12.12.07
Posted in Fitness, Sports
at 10:59 pm
This weekend, Lon will be visiting me after doing some work in San Diego. On Saturday, we will go surfing, which will be Lon’s first time. Depending on surf conditions, hangovers, and the weather, we will be going to either Seal Beach or El Porto.
In order to get Lon ready for the surf, I am proposing Berto’s Pre-Surfing Workout. Lon will have two grueling days to prepare for the time of his life:
- The Pop-Up
Popping up is the first thing you need to learn if you want to get up on your board. The pop-up is where you go from laying on your board to the surfing position in one smooth move.
First, lay a towel on the ground the width of a surfboard (22-23 inches should be good). Next, put your hands flat on the towel like a close-grip push up, hands at the chest level.
Launch yourself up in the air high enough to bring your knees up in a twisting motion landing in a balanced surfing crouch in one move. This is about a shoulder width half squat position.
Do something like the above picture, but with a less homo-erotic look on your face, take the goddamned sunglasses out of your hair, don’t grow your hair out like that, and don’t grab the rails of your board like this fool unless you want to eat shit on the bottom of the ocean. And if any of you have bought a towel like this, you are a retard.
Anyway, as a right-handed person, you will most likely want your left foot forward. If this is uncomfortable to you, then put your right foot forward, thus making you a “goofy-footed” person.
Tips: Keep your butt down. You want to squat, and stand from there, keeping your butt pointing down. If your butt is up, you are looking down, and you will fall over or pearl. Pearling also occurs when you are too far up on your board. Pearling sucks.
Do 3 sets of 10 pop-ups.
- Balance
Your shoulders and chest are probably a bit tired now, so let’s do something easy. You can’t surf without balance. Luckily, you are shorter than me and have better balance, as proven to the left. All you need to do is stand on one foot for 60 seconds at a time. This will work your stabilizer muscles.
Do 2 sets of 60-second balancing for each leg (ie. this will take 4 minutes)
- Shoulder Raises
Since we’ll be padding a lot, you’ll need your shoulder strength. If you have any 10 or 15lb weights, use these. If not, lift your laptop bag, your favorite Ayn Rand book, or your daughter Vanessa (all about the same weight!) to a 90 degree angle in front of you, one arm at a time. Do not go beyond 90 degrees, this puts too much torque on your shoulders!
Do 3 sets of 15 front shoulder raises per arm, vary reps depending on weight.
If you are feeling saucy, also do some lateral shoulder raises.
- Core Strength - Abs - Flutter Kicks
We’re going to do flutter kicks here, because they’re related to swimming (you won’t be kicking, but you never know) and Navy SEALS do them — luckily you won’t have to do them with heavy rubber fins on. Lie on your back, tuck your chin, raise your legs 6 inches in the air, and alternate your legs while keeping them straight with your toes pointed out.
Do 5 sets @ 20 seconds of flutter kicks. Count slow, do not cheat! If you’re not tired yet, do 10 close-grip pushups in between sets.
- Squats
Last one, let’s finish with the legs. Perform squats with no or little weight. Keep your back straight.
Do 3 sets of 15 squats. If you are feeling tough, do one-legged squats against the wall, 3 sets of 10 on each leg.
Now get ready to rock and let’s have some fun in the cold water! And of course, let’s make sure we hydrate ourselves Friday night!
Permalink
RSS feed for comments on this post · TrackBack URL
Leave a Comment
02.18.07
Posted in Fitness, Sports
at 3:02 pm
Yesterday I headed over to the local Dive ‘n Surf shop and walked out 583 dollars poorer. They were hosting their annual February yard sale, with some huge discounts for the slow season.
I walked in and told the sales guy, Fernando, what I wanted: a long soft top surfboard (used or new), new wetsuit, and removable soft roof rack for my car. They didn’t have much selection of soft boards, but I really liked what they had, as you can see. It’s a 9′ board, making it buoyant and easy for beginners.
Now that I’m in sales, I like to be ’sold’ to. I like to see peoples’ styles and incorporate anything I like into my repertoire. Or better yet, get to use all the annoying objections that I have to hear on a daily basis. However, surfer culture is very laid back, and Fernando had absolutely no sales push. While you might like that, I actually came away disappointed.
I also like to practice negotiating lately. Let’s take a look at the breakdown:
- Surboard: Retail = $579, Normal Dive N’ Surf Price = $479, Yardsale special = $379 (already below the $400 I was willing to spend)
- Body Glove 3/2 Wetsuit: Normal Dive N’ Surf Price = $219, Yardsale special = $149
- Soft Car Roof Rack: $41
Total after 8.25% sales tax = $615.94
Good prices, but more than I wanted to spend. I asked for discounts. He wouldn’t budge on the board, but took another twenty off the wetsuit and ten off the rack. I offered to go get a money order and pay cash if he’d knock more off. He declined.
So the price was $583, but I just wasn’t 100% happy. He gave me some time to think. That’s when I realized that he left out the $20 leash that connects the board to your ankle.
“Fernando, you forgot the leash. If you throw that in I’ll do it all for $583.” Deal.
I’m sure I could have done better (you always can), but at that point I was happy. With the leash, I got 9% off of already-discounted prices. I’m not out to dominate, I just wanna spend less than Joe Sixpack.
Negotiating makes me uncomfortable as hell. Perhaps that’s why it’s fun; it brings us out of our comfort zone and makes us elevate our game.
So anyway, I went surfing today. Or tried to. The tide at Redondo Beach was low, so the water was all deep. Waves weren’t breaking until they were literally on the beach, which means that you’re going to fall straight into sand and get clobbered.
The guys out there were bummed out. They didn’t have time to drive around the city and find a good spot. When there’s no surf, there’s depression. Imagine a group of Harley riders planning a huge weekend of riding, only to have thunderstorms ruin their plans. For us working folk, we only have two days open to surf, so we hope it’s great on those days. The sport is reliant on so many variables.
Either way, I decided to jump in and get some exercise. My board was very comfortable. I have fun just chilling on it and paddling around. One other guy was really good but only caught two waves in over an hour. I struck up conversation — his wife only gave him 2 hours away from the newborn baby, so he was frustrated. The only wave I caught (I guess you could say it caught me) destroyed me in shallow water. It was scary and next time I’ll need to learn to eject.
So guess who joins us to surf - two dolphins and a seal! I was about 20 feet away from these two fins, and quickly got alarmed. I asked the guy “Were those dolphins?” and he jokes “Let’s hope so!” Not surprisingly, the dolphins put us to shame and rode some deep waves.
Fun stuff. And for the first and definitely not the last time, I heard the age old dreaded line, “You should have been here yesterday”.
Permalink
RSS feed for comments on this post · TrackBack URL
Leave a Comment
02.08.07
Posted in Fitness
at 8:00 pm
…especially on Monday, which is normally a busy night.
And thus ends the January-Gym-Jam that plagues the fitness faithful every year. Those of you in the New Year’s Resolution Ring have faded away. I look forward to seeing you return the week before spring break and whenever people really start hitting the beaches hardcore out here.
Rather than yell at you for being worthless sacks of scum, I’d like to do something constructive. Let’s have a contest!
Whoever posts the BEST excuse for breaking your New Years Resolution wins 28oz of M&Ms… paid for by the hard-working staff here at MikeRoberto.com
So go ahead and post your pathetic sob stories in the comments, and be sure to include your e-mail address (it won’t get posted and I won’t sell you to spammers). The contest ends in one week on 2/15/07, which is conveniently on pay-day.
FAQ
- What do you mean by “best”?
I don’t know. Whatever I like best. Either the funniest, or the most humiliating, or the most pathetic excuse. The more detail the better
- Do I have to tell you what my resolution was?
No, but it might help.
- Will you ship internationally?
No. If you are foreign, I’ll PayPal you $5. If you don’t have PayPal, then tough luck. This offer excludes anyone from Iran, Syria, Iraq, North Korea, and France.
- 28oz?
Yes. According to the Official M&M’s Site, they are available in these sizes: 1.69 oz., 3.14 oz., 5.3 oz., 9.4 oz., 14 oz., 21.3 oz., 52 oz. I will purchase and ship two 14oz bags.
- 2 bags? Can I choose my configuration if I win?
Sure, as long they’re available in 14oz portions.
- What if there’s a heat wave next week?
They have a thin candy shell!
- I don’t trust you. What’s the catch?
None. The greatest thing about people who don’t trust me is how quickly they realize that I can be trusted due to my total apathy for all things malicious. In other words, I am too socially lazy to do anything bad that would lose your trust.
- Peanut M&M’s are the best!
I agree
- Where’d you find that picture of a fat kid with a shovel?
images.google.com is still the coolest site out there for finding the weirdest crap on the net. No offense to fat kid with shovel.
Good luck everyone! 2/15/07 is your deadline… and don’t worry if I post another blog before then, it’ll still be in effect.
Permalink
RSS feed for comments on this post · TrackBack URL
Leave a Comment
12.18.06
Posted in Fitness
at 12:02 am
In the spring of 2004 while at Ohio State, I spent two nights in a row with my contacts in. After the second night, I took them out for a few hours, but put them back into play softball with my friends. Within an hour, my eyes came under intense pain. Washing them out did nothing, so I ran home and took my contacts out.
It was too late. My filthy contacts had given me a corneal infection, and I had a housemate, Ryan, take me to the hospital. Some antibiotic drops every hour for two days took care of the problem, and I learned my lesson.
The lesson was this: “When I can afford it, I’m getting LASIK surgery.”
I kept true to that promise and saved up for LASIK this year using a flexible medical spending account, and shopped around Austin for the best clinic.
So on Thursday, Dec 14, I had LASIK at LaserView in Austin.
Steve-o took me to the clinic at 7:30am, where they put some painkilling eye drops in, dilated my eyes like never before, and gave me a deliciously tasty valium (along with an Aleve).
I like LaserVIEW because they use two lasers – one to cut the flap of the eye, rather than a blade, and then a Wavefront-Guided Custom LASIK laser as well.
The first laser was easy enough, and the flap cuts were made. My right eye took it well, but some bubbles got into the left eye’s flaps, so we had to wait five minutes for the bubbles to dissolve out. A normal occurrence, but it could have caused some future problems.
At this point, I was well under the effects of the Valium, and was helped to the LASIK machine. The surgeon, Dr. Walters, moved the flaps with a mini-spatula, which made my vision move around like something out of a bad trip as he was getting the cornea out of the way.
When the flap was off, everything was ridiculously blurry. My eyes were clamped down, and I was staring intently at the tiny red light, which was absolutely enormous in my field of vision at the time. Thirty seconds for each eye, a nasty smell of burning flesh, and they then “painted” the flap back over my eye.
Steve almost vomited twice while watching my eyes on TV.
After the flaps were put back on, things were very foggy, but under that fog I could instantly tell that things were already greatly improved. It was amazing. I thanked the doctors, stumbled out with sunglasses on, and Steve grabbed some breakfast tacos from El Arroyo before I passed out. Looking into light really hurt due to the dilation.
With these lasers, there’s about an hour or so worth of burning pain. It helps to sleep through it, which I half-succeeded at. Unsurprisingly, the goggles they gave me to protect from scratching my eyes didn’t fit so well on my rather large nose. The burning feeling wasn’t all that bad, it felt exactly like when I’d get hot sauce in my eyes (as a hot wing devourer and contact wearer, this happened more than you’d imagine). I’d rather not have it, but it wasn’t that bad.
The Valium did numbers on me. I slept more in the next two days than I have since being a baby. I would gladly take another Valium on a boring weekend.
The next day, my right eye was 20/20, and my dominant left eye is unfortunately 20/30. Every time I wake up I get so excited to look at my clock…
My complication is that I have some inflammation in the left eye which is right by the pupil, and it has not yet gone down. Everything in my left eye is just a bit “off”… as if I have a contact that’s not exactly fitting right.
So it’s now Sunday, and I cannot yet say that I’m completely satisfied. I need my left eye to read, and it is still not as good as the contacts were. It is amazing that I’m not wearing any lenses, but I want perfection and my inflammation still hasn’t gone down. I also have poor night vision and lights at night give me the “halo” effect around lights at night, but that’s all normal.
I will keep you updated to see if my left eye’s problem goes down, but if it stays like this forever, I will have it touched up.
Until then, I’ll continue my steady dosage of eye drops, and hope that the claims that it gets better throughout the first month are true. At that point, I’ll give a full recommendation for LaserVIEW in Austin.
Thanks again, Steve! And Ryan too!
Permalink
RSS feed for comments on this post · TrackBack URL
Leave a Comment
11.22.06
Posted in Fitness
at 8:16 pm
The 6 weeks of engineering sales training are over! My final presentation was quite a success and I’m excited to get out to LA!
Unfortunately, since the start of this glorious football season, I’ve exercised about 5 times, and am now in some of the worst shape of my life. I’m still just under 200lbs, but I’ve simply turned all of my muscle into fat.
I feel like garbage and it’s time to turn this around. So here’s the goals:
- Weight lift 3x a week
- Cardio 3x a week (running or swimming)
- 185g protein per day, preferably 200.
To keep track of my diet, I will be using FitDay, which totals your foods’ calorie/fat/protein content.
Additionally, I’m keeping track of my goals using a site called Traineo, which lets you add people who help motivate you (I need to get some motivators). Click the link below to see my profile:
I put in 205 as my goal weight, but don’t care much about weight.
I am now also sporting a minor caffeine addiction. Fun headaches!
In other news, I’m coming home to Cleveland for Thanksgiving and am very excited to get back.
Permalink
RSS feed for comments on this post · TrackBack URL
Leave a Comment
Since we’ll be padding a lot, you’ll need your shoulder strength. If you have any 10 or 15lb weights, use these. If not, lift your laptop bag, your favorite Ayn Rand book, or your daughter Vanessa (all about the same weight!) to a 90 degree angle in front of you, one arm at a time. Do not go beyond 90 degrees, this puts too much torque on your shoulders!
Billy said,
12.13.07 at 6:58 am
I suggest that you start with the slide up approach. It helped me quite a bit. It is still one motion but is much, much easier.
Costa Rican Beginner Surfer King
Uncle A said,
12.13.07 at 1:19 pm
Hey Berto, Thanks, I did all the above and am now in Hillcrest hospital. Will be out in time to make the mussels and smelts for Christmas Eve. Have fun
Bill said,
12.14.07 at 10:37 am
When you get right down do it surfing is pretty easy. All you have to do is put yourself in the way of a wave that wants to drill you into the sand, before it does that just stand up.