Day 2 at the MBG Intensive. It happened.

When I first got an invite from Jon Hinds of the Monkey Bar Gym and Jessica Rucker his lead trainer to come to the current MBG (Certified Natural Trainer) Intensive back in June, it wasn’t even a question that I wanted to be there.

After just meeting up with Jon at couple local events in NJ (Jon and Jessica are from Wisconsin), at first I was ready to change my plans and go.

When you get a chance to train with Jon Hinds and Jessica Rucker you take that opportunity seriously. You’ll never learn fitness the way you’ll learn it from Jon and Jessica – they are are among the top trainers in the country and you’ll know it quickly. They know how to train and progress.

But I had a family outing planned and I wanted to prioritize my family over anything else (something I haven’t always done in my life, but take great pride in today). I was also looking forward to slower intensity in August after a very intense first 6 months of the year that came to a crescendo in July.

As you may know, one of the things we manage to in a Performance Lifestyle is staying out of the downward energy trend for significant periods of time. The downward energy trend undermines your ability to function and perform well, and I was in one of those trends, relatively deep, by the end of July.

Then my nephew qualified for nationals in soccer and my sister’s family was now on their way to Kansas, postponing our family event, so naturally I felt compelled to join Jon at the intensive.

Now in my annual periodization schedule going into the downward energy trend somewhat is not all that out of the ordinary as I head into August. It’s the end of a peak quarter for me in my business, and it’s not unusual for me to be in need of an extended rejuvenation period to prepare for the second half of the year.

Its not that you won’t get run down from time to time even proactively living a performance lifestyle, that’s natural; it’s a question of how long you stay there and what you do to correct course.

It’s not that you’re not motivated when you can’t follow through and you find it hard to keep things together, it’s that you’re in need of regeneration. Nothing can arrest your capacity to function and perform well more, and leave you prone to injury than lack or recovery.

And it happened to me…

The first day of the Intensive was awesome and the second day was even better, at the start, but for me, after day 1, I am injured.  I never got a chance to post yesterday because I literally couldn’t get up.

JAM Injured

Coming into the week, I was concerned about tweaking old injuries, even though I have taken steps in the past year to minimize the chronic nature of these old injuries through bodywork.

What I hadn’t done, was fix the underlying misalignments that were causing them to remain chronic and ready to flare when just the right stress was there… and low and behold, I tweaked an old injury in my back, even while being careful!

It had nothing to do with the training or whether I was taking the right progressions (that’s a cardinal rule in the MBG 3 Training System). I was.

Earlier in the day I was standing on my hands which I had worked up to for the previous two days.

John Allen in Handstand

The reason I got injured was because this progressive way of training has not been part of my regular schedule (including yoga every day) and my physical condition, in recent months, has declined due to work load and lack of rejuvenation.

I knew it, and Jon knew it it too. I showed up out of alignment, and in a relatively run down condition, which as you will learn on this blog is almost always coupled with extra pounds. Yeah, I need to lose some weight.

Understanding my present situation…

In the past two months, I went into a downward energy trend that had a hold on me for a variety of reasons I won’t get into in this post. It gained further momentum because my planned vacation in July turned into a business trip (super busy schedule) on top of the fact that I had to complete the go live version of the new www.NutrientRich.com, which was supposed to be done the Friday before I left, and my vacation was no more.

It was at once an exciting time and an incredibly frustrating time at the same time. I was excited to launch our new site about eating nutrient rich foods (a cornerstone of a Performance Lifestyle), but I was doing it at a time when my vital energy was very low and in desperate need of recuperation.  This led to lets say,  very “touchy” behavior.

My outlook and attitude started to crash along with my body. It’s what happens when you don’t or can’t manage your energy well, faced with circumstances, that affect you like these affected me.

So here I am in Madison in a condition that was going to be easily aggravated by just enough stress to put it over the edge, and it happened. I aggravated my back doing kettle bells.

If you don’t know what Kettle Bells are, here’s a pic from the training. That’ Jessica Rucker teaching the progressions to use them safely.

Jessica Rucker Teaching Kettle Bells

So what is this all going to mean for me? Obviously I can’t train today as planned. I’m here in Madison, I want to learn as much as I can from collaboratively Jon, Jessica and the other trainers getting certified.

There’s a little ego involved although not that much. Although yesterday, in my frustration over my repeat injury (which was my responsibility) that had me feeling like an old man amidst my younger training partners, my ego had a firm grip on me. I left the gym and went back to my room and just lied flat and fell asleep wondering what was going to happen next.

Then the next phase of the episode unfolded. Jon who just finished leading the training seminar, and knew I left, came back to the condo to see what was up.

I’ll share what happened in my next post.

Filed Under: Activate and Strengthen • Featured • Periodize Your Schedule

Tags: Certified Natural Trainer, Jessic Rucker., Jon Hinds, Monkey Bar Gym