garage gym: The Spartacus Workout

Thursday, September 23, 2010

The Spartacus Workout

Keeping an open mind about training is essential to avoid stagnation and ending up on the dreaded performance plateau. I've never studied the martial arts in a formal sense, but I have read a few books on it's mental aspects. One of my favorites is Joe Hyam's "Zen in the Martial Arts". The lessons in Hyams book translate to all aspects of life and athletics and I highly recommend it. Recently, I purchased two books by Martin Rooney, "Training For Warriors" and "Ultimate Warrior Workouts-Fitness Secrets of the Martial Arts"(see photo). Martin is an impressive dude. Check out his website at www.trainingforwarriors.com.

Although I'm not ready to suggest to my friends that we start grappling or practicing Muay Thai Boxing in my garage, a lot of the exercises and routines we tried were hard core and brought us to our knees gasping for breath. Inspiration and new ideas can come from many places. While standing in line at the grocery store the other day, I noticed a Men's Health Magazine "ABS TRAINING GUIDE!" right next to People and Newsweek. It promised ROCK HARD ABS RIGHT NOW! and LOSE YOUR GUT in three weeks. With a quick glance to make sure no one was watching, I took a closer look, and to my surprise, I found a lot of useful information. What really got me psyched was an article titled "BURN FAT FASTER THAN EVER-stop wasting your gym time...". I bought the mag and hurried home to try "THE SPARTACUS WORKOUT".

Perform each of the 10 exercises (with good form) in order for 60 seconds with a 15 second rest in between.Perform the circuit three time with a two minute rest in between. Do this three times a week. Here are the exercises, some of which we modified:

1. Goblet Squat

2. Mountain Climbers

3. Single arm kettle bell or dumbbell swings (30 sec. each arm)

4. T-Push-Up

5. Split Jump

6. Dumbbell Bent Row (we chose Floor sweepers)

7. Dumbbell Side Lunges

8. DunbbellPush-Up Position rows (we used Renegade Man Makers)

9. Dumbbell Lunge and Rotation.

10. Dumbbell Push Press (we added curls to the movement)

It took some experimenting to choose a weight that allowed 15-20 reps! Obviously, it would be difficult to do 15-20 Renegade Man Makers in 60 seconds. The idea is to maintain a high intensity throughout. It also took a little planning to lay out the gear and position the clock where I could see it. Maybe next time I'll checkout the kettle bell workout in Redbook. Enjoy.

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Introduction

garage gym

I’ve always been a gym rat. I like to workout. In particular I’ve always been interested in strength and conditioning as a means to improve climbing performance. Bachar ladders, home made fingerboards, pull up bars, and crack machines have over the years littered my garages and lawns. In my thirty years of climbing I have almost always had access to a commercial gym. I have also accumulated a small library of books and articles on fitness and climbing performance. These include a dog-eared, twenty-year-old copy of Bill Pearl’s Strength Training, to my recently purchased copy of Eric Horst’s Maximum Climbing. After an extended lay off due to illness and pursuing other interests, in the fall of 2009 I began to train again.

After a few workouts at a local gym I began to question if it (a machine based circuit) was actually helping me. I was going through the motions. It was boring as hell. A few days later I stumbled upon an article in Outside magazine on GYM JONES the Salt Lake City based gym owned by famed alpinist Mark Twight. Since I’ve always admired Twight’s climbing, writing, and taste in music, I quickly drank the kool aid. The Gym Jones web site was a revelation. A short time later I discovered Mountain Athlete.com, Climbstrong.com and Cross fit. I soon realized that I had been wasting my time, and perhaps I had never really trained with any meaningful level of intensity. In Twight’s book Kiss or Kill Confessions of a Serial Climber he says, “…know the difference between working out and training”.

Since family, career, and other interests take up a lot of my time, I decided I needed the ability to train at home. Fortunately I have a large garage. I started with a pull up bar, fingerboard and a few dumbbells. Later I added kettlebells, a medicine ball, gymnast rings, a small climbing wall, and an Air dyne bike. The information age made it easy for me to find the books, websites, and videos by Paval Tsatouline, Dan John, Neil Gresham and others. Yet none of these training philosophies addressed the specific needs of my friends and myself, i.e. forty-something’s who climb Yosemite’s long hard free climbs and big walls in a day. High Sierra car-to-car, dawn-to-dark missions that combine ultra running/hiking with multi-pitch rock climbs and high ridge traverses (my personal favorite). We also skate ski, backcountry ski, as well as ride mountain and road bikes. Our training combines all these influences into a potent brew. The process is always evolving. We’ll try anything. Then we’ll evaluate it, modify it, keep it, or chuck it. Then try something else. The results speak for themselves.

Mike Davis RN

Truckee, California

Spring 2010