I'm back

I lost it. All the gains. All the benefits. I let myself go.

But I'm back. Not back to where I was, but back on the journey to fitness. More to come...

My 3 Workout Rules

I hesitate to list a bunch of rules here with questionable authority. The internet is filled with such lists. Moreover, with so many different health opinions and fitness goals to wade through, one person's rule may be another's blunder.

So I'm giving you something basic. These are my rules. Follow them or nor. They work for my ongoing goals. Most likely, with or without adaptation, they can work for yours too. One day I may adapt them again, myself.

1. Never have more than 1 consecutive day without a workout
2. Workout at least 5 days a week
3. Always workout on Monday

That's it. Well, it's not everything. There's a lot involved in how I workout, not to mention proper nutrition and rest. Some of you might be wondering about the rest, given that I workout at least 5 days. That's where the types of workouts I perform matter. I'm not performing full-body, super-heavy-lifting workouts 5+ days.

What I am doing is consistently working, and continually improving. And these rules help me do that. Maybe they'll help you too.


Keep transforming. Keep regenerating.

Fit People Aren't Hunting Werewolves

Photo by Naypong

"Wow!" people tell me. "Your body transformation is remarkable!" I can tell that much already, since they're making remarks.

"Tell me," they continue, "how you've done it. I want to do the same thing."

Usually, they don't mean this. What they really mean is, "I want to know where you bought your silver bullets." They want to shoot werewolves more than they want to overcome.

Truth be told, I don't blame them. When I was mired in the misery of my former lifestyle that made me so overweight, I felt helpless to get better. Even though I actually knew what to do, the thought of making the right changes overwhelmed me. Until I made them.

Now, egotistical as I am, this isn't to hold myself up as the paradigm for getting in shape. It's a series of observations, starting with one from a conversation I had yesterday.

Unidentified Individual: I want to do what you did. Tell me your secret!
Me: I just eat well and workout.
Unidentified Individual: Oh. Well, never mind. I'm not doing that.

It got me thinking. We all want the metaphor I've used above, a special weapon that destroys fat and builds muscle. If it's not a magical juice elixir, or a ultra scientific gadget that exercises for you, it's hard to get excited.

Eat good food and do hard exercise? Go sell crazy somewhere else.

People that are fit already know that it's that simple, and that difficult. They have found a way to make this a part of their lifestyle. Fit people make their health a priority, and life rewards them for it.

They know other things too, none of which are silver bullets. But these are things that they've figured out along the way that have helped them.

Photo by Danilo Rizzuti, 

They're called crash diets for a reason
Don't find yourself in a wreck. Find a healthy eating lifestyle.

They're called workouts, not easyouts
Do something hard. Your body will thank you.

The workouts need to change
Don't do the same workout every day. Progressively make them more challenging.

Maintaining is a just another word for backsliding
Constantly strive for the better you. Get stronger, faster, and fitter.




Keep transforming. Keep regenerating.

Ask the Superheroes about Fitness

Recently, I caught up with the superheroes at Comic Con, and asked some questions about their fitness plans. The results were less than stellar.


S300H: Hulk, what can our readers do to get stronger like you?
Hulk: Hulk the strongest one there is! Hulk smash your readers!
S300H: Um, okay. Any other advice?
Hulk: LEAVE HULK ALONE!





S300H: Wolverine, what would you say the secret to your fitness success is?
Wolverine: I'm the best there is at what I do.
S300H: Great. Can you be more specific?
Wolverine: I'm into musical theater. Did you see Les Miserables?
S300H: Maybe. A bit. Er... what does that have to do with fitness?
Wolverine: Nothing, bud. But I outsang the Kryptonian, didn't I?





S300H: This is a disaster
Captain America: It doesn't have to be. Never give in.
S300H: Cap! I'm so glad you're here! Would you be willing to share how you transformed so quickly into a fit powerhouse?
Captain America: Gladly. I can't pretend to understand the details, but I'm told it's something called CGI.

I wanted to ask Batman some questions too, but nobody saw him for the entire convention. I heard he vanished into the shadows, but I'm thinking that was just an urban legend.

Keep transforming. Keep regenerating.

3 Handstand Observations

Last night, doing a 5 second handstand,
which felt like 10 seconds.

I'm questing towards proficient at handstands. This is part of a larger goal to perform planche pushups, but more about that later.

Currently, I can hold a freestanding handstand for about 5-10 seconds, although the average is probably closer to 2 seconds. A ton of the attempts fail quickly. With a wall to tap against as needed, I can hold one for much longer, but I feel like this doesn't help me learn the balance properly.

Recently, I've discovered three things that have dramatically improved my stands. Take this as a self discovery story, and not as definitive advice.

1. Practice more
   This should be a given. Here's the difficulty though. If you don't know how to do them, handstands are hard. If you're not used to peforming them, they tax the muscles too. This is a good thing though, as strength and balance are the key reasons I'm learning them. Well, and also because I love to play.
   
   A few days ago, I committed to doing a minimum of 25 stands a day. Not attempts. Actual stands. I'm viewing this like I did juggling when I taight myself that. I never got better until I practiced consistently.
   
2. Finger placement
   
   The internet frustrated me almost as much as it assisted me in this. Multiple guides said the balance is really in the fingers. While I'm sure instructions exist though, I never found one a site that explicitly explained HOW to use fingers for balancing.
   
   Eventually, I read to press the four corners of the palm onto the ground, and press with your fingertips. This helped but it still didn't seem to cover the whole picture.
   
   I went back and watched a video by breakdancer Simon Ata.

   

   Simon's hands during handstand

   His calisthenics abilites astound me. For some reason, the video he posted of his workout routine is no longer on his page, and it's with hesitation I post another link, since it's not on his. You have to see this though: Simonster.
   
   I noticed when he moves into handstands, his fingers curl up. Once I tried pressing as described above, with arched fingers, I felt the balance.
   
   
3. Press down
   
   It seems non-intuitive to me. If I'm standing on my hands, how can I press into the ground? Think about it. Stand up on your feet. Now press your feet into the ground. See what I mean?
   
   Nevertheless, when I focus on the act of pushing, my balance improves. Additionally, if I start to lose my balance, if I bend my arms ever so slightly, I find that I can usually remain upright for much longer. This will help when I progress to handstand pushups.

By the way, that's part of the progressions I'm using to get to planche pushups. Handstands, to handstand pushups, to planche pushups. That's not the only progressions though. I'll post about them when I'm closer to the actual goal.

Keep transforming. Keep regenerating.

I Kicked Your Chest In The Pool

Let's talk about gym etiquette, but in a way it's rarely discussed. The internet is filled with common advice like:

• Don't hog equipment
• Wipe down your equipment
• Put your weights back
• Don't shave naked

And it's needed. You know this if you've been to the gym. Maybe not the last bullet point, but if you spend enough time in my gym's locker room you'll eventually know why I included it anyway.

But there's another important piece of information certain gym goers need to know about. You see, my gym has a lap pool.


If your gym also has one, it probably has a sign similar to ours:

"Lap pool is for lap classes and swimming only."

I've seen variations on this in other locations, where the pools are designated for laps only during certain times.

Either way, let's talk about what lap swimming is not. If you are engaged in the following activities, you are not swimming laps:

• Canonballs
• Splash contests
• Water Wrestling
• Kissing
• Going further than kissing
• Just hanging out in the middle of the freaking lane

I've encountered several people that apparently think these behaviors, and several others, constitute swimming laps. To be fair, one of the couples engaged in kissing and more were getting a pretty good workout.

If I see you working out on, let's say the bench press, I don't go tap dance on the bench in between your sets. It's rude, it's distracting, and it's not what the equipment is there for. Also, I don't know how to tap dance.

But these people don't feel the same about my workouts in the pool, that I pay for monthly to use. Not only do I have to wait, or politely ask people to get out if they're not doing laps, but I sometimes find them horsing around in my lane after I've started my laps.

My philosophy is that I should not have to alter my workout because somebody else is misusing the equipment. So when I see them in my lane, I do not alter my strokes one bit. This means I almost always end up hitting or kicking them with part of my stroke.

And I swim hard. So it hurts.

After that, I'll usually ask them not to interrupt my workout.

This situation improved, up until recently, when I kicked someone again. Hard. Not any harder than I was already kicking the water before he jumped into the pool right in front of me, but hard.

Which brings me to this.

If you're an 18-ish year old male, with short cropped brown hair, and you received a kick to the chest while practicing your canonballs, it was probably me. If, immediately following this incident, you received a brief explanation about what the lap pool is supposed to be used for, I know it was me. And, I suppose, an apology is in order.

You can leave that apology in the comments. I'm waiting.

Keep transforming. Keep regenerating.

Pfft. Who Needs Rest?

According to countless magazine articles, fitness blogs and health related youtube videos, there are two secrets to fitness that nobody knows about.

The truth is, if these secrets show up all over the place, they're not really secrets. They're just ignored. Take me for instance.

I actually understand that mastering these simple tricks will help anyone in their fitness goals- whether those goals are loosing weight, building muscle, or gaining strength.

But it's so hard.

The Moment this Doctor made a Hitchhiker's Guide
reference, I was hooked.

The first "secret" is sleep. The body needs sleep to regenerate. Even the 10th Doctor, otherwise known as "My Doctor," needed sleep after he regenerated. Well, that and a good cup of tea. My personality is so much like that incarnation, I should take his sleep habits to heart.

The Doctor can regenerate in seconds, but still needs rest afterwords. We take 7-9 hours a night to regenerate.

Unfortunately, I'm more like the 12th Doctor. Um... very mild spoiler here for anyone that hasn't seen Doctor Who, Season 8, Episode 1, "Deep Breath."

He didn't understand the importance of a bedroom. The very idea made him incredulous. "You mean you've got a whole room for not being awake in!?"

My thoughts exactly.

Without sleep, our bodies won't produce growth hormone. Growth hormone maintains or bones, reduces fat storage, and builds our muscles. That's just some of the benefits.

"You mean you've got a whole room for not being awake in?
But what's the point? You're just missing the room. And
don't look in that mirror, it's absolutely furious!"

Lack of sleep leads to obesity, fatigue, and if you're really good at not sleeping, hallucinations. At least two of those are bad side effects.

I'm getting better at the sleep portion, but I mentioned two secrets didn't I? The other goes hand in hand.

Rest days.

I hate them.

Really. My current workout goals are a mix of strength and skill. I'm working on handstands, and handstand pushups, with the goal of eventually being able to do a back lever, and planche pushups.

I rarely take rest days. I've come to (incorrectly) view them as wasted days. Now, I usually have a light day that consists of just swimming. But it is a rarity that I don't do a workout of some kind.

For instance:

Don't do this workout everyday. You'll look
more like a dead soldier, not a Spartan.

Monday, I did the 300 workout. Tuesday, I did several pushup variations, for a total of 225 pushups, plus handstand practice. Wednesday, I did a killer combo of bodyweight and free weight exercises for about 40 minutes. As good as the workout was, I only did about half of the intended reps.

Why? Because I'd been pushing my body too hard for too long. Ever since I completed the 300 workout, I've thought that every "hard" day should have the same intensity. Some of them can, but pushing your body that hard 3-4 times a week has consequences. By Wednesday, my body finally told me to give it a break already.

These aren't secrets. Chances are, you know that the body needs time to rebuild the muscle fibers that were torn down. Tissue damage is repaired, and the body grows stronger. But so many of us fall into the trap of "more, more, more."

I've been trying to do "more, more, more."

But without rest, my performance becomes sub-par. I risk injury. And I actually impede my success, rather than guaranteeing it.

Yesterday, I didn't work out. I practiced a few handstands, but not for any substantial amount of time. And today? I feel fantastic.

I'll hit the gym hard tonight. And next week? I'll take another rest day.

Keep transforming. Keep regenerating.