AAA, Boot Camps and Fire-Dragon

In October 2023 I had written an article called AAA which was an exploration into well rounded fitness. I termed it, Aesthetically Astute Athleticism. I had felt a need to direct the athletic endeavors that I had seen a lot of us engaging in, towards a more holistic approach. I had felt that looking like a healthy and fit athlete was just as important as being one. 

That actually ended up becoming the start of a journey. Since then, we have executed two Boot Camps, engaging a few dozen accomplished runners who doubled down on Strength Training in the winter months. We exchanged experiences, notes, workout videos, dietary ideas, Podcasts and our own reflections. Each one of us involved, went through our own evolution as endurance athletes with an eye towards aesthetics and long term health outcomes. In some way we took the first tentative steps from endurance runners to genuinely fit individuals.

Along the way, we learnt a lot as we zeroed in on what ideal fitness was about and the mechanism to move towards it. Even more importantly, understanding the ideal behaviors in the gym, on the running trail and on the dining table to craft the most meaningful health outcome was what this journey became.

In that context, here are a few learnings we have acquired along with some considerations for the future. Hope the reader finds value in it. 

1. For quality health outcomes variety is good. Different types of workouts, exercises, cardio or otherwise are most likely to keep us engaged with workout mindset for the long haul. Taking on just one type of activity and grinding the body down to the bone, with injuries in tow, may not be ideal. Of course, we all have a primary sport, such as running or Triathlon for which we need to focus on specific activities. But beyond that, keeping an open mind to try different activities such as strength and flexibility training is absolutely critical. Gamifying it…like a weekly challenge, adds some fun to so it doesn’t become a chore. 

2. Muscle mass is our longevity organ, plain and simple. It is also our aesthetics organ. If we are diabetic, increased muscle mass acts as a sink for that extra sugar floating in the body, if we are a post menopausal woman, if we are a middle aged guy, if we are anything… more muscle mass is indispensable to quality fitness and longevity outcomes.

3. It’s ALL about aesthetics. Having a goal of becoming a physically spectacular human specimen, aesthetically; automatically ensures we are likely the healthiest. Evolutionary Biology tells us that Nature’s preferred method of mate selection is Aesthetics. This is because a well proportioned male or female also carries the highest chances of survival of the species. Therefore it is most desirable to the other gender. Which ever way we cut, we can’t go wrong by focusing on the aesthetics of our physical being. 

4. Only running / cardio while good for heart, will make us flabby. We will keep expanding and contracting in the same exact bodily proportions that we currently exist, based on where we are in our marathon training cycle. 5 or 10 years later, we find ourselves exactly at the same place in body proportions, except older in age and even less able to pack on new muscle. This is because our hormones start plummeting after age 30 and cardio alone does not improve muscle mass. Worse still. long hours on the trail, running, eats up lean muscle. Clearly it is important to keep the Heart in top notch shape. So let’s give 50 percent of out workout time to Cardio. The other 50 percent, we need to spend on strength on average. One could vary 70/30 Strength/cardio during winter and 30/70 in summer; or keep 50/50 throughout. We literally need to reconstitute the body by adding more muscle via proper weight training and upping our protein intake. 

5. Beyond ourselves, if we want to inspire people around us, including young people, kids, family and friends, looking like an athlete and jacked does go a long way. This requires weight training, properly. It just does.

6. Last but not the least, this current decade of our life we are working out for the last decade of your life. Mobility, which is a function of cardio, core muscles and leg muscles will likely trump any other asset we have garnered for our older years, in terms of quality of life value, preventing lonliness and indeed survival.

So now the question is, how do we incorporate behaviors in our workout regimen aligned with the perfect fitness outcome for us, which is great athleticism now and long active life down the road. 

For this to happen, we need two ingredients. We have to establish the North Star and then a path towards it. It needs to be simple to understand and engage with. 

True North Star of Fitness, we can agree, would compose of three elements.

1. Cardio
2. Strength
3. Flexibility

For creating a path that can take us there, we need to take a leaf from what works. Taking the example of a Marathon or Triathlon, we have learnt that an arduos “Endurance Event” at end of a training cycle has a way of keeping us focused like nothing else. The only downside with Marathons and even Triathlons is they they are rather limited on terms of engaging 360 degree fitness. While a marathon will help build Cardio capacity, upper body steength is not a focus area, and so gets neglected. Similarly Triathons or even Ultras don’t require build up of muscle mass or flexibility and therefore in more cases than not do not induce training behaviors that drive those outcomes.

So why not create an event, from the ground up, that thoughtfully tests the high water mark of capabilities across facets that are most relevant for current and long term well being. In addition to being a barometer of ideal fitness, the event needs to be hard enough to get the juices flowing from the best of us in terms of challenge. Endurance athletes live and die for a quality challenge. They is why a marathoner keeps banging their knees and hips inspite of injuries year after year, for knocking off another few minutes from their completion time. Without challenge there is no street-cred. Without street-cred and some medal bling the juices don’t quite flow. Rarely would you find a Yoga practitioner, fawning over another Yoga practioner for nailing a difficult posture, which may literally take several years of effort. But someone qualifies for Boston Marathon, whoa!! that a boy!! ultimate street cred amongst runners. It matters. 

So based on my 15 plus years of endurance experience, a couple dozen Marathon or bigger events, and multiple years of engaging with and thinking about fitness and it’s relevance for regular folks and drawing from the knowledge of some of the best in their field, here is the construct of what I term as the ideal Fitness Event. It is ideal because if we take it on, even once a year, we will be paying attention to ideal fitness behaviors in our gym, on the trail and on the dining table. 

The event is themed Dragon and has two versions. Dragon is the lighter veraion which will take anout upto6 hrs and  Fire-Dragon which may take upto 10 hrs. are some key features and details of each.

1. Can be executed in the gym or gym+outside, with or without support
2. Challenges overall fitness including strength, cardio and flexibility comprehensively, without overloading one activity.
3. Induces training behaviors for highest level  physical and mental resilience, longevity and aesthetics.

The ten events that one must finish to get a completion medal for Dragon challenge are:

1. Run 5k
2. Climb 100 floors on Stair-master. 
3. 5k rowing
4. 10 mile bike ride
5. 500m swim
6. 25 pull ups
7. 5 min Plank
8. 25 Surya Namaskar
9. a. Squat 10 reps with 50% body; b. Hip-thrust  10 reps with 50% body weight; c. Bench 10 reps with 50%body wt; d. Deadlift 10 reps with 50 percent body wt.; e. farmers carry 50 sec. w/ 50 % body wt. (Choose 4 out of 5 from a-e.)
10. Finish with hard mile(1/8mile burpees, 1/8mile Bear Crawl, 1/8mile lunges, 1/8mile run

Fire-Dragon:

1. Run 10k
2. 250 floors on Stair-master. 
3. 10k rowing
4. 15 mile bike ride
5. 1000m swim
6. 100 pull ups
7. 10 min Plank
8. 100 Surya Namaskar
9. 10 reps Bench, Squat, Deadlift, Hip-thrust, farmers carry 100 seconds with 100 percent bodyweight : Choose 4 out of 5
10. Finish with hardest mile(1/4 mile burpees, 1/4 mile Bear Crawl, 1/4 mile lunges, 1/4 mile run (same for everyone)

Categories : 

1-5 is cardio

6-9 is strength and Flexibility

10 is mandatory to be the last.

If one is not able to execute a particular activity, we can replace it with another from the same category. So if you don’t want to swim, you can double your run or bike etc. If one can’t execute 100 pull ups(don’t need to finish in one shot) we can double Surya namaskars and vice versa. 

The lighter version of the event, called Dragon, would require exactly half the numbers of Fire-Dragon in all the categories, including weights. 

This event is hard enough to challenge the best of us. The critical part is that it precipitates the ideal training behaviors with least likelihood of injuries because no single motion like running is to be done for more than an hour even for Fire-Dragon which is for highly trained athletes. In addition, all the strength markers being checked off are ones that sports science encourages as important parameters for longevity and health. 

So here we are. Let’s take time to think through the message. Let’s not accept or reject. Let it steep some. And if we are ready, let’s go for broke. Direct our time and energy for “Perfect”. Take no prisoners and if agreeable, and have the heart, show up on May 10th for Dragon and Fire Dragon challenge. It also happens to be my birthday and a Saturday. 

It ain’t gonna be easy!! I know you don’t like easy..