I’ll Need a Bigger Helmet: Biking in Boulder

This will be a quick one, mainly because we had long days and have an early day tomorrow, but also because I don’t have much to say about this, or perhaps I actually do and want to prevent an all out rant.

Essentially, again today on the way home from work I almost got hit by a car… in the sidewalk. I’m a responsible bike rider and good on my bike. I ride it at least 4 days a week, typically more. Some days I only ride it 2-3 miles to and from work but some days, doing multiple jobs, I can ride up to 12 miles a day. These are all commuting miles, on a mix of flat and graded terrain, typically sidewalks and roads. I have an old Trek mountain bike that has been transformed into a commuter bike and I custom fit it to meet my needs.

It has a 17″ frame, and some extra grooved tires for the snow. It has trigger gear shift capabilities that work relatively well and old but reliable brakes. It has a loud bell, a retractable steel grocery basket that fits onto the mountain rack on back, that I use as a makeshift splash guard. I have a decently comfortable seat that is locked to the frame with a wire lock. I keep my heavy duty u-lock attached to the frame and I use a large thick black bell dome helmet. I have all my reflectors in place, plus a flashing or steady rear led red light in addition to my steady or flashing led headlights.

Even with my ability and all these flashing lights, I almost always get hit day or night and it happens in the crosswalks! I come from an area where drivers have a tendency to lack patience and manners, but they are extremely efficient in terms of keeping traffic moving but also very aware of the stop signs, lines, lights and pedestrians.

Many of the drivers in Boulder are the opposite and it’s been tough to get used to it, but that’s not the issue. The issue comes with how bike friendly the actual city of Boulder is! There are crosswalks for pedestrians and bikers that have flashing lights and announce to slow down and stop, and there are bike lanes everywhere.

So every day I happen to be riding in the bike lane, or on the sidewalk if there aren’t any and someone almost hits me in that safe area! It’s because many of the drivers here happen to think that the stop line is for your back tire or the back of your car! Then they usually try to make some apologetic gesture, knowing that if they hit me, they would be in a big trouble, legally. So please, be considerate of pedestrians, be efficient but aware, and recognize the fact that your automobile is a powerful weapon if not handled properly.

Let’s keep our streets and sidewalks safe for everyone! Biking is a physically and mentally rewarding activity and although I may not like the snobby cyclists that wear racing gear and use $5,000 bikes to commute, I enjoy biking to work everyday. It is great for the environment, which I care much about, and it’s a decent leg workout if done correctly. Plus, it always wakes me up before I get to work on the early cold days. I love riding through the snow in the mornings here when the powder is untouched.

Oh well, enough of that, thanks for reading and remember to use green and alternative transportation!

Dec172012

The Importance of Enjoying Work: Love What You Do and Do What You Love

I know these are hard economic times. I conducted five interviews on Friday with lots of amazing candidates with tons of experience in different fields to accompany their college degrees. People are forced to apply to any job that can pay the bills, whether they know how to do it or don’t, whether they’ll love every minute of it or wish the nightmare would just end. Alana and I both recently went through a lot of interviews of our own trying to figure out post-graduate work situations that would sustain our life in Boulder and, most importantly, for now, help pay off the student loans as soon as possible. But we were either smart or lucky, or a little bit of both. Our stubbornness in terms of applying to the right jobs and choosing the right jobs amongst a sea of interviews and offers seems to have paid off well.

Alana and I worked three jobs at one point over the past few months; one full time, one part time, and one very part time unofficial off-the-books job. Alana stopped doing her off-the-books job because it was just too much work for her when she was going seven days a week. Although, it was work that she enjoyed, it was too much and it’s important to know yourself and to know when to say enough is enough. Money is important, but we’re not the kind of people that enjoy the finer things in terms of clothing and cars and the flashy stuff. We’re happy with good food, good exercise, good family, and some nice books and video games. So our income doesn’t need to be excessive or even average, because it just needs to be coming from jobs that we enjoy.

Things we buy

For our personal update, without saying too much, Alana is working as a full-time certified personal trainer at the Longmont YMCA, Monday through Friday. On Sundays, she works as a caregiver at an assisted living home in Boulder. She loves training and this YMCA is very warm and friendly, so the job makes perfect sense. The commute is a little bit long for her liking, but it’s worth it. She works her second job to gain experience in the health care field in order to make her training in becoming a nurse a little easier. She just recently registered as a student with Front Range Community College so that she could take her pre-requisites for nursing school.

I am working as a full time swim teacher at the Swim School of Boulder. I also will be, or already am, the head coach of the Swim School of Boulder Club Swim Team. It officially launches January 1st 2013, but I’ve been working hard to make sure everything is prepared. Secondly, I work one or two days and seven to fourteen hours a week also at the Longmont YMCA as the instructional swim coordinator and aquatics advisor. I am trying to rebuild the aquatics department in order to provide the services to the community that I feel they deserve from an Aquatics department. Third, I walk a large dog in North Boulder, some times seven days a week typically for an hour at a time or some weeks not at all so it’s very on and off.

Despite working 45-50 hours a week each, on average, we’re extremely happy with our jobs and employers. It makes the rest of life a lot easier and even though we don’t make as much money as we might be able to, we appreciate the fact that we are employed and able to feed ourselves and stay warm at night. We try not to take anything for granted and remember we’re just the same as everyone else in terms of having to face this struggle.

So even though I can’t do anything to make you as lucky as us, be stubborn, and try your hardest without starving to find a job that you really enjoy, because it will make you that much happier.

Dec162012

Responsibility of Guardians Does Not Stop in the Gym

This is for you, parents, guardians, care-takers, and so forth. You’ve made it to the gym. Good job. You’ve brought a tag-along (no, not the cookies, a child) and feel satisfied that the gym is a good, safe place they can roam around and have fun. Wrong. Let me share with you a few ways kids unsupervised in gyms can go poorly:

1. They can injure themselves via weightlifting. We saw this yesterday. A kid, no more than twelve, somehow wearing weightlifting gloves (I don’t even wear them) doing curls. And he was lifting way too much weight. Which is when he compromises the proper form and uses his shoulders instead. It is so easy to injure your shoulders. Do your son or daughter a favor, and watch them if they are lifting, don’t let them build horrific injury-leading motions that can hurt them in the future. We were wary of the guardian nearby, because sometimes poor form comes from them.

2. They can distract, injure, or anger someone else. This may seem odd, but sometimes meat heads hit the gym. And they often come with a temper and seriousness to accompany their workouts. As if those workouts are the most important event occurring at the time. Obviously wrong, but many do exist. Say your kid is running around, hopping over weights and bumping into equipment. Besides messing up a roider’s reps, who could release some serious anger at your kid and, ultimately–you, but he/she could also injure someone. Say somebody is far down in their squat and the youngster bumps into them. Wham goes their knees. And wham goes your pocketbook when they sue you.

3. They can injure themselves simply moving around the gym. The gym is not a safe area. It is for people to increase their fitness, which includes heavy machinery, weights, long bars, and lots of pointy edges. Can you imagine how easy it would be for them to trip and fall face-first on an 80-pound dumbbell? Not a pretty sight.

Gym

Those are a few reasons off the top of my head. I’m not saying don’t bring your kid to the gym, I’m saying watch your kids if they’re performing exercises or doing some type of exercise. It’s great for them to be active and healthy. Just keep them close to you and under your eye. Put them in child-watch, most gyms have them nowadays. You don’t want to risk their injury or someone else’s. You don’t want to risk getting booted out of your favorite gym. Just a heads up as safety is always most important to us.

Nov292012

Circuit Training and Why You Should Try It

Ever feel like your workout is stale? Don’t look forward to it because you’ve done it numerous times before? You might’ve even reached a plateau and haven’t been able to achieve new progress lately. Don’t sweat it (lol, get it), it happens to all of us if we don’t change our workouts up. For example, we always switch up the muscle groups and add new exercises. But say you just do total-body workouts, which a lot of people do, and you’re just getting bored and losing interest. I have a solution!

It’s called circuit training. No, you don’t need to be an athlete, a fitness extraordinaire or even in shape! This will be the pathway to getting there and having some fun while doing so. Circuit training involves numerous stations with little rest time in between. This especially great for people who want to lose or maintain weight because you’re constantly keeping your heart rate up and your body moving. You give yourself a certain amount of time or reps at each station and then move to the next without resting. There are various ways to do this, and you can even do it at home.

Let me give you an example. 8 Stations:

Push ups
Supermans
Dumbbell swings
Mountain climbers
Plank
Curl, shoulder press, triceps extension (one sequenced movement)
High knees (in place)
Squat jumps

You would go through say, 45 seconds of each station and move to the next. It depends on your fitness level. With some of my more beginner clients, I will give them 15 seconds rest between every two stations rather than until the end. I will give you variations at the end. Want to workout at home and don’t have any equipment? No problem.

Squat jumps
Push ups
Reverse crunches
Russian twists
Jumping jacks
Lunges
Calf raises
Jog on the spot

Don’t need any equipment for that one. And you can design the circuit training to fit your needs. Looking for only cardio? Swap the strength exercises (like push ups) for things like jumping jacks, jump rope, high knees, mountain climbers, jog in place, and so forth. Want to focus more on strength? Take out the cardio and add more strength in. Either way, you’re getting your cardio up by going from station to station without rest. Personally, I would suggest keeping both in the routine. Strength and cardio training is important for everyone, I don’t care who you are.

List of more exercises you can do (with and without equipment):

Crunches
Dips
Squat press
Plie squats
Wall sits
Triangle push ups
Step ups
Shadow boxing
Medicine ball throw
Chest press
Pec flies
Skull crushers
Jump lunges
Hip bridges
Burpees
Curls

And so on and so forth. There are tons of exercises you can do. You can make your own routine. Pull some of your favorite exercises from the list and go for it. Try to hit all parts of your body.

Beginner: 8 stations, 45 seconds at each station, 15 seconds of rest after each two stations, two minutes rest at the end, complete three circuits.

Intermediate: 10 stations, 1 minute at each station, 15 seconds of rest after 5 stations, two minute rest at the end, complete three circuits.

Advanced: 12 stations, 2 minutes at each station, no rest in between, two minute rest at the end, complete three to five circuits.

Please, try circuit training. At your gym, at your home, outside, wherever! Some advantages of circuit training? I already covered some but I’ll recap: saves on time, encourages fat loss, keeps your heart rate up, effective use of time and exercise, works on all muscles of your body, improves your cardio, and improves strength. Those are just a few. You choose the number of stations, length of time at each station, and how many circuits you have time to do. Challenge yourself every time.

Let me know what circuit you did and how it went! And if you have any questions, please leave a comment below.

Nov142012

Bisque Me! Beautiful Butternut Squash Bisque

Now, I’m no Master Soup-Maker. In fact, this is my first time cooking a soup (or bisque, rather) from scratch. And it turned out really well! I got my basis for the recipe here, but I really changed this one up. Also, apologies for the lack of postings, busy lives! We’ll get back into it, we have a lot in store for you still. Alright, get ready!

Ingredients:

Olive oil
Butter
1/2 onion
3/4 cup of diced carrots
Butternut squash
Vegetable stock
Salt/pepper to taste
Cinnamon to taste
Brown sugar to taste
Ground ginger to taste
Garlic

Alright! Semi-long list but once you have everything cut up it’s easy. And the last few are to taste, throw your own ideas in there too. Ginger, brown sugar, and cinnamon just gave that nice soothing Fall flavor. So amazing on the cold nights we’ve been getting in Boulder.

Directions:

Cut up your butternut squash (I would roast it before hand, it was NOT fun to cut raw), carrots, and onions into cubes or small pieces.

Next, put some oil and butter into a big pot. I added some garlic in there too. Watch out, the smell is divine.

Once that’s nice and hot, pop in the onions.

Once the onions are nice and tender, put in the carrots and squash. And, though I’m not explicitly saying it, throughout this I’m putting in salt, pepper, garlic pepper, cinnamon, brown sugar, etc. Do it to taste. Make it your own.

Stir it around and then pour your vegetable stock in and bring to boil. You’re going to leave these in here, boiling, until all the vegetables are nice and tender.

Alright! So your veggies and nice and tender…I hope you have a blender or food processor! Because you want to throw all that mixture into that blender or food processor and blend it until smooth. Now we have a really bad blender, and although it took some time, even ours was able to blend all these. So you can do it!

Once that’s all blended, pour back into the heated pot. Here, you can add cream into it if you want (I didn’t). I stirred in a lot of cinnamon, ground ginger, and brown sugar in at this point to get it to that flavor I wanted to. Just stir and taste until you are satisfied.

And voila! You are done! Wasn’t too hard, was it? I really really suggest it as we move into winter…it is so nice and hearty. Very warm. There might be a holiday coming up where you can use this… Let me know if you have any questions!

(BONUS KITTY PIC)

Nov062012

Get Yo Autumn On: Whole-Wheat Banana PUMPKIN Bread

Oh yes I said it…pumpkin. I’ve made tons of banana breads, but now it was time to introduce the beloved fall vegetable, pumpkin. How many times do you think I can say pumpkin in this paragraph? Anyways, this pumpkin banana bread is one, absolutely delicious, two, easy to make, and three, doesn’t leave you feeling guilty. It uses a bit of brown sugar and honey to sweeten things up, as well as the banana and pumpkin that go along with it. I found this recipe here and varied it a bit, put more cinnamon in it, more honey, typical stuff for me. Alrighty, get ready.

Ingredients:

WET
1/2 cup butter
2/3 cup brown sugar
3 tablespoons honey
1 cup pumpkin puree
2 eggs
1 banana
2 tablespoons orange juice (weird)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
DRY
1.5 cups whole-wheat flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon

This is the pumpkin puree I use. You can find it…ANYWHERE right now

Okay, looks like a long list but it doesn’t take long to prepare.

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 55-70 minutes

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
REAL simple here. Mix all the wet ingredients together

Then, you mix in the dry ingredients like the flour, baking soda, etc. Just look up at the ingredient list above, I organized it for you (it was really hard).

Spoon it all into the buttered or oiled baking tin and place into oven!

Bake for 55-75 minutes. Test it in the middle with a fork or a toothpick to make sure it’s cooked all the way through.

Hope you enjoy it as much as we will! I’m bringing this over to my aunt’s and cousins’ to watch the Election Night coverage as we bite our fingernails. Now that I think about it, I probably baked this to subconsciously soothe myself. Don’t forget to VOTE tomorrow. Please.

BONUS KITTY PIC

Nov052012

Swim to Workout, Swim to Live

Pressured by Alana to write a post because our consistency has been awful lately (we are very busy, but no real excuses exist, I have enough time a day to write ONE post), I am going through the most difficult process.. deciding what to write about. I can write about anything, or try to… I mean it might not be good but I can go on and on if I want to. So I’ll save the favorite video games of the past year post for when I’ve played a few more I want to finish, my dinner tonight was disgusting so forget that (over 1600 frozen calories), I took the past two days completely off workouts and three from climbing because of forearms splints and just being sick.

I need rest to recover quickly (I hope), so let’s talk about something obvious for me… swimming. This isn’t going to be in detail, I’m just going to talk a bit about swimming. Of the over fifty hours a week that I work, or will be working, almost all of it is related to swimming or aquatics. So let’s break it into a few categories… continue if interested:

Swim training

Water Safety: This is the most important of all aspects of aquatics. Whether you’re at a birthday party playing pool games, swimming laps to stay in shape, working on your strokes to qualify for an event, surfing in Southern California, snorkeling in the keys, or scuba diving in Southeast Asia, you always need to consider safety and it starts at a very basic level.

Learning to be comfortable and not scared of the water is the first step before you can become proficient at any aquatic skill. If you’re scared of drowning at a very forward level (everyone should be aware of it) then you need to get over that fear quickly. Having children get comfortable with the water at a young age will allow them to break into learning how to actually swim easier, so it’s never too early to start. But it’s also never too late to start! Better early than late but better late than never. If you aren’t comfortable or children that are dear to you aren’t either, then you need to find someone to work on that.

English: A breaststroke swimmer, in a hotel sw...

Just keep swimming!

Swimming: Swimming is a great way of moving efficiently, doesn’t always have to be quickly, once you’ve got your water safety and comfort taken care of. The key here is to conserve energy and have a means of moving that utilizes your arms, legs, and ability to breathe. That’s right, obviously, breathing is the most important aspect of swimming. I don’t care how fast you can swim with your face in the water if you can’t breathe. Swimming is about survival when it comes down to the nitty gritty. Whether it’s rolling onto your back to float or using a rollover breathe to replenish air before going back into a faster means of moving, breathing it key. Once you have those motor skills involving your arms, legs, and breathing operational, it’s time to think of the next step.

Swimming to workout: Now at the highest level this would include competitive swimming, but the basic level means that you can kick, stroke, and breathe properly so that you can workout without hurting yourself. If your stroke is off, you might hurt your shoulders or something else. If you breathe to one side you might develop a huge knot over there, or you might just develop an uneven stroke. If you don’t kick, you won’t swim as well or you could pull a groin or a muscle in your leg. If you don’t breathe, your workout won’t last long. Even if you’re not competitive think about taking stroke classes so that you can get a better workout by doing breast stroke, back stroke, flip turns, butterfly and other advanced techniques that will activate muscles you’ve never used. You can expand your lung capacity, burn fat, and even more. (Note: Please get proper instruction in how to do butterfly, it’s far too easy to hurt yourself if done improperly.)

Competitive: If you have all your strokes and techniques down, and you’re in good shape or want to be, join a team or a program to keep swimming. United States Masters Swimming will take anyone not affiliated with some other organizations if you are over 18. It’s a great chance to keep or start competing. United States Swimming is another huge program to look into especially for youth, and there are local clubs for people of all ages if you are in the right spot and look hard enough. Otherwise, join a class and compete against yourself in a strict environment. YMCAs usually offer lots of programs.

Competition

Recovery: If you are injured or your body has become more fragile there are tons of water therapy and recovery, and fitness, classes that are much easier on your joints. AEA and Waterart offer some certifications in teaching these courses if you are interested. You are never really too old to stop getting in the water.

Extreme: If you want to surf, go for it, I recently did and feel comfortable although we just moved after Alana got a new board. Snorkeling is a great tourist activity and scuba diving is the ultimate underwater adventure. Scuba stands for self-contained underwater breathing apparatus and it, and the aqualung, were in great part the result of the efforts of the late Jacques Cousteau. I recently had the pleasure of meeting and having lunch with his son, Jean-Michel. You can either go to SSI or PADI to get certified and they last for life and offer endless specialization continuing education opportunities. I am currently enrolled in SSI’s Open Water Diver course, and I plan on completing that and my Advanced OWD by the end of the year. Then it’s onto Rescue Diver and Dive Master but we’ll see how long that takes.

Scuba-ing

If you have any questions about anything aquatics, even ocean conservation, please feel free to leave a comment. I’ll get into more detail about each of these over the next few weeks, possibly expanding by giving each its own post, including ocean conservation and preservation, and everything else.

Oct302012

Back to Back… and Biceps… Yet Again

It’s another cover of one of our workouts, which have been getting a little bit better… I hope. It’s been very challenging balancing working 7 days a week and still finding time, with gyms not being open 24 hours, to work out and work out well. Furthermore, it’s been most challenging to not neglect any body parts. Ideally for me, aside from cardio workouts and recreational workouts, I like to focus muscular isolation workouts on legs, core, chest, triceps, biceps, back, forearms, and neck. Combinations can be made freely, but again, ideally once a week with proper rest is a good start… twice a week when we’re in killer shape. Never more than that, especially with strength training. We’ve been struggling with hitting every body part on a good reliable consistent rotation but back and biceps are rarely missed because of their size, and for now, their role in climbing. So here is my coverage of a decent pull muscle workout.

We hit the gym around 9:30, a little late, we like to get there around 9, and I put some Tiger Balm and Tiger Balm Muscle Rub on my upper body pull muscles and joints. Prior to coming, on an empty stomach, I took 1.M.R. A pre-workout supplement, one scoop a day before my muscle workouts, for nothing else. At 9:37 the fun began, on a day where I was feeling pretty good, a little sore throughout the body, especially in the lower back, and my cold I have now hadn’t hit me yet.

(by the way, as a foreword, before you ask about rest or reps, it’s minimal rest and every set is to failure, seriously)

9:37: Super set 1: (4 super sets)

a. Alternating pullups and chinups

b. Seated d-bell lat flyes (it’s the proper spelling, seriously, but I don’t care how people spell it, Alana did standing)

9:47: 2 (4 super sets)

a. lat pull downs (narrowing grip every set)

b. seated hammer curls

(during this set, while we were swapping equipment because two pieces for two people is more than fair, some gym jerk decided to try to take our incline bench, so I told him to beat it and he did. I was polite)

10:01: 3 (4 super sets)

a. low seated cable rows

b. incline pinky offset curls (have your pinky be touching the head of the d-bell, so the thumb is around the middle)

10:17: 4 (3 super sets)

a. kettle bell sumo romanian deadifts

b. back extensions

And then around 10:30, we bouldered for about 20 minutes until my forearms felt like they were about to split. Typically, we get kicked out of the gym, but that day we left a couple minutes early. If you ever get that sensation, just stop.

So now, the reason why I wrote this post was to dedicate a section to bodyweight or near bodyweight lower back exercises. While sometimes I work out lower back with back or legs, it really could be classified as core. Depending what your weekly split is, you can cater your lower back workouts to match those days. For instance,

If you are trying to do lower back with legs, deadlifts and squats are great exercises to focus on good form and strengthening your lower back. Whether it is a romanian dead lift, straight leg, front squat, olympic squat, etc you should focus on good form! If you squat 600 lbs for 1 rep and your back isn’t straight, I don’t count it. You can, but you’re lying to yourself.

You can also use the back extension apparatus that is actually a glute/upper hamstring piece of equipment. Hit a few birds with one stone. If you’re doing shoulders or back, kettlebell swings are a great workout for lower back. But if you’re trying to work body weight, lower back is a great group to focus on with your core.

Back extensions on the apparatus are I think the most convenient one here. It is bodyweight and weight can be added, but it requires a piece of equipment, and if you don’t have it just do…

Supermans – laying stomach down, extend your limbs outwards and slowly or quickly contract upwards, then slowly or SLOWLY stretch back downwards to the floor. Thirty reps is a great goal for body weight exercises, especially for your core.

Any deadlift can be done bodyweight. Single leg are the most challenging and if done improperly can hurt your lower back a lot more. I recommend a straight leg romanian deadlift where your only pivot point is at the lower back. Rep it out again with the same execution as the superman.

Never, in any circumstance, bend your lower back or arch it towards your stomach. Try to keep it tight, keep it straight and if anything, but try not to, arch it away from your stomach.

Do a plank, and a side plank on each side. Planks are arguably if done correctly the best core exercises and this includes your lower back. Do not overlook these. Do them for as long as you can maintain proper form, and when form deteriorates, rotate onto your side… or rest! Then repeat.

If you have a stability ball, you can do reverse extensions where you bring the ball into your chest with your feet on it. Keep that spine straight and try to rep it out. I usually shoot for 20.

Don’t forget about bridges. These will be used in some yoga classes. It’s kind of a reverse plank, with your back to the ground.

And on that note, consider yoga poses! Cat pose, cow pose, cobra, scorpion, chattarangaaaaa (or however you spell it). These are difficult glorified stretches that can really work. Just make sure you don’t only do these. I have a thing against just doing “static stretches” but I understand yogis that these aren’t JUST static stretches so stay back.

Any questions?

Oct242012

Work Those Push Muscles: Chest and Triceps Workout

So there are some workout match-ups that tend to be our favorites. One of those favorites is the sweet chest and triceps pair. It’s a great combination and leaves you exhausted afterwards (my arms are very upset with me now that I am typing). So Alana, you’re probably saying, why is it a good combination? Lemme spit some reasons at ya (not literally, come on).

Triceps brachii

1. Convenience: being able to do your chest and triceps at once can really open your workout schedule. This is especially for the people who tend to try to workout every day or every other day. It gives you a few days to work on other muscle groups without worrying about overworking those muscles. Because ultimately, that will lead to injury. And that’s a no-no.

2. Effective: you’re going to get a much better chest and triceps workout if you work them together. If you’re doing it properly, every chest exercise you do will work your triceps a bit and every triceps exercise will work your chest. That’s just how our body works.

3. Power: it makes you feel huge. Think about the strength, effort, and power that goes into benching.

Anyhow, there’s a few reasons for you. Now let’s get to our actual workout. We have a few pictures for you of yours truly.

1. We started out with a super-set (one exercise after the other, no rest) of push-ups and triangle push-ups, working our chest in the first and triceps in the latter. You don’t need any equipment for this, so no excuses! Go until failure.

2. Our next super-set was incline chest press and incline pec fly. This really requires good strength and power (especially chest press). Unforunately, no pictures of us doing this. For chest press, you sit on the inclined bench, and push your arms straight up.

For pec fly, get in the same seated position. But start your arms out, like you’re going to give a tree a hug, and bring inwards (you tree-hugger!).

3. For this we didn’t do a super-set, because we wanted to spot each other for bench press. Personally, I’ve lost a lot of my strength, and can’t bench nearly what I used to (you’ll see low weight in the picture, the bar = 45 lbs). It’s just good to be there and spot for each other to get the weight up and getting help getting it down. We did decline bench press. Go for a good weight and, as usual, go til failure.

4. For our last super-set we combined triceps cable press and double-hand triceps extension. This really killed our triceps (in a good way!). For anyone uncomfortable with triceps exercises, I find that the cable press is an easy pathway to get comfy with working those triceps. You position yourself with the feet shoulder-width apart, facing the cable, and press down the steel triangle or horse rope down and bring your arms back to 90 degrees.

For triceps extension, grab a good weight and place behind your head and do vertical raises.

5. And lastly, to end our muscle workout, we did a cable cross-press. This will get a good pinching burn in your chest and triceps. We juiced out the rest of our strength through these. Always go to the end of your workout. Never stop pushing. Unless you feel sharp pains, THEN STOP. Stand away from the cables, grab each cable in each hand and cross over your hands.

For this entire workout, we did four sets of everything and pushed to failure. It could range from 8 to 100, it’s up to your body and your strength. We ended it with some excellent twenty-minute bouldering where Chris finished a new route that had been challenging him for weeks!

Please let us know if you have any questions! Cheers!

Oct162012

Give Your Body [SPECIFIC] Love

Weird title, right? For me, love has a lot to do with health, especially when it comes to one’s body. And it’s very important to love your body. And a way I do that is giving it great workouts. Why do I say specific love? Let me tell you.

A lot of people who aren’t really into fitness or go to the gym as a chore, typically do total-body workouts. Meaning that they will try to work each part of their body (from back to chest to legs, etc.) in one workout. And if you do that workout properly and hard enough, each and every muscle group will be sore.

So I have a question. What are you going to workout the next day if all body parts are sore?

Which is why I say SPECIFIC! You don’t have to be a meat head, a fitness buff, or even in shape to split workouts up properly. You’ll be amazed at how much more effective each workout will be. Usually spend 45 minutes on a total body? Imagine 45 minutes spent just on your legs. Now there’s some defined calves.

And specific doesn’t necessarily mean one muscle group each workout, it could mean two or even more. Usually, we split our workouts into two muscle groups each. For example, yesterday we did back and biceps. Another day we would do chest and triceps. Another day? Shoulders and forearms. Legs we usually keep by itself because there are several large muscles to work (calves, quads, hamstrings, glutes, etc.) And so on and so forth. I think you’re getting it. If you want, you can even split it into upper body and lower body workout days. But that will only work if you’re only working out 3 or so days of the week.

By the next day, you’re going to be sore in whatever you worked out. And by the second day after, you should be even more sore. But soreness to me equals happiness, because I know that muscle group is getting stronger. I’ll keep using us as an example. So we worked our back and biceps last night (great workout by the way), which are going to be sore today and tomorrow. Thus, tonight we will most likely work out chest and triceps, core, or something else.

There are so many pros to this way of working out and a very slim amount of cons. The specific muscle groups will get stronger by isolating them, they will develop more quickly, gain endurance, and toning. You will not have all body parts feeling sore and tired thus preventing a good workout.

You have the ability to isolate your workouts. Do it! I hope you can now understand how much better it is. AND it also makes it easier to plan out your workouts, thus making it easier for you to actually workout. I find it’s always easier to follow a workout plan (even if I’m feeling meh that day), because it’s written down what I’m going to do. Trust me, just try it.

Tell us which muscle group is your favorite to workout!