MOW - Crock Pot chicken cacciatore

MOW, the Meal Of the Week.

As I've mentioned before, to keep a firm grip on my diet, I bring my lunch to work everyday. I also make sure it's something prepared by me and with fresh and good for you ingredients. To further that process, I generally spend Sunday afternoon or evening making up a big batch of something for my son and I to eat during the work/school week.

A current favorite of mine is chicken cacciatore made in a Crock Pot. It's a simple, delicious and good for you.

Ingredients:

3 large chicken breasts, cut into 1" or so pieces.
1 lb. thick sliced fresh mushrooms.
1 red onion.
3 large tomatoes, chopped.
2 cloves garlic, minced.
1/4 cup flour.
2 T. olive oil
1 cup chicken broth
2 T. tomato paste
1 tsp. dried basil.
1/2 tsp. dried oregano.
1/2 tsp. dried thyme.
Salt and pepper to your liking.

Combine all ingredients, EXCEPT chicken, mushrooms and onion in a medium mixing bowl and whisk together.
Layer the bottom of the Crock Pot with the chopped onions and place the chicken on top. Dump in the mushrooms and spice/tomato mixture. For no particular reason, I put in half the 'shrooms, then the mix and then the rest of the fungi.
Crock on low for 8 hours. I've let it go as long as 11, with no problems. If you're in a hurry, you could crock on high for 4-5.

Chicken over the onion. Crock about half full.

Whisked up goodness.

Might look like a lot of mushies, but it works out.

Finito!

Serve over pasta...

Or roll up in a tortilla for lunch.

This typically will make enough for my son and I to eat for dinner Sunday night, and for lunch for the rest of the week. Adding a salad or piece of fruit rounds it out nicely.

Pro tip: If you're going to do lunches, drain the water that accumulates the first couple of days to help avoid soggy tortillas.

DIY - Spartan Spear, with throwing technique tips.

So you want to train for Spartan, but you have no spear. Here's a (relatively) simple how-to for building your own training spear for around $10.

Shovel handle. Cost: $9ish

10 penny nail. Cost: 10 pennies

First, head to your local hardware store and get yourself a shovel handle and a ten penny nail.

There are various other handles available, rakes, spades and whatnot, but the rounded head shovel handle seems to be about the right weight and length.

Ugly, but usable with head intact.

Drilling also helps keep it straight.

Drilling a pilot hole will help keep the nail from splitting the handle. Don't go too big though, you want that nail to be tight in there.

Pound that nail in a good couple of inches. I drove mine about .5" past the first observation hole.










You can use it as is, but if you have a grinder or belt sander, grinding off the head makes it just that much better.

Try not to set your face on fire.

If you're not hitting nice soft hay bales, you can expect some bending with ground strikes. Not to worry, you can bend it back easily with a hammer, or just by hitting it against a hard object, like asphalt, a goal post, or your noggin.

Dart grip.

Throwing tips:
Find your spot on the spear and get used to the feel of it. For me it's a few inches behind the balance point. I like it to feel a little front heavy.
Grip it like a pencil, or dart.
Step into your throw.
Use your opposite hand to counter balance and aim.
Arc your throw slightly, but don't overdo it.
Follow through. Let your back foot come forward as you achieve full hip rotation.
Practice. It will probably feel funky at first, but once you find your sweet spot, repetition will have you making consistent hits.

DON'T THROW IT TOO HARD! The pics below are exaggerated for technique. I'm also throwing a lot farther, for practice, than the hay bales are in a typical race. A soft touch goes a long way!

If you find your spear is glancing off, or turning sideways when you throw (usually going to the left for right handers) you are likely side arming it too much. Bring your elbow in and down towards your body. You may have to exaggerate this. For my son, we had to get his elbow in front of his body to correct the for this. It's more of a basketball toss than a baseball toss, if that makes sense.

Most failures I've seen involve poor grip (holding it in their fist and/or not finding the right spot on the shaft) and throwing too hard.

Step into it.

Full rotation. Back foot coming up to the front.

Too much arc.

And there you have it. A cheap training tool that will help you avoid one of the Spartan Race's tricky pitfalls. Now that I've saved you thirty burpees, you can buy me a beer at the next race. ;)

You might also like:
Spartan Slosh Pipe how-to

Training - 10-100 with Spartan spear and grenade toss

With the CO Spartan Military Sprint just a few short weeks away, we are trying to get ramped up and ready. 2 of the trickier obstacles last year were the grenade toss and the spear throw. Either (or both) of these can easily cost you 30 burpees, so practice while you can!

We've developed an easy to use race training regimen we call the 10-100. This essentially works out to running 2.5 miles (10 1/4 mile laps) and doing 100 burpees. Then you can mix in an obstacle you'd like to practice. We chose both the grenade toss and the spear throw for our latest session.



Here's how it shakes out:

Run one lap. This first one we took pretty easy, as more of a warm-up run.

Toss the grenade (or spear). Sprint to recover the object and bring it back to the line for the next guy.

Throw the spear (or grenade). Sprint and return.

Do 10 burpees.

Repeat 9 more times. For a total of 10 laps and 100 burpees.

Such form!

For targets, since we didn't have a hay bale or a 55 gallon drum to haul around, we used a fleece jacket for the grenade and just aimed between 2 lines on the field, that were graciously chalked out when we got there, for the spear.
The jacket helped deaden the bounce of the grenade, if you overshot it, you had a decent sprint penalty ahead of you.

Kellan demonstrates how not to throw a spear.

The exercise is more about feel and form, through repetition, and testing your throwing under stress, rather than a full simulation of battlefield conditions.

Kellan lapped me on the 8th round, to finish first at 32 minutes and change (he didn't pay attention to the second hand).
I came in at 38:30
Billy couldn't remember his time, so we'll call it an even 2 hours. (OK, he finished somewhere around 35:00).

Billy takes aim with the 'nade.

Grenade used was an inert M10 with the spoon and "fuse" removed. Found at most Army Surplus stores for around $7 or so. Spear was a shovel handle with a 10 penny nail driven in the end and ground to a dull point. Here's a link to our DIY version: Spartan spear for about $10.

Ultimate Obstacle Race Training

This workout courtesy of Jonathan (my trainer) at UFL5280, who has been kind enough to tailor our afternoon sessions towards obstacle race training.


The workout:
10-1 barbell complex plus laps.
Equipment needed:
45lb. olympic barbell, or equivalent. Scale as needed.
1/4 mile track or equivalent.

Warm-up = 1/2 mile jog.

Complex as follows:
"Half burpees" (in push-up position, thrust legs out and back in) x10 reps
Push-ups x10 reps
Back squat x10 reps
Overhead press x10 reps
Frontal squat x10 reps
Clean x10 reps
Bent over row x10 reps
Dead lift x10 reps
Bi-ceps curl x10 reps
Tri-ceps extensions x10 reps

After the above set, run 1/4 mile.

Return to the bar, repeat above complex x9 reps, run 1/4 mile. Then, x8 reps +1/4 mile, etc. down to x1 rep and finishing with one last 1/4 mile.

At the end you will have run 3 miles total (with warm-up 1/2 mile) and completed 55 reps of each exercise. And also likely, you'll be looking for your medal, t-shirt and free beer.

This is a real burner and great race prep. If you can kill this in under and hour, you'll be well on your way to a strong 5k obstacle race finish.

So, Jonathan, where's our cold one?

TLB training day

The line in the sand has been drawn.

Time to dust off the gear and get serious about race preparations once again.

With just over a month to the Spartan race, Team Live Badass got together for a little spartan inspired race training.

We started out doing the Spring Pentathlon, as a training precursor. This consists of a quick 1/4 mile warm-up run, followed by 2 minutes of push-ups, 2 minutes of sit-ups, a few broad jumps, a sit and reach stretch and a one mile run to finish it off.

After the Pentathlon, we were ready to get to some Spartan type training, so it was over to the playground for some rope climbing and grenade throwing.

The rope

Fast rope technique

First up was the rope climb. Dave brought a thick rope and we practiced with some fast rope technique. We weren't able to hang it very high, but it still gave a good feel for a couple moves up the rope.

It was surprisingly easy with proper technique. This obstacle gave me trouble at the last Spartan Sprint, but there I was using the grade school style climb.

It will be interesting to see how well fast roping works with the knots and mud at the race, though.

Regulation size hand grenade

Mid burpee

Then we decided to work on the grenade toss. Another obstacle that cost me 30 burpees last year.

We played around with a few variations, but the best seemed to be doing 5 burpees, throwing the grenade, if you miss you have to sprint to the grenade and back to the line and try again.

If you make it, no penalty, if you miss after 3 throws: 5 more burpees. We tried to keep moving and to throw when fatigued and/or out of breath for maximum stress.

When we had it down, we were running relays with very little rest in-between attempts.

Dave throwing like a boss.

We didn't have a spare 55 gallon drum around to use for a target, so we settled on a 5 gallon bucket. This, of course, made the throws significantly harder, but all the better for training. An underhand toss seemed to produce the most reliable results. Although Dave remarked we will look like girls doing the granny throw on the course. :)

On the way back to the car we did some interval running using the Zombie, Run! app on my Android.

It was interesting, and made for some good sprints to avoid the hordes.

Not satisfied quite yet, we tossed around the "marathon" medicine ball (a homemade ball by Dave that just happens to weigh in at 26.2 pounds), did some high box jumps and practiced our terrible parkour technique on some wall climbs.

A very productive start to this years race training. We were out and about for nearly 3 hours and I was smoked when I got home.

Pentathlon - Spring 2013

The time for quarterly numbers has arrived yet again.

We began the Pentathlon last year to help measure progress in five popular exercises that are handy for a variety of sports conditioning, including obstacle racing. The five exercises are: push-ups, sit-ups, broad jump, timed mile and sit and reach.

Push-ups and sit-ups are max reps in 2 minutes. The jump can be done as many times as you want, but 3 times seems to be where we got our max. Initially we would resets very 60 days, but we have now changed that to quarterly testing.

Below are the results of the 2013 Spring Pentathlon for myself, my son and our buddy Dave. Next to our names are our ages at the time of testing. Next to the results are changes from the last Pentathlon, where applicable. Numbers in red are overall changes from the first event.

Kellan, mid broad jump.

Wade (39):
Push-ups - 60 (+3) (+11)
Sit-up - 60 (-3) (+20)
Broad Jump - 84.125" (+.125") (+3.125")
Mile - 7:36 (-:24) (-:54)
Sit & Reach - 0" (-1.625") (-1.5")


Kellan (13):
Push-ups - 59 (+12) (+4)
Sit-up - 65 (-2) (+17)
Broad Jump - 64.75" (+8.75") (+14.5")
Mile - 7:14 (-:39) (-2:16)
Sit & Reach - .25" (-.625") (-1.25")


Dave (33):
Push-ups - 30 (-10)
Sit-up - 57 (+6)
Broad Jump - 85.125" (-5.375")
Mile - 7:52 (+:21)
Sit & Reach - .5" (-1.75")



Notes:
1. The sit and reach is all over the place. We figure that's because we're doing it after our runs, and as we push our mile times, our muscles are getting tighter at the finish line. For the Summer test we will do Sit & Reach before the mile run to try and steady the numbers.

2. Dave is coming off a nasty ankle injury from late last year. We expect his numbers to improve drastically.

Have your own numbers? Feel free to share in the comments section. :)

10 Tips to Lifelong Fitness

Tired of the on again off again routine of weight loss and fitness? Do you feel like you take 2 steps forward and 3 back when it comes to getting in shape? Have you already given up on the latest New Year's resolution?

Well I'm here to try and help you get on track and stay there, with some tips that got me out of the destined to fail routine and into healthy habit forming.

These are basic steps and I've put them in somewhat of an order, but everyone is different so tweak as needed.


1. Skip the fads.

Fad diets and exercises are worthless for long term sustainability. If it was as easy as taking a pill or "20 minutes a day, 3 times a week" to get ripped, we'd all be hard bodies.
The all lettuce, no carb diet will certainly drop some pounds off of you (and the heavier you are, the more you'll see at first), but you can't live like that and the risk of binge eating goes up when those cravings come on extra strong.


2. Stop drinking soft drinks.

Soda pop is a no brainer, but even all those "iced tea" drinks and juices are loaded with sugars. Diet pop has artificial sweeteners that can trick your body into craving more bad-for-you substances. Even some bottled waters have sugary additives. Energy drinks are loaded with bad stuff.
A guy at my work lost 25 pounds just from kicking his 6 can a day Coke habit.


3. No more fast food.

Yes it's cheap. Yes it's convenient. Yes those fries are delicious. But you've got to stop eating that crap. Even the "healthy" items, like salads, have additives to make you crave more. Plus, now you're right there with temptation in your face, and let's be honest, if you're going to McDs for a salad, you're doing it wrong.
Does this mean you can't ever have that super double cheeseburger you love so much? No, but you can't be having it 3 times a week. I occasionally have a Big Mac Attack too, but I keep it to a couple times a year. Once you're rid of it, you won't miss it so much. Those burgers on the grill at home are 1,000 times tastier anyways.


4. Prepare your own meals.

Stop eating out for lunch everyday (I'll give you a better way to spend your lunch hour in a minute). Bring your lunch to work. The more control you have over your diet, the more control you have over your body.
I spend Sunday evening preparing a big batch of food for my son and I for our lunches for the week. Something that can be stored in bulk and wrapped up in a whole grain tortilla. A piece of fruit rounds it out nicely. Easy and good for you.
Pressed for time? A protein shake in the morning is better than grabbing McBreakfast on the way to work, or those doughnuts at the office.


5. Exercise, exercise, exercise.

No brainer, right? But this can be the hardest habit to stick with.
I DO NOT recommend joining a 24 hour big box gym that you will never go to. And when you do make it there, you'll walk around on the treadmill for 20 minutes and call it good, because all the good equipment has a line and the "trainers" are awful.
DO join a small gym that offers classes. Even better, get a personal trainer. Trainers can be expensive (but you're saving a ton of money now not eating out everyday, right?), but they will come up with a plan and keep you motivated. Invest in yourself.
Some people like to work out in the morning, some people go right after work, but for me, it's the lunch hour. I'm not too motivated in the mornings and it's really easy to blow it off at the end of a long work day. But whenever you decide to do it, stick with that time and make it a routine. It's OK to start slow, but try to make it everyday (or every weekday). It's probably better to do a lighter workout everyday than a hard core one 3 days a week. It'll help to create that good habit if you can do it everyday.


6. Set a goal.

This doesn't have to be to "lose x amount of pounds by summer", or "this many inches off my waist". It can be anything, just make it attainable.
For me it was entering a race that was a few months away and training for it. It gave me something to look forward to and keep me on track. After that race my goal became to do better at my next one. Then it was to cut my body fat down to where I could see my abs that had been in hiding since I was 18.
I like my goals to be somewhat open ended. If I put a definite time on them, it can frustrate me. I don't have a "single digit body fat % by November 1st 2013" goal. As long as I'm working toward it and seeing progress, that's enough for me.
Be realistic. You're not going to get mega ripped in 6 months.


7. Cut out the cans and boxes.

So you're bringing your own lunch now, but is it healthy? Time to ditch those cans of soup and microwave meals. Focus on your food prep and get to where you are preparing the vast majority of your meals from scratch. It's better for you and tastes a hell of a lot better too.


8. Increase the intensity.

By now your body should be getting into the rhythm and habit of daily (or mostly daily) exercise. Time to step it up a bit to hit those goals harder and faster.
Here things will differ for people, depending on their goals. You might want to do more endurance, or more cardio, or more strength, or all of the above. Talk with your trainer and start pushing to that next level.


9. Cut out alcohol.

This is a tough one for me. I do like to have a drink. For others, it's really easy.
Alcohol dehydrates your body, weakens your mind, and saps motivation.
If you can't drop it completely (like me), you can at least drink smarter. Cut out the cola and other sweet mixers. Drink low calorie beer. Or just plain drink less.



10. Dial it in.

Now that you're in a solid routine and living healthy and exercising regularly, experiment. Try some supplements and different vitamins and see if you like them. Or maybe go the all natural route.
Try some different types of exercises. Get some new hobbies that will keep you physical outside of the gym too. Tweak your diet a bit. Mix it up. Compete.
Wash, rinse, repeat.



So, what do we really have here? It's pretty simple really. Diet, exercise, lifestyle change. You've heard it all before and for good reason. It just plain works. If you can control your input and your output, you will get the results you're looking for.

You have to stop looking for the easy way out to make this work. If it was easy, we'd all be super models and elite athletes. Anything worth doing, is worth doing well. Hard work pays the biggest dividends. Etc., etc., etc.

Your time and money would be better spent preparing your own food, rather than eating some crappy meal out of a weight watchers box 3 times a day (and you'll be happier too).

The money spent on a $1000+ piece of home gym equipment would be better spent on 15-20 sessions with a personal trainer. That gym in the strip mall is only $20 a month for a reason.
I didn't buy the cheapest car I could, because I want my car to perform. Why should I skimp on my body?

Take your time with this, especially if you've never been big on fitness before. It takes time to get results. You may get frustrated, but you must never quit. You will have bad days and good days, but keep at it even (especially) when you really don't want to and you'll see the change.

How long is this going to take, you might ask?
Forever. Because you've made a lifestyle choice. You don't get to a goal and stop. You keep going. This is the new you, living a new fit and healthy life. This isn't a fad. It's you. As a friend of mine once said, "Never let your best days be behind you.".