The jury is still out on whether this program significantly improved my ability to do pull ups. I’m not going to do anything until next Monday; that ought to give my body time to recover. Then I’ll start a new program to get me through December and into January.

We’re headed off to Missouri in a few hours for a much needed break. As soon as the girls get home from school we are loading up and will be on the road.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

I tell you though, I had no idea how mentally draining this program would be. Doing these sessions of push ups & pull ups has taken an astounding amount of mental energy. I haven’t had the motivation to work out at all outside of this program, except for one jog on Tuesday. None of the planned lower body weight sessions happened.

And my wrist hurts. Same one I broke when I was nine (and the same arm I broke again a few years back). I’m pretty sure the solution is to start doing my pushups on bars or my fists instead of flat palms.

Actually, while researching wrist pain and push ups today I read that doing push ups with your weight on the heel of your hand is bad form… it puts too much strain on the wrist. They recommend imagining that there is a marble under your palm, so that you cup your palm and put the weight across your five fingers. This transfers the weight from the wrist joint to the muscles of the forearm. Maybe I’ll try that in week 3. For now, I’m going to try the more “neutral” position to give my wrist a break.

I guess most frustrating is that I’m really not sure I’m getting stronger doing this. Logically I must be; there is no way all these pull ups & push ups aren’t going to have at least some positive effect. But I don’t see it yet.

Ah well. Two weeks and two days to go.

Two weeks ago I set out a 6 day workout schedule for the next week. That almost worked.

On Sunday the 18th I jogged behind the fire station, 4.8 miles in 52:11 including the cool-down.

On Monday the 19th I lifted weights.
Front Squats:

• 2×5@45
• 1×3@65
• 1×2@85
• 3×5@110

Power Clean & Press:

• 2×5@45
• 1×3@55
• 1×2@70
• 3×5@85

Pull Ups: 6, 3, 2, 2, 2, 2, 1
Deadlift:

• 1×5@75
• 1×5@115
• 1×5@155
• 1×5@195

On Tuesday the 20th I went jogging at the Volmer trail, 4.19 miles in 44:09 including the cooldown.

On Wednesday the 21st I did a “Big 55″ workout. Power clean & press with 65 lbs and pulldowns with 100 lbs. Total time 13:14.

On Thursday the 22nd I went jogging around the neighborhood with Fiona. 1.71 miles in 23:01.

On Friday the 23rd I was all set to lift weights, but I kept falling asleep on the exercise mat while doing my warmup. I took this as a sign that I should skip my workout.

My next workout was Tuesday the 27th, I lifted weights again.
Front Squats:

• 2×5@45
• 1×3@70
• 1×2@90
• 3×5@115

Power Clean & Press:

• 2×5@45
• 1×3@55
• 1×2@70
• 3×5@90

Pull Ups: 5, 4, 3, 1, 2, 2, 2, 1
Deadlift:

• 1×5@85
• 1×5@125
• 1×5@165
• 1×5@205

On Thursday the 29th I went jogging at Volmer trail, 4.5 miles in 47:53 including cooldown.

And finally, today I went jogging around the neighborhood. 4.0 miles in 41:58 including the cooldown.

For November, I’m going to work on my pull ups. I’m going to follow a plan I read about where you 50 pull ups and 100 push ups every day, in as much time and in as many sets as it takes to get them done. And no cheating on form: if it’s not a full pull up from a dead hang to the bar on the chest, it doesn’t count. Same with push ups: chest touches the ground every rep, arms lock out at the top. The only rest day is Sunday, and you don’t do any other upper body exercises during the program. The program is supposed to last 3 weeks, with a 5 day rest break at the end.

My plan is to start on Monday the 2nd, and have my last day be Tuesday the 24th, the day before we head off to Missouri for Thanksgiving. If I keep the schedule I will have done 1000 pull ups and 2000 push ups by Thanksgiving break. If doing 1000 pull ups doesn’t make me better at pull ups, I don’t know what will. I also plan to do a lower body weight routine 2 to 3 days a week & jog 2 to 3 days a week.

I know everyone is very interested in this sort of thing so I’ll keep you all updated.

On thursday I lifted weights, following a similar workout plan as the one I was doing a month ago.

I started with Front Squats instead of Back Squats, because I don’t have access to a squat rack at the firehouse.

• 2×5@45
• 1×3@65
• 1×2@85
• 3×5@105

Then I combined the power-cleans & shoulder press into one exercise. For each rep I power-cleaned the weight up to my shoulders, did a single press, then lowered the weight to the floor.

• 2×5@45
• 1×3@55
• 1×2@70
• 3×5@85

For pull-ups, the fire station has a straight pull-up bar. I did as many reps as I could each set, starting each set on the one minute mark. When I could only do one per set, I stopped. My sets were 5, 4, 3, 3, 2, 2, 2, 2, 1. 24 reps total.

I finished up with deadlifts:

• 1×5@75
• 1×5@115
• 1×5@155
• 1×5@195

My goal for this coming week is to lift weights on Monday, Wednesday & Friday and jog on Sunday, Tuesday & Thursday.

What an interesting question. Sorry, but the idea that I’m not going to do research before talking about an issue like this is just crazy talk.

Also, I hope writing a blog post about this isn’t somehow stealing my uncle’s thunder. I’m quite sure that his blog post will have a completely different take on this issue.

My Aunt Marg suggested that:
“Maybe gambling became illegal after women got the vote, similar to prohibition. Everybody knew a mother and kids thrown into poverty because the husband spent all he was paid drinking and gambling. When women working became commonplace, it wasn’t such a big issue.”

I’m suspicious of Marg’s suggestion that the illegality of gambling is based on women getting the vote. I think the idea that women are somehow more “virtuous” voters is a Victorian fallacy. And as the research I wasn’t supposed to do shows, anti-gambling crusades started long before women’s suffrage.

A quick google search revealed http://www.library.ca.gov/crb/97/03/Chapt2.html. This is a great article on the history of gambling the United States.

The author doesn’t come out and say it, but my reading of the subtext is that anti-gambling crusades are cultural and inseparable from anti-immigrant xenophobia.

My take is that gambling is often seen as a disease, brought by the morally corrupt foreigner (chinese, mexican, italian, irish, whatever). Opposition to gambling is a socially acceptable way to oppose the immigrant. (Same with opposition to alcohol: my take is that prohibition was a reaction to immigration.)

In the 20th century especially, gambling was driven to Nevada by crackdowns against organized crime in other states. Crusades against organized crime have always been partly rooted in xenophobia. Nevada wanted the tourist income, so they tolerated the presence of the mafia.

When gambling related tourism in Nevada really took off, the other states naturally wanted a piece of the action. The spread of casino gambling to other states legitimized it in Nevada, which lead to big corporations taking over the casinos from the organized crime families. Of course, in some circles corporations aren’t looked on any more favorably than the mafia.

I don’t mean to say that xenophobia is the only reason people oppose gambling. Some people genuinely oppose the idea of gambling for the same reason they oppose drinking and dancing. They are true believers. Others oppose gambling (or drinking) because they believe it preys on people incapable of protecting themselves. They call gambling “an addiction” and try to shift the responsibility for bad decisions away from the people who make the bad decisions. But for the vast majority, opposition to gambling is related to xenophobia. When xenophobia wanes (as it did with the civil rights movement), opposition to gambling wanes.

Well, that’s my take on the issue anyway.

On Thursday I did my normal calisthenics, then went to the fire station for another Big 55 workout. This time I upped the weight to 70 lbs. for the front squats and 145 lbs. for the deadlifts. It was brutal. Took me 19 minutes 22 seconds to get through the workout.

Today I did my normal calisthenics again and went back to the fire station to do my other Big 55 workout. Didn’t work out well for me. I put 70 lbs. on the bar for the power clean & press, and set the pull down machine to 110 lbs. I died somewhere in the middle of my set of eight. I stopped the workout after 4:47. Packed up, went home. Clearly I’m not ready for adding extra weight to these workouts.

I’m thinking that next week I’ll start alternating 3×5 type workouts with heavier weight and the “Big 55″ type workouts with light weight. See how that works for a while.

According to the “Built from Disaster” show, the lessons tunnel designers learned from this fire all involved egress and ventilation. When the tunnel reopened several years later, a sophisticated ventilation system had been installed to give tunnel controllers the ability create an area of “zero wind speed” at any point in the tunnel they choose. Also, the fire shelters had been replaced with new shelters that give victims access to a service tunnel that parallels the road tunnel so that paramedics can reach victims, and victims can be removed to fresh air.

As we watched the show at the fire department, we couldn’t believe that they were not talking about fire suppression systems. The agency that runs the tunnel spent millions designing and installing a sophisticated ventilation system. But apparently they didn’t give any thought to installing a simple sprinkler system. Ventilation does not put out fires; water puts out fires. Put out the fire, and everything else gets better. The area starts to cool, the fire stops producing toxic gasses, it becomes possible for firefighters in protective gear to actually enter the area and rescue victims.

Apparently there is some controversy about the use of sprinkler systems in tunnels. Some engineers think they won’t work, they will make conditions worse inside the tunnel, they will cause panic, they will be expensive to test and maintain, etc. The NFPA now recommends sprinkler systems in tunnels, and they spend a considerable amount of time responding to objections to the idea of putting a sprinkler system in a tunnel. I found an interesting article describing the 2008 edition of NFPA 502: STANDARD FOR ROAD TUNNELS, BRIDGES, AND OTHER LIMITED ACCESS HIGHWAYS.

In case you aren’t familiar with the organization, the NFPA writes standards for fire protection and suppression in the United States. These standards do not have the force of law; they are “best practice” recommendations. But of course, when things go wrong one of the things plaintiff’s lawyers are looking at is whether or not the fire department procedures and building codes follow NFPA standards.

I’m willing to bet that most long tunnels in the United States don’t have sprinkler systems. Let’s face it, we don’t build new tunnels that often, and unless there is a disaster, there isn’t much push to retrofit old structures to meet new standards. As a firefighter I’m glad there aren’t any big tunnels in my response area. Pulling up to an inferno like the one in Mont Blanc is not my idea of a good time.

Of course, while I’m glad to see the improvement, I’ve still got a ways to go before I will be sufficiently impressed with myself.