Albert K. Park

Get it Shawty!


The ridiculous aroma of sweat, metal and rubber from the 500 pound tire gets me every time, provoking muscles to quiver and shake in ways muscles were never meant to move. Guys laying down rolling out soar muscles on foam rollers was the typical scene as DMX, a gym favorite, serenaded in the background. I love the feeling of walking into an environment where your mind, body, and soul feel so comfortable, like walking in the front door of your parent’s house. For athletes it might be the pool, the court, the field, or in this case a warehouse. Either way, Home sweet Home.

After the what’s ups and getting some shit from the guys for being away so long, my eyes caught the white board where the day’s workout was written. Euphoria was quickly flushed out by a cocktail of fear, adrenaline, and prayer. Regardless of your conditioning, strength, and will power, if you have been away for more than a week your ego will quickly get put into check around here. Sometimes, pushing your body to the razor thin edge is the exact remedy you need in life to aid with work stress, life’s dramas, and the crazy person you turn into when all these things work against you. Your mind shuts up and focuses on the task at hand, such as an external oblique abdominal throw with a 30 lb dead weight medicine ball. Yeah! Try thinking about the girl/guy that is just not that into you now!

The workout crushes me in the best way, if that makes any sense.

Sledge Hammer swings + Heavy benching and rowing + Heavy Ab work = Recharged

My drive home gave me time to think, really think and was also accompanied by T-pain’s album that my friend insisted on I listen to. I think I like track 5. But anyways here are 5 things that came to mind that you need to know! Again! Thanks T-Pain.

1.) Workout with training Partners
I have always been a solitary creature in the gym, I don’t know why? Probably because a lot of the people I have lifted with were just not on the same chapter as me and didn’t really want to work out. I’ve always been stuck with the guy who talks to every single kid or just doesn’t give a damn. When you do find some people that are on the same mind set I strongly advise to workout with them. Training with a group or a partner provides so much then just someone to gossip with about the other people in the gym.

- You have the opportunity to work to failure since there is always someone there to spot you.
- The two of you start to push each other to work harder through competition.
- You can learn a lot about form from watching each other do it wrong. HAHA
- Also it’s just fun to workout with friends whether your lifting, running, hiking, or just doing anything active.

So, get out there and find somebody.


2.) Drink WATER!
I never realized how much I naturally sweat, especially during the summer time. Just because you don’t get drenched with sweat doesn’t mean your body isn’t sweating. It took me a tough workout to realize my lack of water intake. With even a 2% decrease in water levels, your body starts to go into survival mode and retains water. So the less water you drink the more you will retain water. Water weight doesn’t look to good at the beach by the way. So drink fluids.

Albert tip: Try coconut water for those looking for a great source of fluids and energy. Better than Gatorade because it uses natural sugars with the same if not more amount of goodies in it.

3,) Eat something Healthy after you Workout. PLEEEAASEE!
You just busted your ass sweating, screaming, and wincing in pain. Why would you stop by Jack in the Box on the way home to get a Jumbo Jack Ass and some tummy blubber fries. Take care of yourself and eat something that tastes good and is healthy. Try staying away from processed foods for a start by eating food that is fresh like lean meats, fresh veggies, and some good carbs.

My dinner after tonight’s workout:
8 egg and turkey omelet. ( I don’t think that’s how you spell it, damn.)
3 whole eggs and 5 egg whites. A pinch of Johnny’s seasoning salt and some fresh cracked pepper. Wash it down with some grape juice and WATER!!.

Does it taste good? Yeah, I like it. Will you? Probably not at first, it grows on you, trust me. (Insert my smiling face here) But remember, your body needs proper fuel to repair the great trauma you put your body through so you can do it all over again, but better.

4.) Stay Consistent
I know this and all the other topics have been things you already know, but they are such no brainers, your brain often overlooks them. Things so easy to do, you don’t. Weird huh! But really consistency is the key with everything. Don’t overwork your body with crazy circuits 6 days a week for a month, because I guarantee that after a month, if you make it, we won’t see you in a gym for 6 months. Just be consistent don’t burn out. Maybe two or three times a week of lifting or two glasses of water per days instead of carrying around a gallon like a body builder. (I promise you will look like an idiot, I know because I used to ) Take it slow and steady.

5.) Sleep
This is another one of those no brainers. Just remember that your body actually grows the most sleeping, so if you are only getting 5 hours a night, your missing out on 3 more quality bicep growing hours. I won’t write anymore on this because it’s so simple and you don’t need to hear it from me when you probably hear it all the time in infomercials, magazine articles, and all that krap.

WRAP it UP!
Yeah I know, those 5 things were so ordinary. Not cutting edge stuff right? Wrong! These are things that I have been kind of putting aside myself because of how simple and easy they are. It’s like saying don’t forget to floss every night. Yeah I know it’s important but I don’t do it everyday. (It’s okay one of my best friends will be a dentist in a few years) Really take a look at the list and see if you are following these SIMPLE things. It took me a gut wrenching conditioning workout to open my eyes and see why I was struggling so much. Oh yeah and t-pain on the drive home. Eu -freaking-reaka!

Guess Whose Back! Livestrong baby!


My energy levels felt depleted as five pm crept up despite having the day off and sleeping a good eight and half hours the night before. Due to the chaos of my schedule and falling victim to the lazy but awfully good at convincing “self”, I haven’t trained for a whole week. The time off builds momentum at an exponential speed and begins to mess with your mind. “It’s been so long since the last time you worked out, I don’t know if I want to get back into it! “ or “I will do it the next day off or when I get time!” Or the worst of all “ I need to work out!” (but you never do anything about it, even though you know you want and need to. CRAZY!) I admit one week may not seem that long but when you can see and feel the effects of being apathetic, it should be a giant blood red flag waving in catastrophic winds signaling you to get your ass back into training.

How can I get back into it? I don’t have a program! What should I workout!

If I had a dollar for every time someone said this to me, I would make it rain in the club, t-pain style. The first thing I must address is that this is an EXCUSE! Don’t worry about what the program should be or what you lifted the last time you were in the gym, take the first step and get your ass back into it. Any movement that burns calories and works muscles is fine, COME ON People! But never fear, Albert is here, to give you a simple body weight workout you can do almost anywhere that will jump start your lifting. It will challenge large muscle groups, the cardiovascular system, fast and slow twitch muscles, and mainly it will get you sweaty.
Sweaty = Working

The Jump start workout

All the exercises are supposed to be performed back to back without rest. Only once you have finished can you rest before you start the series over for 3-5 sets.

Workout #1
3-5 sets
Jump squats – reps 15
Spider Man pushups – reps 10-12 each side
Reverse Lunges – 12-15 reps each side
V sits – 12 reps
Pull ups – 12-15 reps
REST – 1 minute – 90 sec MAX and repeat

Remember the rest time can be an essential variable to the workout. 60 seconds compared to 90 seconds may not seem like a whole lot on paper, but when your entire body is shaking for one extra breath of musty gym air you will notice the difference. By decreasing rest time, you will also train your body to effectively use oxygen assisting recovery time. Great stuff for explosive sports such as football.

Also with reference to the rep scheme, focus on performing as many reps you can with perfect form, form is always important. By performing exercises with bad form which happens quite easily with body weight exercises, you can develop muscle imbalances and train the wrong muscle groups to fire during certain exercises. An example would be neglecting the retraction of your hips during jump squats which can lead to your quadriceps firing instead of the glutes and hamstring. This will cause a muscle imbalance, loss of explosiveness, and a quad dominant lower body. So focus on FORM!

UPGRADE THE WORKOUT:

If you get through this with ease, congrats because you probably are doing it wrong or cheating! Just kidding (Not really), but once you really do get good at it or just want to push your self, try adding these fun variables! When I say fun I mean not so fun, but really effective.

After your set is complete add ten, 30 – 40 yd sprints using the time to jog back to the finish as your only rest time. Each sprint should be 85% effort and up because I am sure you will be pretty tired after the circuit work. Make sure you are effectively using the jog back time to catch your breath. Don’t be a tough guy (or girl) by jogging back fast and then only putting out 60% on your next sprint. Perform all ten back to back, then guess what, your DONE!

Another element that you can add to the end of the circuit work is a timed event. In this case we will be using Burpees. A burpee is a movement that starts in a standing position then explodes into a sprawled pushup up stance, then explodes back up to a standing position followed by a vertical jump. This exercise is demanding on your entire body forcing the core to stay contracted through nearly the entire motion.

More muscles worked in the body = More calories burned = BURNING FAT

In this upgrade you won’t be focused on hitting a target amount of reps but aiming to charge hard through the set time. In this case we will use 30 seconds. So you will do the exercise for 30 seconds then get a rest for 30 seconds. Go through this series for a total of 2-3 minutes before resting for a full 90 seconds. Try 3 -5 sets of these 2-3 minute burpees. Good Luck and I can’t wait to hear about the fat melting off your body.

For the visually advantaged:
Set 1
30 seconds – Burpees
30 seconds – rest
30 seconds – Burpees
30 seconds – rest
30 seconds – Burpees
30 Seconds – rest
Rest 90 Seconds. And Repeat for a total of 3-5 sets.

Why is this style of training Superior to just getting on the Elyptical for 20 minutes.

Long slow cardio training can be an effective method to getting back in shape, by no means can I knock that but for an individual who wants to get a high charged jump start back into training, an anaerobic workout with short rest intervals will prove to be far more superior.

All the circuit body weight training exercises challenge an individuals relative strength, balance, and coordination back to back. I am introducing you back to your strength work without overwhelming you with all kinds of crazy weight training. (EX. Bench press, Military press, Power Cleans, All these can kind of keep you from going back after being away awhile) Also we avoid the boring 20-30 minutes of stationary cardio work that can chase even the most loyal athletes out of training.

RULE OF THUMB/Food for thought: there is no reason for you to overload your body with excess weights if you can’t easily do body weight work.

By performing the exercises in the circuit back to back, we are able to train endurance without losing muscle mass/ and by gaining lean muscle mass. I probably have said this around twenty times but I will say it again to emphasize the point. The more muscles you work the more calories you burn. So compare the exercises in the circuit which demand nearly every muscle in your body to a stationary bike exercise. Doesn’t really compare does it.

Final words:
So if you’ve been away from working out and training, let me be the first to welcome you back! Whether it’s been a week, a month, or a year it’s better today then tomorrow. The workout I posted will help you charge hard and propel you back into the swing of things. Even performing the workout 2-3 times a week I am sure you will see huge gains, but for now just use it as a supplement to your training.

Even Slater Likes to Run outside

Running outside Vs. Running on the treadmill

The early mornings luxurious 65 degree weather spoiled me on my run. The sun bathed me in warm rays that pierced through crystal blue skies all while a cool breeze motivated me to finish. Any time we get great weather like this here in the PNW, I like to take advantage of it by getting outside to do some cardio and workouts. Why spend an hour in a gym overflowing with funky testosterone when you can get outside under the sun. What surprises me is how reluctant people have become to working out outside. I’ve heard as many excuses as there are grains of sand on the beach but hopefully the following information will coax you out of the confines of the gym and into the awesome great outdoors.

Downfall of the treadmill
The treadmill, don’t get me wrong is good for some things. It does a fantastic job of keeping track of time, recording calories burned, and humiliating you when you step even a little off the belt ending with a loud noise and everyone in the gym looking at you trip. It also boosts self esteem by giving you an over exaggerated sense of accomplishment. But the truth is that it really can hurt you more than help. Sure it helped burn 500 of the 1000 calorie fettucine alfredo you ate last night but did it really work you out. I have already talked about the importance of EPOC and high intensity training supplemented by healthy eating for effectively losing fat so I won’t stress it again. The treadmill will burn calories for the work put in but there are much more efficient ways to help you burn more and efficiently like circuit work, high intensity cardio, and etc.

Now for the BAD!
The treadmill is a man made machine, meaning it doesn’t naturally work your body. Your running on the treadmill is completely different from you running outside. How is this so Albert? You might be asking yourself. Well listen up and I will tell you….

When you run, the main muscles that are worked in this movement are your gluteus maximus (butt) and your hamstrings (the back of your thighs). The glutes propel and push you forward into your stride while your hamstrings pull you through it. These are the natural and healthy movements that your muscles perform while running. By utilizing the treadmill, the gluteus maxmius and hamstrings are deactivated by the moving belt. The running movement changes from being hamstring and glute dominant to being a quadriceps (thigh) dominant movement. The rotating belt on the treadmill actually propels and pulls you while your quads push your legs up to keep moving. The moving belt does nearly all the work for you while triggering an unnatural movement. Running on the treadmill becomes an exercise that hits somewhere in the hundreds of thousands of quad dominant reps (obviously depending on how long your run). Ladies this means less toned butts and huge thighs. ( Not very cool) So if you think about it, you do somewhere in the thousands of reps of a quad workout on a treadmill and no hamstring and gluteus work which can cause serious muscle imbalances.

Running outside on the other hand is natural movement that utilizes all the proper muscles to perform there natural functions. For people who are obsessed with burning calories, think about it. The more muscles you work, such as when you are running outside, you burn more calories. Why wouldn’t you always do that if you want to lose fat. I know! Crazy!

Attention athletes!
If you are an athlete consider the dangers the effects a treadmill can have on your performance. Sure your cardio capacity will increase from the cardio respiratory stress but it comes at the cost of losing your natural running/athletic mobility. Your glutes and hamstrings will slowly become conditioned to not fully activate and not fire at full capacity. This means you will lose jumping capacity, explosiveness, agility, body control in lateral and forward/backward movements, deceleration muscles, and you will be more susceptible to glute and hamstring injury. (pulling your ass or hamstring OUCH!) Another danger the treadmill poses for athletes is in the overextension of your running stride. Often athletes will push themselves on treadmills to reach higher gains and in the event of increasing speed, overextension becomes a common by product. Because the belt can allow you to move in a longer stride than you should be able to, your hips and paths of extension become distorted. By running at a speed where your body doesn’t work fully functional you over stress your hips and deform your stride by practicing unnatural quad dominant movements.


Excuses:
Albert, I can only get myself to run on a treadmill!
Okay, Okay so I will give in and say running on a machine is better than not running at all. But how hard is it to just run around a beautiful park, sucking in fresh air than it is going into a stinky gym. Get outside and live a little.

But Albert I have chin splints!
Hmmm, are you doing any active soft tissue release to fix them, or doing any corrective stretching to help get them better. If not, stop using them as an excuse. There are thousands of areas that offer trail running and running on gravel/natural surfaces that will help dissipate some of the stress on your chins you can get form running on hard surfaces like concrete. If you have goals, motivate yourself to get over your excuses. Also don’t run for a long distance, which will only make them worse. Try short and high intense work like sprints.

I am sure the excuses are endless, I definitely had one for every day, but consider the fact that by utilizing more muscles when you run outside, you burn more calories. Start melting the fat off by starting to run outside more. By no means am I saying to ditch your loyal time/calorie keeper. I am simply suggesting running outside to burn more calories when you can and to keep your body fully functional. Count your own time and calories.

Outside 1 / Treadmill 0

“No excuses, Just Hard Work”