How bad do you want it?

That is Giavanni Ruffin out of East Carolina. I admit I only knew that because it says so on Vimeo. That shouldn't take anything away from the message though. How bad do you want it? I think it's a question we all should ask ourselves on a daily basis. I also believe it's a question, that when asked, many of us subconsciously lie in our response or don't truly comprehend the sacrifices we must make in order to obtain it, whatever it may be. It's less about making a change in your life, and more about changing your life. That's perhaps a bit extreme in some instances, but the video isn't about those.

It's not uncommon to hear people on Facebook, any given internet forum, workplace, and pretty much anywhere talk about how they wish they were skinny, how they wish they were in shape (there is a difference), how they wish they could do [insert hobby/activity], or how they wish they had a certain job. Well, wishing never got anyone anywhere. My family is incredibly God fearing and spiritual. Your opinions on religion aside, my father always used to tell me that while we need to pray for that which we want, we must always strive to achieve those goals ourselves. We can't just sit by and let life happen all while hoping something miraculous will occur. You must invest time into your goals. You must invest a lot of energy and emotion. Success, in any shape or form, must be worked for and earned.  The journey is not easy, and more often then not it flat out sucks.

So many of us are prone to issuing strong declarative statements of our goals without first making the real promise to ourselves that we will do whatever it takes to achieve them. Let me re-emphasize the "do whatever it takes" part. That's fairly broad and all encompassing right? Whatever it takes. Let that sink in.

We live in a society that is over saturated with the now. I'll spare you the detailed examples, but you've read magazines covers promising six pack abs in a month. You've seen the ridiculous claims supplement companies dish out. You've seen the over saturation of pyramid schemes in America who promise their clients, I mean employees, the world. You've no doubt seen lottery commercials or have played the lottery yourself. How many people have experienced success in any of the aforementioned? I imagine very few compared to the number who have tried and failed. Whatever happened to reaping the fruits of our labor? Is there anything truly self fulfilling by not giving something our all and trying to cheat the "system", for lack of a better term? Well, maybe to some of you. That is sad, but a different topic.

Be real with yourself. Look in a mirror and ask yourself "How bad do I want it?" Are you willing to make the lifestyle change in order to achieve your goals? Do not lie to yourself. There's literally no point. People often ask me for help. Why? I don't know. I don't know everything, but I was blessed with an over abundance of common sense and an ability to problem solve. In other words I was clearly born a man. Kidding, ladies. I often ask people I help, after being informed that they have made little progress, "Which part of the "lifestyle change" wasn't clear to you?" after they tell me they don't want to give up a particular food or way of life that is detrimental towards their supposed goals (partying). I then generally ask the person to adjust their goals since their current ones will not be achieved with that mindset and/or lifestyle. That's simply reality. In response I'll receive a smile or a nod of the head, and it's clear they're not accepting my words. They'll show me they can do it and prove me wrong. After all, I'm not a certified trainer or "lifestyle coach" so I don't know what I'm talking about. Then 6 or 7 months down the road they look exactly the same and are wondering why "everyone else but me is getting results." While the "everyone but me" line of thinking is inherently untrue, it is still a dangerous mindset. That's when people tend to give up and let despair overwhelm them. Regardless, you will not achieve your goals only putting in half the effort. It's all or nothing. If you want something then you must do whatever it takes, and that usually means making sacrifices which are more often than not outside of our comfort zone. I ask again, when have we ever grown while being comfortable?

Make the tough decision. Push yourself beyond what you think you're mentally capable of. Work long and hard to get the job you want. Make sacrifices and change your life for the better. The journey can suck and be overly miserable, but the reward at the end more than makes up for it. Hell, somewhere along the line it may even become fun. You never know until you actually do it and quit making excuses. You're in control of your own life. Why settle for mediocrity?

Saturday workout fun with the lady, and that guy just left...with NUTS!

Well, I'm officially beat. My sweet, dear ex-wife of a girlfriend (confused?) and I went out to get in a hard 30 minute workout earlier. Unfortunately my super hippie organic coffee did little to get my brain up to par with the rest of my body. I couldn't think of a fun workout that would challenge both of us, and that we could get done quickly. Then I turned and saw my best and most hated fitness friend: the deck of playing cards. Boom. Problem solved. Oh boy...

If you're lacking creativity then a deck of cards is your savior. You can assign certain exercises to each suit, and then decide the reps, intensity level, or whatever depending on the face value (FV) or color of the card.

Here is Ray Lewis speaking on his deck of cards workout. His is fairly simple. The options are endless.

Now you see why I love them and hate them. The deck of cards workout is a physical and mental battle.

Once you've figured out which cards go with whatever exercises go ahead and shuffle the deck. Once shuffled, pull the first card. Perform the exercise. Then pull the next. I like to time myself to see how long it takes to go through all 54. This will keep you from over extending your rest periods, and hopefully help push you to do better each time. Naturally that only works if you're doing the same exercises for the same cards.

Here are the exercises I assigned to each card. Face cards (king, queen, jack, ace) are all worth 10:

• Club - jump rope - Face value (FV) x 10 skips (if you pull a 4 of clubs you do 40 skips)
• Spade - plyo/bench jumps
• Diamond - glute/ham raise  
• Hearts - sit-ups

So, we made a promise to each other to make it all the way through the deck. We would draw a card, and then both of us would do the exercise. We had to stop with about 10 cards left. It took us around 40 minutes to get through that much, as our conditioning could use some work and it was already 100*+ outside. Regardless, our butts were kicked. Oh and it's very annoying to consistently draw the same suit. Talk about giving you a major burn. 

An hour or so later we headed over to Whole Foods to spend thousands of dollars on exotic beasts and produce. Well, maybe not that much. I'm just whining about how pricey it is buying organic. Don't judge me. While there we got hit up by one of the local vendor's free sample stand. It turned out to be Nate's Raw Harvest They sell pre-soaked organic nuts, which are supposed to be free of phytic acid, lectins, and other anti-nutrients. 

For those that don't know, phytic acid is a mineral blocker that affects your absorption of calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, and zinc. Lectins affect your gut lining and can cause gastro-intestinal distress on top of other things. Feel free to google your face off on that one. Peanuts used to be a huge part of my diet, but now due to the anti-nutrients I've removed them completely. I needed a replacement crunchy and salty snack badly! 

I ended up going with the pumpkin seeds. They tasted fantastic and I figured they'd go great with all of the organic spinach I just snagged.

I love supporting a local company. Although, these nuts are $12.99 at Whole Foods. They are $10.99 on the website. Go check them out!

You stay hard.

The doctor has spoken. I've been tendinopafied

Well, after a good month of only doing minimal upper body work my elbow is still giving me hell. So, I headed off to the ortho yesterday just to make sure I didn't have a torn ligament or misplaced vagina. Thankfully I don't suffer from either ailment.

What I do suffer from is what I suspected: tendinitis, or tendinopathy. Whichever floats your boat. He better explained to me that I'm constantly exacerbating the injury by allowing my wrist to bend every which way. He asked if I'm in the most pain first thing in the morning, and of course I answered yes. He explained that throughout the night we have a tendency to sleep in funky positions (I hang upside down from the rafters...don't judge my condo) and the wrist often times gets bent forward or backward for extended periods of time. This places incredible amounts of stress on the affected area. How do I rectumify that? Well he suggested I go out and buy a wrist brace and wear it while sleeping.

Unfortunately last night I was not able to make over to a sporty sports store to grab one, so each time I woke up (I tinkle a lot throughout the night) I tried to pay extra careful attention to my wrist placement. I noticed that I often times woke up with the wrist cocked, and even though I was consciously thinking about my wrist placement I'd still use that hand to push myself out of bed while I stood up. Whoops. That's a problem. So, tonight I'm going to grab a brace.

He also gave me a few exercises to perform. I'm sure you all remember this beautiful tear jerking blog I wrote earlier about eccentric exercise. Well, apparently the one I've been doing (which is mentioned therein) is not ideal for this injury. He said I was on the right track, but I'm only stressing the affected area once the forearm creates a 90* angle with the upper arm, and lower.

The correct exercises, he said, would be one where you lay your forearm across a surface and over the edge (like a bench or preacher curl stand) while holding a DB/KB/anything with weight. While holding the weight in a pronated position, slowly supinate the wrist. Your wrist and palm should be facing upward in the supinated position. Then return your wrist to the pronated position. Repeat.

The other exercise is conducted on a similar surface in a similar position; however, your wrist and hand will remain pronated. While holding the weight, bend your hand upward until it forms a 90* angle with your wrist. Then lower it all the way down, and repeat.

Also, any time I pick up an object on the left side of my body to make sure I lift said object close to my body. That keeps the elbow from flaring and further stress from being applied on the inflamed area.

He said 3 weeks of this should get me back to normal. This is after nearly a half year of hell. We'll see how it works, and I'll most definitely keep you updated.

I'm getting trendier by the day

Well, better late than never I guess. I've finally joined the ranks of the shoe minimalists and purchased a pair of Merrell Trail Gloves. In case you were wondering what my pair looked like, and you are incapable of using Google, then here is a picture:

MIND BLOWING!!!

Over the last many years I've been torturing myself and atrophying my feet/calf muscles with horrid running shoes that would normally have around a 9mm slope from heel to toe. My last pair being the awful Nike Sparq Trainers with the equally awful shock technology. They were great for standing around in and all the fly honeys came flockin', but they simply weren't functional, per se, when it came to actual training. By now I'm sure you've already been beaten down with information "provided" to you by barefoot running proponents (see how I was nice about that and didn't take the easy way out by calling them nazis?) so I won't touch on that fully.

Instead let me just say that, contrary to popular internet belief, these shoes are not for everyone. GASP. Not everyone can make this transition. That could be in part due to a person's genetic makeup, or the fact that you actually need to condition your feet and ankles to take on the added stress which shoes-of-today unfortunately eliminate.Whoa heyooo so stress is good? Absolutely. How else are you going to strengthen that area? 1,000,000 calf raises? No thanks. It's unfortunate that many minimalist/barefoot running proponents are so cemented in with their beliefs that they don't leave room for any excuses for someone explaining why minimalist shoes do not work for them.

"BUT THE TARAHUMARA TRIBE HAS BEEN DOING IT FOR CENTURIES!!!! IT'S SO PALEO, NOT-BRO!"

Well, fictional shouting person whom I created and am now addressing, I would imagine that most Americans haven't been barefoot running for centuries. I know, I'm out on a precarious limb. I'll let the logical side of your brains take over and figure out what I mean by that. Technology, in most instances, serves to better our lives. How do we know that many of the Tarahumara tribe didn't and don't suffer from foot ailments which could have been corrected with appropriate footwear?

HMMM?

"Write about your goals you idiot"

That was the subject line on an email I received yesterday in my inbox. At first I was all excited that someone had actually read this blog, but then I realized I sent that email to myself earlier in the morning as a reminder. I responded with some hate filled message, which I then read this morning when I got back to work. It made me curl into the fetal position, rock back and forth, and hum Puff the Magic Dragon for an hour or more.

So, with that said, let me go over a few of my short term goals. I've been working hard to achieve most of them, but some have been put on hold due to injury.

• Muscle up - Unfortunately the only pulls I can work on are the towel rows. So, this is somewhat on hold. Due to my wrist pressing has been put on the back burner.
• One arm push-up - I'm nowhere close to being able to accomplish this. Large pectorals was not something I was blessed with, but it is definitely something I will overcome. Did I mention I'm missing a large chunk of my right pec? You read that right. I was born without it. If I was in the Olympics I'm sure NBC would find a way to make a tear jerker story out of my "disability".
• Dragon flag - I can do 3/4 of one now! I can start in the up position and go down 3/4 of the way and back up. I'm proud of myself for this since I'm pretty tall and lanky.
• Pistol squat - I've had a lot of time to work on this over the last month. I'm getting better at it. Thanks, Convict Conditioning.
• Handstand push-up - Since these are short term goals I'm really just shooting for the 'assisted' handstand push-up. In other words, my feet will still be sliding up and down the wall for balance. From there I'll change my goal to "unassisted handstand push-up". 
• 35" vert - I've always been a good leaper, but that ability goes away if you're not specifically training for it. Back during my high school/college basketball days I was at 37". Maybe I can surpass that. Maybe not. Only way to find out is to work at it! 

I'll try to work on getting more video and pictures up. I've been working out every single day and I'm just aching to get back out there with Elite Kettlebell Club. Soon enough.

It costs so much more to be unhealthy

Getrichslowly.org recently wrote this fairly obvious yet still alarming article on the price of obesity. Scary.

More than 60% of Americans are at an unhealthy weight, with 33.4% classified as obese. If we continue at this rate, by 2030 half of the population will be obese. 

That's it? Go ahead and read the full article. It's worth the 5 minutes. Well, I guess that's subjective.

It's unfortunate our beloved fitness industry is so hell bent on the mighty dollar that they do little to assist this sad epidemic. Let me just get this rant out of the way now. I know, it's a bit tired and covered repeatedly across the blogosphere. I'll keep it short.

Here they are selling fat burners and appetite suppressants, neither being all that healthy, to men and women who simply lack the knowledge and instruction to get their lives back. Instead of teaching what has been tried and true for centuries, they teach what gets them the most attention and money. McTrainers direct their clients towards the unnecessary machines and (seemingly) couldn't care less about the overall well being of their clients. Women naturally gravitate towards the non-specific and "not goal oriented" cardio classes which do little to build actual muscle. You know, muscle being the necessary component for fat loss (well, diet being most important). I wonder how one acquires muscle? Ladies, you will not look like this if you train like this:

"But I could never do that!"

How do you know? Have you ever truly put forth the effort to find out? I'm able to do things now I never thought possible. I'm excited to see just what I'm capable of. Shouldn't you be too?

Gyms don't sell memberships because of their sweet free weight area, they sell memberships based on how new the machines are, their spa, and how much cardio equipment they have. The more flat screens and built-in fans the better. After all we want to be comfortable while becoming a new person right? I mean we certainly don't want to become uncomfortable and face the real possibility of turning into a stronger person mentally. We learn nothing about ourselves when we are comfortable.

Silly diet programs have men and women obsessing about the number of calories they ingest each day. So how do they help? They create a point system and a line of small portion meals which is comprised of processed garbage. Whether it's the programs' intentions or not, fewer calories than recommended are seemingly always consumed. Too few calories leads to the eventual slowing of your metabolism. Your body holds onto that little energy for dear life. So, due to the processed foods and caloric deficit both men and women often times see little progress and even weight gain. Despair then sets in, and it's far easier to quit then to assess the problem and find a solution. After all, these programs don't teach mental strength. Here's a tip: stop counting calories and throw away your scale. Seriously. Never use that thing again. That causes more harm than good. I'll go into detail at a later date on both subjects. In the meantime go read sites like Mark's Daily Apple and get a better grasp on your nutrition.

I know I should be happy that people are at least attempting to get into shape, but it's hard for me when the root problem is known. That's just me, though. Fortunately there has been a recent strong movement consisting of trainers and coaches, athletes, gym owners, and every day people who are beginning to correct the bad information and get us all on the right track. To those I give daps, and those are just a few examples (all of which are on my bookmarks bar - there are many more). The internet does do good things for this world shockingly enough. It helped me find these people and that information. It was up to me to to apply it.

Forreal.

"Six Secrets to Success" by Arnold

This is an amazingly simple and straightforward speech. We've all heard it before, yet those simple points he brings up are the "simple" things we tend to gloss over due to the over-complication of our lives. It's good to hear them, especially from a man who followed those rules. Sure his personal life is slightly wheels off, but all in all I'd say he was a success. The greatest bodybuilder of all time, famous actor, entrepreneur, and Gov'nuh of California. What have you accomplished? I believe there is greatness in all of us. It's up to you to discover it, but said greatness will never be uncovered if we don't overcome our fears and address issues which are seemingly better left untouched.

"Let me show you how great I am" - Cassius Clay

Huge thanks to RT for the vid.

Also, I went to the Europa Fitness Expo yesterday. Pics and rundown to come shortly.

Ye Ole Macebell

Look at that picture for awhile. Doesn't he blow your mind? I bet he killed that cat with his macebell. Oh, "he" is the Great Gama. Or was. I'll spare you his story since I was just going to copy and paste from Wikipedia, and then further embellish with stories of wars against unicorns and bros. He was a man's man that's for sure. 

I first became aware of the macebell/gada when reading Rosstraining.com. I'm a big fan of DIY workout equipment and his site has been a tremendous resource. In one of his DIY articles he had a link to the instructions for a homemade macebell. It took me a little bit (as in, a couple months) to fully understand the greatness of Steve Maxwell. I would love to train with that guy sometime.

The macebell is an incredible tool. It's great for circular strength (for your shoulders) and your grip. On top of that you can almost work every muscle group with it. You can perform circuits of overhead presses, rows, floor presses, pull overs, offset overhead squats, and all of the other traditional and not-traditional macebell exercises. This will really test your grip and forearm strength. This little thing called "leverage" is everything with the macebell. You can increase or decrease the difficulty of a movement by changing the position of your hands. You can hop on youtube and watch one of the many vids. 

I was intrigued, and decided to use my superior rush-into-action-prior-to-thinking-things-through skills and make one. In north Dallas there is an Academy and Home Depot in the same parking lot. What a great combination. 

Supplies:

1 broomstick pole (i found a 60", ended up sawing about 12" off of it)

1 10lb bucket of Quikrete
1 small ball of sorts (I found a basketball on clearance at Academy for $2.99)
A couple nails

First task was to shorten the broomstick some and drive some nails into the end. Theory being they will help keep the concrete ball on the end of your smooth stick. Then you cut a hole in the ball like so:

Next you add water into the bucket of Quikrete and stir. Once the desired consistency is reached you start shovelling it into the ball. I strongly suggest you make sure you compact the concrete once filled. If that ball isn't truly filled and there are "air spots" the concrete will have cracks and more than likely less structurally sound. I'm not a gymnast, Maury, so I don't know for sure. 

Once the ball is filled entirely (the whole mixture should fit) stick your, uh, stick in it. 

I had to let it sit overnight for it to dry completely. I think it had something to do with the weather, because I made a second one and it was good to go after 5 or 6 hours.

The result of the above instructions is on the right. The one on the left was my Father's Day gift to myself. It's around 20lbs and uses a thicker shovel handle. Unfortunately I haven't gotten to play with it much since a) I'm really not ready for it and b) I've been hurt.

After spending the last few hours typing this out (Cowboys are on, I'm distracted) I came to the realization that I didn't first become intrigued with the macebell on Rosstraining. It was on Mark's Daily Apple. My above prose is beyond fantastic, and what I said about RT.com is true so I decided not to spend another few seconds deleting and re-typing. So I spent a few seconds typing all of this out. Whatever.

Enjoy the macebell if you decide to make one. I strongly suggest you do make one as it'll revolutionize your world and make you feel like a barbarian. Or a large Hindu wrestler.

I need to be better about updating my workouts on this sucker. Well, I need to be better about updating it period (not THAT period). It's just that each day I get home my brain instantly melts due to the lack of worthwhile a/c and 17 strange children running around. I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHO THEY BELONG TO! It's like a flash mob daycare.

This week is dedicated to my core and legs. Last week should have been, but I did more overall resting than anything. Here is what I knocked out yesterday while farting around in my gym. Oh, and yes I am anti-gym AND have a gym membership. Double standards abound. Deal with it.

* Dynamic warm up
* Decline (incline?!) sit-ups - 3 x 25
- superset with 100 skips of jump rope (30 sec rest between SSs)
* Hanging leg raises - 4 x 5
* Bridges - 10 x 5 reps (each rep consists of 10 second holds)
* Ab rollouts using swiss ball - 4 x 10 (pause 3 seconds while fully extended)
- superset with lying leg raise - 4 x 10
* Plank kick-thrus - 4 x 10 (I have no idea what the real name is for this. Hold a plank, kick one leg under and through to the other side. Repeat w/ other side)
* Two band assisted GHRs - 4 x 12 (two light-med bands for higher rep ranges..30 sec rest b/w sets)

Not an overly difficult workout. I'm going to go heavy on the core today to work more maximal strength and hit the legs. The latter will probably consist of hindu squats, bulgarian split squats, unassisted GHRs, plyo jumps, long jumps, and perhaps BB squats. We'll see!

I really can't wait to get back out with Elite Kettlebell Club and train there. Lord knows I'm aching to be out in this 105*+ weather crushing my body and soul.

Speaking of crushing souls, another social networking site is upon us. Go check out Fitocracy, social networking for fit people. For some reason this hasn't gotten as much pub as Google +. I just don't get it. That  was sarcasm. It's a pretty fun site, and I'll probably be good about updating my page for a week or two. You can earn points, complete challenges, etc. for workouts and exercises completed. Most of the challenges are pretty elementary, and all strength challenges are cleared geared towards the bodybuilding bro. I spent a good 20 minutes adding exercise suggestions to their database. Sure they have an entry for machine tricep pressdown, but tricep plank extensions?! Noooooo.

P, out.

Turning my condo into a sick gym, or turning my gym into a terrible condo

I like pull ups. A lot. They may be my favorite exercise, but I'm not the greatest at them. Unfortunately I didn't put enough time into researching how to actually progress on the bar properly so I wasted about a year on the assisted pull up machine. It was really awesome doing 4 sets of 10 reps and removing 10lbs of assistance every other week. That was then. Now? Well I'm better at them, and my knowledge on the subject is much greater. Unfortunately, once I started to progress for real I got hurt. Well I had been hurt but I worsened the condition.

This week of sitting around has allowed me to do a lot of reading. I came across an older article over on The Bodyweight Files (bro hugs for the idea, Justin). It's about towel pull-ups, and supination of the wrists while doing the pulls. Great idea; however, it's the hook in the ceiling that caught my man-eye. I love DIY home equipment. I have a number of great tools. A few not so great. I had to run to Home Depot (pay me for the plug...I'll take future credit) anyway so I decided to grab the hook. It was a whopping $1.18. I paid in pennies. In the self checkout line.

With the powers of a stud detector, common sense, and a drill combined, I was able to screw in this hook with my hands. Don't judge me for that ceiling popcorn. I'm going to bring that 60s classic back.

It took me awhile to decide where to screw in the hook. I was having a bit of trouble locating a stud because of the super cool kid popcorn (couldn't get a solid reading as the stud finder couldn't lay flat) when my brain finally turned on. There has to be a stud where the wall and ceiling meet in my stairwell. I confirmed same with a friend, and began drilling. This location works out perfectly as not only can I do pull ups, but I can use the steps to put my feet up on for rows.

Look at that intense concentration. Look at that coat rack. For the record, that Columbia jacket is one of the best investments I've made. It's not obnoxiously large and has kept me warm in 15-20* weather. Yeah it has gotten that cold in pretentious uptown. The humanity.

ROWS! Sick. I can also turn the other direction on pull ups and do L sit pull ups. I can admittedly only knock off 4 in a row, but once I'm fully healed I'll work on it. I would also like to apologize for my lack of shirt. I'm not trying to be awesome at all, it's just that my a/c is out. It's 108* outside. I probably shouldn't even be wearing pants or briefs but that'd be a terrible gift for my daughter on her birthday. I'm not Woody Allen, and my daughter isn't Asian.

The hook isn't that noticeable at all. As you can see it's right by my front door so it's not exactly in a high attention area.

Remember: we don't need a gym to workout! Be innovative and train when you have free time. It doesn't matter if that time allots to only 5 or 10 minutes. That's plenty of time to get in a circuit of any type.

Off to channel my inner Italian, make lasagna from scratch for my lil girl, get a terrible fade, and hide my insecurities through loud, obnoxious and intense behavior. Jokes.

Some Saturday afternoon motivation for your face

Okay I'll admit it: I'm sort of a sucker for motivational videos, stories, and speeches. I draw the line on that during the Olympics, though. Those producers are so good they'll take a story about a high jumper having a bout of chronic diarrhea and have housewives across the nation in tears. I guess that's just talent. Good for them.

I'll be posting up motivational videos as I come across them. Here are a couple that make me want to get out there and just dominate whatever it is I'm "getting out there" to do. That's most likely training.

I suggest watching that full screen. That's a training reel from the dudes at Movie-Do. I'm no martial artist, but I love this video because it's well done and these guys are good at what they do. Respect. Oh, and I'm ready to walk since I've made an egg stand.

TRAINING MONTAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! With the exception of that silliness this guy put together a great video. It's pretty inspirational, at least to me. I just get inspired to do so much stuff. Like..well, anyway this vid makes Rocky V seem like a fantastic movie. Why? Well it highlights the only good parts of it: the training and Rocky's surprisingly well written and delivered speech. At least for the movie, and Sylvester Stallone.

Somewhere along the line you changed. You stopped being you. You let people stick a finger in your face and tell you you're no good; and when things got hard you started looking for something to blame, like a big shadow. Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a mean and nasty place and I don't care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard you hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward; how much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done!

Now if you know what you're worth than go out and get what you're worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers sayin' you ain't what you wanna be because of him or her or anybody! Cowards do that and that ain't you! You're better than that!

Until you start believing in yourself, you ain't gonna have a life.

 He probably could have shortened that whole speech to "QUIT BEING A WHINY BITCH! LIFE IS TOUGH AND WILL KEEP HITTING UNTIL YOU HIT BACK!" I'm pretty motivational myself.

This video contains a bunch of clips (MOOONTTTAAAGGEEEE) with audio of Coach Flowers' "I am a Champion" speech. 

DEFEAT RETREAT! I don't understand those definitions!

I don't understand that either.  Anyway, that speech supposedly carried Leland High School to victory in the JV championship game. Which is kind of why I didn't post the original video. There is a bit lost with the imagination watching him read it in front of kids.

Annnnd I'm going to finish with this video here:


http://youtu.be/V6xLYt265ZM

I hate it when people disable embedding requests. I'm including that because it contains Cassius Clay's braggadocio from before the Rumble in the Jungle. That man is not lacking in confidence, and that is something that many today are truly lacking. Myself included.

I'm so bad I make medicine sick. Baaad dude.

Eccentric Exercise good for tendinopathy rehab/healing? Sign me up

I just finished reading this very wordy, well written abstract of an article from begin2dig.com. It starts off covering the terminology debate of tendinitis vs. tendinosis. -itis being inflammation, and -osis being the actual degradation of the tendon. It then gets into a newer, more overall encompassing term which is tendinopathy (definition therein).

I came across this article while digging for ways to rehab my tendinopathy issues outside of rest, ice, NSAIDs, etc. Rest is an absolute mental beating for me. There had to be something else out there. This article discusses eccentric exercises (hereinafter "EE") and its possible healing benefits:

Eccentric exercises (EE) have proved successful in the management of chronic tendinopathy, particularly of the Achilles and patellar tendons, where they have been shown to be effective in controlled trials. However, numerous questions regarding EE remain. The standard protocols are time-consuming and require very motivated patients. EE are effective in some tendinopathies but not others. Furthermore, the location of the lesion can have a profound effect on efficacy; for example, standard EE in insertional lesions of the Achilles are ineffective.

Until recently little was known of the effect of EE on tendinopathic tendons, although a greater understanding of this process is emerging. Additionally, recent in vivo evidence directly comparing eccentric and concentric exercises provides a possible explanation for the therapeutic benefit of EE. The challenge now is to make EE more effective. Suggestions on areas of future research are made.

Um, right here, broguy. I'm a very motivated patient. I'll be your testee. So, like many studies, the results of EE are largely unknown, although some studies have shown early promise. Well, wait. That quote is from 2007. Perhaps we have evolved our humanbrains a bit and learned more.

A small number of studies have examined the use of eccentric exercises in the management of tendinopathy of the lateral extensors of the forearms.26–28 There is some evidence suggestive of an increase in function using EE compared with ultrasound in the treatment of lateral extensor tendons,29 and a recent study adopted an isokinetic eccentric protocol in the management of lateral elbow tendinosis and reported promising results.

I'm all ears. Learn me some knowledge.  I could continue to post quotes from the article and studies covered, but it wouldn't do it justice. I strongly suggest you read it all if you're struggling with any form of tendinopathy. Towards the end of the article the author gives a link to this site. Mike Nelson posts a vid of a sample eccentric exercise using a KB (one of my favorite tools outside of the human body itself). Here's the vid.

Nothing sexy or glamorous, which will probably turn off many in the industry since it's so flooded and geared towards the aforementioned. Whatever. It's time to quit talking and put theory to practice. I'll let you all know how this goes. Wish me luck. Train smart, people! Don't be a total bro.

The State of Me

I've been dealing with a bout of tendinitis in the elbow area for quite awhile now. Some refer to it as tennis elbow, or the newer more encompassing term: tendinopathy. For however lame the injury sounds, it sure does pack a punch. If I'm to guess the cause I'd say it's because I've pushed myself harder than what my body could handle.

Tendonitis is an overuse injury. This condition arises when the volume of the workouts exceed your body’s ability to recover. Since our muscles have better blood supplies than our connective tissue (tendons, ligaments, cartilage) and bones, they often are able to adapt to the stressors of exercise placed on them faster. This leaves our connective tissues and bones vulnerable to overuse since they cannot heal as fast. If excessive stress is placed on them, they start to break down and subsequently become inflamed and painful.

Well, isn't that super. I admittedly rushed my training along 2 years ago. My body just simply was not ready. I had weak extremities (wrists, neck, ankles), and not even a basic mastery of my own bodyweight.  All of that constant heavy lifting did a number on my shoulders, elbows, wrists, and ankles. I've thankfully always had good knees. I'm sure they'll go out now.

I am now mostly healed from the other injuries. Partly due to time, and partly since I'm training smarter with a stronger emphasis on bodyweight training and isometrics. Will get into that later. I probably could have been healed from this injury much sooner, but it's been persistent and I haven't given it any rest. Well now it's getting that rest. I'm doing what I can. I've tripled my fish oil intake (been meaning to try this for other reasons), taken NSAIDs only when it's annoying me (although it's questionable as to whether this actually works), and massage it constantly. That's always awesome. Someone please figure out 

So, while I continue to do nothing let me blow your minds with some comparison pictures of me. I really hope you're standing because you'll be so underwhelmed you will sit down. Jokes aside, the first picture is from April of 2009. The second is actually from the beginning of July 2011 prior to me training with Elite Kettlebell Club. I know it's August, but my MS paint skills are all used up for the quarter. Or...yeah. 

Shockingly enough I only weigh a few pounds more now (187) than I did then (185). I am, of course, capable of doing far more. I'm a lot stronger, my conditioning is much better, I'm more explosive, etc. Over the last two years I've ballooned up to 200lbs, but at that point I was doing nothing for conditioning. I obviously have a long way to go, and I'm looking forward to the challenge.

About Me

I always struggle with the first post of a new blog.  I feel like I should be addressing an audience, yet whatever I write feels forced and fake because I know there is nobody reading this. So I'll just skip all that "welcome" garbage and get to it.

 

I created this blog in order to better chronicle my fitness journey. I am not elite athlete. I'm a 31 year old father of two. I'm 6'4 and currently 187lbs. One day, two years ago, I decided I was fed up with being weak and overly wish-washy in my training. So I decided to make that big lifestyle change, eliminate all excuses, and start busting ass. Now I didn't just start working out two years ago. I have played sports my entire life, and have always been interested in fitness and the capabilities of the human body. I played through high school and college. Well, I guess you can disregard the latter. I only played one season due to my stupid lifestyle (partying), and it was NAIA. I worked out on and off all throughout my teenage years and into my 20s. I never knew what I was doing, though. I would just mimic some of the crap my horrible high school basketball coach taught us. I don't think I ever made much progress in any area. I was tall, skinny, and zero definition around my core due to a) not having any muscle there and b) a decent layer of fat covered it. I was clearly the epitome of sex appeal and athletic performance.

 

Around the age of 25 or so I became engorged in the world of fitness magazines. Now that I'm older and, uh, wiser I know that those magazines are garbage. I'll cover that in another post. So as many due when they first begin "training" I started lifting like a bodybuilder. Monday was chest, Tuesday was legs, etc. I sure did get big. I hit 215 at my largest, but that was largely due to all the crap I was ingesting at the time. Again, I'll write about that some other time. Even though I was stronger than before, my strength didn't translate well to the real world as my training was highly one dimensional. I was also cheating myself in a lot of areas by not doing everything I should have been doing. 

That same misguided style of training continued until I was 29 when I decided enough was enough. I had just come off of a long break from the gym (3 or 4 months) and was getting back into going 5x a week. I was also partying very hard during my twenties so as I got older the less I was able to handle hangovers. That too played a part in me making the lifestyle change. I signed up at a gym in my building, and started going every day at lunch. I also started absorbing myself in fitness material and trying to find some good strength forums. You know, not forums of the bro variety. Like bodybuilding.com, etc.  I wouldn't say I was training correctly, per se, but I was making a concerted effort to apply theories and figure out what works best for me. I figured there would be a lot of trial and error ahead of me, but not as much as I have experienced. Needless to say my philosophies have changed many times over the last few years. 

Fast forward to today. I'm healthier than ever and in better shape than ever. Unfortunately, or fortunately, being in "better shape" is not my goal. I want to see what this body is truly capable of. I would always watch people on the internet doing crazy fetes of strength and then the "I wonder if I can do that?" question would always pop up in the back of my head. For most of my life I wrote that notion off as ridiculous. I mean, I was tall and gangly (for my standards). Now? Well, now it's time to start answering that question. I'll never be a powerlifter or a strongman, but I'm determined to get the most out of this body. Haven't you always wondered what you're truly capable of? 

Just a disclaimer: my opinions are my own, although they may reflect many others out there. I don't claim to know everything, and I guarantee I'll be wrong on more than one occasion. This blog is about my journey, and that journey will continue to be a learning process. Something I post next month could conceivably contradict something I post this month. My theories and outlook on fitness are ever growing and evolving. 

In this blog I'll share articles that interest me, give opinions on various topics, post videos (many will be my own), and constantly verbally high five the Dallas Mavericks for winning the NBA championship. I love you, Dirk.

pd