I cannot do it all for you, Kyle.

‘tf’ below indicates a technical failure, where the weight was pressed out at the top

Amy (3RM) – 10,12.5,15,17.5,20(f),20
Dan (1RM) – 30,32.5,35(tf),35(tf),35(tf)35
Jeff (1RM) – 30,32.5,35,37.5,40(tf),40
Paddy (3RM) – 27.5 across, working on getting under the bar quicker

Tabata Squats
Jeff – 16,15,16,16,17,18
Paddy – 16,17,17,18,17,18

Tabata Push ups
Dan – 13,8,6,6,5,5

I was in the mood for KB swings and DL so did 5 rounds of 42.6kg push-jerk, 45lb KBS and 72.6kg DL in 17mins.

Like with anything, a bit of practice is what you need Kyle. When i was younger (and thought i could still go pro!) i used to practice against passing against a wall alternating feet. Keeping the ball in the air is also useful for control. I recently started poi ( http://youtube.com/watch?v=0Sfih3u6p-Y ) as a means of increasing my dexterity and control, not to mention they look really cool when on fire!

Kyle – I stink at soccer too. Maybe I should try and get good at it as part of this “regularly learn and play new sports” thing. I tend to neglect that.

I studied evolution as part of my college course and a lot of people say silly things about how we are living now and how it is different/”wrong” compared to early hominids. Well no shit sherlock, but we are not early hominids, we are Homo sapiens, a different species living in a different time and environment.

Things like how much sleep and where these early hominids would have slept annoy me quite a bit because it is pure speculation. Truth is we havent a clue what they did.

I try to get about 7 hours a day, maybe a few more if im hungover!

To quote Napoleon on sleep “Six hours sleep for a man, seven for a woman and eight for a fool.”

I studied evolution as part of my college course and a lot of people say silly things about how we are living now and how it is different/”wrong” compared to early hominids. Well no shit sherlock, but we are not early hominids, we are Homo sapiens, a different species living in a different time and environment.

Things like how much sleep and where these early hominids would have slept annoy me quite a bit because it is pure speculation. Truth is we havent a clue what they did.

I try to get about 7 hours a day, maybe a few more if im hungover!

To quote Napoleon on sleep “Six hours sleep for a man, seven for a woman and eight for a fool.”

Colm–you edited my post to split into paragraphs but didn’t fix electrics to electronics? Slacker.

I’d been doing most of the stuff it prescribes before actually reading the book just on the strength of Robb Wolf’s posts on the CF forums, but reading the damn thing actually made me believe it was all a pack of bullshit for a while. The ham-fisted attempts at tying in quantum mechanics to their arguements were particularly lame.

Thankfully, most of their claims are empirically testable. If 9.5 hours of sleep in a darkened room improves your performance and general well-being, keep doing it. If it doesn’t, do something else.

It’s not really important whether or not it works because it’s what cavemen did, the important thing is that it works.

Similarly, whether or not excessive long distance running messes us up because it makes our bodies think we’re being chased by tigers doesn’t really matter, what’s important is that excessive long distance running messes our bodies up.

It’s fun to try and hang theories on all this stuff, but to drag out my favourite Art Devany quote: “We need to recognise the limitations of knowledge and just get on the path that favours better outcomes”.

Where do I go to get one of these crystals by the way?

You’ll see adherents to this book talk about sleeping in a completely dark room with blackout curtains and no electrics (not even that clock radio) on, which to me seems extreme. Sure cavemen lived in caves. But every single hominid in the evolutionary timeframe lived in a cave? Nobody was sleeping under a full moon and stars? And no light whatsoever got into the cave? Seems a stretch.

Same goes for their theory on cholesterol. You develop more of it in preparation for the freezing temperatures of winter to keep your cells supple. What about those that lived where it didn’t freeze? Doesn’t that, in fact represent the vast majority of human evolution? I don’t think we ventured to the sunny climes of Ireland until human evolution was pretty well done.

If I remember correctly they also say you should never run because the body thinks it is being chased, and prepares to die. Apparently that’s why you release endorphins after a long enough run—so as to assuage your anxiety of dying and let you be eaten with a smile of your face. Now why the ability to die happily is an evolutionary benefit escapes me, and why the authors only assume you could be running away from something and not toward something like, say, dinner of your own, does not make sense to me.

So do you do as Mr. Wolf suggests and take the parts that make sense and discard the rest? I dunno. Call it a logical fallacy if you want but when someone tells me the secret to health is the wearing the right crystal around your neck I have a hard time taking their diet advice seriously.

[edited for ease of reading - Col]