james kahn’s scratchpad

There’s nothing like that feeling of hitting the gym and feeling strong.  Every rep slots into place.  You finish knowing you’ve put in your best effort.  I just had it.  Beautiful.

If you’re anything like me, you spend hours in front of a computer at work, and then spend a bit of time in front of a computer at home as well. Any fool can tell you that this isn’t good for your posture, and wreaks havoc with any number of muscle imbalances that show themselves as inflexibilities, and often, the dreaded back injury. Not to mention that poor posture looks terrible, even if you’re physically fit.

The excellent sports training website Testosterone Nation have released a series of articles about what training you should do in the gym to counteract the effects of sitting at a computer for hours a day, and also provide some practical advice as to what you should do when you’re not at the gym.

The first article, (De)-Constructing Computer Guy, what exercises to do in the gym in place of more popular ones so that your body can correct posture imbalance, rather than exacerbate it.

The second article, (De)-Constructing Computer Guy - The Other 23 Hours, gives a series of tips we can use in the office or at home to prevent injury from all this un-natural sitting.

After my back injury in January, numerous physio appointments, training carefully and following a bit of a rehab program, I’m finally back to full strength.

Today I squatted 140kg for 10 reps - the most I’ve ever done - so I think I’ve burst through a plateau with the rehab work I did as well. It feels good to be healthy again. My current training goals are to squat 180kg for 3, and bench press 120kg for 3.

I’m staying away from deadlifts for a while yet.

After wanting dogs for years, we finally got some. In the end we went for Border Collies (not Weimareners or German Shepherds, as mentioned previously), and damn are they cute! We picked them up on Saturday after they had their vaccinations. Both are six weeks old - brother and sister from the same litter. They behave very well considering they are so young, and are already learning to sit and lie down. Smart dogs!

Layla has a big white streak down her nose. She is independent, but still likes to play with her brother. Layla means dark beauty.

Diego is mischevious and likes to get in to everything. He can’t leave his sister alone. Diego is Spanish for James.

On Friday night my wife and I went to a local “movies in the park” screening. Movies in the park is run by Brisbane City Council, and is a series of screenings of family movies in suburbs with the idea of increasing quality of life in Brisbane (which is pretty damn good already). I initially wasn’t so keen on the idea, but Bianca was dead-set on it, and I did enjoy myself. It was pretty nice sitting in the park under the stars, sufficiently sprayed with mozzie-repellent, eating take-out and watching a good movie.

The movie was “The World’s Fastest Indian“. It’s a true story about an older New Zealand man, Burt Munro, travelling to the Utah salt flats in the USA in the 1960’s to set a land speed record in his modified, streamlined 1920’s Indian motorcycle. I’d been keen to see the movie for a while - I thought it would be good, and it really was excellent. If you haven’t seen it, I recommend that you do. The movie shows the difficulties Burt Munro faced in achieving his dream. While many of the events in the movie are fictional, the message the movie portrays is good advice for anyone.

Have a dream, and work hard at it. Burt Munro had a dream of setting a land speed record on his motorcycle. He spent day and night for decades working on his motorcycle to turn it into the machine that it needed to be. His single minded determination and focus on the one goal he wanted to achieve - setting that speed record - allowed him to achieve it at a stage in his life when most people are content to take it easy. If you’ve got a dream, stick to it, and work towards it to achieve it. It won’t happen by itself - you need to work towards it, for as long as it takes. How many people can say they’ve worked for decades on a single project before their goal came to fruition? Whether your dream is to run a successful software company, live off the land in the country or sail around the world, keep working towards it for as long as it takes.

Be genuine and love people for what they are. Burt treated everybody like they were real people, with real feelings, in situations where many of us would have stereotyped the same people. Because of the way he treated people, Burt always brought out the best in them, and really made their personalities shine. I can count on one hand the number of people that I know that have a genuine interest in others. Do you judge people before they let you see who they are?

Don’t let others push you down. Regardless of how many setbacks Burt had in getting to the final goal of setting a land speed record in Utah, he always kept trying. No matter how many times he got told “no”, he always looked for a way to turn it into a “yes”. When he was ripped off, he held his head up high, and continued on towards his goal, however unlikely it seemed that he would achieve it. Too often the harsh words of others cut close to the heart. They hurt, and they turn us from our dreams. Don’t let this happen - if you get beaten down, however big or small the event - get back up again, dust yourself off, and keep moving towards your goal. Don’t let anyone stop you.

After running his bike in Utah, Burt did set a land speed record. And the speed record still stands to this day.

I’ve had a back problem for almost two months now. I’m don’t usually get many injuries, so it really surprised me when it came about. I’d taken some time off from the gym over Christmas, and was feeling a little stiff. Coming back to work in the first week of January, I was a typical egotistical bloke and tried to work out just as hard as I had before I took my break.

Big mistake.

After doing a few squats and chin ups, I thought I’d pull a deadlift. The deadlift is one of my favourite exercises, and involves pulling an olympic barbell loaded with as much as weight as you can lift off the floor, and standing up straight. Like this. I’ve done hundreds of them and it gives me a great feeling of power, because you tend to be able to lift a pretty heavy weight. I loaded up the bar with my previous 3 rep max (140kg), going for two reps. Using an over/under grip to stop the bar slipping at that weight, I pulled it. It hurt my back a bit - I think I rounded it slightly. When I put the weight down, I felt like I’d damaged something, just a little.

So what did I do? I did it again, of course!

In an amazing show of wisdom, I decided that I needed to make sure I didn’t develop a muscle imbalance by doing a single rep. You see, with an over/under grip, you should alternate which palm is facing you and which palm is not so that each side of the body develops strength in the same places, at the same rate. The second rep hurt a bit more.

I guess because I’m not particularly injury prone, I didn’t think about going to the physio straight away. I’ve been a little sore before, and this seemed no different. When it was still hurting after two weeks, I decided it was a bit different. The first physiotherapist I went to, a bloke at Browns Plains, wasn’t any good. He couldn’t tell me what was wrong with it, and didn’t give me any specific rehab exercises. He pretty much told me that it would get better on its own.

Two more weeks on, and I could swear it was getting worse, not better. I’d been avoiding doing a lot of things in the gym, and whenever I slightly hyper-extended my back, it screamed with pain. I really wanted to know if I’d caused some major damage. Enough people have back injuries that stick with them throughout their lives, and I’d rather get this sorted out sooner or later. On a recommendation, I went to Axis Physio, and ended up being treated by Brooke there. She was very good. She told me what I’d done to my back, checked my flexibility and sore points, and gave specific rehab exercises and stretches to sort it out. I had compressed one of the discs in my lower spine. A disc sits between two vertebrae, and acts as a flexible cushion between them (or something like that). I probably stuffed it up at the gym, and prevented it from healing by having bad posture in my chair at work, and doing too many crunches at the gym - some exercises can be bad for you!

After a couple of weeks of treatment and a range of rehab exercises, I’m about 80% “back” together. (*badoom*). The scariest part about the whole ordeal is that if I hadn’t sought treatment, and continued the way I was, I would probably have ended up with a permanent back problem. There’s enough people with those out there already.

Well, I thought I’d give this blogging thing another shot after over a year of thinking-about-it, but not really doing anything to it. Why the hell not.

And what a year (and a bit) it has been.

Got married, worked on a huge IT infrastructure project in NZ as Technical Lead for the Citrix component, my grandmother died, moved to Brisbane, got a job as a Technical Consultant at Clariti (they ARE a great company, and great bunch of guys), had our first year anniversary, bought a house… and that’s about it. It has been a huge whirlwind of highs and lows. While some of those happened during the tail part of 2005, they’ve all happened since I last wrote here. So they count ;).
2007 promises to be a less chaotic year, but still an important one nevertheless. Major goals for 2007 include:

1. Get the fence at our house sorted, and then get some dogs. We do have a fence, but it isn’t tall enough and has more holes than a politician’s logic. The plan is to get a fence within the next couple of months, and then get a German Shepherd puppy (my preference) and a Weimaraner puppy (Bianca’s preference).
2. For me, 2007 is the year I really get serious about my fitness. For a couple of years now I’ve been going to the gym, but I haven’t been eating well enough and have been scatter brained in my goals. 2007 is the year of lean bulk. This one will be the hardest plan to stick to.  Abs, Abs, Abs!
3. Helping my sister move to Brisbane. New Zealand, the great Aussie-bound brain drain is still happening, and ain’t showing any signs of stopping soon.
4. Find a church. I’m Christian, but haven’t been to church regularly for years.
5. And I almost forgot - the year of the motorcycle. I went out and got my motorcycle learner’s license just before Christmas, and I’ve started saving a little bit of cash on the side for a first bike and the Q-RIDE motorcycle training course. This. Will. Be. Awesome.

Just in case it isn’t clear, these aren’t new year’s resolutions. I don’t “do” new year’s resolutions. They’re goals, and plans. I like to think I’m the kind of person that does what he’s talking about. We’ll see.

Today is probably one of the most significant days in my life. I’m getting married this afternoon. I’m supposed to be feeling nervous, but I’m not, I’m excited. Bianca is so special to me and I am thoroughly convinced that I am doing the right thing. You’re only meant to do it once and I am sure that this is the right once.

It did get me thinking though - what day is more significant, the day Bianca and I married, or the day that we met? Or the day that we fell in love, when we were still friends? I think all are very important milestones.

What is the most important of all is that Bianca and I are together, and this afternoon we will be committing ourselves to each other forever.