Free Strength Class!!

Alrighty folks! I will begin running a FREE strength training class at the Georgetown location of the great clothing store lululemon athletica.

I have to admit, I've been a huge fan of lululemon despite the fact that their mens section is rather small. But their clothes are so cool! It's that wonderful sweat-wicking material but at the same time they move so freely and look pretty hip at the same time. I know it sounds like I'm giving a major sales pitch here, but ask any of my clients, I wear a lot of their clothes and recommends them all to go check the stuff out. I've even told all my Jiu-Jitsu guys about it too.

Either way, besides the fact that they have great clothes, they also represent a great cause. When I looked into their website I found that their mission is right in line with mine; help get the community active! Along with this, they offer free yoga classes all the time; and now, they are looking to expand their demographic so they are looking to get into other activities.

So I am now offering a free strength class at lululemon Georgetown every Saturday at 10 am. Come on by and join in the fun! My hope is to start offering more and more classes there, so let's get a huge group there!

Never Stop. GET FIT.

Josh Courage

Fox5 Coverage

A few weeks back I was asked to do a special on baseball specific training on Fox5 DC morning news. They titles the special "World Series Workouts" as it was to air live on the Monday before the World Series began.

There were a few teasers shot as the regular, in-studio news cut to commercial, and then we had two separate 4-minute segments where we covered quite a bit of materiel.

Link to Segment 1
Link to Segment 2

I invited a friend and player/client of mine to help out, Wes Walker. He had just received a large scholarship offer to play Division 1 baseball at Niagara (in the same conference I played in college!). And the reporter who was in charge is also a client of mine, Holly Morris, who went on to run the NYC Marathon only two weeks following the shoot.
Make sure to check out Fox5 News on Tuesday, December 2, around 11:45am to see another segment with me, where I talk about power running.

Never Stop. GET FIT.

Josh Courage

Brazilian Jiu-jitsu

Well, now that I'm getting into it a bit more, I figure I should write a little about it too. Since I finished my marathon goal and am working on my challenges, I have found a new hobby that I'm getting pretty serious about. The great thing about it is that it's becoming such a popular sport all around the world it seems that there is always a great selection of information and support wherever you might be. Just walk into any book store and look at how many books there are on the topic. Do a google search and you will see more pages, blogs and information on not only jiujitsu, but all Mixed Martial Arts then almost any other sports. MMA in fact is the fasted growing sport around the world; while it's huge in the US, it was just legalized in France, it's always been big in England, and of course, all of Asia and South America seems to have training spots in more places then America has Starbucks.

But besides the fact that it's all over the place, I have a great school in Renzo Gracie DC with a great instructor and in the short bunch of months that I've been practicing I have learned so much and hope the fun never ends.

So here's one of the many reason why I like this sport of jiujitsu so much: it is never ending. What I mean by that is there is a no final answer on how things should be done. One move may work for one person but not for another, one technique works against one opponent, but not another. When you get a take-down, or you get some sort of control on an opponent, there are endless possibilities as to what you can do next. As a Black Belt I had the privilege of rolling with said, Jiujitsu is like an ocean of information, and no matter how long you practice the sport, you will always be wading near the shore line looking out at the millions of new angles and moves you can learn and perfect.

Today for example, I had a very nice gentleman form Massachusetts come in to roll a little with me. He found me through my blog and wanted to come in when he was in town to get some work. We worked on some moves together and at the end I feel like I got so much more out of the session than he did. I ended up seeing a whole new perspective on the sport that I hadn't been able to work on in my school. It was frustrating, motivating and very exciting to get an outside perspective on it all and I am looking forward to when he comes back to town and we can work out some more.

What a great sport, what an amazing way to challenge yourself and keep growing. I plan on sticking with this for a good long while. I highly recommend giving it a try to anyone looking to find a good hobby.

Never Stop. GET FIT

Josh Courage

Marathon Pictures

Here are a selection of pictures form some of my runs.

Running the Bull Run Run 50-Miler



A random picture from someone I don't know at the National Marathon in DC


Two picks from the Baltimore Marathon


Two pictures from the Odyssey Trail Marathon


After the Marine Corps Marathon (my 10th of the year). DC's Mayor, Mayor Fenty has his arm around me.

If you want to see more pictures, and some video of me running, I will have some up shortly in my other blog about marathon running. Check it out.

Never Stop, GET FIT

Josh Courage

Marathon Goal Achieved...

...now on to the new goals!

I love the feeling of achievement, but I love even more knowing I am stronger and setting new goals to take myself to the next level. Here's what I got:

The single goal to go after right now is to dunk a basketball. I used to be able to dunk back in high school, but that was with a girls ball (or anything I could palm). Then, when I got into lifting in college, I lost that explosiveness. Now I want to get it back. The fun part of this challenge is that there are two other trainers going for the same goal. And each of us are writing our own programs and going about it in our own specific ways. Here's how I am working towards it:

An 8-week progressive power training program. Three weeks of base strength training with light power and speed worked in begins the program. An active rest week follows with speed, quickness, agility and plyometrics as the focus. The next three weeks will be heavy strength work with plenty of power training taking up the majority if the sessions.

Two days ago I was able to dunk both a tennis ball and a dodge ball, so I am pretty confident I will be able to get a basketball by January 1. But most of all, this is really a fun time getting back into this form of training. The marathon running really took a lot out of me and it's very clear that I lost a great deal of strength, and an amazing amount of power over the last year. So getting back into this just feels good.

I'll keep everyone updated about that but until my next update on that one, I have a few other interesting posts to throw at you all. Keep an eye out. And until then...

Never Stop, GET FIT

Josh Courage