The Stuff Of P90X2

“What do you people have against being prepared?”
- Burt, Tremors

We’re getting a ton of questions on all of the equipment seen in the background of the photos that have been posted on the making of mc2 so I’ll address all of it today.

The bottom line is that to begin the program all you need, just like P90X, are some exercise bands and a door attachment. We’ve set up the entire program so that it can be done anywhere using bands and standard items you’d find in any hotel room. It’s not the optimal way to do the program but it will work just fine—much better than I’ll bet you’re thinking it will right now. You’ll believe me once you see how hard the cast using the modifiers are working in the videos.

no matter where you stay we’ve got a workout for ya.

But given that it’s a state-of-the-art program that mimics what a lot of high profile trainers do in gyms, we are using a lot of modern equipment. Here’s the breakdown of items you might want to invest in, all of which will be available on the Beachbody web site, as well as their household equivalents.

Resistance: bands and/or weights and a pull-up bar. While you can mimic this at home it’s unlikely that anyone won’t make, at least, a band investment so I won’t go into options like water jugs, soup cans, or your old Chevy. If you’re serious at all, at a minimum get yourself some bands.

philo beddoe trains at home to take on tank murdoch.

Stability Ball: Instability is a large part of this program. Creating instability requires your body to fire its stabilizer muscles, which reduces muscular imbalance that is the number one reason for injuries and biomechanical breakdown in your body as it ages. If you can’t afford a stability ball you have wobbly stuff in your house. Couches, chairs, towels, and beds all move under load, as does your carpet, all creating instability. This means anyone busting out feaux 70s décor like shag carpeting is going to start off with an advantage of sorts. Or you can just buy a ball.

instability, in so many ways.

Medicine Balls: We mainly use these for stabilizing, not weight, so these can be swapped out for even less stable things in the rec room, like basketballs, soccer balls, etc. Med balls are a distinct advantage, especially as you start adding more weight, but you can replace them with all sorts of other stuff.

dr. j mid air during holmsen screamer lunges with med ball.

Foam roller: Here you can get fairly sadistic with cans, pvc pipe, rolling pins, baseballs, golf balls, etc. Many people “graduate” to harder items over time anyway but we’re pretty confident that if you start on them you’ll instantly feel the small investment you’re making for a proper foam roller completely worth the money.

mc2 producer heather coaxes her husband into some home foam roller testing.

Plyo boxes: We only step off of these, and never jump on them, so all you need is a sturdy chair or platform like a stairway.

an upsell for those who are serious about increasing their vertical leap ability.

Pull-up assist: We made it through all of P90x without mentioning this very cool improvement so it’s hard to say you’ll need it. But once you’ve used a proper assist you’ll never be as psyched again for the chair. Not only do you not have to alter your form to use the assist but it also helps you fire the proper muscles and not cheat in order to finish sets, creating better alignment in your movements.

Beddoe forced to mimic clyde after hitting the road without his pull-up assist.

Weighted bar: This is simply a luxury item. At home I use a broom, and I’d hope you’ve all got one of those.

broom or broom wagon; it’s your choice.

30k On Crutches

30th Birthday Challenge from Micah Elconin on Vimeo.

This week’s psyche goes to Micah Elconin for surviving one of the grimmer days of suffering I’ve seen. When an injury forced him to change his original birthday challenge he went big--maybe a little too big but that's all the better for the viewer. His blog reports:

I’m a sucker for physical challenges, and a new idea was rising to the surface - could I cover 30km of trail on crutches in a single push?

It seemed possible, but given that I’d never covered that much ground with 2 healthy legs, I knew there would be significant suffering involved in an attempt. Perfect.

Yep, he said crutches. Micah nearly lost his foot in a climbing accident a while back and his one of his appendages is covered with something called a fixator. The video is quite entertaining should answer any questions.

P90X2 Rehearsals

We just wrapped shooting day 1 of P90x mc2 (name still pending) and it went amazingly well. But there's no time to relax as we shoot two workouts tomorrow and will have the entire program in the can before the end of next week. With so much work there’ s precious little time for taking photos, not to mention blogging (though I noticed our CEO Twitted a mid-workout vid cap even though we’ve a staunch “no photos on set” rule), so I’m not sure how many updates I’ll be making--but you might consider following Carl.

Last week our producer Heather (of the not-yet-but-soon-to-be famous “Church wrap”) and I snapped a few camera phone shots of our rehearsals. These aren’t good photos but when you see the final set and action it might be kind of cool to compare that to some down and dirty behind the scenes shots.

pics: below, tony and steve holmsen experiment with some band modifications. you're going to be blow away by how hard you can work in a hotel room with a band. above, if you want a shirt like i'm wearing you need to finish this program. maybe i'm lying... or not.

below, you'll be amazed at what you can do with some bands, light weights, and some instability. but don't get to thinking that's all there is. our rehearsal space couldn't find large enough dumbells for this crew.

demonstrating the "edwards variation", which may or may not make it into the final cut. doesn't help that this is the last movement of the final complex series of the coup de grâce workout of the program. ouch.

day one went well, duh! have a look at this cast: the stars of P90x plus and a human pogo stick named roberto.

Urban Downhilling

I've been leaving it all on the floor during mc2 rehearsals all week so the rest of the preview will have to wait until I have a little more free time. In the mean time, Here's some rad downhill mountain bike action from the streets of Valparaiso, Chile. Enjoy the ride.

Grewal: Comeback 5.0

Most sporting comebacks feature a lot of hype and disappointing outcomes. Today’s Psyche entry is about one that’s so absurdly audacious that it’s almost devoid of hype. This morning in Nevada, 1984 Olympic Gold Medalist, Alexi Grewal, lines up for his first official professional bike race in 17 years. He’s 50.

I love comebacks even though I rarely expect much from them. It’s simple human nature to wonder how a retired sports icon would fare against the day’s young bucks. Generally, the answer is not as well as we’d like. And, even if predicted, these non-dominant outcomes often tarnish reputations. No one needed to see Ali get pummeled by Trevor Berbick, Jordan chalking up garbage time minutes, or Armstrong finish 67th in the Tour Down Under. But the idea of a comeback is hopelessly romantic. Society will never turn its back on an attempt.

I guess this is true of Grewal, too, if only in a very small way. A few companies have pitched him product, the community he lives in has been helping him financially, and there’s been a few articles written about him. But he’s hardly getting major press. I’m pretty sure there’s not a coffee table book in the works.

What makes Grewal’s comeback particularly inspiring is that it’s driven by love of sport. He’s not a bored billionaire who misses the limelight. The Texan probably makes more money in a day than Grewal’s made in the last decade. He’s just a guy who rides his bike a lot who got motivated to see how he’d stack up against today’s youth and decided to make whatever sacrifices were necessary in order to find out. How can you not love that?

Follow the action on Grewal’s blog, Back In Among The Wheels

P90X: Muscle Confusion Two

This ain’t your granddaddy’s weight training program. It’s too early to explain just what they are, exactly, but one thing that comes to mind consistently while doing the mc(muscle confusion)2 resistance workouts is a line Tony says in the preview to one of the P90X resistance workouts, “It’s just good old fashioned weight training.” P90X mc2 decidedly isn’t that, so today we’ll preview its weight training workouts.

In fact P90X wasn’t really old fashioned either. One of the things that make it so successful is that its workouts are complex. It takes a while for most anyone to master it and that keeps your progression curve heading skyward. This, of course, is part of our overall strategy for the program. By creating some amount of what our marketing team coined “muscle confusion” your body keeps adapting, and this prolongs the period of time it takes before you master the program and start to plateau.

But compared to mc2, 90x is old fashioned. Not only have we designed workouts that keep you adapting longer, they also target laser-specific weakness in the body that occur across a broad spectrum of the population. In the most laymen of explanations, this means that your muscles will not only grow and get strong, but they will do it in a way that’s forcing your body to use them more effectively. So as your muscles grow they are also going to work better from a biomechanical perspective. This means, quite simply, that beyond just improving how you look you are going to get better at doing stuff.

The first time you go through these workout it’s going to feel strange to most of you. At times you’re spending so much focus on holding the various positions that you may hardly move any weight. As your balance improves so will your ability to move more weight but, more importantly, you’ll be moving it with a more harmonious kinetic chain. This you’ll notice in your movements as everything you do in your daily life that requires you body to move will become easier. It’s the kind of feeling that’s addicting in an “I never thought this was possible” sorta way. Once you’ve felt it you’ll never want to go back, which challenges us to keep coming up with new and better stuff.

If this seems like a brush over of nearly half of the program’s workouts, consider that it’s really all you need to know. Decide, commit, and you’ll succeed beyond what you realized was possible.

pic: sure granddaddy was big but could he move?

Plyocide: Up Close and Personal

Would a rose by any other name smell as sweet? Seriously, Plyocide is the best name for a workout I’ve ever heard. I’m not sure which one of our crew coined it but I wish it were me. Marcus’ first comment was “I haven’t had a chance to look this over yet but love the name.”



If you've got the One on One dvd you’ve got a pretty good idea of the moves involved but we’ve re-cut the workout so that you’ll hardly recognize it, and not only because Tony’s black eye has healed. Many of the movements to this workout came from a guy nicknamed “the dunkmaster” because he claims that he can teach anybody to dunk. Given that, along with the most perfect workout title ever, we felt a burden of responsibility to create a masterpiece.

I thought we had one on my first run-through, which was brutal. But we kept tweaking until we were sure, and this was confirmed yesterday at our first live showing of the re-mastered, re-edited Plyocide. Beachbody’s own Steph Saunders (Advice Staff Too on the Message Boards and creator of “the Saunders Cycle” in 90X Kenpo) stated, “I’d done the One on One version a few times and found it kind of light, but this utterly destroyed all of us.”

Plyocide, you’re now ready for your close-up.

P90X2 Core: The Opening Engagement

I’m not necessarily going to post these workouts in sequence but mc2 Core is going to be the first workout on the schedule. This will remind those who’ve done P90X Lean of opening with Core/Syn but this workout is even more applicable to the journey of this particular program.

To talk about what’s right with this workout I need to begin by explaining what’s wrong with us. We are out of balance, which is not just because we watch too much TV and don't exercise enough(I explained yesterday most injuries are due weakness in hip and shoulder stability). Our general lifestyle activities create imbalances because certain muscles in your kinetic chain take over movements that were once done by other, smaller muscles. The longer this goes on the worse it gets, and training can even exacerbate the situation by making the active muscles stronger, thus creating greater imbalances.

To combat this we’re changing the platform that you train on to create instability in order to force these forgotten muscles back into action. When you free these stabilizer muscles to fire it allows the muscles that were doing double duty to work more efficiently and, thus, your performance increases even before you’ve seen tangible muscle strength increase. Furthermore, for those only interested in how you look in the mirror, this forces your body back into the alignment it was born with so that you’re appearance will improve as well.

The keywords you’ll hear in this workout are open and engagement—especially if Steve Holmsen’s cueing rubs off on Tony (and they spend a lot of time together so this only makes sense). In order to keep your body stable you’ll be forced to engage areas that may be foreign to you, which is all designed around getting your body to open up. We tend to get smaller by doing the things that function as life and training the wrong way can exacerbate it more as you force your body to finish exercises without good form. As your muscles contract you get smaller, and our natural tendency is to continually force them at expense of our posture. So a cue you’re going to hear a lot about is staying open during a movement.

To answer a couple of inevitable questions: it’s called a core workout because you are learning to engage your core in every movement that you do. If you learn to properly engage you core, and stay open as you move, your body’s potential for improvement will dramatically increase.

The next inevitable question:is this going to get me pumped and force me to bring it? In a word: yes. While you do spend a lot of time balanced in precarious stances there’s plenty of resistance movement to make you sweat and even have you screaming to finish off sets. At least that’s how it is for me.

vid: boudering legend malcomb smith describes the importance of staying open.

P90X2: Buying Into The System

One of my favorite things to do is structure a training program and watch it work. I guess this comes from my coaching days, where you lay out a big picture template for the program you’re in charge of and then try and motivate your players to buy into your scheme. It’s a different challenge from training an individual, where you’ll adjust everything on the fly based on how the training is going. To create an athletic program you need to create a system that works for a group. This is our challenge at Beachbody and I like to think we continue to get better at it.

Creating P90x was somewhat easy, at least from my perspective. Selling it was a whole other can of worms but that’s why my bosses all have marketing backgrounds. As the fitness guy I had enough experience in training different levels of athletes that I knew how the P90x structure was going to work before we tested it.

This doesn’t mean it was all smooth sailing. Our first test group tried to mutiny after 30 days when they weren’t getting the results they thought they should—or even would with more basic Power 90. I had to draw up some periodization graphs to confuse them enough that they’d stop thinking about it and just trust me. Luckily, while they were still harrumphing over it Tony said, “I’m with him,” which sealed the deal. Eventually, all were pretty ecstatic that they decided to buy into the system.

Structure is only one aspect of a training program. It’s the actual workouts that dictate the structure. But good workouts and faulty structure can lead to failure just as easily as great structure and bad workouts. It’s a bit like when you see a talented group of players fail because they’re on a team that lacks a solid system. Programs are all encompassing, which is why Beachbody doesn’t sell diets, workouts, or supplements as one-offs. We make fitness programs.

But mc2 is raising the bar and it wasn’t as simple to me as a basic periodizational structure. To get a handle on we should do this I spent a lot of time at P3, both consulting with Dr. Marcus Elliott, observing athletes and going through their progression charts to learn about common weaknesses that we could apply over a broad base. I also spent a lot of time with various physical therapists, including Mike Swan and my late friend Kevin Brown. Tony’s always working on his game as well and when he fell in with functional trainer/extreme skier Steve Holmsen –a marriage in kick-ass training heaven—he began thinking in the same direction. The resulting schedule came back with an a-ok from Carl and the ultimate typically understated approval from Marcus: “This makes a lot of sense.”

So here’s the overview, with a lot left out lest start thinking that you don’t need the guide.

Phase One: Foundation

Not foundation as in “base training” but as in your attachment to the earth. Working on the “you can’t shoot a canon from a canoe” philosophy the aim of this program is to build you from the ground up. You may think you have a good base from P90X but, I assure you, we are going to find some weak areas and improve them. The two major areas of weakness in the human body, which leads to probably 90% of sports injuries, are shoulder and hip instability. Solve this and non-contact injuries will virtually disappear.

Phase Two: Strength

This will feel more familiar to most of you as it’s similar in structure to P90X. The workouts, however, will keep your body evolving. Functional is the key difference as almost every movement is done from an athletic position designed to improve your body’s ability to move better.

Phase Three: Performance

Finally we’ll take what we’ve learned and target your engrams (neuromuscular patterns) to fire efficiently. At this stage we leave “do you best and forget the rest” behind. We’re now walking a razor’s edge of human performance. Push your body to 100% with perfect form. When your form fails, you’re done. The force loads are excessive but the philosophy here is that if you can’t handle force in a controlled situation you won’t be able to handle it when it’s forced upon you. Congratulations, whether you’ve ever played a sport in your life or not, you are now as athlete.

pic: the application of science; an evolution of scientific complexities whittled down to the only graph most people care about.

Previewing P90X2

Last weekend Tony Horton, Steve Holmsen, and I put the final touches on the mc2 workouts. Today we begin our cast rehearsals, where we’ll make sure we’re not going to kill anybody, leading up to our shoot in March. Over the next couple of weeks I’m going to run through each of the new workouts and provide some insight as to what to expect in the new program.

Those of you who subscribe to Tony’s One on One series already have some idea of what to expect. That series gives you a great idea on the movements you’re going to get but the actual workouts have evolved a lot since then. We got quite functional in our warm-up and cool-downs, each movement was tweaked until we felt we were using the most modern applied science approach, and the sequencing is, to quote Arnold from Pumping Iron, “to a point. Wait when you see it.”

Back when we were designing P90X all we were trying to provide was a sequel to our basic training programs, like Power 90 and Slim in 6. We used athletic principles but it never occurred to us that real professional athletes were going to be using the program. Shoot, most people in the home fitness industry didn’t think we had a prayer of selling it to anyone. But with its success we’ve raised the bar of our target audience which, in turn, has allowed us to apply more cutting edge science to the program.

But you needn’t worry about it become sterile training lab. Tony’s leading the show and that means it’s going to be fun. Just because we’re applying some science doesn’t mean we’re checking personality with it. That's not how Tony rolls. Training, even at the highest levels, should be presented with panache if it’s going to breed enthusiasm. And P90X was successful because we, mainly Tony, made it accessible.

As an athlete, and all of you who’ve done P90X (even if you’ve never participated in a sport) are athletes, mc2 (name still pending) is going to greatly raise the bar. You’re going to feel better. You’re going to perform better.

Tomorrow I’ll begin by addressing the structure, and then I’ll take each workout one and one and describe why we’ve made it, what it feels like to do, and what you can expect it to do for you. I hope you’re all as excited as I am. As a trainer, the ability to create things like this for people is pretty much a dream job.

Jaws

Winter doesn’t only mean snow, it means big surf. So why not mix the two? At least that’s the way skier/waterman/all-around badass Chuck Patterson’s brain works. And if you’re going to surf big, you might as well look for the biggest wave you can find. So here’s a pretty-friggin’-rad video about him skiing Jaws.

Jaws would figure for Patterson, who seems to have a larger-than-average affinity for sharks. For example, if you were out doing a bit of stand-up paddle board surfing and a couple of Great Whites circled you for half an hour what would you do? Now I love sharks but, still, I’d probably paddle in, be glad they weren’t hungry, and avoid that particular break until they found somewhere else to hang out. If you’re Patterson, however, you lament the fact that you didn’t have a video camera and paddle right back out the next day to see if they’re still around.

For your double-psyche-Friday viewing pleasure, here are two vids of Patterson, the definitive non-wuss. My friend Bob, who’s not one to throw out praise to humans indiscriminately, defined Patterson as thus, “those sharks are probably coming back everyday so they can tell their friends they had a Chuck Patterson sighting.”

Strange Culture

I want to be inspired by two recent headlines that promise our government is taking a positive role when it comes to our health. I really do. And I was until I Roku’d a film recommended by Netflix when reality came crashing back down. While I’m sure there are people who work for government that are doing their best to make the world a better place, the bottom line is that we are living in an oligarchy. Money is what makes the world go round. Unfortunately, many of those with a lot of it are blinded by the sight of obtaining even more, making everything that falls into their wake of greed irrelevant.

Let’s start with the good news. The 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, released Jan ’11, are now highlighting the merits of vegetarian and vegan diets. From the Huffington Post (or is it AOL/Huff Post now?):

The new guidelines sing the praises of plant-based diets: "Vegetarian-style eating patterns have been associated with improved health outcomes -- lower levels of obesity, a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease, and lower total mortality. Several clinical trials have documented that vegetarian eating patterns lower blood pressure."

This is good health news if ever I’ve heard some. Never mind that when George McGovern was put in charge of this task, back in the 70s, his research told him pretty much the same thing. When he tried to enact the changes, however, the meat and dairy industries lobbied to have him fired. They were successful and our food pyramid’s been championing way too much meat and dairy ever since. But, hey, better late than never right?

Next is an AP wire about Colorado considering adding more exercise in school. Given the last study I read on this, now a decade old, showed that kids in 2000 were getting approximately 23% less exercise than they were in the 70s all I can say is about time. Too bad it’s not a done deal. But with the testimony of their expert I’m sure it’ll happen.

"I like that. Going to recess is fun," said 9-year-old Nathanial Guzman, a 4th grader at Knowledge Quest Academy in Milliken, Colo. "Personally, I don't think our brains would work if we didn't exercise enough."

The proposals co-sponsor, Rep. Tom Massey, liked Guzman's endorsement. "Perfect, there's our tagline right there."

Which kind of reminds me of the scene in Aliens when the stranded little girl seems to have better ideas than all the specialists sent to study and/or kill the aliens and Wild Bill’s “let’s put her in charge” reaction. Yep, the kid’s right. Active kids are smarter kids. And how are the people running our school systems supposed to know unless the kid’s tell them?



Finally, in the film that spoiled my good mood, an artist/college professor is falsely accused of terrorism on the eve of his modern art exhibition’s opening that was going to show the dangers of allowing genetically modified foods to spin out of control without public knowledge. The government has spent millions of dollars to prosecute this guy, even it’s such a flimsy case that the defense attorney continually jokes about the absurdity of it.

At the film’s end, the case has dragged on for years but yet to go to trial because the government can’t find enough evidence—any real evidence—to convict him of anything. It seems obvious that the massive GMO industry is somehow behind the odd persecution. After all, they’re trying to force the entire European Union to eliminate the labeling of GMO foods so it’s not stretch to think that they could push the FBI around. And since they’ve got nothing on the artist it all plays out as more bizarre than scary. But we do live in a strange culture indeed.

The Turbo Transition Diet

I wrote a simple-to-follow transition diet a long time ago that I often use at the beginning of serious training periods. I’ve been tweaking for a couple of decades and the latest version was just published here (the weird Star Trek transport-like photoshop oddity was not my concoction).

I find this diet is easy for a lot of people because you eliminate certain things from your diet each week but can otherwise eat however you like. It starts simple, with only the deletion of junk at your discretion. My theory is that junk is most people’s dietary white whale. Once it’s gone they find that diet is pretty easy to control. Most diets sabotage this by trying to do everything at once. The broccoli for M&Ms swap is an awfully big step that I find, more-often-than-not, leads to excuses for giving up. But when you just eliminate junk, but can eat absolutely anything else, it’s pretty hard to come up with an excuse to quit.

But I eat pretty well these days so I don’t need as gradual a transition. So for the next 50 day period of my winter training program I’m going to start a turbo-charged version, where I lump the first 5 weeks into one, spend most of time on week 6, and transition to a full raw food cleanse for the final push. It’s no coincidence that week 6 is the “if man makes it, don’t eat it” phase, coined by my buddy Jack.

Admittedly this was inspired by Romney and family unity, as her birthday challenge this year is to go raw for 34 days. Since I don’t want to go raw—or copy her—but also do something that makes it simple for us to eat together I’m allowing myself the modern invention of fire and the pretense that I’ve got a lot of training to do outside and it’s winter. So she can eat her soup to 116 degrees and I can leave mine on the stove to warm-up while I’m riding or running in a blizzard.

pic: beam me up or wtf?

The Art Of Cycling

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

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

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

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

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

Jack LaLanne vs The New York Times

VS

No matter how righteous we feel our fight is it wouldn’t be a fight without a nemesis and, even in his wake, Jack had his. So before we re-focus on the job at hand, mainly the development of P90X mc2, Asylum, and my own training and dieting experiments, let’s yield the floor, one more time, to my buddy Jack. Denis over at the Fitness Nerd MCs:

“This weekend, New York Times Food Critic Frank Bruni wasted space in an otherwise fine newspaper with this editorial on Jack LaLanne and his (negative) impact on American fitness culture.”

What, you might wonder, in a country with an obesity rate creeping towards 40% - that’s projected to double in the next 10 years - could Bruni be criticizing? Good question.

“That sense of failure you feel when you haven’t exercised in days? That conviction that if you could pull off better push-ups, you’d be a better person through and through? These, too, are his doing, at least in part. What he left behind when he died last week, at the toned old age of 96, was not only a sweaty culture of relentless crunching and spinning but also the notion that fitness equals character, and that self-actualization begins with the self-discipline to get and stay in shape. In the post-LaLanne landscape, it’s not the eyes but the abdominals that are windows to the soul.”

Obviously Bruni hasn’t spent much time in the Cincinnati airport, a oversight not missed by Faye,”If Bruni seriously thinks America is fitness-obsessed, he needs to walk away from all those fancy, Manhattan bistros he reviews and spend an afternoon hanging out at a Jack in the Box - maybe one next door to the gym at an ‘exurban strip mall.’”

The ‘Nerd then goes into some more depth, analyzing what might motivate Bruni to take such offense to a pursuit that’s not only good for you, but a foundation for our existence as human beings. Because Jack wasn’t about having six-packs or beating up the guy who kicked sand in your face; he was about being healthy and living life as humans were meant to.

The simple fact that Bruni misses is that exercise is not really an option. That society has made it one is an unfortunate mistake. Kids can grow up in front of a computer and television, eating food that’s been delivered to them, and get an excuse to skip gym class, should their school still bother to provide it. These kids, whose brains won’t develop properly without exercise, can then grow into underachieving adults who lack the energy to move their bodies. And this option is growing daily as we lose our grip on just what it means to be a human animal. But one trip through any Midwestern mall, southern city, most every public school in America, or any statisticians’ office will confirm that this is not going swimmingly for the healthy of humanity.

All mammals, of which humans are a part, need exercise. And not just so we can score an attractive member of the opposite sex to mate with—though that’s a big motivational aspect. Exercise is what makes the body work in harmony; to release the proper hormones that develop our brains and muscles, to eliminate toxins we take in from the environment, to keep our bones and connective tissues dense, to keep our heart beating strongly, etc. Without exercise our bodies literately fall apart and die.

Modern medicine, and drugs, can—arguably—slow this, or at least make it seems more natural. But given that we’re living in the first generation where children’s life expectancy—despite huge improvements in medicine—is less than their parents I see no platform for Bruni’s stance other than a personal vendetta against fit people ranging from when he was picked on as a child. Not exactly a pulpit in today’s society.

Jack LaLanne 1
New York Times 0

Vacationing From Meat At Taco Bell

Things have been a little heady here at TSD lately so let’s lighten them with a little fast food fun. I suppose, if fast food were a staple of your diet, this might bring the wrong kind of yuck but, c’mon, if you’ve bothered to tune in here for very long these places can’t still be on the menu, right?

As we should all know by now, the names of fast food items are merely marketing titles. They have nothing to do with what’s actually in the food. These restaurants flavor their food to taste like anything they want so words like “beef”, “chicken”, and “ice cream” are merely suggestions they are making for what could be pretty much anything, from corn and soy by products to sand.

Still, last week’s headlines news that Taco Bell’s “beef” didn’t meet the USDA’s minimum requirement of 40% beef in its ingredients seems to shock some people. Never mind the question as to why the USDA’s requirement for beef is only 40%, today’s topic is—as was the popular McRib post a couple of months ago—is what the hell is in fast food?

For our answer, we turn to Stephen Colbert, who gives us one of the more inspired comedic sketches in memory. My hope is that you’re all in position to laugh instead of being worried about your diet.

The embed codes won't load so click here to see the video. Genius.

Carrying The Torch For Jack

As I’m sure you all know, fitness icon Jack LaLanne died this weekend so , after a week of silence, TSD giving him the Friday psyche (again). As he passed I was a couple of hours south, working on the next great fitness program, P90X mc2 with Marcus Elliott, Tony Horton, Steve Holmsen, and the Beachbody production crew: Heather, Mason, and Anna. In addition, it was the day my wife had framed a signed poster that Jack had given me for my 5oth birthday. Serendipitously I think this means we’re the ones who are supposed to carry his torch.

“I couldn’t hold a candle to Jack LaLanne,” said Tony upon reading a text from someone saying it was up to him. “No one can,” was my reply. But maybe our entire group, together, will keep it going. We’re certainly going to try. Here’s part of my eulogy for Jack:

Jack, you lied. You said if you died it would ruin your image but now that you’re gone nothing has changed. You were THE fitness icon yesterday; you’re THE fitness icon today. Without you it’s impossible to say if there would even be a fitness industry. You started it, you grew it, your influence never waned and you are still its leader. I think it’s safe to say that your image is, and always will be, intact.

Jack LaLanne is my hero. I suppose that, if pressed, I have others but he’s the only one that I recognize. And even though one of his most famous sayings , “I can’t die, it would ruin my image,” is challenged by his passing it bears little merit on the validity of his life. Because Jack’s MO had nothing to do with dying, it had to do with living; getting the most out of the days you’re given. He was not above a bit of hyperbole if it drove his cause but was never more straightforward than when he said, “Billy Graham preaches about the hereafter. I preach the here and now.”

“My name’s Jack,” he told my friend Denis, who’d referred to him as Mr. LaLanne, with a look that clearly stated “save the mister for old people buddy.” He was 95. I only met him once but I felt like I knew him well. He was an open book when it came to what drove his existence. To all of us whose lives are a passionate pursuit of fitness he was simply The Man.

To read the rest click on the highlighed text. To subscribe to the Beachbody or P90X newsletter, where it was published, enter an email address in one of the boxes on the lower right side of the landing page:

pics: denis and i at jack's 95th, my training log as it sat when i was in ca (of course it's filled in now), and the poster that motivates me daily on the wall of my gym.

Jack LaLanne

"Billy Graham preaches the hereafter. I preach the here-and-now."

RIP
Sept 26. 1914 - Jan. 23 2011

Jack article 1

Jack article 2

Jack article 3

Jack article 4

The Science Behind P90X2

“I’m excited,” said Marcus last night as we put the finishing touches on P90X mc2’s final third phase workouts. “We’re going to do a lot of good for people.” Apparently I was pretty amped, too, as I awoke in the middle of the night with a head full of possible scenarios that might challenge the periodiztional flow of mc2. A couple of hours later, with no obvious holes uncovered in our logic, I fell back asleep.

From a scientific standpoint P90X was easy. Our development team needed only to bring what they already knew worked to the table. The big unknown was whether or not the public would buy in to the concept of hard training. Now, with the world watching, the accountability bar has risen. To meet the challenge we’ve enlisted the help of Dr. Marcus Elliott, whom if you’re a Straight Dope follower you’ve been reading a lot about.

Elliott’s training facility, P3, works only with serious athletes. Their approach is based on the latest applied science and, in fact, is so far ahead of the curve that they are defining what the cutting edge in athletic training is. What we’re doing at Beachbody is taking this knowledge and distilling it down to the everyday athlete. By analyzing the data from a broad spectrum of athletes we can find common deficiencies that lead to breakdown and anticipate this in our structure so that it best suits almost everyone. Mc2 is our first foray into this arena—actually; if you subscribe to Tony Horton’s One on One series you’ll see the actual first in our mc2 preview PAP workout.

Last week P3’s blog published an article on Post Activation Potentiation and how they apply it to their athletes. Since it’s about to get applied to you, too, I would call this required reading for anyone interested in understanding why your training works the way it does. Here's the rub:

At P3, a major route to improving performance is through the application of “complex training,” which involves combining high load strength movements with biomechanically similar plyometric/ballistic movements as a means of taking advantage of Post Activation Potentiation (PAP), a phenomenon that refers to enhancement of muscle function as a result of its contractile history. P3 has found that complex training is far superior in developing athletic power to either resistance training or plyometric training alone, and while there are other mechanisms involved in P3 complexes, the successful manipulation of PAP plays an important role.

Sciency, huh? That's what you get when you work with a bunch of brainiacs. So you’re going to see these complexes in mc2 but not until the third phase. The reason is that you need to build up to them. At P3 they substantiate this with testing:

To measure the effects of PAP on vertical and horizontal jump performance we had athletes perform Depth Jumps and Skaters off of our custom made force plates. For all of these tests, the vast majority (75%) of athletes performed significantly better post loading. It is important to note the athletes who were tested were all experienced P3 power trained athletes and that studies have shown there is a lot of individual variability in terms of when the potentiation effect occurs.

And we, in turn, get to use their data to project how this will work on a less conditioned general public. Not that anyone who’s done two phases of P90X lacks conditioning. In fact, the base conditioning it provides is elite, which has been proven in how many professional athletes are using it. But when it comes to scientific training there is traditionally fit and, then, there is the next level. And that’s where we—and ultimately you—are heading.

Complex training and the utilization of PAP have and will continue to give athletes many advantages. Unfortunately, general strength exercises paired with aerobic conditioning is still the norm, even at the highest levels of sport. These old school forms of training rarely take into account individual needs and the need for power in movement. Eventually teams and performance coaches will begin to conduct more precise and individualized sports specific programs. Until this transformation takes place, it is paramount that athletes understand their own performance and physical needs, as well as the proven methods that exist.

Sad Cow Disease

A man is usually more careful of his money than of his principles.
~Oliver Wendell Holmes

I don’t eat animal products unless I know how the animal was raised and two somewhat terrifying recent reports suggest that neither should you. I try not to get all preachy about lifestyle. I believe that people should spend their short amount of time on earth doing things that make them happy. But the more I learn about the big food industry the more I’m convinced that they’re not in the shiny happy people business. Well, shiny maybe.

First, as reported at The Real Fitness Nerd, “The Center for a Liveable Future came out with this report recently illuminating us to the fact that 80% of all antibiotics sold in the US are used on farm animals, not so much to cure them of a sinus infection or a slight case of the clap, but to help facilitate rapid growth. From their blog:

Antibiotics, one of the world’s greatest medical discoveries, are slowly losing their effectiveness in fighting bacterial infections and the massive use of the drugs in food animals may be the biggest culprit. The growing threat of antibiotic resistance is largely due to the misuse and overuse of antibiotics in both people and animals, which leads to an increase in “super-bacteria”. However, people use a much smaller portion of antibiotics sold in this country compared to the amount set aside for food animals. In fact, according to new data just released by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), of the antibiotics sold in 2009 for both people and food animals almost 80% were reserved for livestock and poultry. A huge portion of those antibiotics were never intended to fight bacterial infections, rather producers most likely administered them in continuous low-dosages through feed or water to increase the speed at which their animals grew. And that has many public health experts and scientists troubled.

Creepy on so many different levels.”

Creepy indeed, and that’s the lighter half of it. In a story from the San Francisco Chronicle titled The Most Important Disease You Probably Never Heard Of, David Barash links the massive rise in Crohn’s disease in people to poor animal raising practices by the meat industry.

Welcome to Johne’s (“yo-knees”), the most important disease that you probably never heard of. It is a serious, debilitating and sometimes fatal illness of cattle, goats, and sheep (among other animals), which the livestock and dairy industry is desperate to keep out of the public consciousness, despite the fact that it costs industrial agriculture many millions of dollars every year.

The reason for such industry reticence is that Johne’s disease in livestock is very similar – and possibly even identical – to Crohn’s disease in people, which currently afflicts an estimated 500,000 sufferers in North America alone, causing severe ulcerations of the gastrointestinal tract, immense pain, and loss of appetite and weight, often requiring surgical removal of the damaged bowel. And the big, dirty secret of today’s industrial dairy and meat producers is that animals suffering from flagrant Johne’s disease currently provide milk and meat directly to the American consumer.

Of course, in the web of artificial life that is big food these topics are related. Is it any wonder that this new crop of artificially large livestock is being targeted by an illness causing their bodies to waste away? Methinks not so much. The article then delves into an interesting history of trial and error with antibiotics where we tout what goes well and bury what doesn’t. It’s all very scientific until:

This is itself an extraordinary fact, worth repeating and emphasizing: Cattle suffering from a severe bacterial infection related to tuberculosis and leprosy, characterized by pussy, intestinal ulcers and overall body wasting, and which may be literally identical to a pathogen that causes a devastating illness in genetically susceptible people, are – right now, as you read this – routinely being slaughtered, and their infected meat introduced into the food stream.

Wait! What?! No wonder he felt the need to write it twice. I don’t think you need to be a PETA activist to show a little animal compassion in this case. And regardless of the poor animals, I'm sure the cast of Jackass would enthusiastically choose a vomit omelet over a Whopper made from Johne’s-riddled livestock.

In an old western Paul Newman plays Hud, a despicable character; the black sheep son of a well-to-do rancher who is trying, unsuccessfully, to teach him to run the family business. In one scene the herd is infected with deadly hoof and mouth disease. Upon hearing they needed to be destroyed before they infect anyone else’s cattle Hud says, “They look ok to me. Can’t we sell them quickly before they look sick?” His father stares at him, almost unbelievably, with a look that conveys a lost cause as this human, surely now, is beyond the possibility of salvation says, “Son, you are an unprincipled man.” Hud kills his father and takes over the business. Given the situation as it stands, I think I may have been watching a documentary.

Hey Ridley, Got Any Beemans?

I’m not a real test pilot but I play one on TV. Yesterday, in the line of duty as Beachbody’s lab rat, I tried something called Jet Fuel. But instead of me chasin’ that demon that lives out in the thin air I think it was chasing me. Now I feel like Spam in a can.

In our quest to create great supplements I pretty much take everything on the market out for a spin in one form or another. This generally means, well, pretty much nothing as most supplement do just that: nothing. This is not the case with Jet Fuel. It does something, for sure, but I’m not sure it’s what I’d call the right stuff.

why does everything sound so much better in spanish?

I’m mainly over messing with pre-workout caffeinated nonsense. I’ve tested plenty of the jillion or so available and they’re pretty much all variations on a theme that can be cured with a cup of coffee. Jet Fuel caught my eye because of a few ingredients not normally seen in this realm, primarily the neurotransmitter phosphatidylserine which increases brain function and mental focus. I’ve used it before and found it effective and wondered how it might work if it was transported by an explosive cocktail. And, shoot, this stuff was on closeout. Seemed like a good time to take her up and wring her out a little bit.



Granted, it was a little late in the day to be testing a stimulant but I had a two-hour workout planned and, heck, I could even finish her off with a little yoga if this stuff wasn’t burned off by then. So I took a third of a “dose” and hit the gym.

"is that your crash helmet? oh, i hope not."

I did an hour on the trainer and felt good. Then I test drove a prospective workout for a new Beachbody program tentatively called “The Beast”(but that’s another story). After the workout I felt great. I then had something to eat, did some work, some yoga, then got ready for bed and started reading. Hmmm…

“Y’all want a drink of whiskey?”

Sure, Fred, maybe it’ll help me sleep. I’d been off the sauce since the martini challenge but needed rest. A glass of bourbon and reading about the haematocrit levels of Marco Pantani during his career did the trick, but the night was young.

In my dreams I was out of control in a hurdlin’ piece of machinery. It was not restful. I was in and out of consciousness and might have gotten a couple of hours, which I’m only sure of because I was dreaming. In the final segment I found myself in a flat spin, totally out of control, where I kept almost swallowing gum (in reality I never chew gum), which finally woke me it. I’d better go find Ridley and pay him back.

fireflies? that's ridiculous.

A test pilot’s review of Jet Fuel: The stuff is powerful, and probably easily dangerous, but I won’t say that it’s without merit in the right situation. Most of the ingredients are healthy. It’s the megadose of caffeine in combination with other stimulants, and it’s got the kitchen—or lab—sink, that will account for this. But I think it might have a place in a rigorous training program if you take it early on a hard training day and stay hydrated. My mental focus and clarity was great, and I was super amped, which if controlled can be put to good use. I would never use it during a phase where I’m only doing an hour or so of exercise, no matter how intense, and I’d always start with a low dose. It should be saved for those days when you’re pushing the envelope. Otherwise, you might augur in.

Now, who’s the best pilot you ever saw?

Focused On Lifetime Goals

I think I’ve figured out how to pay homage to all of the birthday challenges done in my honor. Each segment of the year I’ll pick an element from some of the challenges and pursue it. Then I’ll blog about the inspiration. For the first 50 day period I’m inspired by Phil Requist hitting two lifetime goals over his 50 days and by Romney hitting one, even though she was injured.

Personally, however, while I’ve got some lifetime goals on my list for the year I’m in prep phase so I began with a few sillier thing just to get into the swing of a fifty-day commitment. For the last 50 days I’ve been doing Alice’s 500 crunches a day (silly but time consuming), Romney’s injured schedule of 50 squats a day (adding a stability twist to each day for my foundation phase), and Phil and Lena’s 50 straight days of martinis. This last challenge was, in fact, a lifetime achievement—though not something I’m really counting as one. Even though I love a good martini, drinking at least one EVERY day is a wee bit grim. I don’t hate them yet but will happily not indulge tonight.

Anyway, my circle of friends were all very inspired by Phil. He’s always been fit so his challenge—two lifetime performance marks in his 40s—was more impressive in that it was at something he’d been doing regularly during his “peak” physical years. It’s incredible, really, as aging athletes lose fast-twitch muscle fiber. I can explain it physiologically in that Phil is a slow-twitch athlete naturally. With consistent power training you can covert your body’s natural ratio of fast:slow twitch fiber. Phil has shown that with enough diligence you can do something the most professionals would tell you is impossible. But as we say at Birthday Challenge, Impossible is nothing. Oh, wait, that’s Nike. Anyway, it’s impressive.

As for me, I was a power athlete as a kid so at my challenge can include an endurance PR. And while this is much easier to accomplish I still have to do it and PRs are never easy, especially when you’ve been chasing them all your life. But in keeping the spirit of the birthday challenge, which for me has always been to try and combine contradictory physical stresses, I’m also going to shoot for something I’ve never done: a one-arm 2-finger pull-up. Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to get training!

pics: alice showing off that crunches do still work, romney showing off after ticking a PR, lena showing off a double PR, celebrating the santa barbara marathon in style, and phil showing off in a way that makes my finger hurt.

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

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

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

Phase II Plan: Strength

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2 Mil Hill

2 Million With Greg Hill from FD Productions on Vimeo.

Throwing a little more Greg Hill love your way for the New Year. This is one of the coolest pedestrian challenges I’ve seen. Not that Hill is a pedestrian skier. He’s one of the best. But this challenge is more about sacrifice and commitment than talent. You don’t have to be an Olympian. Anyone could give this a whirl. But only someone special would have the will to see it through.

Many of the travails of big challenges are conveyed in this video. I’ve experienced a lot of these during my lesser objectives. I’ve always wanted to do a year-long challenge but the logistics have been too much. I’m a fairly energetic guy but a slacker compared to Hill. Maybe one of these years I’ll get it together. In the mean time, we can live vicariously through people like Greg, who show us that with enough motivation it’s always possible to raise the bar.

A Year Of Fitness

My New Year’s Resolution is simple; to get into the best shape of my life. Since I’ve been living on a similar theme forever I suppose it could be termed a high minded objective. However, I do see this year as having an extra edge for a few distinct reasons.

First, a bunch of my friends have similar ideas. In fact, my friend Josh coined to title of this blog. Inspired by the massive group birthday challenge my wife concocted more of my friends than ever—and this is a very fit group—have decided to turn the screws a little this year.

Second, Romney is perhaps even more motivated than I am. She was training at Gym Jones, and very fit, when we met but the first time she supported one of my birthday challenges she said, “Never. I’m tired just following you around in a car.” Last year she invested and this year she wants to go bigger. Who am I to argue?

Finally, I spent the last few years learning about fitness in more of a spotlight and, thus, am more motivated than ever to put them to the test. P90X was pretty much stuff that we already knew worked. No one thought we’d ever sell it so its development was low pressure. We were really testing the market more than our knowledge about training. Since it hit we’ve hustling to raise our game; experimenting with new training modalities and figuring out how to bring them to the masses. Training individuals is a different ball game than training everyone at once. But since we’ve been given an incredible opportunity I’ll be dammed if I’m not going to make the best of it.

As I see it, 2011 has blown in a serendipitious perfect storm of motivation, support, and work projects. It’ll be an adventure to see how it plays out. Happy New Year everyone!

pic: the year of fitness starts… with a hangover.