Josh Hillis' Fat Loss and Fitness

Use filtro solar - Everybody is free to wear sunscreen

Rocky Balboa (Rocky 6) Trailer

If you're a fighter, or if you just want to get into "fighting shape", you absolutely have to check into full body lifts like the clean and jerk and the snatch.  Doesn't matter if you use kettlebells or barbells (Rocky uses both) or even dumbbells. 

Frank Miller movie 300 actor training - The 300 Workout

Not your average workout: Tire flipping, jumping, sprints with a jumpstretch band, runs with kettlebells, turkish get ups with kettlebells, medicine ball throwing, kipping pullups, bear crawls, tuck sits on gymnastics rings, barbell thrusters.  Real, oldschool, brutal - full body movements.

You'll notice they aren't doing any curls or tricep extensions, no machines, no pussy bodybuilding "watch yourself in the mirror exercises" crap.  It takes real world strength to flip tires and do pullups and squats and sprints.  Essentially, the actors were training for performance - and the look came with it. 

The average celebrity trainer would have trained the actors to look like Spartan Warriors - Mark Twight put the actors in 300 through workouts that would create the kind of strength and power they would need to be Spartan Warriors.

If you're not up on Mark Twight's gym, Gym Jones, you should check it out.  It's a trip.  Mark is a world class extreme alpinist.  He climbs mountains that no one else in the world has ever climbed before.  Ok, I'll do my best to sum up Mark's workout philisophy, as I understand it:  Mark believes that there is something that happens on a mountain - when you are totally exhausted and when your life is on the line - that strips away all of the pretense of our modern existance and all that is left is your humanity.  That only through pushing yourself to the absolute limit do you truly find out who you are.  He strives to create workouts that have that same kind of impact.  Hence the Gym Jones tagline: "Power, Speed, Endurance, Suffering and Salvation".

The now legendary "300 Reps Workout", a.k.a. "Spartans, tonight we dine in hell!"

25 pullups, 50 deadlifts with 135 pounds, 50 pushups, 50 jumps on a 24-inch box, 50 floor wipers, 50 single-arm clean-and-presses using a 36-pound kettlebell, and 25 more pullups.

A common misconception is that they did this workout over and over again.  Mark Twight isn't in to repeating workouts often with his athletes.  In fact, most of the workouts were probably randomzied.  They very rarely, if ever, would they do the same workout twice. 

The idea is to do this workout for time - and if you did ever go through the hell of repeating a workout, to try and beat your time from before.  Like a race.  Speed, power and intensity are the keys here. Ideally you'd complete the circuits in around 20 minutes.

"The 300 Reps Workout" should give you a little bit of a flavor of the workouts the actors from 300 did at Gym Jones.

"You know that every bead of sweat falling off your head, every weight you've pumped -- the history of that is all in your eyes," says Gerard Butler, who played King Leonidas. "That was a great thing, to put on that cape and put on that helmet, and not have to think, Shit, I should have trained more. Instead, I was standing there feeling like a lion."

How To Get Started Training Like One of the 300

Ok, so lets say you want that "spartan warrior" kind of strength - If you are new to full body lifts, you may be wondering where to start.  Kettlebells?  Bodyweight?  Sandbags?  Tires?  Gymnastics rings?  Hey I'd grab on to any one of them that you can get good instruction on.

Without a doubt, the best way (if you've got the nuts) would be to go to Gym Jones and stand on the porch - just like Fight Club.

If you're too far from Salt Lake to train at Gym Jones, then here is where to start:  Start off with 50 or 100 reps of the 300 workout.  Done at speed, 100 reps is easily enough to crush the average gym goer - so take it easy the first time.  You can push the pace and increase the reps after a couple months.  And I wouldn't do this exact workout more than once a week.  My preference would be to do it even less often than that - to use it as a test once a month.

You're probably pretty familiar with pullups, box jumps, and pushups - so lets get you some solid instruction on the hardcore full body lifts you may not be good at - the kettlebell clean and press and the deadlift.  Both exercises that you need to learn how to do correctly. 

If you aren't familiar with solid full body lifting, you have a few choices: 1.) Fly out to Gym Jones.  2.) Get some personal coaching from a Powerlifter, Olympic Weightlifter, Strongman, or Highland Games Athlete, 3.) Get some solid instructional material. You absolulely need to learn to do full body lifting if you want to take on workouts like "300".

Enter the kettlebell is literally an entire book on the kettlebell clean and press.
-  In The New Rules of Lifting by Lou Schuler and Alwyn Cosgrove, they talk about that the only study that Lou has ever seen where athletes lost fat and gained muscle at the same time the athletes used only snatches and clean and jerks and their variations.  Enter the Kettlebell teaches the kettlebell clean, press and snatch - essential full body lifts.

Power to the People is literally the best video there is on deadlifting:
-deadlifts are absolutely essential to the 300 reps workout.  Deadlifts are one of the best exercises there is if you want that Spartan Warrior look - and if you want to really be as strong as you look.  Deadlift correctly = get the body.  Deadlift incorrectly = jack your back up in a bad way.  You need to learn how to do it right.

Check out: The 300 Workout: Part 2

 

By Josh Hillis
Author of How To Lose The Stubborn Seven Pounds: Take Your Body from Good to Rockstar.
I'm a specialist in getting my clients lean, fast.  I usually work the hardest clients to lean out - girls who are already in good shape.  I like the challenge.  It's actually easier to lean out guys because guys naturally carry more muscle.  My book is about how anyone can get that that lean, rockstar body.

© Joshua Hillis 2007

 

Rocky Balboa "It's about how hard you can get hit"

Life will bring you to your knees and keep you there.  Permanently.  If you let it.
It's not about how hard you hit.  It's about how hard you can get hit.  And keep moving forward.  Keep moving forward.
If you know what you're worth, go out and get it.  But you have to be willing to take the hit.

My other Rocky Balboa Articles:
The Rocky Balboa Workout
The Rocky Balboa Movie Trailer
Rocky/Sly fan edited training clip

Rocky Balboa (Rocky 6) Fan Edited Training Clip

"Pure Imagination" from Willy Wonka, at Burning Man

I Dare You Not To Laugh - It's Impossible

Mutiny On The Rings II

Mutiny On The Rings II

Free Hugs Campaign

It's a fun video, but when I looked into it a little, I was really impressed at how far reaching the impact had been - "free hugs day" in 24 countries. Pretty cool for one guy with a sign who just wanted to make some people smile and create some random acts of kindness.

It's also interesting because when I first saw the video I was suspicious, at first I was like "what's the frree hugs thing all about?" How sad is that. And that the city of Sydney tried to bad free hugs, and he had to petition to get it back. I think that even with the growing number of people who are creating totally altruistic organizations and events, it still seems unusual. So unusual that Juan Mann (psuedoname - "one man") lands on Oprah and Good Morning America, and free jugs days sprout up all over the world.

Another thing I think is cool is the band The Sick Puppies. The lead singer was working in the mall when Juan Mann starting giving out his free hugs. So he brought in a video camera, and filmed it. Put the footage to his band's music. Puts it up on YouTube... and then the next thing you know you have multiple countries and international press. That's also an interesting commentary on the what YouTube has made available. If an idea is good, and it's well presented (the music in the background really helps) then YouTube can drive international publicity. It's funny to think of Oprah trolling YouTube for humanitarian videos.

Nike "Instant Karma" Commercial from 1992