Man Strength

Today was push press for strength again. This time we were looking for that 1 rep max.

The last one rep max I had was 205 and my technique sucked. This time I had a slightly better idea about what to do and how to do it. 

But first I want to talk about a phrase Bump coined today. It's called, "man strength".

We were watching Bruce put up 215 earlier and it got stuck right above his head while his elbows were bent.

Usually when someone gets stuck right there it's all over. It's not supposed to be humanly possible. Especially with push press. You lose the momentum from the dip drive that you generate with your legs and it's all up to your shoulders.

Except Bruce has man mountain shoulders. That damn thing was stuck above his head for several seconds, enough time for anyone's muscles to get exhausted with 215 overhead. 

Frickin Bruce pushed that thing up anyway. Just pure strength. Bump looks at me and says "that's man strength."

Now before I or Bump get any accusations of being sexist I have to clarify. Not every man has "man strength" and you don't have to be a man to have "man strength." 

Bruce has man strength because he did the impossible, because that weight should not have gone up from that position but it did.

Case in point, when my turn rolled around I ended up with 215 as well. I got it up, barely. Afterwards I saw stars, little birdies and bright lights surrounding my head and my back felt like someone hit it with a sledgehammer.

That's not man strength, that's just all sorts of stupid. But I had slightly better form doing 215 than I did doing 205 months ago so I'm happy about that.

Then came the WOD. Ten handstand pushups, 15 pull-ups, 20 air squats. Those pull-ups killed me. 

Figures I finally learn how to do double unders but I let my pull-ups slack. Lame. 

Also, I received a few comments about my handstand technique where I kick my legs against the wall as fast and as hard as I can. This saves me a couple of seconds.

Kats said he thought I was going to smash through the wall. Sorry buddy, it's an advanced technique, I can teach it to you but it might take a few months to master it. 

Seriously though, I think everybody should try it. Bet you do faster HSPU rounds next time. 

And because I invented it they can name the technique after me. Like the Antone Kick Stand Start or something. 

Come on, you know you want to try it.

Okay peeps, I'm out.

Rod

Single Digit Body Fat

So we're going through one hell of a workout on Tuesday that involved one of those 20 seconds of work 20 seconds of rest things. Eight rounds that started off with kettlebell swings, then sit-ups then burpees.

The burpees were killer. I was kinda bogging when Bump yells at me, "C'mon Antone! This is a big year for us! Let's get it down to single digit body fat this year!!!'

Now you guys know me, I get exhausted fast and nothing anyone yells at me can snap me out of my haze but Bump managed to do that.

See, this is the year I turn the big 4-0. Yup, me and Bump and the rest of Maui High School Class of 1990.

Single digit body fat at 40? Can it be done? Of course. Will it be done? Tough but . . . I want to.

Be nice to take off my shirt and not be sucking in the gut. (Not that it helps) I mean, I feel 100 percent in better shape because of RFM and people have noticed. But getting the six pack back is a special project, which involves all kinds of factors and work outside the gym.

I can do it. All it takes is money for certain kinda groceries, packing meals the night before and caution when it comes to eating out.

Single digit body fat percentage. Wow.

Okay, enough about that crap. Yesterday we did a strange one workout. Five dips, 10 lunges and 15 double-unders, AMRAP for 3 minutes. Rest, then repeat for a total of 3 rounds.

Strange because it wasn't completely exhausting. And wonderful because once again I cranked out double unders at light speed and I had a witness.

My first round I did them in front of Bump and it was fast. Like I'm talking first one done with the round kinda fast and Bump was like, "Yeah Rod, YEAH!"

Here's the weird part though. I did a total of 8 rounds and my timing for double-unders was off from the second to the six round and then I got the rhythm back for the last two rounds.

Oh, that and I need my own jump rope. I've been lucky enough to use Lori's every single time but I'm getting my own soon on Friday. Hopefully Sports Authority has some options.

So yeah, I finally got double-unders and it feels good. It's taken almost two years but better late than never and just in time for year 40.

Alright gang, see you Friday,

Rod

Thank You Google Analytics

Here are some key phrases people type into search engines and end up coming across the I Hate Cardio website. Number three is my favorite.

1. I hate cardio
2. cardio killer
3. "samoan woman"
4. rod antone
5. should i have to wear underwear while doing squats
6. squatting without underwear
7. wear underwear when you do squats

My legs still hurt and tomorrow we have thrusters

That doesn't mean I'm NOT going to go to the workout tomorrow . . . I probably will.

It's just that it's gonna hurt.

I'm going to try to do Saturday's workout at home, tonight, then take a shower and rest up these legs.

Twelve thrusters then run 200 meter. Whew. Attack the weaknesses right? Here we go.

Bruce is a beast and why I love/hate DMeyer and OHS

So my last post I talked about being strong and getting it done this year.

I was serious by the way.

And then I saw yesterday's workout posted and it made me regret those words: 7 rounds of 7 overhead squats and 7 burpees.

Damn, damn, damn, damn it all.

That's a brutal workout. One of those that messes with your mind beforehand and your body afterwards.

Of course for strength we were doing front squat, just in case you thought that you were going to start the WOD with fresh legs, think again.

I had an excuse not to go too. Had a work obligation at Akaku with the boss at 7 p.m. I could have gone home and had dinner or stayed at the office and got some stuff done.

But instead I got in the car and drove to RFM for a hellish workout.

DMeyer was there along with Kats and Lori, Alex and Tito.

And Bruce. He's new but he is a beast. Bruce feels no pain.

I say this because Bruce is about 5 years older than me and hasn't squatted in seven years. But he gives it his all every single time.

During the WOD I know his legs were hurting but he kept going and didn't rest. He was a machine. A beast machine.

(There was one funny part though where Bruce thought he was on round six but he was actually on round five and he was like "FAACKKKK I GET TWO MORE ROUNDS TO GO!!!")

My only saving grace is that we were paired up with a partner to help keep count and to my horror it was DMeyer.

Derrick is a slave driver, he'll push you and he's relentless. At least he gave me five seconds to rest between overhead squats and burpees though.

I needed that though, otherwise I might have given up. But believe it or not the WOD wasn't the worst part.

The worst part was afterwards, as I was laying on the floor and realized with horror that I was expected to count for D while he did his WOD.

D was all ready to go and I couldn't even stand yet. I had to drag myself to his side of the gym and I counted from the floor. Kinda hard to push someone while you're wasted physically yourself.

But I did try. D was on his seventh round and the clock hit 5 minutes and I was like, "Finish before you hit 5:30, DO IT !!!"

He did it, and with 95 pounds as his weight too. (Rest of us used 65 pounds or the bar).

DMeyer and Bruce, you guys is the bestest. Please continue to inspire and push me so that I may feel like crap every day after the WOD.

On another note, has anyone noticed having PERFECT posture after doing overhead squats WOD's?

My back gets straighter, my shoulders more erect and my legs super stiff so that I'm standing in a perfectly straight line from head to toe.

I'm just sayin. Anyone? Let me know if OHS affects you like this too.

Adios gang,

Rod

If the world ends in 2012 I'm gonna be pissed

So you know that thing about 2012 right?

The Mayan calendar says there's supposed to be some sort of Galactic Alignment where all the planets line up with the Milky Way and crazy crap is supposed to happen. Stuff like Atlantis rises up out of the ocean, UFO's show up over major US cities and the women of the View turn into demons from the Ninth circle of Hell.

Anyway, I hope none of that happens because I finally  got some of that stuff  that comes in handy at RFM.

It's called "motivation."

Last time I felt this way I had a big Vegas trip coming up. This time it's just because I know I can. I did this the first time I did  the Whole 30 and was on a strict Paleo diet. Then Vegas came up and I went Paleo again and added extra cardio with Kehau and Bump.

Now the holidays are over and so are some of my bills. (Thank God) We've got the Warrior Dash coming up and some sort of fitness contest at Lahaina Crossfit. All this equals good fodder for getting serious.

It's kinda cool because I know exactly what I have to do to get results. I'm not even worried about it. It's going to happen, no doubt. Plus I'm bragging about it on my blog so now I have to be accountable.

Seriously though, I don't know how to explain it, I just know. It's time.

And this has nothing to do with the New Year. I don't believe in the whole resolution thing anyway. Why wait? What does the 1st of the year have to do with anything? Besides, RFM was closed on New Year's day anyway.

Which is why I headed in today. Me and the rest of the crew kicked off 2012 with three rounds of a furious WOD. One of those 30 seconds of work, 15 seconds of rest things.

We started out with KB swings, then push-ups, then sit-ups then double-unders. After three rounds it was rough.

The worst part was, I forgot to count.

Actually I counted my first round but forgot that I should have just added it all together. I know the first round I did 23 KB swings, 29 push-ups, 19 sit-ups and 24 double-unders, but I should have just kept counting as I went along and I would have ended up with 95.

But since I didn't do that at the end of  the first round I had 15 seconds to add all that up and was like, "Damn it" and just kept going.

I guesstimated that after the first round of 95 I dropped down to 75 and then 65 respectively for the second and third rounds, for a total of 235.

Hey, I'm trying to be honest here and give it my best guess. I know I did at least 20 double unders each round so that's 60 right there, sit-ups were between 13 and 15, KB swings were . . . between 17 and 20 . . . anyway you get the point, it was confusing.

But at least my guesstimate was close and I went lower than I thought I did. At first I said 191 then realized I didn't count the double-unders.

Yeah yeah, mental lapse. But I didn't eat any crappy food today. I drank lots of water and ate a turkey wrap from Mana Foods for dinner.

I'm even cutting down on my drinking and scheduling what nights I'll be going out. Fourth Friday in Paia on the 27th and a big Superbowl Party on Feb. 5th. After that I'm going to be cool until March when we do the Warrior Dash on Oahu.

So hopefully the Mayan's were wrong, I've got too much to do in 2012.

Peace,

Rod

Merry Christmas, have some friction burns on your ass

You guys ever do Annie? Wait that sounds weird. Let me start again.

Crossfit names some of it's tougher workouts using girls names, like they do hurricanes. It's a good practice because you feel like you get hit by a hurricane afterwards.

"Annie" is the name for the double-unders/sit-ups workout. Reps go something like this: 50, 40, 30, 20, 10.

Pretty simple except you realize that after 50 double-unders your core is toast.

I know this because despite my lack of abs I can do sit-ups. But after the first round of DU's I did the first five sit-ups and said "WTF, I have to do 45 more of these?"

It got to the point where the DU's were the easy part. In fact I actually did consistent DU's for the first time. I'm talking about 15 to 20 reps. Derek was my witness and even he was psyched and yelled, "YEAH ROD!!!!"

(On a side note it's always great when you have an actual witness at RFM that sees you doing something you haven't been able to do before. Like the old saying goes, if you praise yourself you're bragging, if someone else does it for you it's a compliment.)

But yeah, thanks D. He even held my feet so I could crank out the final two sets of sit-ups at the end.

I was tore up in more ways than one afterwards. Not only did my abs hurt for days but I had two lines of friction burns on my behind, one for each cheek. Must have come from the sit-ups. I talked to Val and a couple of other members and they had the same gifts from Annie. Thanks a lot Annie. You and your boyfriend Beelzebump rock.

So after that I wasn't able to make it back  to the gym until December 24, which was a Saturday, because I had to go get my son in California. I don't usually go to Saturday workouts but I figured I'd be busy with my son and should take advantage of the fact that he was sleeping off the jet lag from the day before.

So Bump comes out with this workout called the "12 Days of Christmas" and it went something like this:

- One 100 meter run
- Two push presses
- Three pull-ups
- Four lunges
- Five sit-ups
- Six push-ups
- Seven squats
- Eight kettle-bell swings
- Nine toes to bar
- Ten box jumps
- Eleven wall balls
- Twelve burpee star-jumps

I'm looking at it and thinking, "Hmmm . . . looks okay until you hit 9, 10, 11, 12 but should be okay otherwise." Maybe Bump was taking it easy on us because it was Christmas.

Then that bastard explained that we would have to do the workout for the entire length of the song. You know how they start over again each time? So it went like this: Run. Then run and do push presses. Then run and do push-presses and then pull-ups. Then run, push press, pull-ups and add lunges and so on and so forth.

Sweet baby Jesus. So much for the easy holiday schedule. I was right though. I didn't start completely bogging until we hit the toes to bar. That completely sucked.

Scratch that. The burpee star-jumps sucked but by then I was on my last round.

Whoooooooo-boy.

On another note, is anyone going to the Lahaina Crossfit Winter Strength Challenge? How does this work? Do you enter all the events or just the ones you want to? I want to try, just not squats or anything. Or deadlift. I went to their website http://www.lahainacrossfit.com/ but didn't see a list of events or how it works. Ah, I'll figure it out later.

Finally, does anyone need a slot in the 10:30 a.m. Warrior Dash registration http://warriordash.com/register2012_hawaii.php?

My friend Eric is coming to Maui but mixed up his dates and thought he would be here for the Warrior Dash and signed up for it. Anyone who wants to go and hasn't registered can probably pay him for his fee and take his place. If I don't hear from anyone in a week I'll tell him to go ahead and get a refund if he can.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnndddd, for those of you who went to the RFM Christmas party you may have caught a glimpse of Sole Claus, a friend of mine who MC'd the limbo contest. (By the way thank you Val for  having your daughter and her boyfriend enter the contest, they were very entertaining.)

Sole was visiting for Christmas and wanted to say a few words on my blog so here he is:

"Eh, is dis ting woking? Ok! How is you guys at da RFM doing? Thanks to you for letting me MC yoa Christmas pah-tee, I was very impressed at yoa abilities fo going unda da white pipe. Ova hea you guys call dat "limbo", at home we just call dat ducking undaneat someting. I neva undastand why you just neva go around dat PVC pipe but it's okay, I no judge anybodee. So long as you haff a good time dat's all dat mattas. You guys had some funnie peoples though. Dere was dat girl dat neva like put down her Primo beer da whole time, I tought she was gonna hit her da kines on da pipe cause she only drink all night but she did pretty good. Den dere was my sole cousin Tehau she do da robot in da semifinals. Dat was very impressive but not as impressive as dat small girl with the big kine . . . flexibility . . .dat when bend all da way backwards. Good ting my cousin is a good sport, oddawise she woulda push all yoa cars out into da street and make all kine pileup. But I tole her, 'Tehau you no kona get ankree like you do at da bar.' I was very proud of her because she control her ankreeness."

Hookay I like to wish everybodee Happy New Year and please no be like my cousin Tefe dat wen blow up his fingers making homekine exposions. Just buy dat stuffs from the store and you light 'em up safely from yoa car while you driving. Dat way you trow it at peoples and drive away at da same time. CHEEEHOOO!!!"

Thanks Sole. Also let's give a shout out to Jordan "JHo" Holland, owner of Xplore Crossfit in Seattle, WA.http://www.xplorecrossfit.com  Ran into the guy on the plane home from picking up my son and told him about Raw Fitness Maui. Come check us out!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everybody!!!!

Rod