What is Sacred Training?

Sacred Training is an approach to personal fitness training which combines time-honored precepts of diet, modern prescriptions of exercise, and spiritual linkage across the sum of its parts. Having worked with dozens of coaches and trainers throughout my life I have a pretty good idea of how the masses operate. No pain, no gain. 110%. Go big or go home. While these foci make sense in the short term they have little merit when it comes to developing long range, sustainable goals for personal fitness.

Think about it. Contrast the human body to a plant. If a flower flooded with water would it develop as healthfully as possible? If an herb were overexposed to UVA and UVB rays would it progress all the better? While it nature must receive some water and some sunlight, too much of either can be detrimental if not deadly.

Much is the same when it comes to the human body and fitness. Crash diets, brutal exercise, and extremely intense heavy lifting wreak havoc on our systems. Through the careful application of nutrition and diet we may be able to sustain gains and life for a period, even years, but eventually our bodies resign to the abuse. Ask a bodybuilder who has undergone heart surgery. Ask a decommissioned athlete who suffered one too many acute injuries.

Ask me.

In August 2010 I was in my physical prime. I was engaging in strength training 7 days per week. I weighed 210 with 14% body fat and enjoyed my daily helping of 200+ grams of whey protein. I was suddenly diagnosed with liver failure and given weeks to live without a transplant. I watched my family in tears as I brushed up my last will and testament.

As fate and my physician would have it (Dr. Gary E. Foresman) I did not die nor receive a new liver. I instead reversed liver failure. Using probiotics, organic raw low protein diet, massage, meditation, and rest, under the controlled direction of my medical advisor, I survived against all odds. I am a healthier and wiser person for it, and I am left wondering - what caused it?

While I may not know for certain what tipped the scale for my liver, I realize that I was simply not exercising SMART, nor eating SMART, nor thinking SMART (Specific & Small, Measurable, Action Based, Realistic, Time Line). I lavished in 2-3 pounds per day of the cheapest frozen boneless skinless chicken I could afford. I consumed whey protein from a store whose name shall go unmentioned. I exercised well beyond total fatigue and then supplemented with little more than water, creatine, and BCAAs. I consumed no vitamin or mineral supplements.

I was not training sacred. And it backfired. My purpose with my remaining time here on Earth is to share my experience with others as I continue to explore wisdom from the akashic. How did our ancestors eat and why? Why is spirit so involved with all Eastern forms of exercise and martial art? What can be gleaned from modern sports science? My interest and investigation into these areas has culminated in what I term Sacred Training. Sacred Training is exercise prescription using the wisdom of the past and the knowledge of the present, balanced with the spirit of timelessness. May our journey of discovery continue now.