Warriors for the Working Day

I love December. Not for the holidays and indulgence, but because it’s the month I reflect on past year of training and get to re-shuffle the deck and create a new template for what’s next.

The year’s wane is always a ghost town here at ‘the Dope. I’ve had over 2 million readers, and less than 1% of them have engaged in December. So I’m dedicating this month to my friends and the die hards interested enough in training to still be reading about it when the rest of the great unwashed is reveling to the point of disgust, hoping it will motivate them to make a proper New Year’s resolution.

This month I won’t distill for the masses. It’ll just be straight talk on training, motivation, and other assorted oddities that will hopefully be amusing and, if you don’t get it, it’s on you to catch up. God’s will I pray thee wish not one man more.

We few, we happy few. We band of brothers. For he who sheds his blood with me will be my brother. Be here ne’re so vile, this (month) shall gentle his condition. And gentlemen in (America), now a-bed, shall think themselves accursed that they’re not here, and hold their manhood’s cheap, while any speaks who fought with us...

Can You Taper And Gain Fitness Simultaneously?

ClimbTech Removable Bolts for Rock Climbing from ClimbTech on Vimeo.

I did a birthday challenge test run this weekend. It was, unfortunately, harder than expected. Now I need to start tapering for a performance peak but I still lack fitness in one physiological realm, beckoning the question: can I taper and still gain fitness?

Further complicating this issue is that I don’t have a date set for the challenge. Like an alpinist, I’ll be watching the weather and take my shot when I can. I need a weekend in the next two to four weeks. The forecast is calling for perfect conditions this weekend but that would seem suicidal if my test run was an indication. The longer I wait the more time I have to train but the chances also increase that I get completely shut out by winter.

Tapering is never simple. Basically, the less training you do over the last two weeks before an event the more your body recovers, which increases your reserves for race day. Two weeks is the magic number because that’s how long it takes for your fast twitch (emergency so far as your body is concerned) muscle fibers to fully recover. However, two weeks is enough time to wreak havoc on your system when you’re used to training hard. Primarily, your reduced training load can negatively affect your diet and sleep patterns, two things that can send your fitness level south quicker than anything else.

Luckily for me I’m lacking endurance, though it’s power-endurance, which is harder to gain than aerobic endurance. Still, it’s better than if I were lacking power, which would spell doom at this point. I could use more power (who can’t?) but since I’m getting all the moves on my routes and will get a recovery bump of a couple of percent through tapering, that bit of hay is in the barn.

With this in mind, here’s my training template for the next few weeks. For those confused by this lingo use this blog’s search function for “periodization” and you’ll get caught up pretty quickly, or maybe start with the 5 most important factors for race training.

Goals: To taper in all areas but make increases in power endurance, or resistance in climbing terms (the ability to hang on when pumped).

Variables: date for actual peak not set.

Logic: Since I know the event will happen on a weekend I will have a hard power endurance session early each week, and one more on each weekend that it doesn’t happen. All other training will be based around recovery and weight loss. The latter is super important because every pound you lose without sacrificing fitness is increases fitness by decreasing the load you need to push (think of it as taking weight off of a max set).

Specific focus: The challenge (click here) includes heavy volume of aerobic work so I’ll want to keep riding and hiking at an aerobic pace. I recently did a hundred-mile mtn bike ride so I think I’m okay here as long as I continually get some saddle time.

Finish the work on the routes. 4 of the 8 routes still need some work and it’s no small task. While not “training” it’s hard work (watch the vids) that’s, at least, good for caloric burn and weight loss.


Increase anaerobic endurance. This is the rub. In my test run I did 4 of the 8 planned routes and failed within the last 4 moves of the others. This sounds close but I was using routes in my garage that I HOPE are harder than the actual climbs. They might not be, however, and I was completely cooked. To have any confidence I need more cushion.

Schedule

Mon – Aerobic conditioning and active recovery: yoga, easy but long-ish ride and/or hike.

Tue – Hard anaerobic session. Redpoint burns at challenge intensity but—very important—nothing above challenge intensity. No 100% moves or powerful bouldering problems. No moves I might fail on due to anything but being pumped because it’s too much recruitment (of high threshold muscle cell motor units).

Wed – Aerobic training. Slight different than Monday, I’ll do some specific muscular work for climbing that works as active recovery. Some easy routes, rice bucket and stabilization work, a solid ride and/or hike at aerobic level, and yoga. This is a high volume but low-intensity day. Should not feel hard at all but burn calories.

Thurs-Fri – Active recovery only.

Sat – Test run, which is a lot like Tuesday.

Sun – Active recovery.

The Map Of Athletic Performance

This is a great article for those who enjoy geeking out about fitness. For anyone interested in what I do for a living here’s a taste. I’m always evaluating the latest data and techniques looking for ideas we can incorporate into what we do. It’s from an elite climber and strength trainer Rob Miller and titled The Map of Athletic Performance.

Articles like this are what opens the door for training advancements. I can’t say that I learned anything new, exactly, but certainly helped my thought process. I mean, we’re all working off of the same science so new aspects about training tend to come from experience and trying to think outside the box. This is why breakthroughs in training rarely come from scientists and usually from athletes and trainers (Rob is both) who experiment outside of known templates--why we call exercise physiology an “applied science”. This is similar to what Charlie Francis was doing with runners and Paul Rogers is doing with cyclists.

Anyone interested in last week’s articles on customizing P90X should consider investing some time, so bookmark this article for reference. While techie, it summarized a lot junk you’re forced to learn in school and is much more fun to read than most text books. That’s because it stays focused on a subject, which is training for climbing, though its scope if far beyond that particular sport. The theories discussed here can be applied to any type of training.

I’m going to try and break this down a step further for the layman by adding notes and perspective on various sections. Miller begins with the climbing aspect and goes into the general exercise phys stuff later, which I’m reversing for readability in my analysis.

Getting “generally” strong is just smart. Whether it is to increase lean body mass for health reasons or to gain an edge at the sport you love. Full range of motion basic barbell movements performed well will have the farthest reaching impact in support of all athletic endeavors. Essentially, strength improves the body’s capacity to perform at a greater intensity. This is true for all developing athletes and remains true for even the most advanced.

This is a great paragraph but it needs to be noted that Rob is a barbell trainer (how he makes his living). Of course that are others ways to accomplish this, but barbell training is his bread and butter. He knows it very well and can teach is safely, which everyone cannot do. He addresses that fact but he doesn’t explain that there are other ways to safely do compound lifts (he has no reason to) that are easier to learn.

What became very obvious while dwelling on the ramifications of the Map (above) is that there are many trajectories from the inside ring toward the outside that can naturally be pursued over the course of an athlete’s career. But the closer an athlete is to expressing most of his genetic potential – the further out from the center of the Map – the greater the need for the effort to become more focused. Deliberate choices need to be made with regard to which, and how many, outward trajectories from the center will benefit the athlete most. Because training is a deliberate approach to systematically achieving one’s goal, after 5 years of “Elite” distraction the first deliberate thing I did for my training as a climber was to stop pushing out in all directions on the Map at the same time in the pursuit of “increased work capacity over broad time and model domains.”

This is a challenge faced by any athlete who practices many different sports (hence most weekend warriors). He’s specifically addressing Crossfit and its misguided emphasis when it comes to sports (he has a long history with CF’s founder, discussed at length) but the challenge he’s addressing—-efficient sports specific training to leave time for sports specific work—-is the meat of what all athletes are after.

The activities may be listed along the Map’s perimeter but the process of athletic development begins well within the Map’s interior. The activities being listed on the outside have to do with creating a trajectory for development. Reaching the outside limits of the Map means that you are up against your genetic potential in that sport. It is a rare individual that has exhausted all means to achieve greater abilities and capacities in his sport. But more importantly, an athlete on the outer reaches has developed other “supplemental” trajectories either by exploring other sports or deliberately pursuing physical qualities that his primary trajectory will directly benefit from. And this is one of the more significant implications of the Map.

He’s just defined the concept behind “muscle confusion” from P90X, which we’ve taken to a much deeper level in X2. What’s so important in this paragraph is that you can’t change your genetic potential but within your genetic make-up you can improve your capacity for improvement and efficiency. That is what any trainer’s goal is with an athlete, to maximize their genetic capacity for performance.

Prioritizing training time is weighed against the timeline of the upcoming season, event or competition in every stage of athletic development. Advanced training takes on a laser-like focus the further out on the Map one is, and it and becomes less tolerant of any superfluous training “noise.” Each training session has a clear purpose and all available resources go into achieving that purpose. The ratio of work to rest that productively drives adaptation no longer has a forgiving margin of error. The work is focused and deliberate, so that the body can be left alone to do its thing during recovery.

The single biggest challenge most of us face, especially when life (job, families, etc) enter the equation. Efficiency is king but, let’s face it, most of us would rather do what we enjoy. Sometimes, especially if you want to maximize your potential, you need to put that aside and make decisions about what is best for you to reach your goals and not just what you like to do.

There is no parallel to the barbell in its ability to meet an athlete exactly where they are now in terms of neuromuscular efficiency and begin the process of progressively applying higher demands on the entire system. The neglect the barbell receives from both regular folks and athletes is something of a mystery, given its potential. Still, given that we live in a culture that sells products offering quick fixes or a “silver bullet” for most everything people are interested in, it is understandable that training with the barbell is undervalued or ignored. It takes time, like anything worth doing thoroughly.

Obviously, as a barbell coach, this is his opinion. Almost nothing you do with a barbell can’t be done using something else—-though a barbell can be very efficient. What he hasn’t addressed is the injury potential when doing his exercises, which is very high. His angle is that if you learn the moves right they are safe but he also states it took him many years of devoted study and training to do this. Thus...

Because of the previous collective move away from barbell training in the fitness industry, few trainers have appropriate knowledge of its value or how to teach people to utilize it.

What’s he’s saying is to take his camps or train differently. I can’t argue. If I can find the time I’ll take one of his camps. If not I’ll train differently. I’ve been around these lifts my entire life but have never devoted near the time Rob has to learning about them, even though...

The squat is the single most important exercise there is. Nothing else recruits more tissue doing more work than this one movement. The full range of motion squat done properly is the most potent tool in the gym. The other four add balance and support to this central movement. The time it takes you to learn something in the gym has a lot to do with how long it will remain interesting and effective, no matter what your goals are. Correctly performed squats take some time to learn. Even if your sport does not require squatting, and most do not, there is enormous benefit from becoming fluent in this basic human movement.

...this paragraph sounds exactly like one of my mentors, Fred (Dr. Squat) Hatfield.

In an endurance setting, strength and power will always be expressed at a fraction of one’s overall potential due to the lower strength and power demands of endurance sports. Therefore, the increase in strength and power will directly benefit one’s endurance simply by increasing that overall potential, and thereby increasing the reservoir from which to pull that fraction.

This is very important. My biased definition as to why P90X2 is so important for all athletes, even endurance athletes.

Perhaps the misguided emphasis on cardio-respiratory endurance will shift when more people try alternatives to mainstream ‘trendy’ workouts. Maybe the idea that “more” is not better will begin to sink in.

Very true but he’s talking about elite athletes. The emphasis in their training has been moving this direction now for more than a decade. The exact point is discussed in the X2 guide when addressing why there is no “cardio” in that program.

This is a quick synopsis of a broad topic. In the article he provides a nice discussion of energy systems and how training them applies to everyone. It’s very important to understand that no matter what kind of sport you want to train for.

miller walking the talk on el capitan

Now off to more specific things...

I’m saying that if you’re training, then it’s time organize your climbing into a weekly period of work-to-rest for the best results. To get the most out of the climbing you are already doing, we’re going to organize your week around a primary session called the Heavy Day. This is the day, or a combination of days if you go climbing for the weekend, that will be driving your intermediate rate of adaptation. This is the stressor that your body will need a full week to recover from.

It doesn’t mean the intermediate climber takes a week off. He needs to engage those skills during the week of active rest. This way, skills stay sharp and are ready to ‘neurologically fire’ when fully recovered. To accomplish a full intermediate recovery, you’re going to follow the Heavy Day with one Medium Day and one Light Day during the remainder of the week.

The A,B,Cs of training. I’ve written on this a lot and it’s the focal point of my latest training article for DPM Climbing.

Your body is conditioned to climbing. So some climbing, even at your limit, won’t inhibit your recovery. It’s when you don’t understand how to actively recover, or that it’s necessary, that so many climbers eddy in a performance slump way longer than necessary.

Interesting in that this is what the Spanish do, and they have the most strong climbers in the world, by far. They call it tranquillo y a muerte (you mostly relax but when you do climb it’s “to the death”) and, I think, many traveling Americans have trouble with such a small volume of climbing—-myself included (we’re on limited holiday time fer crissakes)—-but those who do embrace it generally improve.

So why do climbers do the same thing as the example tennis player, and climb routes that don’t really challenge their abilities – a bunch of sub-maximal work that doesn’t challenge the skill set? Since there is no specific motor pathway being practiced – because the sport consists of myriad ways to climb any route – there is no point in the sub-maximal repetition. The worse case scenario is that the sub-maximal work at higher volume sets them up for injury when they do ramp up the intensity, like ‘junk’ miles on a bike for a cyclist.

This is key. Most of us waste a lot of time like this. It’s why you see people climbing for years and years and never really improving. Maybe they get slightly better when, say, they lose a few pounds for a redpoint but never by much. Focused systematic training out of your comfort zone is the only way to reach your body’s capacity for strength.

What he leaves out, which is important to less serious athletes (most of us) is that “junk miles” (or its sports equivalent) is important for season athletes as a way to condition the body when you haven’t practiced a sport in a while. Skin conditioning of the hands for climbers, feet for runners, and saddle area for cyclists are simple examples. Re-engaging neuromuscular patterns is another. This should not detract us from his main point, which is that creating a strong foundation of fitness minimizes our need for “junk” volume.

The difference at the advanced stages is that the athlete is so developed in his specific sport that it’s really difficult to apply enough of a stress that the body will have a hormonal response.

That stressor doesn’t have to come from the sport you’re training for. That’s what happened to me when I got into CrossFit. Not identifying the unfamiliar stimulus was unfortunate. I could have saved a lot of valuable training time.

Great point, but are different stresses the climbing causes that should be addressed individually depending upon the type of climbing you do, which he gets into...

Strength takes the longest to develop but it also sticks around the longest. Endurance comes and goes almost by the week. Strength is persistent and has the greatest training carryover, like in our bouldering example.

I think he’s underselling endurance. As any cyclist/triathlete knows it does take a while to bring all of your various “endurance” parameters up to speed. You improve by the week but it takes many weeks to have everything humming along perfectly.

However, his main point, that strength takes the longest to train (he means power or “absolutely strength” or muscular efficiency) is not only valid it’s the one essential key to improving performance even as an endurance athlete. It’s harder to train, takes both focus and specificity, and, mainly, to truly address it you must curtail your endurance training, which is a hard sell for most of us who are addicts, especially true of runners, cyclists, surfers, and climbers.

It’s really the key to the entire article: that we neglect full body strength training in favor of random volume. It’s not a coincidence that Francis and Rogers, who coached a stack of Olympic champions, were thinking along the same lines.

above: note no cyclists on the map. This is because those sports are hard to define this way. A road racer, for example, is an endurance athlete whose entire success is dependent on the anaerobic pathways, or the ability sprint or climb a hill at key points in an otherwise aerobic race. this means both areas must be trained with specific focus on the individual depending on the type of races they want to do well at.

Cycling Supertraining

I’m in the midst of training for fall climbing objectives yet, at the same time, must look ahead to how to improve my cycling fitness for the Nepal race in March. It’s important to look ahead because the further from an event you begin to train the more you can focus on power, which is, by far, how you can make the biggest improvements. Today’s post takes a look at an article on speed training for cyclists.

Paul Rogers’ Aussie athletes dominated the Athens Olympics. This article talks about the training techniques he used, and also addresses why it’s not commonplace in the sport. There are great lessons here that, clearly, aren’t for everyone. Rogers’ approach is highly disciplined, hard to follow, and not the most time efficient for a weekend warrior like myself but I’m still going to try and incorporate it into my prep for Nepal.

The first thing I should address is why an endurance athlete should do power work. After all, if your goal is to race hundreds of miles through the Himalaya shouldn’t you be focusing on endurance? Not exactly.

Power is muscular efficiency and translates directly to speed and explosiveness. Training it teaches your muscles how to do more work at the same size/weight. At the end of any physical encounter, assuming skill levels are matched, the one with the biggest power reserves always wins. It’s the most important athletic factor there is, even for endurance athletes.

Endurance is fairly easy to train and gains come quickly. Power is harder to train and it takes a long time. Most endurance athletes don’t train power because they race too much and don’t have time to fit it into their schedules because it should be (must be, really) trained separately from your other physical systems.

Volume is a speed killer. It doesn't matter what you do, if you do a lot, it will make you slower. The protein in your muscles (myosin heavy chain
isoforms for those who know their molecular biology) will change to a slower, more endurance friendly type if you do too much volume.

Essentially, power needs to be trained separately and mostly alone. This will cause your endurance factors to suffer and you have to be okay with this. It’s harder than it sounds because most of us train like addicts afraid to lose any gains we’ve made. Endurance comes back quickly but you have to be patient and believe. You also must be willing to train differently than you might be used to, especially in the gym. For example,

If all you do is slow, heavy. You get STRONG and SLOW. You need to do most of your work at race speeds using submaximal loads but at high speeds.

unilateral is king. "single-leg press is our bread and butter"

The other issue for power training is patience. Again, we endurance athletes tend to be workout junkies. You’ve likely heard me say many times that training is only as effective as your recovery or that “you only get stronger at rest”. This is amplified when you train power because you often can’t feel it during the training. Performance is your only barometer. You don’t get pumped. Your muscles don’t burn. All of the things we associate with “hard training” come from endurance factors. Yet power is, by far, the most stressful on the body and forces the biggest adaptations to occur. So you have to be smart, and patient, or you will get hurt.

The one thing we do that most coaches can't cop is this. If you don't make the target times or loads on the first effort or set, you warm down and go home. You aren't fresh enough to train at a level that will make you improve. If you do a PB (personal best), you warm down and go home. If you are on fire that much you can blow yourself to pieces in a couple of sets or efforts and it will take weeks to dig you out of the hole you put yourself in, so whatever it is, if you PB, you stop and come back next time.

All that said, power training is addictive. Most of my close friends value it more than anything else because, frankly, it’s rad. Especially once you understand it. It’s pure performance, the opposite of enduring. But it’s every bit as demanding and takes much more discipline than any other form of training because every workout puts you at risk of being injured since 100% muscular efficiency is the goal and at 101% you are injured.

I haven’t done a proper power cycle in ages. This is the year. I’ll be following many of Rogers’ principles combined with what I’ve learned at P3 (you can get a taste of this in P90X2)—a new training protocol to put on trial. The rat is heading back into the lab.

Le Tour Challenge

My Tour challenge is a bit different than your average office pool. Instead of betting on who might win the actual race, I challenge my own fitness to keep up with them in a virtual stage race. I have a long history of such nonsense. Beginning back in ’98 with "Le Cog Corrode." I’ve often used the Tour, Giro, and Vuelta as a template to concoct very difficult 3-week training blocks. With a race coming up at the end of July this year’s early Tour start (it’s still June fer crissakes) was tailor made for me.

Though my ’98 challenge mirrored the race almost identically it’s not necessary. Your own personal goals should/need to be on the horizon and you can do a Tour challenge even if you never ride on the road. In fact, you could do one without riding at all but non-cyclists would likely find a different form of motivation more effective. Three weeks, however, is the perfect amount of time for a very hard block of training. Not only does it make good physiologic sense when you analyze the “specificity of adaptation” but it’s a mental window that psychologists seem to agree is an ideal amount of time to induce long-lasting habitual changes.

As serendipity would have it two factors led to a “bingo” moment in designing a Tour challenge this year. After last week’s breakdown I’d just happened to take a recovery week leading to today’s “grand depart”. I’ve also been struggling with motivation on the bike this year and very much questioning my ability to be ready for my upcoming race. I needed to ramp things up somehow and the Tour, one of the most exciting athletic events in the world, has come at just the right time.

So what’s it gonna be?

As in ’08 I’ll start and finish with a time trial to gauge fitness.

I’ll ride everyday they ride in the race (so only two days off the bike in the next three weeks)

One day per week will be full distance of the race (this will be by far my longest days of the year on the bike so far)

Time trial days will be time trial days (100% effort)

I’ll mimic the days course to some degree—though mainly on dirt—-especially the mountain days

So that’s it, though it is more like IT. This will be hard it’s the motivation that I sorely need. And can really only be heightened by doing Le Velo.

3 Weeks Of Hell

“Training sucks,” said my friend/mechanic/bike shop owner/climber/drinkin’ buddy Tyson the other day as I was dreading heading out for my first interval session on the bike this year. “Riding bikes is great,” he continued. “But training is terrible.”

“It’s only three weeks,” I countered. “That’s what it always takes to transition to a base of fitness where it’s no longer miserable. But it’s three weeks of hell.”

I’ve been putting off writing this blog—perhaps dreading is a better word—because once it’s published I have to do it. And while I’m often so excited about training that I can barely keep from overtraining out of the gate this is not one of those times. I can’t seem to change my mindset and am not sure exactly why. Maybe I’m more psyched on climbing. Maybe exploring trails sounds more fun than repeated intervals. Maybe I’m just old. But for whatever reason I’m looking forward to the Butte race with about as much enthusiasm as a colonoscopy.

But I stated last week that I’d write up an example so here it is. Besides, I’ve been doing it anyway. And while it hasn’t been pretty, and every morning I wake up feeling as though I was in a bar fight even though I’m ramping up intensity very slowly, I will sally forth and record the results for posterity. ‘Cause that’s my job and, to be honest, I love it even when I hate it because in the big picture it’s another experience to reflect on and learn from.

So here ya go; a glimpse at race build-up from 7-weeks out (while concurrently training for climbing). To understand the reasoning you need to read the backstory here:

The 5 Most Important Factors of Race Training

Week 1 (went like this)

Day 1 – Long mtb ride: a little over 3 hrs of saddle time and a few thousand feet of climbing. Felt hard, especially after 2 hrs. Long road ahead. Did easy yoga and a little foam rolling.

Day 2 – 4 X 10 min intervals full-on with 5-7 min rest in between. Did hill repeats on mtb. Felt weak, miserable. Still sucked it up for some NIS stretching and a 20 minute core workout afterward.

Day 3 – 45 min aerobic spin on the fixie and easy yoga. Went climbing all day.

Day 4 – Biking rest. Climbed half a day. Did easy yoga.

Day 5 – Easy 1 hour mtb ride on trails. About 1,000’ of climbing done easily spinning. No hard efforts. Nice ride. Slacked on post-ride stretching.

Day 6 – 2 X 20 minute full-on intervals. 15 min rest in between. Two long hill repeats. Felt horrible and slow but could feel a slight power improvement from previous workout. Abridged stretching session. Easy recovery climbing in the PM. Blew off both foam rolling and planned full body workout session. Dumb but seriously lacking motivation.

Day 7 – 1 hr RUKE (run/hike), no bike. Hard climbing/training session. Asylum Strength. NIS stretching and foam rolling. This is today. Enthusiasm is a bit higher writing it, probably thanks to reading an old Ben Moon training dairy this morning. Remains to be seen how it goes.

Evaluation from week 1. It happened and that’s a start. Need to get much better at restorative stuff: foam rolling/yoga/core/stability work. Hopefully psyche will perk up.

Going forward this is my template. Each week to consist of:

2 hard targeted bike workouts, always some type of intervals. Goal is to slowly increase these to 4 X 15 min and 2 X 30 minute of all out climbing. These workouts are highly stressful and require a lot of recovery so my daily recovery modalities, supplementation, and diet need to improve.

1 long ride. Saddle time is sorely lacking. Bonked after hour 3 on first ride. I need to be able to do 8 hours without a thought because that's probably where Butte really gets started.

2 recovery rides. Hopefully these are nice trail rides. Lots of spinning and work on technique.

Daily mobility work – either foam rolling or yoga, hopefully both. All of my down time (TV, movies, post-ride beer, etc) should be utilized to work on this weakness. Week 1 was not nearly good enough.

Core and stability work – done post climbing workouts, 2 X per week.

Full body training – One Asylum/P90X2-type workout each week to stay sharp. One hard resistance/agility/plyometric workout during the week helps hormonal production stay high provided recovery is going okay, so this is evaluated on the fly.

Climbing – 3 sessions per week, 2 of them hard. Either outside or in the Coop. Currently climbing outside a fair amount but might move towards hangboard training as bike volume gets high because it takes less total energy output—plus is better training than climbing anyway.

2 weeks away from the race I’ll do a big test, then taper towards race day. The general pattern is 3 weeks of hell followed by a shift in mindset and inspired training. But we’re not machines and things always go a little different, and that’s where all this training stuff gets interesting. I’ll report back after Butte with the results.

The 5 Most Important Factors Of Race Training

I get a lot of questions from people using our programs who want to transition to training for a race or other athletic event. And although this is my absolute forte it’s still the trickiest part of my job. Not only do individuals vary greatly but there’s no perfect formula, even if you’re a professional with a full-time coach. Throw in jobs, families and other stress tests facing the average weekend warrior and training for an event becomes a crapshoot. This is the reason I’m always tinkering with something new. However, there are 5 factors that you should always assess before you do anything else.

In 7 weeks I’ve got a 100-mile mountain bike race billed “the most difficult in the country”. Last week I received the race bible and now I know why. It’s not the 20,000’ of climbing—-no picnic on any bike—-but things like “4 miles of loose sandy climbing” that have me worried. That and the fact that I’ve barely had time to train. If work allowed for serious saddle time things would be simpler but that seems unlikely. I’m also focused on other sporting goals (climbing), which is another obstacle facing the multi-sport weekend warrior. With these caveats in mind, here’s how I figure out what to do.

1 Start with a goal

You should always begin designing your training plans around a goal and then work backwards. While my true objectives are in the fall (like always), this race is so hard that if I treat is like just another training day I could get injured. So, for the purpose of this training cycle, The Butte 100 is my ultimate goal.

Which means: A 7-week training cycle – 5 week build-up to a hard test two weeks out, then a graduating taper to race day

2 Assess injuries

A recent bike fit moved cleats back on one foot, which happened to be my injured leg, meaning I may have been exacerbating the injury. It also showed my leg length discrepancy was back. This I knew because my mobility training hasn’t been consistent and it’s been the pattern. While both issues cite sloppiness on my part at least I’m not injured right now, so maybe I’m lucky that I haven’t been training harder.

Which means: Back to the daily foam rolling and hip stability training, along with visits to the physio.

3 Assess free time

As stated not a lot. I can probably eek out 10-12 training hours per week that must be shared between three sports: riding, climbing, running.

Which means: 7 hours a week saddle time but willing to increase this for one long ride per week up until week 5.

4 Assess fitness base

My general training keeps my base very fit, which I go into great detail about in this post. Though time in the saddle is lacking I’m reasonably strong and feel like I’m turning a bigger gear than normal during the early season. I don’t have a lot of weight to lose or need to gain any general fitness. I just need to integrate my training to sports specific movements. This is a huge advantage.

Which means: My training time can focus on specificity and my indoor workouts can be for maintenance only. This is a big time saver and the justification for a solid off-season training program like P90X2.

5 Assess the goal

20,000’ of climbing, much of it on loose sand, means that to survive I’m going to need some excess pedaling power. Other than that the course doesn’t look particular technical or challenging, at least not in a way I need to specifically train for.

Which means: Training should be fairly straightforward, focused on hill climb intervals. Ouch.

With these 5 factors assessed I’ve greatly simplified the process and am now ready to create a training schedule. I’ll post the results next week. Now posted here.

pics: training distilled to more of one (hard riding) less of the other (taqueria post bike prom riding)

Full Body PAP

As promised, here's the friggin’ awesome workout I’ve been doing. If you don’t have time to do PAP Lower and Upper separately here’s an idea for combining them. It takes a while but is absolutely worth it; for sure one of the best workouts I’ve ever done.

This workout riffs off of the 30 rep workout I was doing for muscular endurance during my last training block, meaning that it’s tailored to my personal sports specific movement patterns. I began doing two rounds of each complex, now I’m at three, and I’ll hit four before the block ends.

A note on PAP: This isn’t a follow along cardio routine. You need to push yourself. And it’s not endurance work. You’ve got to go 100% on the explosive movements. 100, not 99. The difference between going 100% and 95% is massive. It’s not very hard to do a lateral skater in your comfort zone (or at a pace that you’d do for 20 or 30 reps). But it hard to go as hard, high, far, and fast as you possible can every single rep. That is the key. If you’re not going to do that then you might as well go do a Zumba class.


beautiful example of double skaters at 100% from crosby slaught

Move quickly through the warm-up, which will feel like a workout by design. Take a short break. Then treat every round of each complex as though it were a competition. Have fun!

WARM-UP
A slight tweak of the P90X2 functional warm-up—the perfect warm-up

Stability ball movements from X2: twist, squat overhead reach, overhead side to side, lunge overhead reach, loading dock

World’s Greatest Stretch: from X2: lunge, alt arms overhead, 3 each side

Inch Worm: X2

Scorpion: too hard to explain so get X2 (if you read my blog you SHOULD already have it!)

Fire Hydrants: From hands and knees lift leg (like a dog), extend leg backwards, back to start, repeat. Forward and backwards 10 each side

Groiners: again from X2

Plank - 30 sec

Wall Angels - 4 contractions held

Calf raises – heels straight, in, and out: 10 each

Shoulder retractions 10 weighted

YT Fly 10 – 12/12 reps

Side/cross hops 30 seconds

Darin squats – named for Shakeology’s Darin Olien (I saw he and Laird Hamilton doing these in a workout), you support yourself holding onto a bar and squat back and forth on each leg, extending the opposite leg straight (like a reverse hurdler stretch). 12 each direction

Toe Raises – Tibealis Anterior exercise, back flat on wall feet out in front raise toes 30

END OF WARM UP

COMPLEX 1

Towel Pull-ups 5-8 (Weighted)

Jump pulls on rings ( go as high as possible hold high position for split second) 6

Banana (supine) pull down - 15

REPEAT 1, 2, or 3X

COMPLEX 2

Step up convicts (see X2) – 6 each side (as much weight as you can)

Split squat jumps 6

Heel slide - 15 reps each side

REPEAT 1, 2, or 3X

COMPLEX 3

Pullovers on a stability ball – 15

Med ball plyos – 8 (explode off/on a ball as fast as possible)

Fingertip chataranga hold 30 (or not fingertips when you fail—still hard)

REPEAT 1, 2, or 3X


samuel fuchs demostrates med ball plyos at p3

COMPLEX 4

One leg squat reach 8 each side

Lateral skaters 6

Side plank leg raise (see X2) – 30 seconds each side

REPEAT 1, 2, or 3X


see reverse pike v-ups (or whatever we called them) here.

COMPLEX 5

Squat, curl, press 8-10 (squat, curl with legs slightly bent, then push press to finish. Reverse in control)

Ball slams 6-8 (hold med/slam ball overhead, squat down slamming it to floor—make sure you can catch the rebound—bring back overhead with a jump. We wanted these in X2 but not practical in many homes. Sub reverse pike v-ups from X2 if these will break your floor cause rift with the neighbors.)

Bridge leg lift - 6 x 20 seconds on each leg 3 each

REPEAT 1, 2, or 3X

Neuro-integrated stretch (see X2 PAP and Plyo)



fun with pap: jeremy evans demostrates step-up convicts and other movements in this vid highlighting his slam dunk title training.

Bike Racing Season Has Officially Begun

Even though the Psyche isn’t always a weekly feature I was admonished by a friend for not posting one this week. That’s because I’m down with a little cold, which is nice timing since my backs not back to 100% and Finnegan--my furry daily psyche reminder--has an injured foot so we’re out of commission anyway. But I always have trouble with creativity when I’m ill and just keeping up on work is hard enough. However, thanks to Reed, Sam, and a lag in posting I’ve got a good ‘un for ya on this weekend's racing in Europe.

Varmarcke attacks on 15% cobbles
this is an awesome display of power. it also shows why bike racing outside of europe might always pale in comparison. we just don't have the roads they do in europe.

Got an email from Sam on Sat stating “for me bike racing season starts today” because it’s when the big names start to show. Nowadays professional bike racing is almost a year around sport, with cyclocross and winter 6-day races getting coverage and southern hemisphere events like the Tour of Oz and San Luis attracting major riders. But let’s face it, nobody really cares if Contador drops everyone, Greipel outsprints Cav, or Valverde returns from two years off and wins out of the gate until it happens against the big guns. And those guys tend to start their season now.

I don’t ride my bike a lot during the winter. As a weekend warrior who participates in many sports I train seasonally even though I want to perform at a reasonable level, which I think is the best way to train. In fact, I think I should be more diligent towards time off. Year around training for a sport, in my opinion, is not only a waste of effort but a hindrance. The best riders in the world take time off and amateurs should follow suite. When Contador says “I hardly rode my bike between the Tour (France) and December" there is a lesson there. You can’t peak all year. Choose targets and train for them with a purpose. I like my training to revolve around big events because it’s easier to keep your psyche up.

Last K of Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne
hard to see but note the sky train (blue stripes and helmets) leading cav to the 200 meter mark perfectly, making winning a formality for him. textbook

My Twittter is suddenly filled with post from racers who’ve been silent since September. When Sky controls the field in Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne “like a video game,” the worry over being dropped in Oman is replaced with talk of the dominant season ever. And when Boonen get played like this everyone starts yappin’ about, well, the next Boonen. Sam is right. It’s on. Time to start getting’ after it.

Last K of Omloop Het Nieuwsblad
vanmarcke tricks boonen into going too early. beautiful racing.

above: highlights from omloop. vanmarcke and boonen are clearly the strongest two in the race as on or the other is on the front almost the entire race. note vanmarcke's attack on a flat cobbled section with 20k to go that splits the field. ridiculously strong riding.

In Shape vs Sports Shape

After getting destroyed at the Ritte team training camp it seems like a good time to address the difference between being in shape and getting into sports-specific shape. It’s important for any weekend warrior or aspiring outdoor enthusiast to understand and plan around this difference. Today’s post is a primer.

A sport doesn’t exist where you can simply train in the gym and then compete at a high level without a period of integration, where you transition the fitness gains achieved into real world scenarios. There are various factors involved in the answer. The obvious is skill, as every sport has its own technique, but the more subtle issues that tend to get overlooked involving specificity of sport.

The easiest example to understand is skin conditioning. Skiing, running, climbing, biking, horseback riding, you name it; all require that your skin be in a specific condition. Do any of these things too long off the couch, no matter how high your fitness level is, and you’ll wind up with blisters at best. Push it too far and a real injury can occur.

Skin is the leader of the integration chain—the obvious link that breaks down fast but adapts quickly. Following are a slew of physiological processes that all require neuromuscular adaptations of varying levels in order for you to be efficient. I like to lump these under a made-up word for neuromuscular patterns that blankets this entire category: engrams.

Engrams are the patterns a sport engrains in your physiology, like the “once you’ve ridden a bike you never forget” saying. Though you don’t lose them at a basic level, such as how to ride, run, ski, etc., you absolutely lose them in the realm of high performance, especially when you’ve made physiological improvements in fitness level.

Fitness gains made in the gym take some time to integrate, which is why athletes should only try and make big physiological changes in body composition during the off-season and, conversely, the closer they get to their performance goal the more specifically targeted their training should be. An outdoor athlete should be spending virtually no time in the gym (living room gym, whatever) close to a big event. But if you want to improve year to year you should spend a lot of time in the gym during your off-season. Check out my 2011 training synopsis and see how my gym training sessions tapered close to each big event.

For an example of what happens when you don’t do this let’s use at the Ritte camp. In SoCal, where Ritte is based (click here for awesome Wired article on Ritte), racing season begins in early Feb. This means that camp, at least for some, is a final tune up to race season.

My race season begins in June and ended in November, putting me in the very midst of off-season training. If I were a professional I would not mix my training with such a group because it will cause too much breakdown and interfere with my program. No coach would ever advise such a thing. But I’m not a professional racer. I’m a professional lab rat and wanted to mingle with my team, most of whom I’d never met. So I showed up in very good gym shape but with almost no time on the bike in two months, knowing full well I’d spend the weekend blurry-eyed and hanging on for dear life under the guise of anecdotal evidence.

If camp had been about who can do the most pull-ups, core movements on a stability ball, or probably even one-leg squats I’d likely have fared well as most of the team had left the gym behind in November. Specific integration often means you lose some of your training-specific strength in favor of, in this case, your ability to turn bigger gears at the same cardiovascular output where you turned smaller gears in the off-season. This gear difference makes a rider a racer. The example works the same across all sports, and is how we differentiate between in shape and sports shape.

pics: brian hodges at velo images

Bike Commuting Makes You Happier, And Faster

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 Has Launched!

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.

Train With Steve Edwards In The South Of France

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.

The Art Of Cycling

I love learning new things. I love experimenting with training/movement/diet/scheduling. And I love my job, which has been bombarding me with all of the above with three new programs in development. I had a night recently where Tony Horton, Steve Holmsen, and I were in a hotel gym til probably 2AM on a Sat night working on new movements for mc2, after which I was up later transcribing it and, then again, 3 hours later because I had an epiphany about how to put it together. A couple hours after that the three of us were working on it some more. Great stuff, but...

It’s nothing like time out on the trails. I got my first mtb ride of the season in yesterday and, even after all these years, still find it amazing how 2 hours of playing on singletrack and slickrock can change your mind set. Training and theory and experimentation is all fantastic stuff. Dead interesting, and I feel very fortunate to be able to turn a passion into work. But it’s in the actual application of human movement in a natural setting that, at least for me, ties it together. Take away nature and you take away life, meaning, and a reason to co-exist and attempt to continue to improve.

Add a bike to the equation and it all starts to make sense. I think the bike is one of our greatest inventions. It’s the perfect synergistic hybrid of animal and machine. Moving through nature on a bike is nothing if not sublime. And with that drum roll, I present Danny Macaskill as Friday’s psyche.

I’ve presented this video before. My wife, who studies music, calls him Mozart on a bike. And the more I watch him the less hyperbole I find in her statement. Mozart was an unparalleled artist; doing more for the advancement of music in the three decades he composed than happened in the three centuries prior. He was simply gifted with something no one, before or since, seems to have been graced with. It’s not that he didn’t work hard; he was obsessed, so there may have been others who never tapped their talent. But most historians seem to agree that no one else’s gift for composing music has come close to Mozart.

Admittedly, this is pretty lofty praise to heap upon a young Scot and history may indeed show it’s exaggerated. But when you watch this kid ride, much in the same way as like listening to Mozart, you can’t help but feel that there’s something special happening. His bike seems like an extension of the man, which he wields like a superhero. Honestly, if this video had come out 20 years ago it would have been dismissed as special effects. Even today, I’ve had this video sent to me from non-cyclists in wonderment who ask whether or not it is real. So, without further ado, Mr. Macaskill, who has transcended cycling from sport to art form.

Phase II: My Friends, It Is Time To Get Serious

Winter training moves into phase II tomorrow at which time The Straight Dope will get back to business. Party time is over and, to borrow a phrase from Tony, “my friends it is time to get serious.” This not only goes for training but for work. There are a lot of changes in the fitness and nutrition world that need to be addressed and I’ve been holding off on them until the New Year. Let’s get busy.

Phase I Recap: The last 50 days have been a combined rest and foundation phase. These are commonly coupled because athletes don’t like doing nothing and foundation training movements are less intense (and usually somewhat foreign) than actual sports training. It’s also a good time for endurance athletes to do some base training, which is essentially long slow distance or some variation. I’ve been doing daily stability training and not-very-long slow distance. It could have been way more focused but, as it’s also a rest phase, lack of structure was a planned.

Phase II Plan: Strength

All sports training should begin with an analysis of your strengths, weaknesses, and goals. My goals are in climbing, riding, running, and to improve at skate skiing. The latter, being a technical pursuit, isn’t a part of the training plan except as a note to self to plan recovery and aerobic conditioning on skiing days until I get good enough at it to do targeted high-level workouts.

Running: my base conditioning is very good but I’m having some foot issues, which I think will be cured by some more targeted speed and skill work (including more barefoot drills). So while I will continue to do a lot of aerobic conditioning to get ready from long days later in the year, I will begin to do more focused speed work.

Cycling: my cycling is in the worst form in years. This is because I completely shut it down when I hurt my back twice in the last two years and, thus, have essentially gone three years since I was in racing condition. Since It’s winter, most my aerobic conditioning will happen running or on skis and my riding will be doing short intense work for VO2/max, lactate turnpoint (more on this term later), and power training on my stationary trainer.

Climbing: I’ve been in full shut down mode for climbing and plan to milk this a bit longer. I feel I need more shoulder power, back, and forearm strength and will use this phase to increase all of these before I begin to apply them to rock. I’ve never found intense weight training and climbing to be effectively done together. This phase will focus on the gym work and will flip-flop in phase III.

I have essentially six weeks, which I’ll break into two three week blocks that I’m going to call hypertrophy and power. There will be overlap, as you’ll see, but the idea is to build all the mass that I want (not much) and big muscle absolute strength (aka power, and the big muscle term simply means not climbing specific, which is all attached to your fingers) in this phase. Then I’ll transfer it to performance in the next phase, and then roll it over towards mega-endurance for ultra events during the latter part of the year.

One big change in this year’s program is that I’m combining the same training focus for different, NON-RELATED sports. I generally break these up so that when I’m, say, training for power in climbing I’d be training endurance on the bike. This makes a lot of sense but, as a lab rat, I feel it’s my duty to try something new. After all, the ultimate goal here is not my own performance, which is only a barometer to assess training effectiveness, but a growth in my knowledge of training that I can then impart to you.

That’s enough for today. As the pic suggests, party time is not quite over. The actual workouts and structure will be reported as I go.

Breaking The Chain

“For every cyclist on the planet, that moment when you’re out of form and you’re struggling to get back up, that’s the hardest part of cycling, whether it’s November, January or June. You feel every pedal stroke.” – Mark Cavendish



My travel schedule has meant that I’m even later than normal at getting my base miles in. I’ve had a few good rides, and some time on the trainer, but anytime you plan to take your fitness to the next level on the bike you know there will be dog days ahead. And that’s where I’m at right now. I see a lot of heart pounding, gut wrenching, blurry-eyed, dying-a-thousand-deaths style rides in my immediate future. And even though they’ll be moments out on the road where I’m questioning my sanity, I relish the thought of the weeks ahead.



I did manage to get a leg up on my training with a decent adult fitness camp with the lads last weekend. I say adult in reference to our beverages, of which there were plenty. But something’s got to ease the pain of those first hours en masse and it might as well be Oly.



No chain, as in riding so strongly that it feels as though your bike lacks a chain, is the goal of every cyclist. Moments like these, always fleeting, are the main motivation for getting back into shape. To fly up a big climb effortless, to chase down anyone who attacks the pack, to explore a trail not caring about the terrain ahead because you know you’ll be able to handle anything it dishes out; these are the reasons we choose to suffer.



Conversely, my chain feels like someone’s taken a few lengths out of it. In fact, I broke one last weekend by pedaling squares where it should have been circles. But fitness will come. Little by little I’ll add links to my chain until next time, the break will be metaphoric.



wildlife and wildflowers: pics all courtesy of Reed “The Big Engine” Bartlett

Scheduling

There are two absolutes when beginning any training program.

1 - You should write out a structured training program and try to stick to it.

2 - Don’t necessarily stick to it.

All programs should have a plan with some scientific basis. The science can be as absurd as you want, as I’m all about testing as it’s the best way to learn, but there should be a scientific theory about what you’re trying to do. If not, just go out and play. Writing a schedule should be somewhat painstaking because you’re trying to anticipate all of the possible scenarios and variables. Then, once your theories are soundly structured, you’ll want to do your best to follow it or you’ll never learn whether or not your theories work.

To stick with an entire program, however, should almost never happen. Besides life getting in the way the biggest program variable is your body’s recovery ability. If you aren’t recovered you should not stick to your schedule. If you’re always recovered your planned program was probably too easy. Therefore, build your schedule knowing that it will change. If you have time, plan what you’ll do to stay on track when the schedule goes awry.

Here’s my program through March. As iron clad as it looks now I’m certain I’ve overlooked something and that it will change. As we move into the program I’ll eventually present each individual workout so you can see what I’m doing.

The dietary component of this plan will be vegetarian. But it will be fully applicable to carnivores as well. It will also be revolutionary. Keeping in mind that revolutions don’t always succeed, follow my plan at your own risk.

For reference: HYP is hypertrophy, ARC is aerobic restoration and capillarity, MAX REC refers to muscle cell motor unit recruitment, or power, training, PE is power endurance (can be a number of different energy systems that will be based on the sport targeted), and Patxi days are massively long training days based on Spainish climber Patxi Usobiaga's insane training schedule.

P90X...Y & Z

I’ve been writing a series of articles about how to customize P90X for various sports. I’d point you to the series but the archive pages aren’t up yet. I will as soon as they are. My next training cycle will be a part of this series. Even though I’m not using 90x (though I will use many movements from it and perhaps some workouts when I don’t have time to concoct my own) it will help you understand the principles, which are the same no matter what program you are adapting.

The first question I ask everyone adapting x towards another purpose is “what are your goals?” Without this it’s impossible to structure anything significant. P90x is a great foundation program. If you don’t have goals, just doing variations of it will keep you fit and ready for life’s encounters. With goals, however, your template changes because you must now focus on not only the activity(ies) at hand but also the different energy systems that will enhance your chances of reaching your goals. Training can vary from X-like to, well, not X-like at all.

One thing that’s a constant is a periodizational approach. All training programs address various systems one at a time. In my case, as you’ll see, it’s a bit different because I’m trying to train for three separate sports while also improving at another sport. To do this I’m using my experience at training for a single sports as well as my penchant for doing many different things that tax completely different muscle fibers and energy systems.

True training starts tomorrow, December 25th, 2009. The end of this round of training is April 1, at which time I want to have my strongest climbing base in 15 years, a good running base, and a decent biking base.

Since I’ll be racing with the Raramuri in Mexico in early March I NEED a sound running base—it’s a 48 mile race with, I dunno, 20,000 feet of elevation change, minimum, and it also includes a 66 mile “taper” that is a cultural exchange with The Running People that leads up to race day. I’m not going down to try and win, or even impress, the Raramuri. I’m just there for the experience and a chance to meet them. But I also don’t want to die, or come back injured. As my friend Jamil said, the Raramuri are “no joke” when it comes to running great distances fast. I need to have some miles under my feet.

My injury is not, nor will it be, 100%. Those of you who follow this blog know that I’m still in recovery. It’s going well, very well, but it’s also something I need to constantly moderate. But I’m now able to train at damn near 100% intensity. And as long as I keep my benchmarks constant I’m confident that recovery will continue.

That’s the announcement. The details will follow. The basic schedule looks like this. For you Xers, this should look familiar:

Block one: 3 weeks (focusing on hypertrophy and aerobic conditioning)
Transition/Recovery: 6 days
Block two: 3 weeks (focus on power for climbing/biking, and power/endurance for running)
Transition/Recovery: 6 days
Block three: Feb 15-27 (focus on power/endurance for climbing/biking and tapering for running
Transition: Feb 27-Mar11 (running in Mexico. Rest for climbing/biking. Heaps of running)
Block four: Mar 11-April 1 (power/endurance training for climbing/biking and running [speed work])

I’m also going to be playing with an absolutely cool, and hopefully revolutionary, diet theory. So stay tuned!
pic: in the new team kit and in need of earning it (http://www.ritteracing.com/story/)

5 Rides in Less Than 2 Days

Normally my time in the office is spent working long hours where I’m barely able to squeeze in a few sets of pull-ups. With the 90-Day Challenge in full swing, this trip has been a little different. The gym is being used non-stop, the junk is gone from the kitchen, and everyone is walking around drinking Shakeology.

On a previous trip, I’d made a bike swap with a friend which resulted in getting my old race bike back. He needed a cross bike, and I needed something to leave in LA to commute and train on, so it made sense. Especially since this bike and I have a so many memories together. It was good to see her but, last trip, I never found the time to give ‘er a spin. This trip I had a schedule to keep, so I knew I’d get some saddle time, but I had no idea what was in store.

After a long day filming for TBB, I got to Jon’s house with just enough time to dust her off, inflate the tires, and sample the local—very hilly—neighborhoods for an hour or so. It felt great to ride this bike again. The aluminum frame is harsh, but responsive, and the Open Pro wheels buffer a lot of the road chatter. Mainly, it was nostalgic to be back on the bike I’d begun racing on.

The next morning, after a core/pull-up workout in Jon’s garage, we were back together riding on the terrain the used to make up my team’s morning workouts. A swing by the old coffee house led me through Tony Horton’s neighborhood, then through a commute that was very much like the one I did to the office way back when our only product was Power 90.

Lunch hour arrived and I met Carl, Andrew, and Brian for an “easy” spin down to the beach, or so I thought. But Carl had other ideas and we headed towards the beach “hoping to beat my best time”. This resulted in a 55 minute time trial the left my legs feeling like concrete all afternoon.

The commute home wasn’t hard enough, I guess, as I opted for some hills just to check out new routes for subsequent visits. The hills I remembered being “easy” were feeling mighty grim and I was cramping by the time I arrived back at Jon’s, just as he was finishing his evening workout.

In the morning I was stiff and sore but headed out nonetheless. My Giro simulation for their final climb was Palisades Drive, which I never remembered as being so steep. It seemed like the last couple of miles would never end. But the views at the top were revitalizing, and on the ride home I barely noticed the little 20% berg getting up to Jon’s.

I think 5 rides in under 36 hours is a record for me, and it’s certainly the most fitness-oriented work trip I’ve had. I think we might have to turn this 90 day adventure into a standard day at the office.

pic: just like old times, looking out over the santa monicas.