Keep the Faith

(Reposted from RepairKylesAchilles.blogspot.com)

Screw what the doctors, the experts, and all those fancy specialistis with appellations and suffixes to their names.  They make a living on making you feel small.  Have faith in yourself and your body's ability to heal itself.  Watch this man's remarkable transformation from obese paraplegic to conditioned athlete.

Arthur Boorman was a disabled Gulf War veteran, who injured his knees and back from paratrooping and thought his life as he knew it was over.  Then he took his life into his own hands and starting being proactive.  He started doing yoga even though he had to wear knee braces and was falling over while doing it.

My mind tells me to give up, but my heart won't let me.

-Lao Zi

In 10 months, he lost 140 lbs.  

Thanks to Serdar for posting this on Facebook.  When I watched this last night there was only around 4,000 views.  This morning, I saw shared on FB by a few of my FB buddies and the count was up to 200,000.  Now it's 409,000!  It's spreading like wildfire.

(It's always nice when something uplifting and inspiring like this becomes viral rather than a video of some douche getting kicked in the nuts... It'll probably be put on Reddit soon, if it's not already on there.)

I don't have "Shazam" because I don't have a smart phone.  Can someone tell me who sings this moving version of "Fix You" by Coldplay?

Interesting Debate on the Effectiveness of CF (Mike Caviston)

Read it here.

"Mental Toughness is taught to BUD/S students, and it has nothing to do with the random challenges approach. 

Other criticisms of Crossfit include:
• Illogical combinations of exercises (such as pre-fatiguing exercises before heavy dead lifts)
• Prescribing the same workouts (including the same weight) for everybody regardless of personal history of training or injury
• Arbitrary goals (such as using 50 or 100 reps for multiple exercises)
• Prescription of exercises that require specialized skills and baseline conditioning and are not appropriate for beginners under high-intensity conditions (Olympic lifts, kettle bells)
• Use of exercises of questionable safety if done rapidly or while fatigued (glute-ham sit-ups, muscle ups, Turkish get-ups)
• Exclusion of useful exercises (such as leg curls or biceps curls) as being “nonfunctional”
• Formats that reward poor technique, such as shortening the ROM to get more reps in less time (despite the lip service Crossfit gives to technique, it is rarely observed in practice)
• Too many formats that blend strength and endurance activities such that the effectiveness of both are diluted (better to perform strength and endurance activities independently most of the time)

Some of the key physiological adaptations necessary for BUD/S not adequately addressed by the Crossfit methodology include endurance, eccentric conditioning, and strengthening in multiple planes. Eccentric conditioning means properly emphasizing the negative (downward) portion of movements, which is necessary for developing resistance to injury as well as the ability to control heavy weights (such as logs and boats), and is not addressed by high-speed reps or by lifting weights up and then dropping them. Strength in multiple planes requires movements that utilize hip abduction, trunk rotation, and shoulder internal/external rotation."
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The best rebuttal was posted by "more bench," a few comments down.

 "I'm a SEAL. I've worked at the center, I've done CF, I like it, I don't think it is the holy grail but GPP is what you need. Your basis on your statements is spurious at best.

[...]

what I am getting at is that CF teaches elements of being "hard". Hard is really w/o definition but when you witness it, you know it. Do not confuse it w/ being stupid, careless, or haphazard."