Being both a cooperative and competitive animal, settling on benchmarks amounts to both. Here’s a handful of benchmarks that are regularly held up as symbols of ability and achievement:

• Time to run 1 Mile, 5K meters, or 26.2 miles
• Time to swim 50m, 100m, 200m, and 400m
• Time to swim 2.4 miles, bike 112, and then run 26.2 (or: that you can even do it!)
• Amount of weight fixed to a metal bar that you can lie underneath, lower to your chest and press back up, or
• The same that you can stand under, drape across your back, squat down, and then return to a stand
• Number of situps or pushups in 0:60
• SAT scores anyone?

Hope that comes back up!

There are of course countless more. People test themselves on everything, anything. Heck, someone recently set a new world record in holding an elbow plank. Many, most?, of these benchmarks are arbitrary exercises in quantitative symbolism. They have meaning one person did it, and well, someone else isn’t going to just stand by and let ‘em keep that spotlight forever. Records are meant to be broken, right?

Lots thrive on competition. Holding up their earned badges of victory. I saw a car today with both the usual 26.2 sticker and a 70.3 sticker (I had to look it up, which I’m sure would make the half Ironman badge of honor holder smile). I’ll admit I’ve feigned humility plenty of times while discussing bench press in the weight room, my 1600m PR on the track, or my best 2000m test on an erg. Even today, I do when I mention I once swung a KB nonstop for 75 minutes on a whim. And I will again when I decide to beat that on the next whim. It’s all part of our shared “look at me” culture.

The darkside to turning everything into a test is our destroy-through-competition nature (I’ll keep capitalism and Das Kapital out of it). It’s so easy to put on blinders and release a personal Mr. Hyde to chase a t-shirt, a sticker, a name on a whiteboard, or just that guy up ahead of us on the bike path. Again, it looks crazy from a spectator’s perspective, but folks regularly threaten their immediate and long-term health and viability to achieve not a world record on the fleeting Olympic stage, but an amateur PR, to beat someone else in their gym, or because we just gotta train no matter what our body is telling us. “Pain is temporary, glory is forever” we wrote on the track in high school. This is written across the faces of many casual weekend warriors, who these days number in ultra-marathon circles. But guess what: many pains aren’t temporary and all glory fades.

I’ve heard countless people say something along the lines of “I was in the best shape of my life” and then say something along the lines “I was in pain all the time” or “that’s when I had (my 3rd) shoulder/knee surgery”. It’s crazy that debilitating pain has become either an accepted side effect of elite fitness (whatever that is) or not linked together with it at all, as though their hardcore fitness path has nothing to do with consistent pain. Crazy.

But as crazy as any given benchmark might look from the 10,000 ft. view, that doesn’t meant that benchmarking and testing isn’t still useful. Why not push yourself to excel? To have a concrete goal to take you beyond your comfort zone? Why not stop treating your workout like the errand it’s become? Know where you stand on some continuum of ability?

Just chose your tests with your better mind. Maybe you should build up to a 5k in minimalist shoes with perfect form instead of pounding your weak legs through a marathon they’re trying to tell you they’re not ready for? Why not challenge yourself to holding a solid handstand instead of doing O-lifts with bad form for time? Why not learn to do the most important movements and test those rather than whip through the latest circus trick someone did on Youtube? Why not sign up for an obstacle race that asks you to perform many markers of ability, not just one?

The trick is to look for benchmarks that seek to reward the Middle Way between quality and quantity. That’s what we work toward at Gymnasium. This month’s we’re starting Gauntlet tests, or mini-workouts to provide a level of ability gauge across the most important movements. The first Gauntlet test is 10:00 with the Get Up, and front squats. The key is that when we think about a test, we do so with direction or guidelines to balance conditioning, strength, and movement quality–all together. There’s never a perfect answer, movement is an inherently fuzzy thing, but there’s always a better perspective.

Ugh. This one will be my Test.

Tomorrow a crew of us are still going to run the Tough Mudder. Amped-up, extreme-tribe magnet? Of course. Electrical shocks? Straight up silly. But the premise is right on: challenge yourself on multiple levels, screw the clock, do it together, and celebrate at the end. My test for the day? Spend it challenged, be of clear mind through the claustrophobia, and go through it all with friends. Wait a minute: that actually sounds like a pretty decent life cocktail.

It’s funny, many people would probably categorize me as hardcore based on what I do regularly with relative ease. Many look at our workouts and say whoah, you do what?! More than once a week?! Isn’t that hard!? But hardcore is not where my head is at. 1) I don’t train. 2) I don’t try or claim like so many in the escape-the-gym fitness world to “push myself to the absolute limits”. Both humdrum mediocrity and misguided intensity are failures when it comes to movement. But I do know that only reason I move at all is to inspire me through the only race that matters: the one we are all in. I doubt I’ll see many intensity addicts or habitual excuse-makers at my finish line. They’ll have their own.

Movement is my life’s anchor, movement is my tribe. It’s not a sport or mission or an addiction or a means to feel like I’m still badass. I don’t know though. Maybe it’s all of those things. Yes, I still have a some badass in me today. But I plan to for a long time. Best to maybe just paraphrase Ice Cube and call it good: test yo’self, but don’t wreck yo’self.

We’re so pleased to welcome Mialy Dermish to Gymnasium.  Mialy combines a background in global women’s health advocacy with 12 years of yoga and meditation practice to bring light, love and laughter to her classes and workshops. She enjoys exploring both athletic and more gentle movement to create innovative flowing sessions aimed at healing and restoring mama’s body, mind and spirit.

And she’s got a pretty refreshing candor about women’s health….so we couldn’t be more excited for her pelvic floor and core workshop for moms at 3:30 on Sunday, April 22nd .

And, er, well, nobody can capture the essence of this workshop better than Mialy has in her own words:

Did you know that half of all women in the US who have given birth experience some sort of pelvic prolapse? (that’s when the love organs fall out of place – ouch!)

If you have recently had a baby or two and:

• are wondering if the bedroom will ever be fun again?
• have lost the weight but still have a little bulge in the belly?
• feel like the bottom half of you is sagging and might fall out?
• are in fear of peeing every time you sneeze or laugh?

Then this workshop is for you!

Join Mialy and other moms to explore movement and breathing techniques that will enable us to restore and heal our bodies, reclaim our lovely lady-ness, and get the juices flowing where they used to be so abundant! (maybe in preparation for number 2?! or 3!)

Pelvic Floor and Core Worskhop for Moms
Sunday, April 22nd
3:30 – 5:00 PM
$12 at the door
Gymnasium 

(Partners and kids are welcome to socialize in the Gymnasium library/cozy corner while the moms do their *thing*.)

Throwing some KB basics (the swing is right up front).

We’ve trained our bodies to be pressed into a chair, a machine, or a bench to work out. Or have been convinced the only workouts that don’t have the potential to harm are branded “healing,” “mind/body” exercise like yoga or tai chi. I also used to see those practices as the place to repair, refresh, and renew and any weight as a tool for training ability. But not anymore. And the answer is, “Not once you learn how to do it.”

There’s persistent compartmentalizing in the workout world. Does this sound familiar: “I do elliptical for cardio, see my killer trainer for strength, and follow this amazing yoga teacher.”? Know anyone who obsesses over their practice and then comes to believe it’s the answer to everything (I yoga! I kettlebell! I Crossfit!), and view everything else as an opposing tribe to address with distrust or disdain? I think a few of these people might lurk on the internets. So when an article comes out about kettlebells fixing backs and necks, or yoga wrecking joints, or running injuries healed by running, or anything Crossfit, each are met with venom because they go against what someone just knows to be true, which often closely aligns with a tribe-led (fed?) belief.

When I started using kettlebells, it was as much out of curiosity as anything else. But I’d like to believe, or at least apply my trusty 20/20 hindsight, that something in the basic patterns intuitively made sense to me. Then I began to feel the carryover to bar lifting, martial arts, physical labor, and a variety of athletic movements; I sensed a call for awareness through the practice that’s more akin to what I experienced in the kung fu school, not the gym. Though I couldn’t articulate it then, the notion of simply practicing better movement with lighter, primitive weights instead of trying to shove heavier and faster with bars and machines was definitely there. A kernel of truth cultivated in my years since with KBs.

The life of an athlete is about achieving numbers and managing injuries and pain. I had long mistakenly correlated increased quantitative athletic measures (my max bench, my mile PR, my 2000m time on a rowing erg) with increased health. Did those impressive numbers help my ego? Definitely. My health? Not so much. After my last athletics-induced back injury, I did tai chi, yoga, old-timey bodyweight calisthenics, and kettlebells in conjunction with medical therapy to return to function. Each helped in its way, but it was the synthesis that delivered the healing. Over my recuperation I gradually came to realize I was learning how to exist in my own body. Understanding its strengths, weaknesses, and quirks. Something numbers don’t teach, and something I didn’t know I didn’t know. I remember realizing it while shoveling, a task that used to destroy my back even when my lanky levers could lift heavy bars like no(skinny)body’s business. I wasn’t practicing shoveling, but my path taught me what good movement really feels like whether a shovel, a kettlebell, or nothing, in hand. And hey, not for nothing: it was my last injury (and I move with people for a living now!).

Because I’m hopelessly human, my experiential truth with kettlebells beats the statistical kind for personal resonance. But it don’t hurt to flash some back up from the NY Times after a testimonial…

More fundamentally, it isn’t the kettlebell that heals, or the yoga that hurts–it’s the value of the movement underneath the label that determines the path. Running, deadlifts, and yoga all contain the power to heal or harm. Ego and specialization determine where a path will lead. If you think only of the measurable goal–whether a full headstand or beasting up a big weight–you are (or your local guru is) making it easier to arrive at injury. And some movements are so specialized as to have little value beyond the thing itself. In fact, most of what passes for exercise in modern gyms falls into this category. Worse still, a specialized practice also ingrains a specific, conditional worldview, instead of opening a broader horizon. If all of your training buddies are concerned with their bench press, their inversion progression, their mile splits, or their Fran time, well as the Buddha (might have) said, “What we think, we become.”

Another impressive display of Fran-tensity.

At Gymnasium, we don’t see lifting weights as distinct from yoga, or running as separate from strength. There is only movement. Every bootcamp exercise, every rep commanded at a strongman competition, every Sanskrit word  breathed by a yogi is just another movement. And when you line them all up you see specific examples of direct overlap. An old school strongman movement like the windmill/bent press looks an awful lot like yoga’s triangle. A yogic movement like down dog and up dog, looks a lot like an Indian wrestler pushup. There are a limited number of fundamental movement patterns, patterns that any exercise ultimately points back to. If you practice the fundamentals, your practice will translate into a level of ability in any physical situation. And avoid the specialized injury and undeserved ego.

A member here at Gymnasium is getting her yoga instructor certification, runs (when it’s nice outside), kickboxes, and is skilled with a kettlebell or club in her hand. The other day, she said of all the gyms and workout places she’s ever belonged to, she likes Gymnasium because it’s the only place that “swings kettlebells, but I leave feeling like I just finished a yoga class.” That’s exactly how we like it. Really though, why have it any other way?

Yes, Kettlebells can fix your back, and kettlebells can throw it the heck out. Yoga can heal your chronic pains, and put scary new ones in their place. A local Crossfit tribe can lift you into a sublime intensity addiction, and remind you where addiction leads.

All movement has a healing and hurting capacity. See movement as an exercise in the Middle Way, and don’t let your ego tell you (or a tribe sell you) otherwise.

We’re happy to present to you highlights from the Gymnasium’s performance at the Paddy’s 5K on a beautiful fall day in 2011.  Pete, Ken, Eliza, Maggie, Elena, Alex, Tina, and Larry…kick it!

1. 12:00-4:00pm Open Swing Workout Gym!
Are you in the swing challenge? Want to get started? It’s simple and we’ll be here all afternoon, so come get some swings in. All we ask in return is that you tell the free trial folks how wonderful we are.

2. 2:00-4:00pm. Free Workouts!
2:00 Sweat
2:40 Strength
3:15 Flow

3. 4:00-5:00pm. Eating for Optimal Energy and Weight!
A talk and discussion with Karen Honig of Boston Healthy Living. She has a powerful, simple approach to introducing universal principles of better food choices that can be applied to any diet, or lack thereof.

4. 5:00pm-9:00pm. Open House!
We’ll have snackable edibles, impromptu games, and revelry aplenty. Have a good game physical or otherwise? Bring it! We’ll have snacks and drinks on hand, but won’t turn away additional offerings. Thanks much to those who offered to bring something!

Thanks and see you Saturday!

Each monthly session with Nat leaves me universally more ready and more able at work, and more connected to myself, the people that matter to me, and my own intertwined professional and personal path. Some might think it odd to admit that one has enlisted the service a life or a business coach. But whether or not you recognize it, the value of connecting with someone outside your everyday circle for personal and professional perspective is deeply profound. Sometimes an impartial but caring voice is the most powerful. I suspect this is partly why it seems so many people are looking (consciously or unconsciously) for some measure of guru in their lives. Someone to tell them that all shall be revealed if you just follow me and do this and that (but not that!). Unfortunately, there are plenty of gurus to prey on that simple equation.

What also distinguishes Nat from other gurus is that he shows you how to be your own guide, how to develop a daily toolbox that’s unique to you and your path. He doesn’t have a gimmick or a one-size-fits-all program. He draws from many traditions, ancient and modern, and works with fundamental principles of wisdom and living. I knew right off the bat that I’d learn a lot from him. And I continue to. And now you can, too!

This Sunday, from 11am-12pm Nat is holding session at Gymnasium dedicated to “Claiming Your Peace Among the Chaos”. He asks only a simple cash donation for the Newton Food Pantry.

From the flyer:
The current state of our country has been stressing people out. On top of that, you have so much to do, so little time, and you’re struggling to keep up with it all. Now, the busy holiday season is here which notoriously adds another layer of anxiety and tension.

Join our ‘Claim Your Peace’ Workshop where Life Coach, Nat Couropmitree, will teach you simple ways to:

• Get centered amidst the chaos happening around (or in) you;
• Prevent your family from pushing your buttons
• Protect yourself from negative energy
• Be more productive and have more ME-time.

Join us on Sunday at 11am for a little refreshing perspective and some concrete tools for holding onto that perspective!

Reserve your spot here!

10 years ago I’d been seeking relief from a debilitating back injury. Cortisone shots, drugs, surgery, PT, massage therapy, chiropractic, movement therapy, and every back care yoga workshop I could find. All ended with varying degrees of success (and not so much). Figured I might as well throw a few needles in.

I went to see a woman affiliated with my kung fu and tai chi school. She spoke little English and pointed me to an old green recliner in the breezeway off her kitchen. While she made preparations, I watched the pots rattling at boil, breathed in a pungent mix of herbs and food, and tried to ignore the vampire movie she paused to check in with at the end of the room. If there were a placebo effect, it didn’t seem like it would be a positive one.

“This one strong.”

The first needle stuck. My ears rang and my eyes flashed white. I’d never before passed out in my life, but I awoke to the smell of strong tea held under my nose and her laughter.

“You not so strong!”

She proceeded to the treatment. I had two other brief but noteworthy sensations that I’ve come to call “molasses” and “lightning”. Molasses felt like a slow wave of relaxation elixir passing over an area of my body from the inside. Lightning felt like a web of electricity streaking through it. Both were completely unlike anything I’d ever felt before. I continued to see her for weeks as much for the curious adventure as to have her molasses poured over my ailing back.

+ + +

Back to now. Many years with kung fu and tai chi included a lot of other experiences with Chinese culture and I understand much more about the underlying philosophy that guides the Chinese view of movement, food, cosmology, and the body. In traditional Chinese philosophy and science, everything is interconnected (funny how modern science in finally moving that direction as well). Recently, Bethany Hauch from Stepping Stone Acupuncture gave me a copy of The Web That Has No Weaver, a terrific book if you’re interested in learning about traditional Chinese medicine’s perspective on the body, especially one that’s translated for Westerners.

Acupuncture involves inserting needles at strategic points along the body. The traditional Chinese medical view holds that the body has pathways (or meridians) that flow with an energy called chi (or qi). The needles help to direct or redirect the flow of energy to address ailments. Western science has proved acupuncture to be a powerful means of inducing the body’s natural pain killers and to increase blood flow (critical for any healing process), but in China it’s completely integrated with modern medicine.

Some find acupuncture uniquely useful for considering and treating many ailments that Western medicine doesn’t do much for, especially chronic conditions or the pain and inflammation associated with disease. Even the staunchly conservative Mayo Clinic treated my father’s tinnitus with acupuncture.

+ + +

When I met with Chris Lehmann of Eastern Sun Acupuncture, he showed me to a nicely appointed treatment room with a big table. He explained the procedure and his approach and then began by checking points with his fingers for any pain sensations. When it was time for the needles, he had me recline (though not in a recliner!) and applied a treatment for some mild inflammation in my knee from a long walk the day before. While I relaxed and focused on my breathing, I began to fall into something of a meditative state. The molasses feeling passed through twice. The end of the session set my knee to rights and left me refreshed. I actually had a pretty darn productive afternoon afterward.

Chris is also unique in that he also holds a degree in biology and does a great job helping an inquisitive client through the process. He also, to my experience, saves the vampire movies for off-duty hours.

If you haven’t tried acupuncture or are curious to learn more about whether it’s right for you, check out Eastern Sun Acupuncture.

What struck me most about this approach to food and eating, was that it was principle-based, not a systematized diet. And the principles overlay just about every sound nutrition-based eating approach out there whether omnivore, vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, antioxidant-rich, Paleo, or you-name-it. It’s much like how we prefer workouts built on the principles of fundamental movement, not cooked-up muscle-based exercise prescriptions.

A definition of terms is in order (because I wasn’t exactly sure what anti-inflammatory eating was all about either!). Inflammation is a localized tissue reaction from injury, disease, stress, toxicity, or other irritation. While inflammation is a natural protective response, if the injury, disease or other irritant isn’t resolved, it can become chronic. According to the Mayo Clinic, inflammation is quite the buzzword in research and medical circles these days due to its presence in almost every chronic disease. In diet it matters because certain (especially modern) foods illicit a highly inflammatory response. And eating is just about as chronic as activity comes! Because our body ages chemically and biologically (not chronologically)and to our body, food is chemistry and biology, then the question is: how do we eat more youthfully?

Let’s start with no-go list. Here are the major, modern inflammatory culprits (no surprises here):

• Grain fed, processed, and/or high fat meat
• Vegetable and hydrogenated oils
• Processed meats, prepackaged foods
• Artificial sweeteners
• High fructose corn syrup (don’t fall for the friendly new “corn sugar” rebranding!)

Most of these are modern inventions and some are not even actual food. Karen mentioned an interesting imbalance comparison between our historic diet and the modern one as seen through concentrations of Omega 6 vs Omega 3 fatty oils (click here to learn more about Omg6 and Omg3). Historically, the Western diet saw concentrations of Omega 6 and Omega 3 at a relatively equal ratio. The average modern diet stands at about 15-35 to 1. Yikes.

Now, here are some workhorses of anti-inflammatory eating (you’ll recognize most of these as well, with some fun new ideas to boot):

1. Vegetables and Fruits (not fruits and vegetables!):

• Leafy greens (spinach, lettuce, kale, etc.)
• Berries (blue-, straw-, black-, rasp-, etc.)
• Pineapple
• Papaya
• Avocado
• Kombu seaweed (a mineral rich food which can also be added to bean soups and dishes to counteract the ‘bean-effect’!)
• Goal is 7 vegetable and fruit servings everyday

2. Nuts and Seeds (raw > roasted):

• Walnuts
• Pumpkin seeds (zinc!)
• Flaxseed
• Chia seeds
• Sunflower
• Almonds (though harder to get raw in US)

3. Grains and Beans: While many grains are on the culprit list, there are some good ones too.

• Quinoa (very interesting, flexible food source that keeps for 5 days and is gluten and wheat free)
• Buckwheat
• Brown rice
• Oatmeal
• Beans are especially effective as a means to reduce reliance on animal protein.

4. Supplements and Other Sources: Real food is always preferred, but Karen noted the following as being potentially useful to a youthful diet.

• Omega 3 (look for “purified” on the label)
• Turmeric/curcumin
• Green tea (especially matcha tea)
• Ground flaxseeds or chia seeds in shakes, over oatmeal, or on salads
• EVOO, key being “cold pressed”

Want to learn more? Contact Karen Honig about her services and ongoing classes.

Need more food ideas? Both this and this list seemed to jive with Karen’s.

Want more info on inflammation and health? Read more from the Mayo Clinic.

I was recently introduced to Paul Borenstein. Paul had a compelling story about a significant shift in his personal perspective and life direction. A successful businessman and partner at a prestigious firm in Boston, he experienced a moment of revelation that led to a unique path of self-discovery and understanding. I can’t do his story or perspective justice in the flatness of digital space, but I can say that his presence alone left quite a mark. I’d just finished our Saturday group run and leading two classes, and I was still running on a high gear when he came in. I was in a completely different place after talking with him. No less motivated to get through my to do list, but certainly more calm and more aware of my pace.

Those of us who were there during his visit talked about it after he left. And I’m excited that he’s going to bring his Practical Meditation approach as a regular Saturday class at Gymnasium (11:30-1pm).

The most important takeaway I had from my brief chat with him was that to become less stressed and more present and whole, one had to start with a shift in perspective. Instead of trying to read a book on meditation, or rattle through breathing exercises every day, begin with an acknowledgment of the right perspective first: that you have everything you seek already. You can’t just will this reality into being by practicing exercises or signing up with a guru. You have to experience it, personally, first. A new routine or habits will continue the momentum down the path only after one establishes an intention and outlook first, not after.

This perspective shift pertains directly to my experience as a movement practitioner and teacher. In modern exercise, most think in terms of “training” (for what?). The focus is on collecting and combining exercises and workouts. And then we proceed to pile up minutes and miles, sets and pounds, classes attended, and check whether any of this exertion affects our numerical performance (or jeans and swimsuits). Just plow through until you’ve accomplished a recognizable goal (marathon! 200lb bench! Size 6 jeans!) or become bored or injured. Now certainly numbers matter, and have value, but they are secondary.

My own perspective shift came when I realized that all of the various forms of exercise at all the gyms and studios new and old are just different expressions (in some cases, contortions) of the human body’s capacity for movement. Of course, some movements are more useful than others. Still doing leg extensions? Giving undue time to bicep curls or how deeply you can fold in half? Yeah, I know. We get habituated to feeling something and assume that feeling is how we are supposed to feel. But, primary to physical practice should be learning how to knit the body together in movement. What’s more, by putting movement first, the weight we push, the speed we run, the degree to which we can fold, or just the grace we display everyday are all positively affected. But it doesn’t go the other way around. The fittest people around are often the most injury laden and physically and mentally unbalanced. It doesn’t have to be this way.

So all that said, I can’t wait to attend the regular sessions with Paul. Gymnasium is fortunate for having crossed paths with him.

Join us on Saturdays after Sweat to see what a perspective shift might uncover for you!

10. People often wonder how the Egyptian pyramids were constructed, with its huge, heavy blocks. Your answer: “They just picked them up and carried them… piece of cake!”
9. You know that a Turkish Get Up is not a sartorial description
8. You can do it with a 16
7. You envy air traffic controllers for their wrist and shoulder flexibility
6. You go to your library and wonder why there’s no workout area in the corner (since your gym has a library in its corner)
5. You were seen walking down the street… on all fours like a bear
4. Whenever you hear thunder, you explain it as “the CVS gods are angry”
3. On Valentines Day, you expected to see red, heart-shaped kettle bells at your gym
2. Your new baby is born, and you proudly announce the weight as “something between pressing weight and swinging weight”
1. …then you ask your wife, ‘where’s the handle on this thing?’”