Not Slaving Away

So I recently attended the 2012 Comic Con International in San Diego California.  I went dressed as Slave Leia.  A large number of fans marveled at my abdominal muscles which I do not really take care of that often.  In fact I hardly do any exercising.  While sitting in bed watching the TV in our hotel a commercial came on for Insanity!  Seems kind of "Duh" to me.  They are yelling all this bull about a years worth of exercise in 60 days.  No, its 60 days worth of exercise in 60 days.  I feel like anyone who works out should know how interval training works.  They are basically doing tabatas of body weight exercises easy peasy.  Look if you work out really hard, you will get in shape.  If you go to the gym everyday you will build muscle.  If you watch your diet you will lose weight. If you jump around like a nut job you will burn fat.  If you do any of these half assed, you will get half assed results.  So I decided to do my own Insanity workout for my week at Comic Con.  My workout was to have bacon with every meal.  Boy was it fun.  I ended the trip with "The Hat Trick".  This is a burger found at Slapshotz Bar in the Detroit airport.  It consists of a Kaiser roll, a beef patty, cheddar cheese, grilled onions, ham, bacon, and one fried egg.  Delicious! I am so jacked now.

Iron Mind shares with Iron Body

South Korea was shaped
in America's Image

from:		Greg Hafer
to:		Mark Hafer
date:		Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 2:51 AM
subject:		China's not that old.
mailed-by:		gmail.com

Brother! If you were a state, you'd be Markansas!

North Korea was shaped in
the Soviet Union's Image

So, I got stuck on a Wikipedia binge, opening a bazillion tabs, one for every link that I knew nothing about, usually pertaining to preceding dynasties or governments or empires. The history of East Asian is crazy. After a few hours, my favorite tidbit is about Korea. Korea was a long standing Empire for a bazillion years until Japan invaded and took control for merely a few decades. Then, after WWII, we essentially did the same thing we did with Germany, broke it up into zones. The Soviets got the top half and the US got the bottom half. Forget reinstating the Empire that existed before the Japanese invasion, the empire that shaped the culture, customs, philosophy, and language that is still dominant in Korea today, let alone entertaining the idea of even keeping the country intact. No! We had to split it into two countries, a compromise between the US and the Soviet Union. So, today, the Koreas have turned into caricatures of their creators. The Soviets modeled North Korea's government after their own crazy-ass Leninist single-party socialist state, so now modern NK is seen as the least-free, most isolationist, dictatorial nation in the world. The US modeled South Korea's government after their own crazy-ass self-indulgent free-market I-am-entitled-to-a-plastic-bag-for-my-crap-at-any-store-I-go-to-along-with-a-thorough-taint-licking-from-an-underpaid-worker system, so now modern SK has the fastest Internet in the world, 24-hour video game channels, and some of the best shopping centers anywhere. Crazy! I feel kind of stupid that I didn't know why there are two Koreas and why they are so different. That was one of 28 tidbits that I enjoyed tonight. The other one is about China.

People keep saying "China is the oldest civilization in the world." I'd be pissed hearing this news if I were from Mongolia, which was established a decade before the Qin Dynasty, which later gobbled up Mongolia. And Mongolia is still around, even after breaking away from the Qin Dynasty in 1911. But none of that makes a difference anyway because guess what? There is no more Qin Dynasty. It's gone my friends. You know what isn't gone? Mongolia. Sure it's a bit different, a modern democracy, not like the preceding Mongol Empire. You know what else isn't an empire? The People's Republic of China, which is only 62 years old and encompass a different geographical region than any of the governments proceeding it. No one makes claims on the age of the civilization now called the US by factoring in the British Empire or the Iroquois tribes or even the Paleo-Indians. I'd love a presidential candidate to throw that one out on the campaign trail. "America has been hijacked by the radical left and is moving further and further away from what our founding fathers intended for this great nation. Take my favorite founding father, Zugzug. The late Pleistocene era was a trying time in US history, but brave men like Zugzug had vision. They knew that if they fashioned a stone spear tip just right, they could take down a heavily armored glyptodont quite easily. And as we all know, those glypyodonts had thicker skulls that most Democrats. Am I right? Am I right?" If the age of a civilization had to do with an organized group of people occupying a geographical area, the US would be as old as Zugzug. If it had to do with its ties to previous political systems, the US would be as old as the tribal system established by homo sapiens in the British Isles during the Bronze Age. China is 62 and the US is 235. Anyway, I wouldn't brag about how old my civilization is if most of my people don't have hot running water. China is a new country, and as such, the next generation has an amazing opportunity to shape New China into something great. But lest we forget, this supposed "oldest civilization" is still a developing nation. You know which country has a higher literacy rate than China? Mongolia. Oh snap!

Anyway. Asian history is fun. I'll save my other tidbits for later. This email is getting too long. We should just start a blog that consists of our emails to each other. People would read it. We could call if something like "TO: Hafer CC: Everyone Else."

(gh)

Google Chat that night:

4:55 PM me: Jimmy

  I've been doing some research of my own

 James: oh yeah

 me: on The Duck family geneology

  very peculiar

  lotta gaps

4:56 PM lots of parents neglecting their children

  no wonder Huey Dewey and Louie were trouble makers

  their family kept shirking them off onto other family members

4:57 PM Della gets pregnant with a mystery duck and can't raise her triplets so she ditches them off on Donald who gets enlisted in the Navy

4:58 PM so He dumps em on his Uncle, who is an old scottish codger that hordes money

 James: woot

The most boring post I ever made

I was originally trying to gain mass so that I could play Rugby.  Checking in at 155lbs just isn't going to cut it on the Rugby pitch.  I joined the gym for the 1st time in my life and started a healthy dose of squats and deadlifts.  I packed on about 7 pounds in 3 weeks.  Then I went to Bangkok, then I started Hashing.  Now I don't really care about playing Rugby anymore.  My new goal is to be in shape for any and everything.  My new regiment will consist of two days of heavy lifting (4x8) at the gym.  Two days of body weight exercises that populate a majority of this site and static hold style exercises for the other two days. Running long distances, sprints, boxing and other cardio workouts are peppered throughout my week as well. I routinely injure myself doing stupid things like jumping over fences so as long as I am not dedicated to a sport I can exercise some part of my body and not let anyone down.
If you are one of the many  people that come here for the ridiculous pictures and sexual inuendos, I apologize. I will bring them back soon enough.

Jorge Gets his Shit Together

An Email from Greg to Mark


Oi! Physically, I've been a lazy piece of shit, and now I'm not even a vegetarian. I just got back from Harbin and noticed how much my little tummy has grown. I pretty much lived on deer sausages and beer while I was there. The city is amazing! It's Russia with Chinese people instead of Russians. I went there with a 60-year-old Scottish woman, which wasn't as fun as I thought it would be. Why aren't you here? Anyway, I'm back in Shaoxing for two days before the second part of my vacation. This place is a ghost town. Creepy. I could run around the campus naked and no one would know. 

This is my first day of recovery, so I decided to eat only vegetarian today and do a jump-start workout. I worked every muscle group a little bit just to see what needs the most work. I certainly need to destroy my gut. Tomorrow I'm going to go running. Gunna run the track, gunna do intervals. Running up the back steps. Running down the front step. Got to make my mind up. Which steps should I take?

Anyway, I kept telling myself, "Iron mind iron body" because you used to say that all the time, so I googled the phrase to see where it came from, and the only thing that matched was your blog, which I completely forgot about. Then, after I opened it, I see that you started writing in it again for the first time since 2009. I had to check the dates a second time. Isn't that crazy? A few days after you started the blog again, I accidentally found it on the Internet, the first thing I found after not having the Internet since the 16th, which is also when you posted. It's like we are connected on a quantum level, like two biceps on the same body, possibly Deepak Chopra's body. Hot stuff, coming through.

I just thought I'd let you know that your iron mindwaves reached me all the way in China, clearly proving that there is no such thing as distance at the quantum level, and by quantum, I mean something that has to do with psychology but it's too complicated so I use a scientific term from physics to trick people into thinking I'm smarter than I am by describing what I see, but not really knowing why those observations occur, hence the contrived quantum bullshit explanation.

I'm going to get back to exercising, even though I can't eat those fancy foods that you listed on your blog because I'm not a privileged Westerner. Looks like rice and cabbage again...

The posts are coming ...

... like the line of guys at the Houston 500, which means often and probably on someone's face.  So my first day back into my routine went like this:
Diet: 2 Eggs and Organic grassfed  sausage for breakfast, Avocado and stirfry for lunch, blackberry and banana smoothie, Salad with beans, nuts etc. for dinner.  I make my own dressings.  This evenings was olive oil, balsamic vinegar, cashew butter, Blue agave and some garlic powder.  I also drank some Kefir post workout.
Went for a 2 mile run with 4 100 yard sprints thrown in there. Then boxed 5 minutes on the heavy bag then do abs for 4 minutes, then heavy bag for 5 minutes again, then abs for 4.  Then I did some arm raises cause I have delts like a 4 year old girl.

Then I figured out a shortcut for completing the rubiks cube, made a charcoal portrait of Samuel L Jackson, watched a Ted video on locating the parts of the brain that control consciousness, read 50 pages of Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, and watched part 1 of a 3 part series on "Guns Germs and Steel".
If it makes you feel any better I had off today so all of this was possible.

Like a bad case of herpes ...

I'm back!  It has been over two years since anyone has posted on this blog but the hits don't stop coming.  I believe it is due largely in part to the sexual inuendos that cover this site, but I am going to delude myself into thinking it is my wit and valuable workout information.

So what the hell happened you may ask ( you probably won't, but I am going to assume that you did). I stopped caring, and my cohorts who were supposed to motivate me dropped the ball as well.  I also injured myself and couldn't run for a year so I made that an excuse to not do anything else either.  But I started working out again in preparation for Rugby and other than my 3 week hiatus for going to Bangkok, I am back on train (not the kind we run on your mother).

If you discovered this page in search for questions about herpes please go here. If you want to see me kick Tim Hahn's ass in pull ups at Lumphini Park in Bangkok watch this video.

How Close are you?

I took this idea from beast skills to get better at one armed pull ups. You take a weight attach it to a rope and hang it over the pull up bar. Then you grab the bar with one hand and then rope with the other. If you are a pussy when you pull up with your one hand you will pull the weight up with the other hand and you won't finish your pull up. I currently did a pull up with 10 lbs on the rope. I got it with my left arm on the bar and I only got half way with my right arm on the bar and left on the rope. I am thinking of getting a pulley because I think the friction is playing into the actual weight I am using with my off hand. Try it out!

I wrote Planche not Blanche

Trying to get the planche. I am using the ever helfpful Dragondoor site to obtian this marvelous feat. I currently suck horribly. I can hold the tuck planche for about 30 seconds. I will keep you updated. My front lever however, is a bit stronger than my planche. I think it is because my shoulders are pretty weak. Anyhow if you want to be planchen' it like a pro this dragondoor article is really helpful.

Huge Sack

I apologize for the lapse in workout posts. I have been working out though. Vigorously. I have been using the rings very often and now I have a huge sack. A huge canvas sack of gravel that is great for making insano forearms such as mine. You can do most of the workouts that you would with a kettlebell but with a huge sack. I have also been doing lots of sprints leaps and bounds. Also I discovered that trying one armed pullups and muscle ups and other difficult explosive exercises aren't good to do all the time (if you are a pussy like me) so I cut back such workouts until I am more jacked (which I may never be, because I am an inconsistent bastard).

Like these chicks... I'm into pullups!

I am doing the one hundred pull ups per hour workout.  I have also added to this extravagent event by doing 100 inverted pushups within that same hour.  I go 10 pulls wait 3 minutes 10 Pushes wait 3 minutes until the end.  While not entirely hard, I definitely feel like I did something the next day.   Give it a whirl!

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

So it rained today. And it was colder. I didn't run. But I did do some one legged squats and calf raises, push ups and sit ups, and some biceps curls. The sun will come out tomorrow . . . . its only a day away . . . 

Spring

I've found that the sun gives me an incredible amount of energy. I've accomplished so much in the past three days since the sun has melted the snow and the days are growing longer. I even ran today. Not too far but I did it. It killed my lungs but it felt good. Hopefully this will be a regular occurrence now that the sun has returned.

Squeezin' it!

I started running.  Yesterday 3.5 mi.  Today I went 2 then did 4-70yard sprints then 2 more miles.  Yesterday, I worked out at garage strength.  Doin some dips, ring flys, inclined dumbell bench and a burpee tabata.  Frustrated with my meager rope climbing performances I decided to get nuts today.  I realized I was doing 14 pulls on the way up.  I feel like that is pretty significant and should warrant some recovery time.  So today I went for volume.  I did 5 rope climbs (14 pulls to my peak)  I just took plenty of rest between sets.  I think the high volume of grabbing the rope will pay off.  Then I did 4 x 10 pull ups with a towel to continue my grip strength obliteration.  Then I did rafter rows with the towel.  Hopefully my forearms feel like butt tomorrow.

I'm gonna be jacked soon

Kick Ups (into hand stand)
10 Left Leg 1st - 10 Right Leg 1st

Flip, Lift, Slam, Punch ( heavy bag )
6 warm up - 3 x 10 (30 sec rest between sets)

Pinch Grip
Deux @ 40 lbs
4 x 5 sec x 3 sets

Dips
3 x 20

Lateral Bag Jump
Tabata

Pinch Grip
Slim @ 40 lbs
4 x 5 x 3

Inverted Pushups
4x8

Leg Raises
2x10 (w/ 7 1/2 lbs on ankles)

Knee Raises
2x20 (w/ weights as well)

Heavy Bag Pushups
3 x 20

Pushups

I ran.  Tried to do muscle ups (a pull-up above the bar to where you press yourself up).  However, I suck.  Played soccer for two hours the one day.  That was rough.  

A friend of mine who doesn't exercise had been doing pushups since this past summer and did 55 in a row.  I was pretty impressed considering he usually couldnt do more than 20.  So I thought I would give it a whirl.  My expectations were low since I had only recently started using my shoulder.  I figured I'd pull off 45.  Oh no good friends.  60 in a row.  Astounding.  I might have to destroy my shoulder more often.  

This bastard does 50 pushups a minute for 200 minutes!  Thats 10000 pushups for you mathematically declined.

Boots

So yesterday I worked on felting boots and I found that it was an incredible upper body workout. I got too tired so I had to start using my feet and I jumped on the wool for awhile. Maybe one day I'll work out for real. 

Say What!?

Worked out with Greg.  Yeah No shit.  I also bought heavier ankle weights and rocked the abs and pull ups etc.

My workouts are so good the Russians are trying to steal them.

I went ape with the heavy bag today. Some new exercises (to me at least) were
Flip it, Lift it, Slam it, Pound it
Also heavy bag press (great wrist strengthener, perfect for perfecting handstands)
Tabata Bag hops
Pushup hop over the bag.

Greatest Ab Workout Ever

I've discovered a new way to get ripped abs. All you have to do is get really sick and cough non-stop for three days. I feel like I did 10,000 crunches. And it was all involuntary so there was no motivation needed.

167.5 lbs

Thats how much pressure it takes to close the 1.5 CoC. The 2.0 is 195. I did some Arnolds today and pull ups and DB bench and kick ups (into handstands) and then felt unmotivated to continue. I am however pumped about my grip strength. I have been thinking of making one of these. Its like heavy sword training but cheaper and cooler. Plus you'll get forearms like this badass!