last post for a while.

This is the last post till after Pan-Ams.
Thanks to everyone who wish(ed) me luck and success.
.. and everyone else for that matter.
I'll see if I can get to a computer to update the results this weekend, otherwise I'll talk to you all Monday night-Tuesday morn.
Mahalo.
J.B.

Big surf.

Lots of good stuff on the interwebs:

Dave Tate has several 'logs' out recently that are a great mix of no b.s. advice on getting stronger and motivation.

The Mad Scot has a new article at t-nation.

Also at T-nation: Eat food, not much, mostly plants. Some of this I agree with, some not so much.. it's all interesting.

Tony G. has a new blog entry.. well the video just makes me shake my head.
(BTW, Tony knows his stuff. A guy could learn a lot by reading his blog archives)

Last, but far from least..
Some.. some hope for the Cardinal Nation.

The Blues.. not so much.

Dreaming of cake.

I have been cutting weight a bit. I have been smart about it, and loading up on fibrous veggies and protein to keep myself full, cutting back on carbs, and cutting out all refined carbs (aside from a cookie on Saturday nights). While it hasn't left me wanting in most of my waking hours, I have been dreaming of confections for the past couple of weeks. My subconscious seems to be screaming out for refined carbs. Last night I dreamt that I ate an entire strawberry cake. It wasn't a laborious task, nor was it a gluttonous snarfuling up of the cake. I slowly and luxuriously enjoyed the entire cake.
My dreams often involve food. After having my tonsils out as a kid, my dreams were a smörgåsbord of chips, and crisp veggies (things I wasn't allowed to eat lest they jab open my sutures). During my last surgery my subconscious decided that I should be eating green beans.. with slivered almonds no less.
Once the competition is over I don't think my diet will change too much. My training has been going great, and I look leaner without having lost any/much muscle mass. I'll have desert from time to time, and there will be a few days of indulgence immediately after the tournament, but otherwise I fell pretty good about my diet, in spite of what my dreams may indicate.
This is the biggest area that people forget to work when they're training for a goal (get bigger, get smaller, get faster) they eat the same way they always did, they just change the quantity. As many people far smarter than me have said "You can't train your way around a bad diet."

Thanks easter bunny.

Easter weekend. Went to the in-laws this morning. Had a blast. The wife and I won the family egg toss this year.
Yesterday, went to open mat, got a few rolls in, and worked some specific holes in my game.

That afternoon did 3x10 minutes @ 150 watts on the hand bike. Those are the longest intervals I'll do. Keep working that edge of anaerobic. I don't believe that there is much benefit in working longer than that for a sport that only lasts 5-7 minutes in competition.

This morning I did a quick and light workout to burn a few extra cals (I knew there'd be good food at the in-laws)
1 pyramid on the erg: on/off
10/10
20/20
30/30
20/20
10/10
all at no rest.
then 100x kb snatch with the 35.
I fly to California in 4 days. By this time Friday, I'll be done.
Long time coming, can't believe it's almost here.
Mahalo.

And it was.

I said it would be harder, and I was right
2 minutes each station.
3 rounds
4 minutes rest between rounds.
exercises:
wall ball (12 lb med ball wearing weight vest)
reverse sled drags (tire+70lbs)
russian twists (bar+45)
kb swings (44)

good long intervals, very intense. Got some good work in.
Happy easter!
Mahalo.

Keepin' it light and bright.

I am not taking an 'off' day till next wednesday, but I am taking a few days here and there that are quick light and keeping things moving.
Last night was one of those:
long warm up:
ankle mobilizations
Inch-worms
kb round the worlds
Kb figure-8s
OHS with bar
several sets of each.
then:
kb snatch 20/20
5 chins
x4 no rest.

Then I called it a day.
tonight will be a bit harder.
Mahalo.

Birthday post mortem.

ok, I ain't dead, but my birthday is.
I had a great training session last night. Lots of stand-up, good focused work, I was totally D-O-N-E by the end. The wife picked me up from the school, and we headed out to dinner.
We went to a local purveyor of shellfish. We had some fantastic raw oysters, some truly knee-buckling pan-fried oysters. I had some tasty crab-crusted salmon. The wife had some cioppino that was fair, but to be honest a little disappointing. Then (since I am a couple pounds under) we split a desert: Apple Fritters that were astounding.
All in all a good birthday supper.
Hope you had a good night too.
Mahalo

An open letter to our goofy man-child president:

Thanks George.
Today is my birthday. Once again this year, millions of people will take to the streets in protest. Shouting and carrying signs of dissent. There will be candle-light vigils and mourning. Nothing like the specter of death, grisly mortality, and war to perk up the anniversary of one's coming into existence.
You turned what used to be a fairly innocuous day of personal celebration into a world wide day of mourning and protest. Couldn't your greedy money grubbing cronies wait a day or so to start this misguided campaign?
You're a short-sighted selfish jerk.
Thanks for screwing up my birthday.
J.B.



last night's workout:
250m erg
20/20 kb snatch
x4
no rest.
Slowest 250: 46.4 sec.

Then class, drills and stand-up, and more drills.

Sleep.

I have been having trouble sleeping of late.. actually that is untrue.. or unclear. I have been having trouble waking from sleep. I have battled insomnia in the past, this is not that. I fall asleep fairly readily, but I keep waking up. Shifting, rolling over. By the time morning comes, I am still exhausted. I have gotten up early a few times to exercise, but honestly of late it's been neigh on impossible. I don't think it's terminal or anything, but it is unhandy.
Hopefully it's just stress related, and will pass.
I think tonight I'm going to try some melatonin and see if that helps.
Mahalo.

Beannachtai na Feile Padraig!

Today is St. Pats.
For those who are Catholic: Go ta Church ya bum, and stay out of the PUBS!
For those who are Irish: Stay at home! Read some history, sing some songs, and donate some money to Sinn Fein and stay out of the PUBS!
Ok, one caviat here. If you have a local and you go there every week to meet up with folks and have a couple, you are allowed to go to that pub only.
If you are not Irish, do what ever it is you do, or go go to TGIShenannigan's but stay out of my local. I am tired of trying to go down to one of the few pubs I go to to hang out with my old rugby teammates, and ending up packed to the gills with frat boys drinking green beer. I am tired of people turning a catholic holiday into an excuse to wear cheap crappy green garb, and get sh*thoused on budweiser and green food coloring. I think in order to go out and have too many on st. pats you should have to go to mass first. But then I'm a grumpy old man.

No computer this weekend as the wife was out of town. I have a laptop I've been trying to get up and rolling, but it was a big round-and-round of need drivers to operate the NIC, need to get drivers off the internet, need network connectivity to get drivers, need NIC to get to the internet.. and so on.
It was all quiet around the condo this weekend. I watched some movies (Sin City, Pumping Iron, Vision Quest, and lots of Firefly.. all of which I own) I did some drawing, which is not exactly stellar, but is good for my psyche. I plunked around on my banjo.. more of the same, and I generally spent some time to myself, which is good for me. I like hanging out with me.. I've been one of my best friends for years.

Workout posts:

Friday:
Whole Lotta Tabata:
ergometer
kb swings (44)
Renegade Man-makers (35lb dumbbell)
Suspended push-ups.
2min rest between exercises.
Tabatas on the erg are brutal. The rest weren't easy either.

Saturday:
Morn:
BJJ drills and open mat.

Evening:
tabata man-makers.
then
4x10 all @ 30

Sunday:
3x3min on 5 off
on power output: 150, 180 210
off: 80 watts.

Happy Birthday to blog..

This blog is officially 1 year old. It's gone through some changes, as have I. We've undertaken some challenges, and generally worked to be a better read, and a better person respectively.
In the past year I have:
Stopped messing around, and got my diet cleaned up.
Gotten rid of people around me who would rather make excuses than train hard.
Increased my power lifts by 23%.
dropped 6 seconds off my best 500m time.
Tripled the number of pull-ups I can do.
All at a bodyweight 5 lbs lighter than before.
I have made friends and gotten back to writing almost daily.
Both of which have been significant boons to my outlook on life.
I thought that putting myself out on the internet would be a painful exercise. I was ready to get shouted down, but it's been great. Thank you, gentle reader for making it thus.
Happy Birthday blog!

Tough stuff.

Tough stuff at class last night. Band complexes for.. a long time. Then circuits of jumps, squats, sit-ups, burpees, and jumping jacks. Then technique, then takedowns.
I was toast by the end. The wife was already in bed when I got home. I iced my knee and got some dinner.
Felt better on my feet last night, not there yet, but getting there. Pan-ams are two weeks from tomorrow. My weight is right on (I was a pound under in the Gi before class). My technique is what it is.. hard to say if it's good enough because you never know who's going to show up. My shape is solid. I just have to stay healthy (knock wood) and go out there and give it what I have. I'll admit, I'm a little nervous. I haven't competed on a mat in... 15 years. I've never competed in jujitsu. To jump right in at the Pan-ams is a little nutty to say the least, but what the hell this is supposed to be fun, right.
I'm already starving.
It's going to be an early lunch today.
Mahalo.
(oh, and I really can't spell)

Punch the clock.

solid workouts last night:
complex @ 110:
snatch x5
OHS x5
clean and press x5
jumping good morning x5
60sec rest
x4

glute hams against 2xMM bands
10-8-8

Class, drills and sparring.

Let there be light..

Light day last night. Light warm-up. Drills, and sparring. Sparred 3x, and called it good. Tonight, I pick the intensity back up.
I am starting to get adjusted to DST. Hopefully by this weekend.

Know your role.

Tracy Reifkind has 1,2 amazing posts about her decision and journey to losing weight (actually she has many, but two stood out to me today).
I have seen in my own life, in those that I have trained with and those my wife or I have trained: people who train for an activity change their bodies faster, and more consistently than people who do not. In other words, if you become an athlete, a rower, a cyclist, a kettlebell instructor, a.. whatever, you will have more success in body recomposition than if you just try to "lose weight."
When you are training for an activity you no longer are burdened by "workouts" you "have practice." People push 10x harder when they are doing something they love, and have goals to meet. Junk food isn't worth it when you've got to put yourself out there and compete. Sleeping in is harder when you're going to miss out on doing this activity that defines you. It gives you a natural defense against saboteurs: "I can't (blank) I have practice in the morning."
The second point: training for "sport" gives you measurable progress points outside of the scale. Most people who ditch a training program do so because their progress stagnates, and they either under-eat, or chuck their training all together. Athletes have more opportunities for PRs, so they feel more successful, and they stick to their guns longer.
Thirdly, with activity based training, you get teammates. You get a community that wants you to succeed. They push, or pull you along, mentor you, and generally help you through the bumps in the road.
Finally and most importantly, you get a new identity. Your self image, and self talk changes. You're no longer "the jolly fat guy" or "the cute, but pudgy girl" you become " the rower," or "the triathlete," "the MMA fighter," "the competitive plate balancer."
Whatever, it doesn't matter. When you redefine, it takes the limits off of what you can become. That is the magic of it. People when pressed or stressed revert back to their "role."
"It doesn't matter that I missed that workout, because I'm just a fat guy," and a fat guy can miss a lot of workouts. An athlete, however, has to stop being an athlete if he misses too many, and people will do a heck of a lot to avoid coming up with a new identity.
So what does that mean for you gentle reader? It means don't be afraid to redefine. Don't be assigned an identity and the limits that come with it. Find what you want to do, and go do it. Do you suck at it? Good, lots of room for improvement. Train, practice, get better. Your body is the vehicle to take you to the places you want, not a cage limiting where you can go.

Daylight savings time to JB: Yo @ss is mine chump.

I have spent 6 years of my life in the intense study of how people use written language to express themselves, and yet I am utterly unable to express my disdain for the phenomena that is "spring forward." I could give some disgusting metaphor about this "anti-holiday" violating my physical self, as it has my psyche, but that would be crass, and lacks the depth of feeling that is engendered by the return of daylight savings time. I could call on the tales of antiquity. I could tell you that "daylight savings time had me laid upon the bed of Procrustes," but the reference would be missed by some folks, and more than that make me sound like a pompous jerk. So I will simply say: "I hate it, every year, without fail.. I hate it."
This morning I had a difficult time getting out of bed. With the help of the alarm clock, and the cat, I pried myself from the warm embrace of my bed, grumbled and swore. I went into the kitchen to make myself breakfast, and started to leave.. keys I just need my keys, that I asked the wife to hold for me.. yesterday.. she's still holding them. Oh bother.
Thankfully she was goodly enough, and was able to leave work and drop them off. I was deeply tempted to take a sick day and just go back to bed.

movies.

I've seen a few movies lately..
The assassination of Jesse James by the coward Robert Ford.
I really wanted ot like this movie. The cinematography was great, all of the performances were good, but it wasn't edited well.. or seemingly at all. Too much navel gazing. If you like long winded "pretty" movies and have a long afternoon to kill slap it in your netflix. Otherwise, skip it.

Jesus Camp
Good doc. Scary, but I wasn't surprised as I lived in the middle of the environment being depicted (both geographically and politically) folks on the coasts will be appalled, middle americans will sort of shrug and say "yeah, there are some crazies about." In retrospect it was interesting to see "Pastor Ted" during his heyday.

War
I like Jason Statham, I really like Jet Li. I figured put your hands together, has to be great.. right? Wrong. Too many MTV cuts. Convoluted plot twist. Not enough butt-kickery.

I am looking forward to a good number of movies this summer:
Hellboy II
Iron man
Indiana Jones IV
and I'm intrigued by Speed Racer.
(Though if I'm honest, considering the people involved, the chances of Iron man sucking is pretty high)
Daylight savings has me feeling like ten pounds of rented fertilizer. Always does.
Mahalo.

And I had to clean it up.

Blogger seems to have shat itself this weekend, this is the first time I've been able to log in.
Training this weekend:
Friday fitness test:
10 chin-ups
20 suspended push-ups
30/30 kb snatches
40 box jumps
50 1 arm kb swings

Paul: 5:48 35lb kb
sam: 6:47 35
me: 7:30 44

Yesterday:
class and open mat

Intervals on the hand bike:
5min @ 180 watts
2 min rest
3 min @ 200
2 min rest
1 min @ 240 watts

Then spent about a half an hour fooling around with the TRX suspension trainer.

Put yer thang down flip it and reverse it.

Cause I'm still workin' it.. or working.
sigh.

This thursday night on 'the A-team.'

I don't really know what the title of this means. Spent 10 hours working yesterday, went and worked out, grabbed some supper and spent another 2 hours typing stuff up at home.
Workout:
clean and press 10@110
chins 5@bw
x2
rest 2 min
repeat.

then 10 min of light intervals on the handbike.
I used the program on the bike itself:
5x1 min off (90 watts) 1 minute on (130 watts)
This was pretty easy, but the first bit was a killer, so I guess it evened out.
Now, more work. Film at 11!
Mahalo.

Worked late.. worked out.

I was totally un-prepared to work late last night, so when I got stuck here, I didn't have my gi, my workout clothes, or a pre-workout meal.. nothing.
So I busted a move home, snarfed up a piece of bread with honey, changed, and headed to the boathouse with all my gear.
I did one ladder.
1-7
kb clean and press each arm, chin up, no rest.
I drank some water then headed to class.
I gassed out at the end of class. I didn't eat enough before all of that work.
It happens.
Today I am prepared.
I got here early.
I have enough food to make it all the way through the day, and have my gi so that I can bust a move and head straight to Ballard.
Mahalo.

Son of a mother b*tch.

Heeeuge project dropped on my punkass at work today. This week is going to suck.
I've gotten a fair start on it, but it's a lot of work, and the boss already said "hope you don't have any plans this weekend.. Actually I do.. did. shit.

Weekend workouts.

Updating this weekends work:
Friday:
burpee w/ chin
kb clean/squat
step-up w/ woodchopper
2 min each
rest 2 min
x3

Saturday:
BJJ light sparring.

Sunday:
morning:
4x3 min hand bike
@180 watts.

afternoon:

5x 1 minute ergs rate: 26-27
1:50
1:48
1:44
1:40
1:40

kb snatch 100 @ 35

kb complex:
bent row
clean and press
snatch
swing
5 each hand
x2