The WOW – “The Flow-Intervals Workout”

Good Morning Everyone! To kick off another week of achieving AWESOME, let’s get into a workout! This is going to be a “flow workout”.

This week, for the week of 10/29/18 we are going to get into a concept called Flow State. This the “The Flow-Interevals Workout” from GoodAttitudeFood.com

The Music This Week – Zen Chillstep

Music is a super-important part of my workouts, and my life. When I was a student I used music to put me in a “flow state” to study. When I am at work I use music for the same. I definately use music to enhance my workouts.

For the workout music this week I am using a Zen Chillstep video from Pulse8. Pluse8 has tons of “Chill” music playlists on their free YouTube Channel – please check out their awesome videos!

The Workout: Find Your Flow

The Monday, Wednesday, Friday Intervals:

On M, W, F the workout consists of eight sets of “tabata-flow”

*”Tabata-flow” intervals: Don’t max out, work at a hard pace that is challenging, but one that you can maintain. Normal Tabata tells us to max out; for this workout we are trying to work in “flow” – more later on this idea…

5 Tabata sets on the spin bike; or choice of exercise equipment/movement

Over/under FTP – My “flow” is about 85% max intensity, and about 65% lighter intensity when I do tabata-flow intervals – this is probably a bit under my “true-FTP”. Check out this video for the GCN if you are not sure what FTP is – GCN my first stop resource for cycling workouts or training questions. They have TONS of awesome free media!

One could do “tabata-flow” on a treadmill, or if you don’t have a machine, walk/jog, jump rope, fake jump rope, hop around…whatever works if you just move for 20 seconds at about “85% intensity” and 10 seconds at about “65% intensity”.

3 rounds: “Tabata-flow” resistance band work – don’t kill it, keep it in “flow”

*Anchor resistance band – I use my bike, one could use a door or other heavy object.

I use the 30lbs resistance band in my set for this workout. We are not killing it. We are getting into “flow”. We want some resistance, but want to be able to maintain without excess strain through these reps.

Do four reps of each exercise for one set. Then repeat the whole set three times to finish the workout.

• Exercise 1: Chest Butterflies
• Exercise 2: Back Butterflies (same movement, but spin around so you contract the back muscles instead of chest muscles)
• Exercise 3: Standing bench press
• Exercise 4: Standing pull-backs (reverse movement of the bench press, just turn around so you are pulling instead of pushing)
• Exercise 5: Big overhand rights from boxer stance
• Exercise 6: Big overhand lefts from boxer stance – switch stance
• Exercise 7: Punch combos – jab-cross, 1-2, 1-2, 1-2…
• Exercise 8: Punch combos – jab-cross-left upper, right upper – 1-2-5-6, 1-2-5-6….

The Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Intervals: Keep it in Flow

For Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday we are going to be doing freestyle “fight moves” intervals.

Set your interval timers for 20 reps of 45-seconds by 15-seconds. If you have weighted gloves or hand weights, use them. I am using my Ringside Brand weighted gloves. I am listening to another “Zen Chillstep” video.

For the workout I am mixing in freestyle shadowboxing combos with a few rounds of squat jumps, jumping switch lunges, regular squats, and I am adding in burpees this week!

* 5 reps of 20 have to be burpees this week!

Everything else can be whatevever; knees, kicks, punches, shoots.

Work at 85% intensity for 45 seconds and then work at about 65% intensity for the 15 seconds. This is “free-style” movements really. Find your own flow!

That’s the workout! Now I want to talk a little about the whole “Flow” idea.

What is Flow?

“Flow” is a state that we can get into where we have the right amount of challange, entertainment, excitement, and focus. I think of this as my personal concept of “zen”. Zen and flow are kind of the same thing to me. Both are a state when I feel optimally challenged to work at our most efficient state.

Most people have experienced flow. When at work on a busy day where, working hard, time is buzzing by; then you at a clock and see three hours have passed without you noticing it. That is “flow”.

I think it’s the right amount of stimulus, mixed with our brain’s own personal way of finding the right amount of efficient effort to put towards solving that specific issue or problem.

Firas Zahabi and Flow workouts

The idea for this “flow-state” workout actually came from a trainer I heard talking on the Joe Rogan podcast; Firas Zahabi. If you have 20 minutes, that video will explain this idea way better than me! I really like his idea that you should be able to train everyday and never be sore so I started looking a little more into Zahabi. Flow training is about trying to find the right amount of exercision and the rigth amount of effort to make the most fun and efficient workout. Then being able to maintain that type of training over periods of time while not being sore or needing days off.

Tristar Gym

Zahabi runs a facility in Canada called Tristar Gym. He has coached many people, but most notabily the amazing fighter George Saint Piere (GSP). Zahabi’s coaching style and ideas seemed abstract to me when thinking about MMA training. His idea of flow state training is really smart. It makes me think I have been working out wrong for a while!

More Info on Zahabi

In researching Zahabi, I came across a site that was called “Killing Buddha”. This site has some great interviews with the coach. If you want to know more about him, please check out the link!

An Interesting Concept…

The “killing buddha” thing was weird to me, and intregued me. I knew I had heard it somewhere but needed more context. So, I fired up my “google-machine” and discovered this is a Chinese Proverb that has been attributed to a 9th Century Buddhist Monk.

If you meet The Buddha on the road, kill him. Chinese Proverb 

What the heck does that mean??

It is definately not meant to be literal! It might be an odd translation thing into English. Certainly we are not supposed to go around killing. The meaning is much deeper.

Concept

***My commentary is nothing to do with religion here – this is only an analysis of a concept. Do not read anything else into this.

First, we have to take the idea of Buddha as a religious God (in the Western idea of God) out of the equation. This is not talking about God, like the idea of “The All Powerful Father” in the Heavens looking down on Earth. The Monk who said this did not think of “Buddha” in that way.

My interpretation of “The Buddha” here is something more like “if you come to a plateau, or a crossroads, or a challange along your path … “

“The road” is your personal path through life.

Maybe this statement is like Bruce Lee’s famous quote about plateaus in life.

If you always put limit on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your life. THERE ARE NO LIMITS. There are only Plateaus, And you must not stay there. You must go beyond them ~Bruce Lee 

An Obstacle in the Path?

A “Buddha” in the road might be a situation we need to overcome. Maybe it’s a concept of what we think something is supposed to be (but we really have no control over that outcome), a goal we have, or some other outcome we want.  Maybe a preconceived expectation of how we want something to happen. It could be something that has us stuck for a while.

As we go along our paths, unexpected things will happen. We should detach ourself from expectations that we cannot control. Those things will try to knock us away from our path. We need to find a way to persist and overcome.

This reminds me of one of my favorite Les Brown talks – where he talks about Murphy’s Law, maybe a “Buddha” along the path is like Murphy’s Law, or an event that happened which we couldn’t control.

One possible conclusion…

We need to overcome the things that try to knock us off the path in order to become who we are meant to be. It should be our goal on the path to not let things deter us. As we continue on our path, there will always be another challenge to overcome. I think the “killing buddha” concept is really about continuous self-improvement from within, and letting go of exptactions of things we cannot control, as we move along the path of our lives.

Woooo – ok that got DEEEEEP 🙂 … I don’t know if I have interpretted correctly but that’s what I think…

Maybe this whole “buddha in the road” thing just means “try to find your flow state and use it solve the problems you encounter”… ? I don’t know if there is a right or wrong answer. It could be a different answer for every different individual. A different direction for every personal path.

Thank you SO much for reading!

There you have if my friends; The WOW for the week of 10/29/18. A HUGE Thank you and shout out to all the amazing free media contributors this week. Please check out the links and support them! Remember you can start to be the hero of your story today! Until next time, be happy and healthy my friends – and find your “Flow”! 🙂