Gym Insecurities

Everyone stares at everyone at the gym. At the same time, most people don't give more than a passing f--- about another person. In short, even the judgers have insecurities, so you might as well get your bootay in the gym and train hard. I think this comic sums it up nicely:

Trying New Things: Archery Golf

So the first thing I'd like to introduce is this nice how-to article on making ghee from butter. But if you'd rather have a more instructive, hands on approach, I should have more information on that in few weeks or so.

Trying new things is a general principal towards creating a happier and richer life. For the past nearly 3 years, I've been a specialist as a competitive weightlifter, and I've only lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for three years and change. This place has a lot to offer. So every week or so, I'm going to blog a bit about something new ManFriend and I (or myself alone) are giving a try.

Archery Golf

Just released arrow down the course.

There are something like 48 targets across three different courses at Redwood Bowman's Archery Club. We only stayed on the shooting range and tried out the first target. Thing with an archery course, unlike put-put or frisbee, you're shooting pointy things down the path. Therefore, once you get started, you can't really decide to turn around and go back, lest you get in the path of another group of archers. 

I was a hot mess on my first, very close target. About half of my arrows went over the target, and there was no rhyme or reason to where the arrows landed on the target. I'd like to blame the wind, but really, I think I twist or jerk right as I let go of the string, expecting a recoil like you get with a gun. (Hey, I'm from Texas. I started shooting guns in elementary school.)

ManFriend shooting down course target #1.

You'd think it would be a relatively low energy thing, but it's HARD to keep that still. At least for me, it is. I found that if I started breathing out, and let go mid-exhale, I was much more likely to hit the target somewhere reasonable. Like, hit the target at all. Okay, so I'm not good at zen and relaxation, duly noted. 

So next time we do this, probably next weekend, I plan to take a camel pack of water and some serious snackables to make sure we can do the whole course and I don't waste away to nothing. Oh, and sunblock. This ginger will need lots of sunblock.

Eating Free: My review

I was directed to the Eating Free website by a fellow fitness professional. Here is their online, "free" quiz to see if you need their help:

Eating Free Quiz

Here are my issues, starting with mundane and ending with theory:

1) I have to join to get what they are talking about?


Most website authors who adamantly believe in the information they are trying to put out there don't hide their theories behind marketing jargon and membership sign-ins. Yes, to join this site is free, but if you click around outside the site, no where does it state exactly what they believe and promote. If you look at the websites of Robb Wolf, Mark Sisson, or that Wheat Belly guy (brain fart... ), you don't have to log in, and they explain their stance in no uncertain terms.

I took their FreeQ quiz and...

2) Promotion of lean meats and whole grains?

Pretty much anything below a 180 is considered a risky "FreeQ" and you need their help to get on the right track. I scored a 125. When I went back and fiddled with answers, I found that my score could be brought up if I said I had "carbs with protein", are "lean or very lean meats", and included whole grains and "heart healthy fats" into my diet. What do they consider hearth healthy? It's not really defined outside sources like avocado, salmon, and olive oil. So I can only assume they mean mono-unsaturated fat. That's all and well, but saturated fat isn't the villain it's been made out to be...

If you're reading this, you probably already know my stance on grains. (Bad, bad, bad!)

3) What, you got a problem with IF?


I would have a higher "FreeQ" if only I ate breakfast "within 1 hour of waking every day" or ate "every 3-4 hours." Here's the problem, there is this little thing called "intermittent fasting" that many fitness enthusiasts are adopting and have found great progress with. When someone is eating Paleo or on a ketogenic diet, you don't get the hungry cravings, the mood shifts, and other sugar crash effects, and makes intermittent fasting something easy to do, or even something I've accidentally done for days at a time. The eating every 3-4 hours is needed for bodies dependent on carbs for mood stability or bodybuilders.

So I joined out of curiosity....

4) Just Getting Started!


I'm going to start a list, because I'm getting bored lambasting this site. It's just too easy:

a) BMI is dumb for an athlete. But thanks for telling me what it is. That leads me to...
b) I can't choose a moderate or vigorous activity level for myself. I have to call and discuss it with a "coach". I'm a personal trainer who bikes everywhere. Come on.
c) They prescribed me this macronutrient breakdown: 50% Carbohydrate, 25% Protein, and 25% Fat despite my saying I do weight training 3 to 4 times a week. Dumbasses. 
d) I think if I continue I'll just be going over offenses that are repeats of my nutritional principals. 




So basically this is a website that follows the USDA's "My Plate" paradigm, aka: the same conventional wisdom that is getting western civilization fat and chock full of diabetics and heart disease cases. Plus, the sidebar is telling me that I should cut 500 calories from my diet to lose weight, should I so desire. And its telling me the proportions of food types I should include in my diet. Wait, I thought this site was called "Eating Free"? I thought it said I should eat more, not less? Oh, the horror. 


Finally. 


/rant

It's a Different Experience

All is quiet at SFCF, a rare sight. 

I've been shadowing some of the coaches at San Francisco CrossFit to get an idea of how they run their on ramp programs and classes. Starting sometime in March, I'll be running beginner one-on-ones and basics classes, as well as being put on the sub-list for the large classes. Each "box" runs their program in a slightly different way. Of all the boxes I've been to, I think SFCF, UB, and Catalyst Athletics have some of the most solid programs.

And that's not because I work there, I don't work at Catalyst. That is why I chose to work at two of these places. :)

Playing with camera settings, you can see a squat rack, dip bars, and kind of make out the monkey bars on the right. 

I'm excited about getting ramped up at these locations to be teaching class on-ramps. There are so many great and knowledgable trainers at each gym that I'm really going to have the opportunity to learn a lot. Plus, with each gym having their own set of specialties and atmospheres, I'll get to interact with many different types of athletes and hopefully get to express my own specialties, mainly being the Olympic lifts. 

What I didn't think to take a picture of is the beautiful view of the Golden Gate Bridge, easily visible from just outside the area's gate. With the winter being as mild as it is, and the fog not descending in the morning, it's actually a rather idyllic place to get a good workout in! 

Another Personal Paleo Update

When I started eating paleo, I was about 76 kg. After about a week, I was down to 72.8 kg. Then I bounced right back up to about 75.5 kg. What gives? Turns out, about the time the weight turned around, I had started drinking lots of coconut water. The cans that we buy for home have close to 40 g of sugar in them, and I had at least one a day, occasionally two.

Yes, coconut water is Paleo. But the whole point of going ketogenic is lost if I'm drinking my calories in sugar form. My goal is to be lean and strong. Plus, I really like not getting hungry and cranky if I'm too busy running around to eat on a every 3 hours schedule. I was starting to get the hungry feelings again, so away goes the coconut water. I'm only allowing myself one when I swing by Zynga, since they have it stocked around the building and I only go there twice a week.

Blood Draw!

Yesterday, ManFriend and I had our blood drawn for WellnessFX testing. If you check out the packages, we're doing the Tracking one, where they check for 50 different markers of health and nutritional situation. It will take about 7-10 days to get the results, and I can't wait to find out.

Overtraining - Mostly Hype

For some reason, I've been seeing more articles warning their fitness readers about avoiding overtraining and stifling their progress. Honestly, I think it's much ado about nothing.

Here are a few I've seen:

1) Fit Bottomed Girls

2) MSN Article (Hint: if you're getting fitness information from MSN, you're unlikely to be overtraining at anything.)

3) I know I've seen more and can't recall the sites I saw them on...


Most common symptoms these sites say to look out for are:

• Feeling cranky all the time
• Not recovering fast enough / seeing performance hinderances
• Getting sick more often
• Getting weaker / losing muscle

Here's my problem with all of these: LIFE gets in the way of training all the damn time. Your boss or your significant other is probably getting you cranky. You're probably not sleeping enough. You're probably not eating right. You're probably not taking preventative precautions again illness and injury. And to say these are signs that you're working too hard is to create this cloud of fear around consistent hard work. Then we've got a slew of trainees who are going to pass on that workout because they might be overtrained. 

Bullshit. 

I'm not saying there aren't instances where overtraining and under-recovery occur. But for the vast majority of hobbyists and weekend warriors, you're not going to be seeing it. And I'll say there is one biological sure fire way to know that you are overtrained/ under-recovered: Elevated resting heart rate. 

I'm not telling you to take a baseline average and then measure it again every morning. If you're overtrained/ under-recovered, you're going to feel it beating in your chest and neck. In my three years of competitive weightlifting, I've had it happen to me once when I was being trained to death by my old coach. For a week, I'd wake up in the morning feeling like I'm having a panic attack. I took a four day vacation from training and ate like a pig that eats a lot, and I was back to form. 

Thing is, I was training hard nearly 3 hours a day, 6 days a week on top of a normal 40+ hour a week job. Whether it was over training or under recovery, I'll never know (there is only a slight difference, really). But the fact is, it takes hard, hard work to get there. 

So if you're feeling cranky, burned out, and tired, there are probably a lot of things going on in your life. Maybe you don't feel like you're in control of enough things in your life, maybe you need a vacation. More than likely, it's a mental or emotional thing. But don't go blaming your workout or your coach. 

My Coach

This is my coach being... special.



Motivation

This next part is more of a rant for myself than anything. So you don't have to go any further.

I read an very raw and heartfelt blog from a fellow weightlifter on the Catalyst Athletics website. And it caused something to move in me. Now, I'll never claim I am or was anywhere near the competitive and strength awesomeness that Aimee has garnered in her lifting career. But it helped me come to terms with the notion that we all have to do this to our own end and for our own reasons. It sounds like a lot of her reasons for wanting to compete now and keep up appearances are extrinsic (coaches, teammates, new lifters that look up to her, etc.) while very little motivation is coming from a pure place within. And that can only get you so far. And this is what I realized in me...

I've never been a one sport person. As as dancer, I did ballet, pointe, tap, jazz and while one the high school dance/drill team, which should have taken up all my time being an officer, I still participated in Oddessey of the Mind. Okay, OM wasn't a sport, but the point is, I like being a dabbler. In college, I concurrently did dance, and judo, plus my nearly daily stints in the weight room. In grad school, I got into CrossFit, still did judo, some dance, capoeira, and dabbled in rock climbing. I still did some CrossFit and strength training when I was marathon training.

Then I started competitive weightlifting. Suddenly things changed.

(insert time warp flashback effects)

My last coach was a real hard ass about training. Once he saw potential in me, he expected me to train every day like I was planning at making a shot for the Olympic Team. There were no "light days" in the traditional sense, a light day to this coach meant that I would only aim for ~85-90% of my best in the lifts, and while you're there you might as well try a double at it. I was in the gym 6 days a week for 2.5 to 3 hours at a time. I had to be near tears exhausted for him to let me off the hook without a huge argument.

I trained really hard and did some great lifts at meets. I got really F-ing strong. But it wasn't just for me (maybe it was Stockholm Syndrome?), and it wore me down and burned me out after nearly two years of it. As the 2010 American Open approached, the coach thought I should add a supplemental training day on Sunday, but instead I fought tooth and nail to get a day off. On top of that, feeling suffocated with him trying to get his opinion on every aspect of my life and how it would affect my lifting, I fought for another day where I could train without him.

There were other big issues I had with that coach, and everything came to an explosive head a month before the 2010 American Open, one of the two senior level national lifting meets. I switched coaches, switched training and lifting styles, and still medaled at the meet.

This new coach is the opposite of overbearing. He has his plan, he knows what he's doing, and he wants everyone to do their best. BUT, he has three other National level lifters, and a slew of local competitors that he has to deal with. Suddenly I'm not the sole care of a coach, my push can't come from outside forces or from just trying to avoid a coach's meltdown. Add that to my many months of being burned out and fed up, and it's easy to see why my training has faltered.

But I realized another thing: I hate being a one sport person. In avoidance of old coach's freak outs, I never dabbled in other physical activities. The one time I went and played around with Strongman training, he flipped his shit. (You were tired for two days after that! Those were important days!) I have no doubt in my mind that my burn out from lifting was two fold - (1) training way too hard for way too long and (2) ONLY doing lifting to the demise of all other activity, physical or social.

So here is where I am: I will always train the lifts. I LOVE being strong, always have and always will. The Olympic lifts are amazing when you get that PR, they're fast, powerful, and technique driven. But I don't think I really care if I ever get close to a National title. I want to be a solid lifter, but do I care if someone takes my Pacific Weightlifting Association records? I don't think so. So now I'm in a transition where I have to be comfortable with that idea and not let other people's expectations of me as the local record breaker and someone who makes a national podium get to me.

I'm getting into pole dancing and ManFriend and I are getting into static trapeze and silks. We're looking to get all those apparatuses installed in our loft. Plus, it's really important to both myself and ManFriend that we have something we are both passionate about, something we can do together. And honestly, I really believe that the happiness from exploring other strength and performance activities will make me a better and more consistent lifter simply through smoothing out anxieties.

So here's to living by expectations set by no one else but yourself. :)