Step 1 - Kanchenjunga And The Himalayas

Tale: 1/12.

Location: West Bengal & Sikkim, India.

Mission: Hike, light bodyweight exercises during the trek and mental relaxation.

This is a story of two friends, who go on a hike on the beautiful Himalayan mountains and inspire each other. It’s about putting yourself in unfamiliar position in order to learn, grow and be able to teach these lessons to others. As my future stories will also show you, this is about showing versatility and giving you guys ideas how to approach your personal wellbeing and being able to reduce stress instead of increasing it.

I picked this location (Kanchenjunga region) because I wanted to start my journey slow and smoothly as the beginning of the year seems to be very hectic in the industry. I flew all the way from Finland and my friend Antti drove his motorcycle almost 2500 kms from Chennai where he had just finished filming a Tamil horror movie. Our base was with the beautiful Agarwal family in Kalimpong who I’d like to thank publicly from the bottom of my heart for their hospitality and love.

Our main goal was to do everything we would normally do, just in a bit different surroundings to be modest. Hiking was to be the main thing and then we would throw all kinds of other exercises in the mix. Yoga and meditation are never things to me, so I wanted to incorporate and learn about those things also. In India it may take a little while to get things organized, but at the end everything worked out well. I met very open minded people who taught me essential lessons that I can reflect to as a trainer and a coach.

What I learned is that still at the age of 35 I have a lot to improve, mainly from a flexibility point of view as you will see on the video. My background is mainly from explosive sports and in the past flexibility was not the main area of focus. I’ve done just about every sport there is, played over 500 hockey games, ran 60m and 100m dash, hiked to many mountains, lifted a lot of weight and been through many other tough challenges, but I can tell you that hiking approximately 60 kms in that altitude and conditions was definitely the toughest challenge I’ve ever faced.

At 92 kg bodyweight I wondered many times what’s the point of carrying all this weight and muscle around. For our sherpas everything seemed so easy, I have really deep respect for them, they are a tough bunch of guys! During the whole trek we ate basically all carbohydrates which made our bodies act really strange. I didn’t change anything in my diet before the trip as it consists mainly of fats and protein (=eating everything and without being picky). But the thing is not to stress about it even if the circumstances are different and you only get to eat three meals a day. When you live an active lifestyle, your body will adapt to any upcoming changes guite easily.

The rest I leave up to you to figure out: Enjoy the video and please don’t hesitate to send me any questions in case you have some,

Tuomas

Visit my website for a full story behind this tale:

http://www.talesofthetrainer.com.

Video mastered by:

Joni Hietanen

https://www.facebook.com/jonitapanimusic

Songs used in this video:

"Dhaka" by Kevin MacLeod - Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

"Silence Await" by Cdk 2008 - Licensed under CC Attribution 3.0

"Could Be" - Feat. Jenny Mahem by Mauerhuhn 2012 - Licensed under

Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

"Wonder Cycle" by Chris Zabriskie

2011 - Licensed under Creative Commons

Attribution 4.0 International

"Front And Center" by Wonton 2006 - Licensed under CC Attribution

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