The Straight Dope

What We're Doing Wrong & How To Do It Better

2012-01-25T08:27:00.001-07:00

The title is a line from yesterday's video-ish chat. The ish is due to a little malfunction part way in so it becomes sort of a radio show with some slides of me doing stuff. The moderator is my colleage, part of Beachbody's illustrious fitness team, the lovely Steph Saunders. Keith the Dude also has a few baritone interludes.

Topics include some personal stories from childhood, things I like and don't like, the Cold War, sports I've played and, of course, a lot of questions and answers including why PAP training is hard, the prowess of Jim Thorpe, what to do after P90X2, caloric deficits, overtraining, Shakeology cleanse and zig-zagging, pre-workout supplements, how to tell if you need a multi-vitamin, fish oil, skin elasticity, and more. If you've got an hour you need to kill check it out. Hopefully you'll be entertained or at least learn something new.

La Bonne Vie! – The Year’s Fitness Retreat Dates Announced

2012-01-18T10:01:00.006-07:00

This year’s fitness retreat will be May 26 to June 2. Join us and kick start your summer with a week of fitness, culture, and world-class outdoor sports in a postcard-like setting. It’s going to be fantastic and, as usual, is extremely affordable.

Check out Alisa and Bruce’s site, Raison d’Art, for detailed info:

Fitness Week with Steve Edwards

our urban hub: st. antonin noble val

My version of fitness camp might not be what you’re envisioning if you look at my athlete/trainer profile. While I train hard, recreate at a higher standard than most, and occasionally compete in a national or world-level event, the main reason I do it all is that I believe in enjoying life to its fullest and I just happen to find this stuff fun. So when we say this is a fitness camp in France, particular emphasis should be placed on the France part of that. The main goal of these camps is to have a unique cultural experience. It’s not fat camp. It’s life camp. And hence the reason last year’s retreat theme was ‘la bonne vie’, or the good life.

meals are decidedly french (relaxed)

with nothing but fresh foods that we procure locally

This isn’t to say you won’t get much exercise. We’ll earn our meals for sure. Those who choose to participate in all the activities will get 4-6 hours of exercise daily, not counting sight-seeing, shopping, wine-induced night swims and such. Each workout and activity will have various levels to allow you to choose your own personal intensity setting. The emphasis will be on education. Our retreat is only a week but the goal is for you to take away knowledge that you’ll put to use for the rest of your life.

"That was a lifesaving exercise for me. Whatever werid muscle it's designed to stretch had been bothering me for over a year and hasn't hurt since:) Thank you Steve!"
- Michelle Beronja Wilkins

kayaking in the aveyron gorge

We’ve capped of people so that there will be ample one on one time for any personal issues to get addressed in as much depth as you’d like. You’ll have the option of a pre and post camp fitness assessment we’re you’ll get a good idea of both your strengths and weaknesses so you can leave with a fitness plan in mind.

escalade Saint Antonin Noble Val by iaki
climbing in the aveyron gorge

Since I’m an outdoor athlete you’ll have this option too. How much you participate is voluntary but, since we’ll be surrounded by world class climbing, cycling, kayaking, and hiking terrain, there will be a daily outdoor sports component. We’re professional guides, so no experience is necessary. You’ll be missing out if you don’t take part.

the riding tends to be picturesque

But mainly it’s about fun. You can live hard and play hard. In fact, when I’m balancing both is when I’m the most relaxed. "A sante!", to heath, as they say in France, which will be our theme. We’ll challenge ourselves, learning something new, and then reward ourselves with the amenities of rural France. La bonne vie!

the castle village of najac also has epic mtn bike riding

"I feel better than I have in years. It's been, by far, the best I've ever eaten in my life."
- Dave Talsky, Mammoth Lakes, Ca.

Sample itinerary:

7am - wake up yoga
7:30 - 8:30 aerobic ruke (run/ hike to get your metabolism going)
8:30 - 8:45 eye opener workout (optional - high intensity interval session)
9:00-9:30 breakfast
11:00- 1:00 pm daily activity (run, adventure ruke, bike, kayak, climb)
1:00 - 2:00 lunch
3:00 - 5:30 Free time (sight see, shop, chill...)
5:30 - 6:30 evening workout (progressive difficulty, drop out when you feel like it)
7:00 -8:00 dinner
8:00 post dinnner training digestion session (sunset hike, mobility training)
8:30 apres social

For more pics here’s last year’s announcement:

Train with Steve Edwards in Southern France

Psyched on Yoga?

2012-01-17T12:35:00.002-07:00

If you’re like me, 2012 has started in a rudely-hectic manner. Maybe it’s the triple whammy of condensed work weeks but, however you stack it up, I’m in need of some early-week Psyche to help both calm my mind and get after it physically. Henceforth I present yoga by Equinox.

Think of this next time Yoga X is kicking your butt, and anytime you doubt the ability of yoga to make you strong, fit, or look good. Think of how effortlessly Briohny Smyth makes, well, everything look-—including some very burly movements. I’m pretty sure I’ve increased my strength, balance, and fluidity just by watching. Reminds me of my friend Micah's comment on the merits of regular yoga practice for rock climbing, "yoga is like cheating for climbers."

Win The Day

2012-01-11T09:16:00.005-07:00

Looking back on my 2011 training chart puts perspective on the importance of taking on life one day at a time. I train a lot but, still, when you add it all up I’m not getting a lot of chances per year at each of my pursuits, much less each individual workout. The other day, during Plyocide, I was being lazy about working on an exercise I’m weak at when it dawned on me that I was only going to get a few chances at it in the course of the program, which inspired a vision Oregon’s football slogan, Win the Day.

One of the first things taught to Oregon players is the importance of each day. It’s a play on “live each day as though it were your last” but tailored to competition. I find it a great reminder to help get after it during the P90X2 workouts because, as Ducks coach Chip Kelly knows, once you make winning each day a practice it leads to better performance, period.

Why is each day so important? Looking back through my calendar I noted that I had only 6 full climbing days 2011, my preferred sport. My favorite workout of last year, Asylum Strength, I only did 5 times. PAP sessions: 12. When you have a full schedule and begin to analyze how it’s broken down the importance of each workout becomes clear; each time you slack off is missing an opportunity to improve yourself. If you lay each workout on a graph you will see exactly how a bit more effort or concentration here and there would have yielded greater overall improvements. Over time it’s the difference between champions and everyone else.

The X2 workouts are hard in a unique way. My favorite quote about the program, so far, has been “as I get better at the workouts they just get harder.” Conversely a complaint was that they were too slow. P90X2 is not step aerobics. It’s not simply about moving or getting your heart rate up. It’s about winning each encounter with something that’s going to challenge you. Once your body adapts to the subtleties of each movement you then add weight, or speed, or height or range of motion.

If Plyocide isn’t hard then you didn’t jump high enough, far enough, fast enough or use enough control to hit every square, touch the ball with your foot each movement, etc. If PAP doesn’t hurt you simply aren’t giving it enough effort because I’ve seen some of the most athletic people on the planet literally begging for mercy during those complexes. You can’t say you’ve mastered X2 until you can do all the exercises in perfect form with the same weight you can use from a stable platform; and if you think that’s impossible then you’re starting to get the picture. There is room for improvement and winning each day is the essence of what P90X2 is about.

To be fair, daily winning isn’t necessary or required. It’s about the effort. Bad days are a reality. Not to mention that if we never lost then winning would lose its luster. It’s fine to have off days, or lazy days. Days when you choose something over nothing, even when you don’t have the energy to bring it, are an important part of the process. But as you move up the pyramid of fitness to the point where you’re trying to do something special you’re going to run into an adversary. And whether it’s you, or an opponent, how you react to it will ultimately define your success.

Saturated Fats, Diet Trends, & How You Should Eat

2012-01-05T08:58:00.004-07:00

We’ve been writing diet guides for a long time, always have great results, yet nothing we publish gets much press because, frankly, it’s boring. The diets we write need to be a: short, b: simple, and c: easily followed by people with limited means in both grocery choice and money. But just because we produce what you could call “common sense” diets doesn’t mean we aren’t constantly scrutinizing the latest science. We’re always testing the latest research ourselves (particularly me on moi) and evaluating its place in our diet plans. Today I present Denis Faye’s exhaustively un-conclusive analysis of saturated fat.

Sat fat is one of the latest trends in dieting. Held hostage by the medical community for years as the harbinger of heart disease modern research seems to indicate it’s been falsely accused. And this, of course (given the “it’s either good or evil” mentality of our public) means we now have legions of people sallying forth on a sat fat craze wielding sticks of butter and tubs of lard like they’re light sabers against the dark side that is heart disease. So Faye went to the source, the actual science along with popular books on the subject, and found that this group might be arming themselves with faulty weapons.

My second source is the most authoritative (read: not lame or poorly researched) pro-sat-fat book I could find: Dr. Mary Enig’s Know Your Fats. (Enig was the first real whistle blower on the dangers of trans fat, decades before the rest of the world figured it out.)

To my shock, Enig gave only two instances where she felt saturated fats were of particular benefit. First, she suggests, “research has shown that saturated fat in the diet is needed by the body to enable it to adequately convert the essential omega-3 fatty acid (ALA) to the elongated omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA.” I found the study she cited and it turns out that she got it wrong(ish). According to Gerster, sat fats are marginally better than PUFAs for helping ALA convert, but not “needed.” Furthermore, this advice only really applies to vegans and vegetarians, given a healthy, more omnivorous diet should include EPA and DHA-rich foods such as fatty fish.

What’s Faye has done is exhaustively analyze the actual data and show that their enthusiasm might be better placed elsewhere, like doing some exercise or, “no don’t say it” perhaps just eating a balanced diet. Just because saturated fat may not be something that we should avoid doesn’t mean it’s should be the cornerstone of every meal. He concludes:

At the end of the day, I think the answer is to focus on your own biochemical needs. Even Enig admits, “there isn’t any real evidence that everyone needs to consume exactly the same balance of fatty acids.” She also points out that it’s naïve to categorize most foods as sat fats or PUFAs, given both animal and plant-based fat sources tend to be a mix of both. With that in mind, the answer might be as simple as a little self-analysis. Is your current diet working for you? How do you feel? How’s your blood work? Are you having any issues such as inflammation or high LDL cholesterol? If all this looks good, your sat fat levels are probably pretty right for you. If not, it might be time to start experimenting a little, no matter what your Crossfit trainer tells you.

And this gets back to the philosophy behind the Beachbody diet guides. Eat with restraint and common science. If you’re performance increases your body composition will improve. If it’s not working, re-assess and tinker until it does. And this works, oh, about 100% of the time. We have millions of success stories. Among them we have vegans, pesactarians, Paleoers, Atkins-ers, calorie-stricters, Zone-o-philes and probably even some Pritikiners. Because our plans work with you, and your lifestyle, no matter what that happens to be. Nutrition is simply not that tricky. In closing I’d like to say I’m paraphrasing Michael Pollan but I’ve been touting this since long before he wrote it. Eat mostly whole foods, lots of plants, drink plenty of water, and do some exercise and things will get better. Everything else is nitpicking.

The Year of the Van

2012-01-03T10:14:00.003-07:00

“I have a van.”
-Steve’s reply in the film Slacker when asked if he had a car.

Happy New Year! This year’s goals are all over the board, sports wise. It was going to be the year of the jock or something silly. But then I got to thinking that it wasn’t very creative as I’ve been training concurrently for different sports for many years now. It would likely lead to a redundancy reaction as 2011’s “year of fitness”, which caused more than one friend to ask “isn’t that every year for you?” This year fitness be a given and we’ll focus on the means and the venue, because I have a van.

My 1985 Toyota was put out to pasture in 2009. Its engine (edging towards 400k) was still going strong but it was more or less falling off of the chassis. Sadly she wasn’t restored because she hadn’t been used properly in years as my travel had turned jet set-ish, meaning I’d done more climbing in Europe over the last decade than in adjacent states. When my Subi started showing her age I went into new car mode and was thinking along the same lines until Romney sent me an ad for an old Westy. Bingo.

The wheels started turning. Romney’s locked into an 8-5 gig for the foreseeable future. Weekend getaways are far more realistic than weeks abroad. And, as luck would have it, there’s a massive limestone belt ranging across the northern mountain states that weren’t developed back in my van years in the 90s (when I probably visited 99% of the established climbing areas in the Western US)—-a perfect distance away for short trips in a self-contained living space.

It’s no secret that the van years the pinnacle of my life in many respects. Even though nothing tangible to the Western mindset was accomplished (unless you count first ascents of obscure routes), those years were full of blissful, focused living. Every day had a purpose. Life was simple. It was good.

Things have drastically changed and there are merits. The upsides are easier to calculate as I, ya know, have a family and own an actual house and not just one the is mobile. The downside is that I’m also a cog in the machine. Daily activities acquiesce to others. To-do lists only gets longer.

The reality is that isn’t going to stop and I’m okay with that. I’m doing what I consider to be important work and am lucky to have the opportunity so I plan to ride it into the sunset. But the van will allow some respite. Even if it’s only for a couple of days here and there, this year there are going to be days with no cell reception, no computer, no outside influences at al. Just forests, deserts, mountains, trails, rock, and family and/or friends. And a van to call home.

pic: bob’s go westy calendar entry, featuring his gorgeous synchro and a eurovan that looks like ours.

Hope you all had a great holiday season. We will now get back to our regularly-scheduled programming...

Recaping The "Year of Fitness"

2011-12-30T13:36:00.005-07:00

My theme at the start of the year was a Year of Fitness and, more or less, it was. I stayed mainly quite fit, trained and raced right through a few bad injuries, and find myself just as motivated as ever moving towards next year. Sure, some things could have gone better but I can honestly say that I hope a year never goes perfect. Then what would I shoot for? I presented the numbers earlier this week. Here are a few highlights in photos.

it all started with a party...

and a never-ending winter. would have been great for skiing but i had races to train for.

luckily finn prefers riding to skiing, though most early-season riding needed to be done in the desert.

and P90X2 development meant a lot of trips south

at duathlon nationals in tucson

two days after nats the first big day of the year: sedona's 'big friggin' loop'

romney on a load humping trip to a crag where the season would never start

post crash in ketchum, exploring trails instead of racing nats

with no option to climb training got a wee bit more focused.

oddly enough an article about my climbing life appeared in a year with little climbing.

overlooking the cote d'azur with friend (beachbody president) jon congdon.

on the iconic mt ventoux

gear ready for spain. body, not so much

tapering in france at 'fitness camp'. le bonne vie!

it hurts just looking at this pic

with climbing and racing plans derailled you might as well go local

mick on the final pitch of my only long climb of the year.

in the wee hours at frog hollow. helmet light obviously on a lookout for aliens.

an uninspired birthday challenge for everyone but finnegan, who clicked off 40k at over 10mph.

finishing the year like it started, training with mr. f

and enjoying the desert because now that i have time to ski there's no winter.

it seems appropriate to end with a sunset.

Happy New Year!

2011: Training by numbers

2011-12-28T15:43:00.004-07:00

Notes – What's specifically done is listed elsewhere on the blog and can be found under "Labels". Most rehab work falls under Mobility. Cycling and climbing training means specific training. So a ride or climbing day might or might not be termed training. Indoor training doesn’t count as riding or climbing, only as training. All runs had a purpose. I don’t run for fun but do ruke on trails. A ruke is a hike/run, generally at ultra pace. Steep hike is generally fairly arduous, like hiking up a mountain. I don’t include hikes to climbing areas unless they are significant. Ski days all XC, classic or skate. Multi-sports days are two or more sports in a day, whereas multi-workouts are two different workouts done at different times (one is usually easy). A big day is something much longer than I’ve been doing in training.

Jan-Mar: Lots of travel or would have skied more. LA Feb-Mar for X2. Soleus work done early Mar, which is why there is a hole in the running days. Sick in mid-Mar. Hard to estimate recovery days because I often will use a different discipline to recover, like climb to recover from running and riding, which would be a training day.
April: First peak, Duathlon Nats on 26th.
May: A month “off”.
June: From mid-month real training began again after racing Mtb State Champs.
July: Injured hand in crash on 14th. Didn’t affect training, just climbing. By now, 2.5 hr ride considered recovery unless it’s hard. End of month S. France trip w/ 2 big days, Ventoux and run thru Maritime Alps.
Aug: Mainly specific training for World’s.
Sept: Injured soleus on 4th. “Training” became rehabbing through World’s on 25th.
Oct: The next goal for year was to test short training on some longer events.
Nov: All training focused around recovering from 3 12-hour days.
Dec: Play month but psyched and training a lot towards the end of the year. Used my scheduled workouts to fill in the last few days of the year.

Analysis – This may look crazy but look closely and it should be pretty easy to interpret. During the winter training was steady but volume low, hence there is less rest and more structure. Towards the two peaks (Ap and Sept), training became more sports specific. Intensity and volume increases dictating more recovery days. The months following each peak had little to no structure. Finally, during the epic fall marathons everything revolved around recovering between events as opposed to trying to get fitter. Moving into the off-season the winter pattern has re-emerged.

Only did four races but all were significant:

Duathlon Nationals 12th (though knocked to 25th w/ disputed penalties)
Utah State Mtn Bike Champs 7th
Duathlong World Championships 12th
Frog Hollow 25 Hour Race 3rd in duo division

Hardest climb: 12c (not impressive but at least it was on-sight)

Big Days include: The November Trifecta, Squawstruck, Ben's BD Challenge, Mt Ventoux and a long run in the Maritime Alps, and Sedona's Big Friggin' Loop.

Hard Grit

2011-12-26T09:48:00.000-07:00

Happy Boxing Day! Since boxing’s about grit here’s some tip top gritstone action from England, featuring Neil Mawson’s infamous deck off of Meshuga in 2005. UK Climbing’s Jack Geldard caught up with Mawson to see how the fall has affected his life since. Click the excerpt to read the entire interview.

The next few years I did very little trad climbing, onsighting or headpointing, and concentrated on pushing my sport climbing level. I tried over those years between 2006 and 2010 to headpoint some trad routes but I found I could never commit to the lead even though I'd climbed them cleanly on top rope. I'm sure that my lack of confidence to get on lead was due to my fall off Meshuga. Before then I'd never had any problem committing to the lead after top roping the route clean, but then that changed and it was really frustrating.

No Ski Lift. No Ski Hill. No Problem.

2011-12-23T10:19:00.002-07:00

Who needs Aspen, St. Moritz, any resort or even open space in order to shred? All that's required is ingenuity and a little psyche. And if your town happens to have public transport, consider it a bonus. This is basically the winter companion of this video. Happy holidays. Now get outside and play. Rock skis optional.

Importance Of Iron Fist

2011-12-22T11:14:00.002-07:00

Since arms are the theme this week on The ‘Dope, here’s my latest article for DPM mag: The Way of the Iron Fist. It’s a guide to forearm training using a rice bucket, accompanied by stellar video of Master Wu explaining the subtleties of eliminating your enemies using the Buddhist Palm stance.

So, other than the obvious radness of aiding your Predator handshake, just why should you train using a rice bucket?

Obviously hand strength is important for climbers. Unfortunately, both the act of climbing and most of the exercises that climbers do to strengthen their attachment to the rock, work almost exclusively on what are called the flexor muscles of the hands and forearm. This creates a massive imbalance between flexor and extensor strength that leads to an assortment of ailments including elbow and bicep tendonitis, carpal tunnel syndrome, and various injuries to the hand tendons and tendon pulleys.

Climbers aren’t the only group to have a flexor/extensor imbalance. Almost everyone does but life required doing a lot of grabbing and very little of opening your hand against resistance unless you regularly practice essence absorbing stance. If everyone used a rice bucket carpal tunnel syndrome would not exist, much less be a syndrome.

A note on rice bucket form from my friend Ed. Don’t hit the rice with your fingertips. Slide them in. You still use force but you also must employ grace. Nerve endings in your fingertips affect your vision so smashing your fingertips regularly into anything can cause your eye sight to weaken.

Finally, if you’re looking for a cheap stocking stuffer how about a subscription to The Stash at DPM? For 5 bucks a year you can get access to unending psyche with their premiere videos. Check out the one below. It’s free. Just imagine how good those in The Stash must be.

Also, unfortunately, Master Wu’s video can only be viewed by those whom he feels are worthy. Others will be re-directed to Grasshopper Ben training in The Coop.

Capacity For Strength, Technoviking, & The Predator Handshake

2011-12-20T08:16:00.002-07:00

Lately my only consistent workout has been Friday Night Arms, an obscurity from the One on One/10 Minute Trainer series where Tony works his biceps, triceps, and forearms into oblivion in ten minutes. Why an endurance athlete, where strength to weight ratio is vital, would do this is a fair question. For the answer I present Technoviking.

No one is quite sure what the Technoviking is capable of but with arms like that do you want to find out? He’s the definition of capacity for strength.

Seriously, since my mtn bike crash in July the guns have become even smaller than the spaghetti arms I generally walk around with; not only because I focused on racing but that I was also unable to use my right hand. Coming back to climbing I’ve been feeling undo stress in my tendons because my arm muscle breaks down quicker than normal. Some added girth, especially when it’s trained for power, will alleviate stress on the tendons. All in all weight worth having.

Plus, if you don’t work your arms how else will you do the Carl Weathers/Arnold handshake from Predator? Barry Bonds may have hit more home runs than Mark McGuire but, when you think of that era, you’ve got to admit the Big Mac’s arms are what you visualize. Actors know it. The Shat, to prepare for his time on the bridge of the Enterprise, did nothing but curls. Ricardo Montalban, as his nemesis Khan, requested that he be scanity clad to show off his guns. And my friend Elijah, a very strong climber, once did an entire training program for his biceps and triceps and nothing else. Arms matter.

The name of the video comes from a time when Tony and his buddies would spend Friday nights in the gym training nothing but arms to “get girls”. And while Tony claims it didn’t work back then it does now. Late one night, while we were working on a training routine in a hotel gym a drunk girl stumbled in, mumbled something about Tony’s arms being “kind of a turn on,” and hung around staring until her wine glass had apparently been empty too long. We laughed but there’s a reason both Tony and Elijah love to kiss their biceps. It’s because they know that when one day Carl Weathers appears before them in a third world jungle bar, they’ll be ready for a proper greeting.

P90X2 For Outdoor Sports V: An Off-Season Schedule

2011-12-15T08:28:00.003-07:00

I’ve officially decided to recommend flipping phases one and two of P90X2 for most outdoor athletes. I also think you should practice some of the phase one workouts during your rest phase at the end of the season before you begin training.

My rationale is that it’s better to avoid doing a lot of sport-specific training when you’re gaining muscle and phase II targets hypertrophy. In a perfect world you’d do the phases in order but most cyclists, runners, and climbers are lucky to take a month away from their sports, and those are the ones who get paid. Recreational athletes—who play sports for fun—have a very hard time stepping away from their sports at all. Bringing phase II to the fore lessens the chance of overuse injury because sports-specific training should, at worst, be base fitness and nothing your body can’t handle while it’s gaining muscle.

Without further ado, here’s what I’m doing this off-season.

I 2 “practice weeks"

II Phase II for 4 weeks.

Auxiliary training will be hang board training also based on hypertrophy (details later). The bikes will stay out of sight and I’ll ski for fun and aerobic conditioning. I’ll attend the Ritte training camp at the end of January (get destroyed) and then move into...

Phase I for 3 weeks.

Auxiliary training will be climbing on my wall and other more intense climbing training and a few cycling sessions, mainly on the trainer, as well as skiing.

Phase III for 4 weeks.

Since this phase is so intense all other training will be based around how well I recover from the workouts. Hopefully I’ll be testing (again) some PAP training for climbing. I’d like to have a climbing peak in April/May as I’m also building my cycling fitness.

So that is the overview and, of course, it will change somewhat as it goes down as that’s what programs inevitably do. I’m excited about it. Base fitness was excellent last year and I’m thinking it’ll be even better in 2012.

pic: a preview of ritte's winter training camp.

P90X2 For Outdoor Sports IV: Goals & Reality

2011-12-14T09:52:00.000-07:00

Now that you’ve assessed your goals and timeline you want to look the reality of just how much you can train. Most of us are not full-time professional athletes and need to be time efficient. There are too many variables to address in one post (or book) so I’ll carve out my plan as an example.

Let’s begin with my personal assessment of yesterday’s topic. Most of my goals are far off so scheduling my program is fairly simple. Still, however, three months is too long for most of us to be away from our sports. So I will be altering the P90X2 structure to allow more time for sport-specific training to occur as the season approaches.

Last year I averaged about 1.5 hours of training a day, which includes dog exercise (a post on multi-tasking this will be part of this series). I tested this on a series of long events during the month of November. A post on this is coming, too, but the gist is that it’s possible to train fairly short for very long events. Not optimal but it can work. Anyways, 1.5 hours isn’t a lot when each X2 workout takes an hour.

My goals for the year are a mixture of short and long events and I think I can strategize how to train for both in 1.5 hours a day. I’m 51, so you’ll see that theme at work as I present my 2012 tick list.

Climbing:
5 first ascents, 1 5.13
5 long days, 1 grade V in a day

Riding:
5 races, 1 100 mile
5 big days, 1 multi-day self-supported

Running & Skiing
No goals but to improve and get 100% healthy as there will be running and skiing on the ’13 agenda.

Current assessment: Back in the days when I had a ton of free time this wouldn’t have been a problem. With my current schedule, however, it’s going to take a lot of planning and discipline to get it done. The training is almost the easy part but I want to do well in the races so it’s got to stay focused. Also, I’m trying to climb at what is my limit these days, at least for one peak, and I’ve never been in 5.13 and bike race shape at the same time, so there’s a lifetime achievement goal on the agenda, which is always good for motivation.

I need a very high level of base fitness to make this happen, which is precisely why nothing is scheduled early. I want to be able to do a full unabridged round of P90X2. I also want to come out of my winter training ready to climb hard so some multi-tasking will be in order. If I can tick off my power goals in the spring it’ll be much easier because I can focus on endurance as the days get long. Now that my agenda is clear I’m ready to draw up a plan. I’ll post it tomorrow.

P90X2: How To Design A Sport-Specific Training Program

2011-12-13T09:44:00.000-07:00

As you sit down to embark on next season’s training plans here are a few things to keep in mind as you’re sorting out how P90X2 is going to fit into your year. I’ve written a lot about designing programs, both using Beachbody programs and not, and at this point in your planning P90X2 is no different than anything else because we’re simply looking at the big picture of when to target non sport-specific weaknesses and when to integrate sports training back in.

These two articles, written for P90X, will help you get the gist of what your training structure should look like:

Customizing P90X for Specific Goals: Part I

Endurance Athletes: Get Ripped in the Off-Season

Your first consideration is time. How long until your first event and, more precisely, how long until your important event? All training should be planned around a peak. In any given year we can probably peak twice and your most intense phase of off-season training should at the furthest point from these goals. So, for example, if you want to peak in February and again in October you’re better off scheduling a short cycle of training now and more off-season oriented training beginning in March. If you’re two peaks are late spring and fall—very common for both climbers and endurance athletes—now’s the time to get going.

If you’re of the former scenario, P90X2 can be utilized in a short cycle of training. Here’s an article on how that might work.

Customizing P90X for Skiing: How to Structure a Short Training Cycle

That’s enough reading for today. Tomorrow I’ll be back with my personal goals for 2012 and how I plan to schedule my training phases using P90X2.

pic: my schedule from winter 2010

P90X2: Practice Week

2011-12-12T09:46:00.001-07:00

Using P90X2 for outdoor sports requires an evaluation process that each of us must do in order to schedule it the most sensible way. This week I’ll post on the aspects of this while concurrently doing some of the workouts in what I call a practice week.

One of the principles of X2 is based on the specificity of adaptation. This is true of every exercise program we’ve made but it’s never been pushed as far as we’re taking it this time. For some of you learning the movements of this program will be like learning how to dance. When the movements you’re learning click (like in the pic) is when you’re going to start seeing crazy progress so I’m getting a jump on it while I’m still in recovery mode.

“Core should be the first workout because it teaches you so much,” said Steve Holmsen, one of the program’s developers who’s also Tony’s ski buddy and the guy who got him psyched on balance training. And, in fact, all of phase I of the program is about learning. But we outdoor athletes might be best served to alter the schedule to accommodate our sport-specific training. I will go into this later but, for now, consider jump starting your winter program with some practice.

When I’m in recovery mode I play. I still exercise, sometimes a lot, but I have no targets or goals and I certainly don’t diet. Sometimes, like this year, I have injuries and when I do I will keep going with my rehab. So my play schedule has been basically climbing, easy riding, and easy running/hiking (ruking) along with stability workouts like this and this. And also Friday Night Arms, which I’ll go into in a separate post.

With that in mind my practice week looks like this.

Daily: whatever I want/have time for sports wise.

Practice schedule:

Day 1: X2 Core
Day 2: X2 Mobility
Day 3: Friday Night Arms & rice bucket
Day 4: X2 Power and Balance
Day 5: Shoulder and pelvic stability & X2 Mobility

P90X2 For Outdoor Athletes

2011-12-09T15:07:00.004-07:00

I’m going to be starting a round of P90X2 designed to get me ready for a season of riding, running, and climbing. Today’s Psyche post is on the above photo of the package sitting in my garage that was followed by Twitter and Facebook posts, “There's a package sitting on the floor containing P90X2 and collateral material that's burning a hole in my post-challenge recovery mode.” All pre-orders should be in transit. If you don’t have yours yet it’ll be there any day. Anyone interested in sport-specific training should join me.

P90X changed the landscape of home fitness training forever. P90X2 is going to raise the standard, particularly for those of us who participate in athletic activities. One of my promotional articles (for Active.com, I think) concluded with a line about how I’ve never been so excited for off-season training to start. I’ve been tinkering with this program for years and it’s finally coming to fruition. I’m psyched.

like presents under a tree, the x2 kit begging me to action.

Over the next few months my goal is not only to get into tip-top shape, but to preemptively answer your questions about sport-specific training with X2. Put this blog on your favorites list and tag along. It’s going to be a helluva fun ride.

First American Female To...

2011-12-08T16:08:00.000-07:00

Climb 9a. For you who don't speak climbing just know it's really, really hard. Hence "first".

Sasha DiGiulian. "Pure Imagination" 5.14d (9a). from Adidas Outdoor on Vimeo.

Been too busy to write so this is going to be triple Psyche week. This is round two. Enjoy!

The Trouble With Trouble

2011-12-03T07:55:00.001-07:00

For this weekend’s Psyche here’s a good vid of Emily Harrington battling with Waka Flocka, a route in Rifle. Projects aren’t easy, otherwise they’d have been finished, and here Harrington deals with some of the issues any of us who’ve had one go through. It’s inspiring, well done, and makes me want to get outside. Luckily I’m in California this weekend. Think I’ll head out to the crags right now...

Questions, Answers, and Song

2011-12-01T17:54:00.003-07:00

Denis and I did an impromptu video chat this afternoon that you might find entertaining. Since no one was around at first we began with a bit of movie banter. As the word got out we progressed to a standard fitness and nutrition q and a session until a little challenge got Keith the Dude to provide a human beat box for one of Denis’ old high school raps.

My chats have changed to video format recently. They are generally full of detailed information that stays pretty much on topic. Today was different. You’ll have to decide if it was better or worse but it was certainly a lot more fun.

Birthday Pretty Hard

2011-11-29T09:58:00.004-07:00

There are many sayings we use to describe Birthday Challenge. Perhaps the most popular is one coined by David Brainard during the abyss of my 40th 40-day adventure when things we going decidedly un-well. I think I had a nasty cold and was complaining about the prospect of spending yet another day outside in the rain when DB riffed off the theme from Mission Impossible. “It’s not birthday pretty hard,” he stated with his best Anthony Hopkins impression. “It’s birthday challenge.” It not only got me outside in a good mood that day, it’s become my measuring stick for challenges ever since.

Well, at least until this year. A challenge, by definition, requires an element of the unknown and a seed of doubt. Knowing that I’ll finish if I simply continue is not enough and I gauge the worth of my year’s quest by how many people tell me I’m crazy. This year, however, was never meant to be one of those epics and that lack of focus allowed it to unravel as soon as conditions went south, which is an ever-present issue for me since my parents decided to give birth during a shoulder season.

“Number one, I don’t want to get injured,” was Bob’s objective for our first duo challenge. No stranger to big suffering, he’d spent most of the year in rehab and didn’t want to go back. And since I, too, am coming off injury it became out theme, which is not exactly the devil-may-care attitude needed for success when you go big. Still, we carved out an aesthetic little epic on the eastside flank of the Sierra—a point to point adventure featuring road and mountain biking along with more climbing than 99% would ever consider in a day. But as soon as the weather altered our original line our lack of commitment began to show. We started late, never recovered, and ended up with what was, for us, little more than a big day of exercise; the definition of birthday pretty hard.

The 50/40 challenge

50 kilometers of road biking – the only thing that could be considered cruxy was the cold. It was very very cold.

40 kilometers of mountain biking – With our original line snowed in we deviated to one of the more mundane rides I’ve ever done on a hippie rig. Pretty though.

50 routes on sight (combined total, so 25 each) – This was supposed to be 40 each but, frankly, we were bored as the climbing area we chose was not exactly inspiring. Most of the routes we did wouldn’t get a star elsewhere (though the guidebook seemed to love em). We thought the place was so bad we’re not going to mention where it was lest we damper your enthusiasm should you venture there. Climbing is an individual sport. Maybe you’ll love it.

We were supposed to do 50 boulder problems but those, too, were under snow meaning that we’d have to do this at a place we’d been to many times. This sounded very boring as there was no question of success so, again, we left it at pretty hard.

So basically we did what amounts to a grade V big wall climb on sight and rode 90k on our bikes. 12 hours of exercise; a hard day but nothing that will make to annals of birthday challenge.

it was, however, a proper bd challenge for finn who ran 40k averaging more than 10mph.

PS – It was my third 12-hour training day in a three-week period, which is worth an assessment. I’ll reflect on this in another post.

P90X2 Prep: Block 3

2011-11-22T09:39:00.003-07:00

With the release of P90X2 imminent here are some final tips to have you read to take it on at full strength. While you’ve probably heard a lot about post-activation potentiation (PAP) in the various promos or, at least, on my blog, what might not have been made clear is exactly why you only see it during the final phase of the program. In answering this you’ll see why your final block of prep should be tailored very specifically for you personally.

Essentially, PAP needs to be earned. It’s only effective if you have the fitness base to withstand its rigors, which forces you to follow a heavy contraction exercise immediately with a 100% effort explosive exercise. And not for 30 seconds or a minute, but only for a few seconds, meaning that for the first time in a Beachbody program you’re being asked to give a one rep max effort--though one that’s been tempered by a set to failure (or close) of heavy resistance.

pap example at p3 from gordon hayward of the utah jazz

If you’re not physically ready the first set of exercise will wipe you out. However, once conditioned the resistance effort actually frees up higher threshold muscle cell motor units which, in brief, allows your muscles to work at higher explosive outputs than normal. When you train this process you increase your muscular efficiency that, in layman’s terms, means that your muscles get stronger without gaining any size, which not only improves your ability to perform now but also increases your capacity for hypertrophy (muscle growth).

So, anyway, I’m sure that sounds cool but here’s the rub; you don’t need to practice PAP training, you need to get fit for it. So block 3 of your prep should be to improve at whatever your weaknesses are up to this point.

If you don’t feel you have weaknesses you could start working on PAP with Tony’s One on One workout (see top vid). This workout isn’t dialed as Tony was just starting to learn about it but it’s cool in that it’s both an upper and lower body PAP workout and provides a template for you to create your own workout variations if you get time crunched while doing X2. Like pretty much everything, you improve at doing complexes with practice so trying this out now will provide benefits by the time you get to phase III of X2. You could also try this workout (added video of heel slide - aka "wall slide").

However, if you are still learning the balance movements from block 1 and block 2, I recommend that you spend more time focused on these. The better you get at these movements the quicker you will respond to the program. When you get to the point—like big wave surfer Laird Hamilton—where you can do heavy movements on unstable platforms as if you were on a concrete floor (note cameo by Shakeology guru Darin Olien) your strength gains are going to go through the roof. And then when you add PAP training to a base like that your body’s going to take you places you’d never dreamed you’d be able to go.

Final teaser: P90X2 is on schedule for early December delivery. Get psyched.

The R Series

2011-11-18T13:20:00.001-07:00

Jenn Flemming - The "R" Series from DPM CLIMBING on Vimeo.

Here’s part I of a new DPMclimbing series on scary climbs. It’s one last Psyche to help tick your project before winter sets in. This vid features Jenn Flemming on a naturally-protected 5.13 in Eldo called Fraid Line. It’s a very professionally done film and part of DPM’s new Stash series, which promises to be well worth the paltry annual fee of 5 bucks (yes, you read that correctly).

R = “Runout, some protection placements may be very far apart (possibility of serious injury exists, even when properly protected).

P90X2 and Sports Performance

2011-11-17T16:29:00.001-07:00

P3 performance vid: aka people who jump higher than you

Here are two published articles about P90X2 and increase sports performance in two different realms. The first (penned by yours truly) appears on Active.com and, not surprisingly, addresses its effectiveness on endurance athletes. The second highlights how it will affect explosive athletes and features an interview with Dr. Marcus Elliott.

While this dichotomy might be illicit some confusion since a common sentiment is that power and endurance don’t mix, we both provide rationale for a changing idiom. For example, here's my brief explanation on how increased power, or muscular efficiency, can lead to improved performance during endurance sports.

The goal of the final phase is to transfer the strength gains you've made into muscular efficiency. While explosiveness isn't a goal for many endurance athletes, muscular efficiency can enable you to engage higher threshold muscle cell motor units at lower aerobic outputs. If that description draws a blank, you'll probably understand this; muscular efficiency allows you to save precious glycogen stores for later points in a race, which is often the difference between finisher and medalist.

Dr. Elliott goes on to analyze how the program works and the importance of both power and stability for athletes of all types, primarily those in power sports. He sums up his interview with:

It’s more than just losing weight or bulking up. You will wake up proprioceptive awareness, balance and a sense of stability with the legs, trunk and shoulders. The PAP segments will improve athleticism with big and powerful movements. It’s about making your body feel like its designed to be an athlete.

In The Wake...

2011-11-12T10:23:00.007-07:00

This week’s Psyche offers some reflection in the wake of part II of my November trilogy of pain, along with a couple of short videos that are follow-ups to earlier posts. First, I’ve cancelled this weekend’s trip south because moving is such a chore that I doubt its training effects would have been positive. In the last 7 days I’ve completed two big days that offered up completely different experiences. Here’s a little comparison.

The 25 Hours of Frog Hollow – Spending 12.5 on the bike in a day in every-other-lap fashion is a strange lesson in suffering. The down time between each lap is mainly spent refueling and arranging things for your next lap. You end up with about 15 minutes to relax before you need to get moving again. While it’s less painful than soloing, because you get some rest, you also can’t cash it in and nap when you’re tired because you know you’ve got a partner counting on you to show up every hour and ten minutes or so. Sitting on a bike for this long is simply painful, especially for your butt, feet, and hands. The latter got so pounded on the rocky descents that Jeff, my partner, switched to his suspension bike during the last few laps. And while you’re very tired at the end recovery is quick. I was back on my bike feeling decent (though not strong) in a few days.

11 Beachbody workouts – I’d stacked Beachbody workouts together before but nothing like this. The first four felt good but all of our workouts (unless you only chose recovery workout which wouldn’t be very interesting) break you down. I was slightly surprised that Power 90 and Slim in 6 still felt like exercise at their easiest level even though I’m fairly fit at the moment. These workouts shouldn’t be discounted. They’re the real deal. Reversing the order would have made sense but I was also after a chronological experience and, unfortunately, our workouts have been getting harder over the years.

And so Asylum Game Day (and last-minute addition Overtime) at the end were a fantastic trip to the pain exchange. Not surprising, since these workouts are extremely difficult and painful when done fresh, it was simply a bizarre experience to be screaming to keep up after many hours of training featuring workouts designed to be your only activity of the day. And while my explosiveness was kaput I managed to hit Shaun’s number benchmarks for “winning” (I think it’s 40 jump shots and 50 home runs) meaning that I never slacked off. In Overtime I hit a wall, big time, struggled mightily not to puke but this didn’t surprise me at all since that is certainly the hardest 12 minutes of exercise ever put on video.

By comparison the gym training is somewhat easier in that it’s got no outside elements such as cold and wind and no single points of overuse where your skin becomes a limiting factor. You can always turn down the intensity a notch and minimize the pain. However, because the workouts (by my designed line up of choice) systematically targeted all elements of body movement and fitness the overall breakdown factor was far more complete. Last night, trying to sit through a symphony, I could feel every muscle competing for limited resources for recovery and it was a struggle to stay awake. This morning, with the healing process still in its infancy, it took a big commitment to force my body out of bed. And while, in contrast to the 24 hour race when I had hot spots of pain, nothing really hurts; it just refuses to work. Translation (which should not be a surprise): the home training is better for you than playing a sport. Also, because the breakdown is specific the process of replenishing full body strength is going to take a lot longer.

And with that, here’s your weekend entertainment, both in the form of trailers. First (top), we have a video on the El Cap races. I’ve written about this a lot but this year, Hans again got himself fit enough (at 47 with a full time job) to have a go. In three tries with young hot shot Alex Honnald he’s come within 45 seconds of the record set last year by Sean O’Leary and Dean Potter. He says he’s now got the fitness to break it but the duo is waiting for the weather to improve and may not get another attmept 'til spring.

I’m saving my Wideboyz follow up for a training Psyche in the depths of winter but those interested know what they’ve done. Here is another trailer for what promises to be a cracking good time at the movies (silly pun not intended. I'm tired). And you want to take about pain? Well nothing I’ve described in the post comes close to this.

Wide Boys climb Century Crack from chris Alstrin on Vimeo.

A Historical Tour of Beachbody, with Sweat

2011-11-10T09:59:00.008-07:00

On 11/11/11 I’ll be living a historical tour of Beachbody by doing 11 workouts that date back 11 years. If you play along, even just in part, you stand a chance to win $1,111 by logging into the WOWY Supergym during the hour of 11:11 PST. It’s only going to be 11/11/11 once in your life. You might as well do something special.

jon and carl in 1999

Besides trying to set a daily record for Supergym attendance this date has some personal significance. One year ago tomorrow we lost Tuco the Rat and the outside portion of my challenge is dedicated to him (oh, yes, there’s more). I also did challenges on 8/8/8, 9/9/9, and 10/10/10 so this is a tradition. Finally, it’s part II of my November endurance trifecta that began last weekend with a 24 hour mtn bike race (3rd place) and will finish with a birthday challenge Thanksgiving weekend.

I’ve tried to choose workout that make physiological sense for the challenge. Not getting injured is paramount and this should be a good overall workout, even though it’s excessive. Admittedly PAP at the end is silly stupid but it’s too important to leave out. That’s because I’m also telling a story, which is my own personal history working at Beachbody.

#1 Power 90 Sculpt 1/2 (2000)
While not the first Beachbody workout released (which was Great Body Guaranteed) it was the first hit and first workout that I did to evaluate whether or not I wanted to work with the company. I was currently working as a fitness columnist and wasn’t going to shuck for an infomercial company unless their products made sense. Carl and Jon assured me that if their products didn’t live up to my standards they would improve them until they did. Not only was Power 90 solid but it was being led by a guy with charisma to spare. This had potential, I thought, to revamp home fitness. I signed on and the rest, as they say, is history that’s about to pay me back in a very painful way. “Things are startin’ to happen.”

#2 Ho Ala ke Kino (2001)
I’m testing everyone’s dedication to Beachbody with this obscurity. We once doubled as a travel company and had a trip called Power Kauai. Tony Horton and Debbie Siebers would lead workouts for the clients and one morning Tony did a workout on the beach that got filmed and voila! Or something like that. This is a funny low budget feature that still holds up as great workout. “You guys ever do this workout?” said Carl to the staff one day (when you could address the entire company without raising your voice). “Man, if you ever want to feel good check it out.”

pretty sure i have some short shorts to wear for this

#3 Slim in 6 Start It Up (2002)
Our second big hit was a low impact program that subtly breaks you down until you’re begging for mercy. It’s by design but also might have something to do with the fact that Debbie doesn’t always know her own strength. She can do squats as easily as most of us sit in a chair. In one of the Slim Series workouts she’s actually still squatting while telling the audience “we’re taking a little break here.” I’m using Start It Up because, well, I’m not in such specific squat shape and we’re still kind of warming up. But I’ve got the original version, which we had to tone way down because it was destroying people out of the gate, so it’s going to hurt. Btw, the long version of Slim Series is Beachbody’s first graduate program and probably not in your collection. These workouts still hold up—and feel very hard—even after the Insanity years.

debbie taking a rest

#4 Power Half Hour Arms (2003)
“Bam!” This super intense set of 30 minute workouts was the cornerstone of many unofficial test groups I used with our customers to try and sort out how hard they were going to be willing to work in P90X. Because of this they will always have a fond place in my heart and, while decidedly low budget, they stand the test of time and remain in my arsenal. We didn’t shoot these in 2003 but we did launch one of our only failed infomercials that year about PHH. This is unfortunate because it was amazing. It’s also really weird because the entire company (now big enough you had to raise your voice a little) agreed it was the best infomercial they’d ever seen. Carl and Jon decided to chuck that standard format and go legit, using nothing by real people and stories without any glitz whatsoever. We found it incredibly powerful. When it didn’t hit we focus grouped it where the main complaint was “the people don’t seem real.” Go figure.

its time has still yet to come

#5 P90X Core Synergistics (2004)
P90X would eventually change the entire fitness landscape but not in 2004. When it launched our customer base ate it up but the rest of America was, like, “Wtf?! Dude, give me back my Ab Lounger!” Eventually we were able convey the basic science that human bodies require hard work in order to look like Tony Horton. And once converted, it seems like all you wanted was more. And this made my job a lot more fun. “Bring it!”

#6 Yoga Booty Ballet Pure & Simple Yoga (2005)
I’m not sure what year we shot this, actually, but from here on out the challenge is going to be a fight to the finish and pulling the yoga card from YBB means that I don’t have to do it for a harder program. I also wanted to throw some love Gill and Teigh’s way since they’re great people. Wildly popular on the west side of LA, YBB never struck a consistent chord with our customers. But that doesn’t mean the workouts are any less effective. If you’re looking for something different to simulate your training give it a shot.

#7 Chalean Extreme Push Circuit 3 (2006)
The first time I met Chalene Johnson I felt she’d be our next superstar trainer. Obviously I didn’t know since I was still waiting for the PHH show to hit but, anyway, she had the it quality Hollywood types are always yappin about. Like Tony Horton, only different. And while we had a lot of success with Turbo Jam her next program, Chalean Extreme, never quite took off. This is too bad because it’s a great program. The problem could be the title. It’s an intro program and perhaps Extreme is scaring off part of its audience. But like Slim in 6, just because anyone can start it doesn’t mean fit folks will find it easy. The workouts, especially as the program progresses, will challenge anyone. Of course it still might take off. It took a few years for P90X to find traction and I’m still thinking Power Half Hour's ascendency is on the cusp.

#8 Insanity, The Asylum’s Game Day (2007)
I’m cheating here because Asylum launched in 2011 but I was only going to get one representative from the Insanity series and Game Day fits the bill perfectly. At least if it doesn’t kill me. Apparently P90X wasn’t enough for you guys so we offered up a stiffer challenge, which you went after like Fluffy on catnip. I wonder what the people who said we were nuts while filming P90X would have thought watching Shaun drop mega fit trainers during the filming of Insanity like Brock Lesner with an overhand right? Then we went even bigger with Asylum, which is my personal favorite workout series at the moment (at least until P90X2 comes out). Game Day is its pinnacle and it’s an absolute blast. So painful; but with a 4th quarter with the game on the line kind of way that takes me back to my youth. “This is not Insanity, people. It’s the Asylum. I’m not messin’ with you today.”

definitive asylum shot: it's a fine line between resting and vomiting

#9 RevAbs Strength & Endurance (2008)
Would a rose by any other name smell as sweet? Most Beachbody customers are now well aware that to get a six-pack you need to train your entire body. The public, perhaps, is not and maybe they think RevAbs is a workout series done on the Ab Lounge and that's why it's yet to spend any time at number one. This full body program based around Capoeira is led by one of our most intellectual trainers, Brett Hoebel, whom I love working with because I don’t have to edit anything he writes. So buy RevAbs if for no other reason than you’ll make my job easier. Thank you.

#10 Turbo Fire HIIT 15 (2009)
“Ya gotta dance with the one that brung ya,” said Darrell Royal and we listened, putting Chalene back in front of a class and shooting verite style to create Turbo Fire. In actuality development was more scientific than that but TF is like going to class down at the gym. Except you don’t have to go to the gym or choose which class you need to get the quickest results. It’s kind of like going dancing except there are scientists in the background making sure each move you do strategically benefits your physiology. On HIIT days the band is particularly enthusiastic.

#11 P90X One on One PAP (2010)
This is a P90X2 preview and a great example of the full circle world of Beachbody. I came to Beachbody after mainly working with athletes. And while I found the non-athletic community great to work with—both easier to train and far more appreciative—sports performance is my forte and in my roots (both dad and I were coaches). Getting back to, as the old coach said above, what brung me has been my most interesting as well as greatest challenge yet at Beachbody. And while you’ve read plenty about PAP, my buddy Marcus and his training facility P3, here on my blog over the last few years you’ve never seen it implemented like this. I’m sure I’ll learn a little more by the day’s end. Assuming I survive as Marcus, nor any other trainer worth their schooling, would recommend PAP at the end of this kind of day.

tonys shows the it compared to my decidedly not it star quality as we banter about pap

But wait, there’s more! In honor of the best dog ever I’m adding 111 minutes of outside activity, either running or riding depending on the weather. During this time I’ll throw 111 rocks for Finnegan. At least I’ll be warmed up after Game Day.

we miss ya, buddy

P90X2 Prep: The mc2 Version

2011-11-08T09:23:00.001-07:00

It was brought to my attention that we never presented a schedule for those who purchased the entire P90X2 preview series: P90Xmc2. While I’ve covered a lot of how to use it to prepare for the real thing in the first two posts of this series, today I’ll provide specific guidelines for those using mc2 only. You will still want to read the two previous entries on X2 prep:

Part I

Part II

The reason we didn’t provide literature with mc2 is that it sold mainly to a savvy group of Xers who know the program’s philosophies inside and out. We didn’t have to instruct them how to plug and play the various workouts Tony would come up with for One on One. We also didn’t film them in any kind of specific order so a schedule wouldn’t have done any good until you had the complete series.

Since we’re now peddling to a wider audience ordering all of the workouts at once, here you go. Keep in mind there are a ton of individual variables you might want to consider, most of which are addressed somewhere in this blog. Use the search function (“customizing P90X” is a good place to start) or click on various labels to whittle down your research.

In a perfect world each training block would be done for 3-6 weeks but, with X2 out in less than two months, you might want to employ more of a practice schedule consisting of doing each week once and then spending a little time training the workouts you’re worst at. While this won’t allow your body to peak it will prepare you for P90X2 so that you’ll adapt quicker to that program, leading to faster overall fitness improvements.

Block I

Day 1: Core Syn mc2
Day 2: Plyocide
Day 3: Shoulders & Arms: mc2
Day 4: Yoga m2
Day 5: Stretch and Recovery
Day 6: Chest, Back, and Balls
Day 7: Rest

Block II

Day 1: V Sculpt
Day 2: Plyocide
Day 3: Upper Body X
Day 4: ARX 2
Day 5: Base and Back
Day 6: Yoga mc2
Day 7: Rest

Block III

Day 1: PAP
Day 2: ARX 2
Day 3: Yoga mc2
Day 4: Core Syn mc2
Day 5: PAP
Day 6: Stretch and Recovery
Day 7: Rest

Should you do the entire rotation in full blocks you’ll probably need a recovery week between blocks I and II but not III because it’s very different. A good recovery week would be doing Yoga, Core Syn, and ARX 2 once and Stretch twice, or else doing any activities that you like as long as they don’t have heavy resistance training.

Heel Slide: The Most Important Exercise You’ve Never Heard Of

2011-11-03T08:50:00.002-06:00

If I told you that adding one exercise movement to your workout could reduce your likelihood of injuring your knee by 90% would you be interested? If so, this is your lucky day. Introducing the heel slide.

You’ve heard me talk about heel slides for some time but I’ve finally gotten around to shooting a proper instructional video. While this movement is easy to do once your understand it, the position you need to get into is subtle and requires some explanation. This movement should be done two or three times per week, either alone (as shown) or tacked on to the end of any lower-body workout.

While originally slated for P90X2 we replaced it because it requires a body length of open wall space, which is something surprisingly hard to find in many people’s homes. You also contact your heel with the wall, which could blemish your house, further complicating the scenario. We thus replaced it with a similarly-effective movement but for those of you with the space, I suggest swapping heel slides for an exercise we called Tony’s Triangle during Phase 3 or, at least, alternating between the two. I would also highly suggest adding it to whatever routine you’re currently doing.

So what’s the big deal?

All the credit for this exercise goes to Dr. Marcus Elliott and P3 because I’d never seen it before training there. I knew the importance of strengthening the gluteus medius but the movements I’d been show by various trainers and physical therapist paled in comparison. In fact, most of them allowed me to unknowingly cheat and use larger muscles to shoulder the burden of the movement, actually creating a further muscular imbalance—so essentially there we heightening the problem they were supposed to fix.

Anyway, anyone who follows sports knows that more athletes break down than ever before. It seems like society accepts this as a byproduct to becoming bigger, stronger, and faster but research has shown that to be fallacy. We are breaking down because we are unstable in our hips (and shoulders). This causes a biomechanical tracking problem that radiates through the body. Someone who lacks hip stability puts excessive force on their joints each time they move. Add enough force to the equation and breakdown occurs, usually at the weak link, our soft connective tissues. This is so prevalent that “torn ACL” is about as well understood today as “I’ve got a headache.”

As proven by Elliott and his staff, this is mostly preventable. Studies done on elite athletes have shown that instances of hip instability usually exceed 90%, meaning knee injury is a when not if scenario. Teams trained by Elliott have seen instances of non-contact knee injuries drop to virtually zero. And most of this is corrected by one thing; strengthen a small muscle called the gluteus medius.

chicago white sox all star carlos quentin showing proper heel slide technique at p3

But this is not as simple as finding the muscle and isolating it. The pelvic girdle is a complex area where muscles wrap around bones and joints and criss cross each other. When out of alignment the body reacts in a way where the larger muscles will take over the motions that should rely on smaller ones that exacerbate imbalance. When this happens we tighten up. Our posture fails, followed by our movement patterns. No amount of stretching or adjusting will fix it because the imbalance we simply pull us right back out of alignment until all the muscle are strengthened and taught to work together properly.

Granted, heel slides alone won’t fix all the imbalances along your kinetic chain (though P90X2 is designed to do just that). But adding them to your routine is a great place to start.

Train Hard. Go Big.

2011-11-01T09:53:00.002-06:00

November is Go Big month, and you can win some money by playing along and you don’t even need to bother with the go big part. On 11/11/11 Beachbody is having a contest where if you’re working out in the Supergym at 11:11 you could win $1,111. Actually you can be logged in at any time during the hour and you’ll be qualified. It’s free so why wouldn’t you? Your odds are pretty good. And I’ll be there, most of the day, since 11/11/11 is going to be an eleven-hour epic; one of three big days on the calendar this November.

2011 has been one of the more consistent training years of my life. I’ve logged everything and missed almost nothing that I’d planned. Unfortunately it’s been one of the worst for big days and challenges as my schedule has forced my training/events around small windows of opportunity. Now I’m about to test a train short/go long theory on something that is always advised against even for those who train long: three big days in a month (technically closer to 3 weeks). Let’s see what an hour of daily training can do for you when pushed into survival mode.

These are:

The 25 hours of Frog Hollow – I’ll be doing this as a duo, making it a 12.5 hour interval challenge

11/11/11 – The tradition continues 8/8/8, 9/9/9, 10/10/10

11/22 (or thereabouts) – Birthday Challenge

It’s actually not a theory but rather an experiment to see how (if is probably a better word) it works. Long days absolutely get easier when you’re used to them. Chalk this November up to lab rat syndrome; as Beachbody’s white mouse is once again placed into the maze of uncertainty in the name of science.

title of this post is what the anne-marie, title character in blue crush, has written on her mirror in lipstick in the first scene after she trains on the beach. i couldn’t find it so you get highlights of the film; basically gratuitious shots of hot chicks surfing with a lot of good wipeouts, which somehow seemed appropriate still as I’m about to get crushed.

El Cap Report: “I Wake Up... Psyched”

2011-10-30T10:06:00.004-06:00

Kevin: This spring with the water coming off the top. You're in the shade and the wall is getting skimmed by the sun, and there's a million water drops in the air, hovering. And then going down and coming back up. Incredible.

Tommy: The first time we saw it, we just stopped and were like, “wow, this is really beautiful”. Then it would pummel us and we're like, “It’s not so beautiful anymore.”

You're living in this vertical world. It's not like you're just going on a
little trip up the wall. It's like “This is where I live.”

VIDEO Part 2: BD athletes Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson attempting to free El Cap's hardest climb from Black Diamond Equipment on Vimeo.

Currently Tommy Caldwell is living on the side of El Capitan trying to free climb his five-year project. What began as almost a joke in order to get some cool stuff on film is on the cusp of reality. If he succeeds the route will be the hardest and most sustained bit of big wall climbing on earth, by far. Unfortunately, his partner, Kevin Jorgeson, had to pack it up for the season after injuring his ankle on an eight foot sideways dyno (see vid). So Tommy’s at it alone, belayed by his wife, milking the very short window between fall and winter when free climbing temperatures on El Cap peak.

kevin’s topo. click here for climbing mag's readable version. in one 9 pitch section 7 are 5.14, 3 of those 14+.

This week's Psyche is launching a little late because I needed to wait for the weekend to have enough time to read the entire transcript of a great interview by Dougald MacDonald about the history of this project. It’s a long read and probably too detailed to be of interest to most. But if you’re the type who gets captivated by accounts of people who attempt audacious things consider it required.

K: ...You go through so many mental states doing that
pitch. It starts with tips liebacking for 40 ft. Then you get the wet
section. You have to deal. Then you're trying to recover and it's wet...

T: Climbing like 5.13 totally like slimy wet.

Dougald: Kevin, you described [this] on your way out. You get to a jug finally, but the jug is soaking wet.

K: You have to figure out how to dry yourself out in the middle of these
hard moves. So it's been like 15 minutes and you're getting out of the
wet stuff and... and then you have to do this really hard crux at the top of the pitch. And it's this endeavor, you leave the ledge and you're like, “here we go”. You're in it. You give it everything. You know what you're getting into. It's gonna be like “full on experience”. It's cool. It's really cool. (But) It's intimidating when you're on the ledge.

Dougald: I would think, because knowing that you might have to do it more
than once, too, if something goes wrong.

K: Especially with that pitch, it has a really hard move at the top. You go
through a lot of scary and hard and wet climbing to get there. You
gotta like lift the car off the baby with that undercling move.

T: There's so many pitches... if you think of like heady single pitches
around... there are 9 or 10 pitches on this route above and beyond
anything I've done in that genre of climbing.

The interview covers not just the history but the physical training and other mental challenges involved with such an ordeal. It’ll probably make you tougher just by reading it.

T: There's gonna be a lot of times, and there have been a lot of times, where you're gonna be pretty tired. And you have to be like, “all right, I gotta suck it up and just do this right now” so, I try and do multiple workouts where I climb all day and then try and go do something hard at the end of the day. Not too many people do that, I feel like. Get a little tired, and then “I'm done”.

If you ever think your own personal projects are too daunting give it a chance over a cup of joe (or pot). It will likely change your perspective on what is possible.

T: I love the fact that it keeps me motivated to train throughout the year. I've always loved to have these looming goals. I wake up in the morning thinking about them, getting super psyched. And that's worth it, even if I never did the project, having that there is awesome for me. You have to think of it that way.

Check progress on Tommy's Twitter feed.

P90X2 Prep: Block II

2011-10-25T09:06:00.004-06:00

Remember back to the very first day you tried P90X? Unless you couldn’t do pull-ups this was likely one of the more devastating physical experiences of your life. The P90X Chest & Back workout was nearly impossible to be ready for. When Tony first proposed this workout I showed it to a friend of mine, who practically does pull-ups in his sleep (“I could do 100 pull-ups a day for the rest of my life and I wouldn’t count it as exercise”), who said that he didn’t think he could finish it in good style. My first attempt had me hyperventilating in order to keep my lunch down.

P90X2 opens with a similar proposition. Day 1, as I went into last time, is going to challenge you in ways you’ve not seen before but the real nastiness hits on day 2. Plyocide is so much harder than the original that P90X master and superstar Beachbody coach and all-around master of fitness Mark Briggs looked as though he was going to pass out during the Plyocide rehearsal. “I just wasn’t ready for that,” said the guy who devises some of the most intense P90X/Insanity hybrids out there. You have been warned.

Luckily the warning comes with some advice. Block I of our prep focused on balance. Block II will up the intensity. Briggs had been training with Tony’s One on One Plyocide workout, which is a decent practice session for the moves, but the final version is a whole other ball game when it comes to intensity. There is simply no way this workout isn’t going to hurt out of the gate but if you start adding a day of ever-increasing plyometric workouts to your training now and you’ll be ready to stave off utter annihilation.

Here are some choices along with comments. Of course you need to work with what you’ve got, so don’t feel the need to get all of these. Just keep increasing the intensity of your weekly plyo session right up until you shut down for the last couple of weeks before X2 arrives.

One on One: Plyocide – this workout is a bit of a practice session. Good training but slow cadence.

P90X Plyo - If it’s all you’ve got it ain’t bad. If you can waltz through this your body is ready for the next X.

One on One: Plyo Legs – The very first One on One workout is a good next step from P90X Plyo

Insanity Max Interval Plyo – It was surprising Mark got so slammed after doing this regularly because it’s still very hard.

Turbo Fire HIIT 30 – Will have you well used to any jumping that life throws your way. Any of the HIITs will prep you, so work your way up to 30 if you're just starting out.

Asylum: Overtime – adding this short workout to the end other workout will destroy you in just the right kind of way.

Asylum: Vertical – Shaun T’s version of Plyocide. If you can handle this with good form you’re ready for anything. Train to get ready for this workout though because "it's not Insanity!"

The Lord of the Widz

2011-10-21T11:14:00.011-06:00

This week’s Psyche is one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a long time. It’s a climbing story—and an esoteric one at that—but its narrative could apply to any endeavor. Over the last month, two gentlemen of the Sceptred Isle made a tour of America’s hardest wide crack climbs that has changed that pursuit forever. But before we jump into the what and how of the tale, we need to step back to the beginning, where a plan was hatched on a Greek island paradise famous for its sport climbing and free diving.

Kalymnos is a perfect setting for our genesis because it’s the exact opposite of where we lead. It’s a place that makes the sport of climbing seem magical. The rock climbing is incredibly fun. The surroundings are ever better. It’s a land where masses of uber fit scantily clad men and women throw themselves at mega hard routes until they’re glistening with sweat before cooling off in the Mediterranean and then lounging on the beach with a beverage. The entire scene is not unlike what a mountaineer might dream up while trapped in an ice cave during a week-long storm.

Conversely, wide cracks are most climber's nightmare. Often found in the dankest underbelly of the mountain they are avoided like the plague. There is never a crowd to contend with, unless you count bats or the various creepy crawlies that inhabit such realms. And then there’s the climbing, which is like an entirely different sport and generally consists of wedging as much of your body as you can fit into a fissure, usually inverted, and then finding a way to let go so that you can make forward progress that often proceeds inches at a time. It can best be summed up in one word: sadistic. Juxtaposing the two is like comparing Lothlórien to Mordor.

And thus it’s fitting that our heroes hail from The Shire, or England’s Peak District if you will. It’s a place steeped in history, where many a scheme to conquer the world’s highest peaks was hatched even though their own humble surrounding rarely exceed a few hundred meters. And, not unlike the race of Hobbits, locals of this region have snatched an almost absurd amount of success from under the noses of rocky heights denizens worldwide.

tom

And so it begins. One Tom Randall, aka Randall of the Hump, and one Peter Whittaker, aka Peter of the Wide, whilst climbing in Kalymnos hatch an audacious quest, to conquer all of the most feared and notorious wide-crack climbs on the planet, and to let nothing stand in the way. Never mind that until this mad revelation they’d spend virtually no time attempting to climb such things.

pete

Of course wide cracks of note barely existed anywhere near their homeland and, as such, they had a problem. But that didn’t stop Mallory, nor Shipton, Bonnington, Moffat or Moon. The lads would not be deterred and turned to their forbearers to guidance for which there was a solution steeped in lore. The English cellar.

Home improvements commenced and soon there was a gym, of sorts. More of a torture chamber. Kitchen counter tops, placed vertically with varying widths between, or just enough space of stuff various bits of body parts into, always upside down, in order to build muscle and tendon strength, lest we not forget pain tolerance, in order to turn this most magnificent of pipe dreams into reality.

Alas, this blessed plot, this earth, this realm... is too good to be summed up already. In fact, the Wide Boyz, as they are now called, are still at it. What is unfolding is a story for the ages. And since I’m recapping, those who fancy yourself intrepid can easily look ahead at a handful of blogs covering the story—the best belonging to our heroes, their court reporter, and, as always in matters of vertical ascention in fair Albion, UK Climbing. Or you can use some restraint and let it unfold here, like allowing your wine to breath instead of quaffing it out of the bottle—perhaps box in such a case. After all, even in the most grizzly of times we humans must do our best to remain civilized.

Of course a guy’s gotta make a living, so don’t be shy about clicking any link in this post. Who knows, it might lead to you getting fitter than you’ve ever been and hanging upside down like a bat a few thousand feet above a barren desert. But one can only dream.

Tom Randall is sponsored by Wild Country, RAB, Sterling Rope, Five Ten, Climb On and supported by The Edge Climbing Centre

Pete Whittaker is sponsored by Wild Country, Patagonia, Sterling Rope, Five Ten, Climb On

Travelling with the duo is photographer Alex Ekins. You can see heaps of trip images on his website: Alex Ekins. Alex is sponsored by Wild Country, RAB, PODsacs and Clif Bar.

P90X2 Preview: Don’t Try This At Home... Yet!

2011-10-20T09:13:00.000-06:00

P3 (Peak Performance Project) just sent over some videos of their athletes doing some of the movements you’re going to see in P90X2. Here one to whet your appetite on what to expect for your results during phase III of X2. Perhaps a little exaggerated, especially what you see what the last guy--college baseball player Crosby Slaught--is doing. Wow.

This might hurt to look at right now. As our bodies age and break down explosive movements become more and more challenging. P90X2 will build you back up to where you will be able to not only once again handle heavy plyometric forces but have them feel good. You may not be able to match the explosiveness of a 6’5” 200lb college junior, but you will feel a lot younger than when you started.

Here’s what P3 has to say on the importance of skater movements:

Learn to do this movement and you will feel and look more athletic than ever. Dr. Elliott and P3 Performance Specialists test and employ skaters (lateral plyometrics) with all of their athleticism (sports that require a combination of power factors: quickness, speed, explosiveness, etc) athletes, as they have been scientifically proven to improve lower body power, multi planar speed, and challenge hip and trunk stability.

Why I say don’t try this at home, yet, is important. Many of us can handle this motion right now but you always want to be careful when doing 100% effort plyometrics. As most of you know we use plyometric movements in all of our advanced workout programs. However, we never do them at 100% like we will in phase III of P90X2. They may feel 100% to you but we’ve always strategically added volume in order to keep your intensity at bay. You are about to enter a new realm....

It’s Not Birthday Pretty Hard...

2011-10-18T09:20:00.002-06:00

...It’s Birthday Challenge.

Training for my challenge has commenced and it’s not pretty. Even though I have good base fitness, and very good particular fitness for, say, running and biking fast, I’m nowhere close to where I need to be in order to have a shot and what we’re planning on doing. I’d better shape up or it’s going to be down right ugly.

On Sunday Mick, who’d just come in 5th in a 100-mile trail race, and I decided to test our climbing fitness on the longest route in the Wasatch, Squawstruck, a 22-pitch, 2,000’ climb just down the road in Rock Canyon. Because neither of had climbed “enough” we knew it would be an eye opener of sorts. But we’ve both ton a lot of long stuff and figured that our historical prep would be enough. Not so much.

This blog spends a lot of time discussing training that you can apply to sports but not so much about sports specific training. And while getting the body prepped is vital, if you’ve gotta play if you want to win. No matter how fit you are if you don’t practice your intended activity it’s always much much harder, if not impossible. Not due to lack of fitness but specificity. Climbing, like most sports, creates specific breakdown that you need to prepare for. Hands, feet, elbows, shoulders, forearms, and back take the brunt of the work, along with the skin. Oh, yes, the skin. Un-prepped skin is the path of least resistance to pain in the off-the-couch challenger. Our body’s personal Maginot Line in the war of specificity.

Our goal was not just to finish the route, mind you, but to finish in comfort. We were pretty certain we’d get up the sucker. And we did; easily if the summit’s all that counts. But we got beat down. The four and a half mile descent wasn’t exactly a death march but we weren’t enjoying the fall scenery as much as we should have. Lots of things hurt; the above list, along with my hips and legs. And our skin, of course, which was totally cooked. At the car I lamented that we’d forgotten to put a couple of beers in a cooler and Mick said, “If I drank a beer I might not make it home.” Did I mention Mick just did a hundred? Cooked, I tell ya.

It was a good, little adventure day lasting about 10 hours in total. But it’s an ominous sign for a birthday challenge, given we’re planning to nearly triple the amount of climbing, quadruple the amount of hiking, and do a bunch of bike riding and exercises as well. I’m a month away from staring down the barrel at a major fail.

There’s a Birthday Challenge saying that goes, “If you know you can do it then it’s not a challenge.” And even though we’ve not announced exactly what we’ll be attempting (Bob is also slightly injured and Josh is in China) it’s going to be a frick load harder than what happened on Sunday. I’m not nearly prepared. But as the other saying goes, “it’s not birthday pretty hard...”.

Bike Commuting Makes You Happier, And Faster

2011-10-13T07:55:00.001-06:00

everything relates to kevin bacon. everything.

Here’s a great little blog post on the pros of bike commuting by local superstar Alex Grant. It almost makes me miss the days of commuting in LA, when I used to race cars down Wilshire Blvd en route to the Beachbody office. Almost, of course, since I prefer living in Utah and the efficiency of working from home, but it’s definitely inspired me to use a bike for more of my errands.

Grant is a great racer but that’s got nothing to do with this article, which is about the different vibe you get when riding a bike vs driving a car.

I’ve always thought that bicycles can do great things for society and the planet. Switching to bicycles for transportation will lessen our carbon footprints and improve the overall physical and mental health of our society. I’d like to see a study done on the happiness of those who commute to and from work by bike versus those who drive in traffic each way. I don’t care how bad the weather is, I bet the bike commuters have less stress than those who drive.

I could not agree with Grant more. In LA, not exactly heaven for bike commuting, never once did I have a bad ride to or from office, in spite of many instances where someone would do their best to ruin my day. People in LA aren’t used to seeing bikes. The looks I’d get were mainly shock, as though I was some kind of alien--"Hey, dude, where's your car?" LA’s so bad that I once had an irritated guy yell “don’t ride on the bike path!” without a touch of irony. That said I drove defensively and never had a dangerous close call. And, in fact, even the worst day of bike commuting left me feeling great, which was pretty much the opposite of how I felt whenever I had to drive anywhere.

how to dress--fashionably--for winter commuting

Grant has a short commute in a bike friendly city with little traffic (though we’ve got plenty of nasty weather) and it still improves his mood. So much so that he credits his best-ever racing season in part to his commute. Not for training reasons but due to reduced stress.

It’s amazingly liberating to be out of the car. I was driving a lot as an outside sales rep – it’s the nature of the job. I have been working just as much and just as hard at the new business; but without all the windshield time, my stress level has gone way down.

How does this translate to racing? I feel like I have been riding faster than ever for the past two months: I pulled off my best finish at Nationals in July with 8th and managed 3rd at the Leadville 100 a couple weeks ago.

So get on your bike, or consider investing in one. You’ll be amazed at how much it will change your outlook on life.

Watch more video of Trans-Sylvania Epic Stage Race 2011 on cyclingdirt.org

grant not commuting

P90X2 Preppin’

2011-10-11T10:05:00.002-06:00

Part of my birthday challenge training will be to also prep for a round of P90X2 that I plan to do starting first of the year. I’m easily fit enough to begin it without any special prep but that can lead to some serious breakdown because the fitter you are the more hurt you can put on yourself when you start training in a different realm than you’re used to. This post will have some tips on how to prepare yourself so that X2 doesn’t cripple you out of the gate.

A good example of what I’m talkin’ about can be found on my original P90X blog from 2003 (before we’d filmed anything so I’m training off of notes—re-read it and noted that we’d yet to name the workouts, hence things like “Legs and Pull-ups” and “The Gun Show”). I’d just finished a full bike racing/multisport season, so I was fit. But I’d done almost no upper body training and needed to get ready for a birthday challenge, quickly, and the first few weeks were ugly. I was so broken down that I could barely get my arms overhead to wash my hair. Of course I adapted, eventually, and ended up having one of my more kick-ass birthday challenges that year but phase one was absolutely brutal. That kind of pain is not a prerequisite. With a little forethought you can avoid having this happen to you.

First I should discuss how variable the P90X2 program is. You don’t necessarily need to be prepped if you’re the type of person who’s able to use restraint. Every move in the program offers not only an easier modification but also a band only version that can be done in just about any hotel room. So we’ve set it up so that you can ease into it. However, if you’re the type who’s going to try and keep up with Tony, keep reading.

Secondly there’s a huge group of you who’ve done 90X over and over and are now doing Asylum hybrids. The only possible better way to prep is to have done the P90X One on One MC2 series cause, ya know, those were pretty much the test workouts for X2. If you’ve done P90X or more you are ready, fitness wise, though you will benefit if you add some of these workouts to your program. I also recommend taking a good two to three week long recovery cycle before you begin.

This prep phase will be done in three blocks and is designed for fit people who’ve been away from weight training for a while. This group includes athletes coming off of a season, cardio junkies who’ve been doing Insanity or Turbo Fire or something similar, or those who’ve been training with a general gym program or one of our intro programs, like Power 90 or Slim in 6 and want to start building some specificity for the types of things you’re going to see in X2.

If you’re still struggling in an intro program you’ll want to keep doing it. Harder is only better when your body is ready. Remember that our “easier” programs get the same results as our hard programs because they target a less fit demographic. If you’re un-fit, be realistic and milk the easier programs for all the results you can get. When you start to plateau—usually you’ll notice the program no longer feels as challenging—is when you’ll want to switch. Not before.

non-specific training has many benefits beyond happy dogs and great scenery

My schedule is going to have a ton of non-specific training: climbing, biking, rehab/prehab workouts. I’m only adding a couple of X2-style workouts per week for specificity in block one. For your own training you can keep doing what you’re doing and simply add a couple of workouts from the below list. The main goal of block one is resistance work on an unstable platform of some kind so get yourself a balance ball (45, 55, or 65cm) and some med balls or similar (basketball, football, or anything you can prop yourself on--chair, couch, bed--will work). Prior to the filming of X2 Tony had been working on unstable platforms for more than four years, which you know if you’re a One on One prescriber. It takes a while to get this stuff down. The earlier you get a jump on it the better the program will work for you.

Block I

X2 doesn’t launch til X-Mas, so there’s no rush. For the first couple of weeks swap out two workouts per week with something from the following list. I will put these in order of specific effectiveness in case you want to buy from the list. The goal is to get used to instability and increase your unilateral balance. Also, once a week do this workout and some yoga (any yoga).

P90X One on One: Core/Syn MC2, Total Body X, 4 Legs, Upper Body Balance, Base & Back

P90X: Core Synergistics, Legs & Back

P90X+: Total Body Plus, Upper Body Plus

Picos De Europa: Add It To Your Hit List

2011-10-07T11:29:00.000-06:00

It’s incredibly apropos that I found this video for the Friday Psyche, as I’ve just returned from a trip that included a sneak peek at one of the more inspiring places I’ve been; Spain’s Picos de Europa.

BD athletes Adam Pustelnik and Nico Favresse make first repeat of Orbayu (8b+/8c) in Naranjo de Bulnes, Spain from Black Diamond Equipment on Vimeo.

When I originally contemplated trying to qualify for the ’11 Worlds it was due to some photos I’d seen of a peak called Uriellu, on a formation known as Naranjo de Bulnes. Despite its strange name—it neither looks like an orange or can be seen from the village of Bulnes—the peak, as well as its surrounding countryside, inspired me like few places on earth. My goal, should I qualify, would be to compete at Worlds and climb it on the same trip.

This dream was squelched by a mid summer’s mtn biking accident that left my hand unable to grasp a coffee cup, much less a mono, but I vowed to at least visit the area to see what I was missing. A while I didn’t get anywhere near its base, I was at least able to make a post-race hobble/pilgrimage to view Uriellu’s grandeur and toast to it with a bottle of the region’s beverage of choice, sidra.

the climber's monument to uriellu

Turns out my enthusiasm only increased in person.The area not only offers a lifetime of climbing opportunities it seems as though every single village, hamlet,and trail are enchanted. Spending some quality time here has moved to the top of my to-do list. I find it more than serendipitous that the 2013 World Championships will be held in Segovia, only a few hours to the south.

the enchanted village of bulnes

12th Fastest 50 YO Short Course Duathlete In The World

2011-10-06T09:55:00.006-06:00

My race didn’t go quite as planned as you might guess from the self-deprecation in the title. Actually it went very well given that I couldn’t run two steps 24 hours prior to the event. But, still, it’s not what I was envisioning whilst training. The title’s a play on an old birthday challenge video on one of Todd Mei’s challenges where everyone kept referring to Nate Emerson as “the 27th fastest ultra runner in the United States. 27th ain’t bad. Neither is 12th. It’s only bad when you could have gone faster.

so easily could have been 13th

“I’m running better than I have in years.”

Never say things like that. Especially right before a race. It virtually assures something bad will happen. And, sure enough, a couple of days after this utterance I’m pushing my training a little beyond normal (since, ya know, I was running so well and all) and, boom, one step too many. I knew right away what I’d done but didn’t think it was too bad. I’d aggravated an old soleus injury that manifests in the Achilles. I stopped immediately, walked home, and put my calf on ice.

Timing was pretty bad as it was during my last hard session before leaving for Europe, meaning I didn’t have time to see Geoff or Mike at Elite. Where I was heading, rural France, wasn’t going to have anyone to see either so I was on my own. This seemed fine as I know the rehab protocol well and I left optimistic.

hard to complain about lack of hard training in this setting

It improved over my two week race taper but not quite fast enough. Three days prior to the race I landed in Gijon and went straight to the Team USA medical team. After some consideration they decided on a light course of therapy. It was a gamble but given it hurt too bad to be competitive, and perhaps even race, it was worth a shot. A few hours later, as the team paraded down the beach to the opening ceremonies, my Achilles felt as though it had been replaced with a burning iron rod. I listened to the festivities at a hotel bar while icing my calf, figuring that my race was probably over.

But I had two days so I kept trying. Ice, therapy, ice, rest, ice, sleep, ice. Repeat. Miraculously, the day before the race it felt ok, at least to walk. So I put on my shoes and warmed up, going through my series of warm-up drills. A okay. I then ran a little in my Hokas (huge crazy-looking shoes with heaps of padding designed for ultra runners), which went well enough. So I tried my race flats. Step one, yes! Step two, damn!

In a last-ditch effort I went back to the doc (and chiro) for a more aggressive taping job and some meds. He said he’d found heel lifts in a random store (I’d already tried the local sports store) so I bought three different styles. I also picked up some compression socks on his recommendation. I was going to try every possible option to keep my soleus together for what I hoped to be about an hour of hard effort.

In the morning the pain was still there so I added some old school cast-style taping to the new-fangled physio tape I’d been given. I then quaffed down some new meds provided to me my friend Spider, that the team doc told me were now banned. Spider assured me that with a prescription they were legal (he is a doc so I had one) and that he’d been tested at Nationals while taking them, told them he was taking them, and was fine. Plus, I had to medal in order to be tested anyway, the odds of which seemed precisely nil even if I could run pain free given:

I had the wrong bike set-up for the hilly course

there was room for one wheelset so I gambled

I hadn’t been able to do a hard effort in three weeks

I could not warm-up properly since my bike was already in transition and I wasn’t going to waste precious steps before the race

I was running in what would look like clown shoes to the other competitors

admittedly the entire outfit is clown worthy

Then I added more tape outside of my compression sock, stacked two heel lifts inside my shoes, and was ready to square off against the fastest age-group athletes in the world. As the pic shows, I’m pretty confident.

About 400 meters after the gun my “race” was over. I started slow—needing a proper warm-up—and hoped if nothing hurt I could steadily speed up throughout the race. But after a quarter mile or so it already seemed as though I was far too far behind to be competitive. And my calf hurt. A lot.

But I really wanted to finish as long as I wasn’t going to do any lasting damage. My thoughts were that if I made it onto the bike I’d be in there, which I still felt was the case until I had to do the short transition run in bare feet. By the time I’d clipped into my bike I was no longer sure I’d even finish the bike, much less the final run.

As I rode it began to feel better. There was a 5k climb on the bike course and quite a few riders passed on my way up. However, I was able to keep them in sight and at the crest of the climb, with everything seemingly intact, I got to thinking I would finish and decided to race a little bit. On the downhill and subsequent flats I passed everyone who had passed me and quite a few more. For the only time during the race I was actually flying. It felt good, until...

I had just caught some guy coming into the last transition and we started our few hundred meter transition run together. I lost at least 100 meters to him over the course of my barefoot hobble. The last run, however, started oddly fine and in the first half I caught this guy and a couple of others. Then I felt a bad twinge up my calf and spent the last mile or two running slow and worrying about the hot poker someone had rudely shoved inside my calf. I got passed by a couple of Spaniards with nary a reaction but, upon entering the stadium, when I heard a guy closing quickly I managed to summon up a kick feeble enough to fend him off, which I’m pretty sure bummed him out based on the scream he let off when he didn’t catch me by the line.

the more i look at these the more i think that he really deserved to catch me.

I had no idea what place I’d finished and I didn’t care (I only found out when Bruce posted it on Facebook). All I knew was that it wasn’t last and that I’d managed to finish the race, which made me happy. I hobbled out of find Romney, who helped me into the med tent, where I needed to spend some time before starting our actual vacation.

romney properly holidaying

Lying in the tent I asked her—and myself—why I did these races when it’s so much more fun to climb, or ride, or just run through the mountains without a thought of time or speed or placing. I didn’t have an answer and started wondering how much money I could get for my bike in Spain (someone asked to photograph my bike—just the bike) so I wouldn’t have to cart it around. But as people wandered in and out of the tent, all psyched just to be at this event, no matter how injured they were or how they finished, the vibe grew on me. And I started wondering what it would be like to come to Worlds and have a race where everything went perfectly....

50 To 50, Plus One

2011-10-04T22:56:00.005-06:00

“From now on, we train all day. Every day.”
- In God’s Hands

I tried this last year but all hell broke loose and, hence, my big plans got put on the backburner. Luckily—amazingly is more like it—Romney convinced more than 70 of my friends to take up the cause for me. The result was a fantastic birthday present with more than enough suffering and creativity to make up for my lacking fortitude. So what in God’s name am I blathering about, you ask?

A birthday challenge, man. You gotta feed the monkey. Man.

So today I realized that, once again, I’m 50 days from 50...um...one. Just like last year. Until that realization I was considering, given my injuries (which have yet to be announced ), that I’d do something last minute but the serendipity of my revelation means, to me, that I’m meant to both train and rehab and fire off something epic.

So today was day one of my official 50 day training program. It was modest. An hour on the hippie rig followed by Upper Body Balance from the P90X One on One series. But nothing hurt too bad and I’m fairly confident that my injuries will heal up in time. It will test my rehab knowledge, which is part of the challenge.

Nothing is set as of yet. Only that there will be a challenge, and that it looks like it will be set in and around Mammoth Lakes/Bishop and involve Bob and Josh . Boys, you know what an epiphany is? A line has been drawn in the sand.

“So, the challenge is out there and we hope to see you some day on a big jump.”
- License to Thrill

We will return after a message from our sponsors...

The Big Lebowski - They Peed on My Rug!

A Day In Spain

2011-10-03T09:46:00.003-06:00

Just arrived home from the holiday/camp/race with plenty to catch up on but in the spirit of tranquillo let’s ease into things slowly. Romney joined me for the final week of my adventure. We casually sauntered across Spain, hiking, climbing, and wine tasting our way to Bruca and Alisa’s place in St Antonin Noble Val, France. One morning we woke up in the paradise that is Rodellar, Spain, and made our way north through fantastic scenery that also features some of the greatest venues for playing outside in the world. Since I haven’t gotten around to loading our pics yet I found a few videos to provide narrative for what was a most excellent day of climbing, hiking, touring and tapas.

Rodellar is a small village at the end of the road situated on a plateau above a canyon filled with some of the best rock climbing I’ve ever done. This entertaining vid shows a few highlights.

Viva la Vida Part 2 from Micky on Vimeo.

Rodellar is located in la Sierra de Guara, a Spanish national park that’s littered with a hundred lifetime’s worth of perfect rock. In Europe, mountain biking isn’t buffed out like it tends to be here in the states. Instead you explore ancient trails and roads built by Romans, Troglodytes, and/or dinosaurs. Of course each village you come across has a pub, meaning you don't need to lug around a lot of stuff. Here’s a taste of what to expect.

Las bellostas, Rodellar, Otin, Las Bellostas from alfons esterlich on Vimeo.

We then headed east towards the crags of Lleida, adopted home of Chris Sharma and the settling of Rock & Ice magazine’s No Spain No Gain issue. For some reason almost all the rock in this region faces south, making it a winter area and keeping our modest forays to the shaded flanks.

Sport Climbing in Catalunya, Spain (Tres Ponts, Terradets, Margalef) from Rock & Ice on Vimeo.

The northern part of the region snakes through Collegats canyon. It’s an traditional area steeped in Spanish lore, and slightly off the modern climber’s radar, but the setting inspired me more than any other in Catalunya. Along with many long traditional routes there’s a stack of sport climbing that’s all muy bonita! Here’s a bike tour through the canyon.

The river you can see looks like a kayaker’s dream and, sure enough, only 15k away the village of Sort is the most boating-crazed place I’ve ever been. It’s a ten minute drive to a region with more climbing the 95% of the world’s countries and I couldn’t find a mention of that fact anywhere. Just kayak (and some ski) stuff everywhere you look. There’s even a kayak art museum. Here are a couple of videos about Sort, home for our last evening in Spain.

Sort 2010, wildwater world championships - day 6: sprint team winners, June 12th 2010, Sort (Spain) from WildWater TV Italia www.wwtv.it on Vimeo.

Sort, Spain, Noguera Pallaresa river, promo-video W.W. Worlds 2010 from WildWater TV Italia www.wwtv.it on Vimeo.

Hasta luego Espana. You will be missed.

The One Workout Every ONE Should Do

2011-09-07T07:09:00.003-06:00

My latest training article for DPM has launched. It’s titled The One Workout Every Climber Should Do but it’s a workout every single person should do. Although the strength you gain from it is very specifically applied to climbing it’s also vital for almost everything else you do with your upper body. So while it may not be the ONE workouts you should do, everyone will reap huge benefits from it. I could go on but I’ll quote the article instead.

Climbers aren’t the only demographic to ignore the importance of stability training. A few sports scientist friends, trying to answer the riddle as to why bigger, stronger and faster-than-ever-before athletes are also most injured in history found that most—in some cases as high as 90%--showed significant muscular imbalance. When we’re out of balance don’t move with biomechanical efficiency and our linear movements don’t “track” correctly. When this occurs an injury can happen anywhere along the body’s kinetic (movement) chain.

In populations where these imbalances have been correct they’ve seen non-contact injury rates plummet. The major areas of focus are the shoulders and hips. Pelvic (hip in the colloquial) stability can be important for climbers (and everyone) but in the need-to world of sports specific performance we’re only going to address the shoulders.

This region hosts the origin of almost every move that climbing begins with. And while it does not include the “money” area, the hands and forearms, biomechanical alignment problems will radiate to that area as well, meaning that imbalances in the scapular region can lead to elbow, wrist, or even finger problems. Even though you rarely fail on a climb because your back or shoulders were pumped, strengthening these areas properly will shift more of each climbing movement’s burden to this region’s larger muscles, thus saving your smaller hand and forearm muscles for when you actually need them. This energy savings also translates to less strain on connective tissues, reducing instances of tendon and ligament damage.

Html version of the article (easier to read)

This article is the second in a series. The first is titled Should You Train?, which means should you train for climbing (it is a climbing magazine after all), but has some application across the board as well and should be worth reading, especially if you participate in a sport where you get a lot of exercise by just doing the sport.

The movement videos should be live sometime today on DPM. If they aren’t you can find them by clicking the two presented here on the You Tube icon and following the series.

Plantar Fasciitis Exercises (Video)

2011-09-05T21:51:00.001-06:00

Here are videos the support the article I wrote last month:

How To Treat (and Avoid) Plantar Fasciitis

In and Outs

Towel Crunches

Toe Raises

For Mountain Biking "This Is The Place"

2011-09-03T11:08:00.005-06:00

The Park City Point to Point race is going on right now. I’m not racing because I don’t have to. I can ride this terrain, without a crowd, any day I want to. Okay, in reality I’m more likely not racing because it filled up so fast that I didn’t have a chance (6 minutes) but, still, I don’t have to go out of my way to make a trip because I live here, which is absolutely awesome.

I’m adding a second psyche post this weekend because I leave for Europe soon and may not blog as much, so I’m stockpiling so you regulars will have stuff to read. Anyway, if you like riding dirt and haven’t been to Park City you’ve got to plan a trip. And if you’re type who likes mixing it up on hard terrain plan to register the second next year’s Point to Point race opens because there’s not another event on the circuit like it. Here’s what racer Sonya Looney, who’s done most of the “best” races, has to say.

80 miles, 14,000′ of elevation gain and almost ALL singletrack… and not just any singletrack, the kind that makes the butterflies in your stomach swirl to the point where you feel like you’re going to explode from happiness and you can do nothing by smile ear to ear and giggle out loud. Of course, it’s a race and it’ll also hurt like a mofo.

When I first moved here it was great, so much so that one of Google’s founders, who could live anywhere in the world, chose it specifically because “it’s my favorite place to mountain bike”. This included all the famous places I rattled off: Moab, Whistler, St. George, Durango, Flagstaff, Ketchum, Fruita, etc. For some reason, however, it wasn’t on the radar as a major biking destination.

This could have been because back then we had plenty of pristine single track but lacked a lot of the terrain some of my more adolescent friends enjoy, like rocks and jumps and such. Now we’ve got that too. A lot of it and more, it seems, every day. Yesterday I stumbled on another “grommet trail” as I call them, which are packed with “trail furniture”. It seems like every time I go out I find another.

sam on something i'll never ride

some grommet hucking a 20'step up. there's plenty more where this came from

there's plenty of XC-style furniture as well

Officially there are around 400 miles of single track in the mountains around Park City. Unofficially you’ll find a few hundred more, which doesn’t include the trails systems one the entire west side of the Wasatch drainage, which include many locals’ favorite trails. You’ve absolutely got to check it out.

everything you see is covered with single track

You don’t need a race as an excuse to visit. It’s easy to make up your own adventure, like my friend Ben’s recent birthday challenge; a 10-hour ride that was supposed to feature part of every trail system circling Park City—essentially closing the loop of the Point to Point race to make it a circle (a much longer version of Sedona’s Big Friggin’ Loop). An injury kept us from finishing the circuit as planned but another beautiful thing about PC is that at almost any point, should you get hurt, hungry, thirsty, or just plain tired, you can point your bike down hill and be in a bar, restaurant, bike shop or hospital in a matter of minutes.

you needn't descend, hydration options exist on the trails, too

finnegan is pretty sure this is the place

When I ride here I can’t help think that Brigham Young was right about one thing;” this is the place,” at least to ride a mountain bike.

P90X2: The Next Revolution

2011-09-02T08:09:00.003-06:00

For your weekend entertainment, here are a couple of P90X2 teasers. First a short video of Marcus explaining post-activation potentiation to our coaches at the Beachbody Summit—check out his struggle to speak in laymen terms, where he still confuses the audience. Probably would have helped if he’d just said, “the process is to recruit higher threshold muscle cell motor units” like I do in this webinar, where Tony Horton introduces P90X2 with me doing the color commentary. With Tony on stage I always feel like Ed McMahon, laughing down at the edge of the couch. Someone ought to get me a Budweiser (ok, so this jokes a little old, but, seriously, has any talk show second fiddle come close to matching the Carson era?)

P90X2: The Next Revolution (click here for the webinar. It's over an hour pour yourself some Shakeology, or a martini if Ed's inspired you.)

Since the Friday Psyche is provided for outdoor athletes, it’s important for all of you to know that we’ve made a home exercise program that will help you improve at your own particular esoteric pursuits. This program, far more than anything before it, is geared towards improving sports performance more than aesthetics. You are going to want it.

P90X2 Has Launched!

2011-09-01T07:46:00.004-06:00

It’s not quite out, but P90X2 pre-orders start today. As your trainer I advise that you get it. I don’t usually hype our products. I just make them and let that gang in the marketing department decide how peddle the stuff. This one, however, I’m going to harp on you about.

If you follow my blog you’re probably more interested in fitness than the average Joe. And given that’s the case you’re going to want what is, by far, the most advanced training program ever put on video. That’s no knock on anything we’ve done at Beachbody. Most people don’t need advanced. If you’re overweight and hate exercise Slim in 6 is fantastic. If you like to dance you’ll probably love Hip Hop Abs or Turbo Fire if you're a bit fitter. If you need something more advanced we’ve got P90X or Insanity. P90X2 is the next level: movement specific applied science tailored to the masses. If you want to be more athletic, improve at a sport (no matter which one), or simply age more gracefully you’re going to want to own P90X2 at some point.

Instead of presenting you with a sneak preview of X2 like everyone else, here’s some behind the scenes footage. Al Jefferson, of the Utah Jazz, is literally one step away from being an NBA all-star. When he’s on the floor and healthy he’s a consistent 20/10 guy—-Hall of Fame numbers. Unfortunately that step is due to a bad knee. If he can improve the stability of his platform and get his knee to respond to how he’d like to push it, he’ll then be able to back-up his silky smooth throwback post game with athleticism, which will also improve his defense, shot blocking, and rebounding.

This is Al at P3, in Santa Barbara, Ca, where we did most of our research and prep for X2. I saw him during his first trip out, over a year ago. He was covered in sweat, completely destroyed (like me during my first workout at P3), and kind of embarrassed to have others watch him train. Check out Big Al now,doing the same style of training you'll be doing with X2, and keep in mind this guy is a shade under seven feet tall and three hundred pounds. Remember when Shaq could move like this? Look out, NBA!

From P3 (yep, this is the kind of description you’ll be able to use about your own improvement after X2): Al Jefferson is making tremendous gains this off-season at P3...Much of our work with Al has focused on giving him dynamic hip stability, and shifting demand from knee to hip. This process involves both strengthening and neuromuscular re-education of how to stabilize and activate his gluteus medius and upper-third of gluteus maximus.

The Great American Nutrient Heist

2011-08-31T10:12:00.005-06:00

The final prep before my race has me attempting to shed the last vestiges of extra weight from my body while eating enough to recover from both training and the injuries sustained in a couple of crashes. The key to making that happen is nutrient efficiency, which means that I want to get as many nutrients as possible from each calorie I consume.

This strategy is the opposite of how Americans are taught to eat by the food industry. In an attempt to sell calories as cheaply as possible, Big Food peddles calorie dense, but nutrient deficient, processed vittles whenever they can. Pretty much anything you find in the center of a supermarket (i.e. most of it) fits the bill. From cereals to juices to bread, whenever you see words on a label like enriched or fortified you’re likely evaluating junk food in one form or another.

Most things in boxes or bags are so far from a natural state that there’s hardly any nutrients left in them. Everything we eat has macronutrients (protein, carbs, fat) so Big Food makes sure that this features prominently on the label. But macronutrients only give you a big picture of a food’s energy, not its nutritional content, which comes in the form of micro and phytonutrients. These, in most processed foods, are practically non-existent. So in order for you not to notice these foods get “fortified” or “enriched” with whatever the makers can source on the cheap. Marketers then turn these into “essential vitamins minerals” or something else that sounds catchy, even though they’re almost never added with any forethought about what your body might need to function well. The result is that much of America now must consume more and more calories in order to sustain their body’s nutrient requirements. And you know where this leads; to eating more calories than required to maintain a healthy weight.

“We’re fat because we’re gluttons,” was a comment on one of my recent posts. This is hard to argue. But we’re also being made to eat more than we need by a food industry that won’t feed us nutrient dense calories. Sure, they are also guilty off using additives that make us hungry, as well as crave more of the slop they’re shucking, but they’re doing something even more insidious; filing us up with calories they won’t allow our bodies to function properly. This puts us in a Catch-22, where we feel the need to eat more because we’re lacking nutrients, yet the more we eat the worse we feel.

And this entire scenario was set-up by Big Food. It’s impossible to eat this way naturally. Humans are omnivores, meaning that plants and animals, for the most part, are loaded with everything we need to exist. Natural foods don’t just contain “8 essential” vitamins but often hundreds of different things that our bodies can use—-check out this melon article to see what’s in these fruits often called “mainly sugar” by the uninformed. Granted, poor animal raising and farming practices are chipping away at this, too, but it’s still a lot tougher to make a living organism devoid of nutrition than it is to add nutrients to something that’s been so processed that it begins at zero.

So when I find myself in a situation where I need to lose weight and add nutrition at the same time, I start by eliminating stuff in bags and boxes and making veggies and fruits the cornerstone of my diet. Vegetables are the most nutrient dense food on the planet. And due to their calorie to fiber ratio you can’t over eat them. Fruits, too, are almost perfect and can really only be overindulged when dried or juiced. I then add legumes, nuts, and seeds for their energy and fatty acids and, voila, any extra weight melts away. Five days of this and I’m down to fighting weight, provided I’m in the ballpark when I begin.

My one exception is Shakeology, but it’s formulated in exactly the opposite way of convenience food; to maximize nutrient density. In fact, in a way it’s the foundation of my diet because I’m very busy and it’s the quickest and easiest way to make sure I’ve got all the nutritional bases covered in one fell swoop.

Sadly, my omission includes cans and bottles. As healthy as studies show drinkers are there’s no way to justify it as part of this strategy. As much as it may help your lifestyle it’s simply not a nutritionally dense food. Last night I set a personal record; making it through two episodes of Mad Men with nary a cocktail, or even a beer. And this, of course, is mental training. It’s another important aspect of race prep, but a topic for another time.

Humanely Raised Animals Are Healthier To Eat

2011-08-29T11:21:00.007-06:00

I’m a localtarian when it comes to eating meat, which makes me one of those weasely douchebags who drives a Prius, recycles, composts, puts spiders outside and sends his extra shoes to African children. And I’ll live with that label if it means that some animals have better lives because, well, I’ve met a lot of animals and I’m pretty sure they care about having a nice lifestyle as much as people do.

I’m not preachy about it, since we must draw the line at douchebaggery somewhere, but I do champion the fact that animals existing in better conditions are healthier to eat than those that live in the abhorrent squalor forced upon those in America’s Big Meat industry. So I’m pretty pissed off at a PR campaign from the egg industry on a study showing no nutritional difference between the eggs of chickens raised humanely vs. those raised in the poulet version of Devil’s Island. Mainly because the study didn’t show that. It showed the opposite.

next up, a study stating the chickens in this picture are perfectly happy.

I guess when you’ve got lawyers as powerful as Big Meat you don’t let pesky science stand in your way. Fund a study that doesn’t yield the results you want? Fuck it. Just issue a press release to the major wires stating it did. Who’s going to care as long as you’re paying, right?

The Fitness Nerd, that’s who! Big props to Denis, who went the extra mile to scrutinize the science. Not that he needed dig that deep in order to begin finding flaws . The Nerd reports,

So many things wrong here. First off, it's a lie. So much of a lie, in fact, that the release itself admits it 5 paragraphs later when it explains "β-carotene levels were higher in the range eggs, which... may have contributed to the darker colored yolks observed in these eggs during the study."

Huh? How do "no nutritional difference" and "β-carotene levels were higher" mesh? The study indicates vitamin A levels in both types of eggs were the same, yet β-carotene can be converted into Vitamin A in our body, so technically, the body gets more A from the free-range eggs.

But he read the entire study, on principle, and found more problems. So either read his entire post or just believe my anecdotal logic—now based on Big Meat’s own science—which concludes that animals that eat healthy, exercise, breath fresh air and aren’t subjected to Frankenstein-esqe experiments and filled with more drugs than Mr. Olympia are healthier to eat. In turn I promise not to get mad when you call me a douchebag because, in my mind anyway, it’s a lot better than being an asshole like all those wankers at Big Meat. Now excuse me while I ride my fixie to the local farm to make sure they’re letting the chickens get enough exercise.

Which Is Harder?

2011-08-26T14:07:00.003-06:00

VIDEO: BD athlete Adam Ondra repeating Chilam Balam (9b) and making the first ascent of La Planta de Shiva (9b) in Spain from Black Diamond Equipment on Vimeo.

The Friday Psyche presents more Adam Ondra. In these two vids we see climbing’s Harry Potter attempt three routes in the running for title of world’s hardest. Does one look harder to you? One does to me but since my chances or redpointing any of them is about as good as me winning the current Vuelta a Espana that I’m not riding it’s not really important. It’s just an excuse to feature a couple more very well made videos that showcase some spectacular rock climbing. Fall is just around the corner. Time to get into climbing shape!

ADAM ONDRA - Working Golpe de Estado in Siurana from BERNARTWOOD on Vimeo.

The Breakfast Myth

2011-08-25T08:48:00.004-06:00

That breakfast is the most important meal of the day is a common saying in the western world. Over at the Fitness Nerd, Denis deconstructs the topic, first coming clean that the slogan originated from someone’s marketing department but also extolling the virtues of eating first thing in the morning. It’s an important read for inquiring minds. So if the title of this post caught you eye, read it first, and then come back for my addendum. I’ll wait.

Is Breakfast for Champions?

There is one flaw in Denis’ piece. The part where he says that I don’t eat breakfast. I do. When I need to. This leads to part II of the topic; times you might want to consider skipping breakfast.

I’m seconding Denis’ post in saying that most people should eat in the morning. If you’re following a sensible nutrition plan you probably ate lightly at dinner and didn’t eat for a few hours prior to going to sleep. This means it’s been 10 or 12 hours since you’ve eaten a meal that hopefully wasn’t carb heavy. And although your body doesn’t burn calories rapidly when its asleep it’s busy repairing all the damage you did to it the previous day. By morning the light dinner is probably pretty well used up. Breakfast allows you to top off your body’s glycogen storage, which is used for physical activity but also brain function, so you’re ready to face the day with a full compartment of nutrients. Sounds pretty smart.

When I have an active day, like a long day out climbing or a race I always eat in the morning, mainly to ensure that my limited glycogen stores (we can only store enough for 1-1.5 hours of hard activity) are topped up. So when I need my body to perform to its maximum I eat breakfast and, in general, follow most of what we recommend in our Beachbody diet guides. However, on my work days I don’t eat breakfast. And here’s why.

I have to begin the previous evening, because I tend to eat close to bed time. This isn’t optimal but it can work (almost any diet can be made to work within the parameters of your lifestyle, which is why Beachbody’s diet philosophy is that there is no one diet that’s perfect for everyone). I eat late because I exercise after I’m finished with work, which is usually later in the afternoon or early evening. If I finish training at, say, dark, then eat (especially if dinner is slow and social), it’s pretty late. My dinner is also, by far, my largest meal of the day. Generally more than half of my calories (again, unless I’m active all day when I eat constantly). So I go to bed still digesting and wake up with a fully tapped glycogen, meaning breakfast simply is not necessary.

Furthermore, going long periods of time without eating teaches your body to be more efficient as using fat for fuel (Denis points this out). As an endurance athlete this function is vital, so I train it pretty much every work day. Furthermore, there is some hormonal advantage to what’s called intermittent fasting. A lot of bodybuilder types are championing this as scripture but the advantages are technically small. Still, it’s more ammo for not eating.

So, anyway, on a work day I don’t eat breakfast. And it gets worse. I get up pretty early, drink some water—usually two or three glasses—and try to do some short activity to awaken movement patterns; easy yoga is my preference. Then I make some coffee (or tea), drink more water with some supplements (no cals but this isn’t a supplement post so not going into it), then sit down with my coffee and get to work. So I have replenished some nutrients, just not calories because I want to keep training the fat mobilization process.

I work until I start to run out of steam, usually a four to seven hour stretch. Then take the dog out for his “morning” exercise. This is usually an easy hike with ball throwing when I also do a functional warm-up (like the warm-up of P90X2) and, depending on the day, some running drills. While this is warming up for the day it’s also further training fat mobilization. I follow this with breakfast, even though it’s “lunch time”. And, yes, your math is right. I often fast for more than 12 hours daily.

I then go back to work until I’m finished, which varies according to deadlines and the training schedule. I do generally have a pre-workout snack, like Shakeology, an hour or two before my training session. And that is my daily eating regimen on work days.

Of course it’s not set in stone. It varies all the time, especially since my job requires that I experiment with various diet, exercise, and supplement protocols. But it’s important to note that there are many paths to success. I’ve been eating like this for most of my life. I’m 50, have a resting heart rate in the low 40s, can push my heart to over 200 bpm, and can score over 100% on the most rigorous military fit test. My strange protocol works and you can certainly find something unconventional that will work for you, too.

My point in passing on this information is for you to question dogma and, more importantly, eliminate excuses. In training, life, and nutrition absolutes simple do not exist other than the rather holistic eat well, sleep well, and get some exercise. Everything else can be adjusted for your personal lifestyle.

Kevin Thaw: A Man For All Seasons

2011-08-22T10:37:00.002-06:00

Kevin Thaw interview / entrevista ESPN June 2011 Part 1 from Wild Country on Vimeo.

This week I’m adding a couple of vids for Monday psyche for anyone needing a little more time to ease into their work week. These are of my friend Kevin Thaw, my primary climbing mentor and someone I once spent an inordinate amount of time with. Kevin and I met when I was living in Yosemite in the 80s. He didn’t seem bothered that I was a fledgling climber while he was ticking some of the Valley’s hardest lines, so we started sharing a rope and have been friends ever since.

He’s been one of the world’s best all-around climbers for a long long time. In the mid-90s he was still pretty off the radar so I wrote this article about him in a small magazine me and a few friends used to publish.

Kevin Thaw: A Man For All Seasons

He walked around the Outdoor Retailer trade show, showing it to potential sponsors, and has been a professional climber ever since. These vids are a short recap of his life. Enjoy.

Kevin Thaw interview / entrevista ESPN June 2011 Part 2 from Wild Country on Vimeo.

Ride More. Work Less.

2011-08-19T12:13:00.000-06:00

Lone Wolf Matt Hunter from Bike magazine on Vimeo.

Since it’s full on hippie biking season here are a couple of vids for your Friday Psyche. Both are inspiring in one way or another. The first stokes the fire for some overnight riding advenutures and the second makes me happy with most of the choices I’ve made in life. Mainly, they just make me want to get out on the trails on my bike. The weather’s perfect. The trails are in perfect condition. I think it’s time to turn off this machine and do just that. Happy Friday!

Is Beer Really Better Than Water For Hydration?

2011-08-18T10:35:00.006-06:00

Men worldwide were ubiquitously in high spirits (ridiculous pun intended) over a Spanish study that showed that post exercise beer was better for hydration than plain water. Other than in the UK, where beer is almost a religion, the press and scientific community pretty much left this alone. The blog-o-sphere, however, went nuts (tangential pun intended), championing one small study as the most important science since the Dionysian era with subtle headlines such as “There is a God: Beer Hydrates Better Than Water (Seriously)." But, seriously, does it? Let’s take a critical look.

The study

Professor Manuel Garzon, of Granada University, had a group of students to do strenuous exercise in temperatures of around 40ºC (104ºF). Half were given a pint of beer, while the others received the same volume of water. Conclusions showed those who drank beer hydrated “slightly better.”

Conclusions

While not exactly a testament for a pint it does put a kink in the puritanical argument that water is holy and all alcohol is the work of the devil. Also, as noted by some detractors in the scientific community, was that the study seemed a little sloppy, as perhaps the researchers spent a little too much time researching down at the pub to be bothered with dotting i’s and crossing t’s. But regardless of nitpicks a beer-positive was clear, and with more analysis it makes complete sense.

carl , this bud’s for you.

Analysis

Juan Antonio Corbalan, a cardiologist who worked formerly with Real Madrid football players and Spain's national basketball team, said beer had the perfect profile for re-hydration after sport.

He added that he had long recommended barley drinks to professional sportsmen after exercise.

After sport is the key to all of this, especially vigorous sport in hot weather because it makes us sweat more. And sweat, as most of us know, contains body salts referred to as electrolytes. And beer has more of these than water. Furthermore, it has energy (kilocalories or just “calories” if you’re American) in a macronutrient ratio of mostly carbs, a little protein and virtually zero fat. Those of you well versed in the science behind athletic “recovery formulations” know that the above ratio is preferred for quick muscle recovery. This means that beer is closer to Recovery Formula than is water and, thus, it makes sense that it should rehydrate you better after sports.

In fact, a lot of things would probably beat plain water in a post-activity study because your nutrients needs are completely different then when you aren’t active or haven’t exercised--when water is almost always the best choice. Unfortunately for most of the “there is a God” crowd, it means that beer will beat water for hydration after playing football but it’s going to have the opposite effect if all you’re doing is watching football. Sad, I know, and I am sorry.

When you break it down beer has an excellent post-sport resume for quick recovery. Its ingredients—German law until recently—are simple: water, barley, hops, and yeast, all of which are quite healthy, containing electrolytes and a great phytonutrient profile along with the aforementioned macronutrient base. The fermentation process, which we know is how alcohol is made, also has positive effects such as making foods more bioavailable and enzymatically active.

Unfortunately, large American brands are an affront to traditional brewers and use rice as a base, along with various extracts and things sold off from the country’s over production of genetically modified corn and soy—meaning Michelob Ultra should not be your recovery drink of choice no matter how much a certain athlete hypes it.

To further tame the party limits on volume must be discussed. Garzon gave his subjects one pint, which is somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 calories. The post-exercise hydration equation is all based around how quickly your body can put nutrients to work. In the first hour post exercise you will absorb nutrients much more rapidly because your system is depleted. This is why carbohydrates are preferred and fats, which digest very slowly, should be shunned (studies in the 90s showed a 4 to 1 ratio of carbs to protein, with little or no fat, was most effective). Anyway, what you need is energy that can be put to quick use. Your body can only turn around (digest and put to use) somewhere between 200-300 calories in a given hour. So anything more than 300 calories in the first hour (250 is a more accurate for most of us) will slow nutrient absorption and reduce the effectiveness. This means one beer, or maybe two smaller beers, are the maximum you can consume for a net positive recovery effect.

I’ve yet to discuss alcohol, which is a diuretic, meaning that it would naturally hurt hydration. But because beer is mainly water if you follow the above volume limits it’s not much of a factor and if you’re interested in nitpicking there are better options available.

Conclusion

While not as effective as Recovery Formula, a pint of real beer after hard exercise will outperform water, and many other things, for recovery. Cheers.

pic: ben and i, clearly worried about micronutrient replenishment and enzymatic activity somewhere around hour six of a ride.

Non-Race Report

2011-08-16T10:35:00.004-06:00

After crashing hard on a ride Sunday it now seems official that my only races this year will a state championship, national championship, and world championship. I guess if you’re going to race you might as well go big. I will also add that this is not the best way to prepare for racing, especially if you’ve any interest in your results.

It wasn’t meant to be like this. At the beginning of the year my calendar was filled with preparatory races. Duathlons are scarce in my part of the world but I travel a fair amount so it didn’t seem like such a task to run into a few here and there. However, my work and race schedule’s never synched up and the closest I found myself to a duathlon on any given weekend was a nine hour drive. I’d also circled some tris, runs, and bike races to do and none of them worked out either.

Other than Duathlon Nationals, which I had to do in order to qualify for Worlds, the only race I made it to was our mountain biking state championships. This had nothing whatsoever to do with prepping for multi-sports. I only entered this race so I could qualify for nationals, visit my friend Rebecca, and ride all the trails she’s always going on about. I did manage to qualify, traveled to Ketchum for the event, which leads to this installment of the non-race report.

biketown.

The non-race report requires some back story. Cycling and triathlon teams have tradition where the best placed rider on the team writes up a race report and submits it to the team mailing list. During the end of my race-every-weekend stint as a road racer, when I missed a long stretch of races for strange, amusing, and downright lazy reasons, I submitted a “non-race report” that seemed to entertain the lads as well help them not feel bad about calling early on a race morning to make sure I’d show up.

reed on a night where we probably weren't making the races in the morning.

Most of these tales included my friend Reed. We were on the same team we lived an hour apart. This meant that it generally made sense to stay at whomever’s house was closest to the next day’s race. And this led to a series of last-minute decisions about things to do that might be more fun than riding our bikes in circles as fast as we could. These might include an epic road ride, a long climb we’d been wanting to tick off our list, a casual group ride that was supposed to be attended by cute girls, mountain biking, rock climbing, or simply a long night of drinking and socializing leading to us wanting more sleep. The first few excuses were legit but, after a while, we decided that it really was more fun to just ride our bikes on our own time than it was to race. I haven't raced much since.

who looks like a pig?

yep, biketown.

So I’m in Ketchum, a few days before Nats, and not exactly tapering. In fact I’m trying to ride as many of the classic local rides as possible before the short holiday is over. I’ve got two races on the schedule, neither of which I care too much about. The morning of the first race I head out early to pre-ride the course, and crash. Hard.

reba got this call while we were at breakfast. it's mountain biking. sometimes you crash. at least my crash didn't turn out like this.

It’s a stupid crash because it’s on a part of the course that I’d already determined to run because Rebecca told me it would be much faster. But I’m going slow and warming up and just want to see if I can clear the obstacles. I don’t preview anything and one second I’m hopping over a tree and the next I’m doing cartwheels down a mountain side. I’m shocked, because it looked rather innocuous, but if I’d bothered to glance at it beforehand I would have seen a root shooting out from the back of the tree that was like a small ramp leading off of the trail. I’m pretty bloodied but everything seems to be working so I ride the rest of the course and then head to breakfast. The next morning one hand would be too swollen to grab my brakes—and is still bothering me a month later—but that’s an aside.

A little later, Finnegan and I begin a nice long and slow warm-up for the race. Norba (now USA Cycling) races are short (usually 10-20 miles) and ridiculously fast out of the gate. They are hard to warm-up for because the first few minutes are absolutely full gas. Since I often settle in about hour three (too much enduro stuff over the last decade) I decide to warm-up for an hour and a half; riding aerobic for most of it and putting in a few hard efforts to “open the pipes,” as cyclists say. This also doubles as a workout for Finn and allows me to preview another classic trail.

At some point along this trail thoughts of the long-forgotten non-race report start to trickle into my head. The trail is great. It’s empty. We’re surrounded with quiet, just a few mountain sounds, and jillion-dollar views. I hit the end of my warm-up and sit down to have a snack. I can faintly make out the race announcer, far below, and picture the mayhem of 100 guys all redlining to be first into a dusty stretch of singletrack. I look in the other direction, where empty trail stretches forever into a mountain range I’ve yet to visit. Finnegan has never looked happier. I ask his advice. Needless to say, the non-race report is alive and well.

at this point there's only one rational decision that can be made.

Meeting the Tarahumara

2011-08-12T10:21:00.000-06:00

This week’s psyche post is from Micah True (aka Caballo Blanco), who was made famous by the book Born to Run. This is the true story—as opposed to the hyperbole-ized book version—of how he met the Raramuri people of Mexico who he’s been intricately linked with ever since. It’s a great read that will motivate you to get out on the trails even if you aren’t a runner. Click on the excerpt to read the rest:

"Well, shucks; I really want to run this race, and am an old time, loyal friend of this event; won't you let me enter?" I had pleaded with the race director, who did not even remember my name, or who I was, even though I had run the "family'' like race four times. No chance; the race had grown big now, and entry was at a premium. The "New York Times" and many publications had written the story of the 55 year old Mexican winning the race. Leadville was now a huge spot on the ultra-running map! The race and their corporate sponsor, a shoe company, had benefited considerably from all of the publicity, the feel good story of the impoverished Indians running for their communities; and not JUST running, but winning; and a 55 year old in sandals at that! A deal was made with the 'gringo' promoter who had driven the Tarahumara north, to bring another team of seven Raramuri to the '94 race. I think that part of the deal was to wear the race-sponsor's shoes for a photo op.

I received a phone call from the gringo sponsor/promoter of the team of Raramuri. He was looking for help, someone who could run and knew the course, to pace some of "his" runners. "Sure, I'll do it, providing I can run the whole 50 mile return with the runner of my choice." "They tend to run faster as they go; you think you can keep up?" he challenged. "If I can't keep up, then they don't need me," I confirmed...

CB and his dog, Guadajuko, and at the start of the race he organizes each year, The Copper Canyon Ultramarathon.

How To Treat (and Avoid) Plantar Fasciitis

2011-08-11T08:56:00.004-06:00

Here’s a decent little video on what plantar fasciitis is and how to treat it in its acute phase. What it doesn’t cover is how to get rid of it or, better yet, prepare your body so that you don’t get it in the first place. Once you get it there’s no way around a fairly lengthy rehab process and it’s not all that hard to avoid. Here are a few exercises that, when done regularly, will greatly reduce the chance of you getting plantar fasciitis. When you have it, these are also your go-to movements.

A,B,Cs: I hate it when doctors prescribe this exercise as a treatment for foot injuries. Not because it’s bad but because once you have foot issues you must get more aggressive with your rehab and this tends to get prescribed the most only because it’s simple. All you do is draw the alphabet with your feet in the morning before getting out of bed. If I’m spending a lot of time on my feet—like when I’m running ultras—I’ll do the alphabet both forward and backwards, slowly. It’s a great warm-up for your feet prior to getting out of bed.

In and outs: While A,B,Cs are a great warm-up, you need to strengthen all the muscles of your foot and ankel so that it doesn’t collapse, which is probably how you got PF in the first place. This exercise can be done anytime and anywhere. Sit with your legs parallel about two fist widths apart, feet flat. Rotate your toes inward as far as they can go, forcing your weight onto the outside of your foot. Now rotate out as far as you can go, forcing weight onto the inside of your foot. Do 50 reps daily until this is easy. Then you only need to do it once in a while to ensure you haven’t lost your strength.

Towel Crunches: I use a hand towel (wash cloth). Sit as above with a small towel on the ground in from of you with the edge under your toes. Use your toes to crunch up the towel as small as you can get it. Then use your toes to flatten it back out. Do 25 if you can. If not, that is the benchmark of strength you are looking for.

Toe raises: Stand with your back flat against a wall, feet together, flat on the ground, out in front of you about a foot or so. Now raise your toes while keeping your back presses flat against the wall. This works the tibialis anterior muscle on the front of your leg, which helps balance flexor/extensor leg strength and will also keep you from getting shin splints. Do 50 a day until they feel easy, then do them once a week or so for maintenance.

26er vs 29er

2011-08-10T09:36:00.000-06:00

If you’re one of those who still isn’t sure what size wheels to ride on the dirt you must check out this video. I’ve been a 29er convert since the first time I got a leg over one because it just felt right. I was never sure whether or not it made me faster but I was certain that it’s more comfortable and, hence, more fun. There’s no doubt you can feel some advantages with smaller wheels but you’re never really sure if it’s faster or just feels that way because you’re covering less ground on each revolution. In this video professional racer Christoph Sauser sorts it out once and for all.

the most definitive comparison in wheels size is best tested rigid, which will leave you wondering why anyone would ever bother making a 26 inch single speed.

A Realistic Training Template For a Busy World

2011-08-09T09:10:00.001-06:00

I can’t believe that it’s only four weeks until I leave for Europe. The final phase of my training program has snuck up on me like a ninja in what’s been a chaotically busy summer. But that’s life as a recreational athlete. Every day doesn’t revolve around training. Training comes down to what I can fit in around everyday life. And this is the case for, like, 99% of the people I work with. And one of the major keys to success is getting them to adjust to the fact that their training schedule is a proposal, not game where one wrong turn means that you lose.

Last night I drew up my template for my final prep for Worlds. It’s a guideline for the volume, intensity, and amount of recovery I think I need to be ready for the race. But it’s only a logical proposal based on science. It’s not a daily schedule, even though it looks exactly like one. My realistic goal is to tick off what’s on the plan, and follow its structure, within the constraints of life. This means that my training log will probably look a lot different than what’s written here, but should yield the same results as long as I stick with the principles reflected in the schedule.

I’m writing this because rarely does a day go by when we don’t hear questions from customers who think that if they deviate from their workout schedule all of their hard effort will instantly disappear. We even stopped using suggested days on our schedules because we got so many “if I do Chest & Back on Tuesday instead of Monday will P90X still work?” type of questions.

Training is not magic. It’s not a game or a trick and there is no on and off switch. Our training schedules follow logic and are very important—as is the template I made last night—but only as a guideline. You need not follow the schedules to the letter to get results. You need to adhere to the principles to keep training hard enough, give yourself enough rest between similar workouts, and not over train and hit a plateau. Doing a Turbo Kick class at the gym instead of HIIT 20, a company softball game instead of Kenpo X, or going a little overboard at your friend’s wedding… it’s all just nitpicking. Success comes from training hard, seeing your program though to its end, then finding a new challenge to keep you moving.

The schedule here is my race-prep training only. Not listed is my mobility work (yoga, stretching—at least a short session daily), weight training (one PAP session per week for the next three weeks), prehab/rehab/core (2x/week), and climbing (Worlds are in Spain so climbing is definitely on the agenda—2-3 short sessions per week).

The Juice Movie: Psyche and Skepticism

2011-08-05T09:05:00.002-06:00

This looks like a nice, inspiring film that will probably create a very minor juice fast craze. And that’s great. People should juice veggies at home. I do it all the time. I also hang out at a juice bar/coffee/bike shop so much that I could get mail there and no one would bat an eye (that incidentally bought their juicer from Whole Foods who now uses concentrates in their smoothies, so don’t buy them). The star seems like a funny guy, the show is filled with information that everyone should know, and I love the angle that it’s how you feel, not how you look, that ultimately matters. I’ll give it a thumb’s up based only on a preview. So where’s the skepticism?

I can see the excuses already. I can’t afford a juicer. I can’t juice fast with my job. All liquids but soda make me sick (an actual Message Board excuse), etc. The lesson many people are going to take away from this film is going to be that you must either juice fast or be fat. We are a country that, for some strange reason, sees the world in black and white terms. And nothing could be less black and white than nutrition because there are many different healthy ways to eat.

Somebody mentioned to me recently that Beachbody had a lot of different diet plans. While this is true, as each diet plan uses a slightly different psychological tool for motivation, all of our “different” plans end up doing the exact same thing; transition you away from junk food so that your diet consists mainly of whole natural foods. It’s all very simple and we have millions of success stories to show it works. You don’t need juice. You don’t need eat like a caveman, a French woman, Aphrodite or Dr. Phil. You don’t need to stay in a zone or pretend you live on The Riviera.

The only black and white thing about nutrition is the cause of the obesity epidemic. We eat too much crap. And we don’t exercise very much. If you change those two things you will stop being fat, you’ll get sick less, and you’ll feel good most of the time. The real solution is a lot simpler than even dumping veggies into a blender. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Why Overtraining Isn’t Always Over Training

2011-08-03T17:36:00.008-06:00

If I ever lose my mind and decide to run for a public office would someone please remind me of this post. I’m a terribly inefficient socializer. Whenever I spend an inordinate amount of time in social settings I break down, even if my exercise patterns are minimized for the situation. Of course I could just adjust to this, becoming a glad-handing, canned answer man who can waltz through a day of baby kissing without it causing so much as a blip to my adrenal system. I just don’t see the upside to making that switch. I like being engaged in conversations. And I like my alone time. A lot. So remind me. Please. No politics.

The perils of schmoozing isn’t the point of this post. It’s to remind you that overtraining doesn’t necessarily mean that you are working out too hard. You could just be living too hard. Training effectiveness isn’t all about bringing it. It’s about balancing your training with your recovery, which takes into account diet, daily activity, and sleep. Lose any one part of this equation and risk becoming overtrained, even if all the exercise you’re doing is based on recovery.

This topic came up again and again in many various forms on last week’s Chairman’s Adventure in the south of France with Team Beachbody's top coaches. It was presented in the form of discussions on jet lag, post workout nutrition, pre-workout supplements, and the effects of alcohol on your workouts, and on and on. Each topic is worth its own post, which will be coming. Today, my jet-lagged foray back into public writing is only on the big picture perspective as exemplified by me.

I set up my training schedule to finish a hard block prior to leaving on this trip. The week-long biking adventure seemed like a perfect opportunity for some active recovery. In theory it would have been. A few hours a day of casually spinning through Provence is a text book performance recharge, especially knowing that you’ll be well fed. What wasn’t taken into account was sleeping poorly, late night wine tasting, lots of stimulating conversation, the motivation provided by a pace line, a few wrong turns leading to under-fueled hours on the bike, and Monaco’s 24hr lifestyle with Jon’s friends.

non-planned things that can lead to overtraining:

riding harder than you planned.

Dave Ward HAHAHAHA. It's just slightly more complex than that. I sat next to Steve Edwards for 2 hours on a bus ride. If that doesn't fill your head with blog/vlog posts I don't know what will.

engaging conversation

making a wrong turn after one of the world’s most iconic climbs, leading to 12k of climbing you didn't fuel for.

focusing all remaining mental energy on the wines of provence.

four hour explorations of the maritime alpes with only 16oz of water.

enjoying the sunset... til sunrise.

Since you can’t always tell if you’re overtrained I planned a little test; the same ride pre and post trip as a gauge. About an hour into my post-test I knew I’d over cooked the holiday. The punch I had before, even while training hard, was lacking. I’d have to shut things down and lose perhaps a week of World’s training. I was hit with further evidence later that night when I got a cold—the easiest to read overtraining meter there is.

After two days and lots of sleep things are feeling back to normal. I’m bummed to be missing out on the hard training that was on the schedule but keep reminding myself that 1% overtrained is worse than 25% undertrained, or so the saying goes. If that didn’t work I could fall back on how much fun the trip was because it’s always worth missing a few workouts for time well spent with good friends. Anyway, I always expect hurdles along any training program and so should you. Even professional athletes, who are paid to do nothing else, have a hard time keeping their planned schedules on track. And if pros have trouble you might, too. And this mindset will help so that when you hit life’s inevitable bump in the road you don't endo.

Historic Big Walls

2011-08-02T14:16:00.000-06:00

Hardest of the Alps from STORY.teller on Vimeo.

I should be back to blogging shortly but, in the meantime, here’s a great video of Los Hermanos Pou climbing three of the most notorious big wall routes in the world.

On a health note, my friends and I all marvel at how a company that sells only one moderately-effective energy drink can afford to sponsor so much shit. But at least they’re sponsoring cool shit, so I’ll cut ‘em some slack. I don’t drink Red Bull myself. But if were the type to regularly play through at all night clubs, I would make it my mixer of choice.

Training Weaknesses

2011-07-22T11:48:00.000-06:00

It’s not just a cliché to say that in order to get better you must be willing to get worse when it comes to training. And though it’s easy to rationalize on paper it’s often hard to buy into a periodizationl strategy when you’re suffering and not seeing tangible improvement. This has been my July.

A month of PAP workouts, running drills, and short hard efforts on the bike are hopefully improving my power and top end speed but I’m is such a state of breakdown it’s impossible to gauge how it’s working. Re-tooling neuromuscular patterns wreaks havoc on the system and keeps me on edge. I don’t feel comfortable and find myself wondering if I’d have been better off overall to keep training my strengths in a way where I know I’d peak for my race in Sept. As I said at the start of the month it’s a gamble to try this on such short notice and I won’t know how it went until I begin integrating my training in August. At least this hay is in the barn and now I’m looking forward to unwinding with a recovery trip to France with some of Beachbody’s top coaches.

Where I can tell I’m getting stronger is in my PAP workouts. I’m leaping higher and have much better lateral stabilization. Last night I did Asylum Back To Core and Relief as a recovery day and it felt like one—itself an indication that something good is happening. But all this power gain comes with a loss in endurance and, hopefully, there’s time left to bring this back to competition level. Peaking for races is always tricky and it gets even harder when you also attempt to throw in a major body composition alteration.

This is why P3 tries to get as much time with athletes as far away from their season as possible. The longer time period you have to easier it is to make major changes. In these videos are the Utah Jazz’s Derrick Favors and Gordon Hayward. Both showed promise as rookies but need improvement to become household names in the NBA. To get there they’ve been working at P3 on weaknesses since the season ended. In the two examples of PAP complexes you’ll see Hayward jumping off of one leg to try and offset a discrepancy in leg strength, while Favors’ targets lateral explosiveness. Very motivating for those days you aren’t in the mood to bring it--as well as a small preview of P90X2.

"One Hell of an Epic"

2011-07-20T09:34:00.001-06:00

I’ve got to admit it’s been the most spirited Tour de France in a long time. We’ve seen sprinters winning mountain stages, rouleurs wearing the sprint jersey, and the guy who’s dominated every recent grand tour he’s entered getting dropped on climbs. The race leader is currently an attacker who hunts for stages and claims that he doesn’t train with a power meter, heart rate monitor, or even a speedometer. With only three stages to sort out the overall it’s an absolute crap shoot as to who will come out on top, leading one Eurosport commentator to sum it up as “one hell of an epic”. And to think, when it all began I was ambivalent.

The flat stages have been the most fun. Cav looks as though he might finally hang onto Green but it hasn’t been easy, especially since when the roads have gone up the sprinters have not only hung on to win intermediate points but actually won stages. World Champion Thor Hushovd has been the man of the race, followed closely by Phillipe Gilbert, Tommy Voeckler, the HTC lead out train, Garmin/Cervelo, the country of Norway, and a slew of other guys who’ve been fighting out every mountain, hill, sprint and finale like its life or death. To tune in on the Interweb click here.

The only complaint I’ve heard is lack of early attacking in the big mountains. Long gone are the days when the Postal and Telekom trains would lead into a 20 kilometer mountain finish as though it were a sprint. You don’t ride up L’Alpe d’Huez at 20kph breathing through your nose unless you hematocrit is well north of 50. And, while there’s no way to say doping is gone from the peloton nobody is being called “Mr. 60%” anymore either, leading to my friend Josh’s comment/question, “so, is Thor the only one doping? I’m confused.”

However, it wouldn’t be bike racing without a bit of controversy. Over at the The Inner Ring you see a lot of banter from those a bit more in-the-know, or at least willing to dish dirt, than the TV commentators. Such as this tidbit on how race heroes according to the press might not be the most popular guys among their colleagues.

Then, of course, there’s Lance. Even though he’s retired, this time we think for good, it wouldn’t be the Tour without some further revelations about “the comeback of the century” or whatever other monikers the PR machine heaped on the Armstrong era.

The Incredible Hulk

2011-07-17T14:54:00.002-06:00

BD athletes Kate Rutherford and Brittany Griffith attempt Venturi Effect (IV 5.12) on the Incredible Hulk, High Sierras, CA from Black Diamond Equipment on Vimeo.

The headlines have been filled with plenty to comment on but, alas, I’ve had no time to blog. So instead of getting all hot and bothered about the latest sad news about our health enjoy a little stoke instead. Black Diamond has been making a lot of cool vids lately. This one features my friend Brittany climbing one of the most imposing granite formations in the High Sierra. For an added bonus, check out the one below where Brittany’s husband sandbags here into leading some scary. My wife says “she sounds just like me” which is something to take solace in as a recreational athlete because Brittany is rad.

BD athlete Brittany Griffith climbs at Australia's Taipan Wall and Mount Arapiles from Black Diamond Equipment on Vimeo.

Oh, My, God

2011-07-10T07:26:00.000-06:00

The world's first triple back flip on a bike. My stomach is still in my throat. Think I'll watch it again...

The USDA’s Pyramid Scheme

2011-07-06T10:02:00.009-06:00

I haven’t ranted in a while but figure all this nonsense about the USDA’s food pyramid, um, plate is a good time to get back in the game. Apparently, at least according to a lot of media sources, making a rational change from pyramid to plate (since, ya know, we eat off of plates) is going to put the kibosh on the obesity epidemic. And while I applaud the USDA’s logic I’m offended by their ignorance. We aren’t fat because we can’t covert tiers on a pyramid into portions on a plate. We’re fat because our diets consist mainly of things that don’t appear in their guidelines at all.

Let’s have a look at the revolutionary My Plate, shall we?

Hmm, we’ve got a plate segmented into fruits, grains, protein, veggies, a small side of dairy and a pretty girl eating an apple. How quaint. Never mind that you don’t need any meat, grains, or dairy in your diet or that it lacks nuts, seeds, legumes, and an entire macronutrient group because that’s minutia compared to my point. For a level-headed examination of “My Plate” here’s a link to Denis Faye’s less vitriolic prose. What I’d like to know is where are the sections for soda, chips, beer, fast food, and the hot case down at your local AM/PM mini mart? Because, from what I’ve seen, this should make up most of My Plate, assuming that when they say “My” they mean “American”.

I don’t know who it was who decided our problem was that we couldn’t figure out how to insert a triangle into a circle. As a professional observer I’d say it has a lot more to do with people’s notion that a French fry is a vegetable and Cherry Coke is a fruit. We find our protein at places where the same ardent watchdog, the USDA, states “ meat” only need contain 40% actual meat and god knows what else. We get our fill of dairy on “2 Large Pizzas for $5” night and our grains come from various bags of processed –to-the-point-they-might-as-well-be-sugar swill at convenience shops. We are fat, quite simply, because we eat a lot of crap. If our diets actually consisted of nothing but the foods on My Plate we’d be a lot healthier, no matter how much we ate of any of them.

Look, I’m all for more nutrition education. We need it. Badly. I’ve had clients state they were allergic to water, were advised by their doctor to drink more soda, and challenged me as to what point they could stop exercising—seriously, the exact line was “... you can’t tell me Steve Edwards and Tony Horton still have to exercise to look like that!” So I’m all for education; I just don’t think a government agency beholden to the corporate influence of Big Food should be the ones teaching us.

Le Velo

2011-07-02T10:48:00.003-06:00

There’s this bike race in France that started today that, for some reason, I just can’t get psyched on this year. Maybe if I watch Le Velo a few more times my mind will get straight. Maybe it’s a self-imposed tactic hoping my ambivelance will lead to some great racing. Yeah, yeah, that’s it.

It's just that deep down I don’t believe Contador can lose. Plus, his main rival is pretty boring. There are some cool stories on the undercard, particularly Chris Horner, but c’mon. Horner’s as old as Lance; how can he be a serious contender? And, even the the parcours means that Schleck could conceivably lose no time to Contador in the time trials (a TTT and his team has fastest time trialist in history and a short, hilly, TT near the end) I’m still not buying that when it comes down to winning a grand tour anybody is dropping Contador—and his special Spanish beef—when it actually matters. So c’mon guys, prove me wrong!

Uh-oh. The first stage just wrapped and, shockingly enough, Phillippe Gilbert won. That guy hasn’t won a bike race since, like, the last bike race he did. He might win four stages in the first week. Then the Contador show starts. So I guess until someone shows that things are different I’m going to keep getting’ dirty.

re: hmm, ac gets behind a crash and loses over a minute. tactic could be working... thanks josh and reed for the vids.

Speed Month

2011-06-30T10:45:00.001-06:00

The World Championships is a short race and I’ve spent most of the last decade doing ultra events. I need to be faster, so July is going to target power and explosiveness, which equal speed. Hello postactivation potention.

Pure speed is one of the harder elements to improve because it takes more than simply getting into shape. You need to train both your musculature and your nervous system to respond differently to stimulus. Getting fit is a natural extension of exercising but getting fast takes targeted training, which is not always as much fun.

But I recently did a short mountain bike race, our state championships, to qualify for nationals and got my ass handed to me in spectacular fashion. I qualified but lost nearly a minute per mile to the winner. Ouch! Speed has always been an allies (I was a sprinter in high school) but the last decade of going long and slow has retrained my body so it no longer knows how to be fast. In order to be competitive in Spain some major reprogramming is in order.

summer transformation goal

I do actually find this training fun. The downside is less time playing with my friends. Now instead of going out for a ride, run, or climb being a focal point of my training it’s what I do on rest days. Training consists of drills, intervals, and PAP.

The latter is the key. If you follow TSD you know what this is, and why it comprises the third phase of P90X2. If not read this. And this. And if you’re very curious dig though all of these posts.

Essentially my schedule looks like the third training bock of P90X2, with some sports specific stuff added. This form of PAP—that the general public is about to get a taste of—is the epitome of applied science for athletes. And though I’ve already done some experiments with PAP complexing I’ve never been focused on improving my speed. Basically I’m headed back into the lab and it’ll be interesting to see how the experiments shake out.

Vitamin D, Sunscreen, and Healthy Skin

2011-06-28T10:04:00.005-06:00

Since it’s finally looking like summer outside it seems like a good time to discuss the topic of sunlight and what you should be doing about it. Two popular subjects in the health world are vitamin D and sunscreen, neither of which is very well understood by the general public. After reading today’s post you can stop reading those headlines because the solutions are very simple.

Vitamin D.
Not really a vitamin, exactly, it’s actually a hormone and is produced by your body. Its effects are so important it’s not even worth mentioning all the pluses. Just know that if you lack vitamin D life is going to get unpleasant very quickly. The good news is that our bodies make it when our skin is exposed to sunlight. You don’t even need very much sun exposure, and your body stores it so it will hang around when the weather turns gray, even for months. Yet numerous studies show many people are drastically low in vitamin D. So what’s the deal?

We’re obviously not getting outside enough but that’s not the entire story because we might be. We’re just using too much sunscreen when we do. Vitamin D is present in very few foods. We can supplement it but we don’t want too much of it because our bodies store it, and too much can be stored (when it can become toxic). Natural exposure is both the safest and most effective way to get it.

Sunscreen.
It seems that almost everyone now knows that overexposure to sunlight can cause skin cancer and that sunscreen can help prevent it. Unfortunately health officials—and marketing divisions—find it’s easier to sell the public on black and white rather than bother with subtleties like, oh, the fact our bodies needs some sunlight for health and skin cancer, while a very real threat, takes a lot of sun exposure to get. So the powers that inform have been telling us to slather on sunscreen anytime we step out of the house and, apparently, we’ve chosen this one piece of advice (as opposed to “exercise more”, “eat fruits and veggies”, “drink plain water”, “watch less TV” etc) to take to heart, resulting in a widespread problem with vitamin D deficiency.

In fact, so disinterested have these powers been with subtleties that sunscreens have been blocking the wrong rays for years. We’re finally starting for hear about the difference in UVA and UVB rays. Until recently sunscreens only targeted the latter, which incidentally are also the rays we use to make vitamin D. Now it turns out the UVA rays we’ve been letting through can cause skin cancer too, so all our protective measures have not only been leaving us exposed to possible skin cancer but lowering our immune system at the same time. Oops.

Many of the sunscreen companies are now choosing to block UVA rays and inform you about this on their label, but they’re still not too forthcoming about the importance of getting some UVB because, well, it probably doesn’t seem like good business (even though a new study shows vitamin D helps stave off skin cancer). They also don’t tell you that unless you get an awful lot of sun exposure you’re not very likely at all to develop skin cancer or have any damaging effects from the sun at all. The fact is that we not only don’t need, but should not have, sunscreen covering our exposed skin areas all the time.

The simple solution.
The media makes this subject appear complicated but the solution simply is not. We should get outside during the middle of the day on sunny days whenever we can. Not for long; a stroll through the park at lunch on a sunny day is likely plenty of exposure as long as you’re not completely covered up (the AMA recommends 15 minutes of exposure a “few times” per week). You don’t need to be in a bathing suit but wearing shorts and jogging around the park on occasion wouldn’t hurt. We just shouldn’t live like vampires, no matter how cool their lives seem on True Blood.

On the flip side no one needs to lie out at the beach. Fake tanning is still seems like the safest way to mimic an 80s sex symbol. Once you feel your skin get warm you’ve had more exposure than you need. For those of you that do spend a lot of time outdoors, make sure your sunscreen blocks both UVA and UVB rays. And if you’re addicted to sunlight wear a hat. The skin on your face and neck, especially around your eyes, is very susceptible to the raisin effect.

Supplementing vitamin D has been shown to be effective but, unless you never get outside, a base amount is sufficient. Whatever is in your multivitamin is likely fine (The RDAs 400IU is “100%” but not really 100% so don’t worry about it--subject for another day). Also, make sure to try and eat plenty of non-cooked omega 3 and 6s in your diet. These fatty acids protect your skin from sun damage and keep it looking young.

Trying to get too involved in the numbers of this subject will just confuse you. “Nobody really knows how much sunlight you need for optimal vitamin D synthesis versus too much sunlight,” say Jean Tang, dermatologist and lead author of a government study that followed 36,000 women ages 50 to 79 for an average of seven years. And if someone like Tang doesn’t know the math, there’s no reason for you bother with it either.

Further reading and opinions:

http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/vitamind/

http://www.baycitizen.org/blogs/quality-of-life/study-vitamin-d-and-calcium-ward-high/

http://www.skincancer.org/understanding-uva-and-uvb.html

http://www.newsok.com/new-sunscreen-label-rules-will-be-simpler-safer/article/3580421?custom_click=pod_headline_health

http://products.mercola.com/summer-survival-kit/?source=nl

Gettin' Real In The Whole Foods Parking Lot

2011-06-27T15:40:00.000-06:00

For those of you having a case of the Mundays.

A Tour Divide Fundraiser

2011-06-26T10:22:00.000-06:00

This week’s psyche has a fundraising aspect. Buy a copy of the just-released book on the Tour Divide (“the world’s toughest bike race”) and you’ll help support the daughter of a racer who died during the 2010 challenge. The TD is a fully self-supported 2,700 mile dirt adventure along the Continental Divide from Banff, Alberta to the Mexican border. The Cordillera will no doubt become a requirement for any true adventurer’s bookcase. From the bikepacking web site:

For those of you who have missed it the Cordillera is an anthology of the best Divide Racing art, literature and poetry out there. It is a book about ultra-racing along the Divide and I'm sure that everyone who visits Bikepacking.net will find it fascinating.

The Cordillera Volume 2 is a professionally bound soft-cover book with work by Jon Billman (Outside Magazine), Paul Howard (Two Wheels on my Wagon / Eat, Sleep, Ride), Dan Koeppell (New York Times), Eddie Clark (Mountain Flyer) and many others. We also have pictures from Aaron Teasdale and original artwork by Trevor Browne in this year's book.

We have a great story and interview of Kurt Refsnider this year which details the incredible discovery he made on Baffin Island of the bikes and gear left by Divide bicycling pioneers Mike and Dan Moe. It's a story that you'll never forget and there's more information about it in the Cordillera than anywhere else.

The Cordillera is a non-profit effort. All proceeds benefit worthy bikepacking causes and last year we raised over $1,000 for the Adventure Cycling Association. This year all proceeds go directly to the college savings plan for Linnaea Blumenthal. Linnaea is the four year old daughter of Dave Blumenthal who died after a crash in the 2010 Tour Divide race. Purchasing a copy of the Cordillera is a great and tangible way for the bike-packing community to show support for a fallen racer's daughter.
The Cordillera will be available on Amazon.com next month but if you purchase it directly from the printer you'll get it in a few days and twice as much money will be donated to Linnaea's college fund. Here's the link:

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/the-cordillera/15659154?productTrackingContext=search_results/search_shelf/center/1

To follow this year’s tour check out the Tour Tracker here.
Here’s a link to the main Tour Divide Page. Here are some photos of the course.

The Development Of P90X2

2011-06-22T08:13:00.007-06:00

It’s official; P90X mc2 is P90X2 since its unveiling at Beachbody’s annual Summit meeting last weekend. I know many coaches have been aware of this for ages but that’s one of your perks. Officially mum has been the word. This means that, among other things, I can wear the X2 hoodie that’s been buried in my closet for months out in public.

Tony, Jon, Carl and me in Tony's apartment; brainstorming about a sequel to Power 90 tentatively called P90X.

For those of you just joining us, today I’ll provide a recap of P90X2’s development. Beachbody’s old guard undoubtedly remembers Ned Farr’s serial about the making of P90X. For X2 we didn’t go to such production lengths. Instead, you got Tony’s One on One workouts (with Mason’s b roll segments—you all watched those, right?) and my blog. Here are a few of the more important posts, in chronological order. I changed the titles to reflect X2 but leaving all the X Next/mc2 et al references in for posterity.

Post-activation Potentiation

Going, Going, Gone!

I Hate It! But I Love It!

Feelin’ Springy

The Science Behind P90X2

Previewing P90X2

Buying Into The System

P90X2 Core: The Opening Engagement

Plyocide: Up Close and Personal

P90X: Muscle Confusion Two

P90X2 Rehearsals

The Stuff Of P90X2

It's a Wrap!

If you want to read the entire series click here and scroll down.

7AM, Day 3, 2011 Summit: 2,000 people get ready to workout with the Beachbody trainers in front of the Staples Center, minus some whom were skipping it because they’d done Tony’s PAP workout the day prior. “My legs are destroyed,” was a sentiment heard regularly.

Solo Across The Atlantic

2011-06-17T12:33:00.002-06:00

Very busy week for me, with Beachbody’s annual Summit happening, but I wanted to get a psyche post up regardless. Seems like a good week for an adventure that’s the antithesis of social festivities here in LA; a solo row boat crossing of the Atlantic Ocean. I happened upon this blog while following my friend Russ, who’s doing the Tour Divide this year. I’ll have more on that “race” later but, today, check out an experience of being alone with a boat, some oars, and whatever marine creatures decide to make friends with you for a few months. Here are a few highlights from Paul Attalla’s “life changing” journey.

December 4 2007
And the race begins. The Spirit of Fernie is complete. Thank you so much to Andy the German boatbuilder and his countless hours completing the finishing touches, Brett, Sean and Mike for all of the final errands and fixing up touches, and to the Richard and Bette for a wonderful post meal ´Pallea¨, champagne, salad and cake and Nic and the girls for decorating my cabin so beautifully with finger paint and glitter glue. Puppy and I will be very cozy. We had a lovely sticker posting party to place all of my guestbook entries onto the boat. The hardest thing I´ve ever done. An extremely emotional morning but thanks to Joy´s fantastic 2 year old inquisitiveness she brought tears of laughter to the morning with her comments. Daddy where you pee pee?

December 8 2007
Paul phoned home on his satellite phone. He has had a tough week at sea. He has been very nauseated but this is improving. The waves and wind have made living difficult. It's been too rough to light the stove and water making is difficult also. We could hear the waves splashing over the boat. Paul said "this is not about a race this is about survival"but followed this up with "how many are behind me". Dolphins are following along and a sea turtle has taken a liking to his cleaning brush.

December 13 2007
I can't explain how hard it is to try and repair the leak. I have to shift my gear constantly to get into tiny compartments. Today I heard what sounded like plastic bags popping while on the phone with Nic. At first I thought it was dolphins but I had to go and check to make sure it wasn't something on the boat. To my surprise what I found was ...

December 14 2007
I look at my "seame" light and it is blinking fast which means something is very near. I turn around and see this ship bearing down on me fast. I freak out and spring into action. The ship is going to hit me 1 - 2 minutes - it is coming directly at me. I leap into my cabin grab the radio and attempt to make contact while getting a flare ready with the other hand. I drop the radio thinking that they would not be able to avoid me even if they tried put my life jacket around my neck , free my life raft and grab bag and shot the flare AT the ship.

December 20 2007
I've had a terrible 24 hour period with very rare west west north west winds- watching hard earned miles slip by. The chances of getting wind in that direction at 20-knots for this month of the year is very rare. I had to use my para-anchor which is the equivalent of an underwater parachute 6 feet by 6 feet. It is attached to 50 metres of line with a separate 80 metre floating TRIP LINE. ROPE CITY. If you screw-up the deployment of the para-anchor bad things can happen. It is a scary and very powerful piece of gear. I hope I do not have use too many more times.

I miss my family very much and the bad weather luck for some reason has highlighted loneliness. I gave my self a classic Paul Attalla pep talk this am " Come on you have this rare opportunity in front of you, it will not always go your way, you have to flow with the circumstances, it is easy to be calm and cool and happy when things are going well but it how we take on the bad times that define our grit and strength, you can not change the weather, worry about things that you can change like your attitude; Missing the family is a fact of the race. It is only threeish months from many years of togetherness".

December 21 2007
Today I saw my first pod of pilot whales. I had no idea some of them could be so huge, up to 20 ft. Yesterday I was in 6-8 metre swell, talk about adventure. I felt under the weather yesterday after eating some curry chicken but it seems to have passed. I look forward to opening my daily supplies. I get really excited if there are wine gums, sweet and sour chicken and chicken noodle soup. I am rowing as hard as I can. I figure if I keep this pace I will have only 40-50 more days at sea.

December 22 2007
I awoke this morning to the sounds of dolphins playing, squealing and shooting water out of their blowholes. Joy would love it!

January 3 2008
I am making some good distance today, but a storm and I mean a storm has set in. It is so rough I tipped sideways and it took about 5 seconds to self-right. I am happy I have the boat that I do. It is so rough I had to put out my drogue. It was very scary attaching the lines out of my hatch. I had to go over it in my head 5-6 times of how I would so quickly open my hatch, leash up, get on the deck, set it up and then get back inside my cabin again, so not to be bombarded by a wave. It happened anyways, huge soaker but I was alright and made it back in. A stormy night and some seasickness is inevitable. The blood is rushing now and adrenalin firing for sure!

January 5 2008
This will be the second time I was attempting to go underneath and have a look at the growth underneath, and the hole (it's getting worse again). I am not kidding when I say I had my mask and snorkel on and was nearing the edge to jump in, and suddenly I saw a flock of seagulls. So, I stopped to admire them ( don't see them often all the way out here) and they flew right down to the water just above a sharks dorsal fin. The shark then swam up to the boat and under my paddle then disappeared. I am not sure how big it was as it all happened fast. I was taken back at how big the tail was and by the girth.

January 21 2008
A rough day today as I woke up and cut my heel on a hose clamp (bad spot to have it) and was bitten by a school of fish under my boat. I guess it serves me right for throwing my leftover meal overboard, but it hurt and I have two puncture marks to show. I paddled hard sideways all day and was soaked by big waves as I struggled NOT to go to Brazil (no offense Thays - Terry my locum's wife), I'm sure it is beautiful. As a result my bottom is extremely sore from the gritty salt chafing.

January 28, 2008
Complete magic today as a pod of 50+ dolphins splashed and played all around me. They would jump 3-4 at a time in unison. Some had black spots on them. It was so beautiful. I have not seen them for over a month and this many at once was awesome!

February 7 2008
The last two days have been the most memorable of the journey so far.
Yesterday it was a whale, and today it was large swell in the morning. As
the sun was rising so was the wind and the swell with both moving West. The Spirit of Fernie was moving the fastest she has been. The swell was breaking but in such a way that the waves more or less crumbled from the top and flattened the sea...

February 9 2008
Today was a jackpot day! I owe it to BP (Brett Price) . After surviving 71 days without coffee, I found the only small packet on the boat of - liquid gold - COFFEE! I will treat myself tommorrow morning. I don't even know if I'll be able to sleep tonight I am so excited.

February 11 2008
Another night full of excitement as I was almost hit straight on by a Russian freighter. Once again I let the ship know that I was a VERY SMALL OCEAN ROW BOAT: only to hear their groggy replies " clear the way". Eventually they sensed my panic and WOKE UP!

The whale is still with me. It is quite shy but meanders back and forth between half a kilometre and 200 metres bobbing up and down behind the boat. Coincidentally or not, I have sad news that I have not seen Moby in about four days. My little buddy Chirp still visits 4-5 times a day and he/she always puts a smile on my face.

Trust Your Training Program

2011-06-14T10:38:00.001-06:00

Periodizational training can be a hard sell because each time you change training blocks you take a small step backwards. But these steps “back” are there for a reason and, eventually, you lose less strength during each transition leading to larger cumulative gains near the end of your program. If you alter your program so that you never regress you hamper to ability to ultimately improve. This requires trust.

Every 90-day (or longer) Beachbody program comes with a periodizational strategy designed to do this. As you’ll see if you click here, mutiny is a rational consideration when you aren’t moving towards your goals. But you should trust these schedules because they work, which I know because I’ve spent the last 30 or so years of my life trying to perfect them.

And while I know how to set up periodizational schedules for a broad demographic my own personal plans are more of a crap shoot because I’m always tweaking, or experimenting, with something theoretical. Each time I set up a new scenario I’m never 100% certain it’s a good idea.

Yesterday my training took me back into the gym (well, garage) for the first time in six weeks, where I was somewhat surprised, and quite happy, to find I’d lost little, if any, strength doing Asylum Strength. I say surprised because six weeks is about the outside of time you can hang onto strength gains. It’s not like I’ve been doing nothing, far from it, but outdoor sports don’t usually allow you to keep strength gains made in the gym. This is a sign that my training plans are going according to plan.

I began this schedule back in January. Back then transitions weren’t so smooth. In the deep off season you should focus on areas of weakness. This means your strengths will suffer, which is fine, since you know (or should know) that you can get them back. But it’s still hard to wrap you head around the fact that you might be training harder than ever before only to be getting worse at your main objectives then you would be if you didn’t train at all.

Closer to your objectives these peaks and valleys merge. You don’t take big steps back during transitions and each step of your training leads to a little peak. Eventually, if you get it right, it all cumulates with a major peak in fitness.

The lesson of the day is to trust your program and let it work. We get tons of mail (literally if it weren’t electronic) from people wanting to alter their program, or quit, as soon as they get weaker, gain weight, feel tired, or hungry, or anything that’s not what they consider to be the direction they want to be going. But you’ve got to trust us; those steps back are going to lead to improvements that you never would have believed to be possible.

An Interview With Steve Edwards

2011-06-10T08:57:00.003-06:00

This week’s Friday psyche is coming full circle; or so says the title of Mike Williams’ article on me in DPM Magazine. For anyone interested in how I came to find such a great gig in life here is my history. It begins on page 28. Next up will be a story on how I started referring to myself in the third person.

DPM is a one of the cool new climbing mags on the scene. In fact, the Friday psyche has come full circle as it started with DPM. Though you can find it in print it’s very electronic (wave of the future, Dude). Reading takes some getting used to but, once you do, it’s pretty to find much fault in the format. I suppose the biggest negative is that you can’t take it in the loo.

Anyway, I’ve already began to write a series for them on training for climbing. The first article is here (beginning on page 30).

Train With Steve Edwards In The South Of France

2011-06-08T10:35:00.007-06:00

Want to train with me in an idyllic setting? My friends Bruce and Alisa, avid outdoor athletes and professional guides who hold summer retreats near their home in France, have asked me to lead a week of adventure and fitness, focused on training for outdoor sports. More than just getting a lot of exercise, I’ll be conducting daily seminars based on the interests of the group, we’ll be experiencing the local culture, the food will be gourmet (since eating is like their religion) and simply having a lot of fun (since fun is like my religion). If you’ve ever wondered what doing one of my crazy adventures might be like, here’s your chance to find out; all in a region of the world that’s not so unlike Camelot. Click the links below to learn more and hope to see you in France!

From Raison d'Art:

FITNESS AND ADVENTURE IN THE SOUTH OF FRANCE
September 10-17th, 2011

Want to take your fitness to the next level? Raison d'Art is excited to announce a week of cycling, climbing, trail running, hiking and training in beautiful southern France with renowned outdoor athlete and fitness trainer Steve Edwards!

During this action-filled week you’ll not only get in fantastic shape, you’ll also learn the keys to fitness and nutrition to keep your body aging gracefully from Beachbody’s head of fitness and nutrition development, the company behind P90X, Insanity, Turbo Fire, and many other life-changing exercise programs.

Though Steve designs home fitness programs his passion is outdoor sports. He’s an expert rock climber and guide, bike racer, adventure racer, ultra marathoner and currently training for the Duathlon World Championships. His own personal mega-endurance events and birthday challenges, are a thing of legend. During your stay you’ll not only learn how to eat and stay in shape, but how you can fit an adventure sports lifestyle into your hectic life. Arm yourself with the tools and knowledge to live your life to its fullest!

Click here for a slide show showing some of the area from a trip we took during the spring.

The Retreat
To see a bit more about what you’ll be getting into, check out the Raison d'Art web site here. Make sure and check out the entire site, especially the gallery.

Your Hosts
Here is a great story about your Alisa and Bruce. If this resonates with you as it does me, I guarantee you’re going to have a fantastic time.

The Region
This area of France is one of my favorite places on the planet. It’s probably a lot like the Province region was before it became trendy. Check out the town where Bruce and Alisa live by clicking here. And as great as it is, my favorite thing about this area is not the beauty or the history, but the local vibe. Nothing about the place gives the impression that you’re in a tourist region and, in fact, you really aren’t (at least not yet).

The Cost
When I heard how inexpensively we could pull this off I said that it was a great deal even without the retreat! Again, this isn’t Paris or the Côte d'azur where prices have been inflated to accommodate the world’s hoi polloi. It’s provincial France, where life is lived as it should be: slow, relaxed, friendly, local, and priced to keep it that way.

Click here to join us!

And btw, sorry about the Bob Dole-esque third person reference in the title. It's apparently better for the interweb.

Maintaining, Transitioning, and Play

2011-06-06T10:27:00.004-06:00

I was just answering a question on the Message Boards about maintaining results that leads right into what I’ve been doing since my last training cycle ended: playing, tactically, which can be just as important as the program itself.

Without breaks any training program will get stale. Your results will plateau, your enthusiasm will wane, and you’ll increase the risk of overuse injuries. For most of us life itself creates plenty of opportunity for breaks, but they should be scheduled regardless. And if you plan these breaks well they can lead to improvement that’s almost as rapid during your program, especially if you’re training for sports.

Here’s a very simple overview of why, without going insanely nerdy on you:

Training almost always targets certain energy systems in your body. Beachbody programs generally target those that will lead to rapid body composition change because that’s what most of us are after. But whenever you actively target one area of fitness others are being left out. If you know what your training program isn’t covering then it can be easily to fill this in later. If you don’t it’s harder, however, it’s not all that tricky to figure out what your training has been lacking because, basically, it’s stuff that’s the opposite of what you’ve been doing.

For example let’s use P90X because it’s the most inclusive program we offer (meaning that it concurrently targets the broadest range of energy systems). Because every workout has you training at your maximum for about an hour, simple math lets us guess, correctly in this case, that we probably aren’t targeting things that are much shorter or much longer; which are the energy systems concerning muscle cell motor unit recruitment (or power) and aerobic efficiency (aerobic endurance). While these areas aren’t too important for body composition change they can be extremely important for athletes. If you’re an athlete who values one or both of these areas they are best trained during your breaks from the program.

Furthermore, specific sports always require some amount of more simple body adaptations, such as getting used to the elements your sport is played in. These play periods should focus on lots of time doing your activity. For example, in almost any sport skin is vital and can only be prepared specifically by doing the said sport.

Finally, sports all require specific neuro-muscular patterns (often called engrams) that, while somewhat retained, need to be refined if you plan on continual improvement. Again, these are gained by doing the actual sport. Also, if you’re training is sound you’ve gained fitness (strength, endurance, mobility) which must be taught how to perform. Play time, through specific adaptations of your training gains, will help you get stronger while you aren’t doing any actual training.

If you look at the calendar of my month “off” (top), you’ll see that I’m spending as much time, or even more, doing exercise as I was when I was training (below). The only difference is that there are no real workouts. But there’s a plan, which is, well, no real plan because taking a mental break is vital to build-up enthusiasm for structured training. But within my “no plan” I’m still playing in areas that weren’t targeted during my last round of training, while also building up skin, making environmental adaptions, and refining my engrams. The goal of which is to have me mentally and physically ready to progress further during my next round of training.

key: boulder, climb, coop = some form of climbing; 4 x 10 means 4 5.10 routes, etc; mtb = mountain bike; RUKE = run/hike, which is an aeorbic-level hike (ultra pace); FWU = a variation of the X2 functional warm-up, which i don't usually record; NIS = neuro-integrated stretching; brick = run and bike workout; trainer = rode my bike on a trainer indoors; RACE = duathlon nationals

More Ondra

2011-06-05T15:59:00.000-06:00

Adam Ondra Onsighting Bat Route 8c from UKClimbing.com TV on Vimeo.

This is so absurd I’m making this double psyche week. In this video Adam Ondra, the star of this week’s psyche post, on sights an 8c (14b) route in England, placing draws as he goes and struggling about as much as I do on 5.11. To put this in perspective no American had climbed 8c until 1995. Here’s what British ace Steve McClure has to say about him in a great article on UK Climbing:

Steve: "Adam is a grade ahead of the top of the tree, and two grades ahead of the general hero! So he's a grade up on Sharma/Paxti/Ramon etc and two up on all the other stars. He is in a league of his own on rock."

Jack: Anything else to say?

Steve: "Adam really impresses me in many ways. I can relate to him, he's a climber, a rock climber. Relative to the indoor guys he's weak, but on rock he has all the strengths. People forget climbing strengths are not just about 'strength'. You need power, power endurance, then flexibility, finger strength, tenacity, technical ability, footwork, ambition and more. He has all of these.

Also his attitude is great, he's just a climber like us all, psyched for his mates on 8as, and keeping his efforts in perspective. I heard recently a top hero begrudgingly saying Adam was good, 'but he's weak, he's no good indoors really, he has faults'. Adam would never come out with this, he's just doing his stuff!

World’s Hardest Climb?

2011-06-03T09:05:00.003-06:00

BD athlete Adam Ondra making the first ascent of Chaxi Raxi (9b) at Oliana, Spain from Black Diamond Equipment on Vimeo.

There’s a new sheriff in town. And his name is Adam Ondra.

This kid, who just turned 18, has turned the climbing world on its head this year. Today’s Friday Psyche is Ondra on Chaxi Raxi, a long standing Chris Sharma project and one of the hardest routes in the world. If it’s not the hardest than that title goes to one of the other 9bs he’s established this year, which we know because he’s climbed pretty much all of the other hard sport climbs on the planet.

Ondra is doing what most people thought was impossible in today’s climbing world, where the sport has been divided up into specialized arenas: climbing the hardest rock routes in every style. He’s been traveling around the world to grab the second ascent of pretty much anything on the “world’s hardest” radar (he’s yet to come to America but when he does Jumbo Love will likely have a grade confirmation)—even multi-pitch climbs in remote locations, as well as onsighting routes on a completely different plane. He recently nabbed the second of the almost-mythical line Chilam Bilam. Its first ascent had always been debated and some of the world’s strongest climbers, such as Sharma and Dani Andrada, had failed on it. It took Ondra four tries and then, while in the neighborhood, he established an even harder route on the same cliff.

He calls himself ‘weak’, which simply means power is not his forte. But this hasn’t stopped him from doing the hardest boulder problems or winning world cups, even though he mainly focuses on long hard ‘endurance’-style climbs. He is simply on another level from every other climber right now. The scary thing is that he seems to be getting much better each year and probably has another decade to physically improve.

physiology lesson: the quick hand shakes ondra does between movements near the top of the climb are to help recharge CP (creatine phosphate) stores, which fires ATP (to keep you attached to the rock). CP stores run out quickly, 3-8 seconds, but also can recharge very quickly. subtle and effective.

“I just want to look good on the beach”

2011-06-02T10:48:00.005-06:00

Your training program should have a definitive target you want to achieve with it. Prior to working for Beachbody my world was mainly filled with people who wanted to be better at sports. Then it transitioned to overweight folks who wanted to drop weight for a myriad of class-reunion-type motivators. Since 90X hit a few years back it’s been coming full circle, but not totally. The Beachbody community is filled with athletes but most, it seems, are still more motivated by aesthetics than performance. The most obvious anecdote I have to cite is a college baseball player I was working with. As I tweaked his training towards pure performance he finally came clean and said, “I do P90X because I just want to look good on the beach. I only want to make sure it doesn’t hurt my sport so that I don’t lose my scholarship.” Target defined.

As a lead in to seeing how I create my programs you should know that I don’t care how I look on the beach. My personal programs are created for performance. I often experiment with other styles of training, for work mainly, but I’m always looking at everything in relation to how it will improve biomechanics. Aesthetics is simply a by-product of performance.

On that note here’s another anecdote. I write up scientific evaluations on all of our workout programs. We need these in foreign television markets who aren’t as liberal as the United States when it comes to what you can advertise on TV. Marketing slogans, such as muscle confusion, won’t fly unless they can be scientifically defined and, of course, all of our programs are based on training principles so this is easy—they just don’t always make sexy copy. So, anyway, the scientific advisor board (or whatever it’s called) in the UK, upon reading my definition of how P90X was a targeted performance and that body composition changes came as a natural extension, came back and asked us why we didn’t advertise it that way because they thought it sounded impressive. Apparently, looking good on the beach doesn’t have the same clout on the sceptered isle as it does here. Luckily (by design) P90X can be used for both.

The point of today’s post is a warning that the training program you’re going to read about over the next few months is leaving the beach aspect out. It’s how to use Beachbody’s program for increased performance for my sports (cycling, running, climbing). Only.

the tour is no gun show and these guys will drop you.

“Twelve inch arms don’t drop nobody,” is something that my bodybuilder friends used to like to say. The fact is, however, that in strength to weight ration sports small arms are exactly how you drop people. With the plan I’m laying out I’ll get fitter, and look ok to some, but I won’t be targeting my six pack or the gun show. So if you’ve got a reunion coming up and were planning on wearing a tank top you’ll probably want to amend this program, which can be as simple as my final anecdote of the day.

We’re shooting an X2 vid and, in this program, we do most movements out of unstable or athletic position to induce more muscles to fire. During one set of a biceps movement Tony drops into a stable platform and picks up more weight. “Sometimes,” he says. “Maybe all you care about are your guns.”

Winter Training Recap

2011-05-31T11:04:00.009-06:00

Given it’s the first warm sunny day of the year here in Utah it seemed like a good time to record how my winter training program went. Maybe then winter here in the Wasatch will finally end. We kind of skipped spring but what are you going to do? At least our house isn’t about to get flooded so I’ll count myself lucky.

Back in December I wrote down some goals and carved out three large blocks of training leading to a race at the end of April. May was a month “off”, and now it’s time to add to the base I spent the winter building. I don’t often record the end result of my programs. The goal of this blog is to educate; hopefully in an entertaining manner, and planning a program aids with this. Results are a nice perk, especially when you hit a goal, but the important elements of training programs happen en route. End results are personal and I only report on them if there’s a good story involved or something to learn.

This time, however, I’m rolling my winter training into another program that should be some help to all of you Beachbody-ers that use our programs to train for sports. The next phase of my Year of Fitness will be putting my knowledge to the test, big time. But that quest begins later. Today we’re recappin’.

From December:
Goal: since all training plans must have one, is to build a huge fitness base that will see me through an epic year of adventures.

I think this goal went well. While a lot of my sports specific fitness is nowhere near its peak my general conditioning is as good as it’s been in my life. I’ve got no acute injuries (other than some scrapes from falling off my mountain bike), my chronic pains are all at bay, and my strength base is very well rounded.

training with finnegan: meaning most of it was on trails. not ideal for speed but big plusses for fun, especially when you consider how crazy an un-exercised rescued cattle dog can be.

My primary fitness test, Duathlon Nationals, went well. With very little sports-specific training I easily qualified for the World Championships in a fun, very spirited, and ultra-competitive race for a multi-sport event (which can be very boring). Later I learned that a few of us had been penalized for some weird infractions and then had to sweat out the selection process as our penalties (6 minutes in a race where I was 4 behind the winner) knocked us into the alternate category for the US team. My official notification of selection came just as I was ready to target some new goals for the next round of training, but now I’m all in for the World’s in September, in Gijon, Spain.

probably losing time for sporting un-triathlon-specific ritte clothing

Climbing-wise I’m way behind schedule, mainly because the weather has been dreadful. Last week we humped some gear up to a local crag (with a one-hour uphill approach so we stash gear so that we can “run” up and down after work) and it was still completely soaked. Most of our local cliffs won’t be ready until midsummer so there just hasn’t been any urgency to get serious.

And while I’ve had very little time for long endurance days the few I’ve put in went surprisingly well. This is a testament to how solid a fitness base our programs build as my training centered, as you may know, on Asylum, an as-of-yet unannounced Beachbody program, and the PAP phase of X Two.

likely i was the only one racing in tucson who did this sort of thing for training.

There were no injuries during this phase. I only missed training during 90X filming, where I’d scheduled a break anyway, and the week following it when I got sick—about as good as I can expect in a five-month program.

what's next, buddy?

My break officially ends on June 1. The summer training schedule will be announced soon. If you plan to use Beachbody programs to prepare for any outdoor sports pursuit, particularly multi-sports, I’d recommend following along.

An Open Letter To The Tour of Utah

2011-05-27T07:55:00.008-06:00

With the Tour of California having just ended, wouldn’t it be great to have another big stage race in the US that would keep the international peloton racing here for a while? Today’s edition of fantasy psyche offers a solution.

A few years back I spoke with the Tour of Utah’s founder, the late Terry McGinnis, about the possibility of it becoming a point to point tour across one of the most beautiful geographic regions in the world. He said that was his ultimate dream. With the success of the Tour of California I think the time for Terry's dream has arrived. I’ve been playing around with various possible routes this tour could take for years. Here is my proposition for expanding the already cool Tour of Utah (valley) into an actual tour of the great state of Utah.

While I have no time to arrange such an event the organizers might. If not, here’s an open letter to the public hoping someone will take the reins and make it happen. I’ll be the first one in line for the amateur version, which would certainly become one of the most sought after events on the amateur tour rider’s calendar.

The first thing on my agenda should be to move the race up to last week of May/1st of June (between ToC and Dauphine Libre) in order to couple it with the ToC as part of the prep schedule for the Tour de France. This would enhance scenery as the mountain tops are still snow covered, as well as make the riding temps more Tour like (blistering hot in the deserts and frigid on the summits). The kids will be in school and route passes many small town schools, where organized could motivate them to participate. Summer tourist season will have begun, to provide good crowds, but not yet be in full swing so lodging will be more plentiful and easier to organize.

I visualize three versions:

Amateur tour (early AM start)
Women’s race (early start)
Men’s (late start to plan daily finish late afternoon/post work)

Taglines: hardest stage race in the US, most beautiful race/bike tour in the world

The Stages

Stage 1, Sunday: Moab to Moab
Approx 75 miles, 4,000’ elevation gain

Ride out of Moab over the Big Nasty climb, descend Castle Valley, follow River Road back into two and finish when a number of circuits (to be determined) around town. Short stage with one major climb early, 5 star scenery.

Climber points: Big Nasty summit (with bonus seconds so this summit will be raced agressively)
Sprint points: Finish (with bonus seconds)
Transfer to stage 2: 2.5 hours. Amateur and women lodge in Torrey or Hanksville. Men in Moab.

Stage 2, Monday: Torrey to Brian Head
Approx 160 miles, 12,000’ elevation gain

Epic stage with a moutain top finish along “the most scenic drive in the US”. While insanely long with two major climbs, this stage trends down hill and should be fairly fast for most of its length. Climb out of Torrey is out of the gate and the stage should then be fast until the final long but not horrendously steep drag up to Brian Head at 10,000’. This promises to be one of the most beautiful bike routes ever raced. Perhaps start women’s race in Boulder and amateur in Escalante, both versions eliminating the first big climb and making the lodging logistics simpler.

Climber points: major points for first climb out of Torrey and Brian Head finish. Two minor point climbs in between.
Sprint points: Sprints held in towns of Boulder, Escalante, Tropic, Panguitch
Transfer to stage 3: 45 minutes. Lodging at Brian Head, Cedar City, and Parawon

Stage 3, Tuesday: Cedar City to St. George
Approx 100 miles, 3,000’ elevation gain

Fast stage with a lot of down hill riding. One medium climb near the end through Snow Canyon State Park could weed out some sprinters but with 10 miles and circuits still to race will likely come back together. Head west of of Cedar City, then south using back roads when possible. Finish with afternoon circuits in downtown St. George to encourage large crowds and events.

Climber points: a few minor climbs and then good points for the Snow Canyon climb
Sprint points: Sprints held in towns of Enterprise, Veyo, Santa Clara, and maybe into town
Transfer to stage 4: 2.5 hours. Amateurs and women stay in Richmond. Pros in St George of Cedar City.

Stage 4, Wednesday: Richfield to Mt Nebo
Approx: 90 miles, 5,000’ elevation gain

Fast flat stage for 80 miles (and a likely tailwind) to a massive climb and summit finish on Mt Nebo. Scenic ride up route 89 with many intermediate sprints to engage the town citizens with what should be a spirited fight for sprinters jersey. Epic finish.

Climber points: couple of minor points en route.
Sprint points: Sprints in Gunnison, Manti, Ephraim, Moroni, always in front of schools or business districts to increase crowds.
Transfer to stage 5: 1 hour

Stage 5, Thursday: Salt Lake City to Salt Lake City
Approx: 75 miles

Challenging circuit race downtown Salt Lake City with a party-like atmosphere. Amateur ride will tackle the “Ronde van SLC” course (75-mile tour of the Salt Lake valley and benches that features all of the toughest bergs, or short urban climbs.)

Climber points: probably each lap on the “Capital climb”
Sprint points: many primes
Transfer to stage 5: 45 minutes

Stage 6, Friday: Ogden to Park City
Approx: 90 miles, 5,000’ elevation gain

After parading around downtown Ogden, the riders engage in one downtown sprint prime and then head east taking the back roads to Park City, finally finishing on a number of challening circuits through downtown Park City, perhaps also using the Royal Street climb if very hard circuits are desired.

Climber points: numerous minor points available
Sprint points: available in Ogden, Morgan, Coalvillle, Kamas
Transfer to stage 6: 1 hour to Miller Motorsports Park

Stage 7, Saturday: Larry H. Miller Motorsports Park
Approx: 50 miles or TT

Saturday at the races will feature a cycling festival with an entire day of events, demos, films, music, amateur races, etc. Amateur tour has a day off and free entry to the festival. A crit would probably be more fun for the fans but organizers may wish to do a TT instead, even though a flat TT has little meaning in a race with this many mountains and the sprint jersey competition will likely be fierce.

Transfer to stage 8: back to Park City

Stage 8, Sunday: Park City to Snowbird
Approx: 120 miles, 13,000’ elevation gain

The queen stage once again. Not much else needs to be said about this one. It’s been the pinnacle of the race every year and should stay that way.

Climber points: big mountain points available prior to the final climb
Sprint points: a few to motivate the sprint jersey to get over the climbs