Our workout life & goals have just undertaken a huge shift.  I’m just now getting my mental-arms wrapped around the changes in store, but the bottom line is that our cash flow picture has changed significantly so we are curtailing expenses where possible.  Among the things on the “discretionary expenses” list that are to meet the budget axe are:

• Weekly Tuesday night training with Luka at Hocevar Performance, and
• My date with the Russian Kettlebell Challenge Certification Workshop in April.

This is a huge shift.  The RKC was my next big goal.  Tuesdays were the highlight of my workout week, my chance to “lift heavy shit” and mold my aging  protoplasm into something that looks halfway decent when naked (no, there will be no pictures).  I was just feeling like I was “turning the corner” on my recovery from the pre-Thanksgiving nerve injury, so now this second dose of adversity forces me to do a complete reboot on the training regime.  Terri is as devastated as I, as she was seeing changes in her body that she has never had in her entire life.  We are determined to get back to the gym as soon as possible, but short of holding a “Send a Calnan to Training” telethon on the public access channel (maybe this is where I should sell those pictures), the timeframe for our return to Prowler-Pushing and Tire-Flipping on Tuesdays is not clear.

The new training regime isn’t established yet, but it’s basically going to be Terri and I training each other 3 or 4 times a week.  I still have 5 weeks of bootcamp training to go, so my Monday/Wednesday/Friday mornings are scheduled for the next month.  With the equipment we’ve managed to acquire over the past year, we should be able to devise some pretty good kettlebell complexes, bodyweight sessions, and the occasional heavy lifting on our own (accepting donations of an Olympic Trap Bar, if you’ve got one laying unused in your garage).

With Spring apparently upon us (things are blooming, and the frogs are back!), we may even dust off the bicycles and start putting in some saddle time.  We haven’t led any rides in months, and I owe a friend or two a hilly ride to Black Diamond/Green River Gorge.

The next few months will probably be more of a mental than physical challenge.  We need to stay focused, even when the future gets foggy.

I miss doing 3-4 strength training sessions a week with the kettlebells, but with the grip issue still resolving itself I don’t think I can go there quite yet.  So this bootcamp-challenge of Luka’s has been a good way for me to get more active following the injury, yet still giving me time to heal.

From the sound of it, the bodyweight workouts that we’re doing at 6 a.m. should be way easier than, say, deadlifting 300 pounds.  Not so fast.   Due to the rapid-fire nature of these workouts there is little or no chance for rest, putting a big load on the cardiovascular system to keep up.  Here’s the circuit that Luka had us doing yesterday, after a quick warmup:

Tabata intervals – 40 secs work / 20 seconds rest – 4 mins (twice thru 2 exercises) per station:

• Station 1: Sprint 40 yards up-and-back (I managed 2 “laps” per 40 sec interval) & V-Ups
• Station 2: Kettlebell Deadlifts & “Prisoner” Jump-Squats
• Station 3: Dumbell curl & press & bent-over rows
• Station 4: Burpees with a lateral jump in between reps & Planks in a pushup position, alternating touching the shoulder with the hand.

The workout “finisher” yesterday was descending reps of two alternating exercises, 10 reps down to 1:

• Jump-squats
• Pushups

So yeah, lifting heavy is hard physically because you are testing the limits of strength.  This stuff tests/pushes your endurance, as well as your mental fortitude.  You just did your second set of 40 second v-ups and your abs and hip flexors are burning.  Your 20 seconds of “rest” gives you just enough time to drag yourself to your knees, then your feet.  How fast you willing to sprint, old timer?  You going to let that 23 year old girl beat your ass?  (The answer is YES, but only by a few feet).

The injury rehab is progressing.  I’m now maybe 50% back to where I need to be.  It no longer wakes me up and I don’t have to sleep flat on my back with no pillows! Woo-hoo!!  I’ve tapered my ibupofen back to less than 50% of what it was.  I’m continuing my regimen of stretching/physical therapy/z-health stuff that seems to be helping.

I don’t envision any cycling in my near future until my grip improves a bit… that one ride I did revealed that I can’t squeeze the front brake lever with much force.  Lack of stopping ability doesn’t make for safe group riding.

The weighing-in every morning is a bit maddening, since my water-weight seems to fluctuate so much.  Yesterday I was 3 pounds heavier than I am this morning.  That means I’ll probably be a couple of pounds heavier tomorrow even though I’ll spend today eating bunny-chow.  It’s all about the averages, and the trend over time.

Stay Below The Line!!!

At the recommendation of my Family Physician, I had an MRI done on my neck Wednesday night.  Cool machine, if you aren’t claustrophobic.  I wasn’t, until I got into this machine.  A coffin has more space that this thing.  I was actually cool until about 20 minutes into this 25 minute ordeal, then I got a very strong urge to getthehelloutofhere.  I had to calm my breathing, and think “happy thoughts” (mine was the bicycle descent from Sunrise/Mt. Rainier).

The results today:

It looks like you have quite a bit of degeneration of the discs between your vertebrae. Please make a telephone or in person appointment to discuss

FuckityFuckFuckFuckFuckFuckFuck.

I knew something was wrong, and I had pretty much assimilated that I may have had a slight bulging disc in the neck, but I wasn’t quite prepared for “degeneration”.  I’m hoping it sounds worse that it is, but when I look at it I just feel old.  Not good.

I’m determined to work around this thing, and still accomplish my goals.  In order to do that, I need to

• Rehab the current injury/symptoms (neck/shoulder pain & lack of grip in left hand)
• Improve my posture and movement patterns so as to avoid further injury
• Strengthen the neck and improve it’s flexibility
• Train consistently on the strength and endurance I will need to pass the RKC certification in April.

I am in week 1 of a 9 week “transformation contest” at Luka’s gym.  Three mornings a week, I’m rolling in to Renton at 6 a.m. for 40 minutes of hell.  That’s in addition to the 1 night a week of strength training I’m still doing.  I love the strength stuff, lifting heavy shit gives me great joy.  40 minutes of consistently hard bodyweight exercise amongst 20 heaving bodies is probably more difficult for me.  Bonus points that some of the bodies are pretty nice, even at 6 a.m.

Stay tuned to the ongoing saga of John’s pain-in-the-neck.  I’ll try to be more consistent in updating y’all.  For the sake of accountability, here’s the link to my FitDay stats, so you can see how the transformation is progressing:

John’s FitDay

Rewind to the Saturday before Thanksgiving. I’d fully recovered from the H1N1 influenza from a couple of weeks prior, and ready to start consistent workouts in order to peak in time for my RKC certification in February. I had a nice kettlebell workout, and finished with some TRX scarecrows (sort of a reverse butterfly kinda thing).

By Monday I was getting pretty sore, and I had a trigger-point thing going on at my left Rhomboid muscle (above and center of the left shoulder-blade. I chalked it up to Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness, but when I attempted to do a Viking Warrior Conditioning / kettlebell snatch workout I could not adequately grip the ‘bell in my left hand. On the downstroke it felt like it was going to fly out of my hand.

For a few weeks, I tried Active Release Therapy, Chiropractor, and Massage Therapy on the assumption that I had a muscular impingement of some sort. All I was really doing waS getting was more frustrated. For the RKC, my biggest worry is passing the kettlebell snatch test, and there was no way to even do more than a couple of snatches with my left hand. My latest fitness and life goal was slipping through my fingers… kind of like a kettlebell in my left hand on the downstroke of a snatch.

I went to my regular doctor, and she took x-rays of my neck to rule out a bulging disk, and she ended up giving me an injection of Lidocaine into the Rhomboid in order to stop the muscle spasms. That was pretty good for a couple of days, but the grip strength didn’t return and the muscle soreness in my back & shoulder soon returned.

After a wait of a couple of weeks, I got in to the physical therapist today. She did a lot of assessing, testing, and stretching of my neck and shoulder. Her conclusion is that I likely had a bulging disk for a time after that initial workout in the vicinity of the C-8 vertebra. The bulge has since subsided, but there is some scar tissue along the nerve to my hand which continues affect the grip. My homework is to 1.) improve my computing posture, and 2.) do a series of stretches that will help to work on the contact-point between the scar tissue and the nerves to my hand & arm.

While this is pretty good news for my long-term prognosis, it is not so good for my goal of RKC in February. I will likely be calling the RKC folks in the next week to reschedule my cert. for a later date as this healing & strengthening process could take weeks (or months).

In the meantime I’m going to dive headfirst into a bootcamp transformation contest that Luka is doing at Hocevar Performance Gym. I just have to decide what’s more distasteful… bootcamp three days a week at 6 a.m., or 6 p.m.

...buy the book, don't wait for the movie!

I needed a workout on Thursday, but still being a bit sore in the thighs I opted for another round of Viking Warrior Conditioning rather than a strength workout.  I did my usual warmup of forward lunges & side lunges, and immediately wished I had done some foam-roller work ahead of time!  Things did loosen up a bit, though, and I went inside to do my third attempt at the 15:15 VO2 Max protocol:

• 16 kg kettlebell
• 7 snatches in 15 seconds
• 15 seconds “active rest”
• Alternate hands, repeat 80 times.

I made it up to 60 sets before I popped, which is a nice progression from the 40 & 50 of sessions 1 & 2.  Doing these in front of the mirror, I was kinda surprised to see some muscles in my upper torso and shoulders that hadn’t ever popped before.  Results are a good thing, to be sure!

As far as weight-loss results are concerned, I’m down a couple of pounds for the week, which is good.  Maintaining focus over a 3 day weekend (Terri and I took today off) may be a bit of a challenge however.  Focus, John:

Some physical abilities are gifts.  The rest must be purchased with sweat.

Terri needed to get some blood taken for lab work today, so no food or coffee this morning before she left.  I was getting hungry, so I “nudged” her out of the coziness of bed so that she could get that done and I could cook up some breakfast.  I did not feel that it would have been fair to whip up a big ol’ batch of turkey bacon or whatever if she had to smell it but not eat it.  Once the garage door closed after her I cracked open the menu plan, only to find that breakfast was cottage cheese with flax seed meal and protein powder.  I don’t think that the tantalizing odors of ground flax seeds would have disturbed her sleep one bit.  Oh well.

After a few frustrating days (and some very helpful words from my wife, who talked me down from the precipice of pizza-consolation), I came to the conclusion that the problem may not lie with output, but rather the input side of the equation.  While the diet worked wonders in February/March/April, it wasn’t working now.  I needed a change of pace in order to wake up my system, and to start getting results again.

I looked (briefly) into a complete change of methodology.  Luka has been having success lately with the “Green Faces” diet, wherein you eat nothing but meat and green leafy stuff for three weeks.  Sounds ok (sort of a variation of the Atkins/ketosis approach), but I’ve seen Luka tuck into a cold tub of browned ground bison for lunch, and the lack of variety would be my downfall for sure.  At the far end of the spectrum is the Velocity Diet.  Sure-fired results, but who wants to live on 6 protein shakes a day (bonus-one solid meal… a week!).  My dedication would soon be trampled under the jack-boots of monotony.

Because I have had success with the Warp-Speed diet before, I have decided to fine tune the portions and some of the menu plan.  It is apparent that my base metabolism isn’t anywhere near as high as is assumed by the diet planners, nor anyone that makes those gawdawful formulas that “predict” how many calories I burn sitting on my ass in front of a computer all day.  The diet plan I was working with before was targeted at about 2,100 calories a day.  I’m going to shoot for 1,750 – 1,800 on non-workout days, and about 2,000 on workout days.  Will it be hard?  Youbetchurass.  I’m in a mental place right now that the frustration of not being able to feed my oral fixations is far outweighed by my frustration at the lack of weight change.

I re-read “300 Opinions” this morning, and it makes for a nice reinforcement of my resolve:

If you weren’t given the gift you can’t get the gift so the best you can do – if your goal is important – is work as hard as you possibly can, pay attention every hour of every day and then maybe, maybe if you’ve done enough and been smart enough you’ll emerge from the muck of mediocrity to shine a bit brighter than you shone before.

I had a 2 pound “pop” this morning, but that may just be a water-retention thing.  I should know by Friday how this is working.  If this doesn’t bear fruit, the next step for John is the Alpo Diet.

Where's the article on how to crush Rod up Little Italy?

I am sure that they sell a lot of wood pulp by putting these “silver-bullet” one-liners on the cover, otherwise they wouldn’t.  Take a look at the magazine rack next time you’re in your local mega-mart.

News flash: no one ever got skinny/stronger/faster by turning the pages of a magazine.

Conversely, I don’t really believe that the way to be a better cyclist is by riding and riding and riding.  Let me tell you a story about “a friend”…

This guy loved cycling, and he could ride all freakin’ day.  He always got dropped on the hills, however, which bugged the shit out of him.  He paid to have a “cycling coach” work with him on improving speed and hill climbing ability.  The coach gave him week after week of interval training sessions.  Did he get faster?  Marginally.  Did he still get dropped on climbs?  You betcha.  He also had knee pain, occasional hand-numbness, and his back would start cramping after 20 miles.

Was this guy’s problem that his Anaerobic Threshold was too low, his bike didn’t fit, and a need for chiropractic adjustment?

In my systems work, when we have a “problem” we do a “root cause analysis”… if the user keyed a name change and the software didn’t save the new name, is it a problem with the code (software), the keyboard (hardware), or is it an operator (wet-ware) issue?  In the case of our cyclist, he could do hill intervals until the cows come home, but he will be plagued with the same problems until he manages to:

• Stop ordering pasta and fries, and lose 40 pounds or so (root cause of speed issue),
• Do some real strength training on his core and posterior chain… I’m not talking about balancing his fat butt on a ball and doing dumbell curls… we’re talking squats and deadlifts here (root cause of back issue),
• Increase hamstring and hip flexor range of motion (root cause of knee issues).

Yes, I’m talking about me, and no, even with all the gains I’ve made in the last few months I can’t say that there is a magic bullet that I could print in a magazine and make a gajilllion dollars selling as an e-book on the internet.  It takes a lot of hard work, but work that is targeted at the root causes of your weaknesses, not just working harder.

Am I still getting dropped on hills?  You bet your ass.  But my ass is skinnier now, and the smallest chainring on my bike is feeling neglected.  So while I’m not up to “ludicrous speed”, I feel great.

The path to your goal will almost never be a straight line, but a step-by-step progression from point “A” to point “B”…

Consequently I am having to focus my efforts toward the greatest gain in the smallest timeframes.  Therefore I am doing the following in order to prepare for the three-day Century Ride of the Centuries coming up in just a couple of weeks:

Losing Lard: I’ve been losing weight by doing the Warp Speed Fat Loss diet (strict for the first 2 months, a little more relaxed that last month).  Result: I’m down 32 pounds on the scale from where I was at the end of January.

Gaining Strength: I am doing kettlebell workouts 2, 3, or 4 days a week.  Lots and lots of squats, deadlifts, and rows to add strength in my posterior chain (bicycle propulsion system) and to strengthen the back for long hours in the saddle. Result: I used to have to stop and stretch the back every 20-25 miles on long rides.  During the May Day Metric, I did not feel fatigued or tight in my back until mile 60 or so.

Functional Movement and stretching: My trainer Luka has been working with me to open up my hips, back, and hamstrings through repetitive stretching/warm up routines that target these joints.  Overly tight from years of biking and sedentary computer work, the tightness (especially of my hamstrings) has served to pull my knees out of alignment which has caused me much of my discomfort after long rides.  Result: Last year’s knee pain when spinning at high rpm’s or climbing is a thing of the past.

I’ve read in the past that cyclists do not generally do weight training because adding muscle will make them heavier on the bike.  Maybe, if you are a skinny biker-boy that could be true.  But if you are struggling with your inner-clydesdale then perhaps you need to look somewhere other than the bike in order to break free of what is holding you back.  I spent one year pedaling 5,000 miles, but I really can’t say that I was any more fit that year than the year I pedaled 2,000.  The bottom line is that I am far more fit now than that 5k year, and I have only ridden a few hundred (I’m not even keeping track… and I used to be such a numbers guy!).

Maybe you can find a way to do this on your own… I could not.  I needed to find a vehicle (kettlebells) and a trainer (Luka Hocevar & Andrea Chang) that I could connect with.  Are kettlebells for every cyclist?  Probably not.  Can they benefit a lot of recreational cyclists that need to improve their true “strength”, help them trim pounds, and make them stronger overall athletes? You bet your ass.  Personally, I’ve spent time in big box gyms off an on for years with mixed results.  If they work for you, great.  They no longer work for me, mostly because I tend to see “trainers” that are 1/4 trainer, 3/4 sales people that are more focused on selling you a package or checking out the babe on the lat machine.  You have to find that mind-body connection: it’s that knowledge that gives what you are doing with your body a purpose to where you see yourself going in your mind.  Find what works for you, but understand it may not be where you think it should be.  Don’t be afraid to invest in yourself.  Having a trainer costs me money, but these days my time is a more precious commodity.

Speaking of investments in me, here’s the latest additions to my kettlebell collection: 28kg and 32 kg’s of fun:

4 sets:

• 1 arm kettlebell swings 10 right and left, 20 kg
• 10 kettlebell rows, 2 x 20 kg
• 15 pushups

3 sets:

• 5 windmills right & left, 16 kg
• 10 russian twists, 20 kg
• 10 romanian deadlifts right & left, 16 kg

I felt pretty strong tonight, and probably could have come up with a finishing set, but I deferred because my Wednesday night ass-whooping in only two nights away.

We had folks over on Saturday for a combination birthday/Easter brunch.  We took the obligatory group photo, and I was a little startled when I looked at the result today… I’m getting smaller!

I haven’t been able to wear my Stinking Rose t-shirt with any degree of comfort for many, many years.  It’s nicely loose now.  The pants I just bought a few weeks ago, and they’re already a little baggy.  I may have to shop at Goodwill for a couple of months before I commit to new sizes!