Just a (long-winded) intro post from a newbie here :-)

[Julien Le Nestour]

Intro

 

Hi everyone -

 

I just wanted to introduce myself to this great community before (hopefully!) posting some more :-) I'm a French 32 yo guy currently living in Sydney with his wife and 19 months daughter. Regarding training, I will train F1 and H1 in a cycle currently being determined. I'm coming to GST to continue improving my fitness, with the double constraints of

 

1) no more than 1h a day to dedicate - fully - to training, and

2) being able to work from home, or a park close by.

 

2 is a direct consequence of the main time constraint: I did go to a crossfit gym for a while. It was fantastic, but the 30mins bike rides each way were just making it too time-consuming with regards to my lifestyle. I've found that 1hr each day is the best I can do for formal training alone. On top of that, I'm sprinting uphill each day for 5 mins to pick-up our daughter at the daycare center and seizing every opportunity while playing outside with her to do some quick holds and stretches. Yes, even if that means doing it while pushing the swing or attracting funny looks while keeping an eye on her in the middle of all the other parents sipping their lattes on benches... Heck, when we're alone I'm chasing her in a bear crawl. She still escapes me and I still don't really dare to do it with more than 1 or 2 other parents present in the playground... ;-)

 

Regarding my athletic background, I did train in competitive gymnastics back when I was a child, but had to stop after 4 years after a serious injury done while stretching my middle split with our national-level-ass****-trainer on my back. I'm quite exceptionally rigid but they weren't convinced I was doing my best... Well, that put a stop to any competitive ambitions I had for any sports, but that did not stop me from remaining very active and training in basketball, judo and mountain-biking. All things outdoor as well. I almost completely stopped any fitness activity during my higher-education studies, done in the most competitive field in France. I just didn't have time to do anything else but work, eat and sleep - week-ends and holidays included. It did pay off and I went to the best school. But there I subbed work by party and fitness-wise it stayed the same. Except that I moved everywhere in Paris through rollerblades, raining or not, drunk or not. Not wise in retrospect, but it did gave me solid leg strenght and good balance. Then I went to work for a company which made me work and travel a lot, so it was more like work-travel-sleep. Not that hard a pace regarding work, but commuting between Europe and the US does take a toll. Then at some point I read Nassim Taleb's The Black Swan (which I highly recommend btw). In it, he mentionned Art de Vany's blog, which at the time (around 2007 I think), was an excellent resource for what is now the Paleo/Primal/Evolutionnary/insert your own buzz word lifestyle. I read everything, changed my diet, and started to exercise again. I wasn't overweight or out of shape by any means, but quickly discovered I was a skinny fat and lacked real strenght.

 

I started to exercise using the "Never Gymless" book by Ross Enamait. I really liked his style, and I needed something to work out and train to took into account my time in planes and hotel rooms. When my wife got an impossible-to-pass on job opportunity in Sydney, I had to quit my company/career. I took a 6-months break which recharged me completely, with plenty of sleep, outdoor activity and absolutely zero travel. I started Crossfit in a box here in Sydney. It was not your typical CF box, they have an individualized approach (and the price to go with it!). They were fantastic, but when our first daughter was born, I quickly discovered that spending 1 hr total to go to and back from the gym wasn't going to work... I had promised to myself NOT to stop training after the birth, no matter how tired I would be. In my plan, that meant CF at the gym. Well, that would have been ideal for me, but not possible. So I just went back to working out at home whenever I could have an at least 20 mins block for myself.

 

So now, that's what I mainly do. Lots of bodyweigth exercises, with rings work in the park or under my stairs. High intensity, but slow and cautious progress to higer exercises. I discovered this website while googling some exercises and was blown away by the quality of the posts and the material posted by Coach Summer. And now I've jumped on the F1/H1 bandwagon ;-)

 

I'm looking forward to interacting with you guys :-)

 

- Julien

[Klaudius Petrulis]

Welcome to the forum! I hope you enjoy your stay and learn a lot!

[Keilani Gutierrez]

I currently run 3-4 businesses and can only dedicate a small portion of my day to training. 

 

my dream is to create a sustainable business that can allow me the flexibility to do GST and Kung fu daily. 

 

welcome to the community my friend and it sounds like you have a beautiful family