Thursday Morning RUn

Was cramping up from the workouts that week. 10 miles.

Wednesday

Acquatic Park swim

5 rounds of 4 stations:
Ring Dips
Jumping Lunges
Pull-Ups
Squats

20 seconds on, 10 seconds off (moving from one station to the next during the rest)
Should not have worked out. Feeling blown out.

Tuesday, June 17th Night Workout

15 rounds of 5 Push Press 115lbs. and 4 one armed dumbbell swings in each arm on the minute every minute.

The push press got real hard towards the end. Very hard not to fall into a jerk.

Be Perfect In Everything You Do

The Frozen Gaze

By DAVID BROOKS

Published: June 17, 2008

Rocco Mediate’s head swiveled about as he walked up the fairway of the sudden-death hole of the U.S. Open on Monday. Somebody would catch his attention, and his eyes would dart over and he’d wave or make a crack. Tiger Woods’s gaze, on the other hand, remained fixed on the ground, a few feet ahead of his steps. He was, as always, locked in, focused and self-contained.

The fans greeted Mediate with fraternal affection and Woods with reverence. Most were probably rooting for Rocco, but only because Woods, the inevitable victor, has risen above mere human status and become an embodiment of immortal excellence. That frozen gaze of his looks out from airport billboards, TV commercials and the ad pages. And its ubiquity is proof that every age finds the heroes it needs.

In a period that has brought us instant messaging, multitasking, wireless distractions and attention deficit disorder, Woods has become the exemplar of mental discipline. After watching Woods walk stone-faced through a roaring crowd, the science writer Steven Johnson, in a typical comment, wrote: “I have never in my life seen a wider chasm between the look in someone’s eye and the surrounding environment.”

The coverage of him often centers upon this question: How did this creature come about? The articles inevitably mention his precocity (at age 3, he shot a 48 on the front nine of a regulation course) and provide examples of his athletic prowess: Once Woods tried out four drivers that Nike was experimenting with and told the lab guys that he preferred the heavier one. The researchers thought the clubs were the same weight, but they measured and Woods was right. The club he’d selected was heavier by the equivalent of two cotton balls.

But inevitably, it is his ability to enter the cocoon of concentration that is written about and admired most. Writers describe the way Earl Woods, his lieutenant colonel father, dropped his golf bag while Tiger was swinging to toughen his mind. They describe his mother’s iron discipline at home. “Old man is soft,” Kultida Woods once said of her husband. “He cry. He forgive people. Not me. I don’t forgive anybody.”

Tiger was the one dragging them out on the course to practice. At age 6 months, he was put in a baby chair and had the ability, his father claimed, to watch golf for two hours without losing focus.

As an adult, he is famously self-controlled. His press conferences are a string of carefully modulated banalities. His lifestyle is meticulously tidy. His style of play is actuarial. He calculates odds and avoids unnecessary risks like the accounting major he once planned on being. “I am, by nature, a control freak,” he once told John Garrity of Sports Illustrated, as Garrity resisted the temptation to reply, “You think?”

And for that, in this day and age, he stands out. As I’ve been trying to write this column, I’ve toggled over to check my e-mail a few times. I’ve looked out the window. I’ve jotted down random thoughts for the paragraphs ahead. But Woods seems able to mute the chatter that normal people have in their heads and build a tunnel of focused attention.

Writers get rhapsodic over this facility. “Woods’s concentration often seems to be made of the same stuff as the liquid-metal cyborg in Terminator 2: If you break it, it reforms,” David Owen wrote in Men’s Vogue.

Then they get spiritual. In Slate, Robert Wright only semi-facetiously compared Woods to Gandhi, for his ability to live in the present and achieve transcendent awareness. Analysts inevitably bring up his mother’s Buddhism, his experiments in meditation. They describe his match-mentality in the phrases one might use to describe a guru achieving nirvana. He achieves, they say, perfect clarity, tranquility and flow. We’re talking about somebody who is the primary spokesman for Buick, and much of the commentary about him is on the subject of his elevated spiritual capacities.

And here we’re getting to the nub of what’s so remarkable about the “Be A Tiger” phenomenon: He’s become the beau ideal for golf-loving corporate America, the personification of mental fortitude.

The ancients were familiar with physical courage and the priests with moral courage, but in this over-communicated age when mortals feel perpetually addled, Woods is the symbol of mental willpower. He is, in addition, competitive, ruthless, unsatisfied by success and honest about his own failings. (Twice, he risked his career to retool his swing.)

During the broadcast of Monday’s playoff round, Nike ran an ad that had Earl Woods’s voice running over images of his son: “I’d say, ‘Tiger, I promise you that you’ll never meet another person as mentally tough as you in your entire life.’ And he hasn’t. And he never will.”

You can like this model or not. Either way, the legend grows.

Running is Harder Than Crossfit

I don't know if that title is necessarily true, but it sure feels like it. I did Fran last night and got a good time for me. I did 3x800s at 2:40 this morning and I'm very tired. Post Fran workout I felt like I had just woken up and was ready for adventure. Post 800s I feel like cuddling up with my M4 under the bed and waiting for civilization to end (as predicted by numerous supposedly well educated commentators on the effects of gay marriage).

I'm smoked!

Now They've Done It!

The following is a transcript of the conversation held between my roommates and I after we saw that gays were finally getting married. I changed the names to protect the innocent.

Ripley: How long after they start marrying can we expect a rescue?
Hicks: [pause] Seventeen days.
Hudson: Seventeen *days?* Hey man, I don't wanna rain on your parade, but we're not gonna last seventeen *hours!* Those things are gonna come in here just like they did before. And they're gonna come in here...
Ripley: Hudson!
Hudson: ...and they're gonna come in here AND THEY'RE GONNA GET US!
Ripley: *Hudson!* This little girl survived longer than that with no weapons and no training.
[to Newt]
Ripley: Right?
[Newt apes a salute]
Hudson: Why don't you put her in charge?
Ripley: You better just start dealing with it, Hudson! Listen to me! Hudson, just deal with it, because we need you and I'm sick of your bullshit.

Hhmmmmm.....Picture

Monday Night Fran

Fran
Old Time: 7:30
New Time: 5:53

If you really need to know what Fran is,
21-15-9
95lb. Thruster
Pullups

http://media.crossfit.com/cf-video/fran-greg_annie.wmv

Freedom

Let's review my basic concept of freedom. Do whatever you want as long as it doesn't adversely or profoundly impact someone else. Let's see, there are thousands of gay people getting married right now and other than giving rednecks something to bitch about (which they need, so they should be thanking them), it hasn't impacted anyone yet. I'm here in my room right now, my skin hasn't turned green. I haven't murdered anyone yet. I haven't lost my interest in females. Water still tastes the same, hasn't been poisoned yet. What other possible impact can gay marriage have on me?

Someone explain to me how enacting a law that prevents homosexuals from marrying does not violate the constitution? What else are we allowed to prevent homosexuals from doing? Perhaps we should have separate drinking fountains, restaurants, and bathrooms, otherwise society might fall into disrepair. I would love to meet someone that can argue this one logically. I've heard counterpoint to the effect that homosexuals choose their lifestyle as opposed to blacks or other minorities that are born with it. So what? Bill O'Reilly likes ice cream. He and everyone else that likes ice cream are no longer allowed to listen to Beethoven because it takes away from the meaning of the music for me. F'ing dirtbags. First they listen to Beethoven and next you know it they'll want to perform in front of non-ice cream loving people. How do gay people getting married take away from the "meaning" of someone else's marriage. Quick hint out there and I'm not even married, but if you're looking to government to define and add meaning to your marriage, you're fucked up. You're so fucked up you should probably get divorced because while the government might be capable of doing some things, providing meaning to your failed relationship ain't going to happen.

I don't even see this as an issue of "gay rights." While marriage is not protected by the constitution, equal protections is I believe guaranteed by the the 15th ammendment even though it wasn't written for cases such as this. Check it:

"More concretely, the Equal Protection Clause, along with the rest of the Fourteenth Amendment, marked a great shift in American constitutionalism. Before the enactment of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Bill of Rights protected individual rights only from invasion by the federal government. After the Fourteenth Amendment was enacted, the Constitution also protected rights from abridgement by state leaders, and governments, even including some rights that arguably were not protected from abridgement by the federal government. In the wake of the Fourteenth Amendment, the states could not, among other things, deprive people of the equal protection of the laws. What exactly such a requirement means, of course, has been the subject of great debate; and the story of the Equal Protection Clause is the gradual explication of its meaning."

Now I'm probably missing the mark here with the above quote and I'm sure there are plenty of precedents clarifying this away from my own point, but what irks me here is that people want to give certain people a privelege or ability to get married but not others. That just doesn't sit right with me. I don't care if it's protected by the constitution or not. I don't care if voters voted for it or not (they also voted for slavery). I can't think of a better example of discrimination.

Cool Dude

Russert's Career Advice: Just Do It

By ROBERT COSTA
June 16, 2008; Page A13

Sitting in RFK stadium in Washington, D.C., one evening in 2006, I was watching the Philadelphia Phillies lose to the lowly Washington Nationals when I spied Tim Russert going to get a beer.

I had to say hello to my Sunday-morning hero, so I hustled to the concession stand for a soda.

Russert approached, hulking in an orange golf shirt. "Keep grillin' those S.O.B.s," a passing man yelled as Russert stepped into line behind me. He laughed while grabbing a bag of peanuts. I introduced myself as "Bob Costa, a big fan from Notre Dame."

"Notre Dame?" said Russert, smiling. "Didn't we just beat you guys two years ago?" Yes, the Fighting Irish football team had been clobbered in 2004 by Boston College, where his son Luke was attending college.

Getty Images

Mr. Russert signs off after an interview with Sen. John McCain during a taping of "Meet the Press" on Jan. 27, 2008.

I told him I was interning at ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos." "Why isn't an Irish kid like you working for us?" he asked while tipping the beer guy. "Keep at it," he went on. "You guys over there at ABC are giving us a real run for our money."

At the time, "Meet the Press" led "This Week" by a few million viewers. But Russert's graciousness made me feel for the first time that maybe this journalism thing my mother warned me against falling in love with was not far-fetched after all.

I'd first met Russert that June, while interning for PBS's "Charlie Rose" in New York. He had come to Mr. Rose's oak table to talk about his favorite subject outside politics, his dad, and the release of his book, "Wisdom of Our Fathers." My important duties that day were to get Russert coffee and walk him out of the Bloomberg building after the taping. I told him I'd love to work on "Meet the Press."

"You're being too nice," he said at the time, laughing. "Guys like you should want to host the show." More seriously, he added, "Look, you just have to get out there and do it." Russert took in the swarm of people on Lexington Avenue and asked "Where are you from, son?"

"Bucks County, Pennsylvania," I said. Russert gestured to the people rushing by. "All of these folks," he said, "don't let them intimidate you. When I first started working for Pat Moynihan, I thought all of these Ivy League guys were ahead of me, that I could never catch up. Then Senator Moynihan took me aside one day, when I told him I didn't think I had it in me to compete in the big leagues, and he said, 'Tim, what they know, you can learn. What you know, they'll never understand.'"

Russert stopped by Notre Dame this April, a month before my graduation, to give the Red Smith Lecture in Journalism. He talked about the need to prepare for every interview. "It is essential that I do what I didn't do when I was in college," he said. "I had been taught that if I read my lesson before class, show up in class on time, review my notes after class, then the exam would be easy. They were right. I did not do that, but it is what I do now, each and every day."

Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart are often credited for inspiring interest in politics among young Americans. For me, it was Tim Russert. He was an icon with wit and gravitas, who thought that politics should be more than fodder for a hip joke or a clever aside. It was about ideas and choices that mattered.

Russert saw politics as a vital and enjoyable discourse on America's future – a future to be greeted with vigor, not cynicism. Debate livened Russert's show, and he told us at Notre Dame to challenge ourselves to think critically about what we saw and read. "It is not enough to confirm your political views by only accessing and reading outfits that reinforce your views but do not challenge them," he said.

Russert will be remembered for his remarkable career. But I'll remember him as the famous journalist who gave counsel to an intern, and who told me to "get out there and do it."

Friday the 13th

Lynne
5 rounds of:
Bodyweight bench press 185lbs
Dead Hang Pull ups

Only got 4 rounds in before we had to stop. I got about 20 combined reps for each round.

On Wednesday June 11th, my ass was killing me

My hamstrings were so tight from Dianne and Monday and Tuesday I was rolling around on the office floor trying to massage it was all kinds of instruments that could very easily be mistook for other means. All the tendons and muscles in my butt were impacting my sciatic and nerve innervation to my leg was sporadic at best.

Todays workout was "good times!"

5 rounds of:

5 DB deadlifts
5 DB Hanging Squat Cleans
5 DB Push Presses

10 pullups
15 box jumps (24 inches)

I used two 50lb. dumbbells. They were heavy. We warmed up doing one at a time, which made it a lot harder because the opposite side of your body had to work so hard just to stay upright. Good thoughts for future workouts.

Tuesday June 10th

Ran for 50 minutes this morning.

Swam 1500 in the late afternoon. 200s, not fast.

Crossfit in the evening was:
5 rounds of:
Max back squats at body weight (185lbs)
7 burpee box jumps

for time of: 10:09 and I did 40 reps of squats. I wish I had spent more time and done more squats. I want to get to the point that 185 is easy and I can knock out 50 fast.

JD did 70 reps at 225. His time was 11 something. This was more reps and faster than a guard for the Kansas City Chiefs did earlier in the day.

Great post by Kelly.

Common wisdom in the modern gym goes, that to train for sports that include an element of rotation like golf, you must perform rotational strength elements. This is just a fancy way of saying that performing seated cable torso twists is a useful exercise to build rotational power.

This is wrong.

Nearly every sport that has significant trunk rotation as a movement element develops that rotation from the hips downward. That is, significant rotation occurs starting at the ground. The implication of this is that in order to effectively transfer the twisting/rotary forces from the hips to the trunk, the muscles of the torso have to be able to effectively RESIST the rotation happening below. Otherwise, the hips would clearly turn and the shoulders would not.

Rotational strength then, comes from being able to apply a solid isometric force at the trunk that effectively captures the potential energy from the rotating hips below. The quality of this isometric force equates to the quality and effectiveness of the transmission between wheels and engine.

We have found that the best way to develop rotational prowess is to actually have our athletes resist active rotation as in the single arm dumbell swing above. Universally training to resist rotation instead of actually performing rotational training develops better integrated, more powerful athletes. (IE. you don't have to perform cable wood chops to hit the tennis ball harder) And this applies to side rotation too. Pull ups and overhead squats appear to magically dissipate bike sway during climbing for example.

But...
There is merit in developing torso rotational speed. Throwing a light four pound medicine ball for speed can help develop twisting quickness and futher develop that twisting motor pathway. Just be sure to keep it light and fast.

And don't confuse integrated trunk power with swinging a very heavy bat, or seated cable twists.

Twist on!

Coach Roto-Star

Bravo

The Great Seduction

By DAVID BROOKS

Published: June 10, 2008

The people who created this country built a moral structure around money. The Puritan legacy inhibited luxury and self-indulgence. Benjamin Franklin spread a practical gospel that emphasized hard work, temperance and frugality. Millions of parents, preachers, newspaper editors and teachers expounded the message. The result was quite remarkable.

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The United States has been an affluent nation since its founding. But the country was, by and large, not corrupted by wealth. For centuries, it remained industrious, ambitious and frugal.

Over the past 30 years, much of that has been shredded. The social norms and institutions that encouraged frugality and spending what you earn have been undermined. The institutions that encourage debt and living for the moment have been strengthened. The country’s moral guardians are forever looking for decadence out of Hollywood and reality TV. But the most rampant decadence today is financial decadence, the trampling of decent norms about how to use and harness money.

Sixty-two scholars have signed on to a report by the Institute for American Values and other think tanks called, “For a New Thrift: Confronting the Debt Culture,” examining the results of all this. This may be damning with faint praise, but it’s one of the most important think-tank reports you’ll read this year.

The deterioration of financial mores has meant two things. First, it’s meant an explosion of debt that inhibits social mobility and ruins lives. Between 1989 and 2001, credit-card debt nearly tripled, soaring from $238 billion to $692 billion. By last year, it was up to $937 billion, the report said.

Second, the transformation has led to a stark financial polarization. On the one hand, there is what the report calls the investor class. It has tax-deferred savings plans, as well as an army of financial advisers. On the other hand, there is the lottery class, people with little access to 401(k)’s or financial planning but plenty of access to payday lenders, credit cards and lottery agents.

The loosening of financial inhibition has meant more options for the well-educated but more temptation and chaos for the most vulnerable. Social norms, the invisible threads that guide behavior, have deteriorated. Over the past years, Americans have been more socially conscious about protecting the environment and inhaling tobacco. They have become less socially conscious about money and debt.

The agents of destruction are many. State governments have played a role. They aggressively hawk their lottery products, which some people call a tax on stupidity. Twenty percent of Americans are frequent players, spending about $60 billion a year. The spending is starkly regressive. A household with income under $13,000 spends, on average, $645 a year on lottery tickets, about 9 percent of all income. Aside from the financial toll, the moral toll is comprehensive. Here is the government, the guardian of order, telling people that they don’t have to work to build for the future. They can strike it rich for nothing.

Payday lenders have also played a role. They seductively offer fast cash — at absurd interest rates — to 15 million people every month.

Credit card companies have played a role. Instead of targeting the financially astute, who pay off their debts, they’ve found that they can make money off the young and vulnerable. Fifty-six percent of students in their final year of college carry four or more credit cards.

Congress and the White House have played a role. The nation’s leaders have always had an incentive to shove costs for current promises onto the backs of future generations. It’s only now become respectable to do so.

Wall Street has played a role. Bill Gates built a socially useful product to make his fortune. But what message do the compensation packages that hedge fund managers get send across the country?

The list could go on. But the report, which is nicely summarized by Barbara Dafoe Whitehead in The American Interest (available free online), also has some recommendations. First, raise public consciousness about debt the way the anti-smoking activists did with their campaign. Second, create institutions that encourage thrift.

Foundations and churches could issue short-term loans to cut into the payday lenders’ business. Public and private programs could give the poor and middle class access to financial planners. Usury laws could be enforced and strengthened. Colleges could reduce credit card advertising on campus. KidSave accounts would encourage savings from a young age. The tax code should tax consumption, not income, and in the meantime, it should do more to encourage savings up and down the income ladder.

There are dozens of things that could be done. But the most important is to shift values. Franklin made it prestigious to embrace certain bourgeois virtues. Now it’s socially acceptable to undermine those virtues. It’s considered normal to play the debt game and imagine that decisions made today will have no consequences for the future.

Monday June 9th

20 Overhead dumbbell lunge walks
3 burpee box jumps
20 lunge walks
3 burpee box jumps
15 lunges
6 burpees
15 lunges
6 burpees
10
9
10
9
5
12
5
12


Time: 13:09
Used 44 lb. kettlebell for the first round, found it awkward to hold so I used a 40 lb. dumbbell thereafter. Also used the shorter box jump, 20 inches.

Feeling worn out from Diane.

Swam before the workout. Maybe 2000 meters?

Saturday June 7

Diane
21-15-9
225lb. deadlift
handstand pushup

Time: 9:09

Used my legs to assist on the handstand pushup. Time to do it as Rx'd even if it takes me 20 minutes.

Friday June 6

Light run in GG park.

Thursday June 5

2000m row for about 7 minutes time
5 rounds of 30lb dumbbell snatch (5 each side) and 250m row.

Tuesday June 3

Push Jerk max - 195
2 rounds of:
20 pullups
30 pushups
40 situps
50 squats
-with 2 minutes rest in between each round.

Monday June 2

5 mins of 75lb. squat cleans (40)
5 mins of double unders (175?)

2 min rest

3 mins of 75lb. squat clean (27)
3mins of double unders (101?)

2 mins rest

1 min 75lb squat clean (11)
1 min double unders (45)

Total rep count - 363 (the numbers don't add up, but I can't remember exactly what the round tallies were).

Sunday June 1

Spent most of this day in a stupor wondering what I had done to myself the past several days. Eventually went to the gym and tried to doa max back squat, but felt the Olympic Club gym is such garbage and so unsafe that I was too afraid to lift to failure. I got up to 245 back squat before deciding to not go any further. Then I did some overhead squats and got up to 135lbs before almost taking my knee caps out catching the bar coming down since there is no place to dump it in that $92 million piece of crap gym.

Friday and Saturday

Spent most of these two days drinking and handing out event cards for the upcoming bachelor auction to women in line for Sex and The City. Woke up in time to workout Saturday morning, but was in no shape to do so.