I am so inspired by people who have taken fitness to a new level.  Just amazing.

More and more I find posture to be an essential part of life.  There are many sources of information on this topic, but more often than not, I return to Esther Gokhale.  The above video was her speaking at Google before the release of her book on eliminating back pain.

 I never start our classes with any sort of stretching.  Some of my training partners do, that that's all good with me.  To each their own.  However, a recent report in the New York times (and several others recently) talk extensively about how static stretching (the kind we are all used to from playing sports growing up) is actually harmful.

It seems that a dynamic warm up like jogging, jumping jacks, hindu pushups, bodyweight squats, spiderman walks, etc, etc are the way to go.  My personal favorite these days is to do the 6 exercises Paul Schreiner showed at his recent seminar.

You can read the full NYT article here.

In BJJ sometimes I find myself being lazy.  I just go and train without much thought to it.  I have found in the last few years that the people who do the best are not only the most consistent, but also the most inquisitive.  They are passionate about the art and show up for class day in, day out.

Although I find consistency and passion to be the top factors in improvement, there are many other things I have been thinking about.

These days I tend

How much sleep do you get every night?

How is your diet?

Are you having fun?

Do you lift weights regularly?

How long can you roll before you get gassed?

Do you keep a notebook of your classes?

Do you drill moves and positions outside of class?

Do you attend seminars?

Do you take private lessons?

The past few weeks have been hell on the body.  I have no one to blame but myself.  My diet has been a mess and the only exercise I have done is some light rolling.  I was rudely awakended to this fact after rolling at AKA the other day where I literally almost lost it.  It has been a long time since I pushed my body that far - and it was only a medium roll.  Yikes!

So now I am determined to get back on the path.  This means finding the time to actually work out with some weights a few times a week and definitely fixing the diet.  On the food front, I have things pretty dialed in.  I simply follow a paleo diet - that means lean meats, some fruit, some nuts, lots of water and no starches, no sugars. There are a lot of resources out there on this, but Loren Cordain's book the Paleo Diet seems to be a solid single source if you're looking for one.

On the workout side, it's a bit tougher.  Between work, family and the three bjj classes a week I am pretty tapped out.  However, I can't fold that easy.  My plan is to workout in the mornings Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.  Sure it means I need to wake up a bit earlier, but unless I want to carry a little bucket to every roll, I need to do it.  Since many people I respect are big believers in Crossfit, I am going that route.  Quick, high intensity workouts is where it is at for me.  Now since I don't belong to a gym and time is of the essence (ie. communting to a gym is a non-starter), I plan to build a very modest garage gym.  This means a barbell, some weights and a bar for pull-ups.  This will cover me for squats, deadlifts, pull-ups, and dips (using rings I'll hang on the bar).  Honestly, I think this is enough to crush me 3x a week.

If this sounds like fun to you too, and you want to set up a garage gym, there is no better resource than this issue of the Crossfit Journal.   If you are looking for the very best in nutritional advice, I encourage you to subscribe to Performance Menu.  This journal is published by Greg Everett and often includes the writings of  Robb Wolf - A chemist who got into nutrition and exercise to apply his lab experience to changing people's lives for the better.  Oh, and he's a fellow BJJ player, so you gotta love that.

I'll check back in on this project in about a month.  See you on the mat!

Paul

Photo credit to CrossFit Atlanta