JusticioProfundo

Day six. Rhythm. Form cut into time. The undulations of the day ought to be predictable, or at least as much as possible. The most important part of a rhythm? The first few bars. The beginning of anything sets the tone for everything that follows. A strong introduction makes for a competent middle and a climactic finish. Best start the day strong.

That one is a bit more nebulous for sure. The details that go along with that particular broad stroke are knowing how I work, knowing what helps me focus, and being selective in terms of what I choose to learn. I have a very long list of goals when it comes to learning, so speed and intention do matter for both keeping me motivated and for being a better human I have a master list on my computer, but off the top of my head... HAM radio Various topics under the umbrella of music theory Sound design Coding Krav Maga Horti/agri/aquaculture

Day five. The big picture. Say what you will about broad strokes, but without them the details are meaningless. They give form to a collection of obscure data points, and shouldn't be ignored. So what do I want? I want what it is to be a ranger; that is, jack of all trades. Fitness is only a part. Perhaps chameleon ranger is a better description. Fits in anywhere, capable of nearly anything, learns fast and lives on purpose. Let's try that last one on for size.

Day one. Trash. That's what I feel like. I've been plagued by the question of how many failures it would take before I either died of lethargy, or finally awoke to reality and effected change in myself. I finally have the answer to that question, and it graciously came to me without suffering the former of the two. How many failures does it take? As many as I've had so far, and no more. Thus begins the record of a ranger.

It's ALWAYS going...just with periodic intermissions! Welcome!

I never thought I would feel so dejected about food and fitness as I do now. I went hard on NF for about 6 months, did my own thing for a while, became active on NF again, and on and on. Strength-wise, saw some amazing success. I injured myself by doing sprints without warming up enough...I think I know what it feels like to get shot in the leg now. But at the time I was looking better, I could squat 255 @ 5x5 (!!!), maxed my deadlift at 275 @1x5, and hadn't felt that good in a long time. A jacked up hamstring did not do me any favours. I haven't been to the gym since. That was a year ago. I've tried to focus on food. Tried Keto for a while and got acute keto flu symptoms at work, the very last place I need that kind of thing to happen. Tried counting calories, which I despise on a good day, and got frustrated when my food budget ran out and I didn't have enough lean protein to actually meet my target for a whole week. I like food of all kinds...the good, the bad and the ugly. It wasn't until I actually tried to drill down on my food habits that I realized how grotesque my relationship with it was. Emotional eating, binging at parties, having meat-only meals, late night McD's runs...the whole 9 yards. At 210lbs or so and 21% body fat, I should probably consider myself lucky. But I look in the mirror and hate what I see. I finally realized that I don't love myself a whole lot. Honestly, my only strategy is to simplify everything as much as I can. Take the best food advice I have ever heard (eat food, not too much, mostly vegetables), and hit the weights again. No tracking apps. Pen and paper for the sake of tracking how much I lifted so I know to go bigger the next time. Disregard the mirror. Disregard the scale. For this "I want to science my way out" brain of mine, it seems like the actual struggle is self-defeatism. I don't have the ability to self-correct in the face of failure in this realm. I wonder what will happen if I just stop doing the math, and not complicate things so much. Eat less, move more. Eat less, move more...

Hey rebels, long time no talk. My name's Justin. I was on the Facebook men's group for a while but ditched Facebook at the beginning of the year indefinitely. Freedom never felt so good Anyways...on topic. I've been doing Stronglifts more or less on the proper schedule for...3 months plus now? Here's the numbers so far... Squat 205@5x5 Deadlift 235@1x5 Bench 130@5x5 OHP 105@5x5 Row 130@5x5 My last squat attempt, I made it to the 4th set at 210 and chickened out. Deadlifts are still going strong. Bench feels like it is starting to top out, but no failures yet. OHP I've failed 3 times now, but not in a row. I started failing quite early...85lbs I think. The row is also going strong still. I feel very under-stressed on this lift. The SL bible says that I'm supposed to have 3 de-loads before essentially changing up the rep scheme for a given movement. But that requires 3 failures in a row for a single de-load. I haven't really found any other literature that supports that much failure before changing things up. On top of that, I'm not sure I have the patience. On squats, I'm having to wait 3-5 minutes between each and every set to get them done and it is stretching the length of the workouts beyond what my schedule can manage. Back when each lift was hyper-easy, I could get the whole thing done including warm-up and cool-down in 40 minutes or less. I've had my wife, who is a certified trainer and CF coach put my form for various lifts under a microscope to make sure there wasn't something obvious holding me back...nothing really to report there. My primary intention was to build a foundation of strength and then begin a more varied routine to help me lean out more and increase intensity/explosiveness (vs just strength or endurance). So the big question...what should I explore from here on? Should I adopt a SS 3x5 scheme? What kinds of thresholds should I be looking for with each of these lifts? Any help or guidance would be useful. Many thanks!

Reporting in. Change is afoot, friends. I said last time that my all terrain scout update was coming, and here it is. I've pretty much overhauled my weekly fitness plan to meet the challenges I actually set out to face. I've signed up for rock climbing...in fact I took my belayer's course and have the belayer's test in two days. After that I'll be getting some form of pass (either monthly or annually) and be going at least once a week. That's on Thursdays. I get the idea that I'm about to be putting some money into equipment...but that's just a hunch. Later in the day on Thursday will be a punishing HIIT/dynamic workout that focuses on endurance and explosiveness. Right outside my door is a 10km loop around an airport. Though the airport grounds are obviously flat, the trail around it consists of multiple grades, long flat stretches and some excellent views. Not that the last bit matters, since I'll be there after midnight. Using this trail, my running shoes, my bicycle, a 35lb kettlebell and a 20lb slam ball, I imagine this is going to scorch some fat. Especially since there is enough time between rock climbing and this that my body will be in full recovery mode. Feel. The. Burn. After a 2 day rest, I'll be in the gym on Sunday night. Same philosophy as before. Heavy, compound movements, utilizing super sets and drop sets to maximize the time there. This will be the only gym night. Fast forward another 2 days to Wednesday night, which is Parkour time. A local park and field will be ideal for starting out. I have 3.5 hours set aside for this. The first portion will be learning foundational movements like the quadrupedal gallop, proper landings, shoulder rolls and precisions. As I progress, the early portion of this time will still be dedicated to skill building and not so much breaking a sweat. After the skills portion, it's on to a full blown bodyweight workout in the park. Focus on balance and momentum will be the name of the game. Single leg squats, broad jumps, pullups/rows, challenging planks, etc. So there it is. Shall we begin?

Heyo rebels, I'm coming off of a short break in my training, which I took in part because I knew a re-orientation of said training needed to happen. I was hoping some of you learned folks could help me out with some programming ideas. I stuck with Dumbbell 2 and 3 for about 11 weeks, hitting the gym 3 days a week after work, etc. Got strength gains and some composition change (fat to muscle, etc), but I tired of the gym setting. I chose the ranger class mostly because I like to do ALL the things, but those things include getting my arse outside and enjoying a ton of different sports and activities. So, where I am now vs where I want to be: I can/do/have done cycling, skiing, swimming, running, backpacking, kayaking, canoeing, etc. and want to continue those things as well as jump into parkour and climbing. I almost think of my class as somewhere between adventurer, scout and assassin. Think all-terrain wanderer I am 6'2" with a medium frame (for my height), 215 lbs, 21% BF, and hilarious imbalances in strength. I have powerful legs, but lack explosiveness (I can sled push 500 lbs up and down your driveway, but I struggle underneath a 135lb squat). On my way to my first pullup (technique, technique, technique), deadlift 1RM is 200 lbs, bench is 156 lbs. What I WANT, as you can tell by the title, is a power-to-weight ratio to be revered and legendary, with explosiveness to match. Normally this is spoken of in the context of sheer endurance, the idea that lugging extra pounds around will hurt you in the final stages of a race. While endurance will be a nice benefit, it's the surmounting obstacles really freakin' fast part that I am interested in. Hence explosiveness. SO. Where do I go from here? I am assuming plyometric exercises are king, and that obviously shedding several percentage points of body fat is in order. But I could use some help in building the structure. Outside is awesome, gym is just OK. I have a 35 lb kettle bell, a 20 lb slamming ball (the partially sand-filled rubber kind) and some gymnastics rings hanging from a tree outside, as well as 2 playgrounds close by. And access to a 24 hour gym...*shudder* Halp?

Another day, another post. Food first. We have finally put together some semblance of a mega schedule and meal plan. The schedule has a resolution of 10 minutes and so far only really needs a few tweaks. Even when we aren't strictly on schedule, it has helped us to be more aware of the time we have in the day and not to waste it. I'll count that as mission accomplished. Hand in hand is our meal plan, whose prep schedule is built into the aforementioned mega version. That has been the hardest part so far. We keep defaulting to prepping and finishing at the same time, which is eating up more time than we'd like. All the same, we are mostly able to stick to the plan. The trick is finding ways to stay on track when events or gatherings come along that disrupt the schedule and leave us without a prepped meal. Baby steps, right? At least we are eating stupid healthy. Lifting. Dumbbell 3 has been fun so far, with a few added movements. I admit I've been tinkering with it though. I am making progress with my rounded shoulders, largely because I've made sure that the chest-to-back exercise ratio is roughly 1:2. I've substituted pushups for seated cable rows specifically to try and draw my shoulder blades closer together. This is where I am glad that dips are in the plan, because my triceps weren't getting much love outside of the dumbbell bench press. Speaking of that movement, I am planning on alternating it with the dumbbell fly. The benefits are greater lung capacity, wider chest (helps in pushing back those damn shoulders!) and greater isolation of the pecs. Normally, I am all over the compound movement...I much prefer them from a practicality standpoint. In this case though, where I have a deficiency in a particular area, it makes sense to put in a little time doing something more targeted. Lastly, I am also noticing a distinct size and strength difference between my dominant and non-dominant biceps. Grip strength is roughly equal, ditto push strength. The pull is severely lacking. Might toss in a few hammer curls or something as accessory work. Lastly, mobility. My focus is not to be awesome in the gym. I want the gym to support me in doing the stuff I WANT to be doing, like parkour, rock climbing, sprinting, swimming, cycling, etc. Expect more to that end in future updates. Time to let loose my inner all-terrain scout! Until next time, rebels...

Thanks! I think they will start to come fairly quickly with the extra focus on the back. Throughout the week I'll be hitting inverted rows, upright rows and pull-up negatives...basically as much as my back can handle. Combined with posture cues and reducing chest work, I'll hopefully make some real meaningful progress on my rolled shoulders and pull-ups in short order.

Numero dos, Tried out the BodySpace app last night and more or less liked it. I am looking forward to the weekly updates, which is really what I got it for as far as longer term tracking. Usage during the workout was easy enough. I still hate having to go to my phone between every set, but it was either than or a notebook. It proved to be good motivation, though. Because it was expecting a certain number of sets and reps from me, it encouraged me to go a little farther on some movements. I'll be adding in some basic rotator cuff exercises on my off days as I focus on more pulling movements and getting my shoulder strength and positioning up to scratch. Lastly, in my longstanding quest to get a pull-up, I did a personal best of 7 negatives last night. Focused on keeping my chest up, and sure enough, the final two reps were where I finally felt my lats doing something.

Update numero uno... I've been doing Dumbbell Division lvl 2 since the start, and as of next week will bump to lvl 3 for more variety and increased difficulty. One change I am going to be making (and have just made in lvl 2 routine A) is swapping pushups out for various rows. Per my RMT, my chest is increasing in strength faster than my back is, causing my already-pronounced forward rolling of the shoulders to become worse. I am also trying to find a workout tracker that is easy to use both in and out of the gym. I'm trying Jefit right now, but I'm not totally impressed. It takes a long time to build a custom workout, and the controls aren't entirely intuitive. We'll see how it goes. Diet-wise, some fairly significant changes are coming. My wife and I have been using EatThisMuch to help plan and track food. Like many planners, it feels like we have to work around it too much to actually make it work for us. We have decided to use its ability to balance macros while generating meals to cherry pick 3 weeks' worth of food and create our own rotating plan. For the record, we are both set to consume 2000 calories a day on a zone diet macro plan (30/40/30). For her being a small lady and a competitive CrossFit athlete, that is a maintenance plan. For me being a large 3-times-a-week-body-composition-changer, that's a 700 calorie deficit. Because we have a myriad of Apple/Android/Windows devices in the house, it has actually been frustrating looking at the meal plan on one device and not being able to manipulate it similarly on another. Combined with slow syncing of changes, we often find ourselves working against each other. Time to just put something down on paper.

About six weeks ago, I squared up and began fighting a demon that goes by many names. Laziness. Excuses. Self-doubt. Weakness. In that six week stretch, victories have been won. I am stronger, my resting heart rate is lower, my blood pressure is lower, I am down a notch on the belt, I spend less money on food overall, especially the poison that passes itself off as food. But the fight is far from over. Thus begins the battle log. Vital stats: DOB: 29-Mar-86 Height: 6'2" Weight: 215lbs Resting heart rate: 72bpm Primary class: Ranger Secondary classes: Warrior, Druid, Adventurer Tertiary classes: Scout, Assassin Goals: Change overall body composition (weight is unimportant to me) Become a competent human overlander *Indoor/outdoor climbing/rappelling *Parkour *Running *Cycling *Skiing *Kayaking/Canoeing Some of these skills are already in my tool shed, but one can always get better. This log will simply include notable stats about workouts, food and skill improvement. I won't bore the world with "nothing new to report".

Well, keep in mind I've been out of the game for a while and am just getting back in. First, start slow. By that I mean plan on your first run being about 10 or 15 minutes. Start by just walking. Walk for 2 minutes, jog for 1. It should end with 1 minute of walking. You need to get a feel for how your joints handle pavement and if your lung capacity, cardio health and leg muscles are up to the task. Bring up both the intensity of the jog and the total run time at the same time in small increments, keeping tabs on how your body handles the stress. Once you know what you can do comfortably, then you start pushing like you would with weight training. I like to alternate. Do a slightly longer run, then do the same length next time, only faster. If I can't do it faster, I keep on that length until I can. Try and plan it so that you reach 5 K a few weeks before a race. That way you can really cement it and then take some time to rest up.