Off-Season and On the ball

No telling what this weather is going to do these days. It's summer, but this time should be the peak of summer fun. It's a little lack luster though. When I'm looking forward to outdoor runs and calisthenics in the park, my plans get thwarted with rain or today, a category one hurricane.

Today was supposed to be the start of the second cycle of a five week off-season mass workout plan. Even though I have been playing rugby all summer, there is still pre-season training and games so I have to get my mass workout in, while still making it to training twice a week. This presents a challenge because no one wants to go to training sore. Mass workouts are hard on the body and joints because in order to build mass you have to lift heavy weight in high volume. Nutrition is very important to avoid the soreness. The right diet and stretching help speed up recovery. This week for example, I'm supposed to be at the gym today and tomorrow, but I can't go because of the severe weather warnings (but its only cat 1 you say... i know right?). I have team training on Monday and Thursday which are both work out days. So if I hit the gym at 7am leave at 9am, get to work at 11am, leave work at 6pm and get to training at 7pm and get home by 9pm and get to sleep by 10, that means that I have to be very precise with the times and contents of my meals. The way to make mass training successful is to make sure that you are getting in plenty of calories so your body has the energy to train harder and plenty of protein so your body has the tools to repair itself. Its a challenge but definitely doable.

So its five weeks of mass building:

Day 1 Back, Anterior delts, biceps, and abs (pulling)

Day 2 Chest, middle delts, triceps (pushing)

Day 3 Legs (quads, hamstrings, glutes, calves)

Day 4 Interval running

Day 5 Rest

Day 6 Match day

Day 7 Pool recovery or Day 1 if no match.

Two of those days are team training and on match days, I may run before the gym if I'm not working. And thats the mass plan~ Phase 1.

Phase 2 is still part of the mass program but starts to build up muscle endurance for season games.

Day 1 Chest and Back, team training

Day 3 Legs

Day 4 High Volume Circuit training

Day 5 Interval running, team training

Day 6 Speed Training or Match

Day 7 Rest / Recovery

I'm about to order my supplements to get me there. But don't rely on supplements alone. Its also hard work, REAL FOOD, and discipline. Go hard or go home please.

Making the Chem-ection

I'm almost out of my retail supplied formula for sports performance and muscle development. I decided to do my next purchase wholesale. This option turned out to be less expensive and even more efficient. By getting the ingredients individually, I am able to prescribe myself a dose of energy, a dose or recovery, or a dose of growth when the time is right. The foundation of my bulk purchase is Amino Acids. Branched chains to be specific. They are really all the body needs to be supplemented with becuase that is all that the muscles are made of. Now, you may think that you need all types of other stuff to work in concert with the amino acids, but your body and brain are smart enough as it is to be able to use what you make available to it. The key to making this work is taking the mixes on an empty stomach. That is the difference between the serious athlete and the occasional enthusiast. Let me break it down for you. Sleep=8hours. Fast b4 sleep=4hours. With the remaining 12hrs, you should be having a small meal or drink every 2 hours. That leaves a little bit of time for solid food. The only confusing things is where your energy comes from. This is what I have figured out.

Sources of energy:

• 
  
  
  Calories (FOOD food)


• 
  
  
  Fat.


• 
  
  
  Protien (Amino Acids)

Now let me clear up a few things for you. First Calories. There are good and bad calories. The calories in a MountainDew Coolata are energizing yes, but not as energizing as the calories in a turkey and swiss wrap. The reason being that it is not the number of calories that tell you how much energy you will get. That number tells you how long it takes for your body to break it down. It just so happens that your body works better when it has something to work on. So having food in your system helps sustain some of your energy because your body is burning fuel to process what you have eaten in the last 90 minutes. The trick is to consume calories that the body doesn't store- unbleached carbs for example,,, unrefined sugars for another example. The body doesnt have a room in its cells for carbs. Fat is another story.

Fat takes long to process and long to get out of storage. If you heard that the body burns fat for energy, this is an almost truth. The body burns fat all the time because fat burning is work that it puts off for later. There is no belly fat that can be first in line when its time for fat burning. The body gets to it when the rest of its work is done. That is why you don't eat carbs and sugars when you are dieting. They take longer to breakdown (which makes them good energy) so the body is in no hurry to get to the fat.

Amino acids are another confusing one. The way I understand this is that the body will turn to your muscles for energy before the fat. Why the body would start to breakdown musle instead of gettin to the the fat makes no sense but the body really does not like the fat work. By keep a lot of protein in the diet, especially the Branched Chain Amino Acids, 3(l-leucine, l-isoleucine, l-valine) the body will not need to attack the muscle for energy. I cant explain why, it just wont. I want to say that the body uses those amino acids for energy to get to the fat, but that is just a guess. I'll crack the case on this one and get right back to you.

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I just figured it out. Duhh. Amino Acids are the fuel that your body uses to burn the calories and the fat. So if you dont get enough protein in your diet, the body will take its Aminos from your muscles. - The reason why we lose muscle over time away from exercise. So Amino Acids are not the energy. The energy is in the foods and fat. Makes sense because Amino Acids have 0 calories. Heres to your next order of Aminos, fish oil, and Speed. lol. just kidding. no speed. Try some l-taurine or green tea.

Information growth cycle: Plan Listen Accept Execute and Repeat.

The title of this post is the headline on my linkedin (tm) profile right now. I made it up on the spot and think that it is broad enough to include all of my trades. The source of all achievement is information. The source of all progress is information. We live in an information age and are usually not informed enough to know what the real deal is behind all of the things we depend on to work for us when we need it. The case is such that those who seek and share information are more likely to move forward at a faster rate than those who are active consumers of information. There are different types of information growth personalities. In order to be an IG personality, you need to be both a seeker and a sharer.

Type blue: This type of IG person is a documenter. They frequently learn new things and record the development of the process to a tree so that each outcome can be traced and followed.

Type yellow: This type of person analyzes information received to create an alteration to an existing model using the newest developments in the process to display the possibilities available through involving the variants.

Type red: This IG type is uses information to create a toolkit for general use that adheres to the standards of good practices. In cases where there is no policy in place, the Red type will be able to apply common processes to where the need is.

The term Information Growth is a fundamental starting point for any project manager, artistic director, or program developer. The reason for this is that the definition of efficiency should be how quickly relevant information can get from one point to another.

I have to use Google as our case study for this description of Information Growth because when you look at their development, you are forced to GQQGLE at their success with a dropped jaw. The reason for the success is the lack of fear that they have to put everything in the light. With the discovery of fire by our knuckle dragging ancestors, we learned that it is through communication and creativity that inspires the spark. By constantly finding new ways to bridge the gap in communication, using such a primitive and simple technology as the internet, Google has managed to find its way into every facet of technology. Their growth is super because their rate of sharing is super.

The point of all of this is to say, regardless of your discipline, apply these basic steps to your most complex of tasks: Plan your strategy. Listen and recruit feedback. Accept and change accordingly. Execute, then Repeat. If you are done after Execution, then Reward.

Information is a highway where we have to signal eachother, pass, and honk sometimes.

So just remember: P.L.A.E-R

The simplest things

Sometimes the words are hard to find because they are so simple. The simplest words can be the most meaningful. Don't you have a person that means a lot to you, or did mean a lot to you and after a while, it got difficult to call and say hi? Its difficult because its making the effort to be okay with having nothing to say. The simplest thing is a check-up on someone. If you don't have time to check on the one's you care about, that is usually a good indication that you are neglecting yourself as well. We need to share the simple pleasures with eachother because if we don't then those who matter most won't be around for the big pleasures either.

I know that I sound a little sentimental, soft, emotional, heart-throb-bleeding-poet with this post but I really am at a battle with why I am not blogging on the regular. It matters who reads, but it matters more how open I am with myself. How much can I share on a blog is a difficult question to answer sometimes because I see some people blog and tweet TMI. I can deal with my own exposè moments, but I never come around to blog the meaningful ones. The point is, there are two types of agenda. Loaded, and Lofty. The loaded agenda is purposeful, pointed, and persuasive. The Lofty agenda is subtle, short, and sweet. This post is a lofty post, but with me there is a load even in the lofty so bear with me as I pull my thoughts together for you.
So much is happening so fast.

My Regards.

It Sells Itself I said.

Absenst from class... again

Didn't it seem like some people were NEVER absent from a single class when we were in grade school? Not like I was at the same school as you, but I'm sure you had some kids whose parents were so serious about school that they could never miss a day. I was that kid. Unfortunately, I have been having some serious difficulties showing up to this blog on a regular basis so you must accept my apologies. I took to my blog this morning for 3 topics to blog about. My mind wandered so quickly from one to the next that I said first Iwill blog about not blogging (this topic shows up at least twice a year).

So now that I have explained how my absense has been unexcusable, I will give you my thoughts on the reason why I have been away.

My blog shaped up to be about the trends in pop culture and things I came across throughout my daily musings. At some point, the two start to get very close together as you begin to search for new and fresh topics to blog about. I never wanted my blog to be a shallow portal for me to vent about a society and culture that does not care about my blog or impact my life directly. For me to offer commentary on celebrity gallavants, political banter, the terrorizing of terrorists, or the paradox of social media, I would have to be interested in these things to a point where I can put my own life aside to talk about these things that will not and do not affect my day. What does affect my day has been so intense that I have been just living it and becoming a person with new fresh things to blog about.

For those who enjoy my fitness rants, I am in the best shape ever. I have been in the best shape ever consistently for the last five years though. My new goals of body reformation are fleeting slowly away. STOP. They are not leaving. As you get closer to your goals, the target gets less and less in focus. Body definition is a slow process that sneaks up on you. More on this in another post.

Movie making is more than a hobby finally. This new role I landed is ummm.... how can I say this... intense. Nobody has done this type of flick yet so getting this done, getting it some exposure will prove rewarding to my career. The toll it is taking on my body is much welcomed. The body transformation I expect to come out of this is welcomed as well. You know how when you can tell that someone got in significantly better shape for a movie role, everyone says how good of an actor they were? Yeah. Watch.

Rugby... I think this is where I have had the most difficulty this year. To think a whole year past by and I only went to maybe two practices is beyond me. Fortunately, Summer practice commences this week and I will be able to get my skills up before the regular season starts again. This will allow me to make up for the time lost, maximize my personal fitness and overall performance. I have been off the pitch for these past months because of a heavy work schedule (three jobs, one on the weekends which I was fired from (fired you ask? I know. you missed that story. The bums got me all wrong, a new person got hired, got intimidated by my dominant people management skills and had me removed from my position with a shovel full of LIES)), unseasonally cold weather, and a busted ankle on one leg and a recovering knee on the other. Since I have allieved myself of most of these ailments, all but the ankle, I should be back at it this Thursday in full force. I will be stretching out my akle and downing the pain killers in preparation for it.

So that should catch you up blog hounds. Stick around. I promise to give you more attention.

planning a trip to nowhere

I wonder where I should go for Memorial Day weekend. First of all, corny though it may sound, I'm feeling particularly patriotic this month (wearing a U.S.A. Faded Glory shirt today) so I at the very least plan to acknowledge the day by taking some time to my self in rememberance of... wait - what do we remember on Memorial day? Hmm... lol.

Anyway, I'm trying to decide if I will go to Puerto Rico for a Spanish Caribbean tropical adventure or to Miami for a parade of flesh and coco colored beauties up and down south beach. There is no real benefit over one for the other. I did find a great deal on a 4 star hotel in Puerto Rico but South Beach is familiar to me and will have the cheaper flight. I know i'm talking bananas and plantains here but I'm grossing enough to afford maybe a trip 60 miles to the Jersey Shore with an overnight stay at the Motel 8. I would have to look into some other hotel options, but now that I say it, that may not be so bad. Something else to think about.