What I've Learned So Far

It’s been a while since I posted workouts here — but I’ve certainly been working out hard, and some readers indicate they like seeing my workouts listed, so I’ll post at least a few samples from time to time. Without further ado . . .

Saturday:

• Warmups: walking, foam roller, 10 pushups.
• Incline barbell bench press: 6 x 95#, 6 x 115#, 5 x 5 x 135#
• Cybex seated row: 8 x 75#, 6 x 105#, 6 x 135#, 5 x 5 x 145#
• Seated d.b. shrugs: 10 x 45#’s, 6 x 60#’s, 5 x 5 x 75#’s
• Barbell curls in power rack: 5 x 10 x 45#
• One-arm dumbbell curls: 6 x 17.5#, 8 x 15#
• Rope-grip pressdowns: 2 x 10 x 7 plates, 3 x 10 x 6 plates
• One-handed rope-grip pressdowns: 6 x 2.5 plates, 8 x 2.5 plates

This was good, hard work, and I think I liked it better than the 10 x 10 workouts I did the prior two weekends. I’m trying to incorporate a few low-volume, high-weight sets as well as some higher-volume “pump” sets, more or less in line with what Jason Ferruggia discussed here.Â

Sunday:

• Warmups: walking, foam roller.
• Barbell squats: 20 x 45#, 10 x 95#, 8 x 125#, 6 x 155#, 5 x 5 x 175#
• Unilateral plate-loading leg press: 2 x 15 x 100#, 2 x 15 x 50#
• Good mornings: 3 x 10 x 45#

Delightfully grueling! Finished this one off with a soak in the spa and a long sit in the steam room.

So, what have YOU been up to?

Me, now:

Why? Because Movember is here, as my good friend Aaron Strout explaiins in this blog post:

Movember Time, Austin Style!

The short version: guys such as myself grow mustaches and raise money to promote research on prostate and testicular cancer. (Women can join in, too — just put a cartoon mustache on your avatar!)

What’s that you say? You want to donate right-now-this-instant? That’s fantastic — just follow this link to my personal Movember page to give any amount you like.

How much am I asking you to give? I dunno — $2? If everybody gave two bucks, that would seriously add up. Of course, if you want to give $20 or $200 or $20,000, so much the better. Team Austin, of which Aaron is a ringleader, is looking to raise six figures this year — so every little (and big) bit helps.

An aside: I’ve worn a mustache and beard for so many years that I (and my wife) can’t stand to see it all shaved off — even though the “formal” rules for Movember say that you’re supposed to be clean-shaven on October 31. But I figure this rockin’ Fu Manchu is sure to be a great conversation-starter — which is the whole point of raising awareness, and FUNDS, for the fight against men’s cancers.

Please donate generously if you can. Even better, join the Movember movement yourself!

My friend Mish—she of “Exposed” fame—asked me to write up some thoughts about why I’m pursuing fitness like I am, and why I’m recording the results photographically. Here’s an incomplete list of reasons . . .

• Because I don’t know what’s possible. What will my body look like after another year of disciplined exercise and eating? What will I look like with a six-pack? Is my body capable of bench-pressing 300 pounds, or running a sub-3:00:00 marathon? I don’t know, but I’d like to find out.
• Because I want to test myself. Yesterday I ran five miles on asphalt for the first time in more than three years—i.e. the first time since I tore a calf muscle in mid-2007. I can’t stand the idea of living in fear of another injury, or of not finding out if I’m anywhere close to my other physical limitations.
• Because I’m not getting any younger. I firmly intend to be the 75-year-old in the gym cranking out sets of bench presses at 275 pounds. I want men—and women—half my age marveling at my fitness and physique. By no means will I be capitulating to the aging process or to “metabolic syndrome.” Ever.
• Because it feels great when your body works great (and looks great). Recently I restocked my wardrobe with new pants. I’ve always been proud that my waistband has never gone above 32 inches, but I was even prouder to discover that 32-inch waistbands no longer fit me at all, because they’re just too baggy now. I’ve commented before on how good it feels when a friend sees you for the first time in a while and says, “Have you been working out?” Sure, it’s vanity—but of a wonderful kind.
• Confidence. I was an awkward kid, often picked last for kickball on the playground. I could not have made the varsity in any sport during high school. Having command of my fitness has been a great way for me to build my physical confidence over the years.
• A sense of guiding my own life, rather than being guided by my old habits. I tell this to friends all the time: just because something has been a certain way in the past doesn’t imply that it has to stay that way in the future. Constantly improving my fitness is a way for me to heed and model that advice in my own life, rather than giving into inertia as so many people do. It’s about much more than just how I look, how far I run, or how much weight I lift in the gym; it’s about getting the most out of life.

Now, what about you? I’d love to hear your reasons for pursuing fitness—radical or otherwise—in the comments.

~

(Photo by Andrew Turner.)

 

  

“Nothing is more terrible than activity without insight.”

–Thomas Carlyle

~

(Photo by fonso.) 

Last night, the Texas Rangers looked great against the New York Yankees for seven innings. A decade ago, the Juan Gonzalez-Ivan Rodriguez Rangers served as the first-round playoff whipping boy for the Yankees three different times, but it looked like the men from Arlington might finally win a fight against the perennial bully of the American League.

Then their starter, C. J. Wilson, faltered a bit, which wasn’t a problem, and Rangers manager Ron Washington went to his bullpen, which was.

Here’s the brief observation:

• During the regular season, one of the most subtle jobs for any manager is his use of the bullpen. You want to keep relief pitchers fresh by using them often enough . . . but not wear them out by using them too much. You want to give the highest-leverage innings to the best relievers . . . but you also want to give the lesser members of the bullpen a chance to elevate their own levels of performance. Above all, you want to properly distribute the huge pitching workload that comes from a 162-game schedule. Doing it well is an art, really, and it’s all about knowing which tool is the best one to reach for in which situation.
• In the playoffs, the best tool to reach for is virtually always the biggest hammer you have, because it’s of paramount importance that you win TODAY. Get this win in the books and, except for holding the next game’s starting pitcher in reserve, don’t worry about tomorrow. That means that you want maximum innings from your best starters and relievers, and minimal innings not just from your worst pitchers, but even from your middle-of-the-road pitchers. The best playoff managers (recently: Joe Torre with the Yankees, Terry Francona with the Red Sox, Mike Scioscia with the Angels, Joe Maddon with the Rays, and Charlie Manuel with the Phillies) get this. When in the slightest doubt, drop the hammer — even to the point of sometimes ignoring the usage patterns you established during the regular season, if that’s what it takes to win THIS game.

Last night, faced with a Yankee surge, Washington went to his Nth-best reliever four times in a row, where N = any number besides 1. His closer, Neftali Feliz, never got into the game.

Now, there were close plays (Gardner’s headfirst slide) and tricky hops (A-Rod’s grounder past Young) involved, too . . . but that’s what happens in baseball, and no manager can control that. What they can control is which pitcher they put into the game when. Last night, faced with the horror of things unraveling quickly in a game that the Rangers dearly needed to win, Washington never dropped the hammer.

On the first day of this year, I joined my (now) friend Mish in the Exposed movement, which she had started one year ago today. Since then, I’ve gone on a crazy tear of self-exposure, using daily photos of myself as motivation for my efforts to improve my physique. I can’t imagine that I would have pursued this tack, which has been very helpful to me, without Mish’s inspiration.

Mish has dealt with a lot when it comes to weight, eating, and body image. If you’re interested in any of these topics — or fitness in general, or merely the experience of reading a smart, brave person deal with life forthrightly – by all means make a practice of reading Mish’s Eating Journey blog.

While you’re at it, please consider Exposing yourself for a bigger cause.

Is it important to you? Write it down.

Do you have goals? Write them down.

Did you work out? Write down what you did.

Are you laying plans for buying a new house, starting a business, paying off your credit cards, throwing a party, building your professional network, losing weight, running a marathon, keeping in touch with old friends, reading more books, writing a book, planting a garden, . . . ?

Whatever it is, write it down. Make it real on the page as a step along the path to making it real in your life.

Then GET MOVING . . . and write down your results as you go.

What do you write down?

~

(Photo by Jayel Aheram.) 

 

  

Those were the opening words of an e-mail that Patagonia sent me this week. The e-mail touched on an insanely difficult climb being tackled in France by Patagonia-outfitted alpinists, but the principle holds true across many things: if you’re going to take on something difficult, and if it’s genuinely important to you, it’s vital that you harden yourself to the task.

Yes, prepare. Yes, plan. But above all set your mind to it.

This hit home to me, in my own little way, because yesterday I did a particularly tough treadmill workout. Hey, it’s just the treadmill — not the French Alps — and it wouldn’t have taxed a “real” runner. But it was tough for me, and it required upping the intensity throughout the workout.

In case you’re curious about specifics of the workout, it went like this:

• Decide on the overall distance you’ll cover.
• Start at an easy jogging pace for the first half-mile — or whatever works for you to get good and warm.
• Every quarter-mile after that — or tenth, or whatever increment you decide — increase the speed by a planned amount, e.g. 0.1 or 0.2 or 0.5 mph.
• Keep doing it until you cover the whole distance.

Easy, right? Sure it is — unless you’ve really picked a challenge for yourself, which in this case I had.

By the end of the workout, my legs were steaming and my lungs were screaming. When I’d tried this previously (I’ve been doing these treadmill sessions twice a week for a couple of months now), I hadn’t been able to maintain the increases in pace all the way to the end. But yesterday I did.

Part of it, I’m sure, is that with each workout-and-recovery cycle, I’m getting more of my old running legs under me. But a big part of it — the biggest part — was that I had made up my mind to do the whole program, regardless of how much I wanted to quit.

When you set your mind to something, don’t quit.

It’s a simple lesson — one of the simplest — but it bears repeating.

~

(Photo by Zach Dischner.)