Squirrels can drink right from the fountain. Well at least they do at Balboa park! Behind the squirrel using the drinking fountain were a small, lovely flock of geese. They meandered about sipping at puddles left by the fountain by what I guess was the squirrel's poor aim and nibbling at the grass. What was so enthralling about them is how connected they were to, what Wayne Dyer calls, Intention. Intention is a conscious force (otherwise known as God) who is responsible for all things in existence. These geese are in complete harmony with nature, the environment, and God. They appeared to me as a reminder. I just stared at these marvelous creatures like Tony Soprano with the ducks from an early episode of the Soprano's. I was It was a cool, cloudy morning... And what in the Sam Hell does this have to do with exercise????

Everything and nothing...

In David Whitley's "101 Kettlebell Workouts" section two is called "30 Under 30." 30 Kettlebell Workouts that you can knock out in 30 minutes or less. We're doing them and are on #4. This workout #4 calls for One Legged Squats (Pistols), Clean and Press, and 5 sets of 20 swings.

If you, like me, are doing these workouts in order of appearance, you'll notice that it allows for active recovery and targets various styles of drills. One day is ballistic, like day 2. Yesterday was volume strength. The first day was strength and conditioning. Today was low volume strength. A perfect follow up to the higher volume I experienced yesterday.

The base lesson here is to stay in tune with your body, a part of nature, and in your training, realize that you don't have to go all out all the time. There's intensity and then there's reckless abandon. When you are in tune with your body you will recognize when to train hard and when to back off. When to focus on a tough grind or explosive ballistics. When to have short rest periods and when to take your time. This was one of those days. The geese reminded me to listen to nature and my body and conveniently, the order of these workouts allow for the naturally.

That being said, we focused on what I would call raw, brute strength with low volume...

The One Legged Squat, otherwise known as the Pistol. Made famous in Pavel Tsatsouline's book "The Naked Warrior". This is a drill of pure strength and requires 110% focus, concentration and body awareness. The goal? Standing on one leg, sit back and into a rock bottom squat and the come back up, all on one leg. Honestly, I'm not there yet? Why? I haven't practiced this drill enough. Plain and simple. I can get about 4/5's of the way down but the bottom out part and then standing up is still beyond my reach. So today knowing I had to perform some and would be training at the park, I brought my portable set of gymnastics rings and wrapped one around a pullup bar. I held the ring in front of me and squeezed the ring, my gut, my butt, and every part of my body. I created as much tension as possible. Keeping the strands loose, I slowly sat back into my one legged squat. When I got to my sticking point, I used the ring for balance. This was like a virtual spotter for me. It helped tremendously.

Since we were focusing on brute strength and tension, I decide to do Bottoms Up Presses. The workout calls for a set of clean and press, but it doesn't say what type of press, so, like the photo over there, I chose the Bottoms Up Press. However, I did use a 16kg instead of the beast in the photo. Next time though I will try it with a 24 as the 16 was a little too easy for me but it worked.

The next ting up is sets of swings. Since this workout turned out to be more about technique than anything, I used my 24kg bell to really focus on 3 things that I need to work on. Old habits die hard so I made it a point to not use my neck when I swing, keep my right foot totally straight and parallel with my left (it likes to creep out) and to squat back just a little later. At the top of the swing, let the bell start to fall backwards before sitting back. Subtle simple changes that can make a world of difference.

Food:

Yesterday we had 2 Shakes, a Fajita Bowl from Sharkey's with extra veggies and no beans or rice, and for dinner a grilled turkey breast with steamed broccoli with organic marinara sauce on top and a dusting of Parmesan cheese.  I also had a mixed green salad tossed in balsalmic because I was still a little hungry afterwards.

So that was Day 4.  If you'd like to get on board, head on over to irontamer.com and get yourself a copy of "101 Kettlebell Workouts" and get to work yourself!  Try it, it's free!

Visit me on the web at http://www.thepuravidacompany.com/

Thanks for following along...  Feel free to ask a question!