Rog Law Fitness

Lets talk about Cannibalism.

I recently came heard about a book that piqued my interest, especially around this time of year, called Dinner With A Cannibal: The Complete History of Mankind’s Oldest Taboo. In the book Carol Travis–Henikoff goes into a detailed history of cannibalism,  covering the variety of tribes that still perform this ritual today – and the belief system that surrounds it.

Let me drop some pre-reading knowledge on ya:

Survival cannibalism. This well-documented variant involves consumption of human flesh in emergency situations such as starvation. Some of the most famous cases are the 1846 Donner Party in the Sierra Nevada and the South American athletes stranded in the Andes in 1972, whose plight later became the subject of the film Alive (1993).

Endocannibalism. Endocannibalism is the consumption of human flesh from a member of one’s own social group. The rationale for such behavior is usually that in consuming parts of the body, the person ingests the characteristics of the deceased; or through consumption there is a regeneration of life after death.

Exocannibalism. Exocannibalism is the consumption of flesh outside one’s close social group—for example, eating one’s enemy. It is usually associated with the perpetration of ultimate violence or again as a means of imbibing valued qualities of the victim. Reports of this practice suggest a high incidence of exocannibalism with headhunting and the display of skulls as war trophies. The majority of the controversies about the practice of cannibalism refer to endocannibalism and/or exocannibalism.

Read more: http://www.deathreference.com/Bl-Ce/Cannibalism.html#ixzz0VWXX0fYa

Have a safe Halloweenie everyone!

“If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of.”
-Bruce Lee

Let me paint a picture for you. Its 12am on a Saturday morning, and I’m just finishing up a pre-bed meal of meat, meat and more meat. It is glorious. I turn on the TV, completely intending for it to be a brief channel surfing session before giving in to my bed’s sweet embrace. That is, until I hear a loud, booming voice ask the question that sends my night spinning into an entirely different direction – can you freeze your farts and smell them later?

My interest is officially piqued.

5 hours later, not only have I figured out the salary range of a pimp, but I’ve also watched the triforce of horrible movies – Ernest Goes To Jail, Ernest Goes To Camp & Ernest Scared Stupid. It is now 5am. I have work at 9. The P.O.N.R. has been passed (point of no return – for those not in the know), so any amount of sleep that I get will only serve to piss me off. My only choice is to stay awake and power through my work day like the champ that I am. Did I also mention that it was Squatin’ Saturday? Needless to say, I ditched that workout for a 360 min static hold in my bed. I’m sure you’re wondering by now what the heck the point of that story was, so I said all of that to say this – if you’re failing to manage your time effectively, then you’re seriously limiting your personal growth potential.

I’m willing to bet that there isn’t one of us who hasn’t at some point wished that there were more than 24 hours in a day. Just imagine the possibilities! The difference between us and the people who are most successful in their field is that many of us act like we live in fantasy land where time is infinite. I know that there have been times where I’ve looked at what I wanted to accomplish, and what I actually did accomplish and threw up my hands in defeat, wishing that some magical troll would drop a few extra hours of time into my lap. I consider myself a logical man, and while I know this wont happen, that doesn’t stop me from often using my time in such a way that you’d actually believe that I thought those extra few hours were on their way. Successful people, on the other hand, simply accept the reality that there is a finite amount of time in the day, and time will only appear as it is created by them. Luckily for us, time management, like any other skill, can be learned if we simply study and apply the habits of those who have been successful in the same pursuit.

You Gotta Get Up To Get Down

The old adage “The early bird catches the worm” is false. Waking up early gives the person a head start in terms of seizing the day, but if they wake up early and do nothing then they’re just getting less sleep for no good reason. Nevertheless, it highlights a very important lesson – waking up early is quite possibly one of the simplest things that we can do in order to maximize our output from a time management perspective, yet a lot of people tend to skip right over this. Why is that? Well, mainly because it requires effort to do, but I’m sure there are a host of other reasons out there. In order to get up early, you have to go to bed earlier, but the sad truth is that most folks just aren’t willing to make that necessary sacrifice. A lot of people claim that they don’t have time to workout, or have time to cook meals or have time to pursue the goals that they have been putting off for years, but 9 times out of 10 that is just a lie dressed up in truth’s clothing. If your fridge looks like Alanis Morissette in her “Thank You” video, yet you hit the level cap in World of Warcraft in 1 week, don’t say that you don’t have time to do anything because you do – you just chose to do something else with it.

Everyone has the exact same amount of time at their disposal over the course of the day, but where successful people differ from the masses is how they make use of it. In his book Time Power, Brian Tracy highlights the importance of what he coins the “golden hour.” What the golden hour entails is simply waking up an hour or so earlier than you usually do, and working without any interruptions for that entire hour. Now, an hour of working might not seem like a significant amount of time, but think of the long term potential – that’s 7 hours a week, 28-31 hours a month, 365 hours a year that came into existence simply because you committed to making it a habit to wake up one hour earlier.

Is it hard? It can be; permanent change is hard, and anyone who says that it isn’t probably hasn’t done it before. But take solace and find inspiration in the fact that successful people all around the world are doing just that every day – and you can too.

Eric Cressey – 6:30 to 7am.

Brian St. Pierre – 5:30 to 6:45am.

Tony Gentilcore -6:30 to 7am.

Michael Boyle – 5:30am.

Leigh Peele – 5am to 12pm.

Krista Schaus – 5:30 to 7am, depending on the time of year.

Ross Enamait – 4:30 to 5am.

Many of the people on this list have children, and all are entrepreneurs with a very busy workload. I’m sure that they would love to get a few more hours of sleep, but do they complain about it? Quite the opposite – they embrace it, learn to love it, and thrive because of it. These people aren’t just waking up early for the sake of doing so – they’re actively using this time to get after it, whether it is answering emails, writing blog posts or what have you.  I realize that such a drastic change to ones lifestyle can be difficult, so just try it out a few days each week and see how much more productive you become.

Synchronize

During my internship at Cressey Performance, I got a chance to see some serious time management experts at work. Take Eric Cressey for example – the guy is a machine. I’ve watched him bang out a heavy set of deadlifts and then for the rest interval head into the office and knock out a quick blog post like it was nothing at all. All of the staff can be found frequently listening to audio books during their commute to and from work, with Brian going as far as to purchase Dragon Naturally Speaking, which is a voice recognition software that allows him to create blog content while on the road – talk about dedication! So what’s the take home point here? Try to make the best use of your time by combining tasks together in order to accomplish more in less time. Cleaning the house? That would be a good time to catch up on some phone calls that you’ve been meaning to make. Cooking dinner? You can always watch an educational DVD while you wait. Stuck in the airport during a layover? Brainstorm some creative ideas. Sitting on the toilet? What a perfect time to read a book! The possibilities are almost endless – use your imagination and see what tasks you can combine to free up some additional time during your days.

Schedule Your Distractions

How many times have you been in the zone on a particular day – like the Neo of getting things done – only to later derail your train of awesomeness upon the rocks Facebook or some other distraction? One minute the sun is up and you’re plowing through work, and the next minute its Wesley Snipes dark outside, infomercials are all over the TV, and you’re wondering where the hell your day went. We’re all guilty of this happening, which is completely fine, but it’s when those brief distraction turns into hours of not getting anything done that it can start to become a problem. While I’m not successful by any means yet, one way that I’ve found to help eliminate this problem is to schedule my distractions. When you know that your reward for a hard days work is right around the corner it’s easier to continue working diligently until that time arrives. Likewise, when your scheduled time is over, it’s also that much easier to get back into the groove of things now that you’ve imposed limits on yourself.

Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep

How would you like to start every morning with a laser-like focus, knowing exactly what your tasks were for the day as soon as you woke up? Well you can, by doing as Brian Tracy suggests and simply planning your next day out before you go to bed. By doing so, your mind is actively at work figuring out solutions to the next day’s tasks and problems, so that when you wake up in the morning you are in ultimate G.S.D. mode, checking task after task off with amazing efficiency. Without such a list, the odds of you waking up and winging it for the entire day are increased by a ridiculous amount. So, no matter how you make the list, whether you do it in bed or while standing on top of your roof, basking in the glorious moonlight, just make sure it gets done.

Neo: What are you trying to tell me? That I can create time magically out of thin air?
Morpheus: No, Neo. I’m trying to tell you that when you’re ready, you won’t have to.

That’s an exact quote from The Matrix. I didn’t change a thing. Nope, not me.

First off, I’d like to apologize to all 2 or 3 of my readers for not having any content up lately.  I just let life get in the way, and in my quest to try and make 3 meaty posts a week, I ended up making none. So, I will be starting fresh next week, promising a new meaty post every Monday and then we will see where things go from there.

With that out of the way, lets get back to serious business – Armadillos.

I’m not into sports all that much, so this is the kind of thing that gets me pumped up. You can find more awesome vidoes like this one at the Museum of Animal Perspectives.

I like money because it helps me buy things, so the more of it I have, the better. I’m assuming that you too also like money. If this is the case, then I urge you not to spend your money seeing this movie:

The only thing that prevented me from committing seppuku in the middle of the theater was the conversations and comments that everyone else was having during the movie. By watching the above trailer, you’ve pretty much just seen the movie for free. However, if you are some kin to Scrouge McDuck and money is no concern to you, then by all means grab a bunch of friends and go see this comedy of a horror movie – just don’t expected to be scared…unless doors slamming loudly sends you into panic mode.

Would ya look at that…its actually Friday this time!

Which means 4 more days until Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is released exclusively on the PS3:

Aside from Metal Gear Solid 4, this is the only game that I can remember being this excited about in recent memory. I’m so glad that gaming technology has reached a point where gaming as an industry is finally starting to garner the serious respect that it deserves. In terms of quality script writing, voice acting and story line, many of the game put out by big studios such as Naughty Dog, Konami, Rockstar and Square-Enix are rivling the big budget films that we see in theaters. Although I’ve never seen an Indiana Jones movie, I’ve seen enough clips of them and many other action adventure movies to notice that this game shamelessly borrows from said big blockbusters, and there ain’t nothing wrong with that!

I smell a game of the year award coming up soon.

And incase you’re not interested at all in video games, here is a trailer of the best movie that you’ve never seen:

WARNING: The trailer does get a bit bloody at time, so if you want to avoid such awesomeness, do not click play.

Question: How do you keep your workouts interesting?

First off, I’d like to thank you for taking the time to check out my site, as well as for asking the great question.

A lot of trainers these days are trying to sexify their programs, but unfortunately for their clients, sexifying means tossing a bunch of random things into a program purely for the sake of doing so. You know what’s really sexy? Results are sexy, and you don’t get them by haphazardly throwing exercises together and calling it a program, so lets go over some things you can do to simultaneously make things interesting while at the same time setting your clients up for success.

Play with the variables

In a training program, you only have control over 5 things: the number of reps, sets, amount of weight being used, rest time between sets/exercises, and the tempo of the exercise, so it would behoove you to tinker around with these variables to challenge your clients in different ways. Has your client been doing 3×5 on the bench press, ramping up the weight each set with 90 seconds of rest in between sets? During the next phase of their programming, knock their rest down to 60 seconds and see how they respond. You could even keep the rest periods the same, but on their final set, have them see how many reps they can get with the same weight they previously used for 5 reps.

Here is another scenario for your mind. If you have a client that loves push ups but is so good at them that they knock them out with no problem, adjust the tempo. Have them lower for 3 seconds, pause at the bottom for 5, and then take 1 second to explode back to the starting position. Definitely something different, but you’re still keeping them on track by using the same exercise yet making that minor adjustment to one of the variables.

Don’t be afraid to play around with things, just make sure you don’t change everything all at once – pick one variable to adjust and stick with it for a few weeks, then adjust another of your choosing further down the line. Rinse and repeat, repeat, repeat!

Exercise selection

After 4-6 weeks of the same thing, most clients are ready for a change, and by thinking in terms of movement patterns instead of which exercises work which muscles, you can definitely give it to them without disrupting their progress. Here are the movement patterns you should be concerned with, and some of the exercises that correspond with them (keep in mind that there are also unilateral versions of many of the exercises listed below):

Knee-Dominant: Front/Back Squat, Forward/Reverse Lunge, Split Squat, Bi-Lateral Deadlift variations, Etc

Hip-Dominant: Good Morning, Single-Leg Deadlift variations, Supine Hip Extension, Etc

Vertical Push: Push Press, DB Military Press, Handstand Pushups, Etc

Vertical Pull: Chinups, Pullups, Lat Pulldown, Etc

Horizontal Push: Bench Press, Pushup, Dips, Etc

Horizontal Pull: Chest Supported Row, Cable Face Pull, 1 Arm Standing Cable Row, Etc

Bridging/Core Stabilization: Plank, Ab Wheel Rollouts, Side Bridge, Pallof Press, Etc

Alwyn Cosgrove, one of the best in the business at delivering results, states in his Program Design Bible that “the body adapts to the rep range the fastest and the exercise selection the slowest,” meaning that you really don’t have to change exercises all that often, but if it makes your client more likely to stick with your training program, then have at it (Cosgrove 44).

One way to do this would be to replace certain exercises with other exercises that adhere to the same movement pattern. For example, you could replace pushups with alternating dumbbell bench press. Both are horizontal pushes, but you’re providing your body with a different stimulus while at the same time providing some variety. The same process can be carried out for all the other movement patterns, so have a blast.

Circuit time!

I’m going to assume that most of your clients are interested in fat loss since that’s what almost everybody is interested in these days. If that’s the case, well then I have some suggestion that will certainly make things interesting; notice I said interesting and not fun – if they want fun you can take them to the circus!

At the end of a workout, you can have your client go through a certain number of exercises back to back with minimal rest and have them do it for time, for a certain number of reps on each exercise. For example:

A)    Burpees x 10

B)     Pushups x 10

C)    Mountain Climbers x 30sec

D)    Kettlebell or Dumbell Swings x 20 total or 10 each arm

Rest time depends on their level of conditioning. Repeat 2-3 more times.

You could also limit the circuit to 3 exercises and simply block off a period of time (lets say 10 minutes), seeing how many times they can go through the circuit in the allotted amount of time. In terms of circuit ideas, you are only limited by your imagination, even when the amount of equipment at your disposal is lacking. Weighted complexes are another route you could take, just make sure that they don’t go for reps at the cost of their form.

Hopefully that helped answers your question and gave you some ideas to take back to your own gym. Feel free to contact me via e-mail or leave a comment below if you have anymore questions  and I’ll be sure to get back with ya.

Until next time!

I’ve been at home in Michigan for the past week visiting family and friends before I settle down at my new job at All-Access Fitness Academy out here in Shrewsbury, MA. I just got in not too long ago and realized that I once again missed another Friday.

Oops.

I promise that next Friday will be different, but since I’m winding down for the night while reading a book and listening to some music I figured I might as well make up for the missed opportunity and post a few of the jazz clips that are in my rotation tonight.

Michael Franks:

John Coltrane:

Jamiroquai:

Enjoy the music, and have a great weekend. Be sure to check back next week for a nice big helping of good ‘ol fashion meat and potatoes content.