Old MacDonald

First of all I would like to thank all of you reading this blog, specially those who take the time to comment and send me encouraging messages, I am very grateful. I’ve reached over 1,000 views, which seems like an impossibly large number for a simple story.

The most frequent question I get of my stay in China is how hard is the training and if I’m getting super fit; the short answer is (i) very hard and (ii) getting there. The training has two parts: the fitness/ conditioning and the Shaolin, and in both we do variations of what I now call the ‘Farm Exercises’.

All of our training is outdoors, frequently on hills or stairs, and we only use body weight or a partner. All ‘farm exercises’ (which are of course named after animals) sound deceptively easy but are extremely hard, let me describe them for you:

Piggy backs:

Choose a partner of a similar weight (I of course always get someone heavier since I’m the lightest here) and carry them on your back. We do this up a 400mt hill or up the stairs with 50 squats at the end. On my first week, this was impossible to do, I think I managed 50mt before stopping and swapping places; last time we did this I walked the entire 400mt non-stop!

Bunny hops:

Squat down with your butt almost touching the floor and your hills off the floor; do small jumps forward, keeping your weight on the balls of your feet and  your butt close to the floor at all times. We do lengths of about 100mt or in between other exercises.

Frog jumps:

Start at the same position as the bunny hops, but this time jump as high and as far as you can, raising your hands above your head as you jump and landing to the same starting position. We do this up and downhill for lengths of about 100mt to 200mt.

Bear crawls:

These are an absolute nightmare, always done up and down hills and stairs. Start on a plank position with your hands on the ground and make your way upwards or downwards, trying to keep your body as flat as possible. Really scary to do this down steep stairs.

Crab walk:

Sit on the floor and place your hands behind your back; now lift your butt off the floor and walk with both feet and hands without sitting down. Again this is done both up and down hills and stairs. I’m particularly good at this exercise, I’m the fastest crab walker in town!

Duck walk:

Start in a squat position with your butt close to the ground; staying low and with our back straight advance with one leg at a time. We do lengths of about 100mt.

Spider walk:

Start in a push-up position, move your right hand and left foot forward and lower your body to perform a spider push-up; now switch arms and legs (left arm, right leg), always moving forward, push-up and switch. This requires quite a bit of coordination, specially to do it fast when we’re in teams doing relays.

The good thing about all these exercises is that there is no need for gym equipment and they really develop a lot of strength, specially the lower body power needed for the fancy Shaolin spinning kicks.