VICTORY TABLET

Get ON The Van

Reality #1 of being in a touring band is that you spend more of your time in a moving vehicle than you do at rest. Idle time can be really poisonous if you don't find ways to engage with the immobility. There are equal threats to your mind and body. If there was an intellectual version of Deep Vein Thrombosis i'm sure i've suffered through it more than once. So what is the answer to the still within the motion. Air Drumming comes to mind but I think the 365 degree exhaustion that follows (yours and anyone who has to share a car with you) probably isn't worth it.

Life on the road can mean a lot of things to a lot of people - reflection, excess, pain, joy, pleasure, and despair - but most of all it means sitting down in the same position for hours on end feeling the blood pool in your feet. Switches in posture usually produce a few minutes of human geometric relief, but once you realize you weren't meant to have your feet above your head for 8 hours at a time, or that balancing your entire body weight on one elbow makes for a sore back and shoulders, you're back to square one.

On our most recent tour of the West Coast of the United States we had some long drives to contend with. Here are a few things you can do in and out of the van, in or out of motion, with a fairly high amount of respect for the personal space of your travel-mates. If you're shy about working out in fast food parking lots or beside a flowing gas pump then you might have a bit of trouble getting started (i'm not exactly the best, believe me). However, if you're willing to stamp out lethargy with a small amount of embarrassment that will actually do your mind and body some good, then dive in.

This will be divided into two parts: those things that you can do while the van is moving, and those things that you can do when everyone else is off peeing and getting snacks. Of course, if this was your routine or something, this would probably take about 20 minutes or more, so you'd better hope the lineup at Iron Skillet is long, or that McDicks is having trouble with the deep fryer.

Here's my VAN WORKOUT:

1 - Stasis in Spaces

i) Push/Lift - This is stolen from Charles Bronson's book "Solitary Fitness" which is a great resource for exercises that mostly involve just your body and a sparse surrounding. Put the lower palm of your right hand over the top of your wrist on your left hand. If you're sitting down, your hands should be between your legs, parallel with your belt buckle (ish). Lift as hard as you can with your left, and push as hard as you can with your right. Hold for 10-15 seconds and do the opposite (lef ton top, right on bottom). 3 sets each direction. This will activate your back, chest, arms, and some abs.

ii) Make the Candle Flicker - Also a rework from Bronson's book, this involves long exhales focused on a single spot. This is also a helpful exercise for anyone who might be a singer or plays a wind instrument -- but for our purposes it's all about your abs. Either looking upwards toward the ceiling of the van, or straight ahead to the back of the seat in front of you (try not to exhale all over whoever is driving), take a deep breath and make the exhale into single concentrated stream that hits one spot. Use your stomach to push the air, and not your throat. In close enough quarters, put a tissue against the surface you're breathing against and hold it there as long as possible. Increase the weight/ply of tissue (or even go for cotton) for a tougher workout. Also can be done with a candle across a table.

iii) Hot Seat - This is maybe the most embarrassing to admit since no one will ever look at you the same in a car after you own up to doing this. Also it involves this: Flex each of your ass checks - left, right, left, right, left, right - for as many reps as you can stand.

iv) Pedals - Balancing on your ass and keeping your back straight, lift both your feet off the ground and make a pedaling motion. This is generally good for balance, stomach, and legs. Start by using your hands for balance -- this will just work your lower half/stomach -- and then try and do it upright without holding on to anything.


2 - Bumper Olympics

i) Incline Push Ups - Feet on the bumper, hands on the tarmac. Incline pushups off the back of the van.
ii) Inverted Rows - Head under the bumper, feet straight out, hands on top of the bumper. Pull yourself up while keeping your body straight and stiff. Movements will be slight, since you don't want to go face first into the undercarriage, but this leaves room for control.
iii) Box Jumps - Only do this if you trust your van's suspension. Stand a short distance away from the back bumper, and leap up, both feet at once, and land on the bumper with your toes. Balancing on the thin rail will make you use different muscles to balance than if you would on a regular box. Since bumpers are not very high, this exercise is limited, so try and do high reps, quickly. Try not to set the car alarm off.
iv) Dips - Feet straight out, hands facing forward on the bumper with your back to the van. Lower and raise like you would on a regular dip.


byebye

It Speaks for Itself

Farmer's Walk

Today I executed a very long and arduous, yet easy-to-do exercise task.

The Farmer's Walk involves passing along some indeterminate distance with an equal weight in either of your hands. Imagine a farmer carrying two pails of milk, two bails of hay, two cow heads...whichever bucolic or gruesome substitute you care to imagine. It's incredibly simple, but will significantly use muscles you might not even care to acknowledge while walking without any weights. Strong back, good traps, and a firm grip.

Today, I walked 1km with 20kg (a rough estimate based on what I can remember 20kg feeling like, could be more, could be slightly less) of groceries in either hand. This was not easy and I had to rest along the way. As a method of turning this ordinary and completely mundane activity into a regimented exercise, I used the city blocks in my neighbourhood as small tracks or 'sprints.' Each block was about 150m. After each distance i'd set the bags down and squat beside them. Then, lifting with my legs and arms, i'd stand up and do another 1-200m until I was home.

It was actually fairly exhausting, but as the strain on my arms became less and less avoidable, I started to employ little tricks to shift which part of my body was taking the weight. For instance, when I stood back up, i'd raise the bags so that my fists were just about in line or above my navel, and slightly "slouch" (someone with a better vocabulary for fitness can advise a proper word) so that some of the weight was on my biceps, and some was actually on my midsection/core. Made all the difference for the last few blocks.

While on the road, similar activity takes place during loading, which is the first real regimented 'road fitness' that I'd engaged in. Every band member loathes the load, since it involves lugging heavy equipment in and out of small spaces, up stairs, on to stages, off of them, and all the rest with great repetition. For extended misery there are a few variations: The rainy load-in, the short handed load-in, the spite load-in, the leave-before-you-get-arrested speed trial....etc etc. If you are on the road, though, giving a small amount of extra attention to how you're lifting those things that you are lifting actually turns into a great workout.

The Farmer's Walk is best applied to loading in with two guitar heads or two combo amps. The combos are generally heavier since all the machinery (speakers and electronics) are in one box. For an extra challenge, carry two at once up a flight of stairs.

My disclaimer for this exercise in a band, though, is to not try and descend stairs while balancing large amounts of weight. You're not a fireman and/or you have terrible balance; and, at the end of a show you're both tired, and likely intoxicated. Traversing steps with a hundred pounds throwing you off is certain doom. The Kinks and the Who can smash their amps, but we are probably not at liberty to do the same and especially not in the name of a workout. Shame, that.

Merely carrying your groceries might not suffice as an official Farmer's Walk workout, but whenever you're presented with the challenge to carry something weighty for some distance, keep it in mind as motivation ---- if that's your thing. Can be almost any weight. Enjoy (the discomfort of lugging around a bunch of heavy shit in your spare time)!

Responsible Lunch

Touring the world; touring a country; touring a state; touring a province; Each and all provide their own opportunities to deviate from your routine of eating whilst eroding your innards at very little expense. Fried food is cheap, creative, satisfying, and provides precisely the comfort a tired or irritated person needs. There have been numerous attempts by me and countless others, no doubt, at reversing the polarities of habitual dietary negligence in favour of 'eating healthy' on the road. Some are successes. But like so many other inevitabilities in life, you'll end up staring down the barrel of a banquet burger at some point on the road.

Home, however, is where your colon and mine gets a rest from the bodily civil war. Above is my go-to cleansing lunch. IN layman's terms, Salad. Duh. Sure, if this was a food blog, my next trick would be to teach you how to make a bowl of cereal -- and it will -- so don't think i'm trying to be impressive or cocky. Try and vary at your leisure:

Raw Kale -- 2-4 leaves, washed, and torn from the stem. Leave them out.
*i like to sub in/add arugula, chickory, or spinach
Red Pepper
Field Cucumber
Raw Tofu
Scallions
Fennel
Olive Oil
Balsamic Vinegar
Coarse Salt
Cracked Pepper
Dijon Mustard
garnish with - raw sunflower seeds/raw pumpkin seeds.

Enough to fill, plenty of vitamins, some protein, and if you've got a vivid imagination you can picture the kale scrubbing all the bad stuff out of your stomach like a plant-matter bottle brush.

SOUTH LONDON CIRCUIT

On what would have otherwise been the last day of tour, Ben and I did a little workout circuit using the best of our surroundings. We were staying in a 3 story house in Wandsworth Town, South London, where our record label office is located. On the top floor is an apartment where bands are allowed to stay. It's a pretty meagre spot, and there's bunk beds (for maximum activities), but it's great to have a free place to crash when we're in the busiest/most expensive city in the world.

Good trivia about this flat is that it's first resident was actually Ian Astbury from the Cult (or so i'm told). i'm sure he was doing precisely the same thing by himself in the mid 80s, contemplating the chorus to 'Nirvana.'

This short workout circuit was done in the middle of a (20kg) kettlebell routine. The kettlebell moves i'll leave anyone to figure out on their own, since a written description is a bit useless in the age of youtube (except for my long winded stories, which despite a photo telling a thousand words, usually exceed that and beyond. All totally necessary).

1) pull ups. Three sets. 5, 3, 2 (or whatever you're comfortable with). We clung to the ledge for dear life, staring certain spinal injury in the face. Actually worked pretty well to stay motivated, though.


2) Decline Pushups. Three sets: 10-15 each time using two 'push up handles' (best way I think I can describe these) that Ben brought along on tour.


3) Squats unweighted. Three Sets: 15 each time. I've no picture to accompany this one, but it was done in the same room as the kettlebelling, which was a tiny kitchen. On either side we were flanked by boxes of Fucked Up merch.



So that was some stuff done in tight quarters. Not the most intense routine, but a good way to round out a whole other circuit of working out. These were done in consecutive steps (1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, etc) without stopping. I'm sure it will get more creative as time goes on. There was a great 'street workout' in Berlin, but no one had a camera on them.

Good stuff.

until next time

Hot for Heat's Sake

Hey --

Welcome to tour. We're in Nashville. I spent most of the afternoon nodding in and out of sleep while reading Charles Bronson's (not that Charles Bronson) instructional tome "Solitary Fitness." -- This is an account of one man incarcerated in the UK who has developed a work out routine completely independent of formal equipment, relying on your own body, and things one can have access to in prison. As soon as I heard about this book I new that not only had I been beaten to the punch on trying to keep fit in less than ideal places (also probably ten times over by every health and fitness magazine to ever exist), but also feel like a huge wimp for skimping on tour every now and then.

All literary pursuits have consequences, of course. It may be the heat of the American South or the long drives, but when the mind starts comparing the idle time in the van to what Mr. Bronson faces in the slammer, it sadly may be time for a reality check. Truthfully, I am living what otherwise is no doubt the life of riley, and using down time for neither intellectual or physical activity...just lunch. How dare I! Of course, in the grander scope of developing positive routines on the road -- as outlined in the 2nd last chapter of "Solitary Fitness," Solitary Cleanse -- I have little desire to suck water up my own butt with my anus muscles (but you never know what you'll need in the apocalypse) so i'll cut myself some slack for now. Living up to the challenge of making this account an interesting one, though, is thoroughly on me.

Part of this diary was supposed to be about the great failures of fitness on the road. Those times when no matter the dedication, or how great you feel after doing kettlebell in a vacant lot in 100 degree Georgia heat, you just need to ingest the most neglegent, delicious meal possible, and chase it with a cold beer. That is what I did.

This morning, I awoke from a solid sleep at a Days in somewhere outside of Atlanta, powered three runny eggs down my neck care of Waffle House, and let the highway do all the talking. Upon arrival in Music City, some of my bandmates and I dined in a crumbling little shack in East Nashville: The Award Winning "Bolton's."



The actual place is tiny. It's a single level hut, divided in to two sections: dining room and kitchen. The halves are spearated by a giant door with an iron knocker, and a small tinted window, where every now and then a face will pop out and ask if you're doing alright. The chicken itself is a substantial hock of bird, suffocated to a blissful spicy death in some kind of dry rub. The pieces themselves are dutifully prepared by a single man slaving over a single (humungous) cast iron pan. Such magic behind that tiny window. Each dinner comes with two sides. I ordered that famous souther sludge: "Greens," and corn on the cob, though I think i'd have been better off having the mac and cheese, since the corn ended up a bit spongey. Anyways. The chicken itself was pretty hefty, and the spices immediately sent us into sweats and colour matching the decor.



The heat compounded with every bite, and seemed to be most intensified by eating the corn. Each mouthful of maize and my face melted like a wax candle on the set of Dracula. Nothing could really penetrate the heat, including the mercifully basic Wonderbread, or the no doubt useless Sprite. I eat like I was raised by Yeti's and Jackals so I managed to ingest the whole thing in a few minutes, but the whole project posed a great challenge:

According to Bronson's book and many others, as long as your body can properly process and account for its intake, eating otherwise rotten stuff is mostly relative. Tell it to your colon in twenty years, maybe, but for now we're alright. SO how does one face up to Bolton's Tennessee Hot Chicken? Indeed a work in progress.

NOTE: I DIDN'T TAKE ANY OF THESE PHOTOS