Men's 800m T36

We watched this excellent race last night.  Captain Kid (8), has really got in to the Olympic spirit, but started to cry in sympathy at the outset when Gabriel de Jesus Cuadra Holman immediately started to fall behind the pack.  She just wanted to reach in to the TV and help him.

She managed to compose herself until about 3:20 when the until-then leader Fabio Gutierrez Torres, was broken down by the chasing pack, and then she was off crying again. The look on Torres' face really pulled at my heart strings too (but as a dad, I had a duty to 'keep it together').

Stirring stuff from these athletes and truly inspiring. Also good to see that CK has developed a degree of empathy!

RPT Wk3 W/O3

My abs are still recoiling from Wednesday's kickboxing.  Lots of kicks and crunches sore-abs make.  However, I am looking forwards to this session.  I need to push reps on each of the sets.

Warm Up (5 minutes)
Main (35 minutes)
1. Handstand Variations (air squats + side lunges, front lunges + floor touches, front/side/turning kicks, Low Kicks + Reverse Kicks)
2. Manna Progression (three rounds for time)
3. Deadlift (5/4x130/128, 7/6x110/109, 9/8x90)
4. Wall Walk (3, 3)
5. Backbridge (15s)

Shoulder Pre-habilitation
6. External Shoulder Rotations (12)
7. External Shoulder Rotations (12)

8. 321 (8L, 8L, 8L)/Bouldering

Weight: 79*

The Piranha, the Peacock and the Weirwolf

Got to love this week's Olympic action, not least Ellie Simmonds' efforts in the pool.  I am more in to Track and Field, and Super Thursday has lived up to expectations.  Jonnie Peacock and David Weir have just blown The Games apart with superlative performances tonight (JP apparently only started sprinting three or four years ago.)  Wish I could get tickets, but they've been sold out for weeks!

The Dutch Winter Hunger

I've recently finished reading The Epigenetics Revolution by Nessa Carey, and what a triumph it is.  I find biology, like chemistry, can be a little 'dry'.  I like Dawkins' books - all very accessible but as a general rule (and outside of sport science), dull!  A school-life spent growing watercress in blacked-out jam jars, or splitting the stem of a rose so that each half of stem was in different coloured water, didn't really set my imagination on fire.

Skip forwards to 2012 and we are now in the neo-paleo period and biology is where it is at!  Epigenetics has made biology cool.  In turn The Epigenetics Revolution has made epigenetics understandable to the layperson.  Specifically, Nesse addresses how epigenetics can influence outcomes decades after the fact. (And today's news about 'junk DNA' being no such thing would be old news to you had you read Carey's work.)

Quality Over Quantity

There was an excerpt on the World Service the other day about the effects of calorie restriction on longevity.  The long and the short of the discussion was that what mattered was food quality.  The analysts mooted that restricting calories on an UNHEALTHY diet makes you live longer. 

Stephan posted on the same research and made exactly this point:

• "In 2009, researchers at the University of Wisconsin published preliminary results from the first primate calorie restriction experiment (3).  The analysis suggested that restricted macaques suffered fewer "age-related deaths".  Many people, including myself, found this somewhat questionable since total deaths from all causes were not significantly different (the experiment is ongoing, so there may eventually be a significant difference).  Also, the diet was appalling-- a refined feed made of sugar, isolated starch and other purified ingredients.  Animals in both groups died of gastrointestinal ailments.  The restricted group was protected from obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease, and they certainly looked much better.  Eating less of a poor diet seems to protect against disease, and may or may not extend life.
  
  Today, a new study was published that casts further doubt on the idea that calorie restriction extends lifespan in mammals, including primates (4).  Researchers from the National Institute on Ageing placed macaques on an unrefined (whole food based) diet for 26 years, with or without 30 percent calorie restriction.  They did this in two experiments, one starting with young monkeys and one starting with older monkeys.  Both experiments showed that calorie restriction does not extend lifespan under these conditions, although it does prevent obesity and cancer, and apparently maintains a youthful appearance."

This is perhaps more interesting than the idea that CR might extend/shorten life; that food quality (FQ) can extend/shorten life.  This is the kind of message that healthy eating initiatives should push!  Paleo makes a push toward FQ and it is broadly way harder to overeat on high quality food than it is processed food.  If we push FQ, appropriate CR may well follow as a consequence.

RPT Wk3 W/O2

Lau Gar was pretty tough last night -with some hanging stances and low walks/kicks.  I need to practise these so will add a few of them in to the rests between sets of handstands (they are as much about balance and technique as strength/endurance).

Higher carb requirements today are fulfilled by home-cooked fruit , tinned fish and some skimmed milk (I know, I know...the latter is definitely a neo-food)

Here is the workout for today.  I want to try to add reps to each set.  Rests will be 2-3 minutes between sets.

Warm Up (5 minutes)
Main (35 minutes)
1. Handstand Variation (air squats + side lunges, one legged floor touches + front lunges, front/side/turning kicks + hanging kicks)
2. Pistols (8/6x71kg, 10/8x66kg, 12/10x61kg)
3. OACs (5/4x60kg, 6x55kg, 8x45kg)

RPT Wk3 W/O1

I am really going to push the levers.  Not sure there is much progress being made on these so they need focus.

Warm Up (5 minutes)
Main (30 minutes).
1. Stairgators (1)
2. Planche Variations (25s, 25s, 25s)
3. Barefoot Sprinting (1x10s, 1x10s, 1x10s, 1x10s)
4i. Rope Climb (1)
4ii. MU to Ring Routine (1, 1).
5. Scissor Splits (3x '2L, 2R, 2C') 
6. Weighted Barefoot Kill Carry (1)
7. Fingerboard Routine (10min)