Miscellaneous Thoughts and Musings
7 March 2005If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
3-7-05 Saturday 8am
My vision for this blog site is (at this particular juncture) multidimensional and fluid — I currently think of this point in space and time as an electronic intersection; a meeting place for those serious about the art & science of physical transformation; a clubhouse to cluster and discuss the shared experience of intense physical training. Our modus operandi is to first draw on past experience and learn lessons then hatch forward thinking strategies and tactics. These psychological projections deal with what will be as opposed to what has been: study the past, plot the future. Those who know me personally can vouch for the fact that I am hardly a health zealot or fitness prude; life is too damned short to be lived without verve and gusto. For this reason I’ll also feel free to comment on things other than those strictly related to health, fitness, training and performance eating.
I went to a famous local restaurant, The Cozy Inn in Thurmont, Maryland yesterday. This is the closest commercial eatery to Camp David and everyone from Churchill and FDR down through Reagan and Carter have eaten here and enjoyed the excellent buffet of plain American food. I sat with my CPA and commiserated about the uptightness of European Scandinavians and the openness of the Irish and the Australians. He is a world traveler and I have spent a fair amount of time overseas as an athlete and coach for Team USA.
As I went back for my second helping of homemade vegetable soup and rich homemade black rye bread, I noticed two obese sisters sitting with their obese mom at a table next to ours. The two girls were probably 14 and 16 and likely weighed between 200 and 220 each. As they ate their pie and giggled I had a burning urge to go over to the table and give the mother a business card. I wanted to help these kids while they were still reachable and almost did it.
When dealing with overweight kids it is imperative to make the fitness process Fun with a capital F. The first thing most ignoramus personal trainers do when dealing with overweight kid clients is make them jog. Can you imagine? These two softy babes could easily generate a 75-90% of age-related heart rate maximum by simply walking around their neighborhood for a half-hour.
Yet numbskull PTs, without thinking or blinking, invariably insist out-of-shape children jog. Is there a faster way to turn a child off to fitness than equate fitness with physical torture? You know what Id do? I take them to a mountain meadow at the base of the Catoctin and play Frisbee. I have what is called an aero-ring Frisbee and this sucker flies a country mile. The kids find it actually easier to fling than a standard Frisbee and are amazed and enthralled when they can make it go 100 yards. Id have them laughing within five minutes. Time flies when youre having fun, and after 30 minutes the kids would not want to quit. Id have them wear Polar heart rate monitors and establish a cardio baseline. Over time wed gradually extend the session duration and incrementally increase the intensity. Plus wed replace that pie with some fish or lean beef I feed active kids and never, ever starve them. Within a year Id whittle 75 pounds off each of them. It isnt magic, its combining tactics that work with the joy of movement. Works every damned time its tried.
3-7-05 Sunday 4pm
The boys should be arriving back from the Arnold Classic today or tomorrow morning. I will be talking to Kirk Karwoski and Pavel Tsatsouline and two or three others who attended this annual fitness Woodstock. I went to Arnold for five straight years and saw several of the bodybuilding shows from the front row press pit as a writer for Muscle & Fitness. I have passed on attending for the past few years despite being invited and having press credentials. The press of bodies in the exhibition halls is unbelievable, the physiques take on a sameness after repeated viewing and the overall thrill wanes dramatically after three or four trips. Still, you do get to see old friends. I miss that part but apparently not enough to jump on a plane and book a room. Maybe next year. Maybe not. I am going to talk more about the steroid question as it relates to the Arnold Classic tomorrow.
I have a CD player next to my laptop in my office at the Mountain Compound and folks who know me often ask what I m currently listening to. I have three slots and right now. I have Roy Orbinsons greatest hits, Glenn Goulds Complete Goldberg Variations and Keith Jarrett s Facing You. I rotate from my 1000 CD library and listen as I write. As in fitness I love musical contrast and shift effortlessly from Blue Bayou to Lalane to Bachs Variation #1.
Reading suggestions: currently I am finishing up Pavel Tsatsoulines Beyond Bodybuilding, which is fabulous. I will be posting a review of this in the next week or two. In addition my friend and colleague Dever sent me Anton Chekhovs A Life in Letters. I am a huge Chekhov short story fan. Chekhov and Ivan Turgenev both had a huge impact on my writing. As an article writer the Russians taught me how to tell a compelling tale quickly and with maximum word economy. Chekhov taught that subtly and nuance were attributes that need be worked towards and it is all right to tell a tale flat, without embellishment or hyperbole. Chekhov was an amazing man; a medical doctor who tended peasants for free and likely contracted the TB that killed him at age 44 as a direct result. In our age of midgets and dwarfs it is reinvigorating to reach back in time and reconnect with true giants.
Speaking of Russians - Pavel sent me a pair of kettlebells when I mentioned I wanted to experiment with combining weighted cardio with a heart rate monitor. My idea was hatched after reading about some of the intense cardio work that world master jujitsu champion Steve Maxwell was doing using heavy K-bells. My idea was to use lighter poundage, extend the duration and strap a HR monitor on to see what results can be coaxed. I intend to jump into this experiment full force as the weather improves. I like to hit cardio outside. My aerobic mentor, Dr. Len Schwartz, first suggested that by using four limbs to generate cardio effect, each one weighted to a relatively equal degree was superior to using legs only to jack up the heart rate. The theory is that when the work load is distributed among four limbs instead of two, the work seems easier though the actualized result, the specific heart rate expressed as a numerical benchmark, is the same.
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