{"id":2453955,"date":"2020-01-30T21:52:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-31T04:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/scott-mercier\/"},"modified":"2020-01-30T21:52:00","modified_gmt":"2020-01-31T04:52:00","slug":"scott-mercier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/scott-mercier\/","title":{"rendered":"Scott Mercier:"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Scott Mercier<\/strong>
The Aspen Times<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Working out in a gym has never been something I really enjoy. I grew up in the mountains, and my playground has always been wide open and wild. I\u2019ve always thought that gym work was for city folk, and that most gym activities just try to replicate what we can do outside in the mountains. However, as I\u2019ve aged, I recognize the importance of gym work for posture, bone structure and physical strength.<\/p>\n

Last fall, my son decided that he wanted to try mixed martial arts. This came as a bit of a surprise, because it\u2019s a sport that is foreign to me. When I think of MMA, I think of brutality and violence. I was pretty sure these workouts weren\u2019t for me, but I wanted to do something with my son, so I gave it a try.<\/p>\n

Aspen MMA (http:\/\/aspenmma.com<\/a>) is in Willits, less than a mile from our house. It\u2019s owned and operated by Ernest Mendez. Ernest moved to the valley from Dallas 14 years ago. He trained in karate as a kid, but only took up MMA as an adult. He was in Morocco for the Marathon des Sables, a six-day, 250-kilometer, ultra-endurance running race, and some of his co-competitors were doing Jiu Jitsu as cross training. He decided to give it a try, as well.<\/p>\n

Ernest was drawn to the discipline of the sport and the combination of mindfulness and physicality. A broken back 15 years ago convinced him that he needed to get better body mechanics and core strength. That\u2019s when he started to get serious about Jiu Jitsu and MMA. He is now a master and earned his Jiu Jitsu black belt four years ago. Not only is Ernest a black belt, he\u2019s also an avid mountaineer and has summited Denali and Aconcagua, the highest peaks in North and South America. He\u2019s convinced that MMA training helped him summit each of these mountains.<\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t sure what to expect when I took my first MMA sport conditioning class. The first thing that struck me was how nice and welcoming everyone was. People genuinely seemed to like that new people were coming to the class. I figured it would mostly involve a lot of punching and kicking. I couldn\u2019t have been more wrong. Ernest certainly teaches kids and adults how to fight, and the sport conditioning class does involve some kicking and punching, but he starts with the core. He says that people will squat, twist and lunge in nearly every activity of their daily lives and believes that everything originates from the core. He wants his athletes to focus on technique, position and form, and designs the sports conditioning class to complement this theme.<\/p>\n

When we got there, Ernest introduced himself and told us to grab some jump ropes. The class this day was small, with four students in total. He set a timer for three minutes. After the rope, we warmed up by running laps around the gym, doing butt kicks and slides, and a bear crawl and crab walk. We then stretched for a few minutes while he set up the stations.<\/p>\n

He set up six stations. Each station was designed to enhance strength, agility or speed. We jumped over obstacles, did push-ups, sit-ups, squats, lunges, man-makers and threw medicine balls. Each station was 60 seconds with a 15 second recovery between sets. We did 10 minutes of this, took a short break, and started again.<\/p>\n

Ernest seems like a nice guy \u2014 and he\u2019s always smiling and encouraging his athletes, but he doesn\u2019t suffer fools, poor form or half-hearted efforts. By the end of the workout, I was thrashed. I\u2019d worked parts of my body that I\u2019d neglected for years. I hated Ernest at that moment, but also couldn\u2019t wait to come back for more.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been going for several months now, and the aches and pains follow every workout, but I can feel that I\u2019m getting more agility and strength. Ernest changes the workouts depending on who\u2019s in the class, so they don\u2019t get repetitive and so that you expand your skill set. I\u2019m hoping it leads to better outcomes on the bike this summer, but worst-case scenario, I\u2019ll have made some new friends and gained some overall fitness.<\/p>\n

Good riding!<\/p>\n

Scott Mercier represented Team USA at the 1992 Olympic Games and had a five-year professional career with Saturn Cycling and The U.S. Postal Services teams. He currently works in Aspen and can be reached at scottmercier24@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scott MercierThe Aspen Times Working out in a gym has never been something I really enjoy. I grew up in the mountains, and my playground has always been wide open and wild. I\u2019ve always thought that gym work was for city folk, and that most gym activities just try to replicate what we can do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2453955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-18 18:01:35","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2453955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2453955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2453955\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2453955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2453955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2453955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}