Thursday, August 19, 2010

It's not the size or shape...

I just wanted to make a comment (before I forget) regarding a recent attack on a Metro Transit bus in Seattle. (Note that I no longer will ride Metro or any other public conveyance for this specific reason. If I have to sdo so... I will be ARMED when I do it... which precludes my using any transit system to ride to work. These coveyances have apparently become one of the preferred feedng grounds for the typical filth that occupy the lower portion of the local community.)But I digress...

A group of "youths" accosted an 17-year old teenager on the bus and attempted to rob him. The ages of the future pillars of the community ranged from 10 to 14 years of age. A 10-year old in the group was armed with a firearm. (Pistol or revolver I do not knowe... apparently a .22 caliber?). In the ensuing scuffle betwen the 10 and 17 year olds, the gun went of and the 10-year old received a wound in the arm and the intended victim fled the scene. The entire group was subsequently arrested.

The point of this post is as follows: Do not judge an individuals capacity to rob, rape, mug, murder or maim you based on their age, size, physical makeup, race, attire or any other "exterior" feature. If a 10 or 14-year old is willing to threaten or hold you up at gun (or knife) point... then you should be MORE THAN WILLING to cripple the little crap bag without a second though or the batting of an eye. Why? Because it should be obvious to all but the most naive and imbecilic that this is PRECISELY what they intend to do to you. It is the INTENT of your assailant that sets the threat level. Not their appearence.

These little bastards were obviously not intimidated by the fact that their potential target was three to seven years older than them and likely outweighted them by at least 25 pounds. He was probably close to a foot taller as well.

You should also not assume that a suburban or rural route is necessarily any safer that an urban one. More abductions take place in rural and suburban areas than in urbans neighborhoods. This is partly due to the proximity to schools and similar institutions but also because of the less dense populations (think NO WITNESSES). Grab a child or female in a city neighborhood and you will likely be seen if it is during daylight hours. Grab the same victim in a suburban or rural area and the nearest neighbor or passing vehicle could be a mile away. (I cannot believe that people still allow their children to walk, ride and play in such areas after the record of child abductions from these exact scenarios. It's amazing to hear peopel say "We thought it was safe.")

Lastly, and to repeat... have no qualms whatsoever in kicking one of these little deviants in the testicles, breaking their knees or neck should the necessity opportunity arise. By putting them in a wheel chair or the morgue, you'll be doing everyone else in your city a BIG favor. As our President seems so fond of saying; it can be a "teachable moment".

"Shorty" Workouts...

Last Monday was a scheduled workout. When I came home from work I found my newly purchased copy of Helter Skelter had arrived and was waiting for me on our doorstep. I decided to read a bit of it for "just an hour or so" and then hit the weights. By the time I bothered to look at the clock again, it was nearly 8 PM and too late to do a full workout.

My schedule is fairly full between work, Combato and weight training. As it is now, even with free time, I'm still only able to cycle in to weight training days per week unless I wantt o be working out righ tbefore bed in the middle of the week. This is no good as it ordinarily take me two to three hours to cool down enough to actually get to sleep.

Rather than skip the training session entirely, I decided to chop it down o the bare minimum. I ended up doing the squats, dead lifts and my usual ab sets of heavy side bends and leg raises. Iwas able to get through this mini-session in less than an hour as opposed to the 60 to 90 minutes it normally takes me to do a full training session.

So for all of you who are in the habit of skipping your training sessions because you "don't have time, make a not of this:

1) Skipping sessions entirely throws off your bodies building and recuperration cycle.

2) Skipping sessions entirely retrains your mind and body to fabricate excuses to encourage you to stop training.

3) Once you acclimate into the "laze-off" habit, it becomes easier every time you do it.

4) The aforementioned habit trains you into a cycle of self-defeatism and your psychological and emotional response will be an decrease in self image and confidence.

The mini-sessions are NOT a replacement for a FULL ON training session. I ABSOLUTELY DO NOT recommend starting to do these extremely abbreviated sessions as a replacement for a full, sensible and effective program. What I am suggesting... is that ANY training session that forces you to work the core muscles is bettter than not training at all.

1) It keeps you programmed to train... and programmed to train on the days that you've scheduled.

2) It staves off the loss of strength you suffer when you do habitually skip sessions. One day skipped can often turninto a week or more. You're eventually looking at starting from scratchyet again.

Regarding the last point... if you're just starting out and are having motivational issues you've probably noticed that when you have made some pgrogress and then have allowed yourself to slip for a few days... which turns into a week or more... you lose A LOT of what you'd gained previously. This isn't so true of advanced trainees. They tend to retainmore strength and muscle mass during lay offs because they have far more of a reserve built up. They're probably eating better as well.

So this post ties in well with my Consistency post from a week or so ago. Train yourself to sopt accepting the fabricated excuses and faux logic for blowing of the training. That's traiing that you KNOW you should be doing. Occasionally skipping the full routine but still making yourself work will keep you honest and after a time will have you looking forward to fitting in the full trainng sessions.

I know that Monday night and for the following days, I was regretting not working in a little more that night. I wished I'd done the overhead presses as well. Friday nights session wil be a good test of whether or not I retained my limits by doing this "shorty" rather than not training. I'll let you all know.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

The Question of Consistency

Nearly everyone battles consistency at some point in their life. Whether it's various studies, physical training, budgetary issues eating habits. he more strenuous (and beneficial) the "exercise", the more likely that the person will make the conscious (AND subconscious) decision to avoid it. It's easier and much more comfortable to park ones ass in the recliner with a glass of milk and a stack of cookies when they arrive home from work than it is to change clothes and trudge to the gym and push themselves for an hour or two.

Of course, these people will continue to look at themselves both physically and psychologically as failures and vow to "get back at it" when\if they come to grips with the issue. I must have read it a few dozen times that "the human body is naturally lazy... and will acclimate itself to the least amount of stress". True... however, the human MIND seldom allows people to reach this low without sending them messages every time they look in their mirror, step on a scale or try to balance their checkbook. When people are honest with themselves (as seldom as this may occur) they KNOW there's a problem there.

Sadly, as easy as it sounds to "just do it" the majority of people in this society have no idea what it takes to "just do it". Since they are not accustomed nor conditioned to take control of their own destiny, they see themselves at the mercy of some lackey who hires themselves out as a personal trainer, personal financial consultant or nutrition guru... at $100 per hour. Nice work if you can get it as you're likely to have an ENDLESS line of people willing to shell out their hard earned money to set still while the experts perpetuate the condition that brought them there to begin with.

For myself, I discovered that the only way I can hope to effectively deal with the tendency to take "Laze offs" is by understanding and embracing GOAL SETTING. (Not day dreaming!) Get a solid grasp on the concept and mechanics of realistic and effective goal setting and it then becomes a task to be managed rather than a dilemma. You can no longer be dishonest about why you are unable to motivate yourself. The answer is obvious... you don't really want it all that badly. If you did, you'd kick your own ass and get moving. You would also understand that you are not going to reach the goals that you have set by retracing the same steps month after month.

In the case of strength training, combative studies or any other endeavor that requires protracted and repetitious practice, it should become clear that if the trainee justifies skipping classes or workouts often enough, their progress grinds to a halt, they forget techniques, lose muscle memory and their strength and dexterity deteriorates to the point it was at when they first began. The predictable result of this is that they become less likely to renew their training since it's far more difficult to bring yourself back to previous levels than it is to attain new ones. This seems to be a phenomenon that is both physical and psychological.

Ultimately it is the trainees responsibility. Nobody is going to do the training for you. Nobody is going to set your goals and ensure that you reach them. I remember reading an interview with Arnold Schwarzenegger.... (that blathering jackass) where he was reminiscing about how he would verbally deride himself every morning in the mirror if he had failed to meet his training goals the previous day. Some might say that this was too negative and counter productive... but it apparently worked for him. Well... that and the steroids.

Negative or not... that clown KNEW where he wanted to go and plainly refused to allow himself to produce a second best effort. He also KNEW when he was short-cutting. Few people are willing to look at themselves in the mirror and honestly say "You SUCK! You CHOOSE to be weak! You say you want change... but where's the output man!?" I suspect that subconsciously, most people realize this but putting the verbiage into practice and chastising yourself for deliberate choices isn't a popular practice. I believe it's VITAL to do so.

If it is not ones goal to reach a particular level of development I have no issue with that as long as we are honest with ourselves. If you never want to squat 300 to 400 pounds or never wish to reach the level of black belt, that's fine. If you do... but want to take a decade or two to do it... that's okay to. Just be realistic about your goals and you'll be a lot happier.

Set those goals HARD and despite feeling dead at the end of the day, week or month... do it anyhow... and ultimately you will ALSO BE A LOT HAPPIER! You'll also have a hell of a lot more confidence. You'll likely find that you tend to "kick to the curb" friends and relatives whom you previously associated with. Some would say that nothing is worth losing friends over. I'm sure we'll agree that any "friend" or relatives who choose to dissuade or discourage a pursuit for vague or suspect personal reasons (such as their own pathetic insecurity and low self esteem) deserved to be kicked in the crotch in addition to being written off as reliable companions. Look at where THESE people are and how they live their lives. Having a host of friends all existing in universal mediocrity is a commune... not a healthy relationship.

If you're telling yourself that you NEED to accomplish particular tasks or goals or have a level of training, education or skill that you honestly desire to reach... you are going to have to WORK for it. The feeling of accomplishment brought on by staying on course, not shirking training schedules, not allowing laziness (or the personal preference to grab a beer and a burger as opposed to grinding out squats and dead lifts in 90-degree or 30-degree weather (and THEN grabbing a beer and a burger)), engaging the one to two hours nightly in language studies rather than blowing twice that amount of time in online chat rooms or forums will bring rewards and satisfaction that are virtually unparalleled once the desired level has been attained.

At this moment I’m exhausted. I wasn’t able to get to sleep until after 1 AM this morning. Up at 6:30 AM to go to work, I’m now fighting the urge to skip the Combato training to night and go straight home from work to try and get to bed early. I know myself well enough however, to admit that if I skip the class I will most likely NOT get to bed any earlier, but will end up spending more time on Farcebook and other time wasting ventures. So tonight I will go, I will train and despite feeling like I can barely manage performing the techniques I will work to maintain that consistency.

During last nights training, I noted how quickly previously fluid techniques become stiff and are even completely forgotten, even if only momentarily. (Which reminds me... I need to figure out what to do about the eye-glasses taking flight during specific maneuvers like the head-butt. Should I purchase one of those ridiculous looking head straps or just take the bloody things off during training?)

Tomorrow night (Friday night) I will go trough a weightlifting session. I GUARANTEE that I will NOT want to do this. Friday nights are most usually “crash” nights. I pickup dinner, comes home and crash in the living room with the television on. Yes... a huge waste of time. Get the training out of the way and THEN have dinner and relax.

Kill the online gaming! Instead of wasting one to two hours plodding about on Farcebook, spend that time either reading the books you have assigned for Purple belt progression or work on your Spanish studies. You won’t be getting that time back.

*Funny... but I wrote the majority of this on a Wednesday fully expecting my week to end as it normally does. It is now Thursday night - approximately 10:30 PM... and I am STILL at work well into my 15th hour. Tomorrow I shall take the day off. I WILL get my workout in... and possibly “catch up” on some sleep.