Aspirations

Should we all aspire to be as strong as Arnold? Nah. How about King Kong? Ehn. How about a 75lb Mongolian contortionist? NOW you're talkin'!!

I think acrobats are the strongest freaks I have ever seen in my life. Here is my acrobat-inspired list of bodyweight (!!) variations I saw them do in Cirque Dreams Jungle Fantasy

Easy: partial one-legged squat
Medium: pistol one-legged squat
Acrobat: partial one-legged squat into a backflip

Easy: seal-hop pushup (all four appendages off the ground)
Medium: seal-hop over a jump rope
Acrobat: seal-hop over a jump rope with two other seal-hopping men on your back

Easy: iron cross
Acrobat: iron cross while being swung around the stage with a girl standing on your shoulders












Easy: overhand grip pullup
Medium: overhand grip pullup to tricep extension
Acrobat: overhand grip pullup to full handstand over 5 second count holding your brother's wrists instead of a pullup bar

Here it is on YouTube, it's the first move they do

Bite me, WeightWatchers

This is how much I get to eat following Precision Nutrition and doing Cosgrove workouts!

PWO: yukon gold potato, salmon, omega-3 egg, 1/2 avocado, salsa

AT: veggie stir fry and shrimp over spaghetti squash with peanut sauce

Why I did not take pictures this weekend.

I have come to the conclusion that I can't have any starchy stuff on sparring days and I need to put away massive amounts of protein and fat. I'm not sure about the actual science behind this....it seems that I preferentially run on carbos, but when doing something intensely anaerobic I will burn through them in about 15 minutes and then there's an bad energy dip for a few minutes until the system switches over to something else (protein, I think). But if I prime it with fat by eating fat and protein all day then I just don't run out of energy.

It's not a general 'tiredness' feeling when I run out of energy, more like I don't have enough for the explosive burst needed to pull the trigger on an attack. I'll get hit in the head and instead of a) blocking, b)countering c) bobbing/weaving I'll just drop my guard and laugh like an idiot. Or I'll go to do something energetic like a midair back kick and just end up walking in a circle.

When I lift, everything is 10lb lighter if I've had my waxy, but after an hour I tend to get that protein burning smell... I usually don't lift in the PM after eating all day so I don't know if that would help. I also found that avoiding starch, especially wheat, keeps my joints and muscles from flaming up afterward.

Anyway, I was really really careful to not eat anything off-menu all day Friday and Saturday morning and felt great. Then I freaked out after class, ate a huge (and delectable) sesame bagel with lox cream cheese and coffee, went out to see "There Will Be Blood" (and there was, in fact, blood. Maybe that dude should get a few cats and they can all be disgusted with humanity together) during which I drank a beer, then had a cheeseburger with fries and another beer, and then another beer. I was up to like 125.6lb on Sunday. And this is why I did not take pictures =D.

On this day...

I slept through my planned HIIT workout so I finished up early at school, took a nap and went to the gym in the afternoon.

APRIL FOOL!

Oh, wait, that really happened. No, seriously, I made up a missed workout in the AFTERNOON when there were other humans in the gym!

The bonus is of course that I got to kick the heavy bag after my intervals. Alwyn Cosgrove says that good athletes spend time working on stuff they’re bad at so I worked on my mid-air 180 back kicks and feel like I made some progress. Head Instructor encouraged me to use those instead of my really bad, shut-eyed, flailing backfist, but I the kick never felt right. The key is that they take a lot more power than I was putting into them. I am totally using it on someone in Friday sparring class.

3:15 wake (meow meow!)
7:00 wake
7:30 pineapple/berry whey smoothie
Midmorning snack: missed
12:00 cauliflower, peas, tuna steak
3:00 otter soup
3:30 nap
4:00 HIIT, technique on heavy bag
5:30 powerade, WM
7:30 halibut Florentine, salad, golfball sized potato croquette