Dialing in from the Great Midwest

I'm in Ohio visiting relatives. Oddly the weather here is as balmy as it is in Philly. Global warming may finally be catching up with us. But it rained like crazy on the drive here yesterday so outside was a little too wet for working out. I'm hopeful to get J's WoW in outdoors during one of my days here. But today I hit up the Courtyard Marriot fitness center for a quick workout.

1.5 mile run at 7:30 pace
10 x side corkscrew with a 30 lbs dumbell
8 minute abs
3 x 10 incline press 25 lbs on the 1st 2 sets, 35 lbs on the 3rd set.
3 x 10 seated press 25 lbs on the 1st 2 sets, 35 lbs on the 3rd set.
10 x side corkscrew with a 40 lbs dumbell.

(215 - estimate)

Cross Training

Went out to KoP last night to play goalie for indoor soccer. Its not the greatest workout compared to actually playing soccer but it did test some of my explosive changing direction. Felt really good on some of the lunging/jumping I had to do. Did not feel great about playing 75% of the game in our end and facing a barrage of shots. We won't talk about final scores. We will talk about the diving layout to stop a cross through the box where I exploded off the bad knee to get it.

And some combination of being sick and eating well has caused some significant weight loss in the last week+. I'm down to 214 and pretty excited about it.

In one of the next couple days I'm doing J's suicide, pushup, squat challenge. Hopefully, eventually I'll be feeling well enough to be outside for 30 minutes to do it.

Happy Chrismahanukwanzakah

Old Fashioned Ass Whooping

Old Fashioned Ass Whooping:

Complete as many rounds as possible in 20 minutes of:
1 x 140 yard suicide (cones at 8 yds, 14 yds, 20 yds, 28 yds)
10 x push-ups
20 x body-weight squats

Post rounds completed to comments.

"It has never been about how he plays,

but how he chooses to play."

A quote on the radio this morning re: the 65yr-old Keith Richards.
(Please to reference Denis Leary's No Cure for Cancer for a great short bit on Keith and his message for kids.)

How do YOU choose to play?
How do you prepare to play that way?
--
Anyway, been up to no good as usual. That is, top-secret training methods and internalmotivational work. I've discovered a new (to me at least) exercise that I'll call the L-pullup. That is, as you do a pullup, pull your legs up to parallel as you reach the apex. Shockingly, your body will now form an L-shape. Lower+straighten your body. Repeat.

Do them fast, do them slow. They simultaneously recruit more muscles for the exercise and isolate arms to complete the pullup proper.

Rules of Ultisquash

Game is played 3 v 3 in a standard Squash court. Depending on the size of the court you can play 4 v 4. We break it up into 2-1 when we've got womenfolk there. Sometimes you can go 1-2 as well.

Looking at a standard squash court:

The two service squares (labeled as 5) are the goals. Your first point of contact has to be within one of these areas with possession of the disc. All the walls/ceilings are in play. You check the disc in (usually starting at the intersection of line 6 and the line connecting the service squares) and you have to "check" the disc in off the back wall (where the 1, 4, and 7 are). This occurs either by touching the disc to the wall or catching a pass off the wall. You can then score in one of the boxes. After scoring you have to re-check the disc off the back wall. After a turnover you have to re-check the disc off the back wall. Generally more physical play is expected and tolerated. Games are to 7. You will lose track of the score multiple times because the game moves very quickly. Its a great game for working on explosive short cutting (dump cuts) and boxing out/jumping/reading/etc.

First time players definitely play a little slower than seasoned veterans. Eventually the more you play you learn to brace for running into the walls and running into other people and it allows you to play the game faster. Its a lot of fun and a great workout.

Knee is feeling pretty close to 100%

Emerged from a week of being slightly sick and extremely exhausted to go play ultisquash. I noticed tonight that I really don't notice my knee anymore. Occasionally I step slightly awkwardly and I feel a little something but overall I'm just back out there playing again. And I'm getting my explosive strength and jumping back which is exciting. Hopefully next week calms down a bit and then I can also keep working out through the holiday.

Total workout: 2 hours of Ultisquash, 1 series of 3 games in a row with TC, Tous, Schmucker, Ross, Fink, and I that was pretty killer. Last game of the night was to 11 with the same group except you replace Fink with Ricky Chung.

(216)

A Saturday routine

Wake up, slightly hungover/still sleep deprived from the week.

Throw on clothes.

Head to Haveford for Ultisquash.

Had some very excellent games today. Especially the Trey, Tous, TC, Schmucker, Wheels, and myself games. Very heated and many of them going to 8 or 9. Got a great run and won significantly more than I lost. I did lose to a Whelan blade right to the forehead which opened a nice little 1/4" gash above my left eye. Took a sub but I would return because I'm a hockey player.

Total workout: 2 hours of Ultisquash.

(218)

been working

since Ultimax.

Haven't kept track though.

One thing worth bringing up is the new medball pushup variety:

Do plyo pushups on the medball, but when you bring your hands up off of the ground, pull the ball up to your chest before you throw it down at the ground again. Increase the difficulty by increasing the complexity of hte shape you're attempting to draw with the contact points between the medball and ground. Try back-and-forth over a line, or in a triangle, or in a square or a star or whatever.

Been doing the squats/hillsprints/medball slams+throws/pullups and the like intermittently. Everyday stretching. Lapsing into broken English. Balance work and the like. Squat-jumps. Whathaveyou.

Nike got it wrong.

4 questions that I wish more people would ask themselves at least once in a while (on the field and just in general):

1. What did I just do?
2. Why did I just do it?
3. Should I do the same thing next time?
4. Why (not)?

If you're going to "do it" do yourself a favor and work to "do it" right. Don't "just do it." That's not good enough. Didn't your daddy ever 'splain to you about things worth doin'?

Putting the knee through its paces

I was thinking today that my knee really hasn't been bothering me very much. So I decided to see just how hard I could push it with a pretty massive tabata set. I wanted to do something substantial for a workout but I really didn't have the time.

Feel free to see if you can best my numbers (I'm willing to bet you can't):

Squats: 26 - 26 - 24 - 24- 25 - 25 - 26 - 26 (202)
Box jumps on a brick wall 22" high: 10 - 10 - 10 - 10 - 10 - 10 - 10 - 12 (82)
Sumo squats: 25 - 25 - 27 - 28 - 27 - 29 - 30 - 30 (221)
Calf raises: 33 - 30 - 26 - 26 - 29 - 28 - 28 - 31 (231)

Total number: 736

Then I threw in 50 diamond push-ups with the diamond at my head.

25 minutes later we have TBF

(218)

Ultimax

4-0 on Saturday.
Lost in Semis on Sunday.

"I thought she was your sister, not your mom...
"Barfight!"

Good weekend. Nice wind on Sunday. I got back to playing D-handler. This might be the role I'm meant to play.

Well, except for Sunday when I played "upwind handler."

Ate lots of Bojangles.
Fuck ya.

(170)

J's WoW: 400 Circuit

400 Circuit:

10 rounds for time of:
10 x mahlers
10 x push-ups
10 x burpees
10 x sumo squats
Post time to comments.

The quietest Monday in a long time

For some reason work was completely dead today. It allowed me to get out for a really decent workout and not feel like I was slacking off on the job. I'll still probably end up here til 7 or 8pm though. Either way, lunchtime workout:

1 mile warm up in 7:30.

Active stretching

3 x 10 dips

3 x 10 x each side cable wood chop pull downs. Weights increased from 70 - 80 - 90 lbs for each set. Each set of 10 includes a pull down on each side. I feel like I could have expressed this in many less words. I also really love this exercise.

3 x 10 pulldowns @ 130lbs. I figure I need to work on my ability to do pull ups

3 x 15 Russian twists with a 10 lbs plate. These hurt.

10 minutes on a bike for 3 miles avg speed 17.5 mph.

I'm still working on the nutrition post. Should be up this week.

Ultisquash in lieu of Ultimax

I wanted to get on the Philly team headed to Ultimax this weekend but I was a little late to get in touch with the people putting the team together and they were already pretty full. As a result of being around this weekend I ended up going to Ultisquash on Saturday. It was a great run. I definitely started off slow due to not getting enough sleep the night before. But by the end I had 2-3 games against TC where I was getting a few D's on him a game many of which were due to my having to adjust my position on him boxing me out so that I was "fronting" him and then out jumping him.

Any time I can out jump someone, especially someone like TC, when I'm still coming off of my knee injury I look at it as pretty exciting. He did extract some revenge by mashing my left thumb but conveniently having double jointed thumbs I can't really destroy my ligaments by having something like that happen.

Total Workout: 2 hours of Ultisquash

(217)

Long week

In a word this week is suck. The compressed week last week coupled with a lot of fairly nutty pressure and tasks at work has made it nearly impossible to get the the gym so far this week. Luckily tonight I had some free time. So after spending 2 hours or so talking Pike at a bar with someone I was feeling pretty frisky so I headed over to the local affiliate of Sweat (which is 3 blocks from my house vs. the one that's 3 blocks from my work). I was fairly scatterbrained from the long week and the workout was scatterbrained as well but still good.

Total Workout:

Jog .25 miles to the gym, jog another .75 miles on the treadmill at 8.5 speed.

Stretch

Get distracted by Eagles/Sixers/something cheerleaders practicing in the studio. Literally there were 30 of them.

3 x 10 dips
6 pull ups (I was reminding myself why it was I can't do these but I did as many as I could without sacrificing my ability to workout over the rest of the week).
2 x 15 Russian Twists
1 x 10 Russian Twist with 10 lbs plate
Wander around gym to scope it out as its my first time there.
Watch cheerleaders
15 med ball pushups
20 minutes biking. Amounts to 6 miles. Avg. speed 19 mph.

Then I came home and made myself some whole wheat pasta to try and get an energy bump for the rest of the week. My diet changes have actually been as helpful if not more helpful than all the working out. Maybe at some point I'll write a post about that. But my diet regimen has actually helped me go from the 219 I was right after Thanksgiving to what I am now with minimal exercise and actually getting really crappy sleep and messing with my body's metabolism.

When you get me talking about Pike like I was this evening you get me all kinds of fired up. I hope you all feel the same way.

(216.5)

The Huddle on Endzone O

There are some good articles (and some bad ones too) on how to score goals in end zone offense on http://www.the-huddle.org this week.

Two articles that I particularly liked:

Nick Handler’s: Exploiting Defensive Adjustments
Ben Wiggin’s: Scoring without Breaking the Mark

Two recurrent themes:

1. No matter what you do, be decisive in your cutting.
2. Your positioning before you even start your cut may be the difference between success and failure.

I also liked this quote from Steve Sullivan’s article (though not necessarily his punctuation):

“Really, long points are earned at practice and at the track, well before the specific moment arrives on a Sunday afternoon.”

And this one from Ben Wiggins:

“Offensively, you want to score. That means making most of your plays easy, and making up for your mistakes with talent or practice.”

Monday Monday

(can't trust that day)

8x
40 yard hill sprint
5 medball slams
40 yard slow backward walk down hill

3x
8 balance pushups*
4 pullups
10 clap pushups
10 dips

*- balance pushups = hands on wobble board with medball balanced on upper back (like a soccer ball caught behind the head). these are not easy.

(167)

J's WoW: Blackjack Circuit

Blackjack Circuit (modified CWoD):

3 rounds for time of:
21 x V-Ups
21 x Kettlebell Swings @ 25lbs
21 x Push-ups
10 x Rope-grip Pull-ups
21 x Box Jumps
21 x Back Extensions
21/leg x Lunges
Post time to comments if you're feeling competitive.

A tabata party

Went to Crossfits workout of the day today. The workout was supposed to be "Complete 32 intervals of 20 seconds of work followed by ten seconds of rest where the first 8 intervals are pull-ups, the second 8 are push-ups, the third 8 intervals are sit-ups, and finally, the last 8 intervals are squats."

I don't have a pull up bar, and I have very poor upper body strength/I am lifting a lot more weight than your average ultimate player doing push ups. So I did inclined push ups (with my feet on the third stair in my living room) in place of the pull ups, and push ups from my knees for the regular push ups.

I also used this nifty tabata timer from Crossfit to keep my time

My numbers:
Inclines: 15-10-10-10-12-10-5-10
(girl) pushups: 15-12-11-7-7-8-6-9
Crunches: 26-27-26-28-30-32-31-31
Squats: 26-26-26-27-28-28-29-29

Total exercises: 607 clearly disproportionately skewed towards my core/legs.

I probably should have done actual sit-ups but that ruins my back. Overall this was an awesome way to fit a quick workout into my day. Considering it was a kinda crazy weekend filled with way too much food I'm happy that I was able to stay relatively active this weekend and not balloon up to 220+ lbs. Back to the normal schedule tomorrow.

(219lbs)

tabata banded medball squats

Full squats (hamstrings touch calves on bottom) with ground-bound heels.
Band just above knees.
Medball is level with chin on bottom of squat, raised overhead at top of squat.

These are intense-- didn't keep track.

did some other wobble-board pushups and squats and stuff as well.
Stretched.

I see you, Ultimax.

(167)

Revisiting an old challenge (not that I'm the first)... 

5 x pull-ups
5 x dips
100 x squats
10 x pull-ups
10 x dips
75 x squats
15 x pull-ups
15 x dips
50 x squats
20 x pull-ups
20 x dips
25 x squats

11:02, though I took a different approximation than Dusty's (I broke the pull-ups and dips into smaller groups - you know 10s, then 5s, then 2s and 1s...).  I've gotta (a) get a pull-up bar at home or (b) [re]join a gym - pull-ups shouldn't be this hard.

Alumni game for the team I'm not actually an alumni of

Today was my high school's alumni game. I rushed back from AC in order to try and play a bit with the alums. Of course I never actually played on my high school's Ultimate team as it didn't exist when I went there. Notable alumni, however, include Brian Whelan from Amp, Mike Panna most recently from Hooray, Chris Panna who once played on Rage, and myself. Ultimate's not taken very seriously at my high school so the athletes all still go play football/soccer/etc. There are still some pretty quality players in the recent graduates though.

Total workout:
2 hours of ultimate. Didn't have to run much but I spent a ton of time making big throws to guys running deep. It was really nice to work on some of that timing again and throw nice deep shots.

(218lbs)

Alternative workout

Nick O and I along with some other folks headed down to Atlantic City Saturday night for the Girltalk show. If you've never heard of Girltalk you should look into him. He's a mash up artist that does some pretty incredible stuff. This is a fan video that complied all the music videos from the songs Girltalk mashed up.



Anyway, the end result was about 3 hours of dancing which is definitely a workout. Nick O. also ended up in the pool at some point. Yes there was a pool. The venue was way too classy for Girltalk but it still ended up being an awesome time.

Total Workout: 3 hours of dancing

turkey

Thanksgiving = No dedicated Workout*, One Mission.

Mission: No Overeating.
Mission Accomplished.

*- that means i did some variety of minor bodyweight exercises, but fewer than 30 at a time, and with somewhere from 10 to 300min rest between sets.

(168lbs)

Making up for all the stuffing

Got a workout in prior to heading to my aunts to gorge myself. It took some effort to drag myself out of bed as it was a very long, short week but I eventually got moving.

Workout:
3 mileish run

3 sets of
10 x body weight squats
45 sec rest
10 x each leg lunges
45 sec rest
10 x each leg step up
45 sec rest
10 x squat jump
2 minute rest

Except for the last set when I realized I should have been doing 20 body weight squats per rep so I did 40 on the last set.

8 minute abs

(214)

More Ultisquash

Tuesday I ventured over to Haverford for another round of Ultisquash. We had pretty good numbers, nothing like Saturday but the nice thing about having less people is it means more playing. Tuesday marked the first emergence of Schmucker from his hybernation and we had some newbies out last night which is always interesting because you get to kind of watch how quickly they pick up the differences in the game from real ultimate.

The game ends up being much more about explosive speed and having really quick hands and if that's not something you already have your first experiences can be difficult. It also helps to have an array of "junk" throws (push pass, scoober, thumber, etc.) that actually still come out pretty flat/floaty for other people to catch. While you don't pick up a ton of useful things from playing ultisquash I still maintain that you get a great workout, you definitely work on and build up a lot of fast twitch muscles, and you practice for those unfortunate situations in games where you've got to get the disc off for a dump with little to no stall count left and some junk is getting throw at you.

It ends up being a lot of fun too.

Total workout: 2 hours of ultisquash
Current weight: 216

New Exercise

Medball Burpees.

did a
tabata of
medball burpees
7,8,8,6,5,6,6,7

and

2x
(30 regular pushups
10 clap pushups)

I'm stretching and doing balance transfer stuff pretty regularly, but i often forget to include it in the posts.

This is because... Hmm... I don't really know.

(170lbs)

Weekend Update (11.23-24)

Recurring Theme:
Have Cold, Will Travel.

Saturday-

WOOJIE Session (90-120min?):
5v5 and 6v6 coldtimate at Buccleuch Park
"Only the Hard. Only the Strong."

Sunday-

Swat-ball Session (120min?):
5v5 full court.
2 games to 21
1 game to 35(! I Hate You Ross)

Fetal Position Session:
Amy kindly drove us to Philly proper, during which I iterated variations on a verbal theme of "I feel like death." Moments after our arrival, I woke up the next morning.

Monday
Off Session, save for 2x10 clap pushups on the medball.

Weekend of 11/22

Saturday:
2 hours of Ultisquash. No matter how much you remind yourself about how Ultisquash hurts there's no substitute for actually going out and playing your first game of the season. Generally was an average appearance for myself. Felt like I lost more than I won. But I did have some great, sharp IO flicks that I almost put through Ross trying to throw goals. Definitely also banged quite a bit with TC fighting for space which was a workout in itself.

Sunday:
I was supposed to go play basketball but they already had numbers and I decided to sleep in and then take advantage of my new birthday present as my housemate and I played Rock Band for most of the day. Not having a reason to watch the Eagles for the rest of the season is really going to free up a lot of time to do other things. The Eagles really do suck.

Something cool on a snowy Friday

Has nothing at all to do with training. Has everything to do with where I work. I work in Two Liberty in Philadelphia building super high end condos. These two really rich people have bought the 46th floor and have created a roof deck. Someone neglected to tell them that there is a Falcon that lives in downtown Philly. And that occasionally it likes to snack on pigeons on their balcony. See the pictures below.

guts?

"I'm going to work so that it's a pure guts race at the end, and if it is, I am the only one who can win it."
"20 lbs. [...] which I will be ridding myself of "

If you make it a guts-race (arms-race),
how do you win with less of it?

(for me)
Not about Guts.
About Giving Respect.
About Leaving no Regret.
---
Yesterday's light workout.
4x:
10 medball tosses
15 medball slams
10 "ring-rows"

Stretching lingering soreness out due to J's Challenge.
---
ring-row: heels on ground, hands on hanging rings. pull self up to rings, lower, repeat.

Fink tag team

Today was going to be an off-day as a result of having a crazy work project (ask me about how much I like rich people with money to waste) and I was going to have to work through lunch.  That and my arms were still killing me from yesterday.  But then around 5:30 Tina Fink got in touch with me suggesting we go workout.  I was easily convinced but needed to go late which meant working out in the cold.  After selling her on running in the cold we agreed to meet around 7:30.

The following workout ensued:

20 minute run at an 8 minute mile pace

20 Body weight squats

45 sec rest

10 lunges each leg

45 sec rest

10 step-ups each leg

45 sec rest

10 squat jumps

2 minute rest

Repeat for 3 sets

Then we went and got BoyFink and came back to the park

7 minute abs

25 minutes of throwing

I spent my throwing focusing on my step out flick and my step out back hand doing my best to get as much reach as possible.  I also focused on hitting Jon in his primary SOC (Sphere of catchability) right between his head and his knees.  I always try to focus on something when I'm throwing.  Usually I focus on hitting my throwing partner directly in the chest so that they aren't even having to move when we throw together.  This limits the amount of spectacular catches that my teammates have to make in a game, but ideally it limits the turnovers forced by making poor throws as well.

Then the Fink Tag Team made me dinner.

Ended up being a pretty awesome workout considering I was planning on going home from work and collapsing on the couch.  My abs are beginning to request an off day though.  We'll see how they feel tomorrow.

Current Weight:

218

Goodbye Triceps

Went for an arm day today. My triceps may never forgive me.

1 mile warm up @ 8 on the treadmill.
Active stretching

3 x 10 Dips
3 x 10 x 40lbs Isometric shoulder press (pushing out in a seated position)
3 x 10 shoulder press with 25 lb dumbells
3 x 10 x left and right cable wood chopper with 80 lbs.

3 miles biking in under 10 minutes

8 minute abs.

J's Friendly Challenge

5 x pull-ups
5 x dips
100 x squats
10 x pull-ups
10 x dips
75 x squats
15 x pull-ups
15 x dips
50 x squats
20 x pull-ups
20 x dips
25 x squats

For Time.
I did:

5 x pull-ups
5 x dips
100 x squats
5 x pull-ups
10 x dips
5 x pull-ups
75 x squats
10 x pull-ups
15 x dips
5 x pull-ups
50 x squats
10 x pull-ups
20 x dips
10 x pull-ups
25 x squats

Time: 10:08

I learned that J's approximation of a muscle up was to jam to exercises together (only one of which [dips] can i complete 20 consecutive iterations), I paired the possible around the possible to complete the impossible. If I had gone Straight Through, this might have taken me an hour.

WoW: Cardio & Core Strength Workout

I'm trying to figure out something worthwhile to contribute to this blog. Maybe some sort of weekly series? How's this sound...

My Recommended Workout of the Week

I did this workout today and since it was fun and challenging, I figured I'd throw it on here.
I based the following circuits off a Men's Health article. The idea is that it will improve your cardiovascular fitness without breaking down your fast-twitch/power muscles. Including warm-up and stretching, the workout took me just under an hour.

Circuit I:

5 rounds of:
0:40 treadmill @ 10mph, 10% incline
10 x Over-head squats w/ standard bar
Round 1: 0:40 plank
Rd 2: 0:40 left side bridge
Rd 3: 0:40 right side bridge on right arm 40 sec
Rd 4: 0:40 plank
Rd 5: 0:40 hold bottom of a push-up

2:00 rest

Circuit II:

3 rounds of:
0:40 Mountain climbers
0:20 rest
40 x push-ups
10 x bent-over row w/ standard bar

2:00 rest

Circuit III:

4 rounds of:
1:00 treadmill @ 10mph
5/leg x single-leg rotation squat
Round 1: 85 x crunches
Rd 2: 60 x right side oblique crunches
Rd 3: 60 x left side oblique crunches
Rd 4: 50/side x bicycles

The Beginnings of a Routine

Hit the gym during my lunch break for the first time in I can't even remember how long. I've been relying on my ability to workout on my own when I get home to get in shape. Unfortunately being ungodly busy at work and staying there til 7-8pm doesn't exactly jive with working out so I'm going to be forcing myself to hit the gym more regularly. It's also nice to be able to take some of the banging off my knee/do some of the workouts I did in PT when I was using a really nice gym for free.

Total Workout:
5 miles on the bike avg. speed 19 mph. Finished in just over 15 minutes.

Double leg press x 10 @ 120lbs.
Left leg press x 10 @ 60 lbs.
Right leg press x 10 @60 lbs.

Repeat with 160, 80, 80.
Finish with double leg press x 10 @ 200lbs.

Abductor/Aductor machine:
3 sets in each x 10 @ 130lbs.

10 x side Corkscrew with 25 lbs plate (thanks J!)

30 push ups on a wobble board
45 second plank.

8 minute abs will follow later tonight.

Current Weight:
220

Throwing + Running + Throwing = ?

Not sure yet what the etiquette with back-posting will be here but I'm doing it anyways...

Last Wednesday, Ellis and I met up at Palumbo for about 30 minutes of throwing followed by a pretty fast paced 25 minute run.  Here's the deal:

Route can be seen here

• Fast pace from Palumbo to river (~7:15 miles I'd guess)
  
• On the way back, stride each east-west block (rest as you cross numbered streets)
  
• Finish off with last block at "full" sprint (i.e. whatever you have left)
  

Overall a pace just under 7 min/mile (Ellis was smoking me on the strides back westward).  We finished up with another 30 minutes of throwing.  Felt good.

(Am I really supposed to update my weight here?)

Ball+Disc

Saturday

11:30-2:00 or so:

5v5 basketball at Ursinus with various local ultimate players. it turns out that i've forgotten both how to shoot and how to dribble. this is bad.
i have remembered how to play physical defense. this is good.

2:00 or so to 4:50

get lost driving from Ursinus to Philadelphia, then decide to drive straight to Rutgers.

5:00 to 7:00 or so

play with Poke (Pike+Pony, aka Poinkey, aka Piny, aka Pinky) versus HS players. They made some plays (including a clean poach block on my cut of death which resulted in a guy laying out over my shoulder) but "daddystrength" kept the club players ahead. and then the rains came. the game stopped and jonfink and i threw for a while in the monsoon.

8:00 or so

hit up greasetrucks (take that, hoagie haven!) for a Fat Sandwich with the club guys and some of the Stuyvesant HS players. Ellis and Mio were holding court, as our representative Rutgers survivors.

9:00 or so

a beer with some of the same ne'er-do-wells.

Sunday

8:20-9:something

pre-fall-league finals breakfast at the morning glory diner. the name is appropriate. nice breakfast joint.

10:45-4:30

played one fall league game. lost to jeff george's team 11-10 in an upwind/downwind debacle. we had our shots(!) on double-game to win it with the upwinder, and we did not.

didn't watch semis.

watched finals where red (amp-lite) overtook green (Trey+) 15-10 despite being down 8-5 or so at half to win the coveted PADA fall league title.
----
Good Weekend, on the whole.
could've won more though.

(168lbs)

This is November?

I couldn't make it up to Rutgers to run some disc against the club ultimate stars of tomorrow due to being overloaded with work and a friend from college randomly being in town. To make up for it I decided to take advantage of the unseasonably warm weather and go for a run. And I made it home just before it started to pour which was convenient.

Total Workout:
3 mile run not for time as I'm still working the knee back into running for distance.

2 Sets
30 double leg squats
30 left leg squats
30 right leg squats
30 triangle push-ups with the triangle at my forehead rather than at my chest. This forces me to stabilize my core while doing the push ups.

45 sec. rest between sets.

Finished up with 8 minute abs and then icing my knee.

Current Weight (skewed due to not having eaten dinner yet):
216 lbs.

You can throw things that aren't a Disc?

Tuesday night was my first company Flag Football game. I typically have always avoided all of my company's sport outings (Softball, flag football, etc.) because they are way too "inclusive" and are more about having fun and drinking beer vs. winning. I'm also usually playing Summer League or Fall League and therefore cherish my days off. However coming off the knee injury I decided to skip Fall League and as a result I was free to play Flag Football.

I was excited about the team, mostly because on paper it looked like regardless of what other companies we played we would be way more athletic than the other teams and in a worst case scenario we were looking at being completely unable to score on Offense and winning games 7-0 with a Pick-6 or two. Our roster looks like this: 3 Former Drexel Club Lax players, The Captain of the Philadelphia Wings professional Indoor Lax team, a former Albright College football player, a former Drexel Sprint football player, me, and two girls.

We rolled up to our game about 15 minutes before game time and our opponents were already out warming up and having a practice where they were running plays. They also had an offensive team and a defensive team. It was mildly ridiculous. After the first half it was 33-7 and we'd recorded 3 INT's and scored every time we had the ball.

We ended up only winning something like 39-26 which was basically the result of us spending the whole second half trying to run hook and ladder's. But it was a lot of fun overall and more than anything was a good test of my knee's ability to recover quickly from a weekend of playing.

Next game's in two weeks. The more I do things like this the more I wish I could get in shape simply by playing sports 4-5 days a week. But sadly that doesn't exist and I'm going to have to start hitting the gym.

Total Workout:
45 minutes of flag football

Current Weight:
220lbs

Friendly Competition, 11/13

Crossfit WoD Jason:
For time:

5 x pull-ups
5 x dips
100 x squats
10 x pull-ups
10 x dips
75 x squats
15 x pull-ups
15 x dips
50 x squats
20 x pull-ups
20 x dips
25 x squats

Post times to comments.

FYI, the original workout called for muscle-ups the whole way through, but that seemd a bit excessive so I substituted pull-ups & dips. If you can do 50 muscle-ups, more power to ya!

i explode when i run

10 x hill sprint
----
20 minutes balance/weight transfer stuff.
----
hill sprint = sprint up hill, walk backward down hill, repeat. maybe a 30 yard run at a Sharp angle (at least 15 yards rise if you like the rise/run method...)

i throw it hard and far.

10 medball tosses
15 medball slams
10 burpees
(twice through)

10 medball tosses
15 medball slams
(thrice through)

10 min throwing

medball is 12lbs.
see title.

Something > Nothing

20 wide grip pushups
10 mini-band full range of motion squats
20 narrow grip pushups
10 mini-band full range of motion squats
20 fingertip pushups
10 mini-band full range of motion squats

20 min stretching
10 min active massage

--

"mini-band full range of motion squats" = elastic band just above knees. slowly squat, staying "rooted" (= focus on form + keep heels on ground) until hamstrings rest on calves. breathe one breath. explode upward to tippy-toes. breathe one breath. repeat. i find that this recruits the lateral muscles of my legs and hips while engaging my lower back as well. the breaths maintain focus.

"active massage" = articulating sore/inflamed joints/muscles while putting pressure on sore/tight spots. i find this helps me learn more about what causes problems. particularly in regards to my shoulders/hips/knees, but other parts as well.

My First Steps

So I'm not sure where this blog is going to go. Nor how it will evolve over time. But my contribution to it is going to be my journey from where I finished 2008 as barely recovered from my knee injury and horrifically out of shape to the 2009 season and all the twists and turns along the way.

I spent the months from May to September seeing Doctors, going to Physical therapy, getting poked, prodded, and ending up in a general state of disbelief about what had happened to my knee. I was able to get back to play at Sectionals and Regionals and enjoying that moment for what it was. My chance to prove my Doctor's wrong, and show my team that playing with them meant more to me than making sure that I was 100% recovered from my major/minor/freakish knee injury. But the huge downside of rushing back was that I had to play in a big ugly knee brace that wouldn't stay in place and gave me all sorts of weird blisters and sunburns as a result of wearing it.

But after all that, this weekend was huge for me because it was PADA Mosh. I'd been able to give myself another month to let my MCL heal and I decided that I was going to see if I could avoid wearing the big annoying brace for as long as possible while playing at the tournament. The end result was even better than I could have possibly imagined.

I'm definitely still out of shape, but not as horribly so as I anticipated. I'm definitely carrying around about 20 lbs. too much weight which I will be ridding myself of over the coming months. But all that aside, I was able to play at damn near full speed, make athletic leaping, laying out, cutting type plays and do it all without being in serious pain or needing to put the big ugly brace on. We ended up winning the tournament but that's not remotely what this weekend was about for me. It was about testing my knee and seeing just how far the healing had come. And I'd say I passed my test with flying colors.

What this means to me is that I now can push myself into more intense training over the coming weeks and months in preparation for the 2009 season. I'm excited to get started. I missed a whole season of training and I'm dying to rebuild my body back into what it was in '07. And hopefully continue to build it into something even better.

Let's start building some hurtin' bombs