I would like to introduce you to one of my mentors and someone who you may learn a few things from. The creator of Stotan Training:
Enter – Percy Cerutty
In 1938 Percy was 43 years old and in the worst state of health he had ever experienced. As a binge-drinking, lung hacking chain-smoker who was supposed to be working as an Australian Postal worker, he was instead, constantly bedridden with excruciating migraines, sudden dizziness, and had undiagnosed leg and back pain.
Percy was nearing what most would say is the end of his life.
While bedridden Percy was still maintaining a steady four pack a day smoking rhythm, even while the doctors approached his bedside to confirm that his wheezing was the result of pneumonia. They gave him roughly six months left to live.
Leave it to Percy to spend the last six months of his life placing bets at the horse race track. While contemplating the life he had lived and the short time he had left on this Earth, he observed something that hadn‘t been apparent to him before:
Horses of every kind, no matter their shape or size, move exactly the same way. As the horse's center of gravity is always maintained wether they are moving fast or slow, their legs cycle to keep their hooves close to the ground as they land right on their gravitational center with each step.
To Percy, this dynamic muscular logic he observed in the horse’s movement was a law of motion that is just as true for the human body as it is for horses. He played with the thought that if he could figure out what the single true way to move was, he would lead a revolution in the Way of true fitness!
But the challenging part was that he was aging at a rapid rate and if he did somehow live, why would anyone in their right mind take advice from someone who had virtually destroyed their body and was in incredibly ill health.
The amazing thing about the human spirit is that once we have a reason to live our bodies and intellectual faculties are given new life. And often given more life than we had previously tapped into or expressed.
As bleak as his future had seemed moments ago, Percy now had a reason, a reason to not only manage to continue to survive but a reason to begin to fully live and finally thrive!
Subscribe To The Always Ready Mindset Blog & Podcast Here!
- Supplementation Resources For My Readers:
New Effort = New Results
Percy began with a plunge into the frigid ocean! His thought was that in doing this he would jolt his body back to life with the ice cold water, stimulating every cell in his body.
Ironically he was right, a daily cold water swim does that very thing! Cold water exposure amplifies our bodies vitality with a cascade of health benefits through what is scientifically referred to as cold themogenesis. We will continue to unpack the depth of that topic in another article.
The next step was to quit his smoking and drinking habits which he immediately chose to do and did it cold turkey. Not an easy feat!
Next he attacked his pantry and reevaluated his eating habits, removing all packaged and deep fried foods. Instead, turning to real Whole Foods of the highest quality.
Day after day he returned to the ocean for a daily dose of swimming in the ice cold water. And after a short time he began to feel better and better. His health coming back full force; now stronger than ever before!
He stuck with it and as his health improved he returned to the race track where he began to formulate and test his unorthodox training methods.
Just imagine seeing an old man with white hair running barefoot on the horse track behind the race horses at an attempt to mirror the horses four legged gait progression. As odd and comical as this would have looked he was actually onto something.
His athletic experimental phase had begun.
As Percy’s health returned he ventured out on brisk walks, jogs, runs and progressed to high intensity sprints.
Let’s take a look at his performance. These were Percy’s run times at 50 years old:
– One Mile Run Under 5 Minutes: 4:54
– Marathon Run Under 3 Hours: 2:58
– 100 Mile Ultra Distance Run Under 24 Hours: 23:45
As his results began to pile up Percy realized his initial reason and created his very own nature based lifestyle philosophy and began calling himself a “Stotan” (Half Stoic, Half Spartan).
Stoic + Spartan = Stotan
Percy running with his unique running form referred to as “The Amble”.
“True fitness is all about translating fear into raw power.”
– Percy Cerutty –
The Stotan Revolution
Understanding what it means to be a Stotan:
“A Stotan is one who hardens, strengthens, toughens and beautifies the body by consistent habits and regular exercises,” Percy conveyed to his students.
“My philosophy is based on communication with nature, this communication takes place when the person sleeps under the stars at night, hears the birds in the morning, feels the sand between his toes, smells the flowers, hears the surf. Nature can bring the mind and body into perfect harmony and balance with the universe. This is one of the factors that allows the athlete to reach new levels of excellence.”
In 1946, Percy opened his “International Training Center” in a stretch of land on the southern coast of Australia. All he needed was a shipping container to use as a bunkhouse for any individual desiring to become a Stotan.
From this humble starting point he designed his own Natural Movement exercise system. Combining outdoor weight lifting, open water swims, and sprints in the sand dunes.
His technique when it came to weight lifting was a bit barbaric but he repeatedly reminded everyone that that is the whole point to lifting “the best way to hoist a weight, was whatever way you hoisted the weight.”
When Percy was questioned about lifting form he replied, “Did you think Mother Nature let your ancestors be sniffy about the big-game carcasses they hauled home and the logs they had to lift? Weight lifting should be intense, so intense that five reps should blow you out. True fitness was all about unsteadiness, uncertainty, and fear; you fought for balance and recruited every single fiber in your body every single time.”
Percy goes on to explain:
“Civilization has ruined youth in the activities that his fathers and forefathers had that kept the upper body strong. No longer do they chop wood, have to do manual labor which is fine if your chief goal is to keep the damn kids off your lawn but not too tactful if you’re hoping teenage track stars will leave their suburban homes and come follow you into the barrens to live in a packing crate with no phone, no electricity, and no indoor plumbing.”
Percy opened the door to men and women to become Stotan’s themselves and these first candidates lined right up to begin training side by side this Stotan Warrior.
We have seen dozens of elite athletes, including some Olympic athletes, come from this Stotan training and Stotan school of thought.
Let’s take a look at the daily routine.
Early in the morning the Young Stotans would be awoken with the saying, “You can only teach it if you can do it yourself.” And with that Percy would lead them into the day with a routine that looked like this:
- 7 a.m. — Five-mile run prior to breakfast in any direction our whim took us, followed by a dip in the ocean.
- 8 a.m. — Breakfast of uncooked rolled oats (without milk) sprinkled with wheat germ, walnuts, sultanas, raisins, and sliced banana.
- 9 a.m. — Swimming and surfing or outdoor chores like chopping wood, painting and carpentry.
- Noon — Training and lectures, followed by another swim.
- 2 p.m. — Lunch: fish and fresh fruit.
- 3 p.m. — Siesta (Nap)
- 4 p.m. — Weight lifting
- 5 p.m. — Ten-mile run along dirt roads ending once more at the beach.
- 7 p.m. — Tea and a general discussion led by Percy
- 11p.m. — Lights out
Young Stotan’s sprinting up a sand dune.
We have seen dozens of elite athletes, including some Olympic athletes, come from this Stotan training and Stotan school of thought:
John Landy, Ron Clarke, Albert Thomas, Dave Stephens and Herb Elliott are just a few of the many elite level athletes that originated from Percy’s Stotan International Training Facility.
Herb Elliott who captured both the 1960 olympic gold medal and a world record in the 1,500 and mile becoming Percy’s most successful student.
In the words of the Olympian himself, Herb Elliot said this when speaking about training with Percy: “He was not speaking theory. This guy based what he had to say to you in the practice of his own life. He knew that it worked, he started to study the great people of history and the challenges that they had. He started to read philosophy. He became incredibly well self-educated, and it was out of that that he grew into the person that he was.”
Herb Elliot sprinting up a sand dune with Percy Cerutty during training.
Since a good portion of my readers want actionable endurance workouts to implement into their training schedules, here is a sample week of Stotan Training from the race practice period for Herb Elliott prior to his contending in the 1960 olympics:
- Monday:
- morning – seven miles, varied pace.
- afternoon – circuit running (long cross-country intervals)
- evening – easy five miles.
- Tuesday:
- morning – five miles, varied pace.
- afternoon – repeat hill training
- evening – weight training
- Wednesday:
- morning – seven miles.
- afternoon – six miles, varied running and sprinting
- Thursday:
- morning – seven miles, varied pace.
- afternoon – fifteen miles.
- Friday: rest.
- Saturday:
- morning – five miles, varied pace.
- afternoon – weight training
- evening – five miles, varied running and sprinting.
- Sunday:
- morning – six miles
- afternoon – intervals, golf course.
(source: Training with Cerutty by Larry Myers, page 94)
Another sample week presumably from the race-practice period taken from Herb Elliott’s book, “The Golden mile”:
A Week in 1956, when he was 18:
- Monday: 6: 10×400 or 800
- Tuesday: 8k at “peak speed”
- Wednesday: Train with sprinters
- Thursday: 30 min of sprint 30 sec, jog 190 sec
- Friday: Rest
- Saturday: 4-10k on track
Although Percy had some rough health habits that he had to eventually overcome, he was incredibly well-read as an intellectual having self-educated himself through studying the greatest minds of history. Percy studied Stoic Philosophy as well as the arts and sciences reading Marcus Aurelius, Plato, Aristotle, Niche, Hippocrates, Tolstoy, Carl Jung and Einstein to name a few. He studied to develop his mind and implemented everything he learned into the powerhouse of Stotan Training.
Alongside his mental training, Percy transformed his life, body and mind all in large part to him making some lifestyle adjustments and dedicating himself to sticking to those new parameters.
We could call these Percy’s non-negotiables.
Now here are the guidelines for training the Stotan Way:
- Heavy Free Weight Kettle & Barbell Training: (preferably outdoors) All weight training sets to be performed in a 5-rep range. Meaning if the weight is easy to lift more than 5 times, then you are getting stronger and need to pick a heavier weight to train with.
- Remember: If you are going to lift weights, lift the ones that are actually heavy to you.
- Build a strong foundation.
- Bodyweight Movements / Calisthenics: (preferably outdoors) i.e. chin-ups, rope climbs, ring and high-bar gymnast exercises, high-bar hangs, parallell-bar dips, lunges, rigorous jumping with high intensity.
- Reminder: Athletic training and intentional exercises are not meant to be easy. They are supposed to be incredibly challenging for you to complete otherwise how would you expect to get stronger or faster? If your workouts are easy then you aren’t even working out at a level where you will see much improvement.
- Build a body that is balanced with great adaptable strength and agility.
- Running: (preferably outdoors) hill sprints, sand runs, barefoot running on grass for a mix of long durations and burst sprinting intermingled.
- If you think you can't run far or fast, change the way you think.
- Build a body that can endure the distance of life.
- Nutrition: no processed foods. Only real food.
- Build your body as though it is a great palace, a temple, a castle! Use the highest quality foods available to fuel your body and mind.
- Your body is the castle, for the light of your soul!
Percy & Herb Elliot Training With Barbells
It is quickly observed that Percy had a great desire to train… preferably outdoors. I really love and resonate with that as I myself thrive in life when I spend the majority of my time in nature.
A great takeaway from the Stotan Philosophy is that Percy taught everyone to just add movement to their day, pure and simple movement. He didn’t force anyone to train a certain way, he just led them to find the movements that work for them.
Percy passed away suddenly at age 80 from a motor neuron disease he didn’t know was present in his brain. When he passed away the Stotan Facility was closed and mostly abandoned and forgotten over time.
I have learned so much from Percy through the out of print books that I have managed to get my hands on. Thankfully some publishers have brought his books back into print. If you desire to read up and learn more about Percy and the Stotan Training principles I highly suggest you read his books, every title embodying Percy’s personality to the fullest:
- “Be Fit or Be Damned!”
- “Athletics: How To Become A Champion”
- “Graeme Sims’ Why Die”
I am convinced Percy was really on to something great and I am going to continue training in this similar fashion to figure out everything I can about Stotan Training to revive the old method.
Cristopher McDougal lays out what Stotan Training looks like in practice here in the following:
- Go Wild: The worst mistake you can make is believing you’re anything except one thing—an animal. You’re not a runner, or a lifter, or a yoga pretzel. You’re a beast, and beasts aren’t specialists. They don’t limit their movements. They don’t stay inside when it’s icky, or wait for race day. All-around athleticism is the key to perpetual improvement, Percy taught, and you achieve it through natural challenges. Wet roads, leafy trails, hot sun, foot-sucking sand—everything a gym was designed to help you avoid, basically, is exactly the fiber-firing wildness your body needs to develop agility, balance, core strength, deep lungs, and poise in the face of the unpredictable.
- Get Raw: Percy was both ahead of his time and way behind it when he sneered at exercise machines. Machines were created for one purpose: to make work easier. They isolate, they cushion, they stabilize. Well, forget that noise. You want to recruit, toughen, and adapt. Down in Percy’s box, the Stotans relied on gear that any Roman centurion would recognize: chin-up bars, climbing ropes, parallel bars, vaulting horses, Roman rings, and trampoline. “He emphasized doing everything the natural way,” Magness writes. “Primitive and uninhibited.”
- Train Your Gut, Then Trust It: “Nothing must be dictated, fixed, or regimented,” Percy instructed. “When an athlete goes out to train, his body should dictate his needs and he runs according to its capacities and demands.” That sounds a little chamomile for a guy so leathery that he once ordered his runners to keep going after one of them passed out in the sand. (“Leave him be,” Percy commanded. “He’s not dead.”) But it’s true; ultimately, you’re wasting your time trying to persuade people to do what they don’t want to. The greatest thing you can do for anyone, athlete or not, is light a fire within and get out of the way.
In closing I will leave you in a similar way Percy would as Herb Elliot explained,
“He (Percy) would just inspire you and then leave you pretty much to your own devices, He’d check on the sort of intelligence of your training, to make sure that it made sense, but he just seemed to know that you were committed or you weren’t committed. And if you were committed, he walked away from it at that point.”
I feel that I have conveyed enough of Percy’s intelligence through this article for you to begin your own training as a Stotan if you are up for the challenge.
So for those that have read through this article and are committed to your progression both intellectual and physical, I salute you for your commitment to what Percy calls “Becoming one of the great ones.”
As always, to your good health, strength and honor,
Always Be Ready To Respond With Ability!
– Michael George Murdock -
- Supplementation Resources For My Readers:
Subscribe To The Always Ready Mindset Blog & Podcast Here!
2 comments
This was a fascinating article! I had never heard of Percy Cerutty before, and his approach to health and fitness resonates as being core and primal to the strength that should accompany every Striving Man throughout his life. What I love about inspiring stories like these is that they illustrate that truly any one of us can choose at anytime to make something different or better of our life!
Thank you for this inspiring content that is so needed in this day of sedentary lifestyles and fast food “nutrition”.
This article was incredibly well written and highlights the training regimen perfectly!
Well done.
I had also never heard of Percy or the Stotan Training methodology until reading this, so thanks for your insights and work on researching this!