Enter the Asylum

A week after the last Tough Mudder I was still recovering from a knee injury and broken toe. A sane person would have rested and healed up but I just got Asylum in! Asylum is the bigger meaner brother of Insanity. I chose to go by the namesake, be a little crazy, and commit myself into the Asylum asap. April 17th I threw myself into the grinder.

The first thing I had to do was the brand new Athletic Assessment aka Fit Test. How bad could it be; I completed 2 rounds of Insanity, a round of P90X, a round of P90X Plus, and was currently doing a hybrid with all of the above including volume 3 of P90X one on one (workshop for the brand new P90X coming out fall 2011) right before the Mudder. That Fit Test was a huge wake up call. I actually found it tougher than some full workouts. In fact I nearly killed myself on the last test. Those 30sec-1min breaks in between exercises are a tease.

It's ok though because no matter how tough Asylum was it was a mere 30 days. Piece of cake. Wrong again. I expected Asylum to be tough but I didn't expect it to take me to the places it took me. The program introduces some new tools of destruction to the mix that really changed the game.

The first workout after the Fit Test was called "Speed and Agility" and made use of one of Asylums new tools; the agility ladder.  The ladder was great because it really helped with positioning and proper form. It was a great physical guide to foot and hand placement when performing movements like squat jumps from the floor, switch lunges, and full "long jumps". Also warm-ups are now jump rope drills which is why a speed rope was included with the package.

Another new tool introduced in Asylum are power bands; essentially giant rubber bands you put on your ankles and/or grip with you hands. I used to have a ton of trouble with power jumps but eventually I got to the point where I could bang out 40-50 in a minute with no problem (used to have trouble with 20-30 lol) and some more if I really pushed. These bands slapped me back into reality and showed me that power jumps could still be brutal.

In the Asylum workout "Vertical Plyo", the bands were used on your ankles to provide resistance as you attempted to jump from a squat position and tap knees to hands aka power jumps. The resistance by those bands as you tried to perform the movements was pretty ridiculous. Even your upper body got some special treatment as you would do things like "X jumps", where you would touch your toes then jump up with arms and legs wide forming an "X", while bands were on your ankles and death gripped in your hands. "Vertical Plyo" was a test in pure power with the intensity and pace that should be illegal while using the bands.  Too bad my band for your hands/wrists broke mid program.

Unlike Insanity, Asylum also included a resistance program aptly called "Strength". This workout included the use of dumbbells and the good old pullup bar. Unlike normal resistance workouts this one was paced aggressively and you end up sweating like you were doing a cardio routine. This workout actually was kind of like a cross-fit workout. The moves were all compound moves that required a lot of strength and it was all done in quick succession.

Probably my favorite of the new workouts is "Back to Core". "Back to Core" focused on, you guessed it, your back and your core. It isn't often that there are programs that specifically work the back band of your core in such a fine tuning manner. Most people think of your core as just your abdominals anyway, let alone work the rear kinetic chain. "Back to Core" is such a great tool to enhance your overall performance by focusing on parts of your body that you would normally neglect and often times is the reason we get injured.

At the end of about every week or so you build up to a workout called "Game Day". In "Game Day" you get to take your newly improved body "out for a spin". It is almost like a much longer Fit Test. "Game Day" includes movements from numerous sports and engages all your systems. To top it off at the end you get to do a bonus 10 minutes of hell called "Overtime". I had a friend who had completed Insanity try "Overtime" fresh and was getting killed. Now imagine a set of brutal movements like that stacked right after "Game Day". I used to do a P90X workout followed immediately by an Insanity workout back to back and even that was not as tough as "Game Day" plus "Overtime".

All in all Asylum was a ridiculously brutal and efficient program. You will burn fat, lean out, tone up, and improve performance overall. The gains in 30 days of Asylum have been better than gains I have seen in 60 or even 90 day programs. I am so glad I completed the other programs before Asylum; I don't know if I would have made it through Asylum had I not done so (at least not effectively). Can't wait to test the results of a few more rounds of Asylum at the next Tough Mudder! And now some more embarrassing "before and after" photos - this time comparing my oh so amazing pictures from before I started working out last April to current (May 2011)!

Friday the 13th to Mars

Friday the 13th (one week ago from yesterday) for some is a very ominous day full of dread and bad luck. For the other less paranoid folk it is just another day. As for me, my wife, my brother, and a "friend of a friend", Friday the 13th defined "Provehito in altum". If you understood that, most likely you are Echelon. Put simply - we attended the taping for MTV Unplugged featuring 30 Seconds to Mars in good ol Harlem!

Echelon Family

 Now you know the "who", "what", "where" and "when". As for the "how"; we were not "caller 100" the "one thousandth customer!" nor did we find a golden ticket wrapped around a candy bar. We simply replied to a call out to the fans on facebook and sent in our mugshots. Jokes on casting as we actually participated in the performance and my singing voice is the kill. oh and not to forget the "why". "Why" is because we were the kings and queens of the selection. Also, we got to paint our faces with "war paint" as per email request and any chance to act a fool - we'll take it!

The email also requested we print out attached lyrics and learn them so the whole ride into Harlem we were reading and singing the songs in the car. We were determined, like soldiers on a search and destroy mission to get the songs down pat. It was pretty interesting at stop lights when people would look into our car at 4 face painted strangers in a strange land singing songs while reading off of lyric sheets. Only thing weirder is if we had ourselves an L490 singing bowl in the car.

Garage rehearsal

Upon arrival we caught Tomo on a little escape outside for some fresh air. We checked in and got our cool MTV bands and were led down into the bowels of the building right into the garage. I wondered if the MTV people thought "ok these guys look crazy - let's lead them out the back way and hope they don't come around to try and get in again". Fortunately we were in the right place as there was a group of other crazies (echelon) in the garage "rehearsing". By "rehearsing" I mean everyone was grouped around a radio playing the songs and queued  when to sing certain parts by the sophisticated method of someone holding up a piece of oak tag with lyrics written in sharpie. Not gonna lie it was kinda cool especially since Tomo stopped in a bit for some guidance on what exactly to do and expect at the taping to come.

Tomo from Earth

After the garage session and the vox populi was prepped, we were lead up to a staging area aka mini cafeteria aka the sweat lodge. It felt like 100 suns. We did a little bit of "rehearsing" in there as well while everyone took bathroom breaks in groups grade school style. Not too many people cared to go until it was announced that once taping began there would be no breaks and immediately there was a surge and "this is war" was written on everyone's face as they fought to get to the front of the pack.

When we were finally lead up to the studio there was one final rite of passage. This is the part when the casting director points at people and the final set pieces to the stage are put in place - Us! This is also the part when everyone was separated to give the proper crowd balance. It was a beautiful lie. I was too cool so I got to go in first...well 3rd but I still got to sit right up front...on the floor...by a candle stand that probably hid me from view from any cameras. The important thing though was I was up front lol. The set was tiny so everyone was pretty close (closer than you would be than front row of a regular concert), but being up front, I was closer to the edge.

I was sitting right next to that candle stand!

In fact I was so close I could touch Tomo's pedals and he had the distinct pleasure of enduring the hurricane that was my singing voice the entire evening. I actually reached toward him to demonstrate to my brother, who was a bit behind me, how close I was only to have Michael Clarke Duncan aka security guard menacingly shout "Don't touch him!" from behind the set. I had no alibi and just laughed.

Groupies

Aww yea I got the pick!

The performance itself was pure awesome. The energy was crazy - everyone was ready to attack. We've seen them live before and heard these songs but the acoustic versions they performed were amazing. Jared was a little sick and we thought that maybe he would sound a little off - wrong. It was the best we've heard the band. It was such an experience to literally perform with 30 Seconds to Mars and have the band react and guide us through the songs and enjoy some idle back and forth chatter between sets. They also messed around with other songs like The Cure's "pictures of you" to Eminem's/Rihanna's "love the way you lie", and even some "message in a bottle" by the Police!

The end was a real treat as the band brought out a choir to finish with U2's "Where the streets have no name". Joshua Tree was one of my all time favorite albums and I remember writing about it for a project in the 3rd or 4th grade. The cover of "where the streets have no name" definitely resonated with me and brought me back (as if I am an old man now). The whole performance was epic and it was a trip to really be a part of the show rather than just sit and watch. That night WE were part of the band. It was a night of sublime adrenaline - A night of the hunter.