Poor Man's EDT (Escalated Density Training)

If you're familiar with Charles Staley's EDT, this might be another way to utilize his system. Basically EDT doesn't worry about set and reps and rest time. It just says do as many reps as you can in 15 minutes, taking as many breaks as you want. The next time you work out do more reps in the same time period. That is the escalated density part. Every single workout try to increase your total reps.

I have a way I do it and it as follows: Rather than count total reps, I *do* have a fixed set/rep/rest routine.
Workout 1: 8 sets x 3 reps @ 60 sec rest.
Workout 2: 6 sets x 4 reps @ 75 sec rest.
Workout 3: 5 sets x 5 reps @ 75 sec rest.
Workout 4: 4 sets x 6 reps @ 90 sec rest.

What's cool about this is that the weight stays the same and the total reps stay the same (either 24 or 25). What changes is the total rest time.
Workout 1 = 7 min total rest,
Workout 2 = 6 min 20 sec total rest,
Workout 3 = 5 min total rest
Workout 4 = 4 min 30 sec total rest

So you are taking less time to do the same weight each workout, which to me is another way to do EDT. What also cool is after your 4th workout, you increase the weight, but by starting over at 8 x 3, even though the weight is heavier, it's not that bad. In fact, it's a little easier than your last Workout 4. In essence, you actually back off a little bit when you make the jump up in weight. I think that helps with burnout and I also think it helps you not hit a plateau so fast. Give it a try a see how it works for you.

Summer 09 Recap

Quick recap of the summer events:
Trey finished 4th grade and made the Honor Roll all 4 quarters. Summer, the most fun season, was a blur. Rather than go to Myrtle Beach this year, we (and 11 other family members) went to Punta Cana for a week. Resort was clean, people were nice, the weather was great, and the beach was awesome. Took a trip into the mountains/rain forest one day while we were there and gave a bunch of toys and school supplies to the local children. It was a good lesson for our kids to see that not everyone has 4 wheelers, X Boxes, cell phones, laptops, and all the crap we spoil our kids with.

Other summer events for Trey were basketball camp, golf camp @ Chantilly aka Chesapeake Golf Course, and soccer camp with the Baltimore Blast. I, on the other hand cut alot of grass, and worked my butt off at work preparing for the fall release of Vectorworks 2010.

Fall 08/Winter 09 Updates

Trey is now in 4th grade. He's got some good teachers this year and, after a little bit of a rocky start, has gotten in the groove of things. He made the Honor Roll for Q1 and Q2 so far. Interesting note- one of his teachers is someone who my father had as a student.

Fall soccer was awesome as usual. Once again, Andy Roberts did a great job of coaching. He's good at balancing competitiveness with having fun. Trey's team went undefeated and made it through the first round of the playoffs, before falling in the second round. The officiating in the final playoff game was horrendous, but what do you expect when you have high school kids as refs? They are usually afraid to make the call. Also, there is no seeding going into the tournament, which is ridiculous. But Trey had fun and he is a joy to watch play, and in the end, that is all that matters.

Christmas came and everyone must've been good this year 'cuz Santa was most generous. I keep putting Salma Hayek on my list- maybe next year I'll finally get her :-) My best friend Josh (proprietor of Intext Lighting) came up from Nashville and I got to meet his new gal pal, who is a lovely person.

Trey is currently playing basketball for a YMCA league. Although he played in a league when he was like 5, this is really his first real experience playing and he has shown an aptitude for it. So far, the team is undefeated with two games left.

I am getting ready to test for my third degree brown belt in jujitsu; most likely will happen in March. After this, I go for another year and then I will be eligible to test for black belt. Then you have to call me "sensei" ha ha.

In other news, Keith and Julia (stepson and daughter-in-law) took Amy and me to see Metallica. I had seen them in '88 on the And Justice for All tour and was not impressed. However I must say that they rocked the house this time and put on a great show. No 80's style drum or guitar solos, which is fine by me 'cuz I always thought Kirk Hammet was one of the most overrated guitarists ever.

Finally, I broke down and joined the lemmings and put up a profile on Facebook. And LinkedIn. And I signed up for Twitter. Don't want to get left off the social media train. I don't allow comments on here but if you know me and want to send me an email, you can contact me at r_fluker at verizon dot net.

You Are Exactly Where You Want To Be

Interesting article from Charles Staley (quick read):
http://www.staleytrainingprograms.com/products/edt-dvd/edt-articles/clean-315.htm

Cool Bench Workout

So almost all of the workout stuff I'm going to post here has come from either T-Nation, Mike Mahler, Charles Staley, Craig Ballantyne, or Men's Health magazine. I'll try to give credit where I can, but please know that I am *not* trying to represent this as my own work.

Here's a cool bench routine that is geared mostly toward building strength. There are 4 parts to it. Before you start you need to have a good idea of what your 1 rep max (1RM) is (i.e. the most weight you can lift one time). Also I am assuming that you have done what you need to do to warm up.

Part 1
This protocol is known as the rest-pause technique. You pick a weight that is about 70% of your 1RM. Bench the weight 5x, rest 20 sec, 4x rest 20 sec, 3x, rest 20 sec, 2x, rest 20 sec, 1x and you're done. You've done 15 reps of a medium weight in about 1.5 minutes. I really like this scheme alot.

You could wait 60-90 seconds and do it again if you weren't going to do Parts 2-4, but I've read that you shouldn't do it more than twice cuz it really zaps your central nervous system. You can also tweak it and go lighter weight, but only 10 seconds between sets, or go heavier and rest 30 seconds between sets.

After Part 1, I'll usually go do my legs and then come back for Part 2.

Part 2
This is where we go heavy. Do 5 sets x 1 rep @ 90-95% of your 1RM, rest 60-90 sec between sets.

Part 3
Drop the weight you just used by 15-20 lbs. Do 4 sets x 1 rep, rest 60 sec between sets. For set 5, do 3-5 reps. Even though you could do more than 1 rep on the first 4 sets, you are trying to lift the bar as quick as you can. Something about mass x acceleration = power. By lifting explosively but not burning out and fatiguing, you are using your fast-twitch muscle fibers and that's a good thing according to the experts.

Part 4
This is just a real quick burnout set. You don't actually go to the point where your muscles fail. I do 1 set x 20 reps @ 55-60% 1RM.

So this actually has between 25-30 total reps if you don't count the burnout set. It seems alot of rep schemes are in that neighborhood, i.e 5 x 5, 8 x 3, 3 x 10, etc.

Give it a try and see what you think!

School Starts

School just started and Trey is a 4th grader! He has a really good teacher this year and a couple of good friends in his class this year. He just started playing fall soccer for Andy Roberts in the Harford County Parks n Rec League. Team looks good, lot of 9 yr olds, typical mix of skilled and unskilled players. Trey really has a good foot; he's almost too unselfish- I hope he takes more shots this year because he has the 2nd best foot on the team.

Labor Day weekend is here and my work is getting ready for the next version of our software to come out, which means everyone is slammed with stuff to do. We went from an 18-24 month cycle to a 12 month cycle which means every August and September is going to suck. Oh well, I guess that's why they call it work.

My ribs healed finally and I have resumed going to jujitsu class again- I have to get my attendance more regular so I can test for 3rd degree brown this winter.

I'm going to start posting some non-Fluker news here; namely exercise and workout stuff, as well as self-defense stuff. Hopefully my millions of readers will digg it (geek inside joke there).

Winter/Spring/Summer Update

Gee, almost a year since the last post. Nice. So Christmas '07 was a resounding success; kids scored majorly, lots of friends around, Guitar Hero and Runescape addictions were formed, etc. All the kids got laptops which just blows my mind. Elementary school kids with better computers than I have at work! My mother-in-law decided to try to make a 50' x 100' skating rink in the backyard. Total debacle but good unintended comedy. Had plenty of bonfires and several Jaeger Bombs over the course of the cold months. :-)

This past Spring Trey played soccer for the Cecil Soccer League again, instead of playing baseball. The level of play is way below that of Harford County's league, but there were a couple skilled players on the team. Trey really improved his ball handling and passing skills. He is so much fun to watch!

Other Spring events included Trey's 9th b'day, my 44th, and Amy's 39th. Tempus fugit. Trey finished the school year having made the Honor Roll all four marking periods, which is awesome.

I started going intermittently to an MMA class in Rising Sun (Okinawan Karate and Ground Fighting Rising Sun MMA). It was great. Thanks to Sensei Ron Tyree, Anthony Renna, Vince Renna, Shannon Shade, Ritchie, and the rest of the guys there. I got my ribs snarfed and missed 8 weeks of class there, as well as my normal jujitsu class.

Last summer we did Disney; this year we resumed our normal trek to Myrtle Beach and had a blast. We found sharks teeth galore, had awesome weather, etc. My neice brought a friend this year so there were 2 boys and 2 girls and everything was "even" and the squabbling was greatly reduced, which meant less stress for the grownups.

We just had our annual Angie B'day/End-of-Summer Party and had a large turnout. Shocker, we had a bonfire and a good time was had by all.

Fall Update

You'd think it'd be easy to keep a blog up to date, but somehow I always slack in this regard. I'm sure I've forgotten a bunch of cool things I wanted to share...What I can remember is my shoulder surgery and physical therapy. Man, did that suck. Six months later and I am about 90%. I can work out, do most things in jujitsu, etc. Throwing is still a little painful, but part of it is that I'm gun-shy, too. When all is said and done the surgery will have been worth it. I think.

In Trey news, he finished last school year having been on the honor roll for all 4 marking periods. He is now in 3rd grade and has continued where he left off last year. My brother-in-law's mother, who is an elementary teacher, was kind enough to tutor the kids over the summer to keep their brains from turning to mush.

Trey decided to play soccer in the late Spring/early Summer instead of baseball. Unfortunately he got picked to be on the same team that he was on for indoor soccer. Not a good learning opportunity and he didn't have much fun. He did attend a Baltimore Blast soccer camp in June and had a great time, as did his mother who didn't mind one bit taking him to camp and finding herself in the midst of cute, buff Blast soccer players. :-) Trey is currently playing outdoor soccer for Andy Roberts' team (I am the Asst Coach). We are having a tough year so far, as we are at 1-3-1. Not sure why we're not gelling, but the team is better than our record reflects. I think that alot of it has to do with this being our first year in the Under 10 league, and most of our players are only 8. The quality of our competition is much higher than last year for sure.

In other Fluker news, instead of going to Myrtle Beach for vacation, we went to Orlando and did the Disney/Universal Studios Experience. It was the best of times and the worst of times. Orlando in August is just nasty hot. We had a full agenda but pushing the kids (my neice, nephew, and cousins-in-law and their families went too) kinda took its toll by mid-week. We scaled back everything for the last couple days and everyone's mood improved. The coolest thing was going to Discover Cove. Awesome place where you can swim with dolphins, pet stingrays, snorkel, cruise around in the really neat lazy river, feed tropical birds, etc. The food was great and there was also an open bar. It was kinda pricey ($200 per person for 1 day), but that was good as the price barrier keeps out the riff raff and other rude tourists.

Finally, we have a new baby in the house: Wolfgang Scruffy Fluker (but you can call him "Woofie"). He is 10 weeks old, weighs 15 pounds, and is a Yellow Lab/Terrier mix (but he looks just like a Golden Retriever). He has a great personality, is playful and inquisitive, and is a welcome addition to our home.

Until next time................

Spring Update

Ok, here's a the Spring re-cap of the last 3 months. First, Trey had a great Christmas. I have never seen so many presents for one kid. Oh well, we figured this may be his last Christmas where he still believes in Santa, so we wanted it to be special.

He played indoor soccer at Sonic with mixed results. It was different this year because in the past he has played indoor soccer in a gym, where the ball is always in play. At Sonic, it's actually artificial turf on a short field. Hence the ball went out of play alot nad the action was stilted. His team went 6-3, but Trey only scored 2 goals because his coach played him as a defender 90% of the time.

I was not really happy with how he was played, nor the fact the coach did very little coaching or instructing; Trey, as well, did not have a great time. The coach is a nice guy and is volunteering his time so I try to keep that in mind. Trey just started outdoor soccer and unfortunately was picked to be on the same team. I told Trey to just make the best of it and use the situation to keep sharp for the fall when he gets to play for Andy Roberts again in the Harford County league.

In other news, Trey just turned 8! I can't believe how quickly he is growing up. He had a great birthday. We took him and 9 friends to a Baltimore Blast soccer game. He got to go into the locker room for a meet 'n greet and to get autographs, then he got to run out onto the field with one of the players during the player introductions at the start of the game. It was awesome. Then we had everyone spend the nite, which was crazy. Talk about a zoo!

In Randy news, I just had surgery to repair torn cartilage in my shoulder. It's been bothering me for a long time. I had an MRI a year and a half ago and the radiologist read it wrong and said my pain was due to arthritis. I finally went to an ortho specialist and found out it was a SLAP tear. Surgery went well, now I have physical therapy to look forward to as well as a 4-6 month recovery. Means no golf, no jujitsu, no upper body work outs.......

This Fri the 13th is my anniversary. How fitting. :-) This Sat is my 43rd birthday. I predict a Heineken or 2 and maybe a lemondrop in my near future! :-)