When You’re Not Feeling It, Press On…

One of the frustrating facts of training is that getting fitter is not a linear projection. At some point you’ll have a bad patch. If you’re lucky it will only last a few workouts, though it might last a few weeks and if you overtrain it can last months. So while there is strategy to consider when you’re not feeling it the solution, as Scottish climber Dave MacLoed points out in this recent article, is always to press on.

This isn’t something unique to un-fit. In fact it's the opposite as the fitter you are the more likely it will happen. This is because the closer you are to peak fitness the less margin for error you have when it comes to overtraining, which is why you always hear about athletes struggling to get their training timing right around competitions.

Overtraining is a hard—-and sometimes impossible—-thing to gauge because it’s based on so many factors that you can’t always assess. Things like your mental state, that can cause fluxuations in your hormonal and nervous system function, are always issues that are somewhat out of your control. Pressing on means you don't want to give up because it's not working, but continue to trust your training program with an open mind, always evaluating the possibilities for minor tweaks. Here's a very similar article I wrote on the subject that's more specific to Beachbody programs. If your training program is solidly-crafted, as I hope ours are given I'm the one that does it, the benefits will come in the end as long as you don't give up.

MacLoed, one of the world’s best all-around climbers as well as an exercise physiologist, says,

I could go cragging I guess, which might be good for the head. But it doesn’t feel like the right thing to do for some reason. Training feels right, or at least did feel right.

I have been doing my circuits night after night. Some strange things are going on though which I can’t put my finger on. I’m definitely getting less pumped per circuit. I’m even getting a reasonable amount done. Yet for some reason, I don’t ‘feel’ fit.

When warming up I’m feeling rough and starting from a low base. And even once I’m going I feel heavy. I’m guessing it’s just one of those periods you have to go through every so often. So I’ll carry right on, until my body decides to wake up to the message that I need it to get fitter and stronger.

Those of you who follow TSD know I’ve been blogging on this subject using my own training and how nothing seems to be clicking this year. My solution, like Dave's, is going to be to keep pressing on. As should yours.

vid: for those who don't know, dave is on a very exclusive list of those who climb near the top of the scale in many disciplines: ice climbing, sport climbing, mega-scary trad climbing, and bouldering.

Win The Day

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.

Taking Back Our Lives

I don’t generally re-post but I was doing some research for an article and came across this old rant that seems as relevant now as ever.

The Fattening Of America

Back then my blog had fewer readers and, frankly, less focus as I was testing the waters as to what type of information it should contain. So my guess is that a lot of my current readership hasn’t seen it. It’s, essentially, akin to the film Fresh in that it’s about getting proactive and doing something about our personal situation when it comes to our health. Some topics never seem to age, though it’d be nice if this one did. Here is the closing:

All this apathy towards things that really matter allows our corporations to have their way with us. We’ll work longer hours, for less money, with no health care, and no vacation plan, for little retirement, just so long as the Yankees can win another pennant. During the time Roger Clemens has been pitching, we’ve seen the discrepancy between rich on poor in our country widen to the point that we’re, statistically, a third world nation. Our minimum wage has only raised a fraction and is current half of all other first world countries. Our president told a woman who spoke of working three jobs in order to just feed her kids that her situation was “uniquely American”. We’re grown too tired, too busy, too broke, too distracted to even bother with the basic things that we know keep us healthy. When did this happen? It’s not the America I grew up in.

But the real problem isn’t George Bush, the media, or the Enron’s of the world. The problem is us. As a society, we just don’t care enough anymore about what really matters. We need to wake up and take back our lives.

And, literally, that’s all it will take. Sure, the corporate stranglehold and statistical disadvantages won’t change over night. But your health will. And no matter how broke or busy we are become no can still eat better food and find thirty minutes a day to exercise. It’s really as simple as watching less baseball.

Fresh

Fresh is in my mind the best of all the recent food movies. If we could make this film required viewing in our schools it would change the world, and along the way take the biggest single bite out of our obesity epidemic of any movement so far. The reason is that instead of dwelling on the problems that mass food production is causing, it focuses on the solution. And the cool thing is that it’s a lot easier than most of us think.

The problem with all the Fright Club style films is that they make us think the problem of the world are too vast to do anything about. Sure, they get you mad. Maybe they even inspire you to activism. But that’s a tough road to hoe for most of us. Fresh addresses the problems but its focus is on the solution, using examples of the individuals that are doing something about it and how effective they are.

Here are some hopefully statistics:

- One farmer makes a living on 3 intercity acres in Milwaukee.

- Another, on a small spread in Virginia, practices holistic ranching by moving his animals around the farm to complete a natural cycle so he doesn’t need to use any fertilizers or pesticides or even plant crops. He gets the highest yield possible out of his acreage, which stays exceedingly healthy, and brings in $3,000 per acre, compared to the $150 per acre that our subsidized industrial farms yield.

- Another quit using the “recommended” pesticides and antibiotics and now saves $14,000 dollars per year and has healthier animals.

- Food from mass production farms and ranches yields 40% less nutrients, which has been reflected on the labels and, for some reason, isn’t causing a national outcry (this is the obesity epidemic by itself, as well as adding to other aspects of our health care load. It’s not tricky math. If you need to consume 40% more calories to get 100% of your needed nutrients there is no other possibility than becoming obese.)

The film brings to light the fact that food production isn’t the complicated quagmire we're led to believe. We can all produce food in our own homes. Local co-op farms can feed entire communities. In exactly the same manner that we can turn our homes into generating plants that can meet our energy needs, we can grow food locally that meets our nutritional needs. And the result will not only mean a healthier world but a more economically sound one. The stats are unequivocally one sided. We can feed ourselves better than any big corporation.

There’s a line in the film where someone says “the only thing Americans fear is inconvenience.” To change this we don’t need revolution. We don’t need any great leaders. And we certainly don’t need a bunch of corporations telling us what to do. All we need is some very simple grass roots education and we’ll do it ourselves.

To start, bookmark the Fresh site and sign up for their newsletter.

The film is only available for screenings. Though you can purchase a private screening it would be more fun to attend a public one. If it's not playing in your community you can organize a screening yourself, which they will help you organize. Go here for details.

Let Moderation Be For Other People

I’ve always thought the cliché everything in moderation was ridiculous. Now I’ve got some stats to back me up. The “world’s largest study on running” has concluded that more exercise is better, period.

“The government was saying you get benefits by walking three or four times per week. My data has shown that the more you do the greater the benefits,” stated Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory scientist Paul Williams to the San Francisco Chronicle. “I’ve had people doing 100 miles a week of running and you could see benefits up to that level.

Williams has studied approximately 100,000 people over the last 20 years. He reports that exercise seems to prevent heart disease and stroke, as well as vision problems, like glaucoma and cataracts. He speculates that a link between running and cancer prevention “may just be a matter of time” since most of his subjects were young when the study began. The study doesn’t just observe running. “Any sort of regular aerobic activity helps,” say Williams. “The more hours they put in, the more benefits they’ll see.”

So where did all this moderation nonsense come from? I can understand recommending vices in moderation. This makes sense. A bevy of studies indicate some amount of “bad” behavior can be healthy. So, yes, by all means moderate those things that we know can cause harm. You know, smoking, gambling, watching TV, impromptu drag races on public roads… things like that. But healthy stuff? Why should we moderate our eating habits, getting enough sleep so that we feel good, challenging our brains to learn new things, and exercising? To paraphrase my favorite doctor (Bones per the Captain), where’s the logic, man?

According to the article, “doctors and public health officials worry that with half the country not meeting the (current) guidelines, even talking about running 50 miles per week will intimidate folks who aren’t doing anything.”

This is bullshit. It’s a smokescreen. If more is better, and we know it, then the common sentiment should be that more is better. This, of course, doesn’t mean that you can’t advise easing into exercise. Doctors are supposed to advise things. But we do the opposite. We—as a society--caution away from too much exercise. That we’re of lawsuits or worried that recommending too much exercise might lead to injuries doesn’t make sense when you consider that it’s a 100% fact that too little exercise leads to illness and pre-mature death. So what gives?

Call it a conspiracy if you want, but how are doctors going to stay in business if nobody gets sick? How are corporations going to keep their salaried employees working 16 days if the public conscience is that they should spend a few hours a day moving around? How are marketers going to sell ad space if we stop spending five and a half hours each day surfing the net and watching TV*? Where’s all this moderation talk when we really need it?

My dog is 15 years old. He’s outlived the expected age for his breed by 40%. Most “responsible” (their word) dog owners and vets have told me I work him too hard. He’s climbed hundreds of mountains. He’s run multiple marathons. He’s done ultra marathons. Somehow, all this exercise hasn’t killed him but made him stronger. In fact, he still gets out for two miles or so a day and is grouchy when he doesn’t. Sure, he’ll die one day. We all will. But his life, which has been anything but moderate, is testament to my belief that life should be lived full on, and that everything in moderation is a societal excuse to give up your life it live it as defined by others.

* Based on a study that’s a few years old. It’s probably worse now.

pic: tuco at 15. still running.

Do We Really Need All That Stuff?

If you didn’t get everything you wanted for Christmas maybe it’s a good thing. As some motivation for negotiating the world recession in style, enjoy these “Lao Tsooians ramblings”(his description) from my brother, who resides in India. And Happy New Year!

Dear Steve,

At last the cool weather has descended on East India, and day after day sojourns away under the pleasant unchanging sunlight. I miss the wild drama and fauna of the rains, but the even cool temperatures are welcome still. The heartbeat of India are these two alternating seasons--the wild heat, rains, and storms of April to October, and the even, dry pleasantness of November to March. So many of its ancient cycles are based around it. For example, the Buddha and his followers would wander the country throughout the year as solitary mendicants, then in May they would gather at Varanasi for the "Raincloud of Dharma", 4 months of living together as a single mendicant community, followed by 8 more months of wandering. In Bengal the monsoon months peak in the heat at the end of September, when the whole city goes crazy in worship of Durga, the mother of the Universe.

On a personal level, one thing that has astonished me so far in my Indian sojourn is how each thing that I really need has been presented me as a gift. We have met a large variety of relatives and old friends, all of whom knew Ashna as a child and wondered who the lucky man might be. Each such meeting seems to end with a gift for both of us, and in my case I can't think of anything given me that has been useless. A variety of nice Kurtas and pajamas has kept me smartly dressed. From one family I received a beautiful hand-woven fine wool shawl that can be worn long down to the feet in lighter weather and in the current cold of Bengal's winter, wrapped tightly around the head and shoulders it makes an excellent sort of flexible sweater. For those Western dressy occasions like the Calcutta club, Atiya had a suit tailored for me from an old friend that contacted her out of the blue. Then due to the weight loss of the high quality fresh veg low sugar diet, and regular yoga, I've trimmed down such as that lovely blue suit Kay and Don gifted me years ago now fits ever so well again, so with my alternating blue and grey suits smarting the Calcutta club I get lots of nods of approval as "The one that won Ashna." Finally, when our old friends Evrim and Mary visited, they left us with a simple yoga mat, which allows us to do yoga on the dirtyfying roof. Simple gifts, but perfectly suited to one's simple needs.

This makes me wonder...is the passionate collectivism and shopping fever that so grips the industrial world necessary at all? Does one really need all this "stuff?" When I compare the life, mind, and advice of the "poor" here, such as our servants, who have to stretch every rupee just to handle the skyrocketing price of lentils*, these "poor" servants, in health and general well being, look much healthier and fitter than many of their rich salt lake masters whose houses are filled with things they rarely, if ever, use. Part of this is, of course, the virtue of hard work, which makes leisured folk look rather flabby in comparison, but it also is the general health of their inherited way of life. For example, there is a little fruit here called Amla, which rich people almost never eat (except us special ones of course!) but the poor eat it all the time. It’s like a hard little green golf ball that is incredibly sour at first, but by the time you finished it leaves your mouth coated with a strange substance that turns water into honey which coats your throat in sugary warmth all the way down. It turns out one of these little fruits also has the same vitamin C as 20 oranges. The villagers eat these often and traditionally ascribe it as a cure for just about anything. They only cost about 1 cent each, but the "enlightened" modern Indians hardly even know they exist anymore and think they are useless. What truly is useless?

As with everything I suppose it is that elusive happy balance, which demands an alert, critical, and above all evolutionary spirit to live happily amidst all this foolishness. I chanced across some Lao Tzu yesterday that spoke the spirit of all this to me.

To hold and fill a vessel to brimful
Is not so good as to stop before the limit.
Hone a tool to its sharpest state,
And its keenness cannot be long preserved.
A hall filled with gold and jade
Can hardly be safeguarded.
To show pride in one's wealth and high rank
Is to pave the way for one's own doom.
Thirty spokes converge on the nave of a wheel:
It is where there is hollow space
That the usefulness of the wheel lies.
Clay is molded into a vessel:
It is where there is empty space
That the usefulness of the vessel lies.
Doors and windows are hewn out to make a room:
It is where there is open space
That the usefulness of the room lies.
Therefore, while things are valuable
No things are what is useful.

In other words, in chasing things people mistake value for use, and in a world crowded with things, it is perfect usefulness that is really sought, not value. Since I'm so close to China, I'll brave adding a moralistic closing comment that the great sage must have forgotten;

Therefore,
Don't be so ready to fill the empty cup
Linger in the valley to more enjoy the distant mountain.
Doing so, one's heart becomes a river
Easily wends its way to Oceans of wealth.

Love,

B

* India's increase in business and transport structure has brought an unexpected curse--now its food produce can compete on international markets and much of its copious food production that used to be used up at home due to transport costs, now is exported, and the "poor", though lacking a roof over their heads or electricity nevertheless in previous years ate in a way that could be the envy of the rich in most countries. Now these poor folk are getting to the point where they cannot even afford that staple of India, the lentil and are really being ground down to substinance level by the huge inflation of staple food costs here. Imagine someone working 16 hours a day to earn 4 British pounds paying the same price for lentils as a Brit who earns 56 pounds a day at minimum wage!

--

Everything has its balance in the earth. Its not so hot as too keep us modest and not so cool as to keep us happy.-- Me

The Hardest Part of Training

“The hardest part of training is making the decision to start training at all.”
– Wolfgang Gullich

There are basically three ways to go into a training plan:

1 – gung ho
2 – slow and steady
3 – just do it

At Beachbody our programs try and address all three. P90X attempts the gung ho approach. Step 1 in the diet guide is throw out your junk and it gets tougher from there. This tends to work because people buy the X after doing something else, so they’re ready for round two.

Our more “mellow” programs, like Yoga Booty Ballet, adopt a more mild approach where you start slow and eliminate negative things each week as you ramp up your training.

In between, we have the “just do it” approach where we provide a quick start guide for those who don’t want to bother with a lot of planning and just want to get started.

My general guide for training is the slow and steady. That in no way means it’s the best approach. It’s just the one that works the best for me. My everyday life is fun and active. To actually make up my mind to train requires me to play mind games on myself.

Gung ho is the most fun because it makes you feel like Rocky. Its downside is that when you’re fit to begin with you can end up inflicting a lot of damage, making recovery slower and maore painful than it normally would be. It can leave you feeling as though you’d rather be out playing which, for me, is a healthy option that’s not always the best for obtaining objectives. I also tend to injure myself when I do this. Not because it’s dangerous, in theory, but because I can be kind of an idiot when it comes to seeing how far I can push my physical envelope.

The just do it approach is too random for me. Since I exercise anyway, if I’m not training and I’m in a gym I feel as though I’m just spinning my wheels. I need a plan and an objective.

So I generally opt for slow and steady. When I begin a program I make it easy to stay on it. This way I’ll keep doing it because it’s not too different from my regular routine. As I make alterations to my program, I tend to get more motivated towards the ultimate goal of the training cycle. It also preps my body so that I’m less likely to overtrain once I get into crazy mode.

So this week is easy. I’m just making sure to get my exercise in and trying not to eat too badly. Next week, I’ll make a transition. The following, I’ll ramp this into three intense weeks that will finish off phase one.

But that’s just me. You need to find which approach works best for you. You’ve already done the hardest part, which is deciding to start in the first place.

vid: re-post of my project video to see if it plays better on You Tube or Facebook. This is why it’s easy not to train. It’s fun to just go climbing. But if I really want to do this entire linkage, training is a must. A lot of training.

Motivation

Nothing, NOTHING, is as important as motivation when it comes to getting fit. With enough motivation everything will fall into place eventually. Without it, all the science in the world won't help you. This, above all else, is the main piece of advise I try and give my clients. If you stay psyched you'll make progress. It's pretty much that simple.

This morning I re-read "Lance and the Dipped in Ding-dong Doodle Down in Dixie," Bob Roll's account of Lance's now famous training camp in North Carolina. This camp came on what was, reportedly (at least in LA's "It's Not About The Bike"), the pinnacle of The Texan's decision as to whether he would continue to be a bike racer or quit. He had recently left the peloton in Europe and was milling around Austin trying to decide what he wanted to do with his life. Apparently, these camps were either going to re-stoke his motivation or kill it.

From Bobke's account he seems pretty stoked right off the bat. I suppose this is how Armstrong always does things, a 100% effort or nothing. There were there to train, all day every day, rain or shine. And that's what they did. This happened well before he'd won a Tour de France; a probably before he'd even thought it possible to do such a thing. All he was doing was training like a madman to see how much progress he could make on a wattage meter is short period of time. Bobke's account showed clearly what sets the Texan apart from everyone else. Compared to Roll, a seasoned pro, the level of desire and commitment is night and day. Lance does everything, train, plan, eat, recover, like a man possessed. You can't help but feel lazy. Bobke's doing the training with him and even he feels lazy by comparison.

No one was more motivated than Armstrong; and that's why he won (well, there's talent but all of his competitors had that too). Reading this stuff always motivates me to do more. Because, like Floyd Landis says, you can always do more. No matter how tired, how sore, how sick or bored or in pain you are, you can always do more. And this leads to his mantra of "...who trains the hardest and the most wins."

Reading this motivated me to jump on the hippie bike for 4 hours of climbing intervals in the heat. I've been training for heat lately. It's been almost impossible not to. But that's a different topic.

A World Bigger Than Yourself

My dad had an article published today in his local paper. He's discussing issues concerning Lake Tahoe, but his point it relevant to all of us. I've never understood the 'it's all about me' cliche. What kind of world would that be to live in?

Ask not what the lake can do for you, but what you can do for the lake.