Brian Grey Blog

I am writing this while the pain is fresh and the ego sufficiently bruised. Sprawled out on my hotel room bed in Jackson Hole I am beginning to wonder if rigor mortis can set in to a still living body? Right about now it kind of feels like it can.

Rigor mortis brings me to the first big secret that your snowboarding friends will fail to mention before your first snowboarding foray and that is that falling really f&@%ing hurts! At least twice I thought I’d broken a wrist or forearm, and once after landing on my left rib cage I fully expected to cough up some blood.

Another little factoid nobody will mention is that the part about being on your toes with your back facing down hill is a totally freaky maneuver. Of course it’s a necessary skill but it’s the kind of thing that would have been worth practicing once or twice before going way up the hill.

Now here’s the third lesson – you will begin to hate your instructor after a couple hours. Mind you, my guy was perfectly fine and by all accounts knew what he was doing. But as I started to get tired, stiff and was hitting the ground somewhere between every “C” and “S” turn, my ability to be “coached” went to hell. It was like everything I’d learned in the morning was forgotten and I was out there just rolling my body down the hill.

At this juncture it’s fair to say that the novelty had worn off of snowboarding for me and I was really regretting not having learned how to do this stuff when I was six. Oh, and speaking of learning to do this is a kid – all the munchkins on the slopes will really piss you off when you see how easily they pick up snowboarding!

And a last good lesson your friends won’t share with you: don’t eat lunch. Just take a Clif bar and some water and keep plowing ahead. Even if you have to call it a day a little early I would say going as long as you can without a big food break helps you keep moving up the learning curve and not feel like you want to throw up on your first run after lunch. Not to mention the fact that rigor mortis starts to set in while you are chowing your burger.

So, net of all of the above, would I recommend a second lesson? My guess is that the memory of the pain will subside and that with a couple more lessons I can stay on my feet a whole lot more. Staying on your feet seems to make snowboarding a whole lot more fun.

And now that I know a bunch of other stuff my friends “conveniently” left out, I’m ready for day two!

Ok, this is the easiest blog post of the year. The good ‘ol New Year’s resolutions for 2009.

Well, as a sign of the times — and my personal mantra to “simplify and focus”, I’ve decided to pare down my list this year to just a single resolution. It’s a resolution that I think everyone should put at the top of their list in 2009. And it’s not probably what you’re thinking.

However, before I share my singular goal for the coming year, let me list a few items that I am not resolved to change or fix next year:

1. Reading more — How the hell can anyone be expected to read more in a world of Nintendo Wii, DVRs, iPhones and a million other technology gadgets? It’s just not possible, unless we’re just talking about “gross words read” and I get to count reading blogs? If that’s the case, I may read more in 2009.

2. Sleeping more — C’mon! If anyone with kids ever puts this one down it’s like they’re just screwing with the whole concept of New Year’s resolutions. The only way I’m getting more sleep in 2009 than in the previous nine years is if my wife and I decide to add Benadryl as a food group for our kids at the family dinner table. Maybe Trader Joe’s can drop a little Benadryl in those frozen chicken taquitos?

3. Focusing on my career — This is 2009 we’re talking about right?

4. Spending more time with my friends and family — Ok, given this is 2009 we’re talking about, this one may just happen by default, you know, without even really trying. Given the prospects for the coming year, I might have to resolve to not spend too much time with friends and family for fear of running out of things to talk to people about.

5. Volunteering more — Now this one should be on the list, and in a perfect world it’s a close number two to the big one. But alas, in an effort to stay extremely focused on my sole resolution, volunteering will have to be limited to coaching my daughters’ sports teams next year.

Ok, now that I’ve laid out what I’m resolved NOT to deal with in 2009, what is my number one priority in the coming year?

Drum roll please…my resolution for 2009 is to get myself PHYSICALLY FIT AND HEALTHY. More specifically, my goal is to get my weight down to 199 lbs. before the end of the year. This is what I will be referring to as “Project 199″ and I’ll drop a weekly update on the bgrey blog with a status report on my progress against the goal. Better yet, I may break out a whole new blog focused on this important topic.

Getting to a very specific health goal at this point feels like the most important resolution I could make. A resolution whose benefits accrue not just to me, but to my wife and daughters. I will be encouraging all my male friends to take a real assessment of their health and fitness in 2009 for the same reason.

Oh, and feel free to kick me in the shins (or some other really sensitive body part) if we’re out to dinner together in 2009 and I ask for a dessert menu!

Happy 2009 to you all!

Yesterday I caught up with my old pal Dave Mandelbrot, and this morning I got the news that another former Yahoo! pal, Doug Hirsch, sold his company DailyStrength to HSW International. Check out TC’s post on the sale here.

The concept of DailyStrength has always been a favorite of mine, however despite Doug and teams efforts they weren’t able to break through on the audience front. One of the challenges I suspect might be the fact that while DS created a platform for people to gather around challenging physical and mentai health issues, that reality may be more than most folks want to share with others in an online forum? Who knows?

Hopefully HSW was smart enough to figure out how to keep Doug involved — he’s a great product guy, particularly when it comes to social media and community applications.

Good luck in what’s next DH.

Holiday weekends are good times to test yourself. My first test was whether I could avoid any family squabbles related to the election results, economic problems and everyone’s favorite, religion.

Mission accomplished – thanks to a few cold Sierra Nevadas, a comfy chaise lounge and some lackluster football on TV.

The bigger test was could I go 48 or even 72 hours without logging on, Twittering, checking my Facebook or LinkedIn feeds, or even checking my email. I am proud to say mission “almost” accomplished. I snuck a few peeks at Facebook. Looked at email briefly Friday and
Saturday – but refrained from replying until Sunday. It kind of felt like the early 90′s – days when you were forced to spend time with people versus devices over a holiday break!

The third test was getting refocused on my fitness. I made it to the gym twice and even signed up for a membership at the local club so I can get back in to my routine. Here’s to a renewed focus on the 2-3-2 plan.

And finally, got to catch up with my old B-school roomie Jon. He just started up in BD in Amazon’s payments group. He’s a pretty sharp guy and knows a lot about the mobile world. More importantly he’s a Marine vet and served in Desert Storm version one. That’s how he got the nickname that has stuck with him since B-school: “Sarge”.

When was the last time you worked out so hard you actually felt physically sick to your stomach? You know, that light headed feeling with a dose of nausea?

I’m happy to report that was me this morning. I was cruising through my routine at the Santa Monica Core Performance Center and after a series of lunges, arm pulls, etc. I got that nauseas feeling – I actually had to bend over to regroup a little. Thank goodness I didn’t boot right there on the floor.

So you’re saying: “What are you thinking – why are you pushing so hard to get yourself sick?”

Well, two reasons:

1) I didn’t have much of a choice! I mean if you do strength training in a circuit type manner, this can be the result – especially I’d you aren’t in tip-top shape.

2) I persoanally find that if I workout to the point of getting that ‘illin feeling then I know I am really pushing my body – breaking it down so it can be built back up.

Now i don’t have any scientific evidence that if you get sick when working out you are on the fast track to physical fitness.

But I would suggest that you don’t fear “the nausea” next time you’re cranking in the gym!

Okay, I admit, I have hit one of those stretches where I have sacrificed sleep for work and business travel to the point where this week has been a bomb from a workout standpoint. What is it that causes us to go from a good stretch of exercise and good eating, to hitting the skids and slipping back in to old habits?

The math is simple – 8 hours a night, which means in bed by 10PM if the exercise wake-up call is set for 6AM.  A good night’s sleep fosters muscle cell growth and repair — and not getting enough sleep means a higher risk of increased hormonal stress levels. Take a look at a simple guideline I ran across on — of all sites — Military.com (the author is a former Navy SEAL who is a fitness expert named Stew Smith).

So, if you see me online after 10PM ping me and remind me it’s time for bed!

I had a great class with my man Kent at the PP Yogaworks studio Saturday. Not exactly sure what did it — the temp of the room or Kent’s sequence — but I was sweating like crazy. Actually felt like a good replacement for cardio. Unfortunately, by that afternoon/early evening my left gluteal down thru my hamstring felt like it was about six inches too short. Ouch!

Now I am probably like most guys who have a lengthy sports history — tight hamstrings, low back and hips. In fact, for me personally, my left hip is pretty tight and beat up from years of running and spinning on it playing baseball (imagine what thousands of reps swinging and throwing does!). As I sit here Sunday evening getting ready for the coming week, I surfed one of my favorite yoga sites, YogaJournal, for a good, basic pose that can hit both my tight hammies and hips.

Check out the Wide-Angle Seated pose below — and give it a sustained shot to see if it loosens up the hammies and hips. (Now, what we really need is a picture of a guy like me doing the pose below…barely leaning forward!).