The training begins again....

I had injured myself many months ago. On top of that the summer was a bit rough around the edges for me. But now I think it's time to dedicate myself towards Ninja Warrior, give myself a solid six months of dedicated training toward this goal.

I don't have a girlfriend.

Lost a quarter of my friends in the breakup.

Most of my other friends are in dedicated relationships or work a holics, so most of them are not around.

I take Salsa classes once a week, practice Salsa at the club once a week. Every Sunday I do something "fun" and throughout the week I work, train private clients and workout. Trust me when I say I have a lot of time I can dedicate towards Ninja Warrior training and perhaps it's about time I did.

What is it going to take to do Ninja Warrior? Realistically what do I need to be in order to accomplish that goal, what kind of physical condition do I need to be in. 

If I was a super hero I need to have the abilities of  Spiderman and the rage/strength of the Hulk. Then I'd easily do Ninja Warrior, lol/

#1 - Low body mass to high strength ratio.

#2 - The ability to do a SHIT load of pull ups.

#3 - Finger grip strength.

#4 - Speed, lots of speed....

#5 - The ability to jump vertically and laterally. 

#6 - Endurance for two minutes of high intensity work.

I've got my goals, now to make a plan to get there.

Within Reach

Got a casting call today.... unfortunately even when I called back my head was so up in the air I was fumbling my words and felt like I was repeating myself, lol.

What can I do except give it my best. For some the spoken word is the sword that slices through the ears and mind of others, making or breaking there hearts. For others the worlds printed on page or screen brings upon a bubbling of excitement that fills them with the empowerment to move mountains.

And then there is me.

I get nervous and trip over my feet. I'm not a big show boat, I'm not an ego maniac I"m just like everybody else trying to claw and push their way towards the light. The thing thats special about me is, it's not a question of if I can do Ninja Warrior, the only question in my mind is WHEN I will complete Ninja Warrior. I have the confidence that with the proper training and time I can accomplish anything.

My submission Video

I just tried to keep it simple. No flips or just kicks or crazy things, just some basic stuff that I think are needed to be able to do Ninja Warrior.

Video Submitted

I've been quite this past week because I've been trying to just rest and relax my body/forearms, if I start blogging and reading about Ninja Warrior I'll get all pumped and wont' be able to sit still. So just relaxing for now, I haven't died or anything.

Come on video come on!

I've eaten like crap for the last week and completely toned back on my training to help my injury heal. Hopefully it will be enough because tomorrow I should have my video completed. I started reading about the competition on the forums and I get so freaking excited i just have to submit my video and go try out in florida.

ANW Video Preview part 1

Here is a video of exercise I'm using for my ANW video, I'll probably add a few more exercise and clip out some more of the snatches at the end. Then I need to add my before and after pictures, an introduction, ect... then it will be done.

It sucks because I can tell I've been binge eating the last couple of days, pizza TGI Fridays, ect, lol. I'll behave myself from now forward.

Makes me happy just to have something, even though I can do a lot more, stupid injury... I don't know why I have to look so angry when I"m working out, I'm really quite happy.

I'm going to finish the video and submit it, but my forearms are sore and tight this morning, there really still is a chance I won't be going. But I pretty much show all the basic components of ninja warrior. I'm going to add the lateral leaping part later along with jumping oh and of course finger pull ups I can do but again due to my injury the forearms kill after a few.

Filming so far so good

I think I've got almost everything I need for my submission, I think if I film like 2-3 quick things tomorrow I'll be  fine. Plus an intro.


I'm really going to try to show my personality in the video, I'm kind of goofy and one thing I've noticed about other Ninja Warrior submissions is NO ONE SMILES!!!! OMG this is suppose to be fun and excieting and everyone is so serious, they all look like they are taking a big dump while they work out. Not that I'm saying I'm any better, I look like the angry nintendo nerd that decided to go wookie on someone at the gym and tear some arms off.

my video plan so far.....


1. Introduction - who I am, where I live, why I want to do Ninja Warrior
2. What Ninja Warrior has done for me, inspiration, pictures of how fat I used to be ect.
3. What I do for a job, helping others, ect.
4. Epic Video montage with clips of me doing stuff..... just not sure what order of "stuff" yet.

• Lateral Pull Ups
• Pull ups and dips
• Explosive Pull ups
• Lateral Ice Skaters with the Kettebell
• Kettlebell Snatches
• Farmers Walks
• Battling Rope with plyometic lunges.
• Finger Push Ups
• Maybe some capoeira kicks and stuff.

That should all run under 5 mins and I'll be happy with that.

Once that done and if I get in, then I'll just need to find other people who want to car pool down and share in the expense in trekking down.

This year or next year?

This Friday and Saturday I'm going to run through a little training exercise I've come up with, its the kind of thing I wanted to submit as my video to the American Ninja Warrior 4 casting. I'll see how it comes out and based on that is if I decide to go for it or..... back off this year and try again next year.

It's just if I hurt myself worse than I already am, I am so fucked. But if I let it rest, I might be okay.

We will see how this weekend goes.

1 More Month of Training

This week I've got to film and submit my video.

Today my eating was spot on I had:

• Eggs and Almonds
• Salad w/ Ranch, 1 hamburg patty, chicken with marinara sauce and veggies.

And right now I'm drinking Endurox (a great post workout drink), since your cells are insulin sensitive after a workout, having the high glycemic carbohydrate drink with protein allows the cells to quickly absorb the nutrients and go from a catabolic state to an anabolic state.... which is what Endurox does.

As far as my workout goes, despite the 2 weeks of injury and 1 week of illness.... I'm still pretty strong. I was hitting about 9 or 10 explosive pull ups per set, which is right where I want to be. My only problem is once I stop the explosive pull up my forearms act up a bit. Not NEARLY as bad as it was, but there is some sharp pain, after a minute or two it seems to go away, thankfully.

Oh and ever since I've actually focused on some of the opposing muscle groups for the pull and vertical push, that is getting much stronger ever week. I still want to take a shot at 500 snatches but I suppose that can wait until tomorrow.

Lets make it real

I ate like crap this weekend, it's my girlfriends fault!

No its really my fault, the truth is once you know how to eat right, it doesn't matter where you are or whats available or offered to you, if you eat it and you know better ITS YOUR FAULT.

I have a 16 kg kettlebell and I kind of want to see if I can do 500 kettlebell snatches in an hour. I know the RKC is 100 52.5 pound kettlebell in under 5 mins.... but I don't have 52.5 and i definatly can't do 100 in under 5 mins.... YET.

But I might give that a try this week. In addition to shooting and editing all the parts of my video. Should be good. We will see how strong I really am, especially coming off of being so sick.

Going for the gold for the next couple of weeks of training. Because if I get into Ninja Wariror, well its at the end of March, got to give it my best.

Before and After

I decided to post my before and after picture, it will be something that I'll include in my Ninja Warrior video because I think it is important to see how far I've actually come.

Big difference hu? I have a lower body fat percentage that I did in 2008 right now, but I weigh more, built up a lot more muscle since then. :)

Food for - I forgot what I ate

Yup, can't remember what I ate yesterday, fish maybe? Don't know I was sick. I think there was clam chowder too maybe.

Anyways, better today, made it to the gym and...... didn't do to bad. Strength is returning, forearms feel 100x better than they did before. I don't really get any pain in my forearms until I either start doing inverted rows with my fingers or explosive pull ups (because of the impact coming back down takes a big hit on your grip).

But otherwise feeling pretty strong.

There was a discussion a while back about training, whats better weights or calisthenics (body weight exercises) and while I feel as though each has their own proper place in exercise and I never took one side or the other but here is what I came up with.....

Whether it is body weight training, kettlebells, dumbbells or plates, resistance is resistance, body weight generally having a very static amount of resistance. Now, provided that the exercise you are comparing incorporates the same set of muscle groups from one exercise to another, than the better exercise would be the one that challenges and stimulates muscle growth in the individual that's attempting the exercise.

For example, the core is active when doing a pull up, it is not that active with doing a pull down, however if you can't do a pull up, it doesn't matter if its a better exercise, you just can't do it. Also pull downs hit the muscles a little differently that pull downs do. GENERALLY, I do not like to do seated or lying exercises, I like the core to have an active role in every exercise I do, but I do find that can become a limitation in some instances.

If you can add additional resistance to a body weight exercise or make it easier using inclines or resistance bands, the body weight is going to be better. HOWEVER, there are just some things you can't do without external resistance and I think it naive to cut those exercise out completely just because you have a position of body weight or nothing.

I one day want to open up my own training studio. One where someone can come in, pick up there custom program at the desk and a trainer is always on hand to show you how to do the workout AT NO ADDITIONAL COST, thats right semi-private training is built into the normal gym membership, it might have to be more expensive than a normal gym membership, but I would rather pay a trainer whose going to take a client through a program designed for their body, their needs, than pay than group fitness instructors or front desk personal. I'm not knocking those two jobs, I just want a very different kind of gym. Back to the point, I'd like to primarily focus on people building up to that body weight manipulation strength, but for someone who is deconditioned, overweight and has postural issues..... your looking at a long road ahead.

Food Journal - 2/21

I've been sick, and when I'm sick soup and not eating go hand in hand.....

Breakfast
5-10 almonds

Lunch
Buffalo Chicken Salad

Dinner
Clam Chowder
2 cookies


Awesome right? .... :(

Massage me to happiness

Got a full body massage today and I feel 100 times better. My forearms keep getting better everytime I get work done on them. Which means back to the gym tomorrow! YA!!!


I'm hoping to squeeze in two more sessions before the regionals in Florida....

With any luck, this week of training will go really really well so that next week I'll be able to film, edit and post my entree.

That also means one more week on low carb and then I switch to nuritrent timing, ya for food! Even though my cheat days basically are nutrient timing, but whatever....

Injury Still Effecting Training

The strain or tear (I'm begining to think the latter more and more) that I suffered in the rock climbing gym in my forearms is still effects how my training sessions are going, and since there is such a focus on grip strength I may be in trouble come March.

Then again with the short amount of training and injury, for me to make it past the regionals would be pretty awesome.

Food Journal - 2/20

Breakfast
2 Egg Omlete with ham cheese and peppers

Snack
Chicken Salad

Lunch
Salmon, green beans, small sweet potato, 2 shrimp
2 oatmeal cookies

Dinner
Chicken Wings Bone In Honey Mustard
Frozen Yogurt Mint, with chocolate chips

See, injury + being sick = eating okay.

Food Journal - 2/19

Breakfast
Pork and some sort of Spanish wrap with beef in it.

Snack
Bacon 3 slices

Lunch
Frozen yogurt smoothy with banana and strawberry, 250-300 calories

Dinner
Fried Haddock with french fries.

Food Journal - 2/18

Breakfast
Salad with beans, ground been, guacamole and cheese

Snack
5-10 tortia chips with cheese

Lunch
5 ounces of frozen yogurt with cookie dough and whip cream
-thats bad right? Although I looked up the glycemic load of frozen yogurt and it was only 12...... an apple has a GI of 30 something......

Snack
I had about 8-10 mini eggs throughout the day, the chocolate cadberry kind.

Dinner
Salad with vinigret dressing
Chicken with mozzarella, spinach, brown rice and veggies
a MINI all american apple from UNOs.....
2 slices of gluten free pizza

For some reason by dinner I could not eat enough to be satisfied, I was so freaking hungry.

Food Journal - 2/17

This is why I want to keep a food journal because even thinking back like a day or two and I start to forget....

Breakfast
Ham and Cheese Omelet

Snack
Muscle Milk

Lunch
Chicken Chow Mein (Its chicken and veggies)
Egg Foo Young (Its basically a chineese omelet)

Dinner
Iceberg Wedge with Blue Cheese - I apparently get very sick after eating blue cheese
Broccoli and Cheese Soup

Food Journal - 2/16

Breakfast

• 2 Eggs

Snacks

• Low carb cereal bar thing
• Muscle Milk

Lunch

• Salad and grilled chicken

Dinner

• Hamburg patty with guacamole

I really REALLY need to eat more. Shame on me.... good thing I didn't work out. I'm really going to try and eat more today I promise, especially since i'm working out today.

Thinking outside the gaming box

Back when I would spend 5 days a week 2 hours a day doing Capoeira, the word muscle fatigue came to mind by the end of the class. But you wait maybe 20 mins after class and you'd be ready to go again.

Why is it then that with something like capoeira a person can go for a long period of time and then something like strength and conditioning training for the upper body, its like 10-15 mins and your like "okay moving on because that part is done...."

I think what I'm trying to get at is, capoeira is a martial art but its also a game, a fast kicking, makes you feel like your super human game. And while by the end of 2 hours your legs are roasted, the regular touch and go impact of capoeira is not completely devastating to the body.

Is it possible to make a "game" out of an upper body workout? Obviously for many after a few seconds of doing pull ups or swining from side to side your body is toast. Even for those training Ninja Warrior, high intensity training for a min and your toast. But what if it where possible to lower that intensity, make you physically lighter than you normally are?

Here me out while I ramble and put this all together in my head.

If you can't do a pull up you have two options, either you switch to a pull down cable OR you use a heavy resistance band to take some (or alot) of your weight away. At a certain body weight the later is a better choice of the two. What I'm proposing is why not create a game or some method of training using a cabling system that takes the weight and pressure off your body and allows you to use that upper body strength for longer periods of time.

Two options:

1. You could use the cable system to aid people in doing advanced calisthenic exercises, like pull ups, muscle ups, explosive kip ups, finger grip pull ups, and on and on and on....

2. You could use the cable system and make a game. Have you ever heard of the "Jump Gym" or "Sky High Gym"? They are facilities that have giant trampolines EVERYWHERE, so they play dodgeball or just jump all over the crazy place, it makes you feel super human (even if its just a moment). Why can't a game like that be made with a cable system? It doesn't have to be a crazy complicated game, but something good.... l

You'd need a safety harness and instead of a cable you'd need some type of resistance band to support your body and difference strength of resistance depending on your body weight and strength. The final piece you'd need is something to allow you to move around the room..... you know the part thats actually attached to the ceiling. If it where just a simple exercise something that doesn't move would be fine, but if it was some sort of game you'd need some sort of ability to shift the cable around in the ceiling..... that I'm not really sure how to do but I'm sure SOMETHING like that exists... like for high wire or something.

It could be like a zip line but then you can only move 2 directions. I think I have an idea for how you could move around the room all over the place but its too complicated for me to verbally explain, I've have to draw it out.

Food Journal - 2/15

Breakfast

• Almonds

Lunch

• 7 honey mustard wings with all the bone and fat included

Snack

• Muscle Milk

Dinner

• Hamburger patty with guacamole on top
• 2 sausages

I guess this makes up for the piles of food I ate yesterday. I really should be eating more. I just not hungry when I drink lots of water.

You can always learn more

Today was interesting, I've been reading up on a little more advanced program design. Primarily focused on how the body should be balanced in terms of muscular strength. For example, your biceps and triceps should have a 1:1 strength ratio. So if you curl 45 pounds, you should be able to do tricep extensions with 45 pounds.

The theory behind it is you body will only let you get so far off balanced before it just will not allow you to get any stronger. While obviously there are going to be genetic anomalies where the body will allow for a greater off balance of strength, focusing on the balance will allow you to gain strength in areas where you may have previously hit a platou.

I don't normally do curls in my workout but I gave it a shot. Using a one rep max calculator I can determine where these muscles actually fall into place. My 1 rep max for curls was 56 pounds, my 1 rep max for tricep extensions was about 25 pounds.....

Obviously 56 and 25 aren't even close. I don't know if I'll ever be at a 1:1 ratio in that department but I believe it builds a better and stronger body if the two muscle groups are closer in strength. My hope is that as I focus on developing my triceps more, that it will allow my biceps to increase in strength as well.

You know I'm wondering if a weak tricep is contributing to my issues with my grip strength? Very likely.

No, I'm not going to sit and just do tricep extensions with the dumbbell to make it stronger, I feel that there are other exercises that will better help me for Ninja Warrior.

I'm curious to see what my tricep extension with a cable strength is and curl strength with a cable. I'll take a little test with it tomorrow perhaps.


For the shoulder, the pull to push ratio should be 3:2. Now I can do pull ups with weight attached to my body, my 1 rep max is around 275, my STANDING overhead press is 118..... Not even close. My overhead press should be 183. I'm not entirely sure how I want to go about improving this ratio, but I really feel if I start to close that gap my pull up strength will improve.

Food Journal - 2/14

Obviously it being valentine's day I am going to go out and have a spectacular meal.... that being said.

Breakfast
2 Eggs Scrambled

Lunch
A plate and a half of random meat + veggies, went to the all you can eat buffet after my hair cut, the plate was not stacked crazy high or anything like that. I also had 2 Tbsp of apple pie and ice cream.....

Snack
Salad w/chicken

Dinner..... here we go....
2 bread rolls w/butter
cup of calm chowder with crackers
Pacific Salmon with pumpkin risotto and lobster coslaw
Apple Brown Betty (basically and apple crisp with ice cream)

Snack
About a half bag of cadberry mini eggs.

So it was all bad at the end. But this was planned/expected. From now until the 27th I'll be back on my low carbohydrate diet. After that I will spend a month on nutrient timing which should place me right at the door front of the regionals.

Found out that the regionals in Flordia will be the March 27-29 and the finals will be in Las Vegas April 21st and 22nd.

The plan is keep going on my low carb nutrition and workout plan from now until February 27.
From February 27-March 27 switch it up to nutrient timing and the workout plan will move into another phase.
Provided I make it past the regionals, From March 29-April 21, I will continue to do nutrient timing and focus the training more on rope climbing and finger grip strength.

By February 27 I should be well below 200 pounds, after that I'll film my video submission. If I do nutrient timing correctly, I could continue to change my body composition and change it as much as 4% from the time I submit my video to the time the regionals hit. AND THEN, I'm just going to pack on as much muscle as possible between the regionals and the finals (provided I make it).

I've come a hell of a long way in a short amount of time in terms of strength. However far I go in Ninja Warrior will not discourage me, in a years time of continuing my training program and nutrient timing I should be able to destroy that course next year. DESTROY.

Food Journal - 2/13

What I ate today:

Brunch

• Hamburg patty with cheese
• 2 hot dogs (obviously no bread with either)

Snack

• Oatmeal cookie (just one)
• Muscle Milk

Dinner

• 2 Egg spinach and fetta omelet

Snack

• Some sort of Atkins Day Break cookie thing w/ 1-2 slices of apples

I keep on going through my head to come up with what the hell else I ate and..... nothing. I just drank lots of water all day long. So note to self eat more food, I mean I know I'm trying to cut weight but this is not the best way to do it. What can I say I just was not hungry and I worked out today.

Tomorrow I will eat well for sure. Going out for a nice dinner on a date.

And the grip is

I took it light today, didn't push it to hard and things are feeling and working pretty well. Felt a little strain in my forearms with when I started to get past 7 close grip pull ups (very little), did some other grip and other kb swings, snatches ect. And things are looking pretty good. I'm going to focus on taking it easy all week, then take it up a little bit next week and by the end of the month I should be well beyond where I was before I got injured.

YA! :)

With all the lifting and hand grip strength I've been doing. I helped someone move this weekend and it was incredibly easy. I guess if I was going to get a full time job other than training, that lifting different shape boxes and objects would be the way to go. Like a mover, or UPS box handler or construction worker, someone who is just constantly working their grip building clutch grip of steel.

Weekend of eating and recovering

Due to my overworked forearms I took the weekend completely off, went a little laxed on my nutrition and just let me forearms completely rest.

Over the weekend I had a quesadia (steak) some eggs with home fries stirfry whole wheat blueberry pancakes and frozen yogurt....

Not all at once and not all in the same day.

And it got me thinking, I should probably start tracking and posting what I'm eating, so I'm going to start posting that as well. I'm being hopeful to todays workout that I've let the arms recover enough to ease into them. When recovering from an injury its important to start off easy and work your way up, I can't blast myself right out of the gate otherwise I'm going to start back at square one.

I've also taken up another precaution and that is getting a massage every other week, the one I got was so hard on my body I was almost yelling. (and trust me I'm no wimp) BUT IT HURT LIKE CRAP.

Wish me luck.

TGIF

Been busy today cleaning, throwing stuff out, packing stuff up, selling stuff on eBay, so I haven't really eaten too much and thats when horrible cravings start. This is one of the reasons why having all your meals pre-done and ready to be rehashed and eaten is paramount when trying to be on a successful diet.

Pizza, nachos, anything I'd eat right about now and be satisfied. I'm not gonna, and it sucks something awful. I did just have some sausage and hamburg in some marinara sauce.... didn't cut it!

Going a long period of time without food is a good setup to failure.

Maybe I'll go have a tuna or chicken salad to help satisfy the hunger. I'm not working out today, I'm going to let my forearms rest another day before I use them. A friend wants me to help him move tomorrow, he doesn't seem to understand that if I'm not lifting weights, I'm certainly not lifting furniture.


Some TGI Fridays would be good, potato skins.... haven't had them in so long. NO! NO! NO!

SALAD with chicken or tuna!

Massage

My massage got bumped up to today which means hopefully I'll be able to workout tomorrow or Saturday at the latest.

I hurt like hell today, my body has been so banged up over the last month. It really makes me wonder what other people's body look like / condition there is if they aren't getting any work done on their body.

I highly recommend if your training for ANYTHING, getting a massage like once a month. As far as Ninja Warrior and I go, I'll be getting one like every other week. If I can keep my body as healthy as possible while working out my physical gains should continue to be exceptional.

Especially when my nutrition switches to a more nutrient timing diet. Makes me wonder how all the other competitors are doing, do they just have a natural gift to eat whatever they want and do and couple of pull ups and BAM super human strength? Or are a few of them like me where every time I sit in front of a meal I have to look at it and think "OKay is this going to help me achieve my goal of Ninja Warrior or hurt?" And then days I have to go to the gym and I don't feel like working out or doing one more rep or set and I have to challenge myself "do you really want to be on Ninja Warrior, yes or no?"

To which I always answer a resounding, yes.

Push hard, don't give up.

Not much happening today

Finally have a massage for my forearms scheduled tomorrow. VERY HAPPY, I need it so bad that its actually inhibiting my workouts significantly.

Since I'm a little detailed on what I want to do for a workout, I've been working on my kettlebell swings and snatches, it doesn't seem to kill my forarms and helps with my girp, so win-win.

Thats about it, weight is continuing to come down nicely, my explosive and overall strength seems to continue building through the roof. I'm really hoping that once the forearm issue is corrected I'll be able to move forward and at the end of the month film my video for G4 and get on the show.

Right now my training has been focused on a lot of raw strength and a little bit of cardio. Next month I'll focus of more endurance and speed. (yes I said it endurance and speed in the same sentence, it can happen!) This will all be possible because I won't be focusing on so much of weight cutting. Depending on how long of a wait between the video I make and actually (hopefully) being on the show, you will probably see a 10 pound muscle gain in that time. I'm hoping that by the end of the month I'll be able to get down to 190 or lower, I think I'm at 206/207 right now, and then next month just eat to gain strength and muscle....

.....I don't mind having Popeye like forearms.

Video Submission Planning

For Ninja Warrior I have to submit a < 5 min long video that... hold on let me get the quote....

"States my full legal name, age, where i'm originally from, where I live, occupation, married/single and if I have kids. nickname, why I think I can be the next american ninja warrior, demonstrate my physical strength, be visually impressive and interesting."

I don't have a camera, so I'm going to have my brother record everything from his iphone 4sgx9er turbo fighting hyper edition phone, or whatever and use a little adobe premier to cut it all (yes I've made videos before).

Basically the plan is a voice over into that has a little feeling, a little slowness in it kind of what you see from a Nike comerical, you know there working out but its all slow and sweaty or something. The voice over (me) will talk introduce who I am, why I go into fitness, show a picture of what I used to look like and then show a uncut 3 minute circuit of me doing the core elements of Ninja Warrior, talking about how I broke down the course, yada yada.....

And at the end the link to my blog.

Something like that, I think a little more effort should be put into it instead of just "here is me doing flips and lifting cars and shooting fireballs!!!!!! ARGGHHHH!!!" although shooting fireballs would have me sold on the casting couch.

I'll think about what I want to show a little more when I'm at the gym today, I think my forearms are going to be a constant pain until I get them massaged out, but I have no money at the moment so not much I can really do right now is there!  :(

Cardio on off days

My workout went okay today, I felt much stronger than previous weeks, my kip up (explosive pull up) went much better, I was doing 50 lbs attached at my hip with some close grip pull ups. Unfortunately I tried to do some finger grip stuff and could feel the pull in my forearms....

:(

Well I'll stick to only 3 days of pure resistance training, but tomorrow I'm going kettlebell swings for cardio.

I'm listening to this strength and conditioning pod cast and I like what they have to say, "if its important, do it everyday, just change the intensity, exercise order, reps, rep range, and don't go to failure." I kind of like that.

http://traffic.libsyn.com/strengthcoachpodcast/Episode_90.5-_Strength_Coach_Podcast.mp3

Have a listen, I really like this pod cast in general. But this one happens to be about Kettlebell Certification.

Back to the workout

Alright, back to the three day workout this week. I'll give it a shot today, I can feel the forearms are better but still a little strained, I'm going to try to get a massage and get everything worked out as soon as I have some extra money.

I cheated on my diet this weekend, it was the super bowl and I wanted to miss behave, no alcohol or anything like that just chips and dip and some cupcakes.

Back to the dietary plan like normal today though, I figure I should be on this plan until the last week of the month and then after that change it up to a more nutrient timing nutritional plan.

They say that you are only as strong as your weakest link. And I very much appreciate that saying. I remember when I was taking Capoeira, I started wearing 5-finger Vibram shoes (total barefoot), and how much strong my foot strength became in such a short amount of time and how I could tell in Capoeira the different some foot strength really made to what I was doing. Ever since then I've thought a great deal about training and that perhaps more of a focus on hand and foot strength should be included in a program. It is so some extent but its kind of like a "wave as we drive by, you get it but we aren't stopping for picture".

I guess what I'm trying to say is, if my grip is strong, then my back and everything else should be strong as well.

Taking a nap and then working out.

Wish me luck, I can already feel strain in my forearms just thinking about what I need to accomplish today for a workout.

Gym Test 1, 2, 3

After failing out even before getting through half my workout on Thursday, taking Friday completely off and eating a few extra carbohydrates all wrapped together by sleeping in until almost 3 in the afternoon on Saturday....

...I'd say my body was tired.

I'm going to make an attempt today I break a few muscle fibers and see how that goes. Just a few light things I can do that doesn't tax my grip too much. My girlfriend tells me "I hate when you lose weight because your chest shrinks." So perhaps I'll do a little chest overloading today to give it a slight pump plus a few other push and leg exercises, going to try to stay away from anything that challenges the grip strength but the pull up bar calls to me as soon as I walk into the gym.

Monday my re-revised program will kick in. 3 days a week. Each day a full body workout. Only once a day and if I want more than that it has to be cardio. Can't burn off another week like this one because my grip fails.

Tassadar has failed us

My grip strength completely failed today. I was about half way through my workout doing finger push ups before the shooting pains from my hands, up my forearms I couldn't take anymore and had to stop or potentially risk serious injury. :(

Went to the mall and one of those Asian massage therapy places and had them massage my forearms for 15 mins, then went do to Brookstones and used the hand massager on my forearms, they are sore but feel better. My hope is that after a night of rest I'll be recovered and be able to continue working out on Saturday at the latest.

I think I'm going to have to tone it down, I just over worked myself last week with all my regular workout stuff plus the rock climbing gym. The rest of me feels fine and strong, except my forearms.

Rest.

I usually go to this really nice place for my massage but they don't do 15 minutes and I needed something ASAP. So I'm in this place in the mall, with my face down and the women walks away from me to the counter and breaks the loudest fart I think I've ever heard in a retail setting. Like if you work retail and you have to let one go you let it out slow or go to the bathroom or something but don't let it all out rip in front of customers that's just messed up.

I've been consuming under 50 grams of carbohydrates for a few days now, probably part of the reason I'm having such a hard time recovering. (this is why nutrition is so important!) And I started thinking about spiking blood sugars, fat/digestion and muscle replenishing and I came up with a few questions / points I need to research the answer too.

• Depending on the carbohydrate type and number of carbs, how much do I need to take before my body is kicked out of fat burning mode and into fat storing mode? IE when insulin decides it needs to come out and mess everything up.
• Fat slows down the digestive process, that way your blood sugar doesn't get spiked too quickly. How many grams of fat does it take to cause a significant enough slow down to eat "X" number of carbohydrates?
• How much glycogen do "X" exercise expend per rep/set/% of 1 rep max?
• How much protein absorption can the muscle take after a work out when the body is trying to refill glycogen stores?
• How many carbs -> glycogen do our bodies actually store, I know its stored in the muscles and liver but how much? What the "number"?

I have questions and I'm searching for answers, I don't know if I'll find them, but I dam well is going to try, because my forearms just hurt too much to do anything else, including type anymore.....

Working Out

My forearms are still tender to touch.

I made it through one workout yesterday, the change in my program felt really good and I was in and out of the gym in an hour. A little about how I've designed this batch of the month program:

First I designed it so that if I wanted to do 2 workouts in a day I could.

There are only 6 exercises in each workout right now. They are divided up as follows:

1A. Explosive Exercise.
---2 Mins of rest between each set.

2A. Upper Body Strength Exercise.
2B. Lower Body Strength Exercise
---1 min of rest between each set.


3A. Upper Body
3B. Core or Grip
3C. Lower Body
----30 seconds of rest between each set, no rest between each exercise.

Basically what I've done is start with a power/explosive exercise in my workout, follow it up by two big strength drivers, compound movements usually back to back. And lastly I circuit which helps boost my metabolism.  Now right now my carbohydrate intake is very low and I really can't press much more than this per workout, everything is done hard fast and intense. Next month, if I still need to lose some more fat, I will increase the circuit from 3 exercises to 5 exercises. If I need to gain more strength, I'll take the circuit away and actually have two more strength exercise modules.

Why only 6 exercises per workout? Because I leave nothing left, I go as hard and as fast/controlled as I can. So that even after what looks like on paper to be a "short" workout, I am sitting on the bench DESTROYED.

I've thought about this quite a bit, I don't have a mock course in my basement, no gym in my area has replica pieces of the course and the rock climbing gyms/regular gyms are pretty bare bones. The limited equipment I have I just have to run with, and push myself so hard that when G4 sees my video they go "what the hell is this? it's just a video of him laying on the floor sweating all over the place for 5 mins!?" lol... jk  But seriously, it will show just how hard I work every single day of training and how every meal I eat (4-6 of them a day) are all dedicated towards getting my ass on that course.

Forearms

Went to the rock climbing gym this past weekend. They have a super thin edging that I still can not pull myself up on. Its less than the first section of my finger. If I can get past the first section of my fingers to the second section then I can pull myself up. Which makes me wonder how far out does the ultimate cliff hanger come out?

According to the wiki, the first is 2cm and then 3.2cm....

Which is 0.8 inch to 1.2 inchs.... dam more finger strength to work on.

Back to the good news of this weekend. I was very happy with my overall back strength and crushing grip strength. I also got to use this WONDERFUL little toy:

Forearm Pain Roller



It was wonderful. I need one, not even want, NEED.

Working out has consumed me again

When someone first starts working out, often times they get "bit by the fitness bug". Because of a combination of hormones released when working out, the satisfaction of accomplishing something and just the overall enviorment of the gym, people can get addicted to working out.

That addiction overtime fades for some, becomes habit for others. It faded for me a long time ago, I had nothing to train for, nothing to really look forward too, and such I started drifting away from kicking ass and taking names in the gym. Slowly and surely, becoming weaker and gaining fat.

But after putting off dedicated Ninja Warrior training for so long, this year I decided to go for it, and I started training in the beginning of January and in just a short amount of time have had leaps and bounds in terms of strength gains.

Today I'm suppose to rest and all I can think about is "I need to go work out." Physically I do not need to workout right now, I should rest, but mentally all I want to do is go workout, I have been bitten by the fitness bug again. It's a wonderful feeling, you have a goal everyday, something you can look forward too, but I can feel the tension in my forearms from all the grip strength I've done and I need to get a massage.

This is why I need to plan the double daily workouts, because mentally I NEED IT. lol

Rest and eat.... maybe I can do some high intensity cardio? I could do that. That would be okay. Some jump roping, sprints and capoeira. ya..... no weights.... no pull ups..... stay away....

Rest

I'm taking a shot at my changed nutritional plan and I've noticed a singular flaw....

I hate whey protein with water. It is what I would IMAGINE the brown poopy water tastes like after dropping a turd in the toilet.

It's that bad.

But I need to drink lots of water, because hydrated muscle cells are anabolic (meaning they grow) and dehydrated muscles are catabolic (meaning they eat themselves). And I want to grow, not shrink.

I tried doing something that resembles a workout and it was hard to grip dumbbells. lol So I'm going to TRY and take tomorrow off from working out. TRY!!!

I could try almond milk or coconut milk instead of the water.... ugh.... either that or I could go back to eating hamburgers all day long. I call it the cheese burger diet, I would be at least 3-4 burgers a day plus other foods and lose weight. Take that traditional nutrition!

Take off tomorrow, go to rock climbing gym on Saturday, maybe film my progress and then Monday kick it on my new program. I have to have a video submitted by March 8th to get into these regional matches. The one closest to me is in Florida.

I've watched a lot of the video that people submit and some people are doing crazy flips and falls and jumps, which is totally awesome and I greatly respect but..... what does that actually have to do with the Ninja Warrior course? Not really sure, most of it is all about grip strength, so more power too you for the flips but, thats just not for me.

Next Phase Nutrition

I'm in the middle of making modifications to my next phase workout plan and nutrition, I'm trying to get more of the desired effect of weight cutting plus strength gaining. Now when I've done low carb right in the past I've continued to become stronger and stronger as long as I drink enough water. So I'm going to take another shot a low carb nutrient timing because despite all the upper body and grip strength I'm gaining, I could do a hell of a lot better with a little less weight and the same amount of muscle.

Here is what I'm looking at eating starting.... next week at the latest.

Breakfast
2 Egg Omelet + 1 slice ham + 2 slice cheese + 1/4 green pepper.


Morning Snack
1 scoop Whey Protein Shake + water.

Lunch
2 Cup Romaine Lettuce, 2 tbsp Mayo, 1 can Tuna Fish, Italian Dressing.

Afternoon Snack
1 scoop Whey Protein Shake + water.

Dinner
12 oz Steak, 2/3 cup Mixed Veggies, 2 tbsp butter.

Post Workout Meal for each time I workout
Quaker Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal, 1 scoop Whey Protein, 1/2 cup Hemp Milk.

The total count: 2850 Calories, 150g Fat, 90g Carbs, 12g Fibers, 224g Protein, 35g Sugar

More than half the carbs come from the post workout meal. Same with the sugars. I'm sure I'll occasionally switch the Steak for hamburger and the tuna fish for chicken.

Another good question to ask is what is this daily meal plan going to cost me? I wonder myself so lets price it out:

1 dozen eggs = $4 (I like my cage free)
16 slices of ham = $2.50
1/2lb of cheese = $3
1 green pepper = $0.90
5lbs Whey = $53
Romain Lettuce = $3
Tuna Fish 1 can = $1
Italian Dressing = $4.50
Steak (each) = $6
Mixed Veggies (4 servings) = $2
Butter = I don't but it but we always have it in the house.
Milk = $2.5
Oatmeal  10 pack = $2

Lets do a little math:

1.31 Breakfast
1.43 Morning + Afternoon Snacks
2.38 Lunch
6.50 Dinner
1.22 Post Workout
1.22 Post Workout 

$14.06 to eat per day.... which would be severely lowered if I didn't eat steak. I'm sure I'll rotate between chicken and hamburg.

2 workouts today, sort of

I worked out twice today and I learned a valuable lesson....

Don't workout your grip twice in one day. Don't do it, it hurts, lol. I've got to do a little more research on recovering hand health.

Ya, 2 workouts today, going to put a cap of 6 exercises per workout to start, go intense and go hard, the other part of that is going to be grip strength limited to either once a day or every other day, my poor body just can't take much more than that unless I can make my callus heal faster.  Maybe some ice?

Today I took a shot at doing farmers walks with the trap bar using the eagle claw (which is only a 4 finger grip) and I was able to do 225 pounds!!!

I can feel how much stronger my grip strength, hands and back are getting, I'm very certain I'm on the right path when it comes to training, I just have to push it harder and make sure my nutrition is spot on.

All I can do is train

The more and more I read other forums and things online I notice that California has all kinds of home built Ninja Warrior training courses and stuff. On the upper east coast we've got nothing except a few rock climbing gyms.

My hands hurt today, this is why.....

See those lumps under my figures? Ya they are sore. Those are call calluses. I train my grip strength with everything I possibly can, but at some point your hands are just plain tired (that's mine right now!).

I've been looking around playgrounds lately looks for the monkey bars and other things that will help me with Ninja Warrior, I just really and truly think that if you can hold on long enough with either your crushing grip, pinch grip or finger grip that the rest of you body can do just about anything.

In terms of strength, in 2010, the most amount of pull ups I could do was 20 something, wide grip, all the way down, all the way up pull ups, and with some considerable speed. I stopped training for a while and when I started training for Ninja Warrior earlier this year I could a whole 4 and they hurt. Today I'm happy to report I busted out 12 without an issues and that wasn't even really pushing that hard. What I'm trying to say is, the strength is coming back and its only been 4 weeks!

I've been thinking about the doubling up on the daily workout program design and I've got a plan. I'm going to create a program that can be done either 2 a day or 1 a day, but plan it as if I was working out six sessions a week. That way if I feel like only working out once in a day, I can, if I feel like doing two, I can, I have stuff planed out and have the flexibility to just keep training. The most important aspects of the training will be in the beginning of the week, the extra stuff will head later and later on in the week. Which the double phase of my program will begin.... next week!

Is it bad that when I'm training I repeat to myself, "don't break your fingers, don't break your fingers..."

I watch some of the old submission videos for Ninja Warrior and I see how AMAZINGLY strong some of the people in those video are and I think to myself "this guy is so strong and he couldn't do it, what makes me think that I can do what he couldn't!?"  And thats when I had a very unique thought, maybes its the same kind of idea that people who hold world records have, that deep down they believe that they are capable in doing something no one else have, that inside they have a faith in something that no one else can see, no one else can do, but believing in themselves that they can conquer anything. Perhaps that is the true definition of a champion. Saying to oneself, without ego, that I can and will accomplish what those before me have not.

I'm not training against an obstacle course, I'm training against myself. Everyday I workout, every piece of food I eat, every hour of sleep I get, I training to conquer myself.

Supliments

I never made it to a workout this weekend. But I did sign up for the 24/7 gym yesterday!

One thing that got me thinking over the weekend was some soreness in my fingers and forearms which is to be expected when training for Ninja Warrior and then it occurred to me that I should be taking a certain supplement that I haven't been.....

Fish Oil!

Fish oil is really good to take and really good for joint recovery. And I should be taking it, you should too even if you aren't training for Ninja Warrior!

There are a few other supplements that I take. I take a multivitamen called Optimen, I take it because it seems to have EVERYTHING. Now the package says take 3 tablets for one serving, I do NOT do that. I take one tablet in the morning and one tablet with my after workout shake, why? Well my after workout shake is designed to spike my sugar and rush nutrient to muscles and other vital areas.... so.... more  vitamins to more places that need it.

I usually take some extra vitamin D, because we just don't get enough sunlight.... (especially when your a gamer).


I take Whey protein, talk about the corner stone of my diet.

I'll take Casein protein sometimes after a workout mixed with the Whey and sometime before bed. The difference between the two are Casein is a slow releasing protein, while whey gets used much faster. The idea behind the casein is your body is not eating anything else while your sleeps so that nice slow release for the muscles is perfect. Its good for post workout too.

In my whey protein and casein are BCAAs and glutamine, I use a brand of whey called ON or Optimum Nutrition, it tastes good and seems to always have all the extra stuff I want in it.

That's it. I drink a lot of orange juice with my after workout shake so inadvertently I'm in taking a lot of vitamin C. I've already workout today, but may workout again later today because of my missed day last week. If I do it will help me mentally prepare for the potential hurting that will come next week with 2 workouts a day.

This weekend I'll try to film and post my first "testing of goals", it gauges were I am with how strong I need to be for Ninja Warrior. Just to give an example of how I'm doing so far, today I Farmers Walked 100 pound dumbbells in each hand. Let say American Ninja Warrior tryouts are mid May to mid June, thats 20-24 weeks away. If I where to increase my strength every week by 5 pounds, thats only 2.5 pounds more in each hand that 50 pounds in 20 weeks, which would put me at my goal of 3/4 my body weight in each hand for farmers walks.

And that is the real secret to it all. Stop thinking about how far you have to go with something and start looking at it at what kind of BABY STEP do you need to take in order to get to your goal. A 2.5-5 pound increment may not seem like a lot, but like the math above, multiply that by 20+ weeks and you've got yourself 50 pounds....

My forearms are hurt.... I farmer walked and deadlifted  315 today, you know let break down that one too. 315 deadlift, the goal is 400 (this all assumes that by the time Ninja Warrior happens I'll have dropped my weight from 210ish now to 200 ANW time). Thats a 85 pound different, which means I need to up it by 5 pounds every week..... see, easy.

End of a long weekend

Been a long couple of days, between the snow storm and relationship storm, but all that seems to have quieted down now. Sadly I never made it to the gym this weekend. Which is why I'm signing up for the 24/7 gym tomorrow.

Secondly after great consideration about the two workouts a day three days a week, I'm doing it. Why not. I feel as though the pluses are going to be pretty big. I just have to plan my nutrition out, it has to be spot on or I will not be able to recover properly.

This week is my last week of the first phase of my workout program, at the end of this week I'll take my little Ninja Warrior test and post it on youtube so everyone can see how I'm doing, plus I'll also add information about where I am versus where my goals are and if I have until May/June, can I make it to my goals in time for the competition.

I don't know why I just really feel confident about being able to reach my goals and do this. Its funny that the only part of all these I'm really worried about is the $700 dollars to get to California.

Need to join the 24 hour gym

Last night into this morning it snowed like planet Hoth over by where I live. I can hear the plows driving up and down the street. I have to go to the bank and the gym today, I was thinking I should probably also sign up for the 24 hour gym today as well, because days like this, where right now weather conditions are bad, but later it will be all cleared up. And I'm sure later will come after my normal gym is closed.

I think the the type of exercise program I've committed to have a complete day of rest in between each workout day has been doing me a lot of good. I'm not getting that overworked or fatigue feeling. Even my hand strength seems to have enough ample time to recover and re-cooperate. A good thing seeing as those little joints, tendons and muscles are so weak compared to everything else.

One odd thing about my program design that I think is going to help a lot with muscle development that I didn't think of before is the way I'm pairing exercises together. Let me explain. When you workout, you breakdown muscle fibers, after your workout these muscle fibers rebuild stronger and bigger than before (hopefully at least). I have a program that combines different modalities (push, pull, legs) together in order to balance out my program and not max myself out in any given day. But later in the week I change up my pairing, so one day I might pair pull/legs and later I'll pair up push/pull and so on. I'm thinking that this mixing up the method is creating stronger muscle fibers and tissue like a spider web. (hear out my theory) Pretend the muscles are pieces of fabric and our workouts rip the fabric in half, then our recovery/nutrition stitches them back together stronger than before. So on a pull/leg day these fabrics that normally aren't that well stitched together are getting pulled apart and restitched across the body making a strong web of muscle fibers. But later in the week I'm ripping apart some of those fabrics we just stitched earlier in the week with other fabrics....

You see what I'm getting at? Instead of just using the same method of working out day in and day out, I'm mixing it up so that I can recruit other muscle fibers in a hope that when they restitch back together they are stronger than just working out the muscle groups the exact same way every time. Sure I'm using the same exercises from week to week, but the combinations vary.

Back to today, breakfast, bank, gym and then the world can be my oyster.

Rough Week

The downfall to any diet, I don't care who you are, generally tends to be emotional eating, when times get tough, we like to reach for that delectable snack.

I'll admit to being no different, this will be the second day this week I'm having what I would consider a bad meal.... pizza!

I've been really good today, topping the day off with pizza is not the wisest of moves but, I'm ready to jump back on the band wagon in the morning and stick to my guns. Earlier today my brother ate a waffle infront of me and I stayed away. But right now, pizza = comfort. And this is exactly why I need a 24/7 gym, because its times like right now where if I could have a quick snack and go workout I'd be very happy.

Back to talking about food, I've been thinking about this whole double workout thing more and more and I'm wondering if I'm going to be able to consume the nessary amount of food to keep up that kind of intensity and keep up that kind of recovery. I'm going to sit this weekend and see if I can come up with a more specific meal plan to achieve that goal rather than just a general rule of thumb for eating.

I'll draw up some plans and see what becomes of it all. If I can properly recover from one workout to the next then I'd be okay....

I guess it all depends on where I'm at, at the end of this month in terms of strength/goals. I'll come up with a nutrition plan and workout plan for both single day workouts and double day workouts. Always have a plan.

Boston to California Round Trip + 5 night hotel

I have a strong feeling that American Ninja Warrior will once again have open try outs. That being the case, they should be sometime in mid-end May or June. From what I've read from previous ANW competitions, they have tryouts for two days and then on the weekend they have the finalists do whatever it is they do.

Between a 5 night stay at a hotel and a round trip plane ticket from Boston to California, according to Expedia it will cost about $700. Which I don't think is that bad if I start putting some money together now (which I have none of but whatever!)

Plus the cost of eating. Plus the cost of transportation. You might as well say I'm going to need a full grand for this trip.

Fabulous.

Well if I went with someone, the hotel cost would be cheaper.
If I stayed with someone there would be no hotel costs at all!

Or a I could drive, at about 30 miles per gallon, which would be 103 gallons of gas @ $3.40 per gallon. That's $350.... which is just as much as the plane ticket. I guess that would only be better if I was going with someone, but my potential someone isn't interested in talking to me right now. So.....

Plane ticket is looking like a must, although I have always wanted to travel across the USA and see all the cool things I could during a week long trip. But then I've have to stay at a hotel here and there and that could jack up the price, but the experience might be worth it. Ummmm.......

So many possibilities when you begin to open up your mind and think outside the box.

Getting that strong feeling....

My grip strength among other types of strengths that I'm training, is getting stronger, noticeably. I'm no way near how strong I need to be for Ninja Warrior (yet) but i'm working on it!!!

I saw a guy today do Farmers Walks with 305 pounds..... he weighed 210. It was inspiring.

As I've mentioned before, at the end of this month I'll put myself though the "test run" to see where my strength is at. Then I'll throw a math equation on top of it all to determine whether or not I'll be able to compete in Ninja Warrior with the enough strength.

American Ninja Warrior try outs from last year where in May, lets say the middle of May, so at the end of January that gives me 16 more weeks of training. Not including cardio, doing 3 work outs a week that would be 48 workouts, now if I did two workouts 3 days a week then that would be 96 workouts....

The thing is you DO NOT GROW DURING A WORKOUT, you grow in the 24-48 hours AFTER the workout. A lot of people don't seem to understand that simple concept, some think that when they workout they are getting stronger EVERY SECOND.......

This is why your nutrition is so super important. You want to load some food in to give you strength during your workout, then you want to feed that muscle and growth the many many hours afterwards. The cool part about having two workouts a day is I'd get to eat more! ...... its not really all its cracked up to be, you actually get tired of eating at some point.

My brother has one of the new iphone's I think when the time comes to "test where I'm at" I'll take him to the gym with me and have him record the test, then splice it all the bits together. Each month I can visually compare how I'm doing in addition to the actually numbers of reps and weight. Sometimes just the smooth look of the exercise can make a difference.

It's funny my girlfriend is big into pull ups and she saw me watching Ninja Warrior one day and was like "that looks awesome" and I told her "they have a women's one too" and she watched it, and saw how much balance was involved and immediately was like "fuck that."

Speaking of balance, at the gym I tried one of the indo board balance traininers, they look like one of these:

I was thinking to myself, "hey I'll give it a try I've got to test out my balance and work it up" I slipped and fell on the side of my ass in a 1/2 second.  I'm sure the whole gym saw but I didn't hear any laughter and no one ran over to me, so maybe those who saw me just thought I was doing capoeira or something (I do that in the gym often) so ya.... second time around was much better I started with the wall as my guide first instead of jumping on it.

Planning Future Workouts

All the workouts I do have a plan behind them, I don't just do random exercises with whatever "looks good". I carefully chosen exercises that I fell will best help me towards my Ninja Warrior goals.

I had an initial plan for the rest of the month (which I'm going to stick with) and  a workout plan for future months, but I have since been revising some of those future plans ever since I meticulously went through the most recent season of Ninja Warrior and broke down the stages again (see previous blog posts). Now my original plan is not that far off, but I do feel like the revised plan is better. And then I started thinking back to when I was heavily training Capoeira.....

Back when I was doing Capoeira, I came up with the crazy idea that I was going to start to do weight training in the morning for an hour and then Capoeira at night for 2 hours. For a little over 2 weeks, I did 3 weight training days, 2 cardio days, and 5 Capoeira days. I was working my ass off, all while having a 9-5 job. Just be on those two weeks my body called me up and said "stop what your doing your killing me." I remember sleeping a Saturday away.....

I used to design workout programs with full body workouts and each full body workout would have a major load on one part of the body more than the others. Now for clients I still design this type of workout when they only workout once a week. Hit the whole body and whatever they can get in during the week is bonus. But for someone working out two days a week I take a more athletic approach by doing one day with Pull and Knee Dominate exercises and the other day with Push and Hip/Hamstring exercises.

Right now I've got a 3 day weight training with 1 day of cardio, but the thought has crossed my mind of doing 2 workouts a day 3-4 days a week, I could go with two different options:

Option 1:
Day 1: AM = Pull/Knee Dominate PM = Push/Hip+Hamstring
Day 2: Rest
Day 3: AM = Pull/Knee Dominate PM = Push/Hip+Hamstring
Day 4: Rest
Day 5: AM = Pull/Knee Dominate PM = Push/Hip+Hamstring

Option 2:
Day 1: AM = Pull/Knee Dominate PM = Cardio

Day 2: AM = Push/Hip+Hamstring PM = Cardio
Day 3: AM = Rest
Day 4: AM = Pull/Knee Dominate PM = Cardio

Day 2: AM = Push/Hip+Hamstring PM = Cardio


One thing you want to stay away from is over training, while to some extent volume can be good, you body can only take so much before it says "F U I'm going on strike"...... But at the same time if I could get more in a shorter amount of time SAFELY, then it might be worth the extra work.

Oh and BTW, unless your nutrition is totally awesomely perfect (unlike how mine was yesterday) don't ever think about doing the above mentioned, you'll injure yourself pretty quickly.

My problem is there are just so many video games and stuff around the house to do before your like "OMG OMG OMG OMG I need to get out of here and go to the gym or do something!" That's the real reason why i've considered it, kill some time and all.

Still thinking about it..... we will see....

Bad Day

My nutrition today was bad, why am I writing about this? Well because I've got to account for all the bad days I've had in terms of working out and eating. That way if I'm not hitting my goal I can look back and go, "well I haven't reached my goal because I haven't been doing what I need to do..."

Today I had oatmeal with caramel and ice cream, gluten free pizza and fried dough with apples and ice cream.

Really bad day with food, really bad.

I feel awful. Tomorrow back on track for sure. Its important to admit when you mess things up.

Oh and to boot I didn't workout. Double bad.

Stage 3 & 4 + Goals

Breaking down the last two stages

Stage 3:

Bike Rotation with your arms: Crush Grip Closed Hand - Shoulder Girdle , Vertical Pull
Horizontal bar leap (3): Crush Grip Closed Hand, Explosive Pull Up/Kip Up, Vertical Pull
Finger wall from hell.... : Pinch Grip Open Hand,  Shoulder Abduction and Adduction, Vertical Pull.
leaping rings to chain ladder to individual chains to chain ladder to ropes: Crush Grip Closed Hand, Vertical Pull, Hip Swing.
(sit on perch and REST) Move bar across and up the line, swing to finish: Crush Grip Closed Hand, Vertical Pull, Explosive Pull Up/Kip Up, Hip Swing.

No time limit.

So even though this stage is CRAZY INSANE, you can begin to see some of the common themes that have been built upon in previous stages.

• Crush Grip Closed Hand.
• Pinch Grip Open Hand: This is where most people seem to fail, strengtthening the fingers like this is tough.
• Vertical Pull Strength.
• Have to focus on increasing the strength of the movement of the shoulder girdle.
• Abduction and Adduction of the shoulder joint movement.
• Hip and lower abdominal attachment: You really should be strengthening this no matter what but it seems more prominent now in the stage than previous ones.

Stage 4:
Climb up the 65 foot high rope in under 40 seconds. If you’ve got the strength to do the other stages, its just going to come down to speed and technique after that. IE lots of vertical pull.




Goals Setting:


After breaking down all the courses I've found the common strength themes. Now all I need to do is set my self some goals, now these goals are not my full exercise program (not even close). But these are going to show me how I'm progressing with my strength training towards Ninja Warrior. I think ever couple of weeks I'll take a shot at the goals to see how I'm progressing forward in my strength, the goals is as follows:



Tests Exercise Goal

Crush Grip Dead Lift 2x My Body Weight
Crush Grip Farmers Walk 3/4 My Body Weight 1 Min
Pinch Grip Hub Row/Farmers Walk 45 Pounds
Finger Grip Finger Hang 1 minute

Vertical Pull Endurance Pull Ups 23 reps < 40 seconds
Vertical Pull Strength Single Arm Pull Up 3 reps each arm
Vertical Pull Power Explosive Pull Up 10 reps
Shoulder Joint Endurance Lateral Vertical Pull Shuffle 1 minute

Vertical Leap Vertical Jump Touch rim of basketball


And there you have it. I've got a lot of work ahead of me.

Ninja Warrior Season 27 Stage 2 Course Breakdown

Continuing my breaking down of each one of the stages, we are on to stage 2!

1. Sliding pull up bar: Crush Grip Closed hand - general pull strength, core strength for stabilizing.
2. Double Salmon Ladder + Unstable Bridge:
1. There are 7 touches with the Double Salmon Ladder, this motion requires a excellent base of vertical pull strength, on top of that it will require explosive vertical pull strength, something that very few athletes actually train for. For pulls ups this will require whats called a "kip up" its that little hip jerk and knee up motion you see. The strength training component of strength would be call an explosive pull up, with when you "kip up" off a pull up bar, clap your hands together and then grab it on the way down. In the middle of all that you have to rotate yourself around, strong shoulder girdle strength.
2. With the Unstable Bridge, it looks like a lot of the same principles will help as with the double salmon ladder EXCEPT, the grip is different, this looks like a Pitch Grip Closed hand grip.
3. Oh and the endurance of your vertical pull needs to be well over 30seconds.

      3. Balance log + climb up the rope: Balance, vertical pull, crush grip closed hand (big surprise)
      4. Run, jump and grab chain. Vertical leap, crush grip closed hand, perhaps add chain pulling to a workout
      5. Wall Lift, 3 walls, 66 pounds, 88 pounds and 110 pounds. Lift with your legs not your back. Two exercises come to mind with this one, the dead lift and the olympic clean.

All done in 90 seconds.

Strength Summary for stage 2:

• Crush Grip, Closed hand, this type of strength DOMINATED the first stage, not surprised to see it all over the second stage.
• Vertical Pull and Explosive Vertical Pull, now we have a monkey wrench. While your base strength needs to be a solid vertical pull, you need to have that explosive force to life you up to the next bar. Think of it as squatting and box jumping. Your squat can aid how high of a box jump you have, but you could be able to squat a lot of weight and not be able to jump very high, why? because your body is not balanced and you've never trained for explosive movements, its a whole another set of tricks your playing with now.
• Pitch Grip, Closed Hand, this is the first time we get to use our pitch grip, and even if you have a good crush grip, doesn't mean you have a good pitch grip.
• The other guys:
• Vertical Leap, pretty standard.
• Balance, check.
• Hip dominate leg strength, a balanced workout program that increases your vertical leap is also going to increase you hip strength, so you SHOULD be covered. Its pretty much a deadlift or a clean like I mentioned above though.
• Ropes and chains: There is a method of training, which uses whats called "battling ropes" or the other one which is called "chain reaction". You use these two items for a series of strength exercises, I find it does really good things for the endurance and makes a great alternative other than doing treadmill cardio when training for ninja warrior. The byproduct of using these tools is that it will get your hands familial with holding a rope or chain.

As far as the battling rope and kip up/explosive pull ups go, maybe I'll make a video on how to use those items with ninja warrior and post them online. Probably not until February though. In the mean time in addition to breaking down stage 3 and 4 I'll be setting some specific and measurable goals for myself. Training to get stronger is great and all but if your getting stronger in all the wrong areas and don't realize some simple weaknesses, well.....

Ninja Warrior Season 27 Stage 1 Course Breakdown

This marks the start of the 3rd week of my Ninja Warrior training and I feel stronger and am noticing some really exciting strength increases.

For example. late last week I dead lifted 335 pounds with the trap bar, which is the most I've ever lifted. My grip felt strong and secure, I tried to go for a little more weight and the bar wouldn't even budge.

This week I can feel my open hand pinch or finger grip as its commonly called, was much stronger.

I'm going to start re-breaking down the course again to make sure I really have all the training components needed to dominate this course.

Season 27, Stage 1 - Urushihara Yuuji - he is one of only 3 people to ever complete Ninja Warrior and he's done it TWICE. He's extremely thin..... there is that high strength to low body mass ratio at work, lets break down the that stage:

1. Slanted Steps + grab & swing across rope: Lateral leg strength and explosive leaps. + vertical pull strength and crushing grip closed hand strength.
2. Four point rolling log: Crushing grip close hand strength (again), vertical push strength and double leg knee dominate strength.
3. Run and jump off spring with swinging pull up bar: Anything that improves vertical leap would be helpful, similar to a basketball players program. Crushing grip close hand strength (makes 3) plus vertical pull strength.
4. Run and jump off spring with spider-man walk: vertical leap plus shoulder adduction.
5. Slanted run up half pipe leap and grab rope: Lateral leg strength again, explosive leap, crushing grip closed hand strength.
6. Run and jump up half pipe and pull yourself up: Big vertical leap, vertical pull.
7. Run across suspended boulders: Balance and speed.
8. Swing across rope and climb up roped latter: crushing grip close hand strength. A little bit of vertical pull and leg work.

Do this, all under 115 seconds! Fantastic lets try summarizing this.

Strength Summary for stage 1:

• Crushing Grip, Closed Hand is critical. Any kind of heavy lifting with your hands closed like farmers walks, deadlifts, as well as any drills that you can do where the grip is a rope.
• Vertical Pull, the muscles in this motion include your back and shoulders, pull ups and pull downs galore.
• Improving vertical leap, think about training this component like a basket ball player. That includes a strength base of squats and vertical leaps. As well as SAQ (speed agility quickness) drills focused on being coordinated with a running jump. An power snatch with an olympic bar would also be king of the hill in helping improving that vertical leap.
• Lateral Leg strength, Lateral Lunges, lateral SAQ drills, pretty straight forward, I think the drills will really help with the ankle strengthening, think anything that an ice skater or hockey player would do to improve their skating speed.
• the odd balls:
• Shoulder work is going to come when doing opposition exercise to the vertical pull in any well balanced workout program.
• Balance, there are a few ways to train balance, going bear foot with training will help, single leg work will help and balance boards or BOSUs will help.

And there you have it, stage 1. And this is the type of work I do to put together a fitness program! I look at ever aspect of the sport or whatever my client does in life to put something fantastic together. I'm going to go through these and make sure they all align up with the program I'm currently on. I'll break down stage 2, 3 and 4 this week.

Motivation

I think about how hard I will have to train in order to accomplish my goal of conquering Ninja Warrior and I imagine it like this....

"Train today as if without victory there will be no tomorrow." -Jonathan Tuttle (Me)

That's what I think about when I step into the gym, that's what I have to think about when I sit down to eat, that if I take things as seriously as my quote mentioned above, then I will put everything I have into what I must do.

I recently watched the movie "Run Fat Boy Run" with Simmon Pegg and he's out of shape and runs a marathon because he truly believes he must and that his life will totally turn around if he does. And I'm thinking to myself how much harder must a person beable to push themselves if that what they think of when they go into training. That your life will be better, that the things you want will manifest if you just keep pushing yourself, beyond your limits, to the breaking point.

I've been looking for movies that give me a little "you can do it!" type of inspiration, something that gets you really pumped, and for me most sports movies do not thrill me in any shape form or way to jump out of my coach and be like "ya we can win!" But other movies like the "300" when I see how amazing those guys look and how much work they put into it for a role in a movie that kicks ass on so many levels, I just think, that is what I need to do!

Big picture aside is all about the small steps, its all about breaking things down into little components. If I have my long distance goal, what are the smallest baby steps that I can do daily that will allow me to reach that goal. Taking my vitamins, eating according to my nutritional plan everyday and training with the program I have laid out 4 times a week. If I make it my religion, if I make it like going to church every Sunday, then I can make Mt  Midoriyama (where Ninja Warrior is shot in Japan) my mecha.

When you have a goal, there are going to be people in your life that discourage you from reaching that goal, they are going to say you can't do it or worse they aren't going to understand what your doing and they will make fun of you for it. Take myself for example. My mom makes fun of me and harasses me about my diet. My own mother makes hurtful tantalizing comments about the way I eat, doesn't try to understand what I'm doing or even why. And most people don't care, and I'm fine if they don't care about why I'm training or the amount of time I put into training I'm not doing it for them, I'm doing it for me.

Its just very frustrating to be surrounded by people that clearly do not see the picture beyond the distance, that do not see what all these pieces will eventually assemble into and that you poking at them just makes them want to crumble. But I won't crumble my resolve is so strong at thing point I wont give up for anything.

Sad really, that I get more encouragement about my training from strangers at the gym than my own family. I played soccer for 3 out of the 4 years I went to high school, you know how many games my parents went to? ZERO. If I actually make it on Ninja Warrior and on television (which I'd be super nervous about and would rather do it without cameras watching)  would they even watch? Probably not, that is about the feeling I get in terms of support. Awesome right? Not everyone is like that in my life though, there are some people close to me that would travel all the way to Japan just to see me succeed or fail, just to be there and cheer me on.

If there ever is something you feel passionate about in life and people close to you discourage you, find the strength somewhere to keep your eyes on the bigger picture. Because I get it, its hard to wake up in the morning, have that planned meal of an Omelet when what you really want to eat is french toast, and then go workout for an hour when you'd really like to just have stayed in bed longer, coming home to shower and prepare you next planned meal when you'd rather be sitting in front of the television playing video games.

But you've got this fire in your gut that makes you do things that other might think are stupid, and you see a goal out in the distances that might seem so far away right now, but stick to your guns and you'll get there.


A bit of a rant today, but this blog is really all for me, to get it off my chest, keep myself on track and honest with what I'm trying to accomplish. We all have goals, we can all accomplish those goals if we figure out what motivates use to reach for that success.

Nutrition Examples

Things are on track and going well, I'm steadily gaining muscle and losing fat, both of which are massively critical if I want to compete on the level that Ninja Warrior requires.

Haven't hit the gym yet today, but I will be in about an hour or so. The first 21 days are really critical to any kind of workout / nutrition plan because after 21 days mentally and physically your body goes "alright I think this  thing is habit now lets continue rolling with it."

It is day 13.

Today I'm going to roll through some examples of my nutrition and see what I've been eating. Previously I've written out my kind of "rules for eating" but today I'm going to roll through this whole diet thing.

After the first week I checked my weight, I was 213.6, this morning I checked my weight and I'm 211.6, that's a 2 pound difference in a week, on paper that sounds excellent but that doesn't show the whole picture. When you take your body fat percentage it tells you more of the complete picture. Given the fact my girlfriend grabbed my butt and said "it's looking pretty round and firm" muscle and other shapely things are starting to develop.

My diet, again, throughout the day I eat protein of any kind, veggies and healthy fats. I don't really look at it as breakfast lunch and dinner, because I sometimes eat 4 meals a day, sometimes 6, sometimes.... 8.....

Oh, and I NEVER COUNT CALORIES, I don't suggest you do either, especially if you follow the same rules I'm following.

Meal 1: Omelet with ham, cheese, peppers.
Meal 2: Salad, tuna fish with mayo and some sort of dressing (anyone I want).
Meal 3: Steak or hamburg meat or hot dogs (no bread with anything) and usually some type of veggies with butter.

WORKOUT
During and Post workout shake I actually combine, I have about 16-24 ounces of Orange Juice, 2 scoops of vanilla whey protein and sometimes I'll throw in a scoop of casein protein. Whey is a fast acting protein, Casein is a slow acting protein, the orange juice opens the muscle and the protein feeds it.

2-3 hours later, I'll have some chicken and rice (little to no fat with this meal).

If I want a snack I'll have some almonds, I always, ALWAYS keep meals at least 2 hours apart, its the amount of time it takes for everything to get out of the system from the sugar spike that high glycemic carbohydrates give you. As you can see from above though I'm only having high glycemic carbs in and immediately after my workout.

Am I bored with my diet yet? Nope. In fact I relatively enjoy it. And it works.

Maintaining your body

I learned a long time ago, back when I'd train Capoeira for 2 hours a day, 5 days a week and throw in a day or two of weight training for good measure, that your body is not invincible and over time does go through a little wear a tear that can be easily treated.

What am I talking about? Whenever you workout, your doing damage to your muscles, now when you have proper post workout nutrition your muscle rebuild stronger and better than they where before. But despite their "rebuilt" state, they can start to knot or create scar tissue. Overtime if you do not work knots or scar tissue out they will begin to impede your workouts. One muscle will pull on another the wrong way and suddenly you could start to lose a significant amount of strength or be in a lot of pain, loss of mobility can also be an issue.

What do I do to avoid this? Two things, one every workout I use a foam roller for whats called myofascial release. If you want to know more about it just google it. Its basically using a roller at the beginning of your workout to get out the kinks in the muscle and god can it hurt.

The second thing I do is I get a deep tissue full body massage once a month. Don't plan on working out the day of your massage, you can consider your massage a workout. I had a massage earlier today, my body feels wiped out, my muscles just feel completely drained and soar, they have no energy what so ever. I know tomorrow I'll be fine but today after the massage I headed straight for a nap.

The soreness and pain from the massage got me thinking though, after a massage your muscles are open to any kind of nutrition you feed them, perhaps even more so than in your workout. So why not have the same post workout shake after my massage, followed up by a post workout meal?

If it functions the same way, it should mean faster recovery time and your body should have enough of those building blocks to be better than it was before, right? Personally it sounds good to me I'm sticking to it.