OUR BODY, The Universe Within — and — Workin’ Out the Travel Kinks

I’m back, now, from a whirlwind trip to Austin, Texas; it was great to visit with family and friends, and get back, even for a short while, to the great state of Texas.

The Stark Center for Physical Culture and Sport, at the University of Texas, Austin

A couple of the trip’s highlights: taking in OUR BODY, The Universe Within, at the University of Texas’ Stark Center for Physical Culture and Sports, A trip to my all-time favorite bike shop, Mellow Johnny’s (where I engaged in some serious fixie lust), and an absolutely kick-ass, trainer-guided workout at Efficient Exercise of Austin.  The trainer?  None other than Skyler Tanner.  15 minutes of true HIIT/SS training that thoroughly wiped me out.  I’ll have a write-up on Skyler’s 15 minutes of Keith-pummeling up soon.  This style of training is quite a departure from the manner in which I normally go about business, and I gotta tell ya, the notion of training “what you suck at” was never more apropos.  More — much more — on that eye-opening experience later.

Mellow Johnny's, this cyclist's Nirvana...

So I’m quite possibly the world’s biggest wuss when it comes to traveling.  It takes me days to readjust and “get right” after the experience.  Don’t get me wrong — I love being at my destination — I just don’t tolerate the “getting there” very well.  I am thankful, though, that I was able to get a full-body hammering in during this particular trip, as it made my overall travel re-adjustments — and this workout, as well — go much more smoothly.

Note: my initial intent today was to hit some high-hang Oly bar power snatches.  I subbed for those for Creds, though, at the last minute.  Why?  I just felt like I wanted to introduce a bit more of a unilateral element following my bilateral work this past Saturday.  So here’s what I ended up with this morning:

6 rounds of the following complex, very little rest between movements.

creds (single-arm dumbbell snatch, each arm): 70 x 2; 80 x 2; 90 x 6 sets of 2

feet-elevated (approx 24 inches) ballistic push-ups: 30lb vest x 3

ab wheel roll-outs (on feet, little as possible ground-knee contact): bodyweight x 10

I finished up with some Nautilus 4-way neck work, 30 lbs x 12 (404 tempo) front and each side, 40 lbs x 12 (404 tempo) to the rear.  Funny thing: for whatever reason, I was thinking about what part of my physique has changed the most over the years.  For me, that has to, without a doubt, be my neck.  Nothing builds a bull neck like bangin’ heads with lunatic fullbacks and oversized tight ends.  I miss that.  The big neck, that is — not the brain scramble incurred as a direct result of sculpting that neck  🙂

Iron Metcon, 5/18/10

Performed this combo with as little rest as possible between each movement, and with each rep in the scheme performed in rapid-fire fashion.  I really pushed the envelope to, but not over, the edge of form degeneration.  This is a fine line to manage.

snatch x3 + btn push-press + OHS x 5 combo: 95 x 1, 115 x 1, 125 x 1, 1, 1

weighted reverse grip pull-ups: 45 x 7, 7, 7, 7, 6+ (stall-out)

The combo and pull-ups were done in alternating fashion, with very little rest between movements.  Keep the body in motion as much as possible, while minimizing down time.  This is another from the “easy on paper, killer in practice” files; it’ll have you blowin’ like a freight train by the final set of pull-ups.

Snatches were done in a touch-and-go from the floor, while maintaining a grip on the bar throughout, and as rapid fire as possible.  Speed of rep execution is premium, here  Following the 3rd rep, lower the bar to the high-squat rack position and immediately hit a btn jerk, and then immediately drop into a below parallel OHS.  Shoot back up and repeat the jerk/OHS movement for a total of 5 reps, fast, fast, FAST.  Be careful, though, to maintain proper form, and DO NOT sacrifice form or speed for load.

Then a superset of:

GHR: 3 sets of 15, at bodyweight

ab wheel roll-outs: 3 sets of 7 at bodyweight

Again, I kept the reps snappy and minimized the down time between exercises to a bare minimum.

Lower back is still a tad loosey-goosey from the recent fixie near-miss, so I didn’t push the roll-outs to hard.

On the epigenetic front –
More food for thought, and a great article, here, supporting the notion that you are not totally at the mercy of your genes.

Remember, each of us has to engage our surroundings as best as we can, given our unique and particular circumstance.  Not everyone has ready access to a well-equipped gym, not everyone has unlimited access to a food co-op or farmers’ market.  Pre-existing injuries, work schedules, family obligations — the myriad of diverse variables that, once in collusion, define a life —  establish for us the palate and medium with which we must create our own, personalized version of paleolithic physical culture.  This is why stock programs never work, why “bootcamp” mentality (i.e., the tactics employed on, for example, The Biggest Looser) ultimately fail in the long run.  Sooner or later you’ll have to deal, one-on-one, with the real world, the day-to-day grind of normal existence.  This is where dieters and physical culturalists succeed or fail, this is where truth speaks to power.

Learn to find your own, unique way.  One can learn, regurgitate and profess mastery of all the theories of navigation, but being left for dead in the wilderness is the only true and meaningful test of that knowledge.

One Wayward Parrot, and the Morning’s Heavy Iron Session

Some of you may have already met my new coffee shop bud, Gus, as I posted his mug shot on Twitter and on my Facebook wall; I just wanted to give him a little additional press, here.  Gus is quite the character, and not a half bad conversationalist, though he is a tad opinionated.  You just never know what you might see out on a fixie huck.  And no, that’s not my frappuccino, nor is it Gus’ — Gus’ owner is the guilty party.  Gus and I know better.

Meet Gus, the Coffee Shop Greeter

Sometimes You Just Gotta Go Heavy

No better way to kick-off a weekend than with a heavy Friday morning iron session.  This bout took approximately 45 minutes to complete.

single-arm DB floor press (each arm): 85 x 4; 95 x 3; 100 x 3; 110 x 2; 115 x 2

barbell bent-over row + RDL/shrug combo: 225 x 3(3); 245 x 3(3); 265 x 3(3); 275 x 2(2); 280 x 2(2)

Superset format in the above pairing.  Very little rest between sets.  Followed that up with this repetition method superset:

ab wheel roll-outs: bw x 10, 10, 10

dips: bw x 20, 20, 20 (rest-pause needed to complete last two sets)

The BOR + RDL/shrug combo was done thusly: 3 (or 2) reps of regular bent-over rows, followed immediately, and in one fluid motion, by a bar to just-below-the-knee RDL (butt way back…big glute/ham activation) with an immediate transition to an explosive triple extension low pull with a full, end-of-movement shrug.  Reset immediately into the bar-below-the-knee RDL bottom position; repeat for the required reps.

If you find your way out the the Outer Banks of North Carolina this weekend, drop by and say hey to Meesus TTP and me.

4/20/10; A Well Spent Half-Hour with the Iron and, Inspiration – Nike Style

Nothing at all fancy today, just a lot of work jam-packed into a mere 30-minute time frame.

Russian lunge jumps for height: 3 each leg, each round

single-leg high box (approx. 18″) step-ups: 135 x 5, 5; 155 x 4; 165 x 4; 4 (each leg)

ab wheel roll-outs: bodyweight x 10, each round

glute/ham raise (GHR): 40 x 5, 5; 45 x 5; 50 x 5, 5

5 rounds of this, subsequent to a good warm-up.  If you do the math, that’s 20 exercises completed in approximately 20 minutes, with the warm-up and equipment/station set-up requiring another 10 minutes or so.  So plenty of work, with very little rest.  Now, I wouldn’t try to squeeze an exceptionally heavy and/or neurologically demanding workout into a 30-minute bracket, but this kind of “speed-endurance” type work is well-suited for a short overall time investment.

Inspiration, thanks to Nike

Ross Enamait — whose methods I find top-notch, and absolutely kick-ass — posted this fantastic Nike “commercial” on his site recently; tell me you’re not jacked-up after watching it.

Ahhh, brings back that old pre-game, ’bout-to-bust-outta-my-friggin’-skin feeling!   I love it!  And, like Ross, my favorite line here has to be:

“Passion has a funny way of trumping logic.”

Ain’t it the truth!

4/15/10; MetCon for Sprinters and, Posturing for a New Round of NAIS Grand-Standing

…and a new round of attempted power-grabbing.

First off, thanks to Starbucks for softening the blow of tax day here in the US with an offer to fill your reusable travel mug with free coffee.  A day with good, free coffee can’t be all that bad, can it?  Good for the environment (the reusable mug, that is), and good for your caffeine jones.

Now, do you appreciate easy access to supplements, grass-fed/free-range protein, and all manner of locally-grown, organic produce?  Keep a close eye, then, on the FDA and the McCain bunch, because here come the scare tactics.  These types of problems simply don’t exist with locally-raised/pastured livestock, yet politicians and government entities fail to recognize this fact.  Anyway, standby for more of propaganda — these are the preliminary body-blows that serve to soften one up for the knock-out punch.  And, of course, what use is a politician without a boogie-man to protect us from?

I wrote about this issue previously, here.  But don’t for a minute think that this attempted power-grab (or, more specifically, Senate Bill S.510) is completely dead.  There’s far too much opportunity for profit and control to be had.  No need for me to elaborate any further on this, as Marti Oakley at the Proud Political Junky blog has already done the heavy lifting on this one.

*Late edit (4/16/10)*  Also see Diana Hsieh’s related post here, at her blog Modern Paleo.

Remember folks, he “…who controls the food supply, controls the people…”  If I’m not mistaken, that’s a piece of a longer, Henry Kissinger quote.  Regardless of who said it, though, the sentiment is spot-on.  Let your elected officials know that you want them to keep the hell out of your relationship with your local farmer and rancher; no room for a governmental menage a trois here.  Nor do you need a big-daddy figure to save you from the “evil” supplement supplier.  We’re all intelligent, big boys and girls, here — no hand-holding needed.  Thanks for the offer, though…

Now go on out and get your free Starbucks coffee…while caffeine is still off the FDA hit-list.

On to the iron-game side of things –

Today’s workout consisted of 3 rounds of the following:

Russian lunge (jump for height): 30 lb vest x 3, each round (alternate legs)
single-leg box squat: 30 lb vest + 20 lb DBs x 6, each leg, each round (thigh parallel to ground, with butt on box)
GHR: 30 lb vest + 30 lb DB x 4 each round
Ab wheel roll-outs: 30 lb vest x 5, each round
reverse grip pull-ups: 90 x 3, each round

Volume was a little lower than usual as I intend to do some mixed-intensity fixie riding — and maybe some barefooted sprints — this evening; the weather here in eastern NC is gorgeous today, and I hate to miss an opportunity to get out and about.  I blew through this one at a rather fast pace, resting only long enough between exercises so as to enable crisp, explosive reps on the upcoming exercise.  Max power production on every rep was the primary goal, with overall speed of completion being a lesser concern.  Still, though, I allowed myself no lallygagging between exercises.