Caffeine Lessens Pain Of Exercise

One of the best caffeine studies I've seen done on athletes was conducted recently and found that it reduces the pain of intense exercise. Over the years I've done a lot of experimenting with caffeine and this study is consistant with my (anecdotal) research. A couple times per year I "cycle" my coffee, weaning myself off of it and than re-introducing it. I used to do this for athletic events because I always felt it was more ergogenically effective after a layoff. This study confirms my theories in a lab setting.

Besides its helpful effects with athletes, caffeine may also be one of the keys to helping deconditioned individuals get into shape.

"One of the things that may be a practical application, is if you go to the gym and you exercise and it hurts, you may be prone to stop doing that because pain is an aversive stimulus that tells you to withdraw," Motl said. "So if we could give people a little caffeine and reduce the amount of pain they're experiencing, maybe that would help them stick with that exercise."

Here's a link to the article:

Caffeine Lessens Pain of Exercise


"more coffee, sir?"

Keepin' It Real

One of the coolest things about our annual Summit is meeting the Team Beachbody Coaches whom I’ve worked with on the Message Boards over the years. It’s also nice to hear how many of them read this blog. I get a lot of nice compliments from anonymous readers but this year I had the best yet. Scott (I hope this is right as I was meeting a lot of people) said he appreciated my blog “for keepin’ it real”.

I was taken aback. For one, this term has become a cliché, and I try to be the antithesis of cliché. But Scott had a reason and his brief explanation made sense. In fact, it’s really the entire justification of what I do for a living. When Jon and Carl hired me to write for Beachbody—back when there were 4 employees—I wasn’t sure it was my type of gig. I write state-of-the-art fitness advice, I said, and was hesitant to pander to a marketing company for a paycheck. “You write state-of-the-art articles,” Carl said. “And if our products aren’t in line then it’ll be our job to catch up.” This I could not only live with, but live for; and it wasn’t long before I was helping create the programs I was to write about. I was hired, in fact, to keep Beachbody real. I was the “white mouse” (as one of our VP’s wife called me because I was always testing something, a supplement, diet, or type of exercise) of the office. Nothing went to the public until it had been tested by me.

When I started this blog, a few years back, I wasn’t sure what it was to become. We simply wanted to make sure that we had a presence in the new trend of viral marketing. So I started this as a place to dump content that might interest our customers but wasn’t newsletter worthy, and to record a few of my adventures. Its name, The Straight Dope, seemed to best summarize its initial theme, which was a deconstruction of marketing and media blather on health and fitness. It was also, perhaps, a pun (admittedly the lowest form of humor) on one of my favorite subjects, doping in sports.

It seems to have found its legs without too much deviation. TSD has become what I call a tertiary avenue of education of our customers. The basic level of education is our programs and articles. The second tier is our more targeted content, such as the Message Boards, WOWY, the TBB site, and my newsletter. For those looking beyond this, we offer my first person observations.

I am, and have been since I was a kid, a human lab rat. In fact, I was testing so many weird diets and supplements as a high school athlete that my mom chose nutrition as the subject of her Master’s Degree just to figure out what I was up to. It’s never stopped. I’m still exploring training theories, supplements, and diets and then test driving my body through the worst conditions I can find. It’s not always fun, in the conventional sense, but I love it, and will continue to be that guy; out there testing what the human body can endure, so you don’t have to. Real? Probably not for everyone, but it’s the real world as I know it.

above: keepin’ it real on the first ascent of white cougar.

Carnivore

When we think of the word carnivore we tend to think of something big and nasty with sharp teeth. With only two sharp teeth each we hardly resemble any animal that exists primarily on flesh, so should a study like this be surprising?

Study: Lots of red meat increases mortality risk

For those coherent enough to make it here this is probably stuff for the duh files, but I thought I’d point it out nonetheless. Here’s an excerpt.

Over 10 years, eating the equivalent of a quarter-pound hamburger daily gave men in the study a 22 percent higher risk of dying of cancer and a 27 percent higher risk of dying of heart disease. That's compared to those who ate the least red meat, just 5 ounces per week.

Interesting to note that these numbers, as bad as they seem, aren’t as bad as those who drank diet soda daily. I wonder if Carl’s Jr’s “burger, fries, and coke” campaign can be sued for attempted murder?

images: it's cool to be tough but even cooler when you use your brain. btw, the "download P90X for free" pop-up is from a scam site in China. We're after them but, being in China and all, it's tough from a legal perspective. Careful what you click on.

Shakeology FAQs

We've been doing a lot of q & a on Shakeology this week. I've posted my top 20 questions here:

Shakeology: 20 Questions

Personally, I try and take this stuff as my default quicky meal. I'm often in a rush and there's pretty much nothing that you can consume quickly that comes close the the nutrient base you're getting here. Unlike other, more sports related, supplements, this one doesn't need to be timed. It's just like grabbing a snack. I like a have an afternoon coffee at the local cafe. It used to be a coffee and a scone or some other goodie. Now I tend to skip the treat and have this instead. I can't gauge how this change is affecting my fitness but I managed to do all the moves on a V10 yesterday, which is something I haven't done in over a decade.

Is Aspartame Safe?

My colleague Denis was just doing some research on Aspartame and came back with "it appears to be pretty safe." Here's my opinion:

While they are "safe" perhaps, from the FDA point of view, something in diet soft drinks is leading to obesity and illness. The rates are worse than those on regular soda. We'll see how this shakes out. My guess is that these artificial sweeteners are going to end up shouldering a lot of the blame. This, however, is hard to show in this type of article because there's a lot of "safe science" out there and a a lot of money behind it making sure it trumps the negative research, which is sounding more and more like Phillip Morris' tobacco research each year. But when you now have huge, cross cultural, long term studies all pointing to the exact same direction, something in diet soda is likely worse than the hypothesis of "it probably makes you crave other sweet foods". I, for one, have had a client who contradicted this. So even though the evidence is now pretty clear, the question still remains as to which is the evil ingredient, or is it the combination.

More on this topic here,

and here.

Shakeology, Activit, and Peak Health

At the Team Beachbody Summit this weekend we launched a product we’ve been working on for a few years. It’s called Shakeology. I think it’s better served by its tag line, The Healthiest Meal of the Day.

It’s a protein shake, greens formulation, pre and probiotic supplement, anti-oxidant, phytonutrient, adaptogen, enzyme formulation all rolled into something that tastes like dessert. In short, it’s the smartest 140 calories you can put into your body.

I’ll be writing, chatting, and blogging about this formulation over the upcoming weeks. Today I’d like to begin by addressing the most popular question of the weekend: Should I keep taking my Activit (or Peak Health) along with Shakeology.

The short answer is yes, but since Shakeology has a lot of vitamins in it already, this requires further explanation.

First off, taking your vitamins with Shakeology will improve their bioavailability. It’s a perfect transport vehicle for most of your supplements. All of them, really, except for creatine, Recovery, and other sports specific supplements. As you’ve probably heard, you don’t get all the nutrients on the label of a vitamin, nor do you get all of the nutrients in the foods you eat. The better your diet is (more balanced, pH-wise, in short) the better it can utilize nutrients in the foods you eat. Shakeology will help with both.

Next we need to address the RDA. It’s important to keep in mind that the RDA for everything is targeted for a subsistence level. An active person needs more, and it can be a lot more. When we try and decide how much more we should use the example of an extreme athlete. When you’re involved in something like the Tour de France, you CAN’T consume enough nutrients in a day to recover from what you’ve done. This is why drugs are used and why doping in sports is such a problem. With this in mind it’s easy to see how someone working construction would have a vastly different RDA than a computer programmer. So you can see how RDAs have little relevance to you, especially if you’re doing something like P90X.

This is why you’ll want to continue to take your vitamins. As you get into better and better shape your nutrient needs continue to grow. The cool thing is that you get to eat more. The downside is that the harder you train the more you’re at risk for overtraining. And the best way to keep from overtraining is to eat well. The more nutrients your calories contain the better you are eating.

There’s an old sports adage that states, “There is no such thing as overtraining. There is only undereating, undersleeping, and failure of will.” With Shakeology as a component of your diet you stand a better chance of checking off, at least, one part of this equation.

Diet Switcharoo

The piece of diet advice I champion most is to eat for what you do. Here’s a good example of what I’m always yappin’ about.

My friend Trent just got back from a month of training down in Tucson. Like me, his main two sports are riding and climbing. Unlike me, he’s been focused more on climbing than riding. With my injury, I’ve been forced to change my concentration from cycling to climbing because it’s all I can do. Trent’s trip to the winter cycling Mecca that is Tucson got him more psyched on riding. The first thing he said when he get back was that he was getting too glycogen depleted and had to adjust his diet and eat more carbs. My diet, in turn, has changed in exactly the opposite way; I’m eating less carbs and a ton fewer calories.

A big problem with diet books—or diets in general—is that they tend to prescribe a single way to eat for all circumstances. It doesn’t take a genius to comprehend how you might need to eat more when you’re active than when you’re sedentary. But diet books that often recommend eating a certain way all the time, then backing it up with a lot of bizarre science, can cause a lot of conflict within our logical minds.

In the simplest sense, carbohydrates are fuel for the body. Your body doesn’t store them in its tissue unless they aren’t burned off and it’s forced to; in which case they are stored as adipose (or fat) tissue. So it stands to reason that you’ll want the amount that you consume, and hence the percentage of your daily calories, to change as your activity level changes.

Furthermore, you’re body can only store about an hour or so of glycogen (carbs converted into glucose, or blood sugar) in your blood and liver. So the longer you exercise the more carbohydrate you need to eat to replenish your blood sugar. If you run out of blood sugar during exercise you’re body is forced to tap into its tissues, both fat and muscle, for energy. This is less efficient, so you can’t perform as well and is referred to as “the bonk” in sporting terms. This is the reason that sports foods are loaded with carbohydrates (and better yet, sugar, which speeds into your system the quickest—bad at other times but good during sports).

Long, steady exercise, like cycling, requires a lot of carbohydrate replenishment throughout. If you don’t eat carbs you risk doing a lot of damage to your muscle tissue. Your body will react by first slowing you down and then forcing you to stop. Protein and fats consumed simple aren’t absorbed quick enough to do you any good during a ride. In fact, they can lead to gastric upset because they are hard to digest.

Less steady exercise, like climbing (especially bouldering and short climbs, or cragging, but not mountaineering at all), doesn’t require the same type of replenishment. Other than hiking to the crag, the work is mainly anaerobic and done in short bursts. In a day of climbing you’re not likely to extinguish you blood glycogen, even if you eat a balanced diet that is very slow to absorb, because you aren’t going at a steady state for more than an hour.

So even though they are both doing a lot of exercise, a climber can be fueled well by a diet that has a different caloric needs and ratios than a cyclist. Since the cyclist is continually burning up the calories consumed, he needs to consume more in general. And, since most of these added calories are carbs, it makes sense that two perfectly fit athletes would have vastly different macro-nutrient needs. Hence, the old diet switcharoo.

pics: beata and i ready for some pizza, bob's no-carb except beer diet; they all work, depending on what you do.

Patience

“If I’m ever on the fence about whether or not to train, I always try and opt for more rest.”

I’m a patient teacher but not a patient athlete. There are days when this little back affliction isn’t very fun, and today is one of those. It’s beautiful out right now and I’m stuck inside, trying to get my head around the fact that the best training I can do is a little passive stretching followed by icing. Ugh.

I wanted to concoct a training program but the reality of my situation is that I can’t. Each day is an evaluation as to what I can and cannot do. So some days I can push, and others I just can’t, or at least shouldn’t. Last night my back hurt so day is a mandatory rest day, even though I’m feeling quite good at the moment. The quote above is from me, btw. This is a mantra that I struggle with when I’m healthy. Imagine what I’m going through now.

Yesterday, I managed to clean up and then nab the first ascent of a traverse—not easily done in these parts. I should be happy with that. But I’m not. I’m restless. I want to head into the mountains, disappear, run, and explore. But I can’t. Not yet. Patience, dammit, patience!

pic: Road House, Deaf Smith Canyon, Utah. "Pain don't hurt."

Sports Day

We leave for France in a little over a month. The trip has already altered from its original scope; from heaps of training to leisurely riding and climbing while hanging with friends. But those friends will be fit and it’s time to test my back a little bit and try and gain a little form for the trip, if for no other reason than to know how to plan the trip. My back survived a rather arduous road/work escapade, so now it’s time to put it through a block of training. Tomorrow I’ll concoct a preparatory phase. In order to get an idea of what this phase can contain, today Romney and I had a little sports day.

My friends and I have been doing these for years. They consist of combining a lot of different sports into a single day. They can be silly, such as the “vortex weekend” where Todd, Reed and I combined running, bouldering, and riding with soccer, whiffle ball, tennis, some other stuff I can’t remember along with a lot of beer drinking and watching more football “than I have in my life,” according to Reed. Or they can be rugged. Birthday Challenges are often sports days, like this.

Today’s was more modest in scope. It would, however, harbor some important firsts for the year. Since my injury it would be my first bike ride, run, ski, and warrior pose. We would also throw in some climbing so I could actually feel like I was getting a workout.

We began doing yoga, where warrior pose didn’t bother me at all. Being tentative, I didn’t push this much and pushing a yoga session—primarily a lot of time in various stages of warrior—is what exacerbated my original injury to the emergency room stage.

It went well, so we packed the car with ski stuff n’ dogs and heading up Mill Creek. Romney’s been skiing all winter so she zoomed ahead with Copper and Beata while trailed with Ratso, working on slow and calculated movements. Icy conditions weren’t perfect and slips were scary, but it caused me to focus on breathing and posture, doing each step with a rigid core. One positive thing about injuries is that they often shift your focus and end up improving your technique. The downhill concerned me because of the ice. I really didn’t want to fall but I also didn’t want to have to take off my skis and walk. It went a little easier than expected. My back was tight but, after a few extending postures in the parking lot, I was ready for the next sport.

Back home, I dusted off the tandem, lubed her up, and filled the tires. At some point on the ride Romney said, “I like when you’re out of shape. It’s so much easier.” Sad, because I wasn’t trying to go slow, but my leg muscles have atrophied a lot in two months. Cycling fitness comes and goes quickly, so I was expecting this. The up side was that the riding was fine. The hardest thing was throwing my leg over the bike, and it wasn’t that hard. I think I can start riding.

Next we went for a run—a short run. My foot is still numb and running is going to take a while, I think. It didn’t hurt but I do worry about the lack of feeling affecting my cadence and leading to an injury. The run itself was easy but afterwards I sat down and almost fell asleep. So far, I’d done what normally would amount to a warm-up and I was getting worked. The upside was that after the run my foot felt better than before. So maybe I need to run.

Next we went up to the G-Spot, where I made some progress on my project and Romney linked about two-thirds of the upper traverse. I’m more psyched on climbing than I’ve been on years, and it was a great way to end the day. Despite my enthusiasm at the boulders, I can barely write this and think there’s no way I’m making it through the movie that’s on tonight’s agenda. Sports day accomplished.

Gravsports

I love blogs. I haven't had any time to write recently so I'm sending you an old friend's blog. I haven't seen Will in at least a decade. But I've heard about him, which hard to to since he's done a lot of media stuff and has become one of the best ice climbers in the world. He's always been a writer but in his case this forum is preferred because it allows him to let his enthusiasm go unleashed (pun intended, perhaps, though you'll need to read about him to know). He just did a big futuristic route in Canada, which is how I heard about Gravsports, so I'm forwarding it on to you. Good clean adventure; well told. The recipe for a perfect blog. Enjoy.

Will Gadd's Gravsports

From Will's web site. Words to live by:

But please consider this: You’re obviously on your computer right now, which is a clinically proven hazard to your health. Please consider turning off your computer and getting outside immediately. It could save your sanity, or even your life. I don’t believe anybody ever died wishing for just one more day in front of the monitor. Tonight you will have moved one day closer to your end game. What are you going to do with this day?

Ball Don't Lie

“I thought he’d be the first black president,” Wetzel says. “He was Barack Obama before Barack Obama.”

My brother, a philosophy teacher and ex-ballplayer, sent this to me titled, “The best article on basketball I’ve ever read.” My take is that it’s a lot more than that. It’s a metaphor for life.

It’s long, in-depth, and analytical. It takes some thought to get through; and you’ve got to sign up for the NY Times (free) to read it. But if you’re interested in digging into your brain's trenches and looking at topics you’ve not considered, it will be well worth your time. I’m pretty busy. It took me days to get around to reading it. Once finding the time, I wished it would go on and on.

“Here we have a basketball mystery: a player is widely regarded inside the N.B.A. as, at best, a replaceable cog in a machine driven by superstars. And yet every team he has ever played on has acquired some magical ability to win.”

The storyline revolves around an analysis of why Shane Battier is one of the games most effective players. If you haven’t heard of him, or thought he was a stiff, that’s part of the catch. It goes into this, and more, and should leave you thinking not only different about basketball, but life in general. I can apply this rationale directly to any place I’ve worked, or even to how family units work together.

We live in a sensationalized world, where the squeaky wheel indeed gets the grease. But what makes it go around is not just those in the limelight, but those who seek primarily for excellence in self, no matter what others think.

The No Stats All Star
By Michael Lewis

P90X Better Than Steroids!

The X is gettin' some serious love lately. My dad calls the other night and says he watching a show in the Giants and two pitchers, Zito and Wilson, are doing 90X. Tony calls me the other day to get my opinion on something because NBC is coming over to film a segment on Wii and wants the X perspective. He calls me again, a couple of days later from a plane on his way to do more X interviews and says, "Dude, you see the Grammys last night?" I hadn't but Sheryl Crow gave us a huge shout out from the red carpet.

Then, yesterday, I get this from Tony:
On WFAN, (biggest sports radio station in NYC) the host was talking this morning about A-Rod and said something to the effect of "his body was never that chiseled, not like he had a P90X body or anything".

This, for those of you not privy to the national news, is a reaction to Alex Rodriguez admitting that he'd been doing steroids. In reality, steroids don't make muscle, they just increase your body's ability to build muscle. But in a world where we see advertisements to "build muscle without steroids" as if the public thinks it's impossible, it's nice to get a little validity for our system. Anyone can have an X body. All it takes is a little structure and a lot of hard work.

Note: Jon Congdon (our President) sent this and I think it's a nice addition:

Everything you see about P90X that might appear to be PR is "organic" -- meaning that we don't pay for PR, and don't hire celebrities or athletes to do it, or talk about it. It's advertised on TV, in magazines sometimes, and more and more on the Internet, but we don't do PR. If Cheryl Crow, or Usher, or an MLB, NHL or NFL athlete buy it, they buy it just like everyone else and either because they saw the infomercial or a friend told them. That's what's so amazing about the P90X phenomenon of late.

P90X Better Than Steroids!

The X is gettin' some serious love lately. My dad calls the other night and says he watching a show in the Giants and two pitchers, Zito and Wilson, are doing

Some People Wouldn't Think This Was Fun

A lot of people don't understand my life. This makes sense because I don't get how most people spend their time either. I guess that living with a goal of accumulating wealth and comfort is normal. It just seems I've spent a lot of my life trying to live with neither. Now I don't mind comfort. I like my house. I like turning the heat on in the winter, but I never feel more alive than when I struggling with the elements. It's like Bud said, "Most people spend their time trying to avoid tense situations. Repo man spends his life trying to get into tense situations."

One of my favorite mountaineering quotes is from Kiwi George Lowe, which was recounted by Ed Hillary in an old out-of-print book about his life called Nothing Venture, Nothing Win. I probably can't remember it verbatim but it went something like this: They were trapped on a Himalayan mountain for something like seven days. Hillary recalls, "I don't remember much about the storm except that somewhere around day three or four George came over to my tent, stuck his head inside and said, 'Ya know, Ed, some people wouldn't think this was fun.'"

My buddy Ben just did a huge first ascent down in Patagonia, an area famous for its discomfort. To most people, this probably looks a tad psycho. When I see it, my heart aches with longing to be out there with them.

Making Progress

My back seems to be making progress but that’s not what this post is about. I’m definitely moving better since the cortisone shot but the fact that sitting still bothers me is worrisome. But I’m doing everything I can so I try not to think about it. I do about an hour of PT daily, walk the dogs, hangboard, and can now climb a little.

I can’t ride, run, ski, or sit comfortably through a meal—meaning I’m pretty boring socially. But climbing is a form of traction. As long as I don’t fall (well, land) wrong or use my leg too much, climbing seems to help.

On my walks I’ve been looking for obscure traversing projects. Traverses are good because they can be long and stay low to the ground. This way I can train for climbing routes, alone, at my own pace. The best of these, by far, is one up in Big Cottonwood we call the G-Spot. It sits high above a crag in a secluded alcove overlooking the canyon with great views of the high country. It has a classic 30 move V4 traverse, and a low V10 traverse, that can be linked together in various ways. The result is a perfect training wall with a jillion dollar view.

My project is to link, eventually, the low traverse into the higher ones. Right now, I can’t do most of the moves on the low traverse, so I’m trying to link short section into the upper traverse for training.

Yesterday, things started poorly. I didn’t feel good and the hard sections I wanted to try felt like they’d put too much strain on my back. I was feeling a bit dejected and almost gave up, but it was a beautiful afternoon, so I sat down, enjoyed the surroundings, and thought about how to turn the day into a positive.

There’s an old climbing adage that says “make progress”, meaning each day you’re out try and find a way to further advance your ultimate goal. The aim is to make it further on a route than you have prior—that or doing a new route. But you can’t always do that, so it can also mean finding a new sequence, a trick, or maybe even ways to save energy on the approach or descent.

There’s a section of the traverse that’s quite unpleasant. It’s pretty easy, so there’s never been a good reason to try and make it nicer. But if I was going to spend some time it sure would be better if this section were more fun to climb. It’s like Patrick Edlinger once said, “To just try and get to the top is a waste of time. The goal is to climb in a way that’s pleasing.”

photo: my obscure object of desire. above and below: the edlinger quote comes from one of these two vids from the 80s. enjoy the vintage show.

My first few attempts were disheartening. I starred at the available holds, determined to find a better solution. Even if it were harder it would be okay if the movement were more aesthetic. I tried a series of highly improbably body positions until one put me into the correct balance to be able to flow through the section. Viola! I practiced it a few times and began to feel better, even stronger. I ended the session by doing a linkage I’d never managed before. As I postholed through the snow en route to my car, watching the sun set into the Wasatch, I felt quite fortunate to be living such a cool life.

Weight Loss: A Cyclist's Perspective

fat

fat?

not fat?

Recently retired Bobby Julich is writing a column for Cyclingnews.com that's more introspective than most of their rider diaries. His latest is on why cyclists gain so much weight and what they do to lose it. He skips a couple of subjects, such as why so many cyclists get fat when they retire (though the answer is obvious from his article) and what to do when you need to lose muscle mass. The latter, I suppose, isn't generally a problem because not many cyclists gain muscle mass in the off-season. But it's an issue for the recreational athlete or someone coming to cycling from another sport where you may have built up some unwanted muscle. These last two issues should be covered quite well as we follow Lance this year. That cross-trained body isn't going to help him in the alps and Bruyneel said last week that he needs to lose some muscle, which the above pics of he and rival Ivan Basso confirm. So that should be fun, especially considering Basso says he's fat and claims his power readings confirm that he'll improve 25% between now and the Giro.

While this story develops, here's a good perspective on what cyclists go through to get into racing form.

Battle of the Bulge

An Old Dog’s Old Tricks

Sometimes an injury can be a blessing in disguise. While I’m not about to call my back a blessing yet—especially given how painful life is at the moment—I will say it’s led to a advance in my training I haven’t seen in a long time.

My climbing peaked in about 1995. Since that time I’ve continued to climb and some aspects of my performance have improved. But like most sports, ultimately, the highest level one can reach comes down to motivation and effective training. And my climbing training has been practically non-existent. This is by choice as I’ve been focusing on other sports, but I do often wonder how hard I could climb now if I had the same motivation to train that I did in the early 90s.

This injury could lead to some exploration in those areas. As my bikes, skis, running shoes and climbing boots gather dust I’ve turned my attention to the only thing I can do: hangboard training. For those who don’t know, a hangboard is an apparatus that is mounted to a wall that’s littered with various holds you might find climbing. You use it by strategizing different schemes using these holds the same way you would design a program using weights. The goal is to improve contact strength, which is the ability to hang onto small holds.

They’re highly effect; and highly tedious. In vogue for only a few years, now they’re mainly seen in homes of people who want their friends to think they climb and in the corner of gyms for kids to play on. It is hard to justify standing in once place doing endless repetitions of hanging off your fingertips when there’s a gym full of routes to climb. Professional trainers will also tell you that a hangboard only trains you for one aspect of climbing. That aspect, however, is far more important than anything else. As Ben Moon put it, “the only thing that really matters is how strong my fingers are.”

“Technique is no substitute for power.” phil requist at @#$%! Video, circa 1991. note the elaborate contraption, called a forearm trainer, that was designed and built by phil

In 1990 I started a small business that forced me inside for about a year until it was running well enough for me to hire employees. During this period I made the biggest improvement in a single span of my climbing life. I did almost no climbing. I ran or biked in the mornings to keep my weight down and trained on a hangboard. The above quote, again from Moon, hung on the ceiling over the board. It was perfect. I couldn’t get outside so, even if wrong, it was the advice I wanted to hear. When I was again able to go outside my technique was crap but I miles stronger than I’d ever been. As my technique came around to where it was prior, my climbing level skyrocketed.

Since I’ve stopped climbing so much, finger strength is what I’ve lacked more than anything else. I can still figure out how to get up things, I often simply can’t hang onto the holds. If my psyche holds out—and right now it’s strong—this injury could be the beginning of a great season, even it it’s not the one I was planning for.

I wish I’d kept my training journals from those days. I used to graph my strength gains and was able to keep the graph pointed skyward most of the time. If my first round of training in any indication, I’m again headed in the right direction. It would be fun to go back and compare an aged climber to a young one.

I begin with a lengthy warm-up. 15 minutes on the bike (about all I can tolerate right now) or stairmaster, followed by a bunch of light weight resistance exercises to thoroughly warm all of my muscles. Then I hang each of the holds I’ll use in the workout without getting pumped. The warm-up has to feel like work. Any abridging increases the risk of injury.

The target of these workouts is hypertrophy, so I’m doing a lot of volume. Later, for power, I’ll do shorter, more intense, hangs. Right now it’s 5 reps of 10 seconds with a 5 second rest for each hold. 2 minutes between sets. I did one workout just getting used to hanging, then I began charting. Below are the numbers (total seconds hanging) for each workout on each hold, in progressive order.

Shallow 2: 20, 31, 33, 50, 46

Small slope: 30, 50, 46, 46, 50

Small pinch: 30, 50, 43, 47, 47

Small crimp: 44, 38, 41, 42, 44

Medium 2: 24, 25, 30, 36, 44

Big pinch: 50, 50, 50, 50, 50

Big sloper: 20, 34, 49, 50, 50

Slopey crimp pinch: 0, 39, 40, 44, 45

Medium 3: 0, 29, 36, 40, 41

Medium sloper: 0, 0, 0, 20, 35

Comparing like holds, I’ve improved during each workout at ratios of: 35%, 6%, 13%, 7%. The bigger increases came when I had an extra days rest. Counting increased volume my workout load has increased 140% in the last two weeks, which is off the charts. A lot of this has to do with engrams (neuromuscular patterns) kicking in so won’t continue indefinitely but it’s still inspiring. My next series adds weight, decreases the hang time, but increases the number of sets. I’ll post my progress when I’m done.

Recovery Formula

During my P90X postings last year I don't think I ever got around to discussing Recovery Formula. The last few weeks I've received numerous emails asking if we could replace the sugar in RF with stevia. This, I can only imagine, has come about with the marketing hoopla over no calorie sports drinks. I blogged a while back on "the world's most inane beverage" when I discovered that Gatorade was making a "low sodium" electrolyte drink. Since sodium is your primary electrolyte, I posed the question what could be more ridiculous? And they've answered; a sports drink with no energy. Amazing.

A quick lesson: calorie is a word we use for energy in the foods we consume. When we exercise we greatly increase the amount of energy (and electrolytes) we burn. Sports drinks were designed to replace things depleted while doing sports, which are primarily calories and electrolytes.

Marketers don't care about such pesky details. They are aware that people like new things, whether or not these things make sense. People like words like "no calories" and "no sodium" and, apparently, will buy them even if their goal is to buy something with calories and sodium.

Recovery Formula, as the name suggests, is designed to aid in recovery from exercise. This requires calories, among other things. I've written an article that discusses this process in laymen terms, and here it is.

A Good Year To Be Injured

It's interesting to see cycling getting so much press in early January. In normal years, I'd guess that I echo the average cyclist when I say that my interest in the Tour Down Under is mainly to take a virtual vacation to somewhere warm. It's far too early to gauge how a rider is going to go based on their performance, so fan interest is mainly to scout for up and coming talent. This race is huge for young riders who are trying to make the roster for big races in Europe later that season. The racing is always first rate but, mainly, I enjoy watching riders race with their jerseys open when 15 degrees F outside at home.

This year is different. With the return of the Texan the world has cast its eyes on Australia. As a cycling fan, it's all good. Now instead of scrapping for the odd highlight we can choose from a cornucopia of media options. Apparently, Versus is covering the race live on TV. I don't have TV, so I look to cyclingfans.com. This web site has become invaluable. They scavenge the wires for various feeds all season long. If you're open to broadcasts in various languages, you never need miss a race. For the TdU, they have a handful of different length options for every stage. Here's a 7 minute recap (about perfect for a sprint stage) of stage one.

Stage 1 TdU

Another good option is cycling.tv. They have free content and various packages you can buy. Two years ago this site was seriously fledging, covering pro races when possible but also streaming homemade training videos and the like. Now they've linked with Versus and other networks so that it's like a television network dedicated to cycling. For the cost of around a month of cable you can watch almost every important race on the calendar.

So thanks, Lance. At least I picked a good year to get injured.

Dumby Dave

One of the things you do when you're injured is look for ways to stay psyched. For me, this has meant a lot of reading about climbing. I love climbing history and had a fairly extensive library of mountaineering books before I'd ever tied into a rope. Since I quit climbing full time haven't kept a close eye on what was happening. I have a lot of friends who are still doing things on the cutting edge, so I stay abreast to a degree. After three weeks of lying on my back, I think I can say I'm now caught up.

Some of the coolest things about the modern age are blogging and very small cameras and digital recorders that will shoot broadcast quality footage. Because of this, we are now privy to first hand accounts of what once was mountain lore. Most of the big name climbers have production teams following them around. The up and comers' have You Tube. The result is that you no longer need your imagination. There's a record of almost every ground breaking ascent of the millennia.

Of course, some people are better than others at this. My favorite of the bunch is Scottish climber Dave MacLeod's blog. More than any other region, the U.K. has always been keen on not just climbing, but the sport's history and , more importantly, how it gets told. The climbing pubs in Britain have always been filled with colorful characters that make up for its lack of monumental rock faces. For this reason it was always one of my favorite places to climb. MacLeod, a proud Scott, seems keenly aware of this as he chronicles his quest to push new boundaries as well as repeat all of the world's most difficult traditional routes. His blog is a thoughtful, funny, and inspiring. If you're at all interested in climbing, it's a fine way to spend a bit of down time.

Also, if you want a more straightforward account of Dave's climbing career, here's a piece written by Dougald MacDonald for Climbing.

above is a trailer for echo wall, the story of macleod attempting perhaps the most difficult traditional climb in the world. below is a bit of training.


"you're a crazy man, dave."