Sconzo.com

5 mile run
Plyometrics (repeat each exercise once):
Jump squats – 30 secs
Run stance squats – 30 secs
Airborne heismans – 30 secs
Swing kicks – 60 secs
Squat reach jumps – 30 secs
Run stance squat switch pick ups – 30 secs
Double airborne heismans – 30 secs
Circle run – 60 secs
Jump knee tucks – 30 secs
Mary Katherine lunges – 30 secs
Leapfrog squats – 30 secs
Twist combos – 30 secs
Rock star hops – 30 secs
Gap jumps – 30 secs
Squat jacks – 30 secs
Military marches – 30 secs
Run squat 180 jump switches – 30 secs
Lateral leapfrog squats – 60 secs
Hot foot jumps – 60 secs
Pitch & catch – 60 secs
Jump shots – 60 secs
Football hero – 60 secs

Round 1 | Round 2 | Description
30 | 30 | standard push ups
1+9 | 1+13 | wide front pull-ups
15 | 10+11 | military push ups
5+7 | 3+11 | reverse grip pull-ups
25 | 18 | wide fly push ups
2+9 | 2+10 | closed grip overhand pull-ups
15 | 15 | decline push ups
22@20lb | 15@20lb | heavy pants
6+10 diamond push ups
20L@20lb | 25L@20lb |  lawnmowers
20R@20lb | 25R@20lb | lawnmowers
12 | 11 | dive bomber push ups
23@8lb | 33@8lb | back flys

Abdominal exercises – 25 reps each exercise in this order:

1) In and Outs (moving your legs in and out)
2) Bicycle
3) Reverse Bicycle
4) Crunchy Frog (In and outs with your hands out to sides)
5) Fifer Scissors (lying on back one leg hovering over the floor, one up and a 90 degree, switch scissor style)
6) Hip Rock and Raise (reverse crunch with legs in butterfly position)
7) Pulse-ups/Heels to Heaven-Reverse crunches with straight legs
V-up roll ups
9) Obliques Side Crunches
10) Leg climbs
11) Mason twist (Quick oblique twists, “punching floor” to each side with legs above the floor)

My version of wordpress was quite antiquated. So old in fact, that there was no “automatic” upgrade path. So I snagged the latest wordpress zip available, and began applying the manual update. Sadly I discovered that the instance of MySql running on my hosted server was very, very old. I admit I haven’t done any maintenance since I added my custom banner several years ago. My first task was to upgrade to a newer version of MySql.

Hold on to your shorts – I was running MySql 4.0.30 – wow! So, I grabbed a box of MySql 5.x off the shelf, then attended to migrating my old wordpress database schema. This was fast and easy. I imported the schema, then applied the wordpress database updates. But there was one hitch… Smart quotes, smart apostrophes, em-dashes, and other special characters did not surface in my posts correctly. So, I re-imported the schema several times, trying different character set encoding directives (such as utf8 and cp-1250). I finally settled on Latin1 encoding, and my posts look “nice”. I probably should have converted the schema to utf8, but I’ll schedule that task for later.

Good bye wp2.1, hello wp3! Kudos to the wordpress developers! I am impressed so far.

Now maybe I will post more often since the interface to wp3 is much slicker than before. I also plan on finally looking into plugins for managing comments better.

An article about my grandfather, Thomas Sconzo, published in The Suffolk County News, March 18, 2010.

By MATTHEW RECORD

PATCHOGUE — Where anyone else would see a normal kitchen table, Tom Sconzo of Patchogue sees an opportunity. “This [kitchen table] is where I do a lot of work,” Sconzo said, as he reached under to a cleverly designed series of attachments on the underside, pulling out boxes. “If I want pencils, I grab pencils. If I want pads, I got pads. It’s neat in its way.”

Tom Sconzo, 87, is the retired former owner of Bayport-based Sconzo and Sons Aluminum, a manufacturer and installer of storm doors and windows that closed up shop in the 1990s after serving the community for nearly 50 years.

Husband to Connie, a father of five, and grandfather and great-grandfather owns more than 100 patents, and is the inventor of countless other devices for which he is the originator, but has not sought to make his intellectual property.

“I’m always thinking of something to do, whenever I pick up something. I’m always thinking it could be done different; done better,” Sconzo said.

In his beautiful lakefront Patchogue home, Sconzo is never far from one of his inventions. Suffering from arthritis, Sconzo has a hard time opening pull-top cans. He pulls out a repurposed pipe that has been hammered down and drilled into an elegantly designed can opener, with each small hole and crevice serving a specific and helpful purpose.

Down in his basement, Sconzo shows off a complex mechanism he designed and built— attaching a light bulb to his oil tank so he can know whenever he’s running out of heating oil.

Outside, he brings out a leaf blower to which he has since attached aluminum railings so the leaf blower stands up on his own, making it unnecessary for him to bend down to the ground and pick it up when he does yard work. Sconzo has added similar devices to his rakes and snow shovels, allowing him to do work around his home well into his 80s.

“Having a machine shop where he had all types of machines (lathes, metal planers, drills, etc.) made the process a little easier to build proto-types,” said Frank Sconzo, recounting his childhood memories of his father.

“Most of what he did at home was done in his easy chair in the living room. He sat and drew; he sketched, he thought. He would draw an idea out many times, watching television and sketching his idea. That was the way I saw him come up with ideas,” said Frank Sconzo.

Sconzo’s are long lasting, including the rollers that are used in convenience stores—where hotdogs and other foods are cooked—are based on a design improvement by Sconzo.

His finest achievement, though, is the patent for the Prime Seal Storm Window. “I came up with an idea for [insulating] gates. It was rated the tightest window ever made,” he said.

“The Prime Seal Storm Window was the finest storm window made anywhere in the world. It was heavy-duty, air tight and guaranteed to last a lifetime,” Frank Sconzo said.

These days, Sconzo has long since ceased making money off his inventions, and now he simply builds and improves to make his and his wife’s lives easier. “I sit and I think, I just can’t help it. I’m weird that way,” Sconzo said.

(click for larger size)

Warm up:
1) 100 Single-arm with paddle and buoys (50 x 2)
2) 100 Finger Drag
3) 100 Catch-ups

Workout:
8 x 50 (#1, #2 – :45 sec rest)
       (#3, #4 – :30 sec rest)
       (#5, #6 – :20 sec rest)
       (#7, #8 – :15 sec rest)

4 x 100 with paddles and pull buoy
        (#1 – breathe every 3 strokes)
        (#2 – breathe every 4 strokes)
        (#3 – breathe every 5 strokes)
        (#4 – breathe every 6 strokes)

4 x 100 Kick

50 x 2 Free
50 x 2 Finger Drag
50 x 2 Sprint

Swim down:
100 free

Jeannie and I went to Gold’s for the noon spin class on Friday. I tried to find a bike that was ready to accept my cycling shoes, but unfortunately I couldn’t. There must be a way to easily detach the foot strap component from the peddles on those spin bikes, but with no light and little time I couldn’t figure it out. Spin was good though, even in my running shoes – I liked the music mix. Class was one hour.

We did some brief calistenics: push-ups, abs, and core work on the stability ball.

Then I told Jeannie I would meet her at home and handed her the car key. I wasn’t sure how far it was, or which way I would run. It was fun just to start running and plot a course once I began. I took Grover’s Mill to Town Court, and followed it to Lawrence Station Road. Then I took Baker’s Basin Road before hopping onto the D&R Canal Path. I took the path as far south as it goes from Baker’s Basin, which ends at Mulberry Street in Trenton (just about 6.1 miles from Gold’s Gym). Then I headed to Olden Ave via New York Ave, and off to Ewing Township.

The distance when I reached my house was 8.75 miles, so I lapped the block one time to add another quarter mile. I felt great after the run, but my middle toenails still get bruised on longer runs.

Warm up:
1) 100 kick
2) 50 pull R
3) 50 pull L
4) 100 free

Workout:
12 x 50 kick (alternate, :15, :5 sec rest)
5 x 100 free (descending rest :45, :30, :15)
8 x 50 pull (:30 sec rest)
6 x 50 free (descending rest :45, :30, :15)

Swim down:
200 free

Warm Up
300 Free: 100 kick, 100 pull, 100 swimWorkout
6 x 50 kick board with fins  :15 rest
2 x 100 swim free style
6 x 50 pull with buoy and paddles
2 x 50 swim free style  :15 rest

Swim Down
200 Free style swim

I) 300 yard warm-up routine; alternate through twice:
1) 50 with kickboard
2) 50 pull-buoy
3) 50 freestyle swim

II) 300 yard freestyle sprint; alternate through three times:
1) 50 easy pace
2) 50 at full speed without worrying about perfect long strokes

III) 3 x 100 Pull buoy (and hand paddles if you have them)

IV) 300 yard kick sprint routine:
1) 50 kick
2) 50 kick sprint
3) 50 kick
4) 50 kick sprint
5) 50 kick
6) 50 kick sprint

V) 200 yard freestyle swim down

Total 1400 yards

Stretching
Warm up run – 5 mins

1) Routine 1: Sprint combos
- Sprint across the soccer field and back to the white line
- From a squat position (feet apart) standing on an elastic band (thick blue one), rise into an overhead press with the bands (repeat reps quickly for 60 seconds – approx 35 reps)
- Sprint across the soccer field and back to the white line
- Again, squat into an overhead press, stretching the blue elastic band overhead.
- Sprint across the soccer field and back to the white line, repeat the sprint again.
- Bicep curls for 30 seconds (approx 25)
- Repeat bicep curls for 30 more seconds (20 more)
- Sprint across the soccer field and back to the white line.
- Skater jumps in place (jump side to side, tuck right leg behind left knee and right hand touches the group outside the left foot, jump to right foot switching position)
- In push-up position, draw right knee to chest, then extend right leg behind and into the air, toward the ceiling, then switch legs. continue for 60 seconds
- Sprint across the soccer field and back to the white line, repeat the sprint again.
- Again, push-up position, draw right knee to chest, then extend right leg behind and into the air, toward the ceiling, then switch legs. continue for 60 seconds.
- Sprint across the soccer field and back to the white line
- For a third time, push-up position, draw right knee to chest, then extend right leg behind and into the air, toward the ceiling, then switch legs. continue for 60 seconds.

2) Routine 2: Repeat two times total
- Across the width of the soccer field, perform a squat jump immediately followed by a burpee, repeat until you reach the other end of the field.
- Once we reached the other end of the field, hold a squat position with arms out to the side for 60 seconds
- Side to side shuffle suicide: shuffle in a low squat side to side (without crossing feet) to the first cone and back, then to the second, then the third, then to the other end of the field.
- Once at the other end of the field, hold a squat position with arms out to the side for 60 seconds

3) Repeat three times
- We broke into four teams, one in each corner of the soccer field. Teams in opposite corners did the first exercise, other teams did exercise #2
- Exercise #1: ski jumps across the width of the soccer field, side to side across the yellow line, when we reached the other end, we dropped into a push-up position and held for about 20 seconds
- Exercise #2: holding a push-up position, quickly raise the right arm out in front, then quickly raise the left arm out in front; repeat for 90 seconds

4) Abdominal work
- Crunch pulses: crunch up and hold for 2 seconds, then come down half way (NOT to a resting position; stomach is tight the whole time), repeat x 25
- Right side crunch pulses: legs bent at 90 degrees and on the ground; crunch and hold for 2 seconds, then come down half way; repeat x 25
- Left side crunch pulses: legs bent at 90 degrees and on the ground; crunch and hold for 2 seconds, then come down half way; repeat x 25
- Stretch in yoga up-dog
- Legs straight up in the air, lift legs and hips into the air; hold for 1 second then through the count of 3 to 1, lower the hips to the ground; repeat x 25
- Stretch in child’s pose, switch to up-dog, and repeat stretch

5) Stretch and cool down
- Stretch routine
- Run around the soccer field five times

Finished.