Play drums on stage with a major band · Have a drink with Johnny Depp · Create a protein bar that sells over 1,000,000 in a year · Get married to the girl of my dreams · Hit a home run in a major league baseball stadium · Swim the English Channel · Roll with a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt, in Brazil · Get my ass kicked · Spend the night sleeping on the streets of NYC · Wrestle an alligator · Sing the National Anthem at a Major League game · Learn how to break dance · Shoot a bull’s-eye with a bow and arrow from100 meters · Tour the country visiting gyms, promoting fitness and inspiring people · Brand the name COURAGE · Make my own baseball bat · Drive a car over 150 MPH · Raise $1,000,000 for charity · Hang out with Seth Macfarlane · Re-build and drive a 1967 Mustang So, there are mine. What are yours? Never Stop, GET FIT. Josh Courage
 Use your car for this for a month... I am guessing that this has a little bit to do with the insane crash I had a few weeks back, but I have been driving a LOT less lately. As life would have it there are a few situations here and there (baseball games and a new one-on-one client out in VA) where a car or ride is needed, but besides that, it's been my feet or my bike. Interestingly enough, this has led to a pretty interesting phenomenon involving my metabolism: it has been skyrocketing. The most obvious change for me has been that this and last week I have been either running home from a zipcar drop-off about 3 miles, or biking home from a game about 5-8 miles. These little spurts of totally aerobic conditioning are happening after my dinner and around an hour or two before I go to bed (I've been having some almond butter and celery before bed, so there's a little fuel between). Now, as I've been learning more and more over the past couple months about how I work, I can assure you that my findings are very personal. What I mean by this is that what works for me just might not work for you. I have case upon case of people doing things just like myself and it not working. A couple examples are one old client of mine who mixed in a good deal of aerobic conditioning. I actually had to suggest to this client to cut back on it as I thought is was not only negatively effecting their in-gym gains, but also their overall health outside of the fitness realm. The second they cut back on the easy conditioning, things began to turn around like crazy. The other example was one where I suggested the whole "eat a meal every 3 hours" that has been working wonders for me. This person just felt beyond stuffed and weighed down from that and had to cut back on the consistency of meals.Shoot, as I write this my head is flooding over with other examples of how people just work differently from each other. The well-followed Mark Sisson just wrote on his blog about meal timing and came to a very similar conclusion. And I realize I am getting a little away from my point of this post (about becoming more active...). So Let's leave this one at this: that what one person does is not what everyone should do. Try things out (make sure you give it at LEAST two months, preferably more, to really see if it works or not) and find what works best for you. You have your whole life to figure it all out, use it! So, how do you become more active? Well, I have one client who walks 4 miles to work twice a week, rather than drive (he walks or metros home in the evening). I literally just talked to a woman today who rides her bike to and from work twice a week. If you grab a coffee in the morning, or sometime during work, find a way to avoid the closer cafe and head to one 5+ blocks further away. When you read the paper, or watch the news in the morning, hop on a stationary bike. Tim Ferriss heads to the bathroom when he's out to dinner and bangs out 40 air squats! I understand that this sort of thing s probably one of the easiest to find an excuse NOT to do. So, trick yourself into it. Park your car at a friends house a mile or two from yours one night. You'll have to run or walk to your place, then, when you wake up in the morning, just like that you have a nice little early AM jog. Another way to "force yourself" into becoming a bit more active is by signing up for some form of endurance event and inevitably you'll be a bit more motivated to get prepared. The goal in general is to give it a try for a week or so. If you end up feeling awesome, sweet, you'll probably end up sticking to it becuase it works for you! If, on the other hand, your feel like crap, perhaps it's just not the right thing for you. But you'll never know if you don't try so go do it!In other news, rest day for me! Along with training a bunch of clients and riding my bike to the baseball game and back I am feeling really ready for tomorrows strength and hill sprints!Never Stop, GET FIT.Josh Courage
The program I am on these days has been calling for some pretty awesome core exercises; and, along with my personal additions I am feeling stronger and stronger through my midsection every day! Windmills (like the pic above), unilateral farmers walks,jackknives, Pallof press, and weighted roll outs all demand such unique engagement of the core, and the structure of them all has had insane results. I have also added 2-3 times per week a little ab and push up routine along with my morning runs. I hit toes to bar, straight sit ups, GHD sit ups, bicycle crunches and some planks here and there with those. Then 2-3 times per week I do the two transverse abdominal exercises suggestion by Tim Ferriss in The 4-Hour Body. The conclusion? Do core work people!Of course I could go on for days geeking out about the best stuff to do and why certain things are better for you depending on who you are and what you need. But this is all about just throwing out the idea that core work should NOT be passed over. You don;t need to do it as much as I am doing it, hell, just mixing in some basics throughout the week would suffice. But don't avoid any of it. A weak core will result in weak lifts and most likely some form of injury, very quickly.Add a little circuit of planks, side planks and mountain climbers (4 rounds of 30 seconds each) post-workout, and just like that, good things begin to happen!My workouts today started off with some 60% 40 meter sprints (8 of them), some modified handstand push ups, some toes to bar, some hurdles, some bar skin the cats and that was it! Then later, I hit deadlifts (5x1 at 447#) and some additional posterior chain support along with band resisted jackknives. Then it was a 7-mile bike ride on my single speed to have dinner with Ori, and 7 miles back! An wonderfully active day!Never Stop, GET FIT.Josh Courage
I sort of fell off the table a little this past week; while the new workout program has been going really well, I have been getting way too little sleep, and my nutrition ha seen better days (can anyone say cookies and coconut ice cream?!!). Anyway, I decided that it was about time to kick it into high gear this summer with a few experiments and what better time to start then now? Today marked the day of a month-long trial of a nutrition program introduced to me by a client/friend who tried it out with great success. It caught my eye because of it’s simplicity and because its similarity to the program I was just about to start: Tim Ferriss’s “4-Hour Body” plan. I still plan to try that one out, and really break it down as best I can, but I’ll just wait at least a month until after I give this one a try.
The only differences between what I’ve been doing (up until this past week) and this program is the timing of my meals and the specific distribution of macro-nutrients. I’m eating eggs, chicken, turkey, fish, lots of veggies, sweet potatoes, nuts, whey protein and oats (oats are the only addition to my plan), it’s pretty great. I’m taking out any sort of oil, no condiments at all, no sweetener of any kind, and while tea and coffee are a little questionable on this I will probably cut back to about 3 or so cups of tea a week. The main aspect of this is that I am eating at the same times every day: 8:15, 11:30, 2:45, 5:15, 7:15 and 10pm. In fact, I have even set an alarm on my phone to go off at these times to make sure I don’t miss a meal (something I tend to do all the time). Also, this will just help me keep my portions a bit more under control (I do have a tendency to grab a bit “extra” here and there, and I think for my body type, that has been a very limiting factor in me getting to where I want to be).
So, that’s my food; I’ll be sure to give updates as I go along, as this is purely experimental. I always talk about trial and error in the journey of finding what works best for you, so here I am doing just that! Now, on to the workouts for the past week.
Monday:
Afternoon – 5x5 floor press
3x10 skull crushers
3x10 barbell curls
3x8 each prone I, T, Y
2x8 external rotation
3x15 sec. Pallof press hold
Evening – outdoors - 3 rounds of:
25 box jumps (Regionals standard)
30 push ups (games standard)
35 OH squats w/ 52# sandbag
Fun all around, and yes, you saw that correctly, I did bi’s and tri’s!! So much fun to get a little isolation work in, I’m excited to work a little vanity and all joking aside, I expect it to help my other lifts and movements later on (isolation DOES help, but there’s no need to do it all the time!). The evening workout was brought over by big Dan from Outlaw CrossFit and we headed over to the school to get it done. I finished in 17:01 and really felt the main difficulty was the OH squats with a sandbag.
Tuesday:
This day was pretty brutal. I rode my bike into DC, did an easy 2-mile trail run, rode further into DC, did 5x5 back squats at 295# (along with a whole slew of other exercises), rode the bike to a park and did a 10-1 ladder of KB swings, toes to bar and a 120 meter hill shuttle run; then, rode my bike the 8 or so miles back home. Yeah, this is why I was feeling so beat up on Thursday!
Wednesday:
Just did my strength program, getting 5x5 strict press at 135#, pretty light but felt very stable. My supplemental work felt very good as well. My legs were starting to feel a bit fatigued and my energy levels about hit rock bottom by around 3pm. I had to get to a baseball game then and it was one of the toughest things to sit through with such low energy. This is when the nutrition fell off a little, I guess my craving for sugar and complete fatigue did not mix well and I just gave in. Oh well! It all tasted so good! And, I didn’t really feel bad or anything after, I just enjoyed it.
Thursday:
Rest day. Sore as hell!!
Friday, today:
Officially started the meal plan and get some great deadlift work in, 5 solid sets of 3 at 375#. I know my strength numbers are not where they were a few weeks ago but I am not worried at all, they will get up there so soon, I can feel it! I am really looking forward to tomorrows workouts; we have a baseball tournament up in Harrisburg, PA and I’ll get my isolation work in at some gym out there, then, its off to the explore the town looking for an awesome place to get a crazy workout in!
Well, that the wrap for the week. I’ll be posting more regularly stating this weekend!
Never Stop, GET FIT.
Josh Courage
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