Last month I accompanied my daughter Yael's 5th grade class on an overnight trip to the Haw River State Park and Environmental Education Center. After a day of exploring the outdoors and playing games in a steady rain, we had gone through all our dry and clean clothes, and were sitting together in the gathering pit for a closing event.
One of the resident leaders congratulated us for being such troopers. He said, "Some people think that if they're not in a dry, 72 degree environment, they're not OK. Some people think that they need to be clean to be OK. We need to remember that being a little cold sometimes is OK. Being a little hot sometimes is OK. Being dirty is OK. Remember: DIRT DOESN'T HURT!"
That short statement helped a lot of kids reframe their experiences of the previous 18 hours. It helped me, actually. When I look honestly at my assumptions about comfort and the outdoors, I find a lot of intolerance for discomfort. Keep Reading…
On Tuesday morning, I brought home my old (and I mean old) Schwinn unicycle, thinking, maybe someday I'll learn how to ride the darn thing. It has spent the last several years in a basement in Lawrenceville, New Jersey.
No sooner was it in the house than Yael became interested. On went her helmet, and chaos ensued… Keep Reading…
The FitFam concept of playing out as a family, rather than working out as individuals strapped to machines in a windowless hall of mirrors, owes a great deal to my teacher and trainer, Jon Hinds. Jon is the founder of the Monkey Bar Gym, a revolutionary training facility in Madison, Wisconsin, where I've studied to become a CNT (Certified Natural Trainer).
Jon was the strength coach for the LA Clippers basketball team, a head instructor for the National Academy of Sports Medicine, and personal trainer to Hollywood stars like Woody Harrelson and Demi Moore. He played college basketball and worked as a street break dancer. He studied High Energy Yoga with reclusive guru Roger Eischens, and trains everyone from grannies to top athletes at the Monkey Bar Gym.
Monkey Bar Gym members rave about the results they get, but even more they talk about how much fun and camaraderie they experience at every workout. No judgment, no machines, no TVs, no mirrors, and no obsessing about appearance.
Recently I had the opportunity to interview Jon about his experiences, his training philosophy, and his take on the modern fitness industry.
Ordinarily I would make an interview of this quality available only to FitFam Members in the FitFam Radio section of the Members Study Center, but this stuff is so important I can't bring myself to be selfish. If you like the interview and want to hear many more like it, consider joining FitFam.
Without further ado, here's Jonny…
Howie interview with Jon Hinds
An article in yesterday's New York Times points on the variables that can determine how much fat you can lose through exercise. If I read it and didn't realize that the point of exercise has nothing to do with fat loss, I'd be kind of depressed.
When I was still stuck in the Fitness Matrix, I used to go to the gym in the smelly basement of the community center where my daughter was in nursery school. I'd drop her off with a quick kiss, because I had to beat all the mommies to the two working treadmills. If I was the first one in the gym, sometimes I could even sabotage the stereo so I wouldn't have to jog to 80-beats-per-minute Top 40.
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Found this in my online journal from about a year ago. I include it here as an example of what "family fitness" can look like:
Today, after a short bike ride on the American Tobacco Trail in Durham, NC (the exciting part was that we found it at all, thanks in part to Google Earth and some dumb luck), my kids and I and family friends hung out at the park. We played frisbee, spotted the kids on the monkey bars, and sat around and talked.
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I'm a fitness snob, I know that. I regard mainstream gyms as inferior places to get a workout: machines, neon, TVs, magazines, iPods. People focus on how they look rather than how functional and healthy they can get.
And of course, the big enemy is the treadmill. We use electrical energy, which contributes to pollution, global warming, and habitat destruction; we zone out and go nowhere indoors, when the beautiful world is waiting for us to explore her and reconnect with what's real; and we typically jog for long, boring stretches and don't build our capacity or burn fat effectively.
Or so I thought. But today my eyes were opened, thanks to an email from Good Experience.com's Mark Hurst. He pointed me to a video showing the right way to use a treadmill.
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A recent study reported in BBC News suggests than half the kids in Europe will be obese by 2020. Only one in ten kids gets an hour a day of exercise.
The suggestions by the study authors are heroic - 2 hours of PE and sport a day in school, make kids walk places instead of driving them, etc. Heroic, as in "that ain't gonna happen." Can you imagine the school system that will throttle back on math and science to make more time for gym class? And how many of us feel safe letting our kids wander through suburbs and cities to their destinations.
Luckily, the requirements for exercise aren't as stark as these researchers would have us believe. Walking, dancing, playing, climbing, jumping - the natural activities of childhood - all qualify. We don't need to get out our stopwatches and put kids on treadmills. In fact, mandating and formalizing exercise is a sure way to turn them off for life. Keep Reading…
Q: I work out 4 times a week, lifting weights and running on a treadmill. My goals are to burn fat and build muscle. How many calories and grams of protein do you recommend I eat?
A: I'm a big believer in not counting calories, or grams of protein, or fat, or carbs, or how many times I've asked my daughter to empty her lunchbox when she comes home from school.
Here's why: Keep Reading…
Q: Can you build more muscle by eating small amounts of protein? Keep Reading…
Life puts a lot of demands on us: the question is how to balance work, family, and our own desire to better ourselves. Eating right and exercising are both things we intend to do, but often we fall short on these goals. Whether we're unmotivated to work out, too busy to get to the gym on a regular basis, or reluctant to trade time with the family for 45 minutes on a treadmill, there are solutions.
The first principle of fitness is to "play out, not work out." Let's start by rediscovering the fun activities we enjoyed as kids: hiking, jump roping, dancing around the house to the radio, or playing tag with the dog. By modifying a few of your mental preconceptions, it's definitely possible to feel as lean and vital and strong as you did when you were a kid. It might even be fun.
Many of us confuse taking care of ourselves with selfishness - in fact it's just the opposite. If you want to provide service, you must be well and strong. If you want to show love to others, you must have a well of self-love to draw upon.
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