The Charles Atlas Method: End of Week Six

Okay.  It's time to reset.

It may come as no surprise to people who know me personally, or even those rare souls who have been following this blog for any length of time, but I have not been taking this Charles Atlas project seriously.  I started it in good faith, and every intention of following the instructions to the letter.  As often happens with projects that I take up, my dedication has wavered.

Lessons 4 and 5 were difficult.  I discussed Lesson 4 in depth in my last post.  Lesson 5 involved a lot of neck and back exercises.  I was doing a lot of twisting, and a lot of moving my head back and forth while resisting with my hands.  (There was also a weird thing where I had to lean over and repeatedly karate chop my kidneys.  Don't ask me why.)  Said exercises were causing me a sore back and a stiff neck, so I didn't pursue them too diligently.  I did them perhaps one day out of every three, so needless to say I didn't get a lot of results.  I also didn't hurt myself, which is probably more important.

So where to from here?  I'm going to continue, with Lessons 6 and 7, and I'm still doing Lesson 1 almost every day.  That's the only one I've seen any results from, because I've been at it for over a month now.  It's hard to get anything out of the others, because they're over after two weeks.

Starting tomorrow I'm moving on to the next two lessons.  Lesson 6 has more back exercises (yay) and Lesson 7 is called "The True Tonic of Life", so there's bound to be some gems in that one.  I'll be back to discuss those in further depth next week.  Will I actually get my shit together and follow the instructions?  Probably not, but there's always hope.

The Charles Atlas Method: End of Week Four

I've come to the end of Lessons 2 and 3, although I suppose that I should continue with Lesson 2 all through the program.  It contains no exercises, only dietary guidelines.  I haven't been following them so far, and I really should do so at some point during this program.  I need more incentive, such as the ghost of Charles Atlas showing up to kick sand in my face every time I look at a can of Coke.  That or some willpower.  One of those would do it.

Lesson 3 was nice and easy, with nothing more than a trio of stretching exercises.  Did they strengthen my inner abdomen, as they were supposed to?  There's no way of knowing, unless I rupture my insides at some point during the next lot of exercises; then I'll know it failed.

I'm going to spare my readers any photos of my lily-white chest this week.  It's cold, and I don't want to get out from under my doona.  Maybe next week.

So it's onwards to Lessons 4 and 5, and I have to say that these are going to be time-consuming.  Lesson 4 has nine separate exercises, and Lesson 5 has thirteen!  Hey Charles, some of us have lives to lead!  Seriously, any extra lifespan I gain from doing these exercises will be pointless, because I have to spend all that extra time exercising.  It's a zero sum game.

Anyway, I'm only going to cover Lesson 4 this week, and I'll tackle Lesson 5 next week.  There's a lot to go over, and I really want to watch Daredevil.

Lesson 4 is all about the abs.  Charles Atlas promises that these exercises will give me a washboard stomach, but I estimate that I will end up with something that more resembles a washcloth.  He'd be very disappointed with my negativity.  Anyway, onto the exercises.

Exercise 1: So I'm supposed to lie on my back in "loose or breathable clothes", raise my feet in the air as high as possible until they are "in close proximity to the head", then let my feet go slowly forward.  That bit about being in close proximity to the head is confusing; I'm not the most flexible dude around.  I think he means that my feet should be directly above my head, which is a bit more plausible for me.  (Also, Charles Atlas' mention of clothing is an odd one, because he seemingly never wears anything except for a pair of white undies.)

Exercise 2: Sit-ups, although the book is once again so old-timey that they aren't named that.  I'll have to be careful with these, as I have some back problems.

Exercise 3: Lying on my back, I have to bring my feet up, then out to the sides as far as possible.  After that I bring them together again and cross them over.

Exercise 4: With this one I'm meant to push myself up on the arms of a chair with my feet sticking straight out, but that's going to be problem.  Not because I'm incapable (although I very probably am) but because I don't own a chair with arms.  I might have to skip this one, because I'm not buying a piece of furniture.

Exercise 5: I honestly have no idea.  here's the text: "While standing, with arms outstretched at
the sides, bend far downward to the right, come slowly back to an upright position and bend
down far to the left. Now vary the movement by swinging the body in a half circle while bending
to the left and then to the right."  Is it as confusing as it sounds, or am I just being willfully stupid?

Exercise 6: This one is kind of a reverse push-up.  With my feet on a chair and my back to the floor, I have to lower myself down with my arms.

Exercise 7: I find this one very amusing for some reason.  First I have to firmly rub my abdomen with my palm.  Then, after a few moments relaxation, I tense my stomach muscles and tap my abs with a clenched fist.  Apparently it brings blood to the area, or something?  This is useful?

Exercise 8: This is another one I might not be able to do.  I'm supposed to sit on a chair next to a bed, hook my feet under the bed and do some sit ups.  Our beds are all pretty close to the walls, so I probably won't have the space I need.

Exercise 9: Okay, so I'm suppose to crouch like a monkey, with my hands back between my legs?  And stretch while tensing my stomach muscles?  I think that's what's going on here.  It's another ambiguous one.  I'm beginning to question the wisdom of this endeavour.

Alright then, so as of tomorrow I have about thirty exercises to do, morning and night.  I am not looking forward to the next two weeks.  Screw you, Charles Atlas!  Screw you so hard!

The Charles Atlas Method: End of Week Three

I'm still plugging away at the Charles Atlas Method, trying to chisel my pale, flabby body into something recognisably human.  Attentive readers will have noticed that I have skipped a week.  I should be at the end of Week 4, but for a while there I came down with some nausea and flu-like symptoms which set me back a bit.  I'm back on track now, and ready to talk about some exercising.

But first, some photographic evidence!

 

 

I'm not sure that any differences are coming across in the photos, but I certainly feel different.  I'm not exactly popping out of my skin, but I've noticed that my chest and shoulders are a bit firmer and slightly larger.  I started by doing 15 of each of the exercises from lesson 1 at morning and night, and have increased the number by 5 each week.  Tomorrow I'll start doing 30, and by the end of the twelve weeks I should be doing 70, by which point I expect to be shattering glass at a hundred paces with just a flex of my biceps.

I started doing Lessons 2 and 3 a week ago.  Whereas Lesson 1 is done all through the twelve week course, the other lesson cycle in and out every fortnight.  At the end of next week I'll drop these two lessons and start doing 4 & 5, and then in a fortnight I'll progress to 6 & 7, and so on.  I'm not sure what good a mere two weeks will do, but I suppose I'll find out.

Lesson 2 is about nutrition, and I have to say that I was dreading this one.  I am basically fuelled by chips, chocolate, Coca-Cola and apathy.  I held out a vain hope that this course would be old-timey enough that nothing would be mentioned about soda.  After all, Atlas did have to explain what a push-up was.  No such luck.  Soda is mentioned specifically, and so my life-giving nectar must be abandoned.  The rest of the advice is common-sense stuff.  Eat lots of fruit and vegetables.  Vary your diet.  Avoid white bread, white rice and white sugar.  Don't eat too much candy, chocolate, or fatty foods.  Drink a load of water.  I'm not sure how wise it is to be following nutritional advice that's older than my dad, but it sounds above board to me.

That said, I haven't been doing very well.  I spent a few nights over at a friends house, so there were a couple of trips to Nando's and McDonald's.  There was Wrestlemania 31, which involved lots of snacks and beers.  There was a 40th birthday party.  There was a George Clinton concert.  Basically, life has been making it very difficult for me to eat healthily, and I am particularly weak-willed in this area.  I definitely need to strive to do better.  I'll never kick the Coke and fast-food habit entirely, but I know that I need to cut down.

Lesson 3 is also about food, in a roundabout way.  More accurately, it's a whole chapter about constipation.  Charles Atlas seems to be very fixated on the subject, and discusses it at length.  The various troubles that it causes don't really bear discussion here, but don't think that Atlas doesn't spend a good seven pages going over them.

He does have some practical advice, though, which may or may not be useful.  He advocates drinking a glass of warm water and lemon juice every morning upon waking, and I've been doing this.  I happen to like lemon juice, so it's no big deal to me.  I'm not certain if this has affected my bowel movements at all, but it may have been responsible for the somewhat unpleasant and explosive clean-out of my system that I experienced a few nights ago.  Or it could have been the Nando's, it's hard to be sure.

Atlas advocates avoiding spicy food, and at this point I'm about ready to reach out across the barrier of time and slap his head in.  I love spicy food.  Nando's is my favourite restaurant, I love a good curry, and a good salami, and a good chilli...  This is going to be a tough couple of months, if I actually follow the advice given.

He also writes about chewing your food thoroughly, so that it's already partially digested by the time it hits the stomach.  I'm trying this as well, but Christ-on-a -bike it takes a long time to eat a meal.  I don't have a lot of patience, and I'm basically always looking to finish my meals quickly so that I can get to more interesting things.  I've tried to slow down, but it ain't easy.

There are a few exercises in Lesson 3, intended to strengthen the insides of the abdomen to prevent constipation.  Needless to say, I won't be providing any photos.  There are only three, and they all involve various stretches.  They're not too strenuous, and make for a nice break between the chest and shoulder exercises from Lesson 1.

In a week I'll be back to talk about Lessons 4 & 5, which will see me working on my six-pack and my back muscles.  I've got a bit of a recurring back problem, but hopefully that won't impede my progress too much.  I already have enough of a problem with my lack of willpower, and there's a Coke in the fridge right now that's calling my name...

The Hero of the Beach's Journey

Anyone who read a comic between 1960 and 1990 has probably seen the ad above.  It was ubiquitous and inescapable, and so became iconic as it imprinted on the brains of millions of impressionable youngsters.  I never knew anyone who took the course, and I never took it myself.  Who knew if it would even work or not?  Not me.  Until now, that is.

I've been meaning to do something about my fitness for a while, but I am - as you may have noticed - a bit lazy.  I also don't have money to join a gym, or hire a personal trainer.  What I do have is an unhealthy fascination with comic books and the ephemera surrounding them.  What better way for a comic nerd with no money to get fit, than to follow the advice of a man who died over forty years ago?

So this is the deal: for the next twelve weeks I'm going to be blogging about the Charles Atlas course.  I've been working on pretty much everything but my novel, so it's not like my mind is on writing these days anyway.  I intend to complete the entire course, following all of the instruction (except for a few that I flatly refuse to acknowledge), and write about my progress as I go.

Before I begin, this is what the Atlas method has to work with:

As you can see, neither exercise nor photography are things I've had much practice with.  I like to think that I'm giving the Charles Atlas method a blank canvas to work with.

The Atlas Method (which I have as a handy PDF) is split into eleven lessons, with a few appendices at the back.  The appendices are hilariously macho, with instructions on boxing, wrestling, and jiu jitsu, but I won't be tackling those.  I ain't here to hurt nobody.  Atlas' writing style is also quite startling.  He's fond of highlighting key phrases with ALL CAPS.  He'd be a real nuisance on message boards.  Mostly he bangs on about HEALTH and STRENGTH and POWER OF WILL, and the idea that ALL EVIL HABITS MAY BE DESTROYED BY THE PERSON WHO REALLY DESIRES TO CONQUER THEM!  He'd make a great super-villain.

The first thing that Atlas talks about is oxygen, and the importance of good, clean air.  It boils down to this: leave your windows open, and breathe deeply.  I'm a shallow breather by nature, so this one is going to be tricky to remember.  And as much as Charles would like me to leave my windows open at night, I have family members to consider.  That ain't gonna fly.  I'll just have to get my fresh air during the day.

Good posture is next on the agenda.  It's like Charles Atlas is talking right at me, because years of reading, writing and computering have left me with a curved spine, and I'm not about to give any of those things up.  I have a habit of slouching when I sit on the couch, but I'll try my best to remember to sit up straight, at least for the next twelve weeks.

And now, on to Lesson 1 proper.  This lesson is about exercising the chest and shoulders, which is why I provided the photos above.  There are seven exercises, to be done in the morning and at night.  I'm currently doing 15 repetitions of each, and I plan to increase that as I go.

1) Push-ups.  You know this is an old-timey course, because Atlas has to describe how to do his 'special dipping exercise' instead of just saying 'do some push-ups'.  He advocates doing them with feet on the floor and each hand on a different chair.  When I'm alone I'll do them with the chairs, but otherwise I'll be doing them on the floor.  I'm too shy to do these exercises where my family can see me.

2) This one I'm not certain about: I'm supposed to throw my hands up to the ceiling while inhaling, then cross them over and bring them down while exhaling.  It's a breathing exercise, but I'm not entirely sure I'm doing it right.  The diagrams aren't always the clearest.

3) Pulling an invisible rope while tensing my chest muscles.

4) Locking my middle fingers together and bringing my arms over my head.

5) Pressing my fist into my other hand at about hip level, and pushing with both arms.

6) Another one I'm not sure about, where I have to "bear down the shoulders and arms" while contracting my chest muscles.  I'm doing it, but I ain't sure I'm doing it right.

7) Pushing myself up with my hands while sitting in a chair.

So, that's my regimen for the next fortnight, and indeed for the entirety of the course.  While the other lessons will come and go, this one has to be done over the full twelve weeks.  I'm not complaining, it's actually not too strenuous so far.  I did my first round of exercises this morning, and I'm about to do my second before I go to bed.  I don't feel any different yet, but it's early days.  Time will tell if I become THE HERO OF THE BEACH, THE WORLD'S MOST PERFECTLY DEVELOPED MAN, THE MASTER OF DYNAMIC TENSION or if I just tone up a little bit, maybe.

WHAT MY OTHER BLOGS SAID THIS WEEK:

http://mahney.blogspot.com.au/2015/03/ad-monster-manual-part-54.html - My dissection of the AD&D Monster Manual continues.  I'm up to letter T!  After years of toil, I'm nearly done!

http://youradventureendshere.blogspot.com.au/2015/03/exploring-titan-2-citadel-of-chaos.html - In other ultra-nerdy doings, I've got an in-depth examination of The Citadel of Chaos, the second Fighting Fantasy gamebook.  Enter at your own risk, there's some hardcore nerd shit going on in there.

http://crpgadventures.blogspot.com.au/2015/03/orthanc-maps-maps-lovely-maps.html - I'm still playing Orthanc, one of the very first computer RPGs.  If you like making dungeon maps on graph paper, this one's for you.

OTHER TIME-WASTING ACTIVITIES:

What I'm Reading:
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Complete Robot by Isaac Asimov
Amazing X-Men by Jason Aaron and Ed McGuinness

What I'm Watching:
The Walking Dead season 5
WWE Raw

What I'm Playing:
Orthanc
Crossy Road