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.

Nutrition

I have a formula when it comes to building muscle and losing fat. Exercise is the base and nutrition is the exponent. Kind of like an algebra equation, no matter how good your exercise program is, it won't go far without the nutrition to multiply your gains.

What is my nutrition like? What makes good nutrition? I have a very simple nutrition plan:

• Anytime your not working out stick to combining a protein with vegetables. Proteins include fish, beef, pork, chicken, beans and tofu. Veggies are.... veggies! Veggies do no include corn or potato, those are starches.
• During your workout or pre-workout you have two choices: 8oz of fruit juice with BCAA and whey protein. Or whole fruit with a lean protein.
• Post workout (should be completely consumed within 45 minutes), 16oz of fruit juice with whey protein.
• 2-3 hours after you workout should be your "big meal", starchy carbohydrates with a lean protein (that means protein with as little fat as possible).

It's actually really simple and you'd be amazed at the gain of muscle and loss of fat you start to get.

Temptation

I worked out twice today and today overall was a rough day. So after clearly not eating enough for two workouts, I'm at the grocery store returning some Red Box DVDs and there is a special on cereal, from Golden Grams to just about everything I like.

It's hard not to eat that stuff when you really want it, when you've had a bad day, workout really hard and you think to yourself "it's okay you can justify it because you've worked out...."

NO YOU FUCKING CAN'T!  God dam it, don't be such a pussy, you want that flat belly, you tell those corn pops to shove it up their ass! In my case I want Ninja Warrior so I told those taste treats to jog off.

Anyways... What I ended up walking out with was atkins low carb peanut butter cups. Not the best choice because of the sugar alcohol, what I really should have done was Cinnamon Almonds or done celery with peanut butter and dark chocolate chips. But at the time all I could think was "Green Warrior needs food badly" (Gauntlet Legends reference for those who don't know), so the peanut butter cups did the trick.

It's mostly my own fault, not planning and having food ready is the reason any kind of diet other than the "eat everything in sight diet", fails.

The Numbers

I received my equipment that should help me with some grip strength, got it from Ironmind, check out their website a LOT of great stuff on there. Unfortunately I already worked out twice today so I don't think I'll be playing with them tonight.

But tomorrow for sure. Like a kid playing with a Transformer until he breaks it.

The awesome metal ones they made back in the day, not the cheap plastic ones of today, but I digress.

Today I took my body fat percentage, here are my stats:

Weight: 212
Body Fat %: 18.4%
Lean Weight: 172.9
Fat Weight: 39.10

Post holiday season I'm doing pretty good so far. Healthy average body fat percent for men is 20%. When I'm eating right and training regularly I'm around 13-14%, obviously me stop and go training for a few months and eating everything in sight has not helped my percentage out any, I can only imagine how bad I was January 1st.

Lean weight is how much my bone, muscle, organs, ect, all weigh together, when you are regularly taking your body fat percentage and your lean weight goes up, you can generally contribute that you increase in muscle mass. The last time I took my body fat percentage my lean weight was about 169, meaning I've already put on about 4 pounds of muscle.

I've generally found AT BEST, that you can lose fat and add muscle at a 2:1 ratio (at least this works that well for me personally). Lets just pretend that each week I lose 2 pounds of body fat and gain 1 pound of muscle.

PRETEND.

That would mean to get to my target of 5% body fat it is going to take about 15 weeks. I will need to be very consistent with my diet and exercise, not cheat meals or skipping workouts!

Well maybe an occasional cheat meal, like for a special day or something.

I feel as though I could probably drop my body fat percentage faster, but I just do not want to sacrifice any strength or muscle gain, so I'm going to take it nice and slow.

Wish me luck.

Health and Heart Rate Monitor

I've used a couple different type of heart rate monitors before. Normally a heart rate monitor has a chest strap, which is fine for me, but there are a lot of benefits using a heart rate monitor with a client and unfortunately a chest strap is not the most convenient thing to had to a client and be like "hey stick this thing on you."

However a decent wrist monitor seems to be hard to come by, until I saw this:

https://mybasis.com/

or you can watch the video about it here:

Tracking all that information with ease. Can't wait to get one when it comes out. For $200, I'd have to say I'm going for it. Might help to look down at the info and be like "I'm being too lazy must push harder."

Training for Ninja What?

Last week I trained 4 days out of the week, with the last day of the my week being on Saturday. I wanted to get cracking again today but I decide it would be best to have two solid days off in a row. Why? Because I listen to my body, when you feel an overall bodily fatigue don't push yourself, your just asking for injury. Now this overall fatigue is not too be confused with being just plain lazy.

My new equipment comes in tomorrow, I ordered some equipment all specifically for strengthening different types of grip strength seeing at that's primarily what Ninja Warrior is. Speaking of Ninja Warrior here is a good introduction video:

Now when watching Ninja Warrior you might think "good god that shit is wack!" But really like any sport it has a common theme that if you strengthen your body in the right way it will allow you to conquer the course. I've picked out the following:

Lets start with the lower body:

• Vertical Leap, you've just got to be able to jump and jump high, no if ands buts about it. That half pipe is high and having a coordinated run to jump is critical.
• Leg strength on the frontal plane, it means strong legs that can move side to side really well, I was watching a video the other day about a contestant trying the course and his side to side leg strength was poor and it was obvious right from the first part of the course.
• Lift with your hip not your back, there is a part of the course on the second stage where you have to lift up 3 walls of increasingly difficult weight. I can't remember what weight the walls where, I want to say the heaviest of the three walls is 135 pounds, right now I can deadlift over 300 pounds so I feel like I've got that part covered already.

To the most obvious part, the upper body:

• The back, all those pull ups and finger grip whatevers, the big muscle mover and shaker is your back, and its got to be tough as nails. The most amount of wide grip pull ups I've ever been able to do is 20. I feel like I'm going to need to be ever stronger that that.....
• Finger Grip:  THIS IS WHERE EVERYONE FAILS. You need to strengthen your fingers, go to a rock climbing gym or order some Eagle Loops and train them. That edge you have to finger across is the thing that defeats everyone. Fingers.... not just for gaming.
• Crush and Pintch grip, there are really three types of grip, finger grip, crush and pinch. Crush is how you can hold on to a solid object, my goal is to be able to farmers walk my body weight, so about 90-100 pounds in each hand, I'm up to about 75 right now. And Pinch grip, which makes my hand hurt to think about so I don't want to talk about it.

The obvious and now the not so obvious body part:

Your core and all other connecting muscles have to be strong! When building a house all the walls of the foundation need to be as strong as the other or it tips over, you're whole body needs to be solid and you need to get rid of any extra fat, its just going to slow you down.

Easy right? .......... on paper its so straight forward, the action however is a tall task.

Reward System

It's important when training for anything or to any type of goal that you have a weekly award when you've actually accomplished what you sent out to do.

For example, this week I did stuck to my diet and did my workouts... my reward a Cherry Vanilla Coke Zero from Five Guys. That may not seem like the most epic reward, but when you don't normally drink soda throughout the week (because its not on the diet) it is the sweetest most amazing drink you can have.

New Year Resolution

In 2008 my New Years resolution was to lose weight. That year I went from a size 40 to a size 32 and lost 30 pounds.

In 2009 my New Years resolution was to make a career out of fitness, mid summer of that year I graduated from the American Academy of Personal Training and have been helping other lose weight ever since.

In 2011 my New Years resolution is to compete in the American Ninja Warrior challenge that will undoubtedly be sometime this summer, giving my 6 months to get "warrior ready" to take on the course.

I've built a program that I feel has the needed strength and conditioning to conquer the course. Its a few days into the new year and I'm right on schedule. In addition to a physical program I also have created a nutrition program to help lose as much body fat as I can. I'm going to have my body fat taken next week, my weight as of today is 213.6 pounds, one thing that a majority of the competitors have in common is a small frame, light weight and great strength to body ration. Standing at 6 feet the lightest I can physically be before I start cutting into muscle and other lean body mass parts is somewhere in the 180 ball park.

Obviously I've got a long way to go, but I'm confident that being consistent with the proper nutritional plan and regular exercise that I will reach my goal.

I'm going to make regular updates with this blog to help keep me on track, along with pictures, videos, training information and nutrition information, this is just the beginning, just something to get on paper and get my mind going.