Mudderfuckery

So, I did one of those mud runs (Mudzilla) over the weekend. This was me, trying like hell to remain upright and photogenic, after finishing. I am not fast. I am, in fact, embarassingly slow by my standards… but at least I was as fast as everyone else from my office who participated.

Yes, I have a large grease pencil X on my forehead, because… what are you, new?

Going to Eleven

That's one louder, innit?

So, my overall theme for the year, “I can do better,” has finally started to bear more fruit. Some of it was expected, some of it is coming as a pleasant surprise, but pretty much all of it is welcomed.

Coworker Challenge: March 2011

Name	Weight	Pullups	Pushups	Situps (2 min)	Ball Toss (12#)	Long Jump	40 Yd Dash	Mile
Rafe	175	29	75	92	30’3″	8’1″	5.28 (PR)	6:23
Amy	–	1	50 (knee)	82 (PR)	19’3″	6’10” (PR)	6.96	8:41 (PR)
Megan	–	–	27	29	12’8″	5’8″	7.31	10:05 (PR)
Paul	210	7	50	70	23’8″	7’0.5″	6.13	8:00 (PR)
Daniel	175	2	–	42	17’1″	6’10”	5.81	9:46
Efrain	170	27 (PR)	57	61 (PR)	24’5.5″	7’1″	6.13	9:24 (PR)
JP		5	–	–	21’7″ (PR)	7’11” (PR)	6.19 (PR)	9:18 (PR)

Lots of PRs out there; Megan and Daniel were first-time participants, and Paul hadn’t done some of the new for 2011 events, or there might have been even more.

Valeria revisited

Who?

Her. Not the one up there.

Yeah.

Scaled to my weight (170-175#), the “Good” weights are like so:

Bench Press: 135

Pullups: 175 (with weight belt)

Deadlift: 245

EZ Curl: 65

Time (4/18/10): 7:13

Time (2/24/11): 5:06 No wonder it felt so much fucking harder this time – I did the deadlifts before the pullups by accident.

Video of this idiocy behind the cut.

Smart answers to obvious questions

A reader asks:

“So, Sensei, what is the BEST way to burn fat when exercising?”

“Work hard.”

“Dork.”

That is, at the bottom of it all, the truth (both my answer, and their rejoinder).

CWC 2011

Here’s the list of events (weather permitting):

• Pullups
• Pushups
• Situps
• Medicine Ball Toss
• Standing Long Jump
• 50 Yard Dash
• 1 Mile Run

Note: We will not be doing thumb-extension presses as part of the new regime.

As you can see, we’re taking things up a notch for 2011, so we should all be freshly challenged in new and exicing (and, yes, probably unpleasant) ways. :-)

[WotD] Saturday, August 14

Nothing too exciting happened late in the week, so after the 2RM testing, it was more or less an unofficial deload and reset to recalibrate. That will begin tomorrow, with squats, so today was “just do something.” It turned out that “a whole lot of deadlifts after digging a couple holes in the yard” was the something in question.

Warmup:

Dig: 2×36″ deep 16″x16″ holes

Deadlift: 1×10 @ 135 / 1×10 @ 185

Work Sets:

Deadlift: 10×10 @ 225

[WotD] Wednesday, August 11

At lunch, I did something kind of like a blend of uber-noob parkour, play, and dog emulation. I went out on the one-mile loop, and after a two minute warmup run, spotted someone walking their dog without a leash, so I tried to do what the dog did before they went home – bolting, stopping, trotting, and doing a sprinting weave around some decorative palm trees. Once they went home, I continued with these antics – jumping over every fire hydrant, vaulting onto assorted utility boxes, and leaping to grab tree limbs to do pullups.

Then I came back indoors to sweat a lot. Like you do when it’s 90-something degrees out, muggy, and windless.

After hours, it was time to explore 2RM territory in my one remaining lift, the bench press. Having seen Code Monkey put up a very impressive number on Tuesday, I was resolved to best my own 1RM or get squished trying.

Coworker Challenge XIV

Some new faces this month to join in the fun and games*.

* Note: Neither fun nor games were actually involved.

Two for Tuesday

Assorted fun, in the wake of, well, taking a complete miss yesterday and going to bed at an earlier than reasonable hour. The productive part of yesterday was having a chance to practice my personal training chops on a coworker at lunchtime, which both went well, and was well-received. I didn’t even get any “I hate you, my arms hate you, my legs hate you, even my hair hates you” emails from them today. *grin*

I tried some new stuff (holding myself in a full handstand with my heels against the wall for an extended period of time (60 sec)), and also attempted something that had vexed me in the wake of my recovery (handstand pushups, beginning with my head on the floor). Both were gratifyingly successful three times over, though neither was what I’d call easy.  This evening was squat night.