The Govern Mint?

Wow. Really? Wow. 17.4 Billion. 17.4. Billion. Because you weren’t smart enough to run your company.

Look I’m all about people having jobs and work to do and the like, but honestly, if your employer is stupid enough to allow it’s CEO to take a private jet every weekend to and from Seattle, yeah, I’m gonna say that company SHOULD collapse.

You see, that’s how business works. If you suck at it, you fail. That’s how we learn from our mistakes. By failing at things. That’s how this country works. So that maybe one or a group of people that work for GM say “hey you know what? This actually isn’t all that bad, we can do it ourselves if we just do X differently.” And then they get to work out-performing your dumb-ass at some job you are paid WAY too much money to do.

There shouldn’t be do-overs, and Uncle Sam should NOT under ANY circumstances be throwing money at these problems! If the banks suck, let them suck! If we can’t make cars well, maybe we shouldn’t be making fucking cars! Yes, people will look bad and you will look inept and stupid and like you can’t do anything right…but that’s a valid assessment of your skills at business!

And the government, I mean, those people are too stupid to turn you down. “Oh gee golly! Lots of union workers that paid for me to get here will be mad!”

Do you know how many times people have been mad at me in my life? A lot. And guess what, I don’t fucking care. I let them be mad. What are they going to do? Not give you money next year? You probably don’t deserve it anyway. After all, what have you really done that’s worth while? Probably not much.

I hate all this crap. It is infuriating. Congress is more useless and stupid than the auto and banking industry. When I started my job I started to realize how many idiots exist in the world, but god, you’d hope they wouldn’t be running the country.

What I Do.

Not to steal any thunder from the qualified, certified, bonafide trainers out there, or the guys who play Ultimate who greatly surpass me in both skill and physical conditioning, but I thought I’d share with you what I’ve been up to athletically over the past 3 months or so.

Two years back when training with a friend of mine, I was introduced to a lovely little workout variation called the Tabata. We had just run something like 2.5 miles of sprints and it was decided the workout couldn’t be complete without two exercises done in the following fashion:

8 sets of 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off.

Where ‘on’ is doing the exercise as fast as possible in the most difficult way you can do it, and ‘off’ is resting. For instances, if you were to do push-ups, you might start with 1-handed push-ups, T-push-ups, or clap push-ups, and then eventually wear yourself down to doing them on your knees (it doesn’t take long).

This year, after my last tournament was played and there were no more track workouts to run, I took two weeks off. I decided that I wouldn’t let go like last year and gain 20 lbs between October and January however, so I made a pact with myself to start doing exercises in my apartment.

At first I started with just 4 exercises in tabata sets with 1 minute of rest in between each, I have since moved on to running stairs, followed by 6 exercises in tabata sets, followed by some cool-down/burn-out exercise.

The exercises I do at home include the following (note: I use a 9 lb medicine ball and resistance band as my only workout tools – and an interval timer of course):

Jump-Squats (to normal)
Clap-Pushups (to normal, to knees)
Bicycles
Burpees (sometimes kicking feet back onto a chair)
Dips
Rows (resistance band)
Pull-ups (I have one of those non-screw-in over door bars)
Wood-Choppers (medicine ball)
Clean-to-Press (medicine ball)
Mahlers
Renegade Rows (requires dumbbells – I did these at my parent’s house)
Calf Raises (Single-leg)
Jump Step Ups (on a chair)

Now, to say I’ve gotten ‘good’ at tabatas would be a bold-faced lie as the beauty of the exercise is that you never get ‘good’ at them since you’re always trying to do them as quickly and in the most difficult manner possible. However, I feel stronger, I haven’t gained any weight at all despite over-eating on the holidays, drinking heavily at times, and keep in mind I do this only 3 days a week. In fact, I think I’ve lost a tiny bit of weight.

My roommate who joined me about 6 weeks ago has lost 14 pounds. Again, we’re not even really eating right.

I strongly urge any of you out there – men and women alike – to give tabatas a shot. Just start with 4 exercises and pick stuff that works multiple muscle groups at once (squats, push-ups, bicycles, etc) and remember – you only have to do them as difficult as you can, if that’s knee push-ups at first, then so be it. The best part? It takes about 25 minutes and you don’t have to leave your house.

Now get to it!

“He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.”

Samuel Johnson