Fritata

I usually make a breakfast at night to take to work the next morning, which I then microwave after PT.  It's not as good a freshly made hot breakfast, but it's still better than eating at the chow hall.  It's healthier, too.  Even if I buy an omelet - which is about the healthiest breakfast I can get there - it's still fried in vegetable oil.

My typical breakfast, ever since watching how to make one on Food Network, is a 4-egg fritata with veggies and bacon.  Fritatas are great because you can use pretty much anything you have in the fridge.  This one has red and green bell peppers, red and green onions, two slices of bacon, black pepper, chili powder and a tiny bit of milk.

The first few I made I burned on the bottom.  Then I figured out it's best to not really cook the eggs on the stove.  Now I cook the bacon and veggies on the stove, pour the eggs in and immediately put the whole skillet in the oven and broil it for a a minute or two.  That's why I prefer to use the stainless steel skillet as opposed to a non-stick one.  But hey, that's what bacon is for; right?

Between prepping the veggies and the actual cooking portion the whole process only takes about ten minutes.

Steak & Eggs

This is my idea of a good breakfast; a grilled rib eye steak, two fried eggs smothered in sauteed tomatoes and red onions, a kiwi fruit and a home made Americano with creme.  Yum! 

Look Ma; No TV Tray

Pregnant ladies don't need no steenkeeng TV trays!

Weighted Pull-Ups

Last night at Crossfit Manhattan, KS, we did a workout of the day (WOD) that started with setting a 1-rep max in weighted pull-ups.  I set a PR of 65 lb.  You can see Aimee in the picture doing pull-ups with her big, pregnant belly.  She can't do them unassisted anymore, but hey, when you're seven months pregnant, every pull-up is a weighted pull-up!

Yes, that's a Captain America T-shirt I'm wearing.

Here's the rest of the workout.

10 MINUTES: Every Minute on the Minute do 2 pull-ups at 80% of your 1-rep max.

Then we did...

30x Double Unders (75 Singles)
21x Deadlifts (185/135#)
21x Box Jumps (30/24")
30x Double Unders (75 Singles)

15x Deadlifts (185/135#)

15x Box Jumps (30/24")

30x Double Unders (75 Singles) 

 9x Deadlifts (185/135#)

 9x Box Jumps (30/24")

I don't remember exactly how long it took me, but it was between 14 and 15 minutes. In that time we trained strength, endurance, stamina, power, agility, coordination, speed, balance and accuracy.  The only component of fitness we didn't train during the metabolic conditioning (metcon) portion of the workout was flexibility, and we did that during the warm up.  

And that is why Crossfit is so much more effective than other fitness programs.  Instead of focusing exclusively on one or two components of fitness at a time, Crossfit combines multiple components into relatively short, high-intensity workouts.

Doing otherwise is a waste of time.

Squats

I can't tell you how many times I've heard fitness "experts" say "don't do squats!  Squats are bad for your knees! They're bad for your back!  They'll give you herpes!"  OK, I may have exaggerated a little on the last one.  Here's reality; humans are designed to squat.  If you want to see a squat performed perfectly,watch a toddler, as this photo illustrates.  To read the captions, enlarge the photo by clicking on it.

You're probably thinking, "of course a toddler can do that.  Toddlers are only slightly less flexible than jellyfish!"  It's true that few adults' joints retain a toddlers' range of motion, but that doesn't mean we have to lose it entirely.

I've witnessed scenes like the ones at left in Afghanistan, Iraq, Ethiopia, etc.  People young and old squat whenever they need a short rest.  They'll sit comfortably in squatting position for 20 or 30 minutes.  If they anticipate waiting longer they may switch to sitting cross legged, but not if the ground is muddy (or worse).

Bottom line: humans are designed to squat.

The Army recently changed its physical training (PT) program to one they call physical readiness training (PRT).  The PRT incorporates the squat.  I've watched Soldiers perform "squats" for the PRT and their form is atrocious.  They rise up on their toes, they bow their backs, their knees are too close together, their thighs don't even come close to parallel with the ground.  So, why is it that an ancient Afghan man can perform a perfect squat, but the average "fit to fight", 18-year-old American Soldier can't come even close?

One word: furniture.

People in poor countries can't afford furniture, so they squat to rest.  We can, so we don't.  We lose our mobility over time because we don't use it.

I'm not suggesting that we burn all our furniture.  No thanks.  I like my furniture.  Well, most of it, anyway.  I'm saying that we wealthy Westerners, because of our lifestyles, need to make time to work on improving and/or maintaining our fitness.  Flexibility is one component of fitness.

"But lifting weights makes people inflexible", the fitness "experts" say.

Bull crap.

Anyone who thinks that has zero knowledge of Olympic weightlifting.  Isolating muscle groups and single joints at a time, like body builders do, makes people less flexible.  Working multiple joints and muscle groups through their entire range of motion, like Olympic weightlifters do, makes people more flexible.


So, learn to squat properly...

then add back squats...

front squats...

and overhead squats...

at weight levels that challenge you, but still allow you to maintain good technique.

Squat, people.  You're designed to do it.

Fast Hybrids

These ain't no Prii, tree huggers!



Gotta love the Stig reference.  To be precise, they're not really testing which car is faster; meaning that they would test both cars for top speed.  They're actually testing which car is quicker.

According to the post-jump press release, the M35h is "faster" than the hybrid Panamera from 0-100 (11.54 seconds) and in the quarter mile (13.41 seconds).

On top of that, the EPA says the Infinity gets the better gas mileage of the two.

[T]he EPA estimates that the M35h will manage 27 miles per gallon in the city and 32 on the highway, for a combined rating of 29. The Porsche Panamera S Hybrid is rated at 22 city, 30 highway and 25 combined. 

Not that 32 mpg or 30 mpg on the highway are all that stellar.  But, I guess if you're rich and feel guilty about your sins against Gaia,  you can buy one of these to soothe your pseudo-Druid sensibilities while doing absolutely nothing to actually reduce your environmental impact.

Porsche GT3 R Hybrid

The article should've specified that the Infinity is the quickest production, street legal hybrid, because they're certainly slower than the Porsche GT3 R Hybrid.  The Wall Street Journal describes it this way:

What you have here is an experimental, 670-horsepower, all-wheel-drive, 2,860-pound gas-electric cyclone...

[U]nlike battery-equipped hybrids, the Porsche stores its amperage mechanically, spooling up a 31-pound flywheel operating in a vacuum chamber in (one hopes) a crash-proof box beside the driver. Under acceleration, the flywheel's enormous kinetic energy is converted back to electrons and returned to the front-wheel motors, helping the car go farther and faster. There is also the not-inconsiderable thrust provided by the 4.0-liter, 470-hp flat-six in the back, churning the rear wheels through a six-speed sequential gearbox. This car can accelerate and decelerate at about 1 g and corner at nearly 2 g, which is pretty physical, let me tell you. 

Audi's all-conquering R18 TDI; their third generation
Diesel (not hybrid) race car.

Most importantly, it's winning.  Why would a race car use a hybrid drive system designed to improve efficiency?  For the same reason Audi built a Diesel-powered race car - endurance racing.  When you race for many hours straight (the pinnacle of endurance racing, Le Mans, is a 24-hour race), making fewer pit stops can mean victory.

At the American Le Mans Series' six-hour endurance race at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in September, the GT3 R Hybrid walked away from the field, posting the fastest laps in the GT class and stopping only three times for fuel, compared with other competitors' five or more stops.

Check it out in action.



Not to be outdone, Toyota, the king of hybrids, will return to Le Mans this year with their own hybrid race car.



And now Audi may add a hybrid system to the R18 TDI.

Greenie weenies whine incessantly about racing.  It's wasteful and unnecessary, they say.  What they don't realize is that racing is like natural selection accelerated, thus the old saying; "racing improves the breed".  Nothing improves things more quickly or effectively than intense competition (keep that in mind, Socialists).  They also fail to realize that the same technologies that make a car faster - light weight materials, low-friction materials, direct injection, turbocharging - are easily modified to improve efficiency.

Face it, tree huggers; racing is the best thing to happen to hybrids.

Third Day - "Children of God"

Third Day has been my favorite band for years, and this video just reinforces that.