4/24/12

“ Deck of cards routine”

Take a full deck of playing cards including the jokers and assign exercises to number cards by suit, face cards and jokers.  This one below is mainly body weight routine; however I have a number of other combinations using Kettlebell, dumbbells and even one for power lifting and martial arts.  It’s a random way of training adding an unknown volume and exercise.

The majority of the routines I have made up take from 30 to over an hour depending on the equipment or the type of Medcon you assign to the Joker. I like the jokers to last 5-10 min to add an endurance component. Example; if you pull 7 of hearts then you do 7 pushups. If you pull  any of the 4 aces then you do 10 dips. In the end, it’s a lot of volume.

You have to try it   Make it simple like the one below or get creative with the equipment you have available.

Take a card!

Cards               Exercise

Hearts             Pushups

Clubs               straight pull-ups changing grips

Spades             sit-ups ( GHD)

Diamonds        air Squats       

Aces                 Dips

Kings                Burpees

Queens            Round kicks and punches on heavy bag Hard.

Jacks                Ring Rows

Jokers (2)         1000 meter row.

Time  45 min.

Spring cleaning for Kettlebell gym

4/9/12

Today training: (leave some for cleaning up the gym)

100  reps of 12kg KB snatch as warm-up, along with stretch bands, Indian clubs, ring pushups, ring squats.

5 sets of:

Safety bar full squat: (no fear full squat-add mini bands on last set.)

Bands dumbbell bench : ( That was not easy, but felt great after)

“Paul dick tri press (big powerlifting movement exercise-complex-complex movement. )

Dumbbell hang clean: (hammer curl on roids-no pussy weights on this)

Spring cleaning of Gym, remove winter rust.

                Since I am the only member of my personal gym(box), I am totally responsible for the cleaning and up keep so I can train without tripping over shit in such a small area. Winter has been kind and it been a pleasure to train without hyperthermia, however, I never seem to put my weights back or equipment on racks that are made to keep things in order.  If I put a sign up, do you think it will help?

                Today is the day to clean up the weights and back to business. In 15 min everything was hung up and in order; however the kettlebells have to always be sanded to take off the rust from temperature changes and not from little use. Kettlbells are a great tools, but unlike the mainstream fitness business, I have smooth paint free handles so I don’t turn my hands into hamburger.   One thing, I don’t use gloves!  Just show me a Kettlebell competition in Russia and with gloves or tape on your hands, and they will tell you to go back home bitch!

                A part of my gym called, “Ballistic Entry Gym” is outside, so for some reason that area, always in better shape than the inside.  It’s like my front porch, you don’t keep too much stuff on it as it looks to “white trashish” Anyway this is my primary training area along with the Kettlebell juggling pit for that training. I am so lucky to train outside even in the rain, look out into the woods and see real nature. You can see what I see each day for those who are still spinning or jogging in front of a “flat Screens.  I have  a steady stream of deer, turkeys, fox, squirrels and a occasional coyote.   

Cardio is dead?

                The quick answer is no, but there is still time to change. More than one article as of late has attempted put brakes on “cardio” as a primary fitness element in commercial gyms. What to fuck are they going to do with all the space, “hamster machines “, and plasma TVs when the gym turns to real fitness?  It matters little to me as I have found by firsthand experience that repetitive low intensity yields low level wimp ass fitness.    However, you can bring in a lot of paying members, put them on them on treadmills and elliptical exercise machines, suck ass music and you never have to deal with them until next year to resign for another year.  That my friends is a picture of the globo fitness business model.

                  Crossfit Boxes are all ready making the transition in every increasing numbers, but the volume is still small compared to the masses in the globo gyms .  What are the personal trainers going to do? That’s a topic for another time. Walk into a Crosssfit gym with a newbie and the first thing they say is “were all the machines?  You are the machine! .The public has been brain washed by the media as with a lot of other issues, as to what is good for you. 

The fitness business is slowing adding functional exercise equipment like kettlebells and sleads to advance some form of cardio exercise without machines but unfortunately,  not much attention is provided  to progressive programming.  Using all the various tools and resistance equipment takes specialized training with each to coach a client nor is it so easy to show someone what buttons to push on the treadmill. Lastly good effective training is sometimes not cheap, so if you are conserned about you fitness then you will have to pay.  Buy shit, get shit.

                I have made my bed a long time ago the fitness I wanted, so I bought a slag iron weight lifting set, which I can still smell the paint drying as I opened the package, to find a 300 lb weigh set from York Barbell Co. back in 1960. I still have some of that today and the complete Olympic set, purchased in 1968 when I got out of military service which  now has no knurl left. That is what’s call sustainability!