Okay, Let's Try This Again

So last year I decided to join a gym and get busy getting fit. Sadly, I failed on so many counts it isn't funny. The biggest hurdle for me was that I ran out of cash to continue at the gym, and by the time I got some, my gym had gone out of business.

It's all very sad. I've allowed myself to deteriorate even more in recent months. Once it got hotter, I began walking less at night, and getting out to do anything during the day is right out. I haven't even gone to the park to read in a month and a half. It's just too miserable outside.

But yesterday I went ahead and signed on over at a gym across the street from Jeremy and Nichelle's called Fitness Works; just for the summer right now. Got it cheap, too, so that helps. It a nice, modern place filled with all the goodies, but there are a lot of people there, and way too many women around. No guy likes starting out all weak and fat with a bunch of females present. It ruins the macho self-image to only be able to pump double-digit weights in the presence of a pretty girl, and then look in a mirror and realize you look like Grimace with a crew cut. Oh, well, I'll get over it.

I went there and worked out tonight for the first time, and let me tell you, feeling like an eighty year old man with arthritis SUCKS!

First, I started on the stationary bike for twenty five minutes on level 2, and by the end I was sucking wind and my hamstrings were as taught as bowstrings and felt likely to snap like dry rubber bands if I stood up too fast. Then I looked up in the mirror, and there behind me was a fit-looking guy in his sixties jogging along on the treadmill like he hadn't a care or a pain, and I growled descriptive curse words at him under my breath.

For about a month now, I've been fighting my old shoulder issue, and it hasn't gotten any better. I threw it out throwing a frisbee many years ago, and it took forever to heal. Last year when I started working out I tore it up again, and it hasn't been the same since. I blame the free-weights, and the idiotic notion than you train to failure when you lift weights, meaning you lift until you muscles won't work anymore.

I've been doing a lot of research on this, and it sucks how there is no general consensus on the subject of fitness; everyone and his brother out there have their own opinions on how to work out, and no two are alike. But one thing that keeps coming up lately is how training to failure is training to fail. Like with my shoulder. I worked it too hard and it stopped working right. I should have gone slow and built my muscles up to where they could take the strain.

So tonight I began using some of the ergonomic weight machines they have at FW, and I did a complete upper body workout without hurting my shoulder! Yay! The nice thing about the machines are that they allow for more control than freeweights, which make up for sloppy form while lifting, which is something I occasionally have. I was amazed when I was done how my shoulder actually felt better than it has in weeks. But I'll have to keep an eye on it and make sure I don't over do it.

Pandorum

Here's the trailer for a nice little sci-fi horror film that's coming up. Although it was done by the guys who did the Resident Evil movies, which I wasn't the biggest fan of, it is also the crew who made the still awesome and scary sci-fi horror movie Event Horizon.

For some reason, sci-fi and horror go together like pot roast and mashed potatoes, so any time someone comes up with a good film in this genre, I rejoice. And hey, Pandorum has Ben Foster and Dennis Quaid and some hot German chick, so where can they go wrong?

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Smacking Things

So in the vein of getting back into shape is the desire to practice my combatives training and gunfighting skills. Although a punching bag, a muay thai bag, speed bag, and focus mitts are a good idea, they're either expensive or hard to find a place to set up. So the idea is to go ghetto and come up with some underground solutions. The late Carl Cestari used to use a padded brick to practice his edge-of-hand strikes, so I'm gonna buy a brick. But more is needed for practicing palm heel strikes and hammer fists.

One idea a guy on a forum came up with is to make yourself a makiwara, or striking board, and bungee cord it to a tree, or sinking an ironing board into the ground and padding it up. Traditionally, the makiwara is a straw and rope affair, but modern versions use duct tape and foam padding. The problem is, I can't find any dense, closed-cell foam padding anywhere, so the project is stalled until I can find some. If anybody has ideas, I'd love to hear them.

I've also been practicing with my guns lately, thanks to the many training dvds I've been watching. Gabe Suarez' Combative Pistol Marksmanship, Kalashnikov Rifle Gunfighting, Advanced Kalashnikov Rifle Gunfighting, Close Range Gunfighting, Advanced Close Range Gunfighting, Shotgun Gunfighting, The Tactical Advantage, and Die Less Often dvds are all really good, and have been improving my skills, even when practicing at home. Mostly it's been just drilling; doing things like reloading, malfunction drills, and drawing on the move.

This stuff is quite interesting to me, and necessary in today's world.