Welcoming the New Year Hindu Style

I used to drink on New Year's Eve... Actually I used to drink on pretty much every eve. But that was a long time ago, and this is now... While people were sleeping off their 10th shot and 3rd bottle of champagne from last night's festivities I was doing Hindu Squats and Hindu Pushups this morning.. I started into my set of Hindu Squats and wondered if I could do 2009 without stopping. What better way to start 2009 than to do 2009 Hindu Squats? At about 335 I started questioning whether or not it was a good idea. Somewhere after 600 I decided it definitely wasn't a good idea. Not yet anyways.. I had never done more than 400 Hindu squats in a row, so going from 400 to 2009 is not the smartest way to increase my load without threat of injury.. My legs were pretty much on fire from about 400 on and I decided that I would get to 1000 and stop. It took me about 30 minutes without a break and I was walking funny for about 5 minutes afterwards.. But I hit 1000 without stopping and I'm pretty psyched about that! Then it was onto the Hindu Pushups. I did 200 of them.. First set I made it to 65, which is less than my max continuous of 85. I did the remaining 135 in 4 sets. The 200 Hindu pushups took me under 10 minutes. Not a bad way to start the New Year. 

For any cyclists out there, Hindu squats are a great cross training exercise. During long sets of Hindu squats, you can increase your pace until the lactic acid accumulates in your legs in a way very similar to the way it does during time trials or hill climbs. Doing long sets of Hindu squats is a great way to increase your lactate threshold so that your body gets better at metabolizing the extra lactic acid in your bloodstream when you start going anaerobic.

On another topic, yesterday I was thinking about what makes the gym such a cool place. Is it the old school feel, the kettlebells and gymnastic rings, Jake, the monkey bars??? All those things definitely add to it, but the thing that really makes the gym such a great place to be is the people that are coming. The people we have are awesome. They bring so much positive energy that it's really contagious. Everybody has different backgrounds, perspectives, shapes, sizes, ages, lifestyles and  fitness levels, but they all have one thing in common; they want to feel really good and enjoy their lives to the fullest. Everybody knows everybody else within 5 minutes of coming through the door. They workout together, they laugh together, they support each other. The energy is phenomenal. Compare that to the chrome and fern palaces (as Brooks Kubik calls them) like BF or WOW where you have a bunch of posers and walking poster children for roid rage.. You know the ones I'm talking about.. The apes that have the ripped up tank tops and walk around with their arms out like they're carrying a couple watermelons. They have this perpetual look on their faces like they smelled something bad. I look back on when I used to work out at those places and wish that there was something like Dynamic Strength and Conditioning around back then.. But, better late than never, right?

Keep bringing that energy! And, Alison, if you want to bring more of that home made guacamole and hummus, that works too :)

All the best,

Kevin