212.0 and all is well

It's curious that we are now 6 days after the last Bod Pod [where I weighed in at 209.34], my current weight is 212.0, and I am pretty fine with it. Why is that?

As you know, the last Bod Pod indicated that I lost 2.556 pounds of lean weight. That is not okay. I am not okay with that fact. Presuming I hadn't lost that lean weight, my weight would have been 211.896 last Friday. Interestingly enough, my weight popped right back up to 212 within 24 hours of the test. This probably indicates that I was temporarily dehydrated.

However, it is interesting that 6 full days later, my weight remains the same, and I am still fine with it. Why is that?

I began a regime of serious weight training again this week. Today, I will execute my 3rd serious Nautilus style workout. Weren't you supposed to do that before? Yes, but I didn't have the heart. I modified my existing regime to focus on stress and intensity over duration. I did not actually add a Nautilus regime to my training. Now I have.

I will do more than just a Nautilus workout today. I will do a full-cycle ROM in just a couple of moments. I will probably do some light cardio at lunch also, just to stay awake this afternoon.

I also added swimming to my regime. I do an evening swim at 24 Hour Fitness. I try to spend 20 minutes in a nice chilly pool, and I do at least 20 100 meter laps. That's 2K folks. That ain't bad. The thermogenics of it should help me to loose more pure fat than ever before.

Essentially, I have decided that this is the 2 week cycle where I am not going to worry about scale weight. I am just going to worry about strength training. For the sake of science, I am going to work on the hypothesis that I am loosing 0.5 to 0.6 pounds of pure fat each day. This loss is courtesy of surgical modifications in my digestive tract. It is reliable and dependable. I can bank on it. I am focusing exclusively on muscularity and strength. I am trying to raise my resistance each time out, and do more reps.

I am hoping and praying the kiss of the Nautilus is activating my muscle memory, and doing so at a pace that is equal to the rate of pure fat loss. If such is the case, I should have lost 3 pounds of pure fat, and added 3 pounds of pure muscle. This is certainly possible, as only 0.5 pounds of that muscle would be new muscle. The rest would be recovered lean weight.

If this were to continue all the way through to Sept 2, my fat weight will drop from 62 to 55 pounds and my total weight will remain constant at 212. Mathematically, 55/212 = 25.94%. In other words, my body fat percentage will drop quite considerably. Ultimately, this is the only thing that matters.

My body weight is already within acceptable parameters according to my orthopedic surgeon. Now leanness and muscularity are the only goals worth pursuing. Absolute weight is neither here nor there. In fact, I would prefer my body weight to remain slightly over 200 pounds whilst achieving a lean mass of 10-15%.

I don't want to be skinny, skinny, skinny.

The push up test

Once upon a time in the U.S. Army, I could execute 54-56 push-ups inside two minutes. It wasn't super easy, but I could do it pretty much at-will.

The 2 minute push-up test is one of the several mandatory fitness tests the U.S. Army qualifies you with. I don't remember precisely, but I think I needed to be able to perform 48 push-ups inside 2 minutes as my minimum-standard qualification. If you fail this test, you are on your way to a bad discharge. After developing a bit in basic training, I was never in danger of failing this test.

Looking back on my life, the days when I exited Basic Training and AIT were probably my absolute best days [in terms of physical fitness]. Those were far from my absolute best days, but they were the best in terms of fitness. I weighed in at 192 pounds at that stage. That is technically considered over-weight by U.S. Army BMI standards, but the tape and pinch tests indicated that I was fine. I passed all standards for Army fitness at that time.

Everything old is new again. Lately, I have found myself approaching 192 pounds once again. I am just 19.15 pounds away from that weight. I have lost 51.676 pounds of pure fat in just 14 weeks. That is an average of 3.691143 pounds of pure fat per week.

Statistically, this seems to suggest that those 19.15 pounds will be gone in just 5.1881 weeks. That is 5 weeks, 1 day, 7 hours, 31 minutes. This means I should reach 192 on Sunday September 25th, 2011, around 7:31 AM... or something like that. For what it is worth, Body Fat Percentage will still be around 24% at that time. That is barely inside the moderate-risk standards.

Libra season should be pretty sweet. I find Libra women charming and delightful. I don't know if we could make a go of it, but Sirus 1.1 says I have blistering scores versus the girls next door.

But I digress...

I have been casting about for new fitness goals to conquer. You have to have a goal, and you have to have a plan to reach that goal. The workout will languish without that goal. The reason powerlifters compete is that the competition is a driving force. Knowing what your opponent can do and knowing what you need to do to beat him becomes an all-consuming driving force in training.

The goal drives you onward to better things.

I have been thinking that revival of the push up test might be the best way to drive on towards better fitness. Being able to do 60 push ups inside 2 minutes on September 25th would be a hell of a thing, now wouldn't it? How many guys at 45 can do what they did at 22? How many guys at 45 can do more than they could at 22? It's a nice way to prove that I've got my groove back.

There is more. The push-up test accords well with ROM philosophy. We're talking about brief, timed, high-intensity, mid-resistance exercise, centering resistance around the concept of ideal body weight. As I approach my ideal body weight, the push-up test looks better and better as a ROM sort of thing to do. I should take advantage of this moment.

Using a simple egg-timer, I should be able to benchmark the test. Of course, I will have to count reps myself. It would be better if someone held a click counter and bench-marked me. Perhaps I can talk somebody at work into running the test on me every other day. Naturally, you can't have everything.

I have to say, the ROM is doing absolutely wonderful things for me right now. It is the power gear in my workout. I strongly recommend it.

The lower body ROM workout is now a doddle.

A moment of silence please... I just kicked the Lower-Body ROM exercise squarely in the nuts. I blasted all four minutes at 210 pounds of resistance and scored 121% on the meter.

What is the significance of this moment?

The last time I rode that horse, the year was 2009. On that occasion, it ripped a chunk of cartilage out of my right knee that set me flat on my back on the surgery table. This is how I was introduced to Dr. Evan Bachner. Favoring the right knee blew out the left knee, which put me back on the surgical table less than 4 weeks later. Bachner pulled chunks of bone out of my left knee.

My last ROM ride was the beginning of sorrows for me. My body weight spiraled up due to immobility and post surgical pain. Higher weight made it hard to exercise, exercise made the pain worse, which made me more immobile, which made me gain more weight. I was caught in a vicious negative feedback loop.

As you know, this vicious cycle was only broken by a visit to Providence St. Joseph Hospital and full Roux en Y gastric bypass. This was my most dangerous surgery every. Understand that this is nowhere near as simple as pulling a chunk of torn cartilage out of a knee. They open your torso and repipe your guts. Not everybody survives this surgery. I am a member of the good and lucky majority.

As you might imagine, getting back on that horse and doing that Lower-Body ROM exercise has represented one of my greatest fears in life. There have been many times in the past two years when I wondered why I ever spent $6,000 on a $16,000 machine that cost me more than $10,000 in flesh, blood & tears.

Of course, the vicious scorpion at work has chided me about this subject...

Well guess what? I just got up on that horse and rode it again. It was a doddle. I wasn't even breathing hard until 3:15 had already expired. I didn't sweat profusely until a minute or two afterward. For some 10 minutes afterward, I kept checking and rechecking my range of motion for any signs of inflammation in my right knee. There is no inflammation in my right knee, and it is now an hour later.

You can see the exercise here. This constitutes a major, major victory. This is almost like killing Osama.

Compared to the upper body workout, the lower body workout is trivial. This was never the case in the past. I could never do 4 whole minutes, period. I had to break it into 2 minute segments. Now it is easy. I guess losing something like 100 pounds makes a difference.

If there is a greater lesson in this story, I guess it this: You never know where providence will take you. I probably would never have conquered my weight problems without Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery. Given my good blood chemistry and my heart health, my insurance never would have approved this surgery. It was only a series of letters from Bachner, my GP and Dr. Quilici regarding my orthopedic problems that caused United Health Care to approve the surgery.

Now I have reversed the aging process by 15 years at the very least, and still counting. I am stronger and healthier now than I was at 30... not to mention better looking. I'm not into cosmetics, though.

Lately, I have been wondering how much longer I may live as a result of this surgery. Of course, you can die in a car wreck at any moment, but presuming I don't, how much longer will I live? The starving mouse studies suggest I should double my lifespan. That's no joke folks. Google Roy Walford and CRON.

Popular Science magazine just published a piece called "Why you will live to be 150". They are talking about everybody, not just us starving mice who have had Roux-en-Y. Google search for Dr. Bill Andrews, Geron, and Telomerase. He is working on the cure for aging.

The men and women in my Dad's family live a very long time. Grandpa kick off at 93. Grandma kicked the bucket at 95. My dad is 69, has kicked prostate cancer in the ass twice, and doesn't quite look 60. Nobody believes I am going to turn 45.

God, I have no clue how long I will live, but I can see no reason why I shouldn't make it to 90. Frankly, I should reach 100.

Just to close the loop for you, I would not be thinking these thoughts if the ROM hadn't ripped a chunk of cartilage out of my right knee one dark day in early October of 2009. Isn't strange how this event became the next best thing to a guarantee that I will make it to 100 years of age?

How to control arthritis pain first thing in the morning

Serious arthritis pain first thing in the morning is a daily reality for many of us. It is worse if you are former football player. It is worse in winter. It is worse when it rains in winter. It is worse still when you are coming of surgery, as I am. So if you have to haul your ass out of bed as if you are exiting the destroyed body of a badly wrecked car, what can you do about all that pain?

Here is a laundry list of things to do:

1. Take a 300mg dose of liquid Ibuprofen. I find that Ibuprofen is the only effective drug vs. arthritis. Acetaminophen is a joke. Aspirin doesn't work that well. Naproxen Sodium is less effective (for me) than Ibuprofen. Liquid is far more effective, even in smaller doses, than pills or caplets
2. Take 3 grams of MSM. MSM really helps me. I feel a lot better on days when I use MSM.
3. Use DMAE. DMAE is a youth hormone, available over the counter at just about all health food stores. It is the next best thing to HGH.
4. Exercise with the ROM. The ROM only takes 7.5 minutes tops. It is low impact. It stretches and warms everything. It enhances capillary circulation. It releases a lot of beta endorphins (nature's own painkiller). I feel totally different on mornings when I do the ROM and mornings when I don't.
5. Do TENS. TENS is a form of electrical muscle & nerve stimulation which is designed to overload pain receptors and deaden them down. Attaching 4 electro stim pads to the region of your lower back, right on the Erector Spinae, and running TENS for about 30 minutes will kill pain like crazy all over your lower body.
6. Hang upside down on a Teeter hang-up inversion table for 5 minutes. If you are a big guy, and have impact injuries, chances are that you have sciatic nerve problems, and compression in your lower 5th lumbar. This greatly aggravates arthritis pain. You can decompress your lower lumbar and reduce pain in your sciatic nerve by hanging upside down 5 minutes each day. I find it is more effective if I do sets of 2 minutes, 2 minutes, and 1 minute. Between sets, I bend down and touch my toes. This really loosens the lower back.
7. Eat boiled potatoes. We all eat a lot of potatoes. Whether you think you do or not, you eat a lot of potatoes. The potato is now the most widely cultivated plant in the entire world. It exceeds even rise in the most recent agricultural surveys. That is shocking. The potato is an ingredient in many of your foods. The potato is practically perfect food, but it has some problems. It is a nightshade like the poisonous belladonna. It contains certain natural poisons designed to protect the plant from its predators. The potato contains two Glycoalkaloid poisons called Solanine and Chaconine. These have insecticide and anti-fungal properties. They aren't good for you either. It is a controversial subject among medical researchers, but Solanine is implicated in aggravating arthritis pain. Your french fries are fucking you up, whether you know it or not. If you take a bunch of potatoes, put them in a Pyrex, fill the Pyrex with water, stick it in the microwave, and run the micro on full power for about 18 minutes, then discard the water, you will boil out the Solanine and Chaconine. Discard the water. Never drink it. If the potatoes aren't quite done, rack them on the dry Pyrex, put them back in the micro, hit the sensor cook button, and let it run. You will get a perfect potato, free of natural nightshade poisons that can make you hurt.
8. Do a few stretching exercises in a hot shower. You need to shower with hot water, and I mean very hot water. A few toe touches and knee bends under hot running water will help loosen those joints.
9. Sit on an ice-pack. Sciatic nerve pain is highly correlated with inflammation. Ibuprofen helps with this problem, but it is not a perfect solution. Ice is the solution. I have a nice flat-sheet chemical cold pack which I sit on during breakfast or during work. It freezes my butt, which is not nice. However, it brings down inflation in the lower lumbar and kills sciatic nerve pain. You will love what it does for you.
   

The Insanity of ROM

I acquired my ROM Quick Gym on 9/12/2009. This was the weekend USC beat Ohio State and UCLA defeated Tennessee. I remember it well. Me and Aaron listened to both games as we drove down to Laguna Hills and back again. Aaron and I were not able to move the machine into my apartment that Saturday evening. The 500 or so pounds of this device were just too much for us. I got it done on Sunday 9/13/2009. It took 4 illegal assistants plus me to get that thing up the stairs to my apartment living room. I was absolutely busted after hauling that thing up the stairs.

I did not workout on the machine for the first time until the Monday 9/14/2009. So here I sit on Tuesday evening September 30, 2009. I have been working out with the ROM for about 16 days. The results have been shocking. I am not prepared to go public with the actual mathematical figures yet. I will though. It has been kicking my ass, and I have been loving it. I have been able to get into a regime where I use it most mornings, usually within 30 minutes of wake up. This is a pretty hardcore way to wake up in the morning.

Let me just give you a few observation points:

• I purchased this machine because of arthritis in my knees. My arthritis had reached the point where I was climbing out of bed each morning like I was climbing out of a wrecked car. I suffered pain throughout the day: Pain in my back, pain in hips, pain in my legs.
• In my first few ROM workouts, the lower body exercise was very tricky and painful. My right knee screamed at me. 1 minute was all I could muster. I tried to do 4 reps of 1 minute each. The first few times I worked out, 3 minutes was all I could muster. I had to lower the resistance to considerably less than my ideal weight to be able to move those pedals without agony. About 190 was all I could take.
• I am already at the point where I can do 3 minutes on the lower body exercise in just 1 shot. At the same time, I have moved the resistance up to my ideal weight (231). Because I have not completed the 4 minutes in a single span, I try to do two reps of 3 minutes on lower body. No matter what, I do 6 minutes of lower body exercise on lower body days.
• I am now walking down the stairs relatively normally, without grasping the side rails. Sometimes I still grasp the side rails, but this is a psychological thing. I don't absolutely have to have them any more.
• If I workout in the morning, I can pretty well guarantee myself a pain-free day. If I don't workout in the morning, I will suffer pain throughout the day. This much is certain. This is one of the most counter-intuitive and shocking facts about the ROM workout. Most workouts leave you sore and beat to death. ROM will make you a bit tired and sore, but not beat to death. Rather the contrary. You are invigorated.
• A good deal of my upper body mass has been returning. At the moment I am gaining weight, not loosing it. The ROM manual warned me that this would happen. You gain muscle first. You loose fat later. This is the standard pattern with the ROM. My arms, chest, back, & legs are all muscling up again. My cellular memory is being activated.
• The ROM literature makes some fairly outrageous claims. They claim that 4 minutes of ROM workout is equal to 20-45 minutes of aerobic exercise + 20-45 minutes of resistance training + 20 minutes of conventional stretching. Although I bought the machine, I scoffed at this sales pitch. I thought these statements an outlandish lie. Frankly, I am beginning to accept these claims. I can see no other way I might be making this kind of progress this rapidly.
• There is no doubt that you are doing heavy resistance work over an extended period of time (4 minutes). Nobody benches 225 for 4 minutes, not even at the NFL combine. Doing a ROM workout is a little like benching and rowing 225 for 4 minutes straight. There is no doubt that you must do this through an extreme range of motion. There is no doubt you are putting an overload on your heart and lungs at the same time that you are tearing up your muscles and stretching those joints and tendons.
• Probably one of the strangest aspects of this journey has been the metabolic effects through the day. If I don't workout in the morning, I have a tough time waking up. I will be listless all morning. If I don't workout by noon, my metabolic energy will collapse by the afternoon. This is as bad or worse than the sort of mild narcoleptic fatigue I suffered before the Armodafinil. If I do workout by noon, I will have no problems with energy through the day. This exercise does ignite the metabolism.
• The ROM has altered my food choices and my food cravings. I want protein in copious quantities these days. I really don't like potatoes or rice as much as I did. I find myself shunning a burrito and preferring steak and eggs. If I can get those in a burrito, fine. If not, I want my steak and eggs. Forget the burrito. Things like chips and ice cream have lost much of their luster. Protein drinks have suddenly become very seductive again. They make me feel great.
• The ROM has messed with my sleep a bit. At the moment, the time is 10:56, and I can barely finish this entry. I need to hit the sack. I did my workout less than 3 hours ago. I am pretty sleepy. My body wants to shutdown and build. I can tell. I once did the lower body workout at approximately 10:00pm. I did about 6 minutes plus 2 of upper body. I couldn't sleep until 4 in the morning. My metabolism went off the chart.

Most of the things I have written here seem insane upon review. 4 minutes of workout per day cannot have these kinds of effects. Doing 8 minutes cannot have these kinds of effects. You can't fix arthritic knees in 16 days while gaining weight when you are already overweight in the first place. Diet change usually requires conscience effort. Still, all the things I have written to you are true. This is my experience so far.

Recently, I saw a few videos regarding the ROM done by a YouTube.com personality. Said personality managed to con the ROMFab folks into lending him a ROM for a month or two, in exchange for the promotion. Watching him workout is underwhelming to say the very least. He seems more concerned with his music choices than his workout pace. He seems to be able to converse with the cameraman, which is a sign he is not working very hard.

Still, the dude had a doctor check his body composition before and after. He lost a total of 3 pounds in 1 month. However, he lost 13 pounds of fat and added 10 pounds of lean during that time. This altered his composition and appearance significantly. I asked Dr. Tom Long about this, and he confirmed that this information was accurate. If a half-assed effort can yield 13 pound compositions swings in 1 month, what will serious effort yield?

This makes me very hopeful. I am certainly beating the living shit out of this dude in terms of workout intensity. My first month should be better than his. I will certainly be happy with a 13 pound swing. I would prefer 20.

ROMfab 4 Minute Workout Cross Trainer Hunger Pangs

A while ago, I blogged about my discovery of the ROMfab 4 Minute Cross Trainer. I first heard of it from an advertisement published in the back of Discovery Magazine. It was one of the many exotic devices advertised in the last few pages. The stunning price caught my attention.

To recap, I visited the factory (less than 15 miles from my apartment) and I was blown away by the intensity of the workout. I quickly realized that the lower body workout constituted the more valuable half of this machine. This is the most powerful rehab exercise I have ever done for my knees. Given my arthritic knees, this machine is worth it's weight in gold. Tis a pitty that men coming back from serious knee surgery (like Shawne Merrimen and Tom Brady) don't use this machine. It would have helped Payton Manning quite a bit last season.

From that moment until two weeks ago, I was on a non-stop quest to acquire one of these ROM machines. It was not easy. The $15k to $16k price tag of a new A-Machine made it prohibitive. There is a cheaper clone machine, but it is not cheap either. ROMfab answered the cheaper clone with an even cheaper clone, but this has recently risen in price also. In short, I was watching eBay.com, looking for a used unit I could grab for cheap.

Well, my opportunity came. I found an owner desperate to sell in Laguna Hills. I scored at a paltry $6000. That is a stunning figure for most people. Most men of middle-class means would never consider purchasing a $6,000 exercise machine for the home. They more stunned when they realize that I got it at $9000 to $10,000 off the list price. I may be the only dude living in a Canoga Park Apartment who owns one of these things.

So what are the results of my first two weeks with the machine? Pretty damn good. I will start tracking my weight and body composition soon, but not right away. The prime directive is to be able to do 4 straight minutes on the lower body exercise setting the resistance for my ideal body weight (231 according to my doctor). Right now I can only do approximately 2:15 on the lower body. Dr. Bachner would be shocked that I can do that much. I am already blasting the full 4 minutes on the upper body exercise, and scoring 127-128, at my ideal body weight. Dr. Tom Long tells me this is a very good score.

As far as results are concerned, I can tell you that my mobility has improved. I don't have to grab both guidance bars when walking down the stairs. I don't have to edge my way down the stairs, avoiding weight on my right knee. I am waking up in the morning with considerable energy. Much more than before. If I crush a workout during lunch, I experience no narcoleptic fades in the afternoon.

The strange thing is that it seems more like a body building workout than an aerobic workout. My muscles are recovering some of their mass. The hunger pangs that strike after the workout are almost unreal. The hunger pangs that occur through the day are also unreal. Tonight, I demolished an 18 inch 3 pound Carne Asada burrito from my favorite shack around the corner. This was not my intention. I was going to cut it in half, and have the other half for breakfast tomorrow. I have never been able to finish one of these 3 pounders in a single sitting, nor have I ever wanted to try. I couldn't stop. I destroyed the whole thing in a single sitting. I was stuffed, but I knew deep inside that I needed the building blocks. I am rebuilding... just like the Patriots and the Rams.

The ROMfab Time Machine and B-Model

So, as you know, I am devout reader of Science Magazine and other sophisticated periodicals. It just so happens that this is the exact forum which Alf Temme likes to advertise his marvelous ROM machine. This where I initially discovered the ROM. So just what is the ROM machine?

The ROM machine is nothing shy of the world's finest aerobic/strength building exercise machine. It essentially provides two exercise movements: A deep-stroke rowing and pressing exercise for your torso and arms, and a deep-range stepper exercise for your legs and hips.

Now for the shocking claim: Alf Temme and his buddy Dr. Petrie claim that you reach untold levels of fitness if you use this machine religiously for just 4 minutes per day. Of course, you have to work hard during this 4 minute span; harder than you have ever worked in your entire life. Four minutes of hard exercise on the ROM can make a N00B puke his guts out. It is that intense.

Skeptical? So was I. I dismissed the claim when I first read the advertisement. I thought it was another fly-by-night ripoff scheme designed to separate science geeks from their dollars. I thought there was no harm in checking the website, though, so I did. What I found there surprised me.

This rudimentary html website contained a number of articles which seemed to echo a school of thought I had once deeply internalized. This is the gospel of intensity. I learned it from Dr. Elington Darden, the mastermind behind the Nautilus workout and the Nautilus machines. I don't know about you, but I never got shit out Joe Weider's system. Weider's perspective was (and probably still is) the dominant theory of weight training. It is also absolutely and completely wrong. It couldn't possibly be more wrong. It just as wrong as wrong can be. It works great for club owners, for a number of dirty reasons I won't go into here. It doesn't work for the guy who wants to train.

Incidentally, I should mention that Joe Weider's main offices are less than a mile from my abode in Woodland Hills. I should walk down there and start a fight. It won't take more than a couple of minutes to knock them out. Then I can go around the corner to Fry's and shop for my next HDTV.

As far as I am concerned, Dr. Dardin proved beyond any shadow of a biological doubt that the human body won't grow strong unless you apply some fairly massive overload on the system. It is only when the body feels a massive overload stress that it kicks out of metabolic sloth mode and begins to build rapidly. The body must feel a survival-level challenge before it will go into adaptation mode. Weider would complain this he knows that and his system delivers that overload. What do I say to that? Bullshit!

As Dardin showed in his work, you don't get the adaptive stress you need out of long workouts featuring 3 sets of 10. You will never get adaptive stress by working one muscle group. Rather, you work all muscle groups on your workout day. You do 12 sets total, 1 per exercise. You do your largest muscle groups first (Squat, Deadlift) and the smallest muscles last (forearm curls). You must lift enough weight to reach total muscle failure in each exercise within 12 reps. The moment you reach 13, you raise the weight. You move rapidly from exercise to exercise. You do not allow time for recovery. You should be totally done in 12 minutes.

When done properly, you will be ready to heave the second set 12 is done. Believe me, I puked several times outside the John Wooden center at UCLA. That's how hard we worked. My Nautilus period was the only epoch during which I made massive strength and muscle gains. I reached the point where I could pull 500 pounds off the floor in the deadlift. I never used steroids. If I had, I am sure I would have won a few powerlifting contests.

From this period of my life, I learned several thing:

1. Long and easy workouts may be good recreation, but they do nothing for your fitness level.
2. High intensity workouts change your body, and make you fit.
3. The objective is to reach your absolute maximum work capacity.
4. You cannot sustain your absolute maximum work capacity for long
5. Therefore the workouts must be short, sweet, and brutally difficult.
6. Get in, get it done, get out. Puke hard if you have too, but make sure you put a survival-challenge stress on the system.
7. When the body experiences fairly massive survival stress, it will adapt to accommodate peak stress levels. This is growth. This is improvement. This is fitness.

This is the gospel of intensity. This is the gospel I once believed in with all my heart. It was the only systematic theory that ever did me any good. The good folks at ROMfab reminded me of this gospel, and it was like an awakening.

It turns out that Dr. Petrie worked for Nautilus at the dawn of his career. He believed in Dr. Darden's philosophy, but he felt it should be applied to aerobic exercise, not just body building or powerlifting. Eventually, he got together with Temme and the two of them formed ROMfab. The results of their collaboration was the ROM machine.

I decided to order the educational DVD and have a closer look. It was an eye opener. I disliked the Hollywood glamour angle of the DVD, but inside the glam was the gospel of intensity. I saw a number of guys manifesting that "I'm going to have a heart-attack and die" look on their faces while doing the exercise. That expression cannot be faked. That facial expression does not happen unless you are being driven hard to your limit. It was no joke. These absolutely fabulous L.A. celebs were being forced to work at a whole different level than what they were used to. The ROM kicked their asses.

In short, I decided to visit the ROMfab factory in North Hollywood California, roughly 15 miles East of my apartment building. I had the opportunity to meet Alf Temme and his chief trainer. Temme maintains a small gym there on the premise. It is open to the public. He has 3 ROM machines availible for public use. Anyone can use them. Come as often as you like. There is no cost. Temme's trainer gave me the quick tutorial and I gave it a go.

I finished the first 4 minute workout, which consisted of rowing and pressing. I worked pretty hard. I am sure I can work harder. I was guzzling breath by the end. It was plenty hard. I recovered faster than I though I would. {I need to slam it harder.} Sweat poured off my body for a good 10 to 15 minutes.

Phase 2 was scary and more difficult. The deep stepper is a fearsome thing for a 300 pound man with advanced osteo arthritis in his knees. It turns out I could do the exercise, but no more than 75 seconds at a time. My right kneed--the one with the tear in the meniscus--was screaming at me. I wound up doing a little more than 3 minutes in 1 minute bursts. Temme and his senior trainer were both emphatic that this exercise was the most important one for me. To rehab my arthritic knees, I needed to do this deep-stepper motion.

I proceeded from there to the Magic Johnson 24 Hour Fitness in Sherman Oaks where I used the Sauna. I also took a couple of 81mg aspirins. To say that I felt great later that evening would be an understatement. Shockingly enough, it got better still. The next day, my legs felt considerably better. I manifested a smoother standing and sitting motion. All of the muscles in my thigh felt sore, like they had been hit by a good workout, but the result was better overall movement. I was shocked. All of this from one good workout.

So how does this machine work? How do you scale the resistance? When you push and pull and step, you cause an 80 pound stainless steel fly wheel to crank around. The wheel has a literal car-break on it. The faster you spin the wheel, the greater the Centrifugal force applied to the break. The harder you crank it, the more it resists you. You can work as hard as you want to work. You also have a scalable slider which guides you resistance to some extent. Believe me, this scheme will make you work as hard as you possibly can.

In short, I am sold. Unfortunately... I have been agitated for the past 48 hours about how I might be able to acquire one of these machines. Finance is a problem. My job is solid, my credit is good, and I earn fairly decent money. So why be agitated? Are you ready for the next shocker?

The ROM Time Machine costs over $14,000 USD. With our state of California 9.75% sales tax, that will come to around $16,500. We're talking about the price of a compact car without any finance from the factory. Mr. Temme is definitely marketing to a more elite crowd than me.

Given our current recession and banking environment, it is not easy to walk into Wells Fargo Financial and ask them for a $16,500 loan to purchase an exercise machine. Prepare for a gun in the ribs. They might actually loan you the money, but it will be a personal signature loan and the rate will probably be North of 15%. We're talking about financial murder here folks.

With that said, the past 48 hours have yielded several shocking revelations. First, there are a lot of these machines on eBay.com. People are selling new units. People are selling used units. There is a clone machine vendor called UltraFastWorkout.com and they are selling at a steeply discounted rate (perhaps as low as $5,000).

I am awaiting official confirmation, but it also appears that Mr. Temme and his crew have released a new version of the ROM called the B-Model. This one will also be sold via eBay for as little as $5,000. {I still wonder why Mr. Temme didn't tell me this in person. He knew I had some issues with the price.} Yes, that is still a chunk of change, but I can slap that on my credit card if worse comes to worse. That fits well under my limits. I can also walk into Wells Fargo Financial and ask them to finance that at a more reasonable rate.

I can skip the shipping charges also. I'll just drive over and load the machine in the back of my truck. No cost for shipment or setup, buddy. I love it.

Am I going to do the deal? Yep, you bet. I am working on it right now. I am just about the happiest guy in America right now. I haven't been this happy since the Rams won the Super Bowl in 1999.

Why?

You don't know how bad my knees have been getting lately. I have been a bit depressed of late, expecting that I will turn into a 400 pound man in a wheel chair over the next 8 or so years. This is as good as a death warrant. From the wheelchair, it is all down hill to the grave. Suddenly discovering an exercise that can rehab my legs and knees is like a God-send. I am pretty fucking happy.

The main site

Lower body workout video

Upper body workout video

Update:

So, I spoke with the folks at Wells Fargo Financial on Friday, and I was most displeased. They offered me $2,500 at 27% with an immediate $25 application fee/finance charge. Quite frankly, I was shocked. The fellow I spoke with told me I was both lucky and good. The last 16 personal signature (unsecured) loan apps he submitted had all been flatly rejected. That is 16 straight rejects in a row. He reminded me that we are still in the midst of the greatest banking and credit collapse since the Great Depression of 1929. Credit remains ultra-tight. When I told him I wanted to buy an exotic exercise machine his first thought was "Okay, here comes the 17th straight reject!"

Naturally I declined the loan. My worst credit card (the one I never use) is at 17.99% APR. I can easily slap the machine on that MasterCard without coming close to the limit and I will still enjoy a lower rate with no immediate finance charge.

All is not lost. Driving away from Wells my first thought was "Why did Citigroup Financial send me a pre-approval notice for up to$7,000 just two months ago?" That was when I tweaked. I'll hand the deal to Citigroup. The offer Citigroup sent me was good for 30 days only. This was at least 2 months ago. The original offer has expired. Nevertheless, I think I will go by Citigroup Financial and see if they will look me up with the credit terms I want.