Another December 31st day at the gym

Introducing the Pierini DIET here

In a moment or archival curiosity, I pulled out my prior bricks and mortar training journals that I store in my office desk drawer. I’m a training journal pack rat.

My curiosity was how I had trained on December 31st in years’ past. My bricks and mortar training journals go back for 5 years. This is what I discovered:

12/31/2008 – morning bodyweight of 192.5 lbs.
Flexibility and warm up drills for 15 minutes.

Snatch warm up drills with the Olympic bar – eventually added some light plates.

Squat snatch singles progression completing 12 out of 16 rep attempts.

12/31/2007 – morning bodyweight of 191.5 lbs.
Elliptical trainer for 5 minutes.

Flexibility drills with a light pole.

Snatch drills and clean & jerk drills with the Olympic bar – eventually added some light plates.

Combo of barbell squats with 30-second standard grip pullup hang holds – 5 rounds.

Elliptical trainer for 15 minutes.

12/31/2006 –morning bodyweight of 180 lbs.
7:00 p.m. New Year Eve 2-mile fun run – completed in 13:22.

12/31/2005 – morning bodyweight of 182.0 lbs.
Saturday morning karate workout.

A couple hours later - handstand pushups – 6-5-4-3-2-1 - behind-the-neck wide-grip pullups – 6-5-4-3-2-1 - handstand pushups x 6 failing on rep 7 - standard-grip pullups x 12.

12/31/2004 – morning bodyweight of 177.0 lbs.
No workout - rest from previous day's workout which was a tough high-repetition bodyweight-only workout of pullups and bar dips.

This morning my bodyweight was 183.0 lbs. Proving that history does repeat itself, today will be another December 31st day at the gym.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum

Visit your local donut shop

Introducing the Pierini DIET here

A new California law effective January 1st will bar restaurants from cooking with trans fat. This new public health law is designed to crack down on the substance tied to clogged arteries, strokes and coronary heart disease.

Trans fat is the common name for unsaturated fat with trans-isomer fatty acids. Eating trans fat increases your risk of coronary heart disease by increasing your bad cholesterol (LDL) and decreasing your good cholesterol (HDL).

Trans fat is created when hydrogen is added to vegetable oil in a process called hydrogenation. Hydrogenation enhances food flavor and increases its shelf life. It's found in baked goods, crackers, snack foods, fried foods and other items. Unlike other dietary fats, trans fats are not essential and, therefore, do not promote good health.

Regular readers of Pierini Fitness may have read my list of my seven forbidden C foods – cakes, cookies, candies, chocolate, ice cream, chips and crackers - which, if avoided, will reduce unhealthy trans fat consumption.

Bakeries do not need to comply with these new law until January 2011. Therefore, if you need an outside the home daily fix of trans fat in your diet, visit your local donut shop.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum

Going backwards is not an option

Introducing the Pierini DIET here

So I’ve been practicing a little Christmas holiday gluttony this past couple weeks and am about five pounds heavier than my fighting bodyweight. I’m OK with this because I know that it will all come to an end for me on January 1st along with many other middle-age men and women fitness warriors and wannabes armed and loaded with their New Year diet, exercise and fitness resolutions.

What’s my game plan?

My current plan is to train three days a week and get back on the intermittent fasting lifestyle saddle Monday through Friday. I’ll eat squeaky clean and train hard for the first six weeks leading up to my birthday, and then take some photos for archival evidence of the fitness fruits of my training labor. Then, I’ll scale down the duration, frequency and intensity of my training until the middle of April due to the demands of my upcoming busy work season.

I’ll still train during my work crunch period because “something is better than nothing”.

While Father Nature continues to be my friend, there’s no time for fitness complacency for this middle-age man. I’ll train to keep what I have and hopefully march forward a step or two in my fitness journey because going backwards is not an option.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum

Forgot that I knew that

Introducing the Pierini DIET here

A common theme I’ve expressed more than once with regard to fitness training is “something is better than nothing”. That is to say, during busy times when training time is hard to come by, rather than do nothing because you can’t do the whole darn great workout, do something because something is better than nothing.

Well this training mindset isn’t limited to those instances when time is scarce but also works great when you’re sporting an injury – you’re as in me.

I’m into extra innings with a nagging right shoulder injury that limits my ability to do overhead work like jerks, presses and snatches. Last Saturday, I finally got the bright idea that just because my right shoulder is bothering me and limiting overhead work, my left side is doing just fine, thank you. So I added left-handed kettlebell snatches for a 3-exercise circuit along with barbell squats and wide-grip behind-the-neck pullups.

Overall, it was a great workout and I finally got in some northern-orientation training with the one-handed kettlebell snatch work.

It brought back an old memory about a dozen years old when I once hurt my left hand crashing into a tree while snow sledding. My left hand hurt for almost two years and I had to concentrate using my left hand during karate training. I became much more proficient using my left side as a result of that long healing process.

Again, there’s nothing new under the sun. Move over Homer Simpson as I say "D'OH! - forgot that I knew that.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum

The last Sunday of 2009

Today is Sunday and, as usual, Pierini Fitness is closed so the chief executive blogger can rest his body, mind and spirit. Visit tomorrow for another creative blogflection about a topic yet to be determined but guaranteed to be original.

Once again, Pierini Fitness is closed on the last Sunday of 2009.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum

What he ought to be

Introducing the Pierini DIET here

Regular readers of Pierini Fitness know that last week at this time my wife and I were completing our last day of a 4-day silent marriage retreat in Phoenix, Arizona. It was a great experience. I encourage all married couples to invest a weekend and do something similar. Just as we devote energy and training to be physically fit, so should we devote similar energy and training to be “marriage fit”.

Each mealtime during our retreat, a priest read from a book titled “Christ in the Home” by Raoul Plus, S.J. while we ate our food in silence. This book was originally published in 1951 and the author was a Jesuit priest. I enjoyed the author’s clever way of expressing his thoughts about marriage, the home, and marriage training. The wit with which he used must have challenged the person who translated the book from French to English.

My wife and I both enjoyed these mealtime readings so much that we purchased the book and are currently reading it most evenings at home as part of our ongoing marriage fitness activities.

Something I read the other night really stuck with me and I think it applies to everything we set out to do well in our lives, be it our career, marriage, parenting, being a good son or daughter, and our fitness training. In the words of Father Plus, “ . . . everyone has the duty on his own responsibility to make himself what he ought to be.”

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum

Good faith, fitness, fortune and health

This Christmas season, as we prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ into our world, may we await Him in silent prayer, recognize Him in all we encounter, and welcome Him into the dwelling place of our heart.

To our family and friends, we wish you a Blessed Christmas and Happy New Year.

Along with our prayers for your good faith, fitness, fortune and health.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum

Today on Christmas Eve

Introducing the Pierini DIET here

While waiting in line at Starbuck’s about one month ago, my wife caught sight of an Andrea Bocelli "My Christmas" CD for sale. She’s always been a big Andrea Bocelli fan and can listen to his music forever until I beg her to stop. I like his voice and the songs he sings too but just don’t have her endurance to listen to him for more 20 minutes at a sitting.

Listening to all the songs on this CD, the one I like the best is his trilingual rendition of the Christmas classic “O Tannenbaum”.



It’s a song resonating in my mind today on Christmas Eve.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum

Ready to go to work

Introducing the Pierini DIET here

Each of my four workouts during the week prior to leaving for last week’s silent marriage retreat with my wife included exercises that really worked my posterior chain muscles with lots of barbell squats and kettlebell swings.

After the last of these workouts, my lower back muscles were very fatigued so the timing was great for the fitness training rest awaiting them during the retreat.

The retreat began last Wednesday evening and ended Saturday evening. Besides the fitness training respite, it gave me a wonderful and overdue opportunity to catch up on my sleep. I averaged nine hours of nighttime sleep and one hour of afternoon nap time during my stay. I slept on a small bed with a low-quality mattress in a Spartan room separate from my wife as this silent retreat demanded that we devote lots of quiet time to reflect and meditate on the sanctity of our marriage after each conference we attended.

Put it all together – the workouts that placed a lot of demand on my posterior chain muscles + lots of sleeping time + a low-quality mattress = several days of lower back pain, spasms and stiffness that, thank God, have finally gone away now that I’ve returned to my normal environment.

Whenever lower back muscle discomforts strike – and it occasionally does with this middle-age man fitness warrior - I always return to an article in my fitness literature archives written by Dr. Stuart McGill. Dr. McGill is a university professor and a world renowned lecturer and expert in spine function and injury prevention and rehabilitation. Here’s an article written by him that includes photo illustrations for enhancing lower back health through stabilization exercise:

"Enhanging Lower Back Health Through Stabilization Exercise" by Doctor Stuart McGill

I’m back on the fitness saddle again with a lower back that feels great and ready to go to work.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum

And I am

Introducing the Pierini DIET here

Yesterday afternoon I returned to my gym for a workout after a one week training rest almost to the hour. It felt good to give my body a week’s rest; it also felt equally good to put it back in fitness training action.

This week of rest and recovery gave me time to reflect on my training this year with so few days remaining before the start of a new calendar year. It’s been a year in which I’ve not done anything spectacular other than train with predictable regularity with sprinklings of both planned and unplanned rest and recovery respites.

It’s a year in which I didn’t set any new personal records however measured. I’m not lifting heavier loads than a year earlier, nor am I performing higher reps in sets of bodyweight exercises such as pushups and pullups. It’s a year in which I announced that I am a “retired runner”. It’s also a year in which my karate training has been frustratingly nonexistent.

Yet despite this lackluster performance, I still showed up, dressed up and trained with a regularity and variety indicative of a good training ethic. That’s probably what matters the most for middle-age fitness warriors like me.

Between now and the end of the year, it’s fair to say that my fitness training will not be much different than it has been thus far this year. It’s highly unlikely that I’ll hit a homerun, score a touchdown, make a “three pointer”, score a knockout or pin my opponent.

I’m OK with that and am grateful that, despite here and there middle-age man aches and pains, I’m still playing the fitness game to the best of my abilities. I can run up a flight of stairs without being winded at the top and bend over to tie my shoes without throwing out my back or ripping the seat of my pants.

In my fitness world, there’s much to be grateful for and I am.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum