"...Not Me, I Never Lost Control"

Alright, alright, I am back. It has been a while. I started this blog nine years ago. A lot has happened since then. I have been away for quite a while. I hope I have changed a bit. I was in the military for the last eight years, and I have been all over the world. I had one deployment to Afghanistan, and I spent a year in Korea. I have driven across the lower 48 states three times. I climbed a couple of mountains, learned to SCUBA dive, and rode my Harley around the Olympic Peninsula. It is great to be back.

Some of my enthusiasm for fitness has waned. The military is a very fitness oriented place and to be honest I am burned out. I have repeated the same things 1000 times. Crossfit was not designed to fill a two-hour Physical Training (PT) block. It was intended to change daily. Doing the Murph WOD every day is not Crossfit. Doing the workouts from weed out programs like BUD's is counterproductive to having soldiers that are fit to fight. Carbs have their place. The form is critical to avoid injury. Fatigue increases the risk of injury because of form degradation, especially for people who are not experts at the exercise.
Running better will make you faster, not running more. The caveat to that is if you are not running at all you are not going to get better at running. That sums it up. For a civilian with a regular job the "lift heavy stay fresh" philosophy applies. Doing some road work, body weight exercises, and functional lifts are good enough. Focus on core, grip, and neck strength. Form, form, form, especially with neck exercises. I think that the same philosophy applies to a deployed environment. If you are going on patrol and may have contact with the enemy starting at a fatigued level is not conducive to the fight. "N' that's all I got to say about that." I will upload some notes from my fitness journals over the past 10 years in the future. 

There is something to be said about mental training. Hanging in there for 1000 clean reps of a bodyweight exercise, an unusually long run, or a multi-day challenge can build mental toughness. Mental toughness can be thought of as a muscle. Like a muscle, it is prone to fatigue and overtraining. It can be trained and strengthened. Rest intervals are essential as the actual training interval just like physical training. Mental training is critical but can be counterproductive to physical training. Of course, that is dependent on multiple variables.

I still love being in, on, around water, philosophy, engineering, shooting sports, and martial arts. I have developed a passion for mountain climbing, hiking, SCUBA, and sailing. I have tastes for the finer things, collecting whiskey, pipes, and good food. I still hold on to being a technologist. It is tempered with some nostalgia.
I look forward to posting regularly and exploring this crazy world together. Biermaster out. 

Yes B.F. Biermaster is a pen name. My real name is so cool it might break the internet. This one has jokes people. If you have read this far thanks.