Wholistic Fitness

in this Mountain Yogi’s warped sense of the Sport Physiology principle of “Train high, sleep low,” i do my Long Threshold Intervals during this time of the season at 8,650′ which is a little over a thousand vertical feet higher than where i sleep each night.

according to the current crop of textbook infused Exercise Physiologists, it’s really a dumb idea to live at altitude, train at altitude, and compete at altitude. using all sorts of PowerPoint® graphics, these non-weathered Beings – harmless as they are impotent – point out such debilitating factors to chronic high altitude living and training cardiac output and blood flow to skeletal muscles decrease, depression of immune function and increased tissue damage mediated by oxidative stress. it’s really hard for me to keep stifling the giggles as i continue through the years to read this same old stuff.

and that’s not all.

there’s more, according to these Hunched Spine Intellectuals; decreases in absolute training intensity, decreased plasma volume, depression of hemopoiesis and increased hemolysis, increases in sympathetically mediated glycogen depletion, and increased respiratory muscle work.

in addition, the Hunched-Backs add, there is a risk of developing more serious medical complications at altitude, which include acute mountain sickness, pulmonary edema, cardiac arrhythmias, and cerebral hypoxia. the possible implications of changes in immune function at altitude have also been largely ignored, despite what ‘they’ say is an “accumulating evidence of hypoxia mediated immunosuppression.”

apparently, ‘they’ have not been following Direct Lines for the past 30 years.

scientists disregard ilg’s antics. perhaps due to their seemingly inherent ability to grock versatility and wholeness unbounded by cultural and spiritual boundaries causes them to shake their massive heads and cast me off…irregardless of that Special Something which knocks beyond their intellectual hides when they perform even a cursory study of WF.

dat’s okay.

like my astral-hero Jonathon Livingston Seagull, i am absolutely alone as i ply the energy-saving “V1” Skate Ski Technique in sync with my breath-based Mantra as i make the 600′ pilgrimage from the Flagstaff Nordic Center ski lodge to my lonely Ski Interval Loop. ilg does not wear iPods nor do i take motivational sustenance for my upcoming huge effort during Interval Days(Daze) from anything other than the absolutely scintillating scenery of snow covered ponderosa/aspen wildness.

perched at the very tip top of “Peak – A – View” trail – a stunningly beautiful kilometer loop at the highest point of the Nordic Center – i set my stopwatch, take a deep, pressured Cleansing Breath and launch head first into the first of eight (one for each Realm of Beings) Zone 4 Skate Ski Intervals.

each Interval is supposed to last 8 minutes. however, fatigue inevitably soon sloppies everything about me faster than Tiger Woods hittin’ a dang fire hydrant. interval training is Bardo Training. intervals are intended to demolish each aspect of the two lower selves; the body and mind and then penetrate like a Dharma Sword swung by Manjushree Himself into the Spirit. on my best intervals; only the Mantra remains. usually, however, even the Mantra is exploded by the sheer pressure of pain.

by maximizing consciousness throughout high altitude Zone 4 Long Intervals, the very finest filaments of said consciousness quiver like quarks and inspire the very root of what will matter most in our own Bardo Entry; Recognition of the selfless Self. on the physical side of things? hec, by the end of the 8 x 8-minute intervals? i’ll lose well over a minute to the intended logistics.

so be it. that matters not to a spiritual athlete. what matters is the training of the Sacred.

ask any of the scientists and ask any of the numerous elite and Olympic athletes who wisely take refuge in Flagstaff about the positive scientific investigations on the optimization of altitude acclimatization and inevitably they will point to other PowerPoint® things they’ve absorbed such as increases in blood hemoglobin concentration, elevated buffering capacity, and improvements in the structural and biochemical properties of skeletal muscle.

what they will not speak about is something far more beautiful, more powerful, and most importantly, far more sacred than all the muscle/oxygen based theories.

they won’t speak about the value of Pran beneath the Sacred Peak of Doko Oosliid.

that’s because they are not trained in Pranic studies. they are largely ignorant of the single most priceless and precious part of being in a human incarnation; the ability to transcend and transform human limitations and suffering through pranic development.

they don’t see it
cuz they haven’t had Dharma Teachings to balance their Intellectual Teachings.
i reckon most of them are literally scared-stiff of Dharma based Performance Paths like WF and HP Yoga. sport-specific athletes and scientists are like that; literally scared stiff of opening up.

dat’s okay.
next (life)time…(if we are so Blessed,right?)

of course, ilg would love to establish a Wholistic Fitness® Institute up here in the rarefied ether of Kinlani. i would lovingly embrace and begin inviting great athletes, yogis, and scientists to come, gather, train, and begin the Real Work of the next evolutionary step of Human Performance; the merging of Prana/Nadic-based studies with that of Muscle/Oxygen-based studies.

until then?

well,
once per week,
ilg will still climb high over the rest of the chattering, perform a Pranayam, set my stopwatch, tether my mind to my Breath and launch head first into the first of many excruciatingly painful, beautiful Zone 4 Intervals…
high above “the rest.”

Train High,
Rest Low.

whatever that means to Thee?

Just do it.

Theoretical advantages and disadvantages of altitude training for sea level performance have been proposed. While theory is strong and frequent, consistent evidence of a beneficial sea level effect does not exist. Ilg asks, why care so much about ‘sea-level’ performance when the real podium of Human Beings is Enlightenment? The most spiritually advanced and most astonishing (spiritual) athletes come from a culture living at nearly 13,000′ on the Tibetan Plateau. Feeble ilg asks, “why not center more studies on the pranic saturation effects instead of seeing altitude within and limited to a muscle/oxygen paradigm?”

photo of ilg by James Q. Martin