What Richard Sherman could learn from the NHL

Note: I wrote this the morning after the rant in question. As you will see farther down, two days after that incident, Sherman apologized. 
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"I've been gifted. The world is full of people who not only haven't been gifted, but have had something taken away from them. All I have to do is see one of them, some little girl who can't walk, and then I don't think I'm such a hero anymore. I think that compared to them, I'm a very small article."
--Bobby Orr 

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You can read a lot today about Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman and his post-game "interview" last night where he was asked to comment on the final play of the game. What we got from Sherman in that interview was this outburst. 

I remember that, when it happened, a few thoughts came to mind:

-- "Really? Didn't your team just win? How about you talk about the team, or the win, instead of yourself."
-- "Another football player acting like he is the center of the damn universe."

-- "That was awfully egocentric -- even for a football player who thinks he is the center of the damn universe."

-- "I hope Sherman isn't one of the players that coach Pete Carroll has convinced to start meditating, because if he is, pretty clearly, he is doing so while looking into a mirror… contemplating his own 'greatness.'" 

And finally, the most dominating thought:

--This is why I like hockey. 

Hockey is different -- beautifully different. Watch a hockey interview -- any hockey interview. It could be with the guy who just pantsed the top goaltender in the league -- whom the scorer hates with a burning passion -- just after said scorer plowed through four opposing players with no help whatsoever from his teammates to put in the Stanley Cup winning goal in triple overtime, and the interview would still go like this:

Reporter: "Tell me about that last play?"

Player: "Oh, you know, I saw an opportunity, and, you know, he's a hell of a goaltender, so I knew I would need the support of my team on that one, and, sure enough, they were right there and set it all up."

Sometimes the reporter will even try to stoke some controversy:

Reporter: "You and [goalie that he just beat] really go way back with an intense rivalry. Some people would even say there's a lot of animosity there."

Player: "He is a competitor, for sure. I'm just glad our team really stepped it up."

Now go watch that Richard Sherman interview again…. It has it all: self-promotion, denigration of the opposing player, and then a little more self-promotion. The word "team" is nowhere to be found. Sherman's teammates, including the one who caught the ball that Sherman tipped, are not mentioned.

Then go read this "defense" of Sherman as a warrior girded for battle who we wrongfully or unreasonably expect to act like an adult in an interview. 

That piece falls apart as soon as you consider: "Hey, what about interviews with hockey players?" Who is more of a hyped-up warrior than an NHL player? Yet somehow, those guys manage to put all that adrenaline away to respond to the questions -- even the dumb ones, even when the interviewer tries to provoke something more Richard-Shermanesque from them. Hockey is a sport so concerned with keeping the individual ego in check that a mere over-celebration of a goal will get a firm rebuke from one of the game's premier commentators. In football, on the other hand, the individual ego reigns so supreme that players on teams that are losing celebrate sacks like they just won the Super Bowl.

"Me! Look at me! I'm great! Never mind the team!" 

It's embarrassing. Or it should be. 

Richard Sherman is a very talented football player. He really may be the best corner in the league.  But he should be the object of universal criticism today for that egocentric rant, not the subject of apologist nonsense telling us how he probably was still all wound up over whatever he was wound up over and needed some chill time. The top tier of former coaches and players -- the "elder statesmen" of football, so to speak -- should be stepping up to put a lid on this behavior. I would say "before it gets out of hand," but it's already a long way out of hand. It really doesn't matter what baggage Richard Sherman brought with him to the game. And it doesn't matter what the reporter's question was (although seriously, a request to "take us through that last play" is about as non-controversial as it gets).  If he were a hockey player, his attitude would change quickly, or he wouldn't be in the league.

Do your job, sir. You do it well. But let your play speak for itself. Be humble. Be… well, be more like a hockey player.
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POSTSCRIPT (January 21, 2014): The Philadelphia Inquirer just posted an account of Sherman's apology. The main line from it: ""I apologize for attacking an individual and taking the attention away from the fantastic game by my teammates. That was not my intent."

Well played, sir. Now you finally got it right.

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In the spirit of full disclosure, so the reader doesn't think this is a secret anti-Seahawks rant. I was rooting for the Seahawks last night. I like both Pete Carroll and Russell Wilson immensely. No, they aren't "my team." That status is reserved for the Oakland Raiders, who have disappointed me for a long time. I am still hoping the 'hawks beat the Broncos, but Mr. Sherman needs a serious change in attitude.

That Year -- looking back at 2013

2013 made me stronger.

Not necessarily in a physical sense... but I guess there's that too. I PR'd often enough in the gym and did things, particularly regarding deadlifts and front squats, that made me proud that I am still lifting heavier each year. (But I'm still just fitter than the average dude my age, not some kind of gym beast).

Instead, 2013's strength gains were really more about exploring and learning about weaknesses, and inner toughness when it came to various other challenges.

My dad died back in late May. Over the previous few years, he had experienced an awful mental and physical decline that I have gone on about here a number of times previously. But, despite the fact that his death was mostly a sad relief -- for him and me -- May and June were a madhouse around here as a result. And when I really think about it, everything about my existence had elements of This Is More Stressful and Hectic Than I Want It To Be from August 2011, when he went into nursing-home care, to his death this past year. It took seven dumpsters (yes… Seven. Fucking. Dumpsters) to empty his house before I could even start paying someone to bring its interior from its aesthetic perch in the mid-1970s to the present so it could be sold. And then there was all the crazy shit that someone always has to deal with when a person dies.

Fortunately, I am blessed with an amazingly supportive wife, and I got just the perfect level of help from friends, family and those I paid to work on everything that needed to be done regarding my dad's care, his house and his death. There is some magic blend of tenacity, fortuity and gratitude that gets a person through this sort of challenge, and I got lucky and tapped into all three.

The last few years forced me to re-learn two principal things: (1) we are much tougher than we might imagine, and (2) what matters the most is the people you surround yourself with and your health -- mental and physical.

And this all brings us to other aspects of 2013.

More than ever, meditation has been an essential, daily part of how I empty my busy mind. And this past year, I not only blogged about meditation, but I got to blab on about it on a podcast with my friend Kendall Kendrick, from Primal Balance. I even ran a 30-day meditation challenge in July, and started another one more recently. I used to joke that there is no quicker route to deafening silence on my blog than mentioning meditation. Slowly but surely, that is changing a little bit as a few more people realize that their busy, crowded brains need emptying, and that all that CrossFit hoohah about being a "badass" isn't worth shit if your head isn't right.

Good food is critical to health and happiness too, and, besides going on and on about the benefits of an ancestral lifestyle here and on my Facebook page, I also got involved with a couple of paleo/primal challenges at the CrossFit gym where I am a member. There is little I enjoy more than helping out people who really want the assistance, and both of those events have given me a chance to do that. I really dig it.

And then I learned that even when you get sleep, food, stress and exercise where you think you want them to be -- you know, even when you are the fucking paleo drummer, maaaaan (I'm kidding!) -- there are always improvements to be made. I went to see a paleo doc this year for the first time. I learned most things on my insides are great, some are good, and a few improvements are in order. In a month or so, I am going to go back for my second round of bloodwork to see if the changes the doc suggested have helped me step up my game in the health/longevity department.

I also realized this year, more than ever before, that the only focus of my fitness regimen should be health and longevity, and that my ego is the enemy in that regard. I'll keep relearning that lesson as needed.

There some other enemies too, though. I have been up, down and all around with alcohol over my life, and I am just about done. As I said in that post, I won't foreclose the notion of a very special drink in a very special place, preferably with a very special person. But seriously... it is not going to be often. Amazing things have happened since I stopped regular moderate consumption of alcohol. Most notably, my blood pressure has plunged, even in stressful times. Fuck yeah.

And there will, undoubtedly, be further adjustments in the future. Right now, as a matter of fact, I decided my body fat could use a downward turn, so I am eliminating fruit for a month, just to see what happens. I am only a week or so into that new approach, and already I am seeing good results, a fact that just further underscores to me the neverending value of treating one's life as a constant self-improvement project/science experiment. N=1 is good enough, most of the time.

My free time in 2013 was also a little bigger than ever. Both my kids are now off to college/grad-school, and while I miss them, their independence is something I have always encouraged, and now that it is here, it has provided me and my wife with more time for fun on our own. There was a trip for both of us to Paleo FX, and another to Utah and Arizona for some high-quality hiking. I had more time for volleyball, more time for the gym, and more time to play drums -- on my own and in a band. There was just more time. And time is freedom. And freedom is good.

This was also the Year of the Dog just a little more than usual around here. We have always loved our pets, but in 2013 my wife and I added one dog to the pack, lost one, and we both started volunteering as dogwalkers at the local animal shelter. We already knew that dogs were awesome. But giving back to the world of dogs has proved even more so.

It was a really good year. It wasn't always a really happy year. But things, overall, are even better than they were when 2013 began. And even around my little slice of the blogosphere, there are more people checking in here than ever (hell, I even have smart guest bloggers -- like her, and her, and him -- and I even get asked occasionally to write something on someone else's blog). Sometimes great people who I respect even say nice things about my efforts here. 2014? Let's go.

Guest post! "Floating on [a Salty] Cloud Nine [Days in a Row]" by Skylee Robinson

Skylee is an attorney in Seattle who enjoys spending her free time searching for the best meal, cup of coffee, and fitness regimen. You can find her online @skyleejane on Twitter, Instagram, and Gmail. I (Steve) met her (and a whole lot of other people) for, oh, about 3.6 seconds each at a Paleo FX 2013 afterparty. While we didn't get to talk then, her subsequent Twitter feed has contained references to floating in a sensory-deprivation saltwater tank that made me think, "Wow, what a cool, meditative way to chill." I asked her to do a guest blog post, and she agreed! Enjoy….

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It’s 8:35 a.m. on the first Friday of the New Year and I’m sitting on what is (in my opinion and at this moment) the most comfortable spot on the planet.  I’m on an insanely soft and plush couch with a blue throw pillow under my left arm and my legs up on the long part of the fabric sectional.  As I sit (rather: lie) here, reveling in how comfortable I am, I start chuckling about something so trivial I’m almost too embarrassed to type it out:  I’m laughing at how I know it’s exactly 8:35 a.m. even though I haven’t yet seen a clock.  

I think back about my morning, which started with an hour of power vinyasa with my favorite instructor at the spot above the Whole Foods on Westlake.  The relaxing and meditative properties of yoga have been well-discussed and I have no intentions of boring you with them here.  I will say, however, that I recall feeling restless during the morning’s shavasana because I knew today’s true resting pose was meant to exist in water.  

Right after class I took a short drive along Lake Union and across the Fremont Bridge to where I am currently lounging: at Urban Float in a prime location right on Fremont Avenue.  Because I arrived on time for my scheduled 7:30 a.m. session, I walked straight from the front door into my private room, briefly greeting Eve the Receptionist along the way.  This being my ninth consecutive morning session with Urban Float, Eve knew that I knew how to handle the next hour.

Yes, this is my ninth day of floating.  Yes, that’s incredibly indulgent.  No, you do not need to float nine days in a row to feel relaxed (but it doesn’t hurt).  

When Urban Float first opened over six months ago, I signed-up for a membership package that provides me with four floats per month.  This allows me to come for a visit for one hour once a week, which is usually more than enough to help me clear my constantly-buzzing head and calm my frenetic mind.  Yet during the Fall work kept me on the road or otherwise away from Fremont.  Then Thanksgiving and Christmas arrived with its flurry of friends and family, shopping, Holiday parties, and cooking.  During the process of picking up torn bits of wrapping paper on Christmas morning I realized that those four monthly floats were still waiting for me like the presents under the tree that had waited until that morning to be opened.  I logged into my online account and booked a Boxing Day appointment…and another appointment the following day.  After tweeting about how wonderful I felt, Steve asked if I would be willing to write about it.  I decided to bridge 2013 with the New Year by continuing daily float sessions into 2014 and write about how I felt then.

Jessica Tupper

Back in my room, I pulled off my yoga gear and hopped into a lukewarm shower, not once minding the chill from the tepid water as I rinsed the sweat, condensation, and the smell of incense from my hair and body.  Instead of drying off I grabbed a washcloth to completely dry my face, then I tore open a small plastic pouch containing two hunter orange foam ear plugs.  Though the color is loud, the soft cushions are effective at silencing both the room and my thoughts.  I patiently waited as the pliable material reformed itself to the contours of my ear canal, then turned my attention to my best friend for the next fifty-five minutes:  my very own sensory deprivation pod.  

Twitter: @gennapeterson

I have often described to people that a pod is approximately the size of a tanning bed, but in retrospect that is not accurate.  I would instead compare it to the size of a small car (I could even go a step further and compare it to an Isetta since both enable entry via a single hinge, but this tank certainly feels larger than that tiny Italian vehicle).  But like most things in life, it’s what is inside the pod that counts, and inside a sensory deprivation pod is about a foot of special water.  The water is automatically filtered and circulated between visits, but that’s not the best part about the water itself.  The water is heated close to your body temperature; around 95 degrees.  Additionally, inside the water is about 850 pounds of epsom salt, making the density of the water comparable to that of the Dead Sea.  That means that as soon as you are inside the pod and inside the warm, salty solution, your body’s natural buoyancy brings you right to the top of the water.  

The first time I floated was nearly a year ago at the Float Shoppe in Portland, Oregon.  Earlier that week I was traveling in Chicago and did a CrossFit session that involved over 100 pull ups, which was dumb as all I had to show for my effort were two pulled lats.  I sought relief from my massage therapist but there was nothing she could do to alleviate the pain in my back and shoulders; simply touching my lats would make me flinch.  I couldn’t sleep either because no matter how comfortable my bed it was always pushing upon the same areas of my body that were already causing me discomfort.  Through either sleep deprivation or sheer desperation, when I found a Groupon to the Float Shoppe while visiting a friend in Portland I decided to give it a try.

I’m so glad I did.

Once you close the lid of your pod and turn off the lights it becomes pitch black.  It takes a few seconds for the flashes of the last light you saw to leave your retinas, but once they disappear you experience true darkness.  It is so dark that you will have to make an effort to think about whether your eyes are open or closed.  This darkness, in combination with the body-temperature water and warm humidity of the ambient air, means that you will have no idea where your body ends and the warm water begins.  And you will just lie there in silence, floating on a warm, salty cloud with nothing but your thoughts and the experience to entertain you.

The first time you float you’re initially reluctant to dip your head back into the water for fear of drinking in a gallon of water saltier than the sea.  But even through that first session you trust you won’t drown and you find a way to let go.  That is exactly what happened the first time I floated.  My head dropped back into the water, but my face was never submerged.  My arms naturally positioned themselves in a cactus pose above my waist so I could rest comfortably in my state of weightlessness.  And while lying within that tank and in that water I experienced something so uniquely calming that I fear my words cannot appropriately describe it.  But I will say after finishing my first float session I felt like it was more than my neck and lats that let go.  I felt such peace that lingered with me, and is perhaps still with me today. 

And so here I am, 8:35 a.m. on the very first Friday of 2014.  Today’s session was so relaxing that I fell asleep until gentle music pumped into the water, lightly reminding me that my hour in the pod was ending.  After rinsing away the saltwater in a slightly warmer shower, drying my body and wrapping a large white towel around my hair, I am now wearing my favorite pair of sweatpants, smartly paired with a smirk.  Yes, I am still giddy about how I know what time it is.  Does it matter that some time has already passed in the process of me writing this piece?  No, not at all.  Am I aware that exactly one week has actually passed since I was sitting in the lounge at Urban Float that first Friday?  It doesn’t matter.  I suppose that’s the thing about floating, let alone floating nine days in a row:  I feel too damn good to mind the little things.

Once again, here are some tips on how to succeed on a 30-day paleo challenge

In a few days, our gym is going to be starting a 30-day paleo challenge. The rules are pretty simple.

The real reasons for doing this are also pretty simple.

The side benefits are even nicer -- things like more energy, better body comp, better sleep, better performance in the gym, etc.

Easy, right?

Yes. Except somehow a large percentage of people manage to get themselves all twisted in knots over these things.

So, in a personal fit of helpfulness, fueled by caffeine, here are a few tips from me to get you to your paleo happy place -- i.e., how to finish this thing a month or so from now with positive results. Let's go....

1. Just don't even start with the drama, OK?

Paleo challenges are not, in any reasonable sense of the word, "hard." Cancer is hard. Paraplegia is hard. Strokes and heart attacks are hard. Eating seriously delicious food in an unlimited quantity that makes you happy is not hard. (Yes, in an *unlimited* quantity... More on that in a second).

And OK, yeah, if you are a serious processed-food junkie at the moment, and have been living life on bread, cookies, pasta and beer, the first few days of this may involve a little brain fog, some cravings, etc. But that ends pretty quickly, and let's be serious. Somewhere there is a kid with cancer who wishes her biggest problem was that she didn't have a freaking cookie. Toughen the eff up. Stop complaining. This isn't hard. It is a minor bump in the road to get you to awesome.

2. EAT!

For the love of all that is good and right, eat something! Something paleo, that is. Eat a lot of good fats. They keep you full. Drink bulletproof coffee (coffee with sizable hunks of unsalted grassfed butter (like Kerrgold) and coconut oil blended into it. It will make you perky, full and happy. (Don't drink it late in the afternoon or evening, or you'll mess up your sleep). After years of living with "low-fat" nonsense in packages from aisles of the grocery store where there is no actual food, you may have forgotten something: eating is the best way not to be hungry. So eat. Eat paleo food.

3. Always have paleo food prepared, with you, and ready to eat.

I have already written an entire post on this subject. It's really hard to get hungry when you have food with you. It's really hard to eat non-paleo food when you have paleo food with you. Or if you go and eat paleo food anyway in that circumstance, then..."Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion." (That's a Donnie Darko reference; if you don't get it, I am sad for you). Does that require further explanation?

4. Prepare a lot more than one meal's worth of food at a time.

You are cooking anyway. It doesn't take three times as long to cook three pounds of meat and veggies than it does to cook one pound. Live on leftovers. They rule.

5. Don't ever let me hear you say, "But I don't have any recipes!!!!"

Please. There are, give or take, approximately 800 gazillion "paleo recipes" on the internet. Find them. Better yet, don't. Instead, stand on top of your kitchen counter, naked if you choose, clutching your mug of bulletproof coffee, and loudly proclaiming, arms stretched toward the sky, "FUCK RECIPES!!!! I am just going to COOK SOMETHING DELICIOUS!!!!" Then leap down from the counter (careful, now...), throw some delicious meat into a pan with spices of your choice, cook it in its own fat (low heat will do this really well; it just takes a little longer, but it's good not to burn the bejeezus out of your food because... cancer), and add some veggies to cook with it toward the end of the whole deal. Boom. A meal. If you cooked a lot of meat and veggies, that would be many meals. That was easy, and fun.

6. Don't step on the scale.

Stop weighing yourself. Weight means nothing. Body composition (body-fat percentage) means a lot. But weight means nothing. How your clothes fit is *really* what matters. You are a CrossFitter. You lift heavy things. Lifting heavy things has the magical ability to make you thinner where you want to be thinner *and* denser in terms of muscle. Muscle weighs more than fat. There are documented cases of women going from a size 14 to a size 2 via paleo eating and heavy lifting and not losing a pound. Yes, you read that right. Not one pound. If those women got all weight-neurotic during that process, they would be sad and miserable. Instead, they got what trainer and paleo author Jason Seib calls "healthy by choice and hot by accident." Get away from the scale. It is an irrelevant tool used to caused neurosis, particularly in women, not a viable measurement of anything. Fight the power. Smash the scale.

7. Don't "cheat."

I have previously made it clear that I hate the word "cheat" as applied to food, but you all use it, so I will too, just this once, for clarity.

Remember why you are really doing this paleo challenge -- to detox your body from atrocious food choices that are wrecking your insides in ways that you can't currently even fully comprehend. Yeah, there are tons of great side benefits, and after a month of "paleo challenging," more beautiful people that you didn't even know cared will say nice things to you, perhaps even complimenting your butt, BUT (I did that on purpose)... all that stuff isn't why you are doing this. You are doing this, first and foremost, to detox. What happens if while "detoxing" from ANYTHING you pour back in some of the bad stuff? Well, durrrr, you just re-poisoned yourself and you are back at (or towards) Square One. Don't be a dope, OK?

That's all I have. Charge into this thing with enthusiasm. Yes, there may be mild moments of suckage. They will be dwarfed and rendered irrelevant by your future awesomeness.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

A new 30-day meditation challenge starts January 1, 2014

About six months ago, Kendall Kendrick had me as a guest on her Born Primal podcast. I had a blast. I used to do some college and community radio, and Kendall used to be a pro radio personality in an earlier life, so our biggest danger was talking over top of one another out of a burning zeal to Say All The Funny Things. But somehow, we hardly interrupted each other at all, and we had a great time.

Best of all, that podcast kicked off a 30-day meditation challenge that went for most of July. And while participation was modest in terms of numbers, I feel like we got quite a few people into a daily meditation practice that they still are continuing. In fact, a couple of them -- Jim Eaton and Wren -- even checked in here with guest posts about their experiences.

So.... We are going to do it again. Once every six months seems about right for one of these things.

Starting January 1 -- and really, what's a better time than the beginning of a new year? -- we need at least ten minutes a day from you for... nothing. That's right, meditation, the conscious act of thinking about nothing. Our modern lives are so stressed and our brains are so busy that sleep, digestion and *everything* get affected. Meditation, as little as ten minutes a day of sitting and staring at a blank wall and thinking about that wall (a.k.a. about nothing at all), empties your crowded, crazy, busy mind and lets you wind down a little from the madness of existence.

I have written a lot on meditation previously, so I am not going to repeat it all now. But here is a link to the kickoff post from the last meditation challenge, which has further links in it to all sorts of other meditation posts of mine including why you can do this even though you *think* you are too busy to slow down (and yes, that is supposed to sound as stupid as it does).

Let's just say that I can't find another way to empty the mind that is even half as effective. Those ten to twenty minutes a day of sitting down, shutting up and staring at a wall can quietly change your whole outlook on life.

Are you in? If you are, check in here, or, better yet, on the Paleo Drummer Facebook page, and tell us how it's going. And yeah, maybe there's a guest blog post in it for you.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

The goddamned goal board, or how I distracted myself off the path of health/longevity

"What are you doing? You can't change your numbers on the goal board!" My friend looked incredulous.

I laughed, and then kept erasing where it read, "Steve K: 300-lb front squat."

"I'm not changing it. I am removing it. I am too immature for this sort of motivation," I said, not missing the irony that I was about twice the age of the guy I was talking to.

Somewhere in the early fall each year, the "goal board" appears at the CrossFit gym to which my wife and I belong. It's, generally speaking, a perfectly good idea: have people set a performance target -- maybe a first muscle-up, a particular lifting goal, whatever -- and try to reach it by the end of the year. And, again generally speaking, it is a very good motivator for a lot of people.

Sadly, I am not "a lot of people." I am way too obsessive to be on the goal board.

I spend a fair amount of time at CrossFit suppressing my natural competitive nature and, instead, focusing on general health, fitness and longevity goals. I not only have learned not to give a rat's ass about becoming "a good CrossFitter"; I don't want to even get near the subject in my mind. I don't care about beating anyone else at anything at the gym. I am there to be generally fit and happy. And simply doing that makes me fitter than most 51-year-olds. And it keeps me from getting injured.

But -- and it's a very big but that does not lie -- my real problem isn't competing with other people. It's always trying to top myself. For instance, I figure that I started deadlifting just before I turned 48, and, not long after that, I pulled 300 pounds. Now that I am 51, I can deadlift 405 for one rep. This means, in my mind, that, with that kind of progress, I should be able, at age 81, to deadlift... about 1400 pounds.

Because that's how it works, right?

OK, so even I know that it really doesn't. The reality for the older athlete is that every day is a balance between going reasonably hard and not crossing the line into injury. This can be a particular struggle if you are also prone to saying things like: "Life is a constant self-improvement project. Never be completely satisfied" -- which I truly believe.

Which brings us to the goal board.

I don't need a goal board. My whole fucking brain is a goal board. I can tell you, with near-perfect accuracy, my "stats" whether we are talking about lifting numbers, volleyball-team performances, wins and losses as a lawyer, whatever. I clearly do not need to kickstart my self-motivation by declaring publicly that my goal is a 300-pound front squat.

Even though it is.

Because I already know it is.

But what happens when I go and be a team player and write my goal on the board is that I get overly-serious about said goal. No, actually, I get overly serious about every fucking thing at the gym when I do that. I start trying to "improve" too much at once.

Which brings us to the sumo deadlift. I am a perfectly satisfactory regular deadlifter. I should be happy with a 100-pound increase in three years, especially at my age, but no, when I get in "goal board" mode, the change in my plan of attack does not merely infect the pursuit of said goal. The disease spreads more globally into all aspects of my game.

I start saying things like, "I was reading about sumo-style deadlifting, and it seems like it is really a good way for long-limbed guys like me to pull more weight." Now, this is true, actually, but there's a catch: you use slightly different muscles when sumo deadlifting. You need to ease your way into the new technique.

There was little in the way of "easing."

I felt the hamstring go on the third sumo rep at 325.

Fortunately, being the sort of guy who occasionally tries to do things that he shouldn't, I have flat-out torn my right hamstring previously. Black/purple bruise line straight up the back of my leg that other time. So, on sumo day, as soon as I felt it begin to separate, I dropped the bar, straightened my leg out, and didn't bend it again until I got some ice on it. A strict regimen of ice, bone broth, self-loathing and foul language over the next few days followed by days more of foam-rolling and stretching, and I was able to get back into the gym within a week. Three weeks after the injury, I PR'd my regular deadlift. So I got lucky. Really lucky.

Still, there won't be any sumo deadlifting in my future.

But wait, you say, that entry on the goal board was for a front squat. What does that have to do with deadlifting?

Everything. Once I get in that max-lift/PR state of mind, it crosses over into all my lifts. My front squatting over the last year has been solid. I really focused on form and, from October 2012 to a year later, increased my three-rep max from 185 (body weight) to 275. But I did that by focusing on three- and five-rep efforts at generally sub-maximal load, not by trying incessantly to grab the brass ring of the one-rep max. As soon as I wrote the 300-pound one-rep front-squat goal on the board, I started trying the odd one-rep max here and there... and not terribly successfully.

I got, as my wife says, "distracted by shiny things" and went off the health/longevity track straight onto the superhighway of ego.

And then I got the genius idea to push too hard my first time sumo deadlifting.

It's a simple concept, but I need to remind myself of it fairly frequently: health-and-longevity-based training will get you to very good results, with lots of progress, but it's a variation on the "healthy by choice, hot by accident" mantra that Jason Seib teaches his female clients. For me, it's "healthy by choice, stronger by accident."

Not "stronger by writing a number on the goddamned goal board and chasing it like an obsessive nut."

Live and learn. Know yourself first.







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That Dog

She was always The Dog That Could Die at Any Time. I adopted her in 2001 when she was a scared, sweet shelter pup, and, not soon thereafter, Lydia was diagnosed with a heart defect that was the cause of her frequent fainting spells. We were told she couldn't even be spayed because her heart would stop from the anesthetic. In fact, now that I think about it, the way we found that one out was that her heart actually stopped on the operating table when they tried to spay her, and they managed to revive her before calling off the surgery. But, somehow, eventually, the fainting faded away as she grew up, and she even survived a later bout of endometriosis that required anesthetic for a lifesaving hysterectomy. She was a survivor, and a sweet snuggler, and I took many a weekend nap with her. Everyone who met Lydia loved her. At our frequent summer volleyball games at our house, she had a knack for cozying up to a quieter visitor and charming that person with cuddles and maybe a kiss or two. She also came with an unintended rock-and-roll pedigree. Born on D. Boon's birthday, she died on Mike Watt's. And she is featured in not one, but two, paintings by Wes Freed, the man famous for so many Drive-By Truckers album covers.


Lydia was the best dog I have ever had. Fiercely loyal, yet lovable to the core, she followed me around the house so closely most days and nights that at one point I regretted not naming her Shadow. Many was the time my leg inadvertently connected with her hard pit-bull/lab noggin when I would change direction and she would be so close by that we would collide. She loved people, cats, other dogs and, most of all, her family.

But old age sucks for dogs too. And Lydia's thirteenth year on the planet was not kind to her. Failing eyesight and hearing were just the beginning. She started "sundowning" -- that wandering/agitated thing that dementia patients do each night at twilight. She walked in circles so much that she lost weight and got skinny -- *bony* skinny. And then the seizures started. Some were mild, some awful. And each one took a small chunk out of her personality. By last month Lydia was often a sad little shell of her former self, drifting from room to room with a troubled, discontented look on her face, as if searching in vain for The Unseen Problem. But other times, she would still gleefully greet my return home from work, and give us a little hope for her.

But then a few weeks ago, she had a big seizure, and then, last night, she had an even larger one that not only soiled rugs and floors, but sent her into a three-hour-long tailspin where she walked in circles for that whole time, drooling and crashing into walls, furniture and family -- even *after* we gave her a dose of Valium that would have sent most people into an extended trip to Snoozeville. It was awful. I said to my wife, "I am afraid it is going to be time soon." Always sensible, she said, "I'm afraid it's already time."

We took Lydia to the vet tonight. They couldn't have been nicer. They saw us after-hours, so no other animals would be in the waiting room to stress her out. Lydia died quietly with our hands cradling her head. Instantly, I had known that we made the right call. Her deep, relaxed sigh was the calmest one I had heard from her in many months.

As Jason Isbell sings, in my mind "I buried her a thousand times" previously. She was always on a high wire of shaky health. But Lydia's long, beautiful life was that rare sweet gift the universe occasionally hands you. I won't forget her.



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Gimme Some Truth

Some people suck.

That's quite a revelation, I'm sure. But really, the extent to which certain folks will flat-out lie to avoid the direct result of their own negligence is fairly mindblowing at times.

It was sometime in the mid 1980s and I was driving through the checkerboard grid of streets -- punctuated by intersections with four-way stops -- that is Center City Philadelphia. I watched the guy in front of me come to a full stop at one of those very intersections and then POW! Out of nowhere, an elderly white woman drove her car straight through the stop sign on the cross street without pausing at all and plowed into the front side panel of his car. They got out and started to exchange info, and I had a thought: "I am the only other person who saw this accident. What if that woman lies about what happened?"

So I pulled over too, and scribbled my name and number on a piece of paper and told the young African-American man driving the car that had been in front of me, "Hey, if you end up needing a witness, call me, or give my number to insurance. That lady totally ran that stop sign."

He didn't say much at the time. In fact, I don't even think he thanked me. The two drivers exchanged insurance info and I drove off. The woman was already howling about the damage to her car. His was damaged much worse, but he seemed pretty calm.

The next week an insurance investigator contacted me. He told me that both drivers were denying responsibility, each claiming that the other ran a stop sign. He interviewed me, got my version and assured me that he couldn't see how the guy would be found at fault. "You are the only disinterested witness and your story is very clear."

A couple nights later my phone rang. It was the dude from the car in front of me. He told me that the insurance companies were finding her to be 100% at fault. That was good news. But it was what he said next that stuck with me all these years: "Hey man, I just wanted to call and say thank you. I don't know why you took the time to stop like you did, but it was a very nice thing to do, and I know for sure that if you hadn't, there is no way they would have believed me. No one ever believes the young black guy."

"No one ever believes _____." You probably can fill in that blank with all sorts of descriptions of people. In a traffic accident, I am thinking that, regardless of fault, no one ever believes the kid against the adult, the young black guy against the older white woman, the undocumented alien driving a beater against the Lexus-driving lawyer. Name the scenario, and, unless somebody who doesn't have a dog in that fight steps up and says what really happens, chances are most of those accidents are going to get charged to both drivers, or, even worse, against the less "favored" one regardless of what really happened.

I try hard to suppress my natural tendency to assume the worst about people, but when it comes to driving a car and the avoidance of responsibility, it seems like that instinct is too often dead-on.

This issue all came up again yesterday. Dumbfounded, I watched a car nearly destroy another one by running a traffic light that had been red for four to five seconds. A cop arrived on the scene so quickly that I assumed he had it all under control. And the offending driver had somehow avoided a catastrophic crash at the last second, standing on her brakes to the point that the intersection was filled with acrid smoke. It ended up only being a minor collision, so my thought was that my observations weren't relevant. The cop was on it. I drove on home.

But this morning, I remembered that mid-'80s incident. And I particularly remembered that older woman's attempt to avoid responsibility. And I got a bad feeling. I assumed the worst. Again.

I contacted the cops to see if they wanted my version. Sure enough, I was told, "The woman driving the smaller car" -- the one that ran the red light -- "says her light was not red." I told the officer the real deal, and he took my statement and thanked me profusely. As another cop I know told me, he-said/she-said cases are tough on law enforcement. Disinterested witnesses stepping up are the key to uncovering the truth.

So it all comes down to a simple phrase: do the right thing. Think about who you are and where you'd fit into these scenarios no matter whether you were the driver at fault, or the aggrieved one. Would you try to blame the other guy, even if you were the one who was in the wrong? Or would you fess up and accept responsibility? If you saw it happen, would you call it in? Or would you just figure that was someone else's job? Lots of people talk about fostering a sense of community. Are you doing more than just talking?







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Nelson Mandela 1918-2013

"The government should be in the dock, not me. I plead not guilty." -- Nelson Mandela, April 20, 1964

He was a very brave man. He lived a fuller life than, well, almost anyone.
Go here to read a brilliant piece about that 1964 speech.

And remember to stand up and complain when you see bad shit happen. He did.

Because there is nothing worse than the systematic abuse of power.

The serious post (time to make a change?)

It was 2005 and my dad had asked me to do what he described as "a huge favor" -- drive him to a reunion luncheon celebrating his college class's 60th anniversary of their graduation. So I did.

Their *60th* college reunion. The people there were... well, there's no better word: they were old. They were seriously old. I mean... do the math. They were all in their eighties.

They also, across the board, shared another characteristic: none of them were overweight.

None of them.

In fact, most of them were on the thin side.

And I have to admit that, at first, I was kind of surprised. We live in a culture where a simple trip to a baseball game can leave one overwhelmed at the size and scope of the obesity epidemic for what seems like every age group, but then I realized an undeniable fact: the less-healthy members of the class of 1945 were either dead or too disabled to make it to the reunion. I was looking at the fittest of the survivors. Put differently, the metabolically troubled often don't make it to 80.

So, instead of a room full of walkers and wheelchairs, and old folks of all sizes and shapes, which is what I had expected, it was a moderately-full room of spry, thin, seemingly-happy senior citizens. My dad had one of the few canes in the place. Otherwise, the diners were ambulatory and mentally as sharp as the proverbial tack.

Warren Zevon told us a while ago: "Life'll kill ya."

The difficulty is that it kills some of us a lot faster than others. Yeah, there is no doubt that we can only do our best and some nasty stuff is going to take a few of us down earlier than we want no matter how much we eat well, sleep well and exercise smart.

But for the rest of us, there's a critical point -- a time where, if you are metabolically messed-up, you are going to have to make a choice that you probably didn't have to worry about when you were younger: establish healthy habits or live a shorter life than you had planned.

Unfortunately, there is a point in the aging process when lifestyle choices necessarily get serious, and that age is, also unfortunately, different for everyone. There is just not a standard Road Map of Life that applies to everyone. But when you get there, failing to seize that moment to make huge changes can be a costly mistake.

When I say "huge" changes, I am not necessarily referring to going paleo or doing CrossFit. How about simpler (but still big) stuff, like ditching processed foods, quitting smoking and moving your body every day? Or maybe you actually need to take even more drastic steps. Ultimately, I am talking about whatever it is that you need to do to get healthy. Today.

Don't get me wrong.... It's all your choice. Do what you want. I just think you should make that decision with your eyes open, fully aware of the path that you are headed down. Instead, it seems like there are a lot of folks who just kind of passively keep on keeping on with processed food, lousy sleep and a sedentary existence until... Boom. It's actually too late.

Because the tragedy isn't the person who willfully chooses to live a shorter life in exchange for the "freedom" of an unhealthy lifestyle. It's the poor soul who thinks he or she has time to keep screwing around, and then dies of some metabolically-related disorder, all the while abstractly planning to make some big change in the future.

Aging is serious stuff. Like Mr. Zevon sang, it'll kill you. But how and when is often a product of the choices you make. True story.




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