I did it!

Not exactly the groundbreaking "I did it!" as in finished a specific race, or achieved some amazing goal, but I did manage to stick to my plan and actually REST yesterday instead of training myself further into the hole of being dead tired.  I even got to bed a bit earlier than the last few nights, so I guess that's the cherry on top of everything.

Today is going to be played by ear.  The temps are super low here and have been for the last couple days, so it's going to be tough to harness the motivation to get out on the bike-either road or mountain.  If I am to ride I'm leaning a bit more toward the road, but only because it's "new" to me again and I'm enjoying something a bit different.  

I woke up today with what I think is a migraine I had in my sleep last night.  It's one of those "grab you on the side of the head" type of headaches that hurts only with sudden movement or exertion.  Coffee's helped a bit, but I think if I can get a chance to get out into some fresh air and move my legs a bit I might be feeling better.

If I do opt for some gym work, it'll probably be a light kettlebell session.  I've been lifting quite heavy of late with the 'bells, and while it's making me into a beast, it's also breaking down my body a bit more than I'd like.  I deadlifted very heavy this past Saturday and I can still feel it-not in pain or injury, but rather in a shock to my central nervous system.  Today I think is the first day I'm fully recovered and I don't want to push any buttons to slow down my strength building process.  

Regardless of the type of exercise or "training" I do today, there will be some physical movement involved with this body today.  Maybe a sub-freezing ride on the cold roads is just what I need right now to get my motor going.  We'll see.

Rest

I'm gonna rest today.  I swear.  No exercise, not even a "recovery" spin.  Nothing physical other than what I have to to at work and what I've got to do at home.  Chores as they're usually referred.

I read somewhere that rest is over 50% of the puzzle when it comes to training and general fitness.  In my experience, this has been true more times than not.  I, like all athletes, have refused rest, pushed my limits, and often gone overboard with training.  It's not because of some internal need to be better (well, in some cases it might have been), but in thinking about it, the incidence of such overtraining is much more related to the fact that it "feels good".  Yeah, at a point in my life, I had goals-be them weight loss, muscle building, going faster on my bike, etc-but it all comes down to the fact that I feel better after a hard workout, and especially when I'm in a fatigued state.  In my sick head, I don't feel that I'm doing anything relevant, physically, I've I'm not spent by the end of the day.  And the cherry on top is when I'm pleasantly sore the day after a hard weight workout.

As I've shifted my focus more and more into the gym and lifting weights these days, it's easy to get carried away.  As well, the feeling of soreness is easier to achieve, further pushing me through the revolving door of being over trained and under rested.  I'm at the point now where I'm seeing changes in my sleeping patterns because I'm too wired from my workouts to settle into a good night's rest.  I've GOT to work on this and today will be the day.

As I started this post, I HAVE to rest today.  There's no other option.  No easy ride on the rollers and certainly no "fun" and "light" kettlebell session.  This day will be all about healthy eating, sitting when I can, laying down when I can, and even taking a nap if it's possible.  For as hard as I've been pushing my body, I owe it a little bit of a layoff-at least for 24 or so hours.

Motivation

I've found through the years that the more motivated I am in my own training the more I write on this page, the more I finish things I started in my personal life, and overall, the better I feel.  There's something to be said about being organized, and in life, like in sports, the one who's got the most specific plan is usually the one that succeeds.

I decided to throw my hat back into the racing ring.  It's not that I had been pondering it for long hours, or losing sleep over it.  Rather, I got myself a road bike, remembered that I'm not a bad bike rider, and thought, "Why the hell not?"

I'm getting married in the next few months and my beautiful wife-to-be competes as a professional athlete.  In every way, she motivates me to be a better man-a "superhero" in my own movie.  She's awesome on so many levels and athletics is just a small part of that.  Seeing the focus that she brings to her workouts gives me chills.  Laser-like precision would be an understatement.  With that in mind, I decided if I could harness just a bit of that, I might have some success of my own.

It's not wholly that I'm getting back into racing for success.  I want to be competitive again to have a goal, a focus.  I love riding bikes and I love being fit.  Why not combine the two and throw in the objective goal of racing?  Seems to me like a pretty straight shot and one that I've done before.

So what does this all mean?  I don't exactly know but I'm excited.  When I think about my training I get the willies and the tingling excitement that I haven't felt in a long time.  Having a plan is awesome, but having something to shot for (i.e. a race) is even better-at least for me.

So here's to another (my second in a row!) week of being back in training mode.  Let's hope I rock this week just like I rocked the last!

One of the hardest workouts I've done to date

And I'm not kidding.  This was the mother of all "short and painful" workouts.  As I've stated before, I'm not a big fan of crossfit, and I don't condone most of the workouts they put together.  While the following workout is "crossfit-esque" it's much more of a thought out plan, staying strict with movement and keeping the volume low on olympic type lifting.  This is what I did yesterday:

Warm up- Range of motion ballistic movements.  Light kettle bells and light deadlifts.

Main- HEAVY dead lifts for 2 sets of 5 reps.  Plenty of rest taken between sets and form had to be just as good on the last rep as on the first.

Then- 1-2-3-4-5 reps with 2 24kg Kettle Bells of: Clean/Squat/Jerk/Man Makers
      This portion of the workout was done for example, on the 3rd set, 3 cleans, 3 squats, 3 Jerks, 3 man makers.  (1 man maker is a push up on the kettle bells straight into one repition of a row-in push up position-on both arms....*note: a "true" man maker includes a clean and push press/jerk after the rows are completed on each arm)

Then- 2 sets of 10 one arm Kettle Bell snatches on each arm with the 24kg bell.


The thing that made this workout hard was not the heavy dead lifts, but the 1-2-3-4-5 of the clean/squat/jerk/man makers set.  Two 24kg kettlebells get real heavy real quick, but because of the low rep counts, you're able to keep the form good while blowing out your entire body.  At no point in the set was I so fatigued that my form suffered, rather my heart and lungs were screaming out!  This fits my philosophy of training quite well, and it's something that I'll use not only with myself, but with my clients.

This was just one small part of my workout week, but a really important one.  I've been striving to gain strength and the dead lift is my most important tool for doing so.  In the weeks since I've started (about 5 or 6) I've improved drastically and gained back much of the strength I had when I weighed 250 lbs, but without the bulk now at 198lbs.  I plan on riding my bike and racing a bit this summer, so while keeping my weight down isn't the most important thing, it is a big consideration.

As for today, it's a toss up.  The weather is beautiful so I'm thinking a road ride might be in my best interest.  It's going to be cold this coming week so I'd rather spend that time in the woods where it's warm rather than on the windy pavement.  No matter what, though, a ride is going to happen for sure today!

Body Weight Fun!

I've stated this before, but I'm NOT a fan of Crossfit.  I am, however, interested in some of the things they do with bodyweight exercises.

In every way, I LOVE body weight exercise-squats, push ups, pull ups, sit ups, jumps, etc.  You can do anything you want, any way you want, and get a great workout without going to a gym, investing in equipment, or risking injury (more times than not).  In regard to Crossfit, while I'm strongly against many of the "weighted" workouts they do-forcing athletes to perform high volume workouts with exercises that were never meant to include more than 5 repetitions-I am, however, a big fan of what they do with bodyweight exercises.  Using your own body weight to do timed and/or high volume exercise is a great way to push yourself while avoiding serious injury.  Doing timed deadlifts makes you an idiot, but doing timed rounds of push ups, pull ups, sit ups, and the like, makes you tough, hard, and in many ways, a better athlete than the next.

So, in keeping with my beliefs, I did a workout today containing the following:

Warm up:
Playing around with a light kettlebell.  With this, I concentrated on warming up my shoulders, back, legs and chest.  Plenty of ballistic movements to get the blood flowing.
Main:
5 rounds for time of:
5 Pull ups (strict-full extension)
10 Push ups
15 box jumps (24 inch box)
20 sit ups
400 meter run

I've done this one once before.  It's my modification of a Crossfit workout.  I like it because it forces you to use every part of your body in explosive ways, while still challenging you aerobically.  Done correctly, it's not a sprint, but more of a paced session.  I get the same "feeling" from this workout that I'd get from running a hard 5k.  It's difficult if you push yourself, but not so hard that you'll be throwing up.

In the end it took me about 20 minutes to complete which was right about where I wanted to be.  Not too fast, not too slow.  Felt good and tired, but not so much so that I'd ruin the rest of my day being too exhausted to move.

Great workout, great day, and great life.

Back at it

It's been a while since I've had consistent postings here.  I feel like the "blog world" on the internet is declining.  Maybe among some folks it's still super popular, but for me it's been something that I'll get to from time to time, more often forgetting or neglecting to post rather than sit down for 10 minutes to share the experiences from my day.  While I'm not promising that I'll update this blog every day, or even every week, it will remain a place where I share my thoughts and experiences as well as a place to get things off my chest.

With that being said, I had a fairly big event in my life occur yesterday.  No, I didn't get married yet (though that's only month's away at this point!!!), but more simply, I got another road bike.  Back in the Spring of last year, I sold my one and only trusty road bike before I went to stay in Spain with Anne for the summer.  It was a decision I later came to partially regret, not because I didn't get what I felt was appropriate for the bike, but rather because I lost a part of my love for cycling in that sale.  The truth is, I got completely burned out on riding the road, so much to the point that I completely discounted anything road-related.  I started to make fun of "roadies", triathletes, and anyone that wasn't a mountain biker.  Kind of dumb and immature when you look at it, but in the end it was more my own demons coming out than anything anyone else had done to me.  I immersed myself in all aspects of mountain biking-xc, downhill, and most recently dirt jumping and urban riding (think bmx).  Through all this I've realized that I love ALL parts and aspects of riding on two wheels-even road riding.

So it was with all this in my mind that I sold an old mountain bike frame and took the money to buy a decent road bike again.  Is it carbon? No.  Is it top of the range? Not exactly.  What I got was a very nice Cannondale CAAD10 frame with simple Shimano 105 components.  Just what I need to get back into riding the road and get fit again.

I'm not looking to do any road races, but I am dedicated to getting back into racing this coming season. I'll focus mainly on Enduro racing, but perhaps throw in a few 50 mile XC races just for the hell of it.  Anne's races will be the top priority, but if and when I can find something that works inside of her schedule for me, I'll take it.  I'm excited to give racing another go, and after a solid year's layoff, I think it's time to be competitive again.  As a great "blogger friend" once told me, "racing will always be there."  The dude seems to have his head screwed on and so far anything that he's said on his blog or offered me in my comments section has been 100% accurate.  Here's to brining in a great race season for my Fiance and I in 2013!

Is this thing on?

I've been trying to post something for the last week or so.  Nothing has struck me as "post-worthy".  Yeah, I've been doing lots-working, training, riding my bike when I can, etc.-but nothing I really felt was interesting enough to write about.

I suppose the biggest thing going on has been my focus in my own training.  Like I said above, I've been riding my bike a bit, but I've focused a bit more on strength work recently.  Fact is I just haven't had the time to get out on my bike (part laziness, part time constraints, and part just not interested).  It's still my absolute favorite thing to do, but everyone once in a while you just need a break.  For me, the break's been all about trying to regain the strength I had before I started doing triathlon and mountain biking.

In my college days, I used to be a beast.  I was 250lbs of silverback gorilla.  All muscle.  I'll be honest in saying that I did it to get attention, and honest in that I did it to be intimidating (making up for a real low self esteem problem at the time).  The change in my life came in the form of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and later in MMA, where size and appearance aren't the deciding factors in who's gonna win a fight.  Maturity played it's role and soon, after learning to fight, I found myself riding a bike, running, and yes, actually swimming.  The rest is history.  What sucks about all this, though, is that even with the "healthy" change and difference in my attitude towards what "tough" actually is, came a HUGE loss in upper body strength and generally anything that didn't involve swimming, running, or riding.  What was fine at the time finally caught up with me this summer when I realized I was weak as shit, and could only lift about a fraction of the weight I was able to in my early 20's.

Now, before you get carried away and think that I'm back toward being a meathead, I'll explain.  My priority this time around is to be functionally fit.  Functional Fitness is a term that gets thrown around so much in the fitness industry it ought to be outlawed.  What functional fitness truly entails is performing daily and not so daily activities with proficiency.  Things anywhere from simply getting out of bed in the morning to moving a refrigerator from your basement to your garage (did that last one this past weekend!).  It's about being able to live your life and use your body as it's meant to be used, and it's about having a certain quality of life that will last you into your later years.  I'm very dedicated to giving  this last one to my clients, and now I've decided to take care of myself in the same way.

So with my workouts, I now have a more total body focus.  I'm not a big fan of Crossfit, but I believe in a lot of the principles they follow.  I agree with their idea of using body weight for many exercises and I agree with their ideas of using a full range of motion.  I agree that being able to move between one high intensity exercise to the next is important, and I agree that pushing yourself in different ways on different days is important to keep your body "on it's toes" so to speak.  Why I differ in philosophy from the Crossfit folk is primarily in timing their exercises and using a high volume rep scheme on powerlifting exercised that were not exactly designed to be used in such a way.

 I'll get into the timing thing in a second, but first a word about the high rep schemes for power lifting exercises.  I will say that when weight is adjusted appropriately, high rep power lifting movements can be useful.  I've learned with kettle bells that exercised like cleans, jerks, and snatches have their place in being "endurance" exercises.  However, when I see videos on youtube of "Crossfitters" doing high rep sets of cleans, jerks, and snatches with horrible form (as a coach watches no less) I begin to cringe.  The key, as with any workout program, is form and safety.  Complex movements need to be scrutinized at every point, otherwise the risk is far higher than the reward.

As for the timing of their WOD's (Work Outs of the Day), I'm in disagreement mainly because it encourages rushing through your sets to get the most done.  It places quantity in front of quality and I'm not in favor of that.  Even with a coach watching, your natural inclination when timing yourself is to beat the clock in any way possible.  Get in as much as you can in the least amount of time, usually at the expense, again, of form and safety.  No es bueno.  In order to get the most out of anything, you need to keep yourself honest and keep yourself safe.  Fighting against a clock invites too much variation to the equation.

With all that, I will be honest in saying that I do train some Crossfit workouts and I really do enjoy a lot of what they have to offer.  For where I'm at in my life, it makes sense to push myself in a different way and enjoy my workouts.  I'm not planning on competing in anything for the next few months, so this will be a nice little project for me to enjoy through the winter.  And, as an added benefit, it will be nice to have a focus which does not include having to depend on the weather.  If this winter is going to be anything like what we've had in the past (save for last winter), I'll be looking at months off my bike due to the snow.  Never a bad thing, and in this case, I'm looking forward to making the most of it.

I'll say this as a bit of a disclaimer... If Crossfit is your thing, than go on and get yours.  Fitness is all about what works for you and your lifestyle and interests.  If you like dodgeball, play dodgeball.  If you like bodybuilding, body build.  And if you like riding your bike, ride your bike.  As long as you're out and moving, you're doing it right.