Clark's First Ramblings

Hello Everyone! I hope this post finds you all doing well...How ever many of you there are or aren't, I hope you're doing well. My name is Clark, and I'm the husband half of the Mad, Mad Masons. I'm not the talented blogger Michelle is. I'm more of a rambler, but it does, on occasion, make for some pretty funny reading. So, anytime I'm the one posting, sit back, relax, and let's just see what happens, 'kay?

I'm going with something of a shotgun approach today, as I'm going to be writing on two topics. Pictures are forthcoming to go along with my first topic. We went out into our yard this morning and assembled the equipment we use on a regular basis for our training. We wanted to take pictures of our play ground, so we could share them with you and allow you to get a sense of what goes on around here. In the pictures that will be posted, now or later, you will see: 2 tires, one for flipping, one for dragging; 2 50 ft. sections of damaged fire hose which we use for "RopesGoneWild" work; 10 kettlebells of various weights; 5 clubbells ranging from 10lbs to 25lbs; a JungleGym system; 2 Olympic bars with weight plates from 2.5lbs to 45lbs; 2 homemade medicine balls, one 17 lbs, one 25lbs; Finally, you have us, the most versatile equipment in the arsenal. We work with our own bodies as much as with the equipment, sometimes in conjunction, sometimes independently.

In Michelle's first blog, she mentioned how we started on this quest to get in shape. One thing she didn't mention, was how we used to be in shape. I wrestled, trained in Aikido, climbed and rappelled. Michelle played softball, bowled, climbed, rappelled and was a diver. For me, once I got to university and started to get into the whole social end of things, it was so easy to let myself go, to eat whatever I wanted, to skip working out, whatever. It didn't happen to Michelle until after we got married. I think I was a bad influence on her. Anyway, after we got married, we just continued in this lifestyle. Life began to happen, we got busy chasing that good ole American Dream. Our bodies were paying the price. As the result of a spiritual reawakening, we woke up to what was happening to us physically, and we knew we needed to find our way back. I've said all this so I can now start getting to my point. When we got back to work, we started with the conventional, popular, "normal", accepted fitness approaches. They didn't really do anything for us. I'm not knocking conventional fitness, because I know it has done great things for some people...just not us.

This is kind of where Michelle's first post comes in. We began to look into different bodyweight systems, clubbells, kettlebells, body flow and joint mobility. We began to slowly build a formidable little industrial, non conventional gym, if you will. Without high dollar machines or gym memberships, we have been blessed to be able to build lean, strong, functional bodies, with which we occasionally have the opportunity to out perform some who still subscribe to the conventional. If you want examples of this, we can share them with you...just ask.

Michelle just came in and told me I'm a typing fool, so I must be getting long winded. Sorry. I'll get on to what we did today. Today was the inaugural run through of what I believe to be a Clark Original. If it's not, if it's been done before, I'm sorry. Last night, I was inspired to come up with this workout, and I named it "Bad Blood." Michelle said I named it appropriately, as there were points during the routine she wanted to kill me, and had bad blood towards me.

Here it is
A: Tire drag 50m + double kettlebell snatch+double kettlebell swing. Snatches and swings done for same length of time it takes to complete the drag.

B: Tire flip 50m + kettlebell thrusters + either kettlebell front or overhead squats. Again, the thrusters and squats are performed for the same length of time as the flip.

You do one round of A. Then, one round of B. You come back, make another pass through A. You guessed it, you then repeat B, giving you four rounds. For round five, you do 30 second sprints of every exercise you performed in A and B, trying to do as many of each as you can, in their respective 30 seconds. Halfway through, I was wishing for ruby slippers I could click together and be taken away to another place.

To go back for a second to my first rant....To get yourself where you want to be physically, you don't need fancy health clubs or a beautiful PecDec machine. You don't have to subscribe to the body building mentality, or do the work of a bodybuilder. You've been blessed with the greatest, most complex machine in existence. Learn to work with it. Having the equipment like we have is fun and it adds some spice to it all. We added pieces slowly. It took us 2 years to get the kettlebell collection to where we have it. You can even make some of your own equipment, like we did with our medicine balls and some of our other pieces. Have fun with it all.