The Heat Is On

 

Record setting temperatures happening around the Pacific North West and it just keeps getting hotter. Finally settled in after several weekends of packing and moving stuff into storage. Trying to stay cool as possible. Can't remember the last time I've taken as many cold showers as I have lately. Got in my sprints this morning which was still in the high 80's outside, 5 bursts at 20 seconds each time.

It has been a tough process and the stress levels are starting to die down a bit. We managed to finally finish things and Wednesday is officially the last day of renting our first home together. It's bitter sweet but good things are on the horizon and time to save up again but this time for our own home. The last 4+ years have been a hell of an experience.

Despite the scorching heat and all of the move being done, I've been getting in some workouts that are more of mini workouts (while still doing sprints 3x a week) and doing them for a few minutes to exercises throughout the day. After taking stuff to our other place and packing up storage yesterday, I managed three short workouts that actually went pretty good and didn't wear me out.....

3 Rounds of 10 Rollouts w/ the Power Wheel and a Power Wheel Bear Crawl as a superset

5 minutes of Picking Up & Dropping my 50 lb Sandbell

The final workout was 100 Reps with a 30 lb Kettlebell

Didn't want to go crazy because of the heat and the work we've been doing but still eager to keep myself fit lol. Today on the sprints wasn't too bad and didn't feel like I was dying but I'm glad I did them in the time I did, it's supposed to get up to 105 today and there's no way in hell I'm doing that when it's that hot.

If you live in the PNW, stay cool, drink water consistently throughout the day and get the most out of life. Even in the middle of a heatwave, there are some awesome things to do. Be safe out there and stay hydrated.  

When You Can't Sleep

 There are times where you just feel restless and just have this level of hyper-active energy that needs to be let out in order to relax and fall asleep. At about midnight or so last night I just had this burst of energy that I needed to get out. While watching a wildlife documentary series I had the urge to do some Animal Movements. Got into my Animal Dice Game and did double reps per animal, took a breather and walked around if needed to recover but kept going for maybe 20 minutes or so. 

I wouldn't say this is the first choice for most people and doing something else might work better for you but my instincts kicked in and just needed to move around and burn off some energy. Felt incredible afterwards and had a big endorphin high. I've always been a night owl so something like this isn't uncommon for me but it's been a while since I did Animal Moves in order to calm down my body. 

Not only does this burn up quite a bit of energy, it can stirrup some decent calorie burning throughout the rest of the night as you sleep. To me, it's a fun way to make sure I don't feel like I'll be tossing and turning all night which does happen often and getting in some exercise and a cold shower does have some great benefits. 

Animal Exercise is not just great for conditioning and developing functional strength but it also is a great calorie burner, creating greater HGH levels and the ability to wear you down in a positive way. If you ever need a way to get rid of that excess energy (other than the real fun thing to do), get up and move like a wild animal until you feel you've had enough. Be resourceful and do the best you can to get yourself to sleep well. 

This Is What You Train For

 Life is funny sometimes and yet it also has its tragedies, setbacks and forks in the road that can come out of nowhere and smack you right in the face. For close to two months, we've had some rough days and yet another has been added. Nearly 3 weeks after our accident, we were asked to vacate our house because of the owners wanting to renovate and update the duplex we live in. We could come back but the rent would be jacked up to what we can't afford. 

Every weekend since May 20th, we've had to pack up the house and put stuff into storage. My wife has been put through so much and trying to organize and storing stuff into boxes has been hard. My job basically is being the laborer and hauling the boxes to the car and into storage. As most couples, it hasn't been easy trying to stay on the same page on certain things but we've been doing our best to stay strong together since a lot of this move is just the two of us packing and hauling stuff. I'm so grateful for what she has done and her organizing skills are incredible and she's quite the hauler too when she moves some of those boxes.

I've helped people move ever since I was a kid and as I got older, I started to learn as I was training, it became more important to be in condition to help others when it is needed at any given time. When I haul stuff, I do my best to be quick and strong while remaining durable so I don't get injured. Can't help anyone if you're hurt and can't do anything. I've only been injured in a move only a couple times and comparing that to the amount of times I've moved friends and family, that's a pretty good ratio. This move is no different and I stick with the principles of moving as fast as possible while being strong from as many angles as possible and keeping as good of form as possible. Some stuff can be very awkward as you may have noticed if you've ever moved anyone.

It's one of the things that have always made me feel useful when I was needed. All that time spending on Step Up Workouts, carrying a 50 lb Sandbell, doing farmer's walks with a 70 lb kettlebell, the amount of isometrics being practiced, the conditioning, the grip work, the leg training, training to last as long as possible was all worth it to help a friend or a family member or even a stranger from time to time. This is what you train for.

Training for looks or a trophy is not always the most satisfying thing that you can hope for in your lifetime. Looks fade away, trophies collect dust and sacrificing your body for one or the other won't always make you feel good as you get older but to train to help other people, to put a smile on their face and give someone some comfort and letting them know they're not alone and doing things by themselves. Moving is stressful and there's going to be be days where you might go into a bit of a rage and just want to scream at the world but there's also going to be days where you feel the future is bright, a new chapter is unfolding and you get to create new memories somewhere else. 

We made this place our home for over 4 years, it was our first place together as a couple and we made it happen, now a new chapter is being turned and something new and amazing is within our grasp. We will be saving up for our own house this time and to never rent again. It will take time and we may struggle but if we can find a way to our first place, WE CAN find a way to own a home. A home that is meant for just us and a few additions to our family. This is a huge reason why I train the way I do and saving up as much as possible. 

Train to help others and when you're needed, make the most of what you can do. After all, everyone needs a little help and if that means hauling a few things to give someone a peace of mind, than everything you've done from a training POV was well worth it. 

Avoid Injuries As Much As Possible While Maximizing Your Training

From a general perspective, we are taught to give it everything we have, even on the brink of injury or even death. It's easy to believe that if you push yourself beyond your maximum effort, you'll get results that will blow everyone's mind. That's not always the case. Pushing to the brink of failure in just about anything can cause more harm than good especially when it comes to exercise. Even the legendary bodybuilder Bill Pearl has talked about never training to failure.

Maximizing your efforts in training doesn't necessarily mean to keep going until you puke your guts out or pass out due to exhaustion, trust me I know what it's like to nearly black out during a workout and it's not a good thing for your body. The idea is to get the most out of your training without the need to kill yourself and avoid injuries as much as possible. This means, resting as long as needed which varies from person to person, working a set that has you hitting reps where you have at least 2-3 left in the tank but not going any further than that, keeping the body as relaxed as possible without causing too much tension and breathing with efficiency throughout the whole session whether in a rest period or in a set. 

Certain exercises do need a level of intensity in order to create the results you're looking for but it's also important to understand where to draw the line with that intensity. You have read about the level of speed to time ratio for Hill Sprints but let's recap that: To get the maximum out of sprint, you need to have a good solid understanding of how much of a percentage in speed needed for the duration of a sprint, it's an experimental thing but once you know how fast you need to go, it's incredible what comes out of it. Normally a 10 second burst would be as close to maximum speed as possible that you can muster which would be roughly 70-80% depending on your fitness level, it's almost impossible to maintain that speed if you were to do a sprint for 30 seconds because if you were to try that, you could get injured or hurt your CNS more than anything. A 30 second sprint would be around 30-40% of your maximum speed, it's still a hard sprint but you're maintaining the pace of the speed needed for it to get the most of that sprint. I'm not an expert on this, I'm just looking at it from a logical perspective so it may be different for some people. 

Rest periods are crucial for maximum results because it's going to come down to your recovery and having the quality of rest to be at your best for the next set. This varies from person to person as well because some people are so damn fit that they can go for a good period of time without needing a rest period but from a general perspective, getting the most out of set and resting as needed goes hand in hand. If you're doing mini workouts, depending on your fitness levels, you might need to rest less because the workout isn't that long say like 10 minutes. If you're doing workouts that take about 30 minutes to an hour or more, rest periods might be needed more because you want to get the most out of the workout. Not everyone is a pro athlete or a world class Olympian so you have to figure out what works best to get the most out of your workouts. If you're an average person but tries to do anything close to what a world class crossfitter or powerlifter does, it could kill you or put you in the hospital. Rest when it is needed, if it's too short, you're not giving yourself enough time to be efficient but if it's too long, you might have lost some of the pace you normally can do. 

We can't avoid injuries 100% of the time (hell even getting out of bed or sitting too long can cause injuries) but we can do our best to minimize them to get the most of what we want to achieve. Giving something 110% in a literal sense makes no sense at all because you might as well be dead or broken if you believe in that or do that overall. Put in the effort that gives greater benefit to the results than the risk of an injury, if risking an injury is higher than the benefitted results that would be good in the long run, that's the wrong kind of training to do. 

Be smart about your training and get the most out of it without getting hurt or worse.   

1st Full Month Of Hill Sprint Training

 When you set new goals, certain things may not show up right away and they say the big results don't show until the 3 month mark. Well, I started Hill Sprint Training on May 17th and I think I've made some pretty good progress but still have a good journey ahead of me. I have been eating a bit differently and because of doing Hill Sprints, doing less intense workouts the rest of the time and getting the most of what's possible to do. 

I just decided that after a few years and wanting to test myself in hard sprints again, they've become a joy to do. I mainly do them in the morning or early afternoon 3x a week and keep the afterburn effect going the rest of the day which is a hell of a perk. I have also come up with a little progression system where I started out with 4 Sprints the first month and each week add 5-10 seconds per burst so the first week was 10 seconds, second was 15, third was 20 and the final week was 30 seconds. This is to help progress to go a little longer on the hill each week until I can practically do the majority or the full hill in 30 seconds. Each month I would add one sprint and use the same progression system of timing.

I am also training on two different hills in my area which gives a different feel in incline and to see what speed I'm best at depending on the time needed to maintain that speed. Soon I'll just be doing only one hill but for now, each one is fun to walk to. One is steeper than the other yet just as awesome to do. When I sprint, I do what's possible to run as hard as I can to maintain speed for a specific amount of time. That doesn't mean I sprint at 100% capacity, that's nearly impossible regardless of how good you are. Even the legendary Walter Payton could only maintain speed on a sprint for the amount of bursts he did in his prime. You can't run nearly as fast on a hill as you could on flat ground but it does still kick your ass.

Say you ran a sprint for 10 seconds, you could probably do close to your maximum capacity of speed which would be around 70-80% at best which on a hill is more than the average person can do. Now if you did a 30 second burst, your speed might go down to maybe 30-40% at best because to keep the pace for that long is something a lot of people don't realize. If you tried to do the absolute maximum of speed like you would in a 10 second sprint, you would start to slow down dramatically those last 20 seconds of a 30 second sprint and within those last few seconds you have, you might as well be jogging. If you knew how to maintain speed for 30 seconds, you'd be jacking up the heart rate and you'd be burning calories and fat like crazy. Whether it's 10 seconds or 30 seconds, go at the speed that is meant for that amount of time needed for that sprint. When I realized how to do that, it made a huge difference in how I sprinted and felt afterwards. 

For all intents and purposes, Sprints are by far the best exercise to burn fat like no tomorrow and burn calories over an extended period of time, even long after a sprint session. Regular cardio such as running on a treadmill does burn calories but only burning from the session and that's it. If you look at Sprinters as opposed to a marathon runner or Olympic Runners in the 1500 meters, there's a world of difference in physique and muscle to fat ratio. 

The first month may not have a huge difference in my physique but I do feel like I've dropped some fat and put on a bit of muscle but like I said, I think I've made some good progress and making small changes along the way. There's still some work to do but this is something I want to pursue at least right now for the summer and fall before winter hits.