Making Progress

Missed posting yesterday, but I did manage to get up at 5:00 am on Monday for my next interval workout. Still couldn't bring myself to warm up by running; did 10 minutes on the bike before and after the workout instead. But the workout went well, maybe too easy. I'm just not burning as many calories as I would have expected by doing calisthentics. Also introduced jumping rope as my low-intensity interval exercise. Tougher than it seems, especially for a guy with two left feet. The DB snatches, however, seemed a bit easy. Might have to upgrade from the 30-lb. dumbbells. Maybe it's time for a 16 kg kettlebell.

Today I managed to get up again, this time for an easy four miles. Although my times are slower than they feel, about 30 seconds a mile slower. Chalk it up to running first thing upon waking, and the fact that I'm now paranoid on tripping over the disjointed sidewalk flags throughout my neighborhood.

My first week of the First Stage did show some progress, though. Sunday night I weighed 207.3 pounds with 11.3 % body fat. Now the previous week I'd measured on a Saturday night, so the comparison may well be skewed; if I'd measured myself after gorging on Saturday's Notre Dame game watch I might've seen no progress at all. But I'll try to measure on Sunday night from now on and get a better idea of how I'm doing.

Grow Your Wings, Then Learn to Fly

Got out for six miles on another amazingly warm November day. Nothing burns the calories like running. Managed to stay about 600 calories down for the day; even with Thanksgiving and its aftermath, I'm not too far over my budget for the week.

Saw a forum thread on sasukemaniac.com the other day, and I wanted to get down my thoughts. The poster was arguing that it's pointless to train for ANW with exercises like weighted rope climbs that aren't specific to the skills tested in Ninja Warrior courses. I disagree, and don't know these people well enough to mix it up in their debate, but here's why.

First, of course you need to train at some point for the actual challenges you'l face in competition. But every football player spends hours in the weight room and on the practice field in drills, even though no football game has ever required players to bench press or run through tires. Players do that sort of training in the off-season, for a few reasons.

First, the off-season's a time for recovering from the stresses particular to the competition. That doesn't really apply to a guy like me, who's training for something he's never done before. But for any regular athlete in the seasonal cycle of competition, recovery's an important consideration.

Second, the off-season's the time to build the base level of strength and endurance necessary to perform the skills specific to competition. You need to grow your wings before you can learn to fly. Not much point in scrimmaging if you don't have the strength to be competitive. And you can't build the strength to compete simply by going out and competing; you won't live long enough to get strong enough.

Third, adaptation's an important consideration for any seasonal athlete. I know I can only go four, six weeks at the most in a workout before I plateau, physically and mentally. That's why I've broken up my training not just into four stages, but also changing it up within each stage. Keeps me fresh mentally, and I buy into the notion that it stimulates more muscle growth and fat loss by challenging my body with different exercises every time.

With that, it's time to get ready for bed. Another week of 5AM workouts starts tomorrow, with another grueling interval workout. Turns out I misread the last one, and did eight sets of the same exercise. Even though I wrote these workouts, "DB Thrusters" can look a lot like "DB Snatches" without careful reading.

Diet Hard

So yesterday was the rescheduled rest day. And I know I need rest days. Everyone needs at least a day to recover. It helps you come back stronger.

The downside to rest days, however, is that you're not burning as many calories as you do the rest of the werek. Because you're resting. Yet you're used to eating a certain amount of calories each day, and it's not so easy to scale back on your rest days. Calories can creep up on you, and before you know it you're down to a thousand calories with dinner and dessert to go.

No problem, you say, just have a light dinner. This is where real life gets in the way.

Thursday was Thanksgiving, so that's just out the window. Didn't even try to count calories for that mess. Even with the five-mile Turkey Trot, I knew I blew my budget.

But Friday was date night with the missus, and we simply had to try the new steakhouse that was opened by the sister of an old high school friend. And when they said they had New York Cheesecake for dessert, we just had to try it.

This is how diets fail.

The only thing you can do with a defeat is learn from it. I learned that I still need to exercise, even on rest days. And I did, burning about 500 calories in an easy bike ride with the 20-lb. vest on. But on rest days you have to watch your calories even more closely, because you'll have fewer in your budget.

And I'm learning that certain foods are just anathema to a diet. Like biscuits. 180-odd calories in each, and you can eat three without even knowing it. Hell, they come in packs of eight, and it's not like you can bake just one!

Another diet killer is American cheese. 100 calories in a slice, if LoseIt is to be believed. That grilled cheese sammich you had for lunch put you in a deep hole for the rest of the day.

But today I'm back on the schedule, and if I can watch my intake during the Notre Dame-Stanford game tonight, I should be okay today.

Thankful

Started Thanksgiving off with a 5-mile Turkey Trot. Kept pace with my 15-year-old cousin, who was running her first race that distance. So not a particularly intense run, but five miles is five miles.

Of course, then I proceeded to eat so much that evening that I couldn't log it all if I tried. Oh well, one day off the wagon isn't so bad. Fortunately we didn't bring home many leftovers, so I can get back on track today.

Getting the Thrust

Wednesday is supposed to be my rest day. Active rest, but rest. Sunday through Tuesday I Run, Lift, Run; Thursday through Saturday it's Lift, Run, Lift. Three days each of lifting and running, and one day of recovery. A prudent schedule, if a bit heavy.

And Wednesday's a good day to rest. On the weekends I have plenty of time to workout and nap as needed. But during the week time is tight, and by Wednesday I need a morning to sleep in or catch up after an inevitable late night. So I definitely should stick to the schedule and rest on Wednesdays.

But the success of any schedule rests in knowing when to depart from it. This week I have the traditional Turkey Trot 5-miler on Thursday, i.e., Thanksgiving. Then I've got three days off from work. So it made sense to skip the Wednesday rest and lift, then run on Thursday, and then take Friday off to get in an important recovery day as soon as possible.

But when you vary the schedule, it's harder to adhere to the variance. And that little bit of hesitation is the difference between getting up at 5:00 to workout or getting up at 5:45 and vowing to workout sometime later in the day. Guess which I did?

The punch line is that not until 8:00 tonight did I get to do my first interval workout. And it kicked my can, just in time for a 5-mile morning run.

The workout was eight two-minute sets, one minute intense and the next minute easy, though not totally resting. The intense minute was DB thrusters; hold a 30-pound dumbbell in each hand at the shoulder, then squat and come up fast enough to push the DBs straight overhead like a military press.

It's a surprisingly difficult exercise. You're not really pressing the DBs overhead; the explosive movement from the legs should do that. But you have to really work your arms, shoulders and core just to stabilize the DBs. And maybe 30 pounds was too heavy to do eight one-minute sets, but those are the weights I have. Got a great deal on them off of Craigslist, like $35 for the pair.

So I started, and the first set I cranked out 25 reps. Then did a minute of jumping jacks, then back to the thrusters. And proceeded to struggle to get fifteen each consecutive set. Some sets I don't think I got more than 12 reps. When I couldn't go on I at least tried to keep the DBs at my shoulders, and I never dropped them before time ran out. But it's fair to say I was worn out really early, and sixteen minutes never seemed so long. I was most worried I'd drop the weights on my foot or my wife's car; working out alone in your garage is not without its dangers.

But I did the workout, burned the calories, and for the rest of the year that's what counts. Once I'm in shape there'll be plenty of time to practice rope climbing and cliffhanging. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to rest up for the Turkey Trot.

Slow Going

Running day today. Did my four miles, though the time was unusually slow. Chalk it up to stopping at too many intersections; it was pitch dark out and I was about as reflective as a ninja on the roads, so I was a little more cautious than usual.

But the important thing here isn't so much the time as the effort. These runs are about fat loss foremost. I'm not racing anytime soon. The Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving will be just for the exercise; I'm in no shape to run fast anyway. As long as I keep at the workouts and eat right, things should go well.

Speaking of which, LoseIt! is becoming addictive. My favorite calorie-counting app has the ability to scan a barcode and instantly enter that particular item. It doesn't recognize every bar code, which makes me wonder what directory it's getting its information from in the first place. But it has made it easier to log some foods, and more interesting to log all of them.

Tomorrow's supposed to be a rest day. But with a 5-miler coming on Thanksgiving I think I'll power through my first interval workout tomorrow and put off rest until Friday.

O-Dark-Thirty

First day of "workouts" is in the books. And it went as well as could be expected.

Started with getting to bed before 10:00 pm, so I could actually get up at 5:00. I was working out by 5:45, thanks to two things: forcing myself to throw on the workout gear, so I was actually warm enough to even contemplate a warm-up jog; and downing my pre-workout beverage of eight ounces of iced coffee and two scoops of whey powder.

Here's the first day's workout:
1 mile warmup
Circuit (one set after the other, no rest in-between):

     20 Squat Jumps
     20 One-Arm Rope Rows
     20 Rowers
     20 Spiderman Pushups
     20 Bodyweight Squats
     20 Pullups
     20 Bicycle Crunches
     20 Pushups
1-mile run
Then repeat the circuit one more time

I was supposed to do a mile cooldown, but ran out of time before my duties as husband and daddy took over. Downed another serving of coffee-and-whey, though, and now I feel great.

The point of the workouts in this six-week First Stage isn't so much to train for specific ANW challenges, but to get myself in shape to train for those challenges. The exercises have some relation to ANW -- I'll do rope work and plyometrics of some kind in every workout. But my aim is to keep moving for forty minutes and to change things up every time, playing on the P90X idea that "muscle confusion" stimulates muscle growth and fat loss.

Getting Down

Brihgt and early this unseasonably warm Sunday morning, I started (or restarted) training for ANW. The fact that I learned yesterday that there probably won't be another Sasuke tournament to qualify for is not, for the moment, derailing me. In fact, it's good to have such a sobering thought before starting on this quest. Hear news like that three weeks in, and you're tempted to take a break from training. And as anyone who's ever been in a relationship knows, taking a break means breaking up.

So I started nice and easy, with a six-mile run. The hard part today, though -- and this will only get harder -- is the dieting part.

See, my goal for First Stage is primarily to slim down to what I've decided is an appropriate weight for cliffhanging and spider jumping. So I've had to take a long, hard look at myself (boy, that came out wrong) and determine what needs to change.

So last night I took my weight and body fat using the Tanita scale. I waited two hours after last eating and made sure I was plenty hydrated. The results? 209.4 lbs., 12.5% body fat. Not too shabby for your typical fortysomething dad. But such men never reach the buzzer on the First Stage. I know this, because Sasuke's full of jokers like that, guys who are in it to wipe out. I ain't goin' out like that.

I'd like to get to 8% body fat. If my calculations are correct, that would mean losing ten pounds of body fat. My experience with calorie-counting, though, tells me that I can't reliably lose more than a pound a week for any sustained period. If that holds, then I'll lose six pounds by the end of the First Stage, which will put me at about 9.5% body fat. 

I count calories using LoseIt!, a website with a companion iPhone app. There's plenty of these on the market, but this one's good enough -- and free, if I recall. You set up your stats and goal, and it tells you how much you can eat each day net, after factoring in your workouts. And that's my one saving grace. It might prove that, by working out six days a week, I can burn more than 3500 calories (1 pound) a week. Whether that's the case, I certainly couldn't do it without the app.

So how do you lose a pound a week of just body fat? Near as I can tell, you reduce your carbs and increase your protein intake. But you still need to eat enough carbs to fuel your body, especially if you're working out. I don't trust any diet that wants you to eliminate or radically reduce your carbs, or any other element of a balanced diet, for that matter.

So how will I do it? Protein First is the mantra. Internet consensus appears to be that you need as many grams of protein in a day as you weigh in pounds to maintain or gain muscle while losing fat. So I'll shoot for at least 150 grams of protein a day. If I hit that, then everything else can be the usual mix of grains, fruits, and veggies.

This is far from scientific, I know. But I'm far from a scientist. This is a crude but usable approach, so I'm going to use it.

And after lunch on Sunday, I've got to say it's so far, so good.

Heading to Alderaan

So I was all set to start tomorrow on the first stage of my training for the fonldy-anticipated ANW tryouts this spring, when I read that the producers of Sasuke are bankrupt.

Now, nobody ever promised us another season of ANW, or Sasuke. In fact, G4's said nothing to indicate what, if anything, will happen with ANW in 2012. I chose to believe that it would happen, but this sure makes the whole thing look doubtful. Apparently there's another big deadline or decision day December 16, so it doesn't look like there'll be any news until then at the earliest. But right now it doesn't at all look good for ANW as we knew it.

So what should I do? Start training, of course. I always knew that this could be for naught. But if nine weeks from now my body fat's down below ten percent and I'm fit enough to complete all these workouts I've planned, then it'll all have been worth it.

And if I find that there definitively is no ANW to train for? Fortunately, there's other challenges. I did Metro Dash last spring, and it was a blast. There's also a seemingly infinite variety of mud runs and obstacle course races, from Tough Mudder to Spartan Race to the zombie-themed Race For Your Life. If you're fit enough for ANW and regularly run, then you're fit enough for any of these races.

So tomorrow we start our journey, and hope that Alderaan will still be there when we come out of hyperspace.

Type A

Took days of brainstorming and a couple of hours tonight, but I now have every workout planned for the next six weeks, right through New Year's Day.

I'll figure out a good place to post the workouts. But I've got eighteen pages of unique circuit or interval workouts and a separate page with another eighteen days of running. Add six days of rest, and that's every day planned for the rest of the year.

Either this is a brilliant way of marching me down to new levels of fitness or it's insane. Part of me suspects that I enjoy the laborious tabulation and formatting in Excel of each workout as much as I enjoy the workouts themselves. No matter, we're going to give this a shot.

Looking at this schedule and knowing my life, there's no way I can do this if I don't work out from 6-7am. This will be tough, because I hate working out in the cold and dark, and where I live that's all we have at that time of day. On the bright side, if I can get this done I'll undoubtedly be in great shape.

Now I have no excuse not to plot out the social media schedule. I expect that I'll have to start putting this project out there Sunday, when I start the workouts. So Friday's devoted to the media aspect, getting this whole thing truly live in 48 hours. Details to follow.

Not-So-Short Circuit

The First Stage workouts are taking shape.

For six long weeks -- right up to Christmas -- I'll work out six days a week. Three days a week will be in the gym, alternating between circuit and interval workouts. Three days will be running varying distances, with maybe an interval day here and there.

I have a nasty habit of overthinking things, but I do believe that planning out workouts to the day will help keep me honest. So now I have to compose, in all, nine circuit workouts, nine intervals, and eighteen days of running.

Why not just do the same circuit and interval workouts each time? Because workouts get stale fast, and six weeks is a long time for me to do any one workout. Plus, I've got enough exercises to do that I can afford to change it up every time.

Circuits

Consensus seems to support doing a circuit of 3-12 exercises, take 10 minutes for active rest, then come back for another. Not that you can't do it other ways; this just looks like it will burn the fat and give me enough opportunity to work the ANW-related skills and strengths. So for each circuit day I'll choose a few from each of the following four groups, arrange them to alternate muscle groups, and do that a couple of times each day. I've arranged the exercises within each group from most to least intense, so I don't kill myself in any given day.

Pushing Exercises

Handstand Pushups

One-Arm Pushups

Wall Pushups

Plyometric Pushups

Hindu Pushups

Pushups

Pulling Exercises

Rope Climb

Plyometric Pullups

Prone Rope Climb

Fingertip Pullups

Rope Pullups

One-Arm Rope Rows

Pullups Core Exercises Dragon Flags Wall Plank Leg Raises Situps Crunches Leg Exercises Pistols King Deadlifts Depth Jumps Box Jumps Sideways Squat Jumps Squat Jumps Bodyweight Squats

Sure, exercises will repeat, but no two circuits will ever be alike.

Intervals


The difference between circuits and intervals is that the latter involve fewer exercises that use more of the whole body, with intervals of intense exercise and rest. Tabata's a version of interval training I might try during this stage, particularly since a Japanese guy popularized it. Speaking of which, when was the last time you read about an exercise idea that wasn't pioneered by the Soviets?

Anyway, on interval days I'll alternate between a few of the following exercises.

Rope Burpees
Pullup Burpees
Burpees
Rim Jumps
DB Thrusters
DB Snatches


Everybody knows what a burpee is, right? Rope burpees merely end in a jump up onto the rope for a quick pullup. And after that explanation, I'm pretty sure you get the idea behind pullup burpees.

Tomorrow night I'll try to pick a little from Column A, a little from Column B, and put together all the workouts for the next six weeks. Then it's on to the media stuff.

Firsto Stagee

Okay, This Sunday everything starts for real. Over the past few months I've tried out some ideas on how to train for ANW. Some looked promising, some didn't pan out. This week I'm taking all that I've learned and putting it into a new approach for the final few months before, I hope, G4 sends out another casting call.

I figure that we'll need to have a video done sometime in April, if only because that's when it was due last year. That gives me 19 weeks between the week of November 20 and the end of March. Nineteen weeks to complete the transformation to Japanese game-show contestant.

Of course, we'll break the training into four stages. First Stage will run six weeks, through the end of the year, and focus on fat loss and endurance. Right now I'm around 12% body fat, though I've never been confident in my measurements. But I have a Tanita body fat scale, so I'm just going to have to find a regular time to use it and take weekly measurements. The training in this period will involve running three days a week, circuits three days a week, and one day of "active rest." It'll be a challenge to devise circuits that will burn fat, train ANW-specific skills and strengths, and stay fresh for six weeks.

Second Stage will be strength building. I won't be much lower than 200 pounds come spring, so I need to turn that to an advantage by being as strong as possible. That'll be hard to do in the home gym with few weights. But hey, I have a 40-pound vest, so if I do enough rope climbs and box jumps with it I should get pretty strong.

Third Stage will be ANW-specific skills. To the extent that I'll ever build obstacles, I'll do it here. Part of me thinks that if I just climb the darn rope I've got in the garage gym I'll be ready for anything. But I've toyed with ways of replicating the cliffhanger, so I may play around with a few ideas.

Final Stage is producing the video. I should be able to take some skills from Third Stage and do them well enough to video. And of course, by then I should have enough stuff from the media side of this project to make a winning video.

Ah yes, the media stuff. Need to schedule all that, too, or it'll never get done. So what am I doing here on the blog?

The Social Network

So now I've got a Facebook page for The Warped Wall. Would've liked to roll it out with some more new content, but it's probably just as well to have a placeholder out there right now. It's an incentive to get started on the next phase.

Lots of planning to be done here. Figure I've got through March 2012 to prove myself worthy of a spot on ANW, physically and... telegenically, I guess. So I need to sit down and plot out a schedule not just for the next four months or so of training, but of social media stuff as well.

Makes sense, though I've never done it before. With this blog I just figured I'd stop here sometime every day and blog whatever inspired me. Obviously, I need a little more structure and focus to turn out something worthwhile on a regular basis.

But the Facebook page's a start. Or rather, an impetus. Or a pretext? I need to eat.

Re-evaluating

Been a long time since I updated here. I've been working out pretty regularly, and have started incorporating serious plyometrics into my workouts. And every time I've worked out, I've wanted to update the blog about what's been happening, what I've been learning. Heck, I made two plyo boxes; I've got expertise to share!

But updating the blog with a 500-word entry each day hasn't been feasible. And with the new year approaching (and once Halloween hits, the new year is approaching very quickly) I've got to seriously reevaluate my media approach here.

The point of this blog, of all my online activity, was to both inspire my training and make myself a better candidate for ANW through their video submission. And a sporadic blog just isn't going to do it. So I've got to figure out a way to make the online content a better compliment to the training, a better resource for fellow ANW fans, and a better source for my own submission.

So let's back up. The online content has several possible elements:
1. Blog
2. Podcast
3. YouTube videos
4. Twitter feed
5. Facebook page

What I need to reevaluate is what you do with each element and how often.

I still think that the blog is the best place for daily updates. But of what? A recap of the training isn't necessarily valuable to anyone. But there should be some lesson learned in every session, something from which everyone could benefit. It can also be a good place for discussions of whatever's come across my Google news feed. For example, a few days ago there was an article out of Malaysia about their own version of Sasuke. The moment's passed, but that's the kind of stuff you'd post. And the posts needn't be longer than a hundred words, short and punchy. A training tip, a bit of news, that's all folks want or need. And with my schedule, that's all I can reliably produce.

Next element I want is a podcast. I've run one before but never been regular with it. I've always found that it takes too much time to crank out an episode. That's probably because I insist on writing each episode word-for-word and they run about ten minutes long each. Also, I've never been familiar enough with GarageBand to make production smooth each time. So hopefully I learned something from my previous podcast, and can use that to streamline the process.

But what goes into the podcast? Commentary. Observations about ANW and training for it that aren't necessarily tied to whatever I'm doing in training that week, but are basically timeless. And yes, I'm contemplating the podcast coming out weekly; I can't imagine having the time for any greater frequency.

I envision it like the NPR podcast The Score. It's a weekly podcast that can't be more than five minutes, which I know works out to about a thousand words. And if it's going to be "evergreen" content, I could probably outline a few months' worth of topics up-front, and hopefully thus get a jump on scripting each episode.

Then there's YouTube videos. These also wouldn't be necessarily timely, but would be valuable instructionals folks could turn to any time. A video on how to build a plyo box would be a good idea, for example. Another video illustrating exercises on the rope would also help. Of course, there's some videos out there that do this already. But a voice-over tying the training to the Sasuke obstacles would make them more appealing to my target audience.

And the videos might come out no more than once a month. It's exponentially tougher to produce video than it is a podcast. Heck, I'm not even sure I could produce a decent video without at least giving my garage a new coat of paint!

Twitter and Facebook seem like they should be a part of anyone's online strategy. But what would a Twitter feed be good for in this case? What Twitter's good for generally: timely, brief messages. Quick comments about the workout. Instant updates about the audition process -- assuming, of course, that there is a next season of ANW.

A Facebook page would be a good place to aggregate all content. The twitter feed, podcast, blog entries, and YouTube videos could all link there, in one convenient spot for any followers on Facebook. Of course, you could probably do the same things on the blog page, and perhaps I should. But Facebook is a built-in audience, your friends your first network of viewers/readers/listeners. So it makes sense to bring all your content there and point elsewhere.

This is clearly going to require some serious time management. But I think I have a pretty good idea of what I want to get done over the next six months or so.

Rope Squats Do Squat

Almost through the second cycle of "undulating periodisation," where workouts move from high-rep/low-weight to low-rep/high-weight through roughly two weeks.

I've been able to raise the stakes a bit with the recent addition of a 40-pound weight vest -- and BTW, I will never buy fitness equipment again without first searching craigslist thoroughly. Got that vest brand-new, out-of-the-box for $65. You'd pay twice that at Dick's. This has been an especial help in the lower-body exercises; it's very hard to build leg muscles with just bodyweight exercises, I find.

One thing I've learned is that one of my invented exercises, "rope squats," has got to go. I wanted to practice using my legs in rope climbs, since many contestants on Ninja Warrior seem to forget to use their legs on the final stage. And there's a reliable technique for locking the rope with your feet and then squatting up to advance yourself, so you don't have to rely exclusively on your already-tired arms. So how did it go?

Well, I've mastered the lock. I can jump onto a rope and whip that rope around my leg in a flash. And I can press up from that lock, then grab and hike my legs up to a higher position on the rope. But as for doing reps of squats from that position? A waste of time.

First off, when you do reps in that position you get serious rope burn on your leg with each rep. I work out in shorts, but I wouldn't want to see what this exercise would do to any pair of sweatpants.

Second, anytime I do exercises hanging from the rope I involuntarily rotate, something like Foucault's Pendulum, for those of you who read too much. But when that happens during these "rope squats," I spend so much time trying to steady myself that there's little time to focus on lifting with the legs. Basically, I'm using my arms more than I would be in an actual rope climb!

Third, there isn't much point to the exercise. Once you know how to lock the rope with your feet, there's not much more to practice in lower-body technique. I dont' even think that your legs could get tired in a 50-foot rope climb, at least no more than in climbing a 50-foot flight of stairs or a 50-foot ladder.

The challenge is that in this kind of workout, where you need four different exercises for upper-and lower-body, I'm now stuck for a lower-body exercise in the appropriate range. PArt of me thinks that it's time to man up and buy some decent plyo boxes. Jumping, vertically and horizontally, is the real valuable lower-body skill for Ninja Warrior, and there's no better way to improve jumping than with plyometrics. But decent plyo boxes can easily run you $100 each, even for lower heights. So I may first invest in that plyometrics book whose name and author I can't remember now (is it linked on the blog page? It will be) and see what he's got that doesn't involve plyo boxes. Then I'll ask Santa for a couple of additions to the home gym. But not before I check Craigslist.

Legless

Not like I don't have stuff I want to write after each workout -- and I have been working out every day, according to schedule. It's just that I'm too used to Twitter- and Facebook-length posts; the blog is too much effort!

Been a good week since my last post. Finished this two-week cycle of undulating periodisation with lower and upper-body workouts on Tuesday and Wednesday. Did six sets of three reps for two exercises each day, and was really feeling it. Tuesday I revisited pistol squats, my old nemesis. I know I've got the leg strength to do a one-legged squat, but for whatever reason I can't get low without falling back on my behind. I suspect that I'm just not flexible enough in the ankles to get my center of gravity forward enough. In the past, I've compensated by either doing rockup pistols, where you intentionally roll backward to your shoulders, then roll forward and swing up on the plant leg. But today I was happy to see that I could get through the sets by holding a 25-pound plate in front of me. It moves my center of gravity enough to save my balance, but also adds 25 pounds to the squat and looks tougher. God knows how that guy on beastskills.com does it with two kettlebells over his shoulders!

The other leg exercise Tuesday was King Deadlifts with the 20-pound vest and the 30-pound DBs. Meh. I do it to hit the other leg muscles, whether you call it Hamstrings or Knee-Dominant or Hip-Dominant I forget. I'm just not thrilled with most bodyweight exercises for legs. Not with only a 20-pound vest, anyway, but more about that below.

Wednesday I did legless climbs, followed by one-arm pushups. My arms are still sore from the climbs, but the soreness only confirms that they're a fantastic exercise, and that I really need to do more challenging rope exercises to prepare for ANW. The limit of my garage ceiling meant that for each rep I'd start sitting on the floor, then raise my feet and pull myself off the floor with just my hands. Then I'd get five hand-over-hand reaches before I reached the top of the rope, then I'd just drop down; doubt I had the strength to climb down as well. Blistered up my hands, even with the invaluable receiver gloves.

Felt great to get back into one-arm pushups, too. I'd laid off them for a long time after a nagging shoulder injury, but aside from some negligible tweaks I felt great afterwards. And sure, I did them with my legs spread wide apart, but for the first time through the workout I'll take that.

Speaking of which, where do I go from here? I liked the exercises I did in this cycle, and feel that another go-round could show some improvement. But I just purchased a 40-pound weight vest, so I could start a cycle of intensification, where you do the same sets and reps as last go-round but with increasing weight each set.

Or I could train for the FitBrawl Online competition. Basically, they post a bunch of challenges, like most pushups in two minutes or fastest time for 50 thrusters with 30-pound DBs, and you record yourself doing them and post them, thus virtually competing with other fitness freaks around the 'Net. I think that I might take the next two days off, then on Sunday spend a week doing the FitBrawl challenges, then return to the periodisation workouts.

Running's been going well, too. Did five miles on Monday and three miles today. Sunday I'll probably try to do six or seven. Would've done five today, but it's so tough getting up for the fourth day in the row to workout in the dark I compromised.

BTW, my new secret weapon for pre-dawn workouts is 16 ounces of iced coffee with two scoops of whey protein. Thirty minutes later I'm ready to wrestle an alligator.

On The Ropes

Three days in, and already I'm modifying the latest workout.

The pattern was Upper Body-Lower Body-Rest/Run. But Tuesday's four-miler and the subsequent up-and-down-stairs-related pain told me that I couldn't continue following up a lower body day with a run. So Wednesday I switched things, and did the next lower body workout. 

Today I'll do upper body; I was going to sneak in an easy couple of miles in the pre-dawn hours, but the rain and some last-minute work persuaded me otherwise. Tomorrow, Friday, I'll do my "long run," which might be no more than six miles. I'm ready mentally to start running longer again, and my Achilles tendons feel fine; at least they didn't hurt going up and down staris. But overdoing it is how I got here, so I'll probably force myself to be content with six miles.

Yesterday's "lower body" workout seemed as much for my grip as my legs. First was 5x8 of depth jumps to a rope with a 20 lb. vest on. Well, the first set I did without the vest, partly because I forgot to put on the vest and partly because I wasn't sure about this new exercise. Worked up a sweat plenty, and I was surprised how high up on the rope I was reaching. But I'm not sore after the workout, so I'm not sure if I'm pushing hard enough. Perhaps I'll chalk this four-week period up to adaptation to the rope, and next month I'll switch to some more intense muscle-building stuff.

Next I did Swiss Ball leg curls, which were a joke. Not sure how to exercise my hammies with limited bodyweight resources.

Finished off with 50 situps -- with nothing holding my feet. Only this summer did I realize that people actually do situps without hooking their feet under anything. I still can't do them well -- there'd be lots of doovers if I were doing them in the Army -- but I do believe in them as an intense ab exercise, so I'll stick with them for now.

I Got Blisters On My Fingers

Back from vacation, and ready to resume training.

Of course, since my last post the current season of American Ninja Warrior has ended. Now that it's all over, I feel more like I could start up a podcast about my training. Might be a good time to capitalize on the interest in ANW. We'll see if I can overcome my technical obstacles -- which really aren't that significant, since I've already run one podcast for a few years.

But today's about training. I suspect that I might continue my training in 4- to 6-week increments, changing my training entirely each period. For one, I keep changing my mind on how best to train for the obstacles without actual replicas of the course in my backyard. Not that such an approach has helped anyone else win, but that's another matter.

I also think that I need to change things up every so often to keep my body from adapting and plateauing. For example, I doubt that I can make any more gains by just cranking out pullups until my arms fall out of their sockets. I've been doing pullups for years without much variation, and I've topped out at about 18 reps. So a little change-up might spur me on to the next level.

Also, I know have a brand-new training implement, my 10-foot climbing rope, and I'm eager to build a workout around this new toy. It's the closest thing I have to a course-specific training device, so it's time to get acquainted.

I've been reading about periodization, the method for promoting strength gains by varying the sets, reps, and weights over individual workouts, weeks, and months. I've found a great article at ampedtraining.com about "undulating periodization," where you vary sets and reps from workout to workout. I'll link the article on the sidebar, but basically the approach I'll be trying will run for four weeks.

I'll also update the calendar, but the workout will involve two days of working out, first upper- then lower-body, followed by one day of running/rest, for four weeks. The first pair of workouts will be highest reps and lowest intensity, typically 4 sets of 12 for a couple of critical exercises. The next three pairs of workouts -- that takes me through twelve days -- increases the intensity and number of sets while reducing the reps per set.

I started this workout yesterday, Sunday 9/4/11, with the first upper-body workout. Today I did the first lower-body workout. How's it going?

Sunday's workout was all about the rope. Well, it was only one rope exercise, based on a video I found on YouTube. I'll see if I can link it, but you can just search for "rope climbing exercises" and look for the clip with the bald German. The exercise I did was what I call "Prone Climb to Standing." Like the name says, you start flat on your back and pull yourself up the rope to standing, then lower yourself back to the floor.

I planned 4 sets of 12 up-and-down. Midway through the second set I'd ripped a nice chunk of skin off of one finger, and had blisters on most of the others. I applied medical tape and threw on some weight gloves, but they didn't do much. Think next time I'll dig up my old football receiver gloves. Anyway, for the third set I just climbed up and sat myself back down, and by the fourth set I quit after just four reps. I wasn't sore the next day, but forty reps of picking myself up exhausted me plenty.

The other exercise was Spiderman pushups, where you bring alternating knees to elbows with each lowering. Four sets of twelve was challenging, but really too easy with just bodyweight. Think next time I'll put my feet up the wall, like I used to do pushups, but keep doing the Spiderman move. Anything I can do to add unilateral, asymmetrical moves seems better prep for ANW. That another reason to get into rope work rather than plain ol' pullups.

I just did three exercises, the last being 60 seconds of plank with my feet up the wall. I'm hoping that the other exercises are doing enough core work that I need only do one more exercise.

Today was lower body. Not sure how that'll affect running tomorrow, but I learn best by making mistakes. I started with 4x12 of box jumps, onto my 18" bench, with a 20 lb. vest on. They were pretty easy, which has me thinking again about splurging for a nice, proper 30" plyometric box. Followed that up with lunges, again with the vest on. The first two sets -- 12 lunges per leg -- went fine, but soon as I started the third set my leg twinged from soreness. Had to move a little slower, but I was surprised that something as innocuous as lunges could be so tough. Might add some dumbbells next time.

Finished up with 50 bicycle crunches. That's 50 per side alternating, if there's any ambiguity about this exercise. Read someplace on line that it's one of the best ab exercises out there.

So at the very least, I'll get stronger on the rope and enjoy a break from conventional bodyweight exercises. And after laying off running for a couple of weeks my achilles tendons are feeling much better all the time, so I'm resuming running. Might even do the Cow Harbor 10K, just for fun.

Fun While It Lasted

Got an e-mail Wednesday that FitBrawl, the obstacle-course race that was supposed to inspire me through the next month until I could get my training schedule back on track, has been cancelled. Seems they couldn't get enough people to sign up.

I'm really not surprised. That Brawler workout was a bear, and I'm sure that most people couldn't complete that at all and that many who could wouldn't want to. I mean, I would've jumped at the chance to compete, but I'm nuts enough to spend a year trying to get ready for Ninja Warrior. But I can understand how people would rather roll around in the mud than do 50 burpees in a row.

So now what? Now I go on vacation for about two weeks. Plenty of time to rethink the training schedule, and to rest up my achilles tendons for a fall of running. And the brief experience with FitBrawl has taught me some valuable lessons about this training I've undertaken.

First, it helps to have goals. And yes, I've always had the overall goal of getting onto Ninja Warrior. But it also helps to have short-term goals, like a month out. FitBrawl was just that for me, and it got me moving when I didn't feel motivated. So know I need to invent goals every month, even if they're arbitrary things like 20 pullups or 100 pushups. Better yet, I should find more races like FitBrawl, even if they do involve wallowing in mud, because anything I can do to make this part of my life a more social endeavor is well worth it.

Second, some parts of the Brawler probably would be good to incorporate into Ninja Warrior training. You often hear competitors at Ninja Warrior complain about the cardio demands of that two-minute course. After trying to do 50 burpees in a row, I think I know what they're talking about. It's not like a two-minute sprint, but the cardio toll that a full-body workotu takes on you. I felt the same thing at Metro Dash; about two minutes in, while flipping the tire, I hit the wall -- the metaphorical one. So it'd be good to develop that raw cardio stamina, but how? Doing 50 burpees would be a start. Maybe do 2-minute sets of burpees and see how many I can get done. Maybe adding a pullup to the burpees would better simulate the total-body demands of Ninja Warrior. Could be fun for a month or so.

And now that I've got two 30-pound dumbbells -- bought second-hand from craigslist at half-price (score!) -- which I used for the FitBrawl Thrusters, I can incorporate them into my workouts and add a little variety. For example, they might actually make pistol squats easier, having that heavier easier-to-handle weight as a counterbalance.

So now I have two weeks to maintain and plan for the next segment. We'll still do endurance training, but I'm going to devise some end-of-stage goal, either a race or a rep test of some kind. Take something from every experience and use it.

And at some point I'm going to both review this season of ANW and start a podcast. Got to get the operation simpler and easier to crank out episode and I should be all set. All I need is a little time. See you all in two weeks.

Recalled to Life

I knew it had been a long time since I'd posted, but even I was embarrassed to see that my last post had been over two weeks ago.

There are reasons for my absence, but no excuse. I spent most of that first week in August at GenCon, the nerdiest gathering on the planet. And while I did run the "Orc Stomp 5K" while out there, there was very little else that involved actual physical exertion. Unless you count the steak dinner Friday night; that was a workout.

The other hitch in my training was the family vacation coming up August 20-31. I always knew that I'd have to suspend my training for that fortnight, but I never knew how I'd negotiate that pause. Would I do some other workout, and if so, what? Hard to get motivated when you expressly disavow your fitness goal. even temporarily.

Plus, I finally admitted that I had to shut down the running until my achilles tendonitis subsided. I seem to quit running every August, though the past two years it's been especially bad. I suspect that the 19:48 I ran in a 5K on Memorial Day 2010 was the last race I ever really wanted to run, so you can imagine it's been hard to do any hard running workouts since then.

But I've figured out a way through this vacation period that recharges the batteries and deals with the suspension of running: FitBrawl.

FitBrawl is the latest of this slew of obstacle-course races that have become the latest fitness fad. These races can involve little or no running but all involve a series of obstacles kind of like Ninja Warrior. Maybe more emphasis on strength than explosive power and raw grip strength as you find in Sasuke. But still, they're a lot more fun than another 10K. I did the MetroDash this summer in New York (the Meadowlands, actually) and medaled in my age group, which was about as well as I exepcted to do. I've been looking for another to do, but wasn't really into the mud crawls that seem to dominate the obstacle-course schedule.

FitBrawl seems to fit the bill. About a thousand yards of running and a dozen obstacles or so seems right up my alley. But the real plus is that it lends itself to a training regimen that'll get me over this hump.

The race is September 17 -- the date of the annual 10K around my hometown that I really never want to do again -- so I've got a little over a month to train. And one of the obstacles, "The Brawler," is a straight-up workout set as follows:

50 Pushups
50 Thrusters, basically squats with an overhead press of 30-lb. dumbells
50 Renegade Rows, where you get into plank position with the DBs and raise each to your chest -- one at a time
50 Burpees, with a pushup at the bottom and a jump at the end
50 Situps, with NO ONE and NOTHING holding your feet down!

That last one seems like a cruel joke, but this set of 250 reps figures to be a perfect diversion in my workouts until I get back to the rope work this fall.

I tried the Brawler this past Friday, and it took me 44 minutes and change to finish. They penalize you 10 seconds for every missed rep, so I would've had a faster time if I hadn't done a rep and they'd just penalized me all 2500 seconds. But Sunday I tried it again and finished in about 24 minutes, then again yesterday I finished in 22 and change. So the time is coming down, to the point where I may do two circuits for a workout. I figure if I can do this routine I'll be in pretty good shape, and the exercises are new enough to me that I can feel the soreness that comes from a new stress. Now all I have to do is pay the hefty fee to run the race.

And I do mean to blog about the new season of ANW. Heck, I meant to do a podcast about it,
but it doesn't look like there's much point in that now. Maybe after the season's over entirely I'll get back to it, when there's no point in trying to be timely. For now, I can focus on FitBrawl and plan for the next phase of Ninja Warrior training.

Does Watching TV Count as Training?

I hope so, 'cause real training has been spotty the past couple of days.

Did my long run (10 miles) Saturday morning, and ended up walking the last 1.5. I have an arsenal of excuses -- didn't get to bed Friday night 'til one, didn't get enough sleep, by the time I started running the sun was too strong, and my tendonitis is still bothering me. Might shut it down entirely this week to recuperate. I do have a 5K fun run Saturday morning, and that might be all for the week.

But who cares about training this week? American Ninja Warrior premiered for two hours Sunday night! I have tons to say about the two episodes that aired, and right now I intend to say it all in a podcast that I hope to inaugurate tonight. If and when it goes up, I'll be sure to alert the media.

It occurs to me that now would be a good time to get onto the message boards over at G4, to see what everyone else is saying before I open my yap. Also, it can't hurt to get into a community of some sort while I'm doing this training.

Phase One

Today was the last day of the first phase of my bodyweight workouts. Next week will be a recovery week, though I'm not sure what that means for actual workouts. I'll probably do one of Craig Ballantyne's Bodyweight 250/350/500 workouts; they're a fun challenge and a break from what was becoming a less interesting routine.

Which is not to say I wasn't making progress. I definitely moved through each workout faster and faster each week, and through it wasn't easy to measure my progress there were some noticeable gains. The one that really stands out is the Elevated Wall Planks, where my feet press against a wall while I hold a pushup position. I was able to do that today for three sets of :60, :50 (bad hand position) and :60. Not exactly the Body Prop, but it's a start.

Not sure what I'll do in the next phase. In fact, I might extend this phase another week since I'm going out of town next week -- for GenCon, which is ComicCon's even nerdier cousin. But whenever it starts, the next phase will be more endurance work, and it will involve my shiny new manila climbing rope as much as possible.

Took a look at G4's latest videos, my first look at this year's American Ninja Warrior qualifying course. My first reaction was that the course seems much easier than last year. Sure there's still the Bridge of Blades and Warped Wall, but the Spider Walk's been replaced by the Jump Hang and the Rope Swing's replaced by the Log Grip. Of course, if the course is easier to complete than the trick will be to get through it as quickly as possible.

And I'm sure that plenty of those clowns trying out will wipe out on the first obstacle, the Quad Steps. I could mock the less serious contestants, but part of me thinks that they've got the right attitude, at least for Gameday. Keep loose, have fun, and don't take yourself too seriously. Obviously, since I'm blogging about my training, I have some work to do in that regard.

Interesting to hear that the Warped Wall is only 14 feet tall. Sure, that's 4 feet taller than the basketball hoop on which I have never dunked. But a 6-foot guy reaches to 8 feet just standing up, so if you can run four feet up the wall you just need to be able to jump 24 inches from a running start. Hey, if a fisherman can do it, so can I.

My Achilles Heel. Seriously.

For the past month I've had pain in both heels, which just last week the ortho diagnosed as plain ol' tendonitis. Could've been worse, but for some reason it's really been acting up this week, and today I had to beg off my track workout and run instead.

Turns out the problem could be related to me being inflexible in my ankles, so now I'm stretching like mad not just to get over this tendonitis but also to get flexible enough to do pistol squats down the road.

In good news, I'm down to 209 lbs., 9.5% body fat. Those are great results for three weeks of somewhat consistent dieting, but I'm still skeptical about the body fat scale. Some of that's just me; I can't accept success when it's this easy. But I do believe that I'm moving in the right direction, however far I've gone, so this is encouraging.

Plenty of Ninja Warrior stuff online as Sunday's 9 PM premiere approaches. The Washington Post has an article about two gyms in the DC area that cater to obstacle-course enthusiasts, one of which is holding a 3-hour seminar with ANW veteran Levi Meeuwenberg this Saturday. And G4 has posted three new videos, showcasing the new season's obstacles, submission videos, and the weirdest comeptitors.

Rope Trick

A busy weekend kept me away from the blog, but it didn't keep me from working out. It's Monday morning now, and the "recovery" week of running is over. But I'm still running only three days a week, so it's not like I'm in danger of burnout. I've consistently noticed that I run faster when RunKeeper isn't giving me pace updates, so I'll see how that goes through a week of "real" workouts. As of this morning's easy 3-miler, so far, so good.

The bodyweight workouts are getting easier, and less interesting. Guess I'm at a point where adaptation sets in after about three weeks. That squares with what I've read. For those who haven't read, adaptation is just that; your body adapts to the stress of the latest workout, meaning that your gains from that workout will taper, as will your interest in doing it again. Alternating workouts during the week definitely helps, but all the same I'm looking forward to changing it up in a couple of weeks. After this week I'll have a "recovery" week of lifting, when I'll do I'm not sure what. But I'm definitely looking forward to the next phase.

That's because of the rope climb I just installed.

Any fan of Ninja Warrior (which starts July 31, I remind you) could see that training has to involve rope climbing. Seems like at least a half-dozen obstacles every season involve climbing on or jumping to or from ropes, including of course the Final Stage. But unless you're in a middle-school gym class it's not easy to find a rope to climb in our workouts. On the Internet, however, there's a big subculture for old-school workouts like rope climbing and kettlebells, and naturally plenty of sites from which to buy everything you need.

I've got an 11-foot ceiling in my garage, so I got from neptunebarbell.com a 12-foot climbing rope complete with a metal hanging loop on one end and a plastic "boot" on the other. I then got a specially designed "wood beam clamp" on Opentip.com. Found both to have the lowest prices thanks to Google Shopping. In all, though, they probably set me back close to $200. Times like this I wonder if I'm really saving any money by not joining a gym. But you can't find a climbing rope at Planet Fitness.

Setting up the rope took maybe a half-hour. I spent most of that half-hour, though, in my attic on the almost-hottest day of the year. Pretty simple to cut out the sheetrock in the ceiling, drill holes in the joist, and bolt the clamp at ceiling-height. Did I mention I had to buy a half-inch drill bit, too?

So the rope's up, but really I only have about three feet to climb from the highest point I can reach on the rope from standing. And so far the only use it's gotten is by my daughter and her friend, who immediately tied a knot at the end and used it as a swing. But in the next phase I hope to use the rope for most exercises. I figure that every exercise should incorporate core and grip work, and there should be plenty of rope exercises. I might have to invent some for my circumstances, but there are plenty of websites about rope climbing for fitness, which I'll link to in the sidebar.

The Hindu Pushup. Or Is It?

Another go at the "B" workout today. That means I was doing 3x15 of Hindu Pushups, as I'd done previously. Except I hadn't.

I thought that I'd been doing Hindu Pushups all this time. In fact, what I'd been doing are called Dive-Bomber Pushups. I could try to explain the difference, but a picture's worth a thousand words so here's a YouTube clip that shows the difference pretty clearly. The clip also shows, I think, how anyone could confuse the two.

What's less clear, however, is which is the better exercise. Folks online swear by the Hindu Pushup for reasons that are as passionately argued as they are vague. So having done Dive-Bombers for two weeks now, I tried Hindu Pushps today to see the difference for myself.

After one session, I have to say that the Dive Bombers seem a lot tougher than Hindu Pushups. That backward motion in the Dive Bomber Pushup, I feel, really makes them a more intense exercise for your shoulders and arms. Since that's what I'm looking for in that part of the workout, I think I'll stick with the Dive Bombers.

By this, of course, I mean no offense to the Hindu faith or its adherents.

A Cautionary Tale

Trolling the interwebs, I found a great writeup on Ninja Warrior's tragic hero, the Japanese Don Quixote or Percival, Katsumi Yamada. Read it here.

Every true Ninja Warrior fan roots for Yamada. But no one would want to be this haunted, tragic figure. In his struggle are lessons not just for every wannabe game-show contestant, but for every fortysomething guy who only has so many hours in the day to pursue what's worthwhile.

They're good lessons for any pudknockers like me who are just starting on the road to Midoriyama. Which, by the way, is a studio backlot and not some sacred mountain.

As Seen on TV

Found this article about the upcoming season of American Ninja Warrior, which starts July 31 at 9:00 pm on G4: Click here for the article.

I knew from the TV spots when the new season began, but credit's to American Ninja Warrior Quest (henceforth "ANWQ") for first mentioning the article.

Seeing the article there reminded me that I need to set up a Google News search for all things Ninja Warrior. So I've set one up, called All Things Ninja Warrior, and made it public. Of course, I'll comment on the news here, but now you can read up on it for yourself.

Free Running

Not a particularly significant workout today, but I think that I learned something important.

Just an easy four miles today, and the target pace was 8:47. This is from my computer-generated workout plan from runnersworld.com and the pace is based on my last 10K, which was a pedestrian 44:49. Usually I run with my iPhone app RunKeeper tracking my run and giving me updates each mile on my pace. But since I always surpass the prescribed pace for these runs, I decided to see what I'd run without knowing my average pace at any given moment. So I ran with RunKeeper on, but without any updates; the app would only tell me when I'd finished four miles.

The results? I averaged 7:54 for four miles. That's so fast that my first move is to doubt the credibility of the app. But I do know the route I ran, and at the very least the app can keep track of time, so the results do seem accurate.

What does this tell me? That when I'm not worried about pace and just focus on running at whatever's a comfortable pace, I run faster? can't draw too much from one workout. But from now on I'll skip the per-mile updates and just run. It'll be particularly interesting to see how that works on the tempo runs, when you're really picking up the pace for those middle miles.

What's Japanese for "Schadenfreude?"

I know, I know, what's English for "Schadenfreude?" It's a German word that basically means joy in the suffering of others. It's the inexhaustible fuel that drives most reality TV, but it's by no means something to be proud of. And I'm afraid that, as regards Ninja Warrior, I might have a case of it.

Last night I watched Paul Terek compete in Season 24. For those who don't know, Paul Terek is a former US Olympic decathlete and, whether he's still training for the Olympics, still looks the part. He's listed at 6'2" and somewhere north of 200 lbs., so as you might expect the guy looks like a man among boys out there on Mount Midoriyama.

I'll never forget the first time I saw him compete. On the Jump Hang, where you leap from a mini-trampoline to a cargo net and where most contestants hit the water instead, this guy not only reached the net but grabbed the topmost bar of the net and climbed over. Looked positively superhuman. Failed on the third stage at the Cliffhanger, as you'd expect, but still, he looked like if any whitey could win this thing, it'd be him.

And of course, the guy's more of an athlete than I'll ever be. I mean, other than in weight we're not even in the same neighborhood.

But then I watched him last night in Season 24. He's toying with the course until he gets to the Jump Slider, where you grab a bar and slide down the rungs until you must leap to a cargo net. Now this trips up a ton of contestants -- not that many of them make it this far -- but the trick is to use your momentum from the downhill slide to propel you across the gap to the cargo net. Pretty obvious once you see a few guys fall, and totally obvious once you see anyone succeed.

But not to Terek. He comes to a complete stop at the end of the slide rails and starts swinging his body, trying to recapture all the momentum he just wasted. But like on the end of the third stage, when you swing back on these slider-type exercises the bar goes back with you, and you end up farther away from your goal. And as Terek showed, once you've killed your momentum you can't regenerate enough to clear the obstacle, much less do it with time enough to complete the stage.

Sure enough, my man wasted ten seconds trying to swing himself enough, then jumped and didn't even reach the net. Splash.

Now I was cheering for this guy like this was the Olympics, even though I kind of knew he didn't advance. But ever since seeing him fall I can't stop thinking about how this world-class athlete couldn't navigate this one stupid obstacle. Is this schadenfreude? Am I gloating that the Olympian failed where fishermen and shoe salesmen have succeeded? It doesn't help that Terek went to Michigan State and I went to Notre Dame.

All I can do is try to learn from his mistake. I'm a little suspicious, because Terek's fall seems to confirm what I previously believed: (a) on the Jump Slider, you have to keep your momentum and go right into the leap; and (b) studying the course, like any couch potato can do, is of real value.

The danger is that I'll start believing (c), that watching the show on TV is a substitute for training.

Speaking of which, dragged my ass out for another round of the "A" workout. Little scary, going right into box jumps so soon after waking up. But the workout went well; I even extended my time in the Elevated Wall Plank to 40, 45, and 50 seconds respectively. I'm tempted to toughen this phase of the workouts, either with a weight vest or extra reps. Of course, I'm also tempted to sleep in or read in the mornings. Which means I should probably keep things as they are.

In other news, my new 12-foot climbing rope and ceiling beam mount came in the mail. That means that starting with the next 4-week phase I'll be literally climbing the walls. Plenty of web sites sing the praises of rope climbing as a workout, so we'll have lots of options for the next phase.

Lean Times

Recent evidence suggests that the fat-loss plan might be working.

Last night the Tanita told me I was 210.8 lbs. with 10.6% body fat. This is two weeks in, so I tend to give the results more credibility than I would last week's data. But if it's true, then I've lost 4.3 pounds of body fat and gained 2.1 pounds of muscle in two weeks. That'd be nice, but even I can't believe that two weeks of working out and cutting back slightly on carbs had that much effect.

There's a reason they tell you not to measure your body fat more than once a month. I couldn't stand the wait, but I completely buy that the results can only be reliably measured over several weeks and months.

Which is not to say that I'm doing the wrong thing. And this is the point: I may have ANW as a goal, but I'm trying to train so that whatever happens with the game show, I've got some health gains to show for it. So far so good, but it's really too early to tell.

Sasuke Happens

Sunday was a return to the "B" bodyweight workout. Feeling stronger, though on the towel-grip pushups all I could manage was three sets of 12, 11, and 11. It might be tough to develop grip strength and back/lats simultaneously.

Today was just an easy 4-mile run. I'm in a recovery week in my road running, and decided not to monkey with that schedule to sync it with my lifting workouts.

Something struck me on that other blog I found the other day; the link's in the sidebar. The guy writes about his efforts at the latest ANW tryouts. He mentions that before his turn a sumo wrestler got up to try the course, predictably wiped out, and soaked the quadruple steps. This made the very first obstacle darn near impossible at least for the guys who immediately followed ol' Slim on the course. Our blogger slipped and fell, and all his months of parkour training went town the drain.

Or did it? What can we learn from this?

First, you can't account for all the variables. Stuff happens. Stuff you probably can't specifically train for, and probably shouldn't waste your time training for even if you could.

Second, given that the unpredictable will occur, the best way to be prepared for it is to be generally ready for anything. In this training, that means not focusing on training for the specific obstacles you've seen on past seasons of Ninja Warrior. Instead, you should focus on getting your fitness and strength levels high enough that you can handle whatever the course throws at you.

The more you watch, the more sense this makes. How many of these guys who train on replica obstacles really benefit from it? How well would they do if they trained broadly to develop strength in a variety of ways? More importantly, how much better off would they be outside of this game show if they focused more on overall fitness?

Third, the right attitude is critical. This guy could've gone off in his blog about how unfair it was for them to not dry off the obstacles, how G4 made a sham of the whole event by letting this overweight clown on the course in the first place, and so on. He did none of that. He chalked it up to bad luck, went home, and resumed training. That tells me not only that he's a good sport, but that he's enjoying his training enough to continue without attaining his goal. It's like the Whos down in Whoville celebrating Christmas even though their presents are gone: you've got to remember what's important.

In other news, I intend to put some more general-interest ANW stuff on this page, because my personal training diary can't be that interesting to people. With the new season starting next week on G4, there should be plenty of material online. Details to follow.

We Are Not Alone

Ten-mile run this morning. Averaged 8:30 a mile, not a bad pace for me. I'm trying to train for a big local 10K September 18 while I start my training for ANW, and for the next few months they should complement each other. And by the time I start strength training in the fall and winter I'm no longer running competitively, so I won't have to deal with the challenge of trying to add muscle while shedding weight on the roads.

I've added to the links on the blog, and among my finds was American Ninja Warrior Quest, a blog by a guy who's almost exactly one year ahead of me on this whole fortysomething-midlife-crisis-fitness-challenge trajectory. I prefer how my page looks, but no doubt I'll be scanning his archives in search of tips on how to run my blog and my training.

At first, I was disappointed that I wasn't the first to come up with this little brainstorm. But of course, there must be hundreds of other guys out there who've tried blogging about their attempts to get on Ninja Warrior or other fitness goals. Just by the percentage of my Facebook friends who can't stop sharing their triathlon training, this is probably a pretty popular combination. And why not? If I know I have to blog about my training, I'm much more likely to be diligent about both training and blogging.

And know that I know there are others out there doing this, I get to see what it'll take to do it better than the rest.

Feelin' It

Missed a day of blogging, though not of working out. This is what happens when you diverge from routine and don't lift at 5:30 a.m. A small matter, but a reminder that there's not a lot of room for error in this training schedule.

Thursday was the third day of the bodyweight workouts, back to the "A" workout. Couldn't believe how sore I still was from Tuesday's "B" workout. Not sure whether it was the depth jumps or single-leg deadlifts that made my glutes really sore. Nor am I sure why I'm blogging about sore glutes. But that's neither here nor there.

The workout felt much better than it did on Sunday. Part of it was knowing what's coming, some of it was a little bit of actual strength, I hope. And part of it was I modified some of the exercises. I wasn't even going to try the inverted rows with my feet on a Swiss Ball again; the workout was tough enough on my arms with my feet stable on the bench. Felt much better at the Elevated Wall Pushups, but the EW Plank had to be modified. I'd been doing a minute on my elbows, but I suffered road rash on my forearms trying this on Sunday. So today I switched to pushup position for thirty seconds, which I think is impressive given that my feet are still up a wall.

Friday was my "rest" day, which means a half-hour or so biking through the neighborhood. I was really looking forward to this non-workout. It's only been six days, for Pete's sake, but there's definitely a mental component to consistent training. It's like the first mile of a 10K; it wasn't so bad, but now you realize how much farther you have to go.

Fahsto Stagee

Running workout today. I do need to post these on the calendar, but today was a "tempo run." That means your first and last miles are easy jogs, while the middle miles, however many, are run hard. It's great for road racing, which is what my cardio workouts are still nominally oriented toward. I imagine that after Thanksgiving I'll do cardio more targeted at Ninja Warrior. Soon as I figure out what that might be.

Caught another episode of Ninja Warrior on G4 last night. I DVR them, so I've no idea when this aired, and it's obviously from like six or seven years ago. But it reminded me of an odd phenomenon you can observe throughout the series: the pervasiveness of English.

Sasuke started as a Japanese show, for a Japanese audience. The contestants, and the spectators, still are almost all Japanese, and the announcer gives his running commentary in Japansese. Yet throughout the show you see and hear English. First off, the show's logo is "Sasuke" in big letters. If they have the Japanese word for Sasuke anywhere I wouldn't recognize it, but it's sure not as prominent as the English translation. And the names for the obstacles are all in English! And bad English, or "Engrish," at that. I don't understand a word of Japanese, but I can hear them call the stages of Sasuke "Fahsto Stagee," "Secondo Stagee," and so on. Then there's the "Rowwing Rog," "Spidu WRaku," "Jumm-Pingu Bah," and so on. Even the contestants' clothes, which aren't uniforms by any sense but do have corporate logos all over them like NASCAR drivers, are in English.

Why would the Japanese use so much English in their own game show? Could it be that the Japanese are so comfortable in English that they sprinkle it in everyday life that casually? I've never been to Japan, but I'd be astounded if English were so ubiquitous as to have penetrated Japanese culture that much. What does it say about Anglo-American culture that even in Japan they're using at least a pidgin English even on their game shows? It's kind of a compliment, I guess.

It's easy to look at Ninja Warrior and say that it's a competition for stereotypically slight, skinny Asians. But when you see how much they've assimilated American culture, it gives a big gaijin like me hope that I'm not ontologically precluded from competition -- or victory.

Diet Trying

One of my goals in this first 12-week phase is to lose some body fat. I've lost weight before, but never seriously tried to reduce my body fat percentage. Probably because I've never cared about my body fat. I looked good enough in the mirror and was running plenty fast, so I just assumed that I was lean enough.

But the guys who advance on Ninja Warrior aren't the strongest, but they are the leanest. It certainly seems that the guys who have less to carry enjoy a definite advantage over the stronger, heavier contestants. And it's not just Japanese competitors who are so darn skinny. The only white guy I've ever seen make it to the fourth stage, Bulgarian gymnast Jordan Jovchev, was as lean as anyone else to make it that far.

So where do I need to be, and how far away am I? The consensus among Internet sources suggests that anywhere below 8% is elite athlete body fat, so we'll take that as a goal. Now it's time to finally learn how to properly measure my body fat.

For years I've had a Tanita body fat scale, but I've never measure body fat the way I know they recommend: At a regular time, when you're properly hydrated, and therefore not in the morning. So I'm doing it every Monday night at 10:00 pm, at least two hours after eating anything.

Last Monday 7/5/11 I took the first measurement: 213.o lbs., 12.5% body fat. Sounds like a good place to start.

Then I began a week of a weight-loss diet. That means eating 500 calories a day less than what's needed to maintain my weight, with a diet loaded with protein. For the calorie limit I relied on LoseIt!, the calorie-counting app I got for my iPhone. It also lets me log my meals and track calories, protein, and other good stuff.

But how much protein to eat? The RDA is like 0.5 grams per pound, so for me that'd be 106.5 grams. But the Internet consensus is that to build muscle and burn fat you need 0.7-0.9 grams per pound of body mass. That'd put me at roughly 170 grams of protein per day. And that is darn near impossible to reach.

Try it. You'll be eating meat and eggs three meals a day and protein shakes in-between. Seems like the Atkins Diet, from what I've heard. But I gave it a shot for a week. And while I approached those protein goals most days, what I couldn't do was keep the carbohydrates out of my diet. The Men's Health Big Book of Exercises had a good section on fat-loss diets, and they recommended something like no more than 75 grams of carbs a day. Keeping your carbs that low means no pasta, fruit, or even milk. Now maybe I could adopt that Spartan lifestyle if I were a single guy in law school again. But with a wife and daughter who love their pasta as much as I do, am I supposed to make a separate meal for me?

Well, I tried for a week. And when I measured myself last night, what did I find? 210.2 lbs., 12.6% body fat. If that's anything like accurate, then in the first week of my fat-loss diet I lost  about 2.5 pounds of muscle and 0.5 pounds fat -- and my body fat went up a hair.

This is probably why the instructions that came with the scale say not to measure body fat more than once a month. Think I'll follow that; I don't want any more bad news for a few weeks.

Why Me?

Second "workout" day today. Started off with the run and stretching as on Sunday, but did the "B" workout instead:

--Depth Jumps
--Single-Leg Deadlifts
--Swiss Ball Pushups
--Towel-Grip Pullups
--Hindu Pushups
--Swiss Ball Russian Twists

Problem was I set these all to do three sets of 15 reps for each exercise. Like I could even do that. Had to crap out on the last set of Depth Jumps, chiefly because my lower back did not appreciate dropping from height onto concrete and then immediately jumping to the ceiling. And if you can do three sets of 15 pullups with towel grips, then just book your flight to Japan right now; I did three sets of AMAP ("As Many As Possible") and felt good enough about myself.

Caught the latest rerun of Ninja Warrior on G4 last night. I watched some Olympic gymnast from Poland DQ on the second obstacle, the Curtain Slide, where you grab an industrial strength shower curtain and...slide. Sounds easy, right? How does an Olympic gymnast (Leszek Blanik who took home gold at Beijing) fail so epically? And if an Olympian can't make it, then how could an over-the-hill suburban dad stand a chance?

Look at the guys who do well. The guys who make it all the way. Only three guys in 26 seasons: two fishermen and a shoe salesman. Anything in those backgrounds particularly qualify someone to run an obstacle course? Hardly. Now, I'm sure these guys trained like crazy. Which is the point. Most sports don't translate too well to this game show. So you can come from any background, if you're willing to train long enough and smart enough.

Thirty-six weeks should be long enough. Am I training smart enough? Not sure, but I'm willing to change as I learn.

First Workout(s)

Sunday 7/10 was the official start of my Ninja Warrior training. It wasn't pretty.

This was the first workout of the first four-week part of my endurance/fat loss phase. I tried to build a workout that would hit all the major muscle groups in ways that at least remotely related to the obstacles I might face. And as any book on weight training will tell you, we develop endurance and burn fat by doing sets of 12-15 reps with about a minute rest.

But what exercises to do? First, I looked at the actual obstacles from the entire 26-season run of Sasuke. Fortunately, Wikipedia had a great entry on the obstacles, so I cut-and-pasted their list and description into a database for further analysis. That sounds really nerdy because it is, but a database (I use Bento) is really just a spreadsheet with a customizeable interface and more tools for sorting and filtering the data. Putting the obstacles into a database made it easier to review each and identify the skills and strengths each requires.

What did I find? Pretty much what you'd expect if you watch one episode. You need the grip strength of a chimpanzee, the bounding ability of a kangaroo, the vertical jump of Blake Griffith, and the core strength of the Brooklyn Bridge.

Next step was to find exercises in these areas that I could do in my garage gym. For that I relied on The Men's Health Big Book of Exercises. There's plenty of free resources on the Internet listing exercises for every muscle group, and I did draw from one of my favorites, unique-bodyweight-exercise.com. But Men's Health does a good job of compiling every possible variety of exercise, sorting them by particular muscle groups ("glutes and hamstrings" vs. "Quads and Butt"?) and offering a variety of workouts for different objectives that make pretty clear how you could build your own program. Plus, their programs run 8-12 weeks, so I got a sense of long-term development.

So here's my program for the next four weeks. I'll life Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday, alternating between the A and B workouts:


WARMUP

5-minute run. Nothing better for fat loss, so I run as much as I can. Barely a jog, but it's a great way to wake up for a workout.

5 minutes of jumping jacks and stretching. I picked stretches that would target Ninja Warrior and my weaknesses in flexibility:
--Jumping Jacks
--Low side-to-side lunge
--Over/under shoulder stretch
--Bent-over Reach to Sky
--Groiners
Got all these crazy exercises from Men's Health. But basically I'm trying to get flexible for the Spider Jump/Spider Climb, where you have to push yourself up and through a channel between two walls with nothing below you but the dreaded swamps of Mount Midoriyama.

Then came the A workout. I did the sets in alternating pairs, to cut down on the rest between sets:

1A: Box jumps, 3 sets of 15 reps
1B: Swiss-Ball Hip Raise & Curl, 3 sets of 15 reps

2A: Elevated Wall Pushups
2B: Swiss Ball Towel Inverted Rows

3A: Inverted Shoulder Press
3B: Elevated Wall Plank

"Elevated Wall" means that my feet were pressing against a wall about a foot or so above the floor while I did the pushups or planks. I threw that challenge in to hit my core; it's a baby step on the way to the old Ninja Warrior obstacle Body Prop.

So how did it go? The first pair were a cake walk. I ditched my planned minute rest between sets, they were so easy. The other four, however, were another story. The rows are in theory a great exercise, with the towels forcing me to work my grip and the Swiss Ball challenging my core while the rows themselves hit the upper back. But I was just not strong enough to keep it all steady, and while I completed the first two sets and got 10 on the last, I looked foolish enough doing them that I should've been on Tosh.0. Next time I'll probably just put my feet up on a bench. And ending the workout with planks was sheer torture.

This morning, just to catch up, I followed with my "easy day" run, two miles around the neighborhood. Felt much faster than the 9-minutes a mile my app said I ran. I chalk the slow time up to having completed the Sunday workout in the evening. I really need 24 hours between workouts. FYI, my GPS-running app is RunKeeper on my iPhone, and I highly recommend it.

A Journey of A Thousand Miles...

...begins with today's workout.

The goal is to get onto American Ninja Warrior, and you do that by trying out. Tryouts this year were in the middle of May in Venice Beach, CA, and you got to run the tryout course either by camping out on line and being lucky, or by submitting an audition video that made the producers want to give you a guaranteed spot. Mind you, this was just to try out; far as I know, no one was guaranteed to survive tryouts.

So I figure I've got 'til March 2012 to get in shape enough to make a tryout video or show up in Venice to take my shot at the course. From today to the week of March 11, 2012 is 36 weeks. So I give myself that long to get ready to compete one way or the other.

Which is perfect for me. I've been a garage-gym weightlifter and summertime road-racer for years, but lately it's been hard to get excited about another pre-dawn pullups workout or another running of the same ol' Memorial Day 5K. Now I've got a goal, however unrealistic, that I can pursue for over six months.

But what to do over those six months? How do you train for this unique game show, one where the obstacles can change from season to season and even guys who (if you believe what you see on G4) devote their lives to training for this competition come up short? Well, in any creative endeavor -- and devising this training schedule is a major exercise in creative writing -- it helps to have restrictions. And I've got mine.

--no more than an hour a day of training. I just can't get up any earlier before I have to get myself and my daughter out the door in the morning.

--no more than six days a week of training. I've always taken Fridays off, since my races are usually on Saturdays. But now I've come to enjoy starting the weekend a little early by not having to work out Friday morning. So we'll keep that schedule.

--No exercises I can't do on the roads, the track, or in my garage. That means I won't be building my own Spider Climb, and if you don't know what that is then you're not wasting enough time watching reruns of Ninja Warrior. I also won't be joining a gym. There's plenty to choose from around here, from CrossFit to Gold's Gym to Planet Fitness, but I just don't have the time to drive anywhere to work out.

--No equipment I don't already have or can't afford. And I can't afford to spend much on this "hobby." RIght now I've got a pullup bar hanging from the ceiling, a bench that I use mostly for plyometrics, a Swiss Ball, a weighted vest, and some ropes and towels for hanging on the pullup bar. And that's about all I'll ever have. I just bought a climbing rope to hang in the gym, and I'm still figuring out how to break that to the missus.

These restrictions actually make it easier to plan a workout program. Obviously, I'll be doing a lot of bodyweight work, with some endurance and sprinting work out on the roads and the local high school track. So I don't have to worry about whether I'm doing bench press or DB flys. But I still need some structure.

A little Internet research pulls up the basic concepts of periodization training. Basically, you spend the time furthest from "the season" focusing on endurance, fat loss, and anatomical adaptation, the first step in developing sport-specific skills. The next phase is for strength development, adding muscle. The last phase before the season focuses on developing power and sport-specific skills.

I've got 36 weeks, so I'll just do three twelve-week phases. I also figure I'll go light every fourth week, and change up the routines every four weeks. I got the idea for a light week from the computer-generated running workouts I've used for years at Runner's World's website. And the consensus in fitness and weight training resources appears to be that every four weeks you need to change things up to avoid plateaus in development. Basically, in about that time your body adapts to the stresses of the current workouts, and your progress planes off. This common-sense principle seems to be at the heart of P90X's "muscle confusion" philosophy, though I know nothing more about P90X than I've seen on the infomercial.

That means that the first four-week period in the first phase started today. I've posted on the sidebar a link to my training calendar, which I'll add to and update as I go. I'll only get the first four-week plan up at first, but I expect that I'll comment here about my progress in each workout.

I'd intended to debrief on today's first workout, but if I don't get seven hours sleep I'm a mess the next day, so this will have to be it for me now. Suffice it to say my body has not yet adapted to this stress.

What Is He Thinking?

I am going to compete on American Ninja Warrior in 2012.

There are plenty of reasons to think that statement is utter nonsense.

First off, ANW is a game show on the American TV channel G4, and you can't be confident that the show or even the network will be around next year. It's a network for guys obsessed with video games, and those living in Mom's basement are hardly the most desired demographic.

Second, ANW is an incredibly difficult show to get on. For those who haven't seen it (and if you haven't, what brought you to this blog?) ANW is an obstacle course show that has held auditions once a year for the past three years. Each year, the auditions have drawn hundreds of aspirants eager to take on the course. Of these wannabes, only a dozen or so have made it onto the show each year. So in terms of sheer numbers, getting on ANW is about as difficult as getting into Harvard.

Thirdly, the obstacles on ANW are ridiculously difficult. ANW really is just a competition to get to represent the Red, White, and Blue on Sasuke, the Japanese obstacle-course game show known in America as Ninja Warrior. The obstacles on ANW come from Sasuke, and they're so difficult that in the twenty-six seasons of Sasuke, only three guys out of a hundred contestants each season have ever completed all four stages of the course. Don't know what it says about the Japanese that they pride themselves on an obstacle course that, most of the time, nobody can even finish. But the point is that even if you get a shot to run the course on ANW, you have very little chance of surviving it.

Fourth, the guys who do make it from ANW onto Sasuke are impressive. Some are parkour pros, for whom jumping across balconies and clinging to underpasses are as easy as jumping jacks. Some are gymnasts, who've been training in about the perfect sport to transition to the Sasuke obstacles. And some are obsessives who have recreated the actual Sasuke obstacles to train in their backyards -- and yes, they're all over YouTube. And all of them appear to be at least ten years younger than my forty years and about 30-50 pounds lighter than my svelte 213.

So why am I doing this? I'm not entirely sure, and you probably don't care. Either you're a fan of the show, and don't need anyone to explain to you the desire to tackle the course, or you've never seen the show, in which case I doubt I could convince you that this is anything more than an over-the-hill ex-athlete tilting at windmills. But I'll probably get introspective at some point and offer some explanation. And in any event, no one's hear for my self-psychoanalysis.

The point of this blog is to record my training, over the next six months or so, to prepare for next year's auditions, whenever they might be. As I devise my training regimen and try to follow it, I'l share every step of it right here. I'll also share the links and books that I find to be of the most help in transforming myself into a world-class game-show contestant. And together we'll figure out just what it takes to reach the level of fitness to literally hang with the guys at Sasuke.

I've already spent a few weeks researching diet and training issues, and I expect to start my training Monday, July 10. That means I've got a lot to plan this weekend, which of course I'll also share. And along the way, hopefully you'll find something that you can use in your own workouts. And of course, you can comment on anything I post, and I look forward to benefitting from the wisdom of others.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to plough through a daunting Honey-Do list before I plot the first phase of my journey.