Just Say 'No' to Protein Shakes

I have noticed, in my path to attain some proficiency in high-level fitness, that there is an assumption that you need a lot of gimmicky science to get really good at anything. If you want to gain a lot of muscle, there best way to do it is to chug a 'specially formulated' protein shake after every workout, which itself is systematic and 'specially formulated' to give you maximum results with minimum effort. The wonders of science have enabled us to cut out all the fat and wasted effort; real food has too much wasted nutrient when all we want is one thing for getting stronger, faster, bigger, etc.

The problem with this approach is that it suggests the humans, in order to attain their greatest physical potential, require a lot of tinkering and external, artificial input. Our bodies could not do it on their own, and the normal, real food we evolved to eat is insufficient. The only problem with this theory is that plenty of extremely healthy, fit groups of people relied not a whit on fancy protein shakes or carb counting. Why is it that Australian aborigines are thought to have run faster than today's top Olympic sprinters (according to this article), given that they lacked the best scientific minds to guide their training?

There is certainly something to be said for fitness following evolutionary guidelines: move the way our ancestors did, the way our bodies evolved to move, and they should be healthy. Mark's Daily Apple posts on the health benefits of eating and moving according to these guidelines. But for those of us who care less about our health and more about our useful fitness, it seems reasonable to assume that, just because eating and moving 'naturally' might be better for us, it won't necessarily produce the strongest, fastest athlete.

I am going to argue that it actually does. I am going to argue that, barring extreme specialization athletes, you can be an exceptional athlete eating a natural, whole foods diet, and exercising less than an hour at a time. Because that's exactly what I did.

This is a development of a philosophy that suggests humans are not inherently broken. That is, we don't need props and artificial supports to achieve our potential. Physically, we have within ourselves the ability to achieve nearly Olympic-level fitness, without the use of expensive gym equipment, specially-tailored programs, or scienctifically-formulated diets. We can do it with objects as crude as rocks, trees and logs (barbells work too) and with food that is all natural and real.

The philosophy extends to psychological and emotional fields as well, though this gets more controversial, so I'll save it for later. Suffice it to say that I don't believe that most mental disorders are in fact evidence of a broken mind, but rather a healthy mind reacting to a bad situation. Everything we need to be healthy and happy is within ourselves and within our grasp. God, mother nature, the infinite intelligence, evolution, etc, didn't put us on this earth incomplete.

More to come.

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Hang Clean Jerks

Modification of CrossFit WOD for 1 rep max of hang clean jerk:

7 sets of 5, hang clean jerk:

90 lb

90lb

90lb

99lb

99lb

Went well. Last set was sloppy, but I finished my last rep strong. Happy with new skills.

No More Hwa Rang Do

Today I quit my class of Hwa Rang Do/Tae Soo Do. This was a very hard decision for me, because it is the first time since starting college that I felt like I belonged to a group of friends who were supportive and had faith in me (they elected me president of the club). I do feel like I let a lot of them down, but ultimately, my reasons were based on my personal expectations and needs from a martial art.

While I love the concept behind Hwa Rang Do - which is more comprehensive than any other martial art I've yet seen, and very thorough - I have not actually been practicing Hwa Rang Do, but rather the self-admitted sport form, Tae Soo Do, designed to give people with no martial arts experience a foundation of skills before transitioning to the more advanced HRD curriculum. Problem is, Tae Soo Do is unapplicable as a form of self-defense, and I do have martial arts experience. Watering down a form of combat for the sake of making it accessible is fine, but it's just not my thing (you may have noticed my recent CrossFit adventures. Not watered down, not accessible, risky...I'm not a fan of mediocrity).

HRD began to arouse suspicions early on, with its insistence on using only HRD merchandise (sparring gear, uniforms with large prints on them which were more expensive then normal uniforms which are acceptable in other styles, etc.). The obsessive insistence on using a (R) every time Hwa Rang Do or Tae Soo Do is mentioned also seemed sketchy to me. While I understand the need to protect the integrity and authenticity of a martial art, and the need to support it financially, this seemed almost too much protection, as if the creators were paranoid (which I understand they had reason to be to an extent). Tae Soo Do seems like a way to keep HRD a secret as long as possible; use its reputation as a marketing device without actually having to teach it.

In any case, I wanted to practice sparring, grappling, and really applicable self-defense. Most of our time in TSD was spent endlessly drilling forms. While I know it's important to learn things well before trying to apply them, TSD forms are actually fairly simplistic, at least compared to Kenpo forms and techniques. Basically each belt has a theme, and you learn minor variations on that theme. All orange belt forms involved hand swords. All yellow belt forms involve elbows. It's a really slow progression, and you can generally figure out the forms once you get the pattern. While this is great for providing a set, easily learned curriculum, it's not particularly useful for self-defense, which is by its nature unpredicatable and varied. It seemed to me like the whole point of training was just to earn belts, not to learn anything really applicable. We didn't even really discuss self-defense scenarios or how to react in certain situations, the importance of hand placement or adjusting for targetting, except very sparingly. It was very form-centric, not applicable.

Anyway, I plan to continue my self-defense education in the same way I've done everything else in my life: on my own. I'm finding this a really good way to go about things. It may not be the fastest (considering the need to double-check everything I learn to make sure it's correct, constantly correcting bad habits, etc) but it allows me to learn what I want, to tailor it to suit my needs and expectations, and forces me to become very knowledgable in what I'm learning. I have my dad's old Kenpo techniqe binder, and access to a library of Kenpo instructional videos online, which I can compare with the binder and one another. I'm sure I will occasionally find instructors willing to teach me, and I will apply my own critical mind to question and test everything I do, of course. I've got other people, some old TSD friends some MMA guys on campus I can train with, and Klara and I are developing a comprehensive, primal appraoch to fitness and nutrition. It's all self-motivated, and to a large extent self-created. Input comes from blogs and extensive research, but largely, it's experimental. It's a journey.

Wish me luck.

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BA Status Report

Today was the first time I read over the entirety of my BA from start to finish. I went through and fixed all edits that had been commented on, and added all citations that were missing. Thus, everything is mostly done, as far as presentation and argument is concerned. All the main text is proofread and supported, all the sections are in the right order and filled out, the source list is updated and coherant (no redundancies or unaccounted references). All that remains is my conclusion.

I would like to thank Microsoft for an excellent product in Word 2007. The blibiography and citation manager made my life immeasurably easier, as it has on numerous other papers. For this one, however, managing all my sources would have been impossible. Well, I guess it would have been possible, because others did it, but I'm glad I didn't have to do without. Thank you Bill Gates.

And now, off to the library to work on a website.

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Spring Break, in one day

I know, I haven't posted all break. Believe it or not, I've actually been somewhat busy.

Mornings start with me failing to get out of bed.

Then I get out of bed way later than intended, more tired for the previous effort.

Then I eat breakfast. Usually this is fruits and nuts, but today it was pancakes.

Then I engage in the manly rituals necessary for preparing oneself to look nice in front of society (aka, shave, shower, brush teeth).

Then I go to Olympic weightlifing training, which is amazingly awesome because I get to move heavy things in cool ways, utilizing my entire body's muscle system working in perfect synchrony. It's pretty snazzy. The only problem is, unlike regular weight training, my entire body is sore from it. My arms more than my legs, because they're weaker generally, but my entire back is sore, anything remotely associated with my shoulders, hamstrings, even my feet. But the sensation of directing all that explosive muscle energy, coordinated by well-timed nerve action, is euphoric. And my handstand is now several seconds off the wall, which I blame on the strengthening of the stabilizers from holding a barbell over my head several times a day. Apparently, I'm really good at it (in terms of technique, not weight. I'm still only moving 65lb or  little move)

Then I go home and do one of a few things:

Yesterday, I worked all day on my BA (and got surprisingly little done). The day before that, I plastered campus with fliers for a Palestinian-Israeli youth dialogue event I'm organzing. You should come. It's Thursday from 7-8:30 in Social Sciences 122. Unless you're against peace in the Palestine/Israel, it should be really cool. The day before that, I searched for jobs.

For those of you that are concerned, I have lots of ideas now.

The one I like the most is an internship at the Middle East Institute in Washington DC. It, however, does not pay, but I think it leaves enough time to get another job doing something like lifeguarding or watering plants. There are also wilderness leader-type things, Outward Bound, an internship at the Ely Wolf Center (which does pay...), and applying to a course in environmental organizing. I plan to take the Foreign Service Exam, because it's free and I'd like to eventually serve in the foreign service, so exposure would help.

Today, I will be finishing my BA, polishing up a new website I've been working on for Hwa Rang Do, contacting some people are working with Iraqi refugees in Chicago, contacting some people about teaching music to children in Hyde Park, maybe grappling with an HRD buddy, and hopefully will hang out with someone. It's been a long cold lonely spring break, but I've done okay.

Oh yeah, and I went running yesterday. Four 800m runs, at 2:42, 2:34, 2:38, and 2:36. To give you an idea of how fast that is, the men's record (the best and fastest among people who run every day and nothing else) is 1:54. So, yeah, I'm pretty happy. This was also after me weightlifintg and doing front squats and cleans, which do use the legs.

I miss my family and especially my sister. Love you all.

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Long Run

Ran Approx 8 miles (+/- a mile, I didn't measure)
Time: approx 50 min (by the microwave clock when I left)
Pace: 6.25 min/mi approx

This is the first fast long run I've done since the summer, though I did run a bit with Dad over winter break. First time I did a long run with the Five Fingers toe shoes on. My calves were really feeling it, but I think my speed speaks for itself. These things are fast! I wandered a bit too, jumping up and down piles of rocks, running through a beach a little, and I stopped to stretch some.

At the end, coming down a little hill, I noticed a guy in front of me speeding up. I thought it meant I was slowing, so I picked up my pace a bit to catch up, but as I got closer, he sped up again. So, being a red-blooded, sporting, male, I naturally sped up, and we ended up racing the last half mile or so, me in my toes shoes after having run 6 or 7 miles already, weaving to stay on the grass and dirt, him in normal shoes, on the asphalt. I kept up, I'm proud to say, and there was as definite exchange of glances as we went our separate ways. Physical competition, the universal language ;-)

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All Alone

Well, today is my first full day living completely alone, in my entire life really. Not that I don't have a way to get in touch with people, but I've never actually resided in a dwelling without other people also living with me and upon whom I could talk to if something untoward happened. Not that I've never slept along before, but I've always either been with friends or family, or when I was younger had an assigned caretaker. Both my roommates are gone, and I have no classes or anyone I'm necessarily scheduled to see.

I'm not really scared or anything like that. More I'm just afraid I'll go nuts. Seriously, I realized yesterday thinking about the coming week that I'll just lose it without anybody to talk to. So if you read this blog, feel free to e-mail or call me whenever you feel the need. I do have friends still here, and I do plan to meet them in the coming days, and I've got a ton of stuff to do, but all the trappings of home, the little markers in a place that assure us someone else is around even though we don't see them, will just be from me. Why this is intimidating I have no idea.

From a Warrior's standpoint, I of course should learn to be emotionally and psychologically independent, in addition to the physical independence of fitness and self-preservation. Though even for those who serve others, self-sufficiency is more of an emergency tactic, since we'd hopefully be around those we wanted to help and care about. The ability to maintain internal balance on one's own, without others around for reflection or stabilization, is important when helping people, because if others are relying on you, you can't be putting too much weight on them. So a Warrior does need to have the ability to be very secure on his/her own. That said, the life ideal is very interdependent, and so that ability to do well in isolation doesn't necessarily mean we should seek out isolation all that time. Spirit quests being the obvious exception. Maybe this week of spring break is my spirit quest.

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