Christmas Night randoms

Just a few random things here on Christmas Night while I listen to Bears/Packers and try to keep from calling EMS to pump my stomach:
1. Falafel, hummus, cucumber salad, baba ganouj, pita and homemade cheesecake DO NOT mix well together. Currently having a Royal Rumble in my stomach; no matter who wins, I lose.

2. Addendum to training plans: Chad Smith from Juggernaut was gracious enough to get me a program now, so I'm starting on that and I'm just going to train through the meet in Vegas in three weeks. I won't be posting the program Chad put together for me (gotta protect the guy's intellectual property), but suffice it to say I'm very excited to get back to training like an athlete rather than strictly as a weightlifter. Starting to look for Highland Games in 2012 as well as a PL meet to do towards the back end of the year. I love to travel for meets, so fire me a Tweet or hit my comments with some ideas. I'm curious to try the 60m indoor track sometime, but I don't even know where to start looking for such a thing besides USA Track.

3. Saw an excellent show on Dec 23; the Shaloms and the Nuns of Brixton. The Shaloms are a Ramones tribute band and the Nuns of Brixton are a Clash tribute band. They put on an insane live show and one that I feel very fortunate to have seen, especially since it was a backup plan. If either of these groups come to your town, I highly encourage you to get out and see them.

4. Due to temporary insanity, I've signed up to run 1.5 miles in my skivvies (in Denver, in February) and raise some money for the Children's Tumor Foundation. Please have a look here; any donations would be greatly appreciated. I am also accepting any suggestions for running attire as I've been trying to lose this last tiny bit of shame for quite awhile now. I have no doubts that WAAAAYYYY too many pictures will be taken and posted to various social media sites such as the Twitterz and the Bookface for public consumption/embarassment.

Seriously though: It's a great cause to give some kids a helping hand. Every little bit counts; hell just donate a dollar. Do it anonymously if you're embarrassed at only being able to give a dollar. Sidenote: NEVER be embarrassed about anything that you are GIVING. It's still more than the majority of people out there will do. One size doesn't fit all with regards to helping people; the important point is to DO SOMETHING. Be part of the solution.
5: Elitefts.com is currently selling it's annual Make A Wish manual, entitled "Programs That Work" here. Additionally, they have re-listed the previous years' manuals for sale as well. All proceeds go to the Make a Wish Foundation of Ohio. Having purchased each one of these manuals, including the "Lift Strong" manual in 2007, I can say without a doubt that it is the best collection of information you will find for $10.

Hope everyone is in the midst of an excellent time of year with loved ones, regardless of your belief/religious denomination. Five more days to make your mark on 2011, then the books are closed forever.

Always be a work in progress...

How To Go 2/6 in an Olympic Meet

I post this in complete self-flagellation as this as a very disappointing meet for me. As I text a friend of mine afterwards: sometimes you get the bear and sometimes, well, the bear gets you. I'll take from the experience what I can and move forward.

The whole thing was very very well run and I'm becoming more impressed with the Crossfit crowd the more I get to hang out with them. I still don't believe it to be the best means to develop maximal strength and I take issue with some of the means (as well as promoting Rhabdo and vomiting), but I find it very hard to argue with the amount of work and the sense of community that has been obvious at each box that has allowed me to come in and train. 

My first miscue was weigh-ins. I didn't know what the weight classes were going to look like, so I didn't make a huge effort to cut weight. I always watch things the week of the meet, just because lower bodyweight is always better whenever possible. When I got there, the weight classes were as follows: 174 and below, 175-199, 200+. I figure I'm a shoo-in for 200+ as I weighed 208 on monday, so I stepped on the scale.

201.4

Wait, what? I got on again and still rang up 201.4. If I had known I was that close to a different weight class, you can bet your ass I would have gotten that pound and a half off the night before! Maybe I should've tried to get it off as I had a half an hour or so. But I figured it didn't matter, as I was just aiming to go 6/6 so I didn't care about placement.

Moving to the actual lifting:

I was totally impressed by the female lifters. I gotta say, Crossfit has done a great job of appealing to women and actual lifting rather than being cardio bunnies. One of the female lifters turned out to be a trainer at my friends' gym. She finished second in her group and received some high praise and an offer to work with her from my Oly lifting coach/mentor. Also: she is quite strong, in ludicrous shape, very smiley and very easy on the eyes. But that's a different conversation for a different day.

Snatch-
Warmups felt very good. I lifted up to my opener and then did a high pull with 20 lbs over my opener just to feel it.

195: Good. Just wanted one to get me over so I power snatched it. You'll see in the video that I left the bar waaaayyyy out in front. This is a habit of mine, along with jumping back as I catch. You'll notice this prevalent in all of my misses. The pulls are all very high and nothing looks overly wrong, but it's incredibly tough to catch a barbell when you shift your center of gravity backwards.

205 Miss: See above

215 Miss: See above. I didn't even give myself a chance on the two misses. I basically tried to catch the barbell at a 45 degree angle. This is a great sign that I'm not finishing the pull, despite the height of the barbell.

Tremendous disappointment as I had done 105kg (231lbs) twice in training and I thought for sure 220 would be there today. In hindsight, I let me balls and my ego get in the way because I could've taken 205 again and gone 2/3. Hindsight is always 20/20.

CJ
Again, warmups felt light. I actually cleaned my opener twice and everything felt great. As before, I high pulled 20lbs over my opener just to feel the weight a bit. That's comfortable for me, might not be the best idea for anyone else. Just how I roll.

245: Good. I opened very low (again, no bomb-outs) and power cleaned it. Nothing special by any means and not a whole lot to be gained from a 111kg lift.

260. Miss. Feet jumped backwards and I got a little soft at the bottom. Bar out in front + squishy at the ottom means a missed lift.

275: I basically power cleaned this one, just left it a little in front and that was that.

So I totaled 440lbs. 200kg. My best ever total in training was 230 and I was constantly in the 215-225 area. To total at around 87% of my best ever and 90% of my average total is extremely disappointing. Brace yourself for the awful:

The training was great and I felt ok going into this meet; not great, but OK. Here is where I messed up: I cut down my training too early. Due to work committments, I only made it into the gym to train around 4-5 times. I think that going from training daily to basically every third day was a bit of a shock to the system, especially after being used to max weights on a daily basis. I did not get the chance to clean from 12 days out of the meet. I took a snatch 3 days out, which went...poorly. Live and learn.

After a bad meet, you always see people say "Well I easily did XYZ in training". Training and meet day are such completely different animals, it's almost not an apples to apples comparison. I'm a firm believer that he stress response that you body feels on meet day had BETTER be different than you feel in training. A professional dancer friend of mine (ballet, not exotic) once explained nerves like this: "The nerves you get before a performance are proof that it's important to you. If you aren't nervous, you don't really care". I like that, but clearly I didn't "use" the nerves.

Another lesson: I let my balls get in the way of my original goals. I wrote down the day of the meet: 6/4/6, No Misses. When the first miss came, I should've rallied around that and regrouped. Instead I thought "Well, there goes that idea; I guess we'll just go for broke". Sometimes this is the right idea; some of the best advice I've received about missing weights is "Well, add 5kg and pull it like you mean it this time". I let my ego get in the way and it cost me some lbs on my total. Pride cometh before the fall indeed.

Thanks to my training partners for filming my lifts and coming to the meet, and thanks to my friends at Crossfit Broadway for having their holiday party that night so I could see people I haven't seen in years, forget about the meet for the night and celebrate the one year anniversary of the gym.

I still have every intention of doing the meet in Las Vegas in January without making much change to my training. Back to the heavy stuff, but I'll do plenty of full lifts from the blocks in an effort to get my feet corrected. I will also (hopefully) lift straight through until the meet rather than a layoff. This time was unintentional, but it taught me that I need to make more of an effort to stay active and keep weight in my hands leading up to a meet.

After that meet, I intend to work with Chad Smith from Juggernaut Training (http://www.jtsstrength.com/) on some programming; he just doesn't know it yet. I've never had anyone write my training for me and I think Chad's programming will synch up well with my interests. Chad seems to program for athletes rather than purely for powerlifting, or purely for throwing, and that appeals to me greatly.

I'm not sure if this qualifies as f#ckarounditis (to paraphrase Jen Sinkler), but I'd like to be able to do a little bit of everything. I'd like to be able to do Oly meets, or PL meets, or Highland Games, or even run the 60m. I'm not an Olympian by any means, but I have every desire to still compete at the national/international level. All the time spent with rugby took a good chunk of my 20s away as far as competing in anything else, so I'm trying to make up or lost time! I realize the danger of trying to become a jack of all trades (and a master of none), but at this point I have to think my qualification level is low and the simple act of getting stronger will be more beneficial than any kind of sport-specific training. This entire year has been devoted to Olympic lifting, and I am admittedly burnt out on the idea of purely practicing two lifts. That MIGHT be a wee bit of meet disappointment talking there.

I also have some lbs to continue to drop as I'd like to be in the 190-200lbs range consistently; this is where I feel the healthiest and strongest. I started the year at 225lbs and it looks like I will end around 200-205. I'd rather this trend continue, as I've made two round trips between 235 and 200 in the last 3 years. Nothing unintentional or unhealthy; when I trained for strongman, it paid to be just below 231 so that's where I was during the summer. In the winters I'd lean out.  

That's all the news thats fit to print y'all. I keep saying this, but I really am making more of an effort to blog and write. If nothing else, it helps to keep me sane. Thanks to all of you for having a read and feel free to light me up in the comments section or on twitter (@kylef) with any questions, comments or concerns.

My Trip To Bulgaria...and I didn't even get a passport stamp

One of the most hotly debated topics in athletics is the "Bulgarian" method. Developed by Ivan Abadjiev, the premise is to take maximal attempts in the classic lifts (snatch and clean and jerk), as well as the front squat, as the vast majority of your training. This runs counter to many of the generally accepted truths about weightlifting training regarding CNS burnout, injury, accomodation from limited diversity of movements, etc. Despite these reservations, it seems to be working pretty well for many of the Eastern European champions of the past 30-40 years as well as lifters of California Strength and Average Broz Gym. Me being a glutton for punishment, I decided to give it a shot for this meet cycle, from mid May to mid December.

Note: David Woodhouse wrote an extremely good article on Abadjiev on Weightlifting Exchange, found here. There is also a translation of the Bulgarian documentary School of Champions as well as a lecture (with English notes) from Abadjiev found here. These resources formed the basis for my initial training thoughts and I borrowed some ideas from Cal Strength and Average Broz along the way.

The whole thing became an amalgamation of ideas. My goal every day was to get a max snatch, a max CJ and a squat. I used snatches and cleans from the box, the power lifts and the classical lifts as well as the front and back squat. Including presses and jerks, I believe I used around 10 barbell exercises in total during the 24-odd weeks. I still did a very small percentage of supportive work (lots of pullups, a little ab work and some Prowler).

The theme for this training was this: "To Get Through It, You Have To Go Through It". Simple concept, but not easy. These methods go against everything I'd read from the Russians, everything I had learned during my undergrad and CSCS as well as what I'd learned from listening to the US coaches speak. On the other hand, I'm a great believer in Knowledge Without Mileage = Bullshit (thank you Henry Rollins). If I don't "go", I'll never "know". So I went.

Results: the first month or so was great. I set a new clean max at 130kg and a new snatch record at 100kg. I equalled this 130 clean 5 separate times over the first 5 weeks. I matched my snatch record twice and surpassed it twice, hitting 102 on two separate occasions and having a couple near misses at 105 and 107, along with a miss at 107 that nearly decapitated me. My back squat reached a PR of 190kg, suprassed later in the cycle at 195kg. My back jerk topped out 140kg, which I later surpassed at 142kg. I set records in the power snatch, topping out at an ugly 95kg. My power CJ topped out at a pretty ugly 125kg. Oddly enough, my front squat actually regressed to 140kg; I've done a triple at 160kg in the past. My push press topped out around 110kg for a set of 5 and I did multiple sets of 5 at 100kg.

So the first month looks great right? PRs, records, velvet ropes parting, champagne falling from the heavens! Around week 5-6, while all this is happening, my body was slowly descending into the Smackdown Hotel. My CNS went to hell. I noticed when speaking that my words wouldn't quite come out right. This isn't really a new problem, but it's usually for something I say rather than not being able to finish a sentence. I couldn't sleep more than a couple of hours a night for weeks in a row. My joints got brutally stiff when I trained, even worse if I skipped a day. My waking HR, usually in the mid 40s, started getting up into the 60s. I noticed myself getting short and snappy with people and my eyes were pretty much constantly hurting and bloodshot.

This is part of the beauty of the system: you're programming/brainwashing your body to perform a limited number of motor tasks. Accommodation becomes your best friend. After that first month, despite feeling completely awful and sickened by the sight of a barbell, I was still hitting 90-100% of my max snatch and CJ each and every workout. My squats also stayed high, but the drop was a bit more pronounced since I always performed the squats at the end of the workout. I didn't need to warm up with anything besides a set of reverse hypers, some pullups and bar work. Had I tried to introduce brand new stimuli here (sprinting, strongman, etc), there is no doubt I would've become injured. The fact that you have limited biomechanical means to stimulate the organism removes that aspect of variation. The loading becomes the sole means of stimulation as the body has become accustomed to the movements.

This is probably one of the most psychologically damaging aspects of this style; the monotany creeps into your psyche. I have anecdotally read that many of the athletes did not fail physically, but rather psychologically. One must also understand the conditions these athletes operated under were far different than the conditions of US-lifters; for these lifters, their total was their livelihood as well as the livelihoods of their families. The comparison is not "apples to apples", so I hesitate to use this as support for the physical demands.

After progress stagnated around week 6 or so, there was a point where I could've made a different decision. In looking at my log, I see that this was an excellent time for a deload, maybe keeping frequency but only working to 80-85%, anything to take my foot off the gas. BUT, in my limited research, this was something that every source seemed to agree on: when you reach this point, you had to keep going. The key was to drive through the "dark times" as this was precisely the time where the body is retooling. So I kept going. I upped my use of the back squat as a means to increase the absolute loading and kept driving hard for new maxes.

At this point, I was basically alternating the following 7 days a week:

Pwr Snatch, Full CJ, Back Squat
Full Snatch, Pwr CJ, Front Squat

I was still hitting my 90% minimum, but it was getting more and more difficult and I was moving further and further away from my all time PRs. Some technical flaws started becoming a little more evident; I started leaving the bar in front on my snatch, catching it low on my clean and not getting my heels to the ground. Trying to catch a snatch or a clean is tough enough; try doing it on your toes!  I also had a slight scare with my back during this time and I dialed down the intensity for a few weeks. This didn't help and I think it may have thrown my body into all sorts of jacked-upded-ness (write that down).

The past few weeks I've dialed things down as I'm getting ready for a meet on Dec 10. I will still take maximal classical lifts and squats leading up to the meet, but at a reduced frequency and I'll probably add some lower level power lifts (something along the lines of a dynamic day ie 10-12 reps of each at around 60-70%) to groove the lifts and get my CNS snapping. Something I read from Medvedyev that has stuck with me: highly skilled athletes have the ability to tense their muscles faster than others, but also the ability to relax their muscles quicker than others. Think of an Oly lifter like Ronny Weller, who doesn't set up the lift so much as drop and go. That ability to tense is what Louie Simmons references when he expounds on the benefits of dynamic squatting off of a box. Squatting on a box requires you to generate a ton of muscle tension quickly with no room for the stretch reflex to use elastic energy.

So, as I sit here, assessing the last few months and debating where my training should go after this meet, what did I learn?

1. Intensity is King. Periods of maximal and submaximal loading (90-100+%) are beneficial/necessary and something that I hadn't done with regularity since I was previously using my interpretation of the conjugate system. If you're a proponent of using blocks, maybe program 2-3 weeks of a limited exercise range and 90-100% lifts, especially around 4-6 weeks outside of your meet date. Use Prilepin's chart and aim for 4-7 lifts over 90% of your max for that day. Read that again; your max ON THAT DAY, not your absolutely maximum. This goes along with some re-reading I'm doing from Medvedyev and Siff, essentially stating that the average weight of the barbell lifted has a high correlation to making new records. Implication: more repetitions performed at a higher %. I also found some interesting info on 90-100% lift guidelines, but I haven't fully fleshed those out as of yet.

2. Waving Works. Many of my best results in the snatch and CJ came after missing weights multiple times. I would work up to a couple misses in the snatch, then drop 20-30kg and work back up. The first time I made 102, it was on a third wave where my initial miss had been at 90 and second wave miss had been at 97. I believe it was my 5th or 6th miss of the session before I made it. The CJ is a little different and I only used one wave since the load on the barbell (as well as complexity/CNS impact) is much higher than the snatch. Also: I'm much more comfortable snatching than cleaning. I haven't tried waving squats, but for the quick lifts (the Oly lifts as well as the jerk) the response was very positive.

3. Ignore Recovery Methods At Your Own Peril. As I tweeted a few days ago, the Russian lifters averaged 400-500 hours of restorative work per year. This equates to 65-82 mins PER DAY of restorative work. I did nearly nothing as far as restoration outside of eating, sleeping, supplementing (very bare bones: protein powder, fish oil, creatine, multivitamin, mineral supp, curcumin) and some foam rolling. Massage, epsom salt baths, contrast shower and many other means can be done to assist in recovery. I wanted the "full effect" and I ignored some of these methods intentionally to see how the body would respond. Maybe not the smartest idea, but one of my themes of this block was to Trust My Body to be smarter than me and find a way.

I say that with a caveat: recovery methods need to be cycled. The point of training, after all, is to irritate the organism to the point that it adapts to imposed demands. Going overboard with recovery can actual blunt the training effect. Medvedyev addresses this in stating that recovery should be emphasized on "rest" days, or days in which fundamental loading is minimal or non-existant (ie GPP days) so as not to interfere with the training effect from fundamental loading sessions. Even in the weekly training cycle, the Russians are making a reference to a High/Low methodology (introduced to my by James Smith of Power Development Inc).

4. Eating Patterns Matter. A modified Warrior-style of nutrition works incredibly well with this type of training. Michael Keck gave me some ideas that I put into practice during this cycle. Never once did I come into a workout feeling hypoglycemic or cloudy from my eating; I was always just a little hungry and on edge. I carried out this style of eating through the entire span of this cycle, starting out weighing 223 and currently sitting at 208 as I type this (with a belly full of Wahoo's Fish Tacos). The weight loss came with no real cardio and I see how this style, coupled with morning track work or cardio, can yield great body composition results. For my purposes, it kept me feeling edgy and sharp both in the gym and in my career. I anticipate using this style for the forseeable future; Thanks Mike!

Do I think the Bulgarian system "works"? Obviously. It has produced (and continues to produce) great results in the world of weightlifting.

Is it the best system for a 31 yr old professional with long hours in a fairly high stress job? Maybe, maybe not. I definitely didn't set myself up for success, but I had a plan and excluding the one setback with my back, I executed it about as well as I could have hoped. Win, lose or draw, it has been an excellent learning experience, one that makes me a better lifter and gave me a deeper knowledge about my body and its abilities.

The proof comes in two weeks.

"Wiggle Your Big Toe"

Recently I was sitting in a volunteer training at Judi's House, where I do some volunteer work, and we discussed emotional triggers. The discussion reminded me of an important one for me (completely self inflicted) in relation to athletics and injuries.

You remember that scene from Kill Bill where Uma Thurman is in the back of the truck, paralyzed and trying to will herself to move? She keeps repeating over and over again "Wiggle Your Big Toe" until her toe finally budges a fraction of an inch, thus rendering her free to move, kick, punch and slice her way to victory?

I can totally relate...and not because I've been paralyzed in the back of some dude's pickup truck. (5th Amendment)

In 2004 (I was 24 at the time), I slipped the L4-L5 and L5-S1 discs during a weightlifting workout. A smarter man would've taken time off, rehabbed and lived to fight another day. Being that I am, in fact, NOT a smarter man, I played through a season of rugby while training 4 days a week for powerlifting. Playing in the front row for rugby while also pulling/squatting for a max every Monday night is not conducive to lower back rehab and I developed some serious sciatica in my right leg.

At this time, I was also finishing my undergrad in sports medicine at Colorado State University and interning in the weight room. This entailed being on my feet coaching from around 11am until 4-5pm, at which time I would either head to Denver for rugby training or train with one of the other coaches. I've never felt pain like I did in those days of being on my feet; I actually chipped a tooth from grinding my teeth. That is not a badge of honor and pride; it's a badge of stupidity and ego.

Fast forward 9 months: I get an MRI after the rugby season ends and take it to one of the orthopedic surgeons at CSU. He has me take off my shoes, looks at the MRI, palpates my spine and puts me through some balance tests, which I fail spectacularly (go big or go home). He then asks me to stand on both feet and raise the big toe on my right foot.

Nothing. Not even a twitch of life.

I flexed my foot with every fiber of my being. The other four toes moved off of the ground easily, but the big toe mind as well have been glued to the ground. The resulting conversation was award-winning movie dialogue:

"I can't move my toe"
-Nope
"That is not good."
-Nope

From that day up until the day I went in for microdiscectomy (day before Thanksgiving in 2005), I would constantly test my big toe. From the time I awoke to the time I went to sleep, I would test it and try to make it move. It's the very first thing I did once I woke up post-op in the recovery room and I still do it from time to time because it sets off that cacade of memories in my mind. That surgery is a story unto itself (including my first and only experience with a catheder), but that experience of not being able to move something simple like a toe has stuck with me. The phrase "Lift Your Toe" is something that goes through my mind at key points in my life, both in and out of the gym.

Athletically speaking (both physically and mentally), recovering from surgery is one of the toughest things I've done. I went from limping and not able to stand upright pain free to getting back to playing high level rugby, going to camp with USA Bobsled, competing in athletics and just living a (semi) pain free life. When I'm dragging and hurting and I don't want to train, I always remember the times when I couldn't lift my big toe. It's an emotional trigger for me and it conjures up images of the pre-op days lying on my girlfriend's kitchen floor and the post-op days when I needed a grabber arm to get dressed and when my only activity came from pacing laps in my 600 sq ft apartment. Vasily Alexeyev (one of the greatest weightlifters of all time) said this (from Elitefts.com):

"It seems to me that some of the talented athletes lack one thing-- they
haven't had an injury. That's right!  An injury that will put them out of
commission for a year during which time they'll have a chance to weigh every-
thing.  I, too, would not be where I am if I had not injured my back.  I
suffered for a year and a half thinking everything over ... After a
misfortune, people pull through and become, if possible, great people -- and
sportsmen, in particular. Those who are stronger find their way out and to
the top.
The past can be a very powerful tool in your arsenal, if used appropriately. Athletes tend to focus on the "glory days" while forgetting the dark days and time spent rehabilitating from injury. Rehab and recovery from an injury is one of the toughest things that an athlete will do; it forces you to weigh everything in your life when you make the "Do I or Don't I" decision. Don't forget about those days when you're laid up on crutches or in a sling; those are the times when you really had to weigh everything. Those are the turning points, the times when you decided to really go to work.

Just Lift Your Toe.

I am Jack's Unique Definition of Fun

I've been doing some purging of my laptop and my flash drives and thought I'd post up some stuff from the past few years of training and competing. No Oly Weightlifting pics and vids but those should be coming along this summer/fall. Some of the videos may contain filthy language or men with their shirts off so tread lightly and at your own risk.

This might have been the longest minute of 2009. This is a frame carry/stone carry medley (50 ft in each direction) with the frame weighing about 500lbs and the stone weighs 250lbs.

How I didn't kill myself doing this I'll never know; 60 kg (132lb) one armed snatch

(Insert "Got Wood" joke here)

In my younger days (during and right after business school), I fancied myself one of those guys who pushes a sled down a sheet of ice at a (hopefully) high rate of speed. This is from the pushtrack at the Olympic Park in Park City UT. If you ever get the chance to go to Park City or Lake Placid, I highly recommend that you take advantage of the bobsled rides.

This is from my second ever contest in Salina KS in which I finished second in the under 200lbs class. I typically competed at 220-230 but I feel really good at 200-210 and that's where I plan to stay going forward. Extra weight doesn't necessarily equal stronger (as the guys at California Strength say "Fat Doesn't Contract") and being generally healthy is important to me. No one ever got weaker by being healthier.  

This is from the 2010 Southern California's Strongest Man contest in Huntington Beach. This is after an event appropriately titled the "Death Medley". It consisted of a 100ft farmers walk with 240lbs in each hand followed by a 50 ft tire flip with a 600lb tire and then a heavy sled drag for 50 feet. I finished 2nd in this event (3rd in the contest) and this mantastic pic ended up on the cover of the OC Register a few days later; truly my 15 nanoseconds of fame.  

Despite this example, I spend the majority of my time not wearing spandex, a kilt or attempting to put myself in a wheelchair at age 30. But where's the fun in that? 

Roll the Dice

(H/T @fitcornpop)

Roll the Dice

by Charles Bukowski 

if you’re going to try, go all the way.

otherwise, don’t even start.

 

if you’re going to try, go all the

way. this could mean losing girlfriends,

wives, relatives, jobs and

maybe your mind.

go all the way.

it could mean not eating for 3 or 4 days.

it could mean freezing on a park bench.

it could mean jail,

it could mean derision,

mockery,

isolation.

isolation is the gift,

all the others are a test of your

endurance, of

how much you really want to

do it.

and you’ll do it

despite rejection and the

worst odds

and it will be better than

anything else

you can imagine.

if you’re going to try,

go all the way.

there is no other feeling like that.

you will be alone with the gods

and the nights will flame with fire.

do it, do it, do it.

do it.

all the way

all the way.

you will ride life straight to perfect laughter,

it’s the only good fight there is.

 

This is Here

I had the opportunity to see Henry Rollins speak this past weekend (which I highly recommend to anyone and everyone I meet; poignant and hilarious shows) and blatantly stole the title of this entry from that performance. Henry told a story about traveling to Tibet and the woman who served as his guide. When she would arrive at a place of high importance, she would start her explanation with the phrase "This is Here". This has been stuck in my head ever since I heard it. It's an incredibly meaningful and profound way to describe a place and an even better way to describe a moment in time.

Whether you're at work, at home, the gym (bike/mountain/track/wherever), out on the town, etc; that's your moment. You can choose to actively disengage from wherever your physical self might take you...and in 2011 you have a plethora of ways to bail out on your present situation! In an increasingly interconnected world, the line between engagement and distraction becomes a little blurry; it becomes a question of physical engagement vs. conscious engagement i.e. where I am isn't exactly where I "am". Due to this fragmentation of our attention, the biggest statement we can make to someone (and to ourselves) is by being present, engaged and owning your moments. Consistent focus and legit engagement is becoming rarer than a Cubs World Series ring.

This splitting of our attention isn't inherently a bad thing, but it can detract from the statement that you make to those around you by being there in the first place. You can also completely derail yourself from the current moment. One of the most powerful things I do to non-verbally communicate with people (as well as to myself) that "I'm HERE" is to make a point of turning off my phone. Conversely, there is no easier way to get someone to consciously "check out" than to check your phone when they're saying something or expressing themselves. And it isn't just me: 14% of men have taken a call while on a first date; of that group, 61%  didn't get a second date (per Men's Health magazine). I'm willing to concede that there may be some unaccounted variables but that's still not a good sign for all parties involved.

Don't get me wrong: this isn't a diatribe against the smartphone, the digital age and the interconnected world by any means. Social media (in all its forms) has given me the opportunity to interact with people and places that I wouldn't have even known existed 10-20 years ago; plus the irony of blogging about disconnecting is like screwing over virginity. Just a quick reminder to be mindful of your moments as well as the impact that your engagement (or lack thereof) has on yourself and those around you.

Wherever you are, this is here.

Fasting? Really?

I'm trying a new approach based on intermittent fasting and an underfeeding/overfeeding cycle (books I'd recommend include The Warrior Diet and Eat Stop Eat). The switch to a plant-based diet caused some problems with fueling and recovering from training; I did a bad job initially of replacing the calories lost from removing the majority of meat from my diet. Also my new(ish) job doesn't work all that well with eating meals throughout the day as I'm busy straight through the day. My answer has been to fast/eat lightly during the day, snack pre/during/post-workout and then gorge at night. I'm attracted to the simplicity and not having to concern myself with packing meals for work and checking out the clock for timing meals. This feels much more intuitive and natural; much like it felt to switch to a plant-based diet.

It goes against basically every bit of data I was taught in school but there are some very interesting studies that have emerged in the past few years regarding intermittent fasting (overview article in LA Times here). There have been a number of endurance athletes that have successfully used this practice but I'm unaware of very many strength athletes that use this approach (admittedly I got the idea from Michael Keck at Elitefts so that's one). I'll detail my workouts and eating once I get it a little more fleshed out.

I'm thoroughly surprised by how much I'm enjoying not having to write my own programming. I've discussed here that I'm currently following a Russian weightlifting plan for the majority of my training.  I do make some alterations here and there (additional upper body work//Highland games and strongman-specific events/less bar work on GPP days/band work) but I'd say 80-90% of my work is specifically from the manual. Part of this is time management (not a lot of free time to program) and part of it is a lack of expertise (or laziness depending on whom you ask). My background in physical prep is for rugby, football and track; I would call my knowledge of specific training for Olympic weightlifting mediocre at best. In looking at what I've been doing, it's clear that I never would've thought to do this much lower body work and certainly not squat 3-5 days/week! It's been a struggle to keep my upper body "caught up" with my lower body but it's coming around.

Link of the Week
Mobility WOD
-I got this one from Dr Lisa at Lifesport Chiropractic in Boulder. If you have any kind of issues with mobility, flexibility or any other kind of sport-related "ility" issues then I encourage you to check out the Mobility WOD blog. I'm working through these in an effort to help with some general mobility issues as well as improving specific mobility at the thoracic spine/ankles/hips for Olympic weightlifting.

Know Your Audience

Gym story of the day:

Scene: Group of guys chatting around a platform after we finish up training for the day. A twentysomething woman walks by and says hi to the group; to protect the innocent she will be "C".

C is a former collegiate wrestler, currently coaches HS wrestling and is getting into Olympic weightlifting a bit; she gets after things in the gym. She also wears the smallest spandex shorts in the world every time she trains. So some comments are made (as a group of guys in a gym will do on occasion) about C, her shorts and various other aspects of her anatomy. One particularly "vigorous" commenter is a fiftysomething guy who trains and coaches with us. I'm tearing up and trying to keep from laughing as I'm looking over at my friend Dave, who is becoming a little red in the face. This keep going for just long enough (and is getting fairly disturbing by this point) and then I turn to Dave and say "Isn't that your girlfriend?".

"Yup; we started dating about 3 months ago"

There is no comeback from saying something totally X-Rated about a girl who is young enough to be your daughter to her boyfriend.

End Scene 

Traders As Athletes: Recovery and Relaxation

Let's look at the typical day in the life on a trading desk. Whether you're a pure execution trader at an institution, trading for your own accounts or something in between, you're probably in the office around 5-6am (this can be time zone dependent and varies greatly) and out somewhere between 10-14 hours later (also time zone dependent and variable). You spend the bulk of your day on the phone and/or staring at screens (sedentary) BUT you're most likely operating with elevated stress hormone (cortisol) levels, elevated heart rate and tension and probably constantly assimilating information, calculating risk and making decisions. This is nothing new to anyone who has worked around the markets for any appreciable amount of time.
 
This isn't all that different from training for elite-level sport. Olympic-level weightlifters typically train 2-3 times a day for 1-3 hours per session, 6 days a week. Obviously there is a physical component here that isn't applicable to most traders (pit traders excluded!) but the mental aspects of trading can be much more stress-inducing than lifting a barbell or running a sprint. Olympians also have an army of professionals (massage therapy/chiropractic/nutritionists/coaches) keeping their bodies in working order, whereas traders are typically famous for abusing their bodies with bad food, not enough sleep and a wee bit of "occasional" alcohol. Some traders succeed in spite of how they care for their bodies rather than because of it.

Flashing gang signs in downtown Chicago is very stressful

My goal here is to get you to think of yourselves as athletes. You're probably not picking up 400lb barbells, but Olympians aren't shorting 50,000 shares of AAPL with a wife/husband and kids at home, either. The common theme is that both occupations involve maximal performance (mentally and physically) in extremely high-stress situations. Phil Pearlman (@ppearlman on Twitter and Stocktwits; philpearlman.com) addresses the psychological aspects of trading on his shows on Stocktwits TV. He does an amazing job on his show and I recommend him for anyone (trader or not) looking for insights into behavior and why we do what we do. Here I would like to address some of the physical aspects of maximal performance.

In this article, I'm going to focus on recovery as it pertains both to athletes and to traders. In future articles, I'll address training and nutrition ideas. If there is one thing that we all could probably use it's more recovery, whether it be more downtime or more potent use of the time that your already have. I get that some of these might be difficult as we all have commitments: significant other, kids, volunteering, social life, etc. My goal here is to give some actionable ideas you can incorporate into your day to help you recover from your time in your turret. There's nothing here that is overly complicated to implement but the benefits will be tangible. In the finance world it's a badge of honor to avoid sleep and work to exhaustion. I'd argue that you can perform better and at a higher level in ALL aspects of your world with a little more attention to recovery and relaxation.

VERY relaxing image in the dead of winter

(NOTE: I'm recommending some supplements and nutrition products in here. I don't get anything for free or reduced or anything for recommending these; I pay full price to use them because I see a tangible benefit and I like them. That's it)


-Sneak a nap in right after your leave the office; 15-30mins and ideally in silence or with light background noise. This helps to stabilize your stress hormones and clear your mind. Watching TV does not count here as the mind is still active.   -Turn the TV/Wii/computer/iPad/anything with a screen off 1-2 hrs before you wish to be asleep.
-Have a pre-sleep routine to tell your body it's time to call it a day 
-Reading in bed works wonders (iPad/laptop/smartphone EXCLUDED)
-Supplement-wise I would avoid any of the prescription sleep-pills (except as a last LAST resort) and try things like herbal teas (Celestial Seasonings and others make excellent sleep-specific teas) or supplementing with things like melatonin or ZMA (zinc/magnesium/vitamin B6). I like a product called Mineral Support from Biotest; entirely minerals that the body needs anyways.
-Take it easy on the coffee/caffeine/stimulants especially after noon. Stimulants can play hell with your stress hormones as they artificially generate a fight/fight response.
-Buy an awesome mattress and sheets
-USE that mattress and sheets often, if you get my drift (wink wink, nudge nudge); great stress reliever
-Get massages; does wonders for circulation and reduced tension throughout the body
-Get outside and get some sunlight for 20 mins a day. This stimulates Vitamin D production within the body and helps with Seasonal Affective Disorder; which makes you sad-faced when there is less sun. Traders can have this issue year round because of our hours; We've all gone multiple days without seeing the sun when on daylight savings and it definitely affects your mind's function.
-Take fish oil; 5-10 grams or so per day. Your brain is overwhelmingly composed of omega-3 fats and fish oil is essentially pure Omega-3's. This promotes dopamine and serotonin release in the body which calms and relaxes
-Eat plenty of Vitamin C via citrus fruits. At the very least gulp down an EmergenC with a meal.
-Work out (more on this later) and be physically active
-Don't eat industrial waste (also more on this later)



-Be Awesome.

This is my version of Awesome. Be your personal version of this.