http://www.gymjones.com/knowledge/article/philosophy/
THE GYM JONES TRAINING PHILOSOPHY
BY MARK TWIGHT
The training and fitness recommendations herein are based on our field experience, analysis of the results we see here, and our own research. This is the Gym Jones training philosophy in ten easy points:
1)The mind is primary
2)Outcome-based training (train for an objective)
3)Functional training (high degree of transferability)
4)Movements not muscles (transferable training does not isolate muscles)
5)Power-to-weight ratio (you must carry the engine)
6)Train all energy systems (emphasize the important but not at the expense of others)
7)Training is preparation for the real thing (train FOR something)
8)The mind is primary II (confidence, chemicals, carriage)
9)Nutrition is the foundation (eat for an objective)
10)Recovery is more than 50% of the process
Because my roots are in the mountains the Gym Jones training philosophy is not unlike climbing a new route up a steep and difficult wall: how can we best solve this problem? What will be the safest, fastest, and given our resources and the conditions, the most efficient route to the top? We approach individual sport or work-related challenges in the same way.
Each mountain and each route presents different challenges even if rock, snow, ice, and weather are a common theme, and we use hands and feet to move upward in the same way. Each individual and each performance objective presents different challenges and conditions even if increased power, endurance, speed, skill, and tenacity are a common theme, and we use similar methods to express it.
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We often see experts apply a rigid 'solution' to a problem while being closed-minded to other possibilities. Sometimes it takes creativity to resolve issues. Often, that creativity keeps the mind alive and inquisitive during what could become monotonous training.
We address each problem with a degree of flexibility. We understand that everything which has come and gone, or been done before may be useful but it may be a distraction. Knowledge and expertise are tricky things: being keys to locks and also bars on cages. What we know and believe can just as easily help us solve problems and achieve objectives as it can enslave us to automatic, thoughtless response. Questions open the mind. Answers may either free or close it. The closed mind stagnates, and repeats its meager experience over and over.
We often see experts apply a rigid 'solution' to particular and similar problems while being closed-minded to other possibilities. Expert knowledge can be the finest weapon or the worst sort of prison. Mired in details, we are blind to the principle. Too focused on individual steps of the path we lose sight of the fundamental values and lose also the Way.
We are suspicious of systems. We are skeptical of systemizing that which is and should be organic. While one cannot create a training program and track its results without numbers and science, such a system is not the only way to achieve appropriate fitness. For over 15 years I meticulously tweaked and logged everything that might affect my fitness. However, I did so with the ultimate goal being to free myself of the need to do so. Learning how and when and why taught me the Way, and set me free. This is our objective.