Exercising in the "Digital Age"

Is everything today electronic? Even our fitness? When I worked out at EFC in England I was turned onto a system called FitLinxx. It is actually pretty cool - not only does it serve as your personal exercise and training log book, but it helps you through exercise range of motion (when calibrated correctly). Additionally, before it broke at EFC they would give prizes for reaching new 'levels.' So, I won a water bottle, a free PT session, and a massage. It was fucking brilliant (see image).  

However, today I somehow stumbled upon a link for a digital jump rope - are you freaking kidding me? This whole thing got me thinking: what ever happened to good old fashioned hard nosed fitness training. The days when you would run up and down stairs, and may actually do it outside, for cardio training. When you would pump iron or do calisthetics or punch a bag for resistance training? And to add, you might record your progress in a written fitness journal, or god forbid, actually remember how damn strong and / or fast you were!

Rather in today's "digital age" we are force fed digital media in our exercise routines. Rather than going to the local stadium and running stairs, we use the stairmaster, stepper, or elliptical. Rather than actually running on solid ground, we run on treadmills (and the former, real ground is way harder, I dont care who you talk too, there is no comparison). And rather then do 3 sets of 50 pushups and squat thrusts, we deconstruct our workouts into muscle group defined isolated machine work - so for example, I used to do Chest on the same day I did my Triceps. And I had a set of luxurious machines - and I mean nautilus style and free weight devices, thinks smith machine, cables, etc - to meet that end. 

This apparently really frustrates me, especially now because I feel like I am seeing real results with my new total body, body weight training regime: my so-called functional workouts, which actually serve no function accept to give me the opportunity that something I do in a day is "functional." It really started to irk me lately, combined with the odd ganders I attract at the good ol' gym, I have been talking to several colleagues about the state of individuals in our society, particularly young folks - the 9-22 year old group. Many of these kids are currently prescribed medicines for AD/HD or other "behavioral developmental disorders." No I use quotes, half jokingly, not to mock those with real physical disease, but rather to poke fun and mock the medical industry for creating drugs to calm down little boys. I mean for fuck's sake - being rambunctious and annoying and aggressive is what being a little boy is all about. I wish I could still be like that!!!!  At any rate, these kids are raised on electronic devices - the Wii (not fit version), PS2, PSP, Nintendo, Game Cube, Television, etc. When I was a kid my mom forced me to go outside - no I mean literally threw me out and gave me the "I will call you for dinner, and I should not see you until then. Now go have fun, Steve." I had no abandonment issues. I felt no shame, or dislike for her. In fact, I was pleased as pie I was thrown out of the house to go "play" otherwise I had to watch one of the 4 Tele channels available when I was a kid. OK, 5, we did have PRISM, but come on! 

This and we ask ourselves why our society is fat? Not me. I think I;ve got the answer, and it's not original - by any stretch - we made our selves fat. The issue for me is that making ourselves fat, we have actually created a number of new medical disorders (e.g. Type II diabetes). 

Right, so this is supposed to be a blog about fitness, not a political blog, sorry. So, do this for me, a little experiment if you will. Next time you are in the gym observe the members. Take note of how many are using the digital machines and how many are using the non-digital, what I will call here "old school approach", which may include, but is not limited to: gymnastics moves, body weight exercises, kettle balls, non-digital jump rope, etc. Is there a difference in the fitness level perceived by you between these two groups. I did this today and noticed two things: 1) I was one of 3 people at the gym doing "old school" moves (although at 7am I can't be picky about numbers) and 2) that the people doing the "old school" moves seemed to have more muscular definition, more mobility and flexibility, a generally happier demeanor and pleasantness about them, and in males a better V-shaped torso. 

I would like to hear others opinions... 

No turn off your electronic device and go move! LOL ;-)

V-sit progression

Well today was a grande day at the old gym. First of all, that fella who made me feel all self-conscious yesterday actually started chatting with me again. Turns out, he was not trying to be the biggest douche bag in the world, but rather he was actually interested in how I maintain muscle mass by doing primarily body weight exercise routines. That was kind of nice. We then had a neat conversation about psychological/neuroscience research... this is my life... sorry. 

Second, I made an astonishing (well, to me only) discovery. Over the past two days, I have actually, unconsciously made progress toward the V-sit position (see pic, but I am not even close to that!). 

Yesterday, while doing my L-seat to planche progression, I worked hard on getting the legs higher and reached about 80, maybe 75 degrees inclination of the legs (up from 90 degrees). Then today my wife was training her hanging L-sit variation. I was starting to show her the move and realized I could easily get up into a full hanging V. It must be the work I have been doing on the front level, but i almost felt easy, and this was at the end of my workout. 

I was very pleased, to say the least. Not to mention props to Aussy - she has been training with Cassandra, probably one of the best personal trainers we've ever seen, for about 4 weeks (1 day / week). Today she got remeasured and lost 2.5% body fat. 2.5% body fat in about 1 month! That's fucking awesome! She is my idol!

Body weight training makes you small?

Which Approach to Training (Above) Do you Take?

Today a fella approached me in the gym as I was "dismounting" non-gracefully from my rope trainer and asked when I do weights? I responded, "Weights, I haven't really touched an actual weight in several weeks, at least since I had hurt my back, and even before that had gone almost completely body-weight". He was amazed and shocked and immediately questioned me: "Well, so, you CANNOT maintain 'real' muscle mass with only body weight training, right? Because with body weight there is no way to bring progressive overload to your muscles helping them to grow, it just can't happen." OK, so before I continue with the text of my conversation I generally smirk and distrust anyone in a gym who uses terms like "Progressive overload" b

ecause it means one of two things: 1) you are a physical fitness trainer (or some other sports/fitness professional, and I don't mean athlete), in which case you should introduce yourself to me as such so that I DO believe what comes out of your mouth or 2) you read too many muscle mags (FLEX, Muscle & Fitness, and the like). So, I say, quite humbly I might add, "Right, what exactly is, or do you mean by, progressive overload?" Fucking huge mistake! The fella goes on for about 5 minutes (my time is precious!) explaining to me that progressive overload is tantamount to increasing weight or reps so that you work your muscles to complete failure. You break down the tissue and that helps them, actually he said "causes" them to grow. So I responded with my dumb founded, un educated response that seems to usually shut people up long enough that I can abscond back to my workout, "Have you ever seen a fat gymnast?" This guy in a complete lack of awareness of what I was trying to do there, responded! Yes, actually responded: "No gymnasts are not fat, but you also never see a large, muscular, fast twitch built gymnast either." Oh, ok, so we are obviously going to argue here and use technic

al jargon, in the fucking gym. (Fast twitch fibers, for those of you who might not know are the ones involved in anerobic exercise; i.e. weight training and muscle building, slow twitch are more involved in endurance (e.g. marathon muscles). ) Ar you fucking kidding me dude? I hate ever so much to toss around my education (PhD in evolutionary BIOLOGY and Cognitiv

e neuroscience, with education in all forms of hard science), but on occasion I need to draw this weapon. However, this was not the case in this situation. Rather, my funny, teasing side (something I picked up in England, who am I kidding, I was born with it!) took over and so I said, "Whoa dude. You really seem to know a lot about body building and lifting. I could probably learn a lot from you." In between hair flicks and obvious expressive feelings of grandeur I threw in this comment: "Before I take down my rope, you wanna try some rope dips, or a suspended L-sit. I mean, I don't know if they work slow or fast twitch muscle fibers, but maybe you could tell me by trying it..." His response: "i am already into my workout, maybe next time if I catch you in here I will try, or you could workout with me". Um, no thanks. 

Generally, while I can recant this little incident in a slightly humorous manner, this interaction did upset me. It got me thinking, and asking my wife - are my muscles getting SMALLER? For fuck's sake, I realize I am an old bastard, but the last thing I want to be doing is training to be smaller and less muscular. Any thoughts on whether body weight training can decrease the growth of muscle would be greatly appreciated. Here are a few examples that keep me on my path... 

Breathing, Goals, and Mind over Muscle

Today during my Kung Fu lesson my master exposed me to what might have been torture (think Pai Mei from Kill Bill V. 2) and exposed me to a 5 minute horse stance. So this is like a wall sit squat without the wall. You just sit, in the air, in the middle of the room. You cannot move. You can not stand-up. You cannot complain. Try it, is your legs don't start to burn and shake then you are more of a man than I. You are forced to center yourself to equally distribute your body weight. This also helps you attain an awareness of your body in space and how to use small muscles that you probably did not know you needed to use, like muscles in your feet. One thing that is really important is your breathing. Deep diaphragmatic breathing to increase the level of oxygen that reaches your muscles. While doing this you might feel high, or light headed, but that's ok, for some reason you do not, or at least I did not, lose my focus and balance. In fact, I noticed that my focus tended to drift into an almost meditative state. The burn was there, the shaking was there, but I was persevering and overcoming my physical pain by some mental fashion. Well this I found really rewarding (we'll see if I still feel that way tomorrow LOL).  

At any rate, this whole experience got me thinking about pain, mental states, and training - and the whole idea of no pain no gain. See, while I was in my horse stance, I could have at any point dropped to my knees, or just said, no I am not doing this anymore (I of course would not be allowed to train anymore, but if I wanted to, i could drop out). I was in pain, but the mental state that, that I want to learn Kung Fu over rode the pain. I wonder if I translate this mentality to my other exercises, if I will experience similar kinds of gains and feeling of personal reward. 

For example, I am training to hold a front lever & iron cross. Maybe persisting thru the pain will help me. Maybe not. 

At any rate, i was wondering if anyone else has ever experience this sensation of personal triumph with respect to one's own body. It has really invigorated me and I hope to enthuse this type of energy into anyone that trains with me. 

Knowing yourself

This past weekend I ran a 5 mile race at beautiful Stone Mountain in Georgia with my wife. As we walked up to the registration desk, and I looked around at the body morphometrics (shape) of the other contestants, I realized (again!) that I was not designed to run long distances. These people are amazingly ripped, but also amazingly small. Sure, a few, a handful are tall - that is the marathoner build - tall and long legs - but most males probably dont weight more than 150lbs. That is something i will never attain, NOR would I ever want to. I saw one other male that with anything that resembled "real" muscle and he was pretty fucking huge. He finished around me - 5 miles in 50 minutes or so (& it was really hilly, NO EXCUSE!)

At any rate, I learned I am not a competitive runner when my friend completed the race in 30 minutes - yeah that's under 7 minute miles for 5 miles - insane!

I prefer to be a beast then a marathoner and thank goodness I do not strive to be such. 

At any rate, I think training goes hand-in-hand with knowing yourself. For example, I KNOW I am never going to: 1) fight in the UFC, but will keep training martial arts; 2) run a marathon, but will keep running 3-7 mile races; 3) climb everest or rainier, but will keep hitting the wall and bouldering wall; 4) make the olympic gymnast team, but will still continue using my ropes to try and learn the Iron Cross. Point is: work what you can and work it hard. Be the best at what you are, what you are able to do. I think this also helps in other aspects of life, like mood and self-esteem. For example, I know I can't run the marathon, so I dont get depressed when I can't do it. On the other hand, I know that I can do suspended dips, so when I struggle to get a few out on a rough day, then I do get upset. My mood/affect is highly related to my success (or lack thereof in the gym) and I think it's because I am honest with my abilities. It is important to self-assess yourself, your abilities, and your goals. You can't set unattainable goals. It WILL be counterproductive to your training and may lead to injuries or dropping out of fitness all together. Setting honest, attainable goals (in fitness and life) is good for your development. A favorite line from What about Bob? --> "Baby steps!"