Paleo Pasta Dinner

OK, Paleo - that is NO PROCESSED CARBS - Pasta dinner, how's that possible? I know, I know, I didn't think it was possible either or at the very least possible, but would taste like shit. It didn't, Austen, my food guinea pig, confirmed it!

So here's how you do it, easy peezy! Go buy a Spaghetti Squash. It's like a butternut squash, but more yellow. Then split it with a knife, that's the hardest part of this recipe. Seriously. De-seed it. Place face down in a slightly greased or sprayed baking sheet. Bake in a 375 preheated oven for about 30 minutes. Then take it out and allow it to cool, because you need to pick it up and it'll be pretty hot. I did not wait, because I was hungry. I just used a few paper towels to attenuate the heat. OK, so now take a fork and run it along the inside of the squash, it will peel away and look a lot like spaghetti (see image). OK, so now you could pour your favorite sauce over it. You could lather it in butter and salt, or garlic. I made a homemade sauce by sauteing bacon, onion, and garlic. Then I mixed in two chopped tomatoes and some chopped basil. I seasoned it all with a tiny bit of salt, dried red pepper flakes, fresh ground back pepper... I also added about a 1/2 cup of pine nuts.  I put that over the top of the squash like I would put sauce on Spaghetti. I served it with a side of oven baked asparagus. Yummy!

Paleo Ice Cream, No Seriously

Paleo Ice Cream recipe

No seriously, this is not ice cream, because it's completely free of dairy. Nonetheless, if you are on Paleo and have not had "real" ice cream in a while this should satisfy you.

And it's so damn easy to make.


I use a Magic Bullet blender and do this:

1/2 frozen banana
some ice (amount depends on how think you like it, milkshake-ish should use less, ice cream-ish should use slightly more)
1/4-1/2 almond milk
I add a dash or two of cinnamon, because I like it, you could however add carob chips, fruit, raisins, etc

Blend thoroughly. Eat.
Enjoy!

Why machines are stupid, as if we did not already know!

The other day, about three days ago, I observed a trainer at Gold's Gym show someone how to use a leg machine, like a hacksquat machine or something. At any rate, it took the trainer a good 5 minutes to show him how to use the machine. Now, don't under estimate the power of 5 whole minutes. Try this: start a stop watch and read the title of this post, "Why machines are stupid, as if we did not already know!" until the 5 minutes are up. How many times did you say the title? A lot a bet. I hope that impresses upon you the length that 5 minutes actually is. OK, so when it comes to explaining a lift 5 minutes is a good amount of time to describe the essence of the lift. For example, the other day I was training someone and I was teaching her how to squat. It took well over 5 minutes because squatting is not easy, intuitive, and often executed wholly incorrectly.  While giving this explanation of "how to squat" I discussed foot placement, hip extension and flexion, full extension, hand position, lumbar curve, core stability, heels, heels, & more heels. But not once did I say "push that lever, or pull that dial". This is what got me the other day at Gold's. The trainer started off the session like he was selling a used sports car, discussing all of the intricate details of the machine. "Here, see, you have the pin, which goes inside the plates to vary how heavy the lift is. (he didn't use lift, that was my paraphrasing)". "And here is the platform that you stand on." "Now, this is very important", he says. "This lever right here can save your life!" Actually that's the statement that caught my attention. I was sort of eavesdropping prior to that, but that statement captured a full on head turn and gawk. You'd of thought that Vida Guerra had just strutted by me. So I am watching this trainer, and first of all I cannot get over the fact that this trainer does not at all look the part. He is sort of pear shaped, sure he had pretty big arms, but generally I would not have classified him as a "fit" man had I seen him walking through the Kroger. Trainer boy goes on to tell the client (poor sole) which lever to pull, what thing to push, etc, etc. The guy, obvously new to working out, obvious from his rotund physique, looked a little more then befuddled. Imagine holding an intense workout and all of a sudden having to fail and remember what switch to flick to save your life, legs, or  just yourself from sheer embarrassment? I would find that absolutely impossible. Or at the very least absolutely impossible while maintaining any sort of intensity during your lift. 

Let me see if I can relate this to a topic of interest for me. You guessed it CrossFit. Kilgore and his colleagues developed a model a while back called the Fish model (Issue 69 of the CrossFit Journal). It was essentially a means with which to plot progress in multi-mode training. The two essential curves for this discussion are the performance improvement and need for complexity of training. In Kilgore's model you can see that they are inversely related. That is as performance starts to asymptote, the need for complexity in training increases proportionally. This is to challenge the athlete ever more to be able to continue making gains in their performance. The Kilgore model is brilliant, however, it aims to describe changes across broad time and modal domain. Good thing, right. Hell yeah! But let's assume for a minute that we are also interested in plotting performance within a single slice in time; within a single workout, within a single lift. A slice of Kilgore's Fish! And let's also assume that we are interested in two facets that contribute to the complexity of training: physical and psychological. The psychological - and that includes the way that the brain controls motor unit execution (i.e. neurological) - factors of lifting, or any sport for that matter, should never be underestimated. In sports we often "quiet the mind" in order to perform optimally. In fact, one might argue that leaders in any sport are able to quell the distractions of the mind & brain in order to perform optimally under stressful, or psychologically challenging conditions. In the scientific psychological world this process if called attention, or more accurately divided attention. That is, it's your capacity for spreading your attentional attunement between 2 or more things that are going on. When we do this, when the environment forces us to focus on multiple things each of those individual processes loses something; they lose their capacity to perform at optimum levels. Think of it this way. A water tank can provide x pounds for square foot water pressure to a single hose. However, if we split that hose in to two, three, or four outlets, the water tank has to increase power in order to maintain the same pounds per square foot pressure delivered to each hose independently. Well the brain can't simply increase it's power output; there are limits on that because it's a biological organ. So when our brains are multiply tapped to do various things at once, each task tends to suffer decreases in performance. 

What's this got to do with sports and fitness. A whole heckuva lot! If you are thinking about what lever to pull, push, dial to spin, etc then you are not focusing on the lift mechanics itself. Or at the very least you are not thinking about those essential mechanics in a way that would optimize both your performance and safety. Eventually, after training and practice, the mechanics become second nature. This is a fairly simple process, but to really simplify the neuroscience it happens like this. When we need to actively think about something (e.g., how to place your feet for a squat, focus on lumbar curve, tight core, etc) you recruit an area of the brain called the prefrontal cortex; it's located right behind and above your forehead and eyes. There are regions of this area of the brain that are involved in myriad cool functions: self-awareness, social cognition, personality, and attention. So when we need to pay attention to something we call this part of the brain into action. If we are calling this part of the brain into action it means that energy is being drawn from other processes. Other brain areas. Through practice we can change this effect. Through practice what happens is your brain learns the movement, exercise, or whatever you are doing, at the level of the prefrontal cortex and then after you have started to master it you no longer have to pay attention to the mechanics, it becomes automatic. At that point it gets processed or executed via a subcortical system called the striatum. (Mind you, I am simplifying this greatly here). The striatum is intricately involved in Parkison's disease so hopefully you can see how it's related to motor function execution. Additionally, the striatum is a very efficient processor; because you no longer have to pay attention to the movement you don't need to utilize as much energy. Cool eh?  

OK, enough neuroscience right? Back to lifting. In the heat of a lift, psychological attention to the mechanics is going to draw from the automaticity of execution of the movement. This is what happens in beginners, like myself. I focus and practice on form so that it becomes automatic. Why? So that when I go to increase load, speed, power, that form comes through loud and clear helping me to achieve new personal records! (I can only hope). However, what happens when we increase loads, time, and power? Our form often goes to shit! The reason is partly do to the musculature mechanics being unsure about the execution and that is partly related to frontal cortex attention to the movement and the corresponding load, speed, or task. Coach Greg Glassman recently did a CrossFit Journal on a topic related to this called threshold training.   He explains that threshold training entails an athlete (or driver, or typer, etc) to do something intensely. They typically do poorly. But if forced to maintain that level of intensity and change one thing - performance, then they learn to effectively execute their task at the higher level of intensity. Then you up the intensity again, and repeat. This is how elite athleticism is built. Let me provide another personal example. The other day I was doing 3 rep max shoulder presses. The first three rounds were executed will sheer brilliance of technique (probably not, but bear with me). However, as the weight increased, what happened. In order to move the load my brain had to do more stuff. It was faced with a new challenge and had to rapidly adapt and try to overcome. When I hit the fail place my brain was at full attention: DO SOMETHING SO YOU DON'T DROP 155# ON YOUR HEAD MORON!!!!! Thank goodness my brain does this, right!? Thank goodness your brain does this! What happens when you hit the fail spot - energy is transferred (neurologically) from representing the efficient, efficacious, and proficient movements to energy dedicated to living. You drop the weight. In CrossFit and O -ifting the answer is an easy fix: Drop the weight and do it fast. 

When else do we lose our automaticity of movement execution. Under high intensity. When you are doing Fran, you are killing yourself. And as your METCON increases rapidly, again your brain's attentional systems turn to self-preservation attention mechanisms. You might drop the weight, bend over and catch your breath, meet pukie, or any various combination of outcomes that draw your attention from the task at hand: moving a weight from low to high, and pulling yourself up, as fast as you can without dying.

Back to why machines suck. How can you maintain focus on exercise mechanics and intensity when paying attention to what lever to pull, push or dial to turn? Especially when it means saving your life! It's nearly impossible. And this is why I think machines suck at creating fitness (& there are probably a plethora of other reasons as well). It is virtually impossible to transfer neurological processing from attentional systems to automaticity, which begets intensity, which produces results! One might argue that you could learn to be automatic on a machine - very easily learn what buttons to press, pull, or turn in a flash in order to save your life. But that's just not true. Through evolution our bodies have been designed to move large loads in ways very similar to O-lifting. These are gross body movements over long distances utilizing mutli-motor and joint units. The interaction of gross motor movements and fine motor movements, such as initiating a complex sequence of finger movements to turn your wrist are diametrically opposed, in my humble opinion. Try this. Send me an email, while trying to front squat. Diverted attention at the level of neurocognitive energy (because you'd be thinking about what to write me) and at the level of motor unit integration (you are not supposed to be worrying about utilizing fingers during a front squat except to the extent that they are used to keep the bar from rolling off you. What's interesting, is that fingers take up A LOT of brain space. They are essentially how we find out about the world. We pick stuff up, feel it, roll it around in our hands, etc. We don't experience the world through our quads, hips, glutes, at least not in the tactile sense. So when we activate fine motor units during otherwise large motor unit lifts, we actually draw a lot of neural energy to parts of the brain not involved in the lifting. We are detracting unconscious motor attention from the task at hand to something that is irrelevant. 

The take home message: distraction is part of any lifting, fitness, and sport program. We tend to call it training and practice. However, anything that enters this equation that is not directly related to the lift at hand would amount to an an drastic decrease in work capacity because of misdirected neural energy. 

This can be modeled mathematically, sort of (I'm not a mathematician!). If we input arbitrary values into the Power equation (F * D / T = P) and divide that by arbitrary units associated with practice, training, and other distractions we can get a modest estimate of the effects each of these have on optimizing work capacity. So let's assume for sake of argument and ease of calculation that each of these three - training, practice, and other distraction - can be placed on a range from 0-1. Where a score of 0.0 means that you no longer are impacted by that variable and a score of 1.0 means that it consumes a lot of your energy, if not all of it. So a score somewhere in between, say 0.5 training, would indicate that about half of your cognitive energy reserves still need to be dedicated to training (e.g., movement mechanics), and so forth. With this in mind we can generate a few plots to show the effects. So the  Power equation gets slightly modified to include an additive denominator term that accounts for training and practice (these two I vary simultaneously because I do feel that they are intricately and intimately linked and co-vary), other distractor (e.g., having to know what dials to press), and a constant of 1. 

Formula 1: 

Where in the numerator F = force, D = distance, T= time; and in the denominator Tr = training, P = practice, O = other distraction, and k is our constant. 

If we enter arbitrary numbers in to our equation we generate a plot of performance. Let's say our Power equation is 45*3/5 (remember these are arbitrary number for purposes of demonstration) then our maximum power output, or work capacity would be 27. (indicated by the purple circle below). However, if we add the variables of training, practice, distraction, and our constant we can generate a plot that looks like: 

 

Here, the purple dot at the top indicates our reference point for maximum work capacity. (27) The three lines represent varying different aspects of the model. The red line represents keeping the need for training (Tr) and practice (P) high (1.0) and systematically decreasing other distraction by 0.1 (going from 1, .9, .8, and so on). The blue line is similar, except in this instance we maintain O at a constant of 1 and systematically decrease Tr & P. You can see that this slightly, but only marginally increases work capacity in this model simulation. The green line represents keeping O at a low constant (here I used 0.1) and then decreasing Tr & P systematically and what you can see is that if other distractions are kept at a minimum then increases in work capacity would come as a consequence of decreasing the demands for cognitive resources/energy being directed toward attention to training and practice. That is, you are getting better!

Now, realistically, I think the detrimental effects of other distraction (O) are greater than that of either Training or Practice. So we can modify the model in several ways to account for this. I provide two examples below. In the model below what I show is the equation when doubling the effect of O and the corresponding plot: 

  

  

Here, it's important to note that by simply doubling the effect of O on work capacity you make it equal to the combined effects of training and practice. Below I show the simulated model/equation when we triple the power of O and the corresponding plot: 

  

  

Here, it's important to note that tripling the effect of O actually results in decreases of work performance above and beyond that associated with the effects of training and practice. 

Thus, I think that the other distractions associated with many machine workouts draw significantly from our ability to increase work capacity and inhibit our quest for health and fitness.  With this in mind an athlete should be prepared to be affected by training and practice, because that is part of the "game". The athlete has little control over this. However, the athlete has great control over the power of other distractions by choosing an effective and efficacious fitness program, and by purposefully and consciously decreasing extraneous distractions.

OK, just my 2¢. Any thoughts?

Fitness(2) and Sport

What do these terms mean to the regular worker-outer? Are the seriously considered?

Dictionary.com
Fitness: Health

Sport: physical prowess in a particular, or several activites: swimming, running, football, baseball, fishing, hunting, etc.

Fitness (2): reproductive representation in subsequent generations (offspring, kin's offspring, offspring's offspring, etc). (i.e. Darwinian Fitness)

Do these terms mean anything to you with respect to (WRT) your exercise regimen? I will try to provide some ideas, examples, and such.

Clearly most people workout to be healthy, or to have fitness, right? Ummmm, I don't think so. Unfortunately, I think most people workout for reasons of vanity: I wanna have a 6 pack, big arms, sexy butt, etc. So why do we care, or do we care at all about Fitness=health. Turns out that this is directly related to the two other terms listed above: Sport and Fitness (or Darwinian Fitness). Here goes. Sport is essentially demonstrating or gaining or practicing to be the best at some activity or activities (see examples listed). There is no end for sporting abilities to stop growing; that is, you can alway improve and get better, faster, bigger, stronger (if you're doing it right). However, sport as we know is a recent evolutionary phenom. There is no good archeaological evidence that our distant ancestors (australopithicines, ardipithicus, etc) engaged in competitive sport. Much to the chagrin of many English blokes they do not stem from a long (evolutionary) history of footballers. Sorry mates! Not "playing" sport is one thing, but they were certainly engaged in a sport. The sport of survival. For our ancestors every turn of a new day (think sands through the hourglass LOL) was a new game. They had to hunt, gather, fight, mate, fend off predators, etc. That is we were sporting animals from the start: we had to be else we would not have survived. So sport begets fitness. We do not engage in fitness to be sporting types, we were made to be sporting types and that is how we get our fitness.

Furthermore, if you can accept (sort of) the rationale that we sport to get fitness (health) then check this out. Health, or being healthy is sexy. Or, put in other terms, what we find sexy is healthy. Let me provide a few examples. On average men prefer women with a 0.7 waist-to-hip ratio (WHR). This is pretty much a cross-cultural thing, with few exceptions being discovered. So, what's special about .7, or optimal WHR? A freaking lot! First off, optimal WHR predicts whether a woman is going to have complications getting pregnant, during pregnancy, and childbirth. Optimal design lessens the risk in all occasions. Optimal WHR also predicts a woman likelihood of developing physiological (coronary) and psychiatric illnesses; again optimality lessens the chances of developing both. Lastly, optimal WHR predicts the IQ potential of her offspring. So you might ask: Why do men find curvaceous female bodies sexy? No, it's not because the media say so, because what the media throws at us is a complete misrepresentation of what MEN want and like. Rather, it's because finding those shapes sexy in our evolutionary history often led to mating attempts. All other things being equal (which they aren't, I know that) mating with an optimally designed female led to better chances of passing on your genes (Darwinian Fitness). And here's the kicker, when you select a shape to mate with , you pass on the psychological and neurological characteristics that led you to select that shape. Pretty simple and neat, eh? There are several other examples: women find men with more money and resources sexy, but they also prefer masculinized sporty looking males. Specifically they pay attention to the Shoulder-to-hip ratio (SHR); or what we know as the V-shaped male. Well, you should not be surprised to learn that SHR predicts health (mental and physical) and reproductive viability in males. So women like men "see" what is sexy because it is healthy and it is healthy because of sport.

So without belaboring another point, ask your self this the next time you walk into your gym to do a workout: Why am I really here?

Designed to be fit!

I realized/remembered recently that this blog is named evolutionary training and yet I almost never talk about evolutionary theory. One might think: What the hell does evolutionary science have to do with this CrossFit wannabe blog? Well turns out the stuff that progressive non-repeating body weight, gymnastics workouts do is emulate our natural history. Not to mention that working out is science, an experiment on yourself and evolutionary science is the best of all sciences! Let me expound upon my thoughts.

The Natural History of a Workout Program

Our ancestors, at least our recent ancestors (circa 10,000 - 250,000 years ago) were likely some sort of hunter gatherer or farmer or combo of both practices (although recent human evolution in the last 10,000 years has exploded us into vastly different evolutionary landscapes). In both cases they had to work their asses off. Imagine the skills, strength, musculature, and endurance necessary to be a hunter, gatherer, or first generation farmer with out power tools.... Or, simply look to nature for examples of what we once were. You rarely see overweight, obese, out of shape animals. You know why? They get eaten. They fail to acquire enough resources to sustain bodily functions. They die in hibernation because they did not have the fitness to properly fatten up. They don't get selected as mating partners. The list goes on, but you'd be hard-pressed to find an out of shape (defined by species specific traits) wild-type (i.e. wild living) animal. They tend to get selected against, or as we might say weeded out!

The Hunter:

In order to be an efficient hunter you need a number of skills, not the least of which are navigation, shooting skills, tracking abilities, etc., but these are not the topics I wish to discuss here. Here I wish to discuss the fitness aspects of a hunter. In order to hunt, in an ancestral way you would have had to track animals for miles. If you found a pack of some ungulate you might want to eat, you would most likely have to construct a blind by carrying logs, and branches from far away. You'd have to have control over your body so that you could lay still in wait for hours. You might even have to climb a tree for an angle. If you get close enough to make the kill shot you'd likely have to heave a spear at the animal(s). So what fitness skills might be involved in these needed abilities?  Tracking prey for hours, or even days, over long distances would require a high level of metabolic conditioning. A hunter has to be able to move past the pain of lactate build-up in his muscles in order to keep on going. Bodily control while sitting and waiting. Not making a move or sound might require a strong core. Think plank! Climbing = pull-ups. Enough said. Spearing again would require core strength to toss the spear with accuracy and power enough to pierce the flesh of the prey animal.

The Gatherer:

You might think gathering would require less fitness abilities than hunting because inherently gathering is a proximal behavior; i.e. you do it close to where you live. However, gathering requires a number of behaviors that would tap your fitness. Gathering itself requires a bit of local movement. You need to move around in order to discover the ripest of items to gather. Digging and pulling would be required to get up tubors and other ground based veggies and you might also have to reach and pull a fruit or nut from a tree. Think axe movement: up and down and up and down with resistance at both ends. Finally, carrying the collected items (which would likely have some weight, imagine a bail of potatoes) back to your home. This could be several meters. Think carrying or running with a sandbag; this could occur via carrying in front of your body, on your head, on a backpack-ish device, etc. All good means of carrying stuff and adding weight to your transit. Like wearing a weight vest.

The Farmer:

OK, I am not going to belabor this point, but farmers too have a lot of fitness advantages. They have to man-handle livestock. They have to move bails of hay, feed, etc. A farmer has to perform many of the same behaviors discussed for gatherers as well, but only the distance of gathering would be localized to the, well the farm.

So, our ancestors who were able to conduct these behaviors, our ancestors who possessed the random genetic mutations that lent them to success at these behaviors, were those ancestors that left descendants (us!). We have been designed to be fit and the number one reason we have an obesity epidemic is because of this one single true fact. We are NOT designed to eat loads of sugar, sit in front of TV, sit around and order pizzas, eat drive-thru and take out, and so forth. Our bodies are revolting! I am not the first to say this, in fact this is a pretty well-known idea. In evolutionary psychology would generally refer to this as a mismatch between current industrialized conditions (modern day) and the type of environment we were "designed" to live in. Now that's not to say that everything we have, all our industry is not part of our evolutionary history. In fact it is. Those of us who are better equipped to deal with industrialized "stuff" are going to leave more descendants that have the "deal with technology better" genes. It's just plain simple science. The main issue is that the speed of technological change is extremely rapid, exponentially faster than biological change. And one final thought: the direction of technological change is random. That is, technology emerges from memetic evolution that has no basis in genetics and the phenotypes those genes create. So get your ass to the gym! The only thing you can do is maintain your fitness so you can deal with the rapid directionless change that awaits us all...

Flattery goes a long, long, way, so be nice for goodness sake!

Compliments are a wonderful thing. If they are delivered in earnest then they convey such a nice message and if received without doubt they can lift a mood as high as high can go. Furthermore, giving a compliment, that is being nice, can also make the giver feel better. Producing a smile in another person feels good. It's, well, contagious if you will...

Just the other day, I was complimented (rare as that is) twice in one day. Yes, I said twice as in two times in one day! The thing I noticed about a compliment is that they are highly valued when they come from no where. Wholly unexpected wondrous love (loosely defined) from another individual. Your dog does it everyday, I am sure. Right? When you sit down to pet, orient toward, or yell "Fido, let's go for a walk" - s/he wags the tail. Hell, that's a great compliment. That's like the dog saying - YOU FUCKING RULE DAD! YOUR PETTING IS THE BEST THING IN MY DAY!!! OH WAIT, THERE'S A SQUIRREL! Humans do not have such ostensible fixed action patterns (FAPs) for telling you how they feel about you (well, maybe, but more on that in another post). Rather humans have to use language to persuade you that 1) they are being an honest conveyor of a message and 2) that the message they are conveying means something to the receiver. Sometimes, these conditions are not met, like when a graduate students says to their major professor: "You are the smartest scientist I have ever met!" With exception of my case, for which my PhD supervisor, Prof. Gordon Gallup Jr., is the smartest person I've ever met, most PhD students are full of shit! They are being dishonest to the person, and more importantly to themselves. It takes a lot of work to deceive, try to deceive, etc. They don't call it the simple truth for nothing! The other way that a compliment can go awry is when the message, even if being delivered honestly, means little or nothing to the receiver. For example, is someone says to you "Whoa you got mad typing skillz" and you don't give a rat's ass about how fast people type, let alone your own lightning fast phalange flexing ... then the compliment falls short of having any effect.

OK, so I was complimented the other day by two people, one of whom I have known for about a year or so and the other I have never met.  In the first instance a student of mine said that he really likes reading my blog. That's twice in a 10 day period someone asked me about my blog. I hadn't thought anyone actually read the damn thing, it started as a means to communicate with my pals in England about our workout regimen, but special thanks to my two readers! The student went on to say that he really liked reading it. It was a great compliment, it made me feel like whoa - I entertained a person. Ha! So cool, someone commented about my fitness-based blog. Actually another person did, as well. About 10 days ago another student said she tried my Bear Attack Defense workout and it was really hard, but a great workout. Glad to help. So This got me thinking, if (2) people read it, why not get back to it! Not to mention it's really quite fun to get your thoughts down...

The second compliment, not unrelated to the fitness and blogging, came from someone I never met, talked to, or had ever even seen. I was riding the elevator with a student. We were discussing the workings of Al Einstein's brain and a paper that we are writing on the topic. This other person rushes to get into the elevator (don't fret, I typically never take the elevator for all the expected reasons, but the student had a suitcase with her). So this person comes in, interrupts our conversation about ol' "relativity Al" boy's cortex and says to me: "Hey, you look like the 300 guy". OK, at first I was like, I look like 300 guys, so much for the adorable unique sleek look I was going for, just teasing. In all seriousness I was thinking to myself, ok... self. 300 guy. Does she mean the 300 guy that appeared in the movie (see Image 1) or the aftermath of his fame in which he turned into a toad (see Image 2)? She clarified very quickly by saying, but have you seen how he's let himself go to shit? This is the second time I received this compliment, probably because of the goattee, but whatever, I will take it and believe it's because of the muscles!

Image 1

Image 2

Compliments are wonderful. This tiny little series of statements had made my week! Energized me. Excited me (in the non explicit way, of course!) It's amazing what a nice gesture can do. I am far from the first person to write about this. And further from the person to be expected writing about this as my typical catch phrase is "I got enough friends!" I only have about 2.

So my charge to anyone out there reading this (all 2 of you) is to be nice. And be nice to someone about their fitness. If you see someone in the gym working really hard, let them know. If you see someone push a weight that is amazing, let them know. The other day a young man in my gym hang power cleaned 225 pounds with perfect form and I let know it was fucking impressive! He smiled. If you see someone who's toned up, tightened up, bulked up, or simply shaped up, let them know! Don't be perverted about it. Just let them know that since the last time you saw them, they look really good and that the workouts are obviously helping. This happens to my wife quite frequently.  Encouragement can go a long way and for someone trying to lose weight, tighten up, or get big, a few words of encouragement from a complete, or relative, stranger could be just the trick to keep them going. See we all go home and expect wife, husband, mate, partner, girlfriend, boyfriend, rover, felix, mom, or dad to say good things about us. Those compliments are great too, dont get me wrong, but a compliment from a stranger or acquaintance holds more weight. See they dont have to say a damn thing. They could just keep their mouth shut (and most of the time we hope they do that, right?) BUt for someone to purposefully go out of their way to say "Way to go kiddo!" - now that's just good humanity!

So go out there and be good to your fellow workerouters for goodness sake!

Me, Myself, Versus I

Homo sapiens, like every other critter that dons this wonderful planet Earth has had a long history of competition - with themselves. Let me try to explain. We are all here - that is, we as a species are all here because somehow, some way, via some processes that are not entirely worked out, our species' ancestors did things that allowed them to 1) live and 2) most importantly, reproduce. The biologist in me calls this natural selection. I hesitate to use the term here while discussing exercise in order to not disuade individuals not privy or interested in evolutionary science from my idea. Instead I choose competition as my proxy for this discussion. Think about our ancestors: they had to survive in grasslands that housed a number of predatory types (e.g., lions and tigers and bears, don't say it don't say it, oh my!). Not only did they have to evade predation, but they also had to provide for themselves and if they were "lucky" they also had to provide for their families. (I use quotes for the word lucky purposefully. It would have been a superbly easier ancestral life if we hadn't had to go out and hunt, gather, or farm our own food. We could just sit back in our stone recliner, drink our homemade fruit brew and watch the other dufuses try to catch food for a large family of 2, 3, or 4 other humans. So lucky is not really all that lucky, except in the game of evolution reproduction is like a touchdown, a goal, a hole in one (pun intended).) That is, in the game of evolution reproduction is what makes winners. So one would be lucky to have survived to reproductive age, to acquire a consensual mate and proceed to procreate. Voila! Wham bam... enough!

This is probably the reason our species has the drive that we do. Probably the reason all species have the drives they do. However, as we all know, certain individuals lack a drive, lack the motivation to "get ahead", advance, develop themselves. In fact, some people look like our ancestral lazy boy (sans the stone recliner). So what is happening in these individuals? They are fat bastards. Actually, they are a variant in the existence of our species that chooses or is designed to not be driven. Seriously, they most likely anchor the high end of our species BMI and fat to muscle mass ratio due to low exertion to ingestion ratio. They lack the urge to compete: with themselves. They lack the drive to consider their own body an experiment and a challenge. The lack the drive to be the best they can be as a Homo sapien. They do not compete with themselves! This can come in all areas of one's life. For example, I have friends, colleagues in academia who have kicked up their heels after getting their PhD, or for some it's after they get granted tenure. For them, they've done it. They are done. Accomplished their goal. For others, it comes in the form of exertion. A very good friend on mine used to say "I walk to work, so I don't need my gym membership". OK, don't get me wrong, walking is great. In fact, walking is fucking absolutely brilliant. It's one of those cool things that makes humans, well human! But walking is far from the type of anaerobic exertion needed to produce optimal fitness, as evidenced by the fact that my friend was rather out of shape. For example, if I had asked him to run to work, he'd have laughed at me. "That's 3 miles!" I think I've made my point. So....

What does it mean to compete with yourself? Go ahead try arm wrestling yourself, it don't work does it. So that's not what I mean is it? No. In short, what I mean is work against yourself. It'd be better to work against a real opponent, but we do not all have that luxury, and thus are forced to work against ourself. Many individuals who workout do this, somewhat. You've seen them in the gym. They carry a notebook around and they record how many reps of what weight they did this and make an attempt to track their progress over time. Laudatory, no? No. Actually, in the time they spend writing down that they bench-pressed 2.5 lbs more this time than the last 10 times they could've really competed with themself. They could have run 100 m. Then do it again, and try to do it faster. See, this is more what I am talking about. We need to push ourselves to the limit. The gym, our workouts are not supposed to be leisurely activities where we read the latest Dan Brown novel while trickling on the elliptical, treadmill, or reclined bike. Rather we need to focus our cognitive energy on creating competition with ourself. We need to have fast, hard, strength and power based training regimens that tap our humanly limits. Then we need to track the global speed and effort exerted over time. I tried to explain this in words to a fella at my local Gold's Gym, but it was difficult because I am shy. Instead I said try this, it's a CrossFit workout: Clean and Jerk/Press 135 lbs 30 times as fast as you can. He responded "As fast as you can?" Yes, I said, as fast as you can. That means go buy a stopwatch ($4 at wally world, right?) Then in try to do something to increase your speed the next time. That's the essence of fitness to me. This is very much in line with the CrossFit mentality, and that's because THEY ARE DOING IT RIGHT!

So, go have a fight with yourself all Fight Club parking lot style. No don't do that, you might get sent to the psychiatric hospital and I ain't bailing your ass out. Instead set up a few big exercises that you do for time. Say, do 100 repetitions of a 65 pound snatch. As fast as you can. Get the stop watch out. Yes! But that;s not it. You will also have to closely monitor your exercise. If you need to rest, you need to rest - this is not a recipe in suicide. But those rest periods should be as short as possible. And they should decrease over time. Another avenue to do this type of self-competitive exercise is to try and do a certain number of reps in a limited amount of time. Do as many burpees as you can in 5 minutes! Fuck me, right? And then try to do more the next time you do that workout.

Go for it!