Some Americans seem to think anything that is European must be cool and maybe it is, I dunno. But I do know I have a Hungarian Core Blaster and it is cool. Now I have a home-brew Bulgarian Training Bag and it too is cool. For the uninitiated, these are fitness implements and why else would you be here, right?

To add to my odd collection, I will one day acquire a Danish Viking Mace on a Chain, but first I must get acquainted with my newly-named Big Sausage Bag, BSB.

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You can go online, searching for information on a topic, like fitness and strength and it is much like drinking water from a fire hydrant. (While drinking from that hydrant, I already have forgotten where I read the analogy)!

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Using the plans from Dave Draper’s site, (I call it version 1.0). Ross Enamait made his and packs on the weight. Read the rest of this entry

In the 80’s and 90’s the shiny gym chains all across America were in their heyday. Slick marketing and high pressure membership drives brought in legions of Americans to chrome and neon fitness palaces in those heady days. Fitness gurus sprouted up all over the place from Jane Fonda to Richard Simmons to lead followers to the true road to fitness. The shift away from the big box mass consumer gyms has been going on for several years now. Greg Glassman and Crossfit have been in front of the drive away from the big box “Globo Gyms” as Glassman calls them. Recently, the Los Angeles Times ran the story, “Gym Payments Too Big A Stretch” in response to rising fuel prices where the author states more and more Americans are heading for outdoor parks where they can exercise free.

If people are working out in the parks and in their garages doing Crossfit, then the way they train has also been changing, away from expensive machines and complex equipment. Over the last few years, you have seen more routines featuring the “lost” exercises like bodyweight movements, old school implements like barbells, dumbells, and most recently, kettlebells and sandbags.

Exercise seems to be going “retro” and I think it is a good thing, (except for the new crop of gurus coming on the scene. Ok, call me cynical). People are rediscovering “old school” training methods from a bygone era. One of my friends, Steve Belanger has the “Old School Barbell Club“. Zach Even-Esh, founder of the popular UndergroundStrengthCoach.com has developed training programs around stones, sledghammers, barrels, sandbags, tires and more. Ross Enamait is one of the best trainers in the old school tried and true. Other leaders include Brooks Kubik, author of Dinosaur Training has defined the genre in his excellent book of the same name.

Author and friend, Ori Hofmekler has been advocating the dietary equivalent with his “Warrior Diet” in which he advocates a more simple, basic diet which calls for eating as close to the bottom of the food chain as possible for optimum health. It must be noted that Ori was also one of the early movers to a more functional appriach to training with his Controlled Fatigue Training (CFT). I was fortunate enough to have gotten several CFT training sessions with Ori and it is the real deal. Recently, Ori and one of the big names today in fitness, Marty Gallagher, have been doing Ori’s interesting and knowledgeable internet show, “The Warrior Within”. (By the way, it should be noted that both men despise the word “fitness”), Marty is one of the true giants in the strength game that has been out of the “scene” for a bit but has returned with a new book, “The Purposeful Primitive” about to be released July 1, 2008. I ordered a copy and learned it is 396 pages large! Here is a look at the Table of Contents. If you would like to get an idea about what Marty is all about, there is an article available for download at DragonDoor, titled “The Purposeful Primitive Pulls” .

I think all these new “Back to the Future” events and new faces in fitness are a good thing and as someone who worked out using machines for most of my life except for the last two years, I enjoy training like a primitive, a caveman, old school, whatever you want to call it. If you aren’t training old school yourself, take a look. It’s a lot of fun for being such hard work!

Pick out the dumbbells

The big business plan in the fitness world these days is certifications. Crossfit can get you certified three levels into their system and you can get “certified” in Olympic lifting in a weekend. (Never mind those lifts take years to master). You can get certified in basic barbell training, running, triathlons. Hell, even kids have their own certification. I predict soon there will be a “Masters Certification” for aging baby boomers with time on their hands and plenty of disposable income. (I mean after all, if there is a kid’s cert, why not us?  Who do you think pays for the kid’s certification anyway.)

Dragondoor  and Pavel have made a lucrative industry out of kettlebell certifications and Crossfit is getting in on that action too.

Ross Enamait, in a kettlebell thread at rosstraining.com tells us don’t expect to find “dumbbell certifications”, but I disagree. For just half the price of all the above “certs” (2 mints in 1), I could capture the entire market with my “dumbbell certification” and I can give participants a piece of paper that acknowledges them as a certifiable dumbbell too. I already have mine.

When did a “weekend training seminar” start being called a “certification” anyway? What about those people who paid their $1,000 and just can’t get the hang of swinging a kettlebell or running around the block on the  balls of their feet? How about federal funding for a “No Fat Weekend Warrior Left Behind” program. No question, from a marketing standpoint, “certification” sells.

Ok, I better stop right here lest I sound like Rant at Moynihan Institute!

Buster Martin, at age 101 and father of 17 is poised and ready to run his first marathon! Are you kidding me?

Now this inspires me! Not to run another marathon, but to know it’s cool to drink and smoke and then train and STILL live to be 101 years old. This guy must be a genetic freak! I would love to train with him and kick back a few cold ones at the end of it and listen to his life stories.

More, from ABC News,

 Martin says that in the last weekend, he’s completed a 13-mile half marathon that took him a little more than five hours. It would have been faster, he says, but he says he stopped for a beer and a cigarette. 

I am in awe of Buster!

Hat Tip to rosstraining.com

With the books closing on 2007, I don’t expect to be setting any PR’s but in that respect, I had a good year of increasing totals and lowering times, most notably in the deadlifts. More on that later.

I had injuries heal and got new ones to replace them. My right scapula is now good, but the left is kind of wobbly from overdoing sets of barbell snatches. I have tendonitis in the right elbow from either an errant kettlebell swing or a barbell clean that got too far away from me. I stayed pretty healthy with only a couple of bouts with allergens during the Santa Ana winds recently.

I found myself skating less, but swinging kettlebells more. In August, Val bought me my first KB, a 20 kg hunk of metal with a handle. Previously, I used a kettlebell only as part of a Crossfit WOD. Now I have four different weights and Val bought me instruction with a RKC trainer as a Christmas present and can do swings and snatches with the 24 kg kettlebell.

I have continued to mix up my workouts like the Crossfit programming model. Gone are the days of single activities such as speedskating, running and mountain bike riding, all of which I did largely at the exclusion of much of anything else, save an occasional trip to the gym.

Speaking of Crossfit, while I still enjoy doing their WODs and subscribe to their journal, I am no longer a “Kool-Aid drinker”. I never was someone who was attracted to cult-like organizations and their zealots, but I do continue to learn much about fitness from Crossfit.

My interest has steadily grown in powerlifting and Olympic style weightlifting and will get quality training wherever and whenever I can find it. I am even sticking my toe back in the water, so to speak with running, an activity I gave up years ago. I have no intention to ever be a big mileage guy, though.

I am enjoying the complexities of learning the Olympic lifts and I benefit greatly from the simplicity of bodyweight exercises I get from Ross Enamait of rosstraining.com and Crossfit. Mixing up workouts has been the best thing to happen to my physical training and I credit Crossfit for that and Crossfit Marina, with the Serranos as trainers and Brent O as a competitive foil for my sessions.

I have been more consistent in going to the gym than I have in many years and almost always look forward to my sessions there. I also like training at home or in a park. To that end, I have been buying useful fitness “toys” like Elite rings, fitness bands, weighted vest, weightlifting shoes, racing flats, jump ropes, chalk, a stopwatch, an Ab Mat and a kick butt ab roller from Lifeline. There are more things I will be getting in ‘08, but training at home is a now a viable alternative.

In ‘07, my diet largely went to crap and my weight crept up. That will change in 2008. ‘Nuff said about that.

I made some modest gains lifting over the year, and in all cases form has improved but much needs to improve in that area over the next year. At the beginning of the year I could clean 145 as a 1RM and the last time I tried, I was doing 175 lbs, but I am certain I can beat that right now. It will just have to wait! The Crossfit Total, (CFT) consisting of the best lifts in the squat, overhead press and deadlift was 760 lbs in January and is now 910, with the biggest increase coming with a 415 lb max deadlift, which increased by 75#. My overhead press increased by 25 lbs to 185 and my squat went up by 45#, a bit of a disappointment. My 5K run time at the beginning of the year sucked and stills sucks with no improvement to speak of at 28 minutes.

This year saw, what I believe were growth changes to the Barbarian Blog and I will continue to tweak it next year.

There were a lot of “Good times” in 2007 as Brent was fond of saying, (where have you been dude?) and more to come next year. Stay tuned.

Check below for a couple of workouts done this weekend…

Saturday:

Kind of an active rest day and ran around the block a couple of times which took all of 19 minutes for just under two miles.

Sunday:

Ran 2 x 800 meters

Sit-ups: 50/40/30

Push-ups: 50/40/30

Overhead Squats: 50/40/30

Back Extensions: 50/40/30

One arm Overhead Squats: 25# overhead, holding 53# with the other hanging arm x 12 and again x 20. 18/25#, 2 x 20.

Kettlebell Swings, 24 kg: 10/10/10/10/10

Kettlebell Snatches, 24 kg: 10/20/20