Our exercise leader Russ O’Connell always talks about training us like fighters. So when we do drills with punching or kicking, Russ tries to make sure that we are as close to technically correct as possible. When we train with weights or resistance bands, O’Connell is seeking to help us develop strength and cardio endurance much like a fighter training for a late round bout.

This past weekend I got a chance to thoroughly enjoy the real thing.  The Iowa Challenge 51 at the Five Sullivan Brothers Convention Center in Waterloo featured 16 Mixed Martial Arts or Kick Boxing matches. The combatants ages ranged from 14 to 35 years old, with many of the competitors training under Russ O’Connell at the United Sport and Athlete gym.  Before October of 2008, I had never watched a mixed martial arts event live, but I have to admit now that I am hooked.

Because of its early days, which featured fights with very few rules and lots of bloody injuries, Mixed Martial Arts has gotten a bad rap which follows it to this day in mainstream society.  But the sport has evolved dramatically in the past 10 years in the United States, with strict rules and regulations designed to protect the safety of the athletes in the cage.  The two biggest MMA organizations, Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) or World Extreme Cage Fighting (WEC) requires that its competitors be in supremely physical condition before a fight. Many of the best fights we watched Saturday night involved two extremely fit and very skilled competitors.

I used to believe that wrestlers or boxers were the best conditioned athletes on the planet, but my thinking has changed after watching the mixed martial arts athletes train and compete. MMA fighters have to follow the same rigorous training methods of boxers and wrestlers in order to meet weight class specifications and the conditioning necessary to withstand the physical punishment of three- three minute rounds. On Wednesday, I will blog more specifically about Iowa Challenge 51 and the special young men involved.

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It’s the end of week eleven of the twelve week O’Connell Extreme Fitness program and we are grinding it out to the finish line.  Each morning is becoming more of a challenge for me to get out of bed and into the gym. My alarm clock goes off at 4:20 am and I tap the snooze button a couple of times before crawling out of the bed. In the first nine weeks I was getting to the gym before 5 am to warm up on the treadmill or sprint in the green room, however I over did it.  Both of my achilles tendons have been very sore and now I have been coming in a little later skipping the warmup to allow them time to heal.

The classes have gotten a lot tougher as our leader Russ O’Connell has increased both the number and  difficulty of the weight training exercises. We are becoming more exhausted because there are much shorter breaks to rest in between (I guess two-a-days were not the best idea) all of the routines. As my mind was trying to deliberate on why I am still putting myself through this torture every morning one of my classmates provided me with some news today that instantly gave me my answer. Tim Luce, who has lost a ton of weight and looks great, told me he had a doctor’s visit this week and his cholesterol numbers were outstanding! So good in fact, his physician is taking Tim off cholesterol medication. 

It’s interesting how we all come to find exercise and the reasons why we make it a priority in our lives. Over time its just like going to school. The more you go to class and the harder you work, the more likely you are to succeed. Now that I have lost the weight and gotten healthier I have had to create new challenges and different fitness goals to keep my journey interesting. Because the most important thing is that I keep coming.  Much like a job, exercise is work, but without retirement. Staying fit and healthy requires that we just put our head down and grind it out for life.

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The ultimate OXF challenge has been postponed and probably revised. My challenge partner, Heather, severely sprained her ankle over the weekend and was actually on crutches. And after a discussion with Master Russ O’Connell, it was decided that this type of physical challenge might not be a wise idea.

The physical activity conducted in both Russ and Kristi O’Connell’s classes are very similar. That means doing both classes in a 12 hour period could over train the muscles negating any benefits from the exercise and possibly risking injury.  This is one reason why having an exercise leader or personal trainer is in your best interests. They are the experts. And they provide advice on exercise and nutrition that will help you reach your fitness goals without jeopardizing your health.

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Nothing compels you to appreciate life more than when you are reunited with friends. I got a chance over the weekend to spend some time with a very close friend who was in town under some unfortunate circumstances.

I have known my friend Ben Bamsey for more than 15 years. I covered his outstanding tennis career at Waterloo West High School. I liked Ben at first sight. Polite, but with more energy than a nuclear power plant, Ben and I became close friends as he pursued undergraduate and graduate degrees at the University of Iowa while also working part-time and later full-time as a producer at KWWL.  When Ben moved west, I was one of eleven “Best Men” when he married his wife, Jen in a beautiful ceremony in Monterrey, California. To this day it remains one of the truly special events I have ever been a part of.

It was at Ben’s wedding celebration that I got to know one of his very close friends Chris Fuller. Tall and slender, “Fuller” always had a smile on face and kind words to say. Ben’s wedding weekend was kind of like a big “Fraternity Party”, there was plenty of loud talking, of course drinking, boys games but also soul searching as our good friend, Ben, was about to take a major step in his life.  We played flag football (shirts and skins)  at “Big Sur”( where the Santa Lucia Mountains rise abruptly from the Pacific Ocean on the central California coast) just hours before the wedding ceremony. It was at that time I discovered that Fuller was recovering from a big battle with cancer. He had scars on his body tracking the outline of where the tumors had been removed but never had I seen a person who appreciated life more. Fuller was smiling the whole time enjoying every moment. He and I even collided a couple of times and I outweighed him by 30 or 40 pounds. And each time he just bounced back up smiling saying “No problem Rick. Good Hit!”

For more than five years, with the support of his family, friends and the love of his wife, Shannon, Fuller battled the cancer and appreciated every day.  I saw Fuller around Christmas of 2007 during one of Ben’s visits from California and he truly seemed happy. His wife Shannon was expecting the couple’s first child and the cancer appeared to be in remission. Their son Brayden was born early in 2008.

Ironically on St. Patrick’s Day, just months after the cancer returned and one month after the doctors gave him three months to live, Chris Fuller died. He was only 33 years old. There was another reunion of friends this past Friday at Fuller’s  Read More…

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Today, one of my “O’Connell Extreme Fitness” classmates (Mrs. Heather Reisinger) and I have decided to take our fitness training to a new level.  Call us crazy, call us stupid (we’re a little bit of both), but we both plan to attend two OXF classes a day next week.  This means we will get the best of both worlds.  Two grueling workouts a day from two of the scariest task masters on the planet, Russ and Kristi O’Connell.  We both will attend Russ’s class at 5:30 am (MTWTH) next week and then I will go to Kristi’s class at 11:30 am and Heather will attend Kristi’s class at 6:30 pm.  If we are still alive on Thursday morning, we both plan on finishing our insane week of exercise in Kristi’s 11:30 am class.

We believe our challenge is unprecedented because anyone,  who has done one OXF class a day,  will tell you one workout session a day is more than enough!  I’m sure our challenge will also bring out the best in our fitness instructors Russ and Kristi (I apologized in advance to the other OXFers because they are going to torture all of us next week). We kind of believe the O’Connells have their own private competition going on who’s method of training is superior. For the record, before I begin this challenge, I want to say both Russ and Kristi are incredible!!  Also I want to thank Heather Reisinger for agreeing to this amazing challenge, she wants to have her six pack abs on display for a honeymoon cruise that she and her husband Chris will be going on next week.  All I can say is bring on the O’Connells!!!!

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It’s amazing the positive energy a regular exercise program can have on your physical, mental and emotional state. Every day, regardless of what you do in life; working, married life, school, parenting, etc, you are going to encounter challenges.  And you will always have to face the question, “Do I have the energy or the mental or emotional will to deal with this problem?”  To be quite honest with you, for a long time I was never really sure.

For many years without regular exercise in my life, I struggled to maintain physical energy. I was on a heavily caffeinated diet designed to provide me with the artificial energy to get through the day. A coffee or Mountain Dew to jump start my day, a Red Bull to get me through the afternoon and another heavy dose of caffeine to help me survive the late evening news. Using these drinks, heavy in sugar and caffeine became a major crutch and certainly was a factor in my declining health.  If I were to use a cause and effect model, my dependency on those energy drinks probably contributed to my lack of sleep and the onslaught of “Type 2 Diabetes”. 

In many ways I was no different from any other person battling an unhealthy habit. I would never compare my situation to someone who is attempting to overcome a chemical or drug dependency or alcoholism which are far more serious illnesses and infinitely more difficult to overcome.  But what I had was a very bad habit with some profound negative effects on my health and my life.

I won’t lie to anyone and say that exercise instantly solved all of my problems, because it didn’t. It was more of a process as I kept getting up every morning and making exercise a habit. Gradually I began to see positive results from my regular exercise regimen; a little lost weight, a little more visible muscle and some positive feedback. Over time I gained confidence as my mental and emotional energy began to increase and my reliance on sugar and caffeine began to decrease.  My 40 something year old body became like an old car that had just gotten “Pimped Out” by Xhibit on “Pimp My Ride”.  I wanted to keep it cleaned and polished and I didn’t want to put anything on it or in it that would make it lose that new make over look.  I will on very rare occasions have a caffeinated soft drink or dare I say a Red Bull.  The only difference now, I consume these beverages because I want to and not because I believe I have to.

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You know whether we love our job or not we show up and put in our eight hours a day five days a week for forty years. We do it for money which of course is critical to our survival in a civilized society. We can all survive without the working part, but it would be very difficult to live without the paycheck.

If we viewed our health the same way we view work and money we would all make exercise a priority in our lives. It is almost impossible to maintain good health without some kind of regular fitness program. I have covered sports for KWWL-TV for more than 25 years. And during this time I have gotten an opportunity to witness some of the greatest athletes in world, both men and women, competing in dozens of different sports. These young people work hard to train their bodies and get the proper nutrition to be able to perform at their best on the athletic field. It’s amazing what occurs when some of these athletes stop training completely.

How does the old saying goes, when you don’t use it you lose it. Back in early December during the Northern Iowa football team’s run through the playoffs, I ran into several former Panther players from the late 90’s. I recognized most of these guys; some put on a bit of weight, but they all looked pretty much the same. However there was a very heavy set guy who didn’t really look familiar to me at all until I looked into his eyes. Although it was hard to believe when it was revealed to me later, this young man who I knew very well was a high profile player. A former All-American defensive back who actually played for a couple of years in the NFL. Since his playing days ended in 2002, he’s gained between 60 to 70 pounds.

This was both shocking and disappointing, because I recall this very talented athlete once had a remarkable physique. He was a very hard worker who trained his body to play football at the highest level and obviously once that goal was reached he stopped. I would actually call this, once muscular and physically fit, athlete obese. I talked with a mutual friend who told me this former player wasn’t working out anymore. It’s unfortunate because while this young man is still in his early 30’s, he is exposing himself to many negative health problems.

This is a more extreme example of what happens when we stop exercising, but I witness this thing a lot. Our bodies undergo atrophy when we age, but this process is accelerated through lack of activity. We can actually slow the aging process with proper rest and nutrition and a consistent exercise program that builds muscle and cardiovascular endurance. While most of the fine athletes I have gotten to know over the years have trained for a sport, we all must be ready to “Train For Life.”

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Many people I haven’t seen for a couple of months have been coming up to me and asking “What is going on?” “Man you have lost a lot of weight!”  It’s funny when I was sporting the “shaved head” that you see in my blog’s picture, some people even thought my rapid weight reduction(35 to 40 pounds lost since September) was a by product of me being seriously ill. No, I’m not sick. I am actually  healthier than I have probably ever been in my life.

The past couple of days I have gotten a chance to spend some time with my children who are on spring break. It’s amazing how kids in subtle or not so subtle ways express truths. There is nothing really subtle about my six year-old daughter Olivia. She is a 42 inch, 36 pound truth telling machine regardless of the consequences either for herself or anyone else involved. If she’s done something naughty she always admits to it and if you want to know how she feels about a subject you’ll always get an honest answer. So before my recent weight loss anytime I would hear her tell me, “Dad, you’re a fat, old man.” I knew she wasn’t concerned about the repercussions of her insensitive but honest remarks and I also knew what she was expressing was also the way the world saw her father.

If we can always remember the impact our children’s words have on us, we would be extremely careful about what we say directly to them and also what we say around them. Olivia’s words resonated with me for a long time. As a parent I always want to be a hero to my children. When I was young I believed my father was the strongest, smartest man in the world. But It’s hard to think my children can visualize a big “S” on my chest when I am carrying a big belly underneath my cape. I want my daughter to see me as a loving, caring father, but I also want to set a good example for her of how to live her life. I know she is watching me very closely.

This weekend Olivia told me something that made me pause and smile. She said, “Dad, why do you exercise so much? You’re already skinny.” As I looked into this beautiful bundle of energy’s big brown eyes I got a little choked up. Getting up at 4:30 in the morning and putting my body through a rigorous workout was more than worth it. As I began to mumble ”Thank you Olivia”, I heard the words, “Hey Old Man, do you have any thing to drink?” All I could do was shake my head and say “What do you want sweetheart milk or orange juice?”.  No matter what you do, you just can’t beat the truth.

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 I actually started writing this blog about a week ago, but I didn’t have the courage to publish it until a conversation I had this morning with my exercise and fitness Master Russ O’Connell.  During our Friday morning weight lifting session Russ told me “It’s alright to cheat a little on your diet. First of all you are only human and secondly, you’ve earned the right because of the hard work you are putting in the gym.”

This was such a relief to hear. Because if “cheating” on my diet was a crime, I would be facing a lifetime sentence with only the slight possiblity of parole.

Back in September I had one simple goal to lose a lot of weight. And I was going to accomplish this by any means necessary.  I exercised at least five days a week and I counted every calorie I put into my body. My friends at O’Connell Extreme Fitness encourage us to keep track of calories using a food chart. During my weight loss program, I ate lots of fish, mainly wild Salmon or Wild Talapia and I balanced each meal with vegatables, fruit and multi-grain bread.  And one of the most important factors to my weight loss program was limiting my sugar intake.

Now that I am at a healthier weight, my fitness goals have changed. I want to add more muscle. With the help of Russ O’Connell, I began lifting weights six days a week back in December. My physical strength has increased dramatically but so has my body’s need for protein and a lot more calories. In order to promote muscle development I have been including more meat in my diet and also protein supplements. I no longer worry about weight because my activity in the gym has increased my metabolism to the point I burn calories like a fireplace burns wood.

Much like when I was in my late teens and early 20’s I can eat anything I want without worry of weight gain, but it is still important that I make healthy food choices. I’m certainly not perfect but I still try to limit eating foods heavy in fat, sodium or sugar. I try to eat a lot of small meals during the day to keep the metabolism churning and of course I keep my regular exercise schedule. Every one’s body works differently, but eating healthy, exercising and getting proper rest is important to all of us.

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We have just finished week nine of “O’Connell Extreme Fitness”, which means there are only three weeks left. And while I have to say each morning has been a grueling exercise in mental and physical survival I hate that its coming to an end. But I won’t miss it for long I have already signed up for the next session which starts in April. 

  The one aspect I have always enjoyed about this class is the journey. In the 21 weeks I have been training no workout is ever the same. Russ changes it up so frequently it’s like a distance runner taking a different route everyday for seven months. He is masterful at mixing and varying the kick boxing and weight/resistance training exercises so that neither our minds nor our bodies get transfixed on a certain routine. We have to stay mentally and physically alert in order to keep up with the O’Connell’s fast paced direction. With each repetition on the weights or each interval punching bags or hitting mitts, he pushes us to the brink of exhaustion. And as time has passed my stamina and strength have increased exponentially. And more importantly my mind and body hungers for more.

My friend and colleague Ron Steele is just finishing his first “OXF” class. Ron has stayed in great shape over the years through distance running and cycling. When I first told Ron about “OXF”, he said “There’s no way I can get up to exercise at 5:30 in the morning!!!!”  Well this training program has a way of changing bodies, minds and hearts. When I arrived this morning at 5:03 am, there were only two people in the gym, Gigo, the guy who unlocked the building and Ron Steele who was already on a treadmill warming up for class. And Ron has already signed up for the next 5:30 am OXF class which by the way I have been told is full.  We’re just enjoying the journey baby.

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