more than a food blog

[Singing] Jaa-anet, FUCK YEAH!  So today was the test of my 2009 resolution to do a pull-up.  To be honest, I didn’t really work all that hard towards this goal until around September, when my trainer, David Morris, put me on the assisted pull-up machine and I said offhandedly that I wanted to be able to to an unassisted pull-up by 2010.  That made a fire light in his eyes and he vowed that it would happen.

Here’s the thing you need to know about David Morris.  He totally rules.  In four months, I lost an inch off my waist and am at 17.59% body fat – something six years of my teaching spin, kickboxing, step, Hollywood Trainer, strength training, and Krank had failed to do.  Every day is different when he trains me – capoeira drills, handstand pushups, Indian clubs, crescent slap kicks.  He is my gold-chain wearing therapist, comedian, father figure, and sensei all in one.  He’s beyond a black belt in a trillion different martial arts, and even though he is close to seven feet tall, he moves faster than anyone I know, and can do crazy yoga balance moves like crow into a handstand.  Awesome.

He also is full of weird information.  Topics that he’s enlightened me about in past sessions: motorcycles that have two wheels in the front instead of the back, prednisone, how to make friends, age of consent in different countries (Canada has the youngest, younger even than Thailand), the fact that Safeway was sold out of mineral water yesterday, grinding your own meat with antique meat grinders, people who piss in stairwells, Thai food, breakdancing.

He also has this habit of saying “-what” to elicit participation from whomever he’s talking to.  For example, he’ll say, “So this exercise is great because you feel it in your – what?” and I chirp “GLUTES!” and he says, “That’s right.”  Sometimes he doesn’t wait for you to answer, though, but it’s still the same thing.  ”We’re gonna work hanging crunches so that you can improve strength in your – what?  That’s right.  Core muscles.”  This vocal tic gets even more random at times.  Just today – “Flax seed is great when you mix it in with – what?  That’s right.  Bisquick.”  My favorite one is “I want to stay healthy and strong so that when I get old I can – what?  That’s right.  Pick fruit from my fruit trees.”  WTF???  He makes me laugh so hard.

Anyway, he is now taking new clients, so if you are anywhere near the bay area, hit him up!

Oh, I forgot to even talk about the fact that I did in fact succeed in doing a pull-up.  Four, in fact.  Me = BAMF.

I hope this post is relevant to CM readers in this New Year’s Resolution season.

In my non-blogging, non-researching life, I am a group exercise leader. GEL is the newfangled PC term for “aerobics instructor” and is actually a better term because on top of aerobics I also teach spinning, pilates, weight lifting, kickboxing, and sports conditioning. However, it’s an awkward term so for the rest of this post I’ll stick with aerobics instructor.” That’s not even what this post is about anyway.

The fitness industry is a documentary-worthy, fascinating subculture. I’m going to an annual fitness convention in June so expect a post this summer with my funny antics and pictures of many super fit, dirty-hot aerobics instructors decked out in their finest lululemon.

Anyway, I am going to reveal a secret, and I hope to click “publish” before the aerobics industry police come to kill me: Aerobics instructors hate exercise just like everyone else. We all have a love-hate relationship with physical activity. ((Some people, like my ex-boyfriend, truly love exercise. These are the people you should focus on hating.)) I obsessively hunt for the closest parking spot to minimize walking. I take the elevator down one floor (but only after hours because during the day I will get dirty looks). I will tear my hands to shreds carrying ALL the grocery bags from my car in one go so that I don’t have to take multiple trips.

For people like me, and probably you, Nike has teamed up with Apple to provide tools to make your workout more pleasurable. ((Before anyone gets excited, this is not a post about the Nike running chip thingie that you put in your shoe that communicates to your iPod nano. I also have that but have barely used it, so I’ll leave that post for James (an avid user) to write.)) One of those tools is called Nike Sport Music. It’s accessible via the iTunes Store but a bit hard to find .

I just downloaded the Nike Treadmill Training: Mixed Terrain 1 Workout with Jay Blahnik, who is one of the bigwigs of the fitness industry. You can also get other types like for running outside, but who wants to do that? Fresh air, ew.

Anyway, I used it for the first time today and it was fantastic! All I could think about while running was writing this post.

For the price of $11.99 (it varies; some are cheaper), you essentially get one big file that has a bunch of songs mashed together. When you buy the mix, you also get the individual songs that are in it separately, which I thought was a generous touch. Voiced-over the songs are instructions from Jay, who leads you through a 30-minute workout consisting of a warm-up, hill training, speed intervals, and a cool-down. There are four different intensity “Zones” that you aim for: Zone 1, which is an easy pace for warm-up, recovery, and cool-down; Zone 2, which is your basic jog (“comfortable but challenging,”between 4.5 and 6.5 mph); Zone 3 which is your “race pace”; and Zone 4, which is your all-out, “anaerobic breathless pace.”

The warm-up was to “I Want You Back (Z-Trip Remix)” by Jackson 5. Jay told me to set the speed to 2.5 miles per hour, which timed my feet perfectly to the beat. While I was grooving out, he then led me through some warm-up exercises that made me look a little bit stupid like kicking my heels to my butt (like scraping mud off my shoes) while I walked.

The hill training portion consisted of three hills: 6% incline for 30 seconds, rest, 4% incline for 30 seconds, rest, and 6% incline for 90 seconds. Since I am a fast-twitch muscle fiber kind of girl, this was no problem for me.

The rest of the workout consisted of four speed intervals. Jay lets you choose the speed but it has to be in Zones 3 or 4. The intervals are 50 seconds, 70 seconds, 90 seconds, and 50 seconds with rest in between. These were harder for me, especially the 90 seconds one. But Jay chirping in saying “Be aggressive! You’ll get a longer recovery after this one!” and “Only 15 seconds left! You can do it! push through!” helped.

Things I really liked about this workout:

1. Basically the whole thing takes place at a 1% incline (except hills, which are higher inclines), which seems small but kicks your workout up a notch if you’re used to flats.

2. Jay strikes the perfect balance of being encouraging but not over-the-top enthusiastic. Even when you are just recovering for a couple minutes, he checks in every minute to encourage you and tell you what’s coming up. This might be annoying to some but I really liked it since I never felt lonely and it broke up the workout into manageable one-minute chunks.

3. Lots of specific direction. Jay counts you down to your intervals “Ready…set…GO!” (very motivating!), he gives you specific incline percentages, and sometimes the specific speed. Again, this might feel confining for someone who’s not an obedient Asian, but I really liked it.

4. Chumbawamba.

Things I didn’t really like but didn’t mind too much:

1. The songs for the speed intervals were fairly chill. I wanted like a “I’m Not Okay” (My Chemical Romance) type of song to go crazy fucking fast to, but instead I got a rather chill “Fired Up” by the Funky Green Dogs (who?) for what was supposed to be my most intense speed interval.

2. My treadmill was broken so the fastest I could go was 7.5 mph. Next time I’ll really kick ass, I promise.

All in all, I loved it. Next I’m going to download Treadmill Training: Hill Repeats 1. Soon I’ll be such an insane runner that you won’t be able to catch me (except you will catch me easily as I will be on a treadmill).