Simple with few moving parts...what is your crossbow?

The frequency of posts to this blog has diminished quite a bit recently.   My work is busy and when I get in I'm more likely to read or vegetate in front of the TV to relax rather than think about putting stuff up here.  Also you will have picked up the theme in recent months that I am trying to keep things simple.  Sometimes there is little to say.  There is not a lot to add:  move, sleep, eat and relax.

I became disillusioned with the contrarian world of health and fitness on the internet, especially as regards diet.  It is not as complicated as we try to make it...paleo, low-carb, low fat or "real food" or whatever become dead-ends sometimes, cultish little communities where any dissent is akin to heresy.  I've been banned from at least one Paleo Facebook group for questioning their orthodoxy.

Anyway, the point of this post....

Terracotta soldiers

I saw a documentary this week about the Terracotta Soldiers.  A couple of thousand years old, these statues were buried with a Chinese Emperor to guard him in the afterlife.  They are amazingly complex, not mass produced, but with unique facial features.  Looking at the statues and how they were made has revealed a lot about the society that made them.  The soldiers were also buried with weapons.

The Crossbow Trigger

A key weapon for this empire apparently was the crossbow.  The documentary explained how the crossbow was a supremely powerful and accurate weapon, yet was very simple.  There was a metal trigger mechanism which could be manufactured on a mass scale and then dropped into the body of the bow.

Reliable with few moving parts

The programme stressed how elegant the trigger was.  It did its job without complexity.  It was effective and reliable.

What is your crossbow trigger?

In the world of fitness and exercise we are faced with an endless stream of exercises, programmes, diets and treatments.  There is new equipment to try and exciting classes to attend.  Special programming and periodisation.  Hot yoga, pilates, crossfit.....HIT, RKC.  One thing it is not is simple.  Most of us need a crossbow trigger of exercise.  Something simple effective and reliable.

Your workouts are over-engineered

For me at the moment, I am a lot less dogmatic about exercise.  However for the simplest effect perhaps I would propose:

Walk...lots as part of your everyday and as exercise and as recreation.

Push - pushups, planks

Pull - a towel row, batwings....

Bend - a bridge.....

It is basically Hillfit I think, but something like Dan John recommends here would be fine.

Movement in this world is so unusual I just want people to be active!  There is so much mystique about exercise, so much over-engineering of what should be and only needs to be so simple.  We think our training needs to be complex.  It doesn't.  Most of us are not athletes whatever the inspirational posters tell us.

Over-engineering workouts....it gives the trainer some mystery secret to sell.