The Cruel Tutelage of The Master Pai Mei

Last Tuesday I wrote about having to sit through a ridiculous training where I had PowerPoint slides read to me, and that I was surfing YouTube because I wouldn’t remember any of the training even if I did pay attention, and Lincoln was going to change it anyway. At 9:08 am EDT this morning, less than a week later, I got an email saying the whole system is being scrapped and we’re going back to the way it was. Man is it hard being right all the time – Rush Limbaugh and me. I made it to the gym this morning and the squats went about as I expected. My legs are mush. I didn’t even push it this morning. I was smart. I warmed up on the elliptical to get the blood going. I eased into my routine. And this is the part where I was smart, I allowed myself an extra minute between sets to let my legs figure out what was going on, and put a stop to it. I knew I would feel great at the beginning, and I did, but I also knew that if I wasn’t careful I’d wind up walking like Fred Sanford for the next week. Squats hit everything below the belly button, and running doesn’t stress the hamstrings the way squats do. They’re not really the goal of the exercise, but they have to get used to their support role or they’ll pop. Pulling a hammy is a good laxative or more precisely, it can be a good enema. The pain is at its full intensity instantly. It’s horrible, and there’s no way to take all of the pressure off your legs. I had finished a set and I was waiting the extra minute when I caught a twinge in the back of my leg. I was about to add another 90 lbs. to the bar. Instead, the party was over. I packed up my stuff, and nobody had to go to the hospital. I’m going to spend the rest of the day drinking water and gently stretching my legs in the desperate hope that I can avoid as much of the inevitable soreness as possible. Squats are a harsh mistress but I’m glad they’re back.

I Didn't Make It To the Gym Today

Another day, another excuse not to do squats. I slept in today and had a full schedule at the office so I didn’t make it to the gym. I’m afraid of the mind altering pain that’s in store for me when I add squats back into the mix. Hopefully, I can work them tomorrow morning. I haven’t done squats in more than a year. Just thinking about them makes my butt burn. I’m going to take it easy because I’m thirty-eight years old, I’m not a professional athlete, and I don’t want to wind up in the emergency room. I don’t know if it’s a good thing that I’m reminding myself or a bad thing that I need to remind myself.

I read an op-ed in today’s Washington Post about how Obama and Bill Gates are trying to fix education. As per usual with limousine liberals, the biggest reason schools in America suck is because teachers are lazy and teachers’ unions are greedy. I understand that public education is not where it should be, but it really, REALLY, frustrates me when people are successful in something like politics or business and feel it makes them experts in something else. First of all, the chances that both of these guys aren’t crooks range from slim to none. I want to trust them but I don’t. At best, if Obama believes everything he says, so far he’s good at strategy and bad at tactics, and it’s the same with his staff. At best, Gates is trying to get right with God by giving away all his loot – and that’s what it is. At worst he’s pushing his agenda trying to get more foreign tech workers visas so he can pay more and more of his employees less and less. “Behind every great fortune there is a great crime” is true, and with Gates’s history of “situational” ethics, he bears watching. Bill Cosby, Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates, and Barack Obama have a lot more dilettante in them than proletariat. It makes me glad I’m not a Democrat.

Man's Game

This was day one of Weights: Da Return. I haven’t lifted in three weeks because I was completely focusing on my running. I lost about twelve pounds over those three weeks – seven of it last week. And I ran a 15k on Saturday. I knew I was in for a long day as soon as I started to warm up. I thought, “Oh man, this feels heavier than it should.” My muscles thought we were done with weights for good, and I know that they’re going to make me pay dearly over the next week as I get back into the flow. I tried my normal routine, and my body said no. I tried lifting lighter weight with more reps, and my body said no. The highlight of my weight session this morning is that I didn’t hurt myself – a minor miracle – and I didn’t get trapped underneath anything and need one of the trainers to save me, even though today would have been a good day for that to happen. The Yates Center seems to be skewing its training staff more towards the eye candy variety. Maybe it’s the economy and higher end trainers are having to move down a notch or two on the career ladder. I’ve been going to the YMCA for five years, and there have always been more trainers with guts than there have trainers with washboards, not anymore. There were three trainers on the floor with very little body fat and one was carrying some artificial extra weight in the upper torso region. But that’s not important. What is important is that even though I struggled through the weights portion of my workout, my cardio went great. My legs weren’t sore at all, and I burned a bunch of calories while taking it easy on my knees. I did chest and biceps today. Back is tomorrow, which should be fun. And the nightmare is scheduled for Thursday; legs are on the agenda for the first time in almost a year. We’re going to find out if I still know squat. Pray for me.

Training A 38 Year Old Body or We're Having Pizza Tonight

Well, I never seem to learn. I have a chest cold. I can’t breathe, but that didn’t stop me from trying to do my Monday interval training. I was supposed to do 3x1mi, hopefully finishing each interval in less than ten minutes. The first interval was fine. I finished in about 8m10s. Maybe I went out too fast because I struggled through the second interval, and I barely finished in 9min20s. I walked part of the last lap. I just couldn’t breathe. I guess I don’t know how to pace myself, but I’m new to interval training so maybe it will help me learn. There was no third interval. I left the track more than an hour ago and I’m still coughing. On the plus side I’m losing weight and my brand new kicks felt great. I have to start keeping better track of my shoe mileage because I can never tell when my shoes are worn out until there are holes in them. But whenever I get new shoes a light goes on, “Oh, that’s what cushion and support are supposed to feel like.” I also have a new schedule which is going to allow me to ramp up my workout intensity. I’m going back to weights five days a week. I haven’t hit my legs hard since LMJ was born; she’s almost two. Welcome back Mr. Squat. I’m looking forward to it. I’ve started taking L-Carnitine, which is a free form amino acid that helps facilitate the metabolism of long chain fatty acids. Beta Alanine has also been added to the mix – it’s the junk – is another free form amino acid that helps regulate muscle pH levels. It allows muscles to process lactic acid more efficiently and therefore perform longer and recover quicker. The older I get the bigger the role nutrition plays in getting me through my workouts. It was a lot easier being an eighteen year old perpetual motion machine, but getting old is better than the alternative.