When I was told that I had to review a book about bear training I was like ‘when am I ever going to need to know how to train bears?’ Further research revealed I was a little off on my first assessment. Luckily it turned out my limited knowledge of bears was not going to detrimentally affect my ability to review this book.
I’m quite the Bear Grylls fan, aside from how he always eats with his mouth open. If you need to eat an animals eyeball, do you really need to bite it in such a way that it explodes over your face? No, pretty sure just popping it in there, closing your mouth and hoping for the best would be the most logical way.
Bear has shown us all how to survive in the wild by eating eyeballs and drinking bodily waste, but you can’t just jump off the couch and tackle the Sahara Desert. No, you would need a lot of in between jumping around and such malarkey before attempting to replicate anything you’ve seen Bear do on the telly. Well, not the eating part. That wouldn’t require much training, but for the rest of it you’d need to step it up a bit.
Of course Bear didn’t get to be known as this great outdoorsman by just googling ‘how to survive in the wild’. An interesting side note; there is a rather effective ‘Wiki How’ on just that topic, if in fact you did Google the above statement. It’s called research, I had to do it. Moving on from web based self help, Bear has put together a book about how he keeps his body in the kind of condition it needs to be in for the whacky endeavours and situations he finds himself in.
Of course you don’t need to be attempting to cross the Artic Tundra with only a half filled small soda from McDonalds to get something out of this book, you can be just someone wanting to get fit. I don’t fit into either category, but I do however enjoy seeing other people waste countless hours and tonnes of cash, whilst they get motivated by boot camp trainers.
Thankfully this book is not a waste of money, nor do you have to get up at 6am and go into a public park and pay some guy exorbitant fees so he can save money because he doesn’t even own a building where this type of exploitation can be hidden away. Better yet, you don’t have to waste money at gym, nor share sweat ridden exercise equipment with a bunch of random sweaty and smelly strangers.
Bear shares a range of 10, 20 and 30 minute ‘express’ workouts, all of which you can do from home. Great, if you have a family or work commitments that stretch your time. Now before you say ‘oh sure, it’s an at home workout, as long as I have a bottomless pit of hugely expensive exercise equipment.’ Man, you just don’t quit do you? And that’s exactly what Bear will tell you, keep pushing and you will get there.
In any case I’ve scanned all the exercises and all you will need is yourself and a kettle bell. Look it up if you don’t know what a kettle bell. I did some hunting around and you can get a decent kettle bell for under $25 bucks. That’s really all you need. There are some pull-ups in some of the work outs, but you can work out what you can do to get around that if you don’t have a bar. I can’t be coming to everyone’s house and sorting these things out, you’ll have to do it yourself.
Bear has made these work outs to suit people with limited time and with limited equipment. If you are planning a solo ascent of Everest then this book is all you need… and some Sherpa’s and lots of rock climbing experience, oxygen, climbing gear… well, ok you will need a few more things, but the book is a great place to start.\
REVIEWER: Drew Thompson
TITLE: Your Life: Train For It
AUTHOR(S): Bear Grylls
PUBLISHER: Penguin Random House
RRP: $39.99