The Fit Blog

I recently moved.  Both my wife and I found ourselves driving a 45 minute commute twice a day and eventually I made the suggestion we move closer to work and we figured there was little stopping us, so we did it.

We’ve been in the house for about two weeks now.  One of my first priorities was to setup a small area in the unfinished basement to workout.

As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t have much equipment.  I’m a firm believer that all anyone really needs is a bar, some weight and some space.  That said, I have a pair of rings as well that I abuse on a regular basis.  The grip tape on them has been worn out several times now.

One thing that’s been missing from “my gym” has been a pullup bar.  At my old house, there weren’t many options for putting one up.  I toyed with the idea of a bar that works in a door frame, but from what I’ve heard and read, you can’t kip with those things.  I like to kip.  For me, a pullup bar has to be rock solid.  Also, given my frugal nature, a bar has to be cheap as well.

Fortunately my new house is right around the corner (literally) from a Home Depot.  The other day I picked up the following:

• 2 2×6 cut 18″
• 1 48″ steel pipe 3/4″ diameter
• 6 5/16″ carriage bolts, nuts and washers

That’s all it took for a sweet, totally solid pullup bar that I can kip on till my heart’s content.  I drilled out a 3/4 inch hole in each 2×6 and used the carriage bolts to attach to two joists in the basement.

I also purchsed some $25 rubber matting from Walmart to keep my feet from freezing off in the basement when barefoot and to buffer the sound of the weight hitting the floor.

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Finally, after lots of work, I’ve finally hit my goal of 10 unbroken muscle-ups.  Frankly, I could have hit this goal months ago, but I’ve been busy (which is also the reason for such infrequent updates in the last little while).  Unfortunately this feat was attained at home and there were no witnesses.  Fortunately, however, I managed to catch it on camera…

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Ok – I know I’ve been pointing countless videos of my handstand efforts, but I keep progressing, so I’ll just keep posting.

In an attempt to focus on the following details, I’ve been finding it much easier to maintain balance:

• Arms fully locked out
• Tighten core (abs and glutes in particular)
• Legs together

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Saw this video linked from Beast Skills. Dominic Lacasse enters the Guinness book of World Records with a 39 second flag hold. Brilliant.

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This past weekend I attended a crossfit certification in Toronto at Moss Armory. In all honesty, I really had no idea what to expect, but I was absolutely blown away by the whole experience. I’ve often read in the comments on the crossfit main site from others who’ve raved about crossfit certs and how amazing they’ve been, and through the course of Saturday morning to Sunday evening, I’ve been completely convinced of the same.
I expected getting squashed by a couple of hardcore workouts, so no surprise there, but for some reason, what I didn’t expect was the professionalism of the whole thing and the incredibly high quality of the lectures and teaching.
It was a brilliant weekend and I encourage anyone thinking about attending a crossfit cert to do it – it’s worth every penny and then some.

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Still working on the handstands.  It’s a slow process…

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Was in Fort Lauderdale for the week.  It was hot and muggy, but still had a blast.

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The muscle-ups are coming along. My “training” effort to get 10 in a row has paid off a bit as I’ve more recently been able to get 8 in a row. I think if I were fresh I’d have gotten at least 10.
Anyway, I’ve been concentrating on stricter form and using less of a kip, which is paying dividends in arm strength. I’ve also managed to get a back lever and I’m now working on a front.
The video below demonstrates.

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Woke up this morning and decided to capture some parallette “training”. The 20 second l-sit is quite a hurdle to get past. I’m expecting that by mid-July I should be able to hold at least 30 seconds. As far as my handstands on the parallettes are concerned, I continue to have difficulty balancing in a locked out handstand. There were only a couple of attempts that had a somewhat solid balance. Strength wise, however, I’m feeling far more comfortable with the parallettes.

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Recently our crossfit classes have been inundated with a bunch of young high school aged guys.  I enjoy it – they’re a nice group of kids and fun to work out with.  But one thing that has become apparent to me is that at that age, reaching their fitness potential is far easier (and far less limited) than when you’re older (in my case, 30).  It took me months to get proficient at pull-ups and a half a year to get comfortable with the muscle up.  Just a couple weeks into the program and these guys are hitting muscle ups like a pro.  Of course, us older guys tend to be a little heavier (and are thus able to lift a lot heavier too), but these kids are able to pick up the technical stuff with ease.

Now that they can muscle-up on the rings, however, we’ve started a little competition for bragging rights – the first to 10 consecutive muscle-ups.  I’m already ahead of them as I can consistently get 5 in a row now, but there’s no doubt that these guys are going to catch up in no time.  So it’s pedal to the metal muscle-up time.  Goal: 10 solid consecutive muscle-ups. Timeframe: ASAP…  Ok, so now what’s the plan??

How can one go from 5 to 10 MU’s in just a couple of weeks?  What kind of training would be necessary and is there any way to accelerate the process?

At the very least, I plan on attempting either max MU’s or several smaller sets on a daily basis.  This, in itself, would probably get me to my goal, but it would likely also be a longer process.  So I’ll need to supplement the training.  With pulls and presses being the primary movements involved in a MU, I plan on using dips, pull-ups and seated rows as secondary training exercises.  So in short, MU training is going to be every day – MU sets plus 2 days per week of dip\pull training (likely Saturday and Tuesday).  This is in addition to my already almost every day workout schedule (albeit mostly fairly short workouts).

Not being very certain of how to best approach my schedule, I’m going to try the following the first week:

M: 5×2 MU
T: 3×8 Weighted Dips 40#, 3×8 180# seated row, max MU attempt
W: 4×3 MU
TH: max MU attempt, 5×1 MU
F: 6×2 MU
SAT: 5×5 40# Weighted PU, max MU attempt
SUN: max MU attempt

As for accelerating the process, I’m toying around with the idea of dropping a few pounds before my final max attempt and additionally working on my kipping technique.  We’ll see where I’m at next week.

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We recently got our hands full and have been seriously short on “free” time lately.  By having our hands full, of course, I mean that we just got two kittens who’ve been having a hard time adjusting to a new environment and each other.  They’re cute, but they sure are two little terrors.  So between them, work and other misc life things, it’s been difficult getting a bite in to eat, much less have time to workout.  But as I was pushin through my 175th squat tonight, I thought to myself, anyone could fit this in.

15 minutes and a bucket of sweat is all it really takes to get in some muscle building, fat busting burn.  It may not sound like much, but after 150 or so squats and 40 hand stand pushups it certainly feels enough.

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Welcome to the newly designed version of www.thefitblog.net!  Gone are the days of the default blue wordpress theme and here to stay is the minimalist custom job of yours truly.  Yes, it’s simple, but it works nicely and I like it :)  I also used the opportunity to install a much needed upgrade to wordpress.

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Now that’s a little more like it.  Today I managed a 265# squat.  I think I had a little more in me, but I didn’t want to push it too much.  So no more benching more than I can squat – that was ridiculous ;)

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This post is a major ramble… Apologies in advance if you’re looking for anything coherent.

If you don’t eat well, you will never completely reap the rewards of working out. In fact, not eating well can physically set you backwards, completely negating any potential gains from the gym. We take eating for granted so often, but nutrition is key to our health and well being and truly sets a base from which other aspects of our lives can either flourish or flounder.

But as I’ve said before, it’s not necessarily easy to make good nutrition choices all the time, nor do we necessarily know what good nutrition choices are. In the practical sense, we don’t really need to keep track of every morsel that we put in our mouths. We don’t need to weigh every ounce of chicken or spinach to eat healthy. In fact, it’s completely fine to indulge on ocassion without feeling guilty. We need to consume food, but we should never let what we eat consume us.

Good nutrition in 6 words: Avoid sugar, refined or processed food. Stick with this and you’re well on your way to eating healthy.

Supplement your diet. It’s nearly impossible to expect to get all your required nutrients through eating food alone. Vitamins help greatly with this. Don’t be afraid of protein powder – it isn’t just for hardcore body builders. Get lots of Omega-3′s. Fish oil!

Preparation makes eating healthy so much easier. Buy big tubs of mixed greens and use heaping handfuls as the base for you lunch. Top it with chili, chicken, bacon, egg, cottage cheese, tuna or some other high protein food source. Add some more veggies and you’ve got yourself a good meal.

Make large batches of food for dinner, on the weekend, and freeze portions for later. Make lots of left overs. When you’re not prepared, you are more likely to choose an unhealthy meal. But when you’re in a pinch, don’t feel guilty for eating a burger. Try not to load up on bagels.

Go to the bulk food store and buy lots of nuts. Buy loads of nuts and seeds. Peanuts, cashews, almonds, soy nuts, sunflower seeds, flax seeds, walnuts, pecans. Also grab some dried cranberries and dried apricots and you’re set for snacks. Combine several cups of smashed up nuts and seeds with some whole oats and honey and artificial sweetener and bake and make your own cereal.

Watch the video linked here: http://www.crossfit.com/mt-archive2/003398.htm Notice the pyramid. Remember the pyramid.

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