Music Sunday Rises Again

LL Cool J - Going Back to Cali

Voxtrot - Firecracker

Lords of the Underground - Chief Rocka

Chuck Ragan - The Boat (unplugged)

Rufus Wainwright - Across the Universe

Lessons

Reggie Bush must do CFFB.  That’s got to be the reason he’s the NFL Running Back with an actual Six Pack.  Since jumping on board (and temporarily off Mike’s Gym) I’ve gotten my abs back.  It certainly isn’t the quality of food (I’ve been downing Muscle Milks to make up for the lack of protein) so it must be the quality of the work done in the gym which is all because of the quality of the programming.   I’m happy with the results that I’ve been getting.  It’s been a struggle and an adjustment to actually doing real conditioning but I can’t argue that I haven’t been getting more powerful, especially in the upper body where I was proportionally weak during the Oly-lifts year. 

Another reason for my resurgence is that the quality of my warm up has increased ten-fold.   I’ve been alternating between a warm up taught to me by Neal from CFBoston that I learned at the Glassman Q&A and also Dutch’s warm up which is posted below.  Getting my muscles loose has been a great help in that I can hit the WOD’s hard immediately rather than get warmed up during the first round.  Also, working up to 315# singles of back squats during the warm up regardless of SWOD or DWOD really gets all the large muscle groups in my body fired up. 

So, the lessons learned: actually warming up is good and conditioning gives me my abs back.  Good to know.

How About Some 100% Effort for the 100th Post

Since I started this bodily experiment there seems to be one common denominator.  Whether your goal is increased strength, speed, GPP or just bigger biceps and wicked abs, you know, for the ladies, the common denominator seems to be just plain, old fashioned hard work.  It’s all about busting your ass in the gym and in the kitchen.  All success starts with an internal “how much do I want this” conversation.  If you answered anything that sounds like “a lot” you’re on the right track, congratulations.  You then have to ask yourself, how hard am I willing to work for it.  You know damn well that the answer better be “One-hundred-and-fucking-ten-percent effort baby!”  That’s how this fitness game works.  Like everything else that you should do in life put your balls on the line, get out there and take care of your shit.  When you’re in the gym, focus, not on the uber-hott doing lunges or the scroate flexing his abs in the mirror (“yeah, work it”) but on that next set, that next lift or that next lap around the track.  Effort people. 

The best part about this approach is that it applies to other parts of your life as well, or at least it should.  Do you find yourself in financial trouble?  Manage your portfolio, work extra hours if you can, handle your business with credit card/college debt, start putting more away in savings but do all of these things with intent, purpose and the same 100% effort that I hope you do in the gym. 

I encourage you to find parts of your life that are lacking.  It could be your love life, your work, your education and really give all that you can.  It’s absolutely the only way that you’ll be pleased with the results because a half assed effort is weak-sauce and I don’t tolerate weak-sauce.

Where Should You Put Your Money?

Old School Gymin'

The Return of Music Sunday

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Maps

Death Cab For Cutie - Cath (acoustic)

The National - Fake Empire

Bright Eyes - First Day of My Life

Cat Power - He War

Okkervil River - Unless it's Kicks

The New Pornographers - Challengers

and for those looking for something that may remind you of when cartoons were good:

FGB

It's been a long time since I posted the results of a workout.  But I feel that it's time to let you, my faithful readers (reader?  anyone?) that I just posted a solid 367 on Fight Gone Bad.  Certainly, you may think, that that's not a terribly great score.  Solid, certainly no disrespect, but not a score to put n the history books.  To which I will reply, "Go fuck yourself."  This score comes after strictly strength training for a year, a two week hiatus and working off of the CFFB site for just a couple of weeks.  My time modalities aren't 15 minutes of work, rather they are in 15 second range.  This is a big deal.  This implies, at least through the small test sample of one, that training for strength my be the most important inlier for metcon success.  Put it this way: if 75# seems light to you, you can do more reps.  If you are used to cleaning 275# then 75# SDHP's are a breeze.  This isn't to say that a typical intense workout in the 20 minute range all the way through 180 minutes should never be done nor does it have benefits, but I would argue that increases in strength can't hamper those abilities and should be done more frequently to gain strength and maintain metcon "awareness." 

For people who wonder what Oly-Lift Training looks like, below is a video of the Korean National Team from December 2008

Take Me Away

I was not made for this.  Currently, as I type this, I am sitting at my desk at work, staring at a computer screen, listening to people bitch about jobs that they hate in order, to quote Tyler Durden, “to buy shit we don’t need.”  I’m two days removed from being nomadic, being diurnal and being completely content with everything in my life.  I was with my fiancée, I ate, I walked, I shat and I moved on.  Literally, I was a bow and some quivers from saying, “Fuck it, I’m staying out here.”  Now, I wish that I had. 

Our ancestors didn’t evolve for millions of years to stare into computer screens, wake up before dawn and be generally miserable.  I am the top of the food chain.  I am strong, smart, aware and agile.  My body was built to do work and I have built it to do more.  I should be out there, stalking deer, eating berries and grabbing fish.  I should be running for my life from some mountain cat and making sure that I fatten up for the cold hard winter ahead of me.

Maybe this is just the linger from my camping trip.  It could be that our cerebral evolution is so far ahead of our physical evolution that if only my physiological side could catch up to my psychological side everything would mesh perfectly and my life as it currently exists makes sense.  But I don’t want it to.  I want to be out there doing, not wishing that I was.  Going back into those woods for the first time since I was 18 years old felt amazing.  It wasn’t like pancakes where I was excited in the beginning but sick of it at the end.  The outdoors is where I, we, belong.  I moved, I focused, I was aware of the task at hand.  I want to go back; hopefully you’ll come with me, if only to understand what I’m talking about.

Guess Who's Back

That's right, me.  I'm back from the mud and mosquito's of the Adirondack State Park and am happy to report that I survived (I can't say the same for Little Timmy).  Mountains were hiked, lakes and rivers were swum in and we even snuck into a BBQ across a really long lake (go us).  All-in-all a grand time was had by all.  I didn't take very many pictures for two reasons A) the memory card that I bought had to be redeemed ahead of time and I was unaware of this and B) I don't take too many pictures.  My mancave is in disarray right now so I'm not going to load any pictures quite yet, but they'll come.  I promise.

For those interested, it's good to know that the hard work done in the gym translated well into going up (and down) mountains with excess of 50 pounds on my back.  I'd call it a very successful trip and can't wait to do it again.  Although the diet wasn't ideal (should've brought a bow + arrow and gotten some deer, or maybe bear) and I could definitely feel my body not enjoying its lack of protein intake we ate fairly well for our circumstances.  

Anyway, I'm excited to get back to the gym on Monday.  Hopefully it'll be like I never left.