My NROL Experience

[LWilson212]

Awesome workout! Obviously Tim cancelling on you did not slow you down.

[stingo]

Originally Posted by tcoy777

Way to go !!! your really getting stronger on these. I will be trying this workout after next weeks last Hyp 2 workouts. You have given me something to shoot for.

I'll look forward to seeing your experience with it.

[stingo]

Originally Posted by LWilson212

Awesome workout! Obviously Tim cancelling on you did not slow you down.

Yup - I still have a workout to do regardless. I just like the variety that training with Tim offers.

[stingo]

I just subscribed to the Philly Orchestra for the coming season. I'm very excited to be getting to hear M5, Elgar's Cello Concerto, Brahms' Violin Concerto, Mendelssohn's Reformation Symphony - all by artists I have recordings of. Looks like it will be a GREAT season.

CONLON CONDUCTS BEETHOVEN
November 1, 2008 ( Sat, 8:00 PM )

The Philadelphia Orchestra
James Conlon, conductor


SCHREKER Prelude to a Drama
ZEMLINSKY Scenes from The Dwarf
BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 7


TILSON THOMAS CONDUCTS MAHLER
November 8, 2008
The Philadelphia Orchestra
Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor
Paul Jacobs, organ

COPLAND Symphony for Organ and Orchestra
MAHLER Symphony No. 5

ELGAR'S CELLO CONCERTO
December 6, 2008 ( Sat, 8:00 PM )

The Philadelphia Orchestra
David Zinman, conductor
Truls Mørk, cello


BARBER Symphony No. 1
ELGAR Cello Concerto
STRAUSS Also sprach Zarathustra


JUROWSKI CONDUCTS MAHLER
March 7, 2009 ( Sat, 8:00 PM )

The Philadelphia Orchestra
Vladimir Jurowski, conductor
Twyla Robinson, soprano
Iris Vermillion, mezzo-soprano
Michael Hendrick, tenor
The Philadelphia Singers Chorale, David Hayes, music director


BERG Three Pieces for Orchestra
MAHLER Das klagende Lied

PREVIN PLAYS AND CONDUCTS
April 4, 2009 ( Sat, 8:00 PM )

The Philadelphia Orchestra
André Previn, conductor and piano


MOZART Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K. 491
STRAUSS Symphonia domestica


DENÈVE CONDUCTS
April 25, 2009 ( Sat, 8:00 PM )

The Philadelphia Orchestra
Stéphane Denève, conductor
Jonathan Biss, piano


CONNESSON Une Lueur dans l'age sombre
BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No. 3
MENDELSSOHN Symphony No. 5 ("Reformation")

THE DAMNATION OF FAUST
May 2, 2009
The Philadelphia Orchestra
Simon Rattle, conductor
Magdalena Kožená, mezzo-soprano
Giuseppe Sabbatini, tenor
Eric Owens, bass-baritone
Thomas Quasthoff, bass-baritone
The Philadelphia Singers Chorale, David Hayes, music director

BERLIOZ The Damnation of Faust



FISCHER PLAYS BRAHMS
May 30, 2009 ( Sat, 8:00 PM )

The Philadelphia Orchestra
Charles Dutoit, conductor
Julia Fischer, violin


BEETHOVEN Overture, Coriolan
HONEGGER Symphony No. 3 ("Liturgical")
BRAHMS Violin Concerto

BERLIOZ'S REQUIEM
June 21, 2009
The Philadelphia Orchestra
Charles Dutoit, conductor
Paul Groves, tenor
The Philadelphia Singers Chorale, David Hayes, music director

BERLIOZ Requiem

[Kirjava]

Originally Posted by stingo

I just subscribed to the Philly Orchestra for the coming season. I'm very excited to be getting to hear M5, Elgar's Cello Concerto, Brahms' Violin Concerto, Mendelssohn's Reformation Symphony - all by artists I have recordings of. Looks like it will be a GREAT season.

CONLON CONDUCTS BEETHOVEN
November 1, 2008 ( Sat, 8:00 PM )

The Philadelphia Orchestra
James Conlon, conductor


SCHREKER Prelude to a Drama
ZEMLINSKY Scenes from The Dwarf
BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 7


TILSON THOMAS CONDUCTS MAHLER
November 8, 2008
The Philadelphia Orchestra
Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor
Paul Jacobs, organ

COPLAND Symphony for Organ and Orchestra
MAHLER Symphony No. 5

ELGAR'S CELLO CONCERTO
December 6, 2008 ( Sat, 8:00 PM )

The Philadelphia Orchestra
David Zinman, conductor
Truls Mørk, cello


BARBER Symphony No. 1
ELGAR Cello Concerto
STRAUSS Also sprach Zarathustra


JUROWSKI CONDUCTS MAHLER
March 7, 2009 ( Sat, 8:00 PM )

The Philadelphia Orchestra
Vladimir Jurowski, conductor
Twyla Robinson, soprano
Iris Vermillion, mezzo-soprano
Michael Hendrick, tenor
The Philadelphia Singers Chorale, David Hayes, music director


BERG Three Pieces for Orchestra
MAHLER Das klagende Lied

PREVIN PLAYS AND CONDUCTS
April 4, 2009 ( Sat, 8:00 PM )

The Philadelphia Orchestra
André Previn, conductor and piano


MOZART Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K. 491
STRAUSS Symphonia domestica


DENÈVE CONDUCTS
April 25, 2009 ( Sat, 8:00 PM )

The Philadelphia Orchestra
Stéphane Denève, conductor
Jonathan Biss, piano


CONNESSON Une Lueur dans l'age sombre
BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No. 3
MENDELSSOHN Symphony No. 5 ("Reformation")

THE DAMNATION OF FAUST
May 2, 2009
The Philadelphia Orchestra
Simon Rattle, conductor
Magdalena Kožená, mezzo-soprano
Giuseppe Sabbatini, tenor
Eric Owens, bass-baritone
Thomas Quasthoff, bass-baritone
The Philadelphia Singers Chorale, David Hayes, music director

BERLIOZ The Damnation of Faust



FISCHER PLAYS BRAHMS
May 30, 2009 ( Sat, 8:00 PM )

The Philadelphia Orchestra
Charles Dutoit, conductor
Julia Fischer, violin


BEETHOVEN Overture, Coriolan
HONEGGER Symphony No. 3 ("Liturgical")
BRAHMS Violin Concerto

BERLIOZ'S REQUIEM
June 21, 2009
The Philadelphia Orchestra
Charles Dutoit, conductor
Paul Groves, tenor
The Philadelphia Singers Chorale, David Hayes, music director

BERLIOZ Requiem

Wow.........that looks amazing. What a rich lineup. Diverse and exciting and beautiful! Beethoven's 7th is my favourite.......
Excellent decision and I hope you enjoy every single minute.

[stingo]

Originally Posted by Kirjava

Wow.........that looks amazing. What a rich lineup. Diverse and exciting and beautiful! Beethoven's 7th is my favourite.......
Excellent decision and I hope you enjoy every single minute.

I thought so too - the original package was 6 concerts, so I had to add in the two Berlioz concerts as well as the Tilson Thomas/M5. I have recordings from most of/if not all of the artists in each concert. I'm particularly looking forward to hearing Mørk, Fischer, Biss, Quasthoff and Kozena - who, if you're a classical music junkie, are about as close to stars (or up and comers) as you can get.

[stingo]

A Warrior Press - 3x6@45

B Squats - 2x25@65

C Reverse Pull-up - 4 sets AMRAP (approx 6 or 7 per set)

D Pull-ups - 4 sets AMRAP (10, then approx 6 or 7)

E Incline 5 Walking Shoulder Press - 1x12@15 3x15@15

F DB Sweeping Row - 2x8@25

G Push-up - 1x10

H DB Press Dropset - (1x12 then 1x8 each arm)@25, (1x12 then 1x8 each arm)@20

A Warrior Press - Interesting new exercise. Take an olympic barbell and hoist it to your shoulder like a javelin. Then squat, and as you come up, press the bar overhead. (This was the part I actually did). The full version has you widening your stance and hosting the barbell like a spear in victory. (Between this and the modified 300 workout, I think Tim's been watching too many swords and sandal films.) Tim had to help me with this one balancing the bar, and I had to use both hands to get the barbell up - it really worked my shoulders. Tim was bound and determined that I was going to do this one. I'm glad I did.

B Squats - Traditional back squats with a barbell and a squat rack. Felt good to use the barbell for A and B this time out. It's been a while.

C Reverse Pull-up - First time for this exercise. I had my doubts, but was able to manage about 6 or 7 reps per set. Used the olympic bar and the squat rack for this one.

D Pull-ups - Assisted of course by the weight stack. Tim complimented my range of motion - something I've been trying to do whenever I've done them in the modified 300 workout.

E Incline 5 Walking Shoulder Press - Another different exercise - walking on a treadmill on an incline while doing shoulder presses.

F DB Sweeping Row - Another variation - using a wide stance, place the dumbbell on the outside of the left foot. Using the right hand in an overhand grip, pick up the dumbbell and sweep it across your body (twisting your arm to get it into position) and do a row, reversing the motion to place it back outside your left foot. Interesting - a cool way to get other muscles involved.

G Push-up - This was supposed to be 4 sets AMRAP, but my left shoulder wasn't having any of that. So I did 1 set of 10 reps.

H DB Press Dropset - Since I couldn't do push-ups, Tim was ready to call it a day, but I wasn't about to let a muscle group go unexercised. So I suggested doing bench presses (which my left shoulder, even though it wasn't happy, wasn't screaming about like it was for the push-ups). So we did a couple of dropsets. Using 2 dumbbells I did 1 set of 12 reps, then Tim would take one away, and I'd do 8 more reps with the weighted arm.

Overall - Another interesting workout from Tim. I'm finding that my general conditioning level is improving, in that I don't need as much recovery time between sets. Had an odd moment though - while sitting on the weight bench after the dropset (Tim had gone for a paper/pencil to write the workout out), I looked into the mirror and didn't recognize the person looking back at me. First off, I looked larger than my mental image suggested. I attribute this to gaining a few pounds from my "carnivore diet" experiments (more on those later), BUT I can also say that I "looked" stronger. That it wasn't all fat gain, that there was some muscle in there somewhere. It was most likely the pump from the workout, but still - it made me feel good.

As for the carnivore diet - I'd not eaten red meat in a long, long time. So for a few days I'd pick up these steaks - sirloins, porterhouses, etc and just broil 'em up. The bad part was i found I could consume quite a lot of steak before feeling full - so I'm sure the excess calories are making their presence felt. But I did notice that when I did my strength training routines the day after having had the red meat, I had nice performance gains. So I'll keep experimenting to reach a happy medium with my meat consumption.

[Lost Dog]

Originally Posted by stingo

Indeed it's certainly possible that that had something to do with it. On a totally subjective, observational note, it seems like I can eat more protein than carbs or fats without storing them as fat. That is, it almost seems like the body can use more of the protein, so there's less chance of it being converted to fat.

Even thought it only has 4 cals per gram, of all the macros, protein takes the most energy to digest (Thermic Effect of Feeding, or TEF). Up to 25% more energy. So, you eat 800 cals of P and 200 of those cals are burned up burning up the protein. Sweet deal.

Here's an article that's pretty interesting on the subject...

TESTOSTERONE NATION - Harness the Power of TEF

Originally Posted by stingo

A Warrior Press - Interesting new exercise. Take an olympic barbell and hoist it to your shoulder like a javelin. Then squat, and as you come up, press the bar overhead. (This was the part I actually did). The full version has you widening your stance and hosting the barbell like a spear in victory. (Between this and the modified 300 workout, I think Tim's been watching too many swords and sandal films.) Tim had to help me with this one balancing the bar, and I had to use both hands to get the barbell up - it really worked my shoulders. Tim was bound and determined that I was going to do this one. I'm glad I did.

Those sound hard. Like those Snatch Balances that Jill and Tina do. Nice.

Originally Posted by stingo

As for the carnivore diet - I'd not eaten red meat in a long, long time. So for a few days I'd pick up these steaks - sirloins, porterhouses, etc and just broil 'em up. The bad part was i found I could consume quite a lot of steak before feeling full - so I'm sure the excess calories are making their presence felt. But I did notice that when I did my strength training routines the day after having had the red meat, I had nice performance gains. So I'll keep experimenting to reach a happy medium with my meat consumption.

I feel the same way about red meat. I love it, but I'll eat it all. I buy a steak that 2-3 servings, cut it up and wrap the 2 extra pieces, uncooked. A man has to know his limitations.

[nutbar]

Oh, wow, those are some cool new moves!

I can't wait to get our steer in the freezer so I can be a carnivore, too. I so love a nice bloody steak. *drool* Sausage, hamburger, and chicken are getting pretty tiresome right now.

[tcoy777]

Great job on the workouts. Sounds like he has you doing challenging workouts.

[kfisherx]

Really cool workout Tom. Very divrse and challenging.

Also WOW!!! That is quite the annual lineup for that orchestra. Some awesome concertos. Are they typically pretty good? I love the Seattle symphony and like the Portland one. But the Portland Baroque Orchestra is amazing!

[stingo]

Originally Posted by Lost Dog

A man has to know his limitations.

I do indeed - trying to figure those out this week. Thanks for the portioning idea.

Originally Posted by nutbar

Oh, wow, those are some cool new moves!

I can't wait to get our steer in the freezer so I can be a carnivore, too. I so love a nice bloody steak. *drool* Sausage, hamburger, and chicken are getting pretty tiresome right now.

Yup - that's why I asked if you did any bench presses one-armed, since you were talking about your stabilizers.

Originally Posted by tcoy777

Great job on the workouts. Sounds like he has you doing challenging workouts.

Yeah he made mention of the fact that the warrior press was an advanced exercise (which of course he made look easy to do).

Originally Posted by kfisherx

Really cool workout Tom. Very divrse and challenging.

Also WOW!!! That is quite the annual lineup for that orchestra. Some awesome concertos. Are they typically pretty good? I love the Seattle symphony and like the Portland one. But the Portland Baroque Orchestra is amazing!

Well that's the concert series I picked (6A, with the Berlioz works and M5 added on) - they have 4 six concert packages (6A-6D) and two nine concert packages (9A and 9B) for Saturday nights. (There are also packages for Thursday, Friday afternoon, Friday evening and Sunday.)

As for the orchestra itself, it's world class, particularly the string section. Always a joy to hear them whether live or on recordings.

[stingo]

Watched my two other Netflix movies today.

The Vikings - Swords and sandals film starring Kirk Douglas (who was also the film's producer), Ernest Borgnine, Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh. An ambitious adventure film which starts out (after an uncredited introduction by Orson Welles) with the Vikings raiding and pillaging a town. This of course sets in motion the movie's intrigues, both political and familial, with some surprises along the way. The principals do a great job in their respective roles, but for me Borgnine as the Viking chieftain was the best.

The battle scenes were well done. It's interesting to see how different a similar movie would be made today. I understand audiences of the time felt the movie was gory, but that was for one particular scene in the film (not a battle scene). Compared to today's versions like Gladiator and more particularly the 300, the action may seem to be a bit staid, but I liked the style used. You knew a person was dead by the way the fight was acted out, not from huge spurts of blood. One other thing I liked was the attention to authenticity and detail (e.g., the Viking ships were built from original Viking blueprints), which gave an additional sense of realism.

While melodramatic in some parts, I have to say I enjoyed The Vikings and think it worth the two hour running time.

Dance With Me - Like most romantic comedies, the end result is a foregone conclusion - the interest lies in seeing how the film makes the journey from beginning to end. Here, the love interest is Vanessa Williams' Ruby and Chayanne's Rafael Infante. Like Strictly Ballroom, it looks at dancing at the competitive level, and also on the emotional level (you can guess which wins out). The dancing of course is very good, particularly in the ending stages of the film. (To me, the most fun one happens at the Titon dance club.)

I also liked how the film relied on the secondary characters to enhance the story. Just as often the laughs come from the supporting cast, if not moreso than the principals.

That said, I think Dance With Me is an engaging romantic comedy, spiced up with some good Latin dancing. Definitely worth a view.

[stingo]

Well it looks like I'll have to do some rescheduling as I have a meeting right at my usual workout time. I'm thinking of taking the circuit training class at 5:15, and then doing my strength training tomorrow, along with spinning since my appointment with Tim this week is on Thursday again. That and we (Tim and I) figured out that it's my left front deltoid which is giving me problems doing push-ups and the like, so I'm hoping the extra day's rest will help.

Diet remains a challenge - this past weekend was happy hour and St. Patrick's Day ('tis my middle name after all). I need to dial in my nutrition again, so it can be a no-brainer (eat this, this and this, but not this, and I'll lose weight kind of thing). So I intend to monitor my eating habits more closely as well as making some modifications (such as dropping calorie intake). It sucks because taking in too few calories or too many leads to the same result (body storing fat). While I want to be sure to have enough energy