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.