Reasons To Love Bill Gates and A Note To My Athletes

Bill Gates speech: 11 rules your kids did not and will not learn in school

Rule 1: Life is not fair – get used to it!

Rule 2: The world doesn’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won’t be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent’s generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they’ll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don’t get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.

So why post this here? Well, I have been working on a piece to give to my new gym girls to try and pass along certain messages. It started with what was a quote from Jeff Tucker, a crossfit coach, that I assume he posted for the benefit of his “athletes” as follows:

“I am not your best friend. I am not your drinking buddy. I am not the guy or gal who is there to make you feel warm and fuzzy. I am not a part of your sewing circle or gossip clan. I am not the one you call in the middle of the night and ask financial advice from or borrow money from. I am not the one you ask, do these Lu Lu’s make my butt look big. I am certainly not the one you ask why all my reps did not count. So just who am I? I am your coach. The one you hired to kick your butt, the one you asked to be honest with you in how to train; the one whom you listen too and take facts from as you grow within the realms of CrossFit. I will make you jump, crawl, pull, push, throw, stuff while spitting profanities or praise, which ever apply. Come here and train that is why you are here. Train and then go eat some good food, not that crap that makes your results stifle hard work. I will stay late for you, I will come early for you, I will make sure you get the advice you need on movements or food. We are allowed to disagree with each other and if you can’t handle that then you have choices, we all do. And yes, if you call me in the middle of the night and need help with a get out of jail card, I will do that too. So get in the gym, and GET SOME!”

Since it was too much for my kids, I worked it a bit and came up with something that gives me goosebumps every time I read it…

We are about to start an amazing journey together, a journey that will bind us together in a common goal. It is a journey whose destination is a place you may not even be able to see at this moment. Each step of the way, we will build on your success, celebrate your victories and challenge your shortfalls. As we go you will learn to face your fears, to break down your ideas of what is possible for you and set goals that will inspire and amaze you. I am committed to showing you the endless possibilities you have as an athlete and a person, and I promise to protect you, to assist you and encourage you in every step of that journey. If you fall, I will catch you, but if you hesitate to take a step, I will watch and wait. Your responsibility in this journey is not to me, it is to yourself. You have to take responsibility for who you are and what you do. Your work rate, your skills and ultimately your success will depend on your commitment to yourself as a competitive athlete. To compete is to test yourself against others, but the real test of character comes in the challenges you set for yourself.

But let me be clear…

I am not your best friend. I am not your school buddy. I am not the guy who is there to make you feel all warm and fuzzy. I am not part of your Facebook friends, Twitter followers or gossip clan. I am not the one you call for advice about school or the one you borrow money from. I am not the one you ask if your new Lululemon outfit looks cute and I am certainly not the one you ask why all your pushups didn’t count. Who am I? I am your coach, the one who is accountable for kicking your butt, the one who will make you work harder than you ever though you could. I am the one who you will hate, love and come to understand as the key to your success. I will be the one to cheer loudest at your success and be the first to console you during your challenges.
So train as hard as you possibly can.
I am committed to you, I want success for you, and I want you to work your heart out for it. I will stay late for you, I will come in early for you, I will give you the advice and guidance you need. We will fight with each other, we will laugh with each other, we will go through wars together and emerge victorious from the trenches.

So do us both a favour and get in that gym and work like your life depends on it!

R5D32 – RKC Heavy Day (Followed by a day of CPR re-cert)

Still looks the same as medium and light day but that will change. Plus I did one of the 3 ladders with a 70lbKB

C&P left 1
C&P right 1
Pull Up 5
C&P left 2
C&P right 2
Pull Up 5
C&P left 3
C&P right 3
Pull Up 5
Rest 1-2 min repeat another 2x for a total of 3 ladders.
I skipped the pull ups. I did a few sets after the fact, the stairs were killing my timing.

Second part was a little easier, the dice roll came up 6 so for 6 minutes I did this:

45lb KB Swings, 50 reps
Rest 10 seconds, repeat. 50 swings are still the killer for me. My mind starts to wander and I start to second guess myself. Hopefully I will get over that, it’s annoying.

Sunday was CPR recertification day at Evolution. It was fun, but long and not very much activity.

R5D31 – The Stunning Revelation (and chest day)

fat davidI decided to do a short chest workout since I was pressed for time getting to coaching. Always looking for weird and bizarre ways to work out I came up with this:

Bench:
5 reps, rest 10 seconds x 10 @ 135lbs
5 reps, rest 10 seconds x 7 @ 205lbs
3 reps, rest 10 seconds x 5 @ 255lbs

50 dips – Total workout time, under 20 minutes.

The bench was tough, I knew resting so little would reduce both my rep count and my weight so I was prepared to be both finished early and disappointed with the numbers. However, I managed 15 reps at 255lbs which is currently more than my body weight so I am learning to be satisfied. I am a little concerned over my triceps with all the KB work and how little work they seem to get even with the C&P so I will endeavor to get more tricep dips done on chest day.

We did weigh in 1 for Biggest Loser at work yesterday and I rolled in at 254.4. Granted, I had eaten breakfast(s) and had coffee and held off on the bathroom stop but still, it was pretty high. We have 3 months, and I would like to see 230 something. It’s pretty ambitious I know but if I can find a way to get there on the Paleo diet without really changing what I eat that much it will definitely solidify my belief in the system.

So what is the revelation?

I read a blog this morning about a guy who has lost a lot of weight and something struck me like a hammerblow to the face. he said “I like food. Actually, that’s not true. I love food.” and I stopped cold and thought to myself, “man, I used to say that all the time.”. In fact, I then thought of M over at NomNomPaleo who says on her front page “I love to eat. I think about food all the effing time. It borders on obsession.” and I realized that I used to be like that too but ever since I have given up grains, I haven’t felt that way about food. I would have considered myself a compulsive overeater it was that bad. I used to eat until I was physically uncomfortable, I was usually hungry, and if not hungry, bungry, hangry or sungry. For those who don’t know:
Bungry – Bored not hungry, but eating anyway.
Hangry – Angry not hungry, but eating anyway.
Sungry – Sad not hungry, but eating anyway.

Sound familiar to anyone? If so, you need to step away from whatever low fat snack you have in your hand, pretending that it is healthy because the bag says so and learn to kill your inner food demon. That demon feeds on grains and it won’t go away until you starve it to death. This may sound like an epic oversimplification but I am only living proof that it works. In a stark turnaround I am now able to look at my relationship with food as something completely different. It’s not a relationship any more. It is a one way street, and that is the way it should be. Anyone who says they have a relationship with food is already in trouble, and treating your addiction / obsession as a living thing is not going to solve your problem. Your link to food should be one of objective observation and selection. In that way you can admire food, you can manipulate food, you can even love certain foods but they don’t control any aspect of your life. I don’t have a relationship with food, food is just food, it’s just stuff like engine oil or a bag of screws it doesn’t have any emotional effect on me any more. Now that doesn’t mean that when I had Virgil’s brisket in NYC last week I wasn’t close to tears, but that is a reaction, not an attraction.

It has been such a gradual process that I really didn’t realize how big of a change it was until today. I was thinking yesterday that I haven’t had any refined sugar since my parents were here in October of last year and how little I miss it. It seems incredible that I have stuck to what some people would think is a “tough diet” but in all honesty, this is the easiest lifestyle change I have ever made. Maybe it is because my “cravings” were usually for salty and meaty not sweet, maybe that is what helped me the most, but I would bet dollars to donuts that anyone can do exactly what I have.

Sorry grains, it was fun, but it’s over.

..and besides, Ricky Gervais says it’s not a disease…

R5D31 – Medium Day, Coaching and The Biggest Loser

Today was tough, probably because I was supposed to have a day between the two RKC days and I was still a little sore after the snatches yesterday. This is what happened:

C&P left 1
C&P right 1
Pull Up 5
C&P left 2
C&P right 2
Pull Up 5
C&P left 3
C&P right 3
Pull Up 5
Rest 1-2 min repeat another 2x for a total of 3 ladders.

Again I chose to do 5 pullups each time for a total of 45 pullups.

Second part was a little easier, the dice roll came up 6 so for 6 minutes I did this:

45lb KB Swings, 25 reps
Rest 10 seconds, repeat. Ten seconds is not enough rest time, my bpm went up and kept rising with every set. Thankfully it was only 6 minutes.

Uneven-Bars

It was a tough but fairly short workout, and I needed to finish quick to get to coaching. On the coaching front, I have finally been transitioned into the full time coach for the competitive girls. This is awesome news and once again I will be back doing what I really love to do. There are going to be plenty of challenges with the group not least of all will be returning to my old club for one of the competitions. However, I am totally up for it and am so excited to be back coaching competitive gymnastics again!

The other health and fitness news is that tomorrow we start the Biggest Loser again at my workplace. This will be the 6th time I have run the contest for our department and so far with 7 of us participating there is $350 up for grabs. The contest is 3 months, based on percentage weight lost and includes monthly prizes and a grand prize. It has been well received in the past and this time, although attendance is down a little, I hope to see some healthy weight loss for everyone involved. I am participating, I hope to see my weight down around the 240 mark or less, seeing 230 something on the scale would be pretty amazing to be honest. With the Paleo diet, I need to learn how to manage what I eat to control my lean levels so that I can accurately control what my body is doing. For so many years eating grains it was a crapshoot, not necessarily knowing what was going to work or not work with my weight. Now with the Paleo diet, those peaks and valleys are gone, my temperament, cravings, hunger are all completely under control and so now I need to learn how to manage my weight with predictability within the new lifestyle. It’s tough having to relearn everything, but then again, at least now I know I am operating within nutritional truth.

R5D30 – Rite Of Passage Begins (I am a man, at least in Russia!)

Day 1 of the Clean and Press with pull ups (45lb KB) – Light Day

C&P left 1
C&P right 1
Pull Up 5
C&P left 2
C&P right 2
Pull Up 5
C&P left 3
C&P right 3
Pull Up 5
Rest 1-2 min repeat another 2x for a total of 3 ladders.

Snatches – The dice roll came up 5 – do 5 minutes of KB snatches.

10 right 25lb
10 left 25lb
10 right 25lb
10 left 25lb
10 right 25lb
10 left 25lb
10 right 45lb
10 left 45lb

70lbkb

I was astonished at how hard the snatches were. Maybe it was due to the fact I did 5 pull ups every time I had to do pull ups and that I had to run downstairs to the basement to do them. Whatever it was, I found that doing snatches with a 45lb KB is just about the most dangerous and (objectively) stupid thing anyone could ever want to do. However, in order to satisfy my own curiosity I also decided that I would take a shot at what Pavel says is the indicator of a Russian boy’s transformation into manhood, the clean and press of a 70lb KB with each arm. I was pretty confident that I could do it, I have always had beefy shoulders but the balance and coordination is not a piece of cake. Also, when you have the 70lb KB above your head you suddenly become aware that you are just a muscle spasm away from a crushed skull.

Today, although Tuesday, was Monday’s workout. Tuesday, a day off, will have to wait until next week and so tomorrow, Wednesday, will be “medium” day which at this point is the same as light day (Monday) but with swings not snatches. So I am in good shape to catch up and get back on track despite missing Monday.

Good news is that my shin splints and back ache from NYC are gone. I don’t think I could have made it another day with that volume of walking regardless of how much delicious BBQ I crammed into my pie hole.

It’s Not Just NFL Players… It’s Anyone Who Was “Big” Into Sports

This article puts profound impact into the message that what you do after you are done playing will dictate if you live or die. It sounds like common sense but as the article states: “My doctor asked me, ‘How many 320-pound men who are 80 years old do you see walking around?’ That’s when the lightbulb came on over my head,” Mandarich said.

Lots of these guys are massive, mostly due to huge amounts of steroids, but also massive amounts of hard work in the gym. But I would say that the article applies not only to NFL players, but anyone who tips the scale at over 275lbs while playing in their chosen sport. It doesn’t matter who you are, Tony Mandarich weighed in at 325+ lbs, The Fridge was up to 370lbs but they are no different than the kid in college who is put in at nose tackle, or prop, or any position of brute power in order to take advantage of their bulk. I am sensitive to this because when I played rugby I was up around the 220lb mark. Once I left my rugby career behind I gained more weight in the gym, eventually rubbing up against 300lbs because I couldn’t drop “the armour” that men carry with themselves while they play sports. I still to this day consider my strength as my armour, something which I need to change if I intend to live a long and healthy life. There needs to be an understanding that strength, not weight, is a true measure of armour and that in order to be strong, you have to be at a weight that your skeleton, heart, lungs and organs can support comfortably.

In the next few years, we will say goodbye to a great many good men who will die before age 50 because they couldn’t face life outside their chosen sport and as a way of maintaining their persona, they maintained their weight. It’s very sad, but it’s one hell of a wake up call if you are over 40 and over 275lbs because for you, death is right around the next bend.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2313476

It’s not only American news outlets who are in the spotlight. Today the Star in Toronto let everyone down with a study of mice, extrapolating that the treadmill is the fountain of youth… *sigh* Don’t they know cardio on a treadmill is no use?

Blame America – The NYC Rest Week

virgilsbbqSo my wonderful wife surprised me with a trip to NYC for my birthday this past weekend so rather than sulk in the basement about my age and work out too hard, we ended up walking around NYC for the best part of 6 hours a day for 4 days. The weather was incredible 62 degrees which made it New York in the spring. Ever since we visited NY a couple of years ago we have wanted to go back, much the same as Chicago and Boston however since this was a surprise visit, I didn’t get much of a chance to plan the events. We did however manage to get to some amazing food places both on our NY Food on Foot tour and by ourselves. Of course, I was bound and determined to stay paleo and I think I did a pretty good job. HillcountryOur first stop was to Hill Country BBQ (30 West 26th St) a place that I had found on a couple of Paleo sites as being one of the hot spots. The food was pretty good, I liked the whole setup with the card that you get checked for each thing you order. Also, they serve the food in brown paper which just added to the experience. The food on the whole was good, the brisket was tasty, but tougher than you would have thought. The chicken was apparently good, and since we ordered the lunch special we got to try several items for a pretty good price of around $25. The ribs were very good, both beef and pork, and the sauces available at the table were tasty and not overly hot or spicy. We would go back, that is for sure, however we found another place that we enjoyed even more. That place was Virgil’s BBQ and I have to say it kicked HC’s ass. The brisket was the best I have ever had, melt in your mouth, massive flavour and juicy as could be. The other meats we had were equally good including the chicken, ribs and the order of wings I had were the best smoked wings I have ever tasted. The smoke flavour is what made it so good, but you could also tell the quality of the meat was amazing. It was truly the best BBQ I have ever eaten and that is saying a lot considering last time we were here we went to Blue Smoke! So the Paleo lifestyle was truly in check, and I have never felt better. During the rest of our stay, we made a point of going to Whole Foods to stock up the apartment style hotel room at Eastgate Towers, but also, on the last day we went to Trader Joe’s to find out what the big deal was. Well, for a Canadian that doesn’t have a food outlet like Trader Joe I was in heaven. They had raw nuts and seeds, grass fed beef and plenty of snacks and meals for the Paleo eater. I was surprised to find that everything in the store was Trader Joe brand, I was not expecting that, but the pricing was pretty good and we left with a bunch of nuts and seeds with which to make my own brand of trail mix.

Shake Shack FTW!!
Shake Shack FTW!!

The Food on Foot tour took us along 9th Avenue in Hell’s Kitchen to 7 smaller and less expensive stores. The food quality all in all was pretty good and it was interesting to see the neighbourhood. For whatever reason Hell’s Kitchen has a lot of small inexpensive and quality restaurants. From Go Sushi to Amy’s Bread to City Sandwich we ate our way up and down 9th with abandon including a stop at The Little Pie Company. The tour was fun, the guide was a very pleasant guy and we met people from all over the world in the group.

What a great weekend, all in all, however, I did ZERO working out. I was not concerned, because this was supposed to be a rest week for me anyway and walking 6 hours a day is good enough. I did get mild shin splints and stretched my groin a little, but all in all, it was a great time away.

I would be remiss if I didn’t also mention  a couple of other places. First, Shake Shack which has the most amazing, tasty, juicy and irresistible burgers ever with amazing crispy crinkle cut fries and shakes that are literally out of this world. The place was packed and once we got our food we knew why. If you go to NYC, you MUST GO to Shake Shack. Also, for my wife, a shout out to rice to riches where she had some delicious ricetorichesrice pudding (who knew there was a store dedicated to rice pudding??) and I enjoyed their decor, ambiance and the fact they didn’t hide the fact that they are selling a bowl of carbs that will make you fat! They also claim to have “Dozens of Delicious Flavours and 3 Shitty Ones”!

Other food highlights include Pop Burger near FAO Schwartz, Poseidon Bakery on 9th which had amazing nut brittle and Levain’s Bakery which was featured on Best Thing I Ever Ate and who had very tasty cookies according to my wife who enjoyed it so much by the time we got across the street the melty chocolate was all over her face!

So back to reality, I will do day 1 of my new program today, skip the day off and complete the week.

Text of Carbs against Cardio: More Evidence that Refined Carbohydrates, not Fats, Threaten the Heart

Copied From Scientific American.

Eat less saturated fat: that has been the take-home message from the U.S. government for the past 30 years. But while Americans have dutifully reduced the percentage of daily calories from saturated fat since 1970, the obesity rate during that time has more than doubled, diabetes has tripled, and heart disease is still the country’s biggest killer. Now a spate of new research, including a meta-analysis of nearly two dozen studies, suggests a reason why: investigators may have picked the wrong culprit. Processed carbohydrates, which many Americans eat today in place of fat, may increase the risk of obesity, diabetes and heart disease more than fat doesa finding that has serious implications for new dietary guidelines expected this year.

In March the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition published a meta-analysiswhich combines data from several studiesthat compared the reported daily food intake of nearly 350,000 people against their risk of developing cardiovascular disease over a period of five to 23 years. The analysis, overseen by Ronald M. Krauss, director of atherosclerosis research at the Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute, found no association between the amount of saturated fat consumed and the risk of heart disease.

The finding joins other conclusions of the past few years that run counter to the conventional wisdom that saturated fat is bad for the heart because it increases total cholesterol levels. That idea is based in large measure on extrapolations, which are not supported by the data, Krauss says.

One problem with the old logic is that total cholesterol is not a great predictor of risk, says Meir Stampfer, a professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health. Although saturated fat boosts blood levels of bad LDL cholesterol, it also increases good HDL cholesterol. In 2008 Stampfer co-authored a study in the New England Journal of Medicine that followed 322 moderately obese individuals for two years as they adopted one of three diets: a low-fat, calorie-restricted diet based on American Heart Association guidelines; a Mediterranean, restricted-calorie diet rich in vegetables and low in red meat; and a low-carbohydrate, nonrestricted-calorie diet. Although the subjects on the low-carb diet ate the most saturated fat, they ended up with the healthiest ratio of HDL to LDL cholesterol and lost twice as much weight as their low-fat-eating counterparts.

Stampfer’s findings do not merely suggest that saturated fats are not so bad; they indicate that carbohydrates could be worse. A 1997 study he co-authored in the Journal of the American Medical Association evaluated 65,000 women and found that the quintile of women who ate the most easily digestible and readily absorbed carbohydratesthat is, those with the highest glycemic indexwere 47 percent more likely to acquire type 2 diabetes than those in the quintile with the lowest average glycemic-index score. (The amount of fat the women ate did not affect diabetes risk.) And a 2007 Dutch study of 15,000 women published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology found that women who were overweight and in the quartile that consumed meals with the highest average glycemic load, a metric that incorporates portion size, were 79 percent more likely to develop coronary vascular disease than overweight women in the lowest quartile. These trends may be explained in part by the yo-yo effects that high glycemic-index carbohydrates have on blood glucose, which can stimulate fat production and inflammation, increase overall caloric intake and lower insulin sensitivity, says David Ludwig, director of the obesity program at Children’s Hospital Boston.

Will the more recent thinking on fats and carbs be reflected in the 2010 federal Dietary Guidelines for Americans, updated once every five years? It depends on the strength of the evidence, explains Robert C. Post, deputy director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion. Findings that have less support are put on the list of things to do with regard to more research. Right now, Post explains, the agency’s main message to Americans is to limit overall calorie intake, irrespective of the source. We’re finding that messages to consumers need to be short and simple and to the point, he says. Another issue facing regulatory agencies, notes Harvard’s Stampfer, is that the sugared beverage industry is lobbying very hard and trying to cast doubt on all these studies. Nobody is advocating that people start gorging themselves on saturated fats, tempting as that may sound. Some monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, such as those found in fish and olive oil, can protect against heart disease. What is more, some high-fiber carbohydrates are unquestionably good for the body. But saturated fats may ultimately be neutral compared with processed carbs and sugars such as those found in cereals, breads, pasta and cookies.

If you reduce saturated fat and replace it with high glycemic-index carbohydrates, you may not only not get benefitsyou might actually produce harm, Ludwig argues. The next time you eat a piece of buttered toast, he says, consider that butter is actually the more healthful component.

Clarity Of Planning – My Future With Russian Kettlebell Challenge

Old Plan:

Day 1 Monday P90X Plyo or Insanity Cardio Plyo
Day 2 Tuesday RKC 50 Swings
Day 3 Wednesday RKC TGU plus Clean, C&P, Snatch practice
Day 4 Thursday P90X Kenpo or Insanity Pure Cardio
Day5 Friday RKC 50
Day 6 Saturday Same as Wednesday
Day 7 Sunday Fountain Of Youth Yoga or Yoga X

New Plan for rest week:

Day 1 Monday P90X Plyo or Insanity Cardio Plyo – DONE
Day 2 Tuesday RKC 50 Swings – DONE
Day 3 Wednesday RKC TGU plus Clean, C&P, Snatch practice
Day 4 Thursday P90X Kenpo or Insanity Pure Cardio
Day5 Friday RKC Man Maker ROP Practice (Presses and Pullups)
Day 6 Saturday Same as Wednesday
Day 7 Sunday Fountain Of Youth Yoga or Yoga X

After rest week start the Rite Of Passage:

Monday Light presses, pull ups
Tuesday Variety Day – WOD
Wednesday Medium presses, pull ups
Thursday Variety Day – Bench Day
Friday Off
Saturday Heavy presses, pull ups
Sunday Off

R5D28 – RKC Minimum Done! Here’s What’s Next In RKC

riteofpassageThis is officially my last day of RKC swings, I am about to step into the “Man Maker” also called the Rite Of Passage. This is a bit of a relief, since I am anxious to start doing more complex and challenging moves. Although I am still, even now, aware of my form when I do the swings and not at the point where they are 100% natural feeling. The next phase seems complicated and it meshes 2 things together. First is the ladder concept of doing increasing reps and the second is the notion of light days, heavy days and medium days. If you read ETK it goes over the process in detail and I would recommend both the ETK itself and also the excellent Art Of Strength workbook. I am at a true crossroads at the moment, I am in a kind of rest week, but the RKC demands I move on. Not only that, I will be working out on the road in the very near future which will be an added challenge. In any case, it’s time, so it’s time.

So I move on, Comrade, still sticking with 4 days a week and adding pull ups as part of the RKC instead of having to work it into the Crossfit days. When the schedule mentions “pulls” I am going to use pull ups as the exercise of choice.  The Heavy Light Medium thing goes like this:

Monday Heavy presses, pulls
Tuesday Off
Wednesday Light presses, pulls
Thursday Variety
Friday Medium presses, pulls
Saturday Variety
Sunday Off

With 2 days off out of 7 it is a demanding schedule if you are going to add either P90X, Insanity or Crossfit workouts into the “Variety” section where you are able to do whatever you choose. So, what about the ladder? Well, it is pretty simple actually, and it looks like this:

3 Rung Ladder:

1 rep each arm
1 pullup
2 reps each arm
2 pullups
3 reps each arm
3 pullups

Depending on how many ladders you are doing it comes out to a total of 6 reps per arm x number of ladders. 3 ladders = 18 reps per arm.

5 Rung Ladder (the highest ladder)

1 rep each arm
1 pullup
2 reps each arm
2 pullups
3 reps each arm
3 pullups
4 reps each arm
4 pullups
5 reps each arm
5 pullups

Again, it’s a total of 15 reps x number of ladders.

So, quickly, back to the Heavy Medium and Light. Pavel says that the Heavy day you do all 5 rungs, medium days you do 4 and light days 3. So once you are through the first 2 weeks and up to 5 rungs, you should then adhere to the schedule.

But wait, there is more… you didn’t think you were going to get away from swings did you? The final component of the ROP is to complete swings every day. The number is up to a roll of the dice.Literally. You roll a dice to tell you how many minutes of swings to do, anywhere from 2 to 12! Also, the program calls for both two handed and one handed swings, so you may want to start practicing your one arm swing now…