February’s StrengthAxis Program Design will be available on January 31, 2023.
The focus? Sustainable strength, power, and conditioning. The recipe? MED Simplicity.
$30 monthly is a minimal investment for a maximal return on your health and longevity. LFG.
High-performance training requires a modicum of functional maintenance. The adventure athlete must strive for proper muscle-length balance, adequate joint mobility, and sufficient strength ratios between prime movers and antagonists.
BOMBPROOF introduces adjunctive resiliency training designed to aid in athletic longevity. Detailing MED self-massage, warmups, strength resilience exercises, and post-workout stretching, BOMBPROOF assures continued outdoor athletic potential.
Rabbit Peak via Villager Peak. 12 hours. 23 miles. 8500’ elevation gain. 4300kcal.
BOMBPROOF 💣
BOMBPROOF: the quality of physical robustness and resilience for outdoor athletic demands.
Bombproof bolsters the readiness of the muscles, joints, tendons, and ligaments to prime the body, speed recovery, and ward off chronic injury. A 3x weekly investment of 30 minutes is the program minimum to achieve the desired BOMBPROOF results.
Program Goals
Athletic readiness leads to increased performance and progression with recovery as the limiting factor. Program design must include preventative and curative modalities that enhance the athlete’s general feeling of freshness and zestful motivation.
Pain Points
Because mountain athletics demand variable movement capabilities, pain points are likely to develop in the neck, shoulders, back, hips, thighs, calves, and feet. These high-use areas require mobility, flexibility, tissue resilience, and pre-workout priming.
BOMBPROOF focuses on three main areas for self-massage, warm ups, strength, and stretching. Although programmed in an MED fashion, it should be known that certain athletes might require more or less of the aforementioned strategies.
Resiliency Training Instructions
My goal as a coach is simplicity. Optimal training should honor the essentials and eliminate the superfluous. With this goal, self-massage, warming up, and strength resilience exercises should be completed during the first part of scheduled training.
This combination will serve as an adequate warm up while ensuring a <45min training block. Post workout stretching should be performed after training or prior to sleep to increase parasympathetic tone. Tighter athletes should stretch twice daily.
Rabbit Peak Summit: 6653’ Although not a big mountain peak, this climb required an all day approach and a final push of 500’ of elevation gain. I took into account multiple factors during this trip: fitness, trail conditions, weather, nutrition, and most importantly, strong hips, knees, and ankles for a brutal descent back to the car.
Massage
3x Per Week Prior to Training: 5-10 Minutes
Self-massage is performed with a focus on deep exhales as the athlete traces the lines of their muscle fibers. Perform self-massage with slow rolls away from the heart. When resetting, roll quickly toward the heart for proper lymphatic drainage.
All Images Courtesy of Gray’s Anatomy
Warm Up
For strength, conditioning, and outdoor training, warm ups will rely on a single kettlebell or bodyweight. The mountain athlete should set their intention to feeling a deep connection with their muscles and fully mobilizing the shoulders, spine, hips, knees, and ankles.
3x Per Week Prior to Training: 5-10 Minutes
Lower Body
Full Body
Strength Resilience Exercises
3x Per Week As Warm Up: 15 Minutes
BOMBPROOF Strength Resilience Exercises are focused on building strength, mobility, and flexibility in the shoulders, midsection, hips, knees, and ankles. These movements are essential for honing high-utility strength and durability for mountain pursuits.
Perform these movements in a circuit fashion without rest.
Upper Body
Lower Body
Full Body
Post Workout Stretching
3x Per Week After Training and/or Prior to Bed: 5-10 Minutes
Post Workout Stretching is the antidote to battling delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS). The selected MED stretches loosen high-use areas of the body while promoting blood flow. It is recommended that the athlete stretches daily, but 3x per week is the program minimum.
Upper Body
Lower Body
Full Body
The Goal is Longevity
It’s not about how much you do, but how well you do it. To reap the benefits of MED style training, the athlete must honor mindfulness in the entirety of their program. Lasting results are the product of dedicated effort, not short term solutions.
StrengthAxis’s modus operandi is to continually flirt with pushing oneself. However, the mountain athlete must maintain discipline, balancing their muscle-length balance, joint mobility, and strength ratios between prime movers and antagonists.
BOMBPROOF serves as the mountain athlete’s insurance policy. Depending on their sporting demands and adventure goals, one should add or subtract movements based on need. This template should serve as a good starting point for most people.
I’d love to know what you think of the program and how you might customize it to ensure your continued health and wellbeing in the mountains. For me, BOMBPROOF is my template; adding deeper quadriceps and calf stretching when needed.
John Parker
January 28, 2023