Hey, what's up? Glad to see you again! Come check out the new stuff and don't forget to leave a comment with your opinion!
This weekend I had the good fortune to get together with some buddies and have a brewing party for this coming year’s Oktoberfest beer. I don’t know if you’ve ever actually brewed beer before but it’s a fair little undertaking, especially for the home brewer trying to do about 30 gallons at a time. Given that we also tend towards “seat of our pants” operations, it goes without saying that the whole beer brewing adventure was a string of minor emergencies from start to finish. And, like all good disaster situations, there were some things to be learned if you kept your eyes open.
One of the first steps in the process is grinding about 50 pounds of grain so that it can be used in the as the base. With an old school hand grinder, this turned out to be a much more substantial undertaking than we’d envisioned. There were some sad faces as realization started to set in that it was looking like it could be a very long morning of delay and sore elbows for everyone until my client Lee channeled his inner Marine: Improvise, Adapt, and Overcome
Read more on Make It Happen Monday – Improvise, Adapt, Overcome…
We’re experiencing a mini-heat wave here in Maine this weekend into today. My handy Weather.com app says that in Bangor it’s 56 degrees, bright, and sunny, which for the early middle of March up in this neck of the woods is pretty sweet. Given that it’s t-shirt and bikini weather (for Maine) we’ve got the doors open to the gym, the music is cranked, people are running sprints, and sleds are being pulled. It’s awesome.
The energy of the gym has been great, but it’s definitely on another level today. After a long winter people are taking the day to get outside, do some things they haven’t done in a while, and just get the Vitamin D factories going. There’s something special about being outdoors on a great day to train that just makes it better.
Read more on Make It Happen Monday – Change Your Scenery…
So yesterday I was procrastinating by cruising around Facebook and up popped an announcement from Chris Beardsley and Bret Contreras that they’d teamed up to create a monthly research review on strength and conditioning. This immediately piqued my interest as I’d literally just been lamenting to one of my trainer buddies that there wasn’t a good “clearing house” of research in the S&C field. I’m a research nut but always struggle to find time to search out and pour through studies over a wide variety of journals. Given the limits on my time, no matter what I do I’m always a little behind. I know both Chris and Bret are very meticulous in their own study of the research, so I definitely was interested in what they would be putting out.
Given my excitement, I shared the announcement I’d seen on FB and it sparked a little discussion regarding the product, its perceived quality, and whatnot. From that thread Chris shot me a note offering me a month of the service if I’d review it. Needless to say, I jumped on that opportunity, and here’s what I think:
Read more on Strength and Conditioning Research – Service Review…
The strength and fitness game is full of all kinds of arguments and controversy. Olympic lifting versus Powerlifting. Running versus Strength Training. High-carbs versus Atkins. Vegans versus Everyone Else.
So much controversy.
There is, however, one thing that pretty much everyone can agree on:
If you want to reach your physique goals, you’d better be eating like it’s your job.
Since I love to cook (that’s right, ladies… all of my amazing qualities and I cook) and try out new meals I was on the prowl for something that would be manly and yet would satisfy my weekend hunger.
The problem?
Read more on Cooking for Men – The Meatza!…
“There’s a battle outside ragin’.
It’ll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’.”
-Bob Dylan, Times They Are A Changing
Some of you have noticed that I’ve made some changes around here… most notably the name of the blog. That’s right, this isn’t “The New Polymath” anymore. While I still really like that name and think it says a lot, I’ve realized that if I have to explain what a Polymath is to almost everyone that I talk to about my spot… then maybe it’s not the world’s best name.
Read more on Changes, They Are A Coming…
I’ve posted a video of Ray Lewis (Pro Bowl Inside ‘Backer for the Ravens) giving an inspirational speech about effort before. The man is a great player and inspirational speaker, that much is obvious.
Another video clip just went up showing that he’s being a great leader as well.
The Ravens didn’t win this past weekend. New England beat them to go to the Super Bowl. It could be contended that the Ravens played better than the Patriots, but the bottom line is that neither team played to perfection and the score didn’t fall in their favor.
Read more on Ray Lewis Showing How Leadership Is Done…
Hey all, sorry I’ve been a little slack with the communications lately. I’ve been working on some big projects, both in the online business and especially in the local business, that have been sucking a bunch of time lately. That being said, when they’re done they’re going to be, as my mentor Paul Reddick so eloquently puts it, “The Tits”.
Enough about that. I’ve got some stuff in the tank for the rest of the week, but today I wanted to highlight an article and an interview that you might have missed.
Read more on Passion, Distractions, and a Little Sip from the Hate Tank…
One of my buddies from South Carolina had a pretty cool project a while back called LifeWOD. He doesn’t update it as much anymore, but it’s a pretty awesome idea.
*****For those who don’t know, the CrossFit culture uses the term “WOD” as an acronym for “Workout Of the Day“. Various specific training iterations like mobility or strength are likewise termed “mobilityWOD”, “strengthWOD”, etc. See where I’m going with that?*****
Anyway, as you can see if you click on the link, he built this blog up as an exercise where you did one thing every day to improve your life. Pretty awesome stuff.
For Make It Happen Monday I’m going to hold you to a higher standard than that, though. Instead of just one thing, I’m going to give you three things to do today that will improve your life this week. No ifs, ands, or buts about it, if you do these things then you will be living better.
Ready for some black magic, deep down, mysterious, super life-enhancing, ninja shit?
Ok, here you go:
Read more on Make It Happen Monday – 3 Actions To Improve Life…
Hey! Nothing fancy today, I’m just dropping a note to crow a little bit:
Eric Rokeach and Greg Justice of Fitness Business Interviews have organized a competition for the title of Fitness Industry Rising Star and I have been nominated as one of the top 55 Rising Stars!
I’m flattered and humbled, to be honest. There’s no way I’d be here if it wasn’t for you all reading my stuff and helping me every step of the way. So thanks!
There’s a voting competition on Tuesday, September 13th. Go ahead and check out all of the awesome fitness pros that I have the honor to rub shoulders with and please vote away (for me, of course!)!
Fitness Industry Rising Star 2011 Competition
From Vern Hart on Flickr. Awesome, and a little creepy.
Last night we experienced the closest thing the state of Maine has had to a hurricane in quite some time. Despite warnings from the meteorologists and other assorted media hysteria-mongers, Hurricane Irene limped into the state as a tropical storm, dropped a fair amount of rain and blew over a few trees. This resulted in some power outages and general inconvenience for everyone, but didn’t really cause a ton of heavy damage here.
Other areas of the East Coast didn’t get off so lightly, but in general Irene didn’t live up to the hype that was built around it. Such is the way of media and sometimes (luckily) the way of storms. Having spent time in the southern U.S., I am a little more aware of what hurricanes can do (and I didn’t even go through a major one when I was down there) than a lot of my northern neighbors tend to be. So in light of different perspectives, it’s been interesting to watch the build up to the storm and how people are reacting.
Read more on Observations From Hurricane Irene…
