Advanced 5MM

[Steven Barnes]

Once you have the basic program in place, begin to experiment with adding exercises. Do NOT forget some variation on the "Be Breathed" motions, but if you increase your sessions to, say, two minutes, you can add a strength-building activity. Pavel's terrific new "Naked Warrior" book suggests one-armed pushups and one-legged squats as possibilities. If those are too tough, any exercise you can do no more than 5 reps of will work well. The trick is that increasing strength is partially a modification of the muscular tissue (building stronger ligament attachments, etc.) and partially an increase in neurological efficiency. This second possibility gives us our best bet. there is a possibility of increasing endurance as well, but your humble author is currently experimenting with the approach. For instance, if 100-rep Club Bell swings represent a serious cardio workout, you can use the "Density" protocol to bring this down to a mini-cycle level: double that number (200) and break it into chunks, (say, 10 sets of 20, performing one set per minute). In the "Five Minute Miracle" format, you might try doing 5 sets of 40 over the course of a day. My suspicion is that if you choose the resistence carefully, you can have a measurable impact on cardio without a workout of traditional duration. The trick would be using an exercise that actually challenges the entire system, one that forces you to learn how your body actually works. But this is experimental, and I'll keep you posted.
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The next minute should be meditation. Sixty seconds of stilling your mind. Listening to your heartbeat can be terrific with this. So now you have a "Fifteen Minute Miracle"--one minute of Be Breathed, one minute of a challenging whole-body strength (or possibly--just possibly, endurance) activity, and one minute of meditation.
so now you've got: Mental health (meditation), Physical health (Be Breathed), and the beginnings of fitness (strength move)

If you are doing the Tibetans in the morning, and practising Be Breathed as recommended, the addition of a powerful strength move (say, Clubbell or Kettlebell-type exercise) you can actually re-shape your entire body and life in under 30 minutes a day. Not bad!

[Mythos]

Hi Steve.

I went to Amazon.com and read about Pavel's book, The Naked Warrior. It looks interesting, but I'm thinking that maybe it's geared more towards men, like my husband would get more out of it than me. I'm interested in toning, yes, but I'm mostly looking at weight loss goals. Would a book like that help someone like me? Or what would you recommend for weight loss in addition to the "Be Breathed" and Tibetan exercises, just the normal walking or running workout?

Thanks.

[Steven Barnes]

I would say that "Naked Warrior" is best for people who specifically wish to increase muscle tone. Note that most "body shaping" workouts for women greatly underestimate a woman's potential for strength. Muscle tone is responsible for shape and lift. However, "NW" is pretty hard-core! Now, then, losing weight is a matter of "balancing the metabolic checkbook"--in other words, controlling the number of calories burned as opposed to those assimilated. If weight loss (or weight normalization) is desired, you must control BOTH ends of this two-headed snake: both intake (diet) and output (lifestyle and exercise). First look at diet--keeping a journal, even without trying to limit your intake, is great--simply eliminating unconscious eating will do wonders!. Find a lifestyle eating plan you can stick with. Avoid "fad diets" like the plague. Any short-term diet is doomed to failure. Aim at health, and energy, and aliveness.
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In terms of exercise, the best aerobic exercise for health is probably walking (due to its availability). Walking hills is even better! Running is great for fitness, but because of the jarring, non-optimal for health. (I love it, though!). Find something you enjoy, and that will get you sweating. In general, just find a way to sweat every day. The general rule is 3 30-minute workouts a week minimum. The first 20 minutes, you're burning sugar. After that, you burn fat. The 5MM breathing technique is GREAT to practise while walking. Work on making your movements breathe YOU. Posture, smoothness of gait, and energy will improve. You also turn walking into an ab exercise! Don't exaggerate the movement, make it slight, and turn it over to your unconcious as soon as possible--enjoy the walk, the scenery, your companion. Enjoyment is CRITICAL to sustaining an exercise program. Slow and sure wins the race.

Steve

[Hobbes]

Hoping this topic can be revived - any feedback on adding a second "endurance" minute as noted above?

[Steven Barnes]

Endurance activities are tricky. Muscular endurance limits can be reached in 60 seconds only in relatively untrained people. Cardiovascular endurance levels are only broached after about 15 mintues (usually. On the other hand, 15 minutes of "ladders" with a kettlebell will fry your butt!) So it is quite hard to work endurance in the traditional sense in the 5MM. what you CAN do is work on relaxation, and your breathing technique. Proper breathing technique will increase your functional endurance quite a bit, as will knowing how to relax and stay centered under emotional or physiological stress. "Lifestyle" endurance can be reached by walking a mile or two a day, gardening for an hour, dancing to several songs a day, etc., while integrating breathing. But if you want to jump-start your metabolism or increase sports endurance, you need to move into the zone where the pressure exceeds normal. Where you can talk, but you can't sing. Where you are sweating. That is where your body is really forced to adjust, and you synchronize your physical and mental rhythms.