02 March, 2013

not sure what to make of this


haram:~ alex$ host printers.apple.com
printers.apple.com mail is handled by 10 mail-in4.apple.com.
printers.apple.com mail is handled by 100 mail-in100.apple.com.
printers.apple.com mail is handled by 10 mail-in2.apple.com.
printers.apple.com mail is handled by 20 mail-in25.apple.com.
printers.apple.com mail is handled by 20 mail-in24.apple.com.
printers.apple.com mail is handled by 20 mail-in23.apple.com.
printers.apple.com mail is handled by 20 mail-in22.apple.com.
printers.apple.com mail is handled by 20 mail-in21.apple.com.
printers.apple.com mail is handled by 10 mail-in7.apple.com.
printers.apple.com mail is handled by 10 mail-in6.apple.com.
printers.apple.com mail is handled by 10 mail-in5.apple.com.

27 January, 2013

good job, roadrunner/l3


haram:Linux alex$ traceroute 18.72.0.3
traceroute to 18.72.0.3 (18.72.0.3), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
 1  * 172.20.0.1 (172.20.0.1)  303.292 ms  13.469 ms
 2  rrcs-24-43-226-1.west.biz.rr.com (24.43.226.1)  9.676 ms  243.768 ms  200.432 ms
 3  agg11.milnhixd-ccr01.hawaii.rr.com (72.129.45.64)  66.255 ms  72.020 ms  372.384 ms
 4  agg31.lsancarc-ccr01.socal.rr.com (72.129.45.0)  65.659 ms  79.293 ms *
 5  * 107.14.17.132 (107.14.17.132)  66.565 ms *
 6  * 66.109.6.135 (66.109.6.135)  71.060 ms *
 7  * * *
 8  * * *
 9  * * *
10  * * *
11  * * *
12  * * *
13  ae-71-71.ebr1.newyork1.level3.net (4.69.134.69)  428.049 ms * *
14  * * *
15  * * *
16  * * *
17  * * massachuset.car1.boston1.level3.net (4.53.48.98)  1975.059 ms
18  * dmz-rtr-1-external-rtr-1.mit.edu (18.192.9.1)  386.811 ms  412.786 ms
19  backbone-rtr-1-dmz-rtr-1.mit.edu (18.168.5.1)  2600.237 ms  386.913 ms  177.912 ms
20  * w92-rtr-1-backbone-2.mit.edu (18.168.1.25)  149.650 ms  155.501 ms
21  bitsy.mit.edu (18.72.0.3)  138.814 ms !Z *  849.700 ms !Z

09 October, 2012

Countdown to 400

I recently hit a 355dl, which was a 55lb pr (I only deadlift heavy every so often -- it was kind of a surprise!). I decided that I want to hit a 400dl by the end of the year. Here is the progression:
  • 10/12/12 - Warm-up 7,5,3,3,2, 5 x 1 @ 345lb
  • 10/19/12 - Warm-up 7,5,3,3,2, 6 x 1 @ 345lb
  • 10/26/12 - Warm-up 7,5,3,3,2, 7 x 1 @ 345lb
  • 11/2/12 - Warm-up 7,5,3,3,2, 8 x 1 @ 345lb
  • 11/9/12 - Warm-up 7,5,3,3,2, 9 x 1 @ 345lb
  • 11/16/12 - Warm-up 7,5,3,3,2, 10 x 1 @ 345lb
  • 11/23/12 - Warm-up 7,5,3,3,2, 4 x 1 @ 365lb
  • 11/30/12 - Warm-up 7,5,3,3,2, 5 x 1 @ 365lb
  • 12/7/12 - Warm-up 7,5,3,3,2, 6 x 1 @ 365lb
  • 12/14/12 - Warm-up 7,5,3,3,2, Re-test for 1RM
The warm-up sets here are:
  • 7x145
  • 5x195
  • 3x265
  • 3x295
  • 2x335
And then we pull singles of 90% of the max, give or take. SO excited to go and crush this.

25 September, 2012

The first person at the office to notice anything had changed

Yesterday was flu shot day at $office. Over the last year, my shirts have gone from being a little tight around the midsection to being kind of billowy around the midsection and tight in the shoulders and arms. This is especially true in my jackets, which are generally tailored a little less fluffy than, say, polo shirts are (which I try to wear most of the time). So I sat down in front of the nurse who was to give me the shot, and proceeded to try to pull up my right sleeve. I realized this was going to be tough.

So picture, I'm sitting at a desk, with the nurse on the other side of the desk. My elbow is on the desk at a right angle and I'm reaching down with my opposite hand to pull up my sleeve. If it weren't for the shirt, the desk, and the nurse, you'd think I was flexing my bicep to show it off. Which felt awkward. At any rate, her eyes visibly popped open as my arm turned from doughy engineer arm to something quite a bit larger than my shirt wanted to restrain. I wrestled with the shirt and continued to yank it up my arm, wondering if (eek) I'd have to actually take it off to get it up on top of my deltoid. Turns out as I pulled on it, a couple stitches audibly ripped and it gave way. Which is sad, I like that shirt – I've had it since my early days as a Unix administrator (it's got a BSD daemon on the left breast with a halo) – and I don't want it hurt. Anyways, it gives, I pull it up to my deltoid, she makes this smile at me, gives me the shot, and send me on my way.

What a trip. I've been at this crossfit stuff for ten months now. I've gone to two hundred or so workouts between my strongman training (we pay for personal training), my olympic lifts training (same), and the regular old crossfit wods, and I figure by the one-year mark (02 Dec 13), I'll be at 250 or so. I haven't lost much weight. In fact, I got down to about 250lbs for a week or so when I was eating poorly and sleeping worse. But then I popped back up to my "normal" weight, about 270. In that same time, I've lost six inches off my waist. So what we've seen is a "recomp". My body has dramatically changed composition. But because we tend to walk around the office in cotton clothes that don't show much instead of tight t-shirts, spandex, or short(er) shorts, nobody notices that I've replaced a lot of that doughy fat tissue with muscle.

Nobody's noticed. Not even my posture (which has improved due to my spinal erectors being a lot stronger, I think). Until yesterday, when I "had" to pull up my sleeve and show the nurse my arm.

Thanks, lady, you kinda made my day even if I hurt a beloved shirt. :)

21 September, 2012

All in

Siddharth recently asked, "How bad do you want it?" I don't know that he intended to travel down the rabbit hole I've been following in my head since then, but a bunch of philosophical pieces fell into place as I thought about it.

We have to break the question into a couple pieces before we can answer.

First, and perhaps subtly, what is it you want?

If you're the guy at the metcon who wants "it" more than me, that's one thing. But ask yourself, what is it you hope to get out of it? Is it the post-metcon buzz? Ripped abs? Are you anorexic and you just want to feel a little bit of pain and a hollow in your belly? Is that shorter time on the board what you're looking for?

Maybe that's short sighted. All of it, actually.

So I'll tell you what I want. I want to not miss anything. I want to not regret anything. I want an opportunity to do every single thing I have wanted to do. Why leave it behind? So many people wait around, doing the things they're "supposed to do," like having kids and buying that responsible house that's such a good investment, and all that nonsense. Really, fuck all that. All of it.

I want to go to bed every night, exhausted, and happy with what I've done. And really I am sick of making excuses for it, and taking the long way to it, and doing it the way everyone else says to do it. I'm done with that.

Let me live to be happy.

So there's an expression, "put your money where your mouth is." I've done that. I spend close to half my net income on food. Not because I love to eat – although I do – but because I need to fuel this insane beast I'm creating in the lab. I spend a further thousand dollars a month on gym related paraphernalia and additional training time and days.

More than that, though. I eat in ways that are generally acknowledged by the healthcare and nutrition establishment to be unhealthy. I deliberately set out to tear muscle and make myself hurt almost every single day. I alienate coworkers by telling them that, yes, that time at the gym this evening is more important to me than this meeting you want to schedule. I don't go out anymore except to eat, buy shit for the gym, go to functions related to the gym, or to otherwise exercise.

I'm not just putting my money where my mouth is, I'm putting everything where my mouth is, as it were. I might just be wrong. I could die of congestive heart failure. I could die of a heart attack from some congenital heart defect I don't know about. I could be ruining my renal system with excess vitamins and supplements.

But you know what, I'll die happily, knowing that I did everything I could while I was alive.

What do I want? Fucking everything.

How badly do I want it? I'm betting my life on the idea that my life is the only one I've got and I want to live it as fully and as happily as I can, damn the torpedos. I'm all in.

I'm not going to die with any "extra" money because I don't want kids. I'm not going to die wishing I'd bought a Lamborghini instead of some stupid house in the suburbs. Fuck waiting, being "responsible" and being like anyone else.

01 September, 2012

New CFT

It would seem we're starting a new strength progression at CFSA again. So today, naturally, we re-tested the CFT.

Back Squat: 7x 85, 5x 135, 3x 165, 2x 195
Press: 5x 85, 5x 105, 2x 110, fail @ 120
Deadlift: 5x 135, 2x 225, 1x 275, fail @ 305 (knees), 2x 285

CFT for Sep 1 2012: 590 (2RM) -- up from 535 on 23 July. That's a PR of 20lbs on back squat, 25lbs on the press, and 10lbs on the DL (for a 2RM; my 1RM is 300).

At this point, especially with the deadlift, I'm going to start using a belt and straps. The way my back works, I just don't trust my posture. Everything up until now has been "raw." Anyways, my form gets kind of crummy both when I get tired, and when the weight gets past 250 or so. The other thing I noticed today, both me and wifey, is that we've been doing so much oly lifting that the deadlift position/movement just feels bizarre. We wanted to rip the bar off the ground and throw it into the air, but that's just not the way it works.

Oh, and also I forgot to take off my oly shoes for deadlifts today, so the position felt weird but I didn't realize until afterwards.

But, no excuses. I'm happy. I'd like to get over 200 on the BS, and no doubt with a 1RM it's higher. I almost wonder whether, with all the Oly work we're doing, I should focus on a huge squat and keep a modest, respectable deadlift.

27 August, 2012

On "doping" and silliness

Much has been made of Lance Armstrong and doping. What people seem to be leaving out is the man did take testosterone. I don't hold this against him, and really nobody else should either. Testosterone is a great weapon against wasting caused by e.g., chemotherapy. And the man did have cancer. There's also no question that he had transfusions of his own (well, presumably, but who cares?) blood. This leads to the suggestion that maybe when he wasn't getting transfusions he was taking EPO (epogen or epoetin) – effects of which I won't go into here.

Okay, now what? I happen to think I inhabit a curious position as an athlete (and I'm not quite comfortable calling myself that): I train both strongman and crossfit. Crossfit is tested at the elite level; strongman (both NAS and WSM) are not. Lots of people turn up their noses at this point and say "well those guys are not true athletes then because they're on drugs."

Are they not then? I find this sort of quick retort to be reprehensible. I've been kind of defending Lance Armstrong lately by saying "guys, I could take a gram of testosterone a week for years and never be the cyclist he is." The other thing that comes to mind is the adage (from the body building community, actually) "80% diet, 15% training, 5% gear." For the uninitiated, in this case, "gear" means performance-enhancing drugs. Like testosterone. And epogen. More on this in a minute.

Derek Poundstone

So for a moment, let's digress and illustrate the differences between two athletes who are definitely taking PED's, and large quantities of them: bodybuilders and strongman competitors. One of the strange paradoxes of bodybuilding is that while these dudes attain incredible hypertrophy and are by most definitions of the word quite "fit," they actually possess little functional strength. If you were to take even a dude as incredibly ripped as Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime, and ask him to do an atlas stone run, I'm fairly certain he wouldn't be able to move that 200kg stone. And the difference is not in the amount of testosterone he's been using.

The difference is in the CNS and in training (well, among other things). Muscle recruitment is super important. Let us think for a moment about a guy with incredible glutes, hams, quads, and traps, but who is uncoordinated or otherwise unable to actually recruit these muscles in the action of rowing. These giant muscles mean nothing if he doesn't have the technique or the CNS conditioning to actually use that strength. I could go on and list other sport-specific examples (muscleups, atlas stones, free diving, the list goes on), but I would hope if you're reading this you understand.

But if we address these specific points in the body, these sort of "soft skills," what about what actually constitutes doping? We in the developed world are blessed with incredible medicine and manufacturing capabilities. I'm able to get in 1,000 calories and 100g of protein in about 350ml of liquid I can yack down in minutes. In other nations, people are not so lucky. They have to "eat the old-fashioned way." Is this doping? Why not?

What about geography? Much has been made of training at high altitude. What of a country without high-altitude training centers? Should we restrict all elite athletes to training at sea level?

Professor Xavier

Lastly, people always want to talk about performance enhancing drugs. Those nasty things that somebody is selling to you in a dark alley with bent and rusty needles that you jab into your jugular and turn into the hulk and ... yeah, that stuff. What are these drugs?

Well, the simple answer is testosterone. There are tons of ways to get testosterone from injectable esters to patches to various oral prohormones (that is, a substance that you digest that metabolizes to testosterone). There are also anti-estrogens that are apparently quite good at androgenizing people and up-regulating testosterone production – but which are not specifically testosterone in and of themselves.

But there are more complex answers for what a performance-enhancing drug is. Bodybuilders in particular use insulin to shock the body into hypertrophy. Stimulants such as clenbuterol and ephedrine – even pseudoephedrine, "sudafed" – are used (caffeine is good-to-go). And then there are the strange ones like AAV1-FS, which is a virus that's been genetically modified to "deactivate myostatin." That is, it's effectively gene-doping (which is still not illegal, yet). There's also a sort of bumper crop of peptides available to the public such as ipamorelin, which regulates (favorably) human growth hormone, but which is itself not HGH at all. Does this sound familiar?

To me, this sounds a lot like Alexander Shulgin being chased by the DEA during his tryptamine and phenylethylamine experiments. The basic gist is thus: the human body is such a complex machine and is so very variable that it is (near-)impossible to enumerate each and every substance that can improve performance in an arbitrary task (from playing the flute to pulling a truck). Because of this, it is impossible to ban all such substances, and without a comprehensive, no-exceptions ban policy, there will always be "cheating." But more to the point, there will always be better and worse coaches, there will always be higher or lower altitude, or better genes, and so on. You cannot isolate individuals from their environments, whether that environment contains trenbolone or not.

So what do we do then? Saturday Night Live famously joked about a "doping olympics" in which contestants were free to use whatever PEDs they wanted. Just for a second, imagine the spectacle that would produce? Are we not viewers (and participants!) of sport for that spectacle?

Let's back up though, for a moment. At 6'5" (that's near enough to 2m for the rest of the world) and 250-260lbs (depending on how much I've had to eat in a given day), I'm a large dude by most standards. So what we do in sport to even the field is we put me in a class with guys my own size. But what happens in a sport (such as NAS or WSM) where we aren't tested? My mass has something to do with the amount of performance-enhancing drugs in me, but I'm also constrained by diet and genetics. There's a point at which I'm just not able to get any bigger (practically).

Since we can test for the presence of the major, effective PED's, why not allow athletes to compete in mass-PED rationed classes? That is, you can test up to a certain level of testosterone or metabolites and we use that as a multiple of your height/weight whatever (even age, right?), and call that a "class." That brings all this out into the open (because people will always, always look for a way to cheat), and it lets people who don't want to make that choice, to "juice," or to exceed what their body is genetically capable of, to remain in a class where they can feel reasonably confident they'll be competitive. But why ban people from the sport at all if they want to look like Derek Poundstone? We're all adults. Let's act that way.

And people will ask me, I am sure: have you ever used steroids or other PEDs? Well, as of today, no. Unless you count genes that make me a big guy, or protein supplements, or creatine. I'm not sure where you draw the line here, but I've never taken testosterone supplements, or anti-estrogens. I've had cortisone shots, and I've had corticosteroids for immune system issues. But enough about me. The simple answer is "No." But by now you should realize there's no simple answer.

Lastly, for those of you paying attention, yeah, this is a super "libertarian" point of view on sport. That's me. I've got some sense in my head, but I tend to lean towards liberty and away from authority.

17 August, 2012

Crossfit WODs : Difran

So wifey and I talk about the WODs we'd really like to have sometimes. I don't have HSPUs or even pullups. However, I really like Diane, and she really likes Fran. Well, as much as can like these sorts of workouts that make you want to barf your face off.

And so, the solution is Difran:

For time,
21-15-9
225 (175) DL
35 (25) DB thrusters

You'd use two barbells and have that by 65/45 thrusters or something, but that becomes a mess when you've got multiple people working out.

Haven't had a chance to do this yet, but I'm really looking forward to it.

16 August, 2012

One size fits all

I had a great session with Cara tonight. It wasn't the most I'd ever lifted (it's not supposed to be). But we did make some interesting conclusions.

So we normally (at least in my limited experience) say that olympic lifting is done a certain way. When we clean the bar, our hands are in a specific place (my Crossfit coach – take that for what you will – says your hands are an inch to two outside your hips). When we receive the bar, it is in the front rack position. Generally, we also say that a jerk is a split jerk, rather than a "power" or squat jerk.

But I've been struggling with this. My front rack position is not terrific. There are a couple reasons for this. The first is I have poor mobility in my elbows. This is a lot better than when I started, but it's still not as terrific as a lot of the lifters I've seen (especially my wife!). I think this probably stems from all the time I spend at the keyboard, with my arms being tight, and so on. The other thing is, though, the "space" between my shoulders (that is, my deltoids) and my neck just doesn't exist. I can rest the bar ("receiving") on my deltoids, but the weight is supported on my fingers because there isn't room for the bar "between" my deltoids and my neck. It's not really relevant whether this is because my neck is big (it doesn't seem to be) or my deltoids are small (they could be bigger, but I'm a real big dude, and they're not small).

What does all this mean? Well, it means that my grip is a little modified. It means that my receiving position is necessarily a little wider so I can bring my hands under it. And, it means my receiving position looks pretty different than what you're accustomed to seeing.

But the other thing that's kind of kicking my behind is that I cannot squat very well when I receive the bar because I can't hold it very well in the front rack. I can do it with pvc, but as the weight gets heavier, the weight wants to "strip" the bar from my front rack and I drop it in front of me. And lose the lift. What I have been doing to receive the weight of the bar is leaning back (not too unlike a continental clean), but retaining a straight line in my back. That is, there's a slight bend in my knee, and I'm bending back from the hip rather than bending in my lumbar (hyper extending). This is certainly weird to look at. However, I'm very comfortable, I do receive it with a bit of a squat (just a couple inches), adjust my grip, take a breath, and then throw it up in a jerk.

Which is the next issue: I've got a great power jerk. Well, that is, it's super stable for me, it's quick enough to throw heavy weights up, and it's a motion I can do comfortably, and well. I lack back mobility because of the bone carnage back there, and my front rack doesn't allow me to hold the bar straight upright without losing it. So I clean to my shoulders, lean back a bit, and press/jerk from there. But when I split the jerk, I'm unstable. There's a bit of a bend involved. And it just doesn't work.

The good news is, there are a couple of olympic-level lifters who do use the power jerk. And Cara, anyways, uses a squat jerk (so, incidentally, does my wife).

So what came out of tonight's session was great: I just lift a little differently. It's still a clean, it's still a jerk, and it just looks a little different than yours. Because I have this reduced mobility, I probably have to work harder to pull the same weight, but that doesn't bother me.

Tonight, I lost some of the insecurity and discomfort I've had about my "weird" form in the C&J. I really banged those lifts, and started adding weight because I was very confident in what I was doing. Two weeks ago I PR'd my snatch from 95 to 125. That same night, though, I had been working on hitting my C&J hard, and because of this "awkward form," we stopped at 145. I'd previously jerked 175 twice (well, fourteen times, but sets of two) with a split jerk, and we were going for single reps, but my form was off. Tonight I cleaned and jerked 145 numerous times, and only at the end did I start getting a bit sloppy due to fatigue. To be honest, it felt light. 125 felt silly light.

I am really looking forward to hitting that 175 C&J again, and with any luck, I'll be able to PR that snatch, too. Maybe next week – that will give me three weeks of rest. I'm also mostly over this sinus/ear/lung infection. So, hopefully, I'll be stronger than I was two weeks ago (when I was on methylprednisolone and levofloxacin, dehydrated, had poor sleep, and was generally just out of sorts).

Here's to being different.

12 August, 2012

new dl

Today's deadlift:
95 x 10
145 x 5
195 x 3
245 x 1
295 x 1
300 x 1
300 x 1
245 x 2
195 x 5
145 x 4

My previous high deadlift (20 July) was 275. That workout was:

Back squat:
2 x 85
2 x 115
2 x 145
2 x 155
2 x 175

Press (strict):
2 x 65
2 x 85

Deadlift:
2 x 135
2 x 205
2 x 255
2 x 275

So in some ways it's not a real surprise that I hit a 300 DL today. I was really, really tired on 20 July. It was a crossfit total, and we had 30-ish minutes to hit 2RM's on DL, BS, and Press; today, I spent about an hour and a half on today's ten sets. Towards the end, I had more "lift" in me, but my hands were shredded and I was just out of grip. I'm not sure why, but the 300 DL was kind of my white whale; I'd been hunting it and was disappointed when I didn't get it back in July. Now I'm out for 330. We'll see again in 6-8 weeks.

I also did an "olympic total" on 8 Aug, but I'm not real pleased with it. I've been sick for about two weeks (sinus infection, ear infections, and bronchitis), and taking steroids (not those steroids) and antibiotics. I'm hoping I'll come back stronger next time through. My olympic total for the time being is just 260. :(