Moron Food...or More on food.

Since I tweaked my back in my last workout, and thus have taken the last few days off, I'm going to talk about food for a bit.

I started rereading Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food last night. Since I was talking about needing to change my eating habits a couple of days ago, Kelly suggested that I reread it (since the books I'm currently waiting on won't be released for another month or so, and there's only so much reading involved with books on Jujitsu). I had forgotten how well his writing flows, but I had also forgotten how skewed my own view on food has become.

Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants. Sounds simple right? He then goes on to describe what Food is, versus the chemically engineered science projects that pass as food. I agree that my own eating has been overall less than stellar since leaving my folks place (we used to eat only Organic though not necessarily local), Kelly and I decided fairly early in our relationship that we were going to eat better than we had been and joined a CSA. After we decided that the pick-up time/location wasn't particularly convenient we swapped to one that had a pickup located at a store we shop at for most of our produce anyway. So that made it fairly easy for us to keep to better food habits.

Well, for Kelly anyway. For me it has been a challenge to eat my portion of our share. For whatever reason I don't think of veggies as the main portion of what I'm eating. Then I suffer for it later. But, I can change this, just as I changed everything else in my life: hard work and actually wanting to. So my new goal is to try to eat better. I'm already doing plenty of training, and with my new goals incoming, I figure I'll add this in there as "the next step", as it were. That and I really miss cooking...I'm just not inspired to any more, and I want to change that.

Aha! moments and food problems

Yesterday, while re-watching Enter the Kettlebell, I had an "Aha!" moment. I figured out where my form was messed up for the snatch. I was trying to do more of a pull straight from the ground, when I should have been thinking of it more of a really, really high and tight swing, followed by a "punch up" at the end. Doing it that way my form looks more like Pavel's, and I can get in more reps. Just tried a few reps (nothing even close to a workout, since this is a "rest day" from weights today), and I could actually do it. Also tried a C&P to see what was what with my strong arm, and was able to do 5. That's the basic starting point for the RKC: Rite of Passage that I'm starting in on after the Ride. Now I'm excited!

Some things continue to be an issue mentally. Basic things like a desire to nourish my body. I know that food is the fuel for my own performance, but lately I just haven't really wanted to eat. It seems like every time I've just been forcing myself to eat because I know that I'll need the food later. The only times that has been an exception has been when Kelly made ratatouille and soup earlier in the week. I just haven't wanted to eat anything. I think the problem has been that I've poisoned myself with too much take-out and crap food. When we were eating the stuff from the CSA, I felt great and actually wanted to eat. When I was eating the stuff I ordered from Asian Noodle House with the team the other day: I got about half-way into it and didn't want it anymore...though I still cleared my plate. Kelly has been challenging herself to eat something from our CSA at every non-breakfast meal. Maybe that's the key...either that or I've just completely burned out on take-out food in Ithaca.

So how to fix the above problem? Create more food, dine out less. Can one force themselves to be inspired to cook by simply reading food magazines/cookbooks and trying to make something out of them? We'll just have to wait and see...

Where was I? A massive brain dump (sorry)

I haven't felt like blogging in a while. Not that I haven't been training: I have. 1 Day of TGUs, 1 Day of Swings. Break. 1 Day of TGUs, Swings, Break, break. Repeat. I've been doing this for the last 7 weeks now (this is week 8). Huge gains from 7 weeks ago, but now I'm wondering if I should move onto the "Next Stage" of the game: the RKC-Rite of Passage.

I know it's been effective (I'm noticing definition in my shoulders where before there was none, and the scale is a happy sight...as long as I haven't eaten like crap), and while the workouts are still plenty intense, I'm getting a little bored. The Program Minimum would say "Too bad: you haven't earned the right for variation, yet". But I can C&P 5 times. Not necessarily in a row, but I can do the work. Snatching, well... I can do a couple of reps, but feel like I'm banging my forearm a little. Not sure if moving to working on them regularly to "Grease the Groove" would help or hurt...

So I guess the question is: how do you know when it's time to move on from the Program Minimum to start working into the regular Enter The Kettlebell: RKC Rite of Passage? I'm cracking out into the 100+ range on swings. I can C&P. I can do all of the basic exercises from the book. I've been holding off on making this transition because I've got the Ride for Life coming up in 3 weeks (oh, sponsor me here, please). I don't want to stop, since I've made so many great gains, but I'm not sure what to do from here. This is what I think people mean when they say that they need to be training with a plan in mind. So what do I do? What's my next goal? There was a fairly active post on Josh Hanagarne's site where folks listed their goals...some of mine are very long term, and some of them are <1 year in scope, but hard to nail down. I suggested to a friend recently that the easiest way to do goal setting is to find your goal and work backwards from it to figure out your time-line. Well, that's great, but how do you do something like that when you don't have any idea what you really want to be working on right now?

My strength training will certainly help with this. I'm just mentally flossing here. Trying to figure out if it's a good thing to just stick with the PM through the Ride, taking that Monday as Day 1, week 1 for the RoP... Yeah, I do think that may be just the thing... That would give me 12 solid weeks on the PM with a good idea as to the start date for my work. The only problem I'll encounter is my friend John's wedding coming up the first weekend in October. That'll mean rescheduling my normal workouts so that week I have an extra day since I'll have to bring the Kettlebell with me (can practically guarantee that the Comfort Inn in Dover won't have a Kettlebell to speak of), and don't rightly know what the schedule for the weekend is going to be like yet. Hectic, is a good first guess.

I feel like I may be bordering on over training, but in the long run: it's only going to get worse: we're adding a Japanese Jujitsu class to the dojo's schedule for the fall, and I'm about to start assisting with/teaching Self Defense and Cardio Kickboxing this fall. So how do you fight over training: Nutrition, rest, and "Greasing the Groove". Cycling is going to gear down, with the ride behind me. That doesn't mean I'm not going to ride my bike: it just means I'm not going to be out seeking miles and miles. I will however continue to have fun on my bike!

So that's the plan then, and now I have my short term goal: Finish out my 12 weeks on the RKC-PM. Take an extra "Day off" (by bicycling 100 miles around a lake), then dive into the deep end at week 1 of the RKC-Rite of passage!

So what will that look like when I'm working all the way through the program? Meaning that I'm doing the recommended amount of work on all of the workouts?

Monday "Light Day": Strength:
• C&P ladder 5x(1;2;3)
• Cleans Snatches, oops
• whatever else is in the program (I haven't looked at it in a while)
Classes:
• Self Defense
• Kick Boxing

Tuesday "Variety": Strength:
• TGUs as a warm up
• Work on Greasing the Groove (OAP & Pistols) from the Naked Warrior
Classes: * Karate * Jujitsu * GungFu * Sword/Taiji

Wednesday "More intense than Monday" (a.k.a. Medium): Strength:
• C&P ladder 5x(1;2;3;4)
• Swings
Classes — same as Monday

Thursday "Variety": Strength:
• TGUs as a warm up
• GtG
Classes — same as Tuesday

Friday Rest.

Saturday "More intense than Wednesday" (aka Heavy): Strength:
• C&P ladder 5x(1;2;3;4;5)
• Swings — To limit

Sunday: Rest.

Lather, rinse, repeat. It'll take a while to get there, that's for sure. I'm going to start out with:

3x(1;2;3) week 1a
4x(1;2;3) week 1b
5x(1;2;3) week 1c

Meaning it's going to take 3 weeks before I can work up to doing the whole workout "as normal". So I'll be doing as many as I can of those sets until I'm at the prescribed "dosage". If I can't do the full lower ladder the first time I try I'll probably drop a rung until I can (so that would be 3x(1;2) on Monday, maybe 3x(1;2;1) on Wed, then 3x(1;2;2) the first Saturday), and work it up there. It's gonna be great!

Still here, believe it or not

I'm still here, but I've been too busy/lazy lately to write in this blog. I will be back though, and soon. Haven't missed a training day yet, just nothing really interesting to report...Other than Kelly helping me buy The bike I've wanted for more than 2 years now. Sweet!

A Plethora of Piñatas

Jake's random note: I have no idea why I called this post that, other than it's easy to put in an "En-yay" on a Mac...and I love that movie.

Cycling

Friday: nothing interesting, just the usual commute of 7 miles, give or take change.

Saturday: 28.3 miles. Pace was messed up by a bad cramp in my shoulder on Friday that persisted even to today (Sunday). Also got my first riding flat of the year, which managed to put a nice gash in my tire. Ah well, I was thinking of replacing my tires before the Ride anyway, but now I gotta... just now the question is: which ones to replace it with? I'll see what's in stock at my LBS on Monday night.

Sunday: just a short ride of 3.15 miles, up to CTB and back for breakfast.

Weight lifting

After my workout I tried a C&P with both hands to see if I'd made any progress since last time I checked (which admittedly was only last week). Progress! I was actually able to C&P with both arms, and didn't feel like I was going to hurt myself when I tried with my Left. Nice! Also tried a Snatch with both arms... that wasn't so nice, but I'm guessing it was my form more than anything else. I could sorta get in one on my Right, and not at all on my left...which wound up more like a higher Clean than a Snatch. No worries though: I'm making progress and that's all I really care about.

• FTW Squats
• Pumps
• Halos — I noticed that if I use hand cream the night before (recommended by the books to reduce blisters/calluses) I have a hard time with the Kettlebell feeling slippery (gee...I wonder why) in the morning. I may need to go looking for a different cream than the natural stuff I was using...
• TGUs — rather than guess at 5 minutes, I tried using the countdown timer from my cell phone. Worked like a charm, and managed to get in about 4 reps in 5 minutes. Sounds good to me!