Thursday, May 31, 2012
The Truth About Barefoot Running
A pretty good article appeared in USA Today about barefoot running. It’s a follow up to a recent American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) periodical that focused on this craze and analyzed all of the research that’s been done on the subject. And while the evidence isn’t clear the truth is actually quite simple to sort out looking at the data and consulting a bit of lore and logic.
It’s funny the way crazes work in America. For something to be truly popular it seems rationale must be chucked aside so views can become polarized and everyone can stand on different sides of a fence slinging shit each other. Barefoot running is one of the strangest examples of this because almost nothing about this movement makes much sense except for the fact that the book Born to Run was a great read and businesses are always looking for an angle to make money. Shoes that promise to mimic being barefoot now take up nearly half the space in the running shoe section and, fer crissakes, how many pairs of shoes do you need to mimic being barefoot?
The article is worth reading because it examines both sides of the issue without taking sides. Running barefoot supposedly has become popular because it reduces injury rates but according to the statistics, at least so far, this hasn’t been the case. Runners get hurt quite regularly and percentages haven’t changed much for as long as we’ve been keeping data. In some demographics it’s gotten worse:
Podiatrist Paul Langer used to see one or two barefoot running injuries a month at his Twin Cities Orthopedics practice in Minneapolis. Now he treats between three and four a week. "Most just jumped in a little too enthusiastically," said Langer, an experienced runner and triathlete who trains in his barefoot running shoes part of the week.
The article points out that 30-70% of runners have a stress-related injury each year, no matter how they run. The ACSM goes further stating that this number has remained constant for the last 40 years. Granted, this is a laughably-huge range but the fact is clear in that no matter what you do if you run regularly you will probably get injured at some point. I’ve been to Mexico and seen Tarahumara run and I’ve seen them injured, too. Yes, I would bet the farm that they get injured less but is that because they run in tire sandals or something more rational? I don’t think we need a study to find out the answer.
While not quoted in the article, most of the numbers used come back to Daniel Lieberman’s work published by the ACSM. Lieberman has done exhaustive research on the subject, much of it cataloged on this website. In the article, What We Can Learn About Running from Barefoot Running: An Evolutionary Medical Perspective he writes, “We have much to learn. However, if there is any one lesson we can draw already from the barefoot running movement it is that we should be less afraid of how the human body functions naturally.”
And while it’s inconclusive from a scientific standpoint, as most things are, a few observations are clear.
1. Shoes and inactivity have made us weak. As we’ve become more sedentary our feet (along with everything that’s attached to them) has become weaker. To combat this we’ve made shoes with support in an attempt to avoid injuries and this has exacerbated the issue.
2. Everyone should train their feet, especially runners. The solution to the above is that we need to train our feet. I mean, we need to train everything but we need to train our feet specifically, especially if we want to become runners. Feet should/need to be trained un-shod. Injuries like plantar fasciitis didn’t really exist until recently and are easily combated with simple exercises, like this. The Tarahumara don’t get injured less due to magic footwear but because they spend their lives running, some of it barefoot, and their feet are stronger. Running barefoot also forces us to move naturally and focus on proprioceptive awareness, both huge advantages for runners.
3. We are faster with shoes. There is no dispute that footwear can allow us to mash through the elements with a greater margin for error, meaning we can run faster. When the Tarahumara are given shoes they get faster. Born To Run claims that opposite but no science backs it up. Here is one example but you don’t really need statistics, just a functioning thought process. A barefoot runner is at the same disadvantage on uneven terrain as is a rigid mountain biker in a downhill competition against a rider with 7 inches of travel.
The facts are that you are faster using shoes unless you get injured running with shoes. This is not so much a testament for running barefoot as it is for strategically training barefoot. To take this to mean that you should run barefoot all the time is a major point of conjecture. Not that there’s anything wrong with running barefoot all the time. Certainly there is not if you don’t mind embracing the obvious limitations. Barefoot runners inevitable claim of improved times comes from getting less injured, a point worth considering. But to state that it makes you faster is a fallacy.
A combination of barefoot and shod training will help you adapt best to all conditions and racing with shoes will allow you to run faster. What type of footwear you should use is a different topic altogether. Barefoot running and training should become standard protocol but the barefoot running shoe craze is a trend.
In conclusion, here's what Born to Run's protagonist, the late Caballo Blanco, had to say on the topic. “The point: None of that crap really matters, what or not one wears on their feet. Run Happy...Run Free" Still, you'll want to get those neon pink Five Fingers while you can because they won't be around forever.
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Just Another @#$%! Video Chat
Video streaming by Ustream
Me n' Denis' latest ramblings on fitness and nutrition. Today for some reason we had an all-star cast of names. Even if they were all made up I'm giving the crowd props for creativity. Enjoy!
Friday, May 25, 2012
The History of Santa Barbara Climbing, Part I
Last weekend I did an interview for an article on the history of climbing in Santa Barbara. It brought back a lot of memories, many that I think will make for great reading, so for a short time the Friday Psyche will feature some tales on the history of climbing in and around Santa Barbara, California.
I spent a good portion of my life living in Santa Barbara and that most of this time was consumed by developing the climbing there abouts and writing about it. It’s one of the only places I’ve lived that actually felt like home and, despite a dearth of quality rock, a decade or so of my life was spent hell-bent on turning it into a climbing destination. And while that never happened those years were hardly wasted. Besides learning a ton about physiology, diet, and training, never before or since has life been filled with as much day to day passion. I guess it all didn’t amount to much in the guise of Western ideals but, man, it was fun.
Bob Banks has become the de facto historian for SB. Most of this series will point towards his blog. Let’s begin with the interview with local climber Stan Scheider. Hopefully pique your interest enough to keep tuning in for some good old fashioned lore. Btw, I don’t feel bad scooping it since only a small part will be used, interwoven with info from most of the other principles in the story.
1. Any interesting stories on the old climbing routes and bouldering?
Sheesh, tons. During the Allez Magazine years our house (The Castle) was a flop house for climbers worldwide. I traveled a lot during the early 90s, competed and wrote for the mags and knew a ton of climbers and I don't think there was a time during, at least the Allez years, where there wasn't at least one foreign climber living there, and often there was 5, 10, sometimes 15 camped in the back. Before Allez I lived in either the shop or my van, which were also often occupied by others.
One thing that I have found interesting is how the scene has gotten so quiet since I left. I was really into the public service of development, even more than sending my projects. I wanted to make SB a good place to climb and ended up leaving the area with a lot of un-redpointed routes scattered around, hopefully to inspire the next generation. Hardly any of them have been done! Only Bernd Zeugswetter and lately Andy Patterson have shown any interest in this at all and, in fact, I think they might have the only ascents of some of my routes. It's been 12 years since my guide came out and there's been very very little activity on the scene, and most of that has been down in Ventura/Ojai and up at Owl Tor, where I have still been active. During the 10 years I was in SB the areas route count probably tripled. This still puzzles me.
2.Historical climbers in the area?
A lot of big names have come through the area but very few have left a mark. Chouinard lives here but never did much locally. Hans Florine is a part of our crew and has done a few things, including the Central Coast's first 5.14, but mainly focused on objectives elsewhere. Kevin Thaw is one of my best friends and has lived with me on and off for periods and lots of famous European and American sport climbers have been on my projects but no one has spent enough time to do much. Mainly they'd use SB as a place to chill and train (we had a great training facility) for more famous projects.
The developers were all local guys and not just our crew. Before me Steve Tucker was the keeper of the flame. He did some development but was also very active recording what went down, writing two guidebooks and some magazine articles. If it weren't for him the history might be completely based on rumors.
During my time there was kind of two camps and we didn't always get along but the competitiveness probably spurred it on because, for sure, it was the pinnacle of route development in the area. Our crew was mainly me, Phil Requist, John Perlin in SB and Russell Erickson and Reese Martin in Ventura, and a bunch of other friends who'd help out here and there (Utahn Stuart Ruckman for a short time who was way better than everyone and opened our eyes to possibilities and then Wills Young a couple of years later). Then there was the Pat Briggs, Tony Becchio, Dave Griffith crew. Those three guys, especially, were very good climbers and did a lot of exploring and route development. They were much more the driving force than others who may have been more famous like Chouinard or Hans or Scott Cosgrove (who did one notable FA, Smooth Arete). We had the odd heated moment but mainly it was civil. The funniest story, which Stuart laughed at later but was pissed when it happened, was one day at Cold Springs Dome when DGriff "Rock Warrior'd" (trying to pull people off the rock from the Masters of Stone films, which he starred in) Stuart for climbing Stealing Fire (13b--hardest route in the area at the time) before him.
Two other guys worth mentioning are Jeff Johnson and Paul Anderson and what they did at The Swimming Hole (Tar Creek) as that place was a decade or two ahead of its time. They were true visionaries in the bouldering world. All of the bouldering development that I did, which was extensive, trickled down from them inspiring Wills who inspired me. They completely changed our perspective (Wills, myself, and then Bob Banks when he got here) to ways to develop bouldering by looking at a new style of lines in non-traditional boulder fields. Now it seems normal but, back then, sans pads, most people would dismiss a place like The Swimming Hole and it took those guys to see the potential. This bit o' history got cut out of my guide (by Falcon because Tar Creek was closed at the time and I think they were afraid of getting sued or something) and it's important.
3. More detail of any old hang outs, The Shed, The Castle or any other plywood hangout areas with any stories?
A lot has been written in Allez, various guides, and Wills did a Castle article for Climbing (or R&I). So many stories. It was really a hub for west coast climbers, even if it was more about fun and training than actual local climbing.
4. Any info on your old video/climbing store in the 90s.
This is where that hub began. I was very psyched, as I said on the public service of making SB a good place to climb. I held competitions at UCSB (on a terrible little wall) that drew big crowds. Everything happened around @#$%! Video & Climbing Boutique. You'd come into the store and there would be people training, watching movies, drinking beer. Some people never left the shop. Really, Phil Requist, Todd Mei, and others were in the shop whenever they weren't climbing or at school.
5. Where was the place locally in the 80s, 90s to get climbing gear.
After the BD lawsuits Chouinard became very disinterested in climbing and supported it less and less until giving up on it altogether. So then we just had my little shop and Mountain Air sports. I actually sold a fair amount of gear. I sold stuff pretty cheap at my shop because, again, I wanted people to be psyched on climbing. I was more into the public service than making money. I also designed the GVAC climbing wall for free for the same reason.
6. Did you make any of your gear?
Training gear yes. Climbing no. We were always tinkering with better ways to train. Trying to change the sport.
7. Did you?
The sport evolved a ton in those years and we probably had something to do with it. If I knew then what I know now, after all those years of trial and error, about training I would have climbed much harder.
8. Any info on Yvon Chouinard climbing in S.B.?
He was into big mountains. We don't have any of those so not really. He did, like, two FAs. One was with Chris Bonnington of Himalayan fame, which is super rad (at San Ysidro).
9. Any info on 1950s Herbert Rickert?
No, but he was very active very early so he was probably burly and adventurous. All of those old guys, climbing on terrible rock without decent gear, must have had a great sense of adventure.
10. Any info on Hans Florline in SB. Him and is wife was going to come down to Ojai for a School Climbing event, but fell through.
I met Hans through Phil Requist and we're all still great friends. These guys are two of my best friends and we've all done a lot together. Phil and I have developed most of Silly Rock (Tor, Mr. Lees) and Hans and I've done a few adventures and some fast climbing. We did four formations in Yosemite (El Cap, HD, Royal Arches and Manure Pile) in a day, ran up Half Dome without water on a 100 degree day, some birthday challenges, other stuff...
11. Any info on Tiffany Campbell/Levine, Peggy Oki, or boulders of the 70s Doug Hsu and Chuck Fitch climbing in S.B.?
Tiffany and Jason came around a lot but never did much (other than climb strong--though she and I had an epic chili pepper eating contest at Nationals one year). Peggy still climbs and lives in Ventura. Not much into development as she's more of a soul surfer/skater. I hear Doug and Chuck were very strong, maybe still are (rumors around Doug was climbing 5.13 wherever he was living during the 90s) but I never met them. Like so many others they spent some time and moved on. Their boulder problems are still hard. They must have been on the cutting edge for their day.
12. Any other interesting facts like how did you get into climbing and discover the S.B. hills.
For me it was completely serendipitous. I moved here to go to grad school, basically. My brother was in undergrad at UCSB and we knew IV (Isla Vista) needed a video store so that's what I did. I kind of thought I'd run my course as a climber since I'd quit my job and moved to Yosemite and climbed everything I'd wanted to. I was ready to move into another chapter of life. But for some reason my psyche fully returned in SB and it became all I cared about. I was, like, I can spend my little bit of money on school or I could travel and climb full time and I did the latter and it was fantastic. I had a van and everything I owned was in it (except the store). I didn't have a home. I worked, trained, and went climbing. Life was simple. It was probably the coolest period of my life.
"nothing's going free." - discussing the possibilities of freeing the polish route on fitzcarroldo with uber author/alpinist gregory crouch, players ball II
photos: jonathan kingston, jason houston, bob banks, john perlin, actiongirl sports, me and other random castle-ites...
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Tips For Fast & Efficient Coaching
- Superstar Beachbody Coach Tommy Mygrant
Every time I speak with a group of coaches I’m reminded that many aren’t aware of Beachbody’s vast array of educational resources that can help you train your customers more efficiently. As a coach you’ve got plenty of things that take up your time without having to try and also be a personal fitness trainer or nutritionist. Beachbody already has a bunch of those so why not use them?
Of course you can’t call or email us personally (which you know if you’ve tried to email me). With millions of customers our trainer customer ratio is decidedly low. But we can still help. A lot.
Over the years we’ve probably experienced every scenario that you’ll encounter as a coach, and many many more, all of which have been answered somewhere in written format. Once you learn where to search you can become the coach with all the answers, most likely spending less time than you do now. By following this quick reference guide to smarter coaching the above pic can be you!
Teambeachbody.com
This should be your home page. It’s populated with popular subjects and content is rotated regularly. As opposed to, say, digging around Yahoo health or some other popular site, the information on this page is directly placed to help guide and motivate Beachbody coaches.
Newsletters
If you aren’t signed up for the newsletters than you’re missing out. Over the last 12 years our content has been praised again and again to the point we’ve had letters from people stating we are the only fitness resource they use. This is because our articles are written specifically to you. When we strategize what goes into each newsletter our primary concern is what our customers have been asking about on the Message Boards. Essentially our newsletter archives are one giant FAQ.
Unfortunately they can be hard to search and 12 years is a lot of pages to scroll through. Here’s the trick that works best for us when we need to find them for reference. Google “Beachbody newsletter and the subject you are looking for”. If you know who wrote an article, like me or Denis Faye, you can add an author for more specificity but Beachbody newsletter generally is enough to weed out the masses.
Blogs
A Team Beachbody blog will be up and running shortly but, for now, we’ve got some more specific blogs that should be on your radar. Carl Daikeler‘s will keep you up to date on the latest happenings at Beachbody. Denis Faye’s “The Real Fitness Nerd” casts a critical eye on what’s going on both good and bad in the nutrition world. And where you are right now, The Straight Dope, is what I call tertiary information—meaning it’s advanced reading for those who want a deeper understanding of fitness and nutrition than what you’ll get in our diet guides and newsletters. And, while less frequently updated, Chalene Johnson and Tony Horton’s blog, as well as Tony's Huffington Post site is always worth a read. All of these should be on your favorites list and checked regularly.
Message Boards
If you’re not using the Team Beachbody Message Boards where have you been? Once the hub of everything Beachbody, this is the place where we’ve specifically answered all of those weird questions your customers hit you with. No matter how bizarre you may think a question is there is a very good chance we’ve heard it, and answered it, before. Our staff has cataloged these answers so they’re at their fingertips, meaning they can shoot you an answer a lot faster than it would take you to search PubMed and try and make sense out of a bunch of hard to decipher abstracts.
Another big plus of the Boards is that it puts us all on theme. Re-purposing FAQs to your customers keeps your coaching message consistent. As Beachbody grows our messaging grows too. The more consistent it is the easier everyone’s job gets.
For the most actively monitored Forums go to Info and Education. That's where the experts spend most of their time.
It should be noted that the boards' popularity once took a hit when coach phishing was rampant in the early days of TBB. That issue is now praciclly nonexistent as we monitor heavily for trolls.
To add more to Tommy Mygrant’s above quote, he also told me that the Boards were a massive time saver for his coaching, enabling him to focus motivating and selling instead of trying to fix issues that were better handled by others. He summed up by saying “I don’t know how any coach gets by without them.”
Friday, May 18, 2012
Red Wine, Hard Climbing, & Martinis
For your Friday Psyche I present some excellent research on the health benefits of wine as well as a video where it’s put into practice. Picky types might notice that increased stomach flora is unlikely to help athletic performance in a given afternoon but that’s nitpicking. Wine is good for you and this guy used it to help him have perhaps the best afternoon of climbing in history.
First, the wine part. From the NY Times:
When it comes to the health-promoting effects of red wine, its potential to protect against heart disease tends to get all the attention. But there are some who see it as a sort of probiotic delivery system, capable of benefiting the stomach as well...
In one, the subjects drank red wine, about a cup daily. In another, they drank the same amount of red wine daily, but this time with the alcohol removed. In the third, they drank up to 100 milliliters a day of gin each day. In the end, the researchers found that both types of red wine produced improvements in the bacterial composition of the gut, lowered blood pressure and reduced levels of a protein associated with inflammation.
The video is of German climber Permin Bertle doing something that’s never been done, climbing two 9a’s within a 75 minute window (only a few climbers have managed two 9a’s in a given day). According to the vid this happened after a volumous lunch featuring many glasses of wine. Also worth noting that this is the second non-conventional Psyche vid in a row, as this one goes into some depth on what’s required to do each climb. These vids, that perhaps lack the pace of pure climbing porn, provide a lot more information about what the sport entails. I like 'em.
Finally, while it wasn’t the focus of the study it was good to see that the odd martini has more than the obivous upside as well. The Times reports, slight improvements in gut flora were seen among gin drinkers, but the effects in the wine drinkers were much more pronounced.
Have a great weekend! See you at the crags, or the bar.
Monday, May 14, 2012
The Morning Is A Special Time
Whenever my training transitions towards endurance goals the first lifestyle change I make doing yoga first thing in the morning. After long days in the mountains nothing works out the kinks and re-sets my mental state as well as 15-30 minutes of restorative yoga as part of the awakening process.
It’s something I’m sure would be good to do all the time but I always get out of the habit in winter and, especially since its filled with a lot of strength training, come spring I’m always fairly stiff. I do some amount of yoga all year and stretch after training sessions but there’s something about the ritual of morning yoga that helps my mindset switch into another gear.
The change is also physical. Yoga helps your body balance out, especially when it’s taking a beating getting used to transitioning for hour long gym sessions to many hours of pounding under the sun in the backcountry. Done first things in the morning it sets the stage for another hard day. When I wake up I’ll often feel stiff and sore. My breathing might be slightly labored and my mind clogged. A few minutes into yoga, without fail, I my breathing relaxes, head clears, and muscles come back to life. The rest of the day is always improved.
I’ve been doing this long enough that I generally make up my own routines. But once in a while, like when I’m first getting back into the habit, I’ll pop in the old go-to video Rodney Yee’s AM Yoga (note objective tone of ‘the Dope since Yee is not one of our trainers). Yee is the kind of calming yoga teacher you want first thing in the morning. His serene demeanor, the faux native-something or other music, the Utah desert setting and the decidedly hippie tone is a perfect symbiosis.
“Morning is a special time,” says Yee as the prelude to his intro that I often still listen to even though I know it by heart. It’s over-the-top, sure, but if it can calm to crazy cattle dogs in the morning I’m sure it’ll work on any human.
Friday, May 11, 2012
If You’re Not Falling You’re Not Trying Hard Enough
Cool vid this week featuring American Daniel Woods and a bunch of young Japanese crankenfranks (and Yuji) showing a ridiculous amount of motivation in terrible conditions. Since I’m actually going bouldering this weekend (last bouldering-specific trip was probably in, um, 2000) this seemed appropriate for the Friday Psyche.
This vid is long (30m), and is all in Japanese except when Woods is speaking, but it’s much more authentic as a bouldering experience that what you see in most climbing porn. You get to see what goes into a hard ascent: from falling all over something to piecing it together to dealing with bad skin, conditions, a finite amount of time and the reality that you may not succeed. Unlike boulders in a lot of vids these problems look really really hard, especially knowing the climbers are really really strong. It’s also got an odd Japanese perspective to it that I just happen to like.
Happy Friday. Have a faaantastic weekend!
Wednesday, May 09, 2012
More Caffeine Fun
From Diabetes.co.uk:
The scientists from the Centre for Neuroscience and Cell Biology of the University of Coimbra in Portugal, whose work was published in the journal PLoS, showed that the long-term consumption of caffeine reduced weight gain and high blood sugar levels, as well as preventing memory loss, probably due to its interfering with the neurodegeneration caused by toxic sugar levels.
This hot on the heels of an article I just wrote, 10 Things To Like And Not Like About Coffee, which among many other things contained this nugget:
From Harvard Health, "The latest research has not only confirmed that moderate coffee consumption doesn't cause harm, it's also uncovered possible benefits. Studies show that the risk for type 2 diabetes is lower among regular coffee drinkers than among those who don't drink it. Also, coffee may reduce the risk of developing gallstones, discourage the development of colon cancer, improve cognitive function, reduce the risk of liver damage in people at high risk for liver disease, and reduce the risk of Parkinson's disease. Coffee has also been shown to improve endurance performance in long-duration physical activities."
So coffee is good for you. This is nothing every David Lynch fan in the world hasn’t known for years. What I find most odd is how it gets lumped into the category with garbage like soda and gas station cuisine. In fact, I happen to live among a populace that claims to have a divine document stating that coffee is evil but Coke is holy. It’s no friggin’ wonder our biggest threat to extinction is no longer nuclear war but expanding waistlines.
Friday, May 04, 2012
Yak Attack!
There’s no contest for this week’s Friday Psyche. Along with my acceptance into the Yak Attack in Nepal comes this video of the 2012 edition. Seems like there will be some good suffering involved but also, as the last guy says, it looks “awesome!” I still can't believe that I'm actually getting to go. It's the chance of a lifetime.
As an added bonus here’s an extra video on riding in Nepal, which looks a lot more serene than the madness of the race. Beautiful though. Thanks, Sonya!
As an added bonus here’s an extra video on riding in Nepal, which looks a lot more serene than the madness of the race. Beautiful though. Thanks, Sonya!
Thursday, May 03, 2012
SAD to MAD: The Non-Diet Diet
As many of you know I’m a dietary lab rat. I’ve tested almost every diet known to man in the name of research but, mainly, my go-to plan when I’ve got to get into peak shape is the non-diet. The non-diet is our Utopian version of the Standard American Diet (SAD) that we give away with every Beachbody fitness program. The overall goal being to create a new template for America: the Modern American Diet, that some might call MAD.
The SAD diet is what’s become of nutrition in this country under the watch of the USDA and Big Food, which is basically by-products of GMO corn and soy and meat and dairy so toxic it has to be rendered practically devoid of nutrients before it’s safe to eat. A while back I commented on the new USDA “food pyramid”, citing that the issue isn’t that it’s too complicated but that most of what American’s eat isn’t on the pyramid at all! The SAD diet, the primary contributor to the most expensive health epidemic in history, is made up almost entirely of stuff that wouldn’t be food in the natural world.
In contrast the MAD diet is, well, food. It’s plants, grains (sorry Cavemen), nuts, seeds, and the occasional animal product from something that wasn’t raised in a dark prison cell and fed toxic garbage. When you eat real food you don’t have to worry too much about calories and such because it’s somewhat self regulating since it’s fiber filled, nutrient dense, and hasn’t been laden with chemicals designed to make you crave more: the direct opposite of what you find in 95% of most supermarkets. You eat based on feel and performance and with a little experience (or guidance) you’ll learn what works best and when. When someone on the SAD diet commits to this transition it will feel magical—like alchemy when, in fact, it’s exactly the opposite.
At this point you might note that Beachbody offers a different nutrition plan with every program. And while you would be correct in a sense, all of these are variations on the same theme; trying to get our customers to swap junk for real food to the point where they don’t need any type of nutrition plan and can eat based on feel. The entry points are different, the strategies vary, but our end result is always the same; you know how to feed your body so that it performs its best.
In my day-to-day life I feel great almost all the time. I sleep well, exercise a ton, have plenty of energy and stay pretty darn healthy. I was joking during my last dietary foray that the only time that I don’t feel good is when I’m trying a new diet. But I’ve still got to do it. Not only does it greatly aid my job it’s been my MO since I was a teenager so why would I stop? If a diet or supplement hits the market that is truly going to alter the planet I’m damn well going to be one of the first to know about it. So a-testing I will go.
The catalyst for this post is my recent experimentations with a taper diet. I’ve re-shuffled this a couple of times, and it’s getting better, but each attempt ends up causing a regression in my own fitness (small but noticeable) because I tweak until it goes awry. If you don’t know the point where something goes off the rails you’re never sure how to standardize your recommendations. So after a month of offbeat eating its time to get back to what I know brings everything back to homeostasis; the MAD diet. Or , ya know, just eating.
On this blog I've cited examples where I use my regular diet, slightly streamlined, to go from everyday weight to competition weight (always slightly under optimal health weight, which should have some extra body fat for reserve). At the end of any Beachbody plan that should be your goal: to understand your body’s relationship with food well enough to eat based on how you feel and get maximum results. Which, when you think about it, shouldn’t seem all the MAD.
Tuesday, May 01, 2012
Racing Over The Himalayas
I just receive word that I’m one of 25 international riders to get into the Yak Attack, a 10-stage mtb race around Nepal that goes over a Himalayan pass at nearly 20k feet. Can you say psyched? Instead of me yammering on about a race I’ve never done check out Sonya Looney’s account. She’s a professional mountain bike racer, and first female finisher ever, but was still was so broken down by the rigors of the endeavor that things came to this:
I don’t know if I can promise such detailed and candid race coverage but my friend Rebecca has vowed that “if any of you cry I’m videoing it and pasting it all over the Internet”. So there you have it; if I lose it because I can’t finish the race you’ll get a video courtesy of “The Queen of Pain” that Specialized will make sure gets plenty of action. It very well could happen.
Not that we’re making fun of Sonya because she’s as tough as they come and will kick my ass on a bike any given day. In fact, her blog is so rad it's the highlight of today’s (mid-week ‘cause I was too busy to write anything up last weekend) Psyche. It’s truly a fantastic account of the race and Nepal in general. Having been there I can say she captured it exceedingly well. So sit back, grab a cup o’ chai, and enjoy the ride (or hike-a-bike)...
Sonya Looney’s Yak Attack blog: Welcome to Nepal
It’s a long read and she posted it one day at a time (so you need to scroll forward). I savored it a couple of stages at a time.
Photos: Paul Topham and Jeremy Dean
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Training For Speed
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Portrait Of An Athlete: Lindsey Vonn
Some of you may not believe me but I’m not always motivated. Sometimes I feel like going to happy hour instead of training. There are times when I question why I work so hard when there’s no health reason for keeping my body fat low or my anaerobic threshold peaking. The Psyche posts are for just these times, to help keep me from slacking.
Today’s Psyche is a teaser to the film In The Moment, a documentary about skier Lindsey Vonn. The entire show can be streamed on Netflix. The Vonn most of us see wins a lot of important races and socialized with celebrities at red carpet events. What we don’t see on Sports Center, E, or OMG! could not be more of a contrast.
This film may not interest a lot of people. It glamorizes nothing and, in fact, doesn’t make being a professional athlete (even one of the best that ever lived) look like a lot of fun. If you think that you work hard, sacrifice, and focus in life it will make you reassess that position.
It’s said that the best athletes are born and not made. And while it’s true that “you can’t put in what God’s left out” ask Sam Mussabini said young pupil Harold Abrams in Chariots of Fire (who would go on to win Olympic gold) no one is that unique. Sure, there are athletic measures you are born with but there are billions of people on earth. One born with unique gifts still has thousands of other similarly-talented individuals vying for one prize. The rest comes down to luck and how much you’re willing to sacrifice.
Vonn sacrifices. A lot. And while it's never going to be what trends on Twitter it is the reality of what it takes to be the best.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
How To Choose The Right Exercise Program
In my last chat I was asked why P90X2 wasn’t as good for weight loss as P90X. Ironically that same week Tony Horton hosted some coaches for a workout at his house where they burned over 1,200 calories in an hour doing an X2 workout. This doesn’t mean the question was dumb. It means it requires a longer answer than I could give at that time because it starts new topic; how to choose the right exercise program.
If everyone burned 1,200 calories during an X2 workout it would be amazing for weight loss. But many people do not because P90X2 is what we call at Beachbody a post-graduate program. Its predecessor, P90X, is a graduate program and the series original, Power 90, is an intro program. Trying to do P90X2 before you’re ready is like walking into French IV when you haven’t taken French 1. You’re not ready and, thus, won’t be able get the most out of it. In fact you’ll probably feel lost.
At Beachbody we’re creating fitness solutions for the entire planet, and most of this planet doesn’t play in the NBA or NFL. P90X2 was created specifically for our customers who’ve become so fit they require an elite program on the level of the professional athlete. If someone lets you borrow a surfboard are you going to paddle into Pipeline and attempt to catch your first wave? Probably not. Choosing the wrong fitness program will drown your results just as fast. A brief rundown of the Beachbody line-up will help you understand why.
P90X2 and Insanity: The Asylum are currently Beachbody’s only post-graduate programs. They were designed for our customers who’d mastered P90X and Insanity. If you can’t do those programs it doesn’t make sense to begin something harder because you won’t have the fitness base to complete the individual exercises, much less the workouts. And if you can’t do the workouts you won’t get very fit.
As an example let’s take the workout P90X Chest & Back. I’ve had people tell me they only burned 150 calories in this workout. I’ve burned over a thousand. The difference is when you can’t do push-ups and you can’t do pull-ups and don’t modify correctly so that you fail at 10 reps or more per exercise than the difference in that workout is night and day. I’m completely pumped from my very first set to the last, 45 straight minutes pushing my anaerobic threshold—it’s everything I can do to not puke! But someone who can’t do the exercises won't get pumped will likely max their caloric burn during the warm-up! This is exactly why we have you do a fit test before you begin: to see if you belong in P90X in the first place.
For X2 we expect you to be able to do P90X. If you can’t do, say, Warrior 3 in Yoga X you’re not going to be able to do Warrior 3 curls or kickbacks--just one of numerous examples. We do offer exceptional modifications in X2 but, like X, they still require you to find a point where you fail at the required number of repetitions to work their magic. As I said in another post, you can’t claim X2 workouts mastered until you can use the same amount of weight (in its difficult positions) as you can with P90X.
In Asylum, Shaun yells at his cast that “this is not Insanity, people!” as if that program is light cardio. Most of you know that Insanity is anything but so it shouldn’t surprise you that if you can’t do Insanity you might not make it through the warm-ups of Asylum.
Beachbody’s graduate programs include: 90X, Insanity, Turbo Fire, P90X+, and Debbie Siebers’ Slim Series. These programs were based off of intro programs that are similar in style but accessible to almost anyone: Power 90, Hip Hop Abs/Rockin’ Body, Slim in 6. If you’re inspired by P90X but can’t do the fit test, a round of Power 90 will give you much better results and will ultimately have you mastering X and X2 a lot quicker than beginning with the harder program.
In addition, our intro line has many other options to fit your personality. We now have what I call gentle, moderate, and hard into programs. Our goal is to have workouts for every single demographic. We want to eliminate all possible excuses for not getting healthy.
If you’ve never exercised or are coming off an injury that’s impaired your ability to move you might consider Tai Cheng because it will retrain your movement patterns. Love the idea of martial arts training but want something more challenging, try Rev Abs. If you hate to exercise but love to dance you might try Hip Hop Abs, Turbo Jam, Body Gospel or Yoga Booty Ballet. Conversely those who are challenged by coordinating their moves might prefer Slim in 6 or Kathy Smith’s Project You, which use simple exercises to great effect. Those who like pumping iron should consider Power 90 or Chalean Extreme. And if you’re ultra-time crunched we’ve got 10 Minute Trainer to get you in the habit of daily exercise.
As for results; all of our programs work exactly the same. Seriously, our test groups get similar results in every program we make (we don’t release them until the do). We screen the test groups to make sure the right people are doing the right program and you should too. Of course X2 graduates are ultimately fitter than Power 90 graduates but that’s because they’ve done more homework. Just like a French IV graduate is more fluent than a French 1 there is a logical progression to getting fit and it’s much easier and quicker if you’re taking the right class.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
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.
Monday, April 16, 2012
Integration Experiment
Today I begin experimentation with a 10-day integration program designed to lead to a short performance peak. I’ve spent most of the last couple of months training indoors and need to transition those strength gains into real world application. Of course it has some foundation because I do this sort of thing all the time but it merits recording because I’m experimenting with a type of taper diet as well.
A little over a week ago I began a 6-day diet designed to cut weight during a low volume period of training without sacrificing any fitness gains. It went okay but wasn’t perfect. I lost 8lbs in a week but performance was sacrificed a bit. This week running a similar template, diet-wise, but beefing it up to accommodate harder training with hopes of nailing what went wrong last time. It didn’t really go wrong. It worked very well in some respects. But my goal is to cut weight and sacrifice no performance so I’m attempting the template under more duress (training load) where nutritional parameters are easier to assess and try and figure how to tweak the original idea.
I begin the week 3lb downs from my high point two weeks ago, so I gained 5 of the 8 I lost back meaning the last attempting promoted too much dehydration or I was indulgent this weekend (it’s a bit of both). Goals are to lose weight while increasing performance comfort outside in three disciplines, running, biking, and climbing.
The details
I chose a 10 day period because the ultimate goal is a perfect tapering diet and you generally taper between one and two weeks for an event. This also coincides with a work trip where I’m supposed to shoot some climbing footage for the P90X2 show and I need to be able to climb whatever routes look good to the production crew.
I will be climbing, running, and riding and training everyday (not doing each daily) as well as doing easy yoga and foam rolling. I’ll be doing three full body postactivation potentiation (PAP) workout per week. These are like a combo of P90X2 Upper and Lower and I’ll post that workout tomorrow.
The diet is low carb for days, around 50% protein with very little fat. While doing this I’ll drink 2 gallons of water a day (yep!) and eat a lot of salt. This, btw, is very difficult for someone who is mainly vegetarian (likely impossible for a vegan) so I’m adding a little bit of meat and fish so that I don’t have to live on protein powder and Shakeology. Hardest thing for me is giving up all the nuts, seeds, and legumes that generally make up most of my diet.
Next I drop the water to one gallon, stop adding salt to food, and add low-glycemic carbs back into the diet. Protein consumption stays high and fat stays low. I normally eat a pretty fatty diet (all healthy plant-based fats from the aforementioned nuts and seeds as well as olives and avocados). This flushes sodium from your body but since I’m not cutting sodium completely it should help cell hydration normalize.
That is only the base template I’m working off of. It’s what I did last time and it’s getting tweaked but I see no reason to post my alterations until I know they work.
The target is increased fat mobilization (as stored glycogen is compromised) and hydration homeostasis. These two things will happen for sure but the trick here is how to do this without a loss in performance. There are many theories on this, of course, but until they’ve been applied with a positive outcome there’s no reason to consider them. My goal is to understand all the subtleties so that I can better advise people on how to do this based on their personal parameters.
Friday, April 13, 2012
10 Things To Like And Not Like About Coffee
After a period of darkness in honor of Caballo Blanco, The Straight Dope is back with a different kind of dark. This one, black as midnight on a moonless night, is some serious Friday Psyche about coffee. Here’s an excerpt from an article I wrote evaluating both the good and bad sides of the world’s favorite elixir.
From Harvard Health, "... Studies show that the risk for type 2 diabetes is lower among regular coffee drinkers than among those who don't drink it. Also, coffee may reduce the risk of developing gallstones, discourage the development of colon cancer, improve cognitive function, reduce the risk of liver damage in people at high risk for liver disease, and reduce the risk of Parkinson's disease. Coffee has also been shown to improve endurance performance in long-duration physical activities."
As you’ve probably already guessed the article is mainly positive. All 10 of the pluses and minuses listed are from major studies featuring thousands of subjects over a number of years so it’s pretty iron clad data. Some of the more surprising stats show that even excessive coffee drinking can highly beneficial.
At a 2009 conference, they reported that the likelihood of having a stroke was highest among people who didn't drink coffee and lowest among those who drank the most coffee: 5 percent of people who drank 1 or 2 cups a day suffered strokes, whereas 2.9 percent of people who drank 6 or more cups suffered strokes. So much for moderation.
The summary is that, basically, coffee is almost always good for you if it doesn’t interfere with your sleep (more important than coffee’s benefits) and you don’t load is up with a lot of junk like milk and sugar—-which can have even more dire implications than irritating Harry Callahan.
Friday, April 06, 2012
If You Knew Caballo Blanco You Won
My friend Micah True (aka Caballo Blanco) passed away while on a run in the wilds of New Mexico last week. After an exhaustive search he was found by one of his closest friends with no injury, plenty of water, and no sign of struggle. Apparently he died peacefully doing what he lived for: running free.
Why an obit would make the Friday Psyche isn’t a question if you knew him. His infectious enthusiasm will live on. The common sentiment among the Mas Locos (a group of his closest running friends) was how fitting it was that he died doing what he loved. But amongst the tributes one person sorted out our true feelings when he said “what’s most impressive is that he lived doing what he loved.” That’s why he will always be an inspiration.
Caballo Blanco was the protagonist in Christopher McDougall’s (El Oso – Micah liked referring to everyone by a totem) book Born to Run. Portrayed as a mythical hero, who ran like a ghost through the remote Copper Canyons of Mexico aiding the Tarahumara’s (or Raramuri – “the running people”) fight against extinction, it was the stuff of legend. It was also true.
The Caballo Blanco I knew, however, wasn’t the reticent character in the book. He was gregarious and full of passion, which didn’t take me long to find out. After finishing Born to Run I decided to use the interweb to see just how hard the guy really was to track down. Turned out he had a web site. Seemingly only a few seconds after hitting send on an email I had a chat request from one Micah True. Ironically, the ghost-like character that El Oso had spent a couple hundred pages trying to find was contacting me less than five minutes after I’d begun searching. In the years since I probably haven’t gone more than a few weeks without hearing what he’s up to.
Oddly I never met him. We often seemed to be in the same places at different times. I made it down to the Barrancas (local’s reference to Barrancas del Cobre—Copper Canyon) a few years back but had to leave the day before we were to rendevous for one of the pre-race hikes. My dog had a stroke and I headed north. On the bus leaving Creel I received a simple note from El Caballo supporting my choice, “Dog is great.”
Like many of the Mas Locos, as soon as I heard he was missing I offered to help. I was in LA and had to get back to Utah, by which time many Mas Locos were already en route. I put myself on call with the SAR team, packed my van with rescue gear, and drove south to get closer should I be needed. My wife and I spoke about the possibilities. Once hopeful scenario I’s concocted was that he’d decided to disappear, like the character in the book, and that we’d never find him by his own design. And even though Romney only knew him through me and the book she rejected it. “He liked people too much,” she said. “And he’d never put his friends through this on purpose.” This busted my utopian bubble because I knew it was correct. If there was one thing Micah was about it was then name he’d bestowed himself, being true.
Caballo Blanco was about truth. He was quick to point out any hyperbole, be it about helping the Tarahumara, barefoot running, or even the book that lionized him. He understood why Born to Run was written in such a popular format but his tellings were more straightforward. For example, in BTR the scene where he encounters the Tarahumara plays out like Western (and is a GREAT read). But Caballo’s actual account is different. Not Hollywood at all but with its own style that those who knew him will appreciate even more. When I asked if I could use it on my blog he replied “stories are for sharing.” Click the passage below for some fine reading:
"Well, shucks; I really want to run this race, and am an old time, loyal friend of this event; won't you let me enter?" I had pleaded with the race director, who did not even remember my name, or who I was, even though I had run the "family'' like race four times. No chance; the race had grown big now, and entry was at a premium. The "New York Times" and many publications had written the story of the 55 year old Mexican winning the race. Leadville was now a huge spot on the ultra-running map! The race and their corporate sponsor, a shoe company, had benefited considerably from all of the publicity, the feel good story of the impoverished Indians running for their communities; and not JUST running, but winning; and a 55 year old in sandals at that! A deal was made with the 'gringo' promoter who had driven the Tarahumara north, to bring another team of seven Raramuri to the '94 race. I think that part of the deal was to wear the race-sponsor's shoes for a photo op.
I received a phone call from the gringo sponsor/promoter of the team of Raramuri. He was looking for help, someone who could run and knew the course, to pace some of "his" runners. "Sure, I'll do it, providing I can run the whole 50 mile return with the runner of my choice." "They tend to run faster as they go; you think you can keep up?" he challenged. "If I can't keep up, then they don't need me," I confirmed...
What happens to the Tarahumara in his wake is hard to say. Elections that could change things are about to take place and Micah, though he’d never run for office, was a serendipitous politician. As goes the bloody history of the Americas all indigenous peoples are under constant threat. Strange as it may seem, Micah’s race, The Copper Canyon Ultra Marathon and books like Born to Run are very effective ways to thwart these would-be vanquishers of history. The more popular a culture is the harder it becomes for it to disappear. I’m guessing if last wishes were reality Caballo Blanco’s would have been for everyone to appreciate this region enough to protect its land and people.
I had a hard time writing this because so many knew him better and I’m privy, even as a fringe Mas Loco, to all of their more beautiful and personal tributes. They were his family. It seems like theirs are the words should be heard. Then again, if you want personal feelings you should probably make a personal endeavor. Caballo Blanco’s stories will always be shared in las Barrrancas. Visit and you’ll be welcomed with open arms; along all the lore you’re willing to listen to.
This year, on race weekend, the Mas Locos thread was bustling with inquiries about results. And while the race itself is always competitive that wasn’t in any way Micah’s reason for staging it. He had little interested over who finished where. If you were out there, running free as he liked to say, he could not care less about how far or how fast you went. I don’t know if anyone was disappointed when he finally posted but it made my day and reminded me to get back down there next year.
He began by summarizing the race numbers (I think it was over 500 locals and 70 visitors from around the world, both records) and how much money and corn was raised for the locals. He thanked everyone for coming and posted the results. “Everybody won.” And that’s how it was with Micah. Life was simple: be true and you win. I laughed out loud, and then went for a run.
Thursday, April 05, 2012
Muscular Endurance, Part 2
Last week’s post on training muscular endurance generated some questions requiring further explanation. Let’s do a little q and a.
Jonathan Mann asks, “Would this work well alongside marathon training?”
Yes, depending...(remember this answer). All athletes benefit from training muscular endurance and, in fact, it also will help those who are just trying to change their body composition. The more efficient the systems in your body work the easier it is to target the one you need to make the biggest physiological changes. This is true whether your goal is to run a marathon fast, a quick 100 meters, or to look better in a bathing suit.
The variation lies in how much time you spend training it. A 100 meter athlete will very little of their time on muscular endurance but will still address it*. A marathoner, being an ‘endurance athlete’, would appear have more direct need to train this system but this mainly gets covered in your sports specific training so, while you’ll still want to spend a phase training muscular endurance you will be best served by periodizing your training to cover all the bases: endurance, strength, and power.
Also, as I said in my short answer to his question, you’d want to do this training away from the time you’re trying to run fast. When body composition training is occurring it always takes a toll on your performance, which is why most hard training is done during the off-season.
Off topic, but on a similar theme, there were a couple of questions on mixing running with P90X2. The answer is it depends but the above paragraph spells it out further. You can run during X2 just fine but you’ll want to do mainly base work (aerobic and/or drills). If you wanted to do X2 during the last prep phases before a race (and you care how fast you run) I would severely abridge the program. Search “P90X running steve edwards” and you’ll find an article or two I wrote on how you might do this.
Finally, Bobby from Norco writes, I was curious when you would put this into a cycle and when you would see the relative benefits (also how long they would last so you could see performance gains including this glycolytic boost)?
Of course, this depends. I like to put muscular endurance training early in a cycle in general because it will make the processes your train later more efficient. There are arguments for placing it elsewhere, all based around your ultimate goals, personal weaknesses, and how much time you have to cycle your training. It’s easier to increase endurance parameters than power parameters so if absolute strength is what you want to increase most you may begin with training that, whether you are a power or endurance athlete. The only answer here that doesn't depend is that you get the best results targeting one system at a time. This is why if time is no issue (rarely the case) systematic training is a better option than trying to improve all of your physiological processes at once.
The same answer applies to how long the results with last, which is based on what you do. If you stop training your results won’t last very long and the same is true if you over train. If you train perfectly you’ll basically never lose your results but if that were possible this entire game we’re playing and, in fact, probably even sports would cease to exist. As a general rule I like to do at least one cycle (3 to 6 weeks) of muscular endurance per year in the gym (how much sports specific muscular endurance training I do, well, depends...).
*Power athletes should all read Speed Trap, a book written by Charlie Francis, former world record 100 meter runner Ben Johnson’s coach
pic: don't confuse muscular endurance with endurance training. too much endurance training takes away from power and vice-versa, but efficient muscle cell function gained by training allows you to better target goals in either realm, power or endurance.
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