Author: armstrong.wou@gmail.com

“Those who have accomplished great things in the world have been, as a rule, bold, aggressive, and self-confident. They dared to step out from the crowd and act in an original way. They were not afraid to be generals.”—Orison Swett Marden

I have been writing the word “extraordinary” with an emphasis on “extra” (i.e., “(extra)ordinary”) for some time.  I do so for a reason.  Most of us live rather ordinary lives.  We are not famous.  We are not celebrities or world leaders.  We go about our ordinary lives believing that we have very little impact in the world.  Our impact may not be great—but only if seek to remain ordinary.

(Extra)ordinary is daring to “step out from the crowd and act in an original way” within our sphere of influence.  We are all capable of doing this.  The bible teaches us that in “whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.”  This is universal.  This is what I mean by “be your best today; be better tomorrow.”

There is no career or station in life that has a monopoly in (extra)ordinary.  Our impact can be universal, if we live intentionally.

Let us go into the world, today, “bold, aggressive, and self-confident”.  Carpe momento!!

 

As parents, we want the best for our children.  We want to do for them the things that will help give them a leg up in life.  Sports is one such avenue.

There are countless benefits to youth sports.  Sports are a beginning on the path to “well-centeredness”—Spiritual, Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, and Social wellness.  I am of the belief that sports participation should be encouraged from an early age.  I favor multiple sports and discourage sports specialization for as long as possible.  Sports participation should, however, be driven by the child and not the parent(s).  Let the child try as many sports (and activities, in general—including music and the arts) as they desire—even if they seem a bit all over the place—until they settle on the sport(s) and/or creative avenues they like and find success in.

In nearly every childhood, there will be times when they are just not enjoying the activity in which they are participating.  This may be boredom, frustration, a lack of success, or simply the realization that it is not what they enjoy.  Childhood is a time of growth and exploration, and sports should be fun!  If the child is not enjoying what they are doing, what is the point of doing it?

Quitting is never an option in my household.  We finish our commitments.  When the season ends, then the child can decide what he or she wants to do next season.  (Sometimes they will vacillate quite a bit in the off-season.)  The important thing for us as parents is not to put pressure on the child.  We certainly should not try to impose our will.  The kid is going to like (or not like) what he likes.  We must let them decide.

The challenge comes when the young athletes gets frustrated during the season.  Sometimes they just need a little encouragement to get them through.  Hopefully, it is just a rough patch, and the desire will return in the off-season.  As parents, we have to first seek to understand what is going on in their developing mind.  We have to realize that children do not all respond the same to our actions.  As parents and coaches, we have to recognize that the child’s motivation is a bit off.  Then, we have to help them figure things out.

I am a believer in Sports Psychologists for adolescents.  Often, they can be better suited than school counselors to deal with emotional and motivational issues—on and off the field.  In some ways, their approach addresses academic issues on which the student-athlete may retreat from parents and school counsellors.  They also provide sports-related strategies that might be more relevant to the struggling student.

It is important for the parent to get to the root of the problem without driving the child further into their shell.  A key is to keep conversations positive.  Let your child talk—or not talk.  Be encouraging.  Sports are to be fun, right?  Make the ride to and from practices and games a pleasant time.  If they had a bad game or practice, don’t push.  Change the subject.  Talk successes.

I trust that most coaches mean only the best for our children.  Sometimes the desire to win can bring out their weaknesses.  As parents, we need to understand, first, that coaches are volunteering their time.  Second, we have to understand that they have to focus on more than just our kid.  We can help by supporting their efforts.  Whatever struggles our athlete is having, we need to make sure that they still show up for practice and games—physically, mentally, and emotionally.  We need to teach our children that they have a responsibility to their teammates and coaches to show up and give their full effort.  This is not easy when the young athlete is not having fun.

Sports are a great learning opportunity for children.  They are very much a microcosm of the world.  Life isn’t always inherently fun.  It is what we choose to make of it.  We won’t always succeed.  Others will cheat.  Bosses will yell.  Co-workers will disrespect you.  Etc.  Life is competitive.  There are winners and losers, and people do keep score.  We need to learn to effectively “deal with it”.  In sports, as in life, we have three choices: accept it, deal with it, or quit.

Be your best today; be better tomorrow.

Carpe momento!

Remember the Waylon Jennings song?  The lyrics, “maybe it’s time we got back to the basics of love”, always seem to come to mind when I consider our social ills.  We, as a society, seem to be dividing along every increasing fault lines.  Race.  Gender.  Religion.  Politics.  Etc.  Why??

We tend to use hash tags and change our profile picture, but do nearly nothing but offend and infuriate.  At the end of the day, we feel like we have done something to right the world and never realize how much more wrong the world is becoming.  Waylon was right.  We need to get back to the basics of love.

One of my daily mantras is “I am third”.  It comes from the Gale Sayers book of the same title and refers to the idea that my God is first, my family and friends are second, and I am third.  This is the approach I try (albeit poorly) to take in my life.  If we all considered this our daily mantra, how much better might the world be?

Now, I know there are some who don’t believe or question the existence of “God”, and I would not be living “I am third” if I did not respect this.  For such people, I ask only that they consider the Judeo-Christian definition of God as “love”.  In other words, love comes before all else.  What effect would this shift have in the world?

Carpe momento!

I still learn a lot from the sport of wrestling.  I saw a meme recently that said: “Rankings do not matter.  Seeding does not matter.  Every match begins 0-0.”  Now on the surface this speaks directly to wrestler—and perhaps other athletes, as well.  There is, however, a life lesson here for all of us.

No matter our status in life, our upbringing, whether we come from privilege or poverty, we all have the opportunity to succeed.  It comes down to will and desire.  Yes, some might have to work harder to achieve, but success nearly always comes to the one who is willing to work harder than the next.  It is easy to become complacent when one is on top, but being the “top seed” puts a mark on one’s back.  The hunger can sometimes be greatest in the underdog.

Today is a new match.  It starts 0-0.  Yesterday has passed.  There should be nothing holding us back from victory.  We cannot enter the day already defeated and expect to succeed.

Don’t consider your “ranking” or “seeding”.  Desire only to be your best today and be better tomorrow!

Carpe momento!

That’s it.  No special exercises or exercise tricks.  Just increase your physical activity and you will transform your body.

Now, I could end here, but I’ll give a little more wisdom.  There are exercises and/or activities that you might do that are better than others, but “transform” is pretty broad.  Honestly, there is no list of “5 simple exercises”.  There are, however, thousands of lists of “5 simple exercises”.  Each may (or may not) have some merit.

The first question to ask is “how do I want to transform my body?”  Do I want to build muscle?  Do I want to lose fat?  Do I want to run a marathon?  What are the goals?  None of the lists of 5 I see are specific to any one goal.  Doing anything above what you may or may not be doing now will affect change.  So, do something.

Ideally, pick five exercises that will meet a specific goal, but pick five activities to do for the next two months.  It doesn’t have to be anything grand.  Just pick five exercise that fit the categories of health-related physical fitness—cardiorespiratory endurance, muscle endurance, muscle strength, flexibility, and body composition—and do them 3-6 days a week for two month and see the transformation.

Maximize the transformation by supplementing these five exercises with five diet changes.  Together these will transform your body.  It is all pretty simple.  You just gotta start.

Be your best today; be better tomorrow.

Carpe momento!

If you have been reading this blog regularly, you are aware of my love for the sport of wrestling.  I was not a great wrestler—probably could not even be considered good—but I wrestled three years of high school varsity and learned more from the sport than any other.  I am proud that my son has determined that he, too, is a “wrestler”.  He is in a wonderful program locally (All-Phase) and coached by some incredible coaches led by Kevin Keeney, who can bark like a pit bull and encourage the kids in a single breath.  He is also in a very good middle school program heading toward an equally good high school program.

I would love for my daughter to wrestle, as well.  She has opted for basketball, but I keep hoping for a change (though I support her in whatever she does).  My son has several girls on his team who are quite impressive.  They work hard (sometimes harder than the boys) and they deserve every opportunity afforded my son and the rest of the boys.

My friend, Sally Walczyk Roberts (former USA Woman’s Wrestler and three-time world medalist), has started Wrestle Like a Girl to draw attention to the opportunity to include women in the sports and the benefits of women’s participation.  I am excited to watch the success of the USA women and the growing support among American colleges and universities.  I am hopeful that it soon becomes a varsity sport at the high school level. The following is a short video I would like to share that features Sally and USA Women’s Coach Terry Steiner.

Carpe momento!

Too often, in my view of Spiritual well-centeredness, the Spiritual dimension is defined as religion and one’s perceptions of God.  I don’t think this is the case.  Spiritual wellness is defined as an understanding of something greater than self.  I have frequently said that religion can get in the way of true Spiritual well-centeredness.  In my view, God, rather, encompasses all of the dimensions of well-centeredness (Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, and Social, as well as Spiritual).  In the Judeo-Christian tradition, can God be anything less.

Our Spiritual struggles are not, then, in our faith (or lack of faith) in God.  They are not with religious tradition or practice.  Rather, our Spiritual struggles are with people.  People are irritating, and we are self-centered.  People regularly fall short of our expectations, and it is upsetting.  Thus, we battle less with the concept as “love your God, and love your neighbor as yourself” and more with “how do I love that neighbor.”

When I struggle, as I frequently do, with the attitudes and behaviors of others, I am the problem.  It can be relatively easy for someone to love God when our life is good.  It is harder when life becomes more challenging.  (And I believe in a God who allows us time to be angry with him.)  But what separates me from Spiritual well-centeredness is me.  It is this position of “self” in our lives that most affects us Physically, Intellectually, Emotionally (Oh, especially, Emotionally), Socially, and Spiritually.

It is no surprise that my wife doesn’t do everything “right”.  She loads the dishwasher “wrong”.  She folds the laundry “wrong”.  She squeezes the toothpaste from the neck for Pete’s sake!

It is also no surprise that every other driver on the road during my morning commute “can’t drive”.  Or that nobody parks as well as me.

Surely, I can’t always be right.  Right?  So, just maybe (certainly) I am wrong—or at least I have different ideas of how things should be done—how I want them to be done.  When we don’t get our way, we take it personally.  Sounds like a Spiritual problem, no?

So, maybe, the old break-up line—“It’s not you.  It’s me.”—is correct.  Our Spiritual well-centeredness is predicated on the reality that I or you are not the center of the Universe.  It requires the understanding that we are all uniquely made and purposed for lives that are infinitely tied to the lives of everyone else.  Spiritual well-centeredness begins with the deflation of self.

Be your best today; be better tomorrow!

Carpe momento!

I am having my students watch “My Diet is Better than Yours”.  It full of good and bad examples for the students’ educational experience. 

So, after class on Monday, one of my students sent me a link to exercise videos by one of the fitness “experts”, Carolyn Barnes, creator of the “cLean Momma diet” and “taskercise”.  Taskercise is involving exercise in our day-to-day activities, like doing lunges as you push the cart through the grocery store (yes, she had her client do this!).  Now, I am all about getting more physical activity into one’s day, but….

Several of the videos are promoted as “Tabata”.  (Now, in Ms. Barnes’ defense, she does say “Tabata-like” in at least one of the videos.)  However, nothing could be farther from the IE1 protocol original tested in the Izumi Tabata et al. study.  After all, to get the benefit of “Tabata training” (4-minutes of high-intensity intervals—8 cycles of 20 seconds of cycling at approximately 170% of VO2max followed by 10 seconds of recovery), one has to be exercise at very high intensities.  One is not going to be anywhere near maximal (let alone supramaximal) intensities doing household chores (or any of the activities currently labeled as “Tabata”).

I have issues (as I have mentioned several times before) with the misuse of the “Tabata” label.  Even if I yield to the argument that it is just another name for “high-intensity interval training” (or “HIIT”), taskercise can barely hit the mark.  Such HIIT will not provide any significant cardiorespiratory endurance adaptation.  True, there is some calorie burn, but the benefit is in body composition not cardiorespiratory endurance and/or muscle strength and endurance.  Labeling “Taskercise” as “Tabata” is about as bad as the fitness marketing gets.  It sounds great and trendy, but….  There is exercise for everyone.  Some may actually enjoy Taskercise.  If this is you, go for it.  Be your best today; be better tomorrow.  If it is not you, do what you enjoy and will do regularly.  Just don’t expect miracle results in 4 minutes, unless the intensity is enough to leave you a pool on the ground.  To be “Tabata” (i.e., the IE1 protocol) it has to be beyond intense (remember: 170% of VO2max)!

Carpe momento!

Image: http://www.cleanmomma.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/rag-drag-web.jpg

I caught a video of wrestling legend, Dan Gable, using a Bulgarian bag (Suples.com) in training.  (Yes, he turns 69 on October 25th, and he still works out like a beast!)  I love Bulgarian bag training and this video both reinforces my interest and motivates my desire.

The Bulgarian bag, in my most humble opinion, is a must have.  It is more versatile than kettlebells and gives a darn good cardio/muscle endurance workout.  If you like “HIIT”, then check them out.

In addition to the cardio/muscle endurance and fat-burning benefits, I think there is no better way to strengthen an athletic core.  The movements are explosive and involve an acceleration/deceleration component that is essential for all sports.  Agility, after all, is driven by the hips and core.  In order to change directions, an athlete must first stop movement in the direction of travel (decelerate) and accelerate in the opposite direction.  Remember, an object in motion tends to stay in motion until acted on by another force.  Most “core” training is done for “six-pack abs” not function.  The Bulgarian bag allows for both (but, truth be told, diet is the real key to a six pack).

I have developed a routine that I use regularly.  I call it the “core 550” because it involves 5 sets of 5 movements that are performed for 10 repetitions.  Depending on speed and rest periods, it takes less than 10 minutes.  The movements are the hip thrust (which is much like a kettlebell swing), toss left, toss right, spin right, and spin left.  These are not much different than the movements performed by Dan Gable in the video below.  I use a bigger hip hinge (i.e., swinging between the legs to just above horizontal with the arms), but there are other variations.  The key to the hip hinge is that the hips drive the movement, not the lower back.  I also prefer a wider range in the side tosses—incorporating the hips by beginning in a slight squat and rotating the trunk to bring the arms slightly above shoulder height.

There are endless possibilities with the Bulgarian bag.  I am inspired by my old wrestling coaches’ “Russian Conditioning Program” and driven by my creative imagination.  Try it.  I am confident you will become hooked!

Be your best today; be better tomorrow!

Carpe momento!

 

If you want to be “fit”, know your goals (you must have goals) and know how your workouts will help (or not) you attain your goals.  It is all about specificity.

It is important to realize that there are five distinct health-related components to physical fitness: cardiorespiratory endurance, muscle strength, muscle endurance, flexibility, and body composition.  There is no single exercise program that will maximize all of these simultaneously.  In my opinion, there is a trend in the fitness industry to sell body composition training on the myth that it will (significantly) affect cardiorespiratory endurance, muscle strength, muscle endurance.  Lean with six-pack abs is sold as “fit”.  If you buy this, you have to believe that the packaging is more important than the function.

The craze in fitness, today, is short, body-weight, “high-intensity” circuits (labeled as “HIIT”).   These workouts are, indeed, calorie burners.  More specifically, these appear to have a much greater and longer post-exercise energy expenditure (I can’t quite get the acronym to catch on for some reason) than traditional cardiorespiratory and muscle strength exercise.  There may be some benefit in improved muscle endurance, but referring to this training as “strength training” is way off.  This training, combined with a sensible, calorie deficient, diet, will promote fat loss.  The loss of fat will cause the appearance of muscle hypertrophy, but the gains in muscle mass will be small at best.  Likewise, the improvements in cardiorespiratory fitness (i.e., maximal oxygen consumption or VO2max) will be negligible.  For a general fitness, these workouts are fine, but are probably best suited for alternative workout sessions.

Cardiorespiratory training must emphasize the overloading (i.e., doing a bit more than that to which the exerciser is accustomed) of the heart and circulatory system.  In exercise physiology, it is well-established that cardiorespiratory function is affected by the ability to deliver oxygen to the working muscle (cardiac output = heart rate x stroke volume) and the ability to exchange gases (oxygen and carbon dioxide) and waste at the cellular level.  The adaptable components to oxygen consumption are stroke volume (the amount of blood that is ejected from the heart with each beat) and arterio-venous oxygen difference (the amount of oxygen that can be extracted by the muscle as it passes through the tissue—this is largely impacted by the number of mitochondria in the muscle cell and the number of capillaries surrounding the muscle).  I’ll avoid the extended exercise physiology lecture here and suffice it to say that to improve cardiac function, the heart has to be pushed to the intensities necessary to stimulate these adaptations.

Cardiorespiratory HIIT is quite different from muscle endurance HIIT.  Exercise that is popularly called “Tabata” by trainers is not the IE1 protocol proposed by Dr. Izumi Tabata and colleagues in the 1996 paper.  (Few of us can handle the IE1 protocol on a stationary cycle, let alone do bodyweight exercises to the prescribed intensity.)  So, be sure that your HIIT matches your goals!

Likewise, the popular “Tabata” or “HIIT” training cannot be prescribed for muscle strength.  Muscle strength, by definition, is the amount of force that can maximally be produced (measured as the one-repetition maximum, 1-RM).  As such, strength is built with high-intensity and low repetitions (usually 1-5 repetitions).  There is much to debate on the ideal repetitions, sets, volumes, and intensities for muscle strength training, but it is clear that high repetitions (greater than the 8-12 range) will not promote great gains in strength (there will, of course, be some residual gains as more weight is lifted in any repetition range).

The adaptions to exercise are specific to the imposed demands.  If the training does not match the intended goals, well….

Give careful thought to what you do for exercise.  There is no WOD (“workout of the day”) that is suitable for everyone.  There is no WOD that can possibly meet the physiological demands to promote adaptation in all of the health-related components of fitness (and we haven’t even mentioned the motor skill-related components) simultaneously.

Determine your goals and plan your exercise accordingly.  Don’t buy into the marketing myth that you can have it all in a matter of a few minutes a day.  It takes careful planning and execution.  It takes substantial effort.

Be your best today; be better tomorrow!

Carpe momento!