Self-inflected leg wounds

ODJ is yet known for the bond of loosely likeminded souls seeking out endeavor across a sea of storytellers who love the sound of cheeks slapping together in a worship of voice... especially their own. ODJ perspective is alloyed Horatio Alger boot strapping and American bird-dogging -- sniffing out practices of cutting corners. Executed with enough tact not to shed light on it's own practitioners' hypocrisy, which is why ODJ is more of a mindset than a cult.

                                                    - forward to Achieving ODJ    

Over the past 15 months I have been able to survive most phase changes designed and set in motion by Krause because I have stuck to a consistent schedule. So when I read the leg work out for this current phase there was no doubt it would be brutal but survivable. Never in my wildest dreams would I think the beast of work outs might nearly end it's creator. Paging Doctor Frankenstein to the ER!

5x5 leg press (500 lbs)

5x10 donkey calf raises with 2 sec holds at top (115 lbs)

5x5 good mornings (60 lbs bar)

5x20 jumping lungs

We started off pretty solid on the leg press with little indication of leg muscles reaching spontaneous combustion. After the donkey calf set got the lactic acid boiling it was the good mornings that I pictured being my undoing. A simple set -- rest a60 pound bar on your traps and go from upright to a 90 degree hinging at the waist. To my surprise the good mornings were actually refreshing and calming to the brewing muscle burn. Three down and one to go... in my mind I was thinking, "Home free!" How wrong I can truly be sometimes.

The last set of this leg phase is all plyo (cue the professional explanation below). Like a good trainer, Krause went first to demo. However, the first set looked like it had been preceded by a full marathon. By the second one, I could've sworn neither one of us cleared the profile of a #2 lead pencil laying flat. Krause confused me when he said, "We got three more sets(*)"... I wasn't able to read his body language because the punctuation ending that sentence sure looked like a (?) and not a motivational (!) while I was convulsing for air. Fast forward through the embarrassing details of the final three sets, we agreed to no snap photos if either one of us flat backed on the warm down set of tread mill. And with no fan fair or knuckle bumps we departed for what we both knew would be two to four days of excruciating pain.

Week #1 weigh in:
JBK: 198.6 - 18.2%
Me: 219.0 - 19.3%



    

Track starts are best left to the professional

          Oh where to begin?

          With our pain or lust for thin?

          Cuz this man ain't got it together.

          Its mind to mouth with no filter.

                                                     - ODJ: The Musical

Krause looks similar to dehydrated microwaved death at 6:30am. Not as bad as those poor zombie herds in the ordering line of Starbucks. Damn sad sight to see deer-eyed addicts listing to and fro just one barista mix up away from dropping all rational convention and jumping over the bullet proof glass to mainline the black gold. No, Krause has less passive aggression and a better sense of humor.

The two things I have come to accept during the first week of a new phase are pain and awkwardness -- the former delayed by a day and the latter instantaneous. So after our first set of opposing cable press at 100 lbs we moved into the fun stuff. Second set on chest and tricep day is corn on the cob incline push ups (not corn cop as I mistakenly called them last week.) Lower the bar on the smith machine and rock out five sets of ten. However the corn on the cob part brings the pain! You lower yourself to arms 90 degrees with head up, then move left then right then back to center and then push up. By the third set which was the point Krause was willing to negotiated on that it became clear I might take a strain induced nap on the bar with a little neck smack to finish things off. The arm trimmers on the last ten were a bonus.
The third of four sets was a blast from the past -- blank push ups. This fine little exercise makes you look like a camel standing up, but in our case that camel comes with an involuntary snot cannon primed to blow at any moment. Then Mr. Mayhem gives me a bonus introduction of a plank push up on a bosu ball. After attempting three reps of these unholy bastards I did a track start dismount off the ball nearly turning the ab station into a hardcore parkour course. Thank goodness Krause is a professional and realized the gym's liability insurance would not cover a header into the women's gym glass partition so he landed the plane with a set of single arm machine flys.
May your week be well, because Krause and I have a week of pain to begin!

Post Script... Congratulations to Krause for taking over his gym after only a month in town.

Challenge: Two Score No More

"For the last time, anything you put on that prompter Burgundy will read!"

During our recent Thursday workout, Krause rolled out the new chest and triceps for the next phase which included an evil exercise called corncob push ups. After demonstrating the movement he graciously offered our ego's a get out of jail free card with a revised set of three. My hamster wheel did not process that revision. I'm a robot people, if it's on the paper I'm going to do the work out. If Krause wanted to be a real bastard he could throw in a set of tread mill runs with my shorts at my ankles -- and because it is written it is gospel.

Outside of my lemming tendencies and a sadistic love for seeing my brother from another mother stumbling into the gym at half past WTFreak-time-is-it?... yesterday was the official start for our combined challenge, "Two Score No More." As noted in the last entry of this fine digital broadside the Prognosticator of Pain and I are going mano a mano in a race to lose twenty pounds per capita. Last one to cross the finish line buys the other a fish dinner. (Sorry, Dorthy Mantooth is extra)

As true gamesmen, former UNLV teammates, and once upon a time roommates Krause and I take our challenges as serious as a Mexican standoff between two matchstick men... Smiles on our faces but anti-freeze running through our veins. So it would be expected that he predicted my casual efforts to wear four layers of cloths and a led laden back-pack to our weigh in. Likewise, I enforced the "no touching the wall" rule to ensure no extra grapefruit got added by downward force. On our honor and document via the gym's surveillance cameras for future depositions the below weights have been validated by the Nevada Board of Weights & Measures:

As of this Halloween in the year of our Lord 2013 Krause checks in at 201 lbs with 20.0% body fat and I, your scribe for this savage journey tips the scales at 221 lbs with 20.6% body fat. Please don't think that racing to drop double deuce is easy (see below comment section for scientific explanation  by Krause.) Over the past year I have been on a brutal lifting regiment plus I don't drink soda, booze, or liquid lard any longer -- so with the only avenue to succeed being nutrition, I'm on a water and Trinidad Scorpion pepper cleanse for the foreseeable future. My appointed sparing partner has three avenues; nutrition, working out, and booze. On the other hand, the third avenue is like taking the rivets out of a destroyer; fermented gluten is the only thing keeping his ship a float. In addition, he will have to be south of 10% body fat to enjoy the sweet satisfaction of having me pick up the check in a couple months. I must also mention that I quickly amended the terms of the challenge to exclude purchases of alcohol for the winner... Krause has a massive hollow leg even by Dean Martin standards!

To be continued...   

Wait... Two score equals what?!?! Part Deuce

"I got a new job."
"Oh that sweet Jack In The Box goodness."
"The devil made me do it."
"I retired from the real world and sat on my butt for 8 months."
"The doctor got me on new crazy meds."
"The wife was getting jealous of my slender physique."
"Less you forget, Utah's a 3.2 beer state."
"Damn dry cleaner shrank my drawers."
"Those chicken wings ain't going to eat themselves."
"Fat cells have rights too."
"How do you expect me to meet a future ex-wife looking this good?"

.... The category is: Things brothers be saying cuz they gett'n chubby!

So the Sultan of Sweat Stains and I clearly need an intervention, not the 12 Step kind but rather the ODJ  5 step kind:

  Step 1: After getting busted, first deny.
  Step 2: Change the subject; "Hey look! Elvis on the treadmill."
  Step 3: Settle this the only way dudes should... a bet!
  Step 4: Text like school girls to hash out terms.
  Step 5: Write a blog post.

Staying true to our ODJ roots, JBK and I subscribe to a philosophy that preaches the only real way to recover is to first mock, then quote obscure movie lines, and lastly bet on who can lose weight faster. We have accepted a new weight loss challenge; "Two Score No More!" Terms are simple, the last to lose twenty pounds buys the other an all-you-can-eat sushi dinner. However, unlike last years "Destination 195" challenge this one is a clean challenge; no diuretics, no tape worms, and definitely no self-inflicted dysentery. El naturale! We weigh in this coming Thursday for all to follow the race to trim 20 grape fruits.

Wait... Two score equals what?!?!?

"All aboard the pain train"
                            - Izzy Mandelbaum

It has been over a decade since the Doctor of Fitness Funk and I have lived in the same area code, which some say was best for the long term future of mankind while others wept for months after our separation. So when Krause returned to Sin City it was as if  we patched the fabric of space and got the old gang back together.  However since our last world tour I snagged a wife, contracted multiple children and moved to the city where forty-year old working woman relocate when the syndicated men down on The Strip decide their bad for business... so when JBK's third installment to The Meadows, a few things were different for our dynamic duo. Unlike our days and late evenings of old, enjoying Elton John and marathon hacky-sack sessions, my schedule has become a bit more tight these days. So after eight weeks we got our calendars aligned (mainly I got my butt down to Hender-tucky for a long over due work out). Unfortunately for the second son 6:30am is typically the end of a good evening not the start of a hellish slog through back and bicep day.

As true believers in ODJ, Krause and I must come clean... we both gained 20 pounds this summer. Don't worry, verbal abuse and humiliation was handed down in equal directness and passive aggression.

On a positive note, my extra score added to the twenty pound weight belt meant the pull-up reps were forty larger; A first for yours truly! I will let JBK expand on his disdain for pull-ups, but he came through on the preacher curls... the great equalizer for me.

As I'm typing this entry my arms have resisted gravity's pull, locked at ninety degrees, better known as "fork-lift arm syndrome." As a traveling salesman, fork-lifting is easy to disguise when I initially meet people; carry samples in one arm, open the door with the other and then quickly shake hands. Then the uncomfortable awkwardness takes over... some people shake my extended hand again and again thinking it's a Southern thing. Others just stare straight into my eyes pretending all's normal. One gracious lady put a dollar in my hand and blessed my heart for having the courage to panhandle in such nice attire. I really liked her.


 

Dela-weird!

"Cavalier bravado is a mere hollow echo of a once masculine alpha male, long since worn down by years of fringe middle class anxiety and self-help evangelists."           -Achieving ODJ

The NFJP is on the road, so I be reporting from the margins of the first of the fifty states.

I’ve been attempting to locate another spot in America where one can be roaming through agriculture expanse and ten minutes later frolicking on the calm banks of the Atlantic Ocean. I submit nowhere. Whimsical strolls along the beach set aside, my day job summoned me out of the desert for another week of hotel lodging, long days of blood pooling desk work, and subpar exercising. Unlike Delaware 1.0 last month this go around I enlisted the help of a native to locate a real fitness establishment. Ooooh my! There are Roman ruins more modern. These cats furnished their derelict palace with the set rejects from one of the Saw movies. It is widely believed greatness has a perverse tendency of growing up in adverse conditions. I’m surprised that gym doesn’t produce multiple Mr. Olympians each year.

A little self-diagnoses and reflection while bicep repping -- on what I imaged to be a preacher’s curl station, I realized I am spoiled when it comes to workout facilities. The Delaware house of torture devices charges $40 George Washington’s per month for the high probability of a tetanus shot, while in our desert oasis I throw down $14.95 a month for premium top shelf equipment, structurally sound load baring walls, and not to mention the groovy soundtrack of electronic dance pop. This is one portion of my life that “keeping it real” and supporting the grungy armpit stains of gyms gets no R-E-S-P-E-C-T from this prima donna. Don’t get me wrong, I can handle subdermal skin rashes with the best of them, but skimping out on cable equipment and good padding is an injury just waiting to happen. But when in Rome via Delaware, strap on the antibiotics drip bag and give it hell Rocky!

Take me to the promised elevation.

Morale busters in the gym come in many forms; enjoying a ten pound jump in weights on the bench fly press or holding the 60 second plank position without losing bowel control. Most recently it was going from 3.0 mph to 3.2, and then up to 3.3 mph on the 15/4/20 Slow Grind training sets. For our newly uncensored readership from the People's Republic of China, the 15/4/20 Slow Grind was supposed to be a simple work out swap for my 20 minute jump rope set. I had to call a substitute in because the three little piggies that refused the market all joined little Mr. "cried wee wee wee all the way home." I got the bacon handed to them little toes after a month of jump roping. So Jaron created the set: 15% incline at 4.0 mph (6.44 km/h) for 20 minutes on the tread mill.

Both Jaron and I have been very honest with our loyal ODJ'ers. Honesty and integrity are the second rules to achieving ODJ. Especially when the first rule is broken... "If at first you don't succeed, try try to cover it up and deny you ever tried." We have both attempted and failed epically pursuing the goal of completing this challenge. As of this date I'm at 3.3mph for 20 minutes and Jaron is rocking a solid 3.0 for 30 minutes. The pain level is exponentially greater every tenth we go up in pace. Think of 3.0mph as our base camp; uncomfortable, yet familiar. Each adventurous turn of the mph knob is like pacing a mall walker at an altitude of 25,000 feet (7620 meters). Just last week my ego hijacked my better reason and took me on a 3.5mph ride thru hell's barrios marginales. I escaped with only minor PTSD after 90 seconds, vowing never to return without a tetanus shot and Bodyglide® for my inner thighs.

At this point it is very important for those following along at home who have actually spent any amount of time in the cardio section of a local gym to calm yourself. We hear you. You are thinking, "Why is it, my fine practitioners of ODJ, at my gym I see all these rotund women making it look easy on the full incline?" It's very simple. Yet, I will leave the form and function explanation to Jaron, but if you pay close attention to the aforementioned ladies of large you will see they drape over the tread mill like it is a cheap mumu. We must confess... in our love for humor at the expense of our own selves, Jaron and I have held back the fulcrum between easy and Guantanamo level torture... No holding onto anything during the entire 20 minutes. No checking your pulse. No grabbing the sissy bar. Nothing but you and your best race walking technique. I dare any of our readers to go to the gym with this final piece to 15/4/20 Slow Grind challenge and try it... If you can accomplish it (video evidence required) before Devil's Night 20-thirteen Jaron and I will send you a signed copy of Achieving ODJ and an ODJ t-shirt. Who will be first?