Delays!

To employ an oft used sports colloquial metaphor, sometimes life throws you a curve ball. Work will give you odd hours, family will come into town, or any number of odd circumstances that arise that can throw your schedule for a loop. Personally, I like to exercise on a set regimen. Or at least I try to. My morning routines consist of Tai Chi followed with an intense bodyweight workout. Every other day I like to go for a run. Unfortunately, that's not always an option. So I do what any good animal would do when confronted with a changing environment. I adapt!

This is a very important principle to take to heart. The second most dangerous time for someone's commitment to fitness after the first few days is after the first two weeks. After two weeks of solid effort, people are apt to relax, feel like they've earned a day off or two. This mentality is exceptionally dangerous when one of the aforementioned curve balls come your way. If work needs you to work some extra hours, then you figure that skipping a couple of days of exercise won't hurt. That kind of thinking is wrong!

Well, not wrong per se. Here's what I will say on the matter though. The best way to keep going is by building momentum. When I'm running, I try my hardest never to stop. Slow down, certainly. Slowing down to a jog can help me recover, catch my breath, and let me keep going on much longer. If I slow to a walk or stop altogether, than getting back up to a run is awfully difficult. And when I do finally get back up to speed, the first leg is the most difficult. But once I get past my initial windedness and aches, then the running starts to get a little easier.

This holds true for workouts. After skipping workouts for more than two days leaves me in an obviously more fatigued state. My workouts are harder than they previously were, I can't run as fast or as far, and I'm winded so much faster. This can easily be discouraging. And I have been discouraged before. I have started and stopped more fitness programs than I can count. And often after the first 2 weeks. I've even slowed down my commitment to this blog! But what I have to remember is that starting and stopping are all part of the journey. Every time we stop, no matter how long or short, hopefully we're that much farther down the path. Starting is hard, but it's much better than standing still.

So here's my advice. Wake up a little earlier of you can. Get your workout out of the WY in the morning before any of your obligations kick in. If that's not an option, on days when you can't get in a run or a full on workout, do something. Ten pushups are better than no pushups. If you have 2 minutes of free time while the coffee is brewing, see how many pushups you can do in two minutes straight. The answer might surprise you. I certainly was. Two minutes of straight pushups is a lot harder than I thought. But if you do that every day it becomes easier. Something, no matter how small it may seem, is better than nothing.

The Armory

One of my favorite parts of role playing games is the actual character creation. There are some many options. What class do I choose? What race? Should my character be stronger than normal, or smarter? Short or tall? But once you get a lot of the basics figured out. then comes one of the most fun parts: choosing the gear. A Paladin can't go into battle naked after all! Iron Man can't fight Captain America without his suit! Gear is an important choice. Generally, as stated in my alluded to in a prior post, my characters were generally of the leather or cloth armor (t-shirt) clad type. But then the crucial decisions between short sword and long sword had to be made, between one or two daggers, or maybe even a crossbow. Well, fitness is no different. And walking into an armory (fitness supply store) can as intimidating as staring down Tiamat himself, though I can never say I have ever had the pleasure. So I'll give you a breakdown of what my equipment choices look like.

Armor:

Armor is everything. If your armor isn't suited for the task at hand, then your life is going to be a whole lot more difficult. Pictured here is my running shirt and shorts of both the compression and running type. The idea behind the running shirt is very simple: no nipple chaffing. Honestly, this is worth the investment. It prevents your nipples from feeling like fire ants are having a picnic on them. Also, they tend to be cut in a flattering matter. The compression shorts also have a very straightforward function: they keep your junk on lock. That's an idiom that I've managed to pick up from today's youth. Now that only applies if your a guy. Its more gender friendly benefits are that it also prevents chaffing and rashes as well as promoting circulation. Promoting circulation will in turn help prevent stiffness and muscles soreness which can help increase performance and help in recovery. The running shorts are just made of a light material that helps conceal my form fitting compression under-roos. 3

Tools:

No adventurer is complete without having some tools of the trade. Thieves have lock picks, clerics have religious symbols, and wizards have freaky imp familiars. Pictured above are my tools. Most prominently you'll see the kettlebell. Now, I primarily rely on body-weight exercises. Calisthenics are great for muscle growth, weight loss, body awareness, and just overall looking impressive. Most of all, they're free. You can do them anytime and just about anywhere, although I don't recommend doing burpees on an elevator. But a kettlebell is a great addition to your repertoire. Supplementing body-weight exercises with weighted ones is a great way to isolate particular muscles and overload them, thereby stimulating growth. And a lot of kettlebell exercises are compound movements that require a lot of body awareness that can only be obtained through body-weight exercises. For the best example of this, I recommend checking out the "Turkish get-up." You can pick up  a kettlebell on the cheap these days. The one in the picture is 20 lbs and cost about $19.95 on Amazon. You can find cooler, albeit pricier, ones at Onnit. And the internet is replete with workouts with a single or double kettlebells. The rest is pretty self-explanatory. A water-bottle is a must have. Running shoes, also a must have (see previous post). Now, if you're perceptive. You'll see my Fitbit Flex. Honestly, that is really not a necessity. But any kind of pedometer (I hear that the Nintendo DS has one) is a great way to just keep track of fitness goals. My phone and ear buds are for fitness apps and listening to sweet tunes during runs and workouts. 

Weapons:

Now, I don't actually own any weapons. But weapons can be great things to train with. Bokken, Bo staves, clubs, maces, etc. can have a transformative effect on your workouts. I've worked out with bokken before, and they are a lot of fun. They work pretty much the entire body. Any one of the pictured weapons will carry with it a different weight distribution that will force your body to adapt. So get out there, find a weapon that suits you/ Have fun with it. Just be careful. Don't put anyone's eye out. 

In summation, gear is very important. When I put on my Avengers running shirt and compression shorts, it transforms me. I'm bigger than myself, capable of achieving far more than I ever could in my regular life. With each explosive kettlebell swing, I am knocking hordes of monsters away. I am a super hero in my uniform, and adventurer properly equipped to take on any foe. I am so much more. 

Favorite Class

Through my life of playing Dungeons and Dragons, Neverwinter Nights, Diablo, Pathfinder,  Assassin's Creed etc., there has been one characteristic that has remained a constant. I love playing a very specific type of character. He's a loner, not necessarily bad looking but probably covered in lots of scars, has a lithe and sinewy build, but primarily he's equipped with a very specific set of skills.  He can run, jump, climb, flip, or sneak his way in or out of any situation.  Not one for words,  if he's backed into a corner, he let's his hands do the talking.  

Basicallly, the characters I love playing when given the opportunity to build a person from scratch are.... the complete opposite of myself. When gaze is cast upon me, the words lithe and sinewy are as far from lips as would be emaciated and anorexic. While not abounding in elephantine stature, I definitely have a few extra pounds to shed. Sneaking is definitely out of the question. Along with the aforementioned issue of stature, grace is one of those qualities I have yet to adequately develop. Climbing I have some experience with, primarily with trees, but since I can yet do a pull up, some of the more impressive stuff is out of the question. And hand to hand combat? Unlike my fantasy counter-parts, I am a man of many words and revel in their use. I love violence as much as I love getting punched in the face. I can't speak for you, but getting punched in the face is on day "to don't" list. Does this make me enjoy playing those characters any less? Absolutely not. It's great to get out of your own mind for a while and live a life completely foreign to your own. So I figure, why not apply that same philosophy to fitness? When I'm running, why not pretend that I'm running along a castle wall? Or running amidst a horde of orcs, dodging and twirling around arrows, swords, and enemies all heading towards you? One of my favorite scenarios is actually to put myself in the mind of a shaolin like monk. My running is part of my kung fu training and each run brings me closer to being a kung fu master so I can go out into the world and fight evil, avenge me father, or protect my village. I'd love to take credit for this idea of applying fantasy role playing to the realm of fitness. I take a lot of my cues in this regard from Darebee and they're wealth of resources. They are dedicated to providing free fitness resources for geeks like me and, presumably, you. For example, they just posted a wonderful article entitled "RPG Fitness." 

It's a great read an I recommend it to everyone who love fantasy role playing and is interested in getting involved in fitness. They also recently launched an actual fitness role playing game called "Age of Pandora." I give it 5/5 stars, 2 thumbs and two pinkies up in a shaka salute. You take the role of someone who awakes in a completely foreign and hostile world. You don't know who you are and what's going on. So you have to go on quests, collect pieces to puzzle together your identity, and fight to survive. There are decisions that affect the flow of the game and, consequently, the development of your physique. In fight or flight situations, choosing to fight will develop your lats, obliques, and arms while fleeing will develop your legs and give you a very healthy cardiovascular system.

That's actually from another one of their "Choose your Story" workouts called Hero's journey. They also help provide you with wonderful advice on how to achieve your goals. If you want to bulk up, they have workouts designed for strengthening and toning your body. If you're looking to slim down (get lithe and sinewy), they have high burn workouts that are going to be more your speed. They even have specific regimens based off of different role playing tropes. The assassin's week long regimen includes a lot of those high burn, high speed, high intensity work outs (otherwise known as HIIT). Personally, I went with the fighter regimen. That's why today's workout is another Bruce Lee tribute. 

Can you tell I love kung fu movies? So if you're like me, I think you'll really like these workouts. Or even if you don't like them, if you're like me then you already have plenty of experience role playing. And role playing can be applied to many areas of life other than just games. And hopefully, as I get closer and closer to my fitness goals, the gulf of separation between me and my characters will close. At least the physical bits. Well, I have to run (literally). Wish me luck.

New Shoes!

Running is a fairly straight forward process, All you need is your feet and some ground. Or so I thought. It turns out that shoes help a lot too. I found this out when, to my surprise, my big toe starting scraping against blistering hot asphalt through the sole of my running shoes.

Luckily, my toe came through alright. Not too much damage was done. But I felt that it then became paramount that I get new shoes. The problem is thus: not all shoes are created equal. Some shoes are better for dancing, some better climbing, and some better for putting in your enemies... keister. So I turned to my most trusted font of wisdom: the internet. And boy was there a durth of information available to me. To much information! Did I want a minimalist shoe, or something with a sole large enough to absorb the impact of a land mine? What exactly is a crossfit shoe? Or should I have no shoes at all (a la paleo)? The debate seems to rage on with people so dogmatic I swear running was the new religion! So I did what any sensible person would do: I went to target. 

There were a few different styles of shoes. Some were more mesh than anything else, some were clearly targeted towards basketball players, and there was one shoe the design of which I recognized from when my 90 year old grandfather used to wear to the YMCA. Ultimately, I settled on these:

The fit all of my metrics. They were in my size, they felt great on my feet, and primarily they were affordable. Only $35! So I brought them home, unboxed them, and started breaking them in. I haven't taken them running yet, that's tomorrow. But then I started getting a bit of a pain right under then tongue of the shoe. I once again turned to the internet, and apparently I have what's called a "steep instep." 

Using this lovely chart, I laced up my shoes all special-like as according to number 1. 

Then I thought that looked ugly. So I re-laced it up to make it look a little prettier. I know it's a silly thing to worry about. Aesthetics shouldn't matter when functionality that ultimately matters, right? Well, they looked much better after round 2.

Much better. Also, here's my cat trying to help me unbox these babies. She loves helping.

After that, they fit like a dream. I really can't wait to take them running tomorrow. I don't know if they'll shave time off of my runs, making jump higher, or what. After all, they are only $35 shoes. What I do know is that they will keep my feet from being ground into sausage against the pavement. And really, isn't that ultimately what matters?

Natural Born Runner

I don't think anyone would ever call me a runner by nature. And if I ever were to utter such a stupendous fabrication, my physique would belie my claim. But, according to... science, running is a great form of exercise for weight loss and overall fitness. I am particularly attracted to running since I am a recovering smoker. It's been six or seven months now since I last had a cigarette and I am obsessed with undoing the damage that-at one point was-a pack every two days habit had done to my heart and lungs. So I started running. At first, the treadmill seemed like a good place to start. I could choose my own pace and make it as challenging as I wanted. I'm also a huge numbers junkie, and some of the better treadmills will give numbers like average pace, average incline, time, distance, and calories burned. With numbers, I can track my progress fairly easily and make training into a game about beating my previous benchmarks. But running for running's sake really sucks. It feels like I'm just running in circles, moving my legs but not really going anywhere (I try to be funny on occasion). So that's when I decided to sign up for a 5k. One of my favorite webcomic/blog sites is the Oatmeal, and they're hosting the "Beat the Blerch" run.

This way, I figured it would provide me with a goal to reach. Having never ran a race before, I decided that 30 minutes was a completely reasonable time in which to run what is essentially 3.1 miles. After all, if a nice stroll pace is about 20 minutes per mile, twice as fast can't be that hard. Well, as it turns out, while 5 kilometers in half an hour isn't breaking any land speed records, it is a whole lot faster than I was prepared for. So I found a great app in the Google Play store that I highly recommend. It's called "Zombie 5k."

It may cost $1.99, but it's worth every penny. Every week it takes you through different running drills. The first week is 15 seconds of running and 1 minute of walking. The second week it challenges your endurance with 30 seconds of running and 1 minute of walking with 5 heel lifts after each run. All the while, this app narrates for you a world in which you and a band of renegades are trying to survive against hordes of zombies, other people, and who knows what else? It's hinted that my camp is embattled with another camp of survivors. I'm two weeks in to training, and I'm loving it.

The 5k is November 20th, so hopefully I'll be up to the half hour task, Right now, thanks to the app, my 5k time is around 38 minutes or so, Althoughm that's with switching between running and walking. I want to be able to RUN! the whole 5k. Well, wish me luck.