Snack tip for healthy snacking

I'm big on getting one's necessary nutrients from food sources rather than sucking down a protein shake or some other supplement drink. Unfortunately that can become quite pricey and sometimes our options seem limited. Well, let me offer you another solution: beef jerky! No, I'm not talking about that heavily processed crap you can buy from the store. I'm talking about making your own. Yes, you must make an up front investment (I'll get to that) but I promise you it will pay itself off over time.

Grass-fed beef is my favorite meat, and probably one of the best meats out there nutrient wise if not the best. Google for yourself. Unfortunately grass fed beef can be pricey, and for those of you who thought you have to buy top round or sirloin meats to make sliced jerky then allow me to introduce you to my new toy:

The Weston Original Jerky Gun! This allows you to use ground meat for jerky making. While grass fed ground beef is pricey ($4.49/lb at Whole Foods for lean), it is actually a complete steal when you compare it to what you get from a $10 bag of store bought jerky. I picked up 2.6lbs of lean grass fed ground beef for a little over $11. This gun holds just under 2lbs of meat, and is easy to load and even easier to clean. The whole process is simple: grab a bowl, grab your ground meat, mix in spices of your choosing, and shove into the gun. Boom. Ready for squeezing out pressed jerky strips onto your dehydrator's trays. 3-4 hours later (depending on your dehydrator) you have fresh beef jerky with no preservatives or other crap. How do I get my jerky to last a long time? I store it in the freezer, and only take out the sticks I will consume that day. Depending on the size of the sticks, that is probably 4-6 total.

Onto the dehydrator. I used to have the old shitty Rosco round dehydrator that you can purchase at Target for like $20 or something (3 tray only, not 5 tray). It worked, but it would take 10-14 hours or so and you have to constantly rotate the trays to dry the meat evenly. Super annoying. So, I decided to pony up and buy the NESCO/American Harvest square dehydrator.  I couldn't be happier with this purchase. The thing has worked like a champ so far. Due to the design and how the fan works you do not have to rotate the trays. There is also a temperature control on it. If I had any complaints at all it would be that this is not a smoker. Unfortunately I live in a condo, and smoking meats would irritate my neighbors (or make them stage a raid to steal my awesome smoked meats) and it's quite the laborious process.

On top of meats, you can dehydrate pretty much anything you want. Even your ballsack if you're into that kind of thing. I strongly urge any of you with a dialed in diet, which calls for the wonderfulness of grass fed beef, to put forth the $90 or so on the two aforementioned items.  Hell, if you have Amazon Prime you can have both by tomorrow for next to nothing on shipping costs. It will more than pay for itself, and grass fed beef is essentially the meat of the gods. I read on that wikipedia somewhere.

Stay hard.

Wednesday workout recap on Thursday, and other random thoughts

I got in a decent session over at Diesel yesterday. I'm cutting down the # of exercises I do and the frequency of actual strength training because of my training for the Kumite. I haven't back squatted nearly enough in recent weeks so I had to dial it back a little bit. I wasn't sure how my body would respond the next day, and I have coconuts to smash and trees to kick.

Squats - 5 x 5 - @185lbs
Weighted dips - 5 x 5 @ 20lbs, 25lbs, 30lbs, 35lbs, 35lbs
Weighted pull-ups - 5 x 5 @ 20lbs (I rotated doing pull-ups, chin-ups, and wide grip pull-ups)
Suspended push-ups - 5 x 10 using gymnast's reverse grip

If I was somehow able to trick you into reading this blog earlier then you'll know my weakest movement is pressing. I'll never be a total bro in this area, but I'll have a solid handle on my bodyweight. Whatever makes ME happy. Later that night I got in my wrist and elbow rehab work with the Flexbar and mini band. I can tell you that is working. I also make it a nightly routine to do 50 band dislocates, and 20 band inlocates. I also stretch my shoulders/pecs using the band at each point during the OH squat. I'll hold it 10 seconds or so starting at the top, then 10 seconds a bit lower to the ground, and then another 10 at the bottom of the movement.

Moving on..

I just came across this video of "The Fittest Man on Earth" over on CBS Sports. Isn't that sort of like Americans proclaiming to be world champions in a sport that only they play? Let's not forget that one of the contests for the Crossfit Games(tm)(c) was the softball throw. He is quite simply the fittest man in the world of Crossfit(tm)(c). That's commendable as he is in amazing shape, but come on. This is example 194387234 of why CF "athletes" rub people the wrong way. You can workout super fast. Good for you. Average at everything, excel at nothing. Don't get me started on Reebok and their involvement. They are already on my shitlist for supporting SOPA and PIPA. I'm pretty sure they're losing sleep over my disdain.

Enjoy the day everyone. Remember, "Do today what others won't so you can achieve what they never will." Train hard, and recognize excuses for what they are.

Last night's training

It went well. Better than my last session at least. My wrist gave me less problems, and my conditioning is really starting to noticeably improve. My rest times have lessened and I'm taking far fewer breaks during rounds on the heavy bag. My shins took a royal beating from all of the kicks, but that's fine. I knew full well what I'd experience going into this so I started conditioning my shins to take the abuse awhile back. How did I do that? Well, I rub a wooden dowel rod up and down my shins to help kill nerve endings (bro science? I don't know but it seems to work) and have been hitting them hard with my solid rubber flexbar. If I had a giant black RPD (rigid pleasure device) I'd use that. In public. But not on my shins.  Uhhh so anyway here is a brief overview of the workout:

• Combo work on the heavy bag using power (jab high, jab high, right cross to the torso), coupled with the same combo on the mitts while going for speed. 
• Speed ladder and jump rope for conditioning and foot work
• More mitt work to work the jab, cross, left hook, uppercut combo. 
• Even more mitt work but this time with the thai pad for throwing kicks into the combos
• Heavy bag utilizing all of the various learned combos, including kicks and knees. 
• Shadow boxing coupled with sprawling. Simple jab, cross, jab, cross, sprawl. I felt like I did this about 100 times, but it was probably more like 10
• Finished with 2 minutes of hard jump rope using varying footwork techniques. I'm not too bad with the jump rope, but doing this last was quite humbling. I stumbled more then I wanted (I think 4 times total) and it felt like an eternity. 2 minutes with the rope is absolutely nothing so I need to spend more time using the rope, or just realize I'm still a beginner and just keep doing what I'm doing. 

I really wish I would have joined some form of martial arts when I was younger. I feel like this is what has been missing from my life for a long time. I'm hooked. Today I'll be strength training. Squats, dips, pull-ups, and farmer's walk are on the agenda. 

Eat big, train hard, train smart. 

Where am I?!

The man right 'chere. I finished DJ's 40 Day quite some time ago. Guess what? I hit my deadlift goal of 405lbs. Matter of fact, I pulled it and backed it up with 3 subsequent (but separate) pulls. I have video, but am posting this from a place where I can't access youtube. Will post later. After that I decided to "de-load" doing bodyweight exercises and light conditioning. My body just flat out hurt. Last week I decided to see where I was at strength wise with the deadlift, and I was still able to 405lbs. Although, I must admit it was an UGLY pull. I really felt it the next day too.

During my hiatus from iron I had a few changes in my life. For one, I left the hoity toity ritzy spa gym and moved over to a "real" gym down the street. It's not in my office building, but it isn't far. It also has most all of the equipment I need, and yet is maddeningly lacking in other areas. Oh well, it's cheaper. I haven't been in a normal gym in so long I forgot about all the bros doing sweet isolation movements right in the mirror. My favorite so far was some guy doing BB curls on the deadlift platform with 10lb plastic training plates on each end. Oh boy. If I can actually be consistent with this thing I'll have some good stories to tell.

The second change was something I've wanted to do for years now: I took up MMA. It's more geared towards self defense than it is competition,  and I don't train out of an Affliction/Tapout gear riddled gym. The place I train out of actually is a large warehouse where several other disciplines are taught: Silat, Kali (and all variations), Schola Saint George, some crazy knife fighting (the name of the art escapes me), and kickboxing. I'm the only one in my class so I get 100% of my trainer's attention. Right now I've been going twice a week for the last 4 weeks, and once my body is better adapted then I'll start going 3 times a week.

So, since I'm training like a fighter I must adjust my strength training accordingly. I'm going to again take DJ's simplistic, yet repetitive approach to resistance training. I will have to cut that down to 3 days in order to avoid overtraining as I get my ass kicked on MMA days. I must say, I've never been better conditioned in my entire life. My bodyfat percentage has dropped as has a bit of weight, but if my strength training session yesterday told me anything it's that I haven't lost much, if any strength. I was able to rep 315lbs + 75lbs of chains for 2 x 5. I obviously did not experience the full weight of the chains as there were still links on the ground at the top of the pull. Do I even need to explain that to you all? No? Good.

I also now train a group of guys each weekend for GPP. Well, not "for". We just train GPP. A couple of the guys were very much green when it came to training, and after we got the push/pull fundamentals out of the way we were able to dive head first into GPP. They have a long way to go, but have made significant progress. I think this is what I enjoy doing most each week. If I didn't suck so hard at this blogging thing I'd take video and pictures. I'll post the workouts to the blog in case any of you want to try it on your own. Don't hold your breath, but do. Starting...now.