Friday, February 27, 2009

Family Fitness Night


I put on a strongman performance earlier this week at Elmwood Elementary school for their "Family Fitness Night". I bent horseshoes and spikes, and tore telephone books and decks of cards for the parents and children in attendance. The show was a big hit with everyone and hopefully I struck a chord with the kids about how important strength training and exercise is.

Afterwards, I did this...



I've never been able to do this! The last time I even attempted climbing a rope was in elementary school and I couldn't even do it using my legs, much less hands only!

I'm pretty excited about this. I was also able to climb two ropes (one in each hand) and I even got a few pulls in upside down!!!

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

www.getinproshape.com

Coach Friday (formerly of the Baltimore Ravens now of www.getinproshape.com) was kind enough to post a review on my Dragondoor Instructor page. Check it out here... http://www.dragondoor.com/instructor/714

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Spinal Flexibility and Deadlifting



A question regarding flexibility of the spine and its relationship to deadlifting. Notice the slight rounding of my lower back as I begin the pull. This is a new style of deadlifting I am using which has my back flatter than my normal pull. It seems I am unable to keep my back in a locked arch position, although the rounding is actually less than what I am used to and much less than I am capable of.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Card Tearing

Does anybody tear cards like this? It seems this technique only works with quartering...

Grade 5 Bolt

Saturday, February 7, 2009

Synergy-Athletics

Jedd Johnson just sent out an email about the Bull Strength training manual written by Joe Hashey. I don't know Joe, but I like his website. Check it out here - www.synergy-athletics.com

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Destruction

I did this after a quick grip workout that consisted of pinch bar curls (regular and reverse), beer mug curls with a kettlebell, wrist curls and wrist extension with the Formulator. I immediately went into bending the 60D nails with various grips (overhand, underhand, reverse & slim style). Before my hands recovered I attempted the horseshoe and got stuck with it... just couldn't take it any further. And from there I went back and forth between tearing. I managed my first behind the back card tear, my first notched phonebook (might have done that once before) and that was only the second time I've torn cards vertically. The spike gave me a hard time. My biggest problem with braced bending is not so much the strength but the pain tolerance required to bend things over your leg.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Pork Spare Ribs

I always thought it was silly when people blogged their food. And the diet-obsessed fitness crowd is the worst at this! It's bad enough that these people eat the most boring, bland food known to man, but they have to include the time of day and nutritional profile of everything. People don't care about your oatmeal and organic blueberries! Seriously, nobody cares.

Yet still I find myself writing about food.

But the difference between me and the granola munchers is I eat their "cheat meals" everyday, I eat a lot of it and I could care less about calories. If you're one of those lonely few who turn their nose up at a good steak because it's too marbled, you might as well stop reading now. But if you're somebody who likes to eat, and doesn't mind cooking, I've got a mean pork spare rib recipe for you!

First the appetizer...
Vegetable medley: bell peppers, red onion, fresh garlic, squash & asparagus. Stir fry in a wok over medium heat with olive oil, sea salt, black pepper and paprika. Add ingredients as listed about 5 minutes apart in order to cook properly. Very important to get the timing right as peppers take a while to cook and you don't want to overcook the squash or asparagus.

Main course...
Drunken Pork Spare Ribs: marinate ribs in 1/4 cup soy sauce, 1/4 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup bourbon, 1 tbsp of ketchup, 1 tbsp of Dijon mustard. Cook in marinade for 1hr at 250 degrees and turn. Cook for another 60 min and turn. Increase temp to 350 degrees and cook 30 min until done. For light recipe cook ribs for the first 2 hours on roasting pan to allow some of the grease to drain before putting them back in marinade and increasing the oven temp.

The second picture is actually hickory BBQ ribs. I seasoned the meat with a pork rub and used the "light recipe" cooking directions. I transferred the ribs to a baking pan and added the BBQ sauce for the last 30 min. They were equally as delicious.

You can play around with the cooking time/temp to produce a more tender meat but I wouldn't recommend trying to cook ribs in less than 2hrs. From everything I've read, you're looking at closer to 5hrs for a fall-off-the-bone consistency.

And yes, I ate everything shown above. :)