Shouldering the Burden

Good exercise I got off of Rob’s blog:

I liked the look of it so much I attempted it this morning right after seeing it. I used the baby bell, Peta (16 kg). Ahhhhhh, it felt really good. I could really feel it stretching the shoulder girdle, at the same time as I was applying strength to stabilize it. Nice. Try it–you’ll like it!

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Re-cover

Whew. Recovering from another sweaty one–kettlebell PT, that is.

Went for a 4×4 today. Like this:

– Four minutes, each arm, LCCJ (16 kg)
– Two minute rest set
– Four minutes, each arm, LCCJ (24 kg)
– One minute rest set
– One minute, each arm, LCCJ (32 kg)
– One minute flutter kicks
– One minute SEAL-style bodyweight squat/calf raises

Then a pretty intensive stretch session. Felt pretty worked out, even after the 24 kg LCCJs. In fact on the last hand (left arm) of the 24s, to prevent going to failure I ended up setting the bell down at the 25 sec to go mark. I recovered for a few seconds and picked it back up to finish the set, but I was breathing heavy, let me tell ya.

Then on the 32, I ground out very confident clean and jerks for the full minute on each arm. Hunh. That just goes to show ya, never give up–don’t know when your second wind will kick in.

I did it on a really empty (hungry!) stomach, too. Even though I often intermittently fast, I often don’t feel like hitting the intensity when I’m really hungry. But sometimes I go for it anyway. I wasn’t falling over famished or anything, but getting to the point when I really thinking about eating a snack to jump my energy.

I called it a “4×4” coz the meat and potatoes of the workout was sort of really the four minutes each arm at the 16 and 24 kg bells. The 32s, and the rest of the training kind of was garnish, to round things out.

Although–it could be stated that the final LCCJ, the 32s, were the important finishing touch, finalizing the power/fast twitch portion of the training. As Art De Vany indicates. And according to him and Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the low-frequency but highly-intense event has an exceptionally important impact. See De Vany’s discussion of “power laws,” and Taleb’s book, The Black Swan.

I know, I haven’t gotten around to reviewing Black Swan, yet. Maybe I will, maybe not–but you should see what they have to say about the financial bailouts being implemented in the US now.

But–that’s a discussion for another time.

So, let’s see, that’s what?… 20 minutes time-under-bell, 22 minutes total resistance training, not counting the rest sets and the stretch/cool-down afterward. Makes it about 25 minutes, plus cool-down, which I didn’t time. All-in-all, a good workout!

Cheers. Now to fill the hole…

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Back By Popular Demand

During the seminar Dan held over at University of Mary Washington a couple of weeks ago, Katy, one of the officers, asked if I might come back over and start helping coach there again.

Since I was asked, I said yes.

So last night I showed up at their Sunday practice session, and helped out. It was good fun, and I enjoy the coaching part. I still feel really good about giving back to the sport and helping make people better fencers and increasing their enjoyment of the art/sport. 😀

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The Pointy End Goes Into The Other Man, No?

Friday night’s traditional fencing practice was quite enjoyable.

I hadn’t gotten a hard kettlebell training session in a couple of days, and I wanted to see how I fenced after one, so I waited until an hour or two before class, and did a quick, but hard one.

Sort of the two minute drill from before, but without the rest stops, such that it was a session of continually escalating difficulty. Sort of the De Vany protocol of trying to hit both slow and fast-twitch muscle fibers.

– Two minutes each arm, LCCJ (16 kg)
– Two minutes each arm, LCCJ (24 kg)
– Two minutes each arm, LCCJ (32 kg)

Again, note that there were no rest sets, so this was intense but quick (twelve straight minutes time under bell). Well, you could say that each arm had a rest set as the other one was lifting. Of course–really this is a whole body exercise, so it’s not just each arm working in isolation. But the change-up between them does give your grip a chance to recover.

By the time the 32 portion rolled around, I only got through about a minute and a half before I set the bell down (each arm). Maaaayyybeeee I could’ve gone a little further with it, but I am avoiding going to failure on most of my exercises. So I used the better part of valor. With kettlebells–and training inside the house, that’s a wise idea… 🙂

I showered up, then my roommate Chris and I headed over to fencing. As I said, it was quite enjoyable. I had noticed in previous sessions that my shoulder really seemed to hurt after the rapier portion of the training (I had really hurt my shoulder years ago cliff-diving–really).

So I had intended on not doing that portion of the training. However, the instructors changed the format of the class to be rapier first, then longsword (and smallsword if you wanted to, as well). I was trying to bow out, but when everybody suited up, I just couldn’t help myself.

I hadn’t even brought my mask or jacket in–so I went ahead and grabbed one of the school’s mask and jackets and proceeded on to fence rapier.

The new rapier instructor, Mike, seems to be pretty good. He’s laid back and to the point (heh, heh), and gave us his version of rapier style fencing. Then we broke up to try the principles he was talking about (basically free-bouting). I got to fencing him for a while, and that was fun. As I said, he’s pretty good (I think Dan and Chris said he was the local champion or something).

I think he was a little annoyed that I kept grabbing the blade or engaging in body contact, but that’s how we originally started doing it, and frankly, I’m engaging this a martial art, first–a sport second. I think he is using SCA (Society of Creative Anachronism) sport rules, with which I am not completely familiar. But that’s okay. I adapt, improvise, and overcome… 😀

Later, we did longsword, and like any martial arts class, we had a newbie plus others at different levels, so we went over the basics again (which is good), then Chris had me split off and train a couple of the guys in a specific technique they were asking about (“Krumphau,” one of the “Master Cuts,” if you’re curious).

Afterwards (around 2230 or so), we went to get some chow at a local eatery, which I sorely needed–I hadn’t eaten much all day since lunch (which was also breakfast for me). I noted that I had no should soreness. So I still don’t know what to attribute that to. Was it from doing the workout beforehand? Was it from doing rapier first? Sometimes I was warming up by striking some of the padded pillars–maybe I wrench it a little there? Maybe I did something previously in longsword that is wrenching the shoulder? I still don’t know.

But I was happy.

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LHC to the e

Because we’re geeks:

Freakin’ awesome. Like a whole semester of particle physics, in one song!

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WOD

Today’s bit of play got fairly intense. Almost back up to full strength, even with a bit of congestion still.

Kettlebells again. Obviously, I’ve re-fallen in love with them for the time-being.

Something like this:

– Five minutes each arm, LCCJ (16 kg)
– Three minute rest set
– Three minutes each arm, LCCJ (24 kg)
– Three minute rest set
– One minute each arm, LCCJ (32 kg)

At that point, I was pretty much smoked. I had set the timer for two minutes, expecting to do the 32 kg for two minutes each arm, but I wound down quickly, so I switched over to the other hand at the one minute or so mark.

For some giggles, I followed up with:

– Two minutes each arm, snatch (16 kg)
– Two minute rest set
– Two minutes each arm, snatch (24 kg)

And that was about it. Finished up with stretch and cool down. Dripping with the sweaties, I must say, and definitely felt worked. About 26 minutes, time under bell.

Immediately swallowed a bunch o’ water, vitamin Charlie and a fish oil capsule. Waited a while before consuming any food. Shower felt reaaalllly good…

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POD

All hands–Attention to Plan of the Day:

Be aware that September 19th is International Talk Like A Pirate Day.

All hands are instructed to Talk Like A Pirate on September 19th. See above reference.

Carry On.

(Yarrr)

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Origami Boulder

Yesterday, someone yelled, “INCOMING!” and a little crumpled piece of yellow paper landed in my cubicle. Someone had made what I call an, “origami boulder,” the only bit of origami I know how to do. 🙂

I opened it up–it said, “GO HOME.”

I suppose that had to do with my hacking (but irregular) cough, my hoarse, now-nasally voice, and occasional sneezing…

I really didn’t feel all that well, but almost absolutely had to go in after a week vacation, to make sure some stuff was taken care of. So I went in for a while, and got things arranged. Then finally, went home. And stayed home today. I felt a bit better today, but still had the voice and a headache for a while in the morning, and running nose.

It seems that many times when I come in from WV I get a head cold type of thing. I haven’t figured it out yet. Is it something in WV that causes it? Or is it something I getting re-exposed to here? I dunno. Usually it’s about a week thing or less, but once it hung on really long. Or maybe that was unrelated–I don’t rightly remember, now.

I got home last Wednesday and felt great, and Thursday the same. I was hoping that it wouldn’t hit me this time. I got through part of Friday, but after I mowed the back lawn, I started noticing that burning in the back of my throat, which usually presages the sore throat then sinus effects. Darn!

Now–if you’re thinking that the mowing caused it… well, could be, but I mow other times and it doesn’t hit me. Maybe the mowing triggered it. In any case, I could feel it coming on.

I went ahead to fencing practice Friday night and had a good time. Coach Daniel asked I wouldn’t mind going over to the University of Mary Washington to help at a seminar he was giving to the fencing club over there. Of course, even though I’m not currently coaching with them, they were the college at which I was coaching, before. So I said yes, conditionally, because I didn’t know how I’d feel by the time Sunday rolled around (the day of the seminar).

As it happened, I did get a little worse by Saturday, but it was manageable, and when Sunday came, I was still a bit worse, but mobile, with medication. So I went, and it was a good time. I met new students; in fact it was almost completely students I hadn’t met before. But there were some “old-timers,” and it was good to see them again. At the end of the day, I was asked if I could come by and help out again, so I might start that again. It just depends–it’s a schedule thing, mostly.

Anyway, that night I got the runny nose and sneezes and such really bad, and couldn’t get much sleep. I got up early, took some drugs and headed in earlier to work than usual.

Then got the note, and finally came home. Last night wasn’t much better, so I ended up taking a large dose of medication, and ended up sleeping pretty well, but woke up still congested a bit and with the headache, and sort of trouble taking a deep, full, rapid breath (more or less how my brother describes asthma).

However, as time has passed today, I haven’t taken any meds at all, unless you count coffee 😀 , and have felt much better, albeit with the hoarse, nasally voice still, and some sinus compression. Thinking about it now, I think I felt a lot better after I picked up my Oly bar a few times. I’m not sure what it’s got on it right now, but in any case, it was a very light set of deadlifts, just sort of for the heck of it, because I happened to be right next to the bar.

So–I figured I should get my adrenaline up by doing a light set of kettlebells. So I did.

There is some precedence for this. When I was a kid, I had to take allergy shots. Those ended when I was like, five or six years old, but I still seemed to be pretty sensitive to stuff. I found that if I was bit congested, and rode my bike (during the summer, it wasn’t anything for us kids be on the bikes constantly for something like 12 hours straight) hard, it would open up my eustachian tubes and I could hear a lot better. That was cool.

And then one day, I was pretty congested and we went to Athens, Ohio for some allergy tests or something. The doctor gave me a shot of something, some type of adrenaline or pseudo-adrenaline or ephedrine or something, and was awesome. I felt like I could lift cars, and my metabolism was soaring, and I cleared up pretty well for a while.

As far as things are now, I have no allergies that I know of, though I’m pretty sensitive to chemicals and dust and mold. But I don’t usually react with sickness or anything.

Anyway, I did do some kbells a little while ago, and it did in fact, seem to help. I did still have some asthmatic wheezing near the end, but that’s okay, hopefully that helps trigger some adrenaline or nor-adrenaline to help open me up.

As I said, I did a light set–simply two minutes per hand of long cycle clean and jerk (LCCJ), followed by two minutes snatch per hand, and then two minutes jerk. All with the little bell, Peta (16 kg).

Like so:

– Two minutes, each arm, LCCJ
– Two minutes, each arm, snatch
– Two minutes, each arm, jerk

You’ll notice that there were no rest sets in there; I just worked pretty much straight through (barring interruptions trying to reposition the fan or such). I wanted to get the breathing going and stimulate some adrenaline.

So that was a relaxed yet lively 12 minutes, all told, as I listened to an Ultima Thule podcast.

I finished off with a couple of kettlebell windmills, some stretching (yoga-style), a touch of chi gong, some barely remembered (but always calming) tai chi, and several aikido turns and cuts.

Good stuff. Hopefully I’ll be able to get my sleepies in tonight, and feel human enough to go into work tomorrow. Chris, my roommate went to help the Mary Wash fencing club. I could’ve gone (since I was already in the area) I suppose, but I figure it’s best if I stay away this time…

Anyway, I’ve been reading some good books: Infidel, by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and The Black Swan, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I really like ’em both, and I’ll prob post some comments on them in the near future.

Cheers.

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Men In Skirts

This looks like fun:

Virginia Scottish Games and Festival

It’s been a while since I’ve been to a Highland Games. Fredericksburg used to be on the international circuit and actually hosted the World Championship one year (1997, I think). One of the pros, Carl Braun (what a great name for a heavy athletics competitor 🙂 ) lives here, so he and his family had organized a games and festival here for several years. Alas, the games are here no longer.

I do think it’s funny that all Scottish sports are based on “take something heavy and throw it.” Cabers, hammers, weights, stones, and bundles of straw. Ask my mate Rob about that. 😀

That’s not the complete games, of course. They compete in just about anything, but primarily you have the sports (throwing heavy objects), the music, the dancing, and dogs. Kind of like a local ag fair in the country. Although in the States, you don’t have the telephone pole toss, usually.

Anyway, that’s next weekend; I’ll have to check my sched and see if I might go one of the days. See you there!

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Family Onion

As promised, a little more about my trip back home.

As I often do at the end of August, I head back into my home state of West Virginia to visit the family. Two reasons–these are the weekends of my family reunions, and the weather usually makes it pretty easy. No snow or particularly bad weather over the mountains, you see. Start going that way later in the year, and even if it’s gorgeous in the lowlands, you may have to contend with whiteout or fogout with slippery ice.

So, end of August is a nice time to head over, though I often get poured on when hurricane remnants blow through.

Or just plain hurricanes. Two years ago (has it been that long already???) when I first got my bike, I rode in–and that was, naturally, through the hurricane that seemed to pop up just in time for my trip. That was a very, very wet and windy ride… However, it gave me a lot of confidence in myself and my bike. I don’t think I’ve traveled in anything worse than that… though I will generally eschew traveling through thunderstorms, or in icy conditions. Rain is okay, cold is okay, but unless you just have to, I don’t think exposing yourself to lightning (esp in the mountains) is a good idea. Nor ice.

A motorcycle is a tool. A tool for traveling–and generally you should use a tool for it’s best use.

But anyway… my trip.

The trip out was pretty uneventful. I drove my brother’s red Del Sol out, because it was that time of year again. Ah, yes, that is the other reason I came in. His tags and inspection run out each August for that car, so it needed to come back home and get re-upped with each. And since I had been the primary user for the year (he had his Buick up in DC), I felt is was my responsibility to take it back and get those things taken care of. In addition, my new roommate, Chris, asked to use my truck to help move in whilst I was gone, aaaannnnndddd, my brother was giving up his Buick to our youngest brother, so had to drive that back to WV (otherwise he could’ve driven the Del Sol back, you see).

All of which means that instead of riding my moto out that way, I took the little red car, “Nikita.” (What–you don’t name your cars? 🙂 )

It was nice to see everybody–I hung out at both my mom’s house and my dad’s. It was good to see my mom and youngest brother Chris and his friends, and my dad and stepmom Susan.

My nephew is a monster! He’s such a cool, intelligent kid. He learned to swim this summer, so a trip with him to the pool was mandatory.

We had good fun, and I got to teach him the Fireman’s Carry, as used in wrestling. He’s looking to start wrestling as a sport this year (he’s in sixth grade–11 years old), so this was a fun move. He’s a bit over four feet tall, and very very strong for his age. He was able to carry me in Fireman’s Carry in somewhat shallow water. He actually weighs more than me, by the way.

But I’m pretty strong, too, so I hefted him a bunch of times, but he is heavy enough that I could feel it later in my neck and shoulder (he’s like, 240 lbs or more, I think he told me). But it was great fun. And of course, I’m pretty amphibian, so any chance to be in, on, or under the water is good for me.

Of course, any trip back home is not a trip unless we go to the range at my dad’s employee park. I went several times, with different mixes of people.

About each time, we saw deer on the range (“Home, home on the range, where the deer and the antelope play–but not wisely :)” )

Deer at the range.

I think our second time, we took Gabe (my nephew of the Fireman’s Carry) and he got to shoot a boy’s-sized .22 single shot. He’s pretty good with it. He also shot my dad’s Thompson/Center in .17 HMR. That’s a wonderful gun. My dad had made a neat contraption that was a horizontal board with clothespins on it, to hold clay pigeon targets vertically on it. Like so: |_O_O_O_O_O_O_|

The two stakes on the side (made with rebar) stuck into the ground to hold the horizontal plank about a foot off the ground. Like I said, a neat and fun contraption.

The Thompson .17 shot super well. At 25 meters I was easily hitting the clays from standing, and even the fragments left over. My last shot was at a fragment that was the thin edge of the rim left over of a clay. My dad said that I would be wasting ammunition, but I actually rested the weapon on a support and popped it. Heh-heh…

He had another Thompson/Center handgun (the .17 HMR was actually put together as a rifle, with a longer barrel and rear stock) in a good deer cartridge–7-30 Waters. A good shooting gun, that both he and my brother Dave liked, but I found that I couldn’t use it very well. Oh well.

One of the T/Cs was an “Encore,” the other a “Contender G2,” I think. Sorry, I don’t remember which was which (the T/Cs have interchangeable barrels and such, and don’t remember how each was configured). The .17 HMR had a composite stock and the 7-30 Waters had a wooden stock. They are both beautiful, and beautifully made. They have an “old-world” dueling pistol sort of look to them, as you can see by the links, and are definite craftsman-like pieces.

One of the times we went, with a different mix of people, I ended up shooting some interesting handguns, including a “Broom-Handle Mauser.”

So that was fun, and it’s good to get my shoot on.

The reunion itself was quite nice, with several of my mom’s side of the family driving from quite some distance away to come to it.

At some point, my retired father started to earn his keep:

Dad mowing on the Gravely.

Gotta keep him active, you know, in his sunset years…. Man–what a son I am, looking out for him like that… 😀

Of course, we also visited my 97 year old grandmother.

And speaking of keeping active; I did, as indicated below, hit the kettlebells several times whilst I was home. So there…

The way back was beautiful, though it was a tight squeeze to fit both my brother Dahood and I into the little Del Sol. Actually, we fit well enough, and we both packed lightly knowing that we’d be coming back in the little two-seater, but we were concerned with weight. The two of us together already (allegedly–I haven’t seen the specs on it, but my bro tells me so) overload the carrying capacity, let alone any cargo. Apparently, the designers designed the thing for two 150 lb bodies plus a couple of bags of groceries.

But we had no trouble with driving, though Dave said that he could feel it in the turns a bit. We came back through mountains up through Grafton (so he could pay his city bills and such for his home there), then out through twisty-turny Route 50 until we got over to the turn-off to Thomas and Davis. Thereupon we headed to Corridor H, which gave some bee-yoo-tiful views until we got off that and eventually into Virginia and then the 66/81 Interstate. We did, in fact, have the top off for much of the way. And it was good.

All in all, a good trip. See y’all next year…

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