Jack Nilssen is

THE
HEALTHY
GAMER

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

• Publisher:  Ubisoft, 2003
• Lead Designer:  Jordan Michener
• System:  XBOX
• Genre:  Action/Puzzle

Synopsis

You, a prince, mess up and cause a huge catastrophe that only you can set to rights.

Nice dagger, Larry, but does it alter the flow of time itself?  Didn’t think so.

Features

• Robust combat system
• The ability to play with time itself
• Puzzles
• Gorgeous environments and music

No, no, not the god-king of Persia, we want the Prince.
Complaints

• The camera sometimes doesn’t point exactly where you want it
• The NPC audio often faded badly, making it hard to follow some of the storyline
• Boring combat and enemies that get in the way of the puzzles

Prepare to repeat this while waiting for the next puzzle to happen.
Praise

• Excellent story, with a satisfying ending

Control Command

• Moderately intuitive

Curse Factor

• Longshoreman

Cinematic Experience

• David Fincher

Time to Complete

•  8 hours, 6 minutes

Jack Says

Pretty nice little game.  As a puzzle fanatic, this one tickled my brain just enough to keep me going.  During these extended sessions that led to the game’s actual completion, I was reminded why I put it down, unfinished, back in ’96: the combat.

While the animations, movements, and variety of attacks are nice, the enemies are not.  They come in spawn waves of 3 to 4, and there are times when I had to defend a computer-controlled (read: stupid) character.  Prior to learning a little tricky workaround, I was constantly dying during the combat phases, or my little computer friend got her ass kicked.  There was one movement that I found that could kill 95% of the enemies, and once I mastered this the rest of the battles were a breeze.

If the game had an option where the opening cataclysm had simply killed all the temple inhabitants and left me alone to puzzle my way through the environment, I would have chosen it.

PoP has its moments, though, like when you fly off a wall and nail a monster, then back-flip over to finished off another baddie.  It’s pure cinematic action, and something that many action games since have tried to emulate.

The sense of satisfaction I felt at the end was palpable.  The story concludes very nicely, and a host of value-added videos and pictures unlocks.

I wonder if Ubisoft was trying to get more female gamers attracted by this title.  If you’ve played through more than 25% of the game, you’ll see what I mean as the Prince’s costume changes.

I would highly recommend this to anyone looking for an enjoyable “Arabian Nights” experience, and it scores well on my “Cinematic Experience” scale.

Video games to make tons of cash this year. That is all.

Gamespot reports NPD results of game and game-related sales for August 2007 approaching 1 billion US dollars, and forecasts 18 billion US dollars of game-industry lucre for 2007.

Following the ideas from the basics of cardiovascular training, I devised a progressive training program for running.

I took the bulk of this program from an uncredited source in the back of “Ultimate Legs”, an out-of-print training book I followed many years ago.  It’s a fairly simple series of runs, and each time I’ve followed it I’ve been able to comfortably work up to a 10 kilometer (6.2 mile) run.

As always, read the disclaimer and consult with health professionals before beginning any kind of physical training regime.

I say “run”, but what I do is move at a pace that raises my heart-rate into the target zone.  For me this feels like a surprisingly slow pace, but when I tell people I run a kilometer in 4 minutes and 30 seconds they often tell me it’s fast.

If I were starting out again, I would recommend simple walking for the “warm up” and “cool down” phases, with a very light jog in the “target pace” phase.  I’ll iterate once more: I only move quickly enough to raise the heart rate into my target zone, and for me this is a very reasonable pace.  I could probably achieve the pace with a brisk walk, but I run because it feels good and develops leg strength.

What I’m doing right now:

• 5 minutes warm up -> 35 to 45 minutes target pace -> 5 minutes cool down

I run a 10 kilometer route, and I do the same route every time.  It never gets boring, honestly!  I focus intently on my stride and breathing, making each step a perfect repetition.  I hold my body weight with my muscles, rather than slamming my joints into the ground.  I run lightly on the balls of my feet and keep my arms up in the “fight-ready” stance, like a boxer.  I swing my legs forward from my hips, catching myself with my thighs and calves.  I keep my back straight and my head up, with my eyes staring deep into the horizon.

I listen to podcasts while I run.  I’ve found it very easy to split my concentration between absorbing the information from my audio player and controlling my body’s movements, and I’ve also noticed that I can remember the contents of the radio I listen to a lot better.  Perhaps this is because of the strict nature of the exercise.

I run first thing in the morning.  My alarm clock rings around 0430, and I stumble out of bed, put on my running gear, drink a couple of large glasses of water, and hit the road.  My eyes only start to open around the 20-minute mark, but by the end of the run I’m wide-awake and ready to kick ass.

How I Built Up to a 10-kilometer Run

Here’s the ladder I’ve climbed.  Each stage I completed had no more than three days between runs:

• Stage 1, six runs, 15 minutes total: 5 minutes warm up -> 5 minutes target pace -> 5 minutes cool down
• Stage 2, six runs, 22 minutes total: 5 minutes warm up -> 5 minutes target pace -> 2 minutes cool down -> 5 minutes target pace -> 5 minutes cool down
• Stage 3, six runs, 32 minutes total: 5 minutes warm up -> 10 minutes target pace -> 2 minutes cool down -> 10 minutes target pace -> 5 minutes cool down
• Stage 4, six runs, 42 minutes total: 5 minutes warm up -> 15 minutes target pace -> 2 minutes cool down ->15 minutes target pace -> 5 minutes cool down
• Stage 5, run for the rest of life,  40 to ? minutes total: 5 minutes warm up -> 30 to ? minutes target pace -> 5 minutes cool down

I’ve climbed this ladder five times in my life, at various levels of health.  Each time I went up I found stage 4 to be my sticking point, but always fought through to reach stage 5, which I see as a basic level of health.

If more than three days should pass without a run (or run-like activities), I’ll restart the program.  I believe that cardiovascular health degrades very quickly, and without regular maintenance the benefits gained from training rapidly disappear.

In the beginning, I run for time.  Once I reach stage 5, I run for distance and try to improve my time at set distances.  As I set aside an hour for my training, I try to maximize the use of that hour by minimizing the time spent on the road.

At the end of each run I do simple compound stretches:

• Single calf and quadriceps stretch: putting all of the toes of one foot on the edge of a ledge with the heel hanging out, push down.  At the same time flex the other leg and grasp the toes behind the back, pulling the shin tight and the heel into the buttock.  Keep the knee joints of both legs unlocked and loose.  Hold for at least 30 seconds, breathing out when entering the stretch then deep breaths while holding, and then switch legs.  This single stretch hits ankles, calves, thighs, shin, toes, shoulders, triceps, and biceps.
• Standing pike: stand with legs slightly bent, shoulder-width apart, and knees unlocked.  Bend over at the waist and try to press the chest to the tops of the legs, try to grasp the backs of the ankles with both hands.  Drop the shoulders down, hang the head, and try to press the upper body down past the knees.  This stretch hits the upper and lower back, and hamstrings (backs of legs).  Dangerous if there’s a back injury or other condition, but a super-fantastic stretch otherwise.  Hold for at least 30 seconds, breathing out when entering the stretch then deep breaths while holding.

Running totally breaks down my physical systems.  I schedule my runs on days when I have no weight training, and on days when I know the rest of my time won’t be spent blowing through large amounts of energy.

I’ve given a bit of a taste of stretch in this program,  and I plan to do a series of articles detailing the various stretch techniques I use.

Enjoy the weekend, keep gaming, and stay healthy!

This is another follow-up supplement to last week’s weight-training guideline: how I breathe.

The benefits of good breathing practices:

• Breathing provides a focus for channeling energy.
• Concentrated breathing can clear the mind.

Ki-Ya!

I’m not a very spiritual person, but I do believe that there are things a person can do that make them somewhat superhuman. Breathing in a manner that focuses energy and power is one of those things.

To me, correct breathing is not so much a magical event, as it is that I simply wasn’t breathing properly before.

There are as many guidelines to correct breathing as there are any other form of training, so I’ll simply lay out what I’ve learned to do:

• Breathe in on muscle relaxation or extension.
• Breathe out on muscle contraction or flexion.
• Don’t hold the breath.

I feel that breathing in is, inherently, a gathering of energy. I imagine I’m drawing in strength, charging a battery, or revving the engine with the brakes engaged. In terms of weight training, as the weight descends and the muscle is elongated and stretched, I breathe in and visualize the spring gathering tension. At the very peak of the extension and the intake of breath, I then reverse both movements, explosively exhaling and contracting the muscle in a release of the energy.

Many people have reported success using the inverse of this process, and if that works for you, great. The point here is creating a focused cycle of intake-outflow that is physically tied to the muscle movement. It’s a way to force visualization, which is a topic I’ll talk about more in greater detail in another article. For now, it’s a cheap and easy way to start building mind-body connections.

In biological terms, breathing is an oxygen exchange. The more oxygen the body gets during physical duress, the better it can recover and continue operating. Holding the breath prevents the flow of fresh oxygen, and may also cause other damaging effects such as burst blood vessels. In any case, I don’t advocate holding the breath. Timing the muscle contractions to the natural intake and exhalation of breath seems to be the smoothest way to work.

Focus on the Nothing

I’ve tried meditation many times. The basics are: sit in one place, quiet the mind, focus on the breathing. Almost universally, great yogic masters and other meditative arts practitioners advocate focusing on the breath. Why is this?

Try it sometime: sit quietly and focus on the breath. The intake, the air filling the lungs, the diaphragm pulling down, then the pressure as the air is released and the process repeats. What happens? By focusing on such an elemental process, other thoughts are driven from the surface consciousness. This is the great mind-blanking technique that makes meditation so effective. Meditation is such a perfect stress-killer simply because it makes the practitioner forget all the problems in the mind by providing a focus.

So how does this help in the training process? I see it as a form of meditation, only I’m not sitting in a half-lotus position in the garden of tranquility, I’m moving hundreds of kilograms of weight in the form of dumbbells, barbells, and my own body. I’m focusing so intently on getting the breath and the mechanical process of the muscle movement right that I’m forgetting whatever stresses may be trying to attack my surface consciousness.

Am I achieving enlightenment through pumping iron? I like to think so. And as muscle training is a conditioning exercise, meaning that I’m training my body to work in a very specific way, this skill becomes transferable. I can use my “calming breath” in situations outside of the gym. This is how meditative practice works. After spending years in the monasteries focusing on the breath, the disciples can descend the mountain and experience a transcendent calm wherever and wherever they may find themselves.

I highly recommend mastering some form of breath or another when learning the basic exercise forms. The heavier the exercise, such as the squat or the deadlift, the more critical this becomes. I found that once I learned to really focus my breath into the release of energy, I was lifting a significantly higher amount of weight, and increasing the overall efficiency of my training programs.

Breathe!

Last week I explained finding the one-rep maximum and using that to form a program of weight training.

I’d like to detail how I came to those conclusions about my exercise routines, and how my ideas have evolved over the past 10 years.

Here’s a list of things that did not happen to me:

• I did not suddenly realize the perfect techniques for exercise.
• I didn’t get stronger overnight.
• I didn’t reach my goals.

The Myth of Epiphany

An epiphany is a spiritual experience, an eureka moment, when someone suddenly finds the answers to the questions that have been bothering them.

With regards to training and a healthy lifestyle, I’m still waiting for this moment to come.  In the meantime, I’ve spent years and years in endless cycles of trial and error, experimenting with various techniques and programs hoping to produce a satisfying result.

I started with a very basic knowledge of exercise, gleaned from a few textbooks and manuals I’d picked up in my late teens, most notably Bruce Lee’s “Tao of Jeet Kune Do“.

The interesting thing about Bruce’s book was that it was simply an explanation of his training methodology and how he’d developed it.  It was a snapshot of the things he’d been doing at the time he wrote it, and I’d like the work on the Healthy Gamer to be taken in much the same light.  Everything I detail in this blog is merely a brief picture of how my programs fall at the time of writing.  Everything here is subject to change without notice.  I am constantly searching for new and improved ways to better develop my physique, and my systems are always evolving.

There Is No Instant Solution

I think the core consideration with regards to developing good health is turning those choices into lifestyle choices.

Lifestyle.  A style of life, a style for life.  Life-long efforts, and efforts without end.

Take the example of many popular commercial training programs and diets.  Many of them promise “a better, healthier you in only X weeks”.  “Lose X pounds with X efforts”.

So what happens when X is done?  What happens after the 12 weeks of training and diet are done?  Go back to the lifestyle choices that were contributing to the decline in health?  Cycle back down to an unhealthy life?

For me, this was my own habit of training for many years.  I’d adopt some program for a few weeks, begin to see results, reach what I’d set as goals, and then go back to how I’d been living!  I’d float between becoming healthy and living unhealthy.

I’d thought that was normal.  Psychologically, I was stuck in a cycle of self-gratification.  I’d set my goals too low, and then wouldn’t follow my programs long enough for them to become ingrained.

I’d get scared of becoming healthy.  I’d worry about being too thin, too strong, and overdoing it.  I’d had no comparative results to see if I’d been testing my true limits.  Despite not really understanding what the extent of my physical power really was, I was doing my best not to find it!

Crazy, right?  In order to truly adopt a healthy lifestyle, I had to break down these imaginary barriers, and the ORM system helped that a lot, because it set safe limits that continually improved.  It gave me a measuring tool that could also motivate, and also established the idea of the “unreachable goal”.

Still Dreaming the Impossible Dream

When I started training, my goals were simple.  Run for 5 minutes, then 10, then 30.  Lift X kilograms or pounds X times.  Go to the gym three times a week.

The problem was,  I’d had no idea what to do after reaching these goals.  It was like climbing a mountain only to realize there was nothing to do after reaching the top.  I’d finish a program, then fall out of training until I felt like I needed to get back “into it”, and repeat this cycle.

The sticking point here was the goal-setting process, and the difference between having little goals and a single big goal.  I realized that the ultimate goal was not a goal at all.

The process became far more important than reaching any artificial or self-defined end.

What does this all mean?  It means that my real moment of truth came when I simply accepted that the goal was something I’d never reach, but that the pleasure came from trying to achieve it.

A healthy lifestyle is its own reward.  The main “goal” for me is to try and maintain my systems for as long as I’m able, to adapt when I cannot fully follow them, and to change when necessary.  I don’t want ever want to “peak”, but I do want to keep steadily improving, every day, inch by inch.

This is where I get my self-satisfaction from.  It’s a realization that was years in the making, and one that came out of many, many, failures and mistakes.

Embrace the process, and the rewards will be boundless.

Halo 2

• Developer: Bungie
• Lead Designer: Jason Jones
• System: XBOX
• Genre: First-person Shooter

Synopsis

The Master Chief returns to earth for the medals and well-deserved R&R when all hell breaks loose.

Features

• Play both sides of the conflict
• Dual-wield weapons
• Same tight control scheme of Halo: CE

Complaints

• It’s the Matrix: Reloaded of the Halo series

What do these three things have in common?

Praise

• Excellent cinematics
• Amazing art design
• Gripping high science fiction story
• Improved everything that was good in Halo: CE

Control Command

• Played Halo: CE or any other post-Halo FPS? Just like coming home
• Never played an FPS? Might as well cut your teeth on this one

Curse Factor

• Choirboy

Cinematic Experience

• The Wachowski Brothers with a dash of Spielburg

Time to Complete

• 10+ hours

Jack Says

Oh great. Another Halo? I do seem to remember them saying something about there being a galactic-spanning weapons system from the first game.

Oh crap, Earth is being invaded?

Two guns? Double the fun!

Uh, was that the ending? I wasn’t done!

As with the previous Halo, I found myself running past hordes of enemies in pursuit of the next cut-scene cinematic. The team at Bungie seems to have spent a bit more time working the cameras and animations, and the result is an even more satisfying show.

Gameplay? Run, gun, sometimes get into a vehicle and gun some more. There are a few interesting variations on the weapons, and no real problems with using them.

The artistic direction in this second show was a marked improvement on the first one. I complained about the bland and repetitive hallways of Halo: CE in my review, and those complaints immediately ceased upon starting my run through Halo 2.

Sure, there were a few obvious cut-and-paste levels here, but they made much more sense this time around, and were minor filler between sprawling, gorgeous, and wide-open environments.

The thing with the first two Halo games is that the campaigns are linear. I simply ran in a straight line from one cut-scene to the next. Occasionally I’d be locked in an area until I killed all the enemies, but these speed-bumps were few and far between.

I liken these games to “movies you can play”. The story redeems the somewhat mindless shooting and button pressing that makes up the missions, and I wasn’t totally disappointed at the ending.

Halo is regarded by its fans as a sacred treasure among first-person shooters, and the tight controls, varied weaponry, and open environments are fair testament to their faith.

Now bring on Halo 3 and let me finish the fight.

The most profitable things come in threes…

I Wish They All Could Be California Gamers

The ongoing debate surrounding violent content in video games and the legislation thereof got a bit louder this week in the United States.

Governor California Arnold Schwarzenegger has submitted an appeal to the decision to strike down a law that would have criminalized the sale of M-rated games to minors.

I agree that there needs to be a system in place to protect children from the wicked contents of evil games.  I think the argument comparing violent games and violent books grows ever-thinner as the realism factor of gaming rises.  The fact of the matter is that games are an active entertainment medium, rather than passive, and that the viewer participates in and manipulates the source material, rather than just absorbing it.

Video games can be considered training devices.  While there are other extenuating factors that contribute to a user’s instability and susceptibility to the effects of them, the point is that there needs to be a barrier to entry, and possibly not only for children, but for unstable individuals as well.

A five-day evaluation period to buy a violent video game, much like the cool-down system for buying a handgun in the United States?  Just one of several possible futures members of the games industry have to consider.

The Entertainment Software Association would like Arnold to foot the bill for their legal costs in fighting the flawed proposed law.

This series of articles will go into detail about how I apply the foundation principles to my own workouts. Please read the disclaimer before attempting to imitate, copy, or otherwise crib techniques.

The Healthy Gamer Weight Trainer

There are several important steps to designing a good weight training program.

1. Assess the need for weight training
2. Divide the body into muscle groups
3. Choose exercises
4. Create a schedule and program
5. Determine one-repetition maximums and apply to program
6. Follow program to completion
7. Test strength gains

Why Train My Muscles?

There are many reasons why strength gain is an important part of a healthy lifestyle. I think the critical thing to do is make some or all of those reasons my own. The more personally invested I am in the program, the more likely I am to continue following it.

My main reasons, in order of importance to me, are:

• I might need to be physically strong in an emergency. When I squat weight, do bench presses, and other exercises, I’m imagining having to carry people out of burning buildings, pull rubble away from trapped victims, or grapple with violent aggressors. I may never have to do any of these things, and I hope I never do, but considering the possibility is enough to provide a powerful motivator and visualizer when training.
• A strong body looks better than a weak one. Whether it’s societal pressure or the imaginings of the media, modern standards of attractiveness demand that a person have a minimum of muscle tone to even be considered “beautiful”. Yes, I acknowledge that beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder, but a lot of those eyes are hungry for strong shoulders, tight mid-sections, and well-shaped legs.
• Muscle mass burns calories. The greater the muscle-to-body fat ratio, the more calories are burned. This helps keep the fat down and increase energy-use efficiency, even when resting.
• Stronger muscles run longer and harder. My core cardiovascular exercise is running, and having strong legs helps with endurance, and a strong upper body and core help maintain momentum.

The Great Body Division

The human body is made up of many different muscles, and these muscles work in different ways with each other. I think the important thing to consider for an efficient workout is targeting as many of these muscles as possible.

I’ve divided my body up into very basic groups, and I start from the major and work to the minor. The reason I do this is because when I get to programming the exercises for the muscles, it’s important to understand the knock-on effect. I’ll explain further on.

• Body
  • Upper body
    • Chest (pectoral muscles)
    • Shoulders
      • Upper arms (biceps and triceps)
      • Forearms
    • Back
      • Upper back (latissimus muscles)
      • Lower back
    • Stomach (abdominal muscles)
  • Lower body
    • Front of legs (quadriceps)
    • Back of legs (hamstrings)
    • Calf muscles

I used to go much further than this, and most professional bodybuilders divide their muscle groups into very small microgroups. I’ve found that for general health, the level of division I presently choose suits my needs.

Choose Wisely

I’ve found over the years of training that there are two excellent core exercises that are always a part of my workouts. These exercises are classics, and are so for good reason: they target many muscle groups and are therefore efficient ways to train.

• The Squat: a potentially dangerous exercise if there are pre-existing lower back and knee problems, but for a healthy frame this exercise is one of the grand-daddies of them all. It hits pretty much every muscle in my divisions, with a focus on the back and legs, and I always start a week of training with a good squat.
• The Deadlift: the deadlift comes with the same risks and caveats as the squat, and works almost exactly the same muscle groups, but loads the upper body more. I start my second weeks using the deadlift.

Jack Recommends: if there are no medical conditions preventing a squat or deadlift, these exercises are absolute musts. Learning them will be a lifelong investment, and they can be done with or without equipment, in and out of gyms around the world, and if there is no other equipment available they can provide a full-body workout in a pinch using just body weight.

Warning! Both of these exercises can be extremely hazardous to the lower back, knees, neck, and may cause permanent muscle damage if performed incorrectly. If possible, learn the techniques from a qualified personal trainer, and practice with minimal (or no) weight until the forms are mastered.

Squeezing in the Repetitions

Scheduling a workout is essential for developing a healthy lifestyle. For me, setting aside a specific time for training when I know I can go to the gym has kept me motivated and focused.

I know from experience that my workouts are never longer than an hour. I also know that I will divide my weight training into three sessions. Therefore, I need three days where I have an hour free.

I find the three-day program to be one of the most flexible ways to train. If, for some reason, I have to miss a day, I can pick it up the next day. Using the seven-day week as the general guide, I have a four-day margin in which I can miss training. It’s not a good habit to get into, but it would be possible to do all three days of training back-to-back. Unfortunately, this mucks with recovery time.

I’ve decided that I need at least 48 hours rest between weight training sessions, and at least 7 days between muscle groups. Why have I decided this? This is something that’s evolved over years of self-experimentation. I’ve trained 7 days a week, I’ve tried training only once a week, and pretty much every variation in between. From what I understand, the amount of rest the body needs to see growth varies widely from person to person. For me, I feel the most comfortable with the 3-day, 1 muscle group a week program.

Knowing this, I can slot in exercises into a program.

I take 1 week, and three days:

• Day 1: Major muscle groups
• Day 2: Secondary muscle groups
• Day 3: Tertiary muscle groups

Okay, hold up Jack. What’s going on with your definitions here? Major? Secondary? Tertiary?

These define the muscles that get focused on. Please imagine doing a push-up: pushing your body off of the ground. The chest and back will receive the brunt of the workout, but also the arms, wrist, back, and legs will receive some “side effect” training, or what is known as the “knock-on” effect. I’ve decided for myself that working the muscles down from major to tertiary. So, in our push-up example I’d do chest- and back-focused training on day 1, upper arms on day 2, and forearms on day 3. This way I lower the risk of over-fatiguing a major muscle group, and allow for maximum recovery over a week period.

If looking at my daily breakdown without any specific exercises, it looks like this:

• Day 1
  • Chest
  • Upper Back
  • Triceps
  • Body
• Day 2
  • Back
  • Shoulders
  • Biceps
  • Back of legs
• Day 3
  • Lower Back
  • Stomach
  • Forearms
  • Calf muscles

I also know from experience that having only 4 exercises is enough, and efficient, for my means. What I’ve done at this stage is furthered my body division and tied it to a specific schedule. Now all I need are some exercises. I keep the core exercises (the squat and deadlift) as permanent fixtures in the program, and I change the others whenever I get bored of doing them. Presently, my 2-week program looks like this:

• Day 1
  • pushups
  • barbell shrug
  • barbell triceps press (prone position)
  • squat
• Day 2
  • barbell row
  • shoulder pull-up
  • biceps pull-up
  • alternating forward lunge
• Day 3
  • good morning
  • stomach crunch
  • reverse barbell curl
  • barbell calf raise
• Day 4
  • incline dumbbell bench press
  • reverse barbell shrug
  • seated single dumbbell triceps press
  • deadlift
• Day 5
  • single dumbbell row
  • side shoulder dumbbell raise
  • single dumbbell concentration curl
  • alternating capoeira lunge
• Day 6
  • back extension
  • hanging knee raise
  • grip
  • single dumbbell calf raise

You may not be familiar with any or all of the exercises I’ve listed above, but each one hits the target muscle groups I defined in my initial divisions, and that’s all that matters to me. For the second week, days 4 through 6, I do different exercises but the objective remains the same: to hit the target muscles.

The reason I choose different exercise for the second week is that a greater variety of movement tends to produce stronger gains in muscle strength.

If the same exercise is repeated again and again, the body will adapt to the movement and gains will decrease. I avoid this adaptation process by varying the amount of weight I lift from week to week, as I’ll show in the next section.

How Much Weight Is Enough?

This is far and away the most important question to answer for any weight training program, and one that most new trainees have the most problems with.

If you’ve never lifted a weight for specific training purposes, there’s no way to know how much you can lift.

Lifting too little won’t provide a benefit or strength gain. Lifting too much will probably cause injury, and will eventually demoralize the trainee.

Knowing how much weight you can lift is also the only way to determine if gains in strength are being made over time.

Okay, Jack, so how do I figure it out?

This is the part that will require the most patience from a new trainee, or someone adapting a scientific approach to their training. When I first started this style of training, I actually found that I began to enjoy my sessions in the gym much more, because I was establishing clear goals for myself.

This is the process of determining the one-repetition maximum (ORM), which is the greatest amount of weight that the body can move through an exercise for a single repetition without risking injury to the body. This is where my definition of the ORM differs from many others. The absolute ORM would stress a body to unsafe levels. The ORM found through the following system will be how much a body can comfortably handle, and therefore be much safer and more practical to use.

1. Perfectly master an exercise form.
2. Starting with body weight or no weight at all, perform 12 perfect repetitions.
3. Add a small amount of weight, rest 1 minute.
4. Repeat from step 2 until 12 repetitions can no longer be perfectly performed.
5. Record the weight at which 12 repetitions could not be completed.
6. Allow the muscle group to rest for at least 48 hours.
7. Perform 10 repetitions at 50% of the weight discovered at step 4, rest 2 minutes.
8. Perform 10 repetitions at 65% of the weight discovered at step 4, rest 4 minutes.
9. Attempt 12 repetitions at 100% of the weight discovered at step 4.
10. If 12 perfect repetitions can be performed, repeat from step 3.
11. If 12 perfect repetitions cannot be performed, the ORM has been found!

Record the weight and apply the following calculation based on the number of repetitions performed:

• 1 repetition ÷ 1 = 100%
• 2 ÷ .95
• 3 ÷ .9
• 4 ÷ .88
• 5 ÷ .86
• 6 ÷ .83
• 7 ÷ .8
• 8 ÷ .78
• 9 ÷ .76
• 10 ÷ .75
• 11 ÷ .72
• 12 ÷ .70

For example, if I followed the above process with a squat and found that at step 9 I could only perform 3 repetitions of 80 kilograms, I would divide this by .9 and know that I could squat 88 kilograms once.

Important! By perfect repetitions, I mean perfect repetitions. Before any weight is added the movement must be second nature! Then, as soon as there is the slightest wobble, or personal doubt about whether the exercise was performed strictly and exactly, that is the time and place to stop. To push any further, particularly when testing the ORM, is to invite injury and disaster.

How Does the One-Repetition Maximum Factor into the Program?

The ORM can be used in many ways to determine variety in a program, and also to test strength gains.

I use my ORMs to schedule training “cycles”. As I explained above, I have a two week cycle that goes through two sets of exercises hitting all my target muscle groups. Using basic mathematics and some factors discovered through years of trial and error, I’ve come up with the following workout program:

• Cycle 1 ( weeks 1 and 2 ) 15 repetitions, 2 sets, 30 seconds rest, 50% of ORM
• Cycle 2 ( weeks 3 and 4 ) 10 repetitions, 3 sets, 60 seconds rest, 65% of ORM
• Cycle 3 ( weeks 5 and 6 ) 10 repetitions, 3 sets, 60 seconds rest, 70% of ORM
• Cycle 4 ( weeks 7 and 8 ) 6 repetitions, 5 sets, 90 seconds rest, 80% of ORM
• Cycle 5 ( weeks 9 and 10 ) 6 repetitions, 5 sets, 90 seconds rest, 85% of ORM
• Cycle 6 ( weeks 11 and 12 ) Testing ORM from step 7, above

A repetition is a single movement through an exercise, a set is a number of repetitions.

As you can see, I always do 30 repetitions, but I vary the rest and the weight. This seems to be sufficient for stimulating growth and adding just enough variety to keep me from becoming bored over a full 12-week turn of the program.

The last cycle is the test. If the ORM is found to have increased for a given exercise, then this is an undeniable proof that strength has been gained! In the three years that I’ve followed this specific system, I’ve made consistent strength gains, with never a loss in strength over 12-weeks. Your mileage may vary, and many factors impact this final result, but following a scientifically determined strength-training program is one way to get good baselines and provide targets for motivation.

Next week I’ll be looking more into dietary details and the effects of rest on the programs, specifically what I eat and how I sleep. Have a nice weekend, and thanks for reading!

Basic Stretch-Steps

1. Relax the target muscle.
2. Either pull the target muscle along the joint’s range of motion or resist against force.
3. Hold, and breathe.

We’ve made up our minds, counted the minutes, counted the calories, counted the heartbeats,  counted the reasons, and punished our muscles.  The last step in this cycle is the improvement of flexibility.

I used to think that stretching was unnecessary if the weight training was done in a certain way, because lifting weights is itself a stretch.

I later realized there are specific benefits to a focused program of body-stretching:

• Improved flexibility
• Reduction of muscle soreness
• Relaxation

Contort!

The looser and more limber the body is, the easier it is to adapt to sudden movements and strains.  A body that isn’t stretched regularly tends towards stiffness, and this inflexibility works against the system when facing shocks such as slipping off of an icy curb, jumping to return a tennis serve, or getting out of bed in the morning.

“Bamboo breaks in the wind, grass bends.”

Increased flexibility also allows the body to approach its greatest range of motion, which helps in weight training and balancing the look of the physique.

Passive Massage

During weight training, or any activity that stresses the muscles enough to stimulate growth, the muscles are flooded with waste product.  It’s this waste that causes healthy muscle fatigue in the days after training.  Stretching works like massage in that it increases circulation and helps “push out the junk” that’s built up in the muscles, decreasing the amount of overall soreness following a workout.

Feeling Good

If done in a focused way, stretch can help with spiritual balance.

In a good stretch, the mental focus is completely placed on relaxing the muscle and breathing.  Whenever the mind is forced to shut out distraction and isolate attention, it develops a calm.  This calm in turn destroys stress.

Because stretch is a repetitive training exercise, it becomes possible to bring this level of calm outside of the gym and extend it into other areas of the lifestyle.

I’m not a particularly spiritual person, and I don’t attach any otherworldly significance to my stretching program, but I can understand why stretch is the foundation of yogic arts:  the mental clarity that comes from years of practicing focused stretch is undeniable.

Finding nirvana, one stretch at a time.

This article is the last of the “broad strokes” I’m painting in my lifestyle picture.  You should have a decent, if somewhat vague, idea of what goes into the “healthy” part of the Healthy Gamer.

From here on out I’ll be detailing the things I’ve done to improve myself, starting with weight training.

Remember, If you have any questions or comments, feel free to post them anywhere on the site, or you may mail them direct to me: jack at healthy-gamer.com.

4 Steps to Gaining Strength

1. Stress a muscle until it can no longer be stressed.
2. Rest.
3. Eat protein.
4. Repeat.

You’re Stressing Me Out, Man

The inherent nature of a perfect physical training program should be its ability to adapt to the needs of the participants.

This principle makes for an infinite variety in physical development.

This is both good and bad.

Good, because you’ll never be bored. Bad, because the overwhelming amount of choices can paralyze the trainee. We don’t want paralysis, we want progress.

As with diet and heart training, there are some very basic ideas that can be used to form the foundation of any program. I’ve taken these simple ideas and, over ten years later, still find them to be of very practical value.

The basic idea behind muscular development is that the muscles are made up of cord-like fibers. When we stress these fibers to the point of exhaustion, we break them down.

When you cannot perform an exercise through a complete repetition, there’s a good chance you’ve broken down the muscle fibers enough to stimulate growth. This is where the adaptation process kicks in.

Muscles, Like Mushrooms, Grow in the Dark

Once the muscles have been stressed to the point of breaking, serious rest is required.

When the body is allowed complete bed rest, the self-repair systems activate and set to healing the broken fibers in the muscles. This is the next stage of adaptation, and is the key to increasing strength, because the fibers come back stronger.

The body is expecting to continue having to lift, push, press, or move a similar amount of weight in the future, and is preparing to do so by adapting. This cycle of tearing down and building back stronger is the essential idea behind physical development.

How much rest is enough? This varies from person to person, but if the rest period is considered a recovery time, the amount needed will depend on how much repair is required. The heavier the workouts, the longer the sleeps.

The Body is Built in the Kitchen, Not the Gym

The key nutrient in the rest-repair process is protein. Imagine protein as the glue that binds and develops the broken muscle fibers, and you get a pretty good idea of how important it is.

Again, how much is enough? Opinions, and mileage, vary wildly. The only way to answer this is to experiment over time with different ranges of proteins. If following the basic diet principles I laid out, simply avoid taking more calories than needed and maximize the protein intake. Or start from a suggested minimum (some sources claim a gram per pound of bodyweight is sufficient) and build up from there.

I’ll be discussing the different parts of a detailed diet program in the near future.

Protein is not steroid! I’m constantly amazed by people who believe that increasing the amount of protein taken will somehow produce massive muscles. This is a four-part chain, and each link is critical. The protein is useless without training, and the training is useless without rest, and it’s all pointless without…

Doing It, and Then Doing It Again

Repetition. Physical development, when controlled and monitored, is an upward-spiraling cycle. There may be hard limits, such as age and genetic predisposition, but those limits are incredibly hard to reach even with the best of modern training and science.

It’s not enough to train for a day, a week, a month, and expect to even approach these limits. Only after a lifetime of effort can the true heights of individual physical power be achieved.

Fortunately, there is infinite variety in programming to keep us occupied!

One more article to discuss foundation principles, and then I’ll start showing you what I do personally on my own journey to discover my true limits of health.