Tag Archives: WOD

Candidate Net Worth Data and Your WOD

Posted on March 10, 2016 | Leave a comment

A flaming black hourglass. The hourglass symbol is an important one in Cabal Fang. Dig it.

Before your Cabal Fang WOD, some data for your consideration.

Estimated Net Worth of US Presidential Hopefuls:

  1. Trump $3,500,000,000.00
  2. Fiorina $59,000,000.00
  3. Bush $21,000,000.00
  4. Kasich $15,500,000.00
  5. Clinton $15,300,000.00
  6. Huckabee $15,000,000.00
  7. Carson $13,500,000.00
  8. Cruz $3,000,000.00
  9. Paul $1,300,000.00
  10. Rubio $443,509.00
  11. Sanders $330,507.00

Those in BOLD are still, theoretically at least, in the race.  Front-runners in BOLD RED.  Compiled from a variety of sources.  What this data means, well, that’s for you to decide.

Now for your three-part Cabal Fang WOD (this should take you about 40 minutes if you maintain focus):

  1. Dumbbells: 6 x 8 of Kung Fu Curls, Bent Rows, Rear Lunges
  2. Ground-fighting Conditioner #4 (details here)
  3. Heavy Bag Strike Count Drill (details here): Complete this twice — once with punches only and then again with kicks only.

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Levy Drag Damn Bill Commissioner

Posted on March 4, 2016 | Leave a comment

What happens when you dictate your workout into your ‘droid phone, but you’re still all winded and raspy?  Well, your phone types “levy drag damn bill commissioner” instead of what you actually did, which was a “heavy bag dumbbell conditioner.”

I’m warning you, today’s Cabal  Fang Workout of the Day is a real gulch, a pusillanimous butt munch.  You will hate me for this, I’m sure of it.  So, while you still like me, go buy my calisthenics eBook or a set of PTDICE, or go sign up for the Cabal Fang Distance Learning Program.

What’s that?  You’ve already bought everything?  Well, bust my buttons! Why didn’t you say that in the first place? That’s a horse of a different color!

Enough silliness — time to get on your horse and ride.  Your Cabal Fang WOD is as follows:

  • PTDICE (7 x 8 ea. Narrow Push-ups, Jump Squats, Twisters)
  • Ground-fighting Conditioner #1
  • Heavy Bag Dumbbell Conditioner (Each DB 10% BW. 5 x 1:00 ea.  of Max power shots to HB, Mil. Presses, Squats, rest — 20 mins total)

(Abbreviation key here)

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Dangerous Disconnections (and Your WOD)

Posted on February 24, 2016 | Leave a comment

wpid-20150509_200303.jpgI find it refreshing and downright beautiful that two very different writers  — an American poet writing in English about the origin of culture and an Estonian-Russian mystic writing in French about Christian Hermeticism — could express (from very different perspectives of course) the same essential truth in very similar language.  Both of these books are excellent by the way — highly recommended.

“Because we have separated humanity from nature, subject from object, values from analysis, knowledge from myth, and universities from the universe, it is enormously difficult for anyone but a poet or a mystic to understand what is going on in the holistic and mythopoetic thought of Ice Age humanity. The very language we use to discuss the past speaks of tools, hunters, and men, when every statue and painting we discover cries out to us that this Ice Age humanity was a culture of art, the love of animals, and women…We have to use the “Imagination” to recover a sense of the sacred. The sacred is the emotional force which connects the part to the whole; the profane or the secular is that which as broken off from, or has fallen off, its emotional bond to the universe.“

~William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality, and the Origins of Culture (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1981) p.102

“[I]ntelligence with conscience eclipsed…is the Arcanum of the magical mechanism, working behind the surface of the state of intelligence, which aims at explaining movement by the immobile, life by the non-living, consciousness by the unconscious, morality by the amoral.  Indeed, how has it happened to mankind that many of its intelligent representatives — even its leaders and directors — have come to see in the brain not the instrument but the producer of consciousness, in chemistry not the instrument but the producer of life, in the economic sphere not the instrument but the producer of culture? How can it be that human intelligence has arrived — in so far as many of its representatives are concerned — at seeing man without a soul and the world without God?”

~Anonymous, Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey Into Christian Hermeticism  (New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher, 1985) p. 518-19

And Now for your Cabal Fang WOD (abbreviation key here):

  • Weights.  7 x 15 of Two-handed Squat Presses and Swing-thrus.
  • Kickboxing. Heavy bag HZG, AHAYC without sacrificing good form.
  • Jump rope. 4 x 3:00/1:00

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Montreal Meatballs and Your Psyathlon WOD

Posted on February 22, 2016 | Leave a comment
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This is what it looks like before you add the seasoning and put it on the grill.

It’s been too long since I posted one of my super- simple, 4-ingredients-or-less recipes.  Check out this one!  Your WOD is after the break

Montreal Meatballs

  • 1 lb organic ground beef, lean
  • 2 pounds of frozen mixed vegetables
  • 1 medium onion, cut chunky
  • 1 package of McCormick Grill Mates™ Montreal Steak Marinade
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Montreal Meatballs

Cook frozen veggies for for 1/2 of the time listed on the bag (if you don’t they won’t be done at the same time as the meat).  While they’re going, form your ‘burger in to golf ball sized meatballs and throw then into a 9″ x 13″ aluminum pan.  Chop up onions and add them in.  Add veggies when ready.  Sprinkle on the seasoning.  Put pan on grill, cook uncovered with smoker lid closed for 15 mins, stirring every 5 mins.   While eating, try not moan like Meg Ryan from When Harry Met Sally.

 

Now for your Cabal Fang WOD, which is a “Super Sprint Psyathlon.”  For people who don’t have access to a pool or a ton of equipment, my Psyathlons are meant to simulate, if not physically then at least mentally, the Triathlon experience.  Today’s Super Sprint Psyathlon is 47 minutes, about half the length of the previously-blogged Psyathlon which is 90 minutes.  An actual Super Sprint Triathlon would be a 400 m (0.25 mi) swim, a 10 km (6.2 mi) bike ride, and a 2.5 km
(1.6 mi) run.

Super Sprint Psyathlon

Tabata Dry Swim.  8 x :20/:10 ea. of Prison Push-ups, Swimmers, Flutter Kicks, Front Plank (16 mins)

Bike.  Ride AFAYC for 15 mins on any available bike, actual or stationary, recumbent, upright, Airdyne, etc.

Run.  Run AFAYC for 15 mins, outdoors, on a treadmill or, if you prefer, jump rope.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Drill, Drill, Drill — That’s the Key

Posted on February 19, 2016 | 2 comments

Update 7/18/19:  My club still uses the flag but we’re now called Cabal Fang Temple, and we’re a 501(c)(3) non-profit educational charity.  Visit our website or purchase our 12-week personal growth program at Smashwords, Amazon, B&N, or wherever fine e-books are sold.

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Original post:
imageBefore we get to your Workout of the day, let me show you something.

This is not a Buck Rogers ray gun — it is a work of art, a Thor model #5576 electric drill made in the 1940s by the now defunct Thor Power Tool Co.  It belongs to an associate of mine.  He brought it over just so that I could admire it, because he thought I would.  And he was right.

Why did we stop making functional things beautiful?

And now for your three-part Cabal Fang Workout of the Day, as follows:

  • Dumbbells. Each DB – 10% BW.  AMSAYC in 8:00 of (8) ea. Pump Curls, (8) Squats and (8) Plank Rows.
  • PTDICE.  AMSAYC in 8:00 of (8) ea. Prison Push-ups, Bodybuilders and Squats.
  • Kicks.  250 kicks AFAYC vs. heavy bag  (25 with each leg of Knee, Stamp, Side, Round, Coup Italienne).

What’s the key?  In martial arts, the key is drilling!  

But on this blog, in the Cabal Fang WODs and in my personal workout log, this is the key — the key to all the abbreviations I use that is (some of which are borrowed from Crossfit™):

  • A:AA/B:BB = Expresses rounds in terms of work and rest, so that “3:00/1:00” means (3) minute rounds with (1) minute breaks.
  • A x B = “A” means number of sets or cycles, “B” refers to either the number of reps or the duration of rounds.
  • AFAYC = As fast as you can.
  • AHAYC = As hard as you can.
  • AMAYC = As many as you can.
  • AMRAYC = As many reps as you can.
  • AMSAYC = As many sets as you can.
  • ATG = “Ass to grass” in other words, get low into your squats!
  • BW = your bodyweight.
  • BT = “Body toughening” such as rolling shins, hitting the forging post and makiwara board, etc.
  • CON = Contemplation.
  • DB = Dumbbell
  • DOC = Deck of Cards, standard challenge: red = Push-ups, black = Squats
  • FPD = Full Pyramid, as in Ascending reps from (1) to the peak then back down to (1).
  • FZG = a Full Ziggurat, a timed Pyramid, as in  :30/:30, 1:00/:30, etc. up to 3:00/:30 and back down to :30/:30, for a total of 23 minutes.
  • GH = grip health physical therapy and stretching.
  • GS = grip strength training.
  • H2TS = Head to toe stretch.
  • HB = Heavy bag.
  • HPD = Half Pyramid, as in Ascending reps from (1) to the peak, as in 1,2,3,4, etc.
  • HZG = Half Ziggurat, a timed Half Pyramid, as in  :30/:30, 1:00/:30, etc. up to 3:00/:30, for a total of 13 minutes.
  • MED = Meditation.
  • O7H = The Order of Seven Hills, my martial arts club, an order of Cabal Fang.
  • PT = “Physical Training” or “Physical Therapy” depending on context.
  • PTDICE = dice used to create calisthenics workouts that are available at PTDICE.com.
  • PYR = Prayer.
  • RB = Resistance bands.
  • Reps = repetitions.
  • SBX = Shadowboxing.
  • STF = “Sets to failure” in other words, 3 STF of Push-ups and Jump Squats means that you do as many Push-ups as you can without resting followed by as many Jump Squats as you can without resting, and then repeat twice more for (3) full sets.
  • TR = Temple Rites.
  • WOD = “Workout of the Day.”

 

 

 

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Blood on the Wallpaper (and your WOD)

Posted on February 11, 2016 | Leave a comment
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I use PTDICE (buy a set at PTDICE.com) and an assortment of homemade randomization tools to create workouts. Why do I do this? Because (a) I work out at 5:00 AM and it’s really hard to come up with workout ideas when you sill have crunchies in the corners of your eyes, and (b) as a martial artist I think it’s good for me to have to deal with the random crap that the world throws at me.

First your Cabal Fang WOD.  This is nothing on paper.  It only takes about 30 mins and my heart rate never got over 150.  And yet it was ridiculously hard for me.  I would love for somebody to try it and post their feelings.

  • Animal Tabata (16 x :20/:10, cycling through Crab Walk, Gorilla Walk, Mule Kicks, Monkey Rolls, 8 mins total)
  • PTDICE (4 sets to failure of Hindu Squats, Mtn. Climbers, Full Stop Push-ups, and Jackknifes)
  • Heavy Bag Boxing Power Drill (8x:30/:30.  Complete as  many max power shots as you can in :30, rest for :30, repeat.  8 Mins total).

And now for the rest of the story…

Sorry for the dramatic title, I just couldn’t resist.  I probably should’ve called this post, “Wallpaper in my Blood” but “Blood on the Wallpaper” is much more enticing.

Flashback.  When I was a kid my father used to run a small remodeling company on the side.  I started off young helping out around the shop, but as I got bigger I started taking on more responsibility.  One of the things I seemed to have a knack for was wallpapering.  By the time I was 17, Pop was sending me solo on wallpapering jobs in million dollar homes.  I probably shouldn’t be allowed to wallpaper a doghouse these days, but back then, I was the stuff.

Fade in.  Among my mother’s things I found her father’s business card.  Grandfather Naff passed away when I was a youngster, so I only met the man once.

Here’s his card.  As you can see, it says, “J. W. Naff — Exclusive Paperhanging.”

And so it goes…

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Two Books, a Movie, and your WOD Walk Into a Bar

Posted on February 9, 2016 | Leave a comment

Here’s a movie for you: Bone Tomahawk.  People are dismissively calling this a “Horror Western.”  It is a Western and it is Horror, but it has zero in common with something like the abysmal Jonah Hex.  This haunting period piece, complete with appropriate attire and spot-on dialogue, is touching, funny, eerie, and downright shocking.  Kurt Russell, Matthew Fox, Patrick Wilson, and a very endearing performance by Richard Jenkins.  IMDB gives it 7.1 stars, I say 7.5.

Right now I’m reading The Phenomenon of Man by Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.  It has been called both “the greatest spiritual book of the century” as well as “the quintessence of bad poetic science.”  Which is it?  Too soon to tell.  But so far it’s a little dry, and I suspect that is the fault of the translator rather than the author (Chardin wrote it in French).  I really wish my French was a bit stronger so I could read it in the language it was written.  Anyway, I’m hoping it will widen my perspective the same way that this next book did.

Haven’t read William Irwin Thompson’s incredible book The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture?  Get it and read it immediately.  I’ll give you one quote, probably the most popular:

“Because we have separated humanity from nature, subject from object, values from analysis, knowledge from myth, and universities from the universe, it is enormously difficult for anyone but a poet or a mystic to understand what is going on in the holistic and mythopoetic thought of Ice Age humanity. The very language we use to discuss the past speaks of tools, hunters, and men, when every statue and painting we discover cries out to us that this Ice Age humanity was a culture of art, the love of animals, and women.”

It will make you see the Universe, and humanity’s place within it, in an entirely different light.  Pure genius.

And here’s today’s CABAL FANG WOD — it’s the workout we did this past Saturday at the martial arts club.  Try to get this done in under 30 mins — we did, but just barely.

  • 240 Kicks.  Complete 20 with each leg of Coup de Pied Bas, Knee, Coup Italien, Side Kick, Roundhouse, Stamping Kick.
  • Constitutional.  Front Lunge (100), Diamond Push-ups (25), Legs up Crunches (50), Left Planks (60 secs), Right Plank (60 secs), Burpees (25), Pikes (25), Squats (100).

Why did I title this post the way I titled it?  As a reference to what was, in my opinion, the funniest commercial of Super Bowl 50 (looks like they gave up on using Roman numerals, or else it would have been Super Bowl L).

 

 

 

 

 

 

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O2 Killer WOD

Posted on February 5, 2016 | Leave a comment
I inherited this O2 meter from my mother. It's fun to put this thing on at the end of a workout.

I inherited this O2 meter from my mother. It’s fun to put this thing on at the end of a workout.

I inherited an O2 meter from my mother.  It’s fun to put this thing on when you finish a workout.  See photo at right — It said 79%/160 bpm but by the time I got out my phone and snapped the picture, both numbers had quickly started to normalize.  You can get these things for about $50.00 at Walgreens.

If you’re into working out, oximeters are super for making sure that you keep your heart rate within safe limits, for downshifting into and maintaining optimal fat burning heart rate, etc. etc.  Lots cheaper than those fancy ones that you synch to your phone, wrist watch or other smart fitness tool.

Anyway, here’s the Cabal Fang WOD that sent my oximeter into a tizzy.

30 min. Heavy Bag Dumbbell Conditioner

Set timer for 8 x 2:00/1:00 and select two dumbbells each ≥ 10% body-weight.  Start timer.  Punch heavy bag with good form for 2:00.  When bell rings to start 1:00, pick up dumbbells and complete 13 Pump Curls.  Put down dumbbells and rest for remainder of 1:00.  Next round, kick heavy bag for 2:00 with good form and, when bell rings, pick up dumbbells and complete 13 Squats.  Repeat that 4 more times for a total of 10 rounds — that’s 65 Pump Curls, 65 Squats, and 30 mins of action.

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Pot Luck: My Psychic Watch, Social Trees and WODs

Posted on February 4, 2016 | Leave a comment

Today’s post is a peculiar little potluck of nubbin ends.

Yesterday morning I got out my father’s watch and it gave me goosebumps.  Once a month or so I get out his watch and wear it when I want to look nice.  To my surprise, the watch had stopped at 5:05 AM.  This is the exact time that nurses went to check on my mother and found her to be deceased.   See photo set above.  You will see a photo of the watch and a screenshot of the bounced call where the nursing home tried to reach me a half hour later.  I don’t know what to say, so I’m moving on.

Tree Sketch '96

I sketched this tree on a lunch break back in 1996. Pentel Superball black ink on copy paper.

Also yesterday morning,  I read an article about Peter Wohlleben and his book The Hidden Life of Trees.  According the article,

“[T]rees in the forest are social beings. They can count, learn and remember; nurse sick neighbors; warn each other of danger by sending electrical signals across a fungal network known as the “Wood Wide Web”; and, for reasons unknown, keep the ancient stumps of long-felled companions alive for centuries by feeding them a sugar solution through their roots.”

 Amazing!  Said it before and I’ll say it again: trees are people too, treants are real, Druids had it right, and people who cut down trees because they don’t want to rake leaves should be pummeled about the head and shoulders with the handles of their axes.

Very very early yesterday morning I had a delightful workout.  Note:  Just because you don’t see a WOD post on this blog doesn’t mean I didn’t work out and/or that you can’t see what I’ve been doing.  My productivity log, which contains all my workouts, is a public Google Doc you can see here.

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I use PTDICE for workout inspiration and I take a picture of my dice to help me remember what I did. Just in case I forget before I get a chance to update my log.

Yesterday’s Cabal Fang WOD:¹

  • PTDICE² w/ #20 chain.  AMSAYC in 10 mins of 8 Full Stop Push-ups and 16 Squats (I finished 8 sets) with a 20 lb chain draped around your neck. Calisthenics are the shit.³
  • All-in Heavy Bag Drill.  Place one heavy bag on floor about 2 meters or 6 feet from a second, standing or hanging heavy bag.  Set timer for 8 x 2:00/1:00.  Start timer.  AMSAYC  of 10 max power shots to standing bag, 10 shots to floor bag from mount, lock and roll to bottom position, 10 more shots. Repeat until timer beeps.  Rest 1:00.  Do that 7 more times for a 23-minute sweat extravaganza (24 minutes if you count the final 1:00 rest, but why would you, because the workout is over at the end of Round 8, now isn’t it?)

FOOTNOTES:

  1. Cabal Fang is the martial art I founded in 2009 (check it out!) and “WOD” stands for “workout of the day.”
  2. PTDICE are for sale here.  Go get yourself some.
  3. If you like calisthenics, you might enjoy my Calisthenics eBook, The Calisthenics Codex (download it here in any format you like).  By the way,  it’s the #2 calisthenics eBook on Barnes & Noble.

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The Ziggurat Workout

Posted on January 26, 2016 | 2 comments

ZiggI came up with this new thing I’m calling a ziggurat, and it really seems to be improving my endurance.  What is it?

Well, if you’re following this blog at all, you know what a pyramid is in workout terms — that’s when you perform an exercise(s) in increasing reps up to a peak, then back down to the beginning.  A full pyramid to 10 of Bodybuilders is 1 of each, 2 of each, 3, 4, 5, etc. up to 10 of each, then 9, 8, 7, 6, etc. down to 1.  That would be 100 Bodybuilders (and a decent little workout!).  A half pyramid to 10 would get you to the peak without the descent, a total of 55 reps.

A ziggurat is slightly different.  In architectural terms, a ziggurat is a stepped pyramid in the ancient Mesopotamian style, like my adorable little drawing up there at the top (you like that? I did that with Paint — booyah, in yo face with my mad art skills!).  In workout terms, what I’m calling a ziggurat is a stepped pyramid for time instead of for reps.  I use :30 (30 second) increments.

Here a couple of ziggurat examples:

Heavy bag Speed Ziggurat.  Punch and/or kick heavy bag as fast as you can for :30 then rest for :30.  Then 1:00/:30, followed by 1:30/:30, 2:00/:30, and finally 2:30/:30 and back down again.  Total = 16.5 minutes.

Ground ‘n’ Pound Power Ziggurat.  Put your heavy bag on the floor, assume mount position, and punch, hammer and elbow the bag as hard as you can for :30 then rest for :30.  Then 1:00/:30, followed by 1:30/:30, 2:00/:30, and finally 2:30/:30 and back down again.  Total = 16.5 minutes.

Try one.  They make you breathe like nobody’s business!

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