i don't know how this 900 kilometer through hike is gonna go
i've done like three kilometers and i'm dying
so i have some news this video was supposed to be a video detailing all of the training that
i'm doing in the lead up to my through hike at the hrp however i have covered or at least i did
10 days spent in bed probably the worst 10 days of my life lying in bed watching netflix taking
a lot of drugs it really hit me very hard i usually brush these things off really quickly but
this thing [ __ ] me but thankfully now i feel a lot better and my two remaining symptoms are
a blocked nose i can smell absolutely nothing which could actually be an advantage for a
through-hiker and my other symptom is that my hip flexors and my hamstrings are crazy tight
especially my hips my legs were just aching all the time not enjoyable so that's not an ideal
thing to happen obviously four weeks out from an 800 kilometer through hike but having said that
i think i'm very lucky you know this could have happened a day before i was set to go out on trail
but thankfully i've probably got enough time to recover and hopefully get back to normal within
the next month or so before i start i think that's the benefit of doing what i do which is basically
constantly training and that's really what this video is about it's about integrating fitness and
movement into your lifestyle so that when things go wrong you've got that to fall back on and this
is typical life you know if it can go wrong it will go wrong i receive messages probably every
second day from people who are you know three or four days out or a week out from starting a hike
and they're asking me about injury concerns i understand the concept of training for something
as basic as walking is not something that's on top of everybody's list but it does immediately reach
the very top of your list when something like this happens one recent example is from a friend of
mine who you know i've never met but i meet these people on instagram i talk to them regularly and i
just they feel like friends and she had some knee pain she did karim's knee routine and it fixed her
problem and she stopped doing the exercises first day on her year 11 through hike she got back to me
and said hey this this knee pain is back it hurt a lot and i actually quit after the third day so
i told her to start back up again do them morning and night exactly what kareem did and sure enough
two days later she's back on trial she's crushing it here i am like halfway we just made it into
catalunya and i'm so happy this is kind of crucial actually because the body can respond
within a few days from doing exercises and you can relieve a lot of pain very quickly however
as soon as you stop the pain the inflammation the discomfort it's likely going to come back
so the moral of story is there don't stop training always be moving always be working on something i
get a lot of questions about what to do after one of my programs is complete the answer is
just repeat the program or choose another program keep working towards something so to that end i'm
opening up elements as a long-term subscription on a month-to-month basis you can choose to maintain
where you're at or you can learn the new things that i'm implementing into the program every month
whether it be stretching loaded mobility strength integrating body weight skills focusing on aerobic
zone so if you're interested in that you can check out that in the link in the description below okay
with all that said what i want to share with you now is what i've been focusing on with my training
over the last three six nine months before i got covert but first i want to thank skillshare for
sponsoring this video i've been using skillshare for a few years long before they came to sponsor
this channel skillshare is a giant collection of amazing classes and tutorials on every subject
you can imagine it's a huge community of curious people who want to learn different skills anything
from video production to illustration and entrepreneurial skills there's even a class
on meditation for creativity which i found hugely valuable the cool thing about skillshare is you
pay one monthly price and you get unlimited access to all these tutorials and classes
skillshare is offering the first 1000 people who click the link in my description one free month
access to skillshare and all of this material so in a free month of skillshare you could take
a dozen classes most of the classes are less than 60 minutes and they've made it so easy
to digest new information and apply it to really any creative or entrepreneurial pursuit you might
have so if you have a thirst for knowledge then skillshare is a fantastic place for you
click the link in the description that helps this channel out but also gives you
one free month access to skillshare thanks again to skillshare for sponsoring this video so over
the last nine months what i've been working on is three different areas of my training firstly
building aerobic base you've heard me talk about this in other videos and i go into quite a little
bit of depth in this video if you want to check it out but essentially what i'm doing is working
sub aerobically so working at a really low level this is not high intensity exercise but there is
huge benefits to doing long-term aerobic base building within your aerobic zone this is hugely
beneficial to be a little bit more specific what i'm working on is walking sometimes running if i'm
going downhill and trying to stay between 135 and 145 on my heart rate monitor but it's going to be
different for you so depending on your level of fitness and your age you're going to have your
own zone go and check out my blog post i'll leave a link in the description you can find out where
you need to be working just remember you need a heart rate monitor if you're not assessing you're
guessing so if you're the kind of person that's huffing and puffing and wheezing their way up
the uphills then the answer to that is not to do high-intensity exercise and just to destroy
yourself on a peloton the answer is to increase your aerobic function to increase your body's
ability to utilize oxygen and that is done at a very low intensity so it's about training smart
not hard and i realize a lot of this stuff comes down to motivation and there's one thing i get
loads of questions on so i'm going to be making a second part of my chasing motivation series
we're going to dive into self-control power addiction habits those kind of things so if
you have questions about that i want to see them in the comments section and i'll be addressing
them in that video the second thing that i worked on was mobility and movement so the last couple
of years i've become more and more interested in what i can do with my body without the gym without
any kind of equipment so luckily for me there is an amazing facility just a couple of blocks from
our house called bamboo body this is a an ido portal movement inspired gym well not really a
gym but more like a movement education facility so the kind of things that i learned integrated
into my training practice in that three months were you know body awareness stability locomotion
a lot of maximal strength stuff as well working on the rings working on handstands and it's heavily
inspired by capoeira as well so a lot of this locomotion crazy movement stuff that you've seen
me occasionally put into videos and i'm certainly not a master at this stuff i'm an absolute noob
but i got really interested in this from watching channels like strengthside dan altman will brown
passive hang jungle brothers all these guys putting out awesome content and great information
and it's just a lot more of a focus on fun and being outside movement you know climbing trees
as opposed to being in a gym and doing what everyone else does there's very little to do
with hiking but it does set a good precedent of continually moving every day and working
on something and the third thing that i worked on which is what i've been doing most recently
is more or less a variation of my mountain proof knees program and i created that program because
around when i hit 30 i started to have knee issues i did a coaching program from ben patrick from atg
or knees over toes guy and i learned so much from that so i started doing immediately is
integrating a lot of that stuff into my training adapting it for the hiking lifestyle so if there's
any credit from mpk and the testimonials that have come from it all of that is thanks to ben
patrick you should check him out on youtube if you haven't already he's amazing so the kind of
things that i've been doing for that training you know this is knee bulletproofing so hindu squats
[ __ ] squats nordic curls reverse noted curls tip razors monkey foot razors weighted mobility a huge
focus on stretching standards establishing full range of motion and then building strength within
that full range of motion to be able to maximize the capabilities of your body i think stretching
and flexibility is the one thing that hikers are missing out on but the thing i found that helps
me most with stretching is just focusing on two stretches ideally hitting them every day three
sets of 60 seconds of static stretching there's nothing sexy about it but that's the way to get
more flexible it just takes dedication and hitting it every single day but the good thing is you
don't have to do it forever once you've achieved it you tick the box and move on to something else
and then it becomes a matter of using that range of motion coming back to it frequently to make
sure that you're still able to maintain that level of flexibility and use the range of motion that
you have so that's what i've been working on for the last nine months or so what am i going to do
now that i'm post covered with four weeks left to train for an 800 kilometer through hike well i'm
going to do as little as possible i did have a little bit of experience coaching a couple
of my clients that had covered in the early days what we determined from those experiences
is that you've got to take it super super slow and just integrate small amounts of exercise when
your energy levels begin to increase and that's probably the most difficult part about it because
success usually comes from having a routine and repeating things regularly and sticking to the
plan but if you don't have a plan if you just have to wing it based on how you're feeling on the day
things are just not going to be as effective as they would be if you were doing a plan or a
routine what i would have been doing if i didn't get covert would be working on my aerobic base
and working on hill work like uphill endurance i actually have a program called uphill endurance
basically stairs step-ups trial running and some accessory work core strength some basic body
weight stuff but it's 80 working on that aerobic function and uphill fitness essentially so that's
what i would have been doing right now but instead i'm doing basically nothing so this is uncharted
territory obviously this is a new virus that we really don't know much about how people recover
so i don't really know how covert is going to affect my ability and my performance on this
through hike but to be honest with you last year i didn't do a whole lot of training i was doing
a little bit of walking i was really busy trying to get all my gears together at the last minute so
i didn't really do much training in the last kind of month before the jr11 either so i'm really not
too concerned and like i said earlier that's the benefit of integrating this into your lifestyle
doing it long term so that's a little update on where i'm at i've got four weeks before i start
videos that are coming in the next couple of weeks i'm going to dive into my food
preparation that's going to be a big one i want to do one more training video let me know in
the comments what you want to see do you want to see more flexibility stuff some more mobility or
weighted mobility strength exercises what do you want to know let me know in the comments
that does it for this video thanks for watching all the way through hit the like button if you've
made it this far that really helps me out i appreciate you i'll see you on the summit