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.

The Falcons should feel confident of victory this weekend

The Atlanta Falcons have absolutely everything they need to roundly defeat the New England Patriots in Foxborough this weekend (game 3) of the 2009 NFL season. They have outstanding offense, they have a franchise QB in Matt Ryan, a franchise TE in Anthony Gonzales, and a powerful franchise RB in Michael Turner. They have an opportunistic ball-hawking defense that already has 9 take-aways against strong offensive teams. They are much better than their #22 ranking. They have outstanding special teams play, led by Jason Elam, owner of the NFL's longest field goal. They have youth. They have experience. They have all-pros. They have role-players. They have everything you need to put together a powerful contending football team. In short, the Falcons are a damn good squad. They are one of the more complete teams in the league.

The Falcons should be favored to win. We should not view the game as an upset when they do win. There is no reason to favor the Patriots by 4 outside of dynastanalingus. Dynastanalingus is a grave psycho-social malady that afflicts sports writers and handicappers world-wide. This disease is marked by a compulsive need to lick the assholes of whosoever is considered the reigning dynasty of the moment... even if said team has not won a Super Bowl in 5 years, and never ever enjoyed an undefeated season. Dynastanalingus is one of the most powerful causes of errant missed predictions, pseudo-upsets, and dismayed surprise. It also causes those afflicted to deny that dynasty is over, long after they have jumped the shark.

We could also sight the fact that ESPN is headquartered in Bristol, Connecticut. Need we remind the world that they covered a decade or more of meaningless BoSox games when the BoSox were absolutely terrible? Need I remind you that they turned the Yankees vs BoSox into the ultimate rivalry? Need I remind you of the hoopla they raised when the BoSox finally won the series. Much of the esteem for the Patriots stems from the pure bias of ESPN-ites who are from that sector of the country.

Keep your heads up Falcons. Fight. Win. The only thing that can stop you is you. The Patriots are rebuilding. If you execute your gameplan, you will prevail. There will be a street-fight, but you should be confident of victory.

Just think, you can spoil Monday morning for all the radio personalities who are desperate and Jonesing for a good moment to lick Belichick's asshole clean. This is especially true for those who think that a Wes Welker is a belt on a 3 piece suit, and his return guarantees the Patriots victory.

Dump your Titans stock as quick as you can

So I was just watching the NFL network a few moments ago, and here we have Mike Martz and Charles Davis playing Buy, Sell or Hold with François. Both of them were buying Titan stock. I was shocked. Their reasoning? This is a Jeff Fisher team. That is all.

No, no, no, no fuck no. That is totally insufficient and inadequate reasoning. Let me give you some Donald Duck in Mathematicsland courtesy of Matt Millen and Penn State. The Titans are 0-2. The Colts are 2-0. The Titans must travel to Giants Stadium New Jersey to take on Mark (dirty) Sanchise the freakin' franchise of the Jets. This is a loss for the Titans. For sure. No bullshit.

Folks, the Jets punched the Texans in the face. The beat 'em up, took their lunch money and made them cry. The Texans were shutout. The Texans scored 34 against the Titans. This does not bode well. The Titans were eliminated from the playoffs last season by a mean and nasty Baltimore defense they could not figure out. That defense was the product of Rex Ryan. A defense very much like that is headed straight for them. The bottom line is this is loss for the Titans. It may be hard-fought, but it will be a loss. The Titans open 0-3.

Some say the transitive law of equality does not function in NFL football games. I would agree, but I expect it to work well in this case.

The Colts are headed for a shoot-out with the Cardinals in the Desert. This game is going to be amazing. The Colts may or may not be favored to win against the Cardinals. I personally would favor the Cardinals by the slimmest of margins. I may be allowing my biases to show there. Pick'em. This may be the most entertaining game of the year. The Colts are going to have luxury of dropping this one and maintaining a 2 game lead on the Titans. Should they prevail, they will have a 3 game lead on the Titans.

They will have two matches against the Titans. The first is in Week 5 where they will journey to Nashville. Expect the Colts to split the series at the least. This will maintain a 2 to 3 game lead through 5 weeks of play. Nasty math for the Titans. They are digging themselves a mighty hole which is probably going to be too deep to dig out of. Don't expect the Colts to tank the way the Broncos did last year. There will be no meltdown in Indianapolis.

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 Rams should make Trent Green their offensive coordinator

The Rams have scored a total of 7 points this year. That's one touchdown in 8 quarters of play. We weren't exactly playing the 1985 Bears and the 1976 Steelers either. Compare and contrast our total of 7 points with the 92 points scored by the New Orleans Saints in these first two games. The Spirit of the Greatest Show on Turf and Air Coryell now resides under the roof at the Superdome.

So what are we going to do about it? Are we just going to keep plugging, or are we going to make a change?

This morning, one morning show was discussing the problems some certain team was having offensively. It wasn't the Rams. I think it might have been the Redskins. Immediately, one of the voices recommended hiring Trent Green as the new offensive coordinator. "He's too smart to be doing color commentary on Sundays. Trent has to become a coach at some point." The other voice agreed with him.

I mulled that over for about 10 seconds. I agree. Trent is too smart to be doing color commentary. If we don't hire him, somebody else will. When we have the most desperate problems offensively, we should be the one to make this move. If Trent is agreeable, we need to hire him. He has been in our camp several times. He knew our system in the Greatest Show on Turf days. He was the NFL's top rated quarterback in 2000, when Warner went down with an injury. We dealt him to KC for a 1st round draft pick, which in retrospect, looks like a big mistake. Trent is from the St. Louis area. Let's bring him back.

This move would also signify the moment when we abandon our attempt to get the West Coast Offense rolling in St. Louis. Let's face the facts guys. It has been three years. Things have been getting steadily worse. We aren't running the scheme, and what we are doing isn't working at all. When we already enjoyed the most high-performance offense the world has ever known (at least until New Orleans) I don't see why we want to step down to a complicated ball-control passing scheme.

Bring Trent in. Ask him to run the offense he wants to run. Let's see what he does. I bet it will look much more like Mike Martz and Don Coryell than Bill Walsh and Mike Holmgren.

Dave's Preliminary NFL Top 5 Power Ranking before Monday Night Week 2

1. Saints
2. Ravens
3. Giants
4. Falcons
5. Vikings

There you have it ladies and germs. If the Super Bowl were held today, Dave says it would be Ravens vs. Saints for all the marbles.

Reluctantly, I must include the Vikings on that list. I have no confidence in the Vikings. I do not believe they are headed anywhere in the post season. If the Colts have a powerful showing on Monday night, and down the Dolphins hard, they will replace the Vikings, and probably bump the Falcons down a notch.

Several undefeated teams did not make it into my top 5 list. The Jets are just on the other side of my confidence horizon. They to have to open up on offense to gain a slot here. Their play calling is far too conservative. The Broncos also failed to make this list. This is far more explainable, but it probably requires no explanation. Josh McDaniels shit the bed when he first laid down on the job. I have no confidence at all in the Broncos. Their 2-0 start is the ultimate fluke in route to a 2-9 start.

Thoughts about the early games on week two

Three "Shocking" upsets

No doubt the writers will be focusing on three 'upset' victories we see on the early slate.

• Jets 16 Patriots 9
• Bengals 31 Packers 24
• Texans 34 Titans 31

For my money, this first game is no upset. I expected the Jets to take down the rebuilding Patriots. I have been the sole truth teller regarded the rebuilding status of the Patriots. I am surprised the Patriots kept the game this close. If the Jet offense had just played with a bit more confidence, they could have blown this game wide open.

On the other hand, the Bengals perpetrated a hellacious upset. The Pack got caught with their pants down. The Bengals balled their asses off. The Bengals just took down a team that could make it to the Super Bowl. While my heart hurts for the Pack, I am excited to see the long-suffering Bengals show some signs of life. The green shoots are up! The green shoots are up!

The Texans might be the owners of an even more shocking upset. They played with tremendous effort and courage as they came back from 21-7 deficit to win this game. Andre Johnson french fried the Titans secondary. The just couldn't stop him at all. The Titans have to deal with the fact that they had the game well in hand twice and blew it twice. The Titans now go to 0-2, and they are looking every inch the part of last year's fluke team. Depending on what the Colts do tomorrow, they could be in some early trouble here.

Three Games that went as expected, or better

From my perspective three games went extremely well. As expected or better.

• Cardinals 31 Jaguars 17
• Saints 48 Eagles 22
• Vikings 27 Lions 13

I do not believe the Jags are bad team. I think they are a very good team. I think they took a couple of Philadelphia Left-Hooks from an angry-as-hell Super Bowl contender that got ambushed last week. They took a pretty good sized ass-whipping from the Cardinals who controlled the game from start to finish. The Jags never got a whiff of this football game.

A number of wags were picking the Eagles last night on the NFL Network. I don't know what you were thinking. This one went as expected. You could see this a mile away. With no McNabb and no Vick, there was no way in fucking hell the Eagle offense could keep up with the greatest offense in the NFL. It is time for us to recognize that the Spirit of the Greatest Show on Turf and Air Coryell now resides in New Orleans. The Saints are playing downright beautiful offense. It is a joy to watch those guys do their thing. They hung 48 on a collapsing Eagle defense. It was humiliation for the Eagles. These Saints are a special football team. If they keep doing this, they are going to the Super Bowl. Only the Cards can score with them.

While I can enjoy Peter King's prediction that that the Lions would break the loosing streak this week, I suspected this was pretty far-fetched. The Viking fans must have been dropping bricks in their shorts when the Lions scampered out to a 10-0 lead. They are getting better. Unfortunately, the Vikings rallied to score 27. Still, the Lions are improving. They are going to be ready to win a few soon.

Three Games the Surprised me

• Raiders 13 Chiefs 10
• Falcons 28 Panthers 20
• Redskins 9 Rams 7

How about them Raiders? The autumn wind is a pirate... The Chiefs are a rapidly improving football team and the Raiders had to come back to win, but this is the second consecutive week where the Raiders played tough football and were more than good enough to win. Maybe they are going to win this year?

I did not expect the Panthers to factor in the game. I expected the Falcons to dominate the hell out of this football game. I thought it would be very ugly and one-sided. This game was far more competitive and tighter than I ever would have expected. It had the second highest fan rating of any game on the board, meaning that we will see it on Replay this week. Still, the Falcons did what they were expected to do and they prevailed.

Now for my Rams. I have good news and I have bad news. The bad news is that we lost 9-7. Our offense continues to suck. We have scored a total of 7 points this season. However, our offensive line is improving. The good news is that Bulger did not die. He got hit a lot and savagely pressured at times. He was only sacked once, but this fact does not tell it like it was. Still, our line is improving. Although the Redskins brought the heat, our guys did more to hold them off than I expected. The announcers complained that the Redskins had some serious offensive issues. I think my Rams defense had something to do with that. Our special teams continue to be good.

The ultimate upshot is that we took on a Redskin team that is better and more talented than the Seahawks who blew us 28-0 last week, and we made it a lot closer this time up. We are improving. The Redskin faithful were booing during the last 1:30 of regulation as the skins took the victory formation. That fact is interesting... If we only had some offense...