Property Investments, Landlording, CrossFit, Nutrition & Safety

I tried once again to do a full warmup yesterday, this time I managed all 30 pull ups (albeit they aren’t proper one’s as the bar is only 5 foot off the ground, but they were as best as I could make them). I was definitely “aware” of my elbow but the pain was minimal. I resolved to try it and see how I felt during the day.

The good news is that it was 3pm before I remembered to this about whether my elbow was hurting or not, which obviously means that it can’t have been bothering me much. The bad news is that when I did think about it and gave it a poke and a few stretches, it was sorer than normal. Doing a routine of exercises in the evening didn’t help much either.

However I think it’s possibly good enough. I have maintained in my head for a while that once I can do a full warmup again, I will be ready to return to Crossfit. As much as that idea fills me with trepedation at the moment! So towards that end, I have booked myself a couple of Personal Training sessions at Crossfit Manchester.

Partly this is to ease me back in before I rejoin the group, partly it’s to assess what exercises I can do for my benefit, and partly it’s to assess what exercises I can do for the coaches benefit! The thing I need to be most wary of, is doing too much too soon, so these 2 PT sessions are all about reseting everyone’s expectations I think.

Still, it will be good to get back.

Mission Impossible Squirrel:

Drunk Squirrel:

Leave me alone, I’m playing dead Squirrel:

Football Squirrel:

I started writing this post 6 months ago, but never got round to finishing it due to my golfers elbow injury. I have basically taken the last 5 months off Crossfit to give my elbow time to heal but as I’m expecting to get back to the gym by the end of May, I thought I’d post this up now anyway.

In a nutshell, 1 year after starting Crossfit and the Zone Diet:

• I’ve lost nearly 2st (28 lbs).
• My waist has shrunk from 43″ (at the belly button) to 36″.
• Body fat percentage calculation has dropped from 30% to about 16%
• For the first time I ran 1 mile, then 2 miles.
• I’m much stronger than I ever have been, e.g. a 145kg /320lb back squat.
• For the first time in 20 years, I’ve got no knee pain and don’t worry my knees will give way.

But more importantly, Crossfit and the Zone have given me back a functional level of fitness, to the point where I no longer see my body as a limiting factor. For example, here are my current plans, all things I never would have even considered possible for me a year ago:

• Take up rock climbing.
• Take up Krav Maga (Israeli martial art).
• Enter next years British Masters Weightlifting Competition
• Apply to be an ESA astronaut – oh yes baby! (see below)

Not a bad change in outlook from a 15 year couch potato huh? 🙂

On the subject of my elbow injury and returning to the gym, things are progressing nicely. I have the least pain now of at any time in the last 6 months and am able to do some exercises on it. I’ve been working backup to doing a full warm up, by that I mean:

• Short jog (I run on the spot for 2 minutes)
• Then 3 rounds of:
  • 10 sit ups
  • 10 press ups (push ups for you Americans)
  • 10 air squats
  • 10 pull ups

I’m not quite there, I can do everything except the pull ups. I have a low pull up bar at home (put up for the kid) which is only 5′ off the ground so I hand with my legs out in front with heels on the floor. However the first time I tried to do 3 x 10 pull ups my elbow was sore for 2 days after, so I’ve reverted to 3 x 5 pull ups for the moment.

The plan is to get to a full warm up by the end of May and then get back down the gym. This morning I did the warm up above (with 3 x 5 pull ups) and then went for a mile run, which I did in 11:05. Slow I know, meh.

And on the subject of astronaut training – I went for my Private Pilots License medical (AR-FCL 3 Class 2) at the weekend. It was a 2 hour thorough poking and proding. I passed everything, but the Doctor wanted a report from my Doc on my old asthma, before he’d issue the certificate, so that’s been a bit delayed. But I’m not anticipating any problems there. Tee hee.

Living in America, Astronaut training is probably all very passé, but in Europe, the opportunities are somewhat limited. However the European Space Agency have just announced a recruitment drive, they are looking for the next breed of Astronauts. See this trailer:

The selection process is explained in the pdf downloaded here. The main ESA astronaut recruitment page is here but hurry, selection starts 19 May 2008.

The key fact I noticed is that the preferred age range is older than I anticipated: 27-37. The second point I noticed is that I am 27-37 !! Looks like that’s the weekend blown away then. 😉

EDIT: Stage 1 is complete – 4 emails sent out to potential Doctors (listed here) to obtain the JAR-FCL 3 Class 2 medical certificate. Ho ho, this is going to be fun if nothing else.

I’ve just seen this video and it’s awesome, just goes to show how mad Crossfiters can be sometimes. 😉 Watchout for the little out take at 4:30 and the low air alarm at 5:30 minutes.

Fire Fighter Fran

If you want to see it done normally, checkout Fran on the Crossfit Workouts page.

This business of limiting the number of terms that an elected official can serve, is PROFOUNDLY UNDEMOCRATIC but probably not for the reasons you think. Whether it be the debate over whether the London Mayor can serve 2 terms or not, that the actual fact that the president of America isn’t allowed to serve more than 2 terms, it makes a mockery of democracy, and here’s why:

What keeps politicians on the straight and narrow? What keeps them allegedly doing “the will of the people”? It’s simply this: the threat of being booted out at the next election. If you do things that are unpopular, you will get voted out, that’s how our western democracy works. But hold on, if you take away that sanction, for example by saying that a politician can’t stand again at the next election, you take away all the controls over that politicians behaviour. Any compunction they may have had due to the threat of losing the next election, is gone, and they can make policy with complete democratic impunity.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that politicians serving for decades is a good thing (I’m actually ambivalent about the idea) what I’m saying that artificially limiting the number of terms they can be in office is a bad thing.

A friend of mine recently said this to me in an email:

> Democracy ain’t pretty, but it’s the best system we’ve tried so far

Our system of Government should be more accurately described as an Elected Dictatorship. It is abundantly clear that the government have taken recent decisions that the citizens of this country didn’t and don’t support and there is nothing that can be done about it, until the next election.

Once your vote is cast, the people lose all say in the running of the country. It wouldn’t be quite so bad if election manifestos were legally binding contracts, but they’re not and the political parties are quite happy to say one thing and then do another when they’re in power.

For all it’s obvious potential weaknesses, I’d like to see real democracy given a try: Invest in some electronic voting technology so that 95+% of the population find voting trivial, e.g. via a website; using Sky Active voting; library voting; phone voting; text voting etc, the technology exists, it just needs bringing together and a security wrapper put in place (not trivial I realise). Then, when there are decisions to be made, ask the people to decide. And yes I do basically mean having a referendum every month.

For example, how much is the London Crosslink going to cost? Let’s pretend it’s £10Bn (look it up if you really care). The use of that money could be simply put to a vote: “What should we spend £10Bn on in London?”

1) London Crosslink – This is the governments recommendation.
2) 3 More Hospitals
3) 10,000 More Police
4) 2,000 More Buses

Obviously the numbers are made up for the purposes of this exercise, more detail should be put behind the choices and there should be some publicity about what each choice means. In fact, if this really is a monthly affair, it should become a regular monthly event: on the last Sunday of each month, there’s a 2 hour “This months Referendum” show on TV or something, discussing the choices.

My point is that this is a real decision that’s gone on in government, yet who amongst the “people” have actually voted on this subject? Who has been asked: What do you think of the London Crosslink? Only the politicians and I certainly don’t remember £10Bn for Crosslink being a decision point at the last election.

We elect people into power based on what they say they will do and then can do nothing about it (short of a revolution) for another 4-5 years. But it’s worse than that. Any one party will have let’s say 100 policies. What if I agree with 60 from party A but 40 from party B? The one vote every 4 years approach to democracy completely fails to tackle that problem.

EDIT: Read the comments before following this advice!

Fish Oil Supplements are highly recommended not only on the Zone Diet, but also by Crossfit. I’m finally prepared to make a recommendation for a supplier that meets my own exacting standards.

Despite spending many hours searching and contacting suppliers in the UK, I eventually gave up trying to find a reliable UK supplier of properly and verifiably refined Fish Oil (Pharmaceutical Grade if you care for that term) to the proportions and quality levels as define in The Zone Diet. I didn’t want to go to the States as I expected shipping to be prohibitive and didn’t trust them to arrive basically.

However I’ve found a US Fish Oil supplier that has the right product, publishes the quality reports, delivers within 10 days to the UK and most importantly, is cheap by most standards. I ordered 2 bottles of 120 capsules, at a strength which requires only 2 caps per day (2.5g of EPA/DHA per day) which is 4 months supply, for less than £24 including delivery, which works at a bargain £1.40 for a weeks supply, or 20p a day if you prefer.

Compare this to the Holland & Barrett Fish Oil at £32 inc p&p for 55 days worth (at 9 caps per day for a matching EPA/DHA dose) which is a vastly inferior product and works out 3x more expensive at £4.07 per week. This is the Fish Oil I’m taking:

• Product: – Ascenta, Nutra Sea Fish Oil, EPA DHA, Original Formula, Lemon Zest, 120 Softgels
• Price: $15.39 per 120 cap bottle (2 month supply)
• Quality Report: http://ascentahealth.com/reports/report.cfm?batch=2137501 (for current batch)
• Supplier: www.iHerb.com
• Product Page: http://www.iherb.com/ProductDetails.aspx?c=1&pid=5843775620790248000&at=0
• Discount Coupon: COM635 – Gives $5 off first order

The more you order, the cheaper shipping becomes. However here’s the rub: if you order more than $35 worth of product (excluding shipping price) your package may get stopped by UK customs and you’ll have to pay VAT on the import. Despite this, if you order a years supply it is slightly cheaper (about 50p per month cheaper). However I went for the less risky option and ordered 2 bottles @ $30 ish and avoided all that nonsense. Seemed like the most sensible option to me.

So there you have it, a top quality fish oil with very low levels of those nasty PCB’s and Dioxins etc, at a high purity level (about 70%), all at a price cheaper than the high street.

Don’t ask me how but I stumbled onto a funny condom advert the other day so thought I’d post a few up. These are all completely safe to watch, no nudity or swearing or anything, although I wouldn’t show them round my daughter, simply because I don’t yet want to answer the obvious first question: “What’s a condom for?”

The consequences of not using Condoms:

The effects of keeping Condoms in the car:

Apparently this advert was banned, but I remember seeing it on TV and laughing. Can’t think why it was banned?