What you’re getting yourself info: 6,000 words if you read them all.
How long it will take: Forever if you get distracted by le-Facebook.
The beginning of 2016 provides a special opportunity for me to reflect upon 2015. These yearly-wrap-up posts tend to also be very popular, so that’s good. It seems as though people like to read what I have to say, so at least I have that going for me. Go ahead, pick your poisons.
Productivity/Efficiency
First let’s talk productivity. Why? Because efficiency and productivity go hand in hand and I love efficiency. Efficiency is the best.
I’ve been becoming more busy with this Internet-stuff, to the point of contemplating getting a part time intern or employee to help me out. So the first thing I thought was, well, if I had to delegate responsibilities, what would I tell them to do in the first place? No point in getting help if you don’t know what to tell them to do. So I started organizing what it is that I needed to do on a daily basis.
Bookmarks folder: I created a folder on my bookmark toolbar titled “Check Daily” full of things I had to check every morning. Rather than trying to remember these sites or type them out manually or even click on each bookmark, I just right click on the folder and choose “Open all bookmarks.”
- The bookmarks consist of checking and responding to messages found on: Yahoo Mail (Personal), Gmail (Business), Facebook Messages, YouTube Comments, /r/antranik, weather forecast discussion and an empty bookmark to open a blank tab. Why a new tab? Because I use the Momentum extension on Chrome…
Momentum is a chrome extension that replaces the new tab page with a to-do-list. And you know how much bitches love to-do lists. So now when I open a new tab, I am presented with my to-do list. All of a sudden this extremely common space that used to be empty is now a productive space that reminds me of what I need to do. Create an account and it will sync the list with other computers as well.
Dropbox/Carousel: One of the issues that I always had was that I would run out of space to take video with my phone and then transferring it to my computer was cumbersome. This became even more of an issue when I started professionally editing all my instagram videos, too. So I started using this app called Carousel by Dropbox which automatically uploaded new photos/videos onto my Dropbox account and the app could figure out which files are synced and delete the files off my phone and automatically free up space. This saves both space and time so I don’t have to transfer the files, it gets sent to the cloud and it’s done. Note: Dropbox will be ending the Carousel service app and probably going to upgrade the Dropbox app to integrate it there. Besides, it may be a better idea to use Google Drive or compare options.
Whiteboard: I started using a whiteboard in my room to lay out the largest of ideas. Sometimes it helps to just write things out and see the big picture on a whiteboard than a computer screen.
Funny enough, now that I figured out how to efficiently do my stuff, I feel like I didn’t need help anymore. But I know that day is coming. I could be so much more efficient if I could afford a regular cameraman and a video editor, but I don’t have those kind of resources (read: money) yet. But, I do however, enjoy learning how to do these things myself anyway. One of the important things about running a business is knowing how to do the damn things yourself so you don’t get swindled. At least the seed was planted that I need to grow by branching out responsibilities in 2016 to make more content because the ideas are endless. I think I need to setup a Patreon or donation through Paypal or something to get more income from this if I want to make a living sharing what I love with others.
Website Redesign & Blog Posts
This website is almost 5 years old now and it had the same design until earlier this year. I needed to redesign the site for years but kept holding off on it because of what a scary and gargantuan effort it was going to be. I saw my buddies at gmb.io re-organized all their content which inspired me to do the same. I needed to revamp my site to…
- Faster loading time (efficient theme, cloudfare, etc)
- Better feature my ever growing YouTube presence
- Reorganize my now 900+ blog posts
- Create a product + membership
I ended up doing a make-over, reorganizing categories, trashing shitty blog posts and making a Members Area for people who paid to use my rings-routine. I guess that was another big step up: I offered my first online product and I have members that login to the site. Damn, that kind of blows my mind. I never thought my site would be what it is today. I hope to have a mobility/flexibility oriented routine that I could sell in 2016.
Oh and I almost forgot, I didn’t want paying members to have my site going down on them, ever. And since my site was getting 10,000+ visits/day and often experienced reddit hug of deaths, I upgraded to a reliable, dedicated server (VPS) thanks to MediaTemple.
Oh and I don’t know where else to say this, so I’ll put it here… a website called “A Shot of Adrenaline” interviewed me. That was the first time that had happened before in my life as well! So that’s pretty cool. (Here’s the reddit post about the interview with funny/interesting comments and people defending me.)
Blog Posts Created in 2015 in Chronological Order
- Looking back, summarizing and wrapping up 2014
- Add me on Instagram for the Eye Candy (and maybe educational stuff)
- Horse Stance for Straddle Splits
- The benefits of outdoor training, the role of play, and environmental complexity (Podcast with Rafe Kelley)
- Rings Oriented Intermediate Bodyweight Training Routine
- How To Do Push Ups Properly
- Yoga Video For Posture with Antranik
- Clean Up Your Street!
- Shoulder Roll Progressions for Increasing Scapular Mobility
- My Instagram Videos, Organized
- Yaad’s Handstand Push Up Tutorial
- Hamstring Flexibility Guides (Five of them!)
- How to use a Lacrosse Ball for Self Massage with Antranik
YouTube
I’m heavily involved with channeling my stuff through there as redditors seem very perceptive to the content I create and the support I provide. Being part of the mod-team for /r/bodyweightfitness has been nothing short of fantastic. I’ve learned so much from everybody in regards to moderating a forum properly. There’s also an IRC channel, which has created a nice outlet for the global community to get to know each other. It’s allowed us to meet each other IRL, which is pretty cool.
Last weekend a couple bwfers (u/sankakujime and @ingochris) did a road trip to SoCal and met up with Antranik at the #OriginalMuscleBeach! ??? They had a blast trying the traveling rings, walking the slacklines and learning some new moves on the bars and rings! ?☀️☀️? Thank you @antranikdotorg for being a welcoming host! ? #bodyweight #fitness #calisthenics #community #workoutpic #fitspiration #musclebeach #OMB #streetworkout #gymnastics #bodyweightfitness #training #sunsoutgunsout #sea A photo posted by Reddit Bodyweight Fitness (@redditbwf) on
I am a moderator of the r/flexibility sub as well and it’s more of a baby that is slowly growing up. In the beginning of 2015, it had only 8k subscribers and has now grown to over 36k. (I just realized, this is eerily almost the same exact stats as my YouTube channel. 9k -> 36k subs O_O).
The mod-team here is much smaller, just 4 of us actively doing it, but we are a GREAT little group. The sub grew immensely mostly because we started putting out “motivational months” which focused on stretching specific parts of your body (or reaching certain goals) for the month.
Horse Stance Month (Feb 2015)
Shoulder Opening Month! (July)
- Week 1 thread
- Week 2 thread
- Week 3 thread (Combo of Week 1+2)
- Week 4 thread
Hip Flexor Month (August)
- Week 1 thread (main stretches)
- Week 2 thread (modifications)
- Week 3 thread
- Week 4 thread
Bridge Month (Sept)
We combine the previous two months to create the bridge month!
Hamstring Flexibility / Toe-Touching Month (December 2015)
Food/Diet
“With this one weird trick you could lose 10 pounds. Doctors HATE him!”
Back in 2013-2014 I wrote a lot about fat loss and my own weight loss journey. By now I’m fairly well experienced with calorie counting, macros, intermittent fasting and the mental tricks to help one maintain their weight. (It’s now gotten to the point that I’ve memorized almost every food and their macronutrient ratios at least roughly. And speaking of macros, I often hear people say “Nuts are a good protein source.” No they’re not. Nuts are more fat than anything else. If you used them as a MAJOR protein source you’d be eating hundreds of grams of fat, LOL.)
After my push up video (July 2015) was released.. I realized I was looking a little pudgy. In the bwf chat room I was like, “You guys, I’ve become fat.” And the first response was, “We know.” 😀 And I realized I was the heaviest I had been since 2013 at around 185lbs. How the fat crept up slowly, I don’t know. (Actually, I do know. It’s because I had a girlfriend and after I broke up with her, I realized I could control my food intake a lot better because I was alone. *As a smart man once said, “Women just like food too much.” And it’s not that men don’t, but it’s common to go out to eat as thing to do together.)
Anyway, to uphold my image of “average dude on YouTube that does slightly above average things”, I began counting calories using MyFitnessPal to ensure that I was eating at a deficit but then after a month I realized I didn’t need to keep counting as I had a REALLY good idea of whether I was over eating or under eating in a day. So I stopped counting calories and just went with eating intuitively. I dropped down from 185lbs to 178lbs over 2-3 months and found myself stalling out. I was really confused why I would plateau at such a high number… but that’s when I realized I have been on a constant, slow, steady bulk for the past 2 years and I now have a lot more muscle mass. So it was at that point where I decided I needed to shave my chest hair like a bodybuilder and use down-lighting to show off my jaw dropping cheese grating 6-pack abs. Haha, just kidding.
For the past few months I’ve been steadily losing weight very slowly without counting calories by implementing the following things:
- Sleeping 1-2 hours earlier than normal. (Going to bed around 10-11pm)
- Eating carbs makes you crave more carbs. (Eat protein first and never carbs.)
- Supplementing with 1-2 scoops of whey protein powder every day
With those three simple changes, dietary adherence has been easy and physique improved.
1. I do most of my “excessive” eating later at night… so I’ve decided to just go to bed earlier. Something happened to me in October that made me put my foot down and get a handle on my diet, not just for the short-term, but long-term. And I’ve been really good about staying honest with my self. I’ve been practicing portion control, where I just stop eating and put the food away if I feel full before I’ve finished it. The other thing is, I tend to not have over-eaten by the time I’m done with my dinner/evening-meal. But anything after dinner is usually going to be excessive. It’s those late-night snacks that put me in the caloric surplus which usually happen cause I stay up a little too late at night. As a solution, I’ve been going to sleep earlier. And waking up leaner. It’s been working great. On top of not eating those extra calories, I’m getting more sleep which leads to better weight loss and the best part: Better recovery from my daily exercise/training!
2. Eating carbs makes you crave more carbs, so eat protein first and never carbs. This one was a life changer. If I haven’t ate for a while and I am going to put something in my mouth, I strive to have that first thing be protein and and NOT a food that’s mostly carbs or sugar like bread, grains/rice, fruit, etc. Instead, if there is a food that is mostly protein (chicken, fish, cheese, cottage cheese, protein powder, etc), I will eat that first and then check in and see if I actually want the other things. Protein is highly satiating. But carbs are not and if you start by eating carbs it creates a domino effect of you just wanting to eat more and more. This has been instrumental in increasing my dietary adherence without having to count my calories and the pattern is very, very obvious. This is extremely evident in those risky late-night midnight-snack scenarios.
3. Whey protein: I used to be the kind of person who tried to avoid drinking my calories in the form of sodas or shakes. I would instead choose foods that I had to chew so that I would eat slower and get more out of it. I also tried to always get my protein through natural (unprocessed) food sources. But when I realized on MyFitnessPal that I was only getting 80-120g of protein per day, that was way too low for someone as active as me! (Note: this is dependent on your height, weight, and activity levels.)
To get more than 120g of protein per day, naturally, I had to consistently eat lots more meat (or tofu) and I just don’t like eating that much meat everyday. So I started supplementing with whey protein powder. When I first began taking whey protein, I noticed I felt satiated and I really enjoyed the chocolate flavor. When I would record it into MyFitnessPal, I would be astonished how the macros were purely protein (25-30g in just a scoop?! and only 150 calories? impossible to mimic that so easily without having to cook something). There is definitely no other natural food that can provide that kind of macro ratio, that easily. Anyway, this is running a bit long but what’s most interesting is that I noticed a remarkable increase in recovery time when I first started supplementing with whey protein. (This was before I started sleeping earlier.) After a few weeks of it, I noticed that I had gained a few pounds on the scale, probably because I didn’t account for the extra ~300calories I was getting from the extra 2 scoops per day. I started up MFP and started tracking my calories to get a hold of how to better incorporate this new thing in my diet everyday. Now that I got a hold of it, sometimes it is almost perfect as a meal replacement and definitely a great post workout drink with almond milk. (You know what else is good? Pizza. Pizza is great. Just throwing that out there. Yeah.)
Now, with all that said, I’m going to have to find more sustainable protein sources other than whey for 2016 considering it’s a byproduct of dairy and I’m inadvertently supporting the meat industry which is hella fucked up. If you’ve seen Food Inc or Cowspiracy, you know what’s going on. If not, you could also watch this video below and be reminded of where your meat or dairy comes from even if you buy organic…
Fuck Whey… Let’s eat PLANTS instead, though, AMIRITE?
The problem I thought I had with replacing whey with plant-based protein is that whey is superior nutritionally speaking. Whey (and egg whites) have much greater bioavailability than pea/rice/hemp protein on their own. Same goes for the PDCAA-score which is the most usable metric. However, if you combine pea/rice/hemp protein, their PDCAAS exceeds that of whey!!!
So to rein in the new year right, I ordered 5lbs of this vegan protein powder for the first time. It’s a combination of rice/hemp/pea protein, and 1 scoop is almost the same as whey. Sure, the biological value (bioavaiability) may not be as high as whey or egg whites but it feels good not supporting the dairy/milk/meat industry.
Cost of Vegan Protein Powder vs. Whey
Now here’s the most interesting thing: Vegan protein powder costs slightly more than whey, which is really weird, right? Why would something directly harvested from the ground cost more than something that needs to be eaten by an animal then made into milk and then extracted from there?
To get whey, you have to grow grains, soy and grass to then feed cows with those plants, who will then, inefficiently produce milk. Then the milk needs to be collected and cheese to be created and the whey is one of the by-products of the cheese. How is that cheaper than growing plants and using them directly? The point is, if vegan protein powder keeps increasing in popularity, it should be MUCH cheaper than whey.
Oh I almost forgot. I had Cricket flour sent to me to review and try out as a protein source. I unfortunately didn’t like the taste of it, but I researched insects a lot and crickets are like 50% protein, which is more than almost all other insects other than meal worms or something I can’t remember right now, but anyway, unfortunately the taste is too nutty and the protein content is not even high enough for what it is and it’s not cheap for the price. Which is unfortunate because they are the most efficient little critters at converting food into protein as opposed to cows or plants! If only they tasted better. But, the peanut butter version was all right, tasted nutty and peanut buttery at the same time. But my blender bottle had the taste infused in it for a long time even after cleaning it many times, which was weird.
Intermittent fasting
People always ask me if I’m still doing intermittent fasting. I do but I don’t follow it to a tee. Before I used to do intermittent fasting by not eating breakfast or lunch and just having my food during “dinner” time. This made me adapted in such a way that I could now, at anytime, go on EASILY without food for 12-16 hours and not feel hunger whatsoever. So now what I do is, I don’t tell myself any hours are off limits, but it just so happens that naturally I’ll go on for very long periods without food and just feel fine. So I basically eat when I actually feel like it. And that usually means no breakfast but I’ll eat something by the afternoon, especially some protein, hah. I almost always train during the afternoon so I will always make sure I get my nutrition afterwards because that’s when I’m hungry anyway.
Gainz
Yoga-related
Early in 2015, I took my first yoga-teacher training. It was led by Dan Ward who teaches at the Power Yoga studio in Santa Monica. I have a ton of notes from it and I was supposed to publish them but I haven’t gotten around to it. But anyway, one of my dreams was to make a yoga video and I didn’t think I would actually pull it off, but I did. It took months of work and effort of a different caliber. Months to put the flow together and go there before sunrise in the weather conditions that I wanted, with a crew, with only time for one take through the whole thing, and then doing a voice over (transcript and all) and editing a multi camera project. Phew, I surely thought my computer would crash somewhere along the way and I’d lose everything and my dream to publish it on youtube would never happen. But it happened. Yes!
Slacklining
This year I noticed I was much more comfortable walking on 2″ lines rather than 1″. I had originally learned to walk on 1″ lines and 2″ lines were a bit more challenging. Gradually over the years I improved and I think this year I am equally comfortable on either line. I am finally more comfortable turning around and not falling. I learned that I could do the single-knee-drop version of the sit-start and I did my first successful chongo mount. These are all important because I was never used to doing a sit-start, but I wanted to learn because I wanted to try waterlining, which makes a good entry to highlining, and the only way to get on the line is to do a sit-start. Here’s a video of me Slacklining on a nice fall day. Oh that reminds me, I want to be able to do the front splits on the slackline. I can do this!
Skill/Strength-related
Last year I wrote an article on how play and variety is the spice of life. I also wrote about the concepts between horizontal versus vertical skill development from a podcast. (That’s another thing I started doing somewhat regularly, btw, was to transcribe highlights of podcasts I found endearing, such as Rafe Kelley’s, if you haven’t seen that one, it’s amazing!) In those articles I put a list of things I wanted to master back in 2014 and 2015. Here are some of the things I was able to unlock this year from that list.
- Pike Compression seated leg lift with hands at ankles!
- Forward Roll To Support for reps on Still Rings
- Inlocates on the Traveling Rings
- L-sit Press to Shoulderstand
- Single Leg Front Lever
- Solid Tuck Planche
- Solid Decline PPPU strength
- Kicking off poles on the traveling rings
- Skin the Cat with Straight legs (feet going under the bar)
- Long Hang Kip
- This is so fun! Took a few weeks to get.
- Back Hip Circle!!! (I just got this on Dec 25, 2015)
- and a bunch of other things…
It’s interesting to note that a huge culture started to revolve around a new high bar that was built at the santa monica muscle beach. Almost none of the “bar guys” do stuff on the still rings or the traveling rings. Now there are so many little groups within the whole place, some people slackline but never do the rings. Some do acro but not the rings or bars. I’m happy to say that I dabble in ALL THE THINGS and will keep trying new things regularly.
For 2016 maybe I’m gearing my mind toward eventaully geting the following…
- Backward Roll to Support on Still Rings
- Dislocates on the Still Rings & Flying Rings
- Flyaway on the Flying Rings
- Glide Kip on the Parallel Bars
- Kip up to L-sit on Still Rings
- Straddle Press Handstand
- Freestanding Handstand Push Up
- Sit-Start on the Slackline
The cool thing is I started working on HSPU’s and my handstands feel a lot better. I had stopped doing handstands for a while when my wrist was aggravated. Then I discovered the magic of TigerPaws wrist support, which were a little pricey, but I only needed one for my right wrist, so I plunked the $33 and got one and it was pretty much the best wrist support I’ve ever used ever that allowed me to continue doing things without hurting myself. I noticed that handstands on the parallel bars or parallettes were something new I could do to get good at handstands without hurting my wrist, and it actually strengthened them in a way that floor handstands couldn’t do (strengthens radial/ulnar deviation). Simply holding crow pose for as long as possible on the parallel bars taught me how to flick the wrists to go forward or back. Because on the floor, if you do wrist flexion (dig the fingers into the ground), it brings your feet back down. If you do the opposite, your feet go over. On the parallettes, radial deviation is what brings your feet over and you have to be able to practice both engagements to stay up there. Anyway, that was a nice bonus of learning HSPU’s thanks to Yaad Mohammad’s Tutorial, which I reconciled here. I hope to be able to have solid handstands and pull off a freestanding HSPU in 2016. I can feel everything is in place for this to happen.
Flexibility
It’s interesting that after I finished my yoga teacher-training, I felt burnt out from yoga. I ended up doing other things, like taking a methodical strength-training approach to flexibility, in the sense that I did sets and reps of specific active-flexibility oriented exercises rather than doing some sort of yoga flow.
I worked on “head to toe” ballistic stretching for at least a couple months which was probably the most mentally torturous thing I’ve ever done in regards to flexibility. The brute will to go through 3x72reps of those pulses was unlike anything I ever experienced. You could call it the most visceral neuromuscular experience ever. But, as a result, my calves don’t feel as tight, my pike flexibility is great. I could palms flat when cold easily now. I been working on my active compression as well so that I could clear the bar with straight legs when I do skin the cat. I know my V-sit angle improved, too, but I have yet to see myself in a mirror. I found out I could straighten my legs completely in “bird of paradise” which is one of my favorite poses. One of my major long term dream goals is to do a pike press to handstand, so I test how much I could raise my heels with my palms flat in front of them:
With the help of Emmet Louis, I was able to widen my straddle splits much further than ever before in just a session or two.
I took a yoga class recently and found I had zero loss in muscular endurance and that I was stronger than ever, making every plank a planche lean, every chaturanga a pseudo planche push up, and doing compression work like a seated leg lift during seated forward fold. My navasana game is strong now. But all of it doesn’t matter to the gratitude I feel for having the will power to doing ANY of this stuff.
Front Splits, my love… I’ve always been a huge fan of the front splits because they feel SO good. I took a ballistic stretching approach to my hip flexors by doing long-lunge pulses which feel really good. I don’t have my front splits fully down yet, but it’s really close on the right. When exiting the front splits, I put my hands next to me and press my butt up as my straight legs come together and I try my best to try to pretend I’m going to press up into a handstand from there. I’ve realized that as my front splits improve, I’m getting better at doing that. So, that’s something to try instead of sliding your foot out after your front splits.
All right folks… so, it’s been a huge year, wrapping that up… I just wanna say that it’s interesting when people recognize me at muscle beach. That was a thing I was not expecting to happen more often, but it’s pretty cool I guess. I don’t really upkeep my internet presence to become a celebrity. I do it because the Internet allows me to help people by the thousands… millions, even. Making one yoga video and having 100,000+ people follow it is so much more worthwhile to me than having only 20 people follow it in a public yoga class.
Final words are regarding Motivation vs discipline….
I don’t always have the motivation to do the things I do. One of the things I learned this year was that sometimes you have to just force yourself to do stuff because if you wait for the natural motivation, it may take weeks, or worse, it may never arrive. So, you have to get your discipline in check and just force yourself to get up and get your work or workout done in a methodical, consistent manner. Discipline is the reliability you need to depend on because motivation could be skittish.
“What ever you focus on, expands. So focus god damn it, FOCUS.”
