Well I turned 44 last month and I'm still going forward and trying to be the healthiest version of me I can. Life is a really busy thing and if you don't stop to take a look around every once in a while, it will pass you by. I know it is an old saying, but hey - by some people's standards, I'm old.
Over the past few years I've done a decent amount of strength training, cardio training, workout videos/programs and hell, I even joined a gym for a few months. Where am I now? I'm still sitting at about 175lbs (which is about 25lbs lower than when I started). I'm stronger, but my body feels a bit beat up in all honesty. Also - at my physical my Dr told me he noticed I have a heart murmur. Well now, how about that? Not something I need to address now, but obviously something to keep an eye on. Shock like that can overwhelm you if you let it. In this crazy go go go world, it can make you stop and pause too. Which is what I'm starting to do.
When I started exercising it was to lose weight and look good. I thought that if I looked good I would feel good too. To a certain extent that is true. The little bit of vanity in me does recognize the hard earned muscle I've gained thus far through this journey. I've never "felt great" though. I wanted to be able to run around and chase my kids. Not be limited by anything in my body or by my body's limitations and at times - this journey has allowed me to do just that. Unfortunately though, it hasn't been consistent enough for me, despite what I consider pretty consistent efforts. In short, my "strength training" has made me feel broken down. Movement has now taken priority for me over strength. What good is being able to bench press 200lbs if your shoulder hurts so much you can't pick your own kids up to hug them? What good is being able to squat or deadlift 225lbs if when it comes time to chase your kids and play "sea monster" (Dad always seems to be the sea monster) and your knees won't allow it? To me - it means nothing. To me, although I can't go back in time and change anything, I've messed up. I've sat here and trained for a few years doing the wrong things for me and the life I want to live.
The past few months I've shifted my focus in my training. I've stopped lifting weights. I've stopped putting that burden on my body and my joints. I have instead utilized body weight training. It challenges me not just from a strength perspective, but from a flexibility and mobility perspective. More than I was ever challenged lifting weights. Yeah you could say, well if you weren't challenged enough doing weights then you weren't using enough weight. Wrong mentality here. WAY wrong. I'm not trying to "man up". This isn't a pissing contest. This is life. This is MY life.
Most recently a friend introduced me to a Yoga series they had started doing from YouTube and I've kind of made up a schedule of 3 days of strength training (sometimes 4) and 2 to 3 days of Yoga per week. Although I've been doing the body weight training for a few months here, the Yoga has just been in the last month. Trying to stick with a physical therapist point of view on things. Stretch and Strengthen. It is helping. It is helping me not only physically by allowing me to continue to strengthen my body, but it is helping me heal it as well. Today I was actually able to get into child's pose and sit with my butt on my heals in that position. Something I haven't been able to do in months. It is also giving me things to think about. With the continued focus of "do what you feel is right for YOU and YOUR body". In other words, don't just jump on the next workout routine because it is the newest, latest thing. Learn about YOU. Learn what you like and what you don't like. What are you hoping to accomplish? Is it that elusive 6 pack that you see all these folks have in the fitness videos? If so - yeah, the workouts can help get you there but you better shift your focus to nutrition. Or is it something else that you are chasing? Did you always dream of running and maybe running a marathon, well good for you! Figure out what is going to get you there. Chances are that new strength workout routine that just came out isn't going to get you there, so why buy it? Research how others have gotten there and create a plan and go full steam ahead. MAKE the time to step back every once in a while and look around. If you think there is a better way to do something for YOU, then don't be afraid to do it. Have the courage to do what you feel is best for you.
For the first time in a few years I can honestly say I'm not chasing a 6 pack. I am no longer chasing an image of what others view as being "healthy" or even what I viewed as healthy. My views have changed. My mindset has changed. My goals have changed. My desire to succeed and the reason why I get up and do this every single day though has not. This family, although I can be a frigin bear to be around, is what I live for. I want to have the most amazing experiences ever with each and every one of them. I want to inspire them to find better versions of themselves and desire to be even better than they ever dreamed possible. Regardless of if I may agree with all their choices, I want them to be the best they can be and most importantly - happy while doing it. For that, I continue digging deeper, pealing back the layers of me in an effort to make me better. At the same time, challenging those I love to be a better version of themselves.
Until next time...
Saturday, April 2, 2016
Thursday, February 11, 2016
Convict Conditioning, ETP, 2016 Yearly Physical
Lets start with my yearly physical. My blood pressure was a little high. 132/90, but not horrible. Logging my food has definitely made me much more aware of the sodium issue. SO much sodium in prepared foods, even salads. So frustrating.
My weight was 176lbs, which is 4lbs over last year. I told my Dr that my weight is + or - 5lbs and I'm not worried about it, but he said I should probably look to try and lose that "extra weight". Yeah - thanks for the help?
Cholesterol, this is where my Dr was really concerned. He said my good cholesterol took a hit. Yeah, it went from 51 to 50. wow My bad cholesterol went from 118 to 159. He was far more concerned about it than I was. My liver functions were perfectly fine. My triglycerides were also perfectly fine. My cholesterol is still within a normal range. If it is still going up next year, then we start talking. Like everything else though, I want it controlled via nutrition.
ETP - well, I'm still doing it. I'm doing 2 days of "rest day" calories and 1 day "training day" calories. Then start over. Still ramping up to the 2700+ calories of a training day. I'll get there.
Convict Conditioning. I'm a few weeks into this. I'll say this, it is 100% harder than I expected it to be. I honestly expected to breeze through the first few steps of this program and it has been very humbling to see that I'm not. Actually there are some moves that I am stuck on "step 2". Push ups being one of them. 3 sets of 40 incline pushups (SLOW, 5 seconds per rep) is brutal. I haven't gotten it yet, but I will. Crow stand (aka Crow), I am supposed to hold for 1 minute. Yeah, I haven't even gotten 30 seconds yet. Need to focus and keep pushing. I'm trying not to get discouraged. I think it helps that I continue to move forward in other areas with other exercises, but I definitely still have some sticking points. I'm trying to respect where I am right now and trust the process. Earn my way to the fitness achievements that I want.
Nothing really else to mention here that I can think of. I have a few OCRs I want to do this year. F.I.T. Challenge in April. Tough Scrambler in April and Spartan Sprint in June. Just have to get this body ready. Doing some cardio might help. lol Zero cardio for a while now. :P
Until next time.....
My weight was 176lbs, which is 4lbs over last year. I told my Dr that my weight is + or - 5lbs and I'm not worried about it, but he said I should probably look to try and lose that "extra weight". Yeah - thanks for the help?
Cholesterol, this is where my Dr was really concerned. He said my good cholesterol took a hit. Yeah, it went from 51 to 50. wow My bad cholesterol went from 118 to 159. He was far more concerned about it than I was. My liver functions were perfectly fine. My triglycerides were also perfectly fine. My cholesterol is still within a normal range. If it is still going up next year, then we start talking. Like everything else though, I want it controlled via nutrition.
ETP - well, I'm still doing it. I'm doing 2 days of "rest day" calories and 1 day "training day" calories. Then start over. Still ramping up to the 2700+ calories of a training day. I'll get there.
Convict Conditioning. I'm a few weeks into this. I'll say this, it is 100% harder than I expected it to be. I honestly expected to breeze through the first few steps of this program and it has been very humbling to see that I'm not. Actually there are some moves that I am stuck on "step 2". Push ups being one of them. 3 sets of 40 incline pushups (SLOW, 5 seconds per rep) is brutal. I haven't gotten it yet, but I will. Crow stand (aka Crow), I am supposed to hold for 1 minute. Yeah, I haven't even gotten 30 seconds yet. Need to focus and keep pushing. I'm trying not to get discouraged. I think it helps that I continue to move forward in other areas with other exercises, but I definitely still have some sticking points. I'm trying to respect where I am right now and trust the process. Earn my way to the fitness achievements that I want.
Nothing really else to mention here that I can think of. I have a few OCRs I want to do this year. F.I.T. Challenge in April. Tough Scrambler in April and Spartan Sprint in June. Just have to get this body ready. Doing some cardio might help. lol Zero cardio for a while now. :P
Until next time.....
Sunday, January 31, 2016
Welcome to 2016!
Clearly time hasn't changed the fact that I still suck at blogging consistently. Honestly it is still a pain in my ass to have to log out of one account to log into another account to blog. I'll take time to figure out how to better handle that situation in the future, but for now - it just isn't a priority.
What have I been doing for my health? Let's start with the nutrition as it is a shorter update. Well, still sort of following ETP. They say on my "training days" I should be eating almost 2800 calories. On my "rest days" I should be eating about 2300 calories. With ETP, it is all about hitting your calories then your macros and then you worry about timing. I suppose this is common in things like the body building world as I compare my numbers of what I'm eating for macros to body builders and it is surprisingly quite similar. The difference is, I don't have a body builder body. lol
For nutrition on my "rest days" I should be hitting 2350 calories. 175g of protein, 85g of fat and just over 200g of carbs. Again - the primary target being - get your calories in. Then if you have to just pick one of the macros to it, hit your protein. In an ideal world you will get + or - 10g of the protein and carbs. + or - 5g of the fat. Regarding timing, well they say slow carbs before your workout to help you get energy and fast carbs after a workout. On my training days the only thing that changes is I get more carbs. Protein and fat stays the exact same.
What has this forced me to do? Something I said I couldn't ever see myself doing. Measuring food. Logging it into MyFitnessPal and pushing for some consistency. I've logged for over 60days straight and that alone is an accomplishment. It for the most part is pretty accurate. I may have had some days around xmas where I just stopped logging halfway through the day. Whatever. Like anything in life, its not about perfection, its about consistency and trying to be better.
Workouts - I had wavered a bit and finally decided I was going to go back to Body Beast. My big fear was leg day... ugh, fucking leg day. I reminded myself though that it was only 1 day of the week. I could suck it up for one day per week. Necessary evil. Body Beast lasted 2 whole weeks then I got hurt. The infamous neck/shoulder pinch so I couldn't turn my head. Good times... good times.
The injury pissed me off and caused me to re-evaluate what I was going for. At the same time I was dealing with a completely swollen left quad. I couldn't bend that leg very well, so it made stretching a struggle. I took a week off to rest up my neck/shoulder and keep stretching it out. Trying to work things out without dealing with another 6 weeks of physical therapy. That's always fun. It did work and for the most part I got past it on the right side.
What did I decide on? Well during my re-evaluation I started following Al Kavaldo who is all about body weight exercises. Which led me over to start reading the book Convict Conditioning. Which, no real surprise they have an app for that if you wanted to follow it and work at it. The app is free, it illustrates how to do the exercises. Also links to YouTube videos that show you how to do the exercises. It gives you progressions on how to get to the next level. The next level of the exercise. Its pretty awesome actually.
This is going to sound gay and girlie but the routine speaks to me. Bottom line it is about training for functional movement. Being more flexible. Being stronger. NOT getting hurt. All things that I wanted but kind of have half been able to get there. I've done various home workouts that have gotten me stronger, done one other one that got me flexible (Piyo) but none that did them both. Almost always - I ended up with a hurting body, which is never the goal.
Right now I'm re-learning. I'm learning proper form from the ground up. SLOW and controlled movements through each exercise and each progression. Learning how to do various bridge exercises so that I'll be able to do a full bridge, should I be able to progress to the end here. Or be able to do a one handed handstand, again, should I be able to progress through the end. I have done a 2min wall headstand, for whatever that is worth. Still learning, still progressing through it. I do like it though. It is a slow workout. Zero cardio. I don't sweat at all. My muscles work though. Boy do they work.
OK - now time for me to fuel up so I can go get at it.
What have I been doing for my health? Let's start with the nutrition as it is a shorter update. Well, still sort of following ETP. They say on my "training days" I should be eating almost 2800 calories. On my "rest days" I should be eating about 2300 calories. With ETP, it is all about hitting your calories then your macros and then you worry about timing. I suppose this is common in things like the body building world as I compare my numbers of what I'm eating for macros to body builders and it is surprisingly quite similar. The difference is, I don't have a body builder body. lol
For nutrition on my "rest days" I should be hitting 2350 calories. 175g of protein, 85g of fat and just over 200g of carbs. Again - the primary target being - get your calories in. Then if you have to just pick one of the macros to it, hit your protein. In an ideal world you will get + or - 10g of the protein and carbs. + or - 5g of the fat. Regarding timing, well they say slow carbs before your workout to help you get energy and fast carbs after a workout. On my training days the only thing that changes is I get more carbs. Protein and fat stays the exact same.
What has this forced me to do? Something I said I couldn't ever see myself doing. Measuring food. Logging it into MyFitnessPal and pushing for some consistency. I've logged for over 60days straight and that alone is an accomplishment. It for the most part is pretty accurate. I may have had some days around xmas where I just stopped logging halfway through the day. Whatever. Like anything in life, its not about perfection, its about consistency and trying to be better.
Workouts - I had wavered a bit and finally decided I was going to go back to Body Beast. My big fear was leg day... ugh, fucking leg day. I reminded myself though that it was only 1 day of the week. I could suck it up for one day per week. Necessary evil. Body Beast lasted 2 whole weeks then I got hurt. The infamous neck/shoulder pinch so I couldn't turn my head. Good times... good times.
The injury pissed me off and caused me to re-evaluate what I was going for. At the same time I was dealing with a completely swollen left quad. I couldn't bend that leg very well, so it made stretching a struggle. I took a week off to rest up my neck/shoulder and keep stretching it out. Trying to work things out without dealing with another 6 weeks of physical therapy. That's always fun. It did work and for the most part I got past it on the right side.
What did I decide on? Well during my re-evaluation I started following Al Kavaldo who is all about body weight exercises. Which led me over to start reading the book Convict Conditioning. Which, no real surprise they have an app for that if you wanted to follow it and work at it. The app is free, it illustrates how to do the exercises. Also links to YouTube videos that show you how to do the exercises. It gives you progressions on how to get to the next level. The next level of the exercise. Its pretty awesome actually.
This is going to sound gay and girlie but the routine speaks to me. Bottom line it is about training for functional movement. Being more flexible. Being stronger. NOT getting hurt. All things that I wanted but kind of have half been able to get there. I've done various home workouts that have gotten me stronger, done one other one that got me flexible (Piyo) but none that did them both. Almost always - I ended up with a hurting body, which is never the goal.
Right now I'm re-learning. I'm learning proper form from the ground up. SLOW and controlled movements through each exercise and each progression. Learning how to do various bridge exercises so that I'll be able to do a full bridge, should I be able to progress to the end here. Or be able to do a one handed handstand, again, should I be able to progress through the end. I have done a 2min wall headstand, for whatever that is worth. Still learning, still progressing through it. I do like it though. It is a slow workout. Zero cardio. I don't sweat at all. My muscles work though. Boy do they work.
OK - now time for me to fuel up so I can go get at it.
Saturday, December 12, 2015
Bod Pod test results and NUTRITION
Well this morning I went for a "Bod Pod" test to see where I'm at from a body fat/lean body mass stand point. For those that don't know, Bod Pod is considered the most accurate Body Fat test available at this time.
I've guesstimated for a while now I'm around 25%. Today's results confirmed I'm not far off. 24.3% and 172lbs. Considering I'm 5' 11" tall and 43yrs old, I'm not totally sad about that. Obviously room for improvement though.
One thing that I was very surprised they went over with me was, how to get better. They spoke nutrition to me. They didn't have to. I was there for a body fat test and nothing more. Yet they took the time to ask me about my nutrition. Inquire about the things I'm eating, when I'm eating them and how I can get closer to my goals. They even included how much I SHOULD be eating if I wanted to just maintain where I am or how much I should be eating if I wanted to get leaner. Much to my surprise (kind of) those numbers were very much in line with what I got from ETP. I should essentially be eating almost 2800 calories on "training" days. Considering I was eating maybe between 1400 - 1600 using the 21 Day Fix, this will be a drastic change to my body. A welcome change though for sure.
Next up - figure out how I can get there and hit my macros on a daily basis. Let the fun begin!!
I've guesstimated for a while now I'm around 25%. Today's results confirmed I'm not far off. 24.3% and 172lbs. Considering I'm 5' 11" tall and 43yrs old, I'm not totally sad about that. Obviously room for improvement though.
One thing that I was very surprised they went over with me was, how to get better. They spoke nutrition to me. They didn't have to. I was there for a body fat test and nothing more. Yet they took the time to ask me about my nutrition. Inquire about the things I'm eating, when I'm eating them and how I can get closer to my goals. They even included how much I SHOULD be eating if I wanted to just maintain where I am or how much I should be eating if I wanted to get leaner. Much to my surprise (kind of) those numbers were very much in line with what I got from ETP. I should essentially be eating almost 2800 calories on "training" days. Considering I was eating maybe between 1400 - 1600 using the 21 Day Fix, this will be a drastic change to my body. A welcome change though for sure.
Next up - figure out how I can get there and hit my macros on a daily basis. Let the fun begin!!
Wednesday, December 2, 2015
E.T.P. - Eat To Perform aka Nutrition
SO.... I had done the 21 Day Fix nutrition for a while and it is certainly great for meal plans and portion control, etc.... it definitely wasn't right for me. I found myself starving on multiple occasions, seeming like it was forever between snacks and meals, etc... I finally started tracking my food in My Fitness Pal and holy crap. I was only consuming like 1200 calories. No wonder I was fucking starving! The only time I would hit anything near where I really should be is if I was snacking and having beers.... not the best way to make up your nutritional deficit. Not to mention, I didn't really like being told "I can only have this, but can't have that". F-that noise.
Fast forward.... everyone is out there on Black Friday trying to find their next big toy purchase. New TV, vacation, computer, etc... I'm all searching for something to help me reach goals. Fitness goals. Where does ETP come into play on this?
Well, ETP had been recommended to me a while ago by multiple friends and I kind of just "liked" their FB page and casually followed it. Never really digging into it all the way to see what it was all about. To me, I've already had the (mis) conception that I needed to do more workouts and eat less. Seems like I was completely off base there. People are eating 4000 calories and 250g of carbs on a single day without issue. WOW!! What the hell am I doing wrong?
Here we are on Small Business Saturday, which apparently is a thing.... ETP had one of their books "on sale" for $20, regularly $50. To the naked eye this was a great deal... unless of course you've seen their ad where you can buy all 4 of their books and a year membership for $50. Either way... I bought the book. Read and read and read and read, all 101 pages in essentially a day, but still could not completely wrap my head around what I needed to do. This book did a great job of explaining the hows and the whys but not such a great job of just telling me what the hell I needed to do. That of course brought me to Google. Which is where I found what appeared to be a normal every day woman's experience with it.
http://killerfitgym.com/my-etp-experience-faq/
BOOM! Everything became so much clearer.
Now that I've got a clearer picture of what I need to be hitting for target nutrition AND I'm actually tracking it, I have to figure out how to get my numbers up.
This is what my nutrition looked like today and its definitely clean, but not even close to enough. Below it you can see my target numbers. Until next time!
Fast forward.... everyone is out there on Black Friday trying to find their next big toy purchase. New TV, vacation, computer, etc... I'm all searching for something to help me reach goals. Fitness goals. Where does ETP come into play on this?
Well, ETP had been recommended to me a while ago by multiple friends and I kind of just "liked" their FB page and casually followed it. Never really digging into it all the way to see what it was all about. To me, I've already had the (mis) conception that I needed to do more workouts and eat less. Seems like I was completely off base there. People are eating 4000 calories and 250g of carbs on a single day without issue. WOW!! What the hell am I doing wrong?
http://killerfitgym.com/my-etp-experience-faq/
BOOM! Everything became so much clearer.
Now that I've got a clearer picture of what I need to be hitting for target nutrition AND I'm actually tracking it, I have to figure out how to get my numbers up.
This is what my nutrition looked like today and its definitely clean, but not even close to enough. Below it you can see my target numbers. Until next time!
Sunday, November 22, 2015
F.I.T. EPIC OCR/Health Update
OK - so last week I did a new OCR. It was called the F.I.T. Epic Fifth Challenge. It was up in Diamond Hill State Park in RI.
I'll be honest, when that day started my body was shaky and I felt a little sick. Under the weather. I've been battling something for a few weeks now and it seems to come and go. I said to hell with it though and went ahead with the plan of conquering this OCR.
The course is a state park. Trail running, which should have been obvious to me but as usual I was oblivious. I had heard that there was over 900' of elevation on the course, but when all was said and done I guess there was actually over 1200' of elevation. It was crazy. I'm very happy I didn't wear running shoes for the event.
What were the obstacles? Well besides nature, the hills, the rocky trails, trees, etc... there were some obstacles you had to hop over, some you had to climb under. There was one random stop coming down the hill the first time where you had to grab a 45lb barbell and press it over your head 30 times. That was kind of easy. All the tougher obstacles were at the bottom of the hill. The hills were there to exhaust you and tax your legs and lungs, which it worked. At the bottom of the hill there were a couple of wooden barriers you had to climb over. Some of them were inverted so that was definitely challenging. There were ones you had to jump up, grab on, get your feet up there and swing your whole body up to grab the next piece of wood so you could go up and over. There were cargo nets. Oh, there was a peg board that was 12' in the air or so, I managed to climb all the way up that. There was rope right after that and I failed miserably on that. The atlas ball (65lb concrete ball) that you had to pick up and roll it over your shoulder down your back 5x. Then there was the Wreck Bag carry. Pick the weight of your bag (I went with 50lb, the heaviest was 1 size up, 70lb), put it on your shoulders and start running up hill. Yes, up the fucking hill again. There was this obstacle called "The Destroyer" that had a lot of people up in arms. In all honesty, if you had some good upper body strength you could conquer it. I was able to conquer it. I remember a woman behind me say "holy shit, he made that look easy". When I went over the top I heard them yell "BEAST". lol Kind of funny. There were some monkey bars, which honestly was my biggest fear going into this. My kid's playground monkey bars are tougher, probably because I can't swing my legs. These weren't bad at all though. There was no mud. It wasn't messy. I totally could have worn my headphones (bummer). It was tough though.
How did I do? I finished in 1 hr 33min, which put me at about the middle of the pack. 255th out of 530. Honestly I think I did very well for myself. I learned I need to get better with my cardio, specifically hills, if I want to improve upon my completion time. I loved the challenges. I DEFINITELY need to improve my grip strength and overall strength. Learning how to climb a rope wouldn't be a bad thing. lol I didn't incur any penalties (if there were any I didn't know what they were). I honestly conquered every single obstacle but that frigin rope climb. DAMN THAT ROPE!! Damn me for not being prepared.
How can I improve? Well, first off... I wasn't going for "time" as so many others were. I had never done a course like this. My only previous OCR was the Mudderella, which wasn't very hard (IMO). Now that I have a better understanding of what I would be up against, I would definitely push harder for a better time. At one particular obstacle I stood there for 5 or 10 minutes, letting other people go ahead of me, because I was unable to do it my first couple of tries. Well shit, there's 10 minutes I could shave off my time! There were other areas where I'd stop and let others go ahead of me while I tried to understand what the flipping challenge was that I was supposed to do. Again, more time to be shaved off. Then of course there was the trails, the hills. I need to be better with them and my cardio if I'm going to improve my overall time.
It was great to have it not be a cold, miserable day out there. Not just for me, but for my supporters. My wife and kids came out to cheer me on. In addition, my friend Jack who was originally scheduled to run the race with me, was there with his beautiful daughters. They were cold, they didn't have the "benefit" of running up a hill I guess. LOL Their support though was greatly appreciated.
Would I do it again? YES Actually I'm trying to figure out what my next races will be. There are a couple that happen in the dead of winter that I'm not too sure about. We shall see. There will be more races though, that's for sure. I'd like to get some of my more fit friends involved in them. One because I think that they would truly enjoy it and two, because it would give me more opportunities to share in healthy challenges with them.
How is my health? Actually after I finished that race I was tired! Not really surprising. My knees and shoulders have been hurting lately. Since I just finished up 2 months of frigin physical therapy to correct my knee issues it is clear they are hurting not from what I AM doing, but more because of what I am NOT doing. I've been really good with my form. Really really focused on it so I know that isn't the cause of my discomfort in the knees. It is stretching. Its been pretty tight lately and I've stretched here and there, but I need to get back to doing this 4x a week to get past the pain. The shoulders? I can only guess its due to the handstands. I'm working on yet more stretches to try and address the shoulder discomfort as well. Like with anything though, consistency is the key. You get nowhere fast if you aren't consistent.
What am I doing to stay active/healthy? I've been doing some Men's Health Anarchy program for the past couple of weeks and that has been the extent of my fitness. It's not a bad program. There is a lot of focus on cardio/HIIT style, even when you pick up the dumbbells. A lot of core stuff. I'm not complaining, because it is a change from the norm. One other thing I am kind of working on is learning how to do a handstand. I'm technically on level 3 with that. Level 1 was hold a plank with your feet on a wall for 60 seconds. Level 2 was hold a wall handstand for 60 seconds, again, body against the wall. Level 3 is learn to bail safely. Level 4 is hold a wall handstand for 90 seconds. Lots and lots of strain on your shoulders. I'm supposed to be practicing it daily, for like 5 minutes a day, but I've only be doing it a couple of days out of the week and a couple of 60 second wall handstands. Honestly the shoulder pains have been holding me back a bit. I'm probably going to try and stick with it and see both the Anarchy program and the handstand thing through. 1) The Anarchy program is only 6 weeks long and the workouts are only 30 min or less, which is awesome. 2) How fucking cool would it be to learn the skill of a handstand? Seriously, 43 and learning how to do a handstand. That just blows open doors for new fun fitness challenges like, walking on your hands, handstand push ups, etc... Very cool.
Longer term, what's on the horizon? I just don't know. I really don't. There are so many things I could be better at with my overall health and fitness. For one, I don't think you are supposed to wake up in pain or discomfort. Simple tasks like walking up hills or steps should not cause discomfort. Lifting things over your head, should not cause discomfort. I call myself healthy, but really I'm just strong and sometimes active. Healthy, well that means something else now doesn't it? It means something different to just about everyone. Everyone battles with something in their health. I am no exception. My version of healthy is waking up every day, without pain, being strong enough to conquer my training and still have energy in the tank to keep up with my family.
There are multiple directions I could go with my health/fitness challenges. Lots of different things I'm looking at. 1) There is a course a website Eat To Perform that intrigues me. There is no question to anyone who knows me that nutrition is an area I could improve upon. I've got 3 different books I'm currently reading (yes, that's right, I read now too). I'm at different stages for each one. The 1st one I'm on the chapter relevant to the phase I'm on right now. The 2nd one, I just started flipping through. The 3rd one, well, I'm getting ready to experiment with one of the first techniques.
1) Chris Salvato - Handstand Beginner's Guide
2) Steven Low - Overcoming Gravity: A Systematic Approach to Gymnastics and Bodyweight Strength
3) Kelly McGonigal - The Willpower Instinct
In addition to all this, there is a new Beachbody program that is coming out that definitely intrigues me. It is called Hammer & Chisel with Sagi Kalev & Autumn Calabrese. I have the discipline to do the workouts, its the nutrition that is the bigger challenge. That is going to be the challenge no matter what workout I choose. Hence why I'm reading the willpower book.
Until the next time.
I'll be honest, when that day started my body was shaky and I felt a little sick. Under the weather. I've been battling something for a few weeks now and it seems to come and go. I said to hell with it though and went ahead with the plan of conquering this OCR.
The course is a state park. Trail running, which should have been obvious to me but as usual I was oblivious. I had heard that there was over 900' of elevation on the course, but when all was said and done I guess there was actually over 1200' of elevation. It was crazy. I'm very happy I didn't wear running shoes for the event.
What were the obstacles? Well besides nature, the hills, the rocky trails, trees, etc... there were some obstacles you had to hop over, some you had to climb under. There was one random stop coming down the hill the first time where you had to grab a 45lb barbell and press it over your head 30 times. That was kind of easy. All the tougher obstacles were at the bottom of the hill. The hills were there to exhaust you and tax your legs and lungs, which it worked. At the bottom of the hill there were a couple of wooden barriers you had to climb over. Some of them were inverted so that was definitely challenging. There were ones you had to jump up, grab on, get your feet up there and swing your whole body up to grab the next piece of wood so you could go up and over. There were cargo nets. Oh, there was a peg board that was 12' in the air or so, I managed to climb all the way up that. There was rope right after that and I failed miserably on that. The atlas ball (65lb concrete ball) that you had to pick up and roll it over your shoulder down your back 5x. Then there was the Wreck Bag carry. Pick the weight of your bag (I went with 50lb, the heaviest was 1 size up, 70lb), put it on your shoulders and start running up hill. Yes, up the fucking hill again. There was this obstacle called "The Destroyer" that had a lot of people up in arms. In all honesty, if you had some good upper body strength you could conquer it. I was able to conquer it. I remember a woman behind me say "holy shit, he made that look easy". When I went over the top I heard them yell "BEAST". lol Kind of funny. There were some monkey bars, which honestly was my biggest fear going into this. My kid's playground monkey bars are tougher, probably because I can't swing my legs. These weren't bad at all though. There was no mud. It wasn't messy. I totally could have worn my headphones (bummer). It was tough though.
How did I do? I finished in 1 hr 33min, which put me at about the middle of the pack. 255th out of 530. Honestly I think I did very well for myself. I learned I need to get better with my cardio, specifically hills, if I want to improve upon my completion time. I loved the challenges. I DEFINITELY need to improve my grip strength and overall strength. Learning how to climb a rope wouldn't be a bad thing. lol I didn't incur any penalties (if there were any I didn't know what they were). I honestly conquered every single obstacle but that frigin rope climb. DAMN THAT ROPE!! Damn me for not being prepared.
How can I improve? Well, first off... I wasn't going for "time" as so many others were. I had never done a course like this. My only previous OCR was the Mudderella, which wasn't very hard (IMO). Now that I have a better understanding of what I would be up against, I would definitely push harder for a better time. At one particular obstacle I stood there for 5 or 10 minutes, letting other people go ahead of me, because I was unable to do it my first couple of tries. Well shit, there's 10 minutes I could shave off my time! There were other areas where I'd stop and let others go ahead of me while I tried to understand what the flipping challenge was that I was supposed to do. Again, more time to be shaved off. Then of course there was the trails, the hills. I need to be better with them and my cardio if I'm going to improve my overall time.
It was great to have it not be a cold, miserable day out there. Not just for me, but for my supporters. My wife and kids came out to cheer me on. In addition, my friend Jack who was originally scheduled to run the race with me, was there with his beautiful daughters. They were cold, they didn't have the "benefit" of running up a hill I guess. LOL Their support though was greatly appreciated.
Would I do it again? YES Actually I'm trying to figure out what my next races will be. There are a couple that happen in the dead of winter that I'm not too sure about. We shall see. There will be more races though, that's for sure. I'd like to get some of my more fit friends involved in them. One because I think that they would truly enjoy it and two, because it would give me more opportunities to share in healthy challenges with them.
How is my health? Actually after I finished that race I was tired! Not really surprising. My knees and shoulders have been hurting lately. Since I just finished up 2 months of frigin physical therapy to correct my knee issues it is clear they are hurting not from what I AM doing, but more because of what I am NOT doing. I've been really good with my form. Really really focused on it so I know that isn't the cause of my discomfort in the knees. It is stretching. Its been pretty tight lately and I've stretched here and there, but I need to get back to doing this 4x a week to get past the pain. The shoulders? I can only guess its due to the handstands. I'm working on yet more stretches to try and address the shoulder discomfort as well. Like with anything though, consistency is the key. You get nowhere fast if you aren't consistent.
What am I doing to stay active/healthy? I've been doing some Men's Health Anarchy program for the past couple of weeks and that has been the extent of my fitness. It's not a bad program. There is a lot of focus on cardio/HIIT style, even when you pick up the dumbbells. A lot of core stuff. I'm not complaining, because it is a change from the norm. One other thing I am kind of working on is learning how to do a handstand. I'm technically on level 3 with that. Level 1 was hold a plank with your feet on a wall for 60 seconds. Level 2 was hold a wall handstand for 60 seconds, again, body against the wall. Level 3 is learn to bail safely. Level 4 is hold a wall handstand for 90 seconds. Lots and lots of strain on your shoulders. I'm supposed to be practicing it daily, for like 5 minutes a day, but I've only be doing it a couple of days out of the week and a couple of 60 second wall handstands. Honestly the shoulder pains have been holding me back a bit. I'm probably going to try and stick with it and see both the Anarchy program and the handstand thing through. 1) The Anarchy program is only 6 weeks long and the workouts are only 30 min or less, which is awesome. 2) How fucking cool would it be to learn the skill of a handstand? Seriously, 43 and learning how to do a handstand. That just blows open doors for new fun fitness challenges like, walking on your hands, handstand push ups, etc... Very cool.
Longer term, what's on the horizon? I just don't know. I really don't. There are so many things I could be better at with my overall health and fitness. For one, I don't think you are supposed to wake up in pain or discomfort. Simple tasks like walking up hills or steps should not cause discomfort. Lifting things over your head, should not cause discomfort. I call myself healthy, but really I'm just strong and sometimes active. Healthy, well that means something else now doesn't it? It means something different to just about everyone. Everyone battles with something in their health. I am no exception. My version of healthy is waking up every day, without pain, being strong enough to conquer my training and still have energy in the tank to keep up with my family.
There are multiple directions I could go with my health/fitness challenges. Lots of different things I'm looking at. 1) There is a course a website Eat To Perform that intrigues me. There is no question to anyone who knows me that nutrition is an area I could improve upon. I've got 3 different books I'm currently reading (yes, that's right, I read now too). I'm at different stages for each one. The 1st one I'm on the chapter relevant to the phase I'm on right now. The 2nd one, I just started flipping through. The 3rd one, well, I'm getting ready to experiment with one of the first techniques.
1) Chris Salvato - Handstand Beginner's Guide
2) Steven Low - Overcoming Gravity: A Systematic Approach to Gymnastics and Bodyweight Strength
3) Kelly McGonigal - The Willpower Instinct
In addition to all this, there is a new Beachbody program that is coming out that definitely intrigues me. It is called Hammer & Chisel with Sagi Kalev & Autumn Calabrese. I have the discipline to do the workouts, its the nutrition that is the bigger challenge. That is going to be the challenge no matter what workout I choose. Hence why I'm reading the willpower book.
Until the next time.
Sunday, October 11, 2015
Onward and Upward
As usual, been forever since I posted. I'm OK with it.
This spring/summer I let my love for beer, pizza and snack type food (aka junk food) get the best of me and my weight went from 166lbs in May up to 180lbs in September. Sure I still worked out and still pushed hard to get stronger, but that wasn't helping my weight.
Additional contributors to my weight gain. 1) Inconsistent workout schedule 2) Bad knees
The workout schedule, I was accustomed to working out 5 to 6 days per week in the comfort of my own home, starting it at 5AM. For the past few months I've been struggling to find a consistent schedule with my buddy Kev at the gym. At a minimum I want to get 3 days per week at the gym with him. Again, its been a real struggle between his schedule, my schedule and everything else. In addition, the workouts are starting at 8PM at night, not y best time to workout, but it'll have to do. He pushes me hard and makes me move weights that I wouldn't otherwise feel comfortable with in my own home, so, its a positive thing.
The knees. I went to an orthopedic Dr and got them checked out. I was diagnosed with patellofemoral pain syndrome. The pain had reached the point where I couldn't walk up stairs or hills. It was far too uncomfortable to try and push off my feet. Make no mistake, the issue isn't my feet. I found myself holding onto railings and pulling myself up stairs to get up stairs and leaning on the railings to try and walk down them. Absurd for sure. I can run a mile in under 9 minutes but can't walk a flight of steps. Dr gave me physical therapy script as my solution and that has been working out quite well.
September came and reality was I needed to get things back under control. I couldn't keep drinking a beer or two every night or other night for that matter. Insert 21 Day Fix. We already own the program and honestly I've never, ever followed the nutrition portion of any Beachbody program. Why not give it a shot. We've just wrapped up week 2 of that and I'm down 6lbs, which I'm good with. It took me over 4 months to put on almost 14lbs, I'm not going to lose that in 2 weeks. Forward progress is forward progress.
I just completed my first OCR (Obstacle Course Race) last weekend. It was the Mudderella. It was definitely a fun event. The course was 5 miles long and it only had 13 to 14 obstacles. I was hoping for less running and more obstacles as I had not done any running since early April and was really worried about my knees. As it turned out my legs were stronger than I thought and my body as a whole held up really well. The obstacles I didn't find all too challenging, the biggest challenge was mental and the running I guess. It was awesome to have my family there to help support me. It was also awesome to be able to do this with a couple rock stars from my fit group. It proved to me that I could do this and that I also needed to push myself harder.
Next challenges are 1) to stay on track with nutrition 2) keep pushing for 3 nights at the gym and a couple mornings at home (cardio/stretching) 3) the F.I.T. Epic Challenge. Until next time.
This spring/summer I let my love for beer, pizza and snack type food (aka junk food) get the best of me and my weight went from 166lbs in May up to 180lbs in September. Sure I still worked out and still pushed hard to get stronger, but that wasn't helping my weight.
Additional contributors to my weight gain. 1) Inconsistent workout schedule 2) Bad knees
The workout schedule, I was accustomed to working out 5 to 6 days per week in the comfort of my own home, starting it at 5AM. For the past few months I've been struggling to find a consistent schedule with my buddy Kev at the gym. At a minimum I want to get 3 days per week at the gym with him. Again, its been a real struggle between his schedule, my schedule and everything else. In addition, the workouts are starting at 8PM at night, not y best time to workout, but it'll have to do. He pushes me hard and makes me move weights that I wouldn't otherwise feel comfortable with in my own home, so, its a positive thing.
The knees. I went to an orthopedic Dr and got them checked out. I was diagnosed with patellofemoral pain syndrome. The pain had reached the point where I couldn't walk up stairs or hills. It was far too uncomfortable to try and push off my feet. Make no mistake, the issue isn't my feet. I found myself holding onto railings and pulling myself up stairs to get up stairs and leaning on the railings to try and walk down them. Absurd for sure. I can run a mile in under 9 minutes but can't walk a flight of steps. Dr gave me physical therapy script as my solution and that has been working out quite well.
September came and reality was I needed to get things back under control. I couldn't keep drinking a beer or two every night or other night for that matter. Insert 21 Day Fix. We already own the program and honestly I've never, ever followed the nutrition portion of any Beachbody program. Why not give it a shot. We've just wrapped up week 2 of that and I'm down 6lbs, which I'm good with. It took me over 4 months to put on almost 14lbs, I'm not going to lose that in 2 weeks. Forward progress is forward progress.
I just completed my first OCR (Obstacle Course Race) last weekend. It was the Mudderella. It was definitely a fun event. The course was 5 miles long and it only had 13 to 14 obstacles. I was hoping for less running and more obstacles as I had not done any running since early April and was really worried about my knees. As it turned out my legs were stronger than I thought and my body as a whole held up really well. The obstacles I didn't find all too challenging, the biggest challenge was mental and the running I guess. It was awesome to have my family there to help support me. It was also awesome to be able to do this with a couple rock stars from my fit group. It proved to me that I could do this and that I also needed to push myself harder.
Next challenges are 1) to stay on track with nutrition 2) keep pushing for 3 nights at the gym and a couple mornings at home (cardio/stretching) 3) the F.I.T. Epic Challenge. Until next time.
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