"Getting Fit" - Which Direction?

Just to continue on from the final thought in my previous blog post:

Usually when asked by friends what piece of gym equipment they should buy to "get fit" at home, a kettlebell (and Pavel's book) is my first recommendation.

Let's partly ignore the "what to buy for home" part and focus on the "get fit" part. See, here's the thing: I enjoy reading about all different ways to train. It's fun, but it's also a gigantic pain in the ass, because when someone asks me for advice on how and where to get started, I'm overwhelmed with so many thoughts, so many training philosophies and so many articles and books by so many coaches and athletes that I don't actually know what advice to give!

It goes without saying that fixing up your diet is the most important thing, and if it wasn't obvious before, it should be, but I'm no diet expert, so I won't give any recommendations here other than to cut out as much processed crap as you can and eat as much whole foods as you can. Your body will thank you.

Now, onto the stuff I feel like I'm in a better position to talk about...

Plain ol' bodyweight exercises? Anyone can learn to do push-ups, planks, squats and pull-ups and there are all sorts of variations to make them easier or harder, depending on where you're at. They have such a low systemic stress on the body that they can be done every day to failure and they can be done pretty much anywhere, from your own lounge room to a hotel room overseas to a patch of grass at a park. Paired with 30-60 minutes of daily walking, this is a solid starting position for a complete novice.

What about kettlebells? The great thing about having a kettlebell is the bang-for-buck factor; it takes up almost zero space, the same kettlebell can be used for years no matter how "good" you get at it and you can learn just a few movements (swing, clean+press, snatch and TGU) to strengthen and condition your entire body with a few short sessions per week in the comfort of your own home. There's a small learning curve, because there's a little bit of technique to swinging a kettlebell effectively, but, being easy to learn, it's still a very accessible option for the general population. Along with Pavel's book, Enter the Kettlebell, this is my recommendation for most people.

Basic barbell training? Squatting, benching, overhead pressing, deadlifting and rowing will get you fit and strong, whether you're a man or a woman, whether you want to get bigger or smaller, whether you have any interest in competing in strength sports or not. It really is a one-stop shop to better health and better performance and there are tons of resources to teach you how to perform each movement. I would love it if most people eventually headed in this direction, but some people just can't be convinced to get under a barbell.

Any of the above options can be paired with hill sprints to really push your conditioning (your "cardio"). Why hill sprints? Because most people can find a hill anywhere they go, there's nothing technical to learn (assuming you know how to run), it costs nothing and they work. Live in a flat area with literally no hills? Make a sled (a tire, a plank of wood to put in the middle of the tire, a rope and a few bricks or a big stone for some weight) and drag it around. Want another option? Put together a sandbag and carry it a bunch of times. Or just sprint. These are all cheap (if not free) options and all of them are super effective.

Any of those options will work if you consistently put in the hard yards. There are many options to "get fit". You don't have to walk into a gym, you don't have to buy all sorts of expensive equipment and you don't need to read tons of books about exercise and muscle physiology. Sure, having access to a gym and reading up on how your body works would be great, but you don't need to.

Most people are surprised when I suggest some of these things, usually because of how simple they are, because we're mostly made to believe that you need a personal trainer because exercise is some big complicated thing and you will hurt yourself if someone isn't watching and correcting your every move. But that's bullshit.

Yet Another "Go To" Workouts Post

Mid-way through 2013, I blogged about a few of my "go to" workouts, and then earlier this year I posted a few more.

The original idea was quick workouts with a lot of bang-for-buck for when I'm short of time or for when I can only get to the gym once a week, if at all,, so following some kind of program isn't really worth the time. Well, I've been going through one of those periods recently, which will continue until January, so here's a few more!

Push Press Volume and Farmer's Walks

In these sessions, most of my time is spent doing push presses. And there's really no rules as far as how much volume to do. Last time I did this I worked up to a very heavy single, then did a few drop sets of triples, and then dropped the weight a bit more to do a max-effort rep-out and then I worked back up to a heavy single, attempting to hit the original heavy single from the start of the workout (I missed it).

The rest of my energy is spent doing farmer's walks. Farmer's walks are an awesome conditioner and will help build and strengthen the upper-back and traps, which means I can combine my upper-back and my conditioning work together. I mean, it may not be perfectly ideal, but it'll get the job done. Heavy, light, short, long, sprints or waddles... it doesn't really matter how you do them. Just do them. At the moment I prefer to do 8-10 short sprints (around 20m) and/or 2-3 longer walks (at least 50m) to finish it off.

Squat, Bench, DB Rows

The holy trinity of strength training? When I haven't trained for an extended period of time (I'm talking weeks or months), this is the thing I do the first time I step into the gym again.

I prefer to squat narrow and deep with a high-bar position, I prefer bench with a close grip, and I much prefer dumbbell rows over any other kind of upper-back work. Done for high volume, these three are my go-to mass-builders and a solid way to kick off a high-volume training block.

It seems weird, given that I usually prefer any kind of overhead pressing to bench pressing, but I just feel like the bench fits better here.

Kettlebell Snatches

Whether I only have a few minutes to get some conditioning in at the end of a training session, or if I can't get to the gym at all and need to do get some solid work done in the backyard at home, I can always depend on the cannonball with a handle, i.e. a kettlebell.

After reading about the Secret Service Snatch Test in Pavel's book Enter The Kettlebell, I've been doing 2-5 minute continuous snatch-fests with my 20kg kettlebell as a way to build my conditioning, and it has worked pretty damn well, anecdotally. One day I'd love to work up to 10 continuous minutes with a 24kg bell.

It's actually really convenient for something to do at home while dinner's slowly cooking in the oven or on the stove.

Usually when asked by friends what piece of gym equipment they should buy to "get fit" at home, a kettlebell (and Pavel's book) is my first recommendation.

Excited About Spring and Summer

Every year, I look forward to the end of winter. No shit, right? Doesn't everybody? Well Cherie loves winter, but she seems to be the exception.

What do I get excited about?

The days get longer and daylight savings kicks in. That means when I wake up at 6am for work, the sun is already out. It means I don't need to cover myself in 5 layers of warmth for fear of freezing during the night. And if it gets hot, just having a fan turned on is good enough most of the time. It also means when I get home after work I still have an hour or two of sunlight to do stuff. Perhaps I'll get in a quick conditioning workout in the backyard with my kettlebell, or perhaps Cherie and I will eat dinner outside before it cools down.

Oh and speaking of food, in the warmer months I love lighter meals. It's a great time to grill everything; steaks, lamb chops, chicken breasts, fish (when it's cheap) and all kinds of vegetables. This is also when avocados start to taste amazing, so they're a quick addition to many meals, although the price goes up accordingly to the point of ridiculous around here, so maybe not every week. Even a fresh bowl of rice with a can of tuna thrown in with a pinch of lemon juice hits the spot.

It's a great time to be a strongman, given that a lot of our training happens outside. Training outside is hard in the wetter, colder months and spending any more than an hour training starts to suck, but once spring gets here, training is a lot more enjoyable. Even if I don't have to, I'll train outside.

It's just a great time to be outside in general! I can go for a nice walk on my lunch break rather than hang around at my desk and look stuff up on the internet (or write blog posts). My group of friends can have a BBQ together and actually sit outside together because it's still sunny and not freezing cold. I actually like Christmas time with my family and friends for the same reason (sorry USA, you can keep your White Christmas).

Yeah, I think it's safe to say I'm a summer person.

Playing Men's Basketball Again

For the past 3-4 years, I had been playing mixed basketball on Sunday nights after leaving my old Tuesday night men's team. As of a few weeks ago I've returned to Tuesday night men's basketball with a few of the guys from my mixed team, after we didn't have enough girls to keep the Sunday night team going, and a few new guys. And the first few games have been an eye-opener to remember how much faster and harder Tuesday night men's basketball is, even in the lower divisions.

On Sunday nights I was used to being able to use my 120kg frame to easily move most guys out of the way when posting up. Now they push right back into me.

I was used to only really having to run really hard for the second half of Sunday night games, as that's the half that men are allowed in the key. Now it's full-speed for the entire game.

I was used to being faster than most people on the court. Now I'm average.

The challenge of getting in condition again for Tuesday night basketball is humbling and exciting! It feels good to be average and get my ass kicked again. It puts some fire back into that part of my life. It forces me to get better, stronger and faster.

Wargames

Since high school I've enjoyed playing online wargames. I can't remember which ones I started with, but the earliest web-based wargames I can remember were a good ten years ago on the Digital Evolution website. At the time I wasn't smart enough for the wargames you had to ssh into, especially when it came to levels involving buffer overflows and that weird shellcode stuff that I just copy+pasted from aleph one's famous phrack article, an article I would read through and pretend like I understood, but really didn't. But that changed over the years. I'm still no expert, but I know enough to know roughly what I need to do... just perhaps not how to do it. Yet.

Last year some time, a friend sent me a link to io.smashthestack.org. I worked my way through the first half-dozen levels before getting stuck and deciding there were way too many knowledge gaps for me to grind my way through.

I checked my ego at the door and went back to the basics of basics and treated myself like a rank beginner (since I am); I learnt some x86 assembly and played around a lot with nasm. This eventually led to writing my own shellcodes and testing them out. Now I needed to use the shellcode to make sure it was gonna work. So it's back to wargames...

I've ended up at blackbox.smashthestack.org and am working my way through. There are ten levels and I'm working on level six at the moment when I've got the spare time.

The Shellcoder's Handbook has been a great help.

After I finish this, I'll head back to io.smashthestack.org and continue working through its plethora of problems.

Moo and Types

Wow. I haven't posted anything on here about programming in what seems like forever. Well, to be honest, I haven't been doing that much programming outside of work that's been worth blogging about, but now here we are!

For a number of years now, the post-modern object systems have been making a lot of head-way in the Perl community. We use Mouse at work, and in my own little projects, however small they may be, I've been using Moo. Why? Quicker startup than Mouse (and of course Moose), has the features that I really care about and use most in Mouse and doesn't install half of CPAN along with it.

For a first, testing script, I generally write classes to model people. And of course, people have a date of birth, which can be neatly represented with a DateTime object. But no Moo-compatible DateTime type existed out of the box (that may have changed now, but not at the time). Brilliant! So now I got to write my own Moo type, which would be nice as an introduction to the library, as writing your own types is something you're inevitably going to do.

First I found MooX::Types::MooseLike, which pretty much did what I wanted. So I wrote MooX::Types::MooseLike::DateTime (and released it only recently despite the fact that I'm blogging about a better method). The backend code was a little verbose and coercions had to be done in the type declaration. But whatever, it worked. So my test script continued on.

And then I found Type::Tiny. And it's compatible with Moose and Mouse aswell as Moo! The backend code is quite compact and coercions can be easily implemented.

Here's my type declaration.

package MyTypes;

use Type::Library -base, -declare => qw/DateTime/;
use Types::Standard qw/Str Int Object/;
use Type::Utils qw/class_type coerce from via/;

use DateTime::Format::Strptime;

class_type DateTime => { class => 'DateTime' };

coerce 'DateTime',
 from Int, via { DateTime->class->from_epoch(epoch => $_) },
 from Str, via { DateTime::Format::Strptime->new(pattern => '%F %T')->parse_datetime($_) };

1;

Something I really like here is that I can declare a DateTime type and access the underlying DateTime class with 'DateTime->class', so there's no need to import the original DateTime class, or alias or quote it so it doesn't clash with my type. And the coercions read very easily.

Here's the Person class that utilises the type.

package Person;

use Moo;
use MyTypes qw/DateTime/;

has dob => (
 is      => 'rw',
 isa     => DateTime,
 coerce  => DateTime->coercion,
 default => sub { DateTime->class->today }
);

1;

If I wanted to use Moose or Mouse instead, I could change the use statement at the top, and then change the coerce parameter to a value of '1'. EDIT: With Moo 1.006000 you can do the same with Moo now ;)

And here's the driver script.

#!/usr/bin/env perl

use warnings;
use strict;

use Person;
use DateTime;

print Person->new(dob => time)->dob->iso8601, "\n";
print Person->new(dob => '2013-01-01 13:37:00')->dob->iso8601, "\n";
print Person->new(dob => DateTime->today)->dob->iso8601, "\n";
print Person->new->dob->iso8601, "\n";

Simple and versatile.

Lifting Weights for Basketball

I've played basketball for 19 years now at a purely domestic level and have performed some kind of strength training for the past 3-4 years (which, of course, does not make me an expert), and in that time, I've had a number of ideas on how to get a domestic-level basketball player better, stronger and faster. This is not for the D1 college player.

Disclaimer: None of this is authoritative. I am not a coach or even a great high-level player, but I have noticed a big difference in my game in recent years, and occasionally wonder how I would train if I were solely doing it for basketball instead of strength sports, and I wanted to get some thoughts down somewhere, so here goes.

Exercise Selection

The cardinal rule about doing something outside of the sport to get better at the sport, is to not get hurt doing it. Getting hurt in a game? It's bound to happen, especially in a high-intensity finals game. But getting hurt from bench pressing mid-season is pretty stupid.

So what exercises are useful, and why?

• Squats. Strong legs are beneficial to sports, and life in general, so these are essential. Front squats can also be used.
• Kettlebell swings, hyperextensions and reverse hypers. Hip hinging movements are also great for athleticism, and these are my favorites.
• Strict military press, push press, incline bench and close-grip bench press. I'm a strongman, so maybe I'm a little biased, but strong shoulders and triceps are great for athleticism. I've also recently become a big fan of dips.
• Chin-ups and rows. I noticed when I played basketball multiple times per week that my shoulders would get a little sore, and we need to balance out all of the pushing exercises we use with some pulling exercises to keep the shoulders healthy and strong, so these will supplement the above pressing exercises. Doing a lot of band pull-aparts and face pulls is also a great idea.
• Power clean. Great exercise to build explosiveness and muscular coordination, but it has a learning curve, so this could be replaced with some basic plyometrics, like box jumps or broad jumps.
• Power jerk. Another great exercise for building explosiveness. If your gym doesn't have bumper plates or jerk boxes, you could probably do some medicine-ball throws instead to save damaging any equipment.
• Conditioning. Super important. I'll talk more about this later.

No deadlifts? Yes, the strongman decided against deadlifts. Deadlifts are awesome, there's no doubt about that, but too many people suck at it, and because of that, the risk of getting hurt is higher, so the heavy squatting, hip-extension exercises and upper-back work will build the musculature and the strength that deadlifting usually would.

No unilateral work? The conditioning options I mention below should be enough one-legged work at this level.

Training Frequency

How often should you lift weights? If playing three or more games per week, it may only be viable to train once a week, and that's fine, because lifting weights isn't your sport. But if, like me, you only play once or twice, at most, a week, you can probably get two days in the gym.

Because most domestic leagues around here just go from one season to the next with very little time in-between, there isn't really an off-season, so training volume and intensity will remain pretty constant throughout the year, and maybe only taper off when finals comes around, or, if you didn't make finals, the volume may increase.

Example Templates

Taking a leaf out of Jim Wendler's book, the general template every athlete should follow:

1. Stretch
2. Lift
3. Condition

Stretching and mobility work should be done with a foam roller and a few dynamic stretches. Figure out what you need to do by watching MobilityWOD videos, but chances are your back, hips and legs need foam rolling and your hip flexors need some massage and some stretching. Get yourself a solid foam roller, a solid massage ball and a resistance band and spend some time out in the sun, or in front of the TV, working on the tight parts of your body. Being able to move with ease is a very understated thing in basketball.

Conditioning. Assuming, skill-wise, you are competitive in your division, then getting some kind of hard conditioning in a couple of times a week will do more for your game than anything else here. This could be as simple as sprinting up a hill multiple times, or done in the gym with a sled or a prowler or farmer's walks, or, in a more sport-specific fashion, it can be done on a basketball court with suicides or some other sprinting drill. For anyone who is unable to go to a gym, but still wants to get better at any sport, conditioning is the key.

I would highly suggest doing a tiny bit of research on energy systems, or even just reading the footnotes of an article, because not all conditioning is created equal, but essentially you want to be doing sprints (or intervals) that last from 20-40 seconds and you are only partially recovered between efforts. Examples would be interval training (by running/sprinting or kettlebell swings/snatches, for example), pushing a prowler for 30m with 60 second rests between pushes or a few suicides with a 1-2 minute rest between suicides.

The heavy strength training and basketball games/practice will help develop the other energy systems.

On to the lifting part:

I'm a huge fan of triumvirate training, i.e. three main exercises per training day. It's by no means a cut-and-dry rule, but it helps me think about what exercises will give me the best bang-for-buck.

These are just examples. There are many ways to skin a cat.

Upper/Lower Split

I'm more likely to recommend this to the guy who only plays one, or maybe two, games a week and can hit the gym twice a week. Place the lower body day as far away from game day as possible, so that your legs are as recovered as possible.

Upper Body

• Main lift. Push press for sets of 2-3 reps, adding weight each set until you fail to get the reps.
• Supplemental. Dips, close-grip bench or incline bench. 3-4 sets of 5-10 reps.
• Supplemental. DB rows or chin-ups. 3-4 sets of 5-15 reps.

I would recommend starting with this basic template in the beginning, but, if you're like me and it's never enough, for more explosive work, the power jerk can be used in place of the push press or some kind of explosive push-up or medicine ball throw can be done before push pressing. Or you can alternate each of these ideas each week/month/whatever.

Lower Body

• Main lift. Squat. Work up in sets of 3-5 reps until you fail to get all reps.
• Supplemental. Hyperextensions or KB swings. 3-4 sets of 10-20 reps.
• Supplemental. Ab wheel. Either on your feet or your knees. 3-4 sets of 5-10 reps.

Again, I recommend starting with this basic template for a while, but for explosive work, you can either power clean or do some kind of plyometric work (like box jumps or broad jumps) before squatting.

If you'd prefer to use the upper/lower split while playing more than once a week, you will probably want to drop the volume on the squats, so I'd cut the squat reps down to a max set of 2-3 reps.

Full Body Split

I'm more likely to recommend this to the guy who plays multiple games per week, or plays and practices during the week, or is just damn busy with life, and therefore only has time to hit the gym once a week without negatively affecting their performance on game day or in their general day-to-day life.

• Squat. Work up to a heavy set of 2-3 reps.
• Push press or close-grip bench press. Work up to a heavy set of 2-3 reps.
• Chin-ups or DB rows. However many total reps you did on the push press, do about double that number here.

Although, as in the upper/lower split, there are options for more explosive work here, I'm less likely to recommend so if playing multiple games per week. The great thing about basketball is that it, in itself, is explosive work, so you'll probably be getting all the explosive work you need just from playing games and practicing.

The same goes for conditioning. If you're playing/practicing 2-3 nights per week, you're probably not going to need any extra hard conditioning sessions of sprints during the week. However, if you wanted to use the full body split while only play one game per week, feel free to add the explosive work and the conditioning in their appropriate spots, and push the sets of squats and/or presses up to 5 reps per set if you're feeling fresh.

Autoregulate

One thing about any sport is that each game is different and you need to account for that in the gym, but this is up to the player to decide. Was Saturday's game or this week's practice brutal? Are you feeling really beat-up and sore? Then take it easy in the gym that week so you feel better for the next game.

How do you "take it easy" in the gym? Don't go as heavy as usual, e.g. instead of pushing to a really heavy set of 3 on the push press, do 2 sets of 3 with 85-90% of what you had originally planned. Do less sets on your supplemental lifts or just use a lighter weight and push the reps up a little. Maybe skip any hard conditioning this week. Spend more time on recovery work like stretching, foam rolling, or do a yoga session. This is why there is no rigid periodisation attached to the example templates above.

Conditioning Makes Me Feel Great

That's about all the reason I need to do conditioning, yet somehow I forget this simple fact, and when I start doing it again (like I have 2-3 times a week since my last competition), I wonder why the hell I stopped in the first place.

I get bored easily. I don't like setting up conditioning medleys, because it takes me 10 minutes to get the tire through the gym and outside and to get the prowler set up, 15-20 minutes to do my conditioning, and then another 10 minutes, if not more, to pack it all up. I also hate hate hate anything long and slow, like jogging on a treadmill. As someone who generally spends around an hour in the gym, knowing that I'll either spend half of that for conditioning, or blow out my gym time by an extra half hour, is an easy way to guarantee that I won't do it.

So what are my options? When thinking of conditioning, I want to keep as specific to strongman (and the energy systems used in strongman) as possible, and I wanted to spend the least amount of time possible to get some effective work done, but I also wanted a really quick and simple way to get some hard conditioning in that only takes a few minutes. I came up with a shortlist:

• Kettlebells. Pick one up, carry it to a platform, do 5 continuous minutes of snatches, put it away and go home. This is my go-to option when I'm really running thin on time.
• Prowler. All I have to do is carry it outside, load up a few plates, and start pushing. 10-12 minutes on the prowler and I'm sucking wind.
• Every Minute on the Minute. If I'm training the axle, log or stones that day, I'll do 1-2 reps every minute on the minute for 10-12 minutes after the work sets. The equipment is usually already setup. I've only recently started doing this.
• Complexes. String a few big movements together, do a few sets, keep the rest periods short, and in 10 minutes I can be on the floor ready to die. I don't like pushing weight on these too much because I feel really beat up the next day.

The thing I like about these options is it's really easy to account for good and bad days; use a different weight kettlebell, modify the distance and/or weight on the prowler, adjust reps with EMOM work, adjust the exercises/reps/weight on the complexes. Rest periods can also be adjusted. Lots of ways to either turn it up or dial it back.

The result of doing this 2-3 times a week for the past couple of months? I feel awesome. When I play basketball on Sunday nights, I can run the full game at full speed. My training capacity in the gym is a lot better, whereas before I'd be ready to go home mid-way through my assistance work. I have better energy throughout the day. I sleep better. And I look a little better.

Leftover Chili and Eggs

This was a meal I ate post-workout last Saturday afternoon. I had some leftover chili in the fridge, which I wasn't sure what to do with, and I was getting sick of eating it with bowls of rice. So, taking a little inspiration from a shakshouka recipe I wanted to try a long time ago (but never did), I threw a few big spoonfuls of chili in a pan on a medium heat, let it reduce until most of the excess liquid was gone, dug a few holes in what was left, cracked a few eggs into the gaps, and let it all cook on a low-ish heat.

The house was smelling amazing, it was cold, and I was starving, so I ate the whole thing straight out of the pan with a few slices of heavy, doughy bread.

The chili wasn't from any specific recipe; just a bunch of red beans, onion, garlic, cheap beef, crushed tomatoes, cumin, Mexican chilli powder, cayenne pepper, paprika and salt thrown in the slow cooker for 12-16 hours.

I Love Food

I love food. Shocking, I know!

I've briefly blogged about food before. I often reblog pictures of food on my tumblr. I occasionally mention food on twitter. I frequently post photos of food I'm eating on instagram.

I come from Italian and Greek family where we've bonded around plates of pasta and spit-roasted lamb since forever.

Some of my favorite memories of Christmas Eve involve sitting outside with my cousins with plastic cutlery, no table and paper plates filled with warm pasta al forno (made by one of the nonna's), next to a few slices of honey ham, a few spoonfuls of extra cheesy scalloped potatoes, a few morsels of roasted vegetables and a ton of conversation about whatever's going on in our lives at that moment. My cousin, Matthew, and I both agree that tonight will be the night where we finally succeed in leaving no leftovers by the end of the night, although the result always suggests otherwise. Dessert is always creme caramel - a traditional favorite provided by my great aunty Mary at almost every family occasion for as long as I can remember - and Norma's Christmas speciality; pudding with some warm cream poured over the top and a spoonful of ice cream.

When I remember being sick as a child, I don't remember how long it took me to get to sleep with a blocked nose, or how many days off I had to take, or what medication I was prescribed by my doctor. I remember my nonna giving me a mug of warm milk with a spoonful of honey to help soothe my sore throat. I remember having slices of toast with ricotta cheese on top and a coffee for breakfast. I remember my mum making tons of rizogalo for me to eat throughout the day. And I still, as a 28 year old, crave these things as soon as I need to take a day off work for being sick.

My first thoughts when Orthodox Easter comes around are about eating magiritsa after midnight mass on the Saturday night/Sunday morning, cracking red-colored hard-boiled eggs at the church with my Greek family while standing outside in the cold because the church is tiny and there are hundreds of Greek's trying to get in, eating spit-roast lamb with rice and vegetables on the Sunday afternoon to the point of nearly exploding, and spending the next week or two eating a couple of slices of tsoureki with every coffee (and sometimes just having a coffee, so I can eat more tsoureki).

When it's time for the Christian/Catholic Easter, I think about eating fish and lentil soup with my mum and nonna on Good Friday.

Before he passed away, one of my nonno's favorite places to eat out at was the buffet at the Templestowe Hotel. The year after he passed away, on what would have been his 78th birthday, my nonna, my parents, my brother and my uncles and aunties and their children, and myself of course, all enjoyed a buffet dinner at his favorite place in his memory.

Nonna's riso al forno. My girlfriend's lamb stew (the first thing she ever cooked for me) and shepherd's pie. Mum's lamb chops with okra. Dad's soutzoukakia and seafood platter of calamari, scallops and mussels. Whenever I get the chance to request a meal, these are what come to mind first.

My girlfriend and I have had countless conversations about food; what to cook for ourselves, what to cook for our friends and family on XYZ occasion, what our favorite restaurants are, what our favorite childhood meals were, why I hate green peas and corn kernels (but not corn on the cob) so much.

I'm not sure what the entire point of this blog post is, other than to just talk about food. Maybe there isn't one. I was just thinking about how food is firmly ingrained into my life and memories. I may not remember the conversations, but I remember where I was, who I was with and what we ate. It's not just the food that I love, but also the memories that accompany the food.

The Little Moments

Thursday night is bin night. I often go to the gym on Thursday night's after work, so it's usually about 10pm by the time I get around to taking the bins out. At 10pm it's dark, it's pretty quiet - none of the neighbours or their kids are making much noise - and the air is fresh and cool. For those few moments, my feet are bare, my head is clear, my eyes are relaxed, I'm breathing in nothing but cool, fresh air and it is, without a doubt, the quietest and most relaxing few moments of my entire week.

Lately I've been finding myself having little moments like these more and more, from eating a sushi roll while waiting at the end of the train platform at Southern Cross Station after work to slowly walking around the supermarket late at night when there's barely anyone else around to enjoying a coffee before dawn in the backyard just prior to leaving home to go to work.

I think as I've gotten a little older I've come to appreciate the little things a lot more. They're not life-changing, but they're pretty cool.

Being a Groomsman

Last Saturday, I stood alongside my cousin, Julian, at his wedding as one of his groomsmen. Now, aside from the wedding being a fantastic day, the part of the wedding I really enjoyed was being in the inner-circle; the group of people who don't just attend the ceremony and eat and dance at the reception, but spend an extended amount of bonding time together in support of the bride and groom and their families.

I feel like the best part of being a groomsman, apart from being by the groom's side during the ceremony and the reception, is about creating memories. Things like spending a few hours on the Friday afternoon at a barber getting beard trims and cut-throat shaves while enjoying complimentary beers. Or eating pizza at a bay-side restaurant while shootin' the breeze.

Or drinking coffee after coffee and chowing down on awesome food that Julian's mum, Norma, provided early on the morning of the wedding, including the best quiche I've ever eaten. Or, when getting into our suits in front of the photographers, having to re-tie our ties multiple times because only Adam and Julian knew how to actually tie a tie properly and were then forced to teach the rest of us. Or receiving another present from Julian; super-hero cufflinks for our French cuffed shirts with Dan as Superman, Adam as Spiderman, Dillon as Iron Man, myself as the Hulk and Julian, of course, as Batman, his childhood favorite superhero.

Maybe the beautiful view of Melbourne on that sunny Saturday morning while getting photos taken on the rooftop of the apartment complex before heading to the church.

Or head-bopping along like an idiot to every song on the radio while the limo drove us to the church. Or constantly asking Dan if he still had the rings in his pocket; a question we'd continue to bombard him with even long after the ceremony was over.

Or sitting in Fitzroy Gardens eating ham and cheese sandwiches that Leah, the bride, had prepared for all of us while we eyed off another wedding party whose bridesmaids also had purple dresses and were thus, our enemies. Or standing outside the reception with our bridesmaids, ready to walk the room to the bridal table, across the dance floor to the left of the wedding cake, only to realise that none of us knew what direction the dancefloor was in, or where the cake had been placed, let alone where the bridal table was.

I could go on and on (and I feel like I have), but it's the small things that made the day that much more memorable and I am grateful that I was asked to be apart of it.

More "Go To" Workouts

A while ago I posted about some of my "go to" workouts; what I do in the gym when I have no plan or limited time in the gym for some reason. Here are a few new ones.

Axle Clean+Jerk and Farmer's Walks

I like this combo on an events training day when I'm on my own, and the thing I like most about it is that it's easy to setup; the axle is just another bar to use on a platform, and farmer's bars are easier to carry than the monstrosity of a yoke we have at my gym. Both of these are common events in amateur competition around here too, so it's no waste of time. Of course, it's easy to replace the axle with the log or monster DB, but I find the axle keeps me feeling fast/explosive due to it being easier to get a good jerk in, compared to the log.

Each rep on the axle is cleaned, as my continental clean is a bit less than what I can get over my head. Doubles and triples are the name of the game here.

Farmer's walks are a great finisher. Moving events are one of my bigger weaknesses, so whether I decide to go heavy and hard, or scale back the weight and go for speed or volume, these are never the wrong answer. When my grip is fried and I struggle to hold onto the implements for the set distance, I'll whack on my straps and keep going; this is the mental-strength builder. Because the straps will continue to hold onto the handles long after my grip is done, I'll only finish/fail when my traps, upper-back and abs are screaming in agony.

The hard part is bringing all the weights back inside after I'm done ;)

Atlas Stones and Beltless Front Squats

Nothing much to say here. Stones are done heavy and hard over a low bar, or lighter and explosive over a high bar. The beltless front squats are a nice compliment to the stones, or any other event where the weight is out in front of me, more so if I pause for a couple of seconds in the hole. Sets of 2-4 reps seem to work best for me.

Main Lift and Complexes

Back in January, my gym had reduced hours for a few weeks, and it worked out that I was only gonna have about an hour at absolute max to train, depending on what time I got home from work, so what followed 20-30 minutes of work with the main lift (which was either squats or push presses) was 20-30 minutes of complexes. The complex I was using at the time was: row, RDL, front squat, strict press, back squat, behind-the-beck push press, but any complex will work. I would end up doing 3-4 sets of 5 with around 60kg, and the last set of complexes usually ended with me laying on the platform for a further 10 minutes before carrying myself to the car.

Complexes are a painful experience, but there's no denying their effectiveness when short of time.

Squats and Sled/Prowler

An easy go to for me. Squats are awesome because they're squats, a heavy prowler is great unilateral strength work and a lighter prowler is awesome conditioning. The bang-for-buck ratio is huge here. The quad-death from backwards sled drags is nuts.

Done. Hopefully I can post more of these later in the year.

Texas Method and Strongman?

Before my next strongman competition was announced, I wasn't doing any strongman training at all except for a little bit of light atlas stone work if I had time. Instead, I was pushing my gym lifts using a Texas Method setup. Why? Because my gym numbers are undoubtedly still intermediate and I decided there was no reason why I couldn't push new PRs on a weekly basis. The other reason was that I had just started back squatting again (after a shoulder injury left me front squatting last year and for a while before that too) and my back squat was low enough that going to a monthly progression would've been an incredibly stupid idea. Then a competition was announced...

Firstly, a very simplified explanation about the Texas Method:

• Lift 2-3 days a week.
• High volume early in the week.
• Light day in the middle of the week. Somewhat optional.
• Work up to a new 5RM at the end of the week.

The idea is that the volume day earlier in the week pushes the heavy day each week, given your recovery, and thus your adaptation, is optimal. For much more information, buy the books from 70's Big.

What's the problem with trying to push your gym lifts with the Texas Method and train strongman events at the same time? Events days often end up being fairly high volume and beat your body up more than gym lifts.

So can you do volume day and events on the same day? Only if you're insane, or very new to strongman. I can't think of anything more painful than doing 5x5 (or even 3x5) squats and then doing yoke walks or farmer's walks and finishing up with some stones. But if you keep the volume and events days separate, you risk not being properly rested to hit a new PR on your heavy day. And doing volume and events one day after the other also sounds like a horrible, masochistic idea.

If events days are high volume, can we use that volume to push the heavy day and forgo having to do 5x5 squats and bench? Theoretically it sounds like it could work, and it might work for some people, but I couldn't get volume on the yoke walk to adequately feed into my heavy squats, and my squat is low enough that I would think it should go up from even a little stimulus. This may have just been a consequence of getting back into squats are a long lay-off, but either way, this wasn't gonna work for me.

So what can you do?

Something that does work is programming an overhead lift with the Texas Method; volume upper on Monday (plus accessories), light upper later in the week, and a new PR on either the log or axle on events day (Saturday). Incline bench and strict overhead presses translate pretty well to the log.

What about the deadlift? Theoretically you could do volume squats (or RDLs) on Monday and hit a PR on your deads on Saturday before doing events, but are you going to be adequately recovered from yoke/farmers/tire/stones/whatever from Saturday to do your volume squatting on Monday? If you move the volume day to Tuesday, or maybe even Wednesday, it could work.

So clearly the issue is with recovery. Volume squatting and strongman events can be hard to recover from, but if you're confident that your recovery practices can facilitate that, then it's possible.

But should you? Let's get philosophical for a minute...

By trying to push your gym lifts and your events training at the same time, you're trying to serve two masters at once, something many strength training coaches and athletes advise against, especially as you get more intermediate/advanced in your training. So maybe it would be best to just use a low volume program, like 5/3/1, to push your gym lifts during the week, and save most of your energy for events training. You're training for a strongman competition after all, and your gym lifts are really just GPP for the events; there is no max bench event! After the competition, or in the off-season if you have one, you can push your gym lifts while backing off from events training.

The other problem is that it's just too difficult to think about and is likely to change from competition to competition depending on whether there are max weight events, max reps events, longer distances, shorter distances, medleys, 2-day comps and every other variable that can be tweaked for a strongman competition. Whether or not the weights are heavy or light for you is also going to change things.

It's just too hard.

New Year

This is my first post of the new year, so some introspection is required!

As a very occasional blogger, I've become content with my blogging over the past year. Since making the decision to not just make this about programming and tech-related stuff, but also about many other aspects of my life, I've found it much easier and more natural, and less of a chore, to write.

Will this change? Am I going to start writing about other facets of my life that I don't already write about? Perhaps, but I don't feel a need to just yet.

Am I going to write about the same things but change the coverage? Probably.

I'd like to blog more about food. Partly because I love eating it so much, but also because it's something I like reading and thinking about aswell. I like to plan meals. I like to mix certain foods together. My girlfriend is an awesome cook, and if she won't share her own recipes and ideas on a blog, I will god dammit!

What about lifting weights? Strongman? Powerlifting? Olympic weightlifting? Bodybuilding? Well, I'm currently in preparation for my next strongman comp and am taking a different, smarter (I think) approach to my comp prep this time, which I'll write about soon along with other thoughts about programming for strongman, since there are so many ways to do it. But also, after the next comp, I'm going to take a bit of a change in direction with my lifting, which I'll write about once I figure out some more details.

Travel? Well, my girlfriend and I have done a bit of travelling over the past couple of years to the US, and now we're trying to save a bit of money, so the travelling is more likely to be domestic. Although, now that my brother is moving permanently to the US (if he can get a job and a visa) and my girlfriend's brother and his wife are expecting a child in June, another trip to the US may happen sooner than expected...