Heavyhands 7-Movement Medley

Over five years ago, I wrote about a weekly date with heavyhands.  I had no idea it would become the most viewed of the over 730 blogflections (and counting) here at Pierini Fitness.

In case you missed it, click the link below to read it:  

A weekly date with heavyhands

For the longest time since then, I've wanted to make a video of my heavyhands 7-movement medley but never got around to doing it.  A week ago, however, I finally did and today I'm sharing it with you.  

As an alternative to performing each movement for one minute, as the video suggests, you may want to count instead.  I suggest counting to 120 for the alternating hand movements (movements #1, #4 and #6) and counting to 60 for all other movements.  

That is what I did a few days after filming this video when I completed an abbreviated workout of two rounds and one mile in 16 minutes. A walking pace of between 15 to 20 minutes per mile seems about right to me.

Grab a pair of light dumbbells and go take a stroll in the park or your neighborhood trying my Pierini Heavyhands 7-Movement Medley.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum

Pierini Lower Body KB Complex

I'm no longer a card-carrying member of a gym and now doing my middle-aged man fitness training at a neighborhood park.

Here's a video I recently made of a kettlebell workout that is now part of my training mix. I'm using a 20 kilogram (44 lb.) kettlebell and the prescribed workout is to complete five rounds of a complex of five different exercises in which five repetitions of each exercise are performed for both the right and left sides.  The video is of me performing the first round.

In a perfect world, I'll do this workout once a week and measure fitness progress by the time it takes me to complete five rounds.

Since every workout deserves to be named, this one is called the Pierini Lower Body Kettlebell (KB) Complex.

Maybe you'll take it for a test drive - my Pierini Lower Body KB Complex.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum

Just a confused middle-aged man

Almost every middle-aged man in the world had this recent Bruce Jenner story shoved down their throats.  

Whether we wanted it or not, the mainstream media was determined to give us a large, made-for-prime-time, serving of The Bruce Jenner Show, and they ferociously attempted to reprogram our thinking about who is a man and who is a woman. 

When to “correctly” call someone a “he” or “she” became the cyberspace political correctness meal they tried to force feed us.  However, not everyone was hungry or had an appetite for this meal and this middle-aged man was one of them.

Bruce Jenner’s manly journey until recently has been an admirable one as an accomplished athlete, 1976 Olympic gold medalist, husband, father, successful businessman and eventually as a lost soul television personality member of the Karshashian Clan.  Somewhere along the way, or perhaps all along, he developed a serious case of doubt about the man he was and the man he is.

He isn’t alone apparently, in suffering from gender dysphoria which the internet website WebMD explains is something a person has when feeling strongly they are not the gender they physically appear to be.

Wouldn’t a better description be that it’s something a person has when feeling strongly they are not the gender they actually are?

Despite known weaknesses of lacking compassion and empathy, I recently found myself having plenty of both for Bruce Jenner.  I can only intellectually imagine the actual suffering he has endured and will continue to endure for the rest of his life. 

But let there be no doubt about it as he lives the rest of his life masquerading as a person he has named “Caitlin”, Bruce Jenner was born a man and will always be a man; he’s now just a confused middle-aged man. 

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum

Pierini Fitness for President 2016

Truth, justice and the middle-aged man American

way with Pierini Fitness for President 2016!

Well if two’s a party and three’s a crowd then there’s room for more.  Pierini Fitness, the self-proclaimed ambassador of all middle-aged men around the world, is forming an exploratory committee to determine if he should run for President in 2016.

Yes you heard it right!  Read my lips!  Pierini Fitness is considering adding his middle-aged man name to the growing list of highly-qualified candidates who want to lead this great country – the U.S.A. – as its next great President.

After all, it will have been a rough eight years come the fall of 2016 so it won’t take much to shine like a bright star for the next four years.

I’ll need to develop my position on the issues and be able to articulate them to all Americans from north to south and from east to west in a language they can understand and with laser precision they can appreciate. 

I’ll need to appeal to both the upper-crust “one-percenters” and the bottom-of-the-barrel 48-percenters and walk the public appeal tight-rope ever so carefully so as to not alienate the 51-percenters who occupy the coveted status of being middle-class Americans.

My charm must resonate with men and women young and old, believers and non-believers, Jews, Gentiles and tax collectors. 

In the next couple of months, I’ll present my formal position on such critical national issues as education, the economy and fiscal policies, labor, the environment, gun rights, individual liberties, the right to life, capital punishment, health policy, immigration, our judicial system in a broader context of what is the proper role of the federal government versus state and local governments.  

And how do these roles come into play while preserving individual initiative and personal liberties?  These are questions I must answer.

Stay tuned because the best is yet to come as a major decision is to be made if there should be a Pierini Fitness for President 2016.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum

At a neighborhood park

McKinley Park in Sacramento

This middle-aged man fitness dude has always done better belonging to a gym and doing his workouts there.  

I’ve also done the home thing including backyard, basement and garage varieties and while many of those workouts were stellar in both efforts expended and results achieved, by and large I have historically preferred going to a gym to do my fitness stuff.  

Not a pretty boy gym but a more traditional one with a preference for one a little rough around the edges.

But life changes and so do the places we frequent – for better or worse – and that has been my case in a business decision I recently made to cancel my longstanding gym membership effective the first of this month.

Many friends, good workouts and pleasant memories at my former gym.

Will I gravitate back to the backyard, basement or garage?  Maybe some of the time but with good weather abundant this time of the year, this middle-aged man will focus on kettlebell work, calisthenics, brisk walking and some perimeter runs around a tree-rich neighborhood park.

A kettlebell workout under a shady park tree will be my breath of fresh air.

This summer I'll give my fitness training some newly-needed spark by swinging my kettlebell at a neighborhood park.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum

An old-school barber shop

Some high society middle-aged men frequent the finest barber and male beauty establishments that money can buy and this middle-aged man says “Good for them!” 

These establishments offer beauty-conscious middle-aged men more than an à la carte standard “Joe Blow” haircut with their endless assortment of other pampering and grooming delights.

Shop hard and you'll find a barber shop not too far from home offering ancillary manly activities like shooting pool, watching TV on a high-definition plasma screen or downing a strong adult beverage while you sit, ever so comfortably, in a lush leather chair waiting in tingling anticipation for your upcoming facial massage and manicure.

A high-end barber and male beauty establishment for rich middle-aged men.

These are not your grandfather’s barber shop with a seasoned white-hair and wrinkled master barber experienced in giving you a standard middle-aged man haircut and ancillary services such as trimming your excessive ear and nostril hair.

One old-school Joe Blow middle-aged man haircut please!

This middle-aged man has traveled the world and gotten haircuts from old-school barbers in South Korea, Turkey and Italy in a serious search for the best barber shop matching his personality.  

Pierini Fitness on special assignment in Rome Italy circa April 2007.

Closer to home, I found my perfect match about five years ago with a barber named Ruben.  Ruben is a couple years younger than me but has lived a harder life resulting in his less than stellar health.  My recent calls for an appointment found him AWOL and nowhere to be found.  I hope he’s OK. 

So late last week, in desperate need of a long-overdue haircut and with Ruben still missing in action, I reluctantly conducted a worldwide search leading me to a new barber shop about six blocks from my office. 

Did I decide to take my male grooming and pampering needs to the next level by choosing the finest middle-aged man grooming establishment my hard-earned money could buy?

Was my middle-aged manhood crying for soothing comfort of a fashionable haircut, scalp massage, straight razor shave, 60-minute deep-tissue massage, valet parking, a shoeshine, lunch or a car wash and use of a locker room and lounge with music, drink and high-definition plasma screen television?

Nope!  This middle-aged man decided to stick to one that has stood the test of time – an old-school barber shop.

Worldwide headquarters of Vicente, my new 80-year young barber.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum