Square one for eating habits

It is the Sunday after Thanksgiving and the gluttony is almost over! I ate like a pig for about four days, but saying that, I did try to be a little more moderate than I have in the past. It worked out pretty well for the most part. I think I only gained 100 pounds or so. I think the weekend opened my eyes to my lack of a good eating plan. I try to eat fairly moderate meals the majority of the time. It does not always work, but nothing works all of the time.

I have looked at the Warrior Diet in the past and tried it for a week. It was not an enjoyable experience for me as I felt sick as a dog the entire time. This article by mc at Begin to Dig is the best look at that system I have seen. I found it as I was reviewing the Warrior Diet to try it again. His Blog is incredible for all of his writings! It showed me why it is not a good choice for me. So along with going back to the drawing board for my training, it is time to fix my eating also.

I really need to go back to eating clean, fresh and organic foods. The entire house ate this way for a long time with great results. It takes a concerted effort to do so as we have lots of activities and seem to be on the road a lot. We have a fund raiser at Chili's tomorrow. that should be fun to figure out how to eat well.That might mean eating food brought from the house during the day and stopping at Sprouts or Herbmart on the way home from the day to cook at the house.

I did train over the Holiday in Tulsa. I did 8 sets of 20 swings and active movement on 1 day and 5 minutes of Get Ups on another day. I also did lots of Joint Mobility, Wall Squats and Pumps to keep the damage to a minimum.

Into the breach once again...

In looking back at all of my training I notice one thing, when I follow a slower path I do much better. I always suffer illness and injury when I go all out from the get go. I have a habit of running full speed at all times and not taking the proper time to work up to it. I even had an argument about taking time to reach the goals of the VWC. His take was you had to hit 50 sets from day one, mine was taking the time to work up to it. Kenneth Jay laid out a steady work schedule that built you up to the 80 x 8 over some time. Never heard from the other guy, now considered an "Expert." but so be it.

The point being, I have decided to step back and complete the program minimum. I have never gone through the entire plan, partly due to be ADD I think. I have set down and written up my plan of attack. I have a path to follow and that makes it a little easier to follow through with. As I tell the Amazing Athletes Coaches, if it is written down, it will get done. I have modified it for my daily activity level by making my active recovery less intense. I am starting out with the 24kg due to my hip flexor injury. I will move to heavier weights when it says to on the plan.

Tonight was pretty good. I started out with Joint Mobility including Halos, Wall Squats and Pumps. I then hit 8 sets of 20 swings with 1 minute of active movement. My hip flexor was a little tight, but not painful. It is a start.

I do plan on Kettlebell training over Thanksgiving. We are taking a break from the Combatives this week. There is no class on Saturday this week.

Here is a great clip from Scientific Wrestling.

Kettlebells And Martial Arts

This is a Dragon Door Clip, but it says what I believe. I have found very few things that go as well with martial arts and combatives as kettlebells. The movements, techniques and patterns mirror what you need for the fight.

I will be putting up videos after Thanksgiving with examples of how Shen Chuan and Kettlebells fit together like Peanut Butter and Jelly.

I have the opportunity to hit two Certs in 2010. I will be at RKCII and CK-FMS. I wish I had attended them earlier, but better late then never. To be ready, I will be setting my training up in a pretty firm block and will document everything starting in January.

We had a great group class this morning.

Swings

10 Swings, 20 Swings x 3 sets

10 Swings x 4 sets

Get ups

1 x 5 Naked

2 x 1 l,r,

Dang

I started the new program and was pretty excited for the first couple of workouts. I really enjoyed pushing some heavy weights. I think part of the problem is that get so excited and over do it. That coupled with turning 42 last week probably caused me to push harder then I needed to. I have screwed up my hip flexor a little bit. It was not that big of a deal until last night's workout when I was doing heavy squats and double swings. I cannot sit down right now and expect to get up and walk. today was so bad that I was forced to my knees after sitting at my desk and trying to walk.

I am trying to rehab a little with foam roller and massage stick work coupled with high doses of Advil. It is amazing how a little roller work goes a long way. I am also avoiding sitting for long periods. I am typing this standing up with good result.

What is good about all of this? I did get Return Of the Kettlebell book and DVD last night. I figure that I have a couple weeks of being careful and backing off to really study the new material. I am looking forward to getting back on track.

The group class was pretty good this morning. We worked on cleans as practice today before getting into the actual session. The workout today consisted of swings and Get Ups. The swings were set as rung, 10, 15, 20 for 2 ladders. Get Ups were started as "practice" with no weight at first. We really tried hitting perfect points to get the forms right. Tiny weights were added to put a load on the exercise.

Everybody looked pretty good at the end of the day.

New Program

I have been using the Swing and Get up as my two main exercises for quite a long time and have decided to work with a new program for a few weeks. I will be working off a Mahler program for explosiveness and strength. This is partly to just do something different and partly because I am pretty thin, or so I have been told.

The new program is from Mike Mahler's Aggressive Strength Solutions. I figure that I can follow this for about 4 weeks or so before the next change. I have also ordered Pavel's newest, Return of The Kettlebell. I look forward to following that program for a while. It should correspond well with the RKC II certification. I will be headed to it next summer! I hope to attend CK-FMS after that. I had to think pretty hard about which to attend first. I have more time to train and save if I do it this way.

this is the first two days of what I am working on. I am looking at building explosive strength. I am not using heavy kettlebells for this. I am using 53's for this part and will use some heavier for Thursday and Friday.

Workout on Monday

Quick Clean and Press
8 x 3

Hang Snatch
6 x 3 left and right

Renegade Row

2 x 5

Tuesday

Explosive Lunge
8 x 3

Double swing

6 x 3

Get Up
2 x 3