R11D489 – What is an HIIT schedule

don't kid yourselfI should start by saying it’s not strictly HIIT at all, in fact calling it Crossfit would be more accurate and while there are people who would call Crossfit HIIT it only occasionally fills the description. You can google Crossfit and HIIT and see what I mean.

HIIT is short for High Intensity Interval Training. The fact that it is in interval based system should indicate that it will only occasionally cross paths with Crossfit. In fact, the Tabata system of training is the very definition of HIIT and it’s rarely used in Crossfit. However, it would be easy to convert any Crossfit workout into an HIIT workout, instead of doing AMRAP for 16 minutes let’s say, you would simply break it down into X rounds with Y break in between.

For my purposes I like the HIIT method because it brings the short break that I have been accustomed to from my gym days and it causes a variation in heart rate that is said to be the most beneficial. Before we can jump into the timing we first need to see what ingredients we have to work with for our schedule. This will include any movements you like, any equipment you can use and of course both full body involvement and cardio and abs and yoga during the cycle which is typically 5-8 days. The traditional weight training would have you believe that a full body 4 day split is what you need, giving you a day off for rest so that you work the same body part once every 5 days. If you are doing compound movements with multiple pivot points and cross training specific body parts with others (pullups and pushups for example) then this notion is not much use to you. Instead, you should be looking for something that will keep you interested but be varied enough and predictable enough that you can get used to it but not bored with it. You can dress a skeleton in a lot of ways, just look around you, and we will do the same with a framework in which to work and the ability to switch exercises if necessary (injury or otherwise).

Keep in mind that you will also be progressing, the following is a good example of an HIIT progressive schedule:

  • Week 1 — 10/20 x6 (10s work, 20s rest, 6 sets)
  • Week 2 — 15/15 x4
  • Week 3 — 10/20 x8
  • Week 4 — 15/15 x6
  • Week 5 — 20/10 x4
  • Week 6 — 15/15 x8
  • Week 7 — 20/10 x6
  • Week 8 — 20/10 x8

I know it doesn’t look like much but with a ten minute warm up and the adherence to the HIGH part of HIIT then you will find this plenty. Now you don’t have to stick to these timing lengths, you can go longer as long as you rest and can repeat.

So what do I want do to with this schedule of mine? Well there are things I want to include and I think a 5 day split is plenty.

Pullups
Deadlifts
Squats
Clean (Power or squat or hang in a pinch)
Push Press (or clean and press)
Kettlebell swings (KBs are great for warmups BTW)
Bench Press
Wallball / Heavy Ball / Heavy Log
Snatches
Block Jumps
Weighted lunges / lunge walk

Also, I want to make sure that I cover off the basic types of movement, that is to say:
Push
Pull
Press
Carry
Run

That’s all for now, I am actually working on the final schedule as you read this, I should have it up in a couple of days. Until then it’s the last of the DB Isolations with The Beast.

 

BSRD90 – Breaking The Silence

Silent smiley faceI am not ashamed to say that my frustration and fears have prevented me from even venting here. There was a time not more than a few days ago when I was almost convinced I would be back under the knife in the every near future. However someone asked me whether I was getting better week on week and I think that was the one thing that brought me back to my painful reality. My initial recovery had been so fast and so impressive that after my “incident” I was incredibly disillusioned with my situation and although I am far from happy now, I am slowly accepting that my road to recovery may be longer and slower than I thought it was going to be.

I was  hoping that my day 90 would be like my old P90X graduation days, a celebration of achievement and a plan for the next level of participation. Not so. The only silver lining I have at this time is that I am not on painkillers any more and I am, at least occasionally, able to do some weight bearing workouts. I am resigned to the fact that things are going to be suboptimal for the foreseeable future, however that has not stopped me from planning for said future.

It’s time for me to drink the Crossfit Kool-aid. The new Crossfit box near my house, Crossfit Ark, has a half price sale, the membership is only $75 per month with unlimited use for a year so I bit the bullet and signed up. I realise it may be a while until I can really use the facility but I am confident that during the coming year I will get fair use out of it especially during the winter when I can’t really work out in my garage or on the deck.

I am happy to report that my humble little website has surpassed a MILLION hits this past month. Yup, it’s taken 4 years but I finally got there! Thanks to everyone for participating and at least pretending to be interested in my fitness journey. Let’s hope it starts to get a little more entertaining again now.

I have picked up another injury, I have a very sore shoulder, so bad in fact that for the first time in my life I am unable to chinup because of the pain. I guess I will be seeing my new friend Jonathan at Align to see if he can fix me. It is pretty bad though, I am hoping I will be back in action on the chinup bar in a  couple of weeks. Especially since I want to finally learn the bar muscle up.

So for now I will put faith in my body to heal, albeit slowly, and I will deal with the extra 30 minutes it takes me to get up in the morning. I don’t really have a choice in the matter, so I will make the best. That said, the reality is that for now, week on week, I am slowly improving and as long as that continues, the silver lining will continue to inspire my confidence.

As far as actual workouts go, I have been extremely careful but also diligent in making sure what I do is recorded and the after effects documented. Here is what I have found out so far.

Bench – I am able do do 250lbs bench which is a reasonable working weight for me at any stage. That makes me happy. That said, I have to be very careful since bench is what crocked my shoulder, and I am not sure how or why.
Squats – Not real squats, air squats. After several attempts and cycles I find I can go all the way down to my heels and still be OK. I also find I can squat holding either 50lbs in kettlebells or a 35lb wall ball and still be fine. This is also good.
Deadlifts and Cleans – I have tried, but so far this makes me far too sore to make them part of my workouts. However I have successfully worked briefly with 70lbs without a long term injury.
Pullups – These would be a staple of my workouts at the moment if I could do them but since my shoulder injury I have not been able to get on the bar at all which is a major glitch.
Kettlebells – These make me very sore indeed, too much to do anything at all.
Work – Standing at work is torture. This will improve once my stool arrives but all I know is sitting would be worse. I am now working 6 hours 4 days a week so I am almost up to full time but it’s the worst thing that I am currently doing for my pain level. Figures, right?

That’s is for the review. I have 4 days work next week then it’s back to full time by which time I hope to be able to push through and resume at least most of my previous life.

 

 

BSRD46 – Busy Week / Change Of Direction

crossfit-logo11I am in limbo with my decision regarding how to approach my rehabilitation. I am at the point where I have stress tested myself with very light weights and very basic movements and as I move towards the inevitable return to work I need to make sure I am up to the task of sitting in the car to work, sitting or standing for 4 hours and driving home PLUS then doing my rehab work whatever that may be. Given my history with P90X that would be an easy place to start, but I am not sure that doing a round of P90X or P90X2 at this point would give me back the functional fitness I am looking for. As good as it is, and it is an excellent program, I am not quite sure that it will suffice. That is where Crossfit comes in.

Before I go into any details I want to quickly address my concern with Crossfit as it stands. For the most part I think it’s a wonderful system, it’s heart is in the right place and the quick format takes care of many of the issues people claim with not having enough time to work out (nice excuse!). I did write a piece not too long ago about the Crossfit Nonsense article that probably was a little harsh but let me take a second here and demonstrate what I meant at the time. I called it Crossfit Caution and I stand by the idea that I presented but before I start let’s look at what Crossfit.com would have had you do last week for workouts:

Monday – Run for 30 minutes
Tuesday – Rest
WednesdayAMRAP 20 minutes: Row 250m + 25 pushups
Thursday – 50-40-30-20-10 Double Unders plus situps (Double Unders are simply rope skipping with 2 revolutions of the rope per jump, you could sub tuck jumps)
Friday – An Actual workout:

Complete as many rounds as possible in 20 minutes of:
5 Handstand push-ups
7 Chest to bar pull-ups
35 pound Dumbbell squat snatch, 10 reps, alternating

Saturday – Rest Day
Sunday – Another actual workout:

21-18-15-12-9-6 and 3 rep rounds of:
Sumo deadlift high-pull, 75 pounds
Push jerk, 75 pounds

So there you have it, for your 7 days of Crossfit membership you would have stumped up probably in the region of $200 per month for unlimited use only to have 2 days of what anyone would reasonably think of as a “workout” and have only used equipment that most people probably already have at home (save the rowing machine).

What about body parts? How do these 7 days stack up and what happens if you are only able to work out 4 days? Let’s say like me you are busy this week and due to your commitments only have Tuesday Wednesday and Saturday to work out. That means you are unlucky enough to hit 2 rest days and a day of pushups. Even if you were able to follow the program for the 5 active days let’s just look at what you would have worked:

Monday: Cardio
Tuesday: Rest
Wednesday: Cardio plus chest and triceps
Thursday: Cardio and light core (150 situps is light core, yes)
Friday: Shoulders, Upper back, Traps (If you can count a 35lb snatch)
Saturday: Rest
Sunday: Traps and shoulders

My question is this. Where is the leg work (except the cardio). Also, where is the bicep work knowing that pullups utilise a small amount of bicep work which is reduced by the infamous Crossfit Kipping pullup. How about some oblique or lower abs work? You could argue that the snatches do work the abs to a degree but that’s like saying a squat snatch works the legs with 35lbs.

I am probably going to get a lot of flak for this (thank goodness nobody comes here!) but honestly relying on Crossfit boxes as your fitness all-in-one is just not a great idea. You know what is the best idea? Get some equipment of your own and make sure you are getting a well rounded workout each week. I am sure some people would say that taking a week is not a fair measure but I think spreading your whole body across 2 weeks or more is laying it a bit thin.

So what is the solution? Well, for me, Crossfit is the solution. But it’s a home grown hand picked version that allows me to take the workouts from the last month, pick the ones that are most appropriate for me and do them on my time with my own equipment. Sure, I don’t have the camaraderie I would get at the gym but then again I don’t have to keep telling people not to talk to me while I work out. As I have posted many times, I have made some of the stuff I needed to accomplish this, I got cheap chin up bars, a decent olympic bar and some bumper plates, I made a wallball and some dip bars and bought some kettlebells. That is all I needed to invest in order to give me the workout I wanted and avoid the problems that Crossfit inevitably has in scheduling around busy lives. At what cost? The Newmarket crossfit box wants up to $200 a month for a membership. For the price of 2 months I have an unlimited use gym in my house. You can Crossfit if you want, and I would suggest you do, but I also would suggest that you can do it on your own.

By the way, if you are new to Crossfit and Olympic lifting etc. then I would suggest you take out a short 2-6 month membership and have them teach you how to lift. Then hit the discout fitness store and buy some stuff for yourself.

By the way, this is not meant to be a Crossfit bashing entry, just an eye opener for some people who may think that they can’t Crossfit because they can’t afford it or who think that they can’t Crossfit because they can’t commit to specific non-rest days at their box.

Crossfit Caution

I am intrigued by Crossfit and impressed by certain aspects, most notably the efforts to bring Olympic lifting and compound movements into the mainstream but I have always thought that it is more of an addition to your regular structured training methods than a program you can follow day in and day out. My discomfort with the process as a whole has been summed up eloquently in the article entitled “The Nonsense That Is Crossfit” and although the title may seem harsh, I believe it is fitting.

Read the article here and judge for yourself. I am not saying people shouldn’t do Crossfit, not at all, but I think as a complete workout tool it falls woefully short. As a piece of a well rounded and intelligently designed workout system I think it is a perfect fit. I believe you should take it in moderation rather than rely on it as a complete fitness system because as a well constructed program it is dangerous and inadequate. As a contrast, most fitness “professionals” have a warm and fuzzy feeling about Crossfit which I can’t blame them for, like Mark Sisson says, it’s better than 95% of the stuff out there…

Take a peek at this:

First off, as the name implies Crossfit wants to blend various training modalities to produce an effective workout. Certainly nothing wrong with that, as a general idea. However, Crossfit wants to use various training methods without obeying any of the principles behind these methods. This makes it not only ill-conceived, but even dangerous, especially with the choices it seems to make, over and over again. Crossfitters never deal with questions or even basic principles of exercise physiology. Let’s look at the Overload and SAID principles of adaptive response. In a given workout, which energy systems are you targeting and when and why within the workout? What are the recovery demands of employing this tactic – in the immediate, the residual, and the cumulative realms of its implementation? As I say in every one of my projects, 1) a collection of exercises does not equal a proper workout, and 2) a collection of workouts, does not equal a proper program design…

 Let me backtrack for a minute. Crossfit’s premier fundamental flaw is that it has no methodology behind it, only methods. These methods are flawed because they do not follow recognized principles. By comparison, Yoga is a methodology. Pilates, is a methodology. Jim Wendler’s 5,3,1 is a methodology (and a proper progressive program design). My Innervation Training and MET designs are methodologies. And even P90X, while a little shaky in terms of adhering to principles and methodology – P90X is still a properly designed program. Crossfit is not.

R9D14 – Off Plan

I had a chance to use the equipment at the gymnastics club today which included a rowing machine so I devised a little torture for myself:

10-10-10

Burpees
Chin Ups
Thrusters
Hang Cleans
Wall Ball
Row 500m

I like how it says smarter, friendlier, quieter but says nothing about harder, more dangerous or may cause your heart to explode…

It was a lot tougher than I thought it would be, partly because  of the time off I have had and therefore the inactivity of some of my working muscles but also because I am still not working anywhere near 100%. I took around 20 minutes to do 3 roudns of 10, I had planned for 5 but there was just no way I was going to make it through. The rowing wasn’t an issue, I used to row when I was in public school and was pretty good, so I am happy to do that work. I am sure my back won’t agree tomorrow, but if it’s bad I am sure I will make a note of it here!

 

Driving – A Great Life Metaphor

I was thinking in the car this morning, as I often do, about the mental aspects of training and the effects that our environment have on us. Last night I made a thinly veiled attempt to work out but I just couldn’t manage the weight. I did what I usually would do if I didn’t feel like doing something, I would suck it up and do it anyway, making a deal with myself that if I try and it doesn’t go well, I can agree it’s not my day. 19 times out of 20 I will finish the workout, feel great and be grateful that I bothered to start since the beginning is 75% of the battle. Not last night. I managed a couple of sets of deadlifts, a set of hang cleans but once I did a set of presses I knew it wasn’t going to work. I was still weak from my sickness, I didn’t have the calories in me to do the work and it was borderline dangerous given I was working with my regular weight. So I threw in the towel which made me feel, for a second, frustrated and angry. I realized it was the right thing to do and made peace with my decision. Upon reflection today, I am glad I didn’t push too hard, I still don’t feel 100% and would probably have ended up either hurting myself or wiping myself out for a few more days.

This morning I have to admit it still nagged at me but knowing that I have to control what I can and ignore what I can’t I let it go. That got me to thinking about how to get the people I work with on a regular basis to do the same thing. With both kids and adults I hear the same things over and over about not having time, having challenges, having people around them who are not supportive, about not seeing results, about being frustrated with things they seemingly can’t master and much of the time it comes down to frustrations with things they can’t control. With the kids it’s school, their friends, homework or fear of performing (athletic or not) and for adults it’s lack of time, their own family demands, job issues, “getting old”, and once in a while, a glimmer of truth, not knowing the right thing to do. For the most part they have legitimate complaints and their frustration is real for them, but the unfortunate thing is that they are not looking at the problem the right way.

What’s under your control? That’s the big question.

Put yourself in a car. You control the environment in the car, you can have the heated seat on, the windows down, the sunroof open, or the stereo cranked. You have the ability to control your comfort level and are accustomed to doing so. But what if it’s raining outside and instead of turning on the wipers, you get increasingly frustrated about not being able to see until you pull over. That doesn’t make any sense does it? The exterior environment is beyond your control but that’s not the problem. You failed to control YOUR environment in response to the outside factors. It’s a simple example but it’s really just the same as saying that you can’t get to the gym because you have too much homework or you can’t work out because you’re not going to get home until 7pm. You are letting outside factors determine your course instead of adjusting your response to make time for what is important.

Don’t freak out, I am not saying homework isn’t important but I know from years of experience being at school that you have time to make it work. There are people out there who manage to do it all including the work, the workouts, the cheer practice, the choir, the homework and the chores. They are not supermen and women, they just have an efficient approach to getting things done. Anyone who tells me they don’t have 30 minutes to work out each day is kidding themselves and trying to fool me too. I have learned not to be offended by that, but rather to take it as an opportunity to help them find time. Adults are worse than kids at this. Tell them to go for a walk during their lunch hour or do 25 squats every time they go into the bathroom and they think you are crazy. Take the stairs 4 flights? Skip an hour of evening TV? No Facebook? Are you kidding me?! It’s all a matter of choices.

But back to the car. For younger people it’s a lot to do with peer pressure which has a bad rap. Peer pressure isn’t bad kids trying to get other kids to do bad things, it’s just as much friends trying to find common ground. Wanting to go to the mall with your friends after school provides just as much peer pressure on you as someone telling you to skip class so you can go and hide bacon in a vegan’s locker. Often the pressures come from individuals but out on the road, it’s the same. You are surrounded by people who have the ability to affect you as you drive along. Just as much as you have the ability to affect them to a degree. You can honk your horn, flash your lights, we have all seen the (usually) 18-24 year old male in the outside lane pretending he’s on the German Autobahn flashing his high beams at people and we all know he is an idiot. But what effect does he have on you? If you are the car in front, it may be different than if you are a casual observer but the reality is that it’s no different. He acts one way, you act another and whatever it is he is doing really doesn’t affect anyone other than to get somebody to change lanes. But what if you are the person in front and you allow that action to affect you adversely? Maybe you get angry and slam on your brakes (I’ve seen it happen!). Maybe you are the retaliatory type who pulls over and then immediately jumps on his tail and does the same to him in some misguided attempt at retribution. Either way, your response to someone else’s environment is inappropriate. what if that person isn’t a kid with a body full of hormones and a head full of angst? What if it’s a construction worker who just a few minutes ago severed part of his finger and is driving to the hospital to get it reattached? What if it’s a young man driving his incredibly pregnant wife to the hospital to give birth? You really don’t know, that’s why you need to deal with your environment not theirs. They could equally be drunk with a gun, so it’s worth thinking about just how much you are going to allow those people who surround you affect what you do and what happens in your life.

Point is that it’s not just outside factors, it’s not just other people, it’s everything outside your little bubble that you need to deal with and in order to deal with what is going on out there, you need to control what you can. You pick your speed, your lane, what roads you take, if you choose to avoid traffic or the highway, all of which will effect the outcome of your trip through life. You can’t control the construction on the 401, you can’t control the woman on her cell phone sipping her Starbucks skinny latte with her shih tzu on her lap as she tries to change lanes without signalling but you can choose to avoid her and keep your car pointed in the right direction. Failure to control what you can, and work around what you can’t will only lead to frustrations and anger. Over time that leads to bitterness and hatred for many things including the things that are closest to you. The ability to control your environment (mental, physical, emotional) is a skill that takes many years to perfect, but it’s practice that makes perfect! There are things that help, organization, time management, increasing efficiency and self-confidence but in the end it’s the recognition of the massive influence you can have over your own life simply by controlling what you can and being aware of, but not giving power to what you can’t.

Diet is the same thing. Nobody holds you down and crams chocolate chip cookies into your mouth, it’s your choice what you eat and what you don’t. Educating yourself is the first step but common sense tells you that a banana is better for you than a cupcake, so be smart. Life is about making choices that help you reach your goals and don’t take you on a detour away from your destination. You wouldn’t get in the car without first knowing where you are going, that’s why having specific goals or destinations in life is critical. Set your goal, and then act to assist in reaching that goal. I’m sorry to tell you that eating cookies and timbits isn’t going to get you closer to any goal unless you want to take part in a Typo 2 diabetes study!

I’m sorry for the long post, if you have made it this far then take this with you:

Decide where you want to be in a month, 6 months, a year, 5 years.
Control what you can to make sure you are always moving towards that goal.
Don’t let anyone else decide what course of action you should take. Avoid the dangerous drivers, go around the slow ones.
Do your best in every moment.

Remember, nobody ever says on their deathbed “I wish I’d watched more TV”, so choose things that are important and do them!

As a reward for reading this rant, I will leave you with this, brought to mind by promising to do your best… The Crossfit Mindset, AKA Do The Work!

1. I will promise to do my best. My best will vary from day to day, hour to hour, from minute to minute but in that minute, I will do the very best that I can.
2. If I can run, I run. If I have to walk, I walk. When I am forced to crawl I crawl then I rest and live to fight another day.
3. I fear no man but I fear my workout. If I don’t fear my workout then it’s not hard enough.
4. I may puke. I may cry. But I will not quit. Ever.
5. I never cheat. There is no honour in cheating. What joy can there be in a victory I did not earn.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

R8D3&4 – Rude Awakening Crossfit Style

I did a light leg workout with the kids at gym, it was supposed to be a rest but that’s OK. I am glad I did because yesterday my wife surprised me with a trip to an actual Crossfit Box to do one of the WODs.

It looked easy enough.

Strength Workout:
4×5 strict presswith chest to bar pullups
4×5 push press with chest to bar pullups

Metcon:
30-20-10 for time

Overhead kettlebell swing
Dumbbell push press
Walking lunges with bumper plate overhead

Looks were deceiving. It was a killer workout.  I made it through the 30 set without a lot of problem other than my heart rate being frighteningly high (107bpm) but by the time I did the push press with dumbbells the second time for 20 I had to stop part way through in order to get enough energy to finish. Then when I tried to keep my arms straight with the bumper plate overhead for some reason my arms wouldn’t go straight.

The third round, although it was only 1o was the worst. My arms were fried, my shoulders were gone and I felt a strain in my hip flexor that was becoming more and more painful. I made all 10 kb swings and 9 db press. The last one I had to repeat 3 times. The final walk was sheer agony but I made it through in a pedestrian 11:30.

I admit, it was a rude awakening to the reality of crossfit as compared to my “interpretations” of crossfit that I do at home.

It was, in a word, awesome.

Then…. When I thought the night couldn’t get any better, I was sent by my wonderful wife to the Healthy Butcher in Toronto for a sausage making class. Now I love sausage and I would like nothing better than to make my own but I never imagined I would get the chance.

Last night, I did. I made sausage with fennel, white wine, dijon mustard, cheddar, caramelized onions, allspice and a 75/25 pork beef mix with a coarse grind. I have to say it was amazing, not just the sausage itself but meeting with about 12 others who also were keen sausagistas and learning a new skill in the process. It was a brilliant evening and I even ended up with a bag of sausages!

Round 5 Day 1 – The Plan And The Future

lots of kettlebellsSo as you can no doubt tell, I did kind of bail on Round 4 leaving with about 2 weeks left to the 3 month mark. However, the timing was problematic, with Christmas, new weights, new methodologies creeping in I thought it was finally time to move along. I am coming to the realization that this time around, P90X, the reason for starting this blog in the first place, may not actually have a place here. It’s a little sad, and since I am going to commit to having a cardio day during my workout days then a revisit to Kenpo or Plyo may be in the cards. However, the days of following Tony along through mind numbingly boring set after set of curls or pushups are gone. That and his unbearably inane commentary. So what next you ask? Well, as you can probably guess it will involve kettlebells, Olympic Lifts, WODs and a dab of cardio. Here is the plan for the first month, more to follow later as I get into the schedule for the RKC (Russian Kettlebell Challenge). I am also going to try and stay within a calendar time frame rather than a set 90 days, I would like to finish Round 5 around the start of April when my parents and sister come to town to see the baby. Once the weather is nicer, I will have more flexibility in what I can do using the deck outside as a workout platform, so things will change by necessity.

I need to be flexible with the days off, so what I want to do is commit to a 4 day stretch, sometimes it may get to 6 days in a row, other times I may be forced into a 2 or 3 day hiatus. Either way, the rotation is going to be 8 day. 2 4 day stretches containing everything I need. The variety will no doubt come from the WOD which I will mostly take from the Crossfit site but reserve the right to do a named workout should I feel the desire. I won’t be counting days off this time around either which will probably fit me in around the 75-80 day mark. I’m kind of making this up as I go along right now so bear with me. I need to satisfy certain things, I need bench, I need pullups, I need the RKC and I need some form of cardio day to keep my endurance up. I also need deadlifts, clean and press and for the time being some form of squat without getting under a bar. So here goes.

Day 1 – RKC Minimum Swings (The RKC Minimum is 4 weeks, then transition into Rite Of Passage)
Day 2 – RKC TGU and WOD
Day 3 – Bench and dips (Chest, shoulder, tri)
Day 4 – Cardio or stretch or Yoga

Day 5 – RKC Minimum Swings
Day 6 – RKC TGU and WOD
Day 7 – Deadlifts and Squat (Legs and Back)
Day 8 – Cardio or stretch or Yoga

Forget What You Believe. Find Out What You Need To Know. Then Change (Now With Links!).

Comrade, I Have New Hero. His Name, Pavel Tsatsouline.

pavelETKI picked up a kettlebell and it may turn out to be the best thing I have done in years. Well, that and going Paleo along with my discovery of High Intensity Training. You can’t help but love Pavel, and you can check out a review of his Enter The Kettlebell here.

It’s tricky trying to accept things that we believed to be unalterably true. Sometimes it’s almost impossible especially when you have spent half your life telling other people the wrong thing. But we are all here to learn, to adjust and to judge what is the best for us.

As Pavel says, “If you don’t have good judgement, why don’t you stay on the machines you big sissy?”

Eating 5 or 6 smaller meals is physiologically better. Not true. It may help you to snack less since you have no time to do it, but it’s not based on scientific evidence. It may help with digestion, something which I am sensitive to but as long as the caloric amount is the same, the time doesn’t matter.

Spending time on cardio machines is hurting you, not helping you. That’s because the calories burned vs time spent is pitiful and it’s making you hungry so you overeat. Try higher intensity, shorter duration instead such as Crossfit inspired Olympic Lift workouts.

Want 10 reasons why that elliptical 30, 45 or 60 minutes is no use? Here you go.

How about the myth of skipping meals slowing your metabolism? More bull. Just check out any writing about IF (intermittent fasting) to find out why skipping meals can be good for you once you get the refined carbs out of your life.

BMI? Bullshit Medical Information. I know this being a muscular dude, but it’s true for everyone.

Let’s not forget the overwhelming evidence that carbohydrate not fat is the reason for the obesity epidemic. There is too much info to list here but authors like Gary Taubes, Mark Sisson and good link pages like this are a great place to start. Any information on the Paleo movement will help, as may reading the free version of “The Vegetarian Myth” over at Amazon.

You can also go to Whole 9, paleohacks (for great tips and general info from Paleo people) or The Paleo Diet.

Sadly, starting here may lead you on a journey that makes you uncomfortable, frustrated and confused. Keep at it, and slowly but surely you will come to see the new truth about fitness… The so called experts don’t always know what they are talking about but the truth is out there.

Eat bacon!

Round 4 Day 14 – WOD Chesty

So last night I decided just as I was leaving work to do the actual WOD from the Crossfit Aurora Site since I had already done a Fran and a Cindy and didn’t have the time to hand pick another named workout. The WOD was as follows and since I liked it and will be doing it again I’m going to call her Chesty:

Chesty

50 Double Unders (since I don’t have a rope I did 50 tuck jumps instead same as power jumps in Insanity)
Rest 3 min
4 Rounds of:
21 burpees
15 Ring Dips (I have a dip stations for these)

My biggest problem with both Insanity and the WODs is the fact that getting to my feet from laying down a la burpee has been almost impossible for me since my back surgery. Not only that, but the fatness doesn’t help either. However, last night I found that when I used dumbbells instead of putting my hands on the floor I could actually do the movement. So for the first time in almost 10 years I did some burpees last night.

Save your wrist, enable the burpees within!

The workout itself is short but tough just like many of the WODs. In total I think I was done the actual workout part in around 13.5 minutes not including the double unders. I do find it weird though that I push myself far harder doing the Crossfit workouts than I do during either the Insanity or the P90X workouts. Maybe it is the time factor, maybe just being set free from the schedule of the workout although I haven’t actually gone at the DVD pace for a long time now with Tony. I am not sure, all I do know is that these workouts are crazy short and crazy tough… and I am picking the easy ones!!