Workout of the Week

4 Rounds

Run 1 mile

40 DB High Pull (bilateral)

30 Squat Jumps (bodyweight squat where you jump at the top)

20 Pullups (assisted if necessary)

10 Deck Squat Ball Slams

Run decreases by .25 mile each rnd.

Record your loads and time.

Technique Video: Dumbbell Power Development pt 2

Everybody loves a sequel.

Staying the Course part 3

Last point on this subject.

Set an event date for yourself.

For me theres always light at the end of the tunnel in the form of a competition date. I know once March 27th gets here, I'm going to be able to cut back and relax for a couple of weeks. American Kettlebell Club National Championships happen this weekend, so I've been training like a madman for 3 months now. But theres an end date, a time to recover coming up that sustains me.

If youre endlessly killing yourself in the gym on a punishing routine day after day, its going to wear you down eventually. So set yourself a date to hit an interim goal. Once you get there, go out and celebrate. Have a drink or a burger. Then, a few days later, you jump back in for the next segment.

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. How do you win a national title or lose those pounds? One bit at a time. Give yourself permission to sit back and appreciate all the work you've done every now and then.

Workout of the Week

Run 1 mile (1% inclune if you're on a treadmill)

20 minutes max rounds of the following:

10 pullups (assisted if necessary)

10 Deck Squat Ball Slams

10 Hang Squats

10 Burpees

Run 1 mile.

Record mile times, rounds completed and loads. Videos posted below.

Tip & Technique Video: Long Cycle

In honor of this Saturday's event, the AKC National Long Cycle Championships. If you've never seen or have no idea what the hell a long cycle is, here you go. Com on out next week to see the big show. I'll post the info for tkts below.

Please contact Camie Kornely at 800-519-8553 or email her at ckornely@reeboksportsclubny.com to purchase your tickets. $10.

Staying the Course part 2

Part 2 in our look at how training like a competitive athlete can help keep you plugged into your fitness goals.

2. Find something new.

I’m a competitor in the kettlebell event Long Cycle Clean & Jerk. In the end, it isnt the most stunning or exciting thing to watch. Its a grinding, heavy, chalky, high intensity slog through 10 minutes of lifting heavy objects over your head as many times as possible.

So, to keep myself interested, I have to find new things like kettlebell juggling, circuit intervals, new grip work, and alternate endurance work to keep things interesting. The key is to find movements and exercises that contribute in a positive way to your ultimate goals. The newness keeps you plugged in and engaged while you get the useful goodies too. Its like Flintstones Vitamins, wrap something you have to get into something tasty that keeps you coming back.

Sun Delay

Today's video post is delayed due to a freakin' beautiful day in NYC. Man! Sorry kids, had to spend a little time in the park. Look for a special edition video post tomorrow for your tip & technique fix.

Staying the Course

Maintaining focus and consistency in training is all about finding the pieces and elements that excite you. And that can be extremely difficult, especially now, after such a long, difficult winter. (Those of you in San Diego, at lest just try to imagine that there is a thing called cold.), day in and day out in the gym, run after run. Staying on course is tough!

Over the next couple of entries we’re going to take a look at how taking tips from competitive athletes can apply to keeping you on track.

1. DO NOT BREAK YOUR RHYTHM: With everyone as busy as we are, its hard enough just finding those first couple of hours to get into our training routines. Well, once you find those hours, keep them, make them regular. If Monday at 7:30pm and that early Thursday spin class worked last week, hit them again this week and make dates for yourself. Make them regular anchor points in your week that you can look forward to doing something good for yourself. They're dates for which canceling and rescheduling is not an option. As soon as I skip one of my mid week morning workouts, I know next week, that same question is going to creep into my mind and ultimately I'm going to end up losing that regular session all together.

Don’t do it to yourself. Get regular and stay there!

Workout of the Week

Hope you've been practicing with the bilateral jerk...

For the initiated (gs style athletes) out there, do the following without resting the bells on the ground.

For the uninitiated (everybody else), you may put the bells down and pick them up as needed.

5 minutes max reps bilateral jerk

rest 1 minute

4 minutes max reps bilateral jerk

rest 1 minute

3 minutes max reps bilateral jerk

rest 1 minute

2 minutes max reps bilateral jerk

rest 1 minute

1 minute max reps bilateral jerk

record your loads and reps.

Special Edition How To Video: Home Made Indian Club

Tip & Technique Video: Bilateral KB Jerk

It's a Soda, Not A Right.

Tear jerking, heart string tugging commercial. Cut to interior shot of an urban grocery store. The store owner narrates as a number of customers of various ethnic minority groups shop for food.

"The majority of my customers come in with a calculator and a note pad, because they're on a budget...You can't just raise prices by taxing soda. We're already stretched...."

A tv news magazine piece where the journalist is interviewing inside a grocery store. Irate mother screaming about how it's just so unfair to tax her soda pop. She's just trying to care for her kids.

Want to care for your kids? Don't want to get hit with extra taxes? Want to save money? Water people. Water, tea, Crystal Light, veggie juice, milk, soy milk.

Come on now!

You know, as a former overweight kid who had a 3+ Sunkist Orange Soda per day habit, I'm going to be the first to say it. Tax 'em all. Tax 'em hard and tax 'em high.

Sodas encourage obesity. Obesity costs individuals, insurance companies and our government hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Obesity raises your health care costs and health premiums.

For our readers in the NY area, please call your representatives, email them , snail mail them, whatever. We need to get this tax passed.

I'm just sayin'.

Workout of the Week

Deceptively easy or brutally honest?

Run 1 mile

10 HSPU (hardest variant possible)

20 DB High Pull

30 Burpees

40 Ball Slam

50 Box Jumps

Run 1 mile

What's In Your Beverage?

You know that book "Eat This Not That?" The author, David Zinczinko, just came out with a new list detailing some of the more popular beverages you're going to run into at the supermarket. Worth a look, so I'm reposting. Who knew?

Snapple Agave Melon Antioxidant Water (20-ounce bottle)

150 calories
33 g sugars

Sugar Equivalent: 3 bowls of Honey Comb cereal


Snapple Lemon Iced Tea (20-ounce bottle)

250 calories
58 g sugars

Sugar Equivalent: 6 Original Fudgsicle Bars


Starbucks Coffee Frappuccino

290 calories
4.5 g fat (2.5 g saturated)
46 g sugars

Sugar Equivalent: 3.5 scoops of Dreyer's Double Fudge Brownie Ice Cream

Minute Maid Lemonade (20-ounce bottle)

250 calories
67 g sugars

Sugar Equivalent: 5 Good Humor Vanilla Ice Cream Sandwiches


Sunkist (20-ounce bottle)

325 calories
88 g sugars

Sugar Equivalent: 17 Chewy Chips Ahoy! Cookies

Naked Protein Zone Banana Chocolate (15.2-ounce bottle)

480 calories
3 g fat (1 g saturated)
32 g protein
70 g sugars

Sugar Equivalent: 5 Breyers Oreo Ice Cream Sandwiches


Tip & Technique Video: Bilateral KB Development

Time to move up to the big league. If you haven't already started working the bilateral kb movements, there's no time like the present. Seriously. Pick up an little extra complexity and load.

Countdown

88 Days to Memorial Day and the unofficial start of summer....

Thank God. No. Seriously. Thank God. In a season that brought us the snowiest February on record for New York City...EVER, thank God summer is on its way.

What are you doing to get ready? What kind of goals have you set for your summer?

Think back to the New Year's work we were doing. Ask yourself what you want to accomplish in your own fitness/athletics/wellness. Then look at what is the one better choice you can make for yourself each day (doesn't have to be the same one every day) to get yourself there.

You pack a sandwich for work instead of running doen to Au Bon Pain. You park your car at the far end of the Costco parking lot. You take the stairs.You run 5 miles instead of 4 tonight at the gym. Whatever. Find one thing you can do for yourself, one thing a day. You'll be surprised how fast it gets you where you want to be without all that broken resolution guilt.

Workout of the Week

The handstand pushups listed below should be done at the most difficult hspu progression possible. Watch the video for a refresher course. The db clean & Jerk....well....sometimes there just isn't a substitute.

10 DB C&J

1 HSPU

9 BD C&J

2 HSPU

8 DB C&J

3 HSPU

7 DB C&J

4 HSPU

6 DB C&J

5 HSPU

5 DB C&J

6 HSPU

4 DB C&J

7 HSPU

3 DB C& J

8 HSPU

2 DB C&J

9 HSPU

1 DB C&J

10 HSPU

Record your time and loads.