Selected Goal
Aaron DUNKs
August 28, 2012
August 22, 2012
Should be interesting...
August 20, 2012
But has this wealth* of info and its fine granularity affected my spending behavior for the better? Probably somewhat, but most likely not nearly to its potential.
Why? Probably because I am much more beholden to the recording habit than to the review habit. It takes more effort to distill meaning from fine-grained data. More effort discourages me from reviewing it, and so I merely sit on a bunch of data that rarely feeds back into my behavior.
How is this related to DUNK?
Well, one of the big behaviors I want to regulate is my diet. I do track what I eat using dailyburn, and while the data I have acquired is rich, I still cannot easily see if I'm sticking to the plan. Sticking to the plan quite simply boils down to:
A friend pointed me to a post from personal data geek, serial entrepreneur, and accomplished triathlete Sami Inkinen. Months later, I finally got around to reading it last week. It got me thinking about simplifying my data tracking down to what I actually want to improve: how well I'm sticking to my eating plan.
I'm going to give this a shot, starting small with just a few metrics on a Google spreadsheet, so I don't discourage my forming of the habit. I'm also going to build a habit of reviewing the data. Things should be interesting after a few weeks, when I might add tracking of sleep time, quantity, tiredness, snoozing, etc.
Don't get me wrong: I'm still going to use dailyburn to track what I'm eating (and MS Money for $) because the sheer fact that I have to be accountable affects my behavior.
Heisenberg, alive and well.
*seriously, no pun intended. I caught it when I proofread the post.
August 08, 2012
Walking under the A/C vent + "Under Pressure" from 2:33 = destruction of a would-be challenging set of Anderson squats.
Yeah, I'll admit to that.
More backstory:
The temperature cooling trick is a known performance enhancer, and music is an obvious pumper-upper.
What was also going on was that I consumed my post-workout drink during the workout. Usually, I drink about a quart of plain water from my trusty Nalgene while training and mix up the post-workout protein drink--which by design is about 2/3 sugar--in another bottle as I leave the gym. Yesterday, the Nalgene had some neglect-induced funk, so I went straight to the pw drink.
What a difference. By the end I felt like could have repeated the workout. That probably would have been a terrible idea, but I'm definitely going to try this more often.
August 03, 2012
I pretty much stuck to the diet plan, minimized the impact of cheat meals* despite several coworker birthday dessert situations, and hopefully ate enough good calories ({3000, 3400, 2600, 3800} though I'm suspicious that I need even more to really make some changes).
The challenge, as always, will be the weekend. Can I get my life in order outside of the structure of the week? UPDATE: I think I did. Got a HIIT workout in on Saturday, slept plenty, ate pretty frequently, and kept the drink count down. [Pats back.]
*except for a glorious sandwich at lunch that could not be not ordered.
More details after the jump...
Since I'm approaching some consistency in meals, I decided to start combating the middle of the night catabolic stage. Basically, I set the alarm for sometime in the 4AM hour, wake up, pop some BCAAs, and get back to sleep.
Food Log
Got some jump drills/attempts in and around the (outdoor) court on Sunday, then trained heavy Monday and Thursday. I'd characterize both weight workouts as well disciplined in that I focused on each rep being quality work, and not just a count on the way to 8 or whatever the set calls for.
Training Log
My current weight room strategy, outside of occasional Olympic workouts, is structured with single-leg work first, followed by some posterior chain work, and a bi-lateral finisher. If I've got anything left in the tank, which is rare, it's for abs and calves.
Monday:
Biked to/from work (~9 miles total, flat)
1km row warmup
soft tissue work / dynamic activation routine
Bulgarian split squats, w/u 10, w/u 8, work: 3x6-8, using 50's and 55's.
Glute-Ham Raises: 4x8-10, eccentric once concentric fails.
Explosive deadlift with shrug: w/u, then 3x6 ~205
Thursday:
1km row
some vert attempts, standing, striding, 1-foot, 2-foot, etc.
skater squats (single leg, elevated on block, free leg behind): w/u, then 4x6 each
single leg Romanian barbell deadlifts, from deficit (on 2 plates), 3x10 each
explosive back squats, bar hanging from jumpstretch bands, w/u, 3x5
rhythm back squats, 1x20
sitting on floor for a while
The numbers are creeping up. We'll see how this goes for a while. Hard to tell what the right training strategy is. I definitely need more conditioning work and more plyo, but it's tough to fit in days when I'm not completely torn up sore.
Interesting Training Resource Link for 8/28/12
Jack Woodrup of verticaljumping.com sends us to www.jumprathletics.com. Seems like mainly a long jump resource, but I'm sure a lot translates.August 22, 2012
Dressing in Layers for Fall
My weight vest arrived. Adjustable up to 20lbs. The rule of thumb is to start with 10% of your bodyweight. That didn't seem like much until I tried it on.
Should be interesting...
August 20, 2012
Rethinking my Data-Tracking Habits: Simplicity over Precision?
I'm somewhat into personal metrics and their potential to shape one's behavior. This probably started in 2002, when I began tracking my spending using Microsoft Money. Sure, the system is a little ancient and clunky, but I've got 10+ years of data to about 99% accuracy.But has this wealth* of info and its fine granularity affected my spending behavior for the better? Probably somewhat, but most likely not nearly to its potential.
Why? Probably because I am much more beholden to the recording habit than to the review habit. It takes more effort to distill meaning from fine-grained data. More effort discourages me from reviewing it, and so I merely sit on a bunch of data that rarely feeds back into my behavior.
How is this related to DUNK?
Well, one of the big behaviors I want to regulate is my diet. I do track what I eat using dailyburn, and while the data I have acquired is rich, I still cannot easily see if I'm sticking to the plan. Sticking to the plan quite simply boils down to:
- Did I eat or miss a meal (a big problem on busy weekends)?
- Quality of meal according to my strategy {ideal, so-so, cheat meal}
A friend pointed me to a post from personal data geek, serial entrepreneur, and accomplished triathlete Sami Inkinen. Months later, I finally got around to reading it last week. It got me thinking about simplifying my data tracking down to what I actually want to improve: how well I'm sticking to my eating plan.
I'm going to give this a shot, starting small with just a few metrics on a Google spreadsheet, so I don't discourage my forming of the habit. I'm also going to build a habit of reviewing the data. Things should be interesting after a few weeks, when I might add tracking of sleep time, quantity, tiredness, snoozing, etc.
Don't get me wrong: I'm still going to use dailyburn to track what I'm eating (and MS Money for $) because the sheer fact that I have to be accountable affects my behavior.
Heisenberg, alive and well.
*seriously, no pun intended. I caught it when I proofread the post.
August 08, 2012
Discovery of an Unlikely Performance Enhancing Substance
Proposed DUNK training theorem:Walking under the A/C vent + "Under Pressure" from 2:33 = destruction of a would-be challenging set of Anderson squats.
Yeah, I'll admit to that.
More backstory:
The temperature cooling trick is a known performance enhancer, and music is an obvious pumper-upper.
What was also going on was that I consumed my post-workout drink during the workout. Usually, I drink about a quart of plain water from my trusty Nalgene while training and mix up the post-workout protein drink--which by design is about 2/3 sugar--in another bottle as I leave the gym. Yesterday, the Nalgene had some neglect-induced funk, so I went straight to the pw drink.
What a difference. By the end I felt like could have repeated the workout. That probably would have been a terrible idea, but I'm definitely going to try this more often.
August 03, 2012
Solid Week
It's been a pretty well-disciplined week with respect to nutrition, training, and sleep.I pretty much stuck to the diet plan, minimized the impact of cheat meals* despite several coworker birthday dessert situations, and hopefully ate enough good calories ({3000, 3400, 2600, 3800} though I'm suspicious that I need even more to really make some changes).
The challenge, as always, will be the weekend. Can I get my life in order outside of the structure of the week? UPDATE: I think I did. Got a HIIT workout in on Saturday, slept plenty, ate pretty frequently, and kept the drink count down. [Pats back.]
*except for a glorious sandwich at lunch that could not be not ordered.
More details after the jump...
Since I'm approaching some consistency in meals, I decided to start combating the middle of the night catabolic stage. Basically, I set the alarm for sometime in the 4AM hour, wake up, pop some BCAAs, and get back to sleep.
Food Log
Got some jump drills/attempts in and around the (outdoor) court on Sunday, then trained heavy Monday and Thursday. I'd characterize both weight workouts as well disciplined in that I focused on each rep being quality work, and not just a count on the way to 8 or whatever the set calls for.
Training Log
My current weight room strategy, outside of occasional Olympic workouts, is structured with single-leg work first, followed by some posterior chain work, and a bi-lateral finisher. If I've got anything left in the tank, which is rare, it's for abs and calves.
Monday:
Biked to/from work (~9 miles total, flat)
1km row warmup
soft tissue work / dynamic activation routine
Bulgarian split squats, w/u 10, w/u 8, work: 3x6-8, using 50's and 55's.
Glute-Ham Raises: 4x8-10, eccentric once concentric fails.
Explosive deadlift with shrug: w/u, then 3x6 ~205
Thursday:
1km row
some vert attempts, standing, striding, 1-foot, 2-foot, etc.
skater squats (single leg, elevated on block, free leg behind): w/u, then 4x6 each
single leg Romanian barbell deadlifts, from deficit (on 2 plates), 3x10 each
explosive back squats, bar hanging from jumpstretch bands, w/u, 3x5
rhythm back squats, 1x20
sitting on floor for a while
The numbers are creeping up. We'll see how this goes for a while. Hard to tell what the right training strategy is. I definitely need more conditioning work and more plyo, but it's tough to fit in days when I'm not completely torn up sore.