The Hardest Part of Training

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Challenge Forum Is Live

We've set up a forum specifically for this 90 Day Challenge. You'll find it here:

90 Day Challenge Forum

During the challenge I'll also be answering mailbag questions that are directly related to these questions. So if you'd like a "best of" q & a emailed to you, sign up by sending an email to:

join-edwards@mh.databack.com

Of course you can use the boards anytime but this was set-up to motivate more people to access this great resource. It's primarily for answering fitness and nutrition questions pertaining to your challenge but you can use it to meet training partners, post before and after photos or aspirations, or banter about anything challenge worthy. See you there!

Video Of My Project

Here's a video showing most of my project. Before I left for my trip I had a goal of linking at least one of the two halves of the low traverse, then finishing the upper traverse to cap it off.

The first crux was just getting up there. A series of warm storms made the approach a bit of a post-holing nightmare. Once there, conditions were also fickle as the spring freeze-thaw was keeping things pretty soppy. I only found climbable conditions once, during the late-afternoon of my last day before we left.

The vid requires some interpretation. On the first angle a snow bank obscures my feet, but you'll get the idea. I don't have a tripod so I'm limited to where the camera gets set up. The low and high traverse I'm referring to are very close together. An obvious break forms the higher, which goes at V4. For the low traverse, everything below this break is on, meaning that your hands are often inches from a jug that you can't touch. A large boulder also sits in the way of linking the first few moves. I'll dig it out at some point. There are a few moves to link the two low sections I'm trying in this video. I move up after the first section at a natural transition, which leads into the upper traverse beyond its rest and straight into its crux section, making it a better boulder problem in itself.

For reference, every single move of the low traverse took numerous attempts to work out. Most of the holds are quite small, requiring me to have my body in just the right position to hold on. Some look easy as I've wired them, but I've fallen off every single move at least once. This means that I must fully concentrate on every move. Currently, when I reach the first move of the second half I can no longer hang on the holds--which are the best on the route--much less make a fairly difficult move. Linking this is miles away in terms of fitness needed. At least I have some new boots on the way that will hopefully solve one dilemma.

I Have A Pot

The rest of you is normal. Normal face, normal legs, normal hips, normal ass, but with a big, perfectly round pot belly.

Fabienne, Pulp Fiction

On return from a moveable feast across Europe I’ve grown a pot. My climbing and, hence, my goal for this program will stand a much better chance at realization if I lose it.

My fitness is okay. I was climbing grade 7s quickly in Europe, with pot. Sans pot, things should drastically improve.

The plan for the first two weeks will be as thus:

4 days a week of riding and/or running at aerobic pace (mainly) on an empty stomach, C workouts.

2 days per week of synergistic whole body exercising, B workouts.

3 days per week of climbing/climbing training, one A, two B workouts.

Week one will only avoid junk foods. Week two will be severely caloric restricted. Week three will be the start of another virtual Giro. Its plan will be determined later.

I’d also like to make a few improvements to this blog, with more added photo streams and video, as well as adding a lot of info targeted towards anyone doing a three month program.

For an analysis of A,B,& C workouts click here.

above: day one photo, with bruce, sportin’ the pot and looking the part of a craggin’ french baker.

90 Day Goals

My goal is simple; to climb my project at the G-Spot (video coming soon). This may not sound like a full body experience but, given this may be harder than anything I’ve ever climbed, it will be. Until this challenge it was slated as a more realistic goal for next winter. I’m miles away at the moment. It’s going to take plenty of motivation. I’ll need to lose weight, gain power, endurance, power-endurance, and flexibility.

Plus, given I couldn’t walk a couple of months ago it seemed a tad irresponsible to set goals for biking or running. I’ll still try and do these as much as I can, even if just for wait loss, but the goal in this area is to continually make progress with my injury. That is all.

I also have a big agenda for next year and my climbing is further off for this than my biking. So, for now, I’ll focus on getting the climbing strength up to where it needs to be, which is much easier to do if I’m not exerting too much effort on other things. Once the base strength is there, I can maintain it while bring the running and cycling level back up—all provided that I rehab properly, of course.

I’m also throwing in some French study goals. Not sure what they’ll be, exactly, but right now I’m just going to commit to speaking some French each day. Voila!

pic: dope is strictly forbidden!

90-D Challenge: Who’s In?

I’m starting a new 90-day training cycle/challenge and want you all to join me. It’s not a body transformation challenge or any type of money-making scheme. It’s just an offer to provide some accountability while I engage in something that I do all of the time. So I’m throwing a little challenge out there to my friends to pick some sort of goal you’d like to achieve in the next three months. Then, together, we’ll help each other achieve it. It doesn’t need to be anything specific. It can be to improve a sport, lose weight, gain strength, lower your blood pressure, learn a language, do a birthday challenge or kick sand in the face of the bully down at the beach. All that matters is that it’s something that you can’t currently do so that you’ll have to change your current regimen in order to achieve it.

It’s not my idea, actually. Jon and Bryan down at the office have been brainstorming about how to make Beachbody the fittest business in the world. This isn’t for bragging rights. It came about through extension of all the customer success stories. These are infectious, and got Jon thinking about how to get more people involved; just because it’s cool. So what we’re going to try is essentially is the core of what works so well for Beachbody, straightforward motivation and accountability.

My part of the bargain is free online coaching. All you’ll have to do is ask your questions here and in a Message Board thread I’ll start once we get rolling. Remember that you can comment on this blog anonymously (so you can be shy). For the boards, you’ll need to sign up but it’s free.

Over on the boards we’ll do what we do for all our customers, offer fitness tips and diet advice. So you’ll have access to me, Denis Faye, and many of our best coaches. All I ask is that you keep the questions in public. I get too many private emails to answer individually, so board questions always get priority because no matter how individual you think your question is someone else will ask it as well. As unique as we are, fitness and nutrition questions tend to be similar. And I should know, since I’ve been answering them for thousands (millions, technically) of people for nearly a decade.

As for what to do, it’s all up to you. I blogged on a round of 90X last year—tweaked to aid my sports, as usual. Poking around this blog could give you some ideas (try clicking on different labels). And the TBB Message Board Photo Galleries are always inspiring. Or you could have a look at Birthday Challenge. But there’s almost certainly something that you’ve always wanted to do but never dared to commit to. And these are the challenges that are most worth doing because, in the end, having just made an attempt will change your life.

Details will roll out over the coming week. I think the official start date is April 27 but I’m starting tomorrow. Why not?

Oh, and you’ll have to check back to see exactly what I’m doing. All I’m sure about right now is that it’s going to be hard. What fun would it be if it weren’t?

Shakeology Taste Test

This isn't really a Shakeology taste test. Nothing in its class compares so that wouldn't even be interesting. But read on and you'll understand a bit about why. I'm re-purposing something from my Mailbag.

Bobby from Norco writes:

I see that you have some fructose in Shakeology. You also have stevia, fruit extracts, and yacon, which I’ve heard is a sweetener. What’s the function of the fructose?

=================================

Bobby, have you ever tried to drink a greens formula shake for dessert?

This story goes way back. The official Shakeology story begins with Carl getting together with his wife, Isabelle, who chided him about “eating like a second grader.” Indeed, that was probably the catalyst for it to move into development but I’d been working on Carl for years prior. The first time I put a green concoction in front of him he just sat there looking at it. After a long pause he said, “I’m supposed to drink this?” I don’t think he bothered tasting it.

You see, it’s pretty easy to throw a lot of healthy ingredients into the same container. The trick is getting these things to be appetizing. If they tasted great, and were easy to prepare, we’d already be getting plenty in our diet. But up until Shakeology it seemed like anybody making an all-inclusive meal in a bottle was happy enough to fill it full of nutrients and let the taste fall where it may. The resulting formulations tended to taste like sand or—wait--Carl did try one of my concoctions. He said it tasted like he got dumped into a swamp.

Of all the obstacles we faced creating Shakeology by far the biggest hurdle was taste. Yes, Bobby, yacon is a sweetening agent. It’s also the most potent prebiotic known to man. The fruit blend is also sweet, and loaded with polyphenols as well. And stevia is 300 times sweeter than sugar. But any chef knows the importance of not just adding ingredients but balancing them, and that’s what we had to do with Shakeology. The few grams of fructose powder used is to balance the flavor, and we went through many rounds of development before we got this right.

As for the results; I challenge you to pick up a “superfood” shake at the local holistic market and whip it up side by side with Shakeology. The only downside is that you may end up wasting money. I’ve still got a couple of jars of that stuff in my fridge that haven’t been touched since we finalized the Shakeology formulation.

Fitness Nerd

Here's a brand new addition to the Blog-o-sphere that's worth a gander.

The Fitness Nerd

It's going to be a portal to the lastest news and stories in health and fitness, along with a bit of savvy expose. The Straight Dope's already had a shout out, and here's an example of the commentary. Clearly, Denis knows his way around a keyboard.

In a report published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, over half a million AARP members were surveyed, only to discover that those who ate more red meat and processed meat had a 22% greater risk of dying of cancer and a 27% greater risk of dying of heart disease.

Boy, I didn’t see that coming. No, wait. I did see that coming, because I’ve been told how saturated fat clogs arteries and excess salt causes hypertension since I was five-years-old. Had this article been written in 1954, Ward and June Cleaver might have been blown away, but this is 2009. Come on!

Oddly enough, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association has taken exception to the findings. Yet another hard blow for the American cowboy.

You should all probably make it your homepage.

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.