Masters Weightlifting Update

The National Masters Weightlifting Championships were held recently at the venerable old Lost Battalion Hall in Rego Park, New York.

Two lifters who train at our weightlifting club here in Boulder, Colorado competed: Coach David Miller and Russ Leabch.

Russ took the Gold Medal in the 60-64 age group, 85kg class. David took Silver in the 40-44 age group, 77kg class.

Below David goes for the 115kg clean and jerk that would have given him the gold medal, but just couldn't quite save the jerk.



Here is Russ's final clean and jerk of 93kg to cap off a perfect 6 for 6 day and secure the GOld Medal.



Weightlifting is a sport that can be enjoyed at any age. The oldest male lifter at the Nationals this year was Jack Lano at 88 years of age. The oldest female competing was Elsa Dahl at 75 years of age.

So You Think You are Fit?

Thanks to Chiggers over on the Dragon Door Forum for posting this. German Masters athlete Johann Martin getting it done with kettlebell juggling and feats of strength, gymnastics, hand balancing, shot juggling, Olympic Weightlifting and more. This is what being "cross fit" looks like in my opinion.

We Are the Pros From Dover

I was going into ninth grade in 1971 when I first saw the movie MASH. It was summer. My Dad dropped my girlfriend and me off at the Orpheum Theater in Galesburg, Illinois, telling the lady behind the box office glass that "both these kids" had his permission to watch the movie. MASH was R rated and we were both just turning 15. I remember being totally entertained, shocked, amazed and inspired. MASH was a revelation. This was the early 70s after all. Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy had been gunned down only 3 years earlier. The Beatles had broken up the year before. Nixon was in the White House and every guy my age was sure he would eventually die in Viet Nam. Misbehaving in the face of authority seemed like a perfectly rational response. MASH was a budding young contrarian's call to arms.  

The reason I am writing about this is I woke up this morning very early from a brief dream that had to do with MASH. It was odd because I had not thought about the movie for years. The dream wasn't about the movie so much as it was its own short feature, the premise of which (as nearly as I can suss it out) was that I had turned out, in a way, like my favorite character from the movie, Hawk Eye. At least from the stand point of how I tend to behave in organizations I have lost faith in or are too tightly wound. You know, bucking the by the book, red tape bound, overly serious Mickey Mouse behavior.

I can certainly think of many Frank Burnses and Hot Lips Houlihans I've tormented over my lifetime from high school through college and graduate school and over all these long years to the present. Even now. Maybe especially now. As I reflect on why I've recently cut a couple of business associations, it may be that I am just allergic to the Mickey Mousiness that goes along with bureaucracies of any size.

Right as I woke up, I was struck with the notion that at the moment I didn't have and really needed a Trapper John side kick to help me make my goals a reality. I'm not sure what this meant, exactly. Except perhaps, in a somewhat serious profession like strength coaching where fun is NOT the operant word and one stands (as I do) for both having fun and producing results, it's important to have a few like minded individuals working and playing along side you. Monty Python alum turned business consultant John Cleese once said, "Being serious about something is not the same as being somber." Hear, Hear! I've met some strong candidates over the last few months for this Trapper John role, although they may not know it. Somehow I think they probably do. I will be calling on them.

Now, in reality I don't think I am all that much like Donald Sutherland's Hawkeye. That level of audaciousness and irreverence can only be pulled off in the movies. Or in one's dreams. But misbehaving is not the sole point, I don't think. I think maybe my subconscious was just telling me to go ahead with the project I have in mind. Make it fun. Make it excellent. To let go and be my unconventional, irreverent self, be a Pro From Dover and get it done.

On The Rhythm Road

This entry I am going to hook you up with the adventures of an old musician buddy of mine, David Berntson. Bernesto is traveling and performing overseas on a cultural exchange program sponsored by Jazz at Lincoln Center called The Rhythm Road

Bernie is an outstanding blues harmonica player and an enormously engaging human being who uses his music to make a difference in the lives of children. I had the good fortune to play blues with him many years ago in a couple of bands back when we both lived in in the mid-west.

Here is Bernie's blog about his adventures over seas in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. And here also are a couple of videos made in Bahrain. The first features Bernie teaching a bunch of kids to play a song on the harmonica. The second is a performance in Bahrain. Both feature the band he is traveling with, The Little Joe McClaren Quartet.

Paleo Follow Up

The bottom line is I have dropped about 7kg of body weight since starting the Paleo/Zone diet in January. I started at 92kg and 17%BF. My weight at the moment is hovering between 84.5 and 86.5 kg depending on the day. My goal was 85kg at 10% bodyfat (on my Tanita scale) I've been as low as 8.5% of late, but that was at 86kg bodyweight and the day after a "cheat" meal. 11% has been an average read lately.

The Paleo food choices are very agreeable. Dropping the grains has been no problem. I gave myself the luxury of one beer a night with my evening meal and that seems to not have screwed up things too much. Asparagus has become my "go to" vegetable and I eat a few salads here and there. I get 2-3 pieces of fruit a day. Some nuts occasionally.

The Zone portions became a little too much for me to juggle so after a few weeks of seeing what the portions looked like, I started winging it. I stayed very strict for two months to see what would happen. Since the two months expired I have stayed on the diet but have allowed myself a cheat pizza meal recently. And a very nice beef and green chile burrito with beans and rice a couple of weeks ago. It was the burrito meal that led up to my best BF% yet, as mentioned above. Must have been the salt and extra water and glycogen that registered as "lean mass". Or perhaps the burrito is, as I have long suspected, one of the best diet foods going!

So, Paleo works. Give it a shot. Giving up grains and processed food will get more fruits and vegetables into your diet: not a bad thing.