Skinny Fat

I was at the grocery store checkout counter last weekend. At a counter directly across from me I watched a woman, about my age loading her cart onto the conveyor belt with the help of a little boy. My first thought was, "Wow, she has really good hair." She did. Really. Followed by a shift down in vision to think, "She looks really good in those blue jeans. She is a really fit mom." Then a tall man with a rather large belly pushed a cart up and began talking to her. Husband. 

From that point, I stopped looking at the woman and started looking at the man. He did not have good hair. He did not look good in his extra baggy in the butt cargo shorts. His 2X torso covered by a 1X shirt. What I was really drawn to was his stick thin, noodle like, utterly toneless biceps. Skinny fat. 

Skinny fat is just so nauseating to me.  It assumes that this man, probably my age has never really truly exercised in his life. I have more respect for those that are overweight and working out than those that are skinny or skinny in specific parts of their body and have absolutely zero muscle tone. 

'Now wait a minute,' you might say, 'The fat person doesn't have any muscle tone.' True but the fat person is at that moment, trying to. That person cares. A skinny fat person, they don't care. This particular specimen before me with the wife who looked good in her jeans, stretched out the bottom of his shirt but not the shirt sleeves. His dead fish, limp arms, flapping in the excess fabric. 

I am the first to admit when I look in the mirror I see the before picture of a Biggest Loser contestant. Its a horrible trick my mind plays on me because I rationally understand that is not the case. I had more than one person tell me I looked very fit, as I walked around an expo this weekend.Of course they were probably trying to soften me up for a sales but nevertheless, take it were you can get it, right? Then again, I looked at my scale this morning and thought about how many far I could throw it, rather than stand on it. Which again, I did not. 

Now even in my body dismorphism, I know, I know, I don't have skinny arms. I have always had large biceps, large shoulders, broad chest. Even when I was trying for two iroman triathlons in six months. 

Enough of me. Back to skinny arms. Skinny arms are so unappealing. Nasty. It shows a complete lack of fitness. To me a lack of respect for yourself. So whether you are head to toe, skinny fat or just skinny fat in your arms or ass or legs, do something about it. Please. Creeps me out. And I matter. 

Completed the 100 Day Burpee Challenge.

This week I completed another 100 day burpee challenge. This personal fitness challenge lasts 100 days and depending on how many repetitions you complete on Day 1, most people just start at one repetition, you add  +1 repetition to your total. Day one is one rep, Day one hundred is 100 reps. The key in completing this challenge is that the person actually does their burpees every day for one hundred straight days. No missing days, no too hungover, no family events, no travel days can interrupt the streak. It is hard enough for a person to do something for just thirty days straight, the length of time many use to describe needed for creating a new habit, let alone one hundred days. Thus less than 5% of those that start this challenge, complete it. 

The greatest aspect of this challenge is the social media aspect of it. Find or create a group page and then invite all your friends to join. Get the competitive juices flowing. It is much easier to finish this challenge if you have people to motivate you and hold you accountable. Yet in the end, everyone has their own reasons for attempting this challenge. Some have never done a burpee before and consider it a way to return to a fitness lifestyle. Others understand how the burpee can be a transformative exercise. 

Most people see it as an event to complete that does not require an entry fee. It does not require hours of training in preparation. No travelling, no special shoes or spending money on gu's and chews. It can be done anywhere, a living room, a park, a hotel lobby, the grocery store, office hallway, even as a groomsman at your best friends wedding when you are all up front waiting for the bride to make her entrance. 

A denominator is that over 90% of the people that start, do not finish. What invariably happens is people float away, stop posting results. Those that continue, do so with with the same motivation and enthusiasm, but the page starts to get quiet. Whereas dozens of people posted and communicated back and forth several times a day in the beginning, towards the end almost entire days lapse where there may be a solo entry from the one or two or three people still involved. Necessary but perfunctory gestures.  

The best way to finish this challenge is find a group on a social media platform or start your own and invite your friends. I have seen groups of over 800 people who barely know each other online start a group and I have seen small very familiar groups of close knit friends numbering in the tens and twenty's. The common denominator is that everyone try's to communicate their daily results to the group and keep the motivation in there high. Having burpee picture days and side challenges help contribute to a fun and vibrant group. 

Honestly, I didn't give myself a pat on the back after I finished this challenge. Well maybe a little bit that day. Considering I have done weird fitness challenges my entire adult life, it was just another thing I did and did well for myself. Looking back at the start of this challenge, it was only one of four I began in July and I still feel the 30 day running challenge was the hardest to complete. Full disclosure, I ended the Ab challenge in week 6 when my back began to act up and it affected all other events. 

I challenge all of you to enter or start a burpee challenge. You can easily find the common rules and set ups reading the general information area of each groups page. What their standard burpee is, how competitive or close knit the group is. It is not important to start on Day One with everyone else. Coming in late to the challenge can infuse new motivation and enthusiasm. 

Magic Morning Runs

Most people enjoy a sunrise looking through the comfort of home window, pleasantly surprised they caught it. Or suffer it's beauty driving to or being at some sort of work, cursing their early rise. Few truly enjoy it based on their own rules. I was able to do so today, like I do many days a year, with running. 

When I walked out the door an hour before sunrise, the stars still bright. The sky not totally dark, it is morning twilight after all. It holds a purple blue like technicolor like a hue added to a old black and white movie. I heard insects chirping and clicking but this time of night the noises are not scary. That time has long past on the clock. This is life waking up. Getting at it. Like me. 

The loudest noise is the main street a quarter mile away and hidden behind rows of houses. Parallax, reverberation and echo make four cars sound like faraway patter of tire on road. Neighbors yards have dew drops on them, from sprinklers or Mother nature. Mostly sprinklers. The streetlamps shine on them making the yards glow with a light better than the ceiling light in your family room. These glittering lights don't want you to stare, they want you get on your way. 

There always seems to be the same cloying smell when I run through certain areas. I think its vegetation giving off a scent that is much different than the middle of the day, baking in the heat or smothered by rain. Its a natural musk that I can never place, don't really want to, but I know when I smell it, I am doing something special for myself. Being out here alone. Looking for something in me. Building something in my life that will lead me to another great adventure. 

The level of blue sky increases, the yellows and pinks and red do to. I'm lucky, from where I am, sun rises over a mountain range. One I have been to the top of and looked down at my domain. When the orb does crest, for just a moment, it outlines a ridge line many people wonder if they could find time to get to and a few people can say they have been on. But its still not daylight yet. 

The sun is up but the ground is still covered in shadows. The chill, what there was, still seeking dominance for a few minutes longer. It seems to get colder in the shadows before they are overtaken by the light of the new day. The sun almost caught me. But I reach my front door just as the rays creep up my yard. Like a game of grade school tag, I have run back to home base. Safe. 

Videoes make you stupid idiots with no clue about life. So, there!

I interact with a younger guy, he's 21, I'll call him 'John'. Good person for the most part. Naive, maybe a bit innocent.  Something interesting happened this week that has made me think about just where I see men from his generation going. 

John is not much of a fitness guy. Has a membership to a big box gym. Plays some team sports like football and basketball with his pals. Own the Insanity DVD series but never finished it. But he is not nor ever been on a long term fitness program with a defined goal.  He really wants to do a Tough Mudder or obstacle race and to get ready he would do 10 push ups every time he swore in front of me. I thought about this for a moment and then said sure, but its 10 burpees instead. He gulped hard, but agreed. By the end of us being together he owed me 30 and said he would do them by the end of the day. He didn't do them. At least he was honest. I can work with honest. 

Now I didn't curse, but I did something I felt I could do again better and when I was going back over it, John says I owe him 10 burpees. Now this is nowhere near our deal together. I did tell him I had already done exactly 90 burpees that morning but in order to motivate him to do his 30 from before I did 10 right in front of him. 

His response, "You didn't jump high enough." I just laughed. I said those were good burpees. He seemed to think I wasn't using good form. I said, "Did you expect me to do 2 push ups, a box jump and then hand clap?" 

All of Johns real world experience with burpees comes from watching videos, not doing them himself. Of course if you watch a few minutes of Insanity, you would logically think all extreme athletes train like that every day. It's no different than the people who base their perception of all Ironman athletes based on NBC's Kona coverage show each December. I have friends that weigh over 260 lbs that have finished Ironmans. The reality is so much different than the hype. 

So I simply told John to be sure to do his 30 burpees with the exact form he is convicting me of not using. I related to him if he wants to find his stride in burpees than do 300 burpees tonight instead of 30. Doing is the only way to know what is right. And maybe my form is poor, I don't give a crap. I did 100 of 'MY' burpees, (which I think are fine) as opposed to someone who didn't do any at all but felt compelled to critique mine. Isn't that just like life today?

So here is my 'crotchety old man rant'. These freaking kids have no clue about real life when all they do is live through web video and PlayStation games. Some of these kids think they are bad ass mother effers and know all there is about combat because they grew up on Call of Duty and Hollywood movies. Young men have told me they were going to join the Marines but it wasn't 'as cool' as Modern Warfare. I can't make this stuff up! Some of them want to criticize the reality of exercise because all they know is what they got from the production value of a DVD or freak ability of a viral video. In their mind there is no difference between an Obstacle Course Racer and a Ninja Warrior athlete. Must be one to be the other. Its insane. Gyms are for maxing your bench press, the only number that matters. Running is stupid.  Guys my age grew up on Playboys and Penthouse forums when we could steal them. Now a smartphone streams 24/7 and young men think sexual acts have to be a marathon of ten positions and of course the woman has to have fake boobs, no body hair or an ounce of fat or she is a pig. Because thats what porn (ie. video) has done to our society rather than actually learning to have a real relationship with someone. Good grief. Ladies I honestly and sincerely feel sorry for some of the utter unrealistic nonsense young men are developing today.  

So today I will run my miles, do my burpee, (only a few weeks left of the 100 day burpee challenge), swing my ax, put on my 40 pound ruck, do some bear crawls with it, some low crawls with it. Probably, hopefully, get some mud on it and myself. My only hydration warm water from a tube. Then when I am thoroughly wrung out, stink to high heaven, light headed, bruised, probably some grass stains, and sweating my ass off, I will come home and dream about doing it again tomorrow. John....John probably will sit in front of his flat screen, drinking Code Red Mountain Dew, playing the new Call of Duty expansion pack, resetting his last mission ten times because he didn't get the perfect kill shot or wants a faster finish time using cheat codes.  

GoRuck GR1 hydration mod

I don't think I have ever loved a backpack more than my GR1 made by Goruck. Of course there was a lot of blood, sweat, and not quite tears, but serious emotions involved in our first night together, Goruck Class 113. For those not familiar with how a Goruck class works, each person carries 6 bricks inside their rucksack. Depending on what size ruck is used, the fit can be quite tight to get the remaining gear you would need to survive a class to fit inside with the bricks. 

As much as I enjoy my GR1 I can not help but tinker, to try to make it more comfortable, more specific to my ruck patterns, my inclinations. Make it mine. Thus I have been working on schemes to modify or 'mod' my ruck. Specifically how to carry a 3 liter (3L) hydration reservoir without zipping it into the hydration/laptop compartment that faces the back of the carrier. When I zip my 3L into this compartment it does not allow the pack to sit flush against my back and depending on how I jam everything inside, the zipper may not close all the way and I have gap at the top by the carry handle. Now, many Goruck alumni have figured how to overcome this challenge using their own ideas. But this one is my own. Before I explain how I did this mod, let me show you the results. 

from the back

side view, flush to the GR1

To do this mod, I used the following items:  Camelbak Thermobak AB, 4 feet of inch wide webbing.

The Camelbak Thermobak 3L-AB was the linchpin to this mod. I don't think I could have done it without it. The Thermobak 3L-AB uses a special system built into the pack for the use with military issue combat vests. Side Buckle clip lines are situated at the top and bottom to clip onto standard MOLLE systems, which the GR1 rucksack has along the bottom of the pack. There is also 6 D-rings along the outside for other types of attachment to packs. There is a civilian version of this model called simply the 'Thermobak 3L' that does not have this strap attachment system or D-rings. If you try this mod be sure to use the model with the AB designation. As you can see in the photo, right, I have extended the straps so you can see the location of the straps and the special side buckles that come with it. The female clips, which go on the rucksack,  (and seen as set asides in the photo) have a design that allows them to be clipped onto and off MOLLE very quickly.



The actual modification to the rucksack involved double backing the inch webbing, and sewing it onto the GR1 as a new strip of MOLLE. I noticed to late that we were using a dark blue thread rather than a black. Yes it bothers me, don't make the same mistake if you do this, but I am not going to redo it now.

In the final photos above, I do have a full set of six bricks inside the pack. So that profile is what I will expect in my next class.

Obviously I did not use four feet of webbing to create a pair of MOLLE attachments along the top of my ruck. As I put it all together I realized that the top side buckle strap that came withe Thermobak would not be long enough to clip into the new MOLLE mod. A longer one was made using the extra webbing.

I touched on it in the beginning of this post that I didn't like the bulge my 3L reservoir created along the back panel when I wore the ruck. Attaching the Thermobak in this manner, not only do I have a very flush and low profile hydration platform, the GR1 is now tight against my back making my bear crawls and buddy carries less bothersome.

Another benefit of the Thermobak AB model is that it also has shoulder straps which allow you to unclip it from the ruck and wear it as a solo item. When worn attached to the ruck, the shoulder straps and the side buckle straps all tuck into cleverly designed pockets built into the unit. This additional benefit makes the Thermobak AB ideal for longer runs when I wouldn't want to wear a heavy backpack and for obstacle course racing. The low profile design of the AB which is wider than normal camelbak models, makes it easier to navigate under low or narrow obstacles like barb wire with a design less likely to snag. But the real beauty of the mod is that when I do ruck, I have an external hydration for my favorite rucksack and can also be used externally on all my other rucksacks if I so desired.  

I have another modification I made for my GR1, a modest hip belt. A portion of that can be seen in photos near the bottom straps. It did not involve any permanent modifications to the pack, just some possibility thinking during long rucks.

Time to step it up.  

Its a consecutive day challenge not a rep challenge

I am in a social media group for 100 days of burpees which we just hit the 50 day mark. There is over 800 people who said they would do it but only about two dozen who haven't missed a day yet, myself included. There is about another hundred who post regularly who started later and not missed a day or started on Day One, missed a day and started over to attempt the streak again. There are also quite a few that have missed a day, mostly for being lazy, hungover, otherwise 'too busy', and make up those missed burpees at the next earliest point. The longer this challenge goes on the more frustrated I am at this last group. Why?

Maybe I am becoming an old curmudgeon, personally people accountable to the spirit, well actually the title of the challenge, of 100 Days. Its a challenge of straight days, not a challenge of repetitions done during that 100 days. I put a lot of personal integrity into my own personal struggle to make it 100 days straight. I get ticked off when I read people listing that they missed a day, BUT they made it up on another day and everything is A-OK now. As if to say, "We are equal and the same and all worthy of being finishers of the 100 day burpee challenge." 

I don't think we are equal. When I get to Day 100, I can look at the world and say, "I did 100 straight days of burpees, adding one rep each day." The people described above will look at the world and if honest would say something like, "I finished the 100 day burpee challenge. I only did burpees on 97 of those days but on the 3 days I missed I made those up later that week. High 5!". 

I think you missed a day, you should recycle back to Day 1 and try it again. 

I understand the need to get back on the horse. We all have bad days. Yet I would rather see someone reset to day one than quit something like this. It is a transformative challenge. And the real mental paradigm comes from accomplishing 100 days straight, not making it up. 

I should also make the case that people have to deal with real physical issues to get through this. The wrists will start to hurt. Maybe an old shoulder issue flairs up. Then the knee might be bad or the lower back aches. Of course in and of themselves, burpees just plain hurt to do as a cardiovascular and muscular exercise. You gasp like a fish and you flop on the floor and you sweat like a pig when you take the shortest of breaks. And if someone is truly injured, I wouldn't have them do that challenge. No challenge is worth months of physical discomfort (above the action of burpees themselves). Do a different fitness challenges. I have no problem if someone had to stop because of an injury. 

My problem are those that can't find ten minutes in their 15-17+ hour day to do what they promised to themselves to do, burpees for 100 straight days. Most common excuses, survey says, "Hungover, work sucked, hung out at the beach, too busy." 

I see this challenge as a microcosm to how you treat your life. You put in the hard work, the consistent work and you find success in the end. Not, do what you can, when you can, do a little bit more later, feign like you are sorry about the whole thing and then blow it off like nothing happened. 

I have mulled in my mind, just leaving the group because the disconnect feels so strongly on my end. That I am thinking too much into this. I should be more supportive of people attempting to get better. Instead I have to sit on my hands to not type a note suggesting they should reset and try again because they were lazy. I've been doing the 100 day burpee challenge for a long time, this is my third one. I do burpees 4-5 days a week whether I am in a challenge or not. I am the first to admit I hate them, I can't do nearly as many as a few, they certainly look worse than most. 

I respect a challenge. I respect people who 'honor' an agreement to do something like 100 days of burpees. I respect people who admit they missed a day and start over, maybe more so than anyone because I force myself to do them so I don't have to start over. I wouldn't want to make it to day 51, miss the next day and then start looking at 100 straight days again. No way. That scares me like nothing. I like my 4-5 days a week. I don't like 7 days a week for another three months. 

So I will sit on my hands for a bit longer. Praising those that need it, and trying to stay my typing for those that don't deserve praise in my opinion. But I had to get this off my chest. So there you go. 

Abs no more

I have decided to stop my personal 10 week ab challenge. This is week 7 and I am performing 700 repetitions per day. I have struggled mightily to obtain my daily numbers the last two weeks and having to force the numbers. To my physical detriment this is aggravating my lower back and making me uncomfortable performing the exercises and tight the rest of the day. I will continue to do my usual & modest 200-300 ab reps a day in my morning routine and continue with my 100 day burpee challenge as well as my normal my endurance and fitness pursuits. 

I never enjoy having to quit a challenge, especially so close to the end, only three weeks remaining. But a more dramatic injury at this point to my lower back would severely harm the efforts I am putting into a number of other areas, huge goals that I feel are much more important.