Latest WODs

The group practices have been going pretty well. Everybody is getting faster, stronger, more skilled and as a whole fitter.

The last two WODS were a lot of fun.

On Friday we did:

AMRAP in 20min of:

2Tire flips Ladder

1 Round of Cindy between sets:

5 Pull Ups

10 Push Ups

15 Air Squats

Example:

Round 1: 2 tire flips + 1 Round of Cindy

Round 2: 4 tire flips + 1 Round of Cind 

On Sunday we did:

5min run

4min box jumps

3min burpees

2min squats

1min pull ups

5min run

4min(2min swings;2min sledgehammer hits)

3min tire flips

2min walking lunges

1min push ups

The useless scale

Today's post will be dedicated to one of my best friends-Marta and another friend Kiril, but in reality it refers to a whole more people. What I wanna talk about is THE SCALE! And hold on! I bet that when you hear that word, the adrenaline starts rushing through your veins, you feel the butterflies in your stomach and the fear of that useless object starts overtaking you!

You are more than a number...YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL!

What made me write is a story that has to do something with both of my friends. Marta is a great looking young lady that is according to me way too thin. The other day she was on a walk when she saw a scale and decided to step on it. And guess what! Big panic! The scale showed that she was a little heavier than the last time she stepped on it! So now she thinks she is fat and she should loose weight! Deadly wrong. I won't post a picture of her, because I do not think it is appropriate, but I assure you that she looks more like she needs to pack on some weight instead of loose more!

Next let's talk about Kiril. He is tall about 6feet 2inches. He weighs about 130lbs and he conciders himself fat??? What in the world is fogging his mind??? He needs to open the fridge, grab all the food inside and eat it, so he can make sure he won't blot out himself from the face of Earth! He thinks the scale shows way too much and he should loose weight!

It is so sad to see that so many women and obviously even men measure their attractiveness through what the numbers on the scale show! Because I feel perplexed how to explain what a useless thing those numbers are, I asked my friend wikipedia and what it says is: "weight is the name given to the force on an object due to gravity." So you are trying to convince me that measuring how gravity affects your body could be comparable to the way you see yourself, to how attractive you will feel and how sexy others think you are? Hm...doesn't sound with much authenticity to me!

Let's look at it that way. The gravity on Jupiter is about ten times stronger than the gravity on Earth. That means that if you go there you will weigh a lot more than you will weigh now. Does that make you look fatter? Feel less sexy? Makes you less attractive?? NO! Just because gravity affects you in different way on Jupiter, that doesn't make you look worse! Then let's move on to the Moon! There gravity is 5/6 less than it is on Earth. So iuhuuuuu you will be a lot lighter! does that rise your self-esteem? Does it make you feel better? Well, it shouldn't! You will look just the same way as you look now. So did you see, how you could weigh yourself, and the scale could show three different weights and you'd still look the same?

Always remember-YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL

I hope that is enough to convince you that the numbers on the scale, are not relevant to your attractiveness. Nobody cares how much you weigh. People perceive objects by the way they look. When you meet somebody, they won't carry a scale with them. They won't ask you to step on the scale, see the numbers and according to them decide if you are worth being their friend or not!

I read an article that gave me some things to think about. It was said how in Playboy you get all the measuremeants of the models beside their weight! And why do you think it is that way? Because nobody cares. These girls are hot no matter how much they weigh because proportions are more important for the way others perceive you! That is why if you want to keep track on your body composition, it is way better to grab a meter and take your measures, instead of ruining your mind with the useless numbers on the stupid scale!

Think about people with chicken legs and big bellies. And now imagine a fit, strong person. Both of them might way the same, but do they look the same? NO! I wouldn't care how much they weigh! I'd just admire the second one and encourage the first one to get his nutrition right and start lifting some weights!

Don't use it!

The numbers on the scale do not matter! It is just a trick of the marketing world. It is just a way of the industry to get in your head and make you feel bad, so you will use all their pills, foods, creams and other bullcraps to crave yourself. But it won't happen. Just take that wrong invention of humans-the scale...put it in a box, somewhere in the closet and forget about its existance. Live your life and enjoy it! And make sure that you never compare your attractiveness to some useless numbers!

The more is your potential...the more they will try to break you

"All men dream; but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity. But the Dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible." ~ T.E. Lawrence

The past weekend I went to watch the Bulgarian National Swimming Championship. During competitions like this you can see everything. It is strange how competitions and life are so much alike. You could experience the whole palette of feelings in just three days of competeing-the triumph and the failure; the pride and the shame; the satisfaction and disappointment; the happiness and the pain... some people need a lifetime to experience all these feelings...and an athlete needs just an opportunity to compete...

It can be overwhelming at times to be out there, with so much going on at the same time...lost somewhere between your own expectations and other people's expectations for you! Something that I witnessed made me think of the time when I was a basketball player. At the beginning of my career I was playing at position five or also cold center. After that when I became a better player and started playing for the national team I saw what other centers looked like. They were way taller and bigger than me, and I realized that if I wanted to achieve my dreams and play with the best I had no future being under the basket. I was skilled enough to be playing at position 3(small forward). I had to work a little bit on my speed(that was the only thing I lacked at that time). 


Most coaches in Bulgaria did not like the idea to work additionally with me, so I could persue the goal of being a small forward. I was fine as a center but just in my country where I was among the tallest players. So why would they care about my future? I was doing a pretty good job now, so I had to be a center. And my dreams...they are just for me. All they cared for was theyr own benefit.


After some time of wondering in different teams I found a coach that wanted to help me become a small forward. I started getting faster and better and I was starring in every game. But that was still not enough. Game after game I was tired of hearing why I couldn't be a small forward. I remember how I scored 52points, grabbed 25rebounds, had 10 steals and 10 assists. I was averaging 34points a game, 23rebounds, and 6steals for the whole season and I was never good enough. They had their own view for things. It was just that if I was a forward I was taking somebody's else position in the national team and you know how it is with mommy's and daddy's girls. They are sacred and even if you are better you can't take their place. So till my last injury that was just the usual situation. I was helping my team win a game after game, I received almost every personal award there was out there but there was always somebody to deny my abilities. Why am I telling this?


Because that is what I see happening with one of the Bulgarian swimmers. He is really hard working and talented, and he has big dreams about his swimming career. But there are still those that out of envy or something else try to belittle his ambitions  and seed thoughts of doubt in his head. He is 25 and they tell him that he is TOO OLD to achieve what he wants! ome on? Too old? Do we live in the same worl? Haven't you already seen that nothing is impossible for the one who dares to dream..who dares to fight for his dreams? Haven't you heard about storries for disabeled people, starting to walk, run,win and so on? About people braking records after their biggest failures? Why do most people always try to discourage those that dare to achieve?


Is it out of insecurity? That is what I think! If somebody tells you why you can't, it is most likely that he is seeing the potential you have. he is afraid that you will use your abilities, and you will reach the top...that will make him feel inferior! That will make him feel a failure...just because he doesn't have the strength to dare...the strength to fight and be what he can! He is afraid to reach his full potential and that is why he'd rather you stay where you are...so you won't make him look bad! 


When somebody tries to discourage you...tries to make you quit...that should motivate you to try twice as hard, because that means you are a threat! That means you have the potential to pursue what you dream for! Go ahead and don't quit. Do not let scared people to interfere with you living the life of your dreams!

Food for comfort...no more!

There are a lot of people that do not like reading books, but I bet that there is one book that everybody has read- The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. There are a couple quotes from that book that are always alive in my mind. Today I was walking and thinking about something when this quote from the book popped up in my mind:

'What are you doing here?' he said to the drunkard whom he found sitting silently in front of a collection of bottles, some empty and some full.
'I am drinking,' answered the drunkard lugubriously.
'Why are you drinking?' the little prince asked.
'In order to forget,' replied the drunkard.
'To forget what?' enquired the little prince, who was already feeling sorry for him.
'To forget that I am ashamed,' the drunkard confesed, hanging his head.
'Ashamed of what?' asked the little prince who wanted to help him.
'Ashamed of drinking!' concluded the drunkard, withdrawing into total silence.
And the little prince went away, puzzled.
'Grown-ups really are very, very odd,' he said to himself as he continued his journey.'

And what this has to do with proper food choices you'd ask? Well, have you noticed most people that are extremely overweighed. What do you see about them? Just how big they look on the outside? Is that all you can say? Haven't you noticed the saddness in their eyes? The pain? Sometimes the way we look can be misleading. You'd think they are so big, because they indulge to all of their food cravings...but is it really that way? Just like the drunkard that the Little Prince met, people often try to bury their pain,fears and insecurity somewhere deep inside, masking them with something else...either it will be drinking alchohol,coffee, eating or something else. It is just a try to run away from what scares us....what overwhelms us...

Sometimes when our pain and fears oppress us...when we try to avoid them, keeping them hidden somewhere deep...they just eat us from the inside...and we desperately try to feel the holes with something...and most often we turn to stuffing ourselves with food...

But is this really the solution to our problems. Does this solve them? Or it just adds up to them? You are feeling overwhelmed and you rеаch for that pizza or the cookies...you feel a moment of pleasure and then go back to reality where you feel twice more depressed than you were before... now you have one more problem-your addicion to food... your expectation that food will be your best buddy...that it will carry you through the hardships... but that is not what happens! Friends give you comfort, without leading to slavory. And food brings a momentum of comfort,just to spin you in an enchanted circle of regret and self-pitty.

Next time when you feel sad...when something offends you...instead of going to the supermarket and grabbing all the food you can carry, just to end up eating it...hoping that you will feel better...STOP burying your hopes and dreams under layers of fat! Just face the problems. Ask yourself what makes you happy. Leave your doubts and just dash at your dreams...fulfill your aspirations...and you won't need food for comfort on the path! All you'll need is your heart, motivation and the vision of what you truely want to become.

The front squat

My all time favorite move in weightlifting is THE SQUAT! I love loading my legs. I love all the squat variations there is out there, but I give the most credit to the front squat, the bulgarian squat and the back squat. Most people include in their workout programs only the back squat and add up to it all kinds of isolation movements. You can rarely see somebody in the gym doing the front squat. There are a lot of reasons for it, like the one that doing the front squat you should use lighter weights and it seems like most people forget to leave their ego on the front door and let it stop them from getting real results doing some real work!

I like the front squat a lot more than the back squat(BS), and if I had to pick between one of the movements I'd pick the front squat(FS). First when you do the FS you can squat a lot lower than when doing the BS. That puts a lot more pressure on your glutes. Next, you should stay a lot straighter and that automatically puts more pressure on your abs(lower ones and obliques). Besides that FS requires more balance and stability which helps to train your body fully-provides core strength. It is a lot harder to balance doing the FS than the back squat.

Though it is such a good exercise you should make sure that you learn the right technique. First of all you should be able to squat really good withought any weight. Then you can move on to the bar. Second you should . Lots of people doing the FS use the california grip which is particualrly a grip that requires to cross your hands. To me that is wrong. I've never done it that way. First of all the front squat is a movement included in other movements like the squat clean thruster. Imagine how are you gonna do it if you are use to crossing your arms when doing the front squat?  Besides when one arm is above the other that creates an imbalance in your structure and when the bar is loaded it can be pretty bad on your body.

The California grip-which i DO NOT reccomend

After you've picked the right grip, you should concentrate on keeping your elbows high! That is really important. make sure that when you squat doqn, your upper arms make a paralell line with the floor, and that your elbows are not pointing down. That will help you lift yourself up-when you squat and you are lifting up, the rising of the elbows helps you stand up. It also helps you stay straight and not leaning forward. If your bar is loaded and your elbows are pointing the floor, you will most likely fall forward with the bar.

The proper technique of the front squat

And last but not least-make sure that your lower back has a nice arch, and that you are not letting your butt move inside. Remember-always push your butt back-like you have a wall behind yourself that you are trying totouch with your butt! Sounds funny, I know. But helps a lot.

Now you can go in the gym, leave your ego on the door, and get working!