ROD 020512
ROD
Sunday, 05Feb12
Rest Day
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Super Bowl Sunday
Alright NLP’ers, let’s not get to emotional today. You know that we are playing the New England Patriots. We have been working out hard all week, do we really want to destroy all the hard work we put into our bodies. No, seriously, we have to get out of that mindset that its OK to eat as much as the Brooklyn Bridge weighs, when really its not. We also have the big idea that because it’s Super Bowl Sunday, it’s the biggest excuse to eat like shit, when its really is not. I realize how pathetic this is. How did this tradition begin? There is no crossover between watching athletics and forcing food into one’s body. Will this epiphany stop you from making an annual three-pound Velveeta purchase on Super Bowl Sunday? Oh, hell no! I’ll buy that shit, try as quickly as I can to mix it with salsa and get it in the microwave before kickoff.
This doesn’t just go for football games, but most live sporting events. I don’t know why people feel the need to gorge themselves while watching an especially important sporting event, but I do, even though this is essentially like saying: “Hey, you guys out there on the field are physically fit in a manner that defies modern science, so I’ll appreciate that prowess by pouring fat into my arteries and drowning my brain cells in alcohol.” Don’t know what to make for that Super Bowl party this sunday? Well whatever you decide to bring or make for your friends and family doesn’t have to sideline anyone’s diet. Here are some healthy alternatives from Men’s Health.
Whatever you do, make our hot wings recipe. These wings are so delicious that they have the ability to instantaneously alter your life for the better—taste will seem like an entirely new and improved-upon sensation, your girlfriend will suddenly look like Minka Kelly, and the voices of your friends who showed up to your party justto root against your team will suddenly disappear until Monday morning.
2. On second thought, assign a guest to make our wings. You know how your hands and face look after you eat wings? Well that’s how your entire kitchen looks after you make them.
3. You know what is easy to make? Say, 10 of these incredible hoagies. Do as the great American Henry Ford once did: build an assembly line. As the bread splitting condiment captain, (politely) ask your girlfriend to be the meat and cheese maestro. The dog can help clean up any projectiles that may fly off the line.
4. Next to the bowl of chips and salsa, set out a bowl of extra-strength antacids. You will resist the urge to overeat, but the hot wings, beer, and chili will do to your buddys’ guts what Jason Pierre Paul plans to do to Tom Brady.
5. After the first scandalous GoDaddy.com commercial airs, taking out your smartphone and logging on “to see more” is not appropriate.
6. …unless it’s an all-guys Super Bowl party. Then stream it to the big screen.
7. Patriot wide receiver Wes Welker is a miniscule 5?9? and 185 pounds and Patriot tight end Rob Gronkowski is a refrigerator-like 6?6? and 265 pounds. Remember those facts. A guest will ask.
8. Reconsider the invite you extended to your girlfriend’s vegan pet therapist.
9. Because people unaccustomed to craft beers often don’t realize that some weigh in at over 11 percent ABV (which means a big bottle is equivalent to a bottle of wine. Read: highly irresponsible) be sure to pick beers that are under 6 percent ABV. Unless you want to play DD and drive everyone home after the game.
10. Speaking of beer. Variety is better. Buy two macros (we suggest a regular and light version), and a few different craft styles. Here are 32 ideas.
11. Never let the government plan your Super Bowl party. We can guarantee no one will come next year.
12. The Super Bowl is the only day of the year that girlfriends willfully and happily let their boyfriends wear replica sports jerseys—no questions asked. Take advantage. And while you’re at it, you know who else needs a jersey? The dog.
13. There are many fun things you can do at halftime. Watching Madonna is not one of them.
14. Skip the monotonous, mind-numbing pregame coverage and put the Puppy Bowl on the TV. You may even see a dog in a jersey.
15. Side bets on the Puppy Bowl: Highly encouraged!
16. Speaking of bets—that uncle with a serious betting problem? You’re taking a serious bet by inviting him to your party. If his team wins, he’s like the happy, lovable, funny Robin Williams in Patch Adams, but if his team doesn’t win, he’s the psychopathic Robin Williams in One Hour Photo.
17. Acceptable toppings for nachos include: jack cheese, pepper jack cheese, cheddar cheese, grilled steak and/or chicken, beans, sour cream, onions, tomatoes, any type of fresh or roasted peppers, guacamole, fresh salsa. Unacceptable toppings include: Velveeta or any other nuclear waste colored cheese product and any canned chili that is visually indistinguishable from dog food.
18. Cook early. If you’re still in the kitchen when the game starts, no one is getting up to grab you a spatula, or an oven mitt, or help you put out that fire on the stove. No one.
19. With Tim Tebow out of the running, 40 percent of the people at your Super Bowl party don’t really care about the game. They’ve come to eat your food and drink your beer. Serve them everything they could ever want, with a hefty serving of spite and passive aggression on the side.
20. But if any of those people “Tebow,” cut them off from all food and drink. Tebow doesn’t eat unhealthy food and he sure doesn’t do much beer drinking, so guess what—neither shall Tebowers. -Psalm 3:67
21. Dancing like Victor Cruz? Totally acceptable.
Enjoy the game!
ROD 012912
ROD
Sunday, 29Jan12
Rest Day
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Intermittent fasting, whey protein, and weight loss?
For those of us who’re looking to lose weight, a recent study published in the British Journal of Nutrition might offer some hope. Losing weight is never easy as it requires a lifelong commitment to changes in dietary habits as well as activity level.
Years ago, I read a book by Greg LeMond, the former three-time Tour de France winner. I loosely recall him mentioning something about you can’t lose weight by sitting on your couch eating hot-fudge Sundaes.
Conventional wisdom being the usual edict of calories in and calories out holds true for the most part. However, some recent research suggest that intermittent fasting might offer an unconventional weight loss strategy.
Though I’m not going to bother citing a reference here, the Body for Life book by Bill Phillips was probably the first mention of the often promulgated advice of 6 small meals per day. The purported benefit of this meal plan was that it would prevent your metabolism from slowing down while also keeping you in an anabolic state for those who engage in resistance training.
For most people, if you’ve ever tried the eat 6 small meals per day method, you probably find that you end up getting used to never feeling hungry. After awhile, chances are you lose discipline over portion control and the next thing you know it leads to simply eating too much and too often.
Not wanting to stop at my intuitive feelings over the meal frequency myth, I found a very recent review study that has debunked this myth. A review published in the Journal of Nutritionmade the following conclusion:
Taken together, these findings suggest that increased eating frequency (>3 eating occasions/d) has minimal, if any, impact on appetite control and food intake, whereas reduced eating frequency(<3 eating occasions/d) negatively effects appetite control.
Okay, so this review only addresses the effect of meal frequency on appetite control and food intake, what about weight loss? From a study published in the British Journal of Nutrition, they found that meal frequency had NO benefit on promoting weight loss in obesity subjects on a calories restricted diet:
We conclude that increasing MF (meal frequency) does not promote greater body weight loss under the conditions described in the present study.
Intermittent Fasting?
Contrary to this diet regime, a recent study published in the International Journal of Obesitysuggest that intermittent fasting can not only be effective for lowering insulin resistance, blood pressure, and cholesterol, but also promotes weight loss. This and other studies in this area contradict the fear that your metabolism will ‘slow down’ causing you to gain weight if you don’t eat 6 small meals per day. In fact, intermittent fasting was more effective than calorie restriction at reducing insulin resistance in this particular study.
Okay, so now we’ve established that eating frequently won’t suppress your appetite , reduce your energy intake, or help you lose more weight. If you want to improve your insulin resistance and lose weight, intermittent fasting is an option worth considering (in consultation with a health professional). What if you just want to suppress your appetite to help you lose weight, is there anything that works?
Effects of whey protein on suppressing appetite:
Speaking of losing weight… Another recent study, published in the British Journal of Nutrition, found that there’s a dose-response effect for drinking a whey protein beverage 90 minutes prior to eating. Participants in this study, however, were already within a healthy weight range (BMI 19-25, both men and women).
In this study, the participants drank a 400 ml [400 calorie] beverage 90 minutes prior to eating an ad libitum test meal. In addition to a placebo beverage containing flavored water, they were also randomized to a 400 calorie beverage containing 12.5, 25, or 50% of the calories from whey protein.
Energy intake after preload:
- placebo – 987 Calories
- 12.5% protein beverage – 841 Calories
- 25% protein beverage – 808 Calories
- 50% protein beverage – 681 Calories
From this data, consuming a whey protein beverage prior to large meals, particularly dinner, may be beneficial for those looking to reduce their appetite and lose weight.
ROD 012212
ROD
Sunday, 22Jan12
Rest Day
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What Your Poop and Pee Are Telling You About Your Body
ROD 121811
ROD
Sunday, 18Dec11
Rest Day
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6 Great Reasons Why We Need to Exercise
I had never thought of sharing on “why exercise” and always assumed that we all believed and agreed that it was an essential part of everyone’s lifestyle regardless of whether one had the time or discipline to do it, until about two years ago I gradually pulled myself out from a sedentary lifestyle and I established a workout regimen in the morning and started to read more about the different types of workout such as aerobic training, resistance exercise and weight bearing activities. I reckon that exercising may be very often emphasized by all, but sometimes, its benefits may not be so clear and obvious to everyone.
1. Helps Strengthen Your Heart
Aerobic exercises benefit the circulation of your blood through your heart and blood vessels, that is, your cardiovascular system. They make our heart work harder, pump more blood, and reduce the risk of developing heart disease. With each beat of your heart, a surge of blood is pumped into your body’s intricate web of blood vessels. The pressure exerted on your artery walls as blood passes through helps keep the blood flowing smoothly (what you know as ‘blood pressure’). A build-up of plaques in your arteries, caused by cholesterol in your bloodstream can affect your blood flow and cause serious damage to your cardiovascular system.
A workout on a regular basis benefits your heart because it helps lower the build-up of plaques in arteries by increasing the concentration of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol (the “good” cholesterol) and decreasing the concentration of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol (the “bad” cholesterol) in your blood, while keeping the blood pressure at the optimal level. As a result, your heart is able to do a better job in delivering oxygen to all parts of your body. Blood travels more efficiently, bringing much-needed oxygen from your lungs and nutrients to the rest of the body. That’s why people generally feel more refreshed and energetic after exercising.
Want to consider some aerobic activities? Try swimming, basketball, rope skipping, jogging (or brisk walking), in-line skating, soccer, or biking.
2. Maintains Strong Bones and Muscles
I am sure most of us have tried doing push-ups, weight lifting in some form, or repeatedly used your muscles to counter some kind of resistance. These are called resistance exercises which the experts believe could strengthen our muscles; preserve bone mass, increase bone density. Regular resistance training can help prevent the bone-weakening disease, osteoporosis.
Walking and jogging are also important activities that bear your body’s weight and help build strong muscles and bones. Other resistance workout include pull-ups, running, kettlebell training, and rowing.
3. Helps Manage Your Weight
This benefit is well-known to all who are weight conscious or trying to lose the extra pounds.
Your body needs a certain amount of calories every day just to function. If you eat more calories than your body needs, it may be stored as excess fat. For instance, if you have an excess of 10kg fat, and each gram has some 9 calories, then you have 90000 calories for your body to use!
Exercising helps you achieve or maintain a healthy weight by stoking our metabolism, utilizing and burning the extra calories. And if you exercise, your body works harder and needs more fuel. Even after you stop exercising, your body continues to burn calories at a modestly increased rate for a few hours. The more intensely you workout, the more calories you burn. By burning more calories than you take in, you can reduce body fat, giving you a healthier body composition. Losing body fat can make you look and feel better and can reduce your risk of obesity.
4. Induces Quality Sleep at Night
Many people who have problems sleeping find doing moderate exercise at least three hours before bedtime help in relaxing and sleeping better at night. The recent Hibernation Diet Theory teaches that regular exercise could activate production of recovery hormones during sleep, increases our body’s metabolic rate and promotes fat-burning. It makes a powerful association between poor sleep and obesity, a disease that has been rising dramatically in developed countries and has reached epidemic levels in the United States. While most of us would associate poor weight control with aging, low metabolism rate, and poor eating habits, many other research studies have also reported and pointed to the relationship between insufficient sleep and weight gain.
So start today, get a good night’s sleep, aim for eight hours a night if you can, and add resistance workouts will speed up your weight loss and the body will worker harder at night.
5. Puts You in a Better Mood
We all know that it definitely feels good to have a strong, flexible body that can do all the activities you enjoy and be able to move your arms and legs freely without feeling tightness or pain. But you may not know that exercising can actually put you in a better mood.
Exercise combats depression by activating the neurotransmitters, which are basically chemicals used by our nerve cells to communicate with one another and often associated with avoiding depression. The balance of these neurotransmitters, namely serotonin and norepinephrine plays a role in how we respond to daily events. When experiencing stress, our level of serotonin, norepinephrine or both may be out of equilibrium. Workouts may help synchronize those brain chemicals.
Exercising also stimulates the production of endorphins, another type of neurotransmitters that produce feelings of well-being, provide for “natural” pain relief, and help you relax.
Sounds good? If you just had a tough day at work and need to let off some steam, go for a workout or a brisk 30-minute walk to calm yourself down.
Well, if you have not any form of physical training for a long while and find it a pain to do so, I suggest that you start doing it 2 times a week and slowly increasing to 3 and then 5 times or more a week. You can do 10 or 15 minutes bouts of workout each time to make up a 30 minutes session a day.
6. Inspires Your Lymphatic System to Work Better
Now, this is a relatively new knowledge for me and thus has become my latest edition to this page (which was previously known as “5 Great Reasons Why We Need to Exercise”). While the above reasons have given us enough incentive to workout, there is yet another reason which I never knew before, the extremely essential lymphatic system. It is a vital network of vessels and nodes responsible for regulating fluids, distributing proteins and filtering out poisons in the fluid between the cells. It is a protector and a defence system against infection, viruses, bacteria, fungi, and disease. The three most important methods of lymphatic circulation are external massage, muscle expansion and contraction, and intense exercise. This means the more you move, the livelier it becomes. When the lymph is not overloaded, our health is maintained with nature’s own detox design. But if the lymph is running sluggish and there is too much waste, a blockage in the lymphatic system happens, leading to symptoms like chronic fatigue, water retention, eczema, allergies, arthritis, and infections.
ROD 111311
ROD
Sunday, 13Nov11
Rest Day ?
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Importance of Balance and Stability to Mastery of Sport Skills
It could be said that the world’s best athletes are always in control. It can be defined as mental control, as their recognition of specific situations within the game and how they can appropriately respond. Or as emotional control, their ability to ignore the things that don’t matter and focus on the things that do make a difference in the game’s outcome. But, certainly, the ability to control one’s physical self is a major issue for athletes. They must control their sports skills and execute them properly, despite numerous obstacles that are very physical in nature. An obstacle could be a rushing defensive lineman, in football; a tall, long-armed center, in basketball; or a quick-moving goalkeeper, in soccer. In all cases, a high level of physical control—more specifically, balance and stability—is required.
Balance and stability: The words may seem interchangeable, but they are not. The words are closely linked, of course, but they aren’t a two-way street, because it is possible for an athlete to have one but not the other.
Balance is the ability to neutralize forces that would disturb equilibrium. Most healthy people have balance to one degree or another. Simply watching a young toddler take those first steps is evidence of this. Further evidence of balance can be seen in a variety of movements: from someone simply standing on one leg, to an intricate, dynamic movement during execution of a specific sports skill. The topic of balance gets even more interesting when one throws moving, living, breathing obstacles in an athlete’s path. For instance, the football running back must demonstrate great balance as he ricochets off defensive linemen. Or notice the balance of the basketball point guard as she weaves around players on her way to the basket.
Balance comes in all levels of difficulty. The line that separates superiority in a specific sports skill is the concept of stability. Stability is measured in the level at which one can retain one’s balance while experiencing factors that disturb balance. In short, stability is described by the answer to the question, “How balanced are you?” Skilled athletes are able to employ certain tactics to increase their stability under oncoming forces, practically bracing themselves to be immovable.
The amazing athletic highlights seen on television are usually a result of dynamic stability, or stability on the move. The difference between balance and stability can be seen easily on the football field. A punter has great balance as he receives the snap and punts the ball 50–60 yd, elevating high on one leg and landing effortlessly on that same leg. The punter’s lack of stability is seen, however, when a defensive back comes flying into him while he is in the air or standing one-legged. The sacrifice of stability in the practice of balance usually results in a flattened punter. On the other hand, a 290-lb offensive lineman, his backside dropped into an athletic stance, can take on the maximal pushing of 400-lb defensive lineman and not fall down, because he has great balance and stability (remember, “How balanced are you?”).
Two other sports positions that thrive from a combination of balance and stability are the baseball catcher and the basketball post player. Both positions rely on some degree of balance and some degree of stability. The baseball catcher’s balance and stability, however, are an absolute necessity for the position, and the best basketball post players, too, understand the value of balance, stability, and leverage.
The baseball catcher, first, ideally has such physical traits as quick feet and hands, good arm strength, and good balance and stability. The catcher will spend much of the time on the field in the crouch position. The catcher’s weight will be on the heels, and the knees will be bent to place the upper leg below parallel to the ground. In this position, the rear end is near the back of the heels. The catcher’s back should not be curved; the shoulder blades should furthermore be pinched back. The catcher’s head should be held high and the gloved hand should be held out. This crouch position (and the ability to catch pitches) relies heavily on the catcher’s mastery of balance and linear stability.
Balance has been defined as ability to neutralize forces that might disturb equilibrium, while stability has been defined as the level of challenge at which one can still balance. Linear stability is putting up resistance against being moved in a given direction. The catcher’s linear stability is challenged by the action of stopping an 80- or 90-mph pitch. Linear stability is directly related to the mass of the object that applies force (here, the baseball pitch) and the object that resists the force (here, the catcher). Due to the “massive” difference between force mass and resistance mass, for catchers, linear stability is an easy battle.
Two of the most important skills a catcher performs are blocking a bad pitch and throwing out a runner attempting to steal a base. Blocking bad pitches many times involves leaving the crouch position to throw oneself in front of the pitch and keep it from passing behind one. The nature of the crouch position reflects three important principles of stability:
- A broader base of support increases stability. (A catcher’s stance places feet more than hip-width apart.)
- Centralizing the line of gravity inside the support base increases stability. (A straight back and head held upright centralize the line of gravity.)
- A lower center of gravity increases stability. (Crouching’s deep knee bend lowers the center of gravity.)
Because of these three products of the crouch position, a catcher can quickly maneuver the entire body (most importantly, the line of gravity) in front of a speeding pitch moving well outside of the strike zone.
Many times, stability depends on an athlete’s ability to put the line of gravity towards an oncoming force. The movement temporarily unbalances the athlete, but then the impact of the force re-balances him or her. But for the catcher blocking the bad pitch, this is not the case. Despite its velocity and momentum, the baseball has very little mass. This means that the catcher must first quickly throw his line of gravity in front of the ball, then also quickly re-balance, exploiting the advantage of the baseball’s force. It is for this reason the catcher often blocks a pitch by dropping to the knees. Dropping to the knees lowers the center of gravity even further, providing the catcher with greater stability.
The skill employed when a catcher challenges a runner’s attempt to steal is, in some ways, a reversal of balance and stability principles. As when blocking bad pitches, the catcher must position the line of gravity in front of the force to throw out the runner. In the skill of rising and then throwing to the base, the catcher applies force rather than resists it. As the catcher rises, the line of gravity must remain centered to prevent falling over before the ball can be thrown. As the catcher draws back to throw, weight must be shifted onto the back foot, to the rear of the base of support. In some extreme examples, the “thrower” actually shifts the line of gravity temporarily outside the base of support. As the throwing motion begins, the line of gravity shifts from the rear of the support base, through the center and front, ending up in front of the support base.
As for the basketball post player, things have changed in the past two decades. What was once a position for massive, slow-footed players playing 5– 10 ft from the basket is now more commonly given to players who, although still very tall and long, have lesser mass in exchange for better foot speed and more perimeter-oriented skills. The old-fashioned post player may have become an endangered species, but the importance of balance and stability for a large post player cannot be overstated.
Basketball post players are subject to several particularly important principles when attempting to enhance stability in order to deter a bigger, stronger player (or when themselves presenting the bigger, stronger player attempting to dominate). The first principle is the player’s own mass, which should be taken advantage of. Athletes automatically have greater stability when they have greater mass. Not only does Shaquille O’Neal have great footwork, he also has what few others in the NBA have: enormous mass. At one time early in his career, it was speculated that O’Neal weighed 380 pounds, less than 10% representing body fat. Imagine how stable a mass like that is! At times, however, athletes of enormous mass can be put at a disadvantage when their momentum is used against them. The more mass one has, the harder it is to get going and the harder it is to stop or change direction. The mad rush of a 400-lb sumo wrestler is fairly easily used against him if the opponent sidesteps and adds to the momentum with a grab or push propelling the first wrestler on down his initial course. Basketball players of such size have a great advantage. The nature of their position does not require large amounts of momentum, and since they typically operate within 5–10 ft of the basket, their mass can rarely be used against them.
The second principle is the value of a wide base when posting up or blocking out. Again, stability can be increased by widening the base of support. Many post players miss out on prime positioning because they simply do not have a wide enough base. This is especially true if a player with less mass is attempting to gain an advantage on a player with more mass. In short, get wide. The third principle is the value of lowering the center of gravity. This happens to some extent whenever the base is widened; but that is not enough. Post players must learn to play with a wide base and bent knees. A player with a mass advantage will become dominant when he or she masters the value of bending the knees and lowering that massive center of gravity. In short, get low.
The fourth principle involves the need to extend the base of support in the direction of an oncoming force. Rotary stability has taught us that shifting the line of gravity in the direction of that force can help us stabilize and defend against the applied force. However, the defending post player must not shift the line of gravity too close to the support base’s front perimeter. When that happens, the player moves out of the base of stability, becoming unbalanced.
In sum, the application of principles of balance and stability when performing specified sports skills is necessary to success. Many coaches would be wise to spend more time studying sport mechanics like balance and stability in order to improve the performance of their players.
ROD 102111
ROD
Friday, 21Oct11
TGIF
The Upper West Side
3 Rounds for time of:
10 Pullups
20 BB Push press 85# (men) / 45# bar (women)
30 Air Squats
20 Ball Slams
10 Pushups
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The benefits of Olympic Weightlifting
Olympic weightlifting is pretty much outlawed in your standard Globo Gym. You generally need a lot of space, plenty of chalk and rubber bumper plates to drop. More importantly, you need a competent coach to guide you through the movements and make the proper adjustments. NLP loves the Oly lifts and for a good reason: They are the most efficient way to build strength and explosive power while improving neuromuscular efficiency.
At NLP, we don’t train for any particular one thing, but for the unknown and unknowable. That doesn’t mean that our training doesn’t directly translate to sport. The clean & jerk and the snatch are two of the most effective movements you can do (that’s what she said). Here is a list of benefits of Olympic weightlifting:
- They are safe – When done properly, Olympic weightlifting is the safest form of resistance training versus machines. The guided movement and support of machines causes muscle imbalances and doesn’t teach the body how to move properly. Injury usually occurs off of these machines when performing everyday tasks such as picking up a box and putting it on a shelf or playing with your kids. Oly lifting not only strengthens your entire body, but it teaches you how to move properly in functional situations.
- You look good – Performing Oly lifts correctly requires just about every muscle in your body to fire. Just to hold the weight overhead, every stabilizer muscle throughout your midline has to be engaged or else you fall over. Moving the weight through the entire range of motion provides us with a higher anaerobic output than machines can provide thus allowing our bodies to burn more fat and build more muscle. In an 8 week Olympic weightlifting program study, participants lowered their resting heart rate by 8%, lean body weight increased by 4%, fat dropped 6%, and systolic blood pressure decreased by 4%.
- Translation to sports – Sports and athleticism is about coordination and explosive power. The Oly lifts teach the body to become more efficient in the explosive movements. The athlete learns to engage more of his or her muscle fibers more rapidly than athletes who have not trained to do so. In order to perform the lifts correctly, the athlete will also need to build the neuromuscular highway to fire the proper muscle groups in the proper sequence. Think of a pitcher who flicks his wrist before fully extending his leg or arm.
- Speed recovery – Take it from someone who is recovering from an injury. The force on the injured spot helps your body speed up recovery. Now that doesn’t mean that if you tear your MCL to go out and clean & jerk 150kg because it will help you heal faster. It means that taking your body through a full range of motion with some resistance can keep muscles from atrophy and help build bone density.
- It’s fun – I used to hate the Oly lifts because I didn’t know how to do them. After a couple of years of practice, I am by no means an expert, but I at least understand them. The oly lifts require practice and patience. It’s fun to stomp your feet and throw around rubber bumper plates. Most people also see dramatic improvements when their technique begins to catch up to their strength and vice versa.
At Next Level we are taking steps to teach the Oly lifts through our new class the H.I.I.T X-treme. We would like for all participants to exercise dedication and commitment to this class.
Femme Fit – You Vs. from CrossFit Sweat Shop on Vimeo.
ROD 101711
ROD
Monday, 17Oct11
For Whom the Kettlebell Tolls
Round 1 - Start with a heavy bell, perform 20 swings, then…
6 Push Ups
20 Swings
7 Push Ups
20 Swings
8 Push Ups
20 Swings
9 Push Ups
20 Swings
10 Push Ups
20 Swings
Rest 1:30 minute
Round 2 – Stay with the heavy bell perform 20 swings, then…
6 DB Hang squat cleans
20 Swings
7 DB Hang squat cleans
20 Swings
8 DB Hang squat cleans
20 Swings
9 DB Hang squat cleans
20 Swings
10 DB Hang squat Cleans
20 Swings
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Athletes ROD
Five rounds for time of:
10 DB Squat cleans
20 Kettlebell swings
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Medicare Thieves
Stealing from the government-run health care system is much easier—and potentially more lucrative—than dealing drugs.
If the polls are to be believed, most American seniors love Medicare. It’s easy to understand why: When seniors are sick, they get care, and the bills get paid. When a senior citizen walks into a storefront health clinic and seeks treatment—a prescription drug, say, or some sort of physical therapy—the service is performed and the patient walks away feeling better, if only because he knows that whatever the bill might be, the taxpayers will pay for it.
Doctors generally don’t love Medicare as much as seniors, mostly because the program’s reimbursement rates to health care providers are somewhat lower than the rates paid by private insurers. But doctors do love one thing about socialized health care for the elderly: its certainty. Seniors seek medical assistance, doctors respond with whatever treatment they deem necessary, and Washington picks up the tab. The providers must pass through a few cursory procedural requirements and complete some paperwork, but for the most part the government doesn’t ask questions; it just sends money. What’s not to like?
For taxpayers, this arrangement leaves much to be desired. What if the treatment wasn’t necessary or the patient didn’t want it, but the provider billed the government for it anyway? What if the storefront clinic didn’t exist at all?
This is exactly what’s happening all across the country, as schemers, career criminals, and unscrupulous providers take advantage of the government’s lax controls over Medicare payments. Taxpayers are lining the pockets of health care criminals.
No one knows for sure exactly how much fraud exists in the Medicare system, but most experts agree that it costs billions of dollars each year. Between 2007 and early 2011, the federal government reports having won convictions against 990 individuals in fraud cases totaling $2.3 billion. In 2010, it recovered an additional $4 billion through collection of non-criminal penalties on health providers who improperly billed the government. But that’s just a fraction of the total problem.
According to a 2011 report from the Government Accountability Office, Medicare makes an estimated $48 billion in “improper payments” each year, an estimate that’s almost certainly lower than the actual amount since it doesn’t include bad payments within the prescription drug program. Some of that money, perhaps a lot of it, is fraud, but experts differ on exactly how much. On the very low end, the National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association has estimated that about 3 percent of all U.S. health care spending is fraud. Assuming fraud is distributed equally across payment systems, that would mean Medicare’s share is roughly $15 billion a year. But almost all analysts believe fraud is much more common in Medicare than in it is in payments by private insurers. Toward the high end, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) once suggested the number could be as much as $80 billion a year. In March, the executive director of the National Health Care Fraud Association told members of Congress that total health care fraud losses likely range from $75 billion to $250 billion each year.
With $36 trillion in unfunded liabilities just over the horizon, and with Medicare’s own actuaries projecting insolvency by 2024, Medicare is a fiscal nightmare. It’s the single biggest driver of the long-term federal debt, and just about everyone in Washington is looking for ways to cut back on health spending without trimming legitimate services. Last year the program paid out slightly more than $500 billion in reimbursements to doctors and other providers. Paring it back by $48 billion a year—or even half that amount—by attacking criminal behavior would be a major accomplishment and could go a long way toward reducing the program’s unsustainable fiscal burden.
Every politician with a pulse talks a big game about eliminating Medicare “waste, fraud, and abuse,” yet nothing much seems to get done. The bigger the government’s role in paying for Americans’health care, the easier it becomes to divert that revenue stream into the bank accounts of criminals.
Florida: The Medicare Fraud State?
Fred E. Dweck was 74 when he was arrested in December 2009. Dweck, a top surgeon at two Broward County hospitals, was the director of Courtesy Medical Group, a health care business in Miami that, among other things, sent patients to home health clinics via referral. In the four years before his arrest, according to multiple news accounts, Dweck had bilked Medicare out of $24 million and falsely billed the government for an additional $15 million that was never paid. Dweck’s gimmick, like the payment system he was manipulating, was simple: He gave the go-ahead to official orders for prescription drugs, staff-assisted insulin injections, in-home visits by nurses, and an assortment of other treatments for an estimated 1,279 different patients, none of whom actually needed treatment. With the help of five nurses who faked bundles of official patient records and payment forms, Dweck raked in cash on the taxpayer tab. Less than a year after his arrest, he pleaded guilty.
Dweck’s case is not unusual, especially in the region of South Florida he called home. Thanks to a larger-than-average senior population, which provides a larger-than-average potential pool of Medicare dollars from which to steal, the region is widely considered the epicenter of Medicare fraud. In 2009 the state’s rehabilitation facilities billed Medicare $310 million, roughly 140 times what similar facilities billed in New York, another state with a large senior population. The state’s mental health clinics charged $421 million, according to a Miami Herald investigation. That’s roughly four times the amount by Texas, another major fraud center that boasts a substantially larger overall population and a comparable number of Medicare enrollees.
In January 2009, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which oversees Medicare and its administrators at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), started a regularly updated Web page devoted to nothing but news stories about fraud in Florida. Several times a month, a new story appears with shocking numbers: $200 million in claims for unnecessary mental health services, $24 million for a scheme built around AIDS injections, $61 million in real money paid to a man running a network of fake health clinics, another $21 million in fraudulent payments to a health company senior vice president who administered considerably less care to HIV-positive patients than he claimed. The fraudsters used their ill-gotten gains to live the good life, buying horses, Mercedes, and Ferraris. One bought $500,000 worth of jewelry. Meanwhile, an already overburdened program continues to bleed taxpayer dollars.
For years, Florida’s league of health care fraudsters operated with minimal federal interference. They forged medical records, bought and sold patient ID numbers, billed for treatments not provided, and ran criminal enterprises out of fake storefronts. In 2006 investigators from the HHS inspector general’s office made unannounced visits to 1,581 Medicare suppliers in South Florida and found that more than one-third didn’t even maintain a business office at the address listed on Medicare’s payment files.
In 2007 the federal government set up its first ever “Medicare strike force” in Miami, assigned to target high-dollar fraud cases. As the news reports compiled by HHS show, there were plenty to be found. According to Alex Acosta, the former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, the newly created Medicare team charged more than 700 individuals with more than $2 billion in fraud between its inception and the middle of 2009.
Members of the task force have argued that the Medicare fraud industry has supplanted the illegal drug trade in Miami. In congressional testimony, Acosta noted signs that “Medicare fraud is rapidly eclipsing the drug trade as Florida’s most profitable and efficient criminal enterprise.” It has even trickled down to the folks who might otherwise have been involved in simple, petty crime. “They’ve figured out that rather than stealing $100,000 or $200,000, they can steal $100 million,” Justice Department fraud prosecutor Kirk Ogrosky told 60 Minutes in 2009.“We have seen cases in the last six, eight months that involve a couple of guys that if they weren’t stealing from Medicare might be stealing your car.” Medicare fraud also has spread to organized crime. In January 2011, Politico reported the bust of an Armenian mob ring charged with perpetrating $163 million in Medicare fraud. Among the items seized from the New Jersey group was a bundle of weapons, including multiple guns and a Bat’leth, a two-handed, double-bladed long sword modeled after the weapons used by Klingons on Star Trek. For criminals smart enough to work the basics of the payment system, the choice between drugs and Medicare is easy: Medicare is safer, potentially more lucrative, and much, much easier.
Easy Money
Just how easy is Medicare fraud? According to Aghaegbuna Odelugo, who swindled Medicare out of nearly $10 million between 2005 and 2008, it’s “very easy”—arguably no more difficult than doing summer temp work at a call center. Earlier this year, Odelugo told Congress in written testimony that the “primary skill required to do it successfully is knowledge of basic data entry on a computer.” The only other important element “is the presence of so-called ‘marketers’ who recruit patients and often falsify patient data and prescription data. With these two essential ingredients, one possesses a recipe for fraud and abuse. The oven in which this recipe is prepared is the Medicare system. This system has a number of weaknesses which are easily exploitable.”Odelugo then described how con artists manipulate the system’s billing codes, physician identification system, and prescription drug reimbursement program.
Medicare’s billing system is based on a hodgepodge of bureaucratic codes, one for each medical device or procedure. But the coding system is imprecise and contains significant overlap: Two nearly identical devices—say, a wheelchair and a variation on the same product with a slightly different safety strap—might be assigned two different codes. If one code is kicked back as ineligible for reimbursement, the scammer can easily submit the same claim under a different code for an essentially identical device. The same technique can be used to submit multiple claims for the same item, double-billing the government for the same service or product. Medicare’s billing system has long allowed providers to submit and resubmit claims with virtually no serious checks on their validity or patterns of misuse.
According to Odelugo, the process of billing for forged prescriptions is similarly easy. “A person engaging in this fraud will typically purchase a forged prescription from a marketer for a price determined by the amount the person anticipates earning,” he explained. “Usually this would be an amount of 15% to 20% of the anticipated profit.” The forger then submits the claim electronically, and Medicare responds as it is designed to: with a prompt payment.
Security surrounding the system is astonishingly lax. The“unique physician identification numbers” (UPINs) that doctors use to submit their claims are openly available to anyone on the Internet. Odelugo claimed to be able to hunt them down in just a few minutes on the Web. “As this statement is being written,” his testimony reports, “I have looked up the UPIN’s of several doctors simply to illustrate…how easily accessible this critical information is.” New Medicare provider numbers, meanwhile, have been easy to obtain by just about anyone, even those with criminal records.
Perhaps the biggest problem with Medicare’s billing system, however, is its pattern of excessive reimbursement rates, particularly for the category known as “durable medical equipment,”which encompasses medical devices, such as wheelchairs and oxygen tents, that assist patients living at home. These devices tend to be fairly inexpensive on the open market, but Medicare pays highly inflated rates for them. According to Odelugo, the reimbursements are “beyond exorbitant”—as much as 10 times the normal cost for knee braces, for example. “For anyone engaging in fraud,” he testified, “these numbers are too good to be true. It defies logic to believe that a system like Medicare can reimburse at these rates and not attract a great deal of fraud.” Nor were Medicare administrators unaware of the problem: In 2004, the Government Accountability Office published a report noting a failure to control rising spending on power wheelchairs, much of it due to fraud and abuse.
To assess how easy it is to defraud Medicare on medical devices, the Government Accountability Office in 2008 had agents set up fake names and bank accounts, then apply for permission to bill the system. At first Medicare rejected their application. But the GAO agents persisted. After the initial stamp of disapproval, GAO investigators produced quickly forged documents indicating business arrangements with other medical suppliers who didn’t actually exist. For contact information, the forged documents listed an unmanned telephone line inside GAO’s official headquarters. Medicare officials called the number and left a brief message asking for more information about the supplier contracts. One of the GAO agents returned the call and left what the agency describes as “a vague message in return pretending to be the wholesaler.”That proved to be enough.
Even though the GAO scammers had no medical clients—or even records suggesting client interest—Medicare eventually approved the payment application. Using “simple methods of deception,” the ensuing GAO report explained, “we obtained Medicare billing privileges and billing numbers…even though we had absolutely no means of supplying prospective clients with durable medical equipment.” It really is that easy.
Fixing Fraud
If fraud is so easy, why hasn’t the federal government instituted reforms? One reason is that the system is almost incomprehensibly large: This year Medicare is paying, on average, 4.4 million claims to 1.5 million providers every day. Truly fixing such an enormous system would require a wholesale overhaul.
Another reason: For all its flaws, there are considerable benefits to the system’s current administrative ease of use, at least for the providers and patients who rely on it most. A system in which fraud is tougher to pull off is also one in which it is more difficult for legitimate providers to get paid. And the harder it is to get paid, the fewer doctors will want to participate in the system at all. The number of Medicare providers is already falling, and it is becoming harder for the rapidly growing senior population to find doctors.
One of the biggest reasons doctors are dropping out is that Medicare pays considerably less for medical services than private insurers. The payment system’s instability has made the situation even worse: Thanks to a poorly designed payment formula introduced in the 1990s, doctors face major potential reimbursement cuts every year or so, even though the cuts are almost never implemented. If doctors are going to work for Medicare’s lower rates, they expect at least to be paid promptly and without hassle. Adding layers of anti-fraud procedures on top of the current process would annoy the providers that the system relies on to provide seniors with care.
Criminal enforcement in the form of the strike forces in Miami and elsewhere has helped bring attention to the problem. But the potential gains from such efforts are small relative to the likely size of the problem: Unearthing a few billion a year in fraud is impressive only until you remember that the abuse involved may total $60 billion or more. And even those victories come at a price: For the 2011 fiscal year, HHS budgeted a total of $1.7 billion for anti-fraud activities, a $250 million increase from the prior year.
So is there a viable solution? In March, Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) held a congressional hearing on the matter. In addition to Odelugo’s testimony, he heard from insurance industry representatives, Medicare administrators, the Office of the Inspector General, and the executive director of the National Health Care Fraud Administration. Each recommended a series of small fixes designed to ensure “program integrity,” the bureaucratic catchphrase of choice for finding ways to stop crooks from stealing taxpayer money. Many of the witnesses recommended increased communication between law enforcement, health care officials, and medical professionals. The specific solutions were mostly small and technical.
A CMS official, for example, highlighted the system’s recently implemented efforts to enhance oversight of the screening process for new applicants. But it’s hard to trust a bureaucracy so slow that it took more than three years to implement those changes following the GAO report that inspired them. As the director of the National Health Care Fraud Administration later pointed out, Medicare thieves “have proven themselves to be creative, nimble, and aggressive.” For the most part they’ve managed to stay ahead of both administrative fixes and law enforcement. “These people do nothing but recruit patients, get patient lists, find doctors, look on the Internet, find different scams,” Florida FBI agent Brian Waterman told CBS News in 2009. “There are entire groups and entire organizations of people that are dedicated to nothing but committing fraud, finding a better way to steal from Medicare.”
Rep. Stearns thinks the root of the problem lies in the easy-to-manipulate design of Medicare’s payment system. “Medicare is a fee-for-service program,” he tells me. “You perform a service and you get paid.” More payments mean more services and more fraud. It also creates opportunities for criminals. “It’s a pay-and-chase model,” Stearns says. “They pay out the money—and they go after it later, but they’re not checking on where it goes.” According to data released by Medicare, less than 3 percent of claims are reviewed before they are paid.
It’s very different with private insurers, according to James Capretta, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center who served as associate director at the Office of Management and Budget from 2001 to 2004. “Do we think that there’s the same level of improper payment occurring on the private side?” he asks. “The answer is no. And the reason is that they have a revenue motive.”
Medicare is not the only organization in the world that processes millions of payments across the country every single day: Credit card companies and private insurers do much the same thing, and their rates of fraud and improper payment are considerably lower. “The credit card industry has over $2 trillion in transactions per year and is nearly the size of the health care sector,” Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) said at another health care fraud hearing in March. “Yet credit card fraud is a fraction of one percent, and I’m shocked that the government can’t do it better.”
Stearns thinks it can. “Every credit card company in Americadoes predictive computer modeling for credit card fraud,” he says.“None of that computer predicting modeling has been done for Medicare.” The trick is to create complex algorithms that crunch historical data on Medicare ID numbers and reimbursement requests, then match them with procedures. If the government builds up a big enough database of providers, procedures, and transactions, and cross-indexes those with related factors, it may be able to determine with some degree of accuracy which payments are bunk.
Republicans such as Stearns may have an ally in their quest to make the payment system more rigorous: the White House. During a health fraud prevention convention in Boston at the end of 2010, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius and Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Obama administration planned to implement a predictive modeling pilot program. In June a CMS press release said Medicare payments would be run through a risk-prediction model beginning July 1, giving the federal government its first ever real-time review of payments. The press release touted predictive modeling as a “revolutionary new way to detect fraud and abuse.” If the results are good, the system will expand to Medicaid in 2015.
Will it work? It’s too early to tell for sure. But in general, health care pilot programs run by federal bureaucrats have been notoriously unsuccessful. Nor have previous fraud fighting efforts had much effect: In July, the GAO released yet another report calling out inadequate anti-fraud efforts in Medicare and its sister program, Medicaid. By Cato Health Policy Director Michael Cannon’s count, it was GAO’s 159th such report.
The Cost of Fighting Fraud
There are costs to fraud-fighting programs as well. One anti-fraud plan first sponsored by House Republicans is projected to cost about $930 million during the next decade. In itself, given the size of the problem, that’s a pittance. But the direct cost isn’t necessarily the biggest barrier for fraud fighters. “There would be some political problems with going after fraud,” says James Capretta, because “providers like to get prompt, no-questions-asked payment.” As a result, any such reform effort could provoke a revolt among the doctors, which would almost certainly be followed by a revolt among seniors when they are unable to find physicians to treat them.
Medicare’s pervasive waste belies the argument that it’s more efficient than private providers; in 2010, the system made improper payments equal to nearly four times the total amount of all U.S. health insurer profits. But predictive modeling is only a small part of private-sector success; insurers also engage in extensive underwriting and human case-by-case review. Many doctors don’t look kindly on such bureaucratic intrusions. The Association of American Physicians & Surgeons, for example, has issued reports warning of the “negative impact” and “adverse side effects” of anti-fraud efforts, claiming they “have made it more difficult for patients to get care from the most honest and qualified physicians.” The real price of stepping up fraud prevention, they caution, may be paid by seniors who lose access to medical services. That’s a price few politicians are willing to pay.
Weeding out fraud is an arduous, time-intensive process. And Medicare’s administrators, who are beholden to politicians who are in turn beholden to patient and provider constituents, may not have the stomach for it. It’s the classic political problem of diffuse costs and concentrated benefits. The cohorts that stand to benefit most from an inefficient system are also those with the loudest and most influential voices on the issue. It’s no accident that Medicare has evolved the way it has.
No politician ever claims to like waste, fraud, and abuse. But powerful constituencies are invested in rejecting any meaningful change to a system that just so happens to enable such massive criminality. By guaranteeing speedy payments for the medical care of almost 50 million people, the government seems to be guaranteeing profits for health care crooks.
Peter Suderman is an associate editor atreason.
ROD 100911
ROD
Sunday, 09Oct11
Rest Day
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Benefits of Rowing
Whether you already row or are considering rowing to keep in shape, lose weight, cross-train for another sport, compete on the water or rehabilitate from injury or surgery, rowing is the complete exercise for you.
Arms, legs, chest, back, abs—even your mind. Your whole body gets a complete workout from the efficient, rhythmic motion of rowing. Rowing is such a great exercise in so many different ways.
- Low-impact (easy on the knees and ankles)
- High calorie burner (because it uses so many muscle groups)
- Great for joint health (joints move through a wide range of motion)
- Upper body (completes the stroke)
- Lower body (the legs initiate the drive)
- Works the back and abs too!
- Superb aerobic fitness (great for cardiovascular fitness)
- Relieves Stress (for overall health and well-being)
This is different from the rowing you may have done as a kid in a rowboat. The difference lies in the sliding seat. Your legs compress and extend with every stroke—in addition to the more obvious work being done by the back and arms.
Legs:You begin each stroke with your legs compressed and your shins vertical. You initiate the drive with the powerful muscles of your legs, and finish with your legs fully extended. Rowing promotes both strength and flexibility through this wide range of leg motion.
Arms:At the catch, your arms are outstretched; at the finish of the stroke, they have pulled the handle into your abdomen. As with the legs, this range of motion promotes both strength and flexibility.
Core: chest, back, abs:At the start of the stroke, the power of the legs is connected to the handle by means of the arms and the core muscles of the body. Then the back is more fully involved as it swings open through the middle of the stroke. Finally, the body is stabilized at the finish by the abdominal muscles.
For a detailed description of the muscle groups involved,
see Muscles Used.
And finally,
Your Mind: Customers tell us that the rhythmic nature of rowing helps clear the head and ease the stress of the day. Or you may be the kind of person who is fascinated by the data produced by the Performance Monitor. If motivation is what you need, you will find it in our Online Challenges, Million Meter Club, and Online Ranking. We think you’ll also find peace of mind in the improvements you make to your health and fitness.
Rowing Compared to Other Forms of Exercise
| Low Impact | Lower Body | Upper Body | Core | Full Range of Motion | |
| Indoor Rower |
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*** |
*** |
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| Treadmill |
*** |
* |
** |
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| Bicycle |
*** |
*** |
* |
* |
*** |
| Elliptical |
*** |
*** |
* |
** |
** |
| Stair Stepper |
** |
*** |
* |
* |
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| Recumbent Bike |
*** |
*** |
* |
* |
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| Ski Machine |
*** |
*** |
* |
** |
** |
| Swimming |
*** |
*** |
** |
* |
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ROD 100111
ROD
Saturday, 01Oct11
Binary Saturday
20 second work/20 seconds rest for 20 minutes of:
In this ROD you have the choice of either a kettlebell or dumbbell / kettlebell or barbell for deadlifts.
- Renegade rows
- Deadlifts
- Thrusters
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FALL BACK INTO SHAPE AFTER SUMMER
Easing Back Into a Regular Workout Regimen If You Took the Summer Off.
Did you take time off from the gym or your regular workout routine over the summer? No worries. Fall is a good time to get back in the swing of a regular exercise regimen and try new physical activities, but be cautious when easing back into a training schedule.
GET A HEAD START BEFORE THE HOLIDAYS: September and October are perfect months to start a new diet, a new workout routine, or just get in shape. Since the seasons are changing now, why not get a fresh start with your health? Don’t put off working on a better body when you can do so now and create good eating and exercise habits long before the temptation and insanity of the holiday season.
EASING BACK INTO A ROUTINE AFTER SUMMER: Many put off regular exercise regimens due to the summer heat and vacations, but as the seasons change why not ease back into your routine? It takes just 30 days to truly get into the fitness habit once more. Just remember not to overdo it. If you haven’t been to the gym in a month or two, take it slow. Perhaps you cannot lift as much as you did previously and may not be able to spend as much time on the exercise bike. Slowly work your way back into your old routine, and by the holidays, you should be in much better shape. Just remember to have a nice balance between resistance training such as weights and aerobic activities such as cardio (bikes, stair-climbing machines, etc). Also, set realistic goals. Pick exercises you like and will do regularly, and do not try to lose too much weight or resolve to build an unrealistic amount of muscle.
COOLER WEATHER IS GREAT FOR OUTDOOR EXERCISE: As autumn approaches, the crisp air is much better for outdoor exercise, especially running, hiking and cycling. In the heat of summer, you probably couldn’t exercise outdoors in the middle of the day, but as fall approaches, you can easily start taking lunchtime jogs or doing other outdoor activities once more.
TRY A NEW ACTIVITY: Since the kids are back in school, you may have more time to Mountain Bike around Staten Island, the Bad Ass Academy is a good place to start. Maybe do some martial arts or run in one of many beautiful parks on the Island or some other healthy activity you’ve often thought about trying. Start learning a new sport or activity now, spend all fall and winter doing it, and will be in much better shape by next spring. Also remember to vary your exercise routine. Here at Next Level we alawys vary our routines. People often do the same exercises week after week, but after awhile your body gets used to them. In order to build muscle, you must consistently add new exercises to your workout routine. Mix up your routine. Try to lift more weight over time. Variety is key to getting results. Keep a journal of your workouts so that you can track your progress.
EAT RIGHT: Cut out high-fat foods and sweets if you want to lose weight. If you want to gain muscle, you need to add an additional 2,500 to 3,000 calories to your diet each week for each pound of muscle you hope to gain. Start out gradually by eating five to six smaller, high-protein meals each day instead of three large ones. While protein powders and multivitamins are good things to use, do not waste your money on too many nutritional supplements. Build your body with real, solid food.
ROD 091811
ROD
Sunday, 18Sept11
Rest Day
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The NLP Party
I just wanted to thank all of you that participated in our grand opening party, last night. I have to say, and I speak for Juan & Chris, that we had the best time ever. You see this party really sealed something for me personally. Not only am I blessed to train at the best gym on Staten Island, but we have the best community of members any gym can ask for. As I was drinking my Vodka & pineapple, I looked around and I saw not only beautiful bodies and the hardest working members you would want, but close friends. A lot of love was demonstrated and that counts more than anyone could ask. I can say that I truly am blessed to have such a community of fitness buffs who take their training to the next level, literally. Maria had set up the pictures of all the workouts in preperation for the Spartan Race and what you saw were the faces of people that put 110% of their physical effort into completing their ROD, no matter what it took. I am so proud of that. I am very lucky to have the opportunity to train all of you. So I say to those who took the time to spend some time with us at the party and those of you that couldn’t - Thank you with all our hearts and souls. We appreciate your continued support in our efforts to bring to you and Staten Island the best in fitness.
Coach Donald
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