Survival of the Fittest

So … no one outside the Experience Life staff knows this yet, but former — and possibly future — karate world champion Elisa Au will be gracing our cover in June. Now you know, too. Shhh.

A little background: Au (pronounced “Ow” — go to town on that one) is the only American woman to have won a world championship, and remains the only person in the world, male or female, to win more than one world title at a single world karate championship. The only person in the world. Can you imagine being able to say that?

If you want to read more about her, check out the links here, here and here. (Highlight from the last one? She recommends people not try the fictitious “crane technique,” pictured at right, from the movie Karate Kid.) There are lots more articles about her, but I’ve grown weary of pasting the links. These days, she’s training in Chicago, where she owns and operates three martial arts schools with her spankin’-new husband, John Fonseca (no slouch himself when it comes to karate accolades — to see a video of Fonseca, click here).

I interviewed Au several weeks ago, and before we hung up, she promised to share her favorite workout on my blog. (A very, VERY big thank you to her for sharing!)

HERE’S THE WORKOUT SHE SENT ME over the weekend — if you try it out, please tell us how it goes in the “comments” section! I tried (albeit half-heartedly) to find photos or video demonstrations to go with at least some of the exercises below, but if you’re having trouble figuring one out, post your question(s) in the comments.

FROM ELISA:
I’ve chosen exercises from my training in karate and with my personal trainer, Corey Shackelford. These exercises do not require any equipment — they rely on your body weight for resistance and focus on the core muscles, which are most important for a strong body.

You can definitely start with less reps if the moves are unfamiliar to you. Or, you can add for reps and sets in order to challenge yourself.

1. Warm up! [For an article on the benefits of warming up and cooling down, see “Gradual is Good” from the March 2007 issue of Experience Life.]

2. Charlie’s Angels Lunges — Lunge sideways with your left leg, feet parallel, arms straight out and parallel to the ground in front of you (in a gun-shooting position). Twist your upper torso to the left so that your arms rotate 90 degrees, then back to starting position. Step up and repeat on right side. 10 reps on each side.

3. Burpees — Squat down and place hands on the floor, shoulder width apart. Kick your feet back into a push-up starting position. Bring feet back under you and immediately jump up in a star position (arms and legs all extended). Repeat 15 times. [For a video demo of how to do a burpee, click here.]

4. Arm Shuffles — Start in push-up position. Shuffle your arms so that your body moves clockwise like a hand of a clock. Try to keep your feet at the middle position as your arms move from 1 to 12. Do 2 times clockwise, 2 times counter-clockwise.

5. Superman — Lay on your stomach. Lift your legs and arms off the ground and hold position for 30 seconds to a minute. [For pics, see here.]

6. V-Ups — Lie on your back. Lift your legs and arms/shoulders off the ground to create a V-shape with your body. Lower your arms and legs without letting them touch the ground. Do 15 reps. [Pics here.]

7. Plank Positions — Place elbows/forearms on the ground, feet in push-up position. Be sure your shoulders are directly above your elbows so that all body angles are 90 degrees. Hold this position for 1 minute. Point right arm straight ahead, parallel to the ground. Hold this position for 20 seconds. Switch arms and hold for another 20 seconds. Repeat with extended right and left legs, each for 20 seconds. Lastly, extend right arm and left leg, hold for 20 seconds, then switch to other side for the last 20 seconds. You will total 3 minutes. [See a basic plank pose here. You got the rest through the description, right?]

For the next three exercises, use small pieces of tape stuck to the floor. Mark 5 points like the 5-side of a die. The outer points should be about shoulder-width apart on all sides.

8. Hourglass — Start on the bottom two points with feet shoulder-width apart. Jump to the middle point to bring feet together, then jump to the top points to get back to shoulder-width position. Jump back to the middle point, then back to starting position. Repeat 15 times.

9. Figure 8 — Keep your feet together the entire time on this one. Start at the bottom left corner. Hop to the middle point, then to the upper right point. Continue on to the upper left point, middle, bottom right, then back to the beginning at the bottom left. You have made a figure 8. Repeat 8 times this way, then 8 times the opposite way.

10. Around the World — Stand on the middle point with one foot. Hop to the bottom left point then back to the middle. Continue to the top left then return, top right and return, bottom right and return. Repeat in this clockwise position 5 times, then 5 times counter-clockwise. Repeat with other foot.

11. Cool-down and STRETCH!

~Elisa

My friend Kathy (strange to call her anything but “Sausage” — aren’t rugby nicknames great?) pasted a link to this CrossFit workout in a comment she left in response to my last post.

She says, “I just read the article in the mag on [the Tabata Protocol] … never thought 4 minutes could be so painful until I met a workout called ‘fight gone bad.’”

Indeed, I would not want to meet this workout in a dark alley.

Originally designed for mixed martial artist B.J. Penn, with the metabolic demands of ultimate fighting in mind, “Fight Gone Bad” is an intense, five-minute weightlifting, plyometrics and cardio circuit that’s repeated three times, with a one-minute break between rounds (just barely enough time to be able to breathe again … sort of). So, 17 minutes total. If you live that long.

After watching the video of the workout, I can see how the first five minutes could do you in. And I have yet to make it through one four-minute Tabata round on the treadmill (although I have muscled through it on the stationary bike now). But still … does anyone else want to work out right this minute?

It looks like you can rig up a similar circuit at nearly any gym (that is, you don’t have to be at a CrossFit facility) as a way to build your work capacity without courting your slow-twitch muscle fibers — fast-twitch types, rejoice!

UPDATE: As I was perusing the workout and exercise list at CrossFit.com (some really amazing stuff there), I came across a Tabata version of the “Fight Gone Bad” workout! See the video here (complete with music from Culture Club).

(Photo credit: AP)

To be honest, I didn’t watch much of the Super Bowl last night. I was otherwise occupied frantically plowing through two weeks’ worth of laundry and packing for a business trip that includes time spent in both Minnesota and California. Still, I feel ashamed.

The only stretch of the game I watched uninterrupted were those last 46 seconds, when New England Patriots’ quarterback Tom Brady heaved a couple of desperate long bombs toward receiver Randy Moss. After witnessing those final, cling-to-the-armrest-suspenseful moments, I’m not sure my heart could have taken much more anyway.

While I’m not a huge fan of football — mainly because it just doesn’t occur to me to watch it — like my fellow EL senior editor Laine, I am a huge fan of perfection, so I had hoped the Patriots’ record would remain unmarred.

End result aside, I was moved by the tremendous effort Moss made to get open for his QB, and by the simple way Brady summed up his teammate’s efforts in today’s New York Times: “He ran so hard the whole game.”

Not only that, but as the last seconds ticked away, he still ran so dang fast, pulling away from his defenders with apparent ease. Pulling away, even, from the pass, which just could not get to where Moss was going.

But then, the gleam of speed is one of my favorite aspects of almost every sport. It’s always been that way in my family; my younger brother excelled at the facets of sport that required skill and patience, as did my mother, while my father and I ruled the raw end.

But is speed really hereditary? And how much can you do to get faster?

A couple years ago, I wrote an article on the topic of fast- and slow-twitch muscle fibers for Experience Life called “The Fast and Slow of It”, and although I recall the topic being much more complicated than we had space for, the case is essentially this: Most of us are born with a fairly even mix of fast- and slow-twitch muscle fibers, which means our talents regarding speed or endurance are determined mainly by the way we train.

Which is to say, maybe I just chased more butterflies than my little bro. But that chasing pays off, in terms of developing speed.

Last night’s game reminded me not to overlook the importance of adding in a little bit of speed training, even during the start-over stages of fitness I’m in now. As I think back on speed testing I’ve done at rugby tryouts over the years, my 40-meter-dash scores have certainly reflected how I’ve been training (or not), so I may as well start off on the right foot.

In a cursory mine of a bajillion speed-training results from various sources, including my favorite fitness site, Peak Performance, it seems much of the focus is on plyometrics (see basics here), overspeed training (and here), Olympic lifting (click me), and increasing stride length and/or rate.

So the goal, for me, will be to get back into shape gradually … but not necessarily slowly.