Realistic Training

Published: Mon, 01/25/21

As most of you know Tim was in the police department for many years. During that time, he was placed in charge of training the SWAT team of his own department which lead him to also assist other agencies (throughout the state of Florida) in training their own SWAT teams.

The first thing Tim noticed was common across the board: Most of these team members spent hours at the gym strength training, in the traditional body building way. Monday was chest, shoulders and triceps, Wednesday was back and biceps, and Friday was legs. Tim would be very lucky if he could get 20 minutes of cardio (say stairmaster) out of them, once a week.

The problem was, if the team members were working out that hard, why would they end up injured while performing simple necessary tasks? Why would a person who could bench press a car, have a hard time putting on their boots? Why would a person who could lat pull down twice their body-weight not be able to pull themselves up on a roof?

It turns out that their traditional body-building workout regime gave them isolated muscular strength but no mobility, no endurance and certainly no real core strength.

This is where Tim’s “realistic style of training” came into play (he was not always creative with names as he is today). :-) Tim started training them in mobility, strength and endurance, without any of the traditional body-building equipment. Think carrying concrete blocks and rocks, climbing trees, and crawling around on the ground. The results, as you can probably guess, were phenomenal.

Fast forward a few years and Tim opens up the first personal training studio in Pinellas County featuring some completely “foreign” equipment and some “unique” concepts. Sadly enough, this is still considered foreign equipment and unique concepts by most gyms and personal trainers today. In terms of equipment, think stability balls, kettlebells, medicine balls, pullup bars, finger holds and yes, yoga mats. :-)

Tim added yoga, thinking that this should help develop more mobility. He soon realized that a mixture of body-weight training, some strength training and only certain yoga poses is all you need (in terms of workout) to create a body that could do almost anything. By the way, practicing commodity yoga (as your only physical activity) at best weakens your body and at worst it injures it.

So think, mobility, endurance, and whole body strength as in your whole body working together as a whole to perform whatever physical tasks you need to perform really well on a daily basis, on a weekly basis, monthly basis, or even yearly basis. To go even further, should something happen, do you have the mobility, total body strength and stamina to save yourself and most importantly other members of your community?

Do you have the range of motion to perform what might be needed of you with strength and control? Do you have the stamina to perform that for as long as you may be required to? If you are still using the machines at the gym, you are not doing yourself any favors. You are actually sacrificing your health. You don’t need a bench press, a lat row or any other gym equipment. The only thing that you should be using at the gym is the floor and some of their specialty toys (if they have them) such as free weights, ketllebells and medicine balls.

This is the “foreign” equipment that we mentioned in the beginning. which those days you could not find in the gyms . Some places have now added some of this gear but most trainers don’t know how to properly use it because it is not taught at most standard personal training certifications.

Think simple - squats, pushups, lunges, sun salutations, getups, bent-over rows, just to name a few. And don't forget to add proper breathwork at the beginning and the end of your training session. You will create a body that your mind will be happy to live in and rejoice knowing that you can contribute not only to your safety and well-being but also to the safety and well-being of your community.

Before we say "until next time":

Until, next time much much love from both of us!! Na'maste Kala!

-Tim and Vie

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