On Pain and Suffering (the good kind)
January 27th, 2012 Comments Off
When I first got the bug up my ass to quit killing myself slowly with the couch, and actually try to get in some kind of shape, I was not motivated by the standard new years resolution, but by the impending doom of MY 40TH BIRTHDAY! It was good motivation.
I had been demotivated from working out so many times in the past, usually because I never saw any results, or I got hurt. Needless to say, this sucked. So I did the thing any OCD-enhanced individual would do, I started reading.
I buried myself in magazines, blogs, books – pretty much everything I could find about effective exercise. Doing some prep work turned out to be a good plan. Through one of my chains of reading I found out about Kettlebells, and the assorted books by Pavel Tsatsouline. In Enter The Kettlebell, There is an entire chapter entitled “It’s Your Fault”.
This was terribly enlightening. The whole section is the opposite of the usual bravado that you read in any fitness writing, and is an admonishment to pay attention and not get hurt. I really hadn’t read that anywhere else, as an explicit fitness topic, and it is one of the things that has kept me buying Pavel’s books.
After that, one of the online friends through the kettlebell forums summed it up better in a single phrase:
“Don’t move into Pain”
Of course, the difficulty in following that advice, is that as you push yourself harder towards a fitness goal, it hurts. You are moving heavier weights, testing your endurance, and frankly, hurting.
It is a fine line between pushing yourself through the hard work, and not injuring yourself. And if you are new at it, it can be a very fine line. For me, fine enough where I ended up almost damaging a tendon in my elbow before I realized that this wasn’t just part of my lifting, but something was wrong. It ended up costing me three months of physical therapy to recover, and probably another three months of starting from scratch.
That was fine. It gave me time to focus and see the difference between stopping before the pain, which is there to warn you about getting hurt, and ignoring the suffering that pushing yourself to the limits causes.
Really, we are actively seeking out that suffering, and trying to drive through it. That’s what makes us stronger – both physically and mentally.
When I did the Livestrong Ride two years ago, it was my first time doing an organized ride of that size. it was 45 miles, of flats, hills, city and back streets. It prepped myself and trained for the distance, but the race day was miserable. It started cold, then once we were part way into the race, started to rain. It was sticky, oily roadspray, with cold, biting winds. my hands froze on the handlebars, and I was sore all over. My lesson to myself as I was on the road was that I could tell that while I was sore, tired, and freezing, I wasn’t actually hurting or in Pain. I was just suffering through a crappy ride. It actually cleared just a bit as I made it to the finish line.
I had nothing left in the end. I could barely walk to the car until I warmed up, but I felt great. The sense of reward and accomplishment was indescribable.
After that experience, I would add an addendum to my earlier advice:
Don’t move into Pain, but feel free to punch Suffering right in the cock.
Like this:
Bring out your dead
August 20th, 2011 Comments Off
Well, at the end of last weekend I managed to work my way over to my mom’s house and steal a stack of Olympic weight plates that my brother left in the back porch. Combining those with my own, I now have 325 pounds of weights for my Olympic barbell, which means…
Deadlifts!
Power to the People was one of the first books from pavel that I picked up, but I never had space or equipment to do deadlifts. It was a great book to have in any case, since half of the book is Pavel’s standard discussion on tension, strength, and muscle irradiation. Real fundamental stuff. But now I went back to the book and re-read the whole section of starting deadlifts. The big upside, as mentioned int this book and just about every book on lifting, is that deadlifts are a very natural movement and a safe one at that. You don’t have a bar over your head and the motion isn’t awkward and tricky.
For pavel’s program you combine two sets of 5 pulls each per day, with a set of overhead presses. the book offers a barbel side press, but I’m option for a Kettlebell Military Press instead, as it is a lot safer than swinging a 6 foot bar around inside the room.
Here are this week’s numbers:
Monday: 185lbs/135lbs
Tuesday: 205lbs/185lbs
Wednesday: 225lbs/205lbs
Thursday: off
Friday: 225lbs/205lbs
Saturday: 235lbs/225lbs
These weights aren’t particularly heavy yet, but I am doing a slow progression to keep form and build up to some kind of a wave cycle later on. You can really feel the difference in this exercise vs a lot of the Kettlebell lifts, it is a whole body tension that is hard to do otherwise.
Of course, the massive “clank” as the weights hit the ground is a lot of fun too.
Back to the Grind
April 14th, 2011 Comments Off
I haven’t blogged about fitness or working out all year, and hey, I suck, but deal with it.
Since we started our house remodel, I haven’t been able to work out at home, and have had to go to the Pro Club instead, which is a lot less fun. The people down in the free weight room scare me most days, standing on BOSU balls flailing weights about like a mad flailing thing. I’m surprised most of the time that I don’t get my head caved in.
With that and getting sick for a bit, I really haven’t been regular until the last month or so. At that point, I started working on Military Press ladders with the 28Kg (62 Lbs) kettlebell. I am doing 3 rung pressing ladders. I just went up to four sets each, and am now adding 44lbs snatches in as well. Hopefully I can get up to five sets within two weeks then move up to four rung ladders.
Originally I was hoping I could jump from the 53lbs to the 70Lbs kettlebell, but that just wasn’t going to happen. I can still press the 70lbs bell just fine, but not for enough reps to do ladders.
I also managed to get Yulia a few free passes to the TRX classes by shaming myself in a TRX demo. I might get one of those for home as well, it seems pretty neat.
Good to be back to the workouts, even if it is in a combat zone.
You are what (not how much) you eat
January 28th, 2011 § 1 Comment
So about five years ago I clocked in at around 240 pounds. It’s pretty easy to get up there in weight if you eat tons of garbage, never exercise, and don’t pay any attention for a few years.
It finally came to my attention when I went to a new doctor after never going at all for years on end, and he pointed out that I was officially in the “obese” category. That kinda sucked. So I did the usual and picked out a diet and went to the gym. The diet that I went with was “The ABS Diet” from Men’s Health magazine, which is a pretty standard “Superfoods” type diet, and it worked OK. The Gym attendance died after a few months when I ended up hurting something or another, and never went back. Just with the diet I was able to get down to around 226 or so.
A year and a half ago I started working out again, but with Kettlebells, and a wholly different method of working out than the standard Gym circuit workouts that I had tried before, and as anyone who knows me is aware of, this has worked out much better, I dropped a lot of fat, put on muscle, and have felt a lot better. My weight moved to around 220, and stayed there.
Just before my Doctor’s appointment this year, I finished a 12-week intensive kettlebell program (Kettlebell Muscle) which was probably the hardest that I have ever worked out. I was eating well and I was lifting more than ever, I was able to press a 70-lbs KB over my head with one arm, so I was ready to smoke my checkup.
The doctor said I was a bit overweight, and my blood numbers showed that my cholesterol was borderline high. He suggested that I take some fish oil and try to get some exercise.
A blood test at Microsoft two weeks later showed the same results.
Needless to say I was REALLY pissed off.
Here I am, working my ass off for a year and a half, eating a recommended low-fat diet, and my weight and numbers are such that my doctor thinks I’m not doing anything at all.
It was at about this point that Timothy Ferriss’ 4 Hour Body came out. This was a pretty cool book, and had a lot of funky and interesting hacks that he tried for his body, and I was willing to experiment at this point. The diet part of his book “The Slow Carb Diet” was worth a try, so both Yulia and I gave it a shot. It was OK, and some weight came off, but it was making Yulia feel really rotten, so I looked at other options.
This is where my OCD really kicked in.
I followed Timothy’s links on his blog for some of the sources for his diet, to see if there was something similar that might work better. I came across a YouTube video of a guy named Gary Taubes on Larry King discussing his book on diet. This was an interesting watch, since he was basically arguing that what most nutritional advice was based on was faulty science. That was a pretty big claim, But I looked up his book Good Calories – Bad Calories and felt it was worth a read.
That was the start of all the annoying posts to Facebook as I burrowed into the data. Working backwards into the various studies, history of the Lipid Hypothesis, related diets and everything. What struck me was how much what was written about low-carbohydrate diets (vs low-fat diets) made sense when looking at my own weight and experience.
So I went to experiment with a diet on this new side of the fence, and picked The Primal Blueprint. It’s a Paleo-style diet which basically recommends to eat fewer (not no) carbs, no sugar, no grains, and cheat once in a while. It wasn’t that different from the Slow-carb diet, and was worth a shot.
I’m down to 206 pounds now, and eating a lot. The difference in how I feel is pretty amazing. My BMI is finally inside the “Normal” range and my fat percentage is dropping again.
I would say that the cognitive leap to this type of eating is as big as the cognitive leap to using Kettlebells for exercise. It is a complete departure from everything that I “knew” had to work in the past, which never worked. At some point you need to trust your personal empirical data, and try something new. This time, it’s been a hit.
Some links:
Gary Taubes “Why We Get Fat” Presentation at the UW
Studies by Steffan Lindeberg and others on the efficacy of Paleo-type diets
Fat-Head – a film on why Super-Size Me was baloney, and pretty funny too.
Approaching the finish…
October 13th, 2010 Comments Off
I’m now on my last two weeks of Kettlebell Muscle program. This has been seriously hard, but I feel worth it. I can definitely see improvement in my ability to do these presses, but I will be glad to be done and get some recovery.
Probably next on my list will be some drills for form, since I still can’t get reasonable multiple reps with the 32KG press. Then maybe go to some single-arm pressing ladders. We’ll see.
I also had a discussion with Tammy Biggs, one of the better gymnastic coaches in the US; who was at our house for a party during the last gymnastic clinic. She mentioned that a bunch of the coaches she works with are using Kettlebells in their strength training for their gymnasts.
I showed her a bunch of my DragonDoor books and bells and she was very interested, as they really didn’t have any specific system they were using for training. Hopefully some if what we talked about will be of use.
Week of 9/26/10
Sunday:
Rest
Monday:
Double High Pull x 5 reps
Double Clean + Military Press x 5 reps
Double Snatch x 5 reps
Double Front Squat x 5 reps
120 sec rest
20KG + 24KG KB – 5 sets of all
Tuesday:
Active Recovery
Wednesday:
Double High Pull x 5 reps
Double Snatch x 5 reps
See-Saw Press x 5 reps
90 sec rest
20KG + 24KG KB – 6 sets of all
Thursday:
Active Recovery
Friday:
Double Front Squat x 5 reps
Double Snatch x 5 reps
Double Military Press x 5 reps
Double Clean + Push Press x 5 reps
Double Front Squat x 5 reps
120 sec rest
20KG + 24KG KB – 5 sets of all
Saturday:
Rest
Week of 10/3/10
Sunday:
Rest
Monday:
Double High Pull x 5 reps
Double Clean + Military Press x 5 reps
Double Snatch x 5 reps
Double Front Squat x 5 reps
90 sec rest
20KG + 24KG KB – 4 sets of all
Tuesday:
Active Recovery
Wednesday:
Double High Pull x 5 reps
Double Snatch x 5 reps
See-Saw Press x 5 reps
75 sec rest
20KG + 24KG KB – 5 sets of all
Thursday:
Active Recovery
Friday:
Double Front Squat x 5 reps
Double Snatch x 5 reps
Double Military Press x 5 reps
Double Clean + Push Press x 5 reps
Double Front Squat x 5 reps
120 sec rest
20KG + 24KG KB – 3 sets of all
Saturday:
Rest
Press to Play
September 3rd, 2010 Comments Off
Well I have one more week to go in Kettlebell Muscle before starting the second half which adds “complexes”. This should be fun. I can see why Geoff recommends stopping this program after twelve weeks and switching to something else. This is a killer. The ramp-up in sets really starts adding on the pounds to your lifting. As far as effects go, I definitely feel more solid in my presses, and have no fear of the Double Snatch anymore.
I was glad to read that a few of my other friends have started working out as well. Cool.
Week of 8/22/10
Sunday:
Rest
Monday:
Double High Pull x 5 reps
Double Snatch x 5 reps
Double Military Press x 5 reps
Double Front Squat x 5 reps
120 seconds rest
20KG + 24KG KB – 5 sets of all
Tuesday:
Active Recovery
Wednesday:
Double Swing x 5 reps
Double Snatch x 5 reps
See-Saw Press x 5 reps
90 sec rest
20KG + 24KG KB – 5 sets of all
Thursday:
Active Recovery
Friday:
Double Clean x 5 reps
Double Military Press x 5 reps
Double Front Squat x 5 reps
Double Push Press x 5 reps
Double Front Squat x 5 reps
120 sec rest
20KG + 24KG KB – 4 sets of all
Saturday:
Rest
Week of 8/29/10
Sunday:
Rest
Monday:
Double High Pull x 5 reps
Double Snatch x 5 reps
Double Military Press x 5 reps
Double Front Squat x 5 reps
120 seconds rest
20KG + 24KG KB – 6 sets of all
Tuesday:
Active Recovery
Wednesday:
Double Swing x 5 reps
Double Snatch x 5 reps
See-Saw Press x 5 reps
90 sec rest
20KG + 24KG KB – 6 sets of all
Thursday:
Active Recovery
Friday:
Double Clean x 5 reps
Double Military Press x 5 reps
Double Front Squat x 5 reps
Double Push Press x 5 reps
Double Front Squat x 5 reps
120 sec rest
20KG + 24KG KB – 5 sets of all
Saturday:
Rest
Getting better all the time…
August 25th, 2010 Comments Off
I am definitely liking this Kettlebell Muscle routine. It’s tough. This week is cycling back a bit, which is good. Ramping up to six sets total is hard, bit when I started this doing doubles with the 20 + 24 was right at my limit for this many reps. (I can do double 32′s for a few jerks, but not much) But now I am only getting smoked by the last set. Real improvement.
We are hopefully going to start our home remodel soon. Part of this involves giving up the wine room, and it becomes a home gym. it kinda is a bummer, but we just don’t have enough wine to justify that much space. A big wine fridge will be a better value. And I would like to have a dedicated space for all this. I also wouldn’t be so worried about dropping some bells through the floor either.
I am also approaching the one year anniversary of working out. I originally got the first equipment in the beginning of August last year, but think that mid-September as my start in earnest. I should be making a big WIN out of it all, but the good thing is that it is now routine. Keeping that up is the real win.
Week of 8/8/10
Sunday:
Seafair
Monday:
Double High Pull x 5 reps
Double Snatch x 5 reps
Double Military Press x 5 reps
Double Front Squat x 5 reps
120 seconds rest
20KG + 24KG KB – 5 sets of all
Tuesday:
Active Recovery
Wednesday:
Double Swing x 5 reps
Double Snatch x 5 reps
See-Saw Press x 5 reps
90 sec rest
20KG + 24KG KB – 5 sets of all
Thursday:
Active Recovery
Friday:
Double Clean x 5 reps
Double Military Press x 5 reps
Double Front Squat x 5 reps
Double Push Press x 5 reps
Double Front Squat x 5 reps
120 sec rest
20KG + 24KG KB – 4 sets of all
Saturday:
Rest
Week of 8/15/10
Sunday:
Rest
Monday:
Double High Pull x 5 reps
Double Snatch x 5 reps
Double Military Press x 5 reps
Double Front Squat x 5 reps
120 seconds rest
20KG + 24KG KB – 6 sets of all
Tuesday:
Active Recovery
Wednesday:
Double Swing x 5 reps
Double Snatch x 5 reps
See-Saw Press x 5 reps
90 sec rest
20KG + 24KG KB – 6 sets of all
Thursday:
Active Recovery
Friday:
Double Clean x 5 reps
Double Military Press x 5 reps
Double Front Squat x 5 reps
Double Push Press x 5 reps
Double Front Squat x 5 reps
120 sec rest
20KG + 24KG KB – 5 sets of all
Saturday:
Rest
Power to You, too!
July 18th, 2010 § 1 Comment
*Now*, I’m getting sore.
Yesterday I had a chance to attend a 6-hour hands on class led by Pavel Tsastouline. If you read anything I ever write, you would know that he writes pretty much the best Kettlebell and strength training stuff out there right now (unless you are an elite lifter, but that’s a whole separate field.)
These classes were “Bullet Proof Abs” for abdominal work, and “Naked Warrior” for bodyweight work. I already had both of these books, and was interested to go over them in detail. The class was held at Kettlebility in Seattle, and had 20 people or so in attendance. This was great, because Pavel could give us individual attention, and a little nerve-wracking because when Pavel gives you attention you know it.
What Pavel made clear from the start, was that this was a class about learning and practicing concepts, not just exercises. This made perfect sense to me, as I have read most of his books, and all of them lay out some core concept or set of concepts, and then build a system upon it. It is the opposite from most everything I had read up to that point, which was all “Do these 10 exercises!” type junk.
“Strength is a Skill” gets said a lot with Pavel. We heard it in class, and put it into practice. For the first class, we went step by step through how to activate the abdominal muscles in turn, then in unison. We went through several sets of exercises that applied basic principles, then learned how to apply all this into designing your own ab workouts. We did the same for pushups and pistol squats in the second class.
All of this was based on learning basic movements individually, then applying them in unison. pavel went over using these same techniques for lifting and other exercise. I can’t count how many situps and pushups I did over the class time. By the end, we were all wiped out. But the skills we learned were worth it.
Pavel seemed pretty pleased with the class, folks were better prepared than his last class, and listened to instruction as well as can be expected. (at least we didn’t have to do burpees for not listening.)
It was fun, and I learned a lot. I hope I can attend another such class in the future.
On Your Left…
May 23rd, 2010 Comments Off
Another big catch-up post. I need to get back on cycle with updates.The past few weeks have been Mostly tuning up my form after my training session. This has really helped a lot, as the swing is foundational to all other KB work. The lighter work load has been good as well. I feel less sore and am now ready to start back on ETK+ again.
I did get a good Personal Record during the week, I was able to snatch the 32KG bell for the first time. There is just a lot less room for error when you are working with something that size.
I also got back on the bike after a year of not touching it. I took a 41 mile ride for the Red Hook Brewery “Haul Ash” run. That was great. I’m in good enough shape now that the 41 miles was easy on the muscles, but my ass was killing me. I need to spend more time on the bike just to toughen up my butt. I’m doing the Livestrong ride in a month. That will be 45 miles, but with more hills, so I should start training now.
It was good to hop on the bike and see that my general training paid off for something specific.
Week of 4/25/10
Sunday:
Rest
Monday:
Kettlebell Swing Practice
Kettlebell TGU Practice
Kettlebell Squat Practice
Tuesday:
Rest
Wednesday:
Kettlebell Swing Practice
Kettlebell TGU Practice
Kettlebell Squat Practice
Thursday:
Rest
Friday:
Kettlebell Swing Practice
Kettlebell Squat Practice
Saturday:
Kettlebell Swing Practice
Kettlebell TGU Practice
Kettlebell Squat Practice
Week of 5/2/10
Sunday:
Rest
Monday:
32KG KB Squats
32KG KB Swings 15 min
Tuesday:
32KG KB Squats
32KG KB TGU 10 Min
Wednesday:
Rest
Thursday:
32KG KB Squats
32KG KB Swings 15 Min
Friday:
32KG KB Squats
32KG KB TGU 10 Min
Saturday:
32KG KB Snatch 10 Left/10 Right
Week of 5/9/10
Sunday:
Rest
Monday:
32KG KB Squats
32KG KB Swings 15 min
Tuesday:
32KG KB TGU 10 Min
Wednesday:
32KG KB Pressing Practice
Thursday:
32KG KB Squats
32KG KB Swings 15 Min
Friday:
32KG KB TGU 10 Min
Saturday:
32KG KB Pressing Practice
Week of 5/16/10
Sunday:
41 mile Bike Ride
Monday:
20KG KB Swings 15 min
Tuesday:
32KG KB Squats
32KG KB TGU 10 Min
Wednesday:
Rest
Thursday:
24KG KB Swings 15 Min
Friday:
Rest
Saturday:
20KG + 20KG KB High Stop Military Press – 10 Minutes
28KG KB Goblet Squat – 10 Minutes
16KG + 16KG KB See-Saw Press – 10 Minutes
OK kids, from the top…
May 1st, 2010 Comments Off
Yeah, So I haven’t posted in a bit. Sue Me.
After a few months of heavy lifting I went and got an appointment for training with a local certified instructor at the Pro Club. I’d been meaning to do this for a while, but until now the only certified instructor was over in Green Lake, and I just didn’t have time to get over there. But once I heard that we had an HKC locally, I got an appointment right away.
My Form wasn’t actually too bad, I’ve put a lot of effort into doing this right, but getting a private lesson really helped me square up the details. As such, I am focusing for the next few weeks on tightening up my form, and not worrying about weight, reps, or time. I started over with the 16 KG, and worked up to the 24 KG. Just doing Swings, TGU, and Squats. I’ll start working into the 32 for this as well, and once I feel good about that, I’ll start pressing again.
Rebuilding strong foundations should help me advance up to heavier weights.
Week of 4/4/10
Sunday:
Rest
Monday:
24KG KB Military Press – 8 Minutes
16KG + 20KG KB Double Front Squat – 3 Minutes
12KG + 20KG KB See-Saw Press – 4 Minutes
Tuesday:
24KG + 20KG KB Double Swing – 7 minutes
16KG KB Viking Push Press – 4 minutes
Wednesday:
Rest
Thursday:
24KG + 20KG KB See-Saw Press – 4 Minutes
20KG KB Goblet Squat – 6 minutes
32KG KB Braced Military Press – 2 Minutes
Friday:
20KG KB Slow Cadence Snatch Swing – 6 minutes
12KG + 16KG KB Double Viking Push Press – 5 minutes
Saturday:
Rest
Week of 4/11/10
Sunday:
Rest
Monday:
20KG + 16KG KB High Stop Military Press – 7 Minutes
24KG + 20KG KB Double Front Squat – 10 Minutes
20KG + 16KG KB Double Clean and Press – 10 Minutes
Tuesday:
Rest
Wednesday:
Training with HKC (Swing, TGU, Squat)
Thursday:
Kettlebell Swing Practice
Friday:
Rest
Saturday:
Kettlebell Swing Practice
Kettlebell TGU Practice
Week of 4/18/10
Sunday:
Rest
Monday:
Kettlebell Swing Practice
Kettlebell TGU Practice
Kettlebell Squat Practice
Tuesday:
Rest
Wednesday:
Kettlebell Swing Practice
Kettlebell TGU Practice
Kettlebell Squat Practice
Thursday:
Kettlebell Swing Practice
Friday:
Rest
Saturday:
Kettlebell Swing Practice
Kettlebell TGU Practice
Kettlebell Squat Practice
