{"id":2971,"date":"2006-02-07T11:12:25","date_gmt":"2006-02-07T16:12:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com?p=2971"},"modified":"2006-02-07T17:40:04","modified_gmt":"2006-02-07T22:40:04","slug":"one_tough_mofo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/2006\/02\/07\/one_tough_mofo\/","title":{"rendered":"One tough mofo"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Earlier, people were saying that desis were just not tough enough to play in the NFL. You want tough? This guy makes pro-football players with all their padding and helmets (and cups) look like toddlers having a pillow-fight in a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.moonbouncenow.com\/\">moonbounce<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n<p>\n<table style=\"border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; margin-top: 10px; float: right; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 20px; border-left: 0px; border-bottom: 0px; border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0\">\n<tr style=\"padding-right: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px\">\n<td style=\"padding-right: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px\"><a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/2\/hi\/south_asia\/4686830.stm\"><img class=picture height=152 hspace=20 src=\"http:\/\/www.sepiamutiny.com\/sepia\/images\/_41301242_bbnayak4_203[1].jpg\" width=203 align=right vspace=10 border=0><\/a><\/td><\/tr>\n<tr style=\"padding-right: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px\">\n<td class=caption style=\"padding-right: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; width: 203px; padding-top: 0px\">\n<p class=caption-text style=\"font-size: 80%; margin: 3px 5px; line-height: 110%\" align=right>Handshake of iron, groin of steel<\/p><\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n\n<blockquote style=\"margin-right: 0px\">\n<p>A two-time Guinness record holder is hoping to enter the record book for the third time by completing <font style=\"background-color: #ffd2bd\">114 fingertip push-ups in 60 seconds<\/font>&#8230; His previous records are for <font style=\"background-color: #ffd2bd\"><strong>breaking three concrete slabs on his groin<\/strong><\/font> and the most back-hand push-ups in an hour&#8230;. He already holds several national and international records for completing <font style=\"background-color: #ffd2bd\">133 palm push-ups in a minute, 819 back-hand push-ups in one hour and 1,448 stomach crunches in one hour<\/font>. [<a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/2\/hi\/south_asia\/4686830.stm\">Link<\/a>]<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>With all these records, which one is his favorite? He&#8217;s a guy, the answer should be pretty clear:<\/p>\n\n<blockquote style=\"margin-right: 0px\">\n<p>&#8230; he is most proud of his Guinness record for breaking three concrete slabs on his groin. He said: &#8220;<font style=\"background-color: #ffd2bd\">I was sent a letter by the Guinness authorities saying that this was my best record but they will not allow or encourage more people to attempt this one because it is potentially dangerous<\/font>&#8230;&#8221; [<a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/2\/hi\/south_asia\/4686830.stm\">Link<\/a>]<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>&lt;<\/p>\n\n<p>p>Honestly? It&#8217;s not even clear to me what this record means. Presumably it means holding a concrete slab on his groin while somebody else breaks it with a sledgehammer (I&#8217;ve seen this in martial arts demonstrations). I can&#8217;t imagine it means anything else, but the image it creates generates all sorts of interesting nicknames for this guy &#8230;<\/p>\n\n<p>&lt;<\/p>\n\n<p>p>His training routine for the fingertip pushup record was both intense and ascetic, involving an almost anorexic diet (presumably to lower his weight): <span class=pullquote style=\"padding-right: 8px; padding-left: 8px; font-weight: normal; font-size: 16pt; float: right; padding-bottom: 5px; margin: 20px; width: 250px; line-height: normal; padding-top: 5px; font-style: normal; text-align: right; font-variant: normal\">He is most proud of his Guinness record for breaking three concrete slabs on his groin<\/span><\/p>\n\n<blockquote>&#8220;I did at least 4,000 fingertip push-ups for about six hours every day [since July]. &#8220;I would do a part of the routine in the morning and then a few hours in the evening,&#8221; he said. Mr Nayak also monitored his diet and <font style=\"background-color: #ffd2bd\">survived on white pulses, one vegetarian meal and at least 15 litres of water a day during the training period<\/font>. [<a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/2\/hi\/south_asia\/4686830.stm\">Link<\/a>]<\/blockquote>\n\n<!--more-->\n\n<p>&lt;<\/p>\n\n<p>p>Instead of visualizing success, his approach was almost the opposite:<\/p>\n\n<blockquote>He said his technique when attempting the fingertip push-ups record was not to give himself time to think about it. [<a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/2\/hi\/south_asia\/4686830.stm\">Link<\/a>]<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>You&#8217;ll probably hear more about this guy soon. His goal is to set 72 world records, which would give him more standing records than the current highest record holder, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ashrita.com\/\">Ashrita Furman<\/a>, who has <em>only<\/em> 32 of his 102 records standing.<\/p>\n\n<p>UPDATE:<\/p>\n\n<p>Fascinating &#8211; Nayak isn&#8217;t the first person to hold the record for breaking concrete blocks on your groin, either:<\/p>\n\n<blockquote>Nayak said he had broken the record held by a United States citizen, who had two concrete blocks smashed on his groin. His inspiration came from a karate expert he met in Japan. &#8220;I was extremely fascinated that he could use his mind to perform extraordinary physical feats and that he could numb his nerves to any kind of pain,&#8221; Nayak said. [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.int.iol.co.za\/index.php?click_id=29&#038;art_id=qw1041841441478B253&#038;set_id=1\">Link<\/a>]<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>There are actually two guys who&#8217;ve held this record. I&#8217;m dumbfounded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Earlier, people were saying that desis were just not tough enough to play in the NFL. You want tough? This guy makes pro-football players with all their padding and helmets (and cups) look like toddlers having a pillow-fight in a &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/2006\/02\/07\/one_tough_mofo\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2971"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2971\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}