Tuesday, September 25, 2007

RKC Snatch Test




I was looking at Yoana this morning (six months pregnant) and asked her "Do you think you can still pass the RKC snatch test six months pregnant?" She said, "Of course. Although I am heavier and that will put me into a new weight class where I have to complete more reps. Let's try it though."

Well, needless to say she passed with flying colors and she completed 54 reps with the 12kg. Remember that Yoana has done 130 reps in 5 minutes with the 16kg, so she is very capable of doing some impressive numbers with both bells.


I decided to test myself as well. My numbers were 56 according to my bodyweight. I ended up doing 30 and 30. It wasn't to bad except my lungs were highly taxed.


Power on! KETTLEBELLS RULE!

Monday, September 17, 2007

Changes................the different seasons of life













Summer is coming to an end and autumn is approaching. To be honest with you I am actually ready for autumn. Maybe because I have been rather sick this summer that I am looking forward to change. With a baby on the way my life has already changed, my priorities and the lens in which I choose to see the world through. It's all good though. I realize that life is much more than selfishly obsessing about my goals, my wants and my desires. Not that there is anything wrong with goals and desires, they are built into our human DNA and part of the journey. However, I do think you can get so caught up in "yourself" that you forget about what life is really about; RELATIONSHIPS.
This pregnancy has been good for both Yoana and I because we realize that life is more meaningful with deeper relationships in your life. And what relationship (apart from one with God) can be as meaningful as the relationship betweena husband and wife and their child?

Okay.................enough of that. Training wise I have been doing a couple sets of presses, pull ups, lunges and squats a couple times of week. Not enough or even structured to document it in my blog. Life is busy and with my health still not 100% I must just trying to find the balance between work, rest, play and family life. I can tell you one thing for sure, I need to work a little less and focus on RELAXATION , rest and PLAY.

Sunday, September 09, 2007

September TSC......it was a GREAT one!




September is always a great time of the year. Kids are back in school, people are getting back into some type of work and training routine, football season starts and you can always count on a competitive TSC taking place. This one was no exception. Great competitors and a nice size crowd came to Revolution Fitness to experience this grueling yet fun day of pain.

First of all, here are the competitors and their results"

MEN Open Division

Jeff Cwalinski BW 257 DL 475 Pull ups 11 Snatch 116
Aaron Wilson BW 146 DL 395 pull ups 40 Snatch 122
Osvaldo Aponte BW 152.8 DL 315 Pull ups 29 Snatch 112
Mike LoBue BW 179.2 DL 405 Pull ups 35 Snatch 121
Christian Goodwin BW 169.2 DL 345 Pull ups 11 Snatch 68

MEN Elite Division

Phillip Davis BW 169.2 DL 405 Pull ups w/22.5lbs 16 Snatch w/32kg 114 (new TSC Record)

WOMENS

Jennifer Peters BW 150.2 DL 220 Pull ups 7 Snatch 139
Kristin Olafsdottir BW 144.8 DL 225 Pull ups 10 Snatch 123
Susan Atwater BW 134.2 DL 225 Pull ups 8 Snatch 86
Rhonda Fuller BW 148.4 DL 265 Pull ups 10 Snatch 131

Yoana and I want to congratulate all of the competitors for coming out an competing and giving it their all! It is so motivating to watch athletes push themselves to the limit!

We also want to thank Mike LoBue for bringing his SDSU athletes with him to the competition. He always brings great athletes and is one heck of a coach and motivator for talking them into competing, even if they are totally new to kettlebells, pull ups and deadlifts. Thanks again Mike!











































Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Reflections.......................an Eternal Perspective




I hope this post doesn't come off sounding too dark, too negative and depressing. That is not my intent at all, I'm just sharing what has been on my heart for a while and more importantly it gives me a chance to write some of my thoughts down and reflect on them in a different way. For a while I have wrestled with my own mortality(the fact that I will one day die) and have tried to come to grasps with this fact. Death seems like such a foreign concept to me, to all of us. It seems as if it just shouldn't be and we live our lives and act and behave in ways that might prove that we think we are immortal, which of course is false. The fact of the matter is that life is not a dress rehearsal, it is the real deal. We only get one shot at this life, one opportunity to swing for the fences. Once it is over, our time here on earth is finished. As a professing Christian I believe there is an after life as reason and logic prove to me that this is true.

Atheists try to convince themselves that once" your dead, you are dead, that's it; that's the end of sensation." Yet the universal and overpowering conviction has persisted in every culture since the beginning of time that death does not end human existence. The fact that man is a spiritual being who survives death of the body in which he temporarily lives on earth is a basic human instinct that can be denied only with great effort. Moreover, even apart from scripture, the scientific validity of this universal belief is easily proved.

Death is a fate that we all imagine that we will somehow avoid, at least for a while. The fact is no matter how healthy one may be, we are always one breath away from death. This is a very UNPLEASANT topic that we do not like to talk about or think about. That is why I like what Moses says in the bible that we need God's help to fit our few days into an eternal perspective.

To quote Dave Hunt, "But modern funerals, with their beautiful flowers and kind rememberances of the deceased, seem almost designed to keep the mourning to a minimum in order to help the living remain detached from the unspeakable event that has drawn them together. we cannot bear, for ourselves or for others, to dwell upon the fact that death inevitably puts its terminating stamp on every earthly passion, position, possession and ambition."

Where am I going with all of this. Not sure! I just no that I do not want to waste my life away on trivial things. Coming to grasp with your own mortality is an important thing to do as I believe it can and should push you toward GREAT endeavors and GREAT vision. The very fact that we are mortal makes LIFE that much more significant and precious. So what are you waiting for (myself included). Swing for the fences, do great things. Love people, serve people, and challenge yourself to reach, strive and try harder.

Someone once told me that the only thing you can take from this earth (we certainly can't take any of our material goods) into eternity is the CHARACTER that you develop here.

Saturday, September 01, 2007

Down...but not out!

This couple of weeks has been very challenging for me health wise. A nasty virus that turned into an upper respiratory head cold plus a severe case of Prostatitis, a bacterial infection in my prostate. The prostate infection left me going to the bathroom 10 times per night and needless to say I was getting ZERO sleep for days. The prostate infection I think I have had all summer; It just was a very low grade infection that got really, really bad. My urologist gave me six weeks of Cypro to knock it out. Now I now why my energy levels were so poor and my response to exercise was HORRIBLE! I am just so ready to start feeling better and to start training again.

How did I get like this? Well, for one I overwork myself, much like a lot of entreprenurial business owners do. Too much work, not enough rest, and not enough high quality sleep. Number two, my nutrition that past two months has been atrocious. Cookies, ice cream and other junk food have not helped contribute to good health. Yes, even trainers are human and get hooked on bad eating for weeks if not months at a time. Time to regroup and apply SELF CONTROL again. Having great health really comes down to a few simple, but often difficult to apply principles, such as:

1) Discipline
2) Lifestyle
3) Nutrition
4) Training intelligently

If any of these principles gets left behind or abused, health will diminish quickly and aggressively. Adversity with health serves as an opportunity for me to examine why I make some of the choices I do and where I want to be in the next year, 5 years and 10 years. With a baby on the way I must now put my health as a priority because I must be healthy for our little girl. Unfortunately because I am very stubborn an unwise at times, I often have to learn the hard way and let things get really bad before they get better.

What is the difference between a WISE MAN and a SMART MAN?

Think about!

A SMART MAN will find ways to get out of problems or precarious situations!


A WISE MAN will find a way to never get into that problem in the first place!

And that is a big, BIG difference. I am smart a lot of the time. I am not too wise. I need to ask God and for his wisdom and more importantly, learn to APPLY WISDOM!

Proverbs 2:10, 11

When wisdom enters your heart and knowledge is pleasant to your soul,
Discretion will preserve you, understanding will keep you!