Flex Is Forgiving

Well here I am enjoying another day of no school until noon. But today I feel like I have nothing to do since it is a rest day. I think I sense some frisbee to be played today. And I hope all of you feel like you are more fit then before, not only for being educated on what fitness really is, but taking the initiative to read my blog today. I mean hey it might only be two calories burned, but lets say you read 200 posts, and thats 400 calories. So after you read 200 posts, reward yourself with a mirror glance, because it would be worthless to destroy those burned calories with a snickers bar. If you did I might have to show up at your door and round house kick that cancerous crap out of your hand.

One of my not so favorites, because it is just not my forte...

FLEXIBILITY: The range of motion of one's body or appendages.

So, for all you ladies out there, I'm about 6 feet tall and love long walks on the beach while drinking pina col.... my bad, it's habit... Well all you ladies are naturally more flexible than us men, so you might have a few laughs at us while trying to work on it. But nonetheless, I will always add science to screw with everyone's head. So what are factors that affect flexibility? Simple, MUSCLES, JOINTS, SKIN. Yes, I said skin and it is a huge factor.

MUSCLES: What makes a muscle flexible? Well in simple terms, the more aligned and uniform your muscle fibers are, the more they want to stretch and give you a greater range of motion. So every time you stretch, you are pulling all of those fibers in the same direction to line them up. Now what happens when they arn't in the same direction? Well we call that a knot and they SUCK. Any pressure you put on that part of the muscle feels like a bruise the someone stuck a knife into. The fix is simple... just read on.

JOINTS: These are not very fun. Pretty much, a joint contains tendons and ligaments which are pretty much some of the stiffest things in the body. They don;t like to be flexed or stretched. But there are always ways around this. Strengthening the join can over time lengthen and strengthen the tendons and ligaments, giving a larger range of motion. So stretching does not do a whole lot, it does a little but strengthening is the true stuff for it.

SKIN: Okay for starters stop the crap talking about me being an idiot for putting this on here. It actually is a very important part of flexibility. What can happen after a good nights sleep, or a prolonged period of time without lots of movement in an area, mainly in the scapula area, the skin and muscle together can have high amounts of friction between them. As a result, you muscle and skin work against each other and you are stiffer than a phone pole.

THE FIXES :)--- So lets begin with some good stretching. Hold for about 20 to 30 seconds and get a nice pull on them all. The ideal time for this is after exercise when your muscle are at their weakest and prone to be shaped. Next, identify if you have any knots, which is any place on a muscle that is painful to touch. Once identified, grab a foam roller of death and isolate the muscle on the roller and start crying. it hurts like a son of a gun, but it is worth it. Next, strengthen your joints to lengthen those ligaments and tendons, because your joints are only as flexible as they are. I will post some videos of exercises that do this in a few days. Finally, if you go a period of time with little exercise or movement, grab a lacrosse or racquetball and place it under the main area being scapula and hips. Same thing as the foam roller, roll around, except this one doesn't hurt. it actually feels amazing.


Workout

Rest Day

Pop the Protein!!!

Twinsies

It's been awhile people, I know I say this all the time but I am a very busy guy. I mean I had prom to go to and do all that hullabaloo. It was so worth it. And man oh man what a workout. Jumping for three minutes gave me a good calf workout and man oh man. And for my arms, I fist pumped like a champ and by the end of the night it was more of a fist wobble. Job well done if you ask me. Fun and working out at the same time.

So now onto the real topic. The next two factors of fitness. STAMINA and ENDURANCE. Now are they the same or arnt they... Well its really just a terminology type thing. They are variations of each other, but people use them interchangably without taking into account the factors that seperate the two. So lets get down to the meaty stuff and see what they are.

ENDURANCE: The ability to sustain activity for a prolonged period of time. Now what does this mean? Well it means you can run for a long time or row for days. Well maybe not days unless you are somesort of hiberno saxon or viking or of the norse people. But anyways, it can also sometimes be referred to as cardio. Now on the complex level it is your bodies ability to utilize its oxidative pathways. Now we all have our oxidative pathways, but the more endurance we have, the more efficient we make them. As we increase our endurance, we increase our bodies ability to deliver oxygen to the areas where it is needed, thus allowing our body to keep chuggin' along.

How do we increase our endurance? Well it's not easy and it just takes pure work. The greatest way to increase it is by sustaining approximately 75-80% of our maximum heart rate for a period of around 20 minutes. If your doing it right then you should be breathing pretty hard, I mean this is no walk in the park, this is hard core running through beautiful fields full of flowers and butterflies. I mean who said fitness can't have beauty...

STAMINA: A.K.A. "Muscular Endurance" Sounds similar, yes it is a type of endurance if you want to see it that way, but it is not nearly the same thing. This type of thing is more focused on muscle fatigue. So when you are doing those push-up tests and you reach the 80 mark and your arms start to feel like jello. That's stamina for you. Now for the sciency part of it all, a muscle is composed of lots and lots of muscle fibers. The more we work our muscles and strain them, the larger they grow, but also the more mitochondria they produce to keep up and adapt to the great workout they are exerted to. Along with more mitochondria, comes more energy molecules for powering our muscles. Now there are many, but the two main types are ATP (Adenosine tri phosphate) and Creatine Phosphate. So the more of those, the longer the muscle can go.

So how do we build stamina? Well its those fun days in the gym when we do those 20 rep sets and 30 rep burnout sets. In other words, the ones that burn. Also another overlooked part of building stamina is practicing everything bodyweight which is a great weight for adding stamina to your muscles. So hit it up!


Now I have overloaded your mind with all sorts of great knowledge, so with this go get your pump on with all your bros and broettes at the gym, crossfit box, or backyard. They all work. Or even go for a run or a bike ride or pay soccer or disc golf if you will.

Workout

5x(5,5,5,15,15) superset every two

Preacher Curl
Skull Crushers
Seated alternating Curls
Tricep Kick Backs
Reverse Grip Curls
Tricep Pressdowns


ABS

3x(15,15,15)

Knee Raises
Roman Chairs

Cardio

14 Mile Bike Ride

Strength Starts It Off

Ahh here we are with numero uno of fitness. Strength! One of my favorites, however just as important as all of the others. Today was very boring. rest day along with pretty much nothing at track practice. If you ever feel like you have enough strength, your wrong and I put this picture of this lady to remind you of it.

What is strength exactly? How do we judge strength of a man? Well to begin with it is all compared to body weight. Comparing a man that weighs about 150 pounds to a 300 pound man is just not fair. So whenever you are judging a lift always put it in percentage of your body weight.

Strength: The amount of weight that one's muscles can move.

So to put it in a nutshell, its about how many plates you can move, and push ups you can pump out.

How do we gain strength? Well its one of those things that takes time, it is not instant. For being in the gym, you want lower reps with higher weight, along with pyramid sets and negatives. These are all sets that will help you add strength onto your body. Along with strength comes size, but dont get the two mixed up. A person may be huge but not very strong, or my favorite, a person may be super scrawny but able to kick your butt in the gym. Never judge a man on his size.

Another way to look at strength and to build it is by bodyweight exercises. They are a great gauge of your true strength and practical strength too because all movements include the weight of your body. So push out the push ups, bodyweight squats, squat jumps, hand-stand push ups all of that fun stuff!

Remember the stronger you are the easier your WOD is because I have never seen a WOD that does not include some sort of workout that does not require strength.

Track

Nada

Workout

REST

Fitness For Real

Well again I missed a few days, but I was in Santa Clara debating topics of importance. Hate me if you will, I dont care but you will be missing out on valuable fitness info. Worst part of the whole thing besides no blogging, workouts were pretty much impossible to get in.

Well today is going to be the first of a series of many posts defining what fitness is. Do you know what fitness is? I doubt you have the full definition of it. Sure it may mean strong, or being a good runner, or things along those lines. But NO!!!!

Fitness is a term used to bring together all the aspects of being fit and a true athlete.

• Strength
• Stamina
• Endurance
• Flexibility
• Agility
• Power
• Coordination
• Nutrition

Now each day I will go into depth on each aspect of my definition of fitness. Now everyone may have a slight bit definition but I will give you mine, it is neither right or wrong. (Well actually I think it is text gold) So dont say hey your wrong or I forgot one. DONT. It's like one of those open response questions in class where you have to interpret a symbol in a book. Except unlike those this one is fun and doesn't ruin my day.

So I figure I will start tomorrow since today I pointed out all the aspects, and quite frankly I need to start getting my rest for prom because I have a feeling I am going to be wishing I had more sleep in me for it. 

Track

10 minute run

5x300s (65%, 80%, 100%)

Discus

Workout

3x(15,10,6)

Preacher Curl

Tricep Pressdowns

Seated Alternating Dumbbell Curls

Reverse Grip Pull Downs

Rope Hammer Curls

Tricep Dips

ABS

2x50

Russian Twists

2x20

45lb plate Oblique raises

Slow And Steady Gets The Gains

Now I know I said yesterday that I was going to talk about the dreaded "off" day, but then I realized yesterday was one of those mental parts of fitness so I decided you all needed to good healthy dose of physical fitness and science.

Sure we have all heard of plyometrics, in soccer or warm-ups or some sport, but have you ever heard of isometrics? Well you are going to hear about then and then some because they are good stuff man! So if plyometrics means an exercise in which muscles are repeatedly contracted and relaxed in a process to build muscle. So lets take a guess on isometrics. Static? YES! You workout but not by movements. Sounds wierd, yes. I know it is weird but I promise after an isometric workout for the first time you will say every curse word that there is in the freaking oxford dictionary. If anyone slaps me in the face this week I will know why and feel proud to have been smacked in the face.

So say we have legs to do and our exercise is the squat. Sure you can do your reps and sets, or you can isometric it up by holding each squat right above the lowest position for about 10 seconds and then back up and do it again. The whole goal is to keep our muscles contracted at their point of most resistance. Another example is holding a weight above your head with a straight arm for a minute. Sounds easy right? Try it, I dare you!

Now for the nerd aspect of it all, this is just another strategy of maximizing muscle growth. We normally work our muscle fibers by constricting and relaxing them, but when kept under extreme stress and tension for a prolonged period of time, it cause all new rips and tears in them. These new rips and tears that have not been experienced before will lead to massive growth. Remember that muscle fibers grow by damaging them so to speak. We stress them, then they rip and heal back bigger. But at the same time, they try to accommodate to what  they are being exposed to. So if you switch it up with isometrics, then cannot accommodate to the workout and you will keep adding muscle at an exponential rate.

Track

Discus and Shot Put practice

3 400s

3 300s

3 200s

(distance did 5 of the rounds, I did three but all the throwing still takes a little bit of a toll) I think in sake of my mile time I need to run all tomorrow and not throw)

Workout

Rest day! Well needed to. I was getting fatigued from day after day of track and working out.

It's A Mental Must

Back again to the old grind. Or should I say the old PUMP! That's juice head terminology for all of you jersey fans out there. But of ocurse none of us are of that life form, however I do like to follow the GTL lifestyle. It seems very simple and entertaining. My mother always said "beauty in simplicity".

So it has been said that the buddy system is best when going to the bathroom so nobody gets lost, but it is the same when working out! You don't want to get lost in your time or reps, so you have your buddy there to keep you going through it all. When you have a buddy to workout with, they can yell at you and ecnourage you to finish and get those last tough reps, or they can workout with you and keep the pace set and you can push each other.

Being men and full of testosterone, this is a great thing for me and my friends. We have an amazing competitive factor between us all, so when you see a friend next to you doing more push ups or doing them faster, you go faster so they can't beat you in the workout. It is simple psychology, men want to one up each other all the time.

Environment is everything when working too! So you have your buddy next to you pushing you along, but in those long and strenuous WOD's, nothing can keep you going better than some good music to keep that blood pumping in your brain. Your mind is the most powerful "muscle" in your body. Every workout depends on your mind set, so your brain is seen as a muscle in the fitness world, more so than a complex organ of nuerons and glia. But I am trying to avoid science on this entry so excuse my terms. So if you mind is happy and ready yo go, then your body will follow in behind it. So prepare your brain and keep it happy in your WOD to keep your muscling pumping just as hard as it.

Topic for tomorrow is the "off" day. we all dread it but they are a for sure occurence.

Track:

Practice Discus, using the full spin.

30 minute run

CrossFit

6 hills

WOD:

3 rounds AMRAP (reps)

45 seconds burpees
15 second rest
45 seconds thrusters 40lb dumbbells
15 second rest
45 seconds straight leg sit ups
15 second rest
45 seconds floor press 40lb dumbbells

Results: 

1- 71
2- 77
3- 71

Practical Power

Well here we are again with another day of fitness and blogging. I mean what more is there to life than those two things? I mean sure it is the cool thing to do to have a hot girlfriend and the play Call Of Duty Block Ops with the bros but neither of those come close to pure exercise and the rush it gives people... or maybe it is just me...

Time to do work son! So there are different types of strength out there. I mean you have people who can lift high volume (power lifters), endurnace (runners/cyclists etc...), and practical strength (CrossFit). Now sure someone can squat 400 pounds but is there a realife application for something like that? The answer is in 99% of people's lives, no. So what's the use in that kind of strength? To be honest it's only there for bragging rights which are pointless. CrossFit preaches that it's not how much or how many, but it is how fast. So the movements are onyl body weight lets say, but they are way more practical, for example, pull ups, push ups,unges, squat jumps all body weight. Now those will pay off when you are in daily life and playing sports or just walking up stairs. When will you ever have to push a 300lb board off your chest in real life? Never. The bench press movement is not a very practical one either. Now a push press can apply in lifting anything overhead or of that nature we all do sometime each month.

So the next time you are lifting, stray away from the olympic lifts and look for workouts that are more practical in movement nd weight. It is what us CrossFitters preach to all of those who follow us and has worked for us so well.

Now I realize I havent done a true WOD i quite some time and to be honest I have had impingement for a while so that put me out of commision and track is eating me up with time. But I assure you, that any spare time I have can be given to CrossFit!

Track

Discus practice. 96 feet
5 mile run at 65%

Workout

4x(10,8,8,8)

Squat Cleans
Sumo Deadlift
Side Squats
Squat Jumps
Isometric Squats ( hold at bottom position for 5 seconds)

CrossFit

Form Practice of Overhead Squat. Nobody likes them... NOBODY!