Back to Basics

This is going to be one long-ass post about my fitness routine and my physical health.

I'm subscribed to a lot of pro-science pages on Facebook. They pretty much center around debunking psuedoscientific bullshit and generally don't talk about fitness very much. But one of them posted an article called, "Jack Lalanne's Death Anniversary/This Is, Hands Down, What's Wrong With The Fitness Industry". The story celebrates Mr. Lalanne for bringing gyms and exercise into the mainstream, but also laments that it was because of his ability to make a fortune selling fitness that created a largely ineffective multi-billion dollar fitness industry.

"If people forgot everything they ever read about dieting and nutrition, no one would be tempted to put butter in their coffee, think that fruit makes you fat or obsess over unnecessarily cutting out gluten. We’d use common sense, which says that fruits and vegetables are good, and candy and fast food aren’t. On the exercise front, we’d never have heard the nonsense that cardio is going to kill you or pay for some abdominal electro-shocking device."

 I was just getting over my first shoulder injury when I read this, and loved it. I asked myself, "Why am I constantly trying new things when what I was doing in the beginning worked just fine?" The beginning was when I was 19 years old, and decided to start lifting weights to help me improve in karate. My first book on exercise was based on the notes of Bruce Lee himself called, "The Art of Expressing the Human Body". If you do martial arts (especially East Asia ones), the general rule is that if Bruce Lee did it, so should you.

Bruce Lee was a fan of compound exercises. He believed that isolation exercises inhibit fighting ability. He had no interest in working out just to look good.

Let's be honest, though. He did!

My weight training evolved until I could get an entire routine done in under 20 minutes. One day I'd work my chest, upper back, shoulders. The next day would be legs, abs, and lower back. I'd do cardio on days I was working my legs. My strength improved dramatically, and so did my martial arts. I did very few isolation exercises. If I wasn't working two sets of muscles, I wasn't interested.

I got into a discussion in the comment section of the article posted and one of the guys started talking about Mark Rippletoe and after buying Starting Strength onto my Kindle, he recommended I try the Stronglifts 5x5 program, which is almost the same as the Starting Strength routine, except the program adds a bent-over row exercise. The exercises are all compound exercises (Rippletoe is a huge advocate of those over isolation exercises as well). On day one, you do squats, the overhead press, and you deadlift. On day two, you do squats, the bench press, and bent-over rows. You rotate the two workouts every time, and you only work three days a week.

I started doing that, but my shoulder injury came back after my first day. So I had to do other things. After a few weeks, I got tired of not lifting, so I decided I'd start the 5x5 program again. I downloaded the app to my phone and after giving them some personal information, they recommended that I start with nothing but the bar. Normally, I would tell the app to fuck off and I'm not bench pressing 45 pounds, but I decided I might as well, seeing as I'm injured. At least it would give me an excuse to work on my form.

I noticed that when I did the upper body exercises with perfect form, there was no pain in my shoulder. After my session was over, I'd feel less pain overall. I consulted the orthopedist that worked on my arm the last time, and he confirmed that I had new calcium deposits on my shoulder. From what I've read and been told about them, they're not really a serious injury. It just feels that way. Unfortunately, the doc also said that I'd have to have more extensive surgery to remove them. I said no to that, because it would require time off from work, and since our country doesn't guarantee us paid medical leave, that's a no go. So he gave me some exercises that I can do to work my rotator cuff, had me make a follow-up appointment in six weeks, and said that there's still a chance that they can go away on their own. I hope so, because I really don't want the surgery. Not only would I have to take 1-2 weeks off from work, but it would take four months to recover.

I'm running again too, albeit very slowly. Maybe it's because of all the squats I've been doing, or maybe it's because I quit running for three months, but my run time is terrible. I'm running 13 minute miles. I'm still running, though.

Despite all of the injuries and setbacks, I'm still determined to do what I can to reach my body's full physical potential. I know that at 35 years old my potential isn't what it used to be, but I'm still determined to get there.