Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Safety, Sanity, and Salutes

Safety: Oft overlooked, never overemphasized. I'm going to give you one rule that will help you develop strength while minimizing downtime. As soon as your form deteriorates, STOP. I can't tell you how many times I've pushed myself too far and suffered some stupid sort of injury from trying to "gut out" those last few reps of whatever. To quote THE Chief Instructor of the RKC, "Change of exercise is a form of rest." So follow that advice and watch your performance take a jump! Change the exercise and the intensity to see how well your neurological system adapts.

Sanity: And in that same vein, change of workload outside of physical endeavors is also an intelligent idea. I've been awfully guilty of overdoing my own workload lately, and it took almost everyone in my circle to tell me the same thing before I realized that I really have been overdoing the pace and intensity of my work. Once this one project's off my plate, I'm REALLY going to fall off the grid for a couple of weeks! (Let's see if I can hold to that.)

Salutes: I'm so glad that many of this blog's readers took the time to email me with positive comments about the prior post. After posting it, I was concerned that some might not read it carefully and misconstrue my remarks as a challenge or disrespect to organizations like the USMC, LAPD, or NYFD (when in fact, those institutions are what I've constantly credited with mad respect and gratitude for keeping us safe). I'm very pleased that everyone who dropped me a line, including some individuals from those organizations, absolutely got the spirit of my message... that we ALL are responsible for creating a powerful, orderly, and effective learning environment.

If you read Power By Pavel Issue #165, Pavel Tsatsouline cites the KBLA offer for first responders in there. We are DEVOTED to creating the safest, strongest, most efficient learning environment for you. You've been good enough to meet the needs of others. Let us meet yours.

I know... it's a short post, but it's 11:15pm, and I've gotta sack out now to wake up early and get some work done. Hopefully this one big project will be off my plate in less than 2 weeks, and you'll get to meet a VERY happy Chinaman. :)

2 comments:

Rannoch Donald said...

Hombre,

No-one who's shared space with you would misconstrue your previous post. You are the nicest badass I have ever had the pleasure of training with. No-one could be more polite whilst putting me in my place!

Seriously hope you are taking your own advice and having some serious down time. It's not optional, it's mandatory.

The guys at KME were asking for you the other night. I need to get back to you with some plans!

Be in touch soon. Life has been getting serioulsy in the way...I know you know the score.

Hasta

R

Unknown said...

Thanks for that, mate. As you can tell, I've been so swamped that it's even taking me longer than usual to respond to my blog comments.

Down time is as the Chief Instructor says: "Change of activity is a form of rest."