The Birthday Challenge: Big 3-0 Edition

Yes, I'm 30 today. Make your jokes, whippersnappers, I'll be in the corner tucking in my t-shirt, hiking up the waist of my pants, and working on my Walt Kowalski impression.

Okay... so, starting last year, I created a little birthday challenge designed to celebrate and test this chronologically-challenged suit of meat, blood, and bones. I welcome you to test yourself with it, either on your birthday or on your merry un-birthday.

Choose one big, basic barbell exercise like the squat, deadlift, power clean, or overhead press, and perform your age in reps using one-half your bodyweight.

Then, pick a bodyweight exercise like the prisoner squat, single-leg deadlift, push-up, or chin-up, and perform double your age in reps.

The key here is that one of the exercises needs to primarily target your upper body and the other exercise has to target your lower body. So, if the barbell lift hits the legs, hips, or glutes, the bodyweight exercise should work the back, chest, shoulders, and/or arms, and vice versa.

This year, as a 215-pound, 30-year old, I went with a barbell deadlift (115 pounds for 30 reps, and yeah, I rounded the weight up to make the math easier for my tired old brain) and 60 reps of Hindu push-ups.

It was a very quick, full-body "workout" that used everything from head to toe as a reminder that, if your body works, you have a job to go to in the morning, friends and family to talk with, and there's a roof over your head and food in the fridge, at the end of the day, things aren't that bad at all.

As George Carlin once said, "Don't sweat the petty stuff, and don't pet the sweaty stuff."

Happy b-day, fellow Scorpios. Have a good one.

It's World Vegetarian Day

So, I just read on Jason Ferruggia's blog that today is World Vegetarian Day.

Seeing as how I dipped my toe in the herbivore water earlier this year, and was pleasantly surprised and somewhat enlightened, I thought I'd spread the word about this day dedicated to the devouring of delicious delicacies that don't have to die to be digested. (Was that a stretch? I thought I was on a roll.)

To recognize world vegetarian day and the start of vegetarian awareness month (... okay, even I'll admit that one sounds pretty odd), how's about we lean a little more towards meat-free for the next day or two and bump up the vegetables, beans, legumes, nuts, and seeds in each meal.

Give it an honest shot for, say, the next two or three meals in a row and see how you feel. More energy? Feeling more full on less food? Can't concentrate because you've got barbecued short ribs on your brain? Just find out, because nutrition, like training, will always benefit from an open mind and the occasional experiment.