Home Boy

Thought for the day

Well it's Day 7 of Freedom Year. The first week is over and after a week of hanging out meeting up and gym time and goodbyes... it was time to stay in and get some work done. Of course it was the nicest day of the week; fairly warm and sunny out. My only consolation is that it's one of the shortest days of the year, so time-wise I didn't miss that much sunlight.

I can't even remember the last time I was in all day. Occasionally I would have a day like this when I couldn't bring myself to go outside, but that's changed. I don't remember when, but it has changed.

The theme of the day was clean up, clean out; I don't have that much stuff, but it's too much. I've been trying to give much of it away for the last five years. I've been pretty successful with vinyl(s) [ha ha ha], CDs and movies. Dishes and cutlery have been more difficult and clothes... well I have a contact for them. I don't just want to dump them into one of those bins. My massage therapist collects clothing for homeless men and those generally in need. Some of the stuff is in pretty good shape, so she shares some pieces as well.

Also, my son is the same size as I am, just longer above the waist, so he can grab some if necessary. There is too much to travel with. And if I fill up my dufflebag I won't have room to collect any new items along the way.

Another act I did today was pull my camera out of its bag and start taking pictures. I have to rekindle my love of taking pictures. Ironically my profession, as a photographer, all but killed it. When I got my first camera I would take it with me and just go around snapping pix of just about everything. So I did that today. So here are the results of today's photography... and house cleaning/clearing.

Front Room... the speaker is spoken for.

Weight bench and not an ironing board.

My exercise area. Home gym, (banister)

I don't sit in this chair. It must go!!

I did some shredding today.

Arial view.

Brexit Paradox - Bizarro Dream #122016

I don't have the energy to recount the entire dream for you in this blog. Suffice to say it was wrought with symbolism which no doubt dealt with myself and those around me. Transitioning is a delicate way of describing what's happening this year with several of my friends, and I'm surprised that I am taking it a little harder than I might have as recently as five years ago.

Melrose Diner, 15th & Snyder Av. Philly, Today

Apathy shall set you free, I always tell people. I am not one to get attached to ideas, institutions, concepts, dogma or even relationships. I like it that way, or so I tell myself.

Anyway this dream started in Philly and ended in Los Angeles where I am under a pile of Millennials who are creating a human sculpture. I am somewhere on the bottom holding everyone up. They dig me even though I have lived many years longer than them.

Anyway the end of the dream gets pretty silly, however at some point an actual adult picks up a cell phone left on a desk and asks "Who is Brexit Paradox?" That was my name in the dream. I think it's a pretty cool name. I may come up with a character for that name. I wonder if it means anything to anyone.

[*Note, a Google search revealed this; "This is the Brexit paradox: the longer it takes for pragmatism to re-enter the debate, the higher the chance that the chilling effect of the unknown will cause permanent damage to both the United Kingdom and the European Union."] As written by, Ana Palacio, should you care to read the entire commentary. But why would this be in my dream??]

I'm not sure this could be interpreted on the internet. I think it's very specific to what I've been witnessing this year and to an extent what I've been going through. I am about to make my Exit from Philly and Los Angele is one of my stops. It may be my last stop on the continental US... or maybe not.

I keep forgetting what day it is. I do remember the date, but the day of the week keeps slipping my mind.

I went to the YMCA to do the 500s Workout today and realized when Auntie Fran that's we'd done group exercise (GX) yesterday!!!

Today the 500 was more like 450. I over-reached on a few weights, but then again succeeded on a few sets as well.. So here's a quick recap; highlights and low-lights:

Leg Press: I'm starting with 360 lbs now and the first set yielded 20 reps. Not enough to start at the next level (which will probably be 390 instead of 450 because I need to advance slower when I get to higher weights). I half-stepped (adding 50 lbs instead of 90) up to 630 lbs., and decided to see if I could free-push it without the safety of the pegs. I was successful for 8 reps over 2 sets, but felt a slight twinge in my right pectineus (inner, upper thigh). I used a platform to push 680 off the pegs and that's where I maxed out. I had to finish up working down and the final twenty reps were with 270 lbs.

Lesson; sometimes we can't expect to progress all the time. Also, might not have been the best idea to push hard after a GX day (it hadn't been 24 hours since the class.)

I stayed at 100 lbs for the bench press, and didn't get much past twenty reps on the first set. I've noticed my first set is where I get the most reps... the middle sets are maybe 10 - 12 reps fairly consistently and the last set I can get above 12 reps, usually 15... the cleanup set is strong because I am hype to get finished.

Leg extensions were weaker than usual. I used the same weight (130 lbs) and same with the cable row. I had to cheat it a little bit (lower back motion) because I didn't want to lower the weight (105 lbs.)

Cable crunch - this is where I over-reached adding weight... so in this case I dropped reps instead of weight, so I settled for 50... also I was beginning to run late for a meet up.

This session took a little over two hours. There's lots of stretching and resting between sets. When I can up the weight and get the session down under two hours, I will be progressing.


The meet-up calendar is still full. Today we reached back in time to the days of KOLLAGE, Magazine of the Visual Arts and John Leary who we had to the cover back in the mid-1990s; 1994 I think t was, the same year I came up with Noxsoma.

John is still doing his  "John" thing; working on projects and being an advocate and working on visual productions. We met about several projects he's got going and fitness and nutrition etc.

We met up at the Melrose Diner, which is a landmark destination diner in South Philly. As long as I've spent in Philly, this was my first time at the Melrose. It's a pretty nice diner. Nothing outstanding - not to disrespect its legacy. I don't really know how it got its reputation aside from being the place where the local news would often broadcast live from, asking diners their opinions of current events, or the weather, or the badly the local football team was performing. Heck, they don't even have WiFi, free or otherwise. Can't really blame them. Diners are for talking as well as dining.... not so much surfing and camping out in the booths.

Anyway, thanks to our lovely and attentive yet, unobtrusive server, who kept my tea cup filled and didn't get bent out of shape as we sat there for three hours.

This Phlexit is getting real and I may have to curtail some of my social activities and goodbyes in order to get my house in order, to leave.

And that's it for today folks. 

The 500 Workout Explained

Pic of the Day: YMCA

I didn't wake up this morning the way I imagined I would. Well, I didn't imagine I wouldn't wake up... I just pictured it differently. I didn't picture a dark, warm room, and I didn't imagine there'd be frozen rain falling from the sky; or was it snow?

I'm not one for extreme emotions so I didn't do any kind of freedom dance. In fact, I stuck very much to my wake-up ritual, sans the AM exercise, (AMX) and the doom and gloom reports about the economy collapsing and the truth about the geo-political climate in the planet.

There's a lot of newness in my life. It seems like it came suddenly, but it's been brewing for a while now. The only surprise was the laptop replacement. I am getting used to this Dell and slowly but surely logging in to my social networks and obligations from this "new device."

Of course I weighed in; 176 even, 14.4% body fat (less than 25 lbs of fat on the Bod) and 44.5% (78.3 lbs.) of muscle, according to my scale. That's a 3.09:1 ratio. That may not mean much to you yet, unless you've been following the Bajai Boot Camp 6 Sessions. Attaining and maintaining a 3:1 Muscle Mass to Body Fat ratio has been a goal of mine for two years. I figured I'd be able to meet that goal only after I managed to leave the gig. I'm sure it's just a coincidence. The biggest change I've made is a new 2 - 3 times a week workout I call the 500s. I snagged this name from the 300 workout from back in the day, when the movie "The 300" was released. I think that was around the time people started flipping tires and such.

Simply explained, I perform 100 reps of five exercises. They all target big muscle groups and all except one are combination exercises, which involve multiple joint movement. I think today was the fifth session. The theory is sound; although I'm sure I see any results in the mirror, the feedback I am getting from the scale is impressive. [At this point I hope the results continue, otherwise I will be very perplexed.]

Leg press type at the YMCA

So here's the set up. I give myself guidelines for these programs to help keep me honest and injury-free. Ideally I start with the leg press. The challenge is to do 30+ reps on the first set before I can increase the weight. Today I started with 360 lbs., and only got 20 reps. So next time I'll start with 360 lbs again. This way I can gauge my progress. Before today I'd add 90 lbs per set, however that was getting pretty hairy, so I half-stepped in a few sets. I was able to go from 360 lbs to 450 lbs., but had to stop at 500
lbs. before I took it 540. I maxed out at 720 lbs., but kept the safety pegs engaged.

I am a firm believer in legs day. People, especially men, neglect their legs to their detriment. There are quite a few men at the YMCA who are top heavy. They can bench incredible weights, but have no leg development. The way I see it, these gams got to keep me up and walking for a long time.

Next station is the bench press. I started out with the 45 lb. bar the first time out and today I advanced to 100 lbs. The guidelines are different here and for all the rest of the stations - maintain a steady weight and and push 100 reps in as few sets as possible. I don't count sets. I try to get 30 reps in the first set - I have not achieved that as of yet. I get carried away with adding weight, but now that I'm up to an even hundred I may be able to stick around there for a while.

The next station is a leg extension machine. I'm at a good weight, 130 lbs., I've been trying to increase the reps (18) today. I'll stay at this weight for a while.

Seated cable row is the same procedure, only today I realized I can change the grip to make the same weight more challenging as well as hit different muscles in the back. I think I'll explore that.

Cable Crunch

Finally, is a cable crunch. Only today I opted out of the cable... I am very close to racking the bricks on this one so I used a tension band, which provides a very different feeling and I expect a different result as well.

And that was that.

In case you want to try this here are a few items to keep in mind. #1) use lighter than usual weights, (if you're used to lifting weights). #2) This program is time consuming. Break times can range from 30 seconds to several minutes. Sometimes I can feel my heart rate spike (not to dangerous levels) and I have to wait for it to settle down before I do the next set. I also stretch a bit between sets. My main goal is to get 100 reps done and although I haven't had to resort to single rep sets, I think I would do it to complete the task. #3) This isn't a program to be performed daily, or every other day for that matter, (especially if you're just starting out.) This is a full body workout so you have to rest and repair your entire body before you go again, and that generally takes 48 hours. Two days break, I have found to be idea. Three days is too much. I took three days off once (due to circumstances) and I felt I lost the momentum.

Finally, despite the positive results I've gotten and the strength gains I've apparently made (lifting and pulling higher numbers) I find it boring, (but that's just me.) So I am considering doing something like this every so often over 30 days. If you maintain an every third day schedule you'll get ten workouts in. Thirty days is a good duration - you could probably even stretch it out to 90, but I've found that after three weeks, I start to lose any gains (or weight loss) I've achieved. So It's probably a good idea to go for thirty - do something light or fun or aerobic like walking, yoga or Zumba for a week or ten days and then get back into some kind of resistace training.

I will be experimenting with such strategies during the year (2017) and reporting back, either on You Tube,  Facebook (Minimum Wage Fitness), or right here.

Confession: This entry didn't really go the way I'd envisioned it, but it certainly went the way it needed to go. And with that, I bid you adieu.