Today’s Workout:
Iso Deadlifts/single hand DB deadlifts. Strap enough bands to that deadlift bar that it will only go up a few inches, and then battle it for 5-10 seconds. Immediately follow with the dumbbell deadlifts for reps, keeping the dumbbell right over the foot.
Bent Row/Hang Cleans. 6-8 each, back to back, several sets, same bar
Heavy pullup/sled drag/farmer’s walk. A single heavy pullup, followed by some laps with the sled and a lap with the farmer’s walk handles.
Here’s an ancient video of the entire workout (notice where the carpet is compared to today).
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Brutal Recess: The Intro
Sitting at a desk for what seems like eternity, often under the frown of someone with some fairly unreal expectations of what you’re supposed to deliver today… and for no observable reward?! Then, as if that’s not enough, why not take some of that work home with you. Meanwhile your being judged, graded, and picked apart by your peers, some of them who call you ‘friend.’
Damn 4th grade is a bitch! “Stressed out” might not be in the average 9-year-old’s lexicon, but it ain’t all fun and frolic. At this point in history you’re at least a couple of years away from catching your best friend’s brother rolling a joint in front of you, and the closest thing to hormonal demands on the heart, brain and various other anatomical bits is hoping for that clandestine game of truth or dare to force Julie Vessel to kiss me on the cheek.
Oops…. did I switch tenses there? I wonder what happened to Julie. My cheek was never quite the same.
Not a lot of complaints about lower back pain or tension headaches though. So can we adults blame out current obsession with achy bits and joint creeks on age? Heck no. Age is simply the length of time we’ve had to make decisions, and if our choices were poor, that isn’t the fault of chronology, no matter how much we shake a finger at the calendar.
There is an irony that as we age, as the added responsibility of being grown up fills our cells with that elixir of destruction called stress, we also eliminate our release valve. Metaphor alert: MythBusters made a great case for not taking your release valve off of your water heater in one of the best blow-shit-up moments the show ever had:
Our 4th grade self had what could be argued as an equal amount of stress to our adult selves, if we create a relativity formula based on physical size, collected wisdom and overall conscious coping options. But any waxing nostalgic we might do about the pre-teen years would be born from our yearn for the release valves that were available to us when we were hip high to a Grup.
(please, someone get the reference).
We were extremely mobile! We moved, and unless we had some sort of Bolshevik team coach, no one really told us HOW to move. We knew. We experimented. We played. Through movement of all varieties and intensities, we released tension.
Mobility is flexibility in action, in demand, in flux. Great word, ‘flux.’ Vaguely naughty sounding, yet not. Flux even played a role in the greatest invention of the 20th century: The time-traveling DeLorean.
Mobility ranks high on the things-that-help-us-NOT-breakdown-through-aging’ list. Holding onto your youth, or embracing it after a period of not speaking to it is pretty similar to time travel. Mobility: our own flux capacitor.
Oh wait, I hear that gossamer vibration of some kid in the back shaking his head. He’s thinking that, at 22 years of age, he’s got years before he has to worry about that. He can lift, fuck and fight with the best of them now, so to him mobility is yoga crap for chicks and old people.
Up until his first injury.
Mobility isn’t just range of motion, it’s celebration of motion, being able to take the body in new directions. A martial artist might have flexibility, but a gymnast has mobility. A dancer might have flexibility, but a B-boy has mobility. Passive flexibility is meaningless without the strength and balance to make it count.
Strongest B-Boy Compilation Part 1, Darkness,Junior,Physicx,Baek – The best bloopers are a click away
(there’s a move at 1:18 that blows me away)
Take all the manipulative factors: speed, volume, duration, time, distance, etc., etc., and apply them to movements that challenge stability, range of motion, balance and good ol’ muscle thumpin’ strength and you have the recipe for utter freedom. Intense freedom. Wasn’t that what recess represented to us as children? Bob Marley could have been talking about elementary school recess when he penned “emancipate yourself from mental slavery.” We unshackled ourselves from tediousness and got our movement on.
Why did we lose that as adults?
So Brutal Recess is accepting that freedom means responsibility, and to embrace our freedom of movement, our freedom of strength, we must embrace intensity. It’s the fun of accomplishment. We’ve stolen from all the great movement arts: fighting, dance, yoga and even child’s play and tumbling, and liberally sprinkled them into our workouts, usually in the workload or GPP phases. Get your heavy foundation lifting going and then challenge your stamina and range of motion. That’s the premise of this weekend’s workshop, and the upcoming DVD.
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To start October’s workshops off, we’ll be having a special guest. Next Saturday, October 3rd, Barefoot Ted will be speaking from 10-noon about his running adventures and his famous promotion of running sans fat padded shoes. This will be a thrill, and only $30.
The rest of the October workshop schedule will be posted shortly, and it is looking like an exciting month with new speakers and topics.
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Some of you have asked what my brownish green goop is that I drink every morning and afternoon. It’s a smoothie I make before I go to bed every night so i can hit the ground running in the morning without having to worry about making breakfast. If I have to be here at 6am, i don’t want to get up any earlier than I have to, so I fill a big-ass water bottle with this dream goo and can simply grab it and bring it to work before the sun rises. It is enough for 2-3 different meals, depending on your caloric needs. Now before you read the ingredients, I have had a handful of house guests who think this is quite a tasty treat. In fact no one has hated it yet. It’s chocolaty almond goodness, PACKED full of good stuff (and very filling, as Sara will tell you).
Now you can adjust this accordingly, catering it to your goals:
Morning Love:
one avocado
one banana
about 2-4 cups of spinach (seriously, and you won’t taste it, I swear)
4 scoops of chocolate protein powder
2-3 tbsp of almond butter
2 cups almond milk
This particular version is about 1000 calories, 16 or so grams of fiber and about 120 grams of protein. I have half in the morning, half after a workout. You can adjust it accordingly just by altering the amount of the heartier ingredients. Dig it!
(rumor has it this is the Avocado Man, but it might not say that at all)
Preview looks great! Exciting mixture of stuff.
One of my favourite bboy shows ever was the French crew Wanted at BOTY 2001.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3COwtmKpp_4
They are a perfect application of what you are talking about – stealing movements from everywhere, playing, inventing, creating, just having fun with it. You watch the other crews and they are all doing the same kind of shit (even if they do it well) and then Wanted come out with this Shakespearean vocabulary of movements.
The way they work together is inspiring. Each member of the crew has individual skills but when they put them all together the results are awesome. They never forget that bboying is a battle dance first and foremost, not just an acrobatics show. People can marvel at Junior on his own, but I prefer watching the whole crew and what some of those other guys and girls can do is just as cool.
Incidentally the South Koreans in these years were also amazing and for my money the best battlers (they may still be but I’m sadly out of touch these days). If you prefer the more acrobatic style of bboying, the Korean crews are the best.
This is the Korean crew (Expressions) the following year 2002, when they really broke the mold and took bboy shows to a new place.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsrTxMX0wwk
I recently watched a documentary called Planet b-Boy, which featured the world bboy competition in Germany and featured two of the Korean bboy crews. What an amazing bunch of talent!
I admit to being a huge Junior fan, mostly because of his transitions. He actually dances, whereas most one-on-one battles have a guy come forward, throw some groovy acrobatic move, and then walk off. Junior flows between moves and his transitions are, dare I say, dreamy. Many call him a one trick pony (his hand stand stuff), but no one flows like he does.
But watching the crews battle is pretty spectacular.
Can’t wait to get the new DVD! Looks amazing!
It’s true people. The shakes are really tasty AND filling. I’ve found that I need at least 600 calories to make it through a hard work out successfully. Maybe I could survive on a bagel and cream cheese if I could keep work outs under two hours… oh well.
Just be careful with the spinach.
I did the same thing for a couple of years with protein, spinach, carrots, blueberries, flax seed, and almond butter and after a while began suffering horrible allergies in the summer and getting sick with the cold and the flu very often in the winter. What I figured out was that I was allergic to the liquafied spinach, it irritated my stomach. It was as if I was rolling in fresh cut grass every morning and I can’t even smell fresh cut grass cause I get a coughing and sneezzing fit.
I finally figured it out when I started lagging on the shakes and noticed that on the days I drank the shake I would get allergies but on those where I missed it I would be much better.
I can eat spinach just fine but can’t blend it and drink it.
No kidding? blended spinach allergies? That sucks.
The biggest reason I started throwing it in my smoothie was due to getting sick of eating salads. So much eating, so little satiation.
That’s what stunk up my water bottle!
We need to grow an avocado tree at BodyTribe!
Raw spinach is also high in oxalic acid, which prevents some absorption of minerals like calcium. Oxalic acid can be destroyed by light cooking.
Oh c’mon, don’t tell me you’re one of those ‘anti-nutrient’ guys who actually thinks raw food will PREVENT someone from getting the nutrition they need. Jeez, the current state of modern nutrition has people all messed up. Even though raw spinach has been shown to be a good source of calcium, absorbent calcium that might even assimilate in the body better than dairy products, folks are witch hunting it, and many other veggies.
I used to say one day folks will start saying veggies are unhealthy for you, since all trends have to come around at some point. I guess that day is here.
I think this may be pertinent… ONE serving of spinach is three cups. One serving isn’t an unreasonable amount (although it’s a good amount of spinach), and comes with plenty of nutritional benefits such as vitamin A and C. Vitamin A can help your vision, immune system, bone metabolism, and skin health.
I’m tellin’ ya, frozen spinach is the way to go. It’s par-cooked (to appease the weirdo anti-nutrient Wolfites) & has a far lesser volume per serving and is thus easier to store, stock up on, & actually fit in your blender. +, it lends a nice frostiness to one’s shake.
Though if you really want filling, I still say steamed & chilled cauliflower is the way to go. Throw in a little nut butter & cocoa & you won’t notice a thing…
Since my good friend Bronwyn will be speaking at Bodytribe next weekend on nutrition, I thought I’d share part of a recent blog post of hers about anti-nutrients, including oxalic acid:
“… [yet] when foods containing such “anti-nutrients” are consumed regularly, mineral deficiencies are extremely rare. Case in point: black tea contains high amounts of tannins, yet myriad studies show post-menopausal women who drink tea regularly are less likely to lose bone density than those who do not drink tea. Since zinc, copper, calcium and magnesium are especially play an especially important role in bone density, the results are surprising. (see Am J Clin Nutr 2000 Apr;71(4):1003-7.)”
Chip, can you link me for Bronwyn’s blog?
I’m putting it in a blog I’ll post today. I’ll warn ya… she’s almost a polar opposite of the Paleo folks. Her and I don’t see eye-to-eye about everything, but I think her overall message is quite good.