Albert K. Park

                 I remember New Years Eve, I got texts from all my clients about how fired up they were about training in 2010.

"I'm gonna get ripped, Albert! I promise you I am going to start busting my ass!"

"I can't wait to lose 15 pounds and look hot before I go to Mexico!"

"I swear to you now, I am going to change how I eat, train, and live! This is my Year"

             All the excitement and energy in the air was contagious. Even I was getting antsy. Who doesn't want to forget about the fast food addicted, double stuffed oreo devouring, t.v. expert from 2009. Why not transform your body using some of the momentum with the New Year and resolutions. Somebody once told me "I don't believe in New Years Resolutions because I believe you can change anytime."


                   Touche! So this article is about asking yourself how well you have actually been doing and to see if you still need to change, because yes, you can change any time you really want.

"Now,  is the operative word. Everthing you put in your way is just a method of putting off the hour when you could actually be doing your dream. You don't need endless time and perfect conditions. Do it now. Do it today. Do it for twenty minutes and watch your heart start beating." - Barbara Sher

           "I hate you!" she yelled as she looked up with piercing brown eyes and an evil smile. I knew she wanted to say more but her lungs could nothing but devour all the oxygen it could inhale. Sweat soaked and completley exhausted, she layed on our gym floor staring into nothing, her lips finally murmured "But I feel so much better!" This is usually how my training sessions end, it truly is a love/hate relationship. Afterwards I took a peak at her Meal Journal, just a daily log of what and when she eats...........

           Hesitation was my only response as my brain struggled to organize all the thoughts exploding in my head. Neurotransmitters broke into a frenzy like female canadian teens waiting to meet Justin Bieber. Despite all the progress in her strength and conditioning, not to mention weight/fat loss, her nutrition was krap. I can't blame her at all. Sometimes we all get caught up so much in the latest fat loss workout, a new machine, Hot yoga, cardio kickboxing, whatever.....we really forget about what is really, really important.

          I spend an average of 2 hours a week, 2 sessions, with each of my clients. meaning there is approx 166 hours that they are on their own. I don't get to control what/when they eat. So, consider how often you train. All the other hours in the day is up to you to make sure you are behaving in a way that reflects your goals.

 As Luka my business partner and mentor always says "Does your behavior match your Goals?"

        So if you were one of many to decide that 2010 was going to be a year you were going to devote to health and fitness. Ask yourself NOW as we approach the end of the first month, Are we on track? and Does my Behavior match my goals? 

      If not, steer yourself back on track before another year slips by. I will see you all on the beaches for Spring Break!

        
    I get approached all the time from friends, strangers, my pastor, and even my mom about questions with fitness and health. A "luxury" I guess to being in the industry even though I have always hated pop quizzes. it still brings chills to my spine just thinking about geometry class, who the hell cares or needs to know how to find the area of a shape with like 17 sides. Ridiculous, I know. But despite the deep emotional scarring from geometry class, I truly love the opportunity to talk about fitness!

              The other day a co-worker of mine came up to me with a question about working out and I could tell she had been struggling with this for awhile...........

The Problem:
             Despite being consistently working out for more than 9 months she wasn't seeing any gains. As a matter of fact, things were actually going the other way and she was gaining weight in unwanted places. She wanted to know why and how she could get back to seeing results.

           This is the million dollar question isn't it?

The Break down:
            After spending some time talking with her about the details of her training, the problem was apparent. Despite incorporating weights and cardio, there was a big problem. She wasn't challenging her body enough and now her body had adapted and become quite efficent at her monotonous workouts.

            Bless her heart for working out consistently for as long as she did but this is a problem everyone faces, not just women. Guys instead of doing 30 min of cardio everyday for 2 years, will bench press the same way for 2 years, Every Freaking Day! That's just stupid!

The Prescription:
              There are a few quick, sure fire ways in diversifying your workout to induce some body altering results.

1.) Supersets: A superset is pairing up exercises back to back without rest until both sets are done. This is a great way to transform your weight training exercises into calorically demanding movements. So instead of doing your traditional 3 sets of 10 reps of a single exercise, with rests after each set.

What's up everyone! Hope all of you are doing well on your fitness goals for the New Year. I just wanted to announce that my first intro article for college tennis online.

In addition to this blog, I will be writing for
www.collegetennisonline.com as fitness columnist. If you are a tennis player you need to check out this website especially if you play at the collegiate level. The site is hub for tennis networking, keeping up with scores, stats, and lists both team and individual rankings. Even as a recreational tennis player you will find great information on everything from coaches to advice on ways to improve your tennis game!

Check it out at www.collegetennisonline.com

Born To Move - Part 1

8 min and 20 sec. Wow! I thought I was in decent shape but my mutant twin side aches, screaming lower back pain, and almost pleasurable light headedness rebutted otherwise. Fair enough, the last time I ran the mile was as a Junior in High School and even then I was only running it in the 6 minute range, sorry coach. Even in college I never had to run a mile for Track & Field, hey I was a thrower stop your hating immediately. I looked down at my thick soled Nike air Max 360’s and cursed them to hell! Sure they looked pretty cool but didn’t do jack sh*t for performance. I will expand on the theory later, oh you bet your ass I will, NIKE!!...

My horrible performance on my timed mile, despite lowering my self esteem and irritating my lower back, did in fact spark a positive. It nudged me towards finally reading “Born to Run” by Christopher McDougal, a book that had been on my “to read list” for a few months now. If I didn’t feel bad enough about my poor running experience, the Super Sick main actors in this block buster of a novel definitely pushed me over the edge while adding a few insults to my overall physical fitness, athletic ability, and overall lifestyle.

What makes the stars of this book, an isolated Mexican Tarahumara Indian tribe, dwarf the athletic ability of all the praised athletes of our world? Well let’s take a quick look at some bullet points.

1.) They participate in a 2 day tribal marathon non stop. Non stop meaning without stopping, no breather breaks. This race covers nearly over 400 miles in canyon and desert terrain. If that wasn’t enough here is the kicker, the night before the race they have a wild Mexican rave like party called a tesguinada where the ingredients for fun include Mexican corn beer, a crazy hallucinogen plant called peyote, moonshine tequila, fights, and adultery in nearby bushes. It definitely puts my 40 ounce and Beer Pong days of college to shame.

2.) Their diet mainly consists of beans, tortillas, wild roots, cactus, and every now and then some meat if they catch it. The Tarahumara have been known to run down deer for nearly twenty miles, chasing them until they collapse in exhaustion. Now that’s savage. You think bench pressing 315 for a few reps jacked up on No Xplode is impressive, try running down a wild deer! Yeah I know, ridiculous.

3.) Here is a little equation to show you my idea of fun. Flat Screen T.V. + Beer + Friends + artery clogging snacks + Beer + watching other guys do the athletic work = a Whole lot of Fun!

After confessing my idea of fun, I am truly embarrassed to even report what the Tarahumara consider fun. Their traditional game of kick ball consists of kicking a wooden ball back and forth as fast as you can between two points over the most horrifying jagged canyon terrain. The distances covered between a match can be up to hundreds of miles at a time. Who needs a flat screen when you have a wooden ball.

4.) Equipped with nothing but sandals on their feet these super athletes have managed to avoid all of our common modern day injuries including all feet, ankle, and knee injuries that have plagues our athletes. For some reason I don’t think the Nike Shox are going to cut it anymore.

5.) So how do they measure up directly to our athletes? In a 100 mile race that took place in the cold and high altitude of Colorado, an environment that reflected the direct antithesis of their everyday life, they still managed to set a new course record and destroy the competition year after year.


After reading all of this I almost didn’t even believe it. These people were like some distant group of super humans, like in Avatar, that were just physically superior. On top of that, their society existed with no crime, promoted peace, and somehow managed to be disease free. I was officially disappointed in myself at this point and when comparing them to our modern American world all I could do is silently shake my head.

Fast food joints have aggressively progressed from peppering the country to eventually moving into a full hostile takeover that would even put the Bush campaign into Iraq look soft. We as a people have evolved into no longer hunting or let alone moving as transportation became more efficient and every product that hit the market was designed to make things easier meaning moving less. Microwaves, video games, television, computers, and even now the shoes with the wheels in them keep kids from actually walking, instead they can glide. I still don’t get it. What ever happened to Super Soakers and Nerf Guns? Without performing the way our bodies were designed to we actually begin to decondition physically and mentally.

The example the book provides is the theory NASA had proposed when first experimenting in space. Without all the physical demands your body would endure on earth, such as moving against gravity, having to move to get food, continually exercise for health, they proposed the idea that our bodies intake would be forced into increased brain support and almost propel the human physical state into a “fountain of youth” idea. The results were alarming in the fact that the exact opposite occurred. The astronauts actually aged decades in the matter of days with symptoms including bones decalcifying, depression, insomnia, acute fatigue, and even their taste buds had decayed. How the hell are you going to live without taste buds?

Right now our world is basically like an altered version of this space age experiment. Everything is designed to help us not do what are bodies were designed for. TO MOVE! We were BORN TO MOVE! Now we face diseases that our ancestors couldn’t even dream about. Diabetes, Heart diseases, Cancer, and Depression just to name a few.

All I wanted to do in this Part 1 is to get you to really think about your current physical state. Have you been a product of our NASA experiment on earth? How many people do you know that have suffered from any one of the diseases listed above? It’s truly mind boggling when you actually sit and think about it.

Have you ever wondered why even if you don’t ever run, you feel compelled and go out for a jog? It’s because that’s what is engraved into your DNA and what your body is designed for. It needs to move to be functional both physically and mentally. Even though I got some freak hybrid of the flu, H1N1, and who knows what else, I can barely lay here watching tv and think I will get better. I think it’s time to bust a move.

The squat jump is so effective because it is a basic movement that single handedly trains power production. I will break it into steps below.

- A nice little trick to see if your balance is on your heels, try wiggling your toes. If you can't, readjust.

2.) From the squat position explode directly up jumping off the ground. Explode by striaghtening the hips, straightening the legs, and pointing the ankles down.

Athletic Benefits

Fat Loss Benefits
           How does this movement help you lose weight? Haha try it and you will quickly find out. Jumping is probably one of the most cardio intensive movements out there. The heavier you are the harder the exercise will be but none the less this is a movement, you naturally should be capable of. This movement simlutaneously works your lower body from Glutes, quads, hamstrings, and calves to an intense core stabilization moment when you land.

How many should I do and at What weight? 
           Again I urge everyone to start with bodyweight. But once you start loading, follow the progression below and you should be great. 

Bodyweight 3 sets X 10 reps for weeks 1-3
Bodyweight 3 sets X 12 reps for weeks 4-6 
Increase weight 3-4 sets X 8

Athletes
Bodyweight 3 sets X 10 reps for weeks 1-3
Bodyweight 3 sets X 12 reps for weeks 4-6 

Add DB 3 sets X 8 reps 
Increase weight DB 3-4 sets X 5-6 reps



Incorporate into a Barbell Complex for increased difficulty
Example....

Bent Over Rows X 8 reps
Dead lift X 8 reps
Push Press X 8 reps
Jump Squats X 8 Reps

Complete all exercises without dropping the barbell. Repeat 2-3 sets with 1-2 min rest in between each set. Try a progressive set for even more of a challenge. So 8 reps for all exercises, next set do 7 reps for all exercises, and 6 reps for the next set, etc. etc. etc.....all the way down to one. Remember the weight on the barbell will probably be fairly light, 95lbs - 185lbs is usually the weight range I work in. Good luck!

1. You should eat like a King in the morning, Like a prince during the day, and like a poor man at night!

2. The Nike air max and Nike Shox are the worst shoes ever to work out in. But if Nike wants to work with me or sponsor me then, they are the best shoes ever. Nike air max = 100 pounds less on my squat.

3. My new favorite beer is Guiness.

4. Some of the most effective training is in fact bodyweight training. You can drastically improve your physique and health with just bodyweight training. Oh yeah I love the TRX.

5. I absolutley love to read. These are some of the books I have read this year and totally recommend.
- "The Go Giver" by Bob Burg and John David Mann
- "E Myth Mastery" by Michael Gerber
- "The Monk who sold his Ferarri" by Robin Sharma
- "Crush it " by Gary Vaynerchuk
- "The Barbarian Way" by Erwin McMabus
- "Desiring God" by John Piper
- "Mere Christianity" by C.S. Lewis
- "Maximum Strength" by Eric Cressey
- "Training For Warriors" by Martin Rooney
- "How to win friends and influence people" by Dale Carnegie
6. Change is good.

7. I would rather run sprints for 15 minutes then run for an hour. But either way I would rather not run at all.

8. Avatar in Imax 3d is a great movie. I totally underestimated the power of 3d and am now a fan for life.

9. I can't live without protein shakes. My favorite ingredients are oatmeal, peanut butter, cottage cheese, bananas, and chocolate protein powder. For all you who make fun of me for drinking them at work and wherever, I will never stop. I will keep going and going.

10. You truly are what you eat. Think about it.

11. I will wear t shirts and jeans forever.

12. Your mind isn't stronger than your body but your mind + your heart is.

13. Find a mentor, someone you respect, someone you can look up to. Don't stop until you do. It will save you a lot of time and get you where you need to go twice as fast.

14. I like blogging.

15. I am happy that more and more people are coming to like MMA. I always knew people would come around. To all those who scorned me in the past, don't worry I won't call you out, I will just be better than that.

16. Jesus truly is my Homeboy and always has my back.

17. My life is a true testament to not what you studied, how good your grades were, what clubs you were in, but being all about who you know and networking.