4th month into Go Ruck training: so far its slow but steady.

10/23/13

 

 

 



Today training:

Ruck in park with 30lb. Xvest for one hour.( In early morning-cold!)

Bands, GHD, ab roller, jump rope and stretching warm-up. (afternoon)

Kettlebell box cleans and squat:  5 reps with 2 bells.

Landmine dumbbell press: heavy and hold at top

Atlas Stone shouldering: 10 sets of 2 reps

Heavy bag punching and kicking  for 10 min.

         The first 2 months was the hardest and was a continuous work- in- progress. Getting to accustom ones back, neck, hips to just plan discomfort, was something I had to focus, to insure I was not into injury mode. The SEAL team guys call it “embracing the suck “explains it all. It’s not trying to punish myself, although during a Go Ruck challenges, you will be punished for not completing “missions” but that takes the form of exercise modes or carrying more shit then you are currently carrying.

          In the third month there was improvements in the Ruck part of my experience. There was a lot less pain in various parts of my anatomy even with added weight and distance. That was when things were starting to look up.  I chose to ruck in the early morning during my IF time, but there was never any after fatigue from not eating prior to the session, which was done 4 times a week. The park I started my experience has a number of tarred roads and dirt trails along with a play ground area. Few use the play ground, so I have the whole area to myself to do body weight exercise and the many bar configurations. So I ruck for a mile of so, then stop at the play ground to do a series of body wt. exercise and make several more rounds.

           I live in a great area to Ruck, with a park a couple of miles away and state parks with mountains, trails and ski runs to vary my stress levels in short driving distance. Moving forward, there is a need to press the stress levels of the ruck by steeper climbs and terrain which do not do it for me with the local park. Rucking steep hills is the most difficult part if you are carrying a weigh on you back or hands. When I was untramarthoning, training on hiking trails was my secret training technique that gave me the edge on” hilly” events.

          The after ruck session exercise is still a work-in-progress. The biggest problem is that I have information overload, having experience is so many forms of exercise, that it’s hard to set up programming. I seem to be settling in on a complex of ballistic movements and strongman style training as the Go Ruck is a multi complex challenge. Therefore it’s a mix of interval exercise on the rower,bike,body wt. or boxing, then lifting heavy objects, natural and manmade.

          By the forth month I have established a routine of early morning ruck, followed by a fast 10 min high intensity  finisher at my home training area. Several times a day I get in a quick training exercise sessions of no more than 30 minutes, as not to trash myself and unable to recover. Go ruck is basically a endurance-strength challenge and not a race. Keeping your shit together is prime. It’s all about maintaining your physical and psychological attributes at a significant level of hours under constant evaluation of your performance.

Lessons learned:

1.     It takes time for your body to adjust to carry weighed packs and there is a point in time that you just have to “man up” and endure the pain as long it is not promoting injury. “Stupid is stupid does”

2.     My intention from the start was never to be a special forces operator and never was even when in the military. However, many of the physical attributes training for that occupation, anyone could use as a life time fitness program. Therefore I chose Go Ruck instead of the adventure runs as selection process is the key to being allowed to become a trainee and not the complete process to becoming an operator. Selection for SP is the basic physical and mental test to see if you can accept the challenge….it weeds out the weak and overconfident.

3.     Since you will be carrying loads and walking for miles on various terrains, care of the feet is critical. Shoe selection is still a work-in progress, but so far I keep rucking in tactical, light weight boots. Running shoes break down too fast and don’t have the ankle support.    

4.     Running with a load at this point in the first 4 months, has been minimal, as I have not mastered the technique. Therefore, moving forward, running will be in very short distances and well warmed up. You are not required to run too much in Go Ruck challenges, but you my have to catch up with the team if you fall behind.

5.     Doing exercises like pushups, pull-ups, abs and fun movements, like bear crawls during the ruck, makes time go fast.

6.      Keeping stretched out and mobile is a constant consideration. With the large number of exercises and work capacity changes, you tend to get more immobile than normal. Recovery at this point has been fair, but moving forward, I have to look at exercise volume, and cut back where needed.

7.     “Suffer in silence” means no distractions, such as, music, glitzy equipment, people talking, that resets your concentration. Most SF selection testing does not allow verbal contact or at times no visual contact. If you can’t perform at a high level on your own efforts, then you can’t be a solid contributor to any team activity.

8.     I have been selecting one exercise or workout session that puts me way beyond my comfort zone. It’s usually short exercise like ball slams until you can’t pick up the ball anymore, shouldering a atlas Stone or continuous bag heavy bag sticking until I am wasted. It’s not long enough to put a physical hurt on you but it’s great for mental toughness, which we all lack in some form.   

9.     My weight loss from IF has help my body perform more efficiently especially on the rucks. Sometimes my heart rate is almost normal with the pak just walking, so when I get too low, I jump down an do pushup, press a rock overhead a few times, do some air squats, or increase the pace just short of running.

10.                          I don’t  do rigid training programming and go into each session as though someone else handed me the challenge. However, I journal more so I can assess my progress, but I don’t plan future goals relaying on the daily performance proficiently.   

Ken

The mission is sacred.

My adventure in intermitting fasting(IF)…..no it’s not a diet!

10/16/13

Today training:

Ruck in park with 30lb. Xvest for one hour.( In early morning)

Bands, GHD, ab roller, jump rope and stretching warm-up. (afternoon)

Barbell and log dead hang cleans: sets of 10 @ 2 reps.

Atlas Stone shouldering: 10 sets of 2 reps

Kettlebell threshers:  50 reps with 2 bells. No rest.

Heavy bag punching and kicking with burpees for 20 min. (evening)

 

          I decided to venture into intermitting fasting for the reasons to reduce my body fat level and increase my insulin sensitivity as my family has a history and to prepare for “Go Ruck” events.  I did my home work by reading everything that was available on the subject, but the best work was by Dr. John M. Berardi and his experiments on this diet process. You don’t hear much about this type of diet as there no money to be made from it or something to sell, even books. Dr.Berardi gives his book away on the web for all to see for nothing!  Off we go!

          The first order is to determine what my current diet volume to get the required calories and still lose weight. What I found using the old fashion diet log, is that I consuming 3500 to 4000 calories a day by eating almost every waking hour.  Based on my starting body weight at 239 lbs and a goal weight of 180lbs I would have to slowly consume 2000 or less each day by regulating feedings. My food selection for the most part was in good clean nutrients but there was some crap like chips and too much baked goods, but the volume exceed my needs for training and recovery.

          The second order of business is a base line physical with blood workup, without that you don’t know where you stand and not be able to monitor process. I got a earlier physical prior to starting so I knew my vitals. Fortunately I had a second physical after 20 lbs of weight loss that indicate good blood values and much improved BP and pulse rate. I have frequent physicals during the year due to my emergency respond job, so I know where I stand all the time. If there is any adverse changes do to my experiment I would not be “jumping off the cliff”.

Disclaimer: IF is not for those who don’t have the lifestyle to stay with the process or understanding what nutrition you need for your current lifestyle. You can lose body weight with any diet but you may be adversely affecting you health like a lot of diets do.

          Intermitting fasting is really a eating process with defined “eating window” during the day and the rest of the time you do not eat. Some follow a 12,8,6,and even a 4 hour” eating window” to lose body fat and prevent over eating. During your “eating window” is the key to success or failure as it limits a timed schedule when you can feed your face. Most of us “graze” or eat continuously all day and consequently over eat, especially the wrong foods. The suggestion that you can lose weight by “small- frequent” meals, but unless you weigh and measure the intake, you can over estimate the calorie content.

          There are some famous persons like Gen.  Stanley A. McChrystal, who only routinely eats once a day due to his busy schedule, which is basely the “warrior diet” style. Few can stick to this eating schedule without a lot of diet management to get the require calories for your lifestyle. That the point of my experiment, I have to eat less calories but maintain recover of nutrients to perform Go Ruck training activities, which has high body stressors. Surge

          Go Ruck training requires you to have endurance and strength to carry a burden for miles of distance and have the strength to perform exercise for hours on end. Therefore you don’t want to carry any extra body weight that is not contributing to your performance….that being body fat! So using a food selective diet was out of the question, as they rarely works long for myself to trim body fat without being tired and loose strength if I was going into Go Ruck training.

          So four months ago I started my new training program and intermitting fasting to see if it was for me. I keep a good journal each day to monitor weight and size changes in my body. I found that the weight cane off so quickly that I had to increase my calories during my eating window of eight hours (12 noon to 8 PM). However it did take a month to get use to not eating shit beyond that time and eating “breakfast” at noon.

          Since I front load my training mostly in the morning hours, I could train on an empty stomach without a lot of discomfort of loss of performance. What I found that I actually trained better without the morning “feeding” called the traditional breakfast. There have been a few times during a squat session, I would throw up my breakfast so now I can training without meeting “puke”. So at noon I ate a high protein meal to start my day after my main or first training session. At around 4 or 5, when our main meal with the family and a more carbo meal at around 8 before retiring to supply energy for the morning training session. That was my plan.

          Being retried I can maintain a sustainable schedule for the most part. It was not that hard except for not eating breakfast the first thing in the morning. That took a month before I adjust that eating time for the first month. With the three meals a day without eating out of that eight hour eating window, I was shedding weigh like melting butter. After the second month I had to increase the meal volumes to get the required calories so I have recovery as there was times when I start to feel the effects of low energy as I get a very low carb diet prior to my experiment on IF.

Lessons learned:

1.     The selection of the “eating window” is key to IF success as we tend to eat all our waking hours for the most part.  I chose 8 hours although some use 6 and even 4hours, at the extreme end.

2.     You have do a diet log prior to starting IF to see just how much food(every food or liquid that go into your mouth all day) you are eating daily or weekly.  You may find you are exceeding your required total food intake for your goal weight. My intake exceeded close to 1000 calories per day based on a weekly total.  That’s how one get fat!

3.     I chose the 8 hr. window as it was the best if you are exercising and need three good feedings to supply sufficient calories.

4.     Food quality has to be considered so you get the proper nutrients to recover and not eating as often. Food nutrient knowledge for selection is also real important.  All protein, fats and carbs are not equal.

5.     Although you are fasting for 16hrs. It does not feel like you are deprived or hungry after the first month of  IF.

6.     I “front load” my training on my fasting time so I tend to burn fat instead of the stuff from breakfast. Once you start to exercise, digestion slows down or stops anyway. Training on an empty belly is very relaxing, especially on long rucks.

7.     I add one “cheat day” which is Sunday to load up for Monday, which is a no eat day until 8:00 PM. I can eat more and add some shit like Ice cream or bagel. I gave up alcohol as it is a big spike on the insulin. 

8.     The first meal is mostly all protein and fat, the second is with some carbs and the third is mostly carbs but low GI-GL selections.  

9.     On hard training days I add some extra whey protein for recovery.

10.                        I did not have to change my basic diet of foods I normally eat as I was most a low carb consumer anyway.  I did add more fats and no food tainted with sugar as the goal was to increase insulin sensitivity.  Insulin dumping into your system, yields fat gain and big type 2 .

11.                        A couple of times when exercising in the morning that include very heavy intense workouts, I felt light headed and stopped at that point.  I just had to change the heavy sessions after the first meal at noon if I wanted to trash myself.

12.                         It takes a lot of discipline to keep on schedule to make it work, but if you are training hard you already have that to relay on.

13.                         After 4 months on the IF routine, I have lost 41lbs and 8” off my waist! So the shit works!

14.                        I have not lost any strength except for overhead movements like jerks and presses, but my deadlifts and cleans actually increased as without a fat around my abs, I got better range of motion and speed.

15.                         My work capacity has increased each month as my weight dropped.  I can ruck longer each week with more weight on my pack, which is at 30 lbs. and started with 10lbs.

16.                         My recovery from exercise sessions vary depending on what I eat and volume. That needs more work in progress to get that dialed in.

17.                        I still don’t drink enough water but it more than before. Most people are dehydrated and don’t know it as it reduces performance and health.

18.                        I train now in frequent short sessions of 30min. or less except for the ruck marches several times a day. The next stage in my experiment to drop down to 180lbs which will bring me at normal body wt. standards on any chart….and that may not be as easy as the first 40lbs. weight loss .

Ken

The mission is sacred.