Category: strength

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#WorkoutHack: Explosive Power For Triathletes Using A Heavy Bag

Disclaimer: I am not a certified fitness professional.  Please consult one or a medical professional before undertaking any new forms of exercise – you are at your own risk.  I present these exercises only as a way to exchange ideas and inspire others to be creative in their methods for attaining their fitness goals.

I’m now into the “Pre-Competitive 1” Phase (weeks 13-16) of my Half-Iron training (from Gale Bernhardt’s Training Plans for Multisport Athletes), and strength training is only once per week and the workouts are meant to be for “strength maintenance”.  For the preceding “Specific Preparation 3” phase (weeks 9-12), my strength workouts were coded as being “Power Endurance” (PE).

“The PE strength training phase is intended to combine strength with velocity.  Making fast movements with weights, however, is controversial.  At least one study has shown that when lifters were asked to move a weight as quickly as possible while maintaining contact with the weight bar, power actually decreased….”

So Gale Bernhardt wants me to lift the weight explosively, but is concerned I won’t get the most bang for my buck if I have to control where it goes?  I’m more concerned about whether I can handle the weight coming back down on the negative phase, and what that’s going to do to my body….

“One of the best options for a hip extension exercise with fast movements is a leg press machine that allows you to explosively jump off the platform with a load and return to the start position at a moderate speed.”

So if I understand it correctly, most of the PE movements should have an explosive lift, and ideally not carry any extra weight on the way back down.  I’m not sure my gym wants me dropping weights on the floor like that, but luckily, I’m good at finding ways to improvise…

Enter the Heavy Bag.  This thing has been hiding in my mother’s basement from the halcyon days of the late 90s when I took kickboxing and other martial arts.  It weighs 70 lbs, and that’s a lot less than the weight I dead-lift or squat, yet somehow carrying it out of her basement (and subsequently into/out of mine) is a workout unto itself.  Once I did, though, I found a way to get some great, explosive strength workout, and get a little Vitamin D in my own backyard.
Have a look.


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#WorkoutHack: Triathlon Strength Training at the Cottage

The Victoria Day Long Weekend is traditionally when Cottaging season starts.  Having a cottage (or access to one) can be a real boon to the training triathlete.  First and most of all, it’s a way to access open water swimming.  Bike and run training can be done too, though often it takes a form of cross-training since the roads can be a little rough; mountain biking and/or trail running are great, and I’m proud to say I got both of those done this long weekend.


My training schedule, however, had me down for a strength training session on Monday.  I’m in the Specific Preparation Phase 3 of the plan,  where the strength training profile is specifically geared to “Power Endurance” with explosive and plyometric type exercises.  Moreover, they focus very much on triathlon specific muscle groups and functional movements that mimic swim, bike and run.


The workouts call for 8 types of exercise:
  1. Hip extension (squat, leg press or step-up)
  2. Standing bent-arm lat pull down (bent at the same angle as during freestyle swimming)
  3. Chest press or push ups
  4. Seated row
  5. Abdominal curls (core body work)
  6. Back extensions (core body work)


#3 has been substituted with a “personal weakness” in most workouts in the book.  I still like putting in some work on my chest for the sake of balance though.  The question is, how was I going to get in a strength workout at the cottage, far from any gym, never mind one so specific?


Well, I’ll tell you.  I started off doing push-ups on the dock.  I still use the 100 Push-Ups app to give me structured sets.


Then I found a stump to do step-ups.  I had considered box jumps, but it had rained, and you should generally do box jumps onto something very stable, so the stump might not have been a good idea even if it had been dry.  For a weight, I used the Lightning Kid, and moved up to a heavy rock on my third set. (10 reps per leg, per set).


Instead of a seated row, I used the kids’ swing to do TRX-style inverted row (3 sets of 12-15 reps).


I don’t like the Standing bent-arm lat pull-down, as it seems to put my shoulders at risk.  Most recently I’ve been using medicine ball slams as a substitute, but at the cottage, I chose to split some wood – same motion, same downward stroke to help the shoulders power my swim.


I’m not going to lie, I didn’t finish that workout that day, at least not before lunch was ready.   I had scoped out a bench we use sometimes and tested it out for doing Dolphin Kicks as shown below (from this article on Daily Burn); it would have also been handy to do lying leg raises which would have fulfilled the core/ab exercise for #5.


I’m looking forward to using the cottage environment to supplement my training for the rest of the summer.


Do you have ways of turning your cottage or home into a gym in unexpected ways?

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Gear Corner: Reviewing the Skulpt Aim

Disclaimer: I was provided with the Skulpt Aim for review purposes by Raynforest.  All opinions are my own, and this post was not otherwise compensated.


No matter where you are on your fitness journey, you probably want to see some improvement from where you are now.  How can you know you’re improving if you can’t measure it? Going by feel has its merits, but it can be subjective based on what else you have going on; how well did you sleep the night before, what did you eat, how much stress are you under external sources, etc..  If you measure your athletic performance numerically, i.e. how fast you can run a certain distance, how much you can lift, at least you have some quantification, but it’s still subject to those daily variables I just mentioned.


Just about every fitness blogger has a post about why the scale isn’t a good measure of health and wellness, and Body Mass Index still gets a lot of mainstream attention, in spite of being tied to weight.  If an obese person whose weight comes from a spare tire of fat and a power lifter whose extra weight comes from gigantic muscles have the same height and weight, they’ll have the same BMI value, even though they present entirely different pictures, health-wise.


Body fat seems to be a decent thing to measure, most of us would like less, and certain types of fat (e.g visceral) or locations (belly) are linked to many negative health outcomes.  The most accurate test of body fat involves getting immersed in a tank of water which makes it terribly inconvenient for tracking at regular intervals.  Calipers are accurate if you really know what you’re doing; I got myself a cheaper more ‘entry-level’ pair last year, but I’ll be darned if I could get similar measurements from day to day.  Bathroom scales that use bio-electric impedance analysis sound promising (I have one that I use from time to time), but trying to get a measurement of your whole body’s fat composition from the soles of your feet seems sketchy, and indeed there are a whole bunch of dependencies like not having eaten, slept or exercised within something like 5 hours of the measurement (when would those conditions ever be satisfied realistically?).


Enter the Skulpt Aim.  You take measurements directly on different parts of the body; the general snapshot it asks for takes for measurements: right side bicep, abdominals, tricep and quadriceps.  You can also measure (left and/or right) hamstrings, glutes, calves, upper back, lower back, biceps and  forearms.


The Skulpt Aim also measures MQ or Muscle Quality, which Skulpt equates to IQ, except for muscles rather than intellectual ability.  Higher MQ scores correlate with stronger, leaner, more defined and firm muscles. That way, you can measure how your training regimen is improving your physique and physiology, muscle by muscle.

Skulpt Aim – The Device Itself


When I got my hands on the Skulpt Aim, I was pleased to see it had a relatively simple interface.  One button on the left side for powering on/off or selecting a menu entry and two buttons on the right side for scrolling through menu entries – one up, one down. The sensors are at the back, and the screen is on the front, with fairly simple menus.


Once you get your user profile set up with a few basic stats about your gender, height and weight etc. the device walks you through how to take the basic measurements including showing an instructional video, right on the device itself!  I’ll admit for a split-second I thought the device had a camera, because it looked like a first-person view through it as I was lining it up with my bicep, until I notice that the bicep in question was better toned and more hairless than my own…


I’ve found it easiest to simply keep my Skulpt Aim in my shower caddy; it’s splash proof, and taking measurements after my shower (either as part of a morning ritual, or post-workout) is easy since I’m already wet, and all muscles are… *ahem* uncovered, shall we say.


Another great feature is a multi-coloured LED around the rim of the device that flashes as you scan the muscle.  It changes to solid when the scan is finished.  This is especially handy when you scan muscles that are hard to reach so you can’t see the screen to know if the scan is finished, e.g. calves, back, triceps.  I could usually see the side edge of the device no matter where I measured, but sometimes it was easier to look in the mirror to see the flashing end.


The App


I liked navigating the app more than on the device – a smart phone touch screen is more familiar than the button layout of the Skulpt Aim, and there are simply way more options.  The app only asks for one permission when you install it – access to Bluetooth so it can pair with the Skulpt Aim – rather than your location, friends list, camera, custody of your first born child that so many apps ask for, which is refreshing.  Bluetooth pairing worked quickly and easily.



The Data That Skulpt Gives You


The following charts show the progress I made (or didn’t make).  More than anything else, I used the ‘Total Body’ measurement which uses right bicep, tricep, ab and quad to take an average picture of your body, so I have the most data for those muscles.  The big take-aways I have are that my glutes and hamstrings are the fittest (and most lean) parts of my body.  Which is not too surprising for a triathlete, especially one who’s stronger on the run than the bike.  I was proud of my posterior chain and hill-climbing at the beginning of the off-season, and I’ve been incorporating dead-lifts into my strength routine since last December or November, so that’s nice to see.
I made this chart myself.  I know it’s a little dense.


Having quads that are much weaker (less fit according to MQ) than my hamstrings is a bit of an alarm for me.  I knew I needed to get stronger on the bike, and muscle imbalances can lead to injury so I started trying to focus on isolating the quads in my strength routine since I first saw that.  Overall, I’ve seen my Right Quad MQ go from 102 to 110, so that looks good.


We can also see differences between right and left sides.  This may be due to actual differences between my right and left side muscles, or due to how I’m measuring the muscle.  Given that I can see fluctuations in MQ and Body Fat from one day to the next consecutive day, it has to be at least a bit of both causes.  The nice part is that if you take more than one measurement in a day, the progress feature of the app will report the average value of that day, so you can use the law of averages to get the best reading if you want more accuracy.


I think this device (and app) would be useful for
  • Bodybuilding/Fitness competitors who want a picture of what each muscle is doing over time
  • Runners with gait issues who need to strengthen given muscles for better running function
  • Triathletes who want to avoid problems in the future related to muscle imbalances

Does this device sound useful to you? What quantities do you like to track when it comes to your training?
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Friday Five: February Goals


I was inspired by Krysten over at Darwinian Fail to write up a series of fitness goals for February (and also, though not as recently, Robyn Baldwin’s Winter Bucket List).  I guess I’m really feeling the flow fitness wise.  Let’s see if I can round this out to the standard Five for Friday, though I expect some inter-dependence in these, if not out-right recursion (that’s a reference for any programming geeks out there).



  • Start implementing the structure of my Half-Iron training plan.  Though I haven’t thoroughly outlined it in this space yet, you might have caught a glimpse of the training plan last weekend.  In the early stages, I’m allowed 30-60 minute spin classes for bike rides (even when more in specified) and some workouts are marked with an asterisk which means I can cross-train in other activities instead of biking or running.  The important thing for me before the official plan kicks off in March, is getting used to the logistics of over an hour of strength training on Mondays and Wednesdays, as well as making Tuesdays and Thursdays both Swim and Run days.


  • Snowshoe.  Not only is this a valid form of cross-training mentioned above, but having bought a pair of snowshoes last year, it’s a return on investment.  I’m hoping to do the Tubbs Romp To Stomp this weekend.  I wanted to continue my commute series by snowshoeing to work after the last snowstorm, but it was too cold.  Still, with some initiative, I should be able to fit some snowshoeing in.  (Update: I did 20 minutes worth on Thursday morning… it’s exhausting, especially if you’re doing it on unbroken fresh snow).


  • Combine Weight-lifting and Yoga for Strength.  One of the things I’ve noticed about the training plan is that there’s no room for yoga, and the other is that strength workouts are timed for 1 hour and 15 minutes.  I rarely lift weights for more than an hour – in my defence, I tend to structure whole body workouts and execute them in circuits.  Maybe I could learn to space out the sets, do more sets, and make bigger gains, but the truth is I also get bored.  I figure if I stay close to my basic structure which includes split squats, deadlifts, lat pull-downs and bench presses (or my dumbbell doubles time-saver) and vary things by throwing in some extra exercises that I see here and there, especially functional ones like pistol squat modifications, negative phase pull-ups, and handstands, I’ll get good variability and gains.  And of course, I’ll cap the workout off with some yoga flows that will include strength/balance work (crow pose is one I’d like to master).


  • Continue with the Doctor’s Diet I still haven’t written up a comprehensive review of this yet.  Since I’d like to continue the weight loss, I’ll be alternating between the STAT and RESTORE plans which are similar, but the RESTORE is more permissive in its list of fruits and has more (complex, not simple) carbs.  The longer we stick with this the more natural it becomes to adapt our lifestyle to it.  We still lean heavily on the meal plans, but we’ve had (and will continue to have) on the fly substitutions when we’re out and about.  

  • Enjoy the outdoors as a family  I think I can give us an ‘A’ grade on this for the winter season so far, we’ve gone cross-country skiing, I’ve taken Shark Boy skating, and the boys have even fooled around in the snow while I shovel the driveway (they even help shovel for a few minutes before a better offer comes along in the form of the neighbours’ snowbanks).   Not only do I want to keep it up though,  I also want to do even better than we have done.  So far there have been 2 factors that keep us from enjoying the winter outdoors on some days: 1.) No snow.  Snow is what makes winter fun especially for kids; we need it for cross-country skiing, downhill skiing, tobogganing, snowmen, and general fooling around.  There’s not a lot we can do about the actual weather, which brings me to factor number 2.) The cold.  While we do have to think safety first, and some of the days have simply been too cold to avoid frostbite or hypothermia, there have been days where the kids are seemingly fine, but the adults give up the ghost first? Why? Simple, we just put on coats, hats and gloves, whereas the kids have long underwear and more importantly snow-pants on.  Obviously, the answer is for us to put on snow-pants and get down to their level; we’ll probably be warmer playing along than standing there supervising anyway.  We can use our ski-pants, but I’m curious if they have snow-pants for adults…
Do you have any goals for February? Are you getting the most out of winter so far?
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Tri-ed It Tuesday: My Experience With Hot Yoga at Infinite Yoga

I’m participating in Lakeshore Runner‘s Tri-ed It Tuesday Link-up.  Head over there to check out other great posts about new experiences!

The cold weather, a somewhat lighter schedule, and the off-season (from triathlon training) made me want to try Hot Yoga either at the end of 2014 or at the beginning of 2015.  For some, it is really the ultimate workout (an actual quote I heard at the office).  The heat makes it easier to get deeper into the stretches, and you sweat more, releasing toxins from your body.  I figured I’d be OK as long as I pre-hydrated and kept a water bottle nearby.

Infinite Yoga had a great introductory offer of $25 for a week’s unlimited classes.  I spoke to the director Karla, and she told me about the water they had available (no charge) to fill your bottle that is clean, but room temperature.  She compared drinking ice cold water in hot yoga to throwing water on a cooking grease fire.  I’m glad I listened, as the water felt cool when I drank it in class, and it was refreshing enough.


I managed to fit in 4 classes in the 7 days, all from the Signature Hot Series.  Here are a few notes I took:

  1. Day 1: Evening of Tuesday January 13th – Started off in corpse pose, then moved forward with core warm-up (variations on leg raises) into a fairly standard Yoga flow.  Lots of downward dog.
  2. Day 2: Noon of Thursday January 15th – More challenging.  My shoulder was bothering me, and the instructor did well to get us to engage our lats on many poses as well as stretch the shoulders out with eagle arms in various pose variations.  The instructor was very hands on and had great ways to make me aware of which muscles could and should be engaged on all the movements.  I struggle to keep my palms upward when lying in corpse pose – it doesn’t feel comfortable – but she managed some kind of adjustment that made it so much easier? Who’d have thought that I can’t do “lying down like a dead body” properly.  Still, the discomfort of the heat made it difficult to find the peace and stillness that you want at the meditative part of the end of the lesson.  (Wore a Hoorag as a headband for the first half).
  3. Day 3: Noon of Friday January 16th. I struggled with side planks and had to keep a knee on the ground.  I use the blocks a lot and generally adopt the easiest, most beginner friendly pose variations just to get by.  
  4. Day 4: Noon of Monday January 19th.  Warrior II pose into a side bend.  Many, many Vinyasas (plank to upward dog or cobra, back to downward facing dog), even as a rest/restoration pose.  Shoulders felt very sore, even during simple things like the Warrior II pose.  My legs seemed to hold up better in poses like chair, and the Warrior poses when I’d load my weight onto the front leg, which is odd considering they were tired from cross-country skiing and running on the weekend.

Overall, I came across three different kinds of challenges:

  • New Poses like the inverted (downward) dog, which were unfamiliar and I needed to get used to.
  • Old poses that I had to enter from new positions/angles/situations e.g. Dancers pose starting from being bent over rather than standing.
  • Heat effects on the ability to hold a pose (a question of muscular endurance, or mental endurance?) and breathing. I needed blocks on poses I didn’t think I would. I couldn’t hold poses as long as I expected, and my shoulders or hamstrings would start to quiver well before I thought they should.

That last one sums up Hot Yoga for me. If you went running with a 40 pound backpack on your back, you would burn more calories and get stronger as a runner for the same time spent running, no question. The problem isn’t just that it would be uncomfortable, it’s also that it would be frustrating to not be able to run as fast or as far, due to the fact that you’ve purposely made it harder for yourself. I found every session to be a struggle, and I guess I figured it would get easier. I have to admit not needing blocks on the last day might have been a good sign. Though it was humbling to have to practice Yoga at a level lower than I would expect for myself given prior experience, Yoga is forgiving that way – it isn’t competitive, and it makes it easy to accept whatever circumstances you happen to be in on a given day.

I do think that I put some good strength work into my shoulders and legs that should help them stay injury proof and help with endurance and stability. Fitting Yoga into a triathlon training schedule is advisable, but difficult; at least Hot Yoga gives you the best bang for your buck in terms of time (and sweat!) spent.
I took this picture in stealth mode, I figured photograpy might be frowned upon.

Infinite Yoga is a simple and clean facility. Nothing too fancy in the change-rooms (lockers would have been nice), though there are showers and a filtration machine on the water tap.


The hot room is large and spacious with adjustable lighting, so they can dim for the meditative beginning and ending to each session. The lobby has a warm, welcoming atmosphere that gets you in the right mood for yoga.

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Fitness Friday – #WorkoutHack: Dumbbell Doubles For A Quick Getaway

Disclaimer: I am not a certified fitness professional.  Please consult your doctor before undertaking a new exercise program.  Workouts on Iron Rogue are provided for inspiration and discussion.


You may remember from 2 weeks ago that I’ve been emphasizing strength training in the last little while.  The workout I’ve been using is based on the Muscle Primer workout from Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle by Tom Venuto.



The Muscle Primer workout is a whole body workout that Mr. Venuto prescribes for beginners to get ready for more weight-lifting.  I thought I would do it for 3 weeks then move on to workouts that were divided up into back/arms, chest/shoulders, and leg days. Unfortunately, that’s not how Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle is designed, and they recommend sticking with the Muscle Primer for 3 months (up to 6!) and that’s doing it 3 times a week, when I’ve been closer to twice for the last 6-8 weeks.

I do my workouts at lunchtime at work, and lately there have been training courses, meetings, and a heavier workload getting in the way of my workouts.  One of my pet-peeves with weight lifting is how it can take longer if a particular piece of equipment (even a bench) is occupied by someone else, and how setting up weights on bars etc. takes extra time.  A few times I’ve wanted to get in and out as quickly as possible.

HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) is all the rage for time-efficiency and effectiveness these days, but I’ve been guilty in the past of grabbing a workout from social media (Twitter, Pinterest, Blogs), doing it once for kicks, then doing something new the next time – I often say I have fitness ADD (which is great for triathlon), and it works well for diversity of training and muscle-confusion, but not so much for seeing progress in terms of strength/power and/or technique.  So when I wanted a quick workout a few weeks ago, I decided to try and build my own, based on the muscle primer workout with the following principles in mind:



  1. Stick generally to the same strength exercises of the Muscle Primer workout; build the same whole-body strength
  2. Pair exercises in such a way that they can be done back to back; with little overlap between muscle groups, one muscle group rests while the other is working.
  3. Pair exercises in such a way that the same dumbbells can be used for both exercises without having to go back to the rack and seek out different ones.
  4. Use as little extra equipment as possible.
Here are the individual exercises:
  • Deadlift/Romanian Deadlift – These are great for posterior chain (used for going up hills).  I do Romanian Deadlifts when I’m not confident about the weight I’m lifting, and I think they’re beginner-friendly for starting to lift.
  • Bench Press – OK, you need a piece of equipment here, but luckily between flat benches and adjustable benches, you can usually find something in a gym.
These two represent the exercises that I can do with the heaviest weight.  

  • Split Squats – These are like lunges without stepping forward (or back).  I’m not comfortable elevating my rear foot very much, but sometimes I’ll place it on a step or even the foot rest of a piece of equipment (bench, rack).
  • Bent-over Rows –  These can be done single arm with a bench, but I prefer to stand bent over with weights in both hands (see pic).  They take the place of the lat-pulldown which I’ve been using for back strength when I have time for longer workouts.
Bent-over Row

  • Shoulder Press – I confess, I like doing this one on a bench with a backrest to support me and heavier weight, but when I’m doing the dumbbell doubles, I go a little lighter, more reps, and stand to engage my core for good form
  • Bicep Curls – I generally alternate arms.
These complement each other from a push vs. pull perspective.  The triceps are being used in the press, but they get to rest during the bicep curls.

Two-handed Tricep Extension

  • Two-handed Tricep Extensions – Dumbbell tricep extensions come in a dozen different flavours, but this is the one they use in the book, so I had no reason to change it.  Using both hands means I can grab a heavier weight, which can come in handy for doing the other exercise in this pair (see pic)
  • Calf Extensions with a Dumbell – I’m not in love with this one as I find most calf-exercises a little awkward.  On days where I have time, I break my own rules and use a machine (leg press).  Still, you can mount a weight on your shoulder and put your foot on any raised surface (provided you feel good about your balance).  I’m using a spin bike in the pic, but the foot of a bench or a step would be fine too.  Notice I put the weight on the opposite shoulder to the leg I’m doing the calf raise with.
Calf Raises

Now, everyone has different strengths and weaknesses, so using the same dumbbells for each exercise might not make sense for everyone, however, I think I have a fairly typical build/strength profile (especially for a runner/triathlete) with more lower body strength than upper body strength, so I don’t think these pairings are too “out-there.”  Moreover, you can vary the reps you do as long as they stay between 6 and 15 (8 to 12 being even more ideal).


Here’s how the numbers shook out the last time I did this workout:

  • Deadlifts/Bench Press (two 45 lb dumbbells, 12 reps)
  • Split Squats/Bent Over Rows (two 35 lb dumbbells, 10 reps)
  • Shoulder Press/Bicep Curls (two 20 lb dumbbells, 15 and 12 reps respectively)
  • Overhead Tricep Extension/Calf Raises (one 30 lb dumbbell, 15 and 12 reps respectively)
I did two sets of each: each “double” or pair twice. I tried to not stop in the middle of a double, and also not too much between sets. I rested a little between doubles, but not too much, usually just enough to replace the weights and grab new ones. The good news is the major muscles fatigued by one exercise never stopped me from doing an exercise, the only thing holding me back was getting gassed cardiovascularly, or needing to rest my hands due to lack of grip endurance. So while I’m not going to label this a HIIT workout (I wouldn’t know the rules of what constitutes that exactly), you can see it will get your heart rate going well, while building muscle.


Official time from that “dress rehearsal”: 14 minutes 36 seconds. I did 3 minutes on an elliptical (though I prefer a rowing machine – it was occupied) as a warm-up, and a minute plank on my way to the change-room. Iron Rogue Out!

What do you think? Do you love dumbbells?

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Friday Five: The Five Things I Would Have Posted About If I Could Have

The blog went on a bit of a hiatus for the last month and a half, but I finally got a chance to wrap up my review of the Samsung Gear Fit Smartwatch earlier this week.  There were tons of topics I wanted to post on during that hiatus, and the truth is, I’m still really swamped with work while the holiday madness is on the horizon, so I guess it could happen again.  Still, I want to move forward, so rather than try to write all those posts that were timely weeks ago, I’m going to use a Friday Five to get caught up on the big ticket items and move forward from there, OK? These are the posts I woulda-coulda-shoulda posted:

  1. Featured Blogger at Fitfluential – Running Apps: Did you guys see my guest post on the Fitfluential Blog? In October, I covered Running Apps, what’s available, what’s important, etc..  Here’s the link to the article.
  2. Levac Attack – This year’s Levac Attack came and went, and I wish I’d been able to do more to promote it.  We were in a new location (Port Credit) and it was a fun course, with a 15 km option this year in addition to the usual 5 km, 10 km and half-marathon courses.  While we enjoyed it, I think it marks the close of our stroller running career as Shark Boy rode his bike for a lap then chose to hang out near the finish line and gorge himself of Timbits.  The Lightning Kid started to cry after a lap, so my wife and I had to split up our running and did the last 5 km of our 10 km runs separately – each taking turns to watch the Lightning Kid.  It was another big success raising money for Mount Sinai hospital, and I’ll keep hoping to get some more of my local bloggers involved next year!
  3. Angus Glen 10k/Half-Marathon – This is my wife’s favourite race as it has an awesome post race meal inside the Angus Glen country club.  Due to an organizational/scheduling snafu, we scrapped our childcare plans for the day, which was just as well as I had a splitting headache and didn’t feel like running, so I watched the kids while she ran it.  We also met my friend John and his wife there – she scolded me for not recruiting her to watch the boys, but once she saw how they tore it up running around the inside of the country club, she might have had second thoughts!  My wife was really happy with her time, as it wasn’t a personal best overall, it was certainly faster than she’s run all year, and that’s especially impressive considering how hilly the Angus Glen course is.  John PR’ed his half-marathon, which I thought would be impossible considering how hilly it was, but he had done the Scotiabank Marathon weeks earlier; being in marathon shape makes a half-marathon no big deal, I guess.
  4. New Phone – In spite of a protective cover, I cracked the screen of my Samsung Galaxy S3. One crack wasn’t so bad, but then this happened:

    And here’s how:

    Anyway, we were due for an upgrade at work soon enough anyway, so all I had to do was stick it out for a couple of weeks, and ta-daaa! Samsung Galaxy S5.  So far, I really like it, and though the S5 comes in an Active version that is waterproof and shock-proof, which I didn’t get.  I still like this model, especially now that I have a Lifeproof case on it to make it waterproof.

    5. A photo posted by Axel Kussmann (@apkussma) on


I’m still getting used to the phone, having to make little changes to make the user experience more like what I’m used to, and I have yet to use all the new bells and whistles it offers (HR sensor like on the Gear Fit Smartwatch, ANT connectivity – hopefully to connect to my Garmin accessories).  I can post a review of the phone and the case in the near future hopefully.
  1. Weight lifting – The general, haphazard approach I’ve taken with my off-season is to lose weight, or more accurately, get leaner.  I’m using the principles from Tom Venuto’s Burn The Fat – Feed The Muscle; but not only am I not adhering to his prescription very closely, I haven’t even finished the book cover to cover.  Still, it’s gotten me re-engaged with strength training and considering macro-nutrients a little closer. I’ve known that protein is supposed to make you feel full, but I usually felt just as hungry for a mid-morning snack when I ate egg whites as when I ate cereal, and unfortunately, healthy snacks like veggies or nuts never seemed to satisfy.  I’ve been playing around with making a smoothie with hemp protein (from Manitoba Harvest) alongside my breakfast (which is starting to include more protein sources too).  While I’m wary of simply adding too many calories to my day, it’s better to have them earlier than later, and feeling full right through till lunch has kept me away from the Tim Horton’s more and more often.  On the exercise front, the idea has been to schedule in strength workouts as first priority, with the idea that cardio is easier to come by – I could run or even bike outside my lunchtime workout slots more easily.  While work and family chaos, high-priority items and emergencies have kept me from being on point and regular with workouts and nutrition too often during the last month and a half, when I have been good, I’ve seen results.  Pounds come off the scale and go on the barbell.  Some of the strength gains might be actual muscular strength and some might be more me getting more confident with the lifting technique and willing to push it more.  If I keep up some endurance work, I shouldn’t really bulk up, and generally when I’ve gotten too swamped to fit in the endurance work, I’ve been too swamped to weight lift too, so it kind of works out.  I’ll be posting a time-space efficiency hack of my workout routine in the near future so stay tuned for that.

Is your off-season regime radically different from your on-season? Is there a phone upgrade you’re craving?  Do you know of a hidden gem race like Levac Attack or Angus Glen?


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Weak-Shaming?



I saw this a little ago on Instagram.  I’m going to leave out who posted it, because I wouldn’t want them to feel like I was coming down on them personally, but I am going to come down on it (i.e. the message it sends, not the messenger) like a ton of bricks (no, not bike-run workouts, those heavy things we build houses with).


The image and message is far from unique, as I’ve seen others like it.  The intended message is that women should lift weights, that strong is the new skinny, it’s sexy, and strength training is not the sole dominion of men.  Great, I can get on board with that.  The problem? It’s basically a put-down of the ‘Dude’ mentioned, which if you’re a male reader, means YOU.


So if I squat (or bench-press, or whatever) less than some arbitrary woman, I should feel bad?  Sure, as a man, I enjoy a predilection for greater muscle density, less body fat, longer limbs and greater height.  ON AVERAGE, that is.  Still, I fully expect that a woman who spends more time working out and chasing a strength goal will achieve it before me or the next guy, who doesn’t make it as big a priority – it’s only fair, and there’s nothing wrong with that, is there?


In triathlon, being passed by a woman is sometimes referred to as being “chicked”… and it’s always bugged me.  Why is it weird for a woman to pass me?  Anyone who’s faster will pass me, and those who have done more work should be faster.  Yet it’s still treated as some kind of anomaly, to the point where I’ve read of female athletes complaining about how men stubbornly refuse to be passed by them, and flaunt safety rules and guidelines to keep it from happening to them.  Usually when I read of such incidents, I write them off on a minority of insecure idiots (the men in the story) or low-grade paranoia (on the part of the female athlete) but I’m starting to wonder if isn’t that egalitarian after all.


Not everybody joins the gym to lose weight.  There are people who have always been built like broom handles, and might want to change that.  Skinny-Fat, ectomorphs, the names and labels aren’t important, but if you’re making people feel bad about their current level of strength, you’re not Fat-shaming, you’re Weak-Shaming.
I want you to read about a blend (blogger-friend) Hank, who has a series on the Huffington Post.  He had started a weight-loss journey, mostly by using an elliptical and treadmill at home, and kept this up for several months, never venturing outdoors, never mind setting foot in a gym, because he was afraid the reaction a “stay-puff fatty boom boom invading their sacred hall” would garner.  If fear of what has been dubbed ‘fat-shaming’ can keep someone who is overweight from entering a gym and exploring a new way to exercise, can’t we expect the same consequences of ‘weak-shaming’ for someone with a little less muscle?


Maybe you’re thinking “Boo-hoo for the skinny guys”, or that men have been the dishers of this kind of thing for long enough that being on the taking side of it is no big deal.  And yet, “Dude She Squats More Than You” and messages like it are a two-pronged attack.  Not only is the attempt to prop up female strength training being done on the back of someone weaker, it reinforces the idea that a woman who lifts is some kind of anomaly, and the natural order of things must be ‘Strong Man/Weak Woman’.  I remember there used to be a show called “What Will They Think Of Next” that dealt mostly with inventions, and offered us a glimpse of the future.  Some academics had figured out that the differences in physical performance between men and women would thin out in the twenty-first century (accompanied by a cartoon of a Wonder-Woman like amazon tackling a mugger).  Guess what time it is now? The future is now.

I want women to keep on getting stronger – keep lifting, keep jumping, whatever it takes, just like us men.  Just remember, if your message doesn’t lift others, you’re a weakling to me.

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Introducing… Roguees!

As I mentioned back in June, I developed my own little body-weight strength exercise that can be done without equipment.  It targets the whole body like a burpee, but it gets more oblique core work and stabilizers, and it’s lower impact.  It probably won’t quite spike your heart rate as high either.  It’s taken me until now to get good video together, but without further ado, I give you… Roguees!


From standing, you do a forward bend.
Step 1

Walk your hands forward, keeping your core engaged until you’re in a plank position (on hands, not elbows).

Step 2
The next few steps involve isolating one leg for the exercise.  The Scorpion push-up has you lift the leg (my right leg, in this example) and lift it behind you toward your left hip, as best as you can.  Do this as you drop to a push-up; you’ll feel a bigger load on your left chest and shoulder than the right, but your right hip will get a nice opening stretch.  Your obliques will engage to keep the whole thing together.

Step 3
After you come back up from the push-up, your foot can either return back to the floor while you centre yourself, or immediately shoot it forward between your hands.  Either way, your next step is to come up into a lunge.
Step 4
Press up from the floor with the front foot (right foot in my case) – the same foot that was in the air during the Scorpion push-up phase.  Come up into standing on that foot and raise the opposite (left in my case) knee to complete a Runner’s lunge.  If you’re incline to extend the leg into a front snap kick… who am I to stop you?
Now do everything in reverse: the raised knee goes back so  you’re in a lunge position, the front foot joins it in a momentary plank, Scorpion push-up, then walk the hands back into the forward bend, and straighten into standing.  Now do it again on the other leg.

 If you’re still not clear, the video can show you it all in succession, once on each side.



I’d love to see people play with this, so if you do get a chance, please leave a comment here or on Youtube.  Better yet, get a picture or video of yourself doing Roguees and put it on Twitter or Instagram; tag me (@apkussma) and use the hashtag #Roguees.


(I’m submitting this to Drink and Dish’s Video Challenge!)
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NEXT

Bracebridge will be my last triathlon of this year.  I decided I couldn’t do any more triathlons until I can make bike rides of 2 hours or more a regular part of my lifestyle.  I knew this about a week before the race, and to be honest, I found it liberating.  I love triathlon and I hope to be doing it the rest of my life, but leading up to the race, and pretty much all season long, I felt guilt about miles I wasn’t getting in (especially on the bike).

I had done a pretty good job of exercising on the whole, but when I wanted to do Yoga or Pilates or Crossfit or Burbathlon I often did, yet at the end of the week (or whenever) I’d look at my mileage on Endomondo and cringe.  I don’t want to cringe anymore, I want to have fun.



I (or I should say, we) do have a few runs and endurance races in our near future.  First is the Levac Attack back for 2013.  We’ll be running the ‘Hard Taco’ event at 11.2 km.  We’re hoping Shark Boy will bike it beside us, with the Lightning Kid in the Chariot except for the last few hundred meters where we’ll try and get him to run/walk.  It’s on September 7th; if you’d like to donate, please click here.  We’d love to have you if you’d like to run it too, registration ends August 29th.  There’ll be great t-shirts, a bouncy castle for the kids, post race food from the Pickle Barrel, you name it.

The next week is a double-header with the Terry Fox run for the whole family on the Saturday.  We’ll probably do 5 km with both boys in a combination of Chariot and Bike, much like last year.

The next day (Sunday) I’ll be doing a trail run with the 5 Peaks series.  I had great fun with them last year, and I’m sorry I haven’t been able to fit in more of their races this year.  There’s a kid event I’m hoping I can get Shark Boy to do… maybe even the Lightning Kid, who knows?

Last but not least, Shark Boy will have a return appearance at the Kids Of Steel Duathlon run by Family Fun Fit on the weekend of September 21st.  That day has another big event, but I’m not going to talk about it in this post.

Triathlon season may be over for me, but the multi-sport fitness adventures continue!