DOMS - Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness

Some time in the past few weeks Beachbody put out an article about DOMS, delayed onset muscle soreness, and since I'm living it, I wanted to write about it.  If you've ever lifted weights and been sore the next day (or week) then you've experienced DOMS.  Many of us, when we first hit the gym feel invigorated, like we can move the world; and we try.  The downside is that eventually your adrenaline wears off, but not after you've thrown more iron than you have in the last 2 years combined.  The result, you wake up the next morning and can't lift your arms, walk without hobbling, and your back hurts.  That's DOMS.

The Rumble Roller

One of my favorite things that I was introduced to in P90x2 was foam rolling.  I saw the potential in it so quickly that I had to go out and buy a travel size foam roller after one session to keep with me on the road.  But, I wanted to take it to the next level and I got the Rumble Roller.

The Rumble Roller is a lot like a regular foam roller, a cylinder made of foam, but covered in one inch nubs.  It’s kind of like a spiked rolling pin, but you use it for your muscles and fascia.  Regular use of a foam roller can help reduce muscle and joint pain and enhance athletic performance.  Foam rollers are designed for self-myofascial release; an intense form of sports massage that you perform on yourself.  It’s basically deep-tissue massage that you can use to loosen tight fascia and reduce some of the stiffness and soreness of muscles.

Recipe - Cauliflower Rice

I don't know how I never saw this before, but cauliflower rice is a bit of a revelation for me, nearly to the magnitude of roasting vegetables. It's something that I had never seen or even imagined, but it's a great way to deliver whole vegetables and the nutrients and vitamins inside without adding a bunch of extra junk. You can also trick your kids and other loved ones into thinking they have a "normal" side dish while getting them to eat something that I'm sure isn't a part of their normal diet.

It Takes Many Small Steps

As a part of my journey to become a better person, coach, mentor, employee, father, I have been reading The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson; great book by the way.  One of the themes that keeps recurring is that you can't just magically jump to the finish line.  If we could, we'd all look like fitness models, be running multi-billion dollar companies, and be taking month long vacations around the world whenever we chose.  There's no reason any of us couldn't be there someday, but it takes work to get there.  Everything you put in motion today and keep moving forward tomorrow and every day after will put you closer to your goals.

Coach Mike - Checking In

Summer is coming to an end, kids are getting ready to go back to school, autum is just around the corner.  For me, that means earlier mornings and working even harder.  What does the end of summer mean to you?  I'm just about to wrap up the Build Phase of Body Beast.  I'm excited to check my progress and see how it's been treating me.  How are your workouts going?  Do you need a boost or some pointers?  Let me know.  Be sure to keep the questions and feedback flowing.  If you have a good story to share, send it to me and I can share it with the team.

Failure

There should be no failure.  The only time you fail is when you don't give it another shot.  I know many people, myself included who haven't been very successful at various workouts or diet programs in the past.  If I quit the first time that I thought Power 90 was hard, I'd have quit on day 1.  If I through in the towel the first time I succumbed to the alluring aroma of a waffle cone filled with ice cream, I wouldn't be where I am today.  If I quit after not being able to keep up with the cast of the Insanity Fit Test the first time out, I wouldn't have made it through the warm-up.  If I would have said, "I can't do a pull-up so I'm not going to do P90x", I'd still be watching the infomercials thinking that what these people are doing is way beyond anything I could ever do.

It doesn't have to be that way and it shouldn't.  If you're reading this today, you are probably on some part of your fitness journey.  You might be flying high right now, you might be feeling like giving up.  Don't!!!

My 100th Post

I've been thinking for a few weeks about this milestone post.  I'm really not sure how I've come up with 100 interesting things to write about, but I have and I have alot more planned.

What I wanted to do with my 100th post is reflect on what my fitness journey and my Beachbody coaching experiences have meant to me. 

Eating to Gain Weight

To put on muscle like a beast, you need to eat like a beast.  For me, the problem is that after 2 years of eating to lose weight, I'm switching gears to try to gain weight.  Honestly, I didn't know where to start.  I read the guidebook with the nutrition but I also knew what I had been eating and how I felt at very levels of calories.  The problem isn't eating.  I still remember how to do that.  I could go for the "see food" diet - you see food, you eat it.  But, I don't want to get fat.  I could stick with what I've been doing at 2100-2400 calories, but I want to gain muscle.

Whatever it Takes

Sagi Kalev, the trainer in Beachbody's Body Beast program has a catch phrase.  Just like Tony Horton's "Bring It" and Shaun T's "Dig Deeper", Sagi's catch phrase for Body Beast is "Whatever It Takes".

I'm a sucker for these catch phrases and this is nothing different.  As I hear it repeated, day after day, it gets into my head.  It echoes in my mind as I'm rolling out of bed pondering some more sleep.  I hear it as I'm getting ready to down my PWO, pondering a few more minutes on Facebook.  I hear it when I'm full but still need to have my Shakeology to get up to my daily calorie goal.  Fitness isn't easy.  If it were, we'd all look like the people in the movie 300.

My Elbow Hurts!

For the last several months I've add elbow pain on the outside of my shoulder.  For a while, I thought I was just bumping into things alot and it was bruised and not healing.  Then, I realized that was stupid and started to look at what I might have going on.  I self-diagnosed that I had tennis elbow.  I haven't played tennis in well over a decade, so I thought maybe it was golfer's elbow, which I do play regularly.  Again, after doing alot of googling and reading articles, I settled on tennis elbow.  After that, it was time to figure out what I could do about it, where I could go to get better, and how it could be prevented in the future.  It's not fun and I don't want something simple to hang up my long term goals.