Fitness

Burpees: unbeatable for fitness and my favorite sidcha: the series

Fitness / Habits / My Favorite Posts / SIDCHAs / Tips

Burpees: unbeatable for fitness and my favorite sidcha: the series

I've done burpees daily since December 22, 2011, at 40 years of age, starting with 10 a day, building to over 50 per day. I haven't missed a day or burpee. [EDIT January 2025: In the nearly ten thousand sets I've done, I've recorded maybe one or two. I recently recorded a morning set. Read this post for some notes about it, then watch this video. I probably should have recorded more when I was younger than 53, but this video is what I have. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eze7TNdyqas&t=8s ] I started them with a friend and they became one of my top sidchas---the first I simply started from scratch and never stopped. Why burpees? Top burpee values: They put me in the best shape of my life…

November 26, 2013

Blog / Fitness / Tips

Burpees — unbeatable for fitness and my best habit — the series

Part of this site's new functionality that my awesome web designer is creating (he isn't accepting my linking to him possibly partly from humility, but mostly because his career is taking off beyond web design into other areas and probably can't work much on the web any more) is series, a list of which you can see by clicking on "Blog" in the navigation bar above. Knowing me and how much I extol the benefits of burpees, you had to expect a series on them. Today I created one. Click here to see it. When you view it, you can read multiple posts without jumping from page to page.

November 26, 2013

Awareness / Blog / Fitness / Freedom / Nature

Introversion is not the opposite of extroversion, part 2

Yesterday I showed two models for introversion and extraversion. The model you believe filters how you see the world, which will influence your feelings and behavior. I found the following test to see if you're introverted "or" extraverted from a book. You can see it's based on an Or model, I believe designed to show empathy for people who consider themselves introverted. From the And model it's almost painful to read in how it reinforces weakness and constraint. I'll translate it in two ways to reveal other ways of looking at it I suspect you'll find empowering or that undercut this one. First the base test. (By the way, I'll be happy to reject the And model if anyone shows me a reason to that…

November 21, 2013

Introversion is not the opposite of extroversion, part 1

Awareness / Blog / Fitness / Freedom / Models / Nature / Visualization

Introversion is not the opposite of extroversion, part 1

Here is a common belief for the relationships between introversion and extraversion. I'm going to show how it worsens your life and offer an alternative you will resist and fight against, but if you keep an open mind you'll realize explains your world more effectively and helps you to improve your life. I call it the "Or" model of introversion and extraversion for reasons you'll see below. It says that introverted people have certain properties and abilities, extroverted people have complementary properties and abilities, and you either have one set or the other, but not both. It says some people may lie somewhere in the middle of the axis, having some introverted traits and some extroverted traits, but not the full amount that a pure…

November 20, 2013

2013 New York City Marathon plagued by injury (for me)

I looked forward to reporting on running the marathon yesterday. After at least 300 miles training without incident or injury, I hurt my foot last week -- I don't think anything permanent, but enough to make running impossible. I put off deciding as long as I could, but with a heavy heart and tears almost welling in my eyes on as beautiful a fall day as you could hope for, Friday I went to the Marathon registration at the Javitts Center and postponed my entry until next year. Getting into the marathon is hard, but canceling this year guarantees my entry next year. Thank you to everyone who wished me well. The support helped. It sucks to have such a great training season and then…

November 4, 2013

Awareness / Blog / Fitness

On seeing your folks

I followed a link to an interesting site I recommend visiting: seeyourfolks.com. Check it out. Most of the comments I saw on it found the site depressing -- an unwanted, surprising reminder of their mortality and how little they expected to see of their parents. I found it an effective site, but I hope the people who found it depressing reconsider their responses. The site didn't tell you anything you didn't already know, it only clarified it. Instead of denying information to keep yourself happy, why not use the information? My 69-year-old mother remarked earlier this year that if she didn't get around to some of her life goals soon she wouldn't be able to. Did she say that out of depression? No, she said…

November 3, 2013

Convenience at what cost?

Not the guy I saw or in the park I saw, but similar.

Blog / Fitness / Nature

Convenience at what cost?

The other day I passed a guy blowing leaves with a gasoline-powered leaf blower on a paved area in a park by City Hall. This post isn't about him. It's about us, including you. What is wrong with us? We buy oil from countries we have adversarial relations with, pollute the environment, create loud, unpleasant noise, so a fat person can work less, and cart away what would create topsoil, to fill a land-fill. What we could do instead What if we did this instead? Rake the leaves making little extra noise buying no oil from adversarial countries causing no pollution composting the leaves or using them for mulch filling no land-fills giving the guy exercise? Raking leaves on pavement isn't hard. Values What happened…

November 2, 2013

The two meanings of competition

The concept of competition implies beating the other person. In sports the concept is a standard, fundamental part. In everyday use outside of sports that beating the other person often carries a tinge of accusation or wrongdoing. People accuse others of being over-competitive, which they look down on. I've never heard anyone accuse another of being under-competitive. In business, competition often carries a noble ring. Business culture holds that business should compete to win. I've found that competition has another meaning -- to strive to improve yourself, independent of beating someone else. Sometimes you see this meaning in sports when people describe someone as "a competitor," even when they aren't competing someone to win. A competitor in that sense tries to improve him or herself,…

October 22, 2013

Near New York City? Watch the marathon November 3!

Blog / Fitness / Tips

Near New York City? Watch the marathon November 3!

Wait, I want to lead better. Why should I care about marathons? Running a marathon takes discipline, dedication, practice, drive, determination, and many skills relevant to becoming a leader and practicing leadership. You've heard many parts of leadership described as marathons, not sprints. Whether you want to train for and complete a literal marathon or just something like one, having marathons in your life as a competitor or spectator, improves your leadership skills. Even if you don't run a marathon, interacting with them puts those skills and people with them in your environment, which increases them in your life. It motivates you to increase those skills and adopt comparable practices in your life. Besides, watching or competing in a marathon, especially the New York City…

October 20, 2013

Oops! Haha … did I say four miles? … Uh, I meant seven.

Oops! Haha … did I say four miles? … Uh, I meant seven.

I didn't mean to write yesterday's post onÂ starting with emotion on exercise, food, and habits. I meant to contrast how I like to exercise with how people who don't exercise seem to and then to tell today's story. People who don't exercise seem to characterize it as torture and dislike it. I see it as fun and rewarding. Sometimes it feels like torture, but only when I know the feeling of exhaustion to follow that I know I'll appreciate more than I dislike the torture. I love being fit. Today I'll share a funny story about it. Context Living by the Hudson River means I can run without having to stop at traffic lights in Hudson River Park, which the city has slowly been improving.…

September 27, 2013

Blog / Fitness / Nature

Start with emotions if you want to motivate yourself … or anyone else

I find Americans try to get precise and scientific about food and exercise, in contrast to how incredibly unfit the country is. I write "try to" because I don't think they succeed in being precise or scientific. The term carbohydrate, for example, used to have a specific scientific meaning. I think it still does, but I think in standard American usage it means "bad" or "evil," like the term fat used to. But I don't think people know what carbohydrate means, but it sounds technical. Same with Omega whatever fatty acids, free radicals, and so on. Same with exercise. People throw around terms like anaerobic, cardiovascular, and VO2 max like candy, rarely knowing what they mean. Jargon devoid of meaning. More than devoid of meaning,…

September 26, 2013

Twenty-one miles!

In case anyone was wondering how I was doing on my marathon training, since I hurt my ankle in May and couldn't run on it until August, I thought I might not have enough time to train. Saturday I ran twenty-one miles in hilly Central Park. The bottoms of my feet hurt, but I felt otherwise great. The weekend before I ran twelve miles on each of Saturday and Sunday. The weekend before that I ran eighteen miles. I've been running five or six miles two or three days on weekdays. So I feel good about the full marathon November 3, assuming no injury. I have some blisters and chafing, which can force you to stop even if your heart, lungs, and legs can otherwise…

September 16, 2013

Blog / Fitness / Leadership / Nature

Healthy food mostly replaced my unhealthy food. Here’s how.

How can you expect to lead others if you can't lead yourself? This post, like most of mine, is about leadership. If you can't lead yourself, how can you expect to lead others? If you don't understand your emotions and motivations and how to create the ones you want in yourself, how do you expect to do so with others? Alternatively, the better you can lead yourself, the better you can lead others and, for that matter, yourself the next time. Since most of us want to eat differently than we do and others are constantly trying to motivate us to eat like they want us to, eating is a great place to learn leadership skills. Who do you want leading your eating habits, you…

September 16, 2013

Do you confuse a reason to do something with an excuse not to?

When the topic of meditation came up the other day I heard the same thing I've heard many times before. I'm sure you've heard and said similar thing for similar activities: "Oh, I can't meditate. My mind is too frantic. I wish I could." Maybe you've heard or said it in this form: "Oh, I can't go to the gym. I'm too out-of-shape. I wish I could." or: "Oh, I wish I could organize my life. I'm just too busy. I wish I could" or in the generic form: "I wish I could do X, but I'm too what-X-fixes. I wish I could." Everyone who learned to do X, be it meditating, getting fit, keeping their life organized, or whatever, faced the same challenges and…

September 10, 2013

Blog / Fitness / Nature

When did walking three miles become a health risk?

Speaking of running, as I did yesterday -- "More benefits of burpees" -- I've been meaning to post something I expect will get me in trouble, but I'll post anyway. If you run a lot in Central Park you see a lot of five-kilometer run/walks -- usually charity events to get people donating for some type of medical research. With all the regalia, I wonder how much money makes it to help people and I feel like health care and drug companies make a lot of money already, but those aren't my points. What got me thinking and posting is that these events always have multiple water stops and tell people to "hydrate" plentifully, implying health risks if they don't. They imply the opposite of…

September 6, 2013

Blog / Fitness / Tips

Advice to someone starting a long-term project

Following up yesterday's advice to a client, here is advice I gave to another client who was working on an independent program I've found helpful (again, edited for anonymity). I think what I wrote could help anyone starting a long-term project, especially before you can see the light at the end of the tunnel, so I'm sharing it here. (Regular readers will note it resonates with the quotes in my post "A master speaks on creative expression," or at least I hope it does.) I'll tell you what I saw in what you wrote that tells me that if you stick with the exercises you will have the success you want. I saw that you are doing the exercises fully, with dedication and discipline. I…

September 5, 2013

Awareness / Blog / Fitness

Nobody likes a know-it-all

I want to compile a list of things that when you talk about them people feel compelled to tell you all about them, like they're experts. I'll also note that most such people talk about things they read that couldn't possibly cover the topic thoroughly. More importantly, they rarely experiment and find out on their own. I don't know how many people have told me not eating meat is bad for my health without trying. They just read something somewhere and regurgitate. Or how many people tell me running is bad for human knees, who somehow disregard that tens of thousands of people who run a marathon in just one day in New York City, or how many people run all around the world and…

September 3, 2013

Blog / Fitness / Tips

Just showing up can be the best strategy: One of my life’s greatest moments

Do you have a great passion? Something you devote several hours a day four to six days per week for twenty years? Something where pain and injury makes you like it more? If you have something like that, you'll know what playing Ultimate Frisbee meant to me. If not, you'll have to imagine. And I hope you some day build yourself a passion for something like I did for Ultimate. Anyway, toward the end of my competitive playing career I played on an elite team with some of the best players to have played the sport. I learned a lot from how I made that team. In late summer of that year I was looking for a team to play with. A friend said he…

August 31, 2013

Awareness / Blog / Fitness / Freedom

You call exercise torture? I call it glory.

[This post is part of a series on my daily exercise and starting and keeping challenging habits. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Emotionally, I don't want to do burpees nearly every single time I do them. As you probably know, I do twenty twice-daily. Starting is never easy. Never. If you think you have a harder time starting to exercise than others, I think you're wrong. I don't think anybody has it easy. Just some people developed skills to overcome the emotional challenges we all feel. Rationally, I want to do them, but my emotions oppose my rational thoughts. I use willpower to…

August 29, 2013

More benefits of burpees

[This post is part of a series on my daily exercise and starting and keeping challenging habits. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Ten days ago I wrote about running around eight miles for my first run in about three months after hurting my ankle -- "Soreness and exhaustion feel great!". Three days later I ran a nine-and-a-half mile run. Even having run marathons before, I consider those runs long and big jumps from no running. I'm surprised I did them. I keep asking myself what kept me in shape enough to do them. The best I can think of is burpees. Besides burpees,…

August 26, 2013

Soreness and exhaustion feel great!

People complain about pain and exhaustion like they're bad, but I find them sometimes the best feelings I know. As you know, I'm registered for this year's marathon. A couple months ago I hurt my ankle and couldn't run for a while. Yesterday I decided to run four or five miles for the first time. I felt great. So great I decided to run along the Hudson River all the way to Central Park, a mile there, and back. Something around seven to nine miles with some good hills. I got home after dark. Today my body is sore. When I'm in shape a half-marathon doesn't leave me this sore, but I'm not in great running shape. While the soreness makes moving hard and slightly…

August 15, 2013

120 burpees yesterday! 10,000 burpees at 2×20 per day!

[This post is part of a series on my daily exercise and starting and keeping challenging habits. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] While writing yesterday's post on accepting my friend Dave's challenge to do one hundred burpees in thirty-seven minutes I ate a banana for energy and mentally prepared. Then I turned on my stopwatch, started it, and did ten burpees. At three-and-a-half minutes I did ten more. At seven minutes ten more. By the end I felt good enough to do them faster. After my hundredth burpee I stopped the clock at just under twenty-nine minutes. Coincidentally, Dave happened to text me…

July 18, 2013

Another reason to share your passions

[This post is part of a series on my daily exercise and starting and keeping challenging habits. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Today's post combines a few key things that result from and help create a great life. Having good friends who challenge you Sharing your passions Exercising regularly Accountability gets things done My friend Dave -- the guy I swam across the Hudson River with -- was back briefly from Tanzania, where he's doing development work. I don't have to tell you, the guy lives an amazing life. I told him I had been doing forty burpees a day since November 4…

July 17, 2013

Awareness / Evolutionary Psychology / Exercises / Fitness / Models / Nature

A model for a great lifestyle

[This post is part of a series on "Mental models and beliefs: an exercise to identify yours." If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] You want to do well in life. What areas are most important for you? Do you want fame? Fortune? Power? Family? My explorations into meaning, value, importance, and purpose (MVIP) led me to consider what I wanted. Since I've found MVIP are grounded in emotions, I found I could refine my understanding of what brought me MVIP by refining my understanding of my emotional system and my emotions. I found that emotions stood at the foundation of all of MVIP. Not…

June 5, 2013

Awareness / Exercises / Fitness / Models / Nature / Tips

A model to cover life’s basics

[This post is part of a series on "Mental models and beliefs: an exercise to identify yours." If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Do you ever feel overwhelmed with obligations? So much that you find yourself losing sense of your priorities? Today's simple model reminds me of my basics. If you're reading this at some regular, calm time, it may seem too basic to think about. Its value comes when you're stressed or overwhelmed. Then it can shift your perspective and simplify things. A model to cover the basics: You can't improve anything until you've covered sleep, food, and exercise. However you want to…

May 25, 2013

End of content

No more pages to load