Heavy Ass Weights

You could be forgiven if, looking at Ronnie Coleman, you took him as a poor source for wisdom. This is why I've not included a picture of him here - though you can certainly Google all you like. Ronnie was a 7 time Mr. Olympia, and as such, looked to most eyes a grotesquely massive figure. This is not the aesthetic people associate with pithy quotes to live by. And yet, he gives us this:

"Everybody wants to be a bodybuilder, but nobody wants to lift no heavy ass weights"

You can cross apply this to nearly anything. "Everybody wants to be a marathoner, but nobody want to do no long ass training runs", perhaps? 

But this isn't a running post, and it certainly isn't a bodybuilding post. It's not really a coffee post either, specifically. Though it could be all of those things, or anything else, if you wanted it to be. 

It's a post about this: Don't consider the end goal, so much as the process. If you don't lift said heavy ass weights, you aren't going to get jacked. (Steroids help.) If you don't run long, you won't race long. So find something you like doing, do it, commit to working your ass of at it, and see where it gets you. This is not to say that your work will always be fun; but if it's meaningful, if it matters to you and adds value to your life, you'll do it. 

And you'll get there, wherever there is. 

The Needless Barista Health Crisis

My identity is basically split down the middle, half barista, half runner. These things combined form most people's image of me, which is cool, because that's the image I've put out in to the world. We are the sum of our choices and our actions; we are what we consistently do. I make coffee and I run a lot. So, you know, those conclusions are wholly logical.

As a runner, I value my health and fitness. I ask my body to do a lot of things - sometimes very difficult, borderline insane things. But I put the work in, so I survive. Sometimes I even place sort of high. This is because of the work, because I don't show up at the start line of a marathon without training properly. I run a lot, of course, but also spend a few hours a week on general strength and core work. Because these things matter to runners.

And, I would argue, they should matter to baristas too. Baristas stand all day, lift things, and tamp. None of these things, taken on their own, are hard. But they can add up, over the hours, and then over the weeks, years, etc. You can end up, quite easily, with a host of chronic issues from the neck down.

Sprudge is currently running a series on barista health. It's a great and informative series, asking questions that no one (to my knowledge) has yet considered. And the results, frankly, are depressing. In short: We, as an occupation, are hurt all the fucking time. We are young and yet complain of afflictions usually confined to retirement homes. It doesn't have to be this way. It shouldn't be this way.

I wrote this comment on Part 2 of the series: If you are the sort of person who prioritizes health and fitness outside of work, you’ll have less problems at work. That is, if you have adequate strength and mobility across the basic planes of movement, tamping and standing all day shouldn’t be difficult at all. I would also suggest that wearing flatter shoes would do many baristas a world of good. The higher the heel to forefoot ratio, the more torque is placed on your knees. That stress is moved up the kinetic chain, and can result in back and shoulder problems too.

Simple. It really is. Maintain a healthy weight. Don't eat like shit. Lift things. Move.

Standing and tamping all day don't create weaknesses, they reveal them. Fix the underlying lifestyle problems that lead to those weaknesses, and you'll be better off.

The Proverbial Midnight Oil is Probably Bitter and Not as Delicious as Espresso, But Drink the Latter and You Burn the Former, Usually

I am writing this, not exactly as a public service announcement, but at least as an acknowledgment. I had a fair bit of espresso this afternoon, after having a fair bit of coffee in the morning. I then spent somewhere around 3 hours in the gym, because I look at tapering for a race like setting up expectations.  And frankly, I'm not quite sure enough of myself yet to have those. If I taper, then it's a target race. And if I blow a target race, well, that's not very good at all. (I guess this part only makes sense if I explain that I'm racing a 50K this Saturday. So, yeah, there's that. I'll probably write a really long race report about it. Get excited. Or stop reading for a week. Your call.)

But I digress. I had espresso, lots of it, and then went to the gym. I spent some time on the treadmill, the elliptical, then the treadmill again. Then I did core work until I couldn't, and dips and chinups until my arms went limp. Then I went back to the treadmill, jacked up the incline, did some sprints, then lowered it, and did some more. Then I did headstands for a bit, and tried to do handstands, but failed. I almost fell on my head a few times, but always landed safely, if gracelessly.

I decided that was probably enough, so I cleaned up, went across the street to the grocery store, and bought some kombucha (a delicious little money vampire that I hate that I like), sweet potatoes, and pears.

Happy with this haul, I ate a bit, and then sat down to read, if not the whole internet, most of it. The thing is, people keep adding things, like, all the time, so you never really get a reprieve. And so I read, about coffee and mitochondria and a kid getting eaten by an alligator, almost.

I decided that, since it was getting late, I should probably turn my computer off. And so I did, but since I wasn't tired yet, I started reading the latest edition of Running Times, which really makes me want to root for the Kenyans this Olympic year, which isn't patriotic, but oh well. But doing that made me want to check a couple running websites I had missed during my previous internet rounds, because there was too much other neat stuff in the way, so I did that.

Finally, reading made me thing about writing, that maybe I should do it, but I didn't have a story idea. But, you know, lack of a coherent narrative never stopped me from putting digital ink down, and so here we are.

Maybe there is a lesson here, which is why I decided to post this. Maybe you shouldn't inhale espresso late in the afternoon. Of course, they do say you can sleep when your dead, but I don't know about that. Really, I hope they're wrong, because if we get to sleep when we're dead, that means whatever afterlife you believe in doesn't have espresso, and seriously, fuck that.

Milk Curls

(Note: Biceps written about below may be somewhat smaller than those picture above)

People will tell you that curls provide no benefit when it comes to functional strength. And they will tell you, furthermore, that functional strength should be your goal, if you spend any time at all pursuing fitness. They might say something caked in physiological terminology, or they might appeal to some romantic notion of an imagined past.

These people are wrong. They are wrong that the only viable reason to work out is to develop one's ability to chase down an antelope on the Paleolithic savanna, and then carry the carcass home. And they are wrong, specifically, that the biceps aren't important enough to merit targeting.

How do I know this? I'm not a strength coach, or an athlete of any merit. And I'm not even jacked. But I did carry three gallons of milk in each hand today, up two flights of stairs, then a couple hundred yards outside.

The Crossfit brigade can keep their kipping pullups.

The Barista Diet

With all humility, I think I can say that I'm in pretty good shape. I finished a trail half marathon in 1:39:08 last weekend, and have several 5k age group awards. Once upon a time, I could have lifted some moderately heavy things, but that's only now relatively true. (I'm about 145 lbs.) 

If this sounds like bragging, it isn't. The blogosphere is filled with more impressive models of fitness than I, both in terms of aesthetics and performance. There are those with 1:15 half marathon times, and others with 3% body fat at 200+ lbs. 

It is merely a statement of fact, meant to make clear that, as far as regular folks go, I'm somewhat fit. This context is necessary, because I want it to mean something when I say that barista-ing is work. As in, it's genuinely taxing physical labor.

Or at least it can be, provided the bar is busy. Standing, moving, shuffling around behind a counter and out in front of it for 8 hours is enough to wear on even the most calloused feet.

Then there is the tamp. It varies, from bar to bar, but most advocate for at least 30 lbs of pressure, per tamp; some go upwards of 50. That, in and of itself, is not much. But neither is standing up. Either one, extrapolated out and with enough volume or frequency, can certainly be, however. 

All of this is to say, I think I've solved the mystery of why baristas tend to be so thin. The job doesn't pay spectacularly well, first of all, so meals are typically infrequent, and equally insubstantial. And lunch breaks? That's a nice thought, but nothing more. Combine those factors with an 8 hour plyometrics session (hopping around behind the bar) and a zillion shoulder presses (the tamp), and you've got a best selling diet plan just waiting to be written.