A New Resolution - DDP Yoga

I've decided to change my regular post with a new resolution I've taken on, DDP Yoga. I've actually started DDP Yoga's fitness routines a couple times in the past. I was first inspired by this video.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qX9FSZJu448&w=640&h=360]

Inspiring indeed. So I watched it again. Teared up again. And resolved to make a difference in my own life. This time though I was inspired to focus on building habits first. Rather than pushing hard I was going to kick my ego to the curb and just follow the beginner plan. Along with the fitness plan I am following the nutrition plan as well.

Following the beginner plan for fitness was very simple because it was only 3 days of fitness routines. Because I think waking up early is the better plan for me I decided to make the habit of waking early be the most important part. So even on my 2 weekdays with no exercise I wanted to wake up early as well. This worked fine on one but I didn't make it on the other. It is still the first week so I'm not going to make it mean anything. I'm going to see how next week goes.

As for the nutrition I lucked out last Sunday night in that I doubled a recipe for 2 servings so that I could make dinner for the family and ended up with leftovers that lasted me through Wednesday lunches. This and the eggs I was already making every morning made it easy to follow the plan. I had a couple of cheat days and I wrote about in my Team DDP Yoga blog. Even with these light cheat days, things still went better than I used to do. In fact my first week has already brought fast results. Last Sunday when I weighed myself I was at 250 pounds. This Sunday when I weighed myself I was at 244 pounds.

I'm going to keep posting as I keep up with the program to share what has come up for me. I hope that whatever I find out can help someone else who might come across this post. If you want to follow my daily updates you can go to my Team DDP Yoga page and follow my blog posts.

What would it take to get to normal?

The other day I was listening to NPR talk about BMI or body mass index with regards to healthiness. I have always poo-pooed BMI because as a former personal trainer I know that it doesn't take into account actual body fat percentage. For instance, a well conditioned athlete might have enough muscle to be considered obese using BMI while somebody in the 'normal' range might actually be skinny-fat and thus too weak to really function on a day to day basis. And, as I looked for a link to the story I was listening to at NPR.org it looks like there were many follow-ups or alternate stories that feel the same way.

BMI is a bogus measurement

However, despite the reality that BMI is a bogus measurement I decided to get real on my personal situation. While I used to be a professional wrestler and a personal trainer, I have been 5 years retired from both and my fitness level is that of a social media game developer( my current profession ) but my eating habits have not changed enough to compensate. So right now I am sitting at 240 pounds which is considered obese by the BMI measurement for a 6 foot tall person.

On the flip side, 220 pounds is the top end of the overweight label for my height and 180 is the top end for the normal range. Its interesting to note that 180 pounds was my weight in High School, probably when I was most active without trying to add muscle. I know that 220 is realistic as I was about 225 when I wrestled. However, is 180 realistic? [ad#Google Adsense]

Getting real about the numbers

Let's go through the numbers, keeping in mind I don't actually know my bodyfat percentage right now. If I'm at 30% body fat ( which is high for a man but definitely believable ) than I have 168 pounds of lean body mass and if I could somehow lose the weight without losing muscle mass ( a very difficult task - though attainable ) then I would be at 7% body fat. 7% body fat is pretty low, especially for a social media game developer. Am I willing to lose muscle mass, is it still that important to me?

The truth be told, I could have a higher or lower body fat than 30%. If it is higher, 180 could be attainable without losing muscle. If it is lower then I can just kiss some of that muscle goodbye if I want to hit 180.

Do I even want to try?

Do I want to try for 180? That's a big goal. If I get to 180, will I have done it in a healthy way that I can continue for the rest of my life?

The answer is yes, I do want to make the journey toward 180 pounds and I'm going to use this blog to take you all along the journey with me. I say journey because I know that is more important than the destination. I might find a fork in the path along the way that is better for me and I will share that if I get there. For now, I have a destination and I just have to look through my old maps ( old personal training books ) and possibly get some new ones ( apps for my phone have helped in the past ).  I guess one of those forks will come when I have to decide if losing muscle mass is worth it to me. [ad#Google Adsense] If you liked this post please subscribe to myRSS Feed and/or follow me on Twitter. If you only want to read my Wednesday Warrior posts subscribe to the Wednesday Warrior feed. Until next time, thanks for reading.

Biased/Edited Media

The following video shows a clip that aired on CNN's Death Grip:Inside Pro Wrestling

Now the WWE has been bit before by media agencies that edit what the wrestlers say so that it comes across more incriminating. I believe Mick Foley mentioned in one of his books how he should have had a WWE camera at the taping so that the true version could be available for people. Read on for the unedited version from the WWE camera. ...

In CNN's defense, Cena did say this in regards to the question. However, the reason he answered that was missed because it was edited out. Not to mention they did not show the first thing he answered after the question was asked, "Absolutely Not."

While I may have lauded John Cena for making it through his match with a torn pectoral muscle, I am not a Cena fan. As big as Cena is, he seems naturally built compared to a lot of others. Including, I'll admit, my favorite Triple H a few years back. However, the media is required by ad revenue to make stories more selacious. They need people to talk around the water cooler about the subject. This is just one more example of the requirement in this world to look past what appears to be truth to see what is actually there. To do this requires that we think for ourselves and question everything.

Strength Training without a gym

Having been a personal trainer I get asked the question, "What should I do to get in shape?". Well that or one of many variations. Often I focus on the philosophy and psychology of training over the physical act. Training doesn't require any specific exercise to be done right. In fact, what is right for one person may be wrong for another. Some people don't have the money for, or have enough discipline to train without, a gym. It can take some creativity, but bodyweight exercises are the easiest way for someone to start getting in shape. ...

Some well known body weight exercises are:

• Pushups
• Pullups
• Crunches / Sit ups
• Squats

Going back to the psychology of working out, workouts are most successful when they are fun. Doing the above four exercises only is not going to be much fun in the long haul. So it takes some creativity and some times a little inspiration from others. Here is a video of some parkour enthusiasts showing their form of strength training, maybe it will inspire you.

So be creative, have some fun and move your body. That is what you can do to get into shape.

Improving Your Vision

No, this post isn't about laser eye surgery. Instead it is about improving your ability to see possibility. In order to do this I'm going to take you along my own recent journeys into training for parkour. Since the philosophies of the art of movement relate so well to the rest of life, let's learn a little bit that we may have just forgotten. ...

When I first came across parkour I looked at moving from point A to point B a little differently. All of the sudden I started to wonder, "How else could I get there". From my initial introduction, I learned to at least look for other ways.

I started to take a look at how to start training for parkour. AmericanParkour.com has a page called "How Do I Get Started" and a section with tutorials on practical movements( members only, but its free ). After reading these I started wondering, how was I going to be able to practice? When would I have time? Where can I go? I was blocked by my current level of vision. I could not see any possibilites, and I was stopped.

I kept going back to the pages and kept re-reading how to get started and the tutorials. I was also reading some good articles. One great that inspired me was "The Beginner's Mind". Watching my children learn everything they know from nothing has always been a pleasure. As we grow up, we stop learning from nothing and start to avoid knowledge we don't already posess. I got inspired to approach this from a child's mind and start from knowing nothing. There is only one place to go from there. All of the sudden things became clear. I shouldn't be able to do anything, I've never trained parkour before. Maybe I should learn to land first ( the same instructions from the "How Do I Get Started" article ). There are lots of places to jump down from.

So one day at work, I used my lunch break to go outside and practice landing. It went well. I was having fun. I got excited, tried a Kong Vault and landed on my hand. Having worked to gain weight as a wrestler, I was just over 230 pounds and most of that weight came down on my hand hard. I don't think I broke it, but it hurt for a couple weeks before I could use it normally again. All of the sudden I was asking my wife to open jars for me :).

That didn't stop me though. I could still practice the basic landing, without using my hand too much. So I did. Eventually, I got bored of landing and stopped practicing. I didn't know how to move on from that point. Once again, I was stopped by my current level of vision. Where was I going to train? When was I going to train?

In the featured articles section of AmericanParkour.com, there are a line of articles called Demon's Drills. These are some great ways of how to improve your physical and mental training towards parkour. They were all inspiring, but The one that got me moving was Muscle Ups and a related follow up Theme Training. Muscle ups were something I thought I could find somewhere to perform, at least a modified version. I started doing a few while playing with my kids at the park, which I am doing more now that I am training. However, I didn't feel I could train it enough to make that much difference. I wished there were some way I could do it at my gym. Well, the universe provided me that wish. I came in one Monday and they had moved some of the equipment around. This forced me to look at workouts just differently enough that I saw an opportunity to do modified muscle ups on the smith machine. This was great because I could start at a lower height that I felt comfortable with and then move the bar as high as it would go. It was a great plyometric workout and my vision improved.

Soon after starting this exercise, I started looking around where I live and work. One day I walked from the gym to work ( which I do from time to time ) and started to see more training possibilities than I had ever seen before. Ledges to do muscle ups and possibly kong vaults ( I still was a bit leary of that ). That day, I took my lunch break outside for some training. As I was moving around doing different muscle ups on the ledges, I ran up to a shorter ledge and popped myself up to the top without even thinking about it! It was almost a Kong Vault, and I believe it was higher than the place I hurt myself before. I was stoked, but my lunch hour was over so I would have to wait.

The next day, my wife needed the car so I would need to walk from the gym to work again. Insead of having her just drop me off at work, I asked her to let me drop my bags off at the office first. Then when I walked to work from the gym I had nothing keeping me from trying out some kongs, wall runs and tic-tacs. My lunch break consisted of this too. This is where I currently am and now I am consciously trying to improve my vision. Now I'm looking for the next obstacle for me to overcome. I've seen new places around work that I didn't even know existed. I'm still a novice and I most likely move slower and do less than many traceurs and traceusses out there, but that doesn't matter. Parkour is more an approach than certain movements, a philosophy to life that is practiced through the art of movement.

Below, I've linked a video put together by Demon of Demon's Drills called Vaults 102. Its a bit more than the basics ( it is a 102 class after all ) and it approaches vaults in an interesting way for improving your ability to overcome obstacles ( vision or ability to see possibility ).
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opUoIXgEdAk]
The good part is at the end, putting it together into a flow. Even more so, the good part is the text at the end of the credits, which you don't see in this version but here is a link to the full .wmv file at AmericanParkour.com.