R7D68-70 – Better Start Planning

I’m getting close to the end of another round of home based fitness and it’s time to start planning the next 3 months. I am a little disappointed that  I didn’t get to do as much kettlebell work as I would have liked, nor as much Crossfit Oly as I would have wanted so those are things I would like to address. I don’t think that P90X2 is going to be coming out in time for round 8, maybe round 9!

I know that I am going to be coaching 3 days instead of 2 come September which may mean one more missed day however I think that 3rd day for the time being may be an actual fitness / boot camp class that I will be giving.

This past weekend I did legs and back which is the first time I have done a leg workout in ages, since at least round 5! My butt was so sore after doing all those lunges, just like the good old days but it was great to revive that workout for a change. I can’t understate the importance of variety in your workouts, even if it means doing something you think you hate (like Kenpo) just to change up what you are doing.

On Saturday I ran/walked a 5k on the treadmill, I was alone with the baby so she went to bed and I went to the basement. I want to do some interactive work with the girls at gym Monday so I didn’t want to do too much this weekend.

I guess it’s time to break out the record of what I have actually managed to do this round and see what improvements I can make.

In respect to my previous post. I didn’t say it was going to be easy, I just know it’s worth it.

Internet Flattery / Plagiarism And When To Get Back Up

I found some odd comments on my blog today, and lo and behold I went to the site and my posts are reposted over at another site called “p90x workout us dot com” I was pretty pissed off actually since there is not a single reference to myself or my site. I suppose I should be flattered that someone wants to steal my posting but then again, I know it’s not that personally flattering, just trying to hawk beachbody products. I suppose  I could tell BB about them but really, what am I going to gain from it?

I was thinking this past weekend about getting up when you get knocked down. There are a lot of motivational messages out there about getting up one more time and just rising more than you fall and so on and I wondered if people actually know what it’s like to get knocked down by life. I have a feeling that someone who chooses to sit on the couch and eat fast food when they should be at the gym would count that as getting knocked down. The person who fails to stick to their diet and has fried chicken and cornbread instead would count that poor judgement as life knocking them down. Even better, the person who quits their workout regime after a week because it’s “too hard” would tell people when they start again (probably only to fail again) that they got knocked down and got back up.

Let’s be real.

There is a big difference between quitting and being forced to stop. A huge difference between giving in to the voice in your head that follows you around and tells you that you are not good enough and facing a life altering event that forces you to reevaluate who you are as a person. Tearing a tendon and getting a blister are not the same thing. Losing your job and not being able to afford a gym membership is not the same as not being able to find your running shoes and that cute lulu lemon top. I guess it comes down to this societal effect of thinking that we are all magnificent warriors, living on the edge, waging war on the demons of disease and apathy but we are not. Most of what you read as motivation doesn’t apply to you. Most people who think life is hard for them are delusional. Most people need to wake up and realize that they are not the hero of their life. It’s not a movie with a happy ending, you are not some silver screen character whose life is defined by cliches and snappy one liners.

Not yet.

The problem is that people don’t know what they are capable of and they are terrified to find out. For the vast majority of us (and I include myself) we cower behind excuses at some level in order to escape the potential for pain. We may wear shirts that say “no pain no gain” or have desktop wallpaper telling us that the opinions of others aren’t important but in reality we all have a threshold we just don’t want to cross.

It’s not that I have a problem with motivation. Motivation is great, temporarily. Unfortunately it won’t get you where you want to go in the long run. It’s an external force, you are running off the energy of others. The only way to set your own fire alight is to internalize your fight. Sit down and understand why you want what you are seeing, what it is that those cheap and cheesy posters are saying to you on an emotional level. For the most part, pictures of abs and muscles may get you to the gym one or two days a week, it may help you to say no to cheesecake once in a while but it won’t change who you are. The reason you are where you are now is because that is who you are, not what you read or hear. You may not like it, but that’s your problem. The only way to change your future is to change what you believe to be true about yourself.

If you are reading this you likely are in the same mindset as a lot of us, you want to be healthy. Maybe you have made a decision to change some things in your life to make some changes in your life. Sounds trite, and it is. But it’s a grain of truth. We have to change in order to leave where we are. We try to effect change with outside influences such as reading fitness blogs or buying fitness magazines but those things never get inside us. The greatest agent for change is inside our heads and in order to get our minds to help us and not fight us we need to get on the same page.

Think differently.

You are who you are as a result of your thoughts and THEN your actions, not the other way around. Changing who you are starts with changing how you think. Motivated and successful people don’t just do things differently, they think about things differently. You don’t need to know exactly what it is, but you need to know that it’s not what you are doing. Far too often we use exercise as punishment and food as reward. How about you think of it the other way around? Think of your body as an engine and food as fuel, then find the best quality fuel you can. You wouldn’t pour orange juice in your car gas tank would you? Think of exercise as a chance to prove your ability, not 40 minutes of lost couch time. Think of your smoking abs not as a goal but as a by product of your healthy choices. Go into your brain and flick some switches and see what happens.

R7D68 – Resting. Reviewing. Reviving.

 

I find it amusing, I suppose, that I suffered greatly on starting out with P90X. I have gone over my trials, tribulations and my entire journey in a previous post but going back over the last 2 years of home fitness I am amazed at how I blindly ignored my weight, choosing to focus on my perceived fitness. We can be so naive and deceptive when it comes to our health, fitness, body image and weight. It took a long time for me to see the truth.

I rested yesterday, another 4am work install made it too much for an Insanity workout. Instead, I bring you the story of my P90X journey that will prove to everyone the following:

1. It may not work the first time
2. If you don’t fix your diet, you may as well not bother.
3. If you stick with it, results will come.
4. Winners never quit, quitters never win.

I am on my 7th round of Home Fitness. Only since Week 3 of Round 4 have I discovered what really works.

If you are thinking about P90X or Insanity, don’t think, just do. If you are thinking about quitting because it is too hard, go to the funeral of a man who dies in his 40’s leaving a wife and kids behind because it was too hard for him to stay healthy. Ask his family if they sympathize. Ask yourself what your life would become if you had to spend the rest of it in a body you hate, others ridicule and most people don’t know how to escape.

Then do the work.

My P90X journey in a nutshell, taken from my “history” page:

It was obviously time for something to change. I was, for all intents and purposes, a 300lb man wobbling around pretending that I was something I wasn’t. I had convinced myself that my size defined me and that losing “too much” weight would not sit well with me psychologically. I therefore made up my mind that I needed to convince myself that if I didn’t get things under control I would not only have a severely diminished quality of life but in fact, I may end up with no life at all.

The 300lb scare was what I needed to get going. I joined Weight Watchers, and by the end of 2008 I had dropped 30lbs, got my 10% keyring and my 25lb keychain charm and was in a much better place. My weight stayed around 260lbs while I worked out at the gym during the winter and into the summer, remaining there despite all attempts to force it lower. At some point, I think I resigned myself to the notion that I was going to be over 250lbs forever, no matter what I did. That apathy immediately translated into weight gain. Once we started gymnastics coaching again in September of 2009 I was up at around 265lbs. That isn’t the worst part. The biggest surprise was that after starting my P90X blog in June of 2009 I managed to GAIN almost 10lbs. No wonder there are no before and after pictures!!!

Ironically, it was immediately AFTER my first round of P90X that I realized something wasn’t right. I had not been following the nutrition guide, thinking I would be OK doing my own thing and that was my problem.
One more note. I am not following the diet. I know, I know, each time I come across a site where someone says that I think “you idiot, diet is the key, THE KEY DAMMIT” but in my case I have a legitimate excuse. I am studying to be a certified nutritionist and I am designing my own program.

Yes, and I am an idiot and I am designing my own downfall.. The fortunate thing was that I immediately began to feel the sting of jealousy that other people were able to get such amazing results with P90X and I wasn’t. That sting was pride messing with me and in the words of Marcellus Wallace “Pride only hurts, it never helps.”. I continued with P90X, Insanity and hybrids of both until I got to my 4th round of P90X based workouts and was still gaining weight. This was ridiculous, and I was still happily working out and pushing myself hard, and even blindly considering myself to be fit while tipping the scale at 282lbs. My pride was indeed hurting me. My jealousy was becoming an obstacle, preventing me from doing anything for myself and endlessly comparing myself to others in loathsome hatred for their gains. In a final betrayal of my own motivation I had failed at 2 huge goals I had set for myself. 240 by 40 went by completely unnoticed and my goal to be a fit dad BEFORE the baby was born only ended up in frustration.

It was a fateful trip to Huntsville with my parents and a conversation with my Dad and Uncle that finally hit home in October of 2010. I returned home, ashamed that my parents had seen me in such an overweight state and decided I was going to take some nutrition advice for once. I investigated the Paleo Lifestyle and the lightbulb came on in my head. It was almost exactly what I had done years ago when I had my most successful weight loss. It was out with the grains and sugar and in with whole food. In retrospect, the best thing for me was not eating sugar and grains. My body was so overwhelmed by the sugars I was eating that as soon as I stopped I saw dramatic results.

I am not saying I am done, I am still around 230lbs and on my way down to my goal weight which is somewhere below 220lbs. Once I get there, I may see if I can get down to my University weight of under 200 just to see where I am happiest but I am glad to report that for now, I am able to set my weight without feeling hungry, without having any cravings and without preventing myself from enjoying what I love to eat… meat!

*Update: It’s now July 2011 and I am sitting at around 235lbs with 18-18.5% body fat. This was a part of the entry for the day I posted those results.

At my heaviest back in 2008 (on my 1st wedding anniversary!) I was for all intents and purposes 295lbs at a whopping 30% fat. That meant I was approximately 200lbs of person and 100lbs of fat. If I wasn’t disgusted enough at myself before I sure am now!

My latest numbers are a little more encouraging but still a little off base. I am down to approximately 18% fat at around 235lbs which means I am 195lbs of man and 44lbs of stored energy ;) Given those stats and knowing I should be about 12-15% fat, I should be aiming at a goal weight of around about 218lbs-224lbs.

R7D65 – Change Is Good, Variety Is Good, Ice Cream Is Good (thanks to Vitamix)

I can't help being out here

Last night while working out I felt a little restless as I often do when using P90X. It’s not that the workouts are boring, it’s more that I have a walkout basement onto a large deck which has all the evening sun you could wish for and the lure of the open air is too strong. So since it was Chest, Shoulders and Triceps day I figured I would improvise a little. First I substituted pike presses with some wallball shots. I have an improvised 26lb basketball o’ sand that I use for this and it’s a great sub for any shoulder exercise plus for me since I don’t do much leg specific work I like anything that I can get a little extra quad burn. Instead of the scarecrows I wanted to be adventurous so I did wallball shots without the shot, instead I pressed the ball up with one arm so that I ended up with my arm fully extended switching the ball from hand to hand each time I came up from squat. It doesn’t sound hard, and it’s not that taxing but the balance component takes some skill. Rather than do pour flys I decided to do 5 clean and press, 5 one arm swings and 5 snatches per arm for a total of 15 reps per side. Doing all  3 movements one after the other was an unusual feeling and worked just fine. Last of all, instead of the fly/row/press which I have to admit I actually like doing I took the previous set one step further and did all 15 movements with one arm then repeated again on the other side doing the set twice. It was fun to switch things up a bit and also to improvise what I was doing on the spur of the moment. I think that I need to improve my library of kettlebell skills though, I need some funky moves to throw into my workouts. All in all, the workout was pretty good and I got to hang out on the deck in the sun while working out which just makes me more jealous of people in California and Australia who have weather like that all year round…

I then made my own ice cream. I know, some paleo people say dairy is bad but I really don’t eat any cheese or drink milk alone any more so I threw some Costco frozen fruit and a cup of cream and a tablespoon of honey into the World’s Best Blender and made some delicious ice cream. If you want a blender that will blow your mind and make you ice cream go get a Vitamix from Costco.

I’m also a tumblr now, although I can’t get the wordpress plugin to autopost yet, I am working on it.

 

R7D65 – Throwaway Entry 1

 

I’m just tired of vegans.

I don’t often do recipe type stuff on here but I couldn’t resist the morning glory muffin recipe I found over at paleocomfortfoods.com.

Last night I tried to get a short stint of work done while the gym girls did a modified version of ARX. It was a welcome break from the WOD type workouts they have been doing and I think they deserved a bit of a break.

Today I need to get back on schedule, I have chest and back to get done, with a healthy dose of ARX thrown in for good measure.

In the mean time… It appears I am not the only one who realizes that people nowadays are endowed with a false sense of self worth and self importance.

 

 

 

 

 

R7D62/4 – My Ironic Life

No, Alanis, it's not ironic

As if to poke me in the eye with the sharp stick of irony, my life took great pleasure in denying my right to work out this weekend. We had to drive to Penetang for the family reunion, that meant staying in the retirement home again which, in fact, is better in some ways than a hotel, means there is no gym, no pool and nowhere to work out. Not only that, our weekends always seem to consist of staying in the townhouse eating cold cuts and talking about the relatives. I slept in a little on Saturday in order to catch up with the sleep I had missed last week. That meant no workout on Saturday, by the time we got home on Sunday I was exhausted from driving but attempted a short Back and Biceps workout. It’s amazing how drained I still was regardless of the great sleep I got on Saturday night on the Ditex Sapphire Millenium mattress in the old folks home. At the end of last week I could tell I was overtrained / under-rested because my heartbeat was just not getting into my usual zone, I was pushing as hard as I could but I couldn’t get over about 140bpm. Sunday’s workout wasn’t much better even though it was a P90X workout, my bpm should have been better. Now I am locked into 2 out of 3 days off coaching HOWEVER since I feel the girls are maybe not pushing quite as hard as I would like I may join in tonight and make it a bit of a fitness test / you vs. the coach deal. That would get me a short and not too stressful workout and allow me to fill the voids that are causing my Firstbeat Coach to be disappointed in me!

This title got me thinking, do you suppose that Alanis knew that her song contained no irony and therefore was the very epitome of the thing about which she was singing? I think not, that would give her too much credit, not that she is not talented, she’s just not that talented. It is ironic that the whole song contains nothing but coincidence, bad timing and life being a pain in the ass however and I find that amusing when seemingly oblivious to the irony of the intention, she warbles on about rain on her wedding day and lottery winners kicking the bucket. Irony, its funny that it’s the hardest thing to nail down. But I digress.

I stole this little nugget from paleofitmd today:

These are some of my CrossFit PRs

Baseline: 3:58
Fran: 7:18 (totally lame)
Jackie: 7:25
Back Squat: 235#
Strict Press: 115#
Deadlift: 315#
CrossFit Total 655#
Max Pushups: 40
Max Unbroken Muscles Ups: 5
Max Overhead Squat: 125#
Max Clean and Jerk: 160#
2K Row: 7:35

I probably should apologize to him for nicking his stuff but I need a little something to concentrate on and getting these numbers for myself is something I would like to do. Also, I think that his site may be a good read, certainly his “start here” page states some of the reasons I am frustrated with the medical profession.

So here are the descriptions of what those numbers mean:

Fran:
21 Thrusters 95lbs
21 Pull Ups
15 Thrusters 95lbs
15 Pull Ups
9 Thrusters 95lbs
9 Pull Ups

Jackie:
1000 meter row
45 pound Thruster, 50 reps
30 pull-ups

Back Squat – The basic regular squat we all love to hate
Strict Press – Shoulder press, from standing, front of shoulder (I prefer back of shoulder, but my body is weird).
Deadlift – I’m going to assume everyone knows this. Lift the bar from the floor until you are upright. Keep back discs intact!
Crossfit Total – Simply add the totals from the previous 3 lifts (with each attempted 3 times for max)
Max Pushups – Unbroken push ups, no rest, full range of motion
Max Unbroken Muscles Ups – Again, no stopping to max
Max Overhead Squat – 1 rep max for overhead squat, just regular squat with arms extended overhead
Max Clean and Jerk – Probably the most misrepresented, misunderstood and challenging lift of all.
2K Row – Get on a rowing machine and go until your lungs explode!

By the way, in the thruster video, that’s my cousin (by marriage) Davey Havok singing the soundtrack. Google AFI, go see them in concert or go to itunes and download their CDs!

 

 

R7D60/1 – Stop Listening To Yourself. Just Do The Work.

Work gets in the way of life all the time, and when you have to work an 8 hour day, coach a 3 hour class and then go back to work for another 5 hours without so much as a nap break then work affects your workouts too.

I am lazy, I admit it. But there is a silver lining to that statement. I learned a long time ago to ignore me because I can’t coach myself. Not only that, I have learned that a plan, if you allow it, will supercede any lazy thoughts you may have. Let the plan be your coach, and learn to survive without encouragement. That said, skipping my second workout in a row made me feel guilty, but I was just too tired after a marathon 16 or so hours on my feet and then only 4 hours sleep before going off to work again. My Firstbeat Athlete Coach agreed and downgraded me to an 8.0 from 8.5 in light of my modified schedule but I decided that I would not argue with the science that less than 6 hours sleep shouldn’t be followed with a workout.

I was discussing the whole “voice inside your head” thing the other day with a few different people and realized that it wasn’t until I stopped paying attention to my head that things really started to take off. I remember back in University I was residence staff, an RA and then a Don for a total of 5 years and we did a lot of counselling training and self-motivational training. After I left university and had to help myself I spent a great deal of time reading pointless self help books written by delusional happy addicts who try to convince you that you can change the way you think. Believe me, the adage that a leopard can’t change it’s spots outweighs sixteen tons of thought change books. Now I don’t want to say that having a positive attitude isn’t a good idea because it is, everyone loves a positive person (unless they are the manic, uber happy cheerleader type that you want to beat with a yoga block) and being filled with positivity gives you a happier feeling of self worth. However, there are dangerous potholes in the road to self worth… Many, many people think that arrogance and inflated sense of self importance is the same as confidence and belief in yourself. It’s not. In fact, one of the biggest problems with our society is over-bestowing confidence on our children so they grow up with this overinflated sense of self and delusional self value. Fact is, self worth that is given rather than earned is doing more damage to people than they realize.

Back to the voices. The problem with most people (as Tony Horton expounds during Chest and Back) is that they stop what exercise they are doing before they should because something inside them tells them they can’t do any more, or it’s too painful to do more. The fact is that you need to use that voice not as an absolute but as a starting point. Exercise is funny like that, when your mind tells you that you have done enough, that is the point at which the real work and the real benefit begins. Failure to go beyond that point means you may as well just kick back with a can of coke and watch your DVDs from the couch. That tipping point is the gateway to fitness and health and in order to breach the beachhead you need to shut up and get to work.

This is something I wish someone had told me in simple terms when I was younger. Instead I learned it from coaches who drove us into the ground on the rugby pitch, drilling us with merciless laps, sprints and piggybacks up tall grassy hills. It was those experiences and the results gained that drove into me the importance of doing what you are told, no matter how hard, no matter how painful it is, you will always succeed if you just do the work. There is a whole industry built around this theory, shirts, advertising campaigns, soft drinks, power drinks, protein bars, and almost everything else that can benefit from being tied to being healthy promotes pushing yourself to the limit. But it’s not the limit that you need to worry about, it’s your brain that you should be wary of.

 

For those who are not fortunate enough to have competed in athletics when younger, or sadly, those kids nowadays who get “participation trophies” won’t get to understand the requirement to going beyond the pain (read: discomfort) barrier in order to get their reward. Sports nowadays have been reduced to participation events with no winners and (god forbid) no losers. Unfortunately in a world where everyone is treated that way, everyone loses. Call me competitive, I don’t consider it an insult, in fact I think a competitive nature should be fostered and worn like a badge of pride. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE has the ability to compete, but only if they are encouraged to and shown the rewards of success and are allowed to feel the sting of defeat.

The sting that for most people comes from seeing themselves in the mirror after years of neglect, even months in the gym failing to pass that point of improvement, giving up because it’s just too hard. The frustration of plateau, which for most people comes after a few weeks of going from zero to something but never pushing beyond. They are the people who have learned to “listen to their body” which they translate as a get out of jail free card for their efforts. So what do you do?

Get someone to push you. Get someone to yell at you for once. Have someone tell you that you aren’t trying hard enough. Get someone to force you beyond your comfort zone and do something you can actually be proud of. Stop listening to that whining lazy voice in your head and just do the work.

Just do the work. Give yourself something to achieve and don’t give up. Set a goal that scares you and then achieve it. Then set another unbelievable goal and hit that too. Find out where your total exhaustion lies. Discover where your absolute boundary is, when your body, not your mind gives up. Spend time there, enjoy the journey and be amazed at the destination. It doesn’t matter if it is 10 chinups or 500 pushups, it doesn’t matter if it is running a mile without stopping or doing a sub 3 minute Fran pick something, write it down, take it with you to the gym, to the park, to your basement and don’t stop until you finish. I promise you from the bottom of my heart you won’t regret it. Then, do it again tomorrow.

Maybe you find this a little too out there… Maybe it’s too “hardcore”. Let me be honest, you probably wouldn’t know hardcore if it ran you over with it’s car. This isn’t hardcore, this is self improvement. It’s something I wish I could teach everyone, and it’s something I strive to teach my girls as gym because it’s not just about fitness, pushing past that limit will improve every aspect of your life and every aspect of your future. But don’t take my word for it, give it a shot and let me know how it goes for you. But remember, don’t listen to that voice in your head, it’s just trying to hold you back.

 

R7D54-59 – Weekend Away, Injuries And Reviews

Let’s start at the beginning.

Friday was Max Recovery since I had made a discovery that I had never actually done an Insanity recovery workout. It wasn’t too tough, although less of a challenge than I expected and the next day I was sore which tells me that I am not stretching enough during my regular workouts. Saturday we headed out to Niagara Falls and the weekend looked like this:

Friday – Max recovery
Saturday – RKC in the room
Sunday – Off
Monday – RKC on the deck (injury?)
Tuesday – Chest and Back

The workout on Saturday was brief but tough, it was only 30 minutes but I did 34543 ladder with some swings and some snatches thrown in to make up for the lack of chinups. Saturday night we went out to the Casino after a Keg dinner that was tasty but pricey. Sunday was spent on the jet boat tour and in the casino with an amazing dinner at Copacabana Brazilian Steakhouse  to follow. We all ate way too much but the food was pretty spectacular. Each time a guy came around with a huge spear of meat it was simply impossible to say no. After 90 minutes of hedonistic meat gorging we wandered back to the hotel and I for one passed out in a meat coma. Monday we drove back to Toronto and spent the day relaxing without the baby which was really odd and tough to get used to. I did a RKC workout on the deck that looked like this:

With 45lb KB

3 rungs with chinups
10 wallball shots
4 rungs with chinups
20 swings
5 rungs with chinups
10 wallball shots
4 rungs with chinups
20 swings
3 rungs with chinups with 70lb KB
20 swings with 70lb KB

At the time I felt pretty good, I had a pretty high workload I thought and I felt fine. In fact, according to Firstbeat, it was the toughest workout I have done with the exception of the day I ran almost 5k in 40 degree heat just to see if my new foot pod worked. The next day however I was very sore, in fact, my body was out of alignment like it is when I have a nerve impingement which made me think that maybe I was going to need another week off. I decided I should work out anyway, taking it easy during my Chest and Back workout and to my relief, my post workout stretch proved tight but also a huge relief. By the end of the day my back was fine and I was back on track.

So what of the reviews?

The Keg – Niagara Falls, Ontario

It’s lobster summer which usually means an attempt to cover their insanely overpriced meals by adding lobster and giving them fancy names. However, nothing, even lobster, is going to soothe the sting of paying $45 for a plate of middle of the road restaurant food. The restaurant was packed, but we were seated quickly and our waitress was very attentive, friendly and happy to get 50% of our order right. Actually to be fair, she did put in the order correctly we can only assume that the kitchen messed up the thing. 2 of our 4 dinners were correct, but Nicole got a salad with no dressing (although she had asked for balsamic dressing which THEY DON’T HAVE!)  and another of our party got a baked potato with her sides nowhere to be found. The problem wasn’t only with the order being wrong, but also with the fact it took 10 minutes to get put right. As I rightly predicted, the manager apologized and offered to pay for desserts for the whole table which we gladly accepted. As far as the food goes, I had ordered the scallops wrapped in bacon followed by the steak topped with lobster seafood mix. Both dishes were acceptable, there was a total of 2 tiny claws of lobster on my lobster dish which was a total rip off but all in all the taste was good.

For dessert I had the cheesecake but in retrospect I wish I’d had the creme brulee. I don’t know about you, but for me the Keg gives me the same feeling every time, the food is good, just good enough that you don’t wan’t to complain about the price but once you leave you realize you just got ripped off. I’m not saying the quality is bad, it’s not, but the prices are all about 20% too high.

 Whirlpool Jet Boat Tours Niagara Falls Ontario

This was an amazing outing. About 45 mintues of the best laughs and thrills you can get while getting completely drenched in river water. Make sure that you plan on a warm day because even with the water being 80 degrees it was still chilly for some. The boat is a massive 3 engined 1500 HP beast that can do 360 degree turns and run level 5 rapids like they are nothing. We learned a bit about the area, the falls and the rapids themselves but the highlight is running downstream through the rapids as the boat scoops thousands of gallons of water over you. It was a great adventure, something I would recommend to anyone going to Niagara. It’ s only $60 per person so it’ s well worth the price, just remember a change of clothes!

Copacabana Brazilian Steak House Niagara Falls Ontario (Website down)

There are plenty of bad reviews for this place but we decided to go anyway since the lure of the place is too strong for a meat freak like me. The only real complaint I had is that the idiot woman who seated us complained that we couldn’t have the table instead of the booth since “everything” was reserved. Obviously she was not thrilled to have to work, didn’t care about us or the way she treated us and was basically your typical asshole twenty something stick insect who thinks the world owes her something because she thinks she is hot. Anyway, the place was pretty fun, loud and filled with good looking waiters and waitresses obviously catering to a younger crowd. The process is that you get some sides from the buffet area and wait for the meat guys to come around and cut meat off their giant skewers onto your plate. There are 17 different kinds of meat on offer and I think we tried them all. As long as you don’t expect a quiet restaurant to chat with friends and you don’t mind a fast paced and energetic vibe you should enjoy yourself here. The meat itself was, for the most part, very good. They have encrusted meats, cheese stuffed meats and good quality steaks on offer. The meat was, I have to admit, salty but not to the degree that it was offputting. The cheese stuffed prime rib was fantastic and I had at least 3 servings of bacon wrapped sirloin! I would definitely recommend that you go at least once, it’s very much like being on vacation in a tropical island, it’s loud, the wait staff are sometimes forgetful but always happy and the place itself is like a tiny getaway. I think we would try the one in Toronto to compare experiences but next time I will have to remember to 24 hour fast before hand. It did take me 2 days to get over the amount I ate, but that is a sign that we all had a great time!

Doubletree Hilton Niagara Falls Ontario

We have stayed here before and obviously since we returned we liked it enough! The room this time was a little bizarre and since we had 4 of us in one room utilizing the pull out couch for 2 of us it was a great experience. For the other 2 however, they were sleeping on a pullout that was barely a double and filled the extra room completely. There was only a single bathroom for all of us and the main room had fixed curtains that blocked the corner windows which I found bizarre. Last time was better, I have to admit, but this time was cheaper overall. I think for the future though it would be worth getting separate rooms. We had breakfast in the hotel on Sunday and once again the buffet was well stocked, had an omelette maker at their own station and the food was good quality, hot and well prepared.

 

 

R7D53- Rest. Crossfit Games Are Here!

Finally took a rest day since I was completely exhausted after work.

Taking some time to take in the Crossfit games today, go to games.crossfit.com and check out the live feed.

It’s weird to see these people swimming, but I think it’s a great addition to the skill set testing after all, a true mega athlete should be able to swim, no?

Check out the skills part of the workouts here: http://games.crossfit.com/finals/workouts