Move Jutsu

Quick quick.  I need to sleep.  Gonna do a nutrition post tomorrow.

Strength

Still hurting from Sunday’s strength workout.

• Pull Ups: 2 + 2 + 1
• Wide Grip Pull Up: 1
• Calf Raise: 10 x 3 sets
• Decline Push Ups: 10 x 3 sets

Core

• Ab Wheel from knees: 10 x 3 sets
• Sit Ups: 5 (5 sec hold)
• Sand Bucket Side Bends: 10 x 2 sets
• Back Extensions: 10 x 3 sets

Was ju jutsu today and had to do 20 burpees at one point.  I got to ten and started flagging.  So I’m going to add a new conditioning day to the week.  Stay tuned…or subscribe to the RSS.

I didn’t wanna stick 2 strength one after the other so I’ve done conditioning this Monday.

Nothing complicated – 30 mins of Bas Ruttens MMA audio.  Specifically 8 x 3 min rounds of all round fighting.  Shadow sparring with push ups on occassion.

Ended with one of my favourite finishers: 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 …. + 10 knee jumps.  Killer.

After getting Ross Enamaits books a few weeks back I decided to take up his 50 day workout as a starter to improving my overall strength, conditioning and health (more info on why I did this is on the about page).

Well now to my review of how those 50 days have gone.  What I’ve learned, what I’m gonna do now and how well I’ve progressed.

One Workout is Easy – 50 Workouts is Hard

Its not starting up thats necessarily hard for people.  Its the consistent ploughing on regardless of what happens around you.  You can see this by the number of unused gym memberships around the world.  The number of weekend warriors and keyboard kung fu masters.  Doing a workout is tough but doing it the next day and the next day is hard – but the rewards are awesome.

There’s No Excuse

Well sort of.  Its easy to know what to do when you’re honest with yourself and have a bit of imagination.  When I say fit in this instance I mean general fitness not athletic fitness.  If I can fit in workouts between an insane work schedule (~60hrs per week) then anyone can.  This brings me onto the next one…

There’s a Lot to Learn

Although I’ve learnt shed-loads over the past few weeks I still have a lot to learn about my body, how it works and whats best for it.  I’ve read Ross Enamaits books (Infinite Intensity & Never Gymless), Pavel Tsatsouline, numerous forums (BWC, RT, MAP) and articles (TN) but I still consider myself a beginner and naive.  The learning is one hell of a motivator though.  I love trying new exercises and incorporating new ideas into my workouts.

I’d say my body is one hell of a good guide too and if you listen to your’s you’ll find it tells you a hell of a lot.

Sleep Is Good

I used to think sleep was a pain in the arse.  A weakness of the human condition that needed to be crushed with some form of genetic engineering.  However, after increasing my physical activity the need for sleep has become a very welcome healer and miracle worker.  In fact I can say exactly how I’ll feel given certain amounts of sleep:

• 6hrs – Very bad, all over body aches from poorly healed workout stress.  Very groggy, confused and lethargic.  Very irritable and grumpy.
• 7hrs – Can just about survive the day but mentally not 100%.
• 8hrs – My preffered minimum and after 8hrs I feel great.  Muscle soreness is virtually nil, mind fresh and body springing.
• 9hrs – Bliss but it’ll push me into staying up later than normal.
• 10+ hrs – Fantastci but it starts to reverse my hours.  After this long a sleep I often don’t sleep ’til 3am that night.

More Structure

Shit Food Makes You Ill

When you get used to eating good food with lots of organic grains, meat and fish then eating heavily processed foods and high carbs like chocolate makes you ill.  I had a tin of Quality Street 2 weeks ago and it made me ill for the entire weekend.  I couldn’t move, had body aches, felt sick and very lethargic.  It makes for a very useful self-regulatory reaction to poor food.

Stats

Here’s a few before and after stats for the past 50 days.  Its helping me see what I need to improve on and where I’m lacking.

• Pull Ups: 1 – 4
• Plank: 0:40 – 2:03
• Forearm Killers/Wrist Roller: (2 + 1 + 1/2) – (3 + 2 + 1)
• MMA Workout: 2 x 2min rounds – 3 x 3min rounds

I switched my strength and rest days this week as I slowly recovered from a week of poor sleep and new exercises.

But I hit todays strength goals with extreme vigour and my morning routine was upgraded with a mini circuit of pull ups, chin ups and push ups.

The Main Strength Circuit (3 times)

• Pull Ups: 2
• Ankle Raises: 12
• Decline Diamond Push Ups: 2
• One-Legged Squat (to table): 5
• Wide Grip Pull Up: 1 (needed boost on last set then sloooow on the negative)
• Wrist Twists (sledge): 8 each hand

Core Workout (3 times)

• Sit Ups: 5 (5 sec pause going up & 3 secs down)
• Sand Bucket Side Bends: 10
  
• Turkish Get Up (using dumb bell): 5
• Sand Bucket Lift: 10

If you’ve ever spent any time trying to gain mass or improve overall strength and performance then you will have come across protein supplements.

There’s at least 6 different methods used to determine how effective a certain protein source is for the body and each has its drawbacks.  So I decided to bring together all of them to get educated and understand the whole mess better.  First some interesting points that affect all of these.  Accurately measuring protein utlisation by the body is almost impossible due to the huge array of ‘other’ factors such as:

• Additional foods which may interact positively or negatively (anti-nutritional effects)
• Metabolic rate.
• Levels of protein intake (see: Bilogical Values drawbacks)
• Organism recycling of amino acids.
• Not basing the science on humans (PER was done on rats)

Biological Value

This value is based on the fact that protein is the body’s main source of nitrogen.  For the sake of science it assumes it’s the only source and so it measures the ratio of absorbed nitrogen to excreted which gives you the protein usability.  This is the most common source of values quoted by the protein supplement industry due to its favourable figures on whey protein and ease of understanding.  Egg is often used as a standard and placed at 100.

Drawbacks: Althoguh one of the most oft quoted this measure of protein usefullness is full of holes – worthy of a post in its own right.  But I’ll summarise…

• The measurement is taken when sub-maintenance levels of protein are taken.  The BV drops as protein intake increases.  For example milk has a BV of 100 but drops to 70 when you double the intake.
• When protein is digested very quickly – as is the case with whey protein isolate – it is sent to the liver for gluconeogenesis.  In other words it gets burned as fuel instead of protein synthesis.

Net Protein Utilisation (NPU)

This uses a similar method to the Biological Value by measuring amino acid intake against nitrogen excretion.  I won’t bore you with the formula but a value of “1.0″ indicates 100% usage of the supplied protein.  It has all the usual drawbacks though and its now been superseded by the PDCAAS (below).
I also couldn’t find a table of comparison values for this so its useless.  If you know of one then let me know.

Protein Efficiency Ratio

Uses an unusual and less than scientific method.  Invented in 1919 by measuring the body weight increase of a test subject divided by the intake of a particular food protein over a period of time.  The drawbacks to this method are obvious but its legacy still lasts as the RDA of protein is determined using this method in the US.

Nitrogen Balance

This uses similar ideas to the NPU and BV values.  Its the value of nitrogen in – nitrogen out.  Its tested by measuring the nitrogen balance of urine and has three main levels:

• Positive – You’ve got more going in than coming out.
• Negative – You’ve got more going out than in.  Sign of illness or malnutrition.
• Equilibrium – The bare minimum your body should be.

There are no values about the NB level of foods as its more of a body-state indicator that is used by other measuring methods to find the protein usefulness of foods.
Interesting article about it here: Nitrogen Balance

Protein Digestibility Corrected Amino Acid Score (PDCAAS)

This is the biggy that everyone uses – World Health Organisation, US FDA, FAO, etc.  But just because everyone and his uncle uses it doesn’t make it the best.  It measures the quality of proteins based on human amino acid requirements and adjusted for the relative digestibility of these proteins.  Its upper limit is 1.0 and lower limit 0.0 with a value of 1.0 meaning 100% of the essential amino acids are provided for.
Drawbacks:

• It doesn’t take into account where the protein was digested.  Some can be digested by bacteria for example.
• Also it suffers from the same effects as the others as it doesn’t take into account anti-nutritional factors of mixing foods.
• Having a varied diet means the PDCAAS value of the individual components becomes meaningless as a food lacking in essential amino acids can be covered by one of abundance.  You’d need to ascertain the PDCAAS value of an entire meal in that instance and a good meal will most likely have a value of 1.0.
• All proteins have a max-cieling of 1.0 which poorly reflects true values.  For example egg has an actual score of 1.19.

Conclusion

So just which is the best?  Well according to the numbers above you’re better off with Whey (PDC, BV, PDCAAS) or eggs (PDCAAS, PER).  I think it all ultimately boils down to what your mother tells you: “A good varied diet will make you healthy and strong”.
I’ll be covering protein requirements in another post.  If you’re interested then subscribe to the RSS feed or bookmark below.

The lack of sleep over the past few days really began to takes its toll with my arms still hurting from the strength and plyometrics earlier in the week.

I still did a mini workut of pull ups, chin ups and push ups but didn’t do the planned strength workout.

I’m going to start putting the plans for each day down on Sunday ready for the week ahead.  Its too easy to forget an exercise or muscle group when you’re doing the workout.

Enhanched Interval workout today and its the first time I’ve incorporated running into a specific workout.  I managed to find a steep-ish hill for sprinting and the great thing is it went up then down.  At the base of each side I’d do 10 push ups then get running again.

I did it for 15mins and covered about 2 miles.  I was no where near as fit as I used to be when I did running at least 4-5 times per week but I was still capable of pulling off a reasonable time considering.

What did suffer is my legs the next day.  Ouch!

I didn’t do any JJ today though – missed the class.

The greatest power is often simple patience
~ E. Joseph Cossman

Hard to remember when you’re in the dojo but its so true.

Nice workout today…

• Ankle Hops: 12 x 2 sets
• Weighted Jumping Squats: 10 x 2
• Plyometric Push Ups: 2 x 2 sets
• Incline Plyo Push Ups: 10 x 2 sets
• Half Plyo Push Ups: 10 x 2 sets
• Clean and Press: 10 x 2
• Fast Pull Ups: 3 + 2
• Chin Ups: 4

Core Workout

• Abs Wheel: 10 x 2 sets
• Sand Bucket Side Bends: 10 x 3 (failure)
• Sit Ups: 10
• Sand Bucket Twists: 20

Forearms

• Wrist Twists: 10 x 2
• Wrist Roller: 3 + 2

Also had a kenjutsu lesson.  More one-on-one sparring with bokto.  Was a lot of fun, blocking, striking, etc.  Did some footwork too which I reckon will come in handy.  Very simple but so damn effective.