Prologue - Week 5
Carrying + Energy Systems
Carrying is not seen as a traditional “primal movement”, but it’s a phenomenal way to temper your body and become more resilient. This is something that is so relevant to our everyday lives. As we get older, it’d be a shame if these things became more difficult.
As far as Energy Systems go, there are three. It’s important to know they exist, and important to know the differences between them, but it’s not important to know more than the basics, so here it is.
The Aerobic energy system is the quintessential “long, slow distance”.
A good way to think of this is “I can do this forever without getting tired”. There may not be many exercises you can say that about right now, but as you progress these become important tools for recovery, for pacing, and for managing your heart rate.
In Textbook Terms - This is anything you can do for 15 to 25 minutes+
Heart Rate is a metric that is becoming more and more easy and popular to track. To put it in perspective, the Aerobic zone within heart rate training is 65-75% of your max heart rate. for a 35 year old this would be 120-135bpm~. This is a relative number, but you'd be surprised at how easy it is to get your heart rate to 120.
Long story short, this is the “Slow down, you’re doing too much. Less is more” part of training. It’s important to know that most people do too much to start out.
The Anaerobic energy system is quite literally the opposite of aerobic.
“I can't do this forever”, hah. Basically most things you would do in a gym or a workout.
In Textbook Terms - This is anything under around 30 seconds to 2 minutes.
I like to think about anaerobic as training your bodies ability to recover. When you challenge your body and push it, your heart rate goes up and you start breathing hard, and when you’re done there’s a period of time before your body can get back to a baseline.
In untrained people it may take 5 or even 10-15 minutes to fully recover for another set. Especially when doing complex and challenging exercises. This leads to longer workouts, that are ultimately less efficient.
Trained individuals who are “In shape” may need only 60-90 seconds to fully recover. Sometimes even less…
This is only important because training your bodies ability to recover, allows you to have faster, more efficient workouts. At the end of the day, if I can get everything I need done in half the time as someone else and achieve the same results, i’m a happy camper and can live more of my life outside of “fitness”. Woohoo.
Lastly, the ATP-CP Energy System is the last, and shortest.
This is your “One Rep Max” system.
In Textbook Terms - This lasts about 3 to 10 seconds. Often times less.
This is your short, super high burst of energy speed. Like sprinting as fast as you can for a 40 yard dash.
If you care. It stands for Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP) and Creatine Phosphate (CP) - ATP gives you 2-3 seconds, and CP gets you to around 6-8s~.
This is all information to simply be aware of. As you begin to mature into your own journey and dig into bigger, longer term goals these become more important. Until then, just know that this is how your body works!
Warm-up
10 Minutes
Heart Rate Up
Move Your Spine
Antagonist
New Examples For The Week:
Lunge + Reach (spine rotation)
Kneeling Chop (core + spine rotation)
Heel Reaches (spine flexion)
If you’d like a more in-depth look
Check out this blog post or refer back to the breakdown given during week 2.
Carrying
There are 3 simple types of carries that are standard, each of which can be done with the same kettlebell.
They are the Farmers Carry, the Front Rack Carry, and the Overhead Carry. Each becoming progressively more complex and challenging, respectively.
For the entirety of this program, it’s a safe assumption that any carry programmed will be one arm at a time (unilateral). Obviously you can grab two kettlebells and do each of these with two, but for our purposes that is not needed. In the future if it were to be programmed it would be called a “Bilateral Farmer/Front Rack/Overhead Carry”
Farmers Carry
Literally just hang on tight. A good cue here is to keep your knuckles facing toward the ground, your shoulder back and down, and your chest up.
This is best for just some good ol’ fashioned simple grunt work. Super simple, super effective.
Front Rack Carry
Arguably the most bang for your buck. This video demonstrates a great job of “bracing” your core and almost holding a crunch while you walk with the KB braced on the outside of your arm and your palm on your chest.
This is my favorite because it involves the most amount of your core amongst the three. Core is always good.
Overhead Carry.
We will rarely do this. It has big mobility limitations and does not carry over well to other movements.
That said, it’s important to be familiar with it. Just because it does not carry over to other things does not mean it’s not a movement you should still be confident in performing.
There are plenty of applications for this once your foundation has been built.
Goal for Week 5
Continue to Consistenly warm-up
Perform each Carry variation at least three times this week
You’ve got a couple options here
A) Perform one set of each carry, three times this week
B) Perform 3 sets of Farmers Carry on Day 1, 3 sets of Front Rack Carry on Day 2, and 3 sets of Overhead Carry on Day 3.
The easiest way to do any of them is to just walk outside and find a sidewalk or alleyway that you can safely pick a distance.
Another option for staying indoors is Marching in Place. This is arguably a better option than any distance as you can control the reps, but sometimes it can be monotonous.
To take it a step further. march on a Balance Pad for a little extra challenge.
Sets and Reps Recommendations
If you want to go far
Farmers Carry 3x50m+ on each arm
Front Rack Carry 3x30m+ on each arm
Overhead Carry 3x20m+ on each arm.
If you want to March
Farmers Carry 3x25 reps on each leg for each arm. Really try and pause at the top of each rep and balance for a second to show control.
Front Rack Carry 3x15 reps on each leg for each arm. Same as above
Overhead Carry 3x10 reps on each leg for each arm. Same as above
If you want to get it over with.
Instead of reps, simply do do 2 sets of each variation for as far or as long as you can on each arm. Make sure and rest fully.
Quick Tip: If you go as far or further on your second set, you didn’t challenge yourself hard enough on the first! Ideally, your second set should be less distance or reps than your first.