Finishing the Year Fit And Strong

Are you one of those people who does New Year's resolutions?  THIS! is going to be the year I become the person I want to be. I'll start (pick new habit) or I'll quit (pick bad habit). I'll lose X lb. For 2 weeks you'll be motivated and by Martin Luther King day, you're back to your December persona.

Do you have a case of Screw-it-itis in December and let the foot off the pedal at work, hit the party circuit, and let the diet go? 

Have you ever finished the year at 100% capacity with momentum to fly into the next year. Or done both depending upon the year?  

I answer yes to all these questions. This year I'm choosing finishing the year with momentum and at full throttle. 

The catalyst to this is Hawaii in Mid-November. Went to a benefits/labor convention.  It was my 2nd time out there in 4 months.  I had a FANTASTIC time. My room faced the Pacific Ocean with a balcony at the Waikiki Sheraton.  Post convention there were parties galore with all the free food and drink you would want. Weather was 80 degrees with sun showers every day. I had the best steak of my life at Signature Prime. And finally, went to Pearl Harbor and saw my great uncle's plane at the Aviation Museum.  Pro tip, go to the USS Missouri first.  

It was great, and yes I did go to the gym every day. Walked 20,000 steps a day between the treadmill and too and from the convention center.  I wore out a path on Kalakaua Avenue.  But by day 4 I had had enough of the parties. Let's put it this way. The first full day was Sunday and my buddy and I found a sports bar to watch the NFL.  We were drinking beers at 8 AM.  At the convention, there is a LinkedIn photo of me.  My best friend called me after it posted saying, "Love knowing you were 4 beers deep when that was taken."  Terrific.  So the 4th night, we are at a rooftop bar and they were handing out complimentary Mai Tais.  I took 3 small sips and said, "I'm not doing this tonight,." and pounded water. Woke up feeling great.

Traveled home and arrived at my house on a Thursday and was junk for a couple of days between lack of sleep, fun and on an airplane for 11 hours. Decided middle of the month to turn it around.  

1. No alcohol. Been 3 weeks. Feel great, workouts off the charts good, hyper focused, and sleeping great.

2. A regular sleep schedule.  I always sleep 7-8 hours a night, But I wanted a consistent schedule. Meaning I'm in bed by 10 PM at the latest. Read 2-3 chapters of my Kindle, hit the bathroom one more time, and lights out by 10:30. In the last 3 weeks the only time I've broken this was last Monday watching the Patriots game.  This includes weekends. I awake naturally without alarms. Had 9 + hours sleep Saturday night.

3. Really focusing on my workouts.  Having a plan, not being lazy because I don't want to load the barbell to deadlift, and focusing on every rep.  Stopping with one rep in the tank and without pain.  Focusing on my conditioning using sleds, Ski Erg, Echo Bike or treadmill running. Not mailing it in.

The numbers are going up in my lifts and my conditioning is excellent.  Running 5 miles on the treadmill with a 1 degree incline in 44 minutes. (sub 9 minute miles), finishing 10 rounds of Ski Erg/Echo Bike sprints (more on that in a minute.) and pushing the Prowler combined with 300 two hand swings with a 70 lb. bell. 

I received a great tip from my work colleague about the Echo Bike. He is Captain CrossFit in Kansas City and tries to break Assault/Echo Bikes. I was complaining my quads get the shakes when I'm done. He advised me to lift the seat up one more rung.  The higher the seat, the more it focuses on hamstrings and glutes vs. quads.  THIS is a complete game changer. My wattage for sprints are at least 25 % higher with the higher seat.  Sure it still is a gasser, but it alleviated a lot of fatigue.

I ended up going back to me old gym as it is obvious to see from above.  Ran into a guy there who is older but always in good shape.  Saw him for the 1st time in 5 months and he looked great.  Slimmed down. I told him he looked awesome.  He told me he quit drinking and lost 20 lb. He became my inspiration.  I actually thanked him last week and told him so.  The only thing I'm not doing as much is outdoor walking.  I can deal with cold, it's the wind I can't stand.  Moving South next year is an active conversation that my wife and I are having. 

How's the diet?  Well, about a 6 out of 10.  Not terrible, but not great. I've lost 2-3 lb. I eat too much.  Not crap, because we don't have any in the house. I only eat out once per week.  Would like to push this to about a 7.5-8. I have some lunches coming up and a party with friends, so that's realistic.  If I don't booze, I let myself eat at parties.  Decided today was the day to start on cleaning up the diet.  23 hours into a 40 hour fast, 18 of which will be dry. From just before Noon today, until I wake up around 6.  

I've incorporated 24 hour dry fasting this year 3 or so times.  I like it from the time I start until, I go to bed.  I'm not thirsty and get through it easier than with water.  But it's bloody awful from when you wake up until the 24 hour mark. Say at 9:30 AM. So I'm adjusting that down to 18-20 hours.  When I wake up, have a glass of water. let that settle in so I don't feel lethargic and then black coffee.  So I'll get 75% of the benefits vs. 100.  Live to fight another day. 

Next big trip is Sales Kickoff in San Diego on January 4. It will be the 9th time since June 2024 that I've surpassed 2 time zones flying across the country. I wish it were in Las Vegas like our meetings in October, but what can you do?  The weather will be nicer than the 21 degrees we have her in Massachusetts as I type on December 8.  Hopefully I'll be under 190 lb.  Stay tuned. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year!

The Minimum Effective Dose, A Myth?

 I was leaving a client meeting yesterday, driving back home and decided to call my buddy Tommy Rambo to see what's up.  Tommy is a Marine veteran whom I've known and use to work with for 15 years. Like a lot of guys as they approach 40, he wasn't exercising like he should and was hanging around 205 lbs. Finally, about 4 years ago, he got back into training in his basement.  At the time, I hadn't spoken to him in over a year and called to check in. This is what I get right at the start. "Hey, I'm on a fitness kick, I've bought some of those kettlebells.  You ever use them?  Great workout, I'm down to 190....feel great, having a scotch as we speak, let's hook up.... 

I went to his house, showed him some tips for his swing and clean form, we did a quick workout and then went out for scotch and prime rib.  Since then, Tommy has really gotten into bodyweight training.  He ordered Convict Conditioning, and was hooked. So hooked that he's done podcasts as a guest speaker!  Check him out: http://reddeltaproject.com/fit-after-40-w-tommy-rembiszewski/
 I'm not a podcast guy, but this is good stuff from a good man.

So as I was speaking to him, he was gushing how, instead of working out 6 days a week he's dropped it down to 5 and his workouts have been insane.  It's just funny how everything runs parallel, I told him, I've dropped my workout frequency to every other day, under 20 minutes and have maintained strength without the soreness. A lot of times people workout because, they LIKE it, it's a hobby.  But do your really need to?

Minimum Effective Dose: I first heard of this in the 4-Hour Body by famed lifehack/human laboratory Tim Ferriss.  The MED is simply the smallest dose that will produce a desired outcome and anything BEYOND the MED is wasteful. As I said in my last blog, when water hits 212 degrees Fahrenheit, it doesn't need to get to 213 to boil.  It's not a myth.  It's the law of diminishing returns.  There comes a point where one begins hurting themselves instead of helping. If you like going balls to the wall 6 days a week, my advice would be: find another hobby.

Flippant last sentence aside, the workout Ferriss recommended was a High Intensity Interval Training workout where one set is taken to complete failure at 7 reps.  2 x a week, 5 second cadence lifting, 5 second cadence negative.  It's called Occam's Protocol and sounds like absolute torture if you use free weights. Here is a website with everything you need.  http://www.occamsprotocol.com/ 

According to the book and the website, if you eat correctly and take supplements, you will put on muscle.  The other 5 days of the week, recover and let the muscle tissue rebuild and recover.  As with all things lifting, 80% of your success depends on what you lift to your face and place in your pie hole.  HIIT goes back to Arthur Jones and his Nautilus weight machines from the 1970's. 

I did this style workout about 5 years ago with kettlebells, but didn't use the 5 second cadence for about a month.  I really liked it, but just never got back to it.  It went something like:

Workout 1
Military Press 2 x 5, 1 x 1 rep below failure
Rows, same
Front squats 2 x 5, 1 x 1 rep below failure
Double Snatch same.  (this exercise 2 below failure is better)

Workout 2
Floor Press Same as above
Rows 
Lunges (I remember having the shakes in my legs 2 hours later)
Double swings x 25

If you want to learn more about non-kettlebell related HIIT workouts, go to my friend/colleague Jenna's website. www.cardiocraving.com  

A lot of great information, especially for the fairer gender.

Back to my theory on the MED. As I was finishing the Long Haul program, the workouts, toward the end got so intense, that I figured I needed to get as much rest as I could to recover. So it's been over 6 weeks of this. After taking a few days off because of Sales Kickoff for my company in Denver, I started another More Kettlebell Muscle program called Lucky 13.  3 days a week, 8 rep press max for bells.  Chose 55's  I decided to do it in a chain style workout which in my opinion, are more torturous than complexes because they spread the fatigue around.

A chain means doing a sequence of movements and then repeat.  For example,
Double Swing x 1
Double Clean x 1
Reverse Lunge x 1L, 1R
See saw press x 1L, 1R 
Repeat this sequence 5 times.  That's 1 round.

It looks innocent until the second half of the chain.  Then the fatigue starts setting in. In week 1, the workouts are only about 10 minutes long, because there are only 3 rounds.  I did have to drop after the first round to 45's on heavy day, because my kettlebell nemesis, the 110 lb double snatch almost took my head off on the last link of the chain.  Which leads to the question, other than my ego being stroked, is it really going to make a difference if I use 55's vs 45's on heavy day? No.

What has resulted since I've started taking every other day off is a complete lack of soreness.  Aches and pains from doing the Rite of Passage are non-existent.  My workouts are strong.  I have been able to keep my diet in check.  My weight is steady in the 187 range. I haven't lost anything conditioning wise.  I ran 4 miles in Denver during a fun run and didn't stop.  First 1.5 was easy breezy then, the high altitude kicked in and I huffed and puffed and grinded to the finish.  I actually have gotten into the habit of enjoying the days off.  This week, I decided to do an low volume, workout with heavy weights during one of my days off. It was a mistake.  I felt tired and like complete trash when I woke up on a day when I had to do a Lucky 13 workout.  I waited until Noon to recover a little more.

Do I still get the itch to do more?  Yes, because it's something I like to do. It can be hard to walk away from the weights after 10 minutes. I still have something left in the tank, usually about 1/2-3/4 worth. Being winter and not all that warm out, I'm less likely to want to go for a run and I won't do sprints with road sand on the streets.  That's asking for a wipeout.  Today was a nice day, I finished easy day in about 12 minutes and took my Daisy for a 30 minute slow walk.  She's almost 12 and can't go running anymore so, we strolled and she kept looking at me with a smile and love that only a golden retriever is capable of giving. 

Will I go back to more days?  Yes, once the weather gets nicer, I'll be more active.  But any lifting more than 3-4 days isn't necessary for me at this time. At this juncture, I'm more about health and conditioning vs. pressing half my body weight.

Go Pats!