Bright Stars and Book Hangovers

Ever suffered from a book hangover? A book hangover is the inability to start reading a new book because you are still living in the last book's world, feeling or grieving for the last book's characters, mourning the last book's characters, still in love with one of the last book's characters (mostly this is the case with me) or still suffering from the emotional trauma the last book you read caused you (so much the case right now). 

I just finished reading "Clockwork Princess", the last book of the Infernal Devices series by Cassandra Clare and I really don't know what to do with my life right now. It was such a great story and the characters were so lovable that it is really hard to part with them. I suppose I'll go on reading Insurgent next, or I'll read the whole Mortal Instruments series again... But reading Insurgent would make more sense. Seriously though, Clockwork Princess left me a little emotionally scarred. And I don't know, but Cassandra Clare is really good with quotable lines. One line in particular that I loved is the following:

"Bright star" [...] "Those of you who are mortal, you burn so fiercely. And you fiercer than most, Will, I will not ever forget you." - Magnus Bane.

I try to live my life this way. I try to burn as fiercely as possible, do everything I can while I can and not have regrets when I leave this world. This has been my goal from a rather young age onward. You never know when Death is gonna get you and you don't want to go with a long list of unfinished businesses. This is why, these days, when I want to do something, I just go and try it. This is why I tell people openly when I like them. I want to burn as fiercely as possible without exploding. I want to live life to the hilt, I want to taste it, feel it even if it hurts sometimes. What is life, if you don't even have a few scars to show for it? What is death if you haven't tried to make your life what you want it to be? I can tell you: a waste of time.

Morning training

I love to work out in the morning. I would have never thought that I'd become a morning person, but due to my morning workouts I started to slowly slip into some kind of routine where I'm going to sleep at about 10-11 pm and get up somewhere around 6 and 7 am. 

It started when I started the Tone It Up -Regime a few months back where you are supposed to do some light Cardio in the morning 3-4 times a week to get your metabolism going. I started sometime in May with 30min running sessions. Then I figured out that our gym had morning classes and did some yoga on some days. Now that autumn is upon us and brought temps like -3°C with it, I really don't feel like running anymore, but thanks to one of my favourite instructors, there is a new morning workout that made it into my weekly schedule. Atm my mornings look like follows: Monday MMA HIIT, Tuesday is mostly my recovery day, Wednesday MMA HIIT, Thursday has still been a running day, but I'll come to this later, Friday GRIT Plyo, Saturday Body Pump and/or Combat and Sunday I sleep in. 

Morning training sessions or workouts or actually anything you do to move your body in the morning are an effective way to wake up your body, to rev up your metabolism and you are really awake afterwards. But the best part: you still got the whole day ahead of you and if you don't feel like it, you don't have to do anything sports related in the afternoon. :) Okay, the last point doesn't really do it for me, but I know some people who are busybodies and like to spend their afternoons meeting people, doing things. My afternoons normally mean another training session, seeing that I got MMA-training three times a week, I like my Sunday workout that consists of CX WORX, GRIT Strength and most Sundays a Body Combat in addition to these. And Thursdays are actually Body Combat days. 

But back to today; after MMA practice yesterday I felt like my body had been going through a wood chipper or sth similar, it hurt so bad. Every muscle was sore minutes after the training was over and I won't even start on the bruises. It's part of the game so there's no complaining and usually I like this kind of pain, where there's nothing left to do but take a hot shower, go to bed, role up into a fetal position and hope you don't move so it doesn't hurt so bad. Most mornings, I wake up feeling okay. I had a feeling yesterday that today would be different. Oh, and it was. I was actually hurting even more than in the evening and most of my joints were incredibly stiff. For a moment I lay in bed and thought about my options. Going for a run? Hell no! Dying? Might actually be more pleasant than this... but then I remembered that there was a "Rise&Shine" class in the morning that contained a warm up, soft muscle conditioning moves (not the kind of stuff you do in a toning class, but toned down, flowing, soft movements) that got your muscles softer and open and then half an hour of stretching. Afterwards I spent about 15min in the sauna and now I'm feeling a lot better. I can move without pain, my joints are flexible again and breathing doesn't hurt anymore. Definitely going there again. 

So even if you're not a morning person, just try it maybe a few times, it doesn't have to be anything hard or exhausting, maybe get up 15min earlier and do a little yoga routine like this one:

That's what HIIT is about

A week off...

I've had a rather quiet week this week, because I had some minor surgery done on Monday and wasn't supposed to do much sports.
Just after the operation was finished, the medical assistant told me to remember that I shouldn't do any sports for the next 24hrs. I nodded and made an understanding face. I had already been at a MMA HIIT -class in the morning, so no problem. And Tuesday was supposed to be my recovery day anyway. About 20sec. later my surgeon came into the room and told me no sports for the next seven days. Whoa, weird dude say what?! I still nodded and made an understanding face, but when he left I threw a desperate look at the assistant. She came a little closer and told me to listen to my body, keep the stitches clean and dry and be careful. And that's what I did. I surprised myself a little, I didn't know I could be this sensible. On the other hand... had I ripped the stitches open, I'd probably have to spend a few weeks longer without doing sports.

But: we got a new practice model at our club. It's called MMA HIIT and is actually a normal HIIT (high intensity interval training), but the ingenious thing about it is that the warm up consists of MMA moves or moves that assist MMA training. I really like it, because not only do HIITs challenge your physical boundaries, but your mental boundaries, too. It's a little like running a (half) marathon: your head is screaming that you can't go any further (or do more reps) but your body is actually still good. So you need to step over the mental boundaries your head is setting. You give it your all, and by all I mean EVERYTHING you got. The aim is that you could not do a single rep more, even if your life depended on it. You don't save any energy, you go all in. And that's the beauty of it. By breaking these mental boundaries you actually achieve this athlete mindset that you can do everything even if it hurts like hell.
The other thing that makes HIITs so appealing, is the fact that the actual training is only about 8-12min long. Add a warm up and a cool down and you have a 30-45min training session and you're actually done. You don't have to do anything else for the day, because HIITs due to their intensity work up a high response in your body's hormonal system and they rev up your metabolism. This effect can last up to 24hrs after the training itself. So, if you got the possibility: try it.

Tomorrow the stitches are being removed and I'm almost back to normal again. I should probably be careful for a few more days so the scars don't open, but then we're back in the game!

MMA Team 300's Mikael Nyyssönen at Cage 23

The guy in the grey shorts is one of my club's professionals. I probably shouldn't show this video to my parents telling them that "Mom, dad, this is what I'm up to these days", but I like to watch MMA matches. It kind of motivates me (though I know it would/will be years till I'm as good). 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UB5eJZhl7zs