Tag Archives: strength training

Athletes in the time of COVID

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My current strength coach has a saying that goes like this, “I don’t train individuals. I lay out what is required to achieve the goal.”

I used to say something similar about the World Ironman Champs, “Kona doesn’t care about your schedule.”

As an under-40 athlete, the recipe for success was clear => large doses of specific training load with recovery enhanced by life simplification.

Eat, sleep, train, repeat.

While we do that, we pay attention to the unforced errors and weed those habits out of your life.

Years ago this was our set up => 9-week camp => SwimBikeRun the USA, every_single_meter! That’s my buddy, Clas, on the VasaTrainer. There was a perfectly acceptable lake just out of the frame. He was put off by the dead trees sticking up out of the water and the nuclear power plant just around the corner…

Well, the events are gone, and going to stay gone, for a while.

Your status quo => of preparing for your next big thing => is gone.

The removal of the end-goal, provides an opportunity to think in terms of years, rather than months and seasons.

Getting yourself really fit to cyber-race a stranger with a hacked powermeter… might not be the best use of your time.

Two things for you…

You can’t train a muscle fibre you don’t have.

For the next year (at least), there is ZERO penalty for putting on size, boosting immune function and getting strong.

If you’re in the Northern Hemisphere then I doubt you’ll need to do much race specific training until the Spring of 2021. There aren’t going to be any races.

Back in the day, I’d be tempted to avoid my Max Strength phases because they would screw up my sport-specific numbers and leave my legs feeling flat.

These days my heavy days are a lot of fun. My endurance load is reduced due to COVID and it’s nice to work my way through a long session with decent rest.

The anaerobic stimulation, combined with reduced chronic-aerobic beatdown, has my hormonal profile (expressed through mood and sex drive) feeling great.

A small increase in lean body mass can result in a large improvement in the way you feel inside your body. I’m up ~4% and feel gigantic!

Universal gyms have come a long way since the 80s. The gear in this photo was 2/3rds the price of solar panels, and a similar monthly savings when my wife dropped her pilates membership. I’m told it’s called a Megaformer.

Be wary of becoming a single-plane athlete.

I’ve set a lifetime annual record for indoor training and I’m 18 weeks into this journey.

You need to be thinking forward to this winter, when flu season returns. If you spend your days bouncing between a treadmill and an indoor trainer then you’re going to lose athleticism.

This loss of multi-plane function will leave you exposed to injury – as you age… as you return to normal training.

So consider… how best to develop my agility?

Answering that question, in a way that challenges your neuromuscular system, will be time well spent. It’s also going to give you something where you can experience improvement.

Getting better at something will perk you up.

We could all use a perk up!

Embrace Small Failures

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Yesterday, wasn’t a chair-in-the-shower workout but I did need a chair in the kitchen to cook breakfast.

It’s been over a year since I read Professor G’s book (The Algebra of Happiness). I’ve been working on his advice to Embrace Small Failures.

A reminder to reach for a better version of myself

Historically, my training has been where I expose myself to the risk of failure. As the kids have become more self-sufficient, I’ve had space to bring some athletic challenges back into my life.

Challenging myself at 51 is a whole lot different than going big in my 30s.

I’ve been using Mountain Tactical out of Jackson, WY.

I first came across MTI a decade ago when a friend used them. I remember thinking, “no way I could do that.”

For what it’s worth, I had the exact same reaction the first time I heard about Ultraman Hawaii, no way I could do that.”

I won Ultraman three years later.

Day 3, Ultraman Hawaii, 52.4 miles in the lava fields

Each module from Mountain Tactical had me wondering, “am I going to be able to get through this?”

My latest was a 10-week training program with 5 workouts per week => 50 sessions total.

Lots has changed between the start of the block and the finish.

The biggest change had nothing to do with sport, it was a gradual shift from “temporary” shelter-in-place orders to an ongoing you-must-stay-in-your-home-to-be-a-good-person vibe. Depending on your peers & politics, your mileage may vary.

Back in March, I looked ahead to Session #50. I thought it was a type-o:

When I first used an 80-pound bag for the getups, I’d get pinned (for a while!) before figuring out how to get back up. There’s no prescribed way to get up, so I took relief in my struggles.

The plyometrics were more psychological than physical => a lot of post-workout soreness and a lurking fear of tearing tissue. Once I realized I could keep plugging along, it was a mental game of persisting.

If you’ve ever done step-ups then you probably noticed it is the “down” not the “up” that causes problems. Thousands of step-downs nearly gave me an overuse injury, but I never quite got there.

All in all, a perfectly set plan.

Cheap thrills with my fan pointing up for step-ups

There were a lot of small failures in the last ten weeks, not all athletic:

  • My psoas getting so tight I thought I was a hip replacement candidate!
  • My right calf blowing out
  • Losing patience with the kids

Overcoming the failures provides a deeper appreciation of the victories.

Find the win.

I did a Q&A with Andy on athletic transitions, lockdown and other topics.

Athletic Beyond 45

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2020-02-02 13.12.35Middle age is going better than I expected.

Why?

Because choices that made sense when I was younger have been replaced by a lifestyle that’s a better fit for where I want to take myself.

Let’s run though the major adjustments.

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You might not want what you think you want: athletics is the best way I have found to keep myself engaged and apply energy. Look around and you can see plenty of examples of middle aged men getting themselves into trouble by not managing their energy.

So I will sign up for a race to keep myself out of trouble? Not so fast…

  • Engaging in athletic competition is different from being athletic.
  • Fit for competition is not fit for an engaged life with meaning.
  • To be the sort of father/husband I want to be, I need to avoid athletic competition.

The requirements of racing well, and my competitive peers, exert an inevitable pull on my life. A pull I enjoy but one that takes me away from where I want to be in 5-10 years time.

There are different ways to define excellence and the traits that ring most true to me don’t have a clock attached to them.

The most specific component of race fitness is the least valuable to my wife and kids. 

In your mid-40s you will notice a change in how you respond to training. Specifically, sustained tempo is a lot more fatiguing. This intensive-endurance pace is a core part of training for performance.

As a middle-aged athlete sustained tempo will gobble up your energy and leave you spent for other aspects of your life. If you are in the clutch of negative addictions then this can be a very good choice to make! However, you will have nothing left towards building a life that your future self will value.

This reality was tough for me to face. I know how valuable tempo training is to athletic performance. It was made easier by stopping racing, and reminding myself that I didn’t want the family lives, and marriages, of my competition.

Letting go of deep fatigue enabled me to re-establish consistency, which was being shot to pieces by minor injuries, slow recovery, illnesses and low motivation => all of which stemmed from giving myself more load than I could absorb.

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About those injuries… stop hurting yourself.

Somewhere in my recent past, I realized I was constantly managing low-grade calf injuries. At the time, I wasn’t training for a race, or even doing much mileage. There was no reason to endure the constant setbacks.

You’re likely to have similar moments and the performance gurus will encourage you to grind through. I’d encourage you to pause and ask yourself three questions:

  1. Where is this likely to take me? Elective orthopedic surgery?
  2. What is my goal here? Alienate my spouse and estrange myself from my kids?
  3. Is there a better way to achieve my goal? Or perhaps a better goal to achieve!

In my case, I replaced the running with hiking and functional strength training. I can do these before my family wakes up or alongside my family. My best athletic memories of my 50s are shared experiences, in nature, with my family.

With a young wife, and three kids, I’m slowly filling the state of Colorado with happy thoughts. When I’m 70, they can carry the backpack!

2020-02-06 19.03.33

Reality is enough for me. If you’re tempted to use drugs then something needs to change.

Shooting your knee up like an NFL lineman, boosting your hormonal profile to beat an athlete who’s spouse just walked out the door, taking health risks to train alongside college kids…

  1. Where is this likely to take me?
  2. What is my goal here?
  3. Is there a better way to achieve my goal?

A focus on athleticism puts me in a continual state of rehabilitation from the process of aging naturally => functional strength, quickness, range of motion and extensive endurance.

Being freed from external requirements lets me do the right thing for my health, year round.

  • Place a demand on yourself, then recover while working on a project that benefits your larger life.
  • While expanding your life beyond athletics, remove whatever screws up your sleep patterns. My 4:30am wake-up makes poor choices obvious, immediately.

This approach will enhance your biochemistry naturally and not mask errors.

To learn by iteration, it is essential to physically experience my mistakes.

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Victory and Vanity

How are you going to feed that part of your personality that craves recognition, thrives in adversity and wishes to dominate others?

Can you see your desires? Have you considered what is driving your desires?

You might simply be over-scheduled and seeking socially acceptable personal space.

It’s worth looking deeper.

When I looked deeply everything was there, positive and negative. There are many ways to spin our motivators.

Recognition can come from my children, who are hardwired to be impressed by me. I look pretty jacked to a seven-year old.

Personal growth through facing adversity can come from the final few reps of a set (or simply getting out of bed some mornings). My endurance mantra… many people would like the ability to do this right now.

Domination is a tricky one, especially when surrounded by women and children. At my best, I turn it inwards and seek to overcome my negative traits, specifically my urge to resort to force, rather than skillful engagement.

We often let each other off by saying things like.. “everyone is different”, or “you need to find your own way.” I disagree. We are very, very similar within our cultures and wired to follow social proof.

If you want to change your motivation then change your location.

I’m parked in the fittest zipcode in America, training in nature, with a young family, thinking daily about a handful of men who are presenting their best selves to the world.

Finally, remove the friction between your current habits and the life you want to lead.

I have a home gym, I wake up at 4:30am and there aren’t any email/social apps on my phone.

I created a situation where there was nothing for me to do between 5 and 6am in the morning.

So I write, or train => activities that leave me satisfied in hindsight and help my future self.

Making My Life Work Better

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2019-11-27 16.58.34You’ll find a lot on my site about strength training. It’s a habit that’s served me well for 25+ years.

This year saw some changes. I went stale in my tried-and-tested program. I recognized my mojo was flat and wasn’t making much progress.

A few years back, a friend had done a backcountry ski program with Mountain Tactical. So I bought the latest version of that program, got to work and learned a few things. Currently, I’m using their in-season ski maintenance program. I’ll skip observations about the plans themselves and focus on general points that might apply to you.

How am I allocating my time and where is that likely to take me? Athletics, relationships, every single thing.

What is the purpose of your protocol? These days: (a) enough stress to get the benefits of exercise (cognitive & mood); (b) vanity; and (c) maintain my ability to ski & hike at a very high level.

With the MTI program, the sessions were so challenging that I needed to drop all other exercise. Dropping supplemental training probably seems obvious but, in my demographic, it’s common for people to do 1-2 extra sessions per day, and still think they are not doing enough!

The results were great. Even the nights with total exhaustion were “fun” => they made me feel like I was doing something.

Giving myself a full 24-hours to recover between sessions boosted my recovery AND reduced the mental stress of having to grind out a lower quality session when tired. It reminded me of my single-sport focus periods when I was an elite triathlete.

Within my training, I made a big demand on myself (for about an hour, 3-4x per week) then backed way off for the rest of the day. If you are finding, like I was, that all your sessions are blending into mediocre performance, with limited gains, then this tactic might help.

Seems obvious but it takes a lot of courage (for a compulsive exerciser) to back off. For example, I have a fear of weight gain and can use cardio to enable excessive eating.

Each one of us has blindspots. Mine are range of motion, quickness and coordination => fundamental components of high-level skiing. The program I bought contained box jumps, lateral jumps, side-to-side jumps, dynamic lunges, stretching and body-weight hip extension exercises. The act of seeking help gave me a nudge to do things I’d skip on my own. This works in our larger lives:

  1. Notice when your protocol stops working
  2. Seek expert advice
  3. Trim non-essential components

As an elite athlete, my “recovery” included 12-15 weekly hours of easy cardio. Easy cardio isn’t easy but that’s a different topic!

My easy-training hours have been replaced with walking, time with my wife and housework. This shift makes it easier (and more likely) to succeed within my larger life, which aims at a world-class marriage, thinking better and educating my kids.

What I value is reflected in where I allocate my time.

Attention Is Expensive

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2019-10-18 07.31.22Let’s start with a story.

When I was younger, I never let a lack of knowledge prevent me from confidently sharing my theories about anything (this remains a weakness, BTW).

One day, I was holding forth and my buddy Jeff (board-certified orthopedic surgeon) chuckled and said, “I would call what you just said G-medicine.”

Later on, he took me aside and said, “Buddy, you know there’s a reason we go to med-school.”

He left it at that, which was a wise way to deal with an over-confident guy, who’s outside his field of competence.

I had some follow up questions about fasting and optimizing for one-rep max.

To address tactics, I need to step back and explain strategy.

Body, mind and spirit => What are you trying to achieve?

You need to know because attention, effort, willpower and thought are expensive.

So fasting, one-rep max, wherever you are focusing…

What is your payoff from your protocol?

Effort is expensive. Spend it wisely.

2019-11-02 06.03.09-1My philosophy is:

  1. Know your goal
  2. Keep the protocol simple
  3. Access believable people to tell you what’s required
  4. Use simple benchmarks
  5. Use habit energy to make life flow on autopilot

My protocol…

  1. No Zeros => remove days where I don’t train
  2. Get Outside the box and into nature => even if the box is a Gulfstream, or a boardroom, it remains a cubicle
  3. Seek Mastery => surfing, moguls, powder, swimming, sailing => moments of flow await!

Be honest with yourself. Is your physical life where you want it to be?

  • Work before work rate => Develop work-capacity before you do work-rate training. One-rep max is a “work-rate” benchmark that is certain to decline over time.
  • Don’t fool yourself => nobody fasts for health & longevity => we are either looking for an easy way to lose weight, or creating caloric “space” for binges.

Simple metrics let you create the habits that enable larger projects. Looking backwards over the last year:

  • < 10 zeros (days without exercise)
  • 15th year of stable body weight
  • 200+ days on trails or snow
  • 350+ days awake before 5am

I know I could be more, too much time is wasted on my smartphone.

I must remember that life is empty without connection. So be open to change based on painful feedback from my closest relationships => my wife and kids are brutally honest with me!

Higher Order Effects

I have empty space in my life so I can reflect on where my actions are likely to take me.

  • I have an addictive personality in a family tree with mental illness, addicts and eating disorders. Kinda indicates caution with self-starvation! Respect your history.
  • Be cautious with putting pressure on your spinal column, heavy lifts and explosive movements. Powerlifting injures can be for life. Respect reality.

Where are you likely to go with your protocol? You OK with that?

What’s the worst that can happen? You OK with that?

Fragilities

What is going to derail you?

My depression triggers are: poor nutrition, irregular sleep, alcohol, missed endorphins and excessive fatigue.

My entire life is a positive-feedback loop designed to keep me rolling.

Much of my “not do” advice is related to the risk of ruin. My depression triggers are defined as fun by my peers.

I need to be OK with saying “no” because… Depression isn’t fun.

Nature Has Useful Information, even if unpleasant

As you age it will be tempting to access Big Pharma to fool yourself, particularly if your self image is wrapped up in physical performance.

Before you act, consider…

What’s your competitive advantage? I think better, and choose slower, at 50 than 28. Taking myself to 11 with testosterone would GREATLY increase my error rate, across all domains. Not worth it.

My competitive advantage is taking the best ideas and integrating them via new habit creation. I can do this until I die.

Fatigue is information that guides me away from physical ruin => my mojo feels like it’s a tenth of where I was at 40, but my life is better because I am a better person.

Once again, overriding nature greatly increases my risk of injury. Injury can be the first step on a downward spiral towards depression/ruin. Not worth it.

Surprisingly, getting physically worse isn’t worse.

Anyhow, lots here.

When it comes to positive change: set a low bar, and do it daily.

I live near a cemetery, which helps me remember my expected value is negative infinity.

Death is an outstanding reason to be true to yourself.

Strength & Training Strategy at 50

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2019-07-07 09.01.30Strength gives me better choices.

Specifically:

  1. Maintain muscle mass
  2. Challenge my connective tissue
  3. Strengthen my shoulder complex (to survive my inevitable crashes)
  4. Get the bio-chemical benefits from working large muscle groups anaerobically

2019-07-07 08.45.03

My base period needs to be longer: I was very consistent with strength maintenance across the ski season. As a result, I lost less strength than prior years. However, I was WORKED at the end of the season and my mojo stayed flat for a long time when I returned to more focused strength training.

Two, maybe three, “good” sessions per week: At 50, I go flat quickly! I need to be humble with the load I put into myself.

I split upper and lower body days: in order to do quality exercises, and recover, I split my workouts across the week:

  • Monday/Thursday – lower body
  • Tuesday/Friday – upper body
  • Wednesday/Saturday – plyo (~7 minutes total per day)

Very little sustained intensity: I lose a lot when I get sick and can’t train. Put another way, my ability to go training is more important than my training ability. A calendar of events would certainly push me to do more (likely for less benefit).

I go to the gym to be around people (even if I don’t speak to them!): the core of my program has been the same for 20 years. It would be easy to set it up in my garage. However, part of my “feel better” seems to come from the gym process. The most time-efficient setup isn’t always best.

My aerobic goal is “about an hour, every day.” I’ll go longer when I can hike trails with my wife or son. I do a bunch of walking on top of the aerobic exercise.

Learning to navigate the physical decline of middle age is a benefit of middle age.

The days that start with training are clearly better.

Pay attention to better.

2019-07-07 08.54.56

What I Learned This Year

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2018-11-23 11.00.48

You’re probably going to feel different about that later.

I say that to myself, a lot.

And I never regret following what flows from it.

Namely…

  • Not acting on anger.
  • Resisting the urge to “say what I really think”

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2018-11-19 16.44.04I recharge in solitude, ideally in nature.

I seek to fool myself that the solution (to everything!) lies in withdrawing from society.

I counter this faulty thinking by saying to myself… “I know you feel that way right now but you’re likely to need help, at some point, over the next 20 years.”

If you’ve ever been in a bad relationship then you might have a similar thought pattern…

…thinking that the problem lies in all relationships, not simply the bad ones.

I don’t have a mantra to help you get past your pain but I can say that my marriage is a great source of strength, stability and happiness for me.

“Better” is out there and it’s worth looking around.

Put yourself in a position to meet someone who shares your values.

Try to make yourself into the person you want to meet.

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2018-10-31 08.09.49My BIG change for 2018 was waking up earlier, way earlier.

I’m up two hours before the rest of my household.

At first I used the time to surf instagram and drink coffee on the couch.

Eventually, I started going to the gym.

“Gym Days” are better.

Not easy.

Better.

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2018-11-07 16.18.42-1

Life is better when I’m stronger,

Even at 49.9 years old, I’m able to be stronger than just about all my peers.

Being stronger is available to you.

Four days per week, 30 minutes per day.

Results in… better!

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Get up early, lift weights, be pleasant to those around you and when you are thinking otherwise remember…

…you’re probably going to feel different about that later.

Strength Training – Base One 2018

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My ideal ski day is… skin 3,000 vertical feet, ski back down before the resort opens, second breakfast, alpine ski 20,000 ft of bumps, lunch with my wife, and finish with 10,000 feet of steeps in the afternoon.

Being able to enjoy this day is the goal of my training.

My program is focused on range of movement, strengthening connective tissues and slowing the loss of lean body mass.

Four things from 2017:

  1. The plan worked – radical change isn’t required.
  2. I can gain muscle in my late-40s — train, eat normally, get jacked — we have been conditioned to believe strength loss is inevitable. Signs of decay are evident in my skin and recovery but my strength is hanging on. I’m fueled on real food, coffee and water – that’s it. Don’t even bother with vitamins.
  3. Acute soft tissue injury is my greatest risk – therefore, compound lifts, with full range of motion, are more important than putting up big numbers.
  4. My strength peaked four months before I started skiing a lot. A longer base period fits for injury prevention and a target of being really strong in September/October.

To keep me honest, I’ll keep you posted.

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Base One (36 Workouts)

  • Twelve of each session
  • Twice a week for six weeks
  • Split across the week
  • Twelve hours of time invested (Huge Return on Investment)

Lower Body

  • 4×25 squat #95
  • 4×25 leg press #140 (sled #118)
  • 4×10 single leg press just the sled
  • Leg ext 4×25 each side #20 alt by side
  • Single hip bridge each side 4×10 alt by side
  • Calves 4×25 alt by straight/bent knee

Upper Body

  • 4×25 pull downs (front)
  • 4×25 assisted dips
  • 4×25 sit ups
  • 100 push ups (for the day)

Plyometric Half Blaster (x5 on 30s rest)

  • 10x Air Squats
  • 5x In-Place Lunges (5x each leg, 10x total)
  • 5x Jumping Lunges (5x each leg, 10x total)
  • 5x Jump Squats

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My Endurance Corner articles on strength are here – the links will go down eventually as it’s an old version of the site – good stuff that helped me when I was a high-performance athlete

Tips for Getting Jacked 2017

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Everything about my life is better when I am strong.

I wanted to pass along what worked across my six month campaign of Getting Strong.

#1 – the biggest change, and challenge, for an endurance athlete… cap your cardio sessions at an hour and drop all group training. No more than two cardio sessions per day but you can walk around as much as you like! This is the only way I save the mojo to truly push myself in the gym and get-it-done.

#2 – add plyometrics // the leg blaster program that I used is here – combine with traditional gym work (focused on squats and leg press) – total time investment for the plyometrics was 12 hours over six months – outstanding return on investment!

#3 – track total movements // my plyometric routines built up to 420 movements in 15 minutes – during base training, my traditional exercises were focused on getting to 100 movements per exercise (sets of 20-25 reps with short rest) – the total gym session would be 400-500 movements (during base/prep training) – I did best my splitting plyometrics away from lifting days.

#4 – use a four-day cycle // for example…

  • Base; Cardio; Plyo; Cardio
  • Heavy Legs; Plyo; Cardio; Cardio
  • Upper Body Blaster; Maintenance Legs; Plyo; Cardio

#5 – gains come from working the legs // my entire body benefits from improved leg strength. I didn’t focus on my upper body until I had been focusing on my legs for 20+ weeks. The upper body gains came fast from a month of adding push ups, burpees and the PT Pyramid.

Most my gains are hidden: better range of movement in my knees, improved energy and being able to toss my kids around.

It was a lot of fun and I ended this block feeling jacked, rather than exhausted.

Do It Right

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I’m in Week Nine of my get strong journey.

I was reminded of a few things…

Do It Right – be an exemplar via action…

Look closely and you will see that the entire system has been set up for us to succeed – we don’t need to cut corners and we should remember our good fortune with every interaction we have with other folks

With regard to strength training… even starting seven months out from next ski season… it’s tempting to rush my prep!

The next lesson is a good way to prevent injury.Work Before Work Rate – as a coach I asked my athletes to show they could do, before we worried about what they were doing.

I’ll use my squats as an example…in maintenance a squat workout might look like 2×20 @ 100 pounds (4,000 pounds of work).

In my initial phase, I asked myself to “prove” I could get through 4×25 of an exercise and not be crippled with soreness in the next 48 hours.

So the goal of the first six weeks was to get comfortable with 4×25 @ 100 pounds (10,000 lbs of work). Within the exercise, as I gained comfort, I expanded my range of movement.

Add reps & increase range.

The 100 repetition exercises have been working for me so the week seven change was 5×20 @ 135 pounds with 1 minute rest between sets (13,500 pounds). The exercise takes about 12 minutes so my work-rate has come up naturally.

Why Bother – have a specific goal, keep a log, share progress – I’ve been at this game for a long time and still benefit from peer pressure and public accountability.

Create superior lower body power endurance, across my full range of movement with strong connective tissue.

So I can… ski all day, with anybody.

Fatigue Isn’t Fatal – Focused work generates fatigue.

Specifically, when muscularly-tired heart rate will be suppressed. Remember…

  • movement is more important than performance
  • use perceived effort, rather than pace/power/HR targets
  • be willing to slowdown
  • keep my mouth shut

Pick And Stick – the most common reason we fail… we are seeking to do too many things at once.

It is not possible to improve strength, become a better lover, lose weight, improve my personality, lower my marathon time, increase work flow productivity, get promoted at the office, increase my social network, improve my relationship with my kids, write a novel and give up chocolate…. at the same time.