A PMenu Training Manifesto

[Allen Yeh]

Originally Posted by kevin mckay

I like that Yael!

Thou shalt eat only green growing things berries and creatures thou can kill with a stick

Aren't Twinkies and donuts green when you pull them off the dessert tree?

no?

[John Vernon]

3. thou shall never participate in cardio kickboxing...

[Scott Kustes]

4. Thou shalt eat for only 6 hours of the day.

[James Evans]

Talk of hero fitness brings to mind something I was going to post during the 300 hype.

Mark Twight has said that the guys in 300 needed to look like the lived off the land, like they actually fought for a living.

This makes me think of Daniel Day-Lewis as Hawkeye in Last of the Mohicans.

Here is some blurb from Wikipedia:

In 1992, three years after his Oscar win, The Last of the Mohicans was released. Day-Lewis' character research for this film was well-publicized; he reportedly underwent rigorous weight training and learned to live off the land and forest where his character lived, camping, hunting and fishing. He even carried a kentucky rifle at all times during filming in order to remain in character.

Day-Lewis was trained by a British ex-soldier called Richard Smedley. He trained the actors in Heat because Michael Mann wanted all the gunplay to look distinct from what Americans were used to. I have been told by soldiers that the film is authentically British in that respect (I think that moves into the realms of geekery). He also used to fitness editor for UK Men's Fitness.

I've read Smedley's account of the programme he designed for Day-Lewis and he states that the whole intention was to make the actor look like he lived off the land, that his rifle was but an extension of his body, that he in essence looked like a warrior not like Arnold in Conan. He made him carry the rifle everywhere until the weight became second nature. He carried it around the house from the moment he got up in the morning to the moment he went to bed in the evening. He ran with it.

Day-Lewis is quite intense...

Incidentally, after his role in The Boxer, and I give you some more blurb:

He followed that with Jim Sheridan's The Boxer as a former boxer and IRA member recently released from prison. His preparation included training for six months with former boxing world champion Barry McGuigan.

the trainers were so impressed that the suggested that he could have fought professionally.

That's attitude for you.

[Ron Nelson]

That's nothing compared to how he prepared for "My Left Foot."
I hear he turned down, "My Left Foot; The Musical."

Commandment 3: Thou shalt not drink beer with the word "light" or "lite" attached to its name. Unless it's "Knock You on Your Ass Ale-Light."
That might be OK.

[Robb Wolf]

LOL!

Good stuff. When Greg Everett and I went to Portland to get our fanny's kicked at Straight Blast Gym we talked at length about a Performance Menu Manifesto. Who we are, what we stand for...all that stuff. I think it's an interesting process and it can be helpful in focusing ones efforts. It may sound trite but what we boiled things down to was "use what works". We certainly have some biases. The OL's rock...sprinting good...CrossFit Kicks ass...paleo/zone/low carb nutrition delivers the goods. We have some general biases but wee just want to offer the best information available for what YOU want to do.

For example I'd really like to expand the endurance section. I personally have a bias against long endurance efforts but I would like to have experts comment on that arena and offer what I can via nutrition, strength training, pre-hab etc. If long distance running is your thing lets figure out ways to make you run faster, further and do it all injury free. The only consideration is results and perhaps an awareness that at the extreme edges of performance.

Our desire is to make this a place for cross-pollination so everyone can benefit. Draw on practical experience, keep an eye on the literature and be open to tinkering. If our biases prove to be myopic or just plain wrong, hopefully we have the integrity to admit our strikes, learn, refine and move forward. I think the key to this is keeping with concepts...as soon as we systematize things we have a Sacred Cow to appease. I can be borderline fanatical about the paleo diet...perhaps not borderline, perhaps full-on! But I'm aware of that and open to other approaches...It's just tough to get me excited about high carb diets, grains and legumes because Ive seen such dramatic improvement in health and performance. More later!

[Daniel Myers]

Here's some things I've picked up from reading the forum. Not a manifesto, per se, but just some bullet points to expand upon.


The body is a natural machine, designed by time and the environment to do certain things well. We need to respect this fact.

Eat the foods that people have been eating successfully for millions of years, not the foods we've eaten more recently and less successfully.

Intermittent fasting, but I don't have any experience with this, so I'll defer to others.

Basic, focused strength training is an important part of programming. Improving strength improves most other athletic qualities.

Given a good strength base, it's relatively easy to develop strength-endurance. The reverse is not true.

Preference for big exercises and whole-body workouts: Olympic and power lifting, gymnastics, etc.

Brief and intense exercise produces a more general training effect than long-duration, low-intensity work. For most people, high-intensity is a more productive and efficient way to exercise.

The basics work.

[Garrett Smith]

Very nicely put, Daniel!

[Ken Urakawa]

With apologies to any and all around here that I stole these ideas from:

pick sh*t up. fast.
carry stuff.
put it over your head.
throw it.
run fast.
do that a lot.

[Yael Grauer]

I like that, only I'd throw "heavy" in there somewhere.

Originally Posted by Ken Urakawa

pick sh*t up. fast.
carry stuff.
put it over your head.
throw it.
run fast.
do that a lot.