I am enjoying a sort of bunny-trail right now in regards to my thoughts about the style of training found at Fun Intelligent Training.  After a Boot Camp session one day I found myself thinking back to a book I read quite a while ago called Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ written by a man named Lew Wallace.  It was published November 12^th, 1880.  You may have heard of it or read it, or maybe at least have seen the famous movie by the same name that was produced in 1959.  The film was based on the novel and starred Charlton Heston.  It was a pretty big hit too, claiming eleven Academy Awards.  But in any event, bear with me while I explain why I mention this classic novel.

I won’t get into any real gory details since the book is far too complex to just crudely sum up for you, but for the sake of leading into what I want to say I will just tell you that the story takes place in the Middle East about two thousand years ago and follows the life of a Jewish prince who is wrongly accused of assaulting Roman troops.  As you can probably imagine, the Romans did not take too kindly to this alleged activity and our man, Judah Ben Hur, finds himself sold into

slavery (his family is too).  Very sad.  So, Ben Hur for a while is thrown into a pit and is kept in total seclusion and darkness, only being kept alive by rations of food and water that are sent down to him.  While he is down in the pit, however, he realizes that he has to do something to keep from going insane.  So, he exercises.  Remember though: he is in total darkness.  He has nothing down there but his memories of the ways that he had seen Roman troops exercise.  And so he exercises constantly because he has nothing else to do and it keeps him focused and sharp in an other-wise totally bleak and literally black world.  Later, he escapes.  He is (spoiler alert) recaptured shortly, but when the Romans find him they are amazed to find that he has “the build of a gladiator.”  Seeing as gladiators were pretty fierce warriors to say the least, I would take this a compliment.

When I read this, probably ten or twelve years ago, I chalked up the description of Ben Hur’s physical transformation while in the pit to being nothing more than fiction.  After all, who could grow and develop and get into great shape while in a pit?  Ten bucks says that he didn’t have free weights, a treadmill, and an ab roller (remember THOSE?) down in that hole.  Heck, he probably didn’t even have a stair stepper. So how did he do it?

This part of the story of Ben Hur interests me all the more since I have discovered firsthand at F.I.T. how useless all of that gym equipment stuff can be.  I have made more physical progress in just a few weeks at F.I.T. than I ever have in past experiences at traditional gyms where I did the same boring cycles of weightlifting and cardio.  Talk about a hamster wheel.  You know something?  Maybe the type of training that people do at F.I.T. is not so much a brand new concept, but rather a return to a concept that works.  I guess you could say that Fun Intelligent Training is like an exercise renaissance that is pulling people out of the dark ages of the modern chain gym (without naming any names, but I think you and I both know the kinds of places I mean)  <We will though.  Read about one of them here> .

I am going to do some research and see if I can’t find out what kind of exercising Ben-Hur might have done down in that pit.  I guess that to discover that I would need to find out how the Romans exercised, since he copied their techniques.  It should be interesting and I’ll keep you posted.  Like I said, it’s a bunny trail but kind of a neat one I think.

Plus, I’m not gonna lie.  I think it’d be pretty awesome to be told that I have the build of a gladiator.  How cool is that?

Tags: Adam Zobel, Bootcamp, exercise, fitness, Workout