So, I came up with a core workout for the ages last night. I went to the gym around 8:30pm and executed this pattern 2.5 times before my back began to ache, and I was forced to retreat for the evening.
My form was good to excellent on everything except the pike. The pike still gives me problems. My weight on the Turkish Get Up increased to 12 KG (about 26 pounds) and I really could have done 30. There was a time when I couldn't even perform the Turkish Get Up. The first time I tried it, I looked pretty damn stupid. The reason was/is core strength. The TGU is a misunderstood exercise. It is thought to be a shoulder exercise. It is much more a core exercise.
I woke up with mildly sore (but very hard) abs & obliques. This is a sure sign of a good core workout the night before. I was so impressed with the results I decided to share it with you here. I am on my way to a 6-pack.
Pardon me whilst I gloat for a few moments. I am having a very good day. My team has unloaded Billy Devaney and we have the opportunity to replace him with Bill Polian. That will terminate a whole bunch of dysfunction in our organization, if we can pull it off.
I am rising a loaf of pumpernickel bread in the kitchen, and...
Better still, I purchased a 70 pound Cap Kettlebell and proceeded to worked out like a vicious beast at my gym this evening. This was my drill list
Dumbell bench press
Halo
Swing
Turkish Get Up
Sumo Chin (facing the wall)
Clean and press
I benched with a pair of 70 pound dumbells. The Gireviks are quite correct. The 70 pound dumbell is a lot lighter than 70 pound kettlebell. I would invite you to lift and see. I used my 60 pounder in the Halo, Swing, and Sumo Chin. I used the 70 pounder in the Swing and the Sumo Chin. I can't halo with the 70 pounder just yet. Soon! Very soon!
More important than any of this was my success with the Turkish Get Up. I was able to perform 5 good reps with each arm using the 20lb kettlebell for the first time. For the very first time, I felt as if I was performing this exercise with good control and decent form. I did not bang-up my knee caps, which is an important thing to a surgically repaired dude like me.
Best of all, my hands feel pretty decent. My left feels normal, and my right is just a little numb. I am pretty happy about that.
Furthermore, an unidentified female entered the crossfit gym, and just felt an overwhelming compulsion to man-handle one of my balls. She grabbed the 60 and asked how much it weighed. I told her 60. She felt compelled to try swinging it, and she did a pretty good job for 6 or 7 reps. I was impressed.
You know that is an extremely flirtatious thing to do. She was trying to send the message that she was a good strength match for me. We'll see. I didn't feel a particular synastry reaction with this woman.
The score a few moments ago was 187.2 English pounds on the Tanita scale. The digital read-out wavered between 187.0 and 187.2 several times before rounding up, as it always does. Let's presume that I am 187.1, and the 2/10ths digital display simply cannot indicate that fact.
The Bod Pod would place me somewhere 186.2-186.25 this morning. That is without any special prep. I did not do an extensive areobic workout last night. I did not do 30 minutes in the saunas at 24 Hour Fitness. I did not purge my intestines with Magnesium Citrate. An official prep for the Bod Pod would put me lower this morning.
I mention all this, because this is the end of another two week Bod Pod cycle, and I have officially missed the test. It was a tough week of finishing Jury Duty and trying to catch up at work after 8 days out of the office. I never found a spare moment between 9:00am and 5:00pm to call the California Health and Longevity Institute to make an appointment.
I mention all of this because two weeks ago, my body weight was 195.7 pounds on the Bod Pod scale. The indication is that I have lost some 9.45 pounds in the past two weeks. This is shocking. When last I blogged on this subject, we were speaking of the point of inflection. We were speaking of that moment when my body weight would cease decreasing, and begin increasing... hopefully with lean-mass only. Low-and-behold: we have a massive 9.45 pound decrease in gross body weight at the end of this cycle.
God only knows what this did to my Body Fat Percentage (BFP). I wish I knew. I bitterly regret not having a test this week. It might have been a dandy. Presuming that this was all fat weight, my body fat would have dropped from 44.56 pounds to 35.11 pounds. 35.11 / 186.25 = 18.85%. This is astounding. I might actually have moved the check-box to Healthy territory, and I might be just 1.85% away from my final and ultimate medical goal.
This is all the more shocking because I have largely abandoned the aerobics machines that have brought be most of the distance. I only walked on the tread mill once last week. I only got on the bike twice last week. I only got on the Elliptical Cross-Trainer once last week. I only did the Olympic Rowing Machine twice last week.
To make matters more interesting, I did ZERO CrossFit workouts last week. Now why the limited amount of work? Because I encountered a substantial training injury to my right shoulder doing head-stand push-ups last Saturday at the CrossFit gym.
I did train last week. I did a dumbbell workout with Aaron on Thursday, and I did a killer WOD routine here at the apartment with my ROM machine and some Kettlebells that I have recently purchased. Those were brutal workouts. My heart rate went over 170 during the Kettlebell swing, I am sure.
I am going to add one more piece of complexity to the picture for you: I have fallen in love with the Del Taco Macho Bacon and Egg Burrito all over again. According to one source, this burrito contains approximately 1,030 kcal per shot. That's a load of kcal energy, buddy.
Yet at the same time all of this has been going on, I know my strength has been increasing. I am officially swinging, cleaning, and rowing the 20 KG kettlebell, doing orbits with 16 kg, and doing the Turkish Get Up with the 8 KG bell.
The Kettlebell has become my new obsession, and a powerful one at that. If you were to read Enter the Kettlebell! by Pavel Tsatsouline (an August 23, 1969 Virgo guy from Russia) you will find that a simple regime consisting of 5 minutes of Kettlebell Swings and 5 minutes of Turkish Get Ups done once every other day is all he recommends for a beginner. Don't count reps, go for 5 solid minutes with good form. He claims that is enough to get your strength moving northward and your body fat moving southward.
Evidently, the Kettlebell Swing and the TGU are the two master exercises in the Kettlebell regime. They are just as important in Kettlebell training as the Deadlift and Squat are in the Powerlifter's regime. These are the two exercises a Kettlebell student must master and perform all the time.
Further, this two exercise regime will trigger plenty of fat loss without "the dishonor" of aerobic exercise. Pavel is very derisive of those metro-sexual machines. Men should be playing with cannonballs, not girly bikes and treadmills. The comrade-ladies should also be using Kettlebells to meet their fitness needs.
It sounds preposterous, I know. That just can't be enough work to get the job done. However, in this week of recovery from injury, I seem to have inadvertently proven his point. Now, I did more than that. There were other Kettlebell exercises. Further, there was the good 'ole ROM machine. However, the Kettlebells in my living room were the big, big, big change item.
I am in love with Kettlebells!
