Year in review?

Before you groan and click past this, be aware that this is not a resolutions post, nor is it a BS plus-delta analysis. I’m not doing a top-whatever list like everyone else in the world, nor am I doing a best this, that, or the other of this or next year thing. Sure, those are fun reads but ultimately worthless, unlike a forthcoming “littlest things” blog (sometime semi-soon, I promise—funny thing about writing about time management is finding the time to do it).

Many people, though, do use this time of year to take stock of the past twelve months, noting successes and failures, and to decide if anything needs changing, whether that’s physique, work goals, family priorities, and so on. The new year is a convenient reminder for retrospect, introspect, and prospect. After all, everyone over the age of fifty is likely going out to buy a new wall calendar this week. Not to rag on seniors, but they do tend to watch the calender a little more closely than the rest of us, which is understandable. However, isn’t it a little ironic that we still use the turning of the year to make resolutions and such? In this day and age of six- and seven-day work weeks, twenty-four hour customer “service” (if someone real and in this country actually answers the phone), three months of hype for Christmas—hell, two YEARS of hype for the election cycle—why do so many still cling to just this one time of year for a sense of rebirth, renewal, and rededication to goals and opportunities that should be year-round pursuits?

If you’re one for tradition, it’s easy to think back to where you were and what you were doing about this time last year. For me, Christmas was spent with a friend at a Chinese buffet and at a movie. New Year’s was spent out at a club with a large handful of friends. I was wrapping up a run-through of Core Performance, which was a full-body progression from my hamstring rehab. As I was getting the injury back to full repair, I wanted to get it back to full strength and more, so I decided to follow a pure strength program (one of three tracks in that book) for the next four months or so, after which I really tried to open up my training possibilities to include mostly bodyweight and conditioning work—now I’m getting ahead of myself. The point I’m trying to make is, do you remember a particular goal you made for yourself at some point—it has to be something long-term—and can you think of where you were in the pursuit of that goal, say, in March? August? November?

One of my goals was to work on a strength and conditioning certification. From June until sometime in the fall, I studied my tail off, only to realize some of the non-training elements of potential jobs (and more recently some of the shoddy material being published by the organization offering my certification), so I lost steam for working toward a standardized, outdated exam and decided to continue my own casual, more timely and relevant research with maybe some other letters in mind. Another goal was to continue paying down the credit card debt accumulated over the first few years of life after college (yeah, not IN college, AFTER college), and in that regard, I’ve been wholly successful, trimming the budget a little more here and there while getting three of my four cards to below half of their balances, a key tipping point in credit scores and mortgage financing, leading to hopefully buying a house by mid-summer this coming year, especially since there won’t be a market better than this one in my lifetime, most likely.

Of note, though, is that these goals weren’t thought up, mapped out, or pursued at the turn of the year. They simply coincided with my physical and financial conditions, and I decided to take advantage of them as they were presented, not with a new calendar. I’m sure you’ve done the same during your life—sure, there are New Year’s babies (both born and conceived), but people have birthdays throughout the year. I’m guessing you didn’t buy that car just because the year turned over, and I’m pretty sure you didn’t tell your boss you’d rather wait on that raise and/or promotion until the fiscal year ended just so you could help out the books and be able to remember the moment a little easier. At the same time, those emergencies and tragedies in life aren’t so kind as to wait for a certain time of year, are they? So why do so many people do that with their health? Let me put it this way: I’m avoiding my gym at all costs until at least Valentine’s Day and will be working out elsewhere, either at home, at a park, or at a track. I figure that’ll be about how long the most stalwart resolutioners will make it before crapping out and complaining that it’s too hard or there’s no time or their genetics won’t let them make any improvements. The sidewalks will be teeming with new jogging suits, new running shoes, and new iPods *shudder* for a few weeks. Indeed, it’s better than nothing, but the problem is that ninety-nine percent of all this activity is done out of a sense of external obligation. A friend or family member wants company and shared agony, whether they are the asker or the askee, so someone else figures, why not? A week or a month goes by, excuses are made, meeting times missed, and the asker loses motivation because the other person isn’t there to push them—waaaaaaaaaaait a minute. See what I did there?

The motivation, the strength, the drive must come from inside. It has to be a resolution based on a changed mindset, not based on the time of year. I say this because it happened to me, way back when. I grew up as the fat kid to fat parents, and every year, my mother would bring in something around Christmas: a cross-country emulator, a treadmill, a universal gym machine, and so on. About the only thing that got/gets used with any regularity is the treadmill, and that’s for my grandmother’s at-home physical therapy. My brother used the gym machine for awhile but outgrew it. I don’t remember what else there was, but there was always something, and obviously, none of that stuff worked—I was still a fat bastard going into high school.

Conversely, scholastic wrestling season runs from November to March—you can’t wait for the new year to get yourself on track because by then, a good chunk of the season is over, and you’re likely an alternate instead of a starter, so I didn’t have a choice. Later, after three years of inactivity in college, I was tired of, well, being tired and pudgy (again). A classmate mentioned he needed a gym partner, and since he’d used free weights while I hadn’t, I figured it was as good a time as any to learn—that was in August 2000. I remember the month and year not because of a calendar change, but because of a life change. I remember September 2005 not because of a calendar change, but because it was the start of a nearly year-long depression for various reasons (in retrospect, it was a good thing to have happened; it just sucked going through it). I remember June 2008 not because of a calendar change, but because of a mental shift in my approach to training, from to-the-letter cookie-cutter programs to adopting and adapting and audibling (that would be the progressive form of the verb “audible” :D) on a monthly, weekly, and even daily basis depending on my physical and mental conditions.

I certainly hope you and yours have a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2009, but when it comes to the health part, you have a convenient reason to get started right now, but please make sure you do it for the right reasons and with a sense of progression. Ease into it. Sure, enthusiasm is high now, but don’t blow your wad for three weeks and crash. Instead, take that energy and focus it into some research and make a viable plan in the gym and in the kitchen—something you can EASILY maintain—that will let you make tweaks and adaptations over the course of a few months, a year, and more. Then, follow the plan, but don’t get discouraged if you hit some bumps along the way. Everyone does—I haven’t fully trained for three weeks as of this writing because of needing to rest and rehab a shoulder impingement. That doesn’t mean I’m not itching to get back on track, but I’m having to step back and re-evaluate my training modes to where I can sustain a consistent, progressive effort (disregard the movement protocols) for more than six months (my current “best”). Ultimately, I want something that can ebb and flow as needed but won’t completely change, and I want it sustainable for, say, a year or two or four or forever. I hear mimicking child’s play is a step in the right direction, and I have a couple dogs who need running around. Hmmm…

Holiday hangover: the power of holiday tradition, stay within dietary striking distance (aka surviving and staying active), six pieces of pie, Christmas and a question, Archway cookies coming back (and a bun in the oven to justify consumption), forty years after Apollo 8.

Body bits: lifelong moderate activity promotes youthfulness, exercise-induced nausea (it’s okay on occasion).

Edibles: some “greens” recommendations (I’m trying the Trader Joe’s brand—$11!—right now), the story behind General Tso (of chicken fame).

Mind matters: yoga as anger management.

Kiddie corner: no links this time—just tell them to go run around outside and leave the video games for after sundown :)

Fiscal fitness: as if we need any reminders after breaking the bank the past few weeks.

General health: the importance of crunching your health numbers, exercising through illness, three reasons to sleep late (and why you should probably sleep more anyway), why early detection is the best way to beat cancer, caffeine affects men more than women, BPA saga continues.

Geek-out:
—Transportation: Toyota quietly going electric.
—Tech stuff: Blackberry’s song-on-the-radio finder, broadband stimulus needs data, 3D-ready HDTV, Milwaukee M-Spector camera.
—Nature: USB device monitors soil conditions, saving The Netherlands, US’s first hydrokinetic turbine installed, smart plug monitors electricity use, interstate smog rules back in effect, ocean pharmacy, cousins biologically okay to marry.
—Miscellaneous: recharging US scientific research, how to fold an origami Millennium Falcon (you’re welcome), Disneyland for dudes.

Git r dun:
—I think my closing paragraph was pretty good this time :)

Festivus for the rest of us

Even though I’m not a fan of Seinfeld, I can’t deny its influence on popular culture, including the advent (and semi-underground cult following) of the Festivus “holiday.” Since I missed the one day around this time of year that I actually do tend to recognize—the winter solstice—and since it’s not quite New Year’s yet, let me extend to you a happy Festivus. I don’t have a whole lot to say this time except to say that no matter what you do or how you do it around this time of year, do it your way, and enjoy it. For me, that means a budding tradition of hitting a Chinese buffet and a movie on Christmas Day (I could be an honorary Jew, I suppose), though I’m not impressed with the cinematic offerings that are supposed to be in theaters. Hopefully I’ll stumble into something that’s not just horrible.

I’m kinda looking forward to the inevitable glut of people at the gym in the coming weeks, though only if they come in as I’m leaving or vice versa. In my own training, I’m approaching week three of, well, nothing, though I did put together a program skeleton the other day that I think will continue the conditioning work I’ve been doing since May while re-incorporating a pure strength component, all while addressing re-emerging posture issues. Speaking of which, my shoulder impingement is almost completely gone thanks to all the rest, and I’ve taken this time off as an opportunity to gain a little weight that I lost early last month around vacation time and for some reason just could not get back, which I’m fairly confident contributed to my lackluster training performance over the past month or so. I know, I know, eat more, plain and simple—I just needed more calories—but for some reason, I couldn’t do it without feeling like mush, so I’ve replenished the stores, so to speak, and I feel a lot better for it. I’ve also gotten much better sleep of late as the puppies continue adapting to a semi-normal sleeping, eating, and relieving schedule (one more got a new home Sunday afternoon, so only three pups and one adult dog left to re-home). I will say that despite having not trained in a couple weeks, my days have still felt very full with work, household chores, errands, dogs, and so on and so forth, and though I know I’m not—and don’t intend to become—a parent, I feel like a got just a hint of a taste of what a lot of parents’ days are like, so I’ll be putting together a post about how to do just the tiniest things day-to-day to keep your physical and mental states in check without sacrificing your health. Parents: I don’t envy you :)

Stuff for the season (think after-holiday sales): Christmas trees in space (and the earthbound variety), Mark’s gift goodies (and a Primal Blueprint preview), stuff Tony likes, Andrew’s take, Polar’s latest HRM offering, SanDisk pummels iPod, this is a teapot, some gifts for gearheads, a fashionable bicycle helmet, a Charlie Brown Christmas sequel(?!?!?!), the evolution of Santa, give yourself the gift of fitness (with a side of accountability), NYT diet book suggestions (you probably DON’T want these).

Body bits: a few movement modifications for the overhead athlete, a look at body image training, “sports massage” growing (*pssst* it’s really active release and trigger point therapy, which is awesome), isometrics for the frequent flyer, cold-weather GPP, dealing with shin splints (or you could spend more time barefooted), antagonist stretching (not a literary tool).

Edibles: pairing cheeses and libations, cold-weather snack suggestion (I am SO there), uses for almond meal, more on why fruit juice sucks, love/hate for broccoli, two new sweeteners approved, a couple flavor boosters, diabetic diet recommendations may need tweaking (no s***).

Mind matters: workplace gyms lift mood, the courtship and marriage of obesity, the price tag of happiness, remaining true while creating something new.

Kiddie corner: why kids’ birth months affect athletic prospects, obesity signs before grade school, robotic babysitters, more sleep helps car insurance rates (duh).

Fiscal fitness: government banking on “sin taxes,” OMG cheap fitness!

General health: top health officials stepping down, more muscle mass improves cancer recovery, the science behind “fifth taste,” pain worse if it seems intentional, lemurs may hold clue to AIDS cure, DSM getting a fifth edition, pharmaceutical cosmetics (hide your daughters), pot potency climbs, a vagina is not a clown car.

Geek-out:
—Transportation: a solar Prius, Volt engine factory on hold, if Apple designed a car, Hurst takes on Viper, 1100-hp supercar, ten cars on some wish lists, human fat as fuel(?), eleven years of the Tokyo Bay Aqualine, a case for increasing the gas tax, Carolinas’ Amtrak service booming, WhiteKnightTwo makes successful test flight.
—Tech stuff: world’s first computer rebuilt, Altair anniversary, Apple ditching Macworld (too trendy but Jobs to still give keynotes), Google shutters science data services, more troubles for Middle Eastern Internet, mobile-friendly Wikipedia, mobile search wars, mobile app store wars, device disables drivers’ cell phones, cell phones used at third-world tricorder, electric grid could handle more renewable energy, NYC’s LED street lamps, tracking molecules’ movement.
—Nature: free-range chimp research, middle-latitude wave heights increasing, coal more emissive than oil (why it may not matter), earthquake in Dixie, live magma observatory (oops), HD look at volcanoes, new light on dark energy, USGS planetary maps, life in Martian caves, Jupiter moon hints at giant’s composition, Saturn moon life-friendly, water in a galaxy far far away.
—Miscellaneous: Aztec calendar stone, newsworthy name of the year, one shot at infrastructure spending, a happier date for the WTC, Mailman Steve’s fight against junk mail, why things sync up.

Git r dun:
—A world-record deadlift.
—Eight “ah-HA!” moments.
—The human machine.
—Life lessons from The Karate Kid.
—Real-life Rocky montage.

Where’s your head at?

With apologies to Basement Jaxx, I saw this article in Wired the other day. Someone somewhere somehow decided to turn a car into a gym of sorts. Okay, sure, maybe it’s something to do when you’re parked on the highway during rush hour, but my questions are:

—How long before someone develops or worsens muscular imbalances (notice the seated position for EVERYthing)?
—How long before someone (a) forgets to disengage the driving components before trying to get in a few reps or (b) attempts to “workout” while doing 80mph?
—How long before and how much for the first negligence lawsuit?

I’m sure the idea was well-intentioned—after all, our reliance on cars is making us fat, right? Aside from the erroneous correlation-equals-causation nature of that article, don’t you think people have enough distractions while driving? I work in traffic reporting most of the time, I’ve seen/heard it all (I hope), and I have to unconditionally say “yes.” C’mon, when someone can roll a car at an intersection where both streets are tagged for 25mph? How about when someone can take out a fifty-foot section of concrete barrier wall on an absolutely straight stretch of road with no entrances or exits for three miles in either direction? Instead of trying to cram more crap into an already-hectic lifestyle, maybe the lifestyle should be re-evaluated, priorities re-ordered, and long-term goals and benefits re-examined; otherwise, your head might end up through a windshield, literally and/or figuratively.

In the interest of full disclosure, I’ve personally suspended all training for the time being. It’s certainly not that I don’t have time or opportunity to continue, but a combination of a worsening imbalance (shoulder impingement), residual tweaks (left ITB/TFL and both knees), haphazard sleep patterns (pups are almost three months old and hinting at adopting a normal sleep schedule), and mental fatigue (I never quite got back the fire I had before vacation a month ago) has prompted me to step back and just stop everything for a bit. While it likely won’t be more than two weeks—I know I’ll be getting antsy by that point—it’s giving me time to focus on putting together a truly personalized training setup, one that will be rigid enough to produce measurable progress in some aspect (strength, speed, stability, etc) but flexible enough that my daily physical and mental states can vary wildly (as in awareness, not psychosis :P), and I will still have a workout of some sort I can pull from a rotation and do without fear of overdoing something. I caught myself a few times over the past couple weeks going through the motions of a ballistic workout (note: that’s not a good mindset when loads are flying around), and it became common enough that I wrapped up my latest month-long mesocycle a little early and brought everything to a halt so I could re-evaluate what I need to be doing without causing further injury. In the meantime, I have more time to play with the dogs, ride my new bicycle (going to take a bit to get my cycling legs under me), and catch up on some housework and hopefully some reading.

What does that have to do with my head? I mentioned a couple reasons for backing off, but one in particular struck me a couple weeks ago: coffee. No, really, trust me, I know it’s a g–d—ed Greek tragedy, but in all seriousness, I found that I would wake up in an okay frame of body and mind, have my usual three cups, and subsequently feel like poo, quite the opposite of what it usually did, so I went cold turkey for a couple days. Sure, I wasn’t “on” like I usually am, but I wasn’t “off,” either, just perfectly middle-of-the-road. I did a cup of half-caf one morning, which was okay, and now I’m doing a single cup in the morning only if I really feel like it. So far, so good, no withdrawal or anything. The problem for me is that I LOVE the smell and taste of coffee, so I’ll be hunting down (here and especially here) a good decaf over the next few days—yes, I know good decaf is more expensive than regular, but I’m willing to pay a premium for what I know I want, especially for those times when I crave a cup later in the day but don’t want the caffeine. Santa may be bringing me a French press and electric kettle, but if not, I’ll be hitting an after-Christmas sale to pick them up. My snobbery for good coffee has moved past my snobbery for good barbecue and just behind my snobbery for good beer (Mad River Steelhead Extra Stout FTW!).

As an aside, note that this is just caffeine for me. Caffeine is the world’s most widely consumed psychoactive substance yet remains legal and wholly unregulated (another rant for another time). Can you imagine someone taking who-knows-what pill(s) doing the same thing? “Hey, I’ve noticed I feel WORSE after taking this rather than better. Maybe I should just stop.” Unlikely. More likely would be to take MORE since, well, they must be getting used to the drug. Mark takes a swipe at Big Pharma here, and I’ve increasingly found myself aware of—and highly annoyed at—TV commercials touting this drug or that pill. All I can think about is how so much crap is shoved in our faces, in whatever form, under the guise of “health,” and when that doesn’t work (or causes other supposedly unintended things to happen), these same companies just happen to have a cure-all for that as well. I hold a baseball a lot of times to have something to occupy my hands, but I should probably put it away if I’m in front of the TV.

Body bits: live by your lats, squat on “don’t squat,” a look at rep speed, rotation work is *gasp* healthy (trunk flexion is not), a book on kettlebell sport, genetic link to obesity still no excuse for victimization, the importance of your pinkie, burn more calories by snoring (I’m kidding—the health risks of snoring far outweigh any metabolic benefits).

Edibles: some skinny on spirits, a nanobite spoon scale, holidays in the office, making worthless nutritional data confess.

Mind matters: being the fat one in the relationship, beware triggers to old/bad habits, a crisis of confidence, the frontiers of happiness.

Kiddie corner: immersive education, for kids about to rock, WTF – a $700 stroller (hint: make the kids learn to walk), weight linked to injury severity, sport-specific training for kids = BS.

Fiscal fitness: maybe this tough economy thing isn’t ALL bad, Carolinas natural gas users’ relief (for now).

General health: healthcare recovery key to economic recovery, oil sickness (it’s not just from your corn), living with in-laws may put heart at risk, colonoscopies may miss a lot, zero-gravity bacteria experiments promising, Scotland works on white coat syndrome, romantic comedies hamper love lives.

Geek-out:
—Transportation: BMW’s BlueZero, Detroit bailout would ground corporate jets, air travelers may be at risk from lightning storm gamma rays.
—Tech stuff: Chu and Jackson confirmed, CDs bow to Beethoven, ten video games NOT to buy (I have to agree with them), liquid-suspended gaming PC *drool*, making money with free wifi, more trouble for IE, a marketplace for crowdsourced knowledge, JC Penney goes viral, netbooks more like cell phones, Yahoo! tries out Facebook.
—Nature: holey ecofont, hackers plundering Brazilian rain forests, obesity in captive animals, dinos likely done in by volcanoes, atmospheric “breathing,” blame it on the moon (my dogs were a little weirder than usual), first photo of extraterrestrial liquid.
—Miscellaneous: remodeling economic theory, monumental upkeep (like Pisa), a case for more torture in video games, the Library of Human Imagination, interactive art.

Git r dun:
—Work on your weaknesses.
—Difficulty or unwillingness?
—Catharsis.

Icanhazbicycle?kthxbai

Ya know, leave it to Oprah and Mother Nature to try to ruin what was to be an important blog post. Good grief, I’ll get to them in a minute, but first:

Yep, I finally got a bicycle, thanks to the folks at Performance Bike. I’d visited a couple other shops around town, but I felt better about the service and support here, not to mention no one could touch them on price. Being a once-again n00b to cycling (it’s been ten years), I don’t know if PB is considered to be the Wal-Mart of the cycling world, but it was a good experience. Plus, I totally fell for their continued business ploy (read: “club” membership for discounts and store credit), so that place has been added to my “stuff” list (which I need to further update—when in doubt, ask).

I went with a mountain bike frame since (a) it seems more versatile than a road bike frame, (b) I have and plan to ride some simple trails around the area, and (c) the roads in Charlotte, at least were I’ll be going, aren’t road-bike friendly. The bicycle seems to fit my body well (short inseam, long torso), and HOLY CRAP is it light! Granted, the last bicycle I had was an all-steel frame, a decade behind in technology, and (I think) bought off-the-rack from a general big-box store. I’ve only had it out around the block a couple times getting the handlebar, controls, and seat adjusted, but it should be fun. At the very least, it’ll be a different training mode to throw in the mix, but by and large, it will carry me between home, work, and gym (maybe occasionally to/from the grocery store if I’m feeling REALLY ambitious). Right now, it still has its stock knobby tires, but I also bought a set of smoother-centerline tires to put on as the miles (hopefully) pile up, mostly on pavement. My only real concern is not getting too used to the hand controls since they’re slightly different on the Harley. That’d kinda suck to be out on a ride and grab the clutch thinking it was the front brake…

—————

I’m taking a page out of Michelle’s blog and extending a big middle finger to Charlotte-area drivers. One of my many roles at work is as an on-air traffic reporter. Note the key word there: reporter. I just tell it like it is. I don’t cause it. I can’t fix it. I can’t tell you when it will be fixed. I target my coverage to the roads that carry the highest traffic volumes and work my way down. I have about thirty seconds per report. I’m sorry that your usual road to work is slow or stopped. Yes, I know I didn’t mention it in my last three reports, but as you may or may not know by now, it’s raining like a sonuvabitch, so it’d be slow everywhere even without the three dozen collisions on our board at any given time during this kind of weather, and your road barely cracks the top twenty or so for rush-hour volume. Yes, there are other ways to get around, and I’m sorry you’re too stupid/ignorant/lazy to figure out what they are. I’m sorry you just passed the last exit for six miles and have come to a complete stop, but as I DID mention in my last three reports, that road has been shutdown for a half-hour or more, so you had plenty of time to find a way around it. What was that? You didn’t hear that report? Oh, you don’t listen to our radio station? Then why do you call our station’s traffic center anytime you want OnStar-like directions or road conditions or just want to complain that YOUR day is ruined or that YOU are going to miss your meeting or that YOU won’t make YOUR flight? Can I do anything about it? No. Do you ever call to offer information we can use to help OTHER people out? No. Do I care about your problems? No.

I swear, how I didn’t get fired yesterday, I have no idea (could still happen, though) :) I really f—ing hate people.

—————

Holy hell, I take a couple days off from staying up on the news, and Oprah breaks loose! Well, at least her waistband has, which comes as no surprise to people with any shred of current nutritional knowledge. Mark’s take points you to her personal trainer’s website, which is a train wreck in and of itself (look at the sample meals). Dr. Eades goes further in detailing the lifelong dietary habits Oprah has likely developed, which mirror those of thousands upon thousands of Americans. Is it just me, or does it sound like there’s been some enabling going on here? What about just plain ignorance? Hey, it’s not just her. In fact, I’d say it’s become/-ing the norm in this country. Man, I’d hate to be her next “trainer,” though I imagine a lot of people would sign on just for the money and let their reputations go into the toilet when they fail.

Oprah has worked hard after coming from humble beginnings to be a media and entertainment juggernaut, but that’s where her advice and expertise ends. Taking fitness, nutrition, and lifestyle advice from her is just as effective taking it from, say, the Chicago Tribune (remember this?).

Announcements/Housekeeping:
—John Berardi has launched a new blog over at Precision Nutrition.
—Eric finally reports his Thanksgiving Day morning.
—My buddy Chris has a CD out. You should buy it.
—My buddy Johnny has a book out. You should buy it.
—Leigh Peele is getting ready to re-launch her website.
—Don’t forget to register for the JP Fitness Summit coming up in May.
—FYI, I don’t do Christmas, at all, so if you’re expecting a Yuletide-centric post at some point, it ain’t happening—well, unless it’s more mockery of the overindulgences of the season and the egregious “advice” peddled out in response :)

Body bits: yes you can train several days in a row, a fun strength-endurance programming tweak, clean-style deadlift technique (and a grip for good measure), clubbells are safer than ab rollers, fixing the scapular push-up, don’t confuse “Health at Every Size” with “fat is fab,” thinking about movement patterns and more, the Feldenkrais Method (think proprioceptive rehab), go play some ultimate frisbee, therapeutic movement goes mainstream, a conditioning lesson from a birthing book, why your friends want you fat.

Edibles: Lyle begins a series on protein (I’ll leave it to you to keep up with it on his blog), DIY cream cheese, continuing food diary adventures (here, here, here, and here—if you like this stuff, just go subscribe to his blog :P), hidden sodium bombs, the “mood diet,” big shrimp (ha!) in South Carolina, Stephen King does diet (from Mark), genetics are still no excuse for food choices, the high price of cheap eats, eat with your hands, primal finger foods.

Mind matters: happiness is contagious, exercise linked to emotional resilience, when health becomes an obsession, conversation with common sense, your brain simply can’t handle driving and talking on the phone, in defense of legalizing brain-enhancing drugs, Pavlov’s neurons discovered.

Kiddie corner: young gymnasts face more injuries, long-ago stress affects births, in defense of teasing, news flash: poverty adversely affects children’s brains, a kids’ toy I whole-heartedly endorse (like LEGO, Robotix, etc), teens continue tanning (for whatever reason), serious cooking for kids, nut allergy nuts, developing a champion mindset, child-like bluntness.

Fiscal fitness: tips on finding a great trainer (and what NOT to do), with the job goes the insurance, emergency rooms on the brink.

General health: Tom Daschle to be HHS secretary, Brian says Big Pharma sucks, foregoing flu shots, edible electronic health monitors, HIV-resistant immune systems studied for possible vaccine, higher intelligence means better sperm, new findings in the link between cancer and exercise, obsession with youthfulness, injectable bone helps fractures, easy on the suck, future Darwin Award candidate, affordable third-world health screening, microscalpel lasers, scans finding more but know less, battlefield acupuncture, black box for bowel cleansers.

Geek-out:
—Transportation: some thoughts on the next transportation secretary and first “car czar,” future cars = hypermiling video games, 2009 Airstream, British steam car, Fusion hybrid may save Ford, GM talks about reinventing the car, aloha to EVs, Japan to become EV testing ground, Detroit’s bumbling EV history, get your own Aerocar, Sanyo’s electric bicycle, Airbus snoops Boeing, a too-quiet airplane.
—Tech stuff: the mother of all demos (and forty years of the dangers of mice), sell your unwanted MP3s, your computer is probably screwed, an eye-socket camera (ick), prototypes from the past, football in 3-D, the Orb, neural imaging to monitor pilot fatigue, VZW uncripples GPS (a nice anniversary gift), meteorology drones, Hubble awaits its final upgrade (while still finding extrasolar CO2), Swan Nebula in chaos.
—Nature: Secretary of Energy candidate rumored, oil consumption to drop for the first time in twenty-five years, support for meteors creating life, a future for saltwater agriculture, twelve living fossils, the story of stuff, local water management policies considered (finally), ten animal videos, fire ants are ecological karma, extrasolar water vapor detected.
—Miscellaneous: an anniversary for arts and sciences (and trig), a day for radio, warning against science without morality, Proposition 8: The Musical, fingerprinting bullets, opera house = skate park, Disneyland claims another victim, music video created with 45,000 photos, science enlivens TV fiction, playing mountain music, Canada’s take on the apocalypse, Science Commons in two minutes, dogs have a sense of fairness, t-shirts = free Internet, every flight on earth in seventy-two seconds.

Git r dun:
—In case it hasn’t been said before, age is just a number.
—The effects of time outside the gym.
—Cass will beat you if you don’t get up and do something.
—I want to look like…

Coordination

No, I still haven’t shaved yet. In the back of my mind, I’m toying with letting the whole mess grow out until I get all these puppies adopted since I started the Movember thing right around the time all the pups came into my life (three black chows left and only three weeks until Christmas *wink*), even though someone already said I have a caveman look going on as it is:

I’m thinking more toward a little hair coloring, a cool hat, some sunglasses…

It’s oddly no small coincidence that I just happened to think of the above picture. From my training log this morning:

So I finally decided to embrace a weird correlation I’ve been tinkering with over the past couple months. I’ve noticed that on days when I absolutely cannot get in sync playing Guitar Hero, I really shouldn’t be lifting. For some reason, there are days when my hand-eye coordination just isn’t there, and no matter how easy a song I try to play, I just can’t get it. Those are the days I feel the worst and am therefore very iffy on working out–if I can’t get my fine motor skills to match up with some pretty buttons on a TV screen, how in the world am I supposed to safely complete Olympic and other ballistic lifts? Conversely, on days when I’m nailing the harder songs, I feel better in general (both before and after playing, so it’s not a cause-and-effect, just a correlation) and specifically toward being able to safely lift with maximal intensity.

Weird? Yes. Working? So far.

So, there it is. I don’t know how to explain it, but I’m guessing it’s a good indicator of how my brain is functioning—if I can’t get through “No Sleep ‘Til Brooklyn,” forget it; if I can hit 90% or better on, say, “Rooftops,” then I’m good to go; if I get through any Tool song on “hard” without getting booed off the stage, I’d better be hitting personal records :)

This post from Brad got me thinking about how businesses coordinate their locations. Next time you’re out running errands, take a look at the niche/franchise gyms and weight-loss centers embedded in strip malls and note who their neighbors are. I remember noticing this back near my first post-college gym (in Concord, NC, for those of you in the area). My gym itself was a stand-alone building, but across the parking lot was a pizza place. The drive to and from the gym took me by a weight-loss center seated adjacent to a sandwich place. Is it any small wonder that my current gym (same as the first gym, just a different location) has pizza parties and buffalo wing get-togethers? In the freaking lobby, no less, so EVERYone has to pass through the aroma (now that I think about it, that first gym did that, too—bastards). To hell with people getting healthier—let’s make some money!

A couple things before the links:
—Lyle McDonald has a revamped website but the same kick-ass content. Go there.
—America’s Hat is now letting fatties fly free (well, sort of, based on body volume). Hey, whatever, but ever since I was sandwiched between two mammoths on a flight from Baltimore to Buffalo (coincidence?) several years ago and practically breathing through a straw poked through the sliver of daylight creeping from between the straining lap belt extenders (the only airspace not consumed by blubber), I have no sympathy. I happen to overhang the armrest on most economy-class seats—at my shoulders—yet I can’t say anything about having no elbow room since my hips fit, but if I happened to have a bulbous ass that spills over the armrests into another seat like an over-yeasted loaf of bread baking, I can get cheaper airfare per cubic inch of human mass? I think Michelle needs to comment.
—My Hurricanes fired highly successful (as in won the Stanley Cup) head coach Peter Laviolette this week and hired back former yet also successful head coach Paul Maurice. Huh? The ‘Canes are (barely) above .500 only a couple dozen games into the season, and it’s panic time? This makes about as much sense as the Bobcats hiring Ben Stein—er, Larry Brown. I won’t be surprised if the results are similar.

Thanksgiving leftovers: food fights, leftovers recipes, fourteen reasons to be thankful, in defense of holiday gluttony, in defense of holiday restraint, visual turkeys of 2008, how some spent the morning (I was at the track running with one of my dogs), tips for recovery.

Body bits: keeping workouts short and sweet, fixing your lunge, Mark goes clubbing (talk about primal), two big mistakes, some lower-back pain relief and exercise, corrective exercise defined, proper physioball sizes, body composition defined.

Edibles: Brian’s five for now, “bioengineered” sounds better than “genetically modified” (peanuts still resist), Dr. Eades goes nuts in his photo food diary (here, here, here, and here), milk as a sports drink, health halo paradox (Andrew’s take), organic people, Tony <3 protein powder (and Lyle), eating to beat stress (not), Mark takes on cowpooling (I’m still looking for Charlotte-area people interested in this!).

Mind matters: the business of happiness, the coming neurological epidemic, mental disorders rampant in young adults (this is called “growing up,” ya pricks), body swapping therapy, owning another body, mechanisms of personal perception and identification.

Kiddie corner: early fitness supports lifetime fitness, sports gene testing *face palm* (Ross’ take), training the baseball catcher, pre-natal exercise may reduce epidural need, labor envy (not me), ignorance is bliss for the FDA and the lame-duck President, media (over)use impacts health, pop music trumping lullabies, exercise clothing during pregnancy, parental benefits of an empty nest.

Fiscal fitness: have sex to save money (just remember: kids are expensive), Big Pharma accused of delaying generics, money-saving video games, more people turning to the fitness industry (read: check those credentials thoroughly).

General health: America’s health faces downfall, avoiding exercise immediately before blood work, no-smoke no problem for Big Tobacco, drug samples being bypassed, clinic discloses drug maker ties, medical manners, yes for heroin but no for weed (odd).

Geek-out:
—Transportation: EV cycle that won’t get you splatted, first new Lotus in thirteen years, Wheego $19K EV, get your BMW Mini-E EV (if you can), hot rodding hybrids, Detroit downsizing, self-driving scarab, Fisker’s Karma comes around, Boeing’s hydrogen future.
—Tech stuff: nuclear anniversaries, Wiimote musical hack, accidentally awesome cameras, batteries may give way to fuel cells (what could possibly go wrong?), JFK’s magic bullet gets funding, terror tech advances, cell phones as terrorism threat, World Wide Web safer (for now), the trouble with social advertising, surgery-by-text, Facebook for the filthy rich, Logitech makes one-billionth mouse, what NASA has done for you, a decade of the ISS (pictures).
—Nature: the world’s biggest trees, hacking salmons’ mental compass, creative green ideas, our solar submarine, key life-building molecule found, supernova re-run.
—Miscellaneous: prehistoric wound dressing, geeked-out hotels, Canadian diamond rush, the age of big ideas, comic books to save science education, Second Life possibilities, copper theft threatens infrastructure.

Git r dun:
—A strong body is a body in its natural state.
—”Genetics” is just another excuse.
—Firsthand transformation.
—A soldier who refused to torture.
—Knowing isn’t necessarily doing.
—Leave your comfort zone.
—Six keys to killer workouts.

Movember final product

Yikes. Well, there it is, untouched for just over a month with the exception of some plucking here and there to keep it semi-even (my right side grows a bit more liberally than my left). I don’t know, though—I’ve kind of gotten used to it, but I still don’t like the length. At any rate, people were kind enough to donate a total of $65 on my behalf. Not bad for having no fundraising goal at all. How cool is that? :)

I’ll trim and shave and shape and see what happens in a couple days—no, it didn’t get done today since it was a busy day of the gym, washing all the dogs, getting another pup adopted out (man, the two yesterday were HARD to give up, but there are still three black chow pups available), and otherwise making it through on some iffy sleep. My “weekend” is over now, so since I’ll be back at work for my usual week, I can actually get some stuff caught up on here.

2009 JP Fitness Summit announced

Summit website
Dates: May 15-17, 2009 (actual workshops on May 18)
Place: Kansas City, MO (NOT Little Rock, AR, as in previous years)
Cost: $200 registration plus hotel, food, etc

Major props to the organizers for getting this planned and announced so early this year. If you’ve been to a JPF Summit before, you know what a great time it is, both formally and informally. If you haven’t, it’s a great time, both formally and informally :) The cost is a bargain considering the amount of information you’ll be getting, and that’s without considering the social and networking benefits that come with attendance. If you’re interested in going, please read through the entire website first (there are some specific instructions on hotel arrangements).

Movember update: Yes, I know it’s now December, and I still haven’t posted my final pictures. If all goes well, I hope to get the shaving and shooting (and posting) done tomorrow, but it will definitely be this week sometime.