Lucas Parker is a former CrossFit Games athlete and was famous for looking like a caveman.
He was big, strong and very hairy. He also had a boatload of movement charisma. He was almost feral in his body language, and when he competed, you wanted to watch.
Back in 2017, we had the pleasure of hosting him at Bua for a week. He ran a 3-day seminar for us and he hung out and trained for the rest of the week.
Watching him train was a bizarre and eye-opening experience.
On his first morning, he arrived to complete the first of his 3 daily training sessions. There was a buzz around the gym in anticipation of seeing this guy in full flight.
At 9am, he started warming up. By 10am, he was still moving at a snails pace, and we were becoming impatient. At 11, we were really wondering if everything was ok. By the time he tore into an Open workout repeat from 2011, it was almost midday and the buzz had well-and-truly evaporated.
This pattern of 2-3 hour warm ups followed by very short workout pieces continued over the coming days.
I spoke with him about this approach towards the end of the week.
“Man, what’s the story with the warm ups?”
And his response was straightforward and simple.
“In the gym, I want to build my body up. Not break it down.”
He talked about his positional integrity, the specific capacities he is aiming to develop. If he wants to do 3 workouts every day and survive in this sport for many years, he can’t afford to be sloppy. He was meticulously getting his body tuned to its optimal setting, one joint at a time, and then swinging hard at his training.
This approach, while seemingly excessive, had some clear thinking behind it.
At Bua, as we put the time into preparing for each of our daily workouts, there is some of the same thinking going on.
I know personally, whenever I rush a warm up, it costs me.
It can be anything from missing the stimulus of the day, to developing a niggle. There is also a feeling of hitting my groove just as the workout ends, which is annoying.
The daily priming of the body for its dose of stimulus has been part of our approach for many years and serves to drive daily adaptation while keeping g the wear and tear to a minimum.
This priming can be fun at times, tedious at others, but is always valuable.
An approach clearly endorsed by our caveman super-athlete.
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