Skating Away on the Thin Ice of a New Day...

Just got in from my run and my favorite Jethro Tull song, "Skating Away..." was playing on the iPod. It made me think of how I am kind of skating away on the thin ice of a new day myself, in the sense that it's a brand new start with my own business. With the gym opening in a little over a week I was thinking last night about how far it's come from the first day about a year ago when I read the article about the Monkey Bar Gym in Wisconsin and thought what a fantastic idea it was. Yesterday I picked up my Certificate of Occupancy at Nashua City Hall. The gym is very close to completion and will be open for business Oct 13 as scheduled. Although next week I'm going to have the people in for a workout or two that were attending the outdoor FIT sessions this past Summer.

It's a little scary. But I've received overwhelmingly positive feedback on what we're doing and I think it's going to go really well.. I heard a quote once that said "If your dream doesn't scare you then it's not big enough".. Well this one scares me a little bit so I think it's plenty big..

Workout today:

- 20 minutes of Joint Mobility (as we get older, we can not do enough joint mobility exercises)

- 70 pistols (35 each side in sets of 2x10, 1x15) I did these unweighted and barefoot which is a lot more difficult than if you're holding a weight in front of you (unless it's a really, really heavy weight) or if you're wearing a shoe (try it if you don't believe it)

- 5 mile trail run with plyo jumps along the way

- 2 minute set of front squats with 2x16kg kettlebells (33 reps)

- 2x25 jackknifes

- 2x30 corkscrews, which is a great core exercise where you start on your back and lift your body into a shoulder stand while twisting your torso.

All the best,

kevin

2 new PR today

Had a great workout at the gym this morning.. Well, not exactly in my gym. It was in the unit next to my gym where we moved all the equipment yesterday while the floor crew is in the gym finishing the floors.. Held a training session with Zach, who's a superb high school athlete trying to improve his core strength and vertical jump, and then I gave myself a good workout. Here's my workout for today:

warmed up with about 10 minutes of skipping rope and some handstand walking. then....

3x10 Turkish Getup with 24kg (5 each side)

3x40 secs battling ropes with a 2" rope.. This is done with a 40', 2" rope wrapped around a pole at the halfway point. Grabbing both ends of the rope you swing the rope overhead and down repeatedly to get the rope oscillating all the way into the pole. Do this as hard as you can for 40 seconds. Brutal!

I followed that up with:

5x20 pistols (10 each side)

5x20 hindu pushups

30 seconds rest between sets

the 30 TGU's with a 24kg was a personal best for me, as was the 100 pistols..

If you live in the area, pick up the Sunday Nashua Telegraph tomorrow. There's supposed to be an article featuring Dynamic Strength and Conditioning as an "alternative" means of fitness in the business section (i guess because we're a new business)....

Grand Opening pushed out to Monday Oct 13th.. Need a little more time to get it ready. Will be building the monkey bars this week. Very excited about having a gym with monkey bars!!

All the best,

Kevin

Raise your hand if you love the Burpee..... Anybody???

Very few exercises that we do at our Functional Interval Training sessions are met with the same amount of enthusiasm (of the negative variety) as the Burpee. I guess I can understand this because they're hard to do and some people don't like doing things that are hard. But the simple fact of the matter is that the burpee is probably the single most effective bodyweight exercise that you can perform. It builds strength, explosiveness, speed, agility, endurance. It enhances range of motion and mobility. I can't think of a single muscle that is not called into play during a repetition of the burpee. The more muscles you use, the more effective the exercise, the more functional strength you develop, the more fat you burn.. For my workout today I took a page out of John Grube's book (aka "The Wildman") and did a reverse/forward pyramid of burpees going from 15-14-13-12----3-2-1-1-2-3----12-13-14-15, resting for 30 seconds between every set.. I followed that up with a rev/fwrd pyramid of power wheel rollouts in a 10-9-8---3-2-1-1-2-3---8-9-10 format with 20 seconds rest between sets....

Workout totals: 240 burpees (actually i think i did 241. going back to the instant replay we'll see that i did 15 in both of my last two sets) and 110 power wheel rollouts.. here's the video of me suffering through the last couple sets of burpees and rollouts (with the help of my friend Jake)..

Yes, burpees are hard, and so are the power wheel rollouts. But they are fantastic full body exercises that build great functional strength and should not be avoided. If they were easy then everybody would be doing them and everybody would be walking around with the physique of a Greek statue.. But they're hard, so people avoid them. If you're reading this then you want to be in the best shape possible. So no more avoiding hard exercises. No time like the present, give me 20 burpees!!

Enjoy,

Kevin

Time to Get Creative

I sat down with the laptop to put my thoughts in a blog and I turned the TV on and they're showing FarmAid live from the Comcast Center in Mansfield, MA which first made me think of how much better it would sound as the Dynamic Strength and Conditioning Center. Some day....

So the first two acts they put on stage while I'm sitting here is Arlo Guthrie who looks like he's old enough to be Arlo Guthrie's grandfather and they follow him up with Jerry Lee Lewis who has bags under his eyes that you could fit a roll of quarters in.. So this got me thinking what will I look like when I'm 120 and I've come to the conclusion that I'm going to look way better than these geezers. I'll guarantee you they've never lifted a kettlebell or medicine ball and Jerry Lee Lewis probably hasn't performed a full body exercise since he was dating his 14 year old cousin.

So I'm getting real close to getting the gym open and it's been taking every waking moment. I'm even finding it difficult to get my own workouts in. Granted, the type of work I'm doing around the gym is pretty active, especially the fact that I have to go up and down 4 floors of stairs every time I come and go... That's right, there's no elevator to the gym which is an added benefit to all you physical culturists on the functional conditioning bandwagon.. And the best thing about it is that the 67 stair journey to the gym is free! I'm thinking of trying to power wheel up the stairs..... backwards.... (video coming soon) 

Lately I've been having to get creative to get my workouts in. In the gym I've brought up a jumprope, power wheel and a couple kettlebells and I hung up a set of gymnastic rings which are one of my favorite things to play on. But there's so much to do and so little time at this point to do it (trying to open Sept 29) that it's still tough to dedicate time to working out. The other day here's what I did.. I was painting windows (again). Each window has 36 individual panes framed out that need painting. So, after every 3rd pane I cut in I would get off the ladder and do 3 one arm pushups on the right and 3 more on the left.. Back up the ladder for 3 more panes, back down for 3 more one arm pushups on each side. Once I completed my 6th set of one arm pushups I started doing some ring work. I've decided that I want to be able to do back levers and front levers on the rings so I'm starting with the back lever.. I can get a good tucked back lever and I can get it with one leg out straight, but I'm not there with two straight legs yet.. Anyway, I did 6 rounds of back lever work, one round after every 3 window panes completed.. Total workout:

- 36 one arm pushups, 6x3 on each arm

- 6 rounds of back lever work

The next day I was also strapped for time but luckily I'm never short on things that need to be carried up the stairs.. I made 6 trips hauling awkward loads up 67 stairs.. One of my favorite runs were one with a 5 gallon bucket of paint on my shoulder and two 12kg kettlebells in my right hand for something close to 110 pounds total. The other one was a run with a medicine ball bag strapped over my shoulders with 50 pounds of medicine balls in it, a 20kg kettlebell in one hand and a 12kg and 8kg in the other for a total weight of 138 pounds. I've been weighing in at about 146 lately so that's not a bad load up four floors of stairs for a guy my size. It was good to know that in case of emergency I could carry a person up stairs if necessary. Total workout was 6 trips up the stairs with a total load of about 400 pounds. And I also carried two 8 foot sheets of sheetrock (160 pounds) 100 yards so I could lean them up against a telephone pole with the word "free" painted on them. (I ordered a little too much and had no use for it). They were gone in a couple hours.

There you go.. Two days of creativity to fit some good old fashioned functional conditioning into a tight work schedule. The opportunities out there are endless.

That's all for now.. Back to Farm Aid... Holy crap! It's the ghost of Willie Nelson! 

All the best,

kevin

Make it a double....

I typically don't know exactly what I'm going to do for a workout until I'm about halfway through my warmup.. My warmup usually consists of some skipping rope and joint mobility exercises to get the heart pumping and the joints all lubed up and then I hit the workout. My workouts will usually have most of the following categories covered: push, pull, jump, squat, something ballistic, and something that really works the entire body hard. Sometimes each exercise will have a combination of those. The other day I decided to go with a double kettlebell workout with a 60sec/30sec work to rest ratio.. To me, working with double kettlebells is the best way to improve strength and explosive power. Each exercise calls every muscle in your body into play. Plus, you're working so hard for the interval that you really increase your anaerobic threshold which gives you the ability to work harder, longer which is a real benefit to endurance athletes as well. 

For this workout, since I was doing 60 seconds of work intervals I didn't want to go too heavy since it's important to be able to keep as good a form as possible for the entire interval, so I went with double 16kg kettlebells. For the exercises I chose the following (reps per 60 seconds in parentheses):

push: Military Press (15)

pull: renegade row (11 or 12 each side)

squat: front squats (15-17)

ballistic: double KB swings (30-32)

full body: Double Getup (6)

Doing double kettlebell swings is an unbelievable exercise. You're typically working with heavy weights (in this case about 70 pounds) since you have two kettlebells and you also can't control the speed of the exercise.. With most exercises there is an option to rest for a second or two between repetitions as you get tired. With the swings you are at the complete mercy of the kettlebells since they are always moving.. In 60 seconds, I was doing about 30 kettlebell swings with 32kg.. The last 5 were really difficult to keep getting the weight up to shoulder level and required a lot of determination and focus to continue to recruit every muscle in my body to raise the weights. By the end of 60 seconds my heart rate was way, way up and my body was completely pumped. Excellent exercise!

The double getup is an exercise that Steve Maxwell had me doing when I was training with him down in Philadelphia. This is a fantastic full body exercise that resembles the double KB Turkish Getup except without the weights overhead. Here's a video of one minute of the double getup. 

Give this workout a try and let me know what you think. Make variations as needed. You can do it with one kettlebell (except for the renegade rows, those need two).. Or you can adjust the work:rest ratios and times as well..

All the best,

Kevin

Make your running fun.. Hit the trails..

Sometimes at the start of our FIT class I'll take the group for a short jog as part of the warmup and we'll mix in some lateral shuffling, skipping, high knees and other stuff to loosen up the joints..  This is a really short jog, like less than 1/3 of a mile... But I always hear "Ugh, I hate running...". I can sympathize with this, although I think "hate" is probably kind of a strong emotion towards something that's actually good for you. The problem with running is that most people associate running with long, slow, boring jogs on open roads. Having to deal with the relentless pounding of the pavement and the traffic that typically feels entitled to the entire side of the road that you've decided to run on and that you have as much right to trespass on it as the chipmunk they just smucked a half mile back. 

I had two running experiences last week that were at complete opposite ends of the spectrum. Now I've never been a long distance runner (or short distance runner for that matter). But I do like to present myself with new challenges so I've decided to run a half marathon in October. I run about once every three or four days to train for the race. Last week my first run was a 7 mile run on roads. This was, I think, maybe the fourth or fifth time I've run on roads in the past 6 months. Almost all my running I do off road. It took me 56 minutes, which is at the 8 min/mile pace I would like to be at for the half marathon, but it felt like it took at least 4 times that long.. It was late morning and it was hot out. There was lots of traffic and I was on roads that had hardly any shoulder so i was getting fairly irritated with the cars and pickups that refused to give me any room. I have to admit, the run was boring and I was getting tired of the pounding the road was giving me. By the time I got home, I was cursing myself for signing up for a half marathon and promising myself I would never do it again. Three days later I went for a run in the woods back on the trails.. I don't know how far the run is but it takes me the same amount of time as 7 miles on the roads takes me.. The difference is that when I'm in the woods I am completely at play.. I'm running up and down hills, I'm jumping off rocks, I'm launching myself off tree stumps, I threw in some bear crawling. I stop at several different rock formations and do sets of plyometric jumps, my favorite is a 40 inch granite landmark that I'll stop and do ten two footed jumps up on.. This run takes anywhere from 45-50 minutes. My heart rate is much higher for much longer than the road running and there are periods where I'm up around 92-95% max heart rate for minutes at a time. So I'm working harder, I'm going anaerobic from time to time which has a much greater metabolic training effect than long aerobic efforts, (like jogging on roads), and most importantly I enjoy it.. A lot! This is what keeps me running. And it's so much better for your joints without pounding the pavement. It also does much more for strengthening the lower leg and foot muscles since there is so much more lateral movement and balancing going on.

So go find some trails to run on and jump on and over as much stuff as possible. Nothing makes you feel like a kid more than running towards a brook and finding a rock or tree stump to give you that extra lift as you launch yourself over the brook to avoid getting wet.. Or try running on just rocks, stumps, and sticks and see how far you can go without touching the ground. Michele and I took my daughter and her friend on a hike last week and on the way down the mountain my daughter said "everybody gets 1o lives, every time you touch the ground you lose a life".. I'm thinking "that's my girl! great idea".. so we're all bounding down the mountain, rock to rock, stick to stump, losing a life here and there.. And before we knew it, we were at the bottom, huffing and puffing, sweating and laughing. It was a great workout and it was a great game...

So next time you're going to go out for a run, get off the roads and have some fun. It will give you a whole new perspective and it will give you a fantastic workout :) 

Enjoy,

Kevin

The Doubles 500

Recently I've been trying to increase my capacity for doing doubles with the jump rope so I worked an interval session into my workout yesterday that I really liked.. It was 500 doubles (250 forwards and 250 backwards) done in 10 sets of 50 with 30 second breaks between intervals.. I warmed up skipping rope until my heart rate was up and I was feeling limber enough for extended periods of doubles. Then I started into the workout. When doing a workout with the jump rope you're going to miss every once in a while so you need to make sure you start jumping again immediately and continue until you've achieved the goal of the interval. With doubles I was able to get t0 50, both forwards and backwards, half the time without missing, but the other half I would miss once and then just start right back up again. This is a very intense metabolic workout where you're working very hard for short bursts and then taking a short rest which isn't nearly long enough for a recovery. This type of workout is phenomenal for increasing strength, endurance, and cardio. I completed the 500 doubles in just over 10 minutes, it was taking me about 30 seconds to complete the 50 doubles followed by 30 seconds of rest. It felt great!!

I followed this up with 10 minutes of 16kg kettlebell snatches without putting the kettlebell down, alternating hands every 60 seconds.. I got 210 snatches in 10 minutes. Sometimes I like to figure out how much work that is by multiplying the number of reps by the weight of the kettlebell.. In this case I moved 7392 lbs in 10 minutes.. I'm working my way up to where I can do this exercise with a 24kg kettlebell. This is actually known as the Secret Service Snatch Test.

After the snatch test, I did two sets of 5 Turkish Get-Ups on each side with a 24kg and followed that up with a set of an exercise I call a Back Press with Shoulder Opener that would be difficult to explain so I added a video of it.. Make sure if you're trying this exercise you start with low weights. You really work the range of motion in your shoulders and it puts the kettlebell in a precarious position above your head where you definitely need to be able to control the weight.

All in all, it was a fantastic workout and it was completed in about 45 minutes. To re-cap:

- 10x50 jump rope doubles (5x fwrd and 5x bkwrd) with 30 secs rest between intervals

- 10 min 1 arm snatch with 16kg for 210 reps

- 2x10 Turkish Get Up with 24kg (2x5 on each side)

- 1x10 Back Press with Shoulder Opener with 16kg