Warrior Fitness
“Strength isn’t the only quality that matters. Sometimes it doesn’t matter at all. Strength is rarely a disadvantage.”
An effective warrior doesn’t have to be a world-class athlete, but it doesn’t hurt. We could find instances of exceptional fighters with unexceptional physiques but what we won’t find are examples where superior fitness contributed to inferior fighting abilities. Being physically fit doesn’t only improve your body’s ability to face the rigors of combat but it also expands the limits of your daily stress, enhances your mental performance, and boosts confidence – which all have an exponentially positive effect on your combat readiness.
We all have duties and responsibilities and need to prioritize our goals. We cannot be Olympians, warriors, fathers, husbands, and employees or bosses all to the fullest possible extent, at every moment. We have a limited amount of time, resources, talent, and potential – we must use it wisely and understand the opportunity costs of pursuing one ambition over another. That being said, if one’s ambition is to forge themselves into a warrior, making time for physical fitness is not optional and must be scheduled into your daily regimen.
So, how does one effectively and efficiently incorporate physical training into their lifestyle? The very first step in this journey begins in the kitchen, not the gym. Don’t treat your body like a human trashcan. If you want to streamline your performance and make working out a lot less painful, then you need to fuel your body with the proper nutrients. The field of nutrition is relatively new among the sciences and much of it is highly-contested with no consensus. There are, however, some guiding principles that are generally agreed upon.
Stick to whole foods as much as possible. When grocery shopping, stay away from the inside aisles. Processed foods aren’t necessarily “bad,” but they will contain a lot of empty calories, less nutrition, and typically host a wide variety of ingredients that you can’t even pronounce, yet alone know the consequences they might have on your health.
Get enough calories and enough protein. If you’re going to work out and you want to get stronger, you’re going to have to tear some muscle fibers. Once these fibers are torn, they need to be repaired. Without a sufficient caloric and protein intake, you’ll just end up breaking down your body and never building it back up.
DRINK WATER. 60-percent of your body is H2O. Your heart and brain are over 70-percent water. Your lungs and muscles are 80-percent water. Even your bones are over 30-percent water. Fueling your combat chassis begins with a full tank of water.
Fruits and veggies – EAT THEM. You won’t find any consensus on a hypothesis that suggests fruits and vegetables are bad for you nor has anyone ever gotten fat by eating them. A good supply of fruits and veggies will also help to sustain you throughout the day and resist cravings.
Reduce or eliminate processed sugars. By all accounts, these are nothing more than empty calories and provide no benefit. Emerging data even suggests that processed sugars are detrimental to your health.
Don’t drink your calories. A Starbucks cocktail can easily sore to over 500 calories – none of which support your physical ambitions. Be wary of energy drinks, sodas, and fruit juice, as well.
Prep your meals. It’s far easier to resist the temptation of fast food junk if you have a ready-made meal with you.
Find relatively healthy snacks. We all get cravings for less-than-healthy foods. Having some snacks around to satiate those cravings will help prevent binge-eating.
SLEEP. Not really in the field of nutrition, but a good night’s sleep is critical for proper recovery and the healthy function of your mind and body.
Steak & Asparagus - easy to make dinner at the end of the day. Great with bourbon.
Now, on to the actual workout. I’m not a physical fitness instructor or a professional athlete, so I won’t be laying down any strict formats and programs. What I can do is share some ideas that I believe are worth consideration. To start, fitness, as it concerns the warrior, is not about aesthetics (bodybuilding) or about lifting as much weight as humanly possible (strongman). It’s about being able to perform the actions required of a fighter in a combat setting. To which, there are better and worse ways of achieving that goal.
Being strong isn’t a disadvantage on the battlefield, but you also need to be agile and in good cardiovascular condition. Combat requires a balance between strength and mobility. You’ll also find yourself in many positions and movements that one doesn’t normally perform in their daily sedentary life. This means that we need to train in all seven patterns of movement: squat, lunge, push, pull, hinge, rotate, and carry.
As mentioned previously, I’m not a certified trainer or an athlete. The guidance I provide are merely some ideas for consideration. That said, I would recommend the following guidelines for beginners:
Always start with a warm-up. This will increase your performance and help prevent injuries. For the most efficient warm-up, I recommend conducting some sort of activity that will prepare you for the work you’re about to perform. For instance, if you’re going to do some heavy squats, warm up with some walking lunges, prisoner squats, ankle and hip mobility exercises, etc.
Design each workout to not only build strength and train movement patterns but also incorporate circuits and tempos that achieve aerobic conditioning, as well. Personally, I begin my workout each day with a heavy compound lift like a squat, deadlift, or overhead press. Afterwards, I move on to a full-body circuit workout.
Make an effort to train the seven patterns of movement within each workout, or at least within every couple workouts.
No equipment? – no worries. You can get a crazy workout with just bodyweight exercises, and for beginners, I would suggest starting with that.
If you want to progress past bodyweight but you don’t have time to drive to the gym every day, invest in some home equipment. You don’t need much. Get yourself a pull-up bar (or just mount a metal pipe in the rafters of your garage or basement). Grab a few kettlebells, a barbell with some plates, and maybe a few resistance bands. You really don’t need more than that to accomplish your goals.
CONSISTENCY. Stay dedicated and keep a routine. No matter what shape you’re in right now, if you remain consistent in your approach, you will progress. Make it habitual.
My gym - infinite possibilities inside a single stall garage.
“It’s fitness, not brokeness.”
Lastly, let’s remember why we’re training. If our goal is to be prepared for combat, then we must keep ourselves conditioned for it at all times. Destroying your body in the gym may work for bodybuilders, who have the luxury of taking days off in-between workouts, but this sort of debilitating behavior doesn’t serve the ambitions of the warrior. If you squat until your legs are jelly and can no longer walk up the stairs, what good are you if you’re services are required later that day? Congratulations! – you can squat 500-pounds – but you can’t lunge and duck behind a barricade to avoid and return fire. You just set a personal record on your deadlift – that’s awesome! – now can you drag a wounded comrade off the ‘X’? Being sore is part of building muscle and physical training, but don’t make the mistake of destroying your muscles to the point where you become useless to anyone that might depend on you later.
Eat healthy, stay hydrated, sleep well, train smart, and be consistent. Follow these guidelines and develop a routine to support it. Overtime, you will find the challenges of life become easier and less stressful, you’ll have more energy and more discipline, and you’ll approach adversity with confidence and success.
Nil Desperandum.
