Chemo, Radiation and a Stem Cell Transplant

[EF5127]

Chemo, Radiation and a Stem Cell Transplant. Got your attention? awesome. Don’t run, yeah this is a BW blog but trust me, I’ll legitimately try and put forth some effort to keep your attention with daily spills on numerous topics. Who the hell would want to follow a blog with just BW training. Fuck, I wouldn’t. Anyways, chins and push ups. That’s all it’s boiled down to folks. My doctors only advise BW training, since I’ve had a recent battle with cancer.

Anyways my last thread was “Done with weights, a new era” I realized the title of that thread probably kept people away. I’m done that cycle, because my BW cycles are only lasting about 3 weeks with a.m and p.m training. Add that shit up and you can make a lot of progress on what you’ve started in that time. You can add reps/sets or at least progress in someway everyday with BW training, let alone when you have A.M and P.M sessions. Yeah I know what most people are thinking, hell even I’m thinking it “This guys on T-Nation he’s 20 years old and he’s doing fucking push ups and chin ups, sounds like some asshole I went to high school with” believe me.

I cringe thinking about it sometimes to, considering I used to be into Olympic Weightlifting. But fuck it, cut me some slack here, stem cell transplants are not good for muscle, let alone chemo, radiation and being fed through a tube not to mention the countless other things but I’m not here to get into that. I don’t want people to look at me differently or treat me any differently. I’d like to think I’m not your average Joe and to tell you the truth people usually expect more out of me.

The only thing I’ll be doing in exception to chins and push ups are Cycling (HIIT) and static holds. Trying to get into Coach Sommers gymnastics stuff but apparently there’s been a mail strike going on? (don’t really watch TV) so I’m still waiting on the book. Anyways, today looked something like this.

A.M 15 min HIIT cycling
10x10 Chins
5x50 Push Ups
Rings

P.M
10X10 Chins
5X50 Push Ups

Methodology or theory behind this? None. Well at least nothing that;'s legit justifiable. My only objective is to beat my total every day. I’ll try and have a spill everyday about whatever I’m feeling. Could be training, nutrition or life related. Or it could just end up being a rant of some sort. I’ll throw down a spill for today.

Today I had to go to my friends mom’s viewing. She had breast cancer. Was doing great, all of a sudden it metastasized up her spinal cord into her brain. Terrible shit. Even with everything I’ve been through I can’t help but consider myself lucky. I’m still here and I’m doing great. Everyday I’ll try and wake up and attempt to better myself in any way and in any aspect in any quantity. I told myself when I was in the hospital when I got out of there not if, I’d never go another day without trying to better myself. After going to this viewing I was reminded of that again. That’s all I got time for today. I’ll be back tomorrow. Gonna go watch some Tour De France highlights, get some reading in and go to bed. Cheers.

-Never Take a Day Off

[EF5127]

A.M training felt good. I love working the rings but sure hope my book gets here soon. I can’t say I really know what I’m doing on them not to mention as far as sets/reps/rest intervals and times I don’t know all that much. Training went something like this:
15 min HIIT cycling
10x10 Chins
6x50 Push ups
Ring Work

For those of you following my last blog you’ll know that I’m on a Tour de France kick and have been listening to Lance Armstrongs “It’s not about the bike” CD. Pretty wicked, he mentions a lot of things I never really thought about when it comes to cycling and he talks about a lot of adversity in his life besides Brain, Lung and Testicular Cancer. Some pretty inspiring shit. You can learn a lot from listening and taking in some of the shit he says. I find the gym’s always been a good way to find myself, see what I’m made of, test myself. Not that I’m going to be one of those assholes training to absolute F%@KING FAILURE on EVERY SINGLE F&&KING set, wearing a “shut up and train” t-shirt with a “no pain no gain” hat. It’s weird because growing up I was never into sports. Not at all. After watching the 2008 Beiijing Olympics I couldn’t believe my eyes. The Track Events just blew my mind. I mean High Jump? This guy can almost F*%king dunk himself into a basketball net? what in the fuck?. The gym’s always been my place to challenge myself, make me feel a little better about myself and a place for me to get away. I don’t care about that asshole in the corner training like an absolute fucking moron, meanwhile he thinks I’m the idiot. To each his own. If that’s his thing, then fuck it, let him do what he wants. Although when I train in my T-Nation shirt I sometimes hope someone will come over and ask me about it so I can tell them to check out the site and throw them on the right path. Can’t stand when I see guys making fun of a newb. We where all newbs at one point, not to mention the fact that most guys at my gym are washed up sauce pigs who looks like shit and have performance that’s even worse. Now if you got a newb who refuses to learn and has been cranking out the same shit for the last 5 years and is still hard pressed to push 135, that’s another story. Reading back on this, this sure is a lot coming from a guy doing BW training, so I’ll terminate this rant. Anyways I’ll post back after my P.M session. In the meantime just take in this quote.

“Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever. That surrender, even the smallest act of giving up, stays with me. So when I feel like quitting, I ask myself, which would I rather live with?”

This shit gets me pumped right up just reading it. Almost gives me chills. Gives me flashbacks from being in the hospital and being so weak that the doctor would just come in grab my hand and ask my to move my finger and let him know I was still hanging in there. Remember this all happened during the year 2010. Wild year, I must say. I always thought that over in the hospital. It’s pretty sad but believe it or not I always felt if I would quit I’d be letting everyone down. Juts couldn’t do it. I was always scared shitless closing my eyes, trying desperately to keep them open as long as I possibly could. I always feared that if I closed them, I might not get the opportunity to open them again. Enough of that shit though, time to get my grill on. Cheers

-If it does not make me better or benefit me in any way, I want nothing to do with it.

[EF5127]

“You will crawl out of here. I’m going to kill you. Everyday I’m going to kill you and then I’m going to bring you back to life. we’re going to hit you with chemo and then hit you again and hit you again. You’re not going to be able to walk. We’re practically going to teach you how to walk again after we’re done.” One of Lance Armstrongs Oncologists. Oh yeah, he never went for treatment with that guy. He saw another doctor who said “I want to tailor your treatment so that you can get back on your bike” Same guy looked at his Brain MRI’s and CT scans and said “Mmm yepp, I can handle this, no problem” Lance said “You’ll have to convince me you know what you’re doing” Guy said “Because…as good as you are at cycling…I’m a lot better at brain surgery.”

Lance -

“You can’t kill me, hit me with everything you’ve got, just dump it all on me, whatever you give to other people, give me double. Lets kill this damn thing.”

“One thing you realize when you’re sick is you’re not the only one who needs support. Sometimes you have to be the one who supports others. My friends shouldn’t always have to be the one’s saying “You’re going to make it” sometimes I had to tell them I was going to make it”

Just a couple lines out of “It’s not about the bike” and the more I listen the more he talks the truth. I remember having blasts cells at 25% and I had a <10% chance of living. They said don’t worry about it, we’re going to get your blasts cells under control and you’ll get your transplant. Blasts cells need to be under 5% to get a transplant. They said they’d blast me with chemotherapy like never before along with some radiation and that would take care of it no problem. After enduring that for months, they repeated a Bone Marrow Biopsy to see where my blasts cells where at and to everyone’s surprise they were at…almost 50%. They had doubled under intense treatment. My doctors couldn’t believe it. I still remember my doctor coming in and asking my weird ass questions about religion and what type of guy I was. Then I said “Doc, whats’s up? what’s all this about? did you get the results of my biopsy? am I going to get my transplant?” He said “I don’t know how to say this but you’re blasts cells are at 40-50%” he said it rather quietly with a slight gasp in his speech towards the end of the sentence. He told me that they could have left someone completely untreated during the time I was on intensive treatment and they wouldn’t have expected an increase in blasts like this. Fortunately I was at one of the World’s largest clinical research centres and they’re able to bend the rules. He said they were going to attempt a myeloablative transplant as my only hope. Myeloablative transplants are not all that common anymore or typically used. The preparation is super intense and horrific at best. The idea is to achieve myeloablation, which is total destruction of your Bone Marrow, so that they can replace it with new through a stem cell transplant. He told me they were just going to try it because at that point I was going to die either way. Although they had someone come in to get my last wishes and make a whole bunch of decisions regarding whether or when to pull the plug, I didn’t really care all that much. At that point numbers were more than irrelevant, it didn’t mean shit to me. Although my friends were scared shitless I had to let them know I’d make it through. To be honest I didn’t even call many of them. Doctors told me this wasn’t going to be easy, telling me that this amount of chemo and radiation alone could give me cancer or kill me. My team acknowledged that I was 18 and went ahead with it anyways. Now I go to school, hit the gym, crush beers and laugh about this with my friends. Alright maybe we don’t laugh. You get the point though.

On another note todays P.M training
Chins
Push Ups
Worked the Rings

Training kicked ass, beat my total in both Chins and Push Ups by 10. I’ll crush that by 10 every day. As for rings, I simply add time. I’ve kick started reading a new authors articles on the site, I’ve finished all of Waterbury, Poliquin, Thib, and Cressey’s articles since summer started and now I’m working on Robertson. Anyways I’ve got to go prepare my last meal for the day and get some reading in. Post back tomorrow. Cheers.

• No matter how many goals you have achieved, you must set your sights on higher one’s

[EF5127]

Today’s A.M training was good, I must say my arms are a little sore between working the rings and enough chin ups to join the circus. Went something like this:

15 min HIIT Cycling
Chins-1x15, 9x10
Push Ups- 6 x50
Rings

Remember I just want my total to increase everyday. This is the most simple and straight forward yet effective method of progressive overload that I can think of. I like Non Linear Periodization models but with BW training it seems like it’d be a hassle to organize, not to mention the fact that I can really take advantage of my weaknesses and newb like capabilities. I can’t fucking stand when guys want to jump the gun and one night over 20 drinks they’ll be like “Fuck it bro, I’m going in there tomorrow and I’m going to fucking kill it man!”

Next day they’re in there doing 2 hours of steady state cardio (cringe) and they’ll keep it up for 3 days. Right out of the hole they’ve fucked themselves over from a progression standpoint. If I’m not going to do more in the gym then I did the last time I was in, I’d rather not go. As I’m working the rings a mutual friend came up and asked me about his N.O Explode and what I thought.

He’s a pretty good guy so I wasn’t about to give him a hard time about it but fuck. I can’t say I wasn’t there at a point in my life and I was pretty lucky to have a couple people show me the ropes, stare me to T-Nation and teach me a thing or 2. The thing is this guys about 20 years old and has been training for years. You figure me not being in the gym for the last 2 years the guy would’ve at least learned a thing or 2.

I just suggested to him that perhaps instead of wasting his money on those god forsaken hyped up supplements to buy some books, learn how to train, eat and get an understanding of some simple basic principles. I had to explain to him that by reading a good book on training he would get the information necessary to get way bigger than any piece of shit hyped up supplement would. Of course books are not always an overly successful sales pitch for anybody let alone younger people who know F$&*ING everything.

After that failed I just explained to him that if he really wants to know if something works he should probably just give it a go for himself. I told him about how when I was in the hospital they put me on a “Glutamine and Muscle Wasting Protocol” This was when I was at my worst, weighed 123. At this point I was being fed through a tube but back to incorporating fluids into my diet.

They couldn’t bare to see me lose any more weight so my dietary team knew I used to be into the field, so they suggested Glutamine in supplementation with my usual absurd amount of ensure. That’s another spill in itself, fucking ensure. Anyways the Glutamine didn’t do jack shit and they eventually concluded it was ineffective. I said "Well, wait a minute? I know guys who throw around 100’s of pounds in the gym on a daily basis, are 100% healthy and have their nutrition locked down to a tee.

They take upwards of 30g a day and they might put on a couple pounds at best. You really think a kid with cancer, recovering from a stem cell transplant, throwing up 24/7 from GVHD on 3-5g a day, being fed through a tube, who’s lived in this room for 8 months and hasn’t moved from his bed in weeks is going to gain shit from it?" I think the lesson here is for majority of the time you really can’t take peoples word on a lot of things, especially dietary supplements.

If your buddy who doesn’t know jack shit about training, nutrition or anything for that matter doesn’t get results off a supplement, wtf do you expect? Like I said dietary supplements if supplemented with dialed in training and nutrition might get a guy a few pounds of muscle at best. I had to take a psychology class last semester and one of the most valuble things I learned from that course was how to evaluate and interpret a study properly. If guys are referencing absurd medical studies like the one I was part of then wtf good is that? You really have to look at studies and references and understand the factors and variables involved.

''The organization and planning of training should be considered an art that is based on science. The implementation of a well-organized and scientifically based training plan eliminates the random and aimless training practices, which are sometimes still practiced by ill-informed coaches. A well devised training plan removes poor training concepts or philosophies such as “intensity all the way” or “no pain no gain” and replaces them with practices that are logically devised, meticulously planned, and based on science.

The goal of training is to stimulate specific physiological responses according to planned design so that certain performance outcomes are stimulated at the appropriate time. Nothing that occurs during training should be an accident; responses should occur as a result of the design of the training plan, The old adage that “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail” is true of the training process."

If everyone could just mull that over and understand it, we’d all be so much better off. “Periodization, the Theory and Methodology of Training” Going to be finishing the book up today. Best 400 pages of tiny font I’ve ever read. Post back later, have to catch a nap and crush a few Robertson articles to get my knowledge on. Cheers.

***Maurice - You know what time of year it is in B.R…Sun Splash…yes, that may mean getting Jerry’s cars ready for the car show half way through training. Only at the pit.

• "The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential… these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence. "

[EF5127]

A.M workout…actually felt great. Which is weird considering my buddy and a couple guys from his hockey team where in from out of town last night and we were buckled at the beer tent. Went something like this:
15 min HIIT Cycling
Chins 2x15, 8x10
Push Ups 7x50
Worked the rings

Fucking shake exploded in my car and went all over the seat. I finished “It’s not about the bike” last night, the 4th and final disk. I swear I’ll get off all this Lance Armstrong stuff now that it’s done. Well I mean, I won’t but as far as talking about it in the log goes.

“I was a bum, I played golf everyday, I water skied, I drank beer and I’d lay on the sofa and channel surf. I went to Chewy’s for Tex Mex and violated every rule of my training diet. I was behaving totally out of character and the reason was survivorship. It was a classic case of now what now? I’d had a job and a life and then I got sick and it turned my life upside down and when I tried to go back to my life I was disoriented, nothing was the same and I couldn’t handle it.”

“I tried to go back to my life, I was disoriented, nothing was the same and I couldn’t handle it” One of the worst parts of survivorship right there folks. Not a worse feeling in the world then such hopelessness. Everything you attempt to return to whether it be training, hobbies, school is a straight slap in the face. Somedays I don’t know which is harder fighting the disease or getting back on your feet again. Somedays you can’t help but think everything was taken away from you and you can’t help but feel mad and upset. Yeah you’ll get the assholes with shitty words of encouragement like “Bro it could be worse” give me a fucking break you could probably say that about anything under any circumstance. Gee boys I don’t really want to get into it here but I seriously doubt things could get worse at this day in age, being born in a middle class town in north america. There’s days where you just can’t believe it. Looking back, here are a few. Not being able to leave the ground after transplant. I tried to jump as hard as I possibly could and would get a shitty ass triple extension at best, it’d be like a semi explosive BW calf raise, meanwhile I was trying as hard as I could to jump. Trying to run. I remember a car was coming up on me crossing the street and I tried to pick it up a bit and just buckled. You take sprinting for granted but let me tell you my friends, I could not for the life of me jog today, let alone sprint. A kid probably can’t sprint until he’s 9-10 ( I’m just using that because grade school track starts in grade 3 and they’re 9-10) that’s 9-10 years of evolving and strength and conditioning of those muscles and everything involved in order for you to be able to do that. Everyone go throw down a sprint for me because that was one of my favourite things to do in training. Seeing a guy that I went to high school with and he was pulling that day, he goes “Wanna join” I said sure and he was warming up with 135, I had my back turned to him so he couldn’t see my face, I went to pull as hard as I absolutely could for about 15 seconds and it didn’t budge. He asked me if I was going to go or not, I got up turned around and said, “I’m actually not going to pull today.” I remember getting under 135 to squat and couldn’t move it off the pins. I remember benching the bar 3 times and needed help on the 4th. I remember trying to do a push up and almost losing my teeth. I remember not being able to hang from the chin up bar and straining something when I attempted to step on a stool and put a little weight on. I remember front squatting a broom stick for singles. You have to be a pretty strong guy to be able to find motivation behind any of that. Not to mention that those are just a couple off the top of my head. Not easy to walk into the gym and be the weakling in the corner who ligit has a sense for what he’s doing, meanwhile you’re the fucking twirp. One of the toughest things I had to do was not apply any of my knowledge. It was physically impossible. I don’t think any coach could have trained me. Recovering from what I went through was absurd, I’d do the most rediculous things. Not because I wanted to but because I had to. Honestly, what do you start with when you front squat a broom stick for a single and bench the bar 3 times. You can’t just start fucking hammering weights. I couldn’t find resistances light enough, not machines, bands, rehab equipment. It was literally stretching for months. Not easy to get pumped up to train when all you can do is some minor stretching. People think they get it and they want to, but they don’t. People see what I lift and they don’t get it, how is he only lifting that, how can that possibly look so heavy? Fuck, I ask myself the same thing. Answer, I have no idea. I’ve literally heard people who don’t know me or my condition talk about how weak I am. Yeah, don’t worry about it boys, just a little terminal cancer. But anyways I;m getting off track here, the point is, I went through this exact same period where, I just didn’t know what to do, I had nothing left, just didn’t have it in me. I had no starting point and was scared, honestly didn’t know what the fuck to do. No one will ever understand what that felt like and they just didn’t get it, they still don’t That’s enough complaining though, I never once asked myself why me? fuck that. Why not me? is the real question. I’m almost thankful that it was me and not some people I know, I don’t want to get into it but I can’t say I would legitimately have faith in some people that I know making it through. I think training and nutrition, the lifestyle that I adopted was largely responsible. Having the fight, determination and consistency to stick things out was what really helped me. I can’t usually tell that to most people because they wouldn’t understand. Not many people can relate to eating the same things at the same times everyday throughout high school. For those lessons, I have to be thankful.

“That ascent triggered something in me. As I churned upward, I reflected on my life, back to all points, my childhood, my early races, my illness and how it changed me…I saw my life as a whole. I saw the pattern and the privilege of it, and the purpose of it, too. It was simply this: I was meant for a long, hard climb.” - Lance

• “The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best.”

[Think_tank_fish]

Hey man, haven’t seen your other log. But just wanted to say keep up the awesome dedication.

I’m in similiar situation. I was diagnosed about a year ago and have been on high dose chemo ever since.

My own theory is the cancer and chemo just means we’ve got to work harder and smarter to get ahead of the pack.

We’ve been dealt a bad hand. So we need to up our game.

[EF5127]

[quote]Think tank fish wrote:
Hey man, haven’t seen your other log. But just wanted to say keep up the awesome dedication.

I’m in similiar situation. I was diagnosed about a year ago and have been on high dose chemo ever since.

My own theory is the cancer and chemo just means we’ve got to work harder and smarter to get ahead of the pack.

We’ve been dealt a bad hand. So we need to up our game.[/quote]

Thanks for the support man. All the best to you as well. Feel free to PM me if you need anything, just to talk or whatever. Keep fighting.

Today’s P.M training was good. This shit gets boring as hell, thankfully tomorrow’s an off day and I’ll have a chance to regroup before next weeks push. Was a little bit of a grind, considering I didn’t get nearly enough sleep last night and the fact that, that never happens. Still got her done with flying colours though, just had to bite my tongue a couple times. I have to say between the Cycling and the Rings, it feels good to have something that has a grind to it. Although training is intense, it’s not like grinding on the bike or the rings. I find both activities to be extremely rewarding and challenging. I love a good mental challenge. To me it’s only healthy. There’s deff not enough healthy competition in today’s day in age. I find it to be more so in Canada. Considering I spent a lot of time in the U.S and go to school there, you don’t really realize it just crossing the border casually but it’s deff a different mentality. Nothing like waking up and getting on the bike for a good grind. Pretty much all out of books, need to go to HK and grab some more, in the mean time been reading quite a bit online, but I must say I don’t like reading at a computer half as much. Here’s a couple things to think about from today’s readings.

In the immortal words of Eric Cressey, “The only thing I run for is seconds.”

"If I keep myself in check and do what I need to do, good things will result. It’s up to you to determine what you want from life and go after it with a vengeance. "

The first one’s self explanatory and I don’t really want to elaborate on it much but as for the second one, it’s from a Robertson article. Quote couldn’t be more true. I know a lot of guys who are baby fed, weak and don’t really want to work for much. I don’t know if it’s even so much those things or whether they just lack “passion” or “a passion” for that matter. I have to say not many people I know genuinely like their jobs/careers. To me it just doesn’t make sense, how could you do something everyday for 30 years that you cringe at just thinking about it. Too many guys I know had no idea what they wanted to do out of high school or even today because they have nothing that they’re interested in. I guess the brutal high school curriculum could probably be to blame. Everyone I know can’t wait to be done school and for what, they hate school now, they’re jobs most likely going to be ever worse.

Honestly I don’t see the difference between getting a shitty job when you’re 23 or 24. I guess different people like different things though but I just can’t handle people cheating their potential. I’m not saying everyone has to be the best at everything but I always encourage everybody to try as hard as they can at everything, no matter what the circumstances. Nothing I hate more than a lazy fuck. Spending time around a lot of doctors, I must say some of these guys are fucking morons. I know it’s a tough sell and I can’t really call them idiots, I mean they just spent over a decade some a decade and a half in school that most of us couldn’t make it through if we wanted to. So many of these guys got into the profession for the wrong reason. Either their parents where doctors or they’re fucking assholes who want to be called Dr. Not to mention the fact that you can tell most of them are and always have been socially retarded bookworms their entire lives.

Most of them are the equivalent of professional athletes who don’t want to do anything. If a guys lazy, irresponsible and doesn’t want to do his job, he’s probably not going to be the best. No doubt the knowledge is their but they could just care less. I know guys in gym class who were great athletes but they were the last guys you wanted on their team, pass them the ball and they’re outside smoking a dart. But anyways it’s Saturday night, I’m going to go look for something to do, I’ll hit the Tigers B-Ball game tomorrow and probably post back tomorrow, if not Monday. Cheers.

-If I’m not going to give it everything I got, I’d rather not do it.

[EF5127]

Tigers game was great, nice day and they won. I like to have a day to relax, let the gym go, give my body and mind a rest. It’s important. You have to learn to appreciate recovery. Although I think training frequency and peoples responses to any training stimulus is a totally unique thing and is dependent on many factors, everyone needs a break. Besides, taking today off gives me all the more drive for tomorrow. Cannot wait to hop on that bike in the morning and kill it. Forgot to mention that I train at both a commercial gym and a powerlifting gym. Anyways, I’m walking into the commercial gym the other day and I see a CSCS (Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist) sticker on someone’s ride in the parking lot. I walk in thinking who the fuck could that be? there’s not many people in the gym. I look around…is it that guy in the corner who may or may not have made up that exercise he’s doing? is it that guy with the worst posture/muscle imbalances I’ve ever seen? Is it that guy shaking his N.O Explode, fixing his hair in the mirror? Wait a minute? There’s a guy doing soft tissue work over there, hmm? Was pretty obvious. Went and chatted with him after I was done because I’m hoping to get mine one day. Pretty cool guy and I was a little bit jealous, considering you need a degree to write the exam and I’m so far away from getting mine. Not a big deal though. It’s important to never lose sight. I don’t care whether it be on where you’re headed, what you want to do or whatever the case may be. One thing in the hospital I learnt was to always see things through. To never lose sight and to never let up is so important these days. I have to be thankful and remind myself everyday about my friends in the hospital. Some of them were old people because I was treated in the adult sector. Most of them were old and couldn’t fight it out, it wasn’t their fault, cancer’s not the same at 80 years old as when you’re 18 and at your prime. Those are not usually the people I think about though. It’s the kids that stick with me. They’re kids for fuck sakes, they have no idea what’s going on and are in no way in any position to deal with something like that. Everyday before I get into my workout I have to close my eyes and tell myself “There’s people who would literally fucking kill for this opportunity” Fuck I would have just a couple months ago. The same goes for school or anything that I sometimes might not love doing but I can’t lose sight of the opportunity in front of me. Sometimes I don;t want to read some piece of shit text book for hours on end but fuck it. It sure pays off when I’m going through the exam like a fucking questionnaire just circling answers before I even finish reading the question. Fuck, during finals I almost asked my professor if that exam was an April fools joke. I love when the professor tells you how hard his or her class is the first day and some statistics on the failure rate. After hearing that I just make it a point to absolutely dummy that class. The world’s yours and everything in it, all you have to do is go out there and get it. I’m not your average guy and I don;t want average guy success, with average guy shit. I want a crib on the water with a sports car in the garage and a smoking hot wife. One thing I did before my life altering experience was second guess myself. It’s actually pathetic but I would never second guess myself now. That shit’s for pussies, have some confidence, be sure of yourself and never be scared of failure. Not that I’ll ever except failure but I also never think of it. Most emotions are for the weak. It’s sad because they’re the typical emotions found in most people. Jealousy, self consciousness, laziness etc. My buddy Jeff, who’s also a great lifter has said it once and will say it again “If there’s one thing that will destroy a man it’s tomorrow. The act of saying later or tomorrow and putting shit off we’ll destroy a man” It’s incredibly true, I encourage everyone I know to find out what they want to do, where they want to go, what they want to achieve and relentlessly pursuit it with everything they have until they’ve surpassed what they set out to do. One of my best characteristics is the fact that I can set out to do something at the snap of my fingers and actually follow through, no problem. At the same time if I need to forget about something or let it go, boom, snap my fingers and it’s dead to me. Never even happened. Anyways it’s sunday I have to make my 5 goals for the week. If you don’t do it, I suggest you start. For the first few weeks they might look similar but eventually they just become habit and you swap in new ones. Great way to pick up healthy and productive habits.

Off topic but Kevin O’Leary. Guy developed a soft ware company out of his basement when he was 14…sold it for 3.4 BILLION DOLARS. Going into high school you have 3.4 BILLION DOLLARS in your bank account. You know what he did. He got even hungrier. Call it greed or whatever you want. The man wakes up and from the minute he wakes up to the minute he goes to bed he continues to make money till this day and the man will never stop. That’s real.

“Action is the foundational key to all success” Eat that shit up and keep eating. Don’t waste a fucking day. Anyone reading T-Nation probably isn’t your average guy with average mentality and I salute you for that but at the same time, don’t you dare fucking lose sight of that.

Training tomorrow will be
A.M
15 min HIIT cycling increased progression
Chins 3x15, 7x10
Push Ups 8x50
Work the rings

P.M
Chins 10x10
Push Ups 5x50
Work the rings

Once I master progression in the A.M I’ll start progression on the P.M. Not digging myself into a progression hole right off the bat.

Until next time, cheers.

[EF5127]

Today looked something like this

A.M
15 min HIIT Cycling
Chins 10x12…I don’t know why I thought of making the jump to 15 when I can still milk plenty of progression from less
Push Ups 8x50
Work the rings

P.M
Chins 10x10
Push Ups 5x50
Work the rings

This way my totals increased even more with less effort and room for more progression in the following days.

Went to HK and picked up some new books today. Also went and picked up a ticket to my friends annual Caribou Lou party which kicks off this weekend. Went last year, 2 days after I got out of the hospital. This year I’m hoping to be able to enjoy it slightly more considering I’m in a lot better shape than I was back then. I hope everyone read todays article, nothing like some classic T-Nation humour. My personal favourite was the one about behind the neck pressing/ pulling:

“The “high five” position characterized by shoulder abduction and extreme external rotation is an injury waiting to happen. While you grind away at your rotator cuff, inducing tendonitis, you’ll also be stretching out the ligaments and anterior capsule, leading to permanent elongation, hyperlaxity, and instability. While you’re at it, why not jam the bar into your spine and damage a cervical process? Might as well multi-task, right?”

Might as well multi-task, right? ahaha that’s jokes.

Like I said, I train at both a commercial gym and a powerlifting gym. Whenever I go for my P.M training at the commercial gym, I always see this one kid. I don’t know if this kids into a combat sport or is just the biggest duster in the gym. This guy has a killer like instinct that I can almost respect but just can’t at the same time. It’s hard to understand, it’s like a love/hate relationship. This guy takes every single set to failure and beyond like you would not believe. I can almost respect it because I’m just going to flat out admit that there’s no way in hell I could do it even if I wanted to. I mean we’re talking absolute failure on anything from bench to wrists curls and then followed by as many partials as he can. followed by drop sets, negatives, you name it. It’s absurd. It could explain why he’s not the biggest and deff not the strongest guy but I have to respect his work ethic and the fact that he’s a pretty nice guy. I think he’ll be fine. He’s one of those guys who you just can;t deal with. Don;t tell this guy how to train, what to do, how to do it, just leave him alone and let the fucking guy do his thing. Speaking of guys like that, I can;t help but think of my buddy who’s always been one of the biggest guys I know and by far on of the best athletes I know. The thing about this guy is he’s more naive about training than anyone I’ve ever met in my life. It makes me cringe considering this guy’s probably been to the gym under 100 times in his life. Meanwhile he runs a 10.7 100m, can dummy 315 on bench and has legs like tree trunks, front squatting 5 bills. I’ve known this guy so many years and besides smoke dope and drink he really doesn’t do much. I remember when we were 15 years old upstairs in our high school weight room, there was 275 on there and we were like “Man you think you could push that?” guy gets on the bench, no warm up (fucking kids these days) and takes it off the bar, you can tell he doesn’t know how heavy it’s even going to be, lowers it to his chest slow and then presses it smoothly, then after that first rep just sucked it down and dummied it for a triple. Guy probably had like 10 in him. Unbelievable. Track Season would come around and the kids he competed against had track as their life, trained for that shit day in and day out, year round. Meanwhile this guy just shows up and runs, dummies everyone. Guy doesn’t really know much about the technique or mechanics of sprinting, nor would he care. Just raw power. It’s funny when you meet someone like that and they just can’t grasp why things are so hard for you because they’ve never had to grind for any results. I can’t stand the chirps from this guy because whatever he does it’s as if it’s irrelevant. The guy just doesn’t count. Whatever he does, it just doesn’t matter, he’s been doing it his whole life effortlessly. I do love the guy and wish him the best, he’s one of my best friends but it just kills me sometimes. I can;t stand to see that guy be such a waste of skin. Guy had potential in any sport he wanted to take a shot at. Anyways, I havn’t been overly inspired by anything yet today, probably because I havn’t read much. I’m going to go hit the shower and post back before bed if something hits me. Cheers

[EF5127]

“I remember where I came from. It’s so important to know where you are and I know where I am right now. How do you go from where you are to where you want to be? And I think you have to have an enthusiasm for life, a dream, a goal and you have to be willing to work for it.”

“I just got one last thing I urge all of you, all of you, to enjoy your life. The precious moments you have, to spend each day with some laughter and some thought, to get your emotions going, to be enthusiastic everyday. To keep you dreams alive in spite of problems, whatever you have, the ability to be able to work hard for your dreams to become true, become a reality. Now I look at where I am and I know what I want to do. what I would like to be able to do is to spend whatever time I have left to give and maybe give some hope to others.”

“Don’t give up, don’t ever give up. And that’s what I’m going to try and do every minute that I have left, I will thank god for the day and the moment I have. And if you see me smile and maybe give me a hug because that;s important to me to.”

“Cancer can take away all my physical abilities. It cannot touch my mind, it cannot touch my heart and it cannot touch my soul.”

Jimmy V - 1993 Espy’s speech

Jim's 1993 ESPY Speech - YouTube If the link doesn’t work, google or youtube Jimmy V Espy’s speech. You won’t regret it.

“Time is very precious to me. I don’t know how much I have left and I have some things that I would like to say. Now I’m fighting cancer, everyone knows that. People ask me all the time about how you go through your life and how’s your day and nothing has changed for me”

This speech fucking rules. I could watch this shit all day. This is some of the realest shit I have ever seen. I’ve never seen a man be so fucking genuine and real. Just a man trying to make a difference, doing nothing but good. This video almost brings me to tears. The way he talks about pitching in and helping. Although he acknowledges that it may not help him, he just explains how it could help or save somebody else. I mean when you know that you’re going to die and to put all your energy into preventing other people from having to go through what you went through. That’s amazing. Yeah a guy lifting a heavy ass metal object at your local gym may also be amazing but never lose sight of the people who are the one’s out there really making a difference. I can’t help but think of all the people I know who didn’t make it all because they couldn’t find a fucking doner. I cannot believe how fucking sad and stupid it is. I’ve seen parents on their knees fucking beg doctors saying they’ll give up every fucking penny they have, their house, their cars anything they want to save their child’s life. Meanwhile a doner’s out there, guarentee. I encourage everyone to join the Bone Marrow Registry. You swab your cheek and that’s it. People don’t realize the medical progression happening on a daily basis. When Jimmy V says “Don’t give up don’t ever give up” listen and hang onto that shit like grim death. Sometimes that’s the only thought that would run through my mind months out of time in the hospital. Everything else would happen subconsciously, zoned out, not taking in anything that anybody’s saying, just running that through my head 24/7 in a trans. Just the other day my doctor mailed me a swab kit. I was born with congenital lymphedema and recently they’ve noticed a hand full of individuals, some as far as China who were born with the same thing and then developed MDS and then Acute Leukemia, just like me. It’s totally unpublished literature but they think they’ve found a gene that’s consistent in all of us. This could mean that once they see a child born with lymphedema, they could test them from the gene and prevent the entire situation from unfolding. If no child or anybody for that matter would never have to go through what I went through, I’d die a happy man. Legit. They’ve never suspected any link between the 2 anywhere I’ve ever been. To say the least I’ve been to a shit load of hospitals, all over North America.

• Don’t ever let somebody tell you, you can’t do something. You got a dream, you’ve got to protect it. People can’t do something themselves, they want to tell you, you can’t do it. You want something go get it. Period"

-“How’s about the 2 years off? does it pose any problem to you.” We’ll see, I doubt it seriously. I don’t know nothing about numbers, I just know what I can do. It might not be easy, but anything that’s easy don’t mean shit and ain’t worth doing anyways.

[EF5127]

Todays training was a grind. Hands are killing me. Not to mention I was busy as hell today. Went like this:
A.M
15 min HIIT Cycling
10x12 Chins
8x50 Push Ups
Worked the rings

P.M
10x10 chins plus a couple extra on my last set for progressions sake
5x60 Push Ups
Worked the Rings

Taking this shit up a notch on Thursday

Just straight up progressive overload. I’m not concerned about over thinking this. It’s nothing but simple progression. I can;t stand hearing people talk overtraining. For most people, give me a break. They’re not training nearly hard enough to even have that as an option. Legit overtraining means you’re depressed, losing weight, running fevers, sick, nauseas. Not sore, un motivated and unable to lift the 1rm that you’ve been attempting in front of that smoke show, everyday for the last 3 weeks in a row. Most guys that will get on you for overtraining are just jealous of your capabilities and dedication themselves. I’d like to think I’m not an irrational meat head but I’ve got so much motivation and drive that I can’t contain it. I know everyone probably feels like that but I can assure you it’s probably not as real as this. I love the concept of high frequency stimulation. People have to understand that I’m doing BW training. Could I get away with such absurd volume and progression with weights twice a day? not a chance. I don’t think many guys could, let alone a kid recovering from a stem cell transplant. What I’m doing is nowhere near the same. All I did was start out with something moderately challenging and now I simply progress on it every time I do it. I’m not like some of my buddies thinking this is some Rocky movie and think that I’m untouchable. Just a guy who doesn’t mind putting in work. This has nothing to do with ego and and running myself into the ground. I’m not overly concerned with what people have to say anymore. Not that I;m not willing to learn. There’s nothing I love more in fact. Not even the way I want to be, it’s just who I’ve become after what I’ve been through. After a guy comes in and tells you, you’re going to die and then you do this (Look at Pic) you’re mentality is forever changed. I often feel invigorated and pumped up leaving the gym. I once again didn’t get much reading done today, so I’m rather uninspired writing this spill today. I swear it was for good reason though and I’m not overly happy about it. I’ll get her back twice as hard tomorrow. I ran around for medical purposes all day today. Tomorrow I’ll be doing the same but will have some books with me and hope to get a lot of reading done. I’ll be going to see a surgeon all day. Recently diagnosed with Avascular Necrosis, maybe Osteonecrosis. Not much they can do, only option is to replace my knees/hips. I doubt that’ll happen, I’m 20 years old for fuck sakes. Why replace my knees/hips when they could replace that 80 year old, 300lbs, mcdonalds eating, chain smoking old womens. Makes sense right? Anyways I;m going to see what they want to do about it tomorrow. Reading NSCA’S “The Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning” as well as “Designing Resistance Training Programs”. Both seem like great reads and hope to cover some ground in them tomorrow.

I love this vid and watch it before I train all the time. You should do the same.
Maurice you can appreciate this

West Virginia Head Coach Bill Stewart - Leave No Doubt Speech

I like how Bill Stewart explains how great of an opportunity it is and lets them know that they know exactly what they have to do. Now it’s just time to go out there and do it. Lastly, he encourages them to go get it and have fun.

“Don’t leave your wing man. Ever, ever, ever bail out on your brother. You help, you strain and you just fight! Start fast! Stay on top of them!”

Also this may be the most redic pump of vid of all time. If a man does something irrational after watching this, he cannot be responsible for his actions.

I am a champion - the greatest speech ever [ENG SUB]

This last vid is another great one. I just love this situation. I cannot describe being in a situation like this. Not many people get the chance in their life time to endure a moment where everything literally comes down to that 1 FUCKING MINUTE OR THAT 1 FUCKING OPPORTUNITY. to take that moment and make something happen is an incredible feeling. Focus. Focus is the single most amazing and powerful thing on the planet. Many people lack it and many will NEVER in their life learn what true focus is. I always break things down into a focus. to actually focus on something as hard as you can is such an amazing and hard thing to do. But let me assure you, if you can do it, you will be able to do something so extraordinarily amazing that you yourself won’t even believe what you’re capable of. To evaluate what you have to do and give it everything you got, all at once, for that one shot, in that one moment is what it’s all about.

Al Pacino's Inspirational Speech

“Because we know when we add up all those inches, that’s going to make the fucking difference between winning and losing! Between living and dying! I’ll tell you this, in any fight, it’s the guy that’s willing to die, who;s going to win that inch. And I know if I’m going to have any life anymore, it’s because i’m still willing to fight and die for that inch. Because, that’s what LIVING IS!”

***Maurice that guys face at 3:00min may or may not be you

[EF5127]

Today wasn’t the best to say the least. It felt like my world was crumbling when I went and spoke to a surgeon today. “Has anyone talked to you about these MRI’s? I mean, I’ve read about these cases but I’ve never personally seen one. This is a very serious situation.” He brought me over to have a look at the MRI’s. Major portions of all 3 bones of my knee are dead. Not just a small spot on 1 of them but almost the entire portion of all 3 of them. This means I’ll probably never squat, snatch, clean or do anything involving bending my knees again. Guy said these knees are to fucked to operate on. He said if it was like he normally see’s where just one area is affected, they’d just go in and fix it but he said they would literally have to take my whole knee out if they were to fix it. This could result in much more harm then good.

He said he’s going to follow me closely for now and see where it goes. Scared of the possibility of my bones crumbling or caving in he wants to keep a close eye on the situation. He advised me to get a 2nd opinion and to explore options in the U.S but said in the mean time, do nothing that I don’t have to do. Pretty upsetting considering I really thought my problems were finally coming to an end. Although this means nothing’s going to change, which I’m still thankful for, I was really hoping to be able to come back to squats/snatches/cleans/sprints sooner or later. This is all most likely from extremely high dose corticosteroids, such as prednisone. When I developed acute Graft Vs Host Disease (GVHD) post transplant, it was aggressive and moving quick, destroying everything in it’s path, my digestive tract, organs, skin, eyes, mouth, you name it.

They warned me of the potential side effects of high dose corticosteroids, but GVHD was rampant and was at the point where it was going to kill my organs and then me. After winning the battle against cancer and everything I had been through up to that point the last thing I was going to do is let GVHD get me, fuck that. Anyways tapering steroids with GVHD can be tricky, you back down to soon and boom! it’s back full tilt. You stay on to long and you get terrible side effects. Transplant at a certain point is an art and that’s why you have to be extremely careful about where you go to get your’s done and what team you have doing it. The act of properly balancing immune suppression in order for your body to properly except your graft or doner cells without rejecting them but at the same time not allowing them to destroy you is something that your average doc cannot fuck around with. If you don’t suppress an individuals immunity to a perfect tee the transplant can go awry in a hurry. Don;t suppress it enough and the cells wont take. Suppress it too much and you’re sending VIP invitations to every problem known to man. They had to gamble with me though.

Doing a myeloablative transplant you can’t completely innihilate a person’s bone marrow and immunity and then leave them hanging with nothing. They assured me with achieving myeloblation that these cells would take but whether I would make it through excepting them and having them take properly without destroying me from the inside out was another story. Myeloablative transplants and GVHD do terrible things to a mans body and I don’t even want to get into it because I’m already off topic as hell. All I’m going to say is I pray to god no one ever has to endure kidney stones. Anyways they put me on prednisone over 100mg a day and going down by 10mg or less when you get below 50 can mean it takes a very long time. Not to mention most people have sticking points, so when you get below 10 and you’re going down by 1-2.5mg increments, if you flare up again, you usually start the taper all over again or go to the nearest dose where it goes under control, which for me was 50.

Considering it’s happened a few times, lets just say I’ve been on high doses for more than a long time. Unfortunately prednisone has led to the issue of my knees, There is some good in all of this though. I’m young which means, after being off of prednisone for some time blood flow could naturally come back to those bones since I’m at such a young age. Hopefully that’ll be the case. If not I’ll be that asshole with a disproportionately large upper body. All bets are off on making fun of those guys now because it could just be me and I have damn good reason. I will still continue to cycle in the meantime. The least I can do is get some calfs going. Anyways. that pretty much killed my day. Knowing I couldn’t hit it twice today, I took it as an active recovery day. I just did 15 min HIIT cycling and Roberstons core workout (awesome by the way) no flexion AT ALL! i’ll get er back tomorrow.

A.M
15 min HIIT cycling
Chins and Push Ups, just beat previous totals by any means necessary
Rings

P.M
Chins and Push Ups, just beat previous totals by any means necessary.
Rings

[EF5127]

Spent a fairly long time down at the cancer clinic today. Can’t stand going to that fucking mess of a facility. Although I’m thankful to be in the state of health that I’m in, I can’t stand going back to the hospital now that’s over. I actually hate going back to the hospital more now than I used to when I was being treated. Maybe that’s because I spent majority of that time in a bed, ripped out of my mind on narcotics and other meds. Nothing like that IV Benadryl 50 and IV Dilauded to calm shit down. Get those injected straight into your hickman and you become a puddle in that bed.

Anyways, I can;t believe the clinic, nowhere to park within a 10 block radius of that fucking place. Pretty much get a parking ticket every time I go. The city just figures that everyone down at the cancer clinic doesn’t have enough problems on their hands so they decide to put our tax dollars to good use and rather than simply expanding the parking lot for all the terminally ill, crippled, cancerous senior citizens they figure it makes more sense to get a couple dicks to drive around in brand new cars and slap tickets on everyone’s windshields. Going in there for 8 hours of chemo and then walking 10 city blocks to your car and finding a good old parking ticket on your windshield as a treat just makes it a fucking day. The parking guard says to me " You know you can park at the Chrysler plant up the road and a shuttle will drive you here for $5 eh" Oh really? so you and the perfectly healthy employees all do that? Oh, wait you don’t you fucking fat cunt? alright, don’t worry about it, everyone here’s only got cancer. Really not that big of a deal. I live about an hour away. Every time I have an appointment, I leave my house when the appointments supposed to be, drive an hour there and then wait 2 hours in the waiting room. I do think the physicians pretty good though, so I’m happy about that.

Training went good today though. Nothing like a little rage to get the kid going. Continues to read “Designing Resistance Training Programs” by Fleck and Kraemer. I like it and must say it’s a good read. Although it’s pretty much a textbook, referencing study after study, if you think outside the box you could make good with the application. Not to mention I like both authors. I do find their stuff a little old and maybe not cutting edge information but they’ve got good fundamentals and principles. Also it’s pretty easy to decipher what might no longer be relevant. Anyways since the cancer clinic fucked up my schedule for the day I’ve got to go crush my p.m workout. Post back later, cheers.

I’ve been busy and havn’t gotten the amount of reading done lately that I’d like, but it’s summer and i’ll be picking it up again. No worries. The spills might take a different spin once I get more reading done again. Probably more training oriented.

I also encourage everyone to watch this video from one of my favourite coaches/authors Chad Waterbury

www.chadwaterbury.com: Motor Unit Recruitment Overview

Yeah he’s been preaching this shit for years and yeah you figure it would have caught on by now. Walk into your gym and you’ll see that sadly this is not the case.

Also check out Poliquins absurd Pre and During videos
http://www.youtube.com/user/charlespoliquin#p/u/8/8z-Z-r9b5CU

http://www.youtube.com/user/charlespoliquin#p/u/7/IPHAyADY4bg

“There are only 2 races on this planet…The intelligent and the stupid”

[EF5127]

Got my book today. “Building the Olympic Body” Fucking pumped! The most bad ass BW/gymnast training ever. I’ll be starting this training exclusively soon, once I’ve finished the book. Crushed 100 pages of it, in what felt like 5 minutes. I’m to damn excited to post. In the mean time check these recent pics out of my progress.

[EF5127]

[EF5127]

Sorry, I’ve fell off the last couple of days with blogging. Yesterday was a complete shit show to say the least at my friends annual Caribou Lou party. I’ve decided I’m back off the booze. I’m never really on it to begin with but for now I’ll be completely off of it. Even though I’ll drink maybe once a month during the summer, which is nothing compared to most 20 year olds. I still don’t like to do it that often. If I drank once a month, that’d only be 12 times a year and I don’t even do that. When I’m in school I won’t touch the bottle once. it’s usually only reserved for special occasions. I’m not overly concerned about not drinking, if I wanna chill with some friends and grab a drink I’m going to do it but honestly it’s not that often that I care to. I’m pretty sure I’ll drink once more before school and then from there, probably not again until New Years. I remember a couple posts back touching on the topic of focus. As of late I’ve also been reading some pretty wicked stuff on inhibitory mechanisms and regulatory mechanisms, involving the nervous system and muscular function. I like the subject a lot and think it’s going to be a big topic in the near future. I love reading about the “fight or flight” response in life or death situations and the way people were able to overcome these massive feats of strength and do something humanly impossible like flip a car to get a child out from underneath. I know focus isn’t responsible for accomplishing anywhere near the levels of super human strength as a “fight or flight” response but I think it can deff play a huge role and be the sure difference between crushing a lift and failing miserably. I can’t help but think back to doing Snatches and whenever I’d be going for a new PR it’d take such an incredible amount of focus. From a technical standpoint you were running every detail of technique and procedure through your head but at the same time you had to give it everything you got, as hard as you possibly could, all in one moment, in a perfectly synchronized and efficient fashion. I can assure you it’s not an easy task at all. One of the best things I would always try and do was to focus as hard as I possibly could, simply establishing what I had to do, deciding what I had to do in order to make it happen and then simply acknowledging that there’s nothing left to do but to do it. On top of using things to psych me up like music or mental cues, I would always try and think back to a time where I was really scared. A time where I was so scared I didn’t know what to do, how to react let alone even had time to consider those things. I wanted that jittery, heart beating out of my chest, hyper ventilating, slow motion, bracing myself for the worst, almost in tears type of feeling. That feeling where you just react so explosively with that hop in your step out of desperation that as much as your focusing as hard as you possibly can, it’s as if you’re not at all. It just happens. It’s an incredibly challenging state to simulate and bring upon yourself on command, but I always knew if I could do it and I was ready/within reason I would not miss that lift. I’m not going to lie, it was extremely challenging to do and it either happened or it didn’t, but when it did for that split second the bar was weightless. Before I would know it the bar would be over my head and I’d be locking out my knees on my way up. The first time I simulated it and did it for real, I was shaking and trembling afterwards and literally felt weightless. The feeling is almost surreal. I hope everyone can find a state similar to this and if not to start working on one, it can be an incredible challenge, but an incredibly rewarding one as well. Where the smallest margin is the difference between winning and losing, a tool like this could prove extremely useful. In an age where everyone’s looking for that edge or some type of performance enhancer, whether it be gear, a supplement, an exercise or whatever the case, all I can say is everyone needs to get one. I look at some of the things I do to gain an edge and although some may seem so small that it’s absurd, eventually these things add up and at the end of the day could be the difference maker. Different people depend on different things for different reasons, but if you can master focus, I think you could call on that in so many situations in life. Whether you need to focus on studying for that exam, a lift or just getting something done. Focus is key. To be able to focus and do what you set out to do when you might not feel like doing it or care to do it is something that will differentiate between a winner and a loser under any circumstances. Period.

Anyways, still crushing my totals. This cycle will be done by tuesday and then I’ll be starting some new training. I’ll just keep in posted under this same thread. I’m going to get my knowledge on though. Post back soon, cheers.

This weeks list of 5 goals
-Start new training program
-Finish 2 books
-Chose 1 gymnastics move from “Building the Olympic Body” and start to learn it
-Make time to do something fun, hang with a friend, hang with my dog

• 2 gallons of water, fish oil at night and any amount of fruits and veggies with every meal

• “I wanted that jittery, heart beating out of my chest, hyper ventilating, slow motion, bracing myself for the worst, almost in tears type of feeling. That feeling where you just react so explosively with that hop in your step out of desperation that as much as your focusing as hard as you possibly can, it’s as if you’re not at all. It just happens.”

[EF5127]

That last quote on focus, may have been the best thing I’ve ever said/described

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The problem is, everyone wants “physical” answers to what are really “technical” issues.

Great quote from todays articles. Couldn’t be more true. I do think it’s a tough call sometimes though. I guess it totally depends on what the person wants. Obviously I’d encourage technique under any circumstances but every once and awhile when it comes down to it, after safety, simplicity works best. Teaching a guy O-lifts who’s not an O-lifter, not many guys are going to have him work with a broomstick. But then again, maybe he’d be better off that way. I read some more of “Building the Olympic Body” and I’ve decided my movements of focus will be

1. L-Sit
2. Front Lever
3. Hand Stand Push Up

The progressions look awesome. I’m hoping to take a good run at performing all of these moves by New Years. I’m going to be starting at the very first progressions in the book on all of these. The L-sit and Front Lever consists of holds where the idea is to get 60sec total split up with any amount of sets. Holds go for at least 5 seconds and no longer than 15. for HSPU it’s a little bit different, the progression starts with an exercise movement which means reps. 2-3 sets of 3-5 reps is recommended. Pretty excited to finally start these. Patience is going to be key. I think it’ll be good. Something that’ll be a good challenge but not frustrating.

On another note. I think remembering where you came from, and the people from your past is important. I’m only saying this because the people in and around our lives have a substantial impact on every aspect of our lives whether we like it or not. I have to say I’ve met some great people in my life and I hope to meet many more. After being what I’ve been through, I have to be thankful for the new found appreciation that I have for simple things, like being thankful for every day things and the people that have been and are in my life. Yeah, we’re all going to grow up, move on and go our separate ways but there’s certain people and you’ll know who they are when you meet them that you should try and never lose contact with. It doesn’t matter if you’re not overly close to them anymore but give them a call, shoot them an email, let them know you still think, you still care. That type of thing will go a long way. Not trying to sound cocky or mr popular but I have to admit I know a shit load of people. The thing about me is I get along with just about everyone and can understand where everyone’s coming from on just about everything. This has always made social relationships with vastly different people very easy for me. I’m only bringing this up because I recently ran into some people I have not seen in ages. You don’t really realize how bad you totally lose connection with people in your life until you see them and you realize you used to be really close with that person meanwhile they have no idea that you just almost lost your life to cancer not too long ago. There;s always going to be people that you know just mutually or casually and you’ll talk to them and be on good terms with them but not be overly close to. That’s fine. Try and keep tabs on those guys, keep them in your cell, get them on facebook but the one’s who really matter, those are the ones you need to make an effort to talk to, visit, call up and every once and while let them know what they mean to you. To some people stuff like this doesn’t mean a thing. Those are the same people that have probably never really had a genuine relationship with people. I can’t tell you how great some of the people in my life are. As long as I have these people behind me, I’ll always have somewhere to turn. I sure hope you do to. Going through cancer sucked. Hands down the worst and hardest thing I’ve ever dealt with but as aggressive and as bad of a situation that I had, I had so much support it was insane. I’ve never met anyone who had the support that I did. I always felt bad seeing and meeting people in the hospital that just didn’t get the support I got. To my parents. Best parents in the world. I won;t even let them come to appointments with me now. My dad might have spent more time in the hospital then I did. I literally remember him standing, not sleeping beside my bedside in the hospital every night. We can all say that we’d do the same but I honestly don’t know if I could do what he did for me. Not because I wouldn’t want to but it was that crazy. Guy quit his job and did nothing but look after me, every minute, of everyday for years. As for friends. Get real ones. Real friends is one thing that you cannot buy, nor put a price on. I can;t tell you what friends mean to me. Don’t ever underestimate what you have when you have good friends and good people surrounding you in your life. It;s sometimes hard to be thankful for what you have and I understand that. Getting millions of dollars worth of health care that I would not have had access to anywhere else on the planet was something I could never give thanks enough for, but it wasn’t always this way. Cancer treatment isn’t something most kids are thankful for and can’t say I always was. When you’re burnt so bad from radiation, so sick the only way to escape the throwing up is to get so high on meds that you just blackout, have a catheter crammed up your dick and are passing kidney stones it’s sure hard to be mellow and polite to the nurses who come in at 3 a.m to get some blood samples. Even now when going back for a battery of medical tests may suck, I have to remember these people don’t owe me shit, they were the last people who were supposed to save my life and they did it anyways and they’re only trying to help. Stop focusing on what you don’t have and focus on what you do have. When you’ve legit feared closing your eyes and not waking up the next day, you realize a lot of shit doesn’t really matter anymore. Things that were once problematic are 100% irrelevant and are things that I won’t even think twice about. You just deal with them and move on. So for everyone out there. Call that friend, see what they’re up to, maybe meet up, grab a drink. These people are the last thing you want to lose IN your life. Without them your life is meaningless. Enjoy your life, but more importantly enjoy it with the people you love. Try and create a memory everyday. Give people close to you the support and love you’d want, get out there and live with them and you’ll live a much better life. Remember there’s a handful of things that you cannot buy to improve your life and make it something. We’ll these things might not cost anything, you have to discover them. Unfortunately some people never do. Don;t let yourself be one of them. Until next time, Cheers!

Oh yeah, CYCLE’S DONE!!! 2 weeks, 28 workouts. Totals ended up at
15 min HIIT Cycling
10x15 Chins
10x75 Push Ups
Ring Work

A.M AND P.M

Just absolutely crushed my totals.

Training will now looks like. More details on my new plan tomorrow! It’s going to be fun, simple, innovative, effective and one things for sure…a fucking grind!

15 min HIIT Cycling
Push/Pull
Core
Gymnastics

“All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.”

[EF5127]

“As it is, I would say about 80 to 90 percent of most people’s thinking is not only repetitive and useless, but because of it’s dysfunctional and often negative nature, much of it is also harmful. To the ego, the present moment hardly exists. Only past and future are considered important. This total reversal of the truth accounts for the fact that in the ego mode of the mind is so dysfunctional. It is always concerned with keeping the past alive, because without it - who are you? It constantly projects itself into the future to ensure its continued survival and to seek some kind of release or fulfillment there. It says “One day when this, that, or the other happens, I am going to be okay or happy, at peace.” The present moment holds the key to liberation.”

Nice little quote out of a book I picked up today. The book’s called “The Power of Now” found it when I was doing my laundry downstairs. thought I’d pick it up and give it a try. Only 25 pages deep. Can’t really judge the book yet, it looks fairly promising though. Although it’s not training related, the information is based on improving peoples lives instantly, right now. The way I look at it, what more could a person want from a book? Anything that says it’ll improve my life instantly, right now, for free. I’m probably down. I think this quotes true and something I’ve never really thought about. If you’ve been following this thread, you’ve probably realized I’m all about being productive and self improvement. Although through past experiences I’ve learned to take things step by step considering with cancer your health is so up and down, day to day. I still think everyone could improve on living in the present and embracing what they’re surrounded by at that very moment. I think everyone should remember both good and bad things that are worth remembering, keep things in mind to look forward to, but at the same time how often do you really focus on what’s at hand and appreciate the great moments and potential opportunities you have each and everyday. Probably not as much as you should. I know I don’t. From now on I’m going to start trying to focus a little more on what I happen to be doing or whatever happens to be going on at that very moment. I think I can be a lot more productive and get a lot more done we’ll attempting to focus on everyday moments more frequently. A big part of my life is trying to surround myself with positiveness. I won’t waste my time with negativity or bad influences. Not worth my time. Now that I think about it, it;s incredibly true. I’m almost always reflecting on something or focusing on something in the future. I’m going to try and do my best to focus on present time from now on. I think it’ll be a good challenge with great benefits.

I also read another book today. I forget the title of it and it’s in my car, so fuck it. The books about amazing stories. Amazing stories of survival from all different situations. Medical, War, Natural Disaster, Freak Accident etc. Pretty amazing stuff. As mush as most of it’s awful to think about or imagine, some of it’s enlightening and funny. There’s one story involving a plane going down and the pilots talking on the radio with a friend from the airport base. As the plane’s going down and the guy’s about to potentially lose his life he says to his friend “Son of a bitch man, to be honest I’ve always hated this fucking airline and knew I should have took a job with American airlines…Not to mention their flight attendants are smoking hot.” Guy actually survived and managed to save a bunch of passengers. Years later, many passengers still stay in contact with him. His daughter actually needed a stem cell transplant that wasn’t covered by insurance and the surviving passengers raised over $500,000 for his daughter. Another story involved the 2004 tsunami. 2 guys were drinking at a tiqi bar on the beach as the tsunami took them from behind and swept them away. They floated around for days with the tiqi bar. One guy said it could’ve been a lot worse. Said they could have been stranded without sober, without booze, he also noted that time actually went by pretty fast all liquored up.

Had a great snack today. Thought I’d share. Tuna salad on some rice cakes. Ruled. Not a whole lot of post time today. Get er back tomorrow

Anyways, tomorrow new training. Doctors said I could do some low impact cable work. Woohooo

Day 1 A.M

15 min HIIT Cycling

A1. Pulley Chest Press - From an anatomy/ physiological standpoint it’s a great chest builder, allowing the chest to be used for the movement that it’s intended for
A2. Pull Ups

• Super Set 5x5

B1.Neutral Grip Chins
B2. Push Ups
B3.Split stance cable push - Core stability. I’ve put a ban on all god forsaken spinal flexion.
B4.Split stance cable pull-

• Circuit x 5

Gymnastics Work

P.M

Neutral Chins/Push Ups at home

Once again, progression will be key.

“Winners never quit and quitters never win.”

[EF5127]

I’ve never been into pre-workout supplements (as in N.O) that much, but today I’ve put into words a realization that I think everyone should acknowledge about them. All this N.O Explode. Super Pump bullshit all has the same garbage in it. Supplement companies have duped the masses by causing the illusion of increased training drive and focus. Let me explain because I can already see some ego driven asshole drinking their N.O Explode watching some motivational Ronnie Coleman BSN video on youtube about to go blast his gunz at the jim getting all fired up. “Bro I don’t care what anyone says, I’m an uneducated kid who refuses to listen to anyone or learn anything, I know everything and I know this shit works! I get so much energy its crazzyyyy bro, fucking pumps are unreal” All these products are outdated in my opinion. Anyone with half a brain is past this bullshit. So 2005. I’m going to go ahead and say that creatine is the most effective and the only beneficial ingredient in any of these drinks. Maybe some other amino acids, at best. For the most part EVERY SINGLE one of these products is based on 3 golden ingredients. Beta Alanine, Arginine and Caffeine. These are the ingredients that you are or claim to be “Feeling” Beta Alanine is what gives you the tingles, that feeling of itchiness that causes irritability and restlessness. Arginine is what gives you those wiicked pumps and Caffeine is what gives you that heart beat, with the sweats and that awful breathing ability. All these things add up to the illusion of increased energy and training drive. People fail to realize that the idea of pre workout nutrition in terms of increased training drive and focus is to increase levels of dopamine and acetylcholine. When you do this, you’ll achieve what I like to call a real focus or real energy. It’s not that jittery, un comfortable sensation that irritates you enough into being angry at the awful music in your gym and grinding out 1 more rep, we’ll thinking to yourself in your head “SO FUCKING ITCHY!!!” This type of focus will be a deep, mesmerizing level of focus. It’s smooth and as if everything around you is occurring in super slow motion. On your way to the gym it’s like cars are flying by you in slow motion as if you’re in a movie with laser vision. You don’t at any point feel uncomfortable, in fact you feel fucking great. That increased blood flow to the brain, increased neural activation, synchronization and firing makes you feel like superman on steroids. Why don’t supplement companies focus more on legit neurotransmitter stimulating supplements. The better question is why would they? They’ve created the illusion of increased training drive and focus through using DIRT CHEAP ingredients and selling them to everyone and their mom. They’re just sitting back, laughing, counting cash. Anyways, the point being focus on boosting dopamine and acetylcholine if you want some real pre workout benefit as far as drive and focus. Power Drive rules by the way. You’ll instantly notice the difference of real focus and real energy vs jittery, heavy breathing restlessness and irritability.

Enough of that though. Training was good today.

15 min HIIT Cycling

A1. Pulley Chest Press - From an anatomy/ physiological standpoint it’s a great chest builder, allowing the chest to be used for the movement that it’s intended for
A2. Pull Ups

• Super Set 5x5

B1.Neutral Grip Chins
B2. Push Ups
B3.Split stance cable push - Core stability. I’ve put a ban on all god forsaken spinal flexion.
B4.Split stance cable pull-

• Circuit x 5

Gymnastics Work

P.M work to follow…

Continued reading today and have to say “The Power of Now” is a pretty bad ass book.

“There are two levels to your pain: the pain that you create now, and the pain from the past that still lives on in your mind and body. Ceasing to create pain in the present and dissolving the past - this is what I want you to think about now. This is the end of all power games, which are so corrosive to relationships. Power over others is weakness disguised as strength. True power is within and is available to you now.”

“As long as the egoic mind is running your life, you cannot truly be at ease; you cannot be at peace or fulfilled except for brief intervals when you obtained what you wanted, when a craving has just been fulfilled. Since the ego is a derived sense of self, it needs to identify with external things. It needs to be both defended and fed constantly. The most common ego identifications have to do with possessions, the work you do, social status and recognition, knowledge and education, physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, personal and family history, belief systems and often also political, nationalistic, racial, religious, and other collective identifications. None of these is you. Do you find this frightening? Or is it a relief to know this? All of these things you will have to relinquish sooner or later. Perhaps you find it as yet hard to believe, and I am certainly not asking you to believe that your identity cannot be found in any of those things. You will know the truth of it for yourself. You will know it at the latest when you feel death approaching. Death is a tripping away of all that is not you. The secret of life is to “Die before you die” and find that there is no death.”

Some good things to think about. Don’t have time to elaborate on them right now. All I can say is this is true. You realize the true meaning of truly meaningful things as death approaches. There is no such thing as past or future. Only the NOW. Past was once NOW and future will become a NOW. Heres to the NOW. Cheers.

In the meantime check out this link Berardi and precision nutrition hooked up with Nike at their NFL day. Pretty cool stuff.

- YouTube

Vid

Nutrition Coaching for Athletes Course 1: How to Coach an Athlete

Vid and Story