Olympics fatigue

It has been a long and tiring two weeks due to my staying up late and watching the Olympics every night. It seems that all of the really good stuff goes until midnight. It will be nice to get some good sleep top help recovery and mood! It has been a rough week for training. i was distracted doing Clean and presses on my medium day and strained my neck and trap. It knocked me off course for a couple of days. I came back last night and hit the 88 for my clean and press last night. I also received word that I would be able to attend the RKC as an Assistant. I am excited about that and eager to head off for the weekend of fun and torture.



I decided to see where I was on snatches tonight. I am a little off from where I need to be. I still have three weeks or so to get them up to the 60's. I should be able to get them up there and still work towards the Beast Challenge. If I am close at the RKC I will probably go for it and hope the adrenalin pushes me over.

Here is Jason C Brown showing how to do a Turkish Get Up.

Is age an issue?

You always hear that the if you are not 25 years old, you will not ever be on top of your game. I think some people have forgot to tell a few people that news. Randy Couture, Dara Torres, Brett Favre and even that great Texas Legend Nolan Ryan have been incredible into their 40's. I bring that up because I have hit my 40's and I am not letting that hamper me from being at the top of my game.

The age does make things harder at times. I cannot train as intensely or ignorantly as I did back in the day. My body does not recuperate as well any more. Sometimes I think that it because I trained like moron when I was younger and damaged myself. The scar tissue and repetitive injuries mount up over the years. I am grateful to have found Pavel and Kettlebells when I did. It was better late than never for me. While I can't go back and fix all of the problems that I created, I can move forward and mitigate the resulting weaknesses.

As we age, we gain knowledge and experience that lead us down a better path. I think back to all the crazy stuff that I used to do, poor form and technique with massive weights that did more harm than good. The staying out late and still training like a mad man without proper nutrition or rest.

I have learned proper techniques through kettlebells, better nutrition, better recuperation strategies and most important moderation of the insanity. That does not mean I do not train heavy and hard, I still do. I just try to train so that I am ready to use that strength and skill against the younger guys at anytime.

Just Plain Funny

I came across this before my workout. It is hilarious.

Just got back from the garage on another hot night. I am still working on a rotation of Heavy, medium and light for the press, pullup and pistol. It was a pretty good nigth, but had a little trouble with the pistol. It is by far my weakest exercise. I have hit the 32kg on it since starting this program, but it is a long way from the 106lb kettlebell.

While I am doing this program for a specific reason, I really feel better on a higher rep program. I just do not feel like I am working as much as I need to even doing a 6 day program with three days of tabata in the mix. That is not to mention running sports classes with the kids all day. I guess we will see how it works when I finally press and pistol the Beast.

Family Fun

It has been a pretty busy week around here. I returned from the Amazing Athletes Conference as Franchisee of the Year. I was pretty excited as we have had the business for one year and it has been really fun and exciting. We went with a franchise as it made more sense for us. I am a really good coach, but needed a good model/plan to steer me the right direction. I highly recommend Amazing Athletes as a business if you are looking to do something rewarding with children. Janee and Glen Henderson are squared away with what kids really need. They have developed an incredible Child Development Program. If you contact them, just let them know where you heard about them.

We had a great workout last night. It was family time around the old tire. I had the two 8 year olds wanting to workout with me, so off we went. We beat the tire last night, me with the sledge, the kids with arnis. I was on the 20/10 split and they took turns on my 10 second rests. They both said that they had a great time and I know that I did. It is really great to be able to spend time with family in non-traditional activities that encourage fitness. This is especially important after reading that in the near future all Americans are expected to be overweight. The time to fix that is now, by involving the children. It is something that we focus on at home and with Amazing Athletes. I really believe that we need to focus on the fitness and health of children if we want to make a difference in the future. I take every opportunity to involve the kids in physical activities. Even if we are headed to get ice cream, which we did last night, there has to be an exchange. I told them that we needed to take scooters or their bikes to make the trip. It is not far from the house and they enjoyed the trip and felt great about the reward.

We continued the training this morning with kettlebells and pullups. I am working on a Beast Challenge plan in anticipation of the RKC where I hope to be an assistant instructor. I had the neighbor and our boy in the garage with me. They were doing pullups and trying to pick up a kettlebell from the floor. We worked on proper form for a deadlifts and they did a really nice job for a couple of reps before it was off on scooters to see the world.

All they need to have is a positive model to emulate and it will sink in.

Lost a week of writing and Cool Knockout

I have posted people doing "cheese whiz" knockouts where they were not even touching the person. This clip is a realistic use of pressure points and light force knockouts that can be transferred to a self defense use. They do work, as I have been knocked out numerous times with them. Some people will say that you expect it and it becomes reality. The science behind it is that you are striking the body in ways that it is not geared to defend itself, while sending the force to the hypothalamus. The body is prepared to take blows from the front, sides and somewhat from behind if the strike is picked up. It is harder to defend from the oblique angles like a 45 degree angle. When striking from those angles, the force seems to have a clear path to the center of the brain, allowing the computer to experience a short shut down. In combat, all you need is a micro second to prevail or lose. While I do not depend on the knockout, I do shoot for fractions of a second that will add up and give me time to achieve a position of dominance.

I do not know what happened, but none of my posts for the last week ever made it to the blog. I was really busy and on the run, so I messed up somewhere. I am currently working on a Beast Challenge program that focuses on Military Press, Pistol and Pullup. I am working on a heavy, medium and light day for each exercise on a three day cycle. the other days are set as variety. I did tabata sledge hammer one day, three hours of martial arts the next and will be hitting heavy snatches on my next variety day.

More stuff you don't need

I came across this knife recently. One more gizmo that does not make that much since. It is a knife that holds a compressed gas cartridge that you trigger after it is in the body. There are so many things wrong with the idea that I do not know where to begin.

To start off with it looks bad to the legal system. A regular knife was not enough? You had to get one that would destroy organs etc? That shows a little more than the desire for self-defense. It is also more complicated to use than the everyday blade. Edged weapons are simple and easy tools. if you touch something with the sharp part it cuts. With this tool you are having to push buttons in the middle of an attack. It also has to be thicker than a regular blade and it appeared to be difficult to puncture the watermelon. Basically, not something I would waste any money on.

It has been tagged as a "scary" knife on the internet. I do not think that it is something you would have to worry about coming across any on the street.

Scientific Wrestling

I can't say enough about Jake Shannon and Scientific Wrestling. Jake has done more for Catch Wrestling than anyone else. Jake is the real deal when it comes to this form of combative sport. he knows the history as well as the techniques. I have been a member of his site for several years and I am finally getting to a point where I will be making some trips out to the OC to train with them. If you are interested in some neat stuff, get on board. He is putting together tournaments and has opened a training facility. Good stuff. This is a clip from a tournament.