Geeks in Gis

Archive for February, 2011

I can’ t believe it’s the end of February!  The year is flying by!  There’s just six weeks left before the next Karate tournament, and I’m currently feeling clumsier than ever.  I think it’s time to ramp up the practice even more.

How I feel this week went

This week we got to test out our new bench.  It’s a Bodymax incline/decline bench with an add-on for leg extensions and leg curls.  It’s narrower than the old bench, and also a few inches higher.  In theory it’s now the perfect height for powerlifting benching, because your legs are in a better position to try to get a small amount of leg drive without your buttocks coming off the bench.

That’s nice in theory, but in practice it’s tough to use.  Because it’s higher, the bench pins on the squat stands are now in the wrong place, so the bar is really low down when you try to unrack it.  It’s longer, so it takes up more space in the kitchen, and since it’s narrower it’s taking a while to get used to even getting centered on the thing.  I’m sure it will be great when I get used to i (and move a few things around to accommodate it!), but right now it feels really odd.

The rest of my training was good though, my deadlifts are going well (I’ll be trying for a PR next week and have high hopes), and karate training is satisfying, if stressful!  I’m a little worried about the upcoming tournament.  We train using continuous sparring, but our tournaments are points sparring.  This is good in a way.  I’m not a fan of points sparring because it’s so far removed from what would happen in a real fight, so I like training continuous sparring – it gets you used to getting hit.  The problem is that when I see a really gentle blow coming in during points sparring my instinct is to let it hit and set up myself to throw a more powerful blow.  Of course that gentle blow could represent a point for my opponent.

On the one hand, I’d like to get good at points sparring, but on the other hand I don’t want my sparring training to degenerate into playing tag in pyjamas, which is what I think would happen if I “trained to the test” and focused more on the points side of things.  Some of my fellow students seem able to flick a switch and go between points mode and continuous mode.  I wish I could develop that talent!

Tips I’d like to share

Back on to fitness and diet, I saw a great sig line on Bodybuilding.com – “If you can’t pick it, kill it, or grow it, you shouldn’t eat it.” That’s a little tough to live by in today’s busy world, but great advice.  I’ve certainly noticed that I feel better when I’m eating less processed junk.

Ubisoft has announced Fit in Six, a new fitness game for the PlayStation 3  which takes advantage of the  PlayStation Move functionality.  Fit in Six will also be availble for the Wii system, where it will use Ubisoft’s USB camera accessory.  The game has been developed Ubisoft Blue Byte studio in Düsseldorf, Germany, and separates overall fitness routines into six core elements — core body, upper body, lower body, cardio, balance and flexibility. The workouts have been developed by fitness experts to ensure that every move is performed precisely and effectively. Fit in Six will be available in March 2011.

On the Wii, the USB camera will provide a picture-in-picture view that enables players to compare their own movements to the in-game coach for a more accurate replication of exercises. The game will be released in two versions – a bundle with the game and the camera, and a cheaper version which contains just the game.

For the PlayStation 3 system players can upload music to their PS3 and perform workouts to music. The PS3 analyzes your playlist and suggests the music that suits the right rhythm for each workout.

Fit in Six also offers new add-on content available on PlayStation Network for the PlayStation 3 system to refresh and enhance players’ workout experiences. The complete content including add-ons for Fit in Six adds up to  23 – 24 hours of workout time and include personalized workouts, dance-related fitness programs and a variety of cardio and toning exercises to expand the overall gameplay experience.

I can’t believe we’re in week eight already! How’s the year going for you so far?

I’m exhausted this week.  I’ve been progressing steadily on all my lifts, and I’ve finally managed to reliably do the kick that I’m working on in Karate (although still not with speed), but I’m feeling pretty beat up and tired.  So tired that I’m making the Fitness Friday post a day late!

Name: Etali
Blog: Geeks In Gis
Twitter: @geeks_in_gis
Starting Weight: 46kg
Target Weight: Stay about the same
Amount Lost: N/A

Why I’m doing Fitness Friday: I’m a weight class athlete so need to pay attention to my weight.

Changes To My Fitness Plan: I’m thinking of re-arranging my workouts.  Squatting heavy the day before Karate just isn’t working.  I need a full day of recovery at a minimum, I think. Right now I have two rest days at the start of the week, I think I’ll split those up and see how it goes.

How I Feel This Week Went: I’m making good progress but I’m completely exhausted!

Part of that is because I’m following a linear progression lifting plan (basically add weight every workout), and I’m doing it with weights that are heavier than I should be.  I don’t have any ‘microplates’, so instead of adding 1KG to my overhead press each week I’m adding 2.5KG (the smallest plates we have are 1.25KG each).  When I can’t move up in weight, I do more reps for a couple of workouts, then try again.  My progress has been incredibly rapid because I’ve really had to push myself to not stall, but I’m starting to feel the strain.

I have one more workout to do this week then I’ll be taking advantage of some rest days.  I’m three weeks away from finishing the workout program  and I’m really looking forward to the deload.  These next three weeks are going to be tough, but worth it.

Tips I’d like to share: Make sure you’re getting enough rest.  If you’re a little tired then sure, work out anyway (it will probably make you feel better!), but if you’re so exhausted that even sitting in front of the computer feels like a monumental task then it’s probably time to take a few days off.

Last week I had the chance to try my hqand at teaching for the first time. Just a few simple concepts, and under the watchful eyes of Sensei and a few Sempai, but teaching all the same.

The girl I was teaching asked me a few questions about sparring. She seemed nervous about it, and when I asked her why she suprised me with her answer.  She’s from a karate-mad family, and she’ll have seen her older siblings come away from tournaments with bruises, so I assumed it was fear of getting hurt that was putting her off.

Her answer, though, was “It looks really hard and I don’t think I’ll be good at it.”  – this coming from a girl who is picking up kata and kihon pretty well. She’s not the most athletic student, but she has a good memory and is really attentive.

I think it’s sad when people don’t want to do something because it looks hard.  I didn’t want to get into any philosophical lessons with her – not this early on in her career anyway – so I just offered some words of encouragement and told her that I’m no good at sparring either, but I do it anyway because it is fun, and it feels really good when I do a little better each month.  Her response made me think that she’s only ever done stuff she’s been good at, so she doesn’t yet know the joy of starting out slow and clumsy, and suddenly realising – months (or years) later, that you aren’t terrible any more!

I’ll discuss the whole fear of failure thing with our Sensei-gata.  I expect they’ll have a better way of addressing it than me, but I’d love to hear some thoughts from those who teach regularly.  Dom you encourage, cajole, or just tell your students to work through it and let them discover the joy of succeeding at something difficult for themselves?  I think each approach is valid for different groups of students, but finding out which group a particular student is in is the trick:

Hello everyone!  I can’t believe it’s the seventh week of Fitness Friday already.  Where is the year going?

Results This Week

This week was a strange week for me – I managed to reduce my squat by 20% instead of increase it, but I did manage to rep my bench 1RM target for five reps – so now I have a new target – 42.5KG – the qualifying amount for the British Unequipped Championships in my weight class.  In theory I should make that by the end of March, fingers crossed.

Karate this week was not that energetic for me.  We’ve had an increase in new members (new years resolutions, maybe?), and even with two Sensei plus one full-time second Dan assistant and a couple of other high grade adults that help out a bit, things can get a bit busy for the teachers.   I’m fourth Kyu, and today I was asked to help out a white belt with their basic combinations.  Nothing fancy, just how to throw a reverse punch, step punch, and front snap kick.  In theory that’s all material that I know pretty well – after all, those moves are done every lesson!  Still, I found myself struggling to explain to the kid what they were doing wrong, and exactly how to do it right.  The Sensei kept stepping in every time I floundered (so they probably spent more time babysitting my teaching than they would have teaching themselves), but it was an interesting experience!

I’d always had a respect for those who choose to teach  – and I was terrified of the thought of teaching myself.  After my brief exposure to teaching I’ve now found out that my original fears were unfounded, but I’m still nervous – you really do need to ‘know’ the material before you teach it, rather than just know how to do it!

The good news is that our style has no shortage of qualified teachers, so they don’t normally throw people into teaching anything more than some simple combos until 1st Kyu – and even then you’re just teaching Kata.

Plans for Next Week

Next week I want to focus on my squats – I need to get the weight back up to something reasonable, but I can’t afford to let my form slip!

Tips I’d like to share

If you have a Google Android phone, then look for Cardio Trainer by Worksmart Labs on the app store.  It’s in Beta at the moment, and when I downloaded it, it was a free download.  I’m not sure how long it’s going to be free for, but it’s a great app for tracking Calories burned during exercise.  It even ties into a (simplistic, at the moment) facebook game.  I’ll be reviewing the app in full soon but figured it’s worth a quick mention here.  After all, it’s free

See you all next week!

I’m in a bit of a bad mood today. I shouldn’t be.  If anything I should be pleased that I spotted a problem before it became a serious one, but honestly, I’m more annoyed than anything else.  Why?  Well, I just had to knock my squat down by 20%.

I’m a powerlifter, and a powerlifting squat is supposed to be deep – the crease of the hip should dip below the top of the knee.  I always thought I was doing that, but it seems that since I started squatting again this year (after several months off with an ankle injury) I have developed some bad habits, and my squats were an inch or two high.

Tineladia raised a concern that they were borderline, and taking a video confirmed that they weren’t low enough.  I tried changing my stance, and tried adjusting the weight.  I had to drop the weight a lot to be able to go full depth then come out of the hole without doing a goodmorning.

Considering my squat isn’t my strongest lift to begin with, it’s frustrating to discover that I’ve been unconciously squatting high and not building strength in the most important part of the lift.  I have learned a valuable lesson though.  I will be taking form videos once a month or so, to make sure no more bad habits creep in.

I guess that’s one downside to a home gym – there’s no full length mirrors in the kitchen, so I have to rely on form critiques from Tineladia, who is usually spotting, so has a bad view to judge angles from.

I hope you all had a more successful workout today – one where yor lifts went up, rather than down!

Well, this has been quite a hectic week!

Tineladia and I are going to E3 Expo in Los Angeles this year, and we need Visas to get into the USA.  That meant a trip to the US Embassy in London.  We’re self employed, and not rich, so we when we got an given an appointment – for 8AM on Wendesday, we ended up in quite a panic!  Monday was spent running around town trying to find a decent place to get digitised passport photos.  Tuesday we took a coach to London, and stayed overnight so that we could get to the Embassy on time.  Wednesday, we went to the embassy then killed time by looking around the Science Museum before we took another seven and a half hour long coach trip home.

So how did the week go, fitness wise?

The busy week meant that we missed Tuesday’s workout, and were so tired on Thursday that we missed that workout too.  To make up for it I did weights today (as well as Karate), and plan to work out on Saturday and Sunday too.  Probably with lighter weights than normal (squatting and deadlifting isn’t something you want to do without rest days in between), but I don’t want to just completely skip those workouts.

Diet-wise, eating out for three days isn’t good!  I’ve gained a little bit of weight.  I’m not too concerned though, I’m still under my maximum acceptable weight, and I think I’ll lose the “excess” when I get back to my normal lifestyle.

Future plans

My lifts are still progressing well.  I’ll be focusing mostly on Karate next week (just in case we grade), but I’ll keep lifting.  I’m just 25KG from the qualifying totals I’m aiming for!  If I can hit those and keep my weight and energy levels in check I’ll be extremely happy.

My tips

This is a long term venture – some weeks are better than others, and when you have a bad week you shouldn’t give up – keep on pushing and you’ll see the results you want!